Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Elijah · 03-02-2009, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gentleexit

Ok. Platonus characterizes them as a school who "know nothing good here: all they care for is something else ... some future time" and what's more they "declaim(s) against its plan and its Architect" (evil world, evil maker).
BUT for man of Plato, "this world ... must be the starting point". "This world descends from the the Firsts; if this world has no beauty, neither does its source" (a good source means a good world).
His doctrines are "all emphatically asserted by Plato". They should not "procure assent for their own theories by flaying and flouting the Greeks."

Ok , so Plotinus doesn’t claim that all the Gnostics worshiped an evil demiurge. He’s claiming that since they believe in a corruptible material world (which he attributes to Plato) that must equal a corrupt creator by association.

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Yes too many. Superstitious, supernatural, metaphysics, rational and all framed in violent opposition. And we're circling, label throwing.

Focus on the points trying to be made and not the choice of labels. I’m having a rather difficult time getting any points across because we are stuck on finding the perfect labels. Superstitious, supernatural, metaphysical or rational shouldn’t be a problem especially when giving an oppositional word so you know what the dichotomy I’m trying to address is.

Quote:

Plotinus: "Every evildoer began by despising the gods ... (and with) this slighting of the mundane gods and the world, the honor they profess for the gods of the intellectual sphere becomes an inconsistency ... where there is contempt for the Kin of the supreme, the knowledge of the supreme itself is merely verbal." Does he answer you?

No this doesn’t answer my question, at all. Placing a quote up there with no interpretation is the opposite of answering my question because I’m asking you how you interpret the philosophy/religious concepts. I could interpret it myself and say you are in agreement with me but that would be a hasty assumption.

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Rational. It's one of those loaded words that let us argue. If you have a logically constructed scheme, derived from clearly stated assumptions, is it rational? Or can it only be rational if its conclusions can be tested in a repeatable way in the material world? If you need the latter, then Platonism is irrational. Otherwise, it has enough ballast to be considered rational.
The use of allegory (which is a form of exposition, nothing more) doesn't make something irrational or rational. Neither does prose or poetry (was the Epicure Lucretius rational?).

It kind of looks like we are on the same sheet of paper then and maybe this has just been an exercise in confusion. But I think if you were familiar with rationally understanding Plato then you would be aware of others who don’t and wouldn’t have the problems with what I’m addressing.

Obviously metaphysical claims can’t be tested physically.

So Logos by Plato/nists should try to be understood rationally as an ordering/dividing force in the universe, correct? And what about Logos in John? Rational force or superstitious concept?

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Ok so to be clear. Gnostic, liberal, Platonist are very very broad terms for you. You are just saying that Gnostics are as Platonist as Hitler was a liberal?

What I’m saying is that you need to follow the context of the conversation/story to understand the words’ meaning because a words’ meaning comes from how it is used, not from the first entry in a dictionary in modern terms. During the course of a conversation the words will naturally evolve to better reflect the nature of the conversation by both parties trying to clarify their points as the conversation gets more detailed. If you’re unhappy with someone else’s word choice then explain why while showing your preferred term/framing and if it’s not used by the other party, at least your particular word preferences will be understood by the other party. But to me personally, just complaining about labels usually just looks like diversionary tactics instead of making points. You have complained about both ways I have described the Gnostics but haven’t provided how you think they should be viewed.

mountainman · 03-02-2009, 06:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

The question of Gnostic influence on Plotinus is partly a question of chronology. Do you accept that the Nag Hammadi texts Zostrianos and Allogenes are more-or-less equivalent to the texts of the same names mentioned by Porphyry ? (Most scholars currently do but not all.)

I should probably note that I have been reading today some recent work by Ruth Majercik about the relation of Zostrianos et al to the writings of Porphyry, and I am less convinced than I was that the Platonising Sethian Texts are pre-Plotinian in their present form.

Dear andrewcriddle,

Thanks for these two notes. In your reading have you found any commentators who specifically achnowledge that any "christian" writings within the NHC are in the category of "non canonical" (rather than "canonical") and makes any comments whatsoever on the non-canonical (or apocryphal) "status" of these documents in the fourth century (when they were thought to be both prublished and buried)?

It strikes me as exceedingly odd that all the commentary on the christian writings found at NHC is consistently from the perspective of "canonical christianity" when it is blatant and clear that the tractates being presented are entitrely "apocryphal" in their nature, and that the relationship between "canonical christianity" and "non-canonical christianity", whatever it may have been in that epoch, is not being either identified, acknowledged or discussed in any great depth. However if you are aware of any commentary in this issue, please let me know where i is.

Best wishes,

Pete

mountainman · 03-02-2009, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gentleexit

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Do you happen to know of any commentaries on this extract from Plato, which confirm it is an allegory?

When he treats the self (I), Plotinus invokes Rep IX 588 when he says "the soul wields single lordship over the animate. He invokes it again when he alludes to "what Plato calls the interior man" as he draws parallels between the balance in the three levels of divinity and within ourselves. Proclus (last of the Platonists really) wrote many commentaries on the dialogs including the Republic and his works survive. That's probably worth consulting too.

BTW, it's not allegory (the simile is explicit, the story doesn't stand alone), more standard metaphors for the forces within and without us. One thing that jumps out from the Greeks is how flat and image-less our prose is.

Dear gentleexit,

Plato's Cave business is commonly called an allegory. In examining this "Many-Headed Monster / Lion / Man" tripartite "bundle" and its treatment by Plato as an instruction as a "model of the psyche" -- whether or not this is allegory or simile - I find it quite instructive.

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You are spot on when you say (on your page) "there is no symbiosis of the inner parts of the psychology of man" in the coptic "translation".

What do you think then of my claim that the omission of the symbiosis is purposeful, that the author of the Coptic tractate was trying to tell us that the many-headed monsters of Plato's Republic are not theoretical and/or logic constructs of philosophical conversation, but were were alive in a very political real and historical sense at the time the NHC "went down into the ground"?

Quote:

Plato saw (and wrote) the opposite and his successors elaborated on his position. This is another example of piecemeal selection from Platonism, forcing words to mean their opposite.

I think the NHC author chose to purposefully misrepresent the text of Plato's Republic, and so leave a gnostioc message. What do you think? I have presented the two comparitive texts side by side here and broken the task into seven separate sections in order to highlight this claim.

I found that in the seven sections, three are different and three are essentially the same. The other remaining section (number 6) I am unsure about, yet it is the very section that many commentators (including Lane-Fox decribes as a poor translation of Plato). The final (seventh) section just about sums up the entire "series of differences". This is how I have summarised the difference between the original Plato, and the version found authored in the NHC (C14 = 348 CE), concerning the final section of the comparison (ie: the 7th section):

Plato describes the perfect farmer in the natural scene who (1) fosters the growth of cultivated plants, (2) checks the growth of the wild plants, (3) makes an ally of all the beasts by caring for them, (4) promoting friendship and (5) fostering growth.

On the other hand the coptic presents a stark and simpler reality . The Coptic describes a farmer who (1) is striving to take care of the farm on a daily basis, but (2) is unable to check the growth of the wild monster on a daily basis.

I am thinking that the Coptic author of NHC 6.5 may be describing the current political reality in the Roman empire of the fourth century. Any comments?

Best wishes,

Pete

DCHindley · 03-02-2009, 07:29 PM

Maybe in the original greek the story is about the intrinsic value of justice and self control, but I think it means something quite different to the Coptic translator. While he seems to try to frame it as a discussion of just speach, it seems he is refering not to a just man, but to the just demiurge, who in Jewish influenced Gnostic systems is the just creator who brings about things by his word, but in spite of his justice (evidenced by the Law) he is also arrogant and ignorant of his own origins.

In other words, he is making a contrast between the arrogant yet just demiurge and the Gnostic adept who understands and speaks of the "justice" of the message of redemption. This is not a bad translation of a section of Plato's, but a radical reinterpretation of it.

As for a monograph on this passage from Plato's Republic is that book by Howard M. Jackson, The Lion Becomes Man: The Gnostic Leontomorphic Creator and the Platonic Tradition (or via: amazon.co.uk) (SBL Dissertation Series 81). It costs about $127 US. All the comments about the passage that I have found (strangely, they are the minority, as most think this passage is about something quite different) seem to link it to the Platonic doctrine of the "three natures of man."

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

The Plato story is intriguing. By its omission from the original it appears to be telling the reader a story. I was impressed by Plato's "Cave Allegory" in the past, and was not really aware of this one. Here I think the allegory is about the notions of justice and self-governance. What do you think? Do you happen to know of any commentaries on this extract from Plato, which confirm it is an allegory?

