Malachi151

We've all seen the "pagan" references to "Jesus" that refer to him as a live person, what about ancient sources that state he wasn't a flesh and blood person, either Christian or non-Christian sources? What do the gnostic gospels say exactly? Are there pagan sources, silimar to Clesus, that make the case that he is a made up character? (To be clear, Clesus assumes that Jesus was a real person, but are their works in the same vein that make a similar case as Clesus, except that Jesus was not a real person)

Obviously, many such works, if they existed, would likely have been destroyed. Also, what are the references in doctrinal Christian writings that argue against the idea that Jesus didn't exist? I know that these such things exist, I've read them before. Obviously you don't make this case unless someone is making the claim.

Roger Pearse

Just a qualification: I don't think that gnostics doubted that Jesus existed; rather that he was truly human, rather than *appearing* human.

Well, I cannot think of any. The pagans rather enjoyed jeering at Jesus the crucified criminal. The idea that there never was such a person only appears first in the 17the century, to my knowledge.

Only in the sense that 99% of ancient literature has been destroyed. All sorts of odd stuff survives, while works by Augustine are lost.

I can't think of any, tho. Sorry.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Iasion

Greetings,


Here are some references :

2 John 1:7
warns of those who don't
"acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh".


Marcion,
in mid 2nd century, claimed Jesus was a phantom or spiritual entity, and not born of Mary :

“Marcion, I suppose, took sound words in a wrong sense, when he rejected His birth from Mary...”
Origen, Commentary John 10.


“...they deny ... His humanity, and teach that His appearances to those who saw Him as man were illusory, inasmuch as He did not bear with Him true manhood, but was rather a kind of phantom manifestation. Of this class are, for example, Marcion...”
Hippolytus, Dogmatical Treatises, Fragments, X.


“Marcion, adopting these sentiments, rejected altogether the generation of our Saviour ... [who] independent of birth, Himself descended from above in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, and that, as being intermediate between the good and bad Deity, He proceeded to give instruction in the synagogues.”
Hippolytus, Heresies 7, Ch. 29


Basilides,
in mid 2nd century, denied Jesus was really crucified, but was a phantasm :

"Christ sent, not by this maker of the world, but by the above-named Abraxas; and to have come in a phantasm, and been destitute of the substance of flesh: that it was not He who suffered among the Jews, but that Simon was crucified in His stead: whence, again, there must be no believing on him who was crucified, lest one confess to having believed on Simon. Martyrdoms are not to be endured. The resurrection of the flesh he strenuously impugns, affirming that salvation has not been promised to bodies"
Tertullian, Heresies, Appendix, Ch.1


Bardesanes,
in mid 2nd century, denied that Christ was physical :

"The Orientals, on the other hand, of whom is Axionicus and Bardesianes, assert that the body of the Saviour was spiritual; for there came upon Mary the Holy Spirit--that is, Sophia and the power of the highest. This is the creative art, (and was vouchsafed) in order that what was given to Mary by the Spirit might be fashioned. "
Hippolytus, Heresies 6, Ch. 30


Celsus
apparently claimed Jesus was a "shadow", says Origen :

"Whereas our Jesus, who appeared to the members of His own troop--for I will take the word that Celsus employs--did really appear, and Celsus makes a false accusation against the Gospel in saying that what appeared was a shadow. "
Origen, Celsus 3, Ch. 23


Heretics, mentioned in the 4th century Constitution of the Holy Apostles :

“ ... avoid all heretics who ... also deny His generation according to the flesh; they are ashamed of the cross; they abuse His passion and His death; they know not His resurrection;”
CHA, Sec.5, Ch.26


Some who denied the incarnation, according to 5th century John Cassian :
“By denying also that the Son of God was born in the flesh, you are led also to deny that He was born in the Spirit, for it is the same Person who was born in the flesh who was first born in the Spirit. If you do not believe that He was born in the flesh, the result is that you do not believe that He suffered. If you do not believe in His Passion what remains for you but to deny His resurrection?”
John Cassian, Incarnation, Book 6, Ch. 17


Various person denied the subsistence of Jesus according to 5th century Socrates Scholasticus :
“ ... deny his subsistence as Photinus and the Samosatan did, and as the Manichaeans and followers of Montanus have also dared to do.”
Scholasticus, History, Bk 7, Ch.32


Iasion

Malachi151

Great, that's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks

andrewcriddle

Chapter 23 is continuing the argument of chapter 22 which says ie the issue is about the corporeality or otherwise of Jesus after his death and resurrection, not about Jesus' corporeality during the period before the crucifixion.

Andrew Criddle

Didymus

Docetism, the idea that Jesus was a spiritual emanation, did not deny the existence of Jesus or his participation as an apparent human being in human history. It allowed that he was human in action and appearance, but contended that he was a man in appearance only. The problem in that for Christian orthodoxy is that a docetic Jesus could not have suffered on the cross as a human being would have suffered, thus his atoning sacrifice would have been nothing more than an illusion. No suffering, no salvation.

Both the Marcionites and the Christian Gnostics embraced a docetic christology. The gospels countered docetism by portraying Jesus as a living, breathing, eating, sleeping, suffering human being. (That may have been the main reason they were written.)

It's often said that the Council of Nicea determined that Jesus was divine instead of human. Actually, it was the other way around. Sort of. Under seige by a range of adoptionist and docetic christologies, the bishops compromised by settling on the profoundly illogical doctrine that Jesus was simultaneously fully human and fully divine. The idea stuck, and for some reason all the church's brilliant logicians can't see a problem with this.

Ignatius of Antioch vigorously rejected docetism in his letters to the Trallians and Smyrnians:

Now, He suffered all these things for us; and He suffered them really, and not in appearance only, even as also He truly rose again. But not, as some of the unbelievers, who are ashamed of the formation of man, and the cross, and death itself, affirm, that in appearance only, and not in truth, He took a body of the Virgin, and suffered only in appearance, forgetting, as they do, Him who said, "The Word was made flesh; "and again, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up; "and once more, "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto Me."15 The Word therefore did dwell in flesh, for "Wisdom built herself an house."

But I guard you beforehand from these beasts in the shape of men, from whom you must not only turn away, but even flee from them. Only you must pray for them, if by any means they may be brought to repentance. For if the Lord were in the body in appearance only, and were crucified in appearance only, then am I also bound in appearance only. And why have I also surrendered myself to death, to fire, to the sword, to the wild beasts? But, [in fact, ] I endure all things for Christ, not in appearance only, but in reality, that I may suffer together with Him, while He Himself inwardly strengthens me; for of myself I have no such ability.

He did not let those wicked docetists off the hook easily:

Let no man deceive himself. Unless he believes that Christ Jesus has lived in the flesh, and shall confess His cross and passion, and the blood which He shed for the salvation of the world, he shall not obtain eternal life, whether he be a king, or a priest, or a ruler, or a private person, a master or a servant, a man or a woman.

Ignatius' seven "authentic" letters are considered to be quasi-canonical by the Roman Catholic church. Some MJ'ers and Dutch Radical Critics insist that all the Ignatian epistles were spurious.

Didymus

Roger Pearse

This is quite right. I know that some posters on MJ get confused on this point, but it's important to keep this clear.

I cannot avoid the reflection that docetism provided a real-world advantage to those heretics who professed it. It allowed them to escape from one of the key pagan jeers against Christianity -- that it involved worshipping a crucified criminal. The social pressure to deal with that jeer must have been considerable.

It would be interesting to know under what circumstances docetism first appeared. Human beings being what they are, I can't help wondering whether this impetus is the origin of the teaching. Most heresies involve altering Christian teaching to conform to the values of the period or society in which they arise (what Johnson called 'the clamour of the times'), which is why they become obsolete, as times change.

I wonder how Marcion got around this problem. Gnostics in general simply didn't consider that salvation happened this way, of course -- it was all about 'secret knowledge' --but Marcionites were different.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

dog-on

Wasn't the "Marcionite" position based on the idea that the "Good God" ransomed man's salvation from the demiurge by allowing the "rulers of this age" to crucify his Son and that this was accomplished by disguising the Son with (nothing more than) the appearance of a man so that the "rulers" would not recognize the Son?

I believe the idea behind this belief was that only a being not subject to the law (flesh) could ransom (save) man from the law (the unjust requirements of the creator god or demiurge) and that only through the Son (hidden from long ages past by the "good God") could man know or commune with the "good God" and be redeemed from the demiurge's law.