Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 06-09-2013, 09:39 PM

On the Giants, 60-1: Three Kinds of Men 159

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Some men are earth-born, some heaven-born, and some God-born. The earth-born are those who take the pleasures of the body for their quarry, who make it their practice to indulge in them and enjoy them and provide the means by which each of them may be promoted. The heaven-born are the votaries of the arts and of knowledge, the lovers of learning. For the heavenly element in us is the mind, as the heavenly beings are each of them a mind. And it is the mind which pursues the learning of the schools and the other arts one and all, which sharpens and whets itself, aye, and trains and drills itself solid in the contemplation of what is intelligible by mind. But the men of God are priests and prophets who have refused to accept membership in the commonwealth of the world and to become citizens therein, but have risen wholly above the sphere of sense-perception and have been translated into the world of the intelligible and dwell there registered as freemen of the commonwealth of Ideas, which are imperishable and incorporeal.

Thus Abraham, while he sojourned in the land of the Chaldeans—sojourned, that is, in mere opinion—and with his name as yet unchanged from Abram, was a ‘man of heaven.’ He searched into the nature of the supra-terrestrial and ethereal region, and his philosophy studied the events and changes which there occur, and their causes and the like. And therefore he received a name suitable to the studies which he pursued. For “Abram” being interpreted is the uplifted father, a name which signifies that mind which surveys on every side the whole compass of the upper world of heaven, called father-mind because this mind which reaches out to the ether and further still is the father of our compound being ... But when he has risen to a better state and the time is at hand that his name should be changed, he becomes a man of God [Colson]

stephan huller · 06-09-2013, 09:43 PM

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Jacob is claimed to have a human father but a Ghost was publicly broadcast as the father of Jesus.

Myth Jesus is the complete opposite to Myth Jacob.

Myth Jesus was God the Creator and then became Flesh--See John 1.

But your missing my point. My problem with 'mythicism' is that it doesn't realize a difficulty arises with the name 'Jesus' or 'Joshua.' Carrier tried to steamroll over this by claiming that Philo identified 'Jesus' as the name of the Logos. The pre-existent 'heavenly being' which came down to earth in a certain year of Tiberius couldn't have been named 'Jesus' in heaven. This would have been ridiculous for Jews of that period. Angels have angel names; humans have human names. Humans can be made divine. But the Logos or the Son of God couldn't have been originally named 'Gus' or 'Joe' or any other name of human beings.

spin · 06-09-2013, 09:56 PM

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Originally Posted by aa5874

The Jesus cult writers vehemently argued that Jesus was God born of a Ghost.

What barrier does Ignatius' Jesus pose to mythicism? The Jesus of Ignatius was a Myth--Jesus was God conceived by a Ghost.

The Jesus of Tertullian was a Myth--Jesus was God conceived by a Ghost.

I really do love this nonsense. And yes, my post has been recorded!

When aa5874 talks about Jesus being "born of a ghost", I always get this idea of Casper, the friendly ghost.

I think if aa5874 were consistent with this nonsense, he'd charge that Julius Caesar was a myth because he was a god. Then again, if we look at a precursor to the Jesus miraculous birth we turn to the birth of Hatshepsut, as depicted on a wall at the Luxor temple in Egypt. Her father was not as it seemed the pharaoh Tuthmosis I, but Amun in the guise of Tuthmosis I. Obviously Hatshepsut was a myth as well. She didn't rule Egypt upon the death of her husband Tithmosis II, nor did she build at the Karnak temple nor at Deir el-Bahri. She couldn't, for she must have been a myth because she was born of a god, not a human.

One should add though that the birth narratives were added to the gospel tradition and Mk gave no sign of knowing anything of the birth of Jesus.

When dealing with traditions, it is hard to claim that one fragment must dictate the nature of the subject. If Julius Caesar was a god, wouldn't we have known about it in a more convincing manner? But they claimed he was, yet no-one would assert that Caesar was a myth, just as no-one would claim that Hatshepsut was a myth.

aa5874's fundamental and often repeated argument is simply fallacious. It is an assertion that ultimately has no foundation. It merely assumes from what could be apocryphal that Jesus could not have existed.

