Thank you for bringing Methodius of Olympus (died ca. 311) into this discussion. His concerns seem to me to be similar and maybe compatible with those of the Chrestian Church (usually described as Montanist), whose 3rd-century archaeology in Phrygia David will describe here soon.

Here is a copy of ‘Methodius of Olympus, Works’:
http://www.archive.org/details/MethodiusOfOlympusWorks

Though I not a linguist, a search of this book seemed (to me) to find numerous examples of the ‘Chrest’ (XPH…) spelling. I welcome an expert view.

Best regards,
John Bartram

Thank you for the response. I determined independently, through a communication with one of Porphyry’s translators, that he only exists in copy. What of Methodius, though? He was a contemporary of Origen, argued against some of his points and those of Porphyry, and to my knowledge has an extant Greek text, The Symposium. Here is a link. http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc07/htm/ii.xii.htm

I’m working on confirming this independently, but have many other things that consume my time. I’m also trying to find a Greek ‘original’ or facsimile to determine whether he has written Christ or Chrest, though that will definitely take some time.

All the best,
John

You refer to the entry in Wikipedia, which I quote:
Of his Adversus Christianos (Against the Christians) in fifteen books, only fragments remain, as quotations adduced in order to be refuted.[14][15] In it, he famously is quoted as having said, “The Gods have proclaimed Christ to have been most pious, but the Christians are a confused and vicious sect.” Counter-treatises were written by Eusebius of Caesarea, Apollinaris of Laodicea, Methodius of Olympus, and Macarius of Magnesia, but all these are lost.Porphyry’s identification of the Book of Daniel as the work of a writer in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes (2nd century BC), is given by Jerome. Augustine and the 5th-century ecclesiastical historian Socrates of Constantinople, assert that Porphyry was once a Christian. [16]14 “Constantine and other emperors banned and burned Porphyry’s work” (Digeser 1998:130).15 Letter of Constantine proscribing the works of Porphyry and Arius, To the Bishops and People, in Socrates Scholasticus, Historia Ecclesiastica, i.9.30-31; Gelasius, Historia Ecclesiastica, II.36; translated in Stevenson, J., (Editor; Revised with additional documents by W. H. C. Frend), A New Eusebius, Documents illustrating the history of the Church to AD 337 (SPCK, 1987).16 Historia Ecclesiastica III.23.

We therefore do not know, it seems to me, what Porphyry may have written on this – if anything at all. That said, I will take this opportunity to mention these related views of mine:
a. What many regard as the history of the early Christian Church is based on little or nothing more than medieval texts such as those referenced above.
b. Porphyry is, in my opinion, less a ‘philosopher’ and more a magician; this applies also to Iamblichus.
c. These two magicians provided, I think, much of the theurgy of whatever (Chrestian/Chrestic) Church was recognised, or created by Constantine I, which later became the Christian Church.

Best regards,
John Bartram

You say there is a “vacuum of evidence for pre-4th century Christianity…”

You may have addressed this already, but what of Porphyry’s _Against the Christians_ from the end of the 3rd Century?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyry_(philosopher)

best,
J

So in the case of 2 John 7 we have: ??? ?????? ?????? ??????? ??? ??? ??????, ?? ?? ???????????? ??????
??????? ????????? ?? ?????· ????? ????? ? ?????? ??? ? ???????????.

The second element concerning the antichrist is a very perceptive and wonderful question and stands entirely to
your credit Ignorantianescia.  John and I appreciate a well-aimed incisive inquiry that moves the discussion forward. I should also take this opportunity to state categorically that I do not pretend to have all the answers for such a challenging topic of history.  The antichrist question raised here definitely highlights an important topic that I have not exhausted with respect to its relation to the HHI thesis.  So again Ignorantianescia, or perhaps the not-so-Ignorantianescia, on behalf of John and myself, thank you.

To your question:

The Johannine Epistles (1 & 2): first, the traditional scholarly view holds that the Antichrist myth as a literary type
in Christianity formed in the third century CE (between 180-33). For a discussion of what background material aside from textual artifacts informs my view see: Gregory C. Jenks, The Origins and Early Development of the Antichrist Myth, (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter & Co., 1990).

Within the NT and Sinaiticus , the term antichrist is confined to the Johannine literature that Ignorantianescia cites. 
On the basis of the Johannine evidence, traditional NT textual criticism holds
that the antichrist figure dates to the NT period and early.  Yet close
examination of the MSS transmission allows one to trace original textual
artifacts (papyri and parchments) only as far back in time as late (very late)
antiquity or the early medieval period.  Our research indicates that Sinaiticus may well prove to be the earliest textual artifact containing the term antichrist.  That it occurs in a work where the lexeme root chrest- is adjusted to read Christ- is consistent with the redactive intent of Sinaiticus as a work that focuses Christianity on the figure Jesus Christ.  That his additive inverse appears in the form of antichrist is as symmetrical as it is theoLogical.

HHI takes the rather strict and for many inconvenient approach that a textual artifact (papyrus, parchment, inscription, etc.) be produced and cited in order to advance a date for the use of a term or existence of a figure. Under these constraints, we have no physical textual
artifacts containing the actual and complete passages in question (1 &2 John) that are
dated earlier than the fourth century CE. Relying on the rule of using only a
physical text as a true and proper object of dating,  it is not possible to establish an accurate date
for these Johannine Epistles earlier than their presence in perhaps Sinaiticus itself.  Unfortunately, we have not yet recovered
textual artifacts from the first three centuries CE for 1 & 2 John.  (I will discuss Uncial 0232 below).

If you have read through some of the
HHI site, you are aware of our view of P52.

Textual criticism is used to
extrapolate assumed earlier versions of these narratives into the first century
CE.  At this juncture, the existence of
canonical 1 & 2 John, in the first and second century CE is really a
question of faith and not science.  When some present the site Early Christian Writings as evidence for pre-4th century CE source material for Christianity, they often fail to examine the scholarly apparatus within the links to expert secondary sources wherein a scholar discusses the issues of the manuscript transmission for the documents.  In the majority of cases, the oldest complete or nearly complete physical textual artifact in the form of a MS dates into the early medieval period and no earlier.  In several fortunate and remarkable cases, we have papyri fragments or parchment bits attesting to early Christian writings; however, none of these artifacts is securely dated to the early centuries of Christianity.

Assuming for the sake of argument
that traditional timeline holds there are points to be studied: there is a
silence in the traditional record between the appearance of the term antichrist
in Johannine documents and those next occurrences usually cited in Irenaeus –
traditionally a century later.  The only possible exception to this that
comes to mind is Polycarp (Phil. 7:1, but here again it is a Johannine Epistle
being cited).  Origen cites the lexeme explicitly in Cels.VI. 45. however,
we have a major and familiar problem in that all the physical mss. artifacts
terminate at the transition from late antiquity to that of the early medieval:
Harnak debunked some very hopeful looking Irenaeus material and most of what we know of this
figure is highly dependent on Eusebius. We do have P. Oxyrhynchus 405, identified as fragments of a letter by Irenaeus
and dated paleographically to a range between middle 3rd –  and very late 2nd century CE, and
the scholarship seems to follow Greenfell and Hunt.  However, P. Oxyrh. 405 records neither Christ
nor Antichrist and the matter rests with respect to the present discussion. By
way of aside,  papyri fragments such as
these are of the highest importance in resolving the issues HHI presents to the
public: these are artifacts, they hold text related to the problem, and there
exists the possibility that they may be recovered from secure contexts and
strata.  Unfortunately, because these
best potential witnesses are fragments in most cases without clear provenance,
we have no opportunity to weigh the scale of difference between these papyri
artifacts and the medieval mss purportedly containing accurate copies of the
earlier material.

We have but two early Eusebius HE
mss and they date to the 5th and 4th century CE.  Siglum
B, Russia: St. Petersburg, Public Library, appears to have an actual denoted
date within the text equating to 462 CE. 
All other variants of the HE are medieval, profoundly medieval. 

What we know of Polycarp derives
from Greek mss. sigla b, p, s, and
v.  These are all of 10th and
11th century CE provenance. 
Paleographers and textual critics extrapolate non-existant earlier
variants dating to the 4th century CE.  This leaves us with Origen. As far as I am
aware, all of the mss. of Contra Celsum derive from a single parent ms: Apostolica.
Codex Vaticanus Graecus 386.  This ms dates to the 13th
century C.E.

The art of textual criticism,
however noble and necessary, is yet an art and not yet a science.

The More or Less Hard Evidence

As far as I am aware, outside of Sinaiticus, the earliest artifact for 1 & 2 John is Uncial 0232.  The
MSS is dated paleographically to the 5th or 6th century
C.E.  This may be dispensed with as suitably late to precede the chrest
form.  That leaves only Sinaiticus  itself as an artifact attesting the lexeme
antichrist.  The question then rests on the date of manufacture for the
Johnine material in the codex itself.  The best paleographical arguments
date the codex between the first quarter of the fourth century CE and about 360
CE (as you already well know).  I do not have an image for uncial 0232 and
we are not yet able to see if the ms reads antichrest/christ – but this does
not, to my mind, change our position given the late date of uncial 0232 and the consensus date for Sinaiticus.

