CHRONICLES OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA AND THE SCRIPTURES Colloquium ...

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Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 88/4 (2012) 555-577. doi: 10.2143/ETL.88.4.2957941
© 2012 by Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses. All rights reserved.
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OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA AND THE SCRIPTURES
Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense 61, July 26-28, 2012
In two successive years, the Leuven Colloquia Biblica were focused on nonca-
nonical writings, namely on New Testament apocrypha in 2011 and Old Testa-
ment pseudepigrapha in 2012. The choice for these writings reflects modern
developments in the scholarly study of Bible and religion. The study of those
noncanonical texts sheds light on the processes with eventually resulted in the
canons of Tenakh, Old Testament, and New Testament. Also, these texts are wit-
nesses to the ongoing reception and interpretation of earlier traditions and writ-
ings in Judaism and Christianity, and their extension and expansion. The vastness
of those noncanonical corpora necessitated a more specific focus of both collo-
quia. Thus, the 2011 Colloquium, presided by Jens Schroeter, was devoted to the
apocryphal gospels within the context of early Christian theology. The 2012 Col-
loquium, on which I report here as its president, focused on the Old Testament
pseudepigrapha and the Scriptures. In the prospectus for the colloquium I indi-
cated that the colloquium should focus not only on the well-known Old Testa-
ment Pseudepigrapha, composed before or around the beginning of our era, which
were collected in the early-twentieth century collections, but also on comparable
texts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and on somewhat later Old Testament
pseudepigrapha. Concretely, I asked contributors to tackle one or more questions
from the following clusters of questions: (1) What is the relation between a spe-
cific Old Testament pseudepigraphon (or group of related pseudepigrapha) and
the scriptures? For example, does the pseudepigraphon use scripture, and, if so,
how? Are we dealing with interpretation of scripture? With extension, or expan-
sion? Are those pseudepigrapha parabiblical works? What is the function of the
work’s pseudepigraphic attribution? More generally: is a specific relation to the
scriptures essential to these pseudepigrapha? (2) How does the phenomenon of
Old Testament Pseudepigrapha relate to the canonical process, both when those
pseudepigrapha were produced, and when they were transmitted, translated, and
collected? What internal and external evidence do we have for a formal or quali-
tative differentiation between pseudepigrapha and scriptures? (3) What was the
function of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha in Christianity? In general, the issues
of the use of and/or allusions to the well-known pseudepigrapha in the New Tes-
tament and Early Christian literature have been dealt with extensively. But what
were the attitudes of early Christians towards Old Testament pseudepigrapha?
And why did Christians compose such pseudepigrapha? What does this tell us of
Christian views on the Hebrew scriptures? In this way, I anticipated as the presi-
dent of the Colloquium that the proposed topic of the CBL 2012 would interact
with several issues that are in the center of current research, namely (a) the rela-
tion of parabiblical (or parascriptural) literature to the biblical texts or scriptures
and the canonical process; (b) the study of the production of texts in Antiquity,
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556 CHRONICLES
and the issues of authorship and pseudepigraphy; (c) the reception and transmis-
sion of texts and traditions alongside the biblical tradition.
