Saturday, August 28, 2010

Apparently We Can Add the Name of Symmachus to the List of Early Christians Who Penned 'υπομνηματα'

Let's start a list of early Christians identified as having written a υπομνηματα

1. the apostles (Justin I Apol. 66.3)
2. Peter (Justin Dial. 103; Clement Theod. 1.19)
3. Mark (Clement Theod. 1.19; Papias HE 3.39.15-16 = apomnemoneumata)
4. Hegesippus (Eusebius HE 4.22.4)
5. Polycarp (According to Eusebius, HE 5, 8, 8, Irenaeus quotes from the 'apomnemoneumata of a certain apostolic presbyter whose name he passes by in silence and gives his exposition of Sacred Scripture' cf. Adv.Haer. 4, 23, if., cf. 4, 28, 1; 30, 1; 31, 1; 32, 1), without giving the name; Eusebius, Dem. evang. 3, 6, 2). Hill identifies the unnamed presbyter as Polycarp.
6. Symmachus (Eusebius, HE 6.17)
7. Pantaenus (Ecl. Prop. 56.2; Eusebius HE 5.10.4)
8. Heracleon (Origen Com. Jn. 6.92)
9. Clement (Strom. 1.1)
10. Ambrose, patron of Origen (so Cureton Spicilegium Syriacum p. xii) = Ps-Justin Oratio

And now the citation of Symmachus's υπομνηματα:

As to these translators it should be stated that Symmachus was an Ebionite. But the heresy of the Ebionites, as it is called, asserts that Christ was the son of Joseph and Mary, considering him a mere man, and insists strongly on keeping the law in a Jewish manner, as we have seen already in this history. Commentaries of Symmachus are still extant in which he appears to support this heresy by attacking the Gospel of Matthew. Origen states that he obtained these and other commentaries of Symmachus on the Scriptures from a certain Juliana, who, he says, received the books by inheritance from Symmachus himself. [Jerome, De Viris Illustribus, chapter 54]

The υπομνηματα clearly represent a genre in Christianity not merely 'notes' or 'memoirs.' When are people going to wake up?


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