Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Posted: **Mon May 16, 2016 9:29 pm**

Secret Alias wrote:I think either (a) the arguments of Simon Magus have been transferred to Simon Peter; or, more likely, (b) the Simon of the narrative has the hero of the 'Jewish Christian' community and his arguments have been polished and 'corrected' and retained in 'Peter's' mouth.

'has" ?? -- -- 'is' or 'as' ?

(b) the Simon of the narrative is(?) the hero of the 'Jewish Christian' community and his arguments have been polished and 'corrected' and retained in 'Peter's' mouth ?

Posted: **Mon May 16, 2016 9:30 pm**

Interesting for my Ish theory the author firmly believes that Adam was Christ:

But give heed to my first discourse of the truth. If any one do not allow the man fashioned by the hands of God to have had the Holy Spirit of Christ, how is he not guilty of the greatest impiety in allowing another born of an impure stock to have it? But he would act most piously, if he should not allow to another to have it, but should say that he alone has it, who has changed his forms and his names from the beginning of the world, and so reappeared again and again in the world, until coming upon his own times, and being anointed with mercy for the works of God, he shall enjoy rest for ever. His honour it is to bear rule and lordship over all things, in air, earth, and waters. But in addition to these, himself having made man, he had breath, the indescribable garment of the soul, that he might be able to be immortal.

Denies that Adam ever ate the fruit (3.17):

He himself being the only true prophet, fittingly gave names to each animal, according to the merits of its nature, as having made it. For if he gave a name to any one, that was also the name of that which was made, being given by him who made it. How, then, had he still need to partake of a tree, that he might know what is good and what is evil, if he was commanded not to eat of it? But this senseless men believe, who think that a reasonless beast was more powerful than the God who made these things.

A section of woman bashing follows where the etymologies of Cain and Abel are given which are also found exactly in Jerome.

Posted: **Mon May 16, 2016 9:53 pm**

The narrative is suddenly cut off (I suspect this whole section was part of the 'debate' originally but now relegated to the 'pre-debate prayer' section. Zacchaeus tells Peter:

a great crowd awaits you, packed together in the court; and in the midst of them stands Simon, like a war-chieftain attended by his spearmen

Peter then addresses the crowd with a variation of Matthew 10:

Peace be to all you who are in readiness to give your right hands to the truth of God, which, being His great and incomparable gift in the present world, He who sent us, being an infallible Prophet of that which is supremely profitable, gave us in charge, by way of salutation before our words of instruction, to announce to you, in order that if there be any son of peace among you, peace may take hold of him through our teaching; but if any of you will not receive it, then we, shaking off for a testimony the road-dust of our feet, which we have borne through our toils, and brought to you that you may be saved, will go to the abodes and the cities of others. And we tell you truly, it shall be more tolerable in the day of judgment to dwell in the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, than in the place of unbelief.

Then a thoroughly boring monarchic speech from Peter follows and then the moment everyone has been waiting for - Simon's opening remarks:

Why would you lie, and deceive the unlearned multitude standing around you, persuading them that it is unlawful to think that there are gods, and to call them so, when the books that are current among the Jews say that there are many gods? And now I wish, in the presence of all, to discuss with you from these books on the necessity of thinking that there are gods; first showing respecting him whom you call God, that he is not the supreme and omnipotent Being, inasmuch as he is without foreknowledge, imperfect, needy, not good, and underlying many and innumerable grievous passions. Wherefore, when this has been shown from the Scriptures, as I say, it follows that there is another, not written of, foreknowing, perfect, without want, good, removed from all grievous passions. But he whom you call the Creator is subject to the opposite evils.

Therefore also Adam, being made at first after his likeness, is created blind, and is said not to have knowledge of good or evil, and is found a transgressor, and is driven out of paradise, and is punished with death. In like manner also, he who made him, because he sees not in all places, says with reference to the overthrow of Sodom, 'Come, and let us go down, and see whether they do according to their cry which comes to me; or if not, that I may know.' Thus he shows himself ignorant. And in his saying respecting Adam, 'Let us drive him out, lest he put forth his hand and touch the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever;' in saying Lest he is ignorant; and in driving him out lest he should eat and live for ever, he is also envious. And whereas it is written that 'God repented that he had made man,' this implies both repentance and ignorance. For this reflection is a view by which one, through ignorance, wishes to inquire into the result of the things which he wills, or it is the act of one repenting on account of the event not being according to his expectation. And whereas it is written, 'And the Lord smelled a scent of sweetness,' it is the part of one in need; and his being pleased with the fat of flesh is the part of one who is not good. But his tempting, as it is written, 'And God did tempt Abraham,' is the part of one who is wicked, and who is ignorant of the issue of the experiment.

