Polycrates - incredible example of myopia of modern writers missing the historical discussion

Steven Avery

Administrator
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Pure Bible Forum

Polycrates - incredible example of myopia of modern writers missing the historical discussion
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...iters-missing-the-historical-discussion.1761/

Polycrates speaks about John as high priest - Richard Bauckham analysis
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...s-high-priest-richard-bauckham-analysis.1503/

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This comes out of a discussion with Dean Furlong.

We noticed the robustness of the 1700s discussions.

The modern writers are pretty much having the same discussion, without acknowledging the history.

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Dean Furlong

Dean Furlong has a chapter on the Polycrates ref in his dissertation, and two chapters in the book John also Called Mark.
"Hippolytus' Ode on the Scriptures is important too with regard to the petalon, as well as the references to Mark as a priest wearing the petalon. And Epiphanius refers to James as a priest wearing the petalon too."
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
And I am not attempting to find the Latin writers not translated or referenced in English.

Richard Bauckham will be an example of the modern writers.
(Giving him credit for at least contributing to the discussion.)

A true narration of all the passages of the proceedings in the Generall Assembly of the Church of Scotland holden at Perth, the 25 of August ... 1618, etc (1621)
David Lindsay
https://books.google.com/books?id=rQ9lAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA2-PA53
David Lindsay (c. 1575-1641)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lindsay_(bishop_of_Edinburgh)

Two treatises. The first, concerning reproaching and censure. The second, an answer to Mr Serjeant's Surefooting. To which are annexed three sermons preached upon several occasions, etc. [Edited by W. Sherlock.], Volume 2 (1684)
William Falkner
https://books.google.com/books?id=Mrw1pE9QyPAC&pg=PA544
William Falkner (d. 1682)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Falkner_(divine)
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Two Treatises, One of the Christian Priesthood the Other of the Dignity of the Episcopal Order: Formerly Written, and Now Published to Obviate the Erroneous Opinions ... in a Late Book, Entituled, The Rights of the Christian Church [by M. Tindal] With a Large Prefatory Discourse, Wherein is Contained an Answer to the Said Book (1707)
Georges Hickes
https://books.google.com/books?id=9pNEDSGaG4cC&pg=PA143
George Hickes (1642-1715)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hickes

Nathaniel Lardner was very good in his 1753 book.

The Credibility of the Gospel History, Volume 2 (1753)
by Nathaniel Lardner
https://books.google.com/books?id=qoNbAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA107
https://books.google.com/books?id=6H49AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA449 - 1838 edition
Nathaniel Lardner (1684-1768)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Lardner

And Valerius supposes that St. John actually wore such a plate; which supposition is fully confuted, and ridiculed as it deserves, by E. S. Cyprian, in his notes upon that chapter of Jerom’s Catalogue. Me thinks that Polycrates speaks figuratively ; not that St. John really wore a golden plate as the Jewish high-priest did; but that he had a like authority among Christians; and that his rule or practice, about the time of keeping Easter, was decisive. ... By Witsius this story is considered as false, without so much as the appearance of truth or probability. Le Clerc was inclined to think, that Polycrates spoke allusively and figuratively. F. A. Lamper approves of Solomon Cyprian’s arguments, and calls this story a mere fable, and though the literal sense of the words be very absurd, yet he conceives it may be the true meaning of Polycrates. Dr. Heumann takes a quite different course, and proposes this ingenious observation: That the priest bearing a plate, intended by Polycrates, is not John, but Jesus Christ; and that his Greek, as preserved in Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, ought to be translated after this manner; “And John, who leaned on the Lord’s breast, (who was made priest, bearing a plate,) and was a witness, and master,” or rather, “ And John, that witness and master, who lay in the Lord’s bosom, who was made priest, bearing a golden plate.”

The variety of views and analysis mentioned here by Nathaniel Lardner really caught our attention!
The moderns give the same variety.

