mountainman

I intend to do the research that Dave's challenge demands. It is a very fair question by DCH and should be answered with quality research.

I am just getting sick and tired of being the subject of long-term ad hominem bullying by certain posters.

I am writing to Eric Knibbs, Assistant Professor of History at Williams College in Williamstown for permission to use his blog to mine and post summaries of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals.

These will then be used to make the appropriate parallels and correspondences between the 9th century forgery and the hypothetical 4th century forgery. It is a large task, but worthy.





εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

DCHindley

Do not get me wrong, mm, I do not expect you to prove anything. What I would like to see is folks find the works of those who "cracked" the case of Isadore the Merchant's collection of canon law and see what tipped them off, and how they followed it up.

For example, see the blog "Reading Pseudo-Isadore" by Eric Knibbs (Assistant Professor of History at Williams College in Williamstown, MA).

I first read about these "false decretals" in a very anti-Catholic introduction to a translation of them in the (American) ANF series (vol 8, pp 601ff), which in turn drew from a brief introduction in the (Scotch) ANCL series (both of which were discussed in another thread). A footnote refers the reader to L. Ellies Dupin (d. 1719), Eccles. History, Cent. iii. p. 173, ed. London, 1693.

If I am correct, this refers to A new history of ecclesiastical writers, London, 1693-1725. 14 vols. in 8. folio. (which is the English language parallel publication to the French language Nouvelle Bibliotheque des Auteurs ecclesiatiques, Paris et Amsterdam, 1693-1711. 18 vols. in 6. 4to). Except for volume 12 of the French version of this series, I cannot find a copy of it in archivge.org.

But it is a start.

DCH

DCHindley

At the time of the publication of the translation found in ANCL (by S. D. F. Salmond, vol 9, 1869), the most up to date treatment was that of Paul Hinschius, ed. Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae (Leipzig, 1863). Because Hinschius was German, Salmond apparently paid no attention to him. Coxe did not refer to his work either in the American edition of ANF (vol 8).

According to Eric Knibbs (see previous post) the best English introduction to Pseudo-Isidore is Horst Fuhrmann, “The Pseudo-Isidorian Forgeries,” in Detlev Jasper and Horst Fuhrmann, Papal Letters in the Early Middle Ages (Washington D.C., 2001), 137–195. It is not informed about additional facts uncovered after 2006 relating to sources and place of composition. See Knibbs "Introduction to Pseudo-Isidore" available online here.

DCH

mountainman

Hi DCH. The key phrase in your OP as I see it was to deconstruct the NT and early Church documents [as forgeries akin to the Pseudo-Isidorian forgeries].

From my reading to date the Pseudo-Isidorian forgeries were only able to recognised as such in their fullest sense by means of an accurate dating of all the relevant manuscripts. Many of the earlier researchers made errors in their assessment of the accurate chronology of manuscript tradition. This situation is outlined quite clearly in Pseudo-Isidore from the Manuscripts by Schafer Williams (1967) where a number of diagrams highlight the issues. This article commences with the following:

The blog of Eric Knibbs discloses that the major 20th century Pseudo-Isidore scholars were Paul Hinschius, Emil Seckel and Horst Fuhrmann. Eric writes about the more recent discoveries as follows:


So do you acknowledge that the primary task in the OP is to deconstruct the NT and early Church documents [as forgeries akin to the Pseudo-Isidorian forgeries]?

If this is the case an immediate parallel is to be drawn between the library of the monastery at Corbie and the 3rd and 4th century library of Caesarea which was essentially "inherited" by the 4th century Christian "historian" Eusebius Pamphilus of Caesarea.

As to an analysis of the means, motive and opportunity by which the team of professional scribes (oversighted by Eusebius, and possibly commissioned by the Emperor Constantine) and how there are correlates to the 9th century Pseudo-Isidorian forgeries, I shall post later after further research. However one final point. Namely the identification over the intervening centuries of masses of documents for which the author is attributed as "Pseudo-X" where X is the name of a church father or an apologist or a pagan writer. There are a vast amount of such documents (and of course "Pseudo-Authors"). Where are the archives when you need them?

