Cerdo and Cerinthus
Cerdo (or Cerdon) is the name of two people in the early second century in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. The first Cerdo is a bishop of Alexandria who held the chair from about 99-110:
3.21.1
. After Nerva had reigned a little more than a year he was succeeded by Trajan. It was during the first year of his reign that Abilius, who had ruled the church of Alexandria for thirteen years, was succeeded by Cerdon.4.1.1. About the twelfth year of the reign of Trajan the above-mentioned bishop of the parish of Alexandria died, and Primus, the fourth in succession from the apostles, was chosen to the office.
The other is a heretical teacher of Marcion, who came to Rome around 140:
4.11.1. "For Valentinus came to Rome under Hyginus, flourished under Pius, and remained until Anicetus. Cerdon also, Marcion's predecessor, entered the Church in the time of Hyginus, the ninth bishop, and made confession, and continued in this way, now teaching in secret, now making confession again, and now denounced for corrupt doctrine and withdrawing from the assembly of the brethren." 2. These words are found in the third book of the work Against Heresies. And again in the first book he speaks as follows concerning Cerdon: "A certain Cerdon, who had taken his system from the followers of Simon, and had come to Rome under Hyginus, the ninth in the episcopal succession from the apostles, taught that the God proclaimed by the law and prophets was not the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former was known, but the latter unknown; and the former was just, but the latter good. Marcion of Pontus succeeded Cerdon and developed his doctrine, uttering shameless blasphemies."
It is generally thought that Eusebius's sources for the episcopal succession of Alexandria are incomplete or inaccurate (e.g. no dates as in Rome), and the death of Cerdo may well be an inference from the succession of Primus. Thus, it is possible for these two people to be one and the same.
Furthermore, Cerdo appears to mean "wily" or "desiring of gain" in Greek. Is this a derogatory nickname for polemical purposes? If so, is the real target Cerinthus? Now, Cerinthus, whose name sounds somewhat similar, did live around the same time and may have been in Egypt if we can trust Hippolytus. Also, there are theological similarities between Cerinthus and Marcion, see C.E. Hill, "Cerinthus: Gnostic or Chiliast? A New solution to an old problem," Journal of Early Christian Studies 8 (2000): 135-172.
All this is admittedly speculative until the evidence can be amassed, but there's a reason why this blog is called Hypotyposeis: Sketches in Biblical Studies.
André Lemaire on the James Ossuary
André Lemaire, Ossuary Update: Israeli Antiquities Authority's Report Deeply Flawed, concludes:
Surely, the explanation for the patina as a result of a modern cleaning (or cleanings) is at least plausible. In fact, this explanation has been espoused by two previous materials examinations, one by the Israel Geological Survey and the other by the ROM. Their studies, however, were not mentioned by the IAA committee.
For all these reasons, I’m afraid little confidence can be placed in the IAA’s conclusion on the ossuary.
The problem with the uncontested finding of a modern cleaning is that there is nothing left of the physical evidence for the antiquity of the inscription. As I argued earlier, the initial IGS report was insufficient to authenticate the inscription in the first place. The status quo ante therefore continues to be that the James ossuary is yet to be validly authenticated, so Lemaire's finding that "little confidence can be placed in the IAA's conclusion" is not a substitute for actual physical evidence.
Furthermore, the collector of the artifact does not get the benefit of the doubt for the modern cleaning. As a collector, he should have known that cleaning the inscription is a spoilation of the only evidence that could have established the antiquity of the inscription, and the most reasonable inference of this, given the object's provenance, is that the inscription is modern. The modern cleaning is like finding an unknown Da Vinci, taking a photograph of it, digitally retouching it, destroying the painting, and trying to pass off the admittedly touched up photograph as the only surviving evidence of the Da Vinci. It just does not pass the smell test.
Given the shortness of the inscription, the materials, not epigraphical, evidence is dispositive. Lemaire is the one who originally authenticated the epigraphy of the inscription, but if the inscription can be authenticated by contemporary resources, the inscription can also be concocted by the same contemporary resources. In fact, Lemaire may even have been the primary target of the forgery. Despite my high regard of Lemaire's expertise in general, it is clear that he is no longer a disinterested expert in this case: he put his reputation on the line. It is always a coup for a crook to get his own victim to defend him.
A Plea for On-line Reprints of Academic Articles
If your contract with your publisher permits it, please put your reprints on-line. See Online or Invisible? [Steve Lawrence; NEC Research Institute]: "Articles freely available online are more highly cited. For greater impact and faster scientific progress, authors and publishers should aim to make research easy to access."
Even if for copyright reasons you cannot put the whole article on-line, at least put an abstract.
Pun in the Muratorian Canon?
The Muratorian Fragment has a brief remark, fel enim cum melle misceri non congruit "for it is not fitting to mix gall with honey."
