“If You Can Change Your Name, You Can Write”: Pseudepigraphy in Antiquity and Its Function in 1 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John

Abstract

This article attempts to answer the following question: why did the author of the apocryphon called 1 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John choose to efface himself and adopt John as his pseudonym? Why not Peter or Paul? This paper argues that the author of 1 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John intended to harness the audience attached to John, the seer of Revelation, by taking his name as a pseudonym. This paper sustains this claim by demonstrating that, in antiquity, each author had a specific pool of readers, often made out of friends and accolades of the author. Thus, authors’ names evoke an audience attached to them. When an author takes another person’s name to write under, he does so out of necessity, because he does not have an audience. But, when he takes another’s person name, he does so hoping to trick the audience of the impersonated into reading him. Based on this insight, this article concludes that the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John wanted the readers of canonical Revelation to engage with his work and that he achieved his purpose as evinced by the fact that the titles of both works share an uncanny resemblance, ranging from identical titles to similar wording. Since titles in antiquity were given to the works by their readers, the most logical explanation for canonical Revelation and 1 Apocr. Apoc. John having the same titles is that they both shared the same readers. Finally, this article argues that, in line with recent research on the use of pseudepigraphy in Jewish, Christian, and Roman contexts, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John wanted to be read by CR’s readers because he wanted to expand, criticize, rework, and update CR’s eschatological discourse, exemplified by a close reading of how 1 Apocr. Apoc. John criticized, reworked, and updated CR’s presentation of the resurrection to bring it in harmony with late Christian reflection on the subject.

1. Introduction

1 Apocryphal Apocalypse of John (hereafter, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John) is a work of uncertain date, written in the question-and-answer genre, that purports to be John the apostle’s report of a conversation between God and him about the end times’ events on Mount Tabor.1 Its opening chapters mirror Canonical Revelation (hereafter, CR), clarifying that John, he who stood on Mount Tabor, is the seer of CR and that 1 Apocr. Apoc. John had to be read as a work of the same author, that is, in relationship with CR and the Johannine corpus.2 Consequently, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John makes use of pseudepigraphy—writing under someone else’s name,—a practice well known in antiquity, because by the time of its composition, John, the seer of CR, was long dead. While the phenomenon of pseudepigraphy has been widely studied in Jewish, Greek, and Christian contexts, little has been done regarding its function in 1 Apocr. Apoc. John.3 This issue has great importance because, of all the names available that could have been chosen to write under, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John chose John.4 Why did he not choose to write under the name of Peter or Paul? What is at stake with the name John that the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John had to assume his persona? Is 1 Apocr. Apoc. John an exercise of speech-in-character representative of ancient rhetorical education? Or, was the name John chosen because it could grant authority to the work?5 Is it possible that John was chosen to placate bibliographical anxieties? (Wyrick 2004).

This essay addresses these questions and intends to tackle the issue of pseudonymity in 1 Apocr. Apoc. John. Particularly, it seeks to ascertain what the author intended to accomplish by taking the name John as his pseudonym. As such, it builds on recent works dealing with pseudepigraphy in Jewish, Christian, and classical literature to argue that the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John wanted to harness the audience of John, the seer of CR. In late antiquity, authors had a specific pool of readers who often were members of the intellectual community to which the author belonged. Belonging to these networks was restricted to the elite. Thus, not anyone could have been an author in antiquity. The alternative for many who wanted to write but did not reside in elite intellectual spaces was to adopt the name of someone who was indeed a member of these groups, because by harnessing the audience of the impersonated, an author could have an audience. This paper argues, considering this context, that 1 Apocr. Apoc. John adopted John as a pseudonym to tap into the readers of CR. This would explain why the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John chose John as a pseudonym and not Peter or Paul. The former was interested in the reading communities of John, not just any apostle.

To do so, this paper tackles the issue of pseudepigraphy from another perspective and avoids the perennial questions that have dominated the field for so long. This paper will not address the issue of whether pseudepigraphy was innocent, transparent, or deceptive nor its implications for canonicity.6 Instead, this paper tries to contextualize the phenomenon of pseudepigraphy within the literary culture of antiquity, asking how could a pseudonymous writing have been produced in the bookish culture of antiquity, and what could such a book have accomplished? This paper tries to answer this question by taking a step back to wonder why names are so important that people go to great lengths to appropriate one? If pseudepigraphy is taking someone else’s name to write under, we must first look at why names are important and which conditions might drive someone to give up his name and adopt another one. In other words, this paper attempts to peek behind the curtain and discover a glimpse of the motivations underlying the practice of pseudepigraphy. Therefore, this paper first explores what names are and why they are important. Then, it addresses the question of why a person would give up his name and take someone else’s name. Finally, there is an attempt to apply these previous findings to 1 Apocr. Apoc. John to ascertain why the real author decided to efface his identity and adopt John as his pseudonym.

2. Authors and Reading Communities

In ancient and modern times, names matter. A name is much more than a combination of letters designed to distinguish people from each other. A name represents the person who carries it and, as such, conveys notions of status, class, gender, place of origin, ethnicity, and family relations, among others.7 Names describe persons and their value according to the parameters established by the communities to which they belong.8 To rehash a common joke in the English-speaking world, if the author of this paper, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet walk into a bar, who do you think people will run to greet and tend to? Bill Gates and Warren Buffet for sure. Why? Their names describe who they are and what they are worth, which in this case relates to a number put forth by Forbes each year. The value of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates outweigh the value of the author of this paper because they are billionaires, but I am not. Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, as names, evoke a characterization of the persons involved. Thus, names are not neutral, as they carry power-related descriptions.

In the context of ancient book production, a name mattered even more. Intellectual activity in antiquity often took place in communal contexts, surrounded by friends.9 Writing and reading, as a sociological system embedded in a more complex network of relations, representation, and value, were not solitary affairs.10 People involved in intellectual activity usually got together with friends to read, dine, and discuss topics that they considered valuable11. Each group or community gravitated around an individual or a couple of persons to whom the group granted authority.12 The members of the group were like-minded, which means that the topics dealt with within the group were usually of mutual interest and perceived as enhancing the social standing of the community.13 Communities such as the one where Pliny the Younger stood at the center concerned themselves with oratory and rhetoric, since their members belonged to the ruling class and therefore were habitually involved in delivering speeches, pleading cases, or speaking at public events (Johnson 2010, pp. 32–62). Communities such as the one where Aulus Gellius dominated found discussions about grammar and philology exhilarating, and what they read and wrote about went in that direction (Johnson 2010, pp. 98–136). Thus, each community negotiated which interests would drive them based on socially constructed standards of capital and determined the boundaries by which their members had to abide.14 What is striking is that these authors are never alone; they are frequently depicted with a community gathered around them to pursue literary activities.15

When a member of any intellectual group decided to write a book, the group’s dynamics often shaped the entire project.16 Sometimes, the book came as a result of an inquiry from a friend or patron to the author on a particular topic.17 Thus, often, but not always, the motivation for writing antique books lay in the desire of a friend or patron to read something on a specific subject by a given person.18 At other times, the book responded to discussions or questions that a given text might have sparked when read in the community.19 In either case, the primary audience for authors in antiquity was the intellectual community to which they belonged, because books were frequently born out of the group’s interests.20 As Raymond Starr rightly puts it, “the first recipients were the dedicatee of the work and other friends intimately connected with it” (Starr 1987, p. 214). But this audience was not a passive recipient of the book it wanted to read; rather, it participated heavily in the production of the book itself, since not only reading but also writing was a communal phenomenon.21 Communities could correct the grammar, improve the style of the text, or correct the tone of a draft presented to them by the author, often at the recitatio or by sending a copy of the manuscript to a group of selected friends.22 Since they were heavily involved in the process of writing, it is only logical that they would be the first to receive a final copy of the text they helped edit (Starr 1987, p. 214).

The communal dynamics of reading and writing in antiquity explain that although books could be “published” in antiquity by depositing a copy in a public library or giving the “final” edition to a bookseller, the principal way to publish books in antiquity consisted of distributing copies of the document among the inner circle of the author, that is, his intellectual community.23 By giving copies of the final manuscript to the author’s intellectual community, the primary audience could now engage in detailed reading and promotion of the book.24 From that moment on, if someone wished to secure a copy of the manuscript in question, they needed to contact one of the first recipients to borrow the book and make a copy or for a copy to be made by one of the first recipients and then be sent to the one who requested it; either way, this was only possible if you were friends with someone who received a copy.25 Through private book-lending channels among friends, the original manuscript intended for close friends acquired greater diffusion (Marshall 1976, pp. 252–64). Not only did the author’s intellectual community constitute his first audience, but they also controlled the distribution of the book outside the inner circle. Therefore, not everyone had access to the books published by a person (Starr 1987, p. 217). People needed to be in the right circles and have proper friends so that they could obtain access to the right books.26 In fact, access to books was so restrictive for the majority of people in antiquity that they became perfect objects for gift-giving among the elite.27 However, publication constitutes the last step in a long stairway, beginning with reading and discussing texts in a communal setting. Publication is communal because the underlying process is communal.

