PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

I think it is possible that Against Heresies was written fundamentally for the compilation of Church History. The question is how to prove or disprove that.

There is something I noticed while rereading Against Heresies that struck me as quite strange. The writer gives the doctrines of the institution which he calls "The Church of God," and says exists everywhere in the world. He gives these doctrines in Book 1. Chapter 10.

1. The Church, though dispersed through our the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations132 of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father "to gather all things in one,"133 and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, "every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess"134 to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send "spiritual wickednesses,"135 and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning [of their Christian course], and others from [the date of] their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.

If we diagram this into a more logical form, we get:

Preaching and faith from apostles and their disciples:

1. One God
Maker of heaven, earth, sea and all things in them.
2. On Christ Jesus, son of God
Became incarnate for our salvation
3. Holy Spirit proclaimed through the prophets
1. Dispensation
2. Advents
3. Birth from virgin
4. the passion
5. resurrection
6. ascension into heaven
7.to gather all things in one
8. raise anew all flesh of the whole human race so that
a. every knee should bow
b. every tongue confess
9. he should execute just judgment
a. send into everlasting fire
1. spiritual wickednesses
2. angels who became apostates
3. ungodly, unrighteous, wicked and profane among men
b. confer immortality and everlasting glory on righteous, holy who have
kept his commandments and persevered in his love.

Note that this does not include any of the teachings of Christ. Forget about "Love your brother," "Turn the other cheek," "pay onto Caesar," etc. That is nowhere included in what the apostles taught the Church.
Note also that three things are put on the highest level. 1. One God's creation, 2. Incarnation of Christ Jesus, 3. The prophesies spoken in the Hebrew scriptures by the Holy Spirit.

What is meant by this incarnation of Christ Jesus? The writer tells us in book 4.33:

How has Christ been incarnated? The true knowledge is that Christ has been incarnated in the succession of the Bishops of the Church.

We should be careful about the translation of the term Bishop here. The late Greek term episkopos meant "overseer". Elsewhere (3.2.2) the author speaks of "that tradition which originates from the apostles, [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches" he seems to use the term presbyter (elder) interchangebly the episkopos.

In other words, the author is trying to say that the church was founded by apostles and the Christ that incarnates and fulfills the predictions of the Hebrew Scriptures are the elders of the Church.

It is very important to note that the author never says that an historical person named Jesus Christ founded the Church of God. It is the apostles who founded it:

1:10 1. 2.9 9 3.preface: 3.1.1 3.2.2 4.17.5 4:26.2. 4:26.5. 4.33.8.5. Preface 5.20.1. What these quotes show is that the author of "Against Heresies" does not see the Church as continuing the teachings of Christ. In fact the incarnation of the Christ in Jesus is meaningless, for presumably God could have perfected the apostles without Jesus.

The author is discounting the gospel stories of Jesus Christ. It is the Apostles who are historical and they basically only see the story of Jesus as important because it fulfilled the Christ prophesies.

This line of thought appears to me to be identical to the line of thought in demonstratio evangelica by Eusebius, if I recall correctly. If this is true, this would indicate that the work would likely be done around the same time period as the demonstratio, if not by the same author.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

rlogan

Wish I could add more to be productive, but this is following a centuries-long tradition of making up a history.

There was no Adam and Eve, no Noah, no Abraham or Moses, right through the culmination of the Orthodox Jesus.

You can't invent a fake ministry that happened last year or even ten years ago, it has to be more than a lifetime ago - "long ago and far away"...

When you do so you can make lists like Matthew for Jesus' lineage, which is preposterous to submit as actual history. The Bishops list is unadulterated twaddle.

You posed a statistical test of significant rigor: The procession of phony popes comes from a radically different statistical distribution. Clearly.

A tremendous amount of suspicion has to fall on Eusebius, as his job is to forge a church history in order to monopolize religion under an official state canon. The canon is a phony history itself, so it requires amending historical texts.

The TF is the most blatant example, and for purposes of argument it is good to try establishing the likely trajectory of the complete forgery trail ending in the 4th century.

As a working model I am highly interested in examining how well it explains the whole - how reasonable it is with Eusebius doing the heavy lifting for the most part:

Papias: How do we know of his works? Eusebius. A testament to Matthew and Mark. A forger does this to give a pedigree to something. Seems pretty reasonable to consider. Not saying Papias didn't exist, but that Eusebius has an agenda in "quoting" him.

Irenaeus: Well first of all he claims Matthew is written in Hebrew which is clearly false so he is either a liar or he is yet another case of Eusebius' busy hands - I don't know enough about this area to say. No pretenses of knowledge here. Possibly this lie already had been started and he adopted it. But here is a great way to also give a phony pedigree - "Oh, I just came up with this translation...

I wanted to remark about this in reading "Against Heresies" and Tertullian's "Prescription Against Heretics".