Trying to be deductive about such fuzzy things as tradition is utter nonsense. I love it.

spin · 06-09-2013, 10:20 PM

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Originally Posted by stephan huller

I know many of you have suffered through countless posts where I try to make sense of the original name of Jesus. I know that must have sounded very strange at first. After all, we assume that Jesus was a person named 'Joshua' - our Jesus being based on the Greek rendering of that name Ἰησοῦς. But I have never been satisfied with that explanation. Part of that goes back to Irenaeus (AH 2.22) being so eager to acknowledge that Jesus name goes back to the Aramaic yeshu (= 'two and a half letter name'). I have never understood by Joshua had to be shortened to yeshu when Joshua is already a short form of the original Hebrew name.

(And I don't understand your logic here. While Joshua is a modern form of יהושוע, Jeshua is derived from ישוע, an extremely common contraction of the YHW- theophoric. This last name is rendered in Greek as Ιησους.)

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Originally Posted by stephan huller

Then there was the fact that the Marcionites had another form of the name - Isu in the writings of Ephrem. Mitchell and others have noted this seems to be a transliteration of the Greek Ἰησοῦς again. Mahar notes that the form Isu naturally seems to suggest a alef-yod-samekh-vav (although this form never appears in Ephrem). I have struggled for years to figure out whether there was some alternative possibility here - and I think I finally found it.

I noticed in Tal Ilan's Lexicon of Jewish Names in Antiquity that the almost the exact same form suggested by Mahar is found in an early incantation bowl - אישו. The bowls in question are 1. Levine, CMB M163. The incantation includes an adjuration בשםיה דאישו דכבש רומא (in the name of Ishu who conquered Rome). This may be Jesus. His name is followed by "and in the name of his exalted father and the holy spirit" which may be an allusion to the trinity. Shaked (JSQ 1999) claims this is the only mention of Jesus in these bowl to date.

The point of course is that אישו is Biblical Aramaic for 'his man' or 'his person.' It is also among the most common epithets of Moses in Samaritanism based on Deuteronomy 33:1 = "the man of God" or "God's man."

Let us assume for a moment that you are right. How would you derive either the initial iota or the following eta as seen in the Greek name Ιησους? By considering אישו, you are removing the possibility of a consonantal yod, the effect of the initial alef and while a yod could give an eta, I don't know of such a context doing so. So, how do you derive Ιησους, whose phonology can come without difficulty from ישוע?

stephan huller · 06-09-2013, 10:39 PM

For God does not seem to have availed himself of any other animal existing in creation as his model in the formation of man; but to have been guided, as I have said before, by his own reason alone. On which account, Moses affirms that this man was an image and imitation of God, being breathed into in his face in which is the place of the sensations, by which the Creator endowed the body with a soul. Then, having placed the mind in the dominant part as king, he gave him as a body of satellites, the different powers calculated to perceive colours and sounds, and flavours and odours, and other things of similar kinds, which man could never have distinguished by his own resources without the sensations. And it follows of necessity that an imitation of a perfectly beautiful model must itself be perfectly beautiful, for the word of God surpasses even that beauty which exists in the nature which is perceptible only by the external senses, not being embellished by any adventitious beauty, but being itself, if one must speak the truth, its most exquisite embellishment [On the Creation 137]

"And the man whom he had formed," Moses says, "God placed in the Paradise,"{10}{#ge 2:8.} for the present only. Who, then, is he in reference to whom he subsequently says that "The Lord God took the man whom he had formed, and placed him in the Paradise to cultivate it and to guard It."{11}{#ge 2:15.} Must not this man who was created according to the image and idea of God have been a different man from the other, so that two men must have been introduced into the Paradise together, the one a fictitious man, and the other modelled after the image of God? [Allegorical 1.53]

Gen 37:15 "And a man found him wandering in the plain" ... But some say that the proper name of the man who found him wandering in the plain is not mentioned, and they themselves are in some degree mistaken here, because they are unable clearly to discover the true way of this business, for if they had not been mutilated as to the eye of the soul, they would have known that of one who is truly a man, the most proper, and appropriate, and felicitous name is this very name of man, being the most appropriate appelation of a well regulated and rational mind. [That the Worse 22]

Using such a power as this with reference to the most divine thing that is in us, namely, our mind, "Isaac goes forth into the Plain;"{12}{#ge 24:63.} not for the purpose of contending with any body, since all those who might have been his antagonists, are terrified at the greatness and exceeding excellence of his nature in all things; but only washing to meet in private, and to converse in private with the fellow traveller and guide of his path and of his soul, namely God. (30) And the clearest possible proof of this is, that no one who conversed with Isaac was a mere mortal. Rebecca, that is perseverance, asks her servant, seeing but one person, and having no conception but of one only, "Who is this man who is coming to meet us?" For the soul which perseveres in what is good, is able to comprehend all self-taught wisdom, which is named Isaac, but is not yet able to see God, who is the guide of wisdom. (31) Therefore, also, the servant confirming the fact that he cannot be comprehended who is invisible, and who converses with man invisibly, says, "He is my lord," pointing to Isaac alone. [ibid 29]

and it is said in the sacred scriptures, "I give thee as a God to Pharaoh," and yet what is given is the patient, not the agent; but he that is truly living must be the agent, and beyond all question cannot be the patient. (162) What then is inferred from these facts? Why, that the wise man is called the God of the foolish man, but he is not God in reality, just as a base coin of the apparent value of four drachmas is not a four drachma piece. But when he is compared with the living God, then he will be found to be a man of God; but when he is compared with a foolish man, he is accounted a God to the imagination and in appearance, but he is not so in truth and essence. [ibid 159]

And every soul that is beginning to be widowed and devoid of evils, says to the prophet, "O, man of God! hast thou come to me to remind me of my iniquity and of my sin?"38 For he being inspired, and entering into the soul, and being filled with heavenly love, and being amazingly excited by the intolerable stimulus of heaveninflicted frenzy, works in the soul a recollection of its ancient iniquities and offences: not in order that it may commit such again, ùbut that, greatly lamenting and bitterly bewailing its former error, it may hate its own offspring, and reject them with aversion, and may follow the admonitions of the word of God, the interpreter and prophet of his will. (139) For the men of old used to call the prophets sometimes men of God, and sometimes seers, 39 affixing appropriate and becoming names to their enthusiasm, and inspiration, and to the foreknowledge of affairs which they enjoyed. [On the Unchangeable 135]

We must therefore flee, without ever turning back, from all associations entered into for the purposes of sin; but the alliance made with the companions of wisdom and knowledge must be confirmed. (41) In reference to which I admire those who say, "We are all one man's sons, we are men of Peace,"{8}{#ge 42:11.} because of their well-adapted agreement; since how, I should say, could you, O excellent men, avoid being grieved at war, and delighted in peace, being the sons of one and the same father, and he not mortal but immortal, the man of God, who being the reason of the everlasting God, is of necessity himself also immortal? (42) For they who make out many beginnings of the origin of the soul, being devoted to the evil which is called polytheism, and turning each individual of them, to the honour of different beings, having caused great confusion and dissension both at home and abroad, from the beginning of their birth to the end of their life, filling life with irreconcilable quarrels; (43) but they who rejoice in one kind alone, and who honour one as their father, namely right reason, admiring the wellarranged and all-musical harmony of the virtues, live a tranquil and peaceful life, not an inactive and ignoble one, as some persons think, but one of great manliness, and sharpened, and vigorous against those who endeavour to break the confederacy which they have formed, and who are always studying to bring about a violation of the oaths which have been taken; for it has come to pass that the men of peace have become men of war, sitting down to attack and to oppose them who seek to overturn the firmness of the soul. [On the Confusion of Tongues 40]

