stephan huller

The reality is that many scholars have noted that an underlying affinity exists between a key gospel citation in 1 Clement and the only letter than has survived by the hand of Polycarp. The citation DOES NOT come from any known canonical gospel and resembles closest of all the Diatessaron associated with Tatian, the student of Justin. The material that has come down to us from the υπομνηματα that is preserved in the name of Hegesippus which scholarship universally acknowledges is the source or is related to the source that Irenaeus cites in Book Three makes it seem as if he was at the center of the dispute 'correcting' their doctrine from a variant form established since 'Primus' (which means taken another way means 'from the first').

So we read in Eusebius's citation of the υπομνηματα that its author said:

And the church of Corinth continued in the true faith until Primus was bishop in Corinth. I conversed with them on my way to Rome, and abode with the Corinthians many days, during which we were mutually refreshed in the true doctrine. Being in Rome, I composed a catalogue of bishops down to Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus. And Anicetus was succeeded by Soter, and he by Eleutherus. In every succession, and in every city that is held which is preached by the law and the prophets and the Lord.

I clearly take the portion cited in read to be Irenaeus's marginal gloss confirming the very things which become the subject of his narrative in Book Three. There Irenaeus makes the point of stressing that the material in the letter to Clement was written not by the author of the υπομνηματα in a relatively recent attempt to 'correct the orthodoxy' of the churches in the Empire but rather something (with the name change to 'Clement of Rome' at the top of the MS) which appears to have been settled in the first century.

This is critical to understand the nexus of material here. For if we read again the material cited in Eusebius's mention of the υπομνηματα and read it side by side with Irenaeus's testimony in Book Three there is unmistakable commonality with only two significant differences - (1) Irenaeus explicitly claims with the aid of his corrected 1 Clement epistle that the controversy mentioned in the υπομνηματα took place in the first century and (2) that Polycarp rather than 'Hegesippus' was the author of the υπομνηματα which is the source for his list of bishops in every city.

Look again at the full citation one more time from the very opening lines (I will cite only from the mention of Clement):

To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed; after him, Telephorus, who was gloriously martyred; then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then after him, Anicetus. Soter having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate. In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth. But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time,--a man who was of much greater weight, and a more stedfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles,--that, namely, which is handed down by the Church. [AH iii.1.4]

Irenaeus goes on to mention Polycarp's war with Marcion and his coming in the name of John who lived until the time of Trajan and with this, ends the first chapter of Book Three, a chapter which opened with the argument essentially that the υπομνηματα can help disprove the claims of the 'gnostic' church of Alexandria and their reliance on a single (pseudo)apostle.

There is no doubt at all in my mind that Irenaeus's citation of Polycarp as a witness is necessarily problematic. He only comes out of the closet here for a very specific reason - he has to say that the υπομνηματα are rooted in a reliable historical witness. Once this understanding is recognized we can see that the author of the υπομνηματα 'correcting' the beliefs of the Corinthians community and coming to Rome at the time of Anicetus sound remarkably similar to Polycarp's own arrival in Rome and getting into dispute with Anicetus (which Irenaeus again characteristically tries to cover up) "and when the blessed Polycarp was at Rome in the time of Anicetus, and they disagreed a little about other things, they immediately made peace with one another, not caring to quarrel over this matter. For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp ... nor Polycarp Anicetus . . . But though matters were in this shape, they communed together, and Anicetus conceded the administration of the Eucharist in the Church to Polycarp, manifestly as a mark of respect. And they parted from each other in peace"

I think we are now prepared for the ultimate realization that Luke-Acts use of Josephus has everything to do with Polycarp's authorship of the υπομνηματα which also developed as a faux Josephan document. It was Polycarp who was reshaping actively Christianity in the era only to himself be reshaped by his student Irenaeus once his falsification efforts were subsequently exposed (by Lucian of Samosata but also Marcionites and other dissenters mention in the Death of Peregrinus).

stephan huller

My wife called for me to have lunch with her as I was completing this post so there are some spelling errors.

"which means taken another way means 'from the first' ..." this is garbled I was only noting that Primus could be taken to mean 'first' so 'from the first'

"I clearly take the portion cited in read ..." this should be corrected to 'clearly take the portion cited in RED ...

"but rather something (with the name change to 'Clement of Rome' at the top of the MS) which appears to have been settled in the first century ..." should read "but rather A TEXT WRITTEN BY 'Clement of Rome' who lived in the first century.

ANOTHER CORRECTION - There is no doubt at all in my mind that Irenaeus's citation of Polycarp as a witness WAS necessarily problematic for Irenaeus. THE NAME 'POLYCARP' only comes out of the closet here for a very specific reason ...

stephan huller

And one more parallel between the υπομνηματα of Hegesippus and the Historiae of Hegesippus (which we have been examining here side by side with Jewish War) - both were divided into five books. As Eusebius notes "Hegesippus in the five books of Memoirs which have come down to us has left a most complete record of his own views." [Church History 4.22.1] If we suppose again that Strabo was used as a template by the original second century author then it becomes readily apparent that each work preserves half of the original title of work - υπομνηματα ιστορικά.

stephan huller

Another oversight on my part in the post I just wrote - Behrwald notes that Strabo's υπομνηματα ιστορικά was above all else AN EXTENSION of Polybius down to the time Strabo lived:

In his own reconstruction of Strabo's Historika Hypomnemata, Engel plausibly argues for a structure similar to that of Polybios, whom he set out to continue: introductory parts beginning with the history of Alexander the Great (or Philip of Macedon) that overlap with his precursor's account, and a detailed history that continues Polybios, who himself starts with the end of Timaios' history and enters his detailed account with the year 220, continuing Phylarchos.

I can't believe I didn't cite this in the post. This is critical for understanding the parallels between Stabo's υπομνηματα ιστορικά and a work of the same or similar name developed by Polycarp in the middle of the second century. Like Strabo, the Jewish Christian writer was 'filling' the historical gap from the time of the destruction of the temple down to his own day.

stephan huller

I have just gone through Eusebius's Church History to see if there were any other obvious borrowings of lists of bishops from Hegesippus's υπομνηματα besides (a) the list of bishops of Jerusalem which eventually gets recycled in Eusebius and Epiphanius and (b) the statement which Eusebius records from the author that “being in Rome, I composed a catalogue of bishops down to Anicetus.” This list gets recycled by Irenaeus (with a few updates) and then Eusebius and Epiphanius.

The reality is that there are no more long lists of bishops for any city in the Empire besides those just mentioned in Irenaeus, Eusebius and Epiphanius. No one ever recites a list for instance of the bishops of Antioch or Alexandria so my guess is that Hegesippus only produced two lists - i.e. one for Jerusalem and one for Rome. The bishops of Rome because as he says he happened to be there and Jerusalem out of a discussion of the death of James who is said to be their first bishop and the subsequent heresies that emerge from the choice of Symeon as his successor:

The same author also describes the beginnings of the heresies which arose in his time, in the following words: “And after James the Just had suffered martyrdom, as the Lord had also on the same account, Symeon, the son of the Lord’s uncle, Clopas, was appointed the next bishop. All proposed him as second bishop because he was a cousin of the Lord. Therefore, they called the Church a virgin, for it was not yet corrupted by vain discourses. But Thebuthis, because he was not made bishop, began to corrupt it. He also was sprung from the seven sects among the people, like Simon, from whom came the Simonians, and Cleobius, from whom came the Cleobians, and Dositheus, from whom came the Dositheans, and Gorthæus, from whom came the Goratheni, and Masbotheus, from whom came the Masbothæans. From them sprang the Menandrianists, and Μαρκιανισταί, and Carpocratians, and Valentinians, and Basilidians, and Saturnilians. Each introduced privately and separately his own peculiar opinion. From them came false Christs, false prophets, false apostles, who divided the unity of the Church by corrupt doctrines uttered against God and against his Christ.

The same writer also records the ancient heresies which arose among the Jews, in the following words: “There were, moreover, various opinions in the circumcision, among the children of Israel. The following were those that were opposed to the tribe of Judah and the Christ: Essenes, Galileans, Hemerobaptists, Masbothæans, Samaritans, Sadducees, Pharisees.” [Eusebius Church History 4.22.4]

Now what is so interesting about this list is that Irenaeus seems to take an interest in the author's list of bishops in Jerusalem and Rome but his list of heresies does not include many of these names.

The υπομνηματα later ascribed to 'Hegesippus' (a corruption of Josephus) CAN'T be thought to have included a detailed catalogue of each one of the aforementioned 'heretics.' It just doesn't make sense that Irenaeus would hold up this work in AH iii.3.3 but then develop a completely different list of heresies. As I said there can't be much more to the description of these heresies other than the list of names that appears above.

So now we are at a loss to explain how the υπομνηματα could have filled up FIVE BOOKS of information as Eusebius notes if it was just a 'memoir' of a second century Christian. The opening words of Eusebius's discussion say that the υπομνηματα "has left a most complete record of his own views." This is a very generic statement which ultimately tells us nothing about the book.

Eusebius goes to mention that in these υπομνηματα "he states that on a journey to Rome he met a great many bishops, and that he received the same doctrine from all." This is reminiscent of Irenaeus's allusion to the same work being written by Polycarp and the reference to the controversy in Corinth which follows is also common to both traditions.

I guess my point is that I don't see enough in any of these descriptions of the work to see how it could have filled up five volumes. The υπομνηματα CAN'T be the kind of work described by Schaff - viz. "the work appears to have been nothing more than a collection of reminiscences covering the apostolic and post-apostolic ages, and drawn partly from written, partly from oral sources, and in part from his own observation, and quite without chronological order and historical completeness."

I think that most of the material just cited appeared as an introduction to the main work. Just look for instance at the words "being in Rome, I composed a catalogue of bishops down to Anicetus." This implies that the author is referencing the five books as a separate work so too the idea that though the book was written during the reign of Anicetus the preface comes from a period AFTER that date - viz. 'and Anicetus was succeeded by Soter, and he by Eleutherus. In every succession, and in every city that is held which is preached by the law and the prophets and the Lord." As I noted in my previous post, I think this sounds remarkably similar to the phraseology of Irenaeus in AH iii.3.4. Whoever wrote these words they were written as an introduction to the main work from which they are clearly separate.

Does that mean that the five books could have been a heavily Christianized ancestor to our Jewish War and Pseudo-Hegesippus? Yes, I think so.

stephan huller

We are about to resume our side by side comparison of Pseudo-Hegesippus and Jewish War but I would just like to remind everyone the manner in which all testimonials regarding a second century υπομνηματα ιστορικά modeled after Strabo's text of the same name but dealing principally with the events surrounding the Jewish War. It is Clement's testimony which is so puzzling. How could he have identified a Josephan historical text with a chronology which dates to the tenth year of Antoninus Pius? How do Eusebius and Epiphanius find a historical source associated with 'Josephus' (albeit in a deliberately corrupt form 'Hegesippus') which develops a chronology to the same year albeit specifically referencing Christian episcopal successions in Jerusalem and Rome? How could Irenaeus reference the same chronology just mentioned but associate the text with Polycarp?

The answer has to be that when Polycarp came to Rome under the reign of Anicetus he brought with him a υπομνηματα ιστορικά associated with the historical Josephus which later had a 'preface' or a 'letter of reference' attached to the body of that work by Irenaeus which explains why no one should be at all concerned that Polycarp - a known forger (cf. De Morte Peregrini) - was the compiler of this 'historical commentary.' As Irenaeus reinforces in Book Three of Against the Heresies Polycarp was "a man who was of much greater weight, and a more stedfast witness of truth" than his detractors. [AH iii.3.4]

Nevertheless I have argued at length in my still unpublished Against Polycarp (a work which has an introduction written by David Trobisch and has attracted fans such as Robert Price but is still unpublished) Irenaeus is still clearly working behind the scenes to disentangle Polycarp from the body of literature he originally produced. The Ignatian corpus for instance is identified by Lucian as having been written by Polycarp the 'fiery one' whose martyrdom is remembered in his own Encyclical Epistle. Ignatius means 'fiery one' and Polycarp figures prominently in the created Ignatian narrative - created I assume by Irenaeus.

In short, I regard the preface to the υπομνηματα as a creation of Irenaeus but written as if coming straight from the hand of the original author which reassured readers that he was a reliable witness or at least a reliable compiler of a υπομνηματα ιστορικά.

Another parallel between Polycarp and the figure identified as Hegesippus as "a contemporary of the apostles" by Photius. Polycarp is identified as one "not only instructed by apostles, [but who also] conversed with many who had seen Christ." Hmmm ...

stephan huller

Okay, I said I wouldn't get into my theories about Polycarp but I think it is essential to understand where I am coming from when I say I have strong doubts about this text called υπομνηματα and later associated with Hegesippus.

The real question which everyone in Patristic scholarship wants to avoid at all costs is whether a text written in 147 CE stayed the consistent over time. Let's start with the idea that someone came to Rome and wrote a chronological narrative in the tenth year of Antoninus. Did Irenaeus change that text c. 180 CE and write an introductory narrative in the name of Polycarp? I have given reasons why I think this is so. It is amazing also how these introductory words written AFTER 147 CE always get recycled by various writers and cause people to think the five volume work was all devoted to later Church History.

The question however is did the υπομνηματα continue to exist in the exact form established by Irenaeus throughout the third century and until the time that Eusebius finally saw it as a work attributed to 'Hegesippus'? The answer is clearly NO. By the time Clement sees the historical work established in 147 CE it associated with Josephus the Jew. By the time Eusebius sees it and everyone thereafter it is by the hand of 'Hegesippus.'

All of this suggests that the work was constantly undergoing transformations. Nevertheless the idea that the text was somehow still referenced as a Josephan narrative as George Syncellus the ninth century chronicler writes "these things [the execution of James the brother of Jesus] Hegesippus, an historian worthy of our faith, one of those [who is a follower] of the orthodox word among us, with whom also Josephus agrees, writing what is not in disagreement [with him], that this became the cause of the conquest of the Jews in the time of Vespasian."

Indeed as we have already noted a long time ago Origen understands that a version of this story was part of Josephus's narrative.

