Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

DCHindley wrote: I don't see where you are getting "men" (plural) from

I, 41:

What proof is there of it, save your own assertion, and the statement of another of those individuals who have been punished along with you?"

Τίς τοῦτο εἶδεν ἀξιόχρεως μάρτυς τὸ φάσμα, ἢ τίς ἤκουσεν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ φωνῆς εἰσποιού σης σε υἱὸν τῷ θεῷ; Πλὴν ὅτι σὺφῂς καί τινα ἕνα ἐπάγῃ τῶν μετὰ σοῦ κεκολασμένων.

What credible witness beheld this appearance? Or who heard a voice from heaven declaring you to be the Son of God? What proof is there of it, save your own assertion, and the statement of another of those individuals who have been punished along with you?

Except that you say, and certain former brought of the with of you having been punished

Who this individual was is quite open to interpretation. But it does not seem to fit - at least to my understanding - any of the standard understandings or traditions surrounding the authorship of the gospel. The scene here seems to be that of the Jewish author of the document cited by Celsus referencing a person (not necessarily a disciple) who was (a) a companion of Jesus who was (b) likewise punished by the Jewish authorities and who (c) witnessed the details referenced in the gospel baptism narrative. John the Baptist seems to be the most likely candidate to me.

Why does Origen insist that the Jews don't connect John with Jesus? Origen says so precisely because he doesn't see John the Baptist as the man executed with Jesus during the same day.
The only way the John's death is linked with the Jesus's death (linked more strictly than Origen could accept) is the identity of John and Jesus on the cross.

Giuseppe wrote:A question to Enrico:

If we assume that for the Celsus's Jew ''John the Baptist'' was not really a Baptist, then is your thesis implying that the Baptist Passage (in Josephus) is a Christian interpolation made by Origen to react against Celsus just on that point ?

I’m supposing that in the gospel of the Jew of Celsus (Cerinthus' gospel?) there was but one person. This one was baptizing his fellow cronies on the Jordan river when he was Baptized in turn through the descent of Christ/Dove into him.

The Jew of Celsus did not say that “John the Baptist” was not really a Baptist. This is not the point.
The point is that Origen quotes the Josephus’passage because he finds only one person in the Jew’s account and he assumes this was Jesus even if he was not so sure (Contra Celsum 1, 41 “His Jew continues by saying this to him whom we confess to be our Lord Jesus”).

Therefore quoting Josephus, Origen wants to demonstrate that John the Baptist was not an invention of the evangelists: he existed and he was a Baptist, so it is at least plausible that he baptized Jesus as the canonical gospels assert.
Surely with the corrections which I have proposed, Josephus’passage becomes functional to Origen, so we can admit this passage was not added by the Revisor, but of course this does not necessarily imply it was a Christian interpolation made by Origen.

I think that the Baptist Passage is so much functional to Origen's argument and even more so under the hypothesis that Origen introduces it in the way by you proposed:

I would like to have told Celsus, when he represented the Jew as in some way REJECTING John as a baptist in baptizing Jesus, that a man who lived not long after ...

...that the conclusion becomes necessary: Origen was probably the interpolator of the Baptist Passage. So we can explain, inter alia, why the Baptist Passage emphasizes that John is a "Baptist" and at the same time why his death is totally separated by the death of Jesus (just as in our Gospels). Could Celsus have doubts about the role of John as Baptizer (in general, and not only of Jesus) when even Josephus would have know it, if the Baptist Passage was genuine?

DCHindley wrote:
It doesn't seem that Celsus was very familiar with what we today call "proto-orthodox" Christianity. He seems to have only come into contact with Gnostics (like the Ophites) and Marcionites. I take this to mean Celsus had read a book purportedly written by a follower of Jesus in which Jesus is said to relate the above account. It is Celsus who assumes that it was written by one of the two men who were crucified along with Jesus. Or was he just taring the author with the same brush as Jesus? This is not from the canonical gospels, but more likely one of the apocryphal ones.

DCH

I'm not sure 'proto-orthodox Christianity' existed in those days. Or the canonical gospels as we know them today. I think we've been led to believe they did.

Celsus likely had at his disposal Irenaeus's compendium of heretics or possibly some earlier form of Adversus Haereses possibly from Justin or maybe more likely Hegesippus. The statement that Christians have the same god as the Jews seems to me at least to come from a monarchian form of Christianity owing to the implicit assumptions in this statement - namely (a) that the Jews only have one god and (b) that that god is the same as the only one god of the Christians. Clearly Jesus is one god and his Father another. But Celsus never seems to use this line of attack against the Christians which is odd given its use in subsequent ages. The manner in which Christianity is incompatible with monarchianism is never even brought up so clearly IMO Celsus recognized that there were dualists in Christianity but that 'the great Church' was not only compatible with Judaism and Judaism's understanding of deity but moreover monarchianism.

And so here we touch upon one of the great difficulties with the work. If Celsus was just interested in destroying Christianity, proving it to be a dangerous stupid religion one would have expected that he proceeded to something other than what we see witnessed in the book. The book begins with a statement that all the religions of the world have a 'logos' and this logos was much older than Christianity therefore, he basically concludes, the Christian Logos is not the true logos. He makes reference to Christianity being a banned association (perhaps Origen is not taking material in order) but then proceeds to cite from the treatise written by a Jew.

