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Written Gospels or Oral Tradition?Author(s): Helmut KoesterSource: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 113, No. 2 (Summer, 1994), pp. 293-297Published by: The Society of Biblical LiteratureStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3266517

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Critical Notes

WRITTEN GOSPELS OR ORAL TRADITION?

The recent publication of an English translation of Edouard Massaux'smonu-

mental Influence de l'kEvangilee Saint Matthieu sur la litterature chretienne avant

Saint Irene invites reflection on different views of the formation of the Gospels and

their reception in early Christian literature.'Massaux'swork was first published in

1950 and was reprinted in 19862 While it is an erudite work and a valuable resource,its approach and results stand in counterpoint to my own work on the Gospels and

the developmentof the

gospel tradition.3There are two areas in which Professor Massaux'swork and my own differ funda-

mentally. The first area concerns the view of the respective roles of literature (bothcanonical and apocryphal) and of oral tradition in the first and second centuries CE;

the second relates to the application of form criticism and redaction criticism in the

evaluation of Gospel quotations found in the literature of this period.

I. The Role of Literature and Oral Tradition

in the First Two Centuries

Christianity began as a religious movement that established its distinctiveinterior structures by the creation of a ritual and a story. These were the central

elements of its religious identity.The central functioning ritualwas the Eucharist, the

story-technically a cult narrative -was the account of Jesus' suffering and death,which must have been told as early as the church of Antioch before the beginningof Paul'smission to the Gentiles. That Paulhad received a tradition4of an oralversion

of this account is evident in his introduction of the words of institution ( . . in the

night in which he was handed over . 1 Cor 11:23b).The organization of the new

communities was accomplished by the continuation of inherited Jewish teachingsand by the recourse to sayings of Jesus that were transmitted in the oral tradition.

These materials were composed at an early time in the form of small catechisms-

which mayoccasionally havebeen committed to writing- in order to serve as instruc-

tional materials for those who wished to participate in the basic Christian entrance

rite, namely, baptism. In certain circles, also the sayings of Jesus were considered

to be life-giving and saving words, and thus authoritative. Their transmission and

Edouard Massaux, The Influence of the Gospel of Saint Matthew on Christian Literature

beforeSaint renaeustrans.Norman .BelvalandSuzanneHecht;ed. Arthur .Bellinzoni;New

Gospel Studies 5/1-3; Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1990-1993).2 Reprint, Leuven: Leuven University Press & Peeters, 1986.3 H. Koester,AncientChristianGospels:TheirHistoryand Development(Philadelphia:Trinity

Press International; London: SCM, 1990). This essay was prepared for a panel discussion of

Massaux's work at the meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Washington, DC,November 19-23, 1993. Unfortunately it was not possible for me to deliver my response as

scheduled.4 Cf. 1 Cor 11:23a: I have received from the Lord what I also handed on to you

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Journal of Biblical Literature

interpretation were therefore constitutive. But even here, the oral transmission of

such sayings seemed to have been sufficient.

There was no need for the production of authoritative written documents.

Founding apostles used personal visits in order to nurture the newly created com-munities. Written communications (letters), as is evident in the Pauline mission, were

needed only when their personal presence was made impossible by external circum-

stances. The only written authority to which one would appeal was the scriptures of

Israel, the Law and the Prophets.How do these oral traditions from and about Jesus, as they were used in the

churches, relate to the introduction of the medium of writing? As has been said, the

most important and earliest use of this medium was not the writing of a gospel but

the production of an epistle. This sprang from the employment of letters by Paul for

the ordering of his churches, which he was unable to visit. The result was the forma-

tion of the earliest and dominating Christian literature that has survived, namely, the

Pauline Corpus and Colossians, Ephesians, the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, the First

Epistleof Clement,the PastoralEpistles, the letters of Dionysius of Corinth, and manymore.5Writings that were later called gospels came into existence as alternative

forms of the continuing oral tradition in three different genres. All three were func-

tional; that is, they were optional and convenient aids designed to strengthen the role

that the tradition about Jesus played in the churches:

(1)The Christian cult story,the passion narrative,which accompanied the ritual

celebration of the memorial meal, could be written down in order to be read rather

than simply told during the celebration of the ritual. This resulted in the compositionof written passion narratives and eventually in the composition of such writings as

the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Peter.It is therefore not by accident that the

Gospel of Mark can be characterized as a passion narrative with an extended

introduction.

(2) Catechisms were written down early in order to standardize the instruction

for newly converted members who were to be baptized. Such catechisms could be

based on traditional Jewish materials, like the teaching of the twoways,'which was

later expanded into the document that has survivedunder the title Teaching Didache)

of the TwelveApostles. In this case, sayings of Jesus were inserted only at a later stage.Or they could be based on collections of traditionalsayings of Jesus, into which older

Jewish materialswere incorporated. The most extensive document of this type, which

functioned also as a church order, is the Sermon on the Mount. 6The Gospel of

Matthew continues this tradition, and this Gospel is essentially a church order.This

may explain why so many references to sayings of Jesus, which appear very early in

Christian literature (see Romans 12;James), look like quotations from the Sermon on

the Mount and the Gospel of Matthew;it also accounts for the later popularity of this

particular Gospel.

