Epiphanius's Alogi Chapter and Irenaeus. Again Please Help!

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Secret Alias
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Re: Epiphanius's Alogi Chapter and Irenaeus. Again Please Help!

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Yes. Thank you. Random notes from that:

"
it is universally recognized that his arguments against the 51st heresy are founded on the lost book of Hippolytus in defence of the fourth gospel and the apocalypse ... Epiphanius has a way of quoting his authorities word for word , regardless of sense . A well - known instance of such carelessness is found in Haer . 27 . 6 , where we are told that ' a certain Marcellina came to us ( ! ) in the days of Pope Anicetus ' , a sentence which was evidently written at Rome in the second century . It is probable that we have an instance here , and that toûto dè čokornoa is a statement by Hippolytus . It is evident that neither June 20th to January 6th ( 200 days ) nor May 21st to January 6th ( 230 days ) make seven lunar months minus 4 (29 1/2 x 7 - 4 = 202 1/2). But Hippolytus placed the Nativity on December 25th . Now from May 21st to December 25th . is exactly seven calendar months plus 4 days . If Epiphanius found this in Hippolytus , but understood January 6th to be meant and not December 25th (i.e. viii kl. Ian. for viii id. Ian.), it would be natural for him to reduce the 230 days by suggesting xii kl. Iul. for xii kl. Iun ; and then to get the calculation right all but 2 1/2 days by taking the months to be lunar months and by subtracting instead of adding the 'all but four day.'
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Epiphanius's Alogi Chapter and Irenaeus. Again Please Help!

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Secret Alias wrote: Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:04 pm Yes. Thank you. Random notes from that:

"
it is universally recognized that his arguments against the 51st heresy are founded on the lost book of Hippolytus in defence of the fourth gospel and the apocalypse ... Epiphanius has a way of quoting his authorities word for word , regardless of sense . A well - known instance of such carelessness is found in Haer . 27 . 6 , where we are told that ' a certain Marcellina came to us ( ! ) in the days of Pope Anicetus ' , a sentence which was evidently written at Rome in the second century . It is probable that we have an instance here , and that toûto dè čokornoa is a statement by Hippolytus . It is evident that neither June 20th to January 6th ( 200 days ) nor May 21st to January 6th ( 230 days ) make seven lunar months minus 4 (29 1/2 x 7 - 4 = 202 1/2). But Hippolytus placed the Nativity on December 25th . Now from May 21st to December 25th . is exactly seven calendar months plus 4 days . If Epiphanius found this in Hippolytus , but understood January 6th to be meant and not December 25th (i.e. viii kl. Ian. for viii id. Ian.), it would be natural for him to reduce the 230 days by suggesting xii kl. Iul. for xii kl. Iun ; and then to get the calculation right all but 2 1/2 days by taking the months to be lunar months and by subtracting instead of adding the 'all but four day.'
This is the passage in question:

Epiphanius, Panarion 51.29.1-5: 1 For I have also found it written somewhere <in> these works that the Word of God was born about the fortieth year of Augustus. This was the writer's error, or else he wrote only "forty (μ) years" because the figure "beta" had been erased and only the "mu" was left on the page. For Christ was born in the forty-second year of Augustus. 2 And it says that Christ <was conceived> on the twelfth before the Kalends of July or June — I cannot say which — in the consulship of Sulpicius Cammarinus and Betteus Pompeianus [note by Frank Williams: this name is inaccurate and is ungrammatically placed in the dative while Sulpicius Cammarinus is in the genitive; it may be interpolated]. 3 I have noticed <too> that those who have given a date for the conception, and Gabriel's bringing of the tidings to the Virgin, have said <this because of> a supposition of certain persons who have it by tradition that Christ was born after a term of seven months. 4 For I have found that there is a time of seven lunar months less four days between the month they mention and the eleventh of Tybi, the eighth before the Ides of January, when, in fact, the Epiphany came and Christ was born. 5 So if you should find <this> in a marginal gloss somewhere, do not be misled by the information. The actual date of Christ's birth is in fact the eleventh of Tybi. 6 Some, however, say that Christ was carried in the womb for ten months less fourteen days and eight hours, making nine months, fifteen days and four hours. They are alluding to Solomon's saying, "compacted in blood for a time of ten months" (Wisdom of Solomon 7.2).

