Maronite Meditation 76
We have been critiquing the arguments of the late John Ashton in the second edition of his Understanding the Fourth Gospel, so far as they relate to the existence of a so-called Johannine community. This is the second part of that critique.
Last week we dealt with his main arguments, but we must also, in fairness, consider his secondary but related arguments. Ashton insists that, contrary to Richard Bauckham, the Gospels were not readily made available to all Christians, for they were written for communities (or at least St John’s was); thus, Ashton contends that if the Gospels had been available in Ephesus, St Ignatius of Antioch could have collected them when he passed through. Therefore, we may conclude that the Gospels were not available in Ephesus, and are left to surmise that he believes he has established that this proves that they had been written for a community other than Ephesus. That is, the Gospels did not circulate. Further, states Ashton: “… there is no direct quotation from any of the Gospels in his letters, and all his allusions to the Jesus tradition are easily explained by appealing to the oral tradition.” (28)
His second subsidiary argument is that although the four Gospels came to be recognised by all Christians, or at least what he calls “mainstream” Christian churches, so too did the epistles of St Paul, yet, he says: with one exception, they were all written to individual churches. (28)
Let us consider the argument that the Gospels had not circulated to all Christians by the time of St Ignatius of Antioch because he does not directly quote from any of the Gospels, when he could have obtained them in Ephesus and all his allusions “to the Jesus tradition” as he puts it, can be “easily explained by appealing to the oral tradition.”
First of all, there is an obvious logical error here. Richard Bauckham did not ever argue, and one would think he never could have argued, that all Christians actually obtained copies of the Gospels. What he argued was that the Gospels were written for all Christians, meaning that they were within the audience the evangelists had in mind – although that audience was quite possibly larger. That is what the thesis is, it is based on the obvious fact that by the time of St Justin Martyr – who was born about the year 90 – they were treated as the scripture of the whole Church – and the only way to defeat the thesis is to show that they were not written for that purpose. Whether Christians obtained a copy is another matter entirely: how could the evangelist be responsible for that?
St Ignatius wrote his epistles while a prisoner under guard by Roman soldiers, on his way to execution, to a number of churches and to one individual for encouragement and for sundry reasons related to his circumstances (especially in the letter to the Romans), the situation of the Church and the individual churches, and especially to teach them what would conduce to their faith and unity. There is no reason to imagine that as a prisoner he either had any books or could obtain the books he might ask for. As he was being put to death as a witness to Christ, it is quite feasible that he would emphatically not have been allowed to have the Gospels with him. To read Ashton, you would think that he had evidence that St Ignatius was at liberty to stroll into the marketplace at Ephesus, and obtain from a bookseller a copy of the Gospels for a price within his reach; or that he could have asked the Christians of Ephesus to bring him a copy with no danger to themselves. But we know nothing at all about such matters, let alone be certain. And – more to the point – neither does Ashton know. The ancient world possessed neither the near-instantaneous communications nor the mass production we have today. In this context, to make non-possession of the Gospels an argument, is the merest debating point, contrived from air for the sake of having an argument.
Second, Ashton’s contentions assume that if St Ignatius had possessed the Gospels, he would have given direct quotations from them. But how does he know? What is the objective reason for believing that St Ignatius would have done so? Ashton does not set out his reasons, he merely asserts them—an indication that he is working from something in his own mind, not in the evidence. So, there are two assumptions: first, that Ignatius would have referred to the gospels in his letters, had he known them; and second, that he would have given a direct quotation. Neither assumption is even argued for – merely asserted as if self-evident, and one would be quite a cad to dispute the matter. For example, It is notorious that the First Epistle of St John quotes no scripture whatsoever, not even the Old Testament, although those scriptures were well-circulated, in various forms, among Christians. In fact, direct quotations of more than a few words of Scripture are almost non-existent, in the entire Apocalypse, yet that book reveals a substantial knowledge of them.
One chooses what to write, when to quote, and how precisely to quote the words to use, in accordance with one’s aim, thinking at the time, available materials, and opportunities. What can we say about Ignatius’s aim, thinking, resources, and opportunities? As we have seen, He was urging church unity upon any who would listen to Him. Why did he need any more than his memory of the scriptures? What opportunity was there to consult a library? Now, there are, indeed, many allusions to the Gospels in St Ignatius’s epistles, so much so that many scholars believe that he must have once read them. I can see no reason to believe that anything in the epistles required a direct quotation from the Gospels if any had been available, and neither does Ashton offer any such reason.
Once more, these scholars may be wrong, but the point is that Ashton speaks as if he must necessarily be right, he does not consider the substantial counter-arguments available in established scholars of the first rank such as J.B. Lightfoot, and a reader who is not well-acquainted with the evidence, could easily be swept along by Ashton’s authoritarian declarations.
