Behold the Man!: Christ in the Iliad, Classical Greek Drama, Plato, and Greek Literature from Herculaneum

By J. Marc. Merrill

The Greek word translated as Socrates is actually a compound that means save from death and power over, so the intent of the compound is to point to one who has power over life and deathand that one is Christ.

Harold North Fowler, in his introduction to The Apology, says that the high moral character and genuine religious faith of Socrates are made abundantly clear throughout this whole discourse. It would seem almost incredible that the Athenian court voted for his condemnation, if we did not know the fact.

When we keep in mind the true intent of the compound translated as Socrates then we can be certain that it was not the Athenian court that voted for the condemnation and death of this man with a high moral character but rather a multitude of people who were influenced by the members of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.

BEHOLD THE MAN! reveals how inaccurate and misleading English translations have been of ancient Greek literature and the author makes a compelling case for Christ being at the center of THE ILIAD, CLASSICAL GREEK DRAMA, PLATO, AND GREEK LITERATURE FROM HERCULANEUM.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491807385

J. Marc. Merrill

J. Marc. Merrill began writing at the age of 14, starting with short stories, then novels, stage plays and screenplays. He has taught English—both composition and literature—at five colleges, including Arizona State Unirversity and Kauai Community College in Hawaii. He retired in 1999 in order to have more time to do research and to write. Thirteen years later he published the two volumes of Books Written in Stone: Enoch the Seer, the Pyramids of Giza, and the Last Days; the two volumes of Building Bridges of Time, Places, and People: Tombs, Temples & Cities of Egypt, Israel, Greece & Italy; From Coolidge to Kauai, a collection of stories; as well as four novels: Jane Austen in Time, Espana!, From Nauvoo to Carthage, and Wracked.

Book preview

THE HEBREW ALPHABET

The Hebrew alphabet is comprised of twenty-two letters, all consonants. For the letters themselves, see page 11 of Biblical Hebrew by R. K. Harrison, or the Table of Alphabets in The American Heritage College Dictionary.

THE GREEK ALPHABET

Two of the Greek letters became lost over time: stigma, which is also called digamma by Alexander and Nicholas Humez in Alpha to Omega: The Life & Times of the Greek Alphabet, had the numerical value of 6, while koppa had the value of 90 (187-188).

PART ONE

GREEK LITERATURE FROM HERCULANEUM

1

PHILODEMUS: THE BELOVED PEOPLE

P hilodemus in Italy: The Books from Herculaneum by Marcello Gigante examines the ancient library that was discovered in the so-called Villa of the Papyri located just outside Herculaneum, one of the nine towns or cites buried by Vesuvius in 79 AD. The writings were on rolls of papyrus. Dirk Obbink, in the preface to Philodemus in Italy , assumes that the books stem from a group of intellectuals of the late Republican period in Italy; the majority are by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus (v).

It is important to know that the

charred papyri – preserved in various states of disarray, fragmentation, and physical deterioration sustained over two millennia – are among the most difficult Greek texts to edit. They are written in Greek so esoteric [i.e. written for a specific group] that they would be hard to restore and to translate even if they had come down to us in perfect condition. (Obbink, Craft, Cult, and Canon in the Books from Herculaneum 5)

As for Philodemus, he is believed to have been from Gadara, a city that was a few miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee. Obbink assigns the approximate dates of 110-40 BC to Philodemus (5), who is regarded as a Greek philosopher, poet, and literary theorist who worked in Italy, furthering the intellectual interests of the powerful Roman aristocrats in return for social patronage (Obbink vi).

Marcello Gigante himself indentifies Philodemus as the author of On Gods, On Piety, and On Freedom of Speech (6). He also claims that Philodemus was responsible for establishing the library at the villa (9), but this is merely speculation. There is nothing in writing from the first century BC or the first century AD to confirm this claim.

More sound is Gigante’s observation that in the Herculaneum library we have a ‘coexistence of various and incomplete editions,’ which are combined and integrated with each other (18; Gigante is quoting Guglielmo Cavallo). Of special interest is Gigante’s statement that the most ancient core of the library was formed outside Campania (18).