In the traditional presidential address which opens the Colloquium, I gave an
overview of the approaches pertaining to the category and corpus of “Old Testa-
ment pseudepigrapha”, and concluded with a series of some present questions
and issues, some of which are already currently discussed with respect to the Old
Testament pseudepigrapha, and some of which I raised for discussion. In the first
section of the presidential addressed I proferred that the large differences between
the first collection of Old Testament pseudepigrapha by Johann Albert Fabricius1,
the early twentieth-century collections edited by Kautzsch2 and Robert Henry
Charles3, the Charlesworth4, and the most recent Bauckham-Davila-Panayotov
edition5, clearly demonstrate that “Old Testament pseudepigrapha” is not an
ontological category, but a heuristic one, and that the concept and category have
developed until the present time. Whereas Fabricius, and again Charlesworth and
Bauckham-Davila-Panayotov have broad criteria for inclusion of texts in this cat-
egory, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century scholarship, culminating in the
Kautzsch and Charles collections, have more narrow criteria with regard to, for
example, date and provenance. In themselves, many of the criteria are problem-
atic. Thus, the meaning of “pseudepigraphy” is semantically ambiguous, and the
concept is problematic because of its pejorative overtone. Modern study of the
different concepts of authorship in both Antiquity and in modern scholarship, has
demonstrated that pseudepigraphy is not a homogeneous cultural or literary phe-
nomenon. Therefore, instead of focusing on historical questions of authenticity
versus inauthenticity, with its theological or ethical implications, we see a move
towards different kinds of literary approaches, which take into account a broader
array of literary devices, such as, for example, the narrative aspect of perspective,
or Foucault’s notion of “author function”6. Other broad developments in scholar-
ship affecting the discussion and study of Old Testament pseudepigrapha are the
changing views on the processes which led to the canon, and new understandings,
in part triggered by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, of the processes of
rewritings of earlier texts and traditions. These developments urge us to explore
the different possible relationships of pseudepigrapha to scriptural texts. In my
overview I also briefly discussed other aspects of possible collections of Old
Testament pseudepigrapha, such as date, provenance, or transmission. One
important caveat is that not only the category of Old Testament pseudepigrapha
is a modern invention, but also the collections of Old Testament pseudepigrapha.
As a result, we consciously, but often unconsciously, draw new connections
1. J.A. FABRICIUS, Codex pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti, Hamburg, Christian
Liebezeit, 1713.
2. E. KAUTZSCH (ed.), Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments,
Tübingen, Mohr [Siebeck], 1900.
3. R.H. CHARLES (ed.), The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in
English. Volume II. Pseudepigrapha, Oxford, Clarendon, 1913.
4. J.H. CHARLESWORTH, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, New York, Doubleday,
1983-1985.
5. R. BAUCKHAM – J. DAVILA – A. PANAYOTOV (eds.), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha:
More Noncanonical Scriptures, vol. 1, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, forthcoming.
6. M. FOUCAULT, What is an Author?, in P. RABINOW (ed.), The Foucault Reader, New
York, Pantheon, 1984, 101-120.
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COLLOQUIUM BIBLICUM LOVANIENSE LXI 557
between texts many of which never existed together at a specific time and place.
It also may entail that we ignore or disrupt existing connections with texts that
once were transmitted together but now are categorized differently and published
separately.
In the second part of the presidential address I briefly sketched that the expan-
sion of our modern concept of Old Testament pseudepigrapha beyond a relatively
small confined group of texts also challenges us to ask broader literary, cultural,
and religionswissenschaftliche questions. One set of questions, which was a
prime focus of the colloquium, concerns the various ways and levels in which
pseudepigrapha relate to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, or, phrased more cau-
tiously, to religious texts considered more or less authoritative. This relates to the
composition of the pseudepigraphic text – how it deals with the text, narratives,
or genres of the scriptures. To what extent does a new text implicitly or explicitly
interpret scripture, or offer an expansion? Broader transcultural questions are: are
there specific cultures, periods, or groups, which are more likely to produce or to
transmit pseudepigrapha than others, and to what extent is this related to the fix-
ity or to the factual importance of canonical books in society? An associated
aspect is to what extent there are clear boundaries, fluid boundaries, or vague
ones, between authoritative or canonical scriptures and other texts like the Old
Testament pseudepigrapha. How do such boundaries work, and what effect do
they have? What internal and external evidence do we have for a formal or qual-
itative differentiation between pseudepigrapha and scriptures? Given the wide
chronological and cultural range of the Old Testament pseudepigrapha, the kinds
of evidence may vary broadly. For the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, the ques-
tion may be posed whether the phenomenon of interpretive rewriting only applies
to the scriptures, or also to other texts which in turn become authoritative.
