Abstract
By the middle of the second century, Garroway shows, the original association of the word gospel with Paul had been lost. Gospel had come to refer to the preaching of Jesus, to Christian proclamation in general, and increasingly to narratives about Jesus known as Gospels. Garroway traces the origin of this last phenomenon from Mark through Marcion, demonstrating that Marcion was not, as it is often claimed, the first Christian to call a written narrative about Jesus a Gospel. Both the Didache and the letters of Ignatius use euangelion with reference to such a narrative, probably the written work known to us as the Gospel According to Matthew.
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Notes
- 1.
All passages from the Apostolic Fathers are translated from the Greek text in LCL 24 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003).
- 2.
See above, pp. 46–48.
- 3.
Collins, Mark, 644; Dunn, “How Did Matthew Go About Composing His Gospel,” 45.
- 4.
Helmut Koester, “From the Kerygma-Gospel to Written Gospels,” NTS 35 (1989): 361–81; Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (Philadelphia, PA: Trinity International, 1990), 1–43; Helmut Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung bei den Apostolischen Vätern, Texte und Untersuchungen 65 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1957), 6–12. For a similar view, see Gundry, “EUANGELION: How Soon a Book,” 1–25.
- 5.
See above, pp. 135–38.
- 6.
Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark, 65–67; Martin Hengel, The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Collection and Origin of the Canonical Gospels, trans. John Bowden (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity International, 2000), 48–56.
- 7.
Kelhoffer, “‘How Soon a Book’ Revisited,” 1–34, cited here 5. Moreover, as Kelhoffer observes, “Marcion assumes that euangelion is already intelligible as a designation for Luke. At the very least, Marcion’s assumption bespeaks a common understanding within his own constituency that euangelion refers to a writing” (5).
- 8.
So Hengel, Four Gospels, 32, 56.
- 9.
Among the Apostolic Fathers, the term also appears in 2 Clement , the Martyrdom of Polycarp, and the Epistle to Diognetus . Of these, only 2 Clement has a reasonable claim to being penned in the first half of the second century, much less the first quarter. In this sermon attributed to Clement , a late-first-century bishop of Rome , the anonymous author writes: “For the Lord says in the euangelion, ‘If you do not watch over what is small, who will give you what is great? For I say to you that he who is faithful in the least is also faithful in much’” (2 Clement 8:5). Whereas the latter part of the quotation reproduces Luke 16:10 verbatim, suggesting that “in the euangelion” refers to the third Gospel , the first part resembles Luke 16:12 only very loosely. Accordingly, what “in the euangelion” means is not clear. The author could be referring to an alternate version of Luke; to an unknown collection of sayings (so Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, 18); or to an apocryphal Gospel (so Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung, 99–102; Andreas Lindemann, Die Clemensbriefe, HZNT 17 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992], 224; Wilhelm Pratscher, Der zweite Clemensbrief, Kommentar zu den Apostolischen Vätern 3 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007], 131–32).
- 10.
Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung, 10–11; Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, 16–17. See also Jean-Paul Audet, La Didachè: Instructions des apôtres, Études Bibliques (Paris: Gabalda, 1958), 173–76.
- 11.
Proposing dates before 100 CE are, among others, Hippolyte M. Hemmer, Gabriel Oger, and A. Laurent, Doctrine des apôtres: Épitre de Barnabé, 2nd ed., Textes et documents 5, Les Pères apostoliques 1–2 (Paris: Picard, 1926), xxxv; James A. Kleist, The Didache, The Epistle of Barnabas, The Epistles and the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, The Fragments of Papias, The Epistle to Diognetus, Ancient Christian Writers 6 (Westminster, MD: Newman, 1948), 6; Tashio Aono, Die Entwicklung des paulinischen Gerichtsgedankens bei den apostolischen Vätern, Europäische Hochschulschriften 137 (Bern, Frankfurt, and Las Vegas, NV: Peter Lang, 1979), 207; between 100 and 150 CE, Philipp Vielhauer, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur: Einleitung in das Neue Testament, die Apokryphen und die apostolischen Väter (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1975), 737; Quasten, Patrology, 1:37; Kurt Niederwimmer, The Didache: A Commentary, trans. Linda M. Maloney, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1998), 53; after 150 CE, Robert A. Kraft, Barnabas and the Didache, The Apostolic Fathers; A New Translation and Commentary 3 (New York: Nelson, 1965), 76; Cyril Charles Richardson, The Early Christian Fathers, Library of Christian Classics 1 (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1953), 165.
- 12.
So Niederwimmer (Didache, 136) and the many supporters he lists. See also Jonathan A. Draper, “The Jesus Tradition in the Didache,” in The Didache in Modern Research, ed. Jonathan A. Draper (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 72–91. On the other hand, perhaps the deviations from Matthew result from textual variation, assimilation with Luke’s version, or minor modifications made to the Lord’s Prayer by the Didachist’s community; so Klaus Wengst, Didache (Apostellehre), Barnabasbrief, Zweiter Klemensbrief, Schrift an Diognet: Eingeleitet, herausgegeben, übertragen und erläutert, Schriften des Urchristentums 2 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984), 26–27; Kelhoffer, “‘How Soon a Book’ Revisited,” 17–22.
