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  • From: "Fabrizio Palestini" <fabrizio.palestini AT tin.it>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: The Dutch Radical Approach to the Pauline Epistles
  • Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 19:46:44 +0200


Dear John

There was some incomprehension between us, excuse me.
When I asked arguments pro-authenticity, I meant Pauline authenticity. But
no problem, the discussion about 1Clement etc is anyway interesting.
However, no one in JHC propose a marcionite autorship of these letters! They
consider 1Clement, Polycarp to the Philippians, Ignatian letters as catholic
second century pseudonimous tractates (absolutely not letters!). Obviously
that letters are not understandable in marcionite circles!!
Have you carefully read the articles I listed? I think not.

Regarding Kim's dating of p46, until I'll have bought some specific texts, I
can treat the question only in a general way, I'm afraid.
Nevertheless I found some interesting articles in Internet.

Daniel Wallace, in "2 Peter: Introduction, argument, outline" (note 29;
http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/2petotl.htm), writes:

"I have spoken with many NT textual critics to get their feedback on Kim's
article (including Bruce Metzger, Gordon Fee, Bart Ehrman, Eldon Epp,
Michael Holmes, Thomas Geer, and J. K. Elliott), and not one had any
substantive arguments against Kim's evidence. A few years ago, in the
textual criticism group at the Society of Biblical Literature, an Oxford
Ph.D. student in papyrology presented a paper in which all of Kim's
arguments were refuted. It was a convincing piece of work."

I've already asked Wallace in order to obtain more informations.


D. C. Parker (Reader in New Testament Textual Criticism and Palaeography,
Department of Theology, University of Birmingham,
http://rosetta.atla-certr.org/TC/vol04/ComfortBarrett-ed1999rev.html), in a
review of Comfort & Barrett's "The Complete Text of the Earliest New
Testament Manuscripts", writes:

"It has also to be said that some attempts at an earlier dating owe more to
apologetics than to palaeography. I make this statement generally, and not
with reference to Comfort's work. In fact his rejection of the dates given
to p46 by Kim (Kim 1988) and to p4/p64/p67 by Thiede (Thiede 1995), and his
opinion of Hunger's dating of p66 at 150 (Hunger 1960) show him to be
properly cautious."


In the The Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criticism, under the entry
"paleography" (http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn/ShortDefs.html#paleog),
there are general considerations about its intrinsic limitations:

"Care must be taken with the results of paleography, however. It is not an
exact science, and all its judgments are approximate (so, e.g., the
enthusiasm about the early date of P52 should be treated with a certain
amount of caution; it is simply not possible to date a manuscript to the
fifteen or so year span some have proposed for P52). Housman writes, wisely,
that "...even when palaeography is kept in her proper place, as handmaid,
and not allowed to give herself the airs of mistress, she is apt to be
overworked." It is perfectly possible for old handwriting styles to be
preserved long after new ones have evolved."


Below I write some evidences against authenticity (of 1Clement etc)
extracted from "Der Gefalschte Paulus" (H. Detering, 96-103, translated by
Darrell Doughty):

"Can a document consisting of some 32-35 papyrus pages be accepted without
further ado as a writing that was sent from Rome to Corinth with the
intention of actual correspondence? Apart from the fact that the size of an
average letter in antiquity, as one can determine from collections of
ancient papyrus letters we possess, was not substantially different from
our letters today and consisted of one to two pages (rather less than more,
since writing was such an arduous affair in antiquity), the situation in
which the author intervenes with the pen, the party conflict in Corinth,
required great haste! If he wanted to accomplish something with his writing,
he could hardly sit there and spend weeks or months drafting a writing whose
size surpasses that of many ancient books, especially since in view of
conditions of conveyance in the ancient world he would have had to reckon
with considerable delay in delivery. With the passing of one or two months,
the situation which the writer presupposes in his writing could be entirely
different, and his writing hopelessly out of date.
If the party conflict in Corinth and the replacement of the presbyters with
younger members of the church was in fact the real incentive for the letter
from the church in Rome to the church in Corinth, it is furthermore
completely impossible to understand why the writer only comes to speak of
this in chapter 44 (!) and in the first two-thirds of the writing exhausts
the patience of the Corinthians with discussions of the resurrection, the
omniscience and omnipresence of God, and such things, which although
edifying, have no importance for the matter at hand.
In addition, there is the consideration that the entire controversy
addressed by the writer of 1 Clement remains strangely unclear and vague and
that the information about it is very contradictory, as even supporters of
its authenticity today must concede:

"He [Clement] emphasizes that the uproar can be traced to "a few rash and
self-willed persons" (1.1; in 47.6 it is only "one or two persons"), but
then accuses the entire congregation (46.9 = "your uproar"). As motives he
identifies jealousy; envy and contentiousness; lack of love, humility and
discernment. But he does not identify the actual background of the
Corinthian conflict (!), just as little as he identifies the actual motives
for the-certainly uninvited-intervention by Rome in the inner affairs of the
Corinthian church (!). Without doubt, these are closely related, but there
is nothing else to learn about either. The opponents in 1 Clement left
behind no witnesses; nor can their views be reconstructed from the writing,
since it does not debate their arguments, but simply condemns them morally.
With regard to the circumstances in Corinth as well as Rome's motives, if
one is not willing to give up, one is dependent on hypotheses." (Vielhauer,
Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur, 536)

If one begins with the presumption that we have to do here with a real
letter, all the peculiarities cited here should give one cause for thought!

Finally, the conflict as such lacks any inner probability: how can the
Corinthian church, founded so long ago, rise up against their presbyters on
account of only a few ringleaders? The "attempt at mediation" that the
writer undertakes (from Rome!), in which he one-sidedly condemns the "
troublemakers" in Corinth, as if they acted from base motives, is also
entirely unrealistic and shows the fictional character of the whole thing.
Already in the last century, G. Volkmar raised the consideration that the
letter could hardly be intended for the entire community in Corinth, as the
address would have us believe, but only for that part of the community to
which the displaced presbyters and their followers belonged.

The tensions and obscurities revealed here are due to the contradiction
between the situation presupposed in the writing and the author's real
intention. The real intention of the author, of course, is not the
resolution of an actual conflict in a diplomatic way, but something quite
different: his writing, that is directed not to one church, and also not to
the church in Corinth, but to all the churches in the Catholic universe, is
intended not to mediate, but to instruct and-here a typical Catholic
tendency of the letter becomes visible-to warn against uprisings and
disorder in the churches!
The writings leads us into a time, most probably the middle of the second
century, in which the distinction between priests and laity (40.5: there are
much different rules for laity than for ecclesiastical officer-holders)
already announces the Roman clericalism. Over against all inclinations to
opposition, the authority of the church is enjoined in an impressive
example.

For this purpose the writer employs the motif of party conflict already
known to him from 1 Corinthians and uses this as a pretence, cloaked in the
form of a letter, for an edifying, exhortative discourse on the theme "Peace
and Harmony in the Church." For the writer of 1 Clement, the church in
Corinth is an exemplary church, in which he would like to see his ideal
church realized, in essential agreement with that of the self-aggrandizing
official Roman church: consider the harmonious picture of the church he
sketches, in which the young submit in humble subordination to the old, the
laity to the priests, the wife to the husband (chs. 1-2)-the Roman Catholic
ideal of the church in its purist form!

Once one has recognized the writer's real intention, it will no longer seem
strange if there are other peculiarities as well that would look odd in a
real letter. Who would expect, for example, in real letter, which moreover
is written by the church in Rome to the church in Corinth, to find the
exhortation (34.7), "Let us therefore come together in the same place with
harmony of conscience and earnestly call upon the Lord as from one mouth,
that we may share in his great and glorious promises"?
In view of the geographical distance between Rome and Corinth, one can only
wonder how the writer imagined the common visit of a holy place. In this
passage it becomes clear: for a moment the writer has forgotten the
situation presupposed by the letter and falls from the role of writer of
letters into the role of a preacher, which he also gladly takes over in
other passages as well: see the passages with strong liturgical
characteristics (20.1-12; 38.1-4 and the concluding prayer, 64), which make
one think of a sermon rather than a letter.
In other places, the author succeeds very well in imagining himself in the
role of a letter writer: for example, in the introduction to the letter,
where it reads:

"On account of the sudden and repeated misfortunes and calamities that have
befallen us, we have been somewhat delayed in turning to the questions
disputed among you, beloved, and especially the abominable and unholy
sedition, so inappropriate for the elect of God."

