stephan huller

I am going to Vegas in a few hours but I am starting wonder if whatever Irenaeus read in Hegessipus was the source of the Catholic Creed. Here are some later formulations:

elements found in the Interrogatory Creed of Hippolytus (c. 215 AD);

Do you believe in God the Father All Governing? Do you believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, Who was begotten by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary, Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died (and was buried) and rose the third day living from the dead, and ascended into the heavens, and sat down on the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, in the holy Church and in the resurrection of the body?

elements found in the Creed of Marcellus (340 AD);

I believe in God, All Governing; And in Christ Jesus His only begotten Son, our Lord, Who was begotten of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried, Who rose from the dead on the third day, ascending to the heavens and taking His seat at the Father's right hand, whence He shall come to judge both the living and the dead; And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, life everlasting.

elements found in the Creed of Rufinus (c. 404 AD);

I believe in God the Father almighty, invisible and impassable; And in Christ Jesus, His only Son, our Lord, Who was born by the Holy Spirit from Mary the Virgin, crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried. He descended to hell. On the third day He rose again from the dead, He ascended to heaven, where He sits at the Father's right hand and from whence He will come to judge both living and dead;
And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of this flesh.

The major difference between Irenaeus's source and the later material is the emphasis on a judgement by fire which - when we really think about it - is very much a Polycarpian obsession.

My guess is that this υπομνηματα formulated by Polycarp in the name of Josephus (Hegesippus) is the source also of the apostolic creed. Hence Irenaeus's reference at one point to the preamble "the Church, though dispersed through our the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith" This points the finger again at Polycarp as the source of the material. One would think if Irenaeus were just going to make up a big lie he'd just identify it as a 'apostolic formulation.' The reason he doesn't is because this υπομνηματα were widely read (cf Clement of Alexandria). They must have been almost the first handbook of orthodoxy using the Carpocratians as the enemies of the first Church in Jerusalem. The formulation was picked up by Clement by his use of the same text.

But still the question remains - why is the Passion dated to the reign of Claudius?

stephan huller

Leaving in an hour but I noticed that much has been written about these passages I just cited as being early representations of the Creed:

Irenaeus is equally clear and emphatic on this point. The two following creeds he represents as being the verbatim report of the traditions handed down by the Apostles to their successors in the sees of Rome and elsewhere. "One God, Maker of heaven and earth, announced by the Law and the prophets; and one Christ the Son of God." "One God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, framer of man; who brought on the flood, and called Abraham.who led the people out of the land of Egypt, who conversed with Moses who ordained the Law and sent the Prophets, who prepared fire for the devil and his angels. That he is set forth by the Churches as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, those who will may learn from the letter itself, and discern the Apostolic tradition of the Church, the Epistle (Clement of Rome to the Corinthians) being more ancient than our present false teachers and devisers of another God, above the artificer and creator of all things that exist." It may be noticed in this primary Creed that the article in respect to the Father is very much elaborated ; that the article in respect to Jesus Christ merely mentions Jesus Christ as God's Son, not as God, or Creator; and that any mention of the Holy Ghost is wholly wanting. The full significance of this observation will be grasped when we remember that Irenaeus repeats this Creed with slight alterations, more than forty times, the relation between the three articles being always the same.

Irenaeus speaks on the point at issue still more distinctly: "And that neither by angels, nor by any other virtue, but by God the Father alone, were made things both visible and invisible, and all things whatsoever." On this point Irenaeus quotes Justin, as agreeing with him : "I could not have believed the Lord himself if he anounced another God beside the Creator, because from the one God who both created the world and formed us, and contains and governs all things, the Only- begotten Son came unto us gathering together into himself the work of his own hands, my faith in him is firm, and my love to the Father immovable ; both being God's gift unto us." In view of all these passages it would seem that in the opinion of Irenaeus the Father, not the Son, was the Creator. [Guthrie The Message p. 25 - 26] http://books.google.com/books?id=y93...ion%22&f=false

The point of course is that my suspicions seem to be confirmed. Grant was stuck on the idea that Irenaeus should have been citing material from 1Clement but instead we find a primitive credal formula attributed to Polycarp but within the context of a work known to Eusebius as the υπομνηματα of Hegesippus.

As I noted what is always being cited by Irenaeus, Eusebius and Epiphanius is a kind of introduction of cover letter to the main work. The contents of the υπομνηματα are always referenced as if these words belonged to a secondary epistle attached to the front of the work. The letter was clearly seemed to come from the hand of the author of the υπομνηματα. Yet there must have been some ambiguity. Irenaeus identifies the author as Polycarp, Clement as Josephus, Eusebius as Hegesippus and Epiphanius doesn't only references the text as υπομνηματα if at all.

