Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (89 page)

49
. “Autorfiktion und Gegnerbild,” p. 698. Sellin is too extreme in insisting that the entire polemic of the book involves the relationship to angels, as when he argues that “defiling the flesh” in v. 8 refers to humans and angels inappropriately entering into one another’s spheres. That would be an odd meaning for “defiling the flesh,” given the other language invoking licentiousness. Rather, these opponents revile angels
and
carry the teaching of “grace” to an inappropriate extreme. One can imagine numerous possible connections between the two prongs of this attack. Are the opponents, for example, thought to despise all authority—angelic beings and moral codes?

50
. “Es ist daher durchaus denkbar, dass eine Haltung, wie sie der Autor des Kol zur Sprache bringt, dem Verfasser des Jud als Leugnung der kosmologischen und eschatologischen Bedeutung der Engel und der durch sie repräsentierten Ordnung erscheinen.” “Autorfiktion und Gegnerbild,” p. 700.

51
. “Wohl … könnte es Verbindungslinien geben zwischen dem Verfasser des Kolosserbriefes, der gegen die Engel-Verehrer polemisiert, und den Häretikern des Judasbriefes. Aus Kol. 2, 18 geht ja hervor, daß Gesetzesvorschriften und Engeldienst einerseits, Antinomismus und Verachtung der Engel andererseits zusammengehören. So scheinen mir die Häretiker des Judasbriefes in einer paulinischen Tradition zu stehen, deren ältestes Zeugnis der Kolosserbrief darstellt.” “Die Häretiker,” p. 222.

52
. As I have stressed, such an author would have had no way of knowing that the views of these Paulinists differed from the views of Paul, lacking, as he did, access to modern critical analyses of the Pauline corpus and the modern scholarly reconstruction of the “real” Paul.

53
. And so Frey’s conclusion is apt: “The choice of pseudonym in this regard does not serve to legitimatize the text and its content, or serves only in a very limited way; it serves primarily the assignation [of the text] to a particular line of tradition that is characterized by the figure of James and is represented by the Epistle of James, and that takes a critical stance against various developments in the Pauline-Deutero-Pauline tradition.” (“Die Wahl dieses Pseudonyms dient insofern nicht oder nur sehr wenig der Legitimation des Schreibens und seines Inhalts, sondern primär der Zuordnung zu einer Traditionslinie, die durch die Gestalt des Jakobus markiert und durch den Jakobusbrief repräsentiert ist und verschiedenartigen Entwicklungen in der paulinisch-deuteropaulinischen Tradition kritisch gegenübertritt.”) “Autorfiktion und Gegnerbild,” p. 702.

54
. All translations are from Johannes Irmscher and Georg Strecker, “The Pseudo-Clementines,” trans. R. McL. Wilson, in
New Testament Apocrypha
, ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher (Louisville, KY: West-minster/John Knox, 1992).

55
. For a recent statement of other opinions, see Graham Stanton, “Jewish Christian Elements in the Pseudo-Clementine Writings,” in
Jewish Believers in Jesus
, ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), pp. 305–24.

56
. Translation of Marvin Meyer,
The Nag Hammadi Scriptures
, p. 23.

57
. See Pierluigi Piovanelli, “‘L’Ennemi est parmi Nous’: Présences rhétoriques et narratives de Paul dans les Pseudo-Clémentines et autres écrits apparentés,” in
Nouvelles intrigues pseudo-clémentines
—
Plots in the Pseudo-Clementine Romance: Actes du deuxième colloque international sur la littérature apocryphe chrétienne, Lausanne
—
Genève, 30 août
—
2 septembre 2006
, Frédéric Amsler et al., eds. (Prahins, Switzerland: Éditions du Zèbre, 2008). I am obliged to Maria Doefler for this reference.

58
. See Annette Yoshiko Reed, “‘Jewish Christianity’ as Counter-history? The Apostolic Past in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and the Pseudo-Clementine
Homilies
,” in
Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World
, eds. Gregg Gardner and Kevin L. Osterloh (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), p. 177, n. 17.

59
. W. Ullmann, “Some Remarks on the Significance of the
Epistola Clementis
in the Pseudo-Clementines,”
StPatr
4 (1961): 332.

60
. All translations are from Johannes Irmscher and Georg Strecker, “The Pseudo-Clementines,” in Schneemelcher, ed.
New Testament Apocrypha
.

61
. The tradition that Peter personally ordained Clement as bishop of the Roman church, directly after himself, without intermediating bishops, is also found in Tertullian,
Prescription
, 32.

