A PROLEGOMENON TO THE STUDY

OF PAULINE PSEUDEPIGRAPHA
 

Frank W. Hughes

fwhughes@sunbeach.net
 

The criticism of authenticity was for the Christians not so much a question of philological scholarship, but of faith and life.
 

-- Wolfgang Speyer⁽¹⁾
 
 
 

Pseudonymity and Biblical Scholarship
 

Students who study the questions of the authorship of parts of the Bible and then learn that there are significant sections of it whose supposed authors are different from its actual authors are often dismayed at biblical scholarship and sometimes disgusted at biblical scholars. Perhaps we deserve this disgust based on how we treat a number of issues. Yet a presupposition of this paper is that we are at least on the right track when we make distinctions between the supposed authors and real authors of various biblical writings. Despite the reactions against historical methods at the popular level and the second thoughts that some scholars are currently having about certain kinds of historical criticism, the observation remains that there are numerous problems in biblical texts that can be analysed historically. The likelihood remains that there are differences between the real and supposed authors of some biblical literature, and indeed between the real and supposed authors of much other ancient literature. The phenomenon of pseudonymity has been extensively studied in connection with both Graeco-Roman literature and, more recently, Jewish literature, with a variety of results. That ancient pseudonymity existed, both in the Bible and in other ancient literature, is a fact beyond dispute;⁽²⁾ but the extent of pseudonymity, the persistent issue of its moral or nonmoral character, and especially the reasons that authors used pseudonymity continue to be under discussion.
 

Modern approaches to the study of the Bible are, for better or worse, children of the Enlightenment.⁽³⁾ Though the impulse to try to solve important questions that are suggested by biblical texts by using historical categories has its roots at least as far back as the Renaissance, it is especially in the Enlightenment and the European religious establishments' response to the Enlightenment, that one can trace the actual development of modern historical methods for biblical study. As the result of asking historical questions about the texts in the Pauline corpus,⁽⁴⁾ nineteenth century scholars began to argue that St. Paul was not the author of various New Testament texts traditionally associated with his name. As early as 1801, Johann Ernst Christian Schmidt was the first scholar to suggest that St. Paul was not the author of 2 Thessalonians,⁽⁵⁾ and his sharply stated conclusions against Pauline authorship were followed in 1839 by the more reasoned arguments of Friedrich Heinrich Kern⁽⁶⁾ and in 1845 and 1855 by those of Ferdinand Christian Baur.⁽⁷⁾ The Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) was disputed by Friedrich Schleiermacher⁽⁸⁾ as early as 1807, and later by Baur⁽⁹⁾ in 1835. The authorship of Colossians was first disputed by Ernst Theodor Mayerhoff in 1838,⁽¹⁰⁾ although doubts about the authorship of Ephesians had been expressed as far back as Erasmus and even Theodore of Mopsuestia and Jerome.⁽¹¹⁾
 

Since usually no single piece of evidence is available which proves the inauthenticity of ancient documents, scholars who argue against authenticity are generally forced to make a case based on multiple criteria.⁽¹²⁾ Arguments both for and against the authenticity of New Testament letters are often maddeningly circular and based on certain historical and especially theological presuppositions. In arguing against the authenticity of 1 Thessalonians, for example, Ferdinand Christian Baur claimed that in this letter,
 

. . . there is nothing at all striking or peculiar.  In the whole collection of the Pauline Epistles there is none so deficient in the character and substance of its materials as 1st Thessalonians. . . .  The whole Epistle is made up of general instructions, exhortations, wishes, such as appear in the other Epistles merely as adjuncts to the principal contents; what is accessory in the other cases is here the preponderating and essential element.  This might appear at first sight to favour the opinion that the Epistle is genuine -- there is so little for criticism to lay hold of.  The very insignificance of its contents, however, the want of any special aim and of any intelligible occasion or purpose is itself a criterion adverse to a Pauline origin; but not merely do these negative considerations demand explanation: a closer view of the Epistle betrays such dependence and such want of originality as is not to be found in any of the genuine Pauline writings.⁽¹³⁾
 

The basic observation behind Baur's criticism of 1 Thessalonians is that it does not contain the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith as well as the related themes of opposition to Judaism, freedom from Torah observance, etc. Baur's radical criticism of the Pauline letters, given classic shape in his masterpiece Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ,⁽¹⁴⁾ meant that only the four "main letters" (Hauptbriefe) were accepted as genuinely written by Paul, since Baur was able to find classic Pauline theology in these letters and no others. Typical of the defenses of traditional views of authorship of biblical books was the article by Carl Ludwig Wilibald Grimm, "The Authenticity of the Letters to the Thessalonians Defended Against Dr. Baur's Attack."⁽¹⁵⁾ Grimm characterized Baur's historical methods for deciding what was Pauline and what was deuteropauline or tritopauline in the Pauline corpus as a "tricky game," and argued that if Baur were really consistent in his determinations, he would have to accept even less of the Pauline corpus than he did as truly Pauline.⁽¹⁶⁾ This response to Baur pointed clearly to the circularity of Baur's arguments against the Pauline authorship of 1 Thessalonians. Grimm was convinced that a forgery during the lifetime of Paul "would not remain long undiscovered," and that since 1 Thessalonians 4:15, where the author refers to Paul and other Christians as "we who are left alive at the parousia of the Lord," only made sense having come from Paul himself, this verse was "positive proof" of Pauline authorship of 1 Thessalonians. Even though he determined that such "positive proof" of Pauline authorship was lacking in the case of 2 Thessalonians, Grimm concluded, "Thus as long as the enemies of authenticity do not introduce better evidence than they have so far, we shall hold steadfast to the ecclesiastical tradition."⁽¹⁷⁾ The view of Pauline theology as having its center in justification by faith, of course, meant that it remained quite difficult for nineteenth century biblical scholars to read either of the letters to the Thessalonians with a great deal of appreciation.
 
 
 

Critical Consensus and its Limits
 

Pauline scholarship has come a long way since the days of the Tübingen School, especially with the development of form criticism and its application to letters in the twentieth century.⁽¹⁸⁾ It is tempting to look back to Baur and his students and to remark how very tendentious and unbalanced their works seem now to be. Modern students of Paul seem to be unanimous in their acceptance of 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon as letters unquestionably written by Paul, although the interpretations of these letters do vary widely among scholars.
 

The consensus among current Pauline scholars about the Pauline authorship of Romans, the Corinthian correspondence, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, and 1 Thessalonians, however, is not matched by a consensus about either the authorship or the interpretation of several of the pseudopauline letters, for a variety of reasons. Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, and the Pastoral Letters are, I think, considerably harder to interpret than the undisputed Pauline letters, primarily because the interpreter must either accept and attempt to defend Pauline authorship for all or part of these letters, or the interpreter must follow the harder and thus less travelled road of pseudopauline authorship and then (hopefully) make an experimental reconstruction of the relationship of the pseudonymous author to various Pauline traditions. A via media has also been taken with the Pastorals, utilizing the argument that these letters contain fragments of genuine Pauline letters, a position taken and later retracted by A. T. Hanson.⁽¹⁹⁾ Yet one integral part of the "fragments hypothesis" ought not to be completely abandoned, namely the idea that these postpauline letters have something significant to do with the wide variety of Pauline traditions alive and well in the late first century and early second century.⁽²⁰⁾
 

As a result of the circularity of arguments against the Pauline authorship of several letters, some scholars have made fairly reasonable defenses of Paul's having written 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, and Colossians; and others do not hesitate to ascribe the Pastoral Letters to Paul. Wolfgang Trilling's Untersuchungen zum zweiten Thessalonicherbrief, a synthetic study published in 1972, had adduced many kinds of arguments against Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians, arguing that these various studies converged in the same direction. A significant response was made by 1983 by I. Howard Marshall in his 1 and 2 Thessalonians, which appears to be the first full-scale answer to Wolfgang Trilling in print.  After admitting that "the case that 2 Thessalonians is a pseudonymous work has been strongly presented in the last decade by W. Trilling"⁽²¹⁾ Marshall sharply criticizes the stylistic and form-critical reasons adduced by Trilling against the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians.⁽²²⁾ However, in order to defend the Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians, he claimed that the eschatologies of the two letters were "complementary" rather than contradictory.⁽²³⁾ The theology of 2 Thessalonians Marshall read in a thoroughly Pauline way, causing him to argue that "the appeal to tradition which Trilling finds in the letter is exaggerated by him and corresponds in fact to appeals to tradition found in other Pauline epistles," and that "the view that the letter emphasises the apostolic authority of Paul is mistaken."⁽²⁴⁾ At the end of his introduction, Marshall concluded:

When we examine all the arguments, then, it emerges that neither singly nor cumulatively do they suffice to disprove Pauline authorship.  That 2 Th. contains some unusual features in style and theology is not to be denied, but that these features point to pseudonymous authorship is quite another matter.  Moreover, the early church had no doubts about the Pauline authorship of 2 Th.  The later we set the date of the letter, the more difficult it becomes to explain its unopposed acceptance into the Pauline corpus; indeed, it is hard to envisage how an alleged Pauline letter addressed to a particular church could have escaped detection as a forgery.⁽²⁵⁾
 

Marshall examined the arguments of Trilling one by one, and then concluded that the "unusual features in style and theology" were not unusual enough to "point to pseudonymous authorship." It is true that patristic writers affirmed the Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians, but that this is a strong argument for its authenticity must be doubted. Even more revealing are his comments about pseudonymity: he assumed that pseudonymous authorship of 2 Thessalonians required that it have a late date (i.e., rather a long distance in time away from the historical Paul) and that a pseudonymous 2 Thessalonians would be likely to be detected by the early church. I do not believe that the position against authenticity requires a very late date for some of the pseudopauline letters. Many if not most writings from antiquity were not detected as pseudonymous until the modern period, even though antiquity had developed criteria for the recognition of pseudonymity. As a result of the complexity of Graeco-Roman and biblical pseudonymity in current scholarship, one should certainly not assume that all pseudonymity could be easily or obviously detected.
 
 
 

Pseudonymity in Graeco-Roman Literature
 

The discussion of pseudonymity in ancient literature has been given major impetus by Wolfgang Speyer's Die literarische Fälschung im heidnischen und christlichen Altertum, which appeared in 1971. This large work contains a masterful survey of pseudonymity in the Orient and in Egypt, and especially in Graeco-Roman antiquity, including the New Testament and patristic literature. As important as Speyer's investigation of ancient pseudonymity and the secondary literature on it⁽²⁶⁾ are his discussions of various aspects of pseudonymity and the relationships of pseudonymity to other phenomena.⁽²⁷⁾ A literary forgery is, as Speyer shows, a subset of the larger category of pseudepigraphy.⁽²⁸⁾ His categories for understanding pseudonymity, "authentic religious pseudepigraphy," "forged religious pseudepigraphy," and "fictional religious pseudepigraphy," are problematic⁽²⁹⁾ but interesting, as are his related proposals concerning the reasons that early Christian writers used pseudonymity.
 

As far back as one can look into the history of Greek literature, pseudonymity seems to be present.⁽³⁰⁾ Speyer begins his discussion of Graeco-Roman pseudonymity with the comment that the development of Greek epic poetry shows the movement from anonymity to "orthonymity," in which literary works are attributed to their actual authors. The two greatest early epic poems, Iliad and Odyssey, were probably originally anonymous and only later came to be associated with the name of Homer. In the following era, the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, however, it is possible to talk of particular authors for literary works.⁽³¹⁾ Students of Aristotle, in particular, sought to obtain knowledge in all fields, and so they spent much energy collecting literature from earlier centuries. In this period famous libraries were founded, including those in Pella, Antioch, Pergamum, and Alexandria.⁽³²⁾ The formation of such collections undoubtedly gave much impetus both to the investigation of authorship and to the acquisition of complicated textual traditions as books from antiquity were copied for the use of other libraries and scholars.⁽³³⁾ Library collections also gave scholars the opportunity to check the accuracy of new editions of ancient works against earlier editions. As a result of these collections and the apparatus of scholarship, the issue of true vs. false authorship could be raised.
 

The notion of the geistiges Eigentum (intellectual property) has been significant in the development of modern theories of pseudonymity.⁽³⁴⁾ According to the idea of such a unity, pseudonymous authors would have written what they thought the famous person, now dead, would say in the present time. Pseudonymity explained by means of the idea of unity with an ancient authority figure can be seen as a way to "update" the intellectual sphere of a famous person, particularly a person who was responsible for the founding of an intellectual or religious tradition, such as John Wesley's or Martin Luther's founding of Wesleyan or Lutheran movements. Speyer argues that early Christian authors were much more concerned about the orthodox content of writings, so that for them

Content and author cannot be safely separated from each other. The word of God is true because God speaks it. The same goes for the word of Jesus, for the preaching and writings of the apostles, their followers, and all orthodox authors. The name of the author was a measure of the authoritative value which a writing deserved.⁽³⁵⁾
 

Since the author's name (in rhetorical terms, the author's ) was valuable for the purposes of having a writing recognized as valuable, several strategies for using an authoritative name are observable in ancient literature.
 

In a well known article on anonymity and pseudonymity, Kurt Aland argued that early Christian writings were often anonymous because they were the result of prophecy, whereby the Holy Spirit was believed to take control of the writer. This meant, Aland argued, that the name of the human writer was relatively unimportant, since "a writer, being nothing but the tool of the Holy Spirit, on this account claims the authorship of an apostle for his writings."⁽³⁶⁾ Aland argues that the reason there was a decline of anonymous Christian writing in the second century (and, consequently, an increase in the amount of literature that was preserved under the name of its correct author) was a decline in the "movement of the Spirit" from the first century to the second.⁽³⁷⁾ Aland's theory perhaps explains anonymous early Christian writings, but is more problematic as it treats actual pseudonymity, since it appears that the name of author is of primary importance in (especially) Pauline pseudepigraphy.
 

Especially important to the discussion of Christian pseudepigrapha, the theory of geistiges Eigentum has usually functioned so as to allow the authors of pseudepigraphy to escape the charge of lying and deception. Pseudepigraphy then becomes a harmless device used rather conventionally by authors. Norbert Brox has argued that, however well the theory of geistiges Eigentum explains early epic poetry attributed to Homer and Hesiod (and for that matter, Hebrew literature attributed to Moses), it does not appear to explain pseudonymous early Christian literature. This is not because early Christians did not fully participate in Graeco-Roman culture; rather, it is because the individuality of authors in the Hellenistic period is a well established tradition. Thus, writers in late antiquity appear to have known what they were doing in using the name and reputation of an authority figure.⁽³⁸⁾
 

Regardless of the justification of pseudonymity, the sheer volume of early Christian pseudepigrapha forced church fathers to concern themselves with the authenticity of Christian writings. Investigations into authenticity were reflected in works by Clement of Alexandria, Sextus Julius Africanus, Origen, Tertullian, Leontius of Byzantium, John of Skythopolis, Severus of Antioch, Nikephoros I of Constantinople, and others.⁽³⁹⁾ At the end of the second century CE, Clement appears to have followed local philological tradition in Alexandria in examining the authenticity of pagan works in terms of style and language,⁽⁴⁰⁾ and arguments in favor of the greater antiquity of biblical works were explored by various ecclesiastical authors.⁽⁴¹⁾ Modern scholars have relied on a variety of old and new criteria for determining the authenticity of an ancient work, including the presence or lack of witness about a work from the apostolic church⁽⁴²⁾ and what was said about inspiration in the work itself.⁽⁴³⁾
 

Speyer's monograph demonstrates that there was no era in early Christianity when pseudonymity was not utilized, by both the "orthodox" and "heretics."⁽⁴⁴⁾ Indeed, it was precisely "in orthodox circles in Asia Minor"⁽⁴⁵⁾ that forged materials written about the Apostle Paul and their author (a priest who "confessed that he had written them out of love for Paul") were discovered, according to Tertullian.⁽⁴⁶⁾ This, of course, raises the larger issue of how and if the categories of orthodoxy and heresy may be used. Speyer writes:

Very many if not most of the Christian forgeries from antiquity have been attributed to heretics. In order to give a foundation for and defend their deviant interpretation of the Christian faith, they fashioned holy scriptures to their own liking. Each one of their independently created books corresponds to those which enjoy the prestige of the great church. Since in orthodox circles each book written by apostles or their students was especially respected, the heretics of the second century invented gospels, acts of the apostles, apocalypses, and letters from apostles. Indeed they attempted to outdo the great church with these writings, since they circulated scriptures written under the name of Jesus. Since the formation of the canon came to a first conclusion at the end of the second century, and since this time the writings of the orthodox church fathers, the decisions of councils, and the dispensations of the popes were treated as sources for doctrinal and moral teaching beyond the Old and New Testaments, the heretics made increasing use of the names of orthodox writers in each century.⁽⁴⁷⁾
 

Since Speyer's wide-ranging survey concerns itself more with patristic pseudepigraphy than with pseudepigraphy in the New Testament, his work remains very useful for demonstrating to students of the New Testament the broad and deep cultural context of pseudepigraphy in the Hellenistic world. Indeed Speyer knows of the probable pseudonymous authorship of Ephesians, Colossians, and the Pastoral letters, and cites various studies which deal with them.⁽⁴⁸⁾ Even though Speyer is aware of the problematic nature of the categories of orthodoxy and heresy, his essential dependence on these categories, as well as the general nature of his survey, seem to prevent him from truly penetrating Christian literature of the first century CE.
 

Norbert Brox has argued that, in spite of the large amount of early Christian pseudepigraphy and its parallels in other parts of Graeco-Roman culture,⁽⁴⁹⁾ the practice of pseudonymity was not generally understood by early Christian as "acceptable" or "morally indifferent" or as a "mere exercise in style."⁽⁵⁰⁾ Rather, the evidence of the criticism of authenticity remains "massive."⁽⁵¹⁾ Brox also explored in some detail the attitudes of certain church fathers concerning authenticity and falsehood.⁽⁵²⁾ When one encounters the evidence of certain church fathers' examining the authenticity of Christian and other literature, one must look at the episode described in Tertullian's De baptismo 17 where an Asian presbyter confessed to having written forged accounts of St. Paul's life "out of love for Paul," and especially documents like Salvian of Marseille's ninth epistle, in which Salvian freely admits to having written a work attributed to Timothy, the protegé of Paul.⁽⁵³⁾ Even if it is true that, as Donelson later argued, no literature which was known to be forged was taken to be authoritative in the Graeco-Roman world,⁽⁵⁴⁾ one must also realize that the majority of Graeco-Roman pseudepigraphy remained undetected until modern times, even though resources for detection existed in antiquity. The repeated condemnation of pseudonymity in antiquity is meaningless without the persistence of pseudonymity. Since there is no reason to believe that Christian writers of pseudepigrapha had motives different from others in antiquity who used literary pseudonymity,⁽⁵⁵⁾ and since both Christians and others could point to authoritative examples from the time-honored past, it is not surprising that, in Brox's words, "[t]he history of early Christianity with its pseudoapostolic literature is full of heretical and orthodox examples" of pseudonymity.⁽⁵⁶⁾ It is based on the understanding that the present life of the church needs to be justified in some way by appeals to what authoritative figures said and taught. The most authoritative figures were, of course, Jesus, the apostles, their students, and the church fathers. "In the final analysis, pseudepigraphy is not effectively explained by a refined moral sense of truthfulness nor indeed by a better developed conscious idea of geistiges Eigentum; rather, it is explained by a changed understanding of the relation between truth and history for human beings."⁽⁵⁷⁾ Early Christian literature which justifies the church's present doctrines and practices by appeals to figures from the past thus looks back to the apostolic era as a kind of golden age.
 
 
 

Pseudonymity in Jewish Literature
 

It would be misleading to present pseudonymity as a phenomenon unrelated to Judaism.⁽⁵⁸⁾ If the term "pseudepigrapha" means literature actually written by someone other than the official author, it seems clear that large parts of the Hebrew Bible itself must be understood as pseudonymous, not merely the additions made to them now known as The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.⁽⁵⁹⁾ Brox's book on early Christian pseudonymity included prominent mention of pseudonymity in the Hebrew Bible.⁽⁶⁰⁾ The result of the Sinai revelation to Moses was that "`all' legal literature and `all' traditions for the ordering of political life in Israel, even though they dated from very different times, were grouped under his [Moses'] name."⁽⁶¹⁾ Similarly, the Psalms in the Hebrew Bible are traditionally attributed to David, and various wisdom materials are attributed to Solomon. Since Genesis 5:24 says that Enoch did not die, but that he "walked with God and was no more" (i.e., he must have been assumed bodily into heaven), a collection of apocalyptic works are preserved under the name of Enoch, including an Ethiopic Apocalypse of Enoch (1 Enoch), a Slavonic Apocalypse of Enoch (2 Enoch), as well as Hebrew Apocalypse of Enoch (3 Enoch). Another figure from the Hebrew Bible whose death was not recorded was the priest-king of Salem, Melchizedek, concerning whom the Qumran community preserved apocalyptic speculation, perhaps equating Melchizedek with the archangel Michael in a fragmentary scroll from the eleventh cave, known to scholars as 11Q Melchizedek.⁽⁶²⁾ Notably, theological comment on Jesus as an eternal priest "according to the order of Melchizedek" (a phrase borrowed from Psalm 110:4) is found at length in the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament; and the Nag Hammadi materials also include cosmic speculation about Melchizedek.⁽⁶³⁾ An excellent example of the association of holy people with authoritative traditions found in the Hebrew Bible is the story of the Transfiguration where Moses and Elijah, apparently representing the Torah and the Prophets, appear in heavenly light with Jesus on a mountain before the latter's passion and death in Jerusalem.⁽⁶⁴⁾ This episode seems to underline for the readers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke the consistency of Jesus's death with the Torah and Prophets of the Hebrew Bible, an idea confirmed by the Lucan story of the resurrection appearance on the road to Emmaus.⁽⁶⁵⁾
 

Hellenistic Judaism produced other literature less clearly related to traditional biblical genres, especially because of its concern to relate itself to other parts of the Graeco-Roman world. An excellent example of Hellenistic Jewish pseudepigrapha using a clearly Greek literary genre is the collection of Sibylline Oracles, dating from the second century BCE to the seventh century CE, in which the Sibyls are portrayed as uttering Jewish prophecies (sometimes with clearly Christian interpolations) in epic Greek hexameters.⁽⁶⁶⁾ Jewish writers also forged verses of various Greek poets.⁽⁶⁷⁾
 

Since Solomon was traditionally known as the wise king of Israel, it is no accident that one of the most important wisdom writings of Hellenistic Judaism bears his name.⁽⁶⁸⁾ The Wisdom of Solomon is found in the Septuagint and included by many Christians in the Apocrypha of the "Old Testament." Hellenistic Judaism by no means neglected Moses; the lawgiver of old took on new images in the Hellenistic period. Perhaps the most famous Jewish historian in this period, Josephus (who wrote in Rome for a Hellenistic audience), devoted long portions of his Jewish Antiquities to Moses. The reader of the Antiquities will experience Moses as delivering Greek orations about God with strong classical and biblical overtones. Philo of Alexandria also wrote a Life of Moses, as well as many other works which reflect his program of connecting biblical and Greek philosophical traditions.⁽⁶⁹⁾
 

Most recently the discussion of pseudonymity in Jewish writings has been enlarged by the dissertation by David G. Meade. His Pseudonymity and Canon clearly shows that pseudepigraphy was by no means something foreign to the Hebrew Scriptures. Rather, within the traditions of Old Testament prophecy, wisdom, and apocalyptic, Meade has demonstrated the presence of pseudonymity. He makes a strong and convincing case for the historical understanding of pseudonymity not primarily as an assertion of literary origins but as an assertion of inclusion of the literature he examines within an authoritative tradition.
 
 
 

Imitatio and Declamation
 

In the first international conference on rhetorical criticism of the Bible in Heidelberg, I presented material on µµ / imitatio.⁽⁷⁰⁾ In this paper I want to expand on that survey and to relate what we can reconstruct of imitatio to the larger tradition of Graeco-Roman rhetoric. Quintilian devoted chapters 1 and 2 of book 10 of his Institutio oratoria to imitatio. In a memorable passage Quintilian argued that imitatio is not mere repetition of the literary tradition of the past. "Imitation alone," Quintilian explained, "is not sufficient" (imitatio per se ipsa non sufficit)⁽⁷¹⁾. What Quintilian meant is that the process of creativity is to be tutored by the examination of older literature but not stifled by it; a person with "a sluggish nature is only too ready to rest content with the inventions of others."⁽⁷²⁾ Cicero also advises reading widely, because "a full supply of knowledge begets a full supply of words"⁽⁷³⁾ and only a wide acquaintance with the thoughts and writings of others, along with the universal knowledge given by philosophy, will make the orator best able to plead his cases. Although imitatio was practiced in various ways in classical antiquity, a particular kind of imitatio practiced in Greek and Roman rhetorical schools during the early Roman empire was declamation. In such schools, students were taught how to compose and deliver speeches within the genera of deliberative and judicial rhetoric. One of the most important parts of education was the making and delivery of speeches on imaginary subjects, or imaginary speeches in the style of well-known orators. This practice was known in Latin as declamatio and it had as its approximate Greek equivalent µ.⁽⁷⁴⁾ The µ was a complete speech, as opposed to the µµ, defined by Russell as "the earlier stages of instruction in which the pupil was taught to compose what might become elements in the final product -- narratives, descriptions, comparisons, loci communes, and so on."⁽⁷⁵⁾
 

