Discarding the 'Primitive Church'

The point of my little discussion about the 'fruitfulness' of Polycarp's original pandering to the rich, famous and well connected in Rome or as Lucian of Samosata saw it - doing all things 'for the sake of notoriety' - is to argue that the 'primitive Church' is just a fantasy, something which modern scholars take deadly serious but is nothing close to being a historical reality. Alexandrian Christianity BEGAN as a mixture of Jewish and Greek philosophical ideas. There can be no doubt about this. Clement is entirely dependent on Philo. Later Christians would claim that Philo was the first bishop of Alexandria.

Irenaeus' use of the word 'haeresis' is deliberately aimed at purging the religion of its roots IN FAVOR of the myth of the 'primitive Church.'

The fact that Irenaeus did this doesn't make the story of 'fishermen' and the like true. It just means that Irenaeus and those around them WANTED TO MAKE THEM true.

Polycarp's original appeal to pagans developed out of an integration of Greek philosophy and Jewish scriptural interpretation were already well established in Polycarp. In other words, by the first half of the second century, Plato and Jesus were already well reconciled.

This shouldn't be surprising in some ways. 'Justin Martyr' is already acknowledged to have been a 'Christian philosopher.' He is normally dated to the reign of Antoninus (138 - 161 CE) chiefly on the testimony of the opening words of the two Apologies.

Yet it is equally true that Flavius Justinus bears a striking resemblance to Flavius Justus (both Josephus and Justus were adopted by the Flavians at the end of the war), the famous Jewish philosopher who mixed Greek and Jewish learning in the first century.

I have already argued that the philosopher Flavius Justinus is really a remoulding of the historical Flavius Justus the influential Jewish philosopher (viz. 'Justus bar Saba 'the son of the baptizer' a title of Agrippa in Jewish literature) here. Notice that many scholars think Justinus' 'Discourse to the Greeks' was written by a Jew and concludes with the words:

Henceforth, ye Greeks, come and partake of incomparable wisdom, and be instructed by the Divine Logos, and acquaint yourselves with the immortal King; and do not recognise those men as heroes who slaughter whole nations. For our own Ruler, the Divine Logos, who even now constantly aids us, does not desire strength of body and beauty of feature, nor yet the high spirit of earth's nobility, but a pure soul, fortified by holiness, and the watchwords of our King, holy actions, for through the Word power passes into the soul. O trumpet of peace to the soul that is at war! O weapon that puttest to flight terrible passions! O instruction that quenches the innate fire of the soul! The Logos exercises an influence which does not make poets: it does not equip philosophers nor skilled orators, but by its instruction it makes mortals immortal, mortals gods; and from the earth transports them to the realms above Olympus. Come, be taught; become as I am, for I, too, was as ye are. These have conquered me--the divinity of the instruction, and the power of the Word: for as a skilled serpent-charmer lures the terrible reptile from his den and causes it to flee, so the Word drives the fearful passions of our sensual nature from the very recesses of the soul; first driving forth lust, through which every ill is begotten--hatreds, strife, envy, emulations, anger, and such like. Lust being once banished, the soul becomes calm and serene. And being set free from the ills in which it was sunk up to the neck, it returns to Him who made it. For it is fit that it be restored to that state whence it departed, whence every soul was or is.

It certainly sounds like a veiled reference to an earthly king (remember the discourse is addressed to Greeks not Jews who would not be familiar with the Jewish identification of God as King). Yet for the moment, let's stop short of trying to PROVE that Flavius Justinus was Flavius Justus, the secretary of Agrippa.

It is at least worth considering that Polycarp's acknowledged 'reworking' of a pre-existent Christian tradition necessarily required a messianic Jewish scriptural interpretation already rooted in Greek philosophy.

Polycarp couldn't have invented this from scratch. It would have looked too contrived.

The point is that Polycarp's re-orientation of the pre-existent Alexandrian tradition of Mark (already suspected of being subversive in the Antonine period) occurred by arguing that there was a 'truer' understanding of John Mark at Ephesus than that which was deemed 'authoritative' at Alexandria.

This is the ultimate logic of Polycarp. It should be obvious now to my regular readers that this gateway - notice John Mark as the 'glue' which holds together the churches of 'Peter' and 'Paul' in Acts - through which Irenaeus eventually managed to subvert Alexandrian authority in favor of an (invented) argument in favor of Roman (and Petrine) primacy.

Just think about it. That's all (I ever) ask of my readers. The rest will come to you if you are open enough to receive it.