These arguments are clearly garbled, deliberately watered down to make them less comprehensible. Let's take them in order:

1. Adam is created blind - The original argument as we see from the Nag Hammadi literature was surely that God was blind, blind because he didn't know where Adam and Eve were hiding in the garden.

2. Adam lost the Holy Spirit - the argument that Adam no longer had the Holy Spirit once Eve was taken from him no longer appears in the existing preamble of Simon but comes up briefly in the debate which follows "Then Simon: If Adam had foreknowledge, how did he not foreknow that the serpent would deceive his wife?" Peter's response "If Adam had not foreknowledge, how did he give names to the sons of men as they were born with reference to their future doings, calling the first Cain (which is interpreted 'envy'), who through envy killed his brother Abel (which is interpreted 'grief'), for his parents grieved over him, the first slain?"

3. God repented which makes clear he wasn't perfect - Peter never responds to this as far as I can see.

4. God liked sacrifices - Peter's response "But that He is not pleased with sacrifices, is shown by this, that those who lusted after flesh were slain as soon as they tasted it, and were consigned to a tomb, so that it was called the grave of lusts. He then who at the first was displeased with the slaughtering of animals, not wishing them to be slain, did not ordain sacrifices as desiring them; nor from the beginning did He require them. For neither are sacrifices accomplished without the slaughter of animals, nor can the first-fruits be presented. "

5. Peter adds "But to those who think, as the Scriptures teach, that God swears, He said, 'Let your yea be yea, and nay, nay; for what is more than these is of the evil one.' And to those who say that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are dead, He said, 'God is not of the dead, but of the living.' swearing.

6. Simon says God tempted Adam (and Jacob for that matter in the wrestling scene) - ' And to those who suppose that God tempts, as the Scriptures say, He said, 'The tempter is the wicked one,' who also tempted Himself.

Posted: **Mon May 16, 2016 9:53 pm**

It would appear to me that Simon = Paul = Marcion. This is very important. This is not the Catholic Paul but a Paul who is the mirror of Marcion and his antitheses.

Posted: **Tue May 17, 2016 3:12 am**

I note a curious fact in Mark about the presence of Paul in that gospel.

In the incipit of Mark, there is John the Baptist. The argument that this figure serves uniquely in anti-marcionite function is very strong, in my view.

But compare this another explanation, too. John the Baptist appears at the incipit because at end of Mark it is implicit who is the person who already precedes the risen Jesus in Galilee: Paul.

Therefore John The Baptist in Mark would be the anti-Paul: both are precursors of Jesus, but John is precursor of the human Jesus while Paul is precursor of the Risen Christ.

Note that that has all the air of being a marcionite antithesis: whereas John the Baptist in Mark waits the Jewish God while he finds a mere Jesus coming from Nazaret (and John in Mark is a failed prophet about Jesus when he asks him a confirmation that he is the coming Messiah), at the end of Mark we have impliciter a Paul who waits the Risen Christ in Galilee, who (equally impliciter) sees him and is not disappointed by him at all (differently from John the Baptist).

Resuming:

John the Baptist	Paul
he waits the Jewish God or the military Messiah	he waits the Risen Christ
in Judea	in Galilee
but he is disappointed	he is not disappointed
he appears in the incipit explicitly	he appears in the end implicitly
he dies beheaded in Macheron	he dies beheaded in Rome (according to legend)
but he is not risen	he rises ''in Christ''

This makes me think: does Mark betray in this antithesis between John the Baptist and Paul a clear marcionite influence? And if yes, then why does Mark preserve that influence, despite of the fact that he is correcting Marcion (lacking of John the Baptist at incipit) ?

A possible (very improbable) answer: Mark is written after Marcion, Mark is apparently a proto-catholic Gospel, but secretely is valentinian and anti-catholic.

Posted: **Tue May 17, 2016 6:32 am**

What I found particularly interesting is the fact that the 'preamble' to the debate about the 'falsification of Scriptures' was longer than the actual debate. In Book III the preparation for the debate starts in chapter 1 and goes to chapter 25. Peter's group sees Simon in chapter 26. Peter gives a long speech about the monarchia in chapters 27 - 37 (where Peter basically abandons or ignores all that he said agreeing with Simon that the Scriptures are corrupt in the previous chapters). And the actual debate only starts with Simon's declaration (discussed above) in chapter 38 until Simon suddenly leaves in chapter 58. It's quite bizarre.

