stephan huller

I am standing around my sons karate practice when something I have always noticed about the Patristic writings crystallized in my head.

It is strange that when Clement and especially Origen attempt to explain the proper interpretation of the New Testament writings they don't point to anything resembling already established positions on the various passages. It's like they are working from scratch.

Yes to be sure Origen references what Heracleon says about a number of passages in John and Luke. Origen is also familiar with the Marcionite interpretation of various things related to the New Testament. Clement mentions Basilidean and Valentinian and various other heretical interpretations of scripture but no one claims here that the heretics were using Catholic texts. These texts were related to but not identical with the received texts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

It has always struck me as odd that Irenaeus only has Polycarp's word on things but this rarely gets to the level of a systematic commentary on each of the gospels or the writings of Paul.

But how is it possible that no one before Origen (or perhaps Heracleon) wrote a commentary on a specific gospel in the hundred plus years between the writing and the time of Heracleon?

And why doesn't Origen mention Clement's interpretation of scripture? Why doesn't Irenaeus reference any witness for a gospel in four? Why does Polycarp's gospel citation in his letter most closely resembles the Diatessaron? So too Clement of Rome. And what of Justin's unique gospel?

The evidence seems to suggest to me at least that the reason no one before Origen developed a systematic commentary on the individual Catholic gospels is because they had only recently been 'invented

PhilosopherJay

Hi Stephan,

Yes, this is a key and important insight. Are the New Testament works and their relationships so clear that nobody raised any questions about them? Are they so self-explanatory and without contradiction that no commentaries were needed?
This is one reason, that I see 180-205 as the most probable time of their first publication and circulation.
Some or most of the source material or pre-source material very possibly comes from the First century, but that has to to be seen as a separate issue.


Warmly,

Philosopher Jay (AKA Jay Raskin)

mountainman

Eusebius is alone in his assertion that Origen's spiritual master, the Alexandrian dock worker and founder of neoplatonism, Ammonias Saccas, wrote books. All other sources claim that Ammonias did not write anything. If Eusebius is right and all other sources are wrong, perhaps it was the highly revered "Father of neoplatonism" Ammonias who passed written commentary on to the Origen who passed it to Pamphilus who passed it to Eusebius.

Alternatively ....

stephan huller

Eusebius is the sole voice for a lot of things. There often isn't much in the way of detailed information for the period before Nicaea. But then again it is the same way in all the monotheistic traditions. Was there a Samaritan tradition before Marqe? The Defter has hymns by his alleged 'father' Amram but that's it. The Samaritan tradition seems to literally begin with Marqe who many scholars date to the fourth century CE (others date Marqe to the second or third century CE).

The point is that you can make a much more compelling case arguing that Samaritanism was invented in the fourth century following the standard model or that Judaism was created in the third century CE before the discovery at Qumran and related sites.

That's just the way it is with monotheistic traditions in the Roman Empire. Whether Eusebius is exactly correct about Ammonius or not is hard to say. Maybe there were two figures named Ammonius. Maybe Ammonius decided to abandon Christianity in the period when the Imperial government was more involved in regulating the tradition. I can't claim to have know that.

Nevertheless I want to stress again that you impose unrealistic standards on the existing information we have available to us (which is still pretty good compared to other monotheistic religions).

mountainman

In your opinion is this Ammonius (the teacher of Origen) to be identified with the Ammonius whom Eusebius asserts authored what are commonly called "The Eusebian Canon Tables"?

The WIKI page suggests that this was the case until the nineteenth century

stephan huller

Citing a Wikipedia page is not an argument. Like I said it is difficult to say whether Eusebius is right or not about Ammonius.

avi

Let's take 200, for round numbers.
Now, let's add to this equation, 100 years.
In contrast to the preceding century, the dawn of the fourth century found a Christianity with its dozens of competing views, interpretations, facts, and gospels, suddenly as THE state religion.

Imagine the power to change ANYTHING. That's what Eusebius had.

Maybe there did exist in 400 CE, many books, analyses, commentaries, and quotes of wisdom regarding the many branches and sects and competing sources for the Canon.

But, under Eusebius, the Merlin of his era, a great many wrinkles were ironed out, a large quantity of contradictions eliminated, and not a few old documents eliminated....
I am not sure that was "Origen", and not Eusebius' interpolation of "Origen".

avi

PhilosopherJay

Hi Avi,

Theoretically, it is not impossible that Eusebius and Constantine created all the diverse texts that appear to come from the three prior centuries. However, when examining them carefully, we do see cases of evolution of problems and issues in these texts that suggest strongly they were written over a long time period in different places. I think there is evidence of some tampering with text and wrong dating and assigning wrong authorship. However, dating them all to relatively the same time and place creates all sorts of new and unnecessary problems.

For example, certain texts (Epistle to the Galatians, for example) are concerned with circumcision of gentiles which appears to have been a serious problem for early Christians or proto-Christians when they were still considering themselves as part of the Jewish community in the First century. In order for these to be Fourth century texts, we really have to imagine that they are not literally talking about circumcision, but are using it for some kind of code to speak about something else. Yet, these text give no indication what this something else could be. Assuming Fourth century origination we now have to imagine what this code could be. The far simpler solution is just to assume that the text originates in the First century when circumcision was a real problem. This does not discount the possibility that the text was later changed to reflect the later solution to the problem (circumcision was unnecessary for non-Jewish Christians).

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

avi

Thank you Jay.

I did not however, intend to suggest that C & E created all of the texts de novo, though, they certainly could have. I intended to suggest that the specific reference, to Origen's references to various passages found in Luke and John, could have been changed, or added, by Eusebius, i.e. need not have been "Origen" ' s writing, at all.

That is not, at least in my mind, equated with the idea (not so farfetched, however) that Eusebius created ALL of the writings and ideas of "Origen" de novo.

I simply wished to sound a note of caution, regarding the "patristic" evidence, including the writings attributed to Origen--evidence which I believe has been corrupted, interpolated beyond the original author's ability to detect his/her original text, and rendered essentially ahistorical.

avi

Juststeve

I would make three points.

First, arguments from silence are always tricky and particularly so in this area. We just don’t know what gospels or commentaries on gospels existed in the first two centuries. We only know which ones have come down to us. It may well have been that the earliest commentaries are no longer available, either because they were lost or because they were deliberately destroyed. Therefore it is risky to assume that the first commentaries we have copies of were the first commentaries.

Second, I don’t think we can really know how much time elapsed between the writing of a gospel and the gospel being widely circulated. Publishing didn’t work the way it does today. The first gospels would have been hand written documents, passed around hand to hand, and perhaps after a time hand copied. We simply don’t know how much time elapsed between the writing of a gospel and the gospel coming to the attention of someone with the ability and desire to write a written commentary. (This by the way is also a sound response to apologists who claim that if Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead there would have been eyewitnesses around to say so. The truth is it may have been a long time before many people outside the movement, and even some inside the movement, knew exactly what influential Christians were saying.)

Third, even if the gospel(s) came to the attention of someone who might want to comment, he would not have done so until he became aware of disputes about the meaning of the gospel(s). In other words the writing of commentaries does not necessarily follow immediately upon the commentator becoming aware of the gospel.

These are problems that must be resolved by anyone who argues that the gospels were written shortly before the first known commentaries.

Steve