Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars [Fictional Jesus]

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Leucius Charinus
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Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars [Fictional Jesus]

Post by Leucius Charinus »

  • Bauer's final book, Christ and the Caesars (1877) offers a penetrating analysis that shows common key-words in the words of 1st-century writers like Seneca the Stoic and NT texts. While this had been perceived even in ancient times, the ancient explanation was that Seneca 'must have been' a secret Christian.

    Bruno Bauer was perhaps the first to attempt to carefully demonstrate that some New Testament writers freely borrowed from Seneca the Stoic. One modern explanation is that common cultures share common thought-forms and common patterns of speech; that similarities do not necessarily indicate borrowing.

    In 1906 Albert Schweitzer wrote that Bauer "originally sought to defend the honor of Jesus by rescuing his reputation from the inane parody of a biography that the Christian apologists had forged." However, he eventually came to the belief that it was a complete fiction and "regarded the Gospel of Mark not only as the first narrator, but even as the creator of the gospel history, thus making the latter a fiction and Christianity the invention of a single original evangelist" (Otto Pfleiderer).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Bauer

NB: OP edited in error except for .....
QUESTIONS

(1) Are there any readily available references online showing the correspondence between the literature of Seneca and the NT?
Backgrounds of Early Christianity By Everett Ferguson, p.365
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=3tu ... 22&f=false
  • J.B. Lightfoot has compiled an impressive list of parallels in thought and language between Seneca and the New Testament (Paul in particular) with a judicious assessment of their fundamental difference. [76]

    FN [76]: J.B. Lightfoot, ST. Paul and Seneca, in St. Pauls Epistles to the Philipians, (1913)
    Available here: https://archive.org/details/cu31924029294398
and


St. Paul and Stoicism
Author(s): Frederick Clifton Grant
Source: The Biblical World, Vol. 45, No. 5 (May, 1915), pp. 268-281
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3142715

A bit old but worth a read.
Last edited by Leucius Charinus on Wed Oct 08, 2014 6:19 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars [Fictional Jesus]

Post by Leucius Charinus »

http://www.acu.edu/img/assets/8295/Vining.pdf
COMPARING SENECA’S ETHICS IN EPISTULAE MORALES TO THOSE OF PAUL IN ROMANS
PEGGY VINING

Conclusion of article:
  • Both Paul and Seneca teach as the very heart of their ethical admonition that reason must be restored and/or activated in order to procure change. Paul’s use of cognitive language throughout Romans does not imply a dependency on Stoicism, but presents an interesting parallel to the system of moral transformation in the primary philosophy of his day. To restore the faulty of reason, Seneca’s proficiens can utilize various mental exercises to change thinking and awaken the seed of virtue through rationality. Paul, however, binds the believer’s very self-identity with the restoration of reason.

    The baptized Christian must imagine and must think of himself or herself as part of the new aeon instigated at Christ’s death. In Romans, cognition makes possible a new self-image which in turn actualizes behaviour. Paul does not detail any disciplines that would be helpful for this sort of task, but the ongoing nature of the believer’s presentation of the sacrifice of his or her life means that there is continual work involved. A constant inner attitude of surrender and acceptance of his or her new situation in Christ is necessary. The continual nature of Paul’s moral transformation also means that the ethical life is only presented as a possibility for the Christian; the definitive moment of change occurs at the beginning of the process with baptism and the procurement of the Spirit, and the ultimate goal is not attainable until after death. Therefore, the believer must keep working diligently at thinking, and consequently acting, differently all through this life.
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
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Re: Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars [Fictional Jesus]

Post by Leucius Charinus »

http://vridar.org/2012/08/18/bruno-baue ... chapter-2/
Bruno Bauer and Today (“Is This Not the Carpenter?” — chapter 2)

Bauer’s conclusions about religion and the Gospels

Contains the following quote from Bauer:
  • The gospel reports are nothing other than free, literary products, whose soul is the simple categories of religion. What is specific to these categories, however, is that they reverse the laws of the real, rational world. They alienate the universality of self-consciousness, rend it violently away, and restore it in the form of representation as an alien, heavenly, or as an alien, limited, sacred history.
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
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Re: Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars [Fictional Jesus]

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars: The Origin of Christianity from Romanized Greek Culture.
Translated by Frank E. Schacht.

