jgibson000

5.4.3

This may very well be what one would be acknowledging today if someone were to use these words.

But are you certain, even assuming that the translation above of TI DEI KATALEGEIN TON EN TH DHLWQEISH GRAFH TWN MARTURWN KATALOGON is accurate (it isn't), that this is what someone in Eusebius' time who used this phrase -- which, BTW, is formulaic (cf. Aelianus Soph.NA 4.43.8; Origen Contra Celsum 8.4; Selecta in Psalmos 12. 1121; Athanasius Expositiones in Psalmos 27.181; Theodoret Interpretatio in Psalmos 80.1136.14) -- would also have been doing?

Is there any chance that your assertion involves an anachronistic (and historically uninformed) reading of this text?

Unfortunately, Jay, this is exactly what he is not doing. He is denying that he has any such obligation since, as he himself notes it is unneccesary, and would be redundant, to do so.

He is? Where does he say or imply this?

Well, even so, it still isn't what he feels, even as an historian.

No, it did not and does not have any such implication. And it is a thorough misreading of my question to say so.

I do. And even if I didn't, the question would not be irrelevant, since you were making a claim about what ancient historians felt the canons of historiography (as they understood it) demanded when someone spoke as Eusebius does at E.H 5.4.3, and what I was asking was for was for you to point me to some ancient historians who said as much. I note that you still haven't done so.

OK. But it was and is the wrong conclusion.

You responded to my question. But you most certainly didn't answer it.

Actually it was the exact same question. It was just presented more precisely.

But more importantly, how is asking for documentation of what ancient historians tell us about what historians qua historians were expected -- or felt obliged -- to do in certain circumstances irrelevant, especially within the context of the assertion on your part of a claim about what ancient historians felt they were obliged as historians to do in certain circumstances?

Again, wrong impression. And wrong characterization of what I've been up to when I've asked you questions about your claims and whether you are as familiar with certain historical realities as you claim to be when you make them.

Even more so is the practice of characterizing questions instead of answering them.

Fine by me.

:rolling:


Jeffrey Gibson

S.C.Carlson

That's not the argument. It's what Eusebius said about Tertullian. You have no evidence that Eusebius actually knew of Tertullian's later support for Montanism, and what evidence there is of Eusebius's attitude towards Tertullian negates your claim.

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

A good study of Eusebius's scope of knowledge is Andrew Carriker's The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea. Here's what he has to say, p. 312, about Eusebius's familiarity with the literature of Latin Christianity:

There are, in addition, noticeably few Western works in Latin: Eusebius cites a Greek translation of Tertullian's Apologia, but he does not refer to any of Tertullian's other works; and only one letter by Cyprian reached Eusebius in Latin (apparently through a dossier sent to Dionysius of Alexandria), though none of Cyprian's other works did. Eusebius possessed other, Greek works from the West, for example, the works of Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, and Hippolytus, so presumably Latin works from the West were not impossibly difficult to obtain. One suspects that little effort was expended to acquire Latin works. Eusebius seems to have had some ability to translate from Latin, but perhaps he and others at Caesarea found it too difficult to spend time on long works in Latin. This absence of works in Latin is perhaps an indication of the theological separation between East and West that continued until the late stages of the Arian controversy.

Given Eusebius's general neglect of Christian Latin literature, it would be hazardous to impute any particular knowledge on his part without specific evidence to the contrary.

This is not to say that the letter about Blandina was not faked. It just means that Eusebius is a rather poor candidate to have faked it. Eusebius had been fooled by fakes before (e.g. the Agbar correspondence); there is no reason, without more, to assume that the dupe was in reality a master faker.

Stephen

andrewcriddle

Hi Roger

You may well have already read it but if not you should definitely read The
Legends of the Saints by the Roman Catholic scholar and Bollandist Delehaye.

Andrew Criddle

yalla

Gidday S.C.,
I am wondering why you assert that Eusebius was duped by the Agbar letters.
Sure he presents them as factual and wonderful but does that mean he believed them to be so?
Could he have been aware that they were forgeries and simply not said so?
I have read that he is considered to have been the forger himself based I suppose on his statement that he translated them from the original.
Perhaps he was a 'willing' dupe?
cheers
yalla

PhilosopherJay

Hi JG,

If you feel the translation is not accurate, please give your translation.

Thanks,

Philosopher Jay

Roger Pearse

This seems unnecessarily complicated. He reports them, but doesn't spend much time on them. He's disposed to believe them genuine, since he located them -- every researcher will know this tendency in themselves! -- but knows that they are unknown to the church.

