The Jesus Problem: A Restatement of the Myth TheoryRobertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Religion
The Jesus Problem: A Restatement of the Myth Theory
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Jesus Christ
There remains to be considered the theory of the Tübingen school that
the Christian legend of Simon Magus is to be found in its earliest form
in the "Clementines," that body of early sectarian forged literature
which has been made to yield so much light as to the early history
of the Christist Church. Here, in a set of writings ("Recognitions"
and "Homilies," of which books one is a redaction of the other),
purporting to be by Clement of Rome, we have a propaganda that is on
the face of it strongly Petrine, and that turns out on analysis to be
strongly anti-Pauline, though the gist of the matter is a series of
disputations between Peter and Simon the Mage. It is impossible at
present to settle what was the first form of these documents, which
as they stand bear marks of the third century, and survive only in
the Latin translation of Rufinus (d. 410); but it is plain that they
preserve elements of the early Ebionitic or Judæo-Christian opposition
to the Gentile Christism of Paul. The Tübingen theory is that under
the name of Simon Magus Paul is attacked throughout. This, at first
sight, certainly seems a fantastic thesis; but an examination of the
matter shows that it is very strongly founded. A leading feature in
the conduct of Simon Magus in the Clementines, as in the Acts, is his
attempt to purchase apostleship with money. Now, this corresponds very
closely with the act of Paul in bringing to Jerusalem a subsidy from
the Western churches, an act which, on the part of one not recognised
as an apostle, and exhibited in the Epistles as always on jealous
terms [572] with the Jerusalem apostles, would naturally rank as an
attempt to purchase the Holy Ghost with lucre. Again, Simon Magus
in the Clementines claims to rest his authority on divine visions,
which is exactly the position of Paul; [573] and Peter denies that
visions have such authority. Once recognise the primary strife between
Judaising and Gentilising Christians, of which there are so many
traces in New Testament and Patristic literature, and it is easy to
see that these are the very points on which the anti-Paulinists would
most bitterly oppose Paul and his movement. In the Clementines, Peter
not only opposes the Magus in Palestine, but follows him to Rome,
thus carrying the antagonism between the two sects over the whole
theoretic field. The fact that both Simon Peter and Simon Magus,
Cephas and Paul, are made to journey from East to West, and to die
in the West, like the immemorial Sun-God, is suggestive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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