darstec

What does that mean?

Why did you change suddenly from Jesus (if if we use the truth in advertising clause should be called Joshua) to some god?

stephan huller

That means that people at all times and places give credit to God for their victories. Jesus is never credited with authoring the gospel so what definitive proof is there that he was ever a human being doing 'human things'?

The Marcionites certainly didn't think he was human but they still took the Passion to be a historical event. So too the anonymous heretics confronted by Irenaeus throughout Books Two and Three.

An historical Jesus is not necessary for a historical Passion. All you need is an author with a background compatible with the composition of the gospel (and if you're a Marcionite) the Apostolikon. I really don't understand what Jesus has to with anything.

Indeed the Marcionite repeatedly read the gospel as if (a) Jesus was a divine figure and (b) that he wasn't Christ. If such systems are acknowledged to have existed in antiquity why does the mythicist position prove (or disprove) anything about other models for Christian beside that of the inherited Church (and its heresies).

Transient

I think you are on a path that leads to nowhereland.
There is even less evidence for the god of the Jews than there is for the "jesus" of christianity.

darstec

Why do you insist on telling us what the Marcionites thought? We don't know what they thought. We only know what their enemies told us they thought. You repeatedly keep making this same mistake. Unless and until we find texts radiocarbon dated to the second century, we will never be sure of what they actually thought. Too much has been passed down by their enemies, and should be highly suspect.

Do you know that during WWII American propaganda posters claimed the Nazis ate children? Remember the first casualty of war is truth. That applies to religious idealogical wars too.

stephan huller

No, I know this is hard for a hater to understand but Judaism is like mathematics. It's hard to explain to an outsider but there are definite things that are possible and impossible within the framework set by Moses. It's like when I met a Samaritan for the first time. Our cultures have been apart for like two and half centuries and there are definite differences but you can immediately understand where they get their ideas from. It's logical.

Like when the Samaritan came to visit me in Orlando in 2001. I had nothing to do. We went to the Holy Land Amusement Park and couldn't get him a job as the Good Samaritan (not convincing enough apparently) and so I took him to Cleo's which is like an African American strip club.

So we're discussing things related to the differences between Samaritans and Jews and he asks me if I ever slept with black woman. I won't say my answer but when I asked him he sort of gave this face like it was an abomination (but that was before of course the girls took the stage).

In any event, I questioned why he had such hostility towards black women when - after all, Moses's wife was Cushite and thus black skinned. My friend turned to me and said that the Jewish interpretation was incorrect. According to the Samaritan Pentateuch kushit/kasita means "beautiful." The Samaritan Targum translates kushit of Num 12:1 this way (y'yrth var. nhryth, ksyhrth as it does kasita of Deut 32:15 (sprt, var. shpyrt 'trbrbt). Marqe (second century) glosses the latter passage in a similar way: "Whoever sees anything good will be blessed." In a Samaritan trilingual (Hebrew/Arabic/Samaritan-Aramaic) dictionary the two words of Num 12:1 and Deut 32:15 are translated "beautiful." There is also a lot of other evidence to help confirm that the Samaritans always took the word to mean 'beautiful.' There is an important parallel in Arabic too.

In any event, the point is that every belief, every interpretation can be traced back to a rational argument. It is never based on some ambiguous decree or 'Holy Spirit' (or at least rarely). The Jews and Samaritans - like my friend and I - can have a rational discussion in the same way that musicians can talk about harmony, melody and rhythm because both systems are ultimately related to mathematics or at least a rational system with defined rules and underlying logic to everything.

Incidentally - I kid you not - my friend quickly lost his distaste for black women, ending up dancing on stage with the women as some kooky whirling dervish. It was a very strange night.

spamandham

...any night that involves discussing scriptures at a strip club is bound to be a Weird Science kind of night.

GakuseiDon

Hugh Grant is a Samaritan?

stephan huller

Getting back to the original point. When you look at Irenaeus explanation (or 'correction') of what ἀπολύτρωσις is supposed to be, it is amazing to realize (like all of Irenaeus's concepts) it is more a rejection of what came previously than a preservation of something original. Every step along the way in his discussions he essentially says 'the heretics are wrong about X' here is the right answer. This is also applicable to his discussion of ἀπολύτρωσις:

For in no other way could we have learned the things of God, unless our Master, existing as the Word, had become man. For no other being had the power of revealing to us the things of the Father, except His own proper Word. For what other person "knew the mind of the Lord," or who else "has become His counsellor?" Again, we could have learned in no other way than by seeing our Teacher, and hearing His voice with our own ears, that, having become imitators of His works as well as doers of His words, we may have communion with Him, receiving increase from the perfect One, and from Him who is prior to all creation. We--who were but lately created by the only best and good Being, by Him also who has the gift of immortality, having been formed after His likeness (predestinated, according to the prescience of the Father, that we, who had as yet no existence, might come into being), and made the first-fruits of creation --have received, in the times known beforehand, [the blessings of salvation] according to the ministration of the Word, who is perfect in all things, as the mighty Word, and very man, who, redeeming us by His own blood in a manner consonant to reason, gave Himself as a redemption for those who had been led into captivity. And since the apostasy tyrannized over us unjustly, and, though we were by nature the property of the omnipotent God, alienated us contrary to nature, rendering us its own disciples, the Word of God, powerful in all things, and not defective with regard to His own justice, did righteously turn against that apostasy, and redeem from it His own property, not by violent means, as the [apostasy] had obtained dominion over us at the beginning, when it insatiably snatched away what was not its own, but by means of persuasion, as became a God of counsel, who does not use violent means to obtain what He desires; so that neither should justice be infringed upon, nor the ancient handiwork of God go to destruction. Since the Lord thus has redeemed us through His own blood, giving His soul for our souls, and His flesh for our flesh, and has also poured out the Spirit of the Father for the union and communion of God and man, imparting indeed God to men by means of the Spirit, and, on the other hand, attaching man to God by His own incarnation, and bestowing upon us at His coming immortality durably and truly, by means of communion with God,--all the doctrines of the heretics fall to ruin.

Vain indeed are those who allege that He appeared in mere seeming. For these things were not done in appearance only, but in actual reality. But if He did appear as a man, when He was not a man, neither could the Holy Spirit have rested upon Him,--an occurrence which did actually take place--as the Spirit is invisible; nor, [in that case], was there any degree of truth in Him, for He was not that which He seemed to be. But I have already remarked that Abraham and the other prophets beheld Him after a prophetical manner, foretelling in vision what should come to pass. If, then, such a being has now appeared in outward semblance different from what he was in reality, there has been a certain prophetical vision made to men; and another advent of His must be looked forward to, in which He shall be such as He has now been seen in a prophetic manner. And I have proved already, that it is the same thing to say that He appeared merely to outward seeming, and [to affirm] that He received nothing from Mary. For He would not have been one truly possessing flesh and blood, by which He redeemed us, unless He had summed up in Himself the ancient formation of Adam. Vain therefore are the disciples of Valentinus who put forth this opinion, in order that they my exclude the flesh from salvation, and cast aside what God has fashioned.

Vain also are the Ebionites, who do not receive by faith into their soul the union of God and man, but who remain in the old leaven of [the natural] birth, and who do not choose to understand that the Holy Ghost came upon Mary, and the power of the Most High did overshadow her: wherefore also what was generated is a holy thing, and the Son of the Most High God the Father of all, who effected the incarnation of this being, and showed forth a new [kind of] generation; that as by the former generation we inherited death, so by this new generation we might inherit life. Therefore do these men reject the commixture of the heavenly wine, and wish it to be water of the world only, not receiving God so as to have union with Him, but they remain in that Adam who had been conquered and was expelled from Paradise: not considering that as, at the beginning of our formation in Adam, that breath of life which proceeded from God, having been united to what had been fashioned, animated the man, and manifested him as a being endowed with reason; so also, in [the times of] the end, the Word of the Father and the Spirit of God, having become united with the ancient substance of Adam's formation, rendered man living and perfect, receptive of the perfect Father, in order that as in the natural [Adam] we all were dead, so in the spiritual we may all be made alive. For never at any time did Adam escape the harms) of God, to whom the Father speaking, said, "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness." And for this reason in the last times (fine), not by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of man, but by the good pleasure of the Father, His hands formed a living man, in order that Adam might be created [again] after the image and likeness of God.

And vain likewise are those [i.e. the Marcionites] who say that God came to those things which did not belong to Him, as if covetous of another's property; in order that He might deliver up that man who had been created by another, to that God who had neither made nor formed anything, but who also was deprived from the beginning of His own proper formation of men. The advent, therefore, of Him whom these men represent as coming to the things of others, was not righteous; nor did He truly redeem us by His own blood, if He did not really become man, restoring to His own handiwork what was said [of it] in the beginning, that man was made after the image and likeness of God; not snatching away by stratagem the property of another, but taking possession of His own in a righteous and gracious manner. As far as concerned the apostasy, indeed, He redeems us righteously from it by His own blood; but as regards us who have been redeemed, [He does this] graciously. For we have given nothing to Him previously, nor does He desire anything from us, as if He stood in need of it; but we do stand in need of fellowship with Him. And for this reason it was that He graciously poured Himself out, that He might gather us into the bosom of the Father.

But vain in every respect are they who despise the entire dispensation of God, and disallow the salvation of the flesh, and treat with contempt its regeneration, maintaining that it is not capable of incorruption. But if this indeed do not attain salvation, then neither did the Lord redeem us with His blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist the communion of His blood, nor the bread which we break the communion of His body. For blood can only come from veins and flesh, and whatsoever else makes up the substance of man, such as the Word of God was actually made. By His own blood he redeemed us, as also His apostle declares, "In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the remission of sins." And as we are His members, we are also nourished by means of the creation (and He Himself grants the creation to us, for He causes His sun to rise, and sends rain when He wills). He has acknowledged the cup (which is a part of the creation) as His own blood, from which He bedews our blood; and the bread (also a part of the creation) He has established as His own body, from which He gives increase to our bodies.

When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him?--even as the blessed Paul declares in his Epistle to the Ephesians, that "we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." He does not speak these words of some spiritual and invisible man, for a spirit has not bones nor flesh; but [he refers to] that dispensation [by which the Lord became] an actual man, consisting of flesh, and nerves, and bones,--that [flesh] which is nourished by the cup which is His blood, and receives increase from the bread which is His body. And just as a cutting from the vine planted in the ground fructifies in its season, or as a corn of wheat falling into the earth and becoming decomposed, rises with manifold increase by the Spirit of God, who contains all things, and then, through the wisdom of God, serves for the use of men, and having received the Word of God, becomes the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ; so also our bodies, being nourished by it, and deposited in the earth, and suffering decomposition there, shall rise at their appointed time, the Word of God granting them resurrection to the glory of God, even the Father, who freely gives to this mortal immortality, and to this corruptible incorruption, because the strength of God is made perfect in weakness, in order that we may never become puffed up, as if we had life from ourselves, and exalted against God, our minds becoming ungrateful; but learning by experience that we possess eternal duration from the excelling power of this Being, not from our own nature, we may neither undervalue that glory which surrounds God as He is, nor be ignorant of our own nature, but that we may know what God can effect, and what benefits man receives, and thus never wander from the true comprehension of things as they are, that is, both with regard to God and with regard to man. And might it not be the case, perhaps, as I have already observed, that for this purpose God permitted our resolution into the common dust of mortality, that we, being instructed by every mode, may be accurate in all things for the future, being ignorant neither of God nor of ourselves? [Irenaeus AH v.1 - 2]

I don't know if I am the only one who is seeing this but it has to be remembered that (a) Irenaeus is the earliest specifically 'Catholic' theologian to explain what Christian redemption is and EVERY STEP along the way it is clear that the Catholic understanding is just a reformation of the Marcionite original.

What was that original Marcionite conception of redemption? Well that is a good question and one that I think we could devote a great number of posts examining. But for the moment let us remind ourselves that we learn from Irenaeus what DISTINGUISHES the later 'reformed' Catholic variant from the heretical original (of course Irenaeus doesn't use these terms but it is implicit in his description).

The Marcionites seemed to stress that Jesus's VIOLENT death was connected with a 'purchase' FROM THE CREATOR to 'the better God,' the good God (viz. Chrestos - again this specific term isn't used but we know it from other sources and it is implicit here). Irenaeus's point is that this ἀπολύτρωσις or 'payment of ransom' has to involve a real human Jesus because of its reference to blood and flesh. But the heretics could equally well stress that the Apostle declared that REAL 'flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.' (1 Cor 15:50)

What gives here? How could the Marcionites have held that Jesus was a wholly spiritual being with no real 'flesh and blood' to speak of when the rituals of the Church feature things identified as 'flesh' and 'blood' that have real substance - i.e. bread and water (at least in the Marcionite tradition)? In other words, it's not like the Marcionite ate 'imaginary' foods to represent their phantasmal Jesus, a point the Church Fathers were always ready to make.

That may be true but it has to be also remembered that bread and water ARE NOT 'flesh' and 'blood.' In other words, they are representational. They are also understood to represent SPIRITUAL flesh and SPIRITUAL blood, in other words, parts of a more perfect creation, something explicit even in Irenaeus's redemption mythography.

Just look again when Irenaeus says that Jesus's crucifixion was him "giving His soul for our souls, and His flesh for our flesh, and has also poured out the Spirit of the Father for the union and communion of God and man, imparting indeed God to men by means of the Spirit" and again "having become imitators of His works as well as doers of His words, we may have communion with Him, receiving increase from the perfect One, and from Him who is prior to all creation. We--who were but lately created by the only best and good Being, by Him also who has the gift of immortality, having been formed after His likeness." There are also countless other statements about this process representing God's "perfect work" [Deut 32:4]

I hope that the reader can see how this terminology MUST represent a left over from the original appropriation from the Marcionite idea of Jesus 'snatching' humanity from its original Creator and because of the rituals of the Church (i.e. the Cross, baptism, the bread, the water and the rest of the sacraments) what was originally a 'good' creation (or 'very good' by the end of the sixth day') has now been made 'perfect' or at least better.

