ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 8.2 << PREVIOUS | NEXT >>

This is possibly the most informative and provocative of all the extracts we have yet published from Tom Lee's manuscript searching for the origins of Christianity and the Papacy. Today he begins to get into the real nitty-gritty as to how the many stories circulating about Jesus and the first Apostles and followers in the early Church gradually came to be sorted into categories of authentic and non-authentic.

Which Gospels to Choose? Part 8.2

by Tom Lee

Sorting fact from fiction...

The influence of the fictitious writings that abounded from a very early date can scarcely be exaggerated in originating and disseminating the tradition of Peter's connection with Rome. G. Salmon, a leading authority on the Clementine writings, believed that the real inventor of the story of Peter's Roman episcopate was an editor of the Clementine Romances. A considerable collection of forged Acts of the various apostles was in circulation. Eusebius mentions the Acts of Peter, the Gospel according to Peter, the Preaching and the Apocalypse of Peter. The latter has been dated not later than 140, and if we could be sure it was quoted by Ignatius it must date to c. 100, about the same time as the Gospel of John. In that uncritical age these fictions were liable to be regarded as authentic. Clement of Alexandria often cited the Preaching and quoted the Apocalypse as Scripture. The Gospel of Peter gives a naive and dramatic account of the resurrection with many legendary details that entered into the Church's Easter texts, hymns, sermons and pictures.

Another species of such writings are those associated with the name of Clement. They exist in two forms, known as the Clementine Recognitions and the Clementine Homilies. Salmon dated them at about 200, but Bishop J.B. Lightfoot and others think that they date from much earlier. They certainly incorporate earlier sources.

Pseudo gospels written for a political objective...

There were many early Christian religious texts. By what processes did some of them come to be rejected and others accepted as Divinely inspired?

These imaginative writings, that may not be very much more fanciful than the officially accepted Gospels, met a demand for more information about the apostles than is given in scripture. The writers had no qualms about manufacturing history, adding specious myths, and soon no one knew the difference. These pseudo gospels were also used to support the views of certain sects in the early Church. The Jewish-Christians, who maintained that Christians must observe the Mosaic Law, exalted James and Peter and reviled Paul as the enemy. Although they reflected the outlook of the time, representing James as superior to Peter, yet the place given to Peter was used afterwards to substantiate the Petrine-Rome assumptions.

The Clementine Romances tell of a struggle through various parts of the world between Peter and Simon Magus, who tried to buy the power of the Holy Spirit from the apostle. Peter is the conquering hero always and Simon the thwarted villain. Simon personifies the spirit of heresy and diabolical alliance. Peter's work is to follow him everywhere and expose him. They are written with a strong anti-Pauline motive. This was toned down by later editors like Rufinus (d. 410).

Although Simon Magus is not absolutely a disguise for Paul, there are clear indications that Paul is bitterly attacked in the censures ostensibly directed against Simon. Peter is portrayed as accomplishing great things in the cities that Paul's name was associated with. The last place of conflict is Antioch, with a forecast of Rome. Lightfoot describes the plan of the writer of the Clementine Romances as "transferring the achievement of St Paul to St Peter whom he makes "the Apostle of the Gentiles". Barnabas and Clement are Peter's friends and disciples, not Paul's. The whole tendency is to exalt Peter at the expense of Paul.

Letters from Peter and Clement are prefixed to the Homilies. Peter is made to declaim against "the lawless and foolish doctrine of the enemy". Clement tells James, "the bishop of bishops", of the death of Peter, "who was commanded to enlighten the darker part of the world, namely the west, and was enabled to accomplish it." At Rome Peter testified against the wicked one who withstood him. Peter before his death nominated Clement, "who has journeyed with me from the beginning", to have his own chair of discourse. Then Peter ordained him and placed him in his chair and ordered him to report to James an account of his death and of Clement's succession as bishop. This is the first appearance of the legend that Peter was Bishop of Rome, if his Chair of Discourse is to be so understood.

The original forms of these concoctions influenced subsequent orthodox writers and are the sources of much that later writers recorded as fact. Tertullian (160-230) derives from them the statement that Clement was ordained to the Roman Church by Peter. Jerome (d.419/420) states that Peter "in the second year of the Emperor Claudius (i.e. 42), went to Rome to expel Simon Magus and occupied there the sacerdotal seat for twenty-five years."

Tertullian refers to the system of Simonian sorcery, condemned by the Apostle Peter. The confuting of Simon at Rome was a traditional reason for Peter going there and fits in with the Ebionite (Jewish Christian) effort to deprecate Paul. Eusebius (d. 339) tells of the success of Simon Magus at Rome, and how in the reign of Claudius, "by the benign and gracious providence of God", Peter was conducted to Rome in order to fight this pest of mankind. Hippolytus (d. 236) tells of St Peter's contests and triumph over Simon at Rome. So does Augustine in the fifth century.

Speaking dogs and flying exhibitions...

Unknown artist's depiction of the Fall of Simon Magus. Image from Wikipedia Commons.

