how mythicists are judged

[Irish1975]

Irenaeus Against Heresies 4.33.5—

Iudicabit autem et eos qui putativum inducunt. Quemadmodum enim ipsi vere se putant disputare, quando magister eorum putativus fuit? Aut quemadmodum firmum quid habere possunt ab eo, si putativus et non veritas erat? Quomodo autem ipsi salutem vere participare possunt, si ille, in quem credere se dicunt, semetipsum putativum ostendebat? Putativum est igitur, et non veritas, omne apud eos: et nunc iam quaeretur, ne forte cum et ipsi homines non sint sed muta animalia, hominum umbras apud plurimos proferant.

My translation

{“A presbyter and disciple of the apostles once said to me [sc. Irenaeus]… }

He [the spiritual disciple of 1 Corinthians 2:15] will also judge those who speak of an alleged Christ. How can such persons imagine themselves to be saying something, if they had only an alleged teacher? Or how could they take something from him really solid, if he hadn’t been true, but only alleged? And how can they have a true share in salvation, if He, in whom they say they believe, only allegedly revealed himself? But then everything about them is likewise a conjecture, and not the truth. And one might ask if they are not really human, but dumb beasts, who pass for shadows among the masses.”

Roberts & Donaldson

“He shall also judge those who describe Christ as [having become man] only in [human] opinion. For how can they imagine that they do themselves carry on a real discussion, when their Master was a mere imaginary being? Or how can they receive anything stedfast from Him, if He was a merely imagined being, and not a verity? And how can these men really be partaken of salvation, if He in whom they profess to believe, manifested Himself as a merely imaginary being? Everything, therefore, connected with these men is unreal, and nothing [possessed of the character of] truth; and, in these circumstances, it may be made a question whether (since, perchance, they themselves in like manner are not men, but mere dumb animals) they do not present, in most cases, simply a shadow of humanity.”

Keble:

And he shall judge those also who bring in an unreal Christ. For how think they to argue truly themselves, when their Master was unreal? Or how can they have from him any thing to be depended on, if He was imaginary, and not the Truth? And how can they themselves truly partake of salvation, if He in whom they say they believe, exhibited Himself in appearance only? With them, therefore, all is unreal, and not the Truth: and the question shall now be added, whether haply they are bearing about in the sight of the many shadows of men, being themselves not men, but dumb creatures?

[Leucius Charinus]

Does attestation in antiquity to an alleged "XS" imply existence of mythicism ?

[Peter Kirby]

Here's another translation:

https://archive.org/details/fivebooksof ... 6/mode/2up

Minor notes: The word "Christ" is not actually in the first sentence, and "A presbyter and disciple of the apostles once said to me" is not there in this passage at all. I would render it this way, without all the extra language: "He will also judge those who deal in the supposed."

This is indeed an interesting passage. It's part of a series of judgments:

1. ... judge all men ... judges the Gentiles ... judges the Jews ...

2. Moreover, he shall also examine the doctrine of Marcion, [inquiring] how he holds that there are two gods, separated from each other by an infinite distance. Or how can he be good who draws away men that do not belong to him from him who made them, and calls them into his own kingdom? And why is his goodness, which does not save all [thus], defective? Also, why does he, indeed, seem to be good as respects men, but most unjust with regard to him who made men, inasmuch as he deprives him of his possessions? Moreover, how could the Lord, with any justice, if He belonged to another father, have acknowledged the bread to be His body, while He took it from that creation to which we belong, and affirmed the mixed cup to be His blood? And why did He acknowledge Himself to be the Son of man, if He had not gone through that birth which belongs to a human being? How, too, could He forgive us those sins for which we are answerable to our Maker and God? And how, again, supposing that He was not flesh, but was a man merely in appearance, could He have been crucified, and could blood and water have issued from His pierced side? John 19:34 What body, moreover, was it that those who buried Him consigned to the tomb? And what was that which rose again from the dead?

3. [This spiritual man] shall also judge all the followers of Valentinus ...

[This spiritual man] shall also judge the vain speeches of the perverse Gnostics, by showing that they are the disciples of Simon Magus.

4. He will judge also the Ebionites; [for] how can they be saved unless it was God who wrought out their salvation upon earth? ...

5. He will also judge those who deal in the supposed [my translation]. For how can they imagine that they do themselves carry on a real discussion, when their Master was a mere imaginary being? ...

