Third Epistle to the Corinthians
The Third Epistle to the Corinthians is an early Christian text written by an unknown author claiming to be Paul the Apostle. It is also found in the Acts of Paul, and was framed as Paul's response to a letter of the Corinthians to Paul. The earliest extant copy is Papyrus Bodmer X, dating to the third century.[1] Originally written in Koine Greek, the letter survives in Greek, Coptic, Latin, and Armenian manuscripts.[2][1]
Content and theological background[edit]
The text is structured as an attempt to correct alleged misinterpretations of the earlier First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians, of which the author (usually called "pseudo-Paul") has become aware due to the (similarly pseudepigraphic) Epistle of the Corinthians to Paul, which is paired with Paul's response as a single correspondence. According to the preceding part of the Acts of Paul, when the letter was written Paul was in prison, on account of Stratonice, the wife of Apollophanes. The epistle seems to attack themes associated with Gnostic Christianity and docetism, albeit loosely. 3 Corinthians emphasizes the importance of the flesh: that the Incarnation of Jesus had been as a real flesh-and-blood person, rather than a divine apparition or spirit that only appeared to suffer. Jesus will "redeem all flesh through his own flesh", and "by his own body Jesus Christ saved all flesh." Against Gnosticism, the letter condemns those who "assert that heaven and earth and all that is in them are not a work of God", an apparent attack on the Gnostic belief that the material world was the work of a different god, the Demiurge.[3]
Before the Bodmer X papyrus was discovered, it was generally assumed that 3 Corinthians had been written as part of the Acts of Paul. The Bodmer X version, however, is older than the oldest surviving copies of the Acts of Paul, and has only the Epistle of the Corinthians and Paul's response. It does not include the narrative introductions to each letter seen in later works or the rest of the Acts of Paul. Additionally, the correspondence does not entirely line up with the events described elsewhere: the correspondence indicates that heresy is a major problem in Corinth, while the narrative makes no such claim when Paul arrives in the city; Paul is instead pleased with the progress of the believers. Cleobius is presented as an arch-heretic stirring up trouble in the correspondence, yet in the narrative he is a spirit-filled Christian. This has caused most scholars to believe that the epistle predated the Acts of Paul, and the Acts of Paul was compiling and merging existing letters and stories rather than creating a single combined work.[3]
Authorship[edit]
Scholars do not accept the epistle's claimed authorship of Paul for a number of reasons. While the epistle contains a number of Pauline themes and similar phrasings taken from First and Second Corinthians, it varies from Paul in ways difficult to square with his authorship. Notably, Paul draws a sharp distinction in his undisputed letters between "flesh" (sarx) and "body" (soma). To Paul, flesh is the negative aspects of human sin and temptation that are left behind; but the body of Christians will be resurrected. In 3 Corinthians, however, flesh is given an unambiguous positive connotation: the flesh of believers will be resurrected, in contradiction to Paul's claim that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 15:50). The letter places no importance on the death of Jesus and omits any discussion of Jewish Law, popular themes for Paul to discuss, eschewing them for themes seen nowhere else in Paul's work such as the story of the bones of the prophet Elisha.[3]
The full text of Third Epistle to the Corinthians at Wikisource, translation by M. R. James in the 1924 book The Apocryphal New Testament
