Toto

Whoa there. We know that Ignatius was heavily interpolated. Papias does not know of a version of Matthew written in Greek, or anything else that resembles the gospels, and preferred the oral tradition from people who knew the apostles.

stephan huller

Well let's start by saying that the thread is about Vinzent's working hypothesis. He's noticed a reading in the Dialogue that:

1) agrees with the Marcionite gospel and
2) which Irenaeus uses Justin's support to condemn (my contribution)

It is much easier to imagine that Justin's original text was corrupted by Irenaeus than the reverse (i.e. that the Catholic tradition inherited an original Catholic text that was interpolated by Marcionite readings). So the reading is probably authentic and puts him at odds with Irenaeus's claims in Against Heresies Book Four.

The question now before us is how do we explain that Justin seems to acknowledge the virgin birth elsewhere. Does this mean that the historical Justin didn't use the Marcionite gospel as Vinzent suggest? I think that it is once again very hard to explain the citation in the Dialogue as:

a) a Marcionite corruption of a Catholic text or
b) a variant reading in a canonical gospel in the possession of Justin

The reason for this is Irenaeus's insistence that (i) all the gospels share the same reading (= Matthew, Luke, Mark) and (ii) Justin was wholly orthodox. The most likely scenario is that Irenaeus is lying about Justin's orthodoxy. His association with Tatian reinforces that suspicion as well as the fact that Justin was a philosopher and the term 'heresy' was originally used to describe philosophizing Christians.

I have always thought that Justin is the Justin described in the Philosophumena's report (i.e. 'Justinus').

Once we accept that Irenaeus is lying about the orthodoxy of Justin (as well we might add the orthodoxy of Polycarp too) the question is whether Tatian's gospel (later described as 'the Diatessaron' the Gospel of Concord etc) was more or less received from Justin rather than 'invented' by Tatian. I think it was.

Finally did Tatian's gospel (not the Arabic Diatessaron or the more or less orthodox text of Aphrahat and Ephrem but the encratite gospel of the late second century) contain a virgin birth? I don't thinks so but I admit I might be wrong about that.

I am also not sure whether Vinzent is right about Justin's use of the Marcionite gospel.

I just know that Celsus and the Jewish tradition behind the Toledoth Yeshu (i.e. that Jesus was born of fornication) must have derived from somewhere. I think the Diatessaron might have said something ambiguous like what Leloir just noted from Ephrem's text - i.e. Mary didn't 'know' Joseph to make Jesus. This ambiguity might have led to (1) the creation of the virgin birth narrative and (2) the stories about Jesus the mamzer

The point here is that the Marcionite text did not have this. I think Justin might have used a gospel which was a modified form of the Marcionite gospel and this led to the text that is behind Tertullian's Against Marcion Book Four and Five. In other words, Tertullian's source (cf Agianst Marcion 1.1) was using a Syriac gospel to argue against the claim that the Marcionite gospel was the true word of God (hence Tertullian's text describes things being removed from 'the gospel' which were never in Luke - i.e. the original person making the debate was using a Diatessaron).

renassault

Who knows that, how do you know that? We know that there were a lot of forged epistles but scholars have been pretty good at eliminating them from his 7 authentic ones. And we know which parts of the longer 7 epistles are forged, but we certainly don't have any support for the part you claim as a forgery to be one. So, no, the quotation I'm referring to can be solidly traced to Ignatius himself.

Papias certainly knew both Matthew and Mark, and Luke-Acts comes from the same time period, around 90 AD. We know from P52 that John was written c.90-100 in probably the Hellenistic-Christian world. The fact that Papias talks about Matthew writing in the Hebrew oracles means that he already knew about Matthew and is trying to explain the larger material Matthew and to some extent Luke have. Oral tradition for 130 AD is certainly better than the rumors that must have been circulating around or anything in written form. But it doesn't mean he didn't know or accept epistles/Gospels. It simply means he was looking for information not contained in them and preferred secondary (or tertiary) sources as opposed to rumors.

aa5874

Well, sorry to burst your bubble. You have major chronological problems.

"Paul" knew gLuke.


