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Pauline Controversies in the Post-Pauline Period*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

C. K. Barrett
C. K. Barrett
Affiliation:
(Durham, England)
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Extract

The theme is one that could easily be allowed to develop into a history of the apostolic age. I hope to keep it within reasonable bounds by approaching it in the main from one angle only. Like most of the great figures of the past, Paul is known to us both as a historical and as a legendary figure, and it is my intention in this paper to consider in a small way not only how the real Paul and the legendary Paul illuminate each other, but also how, between them, they cast a measure of light upon an obscure period.

Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , April 1974 , pp. 229 - 245
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

page 232 note 1 Preface to the 1779 ‘Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People called Methodists’.

page 233 note 1 See ‘ΨΕΥΔΑΠΟΣΤΟΛΟΙ (II Cor. xi. 13)’, in Mélanges Bibliques en hommage au R.P. Béda Rigaux (1970), pp. 377–96.Google Scholar

page 233 note 2 This view seems to me much more probable than that which sees all Paul's opponents as gnostics.

page 233 note 3 Petrus und Paulus in Rom (1915)Google Scholar

page 233 note 4 Ramsay, W. M., The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170 (10th edition, no date); cf. pp. 282 f.Google Scholar: ‘While the tradition that St. Peter perished in Rome is strong and early, the tradition about the date of his death is not so clear.’

page 234 note 1 Dockx, S., Nov. T. XIII, 304,Google Scholar gives the two years as A.D. 56–8.

page 234 note 2 Morton, Smith, N.T.S. VII, 86 ff.Google Scholar But had Clement read Acts?

page 234 note 3 There is much of importance in S. G. F. Brandon's discussion of this situation in The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church (1951); but that from A.D. 55 Paul was out of contact with his churches, and discredited in their eyes, is contradicted by Philippians and Colossians, if these were written from Rome. Brandon is surprisingly conservative in his use of Acts xxi.

page 235 note 1 Eusebius, , Church History III. v. 3.Google ScholarMunck, J. (N.T.S. VI, 103 f.)Google Scholar thinks the story a fiction–the city could not be destroyed while any of the righteous remained within it; Brandon (op. cit. pp. 177 f.) that the flight was not to Pella but to Alexandria. The latter view does not affect my argument; the former does not adequately account for the origin of the tradition.

page 235 note 2 Munck (op. cit. pp. 114 f.) rightly points out that later Jewish Christianity was not a lineal descendant of the Jewish Christianity that Paul encountered.

page 235 note 3 Translation by A. Roberts and W. H. Rambaut, in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library. Cf. the Muratorian Canon, lines 63–8.

page 235 note 4 Except, of course, Hebrews.

page 236 note 1 On this important subject, which can only be touched on here, see G. Strecker's translation of the text in Hennecke, E. and Schneemelcher, W., Neutestamentliche Apokryphen II (1964), 76 ff.Google Scholar, and his introduction, op. cit. pp. 63–9; the same author's Das Judenchristentum in den Pseudoklementinen (1958); Goppelt, L., Christentum und Judentum im ersten und zweiten Jahrhundert (1954), pp. 171–6;Google ScholarSchoeps, H. J.Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums (1949);Google ScholarAus frühchristlicher Zeit (1950);Google ScholarUrgemeinde, Judenchristentum, Gnosis (1956);Google ScholarCullmann, O., Le Problème littéraire et historique du Roman Pseudo-Clémentin (1930).Google Scholar

page 236 note 2 See Bauer, W., Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (1934), pp. 215–30.Google Scholar

page 236 note 3 Op. cit. p. 199. For the texts of Hegesippus see Routh, M. J., Reliquiae Sacrae 1 (1846), 205–19.Google Scholar

page 236 note 4 For details see Routh, op. cit. p. 219. A quotation taken by Photius (in the ninth century) from Stephen Gobarus (in the sixth century) is hardly the highest authority for the views of Hegesippus (in the second century).

page 237 note 1 It is scarcely mitigated by Routh's conjectural attribution (op. cit. pp. 10 f.) to Papias of the passage which is ascribed by Irenaeus, (Adv. Haer. v. xxxvi. 1 f.)Google Scholar to οι πρεσβύτερο and contains a quotation from I Cor. xv. 25–8.

page 237 note 2 One must also bear in mind that, at least according to Eusebius, (Church History III. xxxix. 13),Google Scholar Papias was σφόδρα σμικρός τόν νο⋯ν.

page 237 note 3 But is there not in De Resurrectione 10 an allusion to I Cor. xv. 53?

page 237 note 4 Justin, Martyr (Beiträge zur historischen Theologie, 47; 1973), pp. 135 f.Google Scholar

page 237 note 5 Knox, J., Marcion and the New Testament (1942), passim, but especially pp. 115 f.Google Scholar, supports Bauer in his view not only of Justin but of the general suspicion of Paul in the second century.

page 238 note 1 Wagenmann, J., Die Stellung des Apostels Paulus neben den Zwölf in den ersten zwei Jahrhunderten (Beihefte zur Z.N.W. 3; 1926), pp. 154 f.Google Scholar

page 238 note 2 The Clementines atteack Paul under cover of Simon Magus.

page 238 note 3 See the words of Gaius quoted in Eusebius, , Church History II. xxv. 6 f.Google Scholar, and, for the date, among other publications, Toynbee, J. and Perkins, J. W., The Shrine of St. Peter and the Vatican Exvavations (1956), pp. 128 f., 154 f.Google Scholar

page 239 note 1 See Grant, R. M., Gnosticism and Early Christianity (1959), pp. 160 f.Google Scholar

page 239 note 2 It is reasonable to think of a Pauline school, such as Lohse, E. posits for Colossians (N.T.S. xv, 211–20,Google Scholar and the same author's commentary, 1968).

page 240 note 1 See above, p. 234. An alternative possibility is that Paul's imprisonment ended with the failure of his accusers to appear and his departure through the back door of the gaol - an anticlimax that woukd have spoilt Luke's book in a different way.

page 243 note 1 A full discussion would seek traces of it elsewhere, e.g. in the gospels.

page 243 note 2 Allen, E. L., in N.T.S. 1, 143.Google Scholar

page 243 note 3 See Durham University Journal LXIV (new series XXXIII), 198–203.Google Scholar

page 244 note 1 Käsemann, E. (ed.), Das Neue Testament als Kanon (1970), p. 408. Cf. p. 407:Google Scholar ‘…daß es geschichtlich Jahwe nur im Streit mit Baal, Jakob nur in Bindung und Auseinandersetzung gegenüber Esaugibt, Christ und Antichrist stets gleichzeitig auf dem Plane sind, deshalb auch Glaube und Aberglaube, Kirche und Gegenkirche zwar unterschieden, aber nicht irdisch sauber getrennt werden können. Man verkennt den Kanon, wenn man sich einbildet, in ihm sei dieser Streit nicht im Gange, deshalb ihm gegenüber die Prüfung der Geister nicht notwendig.’

page 245 note 1 Nov. T. VII, 224.Google Scholar

page 245 note 2 von Harnack, A., The Origin of the New Testament (1925), p. 141Google Scholar