Thu Apr 25 11:48:33 1996

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Date: Thu, 25 Apr 96 17:47:13 +0100
From: schmiul@uni-muenster.de
Subject: archetype (Corpus Paulinum)
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On Thu, 4 April 1996, Maurice Robinson wrote:

>Remember Tertullian's appeal in his Prescription against 
>Heretics -- you are to go to the various churches to which the >apostles 
>themselves wrote, and from there to assemble the "authenticae >litterae" 
>in order to refute heretical corruption.  The evidence certainly >seems 
>to point to church archives as the basis for the Pauline corpus >rather than 
individuals.

On Thu, 11 Apr 1996, Timothy Finney wrote:

>I am indebted to Maurice for his quote of Tertullian (who was >writing a full 
century after the collection seems to have been >made) which favours the 
multiple model.

In apologetical contexts Tertullian often appeals to "objective" facts which 
could be checked if required. For example in _adverus Marcionem IV 7,7_ he 
refers to the "census Augusti, which the Roman registry still has in keeping 
(Romana archiva custodiunt), a most faithful witness to our Lord's nativity" 
(Evans' translation). Evans comments on that: "There seems to be no 
non-Christian evidence that they (i.e. the census records) were preserved in 
Rome or would be available to inquirers". It is most likely that Tertullian just 
conjectured the existence of such evidence which might be plausible on the 
background of Roman bureaucracy, but nevertheless, he on the other hand knew 
very well, that no one, at least no Christian at his time, could ever go there 
and check the census records. Tertullian in fact does not testify to the 
existence of census records concerning "our Lord's nativity", for he does not 
tell us that he actually was in Rome and checked it himself, nor that he knew 
anybody who did this. He only testifies to the plausibility of an appeal based 
on Roman bureaucracy.

So, Tertullian's appeal to the "authenticae litterae" of the apostles writings 
in various church archieves too seems to be nothing more than conjecture on his 
side based on the plausibility of church bureaucracy. While this is in itself 
not implausible, it is to my mind no real _testimony_ to the existence of the 
autographs in various church archieves at the time of Tertullian. His appeal 
serves the same purpose than his appeal to census records: referring to 
plausible "objective" facts, while knowing that no one would travel to Rome and 
all the other churches in order to verify or falsify his claim. Tertullian 
himself shurely did not what he appealed to. Appeals like that, by the way, seem 
to be part of forensic rhetoric.

Tertullian, though writing _only_ "a full century after the collection seems to 
have been made", displays no first hand knowledge of the "authenticae litterae" 
he is referring to, nor of their existence up to his time. He is just supposing 
as we do some 1800 years later.

Ulrich Schmid, Muenster

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