PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

This involves some of the problems with the work "Against Heresies" being expressed at the end of the thread Four-Fold Gospel Predates Irenaeus
I wanted to focus more on the claims about the Bishops' List made in book 3 chapters 3 and 4 in that work, so I felt a new thread was necessary.

As I previously mentioned in the prior thread, the lack of dating of anything in Against Heresies is a major problem. The major argument throughout the work that the major heretics came much later than the apostles and after the establishment of an apostolic church, really needs dates to be convincing. Without them, the work has to be put into the category of fiction. If I was Isaac Newton arguing that I had developed the calculus before Leibniz, I would use dates to prove it. If I was pretending to be Isaac Newton and did not really know a whole lot about when Newton and Leibniz actually published their work, I would leave out the dates.

Besides the lack of dates, the lack of other references to the Bishops listed by Irenaeus are problematic. Here is the list of 12 and all the information that Irenaeus gives about them (3.3):

Apostles Peter and Paul jointly appointed
1. Linus - mentioned by Paul in Epistle to Timothy
2. Anacletus - unkknown
3. Clement – conversed with Apostles, wrote letter about dissension in Corinth which is proof against Marcion that Christians worshipped the Hebrew God before Marcion
4. Evaristus = unknown
5. Alexander - unknown
6. Sixtus - unknown
7. Telephorus – gloriously martyred
8. Hyginus - unknown
9. Pius - unknown
10. Anicetus - unknown
11. Sorer - unknown
12. Eleutherus - Presently is Bishop.

Irenaeus also notes (3.4) that Polycarp was appointed Bishop of Smyrna by apostles. He came to Rome during the time of Anicetus and opposed Marcion. He wrote an epistle to the Philippians. That is everything he knows about the Bishops from the time of the apostles to his time.

Irenaeus also says, "Then, again, the Church in Ephesus, founded by Paul, and having John remaining among them permanently until the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the apostles."

Thus Irenaeus names 12 Bishops of Rome, one Bishop of Smyrna, and suggests that some unknown Bishops in Ephesus were approved by Paul and later John in the time of Trajan (98-117).

He does not tell where any of his information regarding these Bishops come from and he gives no dates for when they were elected or when they left office.

Yet, amazingly, Irenaeus is able to say in book 5, "Now all these [heretics] are of much later date than the bishops to whom the apostles committed the Churches; which fact I have in the third book taken all pains to demonstrate."

Without dates or sources, what kinds of "pains" did he take to demonstrate this. What does the pains consist in? Would the fact that he was carefully making up lies be considered a "pain" for him?

I have only been able to find one other source before Eusebius that mentions any of these Bishops. This is in Prescription Against Heretics, presumably by Tertullian circa 205:

Note that Irenaeus says only that Apostles appointed Polycarp in Smyrna, while Tertullian says that it was John who appointed him. Irenaeus says that the Apostles Peter and Paul appointed Linus the first Bishop of Rome. Tertullian says that Peter appointed Clement as the first Bishop of Rome.

Obviously these two texts are connected in some way. It is too much of a coincidence that both would name only the Bishop/s of Rome and one Bishop of Smyrna. Neither of these texts tells the source for this information or gives any dates. Yet while being connected the contradictions are too glaring to believe that one is just copying the other.

My conjecture would be that the Tertullian text is the original. The writer of these passages in "Against Heresies" is adding more information. He has two apostles appoint Linus and two apostles appoint Polycarp, as against Tertullian who only has one apostle appointing each. The writer is also adding eleven more apostles than Tertullian wrote about and adding information that Paul appointed a Bishop in Ephesus.

Does anybody know if there are any more mentions of the 12 Bishops before Eusebius trots them out to serve his purposes?

At the moment, my best guess is that the document "Against Heresies" is actually by Tertullian, and with the Bishops' list, he is changing and elaborating on the lie he first made up in Prescription. It is not, however, impossible that Eusebius made up the Bishop's list working from the line in Prescription.

aa5874

I find it is not really necessary to try and find out who made the Bishops' list, it is more important to try and find out when the Bishops' list was made.

