mrsonic

"Before we leave this issue about borrowing, I would like to call the
court’s attention to another point which renders highly questionable
the idea that the mysteries took from Christianity. Let me quote
Celsus as quoted by Origen: “Are these distinctive happenings unique
to the Christians—and if so, how are they unique? Or are ours to be
accounted myths and theirs believed? In truth, there is nothing at all
unusual about what Christians believe.” Now, Celsus was a pagan
hostile to Christianity who wrote in the latter part of the second
century at a time when the mystery cults were flourishing, and he is
not the only one to claim that the Christians believed in nothing new.
Could someone like Celsus have been totally unaware, if your
suggestion is accurate, Dr. Boyd, that within his own lifetime this
new Christianity had been the fountainhead of all the major features
of the mysteries, that scarcely a few decades before he was writing,
those age-old mysteries had revised the myths of their own gods
according to Christian rites and doctrines? This is an idea that is
genuine nonsense, to use your own term. Besides, considering the
hostility which pagans in general held toward the Christian religion,
something attested to by early Christian writers including the second
century apologists, is it feasible to suppose that such pagans would
have been anxious to recast their ancient mysteries according to the
despised Christian doctrine, to reinvent their gods along the lines of
the Jesus faith they were currently bad-mouthing and condemning on all
fronts? "

what is the christian saying? your gods are false, but you got the right idea?

Toto

You have taken this quote from Earl Doherty's website where he is quoting from his book Challenging the Verdict (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Toto

I suspect that most importantly, the Christian is saying that Christianity is similar enough to the pagan philosophies and religious beliefs in the Roman Empire so please don't kill us.

Roger Pearse

This is right. The context is that Christians are accused of eating babies for religious reasons, and are being executed ad hoc accordingly. The apologists make the point, not that Christians believe the same as pagans, but, in tracts directed to the emperor, that they are harmless. They're not addressing the accusation made by people like Acharya S, 2,000 years later, funnily enough.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Without looking, is this perhaps the Hoffmann "translation"?

DCHindley

mrsonic,

Here is the quote and context:

Ante Nicene Fathers, Apology of Justin 1:21 And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter.

For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter:
Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; AEsculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars?

And what of the emperors who die among yourselves, whom you deem worthy of deification, and in whose behalf you produce some one who swears he has seen the burning Caesar rise to heaven from the funeral pyre?

And what kind of deeds are recorded of each of these reputed sons of Jupiter, it is needless to tell to those who already know. This only shall be said, that they are written for the advantage and encouragement of youthful scholars; for all reckon it an honourable thing to imitate the gods.

But far be such a thought concerning the gods from every well-conditioned soul, as to believe that Jupiter himself, the governor and creator of all things, was both a parricide and the son of a parricide, and that being overcome by the love of base and shameful pleasures, he came in to Ganymede and those many women whom he had violated and that his sons did like actions.

But, as we said above, wicked devils perpetrated these things. And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire.

Justin here is apparently proposing an adoptionist POV: Jesus was elevated to the position of Son on the basis of his virtue, so the "Word" (LOGOS, I presume) mentioned is really Jesus' teaching. This has nothing to do with the trinity, which had not been yet conceived of, although I would like to see the Greek of the first and last paragraph as I have presented the translation above, as LOGOS being first-born of God without sexual union could lend itself to Gnostic interpretation, and thus Jesus ascending to heaven may here actually be a separate example.

DCH

credoconsolans

But, as we said above, wicked devils perpetrated these things. And we have learned that those only are deified who have lived near to God in holiness and virtue; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do not repent are punished in everlasting fire.

So, Celsus could condemn the Christians as just being a rehash of whatever pagan philosophy was already out there. But Justin, while saying the same thing, added in that the pagan ways were devil-tainted and that the Christian way was the 'right' way.

DCHindley

Credo,

Um, nooooo.

It says that the Christian doctrines about the Word being begotten by God, and Jesus ascending to be with God (i.e., deified), are not unique to Christians. Justin cites examples of popular beliefs about the gods begetting wondrous children, or how they allow deification of humans of extraordinary nature (Hercules, emperors, etc).

However, Justin also tempers that by saying that it is also unreasonable to believe legends about the gods which say that gods such as Jupiter, the creator of the world, really had promiscuous sex with human women, and indicates that young students are instead taught that everyone who is truly elevated to divine status by the gods is so because of their virtue and living close to the divine nature of a god.

He says this because Christians teach that Jesus was so elevated (by ascending to heaven) because he taught virtue and lived his life close to the divine nature of the Christian God.

It has nothing to do with pagans borrowing from Christian beliefs or vice versa. It has everything to do with dismissing pagan objections that Christians are unreasonable when they make such a claim about Jesus Christ, when they teach similar things about their gods to their own young.

DCH

credoconsolans

But he provides no evidence of this. His theory flies in the face of everything the pagans knew about their gods. So he is calling their current beliefs about them 'devil perpetuated' while his belief about them - that they weren't randy, god-spawning trouble-makers but actually Christian-like - is true and the pagans' beliefs about them are not.

Roger Pearse

Well put.

Nothing is achieved by getting confused about this sort of thing.