RParvus

On page 50 of Robert Eisler’s book, “The Enigma of the Fourth Gospel,” there is the following passage:

“It is very remarkable that St. Ambrose of Milan, too, professes to have read in a gospel and in a gospel ‘to boot (dictated) by the voice of John himself’—that the Evangelist John was ‘a youth’ (adolescens), and that St. Jerome equally read in certain ‘ecclesiasticae historiae’ that the Evangelist John was a mere boy (puer), the youngest (minimus) of all Apostles.”

Eisler does not give his sources for the quotes from Ambrose and Jerome. Can anyone on this board provide me with the references?

Roger

Roger Pearse

Isn't that infuriating? No reference, and not enough direct quotation in that to locate anything, unless you happen to know the passage already.

"minimus apostolorum" is, of course, how Paul describes himself in the Acts -- "the least of the apostles".

Chocky

Ambrose says here "We read in the Gospel that John was a young man, even in his own words, though he was behind none of the elders in merits and wisdom" - this sounds roughly like what Eisler is referring to.

Chocky

And Jerome says here "And yet John, one of the disciples, who is related to have been the youngest of the Apostles, and who was a virgin when he embraced Christianity, remained a virgin, and on that account was more beloved by our Lord"

And "We may be sure that John was then a boy because ecclesiastical history most clearly proves that he lived to the reign of Trajan"

Keep reading for a long and tedious rebuke of someone who thought John may have, shock horror, had a sex life.

stephan huller

One of the reasons I strongly suspect that there was no Paul originally. I happen to suspect that 'John Mark' was the real author of the Apostolikon. There is always this overlap. Look at Ephesus. There was a Gospel of John there and Paul visited (even though the Epistle ascribed to 'Ephesus' is better identified as 'the anonymous epistle'). Indeed the fact that even the Catholic manuscripts can't shake off the Marcionite identification of the Ephesian epistle as belonging somewhere else (the anonymity might be a way of avoiding conflict). Anyway enough of my speculation. But we should always pay attention to the overlap.

mountainman

Hi Roger,

I would not immediately discount that Ambrose (born in the year Constantine died) and Jerome (raised by Pontifex Maximus Damasius) may have been referring to the apocryphal "history of S. John at Ephesus" which commences as follows:


One should also be aware that Jerome also seeks to relate the pseudonymous Leucius Charinus or the author of the "Acts of Paul" with the apostle John. This means Jerome has to make John live into the 3rd century and thus implies that John must have been very very young to do so.

Essentially Jerome (c.400 CE) repeats Tertullian (c.220 CE) on the author of the "Acts of Paul", with the addition that the judgment of the author-priest (i.e. "Lucius") took place in the presence of the Apostle John, an assertion which is considered by most to be surely erroneous.

Best wishes


Pete

RParvus

Thank you for the references, Chocky. You made it look easy! I’ve tried a few times to track those quotes down. You’ve saved me further frustration.

Roger

RParvus

Stephan,

Have you noticed too that the so-called Ignatian letter to the the Ephesians mentions and praises Paul, but is silent regarding John? But maybe not. If John was the "minimus apostolorum," wouldn't the name 'Paul' (child, little one) be an appropriate nickname for him?

stephan huller

As a secondary tradition associated with the Apostlikon (= the letters of 'Paul') the Catholics would have had to have broken the Apostle's stranglehold on his own gospel. The bottom line is that they couldn't allow the same guy who wrote the letters which followed the gospel in the original NT canon to have also written the gospel. This was the chief purpose of the corruption effort. Why? Because the Catholic Church represents an ecumenical movement. They were trying to reconcile those hostile to the Apostle with the tradition associated with him (= the letters) while at the same time breaking the Marcionite stranglehold on the interpretation of 'the Gospel.'

When you look at matters like this you can't help but see that our interpretation of the gospel itself has to be primarily directed against Marcion or Marcionitism. To this end, both the text of the gospel and the apostolikon had to be falsified. Paul had to be invented, Acts etc in order to have this ecumenicism succeed.

Yet what were the early Catholics like Irenaeus railing against? Marcionitism obviously but ultimately one idea in specific - namely that the same man wrote gospel and Apostolikon. In other words the basic idea that 'Marcion' (or whatever his name was) 'knew' the correct interpretation of the gospel. As long as the Apostle was the author of the gospel there was no way to allow for ecumenicism to flourish

This is why Paul was invented - i.e. a man who never wrote the gospel, who never saw Jesus, who was all the nonsense Acts says he was. You just have to reverse the central literally purpose of Acts to get an idea of who the real author of both the gospel and the Apostolikon was for the Marcionites. He WAS a witness of Jesus, the only witness, the only apostle (= the beloved disciple or disciple whom Jesus loved), he wasn't a student of Gamaliel and the Pharisaic tradition (because there is nothing Pharisaic about the Apostolikon i.e. he was primarily interested in establishing Christianity as a mystery religion).

As I have always said if you factor all the evidence and start over again from scratch you have two possibilities either

a. a guy named Paul wrote the Gospel and the letters of Paul (= seeing the Marcionite formula through familiar Catholic terminology)
or
b. a guy named Mark wrote the Gospel and the Apostolikon (= Marcionite formulation plus Philosophumena 7.18 which refutes a Marcionite claim their gospel is the real Gospel of Mark plus the obvious fact that Marcion is a subform of Marcus)

We know (a) can't be true because Tertullian explicitly tells us the Marcionites denied the existence of a 'Gospel of Paul' and he and Irenaeus hint that the Marcionites don't even recognize the name Paul. As such the only possibility is (b) = on some level the mystery religion of Christianity likely developing in Alexandria (because the Marcionites had a letter to the Alexandrians which was erased or changed) was originally associated with Mark. He was both apostle and Paraclete of the tradition (as the Marcionites held of 'Paul' according to distorted Catholic reports). The Apostolikon was his commentary or midrash on his original gospel composition.

When you do the math this far you can see that something like Secret Mark must also have existed because the Marcionite gospel had to have been fuller than anyone of the canonical texts. It was THE revelation from God to the apostle. Was the basis to the mystery religion evident in the letters, Also Clement of Alexandria always says that 'the Apostle' knew the contents and proper interpretation of the apocryphal gospel he cites throughout the Stromata.

Moreover the persistent Alexandrian identification of Mark as also being named John helps reconcile Paul with John similarly.

This is the math that led me to identify Marcus Julius Agrippa as the founder of Christianity. When you start moving the same pieces of the puzzle around limited by the well known fundamental paradigm of Marcionitism there can really be only one answer = an early messianic figure named Mark (or some subform) and John (or some subform) who was identified as the messiah instead of Jesus (in the original and only meaning of the term 'Christ' known to the Jews) who had a deep attachment to Alexandria and had the money, means and motivation to establish a new mystery religion to replace the old religion destroyed in 70 CE (a central concern of the gospel he wrote)

Sorry half a sleep at 6 am.

Chocky

You're welcome. I'm used to tracking down badly referenced info for my thesis - it would help if authors knew how to cite their sources!