Did the Church Fathers / early Christians care about historicity?

[GakuseiDon]

The early Christians cared deeply about the historicity of Jesus, so much that many died defending his historicity.

I don't think anyone died defending Jesus' historicity in early Christianity, because no-one actually questioned Jesus' historicity (as far as the evidence shows), until modern times. No mythicists back then!

[Secret Alias]

What would that argument even look like? "We are convinced that the god we believe in didn't exist?" Really? Does anyone seriously believe that this is even a possibility?

[John T]

The early Christians cared deeply about the historicity of Jesus, so much that many died defending his historicity.

With all due respect, though, they were not asserting his historicity against people believing the contrary, which your phrasing asserts.

Furthermore, your answer is overly narrow, since GDon was talking about the first people to deny historicity, rather than the first biblical scholars.

I'm sorry, I just assumed you already knew about the early non-Christian religious beliefs against the historical/fleshly Jesus. e.g. Gnosticisim and Marcionism. My bad, never mind.

John T is done with this thread.

[GakuseiDon]

What would that argument even look like? "We are convinced that the god we believe in didn't exist?" Really? Does anyone seriously believe that this is even a possibility?

Wouldn't the argument be "We are convinced that the god we believe in didn't come to earth in the form of a man"?

Alternatively, from the pagan side, the argument might be "The person you Christians believe is a god never came to earth". There is no evidence of any explicit text, extant or no longer extant, with either of those viewpoints in early Christianity. I'd love to know otherwise!

[Leucius Charinus]

.... no-one actually questioned Jesus' historicity (as far as the evidence shows), until modern times. No mythicists back then!

It is IMO safe enough to assume very few pagans were interested in and/or had knowledge of the NT Story Book before it was lavishly published and circulated by Constantine as a political instrument in the Graeco-Roman empire c.325 CE. Once this happened all the pagans stood up and took notice. How did the Greeks respond to their brand new "Holy Writ"? They trashed it. There was a lot of bad press. It was a highly controversial epoch and it is clear that that much evidence was suppressed. Here's what some Christian sources say:

(1) Eusebius --- "the sacred matters of inspired teaching were exposed to the most shameful ridicule in the very theaters of the unbelievers." --- Eusebius, "Life of Constantine", Ch. LXI, How Controversies originated at Alexandria through Matters relating to Arius

(2) Athanasius --- The Greeks derided the Christian mystery. "That mystery the Jews traduce, the Greeks deride, but we adore" --- Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word, Chapter 1 - Creation and the Fall

(3) Cyril of Alexandria --- Feels compelled to "rebut this Greek eyebrow raised against the glory of Christ" --- Against Julian

In summary Constantine's Nicene epoch Jesus was satirised. So the question arises was the Nicene Jesus satirised because of historicity issues or other issues. It seems reasonable enough to think that the Greeks would have happily satirised any story book put forward as the "Holy Writ" of the Graeco-Roman empire. That's what the "Greek eyebrow" was all about.

The Index Librorum Prohibitorum

It may be argued that this list of prohibited books was started by Eusebius and listed a number of the NT apocryphal books. What do the NT apocryphal books have to say about the historicity (or otherwise) of Jesus? Why does the apostle John in "The Acts of John" resurrect a smoked fish? Why can't John touch Jesus' body? Why does John look for the footprints of Jesus in the sand but alas cannot find any footprints?

What do the books in the Nag Hammadi Library have to say about the historicity of Jesus? Why is it written in The Interpretation of Knowledge: NHC 11.1 - "But our generation is fleeing since it does not yet even believe that the Christ is alive."

It is obvious to expect the academic pagans would have questioned the historical integrity of the Jesus Story when the NT became a political instrument. It is also obvious that the imperial regime suppressed dissenters and evidence of the controversy. The Jesus Story Book got trashed by the pagans. The last pagan emperor Julian continues the satire of Jesus. The proposition that no-one actually questioned Jesus' historicity during the Christian revolution of the 4th century (325-381 CE) is IMHO a naive and politically inept proposition.

