Dujardin on John the Baptist, Suetonius and a mythicist called Papias
Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2021 6:39 am
I am reading this book signed by the same author and with the old pages still not separated between them:
Dujardin thinks that:
Hence the hamletic dilemma for the poor Papias: if John the Elder told to me orally that Jesus was entirely mythical, then why do written sources claim that Jesus was historical? Quid est veritas?
In 135, Justin has not more the hamletic doubts of Papias:
Dujardin thinks that:
- John the Baptist existed and was a Nazorean, hence a Christian. This is why his disciples know already "the things concerning Jesus" in Acts: about Jesus, not Christ.
- The suetonian impulsore Chresto reflects the historical tradition about Simon Peter, confused by Justin with Simon of Sanaria, preaching in Rome.
- Papias had known personally the author of the Revelation, John the Elder. Hence, from that John, he couldn't derive obviously a historicist tradition (the Jesus of Revelation being still without an entire life on the earth).
- But Papias had read also proto-Mark and proto-Matthew and their historicist version of Jesus.
Hence the hamletic dilemma for the poor Papias: if John the Elder told to me orally that Jesus was entirely mythical, then why do written sources claim that Jesus was historical? Quid est veritas?
A good day, Papias takes a decision; he will do an investigation; and alas he goes to ask those who have known the Elders. He doesn't believe the books as he doesn't believe to doctors from the good language; he wants to know.
This is the witness of Papias.
But, gradually, all is silent; gradually, the conciliation is made between the traditions who are in conflict; it is made under the form of a new doctrine that merges the previous ones.
That new doctrine, that merges the tradition of Mark and Matthew with that of Paul, as with that of Revelation, is that that had to find his genial expression in the fourth gospel.
This is the witness of Papias.
But, gradually, all is silent; gradually, the conciliation is made between the traditions who are in conflict; it is made under the form of a new doctrine that merges the previous ones.
That new doctrine, that merges the tradition of Mark and Matthew with that of Paul, as with that of Revelation, is that that had to find his genial expression in the fourth gospel.
In 135, Justin has not more the hamletic doubts of Papias:
all for him is evidence, eternal evidence, and the idea doesn't come to him that it has not always been so.