Porphyry's influence on the author of the Testimonium

[Giuseppe]

Obviously I am indebted to Ken Olson's “A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum,” about the topic. But I am curious particularly about the line of the incipit:

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man.

Remember that the leit motif of Porphyry's attacks against Christianity is the following:

1) if read literally (=that the Son of God is really a man), then the Gospel episodes sound false.

2) It is a pure and simple fact that Jesus is a mere man.

3) Therefore the Gospels are probably false.

The logic of Porphyry is correct (A: ''the Son of God is merely a man'', B: ''The Gospels are false"):

1) if A, then B.
2) A is true;
3) therefore B is true.

It is curious that Eusebius (the real author of the TF) accepts basically the logic of Porphyry, but he denies paradoxically his conclusion, making a clear logical error (in red):

1) if read literally (=that the Son of God is really a man), then the Gospel episodes sound false.

2) It is a pure and simple fact that the Jesus is a mere man.

3) Even so, the Gospels are true.

I can claim that that is the real logic of Eusebius (influenced by Porphyry and in opposition to Porphyry) since Eusebius wrote:

if indeed one ought to call him a man

...a proposition who puts in doubt just the historicist proposition that Jesus was a man.

But I find curious here that the apparent skepticism about the humanity of Jesus comes from a historicist proto-Catholic, while the Pagan Porphyry has need of the assumed humanity of Jesus in order to make his case (that the Gospels are false if read literally).

Hence the natural question:

why the Pagan Porphyry was apparently more historicist than the same his enemy Eusebius?

Clearly the Pagan Porphyry is not able to ransom the truth of the Gospels by reading them allegorically: to do so means to recognize impliciter that ''one ought to call Jesus a DEUS''. But Porphyry did hate the Jesus DEUS, not the man Jesus.

Therefore the Pagans had clearly interest, also them, to euhemerize Jesus on the earth for polemical reasons.

[Giuseppe]

This would be a subtle clue in my eyes, by contrast, of the fact that the opposite claim of Eusebius is true:

The people didn't call Christ a ''man'' (as Eusebius claimed in order to add secunda facie his theological creed on that premise).

The people did call Christ a ''deus'' (without questioning never his status of deus).

And the Romans didn't like this fact.

[MrMacSon]

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man.

Good points Giuseppe. i remember thinking a few years ago that that passage might be a then indication of doubt about Jesus' humanity, but then Ken Olson published 'A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum' which pushed that idea to the background.

If it was an indication of doubt about Jesus' humanity, it was allowed to persist -ie. nobody contemporary to or subsequent to Eusebius negated it by removing it or softening it.

[Giuseppe]

Maybe that apparent doubt by Eusebius proves more simply that the Christians euhemerized only for ''half'' way their deity, while the Pagans euhemerized entirely Jesus.

Only for ''half'': Jesus walked on earth, but he is still a demigod.

entirely: Jesus was merely a man.

Here is the Carrier's view about the possibility of a Pagan euhemerization. He is very skeptical about that possibility.