GakuseiDon

Why do you believe that "seed of David through Mary" is less supportable in the ancient way of thinking? Irenaeus, writing in the Second Century, refers to this very idea:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...eus-book3.html

And again, in his Epistle to the Galatians, he [Paul] says: "But when the fulness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption; "271 plainly indicating one God, who did by the prophets make promise of the Son, and one Jesus Christ our Lord, who was of the seed of David according to His birth from Mary

Ignatius perhaps implies the same in Ephesians, if "Son of man" is a reference to birth from Mary:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...s-roberts.html

For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Ghost...

...Jesus Christ, who was of the seed of David according to the flesh, being both the Son of man and the Son of God...

Ben C Smith

Well, that is the important thing.

My own view? Ignatius either contradicted himself or subscribed to the usual apologetics.

Recall that one of my live options for our present purposes was that Paul contradicted himself:

If Ignatius contradicted himself, so be it. If Paul did likewise, so be it. The only way we could ever tell whether they contradicted themselves or not is by letting them speak for themselves.

But there is, as you pointed out, another option in the case of Ignatius:

He may well have. I agree that it is an act of apologetic desperation, but others did it. GDon gave you Irenaeus, for example (qui de semine David secundum eam generationem quae est ex Maria, who was of the seed of David according to his birth from Mary, in Against Heresies 3.16.3). Also refer to Against Heresies 3.9.2: His son, who was of the fruit of the body of David, that is, of the virgin [who was] from David... (huius filius qui ex fructu ventris David, id est, ex David virgine).

3 Corinthians appears to lean in the same direction (for I delivered unto you in the beginning the things which I received of the apostles which were before me, who were at all times with Jesus Christ, namely that our Lord Jesus Christ was born of Mary of the seed of David).

I personally suspect that the virgin birth and the physical descent from David arose in two different circles and had to be reconciled once they joined forces. Physical descent from David through Mary was one of the more obvious solutions, and this solution shows a literal interpretation of both concepts.

The difference here is that we have hard evidence that Christians actually did it.

Ignatius writes that the Smyrnaeans (18.2) are, to their credit, fully assured that our Lord was truly of the race of David according to the flesh (πεπληροφορημενους εις τον κυριον ημων αληθως οντα εκ γενους Δαυιδ κατα σαρκα). Does that sound like a mere metaphor to him? What else can he say? But I really, really [αληθως] mean it this time!

That is possible. Or he traced the line through Mary, like others after him did.

That last line is beautiful, but I would take my inglorious exegetical choice over your just plain wrong one. (All in fun!)

I think metaphor is truly [αληθως] unsupported, both in the case of Ignatius and in the case of Paul, who did not even let matters rest with Jesus being of the line of David; he had to go and add that pesky according to the flesh line, as if to emphasize it, indeed, as if to contrast the raw physicality of his lineage with the power and majesty of his resurrection.

Myth is a live option for our purposes here (since recency is not the topic), as there were many myths based on what was conceived as a very physical earth in a distant, and sometimes not so distant, past.

Undefined would perhaps be a better option if Paul did not seem to go out of his way to emphasize the physicality in several places.

One question for you on these three options: Into which one does your notion of a fleshly timeless mythical realm fit?

Ben.

EarlDoherty

All those early Christian commentators may well have seized on the "desperate" measure of tracing the "seed of David" through Mary, because it would have been the only avenue open to them to reconcile the conflict. When I said that this would not generally have been acceptable to the ancients, I was not talking about Christians who quite understandably would have grasped at such a straw, no matter how unusual. But do you really think any regular Jew could have envisioned, let alone accepted, the Messiah's descent from David through a woman? When pagans traced important lineage, did they do so through the mother (if it wasn't necessitated for some other reason)?