5 See my article Writingsand the Spirit:Authorityand Politics in Ancient Christianity,'HTR

84 (1991)353-72.6 Hans Dieter Betz has argued recently that the Sermon on the Mount existed as an inde-

pendent document before it was incorporated into the Gospel of Matthew; see his Essays on

the Sermonon the Mount(Philadelphia:Fortress, 1985). Hans Dieter Betz's commentary on this

document will be published in 1994 in the series Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress).

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Critical Notes

(3) Wherever the life-giving words of Jesus functioned soteriologically, the

medium of writing must have offered itself as a convenient vehicle for the trans-

mission of sayingsof Jesus. This resulted in written compositions such as the Synoptic

Sayings Source and the Gospel of Thomas, continuing in the production of suchwritings as the Dialogue of Savior,the Gospel of Mary, and other so-called Gnostic

gospels. The written medium was especially convenient in these instances because

the interpretation of the transmitted words of Jesus was considered the revelatory

process through which life and immortality became effective.

Whether or not gospel writings were available to any author in the second, third,and fourth generations of the Christian churches, their usage was a matter of choice.

In either case, the use of such materials fromand about Jesuswas bound to their func-

tion in the life of the churches, and this function was oral, namely, celebration and

instruction. There was no special authority attached to their existence in written

form. Even when these materials about Jesus were available in the form of writings,

they could be freely altered and changed according to the existing needs.

At what point did it become necessary to insist on the written documentation

of materials about Jesus? Luke'sprologue (Luke 1:1-4) sayswhat is at stake. It is the

apologetic motif of more trustworthy information about historical events that were

constitutive for the new Christianreligion. Justin Martyrdeclares that these writingsare historical records that affirmthe legitimacy of the Christianreligion because theyattest that the announcements of the prophets of Israel found their fulfillment in a

history that is recorded faithfullyin written documents. At the same time, both Luke

and Justin Martyrconfirm that authorswere at liberty to change the text of the olderwritings as it was required by their arguments.

II. Form Criticism and Redaction Criticism

How can one determine whether any reference or quotation of traditionalmate-

rials from and about Jesus is dependent on the continuing oral tradition-their realSitz im Leben-or on a written gospel, be it one of the known canonical documents

or any of their sources or an apocryphal gospel? Massaux, in his very detailed and

careful investigation, argues that written gospels, especially the Gospel of Matthew,

were used in such early Christian writings as 1 Clement,Barnabas, and the Lettersof Ignatius of Antioch, while I maintainthat the authors of these writings rely on oral

traditions.7The reasons forthese very differentresults of Massaux'swork and my own

investigations are related to the tragedies of scholarship in the period extending fromWorld War I to the decade after World War II that resulted in the creation of

parochial enclaves of research. It is well known that C. H. Dodd wrote and publishedin 1953 his great work on the Gospel of John without any knowledge of the commen-

tary on this Gospel by Rudolf Bultmann, which had been published twelve yearsearlier (in 1941)8I myself was a victim of this unfortunate parochialism:I completed

7 H. Koester,SynoptischeUberlieferung ei den apostolischenVatern(TU 65; Berlin:

Akademie-Verlag,957); ee alsomyAncientChristianGospels,passim.8 C. H. Dodd, TheInterpretationf the FourthGospel Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity

Press, 1953); R. Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes (KEK; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck &

Ruprecht, 1941).

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Journal of Biblical Literature

my dissertation on the Synoptic tradition in the apostolic fathersin 19539 without any

knowledge of the work of Massaux, nor did my teacher Rudolf Bultmann and the

second reader of my dissertation, Professor Eltester, know the work of Massaux when

I submitted my dissertation at the University of Marburg.On the other hand, Massauxhimself was not familiar with the work of Rudolf Bultmann on the history of the

Synoptic tradition, first published in 1921, or with the work of Martin Dibelius, first

published in 1919, when he published his dissertation in 1950.10 ndeed, as far as I

can see, a reference to the seminal work of Rudolf Bultmann on the history of the

Synoptic tradition is still missing in the English translation of the revised edition of

Massaux'sbook.'l

Form criticism has accomplished two things: (1)It has made it possible to deter-

mine the form and wording of traditional materials in a stage of the transmission

before their incorporation into a gospel writing or into any of the sources of the extant

gospels. (2) Form criticism has introduced the criterion of situationin the life of the

community (Sitz im Leben), which makes it possible to understand the social func-

tion of oral (and also written) materials and the influence of this situation upon the

formation of the tradition. For the composition of written gospels, this implies that

the establishment of a biographical frameworkmay fundamentally change the form

and function of a piece of tradition because it is now transferred from its situation

in the life of the community into the context of the life of Jesus.'2I maybe allowed to quote just one simple example: In his Historyof the Synoptic