Second, although it is admitted that there are allusions to matters which are covered by the gospels, Ashton says they could be explained by reference to the oral tradition. This has two major flaws: first, he offers no evidence as to what was in the oral tradition known to St Ignatius; second, “could have” does not mean “was.” These points are not to be glossed over.
We know the Gospels had been written and were circulating – the only Gospel any scholar puts in the second century is that of St John, and many reputable scholars put it in the first century. So if Ashton wants to say that St Ignatius’s source might not have been the Gospels (which we know were in existence) he has to tell us what he knows about the oral tradition: after all, if it is entirely based on the Gospels, then Ashton’s argument is self-refuting. In making his argument, he reifies “the oral tradition” giving the impression that there was an oral tradition other than one derived from the Gospels, and it was available to Ignatius. Had he said “an oral tradition” or “some oral tradition” even a sleepy reader would have woken up and asked: which oral tradition, and what do we know about it?
Then, even if the allusions could be explained by reference to an alternative tradition, this does not mean that they were: it merely means that this was a possibility. But they might also be explicable by reason of knowing the four Gospels. This manoeuvre is a favourite of the informal Bible studies establishment. I call it the “fallacy of the fatal possibility.” It is the invalid argument that because one explanation is possible a variant explanation is impossible. So, one person says, “this passage in St Ignatius alludes to a specific passage in the Gospels,” but a second person counters “St Ignatius had not necessarily read the Gospel, he may only have heard something similar, taken directly or indirectly from the Gospels.” We might say that this is fair enough, but this does not prove that Ignatius had not read the Gospel. That is still quite open on the evidence. The more such instances we have, the greater the likelihood, however, that he had read it. This can be pressed to extremes: perhaps Ignatius met someone who had memorised the entire Gospels: there are people who have memorised the entire Qur’an. Yes, it is not impossible, but is it likely? At the most, the fact of another possibility means only that we cannot be absolutely certain about our proposed explanation. The next question then is, or should be, which is most likely? This is, of course, a question Ashton does not ask because, as a card-carrying member of the establishment, he has given the sort of answer the contemporary orthodoxy will accept, and teaches to their students.
But there is more than this. Since Ashton is arguing that Ignatius did not know the written Gospels, as one step in controverting Bauckham’s thesis that the Gospels were written for all Christians, the onus is on Ashton to prove his assertion. After all, if it is possible that St Ignatius did have access to the Gospels then Ashton’s argument fails. I would go further, I would say that even if St Ignatius had access to an oral tradition based on the Gospels, that argument is unsuccessful, as Bauckham’s thesis is that the Gospels were not written for specific communities: and an oral communication based on them fits Bauckham’s model better than Ashton’s. Finally, sometimes the very fact of a possibility is the critical point, and that, I suggest, is the case here.
Ashton’s final argument subsidiary argument is that since the epistles of St Paul were, with one exception, all written to individual churches, so too could the Gospels have been. But there are major flaws here. First, the very fact that the epistles of St Paul are generally addressed to individual churches, and the Gospels are not, is actually an argument that they were addressed to whoever might read them. The one possible exception to that is the Gospel of St Luke, which is addressed to one person, Theophilus or “God-friend,” who stands for all Christians. The other three were not addressed to anyone in particular, so if St Paul’s epistles were largely addressed to specific churches, on Ashton’s own logic, it follows that St John’s was not, and hence once more, he has undercut his entire “Johannine community” thesis.
Secondly, yes, St Paul’s epistles are addressed to churches, but does that mean that they were only to be read by those churches and none other? The very fact that they circulated might cast doubt on that, but then consider the terms of Colossians 4:16: “And when this letter is read before you, have it read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and you yourselves read the one from Laodicea.” This shows that although an epistle might be addressed to one specific church, its contents could also be relevant to other churches. This would also be established by the argument of David Trobisch in Paul’s Letter Collection that St Paul himself edited the letter to the Romans, that to the Galatians, and the three or more letters he had written to the Corinthians, redacting them into two letters; and prepared them for publication as one collection with the intent of having them circulated. He may even have edited all the letters, we just do not know, but the argument that he arranged at least these significant epistles into one whole is, at the very least, to be considered.
And then, almost unbelievably, Ashton omits to notice that the other epistles in the New Testament were known as the catholic epistles precisely because they were understood to be for all the churches—the basic meaning of “catholic” in this context. So he ignores the epistles which directly tell against his argument, and makes too much of those which superficially, at least, do support it. This is not at all impressive, or rather, if it is, it impresses us with how weak the arguments for these “communities” are. Once more, it does appear that the emperor of the informal Bible studies establishment is wearing no clothes.