They are in fact extracts from a longer Syriac work, the Acts of Addai. Eusebius seems to have had close links with the Syriac world, and no doubt someone in Edessa who had read a copy of the Acts supplied them.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

yalla

Thanks Roger but now I'm confused.
There seems to be a multitude of titles re Addai, the "doctrine" /the 'teaching' /the 'acts' etc. all with different dates ranging from early 4c to 6c.
I understand that 'doctrine' ='teaching' but cannot find a document called 'Acts of Addai' that precedes Eusebius.
Wiki says Teaching of Addai was 'first recounted' by Eusebius, G.Phillips, from that wonderful site Tertullian, says that the story "first appears' in Eusebius but dates the work that includes the picture story as later than Eusebius.
What evidence is there, apart from the word of Eusebius, that the work existed prior to Eusebius?
Is there a site which lays this out in simple order?
Sorry to be a pest.
cheers
yalla

PhilosopherJay

Hi Pete,

Happy Australia Day,

In response to your question:

There does seem to be some problems with the date of the letter and the emperors addressed. In the Chronology, he lists the date of the persecution as 167 and in the History, he gives us 177. He also gives "Antoninus Verus" as the emperor, which seems to be a combination of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (161-180) and Lucius Verus (161-169). There are numerous ways to resolve these contradictions. I suspect he just changed his mind about the date and where to place the persecution. The combination of the names of the two emperors seems to me to be an interesting Fraudian slip. It suggests to me is that he was working during the period of the dual emperorship of Licinius 308-324 and Constantine (307-337), so somewhere between 308 and 324. His smooshing together the two emperor's names probably represents his dual loyalties during this period.
Anyway, I don't see this as a big deal. Little mistakes like this are easily explained away.

What I do see as a big deal is S.C. Carlson's point about Eusebius' lack of references to Latin works. Here is my thinking regarding that.

About four ago, I put out some stuff on Jesus Mysteries about Irenaeus' material actually being written by Tertullian. There are all kinds of parallels which should not be in the works if written by separate individuals. We may suspect these works of having originally been written in Latin by Tertullian

Now, the story of Perpetua also was originally in Latin.

As I mentioned, it is strange that Eusebius does not mention Perpetua among his tales of martyrdom. He doesn't talk about Perpetua and instead substitutes his pale copycat tale (lacking the sex and gore) about Blandina ("bland," indeed). He switches the site of the persecution from Carthage to Lyon.

Now, going back to my old hypothesis, one can see that he has done the same thing by changing works from Tertullian to Irenaeus. Instead of works set in Carthage by a Presbyter of the Carthage Church, we get works set in Lyon by the Bishop of the Lyon Church. (Actually Irenaeus starts out as a Presbyter of the Lyon Church, just like Tertullian, and Eusebius gives him a promotion to Bishop. Lyon was the furthermost Northern outpost of Roman Civilization, just as Carthage was the furthermost Southern outpost of Roman civilization. In Eusebius' ideological imagination, the extreme Southern Roman city of Carthage gets transformed into the extreme northern Roman city of Lyon.

We now can ask why he does these changes. It is because Tertullian is not useful to him in his story of the telling of the glorious history of the Church. Presenting Tertullian's works against the heretics doesn't help because Tertullian himself became a heretic. He needs to have a church bishop (a bishop like Eusebius himself) heroically fighting against heresy. Enter upstage Irenaeus.

Eusebius has the same problem presenting Perpetua's persecution.She is a dream-interpretor/prophetess in the Montanist heroic style and certainly a Montanist herself as she says, "We also therefore, by whom both the prophecies and the new visions promised are received and honored, and by whom those other wonders of the Holy Spirit are assigned unto the service of the Church...""The Propheices and the new visions" indicate that she is a Montanist. Also, she even has a baby and no husband. [Gasp! an unwed mother] In his rewrite, Eusebius, in turning her from Perpetua to Blandina, leaves out the prophecy stuff. He leaves out the baby and substitutes a 15 year old "brother" named Ponticus, to indicate her chasteness.

Because the original Perpetua work is in Latin, Eusebius knows that very few of his Greek reading audience will have seen it. This allows him to redo it with the appropriate changes into Greek. The same is true with the Irenaeus' work. Because Tertullian wrote his later works in Latin, Eusebius could count on very few people having read them. Changing them into Greek with the appropriate political changes allows him to create his heroic heresy-fighting Bishop -- Irenaeus of Lyon.

I know that you reject the existence of Tertullian, but in my opinion he is real and the primary creator of Christian Orthodoxy, as well as the source of a great deal of Eusebius' ideas and forged material.

I will now be looking for more evidence to back up the idea that Eusebius did know and use Latin works in his forgeries.

I hope to have more on this in my next book.

Warmly,

Philospher Jay

Roger Pearse

Many thanks for the tip. I've ordered a copy of Delahaye, and it will be interesting to see what he says. The distinction between history and hagiography is one that I need to know more about.

All the best,

Roger Pearse