Iasion

Greetings all,

I suspect that one of the reasons Paul is so hard to follow is his way of using some terms - especially the key words [/B]'cross'[b] and 'crucify'.

Consider some of Paul's usages :

Gal. 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me. "

Gal. 6:14 "But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. "

This can hardly mean a literal crucifixion.


Now, consider this fascinating tid-bit from Philo (Allegorical Interpretation I, (108)) :

"Well, therefore, did Heraclitus say this, following the doctrine of Moses; for he says, "We are living according to the death of those men; and we have died according to their life." As if he had said Now, when we are alive, we are so though our soul is dead and buried in our body, as if in tomb. But if it were to die, then our soul would live according to its proper life, being released from the evil and dead body to which it is bound."

(The context is one where he distinguishes between the death of the body, and the death of the soul.)

Note that he specifically allegorizes the soul as dead and buried in our body, and he traces this back through Heraclitus and Moses (?) - this theme also turns up in the Naassenne psalm, and also Plato punning sema (tomb) with soma (body), and the Dream of Scipio by Cicero : "in very truth, they still live, those who have flown forth from the body as from a prison, for indeed what is called your life, is but a death".

So, the idea of a soul, 'dead' in our 'life' was a common theme, known before and contemporarily to Paul.


Now consider this, albeit later, fragment from the Miscellanies (Stromata) of Clement (the most Gnostic of all the orthodox) :

"For the minds of those even who are deemed grave, pleasure makes waxen," according to Plato; since "each pleasure and pain nails to the body the soul" of the man, that does not sever and crucify himself from the passions

Plato is cited as specifically seeing the soul as 'nailed' to the body by passions, and that to 'crucify' means to separate or sever oneself from the passions.


So, possibly Paul merely took the idea of the soul as dead in the body one step further by preaching as follows :
* the Logos is called "Christos Iesous"
* this Christos is 'those men' ensouled or nailed in all humans
* the "crucifixion" means rising above the passions

When Paul says "we preach Christ crucified" - he may not mean a man Jesus Christ was actually literally crucified.
Rather he seems to be PREACHING a spiritual conception (with some find hard to accept - a stumbling block or folly).
The conception he is preaching is that 'Christ is in you' - the Logos is nailed in each human to become its soul and/or that one may rise above the passions and thus be crucified.

Paul explicitly describes himself as being 'crucified with Christ' - which seems to mean he also has risen above the passions in his rise to the 3rd heaven - i.e. the Christos or soul in him rose out of the body, taking him
to the 3rd heaven. In that sense both he (Paul) and Christos (Paul's soul) were crucified or lifted out of the passions of physcial life.

Paul says that to 'crucify' means rise above the passions :
Gal.5:24 : "Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. "


Now consider this later fragment from the Miscellanies (Stromata) of Clement (the most Gnostic of the orthodox) :

" For if you would loose, and withdraw, and separate (for this is what the cross means) your soul from the delight and pleasure that is in this life..."

These are the only statements I have seen by early Christians as to what 'cross' or 'crucify' actually means - Clement is suggesting that the 'cross' means overcoming the passions - which matches what Paul said of
'crucifixion'.


I think we need to be very careful about these words 'cross' and 'crucify' for Paul appears to be using them in a sense different to the literal meaning. Only later were these references seen to refer to an actual crucifixion.


Quentin David Jones

Vorkosigan

But how do you deal with passages where Paul links crucifixion to the death of Jesus? Like the celebrated formula in 1 Cor?

Vorkosigan

Ted Hoffman

These are the only statements I have seen by early Christians as to what 'cross' or 'crucify' actually means - Clement is suggesting that the 'cross' means overcoming the passions - which matches what Paul said of 'crucifixion'

I don't mean to diminish the points you are making but I have always found the idea of Jesus dying on a cross similar to the idea that vampires are killed by garlic or exposure to sunlight.

Why would a man who can walk on water, heal the sick, calm storms and spend 40 days without food suddenly die when nailed to the cross?

If stories of his feats are true, he demonstrated that he could command nature.

It's like the "cross" was his achilles heel. Has anyone else found it weird?. That Jesus could die on the cross after virtually demonstrating that he was immortal and not subject to natural laws?