The Historical Jesus.

[Cruentus]

Originally posted by heretic888
I am not going to respond to your first post, Paul, as Jay summed things up fairly nicely.

You can keep on insulting me ("arrogant", "antagonist", "can't read", "annoying", etc) if that makes you feel better. It doesn't really bother me. *shrugs*

For some reason, I am suddenly reminded of Shadowhunter. Hmmmmmmm....... ;p

Shadow hunter.......O.K. ya caught me!

Seriously, I am not just trying to insult you, although in my annoyance, I may have come off as harsh. However, this last post brings some interesting ideas forth more so then your other posts, so I am happy to address your arguements.

Very well.

There are two primary flaws in establishing the 'transmission test' (independent of its connection to the Bible) as a criteria for historical viability.

One) Numerous historically viable texts and documents fail the 'transmission test':

You admitted this within your own post. There are only 20 copies of Tacitus' Annals, 10 copies of Ceasar's triumphs in the Gallic Wars, and 8 copies of Herodotus' History. By the criterion of the 'transmission test', the historical viability of these documents is highly questionable. However, we know from empirical historical evidence (of which the 'transmission test' is not a type) that this is not so. Thus, the reliability of the 'transmission test' on this front alone is brought into question.

These other documents don't exactly "fail" the transmission test, they just don't pass as well as the New Testement documents. What this proves is that we have more evidence to conclude what the origional followers of Jesus believed, namely that he was A. a real person, and B. believed to be the messiah. If these copies varied on these 2 points, they would certianly be up for arguement. Since they don't, then we have to figure the obvious, which is that these 2 points are correct.

This test also concludes that we have more evidence to support what was actually written in the New Testement then in any other ancient document. So, if you doubt that Jesus existed, then you must doubt EVERY other ancient document ever written.

Two) Numerous unhistorical texts and documents successfully pass the 'transmission test':

In ancient China, countless copies of the Tao te Ching were popularly known. The popularity of the Tao te Ching spread even to foreign lands such as Japan and Korea. However, modern historians acknowledge that there is very little possibility that Lao Tzu ever existed and, if he did, the Tao te Ching most certainly wasn't authored by him (as it is claimed to be). As I stated before, numerous copies have been published of popular fables such as Little Red Riding Hood and Uncle Tom. I am quite certain the number of copies of Homer's epics is immense, yet these are still mythological works. Again, the reliability of the 'transmission test' as a viable means of historical inquiry is also brought into question due to the fact that works of fiction can pass its criterion.

I'll say this for the 3rd time, because you don't seem to be getting it. The Transmission Test doesn't prove that the stories weren't made up (there are other tests for that) as much as it DOES prove that these stories weren't altered over time to fit in with some Christian agenda. Part of what has been said by people on this thread is the idea that the Gospel stories are "made up" much later then the time proposed when Jesus was crusified. This transmission test proves that this cannot be true.

Also, Red Riding Hood and other similar examples are not good ones because these are works of fiction. We KNOW that these are works of fiction because we know the authors, we have the originals, so we know the intent. With the Biblical Gospels, letters, and stories, it would seem that the authors intent was not to create a work of fiction. It would seem that contemporaries of these authors, as well as the authors themselves, would not risk death and torture over fiction. So your point, that anything could be a "history" based on this test is wrong. The test isn't claiming to be able to differentiate between fiction and non-fiction, it only claims to be able to piece together what was written in the original texts, and what was believed and being preached at the time.

Additionally, there are many claims concerning the Bible and its connection to the 'transmission test' that don't quite bear out the weight of historical inquiry.

You stated that there are 5,686 Greek manuscripts (which continue to grow with archeological work). Additionally, there are copies of ancient translations of the Bible which include over 10,000 in Latin, over 4,000 in Slavic, over 2,500 in Armenian, over 2,000 in Ethiopian, and hundreds more in other languages. Combining the Greek texts with the translated documents gives the New Testament over 24,000 manuscripts.

However, you neglect to give the time frame in which all these manuscripts were produced (one of the criterion for the 'tranmission test'). You fail to state whether all these manuscripts were produced within a period of 100 years or 1,000 years.

All those manuscripts were dated prior to 800 CE. Many of the Greek, and Eithopian texts, for example, were found prior to 200 (we are talking into the thousands). Other texts, including many that I have mentioned that are considered to be "true," only have hundreds of copies at best. And the first of these copies were found sometimes up to 1000 years or more after the originals are believed to be written.

The first fragments of John are written on papyris, and are found in Eitheopia, dated prior to 100 CE. Hmmm...Eitheopia. Look on a map and tell me how far Eitheopia is from the proposed middle east, and imagine how long it might take to translate an original text to etheiopian on a plant leaf from that far away. Remember now, there is no computer for them to just copy the word document. It had to be carefully hand written.

But, these are just more points that you refuse to see, but the FACT is that there is more evidence supporting the New Testement than any other ancient text, and supporting the FACT that Jesus LIVED, and people BELIEVED.

You also give the impression that any of these copies of the New Testament are in any way historically close to their supposed 'originals'. However, this is not the case. We, in fact, do not have any full versions of the canonically recognized New Testament books prior to the 500's CE. That makes even the oldest of the manuscripts you described to still be over 300 years removed from their 'originals'. A single excerpt or portion dating to the 100's CE is not enough to establish a concrete historical link.

Although what you say is not completely true, I'll bite anyways. Let's say you are correct that the full versions aren't available until 300 years later (which your not, but lets just say so for arguments sake), and all we have is fragments. Well, if the fragments match the originals, and the put together pieces add up to be the New Testement that we have today, then I conceed that these "fragements" are plenty to establish concrete historical links. This only further proves my points.

Thus, based on the above reasoning, I am forced to be skeptical on the New Testament and any historical viability it may have from the 'transmission test' --- which, as I demonstrated above, is itself a dubious means of historical research.

You've demonstrated nothing. Go back to the drawing board.

I'm afraid this is not quite true.

Regardless of the number of copies existing at any given time, the oldest of full New Testament books dates back to the 500's CE (and, rest assured, the number of New Testament manuscripts dating back this far is quite few indeed). That is well over 300 years removed from the 'oral stories' you cite as original sources.

Once again, this doesn't matter. I don't care if the first "full Book" was found in 1999. If the fragments go back as far as the first century, which they do, and all the fragements add up to our first New Testement full texts, which they do, then we can figure that these are fairly accurate. Remember, for some ancient texts we don't have existing copies until 1000 years after the fact, yet these are not discredited in the same manner as the New Testement.

In addition, there is no historical proof whatsoever that the New Testament books we have now are even dependent on any sort of first century 'oral tradition' --- there is indeed the possibility that they are all mid-to-late 2nd century creations. The first time the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) are mentioned by name is with Irenaeus (circa 170 CE), and we still don't know if the Synoptics he refers to are identical (or even similar) to the copies we have now. The first time the Pauline epistles are mentioned is with Marcion (circa 140 CE), and his versions are in a quite different form than the versions we have now.

Well...as I have maintained, there is planty of evidence "whatsoever" The fact that our earliest copies of the Gospels are generally accepted to be between 70-110 CE is plenty of evidence (and actually our first copies are believed more so as follows: Mark 70s, Luke and Matthew 80's, and John 90's - but there are good conjectures that perhaps John came as late as 110, where we get the idea that our 1st copies were found between 70-110). THis idea points to the probability that something had to have been actually written prior to these dates, for these are copies. Considering this, then these stories would have been told and written during the time when the people who witnessed these events were still alive, and could dispute any incorrect information. This is where the oral tradition comes into play. Really, this happends to a degree today. If a news story is published that has false information, all the eyewitnesses can go to another reporter and report the truth. If a News reporter today were to report on President Bush as a real person, but it becomes common knowledge that President Bush doesn't actually exist, and is a fabrication created by Fox News, Other media sources could report this using other opinions and eyewitness accounts to what is really going on. We don't have any stories from the 1st or 2nd centuries claiming that Jesus was a fabrication by the Christians. So YOU are the one who has nothing to support this great Christian consperacy.

Now, are there other "possabilities," yes. Hey, it is possible that your parents aren't your real parents, and you were really bought by Gypsies. It is possible that you were really a girl at one time, but your parents wanted a boy so you went through a sex change before you could remember. Hey anything is possible. However, what is possible, and what is likely are 2 entirely different things.

Perhaps. But when the discrepancies are so extreme that they actually record the same event as taking place in two completely different locations (as with Jesus' supposed resurrection), then you have a problem.

As I said, no problems here. The discrepencies you claim aren't hard contradictions; they don't jeprodize the idea that Jesus was a real person who people believed was the Messiah.

For a text that, at its earliest, dates back to the 500's CE, you sure seem to be making an interesting presumption concerning the author's intentions (considering he/she never wrote anything to clarify this point).

This is wrong. The authors intentions are plainly stated within the Gospels themselves, and they imperically say that they are giving testemony to "real" events. Here is just one example from John:

"It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.

There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written." John 21:24-25

Also, this was not written in the dialect of the "ancient Middle Eastern world". It is written in the Greek language, where the distinctions between "father" and "brother" and so on are more concrete. I think the contradition is pretty straightforward.

Matthew 1:16 states: "Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah."

Luke 3:23 states: "When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son of Eli"

According to the Synoptics, Joseph has two fathers: Jacob and Eli. This, to me, is a little screwy.

I maintain that the distinction was not CLEARLY made with titles such as father or brother, for one. Just because you have a different OPINION, that doesn't make it true. Secondly, Dennis Mahon linked to a decent site that explains the circumstance better then I am willing too.

Key words here: "according to Christian theology." Just because Christians of later centuries project their theology onto the New Testamental books does not change what was written by at least the 500's.

In no way was this how the Hebrews saw the situation, nor is it how they see it now. Born of the "seed of David" is a fairly straightforward description. Either, Jesus was born of the seed of David or he was born of a virgin. You can't have both.

It is incidental in both the Christian and Hebrew Circumstance. I explained why it was incidental in the Christian sense, which is what matter most in this case because the Hebrews who decided Jesus was the Messiah bacame Christian immediately at that point. But even in the hebrew sense, Mary was also understood to be a decendant of David, removed by many generations.

I must admit... you do have a point here.

However, it is widely known among modern researchers that there was no census during Herod's reign, nor was there any attempted "slaughter of innocents". Neither Philo nor Josephus make any mention of either of these events.

In addition, the primary event itself, the trial and execution of Jesus, is completely absent from the Roman records. It is also absent of any historian's mention until around 115 CE (over 80 years after the event in question) and even these 'historical mentions' are of an incredibly dubious nature (Tacitus' supposed reference to Jesus and his record of Nero's persecution of the Christians, for example, is a forgery of the Middle Ages).

Well, the idea that the Romans didn't attempt to slaughter the innocent is completely false. You'll have to bring forth some evidence supporting this false idea, because most historians know that both Christians and Jews alike were slaughtered by Romans form time to time, particularly during the Roman/Jewish war. Plus, you have no evidence that the entire history of Tacitus is a forgery, either.