6. He shall also judge false prophets ...

7. He shall also judge those who give rise to schisms ...

The language of 4.33.5 (translated as "imaginary" or "unreal" or "supposed"/"alleged") is quite different from the language of 4.33.2 (translated as "merely in appearance").

The first paragraph begins the section and speaks of judging non-Christians, Gentiles and Jews.

Irenaeus then proceeds to judging Marcion (accused of saying that Christ's flesh was in appearance only), Valentinus, and briefly all Gnostics.

Irenaeus then judges Ebionites (deniers that Christ was God) and then this group (deniers that Christ was a man).

Lastly, Irenaeus judges other heretics in broad terms, as those who are "false prophets" and "who give rise to schisms."

Given the scheme, it supports the hypothesis that four distinct and specific heresies are being called out (Marcion, Valentinus, Ebionites, and the heretical Christians who consider Christ not to have been a man but is only imagined to have been one). Given that Marcion is accused of believing in a Christ who truly did appear but only in apperance, it supports the interpretation that something else is meant here. Given the juxtaposition of these heretics after the Ebionites, it supports a reading that they did not believe that Christ was a man, as also supported by the accusation that "they themselves in like manner are not men, but mere dumb animals." Given the repeated wording of "imaginary" or "supposed," as contrasted with real and true, there's more going on here than references to seeming and appearance.

Because they are believers and are familiar with Christ as a man (but only "supposedly" according to them), I'm guessing they read the Gospels as allegory. That's why Irenaeus would fire back that they can't take Christ's teaching and their salvation as secure if the teacher is only putative.

[Giuseppe]

Interesting. Possibly pertinent to it:

The emphasis with which the author of the same letter (1:23) opposes his preaching of the crucified Christ to the wisdom of this world can only be explained by his opposition to Gnostic Docetism. Like his contemporaries, he saw in that admonition of the Gnostic masters to their disciples to raise the course of the gospel story and its climax, the crucifixion, to an inner history, to spiritual knowledge and an experience of faith, a lowering of the crucifixion to a mere illusion and wanted to make the fact all the more the center of his preaching. (By the way, Ovid teaches us, when he made the murderers of Caesar strike only a mere image (simulacra nuda), while the man himself (vir, ibid.) wrested himself from the daggers of his enemies and was carried up by the divine mother’s spirit, how close antiquity was to reducing the bloody catastrophe of a divine founder to a mere illusion in contrast to the spirit’s soaring from the fetters of finitude.)

https://vridar.org/bruno-bauer-christ-a ... iterature/

Is Bruno Bauer assuming that the comparison with "Caesar docetists" is a possible historicist objection against the mythicist interpretation of the Pauline passage? But in the case of Caesar we have independent evidence of the his existence.

[Giuseppe]

This is the translation from my Italian version of 4:33:5:

He will also judge those who lead to consider him as mere appearance. How do they think they really argue, since their master was pure appearance? How can they have any firm point about him, if it was appearance and it was not reality? How can they really participate in salvation, if the one they believe in showed himself - according to their doctrine - in only an apparent form? In conclusion, everything is appearance, there is no real thing, according to them. At this point we just have to ask them if they too, not being men, but animals without reason, don't offer more than the mere appearances of men.

[Peter Kirby]

This is the translation from my Italian version of 4:33:5:

He will also judge those who lead to consider him as mere appearance. How do they think they really argue, since their master was pure appearance? How can they have any firm point about him, if it was appearance and it was not reality? How can they really participate in salvation, if the one they believe in showed himself - according to their doctrine - in only an apparent form? In conclusion, everything is appearance, there is no real thing, according to them. At this point we just have to ask them if they too, not being men, but animals without reason, don't offer more than the mere appearances of men.

Traduttore, traditore.

[mlinssen]

This is the translation from my Italian version of 4:33:5:

He will also judge those who lead to consider putative. How do they think they really argue, since their master was putative? How can they have any firm point about him, if it was putative and not real? How can they really participate in salvation, if the one they believe in showed himself - according to their doctrine - in only a putative form? In conclusion, everything is putative, there is no real thing, according to them. At this point we just have to ask them if they too, not being men, but animals without reason, don't offer more than the mere shadows of men.