The question becomes why does the work have Peter and Simon agree that Moses's Scriptures are false? This seems an odd starting point for any orthodox document. Irenaeus for instance does not use this as his starting point. Irenaeus believes that the Ezra wrote the Pentateuch (something the author or editor of the Homilies agrees with in principle - he makes reference to the fact that Moses's death is described in Moses text). But Irenaeus would say that Ezra possessed the same Holy Spirit which was in Moses and so was able to 'recompose' the original holy document.

The POV of the author is that the Holy Spirit did not write the Torah. The Torah is a false witness to God. This is quite extraordinary. The portrait of the Patriarchs is misguided and its understanding of God is downright blasphemous. Why would someone have a debate between Simon and Peter with this starting point? This is what is so puzzling. The work itself must have been important because Rufinus decides to preserve it (albeit in 'corrected' form many centuries later). But it must be an extremely early text.

Posted: **Tue May 17, 2016 7:00 am**

The reason I am trying to sort this out is that eventually we will get to the point that the author knows of Acts or its Ebionite predecessor and somehow develops an anti-Pauline retelling of the meeting at Antioch. Why preserve this bizarre narrative? Why not avoid all the discomfort of acknowledging Peter as a heretic? In the narrative the difference between Peter and Simon Magus and our 'orthodoxy' is less than expected. Peter seems to advocate a position where there is only one God. Jesus is at once 'the True Prophet' and in other instances 'the Father' (which is particularly hard to reconcile) and the narrative of the Pentateuch was written by a human being who did know or understand the perfection that is God and the Patriarchs of Israel.

We hear many times in the Church Fathers that the Ebionites rejected or only used in part the Jewish Scriptures. This must come from the Clementine literature and the precursor to this text.

On the other hand Simon seems to accept the Pentateuch (oddly enough) but uses it to ridicule Peter's insistence that there is a monarchia in heaven. This is what is certainly critical. The idea that there was more than one god in the Pentateuch is perfectly embodied in Philo. It is a known position of Jewish 'heretics' in the rabbinic literature. The identification of arguments similar to those put forward by Simon are preserved in anti-Marcionite literature and in Jewish sources associated with one named Qiqi (or something - I forget the exact name just that there were two Qs in the name).

The point - and this is critical - is that from a monarchian perspective - the arguments FOR the Pentateuch holding the existence of three gods was blasphemous. This POV was historically very ancient. So it is my believe that the layer of the Recognitions which makes Peter a spokesman for the monarchia is a later addition. There are two understandings of Jesus here. Peter says he is the True Prophet and then he says Jesus is the Father. It would seem these are not compatible with one another. To this end, I think given what we know of what is said about the Ebionites the 'True Prophet' understanding is the original POV of the tradition. The monarchic layer is a later addition.

Indeed we know from the Patristic statements about the Ebionites that they accepted the 'unknown Father' doctrine. To this end all the arguments stressing the single power in heaven is likely a late second century addition (in keeping with Brent's theory that there were increasing efforts to bring all the religions in line with the Imperial cult in the period).

To this end Jesus for the Ebionites is a wholly human 'True Prophet.' What about the arguments that depreciate the Pentateuch? Are these original to Peter in the text? Yes I think so. Look at the example of the question of Adam. Peter defends that Adam had the Holy Spirit. He names the animals in Paradise. He gives his children names that presage their eventual fate in the story. Clearly Simon who accepted the Pentateuch (because it shows the existence of a more than one God) would accepted these arguments. But what about the unanswered question as to whether Peter accepted that the Holy Spirit was eventually taken from Adam by God because he was jealous? It is difficult to figure this one out.

At one point Peter's POV is that Christ is the man (Adam) in heaven and all the negative reports about God's relationship with him are falsifications. That might be historically accurate. But Jesus is the True Prophet. How does that reconcile with the Pauline claim that he was the Perfect Man in heaven? I think we hit the nail on the head right there. Anything Pauline is likely proof of a later addition to the text. But then again who knows.

Posted: **Tue May 17, 2016 8:59 am**

Let me fix this graph that was done in haste last night.

Simon's Charges (Hom 3.38 - 39)
1. There is more than one god in the Pentateuch - "Why would you lie, and deceive the unlearned multitude standing around you, persuading them that it is unlawful to think that there are gods, and to call them so, when the books that are current among the Jews say that there are many gods?"

2. The god of the Pentateuch (and the god of Peter) is not the Supreme God - "first showing respecting him whom you call God, that he is not the supreme and omnipotent Being, inasmuch as he is without foreknowledge, imperfect, needy, not good, and underlying many and innumerable grievous passions."

