GakuseiDon

Tatian is defending against an attack of the Christian women of his day:

You who say that we talk nonsense among women and boys, among maidens and old women, and scoff at us for not being with you, hear what silliness prevails among the Greeks... Wherefore be ashamed, you who are professed disciples of women yet scoff at those of the sex who hold our doctrine, as well as at the solemn assemblies they frequent.

So, are you saying that Tatian in his Apology to the Greeks condradicts the central tenets of the Christianity of the day?

If so, please describe the central tenet of the day, and tell me which passage from Tatian contradicts it.

Vorkosigan

I already told you why. Tertullian's position is a tu quoque in which the pattern he establishes is to use Greco-Roman thought and history against itself. Tatian is explaining and defending his beliefs. Further, whenever Tatian describes his beliefs, they conflict with or ignore the orthodox position, whereas nothing in Ad Nationes does so. For example, Tatian writes

• And on this account we believe that there will be a resurrection of bodies after the consummation of all things; not, as the Stoics affirm, according to the return of certain cycles, the same things being produced and destroyed for no useful purpose, but a resurrection once for all, when our periods of existence are completed, and in consequence solely of the constitution of things under which men alone live, for the purpose of passing judgment upon them.

Bodies will be resurrected after the "consummation of all things." This is triply interesting, for in this short passage there are three contexts which would seem to irresistably demand mention of Jesus: the Resurrection, the end of world (when Jesus returns), and the judgment. Note that Tertullian draws heavily on the Pauline letters in his discussion of this same topic in ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH and mentions Jesus in these contexts. In Ad Nationes Tertullian mentions "resurrection" just three times and then in passing, with no general discussion of what it means. Ad Nationes, unlike Tatian's Apology to the Greeks, contains no defense of doctrines as such, and thus, little, if any context for mention of the NT fictions. Similarly, Athenagoras wrote a treatise on the Resurrection of the Dead, but without mentioning Christ, Jesus, the Cross, Crucifixion, etc. It is hard to imagine that his Christianity was Orthodox. Consider the vast silence encountered in his description of the Son of God:

"But if, in your surpassing intelligence, it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by the Son, I will state briefly that He is the first product of the Father, not as having been brought into existence (for from the beginning, God, who is the eternal mind [nous], had the Logos in Himself, being from eternity instinct with Logos [logikos]; but inasmuch as He came forth to be the idea and energizing power of all material things, which lay like a nature without attributes, and an inactive earth, the grosser particles being mixed up with the lighter. "

Here Athenagoras, as with Tatian, appears to ignore or even contradict the Orthodox position. Tatian, as I pointed out earlier in this thread, frequently contradicts Orthodox doctrine. "The perfect God is without flesh" he says. This would seem to demand some explanation of Jesus' exact definition, but Tatian zooms right by. Tatian remarks that "One of you asserts that God is body, but I assert that He is without body." Both of these remarks appear to contravene Orthodox doctrine.

It is obviously possible to write one essay/letter without mention of the HJ fictions. The existence of so many writings, from Paul through Theophilus of Antioch, which do not refer to these legends, indicates a pattern and a problem. If Tatian's Apology were the only such document, it would not be important, but there is a whole slew of such writings whose silences are profound. That is why your remarks about Ad Nationes are so far off base; they do no explain the existence of a general pattern of ignorance and contradiction of the gospel stories that continues right down through the second century, alongside and emerging HJ story. Doherty's ideas account far better for this set of facts then arguing that everyone knew the HJ story, but only some talked about it (which in essence accepts one's conclusion as a premise of the argument).

Vorkosigan

rlogan

That he knew the gospel.

GakuseiDon

Yes, but that doesn't answer the question. Wouldn't you expect a HJer to at least mention the names "Jesus" or "Christ", if only to highlight the superiority of Christ's life and mission?

How does that conflict or ignore the orthodox position? The mere lack of Jesus's name does neither of these things. In fact, I can't see how adding Jesus's name would strengthen a philosophical argument, either.

All that would give is "we know the resurrection is true because Jesus Christ, the Son of God tells us". If I used that argument on this board, I would get torn apart - and for good reason. Why expect trained rhetoricians of that period to be less careful?

Well, show me what the doctrine of the day was, and let's have a look. Spin has made the point that the church was broad in its day. For Tatian, the "perfect God" is separate from the material world. The Logos springs from God, and is the intermediary that actually creates the world.

Is that against the doctrine of the day? I'm willing to be convinced. Please show me how this contravenes the Orthodox doctrine of the day.

