Mythicists met by 'Ignatius'

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MrMacSon
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Re: Mythicists met by 'Ignatius'

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Peter Kirby wrote:
MrMacSon wrote: "suspicion that Ignatius was a 3rd century invention."
  • Why 3rd century?
I think DCH elaborated somewhere in that thread.

There was this on p.2 but DCH doesn't seem to have responded to it -
Aleph One wrote:
Secret Alias wrote: When I was younger I did trace a motive for the expansion - i.e. the right of external churches (i.e. the community as a whole) to help name a successor to the deceased (or terminated) old bishop. I think this is the reason for the development of expansional material. Whoever created the Syriac text may well have done so for one reason and then the short Greek had another and then the longer Greek another.

My guess was that the additions tend to focus on Church authority (on the bishop level)
I remember reading recently (can't recall where now, sorry :facepalm: ) someone arguing forcefully that the Ignatius epistles should be dated much later than the very early-2nd century date that is common. The primary piece of evidence for a later date (very late 2nd century, at minimum) was the letters' presupposition of a monarchical and highly developed church hierarchy, which didn't exist until deep in the 2nd century. It's interesting though that you point to precisely this topic as the subject of interpolations. I would be interested to see how excising such portions of the epistles might affect opinions on their dates of composition.

Also @Secret Alias: Obvious question, but how do you explain the early parts of genesis that have Yahweh creating the entire world and destroying it with flood and everything if the Jews didn't see their god as cosmocrator? - http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 983#p39983
Then there was this on p.4 -
DCHindley wrote:
Secret Alias wrote: Let me ask the unintriguing DCH is Ignatius an attested name in antiquity?
I am unintrigued. Taking the chance that I might sound like Donald Trump waving off one of his gaffs, I never said that Ignatius was a real name. In fact, I have posed my uninformed opinion that the whole thing, short and long forms of Greek notwithstanding, is all from the same source and was all made up. It seems to be a tribute to a legendary figure of shady historicity.

The Idolization of the Virginity of Mary, and the details that are otherwise found in accounts of martyrdoms that seem to date to the 3rd century (this is off the top of my thinly haired head), I'd date them to at least the age of Africanus (the one cited by Eusebius, not the one who wrote the work that commented on his brilliant, if he must say so, reconstruction of Homer), unless you are willing to posit a date of composition for the Protoevangelium of James in the 2nd century (I'm not). Candida Moss puts such romanticized martyrdom accounts to the 4th century or even later. - http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 810#p40810
  • (I've got to the end of p.5 so far)
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MrMacSon
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Re: Mythicists met by 'Ignatius'

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Roger Parvus posted this p. 8 -
RParvus wrote:
Hi David,

As Ulan noted, my Ignatian theory can be read for free on Vridar. There I attempted to present the argument more clearly. I first argued that Ignatius was Peregrinus, and then went on to present the case that his brand of Christianity was Apellean. The Vridar series also includes some additional material at a few points and a couple of things I had changed my mind about in the meantime. For instance, in the 5th post of the series I wrote:

“When I was writing my book in 2007 I was of the opinion that the central part of the above inscription” (of the letter to the Romans) “was an interpolation. I now think that only a single word was changed: ‘Romans’ was substituted for ‘Syrians.’ “

And I then explain my thinking regarding that change.

I also now have a different take on one of pseudo-Tertullian’s quotes regarding Apelles: “Solo utitur et apostolo sed Marcionis, id est non toto.” When I wrote the book I was inclined to agree with Harnack that the quote must have suffered some kind of corruption in transmission. Harnack, found it scarcely credible that Apelles could have accepted none of the church’s Scriptures except Marcion’s version of Paul’s letters. He thought Apelles must have also retained Marcion’s gospel. (pp. 74-75 of Harnack’s “De Apellis Gnosi Monarchia: Commentatio Historica,” pp. 74-75).

In the book I speculated that perhaps the original quote had Apelles using only one of Paul’s letters. Now, however, I am inclined to accept the quote “as is.” That is to say, I think the when Apelles broke with Marcion, the only Scriptures he took with him were Marcion’s version of the Pauline letters. In place of Marcion’s gospel Apelles wrote his own (“the Manifestations”) using the revelations of his prophetess associate Philumena. Pseudo-Tertullian mentions this special lectionary right after the quote in question.
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 455#p48455
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MrMacSon
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Re: Mythicists met by 'Ignatius'

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Then Secret Alias posted (underling mine) -


But moving that aside and moving forward with the notion - wrong as it may seem for the ignorant -
whenever someone comes along calling themselves 'the fiery' (one) within the context of a Jewish tradition it's hard not to see this as a reinforcement of pre-existent ideas within Judaism (again acknowledging that you might not see this because you have more 'rudimentary' knowledge of Jewish myths). At the pinnacle (pardon the pun) of the Jewish mythical experience is Moses standing beside a fiery one. You get that right. Moses goes into the fire and takes on the fiery nature of the fiery one right? So the odds that someone just happened to be called 'the fiery (one)' at the beginning of Christianity is unlikely to be wholly coincidental right?

