Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (96 page)

These, with the approval of their superior, they sent to every district under his command, announcing in edicts that they were to be publicly displayed in every place, whether hamlet or city, for all to see, and that they should be given to children by their teachers instead of lessons, to study and learn by heart.

Stephen Mitchell has pointed out the strategic significance of the emperor’s decision to make the text available not simply in the major urban areas of the empire, but also in more remote rural places: “Official persecution hitherto … had made little impression on the countryside of much of the empire. Retreat to the chora was a natural and effective response of threatened Christians, if they had the means and opportunity to do so.”
⁶⁹
By spreading propaganda against the Christians into the countryside, Maximin was able to compromise the traditional safe havens of the Christian elite who could escape the cities for areas with other overriding concerns.

Eusebius had access to this fabricated account and had no difficulty exposing it as historically worthless. Its narrative—if that’s what it was—was set in the fourth consulship of Tiberius, that is, in the seventh year of his reign. But Josephus, as Eusebius points out, indicates that Pilate was not made governor of Judea until
the twelfth year of Tiberius’ rule: “This clearly proves the forged character of the
Memoranda
so recently published, blackening our Saviour; at the very start the note of time proves the dishonesty of the forgers” (
H.E
. 1.9).

We no longer have this fabricated pagan Acts of Pilate and can only guess at what it contained. Z. Izydorczyk suggests that since the audience included the general populace and school children learning how to read, the account may have been very basic indeed: “possibly a list of charges against Jesus and some account of the trial.”
⁷⁰

Our first certain reference to a Christian “Acts of Pilate” comes over a half century after Eusebius, in the writings of Epiphanius (377
CE
). While attacking the Quartodecimans in chapter 50 of his
Panarion
, Epiphanius indicates that they based their celebration of Easter on the eighth day before the calends of April (March 25) on the dating provided in the “Acts accomplished under Pontius Pilate.” Epiphanius challenges this dating because he has seen multiple manuscripts of the work with textual variation at just this point; the date is therefore not secure. Among other things this reference shows that the Christian Acts of Pilate was in wide circulation by the 370s; it was in use among Quartodecimans; and Epiphanius had seen it in numerous manuscript copies, which he was able to collate at a key point. Ten years later, from 387
CE
, we have an Easter Homily actually written by a Quartodeciman, who does just what Epiphanius claimed the group did, arguing for the date of Easter based on the “Acts Done Under Pilate.”
⁷¹

There are reasons for thinking that the Christian version cannot have been written
before
the fourth century, despite the rather quirky claim of F. Scheidweiler that it was available already in the second Christian century.
⁷²
For one thing, if such a document were in circulation, surely Eusebius would have known about it, and would have delighted in exposing the pagan version as a fabrication based on the “true” account of Pilate’s role in and attitude toward Jesus’ crucifixion. Moreover, Gounelle and Izydorczyk give material reasons for thinking that the Christian version as it has come down to us is most plausibly placed in the fourth century. In their judgment, the superior royalty of Christ makes best sense once Christianity had become a legitimate religion.
⁷³
Moreover, the oath that Pilate
takes before the sun (3.1; see also 12.1) reflects a practice otherwise not known before the fourth century.
⁷⁴

Given what can be established about the dates of the two respective Acts of Pilate, it has been widely argued that the Christian version was written to counter the claims of the pagan, which appeared some years earlier. Representative of this view are G. W. H. Lampe (“If this was the purpose of Maximin’s publication, it is tempting to think that the Christian
Acts of Pilate
may have been composed as a counter-blast to it”
⁷⁵
) and Z. Izydorczyk (“One suspects, admittedly on circumstantial evidence, that the AP known to us remain in some relation to those circulated under Maximin. Possibly, they were a Christian response to the polemics against Christianity evoked by Eusebius”
⁷⁶
). If this view is correct, then in the surviving Acts of Pilate we have another instance of a counterforgery.

