Jeffrey Gibson

Especially, I'm sure you'll agree, if "we" don't know Greek, and if "we" haven't looked at the critical editions of the CG, and the critical and exegetical notes on the text of CG that appear there .

You mean of course that the Second and Third Books of the CG do not survive at all (along with 10 of the twenty books that comprised Cyril's Pro Christiana religione adversus Iulianum Imperatorum). Certainly parts of Book One do survive -- and not just in Cyril's work, but in the writings of Theodore of Mopseutsia, Aretas, and Jerome.

You mean others like R. Joseph Hoffmann or F.C. Hertlein, or J. Bidez, or K.J. Neuman or W.C. Wright or E. Masrachia?

In any event, I find it extremely ironic that the above comes from someone who has never been cautious or has felt any need to be in making pronouncements about what Julian's intentions are in 39a of his CG. I wonder if anyone else does as well.

Jeffrey

LogicandReason

IMHO, to best understand how people of the 2nd century viewed Christians and their 'validity claims' one should quote a Christian...Justin Martyr comes to mind. In his 1st Apology, paragraph 6, he states, "Hence we are called atheist." From his 'Apology' we discover that like Plato's teaching about Rhadamanthus and Minos punishing the 'wicked,' Christ will punish the wicked for eternity (paragraph 8). In paragraph 10 Martyr tells us that people will be worthy of reigning with 'Him' judged by their 'works' (opps...that's not the accepted thinking today). Just down the page he tells us that 'demons' are responsible for the wicked actions of men. In paragraph 13 he recites the common Gospel hymn about Jesus being crucified in the time of Tiberius Caesar and Pilate (these are historical anchors, undisputed by actual history, that the Jesus story was projected back upon IMHO). In paragraph 14, while discussing Jesus, Martyr states about Jesus: "He was no sophist" (maybe others, besides Lucian, were accusing the intentional object of the Christian faith as being just like hundreds of other known 'sophist'). As to 'parallels' with pagan belief, Martyr discusses this in length and detail in paragraphs 20 and 21. From 21:

(emphasis mine)

So Jeffrey, if you are sitting next to Marcus Aurelius reading this (when is father Pius was finished) do you try to bully Martyr about his scholarship as well? Who was he quoting?

Here is what I think we can say about 'pre-Enlightenment' intellectuals who debated HJ/MJ - we lack evidence to make any conclusions.

When I suggested that church political dominance from Constantine until the Reformation made this discussion lethal, Jeffrey called me a 'conspiracy theorist.' Do we not know from history (especially Julian) that Constantine strove to destroy all 'pagan' and 'non-orthodox' Christian beliefs? Did the church not excommunicate and often kill those they deemed 'heretics?' Where does Jeffrey offer proof of church tolerance of 'non-orthodox' thinking before the Reformation/Enlightenment? I read none from him. Do we have records where such questions were floored at Synods and Councils? We discover all we need to know about the church's toleration of different ideas in the actions of Jerome and Augustine. After Theodosius made 'heresy' a crime against the state, we see the former mentioned dynamic duo combine with Ambrose and Pope Siricius to persecute another Christians...Jovinian...and harshly. We can still revaluate Augustine's loving opinion on the matter in his De bono conjugali. The celibate Jovinian, who argued that celibacy was no better than marriage, was excommunicated and persecuted by the others for this minor difference of opinion (must have disagreed with Paul's diatribe on the subject in 1 Cor 7). Can you imagine someone floating the question 'do we have any evidence of an earthly Jesus, other than the Gospels and Acts?'

Jeffrey and Roger spend so much time and energy rebuking skeptical opinions and questions, asking for scholarly proof (though I fail on this thread to see where Jeffrey challenged Earl on his references and work directly) as to the non-existence of HJ when nothing about the HJ story is inferred by history outside the NT and Christian apologist...absolutely nothing! Without the polemics of the NT and Christian apologist, we cannot construct an earthly Jesus. I guess that is why Christianity is based on Faith.

Some Christians are still hiding behind the 'prove us wrong' straw man, shifting the burden of proof to those of us who cannot accept the idea of supernatural phenomenon. That is not our job. It will become our responsibility to 'disprove' HJ when believers can produce any of the following from a historical reference other than the NT or Christian commentaries on the NT:

1. References to Jesus of Nazareth,
2. A documented virgin birth,
3. Any documented person being regenerated/animated after confirmed death (near death resuscitation is not a qualifier as this is done routinely without deities),
4. Any documented feedings of 5000 people with 3 loaves of bread and 2 fish,
5. Any documented 'casting out' of demons,
6. Any reference to Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph, who performed miracles
7. Any ascensions into the sky or 'heaven,'
8. A geographic location for heaven,
9. Any reference of Christian soteriology from Judaism,
10. An explanation for the failed Parousia (as yet and per Jesus' own predictions),
11. Any evidence of an existence beyond physical death...any, and
12. Any evidence as to who Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul were.

J.B.S. Haldane once quipped that we are as obligated to accept another person's religious beliefs as we are to accept his statements about his wife's beauty and his child's intelligence.

