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Paul in the Second Century Benjamin Lee White a Dissertation S Imago Pauli : Memory, Tradition, and Discourses on the “Real” Paul in the Second Century Benjamin Lee White A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Religious Studies (Ancient Mediterranean Religions). Chapel Hill 2011 Approved by: Jonathan Boyarin Douglas Campbell Bart D. Ehrman (Director) Richard B. Hays Zlatko Plese ©2011 Benjamin Lee White ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT BENJAMIN LEE WHITE: Imago Pauli : Memory, Tradition, and Discourses on the “Real” Paul in the Second Century (Under the direction of Bart D. Ehrman) The following dissertation is a theoretical and methodological examination of the legacy of the Apostle Paul in the second century. It explores the way he was remembered in the century after his death, as well as the discursive practices that accompanied claims about the “real” Paul in a period in which apostolic memory was highly contested. Five questions drive the inquiry: 1) How do we measure Pauline influence in the second century? (methodology); 2) How did various second-century writers imagine Paul and what resources were employed to produce a given interpretation of the Apostle? (exegesis); 3) What is meant, from a theoretical standpoint, by the language of tradition and memory, concepts often invoked by Pauline scholars, but hardly ever defined or explored? (theory); 4) What interests stand behind ancient discourses on the “real” Paul? (ideology); and 5) How did Paul become “ the Apostle” for so many different kinds of Christian communities in the second century? (history). The connection between these questions is not ultimately logical or sequential. Each is part of a larger hermeneutical conversation. Chapters One through Three provide the methodological and theoretical foundation for the exegesis of Chapters Four and Five, iii which work through the Pauline tradition of 3 Corinthians and Irenaeus’ Adversus haereses , respectively. The latter texts serve as test-cases for the thesis that Christians of the second century had no access to the “real” Paul. Rather, they possessed mediations of Paul as a persona . These idealized images were transmitted in the context of communal memories of “the Apostle.” Through the selection, combination, and interpretation of pieces of a diverse earlier layer of the Pauline tradition, Christians defended images of the Apostle that were particularly constitutive of their collective cultures. As products of tradition and memory, each imago Pauli exhibits a unique mixture of continuity with and change from the past. Consequently, ancient discourses on the “real” Paul, like their modern counterparts, are problematic. Through a whole host of exclusionary practices, the “real” Paul, whose authoritative persona possessed a certain delegated authority, was and is invoked as a wedge to gain traction for the conservation of ideology. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS While I hope that this dissertation is a reflection of my participation in the species homo sapiens , I am a firm believer, with Berger and Luckmann, that “Homo sapiens is always, and in the same measure, homo socius ” (cf. Chapter Three below). To a large degree, then, this project is a reflection of the various diverse communities within which my own interest in the figure of Paul developed. It is a work of tradition. From the academic side, I was first introduced to the variety within the canonical Pauline letter corpus as an undergraduate in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Campbell University. Without knowing it at the time, Donald Penny’s dissertation on early Pauline pseudepigraphy would become important in my own thinking about the Apostle’s early legacy. The Master of Arts program at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary provided the necessary tools for doing historical-critical work on the New Testament. The seriousness with which the New Testament faculty there engages in exegesis is a perpetual model for my own work. Courses on Romans with Bill Mounce and 1 Corinthians with François Bovon at Harvard Divinity School quickened my focus on the primacy of the Pauline mission for describing earliest Christianity. Working with Richard Hays and Ed Sanders in the Master of Theology program at Duke Divinity School granted me the freedom to explore further issues in Pauline theology, and it was at Duke that I began to understand how I had come to know “Paul,” who had been traditioned to me in Protestant institutions and, thus, bore the Reformation stamp. v Douglas Campbell, whom I’ve only really gotten to know since moving to UNC, as odd as that sounds, has helped me to clarify further what is at stake in how we read Paul. The opportunity to study and work in the Religious Studies Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has proven to be the perfect incubator for developing traditional historical-critical work on early Christian texts within the context of more theoretically-driven questions. Jonathan Boyarin has been an important dialogue partner for the issues of memory and culture, while Zlatko Plese has provided innumerable suggestions over the past several years on issues as broad as intertextuality and Hellenistic anthropology. Whatever deficiencies still remain in this work are, of course, my own. Most important, working with Bart Ehrman has convinced me that, in the end, it is not enough to be a scholar of the New Testament. We are all, knowingly or unknowingly, scholars of Early Christianity. We only have access to the initial decades of Christianity (Christian origins) through communities that lived a century or more later. Their later concerns have shaped much of what we know about the earliest years of this new religious movement. Through constructive criticism, a consistent example of hard work, a healthy dose of humor, and a zeal for clear communication, Bart Ehrman has exemplified what it means to be an educator; a scholar who is both rigorous with the data and generous in sharing his results. Finally, this long and winding academic journey, in the end, was only possible by the support, sacrifice, and love of a wonderful family. My parents, Les and Marlene White, bred in me a love for the Bible and have watched their son stay in school for more years than I am sure they had imagined. During this entire time, my sister, Leslyn vi Benfield, has made frequent phone-calls, faithfully checking in to see how her big brother is doing. And finally, Melissa, my γνήσιος σύζυγος , should be acknowledged for her (all too gracious) patience with me over the past eleven years. During this time she has been married both to me and to the institutions to which I have given my time and energy. This is an arrangement that has worked only because of her love and devotion through periods when my work has been all-consuming. To remain the object of her love will always mean more than the production of words, nuanced arguments, and arcane scholarly material. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................xi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...........................................................................................xii Chapter I. INTRODUCING PAUL.............................................................................. 1 “The Apostle”.............................................................................................. 1 Presenting Questions and Thesis............................................................... 10 What this Study is Not.............................................................................. 19 II. NARRATING PAUL: THE APOSTLE IN THE SECOND CENTURY FROM F.C. BAUR TO RICHARD PERVO ........................ 27 Pauline Captivity Narratives..................................................................... 28 Paul and the “Heretics”: Marcion.............................................................. 40 Paul and the “Heretics”: The Valentinians................................................ 47 Narrative Iconoclasm: The Deconstructive Work of Lindemann, Dassmann, Rensberger and Penny........................................ 54 Lingering Remnants of the Pauline Captivity Narrative........................... 68 Competing “Pauls”.................................................................................... 71 Developing Pauline Images....................................................................... 78 Social-Scientific Approaches to the Image of Paul................................... 83 Status quaestionis : Most Recent Accounts (2005-2010) .......................... 86 Conceptualizing Paul................................................................................. 97 viii III. IMAGINING PAUL: PAULINE MEMORY TRADITIONS INTO THE SECOND CENTURY.......................................................... 101 Tradition.................................................................................................. 103 Measuring Pauline Traditions in the Second Century: Image, Text, and Tradition...................................................................... 116 Memory, Tradition, Society.................................................................... 134 Reputation and Image: Abraham Lincoln in American Collective Memory.................................................................................. 151 “The (Variegated) Apostle” ...................................................................
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