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Re: Chronology of Hegesippus (Re: Tinker Tailor Soldier Forger)

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2020 10:43 am
by Ben C. Smith
Ken Olson wrote: Wed Jul 22, 2020 8:23 amThe link wouldn't won't for me, but I'm guessing you meant this post:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7008&p=109850&=Anicetus#p109850
Sorry about that. But no, the link is actually: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2101. It predates our discussion, and was put forward as a suggestion (which it still is, though I admit I am liking it more and more as time passes). I will let you look over that link and see if anything changes in your approach before responding to the rest of your post. (I doubt anything changes much, except maybe changing "Eusebius" to "Irenaeus" once in your reply, but... one never knows.)

Re: Tinker Tailor Soldier Forger

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2020 2:02 pm
by Ken Olson
Read the link and fixed two things in my post.

Re: Chronology of Hegesippus (Re: Tinker Tailor Soldier Forger)

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2020 4:41 pm
by Ben C. Smith
Ben Smith wrote:
Theory B is perfectly possible. My preference for A is more of a suggestion than a firm position. It is based on several things:
1. Eusebius is in direct contradiction with his own quotation of Hegesippus when he asserts in History of the Church 4.11.7 that Hegesippus remained in Rome until Eleutherus; Hegesippus himself, according to History of the Church 4.22.2-3, remained in Rome until Anicetus. This is true whether or not he added to the list to get down to Eleutherus. I have suggested that Eusebius wrote this one part about Hegesippus (since he is not quoting him in 4.11.7) in confusion with Irenaeus.
I don't think this is a direct contradiction. Eusebius could have read 4.22-23 as saying that Hegesippus remained in Rome until Eleutherus. Hegesippus says he compiled the list while he was in Rome in the time of Anicetus. He doesn't say he remained in Rome until the reign of Eleutherus, but he doesn't actually say he left either. It could very plausibly be a tendentious reading on Eusebius' part.
Okay, I retract "direct contradiction" and replace it with something like "implausibility." I find it implausible that Hegesippus would write that he remained in Rome until Anicetus if he actually remained there two episcopates longer than that.
3. The list that Irenaeus gives us evinces a syntactic break at Anicetus. It is possible, as you suggest, that Hegesippus himself wrote the original list and then added to it later, but, if the list was written in two separate sittings anyway (as the break suggests to my mind), then it becomes an open question whether the second writer was Hegesippus himself (again) or Irenaeus.
I disagree. The work Eusebius is quoting (to use the term loosely) in HE 4.22-23 is Hegesippus' Memoirs (Hypomnemata), in which the author refers back to the bishop's list he compiled at an earlier time. This doesn't mean that Eusebius is necessarily still quoting Hegesippus the later part of HE 4.22-23, but I don't think that means it's an open question either. My default assumption would be that he's still quoting Hegesippus' Memoirs as long as it's plausible that he is.
I did not comprehend your reply here very well. I wrote about the syntactic break in Irenaeus, and did not mention Eusebius in the snippet you quoted, while you responded solely in terms of Eusebius, and did not mention Irenaeus.

