Rough Google Machine Translation of Bruno Bauer's ProtoChristianity

Paul Clifton Bingham Cheffers paul@securecottage.com

Philo, Strauss Und Renan Und Das Urchristenthum

This 1874 book of Bauer doesn't seem to have an English translation so I have scanned the Kessenger Legacy Reprints edition in and OCRed it with tesseract. I have massaged the German to get a readable but not extreemly accurate English translation by putting the German through translate.google.com. It definitely needs a competent German speaker to fix up the scanned German text. However, most of the translated text are English words.

The chapters on Philo are the best part of the book, the other chapters on Renan and Strauss are more like literary reviews. There are around 200 references to Philo in the Bauer text, but these references are not correct in todays versification for Philo. For instance, On Flight and Finding p470 is now v137-139 and On Sleep p1133 is now probably v2.249. I intend to work on this versification problem next but it may take some time to do. The p470 reference is probably the 470th paragraph (denoted by Roman numerals on the left) starting from the beginning of Philo's total number of writings. There still needs to be some work on this.

For me chapter 6 "Philo's spiritual MetaReligion" was the best part of the book, particularly p96 where Bauer claims that Philo anticipates the eucharist of the Catholic church. On p87 there is also the claim that the LOGOS is the first born of God, thereby tieing Jesus as the LOGOS (which is actually mentioned in the Gospel of John).

The Unix tar file of all the German pages with English machine translations can be downloaded here.

A very good source for Philo and his thoughts on the LOGOS is Philo of Alexandria | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (utm.edu). It has many of the sources in modern verse form that Bauer first pointed out. For instance,

"Wisdom flows from the Divine Logos (Fug. 137-138). The Logos is the Cupbearer of God. He pours himself into happy souls (Somn. 2.249). The immortal part of the soul comes from the divine breath of the Father/Ruler as a part of his Logos."

This is taken first from Bauer at p96 of the work translated here in this page. Many of Bauer's paragraph sources are not easily translated into today's Philo writings. The page above can be used to find the relevant verses where Philo's work on the Logos can be found.

The above quote from the Encyclopedia (and from p96 of ProtoChristianity) shows that Philo anticipated the Eucharist. Here is the rough translation of part of p96 of ProtoChristianity

"The Logos is the heavenly bread of wisdom, which of the Seyende from the spirits, the nad) the demand belief, trickles down 2); settle the true one High priest who presides over the banquet of the eternal graces takes and in the bowl he with unmixed drink fills up, settles down. He himself is the drink. 3)"

Here is another quote from the Encyclopedia that shows that Philo also anticipated the Trinity (see p87 of ProtoChristianity).

"The Beneficent (Creative) and Regent (Authoritative) Powers are called God and Lord, respectively. Goodness is Boundless Power, Creative, and God. The Regent Power is also Punitive Power and Lord (Her. 166). Creative Power, moreover, permeates the world, the power by which God made and ordered all things. Philo follows the ideas of the Stoics that nous pervades every part of the universe as it does the soul in us. Therefore, Philo asserts that the aspect of God which transcends his powers (which we have to understand to be the Logos) cannot be conceived of in terms of place but as pure being, “but that power of his by which he made and ordered all things called God, in accordance with the etymology of that name, enfolds the whole and passes through the parts of the universe” (Conf. 136-137). According to Philo, the two powers of God are separated by God himself who is standing above in the midst of them (Her. 166). Referring to Genesis 18: 2 Philo claims that God and his two Powers are in reality one. To the human mind they appear as a Triad, with God above the powers that belong to him: “For this cannot be so keen of spirit that, it can see Him who is above the powers that belong to Him, (namely) God, distinct from everything else. For so soon as one sets eyes on God, there also appear together with His being, the ministering powers, so that in place of one he makes the appearance of a triad (QG 4.2).” In addition to these two main powers, there are other powers of the Father and his Logos, including merciful and legislative (Fug. 94-95)."

Looking at my rough translation of part of p87

"This Logos is the firstborn of God, the oldest Angel, the archangel and, as he is the thought of the world from the outset in the direction of Seyenben is thought to be the older son of God, while the world is over The younger son is - he is the image and the shadow God, while the world is his reflection and image. 3"

I. philo als führer aus dem Griechenthum zum christenthum.
II. Strauß und sein neuer Glaube.
II Renan’s Stelung zum französiichen Imperialismus.
IV. Strauß’ens Einrichtung in der Welt.
V. Die römischen Cäsaren und die dorboten des Christenthums,.
VI. Philo’s geistige Weltreligion.
VII. philo im Neuen Testanent.
VIII. Renan’s Leben jesu.
IX. philo’s chriften.
Contents.
I. Philo as a leader from the Greeks Christianity.
II Strauss and his new faith.
III Renan’s position on French imperialism.
IV. Strauss's establishment in the world.
V. The Roman Caesars and their messengers Christianity,.
VI. Philo's spiritual world religion.
VII. philo in the New Testament.
VIII. Renan's life of Jesus.
IX. Philo's writings.