Furthermore, as we have seen, reading and writing as systems are all about networks. Writing outside one’s communal intellectual activity was seldom done; authors often wrote for their friends and acquaintances.28 As an author, if you wanted readers, you needed to belong to a network of like-minded people who will be interested in your book and will make copies of it. In other words, if you want an audience, you need an intellectual community. However, who belongs to these networks? Ancient authors such as Pliny the Younger, Aelius Gellius, and Fronto have described what it took to be in an intellectual community. First, you needed to be highly educated so that you could participate in the communal activities of proper reading and discussion of texts.29 Second, you needed to have leisure time (otium) and adhere to a particular way of life.30 For instance, Pliny’s regimen of literary pursuits and political preoccupations combined with exercise was considered ideal for the Roman author. These activities were necessary because they provided a foil to the leisure time, moments when authors engaged in writing.31 At night, you needed to attend dinners and banquets, given that books would be read and discussions would be held there.32 All these imply that you needed to be elite to be an author, since only they would have the amount of time needed to invest in literature. Third, you needed to possess a complex machinery for the production of your own books as well as for copying the books you needed for your intellectual life. In antiquity, you needed scribes for everything related to the production of literature (Moss 2021). Slaves usually fulfilled this role—not just any slave, but literate and educated slaves, whose cost implied that whoever owned them had money.33 Besides slaves, you would have also needed to cover the materials needed for the production of books, which were not inexpensive and could even be scarce in certain regions of the Empire (Turner 1980; Bagnall 2009). Moreover, since intellectual life was communal, it often took place at dinners, which you, as an author, needed to host. This meant food, a triclinium, and entertainment needed to be provided —the cost of which amounted to several sesterces, which even for the elite was something considerable.34 We could enumerate more aspects of the system behind reading and writing in antiquity, but the general picture is clear: the environments, albeit ideal, where reading and writing occur are spaces of power inhabited by the antique elite.35

We must acknowledge that not every person who wrote in antiquity belonged to the elite. In antiquity, many people wrote for everyday purposes: commercial dealings, deeds, contracts, letters, etc.36 However, the fact that elites and non-elites could produce literature does not mean that both groups could write the same type of literature. While elites and non-elites could write a letter—either by their own hand or through a secretary—non-elites could probably not write an encyclopedia like the Pliny’s Natural History because they did not have the time required (otium), the means, the intellectual formation, etc. What I want to posit is that although a literary culture existed among non-elites in early and late antiquity, this culture could not be equated with the same literary culture that existed among elites because the two groups shared different interests, which inevitably shaped the subject matter of the literature written. For instance, a soldier could write a letter to his parents and a merchant could keep records of his dealings, but they probably could not write nor would they be interested in reading something like Aullus Gellius’ Attic Nights, because Gellius’ project was of significance to grammarians but useless to a soldier.

Furthermore, while non-elites could access literature through public readings of books, the expertise gained through these events is limited, and the scope of literature disseminated in this way was not broad. That is, a person could familiarize themselves, through public reading events, with a certain kind of literature but not enough to compose, for instance, a technical treatise on medicine. Thus, while a merchant could attend to the public recitation of poetry, this would not mean that he could master the art of poetry or have written poetry to disseminate. The kind of books needed in order to write a certain kind of literature were only available through private channels established with friends that belonged to elite circles. Moreover, writing materials were also expensive and prohibitive for many in antiquity. It is clear that non-elite people could obtain access to papyrus or even write on scraps of discarded documents (Luijendijk 2008, pp. 144–51). Yet, it is one thing have access to papyrus or scraps to write a letter, and another to have access to the material necessary to write and make copies of a philosophical treatise. The latter seems to be reserved for those who had the means to acquire greater amounts of writing material. Non-elites could, indeed, copy portions of literature in scraps of discarded documents, but it is another different thing altogether to write a new literary composition on this kind of material. Moreover, the difference between a letter by a soldier and a book by Galen is that the latter required ample expertise and training on a subject, gained through an expensive education, access to the kind of books that were not read aloud publicly to the general population, extensive writing materials to cover a large quantity of literature, and slaves to make copies of the book produced. These conditions suggest that a certain kind of literature was reserved for the elite, like scientific treatises, grammar books, and philosophical instructions, among others. This does not deny the fact that literature could be read and produced by non-elites, it just asserts that non-elites and elites produced different kind of literature. This is of extreme importance, since Christian writings have lately been categorized as products of highly educated people, and 1 Apocr. Apoc. John is no exception (Reece 2022; Walsh 2021).

If being elite is so important for the production of certain kind of literature, then who can access these elite networks? Those with a proper place of birth, gender, status, class, wealth, education, power, political position, military career, etc. Which ubiquitous element in antiquity encodes the aforementioned and describes it in simple terms? Names. As Foucault writes so elegantly “[an author’s name] it has other than indicative functions: more than indication, a gesture, a finger pointed at someone, it is the equivalent of a description”.37 It is not the same to be named Marcus Cornelius Fronto or Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus as it is to be named simply Phaedrus. The former convey elite status, which implies that they belong to intellectual communities (i.e., they have an audience), while the latter is just a common name that might imply belonging to a community but probably not being learned or literate.38 Thus, to have an audience, you need to belong to the elite (because this is where writing and reading happen), and to be elite, you need to have the right status, which condenses itself in a name. Therefore, a name indicates whether you have an audience or not, because it betrays that you are elite and belong to an intellectual community. Consequently, names evoke an audience, a very particular and selective one. When we ask why names matter in the ancient book production system, the answer is that the author’s names elicit specific reading communities.

Consider, for instance, Galen, the philosopher and the court physician of Marcus Aurelius.39 Who read and was interested in Galen’s writings? Galen’s literary output was huge, and his readers ranged from elite members of society to students who wanted to have a record of their teacher’s lecture (Mattern 2008). Initially, all readers of Galen’s works belonged to his inner circle: friends as well as students who had a close relationship with the physician because they attended his lectures and demonstrations or were interested in medicine.40 Galen’s inner circle asked questions about the medical arts or required further explanation of a given topic.41 Galen would send them his notes on the subject or an unfinished composition addressing these questions, without the intention of reaching wider distribution.42 Johnson noted “Galen’s focus on an exclusive set of actively engaged readers, in some sense his ‘followers’ or at least explicitly under his notional direction” (Johnson 2010, p. 85). However, we learn that friends from the inner circle, the original recipients of Galen’s work, made copies of the original books, and from these, more copies were made by others, so that people detached from the author had access to them.43 This is how the literary output of the man from Pergamum reached a wider audience and even appeared on the shelves of bookshops.44 When we talk of Galen’s readers, we include the initial, familiar, close readers—Galen’s coterie—and those who never heard of the man but their interest in medicine made them seek the books he wrote.45

Since Galen’s literary output dealt mostly with medical matters, we can safely assume that students and medical professionals made up most of his intended audience.46 However, Galen’s students of medicine encompass a broad network of people and include many individuals.47 First, Galen, in his On My Own Books, clarifies that he wrote many works with medical practice beginners in mind. A selection of these compositions covered sects, bones, and pulse for beginners.48 In fact, in many of his more complex and advanced treatises, he included sections specifically addressed to amateurs just taking their first steps into the art of medicine. Galen not only focused on skilled physicians, but as a good pedagogue he also supported those trainees who aspired to become doctors.49

Second, Galen wrote for well-trained doctors and people familiar with the Hippocratic corpus, a sine qua non to read Galen’s most advanced tracts. These doctors went beyond the sixth-month course offered to many medical practitioners at the time. They had advanced knowledge of anatomy, botanic, pharmacy, and so on. Yet, they looked up to Galen as one of the lead physicians of the time and as a teacher who surpassed them in medical knowledge; hence, he would always have something to teach, whether in books, lectures, or demonstrations.50 These trained doctors would look to Galen with specific inquiries, such as how to interpret particular passages from the Hippocrates corpus, the influence of diet on health, and how to treat a fever, among others. Galen considered these doctors as friends and wrote at their behest, answering their questions.51 Moreover, these trained doctors would frequently become involved in disputes with other medical teachers and their disciples, since in second-century Rome there was no single way to approach the study of anatomy or how to treat certain diseases (Walsh 1927). As Galen’s friends, they would advocate for the accuracy and truthfulness of their mentor’s teaching, yet they would often find themselves without the book necessary to prove their point.52 In addition, Galen involved himself in many of these controversies with other teachers in demonstrations and dissections, trying to prove that he was right (von Staden 1989; Walsh 1927). Many of Galen’s books were transcriptions of these encounters and aimed to provide these friends with the tools necessary for the defense and promotion of his teaching.53 To these trained physicians, though still Galen’s students, tractates such as The Motion of the Chest and Lungs, The Usefulness of the Parts of the Body, and many others were sent.

Moreover, Galen also wrote treatises not directed towards his students or fellow doctors but his friends. For instance, Galen composed treatises dealing with highly technical discussions of anatomy. However, the addressee was Flavius Boethus, a friend of Galen, of the equestrian rank and consul of the empire.54 Boethus could not be a doctor, given his political occupations, yet Galen portrayed him as a learned man with great interest and knowledge of the medical arts.55 Undoubtedly, Galen took advantage of Boethus and shaped his characterization to promote his agenda: medical knowledge was essential to the elite toolkit. Medical knowledge should logically follow the study of classics, philosophy, and logic, because these provide the theoretical foundation for the practical application of medicine. Galen composed at Boethus’ behest The Opinions of Hippocrates and Plato, the first volume of The Usefulness of the Parts of the Body; The Causes of Breathing; the four volumes on The Voice; Hippocrates’ Anatomy; and Erasistratus’ Anatomy.56 These compositions characterize Boethus as a man of advanced medical knowledge, even though he was not a doctor, and prove that Galen was able to write for friends with shared passions. Furthermore, Boethus is a sample of many friends—doctors and non-doctors—that Galen wrote for.

In a nutshell, Galen attracted readers—medical students, doctors, accolades, and strangers—from a wide pool of people interested in medicine. Galen’s reading community was primarily made up of those who gravitated around him—students, colleagues, and friends interested in medicine—and those whose love for medicine made them secure copies of Galen’s writings through private or public channels due to their acute passion for the medical arts.57 This trait unites Galen’s readers as a diverse but integral reading community; all of them were interested in medicine and perceived medical knowledge as part of the ideal Roman elite. From the perspective of the modern publishing industry, we might get the impression that, in antiquity, everybody had access to or was interested in all the books distributed at the time. The mechanics of ancient book production and distribution prove that this assumption was incorrect.58 Galen’s readers were those closely tied to him (his intellectual community)—friends, students, and colleagues and their friends. Thus, not just anyone would read Galen. That is, Galen exemplifies that each author had a specific pool of readers, a highly selective and exclusive audience.