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Codex VI, 5:

"He said, 'An image that has no likeness is the rationality of soul,' so that he who said these things will understand. ... Certainly it is a single image that became the image of a complex beast with many heads. Some days indeed it is like the image of a wild beast. Then it is able to cast off the first image. And all these hard and difficult forms emanate from it with effort, since these are formed now with arrogance. And also all the rest that are like them are formed now through the word. For now it is a single image.

For the image of the lion is the one thing and the image of the man is another. [...] single [...] is the [...] of [...] join. And this [...] much more complex than the first. And the second is small." ... "Now then, join them to each other and make them a single one - for they are three - so that they grow together, and all are in a single image outside of the image of the man just like him who is unable to see the things inside him [this sounds like he is describing the Gnostic adept as the "man" who inhabits the human body along with the lion]. But what is outside only is what he [the outsider] sees. And it is apparent what creature his image is in and that he was formed in a human image. ... But what is profitable for him is this: that he cast down every image of the evil beast and trample them along with the images of the lion. [That is, the Gnostic adept was able to overcome the lion within the body of the man he inhabited]

But the [common] man is in weakness in this regard. And all the things that he does are weak. As a result he is drawn to the place where he spends time with them. [...]. And he [...] to him in[...]. But he brings about [...] enmity [...]. And with strife they [the lion and the man] devour each other among themselves.

"Then is it not profitable for him who [truly] speaks justly [the teaching of Gnosis]?" "And if he does these things and speaks in them, within the man they take hold firmly. Therefore especially he strives to take care of them [i.e., the image of the lion and the image of the beast and the image of the man] and he nourishes them just like the farmer nourishes his produce daily. And [yet] the wild beasts [will try to] keep it from growing."

Republic

[588d] ... “Then fashion one other form of a lion and one of a man and let the first be far the largest and the second second in size.” ... “Join the three in one, then, so as in some sort to grow together.” ... “Then mould about them outside the likeness of one, that of the man, so that to anyone who is unable [588e] to look within but who can see only the external sheath it appears to be one living creature, the man.” ... “Let us, then say to the speaker who avers that it pays this man to be unjust, and that to do justice is not for his advantage, that he is affirming nothing else than that it profits him to feast and make strong the multifarious beast and the lion and all that pertains to the lion, [589a] but to starve the man and so enfeeble him that he can be pulled about whithersoever either of the others drag him, and not to familiarize or reconcile with one another the two creatures but suffer them to bite and fight and devour one another.” ... “And on the other hand he who says that justice is the more profitable affirms that all our actions and words should tend to give the man within us [589b] complete domination over the entire man and make him take charge of the many-headed beast--like a farmer who cherishes and trains the cultivated plants but checks the growth of the wild--and he will make an ally of the lion's nature, and caring for all the beasts alike will first make them friendly to one another and to himself, and so foster their growth.”

Gospel of Thomas 7:

Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man."

[/QUOTE]

Toto · 03-02-2009, 08:02 PM

Howard M. Jackson, The Lion Becomes Man: The Gnostic Leontomorphic Creator and the Platonic Tradition (or via: amazon.co.uk) costs considerably less in paperback.

mountainman · 03-02-2009, 08:34 PM

Dear DCHindley,

The "three natures of man" as expounded by those who write about this aspect of the text are also very much (in Plato) representative of the "three natures within the political state" - the "guardian class", "the military" and the "consumer/producer" class". The extract is from the concluding books of "The Republic" which concerns political tyranny, and its justice.

The extract is from the end of the republic. Is this coincidence? Is it coincidence that the Coptic author alters Plato to present a picture of an unbalanced political state, in which the monstrous side of humanity has been given the free roam of the empire? The Nag Hammadi books were buried for a good reason - to preserve them from the epoch - rather than have them destroyed. They are thus entitled to be viewed as "time capsules" however in order to so view them, we need a chronology. Fortunately, C14 provides one as the mid-fourth century.

The roots of "gnostic thought" IMO are non-christian. The assertion that there were "christian gnostics" is Eusebian. All the source documents appear either Coptic or Syriac and not Greek (as Esuebius informs us). I think that this happened as a result of the fourth century changed political state, when the Constantinian regime took control of the Greek literature, and the temples and the infrastructure of preservation, and communications. (It was a shut-down job).

