Hermann Detering


Hermann Detering was a Berlin pastor sceptical of Paul's authorship of the Pauline epistles, in line with radical criticism. He identified Paul with Simon Magus, the Samaritan sorcerer who opposed Peter.

Simon Magus as Paul

Many scholars, since Ferdinand Christian Baur in the 19th Century, have concluded that the attacks on "Simon Magus" in the 4th Century Pseudo-Clementines may be attacks on Paul. Detering takes the attacks of the Pseudo-Clementines as literal and historical, and suggests that the attacks of the Pseudo-Clementines are correct in identifying "Simon Magus" as a for Paul of Tarsus, with Simon-Paul originally having been detested by the church, and the name changed to Paul when he was rehabilitated by virtue of forged Epistles correcting the genuine ones.
Detering's argument expands beyond the Pseudo-Clementines to include other apocrypha, arguing that Simon Magus is sometimes described in apocryphal legends in terms that would fit Paul, though most significantly in the Clementine Recognitions and Homilies. Detering contends that the common source of these documents may be as early as the 1st century in a polemic against Paul, emanating from the Jewish side of Christianity. Having thus identified Paul with Simon, Detering argues that Simon's visit to Rome had no other basis than being an account of Paul's presence there, and, further, that the tradition of Peter's residence in Rome rests on the assumed necessity of his resisting the arch-enemy of Judaism there as elsewhere. Thus, according to Detering, the idea of Peter at Rome originated with the Ebionites, but it was afterwards taken up by the Catholic Church, and then Paul was associated with Peter in opposition to Simon, who had originally been himself.

Works

Gerd Lüdemann Heretics: The Other Side of Early Christianity comments, while mentioning Jürgen Becker, in footnote 232 that Detering's thesis about the letters of Paul coming from the second century "is mistaken and is refuted by the existing sources."