The earliest Pauline material: 1 Corinthians

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Irish1975
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The earliest Pauline material: 1 Corinthians

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Walter Bauer reached the conclusion, although he did not like the implications, that the earliest Pauline material was nothing other than some primitive draft of 1 Corinthians. This hypothesis seems to get little attention today. But it aligns strikingly with Thomas Brodie’s analysis of Paul, which he arrived at through an altogether different, i.e. literary rather than historical, analysis of the canonical Pauline material itself.

Proceeding backwards in time, Bauer notes that neither Hegesippus, nor Papias, nor Justin take any notice of Paul whatsoever. But there is awareness of Paul in the writings of Polycarp, Ignatius, and 1 Clement. Although scholars have attempted to find echoes of Romans or even Galatians among these fathers, Bauer is unimpressed. The only Pauline text known to them was 1 Corinthians.

Dropping midstream into his argument, we find Bauer rejecting fanciful attempts to see an extensive knowledge of Paul in the letters of Ignatius—

The reason I will have nothing to do with the question of indirect influence is the futility of an argumentation based on only halfway satisfactory evidence. Although such an influence cannot be denied for Paul in those decades in general, we are in no position to define and delimit it with precision in this particular instance any more than in others. My awareness of the extremely fragmentary nature of our knowledge also prevents me from speaking on this matter even with limited confidence. I cannot possibly adopt a procedure which draws straight lines between the few more or less sure points that can still be ascertained, and thus manages to make connections between relatively remote items -- connections the possibility and nature of which remain completely obscure. Paul and Ignatius are separated by a full half century that was quite rich in events of great significance for the Christian cause, and within which the development of Christianity in Antioch is almost completely unknown to me. The history of Paul has not encouraged me to expect that this city, where the Christian community did not belong to his circle during his lifetime and which received no letter from him, should suddenly open itself to him and to his writings (see above, 63). The period after Paul's death would seem to us to have been much more a time of diminution of the Pauline sphere of influence, rather than expansion. And what we may still have been in a position to ascertain concerning the shape of Christian life in Antioch to the time of Ignatius (above, 65-67) indicates that influences other than that of Paul were at work there and connects Ignatius to them, despite all his resistance.

Of course, all doubt would fade away if in the essentials of his teaching Ignatius were perceptibly dependent on statements from the Pauline epistles. But that is not the case. The only letter that could with certainty be ascribed to Ignatius' use was, as we saw above, 1 Corinthians -- that unit among the major Pauline letters which yields the very least for our understanding of the Pauline faith. And it is not even a "dogmatic" passage such as 1 Corinthians 15 that had bewitched Ignatius. But the Pauline proclamation certainly can not overflow into the postapostolic age through the channel of 1 Corinthians. If the preservation and promulgation of the Apostle's preaching really had been the intention behind the original circulation of Pauline letters in this period, then Romans and the terribly neglected second letter to the Corinthians, which completely sank into oblivion alongside the first, would have had to provide the source to a much greater extent that actually took place. But in our investigation of the impact of the Pauline writings, whenever we come from the marshy ground of "reminiscences" and "allusions" to firmer territory, again and again we confront 1 Corinthians. This was true for Polycarp (see above, 217), is true for Ignatius, and will also be true for 1 Clement. It seems to me that the last named, 1 Clement, holds the solution to the riddle of why 1 Corinthians, which is so meager in didactic content, should have preference -- an esteem that accorded first place to it in the oldest collection of Pauline letters of which we are still aware.

For Bauer, the earliest proto-orthodox “esteem” for 1 Corinthians, which he thought emerged earliest in 1 Clement, had its entire basis in the Roman church’s conservative political agenda, i.e. to seize the mantle of apostolic authority in the face of schism.

All the other epistles emerge only with Marcion. Bauer even dares to suggest, albeit in the usual indirect way, tempered by reassuring platitudes elsewhere, that Philemon—and Galatians itself!—was written by Marcion.

It would not surprise me if we owed to his perception the short communication of Paul to Philemon, this purely private letter that hardly would have been read in communities prior to Marcion. And whoever wonders with Harnack why "the letter to the Galatians has been preserved for us at all" perhaps may also feel himself indebted to Marcion, since prior to his activity sure traces of Galatians are lacking, while the uncertain traces are sharply limited to Polycarp.

But to understand Bauer’s analysis properly, it is necessary to read (at least) the whole portion of Chapter 9 that treats of the reception of Paul. This is excerpted below—

The apostle Paul holds claim to a special place. It may be even more necessary here than elsewhere to approach the evidence without prejudice. What is the significance [[*216]] of the Apostle to the Gentiles in the ideological struggle? Where do we encounter his influence? Where is there a sense of obligation to him? Once again we will proceed by moving back from the end toward the beginning. At the same time, we would do well to remember what we have already discovered to be the probable history of many a community founded by Paul. We need to be clear about the fact that the Apostle did not always succeed in maintaining a firm hold over what he possessed. Even outside the circle of the Jewish Christians,\31/ with their bitter hatred of Paul and the resulting blunt rejection of everything influenced by him, we hear him disparaged.\32/

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\31/ On the attitude of the Jewish Christians toward Paul, see my treatment in Hennecke\2, pp. 127 f., [and in Hennecke-Schneemelcher, 2: 71. See also below, 236, 262 f.].

\32/ See above, 149 n. 5. Appeal may also be made to James 2.14-26 as evidence of how difficult it was to retain an undistorted recollection of the Apostle to the Gentiles.

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Hegesippus took his stand as a follower of the Old Testament and the Lord, but aroused our doubts (above, 196f.) as to whether he really had listed completely, as he apparently intended, the fundamental basic authorities for all orthodox churches of his time. We have denied that this was the case for those at Corinth and Rome, where the apostle Paul with his collection of letters must have stood [[214]] alongside the Old Testament and the Lord around the year 180. But for Hegesippus himself that does not yet seem to have been the case, so that for him "the law and the prophets and the Lord" were, in fact, ill disposed toward this supplementation by means of Paul. This follows not only because in the other relevant passage he also simply refers to "the divine scriptures and the Lord" (above, 196 n. 3). It is much more significant that he was acquainted with the first epistle of Clement to Corinth (EH 4.22.1 f., 3.16), but not with 1 Corinthians. Rather, in the second passage mentioned above (196 n. 3), in a manner expressing complete ignorance, he immediately plays off against it "the divine scriptures and the Lord," particularly the saying of the Lord "Blessed are your eyes, since they see, and your ears, since they hear" (according to Matt. 13.16).\33/ In 1 Corinthians 2.9, however, quite the opposite is said -- "The good things prepared for the just no eye has seen nor ear heard," etc. Now in the fifth book of his Memoirs Hegesippus declares that this saying [[*217]] is preposterous and only deception and opposition to Scripture could express itself in this manner (above, n. 33). But even if 1 Corinthians is unknown, then, as we shall also see, Paul is thereby completely removed from the picture. In view of everything we know about who showed preference for the content of 1 Corinthians 2.9,\34/ there can be no doubt who those people were who conducted themselves with such enmity toward truth -- they were the gnostics, with whom Hegesippus also crosses swords elsewhere (EH 4.22.5).

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\33/ Stephen Gobarus, according to Photius, Library, codex 232. [To clarify the argument, the context is reproduced here: "'The good things prepared for the just (ta h(toimasmena tois dikaiois agaqa) no eye has seen nor ear heard nor have they ascended to the human heart' (cf. 1 Cor. 2.9). Hegesippus, an ancient and apostolic man, says in the fifth book of his Memoirs -- I do not know quite what he meant -- that these words were spoken vainly, and those who said them lied against both the divine sciptures and the Lord who said 'Blessed are your eyes....'"]

\34/ See Bauer, Johannesevangelium\3, pp. 4 f.

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When we move back from Hegesippus to one of similar stripe, Papias, and ask what this bishop of a community that belonged to the regions reached by the Apostle to the Gentiles and was already in existence during Paul's lifetime (Col. 4.13) thought of Paul, it appears to me that again only one answer is possible -- nothing. We are already to some extent prepared for this since we fittingly connected Eusebius' failure to record any expression of opinion by Papias concerning [[215]] the Gospel of Luke with the fact that the Third Gospel was the gospel used by the heretic Marcion (see above, 184 f., 187). When EH 3.39.12-17 informs us that Papias valued the Apocalypse quite highly, that he used the apostolic gospels of Matthew and of Mark/Peter along with other traditional materials from the circle of the twelve and finally that he also cites from 1 John and 1 Peter while in the same context various persons of the apostolic age to whom Papias appealed are mentioned by name (EH 3.39.2-10), its silence about Paul and his letters is completely clear, and cannot be interpreted any differently from the corresponding approach toward the gospels of Luke and John. Papias must have assumed a negative attitude here as well, even if it also may have manifested itself only through silence. That, in fact, the remains of the literary activity of Papias never show anything even vaguely resembling Pauline coloration is only mentioned in passing, since if this observation had to stand alone, it would prove precious little in view of the paucity of the remnants of Papias. Taking everything together, however, we find in Papias a churchman who, in addition to the Apocalypse and the genuine gospel tradition emanating from the bosom of Palestine, holds those two writings in highest regard which indicate their ecclesiastical orientation in a particularly clear way, the one [[*218]] by its origin in Rome and its Petrine authorship [1 Peter], the other by its explicitly anti-gnostic thrust [1 John]. The letters of Paul (so long as we still must disregard the pastoral Epistles) could in no way compete with such writings, especially since they were compromised through the patronage of people like Marcion.

Justin, the contemporary and coreligionist of Papias, was no more successful than the latter in acquiring anything from the Apostle to the Gentiles. That is even more peculiar in his case since he carried on his activity in Rome, where "Peter and Paul" was the watchword, and at least Romans and 1 Corinthians were available. But in the case of Justin also, one must sharply minimize the claims of Pauline reminiscences in order to arrive at an acceptable result.\35/ Such allusions are of no help to me, since at best they spring up occasionally from the subconscious but evidence no kind of living relationship with Paul. Or what is one to think of this matter in view of the fact that it does not occur to the apologist to mention Romans 13 when [[216]] he argues that the Christians have always patriotically paid their taxes (Apol. 17) -- Theophilus of Antioch refers to this chapter (Autolycus 1.11, 3.14); or that 1 Corinthians 15 in no way plays a role in Justin's treatise On the Resurrection -- Athenagoras calls the apostle to mind in his treatment (On the Resurrection 18)? Rather, for Justin everything is based on the gospel tradition. And if a third question may be allowed, how is one to explain the fact that in the discussion of the conversion of the gentiles and the rejection of the Jews (Apol. 49) any congruence with Romans 9-11 is omitted, despite the fact that they both, apologist and apostle, appeal to Isaiah 65.2? In this light, the fact that the name of Paul is nowhere mentioned by Justin acquires a special significance that can hardly be diminished by the observation that the names of the other apostles also are absent. In one passage we hear of John, the apostle of Christ, as the author of Revelation (Dial. 81.4); and even though the names of the apostles are not mentioned on other occasions, there are repeated references to their "Memoirs." With respect to Paul, not only is his name lacking, but also any congruence with his letters. But for a learned churchman who carried on his work in Rome around the middle of the second century to act thus can only [[*219]] be understood as quite deliberate conduct.\36/ And if pressed to suggest a reason for this, it would seem to me that the most obvious possibility here would also be the reference to Marcion.

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\35/ On this matter, cf. Bousset, Evangeliencitate Justins, pp. 121-123.

\36/ It is fitting also to be reminded of Celsus, who could hardly have gained his insight that orthodoxy represented the "great" church over against the heretics (Origen Against Celsus 5.59; cf. 5.61 where the ecclesiastically oriented Chistians are<gk>oi( apo tou plhqous</gk>, "those of the multitude") anywhere but in Rome, and thus it was apparently there that he pursued his basic studies of the religion he combatted. For him also, the gospels are overwhelmingly of the synoptic type, and he also surely knows certain Pauline ideas, but not letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles, Cf. K. J. Neumann, RPTK\3, 3 (1897): 774.42 ff.; H. J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament\3 (Freiburg im B,, 1892), p. 111.

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The fact that in Rome, unlike Hierapolis, the gospel of Luke did not experience a temporary rejection together with the letters of Paul is surely due to geographical considerations. Perhaps one might wish to explain in a similar manner the fact that another churchman, who stood in the forefront of the battle with heresy and whom we know especially as an opponent of Marcion, Polycarp of Smyrna, has a much more positive relationship to the letters of Paul than did Justin. [[217]] Still, it is more accurate to find the reason for this in chronological rather than geographical limitations, and to remind ourselves that Polycarp wrote his epistle to the Philippians a good while before Marcion appeared. Thus he needed to feel no reservations about using Paul for support as he attempted to strengthen the backbone of the ecclesiastical minority in a Christian community that the Apostle to the Gentiles had founded and to which he had sent epistolary instructions (see above, 71-74). For him the blessed and illustrious Paul, with his wisdom, was a most valuable ally -- Polycarp knew full well that the Apostle to the Gentiles had instructed the Philippians not only orally, but also by means of letters.\37/ And although Polycarp apparently was not even exactly clear as to the number of such letters, and does not avoid the kind of language illustrated by the matter-of-fact way in which his ecclesiastical consciousness associates "the other apostles" with Paul (9.1), this is insufficient reason to doubt that he was acquainted with the canonical epistle to the Philippians. Concerning the other Pauline epistles, it seems to me that there are clear indications only for his having read 1 Corinthians and probably also Romans. Galatians and Ephesians also might have belonged to his collection, but I cannot free myself from doubts concerning the pastoral [[*220]] Epistles.\38/ Polycarp clearly agrees with Papias, however, in the use of 1 Peter, which Eusebius had already noted (EH 4.14.9), and of 1 John (Polycarp Phil. 7.1).

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\37/ Polycarp Phil. 3.2. On the plural "letters," see Bauer, Ignatius, ad loc. (p. 287), [and also Schoedel, Polycarp ... Papias, pp. 14f.].

\38/ Cf. M. Dibelius, Die Pastoralbriefe, Handbuch zum NT 13\2 (1931) on 1 Tim. 6.7 and 10 [this commentary subsequently has been revised by H. Conzelmann, 1955\3 and 1964\4]. See also below, 222-225 and 226 f.

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We have already heard of the sympathy which the Antiochian churchman Ignatius, probably stimulated by Rome, showed toward the apostles Peter and Paul (above, 112, 117). In contrast to Polycarp, Ignatius does not betray any knowledge (as yet) of 1 Peter, nor of 1 John. But when we then inquire further as to the influence of Paul and his epistles, the result also is not very impressive. To be sure, alongside obvious deviations Ignatius advocates ideas, or perhaps better, attitudes that we similarly observe in the Apostle to the Gentiles who, like Ignatius, was facing martyrdom, and here and there Ignatius comes close to Paul with regard to external form. But a direct, fully conscious dependence on the letters of Paul still does [[218]] not occur. In the single letter of Polycarp, who can be called a spiritual disciple of Paul only in a very limited way, the latter is mentioned by name three times (3.2, 9.1, 11.2-3), and once a Pauline saying is explicitly quoted (11.2 = 1 Cor. 6.2). But in the seven letters of Ignatius, with the exception of the Roman watchword concerning Peter and Paul (Rom. 4.3), Paul appears only in Eph. 12.2 in a passage which does not exactly attest an extensive knowledge of the content of a relatively large number of Paul's letters. There Ignatius explains that Paul mentions the Ephesians "in every letter." That this is not true for our collection is generally acknowledged, and I regard as wasted effort all attempts to prove that it is at least approximately correct. As a matter of fact, if we exclude the pastoral epistles and the inscription of Ephesians, the city of Ephesus is mentioned by Paul only in 1 Corinthians (15.32, 16.8). And it is precisely that letter of the Apostle to the Gentiles, and indeed only that letter, which Ignatius assuredly had read. As for other letters of Paul [[*221]] only a possibility exists\39/ -- this may be sufficient for those who are sympathetically disposed, but it cannot be forced upon anyone.

