Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Minimalist · 12-26-2007, 09:23 PM

Wow. Good call on the font, Toto!

fta · 12-26-2007, 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

What quotations do you refer to? Now I'm curious. If you can give page numbers I'd be grateful. I see Diegeses quoted once under a section heading, but am not sure where the "patistic" citations are supposed to be. The only ones he seems to attribute to Diegesis are John Chrysostom "Commentary of 1 Cor ix.19" (pg 309), and Augustine "Sermon 37" (pg 271), both citations in the Foreward. Otherwise, he seems to use the ANF and N&PNF series, Catholic Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Biblica.

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

I found when I looked into Joseph Wheless that some patristic 'quotes' which Wheless took from Taylor's Diegesis do not actually exist in the sources Taylor pretends to reference.

Wheless, following Taylor, claims (p. 143 of the PDF link posted above) that:

Quote:

Father Papias falls into what would by the Orthodox be regarded as "some" error, in disbelieving and denying the early crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ -- evidently not then a belief; for he assures us, on the authority of what "the disciples of the Lord used to say in the old days," that Jesus Christ lived to be an old man; and so evidently died in peace in the bosom of his family.

AFAIK there's nothing like this in the surviving fragments of Papias.

Roger Pearse · 12-27-2007, 12:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Tertullian, of course, does reference the Pliny correspondence. But the idea that any text must be forged if the 1% of surviving literature from antiquity does not happen to refer to it is pure polemic.

Furthermore, the entire response on that website is set up as if to anesthetize (oh, sorry... for you Brits that should be anesthetise, right?

) the reader to the fact that Tertullian references this Plinian letter.

Anaesthetise, even.

Quote:

One would never guess from the following...:

The letter of Pliny is a Christian forgery, because it was never quoted by any Church Father, and many scholars have cast doubt upon this letter, apparently written by a Christian forger....

...that Tertullian ever wrote anything about the letter. And then one would never guess from that shoe dropping...:

Tertullian briefly mentions its existence, noting that it refers to terrible persecutions of Christians.

...that Tertullian actually refers to a good deal more than just the element of persecution.

It is very difficult to like people who lie by misdirection, selection and omission, and cause people to believe what they know very well is not true and so do not dare to say outright themselves.

Gibbon does this with his smear on Eusebius (and then covers himself from the obvious retort in a footnote, which he *knows* 90% of his readers won't see), and I have never respected him since.

It is a staple of TV news rooms, I am told.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse · 12-27-2007, 12:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

What quotations do you refer to? Now I'm curious. If you can give page numbers I'd be grateful. I see Diegeses quoted once under a section heading, but am not sure where the "patistic" citations are supposed to be. The only ones he seems to attribute to Diegesis are John Chrysostom "Commentary of 1 Cor ix.19" (pg 309), and Augustine "Sermon 37" (pg 271), both citations in the Foreward.

My memory has deceived me, it seems; I had thought there were more, and more obvious. The foreword was as far as I made it into Wheless' work.

I was remembering the Chrysostom, who wrote no commentary on 1 Cor. ix.19, as I found out when I went to look for it. (But something like the text does appear, albeit in the work On the priesthood and quoted by Wheless out of context).

Likewise Augustine was not the author of that 'sermon 37' appearing in the collection of his works, which Andrew Criddle kindly told me was in fact medieval. But again that's not the same as saying that it wasn't found in the text.

My mistake.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Amaleq13 · 12-27-2007, 08:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Anaesthetise, even.

That isn't an intentional reference to Snagglepuss, is it? Loved that guy.

Quote:

It is a staple of TV news rooms, I am told.

Are you sure it wasn't newspapers? They are quite fond of babbling all sorts of nonsense on the front page and then, a few days later, retracting it in a tiny font somewhere inside.

Ben C Smith · 12-27-2007, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fta

AFAIK there's nothing like this in the surviving fragments of Papias.

I suspect the whole bit about Papias asserting that Jesus lived to be an old man is a bad misunderstanding of Irenaeus, Against Heresies 2.22.5, in which Irenaeus writes that John remained until the time of Trajan. Apply the pronoun differently (skipping the more immediate antecedent), and suddenly we have Jesus surviving until the time of Trajan.

Furthermore, Irenaeus attributes this quote to the elders in general, so that it came from Papias is already an inference (though not an altogether uncommon one).

The part about evidently dying in the bosom of his family is pure interpretation, AFAICT.

Ben.

aa5874 · 12-27-2007, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith

Quote:

Originally Posted by fta

AFAIK there's nothing like this in the surviving fragments of Papias.

I suspect the whole bit about Papias asserting that Jesus lived to be an old man is a bad misunderstanding of Irenaeus, Against Heresies 2.22.5, in which Irenaeus writes that John remained until the time of Trajan. Apply the pronoun differently (skipping the more immediate antecedent), and suddenly we have Jesus surviving until the time of Trajan.

Furthermore, Irenaeus attributes this quote to the elders in general, so that it came from Papias is already an inference (though not an altogether uncommon one).

The part about evidently dying in the bosom of his family is pure interpretation, AFAICT.

Ben.

Oh my goodness! Maybe it was John who was crucified under Pilate, it was just a bad case of a mis-understanding.

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12-26-2007, 09:23 PM	#11
Minimalist Veteran Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Arizona Posts: 1,808	Wow. Good call on the font, Toto!

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