Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 12.14 02/04/99 -0500, peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG wrote:
>Well, I was not trying to make Theophilus an orthodox Trinitarian 
>(anachronism? not by John Ronning's explanation) Christian. I am just 
>suggesting that on this particular issue his interpretation matches 
>the later "orthodox" one, thus disproving any suggestions that that 
>was an invention of Athanasius or others in the fourth century.

The road to the conflict between the Arians and the Athanasians was long
though seemingly inevitable, given the choices found along the way,
steering away from the Docetics and the Gnostics, sailing through Justin's
two god theology... (and mixing metaphors well and truly).

Here again is a cut from Theoph.2,10, which is more binatarian:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
God, then, having His own word internal within His own bowels, begat him,
emitting him along with His own wisdom before all things. He had this word
as a helper in the things that were created by Him, and by him He made all
things. He is called "governing principle", because he rules, and is lord
of all things fashioned by Him. He, then, being Spirit of God, and
governing principle, and wisdom, and power of the highest, came down upon
the prophets, and through them spoke of the creation of the world and of
all other things.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Justin makes the distinction between "the first-birth of God" (Apol. Ch21),
"His word and first-begotten" (Ch 23), and "the Unbegotten God" (Ch 49), a
distinction that should be plain: there was a time when the word was not.
Dan-Ake Mattson was clearly right when he pointed the finger at Athanasius,
for it is his manipulation of the text that has influenced later
interpretation, but prior interpretation does not support the arbitrary
translation sometimes found in Col 1:15.

>I admit to not knowing much about this Theophilus. But I do know that 
>in the 2nd century there was a gnostic movement with a partially 
>Christian basis. Does Theophilus fit in there? 

It doesn't fit into any form of gnosticism I know. I have tried to classify
his position as a mixture of Judaism and Platonism under the title
"Christian", related in the text to anointing. There is nothing I can see
that is perceivably gnostic in the text.

Paul mentions the fact that there were numerous gospels being preached in
his era. Bauer's analysis of the state of the religion in the second
century was "heterodox". (Just remember the mixture of people found
acceptable to the Roman church -- at least for a while -- including
Basilides, Valentinus and Marcion.) It's hard to find evidence of the
gospel (as became orthodox) in Theophilus at all, but the text seems
representative of a current within the early religion, as seen in its
similarities with Athenagoras and Minucius Felix, and seems to reach back
to the same current found in Philo. (I don't wish to say that they are
derived from Philo, but that Philo himself was not writing in a vacuum.)

>If so, that would 
>explain his thinking. First Paul says Jesus=firstborn, 

Colossians says so, though a strong scholarly contingent does not support
Paul's authorship of that text. (Colossians does after all have the notion
well-ingrained of the single church and is aware of gnosticism.)

>and John says Jesus=logos. The next generation (by simple mathematics!)
makes 
>firstborn=logos (is there any evidence of this in the earliest 
>post-biblical Christian writers, the "Apostolic Fathers", does anyone 
>know?). 

I think it's sufficient that Philo has already made the connection, and
then that was before any of the Christian writers -- including Paul.

>Then the gnostics want to move to a more spiritualised 
>teaching, and so they keep firstborn=logos but reject the equation 
>with a particular man Jesus. Now how this ties up with Philo I don't 
>know. Maybe not at all. But then I am far from an expert here.

Neither am I an expert, but it would seem that Platonic thought is the
thread that stitches it all together, not gnosticism.


Ian