eusebius and origen

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Secret Alias
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Re: eusebius and origen

Post by Secret Alias »

Here is a perfect example. The book is called Pamphilius's Apology for Origen. Yet it was clearly written by Eusebius (perhaps in an age when it was dangerous to be a Christian or be an Origenist). In one of the sections we find Origen supposedly write.
So for that reason, according to the authority of his pronouncement, we too must avoid the name of “heresy,” just as we avoid the other evils that he has enumerated; nor should we engage in the communion of prayer with such persons.
Yet as Scheck notes this is exactly what Eusebius attributes to Origen generally "According to Eusebius, HE 6.2.14, Origen refused to pray with heretics. Cf. Origen, In Matth. Comm. Ser. 89, on praying alone rather than praying with an evil person." But surely it must be an open question whether the 'agreement' between what we find Origen saying in a book collated by one man in the name of another man in the name of Origen (and ultimately translated into Latin by another man = Rufinus who clearly falsified Origen's manuscripts yet again to purge them yet again from heresy). It is a distinct possibility that Eusebius add the reference to demonstrate that Origen's orthodoxy.
“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
Charles Wilson
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Re: eusebius and origen

Post by Charles Wilson »

Jay Raskin, Christs and Christianities, Note 36:

"It is hard to know if Eusebius has wholly made up the text of Hegesippus or has drastically changed the text of a real historian to reflect his point of view. Since nobody else mentions Hegesippus before Eusebius and it is difficult to say if anybody else read him after Eusebius, the more sober judgment for the moment is that he never existed. Eusebius is just taking texts from other sources to create him."
Secret Alias
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Re: eusebius and origen

Post by Secret Alias »

Stupid citation:
"It is hard to know if Eusebius has wholly made up the text of Hegesippus"
ABSOLUTELY FUCKING STUPID!!!
or has drastically changed the text of a real historian to reflect his point of view.
maybe don't know
Since nobody else mentions Hegesippus before Eusebius and it is difficult to say if anybody else read him after Eusebius, the more sober judgment for the moment is that he never existed. Eusebius is just taking texts from other sources to create him."
But the passage in Irenaeus 3.3.2 is related to Hegesippus.
“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
Charles Wilson
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Re: eusebius and origen

Post by Charles Wilson »

Edit: Perhaps this one should come first. Peter! Do you remember the Threads here and other material?

http://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/sho ... ml?t=95542
***
http://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/sho ... 42&page=11

http://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/sho ... ml?t=97546
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MrMacSon
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Re: eusebius and origen

Post by MrMacSon »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Jun 13, 2018 9:43 am
Given that Eusebius was the 'bishop of Caesarea' and in charge of a large library of books which came to define Christianity in 'the-ages-to-come', might the rewrites and change of text types be signs of Eusebius's 'correction' effort rather than something that happened in the time of Origen? I am certain of it ...
.
Yep, and probably more than mere 'correction' ...

Secret Alias wrote: ... Eusebius [very likely] corrected Origen's writings to rid of heresy (something intimated - albeit cryptically in the exchange between Jerome and Rufinus). Interestingly many of Origen's concerns - such as Celsus's critique of Christianity - become Eusebius's concerns. At least a few of Eusebius's surviving treatises are understood by scholars to have Celsus in mind. To this end, given the fact many of Origen's treatises, such as Against Celsus, have clear signs of a second rewrite (attributed to Origen's move from Alexandria to Caesarea) and clear change of NT text type i.e. from the 'Alexandrian' to 'Caesarean' text type (again attributed usually to Origen's move from Alexandria to Caesarea) it is tempting to go one step further than traditional scholarship.

.... We shouldn't also forget that Pamphilus's name and literary efforts were 'appropriated' by Eusebius in a way that has never satisfactorily been explained ...

... what emerges is the origins and development of Christianity 'coincide' (I would say defined) by a series of crimes in the library. No one would think that 'library abuse' would have such an impact but if we consider that we ourselves are to a large degree held hostage by literary works to define the religions he who controls the manuscripts controls history. Just as the Green family.
andrewcriddle
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Re: eusebius and origen

Post by andrewcriddle »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Jun 13, 2018 12:33 pm Scrivener:

We are thus warranted, as well from direct evidence as from the analogy of the Old Testament, to believe that Eusebius mainly resorted for his
Constantinopolitan Church-books to the codices of Pamphilus, which might once have belonged to Origen. What critical corrections (if any) he ventured to make in the text on his own judgement is not so clear. Not that there is the least cause to believe, with Dr. Nolan (Inquiry into the
Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, p. 27), that Eusebius had either the power or the will to suppress or tamper with the great doctrinal texts 1 John v.
7, 8; 1 Tim. iii. 16; Acts xx. 28; yet we cannot deny that his prepossessions may have tempted him to arbitrary alterations in other passages, which had no direct bearing on the controversies of his age
FWIW Scrivener was a conservative and is arguing here that Vaticanus and Sinaiticus may be unreliable as NT witnesses due to possible influence from Eusebius.

Andrew Criddle
tnorsworthy
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Re: eusebius and origen

Post by tnorsworthy »

all, thanks so much for the responses. most helpful!
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