3. The god of the Pentateuch has mental and personality defects (and thus there must be another god who is the Supreme god) - "Wherefore, when this has been shown from the Scriptures, as I say, it follows that there is another, not written of, foreknowing, perfect, without want, good, removed from all grievous passions. But he whom you call the Creator is subject to the opposite evils."

4. Adam was originally made after the (perfect?) likeness but was made deficient by the Jewish god out of jealousy - "Therefore also Adam, being made at first after his likeness, is created blind, and is said not to have knowledge of good or evil, and is found a transgressor, and is driven out of paradise, and is punished with death." The specific charge that Adam was blind is a mistake (perhaps deliberately) to obscure the original argument. We see from the Nag Hammadi literature was surely that God was blind, blind because he didn't know where Adam and Eve were hiding in the garden. The corollary of this (and perhaps Simon went into more detail in the original) is that Adam lost the Holy Spirit - the argument that Adam no longer had the Holy Spirit once Eve was taken from him no longer appears in the existing preamble of Simon but comes up briefly in the debate which follows "Then Simon: If Adam had foreknowledge, how did he not foreknow that the serpent would deceive his wife?" Peter's response "If Adam had not foreknowledge, how did he give names to the sons of men as they were born with reference to their future doings, calling the first Cain (which is interpreted 'envy'), who through envy killed his brother Abel (which is interpreted 'grief'), for his parents grieved over him, the first slain?"

5. The god of the Pentateuch is blind - "In like manner also, he who made him, because he sees not in all places, says with reference to the overthrow of Sodom, 'Come, and let us go down, and see whether they do according to their cry which comes to me; or if not, that I may know.' Thus he shows himself ignorant." This follows from the corruption that entered into (5). Instead of bringing up the powerful evidence that God lacked the ability to see where Adam and Eve were hiding in the garden, the later editors deliberately weakened the argument in order to say that Adam was blind - something that doesn't make sense from the narrative. Here in what follows it is clear that the original attack of Simon was against God being blind.

6. The god of the Pentateuch is ignorant - "And in his saying respecting Adam, 'Let us drive him out, lest he put forth his hand and touch the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever;' in saying Lest he is ignorant; and in driving him out lest he should eat and live for ever, he is also envious." This must have originally followed (4) more closely. As noted God must have been accused of being blind AND NOW ignorant owing to his blindness.

7. The god of the Pentateuch changes his mind. This shows God was inferior, ignorant and lacked foresight - "And whereas it is written that 'God repented that he had made man,' this implies both repentance and ignorance. For this reflection is a view by which one, through ignorance, wishes to inquire into the result of the things which he wills, or it is the act of one repenting on account of the event not being according to his expectation."

8. The god of the Pentateuch desires animal food/sacrifices (and thus has an animal soul)- "And whereas it is written, 'And the Lord smelled a scent of sweetness,' it is the part of one in need; and his being pleased with the fat of flesh is the part of one who is not good. " This is clearly also an objection of Peter's tradition. The two would have agreed here on the problems with this passage. Peter now blames the author of the Pentateuch for lacking the Holy Spirit when writing this - "But that He is not pleased with sacrifices, is shown by this, that those who lusted after flesh were slain as soon as they tasted it, and were consigned to a tomb, so that it was called the grave of lusts. He then who at the first was displeased with the slaughtering of animals, not wishing them to be slain, did not ordain sacrifices as desiring them; nor from the beginning did He require them. For neither are sacrifices accomplished without the slaughter of animals, nor can the first-fruits be presented. "

9. The god of the Pentateuch tempts people - "But his tempting, as it is written, 'And God did tempt Abraham,' is the part of one who is wicked, and who is ignorant of the issue of the experiment."

Peter's Response Preserves Other (Now Lost) Antitheses of Simon (Hom. 3.40 -)
10. Simon understands the god of the Pentateuch to ultimately be liable to an accusation of the sinfulness according to his own commandments (Homilies 3.40)(something that echoes the Marcionite narrative laid out in Eznik where Jesus - after the resurrection - ultimately accuses and serves the 'Jewish god' will a lawsuit using the Pentateuch and wins - "In like manner Simon, by taking many passages from the Scriptures, seemed to show that God is subject to every infirmity. And to this Peter said: Does he who is evil, and wholly wicked, love to accuse himself in the things in which he sins? Answer me this. Then said Simon: He does not. Then said Peter: How, then, can God be evil and wicked, seeing that those evil things which have been commonly written regarding Him, have been added by His own will! Then said Simon: It may be that the charge against Him is written by another power, and not according to His choice. Then said Peter: Let us then, in the first place, inquire into this. If, indeed, He has of His own will accused Himself, as you formerly acknowledged, then He is not wicked; but if it is done by another power, it must be inquired and investigated with all energy who has subjected to all evils Him who alone is good." This is the clearest proof that Simon = Paul = Marcion and it has been completely missed by scholars who are unfamiliar with the Eznik Marcionite myth.

