GakuseiDon

I'll discuss this a little more in my next post, which I'll hope to get out shortly.

But for now: from Tertullian's "Ad nationes":

The particular character of a posterity is shown by the original founders of the race--mortal beings (come) from mortals, earthly ones from earthly; step after step comes in due relation--marriage, conception, birth--country, settlements, kingdoms, all give the clearest proofs. They, therefore who cannot deny the birth of men, must also admit their death; they who allow their mortality must not suppose them to be gods.

From Tertullian's "Apology":

Christ is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as light of light is kindled... This ray of God, then, as it was always foretold in ancient times, descending into a certain virgin, and made flesh in her womb, is in His birth God and man united. The flesh formed by the Spirit is nourished, grows up to manhood, speaks, teaches, works, and is the Christ.

So, Tertullian believed both that "earthly beings come from earthly ones" and that Christ was a Spirit who was born of a virgin. He believed that Christ walked around on earth, but, from the statements above, it is clear he could never have referred to Christ as "an earthly being".

I think this point needs to be understood, otherwise it may be hard to move beyond it. Saying that Christ wasn't an "earthly being" doesn't mean that the writer believed that Christ wasn't on earth, as a man born of a virgin. (It is also consistent with gnosticism and Earl's Pauline mythicism).

Ted Hoffman

Earl,
I loved the green hats and wooden shoes analogy. That was very cute
You should have typed: All religions have in common a worship of a God of some sort. Even Judaism and Islam involve God worship, so you are not specifically talking about Christians when you mention God-worship as a common attribute, any more than saying all Christians have kidneys. What Christians should have in common is deification of Christ.

And having "Christ" as a common banner, is where the analogy fits with Dohertys: With Christians, the Christ can be a docetic one (as you are proposing MF may have had), the Christ may be an abstract force - the logos (Philo?), The Christ may be a manifestation of God (Marcion), The Christ may be an intermediary son (Odes, Shepherd ets).
In the same sense, a Doherty clan member may be some bugger who wears a green hat and wooden shoes, another a health-freaking vegetarian etc.

So the analogy fits like a condom. No?

If not, oh well, I just didn't want the picture of people with green hats and wooden shoes to go to waste .

Otherwise, since we have people waxing lyrical about a semi-mortal, semi-human, semi-earthly, quasi-heavenly, pseudo-biological Jesus, the explanatory model that is emerging is too mythological and is not commensurate with the historical method.

One can find the Mythical Jesus in the strangest of places. Even among historicists. This time, it is courtesy of Minucius Felix. Its incredible how much the mythical Jesus strives to be detected.

Andrew, over to you.

andrewcriddle

What I think is that MF is able to imply that Christ is not an earthly being because he does not regard Christ's physical body as of earthly origin.

This position is unorthodox by later Christian standards but has earlier support in mainstream Christian writers.

I started this thread by quoting Hilary of Poitiers, I'll requote some relevant passages IF MF held similar views then IMO he could say more or less accurately that Christ was not earthly, despite having been born lived and died on earth.

Andrew Criddle

Ted Hoffman

Hmmm..... Interesting

GakuseiDon

This email compares M Felix's views with those of Tertullian and other early Christian writers. The similarities exist on a variety of topics. (I've given only a few of them below). I suggest that the similarities are because M Felix regarded himself as part of the orthodox Christianity of his time, thus having the same views as Tertullian (at least as at the time he wrote his Apology and Ad nationes).

There is no doubt that M Felix sees himself as part of a growing Christianity:

Octavius:
And that day by day the number of us is increased, is not a ground for a charge of error, but is a testimony which claims praise; for, in a fair mode of life, our actual number both continues and abides undiminished, and strangers increase it.

Neither let us flatter ourselves concerning our multitude.

There is no doubt that M Felix presented Christianity as a morally and philosophically superior position to the pagans, citing similar beliefs to other Christians of that period:

Octavius:
I have set forth the opinions almost of all the philosophers whose more illustrious glory it is to, have pointed out that there is one God, although with many names; so that any one might think either that Christians are now philosophers, or that philosophers were then already Christians...

if we Christians be compared with you, although in some things our discipline is inferior, yet we shall be found much better than you. For you forbid, and yet commit, adulteries; we are born men only for our own wives: you punish crimes when committed; with us, even to think of crimes is to sin: you are afraid of those who are aware of what you do; are even afraid of our own conscience alone, without which we cannot exist: finally, from your numbers the prison boils over; but there is no Christian there, unless he is accused on account of his religion, or a deserter

Tertullian and M Felix seem to share the same views on quite a few topics. For example, the same attacks on pagan gods are used by both:

Octavius:
it is safer to swear falsely by the genius of Jupiter than by that of a king.

Tertullian:
...people far more readily swear a false oath in the name of all the gods, than in the name of the single genius of Caesar.
----
Octavius:
Therefore neither are gods made from dead people, since a god cannot die; nor of people that are born, since everything which is born dies

Tertullian:
But when you say that they only make men into gods after their death, do you not admit that before death the said gods were merely human?

They, therefore who cannot deny the birth of men, must also admit their death; they who allow their mortality must not suppose them to be gods.

The same charges by pagans are addressed by both:

Octavius:
... you say that you hear, that an ass's head is esteemed among us a divine thing. Who is such a fool as to worship this? Who is so much more foolish as to believe that it is an object of worship? unless that you even consecrate whole asses in your stables, together with your Epona, and religiously devours those same asses with Isis. Also you offer up and worship the heads of oxen and of wethers...

Tertullian Ad nationes:
... some among you have dreamed that our god is an ass's head... Suppose that our God, then, be an asinine person, will you at all events deny that you possess the same characteristics with ourselves in that matter? (Not their heads only, but) entire asses, are, to be sure, objects of adoration to you, along with their tutelar Epona; and all herds, and cattle, and beasts you consecrate, and their stables into the bargain! This, perhaps, is your grievance against us, that, when surrounded by cattle-worshippers of every kind we are simply devoted to asses!
----
Octavius:
Now the story about the initiation of young novices is as much to be detested as it is well known. An infant covered over with meal, that it may deceive the unwary, is placed before him who is to be stained with their rites: this infant is slain by the young pupil...

And of their banqueting it is well known all men speak of it everywhere; even the speech of our Cirtensian testifies to it. On a solemn day they assemble at the feast, with all their children, sisters, mothers, people of every sex and of every age. There, after much feasting, when the fellowship has grown warm, and the fervour of incestuous lust has grown hot with drunkenness, a dog that has been tied to the chandelier is provoked, by throwing a small piece of offal beyond the length of a line by which he is bound, to rush and spring; and thus the conscious light being overturned and extinguished in the shameless darkness

Tertullian Ad nationes:
For no doubt, when any desire initiation in the mysteries, their custom is first to go to the master or father of the sacred rites. Then he will say (to the applicant), You must bring an infant, as a guarantee for our rites, to be sacrificed, as well as some bread to be broken and dipped in his blood; you also want candles, and dogs tied together to upset them, and bits of meat to rouse the dogs. Moreover, a mother too, or a sister, is necessary for you. What, however, is to be said if you have neither? I suppose in that case you could not be a genuine Christian.


The same ideas regarding Christianity are used by both:

Octavius:
For these [flowers] we both use scattered loose and free, and we twine our necks with them in garlands. Pardon us, forsooth, that we do not crown our heads; we are accustomed to receive the scent of a sweet flower in our nostrils, not to inhale it with the back of our head or with our hair.

Tertullian Apology:
I do not buy a crown for my head. What matters it to you how I use them, if nevertheless the flowers are purchased? I think it more agreeable to have them free and loose, waving all about. Even if they are woven into a crown, we smell the crown with our nostrils: let those look to it who scent the perfume with their hair.
----
Octavius:
He orders everything, whatever it is, by a word; arranges it by His wisdom; perfects it by His power. He can neither be seen--He is brighter than light; nor can be grasped--He is purer than touch; nor estimated; He is greater than all perceptions; infinite, immense, and how great is known to Himself alone. But our heart is too limited to understand Him, and therefore we are then worthily estimating Him when we say that He is beyond estimation.

Tertullian Apology:
The object of our worship is the One God, He who by His commanding word, His arranging wisdom, His mighty power, brought forth from nothing this entire mass of our world... The eye cannot see Him, though He is (spiritually) visible. He is incomprehensible, though in grace He is manifested. He is beyond our utmost thought, though our human faculties conceive of Him.