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\39/ If Ignatius also knew Ephesians (compare the inscription to his Ephesian letter with the Pauline Eph. 1.3 ff.; this has the best claim after 1 Corinthians), and already knew it as a letter to Ephesus (which is unlikely on account of Marcion [who seems to call it "Laodiceans"]), then the plural implied in the words "every letter" would be explained. [Grant, Ignatius, p. 43, accepts an older interpretation that takes the phrase <gk>en pash epistolh</gk> to mean "in an entire letter," referring to Ephesians alone.] Of course, it would be explained almost equally well if it were conceded that the passage refers to Romans (16.5) and 2 Corinthians (1.8) with their references to Asia (see below, 221).

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The reason I will have nothing to do with the question of indirect influence is the futility of an argumentation based on only halfway satisfactory evidence. Although such an influence cannot be denied for Paul in those decades in general, we are in no position to define and delimit it with precision in this particular instance any more than in others. My awareness of the extremely fragmentary nature of our knowledge also prevents me from speaking on this matter even with limited confidence. I cannot possibly adopt a procedure which draws straight lines between the few more or less sure points that can still be ascertained, and thus manages to make connections between relatively remote items -- connections the possibility and nature of which remain completely obscure. Paul and Ignatius are separated by a full half century that was quite rich in events of great significance for the [[219]] Christian cause, and within which the development of Christianity in Antioch is almost completely unknown to me. The history of Paul has not encouraged me to expect that this city, where the Christian community did not belong to his circle during his lifetime and which received no letter from him, should suddenly open itself to him and to his writings (see above, 63). The period after Paul's death would seem to us to have been much more a time of diminution of the Pauline sphere of influence, rather than expansion. And what we may still have been in a position to ascertain concerning the shape of Christian life in Antioch to the time of Ignatius (above, 65-67) indicates that influences other than that of Paul were at work there and connects Ignatius to them, despite all his resistance.

Of course, all doubt would fade away if in the essentials of his teaching Ignatius were perceptibly dependent on statements from the Pauline epistles. But that is not the case. The only letter that could with certainty be ascribed to Ignatius' use was, as we saw above, 1 Corinthians -- that unit among the major Pauline letters which yields the very least for our understanding of the Pauline faith. And it is not even a "dogmatic" passage such as 1 Corinthians 15 that had bewitched Ignatius. But the Pauline proclamation certainly can not overflow into the postapostolic age through the channel of 1 Corinthians. [[*222]] If the preservation and promulgation of the Apostle's preaching really had been the intention behind the original circulation of Pauline letters in this period, then Romans and the terribly neglected second letter to the Corinthians, which completely sank into oblivion alongside the first, would have had to provide the source to a much greater extent that actually took place. But in our investigation of the impact of the Pauline writings, whenever we come from the marshy ground of "reminiscences" and "allusions" to firmer territory, again and again we confront 1 Corinthians. This was true for Polycarp (see above, 217), is true for Ignatius, and will also be true for 1 Clement. It seems to me that the last named, 1 Clement, holds the solution to the riddle of why 1 Corinthians, which is so meager in didactic content, should have preference -- an esteem that accorded first place to it in the oldest collection of Pauline letters of which we are still aware.\40/ [[220]]

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\40/ In the Muratorian Canon. Marcion also attests this attitude, even if he himself inserts Galatians before it. Cf. Jülicher-Fascher, Einleitung\7, pp. 546 f.

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We already know what made 1 Corinthians so valuable to the author of 1 Clement. He was not at all concerned with the Pauline gospel; in that case he would have put Romans, which also was available to him, to a different use than he actually does.\41/ 1 Corinthians was an extremely important weapon for him in the conflict against Corinth (see above, 114), and perhaps it had been passed along to him by his allies there. Since the most obvious interpretation of 1 Clement 47.1 indicates that at the beginning of the controversy the author knew only one letter of Paul to Corinth, it seems that the entire Corinthian heritage from Paul had not already made its way to Rome during peaceful times for purposes of edification.\42/ Whatever Clement appropriates from 1 Corinthians makes a point against the adversaries in Corinth -- 1 Cor. 1.11-13 = 1 Clem. 47.3; 1 Cor. 12.12 ff. = 1 Clem. 37.5-38.1; and even a portion of the [[*223]] hymn concerning love, 1 Cor. 13.4-7 = 1 Clem. 49.5. And from that time on, the purpose of 1 Corinthians was firmly established for the church: "First of all, to the Corinthians, censuring the heresies of schism" (primum omnium Corinthiis schismae haereses interdicens, Muratorian Canon, lines 42f.). But it is really rather peculiar and in need of an explanation that this extensive and multifaceted epistle is supposed to have had only this purpose.\43/

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\41/ Strictly speaking, he uses it only for the purpose of moral admonition -- 1 Clem. 35.5-6, following Rom. 1.29-32; 1 Clem. 33.1, following Rom. 6.1.

\42/ It also seems that the letter to the Philippians was not yet used in Clement's Roman church. Otherwise he surely also would have remembered Phil. 2.1-12 when he refers to the example of the humble Christ (16.17) and when he matched Paul against the Corinthians (47.1).

\43/ Indeed, the Muratorian Canon is so greatly under the influence of this attitude, which has been transmitted to it, concerning the purpose of the epistle, that even 2 Corinthians is pictured as not having any different aim (lines 42 and 54 f.).

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If we are not content to believe that it was by an accident of fate that, in the course of scarcely twenty years, precisely 1 Corinthians came to be firmly established and given special honor within the churches of Rome, Smyrna, and Antioch, then it must have been that church in which 1 Corinthians first came to be prized so highly -- indeed, the only church that had a discernible reason for such an attitude -- it must have been Rome that took the initiative. Rome did not want to withhold such an approved weapon from its allies in the fight against heresy. On this occasion Smyrna also may have [[221]] received the epistle to the Romans, the use of which cannot be established for contemporary Antioch, although that possibility is not thereby excluded. Perhaps at that time both communities also obtained 2 Corinthians from the world capital, a document that Rome surely brought home as valuable booty from its Corinthian campaign. Some sort of compelling evidence of such possession, to be sure, can be offered at present neither for Smyrna nor even for Antioch. But such considerations may be left aside, even though they might throw a ray of light, albeit a woefully weak one, on the lengthy and obscure history of the collection of Pauline epistles.\44/ [[*224]] It appears to me to be to some degree probable that 1 Corinthians was put at the disposal of the orthodox communities in Symrna and Antioch by Rome, about the year 100. That it at that time may also have received the widely discussed "ecumenical" stamp (1.2)\45/ is a suggestion that may be excusable in a book that is forced to rely so heavily on conjectures.

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\44/ The situation with regard to the collection of the Pauline epistles is entirely different from that of the letters of Ignatius. The latter were written one after another and then were immediately brought together. With Paul, those letters which are surely genuine cover a period of a decade, and were sent to at least six different, in part widely separated localities (Galatia, Colossae, Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, Rome). Further decades were required to establish the prerequisites according to which pseudo-Pauline letters could be added (Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians; prior to the year 110 according to Jülicher-Fascher, Einleitung\7, p. 67), and last of all the pastoral Epistles. That in a period when Pauline influence was declining, extant collections of his letters had been systemattcally completed everywhere at once is doubtful to me, and I can hardly regard it as really proven that Polycarp possessed a collection of ten, to say nothing of thirteen, Pauline writings [ -- regardless of what he had of the letters of Ignatius].

\45/ Cf. Harnack, Briefsammlung, p. 9; Jülicher-Fascher, Einleitung\7, p. 472; Lietzmann, ''Zwei Notizen zu Paulus,'' pp. 3-5 [= 151-153]. In this way, Lietzmann's question in his commentary An die Korinther, ad loc., also would be answered: "Why should the redactor have dealt only with 1 Corinthians in that manner, while sparing all the other epistles?"

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The small collections of Pauline letters, which were cherished at the beginning of the second century in the "churches" of Rome -- doubtless just as in similarly oriented Corinth, in Antioch and Smyrna\46/ -- were then surpassed and replaced by Marcion's more complete collection. I would regard him as the first systematic collector of the Pauline heritage. He who ruthlessly rejected the Old [[222]] Testament and everything of primitive Christian tradition that stemmed from Palestine, was plainly bent on giving his teaching as broad a Pauline foundation as possible, while on the other hand, he was in a position to realize his aspirations since he was a well-traveled, educated, affluent person with numerous connections. It would not surprise me if we owed to his perception the short communication of Paul to Philemon, this purely private letter that hardly would have been read in communities prior to Marcion. And whoever wonders with Harnack why "the letter to the Galatians has been preserved for us at all"\47/ perhaps may also feel himself indebted to Marcion, since prior to his activity sure traces of Galatians are lacking, while the uncertain traces are sharply limited to Polycarp.

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\46/ Here the development flourished most extensively, since Polycarp possessed especially wide-ranging connections. He was an Asiatic, but also was in touch with Antioch and Rome, and even had contacts in Macedonia.

\47/ Harnack, Briefsammlung, p. 72.

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It is well established that Marcion came from Pontus, the neighbor of Galatia, and as he traveled out into the world, he could not have avoided the communities to which Paul had addressed his communication. Possibly he had already become acquainted with this letter in his native land. In any event, it is certain that it was from Galatians\48/ [[*225]] and not, say, from Romans with its concise explanation that Christ was the end of the law (10.4), that Marcion got the idea about how he could break the back of the Old Testament, so highly treasured by so many Christians, and drive the Jewish apostles of Jerusalem from the field. Then on his journey through Asia Minor, and as he went further westward until he reached Rome, he may have collected everything that anyone here or there in the Christian communities possessed from Paul. Perhaps, together with the note to Philemon, he also brought to the West at that time the epistle to the Colossians, of which we are unable to detect even the faintest trace prior to Marcion.\49/

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\48/ That is the only way to explain the fact that in Marcion's holy sciptures, Galatians stands first in the collection of Paul's letters.

\49/ With the exception of Ephesians, if it is spurious; but we do not know when and where it made use of Colossians.

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In line with this approach, it is difficult for me to believe that Marcion had already known the pastoral Epistles, which are not included in his canon. He who with utmost passion was in hot pursuit of every line from Paul -- he had to be! -- and who because of the paucity of traditional material would hardly permit any large scale wastefulness, also would have pressed these three epistles into his [[223]] service by reworking them. There would have been even less reason to reject all of them together insofar as the epistle to Titus, which from Marcion's perspective would not be wedded for better or worse to the epistles to Timothy,\50/ offered very little of offense to him. But if this assumption is correct and is taken seriously, the further hypothesis seems to me valid that the pastoral Epistles still were not in existence at the time that Marcion made his decision as to the extent of the Pauline material. I see no way to accept Harnack's view:

Around the year 140, Marcion knew a collection of only ten letters; in all probability he did not reject the pastoral Epistles, but simply did not know them. But we are in the fortunate position of being able to trace back to around the year 100 not only the collection of the ten letters, but even that of the thirteen letters, for Polycarp's letter to the Philippians at the time of Trajan shows us through its quotations and allusions that [[*226]] our present collection, including the pastoral epistles, was already in use both in Smyrna and in Philippi. The Pastorals thus had been added to the collection of ten letters already prior to Marcion, and the older collection was supplanted immediately in almost all the churches. Not only the original collection but also that containing 13 letters take us back to the end of the first century as the terminus ad quem!\51/
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\50/ Just as little as it was for those heretics who, according to Clement of Alexandria, rejected only the two epistles to Timothy (Strom. 2.[11.]52), while we hear of Tatian that he recognized just the epistle to Titus (Jerome Preface to the Commentary on Titus 7 = Vallarsi ed. p. 686; Migne PL 26).

\51/ Harnack, Briefsammlung, p. 6.

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Thus there is portrayed for us here a Marcion who comes through Asia to Rome, but the pastoral Epistles elude him despite the fact that they have been in use -- and indeed not sporadically here and there, but as parts of a collection in official use -- for more than a generation, and even right in Smyrna, a city with which Marcion was in contact during his journey.\52/ Such a Marcion seems to me to be an impossibility, and for that reason the observations that led Harnack to his conclusions should be assessed differently. The basic reason for assigning an early date to the Pastorals is, for Harnack and many others, the notion that Polycarp reproduces "three passages from the pastoral Epistles in his letter."\53/ Whoever agrees with me in [[224]] concluding from the negative stance of Marcion toward the Pastorals that prior to him (to say nothing of the time of Trajan) they cannot already have received recognition as letters of Paul (to choose a very guarded form of expression), will explain those "quotations" either (1) by denying that they reflect any direct dependence\54/ but instead derive from the common use of an established stock of ideas (as in the corresponding case of the contacts between Ignatius and the Fourth Gospel; see above, 209 f.), recalling that such connections also exist between the Pastorals and 1 Clement, and to close the triangle, even between 1 Clement and Polycarp -- connections that reflect a standardized way of speaking common in ecclesiastical circles; or, (2) if the citations appear quite unambiguous to him, he will have to conclude that it is the Pastorals that are derivative, and their author was dependent on Polycarp.\55/ That author doubtless comes from the same circle of orthodoxy as Polycarp. All the arguments against such an order of dependence do not in the least neutralize the force with which Marcion resists the assumption [[*227]] that the pastoral Epistles had already been regarded with veneration within Christendom prior to the beginning of his activity.\56/

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\52/ Harnack, Marcion\2, p. 28 (referring to Polycarp's rebuke of Marcion; above, 70].

\53/ Harnack, Briefsammlung, p. 72,

\54/ Cf. M. Dibelius, Pastoralbriefe, pp. 6, 53, 55.

\55/ [H. F. von Campenhausen has even argued that Polycarp was the author of the Pastorals; see below, 307. On the problem in general, see also Schoedel, Polycarp ... Papias, pp. 5, 16, etc.]

\56/ Moreover, even the Muratorian Canon preserves the recollection that the pastoral Epistles were added at first as a supplement to a collection that had ended with the letter to Philemon (lines 59 ff.).

=====

If we want to understand the origin of the pastoral Epistles, we must remember that just as the gospel of John began its existence as a heretical gospel, so Paul also enjoyed the favor of the heretics to a great extent. Marcion simply represents a high point, and is by no means a unique case. Zahn thoroughly demonstrated the close relationships of Valentinus and his school to the Apostle to the Gentiles;\57/ according to Clement of Alexandria Strom. 7.(17.) 106, Valentinus is supposed to have listened to Theodas, an acquaintance of Paul. The Valentinians "maintain that Paul has made use of the basic concepts of their system in his letters in a manner sufficiently clear to anyone who can read" (Zahn, 751). "The manner in which they cite the Pauline letters is just as respectful as the manner we find [[225]] used by the teachers of the church of the following\58/ decades and centuries" (756). "The teaching of Valentinus is just as inconceivable without the letters of Paul as without the prologue to the Fourth Gospel, and it is no accident that Paul is preferred by all Valentinians as the preacher of the hidden wisdom who speaks out most clearly" (758). It is demonstrable that Basilides also made use of Romans and 1 Corinthians, and there may be some truth to Jerome's claim that Basilides treated the pastoral Epistles in the same way as Marcion (in the passage cited above, 223 n. 50). I need not continue naming other gnostics who appreciated Paul.\59/ Second Peter 3.16 will have occurred to everyone in this connection. And for the Montanists, Paul was just as indispensable as a witness to the activity of the spirit in primitive Christianity as was the gospel of John with its Paraclete. Even the Muratorian Canon (lines 63-68) complains that heretics are producing false letters of Paul in order to make propaganda for their false teaching by using the stolen prestige of the Apostle to the Gentiles. [[*228]]

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\57/ Zahn, Geschichte, 1.2 (1889): 751-758.

