Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
I have compiled the three parts into a single file. Make whatever use you want of it. Copy it; share it. I only ask that you acknowledge its source on this blog as per the Creative Commons licence for all works here. Frank Feller was the translator but I refined his work here and there into more fluent English. Find the Download Button beneath the viewing frame.
Continuing from Part 1 and Part 2 . . .
All the same notes apply re my modifications of some sections of the translation, additional notes and hyperlinks.
The information we get from Ehrman about Tacitus and the Testimonium Taciteum, which he highly values, on 2 (two!) pages of the book is not enough to keep skin and bones together. We are only briefly informed about the content and the historical background of this testimony, but about the problems with it Ehrman has almost nothing at all to say. Ehrman speaks of the Roman historian Tacitus and his “famous Annals of Imperial Rome in 115 CE” (p. 54) and the passage that reports on the burning of Rome and the subsequent persecution of Christians by the Emperor Nero. According to Ehrman, Tacitus is said to have considered Nero the arsonist, but this is not true. If Ehrman had studied the text more thoroughly, he would have noticed that although Tacitus assumes that Nero was interested in the burning of Rome, he leaves the question of guilt in the balance – unlike Suetonius, to which Ehrman presumably refers. In any case, there are mass executions of Christians, here called “Chrestiani“, some of whom are torn apart by wild dogs and others burned alive to illuminate the imperial park at night. In this context, there is now also talk about the author of this name, Christ (the “Chrestus”, as the magnifying glass on the cover of this website shows), who was “put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate, while Tiberius was emperor; but the dangerous superstition, though suppressed for the moment, broke out again not only in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue.”
Ehrman sees here a testimony to the historicity of Jesus, even though he admits that the text does not speak of Jesus but of Christ and that it is based on Christian sources. Moreover, Ehrman suggests that some mythicists argue that the Testimonium Taciteum was not written by Tacitus but interpolated “by Christians, who copied them [Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius]” (p. 55).
Unfortunately, however, he keeps the arguments they put forward for this viewpoint to himself – if he knows them at all. Ehrman considers these arguments to be a merely a trick to explain everything that doesn’t fit the bill as a later falsification.
However, the radical critics who speak of interpolation will certainly have given reasons. What are they?
Since Ehrman remains stubbornly silent, let’s name a few. They arise from a (literary-critical) consideration of the context in which the passage of Tacitus is embedded. The 42-43rd chapter was about Nero’s lively building activity. After the fire in Rome, the emperor first used the situation to create new parks and gardens, and then to build houses and apartments according to a new, more spacious design. Chap. 45 continues this theme after the section on the persecution of Christians with an introductory “interea” (meanwhile). Now it is emphasized that the money for the building projects came primarily from the provinces and that even some temples in Rome were robbed of their gold to finance the emperor’s projects.
The text that has been handed down thus offers an extremely strange train of thought: Nero has the Christians burned, the people have pity on them – “meanwhile” (interea) the Roman Empire is being plundered. It is obvious that such a nonsensical train of thought could by no means have been the intention of the narrator. Between chapters 44 and 45 there is no connecting point to which the “interea” could refer. If it is to establish a meaningful connection, it can, in terms of content, only tie up to Ch. 43 but not to 44: Rome is being rebuilt – in the meantime the empire is being plundered for it! Ehrman does not need to be convinced by this argument. But he should at least know it so that he can deal with it. Continue reading “Prof. “Errorman” and the non-Christian sources — Part 3: Tacitus and Josephus”
Continued from the previous post, Jesus in Josephus, pts 5-12.
Eusebius quotes a reference in Josephus to Jesus that survives today in all manuscripts:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
To take the TF phrase by phrase (based on Ken Olson’s 13 phrase points) and see how much is truly Josephan and how much Eusebian, and if Josephan, in what Eusebian context. . . .
Josephus does not use this phrase, eis eti te nun, but he does use similar phrasing (e.g. eti nun, kai nun eti) to express a similar idea.
However, Josephus nowhere uses this idea of “up until now” to convey a meaning of something being proven to be true and “of God” because it has survived “even until now, today”.
Such a meaning, however, is conveyed every time Eusebius uses this phrase, and he uses it very often. Doherty cites Jay Raskin’s observation that this phrase is a veritable signature phrase of Eusebius.
Raskin quotes several passages from the Theophany, Adversus Hieroclem, the Demonstratio and History of the Church, all of which use this characteristic [signature phrase]. It is extremely important for Eusebius, as a proof of their veracity and divine nature, that things of the past have survived to this day and continue to be strong. He uses phrases such as “to our times,” “even to the present day,” “even until now.” For example, in the Theophany, in discussing Jesus’ miracles:
“Nor was it only that He impressed on the souls of those who immediately followed Him such power . . . but also . . . on those who came afterwards; and on those even to this present, and (who live) in our own times. How does this not transcent every sort of miracle? [i.e., by other alleged miracle workers]”
Olson notes the same Eusebian usage in Contra Hieroclem 4, the book in which Eusebius seems to narrate a blueprint for what later emerged in the Testimonium Flavianum:
He alone established a school of sober and chaste living that has survived him . . . and even now wins over to his divine teaching multitudes from all sides by the myriad.
Compare my earlier discussion on Contra Hieroclem 4 and how it has the appearance of being a template for the Testimonium.
Many attempt to claim that this passage in the TF conveys a derogatory tone, as would be appropriate from the pen of Josephus. It does not — unless one reads such a tone into it. It is a neutral statement, in and of itself, if ever there was one. To suggest it does convey anything negative is wishful thinking. It is also thinking in isolation from the rest of the passage. It continues the thought begun with the implied praise for the followers of Jesus when they did not forsake him even at his death. Linked in thought to this earlier passage, this claim that the Christians are still around even up till now is, if anything, a positive claim.
Next post will look at how Josephus uses digressions and footnotes and whether the Testimonium Flavianum conforms to type. Also another look at the likelihood of Josephus having said anything mildly positive or neutral about Jesus.
Eusebius quotes a reference in Josephus to Jesus that survives today in all manuscripts:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
To take the TF phrase by phrase (using Ken Olson’s 13 phrase points) and see how much is truly Josephan and how much Eusebian, and if Josephan, in what Eusebian context. . . .
1 to 4 are summaries of the fuller explanations in the earlier posts.
(Thanks in particular to Ken Olson’s article and for some of his views expressed in academic discussion lists since, and also for additional inputs from Earl Doherty’s more recently posted online discussions.)
A typically Eusebian expression used here in the same way and for the same purpose Eusebius elsewhere uses it. Though Josephus uses the word as well, he does not do so elsewhere in the context of a miracle worker and/or wise teacher that we find here. See TF: more clues from Eusebius for details.
An expression typically used in one form or another among early Christian authors to qualify the human nature of Jesus. Many scholars argue for its removal from the original passage, reasoning that this passage is a Christian interpolation while other words around it are not. However the passage ties elements of the “original passage” together so well that this argument for it being a later addition is very stretched. See TF: more clues from Eusebius for details.
The Greek word for “doer/performer/maker” here is never used by Josephus with this meaning. Josephus always uses the word to mean “poet”. Similarly, Josephus never uses the Greek words for “wonderful/uncustomary/strange” “works” to mean miracles. But these words in the TF are used to convey the same meanings for which Eusebius uses them. See TF: more clues from Eusebius for details.
It is inconceivable that Josephus would have described the teachings of Jesus as “truth”, yet this is the word regularly used by Christian authors for his teachings. “Receive with pleasure” is a Josephan phrase, but it is not found in all of the citations of Eusebius’s TF. Where it is found, it can be explained plausibly as the result of Eusebius’s close working familiarity with Josephus’s writings as demonstrated throughout that particular book. See Jesus in Josephus, 4 for details.
It is commonly argued that a Christian interpolater would not have written this because it contradicts the gospel portrayal of Jesus preaching only to the Jews. And as Doherty mischievously notes, scholars who insist Josephus is drawing solely on factual sources for his core TF are contradicting themselves when they argue that Josephus wrote this, since the same scholars insist the factual records deny Jesus taught and won over both Jews and Gentiles.
That Eusebius was quite prepared to either fabricate or naively accept evidence to demonstrate Jesus’s following among the far away Gentiles cannot be questioned. Eusebius even “produced” letters of exchange between King Abgar of Edessa and Jesus. See Church History, chapter 13.
A Christian scribe could well have invented this claim in the TF, since the tendency of Church Fathers (and secular historians) to rewrite the past to suit or explain the present was well-known. Olson shows Eusebius himself said just this, that Jesus evangelized both Jews and Gentiles:
For it had been foretold that one who was at the same time man and God should come and dwell in the world, should perform wonderful works, and should show himself a teacher to all nations of the piety of the Father. (Church History, 1.2.23)
The divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ being noised abroad among all men on account of his wonder-working power, he attracted countless numbers from foreign countries lying far away from Judea, who had the hope of being cured of their diseases and of all kinds of sufferings. (Church History, 1.13.1)
If, then, even the historian’s evidence shews that He attracted to Himself not only the twelve Apostles, nor the seventy disciples, but had in addition many Jews and Greeks, He must evidently have had some extraordinary power beyond that of other men. For how otherwise could He have attracted many Jews and Greeks, except by wonderful miracles and unheard-of teaching? (Demonstratio 3)
So that thus the whole slander against His disciples is destroyed, when by their evidence, and apart also from their evidence, it has to be confessed that many myriads of Jews and Greeks were brought under His yoke by Jesus the Christ of God through the miracles that He performed. (Demonstratio 3)
For it is written that before His Passion He shewed Himself for the space of three-and-a-half years to His disciples and also to those who were not His disciples: while by teaching and miracles He revealed the powers of His Godhead to all equally whether Greeks or Jews. (Demonstratio 8)
Eusebius had a special interest in pairing Jews and Greeks and he was quite capable of retrojecting the conversion of both to Jesus himself. One may wonder how likely it would have been for Josephus to have noted “Jews and Greeks” as opposed to observing an undifferentiated following.
Josephus believed that the Roman emperor Vespasian was the prophesied world ruler (Jewish Messiah or Christ).
But now, what did the most elevate them in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle that was also found in their sacred writings, how,” about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth.” The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea. (War 6.5.4)
Origen, about a century before Eusebius, referred to Josephus’s Antiquities, book 18 (where Eusebius found the TF), to establish that Josephus did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ. . . . (Contra Celsus 1.47)
Accordingly, and quite reasonably, most scholars argue that this passage was not written by Josephus and that it should be removed. But there is a problem with removing it. Shortly afterwards the TF introduces “the tribe of Christians” and explains that they were so named after their founder. So without this passage, He was the Christ, another part of the TF does not make sense. It would have been meaningless to have written that Christians were so named after their leader unless it had been earlier explained that their leader was known as Christ. The passage is a coherent whole and this is yet another problem that arises when we try to chop bits that don’t suit our theories out of it.
Some try to get around this by drawing on later variations of the TF that modify this sentence to read “he was believed to be the Christ” (See Jerome’s passage in my earlier post). Some have argued on the strength of this that Josephus wrote something like that. But this is mere speculation, and is in defiance of the probabilities, given the strong interest in Christian authors discovering and making use of any such passage had it existed. A simpler explanation of Jerome’s variation is that Jerome realized the sentence in Eusebius was implausible coming from Josephus, and he modified it to what he imagined Josephus was more likely to have said.
Olson observes that the Greek for “first men” here (proton andron), like the earlier Greek term for “receive with pleasure”, is “a peculiarly Josephan term”. (Eusebius was more likely to employ words meaning “archons” and “revere”.) The same argument that applied to “receive with pleasure” applies here, too. See Jesus in Josephus, 4 for details.
Par hemin, among us, on the other hand, is “very common in Eusebius but somewhat unusual in Josephus”. Olson continues:
Josephus uses the first person plural to refer to the Jews only in the context of their common history and traditions. It is unlikely that Josephus would have attached a national significance to Jesus’ execution. Making the leaders of the Jewish nation as a whole the instigators of the crucifixion is the device of a later Christian apologist. (p.311, CBQ, 61, 1999)
Olson rebuts suggestions that a Christian interpolater would have put more emphasis on the Jewish role in the crucifixion of Christ:
And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required.
