mountainman

The gnostics were a very docetic crew.

Best wishes,


Pete

Zeichman

Be careful of "parallelomania." These words were rather common, and you'd need to make a case that Paul uses them the same way as gnostics. Beyond that, Pauline soteriology is antithetical to Gnostic soteriology.

judge

What an interesting way to put it.

Johns gospel and 1 John seem to me even more "gnostic" than Paul

gstafleu

With a bit of imagination perhaps:
This could perhaps be read as “My God, My God, why have You left Me?” Someone who knows Aramaic may be able to comment on this. If so, this could be seen as the fleshy shell of Jesus complaining that the spiritual bit has now toddled off.

Gerard Stafleu

Cesc

I'm sure someone has tried to do that, and I believe it can be done. They are rather 'concepts' than 'words', I'd say. I think many of Paul's main ideas represent a middle period between early Jewish gnosticism (such as essinism) and later radical gnosticism.
In addition to his Platonic disdain for the flesh and the man-made laws and such, the revealing of the knowledge of God was very important to Paul. For example:

I have become its [the church] servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fulness - the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Col 1:25-27)

My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Col 2:2-3)

How do you mean? Isn't Paul's soteriology highly complex and varying throughout the Pauline corpus? Involving Christ as the "mystery", "wisdom", "knowledge", etc. Through the death and resurrection of the physical body of the fulness, you are not just forgiven your sins, you are "reconciled" with God (Col 1:19-20, 22). Christ is the fulness of God and "is all, and is in all" (Col 3:11). You are "renewed in knowledge" (Col 3:10) and rejoined with the "fulness of the Diety" (Col 2:9). Not joined, but rejoined. Isn't that simply one example of gnostic redemption. Which itself is complex and varying.

I agree. The Johannine witness is extremely close to Paul's school of thought, imo. It seems to me that gJohn is a story put into writing mainly for better conveying Paul's spiritual truths (not historical truths) in an enjoyable and more practical way. The same purpose as the gnostic myth-cycles.

lycanthrope

i found another webpage with this bold claim

http://www.funygroup.org/articles/JesusMysteries.html

"The Gnostics regularly and unashamedly created fantasy gospels. But they acknowledged that they were mythologizing. The Literalists of Constantine (like Eusebius) distorted everything Gnostic, including even that! Eusebius' history was preached as valid fact (and as literally true). This is when Paul's Pastoral Letters were faked (the letters which denounce Gnosticism and Reason, and tell slaves to submit to their masters). Translating works into Latin afforded opportunities for distortion. The lives of Christian saints were constructed out of the legends of dead Pagan holy men. The accounts of early Christian persecutions were exaggerated"

thats a rather bold claim on Eusebius and Constantine, does anyone here have any links to academic works on them being such wankers?

mountainman

Start with the thesis in the field of ancient history that Constantine invented christianity in the fourth century. Where Emperor Julian gets to unload the goods about the fiction of wicked men, where Eusebius gets a special mention and is classified as ..... wretched.

The accounts of early christian persecutions were fabricated from the Manichaean persecutions, and the new testament literature by the robbery of pagan wisdom sayings thrown together in the proverbial four eye-witness accounts of the life and times of Clerk Jesus Kent. Bullneck was Perry White.
He published the fiction first. Constantine was a supreme imperial mafia thug and malevolent despot, and the very first christian proselyter. His new (and strange according to Eusebius) religion was a top-down emperor cult. Bullneck was Pontifex Maximus. He had the army, and he used it.

THE GNOSTICS

Think of the gnostics as the pagan resistance to christianity. It started with Arius. The councils of Antioch and Nicaea were military supremacist councils. The Hellenic empire was brought to its knees by Consantine in 324 CE. I dont think there were any christians before then, and I know of know evidence to show this thinking to be in error. The gnostics were the prenicene culture before the impactor of Constantine. He probited temple worship and its culture failed. Ascepius the healing god of the empire who enjoyed popular support throughout the succession of emperors of the first three centuries was targetted by Constantine for destruction -- in a very public fashion.

Chronology here is all important. C14 is reliable.


Best wishes,


Pete

Toto

You are citing a review of the Jesus Mysteries, by Freke and Gandy. But this paragraph has a few things out of order. The Pastorals were forged, but much earlier than Eusebius. The translation of works into Latin was later, and can be examined. Everyone knows that Christian saints were constructed out of pagan gods, but this happened much later and is not necessarily a part of early Christianity.

Eusebius does not have a great reputation outside of some Christian circles. Gibbon (Fall of the Roman Empire) was very hard on him, in particular.

Cesc

While some gnostics didn't have Jesus in a bodily form, it can be argued that the "Gospel of Truth" from Nag Hammadi has Jesus in bodily form:

He was nailed to a cross.

While his [the Father] wisdom mediates on the Logos, and since his teaching expresses it, his knowledge has been revealed. ... His love took bodily form around it [the Logos].

When it appeared, I mean, the Logos, who is in the heart of those who pronounce it - it was not merely a sound but it has become a body ...

GakuseiDon

Do you mean, they didn't have Christ in a bodily form? AFAIK, the Gnostics all thought that Jesus had a body. Ideas about its composition varied, though.