The Bishops' list was fabricated around the same time as the writing of Church History by Eusebius.

There was a "4th century Josephus" that wrote the "TF", so there must have been an "Irenaeus" and "Tertullian" from the same century.

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

I think it is highly probable that Eusebius inserted the TF in Josephus.

In the same way I think it is highly probable that Eusebius inserted material into "Against Heresies."

Eusebius did not write all of Josephus nor all of "Against Heresies" and "Prescriptions Against Heretics". Most of these works deal with problems that are foreign and useless to Eusebius. All we need concentrate on are the few sections where points are made that Eusebius emphasizes in his Church History or other works.

Another proof that Eusebius forged passages and not whole works comes from the contradiction in Prescription and Against on who was the First Bishop of Rome.

In Prescription, Clement is the First Bishop. In Against, it is Linus. If Eusebius is writing both, why would he set up this absurd conradiction, in which two orthodox writers can't even get the First Bishop of Rome straight?

Imagine a case where we have only two documents from the twentieth century talking about the first president of the United States. One says that it was George Washington and another says that it was Thomas Jefferson. Whatever else is clear, it is clear they were not written from the same person.

Another interesting case, is how Eusebius dates the Bishops' list.
While Prescriptions and Against give us no dates, Eusebius gives us dates for every Bishop, but does not give us any source for his dating.

According to Eusebius (2:17), Peter was in Rome in the Reign of Claudius ( 41-54 C.E.)and died sometime in the reign of Nero, 54-68 (2.25.4). He says that Linus became Bishop in 70, Anecletus in 80 (3:13) and that Clement became Bishop in 93 (3.15). He died in 102, when Evarestus took over (3.34). he died in 110 (4.1). Alexander holds it for 10 years till 120 (4.4) Xystus held it for 10 years till 29 (4.5.4). Telesphorus hold it for 11 years to 140 (although Eusebius contrdicts himself by putting it in the first year of Antonius Pius' reign, 138). Hyginus dies in 143, (4.11.6). Pius dies in the 15th year of his rule in 158 (4.11.7). Anicetus rules 11 years till 169. Soter rules till 176 (5.1) when Eleutherus takes over. Eleutherus rules till 189 (5.22)

In the United States, the first twelve presidents served from 1789-1850, approximately 61 years. Given the life expectancies in ancient Rome, we may presume it unusual that 12 Bishops should rule for 120 years, almost exactly 10 years each. It seems apparent that Eusebius is entirely making these dates up. He apparently decided to give each of his bishops an average of 10 years, when he gives a bishop less or more than ten years, he makes up for it by giving the next bishop more or less to make up for it. Thus, looking at the list:

1,2 = 20 years
3,4 = 20 years
5,6, = 20 years
7,8 = 15 years
9,10 = 26 years
11,12 = 20 years

Compare this to the varying lengths of rule of 12 Popes of the 17th Century:

1,2 = 13 years
3,4 = 22 years
5,6 = 30 years
7,8 = 14 years
9,10 = 8 years
11,12 = 10 years

Notice how much greater the variation is on this list than the variation on Eusebius' Bishop's list, where 4 of the 6 pairs live exactly 20 years.

The idea that Eusebius simply made up the dates that each of the first Bishops of Rome ruled is compatible with the idea that he forged the Bishops List in Against Heresies and with the idea that he found the Bishops' list undated in Against Heresies. So, while interesting that he forged all the dates, it does not help us in deciding if he forged the original Bishop's list in Against Heresies.

Warmly,

Philospher Jay

aa5874

Actually I don't know who inserted the TF in Josephus, the writer called Eusebius was probably dead when the TF was forged. Jlulian the Emperor was not aware of any well known writer who wrote about Jesus or Paul up to around 363 CE.

The fraudulent history of the Roman Church does not appear to me to be the work of one person. It would appear that erroneous information can be found in writings that are considered later than Eusebius.

I have not claimed Eusebius wrote all of Josephus, Irenaeus or Tertullian.

My claim is that all information used in Church History to show that the Roman Church originated in the 1st century was bogus and was written around the same time as Church History or even later and then inserted in Church History as was done with the writing of Josephus.

At one time I was also of the view that a person could not write about the same event and give different accounts, until it was drawn to my attention that people who perjure themselves do exactly that.

People who make stuff up will tend to alter their stories if they percieve that one of their stories is fatally flawed. And the more stuff that is made up, the more the likelyhood that no account of even the same event by the same writer would be similar.

And further, when a writer is working strictly from memory, where there was no established history of an event, or where no-one did ever read about the event, the writer may make many errors if he does not constantly refer to what he actually wrote earlier.

For example, relying on a faulty memory, I had posted some time ago that Peter converted Simon Magus in Acts of the Apostles but I was corrected by another poster who referred to the actual passage. It was Philip.

Now, imagine there were no Presidents that were ever named George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, then there would be no dates for their Presidency, so a writer who made up the names may very easily not remember what he had written earlier.

When people make stuff up they easily forget what they made up, sometimes in a matter of minutes.
And, now imagine what would be the results if you were to fabricate 300 years of history from your imagination.

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

There are a couple of assumptions that I make in thinking about this stuff. First, that professional writers were not that common in ancient times. Whereas today, writing a book is a fairly common process, back then, it was quite unusual. While 10% of the population could read, probably not .1% of the population was educated enough to write an interesting thesis of more than five or six pages. Even today, among college students, only one in a hundred college papers that I read shows any real originality.

There was no internet, newspaper or magazines, and few teachers to train people to write more than a cursory letter. Writing a treatise required not only a great deal of education, but wealth. You would need to essentially self-publish and circulate works. Christians were a very limited part of the population, probably less than 1 or 2% of the population in the Third century, and only 5 or 10% even in the beginning of the Fourth century.

Writers tend to have unique styles, so their works tend to resemble other works by them and not resemble works by other authors. Subject matter and vocabulary tend to change over time. Nobody writes like Mark Twain did in the 19th century and nobody today writes like Dorothy Parker did in the 1920's and 30's.

It seems to me that we should be able to identify major writers and when they wrote and to see the changes in the nature of Christianity over time.

I see no reason to discount writers like Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and Origen who have unique styles and often say things that contradict Fourth Century orthodoxy.

It is true that all writings have contradictions within themselves, but when strong internal and external evidence places writings in a certain time period and they contradict writing from another time period, we can see it as strongly suggesting an evolution of ideology.

At the moment, I suspect that passage 3.3 with the Bishops of Rome list in Against Heresies is probably a forgery by Eusebius, but the following paragraph 3.4 the claim that Polycarp was appointed by Apostles, was actually in the original.
The imbalance between the two passages are quite striking. One names 12 Bishops of Rome going from the time of the Apostles to what the author claims is the present time. On the other hand, the Polycarp passage only claims to know one Bishop from Smyrna.

It seems to me that this passage belongs with the passage from the work Prescription Against Heretics which names the same bishop from Smyrna and only one bishop in Rome.

Notice that the real point of the passage is not a listing of Bishops, but that the author knew and heard Polycarp and Polycarp was appointed by the apostles:

One expects the passage to name the men who have succeeded Polycarp. The fact that it does not do this suggests that part may have been originally in the text.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

mountainman

Dear Philosopher Jay and others,

If the list of bishops was a forgery enacted in order to substantiate
the authenticity of a pre-existent lineage of bishop-level leadership
of an "academy of christians" then logically there would be one major
implication which, if the list was forged, would in all likelihood be
evident in the evidence.

The simple implication of forgery is a general controversy. The scale of the controversy would reflect the scale of the forgery. If we found evidence of no major controversy then this would help us decide that Eusebius' claims were accepted at the time they were made. On the other hand, if we found evidence that there in fact did exist a major controversy in the empire at that same time when Eusebius first published this list of bishops, then this evidence should logically assist us to decide that Eusebius submitted a forged list of bishops.

Is there in fact any evidence at all for any sort of controversy breaking out around the time Eusebius completes his "Church History" (c.324 CE)?

aa5874

I am not discounting any writer. My position is that any information found in any writing that pretends to support the fraudulent notion that the Roman Church originated in the first century was fabricated in the fourth century or later and then inserted in writings like Josephus.

And it is my opinion that more than one person used the name Tertullian. The Tertullian that is claimed to have written "Ad Nationes" does not appear to me to be the same writer that wrote "Against Marcion".

I am not of the opinion that Eusebius acted alone. The Roman Church appears to have used many writers to propagate fiction.

It must be noted that when the USA invaded Iraq under the pretense of WMD, many well known high-ranking persons and mutiple sources were used to produce what appear to be credible information but was actually bogus.

Even if it can be established that all the Church writers did exist before the 4th century, it can be easily determined what they did not write.

They did not write any information that supported the fraudulent history of the Roman Church.

As I have said before, I do not think that Eusebius acted alone, and I am more interested in when the list of Bishops was fabricated. And it would appear to me that, if Irenaeus was a 2nd century writer, then the list was not from Irenaeus but from a source that was collaborating with or was the author of Church History sometime around the 4th century or later.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Pete,

I think it would be interesting to do a "reception" study of Eusebius' "Church History". If I had more time I would love to investigate the issue.

My guess is that because Eusebius was pretty tight with Constantine, nobody would openly criticize the work. There may be some subtle criticisms to be found here or there. After a decade or two, since no other History was written, it probably became the defacto History. Young Churchmen, taught from childhood that the words of the church were the words of God and not subject to criticism, would have simply accepted it as the truth without criticism.

But that is just my guess, a real study would be nice.

Sincerely,

Philosopher Jay

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

Yes, I agree that when we are getting concepts that support the fraudalent history of the Church, we have to be suspicious of interpolation. For the same reason I think we have to see that when material does not support that history, it is probably earlier.

You brought up the case of the 2001-2003 creation of credible evidence by high ranking American officials to show that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It involved fabrication of documents, selection and misinterpretation of data, and dismissal of an enormous amount of research showing that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

I think that is a good analogy. The Christian war against paganism required such an ideological project.

Doing history now requires that we separate out the Fourth century Christian ideology from earlier and radically different Christian ideologies.

In this particular case, certain passages, almost all in book 3, of Against Heresies are closely aligned and appear supportative of Eusebius' Church History. These passages are most probably from Eusebius or from the Church of the Fourth Century. However, the great majority of text appears to be an attack on Christian cults that were popular in the late First and early Second century. I think these writings are most likely to be coming from documents written in the late Second or early Third century.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

aa5874

As I have tried to point out, using the invasion of Iraq as an example, Eusebius it would appear to me, did not act alone, and all the forgeries and erroneous information did not occur at the same time of Eusebius.

It would appear to me that Constantine decided to make Jesus the new God of the Romans and that his surbordinates fabricated the history of Jesus and the Church.

Now, a writing about heresies in the 2nd century is not mandated to have been written in the same century. Josephus wrote about events that happened hundreds of years earlier.

Suetonius wrote about the "Lives of the Twelve Caesars" which contain events around Julius Caeasr that happened about 200 years before.

The arguments put forward by Irenaeus in Against Heresies are so absurd that it is not likely that such a book was seen, known and read by any heretic in the 2nd century. His arguments are so easily refuted and his writings also contain discernible fiction.

It would appear to me that Against Heresies was written fundamentally for the compilation of Church History and then simply stashed away as a supposed authentic document witten in the 2nd century.

It would also appear to me that the Roman Church had no obligation to show anyone all of its records, except the Emperor. The Roman Church would only tell the citizens of Rome and the rest of the world that they have evidence.