Historical paradigms and Christianity before Constantine

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
StephenGoranson
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

Post by StephenGoranson »

Pete T./LC wrote above, in part:
".... Momigliano goes so far as to say "it is indeed impossible to be certain that Celsus is fairly represented by the texts Origen quotes to refute him.""
That is an accurate quote, but it could also be noted that Ambrose, Origen's patron, coerced him into writing a refutation, and it would not have satisfied Ambrose, nor any other readers of Celsus, if Origen had left out important arguments by Celsus.
Further, a longer passage with the continuation shows that Momigliano, himself, did not press the possibility very far (On Pagans, Jews, and Christians, page 148):
"But the impression remains that, though he had gone farther than his pagan predecessors in presenting a theological parallelism between Olympus and Roman Empire, Celsus had not relied on this argument and had not developed it."

If interested, my "Celsus of Pergamum: Locating a Critic of Early Christianity" attempts to find more info about Celsus, here:
https://people.duke.edu/~goranson/Celsu ... rgamum.pdf
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

Post by Leucius Charinus »

StephenGoranson wrote: Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:05 am Pete T./LC wrote above, in part:
".... Momigliano goes so far as to say "it is indeed impossible to be certain that Celsus is fairly represented by the texts Origen quotes to refute him.""

That is an accurate quote, but it could also be noted that Ambrose, Origen's patron, coerced him into writing a refutation, and it would not have satisfied Ambrose, nor any other readers of Celsus, if Origen had left out important arguments by Celsus.

Further, a longer passage with the continuation shows that Momigliano, himself, did not press the possibility very far (On Pagans, Jews, and Christians, page 148):

"But the impression remains that, though he had gone farther than his pagan predecessors in presenting a theological parallelism between Olympus and Roman Empire, Celsus had not relied on this argument and had not developed it."
I have relied on Momigliano's overall assessments a good deal. I find his writing to contain heavy doses of irony, much like Gibbon. Some consider him to be a continuator of Gibbon. What is your opinion about Momigliano SG? Where does he fit on your bookshelf?

In his humorous but at the same time quite serious after-dinner speech at Brandeis University, Arnaldo Momigliano looked back on his own intellectual development:
  • "In a sense, in my scholarly life I have done nothing else but to try to understand what I owe both to the Jewish house in which I was brought up and to the Christian-Roman-Celtic village in which I was born."
In a certain sense, this sentence contains the key not only to Momigliano's intellectual impetus, but also to the core of his scholarly work: the studies in the field of the history of historiography.

Arnaldo Momigliano and the History of Historiography
Author(s): Karl Christ
Source: History and Theory, Vol. 30, No. 4, Beiheft 30: The Presence of the Historian:
Essays in Memory of Arnaldo Momigliano (Dec., 1991), pp. 5-12
Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/250550

If interested, my "Celsus of Pergamum: Locating a Critic of Early Christianity" attempts to find more info about Celsus, here:
https://people.duke.edu/~goranson/Celsu ... rgamum.pdf

Yes I'd read through that well done. Although as you know I am more skeptical of the integrity of the evidence when it only exists as extracts extant in Christian refutations of anti-Christian writers. Origen refuting Celsus thus is similar to Eusebius refuting Hierocles, or Athanasius refuting Arius, or Cyril refuting Emperor Julian. There are probably other examples. What we have is one step removed from the non-Christian source.


BTW does anyone know whether Momigliano expressed any opinion on the possible Hellenistic origin of the Hebrew Bible ----- or ----- on the work of Thomas L. Thompson ?
ABuddhist
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

Post by ABuddhist »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 2:37 am Yes I'd read through that well done. Although as you know I am more skeptical of the integrity of the evidence when it only exists as extracts extant in Christian refutations of anti-Christian writers. Origen refuting Celsus thus is similar to Eusebius refuting Hierocles, or Athanasius refuting Arius, or Cyril refuting Emperor Julian. There are probably other examples. What we have is one step removed from the non-Christian source.
But Arius was Christian, albeit his non-Trinitarian views were conbdemned as heretical and now qualify him as non-Christian to most Christians. But earlier Christians had broader understandings of Christianity. Marcion was considered by Juistin to be a Christian, even though he denied that YHWH was the supreme god.
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

Post by Leucius Charinus »

ABuddhist wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 4:02 am
Leucius Charinus wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 2:37 am Yes I'd read through that well done. Although as you know I am more skeptical of the integrity of the evidence when it only exists as extracts extant in Christian refutations of anti-Christian writers. Origen refuting Celsus thus is similar to Eusebius refuting Hierocles, or Athanasius refuting Arius, or Cyril refuting Emperor Julian. There are probably other examples. What we have is one step removed from the non-Christian source.
But Arius was Christian, albeit his non-Trinitarian views were condemned as heretical and now qualify him as non-Christian to most Christians.
The Christian "historical documents" from the 4th and subsequent centuries assert Arius was a Christian presbyter but I have some doubts about that assertion and instead have made the suggestion that Arius was indeed not a Christian of any form but rather a pagan (Platonist) philosopher.