Iudicabit autem et eos qui putativum inducunt. Quemadmodum enim ipsi vere se putant disputare, quando magister eorum putativus fuit? Aut quemadmodum firmum quid habere possunt ab eo, si putativus et non veritas erat? Quomodo autem ipsi salutem vere participare possunt, si ille, in quem credere se dicunt, semetipsum putativum ostendebat? Putativum est igitur, et non veritas, omne apud eos: et nunc iam quaeretur, ne forte cum et ipsi homines non sint sed muta animalia, hominum umbras apud plurimos proferant.

That's pretty spot on Giuseppe

[maryhelena]

Irenaeus Against Heresies 4.33.5—

Iudicabit autem et eos qui putativum inducunt. Quemadmodum enim ipsi vere se putant disputare, quando magister eorum putativus fuit? Aut quemadmodum firmum quid habere possunt ab eo, si putativus et non veritas erat? Quomodo autem ipsi salutem vere participare possunt, si ille, in quem credere se dicunt, semetipsum putativum ostendebat? Putativum est igitur, et non veritas, omne apud eos: et nunc iam quaeretur, ne forte cum et ipsi homines non sint sed muta animalia, hominum umbras apud plurimos proferant.

My translation

“A presbyter and disciple of the apostles once said to me:

The right-thinking spiritual man of 1 Corinthians 2:15 will also judge those who speak of an alleged Christ. How can such persons imagine themselves to be saying something, if they had only an alleged teacher? Or how could they take something from him really solid, if he hadn’t been true, but only alleged? And how can they have a true share in salvation, if He, in whom they say they believe, only allegedly revealed himself? But then everything about them is likewise a conjecture, and not the truth. And one might ask if they are not really human, but dumb beasts, who pass for shadows among the masses.”

Roberts & Donaldson

“A presbyter and disciple of the apostles once said to me:

The right-thinking spiritual man shall also judge those who describe Christ as [having become man] only in [human] opinion. For how can they imagine that they do themselves carry on a real discussion, when their Master was a mere imaginary being? Or how can they receive anything stedfast from Him, if He was a merely imagined being, and not a verity? And how can these men really be partaken of salvation, if He in whom they profess to believe, manifested Himself as a merely imaginary being? Everything, therefore, connected with these men is unreal, and nothing [possessed of the character of] truth; and, in these circumstances, it may be made a question whether (since, perchance, they themselves in like manner are not men, but mere dumb animals) they do not present, in most cases, simply a shadow of humanity.”

Are we not in the same questioning place today. After nearly 2000 years the question is still an open one. Was the gospel figure of Jesus a historical person during the time of Tiberius and Pilate - or - is the gospel figure of Jesus a literary creation, an allegory ?

Perhaps, it's not a question of choosing between these two options at all. To deny the relevance of history to the gospel story is surely to sabotage research into early christian origins. To only run with Paul on a philosophical enterprise would allow ideas, with their inbuilt potential to outgrow their usefulness, to enslave instead of generating enlightenment. Both history and philosophy are needed in the search for early christian origins. Which really boils down to the historicists and the ahistoricists needing to find a meeting ground instead of the constant antagonism that surrounds the present research into understanding early christian origins.

[Paul the Uncertain]

An attempt to reverse engineer what is in the OP "translation" blocks.

The incipit "A presbyter etc." apparently derives from the opening of the short preceding chapter (IV.32.1).

Following New Advent (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103432.htm) for simplicity:

After this fashion also did a presbyter, a disciple of the apostles, reason with respect to the two testaments, proving that both were truly from one and the same God.

This character may have been introduced earlier; I didn't try to trace him farther back than this. The translators apparently believe that Irenaeus intends the reader to continue regarding this character as a source for Irenaeus's teaching in chapter 33. Perhaps so, perhaps not, anyway, that's what the intrusion seems to be about, the translator's explanation of something and not the translator's actual translation of the text at that point.

The subject of iudicabit (he, she, or it will judge) is apparently found at IV.33.1 and the immediately preceding title.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103433.htm

(Title) Whosoever confesses that one God is the author of both Testaments, and diligently reads the Scriptures in company with the presbyters of the Church, is a true spiritual disciple ; and he will rightly understand and interpret all that the prophets have declared respecting Christ and the liberty of the New Testament.

(33.1) A spiritual disciple of this sort truly receiving the Spirit of God, who was from the beginning, in all the dispensations of God, present with mankind, and announced things future, revealed things present, and narrated things past — [such a man] does indeed "judge all men, but is himself judged by no man."

