Did Celsus and His "Jew" Offer Different Arguments?

[Ben C. Smith]

Sure, that can happen, but I always start with the text itself, if possible. In this case, I just made an additional observation that would not have seemed relevant based on the original translation, where the bare existence of John was at stake somewhere along the chain of transmission. That observation may or may not be misguided, as well, but we are all just trying to understand the text here, I think.

Ben.

[Peter Kirby]

And it is a Jew who addresses the following language to him whom we acknowledge to be our Lord Jesus: When you were bathing, says the Jew, beside John [Λουομένῳ, φησί, σοὶ παρὰ τῷ Ἰωάννῃ], you say that what had the appearance of a bird from the air alighted upon you.

This sounds suspiciously like a shared bath of some kind, rather than an act of John baptizing Jesus, does it not? Since the notion which Origen is staving off in this section is the idea that it was Jesus alone who saw the vision, supported only by his fellow cronies, perhaps Celsus was trying to separate John from Jesus, so as to make certain that John was not a fellow witness of the event, and part of that separation entailed denying or avoiding describing an actual baptism one by the other; and Origen expresses this with that πως: the Jew calls John a baptizer somewhere, or seems to regard him as a baptizer, even though Celsus does not relate that John baptized Jesus.

That is interesting.

Sure, that can happen, but I always start with the text itself, if possible. In this case, I just made an additional observation that would not have seemed relevant based on the original translation, where the bare existence of John was at stake somewhere along the chain of transmission. That observation may or may not be misguided, as well, but we are all just trying to understand the text here, I think.

Right.

[MrMacSon]

... it looks like Celsus is more interested in playing with the contradictions--in this case, a certain statement made by someone else about the nature of these so-called appearances.)

Isn't that the nature of many of the commentaries of those times?

[Peter Kirby]

Let's back the truck up again, then, and drop the reference to John (not that Celsus necessarily believed in the existence of John...).

IF Celsus could have such blanket skepticism about the origins of all these marvelous stories about Jesus, why are we so sure that Celsus did not have doubts regarding Jesus? Does he ever discuss it as anything other than part of a fictional discourse (his fictive Jew talking to Jesus) or as part of a hypothetical granted just to show that the conclusions do not follow (his direct statements)? If so, where and in what words?

[Ben C. Smith]

IF Celsus could have such blanket skepticism about the origins of all these marvelous stories about Jesus, why are we so sure that Celsus did not have doubts regarding Jesus? Does he ever discuss it as anything other than part of a fictional discourse (his fictive Jew talking to Jesus) or as part of a hypothetical granted just to show that the conclusions do not follow (his direct statements)? If so, where and in what words?

I have been reading and looking, but dang, is it hard to separate all the layers:

1. What the Jewish interlocutor said.
2. What Celsus himself wrote.
3. What Celsus actually thought.
4. What Origen understood or misunderstood about what Celsus or his Jew said or wrote or thought.

Not giving up, though.

(What a coup it would be to discover that Celsus doubted the existence of Jesus....)

Ben.

[Ben C. Smith]

(There does seem to be some wriggle room here... as there often is. Someone might say that it is only the post-mortem "existence" of Aesclepius or Jesus that is ever challenged....)

Does Celsus not accept the historicity of (pre-mortem) Asclepius outright in 3.3?

In the next place, miracles were performed in all countries, or at least in many of them, as Celsus himself admits, instancing the case of Æsculapius, who conferred benefits on many, and who foretold future events to entire cities which were dedicated to him, such as Tricca, and Epidaurus, and Cos, and Pergamus; and along with Æsculapius he mentions Aristeas of Proconnesus, and a certain Clazomenian, and Cleomedes of Astypalæa.

Ben.

[Peter Kirby]

(There does seem to be some wriggle room here... as there often is. Someone might say that it is only the post-mortem "existence" of Aesclepius or Jesus that is ever challenged....)

Does Celsus not accept the historicity of (pre-mortem) Asclepius outright in 3.3?

In the next place, miracles were performed in all countries, or at least in many of them, as Celsus himself admits, instancing the case of Æsculapius, who conferred benefits on many, and who foretold future events to entire cities which were dedicated to him, such as Tricca, and Epidaurus, and Cos, and Pergamus; and along with Æsculapius he mentions Aristeas of Proconnesus, and a certain Clazomenian, and Cleomedes of Astypalæa.

Ben.

We can be certain that Celsus instances the cases of Aesclepius, Aristeas, and Cleomedes... it seems probable that Origen is right about this being Celsus' own opinion (that he lived and did deeds)... but mostly because there is no basis on which to argue otherwise.

In the quote of Celsus 'instancing' the miracles of Aesclepius, the snippet quoted has Celsus claiming it is a belief of the multitude.

And again, when it is said of Æsculapius that a great multitude both of Greeks and Barbarians acknowledge that they have frequently seen, and still see, no mere phantom, but Æsculapius himself, healing and doing good, and foretelling the future; Celsus requires us to believe this, and finds no fault with the believers in Jesus, when we express our belief in such stories, but when we give our assent to the disciples, and eye-witnesses of the miracles of Jesus, who clearly manifest the honesty of their convictions (because we see their guilelessness, as far as it is possible to see the conscience revealed in writing), we are called by him a set of silly individuals, although he cannot demonstrate that an incalculable number, as he asserts, of Greeks and Barbarians acknowledge the existence of Æsculapius; while we, if we deem this a matter of importance, can clearly show a countless multitude of Greeks and Barbarians who acknowledge the existence of Jesus.