But whoever is raised on high to such a sublime elevation will never any more allow any of the portions of his soul to dwell below among mortal men, but will draw them all up to himself as if they were suspended by a rope; for which reason a sacred injunction of the following purport was given to the wise man, "Go thou up to the Lord, thou, and Aaron, and Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel."{85}{#ex 24:1.} (169) And the meaning of this injunction is as follows, "Go up, O soul, to the view of the living God, in an orderly manner, rationally, voluntarily, fearlessly, lovingly, in the holy and perfect numbers of seven multiplied tenfold." For Aaron is described in the law as the prophet of Moses, being loudly uttered speech prophesying to the mind. And Nadab is interpreted "voluntary," that is to say, the man who honours the Deity without compulsion; and the interpretation of the name Abihu is, "my father." This man is one who has not need of a master by reason of his folly, more than of a father by reason of his wisdom, namely such a father as God the ruler of the world. (170) And these powers are the body-guards of the mind which is worthy to bear sovereign sway, which ought also to attend upon the king, and conduct him on his way. But the soul is afraid by itself to rise up to the contemplation of the living God, if it does not know the road, from being lifted up by a union of ignorance and audacity; and the falls which are caused by such a union of ignorance and great rashness are very serious; (171) on which account Moses prays that he may have God himself as his guide to the road which leads to him. For he says, "If thou wilt not thyself go with me, then do not thou lead me Hence."{86}{exodus 33:5.} [On the Migration 168]

stephan huller · 06-09-2013, 11:23 PM

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(And I don't understand your logic here. While Joshua is a modern form of יהושוע, Jeshua is derived from ישוע, an extremely common contraction of the YHW- theophoric. This last name is rendered in Greek as Ιησους.)

Well thank you for taking an interest in this. To start with, Irenaeus says (infers) that Jesus's proper name was ישו(= two and a half letters). So I never quite understood (a) why ישוע - itself a contraction - had to be further contracted to ישו (b) and how the Marcionites could have thought that a heavenly being was named Joshua.

Then when I stumbled upon that incantation bowl with the name אישו I thought - I can work with this. I immediately recognized the Hebrew parallel and contacted my friend Benny and he's sending me the Samaritan prayers where Moses is so-called from the middle period.

Now if we assume that there is this parallel, the idea that Jesus was Moses or the heavenly being that Moses became, and that he conquered Rome, it reminds me of the hymn or prayer cited by Celsus in the second century:

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Celsus goes on to say: “That I may give a true representation of their faith, I will use their own words, as given in what is called A Heavenly Dialogue: 'If the Son is mightier than God, and the Son of man is Lord over Him, who else than the Son can be Lord over that God who is the ruler over all things? How comes it, that while so many go about the well, no one goes down into it? Why are you afraid when you have gone so far on the way? Answer: You are mistaken, for I lack neither courage nor weapons.' [Celsus 8.15]

I am partial to the idea of a militant Christianity. I don't know why. But whatever the case, the question becomes why should Ιησους be more original than אישו? I know that's not much of an argument. But I literally found this bowl this morning.

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How would you derive either the initial iota or the following eta as seen in the Greek name Ιησους? By considering אישו, you are removing the possibility of a consonantal yod, the effect of the initial alef and while a yod could give an eta, I don't know of such a context doing so. So, how do you derive Ιησους, whose phonology can come without difficulty from ישוע?

Well to be honest, I haven't worked this out yet. I was hoping something would help me along the way. My guiding assumption would be that the process was assisted in someway by the various nomina sacra that 'Jesus' manifests itself in the surviving texts. Again, I've only been on this for ten hours. But I don't think it was a natural progression. For instance, Joshua is clearly the heir to Moses in the Pentateuch and more so in the Book of Joshua. If אישו was transformed into Ιησους deliberately, it was done to reinforce the idea that patterns in the Old Testament predicted the New. 2 Corinthians says that Christ was greater than Moses. The new paradigm sees him as his successor.

