Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul for Christian Orthodoxy (Studies in Biblical Literature) [New ed.] 0820445274, 9780820445274

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Third Corinthians Reclaiming Paul for Christian Orthodoxy

VAHAN HOVHANESSIAN

Studies in Biblical Li terature 18

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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/thirdcorinthians18vaha

Third Corinthians

Studies in Biblical Literature

Hemchand Gossai General Editor

Vol. 18

PETER LANG New York • Washington, D.C./Baltimore • Boston • Bern Frankfurt am Main • Berlin • Brussels • Vienna • Oxford

Vahan Hovhanessian

Third Corinthians Reclaiming Paul for Christian Orthodoxy

PETER LANG New York • Washington, D.C./Baltimore • Boston • Bern Frankfurt am Main • Berlin • Brussels • Vienna • Oxford

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hovhanessian, Vahan. Third Corinthians: reclaiming Paul for Christian orthodoxy / Vahan Hovhanessian. p. cm. — (Studies in biblical literature; vol. 18) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Letter of Paul to the Corinthians. I. Title. II. Series. BS2900.L472H68 229293—dc21 99-20573 ISBN 0-8204-4527-4 ISSN 1089-0645

Die Deutsche Bibliothek-CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Hovhanessian, Vahan: 4 Third Corinthians: reclaiming Paul for Christian orthodoxy / Vahan Hovhanessian. -New York; Washington, D.C./Baltimore; Boston; Bern; Frankfurt am Main; Berlin; Brussels; Vienna; Oxford: Lang. (Studies in biblical literature; Vol. 18) ISBN 0-8204-4527-4

A Publication of the Bishop Der Hagopian Trust Fund

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council of Library Resources.

© 2000 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York ' All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited. Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated to the memory of my father

Dr. Avedis Simon Hovhanessian «3inLJi mhCim 1}uiQ jJ^u-iiniul^Q uipryxipny oyhQnrphuiifp

hy]iyh»

♦

ACKNOWLEDGMENT s Glory, honor and thanks be to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for enabling me, unworthy as I am, to offer this humble contribution to the field of New Testament Pseudepigrapha. This work would not have been possible without the supervision, mentoring and valuable advise of my dissertation advisor and New Testament professor at Fordham University, Rev. Dr. Richard Dillon. His academic discipline and critical pursuit of biblical scholarship has always been to me a source of inspiration and a great example to emulate. My utmost thanks go to him. Thanks also to the faculty at Fordham University and especially the Rev. Dr. Charles Homer, SJ. During my research period I was blessed to have access to libraries around the world and within the New York/New Jersey area, in addition to the valuable resources at the Fordham University Libraries. I am thankful to the staff of the libraries at the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan, NY, and St. Nersess Armenian Seminary in New Rochelle, NY for granting me access to their stacks and library facilities. Over the past ten years, I have served as a pastor in several parishes in the Diocese of the Armenian Church. My thanks and much love to all my parishioners who supported and encouraged me in my study and research. I am especially grateful to the Primate of the Armenian Diocese of America, His Eminence Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, for his continuous support of my ministry and research.

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ABBREVIATIONS 3 Cor

Third Corinthians

AP

Acts of Paul

CSCO

Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium

HTR

Harvard theological Review(Cambndge, MA)

JBL

Journal of Biblical Literature (Atlanta, GA)

JEH

Journal of Ecclesiastical History (London, UK)

JR

Journal of Religion

JTS

Journal of theological Studies

NBHL

Nor Baragirk Haykazean Lezowi (New Dictionary of the Language of the Descnedants of Hayks).

PBodm X

Papyrus Bodmer X

PHeid

Heidelberg Papyrus

SBL

Society of Biblical Literature

ZNW

Zeitschrift fur die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (Giessen, Berlin)

ZTK

Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche (Tubingen)

TABLE OF CONTENTS Senes Preface.xiii Preface.,.xv Chapter One: Introduction.1 The Document.1 Manuscript Evidence.3 History of the Use of 3 Cor in the Church.10 Research Survey and Review of Pertinent Literature.16 Conclusion.32 Chapter Two: Establishing the OngmalText.35 Variety of Witnesses.35 The Apocryphal Acts of Paul and 3 Cor.47 Mixed Traditions.56 The Quest for the Original Text.60 English Translation of the PBodm X.76 Chapter Three: A Response to Second Century Gnosticism.81 Orthodoxy and Gnosticism: The Formation Period.81 Paul in the Orthodox and Gnostic Circles of the Second Century.82 Pseudonymity in 3 Cor.87 Pseudepigraphic Techniques in 3 Cor.94 The Theology of 3 Cor.99 The Targeted Heresy.126 Chapter Four: Conclusion.133 Appendix I: Textual Variations Among the MSS of 3 Cor.139 Appendix II: The Greek Text of 3 Cor in the PBodm X.147 Appendix III: The Armenian Text of 3 Cor.153 Endnotes...157 Partially Annotated Bibliography......181 Index

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SERIES PREFACE More than ever the horizons in biblical literature are being expanded beyond that which is immediately imagined; important new methodological, theological, and hermeneutical directions are being explored, often resulting in significant contributions to the world of biblical scholarship. It is an exciting time for the academy as engagement in biblical studies continues to be heightened This series seeks to make available to scholars and institutions, scholarship of a high order, and which will make a significant contribution to the ongoing biblical discourse. This series includes established and innovative directions, covering general and particular areas in biblical study. For every volume considered for this series, we ask the question as to whether it will push the horizons of biblical scholarship. The answer must be yes for inclusion. In this volume, Vahan Hovhanessian has explored in great depth and with meticulous care, the textual and historical issues surrounding 3 Corinthians. This is an area which has been neglected for the most part in western biblical scholarship and this volume will fill a very important void. Scholars will find this study to have a wealth of information and it will certainly take its place alongside the collection of scholarly works on 3 Corinthians. The author, exceptionally well versed in the literature is able to bring to western scholarship new and significant direction for the understanding of 3 Corinthians. This is an eminently readable and well argued thesis and the author’s conclusion will certainly expand the horizons of this area. Any future scholarly examination of 3 Corinthians will do well to reckon with this volume. The horizon has been expanded.

Hemchand Gossai General Editor

PREFACE Third Corinthians (3 Cor) is an alleged correspondence between the Apostle Paul and the Corinthian Church. The current work examines the history, text, and theology of 3 Cor. Chapter One serves as an introduction. It describes the document and its sections. A detailed examination of the manuscript evidence of 3 Cor is offered, describing the various manuscripts of 3 Cor, their discovery and unique characteristics. The chapter closely examines the history of the use of 3 Cor in the early Church. This includes references to 3 Cor in the early patristic commentaries, lectionaries and canon lists of the early Church. Chapter One also includes a detailed review of the pertinent scholarly literature concerning 3 Cor. The second chapter of this book discusses the text and transmission of 3 Cor. It re-examines the relationship of 3 Cor with the Acts of Paul and concludes that it was not originally part of the Acts of Paul. It discusses the textual variations among the manuscripts of 3 Cor (Armenian, St. Ephraem, Coptic, Greek and Tatin) and demonstrates that the Greek text in the Papyrus Bodmer X is the closest to the original. A new English translation of the Greek text is offered at the end of Chapter Two. Chapter Three examines the mam theological themes discussed in 3 Cor: Christ’s birth in the flesh; the creation of the world and mankind; the appeal to the prophets; and the resurrection of the dead. The study demonstrates that the author’s mam concern was the issue of the resurrection of the flesh. The book concludes that 3 Cor is a second century pseudepigraphon written to argue for the corporeal resurrection of the dead against the Gnostics’ claims of a pneumatic resurrection. Following detailed examinations of the various second century heretical teachings regarding the resurrection of the dead, and of the use of the Pauline literature in the arguments between the heretics and the church, the author concludes that 3 Cor was an effort on behalf of the second century Church fathers to rescue the apostle Paul from the Gnostics and reclaim him into second century Christian orthodoxy.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

The Document “Third Corinthians” is an alleged correspondence of two letters, the first ascribed to the Corinthian Community, and the second to the apostle Paul. The Corinthians’ letter is addressed to the apostle Paul seeking advice and help regarding problems in Corinth caused by the false teachings of the heretics. The apostle’s letter is addressed to the Corinthians as his response to the Corinthians’ inquiries and concerns. The letter of the Corinthians to Paul and the apostle’s reply to them together with two other short narrative sections make up a body of pseudepigraphic correspondence known as Third Corinthians, hereafter referred to as “3 Cor.” Some of the churches in the East, such as the Churches in Armenia and Syria, incorporated 3 Cor into their canon of the Bible as early as the beginning of the third century and as late as the nineteenth century.1 This is confirmed by patristic commentaries and canon lists of the Bible from the early centuries of Christianity. For the past two hundred years, 3 Cor has been known to scholars mainly through Classical Armenian manuscripts of the Bible. It was not until the end of the last century that the first non-Armenian manuscript of this document was discovered. Some scholars, as late as the turn of the century, still considered 3 Cor to be a genuine and authentic correspondence between the Corinthian community and the apostle Paul.2 This view, however, is completely rejected by scholars today. The longest version of 3 Cor, and not necessarily the original one, has four sections. Not all manuscripts contain all four sections. Sections I and III are short narrative passages discussing the contents and delivery of the two letters. Sections II and IV are the letters of the Corinthians to Paul and that of the apostle to them, respectively. The following is a summary of these four sections. Section I—Introduction: This is a short narrative section which presents an introduction to the historical context in which 3 Cor was written. It describes the situation in Corinth that occasioned the writing of the Corinthians’ letter to Paul. At the beginning of this section we are informed, first, about the great distress that the Corinthians experienced concerning the future of the apostle Paul, “because he was going out of the world before it was

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

time.”3 Next, we read about the two heretics, Simon and Cleobius, who were deceiving the Corinthians with their false teachings. This is followed by a list of the various false teachings of the heretics. The list includes items elaborating on the false teachings of the heretics. According to this list the heretics were claiming that “there was no resurrection of the flesh but (only) of the spirit and that the body of man is not the creation of God; and of the world (they said) that God did not create it, and that God does not know the world; and that Jesus Christ was not crucified, but was only semblance, and that he was not bom of Mary, or of the seed of David.”4 The Corinthians, therefore, decided to write to the apostle Paul and seek his advice and help. This passage ends with a statement mentioning the names of the two deacons who carried the letter to Paul: Threptus and Eutychus. Only the Coptic Heidelberg Papyrus (PHeid) of the Apocryphal Acts of Paul (AP) contains this section of 3 Cor, which is in a fragmentary state.5 Section II—The Corinthians’ Letter: This section contains the Corinthians’ letter to Paul written by a certain Stephanas and four elders of the Corinthian community. The mam theme of this section is an urgent appeal to the apostle Paul for advice concerning the false teachings of the two heretics in Corinth. The section is divided into sixteen verses. Verse 1 is a greeting to Paul from the Corinthian presbyters who wrote the letter. The names of Stephanas and the four presbyters, Daphnos, Eubulus, Theophilus and Xenon, are mentioned here. Verse 2 introduces the two heretical teachers, Cleobius and Simon. Verses 3-5 express the doubts the Corinthians had concerning the orthodoxy of the teachings delivered by the two heretics. Verses 6-8 state the Corinthians’ request to Paul for help, “either come yourself...or write to us.” The various false doctrines taught by the heretical teachers are listed in verses 9-15. The list of the false teachings in this section differs from the one mentioned earlier in section I.6 Verse 16 concludes this section with an urgent appeal to the apostle to make haste to visit Corinth and save the Corinthian Church. Most of the manuscripts of 3 Cor contain this section. Section III—Delivery: This is a brief notice, of five verses, inserted between the Corinthians’ letter to Paul and his reply to them. It describes the delivery of the letter to Paul. Verse 1 names the two deacons, Threptus and Eutychus, who brought the letter to the apostle. This is a repetition of the same information given at the end of Section I. Verse 2a informs us about Paul’s imprisonment at the time of the delivery of the letter. We are told

Introduction

3

that the apostle was in prison “because of Stratonice, the wife of Apollophanes.”7 Verse 2b describes Paul’s reaction to the news contained in the Corinthians’ letter. We read that the apostle “began to sh^d many tears and to mourn.” Verses 3-4 include a quotation from the apostle which further elaborates on his reaction to the news contained in the Corinthians’ letter to him. This section ends with verse 5 which introduces us to Paul’s letter. Not all the manuscripts contain this section. Section IV—Paul’s Letter:

This section is St. Paul’s response to the Corinthians’ letter. Some manuscripts include the title, “Paul to the Corinthians” and the subtitle, “Concerning the Flesh” at the beginning of this section.8 In it the apostle answers the questions raised by the Corinthians in their letter to him. It is a refutation in letter style of the false teachings attributed to the heretics in Corinth. The letter begins with a salutation in v. 1. This verse also introduces the author of the letter as the apostle Paul. In v. 2 the author refers to the “doctrine of the wicked” that is progressing rapidly in Corinth. Verse 3 is a reminder that the Lord is coming soon to judge the heretics and all those who falsify the true gospel. In verse 4, the author confirms the apostolic authority and origin of his gospel. Verses 5-34 include the author’s arguments against the various false teachings of the heretics, including the resurrection of the flesh, which is the mam theme of the letter. Verses 34-35 is a reference to the apostle’s imprisonment. A promise and a warning are given in w. 36-37. This is followed by an advice to the Corinthians to turn away from the false teachings to “the power of Christ.” The letter concludes with the benediction, “and peace be with you” in v. 40. This section appears in all the MSS of 3 Cor except the ones mutilated at the end.

