authorship and pseudepigraphy in early christian literature 57
demonstrated that in greco-roman school traditions, early Jewish literature, or early
Christian writings pseudepigraphical ascriptions were understood as non-deceptive.
rather, in the ancient literature exami ned a simple princi ple served as the norm: a
state ment was conside red authentic if merely the wording did not come from the per-
son to whom the statement was at tributed. however, a state ment was not consi dered
to be authentic if the con tent did not come from the alle ged author (31–93). With the
possible exception of the Canon Muratori and augustine, the early church almost unan-
imously rejected pseudepigra pha as being unworthy of canonici ty, even if they were
orthodox. the fact that augusti ne did not question the canoni city of the Wisdom of
Solomon, although he attributed this book to sirach, can be explai ned on the assump-
tion that this church father, in contrast to Jerome, subordinated his historical conclu-
sions to the majority decision of the church regarding canoni city (95–148). In the eyes
of writers like Paul and many later theologi ans, who absolutely and completely rejected
lying in the service of religion and specifically lying concerning matters of revelation,
deceptive pseudepigraphy could not be morally justified. the authors of the Apostolic
Con stitutions and the pseudo-Clementine literature as well as of the third letter to the
Corin thians supposedly justified their literary forgeries by clai ming the right to extend
the use of a positively moti vated “lie of necessi ty” into the realm of religion (149–77).
In new testament scholarship, the thesis that a pseudepigraphical claim of author-
ship of a book does not bring into question its canonicity because in the early church
pseudepigraphi c writings were not consi dered to be forge ries has gained widespread
acceptance. this argument, however, is based on a historical presup posi tion that can-
not be sup ported by the sources at our disposal. other arguments for the compatibility
of pseudepigraphy and canonicity suffer from other weaknesses (179–91).
——. “the anonymity of the new testament history Books: a stylistic device in the
Context of greco-roman and ancient near eastern literature.” NovT 50 (2008):
120–42.
unlike the greek or roman historian who wanted to earn praise and glory for his lit-
erary achievements from both his contemporaries and posterity, the history writer in
the ancient near east, the old testament, and the new testament sought to disap-
pear as much as possible behind the material he presented and to become its invisible
organ. the anonymity of the gospels implies that their authors regarded themselves as
comparatively insignificant mediators of a subject that deserved the full attention of
their readers.
Beatrice, Pier f. “forgery, Propaganda and Power in Christian antiqui ty.” Pages 39–51 in
Alvarium. festschrift C. gnilka. edited by W. Blümer et al. JaC ergänzungsband 33.
Münster: aschendorff, 2002.
Beatrice argues against B. M. Metzger and particularly the concept of contemporiz-
ing (“Vergegenwärtigung”) developed by d. g. Meade: “It should be admitted that the
pseudepigraphic documents reckoned among the inspired writings of the new testa-
ment are real forgeries, in the only possible sense of the term, unless we resort to the
frankly cynical doctrine of dual morals and dual truth” (49).
Blum, rudolf. Kallimachos: The Alexandrian Library and the Origins of Bibliography. trans-
lated by h. Wellisch. Madison: university of Wisconsin Press, 1991. translation of Kal-
limachos und die Literaturverzeichnung bei den Grie chen: Unter suchungen zur Geschichte
der Bibliografie. archiv für ge schich te des Buchwe sens 18. frankfurt: Buchhändler-
Vereinigung, 1977.
Blum offers the most extensive survey of ancient attribution criticism. he describes the
beginnings of greek philology with respect to the writings ascribed to homer and other
ancient poets (27–41), aristotle’s analysis of the authenticity and authorship of ancient
drama, his and his disciples’ doxographical approach, and the literary historical work of
the Peripatetics (41–133), the alexandrian Mouseion and its activities (133–69), the work
of the critic Callimachus of Cyrene and his “Pinakes,” a bibliographical survey of the
authors and works of the alexandrian library (169–245), the bibliographical surveys of