Fri Jun 14 18:10:50 1996
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Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 18:06:30 -0400
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From: wlp1@psu.edu (William L. Petersen)
Subject: Re: Theories of trans.--continued
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Thanks again to all the respondents to my second post (#2). Some comments
in response to the various correspondents.
(1) After agreeing on several points, Bob Waltz remarks:
>Examples, unfortunately, don't prove a rule one way or the other. Each
>father must be examined individually, and *thoroughly*, before we can
>cite a rule. I'm willing to concede that people have often dismissed
>this or that work too easily -- but your argument cuts both ways.
>We must examine everything on a case-by-case basis.
I agree that "each father must be studied individually and thoroughly,"
which is precisely why I made my original post. I re-ask the question I
asked in it: How can one presume to discuss the genesis of the NT text and
theories of transmission if one consistently ignores the oldest recoverable
evidence, namely, the Fathers?
If such work had been done, then the example I adduced would be familiar to
everyone, as would all similar examples, and we would be talking about how
Justin, Marcion, Clement of Al., etc., fit into the history of transmission,
rather than making excuses about their citations being "loose" or their MS
tradition being corrupt, etc., etc. These are simply pretexts (as Schmid
noted in his post) for avoiding the uncomfortable truth that NONE of the
earliest Fathers dominantly agree with ANY later textual "family"
(Alexnadrian, Byzantine, etc.). (But again, none of this is new: see the
quotation from Burkitt in my original post; Burkitt was writing nearly a
century ago...) Indeed, the Fathers OFTEN show a cavalier attitude to the
text--an attitude which is most likely identical with the scribes of their
day (after all, THEY were the [somewhat-] educated "elite"; scribes were
mere hewers of wood, lesser minds...). But sometimes they do not, and that
is where we should get busy...
To my way of thinking, an example "proves" a lot more than rhetoric. We now
have a specific example in front of us, supported by no less than eight
sources from the early church, geographically spread from Lyons to Edessa to
Alexandria to Rome, and by language from Latin to Greek to Syriac to
Armenian, which all have essentially the same deviating reading. We have
cut away the cant about the manuscripts of the Fathers having been corrupted
during their transmission, and we have also pared away the obfuscation about
"loose" citations among the Fathers (N.B.: *both* are there, *sometimes*;
but the "loose" ones *cannot* be used in a blanket dismissal of the Fathers
or early apocyrphal documents).
2) Larry Hurtado wrote:
>I do, however, want to log a much more modest contribution of my
>own, by way of a hesitation to accept right away Bill's proposal for the
>cause/meaning of the variation twixt some of the early Fathers and the
>majority of surviving mss evidence. First, I fail to see how the
>variation between "God" and "my Father in heaven" reflects any major
>christological variation, Bill. I think your shooting at shadows here.
I think a look at the text will help clarify this. (I take the same
position as Alan Repurk said he'd *tried* to float in his discussion with
someone...)
First, *even if* the text had "God" (which it does not...we'll come to that
later in the next paragraph, under "Second,..."), there IS a significant
difference, IN THIS CONTEXT, between "God" and "my Father in heaven." Jesus
is NOT "the Father in heaven," therefore, if only *one* is good, then Jesus
cannot be good--only the "Father in heaven." On the other hand, if one
says, "Only one is good, God," then Jesus CAN--by later Christological
theory--be "good" for, although he is on earth (and not "in heaven"), he is
"god." That is a BIG difference, and goes exactly to the point I was making
by urging people to compare the changes in Matt 19.16-17 when compared with
Mark 10.17-18. Christology is the issue in the changes in the canonical
text as it now stands; Christology also appears to play a role in the
interpolation (or omission) of the phrase "my Father in the heavens."
Second, the citation in Justin reads: eis estin agathos, o pater mou o en
tois ouranois.
The "eis estin agathos" is UNIQUELY MATTHEAN.
Matthew 19.17 reads: eis estin o agathos.
while Mark and Luke both read: oudeis agathos ei me eis o theos.
There IS NO "theos" in Matthew's text. So the comparison Hurtado attempts
to make ("I fail to see how the variation between "God" and "my Father in
heaven" reflects any major
christological variation") is simply a non liquet.
Justin's reading, if actually from the Matthean parallel, moves the Matthean
text BACK in the direction of a "low" Christology: "Don't call me (Jesus)
good; only God (the Father in heaven) is good" (= Mark, Luke). The q.e.d.
of the Mark/Luke version is that Jesus is not god. (That, of course, is why
this passage generates the interest it has; if it were whether it were 200
or 500 denarii, we'd be doing other things...)