Gigante calculates that sometime between 75-50 BC Philodemus published the Syntaxis or Index of Philosophers (Συνταξις των Φιλοσοφων). This Syntaxis or Index is referred to by Diogenes Laertius in his Life of Epicurus where we find mention of Neocles, Chaeredemus and Aristobulus, who are thought to have been brothers of Epicurus and who were as dedicated to philosophy as he was. This claim is supposedly attested to by Philodemus the Epicurean "in the tenth book of his Syntaxis of Philosophers. And the same was said of his slave Mys… ." (21).

We need to take a look at the title Συνταξις των Φιλοσοφων/Suntaxis tōn Philosophōn, for Συνταξις has meanings other than system, arrangement, organization. For example, the word can mean a company or a troupe, and it can mean a covenant or a previous arrangement (Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, compilers of A Greek-English Lexicon, 1996 edition, page 1724; hereafter this source will be cited as L & S; also, the compilers’ use of italics in their definitions will be omitted throughout this work).

Φιλοσοφων is the plural possessive case of φιλοσοφος/philosophos, which is defined by Liddell and Scott as a lover of wisdom (1940). So then, Suntaxis tōn Philosophōn could be written as The Covenant of Lovers of Wisdom instead of Index of Philosophers.

Faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ have throughout the ages made covenants with Christ to obey his commandments and to live according to his teachings. Going back to the first generation to inhabit this planet, the saints have treasured the wisdom of their Redeemer.

This having been said, let us take a look at the name Mys. On page 21 of Philodemus in Italy Gigante has an asterisk after these three letters. The asterisk directs us to the bottom of the page where Gigante notes that Epicureans seemed to be unique in permitting both men and women of all ages, as well as slaves such as Mys, to enlist in their schools.

Regarding Mys, if these three letters give the impression of being an abbreviation of a longer word it is because they are. But in order to explain what the three letters mean we need to turn to Carsten Peter Thiede and Matthew D’Ancona. In The Jesus Papyrus Thiede and D’Ancona submit an important discovery regarding Christian manuscripts written in the first century AD. They reveal that gospel writers such as Matthew abbreviated certain words. Jesus, for instance, which is spelled Ιησους/Iēsous in Greek, was shortened to Is, the first and last letters in the name.

These abbreviations, Thiede and D’Ancona assert,

became popular in early Christianity… . The sudden and general adoption of this new system seems to have been a conscious attempt to emulate the Jewish custom of abbreviating the name of God. It was a momentous decision for… it implied a dramatic theological claim about the nature and role of Jesus. (106)

Thiede and D’Ancona go on to cite examples of abbreviations where either the first two letters and the last letter or the first letter and the last two letters are used. The authors stress that the scribes of the first century did not employ abbreviations for idle reasons or simply to save space on a sheet of papyrus. Rather the use of abbreviations reflected a theological position (125).

One example of the Jewish or Hebrew abbreviation of the name of God is El, which is how it appears in Genesis 14:20. The two Hebrew letters are ’Aleph and Lāmedh. El is the abbreviation of the Greek word Εμμανουηλ/Emmanouēl, using the first and last letters. Emmanouēl is translated as God [is] with us (James Strong, The New Strong’s Complete Dictionary of Bible Words 614, entry # 1694; like Liddell and Scott, Strong uses italics in his definitions, but the italics are deleted in this work).

We find Emmanouēl being used in Matthew 1:23 as a name for the child to be delivered by the woman who would become the mother of Christ, the Anointed One, the God who would be with the descendants of Jacob (for the Greek text of the New Testament The NKJV Greek-English Interlinear New Testament, translated by Arthur L. Farstad et al., is used throughout this work).

Abbreviating key Greek words in Christian documents makes it possible to explain the three letters Mys, which can also be written as Mus since U and Y are the same in the Greek alphabet. In fact, the Greek text by Diogenes Laertius, which is the source Gigante uses, has Μυς instead of Mys (see page 530 of the Loeb Classical Library edition of Diogenes Laertius II, translated by R. D. Hicks).

Now, in John 3:18 we find the word μονογενους/monogenous, which is translated as the only begotten. This phrase modifies Son of God. Mus is the abbreviation of monogenous when the first and last two letters are selected.

If we change the word slave in the phrase his slave Mys to bondservant—the Greek word δουλος/doulos can mean either slave or bondservant (see Strong 606, entry # 1401)—we can identify Mus as Christ, for in Philippians 2:7 Paul the Apostle says the Son of God took the form of a bondservant. The pronoun his in his slave Mys refers to Christ’s eternal Father.

Neocles, believed to be one of three brothers who dedicated themselves to philosophy, is not a name. Neo’ is the abbreviated form of νεος/neos, new, fresh… unexpected… lately… anew (L & S 1169), while "cles" or ĸλης/klēs, the correct Greek spelling, is an earlier version of ĸλεις/kleis, meaning key (L & S 957). Christ was the new key to salvation and exaltation for members of the New Testament church.

Chaeredemus, supposedly the second brother of Epicurus, is likewise a combination of two words. Chaer is from the Greek χαιρω/chairō, rejoice, be glad (L & S 1969). Demus in Greek is δημος/dēmos and dēmos means country, land… the people, inhabitants (L & S 386). Chaeredemus means let the people rejoice! (The second e in Chaeredemus indicates the use of the imperative.) Gigante notes that epigrams attributed to Philodemus talk about the ‘joy of living’ (9).

Aristoboulos, the Greek spelling for aristobulus, said to be the third brother, is defined as the best in counsel (L & S 241); aristos is best or morally best (L & S 241), and boulos is counsel, advice or council of elders (see βουλη/boulē, L & S 325; boulos is the masculine form). The word elders does not always mean elderly men; as often as not it means holders of the higher priesthood (for information on the two priesthoods delineated in the New Testament see Hebrews, Chapters 5 and 7).

Philodemus is also a combination of two words: dēmos plus φιλος/philos, beloved (L & S 1939). Philodemus, then, means the beloved people. The word people refers to the disciples who were beloved by Christ. John T. Fitzgerald, in the Introduction for Philodemus and the New Testament World, makes it known that [o]ther Epicurean writers are also represented in the Herculaneum papyri, though their identity is unknown (10).

At this point it will be enlightening to point out the fact that every Greek letter has a numerical value and therefore every Greek word has a numerical sum. The singular genitive or possessive case of δημος is δημου/dēmou, of the people. The letters of δημου have a numerical sum of 522. The Greek word ισαγγελος/isaggelos also has a numerical sum of 522. Isaggelos means like an angel (L & S 836). The faithful saints, as members of the New Testament church were referred to by Paul, were like angels, messengers that is, carrying Christ’s message to the world.

And yes, the church that was restored by Christ in the first century AD welcomed both men and women of all ages, as well as slaves, and all were taught in the theological schools established throughout the Roman Empire. As Gigante states, Epicureanism was not just an ethical system but a pedagogical one that permitted the transmission of the Master’s wisdom to young people and the achievement of progress in spiritual life (24). Epicureanism can and should be accepted as a synonym for Christianity.

On page 29 of Philodemus in Italy Gigante quotes Michel Foucault as saying that the more learned members of the Epicureans were expected to teach beginners, and "this was the task defined as το δι αλληλων σωζεσθαι (‘salvation’ or ‘safety through each other’)".

The same could be said of Christians of the first century AD.

On page 30 Gigante notes that letters were used to develop the spirituality of the disciples of Epicurus, and letters, of course, were used by Simon Peter, Paul and other leaders of the church to teach correct principles to the saints wherever they lived.

Philodemus, says Gigante, wrote a great work on Epicurean theology that has the title of "Περι της θεων διαγωγης [Peri tēs theōn diagōgēs], How the Gods Live (book 3 of On Gods)". Gigante refers to G. Cavallo, who points out that in this work Philodemus makes frequent use of abbreviations (40).

With this reference to abbreviations we have a connection with the practice of gospel writers such as Matthew. But let’s pause to take another look at the translation of διαγωγης/diagōgēs. Liddell and Scott define this word as course of instruction or way or course of life (392). Christ’s course of instruction was—and is—the way of life (see John 14:6).

As for θεων, the plural form of θεος, Paul remarks in 1 Corinthians 8:5 that there are many gods, and he was not talking about pagan gods as is claimed by many Bible scholars. Paul also knew that in the future there would be even more gods because the faithful saints who endured to the end of their lives would become joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17); that is, they would share equally with Christ, and Christ had said that God was His Father, and he considered himself equal with God (John 5:18). After his conversion, Paul came to realize that the god who attended to Moses was in fact Christ as a personage of spirit (see 1 Corinthians 10:1-4).

Gigante mentions the influence that Philodemus apparently had on the first book of Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods (40). Marcus Tullius Cicero is believed to have lived from 106-43 BC. Since Philodemus is not a name but is correctly understood as the beloved people, the Philodemus" who influenced Cicero were members of the Church of Jesus Christ. Bible scholars who continue to maintain that Christianity did not exist before the first century AD ignore everything that Christ says in the New Testament about the prophets of the Old Testament period having not only believed in him but having written about him, and that being so, Christianity can be traced back to the first generation, beginning with the first patriarch, Adam.

Epicurus, incidentally, taught that the gods were anthropomorphic (Gigante 19). Anthropomorphic means having a human form. Christ came in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:7). He died as a man and was resurrected as a man, and since he was in the image of his Father (see 2 Corinthians 4:4), and in fact looked exactly like his Father (John 14:9), then his Father, who is the Father of all the spirits who come to this earth, is also a man, a perfected man, but a man nonetheless.

On page 48 of Philodemus in Italy Gigante writes that the Villa of the Papyri is marked by the imprint of a man from Palestine. Gigante of course means Philodemus, but there was more than one of the beloved people associated with the villa. The single most influential man, who was the real subject of the writings found there—writings produced by such spiritual giants as Simon Peter, Paul, Luke, and John Mark—was Christ, the Anointed One, the Χριστος.

2

EPICUREANS AND CHRISTIANS

P late 7, which is between pages 58 and 59 of Philodemus in Italy , features a photograph of a bust said to be Epicurus. In Greek the word is επικουρος / epikouros . Epikouros means "helper, ally… defender… patron, protector: (L & S 640). Epikoupias , a feminine form of epikouros , is used in Acts 26:22, where the word is translated as help, but a better translation would be helpers or allies because the suffix – ias is plural. This translation would also be more in keeping with the word προφηται / prophētai , prophets, which is used in the same verse. Prophets, meaning those who have the authority to speak for God, are helpers or allies of Christ.

Luke was an ally of Christ, and the bust seen in Gigante’s plate 7 is a portrait of Luke. The face is identical to a bust that can be seen on pages 26 and 37 of Ancient Rome: History of a Civilization That Ruled the World (the text is attributed to Maria Liberati and Fabio Bourbon). All that is different between the two busts is the beard and the hair being brushed in different directions. The forehead, the eyes, the cheeks, the nose, and the lips are all the same.

And yet we’re told that Epicurus was born about 341 BC while the man depicted by the bust in Ancient Rome: History of a Civilization That Ruled the World is, in the words of Germain Bazin, L. Junius Brutus, who in 509 B.C., according to tradition, liberated Rome from the Etruscan yoke and became the first consul of the Republic (The History of World Sculpture 171). However, Bazin goes on to argue that this bust would have to be a reconstituted portrait, for the work could date from no earlier than the 3rd century B.C. (171).

Marilyn Stokstad’s Art History is in agreement with Bazin’s date. But since 300 BC is about 200 years after Brutus’ death, Stokstad reasons that the bust may also represent an unknown Roman dignitary of the third century; then again, she says, the bust reflects a type of sculpture that gained great popularity in the first century BCE [Before the Common Era] (232).

The authors of Ancient Rome: History of a Civilization That Ruled the World take a similar approach, dating the bust initially to "the 4th century B.C., but then comes the admission that in practice, as with all the alleged images of leading figures from the most ancient period of Roman history, this hypothesis is based solely on suppositious dates" (Liberati and Bourbon 36; caption # 37; italics by the authors).

Nancy H. Ramage and Andrew Ramage reveal that even though "the head was discovered in the 16th century [AD], and soon became identified by connoisseurs as Brutus… in fact there is no connection with Brutus himself…" (Roman Art 34-35; italics added).

Copies of a wall painting from the House of Siricus in Pompeii can be seen today in some physicians’ offices because of its subject matter: a surgeon kneels while he tends to a wound on the thigh of a warrior. This painting can be seen on page 183 of Pompeii by Erich Lessing and Antonio Varone.

The surgeon in the painting is a match for the man depicted by the bust. All readers need to do to be convinced is to compare the overall shape of the head, the short hair combed to the same side of the forehead, the hooked nose, and the short clipped beard.

In Colossians 4:14 Paul refers to Luke as the beloved physician. Luke had an office in Pompeii and when Pompeii was excavated his surgical instruments were found there. (For more on this subject readers are urged to read Chapter 5 of the author’s second volume of Building Bridges of Time, Places and People: Tombs, Temples & Cities of Egypt, Israel, Greece & Italy.)

The bust identified as Epicurus is a portrait of Luke. There was no Greek philosopher who went by the name of Epicurus because epikouros is not a name. Unfortunately, translators of the New Testament have failed to realize this and so in Acts 17:18 we get the impression that the Epicureans were not Christians, that instead they were pagan philosophers who knew nothing of Christ, but when we translate epikoureiōn as allies who were conversing with Paul, the meaning of Acts17:18 takes on a completely different aspect.

39199.png

Gigante tells us that Philodemus went to Athens to become a wise man (50). Acts 17:18 has Paul and Luke, as well as others who were accompanying them, in Athens, but they were in that Greek city to proselyte, not to become wise.

On Pages 69 and 70 of Philodemus in Italy Gigante relates how Philodemus lauded the poet Homer for giving his kings godlike attributes; Epicurus, likewise, maintained that humans could become like gods. We will learn in another chapter who Homer was; as for the belief that kings and humans could be similar to gods, it has already been established that Christ and his disciples taught the same principle.

In the Introduction for Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, A. A. Long states that the followers of Epicurus certainly revered him as the savior of mankind (11), and they regarded him as the bringer of ‘light’, words which we naturally associate with Judaism and Christianity (14).

With this in mind we should consider another definition of επικουρος/epikouros. Επι/epi has numerous meanings but here perhaps the most appropriate one is along with (see pages 106-07 of Georg Autenrieth’s A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges; as with Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon, Autenrieth’s italics will be deleted when his dictionary is cited); however, in most cases when epi is joined to another word it is not translated. Κουρος/Kouros is the Ionic spelling of koros, which is defined by Liddell and Scott as a shoot or sprout, of a tree (981). The Hebrew word tsemach means sprout or branch (Strong 500, entry # 6780). The most significant use of this word in the Bible, says Herbert Lockyer, Sr., is a symbolic title for the Messiah. He adds that this

messianic usage apparently originated with the prophet Isaiah (4:2; 11:1). It reappeared in the prophecies of Jeremiah, where it referred to a future king in the line of David, whose coming would bring judgment and righteousness (Jer. 23:5-6). After the [Babylonian] Captivity [sic], the term was a recognized title of the Messiah (Zech. 3:8). By this time it had taken on a priestly, as well as a kingly, meaning. Both parts of this expectation are fulfilled by Christ… . (Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary 190)

Christ restored his church in Galilee and Judea in the first century AD. The new foundation was laid, as it always had been, with a quorum of twelve apostles. Serving with the apostles were the high priests, the seventies, whose primary responsibility was to perform missionary service, then the elders, all of these being holders of the higher priesthood. They were followed by the young men who held the lesser priesthood. Supervising the young men were the bishops, who were over individual congregations. Benjamin Fiore, in The Pastoral Epistles in the Light of Philodemus’ ‘On Frank Criticism’, which is included in Philodemus and the New Testament World, refers to 1 Timothy 3:4 and notes that "the ‘bishop’ should be επιεικης [epieikēs] (‘considerate,’ ‘forbearing,’ ‘gentle’), an Epicurean ideal" (275).

The women, of course, played an active role in the affairs of the church, as is evidenced by the New Testament. We also know from the New Testament that missionaries were sent throughout the Mediterranean World. Now, compare this information to what Dirk Obbink says about the Epicureans in Craft, Cult, and Canon in the Books from Herculaneum, one of the articles in Philodemus and the New Testament World, edited by John T. Fitzgerald, Dirk Obbink, and Glenn S. Holland:

Apart from intense allegiance to the school’s founders and their teachings, the books [from Herculaneum] show the Epicureans as existing in highly organized, specifically structured, yet avowedly egalitarian [that is, having equal rights, equal opportunities], communities. As might be expected at a time of Hellenistic diaspora, the communities were scattered, separated by vast stretches of land and water, held together by an epistolary literature exchanged, memorized and circulated among members of satellite communities visited periodically by itinerant, ambulatory leaders of a school from an intellectual center, Athens. (76)

The only inaccuracy here in describing the way the New Testament church operated is the identification of Athens as the intellectual center. The center was initially Sepphoris in Galilee, then Jerusalem, then Herculaneum.

According to L. Michael White, the author of "A Measure of Parrhesia: The State of the Manuscript of PHERC. 1471", another article published in Philodemus and the New Testament World,

Guglielmo Cavallo identified a total of sixteen different distinctive groups of scribal hands among the Herculaneum papyri; from these he postulated a total of thirty-four different scribes who may be identified on the basis of stylistic and morphological features of the handwriting. (110)

Readers of Volume II of Building Bridges of Time, Places and People will know that these scribes included Simon Peter, Paul, Luke and John Mark, the author of The Gospel of Mark. Simon Peter was the recognized leader of the New Testament church when the headquarters was moved from Jerusalem to Herculaneum; John Mark was the leader when Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. Prior to that momentous event Simon Peter, Paul and Luke had been killed by their enemies in Herculaneum and Pompeii.

David L. Balch, the author of Philodemus, ‘On Wealth’ and ‘On Household Management:’ Naturally Wealthy Epicureans Against [sic] Poor Cynics, which is also published in Philodemus and the New Testament World, brings Luke into his discussion when he writes:

Both Epicurus’ sayings and Luke’s version of the Beatitudes (Luke 6:20-26) juxtapose the rich and the poor as good and evil, blessed and cursed… . (194)

Benjamin Fiore points out that

the Epicureans and Christians deal with each other and pursue the tasks associated with the life of virtue within the same cultural context and with all of its tools.

The aim of παρρησια [parrēsia, meaning free speech or frank speech] for Philodemus is improvement in virtue, as it is in 1 Tim. 4:15 (προκοπη [prokopē, i.e. progress or improvement (L & S 1486)]). (283)

Fiore also points out that 1 Timothy 3:1 says anyone desiring the position of a bishop… desires a good work. Work in the Greek text is εργου/ergou, the singular possessive of εργον/ergon. Likewise, Philodemus "calls the friendly office of admonition an εργον" (287, footnote # 78).

Fiore has more to say about Philodemus and 1 Timothy:

Philodemus commends open and above-board admonition wherein errors are openly divulged, because no secret can permanently escape detection… . I Tim. 5:20-25 makes the same observation when it recommends public reprimand… and notes that ultimately one’s sins will become known… . (288)

Also from Fiore we read:

Philodemus uses medical imagery that presents frank speech as a cure for the ills of the soul, to be applied by the wise much as a doctor applies remedies for physical ailments. (290)

Here, Philodemus, meaning one of the beloved people, is clearly Luke, the beloved physician.

In Paul and Philodemus Clarence E. Glad compares Epicurean practices to those of Christians in the first century AD. He includes what he calls epistolary psychagogy, which is defined on page 2 as a mature person’s leading of neophytes in an attempt to bring about moral reformation by shaping the neophyte’s view of himself and of the world.

In Chapter Five of Paul and Philodemus Glad says,

The hypothesis pursued here is that in the communities Paul founded, he envisaged the participation of members in the evaluation and correction of each other through mutual edification, admonition, and correction, similar to the practices witnessed among Epicureans in Athens and Naples eighty years earlier. (185)

If Glad could not see that the Epicureans and the Christians were the same it was most likely because he believed Christianity did not begin until the first century AD. That mistaken belief has been responsible for the spiritual blindness not just of scholars but of nearly all people who regard themselves as Christians.

It is such spiritual blindness that leads Norman Wentworth DeWitt to begin the preface to St. Paul and Epicurus by claiming that Epicureanism functioned as a bridge of transition from Greek philosophy to the Christian religion. DeWitt is clearly assuming that Christianity began in the first century AD, and yet at the same time he realizes that the most beloved devotional readings in the Epistles [sic] of Paul exhibit the greatest influence of the friendly Epicurus, and this despite the belief that Epicurus, who, we recall, is said to have been born about 341 BC, was an alleged atheist (v; for DeWitt’s date of 341 BC see page 3).

Epicurus, DeWitt also says, claimed that he was self-taught. Paul makes a similar claim when he says in Galatians 1:11-12: the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man nor was I taught it, but it came throught the revelation of Jesus Christ.

DeWitt reveals that sayings by Epicurus were regarded as prophecies and he referred to his doctrines as ‘true philosophy’ and his disciples lauded him as a god and the sole discoverer of truth (5).

Two pages later DeWitt asserts that

Epicurus, like Jesus, began his ministry, if one may so write, about the age of thirty, and it may be added that he exhibited an aggressiveness comparable to that of Jesus in cleansing the temple [meaning the temple grounds, not inside the temple itself]. (7)

DeWitt also says the

words Peace and Safety became catchwords in his [Epicurus’] sect and unless we are aware of this fact we shall fail to recognize the meaning of Paul in First Thessalonians 5:3: For when they shall say Peace and Safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them. (7)

In Chapter 5 of First Thessalonians there is no indication that Paul is speaking of Epicureans. In verse 2 Paul reminds his readers that the day of the Lord [will] come as a thief in the night, and in verse 4 he adds, But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day [i.e. the great Day of Destruction] should overtake you as a thief. Paul was advising the Saints as to what was going to happen to the evil, murderous people of Pompeii and Herculaneum, whose lives would come to an end in the darkness brought on by the eruption of Vesuvius (see Volume II of Building Bridges of Time, Places and People for a detailed discussion of this subject).

On page 17 DeWitt makes this strange statement:

In his Epistle to the Colossians, 2:4, Paul issues a warning against the enticing words or the beguiling speech of the Epicurean competitors, whom he will never name.

If Paul never names the Epicurean competitors then how it is possible to identify them as such?

Recognizing that Epicurus means helper or ally, DeWitt suggests this definition might explain why Paul used the word to describe Christ but not Epicurus, and therefore Epicurus, in Paul’s mind, became virtually a sort of Antichrist (19).

How distorted things become when scholars can’t see the obvious in their own writings. Paul, who at times is given the false name of Philodemus, certainly used the word epicurus not as a name but as an appositive for Christ.

DeWitt speculates on the possibility that Paul had read a work titled On Frankness, in which Philodemus of Gadara wrote on the topic of admonition (38). It is more likely that Paul himself wrote the treatise.

DeWitt also refers to the book On Vices and the Corresponding Virtues, attributed to Philodemus, and he declares that Paul was definitely aware of it, for in his letter to the Galatians Paul adapts its contents to his own needs and like Philodemus, he lists the vices first (71).

Why would Paul, who was converted by the resurrected Christ and who had access to leaders of the church such as Simon Peter, resort to a non-Christian source for anything he wrote? He would have done so only if he was going to refute a false doctrine. No, again Paul was the author, not Philodemus of Gadara.

Γαδαρα/Gadara, incidentally, means the country (L & S 335). Campania has the same meaning. Pompeii and Herculaneum were in Campania. And Philodemus, we recall, means the beloved people, of which Paul was one.

On page 46 DeWitt suggests that a good Epicurean family might have become a good Christian family; their codes of morals were very similar (46). They were, in fact, identical.

On page 81 DeWitt informs us that the

Epicureans were derisively called Twentyers, because they celebrated a banquet regularly on the twentieth day of the lunar month, as provided for in the will of Epicurus.

What we should take from this statement is the number 20 and the reference to a meal; the rest is in error and is misleading. Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed after members of the New Testament church had been in Campania for 20 years (see Volume II of Building Bridges of Time, Places and People for full details).

It was midday and tables were set when a violent cracking sound split the air. The earth heaved and shook… . A catastrophe unparalleled had begun. So writes Joseph Jay Deiss on page 4 of Herculaneum: Italy’s Buried Treasure.

3

DIVINE OFFSPRING OF THE STONE

S cholars who write about Epicurus depend heavily on Book X of Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius. The text that will be used here is the Loeb Classical Library edition, Volume II, edited by Jeffrey Henderson and translated by R. D. Hicks.

