Ben C Smith

Here is an interesting bit about Theophilus from Jerome, epistle 121:

Theophilus, Antiochenae ecclesiae septimus post Petrum apostolum episcopus, quatuor evangelistarum in unum opus dicta compingens, ingenii sui nobis monumenta dimisit.

Theophilus, seventh bishop of the Antiochene church after Peter the apostle, in compiling the sayings of the four evangelists into one work, left us monuments of his ingenuity.

Not sure how credible this statement is....

Ben.

Amaleq13

That is what would be happening if Matthew's use (ie general) is original and the Didache use (ie specific) is secondary. The authors of the Didache took the general admonition and applied it specifically to the Eucharist.

That's right. For all we know, neither text is giving us anything actually spoken by Jesus.

There is nothing in the text to suggest knowledge of this belief.

IIRC, Matthew is thought to be the Gospel with which portions of the Didache appear to be familiar. As with just about every other piece of evidence in the puzzle of early Christianity, things tend become more confusing the closer one looks.

Yet another reminder that we should not consider Paul a representative of a single, monolithic "Christianity", perhaps?

By acknowledging the mixed evidence with a rather broad range.

I would be hesitant to assume anything about Jesus from it but it apparently tells us how the author(s) thought of Jesus.

Didymus

They sure expand the meaning of the word "Christian," don't they?

His brand of Christianity certainly don't conform to any definition of Christianity that I know, not even a heretical one. Instead of crediting Jesus with the founding of Christianity, his chronology traces "Christianity" back to Moses, but it fails to mention Jesus as the culmination of that process. In fact, it leaves Jesus and his Crucifixion and Resurrection out of the picture entirely. Not only does he make no mention of Jesus' ministry on earth, he doesn't even make any Pauline-style reference to a resurrected Christ. Or to any Christ or messiah.

He goes on and on about God's commandments andthe Fall, but never mentions Jesus' redeeming sacrifice or a New Dispensation for mankind. To the contrary, his path to eternal life is a Judaic one: "For God has given us a law and holy commandments; and every one who keeps these can be saved, and, obtaining the resurrection, can inherit incorruption."

Theophilus is neither MJ nor HJ, not Pauline, not gospel, and not Gnostic. He seems to have been a "pagan" convert to an off-kilter, Hellenized variation of Judaism that subscribed to the LXX as a general guideline. He seems more like a "god fearer" who called himself a Christian rather than a Christian in any accepted sense of the term.

Apparently Eusebius wrote that T wrote some sort of harmony of the gospels (like Tatian's Diatessaron), but that would be a far cry from this letter to Autolycus. Perhaps E was referring to another Theophilus. It was a common name.

This is strange stuff, and yet another illustration of the amazing theological diversity in the Eastern Med during centuries 1 through 5 CE.

Didymus

andrewcriddle

It seems likely that, in the 2nd and 3rd century, Christianity was usually introduced to interested outsiders as a form of ethical monotheism based on the Jewish scriptures but without the Jewish ritual law.

Teaching about Christ himself came at a rather later stage.

(I agree that Theophilus takes this tendency unusually far.)

On the specific point of the resurrection Theophilus is trying to argue on premises accepted by Autolycus. His statement 'But suppose I should show you a dead man raised and alive, even this you would disbelieve' may imply that Autolycus would not find Christian accounts of the empty tomb convincing.


Andrew Criddle

TedM

They sure do. It really is astounding that the very existence of Jesus and basic things ascribed to him and his followers is subject to so many reasonable objections. Is that due to man's creativity when it comes to creating religion, close-mindedness which causes him to suppress the truth (ie forged documents/destroyed opposing documents), or a result of having only a small number of surviving documents to examine in comparison with the vast number of issues and possible interpretations associated with them that existed in those times? Or all of these factors? Or something else? Or it only confusing to skeptics because we demand so much more clarity with each new piece of information?

ted

jakejonesiv

Hi Andrew,

That is new to me. I had always assumed that "orthodox" Christians were up front proselytizers.

Are you saying Christians usually used Bait and Switch tactics? Isn't that dishonest?

Jake

Didymus

Why does that seem likely?

With all due respect, that's a pretty far-fetched hypothesis. To the contrary, it seems highly unlikely that Christians would seek to propagate a faith that supersedes Judaism by omitting Jesus and telling prospective converts that their first allegiance should be to the teachings of Moses.

It seems even more unlikely that they would deceive prospective converts with a false origin for the word "Christian." Whether or not Paul believed Jesus to be a man who lived in recent history, he made no bones about preaching a resurrected savior named Jesus. In all this references to conversions, Luke never mentioned the use of such a deception. Unlike Theophilus, all the other patristic writers referred to Jesus Christ. The belief of Christians in a messiah named Jesus (the) Christ was not a secret!

Do you know of any Christian writings, canonical or othewise, that either used or advocated the approach you suggest was common?

What's more likely is that Theophilus was a "god-fearer," a Judaized Gentile. In his missive, he used - misused - the word "Christian" as a generic term for any gentile who embraced any form of Judaism. Aside from a gospel snippet or two that he may have picked up on the street, it appears that he knew nothing of Christianity when he wrote his letter to Autolycus.

Of course, if Eusebius was correct in saying that T wrote a harmonized gospel, T may have accepted Christian teachings later on. (I guess that allowed this epistle to be "grandfathered in" as a patristic writing.)

I've never seen any evidence to support your theory. Do you have any?

Didymus

Didymus

God makes it confusing in order to test our faith, thereby filtering out the skeptical, who wouldn't make good citizens of heaven anyway.:devil:

Didymus

Amaleq13

IMO it is because the authors were primarily interested in expressing their faith and had little interest in and no conception of recording "what actually happened" except as a secondary by-product of the primary goal. I think this is true of the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

andrewcriddle

It's difficult to prove this one way or the other. One either a/ uses later material such as the Disciplina Arcani (rule of secrecy) of the developed late 3rd century catechumenate, which is doubtfully relevant to the 2nd century, or b/ argues on the assumption that 2nd century writers knew more than they say, which may beg the question.

One piece of evidence is Tatian's Exhortation to the Greeks which has a similar lack of reference to the life of Jesus. But Tatian as the disciple of Justin Martyr and author of the Diatessaron or harmony of the Gospels pretty much must have had a detailed knowledge of the Gospel narratives.

Another piece of evidence is Clement of Alexandria although his Exhortation to the Heathen does contain a number of references to the life and teachings of Jesus this is less emphasized than in his works intended for Christians while there is a heavy emphasis on the badness of polytheism and similar issues.In the 2nd century Christianity was both a religious sect and an illegal organization. Enquirers would probably have assumed that some of the sacred mysteries would be disclosed at a later stage.

(I personally doubt how far later teaching came as a genuine surprise. As in other religious sects I suspect any theoretical secrecy about certain things was pretty leaky in practice.)

Andrew Criddle