andrewcriddle

Minucius Felix presumably believed that Christ was more than just an earthly being, ie he believed Christ to be in some sense Divine.

IF he believed (as seems quite likely) that Christ insofar as he was Divine ceased being human then this would be unorthodox by later standards, possibly even Docetic. However it would not be Mythical in Doherty's sense.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

Origen in 'Contra Celsus' book 5 quotes Celsus as saying Andrew Criddle

Steven Carr

In the context of defending Christianity against a charge that they worshipped somebody put to death as a criminal, a claim that Christians did not believe that an earthly being could be God was hardly likely to produce in the pagans mind the belief that Christians did after all worship a being who had been on earth and had been crucified as a result of a trial.

Such an ellipictical statement of docetic belief by Felix is belied by the context of who he was writing to.

Steven Carr

Hi Andrew, could you unpack what you mean by that?

Celsus seems to me to be saying that Christians are to be censured for not following their native usages, yet most Christians of that time were not converted Jews, but were native Romans or Corinthians or Greeks or whatever.

They had abandoned their pagan gods,not Judaism. That is what is meant by not following their *country's* customs. Celsus thought that when in Rome, behave like the Romans.

Jews , of course, were not to be blamed for not following the local gods of where they lived ,because they were Jews,and should follow Jewish customs.


What do you understand Celsus to have meant by 'Christians, who have abandoned their native usages...' in the context of Karen Armstrong's claim that pagans regarded it as a cardinal sin for Christians to have abandoned the parent faith of Judaism?

GakuseiDon

Doherty says on this:

I can't verify his [GDon's] reading of Karen Armstrong, as he must have a different edition of her book than my own, but I'm very dubious about the Romans regarding the Christians with contempt for breaking away from Judaism, a faith they hardly held in high esteem themselves

Armstrong's original comment can be found in Chapter 3 ("A light to the Gentiles") of her book. She writes:

In the Roman Empire, Christianity was first seen as a branch of Judaism but when Christians made it clear that they were no longer members of the synagogue, they were regarded with contempt as a religio of fanatics who had committed the cardinal sin of impiety by breaking with the parent faith. The Roman ethos was strictly conservative: it valued the authority of the paterfamilias and ancestral custom. 'Progress' was seen as a return to a 'Golden Age' not as a fearless march forward into the future... Innovation was regarded as dangerous and subversive. Romans were highly suspicious of mass-movements that threw off the restraints of tradition and on their guard to protect their citizens from religious 'quackery'...

... Christianity seemed an irrational and eccentric movement to the Roman biographer Gaius Suetonius (70-160), a superstitio nova et prava, which was 'depraved' precisely because it was 'new'.

youngalexander

This is a sequence of logical contortions.

"...the absence of statements about the Historical Jesus is almost certainly...". It is nothing of the sort. At least you must allow the strong possiblity that the absence results from lack of knowledge. Furthermore you are assuming that Felix would have interpreted the Gospels as relating to a HJ, but there is no evidence that this is the case.

"...for whatever reason deliberately avoiding making statements about the Historical Jesus." That is outrageous. With this logic we can prove anything we wish. He doesn't say so, but we know what MF thinks, and curiously it is just what we think.

"It is prima facie more probable that Minucius Felix would copy Tertullian than vice versa." Even if this were true, it could only be the case if Tertullian was prior.

What all this boils down to is that "for whatever reason" MF is "deliberately avoiding making statements about the Historical Jesus." Frankly I do not accept that - for lack of reason!

GakuseiDon

What reason then do you give for Tertullian not making statements about a HJ in Ad nationes, then? He doesn't even refer to the names "Jesus" and "Christ". This is the closest thing he says:

But the sect, you say, is punished in the name of its founder. Now in the first place it is, no doubt a fair and usual custom that a sect should be marked out by the name of its founder, since philosophers are called Pythagoreans and Platonists after their masters; in the same way physicians are called after Erasistratus, and grammarians after Aristarchus. If, therefore, a sect has a bad character because its founder was bad, it is punished as the traditional bearer of a bad name. But this would be indulging in a rash assumption.

The first step was to find out what the founder was, that his sect might be understood, instead of hindering inquiry into the founder's character from the sect. But in our case, by being necessarily ignorant of the sect, through your ignorance of its founder, or else by not taking a fair survey of the founder, because you make no inquiry into his sect, you fasten merely on the name, just as if you vilified in it both sect and founder, whom you know nothing of whatever.

There is no doubt that Tertullian is referring to Jesus Christ, and that the pagans know at least the name. So why doesn't Tertullian refer to "Jesus Christ" instead of "founder"? And if he believes that the pagans "know nothing whatever" of Christ's character and Christianity, why not include something here?