62
. Ullmann’s view (“Significance,” pp. 296–98) that the view of Clement’s ordination derived from a careful reading of Irenaeus is flawed. On one hand, the tradition is also in Tertullian (see n. 61). Moreover, Ullmann’s exegesis of
Adv. Haer
. 3.3.2–3 involves overreading: both Peter and Paul “hand over” the bishopric of Rome to Linus. Is that really categorically different from Clement, who was “called” to the position? It appears, instead, that Irenaeus is working to show the transitions of Roman leadership in such a way as to smooth over the stormy differences between Peter and Paul, which otherwise affected various factions within the Roman community.

63
. The
Homilies
are usually dated to 300–320, and survive in their original Greek; the
Recognitions
are dated to 360–380 but survive only in the Latin translation of Rufinus. For the texts see Bernhard Rehm,
Die Pseudoklementinen: I Homilien
, ed. J. Irmischer (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1953; 2nd ed., ed. F. Paschke, 1965; 3rd ed., ed. G. Strecker, 1994); Rehm,
Die Pseudoklementinen II Rekognitionen in Rufins Übersetzung
, ed. F. Paschke (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1965; 2nd ed., ed. G. Strecker, 1994).

64
. For histories of research, see F. Stanley Jones, “The Pseudo-Clementines: A History of Research,”
Second Century
2 (1982): 1–33, 63–96; and F. Amsler, “État de la recherché récente sur le roman pseudo-clémentin,” in F. Amsler et al., eds.,
Nouvelles intrigues pseudo-clémentines
—
Plots in the Pseudo-Clementine Romances
(Lausanne: Éditions de Zèbre, 2008), pp. 25–45. A useful general overview can be found in Graham Stanton, “Jewish Christian Elements in the Pseudo-Clementine Writings,” in Skarsaune and Hvalvik, eds.,
Jewish Believers in Jesus
, pp. 305–24. A fuller introduction is F. Stanley Jones, “Introduction to the
Pseudo-Clementines
,” in Jones, ed.,
Pseudoclementina Elchasaiticaque inter Judaeochristiana: Collected Studies
(Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 203, Leuven: Peeters, in press).

65
. So Han J. W. Drijvers, “Adam and the True Prophet in the Pseudo-Clementines,” in Drijvers, “Adam and the True Prophet in the Pseudo-Clementines,” in
Loyalitätskonflikte in der Religionsgeschichte
, FS Carsten Colpe, ed. Christoph Elsas and Hans Kippenberg (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1990), pp. 314–23. More recently, with a different spin, see F. Stanley Jones, “Marcionism in the Pseudo-Clementines,”
Poussières de christianisme et de judaïsme antiques
, ed. A. Frey and R. Gounelle (Prahins: Editions du Zèbre, 2007), pp. 225–44. It is a mistake to conclude, however, that since the work was anti-Marcionite, it could not also be Jewish-Christian, as Drijvers avers. See F. Stanley Jones, “Jewish Christianity of the
Pseudo-Clementines
,” in
Companion to Second-Century Christian ‘Heretics
,’ ed. Antti Marjanen (Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 315–34.

66
. See especially F. Stanley Jones, “An Ancient Jewish Christian Rejoinder to Luke’s Acts of the Apostles: Pseudo-Clementine
Recognitions
1.27–71,”
Semeia
80 (1997): 223–45; and his fuller study,
An Ancient Jewish Christian Source on the History of Christianity Pseudo-Clementine “Recognitions” 1.27–71
, SBLTT 37, Christian Apocrypha Series 2 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1995).

67
. Nicole Kelley,
Knowledge and Religious Authority in the Pseudo-Clementines: Situating the Recognitions in Fourth Century Syria
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006); and Kelley, “Problems of Knowledge and Authority in the Pseudo-Clementine Romance of
Recognitions
”
JECS
13 (2005): 315–48; Annette Yoshiko Reed, “‘Jewish Christianity’ after the ‘Parting of the Ways’: Approaches to Historiography and Self-Definition in the Pseudo-Clementines,” in
The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
, ed. Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), pp. 189–231; Reed, “‘Jewish Christianity’ as Counter-history?” pp. 173–216; and Reed, “Heresiology and the (Jewish-)Christian Novel: Narrativized Polemics in the Pseudo-Clementine
Homilies
,” in
Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity
, eds. Eduard Iricinschi and Holger M. Zellentin (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), pp. 273–98.

68
. M. J. Edwards, “The
Clementina
: A Christian Response to the Pagan Novel,”
CQ
42 (1992), p. 462; Dominique Côté, “La fonction littéraire de Simon le magician dans les Pseudo-Clémentines,”
LTP
57 (2001): 513–23.

69
. See pp. 318–20.