A declamation could be either an imaginary deliberative speech (suasoria) or an imaginary judicial speech (controversia), but was never an epideictic one.⁽⁷⁶⁾ Declamations revolved especially around a number of imaginary themes () which were were often used, including conflicts between figures in mythology and the stereotyped Rich Man and Poor Man, as well as conflicts between parents and children and husbands and wives. Controversiae were popular topics for declamation, including the issue of the justice or injustice of soldiers' asking certain rewards for victory in battle, along with the legality of fathers' disowning their sons, given a variety of the sons' inappropriate behaviors.⁽⁷⁷⁾ Declamations often dealt with stereotypical characters "set vaguely in the classical past" as well as with historical themes and historical characters, so that, as Russell shows, "[s]ometimes the mere addition of names turns them into a sort of rudimentary historical fiction." Russell states that rhetorical schools were "always capable of producing speeches which could pass as genuine classical works."⁽⁷⁸⁾ He concludes: "Of course, speeches could be forged for other reasons than for the purposes of the schools; but that a certain number of declamations came to be taken for the genuine article seems certain."⁽⁷⁹⁾
 

Given the fact that declamation was so widely taught and practiced in both Greek and Latin rhetorical schools, and thus given the pervasiveness of techniques used in declamation, it would almost seem that the burden of proof, must be on those who argue in favor of authenticity rather than pseudonymity of particular works of ancient literature. The major reason for this conclusion is the fact that rhetorical school tradition, which through declamation was responsible for the production of new speeches by old orators, was also probably responsible for the preservation of old speeches, letters, and handbooks (so that they could be used for imitatio).
 
 
 

Conclusion and Prospect: The Rhetoric of Pseudonymity
 

It now remains to show that the widely ranging traditions of pseudonymity, imitation, and declamation can be seen to illuminate the pseudopauline literature in the New Testament. Pseudonymity has been shown to characterize Jewish, Greek, and Roman literature. The practice of imitation within traditions of Graeco-Roman rhetoric shows that it was a normal practice to use old literature to make new speeches and letters, and the practice of declamation gave students an opportunity to do so within the context of a portrayal of a great master who needed to make a new speech about an issue dealt with in his lifetime or perhaps some issue that only appeared later.
 

It has often been said that "rhetoric is the best kept secret on campus," referring to the fact that people outside the field of rhetoric or speech communication do not understand what rhetoric is or how relevant it is to their own fields. Those of us in New Testament scholarship need to know about a large variety of intellectual and religious traditions in the Hellenistic era. It is truly amazing for us to discover the extent of New Testament scholarship's general ignorance or neglect of the ways of ancient rhetoric, especially when we see how closely related Quintilian understood imitatio, declamation, reading the works of ancient writers and orators, writing, correction, composition, and translation to be, dealing with them all in the first five chapters of book 10 of Institutio oratoria. When we study the New Testament we are studying the literary remains of early Christians who read the works of ancient writers and orators, who themselves composed and wrote, who corrected, who may have translated or otherwise reworked translations of the Hebrew Bible, and who had quite a habit of reworking their own and others' texts. It is clearly important for students of the New Testament to read ancient philosophical texts and religious texts; but how many New Testament colleagues have put Aristotle or Cicero or Quintilian into the mix and in some way emphasized the importance of the traditions of rhetorical schools for understanding how early Christian texts were composed, written, edited, and collected?
 

My working hypothesis about the pseudopauline letters is as follows: They are a rich source for traditions in pauline churches after the death of Paul, and we need not conclude that they are irrelevant for tracing Pauline traditions which reach back into the lifetime of the historical Paul. The major problem has been in finding appropriate ways to read them. Rhetorical criticism can be one appropriate way to read the pseudopauline letters.
 

This can best be done, I think, because of the continuing relevance of Aristotle's understanding of HQOS (perhaps to be translated as "character"). The HQOS of a speaker is an element of persuasion just as much as LOGOS (normally in rhetoric means a rhetorical speech) and PAQOS (the appeal to the emotions, which became adfectus or affectus in Latin).⁽⁸⁰⁾ For Aristotle, the insistence on the importance EQOS of had the function of an insistence on the necessity of the moral character of the orator,⁽⁸¹⁾ which is clearly related to his own desire to define rhetoric as a DUNAMIS ("intellectual faculty") whose task was much more the "discovery of the possible means of persuasion in reference to any subject whatever"⁽⁸²⁾ and much less the technology of catchy words. Aristotle's placing as central the moral character of the orator serves to underline his desire to make the heritage of rhetoric accessible to philosophers, indeed a fitting "counterpart to dialectic" ( ).⁽⁸³⁾ Hence Aristotle's development of the concept of the good of the orator can be seen to be part of Aristotle's own rhetoric in favor of rhetoric, as well as an important theme picked up and expanded upon by Cicero and Quintilian.⁽⁸⁴⁾
 

The phenomenon of pseudonymity, however, sees the of an authority figure used in a way so as to change the beliefs and practices of communities which have been associated with the authority figure. Hence, pseudonymous writers use and develop the of an authority figure anew, in order to do rhetoric for various reasons, based on the situations that these later writers face (that apparently such authority figures in their lifetimes did not face). Thus rhetoric conceived in literary terms can help explain not only the literary shape of pseudonymity; rhetoric thought of more in terms of the impulse to do persuasion can, I hope, help modern critics understand better the motivation for using pseudonymity.
 

The presence of pseudonymity in sacred writings poses for many people a moral dilemma. It causes not a few Christian readers of the Bible to doubt the value of modern historical-critical studies for the believer. After all, if the Bible really is the Word of God (and does not merely contain the Word of God), can it be that writings in the Scriptures which claim for themselves apostolic authorship really were lying? Or, as a conservative student asked me many years ago, how could it be that the New Testament writers promoting Christianity, "the most moral religion in the world,"⁽⁸⁵⁾ might themselves write epistles and gospels, all the while claiming authorship by persons other than themselves?
 

In philosophical terms, pseudonymous writings can be conceived of as a "good lie," a falsehood told in what the liar believes to be the best interests of the person lied to.⁽⁸⁶⁾ But one can ask a fairly straightforward philosophical question: Is it not a fundamental contradiction for persons following the God of justice and truth to commit falsehoods by claiming apostolic authorship for writings of their own? This is more than just a religious question: it is also a philosophical one.
 

Perhaps the tradition of Graeco-Roman rhetoric offers a way around this dilemma. The history of rhetoric, when it is understood both in theory and practice, shows us that it was not unusual for students in their exercises to compose writings that they thought would have been fitting for great persons to have written. As a way of making their compositions as stylistically authentic as possible, it would have been quite natural for students to use other writings of the person they were imitating as sources, by way of allusions to words and ideas. As far as we can tell, it would have been no large jump from the reworking of ideas to the reworking of whole sections of literature. The clearest example of this in the pseudopauline literature is the literary use of 1 Thessalonians by the author of 2 Thessalonians,⁽⁸⁷⁾ if not the literary use of Colossians by Ephesians. This phenomenon, however, is hardly limited to the pseudopauline letters. The reworking of older literature to make new literature would seem to be precisely what generations of New Testament scholars have argued to have been done by the editors of Matthew and Luke, making use of Mark and other sources. If it is proper to use the term "forger" for the writer of the Pastoral Epistles or the writer of 2 Thessalonians, a similarly derogatory term must be used for Matthew and Luke, as well as many other writings in the New Testament.
 

