Roger Pearse

Eusebius is an authority, as every ancient source is; he is an ancient writer with access to a vast array of sources. To find or repeat excuses to ignore him -- fringe as they are -- merely indicates that those doing so are no longer interested in history. To suggest that we cannot point this out... that would render this forum meaningless, surely?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

squiz

I think this message is mainly one to people within the church and not directly to those of us outside it. He is talking to such people as the vast majority of catholics, who (quite healthily in many ways) have learned to split their brains into the believing part and the pragmatic part. Such people believe the teachings of the church, yet use contraception and move in with their boy/girl-friends before getting married. (Just look at the birthrate in Italy, for example). I know a few who for example consider themselves good Catholics and yet believe that gay marriage should be allowed and have close gay friends. They have been taught since childhood to blindly accept everything that the church tells them, but have also learned tolerance through the example of others and through basic human decency. The common and perhaps wisest course, after having been brought up under such heavy indoctrination, is perhaps not to think about these contradictions too deeply. The pope is calling on such people to return to the teachings of the church on these issues, based solely on an appeal to its authority, as Toto said.

His implication that those who oppose the church's teachings are unthinkingly following popular opinion is a slander and a gross misrepresentation. Particularly with regard to gay liberation issues, there has been a huge increase in the amount of public discourse in the last 30 years. Most people these days know openly gay couples, whereas 30 years ago that would have been unheard of. I think many people have realised through exposure to this discourse and through personal experience that there is something fundamentally indecent about the church's attitudes to these people. This is not the same as unthinking convenience.

Toto

It's legit, but is it St. Paul? Pope is sure remains are the apostle's, but experts are skeptical.

Back Again

I think all this means is that the chosen confidence limits from the C14 test somehow straddle 101CE. I wish people would report data better!

andrewcriddle

Hi Philosopher Jay

I think you may be confusing Clement of Rome supposed author of the Letter to the Corinthians quoted by arnoldo with Clement of Alexandria author of Exhortation to the Heathen and Who is the Rich Man who is Saved ?

Andrew Criddle

arnoldo

Thank you for sharing your insight into Clement of Alexandria. All writings which allude to the death of Peter/Paul are important to those who wish to prove or disprove their historicity. The vaguenss of Clement of Rome in including exact details about Paul's death is explained in the following introduction; Early Christian Writings (Staniforth/Louth)

PhilosopherJay

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for pointing this out. Yes, I did make the mistake of confusing Clement of Rome with Clement of Alexandria. I'm afraid I'm overworked and not getting enough sleep these days.

Still, I think the basic points I was trying to make hold:
1) The text mentions nothing about Rome and cannot be used to support the idea that anybody knew of Peter and Paul being in Rome in the First century.
2) The words "West" and "East" do not necessarily point to Earthly positions. As Clement of Alexandria, when discussing Paul, used them to refer to areas that receive the light of Christ later and earlier, it seems reasonable to conclude that this epistle writer would also be referring to them in a passage about Paul in the same way.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Thor Q. Mada

Well, since the pope is infallible in matters of religion, which this clearly is, and since he is the representative of god on earth, f....ck the experts. He has to be right.

arnoldo

In the passage that you quoted the "West" and "East" may indeed not be pointing towards earthly positions. However, in the following writing of Clement of Alexandria he seems to be discussing literal Earthly positions.

Quote:

At this time Clement, being trained with him in the divine Scriptures at Alexandria, became well known. He had the same name as the one who anciently was at the head of the Roman church, and who was a disciple of the apostles. 2. In his Hypotyposes he speaks of Pantænus by name as his teacher. It seems to me that he alludes to the same person also in the first book of his Stromata, when, referring to the more conspicuous of the successors of the apostles whom he had met, he says: 3. This work is not a writing artfully constructed for display; but my notes are stored up for old age, as a remedy against forgetfulness; an image without art, and a rough sketch of those powerful and animated words which it was my privilege to hear, as well as of blessed and truly remarkable men. 4. Of these the one— the Ionian — was in Greece, the other in Magna Græcia; the one of them was from Cœle-Syria, the other from Egypt. There were others in the East, one of them an Assyrian, the other a Hebrew in Palestine. But when I met with the last, — in ability truly he wae was first—having hunted him out in his concealment in Egypt, I found rest. 5. These men, preserving the true tradition of the blessed doctrine, directly from the holy apostles, Peter and James and John and Paul, the son receiving it from the father (but few were like the fathers), have come by God's will even to us to deposit those ancestral and apostolic seeds. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250105.htm

PhilosopherJay

Hi Arnoldo,

Thank you for this. We have to take into consideration that the work Hypotyposes no longer exists, so we cannot check if Eusebius is accurately transcribing Clement's writings or paraphrasing as he does in other cases.

More importantly, note that he is talking about the East based on his geographical location of Alexandria. He is not talking about the non-specific global concepts "East" and "West" as the Epistle of Clement is.

We should also certainly note that he uses the term "East" here and not the two terms "East" and "West" in conjunction. In the original work by Clement of Rome we were dealing with the meaning of the two terms, "East" and "West"

In the passage I quoted the two terms were used.

There is another passage in Stromata, book 7, http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...ata-book7.html, which also uses both terms:
There is also this passage from Stomata 5:

And of men all are Greeks and Barbarians. But no race anywhere of tillers of the soil, or nomads, and not even of dwellers in cities, can live, without being imbued with the faith of a superior being. Wherefore every eastern nation, and every nation touching the western shore; or the north, and each one towards the south -- all have one and the same preconception respecting Him who hath appointed government; since the most universal of His operations equally pervade all.

All three of these uses of the terms "East and West" to point towards a more abstract usage than the concept of Rome being in the West. I think we cannot say that a reference to the West in the Clement letter involves the concept of Rome. The context does not suggest it.

In the same way, a statement like "She's from the West," could refer to Kansas City, Missouri if spoken in a Western movie, or to London, if spoken in a 1960's spy novel set in East Berlin, or to Moscow, if spoken in a movie from China.

When we look to prove something, the proof should be more certain than the thing we are looking to prove. If it is less certain, it does not help. In this case, a reference to Paul preaching in the West and traveling to the further reaches of the West in a letter (which may or may not be from the First century or Second century) does not help to establish that anybody knew of a story of the death of Paul in Rome before the Third century. That this is the only thing out of over hundred Christian documents from the first two centuries that is brought forward as evidence supports the probability that the death of Paul in Rome story is a Third century concoction.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay