Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§8.1 The Tradition
traditions (2.8, 14), the first (2.8) echoing the (presumably well-known) formula
with which Paul reassured the Roman believers regarding his own gospel (Rom.
1.3-4). 34 The importance of post-Easter believers remembering Jesus' words is a
repeated theme in Luke-Acts and John; 35 the equivalence of John 14.26 and 15.27
indicates that 'remembering all I have said to you', and 'witnesses with me from
the beginning', are two sides of the same coin. 2 Peter confirms that remembering
the teaching first given was a central concern in early Christianity (1.15; 3.2); similarly
Rev. 3.3. 1 Clement uses the phrase 'remember(ing) the words of the Lord
Jesus' to introduce a brief catena of Jesus' sayings on two occasions (13.1-2; 46.7-
8), as does Polycarp with a similar introductory formula, 'remembering what the
Lord taught when he said' {Phil. 2.3). Here we should also simply note the famous
Papias tradition, which repeatedly emphasises the importance of 'remembering'
in the transmission of the earliest traditions stemming from the first disciples
(Eusebius, HE 3.39.3-4, 15; 6.14.6), and Justin's concern to 'bring to remembrance'
teachings of Jesus (Dial. 18.1; 1 Apol. 14.4). 36
Cameron argues that 'the formulaic employment of this term ("remembering")
to introduce collections of sayings of Jesus is a practice which began with
the relatively free production of sayings traditions . . .'. 37 And it is certainly true
that the motif includes some freedom in the transmission of the sayings in view. 38
But the idea of remembering Jesus tradition is as early as our earliest references to
such tradition (Paul). And it is notable that John, despite his freedom in producing
dialogues of Jesus, seems for the most part to have restricted the remembering
motif to sayings which have clear Synoptic parallels, that is, which were well
rooted in Jesus tradition. 39 It is more likely, then, that the use of the motif in the
flections on 1 Corinthians 11.23b-25', in B. F. Meyer, ed., One Loaf, One Cup: Ecumenical
Studies of 1 Cor. 11 and Other Eucharistie Texts (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University, 1993) 75-115
(here 103-11); W. Schräge, Der erste Brief an die Korinther (EKK VII, 4 vols.; Zürich:
Benziger, 1991, 1995, 1999, 2001) 3.41-42.
34. For more detail see my Romans (WBC 38; Dallas: Word, 1988) 5-6.
35. Luke 24.6, 8; Acts 11.16; 20.35; John 2.22; 12.16; 14.26; 15.20; 16.4.
36. As is well known, Justin called the Gospels 'memoirs, recollections
(apomnemoneumata)' of the apostles (1 Apol. 66.3; Dial. 100.4). The point was properly emphasized
in a neglected essay by N. A. Dahl, 'Anamnesis: Memory and Commemoration in
Early Christianity' (1946), Jesus in the Memory of the Early Church (Minneapolis: Augsburg,
1976) 11-29.
37. Sayings Traditions ch. 3 (here 112).
38. Cf. Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels 70. But Cameron also notes Polycarp's 'tendency
to bring such collections into conformity with the written gospels of his church' (Sayings
Traditions 113); or, once again, is it rather the case that the tradition was known in variant
forms?
39. John 2.19-22 (Mark 14.58 par.); John 12.14-16 (Mark 11.1-10 pars.); John 15.20
(Matt. 10.24-25); the only exception is John 16.4.
179