Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (17 page)

55
. As expressed in various publications; see Hengel,
The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Collection and Origin of the Canonical Gospels
(London: SCM Press, 2000), pp. 34–56. Among refutations of Hengel’s views, see, for example, F. Bovon, “The Synoptic Gospels and the Noncanonical Acts of the Apostles,”
HTR
81 (1988): 20–23.

56
. Translation of Ernest Evans,
Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem: Books 4 and 5
(Oxford Early Christian Texts; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 271. All translations of this work will be from this edition.

57
. Robert Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, eds.,
The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus
(New York: Macmillan, 1993), p. 22.

58
. “Elle nous aura permis d’établir—malgré la modestie de nos sources et en admettant que nos textes soient bien recevables—que le plagiat et la forgerie d’oeuvres littéraires pouvaient être considérés comme des délits et sanctionnés.” Bernard Legras, “La sanction du plagiat littéraire en droit grec et hellénistique,” in E. Cantarella et G. Thür, éds.,
Symposion
1999 (Pazo de Mariñan, 6–9 septembre 1999; Cologne-Weimar-Vienne, Böhlau, 2003), 459.

59
.
Lives
. 5.92. Unless otherwise indicated, this and the following quotations are taken from the translation of R. D. Hicks in LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1925).

60
. Translation of Walter C. A. Ker,
LCL
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979).

61
. Translation of Granger; see p. 14 n. 11.

62
.
Histories
, 9.2.1; quotation from the translation of W. R. Paton from
Polybius: The Histories
, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1922–1927).

63
. Translation of H. Rackham,
Pliny: Natural History
, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1938).

64
. See p. 14.

65
. I, 22. Translation of Charles Foster Smith,
Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War: Books I and II
, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1919).

66
.
Ad Verum Imp
. 2, 1, 14. Translation of C. R. Haines,
Marcus Aurelius Fronto
, LCL, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1919), p. 43.

67
. Translation of H. M. Hubbell,
Cicero V
, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962).

68
.
Histories
, 2. 56.8–12; translation of W. R. Paton,
Polybius: The Histories
, LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1922).

69
. Ibid., 12, 25a1–25b4.

70
.
Apology
5; Rudolph Arbesmann,
Tertullian
, FC, 10 (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1950), pp. 20–21. Subsequent quotations of this work will be from this edition.

71
. For introductions, texts, and translations, see Ehrman and Ple
š
e,
Apocryphal Gospels
, pp. 419–567.

72
. “Diese Passage (in Tertullian) ist nicht zuletzt von Bedeutung, weil sie ein für alle mal die Legende von der problemlosen Akzeptanz von Pseudepigraphie in einem christlichen Umfeld widerlegen sollte.” “Erkannte Pseudepigraphie?” in Jörg Frey et al., eds.,
Pseudepigraphie und Verfasserfiktion
, p. 195.

73
. Translation of S. Thelwall,
ANF
, vol. 3, p. 677.

74
. See Willy Rordorf, “Tertullien et les Actes de Paul (à propos de bapt 17, 5),” in
Lex Orandi Lex Credendi
, ed. Gerardo J. Békés e Giustino Farnedi (Rome: Editrice anselmiana 1980), pp. 475–84.

75
. For a contrary opinion see Stevan L. Davies, “Women, Tertullian and the Acts of Paul,”
Semeia
38 (1986): 139–43, who argues that Tertullian is referring not to our extant Acts of Paul but to a lost pseudepigraphic letter of Paul. For an effective refutation, see Rordorf, “Tertullien et les Actes.”

76
. Oracles were important in Greek cities and were occasionally consulted, especially in times of crisis. The integrity of their text was, as a result, hugely important. It is not clear, however, why the sinking of the islands off Lemnos would have been such a politically charged issue. On the importance of Greek oracles, and thus of their integrity, see Hugh Bowden, “Oracles for Sale,” in Peter Derow and Robert Parker, eds.,
Herodotus and His World
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 256–74. My thanks to Prof. Bowden for the reference and for his communications on this topic. See also Michael A. Flower,
The Seer in Ancient Greece
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).

77
. Attica, 1, 22. 7. Translation of Peter Levi,
Pausanias Guide to Greece
, vol. 1 (London: Penguin, 1971).

78
. Oracles at Delphi 407B-G. Translation of Frank C. Babbitt
Plutarch: Moralia
, vol. 5. LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936).

79
. Translation of John Ferguson, trans.,
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis: Books One to Three
(FC 85; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1991), p. 119.

80
.
Geography
9.1.10. Translation of H. L. Jones in LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1927).

81
. See esp. Rudolf Pfeiffer,
The History of Classical Scholarship from the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1968).

82
. The most extensive catalogue of these accusations is in A. Bludau,
Die Schriftfälschungen der Häretiker: Ein Beitrag zur Textkritik der Bibel
. (Münster: Aschendorf, 1925). Bludau claims—wrongly in my view—that these charges were more commonly directed against heretics for misinterpreting, not falsifying, Scripture. This view is largely based on Bludau’s somewhat odd notion that since there were so many debates over Scripture in the early centuries, copyists (heretical or otherwise) would have been reluctant to change the text. This is not a widely held view today; for an alternative, see my study
The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture
.

