Roger Parvus and early Christian tradents.

[Ben C. Smith]

Roger Parvus is one of my favorite researchers to read online. It is possible that I enjoy reading him simply because his way of thinking and mine overlap to some degree. Several years ago, when I was having trouble clearly expressing my thoughts on this forum concerning the possibility that early Christians thought of Jesus as having visited the earth in obscurity, and therefore without much narrative detail at first, I found that Parvus had already expressed similar thoughts (albeit for a very different overall theory). Not that either of us is necessarily correct, but I can appreciate the parallels in our respective approaches.

There are several theories of his available online for perusal. For example, he has famously argued that Simon Magus was a/the main point of origin for the Christian religion (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13, part 14, part 15, part 16, part 17). As another example, he has also argued that both the Ignatian epistles and the Johannine gospel are products of an Apellean branch of Christianity. Most recently, he has revised his Simonian theory considerably (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4), and has wound up suggesting in the process that Paul's epistles have gone through a stage of revision and interpolation at the hands of somebody in the Saturnilian camp.

What all of these theories have in common is that they all attempt to actually name the person (Simon Magus, Apelles, Saturnilus/Saturninus) or the group (Simonians, Apelleans, Saturnilians/Saturninians) responsible for an important early thrust in Christian development. Moreover, they do so without constantly coming back to the same tradent (Marcion!), which is a trap into which many researchers have fallen. It is possible that Parvus is completely mistaken in his identifications, but I think that the attempt is very much a worthy one. There are almost certainly individuals and groups in early Christianity whose names have completely disappeared from the historical record, but who nevertheless made important contributions along the way (and this disappearing act was probably even more severe for Jewish groups, due to the disruption and upheaval provided by the fall of the Jewish homeland, than for gentile groups); but, before simply inventing such an individual or group to shoulder the burden of our hypotheses, perhaps it would repay our attention to try to find one from among the names that we do possess.

The contrast is very keen, for example, in the matter of whether 1 Corinthians 2.6-16 might not be an interpolation. William O. Walker argues that it is, but, when the time comes to identify who might have been responsible for its insertion into the epistle, he has only this to say:

William O. Walker, Junior, Interpolations in the Pauline Letters, page 145: As regards the situation and the motivation underlying the possible interpolation, ...my own guess is that the verses would most likely have been added after Paul's death, when the prevalence and popularity of Gnostic-like notions of 'wisdom' made it desirable (at least to someone) to bring Paul into the fold of the "pneumatikoi."

The culprit is just "someone" who wanted to ensure that Paul was counted among "the spiritual ones." There is nothing wrong with this, but consider that, when the time comes for Roger Parvus to identify the party responsible for penning 1 Corinthians 2.6-9, he names Saturnilus or one of his followers. I love that he has sifted through the various early "heresies" (as identified by the heresiologists) for possible suspects, just as he did for Simon and for Apelles. Even if we can never be sure that it was precisely Saturnilus/Saturninus, to take the case in point, or one of his followers who interpolated something into a Pauline epistle, it helps to be aware that it may well have been somebody who thought in much the same way as he did. (I also find it interesting that Parvus has identified, not only 1 Corinthians 2.6-9, but also Philippians 2.5-11 as part of a secondary layer in the Pauline epistles. I have been slowly thinking along the same lines myself with respect to both passages, which seem closer in spirit to some of the deutero-Paulines than to the Pauline stuff that I think I can demonstrate to be earlier and probably primary. He also places 2 Corinthians 12.1-10 in this same category, but I admit I have given next to zero thought to that topic as of yet.)

I post this by way of reminder to myself no less than to anyone else, as I have invented possibly more than my fair share of early tradents in the course of theorizing about the development of the Christian faith. Some of those inventions still feel justifiable to me; others perhaps not so much. It is not as if I have never explored the strata of various early "heresies" from which Parvus mines his suspects (I have posted before about the Quartodecimans and the Nicolaitans, and I have files on my hard drive in which I have been collecting data about Valentinus, Basilides, and a few other figures); but I am not always thinking of any of those tradents when I propose some early development in Christianity, and maybe I ought to be.

Another reminder from Parvus, seemingly unwittingly on his part, is the necessity of questioning one's own assumptions and, if necessary, changing one's mind. His most recent series of posts on Vridar is quite a thoroughgoing modification of his previously posted Simonian theory (in four parts, links to which are posted above). At any rate, if you like to read Roger Parvus with anything approaching my own enthusiasm, I definitely recommend this most recent series of his.

Ben.

[Secret Alias]

I like Roger but like many scholars - independent or otherwise - I think he reaches to make firm conclusions based on terrible evidence. I don't think Simon Magus ever existed let alone was a Samaritan. There is something lurking beneath the surface. But who knows what it is.

[Giuseppe]

Most recently, he has revised his Simonian theory considerably (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4), and has wound up suggesting in the process that Paul's epistles have gone through a stage of revision and interpolation at the hands of somebody in the Saturnilian camp.

He has a good precursor in this view about a Gnostic revision of the Paulines (really three: Turmel, Loisy and Alfaric). I like the Parvus's reasons to date Mark in Bar-Kokhba's era, also. I like the fact that now he thinks that Paul shared the same beliefs of the Pillars, apart the Torah.

I note that the better ideas of Parvus come from a direct comparison with the old French rationalists.

My only criticism is the his resistance a priori against the idea of a celestial crucifixion in Paul and in Revelation.

[perseusomega9]

Yes, definitely more outside the box thinking is needed in biblical studies where far too many prior (and usually conservative) conclusions have taken on axiomatic qualities.

[perseusomega9]

Perhaps you can throw out some of your recent conjectures Ben, you obviously have a few in mind.

[Stuart]

Parvus' Ignatian epistles as Apellean is extremely shaky. It requires that they had all been made over again, and that he miraculously knows the original openings. It's not convincing, as it is generally recognized collections are the product of a collector/editor, and they woudl be the one who logically inserted the thread from legends ofthat binds the collection together. He also had Apellean theology wrong compared to what we know. (Similar to Turmel who assigned Apellean authorship to John and 1 John.) I call this effort to declare first teacher the "name game", the attempt to neatly wrap things up and say, "so and so" is the founder, after setting aside Jesus as being from the same mythical sphere as the apostles and saints. To my view it's simply replacing one legend with another as founder, and no better. A fools game.

Robert Price has a similar Simonian origin, but his is more nuanced. He sees the Christian writings as being a hodgepodge of snippets from various groups at various times which were stitched together to form letters and Gospels (Gospels after letters). He doesn't think anything in the Christian literature actually owes it's origins to John (Baptists and Apostle being perhaps one and the same) or Simon (the prototype of Paul and Simon Magus who in some myths was a follower of John). Instead they are the product of schools that arose from them. He sees later passages representing various stages of Christian development.

One thing I like about Price's theory is that he has the most plausible theory I have seen for Marcion which dates him much earlier than the sect that takes his name. He does not see him as an author of anything (save Galatians 3-6 which he sees as possibly reflecting Marcion's letter to the pillars in Rome which was rejected) but rather as the first Catholicizing force, starting to organize what is at the time a wild charismatic movement from revelation. He is not fully Catholic in the later sense, but a first step in that direction, trying to build an organization out of what had been a movement.

The reason I like that better, although I have issues with it, is that it recedes Marcion (Mark) to a long in the past patron saint, similar to John, Simon (both in Peter and Paul form). I think his attempts to fill in the details from legends as if he is a real person, much like those of other who attempt to fill in Simon Magus/Paul and Cephas/Peter and John Baptist/Apostle, is giving in to the "name game", trying to wrap it up neatly. He would in my view have been unassailable had he left these characters all as legends from the past, patron saints by which current leaders (at the time of the various NT passage writings) claimed their authority was derived from.

I am more in tune with Detering in seeing the movement arise from (Jewish) diaspora monastic communities that read Joshua ben Nun into Jesus, as the salvific figure who succeeded in leading the people into the promised land where Moses had failed, dying without himself leading the crossing of the Jordan. Detering sees many parallels with Buddhism, especially in the symbolism of walking on water, crossing the water, succor of Egypt to purification of the wilderness/desert, and the style in general of the exegesis of the OT and ascetic monastic community style. These tropes are found throughout the NT. I am not convinced we have more than religious convergent evolution going on between the Buddhist and Christian developments. Detering, unlike Price, did not investigate the process from which Christianity erupted in evangelism, although he does provide a credible environment from which the religion could have formed and diverged so greatly from Judaism. (Detering prior to his final years was also in the Simonian origin camp, but that opinion seems to have faded with his switch to the monastic community pollinated by Buddhist missionaries origin theory.)

I guess I'm a mix and match dresser, as I agree with Detering's diaspora monastic exegesis to read Jesus from Joshua, but with modifications (e.g., the ethnic replacement of the membership with almost all gentiles as part of the gestation process), and with Price in seeing the writings as being passages from various sects over time collected together to form the letters as we know them (of Paul anyway), and that the apostles are in fact legendary patron saints whose names were placed in writings to give greater authority to those deriving their authority from them. My variance with Price is that the negative commentaries, such as Simon Magus, are similar sectarian attempts to downgrade the authority of their rivals patron saints, rather than a reflection of anything historical.

I am very skeptical then of the entire name game.

[DCHindley]

Parvus and I exchanged posts about the Ignatian corpus a year or two ago. I was surprised to realize he was a competent critic of the Greek text (well, as competent as I am, which isn't saying much).

Now I was not convinced that the figure of Ignatius was based on the character Peregrinus Proteus in Lucian's comedy, The Passing of Perigrinus. I think that Lucian had heard Christian charges that Montanist prophets had abused their authority to live high on the hog, and worked this into his lampoon of Perigrinus, making him a Montanist-like prophet revered by his followers. After reviewing the long and short recensions in both Greek & English, I cannot see any hint of a philosopher or even of a sophist in his words.

Already unconvinced that Ignatius could be based on Perigrinus, I am not inclined to see Apellian influence either. He may have a point WRT the Gospel of John, where there is some philosophical meat on them bones, but again, I just do not see anything remotely philosophical about Ignatius' teachings. I do not see that rambling simpleton as a philosopher.

As for major Simonian influence on early Christian development, this is really a house of cards. In my POV, the Simon legend was just that, a legend, probably made up by the editors of the pseudo-Clementine Recognitions & Homilies. To spin this into an elaborate web like he does is just well beyond reasonable evidence, in my opinion.

DCH

[Ben C. Smith]

I call this effort to declare first teacher the "name game", the attempt to neatly wrap things up and say, "so and so" is the founder, after setting aside Jesus as being from the same mythical sphere as the apostles and saints. To my view it's simply replacing one legend with another as founder, and no better. A fools game.

I have seen what you are calling "the name game" done poorly, and I have also seen it done well. I think that Roger Parvus does it quite well, even if he may be wrong (wrongness of this kind, in this line of inquiry, is not necessarily a good reason to say that something was done poorly, since so much is wide open in the field). First, he does not concentrate only on one figure (be it Peter, Paul, or Marcion); he spreads things around as needed, which allows for things to remain relatively unforced. Second, he is not actually seeking a founder most of the time (his Simonian theory, which he has now rejected in large part, was the exception, not the rule); in this case, for example, he is merely trying to figure out who had a hand in revising Paul's epistles, and that is not a search for a founder or "first teacher" in any real sense.

To refuse on principle to ever even look for which person or group may have been responsible for doing something in the past would be silly. At the very least, rehearsing the various named persons and groups will give one an idea of the range of ideas both available and actually embraced on a particular topic.

In my estimation, much/most of the developments in early Christianity were probably anonymous. You and I are probably not that different on that score. I think, however, that I can sometimes tilt too far in that direction and forget that sometimes we do know the names of people who inaugurated certain things, and it can be worthwhile to look for those people. Most is less than all.

As for major Simonian influence on early Christian development, this is really a house of cards. In my POV, the Simon legend was just that, a legend, probably made up by the editors of the pseudo-Clementine Recognitions & Homilies. To spin this into an elaborate web like he does is just well beyond reasonable evidence, in my opinion.

I never bought the Simonian hypothesis, either, but bear in mind that Parvus himself has backed away from most of it; most relevantly, perhaps, Simon is no longer the genesis.

[Stuart]

I call this effort to declare first teacher the "name game", the attempt to neatly wrap things up and say, "so and so" is the founder, after setting aside Jesus as being from the same mythical sphere as the apostles and saints. To my view it's simply replacing one legend with another as founder, and no better. A fools game.

I have seen what you are calling "the name game" done poorly, and I have also seen it done well. ...

Done poorly and done well IMO are mostly in the eye of the beholder. We need some better criteria than personal hunches and opinions.

To refuse on principle to ever even look for which person or group may have been responsible for doing something in the past would be silly. At the very least, rehearsing the various named persons and groups will give one an idea of the range of ideas both available and actually embraced on a particular topic.

OK, this I have to call you out on. While I think looking for the specific names and teachers is a hopeless wild goose chase, I do not extent that by any means to the consideration of which sect ("group" is a vague word meant to downplay sectarianism, so I wont use it) may have written various passages. I think that holds great value, and is how we deconstruct the letters and gospels to figure out what theologies and concerns are behind those passages. You make a straw man of my argument when you extend it to positions I specifically and explicitly do not extend it to. We actually agree on the groups part. My "on principle" part applies to the teacher names.

When we choose a teacher name, what we are doing is giving one legendary person and place some historical accuracy, while denying it to others. We in short are choosing to elevate one above the others, rather than see them all as coming from the same well. This I object to, as it biases results. You need archeological evidence to support names (Queen Helena giving aid to Jerusalem is historical fact, but her origins and conversion may by mythical -- she may well have been Jewish from birth, and married off to royalty, as one of many wives; but it makes a great tale).

In my estimation, much/most of the developments in early Christianity were probably anonymous. You and I are probably not that different on that score. I think, however, that I can sometimes tilt too far in that direction and forget that sometimes we do know the names of people who inaugurated certain things, and it can be worthwhile to look for those people. Most is less than all.

We agree on anonymous authorship. But we have nuanced differences. I ask a question you don't.

Do we really know the names? Robert Price argues the letters are before the gospels (saying the traditionalists have this at least right). And surely he says these letters would not have appealed on arguments of faith to words and deeds of Jesus from the Gospels as their authority for this or that theological point they were trying to make, but they don't. The implications of this observation, if correct (there are clearly passages of later strata which do appeal to the gospel narratives), are quite profound.

For one thing, the names we find in the gospels would become more suspect, the products of writers from later generations.Names like Mary, Judas, John, and Simon Peter may be nothing more than literary inventions, characters given Jewish names to fit the setting. Simon may have been invented after[/] Silvanus, Timothy, Titus, Cephas, Apollos and Paul.[1] The sign-offs of Pauline letters (which IMO are mostly a later strata, even after the collection was formed, as they contain numerous references to Characters in Acts) are in fact littered with Greek and Roman names, not Jewish ones. This should make us suspicious of the Gospel names, and certainly Acts. Further many names are aptronyms; Thomas, Peter, Cephas most obviously, but also Paul and even Simon (one who hears the diety), and some even comically (e.g., Demetrius "follower of the goddess Demeter", who makes silver idols for her rival goddess Artemis). Other names, in Acts are plucked from Josephus, and in the Gospels from the Old Testament. How real are these names?

Digression: I am suspicious of the first Christian evangelists being ethnic Jewish,as the first converts are not Jews, but gentiles; Romans 16:5 saying "Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert in Asia for Christ" and 1 Corinthians 15:16 "Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia". Surely wandering Jews would first find entrance into fellow Jewish households, not gentile pagan homes. This is part of the reason I think ethnic replacement occurred in the monasteries where Christianity incubated and separated from Judaism, not as a result of evangelism (the conversion of ordinary lay people by design, the whole sending out of the 12 and 70 themes).

So do we really know the names?

If we look at it from the angle of the Jewish evangelism gone sideways theories point of view, we find they hinge on the gossipy apocryphal tale from Josephus of the conversion of Queen Helena of Adiabene and her son Izates and also his brother Monobazus. He places a Jewish merchant name Ananias in her court and says he advises only the Naohic covenant for her son Izates, and thus no circumcision, but later a Jew from Galilee Eleazar gives a speech (all speeches in Josephus, like all ancient writers are largely literary inventions, much like in Shakespeare) about reading the Law and the need to circumcise, which leads Izates to comply. This tale is reflected in the 4th to 6th century Parasha xlvi where the two brothers on their own each read the law and have a surgeon circumcise them and assume the brother has not.

Anyway this tale, and the names of Ananias and Eleazar are often used by Jewish origin theorists to be the "kernel of truth" behind the Peter (Dositheus?) and Paul (Simon Magus) story. But the tale and the names are probably legends from afar rather than real inside the court of the queen reports, and the names perhaps invented by Josephus. The parallel to early Christian sectarianism on the subject may be convergent evolution, as the Christian movement would have faced the same issues of Noahic versus Mosaic covenant for gentile converts. In the Jewish case it concerns those marrying Jewish women, in the Christian it centered around the divorce from Judaism and whether strict adherence to Mosaic laws still applied (in my view, despite the ethnic replacement of Jews with gentiles in the various monastic proto-Christian communities, we would likely still see some who practiced from the start Noahic and others Mosaic covenants for the gentiles members joining the community - hence the parallel).

So the names from Josephus, Acts and the Gospels fall into a category of legend, lore and literary invention, not of actual persons.

Note:
[1] I am of the opinion that Galatians 2:9 "James and Cephas and John" is possibly an addition to the original, which may simply have said "those" unnamed Pillars as in verse 2:6. But I do concede, that the writer of Galatians 1:1-3, 6-9. 11-17, 21-22, 2:1-7a (up to "entrusted with the gospel"), 9-21, who is a later hand than chapter 3 onward, may well have included the patron saint rivals of Paul, painting them in a negative light. This simply indicates that the first two chapters of Galatians are very late, even after Acts of the Apostles was circulating, as it wished to counter it's presentation.

[Ben C. Smith]

I am suspicious of the first Christian evangelists being ethnic Jewish,as the first converts are not Jews, but gentiles; Romans 16:5 saying "Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert in Asia for Christ" and 1 Corinthians 15:16 "Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia". Surely wandering Jews would first find entrance into fellow Jewish households, not gentile pagan homes.

I want to highlight just this single portion as an example of how your approach and mine may differ. Stephen, to be sure, is a good Greek name, not a Jewish one. But how are you sure that it belongs to a Greek person in this epistle and not to a Jew?