11. the God of the Pentateuch swears by a higher god than himself - Peter:"But to those who think, as the Scriptures teach, that God swears, He said, 'Let your yea be yea, and nay, nay; for what is more than these is of the evil one.' But this shows why the original objection of Simon was deleted. Simon is clearly manifesting an antithesis - i.e. the god of the Pentateuch swears by a power who is above him (cf many passages in the Church Fathers on the heretical interpretation here) but since there is no power greater than him. Note the gospel passage in Matthew "Just say a simple, 'Yes, I will,' or 'No, I won't.' Anything beyond this is from the evil one." (Homilies 3.55)

12. there is no resurrection - Peter (immediately adds after the last citation) And to those who say that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are dead, He said, 'God is not of the dead, but of the living.' swearing. (ibid) This is a little more puzzling. The passage in Mark reads in full:

And regarding the dead rising, have you not read about the burning bush in the book of Moses, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” You are badly mistaken!

So the argument appears in Mark to be directed against the Sadducees who say there is no resurrection. The Gospel of Mark of course has a difficulty. The passage is cited incorrectly. It is either (as the Masoretic and the LXX) I am the god of your father (sg) the God of Abraham etc.' or as the Samaritan text and Acts 'I am the god of your fathers (pl) the God of Abraham etc ...' The clear inference here is that these fathers are all dead. Somehow the passage inserted into the Gospel of Mark without either 'your father' or 'your fathers' (i.e. people who were all dead) turns this into an argument for the resurrection of the dead.

Hamilton sums up the bad argument here in his exegetical study of Exodus as follows:

How can Jesus cite Exodus 3:6 as point to the resurrection? We can agree that, without a knowledge of Jesus's citing this passage in the context he does, it is unlikely that anybody would read into the Exodus verse a resurrection emphasis in its original context. in Exod 3:6 god is simply introducing himself to moses by way of his connection with the patriarchs; he is not talking about postmortem existence. Furthermore, we can agree with meier (2000: 11), who observes that there is no Jewish exegetical tradition, before or after Jesus in ancient times, that uses Exod. 3:6 to argue for resurrection, and to that degree meier describes Jesus's take on Exod. 3:6 as “idiosyncratic.”

The standard way of making this all fit is to focus on Jesus's use of the verb “am” in the present tense “i 'am' [eimi] the god of . . . ,” not “i 'was' the god of . . . ,” although there is no verb “am” in either in Mark 12:26 or Luke 20:37 but only Matthew 22:27. 22:32. The former two are nominal sentences. so understood, Jesus implies that the patriarchs are still alive, for he is a god of the living, not of the dead.
Of course if I was a dogmatist I would simply leave the issue with a self-satisfied glow 'proving' that the argument is nonsense. In fact there is a solution to the whole issue here - one that probably deserves a separate thread. Why does the author of the gospel of the Ebionites think that Exodus 3:6 (and later canonical Mark) think that Exodus 3:6 is an argument for the resurrection. Because it goes to the heart of the proper interpretation of ehyeh is it 'I am' (as many scholars have argued based in part on the translation in Matthew 22.32) or is it 'I will be.' This is a very old argument in Hebrew linguistics but no one has bothered to note that Mark here sides with 'I will be' in this case he is interpreted as saying 'I will be the God of your fathers, the god of Abraham, the god of Isaac etc.' In other words, rather than saying that he appeared to them he is clearly implying (what makes implicit sense) that the god who appeared to Moses was greater than that which appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is why it is an argument for the resurrection because Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will come to know this other god in the future (hence the future tense) and Mark and Luke's lack of a verb. I think that is an important discovery and why Abraham is portrayed as saying the Law is 'good enough' for humanity (i.e. he needs to be redeemed/to repent in the future like the Jewish god).

13. Simon says God tempted Adam (and Jacob for that matter in the wrestling scene) - ' And to those who suppose that God tempts, as the Scriptures say, He said, 'The tempter is the wicked one,' who also tempted Himself.