In Doherty's rebuttal to my article, he says, "Given the narrow nature of the Ad Nationes subject matter, there is nothing particularly unusual, significant, or "weird" (as one reviewer on Amazon put it) about the lack of mention of Jesus' name or historical activities." Yet it isn't difficult to pick out problems if we apply a "Dohertynesque" analysis to "Ad nationes". For example:

1. Tertullian makes no comments on a HJ or Gospels. Surely this suggests that he doesn't know of any?

2. Tertullian discusses resurrection of the dead without referring, or even hinting, that the resurrection of the founder was a central part of his beliefs. Remember, Tertullian has stated that the pagans know nothing about the founder!

3. Tertullian writes "Others.. suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. What then? Do you do less than this? ... you who reproach us with the sun and Sunday should consider your proximity to us" Far from setting pagans straight on the God of the Christians, Tertullian gives the appearance of agreeing! How can an orthodox Christian not at least even try to correct pagans on this, unless a HJ wasn't at the core of his beliefs?

4. He dismissively states that pagans "form a virgin from Diana" without any qualification that Christians haven't done the same.

5. He refers to crucifixion as a fitting punishment for "murderers" and "incestuous criminals", without any hint of embarrassment on how this reflects on the founder.

6. Tertullian writes: "But when you say that they only make men into gods after their death, do you not admit that before death the said gods were merely human? Now what is there strange in the fact, that they who were once men are subject to the dishonour of human casualties, or crimes, or fables?" How can an orthodox Christian refer to the folly of men being made into gods after their deaths, without even trying to point out that Christ was more than a mere man?

I could pick out more, but I think you see the trick to it. Assume that there is something unusual in the lack of presentation of a HJ, and any passage becomes a candidate for suspected unorthodoxy.

To quote Doherty, "How could the author place such statements in the mouth of his Christian debater and give himself no luxury of offering any qualification where Jesus was concerned?"

Are you able to give me reasons for the above points, youngalexander, that can't be applied to MF or similar writers?

That, to me, is the chief problem with Doherty's analysis. There is very little attempt to compare within the literature of the period. Too many arguments appear to be based on a "how can an orthodox Christian say that???" approach, without an examination of what orthodox Christians were indeed writing.

As I said in my article, this amounts to a one-sided presentation of the evidence. It's the same method that is used to prove that aliens built pyramids, and that man never walked on the moon.

Steven Carr

I see what Armstrong means.

At first the Romans saw Christians as just another branch of Judaism that had sprung up, and so just ignored it by and large. After all, the followers of Jesus still followed the Jewish Laws.

As they didn't understand Christianity, they didn't persecute it. Only when Christianity became *distinctive* , was it noticed.

Nothing to do with the 'cardinal sin' of breaking from a parent faith.



Weren't Essenes also quite new? And the followers of John the Baptist?

Steven Carr

Ad Nationes is a vitriolic attack on Roman gods, not a defense of Christian beliefs.

Gasukei Don writes as though Tertullian didn't realise that what he is charging pagans with could have been used by them against the Christian religion , and so necessitate a defense of the 'founder'.

If we look at what Tertullian writes, I really don't think it entered his head that he would have to explain why the founder really was a god even though he was crucified and born of a virgin, just like the false gods Tertullian attacks.

Tertullian was so full of bile, that he could not see the speck in his eye for pointing out the mote in others.

So great blindness has fallen on the Roman race, that they call their enemy Lord, and preach the filcher of blessings as being their very giver, and to him they give thanks. They call those (deities), then, by human names, not by their own, for their own names they know not. That they are daemons they understand: but they read histories of the old kings, and then, though they see that their character was mortal, they honour them with a deific name.

[2] As for him whom they call Jupiter, and think to be the highest god, when he was born the years (that had elapsed) from the foundation of the world to him were some three thousand. He is born in Greece, from Saturnus and Ops; and, for fear he should be killed by his father (or else, if it is lawful to say so, should be begotten anew), is by the advice of his mother carried down into Crete, and reared in a cave of Ida; is concealed from his father's search) by (the aid of) Cretans-born men! -rattling their arms; sucks a she-goat's dugs; flays her; clothes himself in her hide; and (thus) uses his own nurse's hide, after killing her, to be sure, with his own hand!

but he sewed thereon three golden tassels worth the price of an hundred oxen each, as their author Homer relates, if it is fair to believe it.

This Jupiter, in adult age, waged war several years with his father; overcame him; made a parricidal raid on his home; violated his virgin sisters; selected one of them in marriage; drave his father by dint of arms. The remaining scenes, moreover, of that act have been recorded. Of other folks' wives, or else of violated virgins, he begat him sons; defiled freeborn boys; oppressed peoples lawlessly with despotic and kingly sway.

