Kapyong wrote:Gday GakuseiDon and all
Hey thanks for persevering with me GakuseiDon
I think you have identified our Gordian Knot.
No worries. I think you are a rational guy, and I'd like to think I am a rational guy also. Isn't it fascinating that two people can look at the same information and draw two separate views from it? That's why I was hoping something like Bayes Theorem might help to provide an objective approach to such problems in history. Since I am nowhere near qualified to use BT, I'll struggle on!
I'll probably make this my last response on the topic of M. Felix here, since we are at an impasse, and that's a signal we have reached a natural end to the discussion. I'll say here thanks very much for your time and cordiality on this!
Kapyong wrote:GakuseiDon wrote:Did the orthodox Christians of that time believe that Christians worshipped a criminal (a 'wicked man') and worshipped actual crosses on which people were crucified?
No,
that was simply M.Felix's dismissive take on the newly arrived Gospels.
Not like he knew of two camps : Gospel Christians and Non Gospel Christians - and argued for his Christian team, while disparaging t'other.
Rather : his Christianity was based on morality and beliefs in God - not on ANY crucifixion, NOR any Jesus Christ. One camp.
All he knew of the new-fangled Gospels was rumours, he didn't particularly care about the details because the whole idea was ridiculous and he knew they'd never catch on
We aren't that far apart here. I agree that M. Felix is aware of rumours that Christians worshipped a criminal and his actual cross (plus Christians were reputed to do a lot of other bad things as well), but my reading is that he thought the rumours related to
his Christianity, so he responded by saying "Christians don't worship a criminal" and "Christians don't worship actual crosses".
My evidence:
- While M. Felix refers to Christianity a few times in his letter, nowhere does he imply that there is more than one Christianity.
- The letter was kept by later Christians and used by Tertullian as a guide for his own apologetics (assuming M. Felix wrote before Tertullian).
- Many of the other calumnies against Christianity listed by M. Felix were the same ones defended by other Christian apologists.
- Finally, M. Felix's statement is not inconsistent with the orthodox Christianity of his time. We might wonder why he responded as he did (my guess below) but that doesn't count against the fact the statement in itself does not provide evidence for a separate Christianity.
Since M. Felix didn't discuss the origin of his Christianity, I'll agree that there is no positive evidence that he was a proto-orthodox Christianity. But I suggest the use of Occam's Razor here: there is no need to invoke the existence of a separate Christianity, at least based on M. Felix's letter.
Kapyong wrote:This does open up that strangest of rabbit-holes though :
Christianity without Jesus Christ. The second century writers who expound on Christianity at length WITHOUT any Jesus Christ. Not just small books which might not be relevant, but several large books which explicitly described Christian beliefs at length - including Athenagoras' Resurrection of the Dead - without ANY mention of Jesus Christ. I dare say you've read every one
Mathetes, Theophilus, Tatian To the Greeks also. I add Lucky Minucius.
I have read them all, many times. In fact, M. Felix's "Octavius" is my favorite piece of Christian apologetics. I strongly recommend everyone to read through it, especially the first half, where the author lists all the calumnies against the Christians of his day. It gives a real taste of how pagans viewed Second Century Christians. It's almost as bad as how people today view Donald Trump!
But one point of disagreement: the apologists were NOT expounding on Christianity at length. That wasn't the purpose of those letters. They were giving a
philosophical and moral defence of the Christians and the Christianities of their day. At the time Christians were being persecuted (although sporadically) for being a basket of deplorables. So the letters were
literally apologetics (defence) of the Christianity
of their time.
And if you read through them, they often invoke the name of philosophy for support. I believe that this is similar to how the Christianity of the 19th C started to invoke the name of "science" everywhere for support of Christianity. In both cases, they are appealing to the prevalent thought of the day to boost support for the Christianity of their day.
From M. Felix's "Octavius":
- I have set forth the opinions almost of all the philosophers whose more illustrious glory it is to, have pointed out that there is one God, although with many names; so that any one might think either that Christians are now philosophers, or that philosophers were then already Christians...
At the conclusion, Octavius wins the debate because he "had repelled the malevolent objectors with the very weapons of the philosophers with which they are armed".