Sinaiticus scribes A, B, & D are working late by traditional
reckoning on standardizing a biblical text.  Dirk Jongkind, who writes on Sinaiticus fairly recently, gives this summary on the subject of iotacisms or
itacisms:

Our short
study has broadly confirmed the remarks of Milne and Skeat on orthographic
errors.  We have sought to quantify the exact differences between the
three scribes.  The characteristic patterns turned out to be less stable
than one would have expected [and why is that?].  In Matthew, scribe
A shows a remarkable deterioration over the length of two quires.  What
exactly caused this change remains unclear.  Scribes A and B make
the error of substituting the longer for the shorter form more often than the
reverse for the the I – EI and E – AI pair.  Though scribe D also does this,
he does so to a lesser degree.  His number of
changes of EI for I is higher than for the other scribes. 
However, overall, he has the least number of examples of orthographic errors in
his work. (Jongkind, Dirk (2007). Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus,
Gorgias Press LLC,  p. 94)

Traditional scholarship peddles the
thesis that the hallmark of evolution from ancient to Modern Greek is the
convergence of vowels and diphthongs.  The circumstances surrounding the copying and compiling of Sinaiticus appears appears to indicate Scribes A and D were copying MSS wherein
there were divergent handling of eta and iota.  The mistake is to limit
the discussion to itacisms.  I am compelled to remark that the scribe who
appears to be the overall adjuster of text, scribe D, executes the least number
of errors and undertakes the highest number eta to iota changes.  One may
advance the usual itacism theory and rest smug next to the academic fire. 
However, itacisms do not explain the adjustment of eta to iota where there is
no diphthong within the lexeme as we find in Chrest/Christ.  Scribe D (or some other skilled redactor) intentionally substitutes one monothong for another. One may not
argue that the scribe is making room to squeeze text into a quire for in
several examples we have put forward no space is saved.  We are free to
conclude a difference in meaning is to be affected. 

1 & 2 John:  based on an
artifact approach to the NT, the trend is to date these mss late.  these
are evolving into products of late-antiquity or the early medieval.  I
believe uncial 0232 was found at Antinopolis and there is some disagreement
concerning dates with the usual pressure to date early.  Whereas earlier
paleographers assigned a date of 3rd-4th century CE, the
INTF (Institut für
neutestamentliche Textforschung)
now assigns the
5th-6th century CE date. No one yet desires to confront in writing what the
revised dates for uncial 0232 may indicate for Sinaiticus composed beyond the reign of Constantine.

The lexeme
antichrist is found in Sianticus only in 1 & 2 John.  The earliest
independent artifact attesting to 1 & 2 John outside of Sinaticus the
5th-6th century uncial 0232.  We assert Christ is a late form and the
appearance of Antichrist should parallel this late appearance.  By our
method the attested range that results is therefore fourth to sixth century CE.

There is some
question regarding the appearance of the lexeme antichrist in Jewish literature
(the anti-messiah of Daniel).  There is also the long lexical history of
the antibasileus. However, this is beyond the scope of this discussion for the moment.

One point John
& I want to make very, very, clear: HHI does not argue that I S never
existed.  HHI argues that Christianity
centered on a Jesus Christ as described in the canonical NT did not exist in an incontestable form until at least the 4th century CE.  HHI asserts that there is a precursor to this
Orthodox Christianity.  For the moment we
denote this collection of beliefs and practices as chrestiantiy and its
followers chrestians.  There is something
within the archaeological textual record that is as beautiful and magnificent
as it is tantalizing and elusive. John and I fully expect that papyri and parchments related to chrestianity, as well as other classes of artifacts, dating to centuries earlier than the fourth CE to come to light. However, HHI challenges the archaeological community to put forward hard evidence for a Christianity centered on Jesus Christ prior to this fourth century divide.Very Kind Regards and Best Wishes this Holiday Season – David

Very Best -
David

It should be mentioned that Codex Sinaiticus also used the nomina sacra, referred to as abbreviations to you, when referring to Jesus and it indeed uses the eta spelling for Christian(s). But the iota spelling is used in Antichrist in the following verses:

1 John 2:18: http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=55&chapter=2&verse=18
1 John 2:22: http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=55&chapter=2&verse=22
2 John 1:7: http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=56&chapter=1&verse=8

Could you explain why the followers of Chrest would fear somebody named the Antichrist instead of the Antichrest if your theory is correct?

