Paidion wrote:
My understanding of a misquotation is ascribing to someone words which he didn't say. Did I do that in my quote of Justin? It wasn't meant to be a precise quotation. I quoted it from memory. Is the precise quotation significantly different?
A misquotation includes omission of important context: in this case, Justin said that these people who were not true Christians both denied the resurrection
and taught that the souls go direct to heaven. You made the quote say that those teaching ONLY that souls go to heaven are not true Christians. However, he did not say this, and we know from other sources that some Christians did hold this.
Furthermore, you claim that you quoted this from memory, however the words match exactly the standard Ante-Nicene translation. Therefore, I submit that you did not quote them from memory, but that you copied them, either already in the misquoted form (including some ellipses while omitting others), or that you omitted the pertinent part yourself.
Maybe not. But it provides evidence as to what the regular Christians did NOT hold, since Justin asks his listeners not to regard those who say that their souls are taken to heaven when they die, as even BEING Christians.
No, this is what your quotation says. What Justin actually said is that those who both
deny the resurrection, and teach that souls go direct to heaven, are not true Christians. We know from Irenaeus that some Christians did teach that the soul goes to heaven, but still held a future resurrection. This is my point - you have misquoted Justin and drawn from this misquotation an unjustified conclusion. Nothing more, nothing less.
Is this supposed to be new information? Have I not said in your quote of me that this [souls going to heaven at death] was the position of gnostics,
Yes, it is new information - it is the fact that those not considered Christians denied the resurrection. You omitted this vital piece of information. He is NOT talking of Christians who believe souls go to heaven but hold the resurrection, whom we know existed, and who may well have been the 'regular Christians' for all we know.
If our souls exist separately from our body, "drop this robe of flesh" at death, and "fly away" to heaven, then what need is there of a bodily resurrection? Why not live happily in heaven as disembodied spirits or as souls with some sort of ethereal body?
You are now dealing with the issue of whether Justin's view on life after death is correct or not. That is not an issue I have addressed. I have dealt with the historical claims you have made when you misquoted him and drew from this misquotation unwarranted conclusions. We know from Irenaeus that such Christians did exist. Whether they were right or wrong is a completely different question.
How does this quote from the second apology show that Justin “abandoned this teaching”, that is his hope in the resurrection rather than the gnostic idea of the “soul” going to heaven at death? Is it simply the words that Justin wrote concerning Lucius that he knew he was delivered from such wicked rulers and was going to the Father and King of the heavens? I could say the same of myself, that is, that I am about to go to the Father, if I knew I was about to die. For that's the next thing of which I will be aware.
Whether Justin could have stated that a believer was going to the Father, the king of the Heavens, if they believed in soul-sleep and rejected the view that souls go to heaven when they die, I will leave for others to judge. I am not writing to try to convince you of anything, nor would I try. However this is an area I have done some research on and so I cannot allow your misrepresentation of Justin to pass without any comment. I am of the opinion that this is indeed evidence (though not the only evidence) of a change in his views, but let everyone be persuaded in their own mind.
I found nothing relating to the topic in Book V Chapter 30.
In Chapter 30, I found that he said that “some who are reckoned among the orthodox ... hold heretical opinons. He says that “not admitting the salvation of their flesh while they treat the promise of God contemptuously ... affirm that immediately upon their death they shall pass above the heavens and the Demiurge [creator] and go to the Mother (Achamoth) or to the Father they have feigned.”
Clearly, Irenaeus is speaking about gnostics, who “feign” a Father different from Yahweh, whom (they said) thought he was the supremed God but was mistaken. According to the gnostics the true supreme God is the Father of Christ who has created the spiritual world instead of the physical one which the “god of the Jews” created. This is the “Father” whom Irenaeus says they “feigned”.
These people are reckoned among the orthodox. Irenaeus thinks they hold heretical views of the afterlife because they hold that the soul goes to heaven, and not that it goes to Hades, as Irenaeus had learned from Papias. Irenaeus disthinguishes between the orthodox who hold that souls go to heaven, and the gnostics whose views he thinks they are partially holding. You cannot confound these two groups. This is very clear from the context and shouldn't even be a matter of debate:
Since, again, some who are reckoned among the orthodox go beyond the pre-arranged plan for the exaltation of the just, and are ignorant of the methods by which they are disciplined beforehand for incorruption, they thus entertain heretical opinions. For the heretics, despising the handiwork of God, and not admitting the salvation of their flesh, while they also treat the promise of God contemptuously, and pass beyond God altogether in the sentiments they form, affirm that immediately upon their death they shall pass above the heavens and the Demiurge, and go to the Mother (Achamoth) or to that Father whom they have feigned.
Thought Irenaeus seemed to have believed human souls can exist apart from their bodies in “the invisible place allotted to them by God” prior to the resurrection, he clearly did not believe that such souls went directly to heaven at death.
Yes, interesting isn't it - no-one is on record as holding your view.