To rephrase my point, sure, if all we are looking at is that passage in Eusebius, my initial guess would be that Hegesippus himself wrote about Soter and Eleutherus. But I am also looking at Irenaeus, whose list of bishops looks like it ran up only to Anicetus at one point before being added to; the evident literary relationship between Irenaeus and Epiphanius comes into play here, and the list in Epiphanius ends at Anicetus, too.
4. Eusebius, with the exception of that errant comment about Eleutherus in 4.11.7, seems to date Hegesippus to the time of Justin Martyr, giving both of these heresiologists their chronological due in book 4. He dates both Eleutherus' episcopacy and Irenaeus' writings, on the other hand, to a later time, described chronologically in book 5. Hegesippus he characterizes as having lived "immediately after the apostles" (2.23.3), and Justin he characterizes similarly as having lived "not long after the time of the apostles" (2.13.2).
Two points here. First, Eusebius could simply be inaccurate or imprecise. At least in the HE, Eusebius is usually simply inferring dates from the interior evidence of the sources he's quoting in the HE and his placements don't carry much independent value.
Yes, Eusebius does infer his chronologies from internal evidence; but he seems to do so at the time he considers most appropriate for the composition of the text in question. For example, in the case of Irenaeus, he quotes the passage in which Irenaeus lists the bishops down to Eleutherus and then locates his discussion of Irenaeus accordingly; even though Eusebius has already made mention, say, of Irenaeus' meeting with Polycarp, which occurred much earlier, and even though he knows that Irenaeus' lifetime spanned a great deal of church history, and even though he has quoted Irenaeus several times already, he does not "officially" describe Against Heresies until the episcopate of Eleutherus. Likewise with the apostle John. Even though Eusebius has mentioned John several times already (treating him at this stage as apostle, evangelist, and revelator), he does not "officially" describe the Apocalypse of John until he gets to the reign of Domitian. But Hegesippus? On the standard chronology Hegesippus' work explicitly names Eleutherus as the most recent bishop of Rome, exactly like Irenaeus does, and yet Eusebius for some reason uses what must therefore be an earlier event in his lifetime, the deification of Antinoüs, to "officially" describe five books of Hegesippus. This is rather suspicious to me. It looks like, when the time came for Eusebius to locate the five books of Hegesippus chronologically using the internal evidence available from those books, there was no mention of Eleutherus to go by.
5. Peter Kirby has argued that the Josephus who gave "a chronological calculation involving the tenth year of Antoninus," according to Clement of Alexandria, was actually Hegesippus. I like the argument. I am not sure it is correct, but I like it.
I'm fond of it myself, but I'm not sure how it bears on the chronological issues we're talking about here.
Well, to me, as (I think) to Peter, it looks like one of those calculations designed to bring things up to the current year, or very nearly. It does not look like it is calculating things up to some heavy duty event like the fall of Jerusalem or whatnot. YMMV.
I think the internal evidence is far more important than Eusebius' claim that Hegesippus wrote “immediately after the apostles,” which I think can only be taken in the loosest sense (as with Justin 100-165 CE).
And this is yet another point. Hegesippus he characterizes as having lived "immediately after the apostles" (2.23.3), and Justin he characterizes similarly as having lived "not long after the time of the apostles" (2.13.2). He does not do the same for Irenaeus, does he? Yet again Eusebius seems to commit to dating Hegesippus to the time of Justin, rather than a couple of decades later, to the time of Irenaeus. All of this makes the "internal evidence" of Soter and Eleutherus look to me like an addition to Hegesippus based on Irenaeus.
And Ben, while I'm disagreeing with you on several points here, I'd like to express my appreciation for your rationality.
Well, thanks. I try. And likewise. :)

ETA: At one point Eusebius lists a number of ecclesiastical authors who flourished in a particular timeframe (ἐν τούτοις), starting with Hegesippus and finishing with Irenaeus:

Eusebius, History of the Church 4.21[.1]: 1 At that time [ἐν τούτοις] there flourished in the church Hegesippus [4.22.1-8], whom we know from what has gone before, and Dionysius [4.23.1-7, 9-12], bishop of Corinth, and another bishop, Pinytus [4.23.8] of Crete, and besides these, Philip [4.25.1], and Apolinarius [4.27.1], and Melito [4.26.1-14], and Musanus [4.28.1], and Modestus [4.25.1], and finally [ἐπὶ πᾶσιν, "after all of them," "on top of them all," "beyond them all"] Irenaeus [5.4.1-3, 7.1-6, 8.1-15, 20.1-8, et alia]. From them has come down to us in writing, the sound and orthodox faith received from apostolic tradition.

These names seem to form a kind of outline for the topics which Eusebius is going to discuss next; I have included the references in brackets for where he actually discusses each figure on the list.

Re: Tinker Tailor Soldier Forger

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2020 7:21 pm
by Ben C. Smith
Ken, does your argument essentially boil down to the prima facie reading of two passages from Eusebius suggesting that Hegesippus wrote something about Eleutherus?