Reviewed by Robert M. Price.
http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/ ... aesars.htm

  • Bruno Bauer's name and some of his ideas have long been known second-hand through Albert Schweitzer's The Quest of the Historical Jesus. But until now none of Bauer's books has been translated, the result of the extremity of Bauer's views, which were well beyond the pale even of the most critical of mainstream scholars. Bauer played the same role vis a vis his better known colleague Ferdinand Christian Baur (founder of the Tübingen School of criticism) that Kaspar Schwenkfeld did re Martin Luther. In both cases, the more famous pioneer set an example which inspired another to go even farther in the same direction, and the trailblazer balked at going the whole length of the trail marked out. If F.C. Baur argued that the apostle Paul had written none of the "Pauline" Epistles save Romans, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Bruno Bauer, following the same logic, concluded that Paul had written none at all! If David Friedrich Strauss showed that the historical Jesus had become obscured behind the myth-screen of the gospels, Bruno Bauer maintained that the historical Jesus had never had any existence at all, being rather a fictive character created by the evangelist Mark! Bauer's theories were no mere flights of subjective fancy. He established a method, and even a movement: the Dutch Radical School whose greatest flower was W.C. van Manen.

    ...[trimmed]...

    Reading the prescient Bruno Bauer one has the eerie feeling that a century of New Testament scholarship may find itself ending up where it began. For instance, the work of Burton Mack, Vernon Robbins, and others makes a powerful case for understanding the gospels as Cynic-Stoic in tone. Abraham J. Malherbe and others have shown how great a debt to Cynicism and Stoicism the Pauline Epistles owe. Walter Schmithals demonstrated how the Corinthian Epistles deal with issues known to us from second-century Gnosticism. Many now admit there was no single Messiah concept in pre-Christian Judaism. Robert M. Fowler, Frank Kermode, and Randel Helms have demonstrated how thoroughly the gospels smack of fictional composition. Thus, from many directions, New Testament researchers seem to be converging uncannily on the theses that Bruno Bauer set forth over a century ago.

    It is absolutely necessary for Humanists to continue the work begun here by Alexander Davidonis in publishing more books by Bruno Bauer and the Dutch Radicals. This is a vital body of scholarship in our own tradition, and we are at a severe disadvantage for not having it readily available in a time when pseudo-scholarly fundamentalism is on the rampage.



LC
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
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Re: Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars [Fictional Jesus]

Post by Leucius Charinus »

ROMAN INFLUENCE on the Christian Good News via Seneca

Since we don't seem to have English translations of the claims of Bruno Bauer
related to the Roman influence on the writings of Paul and the Apostles
I have extracted the following from Lightfoot's treatment.
The source may be found between pages 278 and 283.
I have renumbered the footnotes sequentially for this extract.


http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029294398
Saint Paul's Epistle to the Philippians; a revised text (1888)

Author: Lightfoot, Joseph Barber, 1828-1889
Publisher: London : Macmillan and co.
Book contributor: Cornell University Library

  • ST.PAUL and SENECA


    p.278/279

    ... we might imagine ourselves listening to a Christian divine,
    when we read in the pages of Seneca that

    ' God made the world because He is good,
    ' and that Goodness ' as the good never grudges anything good,
    He therefore made every thing the best possible'.[1]

    Yet if we are tempted to draw a hasty inference from this parallel,
    we are checked by remembering that it is a quotation from Plato.
    Again Seneca maintains that in worshipping the first thing
    is to believe in the gods,' and that
    ' he who has copied them has worshipped them adequately'; [2]

    and on this duty of imitating the gods he insists frequently and emphatically'. [3]

    But here too his sentiment is common to Plato and many other of the older philosophers.
    'No man,' he says elsewhere, 'is good without God [4].

    Between good men and the gods there exists a friendship —
    a friendship do I say? nay, rather a relationship and a resemblance [5]';

    and using still stronger language he speaks of men as the children of God". [6]
    But here again he is treading in the footsteps of the older Stoic teachers,
    and his very language is anticipated in the words quoted by St Paul from Cleanthes or Aratus,

    'We too His offspring are [7]'

    From the recognition of God's fatherly relation to man important consequences flow.
    In almost Apostolic language Seneca describes the trials and sufferings of good men
    as the chastisements of a wise and beneficent parent :

    ' God has a fatherly mind towards good men and loves them .stoutly; and, saith He,
    Let them be harassed with toils, with pains, with losses, that they may gather true strength'.[8]'


    p.280

    Those therefore whom God approves, whom He loves, them He hardens, He chastises. He disciplines'.[9]

    ' Hence the'sweet uses of adversity' find in him an eloquent exponent.
    'Nothing,' he says, quoting his friend Demetrius, 'seems to me more unhappy
    than the man whom no adversity has ever befallen [10]'

    'The life free from care and from any buffetings of fortune is a dead sea [11]'
    Hence too it follows that resignation under adversity becomes a plain duty.
    'It is best to endure what you cannot mend, and without murmuring to attend upon God,
    by whose ordering all things come to pass. He is a bad soldier
    who follows his captain complaining [12].'

    Still more strikingly Christian is his language, when he speaks of God, who

    ' is near us, is with us, is within,' of ' a holy spirit residing in us,
    the guardian and observer of our good and evil deeds [13],'

    'By what other name,' he asks, 'can we call an upright
    and good and great mind except (a) god lodging in a human body [14]?'

    The spark of a heavenly flame has alighted on the hearts of men'. [15]

    They are associates with, are members of God.
    The mind came from God and yearns towards God". [16]

    From this doctrine of the abiding presence of a divine spirit
    the practical inferences are not less weighty.

    ' So live with men, as if God saw you; so speak with God, as if men heard you'. [17]

    'What profits it, if any matter is kept secret from men ? nothing is hidden from God'[18]

    'The gods are witnesses of everything".[19]

    But even more remarkable perhaps, than this devoutness of tone
    in which the duties of man to God arising out of his filial relation
    are set forth, is the energy of Seneca's language, when he paints
    the internal struggle of the human soul and prescribes the discipline
    needed for its release.

    "The soul is bound in a prison-house, is weighed down by a heavy burden.' [20]

    "Life is a continual warfare." [21]


    p.281

    From the terrors of this struggle none escape unscathed. The Apostolic doctrine
    that all have sinned has an apparent counterpart in the teachiag of Seneca ;

    'We shall ever be obliged to pronounce the same sentence upon ourselves,
    that we are evil, that we have been evil, and (I will add it unwillingly)
    that we shall be evil'. [22]

    ' Every vice exists in every man, though every vice is not prominent in each".' [23]

    ' If we would be upright judges of all things, let us first persuade
    ourselves of this, that not one of us is without fault' [24]

    'These are vices of mankind and not of the times.
    No age has been free from fault.' [25]

    ' Capital punishment is appointed for all, and this by a most righteous ordinance'.[26]

    'No one will be found who can acquit himself; and any man calling himself innocent
    has regard to the witness, not to his own conscience'.' [27]

    Every day, every hour,' he exclaims,' ' shows us our nothingness,
    and reminds us by some new token, when we forget our frailty'. [28]

    Thus Seneca, in common with the Stoic school generally, lays great stress
    on the office of the conscience, as 'making cowards of us all.'

    'It reproaches them,' he says, 'and shows them to themselves". [29]

    'The first and greatest punishment of sinners is the fact of having sinned'. [30]

    'The beginning of safety is the knowledge of sin.' ' I think this,' he adds,
    ' an admirable saying of Epicurus".' [31]

    Hence also follows the duty of strict self-examination.

    "As far as thou canst, accuse thyself, try thyself :
    discharge the office, first of a prosecutor,
    then of a judge, lastly of an intercessor" [32]

    Accordingly he relates at some length how, on lying down to rest every night,
    he follows the example of Sextius and reviews his shortcomings during the day :

    'When the light is removed out of sight, and my wife,
    who is by this time aware of my practice, is now silent,
    I pass the whole of my day under examination, and I review my deeds and words.
    I hide nothing from myself, I pass over nothing' [33]

    Similarly he describes the good man as one who

    ' has opened out his conscience to the gods, and always lives
    as if in public, fearing himself more than others'. [34]

    In the same spirit too he enlarges on the advantage of having a faithful friend,

    'a ready heart into which your every secret can be safely deposited,
    whose privity you need fear less than your own"; [35]

    and urges again and again the duty of meditation and self-converse [36],
    quoting on this head the saying of Epicurus,

    'Then retire within thyself most, when thou art forced to be in a crowd [37].