In these lines, many people have wanted to see a reference to an actual
situation of persecution (under Nero or Domitian). As the Dutch theologian
Van den Bergh van Eysinga already recognized, however, what we have here is
only a conventional apology, which the author of 1 Clement readily employs
to give his writing the appearance of an authentic letter. According to the
operative Roman law, persecutions did not usually arrive overnight.

In the same way as 1 Clement, the seven so-called letters of Ignatius also
are all pseudonymous works.
The situation presupposed in the letters must already raise suspicion. The
bishop of Antioch has become a victim of persecution of Christians in his
own city, and the punishment is not to be carried here, as would usually be
the case, but, accompanied by a small body of Roman soldiers, he has been
sent on a journey through half of the Mediterranean world, from Syria to
Rome, to be thrown to wild animals in the arena there!

Although Ignatius is a prisoner, he nevertheless has the remarkable
opportunity during his trip through the city of Smyrna in Asia Minor to make
contact with the local bishops of the churches in Ephesus, Magnesia, and
Tralles, and to hand over to them a letter to each of their churches. In a
similar way, the churches in Philadelphia and Smyrna, as well as Polycarp,
the bishop of Smyrna, receive letters from Troas. Since in spite of his
sentence Ignatius is obviously still uncertain whether he will be put to
death in Rome, he also writes a letter to the church in Rome, in which,
delirious in the face death and craving martyrdom, the bishop entreats them
not to prevent his martyrdom by intervening with the authorities.

"I beseech you, do not be an untimely kindness to me. Let me be food for the
beasts, through which I can attain to God! I am God's wheat, and I am ground
by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread of Christ. Rather
entice the wild beasts, that they may become my tomb and leave no trace of
my body, so that when I fall asleep I will not be burdensome to anyone... I
long for the beasts that are prepared for me, and I pray that will be quick
with me. I will even entice them to devour me quickly... Fire and cross and
struggles with wild beasts, cutting and tearing asunder, rackings of bones,
mangling of limbs, crushing my whole body, cruel tortures of the devil, let
these come over me that I may attain to Jesus Christ!" (IgnRom, 4-5)

This has been perceived as the product of a pathological longing for
martyrdom. But the matter is likely to be much simpler. In the case of
this citation as for the Ignatian writings in their entirety, we have to do
not with real letters, but with something entirely composed at a writing
table. Their author is not the martyr-bishop Ignatius, but someone later,
perhaps a pseudonymous writer around the middle of the second century, who
puts himself in the role of the legendary martyr-bishop and was able thereby
to give free flight to his fantasy since at that time he hardly needed to
fear that the hysterical, overblown death in the arena he conjured up would
ever become a reality.
The empty and hollow pathos of the declamation, the entire surrealistic
scenario that we meet in the Ignatian letters, including the artificial
background situation, obviously modeled on the journey of Paul as a
prisoner, all this shows that we have to with the product of a typical "
writing table author."
Given the artificiality of the basic situation, a series of remarkable
contradictions and improbabilities we observe becomes understandable.
Ignatius writes that he has been condemned (IgnEph 12.1f; IgnRom 3.1), but
in another passage is nevertheless still uncertain whether (and how) he will
die. He is in chains, but nevertheless able to visit the churches of Asia
Minor and write letters! A passage in the letter to the Romans throws light
on how grandly the author handles the geographical and historical details.
In IgnRom 5.1 Ignatius writes to the Romans from Smyrna that "from Syria to
Rome, by land and by sea" he has been fighting wild beasts (meaning his
Roman guards), which is a peculiar remark if one considers that the bishop's
journey by sea is still before him.

