Vorkosigan

I am congenial to the position that 1 Clem is a phony. And yet, I know of no answer to the arguments about its view of the episcopate (primitive) and the other points raised here. I don't like postulating omniscient forgers; it is against my religion. Otherwise you wind up on one hand arguing that the putative forger of 1 Clem, writing in the second century, was so smart he made it look like it was written around 80, and then on the other, that he was so dumb that he forgot to include Judas in his list of those who caused evil through betrayal. That puts the exegete in the position of using 'forgery' as a global explanation for every feature of the document, much like IDers when they appeal to 'Godidit'.

Looking at Ellegaard Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ and his discussion in chapter 2.... an issue with 1 Clem is that the members of the Church are not referred to as 'Christians' but as "the Church of God" whose members are the Saints or the Elect. Ellegaard identifies this as a first-century usage, found in the letters of Paul. "Christians" arose later. Acts is aware of this distinction, for it uses Saints (hagioi) but only in connection with Pauls' activities "at or before his conversion" (p33). Ellegaard even dates 1 Clem at 65 (!) but partly because he thinks the Big Bang theory of Christian origins is bunk and that Christianity predates the 30s by a wide margin, growing out of the Essenes in the diaspora. But that is a separate issue.

Similarly Doherty dates 1 Clem before the Gospels. There seems to be remarkable agreement between the mythicist camp and the historicist one on this letter. It's nice to be spared the choice between 'agenda-driven' arguments for once...

rlogan, instead of just dismissing 1 Clem as a forgery, why don't you supply us with an argument? Perhaps you can borrow some arguments from the Dutch Radicals on Detering's Website.

Vorkosigan

andrewcriddle

The original spelling of the sixth recorded bishop from Peter was almost certainly Xystus or variants not Sixtus or Sextus

Andrew Criddle

Vorkosigan

Yes, that's what Williamson has in my translation of Eusebius. But others have either Sixtus or Sextus. What accounts for the disparity?

PhilosopherJay

Hi Phil,

Here are some more thoughts on the Peter Epistles.

All of these places are North of Syria Palestine. It is clear that the letter writer is indicating the northward path taken by his fellow Apostles. Note that no place in Greece is mentioned. The author wants us to believe that Peter is writing from Jerusalem at a very early point in the expansion of Christianity, before any of the Apostles have reached Greece, let alone Rome.

As I mentioned before, the emphasis on God, the father, and the attack on women's right point towards Tertullian as the author. We should add that Tertullian has made Pontus the main site of discourse in this epistle because his enemy Marcion comes from Pontus. This is further evidence of Tertullianic authorship.

In addition 2 Peter ends with a call to acknowledge the importance of prophesy.


Here Tertullian is defending the Montanist New Prophecy movement from the attack that the heretic Montanist makes up his own interpretations.

We may also note that Tertullian understood the association of the "morning star" with Jesus triumphant.

Compare Scorpiace XII:
Then to every conqueror the Spirit promises now the tree of life, and exemption from the second death; now the hidden manna with the stone of glistening whiteness, and the name unknown ( to every man save him that receiveth it); now power to rule with a rod of iron, and the brightness of the morning star; now the being clothed in white raiment, and not having the name blotted out of the book of life, and being made in the temple of God a pillar with the inscription on it of the name of God and of the Lord, and of the heavenly Jerusalem; now a sitting with the Lord on His throne,--which once was persistently refused to the sons of Zebedee.

We thus have five reasons for assigning the two epistles of Peter to Tertullian

1. Beginning Reference to God the father
2. Subordination of women in 1:3.
3. Address to Pontus
4. Closing with Support for Prophesy
5. Use of term "morning star" to signify triumph of Christ

Tertullian does not mention the term "Babylon" in reference to 1 Peter. He does mention it in reference to "Revelations" (anti-Macion,3:13) This means either he did not put the mention of Babylon into this text and someone put it in later, or he himself put it in later. If he did write "Babylon" we may take that as a sixth piece of evidence that he wrote the Peter epistles. However, the term is too abstract and destroys the functioning of the rest of the sentence. The rest of the writing is perfectly clear, while, the unnaturalness of this reference sticks out from the rest of the writing. Therefore, I see it as a later substitution in whatever Tertullian originally wrote and not the work of Tertullian.




Warmly,

Philosopher Jay




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Chili

That hot oil plunge must be a preferred method to test salvation recipes. I think the evidence here is that John is still here and the new St. Peter that was built on top of the old defrocked Peter still is the envy of the world (with the other gospels doing most of the dirty work for John). Does anyone agree with this or are we all speaking a different langauge here? (or maybe I should be glad that I am not a theologian).

Notsri

Hi, Jay.

If I may quickly interject a few things:

You've suggested 1 Peter was addressed to the apostles, but 1 Pet. 1:8 makes it pretty clear that that was not the case: "without having seen him [Jesus] you love him." From the conservative position, it's obviously beyond question that the apostles had in fact seen Jesus at one point. And even from the more liberal or skeptical side that you take, it seems very doubtful that any pseudepigraphist, Tertullian in particular, would suppose that the apostles had never seen Jesus so as to forge a letter to them, saying in the name of Peter, "without having seen [Jesus] you love him."

Given the fact that the NT tends to view Christians in general as "God's elect" (and not just the apostles), it seems best to me to suppose the letter was addressed rather to the diasporic Christian communities of Pontus, Galatia, etc.



I'm assuming you've developed quite a bit this theory of Tertullian's influence on the text of the NT (I seem to remember someone mentioning as much in another thread some time ago). That said, I'm curious to know how you account for the instances of Petrine citation prior to and concurrent with the time of Tertullian.

E.g.:

Polycarp displays a good degree of familiarity with the letter in his Epistle to the Philippians.

Though it's generally debated, the authors of 1 Clement and the Epistle to Diognetus may have known it.

The Epistle of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons (ca. 177 CE) is dependent on it in a few places.

Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria not only quote the letter a number of times; each explicitly attributes the work to Peter (e.g. Adv. haereses 4.9.2; Stromateis 3.110.1).

And though I'm of course familiar with your own sentiments regarding the credibility of Eusebius, it would perhaps, nevertheless, be remiss of me not to point out also, that Eusebius (H.E. 2.15) applies the Babylon reference to Rome, based on what he says he found in Papias' Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord (as well as in Clement of Alexandria's Hypotyposes). In other words Papias had commented on 1 Peter 5:13.

How do we account for these if 1 Peter is a 3rd-century production?

Regards,
Notsri

andrewcriddle

IIUC Irenaeus Eusebius Epiphanius call him Xystus or variants but Augustine Optatus and later writus have Sixtus or Sextus (mainly IIUC Sixtus)

Andrew Criddle

Toto

There were three Popes referred to as Xystus, all later changed to Sixtus or Sextus.

From about.com

Sixtus - Xystus sounds like an understandable linguistic confusion, like Christos - Chrestos.

andrewcriddle

I read Lightfoot on Ignatius a few years ago. IMHO the claim that he established the authenticity of the 7 letters of the middle recension may be exaggerated, but again IMHO he did show pretty thoroughly that the short recension is an intra-Syriac development. By analysis of other Syriac material and particularly Armenian material translated from Syriac it becomes pretty clear that the short recension is not the earliest version of Ignatius in Syriac but a 'Readers Digest' type abridgement produced within the Syriac textual tradition.

This doesn't mean that the middle recension is entirely authentic (IMHO I am slightly dubious about the letters to the Trallians Magnesians and Smyrnaeans) but it does mean that the short recension is irrelevant to the issue.

FWIW Lightfoot originally believed that the short recension was the original but changed his mind after a careful study of the other Syriac and Armenian material.

I've read some of the material on the web doubtful of the authenticity of the letters of Ignatius and, as I suggested obliquely in an earlier post, I think some of the arguments are mistaken in principle.

Although IMHO the arguments that the letters date from the time of Hadrian are not compelling, even if convincing they would not be arguments against authenticity, they would merely imply that the historical Ignatius died during the reign of Hadrian not Trajan.

In fact our first unambiguous claim in a surviving work that Ignatius died during the reign of Trajan comes from Eusebius although we have much earlier evidence of knowledge of the letters (Irenaeus and Origen).

If we accept that the accounts of the martyrdom of Ignatius are (apart from the letter to the Romans which they contain) entirely worthless as history, which is the majority position, (though IMVHO maybe over sceptical), then our only direct evidence for the date of Ignatius's death are the list of bishops of Antioch.

This list is generally accepted to go back at least to Julius Africanus in 220 (Origen seems to know some such list) and IMO probably goes back to the time of Theophilus of Antioch around 180. However pretty conservative traditional sources (eg the catholic encyclopedia entry on Evodius ) hold that this was originally a list of names starting with Evodius after the apostles with Ignatius second and Theophilus sixth, with precise dates later added by more or less guesswork. In its standard form Evodius becomes leader at Antioch in the 40s when Peter departs to Rome from Antioch and this is IMO highly implausible.

However IF we accept that the list is basically genuine in the sense that Evodius became bishop (in some sense) of Antioch in immediately post-Apostolic times (say 75 at the latest) with Ignatius succeeding him then 3 more bishops before Theophilus becomes bishop sometime around 170, then a death of Ignatius in the time of Trajan even if a guess would be a very plausible one.

IF we regard such a list as historically worthless then we probably have no direct evidence at all that Ignatius died in the reign of Trajan hence evidence that the letters date from the time of Hadrian is not in this case evidence against the authenticity of the letters but evidence of the true date of Ignatius.

FWIW I regard it as plausible that the letters date from immediately after the death of Trajan in 117 with the persecution in the area dying down with the gravely ill Emperor's departure en route to Rome and Ignatius in his letter to the Romans written on this theory immediately (about two weeks) after the Emperor's death worried that Roman Christians will use the accession of a new Emperor to seek clemency for him. But this may well be regarded as sheer speculation on my part.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

Does your suggested date for 1 Clement of around 80 CE involve Clement writting it at that time, or the idea that the attribution of this anonymous work to Clement is mistaken ?

Andrew Criddle