83
.
Adv. Marc
. 4.4; translation of Ernst,
Tertullian
, pp. 267, 275.

84
.
De adult libr
. 7; translation of Thomas P. Scheck,
St. Pamphilus, Apology for Origen; with the Letter of Rufinus, On the Falsification of the Books of Origen
(FC 120; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010), p. 125.

85
. Quoted in Rufinus,
De adult. libr
. 7; translation of Schenck,
St. Pamphilus
, p. 29.

86
.
De adult libr
. 13; ibid., p. 135. See Mark Vessey, “The Forging of Orthodoxy in Latin Christian Literature: A Case Study,”
JECS
4 (1996): 495–513.

87
. Preface of Rufinus; translation of G. W. Butterworth,
Origen on First Principles
(Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973), p. lxiii.

88
. Translation of W. H. Fremantle in
NPNF
, 2nd series, vol. 3.

89
.
Adv. Ruf
. 2.11. Translation of
NPNF
.

90
. For the formula “neither adding nor removing,” see, among others, W. C. van Unnik, “De la règle MHTE ΠPOΣΘEINAI MHTE AΦEΛEIN dans l’histoire du canon,”
VC
3 (1949): 1–35. W. C. van Unnik, “‘Die Formel nichts wegnehmen, nichts hinzufügen’ bei Josephus,” in idem,
Josephus als historischer Schriftsteller
(Heidelberg: Schneider, 1978), 26–49; C. Schäublin,
MH
31 (1974): 144–49; L. Feldman,
Josephus’s Interpretation of the Bible
(Hellenistic Culture and Society 27; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 37–46; M. Mülke,
Der Autor und sein Text: Die Verfälschung des Originals im Urteil antiker Untersuchungen
(Untersuchungen zur Antiken Literatur und Geschichte 93; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), pp. 20–27, 266–68. I am obliged to Zlatko Ple
š
e for these references.

91
. Letter of Aristeas, 311. Translation of R. J. H. Shutt, in James H. Charlesworth, ed.,
The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha
, vol. 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1985).

92
. Translation of Zlatko Ple
š
e, in Ehrman and Ple
š
e,
The Apocryphal Gospels
, p. 191.

Aspects of the Broader Phenomenon

H
aving looked at related phenomena from the Greco-Roman world, we can now redirect our focus to literary forgery itself, the practice of producing literary works with false authorial claims. The bulk of this study will consider the use of literary forgery and counterforgery in Christian polemical contexts of the first four centuries
CE.
To set the stage for that discussion, we need to look at the broader phenomenon in pagan, Jewish, and Christian antiquity, considering its extent and its widespread recognition and condemnation; the motives that drove authors to make their false claims; techniques they used to make these claims believable; the self-justifications that they made, or may have made, for engaging in the practice; and the means of detection used by ancient critics to expose forgery when they found it.

It is impossible to quantify the extent of ancient forgery, although everyone who has worked seriously on the problem recognizes that it is a vast field.
¹

I will not attempt to provide here a comprehensive listing either of works identified as forgeries in pagan antiquity or pagan works now known or thought to be forgeries—two overlapping but not coterminous corpora. Numerous instances will be addressed throughout this chapter and the next. Instead, to give an idea of
the extent of the field here at the outset, I will summarize some of the incidental and direct comments about forgery in just one book of Diogenes Laertius’ ten-volume work on the
Lives of Eminent Philosophers
.

In 2.39 Diogenes indicates that the (published) speech of Polycrates against Socrates is not authentic
since it mentions the rebuilding of the walls by Conon, which occurred ten years after Socrates’ death. In 2.42 he indicates that the paean to Apollo and Artemis allegedly written by Socrates between the time of his condemnation and death (two lines of which Diogenes quotes) are debated: the critic Dionysodorus maintained that Socrates did not write it. So too Pisistratus of Ephesus denied that the works of Aeschines were actually written by him; the critic Persaeius attributed most of the seven books in question to Pasiphon, of the school of Eretria (2.61). With respect to Dialogues involving Socrates, we learn that Panaetius thought that those produced by Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Aeschines were authentic; but he doubted the authenticity of those ascribed to Phaedo and Euclides and he rejected all the others as inauthentic (2.64). The six books of essays attributed to Aristippus are said to have been accepted by some critics, whereas Sosicrates of Rhodes claimed that Aristippus had written none of them at all (2.84). As to the dialogues allegedly produced by Phaedo, Diogenes accepts as genuine
the “Zopyrus” and “Simon”; the “Nicias” is doubtful
as is “The Elders”; the “Medius” is claimed “by some” critics to be the work of Aeschines or of Polyaenus; and some also attribute the “Cobblers’ Tales” to Aeschines (2.105). Nine of the dialogues of Glaucon are thought to be authentic, but there are also extant thirty-two others that are considered spurious
(2.124). With respect to the “Medea” of Euripides, some claim that it is instead the work of Neophron of Sicyon (2.134).