On dating the Gnostic literature after 325 CE

[perseusomega9]

In the Acts of Paul, Paul is wandering around in the wilderness and stumbles upon a talking lion who Paul promptly baptizes. At the conclusion of the story Paul is thrown to lions in the Colleseum and lo and behold he is protected by the very same lion. One good turn deserves another. Aesop - the Lion and the Mouse. But Paul is the mouse.

And how does that date the Acts of Paul?

[perseusomega9]

It's funny you mention MacDonald, because he places the pastorals in opposition to Paul/Thecla stories, whether written or oral, and he leans oral. His thesis also places them in 2nd century Rome as the catholic church was making the new religion acceptable to Roman sensibilities with respect to family order, slaves, and moderating the apocalypticism of the early church which shunned sexual (wife=>children) duties or general abstinence along with trying to fund the manumission of slaves, and caring for widows (converts or virgins).

crap, reference

http://www.amazon.com/The-Legend-Apostl ... 0664244645

[Leucius Charinus]

(a)The 4th century interpolation into Josephus, known as the "Testimonium Flavianum", is regarded by many as a critically positioned forgery, with respect to the history of the NT Canonical story.
(b) Likewise the "Testimonium Tertullianum", it is suggested, should be regarded as a critically positioned forgery, with respect to the history of the NT Apocryphal stories.

How does (b) follow from (a)?

(b) does not follow (a) it is similar to (a).

That is Josephus has often been used to attest to an historical Jesus while Tertullian is always used to attest to an historical heretic - the author of the Acts of Paul.

How on earth do you make the leap from Eusebius added to Josephus to THEREFORE all references in Patristic literature which contradict Pete's fourth century conspiracy must also be interpolations. :banghead:

You are doing the leaping here. This discussion is about dating the Gnostic literature from first principles. The NT Bible can have been written in the 1st or 2nd century and we are still left with the question when were the NT non canonical books authored. This discussion is about the idea that the Gnostic literature is a 4th century political reaction to the widespread publication and status of the Constantine Bible - irrespective of when the Bible was authored.

I am happy to assume the NT was written by the apostles under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the 1st century for the purposes of this thread.

This thread is about the century in which the Gnostic heretics first authored their "blasphemy".

[Leucius Charinus]

It's funny you mention MacDonald, because he places the pastorals in opposition to Paul/Thecla stories, whether written or oral, and he leans oral. His thesis also places them in 2nd century Rome as the catholic church was making the new religion acceptable to Roman sensibilities with respect to family order, slaves, and moderating the apocalypticism of the early church which shunned sexual (wife=>children) duties or general abstinence along with trying to fund the manumission of slaves, and caring for widows (converts or virgins).

People can present valid arguments and still get the chronology wrong. The hypothesis about chronology does not follow the hypothesis adopted by MacDonald or anyone else in the field. The hypothesis about a post-Nicaean literary reaction is novel and is being explored here.

Thus I do not follow MacDonalds chronology, but I do follow his thesis that the Acts of Andrew etc were authored by an author who had an expert knowledge of Homer.

I hope this makes sense.

[perseusomega9]

It's funny you mention MacDonald, because he places the pastorals in opposition to Paul/Thecla stories, whether written or oral, and he leans oral. His thesis also places them in 2nd century Rome as the catholic church was making the new religion acceptable to Roman sensibilities with respect to family order, slaves, and moderating the apocalypticism of the early church which shunned sexual (wife=>children) duties or general abstinence along with trying to fund the manumission of slaves, and caring for widows (converts or virgins).

People can present valid arguments and still get the chronology wrong. The hypothesis about chronology does not follow the hypothesis adopted by MacDonald or anyone else in the field. The hypothesis about a post-Nicaean literary reaction is novel and is being explored here.

Thus I do not follow MacDonalds chronology, but I do follow his thesis that the Acts of Andrew etc were authored by an author who had an expert knowledge of Homer.

I hope this makes sense.

Then if you don't mind placing the pastorals in the late 1st to mid 2nd century, how are the Acts of Paul/Thecla a 4th century reaction if the argument is valid but the chronology incorrect?