Eusebius, History of the Church 4.11.7: 7 And in Rome Pius died in the fifteenth year of his episcopate, and Anicetus assumed the leadership of the Christians there. Hegesippus records that he himself was in Rome at this time, and that he remained there until the episcopate of Eleutherus.

Eusebius, History of the Church 4.22.2-3: 2 His words are as follows: “And the church of Corinth continued in the true faith until Primus was bishop in Corinth. I conversed with them on my way to Rome, and abode with the Corinthians many days, during which we were mutually refreshed in the true doctrine. 3 And when I had come to Rome I remained there until Anicetus. His deacon was Eleutherus, and Anicetus was succeeded by Soter, and he by Eleutherus. In every succession, and in every city that is held which is preached by the law and the prophets and the Lord.

Or is there more than that?

ETA: I had wanted to mention Jerome before, but forgot. This is not an argument; it is simply an interesting observation. Jerome seems to take any possible misunderstanding of Hegesippus to the next level in On Famous Men 22: "He[gesippus] says that he went to Rome in the time of Anicetus, the tenth bishop after Peter, and continued there till the time of Eleutherius, bishop of the same city, who had been formerly deacon under Anicetus." Now his tenure in Rome starts with Anicetus, which is not the impression given in Eusebius' snippets of Hegesippus.

Re: Tinker Tailor Soldier Forger

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2020 5:56 am
by Ken Olson
Ben C. Smith wrote: Wed Jul 22, 2020 7:21 pm Ken, does your argument essentially boil down to the prima facie reading of two passages from Eusebius suggesting that Hegesippus wrote something about Eleutherus?

Eusebius, History of the Church 4.11.7: 7 And in Rome Pius died in the fifteenth year of his episcopate, and Anicetus assumed the leadership of the Christians there. Hegesippus records that he himself was in Rome at this time, and that he remained there until the episcopate of Eleutherus.

Eusebius, History of the Church 4.22.2-3: 2 His words are as follows: “And the church of Corinth continued in the true faith until Primus was bishop in Corinth. I conversed with them on my way to Rome, and abode with the Corinthians many days, during which we were mutually refreshed in the true doctrine. 3 And when I had come to Rome I remained there until Anicetus. His deacon was Eleutherus, and Anicetus was succeeded by Soter, and he by Eleutherus. In every succession, and in every city that is held which is preached by the law and the prophets and the Lord.”[/box]
Or is there more than that?
Yes, that's essentially it. That and I don't see what advantage there is to the theory that Eusebius has inserted information from Irenaeus in between two blocks of Hegesippus without warning. He introduces Hegesippus with a summary of what he's quoting him on, he quotes him, and he introduces his next quotation with "the same author also describes ..." It looks like he's quoting a single passage up until he introduces the next passage, and that would be my default position.

I *think* we are agreed that Irenaeus used Hegesippus, though Irenaeus does not name him. I was understanding that Irenaeus had the list of bishops up to Anicetus that Hegesippus compiled (i.e., the one he refers to in the Memoirs passage quoted by Eusebius). Ireneaus then added the later bishops either because he knew the same passage from Hegesippus Memoirs (my theory) or on his own (your theory). This would explain the syntactic break at Anicetus. What advantage do you see your theory having there?

Ben: ETA: I had wanted to mention Jerome before, but forgot. This is not an argument; it is simply an interesting observation. Jerome seems to take any possible misunderstanding of Hegesippus to the next level in On Famous Men 22: "He[gesippus] says that he went to Rome in the time of Anicetus, the tenth bishop after Peter, and continued there till the time of Eleutherius, bishop of the same city, who had been formerly deacon under Anicetus." Now his tenure in Rome starts with Anicetus, which is not the impression given in Eusebius' snippets of Hegesippus.

In this case, I think Jerome's source is probably Eusebius HE, as is the case for most of his material in De Viris Illustribus. Eusebius reads Hegesippus badly and Jerome reads Eusebius freely.

