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'Jerome describes Pamphilus as gathering books together from all parts of the world , thus rivalling in the domain of sacred learning the zeal which Demetrius Phalereus or Pisistratus had shewn for profane knowledge. Origen himself had set the example of a literary society . Aided by the munificence of his friend Ambrosius , he had kept about him always a large number of shorthand writers , to whom he dictated , and of calligraphers - women as well as men - who copied out the Scriptures for him. His example was not thrown away on Pamphilus. Nor was it only in copying and editing that the society gathered about Pamphilus occupied itself. Pamphilus was a devoted admirer of Origen . He possessed the original copy of the Hexapla of Origen , which was afterwards used by Jerome at Caesarea ( Hieron . Comm . in Tit . iii . 9 , Op . vii . 734 ) . He sought out the works of . Op . i . 155 ; Euseb . H. E. vi . 32 ) . He even transcribed the greater part of them with his own hand for his library ( Hieron . Vir . Ill . 75 ). One long work of Origen in the handwriting of Pamphilus came into the possession of Jerome himself ; owning it , he says , he considers that he owns the wealth of Croesus ; it is signed , as it were , with the very blood of the martyr. Like Origen too , Pamphilus paid great attention to the reproduction of accurate copies of the Scriptures . More than one extant MS has been taken from or collated with some copy which he had transcribed or corrected with his own hand (see Scrivener's Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament pp 51 ...) In this work he had the assistance of Eusebius ( Vir . Ill. 85). Hence the Palestinian manuscripts of the LXX , which Jerome describes as published by Eusebius and Pamphilus from the text of Origen ( c . Ruffin . ii . 27 , Op . ii . p . 522 ) . A colophon found in an extant Vatican MS , and given in an extant Vatican MS , and given in facsimile in Migne's Euseb . Op . iv . 875 ( after Mai , Bibl . Nov. Patr . iv . ) , presents a lively picture of the common labours of the two friends at this time : " It was transcribed from the editions of the Hexapla, and was corrected from the Tetrapla of Origen himself, which also had been corrected and furnished with scholia in his own handwriting; whence I, Eusebius, added the scholia, Pamphilus and Eusebius corrected [this copy]. The reading of the "Eusebian" copy" copy ( το Ευσεβίου , το βιβλίον Ευσεβίου του Παμφίλου ) are frequently mentioned in the scholia of the Old Testament ( Field's bla , i . p . xcix ) .
Hi Charles. Which Herod was this and on what date did this famine occur? And where is the evidence or witness for this?Charles Wilson wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 9:54 am Lev --
The short answer is "Yes!".
There was a Severe Famine and you can look it up. Herod...
We must remember that Ammonius Saccas was one such Christian who gave up his Christian faith at this time. What exactly was so convincing about Celsus's work? Origen goes on to say (after citing Galatians 3):this apology which you (Ambrose) require me to compose will somewhat weaken that defense which rests on facts, and that power of Jesus which is manifest to those who are not altogether devoid of perception. Notwithstanding, that we may not have the appearance of being reluctant to undertake the task which you have enjoined, we have endeavoured, to the best of our ability, to suggest, by way of answer to each of the statements advanced by Celsus, what seemed to us adapted to refute them, although his arguments have no power to shake the faith of any (true) believer. And forbid, indeed, that any one should be found who, after having been a partaker in such a love of God as was (displayed) in Christ Jesus, could be shaken in his purpose by the arguments of Celsus, or of any such as he ... Therefore I do not congratulate that believer in Christ whose faith can be shaken by Celsus— who no longer shares the common life of men, but has long since departed — or by any apparent plausibility of argument. For I do not know in what rank to place him who has need of arguments written in books in answer to the charges of Celsus against the Christians, in order to prevent him from being shaken in his faith, and confirm him in it. But nevertheless, since in the multitude of those who are considered believers some such persons might be found as would have their faith shaken and overthrown by the writings of Celsus, but who might be preserved by a reply to them of such a nature as to refute his statements and to exhibit the truth, we have deemed it right to yield to your injunction, and to furnish an answer to the treatise which you sent us, but which I do not think that any one, although only a short way advanced in philosophy, will allow to be a True Discourse, as Celsus has entitled it.
I do not believe that the revision of Against Celsus was merely limited to adding a preface. The language here speaks more of a wholesale revision of the original work. Chadwick translates the pertinent section as follows:After proceeding with this work as far as the place where Celsus introduces the Jew disputing with Jesus, I resolved to prefix this preface to the beginning (of the treatise), in order that the reader of our reply to Celsus might fall in with it first, and see that this book has been composed not for those who are thorough believers, but for such as are either wholly unacquainted with the Christian faith, or for those who, as the apostle terms them, are weak in the faith; regarding whom he says, Receive him that is weak in the faith. And this preface must be my apology for beginning my answer to Celsus on one plan, and carrying it on on another. For my first intention was to indicate his principal objections, and then briefly the answers that were returned to them, and subsequently to make a systematic treatise of the whole discourse. But afterwards, circumstances themselves suggested to me that I should be economical of my time, and that, satisfied with what I had already stated at the commencement, I should in the following part grapple closely, to the best of my ability, with the charges of Celsus. I have therefore to ask indulgence for those portions which follow the preface towards the beginning of the book. And if you are not impressed by the powerful arguments which succeed, then, asking similar indulgence also with respect to them, I refer you, if you still desire an argumentative solution of the objections of Celsus, to those men who are wiser than myself, and who are able by words and treatises to overthrow the charges which he brings against us. But better is the man who, although meeting with the work of Celsus, needs no answer to it at all, but who despises all its contents, since they are contemned, and with good reason, by every believer in Christ, through the Spirit that is in him.
So the "author" claims that he rewrote an original draft in a second work. But this is by no means limited to this text.The preface may serve as my apology for the fact that I wrote the beginning of my answer to Celsus on one plan, but after the first part followed a different one. At first I contemplated making notes on the main points and giving brief answers to them, and then putting the work into definite shape. But afterwards the material itself suggested to me that I would save time if I were to be content with the points which I had answered in this way at the beginning, and in what followed to combat in detail Celsus' charges against us to the best of our ability.
2. Eusebius obviously lived in Caesarea, had a problem with composing pseudepigrapha (the Apology is a strange hybrid of Pamphilus's hand and his own to the point that Eusebius literally took over his name!I composed the material given me as far as the fifth volume (of the Commentary) even though the storm in Alexandria seemed to work against me (εἰ καὶ ὁ κατὰ τὴν Ἀλεξανδρείαν χειμὼν ἀντιπράττειν ἐδόκει), just as Jesus rebuked the winds and the waves of the sea. After I had moved on to part of the sixth (volume), I was brought out of Egypt by God delivering me, He who led His people forth from there. (9) Then, when the enemy assailed me with all bitterness in his new writings, so truly hostile to the Gospel, and stirred up against me all the winds of wickedness in Egypt, reason called me instead to stand fast for the conflict and to preserve my guiding principle, so that evil counsels should never gain the strength to bring the storm also into my soul, or even to compose the next part (of the Commentary) at the wrong time, before my mind had returned to calm. Moreover, the absence of my usual scribes prevented me from adhering to my practice of dictation. (10) But now that the many flaming arrows shot at me are blunted by God as he extinguishes them, and (now that) my soul, which had grown used to such occurrences, is compelled through the heavenly Word to withstand more easily the plots that have arisen, I wish, as though instilled with a certain tranquillity, to continue writing without further delay. I pray that God will be with me and utter his teachings in the inner chamber of my soul, so that the building I have begun—the interpretation of the Gospel of John—may be finished.
If we accept that Pamphilus was a mere smokescreen for obscuring Eusebius as a crypto-Arian sympathizer gathering the works of Origen on his own initiative, then Eusebius wrote in the name of others/another (= Pamphilus).Jerome describes Pamphilus as gathering books together from all parts of the world , thus rivalling in the domain of sacred learning the zeal which Demetrius Phalereus or Pisistratus had shewn for profane knowledge. Origen himself had set the example of a literary society . Aided by the munificence of his friend Ambrosius , he had kept about him always a large number of shorthand writers , to whom he dictated , and of calligraphers - women as well as men - who copied out the Scriptures for him. His example was not thrown away on Pamphilus. Nor was it only in copying and editing that the society gathered about Pamphilus occupied itself. Pamphilus was a devoted admirer of Origen . He possessed the original copy of the Hexapla of Origen , which was afterwards used by Jerome at Caesarea ( Hieron . Comm . in Tit . iii . 9 , Op . vii . 734 ) . He sought out the works of . Op . i . 155 ; Euseb . H. E. vi . 32 ) . He even transcribed the greater part of them with his own hand for his library ( Hieron . Vir . Ill . 75 ). One long work of Origen in the handwriting of Pamphilus came into the possession of Jerome himself ; owning it , he says , he considers that he owns the wealth of Croesus ; it is signed , as it were , with the very blood of the martyr. Like Origen too , Pamphilus paid great attention to the reproduction of accurate copies of the Scriptures . More than one extant MS has been taken from or collated with some copy which he had transcribed or corrected with his own hand (see Scrivener's Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament pp 51 ...) In this work he had the assistance of Eusebius ( Vir . Ill. 85). Hence the Palestinian manuscripts of the LXX , which Jerome describes as published by Eusebius and Pamphilus from the text of Origen ( c . Ruffin . ii . 27 , Op . ii . p . 522 ) . A colophon found in an extant Vatican MS , and given in an extant Vatican MS , and given in facsimile in Migne's Euseb . Op . iv . 875 ( after Mai , Bibl . Nov. Patr . iv . ) , presents a lively picture of the common labours of the two friends at this time : " It was transcribed from the editions of the Hexapla, and was corrected from the Tetrapla of Origen himself, which also had been corrected and furnished with scholia in his own handwriting; whence I, Eusebius, added the scholia, Pamphilus and Eusebius corrected [this copy]. The reading of the "Eusebian" copy" copy ( το Ευσεβίου , το βιβλίον Ευσεβίου του Παμφίλου ) are frequently mentioned in the scholia of the Old Testament ( Field's bla , i . p . xcix ) .
I think there is strong evidence (much stronger than the nonsense you weave together to convict Morton Smith) that Eusebius rewrote not only Against Celsus but the Commentary on John and Commentary on Matthew (which was originally written for a four columned 'Diatessaron').As late as 335, when Eusebius delivered his speech ‘In Praise of Constantine’ at the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, he still thought it important to come to grips with a number of the criticisms that had been first raised by Celsus.12 It would perhaps be going too far to say that he was working from Celsus. But the similarity of the arguments that Eusebius faced is clear. The philosophical critique as he deals with it is inspired by two major sentiments. The first is a frustration with the fact that so many people should have been persuaded to accept a view of God that was intellectually untenable. It was quite arbitrary of the Christians to have singled out Jesus for divine honours when the world was rich in heroes, and polytheism corresponded well with the diversity of things. The incarnation was an impossible and unnecessary contamination of God’s perfection, while the humiliation of Jesus on the cross proved that he could not have been divine anyway. The second kind of argument to which Eusebius replies is inspired by concern over the social promiscuity of the Christian movement. In contrast with the universal judgement that one should associate with God what is best in life, the Christians deliberately cultivated the worst people. Jesus himself was of mean origin, and the disciples paltry. Yet this vulgar company, appearing only the day before yesterday, and in a backward corner of the Empire, had had the impertinence to call in question hallowed national customs, and to address themselves without discrimination to people of any national tradition. This was a profanation of the State, stripping it of its divine sanctions. But in any case, the perverse judgement of the Christians had not been vindicated by their God in the passage of time. Andresen has argued that Celsus, in response to the novel development of a theology of history by Justin, had reacted uniquely amongst the critics of Christianity against the Greek tradition of understanding the cosmos in metaphysical categories.13 But arguments from social and historical reality lack the security of the timeless. The remarkable shift of fortune which Eusebius had witnessed enabled him to convert the social deficiencies to which Celsus had appealed into trump cards. Celsus had mocked the Jews as frogs holding Sanhedrin round a pond, while the Christian worms held their ekklesia in the dung-heap, arguing about which of them was the worst sinner. God had larger things to think of. Plotinus, the teacher of Porphyry, though by no means hostile to Christians, would have agreed. It was absurd to call the least of men brothers and deny this name to the sun and the heavenly bodies. It was all a gross anthropomorphism, hopelessly overestimating the importance of man in the cosmos. But if the universe is stable, remarkable things still happen in the world of men. History might yet reveal the hand of God. In Eusebius’ day the worms had suddenly turned, to rule the world. (c) Julian With Julian we meet at last a spokesman whose voice has not been stifled. We could hardly wish for a better qualified informant. Standing where he does, at the centre of power, and at a time when the significance of the recent changes must have been apparent to anyone with an eye to see, and above all with his close personal involvement, he must have known the answers to our questions. Yet Julian is equally clearly an untypical if not unique participant. His acute sensitivities sharpen all the issues, but no doubt overstate them too.
¹² C. T. H. R. Ehrhardt, ‘Eusebius and Celsus’, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 22 (1979 40–49)