In addition to these general questions regarding Old Testament pseude-
pigrapha and the scriptures, I mentioned three different issues for discussion at
the colloquium and elsewhere. First, the phenomenon of pseudepigraphy which
is found in some but not all of the Old Testament pseudepigrapha needs an
approach which takes account of different explanations which may vary per text
or per situation. These have to be discussed in full and detail, with a more subtle
approach than one which offers us the two options of deceit versus literary con-
vention. Thus, the conventions of authorship or “author function” are clearly
different in the Greek and Latin speaking cultures, than in the Hebrew and Ara-
maic ones. However, as Stuckenbruck argued on the basis of 1 Enoch 104,10-
11, this does not mean that there was no concern about authenticity and fraud in
those texts7. Second, Najman’s approach of texts, not according to the usual
categorizations, but according to types of discourse, including the aspect of dis-
courses that are linked to their founders of to other figures, includes an alterna-
tive way of approaching pseudepigraphy. Yet, as Najman demonstrated in later
work, the dominant aspect of the discourse of some texts need not be the “author
function” but another feature. Hence, we may have a Mosaic discourse, a
Davidic discourse, or an Ezra discourse – but in other cases the discourse need
not be linked to the presumed first-person author. Third, to what extent do the
7. L.T. STUCKENBRUCK, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, in J.J. COLLINS – D.C. HARLOW
(eds.), The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 2010,
143-162.
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558 CHRONICLES
characteristics of apocryphicity, explored with respect to New Testament apoc-
rypha, also apply to some or many of the Old Testament pseudepigrapha?
A third issue, relating to the concept of Old Testament pseudepigrapha in gen-
eral, is to what extent there is a correspondence between what New Testament
scholars now call the apocryphity of texts, and their textual transmission and
variation. One example is the principal openness of the collection, as well as the
lack of fixity of the text and literary version of apocrypha. This in turn introduces
the larger question about the different kinds of transmission of texts within one
and the same culture. Should the relative fixity of texts like Jubilees and 1 Enoch
in the Ethiopic tradition be attributed to their authoritative status in the Ethiopic
church? And may the larger textual and literary variations of for example the Life
of Adam and Eve be compared to that of many of the Christian apocrypha?
The invited speakers for the main lectures and the seminars all dealt with con-
crete literary texts of samples, to show how specific pseudepigrapha interact or
intersect with scriptures, but they also spread out more general and historical
views. In this report I will only summarize those contributions to a limited extent.
Instead, I will highlight what I think are their specific contributions to the broader
questions and discussions.
James Kugel’s paper “Mastéma est dans les détails: quelques aperçus sur le
Livre des Jubilés”, presented a close reading of few important details in the Book
of Jubilees which primarily indicate how one should understand the book as a
whole, but also shed light on the interpretation of scripture and the production of
texts. Interestingly, only the scholar who pays close attention to the details in the
text will recognize that the ancient authors of Jubilees themselves – that is, for
Kugel, the original author(s) and the later interpolator – were involved in close
reading and exegesis of the scriptures. The three textual details discussed by
Kugel were (1) the title of the work as preserved in the Ethiopic translation and
retroverted by Kugel into Hebrew as ישעמל הדועתלו הרותל םיתעה תוקלחמ רפס
םלועה תונש לכב םהיתועובשב םהילבויל םינשה, “Book of the divisions of times –
according to the Torah and the Testimony – of the events of the years, according
to their jubilees in their weeks throughout all the days of the past”. In juxtaposing
Torah and Testimony, the author apparently claims that everything in his book
that is not found in the Torah, derives from the Testimony, which according to
Isa 8,16 had been bound up. (2) The calendar of Jubilees which consists of twelve
months of thirty days, with one additional day per season, and possibly another
additional day per year. All important events are dated on the first or fifteenth of
the months. Kugel argues that the so-called “interpolator”, who had a different
theological agenda and inserted material into Jubilees, generally with reference to
the heavenly tablets, did not always understand the intentions of the original
author. (3) The varying versions of the name of the תרצע festival after the seven
days of Booths of Jub 32,27-29 in the Latin and Ethiopic text. The Latin renders
the name given by the author, “Retention”, which is a midrashic explanation of
תרצע, whereas the Ethiopic “Addition” reflects the alternative explanation given
by the interpolator. This would suggest that Latin and Ethiopic go back to two
different Hebrew texts. These three examples demonstrate the ongoing exegetical
activities of the author and the interpolator, which are authorised by appealing to
the Testimony by the author, and by referring to the heavenly tablets by the inter-
polator. In sum then, the contribution of Kugel to the overall topic of the collo-
quium is that he demonstrates that Jubilees is on all levels exegesis of scripture.