[Leucius Charinus]

It's funny you mention MacDonald, because he places the pastorals in opposition to Paul/Thecla stories, whether written or oral, and he leans oral. His thesis also places them in 2nd century Rome as the catholic church was making the new religion acceptable to Roman sensibilities with respect to family order, slaves, and moderating the apocalypticism of the early church which shunned sexual (wife=>children) duties or general abstinence along with trying to fund the manumission of slaves, and caring for widows (converts or virgins).

People can present valid arguments and still get the chronology wrong. The hypothesis about chronology does not follow the hypothesis adopted by MacDonald or anyone else in the field. The hypothesis about a post-Nicaean literary reaction is novel and is being explored here.

Thus I do not follow MacDonalds chronology, but I do follow his thesis that the Acts of Andrew etc were authored by an author who had an expert knowledge of Homer.

I hope this makes sense.

Then if you don't mind placing the pastorals in the late 1st to mid 2nd century, how are the Acts of Paul/Thecla a 4th century reaction if the argument is valid but the chronology incorrect?

My argument is that before the 4th century the Bible was not widely read by the pagan philosophers and academics. Its Greek was not elegant enough, and it was proliferated with CODES which were nowhere explained. Thus even if one was Greek literate what on earth did the nomina sacra codes represent? The earliest bibles did not provide a list of meanings, o who could understand it without going to a Christian church and asking?

Given this scenario, we do know as a reasonably secure fact that Constantine widely published a version of the bible in his rule (ordered from Eusebius) as did his son Constantius in his rule (ordered from Athanasius). We also know that there was a massive controversy at precisely this time (what was the full political story of the Arian controversy we may never know), the details of which are represented in the ecclesiastical histories from the 5th century. I think it is very reasonable that this controversy included the authorship and circulation of "Blasphemous Books" which seemed to be very popular with the common people. There is evidence to support this.

The basic idea is that even if we allow the canonical books and the pastorals to have been written in the 1st or 2nd century, my point is that it was not until the 4th century, when these books were raised to the political spotlight, that we can expect a reaction to have occurred. Look at it this way. The NT is authored in the 1st or 2nd century, but there were no heretics because there was no overt political orthodoxy. Only when the overt political orthodoxy was created by Constantine can we really expect anyone to sit up and take notice of the NT Bible. Finally, when the NT Bible became the "Holy Writ" of the Roman Empire under Constantine, we can certainly expect a political reaction - in fact a major controversy amongst the academic Greek philosophers and theologians.

The hypothesis being explored is that there was no literary reaction to the canonical books of the NT Bible while the Christians were an insignificant and underground sect. On the contrary, the hypothesis is that the literary reaction (i.e. the gnostic Acts and Gospels) would be expected at that moment in history when the bible was raised from obscurity to become the most important set of books in the Roman Empire c.325 CE.


MacDonald has identified the modus operandi behind the authorship of the non canonical Acts of Andrew and Matthias. The author took a part of the story by Homer and set into this the characters who have appeared in the Constantine Bible. The authors of the non canonical works in general took bits and pieces out of the canonical books - events, characters, phrase - and recombined them in different combinations and permutations, adding novel elements at the same time. This is already generally admitted. The heretics were "cobblers of tales" in which Jesus and the Apostles appeared.

Their books were deemed heretical blasphemous and UNOFFICIAL because Constantine wanted just his canonical Bible books as the only official "Holy Writ".

Am I explaining myself adequately?

[perseusomega9]

That hypothesis does not seem able to explain MacDonald's idea that sections of the pastorals were a literary reaction to the Paul/Thecla stories circulating orally, especially among the order of widows, as in the gossipy old women that "Paul" writes about. The pastorals also go on a normalization campaign to bring christian community praxis in line with Roman family values. Hence the encouragement to marriage, women being saved through childbirth, exclusion of young virgins from the order of widows, encouragement of widows to remarry, and forbidding women to teach. The ideal of Thecla inspired too many young women to forego family obligations by abandoning marriages, becoming celebate within marriage, and having children. Those ideals conflicted heavily with the Roman idea of the family as the basic unit of society. Furthermore, by not marrying or leaving marriages, many widows were left without support since their care was dependent on the son-in-law. That caused further disruption within Roman society. This all fits well in the 2nd century as the church was moving away from apocalypticism (which has no need for marriage) and battling some gnostic systems with respect to celibacy and asceticism.