I will admit that some of the events of the New Testament may have historical viability. Of course, this brings into question as to when the New Testament books were actually written (its not hard to be historically accurate when you have hindsight). In addition, other events of the New Testament (including the existence and execution of Jesus) have no reliable external sources to corroborate their historical viability.

First, I can't say that I know all the nuances and customs of America from even 100 years ago. I'd have to go to the library and do some reasearch to fabricate something and make it look like it was written 100 years ago. Problem is, there weren't libraries, or printing presses. Mostly only the Government and rich had scribes who could keep track of history, yet how would early christians even get access to this material? So, I believe that when considering the facts, hindsite is NOT 20-20 in this regard. So, the Gospels must have been accurate depictions of the eyewittness testamonies and stories of that time period.

Again..."no reliable external source." Come-on, dude, I went over this once already. Just revert ot my previous posts to provide an explaination for this one.

I actually gave evidence to support my claims, you musta just overlooked it.

Well...no you didn't, otherwise I would have had some points to address. Regardless, lets see what points you have now...

There are numerous reasons to doubt the early (70-110 CE) dating of the Synoptics:

One) There is no extant version of any of the Synoptics that dates prior to the 500's CE. Thus, we have no reason to conclude that the Synoptics we possess are even remotely similar in content to the ones mentioned by individuals such as Irenaeus. They may indeed be alike in name only.

I don't believe your dates are accurate, again, but this doesn't matter...I covered this point above.

Two) The first time in recorded history that the Synoptics are mentioned by name is with Irenaeus (circa 175 CE). Justin Martyr, writing only one generation earlier, fails to mention even one of their names a single time. In addition, Irenaeus is quite enthusiastic in his defense of these Synoptics as the "true canon" --- indicating the idea of defending these four exclusively was something of a new and novel idea at the time.

The idea of defending these 4 exclusively was novel, I will agree. But this is because it was believed by Irenaus and his contemporaries that these 4 fit in historacally and theologically better into the Christan ideas then the other accounts. And Irenaus was pretty smart. We find today that in 2003 that the 4 Gospels are not only the earliest, but have the most supporting evidence, and are most likely to contain eyewitness accounts then the other 20 or so.

Three) The Gospel of Luke (and possibly some of the other Synoptics) has been demonstrated to be dependent on the Gospel of Marcion (circa 140 CE). The claim of Tertullian (circa 200 CE) was that Marcion had edited Luke. However, this does not bear the weight of logic; there are numerous verses within Luke that would indeed have benefitted Marcion's philosophical position (of docetism), and there are numerous verses in his Gospel of the Lord that indeed do not benefit his philosophical position.

These are just hypothesies. If it is true what historians are saying regarding Luke predating 140 CE (when you claim Marcion Gospel was written) then why can't it be that the Marcion Gospel was dependent on Luke. How can we accept Tertullians claim better then anyone elses? This evidence is shakey at best.

Four) St Jerome (circa 320 CE) has admitted that the Gospel of Luke is of a very late date, written after other Gospels known to have first been published in 160 CE. He also admits that the Theophilus mentioned in Luke was in fact the Bishop of Antioch during the 170's CE.

You'll have to show me evidence where Jerome has said what you claim, first of all, for me to believe it. Second of all, evidence today proves this to be false, even if Jerome did in fact say what you claim. Jerome could have been wrong, ya know.

Five) Irenaeus has admitted that the Gospel of John was written to repudiate the writings of the gnostic Cerinthus. Cerinthus was active during the 140's CE.

No...the Gospel of John repudiates the writings of the gnostic Cerinthus. This doesn't mean that was the purpose for writing it, how could it be when Johns Gospel predates Cerinthus?

Six) Both the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew contain verses whose content deals with the hierarchical system first being developed within Rome during the 170's CE.

You'll have to elaborate on this point a bit more. Which verses, which hierarchical system? I can't take this point on face value, but I would hazard to guess that it is only being interpreted to "deal" with a hierarchical system of 170, when it isn;t the case.

Seven) Certain excerpts from our Gospel of Mark (namely, the chronological order of Jesus' teaching at Taberbaum) are directly derived and dependent on the Gospel of Luke --- indicating our Luke has historical precedence. As Luke has been demonstrated to be derived from Marcion, this indicates both Luke and Mark were written within the latter half of the 2nd century (150-200 CE).

This is not correct; historians note mark as the first Gospel to have been written. Prove them wrong, and then we can explore this point.

Eight) There have been studies demonstrating Luke may also be partially dependent on the writings of Josephus (circa 95 CE).

Again, how do we know that these studies are any more credible then the ones that make different claims?

There's your evidence.

Thank you! Now we are having a discussion. Although I don't agree with much of your evidence, at least we have SOMETHING to work with.

The supposed "historical references to Jesus" that are so often bandied around date to about 115 CE. This includes Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, etc. Mind you, this does not mean all (or even any) of these references actually refers to Jesus or are even authentic (non-forged), but these are their supposed dates nonethless.

The only historical source to supposedly refer to Jesus before this timeframe is Josephus (95 CE), and even the authenticity of his excerpts (including the James reference) are questioned by many.



Actually, that's not what I'm talking about at all.

There were literally hundreds of Christian gospels and epistles during the later half of the 2nd century, and the Synoptics were by no means the most well-known or popular of them (only Irenaeus and Tertullian, both in Rome, seem to have any faith in them). There is in fact no reason to conclude that the Synoptics are any more authentic than any of these other Gospels (especially considering we have no extant form of the Synoptics prior to the 500's CE and they are never mentioned by name until the 170's CE).

Laterz.

O.K...I am not sure what the point here in the beginning of the quote, but lets explore your point at the end. You say there are 100's of gospels. I will agree that there are quite a few. Many of these Gospels may not help the "Christian" premise of JEsus' divinity, I will admit. However, that isn't what we are discussing here. We are disputing whether or not Jesus existed as a real person, or was he "made up." With hundereds of Gospels and accounts, and none of them saying that "Jesus was a made up character," then I would have to conclude that he was as these accounts say, A REAL PERSON. Right?

Now, the main idea, or thing that I think we can learn here is this: Your evidence that Jesus did not exist is NO MORE compelling then my evidence that he did exist, at the very least. I would of course say that my evidence is more compelling, but these are matters of opinion, and I will let the MT readers decide what to believe for themselves. However, you came on here with this auro of superior knowledge, as if you have some kind of evidence or proof that blows conventional ideas out of the water. I think that you have proven that your evidence is at best, no better then the evidence against your claims. So, we remain at a standstill. If I believe in "my evidence " on faith and not imperical fact, as you and some others here have contested, then the same is true for you; you believe in your evidence on faith and not imperical fact as well. So it appears we are at a standstill; I cannot force you to go against your "faith" based idea that Jesus never existed.

Also...I wanted to thank you for your last post. It didn't have that "arrogence" I was describing earlier, and you brought more ideas and evidence to the table for us to explore. This made for a much better conversation then what was going on in the beginning. And again, I apologize for getting fusterated there for awhile.

Have a good one...

PAUL

 

[Cruentus]

Originally posted by Klondike93
Wow, great discussion so far I think, but I have to wonder about basing your evidence on "oral traditions". Stories told over time will tend stray far from the original, become greatly exaggerated.
I see Paul basing a lot of his evidence on this and find it shakey at best. Others seem to be basing what they say on actual writings, other than the bible, which if based of "oral traditions" must be somewhat suspect. I'm currious what historians Paul is citing, are they other than christian? (I'm not Paul bashing either, just you have me asking myself the most questions, but that's what discussion is for right?)

Paul basher!! :rofl:

Here is a tidbit about oral tradition with the Ancient Hebrews.

Some Rabbi's were noted for being able to memorize the entire Torrah, word for word. This seems like quite a feat by todays standards of Internet, sticky notes, outlook calanders, and palm pilots. They didn't have a method of writing things down in those days, and writing was very scarce and much revered. So, the Rabbi's and teachers had to have a great memory, and memorizing was a much valued talent of the rabbi's and teachers.

Now, when we think of Oral tradition, we think of the telephone game, which is a bad analogy. For one, we are whispering to the next person in line, which they can barely here. For two, part of the fun in the exercise is when they screw up a phrase, and "Katie likes to drink apple juice" turns into "Katie bikes and thinks on river rouge" and all the 6 year olds in the room crack up.

This isn't quite the way Oral tradition was transmitted in Ancient Hebrew days. The teachers knew that they had to be extremely careful not to screw it up. So, when they taught, they had checks and balances in place. First, they weren't allowed to relay the story until the original person who told them gave them permission, meaning that they made sure that they were telling it verbatum prior to being able to teach the story. Second, the audience and other rabbi's could correct them if they made a mistake in the telling of the story. So imagine your in church and a preacher or priest is telling a story, and someone chimes in on the background to say that something isn't exactly correct, and they are able to discuss the matter right there in church. This was perfectly acceptable in ancient Judiaism.

So...a better analogy is everyone circles up to play telephone, and the first person says out loud "Katie likes to drink apple juice," then every third person says the phrase outloud and checks with the rest of the group to make sure they have it correct before moving on. Kind of a different way of thinking about it, eh?

So when you understand the nature of the oral tradition back then, you understand that it can still be regarded as a reliable source.

But besides all of that, even if you don't buy the idea's about oral tradition, evidence shows that the first gospel stories were written within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses. We are talking 20-40 years after the event, which by ancient standards of documentation, is not very long. In other ancient documents, things often weren't written down until 100's of years after the event. Anyhow, if these stories were all "made up" then early people who opposed the idea of Jesus would have written something to the effect of, "These Christians are a religious cult who made up a fictitious character named Jesus, and are making all sorts of outlandish claims about this made up person." You will find nothing to that effect. You do however find early opposition that attributes Jesus powers to sorcery and demonic powers. This only validates Jesus' existance, and his miricles for that matter.

In terms of siting historians, I don't know what they're religious denomination is. I know of at least 2 that are Jewish, and I know some are definatily Christian. However, If you meet them with suspicion because of their faith, then shouldn't you meet the non-christian ones with the same suspicion because they don't want to believe in the Christian Premise? How many of those who say "Jesus never existed" are non-Christian. I'll bet you all of them! Regardless, I might have to compile a list of historians that you can check for at a later time, but the list is quite big.

:asian:

 

[Cruentus]

Originally posted by Dennis_Mahon
Jacob and Eli (also known as Heli) were brothers, their mother being Estha. According to ancient Jewish geneological customs, Joseph was the biological son of Jacob and the legal son of Eli.

Jame Akin explains in The Geneologies of Christ .

Good link...thanks Dennis!

 

[heretic888]

But the question we're asking is more akin to, Was there a Homer? Or perhaps more to the point, no one believes there was an Odysseus--that fact is believed to have been transmitted faithfully.