If that was Paul’s intention or background thought, why present both elements as derived from the gospel of God in the prophets? That, and the juxtaposition of both 'kata sarka' and 'kata pneuma' clearly indicates that both are derived from scripture; there is no indication that they have any other source, nor has the kata sarka one been suggested as deriving from historical tradition. Why add the pesky phrase? Because the two items relate to two different spheres (both mythical), the former relating to the "sphere of the flesh" and latter to the "sphere of the spirit". There had to be a distinction, and a way of indicating the dichotomy. Being "of the seed of David" was written in scripture and had to be accepted, and defined. In relation to the material world, Christ had this connection to David--it was in scripture, so therefore it had some form of mystical reality, even if Paul may not have understood it. He (or whoever wrote that formula) had to have some way of referring to it, and chose the woolly phrase "kata sarka", in parallel with the “kata pneuma”.

Surely you have read how Paul often speaks of the mystical relationship between Christ and believers? They together form one "body". Is this a thought or a usage of the words which entails the "natural" meaning? No, it is a mystical understanding, even metaphorical, although Paul expresses himself with a greater force than one would tend to allot to the simple meaning of "metaphor"--he regards it in some way as 'truly' (even if he didn’t use ‘alnthws’) a real connection, a real body in some sense. If Paul can see things this way in regard to a relationship between the spiritual and material, between Christ and the believer, why can he not be speaking of a relationship between Christ and David which is 'real' in the same way, but not your "natural" way, something mystical? In that Christ-believer relationship, and speaking of Christ's "body" in this and other connections, he even occasionally uses the word "sarx" where in his mind it cannot possibly be referring to the fleshly body of the historical Jesus of Nazareth. There are many avenues, some drawing on pagan mystery cult thinking and contemporary philosophy, to seeing Paul as not referring to the strict natural meaning in Romans 1:3, but you and others just refuse to follow them, even tentatively.

I see Ignatius and others as deriving from the Pauline precedent in the same way, although they may well be adding the back-up 'clincher' (a bow to their new application of Jesus to human historicity) of descent through Mary. It was no less desperate then than it is now.

In the end, Ben, you are still clinging to your basic argument of the "natural" meaning of the phrase. You are still refusing to grapple with the context, you won't consider the evidence on the other side in far more numerous passages of the epistles which point in the opposite direction. Let's for the moment, consider one of these which must be compared with your contentions. 1 Peter 3:18 says:

Now, setting aside my own reading of "flesh" and "spirit" which I would interpret in the same way as I outlined above in relation to Romans 1:3-4, how in any case could the writer of this epistle have defined Jesus' resurrection from death as something that took place "in the spirit" if he had any orthodox view of Jesus as emerging from his earthly grave--as Christians subsequently envisioned it, in actual flesh? The writer goes on to clearly identify that "spirit" as the one Jesus possessed when he "descended into hell," the same one we can assume other writers envisioned when they spoke of Jesus "rising" to sit at the right hand of God in heaven, with no reference to any earthly appearances to anyone.

If such things are clear indicators that these writers, including Paul, did not share the modern view of an historical Jesus and his career of life, death and resurrection on earth, should we not look for a different understanding of "en sarki", especially in view of the role scripture has played in the totality of their picture? Even, I hasten to add, as indicated right in another passage in 1 Peter, 2:22, wherein the experiences of Jesus 'in flesh'--namely, those relating to his crucifixion, are described through scripture, in this case Isaiah 53. Compare something very similar in 1 Clement 16, in Hebrews 5:7 and 10:5, in Ephesians 2:17--all speaking of Christ 'in flesh' in terms of scriptural passages, not historical tradition, exactly as Paul does in Romans 1:3. Does this suggest knowledge of, or a view of, Christ’s “death in flesh” in the “natural” way? I don’t think so.

All these things you ignore, dismiss, refuse to discuss, relying, as I say, on your basic one-track-mind (and one-trick pony) argument that "of the seed of David" and "born of woman" can only mean one thing.

But again, as I said before, I'm repeating myself. Ah, me….

Earl Doherty

Ben C Smith

Indeed. We both are. Thanks for the exchange.

Ben.