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COLLOQUIUM BIBLICUM LOVANIENSE LXI 559
In her paper “Reading Practices in 4 Ezra”, Hindy Najman too looked at both
modern scholarly and ancient readings. She called attention to our own presup-
positions when we read a text like 4 Ezra. The classification “pseudepigraphic”
prejudges a work as fictive and as duplicitous. But she also points out that three
prisms through which 4 Ezra has been analyzed recently have been profoundly
shaped by contemporary assumptions. This holds true for readings informed by
abnormal psychology (such as Michael Stone’s), by proto-Rabbinic Judaism, or
by Pauline Christianity. Secondly, Najman discussed various aspects of reading
practices within 4 Ezra, and underlines that the imagined context of 4 Ezra is one
in which there are no authoritative texts (4,23). Within 4 Ezra, the figure of Ezra
does not read texts, but is taught how to read visions: it is the angelic explanation
of visions which interprets earlier texts. A third level of reading practices oper-
ates on the strategy of the work. Typical of 4 Ezra is the invocation and rereading
of figures known from the Hebrew Bible for the figuration of 4 Ezra’s protago-
nist. Examples are the revelation at Sinai to Moses, and the re-giving of the law
from Nehemiah 8. In different ways, the figure of Ezra in 4 Ezra is that of a
writer (like Moses, or Baruch), a prophet (like Moses, or Ezekiel), and like an
angel (like Uriel in the Syriac text of the seventh vision). Rather than a strategy
of forgery or pseudepigraphy, this use and fusing together of the figures of Ezra
and Moses is an extension and expansion of those biblical figures on the basis of
reading.
John Collins, “Sibylline Discourse”, seeks to describe in detail different aspects
of the function which pseudepigraphy had in the Jewish Sibylline Oracles, based
on the assumption that pseudepigraphy had many uses in the ancient world. From
his fine overview I select only a few quotations. The Jewish authors are ambiva-
lent about the pagan character of the Sibyl. She is the prophetess revered by Gen-
tiles, but they do not know that she is in reality “a prophetess of the great God”
and the daughter-in-law of Noah. Just as Plato had supposedly borrowed from
Moses, so Greek prophecy was indebted to a figure rooted in biblical, if admit-
tedly pre-Israelite, tradition. Her prophecy does not derive from Apollo, but from
the true God. The early Jewish Sibylline oracles in Book 3 differ in their lengthier
discourse from pagan oracles, but are also different from contemporary apocalypes
in lacking a specific apocalyptic worldview. Rather, the discourse of the Sibyl is
closer to that of the classical prophets. Clearly Jewish elements in the work indi-
cate that Book 3 was intended primarily for Jewish readers. The appeal of the
Sibyl for a Jewish author was that she was the pre-eminent prophetic voice in the
Hellenistic world. She provided license for the sharp rebukes of Hellenistic mores,
while she still, in theory, commanded the respect of the pagan world. This kind of
ambivalence towards the dominant culture is a common feature of colonial socie-
ties, as post-colonial theorists have emphasized in recent years. On the one hand,
there is a measure of resentment, and even anger towards the dominant culture. On
the other hand, that culture is internalized so that even those who are critical of it
seek approval by its standards. Collins finally raises the question of forgery and
literary convention and concludes that the author of the Third Sibyl constructed a
new persona for the Sibyl: while the psychology of pseudonymous writing remains
obscure to us, these Jewish authors were not honoring a founder, or modestly
attributing their work to a teacher. Their work can reasonably be described as
forgery, with an intent to deceive, however noble one deems their intent of boost-
ing Jewish self-esteem in a Gentile environment.
