Hi Robert J,
Thank you for the explanation. If I understand correctly, when you wrote your reply you hadn’t read any of the other posts in the series. I’m assuming that’s why you connect my hypothesis with Robert M. Price’s scenario of “several competing factions acting over many decades in the composition of the correspondence.” That’s not actually what I am proposing. If you are interested, post 4 in the series (http://vridar.org/2013/10/14/a-simonian ... e-letters/) explains how my hypothesis differs from Price’s.
Similarly, if you read post 11 (http://vridar.org/2014/05/28/a-simonian ... continued/) you will see that I do not subscribe to the theory that “The step-mother saga is threaded through the entire Corinthian correspondence.” I think L.L. Welborn’s summation of the situation in 2 Corinthians is basically on target:
“the wrongdoer was a member of the Corinthian church; he was influenced by Jewish-Christian opponents of Paul; his offense took place on the occasion of Paul’s second visit to Corinth; the wrong was an injury in which money was somehow involved; the context of the injurious action was the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem; the Corinthians were somehow complicit in the wrong done to Paul" (L.L. Welborn, An End to Enmity: Paul and the “Wrongdoer” of Second Corinthians, p. 22)
Response to Parvus' Simonian Galatians
Re: Response to Parvus' Simonian Galatians
Hi Roger,RParvus wrote:Hi Robert J,
Thank you for the explanation. If I understand correctly, when you wrote your reply you hadn’t read any of the other posts in the series. I’m assuming that’s why you connect my hypothesis with Robert M. Price’s scenario of “several competing factions acting over many decades in the composition of the correspondence.” That’s not actually what I am proposing. If you are interested, post 4 in the series (http://vridar.org/2013/10/14/a-simonian ... e-letters/) explains how my hypothesis differs from Price’s.
My apologies again, this time for associating Price’s solution with yours. I didn’t read that section and I see now that, among other differences, he proposes more redactors between Simonian origins and later proto-orthodox redactors.
I read several portions of your 15-part (?) article several months ago, but admittedly have not read the entire work. One might argue that I can’t adequately understand the theory without considering the entirety --- a reasonable point. However, as I read through it, I regularly encounter what I believe to be unsupportable, or weakly supported, interpretations of Paul’s letters. Our basic assumptions are very far apart.
When time allows, I’ll address a passage or two related to the step-mother saga in Corinth, related to your citation here from Welborn.RParvus wrote:Similarly, if you read post 11 (http://vridar.org/2014/05/28/a-simonian ... continued/) you will see that I do not subscribe to the theory that “The step-mother saga is threaded through the entire Corinthian correspondence.” I think L.L. Welborn’s summation of the situation in 2 Corinthians is basically on target:
“the wrongdoer was a member of the Corinthian church; he was influenced by Jewish-Christian opponents of Paul; his offense took place on the occasion of Paul’s second visit to Corinth; the wrong was an injury in which money was somehow involved; the context of the injurious action was the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem; the Corinthians were somehow complicit in the wrong done to Paul" (L.L. Welborn, An End to Enmity: Paul and the “Wrongdoer” of Second Corinthians, p. 22)
Re: Response to Parvus' Simonian Galatians
Hi Roger, This is the crux --- our very different basic assumptions.RParvus wrote:Granted, I am assuming that what the proto-orthodox say about Simon’s teaching is basically correct.
A Simonian origin for Paul’s letters faces what I believe to be an insurmountable flaw. Simon is a shadowy figure, even more so than Marcion. And like Marcion, everything we think we know about Simon comes from the biased claims made by his enemies, the mid-late 2nd C. proto-orthodox heretic hunters, and those following in their footsteps.
To assume that “what the proto-orthodox say about Simon’s teaching is basically correct”, is to automatically incorporate into your analysis the bias of these polemicists, men who were engaged in a struggle for authority and patronage.
Until I encounter another theory that better fits the evidence, I see a more natural solution for a handful of Paul’s letters. Not pristine, but not hopelessly compromised either. Not the Great St. Paul, but a flawed man like we all are.
Divergent interpretations for most passages in Paul’s letters are naturally driven by these very different basic assumptions. Any substantive agreement on a great many Pauline passages is unlikely with such differing basic assumptions in place.
