Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 02-02-2012, 02:25 PM

An even more removed tangent with respect to the Platonic references in Justin. Justin says the following:

Quote:

This, then, to speak shortly, is what we expect and have learned from Christ, and teach. And Plato, in like manner, used to say that Rhadamanthus and Minos would punish the wicked who came before them; and we say that the same thing will be done, but at the hand of Christ, and upon the wicked in the same bodies united again to their spirits which are now to undergo everlasting punishment;

The obvious parallel here is what is found in Clement's Letter to Theodore and its repeated references the concept - but not necessarily containing the words - γυμνὸς γυμνῷ. Here is the passage at the end of the surviving manuscript:

Quote:

τὸ δε γυμνὸς γυμνῷ και ταλλα περι ων εγραψας ουκ ευρισκεται.

But “naked man with naked man,” and the other things about which you wrote, are not found (III.14)

Something about Theodore's original question then leads to Clement revealing a 'secret' or 'mystic' gospel that he doesn't make specific reference to in his other writings and one narrative in particular, the one which features the following reference:

Quote:

και οψιας γενομενης ερχεται ο νεανισκος προς αυτον. περιβεβλημενος σινδονα επι γυμνου· και εμεινε συν αυτω την νυκτα εκεινην

and when it was evening the young man comes to him donning a linen sheet upon his naked body; and he remained with him that night (III.7 - 9)

Modern scholarship has simply assumed that either the γυμνὸς γυμνῷ reference is a verbatim citation of what appears in the parallel 'mystic' gospel of Mark of the Carpocratians or that it makes clear that Theodore thought that 'homosexuality' was present in the narrative. I am not at all sure this is the case.

There are at least two other appearances of the γυμνὸς γυμνῷ formula. The first, as mentioned, Jerome's understanding that Christianity is symbolized by a disciple who takes off his clothes after hearing Jesus's words in Mark 10:17 - 31 and is naked with a naked Jesus - presumably in a baptismal font. We have established that Jerome's knowledge here ultimately comes from Alexandria and the writings of Clement in particular, probably through Origen and Origenist circles. Yet the second reference is actually even more interesting - the allusion in the Platonist Maximus of Tyre to a similar formula:

Quote:

γυμνὸν γυμνῷ, φίλον φίλῳ, ἐλεύθερον ἐλευθέρῳ

naked to naked, friend to friend, freeman to freeman

which comes from Maximus's forty-first dissertation in his surviving collection of orations.

I interviewed a well-respected expert on the writings of Plato, Professor Michael Trapp of King's College at my blog last year and asked him to comment on this:

Quote:

Stephan Huller: Combes-Dounous, the French translator of the Dissertations thinks the γυμνὸν γυμνῷ in γυμνὸν γυμνῷ, φίλον φίλῳ, ἐλεύθερον ἐλευθέρῳ is corrupt. He argues "on lisait ψίλον ψίλῳ, le sens en vaudrait mieux, d'autant que l'adjectif ψίλον a une acception de synonymie avec γυμνός qui le précède." Do you think the formula has been faithfully preserved?

Michael Trapp: What Combes-Dounous is questioning is not γυμνὸν γυμνῷ but φίλον φίλῳ – he thinks the phi’s are mis-writings for psi’s, because he doesn’t like (doesn’t see any particular coherence to) the sequence ‘naked – dear/friendly – free’; but there’s nothing wrong with this combination, each of the terms makes sense in the context of the topic and the image Maximus is using, and Combes-Dounous’s proposed change is if anything worse – the repetitious ‘naked – bare – free’

Stephan Huller: Can we infer from Combes-Dounous difficulties with the passage that it represents a break of some sort in the flow from what precedes the citation of the formula. Do you think that Maximus could be citing a Platonic or Pythagorean formula of some kind?

Michael Trapp: So I don’t think it is any worry about a break in flow from what preceded that is in C-D’s mind. Maximus could be citing a pre-existing Platonic or Pythagorean formula, but it isn’t one we have any other hard evidence for.

Stephan Huller: Could this be a citation of a now unknown saying given the appearance of a sorites - γυμνὸν γυμνῷ, φίλον φίλῳ, ἐλεύθερον ἐλευθέρῳ

Michael Trapp: In theory, but where’s the evidence/incentive? (And technically, I don’t think this counts as a sorites: doesn’t a sorites have to involve a chain of reasoning – one proposition building on the results of the previous one – as opposed to a series of verbal echoes/repetitions – for which (?) anadiplosis is the more appropriate term?)