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In her paper “Hebrew Pseudepigrapha at Qumran”, Devorah Dimant describes
the manner in which two so-called pseudepigrapha or parabiblical texts which
were found in fragmentary form in Qumran Cave 4, namely Peudo-Ezekiel and
the Apocryphon of Jeremiah C, relate to the biblical prophetic books of Ezekiel
and Jeremiah. With respect to Pseudo-Ezekiel she argues that the organizing prin-
ciple of the text is not the sequence of the biblical model, but topical associations.
Unlike Pseudo-Ezekiel, the other parabiblical prophetic text is organized accord-
ing to narrative, first that of a short narrative framework presenting the seer in
specific circumstances; second that of a coherent and significant narrative revela-
tion of history. Thus, rather than simply labeling these works as rewritten or para-
biblical (or even pseudepigraphic), one should recognize two modes of adapting
prophetic texts by the literature composed in Hebrew during the Second Temple
Period. One closely reworks prophetic discourses through thematic clusters, while
the other freely draws on various biblical themes to create new apocalypses.
Florentino García Martínez systematically discussed the relationships with
scripture in the (pseudepigraphic) Aramaic texts found at Qumran. Thus, the texts
related to Genesis are of three kinds: (1) those that closely follow the text of
Genesis and hence are a witness to the authority of scripture; (2) those that depend
on the narrative framework of Genesis, but also include in this framework other
materials or traditions that are not found in Genesis; (3) those that adapt figures
from Genesis which become protagonists of new texts. These three types are all
found in the Genesis Apocryphon, but the most interesting feature from the first
part of the work is that it depends both on Genesis and on the books of Enoch,
and that it explicitly refers to the books of Noah. Likewise, also other Aramaic
parabiblical texts or pseudepigrapha from Qumran evidence both knowledge of
those texts that we refer to as Scriptures, and of other texts which they explicitly
reference. García Martínez also discusses the books of Enoch, the Aramaic Levi
Document, and the Visions of Amram. In all those texts, though in different ways,
we find references to other sources of revelation or authority, which clearly serve
to authorize those texts themselves, but also to increase the authority of their fic-
tive authors, who are presented as the founders of the sacerdotal groups which
apparently authored those texts. In all these cases, there is no conceptual dichot-
omy of pseudepigrapha and scriptures. Rather new texts refer to older scriptures,
and achieve the authority through which they too become scriptures.
Liv Lied, “Die syrische Baruchapokalypse und die Schriften – die syrische
Baruchapokalypse als Schrift”, problematized the relationship between Old Tes-
tament pseudepigrapha and the Scriptures by adducing evidence that at least at
some periods and in some circles in Syria 2 Baruch belonged to the (Old Testa-
ment) scriptures. Thus, 2 Baruch is included in the Codex Ambrosianus together
with the other Old Testament canonical and apocryphal books. Secondly, parts of
2 Baruch are included in three mediaeval syriac lectionaries (from the 13th and
15th century) as part of scriptural readings for Easter Sunday. The inclusion of
part of 2 Baruch in such lectionaries (lectionary 1213 introduces: “from Baruch,
the prophet”) strongly suggests that it was viewed as an Old Testament book. A
third occurrence is the mention of “[…] the name of Baruch from the Apocalypse
of […]” on an amulet for Xvarr-Veh-Zad, which again may indicate the scrip-
tural status of the figure of Baruch and his apocalypse. Nonetheless, other Syriac
evidence indicates that Second Baruch was neither an important nor a well-known
text, which leaves us with the interesting phenomenon of a text which, within one
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COLLOQUIUM BIBLICUM LOVANIENSE LXI 561
and the same culture, once in a while was regarded as scriptural. The manuscript
evidence (but not the amulet) suggests that the text may have been regarded
scriptural in monastic circles.
