Bobzammel

In one of his epistles, Paul states that Satan and his demons rule "The Kingdom of The Air". Now this seems kind of puzzling to some people, and the Fundamentalist explanation is that Satan rules the world, which I've always thought is a sort of paranoid view(and somewhat similar to Zoroastaranism).
Anyway after some research it appears that this was actually Greek thought-From Aristotle and Plato, no less-creeping its way into the NT..."Kingdom of the Air" was the belief that demons-or daemons as Greeks called them-were somewhere between Earth and heaven--not as weak as man, not as powerful as God....
So here we have more evidence that the NT was inspired by Pagan sources...

Kosh

And in UNIX, services that allow applications to communicate with the OS core are called daemons for that very reason. So, maybe Bill Gates ISN'T the anti-christ afterall!

Geoff Hudson

No, it is evidence that the editors of the NT were inspired by Pagan sources.

Geoff

Iasion

Greetings,

The issue of the multiple "planes" or "worlds" of existance is an important part of understanding the ancient world view, as this theme underlies much of the religious and esoteric writings of the period.

e.g. it seems that the Sepher Yetzirah, the key work of the Kabalah, came to light about the same time as the Gospels (not to mention the Corpus Hermeticum and the Chaldean Oracles).

These esoteric writings show a fascination with the multi-planar view of the universe - as does Paul with his visit to the "third heaven" and the eponymous title of this thread, and other Pauline comments.

Unfortunately, this multi-planar model of the universe is rarely discussed in these circles. I would be pleased to see some of the heavyweights of this board expound on the subject and how it relates to Paul's, and other, writings.


I have put together a few examples of this world view on my page:
<a href="http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentinj/Christianity/ChristianTreeofLife.html" target="_blank">Planes of Existance</a>


A simple version with no tables, follows here:

The system of the Qabalah (which was said to describe the ultimate nature of reality) classifed existence into four layers, or 'worlds':[*] (hidden divine triad: Unknown, Limitless, Light)[*] Archetypal World (pure spirit)[*] Creative World (pure idea)[*] Formative World (patterns)[*] Active World (matter)

This seems to match quite well with what can be recovered of the Gnostic world view according to the Pistis Sophia: [*] (divine triad)[*] Pneumatic world[*] Psychic world[*] Astral world (hylic)[*] Physical world (choic)

The Chaldean Oracles (also from the Gospel period) classes existence into similar layers:[*] World of Supra-mundane light[*] Empyrean World[*] Ethereal World[*] Elementary World[*] earth

This corresponds to the system found in the Corpus Hermeticum (also from the Gospel period), now the standard Elements of the Western Tradition:[*] (quintessence)[*] Fire[*] Air[*] Water[*] Earth

Sallust, a contemporary, wrote in "On the Gods and the World" that the demiurge can only descend to the lower worlds for so long. He describes four orders:[*] fabricating[*] animating[*] harmonising[*] guardians


Porphyry also wrote about the four planes in terms of the bodies we have, one for each plane :[*] .. the body that is highest to the immaterial - the aitherion (aethereal body),[*] but when it proceeds from Logos.. it has the.. helioeides (sunlike (body))..[*] when further it grows womanish and impassioned for form, it has the selenoeides (moonlike (body))[*] and when it falls into bodies.. of moist exhalations.. (physical)"


The Tree of Life
(the web page version has the details of this - the Tree is usually shown in three columns).

The five (or four) worlds are a condensed form of the Tree of Life - a series of emanations, often in pairs, and often totalling ten in number :

An early stack (Dream of Scipio, Cicero), shows 9 in number:[*] (Un-named)[*] Saturn[*] Jupiter[*] Mars[*] Sun (middle)[*] Venus and Mercury[*] Moon[*] (Earth)


The system of Basilides according to Tertullian:[*] Abraxas,[*] Mind (Nouj)[*] Logos[*] Intelligences (Fronesij)[*] Wisdom (Soqia) and Power (Dynamij)
then,[*] Principalities,[*] Powers,[*] Angels,[*] 365 Aeons

We still see echoes of these planes in the thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, cherubim, seraphim, angels, archangels of the Catholic church (following the rather Gnostic works of pseudo-Dionysius)


Earl Dohety has argued that the Christos of Paul descended only to the plane ABOVE our physical world - which does help to explain Paul's usages. He also notes the crucial work the Vision of Isaiah which has a journey up and down the seven planes (7 becoming the favourite number of many Christians, following the 7 lower Sephirah of the Kabalists). Its a pity that so few have picked up on these clues - this issue deserves the attention of someone who can give it justice.


