The Strongest Argument for Mythicism

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Secret Alias
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The Strongest Argument for Mythicism

Post by Secret Alias »

I think the strongest argument for the story of Jesus being made up is the fact that the further back you go in Patristic history (i.e. from the third century) you see the Patristic sources are fully capable of believing 'anything is possible' according to the Holy Spirit. So for instance, Ezra was capable of rewriting the Torah of Moses after it was destroyed. Moreover the verbatim sections in the synoptic gospels (and sometimes John) can be explained by the same Holy Spirit speaking in four different witnesses. Even Papias the earliest Father who is understood to seek 'a living and active voice' τὰ παρὰ ζώσης καὶ µενούσηςdoesn't sound to me like a sober historian at work but rather a proto-Montanist who believed in an active spiritual 'consciousness' which passed from person to person.

Here is a particularly instructive example from the Pauline corpus:
And my God will fill all your chreia according to the riches of his glory in Chrestos [ὁ δὲ Θεός μου πληρώσει πᾶσαν χρείαν ὑμῶν κατὰ τὸ πλοῦτος αὐτοῦ ἐν δόξῃ ἐν Χριστῷ].
Why couldn't this have been interpreted in a proto/neo-Montanist manner - i.e. Christ will speak in you, speak through you?
A chreia was a brief, useful (χρεία means "use") anecdote about a particular character. That is, a chreia was shorter than a narration—often as short as a single sentence—but unlike a maxim, it was attributed to a character. Usually it conformed to one of a few patterns, the most common being "On seeing..." (ιδών or cum vidisset), "On being asked..." (ἐρωτηθείς or interrogatus), and "He said..." (ἔφη or dixit).
In other words, Papias assumes that the divine part of Jesus was still speaking in people. He was actively gathering things spoken by these men. Why is it so certain there was an underlying historical Chrestos for all these χρεῖαι.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: The Strongest Argument for Mythicism

Post by Secret Alias »

So too this statement in Romans sounds like a proto-Montanist spiritual activity:
ταῖς χρείαις τῶν ἁγίων κοινωνοῦντες (distributing the chreia of the saints)
assuming of course the saints are dead and the living are speaking for them through the spirit. Notice how it is used in the Martyrdom of Pionius:
The martyrdom opens with a striking appropriation of Romans 12:13. Where the biblical text reads, “ταῖς χρείαις τῶν ἁγίων κοινωνοῦντες [share in the needs of the saints],” The Martyrdom of Pioniusbegins: “The apostle exhorts [us] to share in the remembrances of the saints [ταῖς μνείαις τῶν ἁγίων κοινωνοῦντες oJapostolo~ parainei]” (1:1).106 With this subtle adjustment of the textual tradition, the writer shifts attention away from the social imperative of Paul's letter to the Romans and toward a contemplative, even liturgical or ascetic imperative. By remembering the saints, those who “wish to imitate the higher things” will be elevated and fortified through their commemorative gestures. Yet Pionius's story is nevertheless understood here as a continuation of the apostolic imperative as, in the next sentence, Pionius is called an “apostolic man [apostoliko; anhr]. Following the model of the apostle before him, he converted many people and “left this writing [to syngramma touto] for our admonition so that even now we would have it as a memory [mn ̄emosyn ̄e] of his teaching” (1:2).

107 Pionius's writings have not come down to us in their original form as a straightforward work of autobiographical writing. text has been domesticated by an editor's hand. Like the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas, The Martyrdom of Pionius the Presbyter and Those with Him is a composite text. It comprises a version of Pionius's autography, two trial records, some prefatory and transitional additions by the editor, and of course the narrative of the passage of sentence and of the execution itself. In reworking the underlying text of Pionius, the editor has for the most part relegated the first- person voice to the dialogue and speeches in the text, rewriting the text in a third-person voice. Nevertheless, occasionally the point of view of the narrative shifts, fleetingly returning the perspective to the Smyrnean presbyter.
The point of course is that this earliest of understandings of what Paul meant by 'distributing the chreia of the saints ' is clearly - assemble them into a memoir. This is extremely significant.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: The Strongest Argument for Mythicism

Post by Secret Alias »

The point of course is that the development of the "memoir" Pionius is clearly through 'spiritual communion' as the apostle instructs. There are many layers to the text but at its core the author switches from 'not Pionius' to 'Pionius' throughout. The process which leads to ἀπομνημόνευμά is of course via the manifestation of χρεῖαι. It is generally assumed that the gospel(s) must be historical in nature because they derive from 'memory' and the study of the gospel as 'memorials' is well-established. But I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what is going on here. The gospels are not historical documents. The people engaged in writing these 'memorials' were developing these texts around χρεῖαι uttered from the spirit.

As we saw in the previous thread Nicolaus's ἀπομνημόνευμά of the post-resurrection/post-ascension reality is one which is heavily imbued in myth. 'Horea' (Beautiful, Ripe) was his wife and in a strange cryptic manner the χρεία for which he speaks on behalf of Χρηστός is not historical - and neither was the gospel but from these. Yet undeniably these literary texts were ultimately argued to be historical testaments.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Ulan
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Re: The Strongest Argument for Mythicism

Post by Ulan »

Isn't this one of the standard arguments? It's clear from the Pauline corpus that Christ (in his spirit form) was "speaking" to him and also to other members of his assemblies (the latter point is important in order to not just dismiss Paul as bragging). As all of this was "true", everything said "really happened". The Pauline writings are a testament to this mindset.

This is one of the reasons why I think it's futile to hope to ever be able to decide about the historicity of a specific man Jesus. I also think that this is one of the fundamental misunderstandings in most of NT scholarship. It looks as if we had evidence for a historical Jesus in lots of early Christian writings, but this mindset that shines through Paul's writings and those of others basically devalues all of that "evidence" and makes it go up in a puff of smoke.

I think we also forget the prevalence of the Platonic ideas at those times, for example that what we see as real world is not real, but just a reflection/shadow of reality. This also means that people were looking for "reality' in other things than we do today.
Secret Alias
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Re: The Strongest Argument for Mythicism

Post by Secret Alias »

But if you look at the immediate context of these 'spirit' statements in the Pauline writings it is plain (to me at least) that they have been 'contextually altered.' Let's start with Romans 12:13. As it stands the statement which the Martyrdom of Pionius treats in a 'spiritual manner' (i.e. to serve the dead by acting as a spokesman for them) is transformed into a general command to serve the living. One of the standard English translations:
Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
This is why I think the reference to Marcion are so important. In a Trump-like manner we hear from the Church Fathers that Marcion 'cut' the scriptures because of some base motive (= 'hatread' of the Jewish religion). But when you actually look at the scriptures and their interpretation in the earliest sources there are inevitably these 'maxims' (like the one we are dealing with) buried within a section that transforms the surprising into the mundane. In this case being a spokesman for Christ via the Holy Spirit into 'helping the poor' the needy (physically) etc.

To the same effect, we should see that 'memoirs' - although normally taken to mean 'things that I remember (from my own physical existence/life' - have a potentially different meaning in early Christianity. We normally take it to be self-evident that for instance Simon 'Peter' in some sense 'remembered' what happened in 30 CE and passed that information along to Mark in Rome c. 60 CE. This is how the gospel is a 'memorial' i.e. a historical event that is 'remembered' in writing through dictation to a secretary by one who actually lived through certain events. But I wonder now whether - and this is a tentative suggestion - whether 'memory' had some flexibility to include events which took place 'in the spirit.' In the contemporary 'druggie' sense I ask, could Simon have 'gotten high' with a bunch of his companions and then flew out of his body back through time and space to life before the destruction of the Jewish religion and later 'remembered' the events of his out of body experience as some sort of dictated written 'memorial'?

What I think was the game changer for me was looking at Clement's description (Strom 2.118 and 3.25) of Nicolaus's 'memorial' of the post-resurrection apostolic assembly. This is described as Nicolaus's 'memorial' of a certain event i.e. his having a wife (named) Horea a name that has been demonstrated by my good friend Birger Pearson as a Jewish demon/female hypostasis (the equivalent of 'Lilith'). This 'wife' is offered by Nicolaus to his apostolic companions and those followers (assuming that some of the companions later established disciples who became 'Nicolaitians') allegedly interpreted that 'giving' in a gross sexual manner.

The fact that Clement of Alexandria can stand at the gateway to a written 'memorial' that was interpreted in a mythical allegorical manner (i.e. all the sects that embraced Horea/Norea and gnostic understandings about a universe established through a disobedient sexually 'ripe' female hypostasis) and say the 'memorial' is acceptable it's just the followers of Nicolaus who misinterpreted it is astounding. I can't twist and turn the reference to a redeemed 'Lilith' as a historical reference in any way. At best we might imagine that Mary Magdalene is somehow at the root of this reference and the well known gnostic trope that Jesus's beloved disciple was Mary and his mission was rooted in an early (perhaps the earliest) application of the Song of Solomon (as we see in the Edessa).

Be that as it may, Jesus's relationship with Mary cannot be seen as historical (despite what Karen King and the forger of the Gospel of Jesus's Wife want us to believe). Mary Magdalene the historical person is a later offshoot of the myth of Horea/Norea not the other way around. The difficulty is that Nicolaus then isn't 'remembering' a historical event that he witnessed or participated in and then turned it around and made it 'a myth.' Instead the myth of Horea/Norea via the figure of Mary was 'demythicized' into a historical 'memorial' (i.e. that the gospel was a testament to something that actually happened in physical space and time) by second century writers who - for whatever reason - wanted the world to take the story of Jesus in a different manner than previous generations applied the story.

This is what I think is so astounding when you actually look at the manner in which individual 'maxims' have been reshaped in the context of a written 'narrative' gospel and a written 'collection of letters' attributed to a 'Paul.' For instance τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου in Galatians 4 are taken by the Marcionites (via Tertullian Adv Marc Book 4) to mean 'powers of the universe' or perhaps even in a Marcosian manner. In their present context in the long letter of Galatians it is unclear what Paul means. A standard translation reads:
Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
We all agree I think that Paul is speaking about 'spiritual' realities, the narrative built around the maxims effectively acts as a watering down of the 'spiritual realities.' I wonder if this is intentional. The standard way of looking at the situation is that the heresies 'exaggerated' the level to which the early Church was rooted in myth. I wonder whether the added material (cf. the discussions of Marcion) reframed the maxims so they seemed to be rooted in normal 'everyday' concerns i.e. 'taking care of the sick' the ecclesiastical order of the Church, doctrine etc.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: The Strongest Argument for Mythicism

Post by Secret Alias »

Indeed let me rephrase this. The στοιχεῖα are clearly 'spiritual.' But the Marcosians take this to mean that the author (Mark?) accepted kabbalistic notions of a universe built on letters and numbers. Irenaeus says that this is ridiculous. Paul was of 'like mind' with the other 'orthodox' apostles. But we see that Nicolaus clearly seems to be like the Marcosian apostle. So it isn't clear that the presumption that 'the apostles' were so orthodox is well founded. Then there is the issue that the orthodox don't have a viable explanation or interpretation of these 'maxims' outside of a reactionary 'response' to the incorrectness of the heresies (i.e. Adversus Marcionem, Adversus Haereses are 're-interpretations' of the claims of the heresies but no systematic explanation of the scriptures predates the heretical interpretation/s). In other words, Irenaeus says 'damn these mythicists, we can just as well explain these statements by assuming they are all in keeping with the Jewish scriptures ... and then he proceeds to demonstrate that they are indeed spoken by the same spirit which spoke through Moses and the prophets. But it's not as if he can point to a written exegesis to this effect before his attempt to silence the heresies. In other words, if Polycarp or some other Father wrote a 'standard interpretation' of the gospel or letters of Paul he would have cited this interpretation. Clearly it would have immediately disproved the heresies.

So the situation is that:

1. the gospel and the letters of Paul were 'published'
2. the heresies gave a 'bad' interpretation of these books
3. 'good' Church Fathers opposed the heresies in some sense but the 'good' Church Fathers never established a standard written 'orthodox' exegesis of the scriptures before Irenaeus
4. so Irenaeus comes along in an age where there is just these 'bare' texts and NO DOCUMENTED 'TRUE' EXEGESIS of the bare texts and begins this 'hypothetical' experiment to demonstrate FOR THE FIRST TIME in written form how the Christians scriptures agree with the Jewish scriptures in a way which agrees with an 'ordinary, real world concerns' POV (i.e. that the apostles weren't raving lunatics like the heresies acknowledging the existence of a Jewish mystical/mythical landscape

The novelty, the newness, freshness of Irenaeus's 'experiment' is lost on the reader. He says in effect that the various Fathers encountered the heresies and condemned them but - and this is critical - no attempt was ever made to demonstrate that the Christian scriptures and their authors were rooted in the concerns of 'ordinary reality' (and not dwelling in myths and mysticism and in fact were bitterly opposed to these 'inventions'). One would think that if Polycarp or Justin had come across these myths (which they must have if in fact they lived at the time of all these heresies) and condemned myth-making Irenaeus in turn (after the manner of the rabbinic literature) would appeal to THE EXISTENCE OF ORAL STATEMENTS made by Polycarp, Justin etc as the cornerstone to his anti-heretical argument.

Instead what he does is quite extraordinary. He establishes a Pauline canon which includes deutero-Pauline texts and passages embedded in the 'normative' texts and then has Polycarp cite the deutero-Pauline texts (cf to the Philippians) making it appear that at least indirectly Polycarp opposed the myths of the gnostics (because he accepted the deutero-Pauline texts which condemned those of false knowledge). But the texts are forgeries and even the letter to the Philippians of Polycarp is a composite (i.e. rewritten text) so this isn't as much a slam dunk as one might like to believe.

In fact the indirectness of the link between Polycarp and Justin and 'orthodoxy' is quite perplexing. Irenaeus simply does not cite a single historical authority before himself who condemns the myths of the heresies. John's Apocalypse condemns the Nicolaitians; the deutero-Pauline canon condemns myths. But there aren't a string of authorities outside of these written texts in the manner that we see in the rabbinic literature which is surprising.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: The Strongest Argument for Mythicism

Post by Secret Alias »

And getting back into the nitty gritty of things I am not so sure that μνεία means exactly the same thing as our 'memory.' It can be as loose as 'mention' so in effect one could build what we would call 'a memory' from a mere mention.

μνεία , ἡ,
A.= μνήμη, remembrance, “βίου δὲ τοῦ παρόντος οὐ μνείαν ἔχεις” S.El.392, cf. E.Ph.464, Pl.Lg.798b; κατά γε τὴν ἐμὴν μ. dub. in Ael. VH6.1; μνείας χάριν, freq. in late epitaphs, IG3.3112, al.
II. mention, “περί τινος μνείαν ποιεῖσθαι” And.1.100, cf. Aeschin.1.160; “περί τινος πρός τινα” Pl.Prt.317e; “τὴν μνείαν περί τινος ἀποδιδόναι” Arist.PA58b13; “ὅ τι καὶ μνείας ἄξιον” Id.Pol.1274b17; “μ. τινῶν ποιεῖσθαι ἐπὶ τῶν προσευχῶν” Ep.Rom.1.2, al., cf. Epigr.Gr.983.3 (i B. C.); reminder, τινος Pl.Phdr.254a; commemoration, αἱ μ. τῶν ἁγίων v. l. in Ep.Rom.12.13.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: The Strongest Argument for Mythicism

Post by Secret Alias »

Romans 1:9
For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, how unceasingly I make mention (mneian | μνείαν | acc sg fem) of you
Ephesians 1:16
I do not cease giving thanks for you, making mention (mneian | μνείαν | acc sg fem) of you in my prayers,
Philippians 1:3
I thank my God every time I mention (mneia | μνείᾳ | dat sg fem) you.
1 Thessalonians 1:2
We continually give thanks to God for all of you, making mention (mneian | μνείαν | acc sg fem) of you in our prayers, unceasingly
1 Thessalonians 3:6
But just now Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and your love; and that you always mention (mneian | μνείαν | acc sg fem) of us with affection and long to see us even as we long to see you.
2 Timothy 1:3
I continually thank God, whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clean conscience, as unceasingly I mention (mneian | μνείαν | acc sg fem) you in my prayers night and day,
Philemon 1:4
I always thank my God when I mention (mneian | μνείαν | acc sg fem) you in my prayers,
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: The Strongest Argument for Mythicism

Post by Secret Alias »

I think a case can be made that this notion of the 'memory' of Jesus (which is a field of academia) is little more than the 'mention' of Jesus. Big distinction. The gospel was developed from 'mentions' not 'memories' - at least theoretically.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: The Strongest Argument for Mythicism

Post by Secret Alias »

The use of μνεία in the thanksgivings of Romans and others in the Pauline writings is clearly connected to 'magical' utterances of names. It is not what we would call 'memory' in the sense of merely privately 'recalling' things in one's own mind. This is magical thinking and practice.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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