But no I haven't worked out exactly how this was accomplished. More reading necessary.

stephan huller · 06-09-2013, 11:27 PM

FWIW - no Joshua symbolism at all in Irenaeus. Neither Against Heresies or Proof of Apostolic Preaching.

stephan huller · 06-09-2013, 11:48 PM

A strange proof that I hadn't noticed before. The Marcionite interpretation of the visit to the synagogue (Luke 4:31 - 37). God goes in the synagogue and teaches a strange teaching and then:

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In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, 34 “What have we to do with thee, Jesus? Thou art come to destroy us. I know who thou art, the Holy One of God.” “Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.

Tertullian Against Marcion 4:7 strongly implies that the teaching was about the destruction of the Law:

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they would not have been astonished but horrified; would not have marvelled at, but immediately shrunk from, a destroyer of the law and the prophets—and above all else the preacher of a different god, because he could not have given teaching contrary to the law and the prophets, and, by that token, contrary to the Creator, without some previous profession of belief in an alien and hostile deity. As then the scripture gives no indication of this kind, but only that the power and authority of his speech were a matter of wonder, it more readily indicates that his teaching was in accordance with the Creator, since it does not deny that, than that it was opposed to the Creator, since it has not said so. It follows that he must either be acknowledged to belong to him in accordance with whom his teaching was given, or else judged a turn-coat if his teaching was in accordance with him whom he had come to oppose. On the same occasion the spirit of the demon cries out, What have we to do with thee, Jesus? Thou art come to destroy us. I know who thou art, the Holy One of God. Here I shall not discuss whether even this appellation was at all appropriate to one who had no right even to the name of Christ unless he belonged to the Creator. I have fully discussed his titles in another place.5 At present I require to know how the demon knew that he had this name, when no prediction referring to him had ever been made in the past by a god unknown and until that time dumb, a god as whose holy one he had no means of invoking him, a god unknown even to the demon's Creator. <I ask also> what sort of indication he now gave of a new divinity, that by it he could be taken for the holy one of a different god. Merely that he had gone inside the synagogue and not even in word had taken any sort of action against the Creator? As then he had no means of recognizing that one whom he had no knowledge of was Jesus and the Holy One of God, it follows that this recognition was of one whom he did know: for he remembered <two things>, that the prophet had prophesied of the Holy One of God, and that Jesus was God's name in the son of Nun. He had had these names given by an angel, our gospel relates: Therefore that which shall be born in thee shall be called holy, the Son of God:d and, Thou shalt call his name Jesus. Also, though he was only a demon, he had in fact some sense of the Lord's purpose, more than if it had been a stranger's and not yet well enough known. For he began by asking, What have we to do with thee, Jesus?, not as though addressing a stranger, but as one whose concern the Creator's spirits are. For his words were not, What hast thou to do with us?, but, What have we to do with thee?, in sorrow for himself and in regret at his own case: and as he now sees what this is he adds, Thou art come to destroy us. To that extent he had recognized Jesus as the Son of the judge, the avenger, and <if I may say so> the severe God, not of that perfectly good god who knows nothing of destruction and punishment. With what purpose have I begun with this episode? To show you that Jesus was acknowledged by the demon, and affirmed by himself, to belong to none other than the Creator. But still, you
object, Jesus rebuked him. Of course he did: he was an embarrassment: even in that acknowledgement he was impertinent, and submissive in the wrong way, giving the impression that it would be the sum total of Christ's glory to have come for the destruction of demons and not rather for the salvation of men: for it was he who would have his disciples rejoice not because the spirits were subject to them but because of their election to salvation.f Else why did he rebuke him? If because he was wholly a liar, then he himself was neither Jesus nor in any sense holy: if because he was partly a liar, in having rightly thought him to be Jesus and the Holy One of God, but to belong to the Creator, it was most unjust of him to rebuke one who took the view which he knew he must take, and did not entertain the idea which he did not know he needed to entertain, that he was a different Jesus, and the holy one of a different god. But if his rebuke has no more likely ground than the interpretation we put upon it, in that case the demon told no lie, and was not rebuked for lying: for Jesus was Jesus himself, and the demon had no means of affording recognition to any besides him: and Jesus gave assurance of being that one whom the devil had recognized, seeing that his rebuke to the demon was not on account of a lie.

