Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (27 page)

So too in Philostratus’ defense of the rectitude of Apollonius in the face of published opposition: “And they have forged a certain letter
in the Ionic dialect, of tedious prolixity, in which they pretend that Apollonius went down on his knees to Domitian and besought him to release him of his bonds.”
⁴⁴

Analogous instances occur in Christian sources, as when Augustine avers that the enemies of Christ have attempted to slur the Savior’s reputation by associating him with magical practices, in a letter forged in his name addressed to Peter and Paul (
Cons. Evang
. 1.10). Jerome, as we have seen, on one occasion had to defend himself against slurs leveled against him in a forged correspondence: “he found there a letter purporting to be written by me … in all of which there is not a word of truth.
⁴⁵

The use of forgery in polemical contexts, in any event, was widespread, as seen clearly by Horst Balz: “Forgeries were considered literary means of war and were answered with counter-forgeries.”
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Further examples of this phenomenon from within the Christian literary tradition will occupy us for the bulk of this study.

Some forgeries appear to have been produced in order to fill in a lacuna known to exist in a tradition. As an example, Plato indicates in the Phaedo (60 D) that while awaiting his death in prison, Socrates composed some “lyrics,” based on Aesop’s fables and the Prelude to Apollo. Later some such verses were in circulation, as attested by Diogenes Laertius, who indicates that some people claimed that Socrates composed a final paean to Apollo and Artemis between his condemnation and death, two lines of which are quoted: “All hail, Apollo, Delos’ lord! Hail Artemis, ye noble pair!” The authenticity of the lines, however, were called into doubt, as noted by Diogenes himself: “But Dionysodorus denies that he wrote the paean.”
⁴⁷

The Christian tradition attests numerous forgeries intended to fill gaps in the dominical and apostolic traditions. In no small measure this accounts for the stories of Jesus’ infancy in wide circulation, later to be written down in such works as the (redactionally) pseudepigraphic Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, and for the narratives of his activities between his death and resurrection, as in the Gospel of Nicodemus. From the apostolic side the most famous instance is “Paul’s” extant letter to the Laodiceans, to which we will devote considerable attention later. If nothing else, the letter was occasioned in part by the mention of some such correspondence in the canonical, but also probably forged, letter to the Colossians (4:16). If a letter “from Laodicea” was said to have once existed, it is no surprise that someone—or more than one person, as we will see—invented a version of it. The surviving text may well have been meant also to provide an alternative to the Marcionite forgery already in circulation, much as somewhat later, the Christian Acts of Pilate, detailing episodes from Jesus’ trial and death, were meant to replace the earlier, and extremely popular, but forged, pagan Acts of Pilate, which probably explained in narrative detail how Jesus fully deserved his fate.
⁴⁸

Judging from discussions of ancient practices of pseudepigraphy in New Testament scholarship, one might think that one of the most commonly attested contexts in antiquity for writing under an assumed name was in the philosophical schools, where, allegedly, students commonly wrote treatises of their own but signed them in the name of their teacher as an act of humility, since, after all, the thoughts of the student were simply those given him by one who was greater. In point of fact, this is one of the least attested motivations for pseudepigrapha in antiquity, and there are solid reasons for questioning whether it was ever a motivation at all. As this judgment stands at odds with what Neutestamentlers have been taught and have themselves taught for decades, it will be necessary to devote a considerable amount of attention to the issue and to the ancient evidence that lies at the heart of it.

The common view of New Testament scholars has been recently expressed in an otherwise helpful article on “Pseudonymity and the New Testament Canon” by Harry Gamble, who maintains that there were occasions in antiquity where “pseudonymous authorship appears to have been conventional and innocuous,” giving as his key example the “followers of Pythagoras” who “composed
philosophic and scientific works under his name, ascribing to him all that they knew.”
⁴⁹
So too, Margaret MacDonald, in her commentary on Colossians and Ephesians, can state: “Viewing Colossians (or Ephesians) as deutero-Pauline should not be mistakenly understood as meaning that these documents are simply examples of forgery. For example, to write in the name of a philosopher who was one’s patron could be seen as a sign of honor bestowed upon that person.”
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So too in another standard commentary on Colossians, Markus Barth and Helmut Blank claim that: “Pseudonymous documents, especially letters with philosophical content, were set in circulation because disciples of a great man intended to express, by imitation, their adoration of their revered master and to secure or to promote his influence upon a later generation under changed circumstances.”
⁵¹
And in a study of Ephesians Michael Gese maintains:

Students to a greater or lesser extent put the thoughts of their teachers into writing, whereas great heads of schools frequently taught only orally. The authorial ascription therefore named the intellectual author to whom in the last instance the content of the work could be traced. People in antiquity did not perceive such an ascription as forgery.
⁵²

I cite these studies not because they are striking in their novelty, but because they express the
opinio communis
.
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This view, however, is not only expressed in commentaries on New Testament pseudepigrapha. It is a major contention among scholars of forgery as well, as a look at the recent study of Armin Baum and the older work of Norbert Brox makes particularly clear.
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One might ask what ancient evidence New Testament scholars provide in support of their assertions about the pseudepigraphic practices of the philosophical schools. In most cases—for example, in the vast majority of biblical commentaries—the answer is completely unambiguous: as a rule, they cite no evidence for the practice at all. The existence of the practice is simply asserted, stated as a fact, as if it must be so because so many scholars have assumed it is so. It is striking that those few (e.g., Baum) who do appeal to ancient evidence never cite any sources from the time of the New Testament or of the second century. In no small measure this is because no such evidence exists.