The opposition to christianity (you can call them the "pagans" or the "gentiles" etc, were largely Hellenistic easterners - renown for their Plato and Pythagoras and "Secret Knowledge". The Jewis influence is small here. The people who were the gnostics at this time in the fourth century, shifted their literature preservation to the Coptic and Syriac at that time. Hence the distribution of the earliest extant manuscripts for non-canonical texts are all mainly either Coptic or Syriac. They needed to be preserved "out-of-town" and in the case of the NHC, hundreds of miles up the Nile away from Alexandria. In the case of the Syriac, in the deserts of Syria, where the resistance to christianity is purported to have supported Arius of Alexandria for example after Nicaea.

The Nag Hammadi "Gnostics" as (Platonic) "Guardians"

If I may make an analogy using Plato. The "Guardian Class" in the eastern Roman empire prior to Nicea had been drawn from the Hellenistic milieu associated with the massive temple networks, and the preservation of literature in Greek. Constantine put a stop to this at Nicaea and created another "Guardian Class" in the form of Nicean "christianity" and the Roman universal divine "church". The old "Guardian class" had at least three choices:

(1) Bishop? - They could come to terms somehow with Constantine, the new ruler, or
(2) Heretic? - They could become heretics (such as Arius and those who eventually followed him), or
(3) Leave Dodge - They could become desert dwellers (like Pachomius and the thousands who followed him after 324 CE in a mass exodus out of Alexandria and the eastern "newly christianised" empire.)

I perfectly understand the reluctance of most modern scholarship to match ancient documents to political situations, however I have no such reluctance on the basis that I have nothing to loose by making "best guesses" and then following up the leads. I will either be shown to be wrong or right in such explicit claims, and I am prepared to be shown wrong. This is regarded as an unorthodox approach (I am aware of this) but nevertheless it should be judged by its results (either way) in its ability to provide a simple, profane (non-religious) and cohesive explanation for the evidence in our possession today.

I am not asking what Plato means to the Coptic author of NHC 6.5 (which I assert has been deliberately mistranslated). I am assuming that we can find some form of reasonable consensus in what Plato means in general. I am asking if this is indeed a deliberate mistranslation of Plato by the gnostic author, what then are the detailed specifications of the differences and similarities between on the one hand - Plato's text and NHC 6.5. Once we list these differences, what do they tell us?

Is it a coincidence that they describe the end of the Hellenistic Platonic republic, not in a sybolic sense, but in a real life and real-time polotical sense, when we consider what was going on in the empire at the time the Coptic author prepared NHC 6.5. The key phrase for the epoch comes to us from Ammianus --- in that the highways were covered with galloping bishops. We can clearly see the fast emergence of a new political "guardian class" in the form of the Bishops of Christendom, against whom the Nag Hammadi Codices were consecrated to the earth for future posterity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Maybe in the original greek the story is about the intrinsic value of justice and self control, but I think it means something quite different to the Coptic translator. While he seems to try to frame it as a discussion of just speach, it seems he is refering not to a just man, but to the just demiurge, who in Jewish influenced Gnostic systems is the just creator who brings about things by his word, but in spite of his justice (evidenced by the Law) he is also arrogant and ignorant of his own origins.

In other words, he is making a contrast between the arrogant yet just demiurge and the Gnostic adept who understands and speaks of the "justice" of the message of redemption. This is not a bad translation of a section of Plato's, but a radical reinterpretation of it.

As for a monograph on this passage from Plato's Republic is that book by Howard M. Jackson, The Lion Becomes Man: The Gnostic Leontomorphic Creator and the Platonic Tradition (or via: amazon.co.uk) (SBL Dissertation Series 81). It costs about $127 US. All the comments about the passage that I have found (strangely, they are the minority, as most think this passage is about something quite different) seem to link it to the Platonic doctrine of the "three natures of man."

DCH

PS: I have updated my comparison page again to include a tabulation between various aspects of these "three-fold analogies" as Plato appears to have presented them. Thanks for all this feedback and for the impetus to follow this specific execise through. Do you have a preferred web page or blog site to which I can attribute your initiating contributions?

Best wishes,

Pete

gentleexit · 03-02-2009, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

if you think the philosophers understood their gods as rational forces in the universe or you should take the art/poetry literally and believed in anthropomorphic spiritual agents at work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gentleexit

Plotinus: "Every evildoer began by despising the gods ... (and with) this slighting of the mundane gods and the world, the honor they profess for the gods of the intellectual sphere becomes an inconsistency ... where there is contempt for the Kin of the supreme, the knowledge of the supreme itself is merely verbal." Does he answer you?

No this doesn’t answer my question, at all. Placing a quote up there with no interpretation is the opposite of answering my question because I’m asking you how you interpret the philosophy/religious concepts.