The question of existence does seem to be primarily in the sense of post-mortem existence (the whole discussion of 'immortality' sets this up).

But it's still not really clear (IMO, anyway) what exactly Celsus himself believes. Celsus seems characteristically reluctant to commit himself to a position (even though Origen seems to try to nail him down a bit more than he ought to, in order to catch Celsus himself in contradictions).

I'd also observe that Origen seems to use direct quotation less frequently than his editors would like.

[Ben C. Smith]

We can be certain that Celsus instances the cases of Aesclepius, Aristeas, and Cleomedes... it seems probable that Origen is right about this being Celsus' own opinion (that he lived and did deeds)... but mostly because there is no basis on which to argue otherwise.

....

The question of existence does seem to be primarily in the sense of post-mortem existence (the whole discussion of 'immortality' sets this up).

That is the thing. I am afraid what I have found to be the case so far in book 3 is the boring outcome: I would replace your primarily above with apparently exclusively. It seems to me that in the cases of Asclepius, Aristeas, and Antinoüs, at any rate, the phenomenon under discussion is apotheosis upon death, through and through. I am not so sure about Cleomedes, but in that case the existence of the man does not appear to come up at all; what is under dispute is his worthiness to be called divine (which Origen brings to bear against all of the other candidates, as well). If Celsus questioned the pre-mortem existence of Jesus as well as the post-mortem, Origin seems either not to have noticed it or to have suppressed it.

That said, I have yet to find an absolute statement of belief, which can be unquestionably be attributed to Celsus himself, in the historical reality of some part of the gospel stories. Every seemingly clear statement seems to admit of other explanations: if it comes in book 1, for example, then it might actually be the Jew, not Celsus himself (despite Origen attributing it to the latter, not the former, ex hypothesi a misunderstanding of his source material), and Celsus may conceivably have brought in the Jew to handle the what if it is based on core facts scenario while he himself dealt more with the what if it is all myth scenario. Other statements that seem clear on the surface actually admit, without much effort, of the kind of concessions you wrote about earlier, hypothetical concessions to Christians just to point out absurdities or contradictions.

But it's still not really clear (IMO, anyway) what exactly Celsus himself believes. Celsus seems characteristically reluctant to commit himself to a position (even though Origen seems to try to nail him down a bit more than he ought to, in order to catch Celsus himself in contradictions).

I agree with this. It is not easy going.

I'd also observe that Origen seems to use direct quotation less frequently than his editors would like.

I would replace his editors above with both his editors and Ben C. Smith.

Ben.

[Ben C. Smith]

I now notice at 1.41:

And it is a Jew who addresses the following language to him whom we acknowledge to be our Lord Jesus: When you were bathing, says the Jew, beside John [Λουομένῳ, φησί, σοὶ παρὰ τῷ Ἰωάννῃ], you say that what had the appearance of a bird from the air alighted upon you.

This sounds suspiciously like a shared bath of some kind, rather than an act of John baptizing Jesus, does it not? Since the notion which Origen is staving off in this section is the idea that it was Jesus alone who saw the vision, supported only by his fellow cronies, perhaps Celsus was trying to separate John from Jesus, so as to make certain that John was not a fellow witness of the event, and part of that separation entailed denying or avoiding describing an actual baptism one by the other; and Origen expresses this with that πως: the Jew calls John a baptizer somewhere, or seems to regard him as a baptizer, even though Celsus does not relate that John baptized Jesus.

Upon further examination, I think there is definitely something to this observation about Celsus or his Jew not actually portraying Jesus as actually baptized by John. Look at the beginning of 1.40:

After these things, having taken from that according to Matthew, and possibly also from the other gospels, the things concerning the dove having alighted upon the savior while (he was) being baptized beside John [βαπτιζομένῳ παρὰ τῷ Ἰωάννῃ], he wishes to discredit the statement as a fiction.

If Origen picked up on this reticence to say that John actually baptized Jesus (and compare that notorious passive verb in Luke 3.21 to the phrase above: Matthew, and possibly also from the other gospels), that may explain his πως and his calling upon Josephus as witness that John was known primarily as a baptist.

If any of this is accurate, it sort of turns the so-called criterion of embarrassment upside down, with a skeptic hesitating to say that John baptized Jesus and a believer insisting it was so, right?

Ben.

[Ben C. Smith]

I may well have been mistaken, however, to think that the absent baptism had something to do with Celsus distancing John from Jesus so that John cannot have seen the vision. The preposition παρὰ is not a good way to express distance, for one thing, but for another, Celsus at the end of 1.41 makes his Jew ask rhetorically who actually saw the vision and heard the voice besides Jesus himself and a certain other person from among those who have been punished with Jesus (τινα ἕνα... τῶν μετὰ σοῦ κεκολασμένων).

Origen himself apparently takes this certain other person to be John the baptist himself (and maybe that is exactly whom Celsus intended; I cannot tell for sure), and this leads him to castigate Celsus at the end of 1.48 for having a Jew so connect the punishments of John and Jesus, since Jews in general do not do so; therefore Celsus is ignorant, despite claiming to know all; so there. (This argument does not affect the historicity of the descending dove in any way, of course, and only goes to show that the scoring of cheap, easy, peripheral points in arguments is not limited to internet discussion boards.)

Ben.

ETA: Three posts in a row for me on this thread.... Starting to feel like Stephan.