Stephan Huller: I also notice that the saying is preserved by the Latin translators as nudum nudo, amicum amico, liberum libero. The most famous motto of Jerome was nudus, nudum and this saying was widely influential in western monasticism throughout the ages. Given the discovery of the Mar Saba document and its report of a γυμνὸς γυμνῷ formula known to at least two Christian contemporaries of Maximus and the fact that I think I can connect many of Jerome's formulations with Clement, Origen and Alexandrian Christianity can you envision an appropriation of a Platonic formula by Christians?

Michael Trapp: Clement, Origen and Jerome were all knowledgeable readers of Plato, and there’s a good chance that they all knew Plato Gorgias 523d – the idea that for effective Last Judgement the encounter must be post mortem, of naked soul judging naked soul. But it’s quite a step from this to the ethical advice of nudus nudum Christum sequi, both in topic, and because in the Gorgias passage Plato doesn’t directly juxtapose different inflections of the adjective gymnos.

For those who aren't familiar with Plato, the reference in Justin is to the same source as Professor Trapp is directing me here to explain the 'naked with naked' reference in the Letter to Theodore. Minos et al are naked.

stephan huller · 02-02-2012, 02:31 PM

And now finally to the citation I really wanted to make with respect to the idea that the yesh on the cross might lead the Jews (and mankind generally) to be brought into acquaintance with the (previously hidden) ousia of the Father:

Quote:

And that you may learn that it was from our teachers— we mean the account given through the prophets— that Plato borrowed his statement that God, having altered matter which was shapeless, made the world, hear the very words spoken through Moses, who, as above shown, was the first prophet, and of greater antiquity than the Greek writers; and through whom the Spirit of prophecy, signifying how and from what materials God at first formed the world, spoke thus: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was invisible and unfurnished, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and it was so. So that both Plato and they who agree with him, and we ourselves, have learned, and you also can be convinced, that by the word of God the whole world was made out of the substance spoken of before by Moses. And that which the poets call Erebus, we know was spoken of formerly by Moses. Deuteronomy 32:22

And the physiological discussion concerning the Son of God in the Timæus of Plato, where he says, He placed him crosswise in the universe, he borrowed in like manner from Moses; for in the writings of Moses it is related how at that time, when the Israelites went out of Egypt and were in the wilderness, they fell in with poisonous beasts, both vipers and asps, and every kind of serpent, which slew the people; and that Moses, by the inspiration and influence of God, took brass, and made it into the figure of a cross, and set it in the holy tabernacle, and said to the people, If you look to this figure, and believe, you shall be saved thereby. Numbers 21:8 And when this was done, it is recorded that the serpents died, and it is handed down that the people thus escaped death. Which things Plato reading, and not accurately understanding, and not apprehending that it was the figure of the cross, but taking it to be a placing crosswise, he said that the power next to the first God was placed crosswise in the universe. And as to his speaking of a third, he did this because he read, as we said above, that which was spoken by Moses, that the Spirit of God moved over the waters. For he gives the second place to the Logos which is with God, who he said was placed crosswise in the universe; and the third place to the Spirit who was said to be borne upon the water, saying, And the third around the third. And hear how the Spirit of prophecy signified through Moses that there should be a conflagration. He spoke thus: Everlasting fire shall descend, and shall devour to the pit beneath. Deuteronomy 32:22 It is not, then, that we hold the same opinions as others, but that all speak in imitation of ours. Among us these things can be heard and learned from persons who do not even know the forms of the letters, who are uneducated and barbarous in speech, though wise and believing in mind; some, indeed, even maimed and deprived of eyesight; so that you may understand that these things are not the effect of human wisdom, but are uttered by the power of God.

stephan huller · 02-02-2012, 02:34 PM

All of this is leading to the possibility that the yesh might well have been understood to be manifest as the chi of the world-soul.

The answer probably lies somewhere in this book http://books.google.com/books?id=cq8...imaeus&f=false but I am too busy right now to read it.

Horatio Parker · 02-02-2012, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Horatio, I am not sure if Jews were completely unfamiliar with the concept of ousia. What ousia is occupied a lot of Spinoza's time.

I'm sure they were, though they certainly called it something else. Everyone knows what essence is.