I think the quote is clear and as you're asking what I think they believed then if there is a clear cut quote, surely that's the best summary? Let me rephrase the quote.

There is a chain from the abstract to the worldly divines. You can't praise the etherial and profane the mundane. In your terms (and they are yours not theirs), there is a line from the gods of force to the gods of the poets. To be clear (so we stop going in circles), this sentiment runs from Proclus back to Plato/Pythagoras. If you read them differently, I'd very much welcome quotes. I don't mind being corrected.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

So Logos by Plato/nists should try to be understood rationally as an ordering/dividing force in the universe, correct? And what about Logos in John? Rational force or superstitious concept?

Yes ordering "force" for both, but John's logos is part of a lightweight scheme. It tries to marry "order" with the jealous god of the Jews. He doesn't belong over order. In such a scheme, he'd have to go below. And that tension means its advocates can't be too logical. Drop the "old testament" and you have a chance and as we know, that was tried.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

You have complained about both ways I have described the Gnostics but haven’t provided how you think they should be viewed.

I was very clear and quoted and cited. Plotinus' definition of gnostics. The material is bad. Its moulder is bad. And such a group was not Platonist and so cannot be "Platonism for the masses". Can I be clearer?

gentleexit · 03-02-2009, 11:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

I think the NHC author chose to purposefully misrepresent the text of Plato's Republic, and so leave a gnostioc message. What do you think?

Oh, I read your blow by blow (hence I could quote your page!). Yes. The "translator" is selling, as you say "the omission of the symbiosis is purposeful". Political? Certainly the worries of a society will effect someone.

One quote I like is Russell's on Plotinus ...

Quote:

Only joy and sorrow accompanied by reflection on the universe generate metaphysical theories. … In an age such as that in which he lived, unhappiness is immediate and pressing, whereas happiness, if attainable at all, must be sought by reflection upon things that are remote from the impressions of sense. Such happiness has in it always an element of strain; it is very unlike the simple happiness of a child. Among the men who have been unhappy in a mundane sense, but resolutely determined to find a higher happiness in the world of theory, Plotinus holds a very high place.

Did Plotinus know his background was trying? Did the gnostic "translator"? Maybe not, but it still effected them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

On the other hand the coptic presents a stark and simpler reality . The Coptic describes a farmer who (1) is striving to take care of the farm on a daily basis, but (2) is unable to check the growth of the wild monster on a daily basis.

an attitude that would feed the notion of man needing an outside "savior".

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

The "three natures of man" as expounded by those who write about this aspect of the text are also very much (in Plato) representative of the "three natures within the political state"

Plato liked threes. His higher abstractions/beings, there's logos, thymos, pathos in the soul. And the latter is probably a better match than any outside political agent. The fourth century was a much more self-centered, inward looking time than Plato's. Hence, the focus of his then followers on the "inner" triples.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

The roots of "gnostic thought" IMO are non-christian.

I think it's "plain" Jewish but that's another thread all together.

Elijah · 03-03-2009, 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gentleexit

I think the quote is clear and as you're asking what I think they believed then if there is a clear cut quote, surely that's the best summary? Let me rephrase the quote.
There is a chain from the abstract to the worldly divines. You can't praise the etherial and profane the mundane. In your terms (and they are yours not theirs), there is a line from the gods of force to the gods of the poets. To be clear (so we stop going in circles), this sentiment runs from Proclus back to Plato/Pythagoras. If you read them differently, I'd very much welcome quotes. I don't mind being corrected.

Glad I asked your interpretation. It sounds like you are working more of that guilt by association for the evil demiurge I guess. Which is a fine interpretation of the passage but not what we are discussing at this point here. I was asking you “if you think the philosophers understood their gods as rational forces in the universe or should you take the art/poetry literally and believed in anthropomorphic spiritual agents at work?” The whole evil demiurge part of the conversation should be dead.

Are you trying to understand their concepts as rational/metaphysical/philosophical concepts or supernatural /superstitious/theist concepts? And this is a question you should be able to answer for yourself, with your own words.

Quote:

Yes ordering "force" for both, but John's logos is part of a lightweight scheme. It tries to marry "order" with the jealous god of the Jews. He doesn't belong over order. In such a scheme, he'd have to go below. And that tension means its advocates can't be too logical. Drop the "old testament" and you have a chance and as we know, that was tried.

That sounded great until “lightweight scheme” and from there nothing made any sense to me at all. What is your understanding of and the difference between the God of the OT, Plato’s god and the Logos? Are you taking the mythos in the OT literally to mean an anthropomorphic sky guy with a temper?