This multi planar concept of reality underpins many of the early Christian writings, including the following works :

<a href="http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentinj/Christianity/VisionIsaiah.html" target="_blank">the Vision of Isaiah</a>
<a href="http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentinj/Christianity/DreamScipio.html" target="_blank">the Dream of Scipio</a>
<a href="http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentinj/Christianity/PlutarchVision.html" target="_blank">Plutarch's Vision of Aradeus</a>
<a href="http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentinj/Christianity/1Enoch.html" target="_blank">the Vision of Enoch</a>
<a href="http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentinj/Christianity/2Enoch.html" target="_blank">the apocalypse of 2 Enoch</a>
<a href="http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentinj/Christianity/Zephaniah.html" target="_blank">the apocalypse of Zephaniah</a>
<a href="http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentinj/Christianity/4Ezra.html" target="_blank">4 Ezra</a>
<a href="http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentinj/Christianity/2Baruch.html" target="_blank">2 Baruch</a>
<a href="http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentinj/Christianity/ApocAdam.html" target="_blank">the apocalypse of Adam</a>

These contemporary works help a great deal to exemplify the world view of those times, and provide a background for greater understanding of Paul, and other early Christian writings.

Quentin David Jones

Amos

Maybe not inspired by pagan sources but just a term used to gain some credibility with pagans. The Kingdom of the air is called midheaven in Rev.14:6 and lukewarm in Rev.4:15. It just means that there is no divine inspiration needed to feel above the crowd if the angel of light has become your source of ilumination.

Amos

Very impressive and would require much study to get into that. I have seen some of them before and they always intruiged me but never enough to make it part of my study.

Vorkosigan

Iason --

If Paul's letters are replete with this kind of thinking, wouldn't that put them into the second century? Just where in the development of these ideas do they fit??

Vorkosigan

Iasion

Greetigs Vorkosigan,

It's true that the key works I cited are 2nd century and thus contemporary with the late appearance of the Gospels.

(I surmise that the root cause of so many important spiritual works being committed to writing in the 2nd century was the destruction of Jerusalem in 70CE and the final dispersal of the Jews in the wars of the 130s.)

Yet this multi-planar world view goes back earlier than even Paul, although the stages and timing of development is not at all clear.


The multi-planar world view is also tied in with the multi-body thesis - that we have multiple bodies, the physical body being merely the lowest or densest of the many bodies or vehicles that the soul inhabits.

And Paul explicitly speaks of our several bodies - the spiritual body and the fleshly body.

This source and development of this multi-planar and multi-body world view has received very little attention in circles such as ours, perhaps as it seems a little tainted with the esoteric, the weird, the occult.

Which is a sad, as this is merely a model, a tool, a way of expressing reality in an attempt to understand it better. Furthermore, I think this idea holds the key to unravelling much of Paul's obscure passages.


Cicero's The Dream of Scipio

This work is more recently attributed to Cicero, about a century before Paul.

This work has a clearly expressed multi-planar world view based on the planets, which are similar to the Kabalistic Sephirah, even sharing similar names - "Sphere" and "Sephirah" - the Sephirah being traditionally referred to as spheres.

Here is the relevant passage :


2 Enoch (Slavonic Enoch)

This curious work dates from probably late 1st century, just after Paul - it contains a classic journey through the 7 heavens, and also contains long passages similar to Gnostic expositions on the numbers and orders of the aeons and angels and what-not.

Assuming it does date from 1st century, it suggests that the multi-planar world view was still in development in this period, but seems to have settled on 7. It has some unclear descriptions of what each heaven is responsible for, some perhaps even being crude astronomy as much as astrology (the secret number 365 was leaking to the public around this time, and the precession of the equinoxes was the big breakthrough of recent times).


4 Ezra and the Apocalypse of Zephaniah also have a 7 layered model and date from just before Paul.


Thus, it appears Paul was writing at a time when this multi-planar world view was a common theme in spiritual writings.

I argue that this world view underpins his writings and helps to explain his obscure passages - as well as informing his view of Iesous Christos as a higher being who descends to earth to ensoul all humans by being crucified on the cross of the physical body.

I look forward to someone like Earl doing a thorough study of this neglected area.

Quentin David Jones

[ November 25, 2002: Message edited by: Iasion ]</p>