the_cave

And my reading--that is, "Well, you call it a fable..." is the face value reading.

Sure (though this doesn't seem like the same thing as the "face value" reading...)

I agree that it could be compatible with a mythical interpretation. I'm just saying it's ambiguous.

rlogan

I'm afraid that is your obviously apologetic interpretation. I have a reached a decision otherwise now.

He does not say they call it fable. He says exactly this:

"Receive meanwhile this fable, if you choose to call it so--it is like some of your own--"

"if you choose to call it so" is not "that is what you call it".

Are you saying tertullian is such a dope he can't word it correctly?

The fact that he says this at all must be taken at face value. We do not say this about facts. We do not say this about history.

Please give me an example of any writer, any language, at any point in the history of man who we know to be speaking of something he considers fact to write in this way.

That it appears is not ambiguous.

read that last part of the item in question - "it is like some of your own". Some of your own what? Factual histories?

Is that interpretation even remotely possible? I don't think so.

Please indicate where I am at fault:

1) Tertullian does not say the Jesus story is true.

2) Tertullian positively states that the Jesus story is like some of the Greek stories.

3) By using the words "fable - if you choose to call it so" and "it is like some of your own" makes it clear that the kinds of greek stories he is referring to are the Greek gods and not historical narratives.

4) That Greeks vary with respect to their beliefs in their god-stories. Some, not at all and some thinking that they are fact.

5) That the equivalence is therefore a cultural equivalence between Greek God-stories and the Jesus God-story. He is not stating that all Christians, including Tertullian, believe in the historicity of Jesus whereas all Greeks deny this historicity and instead all greeks believe in the historicity of their God-stories. Rather, that these two classes of stories are the same.


It is therefore impossible to take this passage of Tertullian as evidence of an HJ. To do that, the comparison Tertullian would have to make is to Greek historical tracts - not stories of Greek Gods.

Bernard Muller

In Chapter XXIII of his Apology, Tertullian wrote:
But at once they [pagans] will say, Who is this Christ with his fables? is he an ordinary man? is he a sorcerer? was his body stolen by his disciples from its tomb? is he now in the realms below? or is he not rather up in the heavens, thence about to come again, making the whole world shake, filling the earth with dread alarms, making all but Christians wail--as the Power of God, and the Spirit of God, as the Word, the Reason, the Wisdom, and the Son of God? Mock as you like, but get the demons if you can to join you in your mocking;

The fables are called by pagans and appears to refer to gospels stories.

Chapter XXI
This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb,
is in His birth God and man united. The flesh formed by the Spirit is nourished, grows up to manhood, speaks, teaches, works, and is the Christ. Receive meanwhile this fable, if you choose to call it so--it is like some of your own--while we go on to show how Christ's claims are proved

I would be surprised Tertullian self destroyed here and said he considered what precede a fable; but he had to admit that does look like a fable for Pagans.

Contrary to Tatian in 'Address to the Greeks', Tertullian defended agressively the gospels Jesus.

Best regards, Bernard

Bernard Muller

Toto:
Can you supply the names of these Christians heretics/Docetists, and appropriate quotes, which would indicate they thought the earthly Jesus was an incorporeal illusion?

Best regards, Bernard

rlogan

Am I to understand the evidence is what you have cited above, or is there something else Bernard?

Sincere inquiry.

Thanks.

Al Kafirun

Well, beyond the apostolic epistles which only seemed to imply it, the Johannine texts slap the reader in the face with its depiction of a phantasmic God who's in complete super-human control of his cosmic environment. Ignatius addressed the anonymous Docetists in his letters. Then there's the extra-canon heresies. Gospel of Peter, etc. Allusions in Clement and Irenaeus. In short, there's a whole bundle of brief examples.

Let's see if Toto can offer anything specific.

rlogan

Several things about this passage, Bernard. First, who is "they".

Discussion: This is a lengthy section speaking about "lesser" gods, angels, and demons. The most important part of this section appears to be that Christians can make evil spirits inhabiting people admit that they are evil spirits and not gods. Here is the indisputable proof that the christian god is king of the heap:
Well, that's total bullshit of course. But it seems clear to me that throughout this whole passage "they" refers to the demons, angels, and lesser gods. There is also this very interesting statement:

re-read the quote at the opening here again: "Christ and his fables".

It is the demons and lesser gods asking who is this Christ and his fables. Not the fable about Christ. The fables of Christ.

I'm just trying to be very careful about this passage. These distinctions might not be so weighty. But I want to get them right. "They" is demons. Christ has some fables. We cannot use later canon to decide what those were at the time. But I think the most important of these is that he will come again:

If I understand this correctly, old JC is going to take the job previously allotted to Minos and Rhadamanthus.

I would say that this is a pissing contest. My fable is better than your fable. I don't want to get hung up on the word fable. We need a word to describe this class of stories as contrasted with recipe books, military training manuals, and pornography.

I still see this as this functional equivalence between Greek fables and the Christian fable with the Christian fable as superior.

The historicity of Jesus is irrelevant to his argument

What is relevant is that my fable can make your fable admit he's a demon. The "Truth" he is "proving" is that the Christian God is top dog.

Toto

Bernard: Docetism

Are you questioning whether they should be called Christian? or whether they truly believed Jesus was an illusion?

Toto

On Tertullian, the posters here might be interested in Jay Raskin's TENT hypothesis (from the Jesus Mysteries List).

Raskin thinks that Tertullian was a master rhetorician and forger, that he wrote a number of works attributed to Irenaeus, and that he was the final redactor of Luke-Acts, around 207-8. Tertullian's purpose in beefing up Luke-Acts was to manufacture evidence to use in his struggles against Marcion and other gnostics. His source was "the spirit", not historical documents that are now lost.

Raskin's hypothesis would explain why Tertullian wrote some documents without mentioning Jesus - he hadn't invented the evidence at that point.

This is just a hypothesis at this point, but raises some interesting issues.

edited to add: TENT main page and Abstract

GakuseiDon

rlogan, we have lots of writings from Tertullian that it is easy to find many examples of his belief in a HJ. It is interesting to me that Tertullian and Tatian use "fables" and "stories" when addressing Romans and Greeks.

Elsewhere, this is not so. In his
Anwer to the Jews, I could find no hint of "fable". Tertullian argues that, since no Israelite remains in Bethleham, how can the Messiah be born? He uses this as proof that the Messiah has already come:

Check through some more of his works listed here and you can find many other examples.