For example: viewtopic.php?p=137088#p137088


Rowan Williams wrote a book "ARIUS: Heresy & Tradition" in which he notes:

Chapter: INTELLECT and BEYOND

199-209

Is spent searching for any precedents in the beliefs expressed by Arius.

p.209

".... It should be fairly clear by now that these views were unusual
in the church of his day, if not completely without precedent of some
sort in Origen. Kannengeisser suggests [63] that we should look directly
at the fifth Ennead [of Plotinus] for the background to Arius's ideas,
and for the heresiarch's 'break with Origen and his peculiarity with
respect to all the masters of Middle-Platonism with whom he has been
compared. [64]

For Kannengiesser .... only the radical disjunction between first and
second principles for which Plotinus argues can fully account for Arius'
novel teaching in this area.

"Arius' entire effort consisted precisely in acclimatizing
Plotinic logic within biblical creationism."
[66]


[63-66] Charles Kannengeisser

Beneath the hood of the Arian controversy is not a squabble between Christian theological nuances but rather the final war of books (NT Apocrypha) and words exchanged between the emperor's Christianisation agenda and the last (pagan) voices of the Hellenic civilisation. These voices opposed the Christian revolution of the 4th century. The last of these was the last pagan emperor Julian who legislated during his brief rule that Christians were to be henceforth known by the title "Galilaeans". A term which he may have found in a number of NT Apocryphal books such as "The Acts of Peter and Andrew" and others.
StephenGoranson
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

Post by StephenGoranson »

If, LC/Pete, you regard Momigliano as reliable, then you accept that Celsus criticised Christianity before the time of Constantine?
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

Post by Leucius Charinus »

StephenGoranson wrote: Sat Mar 25, 2023 9:46 am If, LC/Pete, you regard Momigliano as reliable, then you accept that Celsus criticised Christianity before the time of Constantine?
M. writes that "it is indeed impossible to be certain that Celsus is fairly represented by the texts Origen quotes to refute him". I regard this as a reliable statement. And that as a result it is impossible to be certain that the pagan Celsus criticised Christianity full stop. We may assume or infer that he did. But we cannot be certain he did.

I have pointed out that it is evident that M. used heavy doses of irony in his works. And that he is considered to be a continuator of Edward Gibbon. I have read many (but not all) of his books and articles.

* He has no problem in pointing out that pious forgery is fraud and that "priests are notoriously inclined to pious frauds in all centuries". I find these to be reliable comments.

* He makes a point of differentiating between classical and biblical studies and explicitly refers to the biblical scholars as the "insiders" and the classical scholars (himself included) as the "outsiders". I find this also to be a reliable observation.

But what do you think he means by these * comments ?
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

Post by Leucius Charinus »

StephenGoranson are you able to locate an essay by Momigliano titled:

"The Impact of Christianity on the Definition of Scholarship"

perhaps originally published in the journal History and Theory in 1963.
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

Post by Secret Alias »

M. writes that "it is indeed impossible to be certain that Celsus is fairly represented by the texts Origen quotes to refute him".
Translation: Pete construes this to mean Momigliano accepts or is open to the idea that both Celsus and Origen never existed. This forum is priceless. It would be akin to a chess forum where an acceptable tactic by members was smashing the pieces off the chessboard.

I think I come here to witness people ignoring stop signs and rules of the road. A Bakhmut of the humanities.
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

Post by Leucius Charinus »

M. writes that "it is indeed impossible to be certain that Celsus is fairly represented by the texts Origen quotes to refute him".
Translation: Pete construes this to mean Momigliano accepts or is open to the idea that both Celsus and Origen never existed.
False translation. It's obvious that Momigliano accepts and is open to the idea that Origen may not, in his refutation of Celsus, be fairly representing him. This skeptical position is of course abhorrent to the sensibilities of those biblical scholars who accept Origen as a trustworthy and truthful "Father" within the divine institute of the "early universal church".

Momigliano does not weigh in AFAIK on the historical existence of either identity. OTOH I have pointed out that other classical scholars have felt the need to disambiguated two separate and influential Origens in the 3rd century - one a Christian, the other a Platonist (Each having their own "teacher" called Ammonius - one a Christian, the other a Platonist)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origen_(disambiguation)
StephenGoranson
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Re: The Problem With The Theory That the Pentateuch Was Written in Alexandria

Post by StephenGoranson »

Though Momigliano did write articles in History and Theory periodical, LC/Pete, I did not find an article titled "The Impact of Christianity on the Definition of Scholarship" there or elsewhere, but maybe I missed something.

Momigliano did write, according to google books advanced search, Ottavo Contributo..., 1987, p. 318:

"It is therefore significant that the first time we come across some serious concern with the relation between Roman polytheism and Roman Empire is in that man Celsus who in about A.D. 180 polemized against the Christians and whom eighty years later Origen chose as his adversary in his devastating Contra Celsum."

In other words, M. accepted that Celsus lived, and before Constantine.
Whether one or two men named Origen lived too does not contradict his view that Celsus existed.
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