As crazy as it sounds I think the Marcionites read the passage as if the demoniac mistook the Christian god being named Jesus. The idea must have been that this being was commonly known as 'Jesus' but that wasn't his real name.

stephan huller · 06-09-2013, 11:59 PM

A similar interpretation is given by the Marcionites here and in the Dialogue of Adamantius (De Recta in Deum Fide) about the Blind Man of Jericho narrative:

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He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

39 Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

40 Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, 41 “What do you want me to do for you?”

“Lord, I want to see,” he replied.

42 Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” 43 Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.

The implication here it is repeated is that when the man was blind he called the god 'Jesus' and 'the son of David' but when he received his sight he called him Lord.

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But Marcion's Jesus—yet there could be no doubt that one had been born, who was seen to be a man—he indeed, not having been born, could have had in the public records no note of his descent, but would have had to be reckoned as one from among those persons who in some way or other were classed as unknown. When then that blind man had been told that he was passing by, why did he cry out, Jesus thou son of David, have mercy on me, except that he was with good reason regarded as the son of David, which means, of the family of David, in consideration of his mother and his brethren, who had in fact on one occasion because of people's knowledge of them, been reported to him as being present? But they that went before rebuked the blind man, that he should hold his peace. Quite properly: because he was making a noise, not because he was wrong about the son of David. Or else you must prove that those who rebuked were convinced that Jesus was not the son of David, if you wish me to believe that that was their reason for putting the blind man to silence. Yet even if you did prove this, the man would more readily assume that those people were in ignorance, than that the Lord could have allowed to pass a false description of himself. But the Lord is patient.d He is not however one who stands surety for error—but rather a revealer of the Creator—so that he would not have failed first to take away the cloud of this aspect of that man's blindness, and so prevent him from thinking any longer that Jesus was the son of David. Far from it: to preclude you from speaking ill of his patience, or from attaching to him any charge of keeping back the truth, or from saying he is not the son of David, he expressed the clearest possible approval of the blind man's commendation, rewarding it with the gift of healing, and with witness to his faith. Thy faith, he says, hath made thee whole. What do you say was the substance of that blind man's faith? That Jesus had come down from that god of yours with intent to overthrow the Creator and destroy the law and the prophets? that he was not the one fore-ordained to come forth from the root of Jesse and from the fruit of David's loins, a giver of gifts also to the blind? No, there did not yet exist, I think, people of Marcion's sort of blindness, that such should have been the content of that blind man's faith which he expressed in the cry, Jesus, thou son of David. Jesus knew that this was what he is, and wished it to be known of all men, so that although the man's faith was based on better eyesight, although it was possessed of the true light, he gave it the further gift of external vision, so that we too might be taught what is the rule, and also the reward, of faith. He who wishes to see Jesus, must believe him the son of David by descent from the virgin: he who does not so believe will never be told by him, Thy faith hath saved thee, and consequently will remain blind, falling into the ditch of an antithesis, which itself falls into a ditch. For this is what happens when the blind leads the blind. For if, <as you suggest>, blind men once came into conflict with David at his recapture of Sion,e fighting back to prevent his admission—though these are a figure of that nation equally blind, which was some time to deny admission to Christ the son of David—and therefore Christ came to the blind man's help by way of opposition so that by this he might show himself not the son of David, being of opposite mind, and kind to blind men, such as David had ordered to be slain: <if this is so> why did he say he had granted this to the man's faith, and false faith at that? But in
fact by this expression son of David I can, on its own terms, blunt the point of the antithesis. Those who came into conflict with David were blind: but here a man of the same infirmity had presented himself as suppliant to the son of David. Consequently, when he gave this satisfaction, the son of David was in some sort appeased and restored his sight, adding also a testimony to the faith by which he had believed this very fact, that he must address his prayer to the son of David. For all that, David I think will have been offended by the insolence of those Jebusites, not by the state of their health

stephan huller · 06-10-2013, 12:04 AM

Another insinuation possibly that Marcion's god wasn't named 'Jesus.' Luke 21:8. What does it mean to 'come in my name'?

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We have already reached agreement on the rightful ownership of the names, that it appertains to him who first proclaimed his own Christ among men, and changed a name to Jesus. Thus we shall also be in agreement concerning the presumption of one who says that many will come in his name, when it is not his name if he is not the Christ and Jesus of the Creator, to whom the rightful possession of the name belongs, and when, what is more, he forbids our acceptance of others who are in like case with himself, seeing that he, no less than they, has come in a name not his own—unless it was his purpose to forewarn the disciples against lying claimants to the name, he himself through rightful ownership of the name possessing the truth of it.1 So then those people will come, saying I am Christ.a You, <Marcion,> will receive them: you have received one exactly like them. For this one too has come in his own name. What then of the fact that there is still to come the real owner of the names, the Christ and Jesus of the Creator? Shall you reject him? But how unfair, how unjust, how unworthy of a god supremely good, that you should not receive him when he conies in his own name, when you have already received another in his name [Against Marcion 4:39]

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06-09-2013, 10:39 PM	#15
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	For God does not seem to have availed himself of any other animal existing in creation as his model in the formation of man; but to have been guided, as I have said before, by his own reason alone. On which account, Moses affirms that this man was an image and imitation of God, being breathed into in his face in which is the place of the sensations, by which the Creator endowed the body with a soul. Then, having placed the mind in the dominant part as king, he gave him as a body of satellites, the different powers calculated to perceive colours and sounds, and flavours and odours, and other things of similar kinds, which man could never have distinguished by his own resources without the sensations. And it follows of necessity that an imitation of a perfectly beautiful model must itself be perfectly beautiful, for the word of God surpasses even that beauty which exists in the nature which is perceptible only by the external senses, not being embellished by any adventitious beauty, but being itself, if one must speak the truth, its most exquisite embellishment [On the Creation 137] "And the man whom he had formed," Moses says, "God placed in the Paradise,"{10}{#ge 2:8.} for the present only. Who, then, is he in reference to whom he subsequently says that "The Lord God took the man whom he had formed, and placed him in the Paradise to cultivate it and to guard It."{11}{#ge 2:15.} Must not this man who was created according to the image and idea of God have been a different man from the other, so that two men must have been introduced into the Paradise together, the one a fictitious man, and the other modelled after the image of God? [Allegorical 1.53] Gen 37:15 "And a man found him wandering in the plain" ... But some say that the proper name of the man who found him wandering in the plain is not mentioned, and they themselves are in some degree mistaken here, because they are unable clearly to discover the true way of this business, for if they had not been mutilated as to the eye of the soul, they would have known that of one who is truly a man, the most proper, and appropriate, and felicitous name is this very name of man, being the most appropriate appelation of a well regulated and rational mind. [That the Worse 22] Using such a power as this with reference to the most divine thing that is in us, namely, our mind, "Isaac goes forth into the Plain;"{12}{#ge 24:63.} not for the purpose of contending with any body, since all those who might have been his antagonists, are terrified at the greatness and exceeding excellence of his nature in all things; but only washing to meet in private, and to converse in private with the fellow traveller and guide of his path and of his soul, namely God. (30) And the clearest possible proof of this is, that no one who conversed with Isaac was a mere mortal. Rebecca, that is perseverance, asks her servant, seeing but one person, and having no conception but of one only, "Who is this man who is coming to meet us?" For the soul which perseveres in what is good, is able to comprehend all self-taught wisdom, which is named Isaac, but is not yet able to see God, who is the guide of wisdom. (31) Therefore, also, the servant confirming the fact that he cannot be comprehended who is invisible, and who converses with man invisibly, says, "He is my lord," pointing to Isaac alone. [ibid 29] and it is said in the sacred scriptures, "I give thee as a God to Pharaoh," and yet what is given is the patient, not the agent; but he that is truly living must be the agent, and beyond all question cannot be the patient. (162) What then is inferred from these facts? Why, that the wise man is called the God of the foolish man, but he is not God in reality, just as a base coin of the apparent value of four drachmas is not a four drachma piece. But when he is compared with the living God, then he will be found to be a man of God; but when he is compared with a foolish man, he is accounted a God to the imagination and in appearance, but he is not so in truth and essence. [ibid 159] And every soul that is beginning to be widowed and devoid of evils, says to the prophet, "O, man of God! hast thou come to me to remind me of my iniquity and of my sin?"38 For he being inspired, and entering into the soul, and being filled with heavenly love, and being amazingly excited by the intolerable stimulus of heaveninflicted frenzy, works in the soul a recollection of its ancient iniquities and offences: not in order that it may commit such again, ùbut that, greatly lamenting and bitterly bewailing its former error, it may hate its own offspring, and reject them with aversion, and may follow the admonitions of the word of God, the interpreter and prophet of his will. (139) For the men of old used to call the prophets sometimes men of God, and sometimes seers, 39 affixing appropriate and becoming names to their enthusiasm, and inspiration, and to the foreknowledge of affairs which they enjoyed. [On the Unchangeable 135] We must therefore flee, without ever turning back, from all associations entered into for the purposes of sin; but the alliance made with the companions of wisdom and knowledge must be confirmed. (41) In reference to which I admire those who say, "We are all one man's sons, we are men of Peace,"{8}{#ge 42:11.} because of their well-adapted agreement; since how, I should say, could you, O excellent men, avoid being grieved at war, and delighted in peace, being the sons of one and the same father, and he not mortal but immortal, the man of God, who being the reason of the everlasting God, is of necessity himself also immortal? (42) For they who make out many beginnings of the origin of the soul, being devoted to the evil which is called polytheism, and turning each individual of them, to the honour of different beings, having caused great confusion and dissension both at home and abroad, from the beginning of their birth to the end of their life, filling life with irreconcilable quarrels; (43) but they who rejoice in one kind alone, and who honour one as their father, namely right reason, admiring the wellarranged and all-musical harmony of the virtues, live a tranquil and peaceful life, not an inactive and ignoble one, as some persons think, but one of great manliness, and sharpened, and vigorous against those who endeavour to break the confederacy which they have formed, and who are always studying to bring about a violation of the oaths which have been taken; for it has come to pass that the men of peace have become men of war, sitting down to attack and to oppose them who seek to overturn the firmness of the soul. [On the Confusion of Tongues 40] But whoever is raised on high to such a sublime elevation will never any more allow any of the portions of his soul to dwell below among mortal men, but will draw them all up to himself as if they were suspended by a rope; for which reason a sacred injunction of the following purport was given to the wise man, "Go thou up to the Lord, thou, and Aaron, and Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel."{85}{#ex 24:1.} (169) And the meaning of this injunction is as follows, "Go up, O soul, to the view of the living God, in an orderly manner, rationally, voluntarily, fearlessly, lovingly, in the holy and perfect numbers of seven multiplied tenfold." For Aaron is described in the law as the prophet of Moses, being loudly uttered speech prophesying to the mind. And Nadab is interpreted "voluntary," that is to say, the man who honours the Deity without compulsion; and the interpretation of the name Abihu is, "my father." This man is one who has not need of a master by reason of his folly, more than of a father by reason of his wisdom, namely such a father as God the ruler of the world. (170) And these powers are the body-guards of the mind which is worthy to bear sovereign sway, which ought also to attend upon the king, and conduct him on his way. But the soul is afraid by itself to rise up to the contemplation of the living God, if it does not know the road, from being lifted up by a union of ignorance and audacity; and the falls which are caused by such a union of ignorance and great rashness are very serious; (171) on which account Moses prays that he may have God himself as his guide to the road which leads to him. For he says, "If thou wilt not thyself go with me, then do not thou lead me Hence."{86}{exodus 33:5.} [On the Migration 168]

06-09-2013, 11:27 PM	#17
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	FWIW - no Joshua symbolism at all in Irenaeus. Neither Against Heresies or Proof of Apostolic Preaching.

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