These competing religions are so fantastical, fought out in the realm of "My Green Lizard Christ Eats your Invisible Ghost Christ" mythical land that when I see

"who suffered under Pontious Pilate" stuck in there amongst this interstellar psychobabble in the earliest alleged years of christianity it stands out to me as suspicious. The chain of custody on such writing needs to be examined closely.

mountainman

Dear Philosopher Jay and aa5874,

We should also be careful to make a study of why the word "Priest" was not selected at that time since the evidence indicates that there were in fact many many other cults and religions (which were not selected as the recipient of such honors) which the archaeological research have shown to have existed --- in the huge majority --- during the epoch of the first three centuries. Since the NT was a Greek publication, for Greek gentiles (if this is not in fact a tautology) I would have exected Eusebius to have provided an objective account of the Graeco-Roman priesthoods.

I can find no substantial dialogue reported in Eusebius' accounts between the lineage of "bishops" and the lineage of "priests" whom we now know had their own flocks of followers and their own network of churches, temples and shrines. It is as if Eusebius deigns not to admit their existence. We know the Greek priesthood -- and the implicit knowledge of it own lineage -- was then ubiquitous in the empire.

This study perhaps might therefore also examine the role of the priest in antiquity and how widely the word was used up until the time that Eusebius authors his tentative thesis in the field of ancient history. Finally the study should examine the tension in the social fabric of society between the two terms "bishop" and "priest" after the reception of Eusebius' study.

mountainman

That's right rlogan - in particular - how short was the chain?

PhilosopherJay

Hi Mountainman,

Excellent point, the author of Against Heresies never uses the term "priest" (Ουσ. ιερέας, παπάς) to refer to anybody in the Church of God. Priests are only reserved for Heretical cults and Jews.

If Eusebius does not mention priests also, that would be a clue that either 1) priests did not exist in the early church or Eusebius wrote Against Heresies.

It is now obvious to me that the author of Against Heresies is not talking about an actually existing church when he talks about the Church of God. It is a theoretical or rhetorical church that he is creating. Its features are defined in opposition to heretical churches. The heretical churches are many, therefore the Church of God must be one. The heretical churches exist here and there, the Church of God exists everywhere. The heretical churches come from teachers, the church of God comes from the Apostles of Christ.

The listing of the Bishops and talk of Polycarp in 3.3 and 3.4 are the only references to a specific existing church. He sites no historical incidents of his Church of God, no encounters with heretical churches, no practices, no methodologies.

This adds to the suspicion of interpolation of these passages.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

mountainman

Hi Philosopher Jay,

The Roman bishops' list may be generalised of course to include the Alexandrian bishops' and the Antiochan and of course - later - the bishops' and archbishops' list for Constantinople. We may examine the generalised phenomenom of the historical lineage of bishops by adding in one at a time the major cities of the Graeco-Roman empire between say the 1st cenury and the time at which Eusebius writes, c.324 CE leading into Nicaea.

The research performed by the author of Against Heresies and the research performed by Eusebius in toto -- as you note -- do not at all have anything to say whatsoever about the existing Graeco-Roman priesthood who in error of their gentile and heathen ways -- soon to become pagan -- were essentially responsible for quite a large number of functions in society.

It may be a tangentiation and digression to mention all of these, but I think it is important to understand that at least some of these Graeco-Roman priests were functioning within what might only be called a proto-type public hospital system, based upon the network of temples, gymnasia, shrines and their libraries of the Graeco-Roman healing god Asclepius, son of Apollo, son of Zeus.

However the author Eusebius, who presents Against Heresies, is also known to have authored a very polemical treatise against this class of priests (Against Hierocles). This clearly indicates that Eusebius was aware of the antiquity of the priests of Asclepius (and other cults). In contrast to the collection of his research concerning the history of the nation of christians, spearheaded by the Bishops' Lists, which does not mention the graeco-Roman priesthood, the polemic against Apollonius and Ascelpius mentions the word "priest" many times, and in extremely derogatory tones. Eusebius is delighted, for example (See RLFox), to report that Constantine was rightfully destroying this class of people.

This adds further to the suspicion of interpolation of these passages, since it would appear that there may well have been a great political and religious tension between the lineage of bishops and the lineage of priests at the time of the council of Nicaea.

As the fourth century progresses, further treatises "Against Heresies" are found with greater frequency, such as the masterpiece of the "bishop" Epiphanius of Salamis. By this time the "gentiles" are specifically named as those who follow either (1) Barbarism, (2) Scythianism, (3) Hellenism, (4) Judaism, (5) Stoicism, (6) Platonism, and/or (7) Pythagoreanism.

By this time the Roman Bishop's list was of legendary status, and competing christian bishops battled with their armies in the streets of (at least) Rome to determine who would be next on the "Bishops' List".

The question relating to any suspicion of interpolation of the passages presented by Eusebius as being from Irenaeaus (and others) must therefore really be extended to cover the epoch not just of Eusebius, but the entire fourth and fifth centuries. The reason being that at this time the fittest of the orthodox survived to preserve all the accounts which we now peer into and attempt to analyse for their testament to the field of ancient historical research.