lpetrich

From someone else here,

That amuses me, because it reminds me of some years back in Usenet when a Baha'i tried to argue that Socrates had received instruction from King Solomon, and claimed certain Persian scholars as his source. That one was an easy one for me; King Solomon was much closer in time to Homer than to Socrates, who lived when Palestine was under Persian rule.

Also, there is little evidence that Socrates had learned anything from the Israelite priests there; otherwise, he would have denounced his city's religion as idolatry, insisted that one must not work each seventh day, that men get circumcised, that one not eat pork, that those guys in Palestine are God's chosen people, etc.

True, Plato demanded that the works of Homer and Hesiod be banned from his Republic, but he has many objections other than idolatry.

Roger Pearse

Thanks for the link - I've not posted here before, and wasn't familiar with the system.

The use of the word 'fiction' is not my personal decision - it's used by the Loeb translator of Plato, and by Sir Desmond Lee when he did a text of the Republic. Since the Greek word need not have the negative implications of 'lie', it misleads to choose an English word that is only used negatively, and no doubt that's why the translators used it.

Since Plato has been discussing the use of the Greek myth poetry (such as Homer) for education, and Eusebius is pointing up that the Bible contains stories not literally true, for the purpose of educating the dense, it seems that 'parable' is a good word to keep in mind.

Eusebius belonged to the school of Origen on biblical interpretation, that took a pretty aggressively allegorical view of scripture, just as the Alexandrian pagans had of Homer. I think he's just repeating this view. The point about whether it's ever legitimate to deceive others for their own good doesn't seem to be addressed directly by Eusebius, and it is after all only a throwaway remark (unless anyone knows different?) by Plato, in the body of his discussion of whether self-interest and the interests of all are the same. We need to read a bigger chunk of the Laws; and of the PE. I wish the whole PE were online, but it's a mighty pair of volumes. I did as much as I reasonably could.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Richard Carrier

I don't know where Roger Pearse gets the idea that ancient authors didn't add chapter headings. They most certainly did. This is quite unmistakable in the table of contents of the Natural History written by Pliny, for instance. Furthermore, in The Praeparatio Evangelica, the only hint at the purpose of the specific entries is given by the chapter headings, which complete subordinate sentences begun by the book headings. It would therefore be an almost inexplicable collection of quotations if not for the headings. They therefore must be genuine. Current consensus on their authenticity is also based on linguistic analysis: the headings are thoroughly Eusebian. It is, finally, only the headings that preserve the work as an extended argument, that argument being as Eusebius says that the Greeks got all their good ideas from the Jews. What good arguments? Only the headings say.

[ April 28, 2002: Message edited by: Richard Carrier ]</p>

Toto

I was going to drop this thread, but I am still amazed that anyone can think that Eusebius is not directly endorsing deceiving others for their own good in that passage.

Compare Aesop's fables and Santa. No child is ever told that Aesop is literally true. His stories are fables or parables. But children are taught that Santa really knows what they are doing and will reward them for being good. We don't call the Santa myth a lie, but only because we haven't faced up to the fact that it is one. It appears to me that Eusebius (and Plato) think that a lot of people are so dense that they need to be treated like children and told lies (i.e., they are told a fiction that is represented as fact). They need the threat of something actually happening, not an allegory or parable to illustrate a point.

This is not so astounding - many people have held this view throughout history. You still find people in this day and age who think religious is a pack of lies, but still useful for controlling their fellow citizens.

godfry n. glad

So....

Did Eusebius actually believe that Jesus had completed written correspondence with King Abgar of Edessa prior to his crucifiction?

Or, is this just another convenient failure on his part to accurately represent the truth of the matter?

Or, is it "parabolic"?

It looks to me as though Eusebius was either one huge liar, or the most gullible churchman to walk the face of the earth. I think that Eusebius' unctuous and obsequious "biography" of his imperial benefactor, Constantine, gives plenty of indication as to how far he was willing to go to advance himself and his interests through artful and deceptive writing. Why should we think he'd do any different with his ecclesiastical writings?

godfry n. glad

Iasion

Greetings all ..

yes, askeptic noted that -

And actually it's worse than that when it comes to the Gospels - the turn-of-the-century writings do not quote any Gospels and show no direct knowledge of their contents :

1 Clement gives only 2 variant Sayings of Jesus - among hundreds of explicit and named Pauline and OT cites.

I agree with Earl that 1 John was written before John's Gospel and shows signs of an early non-historical-Jesus Christianity.

The Didache discusses a ceremonial supper without showing any direct knowledge of the last Supper story.

Revelation is ignorant of the Gospel details.

The Sophia of Jesus Christ presents a clear example of Gnostic Christianity, probably from the turn of the century.

Even up to the early 2nd century there is not the slightest evidence for the existence of any Gospels.

By the time of Barnabas some of the details of the life of Jesus are becoming known - yet Barnabas wrote in symbolical, allegoric and numerological ways, very NON-historical - not yet any names or places - and no suggestion of anything like Gospel writing.


In the 120s Aristides suggests that the Gospels are new (his comment about the Gospels being preached a 'short time').
And in the 130s, Papias describes early Gospels.

And finally in the 140s (or maybe 130s if you think Ignatius is genuine) we start to see a fair amount of details about the Life of Jesus becoming known.

By the time of Justin - most of the story is known and the Gospels are mentioned.


So, the period when the Gospels 'surfaced' is actually the early-mid 2nd century - between the early 2nd century when nothing is known, and the mid 2nd century when most of the Gospel story is known.

Thus, most of the details of the Life of Jesus are unknown until more like a full century after the alleged events - not very solid history at all.

Quentin David Jones

Alexis Comnenus

My last word on this but it has been troubling me.

Mr Carrier translates 'pseudos' as falsehood and Toto likes the sound of lie. But this is impossible in the context. It is absolutely inconceivable that a fourth century Christian churchman would say that there were falsehoods or lies in the scriptures. Hence the correct translation simply cannot be this. It must be 'parable' or 'non literal language'. Anything stronger than that is, as I said above, as ridiculous as Josephus saying Jesus was the messiah.

In short, Eusebius did not say falsehoods or lies are OK because if he did he would also be saying they exist in scripture. And this would be impossible for him to believe. Hopefully Mr Carrier will realise this and correct his translation.

Was Eusebius gullable? By our standards perhaps but Godfrey's post is just more anachronism.

Regards

Alex

godfry n. glad

Now ain't that ironic?

I postulate some questions about the motives of Eusebius, and I'm accused of engaging in anachronisms by somebody who can read the mind of a churchman now sixteen centuries dead.

Tell me, Alex, just how is it that you _know_ that Eusebius could not have stated that some scriptures were falsehoods? Here's the short answer: YOU DON'T.

I'd suggest that you get a grip and realize that the evidence that is available from Eusebius' own works indicates that he was a grasping, sycophantic imperial lickspittle who would do whatever necessary to improve his social and political position. He went into the Nicea conclave an Arian and came out an anti-Arian, because that's what Constantine wanted. His biography of Constantine is a masterful piece of political spin-doctoring that conveniently ignored a great deal of the scandalous details about Constantine's life, not to mention the emperor's religious beliefs.

You seem to think that Eusebius was some kind of saint, when, from my perspective, anyway, he was merely an intelligent and literate ass-kisser who would do _anything_ to advance himself. To me, the evidence indicates that Eusebius was fully capable of manufacturing whatever "evidence" was necessary to provide what his master wanted; and his master was not Christ or the church, it was Constantine.

godfry n. glad

(and I'm case-sensitive about it, al.)

Alexis Comnenus

godfry,

I grant most of what you say about Eusebius but I've read enough pagan and christian panegyric to treat him as pretty typical for his time. Hence my charge of anachronism - you are personalising on Eusebius your objections to his time.

Ultimately, we were arguing about whether Eusebius explicitly condoned lying. Clearly, he didn't but there is a widespread belief based on misattribution and mistranslation that he did. Surely, we should want to correct that mistake regardless of the atheological propaganda that has been made of Eusebius's alleged admission.

Regards

al

Toto

Alex -

You and Pearse have made your arguments, and Carrier, along with apparently most of the scholarly community, has not changed his position. It seems that your argument is that Eusebius didn't say it because he just couldn't have. It's not very convincing to people who don't start with the idea that Christianity is the height of moral purity.

Did you ever play Bertram Russell's game of conjugating irregular adjectives (I think that's was it was.) It went something like - I have big bones, you are overweight, he is fat. I insist on getting value for my money, you are thrifty, he is a cheapskate. So perhaps Eusebius could say: I engage in creative fiction for the benefit of people who are too dense to understand the real basis of morality, you say things that are not literally true, he tells lies. What's the difference?