Manuscript Evidence

3 Cor was not known to many scholars in the West prior to the turn of this century. This is mainly because until then it was found only in Classical Armenian manuscripts of the Bible. It was not until the last decade of the nineteenth century that the first non-Armenian manuscript of 3 Cor was discovered. Prior to that, therefore, the scholarly research concerning 3 Cor depended totally on the Armenian manuscripts and their translations. The Armenian text of 3 Cor is found in many manuscripts of the Bible. The earliest known manuscript is the one discovered in Smyrna,

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

Turkey. This manuscript is usually referred to by the initial (S).9 Archbishop James Ussher, a seventeenth century scholar, found this text in an Armenian manuscript with an Italian translation, among the acquisitions made by Baron Gilbert North in Smyrna. In 1644, Ussher published his comments on the manuscript and called attention to it in his book titled Polycarpianam epistolarum Ignatianarum Sylloge Annotationumw Seventy years later in Amsterdam, in 1714, Philip Mason published a Latin translation of the Armenian text in the tenth volume of the Histoire critique de la republique des lettres. In the following year the Armenian text was published together with a new Latin translation prepared by David Wilkins in a work titled Epistolae S. Pauli ad Corinthios et Corinthiorum ad S. Paulum armenice, ex museo viri clarissf In 1716, La Croze revised Wilkin’s translation of the text and produced another Latin translation. The two Latin translations mentioned above were published in 1719 by A. Fabricius, in part III of his Codex apocryphus Novi Testamenti. Pages 668-70 of this work contained the Latin translation of Wilkins, and pages 681-83 contained that of La Croze.12 This manuscript is incomplete. It lacks sections I and III. Sections II and IV are not complete either. Section II contains verses 1-10, and section IV contains verses 1-16 only.13 In Cambridge, England, William Whiston was able to acquire a copy of the text of 3 Cor in an Armenian manuscript through an English merchant in Allepo, Syria. This manuscript contained an Arabic translation of the text as well. Whiston prepared an English translation of the text and published it in 1727 as part II of Whiston’s book, Collection of Authentic Records Belonging to the Old and New Testament. The manuscript was examined by La Croze, who presented a new translation of the text. After his examination of this manuscript, La Croze changed his hypothesis concerning the date of the apocryphon. He had originally suggested that 3 Cor was a late 10th century or early 11th century work. Based on his study of this manuscript, La Croze changed his suggested date of 3 Cor to a much earlier date. He was the first to propose the hypothesis that 3 Cor must have been part of an apocryphal work narrating the acts of the apostle Paul.14 In 1736, William Whiston’s two sons translated the text of the Armenian manuscript into Latin and Greek, and published the Armenian text with its Greek and Latin translations as an appendix to Mosis Chorenensis Historiae Armeniacae Libri Tres. In 1776, John Carpzov republished this text with its Greek and Latin translations in a separate volume under the title Epistolae Duae Apocryphae,15 This manuscript is usually designated by the initial (II). It contains sections II, III, and the full text of section IV. Going through the catalogues of Armenian manuscripts in libraries

Introduction

5

around the world, one finds 3 Cor available in most of the MSS of the Bible. In the eleven volumes of the Grand Catalogue of St. James Manuscripts in Jerusalem one can find 3 Cor in at least twelve Armenian manuscripts of the Bible.16 One of these manuscripts contains only the text of the New Testament, while the rest are full or partial texts of the Bible, including the Old and New Testaments. The Manuscript Catalogue of the Mechitarist Fathers in San Lazzaro contains eleven manuscripts of the Bible and the New Testament which include 3 Cor. In addition to all the manuscripts mentioned above, there are also manuscripts of biblical commentaries, which incorporate the text of 3 Cor into the commentary.17 A critical version of the Armenian text of 3 Cor was made available for the first time in 1805 by Hovhannes Zohrapian, an Armenian priest of the Mechitarist brotherhood in Venice, Italy. This version of 3 Cor was published as part of a critical edition of the Armenian Bible prepared by Zohrapian.18 In the introduction to his edition, Zohrapian states that his version of the Bible is the result of a critical comparison of the various Armenian manuscripts of the Bible available to him in the Armenian Monastery of San Lazzaro in Italy. His edition of the Bible includes 3 Cor in the Appendix after the Prayer of Manasseh and before the Rest of the Evangelist John.19 Zohrapian adds that 3 Cor was found in most of the New Testament manuscripts available to him, which he used for his critical version.20 The Zohrapian version of 3 Cor includes sections II, III, and IV. The text also includes critical footnotes in which Fr. Zohrapian mentions the variations and alternate readings found in the other Armenian manuscripts of 3 Cor available to him. The Armenian text of 3 Cor in the Zohrapian Bible was translated into English by Lord Byron in 1842.21 All of the Armenian manuscripts of 3 Cor discussed above are manuscripts of the Bible. None of them contains section I of 3 Cor, while all of them contain sections II and IV. Section III, on the other hand, is found in most of them. 3 Cor appears after 2 Cor and before Gal in most of the Armenian manuscripts. This is where we find 3 Cor in St. Ephraem’s version of the Bible as well. Some Armenian manuscripts have 3 Cor at the end of the Pauline corpus before the Catholic letters.22 Another group of Armenian manuscripts has 3 Cor at the end of the New Testament canon after the book of Revelation. This is where we find 3 Cor in Zohrapian’s critical edition of the Bible. The Syriac tradition of 3 Cor is extant only in a Classical Armenian translation of St. Ephraem’s commentary on the canonical epistles of St. Paul. St. Ephraem’s text of 3 Cor, designated by the initial (E), contains sections II, III and IV of the text. The samt begins his commentary on 3

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

Cor with a paragraph explaining the situation in Corinth and what caused the Corinthians to write their letter to Paul. This paragraph in St. Ephraem’s commentary, however, is different from section I of 3 Cor found in the Coptic papyrus. Ephraem’s text lacks almost all the elements of section I. It does not include any reference to the Corinthians’ concern about Paul. It lacks the listing of the various heretical teachings. It does not mention either the identity of the heretics or the names of the two deacons.23 This is St. Ephraem’s own introduction to the text of 3 Cor. St. Ephraem’s text has two paragraphs, between sections II and IV, which describe the delivery of the letter and Paul’s reaction after reading it. These two paragraphs do not have the exact wording as that of section III of the Coptic manuscript. They do contain, however, all the elements of section III and in the same order.24 These two paragraphs, therefore, must be St. Ephraem’s comments on section III. The text of section III is incorporated with his own commentary, according to his common practice. The Mechitarist Fathers in Venice published an Armenian version of the commentary, based on a tenth century manuscript, in 1836.25 This was part of a four-volume publication titled The Works of St. Ephraem. The commentary on 3 Cor, which comes after 2 Cor, is on pages 1 lb123 of volume III of the publication. In 1893 the same Mechitarist Fathers published a Latin translation of volume III, i.e. the commentary on St. Paul’s letters.26 St. Ephraem’s commentary on 3 Cor has been translated into German as well. The first translation was published by Vetter in his article “Der apokryphe dritte Korintherbnef, neu Ubersetzt und nach seiner Entstehung untersucht,” in 1890.27 One year later, independent of the above translation, Zahn published another translation by Kanajanz on pages 595-606 of volume II of his Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanonsf It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that the first Latin manuscript of 3 Cor was found. Since then five more Latin manuscripts of 3 Cor have been discovered dating from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries. The first Latin text of 3 Cor was found in a tenth century manuscript of the Bible. It was discovered by’s. Berger in 1890 in the village of Biasca in Tessm.29 This is the Cod. Ambros. E53 infer. X manuscript, presently kept in the Ambrosian Library in Milan. This manuscript is usually referred to by the initial (M). It is a little difficult to read, and seven to eight lines are corrupt and illegible. In this manuscript, the books ot the Bible are arranged in a peculiar order. The letters of St. Paul are inserted at the end of the New Testament. 3 Cor is inserted after the Letter to the Hebrews, following which we find the

Introduction

7

letter to the Laodiceans. Berger thinks they are arranged according to the order of the liturgical readings of the Scriptures.30 Berger and Carriere published the text of this manuscript with an introduction in 1891. Because of the illegibility of the manuscript, Berger had to make use of the available translations of 3 Cor from the Armenian manuscripts to fill in the gaps of the damaged Latin text.31 This manuscript contains only sections II and IV of the text of 3 Cor. In 1892, one year after the publication of the first Latin manuscript of 3 Cor, E. von Bratke discovered a second one in Laon.32 This is the Cod. Laon 45 manuscript, which is a thirteenth century manuscript of the Bible. This manuscript is also damaged in certain places and its text is very difficult to read. 3 Cor is found at the end of this manuscript of the Bible. This is where disputed books of the Bible were usually placed. The inauthentic status of the letter is also indicated by the subtitle of the two sections of 3 Cor, “Peticio Corinthiorum a Paulo apostolo” and “Epistola tertia ad Corinthios quae autentica non est.”33 It contains sections II and IV. Bratke published this text, designated by the initial (L), in 1892. The same year, Adolf Hamack published the same text for the second time with his own comments in his article, “Untersuchungen iiber den apokryphen Briefwechsel der Korinther mit dem Apostel Paulus.”34 In the same article he compared this Latin text with the one published by Carriere and Berger. In 1908, the French scholar Dom Donatien De Bruyne introduced a third Latin text of 3 Cor from a manuscript found in the National Library of Paris, France. This manuscript is referred to as Cod. Paris, lat. 5288 {olim Baluze 439, Reg. 3863).35 The manuscript is a collection of fragments in Fatin. It dates back to the tenth or eleventh century. Two leaflets at the end of the codex contain the texts of 3 Cor and the letter to the Faodiceans. This manuscript, designated by the initial (P), lacks sections I, II, III and the first three lines of section IV. The remaining part of section IV is clear and legible. Except for the first three missing lines, this manuscript presented the first complete and legible Fatin text of Paul’s response in 3 Cor. De Bruyne correctly observed that the text of this manuscript is identical to the one preserved in the M manuscript. He published this manuscript with an introduction and critical footnotes comparing it with the M and F manuscripts.36 He reconstructed the first three missing lines of this manuscript by copying them from the M manuscript. The fourth Latin fragment of 3 Cor, designated by the initial (Z), is thirty one lines long written on four leaflets preserved in a 10th century Bible manuscript in Zurich.37 This is referred to as Cod. Zurich Car. Cl 4. The first two leaflets are attached to each other at the center of the

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

binding, and contain the text of Acts 24:16-26:20 without interruption. The other two leaflets are also connected. The first one contains Acts 21:28-22:18. The fourth leaflet contains half of the letter to the Laodiceans, sections II and III of 3 Cor, and a section of the Epistle of James. This was the first Tatin manuscript of 3 Cor which included section III. Originally, it must have included section IV as well, since section III describes the delivery of the Corinthians’ letter to Paul and introduces section IV. The same Benedictine scholar, De Bruyne, who published the P manuscript also discovered and published the text of this leaflet in Revue Benedictine in 1932.j8 In his article De Bruyne suggests that the manuscript was mutilated accidentally in the area of section IV.39 The text of this manuscript has some affinities with the Coptic manuscript and incorporates many characteristics from the M manuscript as well.40 In 1952, H. Boese introduced the fifth Latin manuscript of 3 Cor, Cod. Berol. Ham. 84, saec. XIII, fol. 241}\ found in the Public Scientific Library of Berlin.41 This manuscript, usually referred to by the initial (B), is a thirteenth century manuscript of the Bible which was copied in northern Italy. The text of 3 Cor does not contain sections I and III. This was the first Latin manuscript to contain the full texts of both sections II and IV. This manuscript offers a variant reading of the text of 3 Cor compared to the M and L manuscripts. On the other hand, Boese has correctly noticed that the text of section II in B is similar to that of Z.42 In 1985, Mane-Louise Auger discovered another Latin manuscript which contained sections II, III and IV of 3 Cor.43 This is the/1 Lat. 13068 manuscript in the National Library of Pans. It was found in the manuscript collection of St. Benigne de Dijon. Carefully examining the scribal notes and comments on the manuscript, Auger noticed that it was copied by a Benedictine monk from an earlier version referred to as Codex 87X This manuscript was dated between the tenth and eleventh centuries, based on the dating of the other documents copied by the same monk.45 Auger observed that this manuscript ends abruptly at the exact place in the text of 3 Cor where the P manuscript begins, and that the texts of both this and the P manuscripts resemble that of the M manuscript. The close dating of this and the P fragments, together with all the above, made Auger conclude that this manuscript must be the missing section of the P manuscript.46 Rordorf published the newly found fragment, together with the text of the M manuscript as an appendix to his article, “Heresie et Orthodoxie selon la correspondance apocryphe entre les Corinthiens et LApotre Paul.”47 Prom the above summary of all the Latin manuscripts of 3 Cor known to us, we conclude that all of them lack section I and contain

Introduction

9

section II. Manuscript Z and P are the only Latin MSS that contain section III. Manuscript Z lacks section IV. It is also interesting to notice that these Latin manuscripts present variant readings of the text of 3 Cor. The P manuscript, for example, preserves a text identical to the M manuscript. The L and B manuscripts, on the other hand, render versions different from one another and from that of the M manuscript. In conclusion, one must emphasize that the mere existence of six Latin manuscripts of 3 Cor is proof that it must have been part of the canon of the Bible at least in certain regions in the West. The Coptic text of 3 Cor is available in fragments of a sixth century manuscript of the Heidelberg Papyrus (PHeid), which contains the apocryphal Acts of Paul (AP). This manuscript was discovered by Carl Schmidt in 1904. Schmidt translated the Coptic text into German, and published both the Coptic and German texts in 1905.48 PHeid contains the longest text of AP, even with its mutilated sections. The manuscript is difficult to read in the sections both before and after 3 Cor.49 The Coptic text of this MS includes many Greek words. The ending of section IV in this MS, i.e. Paul’s reply, is also mutilated. The Heidelberg Papyrus is the only manuscript evidence of 3 Cor, which contains section I. It also, contains sections II, III and IV. It is through section I that the Coptic Papyrus incorporates 3 Cor into the narrative of the AP.50 It should be stated that PHeid is also the only manuscript known to us which incorporates 3 Cor into the text of AP. The Hamburg Papyrus, for instance, which is an older witness to the AP, does not include 3 Cor in its text.51 An English translation of the text of 3 Cor in Pheid is published in volume II of Schneemelcher’s New Testament Apocrypha.52 It was not until the second half of the twentieth century that the first and so far only Greek manuscript of 3 Cor was found. Michel Testuz, a French scholar at the University of Geneva, discovered the text of 3 Cor among the private collections of the Bodmer-Papyri. This manuscript is referred to as the PBodm X. It is the only surviving Greek witness to 3 Cor. It is dated back to the third century. It is, therefore, also the oldest manuscript containing this document by three centuries. Testuz published the text of this manuscript together with an introduction and a French translation in the Papyrus Bodmer series.53 The Bodmer Papyri contain eight texts in addition to 3 Cor. In 1959, three of these texts, including 3 Cor, were published together in Papyrus Bodmer X-XII. The first text in Papyrus Bodmer X-XII is the Nativity of Mary; the second is 3 Cor, which occupies pages 50-57 of the codex paginated by Greek characters, and the last is the Eleventh Ode of Solomon and a fragment of a liturgical hymn. The Greek text of 3 Cor does not contain sections I

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

and III. Section II has a subtitle which reads, [KOPIN0EIXI IIPOX FIAYAON], “Corinthians to Paul.” The subtitle for section IV is, [EIAYAOX KOPIN0EIXIX], “Paul to the Corinthians” followed by the phrase [TIEPEI XAPKOX], “Concerning the flesh,” which points to the main theme of the letter. The pages of the codex are almost square, 14.4 x 15.5 cm. Each page has an average of seventeen to twenty lines.54 The edges of the pages are more badly damaged in this section of the codex than in that of the Nativity of Mary. The writing is also less stylized; however, it is clear and very legible. The Greek text does not have marks of punctuation. Dots are placed above certain characters indicating that they should be ignored during the reading of the text.55 Sometimes the scribal error is simply crossed out by putting it between two brackets, e.g. ATI [[A]], with the correct letter on the top of the incorrect one.'6 In certain places an apostrophe is added at the end of a word to indicate an elision."7 In other instances an apostrophe is inserted in a word to separate two guttural sounds.58 Abbreviations are very common in the text. This includes certain words such as KX for KYPIOX, 0X for ©EOX, IHX for IHXOYX, XPX for XPIXTOX, TINA for EINEYMA, ANI1X for AN0P0riOX, and IXPA or IXPHA for IXPAHA. The dieresis is also used very frequently.59 As far as I know, the only English translation of this text was done by Martin Rist, based on the French translation by Testuz, in a short article published in 1969.60

History of the Use of 3 Cor in the Church The early Church, especially in certain regions in the East, received 3 Cor as an authentic letter written by the apostle Paul and incorporated it in the canon of the Bible.61 Early canon lists of the Bible in the Armenian and Syrian Churches attest to the canonical status that 3 Cor enjoyed. Patristic commentaries of these churches treat 3 Cor as a canonical document and as an authentic correspondence between the apostle Paul and the Corinthian community. 3 Cor must have been incorporated also into the liturgical daily readings of certain churches, since it is found in a number of their lectionary manuscripts. The existence of Latin, Greek and Coptic manuscripts is proof that the document was also incorporated into the canon of the Bible in some of the regions in the West. What follows is a summary of the patristic references to 3 Cor and its use in the early church. The writings of St. Aphraat and St. Ephraem clearly indicate that the New Testament of the Syrian Church included 3 Cor in its canon. St.

