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This
article deals with the rise of Bible criticism. Until recently it was commonly assumed among theologians that the
critical approach of the Bible was a post enlightenment development. The rise of this historic criticism can be
traced back to Middle and Neo-Platonic philosophy of the second and third
century after Christ. This is shown by
central elements of the teachings “Against the Christians” of the philosophers
Celsus and Porphyry.
1.
PORPHYRY OF TYRE
According
to Porphyry religion was mere projection of the human mind. In his commentary on the teachings of
Parmenides he writes: “Cést nous qui projectons en Dieu notre relation à
Lui”(III.Fol.94r.).
Why?
“Dieu est inconnaissable”(IX. Fol.92r.).
God
could not be known.
This
conviction had some consequences for his view on supernatural selfrevelation.
If God could not be related to, and what we think to know about Him is merely a
projection of our own minds and feelings, supernatural revelation about God
should not be seriously reckoned with.
It is therefore not strange that Porphyry sharply criticized the rapidly
growing Christian religion of his day.
Christianity
taught the incarnation of God in the world and His revelation in history and
Scripture. In Porphyry’s philosophical tradition such pretensions could never
be accommodated, though he apparently knew that the tide of Christianity could
not be turned. When describing a man in
Didyma having problems with the Christian beliefs of his wife, Porphyry cites
an oracle of Apollo. “Als jemand fragte, welchen Gott er
versöhnen solle, um sein Weib wieder vorm Christentum abzubringen, erwiderte
Apollo in folgenden Versen: Eher möchtest du wohl in lesbarer Schrift auf
Wasser schreiben oder als Vogel leichtbewschwingt durch die Lufte fliegen, als
den Sinn der befleckten, gottlosen Gattin ändern”. But
like other pagan leaders of those days, the philosopher continued to deem the
traditional Roman and Greek way to honour the divine powers sacrosanct.
In
his early days Porphyry made himself familiar with some of the teachings of
Christianity. As he said it: “when I was at a very early age”. Porphyry met the Alexandrian scholar and
Egyprian church leader Origen (Eusebius: H.E. VI.19). He seemed to have sympathized with Christianity, but broke away after
being assaulted by some Christians in Ceasarea, Palestine (Socrates: H.E.
fol.365). It could be that this account
is based on second hand information from the lost work of Eusebius against
Porphyry, but “die Tatsche ist so gut bezeugt, daB man die nicht, wit
gewöhnlich geschieht, für apokryph halten darf”.
Porphyry’s
acquaintance with Christianity is furthermore confirmed by St Aurelius
Augustine: “Quam (virtutem et sapientiam) si vere ac fideliter amasses,
Christum Dei virtutem et Dei sapientiam cognovisses, nec ab resiluisses” (De
Civitate Dei, X.28).
Towards
the end of the second century Porphyry wrote fifteen books “Against the
Christians”. In those days he was
probably living on the Italian island Sicilia (Eusebius: H.E. VI.19, followed
by Socrates: H.E. fol.113 and Harnack, 1916:1). This generally accepted view is only challenged by a remark of St
Augustine (Retract. II.57 on epis.102, cf. Harnack, 1916:XXI), which could
suggest the existence of another Porphyry.
But nowhere in his works the patriarch mentions that he has heard of
Porphyry’s books against the Christians, being sufficient reason for most to
prefer the testimony of Eusebius. The
latter deserves some credit in this case, because he happened to write an
exhaustive response in defence of Christianity against the pagan philosopher.
(Hieronymus: Ad Magnum Orator: ep.70.3).
The
Holy Scriptures of the Christians was the main object of Porphyry’s attack. “Als sicher darf angenommen werden, daB die Bibel von Porphyriius als der
zu bekämppfende Feind angesehen worden ist”, stated the German historian Von
Harnack (1916:11). This is not strange, if
one takes his views on god and the possibility of selfrevelation into account.
The
original books of Porphyry are lost, likely to have been burned under the rule
of Theodosius II. The vast amount of
Porphyrian criticism seems to be conserved in the “Apokritikos” of the church
father Macarius Magnes. He wrote in the
middle of the fourth century, encouraged by his friend Theostenes. However,
Porphyry’s name is not mentioned in the two hundred pages, which are left of
the Greek text, and Macarius of Magnesia is not counted among the ones who
wrote against Porphyry in the early Church.
That is why P Fougart, who published the text of the Apokritikos edited
by the late Blondel in 1876, rather spoke about “sive similia argumenta ab
aliquo Porphyrii discipulo repetita”.