This is the whole core understanding of Christianity. I can't stress this is enough. It is the fulfillment of Jewish mystical expectation regarding the messiah and its relates again to the numbers 6, 7 and 8 (cf Irenaeus AH i.13 - 21, Clement Stromata vi.11 - 16 etc.)

What makes Irenaeus's theology and his mythography so obviously secondary is his retention of the core idea that Jesus came to affect the original creation. His crucifixion still brings us 'better flesh' and 'better blood/spirit' BUT - and this is a big but - Irenaeus looks at the original Christian formulation which preceded him and points an accusing finger and says 'all of this is evil and heretic. You've taken this too far!'

So instead of a 'snatching away' from the Creator he invents a myth which involves mankind rescue from the Devil. There is still the giving of the spiritual flesh and spiritual blood but he and the Church Fathers that follow him have to make the absurd argument that Jesus was the same Creator that made man in the beginning, that there was nothing essentially 'better' about the second creation, nothing essentially 'lacking' about the first creation in Eden all because the implications of these arguments led to an understanding a weltanschauung which was officially verboten.

Who outlawed this doctrine? I have to join the conspiracy theorist at this site at this point - it must have been Caesar. Irenaeus boats that he sits on the court of Commodus as do all his associates AND MORE IMPORTANTLY there were a disproportionate number of Christians in the courts of the Severan Emperors IN THE VERY PERIOD THAT WE SEE OUR NEW TESTAMENT CANON and our familiar orthodox doctrine being introduced (i.e. the over fifty year period which stretches from 180 - 235 CE).

It was in this period that Christianity moves away from its original Alexandrian home and settles around the Emperor in Rome. Rome becomes the center of gravity. The persecutions are clearly present and centered in Egypt.

The million dollar question for those who will take my theory seriously is why was this original doctrine outlawed? My answer is that there were undoubtedly many layers to the original decision. Clearly Celsus's original treatise the True Account made the clearest argument that Christianity was a subversive insurrection disguised as a religion (read the end of Book Seven of Origen's work and all of Book Eight). But I also think the rebellion of the residents of Boucolia, the actual center of Alexandrian Christianity (see Christopher Haas's reference in the Arians of Alexandria http://www.jstor.org/pss/1583805) was the real turning point.

The Empire was beginning to fall apart at the end of Marcus Aurelius's reign. His stupid son Commodus (who comes across like the male models of Zoolander) was about twelve years old when the cross-dressing revolutionaries of Alexandria rose up and took over Egypt for a short while (172 CE). The very general - Avidius Cassius who his father sent to quell the revolt eventually managed to get the same population to accept him as Caesar and he too started a revolt from Egypt three years later (175 CE) and almost succeeded.

It must have been a tumultuous period for the young - and stupid - Commodus. His mother actually helped support the revolt against his father. When things settled down his father actively tried to prepare him for the throne (177 CE) but by the time he died (early 180 CE) Commodus already had a Christian concubine Marcia at his side who became his de facto wife throughout his reign. Marcia's tutor was a eunuch Christian and various stories circulate about her role establishing the Papacy in Rome rescuing the very Callixtus who would eventually be Pope (217 - 222 CE) but who would be deacon under the previous period.

I have tried to demonstrate in another thread that Irenaeus's surviving material has been re-edited and transformed away from the doctrinal errors witnessed by Photius in earlier manuscripts. I believe it can still be seen that Irenaeus argued that Commodus was the fulfillment of Christian expectation for the coming 'second advent' of Jesus. In other words, I think that Irenaeus originally said THIS IS THE TIME that we have all been waiting for - essentially rejecting the tradition of Alexandria which clearly said the 'year of favor' already happened in the year of Jesus's ministry.

in the forty or fifty years after Irenaeus's original reform efforts TWO schools emerged in Rome which claimed to be successors to his teachings. Hippolytus is better known but even the Popes he opposed who actually governed the Church in the period must have laid claim to be heirs to Irenaeus, perhaps even more faithful heirs.

For those who ask still why was the original doctrine of Christianity changed (i.e. regarding the idea of Jesus issuing a 'better' more 'perfect creation') the answer comes right out of Celsus. The terminology used by the original Christians implied that Christ was superiror to the kosmokrator (κοσμοκράτωρ Eph 6:12). The idea that the ruler of the world was imperfect, governed unjustly etc was clearly taken not only to be a slight against the Imperial government and in an age which saw the institutions crumbling (like that period which begins with Commodus's ascension) I think Alexandrian Christianity came in its cross hairs.

It is also worth noting that Judaism undergoes a reform process in the very same period. I see uncanny parallels between the way the function of the Mishnah and the four gospels but that will have to be a discussion for another time ...

charles

I learned from the internet that this word ἀπολύτρωσις means redemption.

How does this fit within a mythical framework? Are you saying that Jesus's redemption was a myth?

charles

I was hoping to get an answer to my question? Are you saying that Jesus's redemption was a myth?