Tercel

All four gospels have the author named in their title. To call that "anonymous" is to twist the word into meaninglessness.

I don't think that's a very fair statement either, with regard to the Gospel of John.

"The word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory which he received as the Father's only Son." John 1:14

Now it might be argued that it is possible the author means "Humankind" not "I and others" when he uses the word "We" here. It's certainly possible, but it seems equally possible that the author is claiming here to be an eyewitness. Thus to say flat out that there is no such claim made is not really accurate.

"He [the "disciple who Jesus loved"] is the disciple who spoke of these things, the one who also wrote them down; and we know that what he said is true." John 21:24

Now this is not a claim by the author that they are an eyewitness. However it certainly seems to be a claim by an author that another author was an eyewitness.
Also the Gospel of John presents itself as depicting the point of view of the Beloved Disciple, who is clearly an eye-witness. Thus it seems to me to be making an implicit eyewitness claim in this regard also.

Iasion

Greetings all,

The weight of available evidence does indeed support the conclusion that the original Gospels were anonymous.

The documentary evidence shows three broad phases:
1. No knowledge or mention of Gospels
2. Limited knowledge of some proto Gospel material
3. Widespread knowledge of the Four Gospels

The first phase essentially covers the first century - all early Christian books written in the 1st century show no knowledge of formal Gospels.

The third phase, when the four Gospels are widely known by name and quoted extensively does not begin till the mid-late 2nd century.


The 2nd phase is the period when the Gospels first coalesce into writings - below I lay out some of the key evidence from this period.


the early 3[*] Clement[*] Barnabas[*] the Didakhe

All show only scant knowledge of a few sayings and some elements of the Gospel story (along with stories at variance with the later Gospels), without any mention of formal Gospels or writings of any such kind.

This argues that the Gospels were unknown in the early 2nd century, but that some varying elements of passion events were told and passed through an oral tradition.


Ignatius

The writings of "Ignatius" were either :[*] really written by Ignatius in c.107[*] forged c.130

Whoever wrote these letters is exhorting believers to die so that they also may "attain to Christ", and they explicitly assure readers that Jesus was "truly born" and was "truly crucified". The writer is trying to convince readers his account of Jesus Christ is the true one - he explicitly tells his readers to stop their ears ...

If this writer, arguing the case for Jesus, knew of the Gospels, he would certainly have cited them to support his version of the story - the fact that no mention of the Gospels is made argues strongly that the writer did not know any Gospels.

This view is supported by the tiny amount of detail of the Gospel accounts to be found in Ignatius - only a few details more than in Paul - again arguing the Gospels were not known at that time.


Consider also where Ignatius says the crucifixion took place :

This hardly sounds like history - its more the mythic dimension that Earl explains in his page about Where Christ was Crucified.


Aristides

One oft-overlooked clue is the comment by Aristides - about the Gospels being preached "a short time". This comment is probably from the 120s or 130s, but may be later.

This suggests that the Gospels were recent in the early-mid 2nd century.


Papias c.130

Papias does not seem to be aware of documents called Gospels, but he does mention writings. He does mention the names Mark and Matthew, but not as titles in the form "kata Markon" or "kata Mathion" (pardon me if I got that wrong - I still get confused with 'us' and 'on' name endings).

I agree with Peter Kirby, that this evidence argues that the Gospels had no names at this time.


Justin's Dialogue c.135

At this apparently early stage of his writing, Justin seems generally aware of the Gospel traditions, he refers vaguely to writings and "the Gospel" - but not to any formal title "kata (name)". He gives some stories and sayings of the Gospel tradition, but includes other material at variance with the Gospels - e.g. he calls Jesus an "Angel" and says he rose on the "eighth day".

This argues that Justin was unaware of formal Gospels in this period, and that variant stories were circulating.


Marcion c.140

Marcion published a Gospel that had no "seed of David" nor any genealogies and seems to have been called merely "the Gospel". It was never called Kata Marcion nor Kata anybody as far as I am aware.

I think the argument that the four Gospels were later named to distinguish them carries some weight - thus the fact that Marcion called his just "the Gospel" may suggest it was published before the other four were widely known.


Justin's 1st Apology

Justin makes no mention of formal writings until the VERY END of the first apology. He refers to "the memoirs of the Apostles" called "Gospels" but does not give their names. The 2nd Apology does not mention the Gospels at all.

The fact that he did NOT give names strongly argues they HAD no names in this period.

Also, Justin seems to give the name "memoirs of Peter" to the Gospel of Mark - strongly arguing that the Gospels were not yet formally named in this period.


the diaTessaron c.170

This crucial document is a key piece of the puzzle - it's name means "from Four", being an early musical term I believe, thus implying "a harmony of Four".

Tatian compiled this document from four proto-Gospels - it is extremely signficant that he gave no names to the source documents, yet he explicitly numbers them as four in his title.

This argues for two important points :[*] these particular four Gospels were considered special in some way[*] these four Gospels were still NOT NAMED

The Gospels must have still been anonymous at this stage - Tatian could not possibly have ignored or removed titles of the very Apostles names. To be named simply "from Four" means he knew these FOUR sources were special, but un-named.

This is convincing evidence that the Gospels were originally anonymous, and still so in Tatian's time.


Celsus c.178

Attacks the Gospels as "fiction" and "based on myth".


Irenaeus c.185

He was the first to name the four, and he justifies that there ARE four - its a reasonable assumption that he named them himself.

The evidence outlined here makes a very strong case that the Gospels WERE originally anonymous, and only named in the late 2nd century (possible by Irenaeus)


Quentin David Jones


Postscript :

kata
It may also be relevent to point out that the "according to" in the title "Gospel according to Mark" is Greek "kata".

This "kata" is also found in "kata sarka" meaning "according to the flesh" (which I would render as "physically") - sometimes this "kata sarka is translated as "after the flesh", or "in the manner of the flesh" sometimes even as "worldly". Interested readers may like to check my page of references to use of "kata sarka" (or "en sarka"):

<a href="http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentinj/Christianity/katasarka.html" target="_blank">kata sarka</a>

Tercel

Isn't it a bit bold to make statements on exactly what Papias was and wasn't aware of when we only posses a few tiny fragments from Papias' writings?

We learn from later sources that Marcion's Gospel was equivalent to our Gospel of Luke with some modifications by Marcion to suit his dislike of the Jews. (hence the lack of the genealogies which traced Jesus's famous Jewish ancestors) Marcion was a fan of Paul, and his "Bible" consisted primarily of the Pauline epistles. It is quickly easy to see why he might have chosen the Gospel of Luke as his Gospel: Luke was supposed to be a companion of Paul. This explaining his choice, it seems thus entirely reasonable to suppose that the association of Luke with the gospel bearing his name was known to Marcion.

That he was able to simply refer to the four Gospels without bothering to give actual names, seems to me to strongly imply that the four gospels were known and accepted widely. It takes for granted that the reader is familar enough with these four writings that they warrent no further explanation, and that the four gospels are already in a class of their own above any other gospels that he may simply refer to them as being the "four" gospels and have the reader know what is being talked about.
As you note: "these particular four Gospels were considered special in some way"

I find it extremely hard to believe that there were four widely accepted books dealing with same thing and they did not have names. Consider the impossibility of two Christians having a discussion about these four Gospels without them having names to distinguish them. How do you understand which of the four the other fellow is referring to? It seems clear that the Gospels would have needed names to distinguish them from the moment there were other writings they needed to be distinguished from. And it is clear that this must have occurred prior to the diaTessaron.

Why not? I fail to see your point.
Is he supposed to title his work "A Harmony of the Four Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John"?

rodahi

<strong>quote:
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Originally posted by Iasion:
Papias c.130
Papias does not seem to be aware of documents called Gospels


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Tercel: Isn't it a bit bold to make statements on exactly what Papias was and wasn't aware of when we only posses a few tiny fragments from Papias' writings?</strong>

Iasion is correct. There is no evidence to suggest that Papias knew of documents known as "gospels". According to Eusebius, "Papias has left us five volumes entitled The Sayings of the Lord Explained. These are mentioned by Irenaeus as the only works from his pen...Papias himself in the preface to his works makes it clear that he was never a hearer or eyewitness of the holy apostles, and tells us that he learnt the essentials of the Faith from their former pupils...Papias, whom we are now discussing, owns that he learnt the words of the apostles from their former followers, but says that he listened to Ariston and the presbyter John with his own ears...Papias reproduces other stories communicated to him by word of mouth, together with some otherwise unknown parables and teachings of the Saviours, and other things of a more allegorical character...he seems to have been a man of very small intelligence, to judge from his books." The History of the Church, pp. 149-152.

With respect to writings Papias was aware of, Eusebius continues, "In his own book Papias gives us accounts of the Lord's sayings obtained from Aristion or learnt direct from the presbyter John. Having brought these to the attention of scholars, I must now follow up the statements already quoted from him with a piece of information which he sets out regarding Mark, the writer of the gospel: 'This, too, the presbyter used to say. 'Mark, who had been Peter's interpreter, wrote down carefully, but not in order, all that he remembered of the Lord's sayings and doings. For he had not heard the Lord or been one of His followers, but later, as I said, one of Peter's. Peter used to adapt his teaching to the occasion, without making a systematic arrangement of the Lord's sayings, so that Mark was quite justified in writing down some things just as he remembered them. For he had one purpose only--to leave out nothing that he had heard, and to make no misstatement about it.' Ibid, P. 152.
Note that Eusebius uses the words "the gospel," but Papias does not.
According to Eusebius, Papias continues, "Matthew compiled the Sayings in the Aramic language, and everyone translated them as well as he could." Ibid, P. 152.

There is no way of knowing if Papias was alluding to the NT Mark. Numerous scholars find the Papias quote problematic. Further, the book of Sayings in the Aramic language cannot be the same book as the NT Matthew. Helmut Koester states, "Papias's reference to a 'Hebrew' composition by Matthew is extraordinary because it is certain that there never was a Semitic (Hebrew or Aramaic) original of the Gospel of Matthew...there is no evidence for the existence of various differing translations into Greek in which the Gospel of Matthew could have been circulating in its earliest period, as is claimed in Papias's statement." Ancient Christian Gospels, pp. 316-317.