Wayne Coppins on the Pseudo-Clementines

Eventually in this series, we will take a brief look at the later legends about the Apostle Peter and Simon Magus, and their epic battle in Rome. However, Wayne Coppins, the Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Georgia who has done so much to translate German biblical scholarship into English here, has a great post on the condemnation of Simon Magus in the Jewish Christian Pseudo-Clementine writings. Specifically, he looks at the famous nineteenth century approach of Ferdinand Christian Baur who viewed Simon Magus as a cipher for the Apostle Paul and saw this literature as a window into the earliest conflict between Jewish Christianity and Gentile (Pauline) Christianity. He also notes Markus Bockmuehl’s critique of Baur’s position. This reminds me of Jonathan Bernier’s post critiquing the points where Baur’s theory of Christian origins is not supported by the textual data.

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