That is the assertion that Jesus gathered "many of the Jews and many of the Greeks." When most take notice of this, they manage to do no more than apologize for the ignorance of Josephus. They believe he was misguided and, essentially, making it up, speculating from contemporary circumstances.
https://standpointmag.co.uk/jesus-in-th ... za-vermes/
https://pmrb.net/huumanist-skeptic/chri ... -nazareth/The reference to Jesus attracting to himself “many Greeks” is without Gospel support. Nevertheless, if Josephus knew of a mixed Jewish-Gentile church in Rome, he may have believed that a similar structure existed at the time of Jesus.
This line is a key to the mystery of the TF. It's the only thing that isn't in the Gospels. It's also unexplained why it's mentioned at all, in its current context. The rest of the TF reads like the adaptation of a credal summary.The mention of the fact that he attracted both Jews and Gentiles (i.e. Greeks) is consistent with the situation of the first century, especially Rome, which had both Jewish and Gentile converts to Christianity.
In case it's not clear what I mean (note the absence of much extra detail in the TF beyond the creed - basically, teaching, miracles, and Jewish involvement in his death):
The detection of what is different is key to understanding the motive of the author, as it is only that which is different which will justify and motivate the creation of the text. Consider for example the "Gospel of Jesus' Wife." Only one small detail is different: "Jesus' wife." The rest is a pastiche. That detail was indeed key to understanding the author's motivations. Without it, the creation has no real significance. It changes nothing about what people believe without that extra detail.TF:Nicene Creed:Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderous works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. ... He was [the] Christ.TF:And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.Nicene Creed:And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross,TF:Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;Nicene Creed:those that loved him at the first did not forsake him: for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold those and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him.TF:He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father [and the Son]; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.Nicene Creed:And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
So this line is a key to the mystery of the TF. And Ken Olson has seen this already. Note how Eusebius quotes Josephus:
https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/euse ... _book3.htm
Ken Olson writes:And here it will not be inappropriate for me to make use of the evidence of the Hebrew Josephus 76 as |143 well, who in the eighteenth chapter of The Archaeology of the Jews, in his record of the times of Pilate, mentions our Saviour in these words:
"And Jesus arises at that time, a wise man, if it is befitting to call him a man. For he was a doer of no common works, a teacher of men who reverence truth. And he gathered many of the Jewish and many of the Greek race. This was Christus; and when Pilate (c) condemned him to the Cross on the information of our rulers, his first followers did not cease to revere him. For he appeared to them the third day alive again, the divine prophets having foretold this, and very many other things about him. And from that time to this the tribe of the Christians has not failed." 77
If, then, even the historian's evidence shews that He attracted to Himself not only the twelve Apostles, nor the seventy disciples, but had in addition many Jews and Greeks, He must evidently have had some extraordinary power beyond that of other men. For how otherwise could (d) He have attracted many Jews and Greeks, except by wonderful miracles and unheard-of teaching?
https://chs.harvard.edu/chapter/5-a-eus ... ken-olson/
Thus the whole slander against his disciples is destroyed, when by their evidence, and also apart from their evidence, it has to be confessed that many myriads of Jews and Gentiles were brought under His yoke by Jesus the Christ of God through the miracles that he performed.
Demonstration 3.5.109 (emphasis mine) [33]
Eusebius not only accepts the Testimonium’s claim that Jesus won over many Gentiles, but exaggerates the number—“many myriads”—and claims that this is the testimony of the evangelists as well. Nor is this the only context in which Eusebius claims that Jesus attracted Gentiles during his ministry. In Demonstration IV, 10, Eusebius lists among other deeds of Jesus during his incarnation: “He set all that came to Him free from age-long superstition and the fears of polytheistic error” (4.10.14). [34] He is presumably not referring to Jews. In Demonstration 8.2, Eusebius claims that “by teaching and miracles He revealed the powers of His Godhead to all equally whether Greeks or Jews” (8.2.109). [35] In the Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius introduces the story of the conversion of King Abgar and the city of Edessa by saying: “The divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ became famous among all men because of his wonder-working power, and led to him myriads even of those who in foreign lands were far remote from Judea, in the hope of healing from diseases and from all kinds of suffering” (1.13.1). [36] In Book VII, he also tells of a statue of Jesus in Caesarea Philippi erected to honor Jesus’ healing of the woman with a flow of blood. Eusebius comments: “And it is not at at all surprising that those Gentiles, who long ago received benefits from our Savior, should have made these things” (7.18.4). Whatever we may suppose as to whether Jesus attracted Gentiles during his ministry, we should allow that Eusebius thought he did. Further, Eusebius devotes the entirety of Book II of the Demonstration to answering the charge that the Christ was promised to the Jews. Eusebius argues, to the contrary, that the hope of the Christ was promised equally to the Jews and Gentiles and that the Christian church contains both Gentiles and the remnant of the Jews.