Best,

Ken

Re: Tinker Tailor Soldier Forger

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:51 am
by Ben C. Smith
Ben: ETA: I had wanted to mention Jerome before, but forgot. This is not an argument; it is simply an interesting observation. Jerome seems to take any possible misunderstanding of Hegesippus to the next level in On Famous Men 22: "He[gesippus] says that he went to Rome in the time of Anicetus, the tenth bishop after Peter, and continued there till the time of Eleutherius, bishop of the same city, who had been formerly deacon under Anicetus." Now his tenure in Rome starts with Anicetus, which is not the impression given in Eusebius' snippets of Hegesippus.
In this case, I think Jerome's source is probably Eusebius HE, as is the case for most of his material in De Viris Illustribus. Eusebius reads Hegesippus badly and Jerome reads Eusebius freely.
I quite agree that Jerome plundered Eusebius for his summaries in On Famous Men.

I want to correct something I wrote in that connection, as well. It seems at least possible that Hegesippus did arrive in Rome under Anicetus, after all (I have no proof he did, but I am not ruling it out). I was mentally treating the "remained there" bit as separate from the "drew up a succession list" bit, but they are actually, as I now recall, alternatives for the same contentious line: διαδοχὴν ἐποιησάμην, which some emend to διατριβὴν ἐποιησάμην. The contention arises at least partly because Rufinus apparently uses permansi inibi.

Do you have any opinion of the list in pseudo-Tertullian's Poem Against the Marcionites (Latin, English)? After the apostle Peter (of course) it runs:
  1. Linus
  2. Cletus
  3. Anacletus
  4. Clement
  5. Evaristus
  6. Alexander
  7. Sixtus
  8. Telesphorus
  9. Hyginus
  10. Pius
  11. Anicetus
It (almost certainly wrongly) treats Cletus and Anacletus as two separate bishops, thus ironically moving Sixtus into seventh place; it also suggests that the big threat with which Anicetus dealt was Marcion, not Marcellina, which appears to a lot of people to be a mistake. As with Epiphanius, it is possible to explain the list's termination at Anicetus as a utility move, simply to get us to Marcion's/Marcellina's day, but it also thereby manages to give us yet another list which ends with Anicetus.

I can theoretically get on board with Hegesippus making a list of bishops up through Anicetus while he was in Rome, and then publishing that list two episcopates later in life in his Memoirs. But, if we accept the data from Eusebius which leads us to that conclusion, then Hegesippus himself updated the list in some way to arrive at Eleutherus. Thus, if I am understanding your reconstruction aright, there never was a published list which led only up to Anicetus; it was always updated up to Eleutherus, and that by Hegesippus himself. Am I reading you correctly there?

Re: Tinker Tailor Soldier Forger

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:36 am
by Ken Olson
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:51 am Do you have any opinion of the list in pseudo-Tertullian's Poem Against the Marcionites (Latin, English)? After the apostle Peter (of course) it runs:
  1. Linus
  2. Cletus
  3. Anacletus
  4. Clement
  5. Evaristus
  6. Alexander
  7. Sixtus
  8. Telesphorus
  9. Hyginus
  10. Pius
  11. Anicetus
I've never looked at it before, but my immediate reaction is that in at least some of these lists there may be something at stake in making the list come out to twelve members, whether they omit Peter and/or Paul or make Cletus and Anacletus two separate bishops,
I can theoretically get on board with Hegesippus making a list of bishops up through Anicetus while he was in Rome, and then publishing that list two episcopates later in life in his Memoirs. But, if we accept the data from Eusebius which leads us to that conclusion, then Hegesippus himself updated the list in some way to arrive at Eleutherus. Thus, if I am understanding your reconstruction aright, there never was a published list which led only up to Anicetus; it was always updated up to Eleutherus, and that by Hegesippus himself. Am I reading you correctly there?
I think that's a possibility, but not that it's necessarily the case. If we take HE 4.22-23 to be an actual quotation of Hegesippus, then that may be the only place he mentioned Soter and Eleutherus. He could also added their names directly to his previously compiled succession list, and he could have published that list, whether it ended with Anacletus or Eleutherus in the Memoirs (I lean toward the idea he did), or separately, or both.

Best,

Ken

Re: Tinker Tailor Soldier Forger

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2020 8:49 pm
by Secret Alias
ignore