The point I was attempting to make in that specific quote, arnisdor, is that the 'transmission test' is a less than reliable means of historical research. Namely, because unhistorical and mythological works can (and have) satisfied its criteria with flying colors. At the same time, extremely historically viable sources can (and have) failed the criteria of the 'transmission test'.

I would submit rather that the 'transmission test' is a means of deciphering a text or document's popularity at a given time than its historical credibility. Personally, I would attribute the large number of Biblical texts to Judeo-Christian imperialism and colonialism (so to speak) than any supposed historical precedent.

Might not similar reasoning apply to Homer's works? It matters less perhaps in that case, though people debate whether there was a Trojan War.

The difference being, arnisdor, that modern students of Homer's works do not claim them to be literal historical accounts. Nor do they claim that Odysseus was an actual person. Nor do they claim them to be any older than empirical or textual documentation allows.

There are indeed discrepancies in the Synoptics. But there are also sections that have such similar phrasing that it is clear that they are linked. The similarities are more telling than the dissimilarities.

Well, arnisdor, that is because virtually all Biblical scholars today make note that the Synoptics are either dependent on one another (the most popular theory I have heard is that Matthew and Luke are dependent on Mark), or that they are all derived from a common source (such as Q, the Gospel of Thomas, or Macion's Gospel of the Lord --- sometimes referred to as the Gospel of Paul) or, rather, multiple common sources.

Wow, great discussion so far I think, but I have to wonder about basing your evidence on "oral traditions". Stories told over time will tend stray far from the original, become greatly exaggerated.

Also, there is no real historical proof that any of the modern Synoptics are based on any "oral tradition", whether it be apostolic or otherwise. The only thing backing this claim up is theological commitment and cultural bias (people seem to forget that Judeo-Christian philosophy is what has driven Western culture for over 1500 years).

The first time any of the Synoptics are mentioned by name is with Irenaeus (circa 175 CE). And, as a correction to what I have stated previously, we have no complete New Testamental books/gospels older than the 300's CE (putting all of our versions of the New Testament ironically after the famed Council of Nicaea). Also, we have no evidence to conclude that the Synoptics cited by Irenaeus and the Synoptics from the 300's are in any way similar --- again, they may be alike in name only.

Also, contrary to what has been stated on this thread beforehand, the Gospels have indeed been altered and edited from time to time. We have proof of this in both historical documentation (comparing extant versions of the Synoptics with one another) as well as textual evidence (the claims of certain historical figures). To paraphrase Freke and Gandy:

The Pagan critic Celsus (circa 170 CE) complains that Christians "altered the original text of the gospels three or four times, or even more, with the intention of thus being able to destroy the arguments of their critics." Modern scholars have found that he was right. A careful study of over 3,000 early manuscripts have shown how scribes made many changes [G. Stanton, 'Gospel Truth?', page 35].

The Church father Origen (circa 230 CE), an opponent of Celsus, states: "It is an obvious fact today that there is much diversity among the manuscripts, due either to the carelessness of the scribes, or the perverse audacity of some people in correcting the text, or again to the fact that there are those who add or delete as they please, setting themselves up as correctors."

To convey the enormity of the problem, one scholar (G. Stanton) describes selecting a place in the gospels completely at random (in this case, he chose Mark 10:11) and checking to see how many differences were recorded between various early manuscripts for these passages. He discovered "no fewer than 48 places where the manuscripts differ, sometimes there are only two possibilities, often there are three or more, and in one case there are six!"

Scholars also know that whole sections of the gospels were added later. For example, originally Mark did not contain any words beyond Chapter 16 verse 8 --- the fear of the women at their discovery of the empty tomb. The so-called "long ending" in which the risen Jesus appears to his disciples, is not found in any early manuscripts and yet now appears in nearly all New Testaments.

Now, granted, there are fragments or excerpts of certain Gospels that we know of that go back to the 100's CE. However, these are just fragments. We really have no idea what Gospel they are actually a part of, or the theological/philosophical position of their author(s).

Jacob and Eli (also known as Heli) were brothers, their mother being Estha. According to ancient Jewish geneological customs, Joseph was the biological son of Jacob and the legal son of Eli.

Really?? Its a shame the only evidence to support that theory is from Eusebius --- writing over 300 years after the events in question. Eusebius fails to draw upon any primary sources or direct records to support this "legal son vs biological son" theory. And, its not like Eusebius is exactly known for his truthfulness, either (he authored a biography of Constantine portraying him as a benevolent leader rather than a tyrannical and bloodthirsty dictator).

The Biblical srewiness still remains.

Yup...your lost. I have offered evidence, so take it for what it's worth. Sorry that I can't help you further.

Actually, paul, you have yet to offer the "hard" evidence that meni is requesting. Your earliest external source that corroborates the existence of Jesus include those of Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and Suetonius. These are all dated around 112 CE --- over 80 years after the events in question. And, each one fails to site a prior primary source or direct record. By the criteria of serious historical research, these are all considered secoondary sources and amount to little more than hearsay.

This, of course, doesn't take into account the flimsy historical basis for some of these sources. Tacitus erroneously calls Pontius Pilate a "procurator" rather than his historicaly correct title of "prefect", and there is also no other evidence to support Tacitus' supposed description of Nero's persecution of the Christians (Josephus, for example, never mentions this). There is a very good possibility that the supposed reference to Jesus attributed to Tacitus is indeed a forgery (considering it is never mentioned by anyone until a Christian writer in the 1400's).

Contemporary Jewish historians of Jesus' own time, such as Philo and Justus, remain silent on both him and any Christian sect(s). There remains, to date, no "hard" evidence to corroborate his existence.

Just a fun tidbit; The historical St Nicholas was one of the Bishops at the first Council of Nicea, and debated with an so-far-unnamed Bishop over the divinity of Christ. In fact, when the other Bishop refused to see St Nick's POV(that Christ was divine) he struck the man. This debate, and the debate over the Arian letter(written by the philosopher Arius) points to the possibility(I'm being cautious ) that established men of christian faith still wrestled with what would be the 'official' standing on Jesus within Christianity.

Actually, the historical evidence seems to indicate that the "Christians" had been arguing amongst themselves for a long, long time. After all, in most of the Mediterranean, Gnosticism was the most popular and most common form of Christianity, not the Literalism of Rome.

Also, in regards to the 'age' of the gospels, I'll use Matthew as an example, the Ebionites were known to have used a version of Matthew in the first half of the second century, this according to Iranaeus(140-200). What is interesting to note, though, is that the Ebionites denied the virgin birth of Christ. This brings up two possibe conclusions: 1) This early 'version' of Matthew did not contain the virgin story, or 2) they were using their own non-canonical gospel at or around 175c.e(quotations of which are mentioned by Epiphanius in his Heresies 30 in 375)--if they had their own gospel it was a gospel that was easily confused with Matthew.

This actually proves very little.

As I stated before, the Synoptics are never mentioned by name before Irenaeus (circa 175 CE). Justin Martyr, writing only one generation earlier (and who claimed to have been familiar with the Ebonites), never mentions them at all.

And, again, there is no evidence to conclude that the Synoptics and Gospel of Matthew that Irenaeus mentions (and that these Ebionites may have possessed) is in any way similar to the ones we have now.

I know there has been a lot of debate over what sources were used for the Gospels and the ages thereof. The Fellows of the Jesus Seminar have put forth the Gospel of Peter as the source for the passion stories, but still insist that Mark, or the structure of Mark, was the primary base for the canonical gospels(and possibly the hypothetical 'Q' text being the basis for these as well). They generally advocate, and offer evidence to support, that there were two primary archetypical gospels that the followers of Christ used. The first would have been a gospel of the sayings of Jesus(Q), and second, a gospel of the signs, or miracles, of Jesus.

There are alternate theories, of course, that also have evidence to support them as well.

It is interesting to note, however, that the two types of gospels you cited (sayings gospel and sings gospel) are put in neither a time or place setting. In 1919, the German scholar Karl Ludwig Schmidt published a careful way in which Mark's gospel had been created. The Jesus story had been pieced together from pre-existing fragments (such as from the two pre-gospels you mentioned) and their narrative connection and "flow" was entirely of Mark's invention.

This goes a long way in explaining why there were divergent groups of Christians in the first couple of centuries.

There are other explanations, as well.

The Pauline epistles, which are first mentioned around 140 CE with Marcion, demonstrate an ignorance of not only any of Jesus' reputed sayings (Paul doesn't even know about the Lord's Prayer) but also of Jesus' many miracles. He also demonstrates a lack of knowledge of any of the "biographical" details of Jesus' story.

Paul's letters, if their first century dating is indeed accurate, may demonstrate an early period within the Jesus movement(s), when the Christians had yet to have completed the biographical and narrative details to their godman.

I have to argue with the point that there are no discovered Gospels dated before 500c.e.(unless referring to the Synoptics). The Egerton Gospel papyrus was found in Egypt and dates to the second half of the second century(150-200c.e.) It is considered one of the oldest extant copies of a gospel in the world.

The Egerton Papyrus is a fragment of an unknown Gospel. There are, in fact, a few unknown gospel fragments dated to the 2nd century. However, there are no complete (or even mostly complete) versions of the Synoptics (or any other gospel for that matter) until the 300's CE --- after the theological dictations of the Council of Nicaea had been established.

Laterz.

 

[Cruentus]

The point I was attempting to make in that specific quote, arnisdor, is that the 'transmission test' is a less than reliable means of historical research. Namely, because unhistorical and mythological works can (and have) satisfied its criteria with flying colors. At the same time, extremely historically viable sources can (and have) failed the criteria of the 'transmission test'.

I would submit rather that the 'transmission test' is a means of deciphering a text or document's popularity at a given time than its historical credibility. Personally, I would attribute the large number of Biblical texts to Judeo-Christian imperialism and colonialism (so to speak) than any supposed historical precedent.

Again, I think your missing the point as to why historians use this test to verify historacal documents. It isn't so much that it deperates fact from fiction, rather it helps to define what the original stories were. Since the gospels hold up to the test, the Christian consperacy theory that Christians "changed" the text overtime to suit an agenda is bunk, because the copies closely match each other, meaning that they all closely match the "original" story of what was being told, and what was eventually written down. The context in which the authors write the texts more-so then this test shows that they at least believed that Jesus was A. a real person and B. the messiah.

 

[Cruentus]

The difference being, arnisdor, that modern students of Homer's works do not claim them to be literal historical accounts. Nor do they claim that Odysseus was an actual person. Nor do they claim them to be any older than empirical or textual documentation allows.

Right, but this was written in the context of being an "Epic." Epic means: Large and Grandious story. Historians recognize this as a Legend with some historical possibilities (like the possabilities of a Trojan War, as well as some verifiable places) in a similar manner that historians regard The book of Genesis. Historians (not all theologians mind you) maintain that Genesis was told orally for thousands of years prior to it being written. This story has some events and things that can be regarded as true, however it is quite mythological in it's story telling.