Galen’s name indicated he belonged to an intellectual community where medicine stood at the center. Galen, as a name, implies an audience of like-minded people who received, read, copied, and distributed his writings. Galen, as a name, encodes an audience. Therefore, authors become icons for their audiences. In other words, authors’ names are not neutral; they come with an audience attached to them. Galen is not just five letters that distinguish him from other people; this name also represents a group interested in the physician’s literary output. Paraphrasing Shakespeare, what it is in a name is the audience attached to it.

3. Pseudepigraphy: What Motivates It?

Now that we have explored how authors and audiences are inextricably tied to each other, we could ask why anybody would write a book impersonating someone else? What is the necessity of adopting a name that is not yours?59 Tom Geue, in his book “Author Unknown: The Power of Anonymity in Ancient Rome”, proposes that the process involved in naming or not naming someone is never neutral but rather involves complex power dynamics (Geue 2019). As he succinctly puts it “To have a name is to have power, and to lose one is to lose it” (Geue 2019, p. 55). Names encode identities; they represent iconic social value and power or a lack thereof.60 Thus, those whose names defeated the forgetful nature of history controlled the narrative so that their names were inscribed in the annals of history, while those names suppressed from the record did not have enough power to secure their places in historical memory.61 Therefore, the presence or absence of names in historical records or book inscriptions does not happen out of chance but rather indicates the power dynamics within which a person is present or absent.

Names are so important that their presence or absence became vehicles through which ancient people exerted power over others to the degree that some individuals tried hard to erase their enemies’ names from history, as Augustus does in Res Gestae and Octavia in her eponymous play.62 In this way, elite members of society hoped to defeat their enemies as, by erasing their names, they effaced their entire existence (Martelli 2010). This was a powerful political strategy, given that stripping off the name of one’s enemies opened the possibility of redefining their identity, because “what this denial of name does is take away the general condition of personhood from the agents it blocks” (Geue 2019, p. 37). The enemies became malleable, and the person in power decided how to showcase them (Krasne 2012). They stop being who they are and start playing the character created for them: it is no longer Nero in Octavia’s play, now he is the tyrant; it is no longer Octavia, she becomes the tyrant’s wife or Claudius’ daughter (Geue 2019, pp. 36–38, 94–100). In a society preoccupied with transcendence, self-promotion, and fame, losing the power to define how you are going to be remembered and instead be left at the mercy of your enemy amounted to a cruel political death, because your enemy would strive to eliminate your name, so you would not be remembered; if you would be remembered at all, you would be a nobody.63 To lose a name is to lose a legacy (fame), and losing your legacy is losing everything you lived for, because death is no more than oblivion—damnatio memoriae.64 That is why not naming was such a powerful and obliterating political move: it allowed you to reduce your enemies to the ashes of non-existence and to relegate them to forgetfulness; the victor keeps on living on the memory of the people; the defeated is the dust that the wind carries away. Ancient elite members outmaneuvered their enemies by killing them, not physically, but by erasing their memory, reputation, and fame from historical records.65 The dynamics at play in erasing one enemies’ names evince that the presence or absence of names in the historical record often is tied up with power dynamics: the powerful decide who is allowed to keep a name or rather who can be redefined according to his desires.

What the evidence above demonstrates is that in early and late antiquity, the presence or absence of names is tied to power dynamics. The aforementioned context deals mostly with political power as reflected in literature. In this case, to have power means to have greater social and political status than own’s enemies so as to be in a position to determine whether to include or exclude names. However, when an author writes, which power dynamics influence his decision of including or excluding his own name? An author decides to include or exclude his name from his works depending on whether he thinks his name will secure an audience or not. Thus, power, in this case, is bidirectional: on one hand, it refers to who the author is, whether he is well educated, and whether he has the means to produce the kind of literature his friends would be interested in; on the other hand, it refers to the audience, whether they will accept, read, and circulate the author’s writing.66 Therefore, for a writer to have power, he must have an audience. But, for him to have an audience, he must have the standing necessary to belong to an intellectual community. Power, then, does not belong uniquely to the audience or to the author; rather, power is the result of an interrelated number of factors involved in the process of writing and reading in early and late antiquity.

Take, for instance, Sulpicius Severus’ prologue to his Life of St Martin.67 In early and late antiquity, readers expected literary works to be of the utmost quality.68 Therefore, a writer who met the standards of what a good literary work looked like would surely have readers—friends and acquaintances—governed by the same literary standards. However, what happens when you cannot produce elite literary works? If you produce something below the expectations of the readers, who will engage with such work? Nobody. This is the fear Sulpicius must deal with in his book. He argues that the style and grammar of his work are defective.69 He understands that, because of his self-perceived precarious writing skills, his book will not have a wide readership.70 The book will not have an impact, and he will have no audience. Notwithstanding, Sulpicius considers the book of the utmost importance because it will teach those who read it virtue.71 So, he decides to vanish; he prefers the book to be copied and distributed even if his name is not attached to it.72 However, if to have a name is to have fame, and this is so important for self-representation, why does he renounce it? Because, from his standpoint, he has no audience, and it is preferable to attempt a coup d’état against himself and strip himself of fame than to hinder the circulation of the book because of the standing of its author.73 Only those with insufficient power (audience) renounce their names to draw an audience by becoming nobody or someone else.74

In other words, in antiquity, a name (identity) is the currency of fame (Geue 2019, p. 36). In a culture in which fame is essential to the innerworkings of society, it is imperative to have a name. When someone else tried to strip off your name, this was a violent act equivalent to a coup d’état (Geue 2019, p. 36). The person trying to confiscate someone else’s name was off to erase the confiscated’s entire existence and contributions.75 In the context of elite competition in antiquity, it is understandable why certain persons tried to send others into oblivion; it was about asserting one’s authority over another (Todisco 2007). However, pseudepigraphy required the voluntary abandonment of one own’s name. Why would someone voluntarily renounce his name? If to have a name is to have power, who would strip himself of power in a culture in which the powerless did not exist? Who would do such violence to themselves? As we have seen from the context, this decision is not neutral. Instead, it is deeply linked to power dynamics. One logical answer to these questions is that only those who are not powerful would be interested in effacing their names, because it does not matter to them whether they are remembered in or erased from history.76 You only give up power if you do not have anything to lose to begin with. Only those who lack what it takes to have power would be willing to erase their names from the historical record because it is inconsequential to them.

Moreover, where does the writer’s power reside? In his audience. As we have seen, a writer with an audience has power because such a writer will be read, and a writer without an audience will be forgotten since nobody will copy his works, preserving them for posterity. When ancient book producers lacked an intellectual community within which they could pursue literary activities, they did not have an audience. If they did not belong to any of these intellectual communities, it was because they lacked power as represented by the standards that regulated who had a place among the elite. They could not control the narrative to preserve their names for posterity. This scenario creates conditions that drive writers to abandon their names because they long for reading communities, but their names, as a representation of who they are, do not allow them to have any. How do they procure an audience? Some, like Sulpicius Severus, decided to self-efface,77 but others were even smarter; they scanned the literary society of their times and identified who had an audience.78 They then seized the names of the authors who had an audience and appropriated them as their own. Since authors had very specific reading communities attached to them in antiquity, author names and audiences were inextricably tied.79 By taking the names of these authors, powerless writers with no audience now had a reading community—one tied to the names the impersonators took. This is, in short, is pseudepigraphy. In other words, if you do not have an audience, how do you obtain one? By tattooing on yourself the identity of someone who has an audience.80 By becoming someone else, writers now have access to the audience attached to the someone else they have decided to become. Why? To appropriate the name of a writer is tantamount to having his power, status, and audience. Therefore, as Karen King succinctly states, “Attribution was not neutral” (King 2016, p. 40).

Despite the scarcity of ancient discussions about the motives of pseudepigraphy, the few we have point out that people traded their names hoping to draw a bigger audience for their writings. Aelius Gellius criticizes Pliny the Elder for accepting as authentic certain declarations by Democritus that Gellius considers not to match the general tenor of his works. Gellius then claims that “many fictions of this kind seem to have been attached to the name of Democritus by ignorant men who used his reputation and authority as a refuge”.81 That is, many people decided to expunge their names from their writings and adopt Democritus as a pseudonym; in this way, they would have a broader readership, since Democritus was considered an authority and had secured an audience, while the actual authors of the fragments attributed to him had not. Peirano rightly comments, “The name of the author, ‘Democritus’, is a label that enhances the value of the writings, allowing the circulation of material that might otherwise be rejected because of prejudice against the author or the subject” (Peirano 2012, p. 51).

A scholion to Dionisyus Thrax also contains a discussion of pseudepigraphy by someone who took Hesiod’s name to write a poem entitled Aspis. The scholion explains that “for it was written [Aspis] by someone else who used the title and name of Hesiod so that it would be judged worth reading because of the trustworthiness of the poet”.82 This scholion demonstrates that what people chose to read in antiquity was tied to the identity of the author.83 Therefore, since the author of Aspis did not have an audience, he chose to become someone who did have one, in this case, Hesiod. Hesiod was much more popular than the actual author of the Aspis, and authors prefer to disappear from what they write if, by doing this, they secure an audience that otherwise would be impossible to have.84 The authors of the Aspis harnessed Hesiod’s reading community and took advantage of them so that they could read and diffuse their work. Peirano, once again, aptly comments, “the surreptitious use of someone else’s name—Hesiod’s in this case—is motivated by a desire to be read even if that is achieved at the price of anonymity” (Peirano 2012, p. 53).