\58/ Italics mine. However, I reject Zahn's continuation as an unproved prejudice; "That was precisely the phraseology that Valentinius found to be dominant in the church and that his school appropiated."

\59/ Cf. R. Liechtenhan, Die Offenbarung im Gnostizismus(Göttingen, 1901), p, 79.

=====

In this light, the reluctance with which the representatives of the church made use of the Apostle to the Gentiles around the middle of the second century (Papias, Justin, Hegesippus; above, 213-215) seems to me to be explicable. Perhaps, as the situation developed, some would have preferred henceforth to exclude Paul completely and to rely exclusively on the twelve apostles. But it was already too late for that. Rome (together with the "church," which it led) had already accepted too much from the Apostle to the Gentiles, had appealed to him too often, suddenly to recognize him no longer. He had become a martyr-apostle of Rome -- had helped it to develop the popular slogan "Peter and Paul"; and even if Rome did not really know how to begin to put to use Paul's letter to the Romans, 1 Corinthians had proved itself to be extremely productive for purposes of church politics in the hands of Rome. By that means, Paul and his letter came to have permanent claims on the "church." There were other cases as well where Christianity subsequently had to come to terms with all sorts of things that it had originally accepted without [[226]] question and from which it could not simply retreat as circumstances changed. Thus initially one spoke without embarrassment, in accordance with the facts (and it is easy enough to find additional examples) about how Jesus also had been baptized; he was happy to be able thus to anchor the Christian practice to the life of Jesus. But then, in the struggle with evil or contrary antagonists, he took great pains to make a convincing case for the superiority of Jesus over John, or to explain just what Jesus could have expected to gain by being baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

Thus, despite all heretical misuse, Paul had to be retained as the "church's" apostle. But it was, of course, desirable henceforth to mark him unequivocally with the ecclesiastical and anti-heretical stamp. In the light of this, I am inclined to see the pastoral Epistles as an attempt on the part of the church unambiguously to enlist Paul as part of its anti-heretical front and to eliminate the lack of confidence in him in ecclesiastical circles. As its answer to the heretical Apostle of the epistles to Laodicea and Alexandria, "forged in the name of Paul" (Pauli nomine finctae, Muratorian Canon, lines 64 ff.) the church raised up the Paul of orthodoxy by using the same means.\60/ Such a need may have been felt even prior to Marcion. But since it [[*229]] is difficult to find satisfactory evidence that the pastoral Epistles already were in existence prior to him (see above, 222-224), there is really no reason why it could not have been his appearance that gave the church the decisive impulse for their production. Indeed, if Polycarp cannot serve as the terminus ad quem for the pastoral Epistles, explicit attestation requiring knowledge of them occurs first with the churchman Irenaeus, who begins his great work Against Heresies with the words "of the apostle" from 1 Timothy 1.4 (AH 1.preface).

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\60/ This sort of analysis of the purpose of the Pastorals does not, of course, exclude the other view which sees them as a weapon in the conflict with the heretics. Cf. above, 76.

=====

However unpopular this view currently may be and however little I myself shared it a short time ago, it no longer seems to me today to be improbable that 1 Timothy 6.20 refers to Marcion's Antitheses -- perhaps even before they were put into written form.

I cannot accept the outlook which rejects such a late origin for the Pastorals because "in that case a reference to the great gnostic [[227]] systems would be expected."\61/ We do, in fact, know of an orthodox author who doubtless flourished subsequent to Basilides, Valentinus, and Marcion, and yet makes no clear reference to these teachings; but in spite of this he wants to draw the Apostle to the Gentiles into the ecclesiastical phalanx of heresy fighters in much the same way as we have suspected of the author of the pastoral Epistles. I am referring to that presbyter in Asia who produced the Acts of Paul at about the same time that the Asian Irenaeus, motivated by the same ecclesiastical spirit, opposed the gnostics with the help of the Pastorals. These Acts speak in language "clearly saturated with reminiscences of the pastoral Epistles."\62/ Their author also has Paul advocating, by means of a letter (so-called 3 Corinthians; see above, 42 n. 99), the ecclesiastical viewpoint in opposition to a gnostic aberration that cannot be clearly identified.

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\61/ As in Dibelius, Pastoralbiefe, p. 6.

\62/ Rolffs in Hennecke\2, pp. 196 f. [See now also Schneemelcher in Hennecke-Schneemelcher, 2: 348.]

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The price the Apostle to the Gentiles had to pay to be allowed to remain in the church was the complete surrender of his personality and historical particularity. If already in the pastoral Epistles he has strayed far from his origins, in the Acts of Paul and the Epistle of the Apostles he has become merely the docile disciple of the twelve from whom he receives his instructions.\63/ [[*230]] But even this sacrifice did not really help him. Wherever the "church" becomes powerful, the bottom drops out from under him and he must immediately give way to the celebrities from the circle of the twelve apostles. We have seen this same process taking place in Ephesus, in Corinth, in Rome and Antioch, with variations only on account of the differing locations and their respective histories (see above, 83 f., 112-118). And we soon reach the point where the church no longer needs the apostle to the nations for any mission, but divides up the entire world among the twelve. To some extent, Paul becomes influential only as part of the holy scriptures acknowledged in the church -- not the personality of the Apostle to the Gentiles and his proclamation, but the word of Paul [or, the word "Paul"] whenever it is useful for the development and preservation of ecclesiastical teaching. But that involves [[228]] looking beyond the limits of the period presently under discussion. In our period we observe how the introduction of the pastoral Epistles actually made the collection of Paul's letters ecclesiastically viable for the very first time. Perhaps 1 John, which has a pronounced anti-heretical tone and came to be valued quite early in the church (Polycarp, Papias), performed a similar service for the heretical gospel of John.

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\63/ See above, 114 n. 6, and cf. C. Schmidt ''Ein Berliner Fragment der alten <ts> Praxeis Paulou</ts>,'' Sb Berlin 6 for 1931, pp. 5 f. [= 39 f.].

=====

//End Ch.9//

lclapshaw
Posts: 777
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 10:01 am

Re: The earliest Pauline material: 1 Corinthians

Post by lclapshaw »

Irish1975 wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 8:32 am Walter Bauer reached the conclusion, although he did not like the implications, that the earliest Pauline material was nothing other than some primitive draft of 1 Corinthians. This hypothesis seems to get little attention today. But it aligns strikingly with Thomas Brodie’s analysis of Paul, which he arrived at through an altogether different, i.e. literary rather than historical, analysis of the canonical Pauline material itself.

Proceeding backwards in time, Bauer notes that neither Hegesippus, nor Papias, nor Justin take any notice of Paul whatsoever. But there is awareness of Paul in the writings of Polycarp, Ignatius, and 1 Clement. Although scholars have attempted to find echoes of Romans or even Galatians among these fathers, Bauer is unimpressed. The only Pauline text known to them was 1 Corinthians.

Dropping midstream into his argument, we find Bauer rejecting fanciful attempts to see an extensive knowledge of Paul in the letters of Ignatius—

The reason I will have nothing to do with the question of indirect influence is the futility of an argumentation based on only halfway satisfactory evidence. Although such an influence cannot be denied for Paul in those decades in general, we are in no position to define and delimit it with precision in this particular instance any more than in others. My awareness of the extremely fragmentary nature of our knowledge also prevents me from speaking on this matter even with limited confidence. I cannot possibly adopt a procedure which draws straight lines between the few more or less sure points that can still be ascertained, and thus manages to make connections between relatively remote items -- connections the possibility and nature of which remain completely obscure. Paul and Ignatius are separated by a full half century that was quite rich in events of great significance for the Christian cause, and within which the development of Christianity in Antioch is almost completely unknown to me. The history of Paul has not encouraged me to expect that this city, where the Christian community did not belong to his circle during his lifetime and which received no letter from him, should suddenly open itself to him and to his writings (see above, 63). The period after Paul's death would seem to us to have been much more a time of diminution of the Pauline sphere of influence, rather than expansion. And what we may still have been in a position to ascertain concerning the shape of Christian life in Antioch to the time of Ignatius (above, 65-67) indicates that influences other than that of Paul were at work there and connects Ignatius to them, despite all his resistance.

Of course, all doubt would fade away if in the essentials of his teaching Ignatius were perceptibly dependent on statements from the Pauline epistles. But that is not the case. The only letter that could with certainty be ascribed to Ignatius' use was, as we saw above, 1 Corinthians -- that unit among the major Pauline letters which yields the very least for our understanding of the Pauline faith. And it is not even a "dogmatic" passage such as 1 Corinthians 15 that had bewitched Ignatius. But the Pauline proclamation certainly can not overflow into the postapostolic age through the channel of 1 Corinthians. If the preservation and promulgation of the Apostle's preaching really had been the intention behind the original circulation of Pauline letters in this period, then Romans and the terribly neglected second letter to the Corinthians, which completely sank into oblivion alongside the first, would have had to provide the source to a much greater extent that actually took place. But in our investigation of the impact of the Pauline writings, whenever we come from the marshy ground of "reminiscences" and "allusions" to firmer territory, again and again we confront 1 Corinthians. This was true for Polycarp (see above, 217), is true for Ignatius, and will also be true for 1 Clement. It seems to me that the last named, 1 Clement, holds the solution to the riddle of why 1 Corinthians, which is so meager in didactic content, should have preference -- an esteem that accorded first place to it in the oldest collection of Pauline letters of which we are still aware.

For Bauer, the earliest proto-orthodox “esteem” for 1 Corinthians, which he thought emerged earliest in 1 Clement, had its entire basis in the Roman church’s conservative political agenda, i.e. to seize the mantle of apostolic authority in the face of schism.

All the other epistles emerge only with Marcion. Bauer even dares to suggest, albeit in the usual indirect way, tempered by reassuring platitudes elsewhere, that Philemon—and Galatians itself!—was written by Marcion.

It would not surprise me if we owed to his perception the short communication of Paul to Philemon, this purely private letter that hardly would have been read in communities prior to Marcion. And whoever wonders with Harnack why "the letter to the Galatians has been preserved for us at all" perhaps may also feel himself indebted to Marcion, since prior to his activity sure traces of Galatians are lacking, while the uncertain traces are sharply limited to Polycarp.

But to understand Bauer’s analysis properly, it is necessary to read (at least) the whole portion of Chapter 9 that treats of the reception of Paul. This is excerpted below—

The apostle Paul holds claim to a special place. It may be even more necessary here than elsewhere to approach the evidence without prejudice. What is the significance [[*216]] of the Apostle to the Gentiles in the ideological struggle? Where do we encounter his influence? Where is there a sense of obligation to him? Once again we will proceed by moving back from the end toward the beginning. At the same time, we would do well to remember what we have already discovered to be the probable history of many a community founded by Paul. We need to be clear about the fact that the Apostle did not always succeed in maintaining a firm hold over what he possessed. Even outside the circle of the Jewish Christians,\31/ with their bitter hatred of Paul and the resulting blunt rejection of everything influenced by him, we hear him disparaged.\32/

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\31/ On the attitude of the Jewish Christians toward Paul, see my treatment in Hennecke\2, pp. 127 f., [and in Hennecke-Schneemelcher, 2: 71. See also below, 236, 262 f.].

\32/ See above, 149 n. 5. Appeal may also be made to James 2.14-26 as evidence of how difficult it was to retain an undistorted recollection of the Apostle to the Gentiles.

=====

Hegesippus took his stand as a follower of the Old Testament and the Lord, but aroused our doubts (above, 196f.) as to whether he really had listed completely, as he apparently intended, the fundamental basic authorities for all orthodox churches of his time. We have denied that this was the case for those at Corinth and Rome, where the apostle Paul with his collection of letters must have stood [[214]] alongside the Old Testament and the Lord around the year 180. But for Hegesippus himself that does not yet seem to have been the case, so that for him "the law and the prophets and the Lord" were, in fact, ill disposed toward this supplementation by means of Paul. This follows not only because in the other relevant passage he also simply refers to "the divine scriptures and the Lord" (above, 196 n. 3). It is much more significant that he was acquainted with the first epistle of Clement to Corinth (EH 4.22.1 f., 3.16), but not with 1 Corinthians. Rather, in the second passage mentioned above (196 n. 3), in a manner expressing complete ignorance, he immediately plays off against it "the divine scriptures and the Lord," particularly the saying of the Lord "Blessed are your eyes, since they see, and your ears, since they hear" (according to Matt. 13.16).\33/ In 1 Corinthians 2.9, however, quite the opposite is said -- "The good things prepared for the just no eye has seen nor ear heard," etc. Now in the fifth book of his Memoirs Hegesippus declares that this saying [[*217]] is preposterous and only deception and opposition to Scripture could express itself in this manner (above, n. 33). But even if 1 Corinthians is unknown, then, as we shall also see, Paul is thereby completely removed from the picture. In view of everything we know about who showed preference for the content of 1 Corinthians 2.9,\34/ there can be no doubt who those people were who conducted themselves with such enmity toward truth -- they were the gnostics, with whom Hegesippus also crosses swords elsewhere (EH 4.22.5).

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\33/ Stephen Gobarus, according to Photius, Library, codex 232. [To clarify the argument, the context is reproduced here: "'The good things prepared for the just (ta h(toimasmena tois dikaiois agaqa) no eye has seen nor ear heard nor have they ascended to the human heart' (cf. 1 Cor. 2.9). Hegesippus, an ancient and apostolic man, says in the fifth book of his Memoirs -- I do not know quite what he meant -- that these words were spoken vainly, and those who said them lied against both the divine sciptures and the Lord who said 'Blessed are your eyes....'"]

\34/ See Bauer, Johannesevangelium\3, pp. 4 f.

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When we move back from Hegesippus to one of similar stripe, Papias, and ask what this bishop of a community that belonged to the regions reached by the Apostle to the Gentiles and was already in existence during Paul's lifetime (Col. 4.13) thought of Paul, it appears to me that again only one answer is possible -- nothing. We are already to some extent prepared for this since we fittingly connected Eusebius' failure to record any expression of opinion by Papias concerning [[215]] the Gospel of Luke with the fact that the Third Gospel was the gospel used by the heretic Marcion (see above, 184 f., 187). When EH 3.39.12-17 informs us that Papias valued the Apocalypse quite highly, that he used the apostolic gospels of Matthew and of Mark/Peter along with other traditional materials from the circle of the twelve and finally that he also cites from 1 John and 1 Peter while in the same context various persons of the apostolic age to whom Papias appealed are mentioned by name (EH 3.39.2-10), its silence about Paul and his letters is completely clear, and cannot be interpreted any differently from the corresponding approach toward the gospels of Luke and John. Papias must have assumed a negative attitude here as well, even if it also may have manifested itself only through silence. That, in fact, the remains of the literary activity of Papias never show anything even vaguely resembling Pauline coloration is only mentioned in passing, since if this observation had to stand alone, it would prove precious little in view of the paucity of the remnants of Papias. Taking everything together, however, we find in Papias a churchman who, in addition to the Apocalypse and the genuine gospel tradition emanating from the bosom of Palestine, holds those two writings in highest regard which indicate their ecclesiastical orientation in a particularly clear way, the one [[*218]] by its origin in Rome and its Petrine authorship [1 Peter], the other by its explicitly anti-gnostic thrust [1 John]. The letters of Paul (so long as we still must disregard the pastoral Epistles) could in no way compete with such writings, especially since they were compromised through the patronage of people like Marcion.