The embedded quote at the end is indeed a nod to what in our time is designated 1 Corinthians 2:15, a desingation that didn't exist in Irenaeus's time.

The intervening chapters 2-5 "chain" 3rd person singular references, so I agree with the translators that that hypothetical "spiritual disciple" is the intended grammatical subject of the verb iudicabit. Once again, the translators are presenting their interpretation (correct as I believe it to be) and not their translation of the text that appears there.

Now, finally we are ready to address what opinion is about to be judged. In context, I think it is reasonable to infer that the opinion concerns something about Christ even though that word doesn't appear in the Latin text provided in the OP. I am less confident that the opinion specifically concerns uncertainty about his earthly presence, in or not in the flesh. The chapter appears in the midst of a litany of heretical opinions (by Irenaeus's reckoning of heresy).

I do not easily see a way to eliminate the opinion to be judged as being that the founder figure isn't or may not be the "Christ," despite his being a teacher worthy of attention. I think this teacher may well be a man of flesh and blood, in the sense that if he isn't supposed to be that, then the text is opaque about it.

This passage joins several others that may be attesting to ancients who taught that Jesus was a fictional or mythological character rather than a real man who actually lived, but may instead refer to some other dissent from an emerging orthodoxy.

As always, all in my opinion. And on a personal note, I'd be delighted if somebody does disambiguate this passage in favor of another definite ancient teaching of Jesus mythicism or fictiveness.

[Irish1975]

Paul the Uncertain is correct about my methods. In order to concentrate attention on the exact meaning of the passage, with immediacy, I ventured to clarify both the subject of iudicabit (the “spiritual disciple” postulated by Irenaeus’ anonymous presbyter), and the implied subject of the predicate adjective putativum (“putative, suppositional, alleged”) i.e. Christ. The immediately preceding section on the Ebionites, and more importantly the sentences that follow, make it impossible for this passage to be concerned with any other being than Christ.

I made two mistakes, though. First, it is the presbyter rather than the hypothesized spiritual disciple/judge who should be described as “right-thinking,” since it is he who propounds the Irenaean orthodoxy (two testaments, one god, no god other than the maker). Second, I wrote “spiritual man” instead of “spiritual disciple.”

The one who “will judge” is neither God nor Jesus nor (contra Peter) Irenaeus, nor even the “presbyter and disciple of the apostles” introduced at 32.1; but rather a “spiritual disciple” hypothesized by this presbyter, introduced at 33.1. This so-called spiritual disciple is meant to be an orthodox representative of the pneumatic of 1 Cor 2:15, who examines/evaluates/judges all things, but is examined/evaluated/judged by no one.

The first thing that Irenaeus attributes to this anonymous presbyter — there appear to be several anonymous presbyters in Irenaeus — is the doctrine that one and the same god gave the two testaments [the Old and the New], and that there is no god other than the one who “made and fashioned” us. Hence the description of the presbyter as “right-thinking,” orthodox. Thus, it is specifically according to the worldview of the orthodox, conveyed by Irenaeus and represented by the presbyter, that a judgment of the mythicist (to use contemporary language) is rendered. Many readers today of 1 Cor 2:6-16 would take Paul’s pneumatic to be a gnostic knower, contrary to the interpretation given by Irenaeus. In standard Christianity, it is only God who judges, and there is no “man” who is not judged by God.

We have to also consider this masterful (but not unquestionable) translation linked by Peter, which is that of John Keble, the 19th century Tractarian:

And he shall judge those also who bring in an unreal Christ. For how think they to argue truly themselves, when their Master was unreal? Or how can they have from him any thing to be depended on, if He was imaginary, and not the Truth? And how can they themselves truly partake of salvation, if He in whom they say they believe, exhibited Himself in appearance only? With them, therefore, all is unreal, and not the Truth: and the question shall now be added, whether haply they are bearing about in the sight of the many shadows of men, being themselves not men, but dumb creatures?

I don’t agree with Peter’s own translation, “those who deal in the supposed,” since putativum has to be an adjective modifying Christ, and not some kind of abstract substantive.

Nor do I agree with the translation Giuseppe takes from the Italian, which suppresses the meaning of putativus in favor of a docetic connotation: “appearance.” But what is most interesting about this passage is its resistance to a docetic meaning. The Christ of these people is not unreal because of some apparition or hologram, but rather because they self-consciously believe their Christ to be merely notional, alleged, supposed. He is represented to the mind, not to the senses.