But if we were to adopt such terminology as this, we would cast aspersions on even larger segments of the history of Christianity. Good comparisons can be drawn from certain musical traditions to the phenomena of imitatio of Paul in the pseudopauline letters. One of Johann Sebastian Bach's best known organ preludes, the "Prelude in E-flat Major," BWV 552, is an excellent example of Bach's taking an earlier tradition, developing the tradition, and making something creative and new with it. The French overture style, well known to many of us from the opening overture of George Friedrich Händel's The Messiah, has been used by Bach in the E-flat prelude. In this rhythmically and melodically beautiful work, the theme is stated, varied, inverted, and restated in several of the voices of the polyphony. One of the difficulties that organists interested in Baroque styles have in interpreting this piece is, indeed, just how to locate this piece within the rhythmical traditions of the French overture style. Should one double-dot the dotted notes, or should one play what is written in dotted-eighth-note and sixteenth-note sequences like triplets? If one chooses the latter interpretation, how should one correlate the dotted-eighth-note and sixteenth-note sequences in the pedals with the concurrent running sixteenth notes on the manuals? But the problem is not just a problem concerning rhythm; fundamentally it is a problem of deciding what the E-flat prelude is really like and what its composer thought he was doing with the piece. But in addition to the problem of parallels between the prelude and the French overture style, the interpreter must also consider the fact that Bach included the prelude as the introduction to a collection of choral preludes based on German hymns which are metrical versions of traditional parts of the Eucharist, a collection variously referred to as the "Organ Mass" and the "Third Part of the Clavierübung." Perhaps Bach was using BWV 552 to say, in effect, "This is the archetypically elegant prelude." The "Fugue in E-Flat Major" (also numbered as BWV 552 and known to many English-speaking people as the "St. Anne Fugue"), itself a tour de force of multiple subjects, counter-subjects, inversions, repetitions, and a final reintroduction of the first subject, would then need to be interpreted not only as a triple fugue in its own right, but also as the finale of an outstanding collection of liturgical music.
 

The parallel I have drawn between these two organ works of Bach and the literary traditions associated with the Apostle Paul may serve to make the reader aware of the difficulties involved in locating particular works within larger and ongoing streams of tradition. For us to ignore pseudonymity in interpreting the disputed Pauline letters would be for us to ignore one of the streams of tradition in which they stand. The chief advantage, I think, of recognizing the contribution of rhetoric to the composition and writing of pseudonymous works is that rhetoric provides something like a "missing link." Biblical scholarship which centers on traditional historical criticism can put together theories as to why a pseudonymous author would wish to use the character of another person to whom to attribute the new writing, for that venerable person's authority would now back up the new work. Recognizing the contribution of the school tradition of declamation to the compositional process gives us historical grounding for some of the techniques that the pseudonymous author used in writing the new work. Knowledge of the overall tradition of imitatio finally helps us see how the desire to produce a new text is put together with techniques for creating a new text. This gives us a more mature view of the composition of texts we study; and hopefully a better knowledge of a text's composition can give us more hints as to how such texts should best be interpreted.

1. Wolfgang Speyer, Die literarische Fälschung im heidnischen und christlichen Altertum: Ein Versuch ihrer Deutung (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, I/2; Munich: C. H. Beck, 1971) 180.

2. See especially Norbert Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben: Zur Erklärung der frühchristlichen Pseudepigraphie (SBS 79; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1975) 11-40; Josef A. Sint, Pseudonymität im Altertum: Ihre Formen und ihre Gründe (Commentationes Aenipontanae, 15; Innsbruck: Wagner, 1960) 67-89; Horst R. Balz, "Anonymität und Pseudepigraphie im Urchristentum: Überlegungen zum literarischen und theologischen Problem der urchristlichen und gemeinantiken Pseudepigraphie," ZTK 66 (1969) 403-436; Martin Rist, "Pseudepigraphy and the Early Christians," in: Studies in New Testament and Early Christian Literature: Essays in Honor of Allen P. Wikgren, ed. David E. Aune (NovTSup 33; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972) 75-91; Norman Perrin, "Apocalyptic Christianity," in: Visionaries and their Apocalypses, ed. Paul D. Hanson (Issues in Religion and Theology, 2; Philadelphia: Fortress, and London: SPCK, 1983) 121-145, especially 126; Werner Georg Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament, revised edition, (Nashville: Abingdon, 1975) 361-363.

3. Klaus Berger, Exegese und Philosophie (SBS 123/124; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1986); Albert Schweitzer, Paul and his Interpreters: A Critical History (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1912); Werner Georg Kümmel, The New Testament: The History of the Investigation of its Problems (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972); Gerd Lüdemann, Paulus der Heidenapostel, Band II: Antipaulinismus im frühen Christentum (FRLANT 130; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983) 13-43; Stephen Neill, The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861-1961 (Firth Lectures, 1962; London: Oxford University Press, 1964) 1-81.

4. The term "Pauline corpus" or corpus paulinum refers to Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews. This term refers not to the authorship of these texts but to their presence in the traditional collection of letters associated with Paul in the present canon of the New Testament.

5. Johann Ernst Christian Schmidt, "Vermuthungen über den beyden Briefe an die Thessalonicher," in: Bibliothek für Kritik und Exegese des Neuen Testaments und ältesten Christengeschichte, edited by Schmidt (Hadamar: Neue Gelehrtenbuchhandlung, 1797-1803) Bd. 2, fasc. 3, 380-386. This article is reprinted in toto in Wolfgang Trilling, Untersuchungen zum zweiten Thessalonicherbrief (Leipzig: St. Benno-Verlag, 1972) 159-161, with modernized German spellings. Significant portions of it are translated into English in Hughes, "Second Thessalonians as a Document of Early Christian Rhetoric" (Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University / Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, 1984) 8-10.

6. Friedrich Heinrich Kern, "Über 2. Thess. 2,1-12.  Nebst Andeutungen Über den Ursprung des zweiten Briefs an die Thessalonicher," Tübinger Zeitschrift für Theologie, Jahrgang 1839, 2. Heft, 145-214.  See the summary and evaluation of Kern by James Everett Frame, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians (ICC; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912) 40-41, as well as Hughes, "Second Thessalonians," 12-15.

