RParvus

Hello Earl,

By “not tipping his hand,” I mean that the forger wanted to avoid any slip up that would show he was in actually writing the letter (1 Clement) around 140 CE. To achieve his aim of undercutting Marcionism he needed to pass the letter off as belonging to the previous century. He wanted to be able to show it to any who were tempted by Marcionism and say: “See! This letter is proof that Marcion is wrong. It shows us one of Paul’s churches as it was in the late first century and, clearly, their beliefs are proto-orthodox, not Marcionite.”

If you look back at my comment you will see that I made no mention of Roman hegemony. I have never claimed that Roman hegemony is what 1 Clement was about. I think the efforts of Roman church to achieve hegemony came about later in the second century.


Because in the eyes of the proto-orthodox whoever has the best claim to being first also has the best claim to being true. Their claim to be that first and true Christian community was argued openly by heresiologists like Irenaeus and Tertullian. But another way to establish the same point is to produce/fabricate a letter from earlier times that show their beliefs in peaceful possession in a Pauline church.

No. The forger would not have wanted his deception to be detected. As I indicated above, he wanted to pass the letter off as a first century document. If he could achieve that goal, Marcion’s claims would be effectively undercut. You can be sure that Marcion, assuming he knew 1 Clement, understood its dire implications for his system. He would not have needed a seminar to explain those to him.


I agree with you that the TF—at least parts of it—are an obvious forgery. But from that I don’t think we can conclude that all forgers were just as clumsy. Was it beyond the ability of a second century forger to fabricate a believable portrait of the earlier church where proto-orthodoxy reigned uncontested? I don’t know. You may be right that no one was that smart or capable in the second century, but I’m not sure. Scholars are pretty unanimous that the author of Hebrews was a very smart guy. The consensus is that he wrote the best Greek in the New Testament. That doesn’t mean, of course, that he was as good at forgery as he was at Greek. So I hear what you’re saying, but am still mulling it over.


I agree that he did not outwardly acknowledge the presence of heresy in the church he was addressing. And I wouldn’t expect him to. As I see it, he wants to present us with the early halcyon period of Christianity, before heresy reared its ugly head; a time when the worst problem that faced Christians was just the maintainance of their initial enthusiasm.

But there are scholars who detect indications that the author of Hebrews knew more than he was saying. They find it odd, for instance, that Hebrews starts out by insisting that the Son came not to share the condition of angels, but to share the condition of flesh and blood. Loisy comments: “Si l’auteur tient tant a le dire, c’est sans doute qu’il connait des gens qui classent ou qui ont l’air de classer the Christ lui-meme, en tant qu’ils admettent sa preexistence, dans la categorie des esprits celestes denommes anges.” As you know, Irenaeus will later say that Simon was the first to put forward the idea that the Son only appeared to be a man, and in reality was not. But if the Son’s flesh and blood was only a semblance, wouldn’t that mean he was some kind of celestial spiritual being in disguise? And isn’t that a dangerous belief that someone fabricating a portrait of the church’s halcyon days would want to be sure to leave out? So Hebrews insistence, right from the start, that the Son was not an angel may not be as innocent as it appears. Likewise in regard to its odd statement that if the Son were on earth, he wouldn’t be a priest (taking it as a present contrafactual). Simon was the first and best-known heretic to claim that he was the Son on earth.



And rightly so. He would have us believe that proto-orthodoxy came first, thereby making the heretics settle for a reactionary role, “seeking to challenge and discredit” orthodox belief. Not the other way around.

But as I said above, Earl, I hear you. And you may well be right that the type of forgery I am proposing would have been too subtle for a second century Christian to think of, or too difficult to successfully pull off.