John Byron and The Myth of the Church's Golden Age

Over at The Biblical World Dr John Byron has a post on the Myth of the Church's Golden Age. Briefly noting a few of the controversies in the early Church he concludes:

The fact is, there never was a golden age of the church. The New Testament church was just as messed up as the 21st century church. And I take that as an encouragement rather than a rebuke from the past. The early church was full of greedy, bickering, sinful people who did not get along with each other, did not listen to their leaders and even split off from one another when disagreements became too heated. And sometimes their leaders said bad things about each other. Let's not forget that all of Paul's opponents were not non-believers, but followers of Jesus who happened to disagree with the apostle. Not unlike what we experience today. 

To all those attacking disputes within modern day churches: they are simply being true to their aims in restoring the church of the NT.

Cf. Craig L. Blomberg, "The New Testament Definition of Heresy (or when do Jesus and the Apostles really get mad?)", JETS (2002) 45/1 59-71

Confused about Orthodoxy and Heresy? A short interview with Darrell Bock

Confused about orthoodxy, heresy and all these strange diagrams? Interested in the topic but don't know where to start? Or just curious about what it all means? When I was first interested in this topic a number of years ago, one of the first books I came across was Darrell Bock's The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities.It has a name to match Bart Ehrman's Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew but doesn't leave you hanging about the important questions and implications.

Darrell Bock is Research Professor of New Testament Studies and Professor for Spiritual Development and Culture  at Dallas Theological Seminary. He is an author of a number of books many of which I own on the historical Jesus and Luke-Acts. I asked Bock some questions related to recent discussions as related to his book and he gladly replied.

Was there such a thing as early orthodoxy in the NT period, and if so what were the defining features? (Or what was their essential unity?)

Yes. I think you can see it in the doctrinal summaries in our earliest texts. 1 Cor 8:4-6, 1 Cor 11:23-26; Rom 1:2-4, 1 Cor 15:3-5. plus baptism and the Lord' table show the core theology of Jesus'  person and his death, as well as salvation. These show how Jesus' death for sin brings blessing in new life. For example, baptism is death to sin then alive to God (Rom 6). These texts are important because they come from the first century making them our earliest witnesses to what was believed.

Does a broadly defined early orthodoxy in the NT period have any theological implications for Christian's today?

Yes, it let's us know what early Christianity believed. It tells us what the hub of faith is in terms of content. Jesus' person and work stand at the core of this teaching.

How do we know the orthodoxy that "won out" was the legitimate heir of early Christianity? Or, why shouldn't we be Gnostics?

Orthodoxy has apostolic roots Gnosticism does not have. The teaching on creation is also different. Gnostics believed God did not create and the creation was bad. In contrast Christianity inherited it's view of creation from Judaism-- God created and it was good.  

 Do you think Walter Bauer's thesis is a valid model? That is, of heresy preceding orthodoxy and orthodoxy dominating through Roman control?

No, His theory has major problems. I wrote a chapter on this in my book, The Missing Gospels. His theory has problems in terms of overestimating the presence of heresy in several of the regions he mentions. Bauer did not argue that heresy preceded orthodoxy, but that it existed alongside of it and was more predominant in several regions of the early church. Only in the region of Edessa might the claim he makes be true 

I will be exploring New Testament period diversity in a number of posts comparing an early Aramaic Christian preaching with that of the early Pauline preaching.  

• Part 1: An Early Aramaic Kerygma?

An early Aramaic Christian Kerygma? Part 1

It has been suggested that the speeches attributed to Peter in Acts of the Apostles provide us with access to a summary of Petrine preaching, or at least an example of the early Christian preaching of the Jerusalem Church. C.H. Dodd wrote that, "In short, there is good reason to suppose that the speeches attributed to Peter in the Acts are based upon material which proceeded from the Aramaic-speaking Church at Jerusalem, and was substantially earlier than the period at which the book was written." (p.25)

The Case for a Pre-Lucan Source

Within the tradition of history, Luke would have had ample allowance to have been relatively creative in his speeches. However, to appeal to this in order to dismiss the speeches in Acts does not take  note of Luke's own tendencies where he can be checked. For example, his use of Mark (and comparative use of Q) demonstrates considerable care in use of his sources when attributing sayings to Jesus. Similarly, we are able to compare the speeches attributed to Paul with his own epistles. Dodd writes that Paul's speech to the Ephesian church in Acts 20:18-35 "contains so many echoes of the language of Pauline epistles that we must suppose, either that the writer had access to these epistles (which is on other grounds improbable), or that he worked upon actual reminiscence of Paul’s speech upon this or some similar occasion." Dodd goes on to suggest that (in light of the "we" passages) that although we are not receiving a verbatim report, they may be  "based upon a reminiscence of what the apostle actually said."

Regarding the Petrine speeches, Dodd points towards the existence of Semitisms, more specifically Aramaisms that are reminiscent of the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel tradition. Evidently, he concludes that somewhere along the chain - whether written, oral or received in translation - the ultimate source was Aramaic. While the presence of these Semitisms has found support, others have disagreed seeing them as resulting from Semitisms within the Septuagint. Of course, this isn't to deny the presence of Lucan stylistic and theological imprint, however, there is insufficient reason to see this necessitate that Luke was merely presenting his own Gospel. Furthermore, Stanton has convincingly argued that Luke was redacting a source in studying the use of Old Testament allusions and citations and presence of primitive Christian exegetical traditions.(p.71ff.) Noting the manner in which these were redacted, Stanton concludes that it "discounts the possibility that Luke is merely summarising his own Gospel or freely composing these verses." (77)

Part 2: This will present the common themes in the speeches of Peter as representative of some sort of Kerygma. Peter's? Jerusalem Church? Some Aramaic Christians?

Part 3: What's missing? How does it compare to a Pauline Kerygma? Something along those lines.

Bibliography
 
 C.H. Dodd,  Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments: Three Lectures With an Appendix on Eschatology and History.
James D.G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity 
 E.E. Lemcio, “The Unifying Kerygma of the New Testament”,  Journal for the Study of the New Testament 1988, pp. 3-19, and 1990, pp. 3-11
Graham N. Stanton, Jesus of Nazareth in New Testament Preaching (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series) 

Diversity in the NT Era in Picture form! (And the TRUE trajectory!)

Darrell Pursiful over at his blog has produced a diagram on diversity in the NT era. Although I don't have any major disagreement with the group of trajectories, I do have issues with their placement across the Hebraic/Hellenist spectrum. For example, I see John as very Hebraic, especially in light of Second Temple sectarian literature.

That said, no one has homed in on the true trajectory that has only recently been (re)discovered:

James McGrath has also attempted to find the right diagrammatic expression but is in need of a hand labelling it. Personally, I think diversity in the NT period is a straw man regarding Bauer's hypothesis as proto-orthodoxy was something broadly defined.

Anyway, here are some possible interpretations:

 Or:

(HT: Michael Bird and James McGrath)

Dunn on Early Christian Unity (Quote of the Day)

I really like this quote by Dunn:

What united the first Christians more than anything else was their belief in Jesus - in Jesus as the climax of God's ongoing purpose for man's redemption, the one whom God had raised from the dead and exalted as Lord, the man who demonstrated most clearly what God is like. Clustered round this central distinguishing belief of the first Christians were a number of others on which they would all have agreed in essence, even if their outworking in fuller formulation and practical application diverged in differing degrees: God, the Creator and the Father of Jesus Christ, as one; salvation through faith in Christ; the experience of the Spirit; the Old Testament as scripture and the traditions of Jesus, both to be treasured as authoritative for faith and life; Christianity's continuity with Israel, the people of God; practice of baptism in the name of Jesus and of the Lord's Supper in remembrance of him; and the need for an ethical outworking of faith through love. Such is the heartland of Christianity still. (James D.G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus p.99)

Bibliography: Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christianity

In light of recent discussions around the blogosphere I have attached a selected bibliography  for Walter Bauer's Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity:

Bauer, Walter, Robert A. Kraft, and Gerhard Krodel. Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. Mifflintown, PA: Sigler Press, 1996. [ET]

Bock, Darrell L. The Missing Gospels : Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities. Nashville: Nelson Books, 2006. [This book is quasi-apologetics and doesn't explore Bauer's thesis in too much detail, but it is quite a useful summary and refutation for those wanting a layman specific critique. Bock goes into more advanced territory dealing with the features of commonality between orthodoxy and disunity with later groups.]

