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Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson
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Originally Posted by mountainman
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Is it really third century? Who says so? And has it by carbon dated? |
Dear Jeffrey,
The fact that the (independent) inscription exists is the issue. Look, it could be very early fourth century or even second century. We might say it appears to predate Constantine. Lane-Fox asks the question as to why the shrines popularised by Apollonius of Tyana were singled out by Constantine for destruction. In answering the question he mentions that the inscription may have been as late as the reign of Diocletian. Lane-Fox persent the following four points:
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Originally Posted by LANE-FOX
"Why were these latter shrines singled out so promptly?
(1) At Aigai, the pagan wise man Apollonius was believed
to have "turned the temple into an Academy":
this temple, or a nearby shrine, had been honoured
with a fine pagan inscription
in honour of "godlike" Apollonius,
perhaps as recently as the reign of Diocletian.
(2) Porphyry had compiled books of Philosophy from Oracles
which publicised texts from Didyma.
(3) At Antioch, prophets were duly tortured and obliged to confess "fraud".
These reprisals are the counterpart to two written works by Eusebius,
his polemic against the books on Apollonius and his "Demonstrations of the Gospel,"
which disproved Apollo's oracles by quoting them against themselves.
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Also you might like to try to explain why Eusebius writes against the person of Apollonius in many books, in the fourth century, yet never once made the assertion that Apollonius did not exist.
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Interesting. When someone points out that Celsus or Julian or Porphyry did the same thing vis a vis Jesus, you claim not only that that we cannot trust what they say in this regard, but that even if they did say what our sources say they did vis a vis Jesus, what they say is not evidence that Jesus existed.
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In the case of historicity of Celsus we have Eusebius asserting the existence of Celsus and his books as a clever and apparently fully-briefed critic on the christian religion very early in the period of "christian origins". Hegessipus and Celsus share a common inventor - Eusebius.
In the case of the historicity of Porphyry, I follow the maxim of Eunapius in that when he writes about Porphyry:
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At any rate he left behind him many speculations
that conflict with the books that he had previously published;
with regard to which we can only suppose
that he changed his opinions as he grew older.
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My position is that Eusebius was ordered to forged anti-christian polemic in the name of Porphyry so that Constantine could justifiably have the writings of Porphyry burnt and destroyed.
In the case of Julian I maintain that we do not have Julian's original books since they were burnt. The refutation "Against Julian" by Cyril of Alexandria in the fifth century is a political exercise of literary censorship which was necessary at that time in order to address extant and perceived issues of authenticity surrounding Cyril's "very pure christian religion". Julian's treatise was turning away large numbers of people from the church. Cyril addressed that problem by censorship of Julian.
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Why do you say then that when Eusebius, whom you've classified on more than one occasion as a liar, speaks in this way of Apollonous, we should not only take him at his word, but we should take his lack of any assertion that Apollonous did not exist as evidence,and that no one spends time speaking negatively about a person who did not exist, that there was an historical AofT?
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One reason is because the inscription (above) is independent of Eusebius and from it alone (and without Eusebius) we still have references (although late) to Apollonius.
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And why do you accept that the texts of Eusebius on Apollonius are something that should be regard as evidence of what Eusebius -- if he even existed (do we have arcaeological evidence for him?) -- believed? Do you know for a fact that the text you appeal to is something that actually comes from a fourth century writer?
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Only in unusual circumstances can we be sure. For example the NHC are C14 dated to c.348 CE (plus or minus 60 years). But I have seen people argue that some of the source stories might have been authored in prior centuries, and were simply preserved in this series of codices.
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Has the earliest MS witness to Eusebius's writings on Apollonius been C14 dated to the 4th century?
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The inscription looks quite secure by itself.
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If not then you are employing a double standard in saying, as you do, that the texts that you think support your case should be accepted without verification by C14 analysis as coming from the time that their internal evidence says they do, but texts that undermine your claims should not be accepted as coming from when their internal testimony says they do because they have not been c14 tested.
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I am not employing a double standard on the issue of the historicity of Apollonius. As far as I am concerned, there are a number of sources outside of Eusebius (for example, although late Ammianus MArcellinus) which support the hypothesis that Apollonius was an historical figure --- notwithstanding the primary source himself Philostratus.
The issue of Eusebian integrity is thus not critically relevant to Apollonius as I see it. However, if we were to turn around and commence the same examination concerning the historicity of Jesus, then Eusebian integrity does become extremely and critically relevant because only Eusebius has presented the history of the christians in the period before Nicaea, and -- we have no archaeological citations, or other indendent writers (preserved outside of Eusebius) by which Eusebius' story can be corroborated. Certainly there exists the
far weaker corroboration of paleographic assessment alone, however these chronological pronouncements fly in the face of the demogrphics of especially the Oxyrynchus rubbish tip which flourished in the population explosions there in the
mid-fourth century, before which it was a relative "holy ghost town". This rubbish tip corroboration is not good enough by itself, to be sure, under such circumstances. Now Jeffrey, if we had a secure and unambiguous shrine to Jesus and/or the Twelve Apostles and/or the Mother Mary and/or the fast courier Ananias, well ... then it would be a different story of the jig-saw puzzle of the evidence alone.
Best wishes,
Pete
01-18-2009, 05:06 PM