So if you grant the pastorals could be written in the 1st-2nd century, how does your 4th century literary reaction idea explain the Paul/Thecla stories?

[PhilosopherJay]

If gnostic literature was a reaction against orthodoxy, we would expect to see stronger parallels. Most gnostic literature make no points at all about any of the NT gospel stories. When you react against something, you have to parallel it in some way. For example, Jane Austen's novels are a reaction against the sentimental novels of the 18th and early 19th century. These novels saw love as infintely more important than other practical considerations. Her themes and plot parallel them, but she subverts them by grounding them in economic realities of the period, showing the conflict between sense (money) and sensibility (love).
One can clearly see that the last James Bond movie "Skyfall" was a reaction against the success of the Jason Bourne spy movies. In them, an unstoppable, superspy turns against the organization that trained him. Instead of his being the hero of the story, in "Skyfall," he is the villain.
One cannot find any such meaningful parallels in most of the gnostic literature to the gospels.

[Leucius Charinus]

That hypothesis does not seem able to explain MacDonald's idea that sections of the pastorals were a literary reaction to the Paul/Thecla stories circulating orally, especially among the order of widows, as in the gossipy old women that "Paul" writes about.

My response would be to contend that the correspondences so found may also represent that the "Acts of Paul and Thecla" was a literary reaction to the Pastorals.

The pastorals also go on a normalization campaign to bring christian community praxis in line with Roman family values. Hence the encouragement to marriage, women being saved through childbirth, exclusion of young virgins from the order of widows, encouragement of widows to remarry, and forbidding women to teach.

A very male dominated model of the church to be sure. Why in fact was the church under Constantine and following to this very day male dominated? Why was it unheard of that there were women members of the church clergy who could baptise?

The hypothesis explains that the Thecla story appears, like in a romantic novel, to parody this male dominated pastoral model.

The ideal of Thecla inspired too many young women to forego family obligations by abandoning marriages, becoming celebate within marriage, and having children.

The hypothesis attempts to explain that the Thecla ideal was a literary reaction to the male pastorals. Many of the non canonical acts are described by scholarship as "romantic novels", "popular entertainment" for the masses. Using the hypothesis being discussed here, the person who would soon become a the post Nicaean author of the "Acts of Paul and Thecla" had just read the Greek Constantine Bible containing the pastoral letters, and the gospels and Acts, and Paul, and the LXX. His response was to write a story featuring "Paul" in which a key character was Thecla - a "Woman Baptiser", a female "church minister". This was blasphemous! This was heretical! This was totally unauthorised ... with respect to the emperor's agenda with the caonical books.

Do you understand this alternative explanation, in which the correlates are from the Pastorals to the "Thecla Story"?

Those ideals conflicted heavily with the Roman idea of the family as the basic unit of society. Furthermore, by not marrying or leaving marriages, many widows were left without support since their care was dependent on the son-in-law. That caused further disruption within Roman society.

One of the greatest disruptions to Roman society, it may be argued, occurred in the 4th century when Constantine brought in the Christian religion and its Canonical Books as a "holy writ" of a centralised monotheistic state. Let me be clear that I am sketching a political history here. The massive controversy and disruption to Roman society following Nicaea has been ameliorated by the victors - the history of the Arian controversy commencing 325 CE. Our sources for this are three 5th century Ecclesiastical historians, who appear to have overlooked many 4th century sources, now lost.

The first attestation to an "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" (Index of Prohibited Books) is found with Eusebius c.325-337 CE. Prohibited were the books of these vile gnostic heretics. The hypothesis explores the contention that these books appeared during the lifetime of Eusebius, and in response to the appearance of the "Sacred Scriptures" of the canonical books - in the form of the Constantine Bible.

This all fits well in the 2nd century as the church was moving away from apocalypticism (which has no need for marriage) and battling some gnostic systems with respect to celibacy and asceticism.

