Quoting Before Canon: The Various Forms of Authority Attributed to the Epistle to the Hebrews in the Second and Third Century
-
David Young
Abstract
The scriptural citations of early Christian theologians have often been enlisted in scholarly reconstructions concerning the development of the canon. The underlying assumption in many such reconstructions appears to have been that the frequent quotation of a writing indicates a corresponding level of authority for that writing. More recent scholarship has challenged this assumption by drawing attention to the specific rhetorical contexts in which scriptural quotations are employed. The current work contributes to this trajectory of research and the field of reception history more generally by considering citations of the Epistle to the Hebrews among the second- and third-century Christian writers who utilize the epistle most frequently, namely, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Clement, and Origen. The utilization of the Epistle to the Hebrews by these authors bears much greater resemblance, I argue, to the compositional and citational practices of their Greek predecessors than to the canon lists created by Christian theologians in the fourth century and beyond. The evaluation of these citations within the framework of later debates about canon, therefore, serves to flatten the diversity of approaches evident among the citations of Hebrews prior to the fourth century. Careful examination of citations from the Epistle to the Hebrews in the second and third centuries reveals that the various ways in which the document was quoted were frequently determined by the immediate rhetorical context in which those quotations were employed rather than by debates about the epistle’s authority.
References
Albl, M. C. 1999. And Scripture Cannot Be Broken: The Form and Function of the Early Christian Testimonia Collections. Supplements to Novum Testamentum, Vol. 96. Boston: Brill.10.1163/9789004267466Search in Google Scholar
Allert, C. D. 2002. Revelation, Truth, Canon, and Interpretation: Studies in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 64. Boston: Brill.10.1163/9789004313293Search in Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1926. Rhetoric, trans. J. H. Freese, Loeb Classical Library (LCL), Vol. 193. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Athenaeus. 2008. The Learned Banqueters, trans. S. Douglas Olson. LCL, Vol. 224. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.10.4159/DLCL.atheneus_grammarian-learned_banqueters.2007Search in Google Scholar
Brakke, D. 1994. “Canon Formation and Social Conflict in Fourth-Century Egypt: Athanasius of Alexandria’s Thirty-Ninth ‘Festal Letter’.” The Harvard Theological Review 87 (4): 395–419, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0017816000030200.Search in Google Scholar
Clement of Alexandria. 1919. Protepticus, trans. G. W. Butterworth. LCL, Vol. 92. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Clement of Alexandria. 1991. Stromateis, trans. John Ferguson. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.Search in Google Scholar
Cosgrove, C. H. 1982. “Justin Martyr and the Emerging Canon.” Vigiliae Christianae 36: 209–32, https://doi.org/10.2307/1583381.Search in Google Scholar
Dawson, D. 1992. Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria. Berkeley: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520910386Search in Google Scholar
De Boer, E. A. 2014. “Tertullian on ‘Barnabas’ Letter to the Hebrews’ in De Pudicitia 20.1–5.” Vigiliae Christianae 68 (3): 243–63, https://doi.org/10.1163/15700720-12341168.Search in Google Scholar
Dionysius of Halicarnassus. 1937. Roman Antiquities, trans. Earnest. Cary, LCL, Vol. 319. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.10.4159/DLCL.dionysius_halicarnassus-roman_antiquities.1937Search in Google Scholar
Gamble, H. Y. 1985. The New Testament Canon: Its Making and Meaning. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.Search in Google Scholar
Greer, R. A., and M. M. Mitchell. 2007. Belly-Myther of Endor: Interpretations of 1 Kingdoms 28 in the Early Church. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.Search in Google Scholar
Gurd, S. A. (2011). Work in Progress: Literary Revision as Social Performance in Ancient Rome. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199837519.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Hatch, W. H. P. 1936. “The Position of Hebrews in the Canon of the New Testament.” The Harvard Theological Review 29 (2): 133–51, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0017816000033265.Search in Google Scholar
Heine, R. E. 2010. Origen: Scholarship in the Service of the Church. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Jacob, C. 2000. “Athenaeus the Librarian.” In Athenaeus and His World: Reading Greek Culture in the Roman Empire, edited by D. Braund and J. Wilkins, 85–110. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.Search in Google Scholar
