Secret Alias wrote: ↑Sun Jun 17, 2018 6:39 am
You can be too trusting of sources Bob. Hence your James Book. What do you think Origen (or Eusebius) is going to do, admit Celsus is well researched? Even when he produces that "accursed diagram" he doesn't cut him slack. Origen's mission is to undercut Celsus. Neither are "scholars" in the modern sense.
Osborn provides a good starting point for assuming the Celsus read Justin, the author of the original Against Marcion:
Origen has no issue with relating writings that Celsus claimed to have read or known something about, like in 6.40. Regardless of whether or not he thinks Celsus invented the existence of these particular books, the point remains that when Celsus claims to get information from writings he says so and Origen doesn't hide it, which I think makes Origen's guess that Celsus "probably" got his information about Marcion "from some paltry and ignorant individuals" and not from a book relevant in light of this.
After these things, Celsus appears to me to act like those who, in their intense hatred of the Christians, maintain, in the presence of those who are utterly ignorant of the Christian faith, that they have actually ascertained that Christians devour the flesh of infants, and give themselves without restraint to sexual intercourse with their women. Now, as these statements have been condemned as falsehoods invented against the Christians, and this admission made by the multitude and those altogether aliens to our faith; so would the following statements of Celsus be found to be calumnies invented against the Christians, where he says that he has seen in the hands of certain presbyters belonging to our faith barbarous books, containing the names and marvellous doings of demons; asserting further, that “these presbyters of our faith professed to do no good, but all that was calculated to injure human beings. Would, indeed, that all that is said by Celsus against the Christians was of such a nature as to be refuted by the multitude, who have ascertained by experience that such things are untrue, seeing that most of them have lived as neighbours with the Christians, and have not even heard of the existence of any such alleged practices!
1.16-17:
Nay, he styles the Galactophagi of Homer, and the Druids of the Gauls, and the Getæ, most learned and ancient tribes, on account of the resemblance between their traditions and those of the Jews, although I know not whether any of their histories survive; but the Hebrews alone, as far as in him lies, he deprives of the honour both of antiquity and learning. And again, when making a list of ancient and learned men who have conferred benefits upon their contemporaries (by their deeds), and upon posterity by their writings, he excluded Moses from the number; while of Linus, to whom Celsus assigns a foremost place in his list, there exists neither laws nor discourses which produced a change for the better among any tribes; whereas a whole nation, dispersed throughout the entire world, obey the laws of Moses. Consider, then, whether it is not from open malevolence that he has expelled Moses from his catalogue of learned men, while asserting that Linus, and Musæus, and Orpheus, and Pherecydes, and the Persian Zoroaster, and Pythagoras, discussed these topics, and that their opinions were deposited in books, and have thus been preserved down to the present time. And it is intentionally also that he has omitted to take notice of the myth, embellished chiefly by Orpheus, in which the gods are described as affected by human weaknesses and passions.
In what follows, Celsus, assailing the Mosaic history, finds fault with those who give it a tropical and allegorical signification. And here one might say to this great man, who inscribed upon his own work the title of a True Discourse, “Why, good sir, do you make it a boast to have it recorded that the gods should engage in such adventures as are described by your learned poets and philosophers, and be guilty of abominable intrigues, and of engaging in wars against their own fathers, and of cutting off their secret parts, and should dare to commit and to suffer such enormities; while Moses, who gives no such accounts respecting God, nor even regarding the holy angels, and who relates deeds of far less atrocity regarding men (for in his writings no one ever ventured to commit such crimes as Kronos did against Uranus, or Zeus against his father, or that of the father of men and gods, who had intercourse with his own daughter), should be considered as having deceived those who were placed under his laws, and to have led them into error?”
So in these examples, when Celsus got (or claims to have gotten) information about certain Christians, "ancient and learned men" and Moses from books he says so and Origen does not hide it.
But setting aside that, while I don't think it's impossible that Celsus could have read or known of Justin Martyr (or known of the kind of arguments Justin makes), I think that is a separate issue from the question of whether or not there was a writing called Against Marcion in Justin's time and whether it was written by Justin or not. I don't think Justin wrote a separate work called Against Marcion that Celsus used, but rather that Celsus could have been familiar with Justin's extant writings against Marcion or learned of them from others.
In footnote 46 on page 16 here, for example, Concannon writes:
Smith cites the example of Justin Martyr's
Treatise against Marcion, which Eusebius discusses at
Hist. eccl. 4.11.8-10. When Eusebius cites from this work, he actually cites from Justin's
First Apology. As Smith notes, Eusebius gives the impression that he has two works in front of him when he actually has one.
https://books.google.com/books?id=miAzD ... 10&f=false
And given the evidence that Justin, as Lashier puts it, "frequently taught others" and was "a well known teacher in Rome" shortly before Celsus is thought to have written his book in c. 178 CE, it seems plausible to me that Celsus could have been aware of Marcion (
and Justin) via "some paltry and ignorant individuals" (as Origen suspects) who may have learned from Justin (like Irenaeus did).
The most important of the influences upon Irenaeus for my purposes was Justin.
Many aspects of Irenaeus' theology correspond to the theology of the Martyr, and the degree of dependence suggests that Irenaeus was exposed to Justin's writings while sojourning in Rome. Circumstantial evidence even makes personal contact possible ... Furthermore, the account, or
Acta, of Justin's martyrdom states that he frequently taught others who came to him for instruction in he Christian faith. This evidence suggests that Justin would have been a well known teacher in Rome precisely during the time when Irenaeus would have been there.
https://books.google.com/books?id=D56XC ... .2&f=false
Lashier also notes (in footnote 19 on the same page above) that Irenaeus cites from a lost writing of Justin in AH 4.6.2 and 5.27.2:
... possibly entitled Against Marcion. The second quotation is not attributed to any specific work, although the citation's context suggests that it may have come from the same work as the first quotation.
But this too seems like a separate issue from the question of whether or not Celsus had read or was aware of the existence of such a writing. What I have seen thus far is giving me the impression that Celsus was indeed, as Origen supposed, informed about Marcionism from "some paltry and ignorant individuals," in a manner similar to the way Celsus seems to have learned about the idea that Jesus' dad was a Roman soldier named Panthera. In other words, what Origen says about and cites from Celsus regarding this information does not give me the impression that Celsus got this information from the Talmud, but rather from his personal contact with Jews:
1.32:
But let us now return to where the Jew is introduced, speaking of the mother of Jesus, and saying that “when she was pregnant she was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera;” and let us see whether those who have blindly concocted these fables about the adultery of the Virgin with Panthera, and her rejection by the carpenter, did not invent these stories to overturn His miraculous conception by the Holy Ghost: for they could have falsified the history in a different manner, on account of its extremely miraculous character, and not have admitted, as it were against their will, that Jesus was born of no ordinary human marriage. It was to be expected, indeed, that those who would not believe the miraculous birth of Jesus would invent some falsehood. And their not doing this in a credible manner, but (their) preserving the fact that it was not by Joseph that the Virgin conceived Jesus, rendered the falsehood very palpable to those who can understand and detect such inventions.
Origen's language here (at least in this translation) does not give me the impression that Celsus had read any Jewish writings about Jesus' dad being a Roman soldier named Panthera, but rather that it was something Celsus had heard about from Jews like the one who spoke of it in the citation above who had "concocted" and "invented" it. Similarly, I have the impression that Celsus learned about Marcionism from "some paltry and ignorant individuals" as Origen thought, regardless of whether or not Justin wrote anything else against Marcion