[GakuseiDon]

The proposition that no-one actually questioned Jesus' historicity during the Christian revolution of the 4th century (325-381 CE) is IMHO a naive and politically inept proposition.

Hey, that's me you're talking about! Are there are any explicit references to anyone actually questioning Jesus' historicity before, say, the 5th Century?

[neilgodfrey]

It's quite clear that Paul saw Christ as a divine being of some kind, and even if he thought there was a historical person associated with that divine being, it was extremely unimportant when compared to the divine aspect. Am I mistaken in seeing this as true for the Church Fathers as well? The non-Christian sources often say that the Christians worship a man as a god, and the "man" part could just come from the Gospel character of Christ, not necessarily a historical person.

It appears that Christ was seen as a path to salvation or divinity (either through ritual or as example through the gospel narratives), and the historical personage was as unimportant as the historicity of Osiris for the Isiac initiates, or as inessential as the historicity of the Buddha for most ancient Buddhist practitioners (especially the Mahayana).

The Alexandrian early Christians seem to care much more about the incarnation of Christ as a divine being much more than him as a historical man. One of my friends just shared a quote from Clement, saying the Christ was neither male nor female lol.

There is no evidence that there was any effort to refer to a "history" of Jesus in the sense of seeking out sources about his life. Everything to be known about Jesus came from what could be gleaned from the Jewish Scriptures. Justin speaks of Memoirs of the Apostles but the title suggests they are stories about the apostles, not Jesus, and presumably how Jesus related to them along the way.

There is mention of the twelve apostles but they are never appealed to as sources of information (except indirectly according to what Eusebius writes about Papias) but only as sources of the teaching of church practices that Jesus revealed to them, if memory serves.

The first time we learn of "historical time" in relation to Jesus is --- as Guiseppe knows better than most of us --- when Pilate is introduced, and by association the Herods. Pilate's introduction, if Ignatius is our guide, seems to have been introduced as a tactic to reinforce a case against an anti-docetic theology.

Before then Jesus was always in some "never never time" or a "mythical time" (it is arguable that one early account had him stoned in the days of Alexander Jannaeus, but if not other early sources (e.g. Aristides) make the time of his earthly visit vague and one could even say "ahistorical").

There were various attempts to sort out a historical narrative once Pilate entered the picture but they were a bit all over the shop until the canonical gospels and Acts dominated the thinking. e.g. Jesus was 50 or 30 years old; Pilate left it to Herod to crucify Jesus; the Romans swept through Jerusalem soon after he was resurrected so as to fulfil some prophetic idea of prophetic times. Even as late as the formulation of the Apostles' Creed it was thought necessary to anchor Jesus in the time of Pilate for good measure.

[Giuseppe]

There is mention of the twelve apostles but they are never appealed to as sources of information (except indirectly according to what Eusebius writes about Papias) but only as sources of the teaching of church practices that Jesus revealed to them, if memory serves.

I would correct so, influenced by Stromholm:

"....but only as sources of the teaching of church practices that the RISEN Jesus revealed to them"

Stromholm does a good case for arguing that the mentioned "teaching" was given not only in the form of mere logia (as Thomas): "Jesus said X...".

But also as genuine acta where the Risen Jesus is introduced as a walking man: for example, the first calling of the disciples was originally the first visit of the Risen Jesus before his apostles, the latter being found on a ship (the link Risen Jesus/ship has been, not coincidentially, preserved by the Fourth Gospel).

So I think that we find here the Papias's reference to logia meant, as Ken explained in past, not as mere Logia, but as Logia + Acta (possessive genitive: of the Risen Jesus).

[Paul the Uncertain]

Wouldn't the argument be "We are convinced that the god we believe in didn't come to earth in the form of a man"?

Alternatively, from the pagan side, the argument might be "The person you Christians believe is a god never came to earth". There is no evidence of any explicit text, extant or no longer extant, with either of those viewpoints in early Christianity. I'd love to know otherwise!