But at least one passage in the Apokritikos pleads for the conviction
that we have to do with very old criticism, written down more than three
hundred years after Christ, namely Apokritikos IV.5 (1876:163), where
Apollonius of Tyana is mentioned as the only possible anti-Christ of the past
three hundred years.
Von
Harnack preferred the thought that Macarius used a summary of “Against the
Christians” for his Apokritikos. The
German scholar brought the remaining Greek and Latin fragments of and about the
writings of Porphyry together in Porphyrius “Gegen die Christen”, 15 Bücher;
Zeugnisse, Fragmente und Referate. These were published during 1916, in
Berlin. For several of the fragments
that will be cited in this article, the reader is referred to this work, except
when indicated otherwise.
Porphyry
may be called the father of Bible criticism.
“Sein bestes hat er in philologischen Schriften, in der
Streitschrift gegen die Christen, die moderne Methoden der Bibel kritik
vorwegnimmt.”
Porphyry
criticized the credibility of apostolic writings and taught his readers to look
behind the text for “how it really happened”.
He didn’t like the account of the annatural death of Ananias and Saffira
in the book of Acts, chapter five. It
was rather the apostle Peter himself, who had killed those two, because he
wanted all their money for the Church (Apokritikos II.21, Fougart 1876:101).
The
suggestion that we are dealing with Porphyrian material in the Apokritikos is supported
by a letter of St Jerome (Ep. 130 ad Demitrius) who makes a direct reference to
the special opinion of Porphyry: “The apostle Peter did not wish the death of
Ananias or Saffira; of which he is falsely accused by Porphyry”. The latter also made a distinction between
what Jesus had taught and his disciples had made of it. He held Matthew responsible for a prediction
of the coming end of the world (24:14).
Jesus himself would not have taught something unbelievable like that
(Apokritikos IV.3, Fougart 1876:161).
The
things the evangelist wrote about the incarnation of God’s Son in a human body
must therefore be explained otherwise.
This incarnation could hardly be reconciled with the writings of
Porphyry’s master Plotinus. This
Neo-Platonic philosopher taught that the cosmos contained different degrees of
God’s presence. Man is such an entity
and cannot grasp the higher divine reality because he is too far away. For a god to have a body and suffer trials could
not be easily accommodated in this worldview.
This
last philosophical sytem of the Greek-Roman Antiquity manifested itself during
the third century, but may be traced back to Philoon of Alexandria (30 BC –40
AD). Ammonius Sakkas (175-242 AD) is
considered to be the founder of neo-Platonism. We don’t know much about him, save the interesting connection that
he was an apostate Christian, like Porphyry would become. Plotinus was one of Ammonias’ pupils. He lived from 204 until 269 AD and studied
in Alexandria. Porphyry in turn systemized
his writings.
Plotinus
taught a radical dualism between God and the material world. God was a higher entity, or as Plotinus
called Him: the One. He consisted of
three degrees or hypostaseis, the lesser being the soul or phychè. The material world was an emanation of this
third degree of God. Only the nous, the
mind of man was able to see something of God and that only by means of a
mystical upstairs walk. But even then
it could not be possible to state something positive about the One. Earthly terms from a material world could
not suffice.
The
(im)possibility of Divine selfrevelation in neo-Platonism is to be
distinguished from the messages of the ancient oracles, which were accommodated
in Neo-Platonism. The oracles did not concern
themselves with reliable divine selfrevelation, but with horizontal guidance on
a religious level. The former was no
option in the philosophical system.
They are literally worlds apart. Having this background, one understands
Porphyry’s problems with the virgin birth and incarnation. “Even worthier of
doom is the conviction of those who believe that God entered the womb of the Virgin
Mary, even became a baby!”(Fougart 1876:202).
It
is quite interesting to see how Porphyry criticized the Old Testament
prophets. “With the prophets Porphyry
is very concerned”(Theodoretus: Graec. Affect. Cur. VII.36). From the perspective of the “historisch
–kritische Theologie”, which prevailed during the nineteenth and twentieth
century, it is fascinating to see how Porphyry treated the prophets Jonah and
Daniel. About Jonah he wrote
(Augustine, ep. 102 ad Deograt.): “And what should we think about Jonah, who is
said to have been in the belly of a big sea fish? This is most unlikely and unbelievable!”.
Porphyry
was the first one to criticize the book of the prophet Daniel, dated in the
sixth century BC by orthodox early Christian scholarship. Hieronymus preserved the arguments of the
philosopher in his commentary on Daniel.
