andrewcriddle

The problem with an early date of Theophilus' writings (which on other grounds might be attractive) is his chronological passage http://www.tertullian.org/fathers2/A...m#P1939_521204

This clearly seems to date the work after the death of Marcus Aurelius.

Ted Hoffman

No. Not necessarily. Some did, some did not. And I think you are trying to plant late second and third century concerns into the first century. First of all, who is a logos believer? Is the writer of John/ the Johannine community logos believers? The logos, they say, became flesh. Did they therefore discard the former logos?

We find theocentric Christianities where the logos acts as an impersonal force for creation. And like I said, In Athenagoras’ A Plea for the Christians, we find the logos and “a son” [not the son] (just like Shepherd of Hermas)but they are both treated as abstract forces coalesced together in God. So we had a variety of Christianities with different brands of the son and the logos.
I have given answers to this already:
1. Because there were no heresiologists then (Irenaus and other heresiologists come after the orthodox church has emerged) and by the time the heresiologists came into the scene, schisms had developed along non-logos issues like Marcionism, Arianism, docetism and so on.
2. Because the logos beliefs werent necessarily concretized and appeared innocuous compared to other identified heresies.

Ted Hoffman

Paul and his mythical Christ.

Ted Hoffman

Materialism took over: it became more fashionable to speak of flesh-and-blood men than of princes and descending, incarnating and ascending gods.

Ben C Smith

Quite right. Sorry, but I was speaking only of the five that Doherty has identified as not believing in an HJ at all: Athenagoras, Tatian, Minucius Felix, Theophilus, and the author(s) of Diognetus.

I am not talking about century I at all. I am talking about century II.

The five above are whom I meant.

I do not see how you are getting away with this. Theophilus and Irenaeus (for example) were contemporaries. (Doherty has hinted on this thread, I think, that he may wish to redate some of these logos people, but I am writing about his position as staked out in his book and currently on his website, where he largely, except for Felix, seems to accept the usual dates. If you yourself are disagreeing with the usual dates, then I think you ought to be more clear about it than just to blankly say that there were no heresiologists around then.)

The logos believers (those 5 on the list) rejected an HJ completely. Whenever anybody else even hinted, for example, that Jesus could have taken on a different form, Irenaeus had a fit. Yet here these believers are who do not think there even was a Jesus on earth, and somehow they slip through unnoticed.

Hey, anything is possible, but I do not know how you are saying that their beliefs appeared innocuous, unless you are saying (as I tried to draw out of you before, and you either did not understand or did not wish to go there) that these people deliberately disguised their true beliefs.

Ben.

Clivedurdle

I strongly think mythicism never died out and is in fact the central understanding of modern xianity - that god became a man through incarnation, suffered and died and resurrected for us. Please read the creeds and what they say.

Xianity has never believed in an hj - this is a very modern idea.

The people being quoted as early hjists were not hjists, they were classical mythicists, as are the vast majority of xians today!

The above from Justin is clear evidence of a mythical beastie taking on flesh. What is this "took shape" stuff?

We have a huge pot pourri, a stew of theological, metaphysical and philosophical ideas. Logos, son of God, virgin. At some point some groups for various reasons wanted to tidy this mess up and impose some Roman discipline - except for Romans, religion and discipline were always contradictions! Discipline is for war, not religion!

God becoming man?

http://www.allsaintsjakarta.org/angbel.htm#11

It is a very strange idea of history and reality here!

krosero

I was pretty clear that I was asking for a group analogous to Paul and his mythical Christ, so Paul cannot serve as the answer here.

I’ll re-quote myself, with emphasis in bold.

What we need is a group that Doherty has not proposed, as an independent analogy for his two groups. Preferably it should be a group that we can all agree existed.

As I said, merely picking one factor that you think made certain groups “fashionable” and others less so, will not help. I’ll show you why that’s true for your example. If you’re right that materialism “took over” (and you’d have to prove that), then this should be a reason that the Gnostic groups died out, too, since Gnosticism was hardly materialistic. But – and this is the key – the Gnostic groups were mentioned. Pauline mythicism is not mentioned, because apparently, according to Doherty, it died out too quickly. But Gnosticism was flourishing in the second century, when supposedly Pauline mythicism died out. You’re pointing to a general trend of materialism taking over, but again there’s that special pleading: supposedly this general trend affected Pauline mythicism but did not impact the other groups.

And did this materialistic trend that you're proposing for the ancient world affect pagan groups outside of Christianity? Not that I know. This is true even according to Doherty’s own theory. Doherty tells us that as late as the fourth or fifth century, Mithras and Attis were regarded as having their “spiritual” or heavenly episodes. He's been disputed on that point, but if you accept it, then what you have is evidence that two pagan deities were in a "spiritual" and not a "materialistic" form as late as the fourth or fifth centuries (and my apologies for not looking up precisely when Doherty's evidence comes from; all I know from memory is that it’s very late evidence, and certainly far later than the time that Pauline mythicism supposedly died).

The supposed death of Pauline mythicism was very quick. For such a specific occurrence, I don’t think that general trends are going to help you (even if you could prove that those general trends were occurring).

Kevin Rosero

gurugeorge

Good points, but I think this is easily solved by thinking of Paul as actually a Jewish proto-gnostic and taking seriously the Valentinian version of apostolic succession.