However, you forget that the first COPIES of homers works were dated 1000 years after the supposed 1st copy was written, which could have been many more years after any of the supposed events.

The Gospels have copies dated maybe 40-80 years at best from the original events themselves. The Gospels are a much closer history then Homers works. And it is clear that Homer was keeping up with tradition in writing a poetic Mythology, when the Gospel writers were trying to records a history.

So Homers works and the Gospels are 2 different animals.

 

[Cruentus]

Well, arnisdor, that is because virtually all Biblical scholars today make note that the Synoptics are either dependent on one another (the most popular theory I have heard is that Matthew and Luke are dependent on Mark), or that they are all derived from a common source (such as Q, the Gospel of Thomas, or Macion's Gospel of the Lord --- sometimes referred to as the Gospel of Paul) or, rather, multiple common sources.

I explained this one in my media/J-Lo example before. And even you said that 100's of Gospels were made, some dating close to the resurection, and some centuries later. It would make sense that some of these writers wrote in light of other writings, but this doesn't invalidate the idea that Jesus was a real person and that people believed him to be the messiah. If anyhting it validates the idea more. What you won't find, in these early writings, is anyone saying that Jesus never existed, the percise thing that you have been trying to prove.

 

[Cruentus]

Also, there is no real historical proof that any of the modern Synoptics are based on any "oral tradition", whether it be apostolic or otherwise. The only thing backing this claim up is theological commitment and cultural bias (people seem to forget that Judeo-Christian philosophy is what has driven Western culture for over 1500 years).

This is not true according to many historians. Read my explaination regarding Oral tradition above.

The first time any of the Synoptics are mentioned by name is with Irenaeus (circa 175 CE). And, as a correction to what I have stated previously, we have no complete New Testamental books/gospels older than the 300's CE (putting all of our versions of the New Testament ironically after the famed Council of Nicaea). Also, we have no evidence to conclude that the Synoptics cited by Irenaeus and the Synoptics from the 300's are in any way similar --- again, they may be alike in name only.

Again...this is false. We have found many copies prior to Irenaus, and they all match up pretty well. We can look at the actual copies today to make comparisons, so that is how we know that what Irenaus had, and what we had in 300 CE are similar.

Also, contrary to what has been stated on this thread beforehand, the Gospels have indeed been altered and edited from time to time. We have proof of this in both historical documentation (comparing extant versions of the Synoptics with one another) as well as textual evidence (the claims of certain historical figures). To paraphrase Freke and Gandy:

The Pagan critic Celsus (circa 170 CE) complains that Christians "altered the original text of the gospels three or four times, or even more, with the intention of thus being able to destroy the arguments of their critics." Modern scholars have found that he was right. A careful study of over 3,000 early manuscripts have shown how scribes made many changes [G. Stanton, 'Gospel Truth?', page 35].

Most of these "changes" are mere linguistic errors, incidental to the point of the stories.

However, This arguement is Moot anyways, because the subject here is "Was Jesus a real person." There is no evidence that he wasn't real person before, and Christians altered the story to say that he was. Plus, Celsus says one thing, His Christian Peers say another, so it is all hersay on both sides. But what is important to note here is that Celsus doesn't claim that Jesus never existed, he just claims that Christian scholars altered the stories.

The Church father Origen (circa 230 CE), an opponent of Celsus, states: "It is an obvious fact today that there is much diversity among the manuscripts, due either to the carelessness of the scribes, or the perverse audacity of some people in correcting the text, or again to the fact that there are those who add or delete as they please, setting themselves up as correctors."

Right...but the premise that Jesus was a real person wasn't one of those additions or deletions. This is what is really important here for this arguement. The rest is debatable, but under a different subject matter.

To convey the enormity of the problem, one scholar (G. Stanton) describes selecting a place in the gospels completely at random (in this case, he chose Mark 10:11) and checking to see how many differences were recorded between various early manuscripts for these passages. He discovered "no fewer than 48 places where the manuscripts differ, sometimes there are only two possibilities, often there are three or more, and in one case there are six!"

Scholars also know that whole sections of the gospels were added later. For example, originally Mark did not contain any words beyond Chapter 16 verse 8 --- the fear of the women at their discovery of the empty tomb. The so-called "long ending" in which the risen Jesus appears to his disciples, is not found in any early manuscripts and yet now appears in nearly all New Testaments.

This is conjecture is considered completely false by other archeologists and historians, but if you want to follow around an antagonist like a puppy, be my guest.

Now, granted, there are fragments or excerpts of certain Gospels that we know of that go back to the 100's CE. However, these are just fragments. We really have no idea what Gospel they are actually a part of, or the theological/philosophical position of their author(s).

Not true again, scholars have been able to decifer where they believe they are from. However, even if this was true, it still doesn't speak against the idea that "Christ was a real person" which is what you are trying to say.

So, I am waiting for you to show your imperical evidence that Jesus could not have been a real person. You require "imperical evidence" for those that disagree with you, so I can certainly require it to support your points.

 

[Cruentus]

Really?? Its a shame the only evidence to support that theory is from Eusebius --- writing over 300 years after the events in question. Eusebius fails to draw upon any primary sources or direct records to support this "legal son vs biological son" theory. And, its not like Eusebius is exactly known for his truthfulness, either (he authored a biography of Constantine portraying him as a benevolent leader rather than a tyrannical and bloodthirsty dictator).

The Biblical srewiness still remains.

I still maintain my position on the Father title as I explained earlier. But all this is clouding the fact that you cannot prove that Jesus wasn't a real person against all the evidence that points to the idea that he was.

 

[Cruentus]

Actually, paul, you have yet to offer the "hard" evidence that meni is requesting. Your earliest external source that corroborates the existence of Jesus include those of Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and Suetonius. These are all dated around 112 CE --- over 80 years after the events in question. And, each one fails to site a prior primary source or direct record. By the criteria of serious historical research, these are all considered secoondary sources and amount to little more than hearsay.

This, of course, doesn't take into account the flimsy historical basis for some of these sources. Tacitus erroneously calls Pontius Pilate a "procurator" rather than his historicaly correct title of "prefect", and there is also no other evidence to support Tacitus' supposed description of Nero's persecution of the Christians (Josephus, for example, never mentions this). There is a very good possibility that the supposed reference to Jesus attributed to Tacitus is indeed a forgery (considering it is never mentioned by anyone until a Christian writer in the 1400's).

Contemporary Jewish historians of Jesus' own time, such as Philo and Justus, remain silent on both him and any Christian sect(s). There remains, to date, no "hard" evidence to corroborate his existence.

There is plenty of evidence that exists. What you consider "hard" evidence or not is debatable. But regardless, how much "hard evidence supporting ANY history prior to 1000 CE do you think we have? Not much at all. It is ALL debatable, and we can do this all day.

But the real problem here is that most of the evidence supports that Jesus was a real person, even though you may find this evidence debatable. None of the evidence contends that he never existed.

 

[Cruentus]

The Egerton Papyrus is a fragment of an unknown Gospel. There are, in fact, a few unknown gospel fragments dated to the 2nd century. However, there are no complete (or even mostly complete) versions of the Synoptics (or any other gospel for that matter) until the 300's CE --- after the theological dictations of the Council of Nicaea had been established.

You make this point, as well as a tone of others. But you have yet to argue effectively how any of this proves that Jesus never existed against what ALL the other sources are saying.

 

[heretic888]

These other documents don't exactly "fail" the transmission test, they just don't pass as well as the New Testement documents.

Yes, but the fact that these historical documents don't pass as well as well-known mythological and unhistorical works brings the entire historical validity of the 'transmission test' into question.

What this proves is that we have more evidence to conclude what the origional followers of Jesus believed, namely that he was A. a real person, and B. believed to be the messiah.

Not really.

When you consider the fact that we have no complete (or even mostly complete) New Testament books older than the 300's CE, then all you really have evidence for is what "Christians" may have believed after the dictations of the Council of Nicaea were established, in which a certain form of Christianity was made the state religion.

If these copies varied on these 2 points, they would certianly be up for arguement. Since they don't, then we have to figure the obvious, which is that these 2 points are correct.

The Synoptics that we have (dating no earlier than the 300's) don't vary on these points. However, there are Christian manuscripts just as old as, if not older, than these that do contan differing viewpoints (including the works of Marcion).

In addition, you seem to be making the presumption on what the early "Christians" believed based on a religious text (which may or may not have actually been theirs). There is no evidence to conclude that the original "Christians" were not indeed docetists and viewed the Gospel narrative merely as something along the lines of a mystery play or mystery drama (which were very popular at the time).

Also, as I demonstrated in my prior post, the Synoptics have undergone changes and alterations over the years --- but not in either of the two points you mentioned. Meaning, the characters within the Synoptics believe Jesus to be a real person and to be the Messiah. This, however, is not to say that the original Christians themselves held such beliefs (of which there is no proof to support).

This test also concludes that we have more evidence to support what was actually written in the New Testement then in any other ancient document. So, if you doubt that Jesus existed, then you must doubt EVERY other ancient document ever written.

No. I don't doubt that the Synoptics existed in a somewhat similar form from the 300's onward (the Council of Nicaea ensured that). Of course, this says nothing about what the Christians before or during the 300's believed --- only what is written in the Synoptics. And, as before, changes have been made to the Synoptics since then, but not in either of the points you are contesting.

I'll say this for the 3rd time, because you don't seem to be getting it. The Transmission Test doesn't prove that the stories weren't made up (there are other tests for that) as much as it DOES prove that these stories weren't altered over time to fit in with some Christian agenda.

Ok, if you are talking about the Synoptics not undergoing any changes at all (outside of the 2 points you highlighted before), then I'm afraid they do fail the 'transmission test' rather badly. Both Celsus and Origen complained of changed taking place in Christian texts during their own times and extant versions of the Synoptics have been shown to differ from one another (as G. Stanton demonstrated).

Part of what has been said by people on this thread is the idea that the Gospel stories are "made up" much later then the time proposed when Jesus was crusified. This transmission test proves that this cannot be true.

Again, not really.

There are no extant versions of the Synoptics prior to the 300's CE.... and the ones that do date this far back are quite few in number. Even if there have been no changes made to the Synoptics since then (which is an untrue assertion in and of itself), all this 'transmisson test' tells us is that variations on the Synoptics haven't been "made up" since the 300's. It most certainly doesn't tell us how the authors of the Synoptics viewed Jesus (again, the Gospels could have been merely mystery plays to them) or how Christians prior to the 300's viewed him.

Also, Red Riding Hood and other similar examples are not good ones because these are works of fiction. We KNOW that these are works of fiction because we know the authors, we have the originals, so we know the intent. With the Biblical Gospels, letters, and stories, it would seem that the authors intent was not to create a work of fiction.

I'm afraid you have no proof of this claim on the authors' intentions (if you do, please post it). There are, in fact, no reliable historical proclamations of Christian Literalism made until the mid-2nd century (with Justin Martyr).

It would seem that contemporaries of these authors, as well as the authors themselves, would not risk death and torture over fiction.

There is, again, no proof of this claim that the authors or their contemporaries ever risked death or torture. No official persecutions of the Christians as a group took place before 250 CE. Even the Church father Origen admitted that the number of Christians that had died for the faith were "few in number" and "easily counted".

Even if we assume they actually were persecuted, there is still no reason to conclude they did not view the Gospel accounts as fiction. "Christianity" could have originally been something like a Mystery School (which were occassionally persecuted by Rome) in which the Gospel narrative was seen as a mystery drama meant to reveal spiritual truths to an initiate. Mystery Schools were persecuted from time to time in Roman history.

So your point, that anything could be a "history" based on this test is wrong. The test isn't claiming to be able to differentiate between fiction and non-fiction, it only claims to be able to piece together what was written in the original texts, and what was believed and being preached at the time.

All this 'transmission test' can do (assuming, of course, that the Synoptics even pass it --- which they don't) is what was written in the Synoptics from the 300's onward. It tells us nothing of what was written beforehand or what was believed and preached by the Christians then or before.

All those manuscripts were dated prior to 800 CE.

Ok. That is still a timeframe of almost 500 years between the earliest available versions.

Many of the Greek, and Eithopian texts, for example, were found prior to 200 (we are talking into the thousands).

Ok, this I know to be untrue. There are no complete (or even mostly complete) New Testamental books prior to the 300s CE. These texts, if they indeed date to this time, would be fragments or excerpts from unknown gospels.

The first fragments of John are written on papyris, and are found in Eitheopia, dated prior to 100 CE.

From Freke and Gandy:

In 1992, Carsten Thiede's 'The Earliest Gospel Manuscript?' claimed that the three fragments stored for a long time in Magdalene College, Oxford, date from the middle of the first century. However, the eminent papyrologist Graham Stanton has clearly demonstrated that the fragments are written in the 'Biblical Unical' handwriting which only emerged in the late second century. In addition, these tiny fragments can tell us nothing about the texts they came from and for whole texts we must wait until the fourth century.

Look on a map and tell me how far Eitheopia is from the proposed middle east, and imagine how long it might take to translate an original text to etheiopian on a plant leaf from that far away. Remember now, there is no computer for them to just copy the word document. It had to be carefully hand written.

That makes the assumption that "Christianity" began in the Middle East, of which there is no proof. A lot of modern research seems to imply that Christianity most likely has its origins in Egypt. Alexandria, to be exact.

But, these are just more points that you refuse to see, but the FACT is that there is more evidence supporting the New Testement than any other ancient text

All you've proven is that the Synoptics have been relatively unchanged in their basic content since the 300's. That doesn't support anything.

and supporting the FACT that Jesus LIVED, and people BELIEVED.

Again, even if the Synoptics did pass the 'transmission test' (which they don't), this tells us nothing about whether there was a historical Jesus or not or what Christians prior to the 4th century actually believed and taught. You make the assumption, without any empirical basis, that all (or even most) Christians considered the Gospels to be historical accounts (when it is known that a significant percentage of Christians during the 2nd and 3rd century were Marcionites --- which if of a distinctly docetic slant).

Although what you say is not completely true, I'll bite anyways. Let's say you are correct that the full versions aren't available until 300 years later (which your not, but lets just say so for arguments sake), and all we have is fragments.

Whole (or even mostly whole) New Testamental texts do not date back earlier than the 300's CE, correcting what I stated earlier.

Well, if the fragments match the originals, and the put together pieces add up to be the New Testement that we have today, then I conceed that these "fragements" are plenty to establish concrete historical links. This only further proves my points.

I'm afraid you are using false logic here, paul.

Just because fragments match certain excerpts within the Synoptics does not mean those fragments come from the Synoptics. The fragments may indeed come from a text that the Synoptics used for source material (such as Q or the Gospel of Thomas). There is absolutely no reason to conclude that these fragments come from pre-existing versions of the Synoptics themselves (outside of theological commitment, that is).

You've demonstrated nothing. Go back to the drawing board.

Guess again.

Once again, this doesn't matter. I don't care if the first "full Book" was found in 1999. If the fragments go back as far as the first century, which they do, and all the fragements add up to our first New Testement full texts, which they do, then we can figure that these are fairly accurate.

Not quite. None of the fragments date back to the first century (as Mr. Stanton demonstrated). Also, not all the fragments "add up to our New Testament texts". They don't even add up to one of the Synoptics.

And, again, just because a fragment has something in common with one of our Synoptics does not mean it comes from that Synoptic. It is perfectly plausible that the fragment comes from a source material for our Synoptics. There is absolutely no evidence to contradict this one way or the other.

The fact that the Synoptics are not mentioned until around 190 CE by Irenaeus and that the oldest versions we have of them date to the 300's lends credence to the possibility that these fragments come from a source material from the Synoptics, and not the Synoptics themselves.

Remember, for some ancient texts we don't have existing copies until 1000 years after the fact, yet these are not discredited in the same manner as the New Testement.

So??

Well...as I have maintained, there is planty of evidence "whatsoever"

You have yet to present any.

The fact that our earliest copies of the Gospels are generally accepted to be between 70-110 CE is plenty of evidence

Our earliest extant copies of the Gospels are dated to the 300's CE. Whoever you got that information from is incorrect.

Considering this, then these stories would have been told and written during the time when the people who witnessed these events were still alive, and could dispute any incorrect information. This is where the oral tradition comes into play.

This makes the assumption that the Gospel narratives are records of actual events and not mystery dramas or fictional novels. You have provided no proof that this was not how the authors saw the narratives.

We don't have any stories from the 1st or 2nd centuries claiming that Jesus was a fabrication by the Christians. So YOU are the one who has nothing to support this great Christian consperacy.

Actually, paul, we do.

The Pagan critic Celsus (circa 170 CE) made many claims against Christians that they had just fabricated their stories from pre-existing Pagan myths. Justin Martyr's writings also imply these arguments were used against him as well.

Within the Christian tradition(s), Marcion (circa 140 CE) was a docetist --- meaning he did not believe Jesus existed in the physical sense (i.e, the Gospel narrative was a mystery drama of sorts). He claimed to be a disciple of Paul and, given the lack of biographical information on Jesus in the Pauline epistles, Paul's characteristic use of Gnostic terminology, and Paul's treatment of Jesus as a sort of godman or archetype, there is much credence to the theory that Paul was a docetist as well.

Now, are there other "possabilities," yes. Hey, it is possible that your parents aren't your real parents, and you were really bought by Gypsies. It is possible that you were really a girl at one time, but your parents wanted a boy so you went through a sex change before you could remember. Hey anything is possible. However, what is possible, and what is likely are 2 entirely different things.

I'm afraid you need to re-evaluate your claims of "likelihood" here. For all your claims, you have yet to contend with the lack of historical corroboration of Jesus' existence by anyone within 50 years of the date of his supposed death, Paul's ignorance of Jesus' biographical details and decidedly Gnostic/Docetic rhetoric, the obvious parallels between the Gospel narrative and pre-existing Pagan myths, the incredibly late date of the first mention of the Synoptics, and the incredibly late date of any extant Synoptic copies.

As I said, no problems here. The discrepencies you claim aren't hard contradictions; they don't jeprodize the idea that Jesus was a real person who people believed was the Messiah.

Really??

In Mark and Matthew, the resurrected Jesus appears to his other disciples in Galilee, where they have been specificaly sent by divine decree. Yet this stupendous supernatural event does not seem to have impressed itself upon the other disciples, since Luke and the author of the Acts of the Apostles have the risen Jesus appearing in and around Jerusalem. Indeed, according to Acts, not only did they not receive any divine commandment to go to Galilee, but were expressly forbidden to leave Jerusalem.

That isn't a hard contradiction??

This is wrong. The authors intentions are plainly stated within the Gospels themselves, and they imperically say that they are giving testemony to "real" events. Here is just one example from John:

"It is this disciple who testifies to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.

There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written." John 21:24-25

*wink wink* That is what the character "John" within the narrative is said to have said. Considering the extremely late date of even orthodox researchers for the Gospel of John (110 CE or so), its fairly apparent the disciple John didn't write that (or any of the Gospel).

Besides, that statement is still keeping in line with the view that the narrative could have been seen as a mystery drama to Christian initiates.

I maintain that the distinction was not CLEARLY made with titles such as father or brother, for one. Just because you have a different OPINION, that doesn't make it true.

I think someone needs to brush up on their Greek.

Secondly, Dennis Mahon linked to a decent site that explains the circumstance better then I am willing too.

That site, as I explained, does not provide any evidence to support its claims.

So, I believe that when considering the facts, hindsite is NOT 20-20 in this regard. So, the Gospels must have been accurate depictions of the eyewittness testamonies and stories of that time period.So, I believe that when considering the facts, hindsite is NOT 20-20 in this regard. So, the Gospels must have been accurate depictions of the eyewittness testamonies and stories of that time period.

Ummm.... no. Just because something is written down, doesn't make it true. Many of the historical "events" in the Gospels never took place (such as the census during the reign of Herod, and the "slaughter of innocents").

Again..."no reliable external source." Come-on, dude, I went over this once already. Just revert ot my previous posts to provide an explaination for this one.

I did. And not one of the external sources you provided is, at best, a secondary source and, at worst, a forgery.

The idea of defending these 4 exclusively was novel, I will agree. But this is because it was believed by Irenaus and his contemporaries that these 4 fit in historacally and theologically better into the Christan ideas then the other accounts. And Irenaus was pretty smart. We find today that in 2003 that the 4 Gospels are not only the earliest, but have the most supporting evidence, and are most likely to contain eyewitness accounts then the other 20 or so.

*chuckles* Sure, you just have to account for why they are never mentioned before 190 CE. And why no version of them exists before the 300's CE. And, why one of them is dependent on a pre-existing Gospel (Marcion's Gospel of the Lord). And, why none of them are considered eyewitness accounts. And, why the source material they are believed to be dependent on (Q and possibly Thomas) has no time/place setting. And, why other Christian figures such as Jerome flat out stated some of them are of a late date.

These are just hypothesies.

No, its a theory because, unlike many of your claims, there is empirical evidence to back it up.

If it is true what historians are saying regarding Luke predating 140 CE (when you claim Marcion Gospel was written)

Ahem. Some historians.

then why can't it be that the Marcion Gospel was dependent on Luke.

Because a textual examination shows this to not be true. There are verses in Luke that would support Marcion's position but that are not in Marcion's gospel, and there are verses that don't help Marcin's position, but are still in his gospel. Marcion's gospel also is simpler and has a better flow than the Luke verses it shares. Also, Marcion is mentioned decades before the Gospel of Luke ever is.

Sorry, but no dice.

How can we accept Tertullians claim better then anyone elses?

