THIS IS A CONTINUATION OF MY PREVIOUS POST ON SALVIAN, THE ONE CHRISTIAN FORGER THAT WE KNOW WAS CAUGHT IN THE ACT.   I INCLUDE THE TAIL END OF THE PREVIOUS POST AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS ONE FOR CONTEXT, BUT YOU MAY WANT TO REREAD THE WHOLE THING ITSELF.   THIS, AGAIN, IS DRAWN FROM MY FORTHCOMING BOOK FORGERY AND COUNTERFORGERY.

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Given this confession of motivation, what Salvian claims next may seem a bit surprising, if not down-right duplicitous.  Why did he choose the name Timothy in particular?  Readers naturally took the name to refer to Paul’s Pastoral companion, hence Salonius’s distraught reaction.  But in clear tension with his earlier assertion that an unknown person would not be accepted as an authoritative source, Salvian claims that he chose the name purely for of its symbolic associations.  Just as the evangelist Luke wrote to “Theophilus” because he wrote “for the love of God,” so too the author of this treatise wrote as “Timothy,” that is, “for the honor of God.”  In other words, he chose the pseudonym as a pen name.

Despite the fact that many critics today continue simply to take Salvian’s word for it,  the explanation does not satisfy. If Salvian meant what he said, that the reason for choosing a pseudonymous name was to authorize the account – since a treatise written by an obscure or unknown person has no authority – then how can he also say that the specific pseudonymous name was not that of an authority figure (Paul’s companion Timothy) but of an unknown, obscure, and anonymous person intent on honoring God?

Scholars determined to follow Salvian’s lead in getting him off Salonius’s hook have pursued various angles.  Norbert Brox thinks it significant that Salvian claims in the letter to be humble….

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