Chasing Hegesippus: a short commentary
Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 10:14 pm
I've got a new article out, and in it I track down the citations of Hegesippus and put together an account of this text.
http://peterkirby.com/chasing-hegesippus.html
In summary, Hegesippus did not write under this name. His work come to be attributed to Josephus in Alexandria and then corrupted to the name of Hegesippus in Caesarea, where Eusebius quotes from it extensively. The author refers to his text as books of “memoirs,” but it is possible, given the confusion already demonstrated about the author, that this was not the formal title of the text. We find a similar reference from his contemporary, Justin Martyr, who refers to the “Gospels,” which have only ever held that title, as memoirs. All of the quotations that are placed in a particular book, whether form Eusebius or from Stephen Gobar through Photius, are placed in the fifth book.
We might suppose, if we want to make a particular suggestion to explain this data, that the text ended the narrative with the fifth book and started this book with a statement to the effect that, “This is the fifth book of memoirs…” Between a false title written as Josephus in Alexandria (possibly a pagan error) and a correction of that obviously false title at Caesarea (a corruption of the name Josephus otherwise attested), this would account for the name given authorship, the title attributed to the work, and the number of books assigned to the work.
Although the fifth book and its two false titles do not give us the author’s name, we can make certain deductions from the fragments still known. Both Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea put the best evidence for the date of authorship in the reign of Antoninus. The reference from Clement allows us to narrow it down further, between 138 AD and 148 AD, the period of the reign of Antoninus up to the tenth year, the extremity of its chronology.
The author was in Rome when Anicetus was its bishop. Traditional chronology for the bishops of Rome has faithfully followeed the statements presented by Eusebius of Caesarea and chronographers before him, Hippolytus of Rome and Julius Africanus. There has even been a tendency to attribute a list of bishops of Rome, falsely, to the text of Hegesippus. This cannot be sustained. The chronology is doubtless correct starting from some point in the second half of the second century, but it is nebulous data for the first half of the second century. The contemporary of Anicetus as bishop of Rome wrote no later than 148 AD, so Anicetus must be understood as taking the bishopric of Rome a full ten years earlier than usually believed. This likewise pushes backward the chronology of Pius and his predecessors, but this is just as well, as there needs to be room when fictitious persons such as “Sextus” are removed from the list.
The author is an opponent of heresy in the bishoprics of Anicetus and his predecessor, Pius. He says the errors only became prevalent after the death of the last witness to Jesus, Symeon, leader of the relatives of Jesus (around 115 AD). As someone who was in Rome during the bishopric of Anicetus, he may also have been witness to the foreshadowings of the quartodeciman controversy in the confrontation said to have taken place between Polycarp and Anicetus then. He also clearly knows of the Marcionites at first hand as a heresy that arose in his own day, as Eusebius says of him and as one of the listed heresies in the quote attributed to him. The author is, in fact, the first known person to put in writing an opposition to named heretics including Simonians and Marcionites. His text may have been used by later heresiologists, most significantly for the names of some Jewish sects that are only known through writers that repeat Hegesippus.
The author met with several bishops of his time, according to Eusebius, to ascertain the content of their faith and to see how it was in agreement. The author also makes use of unwritten Jewish traditions. The author claims that texts had been falsely produced by heretics in his own day. These facts may be connected. The author may be gathering such oral statements in his own writing as a sort of brief against the heretics who draw their opinions from forged texts. The oral statements that matter would have to be ones that agree with the witnesses of Jesus such as Symeon, who guaranteed the churches against error until he passed away. There is no evidence that he drew up lists of bishops, but he did go to several churches to try to see whether they agreed with the ideas of apostolic tradition as he saw them. His emphasis on the witness of the apostles who knew Jesus stands in stark contrast to his contemporary opponent, Marcion, who drew his theology from the writings of “the Apostle” who did not know Jesus.
- See more at: http://peterkirby.com/chasing-hegesippus.html
http://peterkirby.com/chasing-hegesippus.html
In summary, Hegesippus did not write under this name. His work come to be attributed to Josephus in Alexandria and then corrupted to the name of Hegesippus in Caesarea, where Eusebius quotes from it extensively. The author refers to his text as books of “memoirs,” but it is possible, given the confusion already demonstrated about the author, that this was not the formal title of the text. We find a similar reference from his contemporary, Justin Martyr, who refers to the “Gospels,” which have only ever held that title, as memoirs. All of the quotations that are placed in a particular book, whether form Eusebius or from Stephen Gobar through Photius, are placed in the fifth book.
We might suppose, if we want to make a particular suggestion to explain this data, that the text ended the narrative with the fifth book and started this book with a statement to the effect that, “This is the fifth book of memoirs…” Between a false title written as Josephus in Alexandria (possibly a pagan error) and a correction of that obviously false title at Caesarea (a corruption of the name Josephus otherwise attested), this would account for the name given authorship, the title attributed to the work, and the number of books assigned to the work.
Although the fifth book and its two false titles do not give us the author’s name, we can make certain deductions from the fragments still known. Both Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea put the best evidence for the date of authorship in the reign of Antoninus. The reference from Clement allows us to narrow it down further, between 138 AD and 148 AD, the period of the reign of Antoninus up to the tenth year, the extremity of its chronology.
The author was in Rome when Anicetus was its bishop. Traditional chronology for the bishops of Rome has faithfully followeed the statements presented by Eusebius of Caesarea and chronographers before him, Hippolytus of Rome and Julius Africanus. There has even been a tendency to attribute a list of bishops of Rome, falsely, to the text of Hegesippus. This cannot be sustained. The chronology is doubtless correct starting from some point in the second half of the second century, but it is nebulous data for the first half of the second century. The contemporary of Anicetus as bishop of Rome wrote no later than 148 AD, so Anicetus must be understood as taking the bishopric of Rome a full ten years earlier than usually believed. This likewise pushes backward the chronology of Pius and his predecessors, but this is just as well, as there needs to be room when fictitious persons such as “Sextus” are removed from the list.
The author is an opponent of heresy in the bishoprics of Anicetus and his predecessor, Pius. He says the errors only became prevalent after the death of the last witness to Jesus, Symeon, leader of the relatives of Jesus (around 115 AD). As someone who was in Rome during the bishopric of Anicetus, he may also have been witness to the foreshadowings of the quartodeciman controversy in the confrontation said to have taken place between Polycarp and Anicetus then. He also clearly knows of the Marcionites at first hand as a heresy that arose in his own day, as Eusebius says of him and as one of the listed heresies in the quote attributed to him. The author is, in fact, the first known person to put in writing an opposition to named heretics including Simonians and Marcionites. His text may have been used by later heresiologists, most significantly for the names of some Jewish sects that are only known through writers that repeat Hegesippus.
The author met with several bishops of his time, according to Eusebius, to ascertain the content of their faith and to see how it was in agreement. The author also makes use of unwritten Jewish traditions. The author claims that texts had been falsely produced by heretics in his own day. These facts may be connected. The author may be gathering such oral statements in his own writing as a sort of brief against the heretics who draw their opinions from forged texts. The oral statements that matter would have to be ones that agree with the witnesses of Jesus such as Symeon, who guaranteed the churches against error until he passed away. There is no evidence that he drew up lists of bishops, but he did go to several churches to try to see whether they agreed with the ideas of apostolic tradition as he saw them. His emphasis on the witness of the apostles who knew Jesus stands in stark contrast to his contemporary opponent, Marcion, who drew his theology from the writings of “the Apostle” who did not know Jesus.
- See more at: http://peterkirby.com/chasing-hegesippus.html