Why does the Jewish treatise immediately follow the statement about the Christian logos not being the true logos? The emphasis that follows from the Jewish treatise is that Jesus was a man who claimed to be God from a virgin birth but was really a bastard born from a harlot etc etc. The bit about John the Baptism comes in the middle of this discussion and it comes allegedly from the Jewish author. The 'others who received punishments' received punishments from the Jews, and undoubtedly associates of the Jewish author. It is difficult to tell if Celsus manufactured this document or whether it was an early Toledoth Yeshu-type text.

My guess is that the Jewish treatise serves to underscore the newness of the Christian logos. In other words, not only that Christian doctrine was a recent innovation but also that Jesus (the living Christian Logos) was a recent Jewish sectarian. My guess is that the author of this treatise is someone like Trypho in Justin's work and that Celsus managed to get a hold of the work of Trypho that prompted Justin's dialogue.

The important thing to keep your eyes on in the work is the preface. There is something which just doesn't jibe. Origen begins by claiming that his patron Ambrose made his write the treatise:

And I know not, my pious Ambrosius, why you wished me to write a reply to the false charges brought by Celsus against the Christians, and to his accusations directed against the faith of the Churches in his treatise; as if the facts themselves did not furnish a manifest refutation, and the doctrine a better answer than any writing, seeing it both disposes of the false statements, and does not leave to the accusations any credibility or validity.

He goes on to cite the example of Jesus's silence before Pilate and then emphasizes that he doesn't want to carry out the task because it would be better to remain silence. But then the claim becomes strange. He not only reinforces again that the apology was written unwillingly:

I venture, then, to say that this apology which you require me to compose will somewhat weaken that defence (of Christianity) which rests on facts, and that power of Jesus which is manifest to those who are not altogether devoid of perception. Notwithstanding, that we may not have the appearance of being reluctant to undertake the task which you have enjoined, we have endeavoured, to the best of our ability, to suggest, by way of answer to each of the statements advanced by Celsus, what seemed to us adapted to refute them, although his arguments have no power to shake the faith of any (true) believer.

And that he only writes the work in order to prevent those weak in faith to have their faith shaken:

But nevertheless, since in the multitude of those who are considered believers some such persons might be found as would have their faith shaken and overthrown by the writings of Celsus, but who might be preserved by a reply to them of such a nature as to refute his statements and to exhibit the truth, we have deemed it right to yield to your injunction, and to furnish an answer to the treatise which you sent us, but which I do not think that any one, although only a short way advanced in philosophy, will allow to be a True Discourse, as Celsus has entitled it.

Yet a little later Origen makes reference to anomaly in his composition of the treatise (highlighted):

After proceeding with this work as far as the place where Celsus introduces the Jew disputing with Jesus, I resolved to prefix this preface to the beginning, in order that the reader of our reply to Celsus might fall in with it first, and see that this book has been composed not for those who are thorough believers, but for such as are either wholly unacquainted with the Christian faith, or for those who, as the apostle terms them, are weak in the faith; regarding whom he says, Receive him that is weak in the faith. And this preface must be my apology for beginning my answer to Celsus on one plan, and carrying it on on another. For my first intention was to indicate his principal objections, and then briefly the answers that were returned to them, and subsequently to make a systematic treatise of the whole discourse. But afterwards, circumstances themselves suggested to me that I should be economical of my time, and that, satisfied with what I had already stated at the commencement, I should in the following part grapple closely, to the best of my ability, with the charges of Celsus. I have therefore to ask indulgence for those portions which follow the preface towards the beginning of the book. And if you are not impressed by the powerful arguments which succeed, then, asking similar indulgence also with respect to them, I refer you, if you still desire an argumentative solution of the objections of Celsus, to those men who are wiser than myself, and who are able by words and treatises to overthrow the charges which he brings against us. But better is the man who, although meeting with the work of Celsus, needs no answer to it at all, but who despises all its contents, since they are contemned, and with good reason, by every believer in Christ, through the Spirit that is in him.

Of course if you accept this explanation you won't need to look any further. Yet it is important to note what Origen is really saying. The existing treatise as it is preserved now has two different 'natures' as it were. Origen first says that he had 'given answer' (ὑπαγορεῦσαι > ὑπαγόρευσις) from the beginning and the "introduction" (προοίμιον) "until" (μέχρι) the part where the Jew of Celsus" (= τῆς παρὰ Κέλσῳ τοῦ Ἰουδαίου) in a scrambled an order but followed the order of the treatise thereafter. That's strange enough (i.e. why would the nature of the treatise be different before and after the Jewish treatise). But the word ὑπαγόρευσις is very rare. I don't have access to a complete list of Greek texts. But from Perseus I see the term appears only in Josephus (7 times) and 2 times in Achilles Tatius (a writer I have never heard of before).

I doubt very much that the introduction was actually written by Origen. Eusebius would be my guess. The question of course is why.