Although the Muratorian Fragment lists several second century heretics, it does not list Cerinthus, the heresiarch against whom Irenaeus claimed that the Gospel according to John was written. Cerinthus means "bee-bread," which Pliny Natural History 11, 17 explains as having a bitter taste : Praeter haec convehitur erithace, quam aliqui sandaracam, alii cerinthum vocant. hic erit apium dum operantur cibus, qui saepe invenitur in favorum inanitatibus sepositus, et ipse amari saporis.
Fel "gall" was commonly used as a generic term for a bitter-tasting item, and bee-bread, called "cerinthus," is a mixture of (bitter) pollen and honey. Thus, the mixture of gall and honey may well be a pun on Cerinthus.
Do all roads lead to Hierapolis?
When looking at the history of the canonical gospels in the second century, one thing that strikes me is that the person of Papias comes up time and time again.
Papias was a contemporary of Polycarp of Smyrna (~70-155) and flourished in the early second century at Hierapolis, Phrygia now Pamakkale, Turkey. He wrote a five-volume treatise called Expositions of the Lord's Oracles, which unfortunately has been almost entirely lost except for a few fragments perserved by later writers.
What little that has survived, however, shows that he was among the earliest to comment on the origins of the gospels. For example, Eusebius, Hist. eccl.3.39.15-16, quoted these comments of his on Mark and Matthew:
15 And the presbyter would say this: Mark, who had indeed been Peter's interpreter, accurately wrote as much as he remembered, yet not in order, about that which was either said or did by the Lord. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but later, as I said, Peter, who would make the teachings anecdotally but not exactly an arrangement of the Lord's reports, so that Mark did not fail by writing certain things as he recalled. For he had one purpose, not to omit what he heard or falsify them.Although nothing directly touching Luke and John remains, the terminology of these notices is very reminiscent of Luke's prologue. Futher, Papias knew an Elder John, who appears to be the same person as the writer of 2-3 John. If we follow the Bauckham-Hengel hypothesis, this Elder John is also the author of 1 John, the Fourth Evangelist, and the Beloved Disciple.
16 Now this is reported by Papias about Mark, but about Matthew this was said, Now Matthew compiled the reports in a Hebrew manner of speech, but each interpreted them as he could.
There are three important textual issues among the gospels: the long ending of Mark (16:9-20), the story of the adulteress (John 7:53-8:11), and John 21. Despite the fact that only a few fragments of Papias have survived, there are indications that Papias has some role in each one. For the long ending of Mark, an Armenian manuscript apparently names Ariston as the author. Little is known of this Ariston, except that an Artistion is one Papias's sources. The story of the adulteress may be connected to the account Eusebius related (Hist. eccl. 3.39.17) that was found in Papias: a "story about a woman who was accused of many sins before the Lord, which the Gospel according to the Hebrews contains." Finally, many scholars suspect John 21 is an addendum added by a "school of John," and if we can take Irenaeus's notices seriously, Papias would have been a member of this school.
Papias's association with the earliest traditions of the writers of the canonical gospels and his connection to today's text critical issues show just how important he is to our study of the origin of the gospels.
What about the Synoptic Problem?
Those familiar with my main website, The Synoptic Problem Home Page, may be surprised to see such an emphasis on patristics in Hypotyposeis instead of on synoptic source criticism. The reason for this is that I've been exploring a different angle on approaching the synoptic problem: through the reception history of the gospels.
The aspect that has struck me the most about the contemporary treatment of the synoptic problem is that the 20th century's emphasis on methodology has by-passed synoptic source criticism. In virtually every other kind of contemporary Biblical criticism, methodological questions have been paramount, but they are strangely ignored when it comes to presenting the "settled" results of the synoptic problem. The problem, of course, is the "settled." The two-source theory (Mark, Q) has been the dominant solution for well over a hundred years and had been established well before the methodological focus of the 20th century came to be appreciated. This means that one of the foundations of contemporary scholarship has never really been adequately reassessed from a comprehensive and rigorous, methodological perspective.
In particular, as one can see by juxtaposing the views of John Kloppenborg Verbin (Excavating Q) and Mark Goodacre (The Case Against Q), a crucial issue is how to decide whether and in what circumstances it is necessary to postulate a hypothetical document as part of an explanation for the composition of the synoptic gospels. My own sense is that the plausibility of purported hypothetical sources is not be found in abstract notions such as Occam's Razor or having to explain all anomalies in the data, but in how they cohere with our understanding of the historical background in which the gospels emerged. Since this historical background understanding is almost never explicitly articulated and assumed sub silentio, it is no wonder why debates in the synoptic problem seem to go nowhere: the participants often do not share the same background assumptions.
So, my basic idea is that if we knew more about what was happening with the gospels in the 100 years between their composition and Irenaeus's exposition of the four-fold gospel, we can be in a much better position to evaluate the plausibility of various hypothetical source scenarios. This is why I've been putting more emphasis on what is happening in the second and third centuries, including: developing critical methods for evaluating patristic traditions on the origins of the gospels; employing textual and canon criticism for obtaining insights on the transmission of the gospels; and integrating what the Gospel of John as well as non-canonical gospel materials can tell us about the synoptics.
