Ben C Smith

Hi, Andrew.

I do not at present have access to the Greek of On Matthew either. However, I am not certain I understand the point about Origen referencing the wrong book. On Matthew 10.17 apparently has either twenty books (a general description of the work) or the twentieth book (an accurate description of the location of the passage on James). Against Celsus 1.47 mentions the eighteenth book, but there the referent is the passage on John the baptist, which is indeed found in book 18; Origen does not tell us where he found the passage on the death of James or the causes for the fall of Jerusalem, does he?

I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John, who baptized Jesus, as a baptist, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus. For in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities of the Jews Josephus bears witness to John as having been a baptist and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now he himself, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put Christ to death, who was a prophet, nevertheless says, being albeit against his will not far from the truth, that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the just, who was a brother of Jesus called Christ, the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice.

Ben.

S.C.Carlson

Klostermann's critical text of Origen here has ἀναγράψαντα ἐν εἴκοσι βιβλίοις τὴν Ἰουδαϊκὴν ἀρχαιολογίαν ("having recorded in twenty books the Jewish ancient history"). So Whiston is wrong.

Stephen

Julian

Are you referring to Erich Klostermann? If so, actually even if not, could you let us know the title of the book where you found this? I looked all over the web and there are no greek texts available on Origen that I could see.

Julian

rlogan

I have made this point repeatedly, and the only explanation I have for most people ignoring it is that cannot be squared with their faith in the general outlines of orthodoxy. So they ignore it.

It's pretty clear to me that Christians cannot be a sect of the Jews. The central thesis of "Christ crucified" disqualifies them as Jews, period. That is the reason Josephus does not write of them as a sect of the Jews, and I would like to combine that point with this:

Thank you for that. I was unaware of it, and it is another amusing "just so" story by Eusebius the fairy tale queen. We have all the good little Jerusalem Christians saved by the sky daddy's telepathic oracle (migrating to a safe zone) and all the bad boy Jews crushed in the seige.

Heh. Too bad we can't actually find such an astonishing prophecy in any of the epistles and what not. That would be because the whole Jesus story and early christian history was not thought out until the second century. No Jesus. No disciples. No followers of disciples to migrate to Pella. No Pella archaeological evidence of the Church erected in commemoration of the migration. Yay! All the Christians saved! No point in commemorating that. Har!

It is interesting to see such hostility towards Jews, as the only purpose they serve is creating a phony historical pedigree for Christians.

So back to Josephus. Even if Christians are not a sect of the Jews - but instead are abominable hijackers of Jewish texts, why does Josephus not mention them? Oh - that's right, neither does anyone else. So there would be no paragraphs in Josephus to tell us about these phonies pretending to have Jewish heritage.


Until people shake themselves loose from the false paradigm of the "big bang" Jewish Jesus -> Christianity, they're going to continue to ignore some of the most important evidence on the fascinating history behind the myth.

Amaleq13

How about a "sect" of God-fearers?

S.C.Carlson

I've got the dead-tree edition, part of the Grieschischen Christlichen Schriftsteller (GCS) series. The full cite is Erich Klostermann, Origenes Werke: Zehnter Band, Origenes Matthäuserklärung (GCS 40; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1935), I.22.

spin

I can understand your desire to eke such a conclusion out, but you still haven't shown that Origen had any direct knowledge of Josephus.

Twice in Contra Celsus he talks of Josephus's two books of the Antiquity/Antiquities of the Jews, apparently confusing Contra Apion with AJ (CC 1.16, 4.11).

If you start being of the opinion that it "would be likely [] to be distorted", doesn't that put you in the situation of dealing with the fly shit on the buttered bread? How do you know where to stop? This is the parable of the fly-speckled buttered bread: you cannot afford to be arbitrary.

Let us face it: Origen gives no indication of knowing what Josephus wrote. He repeats the claim that Josephus says the reason for the destruction of Jerusalem was on account of James the Just (CC 4.11), once again apparently using the same one phrase "the brother of Jesus who was called christ". We have a total of three times he uses the same phrase about James, though never as it is now found in AJ, ie "the brother of Jesus, called christ, whose name was James".

It is the unique syntax in Josephus which makes it really interesting, the disturbing fronting of Jesus, when the discourse is about James and each time Origen has James first. That doesn't suggest that Origen was using a Josephan passage.

So, if someone has distorted what Josephus said, how does one know the state of the original words of Josephus using only the distortions?


spin

Peter Kirby

OK, I am probably stepping on a trap (I doubt spin has overlooked this), but Origen says, "I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus. For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite." He gets the book correctly, as well as the motivation for baptism (which is different from the Gospels). This shows that he read Josephus.

It may be that the Contra Apion, placed as an appendix to the 20-book Antiquities of the Jews, is "the two books of the Antiquities of the Jews," just as that which we call the AJ is distinguished as "the Antiquties of the Jews in twenty books." That is, there is a text known as the Antiquities of the Jews that is in 20 books and a text known as the two books of the Antiquities of the Jews to Origen, both being distributed together, and the latter distinguished by its being only two books in its division.

regards,
Peter Kirby

spin

No trap, Peter. But you've read Eusebius for example, lots of citations from source texts woven into the work. This was a legitimate publication. You often had the excerpt and the citation with it. Then again you could have the citation with a description of what is supposed to be there. This way you didn't need to have all the books, but just the relevant portions, or summaries thereof. By the time the bit about John the Baptist reaches Jerome, it's somehow the eighth book, not the eighteenth and that the James passage comes from there as well. That Origen can mention the fact that JB is found in the 18th book is no indicator that he had read Josephus at all. His lack of knowledge about Josephus on James is indicative of his lack of acquaintance with the text.

If you look at the opening of Contra Apion it starts "I suppose that by my books of the Antiquity of the Jews,... I have made it evident to those who peruse them, that..." A reader would have difficulty missing the point that the book -- whatever it was titled -- is a separate work. That of course doesn't negate your suggestion, but the necessity of explaining the problem just adds another layer of complexity to the theory that Origen actually used Josephus. However the manuscript evidence stems from an 11c. copy which is solely Contra Apion. What could suggest CA was attached as you hypothesize?


spin

Peter Kirby

I once pointed this out too. Doherty looked it up. It's an error in the online English transcription. Jerome refers to the eighteenth book in his Latin.

regards,
Peter Kirby