In addition to (Four?) Gospels circulating (in 125 AD) and those Xian "books" that Perigrinus (Lucian of Samosata) knew of (c.125 AD, by the account), the Jesus Story has already become richly embroidered by that point. I am curious when Jesus' EGYPTIAN (HEALING) POWERS motif first developed. Something is missing, however. The Egyptian Church would have played that up, no?billd89 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 26, 2021 2:37 pm If -- following one theory, that The True Doctrine dates c.125 AD -- Celsum got his information partly from Jewish prophets in Phoenicia, then Celsum was referring to the same decade and area in & on which Philo of Byblos (c.125 AD) wrote.
Celsum knowing the Four-fold Gospels in 125 AD will also not allow any late-dating favored by deniers on this forum. For if Celsum knew the Four Gospels, all those works should already be circulating one or more decades previously (at least). The Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke, John) would have existed in some form before 110 AD and there's NO WAY that Celsum could have known a Gospel of Marcion.
Link: random blog post, Background.
Contra Celsum 1.28:
...[Celsus] accuses [Jesus] of having "invented his birth from a virgin," and upbraids Him with being "born in a certain Jewish village, of a poor woman of the country, who gained her subsistence by spinning, and who was turned out of doors by her husband, a carpenter by trade, because she was convicted of adultery; that after being driven away by her husband, and wandering about for a time, she disgracefully gave birth to Jesus, an illegitimate child. And because of his poverty, he prostituted himself to serve in Egypt. And having demonstrated there some miracle-powers (about which the Egyptians irreverently boast), he returned home with the miraculous conceit and publicly proclaimed himself God."...
Translated by Frederick Crombie. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4. [1885]
Jesus ... who having hired himself out as a servant in Egypt on account of his poverty, and having there acquired some miraculous powers, on which the Egyptians greatly pride themselves, returned to his own country, highly elated on account of them, and by means of these proclaimed himself a God.
1.28.
... καὶ ὅτι οὗτος διὰ πενίαν εἰς Αἴγυπτον μισθαρνήσας κἀκεῖ δυνάμεών τινων πειραθείς, ἐφ' αἷς Αἰγύπτιοι σεμνύνονται, ἐπανῆλθεν ἐν ταῖς δυνάμεσι μέγα φρονῶν, καὶ δι' αὐτὰς θεὸν αὑτὸν ἀνηγόρευσε. ...
μισθαρνέω = 'work, serve for hire' rather slanderously suggests 'prostituted himself'. However, the aquisition (and implicit demonstration) of miracle-powers obviously necessitated a discipleship in some cult. I suppose 'hired to serve' might have been twisted by Celsum, if a more accurate 'servant of god' (θεράπων) had been originally conveyed to him by rumor, etc. The clear implication is that Jesus is demoted to a mere greedy charlatan (in my English) - albeit one who had some success - with his 'Egyptian powers' being suspect/dodgy but not denied.
Dr. Carl Jung (projecting himself into the story as Jesus!) picked up on this illegitimacy, and rationalized the theory (another author's?) that Jesus was a Therapeut. Celsus never uses that term (nor does any other 1st-2nd C author, btw), but it is readily inferred.
So: Jesus taught his Disciples 'the Egyptian Mirace-Powers' : is there more info on that?