Christfried Böttrich, “Die apokryphe ‘Geschichte Melchisedeks’ (HistMelch) als
Teil der jüdisch-christlichen Melchisedektradition” problematizes the concept of
Old Testament pseudepigrapha by examining methodologically the History of
Melchizedek from different perspectives, with the aim to locate more precisely the
text within the Jewish-Christian trajectory of Melchizedek traditions. The paper
serves first of all as an exemplary paradigm of how to study texts not in isolation,
but step by step as part of larger complexes of Jewish and Christian traditions that
run from Early Judaism even up to the High Middle Ages. In the specific case of
the History of Melchizedek, Böttrich in the end compares the kernel of the tradition
found in the text, and especially its theological concern (“How can a Canaanite
person be priest of the Most High God?”) with the Melchizedek traditions found in
Philo and in Rabbinic traditions, even though the text in its present forms displays
attempts to link it to the letter to the Hebrews and is found in Christian contexts.
In the last general invited lecture, Françoise Mirguet, “Les possibilités littérai-
res de la pseudépigraphie. Discours émotionnels alternatifs et usage de l’écriture
dans le Testament d’Abraham” gave a subtle literary interpretation of pseudepig-
raphy in the Testament of Abraham, based first of all on a literary reading of
ambiguous discourses in the text. Mirguet suggested that the Testament consti-
tutes rather a pastiche or “parody” of the genre “testament” which constitutes
both irony and a metaphor. The pseudepigraphy in the Testament indeed under-
lines the authority of Abraham which anchors the text in the scriptural tradition,
but it also subverts the traditional world and its discourse on death. Pseudepigra-
phy only applies in a metaphorical and playful way, which includes aesthetic
pleasures. It thus seems to be influenced by the use of pseudepigraphy as a liter-
ary technique in hellenistic philosophical and religious works. By reshaping
scriptures, claiming the fictional authority of Abraham in an ironic and meta-
phorical way, the Testament plays with genres and literary conventions, forms a
bridge between past and present, and navigates between cultural worlds.
As usual, the four seminars all discussed in depth specific texts from the per-
spective of the focus of the Colloquium. In the French seminar, Thierry Legrand
discussed the relation of Wisdom of Solomon 10 to Genesis. Three examples show
that the author actually discusses the open spaces in Genesis, and that the author
knew many different sources (the Septuagint, Philo, part of Enoch), but that he
used and reworked them all for his own theological purpose. This example well
illustrates one of the characteristics of many pseudepigrapha, namely the rewriting
of multiple earlier traditions, but without any of these texts determining the word-
ing of the new text. In a different way, this was also the point of the Dutch seminar
of Johannes Tromp on Genesis 3 and the Life of Adam and Eve. In his discussion
of the Life of Adam and Eve, he emphasized the textual fluidity: one author or
editor took his predecessor’s work as a point of departure, and reworked it accord-
ing to his own insights and liking, using additional material to him, often from oral
tradition, not being influenced by those texts that we are used to regard as author-
itative, such as the book of Genesis. James Davila discussed extensively in the
English seminar the Latin Vision of Ezra, in comparison and in contrast to 4 Ezra,
and their many uses of scripture. Davila’s long discussion paper, with seven theses
for discussion, is too dense and rich to summarize, but clearly demonstrates that
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562 CHRONICLES
scripture is being used in different ways and for many reasons. Finally, Jan Doch-
horn shared in the German seminar his ongoing research on the different recen-
sions of the History of the Rechabites. This report will not summarize the 16
shorter offered papers which were presented in parallel sessions, many of which
will be included after peer-reviewing in the proceedings of the Colloquium.
One of the important results of the Colloquium was the encounter between
scholars working on older Old Testament pseudepigrapha and those working on
later ones – scholars who are often engaged in different discourses. An overall
observation was that the literary use of pseudepigraphy as well as the use of scrip-
ture in pseudepigrapha was much more varied than expected. It suffices to refer
to the Sibylline Oracles, 4 Ezra, and the Testament of Abraham, as discussed by
Collins, Najman, and Mirguet. Hence, one should consider whether models which
explain one case may also elucidate the next one. Another outcome was that many
of those pseudepigrapha do not simply quote and rework scriptures as authorita-
tive texts, but treat them much more freely or in a loose way. The collection of
Old Testament pseudepigrapha is too variegated to allow for common explana-
tions. At the same time, it was broadly felt that the many different insights on Old
Testament pseudepigrapha enriched our understanding of the collection.
