Corpus-Paul

[Jeff Peterson <peterson AT mail.ics.edu>]

Sorry for the delay in responding to the very interesting posts of Bob
Kraft and Frank Hughes -- students and administrators have a way of keeping
one off the Net, where the real learning takes place. Here's a belated
composite response.

At 4:05 PM -0400 4/27/99, Robert Kraft wrote:
>If I understand your argument, you could translate the larger context
>something like this:
>
>"We urge you ... not to be dislodged quickly from your conviction, nor
>thrown into a tizzy -- neither by means of a spirit-communication, nor a
>discourse, nor a letter, [nor] as though we were the source -- to the
>effect that the day of the Lord has arrived."

Yes -- except for the [nor]; the hWS DI' hHMWN doesn't seem to me to offer
a fourth option but to expand on "by means of a letter."

>I wouldn't call it impossible, although I'm skeptical about such intricate
>syntactical distinctions and wonder whether they would have occurred to
>anyone if it were not for the very issue of "pseudonymity" that we are
>discussing.

Conversely, I've wondered whether the spurious letter interpretation would
have gone unrivalled among moderns if pseudonymity weren't so prominent on
the exegetical agenda! (Interesting to see it in the Vulgate and KJV -- and
also Chrysostom, Hom. in Thess. 3, which tends to support the suggestion
that questions of exegesis and authorship can be distinguished.) See below
for the tenability of the hYPO/DIA distinction.

>I doubt that your distinction between <gk>hWS DI' hHMWN</> and <gk>hWS
>hYP' hHMWN</> would hold up, although the control evidence is scarce. Do
>you see any connection, as I am tempted to do, with 2 Thess 2.15 ("...the
>traditions that you received [from us?] either by means of a discourse [of
>ours?] or an epistle [of ours]") -- with <gk>LOGOS</> and <gk>EPISTOLH</>
>in parallel again?

A distinction between the prepositions is observed by another Christian
writer shaped by a Hellenistic Jewish milieu in Matt 1:22, TO RHQEN hYPO
TOU KYRIOU DIA TOU PROFHTOU (hYPO for source, DIA for instrument); it's
true that there's nothing quite that clear for Pauline usage, although one
might note 2 Cor 3:3, EPISTOLH XRISTOU DIAKONHQEISA hYF' hHMWN. What I find
difficult in the standard interpretation of 2 Thess 2:2 is the shift
required to get from the first three uses of DIA to the fourth: "disturbed
BY a spirit, BY a discourse, BY a letter, as though FROM us."

2 Thess 2:15 does indeed seem pertinent -- and reminiscent of 1 Thess
4:1-2. I would take the 1 Thess reference as Paul's reminder of his
founding instruction in person, and 2 Thess 2:15 as referring back to that
same oral instruction (DIA LOGOU) and to the further instruction in 1 Thess
(DI' EPISTOLHS hHMWN); the aorist EDIDAXQHTE and the sense of KRATEITE
preclude taking the EPISTOLH here as 2 Thess itself. (On a pseudonymous
understanding of the letter the Paulinist must be seen as crafting a
literary fiction in close dependence on 1 Thess rather than the more
freeform compositions that the Pastorals are if pseudonymous.)

>In 2 Thess 2.2, you could also envision the author (Paul or a Paulinist)
>associating the <gk>hWS DI' hHMWN</> phrase with the "spririt" reference
>as well as with "word"  and "epistle" -- similar, e.g. to Galatians 1.8 on
>a (hypothetical?)  deceiving "angel"? Don't listen to any of these types
>of communication that might shake you, even if they seem to be identified
>with us!

This is certainly possible, especially as in 1 Cor 5:4 Paul envisions his
spirit as active even in his physical absence, and as the LOGOS could also
be an oral teaching of Paul (either one remembered at Thessalonica or one
reported there from Corinth). But the safer ground lies with construing the
hWS clause with the immediately preceding MHTE DI' EPISTOLHS -- i.e, we can
be sure it relates to that clause, while the others are more doubtful. Does
that seem right?

>You have already mentioned 2 Thess 3.17, which seems to me to fit into
>this larger picture of multiple "Pauline" or "Paulinist" epistles (and
>spirits, and discourses?!) available to the recipients (how many letters
>does "in every letter" imply?). Perhaps "pseudonymity" is not the only
>solution, but something unusual seems to be going on here, including the
>possibility of misreading/mishearing "Paul"  (as, of course, 2 Peter
>3.15-16 warns). The passage remains highly provocative for this sort of
>discussion, I think.

Agreed. As I understand Malherbe's interpretation (which takes 2 Thess as
genuine), the situation is that 1 Thess has been copied for circulation in
Thessalonica, and the copies have suffered interpretive glosses on such
statements as "the day of the Lord is coming like a thief." So
hyper-realized eschatology has been disseminated in Paul's name (the
situation reflected in 2:2), and Paul writes a corrective letter, drawing
attention to his characteristic signature (as also in 1 Cor 16:21; Gal
6:11; Col 4:18) to mark the autograph as the authoritative statement of his
position. But this is all on the basis of an oral precis last November --
the full treatment will appear in his AB Thessalonians commentary.

At 9:15 PM -0300 4/27/99, Frank W. Hughes wrote:

> I think the history of scholarship on 2 Thess. shows quite unmistakably
>that >one cannot take the question of the meaning of 2:2 (and 2:15 and
>3:17) apart >from the issue of the authorship of the letter as a whole. 

