kiana
(Kiana)
#1
308 philip l. tite
practice to refute competitors by casting them into the villainous role
of “false” teachers or philosophers who are motivated by selfish desires,
rather than by an adherence to the intrinsic value of their philosophical
teachings or doctrines. often these motives are tied into wealth, sexual
appetite, and establishing a reputation (either within a patronage system
or for constructing a personal legacy among the masses). thus, laodiceans
is likely tapping into the widespread trope of the charlatan.
Perhaps the best examples of such false teachers are found in the
second-century satires of lucian, specifically his delightful work The
Fisherman, most viciously in Alexander the False Prophet, and perhaps
with most relevance for our purposes, The Passing of Peregrinus, where
the charlatan takes advantage of the Christian community and makes a
tidy profit in the process. the problem of the charlatan was a clear issue
for early Christians, especially in the early second century, as indicated
in Didache 11 and 12 as well as The Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 11.12,
titus 1:11–12, and 1 Pet 5:1–2. the image of the charlatan underlies Paul’s
self-presentation in 1 thess 2:1–6 and 1 Cor 2:17 in the mid-first century
and is found vividly used at the end of the second century in Irenaeus’s
polemic against Marcus the Magician (Adv. Haer. 1.13.3; cf. 1.4.3 and 1.6.3,
which effectively set the stage for the polemic against Marcus at 1.13).
given this widespread motif of the charlatan seeking personal benefit
rather than adhering to the truth of whatever she or he proclaims, the
imperatival warning in laod 13 is less likely a direct quotation from a Pau-
line letter, much less an awkward conflation of Phil 3:1–2 and titus 1:10–11
(contra holloway). rather, Ps.-Paul exhorts the recipients to be on their
guard against what would have been a recognized social problem that
was especially present in the second century when the letter was possi-
bly written. rhetorically, the author discursively situates the false teach-
ers among such charlatans as Peregrinus, alexander, Marcus, and those
nameless prophets and apostles that Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas
raise warnings against. By calling into question the motives of the other
teachers, Ps.-Paul has effectively alienated them from the laodicean com-
munity while taking on the opposite and positive status that Paul articu-
lated in 1 thess 2:1–6 and 2 Cor 2:17, thereby once again reinforcing the
“truth” of the “gospel” that the author proclaims (laod 4).
furthermore, by evoking the image of the charlatan, Ps.-Paul has given
the recipients a further motivation to continue along the moral path that
they have been on. there is a further, more implicit rhetorical move under-
lying v. 13. specifically, the author has positioned the recipients as being
wise rather than ignorant. In lucian especially it is the ignorant masses,
