Most Manuscripts are not Primary Sources

[Leucius Charinus]

'Apollonius of Tyana' is a fictional construct, an historische roman: The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, by Philostratus c.235 AD.

In which case you'll need to explain an inscription to Apollonius

A Fourth C inscription about a somewhat or largely fictional character described in the Early Third C? Of a purportedly Historical Apollonius, who lived in the First C?

I consider Apollonius to have been an historical person.
http://mountainman.com.au/apollonius_of_tyana.htm

The oldest 'Jesus' evidence is quicker than that.

There is no inscription to Jesus before the 4th century. And arguably no physical evidence for the Christians before the 3rd century. The physical literary "evidence" from the "F-Fathers" is from the middle ages.

Aelius Aristides (c.175 AD) was fanatic devotee of Aesculapius, and highly literate. Why doesn't he reference this famous 'Apollonius of Tyana' (c.95 AD), a spectacular guru-author who lived and died ~three generations earlier?

Ammianus Marcellinus a most reliable historical guide in his "Res Gestae" twice mentions Apollonius.

Because 'Apollonius of Tyana' is a fictional construct, an historische roman: The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, by Philostratus c.235 AD.

Eusebius a most unreliable historical guide refers to this book many times as the "history" of Philostratus.

THE TREATISE OF EUSEBIUS, THE SON OF PAMPHILUS,
AGAINST THE LIFE OF APOLLONIUS OF TYANA
WRITTEN BY PHILOSTRATUS,
OCCASIONED BY THE PARALLEL
DRAWN BY HIEROCLES
BETWEEN HIM AND CHRIST.

Translated by F.C. Conybeare (1912).
I

So then, my dear friend, you find worthy of no little admiration the parallel which, embellished with many marvels, this author has drawn between the man of Tyana arid our own Saviour and teacher. For already against the rest of the contents of the "Lover of Truth " (Philalethes), for so he has thought fit to entitle his work against us, it would be useless to take my stand at present; because they are not his own, but have been pilfered in the most shameless manner, not only I may say in respect of their ideas, but even of their words and syllables, from other authorities. Not but what these parts also of his treatise call for their refutation in due season ; but to all intents and purposes they have, even in advance of any special work that might be written in answer to them, been upset and exposed beforehand in a work which in as many as eight books Origen composed against the book which Celsus wrote and--even more boastfully than the " Lover of Truth,"--entitled " True Reason." The work of Celsus is there subjected to an examination in an exhaustive manner and on the scale above mentioned by the author in question, who in his comprehensive survey of all that anyone has said or will ever say on the same topic., has forestalled any solution of your difficulties which I could offer. To this work of Origen I must refer those who in good faith and with genuine "love of truth " desire accurately to understand my own position. I will therefore ask you for the present to confine your attention to the comparison of Jesus Christ with Apollonius which is found in this treatise called the " Lover of Truth," without insisting on the necessity of our meeting the rest of his arguments, for these are pilfered from other people. We may reasonably confine our attention for the present to the history of Apollonius, because Hierocles, of all the writers who have ever attacked us, stands alone in selecting Apollonius, as he has recently done, for the purposes of comparison and contrast with our Saviour.

http://mountainman.com.au/essenes/euseb ... lonius.htm

[billd89]

'Apollonius of Tyana' is a fictional construct, an historische roman: The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, by Philostratus c.235 AD.

In which case you'll need to explain an inscription to Apollonius

A Fourth C inscription about a somewhat or largely fictional character described in the Early Third C? Of a purportedly Historical Apollonius, who lived in the First C?

I consider Apollonius to have been an historical person.
http://mountainman.com.au/apollonius_of_tyana.htm

There are inscriptions and statues to "gods" and other fictionalized characters who may (or may not) have once lived/been real in some way.

There is no inscription to Jesus before the 4th century. And arguably no physical evidence for the Christians before the 3rd century. The physical literary "evidence" from the "F-Fathers" is from the middle ages.

You're barking, here. I don't think you've persuaded anyone else, so please don't waste my time w/ it.

Aelius Aristides (c.175 AD) was fanatic devotee of Aesculapius, and highly literate. Why doesn't he reference this famous 'Apollonius of Tyana' (c.95 AD), a spectacular guru-author who lived and died ~three generations earlier?

Ammianus Marcellinus a most reliable historical guide in his "Res Gestae" twice mentions Apollonius.