The church fathers attributed to the Simonians the belief that Simon Magus had perfomed ("in seeming") the principal deeds attributed to Jesus. That would imply that Simonians believed that Jesus didn't exist, but was only the name of a role played by Simon.

https://uncertaintist.wordpress.com/201 ... dnt-exist/

That is an implict argument. I don't think there can be much surprise that there is no surviving argument that explicitly states that Jesus doesn't exist, because that isn't an argument. It's a fact-claim. The argument it would, at best, be a conclusion of would be that Christian sources were unreliable as sources about Jesus. Those arguments are not hard to find:

https://uncertaintist.wordpress.com/201 ... cal-jesus/

There are also rhetorical strategy and tactics to consider. Presumably, the point of counterapologetics is to persuade the audience that Christianity should not be embraced, rather than to thumb-wrestle on specific doctrinal points ("His mom had sex!" "Did not!" "Did to!" ... Riveting, eh?).

It could well be effective to grant some of the opponents' doctrines arguendo, and then show those to have undesirable implications. Celsus describes this strategy (quoted in Origen's Against Celsus II.74): "All these statements are taken from your own books, in addition to which we need no other witness; for you fall upon your own swords."

It was easy for a government agent to smear Chrsitianity by creating a false witness to a historical Jesus, as Maximinus II did with a spurious "Acts of Pilate." Or, to whatever extent Tacitus wished to comment on the merits of Christianity, he could effectively accept Jesus's historicity in order to present him as a low-status criminal. These avenues of attack foreclose a collateral attack on the historicity issue.

In contrast, how would any ancient person even provide a foundation for the claim that Jesus didn't exist? The authors of the scriptures are self-evidently liars and crooks? Great, then argue that and conclude that the entire Christian enterprise is a racketeer-influenced corrupt organization. If you land that argument, do you really need to add your dissent from claims that he existed at all?

To what end? You've made your point. Sit down. Shut up. Anything else you say can and will be used against you (e.g. "You worship Hercules - is he historical?" Yada yada.)

[Leucius Charinus]

The proposition that no-one actually questioned Jesus' historicity during the Christian revolution of the 4th century (325-381 CE) is IMHO a naive and politically inept proposition.

Hey, that's me you're talking about! :cheers:

Cheers GD. You and Bart and the consensus

Are there are any explicit references to anyone actually questioning Jesus' historicity before, say, the 5th Century?

Obviously the consensus says no. We can hardly expect the church industry to preserve any such references. Hence the function of the Index. Therefore (as I mentioned above) it may be that such veiled references do exist in the NT apocrypha and Nag Hammadi Library (over which the church had no control).

The closest references IMO may be extant in the five sophisms of Arius preserved in the earliest Nicene creed. The importance of these references increases substantially if we were to identify Arius of Alexandria - not as a Christian - but as a pagan and a highly literate Platonist. And I am happy to argue that we have a reasonable amount of evidence to suggest this identification.

We know that the preservation of the books of Arius attracted the death penalty during the rule of Constantine, who pronounced "Damnatio memoriae" on Arius. The letter of c.333 CE from Constantine to Arius is also very revealing. As you may be aware I am of the opinion that Arius was the author of at least some of the NT apocryphal books. His five sophisms:

There was time when He was not.
Before He was born He was not.
He was made out of nothing existing.
He is/was from another subsistence/substance.
He is subject to alteration or change.

Arius and the philosophers asked serious questions about the "essence" of Jesus which were new and highly controversial. These questions could have been related to "historical essence" (historicity).

In the 5th century

There maybe some references to "theories of fiction" in the writings of Nestorius. Cyril did not want to have these circulating around the empire and anathematized Nestorius and his writings. They were buried for a long time but then discovered.

Nestorius, The Bazaar of Heracleides
https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/nest ... _intro.htm

In this tract Nestorius "denies that either the godhead or the manhood of Christ are 'fictitious' or 'phantasmal', and not real." Why would he have to deny this if the opinion was not out there?

Nestorius says that: "[Some] of them in fact say that the Incarnation of our Lord Christ took place in fiction and schema and in order that he might appear unto men and teach and give the grace of the Gospel unto all men."