"Church History" 3.4.8"Church History" 6.25 So, "Paul" was CERTAINLY alive at least 20 years AFTER the Fall of the Jewish if gLuke was written around 90 CE.

You should know by now the writings of the Church can ONLY be used to EXPOSE fraud and fiction not history. There are MASSIVE holes in their "history" of "Paul" and these Massive Holes are easily detected.

renassault

I think that most scholars agree that Eusebius (and many of those he quotes) was reporting legends about Paul and gLuke. Paul was certainly not alive by the time of Luke-Acts composition. And the writings of the Church are not exclusively useful for exposing fraud. We can't get anything out of them about, say, the historical Jesus (or lack thereof as many here believe) or Paul or anyone else (save perhaps Peter and Paul's deaths under Nero ca.65/67), but here we are talking about a Church writing talking about someone very close to that writing (i.e. Irenaeus [180] talking about Justin Martyr [150]) about nothing supernatural (usually). We can see similar legends such as the authorship of gMark by Mark under Peter. The legend is reported under Hegesippus as Mark writing the Gospel and Peter having read it and having neither approved nor denied it, and then under a Clement of Alexandria it becomes Peter dictating Mark and having his full authority in publishing it. So legends are reported in the Church writings, no doubt. But not all of it is false/legendary.

aa5874

But, do you realize what you are actually writing?

Eusebius USED the very sources that YOU are USING.

Eusebius used Papias to make the very same claims you make.

"Church History" 3 Now , why did you claim that "Papias CERTAINLY knew Matthew and Mark when you KNEW in advance that Eusebius was NOT credible?

And Now that I have EXPOSED the fact that the very same Eusebius who claimed Papias was AWARE of gMark also claimed "Paul" was AWARE of gLuke instantly Eusebius is NO longer credible.

I told you ALREADY that the writings of Church is to be used to EXPOSE fraud and fiction.

You claimed Papias CERTAINLY knew Mark based on Eusebius well "Paul" CERTAINLY knew gLuke based on the very same writer.

DCHindley

Toto,

Excuse me, but just how do we "know that Ignatius was heavily interpolated"? Because the Radical Critics assume so in order to marginalize the Pauline letters? While I believe they may have been interpolated in a manner similar to the manner I believe that non-Christian Paulines were "adapted" to conform to the Christanity that had "adopted" them, I'd prefer to see some sort of study supporting interpolation in the Ignatian letters (i.e., what is interpolated and why these should be considered such).

Show me inconsistencies in subject matter, irregular grammar, characteristics of "seams" in the narrative, a proposed stratification that leaves on the one hand an understandable narrative and on the other statements that display a tendancy. All these I think I can do with the Paulines. Has this also been done with the shorter Greek corpus of the Ignatian letters?

DCH

stephan huller

We know the writings of Ignatius were interpolated in the strictest sense because they come in three different lengths - short (Syriac), long and longer. Irenaeus cites from the longer version (and is also the first to identify and cite Ignatius period) therefore being a prime candidate to have also been their editor.

Toto

For Ignatius, see the fascinating study by Roger Parvus building on Loisy - A New Look at the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch and other Apellean Writings (or via: amazon.co.uk). (The book is also available as an ebook here.

Parvus has posted here and on the JesusMysteries list. (search for posts by rparvus.)

DCHindley

I was speaking strictly of the shorter Greek version. The longer Greek version contains both extensions and modifications of the shorter Greek versions, plus several additional letters. These latter, it seems to me, come from a century later than the Shorter Greek.

So, are you saying that Irenaeus somehow cites the longer Greek versions? Can you supply an example or two?

Toto, it seems, was thinking of the shorter Greek versions, as do Radical Critics when they claim the Ignatian letters are spurious or altered to support the Paulines, which some of the most radical of the Radicals think are entirely spurious.

It looks now like Toto was referring to Roger Parvus' hypothesis that the "proto Catholic" church reconciled with followers of Marcion's disciple Apelles. I'll be honest, I haven't looked very closely at Parvus' works as I have found him to be a bit too "out there" for my liking.

DCH