In an article discussing how Thomas Aquinas was "taken in" by these forged decretals of the 9th century, one major MOTIVE emerges ....


It is a striking fact that the Pseudo-Isidorian forgeries use the 4th century Pope Damasus as the (false) instigator at the chronological beginning of the forged papal letters mainly of thirty-three popes, from Silvester (314-335) to Gregory II (715-731). Pope Damasus was the first non Christian "Pontifex Maximus", a role that was traditionally the head of all the pagan priests.

A further striking fact is that one slab of the massive forgery relates to a list of sixty apocryphal letters or decrees attributed to the PRE-NICAEAN popes from St. Clement (88-97) to Melchiades (311-314) inclusive. Of these sixty letters fifty-eight are forgeries. It seems pretty obvious that the forgers were attempting to bolster the historicity of the list of Bishops before Nicaea by furnishing forged documents.

More on the motives and means and opportunity later. And especially the sources that Eusebius seems to have used. In summary he seems to have used the pagan philosophical schools, particularly the Platonists. W. R. Inge writes that Augustine finds that "only a few words and phrases" need to be changed to bring Platonism into complete accord with Christianity. The major point here to digest is that the converse also applies. Namely that "only a few words and phrases" need to be changed to bring Christianity into complete accord with Platonism.


The earliest and classic case may be the 1st century author Philo, a Jewish Platonist whose works were alone preserved by the Christians of the 4th century. All of the above relates to the church documents and not to the NT. I shall focus on the NT in another post.


Keep well.





εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman

Although suspicions were aroused as early as 17th century scholarship it was not until the last couple of hundred years that many more of the corpus of manuscripts related to the Pseudo-Isidorian (False) Decretals were found and studied. Latin palaeography played a great part in the dating of many mss from many families of mss in this corpus.

The recent threads concerning the Vridar fiasco should remind everyone that unfortunately ancient manuscripts do not exhibit a system date and time, and the problem of dating has been critical to establishing precedence and thus forgery.

Greater precision in Chronology of Manuscripts

The problem with the NT and church documents from the 4th century is that we do not have too many at all. Certainly Vaticanus and Sinaticus and the Nag Hammadi codices and gJudas are dated from the 4th century, but these are the earliest. (We have elsewhere discussed the Greek palaeography assertions of pre-Constantinian times, and I feel that it is appropriate to dismiss these as 4th century fragments).

When the manuscript traditions for all Christian related documents in Greek, Latin, Coptic and Syriac are closely examined they all appear to have roots no earlier than the 4th century (again setting aside the Oxyrynchus Greek palaeography). The Pseudo-Isidorian material first appears in the 9th century and to all intents and purposes the Christian material first appears in the 4th century. This is the correspondence I see.




Here are 20 of these for the record .....

Authors and Pseudo Authors in "Early Christianity"

Paul and Pseudo Paul
Peter and Pseudo Peter
Mark and Pseudo Mark
John and Pseudo John
Luke and Pseudo Luke
Matthew and Pseudo Matthew
Justin Martyr and Pseudo Justin
Clement and Pseudo Clement
Hegesippus and Pseudo Hegesippus
Lucian and Pseudo Lucian
Tatian and Pseudo Tatian
Irenaeus and Pseudo Irenaeus
Tertullian and Pseudo Tertullian
Eusebius and Pseudo Eusebius
Cyril and Pseudo Cyril
Augustine and Pseudo Augustine
Barnabas and Pseudo Barnabas
Polycarp and Pseudo Polycarp
Origen and Pseudo Origen
Ignatius and Pseudo Ignatius

This list demonstrates that a great deal of forgery was taking place. We have no real authors or real names of real dates just a massive steaming pile of assertions and a mass of "pseudo-authors" who were certainly NOT the same unknown authors attributed to the unprovenanced mass of Christian literature we find published from the 4th century.


