Gospels and Gospel Traditions in the Second Century: Experiments in Reception

382 Pages·2018·2.38 MB·English

by  Joseph Verheyden, Tobias Nicklas Jens Schröter

Gospels and Gospel Traditions in the Second Century
Beihefte zur Zeitschrift
für die neutestamentliche
Wissenschaft
Edited by
Matthias Konradt, Hermann Lichtenberger,
Judith Lieu, Laura Nasrallah,
Jens Schröter and Gregory E. Sterling
Volume 235
Gospels and Gospel
Traditions in the
Second Century
Experiments in Reception
Edited by
Jens Schröter, Tobias Nicklas and Joseph Verheyden
In collaboration with Katharina Simunovic
ISBN 978-3-11-054081-9
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-054234-9
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-054126-7
ISSN 0171-6441
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018954517
Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen
Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über
http://dnb.dnb.de abrufbar.
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck
♾ Printed on acid-free paper
Printed in Germany
www.degruyter.com
Table of Contents
Preface VII
Introduction IX
James Keith Elliott
Greek New Testament Papyri and their Text in the Second-Third
Centuries 1
Giovanni Bazzana
Replaying Jesus’ Sayingsin the “Agrapha”
Reflections on the Neu-Inszenierung of Jesus’ Traditions in the Second
Century between 2 Clement and Clement of Alexandria 27
John Kloppenborg
Conflated Citations of the Synoptic Gospels: The Beginnings of Christian
Doxographic Tradition? 45
Paul Foster
Ignatius and the Gospels 81
Francis Watson
On the Miracle Catena in Epistula Apostolorum 4–5 107
Daniel A. Smith
Marcion’s Gospel and the Synoptics:
Proposals and Problems 129
Katharina Greschat
„Worte Gottes, verkündigt von den Aposteln“
Evangelienzitate bei Justin 175
Jens Schröter
Thomas unterden Evangelisten
Zum Ort des Thomasevangeliums in der frühchristlichen Literatur 193
VI TableofContents
Bernhard Mutschler
Irenäus und die Evangelien
Literarische Rezeption „des Herrn“ und Anschluss an eine
Vierertradition 217
Hugo Lundhaug
“He who has seen me, hasseen the father”
The Gospel of Philip’s mystagogical reception of the Gospel of
John 253
Christopher M. Tuckett
Principles of Gnostic Exegesis 277
Tobias Nicklas
Zwischen Redaktion und „Neuinszenierung“
Vom Umgang erzählender Evangelien des 2. Jahrhunderts mit ihren
Vorlagen 311
Index of Modern Authors 331
Index of Ancient Sources 339
Preface
ThisvolumeisbasedonpaperspresentedattheSixthInternationalConference
oftheLeuvenCentrefortheStudyoftheGospels,Leuven,15–17December2016.
TheideaoftheconferencewastobringtogetherexpertsontheearlyGospeltra-
dition,especiallyofthesecondcentury,todiscusstextswhichrelyinoneoran-
otherwayonearlierGospelsandGospeltraditionsandatthesametimeprovide
freshinterpretationsofthefigureofJesus,hisactivityandhisteaching.Thecon-
ferenceaswellasthevolumewiththeproceedingsofthemeetingareintended
tocontributetothecurrentdebateaboutthefascinatingworldofsecond-century
Christianity.
Wearegratefultothecontributorstothepresentvolumefortheirparticipa-
tionintheconference,theirenduringinterestinthetopicandthepreparationof
their papers for publication. Aspecialgratitude is duetoKatharina Simunovic,
Florian Lengle and Katharina Vetter from the Theologische Fakultät der Hum-
boldt-Universität zu Berlin who prepared the manuscript for publication and
compiled the indexes. Finally, we want to thank the publishing house Walter
de Gruyter for taking care of the publication process of the volume in the
BNZWseries.
August 2018, Jens Schröter,Tobias Nicklas and Joseph Verheyden
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110542349-001

Introduction
Inrecentyearsthesecondcenturyhasenjoyedagrowinginterestfromscholars
working in the field of early Christianity as well as from New Testament schol-
ars.¹ It has been understood as an important and fascinating period for the re-
ception,thetransformationandthereinterpretationoftheearliestChristianwrit-
ings, but also for the development of the rituals, ethics and social structure of
early Christian communities. By looking more closely at this period, however,
theconceptof “thesecondcentury”hasitselfbecometheobjectoffurtherscru-
tiny.“Thesecondcentury”istosomedegreeanartificialnotion.Scholarsremain
dividedonthestatusandimportanceofthistime-span,notatleastwithregard
totheevidencethatcanbegainedfromit.Thesameapplies,ofcourse,tosuch
designations as “the apostolic age”, “the post-apostolic era”, “Urchristentum”,
“early Christianity” and the like. All these designations are used side by side
inorderto cometo termswiththedevelopments that shapedthis formativepe-
riodofChristianity.Thishighlightsthatthereisalwaysaneedtodiscusstheap-
propriatenessofsuchconceptswhenitcomestoestablishthedateorstudythe
contentsandreligiousoutlookofspecifictextsandtheirplaceintheliteraryand
social historyof the first centuries of Christianity.
There is today a widespread agreement that, as a concept,the second cen-
tury cannot be understood in a strictly chronological sense. It is a period in
which some of the writings which later became part of the New Testament
werecomposed,butalsosuchwritingsthatmuchlaterwereincludedintoacol-
lection called “The Apostolic Fathers”, and others which are often labelled as
“non-canonical” or “apocryphal”. It should also be kept in mind that often
there are no clear-cut boundaries between “Judaism”, “Christianity”, “Gnosti-
cism” and related categories when it comes to second (and third) century
texts.²However,thereareaspectswhichmightbereferredtoascharacterizations
 Seee.g.mostrecently:JamesCarletonPagetandJudithLieu(ed.),ChristianityintheSecond
Century.ThemesandDevelopments(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,2017).
 Themodelofa“parting(s)oftheways”ofJewsandChristians(seeJamesD.G.Dunn,ThePart-
ingsoftheWaysbetweenChristianityandJudaismandtheirSignificancefortheCharacterofChris-
tianity[London:SCMPress,2006];id.[ed.],JewsandChristians.ThePartingoftheWaysA.D.70
to135[Tübingen:MohrSiebeck,1992])wascalledintoquestioninmorerecentresearch.SeeJu-
dith Lieu, “‘The Parting of the Ways’: Theological Construct or Historical Reality?” JSNT 56
(1994): 101–119; ead., Neither Jew nor Greek? Constructing Early Christianity [London: T&T
Clark,2002]11–29);TobiasNicklas,JewsandChristians?SecondCentury‘Christian’Perspectives
onthe‘PartingoftheWays’(AnnualDeichmannLectures2013;Tübingen:MohrSiebeck,2014);
AdamH.Becker/A.YoshikoReed(ed.),TheWaysthatNeverParted.JewsandChristiansinlate
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110542349-002
X Introduction
ofaperiodrunningfromthetimewhenChristianfaithwasfirstformulatedasa
distinctviewontheGodofIsraelandhisrevelationinJesusChristuptoastage
inwhichorganizationalstructuresoftheChristiancommunities,ritualslikebap-
tism and Eucharist and the formulation of central Christian beliefs were solidi-
fied.
These(andother)processes,however,shouldnotberegardedasacontinous
development towards a“consolidation” of “‘the’ Christian church”. Rather, the
secondcenturyischaracterizedbythediversificationofChristianityintovarious
strands,acomplexrelationshipofChristianityandJudaism,socialformationsof
differentkinds³andabroadanddiversereceptionofphilosophical(esp.Platon-
ic) traditions and Jewishtextswhichwereincorporatedintothoughtsystemsor
myths.The second century may therefore be described as a mere transition pe-
riodbetween“thefoundingyears”andthefarbetterdocumentedlatercenturies,
a time of experiments inwhich muchwas still possible that would become im-
possiblesomewhatlaterandthatseemstoescapeourattemptsatgettinggripon
it: the decades in which Christianity reallyopened up to the wider world – the
second century is all of this, and perhaps even more. Maybe one should even
say that it is all of this at the same time, depending on what one is looking
for. If anything, it was a period in which major shifts took place and a period
that itself has shifted faces over time.
Theolddividethat basicallytriedtoreinin thewritingsthatwouldendup
in the New Testament to the first century, or the first decade of the second at
most (the apostolic era), and considered all that followed as “postapostolic”
has been under fire for years now, and a number of writings that seemed to
be secured for the first century are now spreading all over the first half of the
secondcentury(e.g.,2Peter,perhapsalsothePastorals).Withregardtothetex-
tual transmission of these earliest writings, a vocal minority has defended the
view that the second century was the period of “everything goes”.The written
tradition had not yet taken over in the way this would become the case from
thethirdcenturyon;indeed,itlooksasifthattraditionwasitselfstillinitsfor-
mativestageandfewauthorsseemedtocareabouthowtheycitedorreferredto
the gospels or the letters of Paul.The confidence with which the latter pleaded
hiscasebeforethepoliticalauthoritieswasbutafirsttryandseemedalmostam-
AntiquityandtheEarlyMiddleAges(Tübingen:MohrSiebeck,2003).Foramorerecentattempt
todefine“Gnosticism”seeDavidBrakke,TheGnostics.Myth,Ritual,andDiversityinEarlyChris-
tianity(Cambridge,Mass./London:HarvardUniversityPress,2010).
 Assecondandthirdcenturytextsdemonstrate,Christiancommunitiesweremixedgroups,
consistingofJewishandGentilemembers,peopleofdifferentprofessionsanddiversesocialsta-
tus.