The point is that we have countless examples of second century texts that undergo radical transformations. Look at Irenaeus's Refutation and Overthrow of Knowledge Falsely So Called (itself a compilation of shorter Irenaean 'lectures'). It somehow tranforms into the Philosophumena. A lost text of Justin mutates into BOTH Tertullian Against Marcion Book Three AND Against the Jews.

So we have now touched upon the MACROCOSMIC understanding of the transformations that MUST HAVE taken place with the original Josephan υπομνηματα which Irenaeus somehow attributed to Polycarp. Let's look at just one part of the chain of transformation that inevitably occurs when Irenaeus gets his hand on a text RELATED to Polycarp.

I will leave the Ignatian corpus which is the easy and strongest argument for us to make. I will take up the 1 Clement connection with the letter of Polycarp because it has had so much written about it already and Helmut Koester's discussion in particular.

Everyone here I suspect knows that the Letter to the Philippians is Polycarp's only surviving letter. What is less well known is that P N Harrison (Polycarp's Two Epistles to the Ephesians 1936 Cambridge) came up with an observation that the letter is actually a combination of two letters to the Ephesians. This thesis was endorsed by Hans von Campenhausen (Polykarp von Smyrna 1951) and has been widely accepted ever since.

Here is Koester's explanation of the phenomenon:

The absence of the term 'gospel' is equally noteworthy in the Letter of bishop Polycarp of Smyrna to the Philippians ... Polycarp's first letter, written at the time of Ignatius, is preserved in chapters 13 - 14 of the extant document. But it is in the portions which belong to the later letter (chapters 1 - 12 and 15) that several quotations of gospel materials occur.

One of the quotations, Pol. Phil. 2.3, is copied from the quotation of the saying of Jesus in 1 Clem 13.1 - 2, including the quotation formula ("Remember what the Lord said when he was teaching"). However, while the quote in 1 Clem 13.2 had been drawn from the oral tradition, Polycarp, who knew the Gospels of Matthew and Luke corrected the text in order to establish a more faithful agreement of Jesus' words with the wording of the written gospels from which he had also drawn his other gospel materials (Phil. 2.3b, 7.2, 12.3). At the same time it is remarkable that Polycarp never uses the term 'gospel' for these documents [Koester Ancient Christian Gospels p. 20]

Now I know that Koester is a much more respected scholar than I will ever be but I think we should all just stop for a moment and NOT JUST MAKE A WHOLE BUNCH OF ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE TEXT as Koester does here. If we remove Koester's 'assumptions' we could only say the following about the material:

The absence of the term 'gospel' is equally noteworthy in the Letter of bishop Polycarp of Smyrna to the Philippians ... Polycarp's first letter, written at the time of Ignatius, is preserved in chapters 13 - 14 of the extant document. But it is in the portions which belong to the later letter (chapters 1 - 12 and 15) that several quotations of gospel materials occur.

One of the quotations, Pol. Phil. 2.3, is paralleled by the saying of Jesus in 1 Clem 13.1 - 2, including the quotation formula ("Remember what the Lord said when he was teaching"). However, while the quote in 1 Clem 13.2 had been drawn from the oral tradition, Polycarp, someone who knew the Gospels of Matthew and Luke corrected the text in order to establish a more faithful agreement of Jesus' words with the wording of the written gospels from which he had also drawn his other gospel materials (Phil. 2.3b, 7.2, 12.3). At the same time it is remarkable that Polycarp never uses the term 'gospel' for these documents

The yellow text is where Koester goes beyond what is safe for us to assume. It may be a common assumption in scholarship, but it is in my mind a very dangerous and LAZY presupposition.

Are my readers with me now? Koester just assumes that the copies of Polycarp's letter came down to us like they were shipped from the ancient world by Federal Express. The idea that someone had a vested interest in reshaping Polycarp's image as a witness to the orthodoxy that eventually emerged in Rome during the reign of Commodus - i.e. IRENAEUS - hasn't even crossed his mind.

The point again is that everyone agrees there is this parallel between Phil 2.3 and 1 Clem 13.1 - 2 where someone has 'corrected' the original saying in 1 Clement so that the readings match those of Matthew and Luke (even if the STRUCTURE of the quote still retains the original citation of 1 Clement):

Be merciful, that you may obtain mercy; forgive, that it may be forgiven to you; as you do, so shall it be done to you; as you judge, so shall you be judged; as you are kind, so shall kindness be shown to you; with what measure you measure, with the same it shall be measured to you [1 Clement 13. 1 - 2]

Judge not that ye be not judged, forgive and it shall be forgiven unto you, be merciful that ye may obtain mercy, with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again [Polycarp Phil. 3.2]

What almost no one has noticed is that the original reference from 1 Clement actually resembles what is found in the Diatessaron.