Because Tertullian was a known liar and forger of documents, as modern research has shown.

You'll have to show me evidence where Jerome has said what you claim, first of all, for me to believe it.

It's in Charles Waite's 'History of the Christian Religion to the Year Two Hundred'.

of all, evidence today proves this to be false, even if Jerome did in fact say what you claim. Jerome could have been wrong, ya know.

You have yet to present this evidence, and instead base your arguments on a lot of assumptions that have no empirical basis to back them up (only theological commitment).

No...the Gospel of John repudiates the writings of the gnostic Cerinthus. This doesn't mean that was the purpose for writing it, how could it be when Johns Gospel predates Cerinthus?

Because John's Gospel is dependent on Cerinthus.

This is not correct; historians note mark as the first Gospel to have been written.

Ahem. Some historians.

You need to quit pretending everything here is unilateral. Its not.

O.K...I am not sure what the point here in the beginning of the quote, but lets explore your point at the end. You say there are 100's of gospels. I will agree that there are quite a few. Many of these Gospels may not help the "Christian" premise of JEsus' divinity, I will admit. However, that isn't what we are discussing here. We are disputing whether or not Jesus existed as a real person, or was he "made up." With hundereds of Gospels and accounts, and none of them saying that "Jesus was a made up character," then I would have to conclude that he was as these accounts say, A REAL PERSON. Right?

No. This agan makes assumptions on what these people believed or how they saw the Gospels. There were a lot of myths about Dionysus and Mithras too, but none of the initiates of those schools thought they were real people.

The fact that the earlier Christian texts (such as Paul's epistles) evince an ignorance of any biographical details on Jesus and that the reputed Gospel sources (such as Q) are in a non-time/place setting, it is indeed quite possible (and very probable) that the early Christians did not view Jesus as an actual person.

This isn't quite the way Oral tradition was transmitted in Ancient Hebrew days. The teachers knew that they had to be extremely careful not to screw it up. So, when they taught, they had checks and balances in place. First, they weren't allowed to relay the story until the original person who told them gave them permission, meaning that they made sure that they were telling it verbatum prior to being able to teach the story. Second, the audience and other rabbi's could correct them if they made a mistake in the telling of the story. So imagine your in church and a preacher or priest is telling a story, and someone chimes in on the background to say that something isn't exactly correct, and they are able to discuss the matter right there in church. This was perfectly acceptable in ancient Judiaism.

This again makes the assumption that the writers of the New Testament were Jewish. There is no proof for this claim.

But besides all of that, even if you don't buy the idea's about oral tradition, evidence shows that the first gospel stories were written within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses.

You have yet to provide this evidence.

Laterz.

 

[Cruentus]

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

This discussion is getting to be laughable, and I am not going to go through each and every point again. You have resorted to repeating yourself on many accounts, even though the points have been refuted. I feel like we are going around in circles at this point.

What I can't believe is that you can't see that your evidence and the evidence of the scholars you quote is no more "imperical" then the evidence that supports the ideas of Jesus being a real person. And the evidence that supports your ideas is, at best, a long shot. There is FAR more corroborating evidence supporting the idea that Jesus was a real person, and his followers believed in his divinity.

How about just admiting the truth...that your evidence is not more "imperical" then anyone elses? Then we might be able to start getting somewhere....

 

[r erman]

STOP DEBATING!!!

I'm at work and can't even get a chance to say anything, LOL.

Heretic--What was the point of responding to my post. Nothing I said contradicts what you are saying--although I don't necessarily agree with your supposition that Jesus never existed. And you didn't contradict anything I was saying either--my point about Nicea was exaclty to point out what you said in response. It almost seems like you are arguing for the fun of it--even if the argument isn't a refutation of what you say...

PAUL. It's been fun "talking" with you. You ain't bad for a christian BTW, I assumed you were fundamentalist, but a level-headed one. I wasn't refering to you when I mentioned me not trafficking with fundies.

 

[Cruentus]

Heretic pointed out one thing that could possibly be a good refutation of my arguement that early opponents of Christians did not oppose the idea that Jesus was a real person.

The Pagan critic Celsus (circa 170 CE) made many claims against Christians that they had just fabricated their stories from pre-existing Pagan myths. Justin Martyr's writings also imply these arguments were used against him as well.

Within the Christian tradition(s), Marcion (circa 140 CE) was a docetist --- meaning he did not believe Jesus existed in the physical sense (i.e, the Gospel narrative was a mystery drama of sorts). He claimed to be a disciple of Paul and, given the lack of biographical information on Jesus in the Pauline epistles, Paul's characteristic use of Gnostic terminology, and Paul's treatment of Jesus as a sort of godman or archetype, there is much credence to the theory that Paul was a docetist as well.

This is misinformation. First, the part about Paul being a Gnostic has no credence at all, particularly when you read the letters themselves and realize that The philosophies he proposes doesn't fit at all with the Gnostics (which is why they are Christian). There is also no historical connection that I have seen pointing to Paul being anything but a Christian after his conversion.

However, what is also misinformation is the idea that Gnostics, Docetists, or Celsus believed that Jesus didn't exist. On the contrary, they believe he existed, but as a Pagan God only in spirit and sorcery. They attribute his miricles, and even the resurection to sorcery and spiritism. This is quite different then saying that Jesus was completely made up by the Christians, which was a claim not made by these 3 sources. I will post further about these sources later.

 

[Cruentus]

An eclectic Platonist and polemical writer against Christianity, who flourished towards the end of the second century. Very little is known about his personal history except that he lived during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, that his literary activity falls between the years 175 and 180, and that he wrote a work entitled ’alethès lógos ("The True Word", or "The True Discourse"), against the Christian religion. He is one of several writers named Celsus who appeared as opponents of Christianity in the second century; he is probably the Celsus who was known as a friend of Lucian, although some doubt this, because Lucian's friend was an Epicurean, and the author of the "True Discourse" shows himself a Platonist. It is generally supposed that Celsus was a Roman. His intimate acquaintance, however, with the Jewish religion and his knowledge, such as it was, of Egyptian ideas and customs incline some historians to think he belonged to the Eastern portion of the empire. Those who believe him to have been a Roman explain his knowledge of Jewish and Egyptian matters by assuming that he acquired that knowledge either by travelling, or by mingling with the foreign population of Rome.

Celsus owes his prominence in the history of Christian polemics not so much to the pre-eminent character of his work, as to the circumstance that about the year 240 a copy of the work was sent to Origen by his friend Ambrosius, with a request to write a refutation of it. This Origen, after some hgesitation, consented to do, and embodied his answer in the treatise "Against Celsus" (katà Kélsou). So careful is Origen to cite the very words of his opponent that it is possible to reconstruct the text of Celsus from Origen's answer, a task which was accomplished by Jachmann in 1846, and more successfully by Keim in 1873. The original of Celsus's treatise having perished, the text reconstructed from Origen (about nine-tenths of the original has in this way been recovered) is our only primary source.

Celsus's work may be divided as follows: a preface, an attack on Christianity from the point of view of Judaism, an attack on Christianity from the point of view of philosophy, a refutation of Christian teachings in detail, and an appeal to Christians to adopt paganism. In the preface Celsus forecasts the general plan of his attack by describing in the first place the general character of Christianity and then proceeding to accuse both Christian and Jew of "separatism", that is to say, of arrogating to themselves a superior wisdom, while in reality their ideas concerning the origin of the universe, etc., are common to all peoples and to the wise men of antiquity. In the second portion, Celsus argues that Christ did not fulfil the Messianic expectations of the Hebrew people. Christ, he says, claimed to be of virgin birth; in reality, He was the son of a Jewish village woman, the wife of a carpenter. The flight into Egypt, the absence of any divine intervention in favour of the Mother of Jesus, who was driven forth with her husband, and other arguments are used to show that Christ was not the Messias. During the course of His public ministry Christ could not convince His countrymen that His mission was divine. As followers He had ten or twelve "infamous publicans and fishermen". Such is not the company that befits a god. (This is one out of many instances in which Celsus suddenly passes from the Jewish to the pagan point of view.) As to the miracles ascribed to Christ, some, said Celsus, were merely fictitious narratives, the others, if they did really take place, are not more wonderful than the deeds of the Egyptians and other adepts in the magic arts. He next proceeds (cf. Orig., "Contra Celsum", II) to upbraid those Jews who, "abandoning the law of their fathers", allowed themselves to be deceived by one whom their nation had condemned, and changed their name from Hebrew to Christian. Jesus did not fulfil His promises to the Jews; instead of succeeding as they should have expected the Messias to succeed, He failed even to keep the confidence and loyalty of His chosen followers. His alleged prediction of His death is an invention of His Disciples, and the fable of His Resurrection is nothing new to those who remember the similar stories related of Zamolxis, Pythagoras, and Rhampsinit. If Christ rose from the dead, why did He appear to His Disciples only, and not to His persecutors and to those who mocked Him?

In the third portion (cf. Origen, op. cit., III) Celsus inaugurates a general attack on Christianity from the point of view of philosophy. He upbraids both Jews and Christians with their ridiculous disagreement in matters of religion, whereas, in fact, both religions rest on the same principles: the Jews revolted from the Egyptians and the Christians from the Jews; sedition was in both cases the true cause of separation. Next, he upbraids the Christians with lack of unity among themselves; so many sects are there, and so different, that they have nothing common save the name Christian. Like almost all the pagan opponents of Christianity he finds fault with Christians because they exclude from their fellowship the "wise and good", and consort only with the ignorant and sinful. He misunderstands the Christian teaching regarding the Incarnation, "as if", he says, "God could not by His own power accomplish the work which He sent Christ on earth to accomplish". With this misunderstanding is connected Celsus's false view of the Christian teaching on the subject of Divine Providence and God's special care of mankind as compared with the plants and animals. The world, he says, was not "made for man's use and benefit", but for the perfection and completion of God's plan of the universe. In the fourth part of his "True Discourse" (cf. Origen, op. cit., V) Celsus takes up the teachings of the Christians in detail and refutes them from the point of view of the history of philosophy. Whatever is true in the doctrines of the Christians was borrowed, he contends, from the Greeks, the Christians having added nothing except their own perverse misunderstanding of the tenets of Plato, Heraclitus, Socrates, and other Greek thinkers. "The Greeks", he says, "tell us plainly what is wisdom and what is mere appearance, the Christians ask us at the outset to believe what we do not understand, and invoke the authority of one who was discredited even among his own followers." In like manner the Christian teaching concerning the Kingdom of God is merely a corruption of Plato's doctrine; when the Christians tell us that God is a spirit, they are merely repeating the saying of the Stoics that God is "a spirit penetrating all and encompassing all". Finally, the Christian idea of a future life is borrowed from the Greek poets and philosophers; the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is simply a corruption of the world-old idea of transmigration of souls. In the fifth, and last portion of his work (cf. Origen, op. cit., VII, lxii sqq.; VIII) Celsus invites the Christians to abandon their "cult" and join the religion of the majority. He defends the worship of idols, the invocation of demons (daímones), the celebration of popular feasts, urging among other considerations, that the Christian who enjoys the bounties of nature ought, in common gratitude, to render thanks to the powers of nature. He concludes his treatise by an appeal to Christians to abandon their "vain hope" of establishing the rule of Christianity over all the earth; he invites them to give up their "life apart", and take their place among those who by word and deed and active service contribute to the welfare of the empire. In an epilogue he promises another work (whether it was ever written we do not know) in which he is to explain in detail how those who would and could follow his philosophy of life should live.