7. Ferdinand Christian Baur, Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, two volumes, English translation by Allan Menzies of the second edition edited by Eduard Zeller (London: Williams and Norgate, 1875-6); German original was Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi (Stuttgart: Becher & Müller, 1845; second edition, two volumes, Leipzig: Fues, 1866-1867). Baur, "Die beiden Briefe an die Thessalonicher: Ihre Echtheit und Bedeutung für die Lehre von der Parusie Christi," Theologische Jahrbücher 14 (1855) 141-168.  English translation of this article was published as Appendix III to Part II of Baur's Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, 2.314-340.

8. Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, Über den sogenannten ersten Brief des Paulus an Timotheus: Ein kritisches Sendschreiben an J. C. Gass (Berlin: Realschulbuchhandlung, 1807).

9. Ferdinand Christian Baur, Die sogenannten Pastoralbriefe des Apostels Paulus aufs neue kritisch untersucht (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1835); cf. Baur, Paulus (1845) 492-499; second edition of Paulus (1866-1867) 2.108-116.

10. Ernst Theodor Mayerhoff, Der Brief an die Colosser, mit vornehmlicher Berücksichtigung der drei Pastoralbriefe (Berlin: Hermann Schultze, 1838).

11. Rudolf Schnackenburg, Der Brief an die Epheser (EKKNT 10; Zürich, Einsiedeln, Köln: Benziger, and Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1982) 20-26.

12. Sir Ronald Syme, "Fraud and Imposture" in: Pseudepigrapha I: Pseudopythagorica - Lettres de Platon - Littérature pseudépigraphique juive, ed. Kurt von Fritz (Entretiens sur l'antiquité classique, 18; Vandoeuvre-Genève: Fondation Hardt, 1972) 1-17, especially 9-10.

13. Ferdinand Christian Baur, Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, 2.85.

14. For an excellent biography of Baur, see Horton Harris, The Tübingen School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975) 11-54; on Baur's Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi see Harris, 195.

15. Carl Ludwig Wilibald Grimm, "Die Echtheit der Briefe an die Thessalonicher gegen D. Baur's Angriff vertheidigt," Theologische Studien und Kritiken 23 (1850) 753-816; portions of this article are translated into English in Hughes, "Second Thessalonians," 19-21. A book-length reaction to Baur's Die sogenannten Pastoralbriefe was Michael Baumgarten, Die Aechtheit der Pastoralbriefe mit besonderer Rücksicht auf den neuesten Angriff von Herrn Dr. Baur vertheidigt (Berlin: Oemigke, 1837).

16. Grimm, "Echtheit," 782.

17. Grimm, "Echtheit," 816.

18. For a recent survey of Pauline studies, with bibliography and references to other such surveys, see Hans Hübner, "Paulusforschung seit 1945: Ein kritischer Literaturbericht," ANRW II.25.4.

19. Anthony Tyrrell Hanson, The Pastoral Letters (Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible; New York: Cambridge University, 1966); Hanson retracts the "fragments hypothesis" in the valuable introduction to his The Pastoral Epistles (NCB; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, and Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1982) 1-51, especially 5-11.

20. Michael Wolter, Die Pastoralbriefe als Paulustradition (FRLANT 146; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988).

21. I. Howard Marshall, 1 and 2 Thessalonians (NCB; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, and London: Marshall, Morgan & 1983) ix.

22. Marshall, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 32-36.

23. Marshall, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 36-37.

24. Marshall, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 39.

25. Marshall, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 45.

26. See the informative reviews of this work by E. J. Kenney in Classical Review 24 (1974) 79-81, and by Charles Kannengiesser, S.J., in RSR 64 (1976) 306-7, as well as the comments of Sir Ronald Syme in Pseudepigrapha I, 3-4. Other major literature on pseudonymity includes David G. Meade, Pseudonymity and Canon: An Investigation into the Relationship of Authorship and Authority in Jewish and Earliest Christian Tradition (WUNT 39; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1986); Lewis S. Donelson, Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument in the Pastoral Epistles (Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie, 22; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1986) especially 7-66; Norbert Brox, ed., Pseudepigraphie in der heidnischen und jüdisch-christlichen Antike (Wege der Forschung, 484; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977); Norbert Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben: Zur Erklärung der frühchristlichen Pseudepigraphie (SBS 79; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1975); K. von Fritz, ed., Pseudepigrapha I. Pseudopythagorica -- Lettres de Platon -- Littèrature pseudépigraphique juivre (Entretiens sur l'antiquité classique, 18; Vandoeuvres-Genève: Fondation Hardt, 1972); Bruce M. Metzger, "Literary Forgeries and Canonical Pseudepigrapha," JBL 91 (1972) 1-24; Kurt Aland, "The Problem of Anonymity and Pseudonymity in Christian Literature of the First Two Centuries," JTS n.s. 12 (1961) 39-49; Josef A. Sint, Pseudonymität im Altertum: Ihre Formen und ihre Gründe (Commentationes Aenipontanae, 15; Innsbruck: Wagner, 1960); Friedrich Torm, Die Psychologie der Pseudonymität im Hinblick auf die Literatur des Urchristentums (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1932; reprinted in Brox, ed., Pseudepigraphie, 111-140).

27. For example, early Christian martyrdom stories which portray the writer as an eyewitness of the martyrdom may be true or may be a literary device used to add plausibility to the writing; see Speyer, Fälschung, 27.

28. Speyer, Fälschung, 6, 9.

29. As Speyer, Fälschung, 22, admits, the orators have made it difficult for the scholar to distinguish between authentic and invented documents. "They invented letters and speeches of famous men and women of history and thus showed their stylistic dexterity. . . . The students of the orators composed appropriate letters and speeches as stylistic exercises." Speyer refers to older studies of rhetorical exercises including Georg Reichel, Quaestiones prosgymnasmaticae (Dr.phil. dissertation, Leipzig, 1909; Leipzig: Typis Roberti Noske Bornensis, 1909) and Richard Kohl, De scholasticarum declamationum argumentis ex historia petitis (Dr.phil. dissertation, Münster, 1915; Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoeningh, 1915), as well as Friedrich Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit, second edition (Leipzig: Teubner, 1887-1898; reprint, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1962) 1.338ff. For further material on rhetorical pseudepigraphy, see also Sint, Pseudonymität, 90-107, as well as the section on declamation below. Speyer further developed his categories in "Fälschung, pseudepigraphische freie Erfindung und `echte religiöse Pseudepigraphie,'" in: Pseudepigrapha I, ed. Kurt von Fritz, 331-366, with discussion by colleagues on 367-372.

