Haran

Greetings to you as well.

You are putting together a very nice website and seemed to be trying to use reputable sources, so I'm glad you appreciate my criticism. Facts are better for all of us.

As far as IASIWN and IHSOYS, I simply don't see much of a connection. IMO, it's not a very fruitful line of thought.

Finally, I hope that everyone really checks their sources. Remember that even atheist websites can make mistakes and contain bias.

Thanks,
Haran

Vorkosigan

Sorry, Haran, my bad, I wrote Diocletian but was thinking Domitian. Really, I should not be writing questions after 11:00 at night.

Michael

Iasion

Greetings all,

Why, thank you CX
Your polite and generous apology bodes well for the quality and tone of the debate here
anway...
you weren't far wrong - I DID repeat a false statement about P52 having no 2 consecutive words (I remember when I first read this, I rushed off to the 'net to find a photograph of it and was genuinely shocked at how fragmentary it actually was - but I did not check each word thoroughly and I turned out to be wrong, along with my dubious source).

On the other hand, it was a genuine mistake and its not FAR wrong, perhaps it would be better to say it has "few major consecutive words".


Thanks also to Haran,
I am doing my best to make my web-site useful and accurate - of course it DOES have a point of view, one could perhaps even call it a "bias", towards the Gnostic element.
Yet,
it is my view that this is still a fruitful area of research on origins of Christianity, but often overlooked due to its being tainted by its embarassing connection with "visions" etc, something which does not sit well with our modern mind set (more on this below).

Also,
I had not noticed the other mention of Iasion in the Exhortation - which is given as Jason in English - a classic example of the difficulties in transliteration of these names.

This extra reference does show that I did stretch the ClementAlex connection a bit far, it was the only mention in the Fathers of this Iasion character, I made more of it than I should have - I have amended my site on this point.


It is true that the Iasion / Jesus connection is a rather loose one at best - yet I am struck by the many similarities between their mythologies.

I note the JesusMyth people often like to cite Attis and Tammuz and like figures as similar types to Jesus in the pagan stories, yet this Iasion character, also suggestively similar, is often overlooked - I thought it useful that this classical Greek analogue to Jesus should be discussed.

I am also interested that Iasion's specialty - his institution of the mysteries (whose early form seems to have been a guided out of body experience or something), may be related to the clues about early Christianity being Gnostic - meaning direct personal experience of other planes and other beings (e.g. Paul's 3rd heaven and his meeting with a non-physical 'being' Christ, and some 2nd fathers very Gnostic version of Christianity)

This Gnostic side of Christian experience became the losers, and the materialist point of view the winners - and this material, physical world view has dominated our culture ever since - I think this had led to an unfortunate blind-spot in our understanding of the religious impulse.
Because we no longer believe in miracles or visions or angels etc, evidence for such experiences is brushed aside as having little value in appreciating religious expression.

Now, I should point out at this juncture that I fully appreciate the dangerous ground I am on here...

Let me set your minds at rest
I am NOT going to claim that miracles happen, that I had a vision, that I met an angel.

But,
I DO observe in my study of religions that people DO "experience" miracles, people DO "experience" angels, people DO have "visions" (but, see below)
and,
crucially,
such experiences are often important in the founding of religious movements.
and,
most crucially,
I think such experiences played a key part in the founding of what we now call Christianity.

But,
I make NO claim about the reality, veracity or nature of such experiences, and I fully appreciate the dubious nature of such mystical experiences.


If interested readers will lend a sympathetic ear here, I will suggest what I think is the "missing link" in the foundation of Christianity -


I suspect Christianity (at least partly) grew out of a Jewish reformation of the Ancient Mysteries initiatory rituals,
and,
one student of this new school, Paul, had an initiation experience which was a life changing mystical experience for him.

Paul felt his experience transcended religion, that it showed the deeper reality that underlied BOTH Greek and Jewish beliefs, and was so intense and special and spiritual that he felt moved to share it by writing to similarly minded people.

Paul's writings struck a chord with various like-minded groups and seekers, in the very fertile ground of the mixing of cultures and relative open-mindedness that the Pax Romanum had brought about.

But,
his ideas were subtle, and people have many competing views and motives and different levels of understanding... the rest is history (and a complex one)


Again, let me agree with the importance of rational study and argument based on direct evidence - I fully understand we must use objective methods of analysis if we are to understand the complex issue of Christianity's origins - I just want to ensure our objective analysis includes the dimension of mystical experience, simply because it seems to form an important part of the matrix which formed this religion (even if we can't fully understand the nature of the mystical experience of someone else)

While a deep and full understanding of the nature and role of mystical experience in human lives may be beyond our reach for the moment, I do not wish to see it excluded from our considerations merely because it is beyond our understanding.


Quentin David Jones

Haran

Quentin,

I looked at your website a little more and had a question.

Under the "oddities" section, you list Justin Martyr:

I'm not sure I understand quite why this is "remarkable"...

Trypho was a Jew who opposed Justin Martyr. Justin's reply to the above charge is contained in the rest of the dialogue.

