spin

No. Consider the logion "alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a man of infinite jest!" I can tell you this logion by Hamlet, but by itself it doesn't really have too much significance. If, however, I give you the context, what Hamlet was doing when he said it (in a grave, having dug up the skull of Yorick -- and the more I provide of the context, the richer the significance of the logion), then I've given you the logion and contextualized it.

Think of "little girl, arise". A little contextualization goes such a long way!

Contextual actions of the reputed sayer of the logion.

I'm just starting with the most common meaning of logion and trying to understand what the user was saying if its meaning was in fact the common one, which seems likely as I read the text, for I see no reason to redefine it as per your attempt. How much contextualization? Well, the text talks about "things done", so I'd guess enough contextualization to cover that description.

I'm merely commenting on your exegesis. It requires a redefinition of a word when there doesn't really seem to be enough to allow you to redefine it. Your attempt at a parallel requires the redefinition, while keeping the same common meaning of "logion" can work fine in context, suggesting your parallel is artificial.


spin

Ben C Smith

Well, I agree. Yet Hamlet is a narrative. It has more in common with our Greek Matthew than it does with the hypothetical Q or with Thomas. So, even if you are correct here (and I think I understand you now), and Papias is applying the term only to actual sayings like talitha cumi but contextualizing it with deeds, we still have no right to expect a sayings gospel (as the term is usually applied) from the logia that Matthew wrote down.

Spin, there is no redefinition of logia actually happening here. They are still sayings; the only questions are whether they are (or can be) sayings about someone rather than by someone and whether they can include entire narratives, miracle stories and all. IOW, does the word, in and of itself, imply a particular genre? I say no.

The term can be used of the entire set of Hebrew scriptures, after all, conceived of as the word (sayings) of God (or see the letter of Aristeas for its usage as meaning the entire Pentateuch); and no one would think of a sayings gospel like the Q document or Thomas when it refers to the Hebrew scriptures.

Why then do we tend to think of the oracles as a sayings gospel when Papias uses the word of a Matthean text? Especially when Papias himself (or his elder) uses the word of a text that he tells us included both words and deeds (whether the deeds are just contextualizing the words, which alone are equivalent to logia, as per your view, or whether the deeds and words together constitute the logia, as per my view).

Ben.

Amaleq13

IIUC, the question is whether the whole of what you offer (ie logion plus contextualization) be referred to as a logion.

Right?

If so, do you think that to be true?

spin

You missed what I was saying about Hamlet. People who know anything about the play have little snippets in their heads, "to be or not to be", "neither a borrower nor a lender be", "there's something rotten in the state of Denmark", "there's something special in the fall of a sparrow", etc. There are for our purposes logia. They could be your Hamlet. But if I told you the logia each with some context... I give narrative to the logia. (I could of course construct a different story, a new one.)

As to not expecting a sayings gospel from Matthew, per Papias, I tend to side on those who expect so, given the relevant text:

Matthew ... ordered together the oracles, and each one interpreted them as he was able.

This indicates something quite different from what is ascribed to Mark. It's more like they are in fact bare saying that need to be interpreted as best one could.

There is a certain equivocation here. Hebrew documents at some stage reached a status amongst christians that they were divine words... every word of the Torah coming from the mouth of god. This simply wasn't the case for the early christian texts, was it? A comparison with Hebrew bible is inappropriate here.

And it still appears to me that you are wanting to redefine "logion" here to include the "things done" for Mark and allow it to leech into the description of Matthew.

If you look at the different treatment of the two descriptions, that attributed to Mark and to Matthew, you should see that they are fundamentally different. One has an attempt to capture the sayings and the things done, while the other left the reader to interpret as best they could. Don't you think such a distinction is clear in the descriptions?

That seems to be Ben C's question. That's what he'd like to do and I think it isn't justified.


spin

Ben C Smith

Did those logia in Hamlet exist on their own before Shakespeare pressed them into service? Or did their coming into being coincide with the development of the narrative in the play? (I do not know; I am asking.)

I do not think it necessarily indicates something quite different than what is ascribed to Mark, except for the issue of ordering. Compare:

[It was] Peter, who would make the teachings to the needs, but not making them as an ordering together of the lordly oracles....

Matthew therefore in the Hebrew dialect ordered together the oracles....

Were this all that had been quoted from Papias, we would probably not see any genre difference between Matthew and Mark, the matter of order notwithstanding, since both are described as consisting of logia.

What the Matthean stuff is with relation to Mark is shorter, less elaborated.

I do not know how early the Christian texts were seen as divine in some way. That is part of the problem in interpreting Papias. But, when Barnabas, apparently predating the second revolt, uses an it is written formula of something that is certainly not found in any extant scriptural text except Matthew, that does not seem all that different than calling something like Matthew a set of oracles. Yet I am reluctant to turn the gospels into holy writ so early. So I really am not decided on that.

I think you are paying less attention to the parallel structure than I am. Papias does not tier his things done and things said as you are doing with your recontextualization argument. Rather, he places both in parallel with the logia.

Yes, but I do not think it is the distinction that you are finding.

I think Papias or his elder is having to justify Mark being out of order (according to some standard that looks a lot like John); his solution is to say that Mark was not an eyewitness, so cannot be expected to know the actual order of things, since he was depending on ad hoc teachings by Peter. This leads to a problem with Matthew, however, since Matthew is supposed to have been an eyewitness, yet our Greek Matthew is not all that different in order from Mark. The solution here is to say that Matthew did write in order, but in Hebrew, and the Greek versions of Matthew are clumsy translations (or interpretations).

Ben.

spin

For the sake of the discussion, I have to plead ignorance as to how the tradition started. I just heard these logia from some raving loonie in tights. Florence Olivier?

That's not quite how I read the issue. There is not the same question regarding the necessity to interpret the sayings. That suggests that while Mark is said to have things done as well as things said, Matthew only has the logia.

I'd need to look at the reference to Barnabas...

Thing is, parallelism is not the only tool in the literary bag. This doesn't look like a parallel, but more like a contrast. Mark has both, while Matthew only has the sayings and therefore needs individual interpretation. The difference is stressed.

I'm just giving nude and crude reaction and that, which still seems reasonable to me now, contrasts with your analysis. So far I'd stick by my quick analysis, though I'm not wedded to it.

If this Mark is our Mark then why isn't the issue of order raised for Matthew as well, seeing as Matthew's is an augmented Marcan order. Matthew would fall foul of the same standard, but no comment is made, suggesting that this sayings Matthew is different from the things said and done Mark. The Papias stuff causes more problems than you seem to notice.


spin

Ben C Smith

What I am driving at is that some of the logia you mentioned seem to have no standing on their own without a narrative. Talitha cumi springs to mind. I doubt that expression ever stood on its own as a dominical saying without its miracle context.

Barnabas 4.14. The as it is written precedes a saying that is found, among extant texts, only in the gospel of Matthew. At any rate, the it is written is applied to something not found in the traditional Bible (the Hebrew scriptures or apocryphal works).

Wrong parallel. I meant the one that I highlighted earlier in the thread:

Mark... wrote accurately, yet not in order, as many things as he remembered of the things either said or done by the Lord.

Peter... [was] not giving [his teachings] as an ordering together of the lordly oracles, so that Mark did not sin having thus written certain things as he remembered them.

Logia here seems parallel to things said and things done; Mark did not get the things said and things done in order because Peter had not taught the logia in order.

First, I hasten to stress that I think Papias is referring to some version of Mark. I cannot tell you which ending was attached, whether the Bethsaida section was present, whether the son of God was there in chapter 1, verse 1, which sets of variants were used, whether some stories might have been absent, and so forth.

I think it is raised. The issue of interpretation as best as they could is a good way of making the original Hebrew Matthew stand in order but its translation(s) into Greek not stand in order.

Agreed, provided Matthew here is our Greek Matthew. I cannot comment on Hebrew Matthew.

No comment of which we are aware. It is altogether possible that Papias had more about Matthew that Eusebius simply did not like, and so omitted. What if, for example, Papias did more than just imply in further comments that Greek Matthew did not derive in any meaningful way from the apostle Matthew? Would Eusebius have quoted that part?

I am not saying that there has to be more to it; I am saying that we cannot base anything on the presupposition that there is no more to it. I am arguing on the basis of what we do in fact have: Papias seems to parallel things said and done with logia, and has no problem saying that Mark wrote down logia, just not in order. Therefore, the term logia does not seem of itself sufficient, at least as Papias is using it, to determine genre. Maybe he was referring to a sayings gospel when he characterized Matthew with that term. But maybe he was not. Again, I am neutralizing a positive argument here, not making one.

Ben.

spin

I note that this thread is "The logia of the Lord (for Julian and Diogenes)". I just sorta through in my 5 cents... and here I am.
You may be right, but when did it actually hit the gospel? Whatever the case, we are left with the notion that sayings given a contextualization provide more to an audience, so it seems a logical step to include contextualization if that's how the sayings were delivered. I still don't see that we have got anywhere near spreading the semantic field of logion to include contextualization.

Thanks.

I think the dating of Barnabas is difficult. I would have thought that it alludes to 2/4 Esdras 5:5 ("blood shall drip from wood", wood ever suggesting the cross) regarding signs of events in 12:1. 2/4 Esdras is after the time of the second war.

Oh. I thought we'd moved on, dealing with Eusebius's Papias's Matthew in the Hebrew dialect in the context of what is said about the Mark.

It was at this that my first post here was aimed.

I'm just covering my rump, regarding my speculation. I'm already out on a limb talking about Papias as a viable witness, which certainly has not been established, so I'm just letting you know how I'm getting to where I am going...

This reaction of yours doesn't make much sense to me. Interpretation deals with semantics not ordering.

And you don't need to. I think it's clear that this "Hebrew Matthew" doesn't reflect the canonical gospel.

Eusebius is an old hand at the handy small citation. We don't necessarily know what the passage the citation comes from is about. He just needs to stick his tongue out for concentration and hack away. Then again he needn't cite his source verbatim. The comments from Papias aren't verbatim, are they? If Eusebius's Papias found "Hebrew Matthew" out of order, Eusebius could have said so regardless of what else his Papias could have said.

(I've already disagreed with argumentation.)

(And so this case is not made in my eyes. What exists suggests something different from what he says about his Mark. Tying the notion of logia untinged to Matthew and considering Thomas as an example of a logia collection, this seems to point to the case that this Hebrew Matthew was seen in some way similar to Thomas.)

I can appreciate that. I just don't see that you get there. But then, I wonder what Julian and/or Diogenes think...


spin

Ben C Smith

And with that much I do agree. I think I shall just quit, then, while the quitting is good.

Ben.

spin

:wave:


spin