Kind regards.

As an aside, I think you are wrong to use the term “nomina sacra” here, for this is not a religious site (as you surely understand). A thing is what it is and in this case, an abbreviation.

I am not sure quite on what basis you might think I would not understand this term. “Chi Rho” has an interesting archaeology dating well into the past era and is not a Christian symbol in the 4th century, though used famously by Constantine and by Ptolemy III:

http://www.megagem.com/ancient/ptolemy_series.html
http://www.sknapp.net/coins/study/ptolemy3.htm

This symbol will feature in the article my colleague and I are now preparing, in the context of Bactria and Mesopotamia in the early 1st century CE.

The archaeology looks to me as though the ‘Jesus Christ’ of the fifth century emerges from (a) Chi Rho and (b) a first-century king using various royal titles such as “Saviour” (Soter) and “Good” (Chrest) – and this king may well be Jewish, but he is clearly not of Judea (for we know the Herodian dynasty quite well).

Yes, as explained in my post, the codices refer to Christ by the nomina sacra.
Do you understand what the nomina sacra are?

First, I owe you some thanks, primarily for taking an interest in our studies at HHI (and also for registering). Also, I like your questioning attitude, for this is surely a good approach to a subject.

I should also admit that I can be wrong – at times in my studies, I have blundered, but more importantly, this study here began as a blog to record progress and so reflected a slow development of thought. Today, my views have changed substantially from my starting position here, and that has also changed dramatically over the decades of study, before I wrote anything. My colleague and I have discussed deleting this whole site and starting afresh and one day, perhaps we shall do this.

This subject – divine men in Classical Antiquity – is not my main field of interest in archaeology. And although it may seem from some recent articles that I have an interest in Christian origins, that is not really the case – I have little interest in Christianity. ‘Jesus Christ’ is just one of very many divine men in this period. I am just as interested in how Buddha, Pythagoras and Alexander (as well as many others) came into existence as divine men. I should note at this point that some or all of these may have had some sort of historical existence in earlier times – and this is one of the major complications we face. There are also different classes of divine men, so that, for example, Roman emperors may be regarded as ‘divine men’ but of a different type to, say, Buddha and other religious figures; but then again, maybe not so different and there lies another complexity.

Some of my colleagues publish in peer-reviewed journals, but so far, I have resisted. This is to change in the coming weeks. Frankly, I do not like peer-review in this field, for I regard it as seriously skewed, to become unreliable. In my view, ‘authority’ is one of the ways by which so much is generally regarded as ‘fact’ when it is scholarly opinion and wrong.

Perhaps I have been wrong to adopt the position of “the emperor has no clothes” and then ask for evidence that he has some. I can say, however, that I have asked – challenged even – quite a large number of reputable scholars to either provide data to refute my ‘vacuity’ position, or just to learn their own position. I was aware how dangerous it is to say nothing exists, when even one piece of reliable data could shatter the position.

It is not difficult to find claims for Christian archaeology in the early centuries, for anyone who is either interested, or desiring to challenge our position, and I have mentioned it in HHI. We have treated, for example, gospel texts. I have mentioned claims for early ‘churches’ and showed a mosaic claimed to mention ‘Jesus Christ’ which actually has ‘Krest/Chrest’.

If we had merely found nothing with ‘Christ’, then the position we adopt would be somewhat different. Instead, we found ‘Is/Isu/Isa Chrest’ and the same divine figure in Manicheism of the 3rd century. This is just one small part of a larger history which we study, for it is becoming apparent to us that this comes from the East, from Mesopotamia and beyond. From our perspective, Christianity is medieval and derives from something else, with roots going back into the past era. Our interest now is in trying to describe this and then, and only then, treating properly the development of various religions, including Christianity.

Sorry if this is not all you are looking for and I promise to not give up on this thread. Thanks again and
Best regards,
John

Perhaps you would be so kind as to select something from that source and present it here. I examined it whilst researching my article and did not find reliable evidence for ‘Christ’ etc.

My logic, by the way, is not quite as simple as you present, for having found the “vacuum” I mentioned, I also found much data for Chrest.

Do you have an explanation for the lack of ‘Jesus Christ’ in the earliest codices of the New Testament? And the lack of any contemporaneous evidence for Eusebius of Caesarea, Origen and other “Christians”? I find it odd – to say the least – that anyone should accept the existence of people who left no ‘footprint’ in the world and rely, instead on later, unsupported claims.

Best regards,
John