Like the writer of 1 Clement, the author of the seven Ignatian letters also
drops out of his role as bishop and martyr again and again. In IgnEph 5.3,
for example, the seems to have entirely forgotten that he writes as a
bishop, and exhorts the church like someone who has never been invested with
the office of bishop: "Let us then be careful not to oppose the bishop" (cf.
IgnEph 11.1; 15.2; 17.2; IgnMagn 10.1). It is also strange that Ignatius,
who is still uncertain whether he will experience the martyr's death in
Rome, can self-consciously anticipate the result of martyrdom and
characterize himself as Theophoros ("God-bearer") and Christophoros ("Bearer
of Christ"), which according to practice at that time characterized the
martyr only after the death. Here also it is evident that the letters stem
from a later writer, who already looks back on the martyrdom of the
legendary bishop.

...

That the seven Ignatian letters are not authentic letters is shown by the
fact that in general they are stylistically very carefully constructed,
which one would hardly expect for letters having originated under the
arduous conditions of an imprisonment journey. In addition to this, in the
only letter addressed not to a church, but to a person, bishop Polycarp, the
absence of any personal relationship with the addressee is particularly
remarkable:

"Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to Polycarp, who is bishop of the
church of the Smyrnaeans, or rather has God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ as bishop over him, abundant greeting. Welcoming your godly mind,
which is grounded as if on an unmovable rock, I glory exceedingly that it
was granted to me to see your blameless face, for which I remain glad in
God. I exhort you in the grace with which you are endued to quicken your
course and to exhort all men so that they might be saved. Live up to your
office with all diligence, both fleshly and spiritual..."

Nothing could be more general and non-committal! It must be clear to every
reader that in the letter to Polycarp we have to do not with an actual
correspondence, but with literature, an artificial letter. Whoever regards
the letter to Polycarp as inauthentic, which the theologian Hilgenfeld could
already characterize as a "counterpart to the Pastorals," cannot maintain
the authenticity of the rest of the Ignatian letters.

Finally, it should be noted that the number seven is also remarkable for an
assembled collection of letters. In view of the importance that the number
seven had in antiquity (as the symbol of fulfillment), it seems to have
symbolic significance. If one assumes that we have to do here with authentic
letters, it must be asked how and by whom their collection was brought
about. The real situation is much more simple: the letters were conceived as
a collection from the very beginning, as parts of a whole, in which one "
letter" presupposes the other.
Thus, in IgnEph 20.1, for example, Ignatius declares that plans to write "a
second small book" (Significantly, the writer does not speak of a "
letter"), in which he will discuss "the plan of salvation with reference to
the new man Jesus Christ, his faith, his love, his suffering and
resurrection." This second book is then the letter to the Magnesians. That
the letter to the Magnesians presupposes the letter to the Ephesians is
shown by IgnMagn 1.2, where the desire is expressed that the churches might
experience a three-fold unity, "a union of the flesh with the spirit of
Jesus Christ... a union of faith and love... a union of Jesus with the
Father"; for what we have here is a recapitulation of the most important
ideas from the letter to the Ephesians!"

From "Pauline Paradigm and Pauline Authenticity" (Darrell Doughty):