Posted: **Tue May 17, 2016 9:34 am**

Other features of the debate that deserve attention

i) Simon isn't interested in determining who the 'real' author of the Pentateuch is - He likely takes the author to be Moses whereas Peter wishes to neutralize his arguments by attributing the text to Ezra or some earlier figure - Then said Simon: You are manifestly avoiding the hearing of the charge from the Scriptures against your God. Then Peter: You yourself appear to me to be doing this; for he who avoids the order of inquiry, does not wish a true investigation to be made. Hence I, who proceed in an orderly manner, and wish that the writer should first be considered, am manifestly desirous to walk in a straight path. Then Simon: First confess that if the things written against the Creator are true, he is not above all, since, according to the Scriptures, he is subject to all evil; then afterwards we shall inquire as to the writer." (Homilies 3.41) Peter's explanation for the later authorship of the Pentateuch is that it was written by the seventy elders not Moses "Thus the sayings accusatory of the God who made the heaven are both rendered void by the opposite sayings which are alongside of them, and are refuted by the creation. For they were not written by a prophetic hand. Wherefore also they appear opposite to the hand of God, who made all things." (Homilies 3:47) Does not seem like the original argument. For Simon the Pentateuch is to be accepted as a witness or spokesman for the god of the Jews. For Peter this is not necessarily true - which is an astounding position and it is a very early position!

ii) Peter not Simon seeks to neutralize the Pentateuch by arguing that it contradicts itself (and thus is not according to a divine voice i.e. a human being wrote it) - "Then said Peter: Because things are written opposite to those sayings which speak evil of him; wherefore neither the one nor the other can be confirmed. Then Simon: How, then, is the truth to be ascertained, of those Scriptures that say he is evil, or of those that say he is good? Then Peter: Whatever sayings of the Scriptures are in harmony with the creation that was made by Him are true, but whatever are contrary to it are false. Then Simon said: How can you show that the Scriptures contradict themselves?" (Homilies 3.42) And again a little later "Thus the sayings accusatory of the God who made the heaven are both rendered void by the opposite sayings which are alongside of them, and are refuted by the creation. For they were not written by a prophetic hand. Wherefore also they appear opposite to the hand of God, who made all things." (Homilies 3:46)

iii) Jesus in the gospel taught how to pick and choose between things said in the Pentateuch - This is utterly fascinating because it actually seems to have some antiquity to it. The section ends with the lost 'moneychanger' parable which clearly had to apply to the Pentateuch (what other saying could Jesus have referenced). So there must have been some antiquity to the passage. There are also a lot of gospel variants to look at so let's consider the section as a whole:

Then said Simon: Since, as you say, we must understand the things concerning God by comparing them with the creation, how is it possible to recognise the other things in the law which are from the tradition of Moses, and are true, and are mixed up with these falsehoods? Then Peter said: A certain verse has been recorded without controversy in the written law, according to the providence of God, so as to show clearly which of the things written are true and which are false. Then said Simon: Which is that? Show it us. Then Peter said: I shall tell you immediately. It is written in the first book of the law, towards the end: 'A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until He come whose it is; and He is the expectation of the nations.' If, therefore, any one can apprehend Him who came after the failure of ruler and leader from Judah, and who was to be expected by the nations, he will be able by this verse to recognise Him as truly having come; and believing His teaching, he will know what of the Scriptures are true and what are false. Then said Simon: I understand that you speak of your Jesus as Him who was prophesied of by the scripture. Therefore let it be granted that it is so. Tell us, then, how he taught you to discriminate the Scriptures.

Then Peter: As to the mixture of truth with falsehood, I remember that on one occasion He, finding fault with the Sadducees, said, 'Wherefore ye do err, not knowing the true things of the Scriptures; and on this account you are ignorant of the power of God.' But if He cast up to them that they knew not the true things of the Scriptures, it is manifest that there are false things in them. And also, inasmuch as He said, 'Be ye prudent money-changers,' it is because there are genuine and spurious words. And whereas He said, 'Wherefore do ye not perceive that which is reasonable in the Scriptures?' He makes the understanding of him stronger who voluntarily judges soundly.

And His sending to the scribes and teachers of the existing Scriptures, as to those who knew the true things of the law that then was, is well known. And also that He said, 'I am not come to destroy the law,' and yet that He appeared to be destroying it, is the part of one intimating that the things which He destroyed did not belong to the law. And His saying, 'The heaven and the earth shall pass away, but one jot or one tittle shall not pass from the law,' intimated that the things which pass away before the heaven and the earth do not belong to the law in reality.