Choat, Malcolm. (2006). Belief and cult in fourth-century papyri. Turnhout, Belgium,Brepols. [Although not on Bauer specifically, the book contains a great deal of information on the use of manuscripts. Choat has personally been responsible for developing my understanding of the use of papyri and the question of Egypt through lectures and in supervising my investigation.]

Desjardin, Michael. 'Bauer and beyond: On Recent Scholarly Discussion of hairesis in the Early Christian Era', The Second Century, 8 (1991), 65-82.

Dunn, James D. G. Unity and Diversity in the New Testament : An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity. 2nd ed. London Philadelphia: SCM Press ;
1990. [This book deals with diversity within the NT period so although it is directly relevant to Bauer's claim of "earliest Christianity" they are generally in two different periods. Dunn's ultimate conclusion is that the unity is generally focussed on the resurrection kerygma.]

Ehrman, Bart D. The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture : The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.


_______. Lost Christianities : the battle for Scripture and the faiths we never knew. New York, Oxford University Press. 2003. [Discusses the diversity in the second century, but I find it quite bad at explaining where Bauer failed and the implications of it.]

Harrington, Daniel J. "The Reception of Walter Bauer's Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity During the Last Decade," in Harvard Theological Review 73 (1980): 289-98.



Hultgren, A. J.. The rise of normative Christianity. Minneapolis, Fortress Press. 1994. [This book was particularly difficult for me to get my hands on.]

Hurtado, Larry W. Lord Jesus Christ : Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2003. [Hurtado deals with the Christologies across the board of Christian diversity. The exalted Christology of the early Kerygma and its reception in the second century is a great indicator of orthodoxy and heresy which is greatly ignored.]

________. The earliest Christian Artifacts : manuscripts and Christian Origins. Grand Rapids, Mich., William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. 2006. [The KEY to understanding diversity, well at least in Egypt, is found in the manuscript record. WHY DO PEOPLE IGNORE THIS? WHY? This book is a great introduction to manuscripts and he gives some details of what scribal habits can tell us.]

Koester, H. “Gnomai Diaphoi: The Origin and Nature of Diversification in the History of
Early Christianity,” in Trajectories Through Early Christianity. Philadelphia, Fortress Press.1971.

________. Introduction to the New Testament. Vol. 2. History and Literature of Early
Christianity.Philadelphia: Fortress Press. 1982.

Kraft, Robert. Files and Information on Early Jewish and Early Christian Copies of Greek Jewish Scriptures. 2004. <http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak//jewishpap.html#jewishmss >

Llewelyn, S.R. and Kearsley, R.A.(1994). New documents illustrating early Christianity :
a review of Greek inscriptions and papyri published in 1982-83. North Ryde, N.S.W., The Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University: v. [Llewelyn has a great discussion on the frequency of gospel manuscripts and patristic citations. This is very useful in my own thesis and approach]

Luijendijk, AnneMarie. (2008). Greetings in the Lord : early Christians and the
Oxyrhynchus papyri. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Theological Studies Distributed by Harvard University Press. [Someone not at Macquarie University who believes that early Christian Oxyrnchus paypri have the answer.]

Macquarie University, Papyri from the Rise of Christianity in Egypt, Conspectus
of Texts. < http://www.anchist.mq.edu.au/doccentre/Conspectus.pdf >

Neill, S. Jesus through many eyes : introduction to the theology of the New Testament. Guildford, Lutterworth Press. 1976.

Norris, Frederick W. "Ignatius, Polycarp, and 1 Clement: Walter Bauer Reconsidered," Vigiliae Christianae 30 (1976), 23-44

Pagels, Elaine H. The Gnostic Gospels. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 1979.

________. Beyond Belief : The Secret Gospel of Thomas. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 2003.

Roberts, Alexander ; Donaldson, James ; Coxe, A. Cleveland: The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol.I : Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325. Oak Harbor : Logos Research Systems, 1997.

Roberts, Colin H. Manuscript, Society, and Belief in Early Christian Egypt, The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1977. London ; New York: published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 1979. [Deals with diversity in Egypt; an excellent book, however, it is in need of an update. Much of my own approach has been updating and supplementing Roberts' discussion]

Robinson, Thomas A. The Bauer Thesis Examined : The Geography of Heresy in the Early Christian Church, Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity V. 11. Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, 1988. [This was originally a PhD Thesis. It is quite well done and covers the greater geographical range that I tend to ignore in my focus on Egypt.]

Stark, Rodney. Cities of God : Christianizing the urban empire. San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco. 2006.

Turner, H. E. W. The Pattern of Christian Truth : A Study in the Relations between Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Early Church. New York: AMS Press, 1978.

Witherington, Ben. 'The Anti-Feminist Tendencies of the 'Western' Text in Acts', Journal of Biblical Literature (103.1.82), (March 1984)

Was Rome in Control? Walter Bauer's Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity.

This is an exert from an early draft version of an article I was working on last year on Bauer's Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. As it wasn't the core of my argument it isn't as thorough as the rest (i.e. the Eyptian case study so be warned of the dubious nature of my Pastoral epistles):

In order to justify the argument from silence, Bauer has to explain the reason behind the decline of heresy and the rapid rise of orthodoxy in the geographical regions allegedly dominated by the former. To account for this phenomenon, Bauer postulates that orthodoxy came to dominate through the influence of the church in Rome.[1] Therefore, it must be asked as to whether we have evidence of Rome as an ecclesiastical powerbase which could eventually manufacture orthodoxy in regions dominated by heresy. In must be said that, although this may well be argued in the post-Constantinian period, it is problematic to assign Roman control in this earlier period.

In favour of Bauer, a number of new arguments may be provided. From the various papyri, it appears that the Christians of Eygpt, or at least at Oxyrynchus, had a close relationship with the Western church. Such is evidenced within the II/III period through a number of papyrological remains. An important example is the fragment of P.Oxy 3.406 (II/III) which contains Irenaeus’ Adversus Haereses 3.9, 2-3.[2] As Irenaeus was writing around the last quarter of the second century, the speed by which the text reached Egypt should be taken note of. Similarly, the popularity of the Shepherd of Hermas with around 10 manuscripts as well as citations from II-III/IV[3] also suggest that the Christian communities of Egypt were not isolated from ‘global-Christianity’ and, in fact, had early contact with Rome.[4]

However, much of Bauer’s assumptions in order to substantiate early Roman dominance are dubious. For example, the thesis argues that the Pastoral Epistles were a middle second century composition as a Roman response to Marcion (ca. 86-160) whose teachings peaked in the 140s[5] in order to restore proto-orthodox trust in the Pauline corpus.[6] The issue with this approach is that the reading is purely conjectural in order to support the hypothesis - it is substantially against contemporary scholarship and such a late date is difficult to view in light of patristic acceptance.[7] An example establishing a possibly earlier date of the pastorals would be the Muratorian Fragment[8] makes reference to the pastoral epistles. An early date for the pastoral epistles is clear as the author refers to the Shepherd of Hermas being composed “very recently, in our times, in the city of Rome, while bishop Pius, his brother, was occupying the [episcopal] chair of the church of the city of Rome.”[9] Evidently, the late date of the Pastorals which is essential to Bauer’s Roman-Control thesis is highly unlikely.

Such a questionable case is apparent in examining Bauer’s argument for ecclesiastical control by Rome. One of the chief mechanisms by which the Roman church exerted its power was through the geographical appointment of a single city bishop. However, as Norris has argued, the evidence points to this practice emerging from Jerusalem, such as James over the Jerusalem community and Ignatius and Polcyarp in Syria.[10] Similarly, a note should be made about the later control of proto-orthodoxy bishops. Within the proto-orthodox communities, the existence of the four-fold gospel tradition was an early development.[11] However, outside of accepted authoritative traditions, other texts were read in both proto-orthodox and other Christian communities as is recorded within Eusebius regarding Bishop Serapion and the Gospel of Peter. [12] Such a narrative demonstrates that there were implied checks on the people generally without any ecclesiastical intervention.