- 13.
A point emphasized by Wengst, Didache, 25–27; and Kelhoffer, “‘How Soon a Book’ Revisited,” 28.
- 14.
See, e.g., Édouard Massaux, The Influence of the Gospel of Saint Matthew on Christian Literature before Saint Irenaeus, trans. Norman J. Belval and Suzanne Hecht, New Gospel Studies 5.1–3 (Louvain: Peeters; Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1990–93), 3.144–76; Eduard Schweizer, Matthäus und seine Gemeinde, Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 71 (Stuttgart: Stuttgarter Bibelgesellschaft, 1974), 164–65; Clayton N. Jefford, The Sayings of Jesus in the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, Vigiliae Christianae Supplements 11 (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 143; Richardson, Early Christian Fathers, 165; Wengst, Didache, 24–31; Kelhoffer, “‘How Soon a Book’ Revisited,” 1–34.
- 15.
For several proposals within the range of dates, see William R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch, Hermeneia (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, 1985), 5.
- 16.
Harnack, Constitution and Law of the Church, 319.
- 17.
The term used is “archives” (Gk. archeiois), which can also refer to the archives of a city. Here, however, it clearly refers to the ancient archives, or Scriptures, of the Jews. See William R. Schoedel, “Ignatius and the Archives,” Harvard Theological Review 71 (1978): 97–106.
- 18.
Harnack, Constitution and Law of the Church, 316.
- 19.
Annette Yoshiko Reed (“ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ: Orality, Textuality, and the Christian Truth in Irenaeus’ Adversus Haereses,” Vigiliae Christianae 56, no. 1 [2002], 1–46) has examined the dual usage of euangelion specifically in the writings of Irenaeus.
- 20.
On the dependence of Ignatius upon Matthew, see Robert M. Grant, “Scripture and Tradition in St. Ignatius of Antioch,” CBQ 25, no. 3 (1963): 322–35; Christine Trevett, “Approaching Matthew from the Second Century: The Under-Used Ignatian Correspondence,” JSNT 20 (1984): 59–67; Charles T. Brown, The Gospel and Ignatius of Antioch, Studies in Biblical Literature 12 (New York: Peter Lang, 2000), 1–3.
- 21.
W. R. Inge et al., The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, Oxford Society of Historical Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1905), 79; B. H. Streeter, The Primitive Church (London: Macmillan, 1929), 281; Cyril Charles Richardson, The Christianity of St. Ignatius of Antioch (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), 60; G. D. Kilpatrick, The Origins of the Gospel according to St. Matthew (Oxford: Clarendon, 1946), 6; Massaux, Influence of the Gospel of Saint Matthew, 87–91; H. E. W. Turner, The Pattern of Christian Truth: A Study in the Relation between Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Early Church, Bampton Lectures (London: Mowbray, 1954), 242.
- 22.
Schoedel, Ignatius, 263.
- 23.
Schoedel, Ignatius, 222; Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung, 57–59.
- 24.
Grant, “Scripture and Tradition,” 324.
- 25.
Grant (“Scripture and Tradition,” 327) thinks Ignatius knew at least John, as does Martin Hengel, Die Johanneische Frage, WUNT 67 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1993), 68ff. See also Christian Maurer, Ignatius von Antiochen und das Johannesevangelium, Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments 18 (Zürich: Zwingli, 1949). Alternatively, Schoedel (Ignatius, 9) says “of the Synoptic Gospels a strong case can be made only for Matthew as a source for Ignatius.”
- 26.
While Marcion thus marks a late stage in the development of euangelion as a title, he may indeed have played a crucial role in a related development—namely, the canonization of four (and only four) Gospels in proto-Orthodox Christian circles. On this issue, too, the scantiness of the evidence has led to considerable disagreement. Many scholars in the twentieth century followed Zahn and Harnack , who dated the Christian commitment to a fourfold Gospel early in the second century, or John Knox, who considered it a mid-century response to Marcion. Several studies of more recent vintage propose an even later date, arguing that the insistence upon a fourfold Gospel by Irenaeus of Lyon (d. 180) represents the commencement rather than the conclusion of the development. The emergence of the fourfold Gospel, though an interesting subject, will not be addressed here, as this short chapter aims only to show the culmination of the process in which the term euangelion, erstwhile the unique message of the apostle Paul, became a title for narratives describing the ministry of Jesus.
- 27.
Harnack, Constitution and Law of the Church, 327–28.
- 28.
Harnack, Constitution and Law of the Church, 321.
- 29.
Harnack, Constitution and Law of the Church, 324.
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Garroway, J.D. (2018). The Gospel Comes of Age. In: The Beginning of the Gospel. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89996-1_8
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