The Greek spelling of Diogenes Laertius is Διογενους Λαερτιου; this is the version found on page 2. Διο’/Dio’ is the abbreviated form of dios, divine (Autenrieth 78). Γενους/Genous is the plural accusative or the direct object case of genos, offspring or child (L & S 344). So Diogenous is divine offspring, or divine children.

Λαερτιου/Laertiou is the singular possessive case and therefore to render it as Laertius, the nominative or subject case, is incorrect. Λαερτιου is from λαερτης/laertēs and laertēs is the same as λαρτιος/lartios, which is the same as πετρα/petra, stone or rock (see L & S 1023 and 1031).

The meaning of diogenous laertiou is this: divine offspring or divine children of the Stone or of the Rock. Petra is the feminine form of petros, and both forms are used in Matthew 16:18, which reads,

"And I [Christ] say to you that you are Peter [Πετρος], and on this rock [πετρα] I will build My church… .

A note in the margin of The NKJV Greek-English Interlinear New Testament hypothesizes that the

rock (πετρα) that serves as [the] foundation for the church may be the truth indicated in Peter’s confession. (62)

Peter, in 16:16, confesses that Jesus is the Christ, that is, the Anointed One, the Messiah, and in verse 17 Christ tells Simon Peter that this truth has been revealed to him by My Father who is in heaven. It is revealed truth then that was to serve as the foundation for Christ’s church. The Greek word for truth is αληθεια/alētheia and alētheia can be either masculine or feminine (see αληθης/alēthēs, true, on page 36 of James Morwoods’s Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek). This is especially interesting because Christ, in John 14:6, says of himself: "I am… the truth [αληθεια]". While Christ’s church is spoken of in feminine terms he, the founder of the church, is masculine.

Divine offspring of the Rock can refer to the saints having been born anew because of their belief in Christ, but the Rock can also refer to the divine church.

Beneath Diogenous Laertiou is this subtitle:

ΒΙΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΓΝΩΜΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΕΝ ΦΙΛΟΣΟΦΙΑΙ ΕΥΔΟΚΙΜΗΣΑΝΤΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΕΙΣ ΔΕΚΑ ΤΟ ΕΚΤΟΝ.

ΒΙΩΝ/BIŌN is a plural possessive that means of the lives (see βιος, Autenrieth 61).

ΚΑΙ/KAI is and.

ΓΝΩΜΩΝ/GNŌMŌN is the plural possessive of γνωμη/gnōmē and can be translated as means of knowing: hence, mark, token… intelligence, thought, judgement… will, disposition, inclination… opinion… proposition… intention, purpose, resolve (L & S 354).

ΤΩΝ/TŌN is a plural possessive meaning of the ones (see o, the, on page 24 of Morwood’s Oxford Grammar).

ΕΝ/EN can mean in, therein, among and on (Auntenrieth 97).

ΦΙΛΟΣΟΦΙΑΙ/PHILOSOPHIAI is the plural nominative or subject case and means lovers of wisdom, and the wisdom that is meant is the wisdom of Christ.

ΕΥΔΟΚΙΜΗΣΑΝΤΩΝ/EUDOKIMĒSANTŌN is the aorist active plural possessive participle—meaning a modifier—of ευδοκιμαζω/eudokimazō, choose, select… to be of good repute, highly esteemed (L & S 710), and so eudokimēsantōn can be translated as being chosen or being highly esteemed.

ΤΩΝ is again of the ones.

ΕΙΣ/EIS can mean into, to, for or it can mean one (Autenrieth 88).

ΔΕΚΑ/DEKA is ten.

ΤΟ/TO is the neuter singular nominative or accusative case of o, the (Morwood 24).

ΕΚΤΟΝ is the singular accusative case of εκτος/ektos, meaning without, outside… out of, far from… apart from (L & S 523).

R. D. Hicks translates this subtitle as LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS IN TEN BOOKS. However, there is no Greek word in the subtitle that can mean books, and clearly, since ekton is singular this word has not been translated. Morevover, Hicks has disregarded the use of the aorist participle in translating eudokimēsantōn as eminent.

Here is the correct translation: "OF THE LIVES AND PURPOSES OF THE ONES AMONG THE LOVERS OF WISDOM, BEING CHOSEN; OF THE TEN, ONE APART FROM [THEM].

After Judas Iscariot died, there remained eleven apostles, but Simon Peter was set apart