Since, then, while the heaven and the earth still stand, sacrifices have passed away, and kingdoms, and prophecies among those who are born of woman, and such like, as not being ordinances of God; hence therefore He says, 'Every plant which the heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.' Wherefore He, being the true Prophet, said, 'I am the gate of life; he who enters through me enters into life,' there being no other teaching able to save. Wherefore also He cried, and said, 'Come unto me, all who labour,' that is, who are seeking the truth, and not finding it; and again, 'My sheep hear my voice;' and elsewhere, 'Seek and find,' since the truth does not lie on the surface.

But also a witnessing voice was heard from heaven, saying, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him.' And in addition to this, willing to convict more fully of error the prophets from whom they asserted that they had learned, He proclaimed that they died desiring the truth, but not having learned it, saying, 'Many prophets and kings desired to see what ye see, and to hear what you hear; and verily I say to you, they neither saw nor heard.' Still further He said, 'I am he concerning whom Moses prophesied, saying, A Prophet shall the Lord our God raise unto you of your brethren, like unto me: Him hear in all things; and whosoever will not hear that Prophet shall die.'

Whence it is impossible without His teaching to attain to saving truth, though one seek it for ever where the thing that is sought is not. But it was, and is, in the word of our Jesus. Accordingly, He, knowing the true things of the law, said to the Sadducees, asking on what account Moses permitted to marry seven, 'Moses gave you commandments according to your hard-heartedness; for from the beginning it was not so: for He who created man at first, made him male and female.'

But to those who think, as the Scriptures teach, that God swears, He said, 'Let your yea be yea, and nay, nay; for what is more than these is of the evil one.' And to those who say that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are dead, He said, 'God is not of the dead, but of the living.' And to those who suppose that God tempts, as the Scriptures say, He said, 'The tempter is the wicked one,' who also tempted Himself. To those who suppose that God does not foreknow, He said, 'For your heavenly Father knows that ye need all these things before ye ask Him.' And to those who believe, as the Scriptures say, that He does not see all things, He said, 'Pray in secret, and your Father, who sees secret things, will reward you.'

And to those who think that He is not good, as the Scriptures say, He said, 'From which of you shall his son ask bread, and he will give him a stone; or shall ask a fish, and he will give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him, and to those who do His will!' But to those who affirmed that He was in the temple, He said, 'Swear not by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet.' And to those who supposed that God is pleased with sacrifices, He said, 'God wishes mercy, and not sacrifices' —the knowledge of Himself, and not holocausts.

But to those who are persuaded that He is evil, as the Scriptures say, He said, 'Call not me good, for One only is good.' And again, 'Be ye good and merciful, as your Father in the heavens, who makes the sun rise on good and evil men, and brings rain upon just and unjust.' But to those who were misled to imagine many gods, as the Scriptures say, He said, 'Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God is one Lord.'

Right off the bat a few things stand out:

1) I am he concerning whom Moses prophesied, saying, A Prophet shall the Lord our God raise unto you of your brethren, like unto me: Him hear in all things; and whosoever will not hear that Prophet shall die.' This is not a correct citation of Deuteronomy 18 which reads:

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.” The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.”

As it is noted here - https://books.google.com/books?id=531CA ... 22&f=false - the reading seems to go back to the early parts of Acts (which presumably go back to an Ebionite original which Epiphanius claims to have seen). Again Peter is the speaker:

For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. 23 Anyone who does not listen to him will be utterly destroyed from their people.’[Acts 3:22-23]

This is important because it underscores the possibility that the Homilies were derived from the Ebionite Acts which in turn continued to be an influence on later parts of Acts.

Posted: **Tue May 17, 2016 10:29 am**

It would seem that right away at this first encounter with Simon that we have a few important takeaways. The first is clearly that the Ebionite background to the text is quite real and likely goes back to an early Palestinian (for lack of a better word) sect which developed its texts in Aramaic or Hebrew. The understanding that אֶהְיֶה = 'I will be' could only be rooted in a group that had advanced theoretical knowledge of Hebrew. The argument that Exodus 3:6 pertains to the resurrection seems to derive from an Aramaic or Hebrew gospel and ultimately added to Mark (Mark of course may have known the reading from a/the Aramaic/Hebrew original but I have reasons for doubting that). More significant is the fact that both this interpretation of Exodus and the variant from Deuteronomy seem to fit with the Dosithean origin for the sect laid out in the same book. Indeed it would be a Dosithean position to argue that an ur-text of the Pentateuch existed and the normative text was a corruption of that original.