You haven't faced the truth; AA wrote volumes on Asklepios but nary a peep on his "greatest prophet" who would have lived a century before? Hmmm, doubt that. Instead, you offer hearsay mentions (i.e. Ammianus Marcellinus) circa 375 AD, ~300yrs after your Mythic Character supposedly lived. Why so late, bro?

Eusebius a most unreliable historical guide refers to this book many times as the "history" of Philostratus.

Eusebius c.335 AD is as valid or "reliable" in his testimony to an Historical Jesus as to an Historical Apollonius. His response to Sossianus Hierocles (c.305 AD) on anyone who supposedly lived inthe First C. AD is as much hearsay and as little proof, certainly.

You cannot have it both ways, dude.

[Leucius Charinus]

'Apollonius of Tyana' is a fictional construct, an historische roman: The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, by Philostratus c.235 AD.

In which case you'll need to explain an inscription to Apollonius

A Fourth C inscription about a somewhat or largely fictional character described in the Early Third C? Of a purportedly Historical Apollonius, who lived in the First C?

I consider Apollonius to have been an historical person.
http://mountainman.com.au/apollonius_of_tyana.htm

There are inscriptions and statues to "gods" and other fictionalized characters who may (or may not) have once lived/been real in some way.

You have yet to meaningfully deal with the inscription.

Here is an image:

There is no inscription to Jesus before the 4th century. And arguably no physical evidence for the Christians before the 3rd century. The physical literary "evidence" from the "F-Fathers" is from the middle ages.

You're barking, here. I don't think you've persuaded anyone else, so please don't waste my time w/ it.

Think about the task of an historian in terms of retrieving evidence from the past like a dog retrieves sticks. It's not about persuading the dog to retrieve sticks or the historian to retrieve evidence.

(1) The earliest Jesus inscription is the "IS the Good" dated 318 CE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Ali

(2) No physical evidence for the Christians before the 3rd century, and
(3) No physical literary evidence from the "F-Fathers" before the middle ages?

I am not wasting anyone's time. If you have evidence for either 2) or 3) simply state it. And don't bother to cite P.Oxy 405. That's an embarrassment. Otherwise I will simply assume that you are in denial of the truth of these negative statements. The physical evidence either exists or it doesn't. It's pretty simple, bro.

Aelius Aristides (c.175 AD) was fanatic devotee of Aesculapius, and highly literate. Why doesn't he reference this famous 'Apollonius of Tyana' (c.95 AD), a spectacular guru-author who lived and died ~three generations earlier?

Ammianus Marcellinus a most reliable historical guide in his "Res Gestae" twice mentions Apollonius.

You haven't faced the truth; AA wrote volumes on Asklepios but nary a peep on his "greatest prophet" who would have lived a century before? Hmmm, doubt that.

When did your AA volumes get written? 1938? When was the inscription discovered?

Instead, you offer hearsay mentions (i.e. Ammianus Marcellinus) circa 375 AD, ~300yrs after your Mythic Character supposedly lived. Why so late, bro?

Eusebius a most unreliable historical guide refers to this book many times as the "history" of Philostratus.

Eusebius c.335 AD is as valid or "reliable" in his testimony to an Historical Jesus as to an Historical Apollonius. His response to Sossianus Hierocles (c.305 AD) on anyone who supposedly lived inthe First C. AD is as much hearsay and as little proof, certainly.

You cannot have it both ways, dude.

But I have never dealt in "proofs". Some deal in white and black. I deal with a million shades of grey. History deals in hypotheticals.

.... All went according to plan, except that the pagan historians of the fourth century were not really going to die. They were only going to sleep for some centuries. They belonged to that classical tradition in historiography for which ecclesiastical history, whatever its merits, was no substitute. Though we may have learnt to check our references from Eusebius — and this was no small gain — we are still the disciples of Herodotus and Thucydides: we still learn our history of the late empire from Ammianus Marcellinus.

[StephenGoranson]

Granted that the definition of "gnostics" is a contested category, LC, Irenaeus apparently disapproved of those that he considered to be gnostics, or are you still suggesting that "Irenaeus" was a Constantine and Eusebius invention?

[Leucius Charinus]

The same logic applies to the literary evidence of Irenaeus and the heresiologists. Our earliest extant physical manuscripts are from the later middle ages. I have yet to determine whether there are any legitimate Greek manuscripts for Irenaeus at all. Aldus when taking Irenaeus to the printing press believed he was a Latin author. Scholars refer to a fundamental (and hypothetical) Latin "translation" of Irenaeus c.381 CE. This is well after Constantine and Eusebius.

