Ignatz: Krazy Kat or Krazy editors?

[Secret Alias]

It is more likely IMHO that it is a Latin appellation and the fact that the Syriac tradition to this day identifies him as Nurono. The idea is first attested in the fifth century in Antioch but surely goes back much further. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severus_of_Antioch

[Secret Alias]

Why we would accept a spelling error over a living tradition is beyond me but typical of scholarship. The transformation would thus show that 'Ignatius' is the Latin appellation at the end of a long chain = Ignatius < Nurono < Seraph. Is there a tradition where 'Ignatius' identifies himself or is identified as an angel?

[Secret Alias]

This comes pretty close

Am I not able to write to you about heavenly things? But I am afraid to, lest I should cause harm to you, who are mere babes . .. I am able to understand the heavenly realms and the angelic regions and hierarchies, both visible and invisible.

So pick your choice typical uninspired 'white' scholarship which clings to the surface of meaning or more insightful analysis

[Secret Alias]

The question that comes up time and time again to the enlightened man is - is this this world created by Irenaeus (arranged in a wholly artificial form) bullshit? What evidence is there outside of this closed canon (Trobisch notes the Ignatian corpus is artificially conceived) that this 'historical' scenario (a martyr named 'Ignatius' being sent to Rome from Antioch because of the Emperor etc. etc) actually played out? Notice that there is again this idea (found also in the falsified Pauline canon) that 'an agent' usually Polycarp or another send out the letters on Ignatius's behalf. It is spelled out in these letters (the long Greek) but not in the Syriac. How is this absence in the Syriac explained? It is never referenced because scholars are lazy pieces of shit.

Scholars will point to the Pauline corpus for support. But is this 'parallel' really 'support' for the fact that it really happened this way or merely that the falsifying editor (Irenaeus) forged the texts in the same way, with the same pattern to show that it was a 'custom' in the churches to send letters in this manner?

It always comes down to one question - how much of the basic paradigm of 'the Church' is bullshit? Do we have authentic letters and texts or ones that were 'refined' 'reconstituted' in the late second century.

[andrewcriddle]

I would argue from Lightfoot's summary (in spite of his efforts to show otherwise) that it is unattested. https://books.google.com/books?id=oZgwA ... me&f=false

Egnatius is certainly attested. Ignatius is widely regarded as a variant.


Andrew Criddle

[Secret Alias]

If it's a variant of egnatius where are the attestation for egnatius in the Ignatius corpus? Why does Irenaeus anonymous cite the material? Answer: it's not a name.

[Secret Alias]

But in the case of hegesippus we do the reverse. We deny it's a Latinizing of josephus. Even though clement seems to cite "josephus" when the same author is later identified as hegesippus. Seems arbitrary what arguments we use when

[DCHindley]

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.

[DCHindley]

This comes pretty close

Am I not able to write to you about heavenly things? But I am afraid to, lest I should cause harm to you, who are mere babes . .. I am able to understand the heavenly realms and the angelic regions and hierarchies, both visible and invisible.

So pick your choice typical uninspired 'white' scholarship which clings to the surface of meaning or more insightful analysis

I noted that the translations of the short and long Greek version of Trallians 5.2 says:

Ignatius, Trallians (short), 5:2) For even I, though I am bound [for Christ], yet am not on that account able to understand heavenly things ...

Ignatius, Trallians (long) 5:2 For even I, though I am bound [for Christ], and am able to understand heavenly things, the angelic orders ...

even though the Greek of both are identical:

5.2) Kαὶ γὰρ ἐγώ, οὐ καθότι δέδεμαι καὶ δύναμαι νοεῖν τὰ ἐπουράνια

In my analysis, I changed the short Greek translation to match the ANF translation of the long Greek version. The translator of the shorter version was anxious to suggest that Iggy was NOT claiming any sort of special knowledge gained by his imprisonment for Christ. I could not tell who translated Ignatius to the Trallians, nor could I tell whether Donaldson translated one version and Roberts the other.

I once read an article in Christianity Today that warned against modern scholarship adopting "incipient Gnosticism".

In light of Iggy's wish to be gnawed into flour by the wild beasts, perhaps this should be called, rather, "white bread" Christianity. Now perhaps we can understand why the Martyrdom of Polycarp says that Polycarp's body roasted until it was as golden colored as baked bread. Of course, that coulda been barley bread ... hmmm

[MrMacSon]

How real is Irenaeus?

It would be good to work back from extant documents and try to elucidate how we got to them and how real or representative they are.

We do have extant documents, mainly a Latin translation and fragments of the Greek (the whole of Book 1 is contained in Epiphanius' Panarion, and extensive quotes/paraphrases in Hippolytus and others). FWIW, the Latin is "wooden" and seems to be an almost word for word rendering of the extant Greek fragments,

but it is also true that the Greek fragments, where citations overlap, differ a bit one from the another.

Cheers DCH

Unfortunately, Irenaeus in the original Greek seems to have fallen by the wayside in the East, but they had Clement of Alexandria and Origen of wherever he was that year.

You mean they had Clement of Alexandria or Origen (or both) by way of contemporaneous Christian theology or doctrine in the East?

Even in the West Irenaeus was not deemed especially dear. The Latin translation is of inferior quality to other Latin translations of Greek works. You didn't see translators of the quality of Jerome and company trying to translate Irenaeus, but you do see them translate Origen, etc., although they often do so to "rehabilitate" the author by sanitizing their work of the taint of heresy. Apparently, Irenaeus was not considered a heretic in need of sanitization. Tertullian, whose natural language would be Latin and dang good at it, probably had nothing to do with "wooden" Latin Irenaeus.

Do you think they 'sanitized' to make it seem there had been a more consistent theological theme through early antiquity?

Several corpuses seem to be the results of crazy editors or even crazy, later compilers.

I do not get that impression. Mainly Ignatius' letters, and maybe 1st Clement.

Cheers. but not the Irenaeus corpus? or the corpus of Origen?

... Heresy-hunting authors tended to pass on and rework the same cliché (and often plainly wrong descriptions) of the authors of heresy and what they are thought to have taught. Irenaeus > Tertullian > Hippolytus.

Interesting. So, stuff was being re-worked through the 4th, 5th, & 6th centuries and, maybe, beyond?