That said, I’m still curious about this ---
What in the Corinthian correspondence leads you to agree with the following statement from Welborn, in relation to the step-mother saga? ---RParvus wrote:Similarly, if you read post 11 (http://vridar.org/2014/05/28/a-simonian ... continued/) you will see that I do not subscribe to the theory that “The step-mother saga is threaded through the entire Corinthian correspondence.” I think L.L. Welborn’s summation of the situation in 2 Corinthians is basically on target:
“the wrongdoer was a member of the Corinthian church; he was influenced by Jewish-Christian opponents of Paul; his offense took place on the occasion of Paul’s second visit to Corinth; the wrong was an injury in which money was somehow involved; the context of the injurious action was the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem; the Corinthians were somehow complicit in the wrong done to Paul" (L.L. Welborn, An End to Enmity: Paul and the “Wrongdoer” of Second Corinthians, p. 22)
“the wrong was an injury in which money was somehow involved; the context of the injurious action was the collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem”
Re: Response to Parvus' Simonian Galatians
Hi Robert J,
Simon is shadowy but he at least has one more early external attestation than Paul. That is, if the magician Simon Atomus in Josephus’ Antiquities is our Simon. And even when we first get to the point where an author’s name on a Christian writing is likely not fictitious (Justin), there are still more references to Simon than to Paul. The score in Justin’s writings is Simon 3, Paul zero. I find it also interesting that, contrary to expectation, the proto-orthodox concede Simon was present at Christianity’s first hour. They generally like to portray heresy as a late phenomenon. Thus in Acts 20:29 Paul is made to say: “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you…” But the proto-orthodox make an exception for Simon. He shows up already in Acts 8 and is acknowledged there as a contemporary of Jesus and the Apostles. In the pseudo-Clementines Simon actually blazes the way among the Gentiles and Peter follows in his tracks in order to refute his errors. Why didn’t the proto-orthodox turn this around and make error’s march postdate truth’s? Would it not have been to their advantage to give Christianity a decent halcyon period of undisturbed internal peace? The fact that they don’t makes me wonder whether Marcion was right about the brand of Christianity taught in our earliest extant set of Christian writings (the Paulines).
Regarding your question about the Corinthian correspondence and Welborn’s summation: Please first read post 11 in the series. If you do that I won’t have to repeat as much here.
Have you read it? Good. You now see that I think the “wrong” (adikeo) in 2 Cor. 7:12 is related to the “wrong” (adikeo) in 1 Cor. 6:7. That is to say, I think that in chapters 5 and 6 of 1 Corinthians it is the second century proto-orthodox interpolator—not Paul—who is scolding the first century Corinthian church for various sins. Those sins include, for instance, their pride (“puffed up”) in a founder, Simon, who claimed to have the father’s woman, Wisdom. In reality, Simon’s female associate Helen was a former prostitute. The interpolator makes his new Paul swear off on such an association: “Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Of course not!” (1 Cor. 6:15)
Now in 1 Cor. 6:1-11 the interpolator is scolding the Corinthians because they brought one of their own to court for some unspecified “wrong.” He tells them: “Why not rather allow yourselves to be wronged? Why not rather let yourselves be defrauded?” (1 Cor. 6:7) This language here is similar to that in 2 Corinthians where Paul seems to be contrasting his innocent behavior with some kind of fraud that had been perpetrated: “Make room for us; we have not wronged anyone, or ruined anyone, or taken advantage of anyone. I do not say this in condemnation, for I have already said that you are in our hearts…” (2 Cor. 7:2-3). And the same idea surfaces in the severe letter (2 Cor. 10-13): “For you tolerate it if a man makes slaves of you, or preys upon you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face.” (2 Cor. 11:20) If these are all connected the wrong seems to have entailed some kind of theft or fraud that a person can obtain justice for in court.
How would this tie in with the collection? As with all the various proposals about the “wrong,” this is speculative. But I think we can reasonably take into consideration the immediate context. The chapter that deals with the wrong (2 Cor. 7) is immediately followed by two chapters about the collection. If Paul takes such an interest in a serious theft in the church at Corinth, it may not be with the purest of motives. The collection was on his mind at the time. If Paul was the one who urged the offended to take action against the offender—in 2 Cor. 2:9 he praises them for being “obedient in everything”—maybe he expected they would show some pecuniary gratitude in return by kicking some of the recovered goods into the collection.
Simon is shadowy but he at least has one more early external attestation than Paul. That is, if the magician Simon Atomus in Josephus’ Antiquities is our Simon. And even when we first get to the point where an author’s name on a Christian writing is likely not fictitious (Justin), there are still more references to Simon than to Paul. The score in Justin’s writings is Simon 3, Paul zero. I find it also interesting that, contrary to expectation, the proto-orthodox concede Simon was present at Christianity’s first hour. They generally like to portray heresy as a late phenomenon. Thus in Acts 20:29 Paul is made to say: “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you…” But the proto-orthodox make an exception for Simon. He shows up already in Acts 8 and is acknowledged there as a contemporary of Jesus and the Apostles. In the pseudo-Clementines Simon actually blazes the way among the Gentiles and Peter follows in his tracks in order to refute his errors. Why didn’t the proto-orthodox turn this around and make error’s march postdate truth’s? Would it not have been to their advantage to give Christianity a decent halcyon period of undisturbed internal peace? The fact that they don’t makes me wonder whether Marcion was right about the brand of Christianity taught in our earliest extant set of Christian writings (the Paulines).
Regarding your question about the Corinthian correspondence and Welborn’s summation: Please first read post 11 in the series. If you do that I won’t have to repeat as much here.
Have you read it? Good. You now see that I think the “wrong” (adikeo) in 2 Cor. 7:12 is related to the “wrong” (adikeo) in 1 Cor. 6:7. That is to say, I think that in chapters 5 and 6 of 1 Corinthians it is the second century proto-orthodox interpolator—not Paul—who is scolding the first century Corinthian church for various sins. Those sins include, for instance, their pride (“puffed up”) in a founder, Simon, who claimed to have the father’s woman, Wisdom. In reality, Simon’s female associate Helen was a former prostitute. The interpolator makes his new Paul swear off on such an association: “Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Of course not!” (1 Cor. 6:15)
Now in 1 Cor. 6:1-11 the interpolator is scolding the Corinthians because they brought one of their own to court for some unspecified “wrong.” He tells them: “Why not rather allow yourselves to be wronged? Why not rather let yourselves be defrauded?” (1 Cor. 6:7) This language here is similar to that in 2 Corinthians where Paul seems to be contrasting his innocent behavior with some kind of fraud that had been perpetrated: “Make room for us; we have not wronged anyone, or ruined anyone, or taken advantage of anyone. I do not say this in condemnation, for I have already said that you are in our hearts…” (2 Cor. 7:2-3). And the same idea surfaces in the severe letter (2 Cor. 10-13): “For you tolerate it if a man makes slaves of you, or preys upon you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face.” (2 Cor. 11:20) If these are all connected the wrong seems to have entailed some kind of theft or fraud that a person can obtain justice for in court.
How would this tie in with the collection? As with all the various proposals about the “wrong,” this is speculative. But I think we can reasonably take into consideration the immediate context. The chapter that deals with the wrong (2 Cor. 7) is immediately followed by two chapters about the collection. If Paul takes such an interest in a serious theft in the church at Corinth, it may not be with the purest of motives. The collection was on his mind at the time. If Paul was the one who urged the offended to take action against the offender—in 2 Cor. 2:9 he praises them for being “obedient in everything”—maybe he expected they would show some pecuniary gratitude in return by kicking some of the recovered goods into the collection.
Re: Response to Parvus' Simonian Galatians
Hi Roger,
The passage in Josephus is rife with problems in relation to a Simon Magus. In Josephus (Antiquities, 20.7.2), the magician is a Cypriot Jew, not a Samaritan --- a significant distinction.
And the manuscript evidence is inconsistent and suspect. Some very good manuscripts of Antiquities use only the name “Atomus” for this magician --- but some Latin manuscripts use the name “Simon”.
Perhaps the author of Acts drew upon the magician in Josephus and perhaps not. Regardless, an attempt to sift possible historical truths about Simon Magus, from proto-orthodox church propaganda in Acts, is a questionable endeavor.
Justin included, in his brief biography of Simon, a claim that Simon had been put forth by the devils, and Justin clearly tossed-in the implication that Simon practiced cannibalism. (First Apology, chapter 26).
I can’t get past your assumption that what the proto-orthodox say about Simon’s teaching is basically correct.
I believe these relatively late sources provide only a means to characterize 2nd C. church tradition --- no more. The primary purpose, IMO, of the author of Acts, and in the writings of the proto-orthodox Church Fathers, was to present and defend their version of their faith --- a version that would support their claims of authority and validate their claim on the patronage of hundreds. I believe, for these authors, accurately representing the actual history of the early belief in a Christ spirit was way down their list of concerns. It’s questionable if they even knew much about the actual early history, beyond what their 2nd C., early-catholic traditions held.
I’m familiar with explanations for connections between Simon Magus and the passage from Josephus, and with Acts, Paul/Saul, Cyprus/Gitta in Samaria, Genesis, the NT Gospels, Helena of Adiabene, etc, etc. --- with various aspects and permutations suggested by Detering, Eisenman, Price and others. R.M. Price provides a review in chapter 7 of his, The Amazing Colossal Apostle. In my opinion, such solutions are over-extended, overly-reliant on works of questionable historical veracity, and only result in a house of cards. I haven't read your entire series of articles, and I'm not aiming the preceding sentence at your work.