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Aphraat, the Syrian monk, uses 3 Cor in his writings and accords a canonical status to it.62 In section 12 of his Demonstration IV, “Of Monks,” he discusses God’s gift of the Spirit to His faithful followers. Quoting the apostle Paul, he says, “Moreover, the blessed apostle also said: God divided off the Spirit of Christ and sent it into the Prophets.” This is a faithful quotation from 3 Cor 2:10.63 It proves that St. Aphraat not only knew and used 3 Cor, but also treated it as an authentic and genuine letter of the apostle Paul. Other references to 3 Cor in Aphraat’s writings include, 3 Cor 2:5 in II, 64, 22; 3 Cor 2:29 in I, 520, 15, and 3 Cor 2:35 in I, 241, 22.64 The New Testament of St. Ephraem, the famous Syrian Church father, included 3 Cor in its canon as well. He dedicated one chapter of his four-volume commentary on the Bible to 3 Cor.65 The chapter on 3 Cor appears in volume III of the commentary. It is inserted after his commentary on 2 Cor and before that on Galatians. Comparing St. Ephraem’s comments on 3 Cor to his comments on the other canonical letters of St. Paul, one can safely conclude that the saint treats 3 Cor with the same seriousness that he treats the rest of the canonical letters of Paul.66 This is further supported by the location of the letter in his canon of the Bible, i.e. within the canonical letters and not in an appendix at the end of the book. In his comments on section II of 3 Cor, St. Ephraem writes against a certain heretical group called the Bardesanians.61 Referring to 3 Cor, he says, “and they did not include this letter in their collection.”68 This indicates that St. Ephraem was not aware of the existence of any version of a Bible which did not include 3 Cor, except for the Bardesanians’ corrupted version. Furthermore, he did not know of any argument against the authenticity or the canomcity of this letter.69 In his comments on the contents of section IV of 3 Cor, Ephraem frequently refers to verses from 3 Cor with formulas such as “the Apostle says” or “the blessed Apostle teaches,” which clearly confirm Ephraem’s conviction that 3 Cor was a genuine letter of the apostle Paul. In addition to the complete section in his commentary dedicated to 3 Cor, St. Ephraem uses 3 Cor in his other writings as well. In his commentary on the Diatessaron, for example, he uses 3 Cor to interpret a text from the Gospel according to Luke.70 In section four of chapter one of his commentary, St. Ephraem discusses the passages concerning Elizabeth and Mary in the Gospel of Luke. In this context, referring to Jesus’ birth, he says, “Our Lord is of Mary, from the lineage of the house of David,” which is a clear reference to 3 Cor 2:5. Based on this brief summary of the Syrian patristic use of 3 Cor, one can safely conclude that 3 Cor was part of the New Testament canon of

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

the Syrian Church. The patristic references mentioned above are witnesses to the fact that at least certain churches in Syria during the third and fourth centuries definitely accepted 3 Cor as an authentic letter written by the Apostle himself. The fact that 3 Cor is not found in later commentaries of the Syrian Church is an indication that it must have been dropped from the canon of the Syrian New Testament sometime during the fifth century. 3 Cor enjoyed a longer period of canonical status in the Armenian Church. The earliest reference to 3 Cor is found in a fifth century historical document entitled History of the Armenians, attributed to a certain historian by the name of Agathangelos.73 The book is a fifthcentury scholarly attempt to put the events of the conversion of Armenia, in AD 301, into an orderly account.74 The first reference to 3 Cor is found in the section of the book called the “Teachings of St. Gregory.”75 In chapter 25, section 280 of the “Teachings of St. Gregory,” the saint is quoted saying, “Just as the Apostle of God, wise and versed in the divine mystery, also says: ‘The lawless prince, as he wished to become God, seized and bound all mankind by sin’.”76 The phrase “Apostle of God, wise and versed,” in this context is a clear reference to the apostle Paul. The statement made by the apostle is an exact quotation from 3 Cor 2:11, as preserved in the Armenian manuscripts of 3 Cor. The second reference to 3 Cor is in section 387, chapter 41, of the “Teachings of St. Gregory.” Discussing the miracle of the incarnation of the Son of God, St. Gregory is mentioned quoting the apostle Paul, saying, “Thus, God sent His Holy Spirit to the virgin Mary, and the Son of God took flesh from the virgin, with which he destroyed evil.”77 This is a clear reference to 3 Cor 2:13-16. The third reference to 3 Cor in Agathangelos is found in the middle of section 179, chapter 16. In this chapter, we find St. Hripsime praying to God to deliver her from her persecutors. Confessing her faith in God’s power to save His faithful servants, she refers to several biblical examples including that of Jonah. We find an indirect quotation from 3 Cor in her reference to the story of Jonah, where she says, “not even a single hair was removed from his head.”78 This phrase, a quotation from 3 Cor 2:30, is not found in the biblical text of Jonah.79 Teodor os K'rt'enawor, a seventh century saint of the Armenian Church, uses 3 Cor in his argument for the authenticity of the “bloody sweat” passage in Luke 22:43-44.80 This is presented in the context of his argument against his opponents, the Mayragomec'is, who argued that the “bloody sweat” passage is not a genuine part of the Gospel of St. Luke. The Mayragomec'is argued that since no reference to Luke 22:4344 is found in St. Gregory’s preaching from the Gospel of Luke, the

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passage must be a later insertion and not an authentic part of the Gospel. In his argument against their claims, K'rt'enawor says: “When our forefathers, the Christ-bearing orthodox bishops, assembled in the ^ity of Nicea, they established a canon that only fourteen epistles of the...apostle Paul should be read in the holy convocation, and in the modern version of scripture...this arrangement is adopted. However, what the Fathers pass over in silence^ and is not included in the new translation...is cited in the homilies of the acclaimed Gregory...that when the lawless prince wished to become divine...he encompassed everyone under the power of sin. This is included in the copies of the old version...but not in the composition of the new version...So then, if the older gospel...is to be rejected...as inauthentic because that passage is not transcribed by the more recently produced translations...by the same token the great primate Gregory is disdained and slandered.”

81

This passage makes it clear that 3 Cor was part of the “old version” of the Armenian Bible. K'rt'enawor asserts, however, that 3 Cor was no longer part of the version of the Bible contemporary to him. It is also obvious that although not part of the canon of the Bible, 3 Cor was still used in the preaching of the “Christ-bearing orthodox bishops” and especially that of St. Gregory, used by both K'rt'enawor and his opponents. Thus, K'rt'enawor concludes that the Mayragomec'is ’ reliance on argumentum ex silentio is not a conclusive proof of their point. 3 Cor is a good example that K'rt'enawor uses to support his point. It was not in the version of the Bible contemporary to him, yet St. Gregory used it earlier and ascribed apostolic origin to it. He adds, however, that it is an inspired writing of the Apostle and that there was a time when it was part of the Bible. He refers to St. Gregory’s quotations of 3 Cor, mentioned in Agathangelos, as proof that 3 Cor was considered an authentic letter of the Apostle and part of the New Testament in the time of St. Gregory, the Enlightener of Armenia. This reference demonstrates also that by the seventh century 3 Cor had already been dropped from the Armenian canon of the New Testament. Rink mentions a 12th century unpublished manuscript as another witness to the inclusion of 3 Cor in the Pauline corpus of the Armenian Bible.82 The manuscript is attributed to St. Nersess of Tambron, a 12th century father of the Armenian Church. It includes the text of a homily by the saint. According to Rink, St. Nersess quotes 3 Cor 2:9 in his sermon as an authentic saying of the apostle Paul. The verses quoted here are the same verses that Agathangelos quotes in St. Gregory’s homily. Unfortunately, I was unable to find this manuscript which remains unpublished. Manuscript No. 560 of the St. James Monastery in Jerusalem is a

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

fourteenth century copy of a collection of three commentaries.83 The first is a commentary on the letters of Paul by a certain Anania Vartabed which includes St. Ephraem’s commentary on 3 Cor. The second text is a commentary on Isaiah by St. Gregory of Tate'w. The third text, which occupies pages 909-1186 of the codex, is a commentary on the letters of St. Paul. The manuscript attributes this commentary to Yovhannes Orotnec'i, a fourteenth century saint of the Armenian Church. Pages 1089-1100 include his commentary on 3 Cor.84 Vetter mentions a similar manuscript by the same person preserved in the National Tibrary of Paris, France.85 Vetter’s manuscript is a seventeenth century copy of the Jerusalem MS No. 560. It includes the text of 3 Cor on pages 69-72 and Orotnetc'i's commentary on pages 72-75. Vetter indicates that the section of the commentary on 3 Cor begins with the phrase, “sayings of Ephraem.” This, according to Vetter, indicates that Orotnec’i incorporated St. Ephraem’s comments on 3 Cor into his commentary.86 Many early listings of the books of the Bible in the Armenian Church include 3 Cor in their canons.87 Mechitar of Ayrivank', a 13th century father of the Armenian Church, includes 3 Cor in his canon of the Bible.88 There are two manuscripts attributed to Mechitar of Ayrivank' which include a list of the books of the Bible.89 The first manuscript is a chronological history written by Mechitar of Ayrivank' himself which includes a list of the books of the Bible. As the subtitle of the list of the books of the Bible, we read, “The order of the books of the Bible verified by Sarkavak Vartabed and written by me, Mechitar of Ayrivank'C This indicates that Mechitar of Ayrivank' had probably copied an already existing list attributed to a certain Sarkavak Vartabed.90 Thus, the original list must have been written before the middle of the 12th century.91 In this manuscript, the Pauline corpus is inserted at the end of the New Testament canon after the Revelation of John. The letters have an unusual order. The first letter in the list is I Thess which is followed by 2 Thess, I Cor, 2 Cor, 3 Cor, Rom, Heb, I Tim, 2 Tim, Titus, Gal, Eph, Phil, Col, and Phlm. Following this list, Mechitar adds another list of the Pauline letters which he attributes to a certain Clement.92 This list has the letters of Paul in the same order as we have them in our Bibles today, except for 3 Cor, which is inserted after 2 Cor and before Gal. The second manuscript attributed to Mechitar does not include the chronological part found in the first manuscript discussed above. It contains only a list of the books of the Bible.93 It is preserved in a collection of manuscripts copied in 1604 by a scribe named Hovanes.94 This manuscript is mutilated in the section where the Pauline letters are listed. After the Acts of the Apostles, we find a paragraph entitled “Introduction to the letters of the Apostle Paul.” Following this,

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however, we do not find a listing of the letters of Paul. Only the letter to Philemon is mentioned, which is followed by the Revelation of John and the apocryphal Rest of the Evangelist John. St. Gregory of Tat'ew, a fourteenth century theologian of the Amfenian Church, mentions 3 Cor in his list of the books of the Bible. His monumental work entitled, “The Book of Questions,” was written in 1397. Section 31 of this book, entitled “A Question Concerning the Books Inspired by God,” contains a list of the books of the Bible. There he lists first the books of the New Testament and then of the Old Testament. Paul’s letters come at the end of the Bible, after the Tetter of Jude. 3 Cor is the last document in the collection. There are three other manuscripts which contain lists of the books of the Bible, independent of the above, also attributed to St. Gregory of Tat'ew. Michael Stone, in his article, “Armenian Canon Lists—The List of Gregory of Tat'ew (14th century),” mentions these manuscripts.95 His discussion, however, is focused only on the books of the Old Testament. He does not list the books of the New Testament nor does he examine them. 3 Cor appears at the end of the Pauline letters in these lists as well.96 Stepanos Tzik, a 17th century priest and scribe of the Armenian Church, includes 3 Cor in the list of the canonical books of the Bible. In one of the manuscripts of the Bible copied by him, we find 3 Cor after 2 Cor and before Galatians.97 The Pauline corpus, in this manuscript, is inserted after the Book of Revelation and the apocryphal Rest of the Evangelist John and before the Catholic Letters.98 The three letters to the Corinthians come after Rom and before Gal. 3 Cor is included in the critical edition of the Armenian Bible prepared by Hovhannes Zohrapian in 1805.99 In this edition of the Bible, 3 Cor is inserted in the appendix, which points to its deutero-canonical status. This is where Zohrapian inserts other apocryphal documents such as the Rest of the Evangelist John. 3 Cor comes before the apocryphal Rest...and after a prayer attributed to King Manasseh.100 In the introduction to the appendix of his work, Zohrapian states that 3 Cor is found in almost all the manuscripts known to him; and in certain manuscripts, he adds, it is inserted after 2 Cor. Zohrapian concludes his paragraph on 3 Cor by presenting a brief summary of the non-Armenian translations of 3 Cor known to him.101 The letter also appears in very few Armenian lectionaries. In the Introduction to the Appendix of his critical edition of the Bible, Zohrapian mentions that 3 Cor is included in a 9th century lectionary of the Armenian Church in Sowrghat. He adds: “Some people inserted these two documents in the list of the lectionary

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy readings after the Saturday following the fast of Catechumens, after the reading from Titus, such as the example found in the lectionary of Sowrghat

102

This manuscript remains unknown to scholars. Szekula mentions a thirteenth century lectionary manuscript which includes 3 Cor.1Uj He offers no further information, however, concerning the location or contents of this manuscript. It is obvious from the above discussion that the Armenian Church received 3 Cor as genuine correspondence between the apostle Paul and the Corinthians. It was part of the New Testament canon of the Armenian Church since the fifth century. It is also obvious that as early as the seventh century, it was dropped out of the New Testament canon of at least some of the Armenian Churches. It continued, however, enjoying a deutero-canonical status, at least in certain Armenian Churches, as late as the eighteenth century.