70
. All quotations of the Pseudo-Clementine
Recognitions
and
Homilies
are taken from Thomas Smith, “Pseudo-Clementine Literature,”
ANF
, vol. 8.

71
. Even in Acts, although Peter is the first to convert a gentile (Acts 8), it is Paul who first engages in a sustained gentile mission.

72
. Although even here Simon cannot be seen as “Paul without remainder.” Peter goes on to describe Simon in the following chapter, and to discuss his history; clearly he is not thinking directly of Paul here.

73
. “Jewish Christian Elements,” p. 315.

74
. Ibid., p. 316.

75
. For a sense of the range of issues, see the most recent collection of essays,
The Pseudo-Clementines
, ed. Jan N. Bremmer (Leuven: Peeters, 2010).

76
. See especially Jones,
An Ancient-Jewish Christian Source
; and Jones, “An Ancient Jewish-Christian Rejoinder.”

77
. See Reed, “‘Jewish Christianity’ after the ‘Parting of the Ways.’”

78
. “Anti-Paulinism in the Pseudo-Clementines,” in
Opposition to Paul in Jewish Christianity
, ed. G. Lüdemann and Eugene Boring (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), pp. 169–94; see esp. p. 183.

79
. See note 66.

80
. “Jewish-Christian Rejoinder,” p. 243.

81
. Stanton, “Jewish Christian Elements,” p. 318.

82
. Jones’s claims that the source attempts to write a “better history” than Acts is convincing only to the extent that any alternative account tries to do better than the one that it is opposing. But the specific arguments that he uses are for the most part unpersuasive. For example, the claim that the source focuses on only one encounter between the apostles and the Jewish leaders shows that it “has definitely provided a better arranged and more vivid account” (
Ancient Jewish Christian Source
, p. 241) rests on subjective evaluations of plot and structure. One need always ask: Better for whom? And on what grounds?

83
. “Jewish Christian Elements,” p. 322.

84
. “‘Jewish Christianity’ after the ‘Parting of the Ways,’” pp. 212–13.

85
. For exposition of key passages, see Reed, “‘Jewish Christianity’ after the Parting of the Ways.’” For the Jewish Christian elements of the Pseudo-Clementines more broadly, see most recently F. Stanley Jones, “The Jewish Christianity of the
Pseudo-Clementines
,” in
A Companion to Second-Century Christian ‘Heretics,’
ed. Antti Marjanen and Petri Luomanen (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 315–34.

86
. Reed, “Jewish Christianity after the ‘Parting of the Ways,’” p. 198.

87
. Annette Yoshiko Reed, “‘Jewish Christianity’ as Counter-history?” pp. 173–216.

88
. Reed, “‘Jewish Christianity’ as Counter History,” pp. 212–13, with reference to Amos Funkelstein,
Perceptions of Jewish History
(Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 36–49.

M
any of the writings that we considered in the previous chapter attacked Paul while advancing a contrary understanding of the Christian gospel that can be called, despite all the term’s well-known problems, “Jewish-Christian.” The predominant tendency among our surviving sources, however, both forged and orthonymous, lies in the opposite direction. Indeed, attacks on Jews as people and on Judaism as a religion quickly became de rigueur in most of the Christian circles we have close familiarity with from the literary record. The history of Christian anti-Judaism is complex, but inordinately well documented, and I do not need to trace even its broad lines here.
¹
The rise of anti-Jewish sentiment within a range of Christian communities—proto-orthodox and heterodox—led, as one might expect, to the production of forgeries that, under the name of authoritative figures, castigated Jews and the religion they practiced.
²
In
this chapter we will consider a number of these works, starting with one of the great archaeological discoveries of texts in modern times, the Gospel of Peter.

For centuries the best-known account of a Gospel of Peter came in Eusebius’ description of its encounter and exposure by Serapion, bishop of Antioch at the very end of the second century. Eusebius includes in his report a lengthy but frustratingly partial citation of Serapion’s own pamphlet dealing with the matter. Serapion first heard of the Gospel of Peter while making his episcopal rounds in the village of Rhossus. Learning that the church there used Peter’s Gospel, but not perusing it for himself, he deemed it acceptable for use. Only later was he informed that the book had been propagated by a group of Docetists. After examining it, Serapion decided that it was for the most part orthodox; but it contained certain “additions” to the Gospel story that he considered spurious and dangerous. On these grounds he forbade future use of the book, appending to his account a list of the offensive passages. It is much to be regretted that Eusebius chose not to cite this appendix, as we are, as a result, unable to determine for certain if the fragmentary Gospel of Peter discovered in 1886–87 is in fact the one Serapion considered objectionable. But there are good reasons for assuming that it is, as we will see.