Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 03-22-2012, 09:21 AM

I don't want to get into questions about the authenticity of the text. I simply want to know if my interpretation of the Greek is flawed. As we all know the Letter to Theodore of Clement was brought to the attention of the world in 1960 at a SBL conference. A letter from Clement was found at the Mar Saba monastery. It is addressed to a Theodore and references (a) the evangelist Mark writing a longer gospel at Alexandria which (b) was used by orthodox and heretics alike and which (c) Clement criticizes the Carpocratian sect for holding 'carnal' and 'human' opinions about the content which somehow have some relation to homosexuality.

My question is whether it is too much of a stretch to suggest that the specific terminology that Clement uses - i.e. 'human opinions' (τὴν κατὰ τὰς ἀνθρωπίνας δόξας) and his [i.e. Carpocrates] 'carnal doctrine' (καὶ σαρκικὴν αὐτοῦ δόξαν) are a subtle intimation on Clement's part that the Carpocratians erred by inferring that Jesus (the δόξα of God) was human and fleshly.

As we all know δόξα originally meant something like 'opinion' but after the LXX the Jewish Scriptures used it to translate kavod (= glory). The logic apparently as far as I can see is that δόξα is opinion but can also mean one's reputation (= the opinion others have of you). I don't know if I am reading too much into this that God can't be seen so when we see his glory we gain an idea or 'opinion' of his nature.

In any event, what I am wondering is whether the Greek could be developed with this double entendre in mind (= opinion/glory). If so that Clement would be developing the idea in Romans chapter 1 and actually help make sense of something that I previously thought was senseless.

In other words, it has never made sense to me why Paul accuses the Greeks of becoming homosexual from falling away from the true God. I had always thought that Christians believed that Jesus (or his apostles) came to witness the true God to the pagans. This was why they went on missions to the nations. It never made sense to me why it is that Paul should accuse these same pagans of becoming homosexuals from falling away from the true god when they had never been enlightened about him until the preaching of Christianity.

Of course my interpretation of the Letter to Theodore holds up then Clement would be a witness to the original interpretation. The reason for this is that Clement's Alexandrian text of Romans reads slightly differently than our received text. There is no mention of animals, just man:

Quote:

The holy apostle of the Lord, reprehending the Greeks, will show thee: "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and changed the glory of God into the likeness of corruptible man, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator."

ὅτι γνόντες τὸν θεὸν οὐχ ὡς θεὸν ἐδόξασαν ἢ ηὐχαρίστησαν, ἀλλ' ἐματαιώθησαν ἐν τοῖς διαλογισμοῖς αὐτῶν, καὶ ἤλλαξαν τὴν δόξαν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν ὁμοιώματι εἰκόνος φθαρτοῦ ἀνθρώπου, καὶ ἐλάτρευσαν τῇ κτίσει παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα."

In other words, the Alexandrians (in their earliest days were 'radical' monophysites) thought Jesus was only God and preserved the original understanding of Jesus as wholly divine/only God. The apostle then says that certain heretics (= Greeks) came along and took him to be a corruptible man and that 'homosexuality' came along because presumably the mystical rites (= the things mentioned in Secret Mark which Clement elsewhere in the Stromata was/were known to Paul) took on a homosexual character if Jesus is presumed to be a man of flesh and blood.

In other words, Christianity becomes a 'homosexual' religion if we substitute the historical Jesus for the mythical Jesus (= a Jesus of flesh and blood for a spiritual Jesus). Presumably the ritual made the initiate 'unite' with Jesus and thus it seemed gay to take about uniting with a physical man.

Does this make at least intuitive sense? Are there difficulties with my use of doxa? I just woke up and had this interpretation and haven't really though it through.

stephan huller · 03-22-2012, 10:00 AM

I should also mention that irenaeus identifies carpocrates as holding that jesus was only a man alone of the gnostics

stephan huller · 03-22-2012, 01:18 PM

I think something of this conception (i.e. that Jesus was said in the gospel to be a God rather than man) in Tertullian's discussion of the Marcionite interpretation of Romans 1. He says quite clearly that the Marcionites thought Romans 1 was about the identity of Jesus:

Quote:

Also I have already more than once proved that the substance of the apostle's preaching is of God as judge, and that judge implies avenger, and avenger creator. And so again
here: when he says,

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew and to the Greek, because the righteousness of God is revealed in it from faith unto faith,

there is no doubt he ascribes both gospel and salvation to a God not kind but just—if I am permitted to make the distinction the heretic makes—a God who carries men over from the faith of the law to the faith of the gospel: evidently his own law and his own gospel. Because he also says that

wrath is revealed from heaven against the godlessness and unrighteousness of men who hold down the truth in unrighteousness.