Valerius
Agostino Valier (1531-1606)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agostino_Valier

Ernst Salomon Cyprian (1673-1745)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Salomon_Cyprian

Hermann Witsius (1636-1708)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Witsius

Jean Le Clerc (1657-1736)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Leclerc_(theologian)

Friedrich Adolf Lampe (1683-1729)
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Adolf_Lampe

Christoph August Heumann (1681-1764)
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christoph_August_Heumann
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
PBF
Polycrates - incredible example of myopia of modern writers missing the historical discussion
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...iters-missing-the-historical-discussion.1761/

PBF
Polycrates speaks about John as high priest - Richard Bauckham analysis
https://purebibleforum.com/index.ph...s-high-priest-richard-bauckham-analysis.1503/

PBF
interconnected foundation - Theophilus, early dating, Lukan historicity, internal refs as scripture, eyewitnesses and more - Polycrates - Bauckham Puigdollers - Heimerdinger
https://purebibleforum.com/index.ph...refs-as-scripture-eyewitnesses-and-more.1073/

PBF
high priest motifs in the 2nd century - Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...n-the-2nd-century-daniel-stökl-ben-ezra.1509/

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Steven Avery

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Early Church Writers

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Eusebius

Hippolytus' Ode on the Scriptures is important too with regard to the petalon, as well as the references to Mark as a priest wearing the petalon.

Epiphanius refers to James as a priest wearing the petalon too.

Jerome
http://books.google.com/books?id=RTswAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA372

Polycrates of Ephesus (/pəˈlɪkrəˌtiːz/; Greek: Πολυκράτης; fl. c. 130 – 196)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycrates_of_Ephesus

Letter to Pope St. Victor
https://books.google.com/books?id=l62q-d4Wi20C&pg=PA82

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The John also called Mark: Reception and Transformation in Christian Tradition (2020)
Dean Furlong
https://books.google.com/books?id=5uXmDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA142

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More can be added !

Dissertation

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John 18:15-16 (AV)
And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple:
that disciple was known unto the high priest,
and went in with Jesus into the palace of the high priest.
But Peter stood at the door without.
Then went out that other disciple,
which was known unto the high priest,
and spake unto her that kept the door,
and brought in Peter.


Commentary on the Disciple known to the High Priest
William Kelly
An Exposition of the Gospel of John
https://books.google.com/books?id=cb2RHDaoBpYC&pg=PA532
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Chrysostom
Cyril
Augustine

Acts 4:6 (AV)
And Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander,
and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest,
were gathered together at Jerusalem
.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Heinrich Karl Hugo Delff- (1840-1898)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Delff
books
http://archive.org/search.php?query=creator:"Delff, H. K. Hugo (Heinrich Karl Hugo), 1840-1898"
Referenced by
Sanday, Stanton, Peake, Garvie, William Kelly, Rigg, Eisler, John Behr, Bauckham

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Richard Bauckham
https://books.google.com/books?id=QQzjDM_L7-oC&pg=PA48

Sanday gives pubs here

The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel: Eight Lectures (1905)
https://books.google.com/books?id=jCdWAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA17
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Was John the Son of Zebedee a Priest? (1909)
A. E. Johnston
https://www.jstor.org/stable/30066959

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The enigma of the Fourth gospel, its author and its writer (1938)
by Eisler, Robert, 1882-1949
the earlier section is more on Theophilus
https://archive.org/stream/MN41506ucmf_0#page/n77/mode/2up
Starts at p. 102,
https://archive.org/details/MN41506ucmf_0/page/n73/mode/2up
the earlier section is more on Theophilus
Robert Eisler (1882-1949)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Eisler
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Now here is a letter of the greatest solemnity, written by the bishop of the diocese, which was or became very soon the Metropolitan See of Asia, addressed to the Pope of Rome, in which every word may be supposed to have been weighed and pondered upon and chosen with the greatest care: in it Philip is introduced as ‘one of the twelve Apostles’, but John is not! The reader may say: John is given a higher title: ‘he who lay on
the Lord’s breast’. But the two titles might so easily have been juxtaposed without difficulty by saying, e.g. ‘the one from among the Twelve who leaned against the Lord’s bosom’! Yet, in an enumeration meant to cumulate all the titles to glory of Asia, this one is omitted. Still, this is admittedly again a purely negative observation.