It seems to me that questions of exegesis have logical priority over
questions of introduction, including authorship. I.e., assuming the
autograph of a text doesn't survive, what that text says is the primary
evidence relevant to the attempt to situate it in history, and in the case
of a disputed text it's possible and even necessary to reach an
understanding of it apart from a judgment one way or the other on the
question in dispute (authorship in the case of 2 Thess). So when we pick up
the letter I would sugggest our primary obligation is to hear what's said,
and when that's done we can decide who is likely to have said it.
(Interpretation isn't of course this neat in practice, but I'm trying to
suggest the ideal that ought to apply.) And to be sustained, judgments on
authorship and other introductory questions have to be demonstrable from
the exegesis of the text. Would you disagree with that as a general
principle of method, or is 2 Thess a special case; and if so, why? Or have
I completely missed your drift?

>The writer of 2 Thess. is basically warning his audience against the wrong
>>theology, which is conveyed through a spirit, logos, or letter as from
>Paul, >that says the Day of the Lord has already come.  In Early Christian
>Rhetoric >and 2 Thessalonians I argued that 2:1-2 constitute the partitio
>of the letter, >giving the thesis to be argued.  The author then has a
>two-part probatio in >2:3-12 and 2:13-15.  In 2:3-12 the author argues
>that the day of the Lord >cannot have come until certain signs have
>happened.  And in 2:13-15 the author >also argues that the readers
>shouldn't be "thrown into a tizzy" (my, what an >idiomatic translation,
>Bob!) by the false doctrine. 

The letter looks more generally parenetic to me, addressing three major
problems  adumbrated in 1 Thess: (1) persecution and the community's
response (ch. 1; cf. 1 Thess 1:6); (2) eschatological misinformation (ch.
2; cf. 1 Thess 4:13-5:11); (3) spongers in the community (ch. 3; cf. 1
Thess 5:14 on the ATAKTOI). I don't see a clear connection drawn between
the false teaching in ch. 2 and either of the other concerns; this is often
proposed esp. for ch. 3 (they thought the eschaton upon them and so gave up
their jobs), but this is nowhwere explicit in the text, and in 1 Thess
4:9-12 Paul encourages his converts to follow his example (per 1 Thess 2:9)
and work to support themselves in order to make a favorable impression on
outsiders by their hHSYXIA (an ideal also mentioned in 2 Thess 3:12). 2
Thess 3:6ff follows this model, right down to Paul as the TYPOS in 3:9.

>Interestingly the sources
>of false doctrine in 2:1-2 are spirit, logos, and
>letter, whereas the sources >of true doctrine in 2:15 are logos and letter
>-- >the spirit (Spirit) is
>prominently absent!  (Try to fit that one neatly into
>Pauline theology!)

If 2:15 is a parenetic reminiscence of instruction offered to the
Thessalonians prior to the writing of 2 Thess (as suggested above), the
absence of PNEUMA doesn't appear especially significant; PNEUMA's also
missing from such a substantial parenetic section as Rom 12-13 (except
12:13, where it's not clearly the PNEUMA TOU QEOU in view); perhaps more
significantly, PNEUMA shows up in 1 Thess 4-5 only twice, at 4:8 and 5:19,
and is lacking in the functionally parallel statement in 1 Thess 4:1-2, as
well as in the exhortations employing STHKEIN in 1 Cor 16:13-14; Gal 5:1;
Phil 4:1 (cf. 1 Thess 3:8). This is not to deny the importance of the
PNEUMA TOU QEOU for Paul, but it does show that explicit positive reference
to PNEUMA in a parenetic text comparable in extent to 2 Thess 2:15 isn't a
rule elsewhere in the corpus Paulinum.
>
>If Paul is as rhetorically effective as he is in Galatians and Romans (and
>I >certainly think 1 Thessalonians as well), why would Paul even broach
>the issue >in 2 Thess 2:1-2 of whether or not his letters are authentic? 
>Who would have >forged a Pauline letter in Paul's lifetime?  Who would
>have wanted to?  And why >would Paul even remotely suggest that letters
>"as from us" might not really be >from Paul, since this was the main way
>he communicated with his churches when >he could not be there in person,
>which was most of the time?  He would be doing >severe damage to his ethos
>as conveyed in Pauline letters. 

On the traditional interpretation, he would do this because a letter had
been circulated in his name and his readers needed warning against it. If
my revisionist interpretation is followed, then 2:2 doesn't refer to a
spurious letter. And in any case the signature in 3:17 stands as the mark
of a Pauline autograph.

Bob Kraft is
>certainly correct in asking why Paul would have suggested that there is the
>sign of authenticity "in every letter" (3:17) when there has been,
>apparently, >only 1 before it to Thessaloniki, and that one without any
>mention of such a >sign -- nor is there any mention of the sign of
>authenticity (whatever that >was) in any other Pauline letter.

3:17 identifies the concluding greeting written in Paul's own hand (i.e.,
having taken the pen from his amanuensis) as the sign of his own letters;
so the sign, i.e. the ASPASMOS, is in fact referred to in 1 Cor 16:21; Gal
6:11; Col 4:18. (Can one assume that every Pauline letter closed with a few
lines in his own hand, even where the text does not draw attention to the
practice? It's a common feature in extant letters on papyrus.) So 2 Thess
3:17 draws attention to Paul's standard epistolary practice, perhaps for
the reason Malherbe suggests. I'm curious how this would work if the letter
were pseudonymous; did the Paulinist dictate the autograph to a scribe, or
give the scribe his notes to produce a fair copy, and then take the pen and
scrawl the conclusion himself? Or was no "autograph" ever produced, so that
the letter was first introduced in a scribal copy or copies? This would
make for a less dramatic "discovery" in the church(es) where it was
introduced.

It's of course a larger discussion than we've had time to tease out so far.
I appreciate very much the thoughtful engagement of one so unmannerly as to
question the consensus.

Jeff

------------------------------------
Jeffrey Peterson
Institute for Christian Studies
Austin, Texas, USA
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