mountainman

The NHC exhibit a mixture of themes, some of which are related
to Plato, Hermes, Asclepius and non-christian wisdom.

They represent the top echalons of one of the top academies
of traditional Greek civilisation and its knowledge (science and
maths and art and medicine and logic etc). The new testament
was written in greek for the edification of people like these and
their students.

Their ideological common ground can be gleaned by the writings
of Emperor Julian on Hellenism, and from Eunapius, Lives of the
Philosophers and Sophists.

The operative word being "illusion" is precisely the same
issue described by Buddha - "maya".


Have you read much of Theodor Stcherbatsky (1866-1942)?
http://www.mountainman.com.au/Stcher...hist_logic.htm



Want to change the world?
Change your self.
Know yourself.




Simply the philosophy of Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, etc
without one iota of anything "christian" added.

mountainman

The historical data

The archaeological record of the pagan temples
suffers massive destruction and extinction in the
fourth century commencing c.324 CE. The same
archaeological record for "christian churches" and
"christian church-houses" commences from the
fourth century - a new state religion appears!


expert professional opinion

The experts are firmly gazing at the rise of the
wonderful christian tradition, and all of them
use the heresiologist Eusebius to classify what
in their expert "christian" opinion the different
flavors of gnostics existed - Valentinian, Sethian
straight out of Eusebius.

They are all aware of what Eusebius says about
the gnostics and their literature ...

the character of the style
is at variance with apostolic usage,
and both the thoughts and the purpose
of the things that are related in them
are so completely out of accord
with true orthodoxy that they
clearly show themselves to be
the fictions of heretics.

Wherefore they are not to be placed
even among the rejected writings,
but are all of them to be cast aside
as absurd and impious.

This is a bit like using the speeches of Hitler
and his minister for communications to define
who the Jews were. It does not make sense.

The fourth century christians destroyed the gnostics
and their books, but some books survived because
they were buried.

Asking Eusebius the question "Who were the gnostics?"
cannot be expected to have meaningful results
because the gnostics were the christian opposition
in not just a religious sense, but in a very real
political sense. I dont seem to be able to find
many of your so-called experts commenting on the
political environment of the fourth century.


Let me ask you one question toto. It appears that
you are happy to contemplate that Eusebius may
have lied about the history of the "historical jesus"
whom Eusebius puts forward as his champion against
all the available opposition. Do you not think that
Eusebius is capable of lying about the opposition?

Toto

Of course Eusebius is capable of lying about the opposition. That doesn't make the gnostics pagan priests. Nothing in their surviving documents indicates that they were anything other than Christians with an alternative viewpoint who lost out in theological struggles with the proto-orthodox.

Elijah

Regardless if you want to communicate a specific idea then you should be more specific with how you are using words. If Gnostics means everything from Plato’s Republic to the mystic’s wisdom tradition found in Thunder then the word has no meaning at all and the theory you are pushing forward will be equally meaningless.

If you want to use the word Gnostic it should have some actual meaning not a blanket term. It’s partially my fault because I should have asked for the texts you consider definitive of Gnostic thought but I thought I would have come off as being difficult but that really needs to be done if you are unable to articulate the driving ideology here yourself.
So you have no idea about any particular philosophical concept, it’s just a general philosophical movement that influenced Christianity from your perspective?
Is it precisely the same or are you just assuming it is? I’m sure there is a Buddhist school that preaches what Plato was teaching but there is a lot of variety and a lot of it has to do with non dualism and Plato was a dualist. What branch of Buddhism believes in the universe having a beginning, there being distinction/duality between creation and an active creator, observer and observed and one and the many? Buddhist schools generally seem to work towards unity and see duality as an illusion and that’s not the idea behind platonic dualism.
Nope, and I didn’t understand the point of the link or the conclusion made by the author.
The epitome of new age hippy crap.

I’m all for setting the example of what you want to see but sitting around meditating on the unity of the universe I don’t see as going to do much good. What do you think about Jesus cursing the fig tree about no fruit coming from it being an attack on Buddhism instead of Israel?

I am a fan of the Taoist version of Jesus but the connection to Buddhist philosophy is harder to see.
It’s all natural philosophies right, not a distinct ideological point. How about” non superstitious” then? Sounds like a super reasonable idea to me.

mountainman

What sort of evidence would suggest to you
that in fact the gnostics were pagan priests?

The surviving documents tell us that the gnostics were branded
as the equivalent of political heretics against the state religion.

Were the Nag Hammadi Codices authored and buried by christians?
What is heretical about the contents of the NHL?
Obviously the inclusion of NT apocryphal texts.
Who authored these texts and when?
The experts dont have a clue at the moment.
That's why the term the Gnostic Mystery is appropriate.

mountainman

Does "Know Thyself" sound new age?
Dont we have inscriptions?


Personally I think the new testament canon was assembled
in a fourth century scriptoria, for the purpose of unifying
the disparate melting pot of Hellenistic religious cults to
an empire wide monotheism.


The article mentioned at the header of this thread examines
the relationship between gnostic and Indian thought, and when
I read it I found it quite interesting.

Christianity appears to have been floated over an older
pagan religious milieu, and it appears reasonable to consider
that the pre-existing religions in the Graeco-Roman world
included people who subscribed to the philosophy of Plato,
Pythagoras, Aristotle, etc without one iota of anything
"christian" added. I was exploring whether these earlier
pre-christians were the "gnostics".

Toto

Evidence that they sacrificed animals, for instance.

You have this black and white view of the Roman Empire - pagans good, Constantine supremely bad, and everyone has to fit into one camp or the other. I don't think that was they way it was.

Elijah

I’m not referring to when the idea originated but how it’s received over here, we don’t have serious Buddhist philosophers setting example of the let’s meditate our problems away; we have new age whack jobs looking to start communes where you grow organic vegetables slinging that idea. That’s why it sounds like new age hippy crap from my perspective not because it’s actually a new idea.
Regardless of when you think the story originated, what do you think about it being an attack on Buddhism instead of Israel?
All I saw was the abstract and wasn’t enough information to base an opinion on. Does it specify which branch of Buddhism would coincide idealistically with the dualistic nature of Greek Platonism?
Ok what would a religion be like if based off a philosophical school? If the Gnostics are the religion version of the philosophical movement then what exactly that entails should be addressed.

I think looking for a religion that Christianity could be painted over or trying to recreate a religion without the Christian element is going to be difficult. Not impossible but difficult. Mainly because it’s faith based, so the religion is going to need something to have faith in and a reward/salvation for doing so. DCHindley may know of some Jewish branches that do that since his theory (If I’m following) is about inclusion of the Gentiles into Judaism based on faith in the Jewish God. That’s the type of religion you should be looking for if you’re looking for a religion that is the source of Christianity as we know it now, not a Gnostic one. It’s hard to imagine the Buddhist school that teaches faith in something that leads to some type of salvation but there could be something out there because I don’t know jack about Buddhism.

mountainman

Emperor Julian had a nickname of "Bullburner" for a good reason.
You may object that we cannot classify Julian as a "gnostic".
My argument would be that Julian is far more appropriately
classified as a "gnostic" that an "apostate christian".

You have on more than one occassion claimed that I have no academic support and yet you have not adequately responded to the citation from Barnes as follows. The very evidence by which you would seek to assist the classification of authors of documents which are in our possession and called "gnostics" -- that is the activity of animal sacrifice which was mentioned in the final words of Socrates -- was prohibited aloing with all temple services by Constantine during a very few short and brutal years commencing c.324 CE when he became supreme.

mountainman

Over where?

What about over there?
For example Papaji

A modern gnostic?



It was an attack on Hellenism. The attack was written in the
master rhetoric of the second sophistic in Greek, for the Greek
civilisation. The Greeks were the greatest nation of the gentiles
(aside from the Romans - but the empire academia wrote and
conversed in greek - and the Romans left it that way until the
epoch in which the NT was lavishly and widely published).

The Greeks were the ones who had their temples rent in two.
How many Jewish temples were destroyed?
How many Hellenistic temples were destroyed?
We are looking at orders of magnitude here - lets be realistic.
Let's not be "christian" for the sake of "history".
Let's try and look at history in an unbiased manner.
Which was the fig-tree whiuch withered and died for one thousand years?
It was the fig tree of the wisdom of the Greek civilisation.

The Greek civilisation was destroyed by the new testament manifesto.
The manifesto was not written in greek for the buddhists.
The manifesto was not written in greek for the Hebrews.
The manifesto was written in greek for the Hellenes.




I posted a link to the index of chapters above.


Dialogues between Hermes and Asclepius for example.
Lists of wisdom sayings and statements of wisdom.


Christianity at its origins cannot be defined any other way that by examining the nature and the words and the actions of the people for whom the New testament canon (published by Constantine) and/or the state religious institution became their focus in life, or perhaps an important sideline.

The historical origins of Christianity and the "Christian element" cannot be separated from the new testament canon. For those who believe there may be an element of truth in the NT canon, or for those who wishes to sign up and become part of the new Roman state religion at that time in the fourth century commencing 324 CE, christianity was the canon.

Lets leave our Euclid and Plotinus and Plato behind!
Lets explore the wisdom in the story of Jesus and the Twelve.
This is a life-raft mentality that may have been forced upon the empire.