stephan huller

Getting back to the original point of this thread. If it is impossible to reconcile the υπομνηματα or ἀπομνημονεύματα with a heaven-sent revelation in the manner of Irenaeus's quaternion we are left with two basic choices. Either Christians NEVER believed that the gospel was equal to the Torah - i.e. it was originally conceieved as just a 'notebook' of shared experiences with a holy man named 'Jesus' on a summer vacation OR these υπομνηματα or ἀπομνημονεύματα WEREN'T accorded the status of what we have come to think of as 'the gospel' but were rather only its building blocks.

Either way Irenaeus is doing something incompatible with the terminology when he raises the υπομνηματα or ἀπομνημονεύματα of Mark to be one part of the 'perfect four,' represented by the flying eagle of Ezekiel. This is complete nonsense. It is utterly forced. The terminology doesn't fit the role whatsoever. No ancient writer could imagine that something identified as υπομνημα or ἀπομνημονεύμα could come from heaven.

Irenaeus is clearly trying to take something almost written on the back of napkin and recognized as such by antiquity to the level of the Marcionite gospel which was extolled with these words- "O Wonder Beyond Wonders,
Rapture, Power, and Amazement is it, that one can say nothing at all [about the Gospel] nor even conceive of it, nor even compare it to anything."

This gospel was clearly linked with the 'unspeakable' revelation of 2 Cor 12:4 (so Eznik of Kolb and Tertullian) and NOT identified by the Marcionites as υπομνημα or ἀπομνημονεύμα. Don't scholars ever think? Seriously is it a prerequisite of these people to just 'harmonize' contradictory pieces of information so that we can all go back to inherited presumptions about 'the faith'?

When the Marcionite in the Dialogues of Adamantius says that none of the disciples wrote gospels the existence of υπομνηματα or ἀπομνημονεύματα in the names of these apostles would likely not contradict that assertion. This was an inferior form of revelation. It is not of the stature of Moses's experience at Sinai. These are the ancient equivalents of 'blog posts.'

avi

It was not my intention to have such a debate.

I provided the quotation below from a link, but I offered no suggestion that this sole surviving manuscript, representing a copy of writing attributed to Justin, had been manufactured de novo post Nicea. It is unclear to me how we ascertain the date of authorship of Dialogue with Trypho, for example. I have no idea when it was created, or by whom. Maybe there really was such a person as Justin, or maybe not. I don't know how we establish, with at least some confidence, who wrote what, when. I don't find this quotation reassuring that we know for sure, anything about "Justin".

The purpose of my writing, as I did, was not to invoke some sort of conspiracy theory, but rather to question the validity of basing a defense of Morton Smith on text written by Justin.

I believe that I am missing the big picture, here.

I am counting twigs, instead of mapping the forest.

Why is it important to establish that Morton Smith's claim to have stumbled upon a 17th century copy of an ostensibly authentic letter written by Clement of Alexandria in the third century, was valid?

Suppose, for sake of argument, that Smith's discovery of a 17th century copy of Clement's letter to Theodore was legitimate. Then what?

Suppose, contrarily, that Smith's claim was a hoax. Then what?

You see, stephan, I do not grasp the fundamentals here. I cannot explain even the simplest aspect of this debate. You are discussing Irenaeus and the four fold gospels, but, I am still back in Alexandria, with Clement, trying to understand why he is writing about gnostic problems and homosexuality....I do not yet comprehend how his letter relates to Irenaeus, let alone Justin.

I focused on the salt controversy, because sodium chloride is something I do understand. When people write that salt has lost its taste, to me, that means something very different from the question of granulation.

People living in the desert become dehydrated, and upon rehydrating, if fortunate enough to encounter salt, consume it, in large quantities, having depleted their body's store of same, and in that circumstance, profound hyponatremia, salt HAS NO TASTE. The question of granulation is really a non-sequitur.

avi

stephan huller

He is not writing about homosexuality. The purpose of the letter is to clarify some statements made by some Christians whom Clement has identified as heretics (Carpocratians). The 'homosexual reference' appears only indirectly in the letter. Something that the Carpocratians said which Clement takes to be a sign of their licentiousness. But he does the same thing in Stromateis 3 and no one identifies that letter as a 'gay letter.'

Look at Stromateis Book 3 English translation at Peter Kirby's www.earlychristianwritings.com. Clement says "But the followers of Carpocrates and Epiphanes think that wives should be common property." (Strom 3.1) but where is the evidence for this?