But I'm not talking about what Jews understood, only speculating that Gnostics and Marcionites needed justification for their views.

stephan huller · 02-02-2012, 02:50 PM

Perhaps this description of what follows in the Timaeus can connect the idea to the yesh in Jewish philosophical thought:

Quote:

And when the whole fabric of the soul had been finished to the fashioner's mind, he next fell to shaping within her all that has body and uniting them center to center He made them fit together. And the Soul, being woven throughout the Heaven every way from the center to the extremity, and enveloping it in a circle from without, and herself revolving within herself, began a divine beginning of unceasing and intelligent life lasting throughout all time. And whereas the body of the Heaven is visible, the Soul is herself invisible but partakes in reasoning and in harmony, having come into existence by the agency of the best of things intelligible and ever-existing as the best of things generated. Inasmuch, then, as she is a compound, blended of the natures of the Same and the Other and Being, these three portions (ἔκ τε οὐσίας τριῶν), and is proportionately divided and bound together, and revolves back upon herself, whenever she touches anything which has its substance dispersed (ὅταν οὐσίαν σκεδαστὴν) or anything which has its substance undivided she is moved throughout her whole being and announces what the object is identical with [Timaeus 36 e - 37 a,b]

Sheshbazzar · 02-02-2012, 03:02 PM

This is getting to sound more and more like the writings of our friend Chili.

Horatio Parker · 02-02-2012, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Perhaps this description of what follows in the Timaeus can connect the idea to the yesh in Jewish philosophical thought:

Quote:

And when the whole fabric of the soul had been finished to the fashioner's mind, he next fell to shaping within her all that has body and uniting them center to center He made them fit together. And the Soul, being woven throughout the Heaven every way from the center to the extremity, and enveloping it in a circle from without, and herself revolving within herself, began a divine beginning of unceasing and intelligent life lasting throughout all time. And whereas the body of the Heaven is visible, the Soul is herself invisible but partakes in reasoning and in harmony, having come into existence by the agency of the best of things intelligible and ever-existing as the best of things generated. Inasmuch, then, as she is a compound, blended of the natures of the Same and the Other and Being, these three portions (ἔκ τε οὐσίας τριῶν), and is proportionately divided and bound together, and revolves back upon herself, whenever she touches anything which has its substance dispersed (ὅταν οὐσίαν σκεδαστὴν) or anything which has its substance undivided she is moved throughout her whole being and announces what the object is identical with [Timaeus 36 e - 37 a,b]

Whenever I read anything like this, I wonder how anyone can bother with the Bible when they could read this. Thanks for that quote.

Yesh I don't understand in a way that I could contrast with Plato, ie explain it, but no matter, I'm not questioning the integrity of the inspiration.

What I'm not getting is how this relates to the OP. If that doesn't matter anymore, that's cool, but what I see is Idea Salad. (and without Chili around I probably wouldn't have come up with that - thanks Chili)

Horatio Parker · 02-02-2012, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar

This is getting to sound more and more like the writings of our friend Chili.

A coincidence I'm sure.

stephan huller · 02-02-2012, 03:20 PM

The short answer is that I know yesh must be there because of the kabbalistic use, I just don't know where or how exactly

Another suspicion = the crucified one united the three substances (spirit, soul, animal) until only enmity was left hanging

Philo alludes to the importance of the three being kneaded together with Sarah's cooking for the three angels (Clement references it too)

Horatio Parker · 02-02-2012, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

The short answer is that I know yesh must be there because of the kabbalistic use, I just don't know where or how exactly

Another suspicion = the crucified one united the three substances (spirit, soul, animal) until only enmity was left hanging

Philo alludes to the importance of the three being kneaded together with Sarah's cooking for the three angels (Clement references it too)

No problem, take your time.

Also: you're more of a mystic than I thought.

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02-02-2012, 02:34 PM	#83
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	All of this is leading to the possibility that the yesh might well have been understood to be manifest as the chi of the world-soul. The answer probably lies somewhere in this book http://books.google.com/books?id=cq8...imaeus&f=false but I am too busy right now to read it.

02-02-2012, 03:02 PM	#86
Sheshbazzar Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: On the path of knowledge Posts: 8,889	This is getting to sound more and more like the writings of our friend Chili.

02-02-2012, 03:20 PM	#89
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	The short answer is that I know yesh must be there because of the kabbalistic use, I just don't know where or how exactly Another suspicion = the crucified one united the three substances (spirit, soul, animal) until only enmity was left hanging Philo alludes to the importance of the three being kneaded together with Sarah's cooking for the three angels (Clement references it too)

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