Research Survey And Review of Pertinent Literature The first thorough study of 3 Cor appeared in 1823 when a German pastor, Wilhelm Fredrick Rink, published his work entitled Das Sendschreiben der Korinther an den Apostel Paulus und das dritte Sendschreiben Pauli an die Korinther in Heidelberg. This book was the result of research Rink had done in the Armenian Monastery of San Lazzaro in Venice with the help of the abbot, Fr. Paschal Aucher. The main purpose of the research was to prepare a German translation of the critical Armenian text of 3 Cor. Soon after its publication, this work became a standard reference upon which later scholars, such as Zahn and Vetter, built their discussions. Rink examined eight Armenian manuscripts of 3 Cor. Based on his analysis of these eight manuscripts, he produced a German translation of the critical Armenian text of 3 Cor. Rink’s German translation of 3 Cor included sections II, III, and IV. All of the eight manuscripts of 3 Cor that Rink examined were manuscripts of the Bible, where 3 Cor appears after the canonical First and Second Corinthians and before Galatians.104 Rink established the chapter and verse division of 3 Cor, arranging it into three chapters. The first chapter, divided into fifteen verses, included the Corinthians’ letter to Paul. Paul's reply was divided into two chapters of eighteen verses each. Rmk was convinced that 3 Cor was a genuine letter by the Apostle. He refers to 1 Cor 5:9 and 1 Cor 7:1 to demonstrate the existence of further writings by the Apostle which are not included in the canon of the Bible. He does not, however, claim that

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3 Cor supplies the missing letters mentioned in the references above. Rink concludes his research convinced that 3 Cor should have been retained in the canon of the New Testament.105 He was convinced that St. Paul wrote this letter during his stay in Macedonia, as referred to in Acts 20106 Rink argued also for a Greek original of 3 Cor, although he was not aware of the existence of a Greek manuscript of 3 Cor. The main contribution of Rink’s work to the 3 Cor scholarship is his German translation of the Armenian text and also his discussion of the early patristic references to 3 Cor. German scholar Theodor Zahn offered the second major study of 3 Cor in volume two of his Geschichte des Neutestamentlichen Kanons, pages 592-611. In section four of chapter eight of this work, Zahn discusses 3 Cor together with St. Ephraem’s commentary on 3 Cor preserved in Classical Armenian.107 In the same work Zahn presents a new German translation of 3 Cor and of St. Ephraem’s commentary on it. Zahn agrees with Rink’s suggestion that 3 Cor must have had a Greek original. Zahn proposed the hypothesis that the original Greek text of 3 Cor was part of one of the rather numerous apocryphal acts of Paul.108 He states that the AP was a very well known document in the churches of the East. He refers to Ephraem’s commentary on 3 Cor, which mentions that many apocryphal acts of the apostles were used by the heretics as well. Zahn states that in the controversy with the Bardesaman heresy, the orthodox church in Edessa created 3 Cor and appropriated it with the AP as a genuine document. He adds that it was translated into Syriac when it was dropped out of AP and incorporated into the Syrian canon of the New Testament. Since then, the Greek version was lost, and 3 Cor came to be known only in its Syriac version. He bases his suggestion for the Greek origin of 3 Cor on the fact that most of the changes in the canon of the Bible, during the third and fourth centuries, were introduced by the Greek Church and especially under the influence of the Origenian school. In 1890, the German theologian Paul Vetter published his article on 3 Cor entitled “Der apokryphe dritte Korintherbrief.”W9 This was supposed to be the first in a series of articles dedicated to 3 Cor. Unfortunately, however, this became the only article published in this series. Four years later, Vetter offered a detailed examination of 3 Cor in a book entitled, Der apocryphe dritte Korintherbrief, published in Vienna.110 This was an expansion on, revision and completion of, the article he published previously. The book is divided into five chapters. In the first chapter Vetter discusses the manuscripts of 3 Cor and its use in the early Armenian and Syriac Churches."1 In the second chapter he presents a critical version of the Armenian text of 3 Cor and a new

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

German translation of it.112 The third chapter is dedicated to the examination of the two Latin manuscripts of 3 Cor available to him at the time of the writing of his book.113 Chapter four examines St. Ephraem’s commentary on 3 Cor, which is found only in Classical Armenian manuscripts.114 Vetter concludes his work by presenting a German translation of the fourteenth century commentary on 3 Cor by Yovhannes Orotnetc 7.115 In his earlier article, Vetter argued for a Syrian origin of this document, which he claimed had been produced in Edessa, Syria, around A.D. 200.116 This, according to Vetter, explains the existence of Armenian versions of 3 Cor which were copied from the original Syriac when the whole Bible was translated from Syriac to Armenian. In his book, published after the article, Vetter changed his hypothesis and agreed with Zahn that 3 Cor must have had its origin in the Greek AP. He suggested, however, that the full text of 3 Cor, as we have it today, was not originally part of the AP.117 The Syrian copyist added new sections to the original text of 3 Cor, after having copied it from AP. Vetter insisted that the Armenian and Latin manuscripts known to him must have been translated from a Syriac copy of 3 Cor.118 He also agreed with Zahn on the suggestion that 3 Cor was developed as a refutation of the Bardaisan heresy. Using this point he argued for dating the document no earlier than A.D. 180-190.119 Vetter’s hypothesis concerning the relationship among the various manuscripts and the original text will be further discussed in our examination of the original text of 3 Cor in chapter two.120 Two French scholars, A. Carriere and S. Berger, discovered the first Latin manuscript of 3 Cor in 1891. This is the M manuscript. They published the text of the M manuscript with their comments in the article “La Correspondance apocryphe de saint Paul et des Cormthiens.”121 In section one of the article, Carriere briefly reviews the history of the discovery and study of the Armenian manuscripts of 3 Cor. In his review he discusses the works of Rink and Zahn, and also Vetter’s first article. In section two of the article, Berger introduces the newly discovered Latin manuscript. He describes and briefly examines the M manuscript and its Latin text. He points out some of the spelling and grammatical errors in this manuscript. This is followed by the Latin text of the M manuscript. After the Latin text, the scholars present a French translation of the Armenian text of 3 Cor. In 1904, the German scholar Carl Schmidt discovered the Coptic Heidelberg Papyrus (PHeid), which was the first manuscript of the Acts of Paul to include 3 Cor. He published the Coptic text with its German translation and his comments in a book entitled, Acta Pauli.122 In the

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introduction to his book, Schmidt discusses the manuscript evidence available for the various sections of the Acts of Paul.123 He dedicates ten pages of this section to discussing the manuscripts of 3 Cor. After a brief introduction to the history of the discovery of the various manuscripts, Schymdt starts comparing them with each other. He disagrees with Vetter concerning the language of the version of 3 Cor from which the available Armenian and Latin manuscripts were copied. He refers to the Greek words found in the Coptic manuscript as proof that the original document from which the Coptic was made must have been a Greek one.124 After examining the variations among the manuscripts of 3 Cor, Schmidt concludes that they can be classified into two groups. The two groups, based on the length and content of their text, are: a shorter version, which includes the PHeid, L and E manuscripts; and a longer version which includes the M and A manuscripts. He makes these classifications based on the availability and the text of certain verses in the various manuscripts of 3 Cor. He concludes his examination of the manuscript variations of 3 Cor stating that the shorter version was closer to the original document, and that the longer version included later interpolations influenced by the canonical books. We will discuss Schmidt’s hypothesis further when we examine the text of the original document in Chapter Two.125 In 1905 Adolf Hamack published a booklet entitled Apocrypha IV: Die apokryphen Briefe des Paulus an die Laodicener und Korinther, as volume 12 of the series of short texts in the field of Christian antiquity, edited by Hans Lietzmann.126 In the first five pages of his book, Hamack examines the letter to the Laodiceans and presents a Latin text of that letter. The following sixteen pages of the booklet are dedicated to examining 3 Cor. First, he presents a one-paragraph bibliography of the important studies and publications concerning 3 Cor. Next, he briefly examines the available manuscripts of 3 Cor. This article was written when only two Latin manuscripts of 3 Cor had been found. This is followed by the Latin text of 3 Cor from the M manuscript, which is published on the left page of the booklet. On the right page of the booklet, Hamack published his Greek reconstruction of 3 Cor based on the following five MSS: M, L, PHeid, A (Armenian) and E (Ephraem). In the footnotes to the texts, Hamack presents a very valuable comparison of the differences and similarities among the various manuscript traditions of 3 Cor.127 Hamack was convinced that 3 Cor was part of the apocryphal AP. He suggested a hypothetical outline of the history of 3 Cor in the early Church. According to him, AP was first translated into Latin and then Syriac by the end of the third century. The Syrians, adds Hamack,

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

extracted 3 Cor from the AP between the years A.D. 250-320 and inserted it into the canon of their New Testament. Finally, the Armenians copied this letter from the Syrian New Testament canon into theirs, when they translated the Bible into Armenian at the beginning of the fifth century. Hamack admits that the history of 3 Cor is “quite obscure” in the Latin Church.128 He asserts that 3 Cor must be treated as part of the AP. “It does not teach us anything about the history of S. Paul; it is based on mere invention.”129 Hamack concludes his study with a one-paragraph summary of the content and theme of 3 Cor at the end of the text of 3 Cor. He considers 3 Cor to be an instructive document that helps us understand the Gnostic teachings in the early Christian communities. Hamack points to the dominant role given to the apostles in 3 Cor, as opposed to Paul who “is put into the shade by the first apostles.”130 Finally, he calls the reader’s attention to the fact that the death of Christ on the cross, in 3 Cor, is considered of little value compared to his incarnation and birth. Therefore, Hamack concludes, “The correspondence is an important document for the old catholic church, and for the history of her conceptions and doctrines, which offer a great contrast to early Christianity.”131 De Bruyne, a priest of the Benedictine order, contributed to the scholarly discussion of 3 Cor by two articles in which he published newly discovered segments of two Latin manuscripts of 3 Cor. In his first article, “Un nouveau manuscrit de la troisieme lettre de saint Paul aux Corinthiens,” De Bruyne published the P manuscript of 3 Cor. He compared the text of the P manuscript with those of M and L and correctly concluded that P preserves a version of 3 Cor similar to that of MA2 He based his conclusion on the similarity of the Latin text in the two manuscripts, and also on their agreement concerning certain textual and syntactic mistakes in the Latin. This is in addition to the fact that P agrees with M in including the inexplicable Latin phrase sub manu necabatA” In his second article, “Un quatrieme manuscrit latin de la correspondance apocryphe de S. Paul avec les Corinthiens,” De Bruyne published the newly discovered Z manuscript.1'14 At the end of his article, De Bruyne briefly discusses the relationship among the four Latin manuscripts known to him.135 He concludes that the text of the manuscripts preserving the shorter version of 3 Cor, i.e. L, and PHeid, must be a later edition of 3 Cor, and that the longer version, preserved in M and A are closer to the original text. Disagreeing with Schmidt, he suggests that the original text of 3 Cor included the longer version. After AP lost popularity and was condemned by Tertullian, 3 Cor was dropped out of AP and was gradually incorporated into the canon of the New

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Testament. The narrative sections were dropped as part of the process of incorporating 3 Cor into the New Testament.136 Martin Rist discusses 3 Cor in two articles. His first article, “Pseudepigraphic Refutations of Marcion,” was published in 1942, before the discovery of the Greek text.137 In this article, Rist examines three documents, which, according to him, are examples of the use of pseudepigraphy as a literary device to refute Marcionism. First, he examines Tertullian’s On the Prescription of Heretics. Then, he introduces the Didascalia apostolorum, which is a third century pseudepigraphon. 3 Cor is the third document that Rist examines to support his thesis.138 He treats 3 Cor as part of the Acts of Paul, although he mentions that it is difficult to decide whether the letter was originally part of the Acts or was included later. He adds, “Its absence from the Greek text of the Acts recently published by Schmidt points to the second possibility.”1’9 Rist dates the document to A.D. 180, based on the assumption that it was part of the Acts of Paul. The following two pages of his discussion are dedicated to describing the contents of 3 Cor and examining the false teachings targeted in the document. He concludes his four-page discussion of the document suggesting that the correspondence must have been directed against the views of Marcion. Rist revisits his discussion of 3 Cor in his second article, “III Corinthians as a Refutation of Marcionism.” This was published after the discovery of the Greek manuscript.140 In this article, Rist presents a one-page brief summary of all the manuscripts of 3 Cor known to him, including the recently discovered Greek text. In pages 50-52, he produces the first English translation of the Greek text, which he has done “assisted by referring to its French translation” by Testuz.141 In page 52, Rist briefly discusses the concept of New Testament pseudepigraphy, mentioning some of the commonly used techniques to produce a pseudepigraphic document. He points out the pseudepigraphic techniques utilized by the author of 3 Cor. He admits that the author had “some acquaintance with Paul’s letters.” Rist is not, however, impressed by the author’s skills in creating a pseudonymous document. He adds “It appears to be unlikely that his indistinct echoes of Paul’s words were designed to give his composition an appearance of authenticity. If he used them for this purpose he was not very convincing.”142 The last two pages of his article are dedicated to discussing the purpose of 3 Cor: combating the heretical teachings of Marcion. Examining the nature of the false teachings mentioned in the letter and comparing them to the teachings of Marcion, Rist concludes his second article by reaffirming the conclusion of his first article, that 3 Cor “was a valuable instrument in helping to refute Marcionism, which by its organization and teachings

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

was a dire threat to that branch of early Christianity which came to be known as the Catholic Church by the end of the second century.”143 A totally different kind of examination of 3 Cor was offered by Augustin Szekula, an Armenian priest from the Mechitarist brotherhood of San Lazzaro, in Venice, Italy. In 1949, Szekula published a series of articles in Armenian discussing the order of the books of the New Testament in the Armenian version of the Bible. These articles were published in Handes Amsorea, the monthly journal of the Mechitarist brotherhood in San Lazzaro.144 The articles were collected later and published in one book entitled Nor Ktakarani Krk’erow Karg Hayoc’ K’ov “The Order of the Books of the New Testament Among the Armenians,” with a summary in German at the end of the book entitled Die Reihenfolge der Bucher des Neuen Testamentes bei den Armeniern. His discussion of 3 Cor is limited to its place in the canon of the Armenian Bible.145 He mentions some of the early patristic .references to 3 Cor known to him.146 He briefly discusses the works of Zahn and Vetter concerning 3 Cor and classifies the Armenian manuscripts of the Bible into three categories based on the position of 3 Cor in their canon.147 He suggests that the changing of location of 3 Cor in the canon of the New Testament points to the change of status that 3 Cor experienced at different times and in different places within the Armenian Church. In 1959, Michel Testuz published the first and, so far, the only Greek text of 3 Cor known to us.148 This was found in a papyrus codex within the collections of Martin Bodmer, in Cologny near Geneva. Testuz admits that it is difficult to assign an exact date to this document. He dates it roughly to the third century together with the other documents in the same codex.149 In section I of his introduction, titled “Le manuscrit,” Testuz identifies the section of the codex where 3 Cor is preserved, and describes the state, size and shape of the manuscript. He examines the Greek script in the manuscript and the peculiarities of the scribe’s style of writing. He points out some scribal errors and patterns of copying and states that the scribe adopted the traditional system of marking the verses of the Greek text, guided by the strokes found at the end of each statement.150 In section II of the article, subtitled, “Les autres temoins du texte” (“Other Witnesses of the Text”), Testuz presents a brief summary of all the manuscripts of 3 Cor known to him. He begins this section with a one-paragraph summary of the Armenian manuscript evidence known to him. In the following two pages, Testuz presents a brief introduction to the various Latin manuscripts of 3 Cor.151 This is followed by a short discussion of the Coptic version of 3 Cor preserved in the AP. Testuz

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23

concludes this section with a brief remark concerning the Syriac witness of 3 Cor. In section III, “Le texte,” Testuz examines the content of 3 Cor. He divides this section into three subsections. In the first two subsections, he discusses the contents of the two letters of 3 Cor. In the third subsection, he discusses the theology of these letters. At the beginning of the first subsection, entitled, “La lettre des Anciens de Corinthe” (“The Letter of the Elders of Corinth”), Testuz points out the various references in the canonical letters of Paul to a third or lost letter by the Apostle. He adds that these references made it easier for the pseudepigraphers of the second century to produce pseudonymous letters under the apostle Paul’s name. In this context, Testuz discusses also the pseudonymous origin and motives of 3 Cor.152 Following this, he presents a brief summary of the contents of the Corinthians’ letter to Paul. Based on the false teachings mentioned in the Corinthians’ letter, he proceeds to discuss the nature of the heretical teachings. He concludes his discussion suggesting that 3 Cor was not written to refute a specific Gnostic sect, rather various heretical teachings.153 He discusses the second century Gnostic definitions of the supreme deity as opposed to the inferior god of the Old Testament. He offers a comparison of the various Gnostic teachings of the second century and compares them to the false teachings targeted in 3 Cor. He concludes that 3 Cor must have been written by a second century author to combat the heretical teachings of contemporary Gnostics. The second subsection is entitled, “La reponse de Paul” (“The Response of Paul”). In the first two paragraphs of this subsection, Testuz identifies some of the verses in 3 Cor with frequently used Pauline phrases found in his canonical letters. This is followed by a brief summary of the contents of Paul’s letter. In the third subsection, “La theologie de Tepitre” (“The Theology of the Letter”), Testuz examines the main theological themes of Paul’s letter.154 He traces the origin of some of the theological themes to different traditions in the New Testament.1^ Testuz observes that there is a clear emphasis on the role of Christ in the history of salvation as opposed to the earthly history of Jesus. This, he thinks, is demonstrated by the title “Christ Jesus,” “Lord Jesus” or “our Lord Jesus Christ,” and by the fact that nowhere in this letter is the name “Jesus” used by itself. According to Testuz, however, this does not diminish the reality of Jesus’ incarnation. Testuz refers to 3 Cor 2:5 as proof of the fact that the author knew and accepted both the divine and human natures of Christ. He cites the references in Paul’s letter to the doctrine of the pre-existence of Jesus and of the Holy Trinity. He therefore rejects the suggestions of those who claim that 3

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

Cor was written to combat the primitive heresies, such as the Adoptianist or the Docetist.156 In the following two paragraphs, Testuz examines the theme of the resurrection of the flesh as discussed in Paul’s letter. He emphasizes that resurrection is only for those who believe in it and quotes 3 Cor 2:24 as proof of this teaching. Testuz concludes this section stating that the letter contains crude and undeveloped theological trends.157 It does not demonstrate any knowledge of the developed doctrines and dogmas of the fathers of the Church. This, he concludes, confirms that the letter must have been written towards the end of the second century.158 In section IV, “La date, la composition et Tauteur” (“The Date, the Composition and the Author”), Testuz presents his conclusions concerning the date, composition and author of 3 Cor. He dates 3 Cor to the end of the second century. He bases this dating on the fact that it was around that time that the church started composing her own literature to combat the Gnostic teachings. This dating is also supported by the state of the development of the theology in the letter.159 Testuz argues for an independent origin of 3 Cor from the apocryphal AP. He refers to the disappearance of sections I and III in the Greek manuscript, and the simple subtitles used for sections II and IV, as proof of the independent origin of 3 Cor from that of the AP. He adds that it is impossible to think that the Armenian and Syrian Churches could have extracted these two letters from a document which was very well known in the early church and condemned by prominent Church fathers such as Tertullian. Testuz proposes his own hypothesis concerning the composition of 3 Cor and its relationship to the apocryphal AP. He states that sections II and IV must have been known and circulated separately from the rest of 3 Cor, and that the editor of AP incorporated them into the AP at a later date.100 The fact that four of the Latin manuscripts of 3 Cor are manuscripts of the Bible, according to Testuz, further supports his hypothesis of the independent origin of 3 Cor. This is in addition to the fact that the style and the theological and moral emphases of AP differ from those of 3 Cor. Testuz concludes this section of his introduction with a brief paragraph suggesting that the author of 3 Cor must have been a Greekspeaking Christian. This is because his writing betrays very good knowledge of the New Testament theology and of the writings of the apostle Paul. In the last section of his introduction, entitled, “Le destin de la Correspondance,” Testuz very briefly discusses the use of 3 Cor in the early churches in the East and the West. Based on the available manuscript evidence, he concludes that 3 Cor must have been popular in the East and in Egypt until the end of the third century. He adds that

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towards the end of the third century it lost popularity and was gradually incorporated into the AP. Testuz adds that 3 Cor was not as popular in the West as it was in the East. He thinks that Paul’s letter to the Alexandrians, mentioned in the Muratorian canon of the Bible, could be a reference to 3 Cor which was erroneously changed to Alexandrians, since nothing is known about a letter by Paul to the Alexandrians. In 1960, Testuz published a shorter article concerning 3 Cor, entitled, “La correspondance apocryphe de saint Paul et des Cormthiens,”161 which is a summary of the points discussed in his previous article. In the first two pages of his article, he presents a brief summary of the history of the various manuscript traditions of 3 Cor. Following this brief summary, he discusses the Greek manuscript of 3 Cor. First, he describes the state, shape and size of the manuscript. Then, he lists the names of the other documents in the same codex in which 3 Cor is found.162 He identifies at least four different scribal styles in the codex, which he dates between the third and the fourth centuries. He states that four of the documents in the codex were never published before in Greek. In the following section, Testuz discusses the content of the two letters in 3 Cor, summarizing the main theological themes of Paul’s letter. He adds that the Greek text of 3 Cor emphasizes that the resurrection of the flesh is only for those who believe in it. In this, Testuz adds, the Greek manuscript differs from most of the Armenian and Latin manuscripts which tried to “correct” the Greek text. According to the Armenian and Latin scribes who corrected the text, the impious and non-believers will also experience the resurrection of the flesh, but only to witness their judgment and condemnation.163 In the last section of this short article, Testuz repeats his discussion from his earlier publication of the date and the relation of 3 Cor to the AP. He concludes this article by restating and confirming his conclusion from the previous article. A. Klijn’s article, “The Apocryphal Correspondence between Paul and the Corinthians,” published in 1963, is a breakthrough in the history of scholarship concerning 3 Cor.164 It is the first article that incorporates the contribution of the Greek text of 3 Cor after its discovery in 1959. Kiijn divides 3 Cor into three parts not including section I. After a brief introduction to the manuscript tradition known to him, Kiijn presents a summary of the present position of the inquiries into the text of 3 Cor. He correctly observes that “inquiries into the correspondence are mainly limited to the tradition of the text. The contents of the writing have been subjected to superficial investigations only.”16" In the following page Kiijn describes the contents of 3 Cor. Next, in pp. 7-9, he compares the

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

text of the Greek manuscript to that of the Armenian, Coptic and Latin ones concluding that the “Greek and Coptic usually render the best text.”166 In section six of his article, Klijn discusses the relation between 3 Cor and the Acts of Paul. He does that by comparing the contents of AP with that of 3 Cor, by looking at the place of the correspondence in AP as a whole, and by examining some parallel passages in AP and 3 Cor. He concludes that the same author could not have written the two documents. Klijn admits, however, that there is a relation between the two documents. He adds, “It is impossible to say in which way the passages are related. It may be that the Acts are dependent on the correspondence, but no convincing proof exists.”167 The last section of Klijn’s article is titled, “An Explanation of the Correspondence.” In this section he focuses on the false teachings of the heretics in Corinth. He describes and briefly examines the various theological arguments presented in the letter.168 He concludes this section with a one-page discussion of the nature of the heresy targeted by the document. He rejects the Bardaisanian heresy on the basis that Bardaisan did use the Old Testament. He disagrees with Rist’s hypothesis concerning this point, rejecting Marcionism as the targeted false teaching, since neither Marcion nor his disciple Apelles taught that the world was created by angels. He agrees with Muretow’s suggestion that Simon Magus could be the targeted heresy of 3 Cor.169 He warns the reader, however, that “it is hazardous to think that the correspondence was written against his ideas only.”170 Klijn concludes his discussion of this question, as well as the article, with the following statement: We are not able to say that the correspondence was written against one particular kind of heresy. The correspondence describes a tendency in the early church...We may only say that the tendency is not yet a ‘doctrine’ which can be found in the well-known Gnostic systems.171

In volume II of Schneemelcher’s New Testament Apocrypha, Wilhelm Schneemelcher and Rodolphe Kasser discuss 3 Cor in the context of the apocryphal AP.172 In this study, 3 Cor is published as part of the text of the AP. The two authors present an English translation of 3 Cor based on the Coptic text in PHeid. At the end of the text of the AP, the authors state that their translation is based on the Heidelberg Coptic Papyrus, and that it should not be considered a critical edition. In particular, they add, “it is not possible in the present context, [i.e. based on the evidence from the Heidelberg Coptic Papyrus] to arrange all the fragments meaningfully and restore them, just as the variants which occur in parts of the text, e.g. in 3 Cor., cannot be presented in full.”173 The authors’ examination of 3 Cor, in the context of the AP, begins

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27

with a two paragraph summary of the available manuscripts of 3 Cor, under the subsection titled, “Extant Remains.”174 The various manuscripts of 3 Cor are briefly compared to each other with special attention given to the presence or absence of the four sections of 3 Cor. The* next section of their study is subtitled, “Reconstruction and Composition: Relation to the Lucan Acts.” In this section, the authors reconstruct a hypothetical narrative of the story of Paul, based mainly on the Coptic manuscript of AP. Other manuscripts and traditions are referred to whenever the materials in the Coptic manuscript are illegible, incomplete or missing. In this section, the authors offer a brief description of the text and contents of 3 Cor. They admit that “the beginning of PHeid p. 45—the page on which 3 Cor. begins with its preamble—is so fragmentary that we can do nothing with it.”175 The end of 3 Cor, as preserved in the AP, is also illegible and incomprehensible. Concerning this the authors add, “With the end of 3 Cor. the tradition regrettably once more breaks off, so that we hear nothing of the delivery of the letter and its outcome.”176 At the conclusion of their brief study of the text and transmission of 3 Cor, the authors bring up the question of the relation of 3 Cor to the AP. Mentioning the contributions of Klijn and Rordorf in this field, they state that “on the basis of the work of Klijn and Rordorf we may assume—with all due caution—that the correspondence between Paul and the Corinthians had an origin all its own.”177 They conclude their study of 3 Cor by stating that “the differences between 3 Cor. and the other parts of API [Acts of Paul], which Klijn and Rordorf have dealt with in detail, are of varying weight...But the view that 3 Cor. belonged in origin to the API can probably no longer be maintained.”178 In 1977, T. W. Mackay presented a paper discussing his observations on the Greek text of 3 Cor to the Fifteenth International Congress of Papyrology. The paper was published in 1979, entitled “Observations on P. Bodmer X (Apocryphal Correspondence between Paul and the Corinthian Saints.)”179 Mackay divides his paper into four sections. In the first section he re-examines the Greek script of the manuscript. Offering variant readings of certain passages in the text, Mackay suggests some emendations to the editio princeps. In section II of his paper, Mackay examines the characteristics of the scribe’s writing and copying style. Among the many characteristics of his style that the scribe shared with his contemporaries, Mackay mentions examples of his confusion of sounds resulting in various spelling patterns, using single consonants instead of double, inconsistency in using diaeresis, and abbreviating certain words. Mackay also mentions the conscientious effort on behalf of the scribe to correct errors, with examples of the

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

various methods used to achieve that. He mentions other examples of the scribe’s habits in writing the various characters of his text.180 In the third section of the paper, Mackay examines the vocabulary of 3 Cor. In the following two pages, Mackay mentions forty two examples of words and phrases in 3 Cor with parallel usage and meanings in the New Testament and the early writings of the Apostolic fathers, such as the Pastor Hermae and I Clement. He concludes this section by asserting that: the vocabulary of III Cor. includes some quotations, references and paraphrases from the Pauline corpus and the other NT books. However, there are several words which only appear in Christian texts beginning with the era of the Apostolic Fathers. For this reason alone, III Cor. can be reasonably attributed to the second century (probably the second quarter), not to the first. 1 o 1

In the last section of his article, pages 126-128, Mackay discusses the relation between 3 Cor and Paul’s letter to the Laodiceans/He mentions examples of the similarities and differences between these two letters. Based on this comparison, he concludes that “it is highly improbable that one and the same author has written both the epistles.” He dates Laodiceans closer to A.D. 180 but 3 Cor to approximately A.D. 125— 150. Mackay concludes his article by commenting on the function and importance of 3 Cor. He adds: In conclusion III Cor. has merits in drawing our attention to what some person or group detected to be divergence from orthodoxy in the Primitive Church. Relying on the name of Paul, the writer produced III Cor., an epistle designed to halt controversy.

18?

In his unpublished doctoral dissertation entitled, “The Pseudo-Pauline Letters of the First Two Centuries,” Donald N. Penny devotes a full chapter to the study of 3 Cor.183 He divides chapter VI, where he examines 3 Cor, into four major sections. In section A, (pp. 73-78), Penny presents an introduction to 3 Cor. He divides the text of 3 Cor into three subsections not including Section I. He assumes the existence of only eleven Armenian manuscripts of 3 Cor, based on a misunderstanding of a comment in the Zohrapian Bible.184 He incorrectly assumes that the Latin manuscript Z contains a fragment of the apocryphal AP.18? He refers very briefly to a few of the earlier works on 3 Cor. Referring to the Pheid Coptic manuscript, and using it as proof, he argues for the hypothesis that 3 Cor “was originally composed in Greek and was part of the AP.”186 He briefly mentions Klijn’s and Testuz’s articles, their demonstration of the discrepancies between 3 Cor and the AP, and their argument for an independent origin of 3 Cor.