Another example that powerfully illustrates this motivation for pseudepigraphy is the story of Salvian and Salonius. Salvian served as the presbyter of Marseille and published a book entitled “Timothei ad Ecclesiam Libri IV”.85 Timothy was a pseudonym, of course. Salonius, bishop of Geneva and a former student of Salvian, discovered that Timothy was, in fact, his teacher. As a bishop, Salonius wrote a letter asking Salvian to explain himself.86 Salvian replied that the subject matter of Ad Ecclesiam was of the utmost importance because Christians behaved poorly at the time and considered God as less important than worldly affairs.87 As such, Salvian continued, he was afraid that people would not heed to the actual author of Ad Ecclesiam because they would value him so low that they would not want to listen to him. The Church, claims Salvian, would only listen to one with authority, and he does not fit the requirement.88 The problem with the name Salvian is that it has a small pool of readers, and what he expected to accomplish—to be read widely so that Christians would alter their behavior—would be hindered because his name was not famous.89 Therefore, Salvian wrote under a pseudonym because he thought that everybody would listen to Timothy, since the audience of the apostle’s companion encompassed all Christians.90 In this way, Salvian guaranteed that people would heed his work since, as we have said, a name equals an audience. As Salvian himself writes:

Hence, rightly thinking that others must also evaluate him as he evaluates himself, he rightly inserted a strange name on his books, lest the insignificance of his person detract authority from his salutary statements. In a way, all things said are esteemed as much as is he who says them. Indeed, so weak are the judgments of our day and almost so meaningless that they who read do not consider so much what they read as whom they read, nor so much the force and strength of what is said as the reputation of him who speaks. For this reason, the writer wished to be completely hidden and to keep out of the way, lest writings which contained much helpfulness should lose their force through the name of the author. This is the reason for anyone who inquires why the author assumed another’s name.91

In other words, Salvian had something important to say, but he was not sufficiently important. He wondered who the church would listen to if the subject of avarice was at hand? The answer was Timothy.92 Thus, Salvian took Timothy’s persona so he could also appropriate his audience. Even if personal fame and ego had to be sacrificed to the altar of pseudepigraphy, what mattered for Salvian was for his message to be disseminated, for his book to have an audience (Ehrman 2014, pp. 94–96; Brakke 2016). Ehrman aptly condensed the discussion, arguing that “his explanation [Salvian’s] for why he could not write the book orthonymously is of considerable value: it shows that one of the motivations for producing pseudepigraphic works was to get a hearing for one’s views, by claiming to be someone who deserved to be heard” (Ehrman 2014, p. 96).

A similar phenomenon occurred throughout the transmission of the Pythagorean school writings. In ancient times, there was great discussion regarding the number of works Pythagoras had written and how many had been attributed to him by his students.93 However, Porphyry believed that many writings circulating under the name of Pythagoras had been falsely composed by his students and, consequently, they needed to be considered fakes. Porphyry did not have in mind the publication of lecture notes by some teachers’ students, a common phenomenon in antiquity. Rather, he was thinking of people purposely composing and publishing books under Pythagoras’ name. Concerning this practice, in an Arabic fragment found in a book by Ibn Abi Usaybi’a (Kitab ‘uyun al-anba’ fi tabaqat al-atibba), Porphyry comments:

The criminal individuals who fabricated these lying books that we have mentioned, according to traditions that have reached us, are Aristotle the Younger, Nikos known as the essentially erroneous, one of the Cretans called Konios, Megalos, and Fukhajawaqa, along with others even more reprehensible than they. And that was who proposed to them the fabrication of these lying books with the tongue of the philosopher Pythagoras and his name, so that would be accepted among the moderns because of him, so they would honor, prefer, and share them.94

Again, we see that people impersonating somebody else are after their reading community. Aristotle the Younger and his allies understood that Pythagoras’ audience had a penchant for philosophical discussions. If they were to write under their own names, few would be interested in reading their manuscripts. If they were to publish under Pythagoras’ name, many would be attracted, since the Greek philosopher had already accrued a group of loyal readers. The usurpers conveniently composed many books under Pythagoras’ name so that they would appeal to and be read by his audience. As Ehrman notices, “they [books] were written pseudepigraphically because by putting Pythagoras’ name on them, the books were more likely to be accepted by their readers” (Ehrman 2014, p. 110). That is, the books had more of a chance to be read if they were thought to be written by Pythagoras, because his reading community was bigger and broader than his students’. Therefore, they capitalized on the network of readers belonging to Pythagoras by taking his name and persona.

What the examples above conceptualize is that authors are looking for audiences to engage with and hear what they have to say. However, many authors do not have an audience, given that their lack of power precludes them from belonging to literary networks where their works could be disseminated. How do they attract an audience? By becoming someone who already has one. Giving up one’s name and adopting another is a calculated and intentional effort. By analogy, pseudepigraphy resembles the trade of goods: someone gives up something hoping to attain another thing. An author gives up his name and takes the name of another person to have an audience.

Genette rightly captures the phenomenon of pseudepigraphy as uniting “a taste for masks and mirrors, for indirect exhibitionism, and for controlled histrionics with delight in invention, in borrowing, in verbal transformation, in onomastic fetishism” (Genette 1997, p. 54). Writers long for reading communities; they value histrionics and are exhibitionists.95 However, they give up their names because they are not important enough to spark the attention of the people they want to read their work; that is, they do not have a reading community.96 That is why they must wear a mask and become someone else.97 They need to become someone their expected readers would be interested in; this decision is tailor-made; they identify which reading community they want to be heard by and then wear the mask that allows them to attract the attention of said community.98 At the risk of redundancy, people did not choose the name of just anyone to write under. They were careful and target-oriented. Since each author had a specific pool of readers, by becoming x or y, they would be read by the x or y reading communities. Genette aptly points out and summarizes the essence of pseudepigraphy: “If you can change your name, you can write”, because that would give you access to a very specific audience—the one attached to the name of the person you changed your name to (Genette 1997, p. 54).

For instance, what is at stake if someone writes pretending to be Galen? If only a handful of people in antiquity read Galen—those with access or interest—and someone assumes Galen’s persona and writes pretending to be him, who does that person expect to read his work? Certainly, it would not appeal to those who had never heard of the name Galen, but it would attract interest among those who had already read Galen and were interested in his writings. If you write pretending to be Galen, you do not hope for readers of Aelius Gallus or Pliny the Younger to read your work; you hope for Galen’s readers (Nutton 1984). The choosing of a pseudonym is not random; it is tailored.99 Behind the assumption of Galen’s persona lies the desire to be read by Galen’s readers. Thus, what is at stake when writing under a pseudonym is the reading community associated with the author’s name.

An episode reported by Galen in De libris propis illustrates this dynamic.100 Some unnamed man bought a book because it bore the name Galen, only to be reprimanded by a bystander who read the first lines of the book and determined it to be fake.101 Why did that man buy the book? Because he was already familiar with Galen’s writing (i.e., had access) and had an interest in what new things he might say in this unknown book.102 The bookseller knew how popular Galen was; it only took a step to wrongly and falsely attribute a book to him knowing that someone from his reading audience would surely buy it.103 This episode proves how false attribution preys upon the readers of the person involved.

Another work that exemplifies how ancient authors chose whom to impersonate based on the audience they wanted to target is Paul’s pastoral letters. A good number of scholars argue that 1–2 Timothy and Titus were not written by Paul himself but rather by someone pretending to be Paul.104 While a minority of scholars argue for the authenticity of the pastorals, they row against the stream and do not represent the academic consensus.105 However, since the authenticity of the pastorals does not concern this paper, let us take the pastorals as fakes for the sake of the argument. When Pseudo-Paul decided to write the pastorals to Paul’s associates, who did Pseudo-Paul think would read his fakes? The only ones who would read something written by Paul were those who were already familiar with him and were reading his previous works. In other words, his audience. Paul’s habitual readers would have been readily attracted to any book that carried the name of the apostle as its author. This made them gullible and the perfect audience for Pseudo-Paul to target since they offered what Pseudo-Paul wanted: an audience. This reveals Pseudo-Paul’s intelligence; he knows who his target audience will be, but he knows he cannot reach them by revealing his true identity. He needs to become someone that would attract the interest of his intended audience. Paul is the answer. Did Pseudo-Paul succeed? Did his fakes reach Paul’s audience? Yes. Ancient transmission of Paul’s letters evinces that the pastorals circulated alongside the genuine letters of Paul in the same manuscripts, even as a collection (Laird 2014). This means that Paul’s audience, those who read Romans, 1 Corinthians, etc., also read the pastorals by Pseudo-Paul (Laird 2014, pp. 169–70; Scherbenske 2013). Therefore, Pseudo-Paul achieved what he intended: to be read by Paul’s audience.106 If he would have chosen another name, he probably would have not been read by Paul’s readers. Thus, Pseudo-Paul chose Paul as his pseudonym because that would give him access to a specialized audience; Paul was chosen as a pseudonym with an eye for a particular effect.

What we have seen so far applies as well to the Virgilian pseudepigrapha. When Pseudo-Virgil decided to take Virgil as his pseudonym, who did he expect would read his fakes? Virgil’s readers. Some poems of the Catalepton as well as the Ciris intended to offer a portrait of what kind of works a young Virgil would have written (Peirano 2012, pp. 173–204). Therefore, the perfect audience for the Catalepton and the Ciris were those Virgil readers who became curious about the gap left by the poet regarding his poetic activity in his youth (Fraenkel 1952). The Catalepton and the Ciris provided answers to questions posed by Virgil’s readers. Did Pseudo-Virgil accomplish his goal? He did, since, in the end, his fakes were read by the same readers of the Aeneid and were transmitted and circulated as authentic works of Virgil (Appendix Vergiliana) (Peirano 2012, p. 79). Once again, an impersonator chose who to become based on the audience he expected to reach.

