gurugeorge

OK, it's not an isolated theme, but the question is, do we have good criteria to decide which is the authentic Paul - the orthodox, the Marcion, or something else again? Is your theme not isolated simply because it was plastered over the authentic Paul by orthodoxy, or is it the other way round, was your theme snipped by Marcion? My aim was to see what could be said from the angle of coherence and literary power. Your interpretation makes sense from the orthodox angle, it's a possible way of looking at it, but to my mind it loses literary, dramatic and spiritual power.

Gamera

Yes, yes, one can always find similarities if you're looking for them. Paul talks about revelations and mysteries. That's a fact. He also shares them in epistles to everybody who will listen.

It's the differences that make a difference. Paul entire modus operandi is not gnostic. He did not go around saying he was an adept and that people needed to follow him to get secret knowledge. Indeed, he says specifically that the knowledge -- the gospel -- is open to everybody and that he's just a poor messenger, and any other messenger will do.

Indeed Paul even says if the messenger is a jerk and only preaches the gospell for money, there is no difference in result -- the gospel is preached. He is totally focussed on the gospel and the gospel is public or it is nothing at all, according to Paul. He totally rejects secret knowledge of insiders.

So no fair reading of Paul can describe him as gnostic.

Again, anybody can find similarities. It's the differences that count.

wordy

Is it likely that it started as a "spiritual Christ" gnostic movement and that the Jesus as spirit incarnated in not only flesh but in a chosen historical person is a later invention that they forced to win cause it allowed political oppression? Smarter people took over a gnostic beginning.

I've heard that jewish and Greek Gnostics existed long before HJ supposed to be born. That would also explain why there seems to exists widespread alledgedly christian groups in many cities all over the Rome Empire. So Paul wrote to those of them that he had converted to his gnostic version and later the Eusebius gang rewrote them to be supporting a HJ?

Clouseau

I don't think we do have adequate criteria; but it does not seem to me that the 'orthodox' of the 2nd century on had any reason to plant the NT in fact and history anyway. They were heretics to a man, in the view of Protestants, and would have been delighted if those pesky Christians had simply gone away and left them alone. I can see no evidence why the Paul that has been handed down should be one whit different from his autographs, of which there are so many extant manuscripts that a standardised universal edit would have been a very difficult task. The evidence is that nobody tried to corrupt the NT on a major scale, probably because there were copies from Spain to India, from Africa to Britain, and oral transmission was still dominant anyway.

It's true that the Marcion text has the literary advantage of brevity, but we must remember that this was not a poem, a hymn or a drama, but a letter, a letter with a very serious, severe tone and a practical purpose. Theologically it is perfectly cogent internally, and also fully consistent with the rest of the Bible. I can see no evidence of editing.

gurugeorge

Maybe that's how some gnostics taught, but not all and not some of the more famous ones. Consider Eusebius on Bardesanes:-

In the same reign, as heresies were abounding in the region between the rivers, a certain Bardesanes, a most able man and a most skillful disputant in the Syriac tongue, having composed dialogues against Marcion's followers and against certain others who were authors of various opinions, committed them to writing in his own language, together with many other works. His pupils, of whom he had very many (for he was a powerful defender of the faith), translated these productions from the Syriac into Greek. Among them there is also his most able dialogue On Fate, addressed to Antoninus, and other works which they say he wrote on occasion of the persecution which arose at that time. He indeed was at first a follower of Valentinus, but afterward, having rejected his teaching and having refuted most of his fictions, he fancied that he had come over to the more correct opinion. Nevertheless he did not entirely wash off the filth of the old heresy. About this time also Soter, bishop of the church of Rome, departed this life.

Or here's Bentley Layton on Valentinus:

Valentinus (A.D. ca. 100-ca. 175) was born in the Egyptian Delta, at Phrenobis (see Map 4). He enjoyed the good fortune of a Greek education in the nearby metropolis of Alexandria, the world capital of Hellenistic culture. In Alexandria he probably met the Christian philosopher Basilides (see Part Five), who was teaching there, and may have been influenced by him. There, too, he must have made the acquiantance of Greek philosophy. Valentinus's familiarity with Platonism may have come to him through study of Hellenistic Jewish interpretation of the bible, for in a passage of one of his sermons he seems to show knowledge of a work by the great Alexandrian Jewish allegorist and philosopher Philo Judaeus (ca. 30 B.C.-A.D. ca. 45). [GTr 36:35f may use the allegory of Gn 2:8 found in Philo Judaeus, "Questions and Anwswers on Genesis" 1.6.] Valentinus's distinguished career as a teacher began in Alexandria, sometime between A.D. 117 and 138. Since most of the Fragments of his works (VFr) were preserved by a second-century Christian intellectual in Alexandria, Valentinus may have written and published in Alexandria while he was teaching there. If so, his considerable expertise in rhetorical composition, which is evident in these Fragments, must have been acquired while he was studying in Alexandria. Valentinus's followers in Alexandria later reported that he had claimed a kind of apostolic sanction for his teaching by maintaining that he had received lessons in Christian religion from a certain Theudas, who—he said— had been a student of St. Paul. If there is any truth in this claim, his contact with Theudas and his reading of St. Paul may have occurred in Alexandria.

Neither of them sound like secrecy-mongers - they're public teachers, same as Paul. There may have been things they taught privately, "wrinkles" so to speak. But OTOH there's no reason to assume Paul didn't have such things himself - after all, he alludes to things taught other than just the gospel itself, ("that which I showed you" where it's clearly not just the gospel he's talking about, can't remember the text) and there are tantalising glimpses of "gifts" of worship ("prophecy", "faith", "tongues", "knowledge" (gnosis, surprise surprise), seem to be jargon terms for specific practices of the community).

I think there are only a couple of themes that really stand out all across the miscellany of Gnosticism - the bondage/release (or crucifixion/resurrection) theme and the theme that salvation comes from within, not from belief but from a certain kind of direct experience and revelation, the same kind of revelation Paul talks about - "direct revelation of Jesus Christ" - which gives faith (in the same sense as one trusts the evidence of one's senses, rather than believing something second hand just because somebody's told you about it). It seems to be really this that bugs the orthodoxy.

IOW, "gnosticism" from the Fathers' p.o.v. is a type of heresy that's problematic not because it's a misinterpretation of Scripture, but because it relies on individual direct knowledge, and faith in the sense of trust based on persuasive evidence, rather than on their tradition of apostolic succession - that's the "gnosis", which from an orthodox point of view is kind of chaotic, because it's not pin-downable (it's private to each individual). Fair enough from orthodoxy's point of view, but there's no particular reason to accept the orthodox assertion that that was a bad thing, or that it was against Paul's view, for granted. W. Bauer's "Orthodoxy and Heresy" gives us good reason to be suspicious of the orthodox view that "they" were deviations from "us". (i.e. it shows that orthodoxy was a minority taste initially, trying to make its mark in a varied movement, mostly Marcionite or gnostic of one kind or another, at the very beginning. Again, if this is the case, then Paul must have been proto-Gnostic, because he is acknowledged by everybody, gnostic and orthodox alike, to have initially spread the religion.)

gurugeorge

OK let's be careful about this "NT" business. I'm sure you're well aware that the NT Canon wasn't settled for quite some time, and all sorts of texts were floating about even in orthodoxy.

I think brevity and "punch" is more consistent with letters dictated to a scribe. Something that's clearly been "worked over" in a literary sense isn't.

Clouseau

I'm not at all aware of that. On the contrary, I'm not in the slightest doubt that the whole NT except perhaps for Revelation was instantly recognised as Scripture as soon as first received.

I don't. As an editor I can nearly always condense scripts and retain full meaning, as all editors can. Poets, essayists, journalists and novelists work very hard to get 'punch'. But I don't think I could improve on Paul's work. There's hardly a word wasted.

Gamera

Let's stipulate that this all suggest that Christian gnosticism was a complex intellectual movement, with different strains and practices. But I don't know what light it sheds on Paul.

Clearly a Christian gnostic needed to have some contact with the public -- gnostics didn't seem to have any problem with that. The distinction was, gnosticism seems to distinquish between a public version and a private insider version. The public version is for general consumption and draws people in; the guru generally views the public version as "false" but necessary. Then there is a private "true" version, which only the insiders get after proving their worth (usually by serving the guru and various practices involving self-abnegation like fasting).

This is implied in the gospel of Thomas, which is what makes it gnostic. Jesus has two levels of knowledge/teaching -- one he teaches to all the apostles, and another he imparts secretly to Thomas (which of course remains secret in the text itself). The gospel of Judas uses a similar opposition, but Judas becomes the insider who gets the secret knowledge.

There simply isn't anything like that in Paul's writings. It isn't even hinted at (the fact, as you note, that Paul refers to other teachings of his hardly suggests the teaching is secret or private). Rather, he emphasizes the non-exclusive nature of his teaching -- anybody can teach it: Paul (who met the risen Christ), Apollos or some huckster at the agora. The message is everything with Paul, not the messenger. Hence 1 Cor 1:

12 What I mean is that each one of you says, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apol'los," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I am thankful that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Ga'ius; 15 lest any one should say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Steph'anas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any one else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.


This is about as anti-gnostic as you can get. He totally subordinates himself to the message and even claims his wisdom isn't relevant.

gurugeorge

Well if you believe this we're too far apart in terms of basic premises to really go any further. I take the view (which is supported so far as I can tell by a lot of reputable scholars, many Christians too) that the NT canon wasn't fully firmed up for several hundred years, and not finalised till the Council of Trent. See here and here (and these are pretty orthodox views, my own view would be more sceptical about the beginnings).


Hmm, don't agree, but I guess we've mined this as far as we can for now.

Clouseau

[QUOTE=gurugeorge;4568218]Then you swallow Catholic propaganda, and are no scholar at all.