Did the Church Fathers Really Take ΙΣ = Jesus?

[Secret Alias]

2. Justin Dialogue 126

"But if you knew, Trypho," continued I, "who He is that is called at one time the Angel of great counsel, and a Man by Ezekiel, and like the Son of man by Daniel, and a Child by Isaiah, and Christ and God to be worshipped by David, and Christ and a Stone by many, and Wisdom by Solomon, and Joseph and Judah and a Star by Moses, and the East by Zechariah, and the Suffering One and Jacob and Israel by Isaiah again, and a Rod, and Flower, and Corner-Stone, and Son of God, you would not have blasphemer Him who has now come, and been born, and suffered, and ascended to heaven; who shall also come again, and then your twelve tribes shall mourn. For if you had understood what has been written by the prophets, you would not have denied that He was God, Son of the only, unbegotten, unutterable God. For Moses says somewhere in Exodus the following: 'The Lord spoke to Moses, and said to him, I am the Lord, and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, being their God; and my name I revealed not to them, and I established my covenant with them.' And thus again he says, 'A man wrestled with Jacob,' and asserts it was God; narrating that Jacob said, 'I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.' And it is recorded that he called the place where He wrestled with him, appeared to and blessed him, the Face of God (Peniel). And Moses says that God appeared also to Abraham near the oak in Mature, when he was sitting at the door of his tent at mid-day. Then he goes on to say: 'And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, three men stood before him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them.' a After a little, one of them promises a son to Abraham: 'Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall. I of a surety bear a child, and I am old? Is anything impossible with God? At the time appointed I will return, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. And they went away from Abraham.' Again he speaks of them thus: 'And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom.' Then to Abraham He who was and is again speaks: 'I will not hide from Abraham, my servant, what I intend to do.'" And what follows in the writings of Moses I quoted and explained; "from which I have demonstrated," I said, "that He who is described as God appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and the other patriarchs, was appointed under the authority of the Father and Lord, and ministers to His will." Then I went on to say what I had not said before: "And so, when the people desired to eat flesh, and Moses had lost faith in Him, who also there is called the Angel, and who promised that God would give them to satiety, He who is both God and the Angel, sent by the Father, is described as saying and doing these things. For thus the Scripture says: 'And the Lord said to Moses Will the Lord's hand not be sufficient? thou shall know now whether my word shall conceal thee or not.' And again, in other words, it thus says: 'But the Lord spoke unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan: the Lord thy God, who goeth before thy face, He shall cut off the nations.'

Most of these are identified as divine 'eesh' or 'anashim' (plural of eesh) references. Peter is right that that the earlier referenced 'Exodus' naming reference is Exodus 3:14 (remember I said it wasn't the giving of Joshua his name). But look how bizarre the reference is:

For Moses says somewhere in Exodus the following: 'The Lord spoke to Moses, and said to him, I am the Lord, and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, being their God; and my name I revealed not to them, and I established my covenant with them.'

εἴρηται γάρ που καὶ διὰ Μωυσέως ἐν τῇ Ἐξόδῳ οὕτως· Ἐλάλησε δὲ κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν, καὶ εἶπε πρὸς αὐτόν· Ἐγώ εἰμι κύριος, καὶ ὤφθην πρὸς τὸν Ἀβραὰμ καὶ Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακώβ, θεὸς αὐτῶν, καὶ τὸ ὄνομά μου οὐκ ἐδήλωσα αὐτοῖς, καὶ ἔστησα τὴν διαθήκην μου πρὸς αὐτούς.

The standard citations read, Exodus 3:6 (where the angel speaks directly to Moses):

And he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraam, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob

and then a discussion where the angel reveals his name in a strange directive aimed at the people of Israel:

And Moses said to God, Behold, I shall go forth to the children of Israel, and shall say to them, The God of our fathers has sent me to you; and they will ask me, What is his name? What shall I say to them? And God spoke to Moses, saying, I am THE BEING; and he said, Thus shall ye say to the children of Israel, THE BEING has sent me to you. And God said again to Moses, Thus shalt thou say to the sons of Israel, The Lord God of our fathers, the God of Abraam, and God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, has sent me to you: this is my name for ever, and my memorial to generations of generations. Go then and gather the elders of the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them, The Lord God of our fathers has appeared to me, the God of Abraam, and God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, saying, I have surely looked upon you, and upon all the things which have happened to you in Egypt.

It is difficult to know what text of Exodus Justin citing but clearly Exodus chapter 3 is the place where a second god is again revealed to Moses, a god which we see here in the context of Justin's speech to Trypho is Ish (the Man). Not only does he reference 'ish' passage throughout the section (i.e. 'Ezekiel' presumably chapter 1 but also 'the East' reference in Zechariah viz. "Behold the man (אִ֞ישׁ) whose name is the Rising ..." but also Jacob wrestling with the אִ֞ישׁ, the אִ֞ישׁ who visits Abraham and is the interest of the Marcionites in De Recta in Deum Fide etc. It is also noteworthy that the Dialogue glosses over large parts of the original discussion with Trypho. Notice here we only get a cursory 'summary' from 'Justin' in the vaguest form. Clearly the 'two powers' argument made by Justin were problematic for later orthodox(ies).

So just to make it clear. Dialogue 128's reference "I had previously quoted from Exodus, about the vision in the bush and the naming of IC ..." is absolutely certainly NOT a mistake for Numbers allusion to Moses giving Joshua his name but a clear allusion to Exodus chapter 3. Indeed Justin's text of Exodus read:

For Moses says somewhere in Exodus the following: 'The Lord spoke to Moses, and said to him, I am the Lord, and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, being their God; and my name I revealed not to them, and I established my covenant with them.

and assumes that the name above all names was given to Moses, the name that Justin identifies as IC, the name of god/man that established the religion later identified as 'Christianity.'

[Secret Alias]

And it should be noted that the concept of 'my name' as a separate hypostasis already appears in Deuteronomy where 'my name' is distinct from Yahweh (Yahweh refers to 'my name' as a distinct entity) https://books.google.com/books?id=xBzpB ... 22&f=false

[Secret Alias]

3. Justin Dialogue 125

"I wish, sirs," I said, "to learn from you what is the force of the name Israel."

And as they were silent, I continued: "I shall tell you what I know: for I do not think it fight, when I know, not to speak; or, suspecting that you do know, and yet from envy or from voluntary ignorance deceive yourselves, to be continually solicitous; but I speak all things simply and candidly, as my Lord said: 'A sower went forth to sow the seed; and some fell by the wayside; and some among thorns, and some on stony ground, and some on good ground.'

I must speak, then, in the hope of finding good ground somewhere; since that Lord of mine, as One strong and powerful, comes to demand back His own from all, land will not condemn His steward if He recognises that he, by the knowledge that the Lord is powerful and has come to demand His own, has given it to every bank, and has not digged for any cause whatsoever.

Accordingly the name Israel signifies this, A man who overcomes power; for Isra is a man overcoming, and El is power. And that Christ would act so when He became man was foretold by the mystery of Jacob's wrestling with Him who appeared to him, in that He ministered to the will of the Father, yet nevertheless is God, in that He is the first-begotten of all creatures ... But Israel was His name from the beginning, to which He altered the name of the blessed Jacob when He blessed him with His own name, proclaiming thereby that all who through Him have fled for refuge to the Father, constitute the blessed Israel. But you, having understood none of this, and not being prepared to understand, since you are the children of Jacob after the fleshly seed, expect that you shall be assuredly saved. But that you deceive yourselves in such matters, I have proved by many words.

[Secret Alias]

4. Justin Dialogue 120

And a vast multitude in your nation are convicted of being of this kind, imbibing doctrines of bitterness and godlessness, but spurning the word of God. He speaks therefore in the passage relating to Judah: 'A prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a ruler from his thighs, till that which is laid up for him come; and He shall be the expectation of the nations.' And it is plain that this was spoken not of Judah, but of Christ. For all we out of all nations do expect not Judah, but IC, who led your fathers out of Egypt.

Joshua led the people out of Egypt? Plainly not true. By chapter 14 the Israelites are already 'out of Israel' and clearly identify Moses as the person who led them out - "They said to Moses, 'Why did you bring us to the desert to die? Weren’t there any graves in Egypt? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? We told you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone. Let us serve the Egyptians.’ It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die here in the desert!' [Exodus 14: 11-12] Joshua isn't mentioned until three chapters later. The IC cannot be Joshua or Jesus. The reference is clearly to Exodus 15 and the angelic man of war/glory which led the Israelites.

[Clive]

What would a translation of the New Testament replacing Jesus with the man or something similar read like?

[Secret Alias]

Cyril of Jerusalem Catech Lectures 6 citing a lost section of the Acts of Archelaus:

But the wise Archelaus undermined his blasphemous argument by saying, If the God of the Old Testament, as you say, calls Himself a fire, whose Son is He who says, I came to send fire on the earth

[Secret Alias]

Audius lived in Syria in the fourth century. His views extended into Scythia. Towards the end of the fourth century the opinion of the Audians appeared among some African Christians.[1]

In 325 at the First Council of Nicaea, it was decreed that all Christians should follow the Roman tradition of celebrating Pascha (Easter) at the Easter Sunday, and no longer at the date of 14 Nisan, like the Jewish Passover, as the so-called Quartodecimans were used to do.[2] The Audians, however, continued the Quartodeciman practice.