“Against
the prophet Daniel Porphyry wrote his twelfth book. He didn’t believe that the one who’s name it bears, wrote
it. No, someone else, who was in Judea
at the times of Antiochus Epiphanes, did it.
Daniel could never have spoken about the future things. Consequently, everything said concerning
Antiochus should just contain a description of true history.” Hieronymus then continues to explain how
Eusebius and Apolinaris answered the arguments of Porphyry.
Porphyry
particularly attacked Daniel’s prophecy about “the abomination that maketh
desolate” (Daniel 12:11). The
philosopher had his special reasons for this.
The Founder of Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth Himself, interpreted this
abomination as something still to happen in the future. If Porphyry could demonstrate that it was
something of the past and had not been a prophecy at all. He would manage to
disqualify Jesus’ testimony. Hieronymus
was well aware of that. “About this
text, the abomination that maketh desolate, where the prohet Daniel spoke
about, Porphyry uttered lots of blasphemous thing in his thirteenth book of
this writings against us”(Commentary on Matthew 24:16ff).
Porphyry
showed his contempt for the Christian eschatology. In his view Jesus Christ made a false prophecy, when He stated
that many should come and try to lead the disciples astray (Matthew 24:5). The Greek philosopher claimed that Jesus had
been wrong in this regard, because after three hundred years the world had not
seen an anti-Christ yet, except for Appolonius of Tyana. But he was only one, and Christ had spoken
about “many” (polloi) (Apokritikos IV.5, Fougart 1876:163).
The
Neo-Platonist ridiculed the Christian creed about the resurrection of the
flesh. He wonders how on earth all
those deceased bodies should rise again!
Any reasonable person “will consider the matter of the resurrection to
be one of utmost folly; because it does often happen that people get drowned in
the sea and that their bodies are swallowed by fish. Many were also eaten by wild animals and birds. How could one think that their bodies should
be returned one day?” (Apokritikos IV.24, Fougart 1876: 204,205)
Porphyry
then continues and contemplates on the example of a shipwrecked person, who
dies and is eaten by the living creatures of the sea. But these unlucky ones are caught by fishermen and provide for a
nice meal. The fishermen however,
become the object of an assault. Dogs
devour their murdered bodies. Most
unfortunately the dogs die as well and are eaten by the bird of the air. Porphyry satirically wonders how the victim
of the sea will ever get his body back again, since it became part of so many
other bodies in the meantime.
Porphyry
also tried to undermine the reliability of the Gospel writers. In this way he promoted distrust in their
accounts.
Matthew
showed irresponsibility by suddenly leaving his job to follow Jesus (Hieronymus
on Matthew 9:9). The apostles were poor
men who used tricks and sorcery to attain the riches of well to do women
(Hieronymus on Psalm 81). To trust such
men was irrational! “They were very
uncapable men, not only concerning the things of this world, but even when it
comes to the divine Scriptures”(Hieronymus in De Principio Marci).
The
Evangelist didn’t even know the difference between Isaiah and Malachi
(Hiernoymus on Matthew 3:3). The same
was true about Matthew not distinguishing Asaph and ascribing the prophecy “I
will open my mouth in parables”(Psalm 78, LXX:77) to Isaiah.
Only
to be improved upon by some post-enlightenment theologians, Porphyry hunted
eagerly to trace alleged discrepancies in the Christian Scriptures. The apostle Paul taught and practised contradictory
things about circumcision in Acts 16:3 and I Corinthians 9:19. He was inconsistent regarding his teachings
about the Law as well. On the one hand
he says that “all who are founded on the works of the Law are cursed, but while
writing to the Romans: “The Law is spiritual; and again: The Law is holy and
the commandment is holy and just”(Apokritikos III.33, Fougart 1876:128)”.
The
eclipse of the sun on Good Friday was not something supernatural at all. It was the disciples, being ignorant as they
were, who correlated the disappearing sun to the sufferings of Christ. They
were too young and incapable to realise that it was a common predictable event
(Hieronymus on Matthew 27:45).
The
echoes of Porphyry’s statements would reappear on the stage of the eighteenth
century. Despite of his criticism, the
early Church always maintained the historical reliability of the Old and New
Testament Scriptures. In Proof of
the Gospel (Demonstratio Evangelica), Book III.v, Eusebius writes against
those who disbelieve the historical account of the disciples in the Gospels
(especially verse 117 and 123).
For
early Christianity establishing the truth could not be disconnected from the
historical reliability of the Gospel accounts.
“Geschichte” and “Historie” could not be separated without shaking the
foundations of faith itself.