Wait a minute! I showed in the OP that there were lots of references to a HJ! The majority of writings do have this. The only silence is amongst those writings addressed to pagans.

In fact, I believe I do account for this. Those writings addressed to the pagans were mostly written at the same time (late 2nd C) and show the same pattern of arguments as the historicists like Justin and Tertullian. The lack of reference to "Jesus" and "Christ" is deliberate - that this is possible is something shown by Tertullian's Ad Nationes.

"Only some didn't talk about it" is the more accurate phrase, and they are mostly confined to a group writing at the same period to the same audience, and included HJers.

Why is there no mention of any heresies that denied the existence of a historical Jesus?

rlogan

Theorem:

Tertullian wrote of an HJ in some documents but not in Ad Nationes. Therefore other people who did not write of an HJ in any of their writings whatsoever believed in an HJ.

Ideal application: Paul.

Ted Hoffman

wrong post

Amaleq13

Amaleq13:Part of that process was an attempt to oppose those who claimed that the spiritual Christ did not literally incarnate and/or that the spiritual Christ never really experienced suffering. Asserting the literal truth of the Gospel stories clearly denies both those "heretical" beliefs.

This appeal to alleged oral traditions is entirely specious given the absence of any evidence of such a tradition. The closest one can get to evidence of an "oral tradition" is the initial formation of Q which, presumably, began as an oral sayings tradition. Unfortunately, the evidence from Mt and Lk indicates there was no contextual tradition associated with the sayings. They were simply a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus. What makes "history" is the story and there is no trace of any story until after the first Gospel was published.

Where is the evidence of an "oral history" prior to the publication of the first Gospel story?

Ted Hoffman

spin,
So, its based on the dating of the letter to the Philippians? If so, how have you dated letter to the Philippians to 161?

Great posts by the way spin. Very informative.

Vork, welcome back. Great to see you around. And thanks for taking Ad Nationes off my plate.

Gakusei,
There is no reason to believe that Quadratus was referring to Jesus of Nazareth since he provides no time-frame and no location and no name for this so-called saviour. No mention of Jesus by name, no mention of Mary or Pilate or even Nazareth.

regarding the phrase "to our day", Kirby states : "It is not absolutely certain what time frames either Quadratus or Irenaeus had in view, for the latter spoke of the reign of Domitian, nearly a century earlier, as "not long ago but practically in our own generation" (Haer. 5.30.1; a passage known to Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 5.8.6)."

Melito's view of Jesus is a mixture of many Jesuses. From the Logos/sophia to an intermediary figure, to a saviour figure to a Docetic Jesus, to a HJ like in the fragment from the Discourse on the Cross:

Because of the following reasons, I cannot conclude that Melito's Jesus was a HJ:

(1) He was incorporeal and his nature was immutable.
(2) He was eternal - he was God - from From the apology addressed to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

I however, remain aware that one can also argue that Melito's Jesus was a flesh-and-blood man. But I would argue, based on (1) above, that whereas Melito would tell you that man is not a phantom, like he does in On the nature of Christ, he would also tell you that man is not christ, but that christ is in the man. Since Christ's nature is immutable and he is incorporeal. Thus almost Docetic in nature.
Or we can conclude that Melito contradicts himself.

He also says Jesus was buried in the earth (not entombed). This points to a non-gospel source - maybe oral traditions that may have been going around? He doesn't get to mention any apostle by name - just JBap and Pilate. Maybe the word "apostle" to him meant something other than the twelve disciples?

I have emailed Doherty on these and he may be able to give a more substantive response. After all, he is the horse.

GakuseiDon

Now that it is off your plate, out of interest, does Doherty refer to Ad Nationes in his book?

OK.

Thank you. Melito also talks about Jesus standing before Pilate and dying in Jerusalem (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/melito.html) but he wrote around 180 CE, so probably doesn't meet Doherty's cut-off point of 180 CE.

spin

This ability to "zoom right by" is something that interests me. I have attempted to float the notion of inappropriateness of an orthodoxy at this early stage, or at least an orthodoxy which covers all the bases of modern orthodoxy. My effort was to argue that orthodoxy defined itself through conflict cutting off bits of itself that it couldn't cope with, religious plastic surgery. When those bits were cut off defines when the contrary notion became orthodox. Before that time there seems to have been a practical heterodoxy for the particular idea. The alternative is that people suddenly chose unorthodox positions, which doesn't seem too probable to me.


spin