The aim of Celsus's work is different from that of the other opponents of Christianity in the early centuries. He exhibits comparatively little of the bitterness which characterized their attacks. He does not descend to the lower level of pagan polemics. For instance, he omits the customary accusation of atheism, immorality, "Thyestian feasts and Œdipodean gatherings", accusations which were very commonly urged against the Christians for the purpose of rousing popular indignation. His aim was, perhaps, eirenic. His appeal to his Christian contemporaries to abandon their separatism and make common cause with the pagan subjects of the empire may have been more than a rhetorical device. It may have been inspired by a sincere wish to "convert" the Christians to an appreciation and adoption of the pagan philosophy of life. Indeed, Origen acknowledges that his opponent is not blind to the unfavourable side of pagan religion, especially to the abuses of particular cults and the absurdities of popular mythology. It is only just to Celsus, therefore, to ascribe to him all possible sincerity in his wish to "help all men", and to bring all men to the ideal of "one religion". On the other hand, Celsus's attitude towards the Christian religion was, it hardly need be said, that of a pagan not well informed on all points and devoid of that sympathy which alone would enable him to understand the meaning of the most essential tenets of Christianity. He was remarkably well read in pagan literature, and, besides, was acquainted with the religious ideas of the "barbarous" peoples.

His knowledge of Judaism and Christianity was such as could not have been obtained from books alone. He must have consorted with Jewish and Christian teachers, and with the representatives of the Gnostic sects. Hence arose the danger of confounding with the official doctrine of Christianity the tenets of a particular school of Gnostic interpretations, a danger which Celsus did not succeed in escaping, as is evident in many passages of his work, and as Origen was very careful to point out. He was acquainted with the Old Testament only in part. He used the "books of the Christians", the Gospels and, possibly, some of the Pauline Epistles, but on the latter point there is room for doubt. Celsus may have obtained his knowledge of St. Paul's teaching by conversation with Christians. There can be no doubt, however, that he used the Gospels, not merely some proto-evangelical documents, but the four narratives substantially as we have them to-day. Celsus took pains to make himself acquainted with the beliefs of his Christian contemporaries, and he is unquestionably conscious of his knowledge of Christianity. Yet, he has no suspicion of the distinction between the universally accepted teachings of the "great Church" of the Christians and the doctrines peculiar to Ophites, Marcionites, and other heretical sects. Moreover, he is, if indeed well-intentioned, yet a partisan; he adopts the current Roman notion that Christianity is merely an offshoot of Judaism; in regard to the person of Christ he exhibits none of that respect which the later Platonists manifested towards the founder of Christianity; towards the miracles ascribed to Christ he shows a sceptical spirit, at one time describing them as fables invented by the Disciples, at another paralleling them with the wonders wrought by Egyptian sorcerers; he looks upon the Resurrection of Christ as either a silly story invented by the followers of Jesus, or a ghost-apparition such as is narrated of many of the heroes of antiquity. Above all, he fails to attain a correct understanding of the doctrine of Incarnation and atonement. When he comes to speak of the manner of life of his Christian neighbours, he, in common with all his pagan fellow-writers, cannot see the reasonableness of Christian humility, nor can he reconcile with the Christian hope of conquering the world to Christ, the fact that Christian proselytizers shun encounters with the learned and powerful and seek out the poor and the sinful, women, children, and slaves, and preach the Gospel to them. His manner too, in spite of the probable eirenic scope of his work, is that of a special pleader for paganism who uses all the resources of dialectic and rhetoric, all the artifices of wit and sarcasm to make his opponents seem ridiculous. Perhaps the secret of his efforts to render Christianity ridiculous is betrayed in his open disapproval of the attitude of aloofness which Christians adopted towards the interest and welfare of the empire. "You refuse to serve the state," he says, "in peace or in war; you wish its downfall; you use all the force of your magic arts to acomplish the ruin of mankind".

Celsus anticipated in his criticism of the New Testament the objections which have in our own time become identified with the names of Strauss and Renan. Similarly, in the objections which he urged from the point of view of philosophy he anticipated in a striking manner the arguments used by modern rationalists and evolutionists. Too much stress has, perhaps, been laid on the last point. Nevertheless, it is interesting, to say the least, to find a second-century opponent of Christianity off-setting the Christian idea of a direct divine origin of man by the theory that men and animals have a common natural origin, and that the human soul is sprung from the animal soul.

Celsus is generally described as a Platonist in philosophy. This is correct, if not understood in a too exclusive sense. Although he antedates Plotinus, the first great neo-Platonist, by almost half a century, he belongs to the age of syncretism in which Greek philosophy, realizing the inadequacy of its own resources, developed an eclectic spiritualism which welcomed and strove to assimilate the religious teachings of the various Oriental peoples. This syncretic tendency was resorted to as a remedy against the materialism and scepticism in which philosophy had, as it were, run to seed. Thus Celsus draws his philosophy not only from the genuine works of Plato, but also from the pseudo-Platonic writings, especially the so-called letters of Plato, from Heraclitus, Empedocles, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and from the religious systems of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Hindus, etc. The fundamental principles, however, on which he builds this syncretic system, are Platonic. God, he teaches, is the ineffable, unknowable One, the Source of all things, Himself without source, the All-pervading Logos, the World-Soul. God is a spirit, and whatever has come directly from His hands is spirit. Material things He made through the agency of created gods. The substance of material things is eternal matter; all force is spirit (angel or demon) indwelling in matter. The human soul is divine in its origin; it was placed in the body on account of some primordial sin. All change, all growth and decay in the universe, is not the result of chance or violence but part of a plan of development in which spirits minister to the design of an all-seeing, infinitely beneficent spirit. Even the vicissitudes of the idea of God, the various religions of ancient and modern times, are, says Celsus, part of the divinely appointed scheme of things. For no matter how the religions of the world may differ among themselves, they all hold that there is one God who is supreme. Moreover, the various mythological concepts must be understood to mean the same powers (dunámeis) which are worshipped in different countries under different names. Those are the beneficent powers which give increase and fruit to the tiller of the soil. Christians are, therefore, ungrateful for the gifts of nature when the refuse to worship the deities who symbolize the forces of nature. Finally these powers, spirits, or demons, mediate between God and man, and are the immediate source of prophecy and wonder-working. This last point is important. To understand Celsus's criticism of the Gospel narrative it is necessary to remember that he was a firm believer in the possibility of cures by magic.

 

[Cruentus]

A heretical sect dating back to Apostolic times. Their name is derived from dokesis, "appearance" or "semblance", because they taught that Christ only "appeared" or "seemed to be a man, to have been born, to have lived and suffered. Some denied the reality of Christ's human nature altogether, some only the reality of His human body or of His birth or death. The word Docetae which is best rendered by "Illusionists", first occurs in a letter of Serapion, Bishop of Antioch (190-203) to the Church at Rhossos, where troubles had arisen about the public reading of the apocryphal Gospel of Peter. Serapion at first unsuspectingly allowed but soon after forbade, this, saying that he had borrowed a copy from the sect who used it, "whom we call Docetae". He suspected a connection with Marcionism and found in this Gospel "some additions to the right teaching of the Saviour". A fragment of apocryphon was discovered in 1886 and contained three passages which savoured strongly of Illusionism. The name further occurs in Clement of Alexandria (d. 216), Strom., III, xiii, VII, xvii, where these sectaries are mentioned together with the Haematites as instances of heretics being named after their own special error. The heresy itself, however, is much older, as it is combated in the New Testament. Clement mentions a certain Julius Cassianus as ho tes dokeseos exarchon, "the founder of Illusionism". This name is known also to St. Jerome and Theodoret; and Cassianus is said to be a disciple of Valentinian, but nothing more is known of him. The idea of the unreality of Christ's human nature was held by the oldest Gnostic sects and can not therefore have originated with Cassianus. As Clement distinguished the Docetae from other Gnostic sects, he problably knew some sectaries the sum-total of whose errors consisted in this illusion theory; but Docetism, as far as at present known, as always an accompaniment of Gnosticism or later of Manichaeism. The Docetae described by Hippolytus (Philos., VIII, i-iv, X, xii) are likewise a Gnostic sect; these perhaps extended their illusion theory to all material substances.

Docetism is not properly a Christian heresy at all, as it did not arise in the Church from the misundertanding of a dogma by the faithful, but rather came from without. Gnostics starting from the principle of antagonism between matter and spirit, and making all salvation consist in becoming free from the bondage of matter and returning as pure spirit to the Supreme Spirit, could not possibly accept the sentence, "the Word was made flesh", in a literal sense. In order to borrow from Christianity the doctrine of a Saviour who was Son of the Good God, they were forced to modify the doctrine of the Incarnation. Their embarrassment with this dogma caused many vacinations and inconsistencies; some holding the indwelling of an Aeon in a body which was indeed real body or humanity at all; others denying the actual objective existence of any body or humanity at all; others allowing a "psychic", but not a "hylic" or really material body; others believing in a real, yet not human "sidereal" body; others again accepting the of the body but not the reality of the birth from a woman, or the reality of the passion and death on the cross. Christ only seemed to suffer, either because He ingeniously and miraculously substituted someone else to bear the pain, or because the occurence on Calvary was a visual deception. Simon Magus first spoke of a "putative passion of Christ and blasphemously asserted that it was really he, Simon himself, who underwent these apparent sufferings. "As the angels governed this world badly because each angel coveted the principality for himself he [Simon] came to improve matters, and was transfigured and rendered like unto the Virtues and Powers and Angels, so that he appeared amongst men as man though he was no man and was believed to have suffered in Judea though he had not suffered" (passum in Judea putatum cum non esset passus -- Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I, xxiii sqq.). The mention of the demiurgic angels stamps this passage as a piece of Gnosticism. Soon after a Syrian Gnostic of Antioch, Saturninus or Saturnilus (about 125) made Christ the chief of the Aeons, but tried to show that the Savior was unborn (agenneton) and without body (asomaton) and without form (aneideon) and only apparently (phantasia) seen as man (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., XXIV, ii).

