mountainman

"The Revelation of the Magi"........

Yet another "Gnostic text"? An entertaining story of the Magi, their history, their role in attending the birth of the Jesus Star, and their ultimate conversion to Christianity in a far-off land by Thomas Judas (of great fame in his "Acts of Thomas" where he converts the Indians from Hinduism and Buddhism). Why the Magi were required to be converted from their tradition to Christianity is rhetorical.

Salvaged from the Vatican archives .... thought to have been originally authored in the 2nd or the 3rd century, as a prelude and a revelation to the importance of Nicaean Christianity. Of course, there was a different type of "Magi" after the year 222 CE, following Ardashir's revolution over the Parthian civilisation.


The author mentions that Pope Paul IV, who instituted the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1559, regarded the OIM as heretical and consigned it to the list.

mountainman

I'll second all that Toto. How did you happen to find that? Everyone tracking the number of Gnostic gospels, acts and revelations/Apocalypses, etc will have to add another "new and strange" entry to their list. Thank you for posting these links.

OLDMAN

I find this laughable, given the fact that King Herod was also looking for the Christ child for an entirely different reason.

Cege

I'm still in favor of the female Magus/Magi

John Kesler

I've read enough of her to know that she appeals to paganism and astrology readily, even though Jewish antecedents--the Hebrew Bible, the haggadah, pseudepigrapha, The Apocrypha, etc.--are more likely sources.

spamandham

Christianity was obviously heavily influenced by Judaism and might even have started as a Jewish cult. But it is not Judaism. It's a composite of Jewish and Greek religious ideas.

So to see paganism and astrology in Christianity is not an off the wall idea, it's ordinary. That said, specific claims might still be outrageous, but the general concept is not.

Chili

I don't suppose anyone cares much about this but in case you wondered how it was that Joseph got "Mary's sister pregant," this then is because Matthew's Jesus is James who was conceived in the TOK or conscious mind where temple tramp Eve is at (who is the recipient of this dream and not Nazareth). This makes James the brother of Jesus as 'reborn from below' or from carnal desire in Jn 1:13 and so for whom darkness remains (she was called Magdalene later) . . . wherefore then Mary is said to be the second Eve because she replaced the function of Eve with the vacancy of the conscious mind after the upper room is occupied by way of ascension.

digitalbeachbum

Wow. It's been three years since I posted here... didn't even know they changed the name.

Anyway, The "magi" or "wisemen" are all fictional characters either way. The writing which you speak of is a third party writing which gives a perspective from the "magi's" point of view. It is no different than the author who wrote a book about the Wicked Witch of the West and East (called Wicked).

Though there was no original story line for the witch, the author wrote about one of the characters who had very little to do with the original story "The Wizard of Oz", but yet, the book was written and went on to tell the story of the Wicked Witche's son in the second book....

All fables, stories and make believe.

Chili

Of course they are and we all know about 'wicketness' so we can relate to that idea but this is about light itself and the origin of light that is different from the light of common day which is the illusion that can expose darkness and later wickedness as an opposite to goodness. This light that the magi followed is different and has no opposite in dark and therefore is the source of all goodness. It so is the source of illumination and it is just too bad that Joseph was not home when they arrived.

To 'make believe' requires cooperation our part for which we must be connected to the same source to start with or we could have no knowledge thereoff and in the end could sentience not part be of us.

Kapyong

Gday,

Hmm,
A quick and crude text search shows "magi" mentioned in :

Polybius, 2nd C. BCE, History 34 :
"So the priests of the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and the Magi, being superior to the rest of the world in wisdom, obtained rule and honour in former generations."

Diodorus Siculus, 1st C. BCE, History 16 :
"The latter was a descendant of one of the seven Persians who deposed the Magi."

Cicero, 1st C. BCE, On the Nature of the Gods
"And with the mistaken notions of the poets may be classed the extravagances of the magi, the delusions entertained on the same subject by the Egyptians, and also the beliefs of the common people, which from ignorance of the truth are involved in the greatest inconsistency."

Strabo, 1st C. BCE, Geography 15 :
"The tribes which inhabit the country are the Pateischoreis, as they are called, and the Achaemenidae and the Magi. Now the Magi follow with zeal a kind of august life, whereas the Cyrtii and the Mardi are brigands and others are farmers."

Vitruvius Pollio, 1st C. BCE, Architecture 7 :
"AMONG the Seven Sages, Thales of Miletus pronounced for water as the primordial element in all things; Heraclitus, for fire; the priests of the Magi, for water and fire;"

Philo, 1st C. CE, QA Genesis I :
"The Tigris is a very cruel and mischievous river, as the citizens of Babylon bear witness, and so do the magi, who have found it to be of a character quite different from the nature of other rivers; "

Josephus, 1st C. CE, Antiquities 11 :
"AFTER the slaughter of file Magi, who, upon the death of Cambyses, attained the government of the Persians for a year, those families which were called the seven families of the Persians appointed Darius, the son of Hystaspes, to be
their king. "

Pliny Elder, 1st C. CE, History 21 :
"According to the Magi, the person who crowns himself with a chaplet composed of this flower, and takes his unguents from a box of gold, of the kind generally known as "apyron," will be sure to secure esteem and glory among his fellowmen. Such are the flowers of spring."

Plutarch, 1st C. CE, Isis & Osiris :
"Theopompus says that, according to the Magi, one of the Gods shall conquer, the other be conquered, alternately for 3,000 years; for another 3,000 years they shall fight, war, and undo one the works of the other;"

Followed by later mentions in :
Appian, Justin Martyr, Lucian, Minucius F., Athenaeus, Bardesanes, ClementAlex., Melito, Irenaeus, Tatian; and many many more from 3rd C. on.


(Not sure they all mean the same "magi" though.)


Kapyong