Maybe the church was not the most powerful political force in Europe from the 4th until the 16th centuries...of course the art of that period might suggest otherwise

GakuseiDon

If you are trying to say that they thought that Asclepius was resurrected, then the mere fact that he ascended into heaven and was made a god isn't evidence of that.

For example, Suetonius wrote that a comet seen around the time of the death of Julius Caesar was a sign that his soul was ascending into the heavens, and so contributed to his rise to divinity. But he was never 'resurrected'.

LogicandReason

I'm not claiming that anyone was resurrected - I'm claiming that Christianity is influenced by Hellenism as well as Judaism and that Justin Martyr reports as much.

The questionable claim, yet to be proved or documented outside of a 'Holy Book' is that resurrection is a possibility. It seems we just die. Bryan

LogicandReason

Thanks for that link Toto!

Jeffrey Gibson

Actually, what I said was:

And since this was in response to your suggestion that "we continue to look behind the curtains here to see who is pulling the levers and pressing the buttons" with respect to "church domination" being the major gactor in why it was (if it was) "that HJ/MJ was not debated before the Enlightenment, I'd say that the shoe fits pretty well,

What you are leaving out, though, that I also went on to ask you to tell me

to insure that the HJ/MJ issue was something that because of "Church dominion" was not and could not be discussed before the Enlightenment -- a question which you've dodged.


"All"? No, we, including you, do not know this. Nor do we have any evidence to think that Constantine "stove" to destroy all 'pagan' and 'non-orthodox' Christian beliefs".

Nowhere, since the issue was not whether "the church" did or did not tolerate "non orthodox thinking before the reformation and enlightenment (even though it did with Thomas Aquinas whose thinking, given the Westen church's grounding in Plato, not Aristotle, was hardly "orthodox"), but whether there were in fact any pre-enlightenment intellectuals who would suspect that Jesus never existed.

Jeffrey

LogicandReason

Aquinas was an exceptional thinker.

As to Constantine, you are correct - none of us will ever know to what degree he attempted to destroy pagans and "non-orthodox" Christians. Eusebius' Life of Constantine cites his burning of pagan temples (much like Diocletian burned churches). D.J. Drijvers, in his book about Constantine's mother Helena Augusta cite the Emperor as saying:

(emphasis mine/pg 55).

James Carroll, in Constantine's Sword, reports that within the same year of the eccumenical 'Edict of Milan' (313) Constantine wrote to his perfect in Africa to "move against the Donatists." (pg 184)

Reading your prior posts, I assume you know the fate of Arius.

I'm not sure what question I dodged above...I didn't understand what you typed...but I would certainly welcome the discussion.

gentleexit

I doubt it.

The ancients didn't seem to doubt the existence of great men. Euhemerus even expanded their ranks by bringing the gods down to earth. He held that within (Greek) myths, there were real events. Zeus was originally a great King and poetic license added magic to his story. Of course, Lactantius (and other Church polemicists) liked him for this.

A man's character was attacked but not his existence. Lucian of Samosata thought Apollonius a charlitan but believed there was such a man. Some questioned if Homer wrote the Odyssey but not the existence of Homer (I think). When Celsus attacked Christianity, he didn't say "there was no Jesus". He called the man a robber, the son of a wanton etc. Porphyry, who was the most sophisticated and dangerous critic, tore down the prophetic underpinnings of Christianity but Jesus the man was left standing.

The Church only had to suppress "Jesus was a phoney" stuff. No one called out "There was no Jesus!".

The notion of "non existence" was a breakthrough. Did the enlightenment make it? Does anyone know of questioning the existence of say Homer before then? Surely Jesus was not the first significant to have his existence questioned or was he?

aa5874

But, ancients did doubt the existence of Jesus of the NT.

Jesus the man was not left standing at all. No ancients produced any records to show that he was a man or he existed anywhere.

Jesus was presented as a God to the ancients and it was doubted. See Dialogue with Trypho 67 where it is claimed that Trypho the Jew told Justin Martyr that presenting Jesus as born of a virgin would be similar to the fables of the Greeks.

Jesus of the NT was not presented as a man, a God with some kind of questionable flesh, and there were doubts, even Marcion claimed Jesus had no flesh at all. No man was there.

mountainman

Dear gentleexit,

What an excellent precis of the OP. I would argue the historical precedent goes to Arius of Alexandria (especially if one questions his "christian status"). See particularly the letter of Constantine to Arius (where we have the term of "unbelief").

The formation of a monotheistic state religion based on a holy writ was not novel - Ardashir did it a century before Constantine. The central character in the holy writ in this instance of "christianity" is being questioned, and as such we need to separate out the two carefully because political issues are attendent with the (centralised) state.

To return to the novelty of Arius in ancient hstory we may also cite Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on the Nicene Creed (1932) pp.18-116. Here are five references in this work to Arius:


Arius appears as the historical counterpoint to orthodoxy.

Just a quibble: we have the raised foundations of the pagan temples destroyed by Constantine, but not the burned christian churches (or church-houses) Eusebius reported to have been destroyed by Diocletian.


Best wishes,


Pete