Ken Olson wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 7:18 am
Yes, there's a pretty strong argument to be made for the final line about the φῦλον of Christians as a nation distinct from the Jews and Hellenes being Eusebius' work or at least extremely congenial to him and in full agreement with what he says in the Demonstratio and HE. But that will have to wait for another post.
I'm looking forward to it.
Ken Olson wrote:
Couldn't find it in the LXX, there are two inexact parallels in Philo that might be considered:
Life of Moses 2.188: τοϋ θείου προφήτου, 'prophet of God', both words in the singular
Embassy to Gaius 99: τον έρμηνέα και προφήτην τών θείω, 'the interpreter and prophet of divine things', prophet in the singular and divine in the plural
Neither is a precise parallel to τῶν θείων προφητῶν, 'the divine prophets', in the TF and Eusebius with both words in the plural and fereering to the prophets of Israel collectively.
Not much attention has been given to this phrase. It's just viewed as a obvious christian interpolation but seems that it also favours Eusebian autorship.
Ken Olson wrote: I haven't responded to the question of whether Eusebius uses σοφὸς ἀνήρ elsewhere, because I don't think it's particularly important. Whealey's argument that he does not is a bit forced. In the Prophetic Eclogues, where Eusebius refers to Jesus as a σοφὸς ἀνήρ, he is not writing a commentary on the text of Ecclesiastes that requires him to use the words σοφὸς ἀνήρ. Instead, he is going to the text of Ecclesiastes 9.15 to show that Jesus is the particular σοφὸς ἀνήρ the text is talking about. Ecclesiastes 9.15 has καὶ ἄνδρα πένητα σοφόν 'the wise and poor man' which Eusebius takes as referring to the σοφὸς ἀνήρ Jesus. But the question about whether Eusebius uses σοφὸς ἀνήρ elsewhere is much less important than the the question of why he would use it in the Testimonium.
The argument I made in the Eusebian Reading paper is that Porphyry had said that Jesus was one of the wise men of the Hebrews that the Christians had mistakenly taken to be divine. In the Testimonium, the author initially labels Jesus as wise man, but immediately qualifies the category with: 'if one should call him a man', and immediately offers three facts about Jesus in support of the conclusion. 'He was the Christ." Whealey's argument is that Eusebius would have regarded σοφὸς ἀνήρ as an inadequate term to describe Jesus, but that's the point the Testimonium is making: Jesus was not merely a 'wise man', as Porpyhry had said, but the Christ foretold in prophecy. (Yes, I realize for first century Jews 'christ' is not necessarily a term denoting divinity, but for Eusebius and his intended audience it definitely is). The context requires σοφὸς ἀνήρ rather than just σοφὸς, because 'if one ought to call him wise' would have been nonsensical and failed to carry the point about Jesus superhuman nature that Eusebius was making.
It makes sense, thanks. σοφὸς ἀνήρ is not particularly Josephan phrase from what I can see. Josephus regarded Daniel once as a σοφὸς ἀνὴρ and Salomon once as ἀνδρὶ σοφῷ. I don't know if this is correct, but doing a quck search it seems that he doesn't also use standalone σοφὸς, while Eusebius does.
I see that Josephus also wrote σοφῶν once.
"The Jews took this prediction as applying to themselves and many of the wise men (σοφῶν) were wrong in their estimate of it, for it denoted the rule of Vespasian, who was in Judea when appointed as emperor." War 6.313"
Ken Olson wrote:
I've read Curran and think his argument is a step back from Whealey. Her argument that agreement between Jerome's Latin credebatur and Michael's Syriac mistabra in qualifying the statement "This one was the Christ" requires a common Greek ancestor, which she takes to be Eusebius HE, which was later modified by omitting the qualifier. (Mason states her argument a bit wrong in the video). I think her argument is inconclusive. Contra Whealey, I do not think it is not incredible that two Chrisitan translators might think 'this one was the Christ' was not what the Jew Josephus meant and turned the direct claim into an indirect one. Serge Bardet, who argues for the complete or near-complete authenticity of the Testimonium thinks this as well. Whealey is also ignoring the fact that these are not the only two times the christological claim gets modified in the course of tradition. Also, she hasn't explained by what mechanism all of our texts of Josephus Antiquities and Eusebius HE (in Greek and Syriac), Demonstratio (Greek) and Theophany (Syriac) were edited to remove the qualifier while, curiously, no one felt the necessity to edit of the qualifier in our texts of Jerome.
Curran's argument based on Jerome's reading seemed to me to be similar to, but weaker than Whealey's. If you detetc some virtue in Curran's argument that I missed, please post a recap.
I didn't dive into the article yet but I agree, especially give that Jerome and Michael don't have the exact same phrase in meaning, it's just very similar. Michael the Syrians TF is more of a paraphrase "He was thought to be the messiah,
but not according to the testimony of the principal men of our nation"
btw, i love how Whealey sometimes put words in your mouth by saying things such "Olson's argument that *Eusebius must have forged this phrase* to refute Hierocles or anyone else is unsupported"
I went to look for external witnesses who modified the christological statemant and I came across this interesting... paraphrase?
Religious Dialogue at the Sassanid Court (century V or VI)
"Josephus is your historian, who has spoken concerning Christ as a just and good man, who from divine grace was shown forth by signs and omens, working many things well."
"Ἰώσιππος ὁ συγγραφεὺς ὑμῶν, ὃς εἴρηκε περὶ Χριστοῦ ἀνδρὸς δικαίου καὶ ἀγαθοῦ, ἐκ θείας χάριτος ἀναδειχθέντος σημείοις καὶ τέρασιν, εὐεργετοῦντος πολλούς."