[1] Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. 111.

[2] Papyri from the Rise of Christianity in Egypt, Conspectus of Texts. Texts 183.

[3] Hurtado (2006). The Earliest Christian Artifacts. 23.

[4] However, it should be noted that despite the possibility of close affiliation of Western Christian documents coming to Egypt, the Alexandrian New Testament text type remains independent Western text-type. This suggests a limit to the literary dependence of the Egyptian communities to Rome

[5] Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, xix

[6] Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. 228

[7] Ehrman, Bart D. After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity p.318; furthermore, Irenaeus makes clear reference to 1 Timothy 1:4 in his opening of Against Heresies (c. 180) which, in my opinion, providing a very short (if any at all) window for the text to have gained extensive authoritative status.


[8] Although a later Latin document, the ‘Muratorian Canon’ it contains may be dated to the 150s-160s. Although such a date appears to be acceptable (e.g. Metzger and Ehrman), it is not universally accepted. A growing position involves dating the text to the fourth century; however, such a late date cannot legitimately account for the reference to Hermas being composed around the time of the fragment! For a further discussion, see “Muratorian Canon” in Anchor Bible Dictionary.

[9] Translation by Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development,

and Significance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987) 305–7;

[10] "Ignatius, Polycarp, and 1 Clement: Walter Bauer Reconsidered," Vigiliae Christianae 30 (1976), 23-44.

[11] M. Hengel. (2000). The four Gospels and the one Gospel of Jesus Christ : an investigation of the collection and origin of the Canonical Gospels. Harrisburg, Pa., Trinity Press International.; Irenaeus, Against the Heresies 3.11.7

[12] Eusebius, Church History 6.12; Eusebius in his Church History records a narrative of Serapion, Bishop of Antioch, Syria and the Gospel of Peter. The story records the acceptable use of non-canonical proto-orthodox gospels with exclusion to when they could be abused to read as a heresy. In this case, the non-orthodox belief which may be (forcefully) exegeted from the narrative is docetism.[12] A similar scenario exists in ancient codices such as Codex Sinaiticus which include highly popular extra-canonical Shepherd of Hermas and Epistle of Barnabas.

Rodney Stark and Michael Bird - Orthodoxy and Heresy

Following on my recent theme of orthodoxy and heresy [1, 2, 3, 4], Walter Bauer, Ehrman's Lost Christianities and Pagels I would like to plug a post by Michael Bird at Euaggelion on the issue. Bird has provided a number of great quotes from Rodney Stark's  Cities of God which I would love to share (and note here so I can find them at a later date!)

"Purely as a matter of faith, one is free to prefer Gnostic interpretations and to avow that they give us access to secret knowledge concerning a more authentic Christianity, as several popular authors have recently done. But one is not free to claim that the early church fathers rejected these writings for nefarious reasons. The conflicts between many of these manuscripts and the New Testament are so monumental that no thinking person could embrace both (p. 142)."

"Elaine Pagels stresses that the Gnostic writers 'did not regard themselves as "heretics"'. Of course note. But the issue of heresy is hardly a matter of self-designation. Let us assume that these writers (including forgers) sincerely believed that they possessed the truth and that the conventional Christians had it all wrong, while the conventional Christians were equally sure that theirs was the true Christianity. Within the confines of faith, the charge of heresy can be resolved objectively only on the basis of which side more accurately transmitted the original teachings of Jesus. That decision must come down to sources (p. 152)."

"Had the Gnostics prevailed, they presumably would be viewed today rather more in the manner that Pagels and other 'Ivy League' Gnostics would wish, assuming that such a thing as Christianity still existed. But the Gnostics did not prevail, because they did not present nearly so plausible a faith, nor did they seem to understand how to create sturdy organizations. Instead, most of them did and taught their own 'thing'. To sum up, the Gnostics gospels were rejected for good reason: they constitute idiosyncratic, often lurid personal visions reported by scholarly mystics, ambitious pretenders, and various outsiders who found their life's calling in dissent. Whatever else might be said about them, surely they were heretics. As N.T. Wright put it, they 'represent ... a form of spirituality which, while still claiming the name of Jesus, has left behind them every things that made Jesus who he was, and that made the early Christians what they were' (p. 154)."