A favourite argument of Eusebius was to demonstrate that Jesus was the Christ by pointing to the honorable example of his disciples who remained loyal to him even after his dishonourable execution. He made this point in his attack on Hierocles, throughout his Church History, and again in his Demonstratio. It is in this context that Eusebius draws on the TF to verify his argument:
Why then after seeing His miserable end did they stand their ground? Why did they construct a theology about Him when He was dead? Did they desire to share His fate? No one surely on any reasonable ground would choose such a punishment with his eyes open.
And if it be supposed that they honoured Him, while He was still their comrade and companion, and as some might say their deceitful cozener, yet why was it that after His death they honoured Him far more than before? For while He was still with men they are said to have once deserted Him and denied Him, when the plot was engineered against Him, yet after He had departed from men, they chose willingly to die, rather than to depart from their good witness about Him. Surely if they recognized nothing that was good in their Master, in His life, or His teaching, or His actions—-no praiseworthy deed, nothing in which He had benefited them, but only wickedness and the leading astray of men, they could not possibly have witnessed eagerly by their deaths to His glory and holiness, when it was open to them all to live on untroubled, and to pass a life of safety by their own hearths with their dear ones. How could deceitful and shifty men have thought it desirable to die for some one else, especially, if one may say so, for a man who they knew had been of no service to them, but their teacher in all evil? For while a reasonable and honourable man for the sake of some good object may with good reason sometimes undergo a glorious death, yet surely men of vicious nature, slaves to passion and pleasure, pursuing only the life of the moment and the satisfactions which belong to it, are not the people to undergo punishment even for friends and relations, far less for those who have been condemned for crime. How then could His disciples, if He was really a deceiver and a wizard, recognized by them as such, with their own minds enthralled by still worse viciousness, undergo at the hands of their fellow-countrymen every insult and every form of punishment on account of the witness they delivered about Him?—-this is all quite foreign to the nature of scoundrels. . . .
And here it will not be inappropriate for me to make use of the evidence of the Hebrew Josephus as well, who in the eighteenth chapter of The Archaeology of the Jews, in his record of the times of Pilate, mentions our Saviour in these words: . . . . (Demonstratio 3.5)
In the time of Josephus, the Christian followers of Jesus wrote, taught and preached that Jesus was coming again soon to overthrow the kingdoms of the world, that Jesus had violently disrupted the Temple of Jerusalem, and taught his followers to willingly die for him. Again, it is inconceivable that Josephus, who despised all such type of teaching and extremist behaviour, could have written a passage that praises the loyalty of his followers, even in defiance of seeing their leader executed as a criminal by Rome. Even if one insists on a neutral meaning for the passage, could Josephus have possibly been neutral about this sort of thing?
This is another portion of the TF that most consider to be a Christian interpolation. Olson notes how it conveniently coheres with the intention of Eusebius stated from the beginning of his Church History to show that Jesus and these works of his were the fulfilment of prophecies.
Then, finally, at the time of the origin of the Roman Empire, there appeared again to all men and nations throughout the world, who had been, as it were, previously assisted, and were now fitted to receive the knowledge of the Father, that same teacher of virtue, the minister of the Father in all good things, the divine and heavenly Word of God, in a human body not at all differing in substance from our own. He did and suffered the things which had been prophesied. For it had been foretold that one who was at the same time man and God should come and dwell in the world, should perform wonderful works, and should show himself a teacher to all nations of the piety of the Father. The marvelous nature of his birth, and his new teaching, and his wonderful works had also been foretold; so likewise the manner of his death, his resurrection from the dead, and, finally, his divine ascension into heaven. (Historia. 1.2.23)
Doherty perceptively observes, however, that had Josephus written anything about Jesus and his followers, it is hard to imagine him ignoring their central claim that Jesus had died and was believed to have been resurrected.
So removing this passage from the TF in attempts to locate an “original core” really gets us nowhere.
While Josephus uses the word for “tribe”, phylon, the word is used here in an un-Josephan manner. For Josephus, a “tribe” was a race or nation, not a religious group.
Three observations may be thought to point to Eusebius being the originator of this phrase:
1. Eusebius twice uses the expression “tribe or race of Christians” in his Church History when discussing the letters of the governor Pliny:
In reply to this Trajan made the following decree: that the race of Christians should not be sought after (found in both Historia, 3.33.2 and 4)
2. This is not the only place where Eusebius demonstrates creativity in his use of his word for “tribe”. In his Preparation for the Gospel, book 7 paras 15 and 22:
Thus then after those first luminaries which are reckoned among incorporal powers, and excel in power and essence of intellectual light, there are countless tribes and families of stars and a vast difference incomprehensible to us, but not to the Maker of the universe. . . . .
‘If however any one shall say that matter is in God, it is equally necessary to inquire whether it is by God’s being separated from Himself, just as tribes of living creatures subsist in the air, by its being divided and parted for the reception of the creatures that arise in it . . . . . .
3. The desciption of Christians as a tribe is nowhere found before Eusebius. After Eusebius, however, some Christian authors did speak of Christians as “a third race”. (Doherty citing Mason, Josephus On the Rocks) “That latter thinking is another pointer to the thought being from Eusebius himself.
See the notes on point 6 above. This statement depends on the existence of the earlier claim that Jesus was the Christ. To remove that statement (as many acknowledge is not from Josephus) causes problems for the coherence of this passage here.
Another argument of Eusebius for the authenticity of Jesus the Christ is that of all the others who were christs, only the followers of Jesus took the name of Christ for themselves by being called Christians.
And a proof of this is that no one of those who were of old symbolically anointed, whether priests, or kings, or prophets, possessed so great a power of inspired virtue as was exhibited by our Saviour and Lord Jesus, the true and only Christ.
None of them at least, however superior in dignity and honor they may have been for many generations among their own people, ever gave to their followers the name of Christians from their own typical name of Christ. Neither was divine honor ever rendered to any one of them by their subjects; nor after their death was the disposition of their followers such that they were ready to die for the one whom they honored. And never did so great a commotion arise among all the nations of the earth in respect to any one of that age; for the mere symbol could not act with such power among them as the truth itself which was exhibited by our Saviour. (Historia 1.3.9-10)
. . . . . point 13 to follow in next post. . . . . . .
Eusebius quotes a reference in Josephus to Jesus that survives today in all manuscripts:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
To take the TF phrase by phrase and see how much is truly Josephan and how much Eusebian, and if Josephan, in what Eusebian context. . . .
1 to 3 are summaries of the fuller explanations in the earlier post.
(Thanks in particular to Ken Olson’s article and for some of his views expressed in academic discussion lists since, and also for additional inputs from Earl Doherty’s more recently posted online discussions.)
A typically Eusebian expression used here in the same way and for the same purpose Eusebius elsewhere uses it. Though Josephus uses the word as well, he does not do so elsewhere in the context of a miracle worker and/or wise teacher that we find here. See TF: more clues from Eusebius for details.
An expression typically used in one form or another among early Christian authors to qualify the human nature of Jesus. Many scholars argue for its removal from the original passage, reasoning that this passage is a Christian interpolation while other words around it are not. However the passage ties elements of the “original passage” together so well that this argument for it being a later addition is very stretched. See TF: more clues from Eusebius for details.
The Greek word for “doer/performer/maker” here is never used by Josephus with this meaning. Josephus always uses the word to mean “poet”. Similarly, Josephus never uses the Greek words for “wonderful/uncustomary/strange” “works” to mean miracles. But these words in the TF are used to convey the same meanings for which Eusebius uses them. See TF: more clues from Eusebius for details.
“The truth” (talethe) is hardly the word Josephus would use to describe the teachings of Jesus.
Yet the same word is used very often by Eusebius to describe Christian doctrine. In Demonstratio Evangelica Bk 3 scroll to the last paragraphs of chapter 5 here to see how this word is found so usefully to suit Eusebius’s purpose to show that Christians from the first were not deceivers and wizards, but “lovers of truth”.
But “receive with pleasure” is a phrase typically to be expected in the writings of Josephus.
Ken Olson reasoned in his 1999 Catholic Biblical Quarterly article (I don’t know if he still holds the same view — maybe he can update if he reads this? ) that since this phrase first appears in the Historia (Church History) by Eusebius, and was not in his earlier Demonstratio (Proofs of the Gospel), that Eusebius had learned in the meantime to introduce a Josephan turn of phrase, and add the Josephan “receive with pleasure” to make his quotation sound more authentically Josephan. This “learning” was the outcome of Eusebius having “quoted extensively” Josephus in Historia so that we can assume a greater familiarity of Eusebius with the works of Josephus at this time. We can therefore conclude he opted to draw out a Josephan turn of phrase to add verisimilitude to his quotation of Josephus.
But all of this depends entirely on other arguments for Historia being written AFTER Demonstratio. Recall the commonly accepted sequence of the works of Eusebius:
But the whole argument falls down if it can be reasonably suspected that this chronological sequence is insecure. Stephen Carlson argues just this (Hypotyposeis), that since other studies show that Historia did indeed precede Demonstratio, Olson has failed to establish that Eusebius created the TF in full as we have it.
There is a simpler and far weightier analysis.
Ergo
So when we look at the Josephan phrase, “received with pleasure”, in the TF, we are more sensible if we look for explanations from within the context of what we know of the confessional interests of both Josephus and Eusebius. If Josephus was writing Historia first, and was regularly quoting Josephus, then what problem is there in expecting him to drop in the odd Josephan phrase here and there in his own compositions? Over time, and when he came later to write Demonstratio, is it not reasonable to expect him to use his own wording more regularly than anything that had come to his mind in earlier days when closely engaged with another author?
We know there are Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics. The mere fact of a word appearing in both the TF and elsewhere in the writings of Josephus means, in and of itself, nothing. The mere fact of pulling out the statistics proves more about the scholar in the first instance than it necessarily does about the target authors. Even in a court of law (and I normally hate legal analogies), evidence needs to be evaluated against the motives, habits and character of the accused.
. . . . to be continued etc etc . . . .
I have updated my previous post’s timeline of the apparent birth of the passage about Jesus found in Josephus to include all known pre-Eusebian Christian references to Josephus.
In this post I begin to discuss the detailed evidence that this passage (the Testimony of Flavius Josephus, or the Testimonium Flavianum, or TF) was composed by Eusebius himself. While I draw heavily on Ken Olson, and on the augmentation of Olson’s arguments by Earl Doherty, I like to think I also add a few extra layers of evidence here and there. (Mike Duncan – of the Bad Rhetoric blog – argues for another contender, Pamphilus. See his comments dated 7 March at the end of my previous post for a summary.)
ca.324 CE
Eusebius quotes a reference in Josephus to Jesus that survives today in all manuscripts:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
Eusebius in fact cites this passage three times — in three of his works — to assert a reputable Jewish support for the good character of Jesus:
Some discussion has arisen over a difference in wording of the TF in these works, and over which was written first, and the implications these ideas have for whether or not Eusebius was necessarily the original fabricator of the TF. I will discuss these questions and my own views of the arguments in a future post.
To take the TF phrase by phrase and see how much is truly Josephan and how much Eusebian, and if Josephan, in what Eusebian context. . . .
Josephus uses this descriptor of Solomon and Daniel; he does not associate it with miracle-working or special teaching.
Eusebius uses sophos, a sage, as the opposite of a goes, a charlatan, several times throughout his works.
Earl Doherty (in Josephus on the Rocks) faults Ken Olson for not pushing his argument far enough:
The question which Olson does not ask is this: why, in this earliest work in which he was concerned to cast Jesus in a favorable light, did Eusebius not appeal to the Testimonium, as he was to do in similar circumstances in two later works? We can hardly presume that he only discovered Josephus in the interim. There is no reason why the Testimonium could not have served his purpose in Adversus Hieroclem. What we may very well presume is that in the interim Eusebius decided it would be a good idea to fabricate something by Josephus to serve this purpose.
This takes us beyond the study of how “Josephan” or “Eusebian” the “sophos aner” description is. But to stick with this digression for a moment – – –
There is a closely related passage by Eusebius in Adversus Hieroclem (chapter IV) that reads to me as if it is a very template of the TF. The words in black type are those of Eusebius, and those in the blue-green are from the TF:
IF then we may be permitted to contrast the reckless and easy credulity which he goes out of his way to accuse us of, with the accurate and well-founded judgment on particular points of the Lover of Truth, let us ask at once,
not which of them was the more divine nor in what capacity one worked more wondrous and numerous miracles than the other ;
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works,
nor let us lay stress on the point that our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ was the only man of whom it was prophesied, thanks to their divine inspiration, by Hebrew sages who lived far back thousands of years ago, that he should once come among mankind ;
He was the Christ . . . . as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him.
nor on the fact that he converted to his own scheme of divine teaching so many people ; nor that he formed a group of genuine and really sincere disciples, of whom almost without exaggeration it can be said that they were prepared to lay down their lives for his teaching at a moment’s call ;
a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. . . . those that loved him at the first did not forsake him
nor that he alone established a school of sober and chaste living which has survived him all along ;
And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
nor that by his peculiar divinity and virtue he saved the whole inhabited world, and still rallies to his divine teaching races from all sides by tens of thousands ;
He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles.
nor that he is the only example of a teacher who, after being treated as an enemy for so many years, I might almost say, by all men, subjects and rulers alike, has at last triumphed and shown himself far mightier, thanks to his divine and mysterious power, than the infidels who persecuted him so bitterly, those who in their time rebelled against his divine teaching being now easily won over by him, while the divine doctrine which he firmly laid down and handed on has come to prevail for ages without end all over the inhabited world ; nor that even now he displays the virtue of his godlike might in the expulsion, by the mere invocation of his mysterious name, of sundry troublesome and evil demons which beset men’s bodies and souls, as from our own experience we know to be the case.
He was the Christ . . . And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
To look for such results in the case of Apollonius, or even to ask about them, is absurd.
Note the similarities of theme and close relationship even sequence:
This comparison, I propose, suggests that Eusebius was either totally absent minded or possibly had not yet constructed the TF at the time he wrote against Hierocles. It also strongly suggests that the thought pattern in Eusebius’ mind at the time he was rebutting Hierocles was sustained and survived to become the framework for his subsequent decision to craft the TF.
Comparing this passage in Adversus Hieroclem almost begs for a revision of the references to the TF in Eusebius:
Eusebius and other Christian authors are known to have added a qualifier like this after referencing Jesus as a man. This phrase is widely regarded as in interpolation because it presupposes the divinity of Jesus. But there is no logical reason to remove it from the original passage. It fits well with its context. It logically joins the phrases either side of it. After calling Jesus a “man” it explains that he is “more than a man” on the grounds of his ability to perform so many miracles:
. . . a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works . . .
Many scholars have gone along with the idea that by removing this phrase from the passage leaves a less Christian sounding paragraph, something closer to what a Jew like Josephus might have written about Jesus. The logical fallacy here is as astonishing as it is naive and one wonders how it could appear to be so glibly repeated for so long in the discussion. Of course the removal of any red passage from a larger one looking purple will leave it totally blue. Ken Olson, who surely could not have been the first to point such a fallacy, demonstrates this most clearly by showing how a passage from a sermon in Acts can be changed from pro Jesus to neutral Jesus.
The Greek word here for “doer” or “maker” is “poietes”, which can also be translated as “poet”. Doherty notes that Ken Olson, Robert Eisler and Josephan specialist Steve Mason all confirm that Josephus only ever uses this word to mean “poet”. Its use for the sense of “doer” or “perpetrator” is common among Christian authors, however.
Olson also remarks that Josephus never associates forms of the word paradoxon/s and poietes/poieo to mean the sense of “miracle making”. Eusebius, on the other hand, uses such a combination, and variants of the phrase paradoxon ergon poietes in Demonstratio Evangelica 3.5 — see sections 115, 123, 125 on that page; and History of the Church 1.2.23 — see paragraph 23 there.
This post is taking way way longer than I anticipated — I have an obsession with checking footnotes and other references as far back as I can go before putting keyboard to monitor. Going to have to complete it in spits and spurts.