The sources that are sometimes discussed—at some length by Baum—come from later times. The two that have figured most prominently in the discussion are the Neoplatonists Porphyry and Iamblichus, who speak of the literary output of the school of Pythagoras, who lived eight hundred years earlier. As it turns out, however, one of these two sources, Porphyry, does not say what scholars have claimed he says, and the other, Iamblichus, is highly problematic for reconstructing what actually happened in the Pythagorean school. Neither source mentions anything about “common practices” of any of the other philosophical schools, let alone of philosophical schools in general, and neither says a word about practices of pseudepigraphy in the time period of our concern, the early Christian centuries.

Before turning our attention to the alleged evidence of Porphyry and Iamblichus, we might consider several other sources that could conceivably be used to support the idea that students of philosophers wrote with impunity in the names of their teachers. In his thirty-third epistle, Seneca indicates that whereas the sayings of the Stoic teachers all differ from one another, those of the Epicureans are unified: “With them, on the other hand, whatever Hermarchus says, or Metrodorus, is ascribed to one source. In that brotherhood, everything that any man utters is spoken under the leadership and commanding authority of one alone.”
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This statement could conceivably be construed as meaning that everything an Epicurean wrote he ascribed
to Epicurus. But in fact the comment says nothing about Epicurean authors writing books while claiming to be Epicurus. It is referring to oral communications and indicates that what others in the school say, they attribute to the authority (one might assume) of Epicurus himself. Even if Seneca is referring to writings of the school, the attribution of one’s own views to Epicurus could, of course, be accomplished in orthonymous as easily as in forged writings (e.g., by quoting Epicurus).

Suetonius, in his treatise “On Grammarians,” says of Antonius Gnipho:

He wrote a great deal. Atieus Philologus, however, declares that he left but two volumes, “On the Latin Language,” maintaining that the other works attributed to him were those of his pupils and not his own (nam cetera scripta discipulorum eius esse non ipsius). Yet his own name is sometimes found in them. (
ch. 7
)
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This comment does come closer to indicating that students of a philosopher might write a book claiming to be their teacher. On closer examination, however, it appears instead to indicate that anonymous books by students were sometimes falsely
attributed
to the teacher. It is not clear what it means that his own name was found in them; it is not obvious, in any event, that it must mean that his name was found in the authorial inscription (i.e., as placed there by the author himself, claiming to be Antonius Gnipho; it could just as well meant that his name is found in, say, an inscription added to the writing by a later editor). In any event, Suetonius does not indicate anything about this being a common practice, let alone an acceptable one. On the contrary, he seems to want to know who actually wrote the books.

Finally, Diogenes Laertius speaks of works written in Pythagoras’ name by others. He claims that Pythagoras wrote three treatises, “On Education,” “On Statesmanship,” and “On Nature”; others were written in his name (
Lives
8.6–8). Here again, however, there is no indication that Diogenes saw this as an acceptable practice—that is, as something other than forgery in the negative sense—and he says nothing about it being common. And he, like Suetonius, is interested in knowing who actually wrote the books.

In his extensive analysis of pseudepigraphy and canon, Armin Baum maintains that a key ancient witness to the common and accepted practice, in ancient philosophical schools, of writing treatises in the name of a teacher is the Neoplatonist Porphyry (234–304
CE
).
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In this he is followed by other scholars, including Martina Janssen in an otherwise full and insightful article.
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Before evaluating what Porphyry actually says in the passage in question, it is worth pointing out that this alleged witness to the “common” practice in philosophical schools refers only to the school of Pythagoras and, yet more significant, dates 750–800 years after the fact.
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How useful such a statement could be for understanding what was happening in early Christianity (say, two hundred years earlier) is very much open to question. But is Porphyry even referring to pseudepigraphic practices of Pythagoras’ school, so many centuries earlier?

As Baum notes, the passage is not preserved in the Greek manuscript tradition of Porphyry, but only in an Arabic translation. The text is found in the lengthy book by Ibn Abi Usaybi’a,
Kitab ‘uyun al-anba’ fi tabaqat al-atibba
,
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which, understandably, Baum did not actually read; he relied instead on the account of B. L. Van der Waerden.
⁶¹
I too do not read medieval Arabic. But the passage is important, and so I asked my colleague Carl Ernst, who specializes in Medieval Islam, to translate it for me. The passage does not say what Baum claims it does.