vid

I have trouble understanding Justin's motive for mentioning Hystaspes (?) and Sibyl in the on of First Apology, chapter 44. It seems to me like he is puts them on same level with Jewish prophets, asserts that reading them (or Jewish prophets) is punished by death, but Christians still openly do it.

This seems weird in many levels to me:

1. Was reading Jewish prophets punished by death ?
2. Why admit breaking the law?
3. Why bring in something unrelated and outlawed (eg. pagan prophets), to make Christian offense even bigger, when it doesn't seem to help his case in any way?

Most likely I am missing something here. The translation used is often very hard to follow, and I have practically zero background on these Hystaspes and Sybil prophets.

hjalti

Hmmm...are we sure that "the prophets" refers to the Jewish prophets?

DCHindley

Josephus says that if the Sicarii (I think) found a gentile reading the Jewish scriptures, they gave them the option of conversion with circumcision on the spot or immediate execution. Justin seems to be speaking of something that occurred in Judea as representative of the Jewish position everywhere.

The "official" books of the Sybil were kept under lock and key, and all other copies burnt, to prevent anyone from using them to divine the emperor's date of death in order to influence who will succeed him. Probably this means that anyone caught with a copy was immediately guilty of plotting against the emperor. The version that circulated relatively freely was supposed to be a reconstruction from fragments to be these banned copies, but was written by others including pagans and Jews.

As for Hystaspes, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus and Lactantius say he predicted the apocalyptic end of the age, but I am not aware of any of these folks mentioning the writings banned on penalty of death.

DCH (end of lunch break, boss)

Roger Pearse

What a very interesting question. Let me do some research and come back to you.

A bit of context. Later Christian writers of apologies (well into the Moslem period) proved that Jesus was the Christ from prophecy. They did so using two strands of prophecy. Firstly they showed that he was the fulfilment of the prophecies of the Jewish bible. Secondly they showed from quotations from the philosophers that wise pagans had also predicted the coming of Christ. The two-fold approach is clearly what Justin has in mind, even at this early date.

The quotations of the sages, unfortunately, are all bogus. Quite a collection developed over the years.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

There is a bit here. Carsten Peter Thiede identifies an earlier reference in the same work to the Sibyl and Hystaspes as references to the Oracula Sybillina 4.172-177, and to the Oracle of Hystaspes. These predict the biblical conflagration at the end of the world from 2 Peter 3.

The 1954 translation of Justin in Early Christian Fathers has a note on the death sentence:

"30 A reference, somewhat exaggerated, to Roman law against divination of coming political events by private individuals, and the periodic restrictions on Jewish proselytism."

The oracles I think are perhaps magical-related texts. Every so often there was a purge on this.

Worth remembering that Justin is writing not that long after Bar Kochba's revolt.

mountainman

Hey vid,

I have always found Joseph Wheless's summary of Justin (or via: amazon.co.uk) to be useful.

Best wishes,


Pete

text

andrewcriddle

I think the issue is probably the anti-roman nature of some of these prophecies.

See Lactantius Divine Institutes IE some of these texts were seen as seditious.

Andrew Criddle

mountainman

But wasn't it the case that the legendary sedition was the fact that the Christians were that class of people in the Roman Empire (identified by the Christian savants) who were these people who kept the truth?

This revelation was apparently made to Diocletian by the priests of Apollo, who were being overpowered by the Christian Jedi Masters and caused the precipitation of the legendary Diocletian persecution.