The fact that Jesus taught the true religion not only among Jews, but among Gentiles as well, is what allows the conclusion that follows in the Testimonium: “This one was the Christ”. In the second chapter of Book III of the Demonstration, three chapters before he introduces the Testimonium, Eusebius presents a lengthy argument that Jesus is the prophet like Moses whose coming was foretold in Deuteronomy 18. Both Moses and Jesus had worked miracles. Both Moses and Jesus had taught the truth about the One God. But while Moses had taught this truth only among Jews, Jesus was the first to have taught the true religion of the One God not only among Jews, but to human beings of all nations. It is the fulfillment of prophecies about the Christ that allows the Testimonium to conclude at this point in the text that, in fact, this one was the Christ.
The proposed reading for the first half of the Testimonium, therefore, is that it puts in question whether it is adequate to call Jesus a man and concludes that he was not only a man, but the Christ. The justification for this conclusion is that he was a maker of miraculous works, taught human beings the truth about the one God, and brought over not only Jews but Gentiles as well—that is, all people regardless of nationality or prior religious affiliation. These are things which Eusebius claims elsewhere were foretold about the Christ in prophecy. [37]
With this interesting footnote:
As quoted, Eusebius argues:
The TF argues:
Jerome gives some clues about the nature of some of Porphyry's criticism.
https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/porp ... gments.htm
(The apostles) sifted whatever was useful to those who heard them, and did not rebuff those present, (whom) they reinforced with testimonies of other times, so that they did not abuse the simplicity and inexperience of those listening, as the impious Porphyry misrepresents.
Porphyry and the emperor Julian argue in this place that (this shows) either the inexperience of the lying historians or the stupidity of those who immediately followed the saviour, as if they had followed irrationally any man calling.
This passage that impious man Porphyry, who wrote against us and vomited out his madness in many books, discusses in his 14th book and says: 'The evangelists were such unskilled men, not only in worldly matters, but also in the divine scriptures, that they attributed the testimony, which had been written elsewhere, to the wrong prophet.' This he jeers at.
It is also plain that Peter is condemned of many falls, from the statement in that passage where Jesus said to him, "I say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven shalt thou forgive the sin of him that does wrong." But though he received this commandment and injunction, he cut off the ear of the high-priest's servant who had done no wrong, and did him harm although he had not sinned at all. For how did he sin, if he went at the command of his master to the attack which was then made on Christ?
We conclude then that he is a liar and manifestly brought up in an atmosphere of lying. And it is beside the point for him to say : "I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not" (Rom. ix. 1). For the man who has just now conformed to the law, and to-day to the Gospel, is rightly regarded as knavish and hollow both in private and in public life.
Porphyry attacked the apostles as lacking credibility. He also viewed Greeks as superior, as seen from his criticism of Origen:That he dissembles the Gospel for the sake of vainglory, and the law for the sake of covetousness, is plain from his words, "Who ever goeth to war at his own charges? Who shepherdeth the flock and doth not eat of the milk of the flock?" (1 Cor. ix. 7).
And Porphyry believed that Greeks were less likely to believe the kinds of stories in the Gospels:"As an example of this absurdity take a man whom I met when I was young, and who was then greatly celebrated and still is, on account of the writings which he has left. I refer to Origen, who is highly honored by the teachers of these doctrines. For this man, having been a hearer of Ammonius, who had attained the greatest proficiency in philosophy of any in our day, derived much benefit from his teacher in the knowledge of the sciences; but as to the correct choice of life, he pursued a course opposite to his. For Ammonius, being a Christian, and brought up by Christian parents, when he gave himself to study and to philosophy straightway conformed to the life required by the laws. But Origen, having been educated as a Greek in Greek literature, went over to the barbarian recklessness. And carrying over the learning which he had obtained, he hawked it about, in his life conducting himself as a Christian and contrary to the laws, but in his opinions of material things and of the Deity being like a Greek, and mingling Grecian teachings with foreign fables. For he was continually studying Plato, and he busied himself with the writings of Numenius and Cronius, Apollophanes, Longinus, Moderatus, and Nicomachus, and those famous among the Pythagoreans. And he used the books of Chaeremon the Stoic, and of Cornutus. Becoming acquainted through them with the figurative interpretation of the Grecian mysteries, he applied it to the Jewish Scriptures."