The argument starts off as a debate over what Jesus means by 'do not lust' in a commonly held extra-canoncal gospel (undoubtedly Secret Mark):

the command which says "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife" speaks of the Gentiles, in order that anyone who, as the law directs, abstains from his neighbour's wife and from his sister may hear clearly from the Lord, "But I say unto you, Thou shalt not lust." The addition of the word "I," however, shows the stricter force of the commandment, and that Carpocrates fights against God, and Epiphanes likewise. The latter in the same notorious book, I mean Concerning Righteousness, writes in one passage as follows: "Consequently one must understand the saying 'Thou shalt not covet' as if the lawgiver was making a jest, to which he added the even more comic words 'thy neighbour's goods'. For he himself who gave the desire to sustain the race orders that it is to be suppressed, though he removes it from no other animals. And by the words 'thy neighbour's wife' he says something even more ludicrous, since he forces what should be common property to be treated as a private possession." (Strom 3.2)

But was Epiphanes really a 'Carpocratian'? Did he speak for anyone but himself? Or was he just an Alexandrian Christian writer who gained some notoriety and was used as an example to tarnish all those who dissented from Clement's point of view?

Clement goes on to say in fact in what immediately follows:

These then are the doctrines of the excellent Carpocratians. These, so they say, and certain other enthusiasts for the same wickednesses, gather together for feasts (I would not call their meeting an Agape), men and women together. After they have sated their appetites (" on repletion Cypris, the goddess of love, enters," as it is said), then they overturn the lamps and so extinguish the light that the shame of their adulterous "righteousness" is hidden, and they have intercourse where they will and with whom they will. After they have practiced community of use in this love-feast, they demand by daylight of whatever women they wish that they will be obedient to the law of Carpocrates-it would not be right to say the law of God. Such, I think, is the law that Carpocrates must have given for the copulations of dogs and pigs and goats.

So no we go from a reference in a book by a single Alexandrian author interpreting Plato undoubtedly in some allegorical manner (see the context) to a repetition of the kind of slander that we see directed against Christians by pagans (see Tertullian Apology etc). There is an implicit homosexuality and bestiality in this reference too if you notice.

Then Clement goes on to cite the actual reference in Plato and then claim that 'EPIPHANES SEEMS to have misunderstood the Republic:

He seems to me to have misunderstood the saying of Plato in the Republic that the women of all are to be common. Plato means that the unmarried are common for those who wish to ask them, as also the theatre is open to the public for all who wish to see, but that when each one has chosen his wife, then the married woman is no longer common to all. In his book entitled Magica Xanthus says: "The Magi think it permissible to have sexual intercourse with mothers and daughters and sisters, and that wives are to be held in common, not by force and in secret, but both parties may agree when one man wishes to marry another's wife. "Of these and other similar sects Jude, I think, spoke prophetically in his letter- "In the same way also these dreamers" (for they do not seek to find the truth in the light of day) as far as the words "and their mouth speaks arrogant things."

Yet how indicative of 'the Carpocratians' was Epiphanes? Was he just some kook that Clement used to dismiss all Alexandrian dissent? I think that Epiphanes and the Carpocratians were pulled out whenever someone heard some crazy belief about Secret Mark (which is clearly the context of the reference - i.e. the agrapha cited above). Notice also the use of Jude here is paralleled at the beginning of the letter to Theodore.

That all Alexandrian sects took an interest in Plato is evidenced by what immediately follows:

If Plato himself and the Pythagoreans, as indeed later also followers of Marcion, regard birth as something evil (though the last named was far from thinking that wives were to be held in common), yet by the Marcionites nature is regarded as evil because it was created out of evil matter and by a just Creator. On this ground, that they do not wish to fill the world made by the Creator-God, they decide to abstain from marriage.

Clement can't claim that the Marcionites engage in orgies but he does so for the alleged Carpocratians because they were famously associated with a certain Marcellina who went to Rome and apparently was associated with licentiousness (but then again Marcellina was a woman and women are always identified as whores by the Church Fathers unless they keep their mouths shut in church).

stephan huller

And in Stromateis 6 Clement calls HIS Alexandrian collection of holy writings 'the gnostic canon.' Tell me that such a 'canon' couldn't have included something like Secret Mark. It's all bullshit. These people just want to hold on to what mommy and daddy told them about the good book. Complete nonsense in Alexandria in the second century. No one can prove that Clement shared our canon - even our idea of what 'canon' meant (cf. von Harnack History of Dogma). We're fighting at the edge of knowledge. It's like knowing for certain what life is like on an alien planet we have never visited. And yet these people are so certain the Letter is a fake. Why? Because they are scared of its implications. The letter is certainly Clementine. That tends to argue in favor of its contents being authentic.

aeebee50

You are right. It is all B.S.