Horatio Parker

With many NT works being forgeries, why is it that no or rather very few ancient writers wrote in the the name of Jesus?

If anonymous authors wished to give weight to their writings by using an impressive apostolic name, why not go for broke?

stephan huller

Because Jesus was God not man. There are a number of places in the Pauline Corpus where the Apostle 'speaks in Christ' or says that 'Christ is in him' or where Clement and others associates things said by Jesus with Paul. The place to look though is here - i.e. where Paul was identified as Christ. This is why no later author does this (except maybe Montanus). The paradigm was already set and was already declared to be heretical.

Chili

Of course Paul would never call himself a Christ as first pope-to-be who first must form a flock so that sheep can get lost from the flock.

Traditionally Jesus was like a dirty rag to be left behind and never to be worshiped but only noticed in passing = hail mary's and our father's but no 'my Jesus.'

Every Christian is supposed to have the mind of Christ and is what 'Christ in him' means and that is why Catholics are not Christian but Catholic in the same was as Jews are not Christian but Jew.

Steve Weiss

So much debate over fiction.

Horatio Parker

Then God, or Christ, can only speak to humanity through an intermediary.

Sounds like an argument for MJ.

mountainman

The Gnostic Gospels and Acts present additional sayings in the name of Jesus as does the Emperor Julian after Nicaea. The Gospel of Thomas for example is a writing which superficially reads "Jesus said this; Jesus said that; Jesus said this; etc, etc, etc. The Apocalypse of Peter: (NHC 7.3) is introduced by .... - "As the Savior was sitting in the temple in the three hundredth (year) of the covenant ...." Even Eusebius managed to find a hand-written letter by Jesus "in the archives" and cites it in his research about he "History of the Church".

Of course to answer your question it would be very helpful to know precisely how long the books of the NT were in circulation before they were raised to the status of "Holy Writ" in the 4th century, for the purpose of a centralised empire-wide orthodox monotheistic cult. If the period of duration was long the question is a good one. If the duration was short the question might not even arise. The longest timeframe therefore, assuming the NT canon was around c.125 CE is two centuries. The shortest time frame depends on how late you wish to hypothecise the NT appeared.





I think they did, but were PROHIBITED, and their works DESTROYED. We have 24 Gnostic Gospels and 29 Gnostic Acts which only survived the imperial prohibition and destruction because they were translated to Coptic or Syriac and were buried in the earth for over sixteen centuries. We may add that when the mss were finally recovered, that they did not immediately fall back into the hands of the Vatican (as did for example, for a few early decades, the mss of the DSS).



The following from the Catholic Encyclopaedia:

stephan huller

Unless the 'Jesus as God' understanding developed from an actual historical figure. The Petrine position in the Pseudo-Clementines (against Simon Magus's 'visionary' experience) immediately comes to mind.

Doug Shaver

The fact that some forgers succeeded doesn't mean they all did. Some did try to write in Jesus' name. It just happened that none was able to get enough people to believe them for history to have noticed.

yalla

Well there are the 3 letters between Abgar, King of Edessa and Jesus himself.
1. Abgar to JC
2. JC to Abgar
3. Abgar to JC.

Cited, translated even, by ....wait for it....Eusebius.


Here's some extra info from an unimpeachable source.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01042c.htm



Edit:
Here I thought I'd just add what JC had to say in response tp Abgar [from the above source]:


"Go thou, and say to thy master, who hath sent thee to Me: 'Happy art thou who hast believed in Me, not having seen me, for it is written of me that those who shall see me shall not believe in Me, and that those who shall not see Me shall believe in Me. As to that which thou hast written, that I should come to thee, (behold) all that for which I was sent here below is finished, and I ascend again to My Father who sent Me, and when I shall have ascended to Him I will send thee one of My disciples, who shall heal all thy sufferings, and shall give (thee) health again, and shall convert all who are with thee unto life eternal. And thy city shall be blessed forever, and the enemy shall never overcome it.'"

Solo

The 'Jesus as God' appears to be a later adaptation of the Jerusalem Nazarene/Ebionite traditions in Diaspora to Paulinism. Both the 1 Cor 15:3-11 insert and the later Clementines are playing the "historical card" against Paul and Simon (who I believe was fashioned after the author of Mark's gospel). The legendary josts of Peter and Simon were likely built as romances built on the clash of the first two gospels: Mark's as the champion of Paul and Matthew as the defender of Peter's primacy. Another strand of traditions tried to obliterate the rivalry by declaring the reconciliation of the two chief apostles in Rome, and by claiming that Mark was composing his gospel at the knee of Peter, whom the real Mark transparently ridicules and wholly cuts out of Jesus' favour.

The truly amazing thing about the Pseudoclementine Pater is that he transparently receives his "memories" through oracular visits of Jesus spirit, much like the Paulines:
For those who are not familiar with the known phenomenon of receiving revelations on sudden waking, or while exhibiting signs of psychosis they should know they are not limited to religious content. Those interested I refer to Arthur Koestler's Act of Creation (or via: amazon.co.uk), Chapter 7, titled Thinking Aside.

Best,
Jiri