From the final discussion I select a few observations and points of discussion.
Michael Knibb observed, with regard to the overall question of the relation
between Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the scriptures, that we should actu-
ally pose two questions: (1) what does the use of scripture say about the texts
themselves in which they are quoted? (2) what does it say about the texts that are
quoted? John Collins problematized this observation by referring to the pagan
pseudepigrapha. Joseph Verheyden expanded on an issue which had been raised
repeatedly during the Colloquium, namely the comparison with New Testament
Apocrypha: (1) rather than speaking of New Testament Apocrypha one now
tends to refer to Ancient Christian apocrypha; (2) we should understand the term
“apocrypha” in the sense of “apokryph gewordene Texte”; (3) scholars of Early
Christianity have given up the notion of pseudepigrapha since except for some
Pauline letters all early Christian texts are pseudepigrapha. John Collins pleaded
to abandon the term pseudepigrapha as a category and use instead apocrypha. Jan
Dochhorn emphasized the need to distinguish between different kinds of author
constructions, and pleaded for a list of real pseudepigraphs. Hindy Najman under-
lined that we need to distinguish clearly between the phenomenon of rewritten
Bible and the perspective of attribution. With respect to the use of the pseude-
pigrapha, Liv Lied asked attention for the use of texts in liturgy, since liturgy
creates authoritative scriptures. Florentino García Martínez specified that one
should try to research who copied which texts and why.
At the end of this report, I turn back to the conclusion of my own presidential
address, and to the cautions made by several participants, such as, among others,
Liv Lied and Christfried Böttrich, namely not to read the collections of Old Tes-
tament pseudepigrapha as a discrete collection, but to place individual texts from
that collection in broader matrixes.
Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies E. TIGCHELAAR
Charles Deberiotstraat 26 box 3101
3000 Leuven
Belgium
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BELGIUM 563
BELGIUM
INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP FLORILEGIA FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE RENAISSANCE:
THE CONSTRUCTION OF AUTHORITY, KU LEUVEN, 1-2 DECEMBER 2011 — On 1-2
December 2011, the Leuven Centre for the Study of the Transmission of Texts
and Ideas in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (LECTIO) and the
Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (IMRS) of the KU Leuven organ-
ized an international workshop in Leuven on the topic of “Florilegia from Antiq-
uity to the Renaissance: The Construction of Authority”.
The conference brought together scholars from European and other research
institutions (experts as well as younger researchers) to study the constants and
evolutions of the creation, function, readership and context of a large range of
florilegia (anthologies), with the issue of authority as a shared focal point. Nine-
teen researchers from various disciplines (philology, history, codicology, philoso-
phy, literary studies, etc.) presented papers on topics and texts that span a broad
period of time (from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance) and that hail from East-
ern and Western Europe.
Out of a total of seven sessions, one was reserved for early-stage researchers:
doctoral students and young postdoctoral fellows who either are working on a dis-
sertation at the KU Leuven or have recently completed their doctorate in Leuven
and now continue their work in Belgium or elsewhere in Europe. In this session,
seven papers were presented on Greek (E. DE RIDDER/K. LEVRIE; I. DE VOS; U.
KENENS; E. GIELEN) and Latin (S. BOODTS; M. CRAB; E. DE BOM) writings of
various natures, spanning a period from the 3rd (Ps.-Apollodorus) to the 16th/17th
century CE (Valerius Maximus Christianus and Justus Lipsius). They illustrate the
number of research projects at the KU Leuven that are being carried out at present
or have been recently completed, and that bear on the topic of florilegia. During
this session, G. MOST (Firenze/Pisa/Chicago) acted as a respondent.