....

Or have we not rather candidly to admit the unavoidable conclusion—first drawn by the late Dr. Hugo Delff of Husum (PI. VI)—that Polycrates could no more dream of identifying the Ephesian John, ‘who had been a ruling high-priest and a rabbi’ (Greek), with the ‘illiterate and unlearned’ fisherman of Galilee, than a modern English writer, speaking of a member of the Royal Family buried in Westminster Abbey, could be imagined to refer with these same words to a former herring-fisher who had plied his trade in Yarmouth ?

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Richard Bauckham (see above)

Richard Bauckham, "Papias and Polycrates on the Origin of the Fourth Gospel," Journal of Theological Studies 44.1 (1993): 24-69.
https://academic.oup.com/jts/article-abstract/44/1/24/1656239?redirectedFrom=PDF

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John, the Son of Zebedee: The Life of a Legend (1994)
R. Alan Culpepper
https://books.google.com/books?id=-6O2UTnPrMQC

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The Temple of Jesus' Body: The Temple Theme in the Gospel of John (2002)
Alan Kerr
https://books.google.com/books?id=FNcdx-E-bYsC
https://www.amazon.com/Temple-Jesus-Body-Library-Testament/dp/1841272620
p. 17-19

rebuttal to Richard Bauckham ref from Kenneth Steven Brown

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Temple Christology in the Gospel of John: Replacement Theology and Jesus as the Self-Revelation of God (MA Thesis) (2010)
Kenneth Steven Brown
https://www.researchgate.net/public...Jesus_as_the_Self-Revelation_of_God_MA_Thesis

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John’s Priestly πέταλον in Polycrates (2013)
Peter Kirby
http://peterkirby.com/johns-priestly-petalon-in-polycrates.html

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Polycrates of Ephesus
Ben C. Smith
http://www.textexcavation.com/polycrates.html

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John the Theologian and his Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology (2019)
John Behr
https://books.google.com/books?id=6u-MDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA95

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Steven Avery

Administrator
Sermons and Essays on the Apostolical Age
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley
https://books.google.com/books?id=OWtAAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA283 - 1847
https://books.google.com/books?id=qy60RUELCfwC&pg=PA275 - 1874
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815-1881)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Penrhyn_Stanley

The Revelation of St John: Expounded for Those who Search the Scriptures (1853 English edition)
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
https://books.google.com/books?id=w5EXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA496
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg (1802-1869)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Wilhelm_Hengstenberg

The Free Church of Ancient Christendom, and Its Subjugation Under Constantine (1852)
Basil Henry Cooper (1783-1823)
https://books.google.com/books?id=capdAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA248
ref to Hengstenberg

The first and second Advent: or, The past and the future with reference to the Jew, the gentile, and the Church of God(1858)
Bourchier Wrey Savile
https://books.google.com/books?id=rD1VAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA106
Bourchier Wrey Savile (1817-1888)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourchier_Wrey_Savile
The Neanderthal skull on evolution, in an address supposed to be delivered A.D. 2085, with three illustrations (1885)
https://archive.org/details/neanderthalskull00saviuoft/page/n4/mode/2up
The truth of the Bible : evidence from the Mosaic and other records of creation : the origin and antiquity of man : the science of Scripture : and from the archaeology of different nations of the earth (1871)
https://archive.org/details/truthofbibleevid00savi/page/n6/mode/2up
Paul in England
https://books.google.com/books?id=A_kIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA368
The Introduction of Christianity Into Britain: An Argument on the Evidence in Favour of St. Paul Having Visited the Extreme Boundary of the West (1861) (2013 edition)
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Christianity-Into-Britain-Argument/dp/1371183597

Short notes on st. John's Gospel (1861)
Henry Downing (1817-1871)
https://books.google.com/books?id=UIAEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP10