Above, Trypho is challenging Justin's translation...the Septuagint(LXX). Trypho may have been making use of a relatively recent Greek translation by Aquila which would have had "young woman" instead of "virgin". However, later in the discourse, Justin challenges Trypho back by asking if Trypho knows that the Jews had removed passages from their new version. He also questions why Trypho has given up on the traditional and sacred text (i.e. the Septuagint) written by the Jews for Ptolemy of Egypt long ago.

You have a second quote above that which is from Justin Martyr, but I'm not sure what part. However, I believe that it seems somewhat out of context as well.

And yet above that, you quote Trypho again and not Justin.

There may be others, I don't have the time to examine it much more thoroughly.

You also have a quote from Minucius Felix, but I have read his work and this quote too is missing the surrounding context which makes his belief sound much more orthodox.

Anyway, I believe that Gnosticism was branded a heresy for a reason...it was... I believe, from my readings of the early church fathers and others, that Jesus teachings were passed on by his disciples to the early church leaders who remained devoted to what they had heard. Many of the church fathers trace gnosticism and other heresies back to Simon Magus, among others. They recognized the corruption and so should we today.

As a Christian, I whole-heartedly believe Paul when he says in 1 Cor. 15:12-20

Gnosticism is a heresy. It contradicts and clouds true Christianity as passed down from the beginning by Jesus to the Apostles and then to the Church.

Haran

Iasion

Greetings Haran,

Thanks for your response

Things are also a little busy here, so please pardon me for only replying briefly today.

My oddities page is just an appendix with a few collected pieces which are suggestive of the myhtical Jesus view, I hope to make better analysis of these minor items later perhaps. I may have accidentally attributed statements to Trypho which were actually made by Justin, or did you mean I should attribute it all to Justin as it was his book? (a little like we often quote Papias, when its really Eusebius).


Minucius Felix is certainly rather opaque, but I do not think I have wrongly presented his views, I genuinely think he denies the incarnation and the crucifixion - I essentially agree with Earl that this is the 'smoking gun'.

In short, I take the mythic Jesus view that there was NO historical Jesus at all - and that original Christianity was indeed Gnostic (but that the materialists eventually won the day).


I read the documents as showing that :

Paul was an initiate of the mysteries, and was a Gnostic, having personal life-changing mystical experiences which he believed empowered him to teach a new understanding of god and man.

Paul's Gnostic view was Emanationist, which posits a sequence of Aeons (beings, planes, essences, energies, or something) or emanations proceeding out from the Godhead.

The first (maybe) emanation was called the "son of god" or alternatively the "Logos" of God. An 'image' of this Logos ensouls human beings where he called it Iesous Christos.

Specifically, when this higher Christos ensouls a human life, it "dies" or is "crucified" in the incarnation of that human. This idea of a higher something which "dies" in our life can be found developing in the milieu of Paul -

e.g.
in Philo (who shows many Gnostic or Emanationist views), recounts Heraclitus:
"..we are alive, though our soul is dead and buried in the body"
or
the Naasenes who see the death of a Higher principle as ensouling the lower man
or
Cicero's Dream of Scipio who says our life is but a death.
or
c.f. Plato who puns sema (tomb) with soma (body)
My page of "kata sarka" references has some references for considering this idea.

So, I believe that Paul's talk of resurrection etc, which you give from 1 Cor 15 has been totally mis-understood :

I think Paul means that the Christos is this 1st emanation from the Godhead which is dead in each human's life, crucified in the plane of matter - BUT through the process of initiation (see Eph. 5:14), one can personally have a mystical experience of this Christos by leaving the plane of the body and be RAISED into or 'through' one's inner Christos and experience that higher life or plane where this Christos is alive.
(This Christos apparently is a 'body' made of higher plane matter which our higher self can wear or inhabit by leaving the physical body and wearing or putting on the Christ body to experience a higher plane - this doctrine is found in many esoteric schools where it is called the Augoeides, the Shining Body, the Holy Grail, the Coat of Many Colours).

Then, a small number of initiates, who also had had direct personal experience of this, understood Paul's deeper meaning and were inspired by his teaching and explanations and spread his writings and ideas because they recognised in him someone who really did KNOW from direct experience.

We stll see today, some people who are revered by others as having direct personal experience of the higher planes, people whose books are still studied after their death, for clues to the greater realities (even if not everyone agrees that such persons have real truth to impart).

This is why I try to bring out the Esoteric nature of the early writings - original Christianity WAS Gnostic, founded by a Gnostic and spread by sympathetic Gnostics - but over time the many materialists misunderstood and out-numbered and out-argued the gnostics.

I think Christianity started as a mystical group, the legacy of the Greek mysteries, and was founded by a rare man who personally experienced the Christos by rising far up into the higher planes of reality (the 3rd heaven) - and was able to express esoteric doctrine in ways which inspired other seekers of the day.


Let me close by posing questions that capture the problem :
Paul rose to the 3rd heaven,
Paul personally met the Christos in the spirit...

How many here have risen to the 3rd heaven?
how many here have personally met the Christos in the spirit?


most readers would laugh outright or be embarassed at such questions - which clearly shows the problem we have in really understanding how Christianity started.


Quentin David Jones

RyanS2

The Diocletian persecution is actually a misnomer. It was more because of Galerius than Diocletian.

<a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05007b.htm" target="_blank">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05007b.htm</a>

A more minimalistic projection can also be found at:

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/xtianpersecute.html" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/xtianpersecute.html</a>

Also, Diocletian abdicated in 305. Western persecution against Christians ended here, though the Eastern emperor, Galerius, kept it up.

Haran

Sorry, I didn't think I was that vague above. You quoted Trypho who is a Jew and Justin's opponent in the dialogue. In other words, you aren't quoting the early Christian, you are quoting his opponent. Of course the opponent is going to make claims against Christianity. The whole purpose of the work is for Justin to refute what Trypho is saying. It is nothing like Papias being quoted by Eusebius. Papias was a Christian and so was Eusebius. Hopefully, that makes it a little more clear.

It would have been nice if he had been a little more explicit about his views. However, the purpose of the work was to refute the Greeks' ideas of the supposed immorality of the Christians.

Anyway, to show a little more of what he does believe:

It seems to me that he is making a comparison between the Greeks and the Christians. The Greeks, he seems to imply, have need of physical, man-made objects to represent God, whereas the Christians see God in the very nature that surrounds them...the difference between "crosses gilded and adorned" and "sustained by a natural reason". Especially through this last comment, "Thus the cross is either sustained by a natural reason, or your own religion is formed with respect to it", I think Minucius' belief in Jesus' crucifixion is revealed.

Granted that, "For in that you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the neighbourhood of the truth...", sounds somewhat confusing, but I believe that Minucius is simply trying to make the distinction between the Jesus whom the Greeks are labeling as "the criminal and his cross", and the Jesus whom the Christians believe to be God's perfect son (i.e. not a criminal).

If you'll pardon me for saying so, I believe that you need to read again with a more discerning eye. As I've shown above, there are quite a few things that you have missed or misunderstood in your readings. It is hard to build a case based on false or faulty data.

Finally, I don't feel like going into proofs against Gnosticism, for that was done quite well, long ago, by Irenaeus. Though you may continue believing otherwise, Gnosticism was, in my opinion, not the original form of Christianity and it is most definitely heresy.

Haran

Haran

While this may be somewhat true, it is consistently referred to in scholarly works as "The Diocletian Persecution". Beats me...

At least you balanced your post by presenting information from a Christian website as well. The work linked here was highly biased. I believe that most of its sources were atheist or at least non-believers. There are many better and a less biased sources such as Frend's work, above.

I'm not quite sure why this matters... I listed above that Diocletian's reign was over in 305. The persecutions still destroyed many copies of Christian works during this time. After this, Constantine became emperor and Christianity flourished. Copies of the NT were made left and right. However, the persecutions leading up to this destroyed many of the earliest NT papyri, lucky for those who do not want to believe.

Haran

Iasion

Greetings Haran,

thanks for your response,

I'm not sure I get your point about Trypho and Justin -
yes, I quote Trypho, from Justin,
yes, Trypho is an opponent...

But,
Trypho's statement seems pretty clearly to be a genuine attack made at the time - perhaps even a actual quote by Rabbi Tarphon.

I don't think Eusebius (called the 'master forger' by some) quoting Papias (centuries later) is necessarily more reliable than Justin quoting Trypho (decades later).
I don't think Trypho's charge could have been made up by Justin without some basis in real attacks of the day.
In short, Trypho's charge that JC is unknown to history stands as a fairly reliable statement made just in the period when the Gospels are coming to light.


As to Minucius Felix,

Well, no offence - but I find this absolutely incredible, un-credible, UN-believable

To read the crucifixion into this vague allusion about a cross simply shows you are reading your own pre-conceptions, not the source.

Indeed, I can see you believe that, but NOWHERE does Felix say anything remotely like such a comparison - you are reading your own pre-conceptions into the text.


Quentin David Jones

Haran

We had a disconnect... Sorry, I see now that you are saying that, in your opinion, the early arguments against Christianity were "remarkable". It looked to me from the wording on your website as if you thought you were quoting Justin Martyr's "heretical" Christian views when in fact you were quoting his opponent's arguments... Oh well, perhaps no one else has a problem then, but I think you might check the wording around the quotes. My bad...

I don't find it particularly remarkable that Trypho would have said these things...

Why exactly do you think that Minucius does go ahead and argue that he sees "the cross" in nature? Why would he use "the cross"? As a Christian, what other significance do you think that "the cross" had for him? I find what I said absolutely reasonable and believable.

As a matter of fact, it was only shortly after his time period that we find Irenaeus quoting from every gospel and nearly every book of the NT as we have it today. Do you reallly think that Minucius might have read the Gospels and not have known the significance of "the cross"? I find that incredible.

Quentin, my pre-conceptions? Firstly, we both have them, but what I am saying also has a base in the traditions of the early church fathers. These traditions were passed from Jesus to the apostles and then to the church. As Gnostics diluted and perverted the gospel, they exposed themselves as heretics.

Harran