Indeed the Dositheans were particularly emphatic about the two subjects of the Biblical citations here - i.e. the resurrection and the coming of the true prophet. Even in the Catholic texts Jesus is principally 'the Christ.' The particular emphasis that Jesus is 'the True Prophet' seems to go back to the passage in Deuteronomy. That this reading may well have been found in the Dosithean edition of the Pentateuch makes intuitive sense given that Dositheus is always described as 'the Prophet.' Note the important passage from Abu'l Fath - "They said the dead would rise soon as children of Dositheus the Prophet of God”. Thus the distinction between the Sadducees who deny the resurrection may well have been an entirely Samaritan understanding given that we know that the Jewish Sadducees at Qumran did not deny the resurrection.

Note also that the section in the Clementine Homilies begins with an identification of 'Shiloh' as Jesus. The Samaritan understanding clearly understands Shilo = 345 = Moses so he is the second Moses and the one like Moses in Deuteronomy. Also an important point which should be considered for those who are interested. In the oldest copies of Exodus discovered in at Qumran and the Samaritan copies of Exodus Deuteronomy 18:18 - 22 is found in Exodus chapter 20 (along with other material from Deuteronomy).

https://books.google.com/books?id=HMlJA ... 22&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=2g7hB ... 22&f=false

The point of course is that this opens the possibility of a proto-Exodus in the hands of the Dositheans which actually contained the threat of death for disobeying the True Prophet. Indeed I think it highly likely.

Note also that the author of the Clementines zeroes in on the death of Moses in Deuteronomy which he says proves that it was written by someone after Moses. This might well have originally been used against the Book of Deuteronomy only thus making the case that Deuteronomy was later than Moses.

Where this would likely dovetail is the idea that the Dositheans preserved possibly a four book Pentateuch which rejected or was written before Deuteronomy (because the Hebrew of Deuteronomy is clearly different than that of the rest of the Torah).

Deuteronomy now puts the sentence of death on those who disobey God's fire (= Ishu) and for those who falsely claim to be the returning Moses. Deuteronomy may well have been written as a reaction against encouraging messianic speculation associated with the Exodus-based 'Prophet to come' speculation in the Dosithean edition of the Torah.

With this understanding Jesus would be the Prophet of Truth and thus a human being. Yet Epiphanius notes that the community was called 'the Ishians' as I have noted before and the Clementine Homilies also argues that Adam was the perfect Man. Was Jesus really human for this community? If Jesus was the True Prophet then what are Simon and Dositheus arguing about in the historical section at the beginning of Book Three? Clearly Simon claims to be the True Prophet as he already adopts the related title of 'Standing One' again from Deuteronomy 18:18:

A prophet like me from the midst of your brothers will you will stand up (יָקִ֥ים)

This is the origin of the epithet the 'Standing One' (cf Bowman The Samaritan Problem: Studies in the Relationships of Samaritanism, Judaism p xv:

Dositheus according to Origen (Contra Celsum, VI, 2) had set himself up as the messiah foretold in Deut. 18:18. This, at least , means that Dositheus according to Origen was putting himself in place of Moses. Whether Origen's knowledge of the use of Deut. 18:18 in John's gospel has influenced his allegation of Dositheus claiming messiahship, and this be a reference to the Samaritan Taheb, or Dositheus himself made the claim, cannot be resolved here. If the latter did, it is less of a claim than that of his teacher, Simon Magus, whom Hippolytus cites (Refutation of All Heresies, ch. XIII) as claiming to be the "Standing One", the Greek of which is a literal translation of הקום , a divine name in the Samaritan Liturgy (cf. also Clement Alex. , Strom. , II). Actually in the Samaritan Liturgy we have the only clear identification of the Taheb and the one like Moses (Deut. 18:18) in a hymn on the Taheb of the llth century at the time of what I see as the second Samaritan oecumenical movement ... There is no reference to the Taheb in the Samaritan Pentateuch; for the old Orthodox priestly group still believed that God acted directly: cf. Deut. 30:2 which states that if the Hebrew returned to the Lord and obeyed His covenantal commandments that then (v. 3) "the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity" (K. J.W. influenced by Targum Onkelos).

Bowman's point is basically correct. The Dositheans likely existed as a separate community until the fourteenth century when circumstances an ecumenical 'agreement' of sorts between the rival factions. Getting back to the issue even though it is suppressed in the Homilies, the issue of the True Prophet clearly wasn't settled with the coming of Jesus. Jesus could well have been Ishu and Simon his Moses. Indeed his interest in the 'consuming fire' (cf the Philosophumena section) would suggest that.

Indeed in order to make sense of the Ebionite roots of the material we'd have to make a decision to excise either the claims that Jesus was the True Prophet or that Jesus was divine from the mouth of Peter. The decision is up to everyone but surely it must be acknowledged that the Ebionites couldn't have held Jesus to be both.

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