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Forging Christianity: Jews and Christians in Pseudo-Ignatius

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Forging Christianity: Jews and Christians in Pseudo-Ignatius University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2017 Forging Christianity: Jews And Christians In Pseudo-Ignatius Phillip Joseph Augustine Fackler University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the History of Religion Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Fackler, Phillip Joseph Augustine, "Forging Christianity: Jews And Christians In Pseudo-Ignatius" (2017). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2273. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2273 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2273 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Forging Christianity: Jews And Christians In Pseudo-Ignatius Abstract This dissertation explores one of the thorny problems of writing a social history of Early Christianity, the degree to which rhetoric either reflects or evokes worldviews, institutions, and other social formations. Through a focus on the textual traditions associated with Ignatius of Antioch, a second-century martyr and Christian bishop, I explore how language about Jews and Judaism was reproduced and rewritten in later centuries such that it has become evidence for our own histories of Jewish–Christian relations. The textual tradition of Ignatius’s letters includes multiple recensions and was reproduced repeatedly throughout Late Antiquity and into the Middle Ages. By comparing the various recensions, I show how both retention and alteration in the textual tradition can create new rhetorical effects. The different recensions provide evidence for the effects of earlier versions on later readers and how the reading and writing practices of later scribes gave birth to new images of the past and new modes of reading early Christian literature. By engaging recent scholarship on ancient education, scribal practice, and the materiality of texts, I show how careful attention to the effects of texts and textual production helps us better understand the processes and practices that give rhetoric social traction and force. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Religious Studies First Advisor Annette Y. Reed Keywords ancient education, authorship, Early Christianity, Ignatius of Antioch, Jewish–Christian relations, Late Antiquity Subject Categories History of Religion | Religion This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2273 FORGING CHRISTIANITY: JEWS AND CHRISTIANS IN PSEUDO-IGNATIUS Phillip J. A. Fackler A DISSERTATION in Religious Studies Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2017 Supervisor of Dissertation ______________ Annette Yoshiko Reed Associate Professor, Religious Studies Graduate Group Chairperson _________________ Anthea Butler Associate Professor, Religious Studies Dissertation Committee Anthea Butler Associate Professor, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania Bart Ehrman James A. Gray Distinguished Professor, Religious Studies, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill David Stern Harry Starr Professor of Classical and Modern Jewish and Hebrew Literature, Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, Harvard University FORGING CHRISTIANITY: JEWS AND CHRISTIANS IN PSEUDO-IGNATIUS COPYRIGHT 2017 Phillip Joseph Augustine Fackler In memory of Joan and James For Callie, Elliott, and Linus iii Acknowledgments I owe a tremendous debt to Dr. Annette Yoshiko Reed, without whom this project would never have come to fruition. She has contributed deeply to my formation as a scholar through regular conversations (many of them as I stuck my head in her open door to pester her), insightful questions and comments, a generous collegiality, and incisive reading of my research. The depth and breadth of her scholarship has been a continual inspiration to me, and her contributions to this project have consistently pushed me to address questions and concerns that translate beyond my own discipline. Through no fault of hers, errors and infelicities persist, but to the degree this dissertation is successful, it could not have been so without her support, encouragement, and wisdom. For her scholarship and mentorship, I am extremely grateful. I am also deeply appreciative of my other committee members, Dr. Bart Ehrman and Dr. David Stern. I am grateful to have had someone with Dr. Ehrman’s depth of expertise give critical feedback on my project. Dr. Ehrman’s numerous works on the Apostolic Fathers, ancient forgery, and New Testament text criticism have been my constant companions since my interest in Early Christian Studies first developed, and he consistently challenged me to sharpen my arguments and distinctions about the relationship between scribal practices and conceptions of forgery and authorship. Dr. Stern has been an unfailingly generous teacher and reader who has sharpened my insights into the materiality of books and deepened my understanding of scribal culture and ancient pedagogy. He has done this while introducing a neophyte to the complexities and subtle beauty of Rabbinic literary culture. This has expanded my scholarly horizons in ways I have yet to fully appreciate. I thank both of them for their time, comments, and the conversations that I have had with each of them during this project. The Department of Religious Studies at Penn has been a rich and remarkably collegial place to study. I want to thank each of the faculty members there for their insights into teaching, research and professional development and for fostering such a rich environment in which to become a scholar. I am also grateful to my fellow graduate students who have contributed in countless ways to my development as a scholar, through reading groups and colloquium conversations as well as random conversations over lunch. My thanks also go out to Dr. Kim Bowes who supervised one of my exams and whose challenging questions provoked from me a more nuanced engagement with material culture and the complexities of space and place in antiquity. During my time in Raleigh, the Late Antique Studies Reading Group at Duke and the Christianity in Antiquity group at UNC-Chapel Hill both welcomed me. For their friendship and collegiality, I am most grateful. Lastly, I must also thank my family to whom this dissertation is dedicated. My partner, Callie, put up with a cross-country move, employment uncertainty, and iv the countless emotional and practical challenges of sharing life with a budding academic. Our children, Elliott and Linus, have till now, not known a life where I am not a student. Their support has made this entire effort possible, if logistically challenging at times. They are a constant reminder that life is full of joys and surprise if only we are willing to look for them. They deserve and have my deepest thanks and love. My parents Joan and Jim deserve mention as well. Both of them were avid readers. My mother kept stack of books next to her chair, even after failing eyesight and memory made it impossible for her to read. My father, too, read constantly though with a bit less eclecticism. Between the two of them our bookshelves were cluttered with everything from scholarly tomes to the most vapid of popular fiction. It was they who taught me that the deepest joys of learning lie not in the knowing but in the asking and searching. They both died within a year of each other, as this dissertation rounded to completion, and never saw it in its final form. For their lives and memories, I am daily grateful. v ABSTRACT FORGING CHRISTIANITY: JEWS AND CHRISTIANS IN PSEUDO-IGNATIUS Phillip J. A. Fackler Annette Yoshiko Reed This dissertation explores one of the thorny problems of writing a social history of Early Christianity, the degree to which rhetoric either reflects or evokes worldviews, institutions, and other social formations. Through a focus on the textual traditions associated with Ignatius of Antioch, a second-century martyr and Christian bishop, I explore how language about Jews and Judaism was reproduced and rewritten in later centuries such that it has become evidence for our own histories of Jewish–Christian relations. The textual tradition of Ignatius’s letters includes multiple recensions and was reproduced repeatedly throughout Late Antiquity and into the Middle Ages. By comparing the various recensions, I show how both retention and alteration in the textual tradition can create new rhetorical effects. The different recensions provide evidence for the effects of earlier versions on later readers and how the reading and writing practices of later scribes gave birth to new images of the past and new modes of reading early Christian literature. By engaging recent scholarship on ancient education, scribal practice, and the materiality of texts, I show how careful attention to the effects of texts and textual production helps us better understand the processes and practices that give rhetoric social traction and force. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. IV ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................ VI INTRODUCTION — COMPARISON, AUTHORSHIP, AND THE CASE OF THE IGNATIAN EPISTLES ....................................................................................
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