A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical (1871)
Johann Peter Lange
https://books.google.com/books?id=d5lBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA11
Johann Peter Lange (1902-1884)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Peter_Lange

St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians (1874)
Joseph Barber Lightfoot
https://books.google.com/books?id=FOZJAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA345
Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1889)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._Lightfoot

Supernatural Religion: The Synoptic gospels (continued). The Fourth gospel (1874)
Walter Richard Cassels
https://books.google.com/books?id=UsJAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA427
Walter Richard Cassels (1826-1907)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Richard_Cassels

Commentary on the Gospel of St. John (1876)
Frédéric Louis Godet -
https://books.google.com/books?id=F38sAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA60
Frédéric Louis Godet (1812-1890_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frédéric_Louis_Godet
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The Gospel of st. John, its authorship and authenticity - (1877)
William Caesar
https://books.google.com/books?id=-qssAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA33

A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (1880)
Robert Sinker
https://books.google.com/books?id=omMaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1214

The Holy Bible, According to the Authorized Version (A.D. 1611): Hebrews-The Revelation of St. John (1881)
Frederic Charles Cook
https://books.google.com/books?id=64UXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA414
Frederic Charles Cook (1804-1889)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Charles_Cook

The Gospel according to s. John, with notes and intr (1881)
Alfred Plummer
https://books.google.com/books?id=PpwCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA14
Alfred Plummer (1841-1926)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Plummer

The Gospel According to St John: The Authorised Version with Introduction (1882) 1889 edition
Brooke Westcott
https://books.google.com/books?id=1AHxIz0VzgsC&pg=PR34 (1889 edition)
The Gospel according to St. John: the Greek text with introduction and notes (1908)
https://books.google.com/books?id=f-bYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PR71
Brooke Westcott (1825-1901)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke_Foss_Westcott

The Theology of Christ, from His Own Words (1885)
Joseph Parish Thompson
https://books.google.com/books?id=H18XAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA271
Joseph Parish Thompson (1818-1879)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Parrish_Thompson

The Gospel of St. John: An Exposition Exegetical and Homiletical, for the Use of Clergymen, Students, and Teachers (1888)
Thomas Whitelaw
https://books.google.com/books?id=_Z09AAAAYAAJ&pg=PR51
Thomas Whitelaw (1840-1917)
https://oxford.universitypressschol...64832.001.0001/acprof-9780199664832-chapter-3
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
THREEFOLD IDENTIFICATION

Bauckham

Delff
Sanday
Burkitt
Hengel

Burney
J. Colson

the threefold identification of John the Elder with the author of the Gospel and with the beloved disciple has only rarely been proposed before Hengel. Hengel himself refers to no precedents for it,10 and I know of only three:

the arguments of H. Delff11 (though he distinguished the beloved disciple s work from extensive later interpolations), C. F. Burney12 (whose case was only very briefly argued), and J. Colson.13 In the period when authorship of the Gospel by John the Elder was quite often canvassed, the possibility that he could also be the beloved disciple was rarely raised even though it was usually rightly recognized that, according to Papias, he had been a personal disciple of Jesus. This seems to have been because of the continuing strength of the view that the evidence of the Gospel itself indicates the identification of the beloved disciple with John the son of Zebedee. In English scholarship at least, this view was very widely accepted well into this century as a result of Westcott's famous case for it.14 B. H. Streeter, who in England especially espoused the cause of John the Elders authorship of the Gospel, also regarded the identification of the beloved disciple with John the


11. H. K. H. Delff, Die Gescbichte des Rabbi Jesus von Nazareth (Leipzig: W. Friedrich, 1889); idem, Das vierte Evangelium: Ein authentischer Bericht uber Jesus von Nazareth (Husum: C. F. Delft, 1890). Delff was followed rather tentatively by

W. Sanday, The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1905), 17-18,98-99;

F. C. Burkitt, We Gospel History and Its Transmission (Edinburgh: T. &T. Clark, 1911), 247-55.

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