The battle between orthodox and heretics was made political under Constantine. Until Gnostic literature was discovered (including the Nag Hammadi Codices) all that everyone thought they knew about these gnostic heretics (authors of the non canonical acts and gospels) was taken from the reports and mentions and references in the writing of the heresiologists - Irenaeus via Eusebius, etc, etc, etc. Can we expect the orthodoxy to represent their worst enemies (the heretics) without any conflict of interests? Not likely. The orthodoxy seems to have written pseudo-historical polemic against all the heretics.

The idea being explored is that the heretics and their books "suddenly appeared" in reaction to the status and appearance of the Constantine Bible.

So if you grant the pastorals could be written in the 1st-2nd century, how does your 4th century literary reaction idea explain the Paul/Thecla stories?

The correspondences are two way as outlined above. One is dependent upon the other - but in which order [chronologically]?

It may be argued that the story of Thecla appears as a reaction to the male dominated pastoral messages, and Acts, and Paul and the Gospels. But the story of Thecla is not alone, because the heretic gnostics wrote many gospels and many acts and many apocalyses and indeed "Letters". We need to study all of them in order to evaluate the idea that all of them were a reaction to the Constantine Bible, in Greek, after c.325 CE. Many of these non canonical stories are described as "Greek romance novels".

[Leucius Charinus]

If gnostic literature was a reaction against orthodoxy, we would expect to see stronger parallels. Most gnostic literature make no points at all about any of the NT gospel stories. When you react against something, you have to parallel it in some way.

Here are some parallels that it would be good to discuss ...

(1) The Characters: The gnostic literature (by this I mean all non canonical books etc) concerns itself with Jesus, the Apostles, Paul. The stories are different but the characters indeed the names of the books are all from the canon. Certainly other characters are interwoven such as Seth, Adam, Hermes, Asclepius, and Female voices.

(2) The Genre: The canonical set has one Act of the Apostles. The Gnostic material has more than 30 "Acts", and most of the apostles get their own "Acts of" and in many cases two apostle names and used for the title of the book. The canonical set has 4 gospels, while the non canonical set has more than 20 "Gospels". Is this not a striking parallel in itself - the gnostics appear to have cloned the canonical books.

(3) The Plot: The gnostic material nearly always deals with the post-resurrected Jesus, and the Apostles are still trying to ask question.

(4) The NOMINA SACRA: The Constantine Bible used codes to represent Jesus, Christ, God, etc and it may have appeared to the academics of the Roman Empire who witnessed to implementation of the "Christian Revolution and State" that the Emperor was quite entitled to nominate the god of his choice - as was customary. Constantine's god was to be found encoded in a Greek book. The Gnostic authors used these same codes to platform the characters in their books. In the "Gospel of Thomas" the Jesus said .... repetition uses the Jesus CODE in Coptic. One interpretation of this Gospel of Thomas is that it was an effort by post Nicaean gnostics to preserve their wisdom sayings by putting these sayings into the mouth of Constantine's new god - CODE NAME.

(5) THE TONE: The serious Canonical Books and the "Monty Pythonish" MILLS and BOON non canonical romance adventure stories. Jesus does not laugh in the canonical books but is presented as laughing by the gnostics.

(5) Parallels by cloning: Do the non canonical books clone many things - characters, events, sayings - of the canonical books? I think there is an argument that they indeed do (just as the canonical books clone the LXX)

(6) SATIRE & PARODY: I would like to explore the possibility that at least some elements of some non canonical books use satire and parody of their canonical counterparts. Here we are looking for "Monty Pythonish" treatments of the canonical material. Resurrecting smoked fish, commanding bed bugs, camels through needles, travelling hither and thither on "bright clouds", Jesus appearing and disappearing, sometimes a boy, a man, a child,

One cannot find any such meaningful parallels in most of the gnostic literature to the gospels.

I have listed some parallels above for discussion.

DIAGRAM of Presumed Chronology of the New Testament Apocrypha









DIAGRAM of Alternative Proposed Chronology of the New Testament Apocrypha