spin

Though strangely Ignatius shows no knowledge of the Magi or Bethlehem. His star is a much more other worldly event, something missed out on by the prince of this world.

I don't think your recourse to Brown deals with the heart of the issue, ie that Ignatius could have received a form of the star trope from other than Matthew. You could then have the Matthean writer receiving it and amalgamating it with the nascent Magi story.

[HR=1]90[/HR]

The section of Ignatius to the Ephesians (19), is worth citing to show just how deviant it is:

[T2="b=1;s=0;bc=yes;p=5;bdr=1,solid,#000000;bg=#FFF FFF"]19. And the Prince of this world was in ignorance of the virginity of Mary
and her childbearing and also of the death of the Lord--three mysteries
loudly proclaimed to the world, though accomplished in the stillness of
God! How, then, were they revealed to the ages? A star blazed forth in the
sky, outshining all the other stars, and its light was indescribable, and
its novelty provoked wonderment, and all the starry orbs, with the sun and
the moon, formed a choir round that star; but its light exceeded that of
all the rest, and there was perplexity as to the cause of the unparalleled
novelty. This was the reason why every form of magic began to be destroyed,
every malignant spell to be broken, ignorance to be dethroned, an ancient
empire to be overthrown--God was making His appearance in human form to
mold the newness of eternal life! Then at length was ushered in what God
had prepared in His counsels; then all the world was in an upheaval because
the destruction of death was being prosecuted.[/T2]

This fits a theology which accepts 1) the religious value of "the virginity of Mary" and 2) that god made "his appearance in human form". Then there's all that astral thang. Nothing to suggest the whole Bethlehem story. The star may just be a tradition development based on the star and sceptre speculation of Num 24:17 also evinced in the DSS, the star having inherently messianic overtones. (J.J. Collins wrote a book on messianism called "The Sceptre and the Star (or via: amazon.co.uk)" because of it.)

I gather somehow you don't see the possibility of the star having been a separate tradition trope, but that it was a development within the pre-existent Magi narrative. Why?


spin

andrewcriddle

On checking Birth of the Messiah I was misremembering what Brown says. Although he does distinguish the star story from the main narrative of Matthew 2 he regards both as pre-Matthean. On reflection he may be right.

However I still think the Ignatius account is probably post-Matthean. In Matthew we have two references to the star The first mention is a piece of astrology the second is a miracle. The second mention is a later development of the tradition than the first and contains strongly Matthaean language. IE Matthew himself probably developed the narrative from the astrological towards the overtly miraculous.

In Ignatius the narrative is even more miraculous than in Matthew (I wonder whether Ignatius has been influenced by the heavenly host accompanying the angel in the Lukan Nativity.)

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

Hi Doug

I'm following this up in my responses to spin
One other interesting parallel between Ignatius and Matthew is the reference in To the Smyrnaeans 1 to Jesus being If this is related to Matthew 3:15 then this is almost certainly Matthean creation.
Two points:
a/ The general impression given by Luke is that problems with Christians arise from localized prejudice by people with their own agendas and can be resolved by appeal to representatives of the more objective central government. By the second century things had moved on.
b/ The definitely 2nd century Acts of Paul has the authorities much more hostile to Christianity than is the case in Acts.

Andrew Criddle

spin

Sorry, Andrew, but I can see no provided reasoning behind your preference for Matthew as the source of the star reference in Ignatius rather than the same tradition which underlies Matthew. You may want to believe that Ignatius disembodied the star trope from Matthew's Magi narrative, but we don't have that burden.


spin

Doug Shaver

OK, but I'm still not seeing anything but an argument to plausibility augmented with an argument from personal incredulity. You have explained why Ignatius might have omitted everything but the star from Matthew's narrative, and then you say you find all other possible scenarios to be improbable.

If you don't prove A, then you can't prove B just by demonstrating A => B.

I was addressing your claim that Luke's writing exhibits knowledge that we should not expect any second-century writer to have had. So what if things in the second century had "moved on" from what they were in the first? How does that make it unlikely that Luke would have been aware of what things were like in the first century unless he was writing in the first century?
How does this shed any light on what the author of Acts of the Apostles had to have known about the first century and how he had to have learned it?

andrewcriddle

One the one hand Acts of Paul may be a weak parallel because it is probably late 2nd century much later than Acts of the Apostles, however my general point is that Early Christian writers (and other Ancient writers) seem generally to be bad at avoiding anachronism.

Why do you think Luke (or whoever wrote Acts) was different ?

Andrew Criddle

mountainman

The Acts of Paul appears to repeat the miracle of the Acts of Titus, where after fasting for seven days, Paul, whom the author compares to the mouse in Aesop's fable of "The Lion and the Mouse", causes the temple of Apollo to collapse. Surely this act would have enraged the authorities? How can one read the Acts of Paul as "literal history"?

The mainstream assessment of a "definitely 2nd century" date of this gnostic text relies on the doubtful testimony of the African Latin writing Tertullian who makes a literary claim, that the author, a Greek writing presbyter in Asia, wrote it "out of love for Paul".. How "definite" is this ?

andrewcriddle

One connection between the form of the story in Matthew and the form in Ignatius is the reference in Matthhew to Herod and all Jerusalem being troubled/disturbed ETARAChThH (from the verb TARASSW) and the reference in Ignatius to a disturbance TARAChH about the star (the corresponding noun). I don't think that the use in both cases of this relatively rare word group is coincidence and it implies use by Ignatius of a late stage in the tradition where the story of the star and the story of Herod have been joined together.

Note also how the exotic wise men in Matthew, the magi, correspond in Ignatius to the star bringing an end to magic MAGEIA. This is later in the tradition trajectory than Matthew, a story about exotic strangers bearing witness to Christ has become a polemic against magic.

Even if Ignatius is using some form of pre-Matthew earlier than canonical Matthew, this pre-Matthew is unlikely to be independent of Mark, which is all my argument needs. I'm argiung that Ignatius used a source that used Mark, whether Ignatius' source is canonical Matthew is for this argument irrelevant.

Andrew Criddle

Doug Shaver

Why do I need a specific reason? "Early Christians were all alike" does not recommend itself to me as a default assumption.

gurugeorge

Seems to me it could just as easily be the other way round - first you have a vague thing about magic, then someone makes up a story about magi.