Moreover, pretending to be someone else is an act of borrowing, and in literary pseudepigraphy, the impersonator borrows the name of an author and the audience attached to it (Genette 1997, pp. 53–54). As David Meade long ago established, “Another distinction that needs to be made is between an invented pseudonym and a borrowed one. In modern literature, pseudonyms are often invented to mask the author’s real identity. The motives range from pure whimsy to a desire to avert certain prejudices, such as sexism. In antiquity, however, pseudonyms were mostly borrowed, not invented. That is, works were deliberately and falsely attributed to other, recognized figures” (Meade 1986, pp. 1–2). Behind the assumption of a fake name to publish a book is the fear of being irrelevant.107 In a world where a name was an icon of social value, to appropriate a name counted as assuming the social value (power) represented by it.108 Thus, if an author has already established himself as someone of importance, has built a reading community, and has accrued social capital among his readers, it is easier to impersonate him than to try to build a reputation on your own, especially when your name would not accomplish the same because it has no power (Genette 1997, pp. 53–54). Therefore, pseudepigraphy is a strategy for survival and relevance (Foucault 1998, p. 206). As Karen King has noted, “For others without friends in high places, it may be that their only realistic recourse was pseudepigraphy. Taking on a pseudonym may very well be one kind of strategic response to exclusionary practices, which limited who could occupy these positions” (King 2016, p. 39). By harnessing the reading community of the impersonated, the impersonator achieves what every writer wants: an audience. Just as pseudepigraphy has been defined as authors in search of discourses, in this case, it might be conceptualized as authors looking for audiences.

What we have asserted so far might seem simple and obvious. But, as obvious as it may seem now, it is often overlooked in most discussions about pseudepigraphy in antiquity, given that what is obvious becomes invisible and taken for granted. What we aim to do here is to unpack the undergirding logic of what is essential to pseudepigraphy: taking the name of someone to get the attention of that someone’s audience because it would be impossible to catch their attention with your proper name (Donelson 1986, p. 22). I am not saying that this is the only reason why someone resorts to pseudepigraphy, but it is behind most of the reasons people write under another name.109 Whether a person was trying to slander someone by taking their name and articulating positions that the real person would have never taken, extending the discourse tied to the name an impersonator takes, or writing under a fake with the hope of selling many copies of their book, the reasons for pseudepigraphy are pointless unless the idea of reaching the audience attached to the pseudonym is involved.

4. Pseudepigraphy in 1 Apocr. Apoc. John

4.1. Intention and Pseudepigraphy in 1 Apocr. Apoc. John

Now, we have a privileged position to explore the question that is central to this paper. Why did the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John write pretending to be John, the author of the Apocalypse? What is at stake with the name “John”? As we demonstrated above, what is at stake is the audience attached to John, the writer of the Apocalypse. The author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John endeavored to pass himself off as the author of the canonical Apocalypse.110 If what we said above is true, he did so to tap into the readership of John, the seer of Patmos.111 We must remember that each author in antiquity had a pool of specific readers. If someone writes as John the seer of Revelation, who will read text by that someone? Those that were already reading CR. Now, not everybody in antiquity had interest in what John the seer of Patmos had written. Only some found CR interesting and compelling.112 Initially, CR found many readers in early Christianity (Boxall 2020; Hill 2020). However, early Christian writers criticized CR heavily on account of its millennialism—strongly rejected by many—and its dubious authorship.113 This led to a generalized decrease in the interest of early Christians in CR in the Greek-speaking world, while in the West, CR was still met with enthusiasm, as interpreters such as Tyconius, Augustine, Primasius, and many others exemplified its usefulness for the church as a template of its internal struggles throughout history (Steinhauser 1987; Hoover 2018; 2020; Matter 1992). Nonetheless, in the Greek-speaking world, the interest in CR was revived sometime around the fifth century. By the time we reach the mid–late sixth century, we have a community of readers so invested in understanding CR that some of them were likely the target of Oecumenius’ commentary (Castagno 1981; Fernández Jiménez 2013; De Groote 1996; De Villiers 2007; Cardozo Mindiola 2023). The same could be said about Andrew’s commentary, since it was addressed to a fellow bishop so that he could explain the contents of CR to many interested people, and in this way, dissuade expectations about an imminent end (Constantinou 2013; Hernández 2012; Cardozo Mindiola 2023). Therefore, we can safely conclude that, in Late Antiquity, CR had many readers—readers that the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John wanted to capitalize on.114

In a world where the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John could have become anyone, he chose to wear the mask of John, the seer of Revelation, so that he would draw the attention of his readers.115 He could have chosen to adopt Paul or Peter’s persona if he had wanted to be read by Paul or Peter’s reading community.116 In other words, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John wanted to be read by those who already were reading CR, and that explains why he chose to impersonate John, the seer of Revelation.117 He wanted to get the attention of those interested in CR, and the best way to do so was to hide his identity and impersonate someone who had already built rapport among his readers (King 2016, pp. 39–40). John the seer of Patmos already had an audience, and it was up for the taking. It was much easier to encroach on his reading community rather than build one from scratch. Thus, as Genette rightly said, “If you can change your name, you can write” (Genette 1997, p. 54).

The author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John surely had the resources to try to furnish an audience for himself. He knew how to write in Greek, which implies a level of education beyond the basics. He had access to different biblical manuscripts, which places him near a library (whether he owned it or was part of a group having access) and once again implies resources. He seemed to be aware of many eschatological traditions, which he echoes in his book—how he could have become acquainted with them involves scenarios from oral transmission to copies of texts. This implies he is well connected. Thus, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John apparently had the basic toolkit to be a writer in antiquity. This raises the question: why did he decide to efface himself? Probably out of humility.118 Early Christian writers cultivated humility as performative ascetism. This chasing of virtue led them to truly believe that they were not capable of writing, which often took the shape of criticism of their style or simply self-effacement. The author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, due to his cultivation of humility, likely perceived himself—wrongly—as incapable of securing an audience for himself, and this led him to write under a pseudonym instead. On one hand, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John could have furnished an audience for himself based on his skills/competence, but this audience would probably not have been CR’s readers. On the other hand, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John could have decided not to use a pseudonym and just circulate his writing anonymously, as Sulpicius did. In this way, he could have also gained an audience for himself, even if anonymity was the price. Thus, the fact that he employed a pseudonym instead points out that the profit lay in the audience attached to John, thereby connecting his eschatological book to an ongoing discourse about the topic. As we have argued, the pseudonym’s selection was tailor-made; he wanted to be read by CR’s readers because he intended to update, expand, and rework CR’s discourse.119

Furthermore, books are not only vehicles for the transmission of texts but instruments of social value.120 In late antiquity, to have books amounted to social status and money. Therefore, books granted to whoever possessed them honor and reputation.121 In late antiquity, early Christianity took deliberate steps to become a bookish movement, even to the point where to possess a book in late antiquity was tantamount to a confession of being a Christian (Kloppenborg 2014). Books became the symbol of Christianity (Sarefield 2007). To have books purportedly written by apostles conferred even more special status to the holders, since they had direct access to Jesus’s teaching, mediated through the apostles (Kloppenborg 2014, p. 35; King 2016, p. 25). A community would place special value on a book written by an apostle, securing the means to make copies and distribute such books in order to broaden the readership.122 Thus, if you did not have an audience and desired to secure one, taking the name of an apostle to write under would guarantee readers and mechanisms to copy and distribute your book (Brakke 2011). Consequently, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John chose to impersonate the apostle, hoping for the readers of CR to read his work and guarantee its transmission.123

In fact, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John accomplished his goal. As we will see, his work was indeed received, read, and commented upon by the same community that engaged and valued CR. How can we know this? At least one argument can be put forward to sustain this claim: the titles given to 1 Apocr. Apoc. John during its textual transmission.

Titles as Reception and Tradition

Titles are, as Genette said, “an artificial object, an artifact of reception or of commentary” (Genette 1997, pp. 55–56; Wallraff and Andrist 2015). They are allographic by nature insofar as the reading community ascribes them to the work, revealing what the community thinks about the author, genre, and addresses, among others, and how they receive the work in general (Ballester 1990; Jansen 2014). Thus, titles as tokens of reception instantiate tradition.124 This declaration rings true particularly as it applies to the titles given to CR. Hoskier compiled 46 Greek titles for Revelation, while Allen carried the number up to 53 (Hoskier 1929; Allen 2019). But, as Allen points out, “it is not the sheer quantity of titles that is primarily interesting, but the quality of the components and their varied usage that illuminate the ways that particular communities conceived of Revelation’s authorship, John’s situation, and the message of his opaque work” (Allen 2019, p. 609). In other words, the information conveyed in the titles of CR reflects the engagement and hermeneutical process of CR’s reading communities.

Most of the information conveyed in the titles of Revelation deal with the author (John) and how he is perceived by his readers: holy, theologian, beloved, praised, dear, evangelist, apostle, disciple, etc. (Allen 2019, pp. 610–11). Some information in the titles relates to the content of the work (mysteries of God) as well as its significance (Allen 2019, pp. 612–13). Furthermore, some titles contain an allusion to the place of composition (Patmos), and almost everyone mentions the genre of the text (Apocalypse) (Allen 2019, p. 613). This information reflects the commentary tradition of Oecumenius and Andrew of Caesarea, since almost every adjective that appears in the titles of revelation concerning this author also appears in the commentaries of Oecumenius and Andrew (Allen 2019, p. 612). Thereby, we have a reading community, heavily influenced by Oecumenius and Andrew—especially Andrew—that, based on their commentary tradition, assigned titles to the book of Revelation reflecting on the author, message, and location. Thus, Allen rightly concluded that “the diachronic growth of the titles is direct evidence of engagement with the Apocalypse by reading communities” (Allen 2019, pp. 614–15) and “that Revelation’s titles matured in length and spatial emphasis indicates a rather active and engaged group of readers and scribal craftspeople”. Genette drives the point home when he argues that “For the main agent of titular drift is probably neither the author nor even the publisher but in fact the public, and more precisely the posthumous public, still and very properly called posterity”.125

What is interesting is that the titles of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John and CR share a striking number of commonalities (see

Table 1. Comparison between titles of CR and 1 Apocr. Apoc. John.

