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The Bible’ in Late Antiquity*

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The Bible’ in Late Antiquity* PSEUDEPIGRAPHY, AUTHORSHIP, AND THE RECEPTION OF ‘THE BIBLE’ IN LATE ANTIQUITY* Annette Yoshiko Reed “Who has made the simple folk believe that books belong to Enoch, even though no scriptures existed before Moses? On what basis will they say that there is an apocryphal book of Isaiah? . How could Moses have an apocryphal book?” In his 39th Festal Letter (367 ce), Atha- nasius thus voices his incredulity at the very phenomenon of biblical pseudepigraphy. In his view, the production of books in the names of biblical fi gures can only be a specious and pernicious practice, moti- vated by deceptive aims. “Heretics,” he proclaims, “write these books whenever they want and then grant and bestow upon them dates, so that, by publishing them as if they were ancient, they might have a pretext for deceiving the simple folk!”1 Athanasius expresses these complaints about the pseudepigraphi- cal authors of “apocrypha”2 in the same festal letter so famous for * An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Concordia conference on “The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Late Antiquity” in October 2006. The fi nal form has benefi ted much from the questions and suggestions that I received during the conference as well as from the other papers and broader discussions. Warmest thanks to Lorenzo DiTommaso and Lucian Turcescu for the opportunity to participate in such a rich and thought-provoking event. This paper also integrates portions of another conference presentation: “Between ‘Biblical’ and ‘Parabiblical’: Pre-canonical Perspectives on Writing, Reading, and Revelation,” presented at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, consultation on “Rethinking the Concept and Categories of ‘Bible’ in Antiquity,” November 2006. For feedback and critique of the written version, I am also grateful to Hindy Najman, Andy Chi Kit Wong, and Benjamin Fleming. This research was supported by a grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 1 Translations of Ep. 39 follow D. Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 326–32. 2 In this article, I use the term “apocrypha” only with reference to the late antique Christian discourse about “apocryphal” and “canonical” scriptures; in this usage, “apo- crypha” is a value-laden term denoting books deemed dangerously similar to biblical books by some ecclesiarchs. For our present purposes, it is signifi cant that biblical pseude- pigrapha emblematized this danger. The negative connotations of the term are also important to note inasmuch as they were reapplied in modern times to specifi c groups of texts (“Old Testament apocrypha” = books traditionally in the Catholic Old Testament but not in the Jewish Tanakh, which were labeled with the polemical term “apocry- pha” during the Protestant Reformation and which were deemed “deuterocanonical” DITOMMASO_f23-467-490.indd 467 6/19/2008 1:02:25 PM 468 annette yoshiko reed being the fi rst to contain a list of Old Testament and New Testament books that corresponds precisely to what would become “the Bible” of Western Christendom. Perhaps more infl uential than his list, however, is his approach. Whereas earlier authors describe which scriptures are accepted in common by different Christian communities,3 Athanasius frames his list in pointedly prescriptive terms. Like his contemporaries, he sorts books into three categories: he deems some fi t for liturgical use, others fi t for reading, and still others not fi t to be used by Christians at all.4 Yet, he does so with an essentialist and dichotomous rhetoric that pits canonicity squarely against pseudepigraphy.5 He presents the for Catholics at the Council of Trent in 1546; “New Testament apocrypha” = apostolic pseudepigrapha and anonymous books otherwise closely aligned with the New Testa- ment literature that are not included in the New Testament canon). 3 According to Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.24–25, Origen sorted apostolically-aligned books into those universally known and accepted, those known and disputed, and those rejected. The middle category include Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, James, Jude, Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, Didache, and Gospel of the Hebrews. Eusebius uses the same descriptive categories; his list of disputed books includes James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Barnabas, Didache, Gospel of the Hebrews, Acts of Paul, Shepherd of Hermas, and Apocalypse of Peter, while his list of rejected books include the Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Matthias, Acts of Andrew, and Acts of John (Hist. eccl. 3.25.1–7). 4 The middle category (“catechesical” or “ecclesiastical”) proves particularly sig- nifi cant for our purposes inasmuch as it shows some fl uidity in the understanding of “the Bible” even during this period of canon closure. Athanasius, for instance, deems Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of ben Sira, Judith, Tobit, Didache, and Shepherd of Hermas useful but not inspired. With regard to “apocrypha,” Athanasius rejects them as heretical in whole or part and thus not fi t for use by Christians at all, but Rufi nus leaves open the possibility that they still have some value, albeit outside of worship and teaching (Exp. symb. 36–38). Within the discussions of “outside books,” “books of hamirim,” and “books of the minim” in the classical Rabbinic literature, we may glimpse parallel debates about whether, how, when, and why it is acceptable to study books outside of the Tanakh; e.g., m. Sanhedrin 10.1; m. Yadaim 4.6; t. Yadaim 2.13; y. Sanhedrin 10.1; b. Sanhedrin 100b; Numbers Rabbah 14.4; Pesiqta Rabbati 3.9. 5 I here use the term “pseudepigraphy” to refer to the practice of penning books in the name of another. Hence, “biblical pseudepigraphy” refers to writing in the name of fi gures from the Hebrew Bible, “Enochic pseudepigraphy” to writing in the name of Enoch, “apostolic pseudepigraphy” to writing in the names of apostles, and so on. Accordingly, in this article, the term “pseudepigrapha” simply refers to the products of this literary process. This usage differs from the modern category of “Old Testament Pseudepigrapha,” which encompasses Christian-transmitted biblical pseudepigrapha of Jewish and Christian origin that are not found in Jewish, Protestant, or Catholic biblical canons as well as anonymous books closely aligned with the Hebrew Bible. On the practice of pseudepigraphy in the ancient world, see the essays in K. von Fritz, ed., Pseudepigrapha I: Pseudopythagorica, Lettres de Platon, Littérature pseudépigraphique juives (Geneva: Fondation Hardt pour l’étude l’antiquité classique, 1972), and E. Chazon and M.E. Stone, ed., Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (STDJ 31; Leiden: Brill, 1999). DITOMMASO_f23-467-490.indd 468 6/19/2008 1:02:26 PM.
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