Tradition,Bultmann had observed that the proverb about the prophet who is not

acceptable in his fatherland appears in two analogous sentences in an OxyrhynchosPapyrus (POxy. 1.6) (Bultmann did not know at the time that this fragment was part

of the Gospel of Thomas [logion 31]), the second sentence speaking about the physi-

cian who cannot do miracles among those who know him.'3In the oral tradition, this

two-part proverb explained the failure of the apostle's mission in his own town or

country. Comparing this proverb with the form in which it appears in Mark 6:4-5,

Bultmann came to the conclusion that this sayingof the OxyrhynchosPapyrusis older

than the apophthegma of Mark6:1-6, because Markhad changed the second part of

the saying into a piece of biographical narrative reporting that Jesus was unable to

do any miracles in Nazareth.

9 Publishedn 1957; ee n. 7 above.When I sent the manuscripto the publishern the fall

of 1954,I did inserta reference o Massaux's orkbut didnot feel that t would undamentallyalterthe resultsof myown study.

10R.Bultmann,Die Geschichte ersynoptischen raditionFRLANT 9;Gottingen:Vanden-

hoeck & Ruprecht,1921;2d ed., 1931);M. Dibelius,Die Formgeschichtees Evangeliums

(Tubingen:Mohr-Siebeck, 919;2d ed., 1933).1 OnlyRudolfBultmann's heology f the NewTestamentndMartinDibelius'sGeschichte

derurchristlichen iteratur re mentioned n the bibliography.

12 It is the German term Verschriftlichung hat designates the fundamental changes in func-tion and meaning that occur in the process of incorporation of oral materials into a literary

document-not, however, the casual written fixation of oral materials.

13 R. Bultmann, TheHistoryof the SynopticTradition(2d ed.; New York:Harper & Row,1968)31-32. For the Greek text of the Oxyrhynchos material, see Harold W Attridge, The Greek

Fragments:'n Nag HammadiCodex11.2-7Togetherwith XIII,2*,Brit. Lib. Or.4926(1)and

P Oxy. 1, 645, 655 (ed. Bentley Layton; NHS 20-21; Leiden: Brill, 1989) 2. 103-9.

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Critical Notes

When pieces of tradition are quoted and used in early Christian authors, their

function in the life of the community is usually maintained. Indeed, it may not even

be necessary to refer to them as traditions related to Jesus. This is most clearly the

case in Paul's allusions to sayings of Jesus in Romans 12-14, in 1 Peter, and in theEpistle of James.14As far as writings such as 1 Clement,Barnabas, and the letters of

Ignatius are concerned, use of sayings of Jesus and allusions to them would seem to

be natural continuations of this practice, whether or not Jesus is explicitly mentioned

as an authority. Sayings of Jesus were known because they had been established as

parts of a Christian catechism; the passion narrative was known because it was

embedded into the Christian liturgy.

This, however,reverses the burden of proof. For Massaux,the presupposition is

that the beginning of the tradition of sayings is written gospels, and especially the

canonicalGospels.

Anearly

date of theircomposition

is assumed, and this date is

confirmed by the discovery of quotations, primarilyfrom the Sermon on the Mount

and from other chapters of Matthew. Thus Matthew emerges as the most frequentlyused Gospel writing.

Form criticism begins with the presupposition that the beginning and the con-

tinuation of the tradition were the early Christian community and that therefore the

oral use of materials from and about Jesus in ritual, instruction, and missionary

activity of this community was the congenial life situation of everything that was

remembered from and about Jesus. Unless it can be proved otherwise, it must be

assumed that authors who referred to and quoted such materialswere dependent on

these life situations of the church and did not quote from written documents. Evenwhen written gospels came into existence, materials drawnfrom them maywell have

been reintroduced into these life situations, for which they could be composed in the

form of catechisms and in which they are used orally once again (this seems to be

the case in 2 Clement).How can we know when written documents are the source for such quotations

and allusions? Redaction criticism is the answer. Whenever one observes words or

pbrases that derive from the author or redactor of a gospel writing, the existence ofa written source must be assumed. However, this task has become much moredifficult than it appeared to me forty years ago. At that time, I was comfortable with

just the three Synoptic Gospels, their common source Q,and an occasional discussionof an apocryphal gospel. Today,however, we know that the history of the written

gospels is more complex; their texts were not stable during the first hundred yearsof their transmission; there were more written sources for these canonical gospels;and the evidence for apocryphal writings has gained more and more weight. If myown earlier work was not much more than a first attempt to unravel these complexproblems, Massaux'swork still stands as a milestone of erudition for an approach thatdid not yet engage the form-critical method with its multiple pitfalls and manifoldrewards.

14 See my Ancient Christian Gospels, 52-55, 64-66, 71-75.

Helmut Koester

HarvardUniversity, Cambridge, MA 02138

297