1 Apocr. Apoc. John126		Canonical Revelation of John127
Titles	Manuscript	Titles	Manuscript
Aποκαλυψις ιωαννου του θεολογου	Cambridge, Trinity College, O.8.33, fols. 98r–102r (16th cent.) (James 1902) [12022]128	Ιωαννου του θεολογου αποκαλυψις	93inscr 314
Aποκαλιψις του Ιωαννου του θεολογου και περι της ελεσεως του αντιχριστου129	Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, suppl. gr. 136, fols. 28v–40v (16th cent.) (Ehrhard 1937) [52906]
Aποκαλυψις του αγιου ιωαννου του θεολογου Aπόκαλυψις του αγιου Ιωαννου του θεολογου	Athens, Ethnikē Bibliothēkē, gr. 1098, fols. 15r–17v (1506–1507) (Halkin 1983) [3394] Jerusalem, Patriarchikē bibliothēkē, Panagiou Taphou 66, fols. 378v–385r (15th cent.) (Ehrhard 1937, vol. 3, p. 345) [35303]	Aποκαλυψις του αγιου ιωαννου του θεολογου130	18 35 42sub 93sub 149 218 256 296 325sub 367 368 386inscr 456 468inscr 517sub 664 757tel sub 808 1094 1424sub 1678 1732tel sub 1876 1893 1903 1948 2016 2020 2025 2038arx 2076 2080 2138 2196 2200 2258 2323 2351
Aποκαλυψις του αγιου Ιωαννου του θεολογου	Mount Athos, Monē Dionusiou, 206 (Lampros 3740), no fol. numbers provided (17th cent.) (Lampros 1895)
H Aποκαλυψις του αγιου Ιωαννου του θεολογου	[D] Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, gr. 1034, fols. 120r–134v (15th cent.) (Omont 1886) [50627]
Aποκαλυψις του αγιου ιωαννου του θεολογου	[C] Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, gr. II.42, fols. 285r–291r (13th century).
Aποκαληψις του αγιου Ιωαννου του θεολογου περι της δευτερας παρουσιας και της συντελειας131	Athens, Ethnikē Bibliothēkē, gr. 346, fols. 36r–41v (15th cent.) (Halkin 1983, p. 43) [2642]
Aποκαλυψις του αγιου και πανεφημου αποστολου και ευαγγεληστου Ιωαννου του θεολογου ευλογου	[B]Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, gr. 947, fols. 26v–32v (1574 CE) (Omont 1886, vol. 1, p. 181) [50536]	Aποκαλυψις του αγιου και πανευφημου αποστολου και ευαγγεληστου Ιωαννου του θεολογου132	1849inscr 2845133 2846
Aποκαλυψις του αγιου αποστολου και ευαγγελιστου Ιωαννου του θεολογου Aποκαλυψις του αγιου αποστολου και ευαγγελιστου Ιωαννου του θεολογου περι του αντιχριστου134 Aποκαλυψις του αγιου αποστολου και ευαγγελιστου Ιωαννου του θεολογου περι του αντιχριστου και περι της δευτερας παρουσιας του κυριου ημων Ιησου Χριστου135	[F]Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. gr. 364, fols. 110r–116v (15th cent.) (Ehrhard 1937, vol. 3, p. 803) [66096] [G]Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, hist.gr. 119, fols. 108r–115v (15th century) London, Highgate School, II. 29, fols. 112v–120v (15th cent.) (van de Vorst and Delehaye 1913)	Aποκαλυψις του αγιου αποστολου και ευαγγελιστου Ιωαννου του θεολογου136	432 1064 1328 1384 1685 1732inscr 1733 1740 1768 1771 1865 2051 2066 2723 2759
Aποκαλυψις του αγιου αποστολου και ευαγγελιστου παρθενου Ιωαννου του θεολογου	Mount Athos, Monē Dionusiou, 298 (Lampros 3832), fols. 136v–145r (17th cent.) (Lampros 1895, vol. 1, pp. 406–7)	Aποκαλυψις του αγιου και ευαγγελιστου αποστολου Ιωαννου παρθενου του θεολογου137	2638
Aποκαλυψις του κυριου ημων Ιησου Χριστου προς τον αγιον Ιωαννην τον θεολογον	Athens, Ethnikē Bibliothēkē, gr. 1007, fols. 238r–243v (15th–16th cent.) (Berendts 1904) [3303]	There is no direct equivalence. Notwithstanding, the title below paraphrases the title of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John: Ιησου χριστου αποκαλυψις δοθησα τω θεολογω ιωαννη	203 506
Aποκαλυψις του αγιου ιωαννου αποστολου και ευαγγελιστου επιστηθειου ηγαπημενου παρθενου του θεολογου περι της συντελειας και περι του αντιχριστου	[A] Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, gr. XI. 20, fols. 303r–313r (16th cent).	There is no direct equivalence to this title. Yet, many of its constituents are represented throughout the titles of the canonical Revelation of John. For instance, Επιστηθειου—1775 Hγαπημενου—2058, 2077, 91, 1934, 2061, 1859
Ερωτησις του αγιου Ιωαννου του θεολογου περι της παρουσιας του κυριου ημων ιησου χριστου και περι της συντελειας	[E] Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, gr. II.90, fols. 249r–255r (16th century) (Mioni 1967).	There is no direct equivalence.138 Yet, some constituents belong to the CR title tradition, such as αγιου Ιωαννου του θεολογου
Του αγιου αποστολου και ευαγγελιστου παρθενου επιστηθειου ιωαννου του θεολογου λογος εις την δευτεραν παρουσιαν του κυριου ημων Ιησου Χριστου και περι αντιχριστου	Athens, Ethnikē Bibliothēkē, gr. 355, fols. 30r–37v (15th cent.) (Halkin 1983, p. 45) [2651]	There is no direct equivalence, but some of its constituents belong to the CR title tradition. Elements such as “αγιου αποστολου και ευαγγελιστου παρθενου επιστηθειου ιωαννου του θεολογου” found equivalents in many CR titles, as described above
H α[π]οκαλιψην του αγιου ενδοξου και πανεφημου αποστολου επιστηθιου φηλου του ιγαπημενου και παρθενου Ιωαννου του θεολογου περι της συντελιας του αιωνος	Athens, Ethnikē Bibliothēkē, gr. 356, fols. 300v–306r (1633–1634) (Halkin 1983, p. 46) [2652]	There is no direct equivalence to this title. Yet, many of its constituents are represented throughout the titles of the canonical Revelation of John. For instance, ενδοξου—(παν) ενδοξου 1775 φηλου—2061
Oμιλια του κυριου ημων Ιησου Χριστου και Ιωαννου του θεολογου περι της κακοπραγιας του μιαρου δρακοντος και περι της δευτερας παρουσιας 139	Sofia, C’rkovnoistoriceskija i archiven Institut, 887, fols. 130r–157v (16th cent) (Getov 2014) [62054]	There is no equivalence
Λογος περι της ελευσεως του κυριου ημων Ιησου Χριστου	Meteora, Mone Metamorphoseos, 382, fols. 58v–65v (15th cent.) (Ehrhard 1937, vol. 3, p. 768) [41792]	There is no equivalence
Ιωαννης του θεολογου περι της δευτερας παρουσιας του Ιησου	Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, L113 sup., fols. 167r–170r (15th cent.) (Martini and Bassi 1906) [42972]	There is no equivalence
Aποκαλυψις και διηγησις Ιωαννου του θεολογου και περι της δευτερας παρουσιας	Mount Athos, Mone Batopediou, 422, fols. 83-88 (13th cent.) (Eustratiadès and Vatopédinos 1924) [18566]	There is no equivalence

), suggesting, at least in my view, that some of the reading communities of CR overlapped with the reading communities of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John.

We glean from the table above that 1 Apocr. Apoc. John and CR have the same titles in a considerable number of manuscripts, while in others both works share similar wording and structure. 1 Apocr. Apoc. John and CR not only share the common designation “Aποκαλυψις του αγιου ιωαννου του θεολογου” but more complex forms like “Aποκαλυψις του αγιου και πανεφημου αποστολου και ευαγγεληστου Ιωαννου του θεολογου ευλογου” or “Aποκαλυψις του αγιου αποστολου και ευαγγελιστου Ιωαννου του θεολογου”, including “Aποκαλυψις του αγιου και ευαγγελιστου αποστολου Ιωαννου παρθενου του θεολογου”. The resemblances between these two titular traditions indicates intentional mimesis from 1 Apocr. Apoc. John of CR, not just mere chance or accident.