But we are making the case for two very different origins for Paul’s letters --- with very different basic assumptions. Perhaps someday the “twain shall meet”, but not today. At this point, at least for now, I’m happy to acknowledge that vast gulf and agree to disagree and move on to other work.
I appreciate your elaboration on the step-mother saga. I was wondering if perhaps I missed some important factors related to the issue. I have read part 11 of your article, but our differences on the interpretation of the step-mother issue are too strongly-tied to our very different basic assumptions to allow for much in the way of progress from a continuing discussion. A fun and challenging exercise no doubt --- but for now my priorities lie elsewhere.
Please feel free to have the last words here if you wish. Thanks for the respectful interchange of opinions.
robert j.
The passage in Josephus is rife with problems in relation to a Simon Magus. In Josephus (Antiquities, 20.7.2), the magician is a Cypriot Jew, not a Samaritan --- a significant distinction.
And the manuscript evidence is inconsistent and suspect. Some very good manuscripts of Antiquities use only the name “Atomus” for this magician --- but some Latin manuscripts use the name “Simon”.
Perhaps the author of Acts drew upon the magician in Josephus and perhaps not. Regardless, an attempt to sift possible historical truths about Simon Magus, from proto-orthodox church propaganda in Acts, is a questionable endeavor.
Justin included, in his brief biography of Simon, a claim that Simon had been put forth by the devils, and Justin clearly tossed-in the implication that Simon practiced cannibalism. (First Apology, chapter 26).
I can’t get past your assumption that what the proto-orthodox say about Simon’s teaching is basically correct.
I believe these relatively late sources provide only a means to characterize 2nd C. church tradition --- no more. The primary purpose, IMO, of the author of Acts, and in the writings of the proto-orthodox Church Fathers, was to present and defend their version of their faith --- a version that would support their claims of authority and validate their claim on the patronage of hundreds. I believe, for these authors, accurately representing the actual history of the early belief in a Christ spirit was way down their list of concerns. It’s questionable if they even knew much about the actual early history, beyond what their 2nd C., early-catholic traditions held.
I’m familiar with explanations for connections between Simon Magus and the passage from Josephus, and with Acts, Paul/Saul, Cyprus/Gitta in Samaria, Genesis, the NT Gospels, Helena of Adiabene, etc, etc. --- with various aspects and permutations suggested by Detering, Eisenman, Price and others. R.M. Price provides a review in chapter 7 of his, The Amazing Colossal Apostle. In my opinion, such solutions are over-extended, overly-reliant on works of questionable historical veracity, and only result in a house of cards. I haven't read your entire series of articles, and I'm not aiming the preceding sentence at your work.
But we are making the case for two very different origins for Paul’s letters --- with very different basic assumptions. Perhaps someday the “twain shall meet”, but not today. At this point, at least for now, I’m happy to acknowledge that vast gulf and agree to disagree and move on to other work.
I appreciate your elaboration on the step-mother saga. I was wondering if perhaps I missed some important factors related to the issue. I have read part 11 of your article, but our differences on the interpretation of the step-mother issue are too strongly-tied to our very different basic assumptions to allow for much in the way of progress from a continuing discussion. A fun and challenging exercise no doubt --- but for now my priorities lie elsewhere.
Please feel free to have the last words here if you wish. Thanks for the respectful interchange of opinions.
robert j.
Re: Response to Parvus' Simonian Galatians
Understood that the proto-orthodox description of Simon is a non-starter for you. So my last word will just be one clarification. Welborn himself does not identify the “wrong” in question as an actual theft. He argues that the offender publicly accused Paul of embezzlement in connection with the collection for the saints. But on pages 11 – 15 of his book Welborn does also discuss your preferred solution, i.e., the traditional identification of the wrongdoer with the incestuous man. Those pages as well as a good chunk of the rest of his book can be previewed for free through Google books: https://books.google.com/books?id=Fa6SO ... &q&f=false
Re: Response to Parvus' Simonian Galatians
Thanks for the link to Welborn. I briefly reviewed the preface and was pleased to see a discussion of the composite nature of the received 2 Corinthians. I certainly agree that 2 Corinthians is a composite of more than one letter, and not all compiled in chronological sequence. I look forward to studying the rational he provides for his re-construction scheme, compared to my own different re-construction --- as well as studying his further arguments on the step-mother saga/other wrongs.