In the course of the conference, the problematic nature of the notion of “flori-
legium” was underscored several times. By looking into various types of compi-
lation literature, such as that of distinctiones (S. DELMAS, Paris) or compilations
of scientific (J.-B. GUILLAUMIN, Paris) and moral (I. DRAELANTS, Nancy) nature
and by projecting genre-related questions upon those writings, various presenting
scholars highlighted the compilation aspect of the writings in question, yet they
did not always feel comfortable in characterizing them as a florilegium. These
presentations revealed the importance of para-textual elements such as the pro-
logues and titles of such writings, yet at the same time they also served as a warn-
ing against using them too uncritically since they are not always reliable. Even if
a title, for example, uses terminology related to flos and flores in combination
with a prologue that explicitly describes the work as being compiled on the basis
of previous ones (as in the case of the 13th-century Latin Summa de abstinentia
by the French author Nicolas of Biard), this does not necessarily allow one to
describe it as a florilegium.
Next to those papers on Latin compilations, other ones were delivered, mainly
(but not exclusively) with regard to Greek writings, in which the presenters
focused more on the notion of authority rather than on the question as to which
specific type or genre of (compilation) literature they were dealing with. S. MOR-
LET (Paris) investigated the role of citations of earlier authors in Eusebius of
Caesarea’s (3rd-4th century) Against Marcellus and the authority he ascribed to
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564 CHRONICLES
those authors by using the term “Fathers of the Church”. L. BOSSINA (Padova)
tackled an exegetical corpus of compilation literature that has its own character-
istics: the “catenae” or exegetical chains. On the basis of the so-called “Trium
Patrum catena” on the Song of Songs, he launched the challenging thesis that the
catenae construct authority insofar as they kill authorship (“Die Katene bildet die
Autorität, indem sie die Autorschaft vernichtet”). B. FLUSIN (Paris) looked into
titles of writings that are attributed to the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Por-
phyrogenêtos (10th c.), who is known to have stimulated (as a Maecenas) and
created (as an author) Greek compilations of various natures. J. MANSFELD
(Utrecht) looked into fragments and echoes of Aristotle in the Aëtian Placita. In
doing so, he investigated the role and function Aristotle played in this work, as
well as the anthological character of the Placita and what this means for its
authority.
The question of authority in compilation literature of various natures was also
studied with regard to Latin writers. On the level of canonical legal literature,
L. WAELKENS (Leuven) turned to the Decretum Gratiani (1134), identified its
sources and showed the importance of paying attention to the question of which
sources are (remarkably) absent and what this means for the writing’s claim of
authority. A. ROBIGLIO (Leuven) showed how the canonization of Thomas Aqui-
nas immediately spawned pseudepigraphic writings as well as compilations of his
work.
All of those papers, including those that focused more on the notion of author-
ity in (compilation) literature and less on the definition of a “florilegium”, were
supplemented by an opening and a concluding lecture in which valuable observa-
tions were made with regard to the question of the difference between florilegia
and other forms of compilation literature. J. HAMESSE (Louvain-la-Neuve) opened
the debate by discussing general characteristics pertaining to florilegia and by
offering examples from the domain of scholastic Aristotelian florilegia. She
touched upon the differences between a “florilegium” and a “summa” and
observed that in the course of time, the term auctoritates occurs more and more,
to the disadvantage of terminology related to flores. This last topic, namely that
of the terminology used in prologues and titles of Latin compilation literature,
was treated in a more extensive fashion by Th. FALMAGNE (Frankfurt). In his
closing lecture, he gave a truly impressive overview of terminology that occurs in
manuscripts up to the middle of the 13th century. He cited numerous examples
showing the recurring presence (with variation) of the metaphor of flowers in
several prologues as well as the wide array of terms used by the author to char-
acterize his compilation activity (percurrere libros, excipere, etc.). Undoubtedly,
this presentation was one of the conference highlights. The colloquium was
closed by P. SCHREINER (Köln) who surveyed some of the insights that were
reached through the various papers.
Extensive discussions in between the papers demonstrated the symposium’s
cross-pollination: scholars from different fields and treating different topics intro-
duced particular views, insights, methods, … to the study of the thorny issues of
compilation literature and authority. This approach offered a valuable contribu-
tion to scholarly research on a complex literary genre such as that of florilegia.
Building upon this observation, the organizers of the 2011 conference announced
that in 2012, another LECTIO conference will be held. Its subject will be that of
Pseudepigrapha and Authority. In this way, the 2011 conference will be the first
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