Now, as we have said before, the titles of CR reflect the direct engagement of the reading community during its transmission history; as time passed by, readers and scribes managed to expand the titles of CR to include descriptors from the commentary tradition that clarify the identity, genre, and content of the work.140 What is striking is that the same descriptors of author and genre present in CR are also present in some titles of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John. Therefore, this would suggest that if the reading community of CR is responsible for the content of its titles, and some of the same titles appear in 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, some reading communities of the latter must overlap with some reading communities of the former. In fact, if titles are ascribed by the reading community to the manuscript,141 what are the odds that two different texts received the same title from two audiences independent of each other? Few indeed, considering that the titles of CR reflect the tradition of Oecumenius and Andrew’s commentaries, which accompany the biblical text in many manuscripts, whereas no commentary tradition was transmitted along 1 Apocr. Apoc. John.142 Moreover, of all the manuscripts where shared titles between CR and 1 Apocr. Apoc. John appear, those transmitting CR are older than those containing 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, suggesting that the latter must depend on the former. Now, it is possible that both CR and 1 Apocr. Apoc. John received the same titles from two different reading communities. However, this would be a unique fortuity; unique even for most of the works of early and late antiquity. If we understand the implications of the fact that the reading communities assigned and shaped the titular tradition of ancient works,143 then it is more likely that some reading communities of CR were also some of the reading communities of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John and, at some point in the transmission history, decided to transfer the titular designation of the former to the latter. In fact, we have seen, through the diachronic development of the titular tradition of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, how some reading communities wittingly fashioned its title to make it look like the title of CR, which is only possible if some audiences of the former are identical to some audiences of the latter. This indicates that, in the end, the author of the 1 Apocr. Apoc. John was successful and attracted the attention of the readers of the canonical Revelation.

Moreover, I think the dynamic described above explains the comment found in a ninth-century scholio of the Grammar of Dionysius Thrax, which contains the following declaration: “And there is another called the Apocalypse of the Theologian. We are not speaking of the one in the island of Patmos—God forbid, for that one is supremely true—but of a pseudonymous and spurious one”.144 I think the comment reveals that the circulation of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John among the readers of CR was so wide that something had to be said to distinguish between the two works and grant the canonical Revelation a more prominent place. Yet, this scholio reveals that both CR and 1 Apocr. Apoc. John had the same readers in antiquity, proving that the latter accomplished its goal of being read by the CR reading community.

4.2. Motivation and Pseudepigraphy in 1 Apocr. Apoc. John

The previous discussion leads us to ask why the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John needed to harness the readership of canonical Revelation? Two possible answers can be given. On one hand, there is a possibility that the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John wrote this text to replace canonical Revelation, due to its complex and trampled reception in the Eastern Greek-speaking churches in early and late antiquity (Kaestli 2010). If this is so, it is only logical that the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John would have wanted to be read by CR’s readers, given that to replace Revelation he would have needed its readers to stop engaging with the text altogether and to adopt 1 Apocr. Apoc. John in its place. The author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John hoped that CR’s readers would adopt 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as the book that presents the sanctioned eschatological end-time scenario by presenting them with an alternative account of end-time events that was more explicit and coherent with early and late Christian eschatology.145 Thus, CR’s readers were the natural addresses of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John. On the other hand, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John could have written the text to rework, extend, update, harmonize, and fill gaps in the eschatological discourse associated with John’s Apocalypse (Weinel 1923, p. 23). In this case, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John wanted to be read by CR’s readers because he perceived some inconsistencies, interpretative problems, incoherence, and outdated material in CR and aimed, out of respect for CR, at resolving these issues for its audience. Thus, given that 1 Apocr. Apoc. John would rework CR, the audience most interested in reading 1 Apocr. Apoc. John would be CR’s readers because, otherwise, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John would not be as relevant as for those familiar with CR. That is, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John is like a footnote to Revelation. Reading a footnote without engaging with the main text is pointless. Either way, the reason why the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John wanted to be read by CR’s readers is because the purpose of his work hinges upon CR — either to replace it or to extend it.

Moreover, recent research on the motivations behind pseudepigraphy in Jewish, Christian, and Roman texts suggests that, in antiquity, authors chose another name to write under, with the purpose of reworking, updating, extending, or filling gaps in the discourse associated with that name and ascribing to it the new ideas. Najman points out that, “in some ancient cultures, the way to continue or return to the founder’s discourse was precisely to ascribe what one said or wrote, not to oneself, but rather to the founder”.146 In this way, the discourse tied to its founder is reworked and updated, but the resulting modifications present themselves not as something new but as an authentic expression of the original discourse. Najman, considering expansions to the legal Mosaic discourse, writes, “on this understanding of a discourse tied to a founder, to rework an earlier text is to update, interpret and develop the content of that text in a way that one claims to be an authentic expression of the law already accepted as authoritatively Mosaic” (Najman 2003, p. 13). To take someone else’s name to write amounts to interpreting, developing, and expanding the discourse already tied to that someone.147

Further, Mroczek, building on Najman’s insights, argues that the choice of a pseudonym also has an aesthetic cause. Mroczek argued that an ancient author chose to use a name to extend the discourse tied to it probably because that name was associated with a particular genre. For instance, David was so thoroughly associated with the genre of psalms that this led some scribes to ascribe certain psalms to David in their superscription, to enrich and expand David’s narrative.148 David was such a beloved character in Jewish culture that curiosity about him drove scribes to imagine scenarios where details about his life could be clarified.149 Thus, the desire to fill in some lacunae in certain episodes of his life inspired Jewish interpreters to establish David as a colonizer of new textual territories, that is, making him the speaker of psalms that previously were prayed individually and collectively in Israel in a generic form.150 The psalm headings’ composers reflected about David, particularly in his lowest moments, including in his grief, in his despair, in his contrition, and in being overpowered by his son (Mroczek 2016, pp. 61–63). How did he feel during those moments? What did he pray about? By making David perform psalms dealing with these issues via their superscriptions, readers and curious persons alike had answers; people now knew what David prayed like. Thus, they filled the biographical gaps in David’s story; when David did not have anything more to say, they gave him more things to say (Mroczek 2016, p. 63). After the expansion made by the psalms headings, David’s character was enriched; he was the model of prayer and worship, aspects that before the psalms heading composers’ intervention might not have been clear (Mroczek 2016, pp. 61–63). So, Mroczek agrees with Najman that pseudonymous attribution is about expansion, development, and interpretation.151 As she concludes, pseudepigraphy is about characters in search of stories.

Finally, Peirano, working with Roman fakes, also argues that pseudepigraphy is about “a broader desire to prolong the life of the author by, in some way, countering the finality that his death imposes on his literary production” (Peirano 2012, p. 76). She argues that pseudepigraphy enabled ancient readers to fill in gaps left in the previous works of an author or expand his literary corpus so as to address some issues that might have arisen after an author’s death. Thus, pseudepigraphy was born out of intense love for an author as a desire to hear his voice through the composition of new texts. For instance, Peirano argues that some poems of the Catalepton and the Ciris intended to offer Virgil’s readers a window into the literary work of the young poet, thus extending his corpus for those who loved him enough to desire to hear his voice in such an irrecuperable period (Peirano 2012, pp. 173–204). Further, she also argued that the Catalepton and the Ciris meant to rework some of the authentic Virgilian poems, where contradictions were uncovered by later interpreters. Peirano colorfully explains pseudepigraphy as placing a footnote in the main text of a work to expand on an idea, rework it, or even expose alternatives.152

The aforementioned research on pseudepigraphy suggests that instead of replacing CR, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John sought to rework, update, criticize, amplify, and/or modify CR’s discourse. Therefore, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John used John’s persona because he did not want to initiate a new type of eschatological discourse but rather modify an already existing one—tied to John, the seer of Revelation. Further, following Mroczek’s arguments above, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John chose John as a pseudonym for aesthetic reasons. Just as David was the perfect character to attribute individual and corporal psalms because of his close association with the genre, thereby filling gaps and enriching his persona, John is the perfect candidate to whom to attribute a development of an apocalyptic discourse, since he is the only name tied to the genre in NT. The results of choosing John as a pseudonym for 1 Apocr. Apoc. John are the same as delineated above by Najman, Mroczek, and Peirano: 1 Apocr. Apoc. John reworks Revelation by interpreting it, modifying it, extending it, and filling gaps in it, as well as by giving John more things to say about topics left unaddressed in CR and by keeping his voice active, and in this way, countering the finality of his death. Therefore, John’s name functions in 1 Apocr. Apoc. John like a hashtag in modern social media (Breu 2019). The hashtag allows you to connect what you want to say to an undergoing discourse and, at the same time, to expand such discourse to include new information. In the same way, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John links its discourse to the CR’s eschatology via John’s name and develops what was already attached to it.

Why would CR need to be reworked, expanded, and updated? There are many ambiguities in CR, due to its highly symbolic language, that could undoubtedly generate the desire in its readers to have them resolved. At the same time, when CR was penned, debates and topics such as the physical appearance of the antichrist or the characteristic of the resurrected body were not as intensely discussed as in later centuries. CR then ignores what would become classic topoi in eschatological Christian discourse in antiquity, rendering CR obsolete. 1 Apocr. Apoc. John updates canonical Revelation by bringing its eschatological discourse into alignment with traditional early Christian reflection on eschatological issues such as the antichrist, final judgment, and the second coming, among others.153 1 Apocr. Apoc. John fills the lacunae perceived by later readers of canonical Revelation and calms the mind of those curious and asking questions about topics that canonical Revelation met with silence.154 In other words, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John places a footnote in CR’s discourse. For instance, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John picks up CR’s discourse about the resurrection and criticizes it, expands it, and updates it by discussing topics that would become relevant in late-antique Christianity but were not addressed in CR. To this, we dedicate the next section.