Given its extensive attestation, in many languages over many centuries, the text of this work is highly unstable, even to the extent that it has been known under a variety of names. Eventually it was most widely called the Gospel of Nicodemus, since, as we will see in a moment, it claims actually to have been written by Nicodemus himself (which is why it is a forgery). But the thorough investigations of Gounelle and Izydorczyk have shown that some variation on the title “Acts of What Happened to Our Savior Jesus Christ Under Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judea” lay at the base of all the early versions of the text in Latin and the oriental languages, apart from the Slavonic, and is used in fifteen of our oldest manuscripts in the Greek tradition (starting in the twelfth century). In their view, the earliest form of the book was probably entitled “The Acts Accomplished Under Pontius Pilate.” The famous account of the Descent to Hell, found in Tischendorf’s B text of the Gospel, was probably not added until the sixth century. According to Gounelle, the title “Gospel of Nicodemus” became popular only in the twelfth century.
⁷⁷

Despite the earlier form of its title, the Acts of Pilate claims not to be written by Pilate but by the Rabbi Nicodemus, as stated at the outset of the narrative: “Nicodemus related all the things that happened after the crucifixion and suffering of our Lord and delivered them over to the high priests and the other Jews. The same
Nicodemus compiled these writings in the Hebrew tongue.”
⁷⁸
The account begins then with a kind of discovery narrative:

I, Ananias, a member of the procurator’s bodyguard, well versed in the law, came to know our Lord Jesus Christ from the divine Scriptures, coming to him by faith and being deemed worthy of holy baptism. I searched out the public records composed at that time, in the days of our master Jesus Christ, which the Jews set down under Pontius Pilate. These public records I found written in Hebrew, and with God’s good pleasure I have translated them into Greek, so that all who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ might know them. This I did in the seventeenth year of our master, the emperor Flavius Theodotius, the sixth year of Flavius Valentinianus, in the ninth indiction. (424–25 CE)

Despite the claims of the prologue, the book could hardly have been composed, originally, in Hebrew. In one of its early, amusing scenes, Pilate’s courier indicates that when in Jerusalem he heard the “children of the Hebrews” crying out their acclamations to Jesus at the triumphal entry. A dispute then arises with the Jewish leaders in Pilate’s court over the Greek translation of the Hebrew words the courier heard spoken on the occasion. The Greek explanations given in the text would have made no sense if in fact the scene was not originally composed in Greek (the Hebrew phrasing is itself transliterated and then translated into Greek). The claim to have been written in Hebrew, then, is simply a clumsy verisimilitude.

Even though the document is widely thought to have been a response to the pagan fabrication of an Acts of Pilate, rarely has anyone considered why a narrative of this sort would be appropriate as a counterforgery.
⁷⁹
Part of the answer may lie in one of the commonly accepted features of the account, its harsh treatment of Jews, especially the Jewish leaders who force Pilate to have Jesus crucified out of jealousy. The centrality of the Jewish leaders is established at the outset of the narrative: “The chief priests and scribes called a meeting of the council—Annas, Caiaphas, Semes, Dathaes, Gamaliel, Judas, Levi, Nephthalim, Alexander, Jairus, and the other Jews—and they came to Pilate, accusing Jesus of many deeds” (1.1). The willful blindness of these Jewish leaders to Jesus’ unique identity not only as the king, a point stressed throughout the account, but also as the son of God, is hammered home time and again, chapter after chapter. It begins with the famous scene of the bowing standards in 1.5–6. When Jesus enters into Pilate’s praetorium, the standards—topped with an image of Caesar—held by pagan slaves, bow down in obeisance before him. The Jewish leaders are incensed and accuse the slaves of bowing. Jesus is dismissed, the Jewish leaders get twelve of their own burly men to take the standards, six
to each one. Jesus is brought back into the room, and once again the standards bow before him.

For the reader this is clear and certain proof both of Jesus’ unique standing before God (even the image of the emperor worships him) and of the Jewish leaders’ hardheaded and hardhearted refusal to accept it. They proceed to bring false charges against him, especially that he was “born of fornication” (alluding to the Virgin Birth tradition), and they refuse to heed when reliable witnesses testify to the contrary. Pilate in his confusion asks the witnesses about Jesus’ accusers:

“Why do these people want to kill him?”
They replied to Pilate, “They are filled with religious zeal, because he heals on the Sabbath.”
Pilate said, “They want to kill him for doing a good deed?”
They replied, “Yes.” (2.6)

The entire trial scene pits Pilate, who wants Jesus released, against the recalcitrant Jewish leaders, who want him crucified. At one point Pilate curses the whole lot of them, not just the leaders: “Your nation is always causing riots, and you oppose those who are your own benefactors.” He goes on to narrate how the children of Israel were in constant rebellion against Moses, and even against God himself, despite the miracles done on their behalf. Miracles figure prominently in this account as well, as witnesses whom Jesus has healed come forward, testifying to what he has done. The Jewish leaders remain unmoved and eventually force Pilate’s hand.

But Pilate is even more reluctant here than in the (briefer) canonical accounts, repeatedly trying to release Jesus and urging the Jewish leaders to try him themselves. When he finally yields to their insistence, it is not the leaders alone who have accepted responsibility. As in Matthew it is the Jewish people as a whole who speak the hateful words accepting the responsibility for Jesus’ blood. “Pilate said to them, ‘I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man. You see to it yourselves.’ The Jews replied, ‘His blood be upon us and our children’” (4.1). Unlike in Matthew, the scene is repeated for good measure, so that “the Jews” make their fateful declaration twice: “Then Pilate took water and washed his hands before the sun and said, ‘I am innocent of the blood of this righteous one. See to it yourselves.’ Again the Jews cried out, ‘His blood be upon us and our children’” (9.4). As if that were not enough, after Jesus’ death the Jewish authorities decide to punish Joseph of Arimathea for providing Jesus a proper burial, and he rebukes them, recalling the earlier scene:

“Now the one who is uncircumcised in the flesh but circumcised in heart has taken water to wash his hands before the sun, saying, ‘I am innocent of the blood of this righteous one; see to it yourselves!’ And you replied to Pilate, ‘His blood be upon us and our children.’ Now I am afraid that the wrath of the Lord may come upon you and your children, just as you have said.” The Jews
were deeply embittered when they heard these words and they attacked Joseph, seized him, and locked him in a house with no window, setting guards at the door. (12.1)

Once again, it is not just the leaders who are at fault: it is “the Jews.” And yet there are at least a few “Jews” who come off well in the narrative, most notably Joseph of Arimathea himself, who is later awarded a special postresurrection audience with the risen Jesus, and Nicodemus, the stalwart member of the Sanhedrin who desperately tries to have Jesus released rather than executed (
ch. 5
), and who, then, later, allegedly writes up the entire account. For this author “the Jews” may be a recalcitrant group—especially their leaders—but their problem is less that they were Jewish than that they were not Christian.

How then would this forgery serve to counter the pagan Acts of Pilate in circulation on imperial order some years earlier, in the days of Christian persecution? As we will explore more fully in a later context,
⁸⁰
from the earliest days of Christian apologetics, followers of Jesus were confronted with an enormous problem in the face of Roman opposition. Their lord had been crucified by the governing authorities. By following a convicted insurrectionist, they were themselves, obviously, antagonistic to the state. It was this known antagonism that led to persecution—not belief in one God, or in Christ’s divinity, or anything else. Christians were a political problem and this was obvious on the most basic level: they followed Jesus, crucified under Pontius Pilate for crimes against the state.

The obvious apologetic solution suggested itself early on to Christians who realized that it was a much better thing to be on the side of the authorities than in opposition to them. If Jesus’ death was a miscarriage of justice, yet not because of an incompetent decision by the Roman governor—if Jesus did nothing to deserve his fate and if the governor was, in fact, drawn to him—then his followers too were not interested in opposing the state. In fact, they could support the state and its authorities. But how could one sell that story? The easiest way was to produce a counternarrative that stood opposed not only to history as it was known to have happened but also to the formulations of it that were highly inimical to the Christian cause. The counternarrative is found already in our earliest Gospel, Mark, where it is the Jewish leaders who hand Jesus over to Pilate and insist on his death; it is strengthened in Luke, where Pilate declares Jesus innocent three times; it is strengthened further in Matthew, where Pilate washes his hands of Jesus’ blood and hears the crowd respond that they will assume full responsibility themselves (passing it on to their children). Matters go to an even more unlikely extreme in the Gospel of John, where it is the Jewish leaders who actually crucify Jesus, a view attested in still later works such as the Gospel of Peter.