The introductory letter must have been the first clear exposition of the faith that was known to the whole Church. It was dated to the seventy seven year after the destruction of the temple (a mystical number) or the tenth year of Antoninus (147 CE).

The identification of Jesus being crucified by Pilate and Herod under Claudius MUST HAVE APPEARED here and confirms what we cited in Smith earlier - i.e. that Irenaeus got his information from Polycarp in a lost written source. We have now determined the source of that information.

Yet, as always, another question still remains - why would someone fix a letter which mentions (a) the travels of the author from Corinth (b) his arrival at Rome (c) his association with the Jerusalem Church (d) his establishment of two episcopal lists for Rome and Jerusalem (e) a lengthy condemnation of the Carpocratians identified as the first gnostics and (f) the earliest formulation of the Apostle's Creed BE FIXED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FIVE BOOKS OF JEWISH WAR?

The answer must have something to do with the author of the υπομνηματα taking issue with the implicit (theological) conclusions of Justus's Chronicle. In other words, now on the seventy seventh anniversary of the destruction HERE IS THE CORRECT INTERPRETATION of the event that proved Christianity which agrees with the gospels and holy scriptures of the Catholic Church all written in the name of Josephus the paradigmatic 'repentant Jew' (who symbolized the correct POV for Judaism after the recent catastrophe of the bar Kochba revolt).

Anyway, I hope someone appreciates the work gone into developing these ideas. I am still not one hundred percent on the cover letter argument. Any help would be appreciated.

I'll look at them when I get home

aa5874

Please NAME a Church writer BEFORE or AFTER Irenaeus who claimed Jesus of the NT was ABOUT 50 years old when he suffered.



Smith is NOT a Church writer.

stephan huller

Smith says Polycarp is Irenaeus's source "As Irenaeus had had personal knowledge of at least one 'elder' who had known John in Asia - namely, Polycarp - his evidence is not without weight, and it is not easy to explain how he could have fallen into this error of dating; for error it certainly is, though supported by a 'proof from tradition' of greater weight than most such proofs." I think that's a reasonable supposition.

Hill demonstrates that Polycarp is always meant when Polycarp cites an anonymous presbyter. http://jts.oxfordjournals.org/conten...74.short?rss=1

And while I am still responding. In response to DC point about Tiberius. Another reason why 'Claudius' can't be a reference to Tiberius (aside from the fact that there is no evidence that Tiberius was ever called 'Claudius' by anyone). Irenaeus's emphasis that Jesus's ministry lasted at least ten years starting with the fifteenth year of Tiberius. Tiberius's reign was only 23 years. As such 15 + 10 necessarily gives a date AFTER Tiberius.

aa5874

Now PLEASE state the book or passage from Polycarp where he claimed Jesus was 50 years old when he suffered.

andrewcriddle

One possibility, (and I put it no stronger than that is that), is that Irenaeus was aware (more or less) of the historical information in Josephus' Jewish Wars but not of the information in the Antiquities.

The Jewish Wars unlike the Antiquities have no reference to Pilate being dismissed by Tiberius. Hence it would be possible to believe that Pilate continued in some sort of official capacity in Judea until the death of Herod Agrippa in 44 CE.

Now we know from Against Heresies book 2 that Irenaeus, on the basis of verses like John 8:57, believed that Jesus died aged nearly 50 ie in the early to mid 40's CE. Also, the Apostolic Preaching, like other 2nd century sources, (eg Gospel of Peter), gives a central role to Herod in sentencing Jesus to death.

Maybe Irenaeus believed that King Herod Agrippa sentenced Jesus to death in 42 or 43 CE, while Pilate as Roman representative in Herod Agrippa's kingdom went along with the death sentence. (This regards the references in Irenaeus to Jesus being nearly 50 as meaning nearer fifty than forty rather than 49.)

In this scenario, the Herod mentioned in Luke 3 as tetrarch would have been regarded by Irenaeus as distinct from the Herod who was involved in the trial of Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

avi

Why must I always be the naysayer on this forum?
"Completely preserved"?

Let's take a look, shall we, at the actual data, instead of going on and on about this or that detail, such as, the exact date of JC's demise, whether he was 49, or 50, or whatever?

Here is the information from the horse's mouth: (in other words, from Roger's excellent web site!!!)

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/more...roof_intro.htm

I suppose DD refers to Doctor of Divinity?
He was, in 1920 Dean of Wells, whatever that means? Oil wells?

So, let's consider what Stephan and Andrew are writing about here, in this thread.

We have this bloke, a divinitarian to conjure up a word, who writes that the Armenian translation is a "close rendering of the original Greek".

Is no one else on this forum troubled by the fact that neither the Dean of Wells, nor Roger, nor Andrew, nor Stephan, nor anyone else on planet earth, possesses a copy of the original Greek, from which to construct such a comparison? How could the Dean of Oil know whether or not the original Greek was close to, or distant from, the Armenian copy in his possession? If he errs on this fundamental point, which other "errors" has he committed?

What about this "Armenian translation", which suddenly appeared in 1904?

How interesting. Upheaval in Armenia, at the time of one of the Turkish massacres there, (Sassun in 1904) and voila, by magic, a long-lost manuscript concurrently appears....

Hmm.

What about this manuscript?

May one humbly request, that before filling up pages and pages of red highlighted text (not an appropriate choice of color, by the way, since the SEARCH engine of the forum uses red to highlight terms of the search---please follow AA's example, and use caps, bolding and underlining to highlight your text, instead!!), someone PLEASE give us the scoop on this text, in absentia for nearly two millenia?

WHERE was it found?
HOW was it found?
WHO found it?
WHAT was the condition of the text?

Can someone please verify that the English Translation (there is also a German translation--does it rely on the English translation?) accurately reflects the "original" Armenian?

After that exercise, then Andrew and Stephan can proceed with their business of hypotheticals, and conjectures, and whatifs, and so on, and so forth....

First, one must ensure, to the best of our ability, that the source of data has not been compromised in some fashion, then one can argue meaningfully about the contents....

avi

Doug Shaver

No, you're not the only one. I wondered about that, too, as soon as I read it.

JoeWallack

JW:
Hi Andrew. This explanation looks anachronistic to me (trying to attribute a modern methodology to Irenaeus). His attitude towards what he considered the Christian Bible was reverential, not evidential. Therefore, he considered it authoritative by itself and all other sources, such as Josephus, needed to be reconciled to it. The source for the three assertions here, Claudius, Pilate and Herod, all come from the Christian Bible:

1) Claudius

"John" is clear that Jesus was close to fifty which I demonstrated in:

According To "John" About How Old Was Jesus When He Died?

The main pieces of evidence are:

1 - The explicit statement by "The Jews".

2 - "John's" exorcism of all information from the Synoptics contradicting this age.

We can add to this that "John" also exorcised "Herod" from his Gospel as this contradicted the 50 assertion, which is the subject of this Thread.

"John" looks to be written relatively contemporary to Irenaeus (Justin was not familiar with it) so Irenaeus treated it as the most authoritative Gospel since it reflected the views of his orthodox brand. The support for Jesus being 50 is not just Irenaeus than, as is commonly said, it is "John" (uncommonly said). It's not needed since there is no evidence in "John" disputing that Jesus was 50 but we also have provenance for this. Irenaeus/"John's" primary enemy were the Gnostics who said Jesus was unreal (you got to love them). The best counter was that Jesus aged.

"John" was written as a reaction to the Synoptics (mainly "Mark" since that has the lowest level of chrolistology, 125 CE MGees):

Telling Your Source He Doesn't Know What He Is Talking About. John as Denial of Mark

so "John" was intended as a stand alone, replacement Gospel. Irenaeus though is stuck with all four Gospels.

2) Pilate

All Gospels follow "Mark's" passion and have Pilate involved in the Passion.

3) Herod

The problem. How does Herod get put into "John's" Passion? No problem. Irenaeus also accepts the Synoptics as authoritative which have Herod there. Hence, Herod was there. "John" does not say Herod was not there (and even if it did...).

And so Andrew, as to Irenaeus placing Claudius, Pilate and Herod at Passion time, you are ignoring the source we have, the Christian Bible, and looking for what does not exist.

Actually, the source for "Mark" here was probably Paul's, Jesus was crucified by the "Rulers of the Age". "Mark" found rulers of the age Pilate and Herod in Josephus. Whoever the Rulers of the Age were, that's who crucified Jesus. Understand dear Reader?



Joseph

ErrancyWiki

andrewcriddle

The Armenian manuscript contains not only the otherwise unknown Apostolic Preaching but also books IV and V of Against Heresies which survive in Latin translation, Greek fragments etc. The comparison with the original is presumably based on Against Heresies.

Andrew Criddle

Edited to Add

From the Introduction: