stephan huller

Wow, DCH I certainly expected more from you. It is true that if the evidence is taken on its own - or perhaps better yet - if we assume that if we take the contents of Dialogue at face value, it is hard to 'prove' what Justin's ethnicity was. Pummer describes the evidence as 'meagre.' Yet others like MacLennan Early Christian Texts 56 see this as an "intimate" reference which "seems to reveal a feeling of involvement with the Samaritans with whom he lived. It also suggests that the Roman diplomats may have had a special relationship to them."

Pummer, whom I have had dealings with, gets stuck on the fact that there is all this 'other stuff' in the Dialogues which makes the Samaritan identification problematic. Yet we at this forum hardly have any difficulty ascribing most of the material in Dialogue as coming from an orthodox editor. That's really what everything comes down to. If you accept that the Dialogues were written as is - fair enough. But who is so stupid as to think that we have the original text of the Dialogues?

aa5874

It is completely irrelevant whether or not "Dialogue with Trypho" is original when there is NO other Existing text.

In the passage Justin Martyr IDENTIFIED himself as a Samaritan.

Whenever we locate the original or some other text then the EXISTING text MUST be used.

Dialogue with Trypho People who want to argue that Justin Martyr was NOT a Samaritan MUST find their source to contradict the Existing "Dialogue with Trypho".

stephan huller

Wow. I am agreeing with aa. Maybe we'll get married and live together in Salt Lake City. It would be hard in my mind to imagine that a resident of a pagan colony in Samaria would describe the 'Samarians' as fellow countrymen.

aa5874

I don't really want you to agree with me--Just Agree with the Existing Evidence.

Some people here want to IMAGINE their own evidence from antiquity. Let us NOT waste anymore time with imagination and speculation.

We can ALL AGREE that we have EXISTING EVIDENCE that Justin Martyr was a Samaritan.

stephan huller

The negative reference to Solomon in the Dialogue is also always cited as typically Samaritan too. You can see similar ideas in Arabic Samaritan texts.

DCHindley

Pfpffft :moonie:

According to Denise Kimber Buell's article "Rethinking the Relevance of Race for Early Christian Self-Definition" (Harvard Theological Review 94:4 (2001) 449–476):

First, race was often deemed to be produced and indicated by religious practices. Second, although ancient authors frequently refer to membership in a genos ["race"], ethnos [Nation], laos [people], and phylos [tribe] as a matter of one’s birth and descent, ethnicity was nonetheless seen to be mutable. [p 451]

While all of these examples [of Christian self-identification as a "race"] use the Greek term genos, other early Christian texts employ additional terms that also connote membership in a people, such as ethnos, laos, and phylos, often interchangeably. [p 456]

As Jonathan Hall has noted about the range of meanings and applications, ethnos “may be applied to inhabitants of a polis” or “may refer to a larger population which inhabits several poleis”; “many of the populations that are referred to as ethne¯ are also often described as gene¯”. Because “genos is related to the verb gignesthai, which means ‘to be born,’ ‘to come into being’ and so eventually ‘to become’ ”, genos is also used to refer to a family group. But genos also “can be applied to a category of any size that recognizes its members to be enlisted automatically by birth”. In both ancient Greece and imperial Rome, however, “birth” relations were achieved through ritual, not just biology, so genos is used in contexts, including Christian ones, that construe “birth” broadly. All citations from Jonathan Hall, Ethnic identity in Greek antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). [p 456 n20]

So, let's look at Justin's use of these terms:

1st Apology Ch 26 There was a Samaritan, Simon, a native of the village called Gitto, who in the reign of Claudius Caesar, and in your royal city of Rome, did mighty acts of magic, by virtue of the art of the devils operating in him. ...

The editor of the translation of Eusebius Church History book 2 Ch 13, in note #367, says of Simon and Gitto:

Gitton was a village of Samaria, near Flavia Neapolis (the modern Nâblus), and is identified by Robinson with the present village of Kuryet Jît (see Robinson’s Biblical Researches, III. p. 144, note). Some have doubted the accuracy of Justin’s report, for the reason that Josephus (Ant. XXII. 7. 2) mentions a magician named Simon, of about the same date, who was born in Cyprus. There was a town called Κίτιον in Cyprus, and it has been thought that Justin may have mistaken this place for the Samaritan Gitton.

On with Justin:

1st Apology Ch 26 (continued) And almost all the Samaritans, and a few even of other nations, worship him, and acknowledge him as the first god; and a woman, Helena, who went about with him at that time, and had formerly been a prostitute, they say is the first idea generated by him. And a man, Meander, also a Samaritan, of the town Capparetaea [about 2 km East-Northeast of Afek/Antipatris, the fortress town rebuilt by Herod in 37 BCE], a disciple of Simon, and inspired by devils, we know to have deceived many while he was in Antioch by his magical art. [p 171]

Ch 53 ... [Are not] the Christians from among the Gentiles [Nations besides Israel] are both more numerous and more true than those from among the Jews and Samaritans? For all the other human races are called Gentiles by the Spirit of prophecy; but the Jewish and Samaritan races are called the tribe of Israel, and the house of Jacob. ... but the Jews and Samaritans, having the word of God delivered to them by the prophets(!), and always expecting the Christ, did not recognise Him when He came, except some few ... [p 180]

Ch 56 The evil spirits [in order to nullify the prophets' predictions about Christ] ... put forward other men, the Samaritans Simon and Menander, who did many mighty works by magic, and deceived many, and still keep them deceived. ... [p. 182]

Dialogue Ch 120 For I gave no thought to any of my people, that is, the Samaritans, when I had a communication in writing with Caesar,(1) but stated that they were wrong in trusting to the magician Simon of their own nation, who, they say, is God above all power, and authority, and might. [p 260]

Justin refers to Jews and Samaritans as both members of the "tribe" (phylos) of Israel. "Tribe" is an association through custom, not necessarily birth. But he refers to Simon and Menander as "Samaritans" by reason of their place of birth alone. Gitto is more than likely a town or village in the Chora of the polis of Flavia Neapolis ("chora" is the agricultural district that supplied food for the polis). Capparetaea would seem to be part of the chora of the fortress at Antipatris. Herod tended to recruit his largely pagan army from Samaria, so I would expect this region to be Phoenecian and not Israelite.

DCH (composed early this morning, and sent while on break, oh most powerful boss)

stephan huller

So by that definition a pagan resident of Jerusalem would refer to the Jews as "my people"? The difficulty is in imagining that anyone would show love to a people who "hated the human race"

stephan huller

On top of that the Samaritans were officially hated. there's just too many levels that this doesn't work on

stephan huller

it's not that all scholars are stupid, just go to don't wanna think about the evidence. Mach in his Dialogus writes that the most historical explanation for Justin's anti-Jewish writing could have been his identification with the Samaritans, whom he calls "my people"*

Duvduv

In an original text, why would he have to say "my people, that is, the Samaritans"?? Is he now trying to be so careful that no one should heaven forbid think he was referring to the Egyptians or the French?!