Moderator: andrewcriddle
Allegedly, the brother of James also had an incident of attempting to be tossed off a high place.John2 wrote:And regarding Hegesippus' account of James being thrown down before he was stoned, as Bauckham notes, "throwing the condemned person down from a high place was an integral element in the procedure of execution by stoning."
It took me a while to figure out what word could have the form παθών, as Perseus.org was coming up with nothing until I searched Bibleworks and found it was a verb participle aorist active nominative masculine singular from πάσχω. The different forms of πάσχω was found 61 times in the NT & Greek OT (41 were in the NT), 51 times in the Apostolic fathers (well, the ones that were morphologically tagged), 30 times in the "OT" Greek Pseudepigrapha, and a whopping 207 times in the works of Philo. Unfortunately, Eusebius' Church History remains untagged in BW v.8, although it is on the Perseus.org website.Ben C. Smith wrote:While I agree it does not sound like Photius has Hegesippus in front of him, the phrase οὐκ οἶδ' ὅ τι καὶ παθών probably means something like, "I do not know what came over him." (Roger gives a couple of alternate translations in a footnote: "I do not know quite what he meant" and "how moved I know not.") The question τί πάσχεις was idiomatic for, "What is the matter with you?" And the aorist participle in a direct interrogative, as in τί παθών, could bear a sense something like, "What has possessed you?" We might translate the indirect interrogative before us as, "I know not what [was] even possessing him." (You can find this idiom in LSJ under sense III.4.)DCHindley wrote:The phrase "I do not know in what context" means Photius did not have the actual text available for reference, so at least part of what he relates is something he has heard that Hegesippus said in his 3rd book.
Again, it does not sound as if he has Hegesippus before him in either case, but the sense may not be quite as clear in that direction as the translation given on that page.
In context Paul may well be speaking of what God has already done for Christian believers in revealing through the spirit the significance of the life death and resurrection of Christ.9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
This may be true, but recall that Paul claims to be quoting something; and, as a quote from our canonical Isaiah (in whichever form, LXX or otherwise), this one would be far looser than usual for him. If we are speculating about intent, then it is possible that it was Paul who changed what was being referenced compared to his source, and that the other parallels are the ones being faithful to the source, is it not?andrewcriddle wrote:There is a real question about whether what Paul means in 1 Corinthians 2:9 is the same as the meaning of the later parallels.In context Paul may well be speaking of what God has already done for Christian believers in revealing through the spirit the significance of the life death and resurrection of Christ.9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
However the later parallels are (at least mostly) clearly referring to some future hoped for revelation, which may not be what Paul means at all.
If so, Hegesippus is more likely referring to the saying as interpreted in the later parallels, he may even possibly be defending Paul against (gnostic ?) misinterpretation.
Hegesippus' account involves being pushed off a precipice, stoning and clubbing, which is consistent with the Mishnah, Talmud and the context of the times according to Josephus and the Talmud, when there was near anarchy in the priesthood and their servants -including those of the family who killed James- went around clubbing people, as I pointed out above. Here is the account in Hegesippus in EH 2.23 again:I misspoke when I said that Hegesippus' account involved stoning. I unconsciously imported the idea of stoning from Josephus' account of the trial of James "the brother of Jesus" (20.200). In fact, Hegesippus' account doesn't even seem to make a direct connection to Antiquities 20.200. It seems to me that it was Eusebius, trying to make sense of the story as given by H., who made that connection (in Church History 2.23.1-3, 21-25). Hegesippus, in sections 4-21, is presented as providing a much fuller account than that of Clement of Alexandria "in the sixth book of his Hypotyposeis," a fragment of a lost book which is also only preserved in Eusebius' Church History.
What I should have said was that it involved just pushing off a high precipice and clubbing. The authors you cited seem to be overreaching when they suggest that Christian messianic expectations involved death by means of wood. Connecting Jesus' death by crucifixion on a "tree" with the legend in Asc. of Is. that Isaiah was executed by means of a "wooden" saw is ludicrous. R H Charles, in APOT vol 2 (1913) page 158 says:
And here is San. 45a again, which has the same order: pushing the person from a precipice and then stoning them if the fall doesn't kill them (and a reference to the possibility of the person turning after they fall).And they fulfilled the Scripture written in Isaiah, ‘Let us take away the just man, because he is troublesome to us: therefore they shall eat the fruit of their doings.’ So they went up and threw down the just man, and said to each other, ‘Let us stone James the Just.’ And they began to stone him, for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned and knelt down and said, ‘I entreat thee, Lord God our Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ And while they were thus stoning him one of the priests of the sons of Rechab, the son of the Rechabites, who are mentioned by Jeremiah the prophet, cried out, saying, ‘Cease, what do ye? The just one prayeth for you.’ And one of them, who was a fuller, took the club with which he beat out clothes and struck the just man on the head. And thus he suffered martyrdom.
And Hegesipus explicitly connects James' death with LXX Is. 3:10 (and not the MT or the Ascension of Isaiah).The place of stoning from which the condemned man is pushed to his death is a platform twice the height of an ordinary person. He is made to stand at the edge of the platform, and then one of the witnesses who testified against him pushes him down by the hips, so that he falls face up onto the ground. If he turned over onto his chest, with his face downward, the witness turns him over onto his hips. And if he dies through this fall to the ground, the obligation to stone the transgressor is fulfilled.
And if the condemned man does not die from his fall, the second witness takes the stone that has been prepared for this task and places, i.e., casts, it on his chest. And if he dies with the casting of this first stone, the obligation to stone the transgressor is fulfilled. And if he does not die with the casting of this stone, then his stoning is completed by all of the Jewish people, i.e., by all the people who assembled for the execution, as it is stated: “The hand of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people” (Deuteronomy 17:7).
http://www.sefaria.org/Sanhedrin.45a?lang=bi
I don't get the impression that Hegesippus knew Josephus, and I think Clement of Alexandria's account is based on Hegesippus, since he says EH 2.1.4, "But there were two Jameses: one called the Just, who was thrown from the pinnacle of the temple and was beaten to death with a club by a fuller” which is what happens to James in Hegesippus' account.Woe to their soul, for they have devised an evil counsel against themselves, saying against themselves, Let us bind the just, for he is burdensome to us: therefore shall they eat the fruits of their works.
Regarding this, Bauckham says:The aforesaid Scribes and Pharisees therefore placed James upon the pinnacle of the temple ... So they went up and threw down the just man, and said to each other, ‘Let us stone James the Just.’ And they began to stone him, for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned and knelt down and said, ‘I entreat thee, Lord God our Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ And while they were thus stoning him one of the priests of the sons of Rechab, the son of the Rechabites, who are mentioned by Jeremiah the prophet, cried out, saying, ‘Cease, what do ye? The just one prayeth for you.’ And one of them, who was a fuller, took the club with which he beat out clothes and struck the just man on the head. And thus he suffered martyrdom.
And McDowell says:It is quite intelligible that Clement's very brief summary of the events should include only the first and last actions in the killing of James as narrated by Hegesippus, and there is no good reason to doubt that it is on Hegesippus' account as we have it in Eusebius that Clement is dependent.
https://books.google.com/books?id=5SHbj ... nt&f=false
This also fits Clement's detail that James was "called the Just," since Hegesippus says, "He has been called the Just by all from the time of our Saviour to the present day" and " Because of his exceeding great justice he was called the Just."While Clement does not explicitly mention stoning, he does say that James was "thrown down from the parapet." Being pushed down from a significant height is one of the initial and integral steps of execution by stoning. It is certainly possible that Clement, in his shortened version, only included the first and last parts of the execution of James as recorded by Hegesippus.
https://books.google.com/books?id=dIm1C ... nt&f=false
Hi BenBen C. Smith wrote:This may be true, but recall that Paul claims to be quoting something; and, as a quote from our canonical Isaiah (in whichever form, LXX or otherwise), this one would be far looser than usual for him. If we are speculating about intent, then it is possible that it was Paul who changed what was being referenced compared to his source, and that the other parallels are the ones being faithful to the source, is it not?andrewcriddle wrote:There is a real question about whether what Paul means in 1 Corinthians 2:9 is the same as the meaning of the later parallels.In context Paul may well be speaking of what God has already done for Christian believers in revealing through the spirit the significance of the life death and resurrection of Christ.9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
However the later parallels are (at least mostly) clearly referring to some future hoped for revelation, which may not be what Paul means at all.
If so, Hegesippus is more likely referring to the saying as interpreted in the later parallels, he may even possibly be defending Paul against (gnostic ?) misinterpretation.
Ah, I see. That makes sense. Thanks.andrewcriddle wrote:I wasn't making a claim about which citations are closer to the original.
I was just suggesting that Hegesippus' apparent concerns might be more appropriate as a response to how the passage is used in later writers than as a response to how the passage is used by Paul.