Use of Ancient Manuscripts in the forgery

We can all read the assessment how the fabricators of the Pseudo-Isidorian operated by taking phrases from host of past manuscripts and stories and then melding them together to achieve the superficial appearance of an ancient text. The fabricators are suspected of being literary monks perhaps oversighted by a clever editor and who had access to mss which were ancient in the 9th century.

Because the Christian regimes essentially burnt down the libraries of antiquity (Pergamum, Alexandria, et al) very few mss from the antiquity before the 4th century have been preserved. It is therefore not quite the same exercise to identify the Pseudo-Isidorian forgery as it is the "theoretical" Christian forgery which Emperor Julian most likely referred to as the "Fabrication of the Christians" (To Julian Galilaeans - Christians).

However we do find in the Nag Hammadi Codices a collection of three tracts which are highly related and which may have been placed in these buried books so that the editor of the NHC could demonstrate the means of this Christian fabrication. The Sophia of Jesus Christ is found within the Nag Hammadi Codices at NHC 3.4. But also see NHC 5.1 and 3.3.

Robin Lane-Fox summarises this as: "A pagan letter of "Eugnostos the Blessed" (NHC 3.3) was then given a christian preface and a conclusion (NHC 5.1) and represented in another copy (NHC 3.4) as the "wisdom" which Jesus revealed to his Apostles after his death..

It does not take too much imagination to see how the Sophia of Jesus was thus fabricated from a pagan letter by the addition of a few key words.


The "Maudite Cabal"

In the case of the Pseudo-Isidorian forgeries the forgers were a bunch of literate monks oversighted by an editor. In the case of the Christian church material we may suspect imperial sponsorship - a large number of professional Greek scribes oversighted by an editor (Eusebius). This is not to say that the entire fabrication was conducted in the lifespan of either Eusebius (d.339 CE) or Constantine (d.337 CE) because additional manipulation of the material could have occurred to the church documents for a number of generations afterwards. I understand from what Roger has stated that the earliest Eusebius mss we have are Syriac and are dated c.400 CE. This then is the approximate upper bound for "Eusebius" and/or his preservers.


The Lists of Bishops and Early Churches

Eusebius asserts these to have existed but we have no other evidence of this whatsoever. The fabricators of the Pseudo-Isidorian forgeries as can be ascertained went themselves to great lengths to forged a great many letters from these early church identities. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

We know that there were certainly no popes before Damasus (c.368CE) because the pagans had their own state religion and it was headed by the Pontifex Maximus (the emperor himself) until the time of Damasus. So we see that Isidore and Eusesbius could both simply have invented their lists of bishops and the correspondence between these fictitious identities. Bishop 1 to Bishop 2. Do you read me Bishop 2. Over.


The Platonist Philosophers

I have written a separate essay about the lineage of 3rd century Platonists and the 3rd century Christian bishops asserted to have existed in Eusebius's "Church History". This essay may be summarised with the following diagram:



The idea here is that Eusebius need raw materials by which the history of the Christian lineage might be seen to be preserved across the intervening centuries between the 1st and the 4th. Eusebius needed, just as Isidore needed, to demonstrate that this lineage was composed of important people whose names were remembered. In my assessment at the moment it would appear that he simply engaged in identity theft and made key Platonists some of his Christian bishops. Remember Ammonius the Philosopher, the Christians could say. well he was one of "Our Boys".


Any questions from the peanut gallery so far?






εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman

4th century Motive for the pre-Constantinian heresiological writings

The writings of Ireaeus, Tertullian and others are able to be explained as forgeries made in the 4th century with the motive in mind to retroject the issues of the explosion of heresies against the Constantine Bible to the past where they could be forgotten and controlled by the literate all-powerful sword wielding victors.

The parallel with Isodore is that he wished to retroject the issues of papal and bishop authorities into a past pseudo-history in order to provide documentary evidence for their wonderful superiority and authority over the entire race of mankind.

By retrojecting these massive controversies and heretics into a past pseudo-history, the victors could effectively ERASE the massive controversy and the massive appearance of heretics in the 4th century. When we look to the earliest reports of the Nicaean Council we are presented with the historical accounts of three 5th century heresiologists.

The same problem occurs when people search for the documentary evidence for the appearance of the history of Muhammad. It does not surface until 200 years after his supposed death.

YES. I do not trust the governments of the 21st century and I certainly do not trust the governments of a barbaric 4th century antiquity.

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful"

The more power the rulers have the more useful a centralised monotheistic state religion becomes.

If the rulers have absolute and supreme military power over an empire then a centralised monotheistic state religion becomes absolutely useful.

When are we going to wake up from this dream?


The second part of the Pseudo-Isidore material is described as follows:





εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Clivedurdle

If a forger's technique is about taking an existing passage and tweaking it, possibly with resources like trained slaves to do this, should we be looking for interesting marks on texts?

I wonder if a plagiarism search of all ancient documents might show up something. That would require digitising everything...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_science

(I read Umberto Eco Prague Cemetery last year!)

mountainman

With the 9th century Latin Pseudo-Isidorian manuscripts they have in many cases survived. These marks have been found on 9th century manuscripts in the case of the Isidore material (See post #14)

But what literary material other than the bible survived the 4th century Christian pyromaniacs? Only stuff that was buried, like the NHC.


BTW I just read "The Persian Fire" and am now reading "In the Shadow of the Sword" by Tom Holland. Thanks for the heads up on these 2 books Clivedurdle.

The "Great King of Kings" had immense power. Constantine also had immense power.

The centralised monotheistic state religion established by Ardashir c.222 CE and that established by Constantine c.325 CE seem to have one common feature, which might be seen as a MOTIVATION.

Both represented anti-Hellenistic revolutions.

The Greeks were far too smart for their own good. (Antikethera mechanism)

The Seven Heavens described by the gnostics (pagan greeks) were the astronomical orbits of the planets.

Ardashir and Constantine both wanted to get rid of the ancient Greek influence out of their empires and they both used a canonized holy writ to do so.





εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

aa5874

Why do you dismiss the evidence that shows you are wrong? Once you accept dating by paleography of Codices as 4th century manuscripts then you are not engaged in any serious research when you reject dating by paleography earlier than the 4th century.

mountainman

I have provided a number of reasons whereby I can seriously QUESTION the paleographic dating of small fragments of codex papyri from Oxyrynchus. These reasons have been outlined in a separate thread and have not been addressed here in discussion. Neither aa5874 to my knowledge have they been discussed and addressed by these ahem so-called "Biblical Historians" who have followed the 1953 novelty of identifying some of these Oxy codex papyri framents as before the Constantinian epoch.

Therefore you need to address each of these questions and issues earnestly:




Above I mentioned 4 codices: Vaticanus and Sinaticus and the Nag Hammadi codices and gJudas. The first two earliest Greek bible codices have been dated by a variety of methodologies, as have the gnostic codices. The papyri of gJudas has even been C14 dated (2 pages dated 280 +/- 60 years published via National Geographic, 1 loose fragment dated 333 +/- 60 years was precluded from the result). In these datings palaeography was of course used, but it was just one a raft of various dating methodologies.

In contrast the Oxyrynchus papyri have solely been dated (only since 1953) by palaeography alone alone alone.


The Conceptual System Date/Time Stamp of Historical Analysis

Returning to the OP to stress the critical nature of knowing and determining the actual date of manuscripts. The Pseudo-Isodore Decretals were eventually pegged as forgeries only once the dates of a large number (exceeds 90 now, in the 1800's they had 50) mss. One of the key dating methods was Latin palaeography.

There is no no question that the massive forgery of Pseudo-Isidore in the 9th century was conducted by people who used these documents in order to support their political motivations. These forgeries supported the power of the bishops and the pope.

The question whether there was a parallel forgery of the Church documents that was commissioned by Constantine in the 4th century can only be answered using an accurate knowledge of dating of manuscripts. Archaeological evidence suggests the 4th century with a few debated exceptions (such as the Yale-Eura-Duropos Mona Lisa Mural).

None of the Oxy papyri have been C14 dated. It would be good to see a new dating method evolve soon out of scientific technological advances like a point and click and look at the reading hand-held detector.








εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia