Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

You, David, are a rock star. Thanks.

Ben C. Smith wrote:You, David, are a rock star. Thanks.

With luck, I won't also have to contract AIDS like "rock star" Charlie Sheen, but I wouldn't mind the two babes he was hanging with during his manic days.

DCH (sleep beckons)

Roger Parvus had a while back poked his head into this thread, where I was describing my amazement at Ignatius' fanatical desire to be chewed up by wild beasts, maybe even have himself tortured on the rack, but has not since then had anything to say.

Now that I am reading his book (US $6 from publisher), ultimately he may see fit to say more as I comment about his book as I read it. Parvus proposes that Ignatius/Theophorus is the same as the Peregrinus who was parodied by Lucian. Peregrinus was said to have been a "Christian" before being booted out and ultimately becoming a Cynic philosopher. Apparently he had a death wish, which was frustrated by the Roman governor of Syria who canceled his planned execution and set him free. The "Christians" were said to have expelled him for some dietary sin (although this may be Lucian's guess). He then became, formally, a Cynic philosopher and teacher, and ultimately realized his frustrated death wish by throwing himself onto a burning pyre before a throng of witnesses. Parvus suggests that Peregrinus was, during his Christian period, a follower of Apelles. The letters were later adapted by a proto-orthodox editor who made numerous "clumsy" changes to them in order to make Peregrinus into a proto-orthodox, as opposed to a heterodox, Christian.

At this point, I have read through chapter 3 and am just starting chapter 4. I have to say that Parvus has clearly studied the middle (shorter Greek) recension of the letters very closely, as I remember encountering many of the unique phrases Ignatius used when I created my GE "analyses" of the various Ignatian letters of both the shorter Greek (middle recension) and the longer Greek (the long recension). I may not want to say much at this point, as I am only at page 53 (of 165), but more than one contrary issue has cropped up in my seriously deficient brain that may need to be explored when the time comes.

I'd say that $6 is cheap enough that anyone here can affords to buy the book, A New Look at the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch and other Apellian Writings (2007), so I encourage our members to do so and participate as best they can (as do I).

Parvus makes numerous very original proposals that, on the face of things, are not very far fetched, but the degree to which they are likely, remain to be seen.

Chapter 1: WAS THEOPHORUS A MARCIONITE?............... 1
Chapter 2: THE ERSTWHILE DISCIPLE OF MARCION .... 17
Chapter 3: FROM SYRIA TO ROME?..................................... 37
Chapter 4: HE WITH THE MOST NAMES OF ALL THE
CYNICS................................................................... 53
Chapter 5: THE E/I (EDITOR/INTERPOLATOR) ................ 64
Chapter 6: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER ........................... 69
THE LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN EPHESUS.........................................70
THE LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN MAGNESIA......................................79
THE LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN TRALLES..........................................84
THE LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN ROME ..............................................89
THE LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN PHILADELPHIA..............................94
THE LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN SMYRNA ........................................100
THE LETTER TO POLYCARP....................................................................107
Chapter 7: OTHER APELLEAN WRITINGS........................ 113
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................ 153
Appendix: THE EPISTLE OF POLYCARP TO THE
PHILIPPIANS........................................................... 160

This could get very interesting. My short vs. long Greek analyses might prove to have value after all.

DCH

PS: I still cannot shake the feeling that the longer Greek form (long recension) seems to use almost the exact same type phraseology as the shorter Greek (middle recension), but expands the number of biblical citations, both OT & NT, which is at odds with Parvus' proposals, which are based entirely on the middle (shorter Greek) recension. Fun, fun!

Yes Parvus argument depends on the fact that the middle Greek recension is not an expansion of the shorter Syriac recension. He doesn't even seem to have known the Syriac even existed. Despite mistaking his limited imagination for insight, our own Ben has done nothing to argue in favor of the shorter Syriac being an abbreviation other than to basically imply that the Syriac is inconvenient to traditional assumptions about Ignatius and on that basis should be ignored. Unfortunately this sort of attitude is the norm in this type of scholarship. If you can't disprove the status quo - a status quo which developed naturally from our shared European Christian servitude - then the status quo remains 'in force' somehow.

The facts are that the Syriac texts are not an epitome of the middle Greek. The manner in which the longest Greek represents an expansion of the middle Greek recension, the middle recension stands in relation to the Syriac. The Syriac short texts might well have been written in Greek. I really don't have an opinion on that. There may even have been a shorter recension than the shorter Greek. But all of what Parvus develops from the middle Greek recension only has any real relevance if the middle Greek is the original, and I find that difficult to believe with the discovery (and subsequent ignoring) of the Syriac recension.

It would seem an odd thing to develop a theory that entirely depends on the 'falseness' of the short Syriac recension.

By the way, for people who don't have the book at hand, Roger Parvus' argument can also be read here:
http://vridar.org/other-authors/roger-p ... -ignatius/

DCHindley wrote:Roger Parvus had a while back poked his head into this thread, where I was describing my amazement at Ignatius' fanatical desire to be chewed up by wild beasts, maybe even have himself tortured on the rack, but has not since then had anything to say.

Now that I am reading his book (US $6 from publisher).... I'd say that $6 is cheap enough that anyone here can affords to buy the book, A New Look at the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch and other Apellian Writings (2007), so I encourage our members to do so and participate as best they can (as do I).

Thanks for that. I did not realize it was so inexpensive. I have only read his Vridar series so far.

Ben.

I really wish this field wasn't dominated by sons of myopic religious extremists. Even atheists who blog about things related to early Christianity come from this background. If this wasn't so, if this field didn't draw from individuals whose brains were shaped by religious fanatics we'd have more people like me participating in these discussions. The facts are that Parvis's entire theory rests on the middle Greek recension being original - something which is highly dubious. I know the sons of religious fanatics can't see it. After all their consciousnesses were shaped by a radical myopia. But think of it this way even if it was a 50-50 likelihood that the Greek middle recension was original you'd have to say that just made a 'unique' reading of the material (20-80 percent likelihood at best given it's 'uniqueness') much more unlikely still.

The facts are that the people who 'decided' the Greek middle recension was original did so based on their own 'sense' of what 'true early Christianity' looked like. For instance the short Syriac doesn't have the bit about Polycarp and that other guy 'helping' Ignatius write all his letters sometimes from places other than where Ignatius was 'right now.' How is this possible? How and why would the Syriac text have removed 'how the text was composed by second hand authorities'? This alone disqualifies the Greek middle recension given that what we see emerge with the Pauline writings.

I've long noted that the parallel between the expansion of the Ignatian corpus and the Pauline corpus is obvious and only denied by these sons of religious fanatics because it 'gets in the way' of their own uncritical use of the corrupt orthodox recension of Paul. Yes they will entertain the expansion of the Pauline corpus here or there but not where it is specifically attached to a discernible 'agenda' - in this case anti-Marcionite.

Having debates with sons of religious fanatics is a delicate affair. You have dance around the issue of whether the entire Catholic (or 'orthodox') tradition falsely appropriated a set of scriptures from a tradition that understood Jesus to be a wholly divine being. They'd rather entertain modern 'mythicist' scenarios than that too because they realize how devastating the Marcionite primacy argument is to their own inherited worldview. Mom and dad, and mom and dad's mom and dad were duped into believing a set of lies. This is the upshot of Marcionite primacy. All the other theories are just 'interesting diversions' which leave their inherited worldview intact.

And, I assume of course that people HAVE ACTUALLY THOUGHT THROUGH these things. That's why I referenced how the Greek middle recension references 'second parties' writing the Ignatian letters for Ignatius without much in the way of explanation. But then upon reflection I realize, this isn't going to make much sense to anyone.

The fact that the middle Greek recensions says that Ignatius wrote these letters with the help of assistants parallels the pattern in Paul and Josephus. The question about whether ancient writers had assistants isn't relevant because Christianity was an underground religion. Paul wrote his documents (according to the Marcionites) himself without assistants. The Catholic tradition (starting undoubtedly with Irenaeus) said that the heads of the Church even from the earliest period resembled rich patrons, entrusting 'assistants' to do the manual work. This is why IMO the Greek middle recension introduces Polycarp and the other guy as Ignatius's assistants - viz. it helps open the way for Luke to act as Paul's secretary.

So it's not possible or very unlikely that the short Syriac text 'cut out' these references to secretaries of Ignatius any more than Marcion 'cut out' Luke and all the references in OUR Pauline letters to Paul entrusting 'helpers' in his letters. The original Paul (no less than the original Ignatius) was a direct manifestation of God to the world. Ignatius = seraph = (fiery) angel. The theme of a 'church network' of 'reasonable' (rather than 'enthusiastic') divine spokesmen is a later development. It manifested itself in a period when the Church was trying to appeal its message to 'reasonable' (middle class) men = late second century CE.

Of course if you were raised with the idea that Jesus ALWAYS appealed his message to 'reasonable' minds this is a 'no brainer.' But that's what I think distinguishes the original Marcionite message from the inherited Church. The reason people could believe in a 'fiery angel' appearing to men in a certain period of history belies an unreasonableness among early Christian believers. They weren't drawn from middle class white people.

That Peregrinus is portrayed as walking around trying to speak from pyres is a throwback (or a parallel) to this very early phenomenon. That's the best argument to understand Peregrinus (and Polycarp) as Ignatius too. There is older strata of divine fiery spokesmen which goes to the heart of the Jewish religion. But that's another story ...

The whole idea that Ignatius was 'calculated' enough to entrust his letters to 'trusted secretaries' comes from a different epoch. Jesus 'just spoke.' Ignatius 'just spoke.' Peregrinus 'just spoke' (but notice what Lucian says about the creation of posthumous correspondences). The fiery god of Israel 'just spoke' from the mountain and the apostle Moses wrote it all down (but notice Moses steps in the fire too).