Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Paul's third letter to the Corinthians a very interesting forgery by Bart D. Ehrman, read by John Paul Middlesworth. Even though we don't have the forgeries of pauline letters connected with Marcion, they've all been lost or destroyed by orthodox Christians. We have other letters forged in Paul's name that appear to be opposing Marcion. You don't need to read the previous posts to make sense of this one, but if you want to learn more about Marcian, see the two posts proceeding. These surviving letters are forgeries written to oppose forgeries, an orthodox attempt to fight fire with fire. One of the most interesting is Paul's alleged third letter to the Corinthians. Here's what I say about it in my book forged harper one 2011 3rd corinthians. It was quite common for orthodox Christians, that is, christians who accepted the theological views that eventually became widely accepted throughout Christianity, to charge heretics, those who taught false teachings, with forging documents in the names of the apostles in order to support their views. We will see much more of this phenomenon in chapter five. The Gospel of Peter, for example, was charged with being heretical as teaching a dosetic view of Jesus, but orthodox Christians forged documents of their own. We have far more of this kind of forgery, since orthodox writings were more likely to be preserved for posterity, even if they were not actually written by their alleged authors. Everyone familiar with the New Testament knows that it contains two letters by Paul to the church in Corinth, called first and second Corinthians. What most people do not know is that outside of the New Testament is a book called third Corinthians. It is a fascinating book penned in the name of Paul to oppose heretics like Marcian. But Paul did not write it. It is an orthodox forgery of the second century. Like the stories of Thecla, Third Corinthians is now found in the acts of Paul. According to the account, there were two heretics who came to Corinth propounding their false views. Simon the magician, whom we have met before, and Cleobius, the corinthian Christians were disturbed by what they were hearing and wrote to Paul, asking him to correct the heretical teachings and to come in person to straighten out those who had succumbed to them. This letter to Paul, forged in the name of the Corinthians, is the first part of third Corinthians. It sets out the claims of the two false teachers, namely, that it is wrong to appeal to the Old Testament prophets that God is not almighty, that is, that the creator God is not God overall, that there will be no future resurrection of the flesh, that the world was not created by God, that Christ did not come to earth bearing real flesh, that he was not born of Mary, and that the world was not created by God but by angels. Much of this sounds like the teaching of Marcion. As we have seen, Marcion devalued human flesh because he rejected the idea that the creator of this world is the true God. And the creator, of course, is therefore the one who made fleshly beings. As a consequence, the followers of Marcion did not believe that the afterlife would be lived in the flesh. There would be no physical resurrection at the end of time.
[00:03:24] So too, Christ could not have real flesh and was not actually born.
[00:03:30] Since the Old Testament is not part of the Christian Bible, for Marcion, one cannot appeal to the prophets and the creator God is not the true God.
[00:03:41] At least one aspect of the alleged teachings of Simon and Cleobius, however, does not sound like Marcion, for they allegedly taught that the world was created by angels. Marcian maintained that it was created by the God of the Old Testament. Either some of Marcian's followers thought that the jewish God had created the world through powerful angelic intermediaries, or the fictitious opponents of the Corinthians are not followers of Marcian per se, but are heretics with views very similar to Marcians. The rest of third Corinthians is Paul's letter in response. This letter is much longer than the one from the Corinthians, and in it, quote unquote, Paul argues strongly against the heretical views being propounded by the false teachers. Paul stresses that the message he preaches is the one he received from the other apostles, quote, who were together with the Lord Jesus Christ at all times, unquote. In other words, his message is not unique to him. This stands in contrast to Marcion, who saw Paul as the apostle parexalance, who opposed the false teachings of the other apostles who corrupted Jesus'message. Paul goes on to stress that Jesus really was born of Mary and came in the flesh in order to redeem all flesh and to raise people from the dead. In the flesh, the true God is the creator, and the prophets were his spokespersons.
[00:05:08] This emphasis on the flesh is very interesting, but also a bit ironic. One recent study of third Corinthians has shown that the forger, who was intent on opposing the false teachings of the heretics, does so by teaching ideas about the flesh that are contrary to what the real historical Paul taught. Paul himself certainly believed that God created this world and that at the end of time he would redeem it. Paul, like most Jews and Christians in his day, thought that at the end of this age there would be a bodily resurrection. That is to say, that humans would face judgment, either reward or punishment, in their own bodies that had been raised from the dead. See, for example, one Corinthians 15. But Paul did not call the body, quote the flesh, unquote. On the contrary, the flesh meant something completely different. For Paul, it meant that part of human nature that is controlled by sin and that is alienated from God. See, for example, romans eight one through nine. For Paul, the flesh needed to be overcome. Since it was controlled by sin, the human body would be raised from the dead, but the flesh had to die. This somewhat technical understanding of the word flesh came to be lost in later orthodox Christianity when theologians began thinking that flesh and body were the same thing, and that has happened here in third Corinthians. Unlike Paul, this author emphasizes the importance of flesh as a creation of God that will be raised. In other words, this is an instance in which a forger claiming to be Paul represents a point of view that is contrary to Paul's, even though he is trying to correct, in Paul's name, teachings that he thinks are false.
