Clivedurdle

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...barefoot1.html

http://bible.cc/ezekiel/1-10.htm


Might Christ Chronos only be a god transition between cultures, as with Zeus and Jupiter?

Jeffrey Gibson

Why should we trust this page?

Would you please give some primary documentary evidence - not an un-sourced web page -- that the symbol of Chronos was the Chi-Rho. lert alone that if the Chi Rho does indeed appear in Hermetic texts to denote "time", what is being referred to here is the god Chronos and not, as in the majority of the uses in Greek literature of the noun Χρόνος un-personified time (on this, see LSJ)?

While you are at it, would you please give some evidence that the god Chronos had devotees and was given cult, and had temples and altars and shrines?

Jeffrey

mountainman

Lions, bulls and the pearl of great price (NHC 6.1) 348 CE

stonewall1012

gururgeorge: Interesting theory. While I find it interesting that you have the roots of christianity as 20 ACE do you have any actual evidence that it began that early?

Secondly, gurugeorge said: "Paul" takes up the cudgel and spreads a gentile-frendly revision of this revised Messiah"

Where did Paul get the idea that Messiahism had anything to do with Gentiles?

Where is your evidence that it(big idea) was a Samaritian/ Jewish invention? Samaritian were generaly considered "half-breeds" partial jews; What motiviated Paul to mix their belief with Samartian "half breed truths"?

Why would Paul, (unless you think his claim inauthentic of being a Jew among Jews) even listen to anything a Samaratian might say about Sacrifice? Considering Jews thought the Temple was where they were supposed to enact the "cultic" practices and Samaratians thought it was in their territority why would Paul buy this "big idea"?

If Romans were hard headed and wanted facts, "skeptical" so to speak why did they buy into the claim that this Jesus person was real without investigation?

If they are factual solid thinking people why buy Jesus is real by 50-70 ACE when what ever documents about him would have been available?

Lastly where is your evidential "facts", not interpretation of what a word or phrase "might" mean, that Samaratian Jewish collaboration occured with this "big idea" with out some significant catalyst?ie while Jewish Samaratian collaboration might have occured there needed to be a better catalyst than: "Hey, look at this neat idea I have."

stonewall1012

Mountain man: Interesting post. I agree there are some intresting symbols that would require a large amount of time to digest. What is missing is: context, literary genra, author, time frame, intended audience, distribution, purpose, cross referenced use and literary integrity. Literary criticism is a little bit more complicated that posting a document that mentions a bull, a wolf, men, robbers, roads, pearls, water, bread, lions, dogs. Without a context this is nearly worthless, interesting, but we need these other things to even begin to know what this document is.

Is it a poem? It is a parable? Is it part of a larger teaching?
Secondly, if the date is correct it is actually POST Nicea. Unless you have a version of this poem/teaching or another document that references it earlier why would any thinking person think that a post Nicea poem effected pre Nicea belief... unless you want to contend that this represents belief that extends further back?
At which case I would simply ask for evidence.

Toto

The association of Chi-Rho in some form with Chronos does not seem improbable. But the only source I can find other than webpages that quote other webpages, is The Greek Qabalah: Alphabetical Mysticism and Numerology in the Ancient World by Kieren Barry (or via: amazon.co.uk), which cites Moeller, Mithraic Origin and Meaning of the ROTAS-SATOR Square, p. 8, which I do not have access to.

The Barry book seems to have been reviewed on Amazon primarily by occultists, but it cites primary sources. It would bear reviewing by someone who, um, has more time to spend on this than I can justify at this time.

Jeffrey Gibson

Umm ... why?

And whether or not it is not improbable, isn't the issue a more precise claim that it was so associated? So where is Clive's -- and your? -- evidence that it was?

