Splendide Mendax: Rethinking Fakes and Forgeries....

[StephenGoranson]

Splendide Mendax
Rethinking Fakes and Forgeries in Classical, Late Antique, and Early Christian Literature

Edmund P. Cueva and Javier Martínez (Eds.)


ISBN-13: 9789491431982

Publication year: 2016

Publication type: Book

Pages: IX, 369

Cover: Hardcover

Format: 170 x 240 x 25 mm; 800 g; b & w ill.

Price excl. VAT: €95.00

Price incl. VAT: €100.70

Scholars for centuries have regarded fakes and forgeries chiefly as an opportunity for exposing and denouncing deceit, rather than appreciating the creative activity necessary for such textual imposture. But should we not be more curious about what is spurious? Many of these long-neglected texts merit serious reappraisal, when considered as artifacts with a value beyond mere authenticity. We do not have to be fooled by a forgery to find it fascinating, when even the intention to deceive can remind us how easy it is to form beliefs about texts. The greater difficulty is that once beliefs have been formed by one text, it is impossible to approach the next without preconceptions potentially disastrous for scholarship.

The exposure of fraud and the pursuit of truth may still be valid scholarly goals, but they implicitly demand that we confront the status of any text as a focal point for matters of belief and conviction.

Many new and fruitful avenues of investigation open up when scholars consider forgery as a creative act rather than a crime. We invited authors to contribute work without imposing any restrictions beyond a willingness to consider new approaches to the subject of ancient fakes and forgeries. The result is this volume, in which our aim is to display some of the many possibilities available to scholarship when the forger is regarded as "splendide mendax" - splendidly untruthful.

Contents

Acknowledgments ix

I. Introduction 1

Javier Martínez
Cheap Fictions and Gospel Truths 3

II. Classical Works 21

Brian R. Doak
Remembering the Future, Predicting the Past: Vaticinia ex eventu in the Historiographic Traditions of the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East 23

Gaius C. Stern
Imposters in Ancient Persia, Greece, and Rome 55

III. Greek Literature 73

Reyes Bertolín
The Search for Truth in Odyssey 3 and 4 75

Valentina Prosperi
The Trojan War: Between History and Myth 93

Emilia Ruiz Yamuza
Protagoras's Myth: Between Pastiche and Falsification 113

Jakub Filonik
Impiety Avenged: Rewriting Athenian History 125

Mikel Labiano
Dramas or Niobus: Aristophanic Comedy or Spurious Play? 141

Edmund P. Cueva
ὃ γὰρ βούλεται τοῦθ̓ ἕκαστος καὶ οἴεται: Dissembling in the Ancient Greek Novel 157

IV. Latin Literature 175

Andrew Sillett
Quintus Cicero's Commentariolum: A Philosophical Approach to Roman Elections 177

Klaus Lennartz
Not Without My Mother: The Obligate Rhetoric of Daphne's Transformation 193

Michael Meckler
Comparative Approaches to the Historia Augusta 205

V. Late Antique Works 217

Anne-Catherine Baudoin
Truth in the Details: The Report of Pilate to Tiberius as an Authentic Forgery 219

Kristi Eastin
Virgilius Accuratissimus: The "Authentic" Illustrations of William Sandby's 1750 Virgil 239

Luigi Pedroni
The Salii at the Nonae of October: Reading Lyd. Mens. 4.138 W 273

Cristian Tolsa
Evidence and Speculation about Ptolemy's Career in Olympiodorus 287

VI. Early Christian Works 301

Scott Brown
Mar Saba 65: Twelve Enduring Misconceptions 303

Argyri Karanasiou
A Euripidised Clement of Alexandria or a Christianised Euripides? The Interplay of Authority between Quoting Author and Cited Author 331

Markus Mülke
Heretic Falsification in Cyprian's Epistulae? 347

Contributors 355

Indices 361
Index locorum 361
General Index 363

[Peter Kirby]

These seem vaguely interesting.

Michael Meckler
Comparative Approaches to the Historia Augusta 205

Anne-Catherine Baudoin
Truth in the Details: The Report of Pilate to Tiberius as an Authentic Forgery 219

Scott Brown
Mar Saba 65: Twelve Enduring Misconceptions 303

Markus Mülke
Heretic Falsification in Cyprian's Epistulae? 347

Particularly "Heretic Falsification in Cyprian's Epistulae."

(In general, it's nice to add a bit more than some book notice copypasta, btw.)

[StephenGoranson]

The Introduction, “Cheap Fictions and Gospel Truths” by Javier Martinez notes that false texts may be interesting anyway, even if proven to be misrepresentations—fair enough, though not a new idea.

There is some discussion of the Mar Saba Letter and the “Gospel of Jesus Wife,” perhaps not completely accurate, though considerable additional evidence about the latter may have become public after the time this chapter was written.

One questionable claim (on page 6): “Morton Smith is treated by these men [who question the ancientness of the text] as a fictional character….” I don’t think so. (I read Smith; I heard Smith; I met Smith; I corresponded with Smith, a real human, not fictional.)

Scott Brown’s chapter is one-sided, though he does seem to acknowledge that various arguments (for differing conclusions) are better or worse than others; perhaps many can agree with that. But (though he includes references through 2013) he leans heavily (unfairly) on the handwriting report of Venetia Anastasopoulou (2009, 2010) without mentioning even once the expert paleographer Agamemnon Tselikas, whose knowledge of old Greek may be greater and who reached a different conclusion. Unfair.

By the way, when I make notes for myself, others may find my handwriting quite hard to read, but when I write, say, a letter, I’m much neater. I you ever saw Smith’s fair copy of the To Theodore text (in the JTSA archive), you could see his extremely neat handwriting, labeled “manufactured in the United States”—a legal note and/or a joke?

Brown states that even those baptized in Alexandria—a considerable number-- knew of the “Longer Mark Gospel,” as something to have access to upon further initiation. And those further initiated. And Carpocratians. And Clement. And Theodore. That’s a lot of people for no one to mention such before 1958!

[Secret Alias]

As the co-author of - what is to be - the most recent published paper on the subject let me just say that it is only because scholarship didn't have the proper mechanisms in place for the evaluation of discoveries that has allowed this ridiculous situation to emerge in the first place. I think we can all agree that 1958 - 1984 this MS was in libraries associated with the Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Where the text is now and where it was before 1958 is up for debate but in the end the debate is pretty much worthless because of entrenched arguments which resulted from a lot of wild speculation some of which appeared in published form. But my question as always is - what's the proper threshold for excluding a document from consideration when developing theories and understanding of the development of early Christianity? This has always been my POV with this document.

Mostly religious-minded contemporary scholars (I know there are exceptions) use the forgery argument to say 'don't use this argument in your reconstruction of early Christianity.' That's the bottom line. But I have to admit, seen from my perspective most of the documents used in traditional constructions of models for early Christianity have equally dubious value. Acts is basically an ancient romance and probably a fiction. The letters of Paul were rewritten in order to reflect a certain POV and many were outright forgeries. The gospels were similarly rewritten and forged. The real Josephus account of the Jewish War was a short Aramaic 'outline' behind War and Life which was expanded by later Greek 'assistants' likely unsupported by Josephus himself. The Patristic texts were rewritten and reworked and are often not even authored by the individuals attributed to them in the incipit.

That has always been the real battleground for me. If you say this Mar Saba text is a pastiche or a forgery the same can be said for all the 'good' documents of the Christian tradition. In the same way as these critics want to add an asterisk to the Mar Saba text we should do the same for the canon and say effectively THIS IS WHAT IRENAEUS WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF THE CHURCH. I think that's fair enough. When you want to say 'Morton Smith might have forged this' we should use the canon and Patristic literature with the caveat 'likely altered' or 'from' the 'imagination of Irenaeus.'

In the same way as Irenaeus was the discoverer of all these or most of these canonical texts, Morton Smith was the discoverer of To Theodore. Want to be absolutely cautious with Morton Smith, better do the same with Irenaeus, better do the same with Josephus ...