Corpus-Paul

[Christopher Hutson <crhutson AT salisbury.net>]

Perry wrote: 

>One of the major sticking points, is that I'm not convinced that
>pseudonymity was an acceptable device IN JEWISH/CHRISTIAN PERSONAL
LETTERS
>OF RELIGIOUS CONTENT.

I think this is an important question and one about which I am not
entirely settled myself.  I suppose one question might be what one
means by "personal letter."  I think I would limit that term to
private correspondence between individuals, not intended for
circulation.

>I don't doubt pseudonymity's acceptance in certain genre--the
Platonic
>letters, or "epistolary" testaments, for example, which would seem to
>include 2 Peter.  But personal letters?

I agree that pseudonymity would make little sense in the case of a
"personal letter."  But I wonder whether the PE can be so classified. 
Most interpreters recognize that they aim at some secondary audience
beyond the named addressees.  The traditional reading of these letters
assumes that the secondary audiences are Christian communities in
Ephesus and Crete.  I would argue that the intended secondary audience
is youthful Christian teachers regardless of location.  In either
case, the letters are not strictly "personal."  If they are
pseudonymous, they are designed to resemble personal letters, but in
any case they are also designed to be circulated.  In that way they
would function very much like the Platonc letters or the Cynic
Epistles (pseudonymous) or Seneca's Moral Epistles (authentic).

>Only a century later than Paul's writings, (Tertullian, *Baptism*) we
read
>of how the 2nd century church disciplined a leader who (inspired by
pure
>motives, apparently) wrote a letter in Paul's name.  Not to be flip,
but are
>we to believe that 1st century Christians accepted the device with a
wink
>and a nod, and failed to let their descendants in on the joke?

This has given me pause in the past, but I do wonder how much weight
we can put on Tertullian here.  I don't think the issue for Tertullian
was REALLY authorship.  My impression from folks like Irenaeus is that
various books made it into the canon because they generally conformed
to some emerging consensus of "apostolic" doctrine.  That obviously
does not mean that every one of the accepted writings were authored by
one of the Twelve.  The _regula fidei_ was actually more like Paul's
KANWN in Gal 6:16--Paul's understanding of the cross was the "rule" by
which he evaluated various doctrines.  Irenaeus seems to decide what
gospels, for example, are accepted primarily on the basis of their
orthodoxy and then casts about for odd arguments to support his
decision.  

So also Tertullian, De baptismo 17 criticizes the author of _The Acts
of Paul and Thecla_ on a point of doctrine.  The issue for Tertullian
was that Christians were pointing to the _Acts of Paul_ to justify
women teaching and baptizing, which practice Tertullian found
offensive.  I would further point out that _The Acts of Paul and
Thecla_ was not a pseudonymous letter as if from Paul.  It was rather
an anonymous writing ABOUT Paul.  The author was known, since
Tertullian calls him a presbyter from Asia.  The issue for Tertullian
was not pseudonymity or even historicity but doctrine.  So I'm not
sure we can use Tertullian as evidence that early Christians rejected
the practice of pseudonymous letter writing.

But I would welcome other comments on this question.

Regards,

XPIC

------------------------------------
Christopher R. Hutson
          Hood Theological Seminary
          Salisbury, NC  28144
crhutson AT salisbury.net
------------------------------------