Judge not, that ye be not judged: condemn not, that ye be not condemned: forgive, and it shall be forgiven you: release, and ye shall be released: give, that ye may be given unto; with good measure, abundant, full, they shall thrust into your bosoms. With what measure ye measure it shall be measured to you. See to it what ye hear: with what measure ye measure it shall be measured to you [Diatessaron x. 13f]

Now you see the way scholar work is that they will only focus on the question of the relationship between the first two citations. Here is Stephen Carlson's wonderful effort to explain how the citation from Polycarp was harmonized by someone to look more like Luke and Matthew. http://www.textexcavation.com/measureformeasure.html

Yet what Koester and others deserve to be taken to task for is the fact that their explanation fails to take into account why the Arabic Diatessaron would so resemble the restructured text in Polycarp's Letter.

In other words, if it were just some idiosyncratic effort on the part of Polycarp to 'correct' what 'Clement of Rome' said a couple of generations earlier, why does this effort show up almost exactly (remember the text called 'the Diatessaron' that we have now was likely translated from Syriac into Arabic) in this other text that was nothing short of canonical in the eastern parts of the Empire.

The point is that this wasn't just some 'slight corrective effort' on the part of Polycarp. The author of 1 Clement had a gospel (I don't believe that Flavius Clement was the name of the original author of this or any of the Clementine texts). In this and other Letters of Clement we see clear signs that the author's gospel resembled a non-canonical gospel (either the Gospel of the Hebrews or the Gospel of the Egyptians).

The letter which goes by the name 'Polycarp to the Philippians' uses an identical formula as what we see in 1 Clement but then someone came along and made the gospel readings conform to the canonical gospels. The purpose of these corrections were to demonstrate that 'Polycarp' was orthodox. Yet strangely the editor cannot identify 'the gospel' or 'gospels' by name. This is left strangely ambiguous.

Given the fact though that the Diatessaron so closely resembles this 'little correction' - i.e. making the saying of Jesus resemble what appears in the canonical gospels - we are left with two possibilities:

(1) Polycarp not only corrected this reading in the saying in what is now called '1 Clement' because he knew the existence of 'according to Luke' and 'according to Matthew' but that this 'little correction' was part of a massive effort at harmonizing the gospel of '1 Clement' to conform to the four canonical gospels. In other words, the text which now passes as 'the Diatessaron' was also edited by Polycarp.

(2) Irenaeus, the man who claimed to be the only authority on Polycarp, changed the original readings to make Polycarp an indirect witness for the 'Gospel in four.' Remember it is textual critics who see the resemblance between Polycarp and 1 Clement. The text never gives any sign that author 'A' is drawing from author 'B'. They just happen to make the same arguments from the same - seemingly unimportant - gospel passage

Under the second scenario, a single, long gospel was shared by the authors of '1 Clement' and 'Polycarp.' They were part of a tradition that used 'the Gospel of the Hebrews' or some such text and then Irenaeus not only corrected the reference in Polycarp but also reformulated a version of the 'mixed gospel' (i.e. the Diatessaron) where the general structure of the narrative remained consistent but where the text itself was used to witness the original readings of the four texts of the new canon.

In other words, Polycarp did not use the four gospels. Everyone in his day knew that he used only one gospel which he received from John. That is why Irenaeus can never say that 'the elder' (viz. Polycarp) used or promoted 'the four-faced gospel.'

Nevertheless, Irenaeus COULD say that the single, long gospel which the Valentinians like Florinus (see Connolly's article on the use of the Diatessaron in the Valentinian tradition) said that Polycarp used 'really' represented a 'mixture' of the four gospels. This finally explains why Tatian's text was lost very early in early Christian history. The Diatessaron is a re-forming of the original, long gospel SHARED by Tatian, Polycarp and Theophilus.

In any event, scholars like von Campenhausen, Koester and Carlson want to keep the explanation of how 1 Clement's gospel citation became Polycarp's in to the Philippians WITHOUT explaining the Arabic Diatessaron. The reason for this is obvious - THEY ARE TOO LAZY TO 'MOVE ALL THE FURNITURE IN THE HOUSE' and work up a sweat. Above all else they want to show that the discovery of a parallel between 1 Clement and to the Philippians 'does not upset everything.'

The same person who 'changed' the reference in 1 Clement to the citation in 'to the Philippians' ALSO had a hand in developing the text behind the Arabic Diatessaron (undoubtedly also the one used by Ephrem). This cannot be avoided. It is impossible to believe that the editor of this proto-Diatessaron constructed the whole text to 'add' the change of 'to the Philippians.' Nor it is possible to suggest that 'it was just a lucky hit' - i.e. that both the author of the proto-Diatessaron and the editor of to the Philippians arrived at the same changes to the gospel of '1 Clement' independently of one another.

The bottom line is that either Polycarp changed the entire gospel of the author of 1 Clement and then naturally cited his 'corrected' Diatessaron during the course of his citation of the original material OR Irenaeus corrected BOTH 'to the Philippians' AND the original gospel of Polycarp which eventually became 'the Diatessaron.'

The corollary of either possibilities is that Polycarp used a text like the Diatessaron or Irenaeus 'corrected' the original text of 'to the Philippians' to make it look like he knew the four canonical gospels THROUGH the Diatessaron. Either way, the implications are the same. The real Polycarp of history wasn't as orthodox as later authorities pretend that he was. Maybe that's why Irenaeus most often avoids mentioning his name and refers to him by the cryptic epithet 'the elder.'

I think this shows that other people - viz. like Florinus and Gaius of Rome - had 'dirt' on Polycarp. But I will demonstrate this in greater detail when my Against Polycarp finally gets published.

And one more thing - Eusebius tells us that (a) the gospel references from 'Hegesippus' were all from the Gospel of the Hebrews and (b) he and Irenaeus shared peculiar use of at least one unique text. Syncellus identifies 'Hegesippus' as a 'disciple of the apostles' which is identical with Irenaeus's description of Polycarp.

stephan huller

Some notes on the interrelatedness of Hegesippus references in Irenaeus, Eusebius and Epiphanius from Lightfoot's Apostolic Fathers:

We have seen (p. 203) that the list of names is found in a work of Irenaeus, written during the episcopate of Eleutherus, whose date may be placed provisionally about AD 175 — 190. A few years earlier however, under Anicetus (about AD 155 - 165 CE), a catalogue was drawn up by Hegesippus then sojourning in Rome, though not published till the time of Eleutherus. Is this catalogue irretrievably lost, or can we recover it any later writer?

Attention has been called already (p. 202 sq) to the motives which rompted Hegesippus to undertake this task and to the language in which he describes it; but my present purpose requires me to dwell at greater length on his statement Eusebius (If. E. iv. 22) records that Hegesippus 'after certain statements respecting the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, proceeded as follows:

'And the Church of the Corinthians continued in the orthodox doctrine till the episcopate of Primus. Their acquaintance I made on my journey to Rome, when I stayed with the Corinthians a considerable time during which we refreshed one another with the orthodox doctrine. And after I went to Rome, I drew up a list of succession as far as Anicetus, whose deacon Eleutherus (then) was. After Anicetus Soter succeeded, and after Soter Eleutherus. But in every succession and in every city they adhered to the teaching of the Law and the Prophets and the Lord.'

It will be observed that Hegesippus is here dealing with heresies and that the catalogue of the Roman bishops, as I have already explained (p. 203), was drawn up as a practical refutation of these. It should be noted likewise that this catalogue is mentioned in immediate connexion with Clement's Epistle and with the dissensions in the Corinthian Church which called it forth. We may infer then that the catalogue was included somewhere in these Memoirs, and not improbably in the context of the passage which Eusebius quotes.

Now Epiphanius (Haer. xxvii. 6) devotes a long paragraph to the early devotes a long paragraph to the early history of the Roman bishops, in which he introduces a list of succession. It has been strangely neglected by writers on the subject. Even Lipsius barely mentions it once or twice casually, and (so far as I remember) never discusses it. Yet a catalogue of this early date (c. AD 375), which is plainly independent of the Eusebian lists, deserves more than a mere passing mention.

Epiphanius has been speaking of Carpocrates and his school, and as connected therewith he mentions one Marcellina, a lady heretic, who taught in Rome in the time of Anicetus. His opening words are sufficiently curious to deserve quoting:

A certain Marcellina who had been led into error by them [the disciples of Carpocrates] paid us a visit some time ago (or as Lightfoots "survived to our own times"). She was the ruin of a great number of persons in the time of Anicetus, bishop of Rome, who succeeded Pius and his predecessors.

Let me interject some comments from Lawlor here (Eusebiana Essays p. 74):

The words ' paid us a visit' are evidently taken over from a contemporary document, the phraseology of which Epiphanius, with a carelessness of which we find other examples in the Panarion, has forgotten to alter so as to make it suit its new environment. Further, if the next sentence is from the same document it would seem that it was written after, though not very long after, the episcopate of Anicetus. And the expression ' bishop of Rome ' may perhaps indicate that the writer was not Roman. That Epiphanius believed that he was in Rome when he was visited by Marcellina, and that the visit was paid under Anicetus, becomes plain when we glance at the next page, where he repeats the information in a somewhat different form. In the times, as we have said, of Anicetus, the above-named Marcellina having come to Rome,' The record which Epiphanius uses in this place seems, therefore, to have come from the pen of some stranger who was in Rome in the time of Anicetus, and to have been written not long after the death of that bishop. Now if we are to believe Eusebius Hegesippus came to Rome under Anicetus ... Epiphanius then quoting from the Memoirs? The suggestion is at least plausible.

But there is other evidence in favour of it. The statement about Marcellina is found also in the chapter about the the Carpocratians in Irenaeus's work Against Heresies? Now the whole of that chapter has obviously a close connexion with the passage of Epiphanius m which the notice of Marcellina occurs. In both we are told (1) that the Carpocratians 'sealed' members of their sect by branding them on the right ear, (2) that Marcellina made many converts under Anicetus, (3) that the Carpocratians were called Gnostics, (4) that they had images of Christ painted or formed of ' other material ', which were said to have been made by Pilate while Christ was on earth, (5) that these images were placed beside images of philosophers such as Pythagoras, Plato, nd Aristotle.and (6) that they were venerated with Gentile rites. But Epiphanius certainly did not here borrow from Irenaeus. Irenaeus says that Marcellina came ' to Rome ', Epiphanius that she came ' to us '. A late writer copying Irenaeus could not have substituted the latter for the former. And Epiphanius adds some particulars which are not in Irenaeus and which he can scarcely have invented. He mentions the instruments with which the branding was performed, expands the ' other material ' of Irenaeus into ' gold and silver and other material ', and he refers at the end of the passage to the doctrine of the Carpocratians that salvation was of the soul only and not of the body. Thus it remains that Irenaeus and Epiphanius based their statements on a common document. No work, except the Memoirs of Hegesippus, can be suggested which fulfils the necessary conditions of time and place.

Attention may be called to another point of contact between this passage of Epiphanius and the Memoirs. Hegesippus, like the author of Epiphanius's source, classed the Carpocratians among the Gnostics, and it seems to be implied by Eusebius that they were one of the heretical sects against which he contended. But we may go further. In the same context, and shortly before he comes to to name Hegesippus as one of the champions of the faith against heretics, Eusebius makes reference to the chapter of Irenaeus on the Carpocratians : ' Irenaeus also writes that contemporary with these (Saturninus and Basilides) was Carpocrates, the father of another heresy called that of the Gnostics.' Whence did he borrow this description of Carpocrates? Not, certainly, from Irenaeus; for he says no more than that the followers of Carpocrates called themselves Gnostics. But in the parallel passage Epiphanius tells us that 'thence— ie from the teaching of Marcellina at Rome or perhaps from the Carpocratians generally — has come the origin (ἀρχή) of those who are called Gnostics '.(Haer 27.6) In tracing the origin of Gnosticism to the teaching of Carpocrates did Epiphanius follow the source more exactly than Irenaeus? And in dubbing him ' the father of the heresy called that of the Gnostics ' does Eusebius echo the same phrase? (Lawlor demonstrates in the footnote he does) If so, we have an indication that the source was known to Eusebius and was in fact the Memoirs. That ἀρχή (or a cognate) was actually the word used by Hegesippus may appear likely if we recall the words in which he speaks of the first entrance of heresy into the Church of Jerusalem (Greek text cited from Church History 4.22.4). In the present passage all that is meant may perhaps be that the arrival of Marcellina marked the beginning of Gnostic teaching in Rome, just as the conduct of of Thebuthis marked the beginning of 'vain doctrine' in Jerusalem, though Eusebius in both cases has given the words a wider significance.

Immediately after his first notice of Marcellina Epiphanius proceeds to give a list of the bishops of Rome, beginning with the 'apostles and bishops, Peter and Paul ', and ending with Clement. Then comes a long digression about Clement, which has nothing to do with his main subject, the Carpocratian heresy. Near the end of the digression he mentions incidentally that the two bishops who followed next after the apostles, Linus and Cletus, ruled each for twelve years. Then he once more sets out the order of succession of the bishops, this time carrying it on to Anicetus, and resumes his account of the Carpocratians with a repetition in different words of what he had already said about Marcellina. Thus he returns to the document of which he had made use at the beginning of the paragraph.

The list of Roman bishops, part of which Epiphanius writes down twice, is taken from a document, and was not compiled by Epiphanius himself. This fact is betrayed, once more, by the carelessness of Epiphanius. The list, on repetition, ends with the name of Anicetus, on which follows, ' who has been already mentioned above in the catalogue ' (Greek text cited). Now there is in the Panarion no catalogue of bishops which can be referred to here The obvious inference is that Epiphanius took his list from a writing in which its position was considerably earlier than the note, and that he has transcribed the latter, not observing that the omission of the katalogos from its proper place rendered it unmeaning.

Further, most readers of this passage will probably agree with. Harnack when he says that the list of bishops and the episode of Marcellina are inseparably connected. They must have been taken from the same document. Hence, if the foregoing argument is sound the former as well as the latter comes from the Memoirs of Hegesippus. Thus we may account for the presence of such irrelevant matter as a list of the bishops of Rome in a passage whose subject is the heresy of Carpocrates. The account of the Carpocratians, including the sentences about Marcellina, was in the Memoirs inserted in the katalogos was not the mere list of names which the word might seem to import, The name of each bishop was associated with some account of his period of office. This inference is supported by the fact that Epiphanius tells us, no doubt relying on his katalogos hat Linus and Cletus each ruled the Church for twelve years. It is supported also by the digression about Clement. This is really a digression within a digression. Epiphanius breaks off his discourse about the Carpocratians to give the list of bishops, and he breaks off the list when he reaches Clement to explain the difficulty about his place in the succession. It is natural to suppose that something in the catalogue itself suggested this fresh interruption. This can have been nothing else than an assertion that he was a contemporary of the apostles and was appointed bishop by St. Peter. The repetition of the former statement in successive clauses J leaves the impression that it was, as it were, the text of the discourse, and the use of a Hegesippan phrase (Greek text cited) in the latter is significant.

If all this is true the katalogos which Epiphanius had in his hands must have been a kind of history of the early Roman Church not at all unlike the history of the early Church of Jerusalem which Hegesippus incorporated in his Memoirs. Two special features of resemblance between the two may be pointed out. As in the Memoirs the manner of the appointment to the episcopate of James and Symeon is dwelt upon, so here the appointment of Clement by St. Peter while he and St. Paul were still alive is recorded. And as there the introduction of heresy into Jerusalem by Thebuthis under Symeon is recounted, so here the introduction of Gnosticism into Rome by Marcellina under Anicetus is duly noted, and apparently dealt with at some length.

The conclusion to which we seem to be irresistibly led by all these circumstances is that the whole of this paragraph of the Panarion of Epiphanius, excepting only the argument about Clement, is directly based on a passage of Hegesippus's Memoirs. This conclusion is supported by the high authority of Lightfoot, who, indeed, was the first to suggest it. [p. 74 - 83] Eusebiana: Essays on the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Hugh Jackson Lawlor, available on google books

I strongly believe that Lawlor's arguments are immensely useful for reconstructing the context of the various citations of what we have clearly determined are an introduction to the five books connected originally with Josephus. Nevertheless we must take issue with Lawlor's claims that the reference to Clement are not part of the original υπομνηματα.

What has escaped Lawlor is the fact that Irenaeus is clearly citing at least part of the same section at the beginning of Book Three of Against All Heresies. All that he is leaving out now is specific mention of the 'Carpocratians' as the heretical sect whom his source opposed.

I have to admit I am still digesting the significance of a lot of this information just cited. The conclusion again clearly is that the author still only composed two episcopal lists - Jerusalem and Rome. It references the author of the υπομνηματα as coming from Corinth to Rome and actively encouraging 'orthodoxy' among the bishops he met along the way. Irenaeus attributes the material to Polycarp while Eusebius says the author is Hegesippus. Epiphanius for his part never mentions the name of the author only the title of the work.

I am struck by the fact also that the Carpocratians play such a significant role in a text which might have been written BEFORE Against All Heresies was compiled. The thought that keeps running through my head is that the existence of this text challenges one of the traditional argument against To Theodore namely that its description of the Carpocratians does not 'fit' the known reports about the sect.

Now we have uncovered another earlier source for much of the information used by Irenaeus and Epiphanius. Is it possible that Clement was getting some of his information about the Carpocratians from the now lost υπομνηματα? And most significant of all - was his Jewish history of Josephus an earlier version of the υπομνηματα known to Eusebius and Epiphanius and which Eusebius attributes to 'Hegesippus'?

I will think about it tonight before continuing to transcribe some of Lightfoot's observations tomorrow ...

stephan huller

I am supposed to be getting ready for work this morning but I have waiting to read Epiphanius's description of the Carpocratians ever since I went to bed last night absolutely exhausted from transcribing that long section in Lawlor. I wanted to refresh my memory to see if Epiphanius - how has just been identified by Lawlor and Lightfoot as employing the υπομνηματα of Hegesippus for his information about the Carpocratians might have been the source of Clement's allusion to homosexual practices among the Carpocratians. This because Clement presumably would have had a copy of the υπομνηματα as his source for the statement regarding 'naked man and naked man.'

It turns out that Epiphanius does indeed make homosexual references in his report about the Carpocratians such as:

The plain fact is that these people perform every unspeakable, unlawful thing, which is not right even to say, and every kind of homosexual union and carnal intercourse with women, with every member of the body (Haer 1.27.4)

I hope someone understands the implication of this. Lawlor identifies another earlier source of information for the Carpocratians in Hegesippus. Clement used a version of Josephus that ended its chronology in 147 CE like the υπομνηματα of Hegesippus. More work is needed but I think we are on to something ...

andrewcriddle

Hi Stephan

You may have explained this earlier in the thread, but if so I missed it.

Hegesippus apparently arrived in Rome when Anicetus was pope. Anicetus probably became pope a little after 150 CE. Why on your analysis did Hegesippus construct a chronology ending in the tenth year of Antoninus Pius ie 147 CE. I would have expected the terminus of his chronology to be a few years later.

Andrew Criddle