[3] The father, whom they erringly suppose to have been the original god, was ignorant that this (son of his) was lying concealed in Crete; the son, again, whom they believe the mightier god, knows not that the father whom himself had banished is lurking in Italy. If he was in heaven, when would he not see what was doing in Italy? For the Italian land is "not in a corner."



And yet, had he been a god, nothing ought to have escaped him. But that he whom the Italians call Saturnus did lurk there, is clearly evidenced on the face of it, from the fact that from his lurking the Hesperian tongue is to this day called Latin, as likewise their author Virgil relates.

[4] (Jupiter, ) then, is said to have been born on earth, while (Saturnus his father) fears lest he be driven by him from his kingdom, and seeks to kill him as being his own rival, and knows not that he has been stealthily carried off, and is in hiding; and afterwards the son-god pursues his father, immortal seeks to slay immortal (is it credible? ), and is disappointed by an interval of sea, and is ignorant of (his quarry's) flight; and while all this is going on between two gods on earth, heaven is deserted.

No one dispensed the rains, no one thundered, no one governed all this mass of world. For they cannot even say that their action and wars took place in heaven; for all this was going on on Mount Olympus in Greece. Well, but heaven is not called Olympus, for heaven is heaven.

[5] These, then, are the actions of theirs, which we will treat of first-nativity, lurking, ignorance, parricide, adulteries, obscenities-things committed not by a god, but by most impure and truculent human beings; beings who, had they been living in these days, would have lain under the impeachment of all laws-laws which are far more just and strict than their actions. "He drave his father by dint of arms."

The Falcidian and Sempronian law would bind the parricide in a sack with beasts. "He violated his sisters." The Papinian law would punish the outrage with all penalties, limb by limb. "He invaded others' wedlock." The Julian law would visit its adulterous violator capitally. "He defiled freeborn boys." The Cornelian law would condemn the crime of transgressing the sexual bond with novel severities, sacrilegiously guilty as it is of a novel union.

[6] This being is shown to have had no divinity either, for he was a human being; his father's flight escaped him. To this human being, of such a character, to so wicked a king, so obscene and so cruel, God's honour has been assigned by men. Now, to be sure, if on earth he were born and grew up through the advancing stages of life's periods, and in it committed all these evils, and yet is no more in it, what is thought (of him) but that he is dead? Or else does foolish error think wings were born him in his old age, whence to fly heavenward? Why, even this may possibly find credit among men bereft of sense, if indeed they believe, (as they do, ) that he turned into a swan, to beget the Castors; an eagle, to contaminate Ganymede; a bull, to violate Europa; gold, to violate Danaë; a horse, to beget Pirithoüs; a goat, to beget Egyppa from a she-goat; a Satyr, to embrace Antiope. Beholding these adulteries, to which sinners are prone, they therefore easily believe that sanctions of misdeed and of every filthiness are borrowed from their reigned god.

[7] Do they perceive how void of amendment are the rest of his career's acts which can find credit, which are indeed true, and which, they say, he did without self transformation? Of Semele, he begets Liber; of Latona, Apollo and Diana; of Maia, Mercury; of Alcmena, Hercules. But the rest of his corruptions, which they themselves confess, I am unwilling to record, lest turpitude, once buried, be again called to men's ears.

But of these few (offsprings of his) I have made mention; off-springs whom in their error they believe to be themselves, too, gods-born, to wit, of an incestuous father; adulterous births, supposititious births. And the living, eternal God, of sempiternal divinity, prescient of futurity, immeasurable, they have dissipated (into nothing, by associating Him) with crimes so unspeakable.


Is it really possible to believe in an historical Jesus , and yet attack Romans gods for turning themselves into swans, and satyrs, and accuse them of murders and incest, without having to defend Jesus against similar calumnies?

I think it was.

Gasukei Don can take a couple of parallels between what Tertullian charges pagans with believing and say that Doherty's thesis would demand a defense of Jesus against the same charges, but I doubt that it ever entered Tertullian's head to do so.

G Don's points are actually good. Why does Tertullian *not* defend Christians against the charge that they have made a virgin out of Mary in the way a virgin was made out of Diana?


Perhaps he had no defense....

.

Amaleq13

I see the trick to what you are performing but, as I believe Doherty tries to point out in his rebuttal, you still seem to be selecting out only part of his argument and treating it as though it were the whole. Doesn't Doherty make it pretty clear that what is more important to his argument than what isn't said (your apparent focus) is what is said (what you ignore eg: Felix) and how it seems incompatible with the "orthodox" view?

Andrew suggested that MF is "avoiding" mentioning the HJ but it seems more like he is denying it to me.