30. On pseudonymity in various early Greek literary traditions, see also Sint, Pseudonymität, 17-53.

31. Speyer, Fälschung, 111; cf. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 68-69.

32. Speyer, Fälschung, 112.

33. Speyer, Fälschung, 18-19, notes the rebuke by Spyridon of another bishop, Triphyllios, who corrected the awkward Greek word krabbaton in Mark 2:9,11 and John 5:8 to "the finer expression skimpous," as preserved in Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 1.11.9. See also Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 77.

34. Speyer, Fälschung, 175-176.

35. Speyer, Fälschung, 176.

36. Aland, "Anonymity and Pseudonymity," 46.

37. Aland, "Anonymity and Pseudonymity," 47.

38. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 68-70.

39. Speyer, Fälschung, 181. For an excellent and recent discussion of early Christian usage of literary criticism to detect pseudonymity, see Robert M. Grant, Heresy and Criticism: The Search for Authenticity in Early Christian Literature (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993).

40. Speyer, Fälschung, 182.

41. Speyer, Fälschung, 184-186.

42. Speyer, Fälschung, 186-190; for a defense of Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians on the basis of an apparently skewed patristic attestation, see Eduard Schweizer, "Der 2. Thessalonicherbrief ein Philipperbrief?" TZ 1 (1945) 286-289.

43. Speyer, Fälschung, 190-192.

44. The use of the terms "orthodoxy" and "heresy" in connection with first and second century Christianity is especially problematic after the classic study of Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971) which argued that there was no original orthodox Christian teaching in several cities, and that lines of division between orthodoxy and heresy cannot be clearly drawn in these centuries. Speyer, Fälschung, 226-231, is aware of the problematic nature of this terminology.

45. Speyer, Fälschung, 211.

46. Tertullian, De baptismo 17.

47. Speyer, Fälschung, 260.

48. Speyer, Fälschung, 279 n. 4; 285-286; on 222 n. 7 Speyer also lists "both the deuteropauline writings" (presumably meaning Ephesians and Colossians) as well as 1 Timothy and Titus in connection with pseudonymous church orders aimed at increasing the authority of church officers. Speyer elsewhere, 57, refers to 2 Thessalonians as a witness to Paul's dealing with forgeries of his own letters, cf. 180.

49. Especially exercises in rhetorical and grammar schools, which I shall discuss in connection with declamation in this chapter, below.

50. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 81.

51. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 75.

52. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 87-105.

53. Speyer, Fälschung, 31; Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 74-75.

54. Donelson, Pseudepigraphy, 11-12.

55. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 105.

56. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 107.

57. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 119.

58. L. H. Brockington, "The Problem of Pseudonymity," JTS n.s. 4 (1953) 15-22. On pseudonymity in the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish literature, see especially Meade, Pseudonymity and Canon; Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 41-44; John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1984) 30-32; as well as Collins, "Pseudonymity, Historical Reviews and the Genre of the Revelation of John," CBQ 39 (1977) 329-343; and Collins, ed., Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre (Semeia 14; Missoula: Scholars, 1979); cf Speyer, Fälschung, 150-168. For a generally negative view of the importance of Jewish pseudepigraphy for the understanding of early Christian pseudepigraphy, see Donelson, Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument, 13-15.

59. For a newly translated edition of the Pseudepigrapha, see James H. Charlesworth, ed. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (two volumes; Garden City: Doubleday, 1983-1985).

60. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 41-44.

61. Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 42.

62. Géza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (second edition; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975) 265-268.

63. Fred L. Horton, Jr., The Melchizedek Tradition (SNTSMS 30; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).

64. Mark 9:2-10; cf. parallels in Matthew 17:1-9 and Luke 9:28-36. In Mark, Elijah precedes Moses, but in Matthew the Hebrew worthies are mentioned in the "canonical" order: Moses and then Elijah.

65. Luke 24:13-32; cf. Luke 24:44-46.

66. See the new translation and introduction by John J. Collins, "Sibylline Oracles," in Charlesworth, ed., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1.317-472. Collins, 317, suggests that the oracles' invariable hexameter comes from the influence of the poetry of the Delphic oracle. See also Collins' earlier study of oracles 3-5, The Sibylline Oracles of Egyptian Judaism (SBLDS 13; Missoula: Scholars, 1974).

67. Sint, Pseudonymität, 84-86; Speyer, Fälschung, 161-162.

68. On the relation between the Wisdom of Solomon and Graeco-Roman culture, see especially James M. Reese, O.S.F.S., Hellenistic Influence on the Book of Wisdom and its Consequences (AnBib 41; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1970).

69. For a general introduction to Philo, see Samuel Sandmel, Philo of Alexandria: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). For an introduction to other Hellenistic Jewish authors, see John J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (New York: Crossroad, 1983).

70. Frank W. Hughes, "The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16.19-31) and Graeco-Roman Rhetoric," in Stanley E. Porter and Thomas H. Olbricht, editors, Rhetoric and the New Testament: Essays from the 1992 Heidelberg Conference (JSNTS 90) 29-41; on imitatio see pp. 31-37.

71. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 10.2.4.

72. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 10.2.4.

73. Cicero, De oratore 3.125.

74. D. A. Russell, Greek Declamation (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1983) 9-15 et passim.

75. Russell, Greek Declamation, 10-11; Russell refers here to George Kennedy's section on prosgymnasmata in Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors, 54-73, and to D. L. Clark, Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education.

76. Russell, Greek Declamation, 10, referring to Menander Rhetor 331.16 in the edition of Spengel.

77. Russell, Greek Declamation, 21-39. Libanius' Declamation 33 combines the themes of the miserly father who wishes to disown his soldier son who has asked as his reward only a wreath and not gold; this humorous masterpiece is recounted and analyzed by Russell, 96-102.

78. Russell, Greek Declamation, 111; Russell gives as an example the fact that "serious historians have taken the Peri Politeias ascribed to Herodes Atticus as a work of the late fifth century B.C.," and he describes normative features of deliberative declamation found in this speech as the movement of the argument under the heads of 'necessity' and 'expediency', and several imagined objections are stated and answered" (ibid.).

79. Russell, Greek Declamation, 112.

80. Aristotle, Ars rhetorica 1.2.3.

81. Aristotle, Ars rhetorica 1.2.4.

82. Aristotle, Ars rhetorica 1.2.1.

83. Aristotle, Ars rhetorica 1.1.1.

84. Cicero, De inventione 1.1-2; De oratore 1.33-34; 3.125; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 1.Pr.6-20; 12.1.1-2.4.

85. This was my colleague's expression.

86. Donelson, Pseudepigraphy, 18-23; Brox, Falsche Verfasserangaben, 83, 120.

87. William Wrede, Die Echtheit des zweiten Thessalonicherbriefes untersucht (TU n.F. 9/2; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1903).