Tertullian, like M Felix, addresses the charge of worshipping the cross separately:

Octavius:
Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners; and flags of your camp, what else are they but crosses glided and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it. We assuredly see the sign of a cross, naturally, in the ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when it glides forward with expanded oars; and when the military yoke is lifted up, it is the sign of a cross; and when a man adores God with a pure mind, with hands outstretched. Thus the sign of the cross either is sustained by a natural reason, or your own religion is formed with respect to it

Tertullian:
... if any of you think we render superstitious adoration to the cross, in that adoration he is sharer with us. If you offer homage to a piece of wood at all, it matters little what it is like when the substance is the same: it is of no consequence the form, if you have the very body of the god. And yet how far does the Athenian Pallas differ from the stock of the cross, or the Pharian Ceres as she is put up uncarved to sale, a mere rough stake and piece of shapeless wood? Every stake fixed in an upright position is a portion of the cross; we render our adoration, if you will have it so, to a god entire and complete. We have shown before that your deities are derived from shapes modelled from the cross. But you also worship victories, for in your trophies the cross is the heart of the trophy. The camp religion of the Romans is all through a worship of the standards, a setting the standards above all gods. Well, as those images decking out the standards are ornaments of crosses. All those hangings of your standards and banners are robes of crosses. I praise your zeal: you would not consecrate crosses unclothed and unadorned.

While Octavius denies the worship of actual crosses, which has associations with spirit-divination or sorcery, he then goes on to show that the shape of the cross appears in nature, using the same examples as Tertullian.

M Felix also adds that the sign of the cross as being made "when a man adores God with a pure mind, with hands outstretched".

One very interesting point is that Octavius adds that the trophies used by the Romans "imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it". If we see Octavius as defending the sign of the cross here, then it can only be in defense of the Christianity that Earl believes M Felix is rejecting. If Felix had that view of the wicked man, associating the description of a cross with "the appearance of a man affixed to it" with "adoring God with a pure mind" would be beyond belief. Earl tries to explain it as coincidence, but I think he is wrong on this. I'll leave this to the reader to make up their own minds on this point.


The other part of the key passage relates to the wicked man. (Krosero has done a much better job than me in addressing those parts of the passage, so I recommend to the reader to read through his posts). The key passage is:
For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighbourhood of the truth, in thinking either that a criminal deserved, or that an earthly being was able, to be believed God. Miserable indeed is that man whose whole hope is dependent on mortal man, for all his help is put an end to with the extinction of the man.

There is plenty of evidence to show that Christ was accused of sorcery and wickedness:

Tertullian:
... they will say, Who is this Christ with his fables? is he an ordinary man? is he a sorcerer?

Origen Contra Celsus Book 2
... those of the present day, approving of what the Jews of former times dared to do against Him, speak evil of Him, asserting that it was by means of sorcery that he passed himself off for... the Christ.

Celsus Contra Celsus Book 8
when Celsus compares us to notorious criminals, who justly suffer punishment for their crimes, and does not shrink from placing so laudable a purpose as that which we set before us upon the same level with the obstinacy of criminals, he makes himself the brother and companion of those who accounted Jesus among criminals, fulfilling the Scripture, which saith, "He was numbered with transgressors."

Pionius: http://users.drew.edu/ddoughty/Chris...s/pionius.html
they assert that Christ performed necromancy or spirit-divination with the cross

M Felix says that the pagan's error was that they believed a wicked man could be thought of as "God", indicating that the pagans were charging the Christians as worshipping a wicked man as a god. Celsus also intimated this, calling Christ a wicked man that used sorcery, who was really the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier. I suggest that M Felix's reply is consistent with denying that Christ was either an ordinary man or a sorcerer.

I've looked at the "earthly being" comment by examining the view that Tertullian had on the same subject. If M Felix had similar views as Tertullian, then I can see no problem within the key passage.

Are the similarities themselves enough to prove that M Felix was an orthodox Christianity? No. But they show that, if M Felix did have the same views, that there is nothing unorthodox in his writings. Again, I think it is up to the reader to make up their own minds on this point.

The final point is that, as far as I know, there is no Christian heresy ever noted in the first centuries which didn't involve a Jesus Christ that walked on the earth. I'll repeat that: NONE. (If anyone has evidence for such a heresy, I would like to see it). Heresiologists like Tertullian and Irenaeus listed many heresies, including those involving Logos-centric gnostic sects (which nevertheless had a Jesus Christ that walked the earth), but they listed none that had a "Christ-less" Christianity along the lines that Earl is suggesting for M Felix. To list M Felix (or Tatian, Theophilus, etc) as a member of such a group goes beyond the evidence.