Leucius Charinus wrote:Scholars have reconstructed what they are presuming Julian wrote c.361 CE in his three books "Against the Christians" from the first ten of the twenty books of "Contra Julian" Bishop Cyril of Alexandria c.429-441 CE (??) wrote. Consequently this reconstruction may well appear as a composite work.
A word of clarification: if you look at a text of Cyril's "Contra Julianum", it consists of book 1, which is a general overview of the topic, and then books 2-10 which consist of a passage of Julian, headed with his name in our texts (and probably in Cyril's original too, IMHO), and then Cyril's comment on it. So it is quite easy to be certain of what the chunks of the book are; but not of their sequence. Cyril tells us that Julian rambled a lot and repeated himself a lot, and that he had to reorder the quotes to make something that could be engaged with logically.
I think the same thing happened in Origen's Against Celsus. People think that Against Celsus goes section by section through the True Account but it doesn't really. You can see that every once and a while there are bits and pieces in the wrong order. Origen says that he wrote the text and then it was reordered. I find this suspicious. I think Celsus's original argument was still too strong and painful for the Christian community so Origen - or possibly Eusebius - 'corrected' the original text at certain places. Look toward the end of Book Eight. There is this statement like "the Christians think that all the people of the world can live under one law, but they know nothing" or something like that. It doesn't fit in the order of quotes. There is this other section I think in Book Five or Six where he twice quotes the words about the Jews but in between the two quotes there is another section of text. It can't be the original order throughout.
It is claimed that Origen himself admitted his writings were corrupted.
See Apology Against Rufinus 2.
18. After this preface as to the falsification by heretics of the apostles, of both the Clements, and of Dionysius, he at last comes to Origen; and these are his words:
“I have shown from his own words and writings how he himself complains of this and deplores it: He explains clearly in the letter which he wrote to some of his intimate friends at Alexandria what he suffered while living here in the flesh and in the full enjoyment of his senses, by the corruption of his books and treatises, or by spurious editions of them.”
He subjoins a copy of this letter; and he who implores to the heretics the falsification of Origen's writings himself begins by falsifying them, for he does not translate the letter as he finds it in the Greek, and does not convey to the Latins what Origen states in his letter.
Origen's writings were most likely falsified by the Church because they should have had Origen's writings BEFORE they were supposedly falsified and Origen himself should have had his own books in his possession which were free of interpolations.
Yes but the more likely candidate for the corruptions is Eusebius who also accused of correcting Origen and other Alexandrian writers. The problem with you guys is that you get these pieces of evidence - i.e. that the writings were corrupted - but then you go to town and make some ridiculous inference like 'Origen never existed' 'he wasn't a Christian' or whatever (I am not saying that any one of you claim this but that you all engage in ridiculous inferences from evidence of this sort). The bottom line is that Against Celsus was written by a real person named Origen who apparently was 'hired' to write this response before the persecutions in Alexandria (see the preface) and then 'corrected' that original work or started again. I find this suspicious and think that Eusebius is that original editor of the work. I highly doubt it is Rufinus but then again he seemed to have edited the Clementine Literature so anything is possible.
I find there is a strong distinction between Origen's early works and his later material. I am not sufficiently well versed in all Origen's writings to make any definitive pronouncements either way. It is clear however that Origen's works came down to us heavily edited. The clearest example of this is the difference between the Homily on Psalms in their original form and the Latin translation of Rufinus. The same holds true throughout his works.
stephan happy huller wrote:Yes but the more likely candidate for the corruptions is Eusebius who also accused of correcting Origen and other Alexandrian writers. The problem with you guys is that you get these pieces of evidence - i.e. that the writings were corrupted - but then you go to town and make some ridiculous inference like 'Origen never existed' 'he wasn't a Christian' or whatever (I am not saying that any one of you claim this but that you all engage in ridiculous inferences from evidence of this sort)....
You invented your own ridiculous inference about Origen's existence and then immediately admitted no-one but you made it up.
In any event, You keep forgetting that you have already claimed the NT are forgeries to prove primacy. You also claimed there is evidence that Irenaeus wrote in the 3rd century.
Stephan happy Huller wrote:... The bottom line is that Against Celsus was written by a real person named Origen who apparently was 'hired' to write this response before the persecutions in Alexandria (see the preface) and then 'corrected' that original work or started again. I find this suspicious and think that Eusebius is that original editor of the work. I highly doubt it is Rufinus but then again he seemed to have edited the Clementine Literature so anything is possible.
So, the bottom line is that you really don't know who "edited" 'Against Celsus'.
Stephan happy Huller wrote:I find there is a strong distinction between Origen's early works and his later material. I am not sufficiently well versed in all Origen's writings to make any definitive pronouncements either way. It is clear however that Origen's works came down to us heavily edited. The clearest example of this is the difference between the Homily on Psalms in their original form and the Latin translation of Rufinus. The same holds true throughout his works.
You just made a definitive pronouncement about Origen's early and late works and immediately admitted you are not sufficiently well versed in Origen's writings.