Justin, the contemporary and coreligionist of Papias, was no more successful than the latter in acquiring anything from the Apostle to the Gentiles. That is even more peculiar in his case since he carried on his activity in Rome, where "Peter and Paul" was the watchword, and at least Romans and 1 Corinthians were available. But in the case of Justin also, one must sharply minimize the claims of Pauline reminiscences in order to arrive at an acceptable result.\35/ Such allusions are of no help to me, since at best they spring up occasionally from the subconscious but evidence no kind of living relationship with Paul. Or what is one to think of this matter in view of the fact that it does not occur to the apologist to mention Romans 13 when [[216]] he argues that the Christians have always patriotically paid their taxes (Apol. 17) -- Theophilus of Antioch refers to this chapter (Autolycus 1.11, 3.14); or that 1 Corinthians 15 in no way plays a role in Justin's treatise On the Resurrection -- Athenagoras calls the apostle to mind in his treatment (On the Resurrection 18)? Rather, for Justin everything is based on the gospel tradition. And if a third question may be allowed, how is one to explain the fact that in the discussion of the conversion of the gentiles and the rejection of the Jews (Apol. 49) any congruence with Romans 9-11 is omitted, despite the fact that they both, apologist and apostle, appeal to Isaiah 65.2? In this light, the fact that the name of Paul is nowhere mentioned by Justin acquires a special significance that can hardly be diminished by the observation that the names of the other apostles also are absent. In one passage we hear of John, the apostle of Christ, as the author of Revelation (Dial. 81.4); and even though the names of the apostles are not mentioned on other occasions, there are repeated references to their "Memoirs." With respect to Paul, not only is his name lacking, but also any congruence with his letters. But for a learned churchman who carried on his work in Rome around the middle of the second century to act thus can only [[*219]] be understood as quite deliberate conduct.\36/ And if pressed to suggest a reason for this, it would seem to me that the most obvious possibility here would also be the reference to Marcion.

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\35/ On this matter, cf. Bousset, Evangeliencitate Justins, pp. 121-123.

\36/ It is fitting also to be reminded of Celsus, who could hardly have gained his insight that orthodoxy represented the "great" church over against the heretics (Origen Against Celsus 5.59; cf. 5.61 where the ecclesiastically oriented Chistians are<gk>oi( apo tou plhqous</gk>, "those of the multitude") anywhere but in Rome, and thus it was apparently there that he pursued his basic studies of the religion he combatted. For him also, the gospels are overwhelmingly of the synoptic type, and he also surely knows certain Pauline ideas, but not letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles, Cf. K. J. Neumann, RPTK\3, 3 (1897): 774.42 ff.; H. J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament\3 (Freiburg im B,, 1892), p. 111.

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The fact that in Rome, unlike Hierapolis, the gospel of Luke did not experience a temporary rejection together with the letters of Paul is surely due to geographical considerations. Perhaps one might wish to explain in a similar manner the fact that another churchman, who stood in the forefront of the battle with heresy and whom we know especially as an opponent of Marcion, Polycarp of Smyrna, has a much more positive relationship to the letters of Paul than did Justin. [[217]] Still, it is more accurate to find the reason for this in chronological rather than geographical limitations, and to remind ourselves that Polycarp wrote his epistle to the Philippians a good while before Marcion appeared. Thus he needed to feel no reservations about using Paul for support as he attempted to strengthen the backbone of the ecclesiastical minority in a Christian community that the Apostle to the Gentiles had founded and to which he had sent epistolary instructions (see above, 71-74). For him the blessed and illustrious Paul, with his wisdom, was a most valuable ally -- Polycarp knew full well that the Apostle to the Gentiles had instructed the Philippians not only orally, but also by means of letters.\37/ And although Polycarp apparently was not even exactly clear as to the number of such letters, and does not avoid the kind of language illustrated by the matter-of-fact way in which his ecclesiastical consciousness associates "the other apostles" with Paul (9.1), this is insufficient reason to doubt that he was acquainted with the canonical epistle to the Philippians. Concerning the other Pauline epistles, it seems to me that there are clear indications only for his having read 1 Corinthians and probably also Romans. Galatians and Ephesians also might have belonged to his collection, but I cannot free myself from doubts concerning the pastoral [[*220]] Epistles.\38/ Polycarp clearly agrees with Papias, however, in the use of 1 Peter, which Eusebius had already noted (EH 4.14.9), and of 1 John (Polycarp Phil. 7.1).

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\37/ Polycarp Phil. 3.2. On the plural "letters," see Bauer, Ignatius, ad loc. (p. 287), [and also Schoedel, Polycarp ... Papias, pp. 14f.].

\38/ Cf. M. Dibelius, Die Pastoralbriefe, Handbuch zum NT 13\2 (1931) on 1 Tim. 6.7 and 10 [this commentary subsequently has been revised by H. Conzelmann, 1955\3 and 1964\4]. See also below, 222-225 and 226 f.

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We have already heard of the sympathy which the Antiochian churchman Ignatius, probably stimulated by Rome, showed toward the apostles Peter and Paul (above, 112, 117). In contrast to Polycarp, Ignatius does not betray any knowledge (as yet) of 1 Peter, nor of 1 John. But when we then inquire further as to the influence of Paul and his epistles, the result also is not very impressive. To be sure, alongside obvious deviations Ignatius advocates ideas, or perhaps better, attitudes that we similarly observe in the Apostle to the Gentiles who, like Ignatius, was facing martyrdom, and here and there Ignatius comes close to Paul with regard to external form. But a direct, fully conscious dependence on the letters of Paul still does [[218]] not occur. In the single letter of Polycarp, who can be called a spiritual disciple of Paul only in a very limited way, the latter is mentioned by name three times (3.2, 9.1, 11.2-3), and once a Pauline saying is explicitly quoted (11.2 = 1 Cor. 6.2). But in the seven letters of Ignatius, with the exception of the Roman watchword concerning Peter and Paul (Rom. 4.3), Paul appears only in Eph. 12.2 in a passage which does not exactly attest an extensive knowledge of the content of a relatively large number of Paul's letters. There Ignatius explains that Paul mentions the Ephesians "in every letter." That this is not true for our collection is generally acknowledged, and I regard as wasted effort all attempts to prove that it is at least approximately correct. As a matter of fact, if we exclude the pastoral epistles and the inscription of Ephesians, the city of Ephesus is mentioned by Paul only in 1 Corinthians (15.32, 16.8). And it is precisely that letter of the Apostle to the Gentiles, and indeed only that letter, which Ignatius assuredly had read. As for other letters of Paul [[*221]] only a possibility exists\39/ -- this may be sufficient for those who are sympathetically disposed, but it cannot be forced upon anyone.

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\39/ If Ignatius also knew Ephesians (compare the inscription to his Ephesian letter with the Pauline Eph. 1.3 ff.; this has the best claim after 1 Corinthians), and already knew it as a letter to Ephesus (which is unlikely on account of Marcion [who seems to call it "Laodiceans"]), then the plural implied in the words "every letter" would be explained. [Grant, Ignatius, p. 43, accepts an older interpretation that takes the phrase <gk>en pash epistolh</gk> to mean "in an entire letter," referring to Ephesians alone.] Of course, it would be explained almost equally well if it were conceded that the passage refers to Romans (16.5) and 2 Corinthians (1.8) with their references to Asia (see below, 221).

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The reason I will have nothing to do with the question of indirect influence is the futility of an argumentation based on only halfway satisfactory evidence. Although such an influence cannot be denied for Paul in those decades in general, we are in no position to define and delimit it with precision in this particular instance any more than in others. My awareness of the extremely fragmentary nature of our knowledge also prevents me from speaking on this matter even with limited confidence. I cannot possibly adopt a procedure which draws straight lines between the few more or less sure points that can still be ascertained, and thus manages to make connections between relatively remote items -- connections the possibility and nature of which remain completely obscure. Paul and Ignatius are separated by a full half century that was quite rich in events of great significance for the [[219]] Christian cause, and within which the development of Christianity in Antioch is almost completely unknown to me. The history of Paul has not encouraged me to expect that this city, where the Christian community did not belong to his circle during his lifetime and which received no letter from him, should suddenly open itself to him and to his writings (see above, 63). The period after Paul's death would seem to us to have been much more a time of diminution of the Pauline sphere of influence, rather than expansion. And what we may still have been in a position to ascertain concerning the shape of Christian life in Antioch to the time of Ignatius (above, 65-67) indicates that influences other than that of Paul were at work there and connects Ignatius to them, despite all his resistance.

Of course, all doubt would fade away if in the essentials of his teaching Ignatius were perceptibly dependent on statements from the Pauline epistles. But that is not the case. The only letter that could with certainty be ascribed to Ignatius' use was, as we saw above, 1 Corinthians -- that unit among the major Pauline letters which yields the very least for our understanding of the Pauline faith. And it is not even a "dogmatic" passage such as 1 Corinthians 15 that had bewitched Ignatius. But the Pauline proclamation certainly can not overflow into the postapostolic age through the channel of 1 Corinthians. [[*222]] If the preservation and promulgation of the Apostle's preaching really had been the intention behind the original circulation of Pauline letters in this period, then Romans and the terribly neglected second letter to the Corinthians, which completely sank into oblivion alongside the first, would have had to provide the source to a much greater extent that actually took place. But in our investigation of the impact of the Pauline writings, whenever we come from the marshy ground of "reminiscences" and "allusions" to firmer territory, again and again we confront 1 Corinthians. This was true for Polycarp (see above, 217), is true for Ignatius, and will also be true for 1 Clement. It seems to me that the last named, 1 Clement, holds the solution to the riddle of why 1 Corinthians, which is so meager in didactic content, should have preference -- an esteem that accorded first place to it in the oldest collection of Pauline letters of which we are still aware.\40/ [[220]]

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\40/ In the Muratorian Canon. Marcion also attests this attitude, even if he himself inserts Galatians before it. Cf. Jülicher-Fascher, Einleitung\7, pp. 546 f.

=====

We already know what made 1 Corinthians so valuable to the author of 1 Clement. He was not at all concerned with the Pauline gospel; in that case he would have put Romans, which also was available to him, to a different use than he actually does.\41/ 1 Corinthians was an extremely important weapon for him in the conflict against Corinth (see above, 114), and perhaps it had been passed along to him by his allies there. Since the most obvious interpretation of 1 Clement 47.1 indicates that at the beginning of the controversy the author knew only one letter of Paul to Corinth, it seems that the entire Corinthian heritage from Paul had not already made its way to Rome during peaceful times for purposes of edification.\42/ Whatever Clement appropriates from 1 Corinthians makes a point against the adversaries in Corinth -- 1 Cor. 1.11-13 = 1 Clem. 47.3; 1 Cor. 12.12 ff. = 1 Clem. 37.5-38.1; and even a portion of the [[*223]] hymn concerning love, 1 Cor. 13.4-7 = 1 Clem. 49.5. And from that time on, the purpose of 1 Corinthians was firmly established for the church: "First of all, to the Corinthians, censuring the heresies of schism" (primum omnium Corinthiis schismae haereses interdicens, Muratorian Canon, lines 42f.). But it is really rather peculiar and in need of an explanation that this extensive and multifaceted epistle is supposed to have had only this purpose.\43/

-----
\41/ Strictly speaking, he uses it only for the purpose of moral admonition -- 1 Clem. 35.5-6, following Rom. 1.29-32; 1 Clem. 33.1, following Rom. 6.1.

\42/ It also seems that the letter to the Philippians was not yet used in Clement's Roman church. Otherwise he surely also would have remembered Phil. 2.1-12 when he refers to the example of the humble Christ (16.17) and when he matched Paul against the Corinthians (47.1).

\43/ Indeed, the Muratorian Canon is so greatly under the influence of this attitude, which has been transmitted to it, concerning the purpose of the epistle, that even 2 Corinthians is pictured as not having any different aim (lines 42 and 54 f.).

=====

If we are not content to believe that it was by an accident of fate that, in the course of scarcely twenty years, precisely 1 Corinthians came to be firmly established and given special honor within the churches of Rome, Smyrna, and Antioch, then it must have been that church in which 1 Corinthians first came to be prized so highly -- indeed, the only church that had a discernible reason for such an attitude -- it must have been Rome that took the initiative. Rome did not want to withhold such an approved weapon from its allies in the fight against heresy. On this occasion Smyrna also may have [[221]] received the epistle to the Romans, the use of which cannot be established for contemporary Antioch, although that possibility is not thereby excluded. Perhaps at that time both communities also obtained 2 Corinthians from the world capital, a document that Rome surely brought home as valuable booty from its Corinthian campaign. Some sort of compelling evidence of such possession, to be sure, can be offered at present neither for Smyrna nor even for Antioch. But such considerations may be left aside, even though they might throw a ray of light, albeit a woefully weak one, on the lengthy and obscure history of the collection of Pauline epistles.\44/ [[*224]] It appears to me to be to some degree probable that 1 Corinthians was put at the disposal of the orthodox communities in Symrna and Antioch by Rome, about the year 100. That it at that time may also have received the widely discussed "ecumenical" stamp (1.2)\45/ is a suggestion that may be excusable in a book that is forced to rely so heavily on conjectures.

-----
\44/ The situation with regard to the collection of the Pauline epistles is entirely different from that of the letters of Ignatius. The latter were written one after another and then were immediately brought together. With Paul, those letters which are surely genuine cover a period of a decade, and were sent to at least six different, in part widely separated localities (Galatia, Colossae, Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, Rome). Further decades were required to establish the prerequisites according to which pseudo-Pauline letters could be added (Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians; prior to the year 110 according to Jülicher-Fascher, Einleitung\7, p. 67), and last of all the pastoral Epistles. That in a period when Pauline influence was declining, extant collections of his letters had been systemattcally completed everywhere at once is doubtful to me, and I can hardly regard it as really proven that Polycarp possessed a collection of ten, to say nothing of thirteen, Pauline writings [ -- regardless of what he had of the letters of Ignatius].

\45/ Cf. Harnack, Briefsammlung, p. 9; Jülicher-Fascher, Einleitung\7, p. 472; Lietzmann, ''Zwei Notizen zu Paulus,'' pp. 3-5 [= 151-153]. In this way, Lietzmann's question in his commentary An die Korinther, ad loc., also would be answered: "Why should the redactor have dealt only with 1 Corinthians in that manner, while sparing all the other epistles?"

=====

The small collections of Pauline letters, which were cherished at the beginning of the second century in the "churches" of Rome -- doubtless just as in similarly oriented Corinth, in Antioch and Smyrna\46/ -- were then surpassed and replaced by Marcion's more complete collection. I would regard him as the first systematic collector of the Pauline heritage. He who ruthlessly rejected the Old [[222]] Testament and everything of primitive Christian tradition that stemmed from Palestine, was plainly bent on giving his teaching as broad a Pauline foundation as possible, while on the other hand, he was in a position to realize his aspirations since he was a well-traveled, educated, affluent person with numerous connections. It would not surprise me if we owed to his perception the short communication of Paul to Philemon, this purely private letter that hardly would have been read in communities prior to Marcion. And whoever wonders with Harnack why "the letter to the Galatians has been preserved for us at all"\47/ perhaps may also feel himself indebted to Marcion, since prior to his activity sure traces of Galatians are lacking, while the uncertain traces are sharply limited to Polycarp.

-----
\46/ Here the development flourished most extensively, since Polycarp possessed especially wide-ranging connections. He was an Asiatic, but also was in touch with Antioch and Rome, and even had contacts in Macedonia.

\47/ Harnack, Briefsammlung, p. 72.

=====

It is well established that Marcion came from Pontus, the neighbor of Galatia, and as he traveled out into the world, he could not have avoided the communities to which Paul had addressed his communication. Possibly he had already become acquainted with this letter in his native land. In any event, it is certain that it was from Galatians\48/ [[*225]] and not, say, from Romans with its concise explanation that Christ was the end of the law (10.4), that Marcion got the idea about how he could break the back of the Old Testament, so highly treasured by so many Christians, and drive the Jewish apostles of Jerusalem from the field. Then on his journey through Asia Minor, and as he went further westward until he reached Rome, he may have collected everything that anyone here or there in the Christian communities possessed from Paul. Perhaps, together with the note to Philemon, he also brought to the West at that time the epistle to the Colossians, of which we are unable to detect even the faintest trace prior to Marcion.\49/

-----
\48/ That is the only way to explain the fact that in Marcion's holy sciptures, Galatians stands first in the collection of Paul's letters.

\49/ With the exception of Ephesians, if it is spurious; but we do not know when and where it made use of Colossians.

=====

In line with this approach, it is difficult for me to believe that Marcion had already known the pastoral Epistles, which are not included in his canon. He who with utmost passion was in hot pursuit of every line from Paul -- he had to be! -- and who because of the paucity of traditional material would hardly permit any large scale wastefulness, also would have pressed these three epistles into his [[223]] service by reworking them. There would have been even less reason to reject all of them together insofar as the epistle to Titus, which from Marcion's perspective would not be wedded for better or worse to the epistles to Timothy,\50/ offered very little of offense to him. But if this assumption is correct and is taken seriously, the further hypothesis seems to me valid that the pastoral Epistles still were not in existence at the time that Marcion made his decision as to the extent of the Pauline material. I see no way to accept Harnack's view:

Around the year 140, Marcion knew a collection of only ten letters; in all probability he did not reject the pastoral Epistles, but simply did not know them. But we are in the fortunate position of being able to trace back to around the year 100 not only the collection of the ten letters, but even that of the thirteen letters, for Polycarp's letter to the Philippians at the time of Trajan shows us through its quotations and allusions that [[*226]] our present collection, including the pastoral epistles, was already in use both in Smyrna and in Philippi. The Pastorals thus had been added to the collection of ten letters already prior to Marcion, and the older collection was supplanted immediately in almost all the churches. Not only the original collection but also that containing 13 letters take us back to the end of the first century as the terminus ad quem!\51/
----
\50/ Just as little as it was for those heretics who, according to Clement of Alexandria, rejected only the two epistles to Timothy (Strom. 2.[11.]52), while we hear of Tatian that he recognized just the epistle to Titus (Jerome Preface to the Commentary on Titus 7 = Vallarsi ed. p. 686; Migne PL 26).

\51/ Harnack, Briefsammlung, p. 6.

=====

Thus there is portrayed for us here a Marcion who comes through Asia to Rome, but the pastoral Epistles elude him despite the fact that they have been in use -- and indeed not sporadically here and there, but as parts of a collection in official use -- for more than a generation, and even right in Smyrna, a city with which Marcion was in contact during his journey.\52/ Such a Marcion seems to me to be an impossibility, and for that reason the observations that led Harnack to his conclusions should be assessed differently. The basic reason for assigning an early date to the Pastorals is, for Harnack and many others, the notion that Polycarp reproduces "three passages from the pastoral Epistles in his letter."\53/ Whoever agrees with me in [[224]] concluding from the negative stance of Marcion toward the Pastorals that prior to him (to say nothing of the time of Trajan) they cannot already have received recognition as letters of Paul (to choose a very guarded form of expression), will explain those "quotations" either (1) by denying that they reflect any direct dependence\54/ but instead derive from the common use of an established stock of ideas (as in the corresponding case of the contacts between Ignatius and the Fourth Gospel; see above, 209 f.), recalling that such connections also exist between the Pastorals and 1 Clement, and to close the triangle, even between 1 Clement and Polycarp -- connections that reflect a standardized way of speaking common in ecclesiastical circles; or, (2) if the citations appear quite unambiguous to him, he will have to conclude that it is the Pastorals that are derivative, and their author was dependent on Polycarp.\55/ That author doubtless comes from the same circle of orthodoxy as Polycarp. All the arguments against such an order of dependence do not in the least neutralize the force with which Marcion resists the assumption [[*227]] that the pastoral Epistles had already been regarded with veneration within Christendom prior to the beginning of his activity.\56/

-----
\52/ Harnack, Marcion\2, p. 28 (referring to Polycarp's rebuke of Marcion; above, 70].

\53/ Harnack, Briefsammlung, p. 72,

\54/ Cf. M. Dibelius, Pastoralbriefe, pp. 6, 53, 55.

\55/ [H. F. von Campenhausen has even argued that Polycarp was the author of the Pastorals; see below, 307. On the problem in general, see also Schoedel, Polycarp ... Papias, pp. 5, 16, etc.]

\56/ Moreover, even the Muratorian Canon preserves the recollection that the pastoral Epistles were added at first as a supplement to a collection that had ended with the letter to Philemon (lines 59 ff.).

=====

If we want to understand the origin of the pastoral Epistles, we must remember that just as the gospel of John began its existence as a heretical gospel, so Paul also enjoyed the favor of the heretics to a great extent. Marcion simply represents a high point, and is by no means a unique case. Zahn thoroughly demonstrated the close relationships of Valentinus and his school to the Apostle to the Gentiles;\57/ according to Clement of Alexandria Strom. 7.(17.) 106, Valentinus is supposed to have listened to Theodas, an acquaintance of Paul. The Valentinians "maintain that Paul has made use of the basic concepts of their system in his letters in a manner sufficiently clear to anyone who can read" (Zahn, 751). "The manner in which they cite the Pauline letters is just as respectful as the manner we find [[225]] used by the teachers of the church of the following\58/ decades and centuries" (756). "The teaching of Valentinus is just as inconceivable without the letters of Paul as without the prologue to the Fourth Gospel, and it is no accident that Paul is preferred by all Valentinians as the preacher of the hidden wisdom who speaks out most clearly" (758). It is demonstrable that Basilides also made use of Romans and 1 Corinthians, and there may be some truth to Jerome's claim that Basilides treated the pastoral Epistles in the same way as Marcion (in the passage cited above, 223 n. 50). I need not continue naming other gnostics who appreciated Paul.\59/ Second Peter 3.16 will have occurred to everyone in this connection. And for the Montanists, Paul was just as indispensable as a witness to the activity of the spirit in primitive Christianity as was the gospel of John with its Paraclete. Even the Muratorian Canon (lines 63-68) complains that heretics are producing false letters of Paul in order to make propaganda for their false teaching by using the stolen prestige of the Apostle to the Gentiles. [[*228]]

-----
\57/ Zahn, Geschichte, 1.2 (1889): 751-758.

\58/ Italics mine. However, I reject Zahn's continuation as an unproved prejudice; "That was precisely the phraseology that Valentinius found to be dominant in the church and that his school appropiated."

\59/ Cf. R. Liechtenhan, Die Offenbarung im Gnostizismus(Göttingen, 1901), p, 79.

=====

In this light, the reluctance with which the representatives of the church made use of the Apostle to the Gentiles around the middle of the second century (Papias, Justin, Hegesippus; above, 213-215) seems to me to be explicable. Perhaps, as the situation developed, some would have preferred henceforth to exclude Paul completely and to rely exclusively on the twelve apostles. But it was already too late for that. Rome (together with the "church," which it led) had already accepted too much from the Apostle to the Gentiles, had appealed to him too often, suddenly to recognize him no longer. He had become a martyr-apostle of Rome -- had helped it to develop the popular slogan "Peter and Paul"; and even if Rome did not really know how to begin to put to use Paul's letter to the Romans, 1 Corinthians had proved itself to be extremely productive for purposes of church politics in the hands of Rome. By that means, Paul and his letter came to have permanent claims on the "church." There were other cases as well where Christianity subsequently had to come to terms with all sorts of things that it had originally accepted without [[226]] question and from which it could not simply retreat as circumstances changed. Thus initially one spoke without embarrassment, in accordance with the facts (and it is easy enough to find additional examples) about how Jesus also had been baptized; he was happy to be able thus to anchor the Christian practice to the life of Jesus. But then, in the struggle with evil or contrary antagonists, he took great pains to make a convincing case for the superiority of Jesus over John, or to explain just what Jesus could have expected to gain by being baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

Thus, despite all heretical misuse, Paul had to be retained as the "church's" apostle. But it was, of course, desirable henceforth to mark him unequivocally with the ecclesiastical and anti-heretical stamp. In the light of this, I am inclined to see the pastoral Epistles as an attempt on the part of the church unambiguously to enlist Paul as part of its anti-heretical front and to eliminate the lack of confidence in him in ecclesiastical circles. As its answer to the heretical Apostle of the epistles to Laodicea and Alexandria, "forged in the name of Paul" (Pauli nomine finctae, Muratorian Canon, lines 64 ff.) the church raised up the Paul of orthodoxy by using the same means.\60/ Such a need may have been felt even prior to Marcion. But since it [[*229]] is difficult to find satisfactory evidence that the pastoral Epistles already were in existence prior to him (see above, 222-224), there is really no reason why it could not have been his appearance that gave the church the decisive impulse for their production. Indeed, if Polycarp cannot serve as the terminus ad quem for the pastoral Epistles, explicit attestation requiring knowledge of them occurs first with the churchman Irenaeus, who begins his great work Against Heresies with the words "of the apostle" from 1 Timothy 1.4 (AH 1.preface).

-----
\60/ This sort of analysis of the purpose of the Pastorals does not, of course, exclude the other view which sees them as a weapon in the conflict with the heretics. Cf. above, 76.

=====

However unpopular this view currently may be and however little I myself shared it a short time ago, it no longer seems to me today to be improbable that 1 Timothy 6.20 refers to Marcion's Antitheses -- perhaps even before they were put into written form.

I cannot accept the outlook which rejects such a late origin for the Pastorals because "in that case a reference to the great gnostic [[227]] systems would be expected."\61/ We do, in fact, know of an orthodox author who doubtless flourished subsequent to Basilides, Valentinus, and Marcion, and yet makes no clear reference to these teachings; but in spite of this he wants to draw the Apostle to the Gentiles into the ecclesiastical phalanx of heresy fighters in much the same way as we have suspected of the author of the pastoral Epistles. I am referring to that presbyter in Asia who produced the Acts of Paul at about the same time that the Asian Irenaeus, motivated by the same ecclesiastical spirit, opposed the gnostics with the help of the Pastorals. These Acts speak in language "clearly saturated with reminiscences of the pastoral Epistles."\62/ Their author also has Paul advocating, by means of a letter (so-called 3 Corinthians; see above, 42 n. 99), the ecclesiastical viewpoint in opposition to a gnostic aberration that cannot be clearly identified.

-----
\61/ As in Dibelius, Pastoralbiefe, p. 6.

\62/ Rolffs in Hennecke\2, pp. 196 f. [See now also Schneemelcher in Hennecke-Schneemelcher, 2: 348.]

=====

The price the Apostle to the Gentiles had to pay to be allowed to remain in the church was the complete surrender of his personality and historical particularity. If already in the pastoral Epistles he has strayed far from his origins, in the Acts of Paul and the Epistle of the Apostles he has become merely the docile disciple of the twelve from whom he receives his instructions.\63/ [[*230]] But even this sacrifice did not really help him. Wherever the "church" becomes powerful, the bottom drops out from under him and he must immediately give way to the celebrities from the circle of the twelve apostles. We have seen this same process taking place in Ephesus, in Corinth, in Rome and Antioch, with variations only on account of the differing locations and their respective histories (see above, 83 f., 112-118). And we soon reach the point where the church no longer needs the apostle to the nations for any mission, but divides up the entire world among the twelve. To some extent, Paul becomes influential only as part of the holy scriptures acknowledged in the church -- not the personality of the Apostle to the Gentiles and his proclamation, but the word of Paul [or, the word "Paul"] whenever it is useful for the development and preservation of ecclesiastical teaching. But that involves [[228]] looking beyond the limits of the period presently under discussion. In our period we observe how the introduction of the pastoral Epistles actually made the collection of Paul's letters ecclesiastically viable for the very first time. Perhaps 1 John, which has a pronounced anti-heretical tone and came to be valued quite early in the church (Polycarp, Papias), performed a similar service for the heretical gospel of John.

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\63/ See above, 114 n. 6, and cf. C. Schmidt ''Ein Berliner Fragment der alten <ts> Praxeis Paulou</ts>,'' Sb Berlin 6 for 1931, pp. 5 f. [= 39 f.].

=====

//End Ch.9//

Interesting, thanks for posting this Irish. :thumbup:

This reinforces some of the opinions that I have been drawing about the letters lately. :cheers:

Do you think you might contribute to the Paul experiment? It would be nice to get your take on it.

Lane
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Re: The earliest Pauline material: 1 Corinthians

Post by Irish1975 »

Thanks for the kind feedback, Lane. I’ll think about it.
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Re: The earliest Pauline material: 1 Corinthians

Post by lclapshaw »

Irish1975 wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 2:35 pm Thanks for the kind feedback, Lane. I’ll think about it.
It's work, I'll grant you that. Worth it tho. :thumbup:
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Re: The earliest Pauline material: 1 Corinthians

Post by mlinssen »

lclapshaw wrote: Tue Jan 31, 2023 7:19 am
Irish1975 wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 8:32 am Walter Bauer reached the conclusion, although he did not like the implications, that the earliest Pauline material was nothing other than some primitive draft of 1 Corinthians. This hypothesis seems to get little attention today. But it aligns strikingly with Thomas Brodie’s analysis of Paul, which he arrived at through an altogether different, i.e. literary rather than historical, analysis of the canonical Pauline material itself.

Proceeding backwards in time, Bauer notes that neither Hegesippus, nor Papias, nor Justin take any notice of Paul whatsoever. But there is awareness of Paul in the writings of Polycarp, Ignatius, and 1 Clement. Although scholars have attempted to find echoes of Romans or even Galatians among these fathers, Bauer is unimpressed. The only Pauline text known to them was 1 Corinthians.

Dropping midstream into his argument, we find Bauer rejecting fanciful attempts to see an extensive knowledge of Paul in the letters of Ignatius—

The reason I will have nothing to do with the question of indirect influence is the futility of an argumentation based on only halfway satisfactory evidence. Although such an influence cannot be denied for Paul in those decades in general, we are in no position to define and delimit it with precision in this particular instance any more than in others. My awareness of the extremely fragmentary nature of our knowledge also prevents me from speaking on this matter even with limited confidence. I cannot possibly adopt a procedure which draws straight lines between the few more or less sure points that can still be ascertained, and thus manages to make connections between relatively remote items -- connections the possibility and nature of which remain completely obscure. Paul and Ignatius are separated by a full half century that was quite rich in events of great significance for the Christian cause, and within which the development of Christianity in Antioch is almost completely unknown to me. The history of Paul has not encouraged me to expect that this city, where the Christian community did not belong to his circle during his lifetime and which received no letter from him, should suddenly open itself to him and to his writings (see above, 63). The period after Paul's death would seem to us to have been much more a time of diminution of the Pauline sphere of influence, rather than expansion. And what we may still have been in a position to ascertain concerning the shape of Christian life in Antioch to the time of Ignatius (above, 65-67) indicates that influences other than that of Paul were at work there and connects Ignatius to them, despite all his resistance.

