Vorkosigan

Perhaps, but that was not Bede's original point. Bede's point was the opposite claim; innocence by association --

-- which contained one gross error (evidence is thin) and one strawman ("intended to deceive").

Neither Bede's original comment nor my response has anything to do with Eusebius; they are simply derailments for which I apologize.

Back to the matter at hand: did Pseudo-Hegesippus use Josephus in Greek? And if so, why could he not have used Eusebius in Greek rather than Latin?

Vorkosigan
(my computer is out so I may not be able to reply for a day or two)

Bede

Alf, I know I'm biased. It says so on my website.

Also, I tend to view the TF as worthless for any historical evidence. I think there was a Josephus original but we don't have enough confidence to make claims about which bit was which to use specific parts of it as evidence about Jesus. On the other hand, the claim Eusebius forged it all, which is what the OP is presenting evidence against, is without foundation and subject to counter evidence too.

Finally, the TF is not required to prove Jesus existed. There is plenty of other evidence that he did. I'm not going to argue about that, just point out that the TF is a very small brick in the historicist case, while potentially an enormous breach in the mythicist case.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

PhilosopherJay

Hi Andrew,

The question here is not who attacked whom over what, but in what way a text of Eusebius was involved in an argument over forgery between Jerome and Rufinus.

Jerome writes this in letter LXXXIV, "and Pamphilus describing him as a supporter of the Nicene council, which had not yet been held? It is evident from this consideration that the book belongs not to Pamphilus but to Didymus or somebody else,"

I assume that Jerome is not making this up and there was a statement in the work Rufinus called the "Pamphilus the Martyr's Apology for Origen" that referred in some way to the Nicene council.


Since Pamphilus had been dead some 15 years before the Nicene Council, we must assume a miracle that he knew that the storm over Arianism would come after his death and was prescient enough to write with Eusebius an Apology for the Nicene council. If we look for a less faith based solution, it is apparent that somebody forged the work in question and used Pamphilus's name.

Our only two real suspects in the case with motive and opportunity are Rufinus or Eusebius himself. One could argue that someone else between 325 and 397 had taken Eusebius's book of his defense of Origen and had transformed it into a work of Pamphilus that was good enough to fool Rufinus, but this hypothetical, devilish fellow appears to have left no footprints that either Jerome or Rufinus could find. I assume that both were honest enough to want to get to the bottom of the mess and would have proposed an alternative forger, if they could have found evidence of one.

It is clear that Jerome's opinion is that Rufinus forged the work by taking it from Eusebius and assigning it to Pamphilus:

[from Jerome's Apology for Himself Against the Books of Rufinus (8) http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-0...P9015_2381714]

If we assume a collaborative effort,that Pamphilus wrote the first chapter and Eusebius finished the work after Pamphilus' death, then we have the fact that the author of the later books, Eusebius, lies when he says he is repeating himself from the first book, and this in itself may be seen as a forgery of Eusebius.

If they have collaborated together and Eusebius has given the credit to Pamphilus, one has to wonder why only one book had Pamphilus's name attached to it and the other five did not. The hypothesis that Pamphilus and Eusebius collaborated has no evidence as far as I can see to support it and Jerome's rather forceful evidence against it, that it has a reference to the Nicene council that took place look after Pamphilus was dead.

On the other hand, the charge by Jerome that Rufinus has simply taken Eusbius's First Book of defense against Origen and assigned it to Pamphilus to defend Origen using a martyr's cloak seems ridiculous. Could Pamphilus really have expected to get away with such a thing? If it was known to him that Eusebius was the author of this Apology, he would have certainly sort to have changed it beyond recognition, so he would not be accused of such a clear forgery. We really have to assume that Rufinus really thought he was translating a work by Pamphilus and is not the forger that Jerome accuses him of being. Rufinus readily admitted in the preface to the Apology that he changed the work by leaving out passages in the original that he thought had been forged.

Now, we also have to consider that the work itself must not contain the name of the author, otherwise the question of authorship would never have come up, and Jerome would not have said, "You change a few statements about the Son of God and the holy Spirit, which you knew would offend the Romans, and let the rest go unchanged from beginning to end."

This in itself seems to me a key question. Why did Eusebius write a work in six books in defense of Origen and not claim himself as the author?

One may suppose that Eusebius wrote the work with the intention of releasing it as a work by Pamphilus. Perhaps he even circulated a copy of the first book under that name. He later decided to leave the six books unnamed or release it under his own name. Rufinus was unlucky enough to come across the first book circulated in the name of Pamphilus and not having read the six books of Eusebius, translated the work as Pamphilus's.

Now, perhaps, this is wrong and Rufinus or Didymus or someone else did forge the name of Pamphilus onto a work of Eusebius, but this case has to be added to the case of the letters of Abgarus and Jesus, The TF, and the mysterious writings of Hegesippus, as cases involving Eusebius and allegations of forgery. Admittedly, each involves circumstantial evidence, but at some point enough circumstances establish a pattern.

One may see it as analogous with the cases of Michael Jackson and child molestation, the first accusation could be easily dismissed as circumstantial evidence, the second far less so, by the fourth , only the die-hard Michael Jackson fans proclaim his innocence.


Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Alf

Won't argue with you there. So if we can agree that we can disregard TF then we can turn to what OTHER evidence exist in favor for a historical Jesus.

What other evidence?

As far as I know, Josephus is the ONLY extra-biblical evidence in favor for a Jesus figure.

The 4 canon gospels are clearly such that Mark is the first and possibly ONLY source of a historical Jesus. Since it is the only source it isn't much evidence at all.

Tacitus etc give eye-witness testimony to the fact that there are christians in the roman empire at the time and place where they lived. They did not and can not testify that there ever was a historical Jesus. Tacitus lived at the wrong place at the wrong time to provide such testimony.

So, what other evidence do you have? So far I only know of the gospel of Mark.

Don't mistake all the neo-platnoic pagan christ cults as "proof" of the living breathing historical Jesus person.

Also, there were of course people in that region who were named Yeshu etc. I heard of a Yeshu Pantiras or some such which supposedly lived around 100 BC or so. I think we can exclude references to him as references to the christian Jesus figure.

Also, even if you were to prove there was a historical person named Jesus, how on earth are you going to prove that he was born by a virgin and that he was crucified and resurrected?

I think that historians who claim that Jesus was historical are asserting things they cannot possibly know or prove as historians. It is ok that they themselves believe in it as part of their own faith but it does not follow that they then can claim it as a historical fact even if they are historians. This is unprofessional and mark their works as less than serious.

A little evidence would be nice - and no, appeal to authorities do not count, if some professor claim that Jesus was historical he must have some evidence to back it up.

Alf

andrewcriddle

Pseudo-Hegesippus probably used Josephus in Greek but it's not quite certain.

On the one hand IIUC there is no really solid evidence of an earlier Latin version to be used, on the other it has been claimed that there are places in Pseudo-Hegesippus that are easier to explain as someone paraphrasing a Latin text which they misunderstood than someone doing a paraphrastic translation of a Greek text which they misunderstood.

IMHO The Jewish Wars which was more widely known may have already existed in a Latin version for Pseudo-Hegesippus to use but the Antiquities was almost certainly used in Greek.

(Just to make one point clear: Although the great majority of Pseudo-Hegesippus is based on the Jewish Wars the Antiquities is used enough to make certain that Pseudo-Hegesippus had access to a full copy and not just extracts in another work.)

I agree that it would have been entirely possible to use Eusebius in Greek, but I don't think it is very likely. If one is making a Latin paraphrase of Josephus then using the Greek text either as the base text or as a supplement is hardly surprising. It does not establish a prima facie case for the use of other Greek texts. And in fact there is only limited evidence apart from the TF either of Pseudo-Hegesippus using Eusebius in particular or even using any Greek source other than Josephus.

(The Bible is heavily used both OT and NT but although this is ultimately based on Greek it is almost certainly being used in Latin.)

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

I think you're misunderstanding Jerome Letter LXXXIV

Here is the quote in context

Jerome IIUC is not argiung that the Apology literally claims that Origen was a supporter of the Council of Nicaea, (which occurred long after Origen's death.)

He means that the work (I think he means the work in Rufinus's Latin version attributed to Pamphilus) is suspiciously keen to show Origen as orthodox by post-Nicene standards while it is clearly a variant of a Greek work which Jerome attributes to Eusebius and which represents Origen as clearly unorthodox by post-Nicene standards.

There seems to have been one original Greek work probably a joint production of Pamphilus and Eusebius part of which Rufinus translated into Latin and 'doctored' in the interests of later orthodoxy.

Jerome presented a probably exaggerated attack on Rufinus's translation as bogus and anachronistic.

The whole issue is not about wrongdoing by Eusebius. It is about Rufinus translating part of a heterodox work by Pamphilus and Eusebius so as to give the impression that it is a work by Pamphilus alone and one orthodox by the standards of Rufinus's day.

Jerome appearing (genuinely or otherwise) not to realise how drastically Rufinus had rewritten the material which he translated, initially regards the work as an honest translation of a bogus Greek original. A Greek original purporting to be by Pamphilus but really an orthodox rewrite of a work by Eusebius.

Andrew Criddle

PhilosopherJay

Hi Andrew,

In regards to the passage you quoted in your orginal post:
could you please tell us what comes before it and what comes after it. If the author of this text is pretending to be Josephus writing the War, or Hegessipus rewriting Josephus writing the War, it seems he is moving quite a bit out of character.

If you could tell us where this text is online, that would be even better.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

andrewcriddle

I copied the passage from
http://www.christianorigins.com/citations.html

Which is an online version of an excerpt in Dissertation 1 of Whiston's Josephus.

The author whom I've referred to as Pseudo-Hegesippus is not pretending to be anyone that he is not.

It is an anonymous work which makes quite clear that it is a rewrite of Josephus written after the founding of Constantinople by Constantine.

The author comments concerning Josephus In some of the manuscripts the author is given as Hegesippus and this is the name by which the work was known in the middle ages. Hence Pseudo-Hegesippus, but there is no attempt by the author to deceive the reader into thinking either that this is a literal Latin version of Josephus or that it is by the Hegesippus quoted by Eusebius.

I'll try and give a longer extract with the original quote in bold

(NB this is partly my own translation from the Latin. It may not be reliable in detail but I hope gives the general context)

Apart from a few extracts the work is not online.
If anyone wants I'll post the relevant section in the original Latin.

Andrew Criddle

PhilosopherJay

I do not think I am misunderstanding Jerome's letter LXXXIV. Here is the quote in context:

Jerome's point is that the work is an "apology" for Origen, but Origen had not been attacked before the Nicene Council, so why would Pamphilus produce a defense for Origen against charges that had not yet been made? Anyways, that's my reading.

If the work was a joint production of Eusebius and Pamphilus, then we may immediately convict Eusebius of fraud as he has not given any credit to his master Pamphilus for the work in question. If he had given Pamphilus credit for the work, then Jerome could not have accused Rufinus of attaching Pamphilus's name to the work, or credited it as a work only of Eusebius.

It is true that the ancient Church Fathers in this case did not accuse Eusebius of anything, beyond doctrinal errors. To accuse him of forgery could have brought into disrepute Eusebius's Church History which was the only history the Church had produced till this time.

We are fortunate in that we may examine the factors independently and we do not need to mantain the fiction of Eusebius's invented history as they did.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

Alf

I conclude that you are unwilling to provide any evidence to back up your statements.

Alf