Toto

I think the idea is that the gnostics thought that a human Christ was impossible, because the Christ had to be perfect, and all matter is imperfect. Whereas the orthodox thought that Christ had to be spiritual and physical to redeem mankind.

aa5874

The Gnostics were not aware that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead because the author of Matthew claimed that his body was stolen by his disciples, according to the guards.

Chris Weimer

The Gnostics in the strict sense viewed the flesh as evil. Likewise, they viewed the creator (the Jewish Scriptures God) as evil. If Christ were perfect, and if the flesh were evil, then Christ couldn't have come in the flesh.

We see this development:

a. Jesus b. Pillars group c. Paul group d. proto-Orthodox e. Orthodox
a. Jesus b. Pillars group c. Ebionites
a. Jesus b. Pillars group c. Paul group d. Gnostics e. Variety of Gnostic groups

The first line survived to this day, the second fell out rather early comparatively, and the last survives only in writings.

We can deconstruct it thusly:

What does the proto-Orthodox and the Gnostics share? They both share Paul. From Paul, they also share a more divine view of Jesus (as opposed to the mere human view of the Ebionites), they share the aversion to the flesh (Gnostics carry it further to the extreme). How do they differ? The proto-Orthodox revered the Jewish Scriptures, while the Gnostics struck it out.

What about the Paul group and the Ebionites? Well, since the Ebionites, without Paul, accepted the Jewish Scriptures, the Paul group in the first line accepted the Jewish Scriptures, two against one at the earliest level suggests that the Christians accepted the Jewish Scriptures.

So at the next level back we have Paul and the Ebionites both exaulting Christ, but the former in a more divine way, the latter in a more human way. They both accept the Jewish Scriptures.

Now, we don't have that many clues into the "Pillars" via the Ebionites, but we do from Paul. Paul claims that he, opposing himself to the Pillars, got his information about Jesus from a divine source, thus the Pillars got their source from a human source. The gospels make the claim that the Pillars in Paul were actually disciples, thus conforming to Paul's view that they received it from man. If Paul is to be trusted, then it's most likely that the Pillars were the disciples of Jesus. Subtracting Paul's views from his description of James and co. leaves us with a pretty neat direction - a view closer to the Ebionites.

Gundulf

Concur - the gnostics were not unaware of the claim of the resurrection. They remained unconvinced, however. As I recall, much gnostic literature was written to argue against the resurrection; hence, they must have been aware of it in order to attempt to refute it.

If the resurrection happened just as the Bible had claimed, where Jesus appeared to 500 people or so max; then the millions more in the world had to choose their belief on the resurrection based on whether or not they believed the testimony of those 500 or so. The gnostics apparently chose not to accept that testimony as correct, and developed their own interpretation.

But I think they were aware of it, just chose not to believe it, no?

mountainman

All that we know of the history of the prenicene epoch
all that has constantly and incessantly buzzed around
the studies of "Constantine Biblical History" since the
military supremacy party (itself a "boundary event"),
was gathered together during the rise to supremacy
(312 to 324 CE) of the "western commander of the
Roman forces" Constantine.

At his disposal in those time was a great deal of texts
written by the neopythagorean lineage of sages and
philosophers which traced their resurgence to the first
century author Apollonius of Tyana", and in the close
of the third century by Plotinus (Enneads, etc) and his
student and follower Porphyry, recognised by today's
ancient historical academics as perhaps one of the
foremost of late 3rd/early 4th century academics. The
writings of Porphyry are remarkably extensive.

Take the writings of the neopythagoreans and/or neo
platonists, and add a few phrases about "christ" and
"jesus" and lo and behold, we have ourselves a gnostic
text.

Arnaldo Momogliano, perhaps the world's foremost ancient
historian of the last century, writes that the fourth century
christian regime was responsible for the "appropriation" of
texts, and by adding bits to "easily render them christian".
He cites an early Jewish text which was "appropriated".

My answer to this question is as follows:

The gnostics were simply more fictitious writings under the
banner identified by Julian with the term "the fabrication of
the Galilaeans - a fiction of men composed by wickedness".

Constantine and Eusebius were inventing the new and strange
fourth century Roman religion -- for the Roman empire. They
simply took the texts of neopythagorean writers and added
some of the "christian fiction" to these writings, and so amassed
an army of gnostics --- and all other types of heretics --- so
that the mass on inventions, and pseudo-writers overwealm
the mind of prospective believers.

But the fact remains, it is only through the published writings
of Eusebius of Caesarea, Constantine's minister for propaganda,
who sat at his right hand at the "Military Supremacy Party" that
decided the governance and Constantine's terms of victory
over the very very rich and ancient (NON-CHRISTIAN) eastern
empire, that we know of any "prenicene christian history".

Isn't it time to be a little skeptical?

The Gnostics are as fictional as Hegessipus, and as the gospels.

When Eusebius under order of the despot Constantine wrote and
delivered his "Ecclesiatical History of the Christian Churches" and
tendered this along with the body of the "new testament" (claimed
to be descendant from the prenicene author Origen) we either
accept the story, or we can be skeptical.

I prefer for the moment to remain skeptical that in fact there
were any christians whatsoever before the rise of Constantine.

For two years now I have been personally seeking citations,
reading texts and books in order to find an unambiguous reference
that christianity existed prior to the 4th century. I have also asked
and challenged posters in a number of forums for such a citation.


Until such a citation appears, I do not think that it is unreasonable
to be skeptical of christianity in this very specific historical fashion.



Pete Brown
Did Constantine Invent Christianity

Solo

Johnny, the Encarta article actually answers your query quite well. Jesus' spirit did not die - it continued to visit "them" in their epiphanies. The idea that Jesus rose bodily ("in the flesh") would have struck the original Jesus followers as absurd.

Jesus himself did not take resurrection literally; he would have laughed Paul off with much of the Corinth church. The most powerful evidence we have of that is the Q saying "let the dead bury their dead". But there are other strong indications in the canon and apocrypha that "rising from the dead" was initially cult speak and did not mean loosening of rigor mortis. The movement originated with gnosis of the coming Son of man, that Jesus taught while alive, which quickly became the gnosis of Jesus' divine nature after he died. The "proto-orthodox faith" hacked into that, by separating the adept from the spiritual experience, substituting a ritual of participation mediated by a priest.

Jiri

PhilosopherJay

Hi Pete,

I believe a serious study of Eusebius' style of argument can only arrive at the conclusion that he did not invent the doctrines of the heretics.

For example, apropo of this thread's question about the relationship of the bodily resurrection and the gnostics, the writer of Against Heresies has this to say (Book V:31.1):

Let us assume for a moment that the real author of this passage is Eusebius and not Irenaeus as Eusebius claims in his Church History. He is talking about the heretical movements of Marcus (Achamoth) and Marcion (that Father whom they have feigned). Notice how Eusebius gets to the idea that the heretics believe that Christ arose immediately, not on the third day and left his body on the earth. He deduces this from the fact that they say that salvation is "immediate" and "not of the flesh." The deduction is a logical one. To paraphrase his argument: We orthodox say a period of time passes between death and resurrection which is of the body, so we believe time passed between Christ' death and his bodily resurrection; they say that resurrection is immediate and of the soul, so they cannot believe that Christ was dead for three days and was resurrected in his body.
The deduction is absurd. There is nothing to stop the heretics from believing that Christ's resurrection was different than the general resurrection will be.
However, if Eusebius was inventing these heretics, it would not be necessary for him to deduce that they hold a position that Christ was immediately and not a bodily resurrect. He would know their position as any author knows the position of a character he/she invents about any subject.

It is apparent that the author of this text only knows what a single book (which he calls "Commentaries" in Book I) tells him about the Marcus cult. He knows even less about the Marcion cult, apparently getting his information from some kind of compilation text with a summary of main points about various Gnostic cults. Therefore, the author has to logically deduce positions that he does not know about these groups. This indicates that these are real groups and the author is limited to the knowledge that the meager texts in his possession provides him.

Literally hundreds of other examples of this sort can be found.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

mountainman

Hi Jay,

I have read your post with interest, and for the
moment can only articulate the following response:

The literary display of logical deduction as
incorporated into a 'style of argument' does
not necessarily imply that the author is in
fact recounting an historical truth.

The author Irenaeus IMO lacks integrity.

The Bishop's statements concerning JESUS DIED
OF OLD AGE beg to be interpretted as a strong
fourth century social memory of the 1st century
sage, author and philosopher Apollonius of Tyana.



Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Steven Carr

Why weren't the Corinthians aware of it?

gurugeorge

Where do you get your "thus" from? In the first place, it's notable that Paul claims not just any old "divine" inspiration, but contact with the cultic entity himself, direct contact with Jesus Christ.

This is contrasted not with "personal, human contact" or "people who knew Jesus personally", but with "law" - i.e. it seems to me that he's drawing a contrast between direct revelation from a cultic entity, and "faith" in that cultic entity arising from such direct contact (and resulting "power" - e.g. the power to perform miracles) on the one hand; and the construction/prophesying of a cultic entity based on "law", on Scripture, scriptural mining (Mishnah?), etc., on the other.

If you assume a Jesus the Pillars knew, then it just looks like Paul was a looney who had a vision of somebody the Pillars had known in person. But if you don't assume that, it just looks like two different takes on a cultic figure, with no implication of one lot having personally known that cultic figure in the flesh.