On Athenagoras: his letter starts with:
- A Plea for the Christians by Athenagoras the Athenian: Philosopher and Christian. To the Emperors Marcus Aurelius Anoninus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus, conquerors of Armenia and Sarmatia, and more than all, philosophers... What, then, are those teachings in which we are brought up? "I say unto you, Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; pray for them that persecute you; that ye may be the sons of your Father who is in heaven, who causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust." Allow me here to lift up my voice boldly in loud and audible outcry, pleading as I do before philosophic princes
Dr Richard Carrier, using the work of Metzger's, writes:
http://infidels.org/library/modern/rich ... canon.html
- In 177 A.D. Athenagoras of Athens composed a lengthy philosophical Defense of the Christians addressed to the emperor Marcus Aurelius in which the first articulation of a theory of the Trinity appears. He quotes the OT and NT several times, but does not name his sources from the NT. The quotes or paraphrases that he uses happen to come from a few Epistles of Paul, and from all the Gospels in a mishmash (M 125), suggesting a harmonic source like the Diatessaron. But the respect that this defense, and others like it, earned among orthodox Christians contributed to forming decisions on canonicity based on whether they accorded with works like it.
Athenagoras doesn't mention "Jesus" and "Christ", but based on the above comment by Carrier, what is more likely? Athenagoras was writing a 'philosophical' defence where the origin story of Christ was not relevant, or that he quoted from the epistles of Paul and the Gospels but had no Christ in his Christianity?
As for Theophilus of Antioch: he refers to the Gospels, he even quotes the prologue of the Gospel of John, referring to "John" by name. Carrier writes (from link above):
- Near Tatian's Syrian church, but across the border in Roman territory (and amidst a decidedly Greek culture) flourished bishop Theophilus at Antioch, around 180 A.D. (M 117-9). Theophilus is important for a variety of reasons: he was the second, very shortly after Athenagoras (below), to explicitly mention the Trinity (Ad Autolycum 2.15); he may have composed his own harmony and commentary on the four Gospels chosen by Tatian; and he wrote books against Marcion and other heretics. He is also a window into the thinking of converts: he was converted by the predictions concerning Jesus in the OT (ibid. 1.14), perhaps the weakest grounds for conversion. But most of all, he routinely treats Tatian's Gospels as holy scripture, divinely inspired, on par with the Hebrew prophets (M 118). He also refers to John's Revelation as authoritative.
Think of the time that Theophilus wrote: about 180 CE. Given that late date, when Theophilus talks about 'Christians', whom did the pagans think he meant?
Kapyong wrote:That does mean that I identify five groups of early Christian believers about Jesus Christ :
- A heavenly spiritual Jesus Christ, e.g. Paul.
- A spiritual phantasm on earth, e.g. Marcion.
- Bizzaro Gnostic beliefs, e.g. G.Egyptians.
- NO Jesus Christ at all, e.g. Athenagoras.
- Orthodox Jesus Christ, e.g. Irenaeus.
Does that clarify my ideas for everyone ?
We'll make this Gordian Knot not
Well, let's hope! But I feel you are taking a sentence or two, and building a case from what is NOT being said in those sentences. A broader evaluation of the writings I suggest is in order. For example, read Tertullian's "Ad nationes". He doesn't mention "Jesus" or "Christ" or the Son of God being crucified. What kind of Christianity would you think he had? Yet a look at his other writings suggests that when he wrote "Ad nationes" he had orthodox beliefs. At the least, it provides an example where an orthodox Christian writer can write an apologetic letter and not mention the names "Jesus" and "Christ". Similarly, even though the other works of Theophilus are lost, we have references to them (and presumably his beliefs) in later writings.
If you want a modern example, there is Alvin Plantinga's "Advice to Christian philosophers". It is 19 pages long in PDF format. There is not one mention of "Jesus", or "Christ", or "Logos", or "Son [of God]", or even "Bible" or "Testament" in there. Is it reasonable to suggest that someone writing within the last 20 years who calls themselves a "Christian" DOESN'T believe in a Jesus or Christ if he doesn't mention them? I'd say, on the balance of probability, that this is not the most reasonable conclusion. Similarly, the writings of M. Felix, Athenagoras and Theophilus of Antioch. They are all writing in the second half of the Second Century CE, at a time when the anti-heresy writers were becoming active. But those writers were either praised or copied from. I think that is an important piece of the evidence that needs to be accounted for.
I'll leave it here. Good luck!