The Actus Petri cum Simoni (c. 170) revels in grotesque supernatural marvels, including a speaking dog, and culminates with the final destruction of Simon, who, when giving a flying exhibition at Rome, is made to crash by Peter. Commodian (c. 250) retails that the dog said to Simon: "Peter is calling for thee." The flying incident (in various forms) is recorded by the Syriac Didascalia (third century), Ambrose (d.397), Cyril of Jerusalem (d.386), Arnobius (d.330), Epiphanius (d.431), Theoderet (393-458), and Sulpicius Severus (5th Cent.). Incredibly the Sixth General Council (680) repeated it.

The Epistle of Clement to James in the Homilies was accepted and honored until the Renaissance. It is quoted as a high authority to be received with reverence on account of its venerable antiquity at the Synod of Vaison (442). With unconscious appropriateness the forgers of the False Decretals (mid ninth century) put it at the head of their pontifical letters, having judiciously altered it to conform to their views.

As Shotwell and Loomis pointed out in their book The See of Peter,

"The Simon Magus legends and the Clementine letter taken together made invaluable propaganda for the rising Papacy, at first appealing mainly to the uncritical and unlearned believer, but subsequently admitted, as a part of history, by the gravest Fathers of the Church."

Gregory of Tours (d.594), who followed a more orthodox version of the legend that joined Paul with the triumph over Simon, writes that there could be seen in Rome in his time two grooves in the rock made by the knees of the blessed apostles when they prayed for the collapse of the flying Simon.

Women having to dress as men...

Another early book that almost became part of the New Testament was The Acts of St. Paul and Thecla. Thecla was a woman apostle and follower of St Paul. She broke off her betrothal and dedicated her maidenhood to God. She found it necessary to dress as a man to carry out her apostolate, and retired to a cave near Seleucia in Asia Minor. Several other women saints imitated Thecla in wearing men's attire as a means of hiding from their families or from the danger of rape. It must be remembered that by Greek, Hebrew and Roman law, women were subject to their fathers until they married and then became subject to their husbands. By adopting a dedicated life of virginity they were liberated from the domination of their families.

The Gnostic input — the invention of sex as a "cosmic disaster"...

Other Gospels and Acts that were in circulation came from Gnostic sources. The Gnostics were not a unified religion, but rather separated groups with similar beliefs concerning good and evil. Many groups originated prior to Christianity. Some of them appropriated and distorted the Christian message. They completely rejected this world as being the creation of a group of skillful demons, presided over by their Satan, Ialdoboath, whom they believed, totally controlled the celestial spheres.

For most of them God was unknowable. The individual Gnostic believed in his pneuma or 'divine inner spark' that longed for union with the God who created it, and which could be made to disobey the demons by a rebellion known as gnosis, or enlightenment. While all the sects varied slightly they all did agree in their sexual pessimism. They believed that the invention of sex was a cosmic disaster, and contrary to our true nature. Hence came much of the life-hating nonsense in later Christian writers.

Gnostics, like many Christians today, had restlessly inquiring minds. They grappled with the great riddles of human existence — riddles that yet today trouble many thinking people who feel that orthodox theology sometimes too easily glosses over complexity and outright impossibility. Whatever their flaws, Gnostics struggled to reconcile inconsistencies between the Hebrew Bible and the words of Jesus, between the evil they saw all around them and biblical teachings about a Creator who called all things good. The story of the Fall notwithstanding; how was it, they wondered, that God's plan could go so badly awry? They also believed that to know oneself in one's depths is to know God.

One such document, the Gospel of Judas (not by him, but recounting his role) exonerates Judas as Jesus' betrayer, making him instead his faithful cohort, carrying out Jesus' orders to facilitate his passion so that he could return to God. The most complete copy is in Coptic, but probably based on a Greek original. It was treasured as scripture by the Ethiopian church.

No Catechism...

In the second century there was nothing like the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The early believers didn't really know yet what to believe, and there were a lot of attempts to find a philosophy to fit with the resurrection faith. Some of these attempts bore fruit and became part of mainstream Christian theology, and some were dead ends. The Gospel of Judas was one of the latter.

Writing in the New York Times, Elaine Pagels said:

"The text (Gospel of Judas) has joined the other spectacular discoveries that are exploding the myth of a monolithic Christianity, and showing how diverse and fascinating the early Christian movement really was."

The Bible is an anthology of Hebrew and late Greek literature, edited and put forth by a council of bishops who declared that they were acting under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Before this time the Bible as we know it did not exist. There were the Hebrew Scriptures and their, often inaccurate, Greek translation, the Septuagint, which was made in Alexandria between 250 and 100 BCE. There were also various codices of Greek manuscripts, of various parts of the New Testament, including in some form or other the finally accepted four Gospels. There were numerous other writings circulating among Christians including the epistles of St Paul and St John, the Apocalypse (Revelation) and such documents (later excluded) as the Acts of John, the Didache, the Apostolic Constitutions, a Secret Gospel of Mark, and the various Epistles of Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp. About this time the practical advantages of the codex, or book, was discovered and began to replace the scroll. It was now possible to gather all their sacred writings between two covers.

ARTICLE NAVIGATION: You are presently looking at Part 8.2 << PREVIOUS | NEXT >>

PHOTO CREDIT: The image used in the headline has been sourced from the OnLine Sacred Gallery of the British Library: www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/sacred/downloads.html

[Index of Commentaries by Tom Lee]