Check out the publisher of this book:

http://www.weiserbooks.com/index.jsp

Here is one such review that was published in the Journal of Roman Studies:

Quote:

W. 0. MOELLER, THE MITHRAIC ORIGIN AND MEANINGS OF THE ROTAS-SATOR SQUARE. (Etudes prdliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'empire romain, 38.) Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973. Pp. viii + 52. 5 plates. Text-figs. Fl. 24. By any standards it is too much to pay between /2 and ?3 for fifty pages. This ought not to have been published as a separate book. Pruned, it might have made a provocative contribution to some journal. Provocative, but not persuasive. The Rotas-Sator wordsquare is plainly a magical or mystical formula which expresses more than it says. It has been found in the classical world at Pompeii, Cirencester, Dura-Europos and Aquincum as well as on a piece of leather from Saxony, an eleventh- century church floor in Italy, and a fifteenth-century talisman from Thasos. In the mid-1920's C. Frank (and, independently, F. Grosser and S. Agrell) noted that the words form an anagram of two intersecting PATERNOSTERs with A-O twice, where A and 0 are of course alpha and omega. Close to this is G. Maresch's observation that the letters yield PATER SOTER twice, with A-O twice, and the midpoint letter N once. At Pompeii ANO is under the square. H. Hommel proposed that these stand for past-present-future. It may be so, but M. moves too easily to the assumption that ' N = present' is a proved equation. From this point anagrams become wilder and wilder. We are offered SATRE (Etruscan for Saturn), PERSER ('very close to Perses '!), ASA (Umbrian for ara), ASA (Middle Persian for ' cosmic order '), PETRE (' Could Petrus have been one of Mithra's names, perhaps a hidden one? '). It really is not possible to have an anagram which involves Etruscan, Umbrian and Middle Persian. Ronald Knox proved by anagrams that Queen Victoria wrote In Memoriam, far more plausibly. About half the text deals with numerology. This too offers us far too many alternatives, some of which depend on adjusting the vowels, others on ignoring the fact that the Romans did not have a ciphered number system, others on' casting out the nines '. In one calculation of an amulet the system gives 2,437. This is described as 'tantalizingly close ' to 2,520. A little fiddling with two letters produces 2,527. This is regarded as proving something. Need one say more about this tissue of wishful thinking? M.'s general thesis is that Sator - Saturn = Kronos-Aion, and that the wordsquare is Mithraic. I do not believe in Mithraists in Pompeii as early as A.D. 62 (the probable terminus ante quem for graffiti from the palaestra), but there were Christians at nearby Puteoli by that date. Pater is found in many other religions than Christianity-but Pater noster-which remains the most plausible of the anagrams? There are remanent problems, though I do not think that an early date for the Latin version of the Lord's prayer or for the A-O formula is among them: notably the mysterious AREPO which continues to elude us all. The balance of probability continues to favour a Christian origin. JOHN FERGUSON 242

Looks like another case of seeing what one wants to see and abusing the "evidence" to get it to say what it does not say.

Have you also noted that when you google "chronos symbol" you have pages that deny that Chronos' symbol was the Chi Rho?


Jeffrey

stonewall1012

The problem here is not that they see a CHI RHO association but that when asked to provide "evidence" they resort to someones interpretation of evidence no matter how wacked out and crazy that interpretation might be.

They then fail to aknowledge that it is not evidence but an interpretation of evidence. Once again I have no problem with them relying upon such interpretations of evidence but failing to acknowledge it and call it "fact" is bothersome.

Toto

For the trivial reason that Chronos starts with chi rho.

But I should clarify that the Chronos connection is Clive's theory, and I am not a proponent; and that if there is any connection, I suspect it is somewhere between a coincidence or a random borrowing.

When I google "chronos symbol" I find a lot of sites that give various other symbols, but I don't see one that specifically denies that chi rho was a monogram for Chronos.

Jeffrey Gibson

So does
χραίνω, χραισμ�*ω,χραισμεῖν, χράομαι, ΧΡΑΏ χρήσω χρ�*ᾰ χρεία χρείη χρεῖος
χρεῖος, ον χρειώ χρεμετίζω χρεμετισμός χρεμίζω χρ�*μπτομαι, χρ�*ομαι
χρ�*ος χρ�*ω χρεωκοπίδης χρεώμενος χρεών

and several dozen other Greek words. I guess on your grounds we have to say that it is not improbable that χριστός is derived from them as well.

Good grief!

Jeffrey