Introduction

29

Ultimately, however, he disagrees with them regarding this point. Penny divides section II of his work into two main sub-sections. In subsection 1, pages 291-94, he identifies the various oral and written sources used by the author of 3 Cor. In subsection 2, pages 294-99, he illustrates four techniques used by the author of 3 Cor to create his pseudepigraphic letter. In section III of chapter VI of his dissertation, Penny discusses the relationship of 3 Cor to the apostle Paul. He compares the theology of 3 Cor to that of the canonical letters of Paul, and also the image of the apostle Paul in this letter as compared to the canonical letters. The question of the pseudonymity of 3 Cor is discussed in section IV of chapter VI. He analyzes the various false teachings mentioned in 3 Cor. Based on his analysis, he summarizes the mam theological themes of 3 Cor in two points: “(1) The identity of the Old Testament God of creation with the God of redemption in Christ, and (2) the reality of the resurrection in a fleshly body.”187 He concludes his analysis with the suggestion that the author of 3 Cor used Paul’s name “not simply to borrow his authority and thereby to gain a hearing in the polemic. Rather, there seems to be a more specific reason for the use of Pauline pseudonymity, viz. because the opponents may have appealed to Paul in support of their teaching and perhaps also claimed for Paul an absolute authority over against the other apostles.”188 In his article entitled “Heresie et orthodoxie selon la correspondance apocryphe entre les Cormthiens et l’Aptore Paul,”189 published in 1993, Willy Rordorf reopens the discussion of 3 Cor, focusing on the nature of the heretical teachings and presenting a new suggestion concerning the identity of the false teachers. In section I of his article, entitled, “Introduction: Te texte et sa transmission,” Rordorf presents a brief summary of the available manuscript evidence of 3 Cor with references to some of the scholarly works done on it. In discussing the transmission of the text, he classifies the manuscripts into three major categories: (1) those which contain all four sections of 3 Cor; (2) those which contain sections II, III, and IV; and (3) those which contain sections II and IV.190 In this section of the paper, Rordorf discusses Klijn’s article and, referring to the discrepancies between 3 Cor and the AP that Klijn demonstrates, concludes that it is possible for 3 Cor to have had an independent origin, but that further critical examinations are needed to reach a conclusion concerning this matter.191 Briefly discussing the textual differences among all the manuscript evidence, he follows Schmidt’s conclusion in dividing the available versions into two categories: (1) short recension; and (2) long recension. The short recension category includes the manuscripts which lack 3 Cor

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

2:14, 22-23 and 33, and have a modified version of 3 Cor 2:13, 24-25 and 31-32. Since Schmidt’s book was published before the discovery of the Greek manuscript, Rordorf briefly examines the Greek manuscript in reference to the categories stated above and classifies it in the short recension category. In section II of his paper, entitled, “Quelle est l’heresie combattue par la correspondance?” (“What is the heresy which is being combated by the Correspondence?”), Rordorf tries to identify the heresy that the author of 3 Cor is arguing against. First, he lists the verses discussing the false teachings of the heresy.192 Then he argues against Klijn’s hypothesis which suggests that Simon Magus was the targeted heresy in 3 Cor. He continues his discussion of the nature of the heresy by comparing the various false teachings mentioned in 3 Cor to the teachings of the heretic Satumilus. He concludes that the false teachings targeted in 3 Cor must be those of Satumilus. _ The third section of his paper is titled, “Quelle est Torthodoxie qui s’exprime dans la Correspondance?” (“What is the Orthodoxy Expressed in the Correspondence?”). In this section Rordorf discusses the main doctrinal teachings of the letter. He divides this section into subsections covering the major themes discussed in 3 Cor. This includes his discussion of the confession of the christological faith in 2:5, the theological explanation in 2:6-18, the resurrection of the flesh, and the theology of martyrdom.193 In section five, which is also the conclusion of his article, Rordorf dates 3 Cor to the first half of the second century. He bases this dating on the time of the heresy of Satumilus and on the nature of the theological discussions in 3 Cor. Based on this dating of 3 Cor, which is earlier than the accepted dating of AP, Rordorf concludes that 3 Cor must have had an independent origin from the AP. Rordorf adds that the absence from AP of the names of the Corinthian elders mentioned in 3 Cor further supports the independent origin of 3 Cor from AP. It is difficult to imagine, asserts Rordorf, that a section of a popular work, such as the apocryphal AP, could be severed from its original context and added into the canon of the Bible as a genuine letter of the apostle Paul. In his article “The Apocryphal correspondence with the Corinthians and the Acts of Paul” published in Jan Bremmer’s The Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Theckla, Gerard Luttikhuizen revisits the question of the association of 3 Cor with the Acts of Paul.194 After a brief introduction Luttikhuizen divides his article into two sections. In the first section, “The Literary history of the Corinthian correspondence” he discusses the relation of 3 Cor with the AP. Briefly mentioning some of the scholarly 4

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31

hypothesis regarding this issue, he agrees with Testuz’ argument that the two letters of 3 Cor were originally written independently of the AP. He, however, disagrees with Testuz’ suggestion that 3 Cor continued to be circulated independently of 3 Cor. He suggests that the existence of the short narrative between the two letters of 3 Cor in the Armenian and two ofthe Latin MSS is a proof that 3 Cor was copied from the AP into the biblical texts of these manuscripts. He concludes this section of his article affirming that while the two letters of 3 Cor were written independently of AP, they were supplied with a narrative context when they were incorporated into the AP. On that occasion, the letters were supplied with a narrative context: an opening frame story...and a narrative intermezzo...At the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century, the Corinthian correspondence was transferred from the Pauline Acts...into the ancient Syrian Bible, and from there into the Armenian canon...In this way, the narrative connection between the two letters 195 in the relevant Eastern MSS can be explained.

In the second section of his article, Luttikhuizen offers an examination of the form, content and context of 3 Cor in the AP. First, he discusses the content of 3 Cor. Despite the obvious differences in the tenets, definitions and sequence of the false teachings preserved in the introductory paragraph and the Corinthians’ letter to Paul of which he himself mentions at least three, Luttikhuizen insists that “The information about the heretical ideas of Simon and Cleobius in the letter from the Corinthian elders is, in principle, in agreement with the description in the preceding narrative context.”196 Luttikhuizen sees in Paul’s response the traditional structure of ancient deliberative speeches: Introduction (w. 2-3), review of past facts (w. 4-8), argumentation in two headings (w. 9-21), and conclusion (w. 34-39). He offers a brief commentary on the contents of each of these four parts. Summarizing the main theological themes discussed m the letter, Luttikhuizen concludes that the theology of 3 Cor is “well attuned to the overall context of the AP.” In the following two paragraphs he discusses the issue of the resurrection of the dead as presented in Paul’s response. He concludes his discussion of this issue stating that “pseudo-Paul rejects the denial of the resurrection, for he wishes to convince his readers that in the resurrection of the flesh, God’s purpose to revive his lost creatures.. .is fully realized.” 198 He disagrees with Rordorf in identifying the targeted false teachers in 3 Cor with any historical identification. The teachings opposed in 3 Cor, he adds, were widespread among Christian Gnostics during the second and third centuries.

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

In the last paragraph of his article, Luttikhuizen directly answers the question he raised at the conclusion of the first part of his article: why was 3 Cor inserted into the AP? Reminding us of his affirmation that the theology of 3 Cor is in agreement with that of AP, he adds, “The composer of the AP may have inserted the correspondence not only because he endorsed the vehement rejection of Gnostic ideas but also because he appreciated the theological insights attributed to Paul in his apocryphal letter.” 199

Conclusion It is obvious from our discussion that 3 Cor was incorporated into the New Testament canon of several churches during the early centuries of Christianity. This is clearly indicated by patristic commentaries, canon lists and other church documents especially in the East. Most of the scholarly work done on 3 Cor up until the second half of this century focused on the question of the origin of the document. Until the turn of this century, scholars offered different hypotheses arguing for an Armenian, Syriac or Greek origin of 3 Cor. With the discovery of the Coptic manuscript and its publication by Schmidt, the scholarly consensus concerning this question was that 3 Cor was originally part of AP. According to this consensus, 3 Cor was gradually detached from AP and circulated separately. Ultimately it was incorporated into the canon of the Bible in some of the churches in the East. The discovery of the Greek Bodmer papyrus, however, challenged this hypothesis. Very few articles continued the discussion of the question of the origin of 3 Cor. Testuz, Klijn and Rordorf argued for an independent origin of 3 Cor. Some of the studies mentioned above address the question of the relationship among the various manuscripts of 3 Cor. It is obvious that scholars struggled with the complex situation created by the variant readings and by the similarities and differences among the various manuscripts of 3 Cor. Schmidt’s hypothesis of dividing the manuscripts into two categories based on their text remains the generally accepted consensus among scholars. The discovery of the B and PBodm X MSS, however, seriously challenged the consensus mentioned above. The theology of 3 Cor is one of the aspects of 3 Cor that is very seldom discussed in the scholarly works we have surveyed. Very little has been said so far about the theological questions raised by the Corinthians and discussed in Paul’s response. Rist was the first to focus on the theological trends in 3 Cor. He suggested that 3 Cor was a pseudepigraphic tool used by the author to develop his argument against

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the targeted heresy of Marcion. The scholarly works discussed above disagree with one another concerning the nature and identity of the targeted heresy. Klijn and Rordorf are the only two to offer some detailed discussions of the various theological themes in 3 Cor. Testuz, Klijn and Luttikhuizen agree that 3 Cor was not written to combat a specific heresy. It is a general refutation of the unorthodox tendencies developing at the time of the writing of 3 Cor, during the latter half of the second century.

CHAPTER TWO: ESTABLISHING THE ORIGINAL TEXT

Variety of Witnesses The various manuscripts of 3 Cor are anything but homogeneous. They differ from each other concerning the availability of the four sections of the document. The text of each of the four sections also differs from one manuscript to another. A number of verses are missing in certain manuscripts while available in others. Some manuscripts have longer texts in certain verses compared to other manuscripts. The Latin manuscripts themselves, for example, are not identical. They differ from one another concerning the availability of the four sections and the text in these sections. In certain cases even different Latin words are used in different manuscripts for the same word in a certain verse. The same is true for the Armenian manuscripts. In the following pages we will review the important scholarly works done in the study of the textual variations among the different MSS of 3 Cor. We will offer our own examination of these variations taking into consideration the MSS discovered after some of these studies were published. This will help us demonstrate that sections I and III do not belong to the original text of 3 Cor which, we believe, originally only included sections II and IV. Our examination will lead us to the conclusion that the Greek PBodm X papyrus preserves the closest version of the text of 3 Cor to the original. One can classify the manuscripts of 3 Cor into three categories based on the sections of the text they preserve. They are: 1. Manuscripts including all four sections. Only one manuscript belongs to this category, and that is the Coptic Heidelberg Papyrus (PHeid). 2. Manuscripts containing sections II, III and IV. Most of the Armenian manuscripts, the commentary of St. Ephraem, and the Latin manuscripts P and Z belong to this category. 3. Manuscripts containing sections II and IV only. This category includes the Greek PBodm X manuscript, the Latin manuscripts M, L, B and a few of the Armenian manuscripts. The differences among the various MSS of 3 Cor suggest different traditions of preserving and transmitting 3 Cor. At this stage of our

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

examination it suffices to say that all manuscripts of 3 Cor which do not contain sections I and III are manuscripts of the Bible. It is equally interesting to note that PHeid, which is the only MS containing section I of 3 Cor, is also the only MS of AP that includes 3 Cor. We will closely examine the textual variations among the various MSS of 3 Cor in a later section of this chapter. Until the turn of this century, it was assumed that 3 Cor was the creation of the Armenian Church.1 This assumption was based on the fact that 3 Cor was found only in Armenian manuscripts of the Bible. This is in addition to the fact that at that time the only patristic references to 3 Cor known to scholars were those found in the Armenian Church writings, such as the references in Agathangelos and Ephraem.2 With the discovery of non-Armenian manuscripts of 3 Cor the assumption mentioned above was rejected completely. Based on St. Ephraem’s commentary (E), some scholars suggested a Syriac origin of 3 Cor. They assumed that 3 Cor was originally written in Syriac and later translated into Armenian with the translation of the canonical books of the Bible from the Syrian canon into Armenian.3 In fact, the existence of 3 Cor in the Armenian canon is still seen as evidence of the great influence that the Syrian Church had on the Armenian Church.4 Until the end of the last century, however, not a single scholarly work offered a critical discussion of the question of the origin of 3 Cor. In 1890, Zahn published vol. II of his work, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons. In this volume Zahn discussed his argument against the hypothesis for a Syriac origin of 3 Cor. In his brief discussion of the origin of 3 Cor, Zahn suggested a Greek origin for it, despite the fact that he had not seen a Greek MS of 3 Cor.5 Tie based his suggestion on the fact that the collection of apostolic letters in the Syriac Bible underwent great changes during the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth century. These changes were mainly under the influence of the Greek Church, and especially the Origenian school.6 Thus, the insertion of 3 Cor into the canonical Pauline corpus of the Syriac NT, according to Zahn, was the result of Greek influence. Zahn points out the fact that the place and content of the narrative section in 3 Cor have no parallel in the canonical epistles of the New Testament.7 He does not see any difference in style or content between the narrative sections and the two letters of 3 Cor. In fact he emphasizes that 3 Cor with all its sections must have been written by the same author.8 The existence of the narrative sections, according to Zahn, points to the fact that 3 Cor must have been part of a larger document which included a narrative presentation of the story of the apostle Paul. He identifies that narrative as a Greek version of the Acts of Paul known

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37

to Ongen.9 Based on these observations, Zahn suggests that 3 Cor was composed in Greek as part of the Acts of Paul. It was translated into Syriac and incorporated into the Syrian canon of the Bible during the late third century.10 The insertion of 3 Cor into the Syrian Canon of the Bibje, adds Zahn, was an intentional effort by the orthodox Church to combat the Bardaisanian heresy, which did not include 3 Cor in their canon of the NT. From the Syrian Bible, according to Zahn, the document was translated into the Armenian Bible. In their brief introduction to the publication of the first Latin MS of 3 Cor, both Carriere and Berger agreed with Zahn in suggesting a Greek origin for their newly discovered Latin text.11 Carriere suggests that the phrase Filii creatio must be the Latin translation for the Greek uio0£Qia. This, adds Carriere, is supported by the Armenian translation used for the same word in this verse.12 Unfortunately, however, neither Carriere nor Berger present any further textual discussion to develop their argument for a Greek origin of the M manuscript. In 1894 the German Armenologist Vetter published his work titled Der apokryphe dritte Korintherbrief, examining the various MSS of 3 Cor available to him.13 This book included a modification and development of his hypothesis presented in an article he had published four years earlier with the same title.14 In his argument, Vetter traces Syriac influence on the Armenian (A), the Ephraem (E) and the two Latin (M and L) manuscripts of 3 Cor. First, he presents a brief discussion of the Armenian text of 3 Cor. He focuses this section of his discussion on two Armenian words, the use of which, he claims, indicates a Syriac origin of 3 Cor. They are the particles ibrew and mincew. Vetter argues that the use of the Armenian particle ibrew in 3 Cor 2:2 is incorrect considering the syntax of the verse. He states that the particle mincew would have normally been used in such instances instead of the particle ibrew. He adds that the reason for using ibrew in this specific instance is the fact that the two particles are used interchangeably and serve the same purpose in the Syriac syntax. Thus, Vetter concludes, the use of the particle ibrew in the Armenian version of 3 Cor indicates that it was based on, or copied from, a Syriac original version.1' One must emphasize, however, that the particle ibrew found in the Armenian text of 3 Cor is the same word commonly used as the translation of the Greek QI in the books of the New Testament.16 Vetter himself admits that the Greek particle OX has the same function and effect in the Greek syntax as the Syriac particle in question.17 We do not see how the particle ibrew, therefore, can be used as proof of a Syriac, and not Greek, influence on the Armenian version. Indeed, Vetter himself concludes his short examination of the variations in the

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Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