Which God's wrath? Surely the Creator's. Then the truth will belong to him whose is that wrath which is to be revealed to avenge the truth. Also when he adds,

But we know that the judgement of God is according to truth,

he sets his approval on that actual wrath from which proceeds judgement on behalf of the truth, and conversely proves that the truth belongs to that same God of whose
wrath he has expressed approval by approving of his judgement.

It is quite a different matter if the Creator in anger is taking vengeance for the truth of that other god being held down in unrighteousness. But how many ditches Marcion has dug, especially in this epistle, by removing all that he would, will become evident from the complete text of my copy. I myself need do no more than accept, as the result of his carelessness and blindness, those passages which he did not see he had equally
good reason to excise.

For if God will judge the secret things of men, both those who have sinned in the law and those who have sinned without the law—because these too, though they are
ignorant of the law, yet do by nature the things of the law—

evidently the judge will be that God to whom belong both the law and that nature which to those who know not the law has the value of law. But how will he judge?

According to the gospel,

he says,

by Christ.

So then both the gospel and Christ belong to him whose are both law and nature, and both these will by the gospel and by Christ receive vindication from God in that judgement of God already referred to as according to truth. Therefore just as by
the defence of it wrath is revealed from heaven—which can only be from a God of wrath—so again here the thought, in coherence with the former, in which the Creator's judgement is declared, can never be referred to that other god who neither judges nor
is wroth, but only to him whose these are—I mean judgement and wrath—at the same time as those also are his by which judge- ment and wrath are to be exercised—I mean the gospel, and Christ

On the surface at least, there is simply an odd failure to mention Romans 1:21 - 31 and a mention that there were excisions in the Marcionite recension. Yet we can take away from this that the Marcionites didn't take Romans 1 to be a condemnation of the pagans.

Whoever it was that 'knew God' and turned him into a man was a Christian community.

stephan huller · 03-22-2012, 02:47 PM

Some interesting references in Clement:

Strom 1:5 - καὶ πόρνης δόξαν παρασχοῦσαν = "presenting the appearance of a harlot"

stephan huller · 03-22-2012, 07:01 PM

I wonder if this:

Quote:

For, even if they should say something true, one who loves the truth should not, even so, agree with them. For not all true things are the truth, nor should that truth which merely seems true according to human opinions be preferred to the true truth, that according to the faith.

Οὐδὲ γὰρ πάντα τἀληθῆ ἀλήθεια, οὐδὲ τὴν κατὰ τὰς ἀνθρωπίνας δόξας φαινομένην ἀλήθειαν προκριτέον τῆς ἀληθοῦς ἀληθείας τῆς κατὰ τὴν πίστιν

is also channeling John 7:18:

Quote:

He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory but he that seeketh his glory that sent him the same is true. and no unrighteousness is in him

ὁ ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ λαλῶν τὴν δόξαν τὴν ἰδίαν ζητεῖ· ὁ δὲ ζητῶν τὴν δόξαν τοῦ πέμψαντος αὐτὸν οὗτος ἀληθής ἐστιν καὶ ἀδικία εν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν.

stephan huller · 03-22-2012, 07:17 PM

Clement cites the passage just once in the Stromata:

Quote:

There is then in philosophy, though stolen as the fire by Prometheus, a slender spark, capable of being fanned into flame, a trace of wisdom and an impulse from God. Well, be it so that "the thieves and robbers" are the philosophers among the Greeks, who from the Hebrew prophets before the coming of the Lord received fragments of the truth, not with full knowledge, and claimed these as their own teachings, disguising some points, treating others sophistically by their ingenuity, and discovering other things, for perchance they had "the spirit of perception." Aristotle, too, assented to Scripture, and declared sophistry to have stolen wisdom, as we intimated before. And the apostle says, "Which things we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth." For of the prophets it is said, "We have all received of His fulness," that is, of Christ's. So that the prophets are not thieves. "And my doctrine is not Mine," saith the Lord, "but the Father's which sent me." And of those who steal He says: "But he that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory." Such are the Greeks, "lovers of their own selves, and boasters." Scripture, when it speaks of these as wise, does not brand those who are really wise, but those who are wise in appearance.