Quote:

I was very clear and quoted and cited. Plotinus' definition of gnostics. The material is bad. Its moulder is bad. And such a group was not Platonist and so cannot be "Platonism for the masses". Can I be clearer?

I don’t know which Plotinus’ complaint about the Gnostics you are talking about, the Plato line? Either way it shouldn’t be your definition of the Gnostics and neither should your complaints about the use of the term Platonist to describe them. Yours should probably start out with them being a Jewish yadda yadda yadda something, since you believe them to be Jewish. You can use quote to support your position once it is understood.

The material being bad they get from Plato; and Plotinus makes the claim that makes their creator bad by association, not that they actually believe/worship in a bad or evil creator. I’m not saying that some didn’t believe in an evil intermediary but you can’t base the claim that it was a tenet to the Gnostics based on what I’ve seen in Enneads.

gentleexit · 03-03-2009, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

Quote:

Originally Posted by gentleexit

I think the quote is clear ... surely that's the best summary? Let me rephrase the quote. There is a chain from the abstract to the worldly divines. You can't praise the etherial and profane the mundane. In your terms (and they are yours not theirs), there is a line from the gods of force to the gods of the poets. To be clear (so we stop going in circles), this sentiment runs from Proclus back to Plato/Pythagoras. If you read them differently, I'd very much welcome quotes. I don't mind being corrected.

I was asking you “if you think the philosophers understood their gods as rational forces in the universe or should you take the art/poetry literally and believed in anthropomorphic spiritual agents at work?”

You seem to think the anthropomorphic was locked in poetry and temples and there were ivory tower rationalists dealing only in other, wholly abstract worlds and if someone dealt in those worlds you seem to see them as rational. Beyond Epicurians (a byword for Atheist), there was no such split. Hence, I said, "There is a chain from the abstract to the worldly divines".

If you think there was a split - a body of Platonists who "profaned the mundane gods" but honored the "gods of the intellectual sphere", that there was "superstition" (temple-stuff) and a completely separate, etherial philosophy, may I ask what specific writings give you that impression? Surely those of Plutarch, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus couldn't. Who is the "pure rational" writer behind this question. Who is your phantom-less Platonic philosopher?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

That sounded great until “lightweight scheme” and from there nothing made any sense to me at all. What is your understanding of and the difference between the God of the OT, Plato’s god and the Logos? Are you taking the mythos in the OT literally to mean an anthropomorphic sky guy with a temper?

OT God had a temper. And he was no Myth - Philo kept emphasizing that. And that temper was a weakness the Greeks attacked first the Jews and then the Christians for. As Plato said "Envy stands outside the divine chorus" so what does that make "a Jealous god"? Lactantius went to great lengths to show (unconvincingly) why the supreme being, not only could but should be ornery.

For Orthodox Christians, OT God is "the One". But his caprice makes him anything but. John brings in the Logos (the second principle or its effect), ordering the world but what about the source of the Logos? He's hardly the epitome of order. And here is the "lightweight" or I should have said discordant aspect of this scheme of divinity.

Gnostics (and others) "solved" the problem (and addressed the nature of the world) by making OT God, an "evil" creator. In effect, the "logos" was anything but. They left "the One" above, good, wholly untroubled, very Greek. But this "solution" brought problems. As Plotinus said "This world descends from the the Firsts". The Greeks saw a chain of creation and no part could be bad without making its antecedents bad too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

The material being bad they get from Plato; and Plotinus makes the claim that makes their creator bad by association, not that they actually believe/worship in a bad or evil creator. I’m not saying that some didn’t believe in an evil intermediary but you can’t base the claim that it was a tenet to the Gnostics based on what I’ve seen in Enneads.

Well obviously "The whole evil demiurge part of the conversation should be dead" is forgotten. I think "Against the Gnostics" is against a group who hold the material fundamentally bad, that it had a bad "architect", that it will end, that they are special and will be raised up (it's almost rapture stuff!). This group isn't Platonist. That's my read. You have another and I don't think either of us is going to line-by-line the piece to truly decide so let's leave it. At least we're clear as to our own opinions, even if we convince no one else!

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03-02-2009, 08:02 PM	#55
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Howard M. Jackson, The Lion Becomes Man: The Gnostic Leontomorphic Creator and the Platonic Tradition (or via: amazon.co.uk) costs considerably less in paperback.

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