And one of the chief criticisms from Porphyry is that Jesus did not speak wisdom to the high priest or the governor and that he did not appear to them after his resurrection. For Porphyry, these would have been more credible witnesses and would have been a more effective way to share Jesus' message.But even supposing any one of the Greeks were so light-minded as to think that the gods dwell within the statues, his idea would be a much purer one than that of the man who believes that the Divine entered into the womb of the Virgin Mary, and became her unborn child, before being born and swaddled in due course, for it is a place full of blood and gall, and things more unseemly still.
63. Macarius, Apocriticus III: 1:
Why did not Christ utter anything worthy of one who was wise and divine, when brought either before the high-priest or before the governor? He might have given instruction to His judge and those who stood by and made them better men. But He endured to be smitten with a reed and spat on and crowned with thorns, unlike Apollonius, who, after speaking boldly to the Emperor Domitian, disappeared from the royal court, and after not many hours was plainly seen in the city then called Dicaearchia, but now Puteoli. But even if Christ had to suffer according to God's commands, and was obliged to endure punishment, yet at least He should have endured His Passion with some boldness, and uttered words of force and wisdom to Pilate His judge, instead of being mocked like any gutter-snipe.
Eusebius was clearly in dialogue with Porphyry and wanted to counter his influential criticism of Christianity. The Preparation of the Gospel, which was designed to precede the Demonstration, quotes Porphyry extensively in several books to establish the views of the Greek author. As Eusebius puts it: "With good reason therefore, in setting myself down to this treatise on the Demonstration of the Gospel, I think that I ought, as a preparation for the whole subject, to give brief explanations beforehand concerning the questions which may reasonably be put to us both by Greeks and by those of the Circumcision, and by every one who searches with exact inquiry into the opinions held among us."64. Macarius, Apocriticus II: 14:
There is also another argument whereby this corrupt opinion can be refuted. I mean the argument about that Resurrection of His which is such common talk everywhere, as to why Jesus, after His suffering and rising again (according to your story), did not appear to Pilate who punished Him and said He had done nothing worthy of death, or to Herod King of the Jews, or to the High-priest of the Jewish race, or to many men at the same time and to such as were worthy of credit, and more particularly among Romans both in the Senate and among the people. The purpose would be that, by their wonder at "the things concerning Him, they might not pass a vote of death against Him by common consent, which implied the impiety of those who were obedient to Him. But He appeared to Mary Magdalene, a coarse woman who came from some wretched little village, and had once been possessed by seven demons, and with her another utterly obscure Mary, who was herself a peasant woman, and a few other people who were not at all well known. And that, although He said: "Henceforth shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds." For if He had shown Himself to men of note, all would believe through them,and no judge would punish them as fabricating monstrous stories. For surely it is neither pleasing to God nor to anysensible man that many should be subjected on His account to punishments of the gravest kind.
The text of the TF, read with this key to its interpretation in mind, fits perfectly into the plan Eusebius had for his work (Preparation of the Gospel, book 1):
For indeed their Father, having constituted them all of one essence and nature, rightly admitted them all to share in His one equal bounty, bestowing the knowledge of Himself and friendship with Him upon all who were willing to hearken, and who readily welcomed His grace.
This friendship with His Father Christ's word came to preach to the whole world: for, as the divine oracles teach,
'God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them,' and 'He came,' they say, 'and preached peace to them that were far off, and peace to them that were nigh.'
These things the sons of the Hebrews were long ago inspired to prophesy to the whole world, one crying,
'All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the LORD, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Him: for the kingdom is the LORD'S, and He is the ruler over the nations'; and again, 'Tell it out among the heathen that the LORD is king, for He hath also stablished the world, which shall not be moved'; and another saith, 'The LORD will appear among them, and will utterly destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth, and men shall worship Him, every one from his place.'
This detail is central to Eusebius' understanding of the ministry of Jesus, which explains its presence here among the other creed-like elements of the TF, despite being difficult to derive from the Gospels themselves and despite the detail having little explanation when placed in the context of the Antiquities of Josephus.