Armenian text of 3 Cor admitting that no convincing linguistic evidence can be found to prove that the Armenian version of 3 Cor was copied from a Syriac original.18 Vetter continues his examination of the manuscript evidence of 3 Cor suggesting that the variations in the biblical references made by the author of 3 Cor in the Armenian version can only be explained on the basis that the Armenian text of 3 Cor was copied from a Syriac original. The biblical quotations in the Armenian version, Vetter argues, cannot be traced back to any Armenian or Greek version of the Bible.19 We find this section of Vetter’s argument equally unconvincing. Let us briefly examine his examples one by one. First, he suggests that the reference made by Paul in the narrative of section III, “Better were it for me to die and be with the Lord, than to be in the flesh and hear such things” is influenced by 2 Cor 5:8, “We are of good courage, and would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” This, ^ according to Vetter, is evident in the use of the idea of being away from the body and near the Lord.20 The Armenian translation of 2 Cor 5:8, Vetter observes, has successfully preserved the antithesis between the terms “to enter” and “to depart” found in the Greek, SKSqpqaai/evbqpqaai. The Syriac translation, on the other hand, has not maintained the antithesis mentioned above. Having said that, Vetter adds that the Armenian text of the reference from section III of 3 Cor, quoted above, did not preserve the antithesis in question as well. Therefore, Vetter concludes, the Armenian version of this reference must have been written under the influence of the Syriac version of the biblical text and not the Armenian or Greek. This according to Vetter supports his argument for a Syriac origin of 3 Cor. It is true that the Armenian text of 2 Cor 5:8 maintained the antithesis found in the Greek New Testament, which the Syriac version did not. Vetter, however, does not notice that the Syriac text of 2 Cor 5:8 itself does not match the verse in question, i.e. the reference from section III of 3 Cor, which he assumes it is based on. Vetter could be correct in assuming that the text of the Armenian version of 3 Cor in question does not match the Armenian or Greek texts of the Bible in 2 Cor 5:8. However, it should be emphasized that it does not match the Syriac version of 2 Cor 5:8 either. The concept of “being away from the body” and “dwelling with the Lord” expressed in 3 Cor could have been influenced by the canonical 2 Cor 5:8. The text in all of the biblical versions mentioned above, including the Syriac, does not match that of the verse in 3 Cor. The fact that the Armenian version of 3 Cor does not maintain the antithesis exactly the way it is expressed in the Greek and Armenian versions of 2 Cor 5:8, therefore, cannot in any way be

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39

considered proof that Syriac was the language of the original document used by the Armenian scribe. We add to all the above that a possible influence of the Syriac text of the Bible on the narrative part of 3 Cor, i.e. section III, does not necessarily mean that the full, or original, text of 3 Gor was copied from a Syriac version. It could be that section III of 3 Cor was composed under Syrian influence and inserted into the text of 3 Cor at a later stage in the history of the transmission of 3 Cor. The second example Vetter uses to support his argument is 3 Cor 2:13, “He sent down the spirit through fire into Mary the Galilean.” He assumes that the verse is based on Gal 4:4, “But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, bom of woman, bom under the law.” The Armenian text of 3 Cor 2:13, “And at the end of the time, he sent the Holy Spirit to the virgin, foretold by the prophets,” uses the word vaxcan, which means “end” or “conclusion of,” to refer to the concept of the “fullness of times.”21 Assuming that this verse is based on Gal 4:4, Vetter observes that the Greek uses the word TiAfjpiopa. The Armenian version of the Bible, Vetter claims, translates the Greek nArjpojpa always using the word Irowmn meaning “fullness” or “fulfillment” and not the word vaxcan used in 3 Cor 2:13. Therefore, according to Vetter, the Armenian text of 3 Cor could not have been copied from a Greek original. Rather, he adds, the Syriac text of Gal 4:4 uses a verb which can be translated as both “end” and “fulfillment.” Thus, Vetter concludes, the Armenian version of 3 Cor 2:13 must be a translation of a Syriac original text.22 Vetter’s argument is not convincing in this section either. Closely comparing 3 Cor 2:13 with Gal 4:4 we realize that the two texts are different. They are not close enough to assume that the latter influenced the earlier. It is the “Holy Spirit” in 3 Cor 2:13 who is being sent, while in Gal 4:4 it is the Son of God. In 3 Cor 2:13 “Mary” is the recipient of the Spirit, while no recipient of the Son of God is mentioned in Gal 4:4. Rather, Mary is an agent through whom the Lord came into this world. In fact, the recipient of the “Son of God” in Gal 4 is “our hearts” mentioned in 4:6, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.” It is also important to mention that the Armenian word vaxcan is used very frequently in the Bible, in both Old and New Testaments, with phrases of time, to mean “fullness” or “fulfillment.” In fact, the exact phrase vaxcan zamanakac found in 3 Cor 2:13 is used in many verses of the Bible referring to the fulfillment of time.23 Vetter’s last two examples include his discussion of 3 Cor 2:36 and 2:40. He himself admits that neither of these examples is as strongly convincing as his earlier examples.24 In his third example, Vetter assumes that the Armenian version of 3 Cor 2:36, “And if anyone abides by the rule received by the hands of the blessed prophets and the holy

40

Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

gospel, shall receive an award,” is influenced by Acts 7:53, “You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.”'The Armenian text of 3 Cor 2:36 uses the phrase “by the hands of,” meaning “through,” which is not found in the Armenian or Greek texts of Acts 7:53. Both the Armenian and Greek texts have the phrase “by the command.” The Syriac version of Acts 7:53, on the other hand, uses the phrase “by the hand of the command of the angels.” This, according to Vetter, makes the Armenian version of 3 Cor 2:36 closer to the Syriac text of Acts 7:53 as opposed to the Greek and Armenian versions. Therefore, Vetter concludes, the original document used by the Armenian scribe of 3 Cor must have been composed in Syriac. Vetter’s assumption that 3 Cor 2:36 is influenced by Acts 7:53 is not a very convincing one. Acts 7:53 talks about Israel receiving the “law” of the Old Testament, while 3 Cor 2:36 refers to the “rule” of faith in the New Testament. The “law” in Acts 7:53 is ordained by “the angels,” while the “rule” discussed in 3 Cor 2:36 is from the “blessed prophets and the gospel.” This is in addition to the fact that the phrase “by the hands of’ found in the Syriac Acts 7:53 is commonly used to express the instrumental mood. It is used interchangeably with the preposition “by” found in the Greek text of Acts 7:53. Vetter’s last example discusses Paul’s greeting at the end of the letter, 2:40, “And may peace and grace be with you.” He points out that the formula “peace and grace” is not found anywhere in the Greek canonical letters of Paul with the exact same sequence, i.e. “peace” first and then “grace.” Paul’s traditional greetings in the canonical letters usually have the reverse order of these two words, i.e. “grace and peace.” The Syriac version of the Pauline corpus, on the other hand, Vetter observes, has three instances where the exact wording and sequence is used as in 3 Cor 2:40. These are: Rom 1:7, Eph 1:2, and Col 1:3. In all three examples the Syriac text has the word “peace” first, followed by “and grace.” While it is correct that the wording and sequence of the greeting in these three verses in the Syriac Bible agree with that of the text in 3 Cor 2:40, it is difficult to explain how they could have influenced the latter. One would assume that a pseudepigrapher who is trying to imitate the apostle’s style of writing and create a pseudepigraphon in Paul’s name would copy a formula of greeting frequently used by the apostle and not a phrase which is found only three times in the whole Pauline corpus. It is interesting to note that the Syriac text of the greeting in the canonical letters of Paul to the Corinthians has maintained the phrase found in the Greek and Latin MSS, i.e. “grace and peace.” Concerning all the above examples of possible biblical influence on

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41

the Armenian text of 3 Cor, one should add the fact that biblical quotations used in 3 Cor could have been corrected by a later scribe. A scribe copying or translating the text, for example, could have very easily modified its biblical quotations based on his version of the Bible. Thj^s, assuming that a Syrian scribe was copying 3 Cor from Greek to Syriac, it is quite possible that he might have corrected the biblical quotations in the original document based on the official version of the biblical text known to him. We conclude, therefore, that Vetter’s argument for a Syriac origin of the Armenian version of 3 Cor is unconvincing. Next, Vetter argues for a Syriac origin of the two Latin manuscripts of 3 Cor known to him. In examining the Latin manuscript M, Vetter focuses on the Latin phrase omnia tenens to support his hypothesis. Not having seen a Greek text of 3 Cor, he correctly assumes that the word must be a translation of the Greek navTOKportop.25 Vetter states that the Latin word typically used to translate the Greek navTOKpcrroip is omnipotens and not the phrase omnia tenens found in 3 Cor. The Syriac word, on the other hand, used frequently to translate navTOKpcrrwp means “all possessing” or “all holding” which is what the Latin phrase used in 3 Cor means. Vetter concludes, therefore, that the scribe of M must have been translating from a Syriac text and not Greek. Interestingly enough, Vetter himself notices that the scribe in another verse, namely 3 Cor 2:12, does use the Latin omnipotens for the Greek word TravTOKpaTcop. Thus, he must have known omnipotens to be a Latin translation of navTOKpcfrajp. One cannot assume, therefore, that using the phrase omnia tenens is a definite indication that the scribe was translating from a Syriac and not a Greek text. This in addition to the fact that the Greek word navTOKpcrrojp, etymologically speaking, does mean “all-possessing” or “all-holding” which is the meaning rendered by the Latin phrase omnia tenens in M. Furthermore, omnia tenens is found in Latin versions of early Christian documents translating the Greek ttcxvt oKpcxTuip .26 In discussing the Latin manuscript L, Vetter suggests that L must have been translated by a Greek scribe, or a Greek-speaking Syrian scribe, whose knowledge of Latin was very poor.27 The scribe’s weakness in Latin is reflected in the anomalous sense in which he uses Latin words and in his strange formulations and crude style of writing.28 The existence of non-Latm words is further proof, Vetter adds, that the scribe’s knowledge of Latin was not so great.29 His knowledge of Greek, on the other hand, is evident from his usage of Greek words such as anas t as is used twice instead of the Latin resurrectio.30 At the end of his examination of the various manuscripts of 3 Cor,

42

Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

Vetter concludes that all the manuscripts available to him must have been copied from a Syriac text.31 He adds, however, that this does not necessarily mean that the document was originally written in Syriac. It is possible, Vetter suggests, that a Greek-speaking Syrian scribe had copied the original Greek text of 3 Cor into Latin and corrected the biblical quotations based on the Syriac version of the Bible available to him. This, adds Vetter, was the copy from which the scribes of the E, M, L and Armenian MSS translated their version of 3 Cor. \ Based on his examination of the variations among the texts and contents of the different manuscripts of 3 Cor Vetter concludes that the text of 3 Cor as we have it today is the result of a two-stage editorial process with two different authors. 3 Cor, claims Vetter, is the combination of two original documents.32 The first, he proposes, was the original document written in Greek, which included w. 1-22. Vetter assumes that Greek was the original language of this section based on his discussion regarding the Syriac and Latin translations of the Greek word navTOKpctTojp in v. 9 and the use of the Greek word dvdcrraais instead of the Latin resurrectio for “resurrection” in verses 1:12 and 2:24 of the Latin MSS. At a later time, a Syrian scribe added the second document, i.e. w. 23-40, to the original. Thus, Vetter develops his twodocument and two-author hypothesis. He bases this hypothesis on the following observations. He notices that w. 20-22, “They are themselves therefore children of wrath, for they have the accursed faith of the serpent. From them turn ye away, and flee from their teaching! For ye are not sons of disobedience but of the Church most dearly beloved,” constitute a conclusion to what he considers the original document.33 Thus, vv. 38-40, “Since they are men without God, a generation of vipers; from these turn ye away in the power of the Lord, and peace, be with you. Amen,” stand as a second and repetitive ending to the document.34 Then, he discusses what he calls “differences in style” between the texts of w. 1-22 and w. 23-40.33 These differences in style, Vetter claims, support his argument for two different authors of 3 Cor. He adds that his argument for two different authors is further supported by the variations in content. He claims that the purpose of writing w. 1-22 is to combat two heresies, Docetism and the heresy of Demiurge. This is in complete contrast, according to Vetter, to the contents of w. 23-33, which focus on the theme of the resurrection of the flesh. Vetter elaborates on the subsections of what he suggests to be the second document. He claims that the author of the second section begins his document by citing three biblical examples to develop his theological discussion concerning the theme of resurrection, vv. 23-33. This is followed by an anthology of Pauline canonical

Establishing The Original Text

43

sayings, in vv. 34-37, which was part of the original document. This brings us to the conclusion of the second document which, according to Vetter, is an imitation of the style and the content of the conclusion found at the original document’s ending, i.e. w. 20-22. ^Vetter continues developing his two-document hypothesis as he examines the narrative section of 3 Cor. He agrees with Zahn that the existence of the narrative section between sections II and IV is proof that the document must have been part of an historical narrative about the apostle Paul. He also agrees with Zahn in identifying the historical narrative as a version of the apocryphal Acts of Paul. He adds that the original section of 3 Cor was part of the apocryphal Acts of Paul which included sections II, III and verses 1-22 of section IV, all in Greek. Vetter discusses two possible explanations of the origin of the second document, i.e. w. 23-40. This section, Vetter claims, could have been originally written in Greek. The two documents, i.e. vv. 1-22 and 23-40, according to this explanation, were combined and translated into Syriac by a Syrian scribe. The translated Syriac document became the source used by the scribes of the M and L Tatin manuscripts and the Armenian manuscripts to translate 3 Cor into their native languages. Vetter rejects this hypothesis concerning the language of the second document based on the following: a) at the time of the writing of his article, no Greek manuscript had been found of 3 Cor, and b) nowhere in the canon lists or commentaries of the early Tatin or Greek Churches is there any reference to 3 Cor, despite the many references to the letter to the Taodiceans. The second possible explanation is that w. 23-40 were written in Syriac by a Greek scribe who knew Syriac. This explanation, Vetter suggests, is more plausible. According to this explanation, w. 23-40 were written in Syriac by a Greek scribe whose intention was to create a pseudepigraphic document under the apostle Paul’s name to discuss the theme of the resurrection of the dead. He achieved this by including three examples from the canonical books of the Bible concerning the resurrection. This was further supported by the insertion of a collection of Pauline sayings also from the canonical letters of the apostle. The same scribe who developed the second document also translated the original section from a Greek text of the Acts of Paul and combined the two, creating 3 Cor. The original language of the complete text of 3 Cor, therefore, as we know it today, Vetter concludes, must have been Syriac. This according to Vetter would also help explain the reasons for Greek influence on certain parts of the text of 3 Cor.36 Vetter’s hypothesis concerning the two-document source is equally unconvincing. First of all, we do not see how Vetter finds a conclusion in w. 20-22, “They are themselves therefore children of wrath, for they

44

Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

have the accursed faith of the serpent. From them stay ye away, and flee from their teaching. For ye are not sons of disobedience but of the church most dearly beloved.” These verses lack all essential elements of a typical Pauline conclusion. The two verses do not have a greeting formula which is typical of Pauline conclusions. Secondly, w. 20-22 are totally different in content from w. 33-40. Except for the advice, “from these stay away” in v. 39, we do not see any similarity between w. 20-22, and vv. 38-40. Thirdly, to assume that the change in topics, from addressing heretical teachings to discussing the resurrection of the dead is an indication of a change in authors, or sources, is absolutely implausible. After all, we are informed by the letter of the Corinthians to Paul that the resurrection of the flesh was one of the main doctrines targeted by the heretics, for which the Corinthians were seeking the apostle’s enlightening advice and teachings. To write a response to the Corinthians’ letter without including a discussion of the theme of the resurrection of the dead makes no sense. In addition to all of the above, Vetter’s two-document hypothesis is not supported by any manuscript evidence. In fact, the discovery of new manuscripts of 3 Cor, since the publication of Vetter’s article, further supports the inclusion of both of these sections in the original text of 3 Cor. Consequently, Vetter’s twodocument hypothesis should be completely rejected. With that, Vetter’s argument for a Syriac origin to 3 Cor is rejected as well. The discovery of the Coptic Heidelberg Papyrus of the Acts of Paul, which includes 3 Cor, created a new interest among scholars to investigate the origin of 3 Cor. Carl Schmidt, who published the Coptic text of 3 Cor, was convinced that the original text of 3 Cor was composed in Greek. The Coptic text of 3 Cor in PHeid had preserved many Greek words, such as uovqpos, yap, aTToaToAoi, arreppa, TTveupa, Koapos, aap

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APPENDIX II: THE GREEK TEXT OF 3 COR IN THE PBODM X —T-----

The Greek Text of 3 Cor in the PBodm X

1.

[N]# KOPIN0EIOI nPOI OAYAON XTEOANAX KAI XYN AYTO OPEXBYTEPOI AAONOX KAI EYBOYAOX KAI OEOOIAOX KAI HENON nAYAQ TO EN KO XEPEIN.

2.

nAPArETONASIN EIX KOyPIN0ON ANTAPEX AYO XIMON TI* KAI KAEO BIOX OITINEX THN TINON niXTIN ANATPEnOYXIN O0OPEIMEOIX

3. 4.

AOrOIX. OYX XOI AOKEIMAXON. OY TAP XOY HKOYXAMEN nOTE TOIOY TOYX AOTOYX OYAE TON AAAON.

5. 6.

AAAA TA ITAPEAABAMEN nAPA ^XOY KAKEINON THPOYMEN. OX OYN

7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

O KX HAEHXEN HMAX ONAYTOX ETI EN XAPKEI XOY INA nAPA XOY nAAIN AKOYXOMEN. H AYTOX nAPATENOY. niXTEYOMEN TAP OX AnEKAAYOOH OEONOH OTI EPYXTE XE KX EK XEI POX ANOMOY H ANTITPATON HMI [NA] EXTI TAP A AETOYXIN KAI AIAAXKOY XIN TOIAYTA. OY AEIN OHXIN OPO OHTEX XPHXOAI. OYA EINAI ON nANTOKPATOPA. OYAE ANAXTAXI EINAI XAPKOX. OYA EINAI THN nAA XIN THN TON ANnN TOY OY. OYA

* The Greek letter between brackets refers to the page number as found in the Pbodm X.

148

Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

APKA HA0EN O KX OYA OTI NAI EK MAPIAX ETENNHOH. OYA El TON KOXMON 0Y AAAA ATTEAHN. AIO AAEAOE nAXAN EIXHTHXE EnOY AHN nAPArENEXOAI EN0AAE OnOX AXKANAAAIXTOX MEINH H KOPINOON EKAHXEIA KAI TOY TON H ANOIA EKAHAOX TENHTAI EPPOXO EN KO F1AYAOX KOPINOEIOIX E1EPEI XAPKOX

0T1 Ell

15. 16.

1.

EIAYAOX O AEXMEIOX XPY IHY TOIX [NB]

2. 3.

4.

5.

6.

EN KOPINOQ AAEAOOIX EN nOAAOIX ON AXTOXHMAXI XAIPEIN. OY OAYMA ZQ H OYTOX TAXEOX TA TOY nONH POY nPOTPEXEI AOrMATA. OTI O KX XPX EIX TAXEIAN ITOIHXHTAI THNEA EYXI AOETOYMENOX ATI [[A]] TON TIAPAXAPA XONTON TA AOrEIA AYTOY. EEQ TAP EN APXH nAPEAOKA YMIN A KAI TIAPE AABON YIIO TON nPO EMOY AnOXTO AON TENOMENON TON nANTA XPONON META IHY XPY. OTI O KX HMD XPX IHX EK MAPEIAX ETENNHOH EK XTIEPMATOX AAYIA nNX ArEIOY AOO OYPANAOY nAPA toy npx Anox TAAENTOX EIX AYTHN. EINA EIX KOXMON TIPOEAOH KAI EAEYOEPQ XH nAXAN XAPKA AIA THX IAIAX XAPKOX KAI EINA EK NEKPON HMAX [NH ETEIPH XAPKEIKOYX OX EAYTON TY

7.

nON EN TYnON EAEISE. KAI OTI O ANnX Yno TOY OPX AYTOY EnAAXOH.

8.

AIO KAI AnOAAOIMENOX EZHTHOH I

Appendix II: The Greek Text 0/3 Cor In The Pbodm X NA ZOOnOIHOH AEIA THI YIO0EIIAI. 9.

EEIEI TAP O 01 O TON OAON O ElANTO KPATOP O YIOIHIAI TON OYPANON KAI TH X

THN AEIEITEIAE EIPOTOII IOYAEOII nPOOHTAI Eli TO AOO TON AMAPTIO

10.

AnOITIAIOHNAT EBOYAETO TAP TON OIKON IIPA IOIAI MEPEIIAI OYN AFIO TOY riNI TOY XPY EF1EMIEN Eli TOYI nPOOHTAI OITEINEI THN AnAANH 0EOIEBIAN EKHPYIION XPONOII

11.

nOAAOII. 0EAON EINA1 ZEIEXEIP1 ZETO AYTOYI KAI THN EIAIAN IAPKA ANF1N

12.

nPOI HAONHN EAEIMEYEN. O 01 O nANTOKPATOP AIKEOI ON [NA] KAI MH BOYAOMENOI AKYPOIAI TO IAION

13.

ITAAIMA. KATEnEMIE EINA AIA nYPOI"

15.

Eli MAPEIAN THN TAAEIAEAN. IN A AI HI IAPKOI AIIOAAYMENHI ENEFIOAEI TEYETO O nONHPOI AIA TAYTHI NIKH

16.

0EII EAET’XOHTO MH ON 01. TO TAP IAIO IOMATI XPI IHI ITAIAN EIOIE

17.

IAPKA. INA AIKEOIYNHI NAON EN TO

18.

IAEIO IOMATI ANAAEIHH. EN O HMEII

19.

HAEY0EPOME0A. OYK EIIIN OYN TE KNA AIKEOIYNHI AAAA TEKNA OPEHI OITEINEI THN 0Y TIPONOIAN ANAKO nTOYIEIN AErONTEI MH EINAI TON OYPANON KAI THN THN KAI EIANTA TA

20.

EN AYTOII TOY nPI EPrA. KATHPAME NHN TAP TOY OOEOI nilTIN EXOYII.

21.

OYITINAI ATIOTPEITEIOE KAI AnO THI AIAAIKAAEIAI AYTON ATlO+

** Verse 14 is missing in the Greek text of Pbodm X. + Verses 22 and 23 are missing in the Greek text of Pbodm X.

149

150

24.

25. 26.

27.

28.

Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy

OEYrETE. 01 AE YMIN AETOYXIN [NE] ANAXTAXIX OYK EXTIN XAPKOX EKEI NOIX OYK EXTIN ANAXTAXEIX. OITINEX TON OYTOX ANAXTANTA AnEIXTOYXI. OY TE TAP ANAPEX KOPIN0EIOI OIAAXEI TON ETIEI TOY TIYPOY XnOPON H TON AAAON XnEPMATON OTI TYMNA BAA AETE EIX THN THN KAI XYNO0APENTA KATO HrEP0H EN 0EAHMATI 0Y EN XQ MA KAI HMOIEXMENA. OXTE OY MONON TO XOMA ETEIPETE TO BAH0EN AAAA * nOAAOXTON OP0ON HYAOrHMENON. E]I AE AEI HMAX KAI AnO TON XITEPMA T]ON MH nOIEI1 0AI THN nAPABOAHN.

29.

OI]AATE OTI IONAX O AMA0IOY YIOX INA] EIX NEINEOYH MH KHPYSH EIX KH

30.

TOX] KATAITEnOTE. KAI META Tpf HMEPAX K]AI TPIX NYKTAX EK TOY KATOTATOY A]AOY ETIHKOYXEN O ©X nPOXEYXOME NOY IONA KAI OYAEN AYTOY AIEOOAPH [NH]

31.

OYTE EPS’ OYTE BAEOAPON. nOXO MAAAON YMAX OAEirOITEIXTOI TOYX EIEIXTEYXANTAX EIX XPN IHN ESE

32.

TEIPEI OX AYTOX HrEPOH. El KAI TA EAEIXAIOY OXTA TOY nPOOHTOY NEKPOY BAHOENTOX AnO TON YIO IXPHA EEI AYTA ANEXTH TO XOMA TOY ANnOY TI KE YMEIX TO XOMA KAI TA OXTA KAI TO TINA XPY EEIEIPEIOEN TEX EN EKEINH TH HMEPA ANAXTH XEXOE EXONTEX YriH THN XAPKA.++

Verse 33 is missing from the Greek text of Pbodm X.

Appendix II: The Greek Text Of 3 Cor In The Pbodm X 34.

[[O]] El AE TI AAAO ITAPAAEXEXOE KOOOYS

35.

MOI MH nAPEXETE. EEO TAP TA AEXMA EIX TAX XEIPAX EXQ EINA XPN KEPAHX[Q

X

KAI TA XTirMATA EN TO XOMATI MOY EINA EA0O EIX THN EK NEKPQN AN [AX

36.

TAXIN. KAI El TIX O ITAPEAABE KANONI AIA TON MAKAPION nPO OHTON KAI TOY AriOY EYAETEAEI[OY

37.

MENEI MIX0ON AEIMT'ETAI. El TIX 1TAPABENEI TAYTA TO UY? EXTI ME T AYTOY

[NZ] . OY]TOX OPOOAYnOP [

]M

38.

A]0EON ANNON. OITINEX TEKNHMA

39.

TA EXEIANQN EIXEIN. OYX AnOTPEnEX

40.

0E EN TH TOY KY AYNAMEI. KAI EXTQ MEO YMON IPHNH

151

APPENDIX III: THE ARMENIAN TEXT OF 3 COR /

mbn# unpbouaMiab un unhpp unuPbULb -nub-nnu® 1.

UuiIu|huCiiui Ul npp pOp Qifui li|i|HjinQp, puipGnu fei pm pnu, ptnijili^nu Ul pnjiQnQ, tun iquiLqnu huijp ifUp Ul

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

iuLlimiupiuQ]i2, Ul huiLuimiupJuf t]mpqunqUin '4 Ppliumnu jliuniu, np^njQ: Upp nifui&p Up4ni UliJiQ '|i 4npUpnu, uJiifnQ uitniQ Ul 4qtnpnu, npp 4npduiQUy]iQ ptU2 pai2 qnifraQy hmLLumu, hpLULynLyoipu, Ul mLquiliLuQUiu^ pmUjiLp: 3npny ptnUJiy 4.Upuij rpu jrQpQJiQ upupmliu huiuuiQUp pji ifUp '4 ptU n2 Upptp inunp piuj&Lq[iu|i puiQu, Ul n2 juijpnyQ umuipUprLy. ntj \ luju2lui|i q4mULfp np 4&2 '4 pUU fnLuip, Ul np J1&2 (1 QnyuiQUQ ipiLuip huiumuimnLU upuhUifp: Puijy jmjuif44 jnjd nqnptfUyuiL mUp, q4 lT]iQ2 qnL \iu\\ LfuiptfCimj pQq ifUp Uu LftiLumUquiif pmJiynLp: Upp' \\m\i qpUui qnL tun iTUq Ul Ipinf

8.

JrQpQliQ qnL mn LfUq L[iLiqi]iuqiii41i U4Uu24p. ifUp hiunxiinLuifp ']i mUp pt npLqtu jLujm&nLp]iL& ynLyua ptnilQUaij, Upt 9. 4ip4Uuiy qpUq mt.p 'Ji dUnuiy ui&opJiQtiU: Ul UQ puiQp LfnLnpnLpUiuU tqqdnyQ. qnp uiuU&Q Ul nLunLyui&UUQ, 10-11 uijuiqUu. Qt Lqiupm uiuUQ qUmpquiptuQ pQqnLQUp Ul n2 12. ammnuxid uiuUQ aiifUCiailpiq. Ul n2 uiuUQ jmpnLpliLQ 13. ifmpif&ny tfUnUpny. Ul n2 qifuipqQ uiuUQ p&rnL umUqdULLq 14. jmumnLdnj. Ul n2 4 4nxuUQ tfiup4uiiftuj dQUai^ uin&UU 15. yj4unLU Pp4umnu tfiupifQnilQ. Ul n2 qui2luiuphu mpuipuid 16. uinQUQ uiuinnLdnj, uijp hpU2Lnui44 nLpnuIQ: Upq L4njp 17. JLU&64U 4uiL24p humuiQU]^ am LfUq. q4 uinuiQy 18. quijpaiqqnLpUaiQ 4mJ\)t ptuqtupu 4npQptuyLny. Ul Unyui j4LfuipnLp4LQ jaijm jm&q4Uai&nLpULuiIp uiLfUQUynLQ luuijLnamai4Uui^ LfUpdUuy4U: flq2 fUp: 19.

Un4&, maipaiQ qpnLqpU uuqdpxauiqp 4 puiquipQ i44l4ulUyLny pUpUupnnu Ul m4pnu. q4 4PI1kL1x111 qufjU pnLqpU iquiLqnu' ptiqtm Ul 4QpQ 4 4UIU1III^U Up l[uiu&

0 A critical edition of the Armenian text of 3 Cor from the Zohrapian Bible. See Chapter One, n. 1 and our discussion on p. 5. I have expanded all standard abbreviations included in the text.

154

Third Corinthians: Reclaiming Paul For Christian Orthodoxy ummmnQJilitiuij mtqniJin^aiQJi 4&n2, 4ppki- ifnninQai^ Gifui q4mupuGu, hi uni_q uinGmq Qifui ijuiuG puiG4yG qnp [nuui. hi unit iquipnj, lippUL pt tp hpt i]ui1uQuiGIiuil t4 bipGq inbuinG t4, puib pt uiumtG Gmj4b ifuipifGnij, bi_ quijuujJiuli puiGu bi. quiytmu jubif qunun iluipqunqbmnLpti, yji inpinifnLpJiiQ 'Ji m pin ifn imn iphui Q ljbpuij hiauaiQt. uiuurjilp bi. juijipmnj1 mmpmlpiuiuiQuiy ijbpuij IpxiL '4 4unquiGu, bi inhumth^ yrnjy iuytui muipui4nju, um npu pGpuiybuiL uiuinmQiujli hi ifUQpPQmjJiy Qnpui, qnpdb^ hQuip]i yjmqjiu: bi uijuiqtu puiqnuf 2Uip2UipuiGop umGtp upmynu pqpnjG tquimuiuluuiQji:

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^uapnu 4uiiuiGuiuip jJiunLuJi Pp]iumnu|i um hqpuipu

2.

4npQpmyJiu, '4 puiyni_if ijp4uiui4t uiumji ny^njG: bu n24G2 4uip4 quipifuiyhuiL hit hpt uijr^uiiji 4mP4LLIPLU411 pGpuiQuiG hpuuqnjpp 2Uip4G: Ujl q4 mtp jjiuniu ijuirujiupuilji uipmuyt qquynuiinQ }ii_p 4uiuQ uijGnp44 np ljimjmluhG hi uiGuipqbG qhpuufuiQu Qnpui: Uq bu [m4qpuiQt quijQ numi_y4