It implicates the age of Damasus and the Latin scriptoria of Rome. This was the epoch in which Theodosius decreed against the heretics, and poured out massive anti-pagan legislation. The orthodox subscribed hand on heart to a revised Nicene Creed and the Trinity. Saints and martyrs abounded and the holy relic trade was just being kick-started by the orthodox. Fabrications abounded.

As a result we are dealing with hypothetical manuscripts for Irenaeus and the ante Nicene heresiologists just as we are dealing with hypothetical manuscripts for the ante Nicene gnostics of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. OTOH the NHL mss are not hypothetical. They are exemplars of historical reality and are dated to the Post Nicene epoch. I still contend that an alternative interpretation of this evidence, in which Irenaeus has been fabricated, is consistent with the available evidence.

Yes the hypothetical mss for Irenaeus and the 2nd century Gnostics (against whom Irenaeus supposedly railed) may have existed. But that there are alternative options as well is IMHO a valid opinion.

[StephenGoranson]

LC wrote, above, in part, with yellow marking:
"I have yet to determine whether there are any legitimate Greek manuscripts for Irenaeus at all."

You could try the Sources Chrétiennes editions.

[Leucius Charinus]

LC wrote, above, in part, with yellow marking:
"I have yet to determine whether there are any legitimate Greek manuscripts for Irenaeus at all."

You could try the Sources Chrétiennes editions.

ST IRENÆUS
THE DEMONSTRATION OF THE APOSTOLIC PREACHING
TRANSLATED FROM THE ARMENIAN

WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
ARMITAGE ROBINSON, D.D.
DEAN OF WELLS
LONDON:

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.

1920

THE DOCUMENT AND ITS VALUE

IT is a remarkable fact, and much to be regretted, that none of the works of St Irenæus, the greatest theologian of the second century, have come down to us in the language in which they were written. Of his chief work, the five books Against Heresies, we have a very early Latin translation, and a few fragments of the original Greek preserved through quotation by other writers.1 The work now before us, The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, has recently been found in an Armenian translation, and no portion of it seems to have survived in any other language.

https://www.ccel.org/ccel/irenaeus/demonstr.iii.i.html

The above seems to indicate that we have no extant Greek manuscripts for Irenaeus and that this author has been preserved chiefly in Latin. (Also FWIW I reject the integrity of P.Oxy. 405).

What could possibly go wrong with the inferential hypothesis that Irenaeus was a 2nd century witness to the "earliest gnostics"?

[StephenGoranson]

iiuc, LC, there are portions of Irenaeus' writing extant in Greek.
iiuc, LC, you place great emphasis on the earliest surviving manuscripts, despite the perishability of many writing surfaces, yet simultaneously you place great emphasis on probability that manuscript texts may tell lies. How, if so, do you weight these two tendencies?
iiuc, LC, you are suggesting that concerning taking Irenaeus as a--very biased--witness to those he called "gnostics" that something did "go wrong"--if so, what?

[Leucius Charinus]

iiuc, LC, you place great emphasis on the earliest surviving manuscripts, despite the perishability of many writing surfaces, yet simultaneously you place great emphasis on probability that manuscript texts may tell lies. How, if so, do you weight these two tendencies?

In a past article entitled "Weighing Gnostic Chronology" and subtitled "Weighing the material evidence underpinning the mainstream chronology of Ante-Nicene Gnostics" I have use Pearson's chi-squared test

http://mountainman.com.au/essenes/Weigh ... ostics.htm

Pearson's chi-squared test is a statistical test applied to sets of categorical data to evaluate how likely it is that any observed difference between the sets arose by chance. It is the most widely used of many chi-squared tests (e.g., Yates, likelihood ratio, portmanteau test in time series, etc.) – statistical procedures whose results are evaluated by reference to the chi-squared distribution. Its properties were first investigated by Karl Pearson in 1900.[1] In contexts where it is important to improve a distinction between the test statistic and its distribution, names similar to Pearson χ-squared test or statistic are used.

It tests a null hypothesis stating that the frequency distribution of certain events observed in a sample is consistent with a particular theoretical distribution. The events considered must be mutually exclusive and have total probability 1. A common case for this is where the events each cover an outcome of a categorical variable. A simple example is the hypothesis that an ordinary six-sided die is "fair" (i. e., all six outcomes are equally likely to occur.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearson%2 ... uared_test

[StephenGoranson]

LC, that's not really an answer to my questions.
In other words, do you think that, say, Valentinus, Basilides, Irenaeus, Mani, Mandeans, and Heracleon were inventions post-324?