mountainman

What is the Philo reference with the very same diction ?






εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

stephan huller

No I don't think so. I don't remember the Therapeutae being naked. And remember it would help prove authenticity if I was to accept a similarity because of what Eusebius says

stephan huller

Andrew

But the "naked with naked" comes from Theodore, we don't know the original context other than it has something to do with Jesus's initiation of the disciple. It not certain how this all connects together. But to argue that Smith wrote an ambiguous echo of a question that no longer exists to insinuate something he rejected in his analysis of the discovery is borderline crazy. Anything's possible I guess. I've been surprised and proven wrong many times. But there's no "there there" here. It's just an idea like "maybe Obama's gay" or "maybe so and so is gay"

DCHindley

Of the Therapeutae, Pliny says:

(PHE Cnt 1:13) Then, because of their anxious desire for an immortal and blessed existence, thinking that their mortal life has already come to an end, they leave their possessions to their sons or daughters, or perhaps to other relations, giving them up their inheritance with willing cheerfulness; and those who know no relations give their property to their companions or friends, for it followed of necessity that those who have acquired the wealth which sees, as if ready prepared for them, should be willing to surrender that wealth which is blind to those who themselves also are still blind in their minds.

(PHE Cnt 1:38) their raiment is of the most ordinary description, just stout enough to ward off cold and heat, being a cloak of some shaggy hide for winter, and a thin mantle or linen shawl in the summer;

For members of the elite classes, this would be tantamount to nakedness.

Apollonius, according to the story related by Philostratus, was in Upper Egypt ("at the confines of Ethiopia and Egypt, and the name of the place is Sycaminus," which Pliny puts about 40 miles south of Syene, the current day Aswan). So they are a ways away from Lake Meroe, immediately south of Alexandria in Lower Egypt, where the Therapeutae live.

According to Philostratus, these naked sages "wear next to no clothes in the same way as people do at Athens in the heat of summer." (6:6) When the Naked Sages rebuffed him when he first arrived, on account of rumors spread by an enemy, "Apollonius remarked: "We do not want to hear about a house for ourselves, for the climate here is such that anyone can live naked," — an unkind reference this to them, as it implied that they went without clothes not to show their endurance, but because it was too hot to wear any." So, as a matter of fact, the Therapeutae and the "Naked Philosophers" dressed similarly.

Philo, on the other hand, does frequently use the word γυμνός in the sense of simple or innocent.

(PHE Spe 1:295) For, my fine fellow, you came naked into the world, and you shall leave it again naked, having received the interval between your birth and death as a loan from God; during which what ought you to do rather than take care to live in communion and harmony with your fellow creatures, studying equality, and humanity, and virtue, repudiating unequal, and unjust, and irreconcilable unsociable wickedness, which makes that animal which is by nature the most gentle of all, namely, man, a cruel and untractable monster?

(PHE Leg 2:59-60) 59 Jacob also was fond of the nakedness of the soul, for his smoothness is nakedness, "for Esau was a hairy man, but Jacob," says Moses, "was a smooth man," [Genesis 25:25] on which account he was also the husband of Leah. 60 This is the most excellent nakedness, but the other nakedness is of a contrary nature, being a change which involves a deprivation of virtue, when the soul becomes foolish and goes astray. Such was the folly of Noah when he was naked, when he drank wine.

(PHE Leg 2:64) The third description of stripping naked [after nakededness of soul and fleshy nakedness] which is the middle one, according to which the mind is destitute of reason, having no share in either virtue or vice; and it is with reference to this kind of nakedness which an infant also is partaker of, that the expression is used which says, "And the two were naked, both Adam and his wife;" and the meaning of it is this, neither did their intellect understand, nor did their outward senses perceive this nakedness; but the former was devoid of all power of understanding, and naked; and the latter was destitute of all perception.

(PHE Leg 2:70) As long as they [Adam as a type of the mind, and Eve a type of the senses] are both naked, the mind naked of its power of exciting the intellect, and the outward sense of its power of sensation, they have nothing disgraceful in them; but the moment that they begin to display any comprehension, they become masked in shame and insolence

The Secret Gospel quoted by the author of the Letter to Theodore may have been implying, in the manner employed by Philo, that Jesus and the disciple were baring their souls to one another (that is, in deep philosophical discourse about the nature of the "kingdom of God"). I really doubt, though, that the author was making any allusion to either the Therapeutae of Philo, or the "Naked Philosophers" of Philostratus.

DCH

This was pulled from Bibleworks, version 8. Philostratus from the text edition: The Life of Apollonius of Tyana by Philostratus, tr. F.C Conybeare, 1912. (E-text from Sacred Texts (http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/aot/laot/)

Philo comes from The Works of Philo Judaeus, the Contemporary of Josephus, Translated from the Greek, by C. D. Yonge.

In both cases I searched the Greek text to locate the English translations above.

stephan huller

I figured out what 'naked with naked' meant long ago, I think:

The later Jewish tradition made this divine pairing man-woman, but it is man-man. The Rabbanites lied - perhaps deliberately. The early Christians preserved the truth. So in Clement's gospel (and Tertullian's too):
'Ish' = Jesus. His 'brother' = his twin. It was Ish (= Jesus, so Clement) who wrestled with Jacob at Peniel. They wrestled and so were naked according to Clement.

The hard part is making sense of it in a greater context - and explaining it so people can actually understand.

In case anyone is wondering 'ish el achiv' is a common Hebrew expression throughout the Pentateuch. Used to describe any two related nouns. The feminine equivalent is ishah el-ahotah = ishah (one) el-ahotah (to another).

It is common, but as a common expression it is the perfect place to hide the answer to everything.

mountainman

Astounding research DCH,

I too really doubt that the author (of the Letter to Theodore) was making any allusion to either the Therapeutae of Philo, or the "Naked Philosophers" of Philostratus.







εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

DCHindley

The clincher ish thish:

When I wish to make a wish for Ish
I wave my hand with a big swish swish.
Then I say, "I wish for Ish!"
And I get Ish right on my dish.

So ... if you wish to make a wish,
you may fish for Ish
with an Ish wish dish.

DCH