Chapman argues that the highlighted bit comes from Hippolytus.
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Secret Alias
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Re: Epiphanius's Alogi Chapter and Irenaeus. Again Please Help!

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It's a brilliant article. Humbles me like my son watching Messi play from 2009 - 2015. He brings up other examples of copying Hippolytus (neutering Ken Olson's reading of the Marcellina passage). It is possible that the bit about the year being from Luke 4 - John 7 comes from something in Hippolytus. Again it complicates my thesis. But it is one explanation.

Another thing I notice is that the author ignores Irenaeus saying that Jesus was crucified under Claudius. Odd that he would miss that. Was the Armenian text unavailable to him?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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Re: Epiphanius's Alogi Chapter and Irenaeus. Again Please Help!

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Secret Alias wrote: Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:33 pm It's a brilliant article. Humbles me like my son watching Messi play from 2009 - 2015.
Well, Messi is just amazing, so....
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Re: Epiphanius's Alogi Chapter and Irenaeus. Again Please Help!

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What do you think the reason is for his omission of the statement in Armenian Irenaeus about being crucified under Claudius?
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Re: Epiphanius's Alogi Chapter and Irenaeus. Again Please Help!

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Secret Alias wrote: Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:46 pm What do you think the reason is for his omission of the statement in Armenian Irenaeus about being crucified under Claudius?
No firm conclusion, but Jesus being crucified under Claudius is simply impossible to square away with the canonical chronology; thus, despite the window it may afford into the Christian mindset of century II in Asia Minor, it is usually dismissed as a quirky, crazy interpretation. And maybe that is what Epiphanius did, too: he just ignored it because it is not helpful to one who is trying to defend a consenses based on both the synoptics and John.

Offhand, though, I do not know whether Epiphanius evinces knowledge of the Demonstration. Does he? If not, then maybe it is just as simple as him not knowing it.
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Re: Epiphanius's Alogi Chapter and Irenaeus. Again Please Help!

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:53 pm
Secret Alias wrote: Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:46 pm What do you think the reason is for his omission of the statement in Armenian Irenaeus about being crucified under Claudius?
No firm conclusion, but Jesus being crucified under Claudius is simply impossible to square away with the canonical chronology; thus, despite the window it may afford into the Christian mindset of century II in Asia Minor, it is usually dismissed as a quirky, crazy interpretation. And maybe that is what Epiphanius did, too: he just ignored it because it is not helpful to one who is trying to defend a consenses based on both the synoptics and John.

Offhand, though, I do not know whether Epiphanius evinces knowledge of the Demonstration. Does he? If not, then maybe it is just as simple as him not knowing it.
Even if Epiphanius had not read the Demonstration he knew Against Heresies which argues that Jesus lived to around 50.
See https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103222.htm

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Re: Epiphanius's Alogi Chapter and Irenaeus. Again Please Help!

Post by Ben C. Smith »

andrewcriddle wrote: Sun Jul 05, 2020 2:15 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:53 pm
Secret Alias wrote: Sat Jul 04, 2020 1:46 pm What do you think the reason is for his omission of the statement in Armenian Irenaeus about being crucified under Claudius?
No firm conclusion, but Jesus being crucified under Claudius is simply impossible to square away with the canonical chronology; thus, despite the window it may afford into the Christian mindset of century II in Asia Minor, it is usually dismissed as a quirky, crazy interpretation. And maybe that is what Epiphanius did, too: he just ignored it because it is not helpful to one who is trying to defend a consenses based on both the synoptics and John.

Offhand, though, I do not know whether Epiphanius evinces knowledge of the Demonstration. Does he? If not, then maybe it is just as simple as him not knowing it.
Even if Epiphanius had not read the Demonstration he knew Against Heresies which argues that Jesus lived to around 50.
See https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103222.htm
Yes, true.
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