Of course, all doubt would fade away if in the essentials of his teaching Ignatius were perceptibly dependent on statements from the Pauline epistles. But that is not the case. The only letter that could with certainty be ascribed to Ignatius' use was, as we saw above, 1 Corinthians -- that unit among the major Pauline letters which yields the very least for our understanding of the Pauline faith. And it is not even a "dogmatic" passage such as 1 Corinthians 15 that had bewitched Ignatius. But the Pauline proclamation certainly can not overflow into the postapostolic age through the channel of 1 Corinthians. If the preservation and promulgation of the Apostle's preaching really had been the intention behind the original circulation of Pauline letters in this period, then Romans and the terribly neglected second letter to the Corinthians, which completely sank into oblivion alongside the first, would have had to provide the source to a much greater extent that actually took place. But in our investigation of the impact of the Pauline writings, whenever we come from the marshy ground of "reminiscences" and "allusions" to firmer territory, again and again we confront 1 Corinthians. This was true for Polycarp (see above, 217), is true for Ignatius, and will also be true for 1 Clement. It seems to me that the last named, 1 Clement, holds the solution to the riddle of why 1 Corinthians, which is so meager in didactic content, should have preference -- an esteem that accorded first place to it in the oldest collection of Pauline letters of which we are still aware.

For Bauer, the earliest proto-orthodox “esteem” for 1 Corinthians, which he thought emerged earliest in 1 Clement, had its entire basis in the Roman church’s conservative political agenda, i.e. to seize the mantle of apostolic authority in the face of schism.

All the other epistles emerge only with Marcion. Bauer even dares to suggest, albeit in the usual indirect way, tempered by reassuring platitudes elsewhere, that Philemon—and Galatians itself!—was written by Marcion.

It would not surprise me if we owed to his perception the short communication of Paul to Philemon, this purely private letter that hardly would have been read in communities prior to Marcion. And whoever wonders with Harnack why "the letter to the Galatians has been preserved for us at all" perhaps may also feel himself indebted to Marcion, since prior to his activity sure traces of Galatians are lacking, while the uncertain traces are sharply limited to Polycarp.

But to understand Bauer’s analysis properly, it is necessary to read (at least) the whole portion of Chapter 9 that treats of the reception of Paul. This is excerpted below—

The apostle Paul holds claim to a special place. It may be even more necessary here than elsewhere to approach the evidence without prejudice. What is the significance [[*216]] of the Apostle to the Gentiles in the ideological struggle? Where do we encounter his influence? Where is there a sense of obligation to him? Once again we will proceed by moving back from the end toward the beginning. At the same time, we would do well to remember what we have already discovered to be the probable history of many a community founded by Paul. We need to be clear about the fact that the Apostle did not always succeed in maintaining a firm hold over what he possessed. Even outside the circle of the Jewish Christians,\31/ with their bitter hatred of Paul and the resulting blunt rejection of everything influenced by him, we hear him disparaged.\32/

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\31/ On the attitude of the Jewish Christians toward Paul, see my treatment in Hennecke\2, pp. 127 f., [and in Hennecke-Schneemelcher, 2: 71. See also below, 236, 262 f.].

\32/ See above, 149 n. 5. Appeal may also be made to James 2.14-26 as evidence of how difficult it was to retain an undistorted recollection of the Apostle to the Gentiles.

=====

Hegesippus took his stand as a follower of the Old Testament and the Lord, but aroused our doubts (above, 196f.) as to whether he really had listed completely, as he apparently intended, the fundamental basic authorities for all orthodox churches of his time. We have denied that this was the case for those at Corinth and Rome, where the apostle Paul with his collection of letters must have stood [[214]] alongside the Old Testament and the Lord around the year 180. But for Hegesippus himself that does not yet seem to have been the case, so that for him "the law and the prophets and the Lord" were, in fact, ill disposed toward this supplementation by means of Paul. This follows not only because in the other relevant passage he also simply refers to "the divine scriptures and the Lord" (above, 196 n. 3). It is much more significant that he was acquainted with the first epistle of Clement to Corinth (EH 4.22.1 f., 3.16), but not with 1 Corinthians. Rather, in the second passage mentioned above (196 n. 3), in a manner expressing complete ignorance, he immediately plays off against it "the divine scriptures and the Lord," particularly the saying of the Lord "Blessed are your eyes, since they see, and your ears, since they hear" (according to Matt. 13.16).\33/ In 1 Corinthians 2.9, however, quite the opposite is said -- "The good things prepared for the just no eye has seen nor ear heard," etc. Now in the fifth book of his Memoirs Hegesippus declares that this saying [[*217]] is preposterous and only deception and opposition to Scripture could express itself in this manner (above, n. 33). But even if 1 Corinthians is unknown, then, as we shall also see, Paul is thereby completely removed from the picture. In view of everything we know about who showed preference for the content of 1 Corinthians 2.9,\34/ there can be no doubt who those people were who conducted themselves with such enmity toward truth -- they were the gnostics, with whom Hegesippus also crosses swords elsewhere (EH 4.22.5).

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\33/ Stephen Gobarus, according to Photius, Library, codex 232. [To clarify the argument, the context is reproduced here: "'The good things prepared for the just (ta h(toimasmena tois dikaiois agaqa) no eye has seen nor ear heard nor have they ascended to the human heart' (cf. 1 Cor. 2.9). Hegesippus, an ancient and apostolic man, says in the fifth book of his Memoirs -- I do not know quite what he meant -- that these words were spoken vainly, and those who said them lied against both the divine sciptures and the Lord who said 'Blessed are your eyes....'"]


\34/ See Bauer, Johannesevangelium\3, pp. 4 f.

=====

When we move back from Hegesippus to one of similar stripe, Papias, and ask what this bishop of a community that belonged to the regions reached by the Apostle to the Gentiles and was already in existence during Paul's lifetime (Col. 4.13) thought of Paul, it appears to me that again only one answer is possible -- nothing. We are already to some extent prepared for this since we fittingly connected Eusebius' failure to record any expression of opinion by Papias concerning [[215]] the Gospel of Luke with the fact that the Third Gospel was the gospel used by the heretic Marcion (see above, 184 f., 187). When EH 3.39.12-17 informs us that Papias valued the Apocalypse quite highly, that he used the apostolic gospels of Matthew and of Mark/Peter along with other traditional materials from the circle of the twelve and finally that he also cites from 1 John and 1 Peter while in the same context various persons of the apostolic age to whom Papias appealed are mentioned by name (EH 3.39.2-10), its silence about Paul and his letters is completely clear, and cannot be interpreted any differently from the corresponding approach toward the gospels of Luke and John. Papias must have assumed a negative attitude here as well, even if it also may have manifested itself only through silence. That, in fact, the remains of the literary activity of Papias never show anything even vaguely resembling Pauline coloration is only mentioned in passing, since if this observation had to stand alone, it would prove precious little in view of the paucity of the remnants of Papias. Taking everything together, however, we find in Papias a churchman who, in addition to the Apocalypse and the genuine gospel tradition emanating from the bosom of Palestine, holds those two writings in highest regard which indicate their ecclesiastical orientation in a particularly clear way, the one [[*218]] by its origin in Rome and its Petrine authorship [1 Peter], the other by its explicitly anti-gnostic thrust [1 John]. The letters of Paul (so long as we still must disregard the pastoral Epistles) could in no way compete with such writings, especially since they were compromised through the patronage of people like Marcion.

Justin, the contemporary and coreligionist of Papias, was no more successful than the latter in acquiring anything from the Apostle to the Gentiles. That is even more peculiar in his case since he carried on his activity in Rome, where "Peter and Paul" was the watchword, and at least Romans and 1 Corinthians were available. But in the case of Justin also, one must sharply minimize the claims of Pauline reminiscences in order to arrive at an acceptable result.\35/ Such allusions are of no help to me, since at best they spring up occasionally from the subconscious but evidence no kind of living relationship with Paul. Or what is one to think of this matter in view of the fact that it does not occur to the apologist to mention Romans 13 when [[216]] he argues that the Christians have always patriotically paid their taxes (Apol. 17) -- Theophilus of Antioch refers to this chapter (Autolycus 1.11, 3.14); or that 1 Corinthians 15 in no way plays a role in Justin's treatise On the Resurrection -- Athenagoras calls the apostle to mind in his treatment (On the Resurrection 18)? Rather, for Justin everything is based on the gospel tradition. And if a third question may be allowed, how is one to explain the fact that in the discussion of the conversion of the gentiles and the rejection of the Jews (Apol. 49) any congruence with Romans 9-11 is omitted, despite the fact that they both, apologist and apostle, appeal to Isaiah 65.2? In this light, the fact that the name of Paul is nowhere mentioned by Justin acquires a special significance that can hardly be diminished by the observation that the names of the other apostles also are absent. In one passage we hear of John, the apostle of Christ, as the author of Revelation (Dial. 81.4); and even though the names of the apostles are not mentioned on other occasions, there are repeated references to their "Memoirs." With respect to Paul, not only is his name lacking, but also any congruence with his letters. But for a learned churchman who carried on his work in Rome around the middle of the second century to act thus can only [[*219]] be understood as quite deliberate conduct.\36/ And if pressed to suggest a reason for this, it would seem to me that the most obvious possibility here would also be the reference to Marcion.

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\35/ On this matter, cf. Bousset, Evangeliencitate Justins, pp. 121-123.

\36/ It is fitting also to be reminded of Celsus, who could hardly have gained his insight that orthodoxy represented the "great" church over against the heretics (Origen Against Celsus 5.59; cf. 5.61 where the ecclesiastically oriented Chistians are<gk>oi( apo tou plhqous</gk>, "those of the multitude") anywhere but in Rome, and thus it was apparently there that he pursued his basic studies of the religion he combatted. For him also, the gospels are overwhelmingly of the synoptic type, and he also surely knows certain Pauline ideas, but not letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles, Cf. K. J. Neumann, RPTK\3, 3 (1897): 774.42 ff.; H. J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament\3 (Freiburg im B,, 1892), p. 111.

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The fact that in Rome, unlike Hierapolis, the gospel of Luke did not experience a temporary rejection together with the letters of Paul is surely due to geographical considerations. Perhaps one might wish to explain in a similar manner the fact that another churchman, who stood in the forefront of the battle with heresy and whom we know especially as an opponent of Marcion, Polycarp of Smyrna, has a much more positive relationship to the letters of Paul than did Justin. [[217]] Still, it is more accurate to find the reason for this in chronological rather than geographical limitations, and to remind ourselves that Polycarp wrote his epistle to the Philippians a good while before Marcion appeared. Thus he needed to feel no reservations about using Paul for support as he attempted to strengthen the backbone of the ecclesiastical minority in a Christian community that the Apostle to the Gentiles had founded and to which he had sent epistolary instructions (see above, 71-74). For him the blessed and illustrious Paul, with his wisdom, was a most valuable ally -- Polycarp knew full well that the Apostle to the Gentiles had instructed the Philippians not only orally, but also by means of letters.\37/ And although Polycarp apparently was not even exactly clear as to the number of such letters, and does not avoid the kind of language illustrated by the matter-of-fact way in which his ecclesiastical consciousness associates "the other apostles" with Paul (9.1), this is insufficient reason to doubt that he was acquainted with the canonical epistle to the Philippians. Concerning the other Pauline epistles, it seems to me that there are clear indications only for his having read 1 Corinthians and probably also Romans. Galatians and Ephesians also might have belonged to his collection, but I cannot free myself from doubts concerning the pastoral [[*220]] Epistles.\38/ Polycarp clearly agrees with Papias, however, in the use of 1 Peter, which Eusebius had already noted (EH 4.14.9), and of 1 John (Polycarp Phil. 7.1).

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\37/ Polycarp Phil. 3.2. On the plural "letters," see Bauer, Ignatius, ad loc. (p. 287), [and also Schoedel, Polycarp ... Papias, pp. 14f.].

\38/ Cf. M. Dibelius, Die Pastoralbriefe, Handbuch zum NT 13\2 (1931) on 1 Tim. 6.7 and 10 [this commentary subsequently has been revised by H. Conzelmann, 1955\3 and 1964\4]. See also below, 222-225 and 226 f.

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We have already heard of the sympathy which the Antiochian churchman Ignatius, probably stimulated by Rome, showed toward the apostles Peter and Paul (above, 112, 117). In contrast to Polycarp, Ignatius does not betray any knowledge (as yet) of 1 Peter, nor of 1 John. But when we then inquire further as to the influence of Paul and his epistles, the result also is not very impressive. To be sure, alongside obvious deviations Ignatius advocates ideas, or perhaps better, attitudes that we similarly observe in the Apostle to the Gentiles who, like Ignatius, was facing martyrdom, and here and there Ignatius comes close to Paul with regard to external form. But a direct, fully conscious dependence on the letters of Paul still does [[218]] not occur. In the single letter of Polycarp, who can be called a spiritual disciple of Paul only in a very limited way, the latter is mentioned by name three times (3.2, 9.1, 11.2-3), and once a Pauline saying is explicitly quoted (11.2 = 1 Cor. 6.2). But in the seven letters of Ignatius, with the exception of the Roman watchword concerning Peter and Paul (Rom. 4.3), Paul appears only in Eph. 12.2 in a passage which does not exactly attest an extensive knowledge of the content of a relatively large number of Paul's letters. There Ignatius explains that Paul mentions the Ephesians "in every letter." That this is not true for our collection is generally acknowledged, and I regard as wasted effort all attempts to prove that it is at least approximately correct. As a matter of fact, if we exclude the pastoral epistles and the inscription of Ephesians, the city of Ephesus is mentioned by Paul only in 1 Corinthians (15.32, 16.8). And it is precisely that letter of the Apostle to the Gentiles, and indeed only that letter, which Ignatius assuredly had read. As for other letters of Paul [[*221]] only a possibility exists\39/ -- this may be sufficient for those who are sympathetically disposed, but it cannot be forced upon anyone.

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\39/ If Ignatius also knew Ephesians (compare the inscription to his Ephesian letter with the Pauline Eph. 1.3 ff.; this has the best claim after 1 Corinthians), and already knew it as a letter to Ephesus (which is unlikely on account of Marcion [who seems to call it "Laodiceans"]), then the plural implied in the words "every letter" would be explained. [Grant, Ignatius, p. 43, accepts an older interpretation that takes the phrase <gk>en pash epistolh</gk> to mean "in an entire letter," referring to Ephesians alone.] Of course, it would be explained almost equally well if it were conceded that the passage refers to Romans (16.5) and 2 Corinthians (1.8) with their references to Asia (see below, 221).

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The reason I will have nothing to do with the question of indirect influence is the futility of an argumentation based on only halfway satisfactory evidence. Although such an influence cannot be denied for Paul in those decades in general, we are in no position to define and delimit it with precision in this particular instance any more than in others. My awareness of the extremely fragmentary nature of our knowledge also prevents me from speaking on this matter even with limited confidence. I cannot possibly adopt a procedure which draws straight lines between the few more or less sure points that can still be ascertained, and thus manages to make connections between relatively remote items -- connections the possibility and nature of which remain completely obscure. Paul and Ignatius are separated by a full half century that was quite rich in events of great significance for the [[219]] Christian cause, and within which the development of Christianity in Antioch is almost completely unknown to me. The history of Paul has not encouraged me to expect that this city, where the Christian community did not belong to his circle during his lifetime and which received no letter from him, should suddenly open itself to him and to his writings (see above, 63). The period after Paul's death would seem to us to have been much more a time of diminution of the Pauline sphere of influence, rather than expansion. And what we may still have been in a position to ascertain concerning the shape of Christian life in Antioch to the time of Ignatius (above, 65-67) indicates that influences other than that of Paul were at work there and connects Ignatius to them, despite all his resistance.

Of course, all doubt would fade away if in the essentials of his teaching Ignatius were perceptibly dependent on statements from the Pauline epistles. But that is not the case. The only letter that could with certainty be ascribed to Ignatius' use was, as we saw above, 1 Corinthians -- that unit among the major Pauline letters which yields the very least for our understanding of the Pauline faith. And it is not even a "dogmatic" passage such as 1 Corinthians 15 that had bewitched Ignatius. But the Pauline proclamation certainly can not overflow into the postapostolic age through the channel of 1 Corinthians. [[*222]] If the preservation and promulgation of the Apostle's preaching really had been the intention behind the original circulation of Pauline letters in this period, then Romans and the terribly neglected second letter to the Corinthians, which completely sank into oblivion alongside the first, would have had to provide the source to a much greater extent that actually took place. But in our investigation of the impact of the Pauline writings, whenever we come from the marshy ground of "reminiscences" and "allusions" to firmer territory, again and again we confront 1 Corinthians. This was true for Polycarp (see above, 217), is true for Ignatius, and will also be true for 1 Clement. It seems to me that the last named, 1 Clement, holds the solution to the riddle of why 1 Corinthians, which is so meager in didactic content, should have preference -- an esteem that accorded first place to it in the oldest collection of Pauline letters of which we are still aware.\40/ [[220]]

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\40/ In the Muratorian Canon. Marcion also attests this attitude, even if he himself inserts Galatians before it. Cf. Jülicher-Fascher, Einleitung\7, pp. 546 f.

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We already know what made 1 Corinthians so valuable to the author of 1 Clement. He was not at all concerned with the Pauline gospel; in that case he would have put Romans, which also was available to him, to a different use than he actually does.\41/ 1 Corinthians was an extremely important weapon for him in the conflict against Corinth (see above, 114), and perhaps it had been passed along to him by his allies there. Since the most obvious interpretation of 1 Clement 47.1 indicates that at the beginning of the controversy the author knew only one letter of Paul to Corinth, it seems that the entire Corinthian heritage from Paul had not already made its way to Rome during peaceful times for purposes of edification.\42/ Whatever Clement appropriates from 1 Corinthians makes a point against the adversaries in Corinth -- 1 Cor. 1.11-13 = 1 Clem. 47.3; 1 Cor. 12.12 ff. = 1 Clem. 37.5-38.1; and even a portion of the [[*223]] hymn concerning love, 1 Cor. 13.4-7 = 1 Clem. 49.5. And from that time on, the purpose of 1 Corinthians was firmly established for the church: "First of all, to the Corinthians, censuring the heresies of schism" (primum omnium Corinthiis schismae haereses interdicens, Muratorian Canon, lines 42f.). But it is really rather peculiar and in need of an explanation that this extensive and multifaceted epistle is supposed to have had only this purpose.\43/

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\41/ Strictly speaking, he uses it only for the purpose of moral admonition -- 1 Clem. 35.5-6, following Rom. 1.29-32; 1 Clem. 33.1, following Rom. 6.1.

\42/ It also seems that the letter to the Philippians was not yet used in Clement's Roman church. Otherwise he surely also would have remembered Phil. 2.1-12 when he refers to the example of the humble Christ (16.17) and when he matched Paul against the Corinthians (47.1).

\43/ Indeed, the Muratorian Canon is so greatly under the influence of this attitude, which has been transmitted to it, concerning the purpose of the epistle, that even 2 Corinthians is pictured as not having any different aim (lines 42 and 54 f.).

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If we are not content to believe that it was by an accident of fate that, in the course of scarcely twenty years, precisely 1 Corinthians came to be firmly established and given special honor within the churches of Rome, Smyrna, and Antioch, then it must have been that church in which 1 Corinthians first came to be prized so highly -- indeed, the only church that had a discernible reason for such an attitude -- it must have been Rome that took the initiative. Rome did not want to withhold such an approved weapon from its allies in the fight against heresy. On this occasion Smyrna also may have [[221]] received the epistle to the Romans, the use of which cannot be established for contemporary Antioch, although that possibility is not thereby excluded. Perhaps at that time both communities also obtained 2 Corinthians from the world capital, a document that Rome surely brought home as valuable booty from its Corinthian campaign. Some sort of compelling evidence of such possession, to be sure, can be offered at present neither for Smyrna nor even for Antioch. But such considerations may be left aside, even though they might throw a ray of light, albeit a woefully weak one, on the lengthy and obscure history of the collection of Pauline epistles.\44/ [[*224]] It appears to me to be to some degree probable that 1 Corinthians was put at the disposal of the orthodox communities in Symrna and Antioch by Rome, about the year 100. That it at that time may also have received the widely discussed "ecumenical" stamp (1.2)\45/ is a suggestion that may be excusable in a book that is forced to rely so heavily on conjectures.

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\44/ The situation with regard to the collection of the Pauline epistles is entirely different from that of the letters of Ignatius. The latter were written one after another and then were immediately brought together. With Paul, those letters which are surely genuine cover a period of a decade, and were sent to at least six different, in part widely separated localities (Galatia, Colossae, Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, Rome). Further decades were required to establish the prerequisites according to which pseudo-Pauline letters could be added (Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians; prior to the year 110 according to Jülicher-Fascher, Einleitung\7, p. 67), and last of all the pastoral Epistles. That in a period when Pauline influence was declining, extant collections of his letters had been systemattcally completed everywhere at once is doubtful to me, and I can hardly regard it as really proven that Polycarp possessed a collection of ten, to say nothing of thirteen, Pauline writings [ -- regardless of what he had of the letters of Ignatius].

\45/ Cf. Harnack, Briefsammlung, p. 9; Jülicher-Fascher, Einleitung\7, p. 472; Lietzmann, ''Zwei Notizen zu Paulus,'' pp. 3-5 [= 151-153]. In this way, Lietzmann's question in his commentary An die Korinther, ad loc., also would be answered: "Why should the redactor have dealt only with 1 Corinthians in that manner, while sparing all the other epistles?"

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The small collections of Pauline letters, which were cherished at the beginning of the second century in the "churches" of Rome -- doubtless just as in similarly oriented Corinth, in Antioch and Smyrna\46/ -- were then surpassed and replaced by Marcion's more complete collection. I would regard him as the first systematic collector of the Pauline heritage. He who ruthlessly rejected the Old [[222]] Testament and everything of primitive Christian tradition that stemmed from Palestine, was plainly bent on giving his teaching as broad a Pauline foundation as possible, while on the other hand, he was in a position to realize his aspirations since he was a well-traveled, educated, affluent person with numerous connections. It would not surprise me if we owed to his perception the short communication of Paul to Philemon, this purely private letter that hardly would have been read in communities prior to Marcion. And whoever wonders with Harnack why "the letter to the Galatians has been preserved for us at all"\47/ perhaps may also feel himself indebted to Marcion, since prior to his activity sure traces of Galatians are lacking, while the uncertain traces are sharply limited to Polycarp.

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\46/ Here the development flourished most extensively, since Polycarp possessed especially wide-ranging connections. He was an Asiatic, but also was in touch with Antioch and Rome, and even had contacts in Macedonia.

\47/ Harnack, Briefsammlung, p. 72.

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It is well established that Marcion came from Pontus, the neighbor of Galatia, and as he traveled out into the world, he could not have avoided the communities to which Paul had addressed his communication. Possibly he had already become acquainted with this letter in his native land. In any event, it is certain that it was from Galatians\48/ [[*225]] and not, say, from Romans with its concise explanation that Christ was the end of the law (10.4), that Marcion got the idea about how he could break the back of the Old Testament, so highly treasured by so many Christians, and drive the Jewish apostles of Jerusalem from the field. Then on his journey through Asia Minor, and as he went further westward until he reached Rome, he may have collected everything that anyone here or there in the Christian communities possessed from Paul. Perhaps, together with the note to Philemon, he also brought to the West at that time the epistle to the Colossians, of which we are unable to detect even the faintest trace prior to Marcion.\49/

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\48/ That is the only way to explain the fact that in Marcion's holy sciptures, Galatians stands first in the collection of Paul's letters.

\49/ With the exception of Ephesians, if it is spurious; but we do not know when and where it made use of Colossians.

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In line with this approach, it is difficult for me to believe that Marcion had already known the pastoral Epistles, which are not included in his canon. He who with utmost passion was in hot pursuit of every line from Paul -- he had to be! -- and who because of the paucity of traditional material would hardly permit any large scale wastefulness, also would have pressed these three epistles into his [[223]] service by reworking them. There would have been even less reason to reject all of them together insofar as the epistle to Titus, which from Marcion's perspective would not be wedded for better or worse to the epistles to Timothy,\50/ offered very little of offense to him. But if this assumption is correct and is taken seriously, the further hypothesis seems to me valid that the pastoral Epistles still were not in existence at the time that Marcion made his decision as to the extent of the Pauline material. I see no way to accept Harnack's view:

Around the year 140, Marcion knew a collection of only ten letters; in all probability he did not reject the pastoral Epistles, but simply did not know them. But we are in the fortunate position of being able to trace back to around the year 100 not only the collection of the ten letters, but even that of the thirteen letters, for Polycarp's letter to the Philippians at the time of Trajan shows us through its quotations and allusions that [[*226]] our present collection, including the pastoral epistles, was already in use both in Smyrna and in Philippi. The Pastorals thus had been added to the collection of ten letters already prior to Marcion, and the older collection was supplanted immediately in almost all the churches. Not only the original collection but also that containing 13 letters take us back to the end of the first century as the terminus ad quem!\51/
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\50/ Just as little as it was for those heretics who, according to Clement of Alexandria, rejected only the two epistles to Timothy (Strom. 2.[11.]52), while we hear of Tatian that he recognized just the epistle to Titus (Jerome Preface to the Commentary on Titus 7 = Vallarsi ed. p. 686; Migne PL 26).

\51/ Harnack, Briefsammlung, p. 6.

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Thus there is portrayed for us here a Marcion who comes through Asia to Rome, but the pastoral Epistles elude him despite the fact that they have been in use -- and indeed not sporadically here and there, but as parts of a collection in official use -- for more than a generation, and even right in Smyrna, a city with which Marcion was in contact during his journey.\52/ Such a Marcion seems to me to be an impossibility, and for that reason the observations that led Harnack to his conclusions should be assessed differently. The basic reason for assigning an early date to the Pastorals is, for Harnack and many others, the notion that Polycarp reproduces "three passages from the pastoral Epistles in his letter."\53/ Whoever agrees with me in [[224]] concluding from the negative stance of Marcion toward the Pastorals that prior to him (to say nothing of the time of Trajan) they cannot already have received recognition as letters of Paul (to choose a very guarded form of expression), will explain those "quotations" either (1) by denying that they reflect any direct dependence\54/ but instead derive from the common use of an established stock of ideas (as in the corresponding case of the contacts between Ignatius and the Fourth Gospel; see above, 209 f.), recalling that such connections also exist between the Pastorals and 1 Clement, and to close the triangle, even between 1 Clement and Polycarp -- connections that reflect a standardized way of speaking common in ecclesiastical circles; or, (2) if the citations appear quite unambiguous to him, he will have to conclude that it is the Pastorals that are derivative, and their author was dependent on Polycarp.\55/ That author doubtless comes from the same circle of orthodoxy as Polycarp. All the arguments against such an order of dependence do not in the least neutralize the force with which Marcion resists the assumption [[*227]] that the pastoral Epistles had already been regarded with veneration within Christendom prior to the beginning of his activity.\56/

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\52/ Harnack, Marcion\2, p. 28 (referring to Polycarp's rebuke of Marcion; above, 70].

\53/ Harnack, Briefsammlung, p. 72,

\54/ Cf. M. Dibelius, Pastoralbriefe, pp. 6, 53, 55.

\55/ [H. F. von Campenhausen has even argued that Polycarp was the author of the Pastorals; see below, 307. On the problem in general, see also Schoedel, Polycarp ... Papias, pp. 5, 16, etc.]

\56/ Moreover, even the Muratorian Canon preserves the recollection that the pastoral Epistles were added at first as a supplement to a collection that had ended with the letter to Philemon (lines 59 ff.).

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If we want to understand the origin of the pastoral Epistles, we must remember that just as the gospel of John began its existence as a heretical gospel, so Paul also enjoyed the favor of the heretics to a great extent. Marcion simply represents a high point, and is by no means a unique case. Zahn thoroughly demonstrated the close relationships of Valentinus and his school to the Apostle to the Gentiles;\57/ according to Clement of Alexandria Strom. 7.(17.) 106, Valentinus is supposed to have listened to Theodas, an acquaintance of Paul. The Valentinians "maintain that Paul has made use of the basic concepts of their system in his letters in a manner sufficiently clear to anyone who can read" (Zahn, 751). "The manner in which they cite the Pauline letters is just as respectful as the manner we find [[225]] used by the teachers of the church of the following\58/ decades and centuries" (756). "The teaching of Valentinus is just as inconceivable without the letters of Paul as without the prologue to the Fourth Gospel, and it is no accident that Paul is preferred by all Valentinians as the preacher of the hidden wisdom who speaks out most clearly" (758). It is demonstrable that Basilides also made use of Romans and 1 Corinthians, and there may be some truth to Jerome's claim that Basilides treated the pastoral Epistles in the same way as Marcion (in the passage cited above, 223 n. 50). I need not continue naming other gnostics who appreciated Paul.\59/ Second Peter 3.16 will have occurred to everyone in this connection. And for the Montanists, Paul was just as indispensable as a witness to the activity of the spirit in primitive Christianity as was the gospel of John with its Paraclete. Even the Muratorian Canon (lines 63-68) complains that heretics are producing false letters of Paul in order to make propaganda for their false teaching by using the stolen prestige of the Apostle to the Gentiles. [[*228]]

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\57/ Zahn, Geschichte, 1.2 (1889): 751-758.

\58/ Italics mine. However, I reject Zahn's continuation as an unproved prejudice; "That was precisely the phraseology that Valentinius found to be dominant in the church and that his school appropiated."

\59/ Cf. R. Liechtenhan, Die Offenbarung im Gnostizismus(Göttingen, 1901), p, 79.

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In this light, the reluctance with which the representatives of the church made use of the Apostle to the Gentiles around the middle of the second century (Papias, Justin, Hegesippus; above, 213-215) seems to me to be explicable. Perhaps, as the situation developed, some would have preferred henceforth to exclude Paul completely and to rely exclusively on the twelve apostles. But it was already too late for that. Rome (together with the "church," which it led) had already accepted too much from the Apostle to the Gentiles, had appealed to him too often, suddenly to recognize him no longer. He had become a martyr-apostle of Rome -- had helped it to develop the popular slogan "Peter and Paul"; and even if Rome did not really know how to begin to put to use Paul's letter to the Romans, 1 Corinthians had proved itself to be extremely productive for purposes of church politics in the hands of Rome. By that means, Paul and his letter came to have permanent claims on the "church." There were other cases as well where Christianity subsequently had to come to terms with all sorts of things that it had originally accepted without [[226]] question and from which it could not simply retreat as circumstances changed. Thus initially one spoke without embarrassment, in accordance with the facts (and it is easy enough to find additional examples) about how Jesus also had been baptized; he was happy to be able thus to anchor the Christian practice to the life of Jesus. But then, in the struggle with evil or contrary antagonists, he took great pains to make a convincing case for the superiority of Jesus over John, or to explain just what Jesus could have expected to gain by being baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

Thus, despite all heretical misuse, Paul had to be retained as the "church's" apostle. But it was, of course, desirable henceforth to mark him unequivocally with the ecclesiastical and anti-heretical stamp. In the light of this, I am inclined to see the pastoral Epistles as an attempt on the part of the church unambiguously to enlist Paul as part of its anti-heretical front and to eliminate the lack of confidence in him in ecclesiastical circles. As its answer to the heretical Apostle of the epistles to Laodicea and Alexandria, "forged in the name of Paul" (Pauli nomine finctae, Muratorian Canon, lines 64 ff.) the church raised up the Paul of orthodoxy by using the same means.\60/ Such a need may have been felt even prior to Marcion. But since it [[*229]] is difficult to find satisfactory evidence that the pastoral Epistles already were in existence prior to him (see above, 222-224), there is really no reason why it could not have been his appearance that gave the church the decisive impulse for their production. Indeed, if Polycarp cannot serve as the terminus ad quem for the pastoral Epistles, explicit attestation requiring knowledge of them occurs first with the churchman Irenaeus, who begins his great work Against Heresies with the words "of the apostle" from 1 Timothy 1.4 (AH 1.preface).

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\60/ This sort of analysis of the purpose of the Pastorals does not, of course, exclude the other view which sees them as a weapon in the conflict with the heretics. Cf. above, 76.

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However unpopular this view currently may be and however little I myself shared it a short time ago, it no longer seems to me today to be improbable that 1 Timothy 6.20 refers to Marcion's Antitheses -- perhaps even before they were put into written form.

I cannot accept the outlook which rejects such a late origin for the Pastorals because "in that case a reference to the great gnostic [[227]] systems would be expected."\61/ We do, in fact, know of an orthodox author who doubtless flourished subsequent to Basilides, Valentinus, and Marcion, and yet makes no clear reference to these teachings; but in spite of this he wants to draw the Apostle to the Gentiles into the ecclesiastical phalanx of heresy fighters in much the same way as we have suspected of the author of the pastoral Epistles. I am referring to that presbyter in Asia who produced the Acts of Paul at about the same time that the Asian Irenaeus, motivated by the same ecclesiastical spirit, opposed the gnostics with the help of the Pastorals. These Acts speak in language "clearly saturated with reminiscences of the pastoral Epistles."\62/ Their author also has Paul advocating, by means of a letter (so-called 3 Corinthians; see above, 42 n. 99), the ecclesiastical viewpoint in opposition to a gnostic aberration that cannot be clearly identified.

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\61/ As in Dibelius, Pastoralbiefe, p. 6.

\62/ Rolffs in Hennecke\2, pp. 196 f. [See now also Schneemelcher in Hennecke-Schneemelcher, 2: 348.]

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The price the Apostle to the Gentiles had to pay to be allowed to remain in the church was the complete surrender of his personality and historical particularity. If already in the pastoral Epistles he has strayed far from his origins, in the Acts of Paul and the Epistle of the Apostles he has become merely the docile disciple of the twelve from whom he receives his instructions.\63/ [[*230]] But even this sacrifice did not really help him. Wherever the "church" becomes powerful, the bottom drops out from under him and he must immediately give way to the celebrities from the circle of the twelve apostles. We have seen this same process taking place in Ephesus, in Corinth, in Rome and Antioch, with variations only on account of the differing locations and their respective histories (see above, 83 f., 112-118). And we soon reach the point where the church no longer needs the apostle to the nations for any mission, but divides up the entire world among the twelve. To some extent, Paul becomes influential only as part of the holy scriptures acknowledged in the church -- not the personality of the Apostle to the Gentiles and his proclamation, but the word of Paul [or, the word "Paul"] whenever it is useful for the development and preservation of ecclesiastical teaching. But that involves [[228]] looking beyond the limits of the period presently under discussion. In our period we observe how the introduction of the pastoral Epistles actually made the collection of Paul's letters ecclesiastically viable for the very first time. Perhaps 1 John, which has a pronounced anti-heretical tone and came to be valued quite early in the church (Polycarp, Papias), performed a similar service for the heretical gospel of John.

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\63/ See above, 114 n. 6, and cf. C. Schmidt ''Ein Berliner Fragment der alten <ts> Praxeis Paulou</ts>,'' Sb Berlin 6 for 1931, pp. 5 f. [= 39 f.].

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//End Ch.9//

Interesting, thanks for posting this Irish. :thumbup:

This reinforces some of the opinions that I have been drawing about the letters lately. :cheers:

Do you think you might contribute to the Paul experiment? It would be nice to get your take on it.

Lane
From posting.php?mode=edit&f=3&p=150994:

Eyes, ears, (hand,) heart

Luke 10:24 λέγω (I say) γὰρ (for) ὑμῖν (to you) ὅτι (that) πολλοὶ (many) προφῆται (prophets) καὶ (and) βασιλεῖς (kings) ἠθέλησαν (desired) ἰδεῖν (to see) ἃ (what) ὑμεῖς (you) βλέπετε (see), καὶ (and) οὐκ (not) εἶδαν (saw); καὶ (and) ἀκοῦσαι (to hear) ἃ (what) ἀκούετε (you hear), καὶ (and) οὐκ (not) ἤκουσαν (heard).”

1 Cor 2:9 ἀλλὰ (but) καθὼς (as) γέγραπται (it has been written): “Ἃ (What) ὀφθαλμὸς (eye) οὐκ (not) εἶδεν (has seen), καὶ (and) οὖς (ear) οὐκ (not) ἤκουσεν (has heard), καὶ (and) ἐπὶ (into) καρδίαν (heart) ἀνθρώπου (of man) οὐκ (not) ἀνέβη (has entered), ὅσα (what) ἡτοίμασεν (has prepared) ὁ (-) Θεὸς (God) τοῖς (for those) ἀγαπῶσιν (loving) αὐτόν (Him).”

Romans 11:7 Τί (What) οὖν (then)? ὃ (What) ἐπιζητεῖ (is seeking) Ἰσραήλ (Israel), τοῦτο (this) οὐκ (not) ἐπέτυχεν (it has obtained); ἡ (-) δὲ (but) ἐκλογὴ (the elect) ἐπέτυχεν (obtained it). οἱ (The) δὲ (now) λοιποὶ (rest) ἐπωρώθησαν (were hardened),
8 καθὼς* (as) γέγραπται (it has been written): “Ἔδωκεν (Gave) αὐτοῖς (them) ὁ (-) Θεὸς (God) πνεῦμα (a spirit) κατανύξεως (of stupor), ὀφθαλμοὺς (eyes) τοῦ (-) μὴ (not) βλέπειν (to see), καὶ (and) ὦτα (ears) τοῦ (-) μὴ (not) ἀκούειν (to hear), ἕως (unto) τῆς (the) σήμερον (today) ἡμέρας (day).”

Matthew 13:13 διὰ (Because of) τοῦτο (this), ἐν (in) παραβολαῖς (parables) αὐτοῖς (to them) λαλῶ (I speak): ‘Ὅτι (Because) βλέποντες (seeing), οὐ (not) βλέπουσιν (do they see); Καὶ (and) ἀκούοντες (hearing), οὐκ (not) ἀκούουσιν (do they hear), οὐδὲ (nor) συνίουσιν (do they understand).’ 14 Καὶ (And) ἀναπληροῦται (is fulfilled) αὐτοῖς (in them) ἡ (the) προφητεία (prophecy) Ἠσαΐου (of Isaiah), ἡ (-) λέγουσα (saying): ‘Ἀκοῇ (In hearing) ἀκούσετε (you will hear), καὶ (and) οὐ (no) μὴ (not) συνῆτε (understand); Καὶ (and) βλέποντες (seeing) βλέψετε (you will see) καὶ (and) οὐ (no) μὴ (not) ἴδητε (perceive). 15 Ἐπαχύνθη (Has grown dull) γὰρ (for) ἡ (the) καρδία (heart) τοῦ (of the) λαοῦ (people) τούτου (this), Καὶ (and) τοῖς (with the) ὠσὶν (ears) βαρέως (barely) ἤκουσαν (they have heard), Καὶ (and) τοὺς (the) ὀφθαλμοὺς (eyes) αὐτῶν (of them) ἐκάμμυσαν (they have closed); Μή ‿ (not) ποτε (lest) ἴδωσιν (they should see) τοῖς (with the) ὀφθαλμοῖς (eyes), Καὶ (and) τοῖς (with the) ὠσὶν (ears) ἀκούσωσιν (they should hear), Καὶ (and) τῇ (with the) καρδίᾳ (heart) συνῶσιν (they should understand), Καὶ (and) ἐπιστρέψωσιν (should return), Καὶ (and) ἰάσομαι (I will heal) αὐτούς (them).’ b 16 Ὑμῶν (Of you) δὲ (however) μακάριοι (blessed) οἱ (are the) ὀφθαλμοὶ (eyes), ὅτι (because) βλέπουσιν (they see); καὶ (and) τὰ (the) ὦτα (ears) ὑμῶν (of you), ὅτι (because) ἀκούουσιν (they hear).

Throwing in Isaiah for good measure:

Isaiah 6:9καὶ εἶπεν Πορεύθητι καὶ εἰπὸν τῷ λαῷ τούτῳ Ἀκοῇ ἀκούσετε καὶ οὐ μὴ συνῆτε, καὶ βλέποντες βλέψετε καὶ οὐ μὴ ἴδητε.
10ἐπαχύνθη γὰρ ἡ καρδία τοῦ λαοῦ τούτου, καὶ τοῖς ὠσὶν αὐτῶν βαρέως ἤκουσαν καὶ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἐκάμμυσαν, μή ποτε ἴδωσιν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς καὶ τοῖς ὠσὶν ἀκούσωσιν, καὶ τῇ καρδίᾳ συνῶσιν καὶ ἐπιστρέψωσιν, καὶ ἰάσομαι αὐτούς.

Oddly, Walt points to Thomas 38 here, next to 7

17. IS said: I will give to you him who no eye beheld and him who no ear heard and him who no hand touched and who did not come up on the heart/mind of human.

The order is important: eye, ear, hand, heart. Only Thomas has hand, but the order throughout is see / hear / (heart), and Matthew is pretending that Corinthians got its text from Isaiah instead of Thomas, which evidently falls through already in Matthew himself: he copies the quote and order himself (see / hear) and then cites Isaiah, who has hear / see. The funny thing is, NO ONE has the Isaiah order but Isaiah itself - and Matthew is covering for either all of them, or Corinthians came after Matthew and made the same mistake that Romans and Luke made?

It is easier to look at the correct Hebrew instead:

Isaiah 6:9 And He said, “Go, say to that people:
‘Hear, indeed, but do not understand;
See, indeed, but do not grasp.’

10 Dull that people’s mind,
Stop its ears,
And seal its eyes—

Lest, seeing with its eyes
And hearing with its ears,
It also grasp with its mind,
And repent and heal itself.”



Now what does the LXX really say then?
Let's follow sefaria with the interlinear LXX:

And he said, Go! and say to this people,
και είπε πορεύθητι και είπον τω λαώ
Hearing, you shall hear, but in no way shall you perceive;
τούτω ακοή ακούσετε και ου μη συνείτε
and seeing you shall see, but in no way shall you know.
και βλέποντες βλέψετε και ου μη ίδητε[/b]
For the heart of this people];
γαρ η καρδία του λαού τούτου
and [ with their ears heavily they heard],
και τοις ωσίν αυτών βαρέως ήκουσαν
and the eyes closed eyelids,
και τους οφθαλμούς εκάμμυσαν

lest at any time they should behold with their eyes,
μήποτε ίδωσι τοις οφθαλμοίς αυτών
and the ears should hear,
και τοις ωσίν ακούσωσι
and the heart should perceive,
και τη καρδία συνώσι
and they should turn, and I shall heal them.
και επιστρέψωσι και ίασομαι αυτούς[/b]

The essential part is highlighted, and the Hebrew imperative gets magically turned into, well, errrr, gobbledegook. The Hebrew actually states "inner man" and it is identical to the Coptic heart/mind: it could be either-or, or both. So in essence, save for turning the Hebrew imperative into a narative, the elements are all there and their order is intact, in between the Hebrew and the LXX

In between that and all the other copies? The order is completely different from that, and always "that of Thomas" - because this OP will demonstrate that Thomas is the thin red line through all of these texts. Just for good measure, the other parallels to this specific piece of text:

Dialogue of the Saviour 57
'The Lord said, "[You have] asked me for a word [about that] which eye has not seen, nor have I heard about it, except from you."'

1 Clement 34.8
'Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him, says Scripture, and thousands did him service, crying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; all creation is full of his glory. In the same way ought we ourselves, gathered together in a conscious unity, to cry to him as it were with a single voice, if we are to obtain a share of his glorious great promises - for it says that no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, no mortal heart has dreamed of the things God has in store for those who wait patiently for him.'

2 Clement 11.7
'If, then, we have done what is right in God's eyes, we shall enter his Kingdom and receive the promises which ear has not heard or eye seen, or which man's heart has not entertained.'

The funny bit about this Clement is that it has the right order, yet also includes heart, and especially "heart of man" whereas the LXX speaks of a heart of the people (τοῦ λαοῦ) so what on earth is this Clement quoting here?

Martyrdom of Peter 10
'Therefore, you also brethren, having taken refuge with him and having learned that in him alone you exist, will obtain those things of which he says to you - what eye has not seen or ear heard, nor did they enter the heart of man.'

Acts of Peter 39
'To him, brethren, you also take refuge and learn that your existence is in him alone, and you shall then obtain that of which he said to you, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man."'

Acts of Thomas 36
'But we speak of God and our Lord Jesus, and of the angels and the guardian spirits and the saints, and of the new world; and of the incorruptible food of the tree of life, and of the draught (of the water) of life; of what eye has not seen nor ear heard nor has entered into the heart of man (to conceive), - what God has prepared from of old for those who love him.'

Pseudo-Philo, Liber antiquitatum biblicarum 26, 13
'And then I will take those and many others better than they are from where eye has not seen nor ear heard and it has not entered into the heart of man, until the like should come to pass in the world.'

Pseudo-Titus Epistle
'Great and honourable is the divine promise which the Lord has made with his own mouth to them that are holy and pure. He will bestow upon them what eyes have not seen nor ears heard, nor has it entered the human heart. And from eternity to eternity there will be a race incomparable and incomprehensible.'

Prayer of the Apostle Paul l,A,26-35
'Grant what no angel eye has [seen] and no archon ear (has) heard and what has not entered into the human heart which came to be angelic and (modelled) after the image of the psychic God when it was formed in the beginning, since I have faith and hope.'

Apostolic Constitutions 7.32
' "Then shall the wicked go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous shall go into life eternal", to inherit those things "which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, such things as God has prepared for those who love him".'

Turfan Manichaean Fragment, M 789
'.. .that I may redeem you from death and annihilation, I will give you what you have not seen with the eye nor heard with the ears nor grasped with the hand.'

Again, NO ONE quotes Isaiah, and whatever 2 Clement 11.7 is citing may remain a mystery.
ALL copies here demonstrate blissful unawareness of an LXX,and all ignore the poster child of Christianity, and his feeble alleged excuse for quoting what he writes differently himself. There is even one hand here, and countless hearts - of (the hu)man, and none of the people

It is like Matthew doesn't exist, and the LXX doesn't exist - to all of these writings. And it is most blatantly evident that Isaiah is NOT the source to any of them
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