Ok.

So there is always a 'fiery one' and then there is his apostle. Moses is 'the apostle' because of Exodus 3:10. https://books.google.com/books?id=Zdam8 ... ne&f=false Right? There is the fiery one on the mountain and Moses. Ignatius and Polycarp have a similar relationship in the Greek middle recension. Perhaps the relation is implicit in the Syriac recension. But note also Irenaeus's relationship with Polycarp. He is in many ways Polycarp's 'spokesman.' Notice also Irenaeus never names Ignatius as the author of 'to the Romans' too.

Was there some stage where Polycarp = Ignatius, the fiery one? I think it is highly plausible though unproven.
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Giuseppe
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Re: Mythicists met by 'Ignatius'

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Peter Kirby wrote:
Giuseppe wrote:
Mr. Robertson, in the Literary Guide for April, 1926, pointed out that such evidence is contained in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians. And the evidence is not affected by the genuineness or otherwise of the passage, which runs :—
“ I have heard certain men say : If I do not find (a certain thing) in the archives, I do not believe in the Gospel. And as I replied to them : It is written (in the Old Testament) they answered : ‘ That is the very question.’ But for me the archives are Jesus Christ, His cross, His death. His resurrection, and the faith which comes from Him.”
(Gordon Rylands, Evolution of Christianity, p. 225, my color)
The archives are the scriptures. The scriptures are what we might call the "Old Testament," of course.
mmm... If the 'archives' are the scriptures, Ignatius can't have referred them again to the same scriptures where they have already seen... ....and found nothing about Jesus.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Re: Mythicists met by 'Ignatius'

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MrMacSon wrote:More from that post -
Interesting.

Why 3rd century?
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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MrMacSon
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Re: Mythicists met by 'Ignatius'

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Giuseppe wrote:
Peter Kirby wrote:
The archives are the scriptures. The scriptures are what we might call the "Old Testament," of course.
mmm... If the 'archives' are the scriptures, Ignatius can't have referred them again to the same scriptures where they have already seen... ....and found nothing about Jesus.
But if the Ignatian texts are much later (say, 3rd C.), the 'scriptures' could include texts that relate [more] to the NT
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Peter Kirby
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Re: Mythicists met by 'Ignatius'

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Giuseppe wrote:
The archives are the scriptures. The scriptures are what we might call the "Old Testament," of course.
mmm... If the 'archives' are the scriptures,
They are, to the opponents cited by Ignatius.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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Re: Mythicists met by 'Ignatius'

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MrMacSon wrote:
Giuseppe wrote:
Peter Kirby wrote:
The archives are the scriptures. The scriptures are what we might call the "Old Testament," of course.
mmm... If the 'archives' are the scriptures, Ignatius can't have referred them again to the same scriptures where they have already seen... ....and found nothing about Jesus.
But if the Ignatian texts are much later (say, 3rd C.), the 'scriptures' could include texts that relate [more] to the NT
This makes nonsense of the train of thought quoted here, so if anything it points away from the 3rd century dating.

Again... why 3rd century?
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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MrMacSon
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Re: Mythicists met by 'Ignatius'

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Peter Kirby wrote:
MrMacSon wrote: More from that post -
  • Interesting.

    Why 3rd century?
See the bottom passage here - http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 547#p70547 or here http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 810#p40810

DCH and Roger Parvus discuss a few things through the later pages of that thread.

The thread finishes with
MrMacSon wrote: Robert Price refers to the Ignatian corpus as "almost certainly a set of bogus pseudepigrapha, it serves as a prime example of the sort of pious fabrication that forms the martyrdom tradition" when reviewing Candida Moss's The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom HarperOne, 2013.

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/ ... cution.htm
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MrMacSon
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Re: Mythicists met by 'Ignatius'

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Peter Kirby wrote: ... if anything it points away from the 3rd century dating.
Not necessarily. I'm not sure late 2nd century (or later) references to 'scripture' are necessarily reference to OT texts (such as the LXX).
Last edited by MrMacSon on Sun May 21, 2017 1:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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