Giuseppe wrote:In my view, pagans as Celsus were historicists only for opportunism: it's better, for them, attak the Christians assuming a historical ''euhemerized'' (in a negative sense) Jesus (i.e. seeing him as a mere man). As some atheists today like assume a historical Jesus to denigrate him better.
So
Richard about this my view.
Dr Carrier writes that "Celsus had only the Gospels as a source", so from that, Celsus thought that the Gospels were being presented as biographical accounts. This is only important though if the argument was that the Gospels were apparent attempts at non-historical accounts, i.e. allegorical accounts that educated pagans would have recognised as non-historical.
Giuseppe wrote:Justin says that the Christians don't say nothing of different from what the Pagan myths were (about the resurrection episodes).
Exactly. Justin didn't claim that Christians believed that Jesus died on earth and the pagan gods died in a celestial sphere; he claimed that there was nothing different.
Giuseppe wrote:Julian was an educated pagan just as Celsus. He wrote in the opening paragraph of "
Against the Galileans":
It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind the reasons by which I was convinced that the fabrication of the Galilaeans is a fiction of men composed by wickedness.
Though it has in it nothing divine, by making full use of that part of the soul which loves fable and is childish and foolish, it has induced men to believe that the monstrous tale is truth.
fiction of men composed by wickedness would be the exact contrary of ''some kind of biographical work''.
No, quite the opposite. Think of the recent "Hitler Diaries". These were fiction, but they were presented as autobiographical. Julian recognised that the Gospels were presented as biographical accounts (in other words, Julian thought the Gospels were in the biography category), it's just that he thought they were lies.
I cover this in my review of Earl Doherty's "Jesus: Neither God Nor Man", here:
http://members.optusnet.com.au/gakuseid ... 4.html#4.2
I've reproduced part of that below:
Second and Third Century Christians attack the Roman gods
In the Second Century CE, Christian apologists began launching attacks on the Roman gods. According to Doherty, early Christians would have been eager to exploit the advantage of a recently historical saviour figure over the "average pagan" belief of their gods existing in this "World of Myth". But is there any record of this?
Second and Third Century apologists like Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Origen were educated members of the Roman Empire who would have grown up immersed in its religious and philosophical culture. They would have been certainly familiar with the views of both the average and educated pagan of their day. And yet, in all their attacks on the Roman gods, there is not a hint of the idea that the pagans thought their gods acted out their stories in a “World of Myth”. They attacked the pagan myths as being legends about men who were merely mortal, or as allegories, or the fiction of poets, or the lies of demons.
Probably many readers are familiar with the famous quote by Justin Martyr that “we [Christians] propound nothing different from what you [pagans] believe...” Could Justin have claimed this if the pagans believed that their gods acted in a “supernatural realm” while early historicist Christians believed that Christ had incarnated on earth? Keep in mind that Justin believed in a historical Jesus and was knowledgeable about the philosophical traditions of the time.
Here is the context of Justin's comment. From his First Apology:
- And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; AEsculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus...
All those stories do appear to be set on earth. From the extant ancient texts written by pagan philosophers, we have a good understanding of how the ancient Romans and Greeks viewed their gods. This is supported by the texts we have from Christians over the first three centuries, until Christianity became the dominant religion. No pagan – average or otherwise -- appeared to have believed in a “World of Myth”, and when Christian apologists attacked pagan beliefs, they didn't refer to such beliefs either.
Pagans attack Second Century Christianity
We've seen that early 'historicist' Christians, when attacking the Roman gods, appeared to have no knowledge that the "average pagan" believed in a 'spiritual realm' in which the myths of the gods were carried out. But what about the reverse? Did pagan writers point out how the "average pagan" believed in a 'spiritual realm' in which their gods acted, while Christians did not? For this, we turn to Celsus.
Celsus was a pagan philosopher who wrote an attack on Christianity called The True Discourse towards the end of the Second Century. While this text no longer exists, we do have significant quotes from it in the response by Origen, a Third Century Christian philosopher. On his website, Doherty quotes from his own book Challenging the Verdict, where he addresses the apologist Gregory Boyd on whether the pagan mysteries adopted ideas from Christianity. Doherty uses Hoffman's reconstruction of Celsus' work to make the following point (my emphasis below):
- Let me quote Celsus as quoted by Origen: “Are these distinctive happenings unique to the Christians—and if so, how are they unique? Or are ours to be accounted myths and theirs believed? In truth, there is nothing at all unusual about what Christians believe.” Now, Celsus was a pagan hostile to Christianity who wrote in the latter part of the second century at a time when the mystery cults were flourishing, and he is not the only one to claim that the Christians believed in nothing new.
Doherty goes on to suggest elsewhere in Challenging the Verdict that Paul and the early Christians originally regarded their Jesus as much like the pagan savior gods, a "mythical divine figure operating in a supernatural setting". But Celsus clearly understands that the Christians he is attacking believed in a historical Jesus as outlined in the Gospels of the time. If this is the case, why are both 'historicist' Christians and 'spiritual realm' pagans so at pains to point out that 'historicist' Christian views are NOT different from pagan views?