Now look carefully at the layering of scripture:

1. 1 Corinthians 2:13:

Quote:

No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory (δόξαν ἡμῶν) before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (τὸν κύριον τῆς δόξης) ... these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit

2. John 1:16

Quote:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the self-created Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth ... out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.

Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρός, πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας ... ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ πληρώματος αὐτοῦ ἡμεῖς πάντες ἐλάβομεν, καὶ χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος·

3. John 7:15, 18

Quote:

Jesus answered them and said My doctrine is not mine but his that sent me ... He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory but he that seeketh his glory that sent him the same is true. and no unrighteousness is in him

ἀπεκρίθη οὖν αὐτοῖς Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν· ἡ ἐμὴ διδαχὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐμὴ ἀλλὰ τοῦ πέμψαντος με ... ὁ ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ λαλῶν τὴν δόξαν τὴν ἰδίαν ζητεῖ· ὁ δὲ ζητῶν τὴν δόξαν τοῦ πέμψαντος αὐτὸν οὗτος ἀληθής ἐστιν καὶ ἀδικία εν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν.

I'd say that buried within this cluster of readings is pretty close to my reading of the Letter to Theodore. In other words, just as the Greek philosophers stole from the true doxa (via the Hebrew prophets) and made it their own, the Carpocratians took the teaching of the gospel and made it after a human doxa.

Indeed if you look at the very next words in the Stromata Clement makes a lengthy citation from what follows in 1 Corinthians but explains:

Quote:

For the advent of the Saviour did not make people foolish, and hard of heart, and unbelieving, but made them understanding, amenable to persuasion, and believing. But those that would not believe, by separating themselves from the voluntary adherence of those who obeyed, were proved to be without understanding, unbelievers and fools.

These are the Carpocratians of the Letter to Theodore and the enemies of Paul in Romans 1:21 - 27. The same idea is being expressed over and over again only Clement cannot it explicitly. He was living in culture which imposed the novelty that Jesus was a man. If you look carefully at all the references cited here there is a consistent expression of Jesus as divine and that Christians now possess this divinity because they have been initiated in the mysteries and are themselves divine.

stephan huller · 03-23-2012, 11:41 AM

I hit the jackpot with a search for the first reference to the Carpocratians engagine in "human opinions" - τὰς ἀνθρωπίνας δόξας. A quick check of Smith's 1973 book demonstrates that he failed to recognize this as a citation of Isocrates's Helen which interestingly uses doxas in a manner which could easily be translated 'opinions' or 'glories':

Quote:

We revile those who fall under the power of anything other than beauty and call them flatterers, but those who are subservient to beauty we regard as lovers of beauty and lovers of service.

So strong are our feelings of reverence and solicitude for such a quality, that we hold in greater dishonour those of its possessors who have trafficked in it and ill-used their own youth than those who do violence to the persons of others; whereas those who guard their youthful beauty as a holy shrine, inaccessible to the base, are honored by us for all time equally with those who have benefited the city as a whole.

But why need I waste time in citing the opinions of men? (τὰς ἀνθρωπίνας δόξας) Nay, Zeus, lord of all, reveals his power in all else, but deigns to approach beauty in humble guise. For in the likeness of Amphitryon he came to Alcmena, and as a shower of gold he united with Danae, and in the guise of a swan he took refuge in the bosom of Nemesis, and again in this form he espoused Leda; ever with artifice manifestly, and not with violence, does he pursue beauty in women.

As Jebbs notes this is whole discussion is a development from the Phaedrus - "but we honour for all time, and as benefactors to the State, those who have guarded the glory of their own youth in the chasteness of an inviolable shrine" — ἄβατον, bolder than ἄθικτον: cp. Plat. Phaedr. 245 A

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03-22-2012, 10:00 AM	#2
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	I should also mention that irenaeus identifies carpocrates as holding that jesus was only a man alone of the gnostics

03-22-2012, 02:47 PM	#4
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Some interesting references in Clement: Strom 1:5 - καὶ πόρνης δόξαν παρασχοῦσαν = "presenting the appearance of a harlot"

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