Larry continues:
>I do,however, find it interesting that the latter variant is
>simply the *well known* opening address of the Paternoster, with the
>substituion of "mou" for "hemon". Seems entirely likely to me that
>Justin, et alia, simply (and freely) preferred that more familiar
>liturgical phrase, thus making their piety/usage more directly connected
>with Jesus' own. And this esp. in the Dial. 101 context, where Justin's
>point is to emphasize Jesus' humility (citing Ps 21/22 extensively).
This, indeed, strikes me--if I may quote Larry himself?--as "shooting at
shadows." I don't see it in Justin. But even more important is that we are
NOT just talking about Justin here, BUT ALSO: Ephrem (= Tatian),
Hippolytus, Irenaeus, and the Pseudo-Clementines for the FULL text, and
Clement of Alexandria and Vetus Lat. MSS a and d for the abbreviated
version. Did they all ALSO, all INDEPENDENTLY think of the Pater Noster
here, and SPONTANEOUSLY change their citation of Jesus' words to reflect it?
(Occam had a razor...)
(Just a question: Why are we prone to say the early Fathers cite "loosely,"
and that THEIR MS tradition has been corrupted, rather than that the early
Fathers sometimes cite accurately, and that OUR NT MS tradition has been
corrupted? Or why are we prone to say that Justin reached out to...uh,
well,...ahhh, yes! the "Our Father" to explain this variant--when, if that
were so, we still have to account for all the other instances OF THE
IDENTICAL VARIANT IN OTHER WORKS? [But, I forget: the author of the
Pseudo-Clementines was citing Justin when he quoted the passage in Syriac
his third century romance, right???])
Finally, Dr. Hurtado remarks that:
>Second, and a bit more telling for me, the variant which Bill
>suggests might have been seen as problemmatic christologically is freely
>used by Fathers (e.g., Justin, Irenaeus, etc.) whose christological views
>are commonly (and, I think, correctly) seen as "high" christology,
>involving some kind of real divinity of Christ (with the corollary of
>worship of Christ).
Hmmm. It is news to me that Justin's Christology is "high" (I have not
studied Irenaeus in detail, so I will not comment on him; I have spent time
on Justin: NTS 36 [1990], 512-534; VigChr 46 [1992], 241-256). Justin's
Christology, like that of much of the NT, is very "mixed," that is, a
melange--quite probably cobbled together from all sorts of sources (the
origins of many of which he might not have known), over a long period of
time. Within the NT, think of the passage we've just seen in Mark ("Good
Teacher"..."Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone"), or
many other instances:
Mark 11.12-14 & 11.20-25 (cursing of the fig tree): compare with the
parallel in Matt 21.18-19 (Luke omits the whole embarrassing passage).
Matthew DELETES the statement that "it was not the season for figs," which,
in Mark, means Jesus didn't know when figs were ripe; Matthew also DELETES
the statement "he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it,"
which, in Mark, means Jesus didn't know whether or not there were figs on
the tree--something even the most inebriated Greek or Roman god could
intuit. Or again:
Luke 22.43-44 is disputed in the MSS, and, my friends, if I were "God," then
I most certainly would have no need of "an angel from heaven appear[ing] to
[me] and gave [me] strength." Etc.
Christological issues--sometimes not familiar to us (remember that
diophysites were torturing and murdering monophysites in the
400s-600s...)--are significant motives in changing the text of the NT.
As for Justin's Christology, consider the following passage:
(Dial. 126.1) "But if you knew, Trypho," I continued, "who He is that is
called at one
time the Angel of great counsel, and a Man by Ezekiel, and like the Son of
man by
Daniel, and a Child by Isaiah, and Christ and God to be worshipped by David,
and
Christ and a Stone by many, and Wisdom by Solomon, and Joseph and Judah and a
Star by Moses, and the East by Zechariah, and the Suffering One and Jacob and
Israel by Isaiah again, and a Rod, and Flower, and Cornerstone, and Son of God,
you would not have blasphemed Him who has now come, and been born, and
suffered, and ascended to heaven; who shall also come again, and then your
twelve tribes shall mourn. (2) For if you had understood what has been
written by
the prophets you would not have denied that He was God, Son of the only,
unbegotten, unutterable God....
(127.1) ...wherever God says, "God went up from Abraham," or, "The Lord spoke
to Moses," and "The Lord came down to behold the tower which the sons of men
had built," or when "God shut Noah into the ark," you must not imagine that the
unbegotten God Himself came down or went up from any place. (2) For the
ineffable Father and Lord of all neither has come to any place, nor walks, nor
sleeps, nor rises up, but remains in His own place.... How, then, could He
talk
with any one, or be seen by anyone, or appear on the smallest portion of the
earth.... (4) Therefore, neither Abraham, nor Isaac, nor Jacob, nor any other
man, saw the Father and ineffable Lord of all, and also of Christ, but [saw]
Him
who was according to His will His Son, being God, and the Angel because He
ministered to His will; whom it also pleased Him to be born a man by the
Virgin;
who was also fire when He conversed with Moses from the bush....
(128.1) "And that Christ, being Lord, and God the Son of God, and appearing
formerly in power as a Man, and as an Angel, and in the glory of fire as at the
bush..."
(128.2-3) ...the power sent from the Father of all which appeared...is
called Glory,
because He appears in a vision sometimes that cannot be borne...
This hardly suggests that Jesus was identical with "God the Father"; sounds
like Jesus is CALLED a "god" because he was God's son...just as in Ex. 7.1
humans can be called "god," and the Jews are called God's "sons" and the
Psalmist, God's "son." (Of course Jesus himself says that in John 10.22-39,
esp. 34-36; but why pay attention to that, if it doesn't agree with current
Trinitarian theology, right???)
Justin DOES have passages which bespeak a relatively "high" Christology,"
and others which do not. Therefore, to categorize his Christology as "high"
seems, to me, at least, unfair.
Two more texts which inform (and have parallels with) Justin's mindset--and
the mindset of early Christianity:
(Aphrahat, Dem. XVII.1) ...they [the Jews] say thus, "You worship and serve
a man who was begotten, a son of man who was crucified, and you call a son
of men 'God'." And
although God has no son, you say about this crucified Jesus that he is the
Son of
God.... Therefore, you are opposing God in that you call a man God.
(XVII.2) ...while we grant to them [the Jews] that he is man, and at the
same time
we honor him and call him God and Lord, it is not in any strange fashion
that we
so call him, nor do we apply to him a novel name, which they [the Jews]
themselves do not use. Yet it is a sure thing with us that Jesus our Lord
is God,
the Son of God, and the King, the King's Son, Light from light, Creator and
Counselor, and Guide, and Way, and Redeemer, and Shepherd, Gatherer, and
Door, and Pearl, and Lamp; and by many names is he surnamed. But we shall
leave aside all of them, and prove concerning him that he who came from god is
the son of god and god.
(3) The venerated name of Godhead has been applied also to righteous men, and
they have been held worthy to be called by it. And the men with whom God was
well pleased, them he called "My sons" and "My friends." When he chose Moses
his friend and his beloved and made him chief and teacher and priest unto his
people he called him God. For he said to him: "I have made you a God unto
Pharaoh." And he gave him His priest for a prophet, "And Aaron your brother
shall speak for you to Pharaoh, and you shall be unto him a God, and he
shall be
unto you an interpreter." Thus not alone to the evil Pharaoh did He make Moses
God, but also unto Aaron, the holy priest, He made Moses God.
(4) Again, hear concerning the title Son of God, by which we have called Him.
They [the Jews] say that "though God has no son, you make that crucified Jesus,
the firstborn son of God." Yet He called Israel, "My firstborn; I have
said unto
you, let My Son go to serve me... Out of Egypt I have called my Son."...
So also
we call the Christ, the Son of God, for through him we have gained the
knowledge
of God; even as He called Israel, "My firstborn son," and as He said
concerning
Solomon, "He shall be to me a son." And we call him God, even as He surnamed
Moses by His own name....
(5) For the name of Divinity is given for the highest honor in the world,
and with
whomsoever God is well please, He applied it to him....
(6)...Though He is the great King, He grudges not the name of Kingship to men.
And though He is the great God, yet He grudged not the name of Godhead to the
sons of flesh....
(7) ...no one should suppose that there is another God, either before or
afterwards...
8) Now by these things the stubborn will be convinced that it is nothing
strange that we
call Christ the Son of God.... And they will be forced to own that the name
of Godhead
also belongs to Him [Christ], for He [God] associated the righteous also in
the name of
God.
Finally, the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions, the same document which, like
Justin, reads "my Father in the heavens":
(II.42) Therefore, the name God is applied in these ways: either because
he to whom it is given is truly God, or because he is the servant of him who
is truly [God]; and for the honour of the sender, that his authority may be
full, he that is sent is called by the name of him who send, as is often
done in respect of angels:... For the Most High God, who alone holds the
power of all things, has divided all the nations of the earth into
seventy-two parts, and over these He has appointed angels as princes. But
to the one among the archangels who is greatest, was committed the
government of those who, before all others, received the worship and
knowledge of the Most High God... But Christ is God of princes, who is
Judge of all...
But of course, this is all old hat, for it is all pre-Christian, found in
Philo, in his discussion of Ex. 7.1 and elsewhere (try on Q. in Gen., II.62,
for size): "The oracle was given by God. For nothing mortal can be made in
the likeness of the most high One and Father of the universe, but only in
that of the second God, who is His Logos."
It may not be the Christology of now, but I have a pretty good inkling that
it was the Christology of THEN, and that is what I am researching--NOT what
I may or may not subscribe to NOW.
--Petersen, Penn. State Univ.
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