"Early Christian writings such as 1 Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp have
similar paradigmatic significance for our understanding of early Christian
history. These writings are appealed to as evidence that an apostolic
mainstream existed in early Christianity; that "heresy" was not widespread
or significant; that the Pauline writings were circulated, and even
collected, very early (and therefore could not have been subjected to
interpolations); and that the writings of the great apostle were revered in
orthodox Christianity from the very beginning. Even if these writings are
authentic, such claims are questionable. But the authenticity of these
writings is doubtful. [Apart from Polycarp (Phil 13.2), there is no explicit
reference to the letters of Ignatius prior to Eusebius! And apart from
Polycarp, even the name of this supposedly famous martyr is mentioned only
in two obscure passages attributed to Origin (see Lightfoot, The Apostolic
Fathers [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, reprint 1989], Part Two, Vol. 1, 144,
348f). Irenaeus knows a tradition that identifies Clement as the third
bishop in Rome, and relates also that "in the time of this Clement" a letter
was written to the Corinthians by the "Church of Rome" (AH 3.3.3); but he
does not identify "this Clement" as the actual writer of the letter. Clement
of Alexandria refers to the writer of this letter as "Clement" (Strom 1.7),
whom he later identifies as an "apostle" (4.17f); elsewhere he refers to the
writing as the "Epistle of the Romans to the Corinthians" (5.12). An
explicit identification of Clement, supposedly the third bishop of Rome, as
the writer of the letter is again found only in Eusebius (EH 3.16)]
We are told that Theodor Zahn proved "conclusively" that the seven
(Ignatian) letters of the Middle Recension were the "original letters"
(Koester, History: 59), or that after a few textual problems had been
explained, it was shown by Zahn and Lightfoot that "all other features of
the world of Ignatius were compatible with a date somewhere between (say)
100-118 C.E." (Schoedel, Ignatius, 4f). But these are merely paradigmatic
affirmations. The arguments presented by Zahn and Lightfoot for the
authenticity of these writings are certainly learned and detailed. With
regard to their historical assumptions and methodology, however, they do not
differ in kind from the arguments they advanced for the authenticity of
writings such as 1 Peter and James. Their conclusions must be reexamined
from a truly historical-critical perspective."

From "The Evolution of Pauline Canon" (Robert Price):

"Justin Martyr, in his voluminous writings, never mentions Paul. When he is
mentioned by various writers, Paul has nothing distinctive to say, is a pale
shadow and obedient lackey of the Twelve, as in Acts. When Ignatius,
Polycarp, and 1 Clement (all much too blithely taken for genuine early
second-century writings, in my opinion) make reference to Pauline letters,
as Bauer noted, they sound almost like an ill-prepared student trying to
fake his way through a discussion of a book he neglected to read. 1 Clement
(47:1) appears to have thought there was but a single Pauline letter to
Corinth. Ignatius (Ephesians 12:2) somehow imagined that Paul had eulogized
the Ephesians in every one of his epistles. Polycarp thought there were
several letters to Philippi (Philippians 3:2) and that all Paul's letters
mentioned the excellent Philippians (11:3) . The special pleading of Andreas
Lindemann (e.g., Lindemann, "Paul in the Writings of the Apostolic Fathers,"
in Babcock [ed.] Paul and the Legacies of Paul, 1990, 25-43) attempting to
reinterpret these peculiar references as well as to supply some citations of
Paul for these writings, only serves to underline the embarrassment of his
position."

See also "The Philippian Epistles", Van Manen
http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/vanphil.html


> As for the epistles of St. Ignatius (see Jurgens, ibid. 17) their
> authenticity had been
> amply demonstrated by J. B. Lightfoot, Adolph von Harnack, Theodore Zahn,
> and F. X. Funk which had given them universal acceptance. St. Polycarp's
> epistles to the Philippians are also shown to be authentic and are what we
> should expect to find in St. Polycarp's association to St. Ignatius (see
> Jurgens, ibid. 28-29).

No, I don't agree with you. Only a mathematical theorem can be demonstrated
(and only starting from a certain set of axiom). Lightfoot, Harnack, Zahn,
Funk have tried to indicate the soundness of the authenticity of this texts,
but methodologically they have harmonized them with the (assumed) sketch of
Early Christianity achieved by Acts, Pauline Epistles, Fathers (i.e., the
orthodox view of the story).
But precisely this orthodox view is questioned!!
I don't say that the somewhat brilliant works of Harnack etc. are erroneous,
I think simply that their assumptions are to be critically compared with the
set of assumptions (in my view more coherent) of Detering, Doughty, Price
etc.



> See also Bauer who asserts the authenticity of these two epistle
> messengers in Orthodoxy and heresy in the Earliest Christianity (Walter
> Bauer, (Tübingen, 1934; English trans., Fortress Press, Philadelphia,
1971)
> ), posted online by one of the English translators: Robert A. Kraft,
> professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Surely! Thank you very much for the link!!

Best regards
Fabrizio Palestini






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