 I believe Stark has hit the nail on the head. That is the point of my discussions on the topic and that of other commentators. As I have earlier noted, the problem with Ehrman and Pagels name dropping alternative 'early' Christianities is that they present (1) later schools of thought and (2) fail to discuss their legitimacy as first century alternatives. Would Ehrman and Pagels take the challenge to argue that Jesus was in fact a Gnostic? We know that Ehrman does not hold this view (see his Apocalyptic historical Jesus based on the earliest sources) yet he makes no qualification in Lost Christianities.

Stark is absolutely correct in stating:

Within the confines of faith, the charge of heresy can be resolved objectively only on the basis of which side more accurately transmitted the original teachings of Jesus. That decision must come down to sources.

As I have repeatedly stressed, we can make an argument for orthodoxy and heresy historically. What do our earliest sources say? When did these alternative movements emerge? Do the alternative movements fit the Jesus movement? Do they fit the context of late second temple Judaism? All legitimate questions that can give a 'faith-free' answer to the debate.

The Pastoral Epistles as a Response to Marcion? Walter Bauer Refuted

Today's examination of Walter Bauer (Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Earliest Christianity) deals with his claims about the Pastoral Epistles (PE) and their role in enforcing orthodoxy. Bauer argues that the church forged the PE's in the name of Paul in order to re-establish him as an apostle after he was grabbed by the heretics (e.g. Marcion).

...I am inclined to see the pastoral Epistles as an attempt on the part of the church unambiguously to enlist Paul as part of its anti-heretical front and to eliminate the lack of confidence in him in ecclesiastical circles...it is difficult to find satisfactory evidence that the pastoral Epistles already were in existence prior to him [Marcion]... (228/9)

So, this is pretty much what I mean about the extent to which Bauer goes to argue his thesis. As it stands, most scholars who treat the works as pseudonymous date them to the end of the first century (Ehrman for example.) However, Bauer wishes to push the composition as an orthodox reaction to Marcion - evidently, pushing the composition into the 140s at the earliest. However, is such a late date really valid? Taking on only the external evidence this is what we can safely assume:

• The canon of the Muratorian fragment (dated to the 150s-70 going with Metzger and even Ehrman; 190 for Harnack) testifies to the pastoral epistles as part of the Pauline corpus. Within this the author makes an effort to distinguish between 'canonical' texts (sorry about the anachronism) as well as acceptable reading. He places The Shepherd of Hermas in the latter category noting that "Hermas wrote the Shepherd very recently, in our times, in the city of Rome..." Evidently, if this was a tradition received by the author there would be considerable doubt about the pastorals if they showed up on the scene in their own lifetime.
  
  
• Irenaeus opens his Against Heresies (c. 180?) with 1 Timothy 1:4 so the same argument from above would apply here.
  
  
• Our oldest extant manuscript witness to the pastorals is P32. This fragment was found in Egypt, dated to the very end of the second century and existed as being part of a codex. Assuming Gamble to be right on the existence of the Pauline corpus in circulation in the early second century; it would be reasonable to assume that this text was part of a greater corpus (Pauline or even closer to the NT?). Evidently, this would provide a geographically independent witness, outside of the control of the church of Rome in this period.
  
  
• We have over 450 citations and allusions to the Pastoral Epistles from the 2nd century alone.
  
  
• Polycarp more likely than not made reference to the Epistles to Timothy in his Letter to the Philippians (~120)
  

So, in my opinion - and actually taking an account of th evidence - I see no reason to entertain Bauer here any further.

Defining Early Orthodoxy - A Small Note

The early acceptance and use of the Hebrew scriptures may very well be a defining factor of early orthodoxy. Throughout the New Testament corpus the OT is considered scripture and, to the point of the pastorals, it is God breathed and essential (2 Tim 3:16). Evidently, this makes complete sense in light of the fact that the Jesus movement arose as a strand of Second Temple Judaism.

The impact of this is that it writes off the Gnostics and Marcionites as legitimately early or orthodox.

Blah blah.