Epiphanius of Salamis called attention to the Audians (as well as other sects he considered heretical) in his Panarion. Although Epiphanius is not always a trustworthy source, but correctly quotes the viewpoint of the Audians,[3] that the church had "abandoned the fathers' Paschal rite in Constantine's time from deference to the emperor, and changed the day to suit the emperor".[4]

Roman Emperors Constantine I the Great and Theodosius I legislated against the Audians, but the sect was still practicing quartodecimanism in Syrian Antioch in the 380s.

The Church Father Theodoret wrote on this heresy the following, as Chapter IX of his Ecclesiastical History (Book IV), titled "Of the heresy of the Audiani":

The illustrious emperor thus took heed of the apostolic decrees, but Audaeus, a Syrian alike in race and in speech, appeared at that time as an inventor of new decrees. He had long ago begun to incubate iniquities and now appeared in his true character. At first he understood in an absurd sense the passage "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." From want of apprehension of the meaning of the divine Scripture he understood the Divine Being to have a human form, and conjectured it to be enveloped in bodily parts; for Holy Scripture frequently describes the divine operations under the names of human parts, since by these means the providence of God is made more easily intelligible to minds incapable of perceiving any immaterial ideas. To this impiety Audaeus added others of a similar kind. By an eclectic process he adopted some of the Manichean doctrines of Manes and denied that the God of the universe is creator of either fire or darkness. But these and all similar errors are concealed by the adherents of his faction.

They allege that they are separated from the assemblies of the Church. But since some of them exact a cursed usury, and some live unlawfully with women without the bond of wedlock, while those who are innocent of these practices live in free fellowship with the guilty, they hide the blasphemy of their doctrines by accounting as they do for their living by themselves. The plea is however an impudent one, and the natural result of Pharisaic teaching, for the Pharisees accused the Physician of souls and bodies in their question to the holy Apostles "How is it that your Master eateth with publicans and sinners?" and through the prophet, God of such men says "Which say, 'come not near me for I am pure' this is smoke of my wrath." But this is not a tithe to refute their unreasonable error. I therefore pass on to the remainder of my narrative.[5]

Other church fathers who wrote against it included Jerome[6] and Cyril of Alexandria, who encountered it among some Egyptian monks. Cyril composed a short refutation of their error, which he attributed to extreme ignorance.[7]

Anthropomorphism[edit]
Also other early Christian writers such as Melito of Sardis, Tertullian, Origen and Lactantius were accused of anthropomorphism.[1]

Anthropomorphism was revived in northern Italy during the tenth century, but was effectually suppressed by the bishops, notably by Ratherius, bishop of Verona.[1]

In modern times, Benny Hinn has also taught a form of anthropomorphism.[8]

[Secret Alias]

In Syriac Christianity there is a deep debate regarding the 'humanity' (= ˀnšw, ˀnšwtˀ [ˀĕ]nāšū, [ˀĕ]nāšūṯā, ) and the divinity (= alahutha). But isn't it obvious if - as I suggest - that at one time ish rather than enosh was the original terminology? Notice that even 'enosh' in Aramaic adds a yod to designation 'man' or 'human' http://cal.huc.edu/showjastrow.php?page=53. I don't understand the constructive understanding of how enashu means 'manhood' or 'humanity.' I get [e]nashuta. It behaves and looks like alahuta. But my guess is that Jesus (= Ishu) simply designated 'the man of God.'

[Secret Alias]

The same word alahota appears throughout the writings of Marqe especially where two powers are referenced:

Divinity appeared and established the covenant; glory appeared and magnified what was good.
The angels came to magnify what was glorious and they were all assembled for Adam.
Divinity formed him and the breath of life was breathed in him; glory made him complete with a great spirit; the two of them were clad in two crowns of great light.
Divinity put in him a perfect mind and Glory gave him powerful illumination.
Divinity also glorified him with speech and Glory glorified him with perfect knowledge.
The angels were witnesses to him of what he would do and they are all mentioned gathered in every place where God is mentioned in Truth.

[Secret Alias]

So in Syriac the hymn Sogdinan Mar, L-Alahootha, wal-Nashutha "We Bow o Lord, to your Divinity, and to your Humanity."