Consider: the Valentinians clearly believed they had an apostolic succession (I was just reading Ptolemy's letter to Flora this morning, and it's there in his summing up at the end of that part of the letter that we have through Epiphanius). Eusebius (was it?) reports that the Valentinians believed their teacher was taught by one "Theudas", who was a disciple of Paul. Is there any reason not to take that seriously? If you believe Acts is history, of course there isn't, but there's sufficient doubt about Acts that not taking Acts seriously as history is a reasonable route to take, just to see what shakes out. Let's see what shakes out:

If we don't take Acts seriously as history, then the true history of early Christianity is more like the Walter Bauer/Radikalkritik outline: no HJ, myth all the way down, early "apostles" were messengers of a new version of the Messiah to the Jews, just as essentially mythical as the old. Paul, probably a Samaritan and probably the "Simon Magus" of later writings, takes that message to the Gentiles, spreads his Samaritan/Hellenistic proto-gnosticism over some of of Asia Minor, and to Rome and a few other places. (Meanwhile the older Jewish "apostles" are also spreading their restricted Jewish version of the Christ myth too, but not with as much success, because it requires cutting your winkie.)

In Rome (and possibly Alexandria), and after the diaspora, Paul's proto-gnosticism develops into proto-orthodoxy. The Christians there aim to take control of what they see is an unruly movement (all from the best intentions no doubt). They invent a concept of "apostolic succession" that's meant to trump the standard apostolic succession of other, proto-Gnostic (and by that time turning into Gnostic) Christian movements descended from Paul. They go one better than the mere visionary Paul. While they admit that Paul was part of their foundation, they also (through the fabrication of Acts) try and reconcile him with Peter, who they also claim in their lineage, who represents (to them) a direct lineage connection to The Man Himself. Common sense says that this is a better lineage connection than a lineage connection to a mere visionary like Paul, which is all the Gnostics have to show for themselves. And this is why "The Man Himself" is invented, this is why a spiritual myth with a few fleshly aspects is hardened into a god-man living in Palestine round 0-30 CE.

However, while they have to alter Paul to make him look proto-orthodox and a believer in their strongly historical Jesus, the proto-orthodox can't over-egg the pudding, because the Epistles are already familiar to large swathes of Chrisitanity - in their proto-gnostic form. So he's just "tweaked" a bit, and the main job of making Paul a closet proto-orthodox Christian is left to Acts.

Meanwhile the Jewish Christians aren't totally fooled. They are flattered by this version of "apostolic succession", they like the idea, and they may even believe it themselves because the true roots of their Jewish Christian faith may by that time have been hidden from them after 70 CE. But they twit the proto-orthodox because they KNOW that Roman proto-orthodoxy only came from a visionary - hence the Kerygmata Petrou and the pseudo-Clementines. Their naming of what is obviously "Paul" as "Simon Magus", and their critique of him as having his apostleship from mere visionary experience is nothing but the plain truth. (Of course this is a critique from the point of view touted by the proto-orthodox, and by this time accepted by the Jewish Christians, of a strongly historicised Jesus. In fact, visionary experience is all that Christianity started with!)

The true irony in this is that the Valentinian apostolic succession is real (only it's not to a HJ, but to the visionary Paul, and to the earliest idea of the Christ), whereas the proto-orthodox one is made up, and has to invent a "hardened" historical Christ to make it stick. The "hardening" takes some time, but eventually everyone buys into it (partly because proto-orthodoxy is rich and buys trust, partly because the proto-orthodox are lucky to have a few exceptionally sharp thinkers and writers on their side).

By the time of Constantine, all that's left of what was initially Paul's proto-Gnosticism, and what became a variegated Gnostic movement, is docetism. Docetism is what happens when Gnostics thoroughly buy into the proto-orthodox hardened HJ, and the proto-orthodox lineage, but retain the highly spiritualised nature of the original Christ idea. (At the same time, in a parallel movement, the Jewish Christians who bought into the hardened HJ idea eventually lose the spiritual half of the proto-orthodox story altogether, and make of the hardened HJ invented by the proto-orthodox a mere prophet, becoming Ebionites.)

I must emphasise, for this to make sense you have to somehow ditch the idea from your mind that Acts is history (which may be difficult for someone steeped in the idea that it is historical, and who believes in the "apostolic succession" outlined there). It may use bits of history, but it distorts them and makes lots of stuff up. The real history is behind the significance of Acts as proving a proto-orthodox replacement for the apostolic succession of the majority of Christian churches going back to the proto-gnostic Paul.

So that's what happened to the original, mythical Jesus. He started off life as a Jewish/Samaritan proto-gnostic entity (shading into Logos in more strongly Hellenized communities), became Gnostic, then docetist.

Meanwhile, the history of proto-orthodoxy, then orthodoxy, is characterised by its constant theological balancing act between its fondness for the highly spiritualised Christ of its original proto-Gnostic roots, and its necessity to keep "Jesus"' feet on the ground in order to validate its bishops' falsified, HJ-dependent "apostolic succession".

krosero

There are many possibilities that could be discussed, especially in, let's say, a general thread about whether Jesus existed. I am trying to focus here simply on the arguments that Doherty has put on the table. What you've written is sufficiently different from his argument that I'll have to pass on it.

It's important for me to keep one dinner on my plate.

Kevin Rosero

gurugeorge

Well it does directly address the point you just quoted that you'd made against Ted, so if it's a tangent it's yours, but np