"The Apostle calls him and his disciples, 'Sham apostles, crafty workers.'" καὶ οὗτοι εἰσὶν οἱ παρὰ τῷ Παύλῳ εἰρημένοι ψευδαπόστολοι, ἐργάται δόλιοι μετασχηματιζόμενοι εἰς ἀποστόλους Χριστου .
|495 This does not claim to be more than a preliminary discussion of the subject. A fuller investigation of the questions involved is reserved for the publication of Bar Salibi's Commentary on the Apocalypse. It may be possible, however, to sum up our results. We may regard as practically certain the following :----
1. The fact that the Muratorian Canon is the work of Hippolytus.
2. The identity of the Chapters against Gaius with the Apology for the Apocalypse and Gospel of John. Incidentally we may regard it as proved that Gaius really existed.
3. The free use made by Epiphanius of the Heads against Gaius. This is one of the subjects that needs further inquiry, and will probably throw no small light on the history of the Church at the end of the second century.
These results may be held to be certain. To them we may add as being highly probable, though not of the same order of probability as the others :----
4. The Muratorian Canon stood at or near the beginning of the treatise against Gaius in which Hippolytus defended the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse and Fourth Gospel.
Theodore H. R OBINSON .
Notes from the Commentary on the four gospels
[Roger Pearse]
This material was composed and placed online after a discussion in an online forum, provoked by the question,
"What are our (ancient) sources for the datum that Gaius, presbyter of Rome, attacked the fourth gospel and the apocalypse of John?"
The answer given was:
No single source combines all those details in one place. Rather, it is a conclusion reached by coordinating different ancient and medieval sources, including: Irenaeus, AH 3.11.9; Eusebius, HE 6.20.1-3 and 7.25.2; Epiphanius, Pan 51; Photius, Bibl ; and Dionysius bar Salibi, In Apoc at Rev 8:8, 12, 9:2-3, 15, and 20:2-3.
These sources are collected, quoted, discussed, and criticized by Charles E. Hill, The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church (Oxford: University Press, 2004), 172-204.
I found from Sebastian Brock, A brief outline of Syriac literature ,Moran Etho 9, Kottayam (1997), that Dionysius (or Jacob) Bar Salibi (aka Dionysius Syrus) died in 1197 AD, and was a monophysite author. From W. Wright, A short history of Syriac Literature (A&C Black, 1894, reprint. Gorgias 2001) I learn that copious extracts from his commentary on the NT were translated in to Latin; there are, in fact, English translations of portions of the commentary on the gospels (tr. Loftus, 1672, 1695), and on revelation (tr. J. Gwyn, Hermathena 6, p.397ff, and 7, p.137ff, the latter containing extracts from Hippolytus on Matthew; the journal started in 1873).
Hill, based Pierre Prigent ( Hippolyte, Commentateur de l'Apocalypse , in Theologische Zeitschrift 28, 1972, pages 391-412; Les Fragments du De Apocalypse d'Hippolyte , in Theologische Zeitschrift 29, 1973, pages 313-333; Citations d'Hippolyte trouvée dans le ms. Bodl. Syr 140 , in Theologische Zeitschrift 30, 1974, pages 82-85, with R. Stehly) and Allen Brent ( Hippolytus and the Roman Church in the Third Century , Supplement to Vigilae christianae 31, 1995), argued that Bar Salibi in fact did not possess the so-called Heads against Caius , but rather a florilegium of Hippolytan extracts that included legendary embellishments.
Bar Salibi, On the Apocalypse
This work has been printed, with a Latin translation, by Sedlacek. His Latin translation of the introduction to the Apocalypse reads:
Postquam enim absolvimus expositionem Evangelii, o frater noster, fuse et lucidissime, parati sumus aggredi explicationem Apocalypsis Iohannis evangelistae. Vos autem lectores, cum incitatoribus petitionum spiritualium, orationes emittite pro Dionysio peregrino, ut et vos sanemini.
Initio sermonis dicimus multos magistros dubitavisse de Apocalypsi Iohannis et dixisse eam ipsius non esse. Et hoc exponit Eusebius Caesaraeensis in libro eqlisiastiqi seu Historiarum ecciesiasticarum . Dicit enim Dionysius, episcopus Alexandriae: Apocalypsis non est Iohannis apostoli, sed Iohannis alius, presbyteri, qui habitabat in Asia; nam non est similis typus, id est species sermonis, Evangelii et Apocalypsis. Et Iohannes nullibi in Evangelio commemoravit suum nomen; hic vero, initio et fine Apocalypsis posuit nomen suum. Et a Domino nostro accepisse revelationem eum, qui eam scripsit, profitemur. Irenaeus episcopus et Hippolytus Bosrae dicunt Apocalypsim Iohannis evangelistae esse et sub finem regni Domitiani ipsi revelatam esse. Etiam Eusebius Caesaraeensis his assentit at statim dicit: Si quis non admittit Apocalypsim esse Iohannis apostoli, evangelistae, dicimus: ergo est Iohannis presbyteri, qui tempore Iohannis apostoli extitit. Et duo sunt sepulcra in Asia, unum evangelistae et alterum Iohannis presbyteri.
Hippolytus Romanus dixit: Apparuit vir, nomine Caius, qui asserebat Evangelium non esse Iohannis, nec Apocalypsim, sed Cerinthi haeretici ea esse. Et contra hunc Caium surrexit beatus Hippolytus et demonstravit aliam esse doctrinam Iohannis, in Evangelio et in Apocalypsi, et aliam Cerinthi.
Ille quidem Cerinthus docebat circumcisionem, et iratus est in Paulum, quod non circumciderat Titum, et vocat apostolum eiusque discipulos in quadam e suis epistulis "apostolos falsos et operarios fallaces". Docebat etiam mundum ab angelis creatum esse; et non e virgine Dominum nostrum natum esse, et cibum et potum materiales, et multas blasphemias.
Evangelium et Apocalypsis Iohannis mentem Scripturarum sequuntur; ergo mendaces sunt qui dicunt Apocalypsim non esse Iohannis apostoli. Nos autem Hippolyto assentimur. Etiam Iohannis evangelistae esse Apocalypsim testatur s. Cyrillus, et Mar Severus et omnes Doctores qui adducunt testimonia in libris suis, sed etiam Theologus in oratione valedictoria ab eo adducit argumentum et dicit: "Quemadmodum docet me Iohannes per revelationem suam: 'Auferte viam populo meo; et hos lapides' . . .", cum "lapides" haereticos et doctrinam eorum vocat.
I.e.