Clivedurdle

The Albigensian Crusade was precisely against heretics that included in their number "perfect ones".

Chili

I think Plato called this the Fifth wherein the meal itself is seen as whole that is greater than the sum-total of it's components = transcending human understanding in the full splendor of beauty.

So whereas each dish has its own einai in the beauty of truth as the work of the artisan that is telic to him or to her, and so is like a shepherd with an einai that has a glow of its own in the show (hat's off to the cook and we give thanks): It is the full meal that is radiant without demands in the parousia of the total being, here now the meal for the joy of us all when parousia is seen and consumation takes place.

Chili

Puritans, right?
Maybe this guy is wrong (he seems very proud), but if that is what the Crusade was about, 'the sooner the better' is what I would add.

In my example of the meal he would throw out the meal and sniff the aroma and call it God-send.

To even say "God offered eternal light" is to be distant from it by will and by force, opposite to which the Catholic would say: "In heaven there is no beer and that is why we drink it here." To say, both heaven and earth is the full meal deal.

Tragic maybe, but no sympathy from me.

Clivedurdle

This is 500 years before the Puritans, and I think is probably a Zarathustran influenced group, with a most High God and the God who created this imperfect world - not Satan, they said this is yhwh.

The process to get priests as the living representatives of Christ has been well marinaded over the centuries with some very interesting flavours.

Chili

I understand, puritans but not Puritans, and I also know that Satan does not create but 'like-god' of Gen. 3 does, who is human, or earthly, now as yahweh's handiman who allows this to be.

There is a nice passage in Proverbs 9 on this that I actually cherish:


So it is wrong to blame yahweh (Lord God) who is delighed by humans (sons of men while adamic) as craftman and is actually 'co-creator' with us, or vice versa, as our guide in good works = the inspiration for us in the major at hand, that through minor is to unfold in the conclusion we first saw. Notice here that 'the minor' is us = life is philosophy and philosophy is life.

So in the same way as God is without cause until we make him know (as was done by the son in the genus of man), so is Satan without cause until we make him known in the absense of light now only as human.

The difference is that God is always iconic to produce fruit in the end while satan is fantasy that can only lead to destruction of that which already is.

Notice here that 'day by day' is in the light while Satan is king in the absense of light.

I see priests to be shepherds of their flock and all they know is that ''hither and thither' they must go (and keep wolves at bay), and let God do His thing on his own.

stephan huller

What's more interesting to me is to start from the assumption that the Gospel that Mark wrote was about the establishment of a priestly class. This is what is implicit in the cryptic description found in the Letter to Theodore:

I don't want to discuss the question of whether the letter is a forgery, or a modern versus ancient forgery. The point is that whoever wrote this account understood the gospel to be part of the process of initiating catechumen into the place where only priests could stand.

To this end the implication to me at least is that the original gospel narrative was understood by the author and the community associated with this letter to be all about establishing men as representatives of Christ. The closest parallel I can think of is the idea that the high priest was the Logos. Whoever stands in the holy of holies is at once divine apparently.

The point then is that if the gospel narrative was used to establish the catechumen as priests (i.e. those who were allowed access to the sanctuary behind the veil) then the whole of the gospel narrative must have had the same function. It couldn't just have been a 'small part' of the narrative. The rest of the narrative was designed by Mark to support the establishment of priests.

In a similar light then the symbol of Jesus crucified, must have represented the idea of being 'crucified unto the Law.' That the crucified were tabernacles but at the same time so were those priests who were not crucified. It is difficult to make sense of the last part I admit, but as I said the entire gospel narrative must have had a practical function in the Church. It wasn't 'determined' by the facts of a historical crucifixion. Rather it was arranged so as to support the use of crucifixion and the crucified one(s) as tabernacles of God and undoubtedly (as Secret Mark shows) those initiated by the crucified one(s).

But the establishment of a (new) priesthood is key. The gospel narrative wasn't composed as a 'joke.' It had to have had a specific function beneath all the symbols and allegories. It's dating to 70 CE is key also.

Chili

Typical Mark, the selfrighteous elect.
Muhammad all over again.

rlogan

The Gospel clearly tells us its purpose: "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ..."

There is no hidden function. It takes various Hebrew Bible prophesies as a means of weaving the story, and is quite explicit about doing so.

If we look at the administrative structure of the nascent faith, the disciples are treated as shabby fools instead of venerated as wise or magnificent. So clearly this idea of his representatives being like Christ himself is in contradiction to the text.

Furthermore Jesus himself is subject to not just trial and conviction, but mocking derision and scorn from the multitudes. Jesus accused someone who divorced and re-married as guilty of adultery. What would he say about child rapists? The Bible doesn't even contemplate crimes so heinous. Were they treated like Christ they would be executed for their crimes.

Trying to inject an administrative church structure into Mark that makes administrators immune from child rape is ludicrous. The Church has to give a reason once it was proven they protected child rapists. The fact they concealed it shows they know how wrong it was. So what are they going to say?

They can't quote anything from Mark. Perhaps you could point us to the passage in Mark that the Vatican was unable to find on this?

stephan huller

I think that it is foolish to hold the existing gospels up as testifying to anything other than the late second century Church. Consider the ending of the Gospel of the Hebrews:

Of illustrious men, 2 (on James the Lord's brother).

I think the traditional way of looking at this material is terribly naive. James was not a Jewish priest but one who had been made a priest - after the order of Melchizedek or Jesus or however else it was defined - because of his 'experience' with Jesus.

Consider also what Epiphanius says about

This James was said to have been the naked youth who fled from Jesus (Mark 14:52) cf. Panarion 78. The same underlying pattern of connecting the gospel narrative with the establishment of priests can be argued to be present in the Gospel of the Hebrews.

http://www.bsw.org/Biblica/Vol-89-20...agiography/46/

Chili

Mark is a tragedy al right, and so he went back to Galilee that we call hell today.

As for the crucifixion event, they tried to crucify the sinner only and set the man free, and do you think maybe that this is what should be done to those priest too?