    Nor, when we pass from the duty of individual self-discipline to
    the social relations of man, does the Stoic philosophy, as represented
    by Seneca, hold a less lofty tone. He acknowledges in almost Scriptural
    language the obligation of breaking bread with the hungry [38]

    'You must live for another,' he writes, ' if you would live for yourself'. [39]

    ' For what purpose do I get myself a friend ? ' he exclaims with all the
    extravagance of Stoic self-renunciation,

    'That I may have one for whom I can die, one whom I can follow into exile,
    one whom I can shield from death at the cost of my own life.' [40]

    'I will so live,' he says elsewhere, ' as if I knew that I was born for others,
    and will give thanks to nature on this score' [41]

    Moreover these duties of humanity extend to all classes and
    ranks in the social scale. The slave has claims equally with the
    freeman, the base-born equally with the noble. ' They are slaves,
    you urge ; nay, they are men. They are slaves ; nay, they are
    comrades. They are slaves ; nay, they are humble friends. They are
    slaves ; nay, they are fellow-slaves, if you reflect that fortune has
    the same power over both.' ' Let some of them,' he adds, ' dine
    with you, because they are worthy; others, that they may become
    worthy.' ' He is a slave, you say. Yet perchance he is free in spirit.
    He is a slave. Will this harm him? Show me who is not.



    p.283

    One is a slave to lust, another to avarice,
    a third to ambition, all alike to fear'.'




    FOOTNOTES

    p.279


    [1] Ep. Mor. lxv. 10.
    [2] Ep. Mor. xcv. 50.
    [3] de Vit, heat. 15
    [4] Ep. Mor. xli ; comp. Ixxiii.
    [5] deProv. 1; cojnp.Nat. Quaest. prol.,
    [6] de Prov. r, de Benef. ii. 29.
    [7] Acts xvii. 28.
    [8] de Prov. 2.
    [9] de Prov. 4 ; oomp. ib. § i.

    p.280

    [10] de Prov. 3.
    [11] Ep. Mor. Ixvii. This again is a saying of Demetrius
    [12] Ep. Mor. cvii ; comp. ib. Ixxvi
    [13] Ep. Mor. xli; comp. ib. Ixxiii
    [14] Ep. Mor. xxxi
    [15] de Otio 5.
    [16] Ep. Mor. xcii.
    [17] Ep. Mor. x.
    [18] Ep. Mor. Ixxxiii; comp. Fragm. 14 (in Laotant. vi. 24).
    [19] Ep. Mor. cii
    [20] AdHelv.matr.ii,Ep.Mor.lxv,cii.
    [21] See below, p. 287, note 9.

    p.281

    [22] de Benef,i. 10.
    [23] de Bene/, iv. 27.
    [24] de Ira ii. 28; comp. ad Polyb. 11, Ep. Mor. xlii..
    [25] Ep. Mor. xcvii.
    [26] Qu. Nat. ii. 59
    [27] de Ira 1.14.
    [28] Ep. Mor. ci
    [29] Ep. Mor. xcvii. 15
    [30] Ep. Mor. xcvii. 14
    [31] Ep. Mor. xxviii. 9
    [32] Ep. Mor. xxviii. 10

    p.282

    [33] de Ira iii. 36.
    [34] de Benef. vii. i.
    [35] de Tranq. Anim. 7. Comp. Ep. Mot. xi.
    [36] Ep. Mor. vii
    [37] Ep. Mor. xxv
    [38] Ep. Mor. xcv
    [39] Ep. Mor. xlviii
    [40] Ep. Mor. ix.
    [41] de Vit. beat. 20: comp. de Otio 30 (3)
This is just the beginning.

Lightfoot then deals with the influence of Seneca's thinking on ......

the "Sermon of the Mount" (p.283 to 285).
the Gospel narratives (p.285 to 287)
the Apostolic Epistles (p.287 to 288)
the Pauline Epistles (p.299 to 290).


from p.293

' Though doing no wrong,' Socrates is represented saying, 'he will have the greatest reputation for wrong-doing,'
'he will go forward immovable even to death, appearing to be unjust throughout life but being just,' 'he will be scourged,'
'last of all after suffering every kind of evil he will be crucified (afao-p^ivSuAewSifo-eTai)".' [piato Resp. ii]

Not unnaturally Clement of Alexandria, quoting this passage, describes Plato as 'all but foretelling
the dispensation of salvation." [Strom. V. 14]



LC
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
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Re: Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars [Fictional Jesus]

Post by GakuseiDon »

This is a topic I'm interested in. It seems you've written a lot, but without saying anything. Stoic philosophers like Marcus Aurelius were often praised by Christians in later centuries for stating Christian-like concepts. In more modern times, people have found parallels to Christian ideals within Buddhism, Taoism, etc. But so what? Bauer wrote in the 19th Century, where many laymen Christian scholars were trying to find parallels between Christianity and other religions of the time, to show that there were common ideals between them all. The idea was to show Christianity as the true source. (This is the scholarship that Acharya S cites often in her "The Christ Conspiracy" book.)

What exactly is the claim in this thread, LC? If it is that Seneca said things that had parallels to early Christian writings, that's fine. It's always interesting to see these kinds of things, and speculate on how much Christianity was influenced by pagan philosophy and vice versa. But is there anything beyond that?
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Re: Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars [Fictional Jesus]

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Hi G'Don, I was using this thread to try and accumulate information on Bruno Bauer's ideas on the basis that we don't have English translations as yet.

In a separate thread .... viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1246 ... The Myth of Jewish Christianity ... I have applied the above information (about the influence of Seneca on the authors of the NT) in order to question the basic hypothesis that Christianity is Jewish, by offering the alternative hypothesis that it may be Roman. You might like to address this idea there.


LC
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
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Re: Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars [Fictional Jesus]

Post by GakuseiDon »

Leucius Charinus wrote:Hi G'Don, I was using this thread to try and accumulate information on Bruno Bauer's ideas on the basis that we don't have English translations as yet.

In a separate thread .... viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1246 ... The Myth of Jewish Christianity ... I have applied the above information (about the influence of Seneca on the authors of the NT) in order to question the basic hypothesis that Christianity is Jewish, by offering the alternative hypothesis that it may be Roman. You might like to address this idea there.
Do you mean "Christianity is Roman in origin" rather than "Christianity is Jewish in origin"? Christianity was no doubt shaped by Roman philosophy as soon as it moved into Roman areas, just as Judaism was, and just as Roman religious views changed as it conquered and came into contact with other regions. But that is not something that anyone doubts, AFAIK. In the last 50 years or so, the movement has been more towards stressing the Jewishness of early Christianity, hence Sanders' "New perspective on Paul."

Can you flesh out the alternative "Christianity is Roman" hypothesis, such that it actually is an alternative please? What is the issue (if any) of finding common ideas in both Seneca and Paul?
It is really important, in life, to concentrate our minds on our enthusiasms, not on our dislikes. -- Roger Pearse
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Re: Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars [Fictional Jesus]

Post by Clive »

What is the issue (if any) of finding common ideas in both Seneca and Paul?
Maybe the gospels and Paul are riffs on the work of Seneca? And yes Seneca was Roman, but he spent a lot of time in Alexandria.....
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Re: Bruno Bauer, Christ and the Caesars [Fictional Jesus]

Post by Leucius Charinus »

GakuseiDon wrote:
Leucius Charinus wrote:In a separate thread .... viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1246 ... The Myth of Jewish Christianity ... I have applied the above information (about the influence of Seneca on the authors of the NT) in order to question the basic hypothesis that Christianity is Jewish, by offering the alternative hypothesis that it may be Roman.
Do you mean "Christianity is Roman in origin" rather than "Christianity is Jewish in origin"? Christianity was no doubt shaped by Roman philosophy as soon as it moved into Roman areas, just as Judaism was, and just as Roman religious views changed as it conquered and came into contact with other regions.
I am looking at the authorship of the canonical books of the NT and am specifically interested in the theories of Bruno Bauer. He writes that the writer of Mark's gospel was "an Italian, at home both in Rome and Alexandria"; that of Matthew's gospel "a Roman, nourished by the spirit of Seneca"; Christianity is essentially "Stoicism triumphant in a Jewish garb."

What evidence is there that the authorship of the NT books did not occur within the Roman areas?
Can you flesh out the alternative "Christianity is Roman" hypothesis, such that it actually is an alternative please?
The hypothesis following Bruno Bauer would be that the NT was authored in the 2nd century by writers who were very comfortable with the Stoic philosophy of the Roman statesman Seneca. The hypothesis might be expanded according to the recent findings of Thomas Brodie in that the writers who authored the books of the canonical NT were part of a "school". This school maintained their own ("Christianized") Greek LXX translation of the Hebrew Bible. They would copy/paste material from the Greek LXX to form the Greek NT. It was a purely Greek literary operation. Finally, following Bauer, the administration of the literary school is not Jewish, but Roman, as disclosed by its use of Seneca.
What is the issue (if any) of finding common ideas in both Seneca and Paul?
The issue is partly to investigate the possibility of "literary borrowing" by the literary school which authored the NT.
This issue relates not just to Paul but to all the books and letters of the NT.

NOTE: I do not have the arguments used by Bruno Bauer (re: the Seneca NT correspondence) in front of me. I have used an article by Lightfoot in order to get a rough idea of how the writings of Seneca may be catalogued and compared to the writings found in the NT.




LC
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
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