King, K. 2016. “What Is an Author?: Ancient Author Function in the Apocryphon of John and the Apocalypse of John.” In Scribal Practices and Social Structures among Jesus Adherents: Essays in Honour of John S. Kloppenborg, edited by W. E. Arnal, R. S. Ascough, R. A. DerrenbackerJr., and P. A. Harland, 15–42. Leuven: Peeters.Search in Google Scholar
Kovacs, J. L. 2016. “Introduction. Clement as Scriptural Exegete: Overview and History of Research.” In Clement’s Biblical Exegesis, edited by V. Cernuskova, J. L. Kovacs, and J. Platova, 1–37. Boston: Brill.10.1163/9789004331242Search in Google Scholar
Martyr, J. 2003. Dialogue with Trypho, trans. Thomas Falls. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.Search in Google Scholar
Metzger, B. M. 1987. The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Mitchell, M. M. 2012. Paul, the Corinthians, and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Mitchell, M. M. 2006. “Rhetorical Handbooks in Service of Biblical Exegesis: Eustathius of Antioch Takes Origen Back to School.” In The New Testament and Early Christian Literature in Greco-Roman Context: Studies in Honor of David E. Aune, Supplements to Novum Testamentum 122, edited by John Fotopoulos, 340–67. Boston: Brill.Search in Google Scholar
Niehoff, M. 2012. Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004226111Search in Google Scholar
Novenson, M. V. 2015. “The Pauline Epistles in Tertullian’s Bible.” Scottish Journal of Theology 68 (4): 471–83, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0036930615000253.Search in Google Scholar
Origen. 2005. Homilies on Leviticus 1–16, trans. Gary Wayne. Barkley, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.Search in Google Scholar
Paulas, J. 2012. “How to Read Athenaeus’ ‘Diepnosophists.’” The American Journal of Philology 133 (3): 403–39, https://doi.org/10.1353/ajp.2012.0026.Search in Google Scholar
Pliny. 1938. Natural History, trans. H. Rackham, LCL, Vol. 330. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Rothschild, C. 2012. Hebrews as Pseudepigraphon: The History and Significance of the Pauline Attribution of Hebrews. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck.Search in Google Scholar
Seneca. 1925. Epistles, trans. R. M. Gummere, LCL, Vol. 77. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Skarsaune, O. 1987. The Proof from Prophecy: A Study in Justin Martyr’s Proof-Text Tradition: Text-Type, Provenance, Theological Profile. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004266674Search in Google Scholar
Thomas, M. J. 2019. “Origen on Paul’s Authorship of Hebrews.” New Testament Studies 65: 598–609, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0028688519000274.Search in Google Scholar
Tristia, O. 1924. trans. A. L. Wheeler, LCL, Vol. 151. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Van Den Hoek, A. 1996. “Techniques of Quotation in Clement of Alexandria. A View of Ancient Literary Working Methods.” Vigiliae Christianae 50 (3): 223–43, https://doi.org/10.2307/1584076.Search in Google Scholar
Wikramanayake, G. H. 1961. “A Note on the Pisteis in Aristotle’s Rhetoric.” The American Journal of Philology 82 (2): 193–6, https://doi.org/10.2307/292408.Search in Google Scholar
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- The Gendered Body in Verse: Jacob of Serugh and Romanos Melodos on the Woman with a Flow of Blood
- Quoting Before Canon: The Various Forms of Authority Attributed to the Epistle to the Hebrews in the Second and Third Century
- Luke 22:43-44 and the Mormon Jesus: Protestant Past, KJV-Only Present
- Reception of the Lord’s Prayer in Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in Ghana
- On the Banks of Muddy Waters: Ayako Miura’s Soulful Adaptation of the Story of Job
- Viragoes, Spermatophagy, and Racial Degeneration: Cultural Contraventions in Josephine Butler’s Meditations on the Levite’s Woman
- Book Review
- Reinhart Ceulemans and Barbara Crostini: Receptions of the Bible in Byzantium. Texts, Manuscripts, and their Readers
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- The Gendered Body in Verse: Jacob of Serugh and Romanos Melodos on the Woman with a Flow of Blood
- Quoting Before Canon: The Various Forms of Authority Attributed to the Epistle to the Hebrews in the Second and Third Century
- Luke 22:43-44 and the Mormon Jesus: Protestant Past, KJV-Only Present
- Reception of the Lord’s Prayer in Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity in Ghana
- On the Banks of Muddy Waters: Ayako Miura’s Soulful Adaptation of the Story of Job
- Viragoes, Spermatophagy, and Racial Degeneration: Cultural Contraventions in Josephine Butler’s Meditations on the Levite’s Woman
- Book Review
- Reinhart Ceulemans and Barbara Crostini: Receptions of the Bible in Byzantium. Texts, Manuscripts, and their Readers