The Resurrection of the Dead

One example of the expansion of CR’s eschatological discourse can be found when the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John develops the tradition surrounding the resurrection of the dead found in CR. CR scantly describes the resurrection of the dead in Rev 20. John splits in two the event of the resurrection. Contrary to the tenet of most of the NT, John considers that the righteous and unrighteous come back to life not in a single eschatological event located at the end of times but rather on two different occasions. The righteous resurrect at the beginning of the millennium (Rev 20,4), and the unrighteous at the end (Rev 20,5).155 The righteous come back to life to reign with Jesus for a thousand years; the unrighteous, to be judged and punished.156 However, John the seer does not explain the event of the resurrection itself. Even though Rev 21,13 presumes material continuity at the resurrection, CR does not detail the nature of the body of the resurrected or which aspects of the body evince continuity and discontinuity, etc.157 All these topics are left unaddressed. Thus, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John expands the canonical book of Revelation by dealing with these unaddressed questions, which were highly discussed and contested among early Christians. The answers 1 Apocr. Apoc. John gives to these issues were by no means standard but reflect the ongoing conversation around them.158 Though 1 Apocr. Apoc. John did not handle these topics in a popular and mainstream way as others might have done, at least it offered a treatment of them by incorporating bits of different traditions regarding the resurrection. Where CR stayed silent, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John made it speak; 1 Apocr. Apoc. John utilized the name John as a mouthpiece to engage with the CR discourse about the resurrection and to elaborate on it, bringing it into alignment with what early Christians discussed about this topic yet CR remained silent about.159 1 Apocr. Apoc. John made CR’s eschatological discourse relevant by making it speak for a new audience about new topics.

1 Apocr. Apoc. John conceives the resurrection as a single event, and it is placed after a period of generalized death on Earth.160 Here, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John critiques and reworks CR, given that the idea of two resurrections separated by a thousand years was not popular among early Christians. Instead, the idea of a single resurrection was more compelling; 1 Apocr. Apoc. John incorporates this, thereby aligning John’s discourse with early Christian eschatology. Additionally, in 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, the resurrection does not happen at the second coming of Christ but before, contrary to what the NT taught about the subject.161 1 Apocr. Apoc. John reads against the grain of NT teaching about the subject of resurrection, probably because it wanted to propose an alternative eschatological scenario where the resurrection must precede the second coming, because the Parousia will bring the end of everything, and before that, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John needed to address taking the resurrected to heaven, cleansing the earth, and then initiating the end of the world. In this case, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John reworks CR and presents an alternative version of how the end will take place.

Moreover, in 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, as result of the three years’ reign of the antichrist, “the whole human race will die and there will not be a living human upon the entire earth”.162 After this intermediary moment, Michael and Gabriel, coming out of heaven, will raise the ram’s horns and, using them as trumpets, will sound the blast that will rise up all the human race—righteous and unrighteous.163 While 1 Apocr. Apoc. John does not detail the event of resurrection, it at least includes traditional elements belonging to the eschatological discourse surrounding the resurrection, namely that it will happen through angelic mediation, at the sound of a trumpet/horn, and will involve the voice of an archangel.164 By doing this, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John already gives more information about the resurrection than CR, which does not mention angels or trumpets in the description of this event. Consequently, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John expands the eschatological discourse of canonical Revelation by bringing the eschatological scenario about the resurrection in line with NT traditional depictions of this event.

As we previously mentioned, CR is rather scant in terms of a description of the resurrected body. 1 Apocr. Apoc. John took this as its cue to fill the gap left by CR on this issue.165 Christians had been asking how the resurrected will rise since the times of Paul.166 Early Christians answered it variedly, but at least three main ways could be discerned.167 First, most Christians believed that the same earthly body people had on Earth will be resurrected, stressing material continuity, matter conservation (same atoms will rise), and even organ equivalency.168 This is not to say that they deny change and transformation. Deformities and illness will be healed, and harmony and proportion restored; the mortal body will dress itself with immortality and glory to prevent decay (Moss 2011, 2019). The resurrection involves both the adequacy of the body for the angelic life and conservation of what make us identifiable individuals in this life. Second, Origen and some thinkers akin to him constructed a view of the resurrection body as preserving what makes us unique and individuals but at the same time denying that the earthly flesh and bones will rise.169 Rather, they thought that the resurrected will have bodies but made of spiritual matter—the nature of which is unspecified. Third, with the coming of martyrdom, Christians needed to rethink the resurrection. Some early Christians proposed that immediately after death, the righteous souls went to heaven to share in the communion of the Father (Gonzalez 2013). Since soul had form in antiquity, those souls in heaven retained the markers of bodily identity: facial gestures, scars, bodily form, etc. (Gonzalez 2013, pp. 496–98). However, these Christians did not expect an eschatological event where the bodies of the dead will be resurrected. They assumed the dead already were alive in their post-mortem state, and bodies were not needed for this mode of existence (Lehtipuu 2015a, pp. 164–73).

CR did not address these debates, so 1 Apocr. Apoc. John gave voice to John so that he could speak about them. 1 Apocr. Apoc. John contrasts starkly with what early Christians believed about the resurrection of the dead, since its position transits between the blurry lines of options one and two described above. 1 Apocr. Apoc. John poses that everybody will resurrect being 30 years old.170 Moreover, all differences between persons are washed away, since they will be like bees, that is, undistinguishable from each other.171 Therefore, at the eschaton, there will not be gender or age differences;172 the resurrected will have one form/shape and one stature.173 If everybody looks the same, it follows that there will not be race either.174 Thus, it will be impossible to distinguish among people or even have memories of past things.175 In a nutshell, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John imagines the resurrected life as the angelic life, except for the fact that 1 Apocr. Apoc. John still believes that the earthly bodies will be resurrected, albeit in an improved and markedly different form.176 In an ideological context where early Christians argued for the continuity of the person in the afterlife, whether by fleshly or spiritual bodies, as well as continued soulish existence, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John envisions an eschatological scenario wherein God obliterates any personal traits that might allow people to have an identity. 1 Apocr. Apoc. John reads against the grain of Christian tradition in order to ascertain a world where everybody has equality of condition, where the only distinction remaining between humans is their eternal fate based on God’s judgment upon them.177

Candida Moss has correctly argued that resurrected bodies are constructions of those who imagine them, reflecting the values society places on sex, gender, and beauty, among others (Moss 2011, p. 993). Given that 1 Apocr. Apoc. John totally disregards the value of the experiences, forms, and shapes from the previous life of the resurrected, it imagines perfection in the resurrected body as self-effacement. 1 Apocr. Apoc. John puts more weight on what God could create in the resurrection than what humans were before being resurrected. Accordingly, what you do while in the earthly body apparently does not matter, despite the fact that you will be judged by your works on the earthly body. Thus, if perfection is self-effacement for 1 Apocr. Apoc. John, the resurrected body it depicts escapes human achievement; the resurrected body becomes an icon of supra-human existence, of assimilation into the divine.178 What Candida Moss wrote about early Christian views on the resurrection rings true of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John as well.

As representations of divine affairs, these constructions can be used to reorganize the world and exert power over others. In the case of resurrected bodies, the characterization of heavenly bodies as “perfected” communicates something about the relative values placed on gender, race, and disability and non-disability. The depictions of resurrected bodies in the early church do more than reinscribe culturally relative norms about the body; they offer a promise. They present a vision of a future in which the identities of existing bodies—actual people—will be reconfigured “perfectly”; an approaching future in which individual identity will be overwritten and difference will be eradicated from the heavenly kingdom.

(Moss 2011, p. 993)

Perhaps Moss’s contextualization explains why 1 Apocr. Apoc. John holds such a radical position on the continuity of the earthly body in the resurrection. If the resurrection symbolizes the reconfiguration of the world order into something better, humans cannot be or look like they used to in the previous world.179 If humans were part of the landscape that characterized the old world, those who enter the new world must cease to be human; they must be like gods if they are to inhabit God’s world.

In summary, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John takes a complex stance towards the traditional tenets of the early Christian reflection on the resurrection of the dead.180 On one hand, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John seems to agree with the Cristian kerygma that there will be a resurrection of the dead and takes from predecessors some details related with the appearance of the resurrected bodies at the eschaton. On the other hand, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John contradicts the traditional reflection on the topic of material continuity and identity.181 Its portrait of the resurrection bodies is one that, in general, looks unorthodox, though its components are completely orthodox. In lieu of the absence of information in the canonical Revelation about the resurrection bodies, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John takes this as a chance to fill the gap with his own opinion and Christian tradition about how this key event will happen. In other words, 1 Apocr. Apoc. John placed a footnote on CR’s addressing of the issue of the resurrection of the dead. By taking John as his name, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John extends the discourse associated with him, thereby ensuring the tradition of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John remained Johannine, even if reimagined creatively. That is why the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John was so adamant regarding his intention of attracting CR’s readers, since the extension of CR’s discourse was meant to be read by them. In this case, Johannine pseudepigraphy is reception, expansion, commentary, and critique.

5. Conclusions

In conclusion, authors had to renounce their names when they did not have power, which in their case meant having an audience. But they did not just give up their name, they adopted the name of someone else. Why? Because that name did have power, or in other words, an audience. By trading names, authors exchanged fame and glory for the possibility to be read. This strategic move built upon a particular dynamic in antiquity. Each author had a specific pool of readers. When you did not have an audience in antiquity and changed your name to someone else’s, you gained access to that someone’s particular audience. Many ancient examples confirm this as a motive for pseudepigraphy. Therefore, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John had no other choice but to give up his name because he did not have an audience. By taking the name John, the seer of Revelation, he secured the audience of the latter. Further, the comparison of the titular tradition evinces that the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John did accomplish what he wanted: he was read by the audience of CR. Finally, this article argues that, in line with recent research on the use of pseudepigraphy in Jewish, Christian, and Roman contexts, the author of 1 Apocr. Apoc. John wanted to be read by CR’s readers because he wanted to expand, criticize, rework, and update CR’s eschatological discourse, making CR’s readers the ideal audience for 1 Apocr. Apoc. John; they would be naturally interested in reading an alternative presentation of the end-time scenario that improves upon the one presented by CR. Thus, the article shows that 1 Apocr. Apoc. John criticized CR’s presentation of the resurrection of the dead and proposed an alternative version that stood in continuity and discontinuity with Christian reflection on the issue.