Another Syrian Gnostic, Cerdo, who came to Rome under Pope Hyginus (137) and became the master of Marcion, taught that "Christ, the Son of the Highest God, appeared without birth from the Virgin, yea without any birth on earth as man". All this is natural enough, for matter not being the creation of the Highest God but of the Demiurge, Christ could have none of it. This is clearly brought out by Tertullian in his polemic against Marcion. According to this heresiarch (140) Christ, without passing through the womb of Mary and endowed with only a putative body, suddenly came from heaven to Capharnaum in the fifteenth year of Tiberius; and Tertullian remarks: "All these tricks about a putative corporeality Marcion has adopted lest the truth of Christ's birth should be argued from the reality of his human nature, and thus Christ should be vindicated as the work of the Creator [Demiurge] and be shown to have human flesh even as he had human birth" (Adv. Marc., III, xi). Tertullian further states that Marcion's chief disciple, Apelles, sightly modified his master's system, accepting indeed the truth of Christ's flesh, but strenously denying the truth of His birth. He contended that Christ had an astral body made of superior substance, and he compared the Incarnation to the appearance of the angel to Abraham. This, Tertullian sarcastically remarks, is getting from the frying pan into fire, de calcariâ in carbonariam. Valentinus the Egyptian attempted to accommodate his system still more closely to Christian doctrine by admitting not merely the reality of the Saviour's body but even a seeming birth, saying that the Saviour's body passed through Mary as through a channel (hos dia solenos) though he took nothing from her, but had a body from above. This approximation to orthodoxy, however, was only apparent, for Valentinus distinguished between Christ and Jesus. Christ and the Holy Ghost were emanations from the Aeons together proceeded Jesus the Saviour, who became united with the Messias of the Demiurge.

In the East, Marinus and the school of Bardesanes, though not Bardesanes himself, held similar views with regard to Christ's astral body and seeming birth. In the West, Ptolemy reduced Docetism to a minimum by saying that Christ was indeed a real man, but His substance was a compound of the pneumatic and the psychic (spiritual and ethereal). The pneumatic He received from Achamoth or Wisdom, the psychic from the Demiurge, His psychic nature enabled him to suffer and feel pain, though He possessed nothing grossly material. (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., I, xii, II, iv). As the Docetae objected to the reality of the birth, so from the first they particularly objected to the reality of the passion. Hence the clumsy attempts at substitution of another victim by Basilides and others. According to Basilides, Christ seemed to men to be a man and to have performed miracles. It was not, however, Christ, who suffered but Simon of Cyrenes who was constrained to carry the cross and was mistakenly crucified in Christ's stead. Simon having received Jesus' form, Jesus returned Simon's and thus stood by and laughed. Simon was crucified and Jesus returned to his father (Irenaeus, Adv. Char., 1, xxiv). According to some apocrypha it was Judas, not Simon the Cyrenean, who was thus substituted. Hippolytus describes a Gnostic sect who took the name of Docetae, though for what reason is not apparent, especially as their semblance theory was the least pronounced feature in their system. Their views were in close affinity to those of the Valentians. The primal Being is, so to speak, the seed of a fig-tree, small in size but infinite in power; from it proceed three Aeons, tree, leaves, fruit, which, multiplied with the perfect number ten, become thirty. These thirty Aeons together fructify one of themselves, from whom proceeds the Virgin-Saviour, a perfect representation of the Highest God. The Saviour's task is to hinder further transference of souls from body to body, which is the work of the Great Archon, the Creator of the world. The Saviour enters the world unnoticed, unknown, obscure. An angel announced the glad tidings to Mary. He was born and did all the things that are written of him in the Gospels. But in baptism he received the figure and seal of another body besides that born of the Virgin. The object of this was that when the Archon condemned his own peculiar figment of flesh to the death of the cross, the soul of Jesus--that soul which had been nourished in the body born of the Virgin--might strip off that body and nail it to the accursed tree. In the pneumatic body received at baptism Jesus could triumph over the Archon, whose evil intent he had eluded.

This heresy, which destroyed the very meaning and purpose of the Incarnation, was combated even by the Apostles. Possibly St. Paul's statement that in Christ dwelt the fullness of the Godhead corporaliter (Col., i, 19, ii, 9) has some reference to Docetic errors. Beyond doubt St. John (I John, i, 1-3, iv, I-3; II John, 7) refers to this heresy; so at least it seemed to Dionysius of Alexandria (Eusebius, H. E., VII, xxv) and Tertullian (De carne Christi, xxiv). In sub-Apostolic times this sect was vigorously combated by St. Ignatius and Polycarp. The former made a warning against Docetists the burden of his letters; he speaks of them as "monsters in human shape" (therion anthropomorphon) and bids the faithful not only not to receive them but even to avoid meeting them. Pathetically he exclaims: If, as some godless men [atheoi], I mean unbelievers, say, He has suffered only in outward appearance, they themselves are nought but outward show. why am I in bonds? Why should I pray to fight with wild beasts? Then I die for nothing, then I would only be lying against the Lord" (Ad Trall. x; Eph., vii, xviii; Smyrn., i-vi). In St. Ignatius' day Docetism seems to have been closely connected with Judaism (cf. Magn viii, 1 x, 3; Phil, vi, viii). Polycarp in his letter to the Philippians re-echoes I John, iv 2- 4; to the same purpose. St. Justin nowhere expressly combats Docetic errors, but he mentions several Gnostics who were notorious for their Docetic aberrations, as Basilideans and Valentinians, and in his "Dialogue with Trypho the Jew" he strongly emphasizes the birth of Christ from the Virgin. Tertullian wrote a treatise "On the flesh of Christ" and attacked Docetic errors in his "Adversus Marcionem". Hippolytus in his "Philosophoumena" refutes Docetism in the different Gnostic errors which he enumerates and twice gives the Docetic system as above referred to.

The earlier Docetism seemed destined to die with the death of Gnosticism, when it received a long lease of life as parasitic error to another heresy, that of Manichaeism. Manichaean Gnostics started with a two-fold eternal principle, good (spirit) and evil (matter). In order to add Christian soteriology to Iranian dualism, they were forced, as the Gnostics were, to tamper with the truth of the Incarnation. Manichees distinguished between a Jesus patibilis and a Jesus impatibilis or Christ. The latter was the light as dwelling in, or symbolized by, or personified under, the name of the Sun; the former was the light as imprisoned in matter and darkness; of which light each human soul was a spark. Jesus patibilis was therefore but a sign of the speech, an abstraction of the Good, the pure light above. In the reign of Tiberius Christ appears in Judea, Son of the Eternal Light and also Son of Man; but in the latter expression "man" is a technical Manichaean term for the Logos or World-Soul; both anthropos and pneuma are emanations of the Deity. Though Christ is son of man He has only a seeming body, and only seemingly suffers, His passion being called mystical fiction of the cross. It is obvious that this doctrine borrowed from that of the Incarnation nothing but a few names. Scattered instances of Docetism are found as far West as Spain among the Priscillianists of the fourth and the fifth century. The Paulicians in Armenia and the Selicians in Constantinople fostered these errors. The Paulicians existed even in the tenth century, denying the reality of Christ's birth and appealing to Luke, vii, 20. God, according to them, sent an angel to undergo the passion. Hence they worshipped not the cross but the Gospel, Christ's word. Among the Slavs the Bogomilae renewed the ancient fancy that Jesus entered Mary's body by the right ear, and received from her but an apparent body. In the West a council of Orléans in 1022 condemned thirteen Catharist heretics for denying the reality of Christ's life and death. In modern theosophic and spiritist circles this early heresy is being renewed by ideas scarcely less fanstastic than the wildest vagaries of old.

 

[Cruentus]

The doctrine of salvation by knowledge. This definition, based on the etymology of the word (gnosis "knowledge", gnostikos, "good at knowing"), is correct as far as it goes, but it gives only one, though perhaps the predominant, characteristic of Gnostic systems of thought. Whereas Judaism and Christianity, and almost all pagan systems, hold that the soul attains its proper end by obedience of mind and will to the Supreme Power, i.e. by faith and works, it is markedly peculiar to Gnosticism that it places the salvation of the soul merely in the possession of a quasi-intuitive knowledge of the mysteries of the universe and of magic formulae indicative of that knowledge. Gnostics were "people who knew", and their knowledge at once constituted them a superior class of beings, whose present and future status was essentially different from that of those who, for whatever reason, did not know. A more complete and historical definition of Gnosticism would be:


A collective name for a large number of greatly-varying and pantheistic-idealistic sects, which flourished from some time before the Christian Era down to the fifth century, and which, while borrowing the phraseology and some of the tenets of the chief religions of the day, and especially of Christianity, held matter to be a deterioration of spirit, and the whole universe a depravation of the Deity, and taught the ultimate end of all being to be the overcoming of the grossness of matter and the return to the Parent-Spirit, which return they held to be inaugurated and facilitated by the appearance of some God-sent Saviour.
However unsatisfactory this definition may be, the obscurity, multiplicity, and wild confusion of Gnostic systems will hardly allow of another. Many scholars, moreover, would hold that every attempt to give a generic description of Gnostic sects is labour lost.

ORIGIN

The beginnings of Gnosticism have long been a matter of controversy and are still largely a subject of research. The more these origins are studied, the farther they seem to recede in the past. Whereas formerly Gnosticism was considered mostly a corruption of Christianity, it now seems clear that the first traces of Gnostic systems can be discerned some centuries before the Christian Era. Its Eastern origin was already maintained by Gieseler and Neander; F. Ch. Bauer (1831) and Lassen (1858) sought to prove its relation to the religions of India; Lipsius (1860) pointed to Syria and Phoenicia as its home, and Hilgenfeld (1884) thought it was connected with later Mazdeism. Joel (1880), Weingarten (1881), Koffmane (1881), Anrich (1894), and Wobbermin (1896) sought to account for the rise of Gnosticism by the influence of Greek Platonic philosophy and the Greek mysteries, while Harnack described it as "acute Hellenization of Christianity". For the past twenty-five years, however, the trend of scholarship has steadily moved towards proving the pre-Christian Oriental origins of Gnosticism. At the Fifth Congress of Orientalists (Berlin, 1882) Kessler brought out the connection between Gnosis and the Babylonian religion. By this latter name, however, he meant not the original religion of Babylonia, but the syncretistic relgion which arose after the conquest of Cyrus. The same idea is brought out in his "Mani" seven years later. In the same year F.W. Brandt published his "Mandiäische Religion". This Mandaean religion is so unmistakably a form of Gnosticism that it seems beyond doubt that Gnosticism existed independent of, and anterior to, Christianity. In more recent years (1897) Wilhelm Anz pointed out the close similarity between Babylonian astrology and the Gnostic theories of the Hebdomad and Ogdoad. Though in many instances speculations on the Babylonian Astrallehre have gone beyond all sober scholarship, yet in this particular instance the inferences made by Anz seem sound and reliable. Researches in the same direction were continued and instituted on a wider scale by W. Bousset, in 1907, and led to carefully ascertained results. In 1898 the attempt was made by M. Friedländer to trace Gnosticism in pre-Christian Judaism. His opinion that the Rabbinic term Minnim designated not Christians, as was commonly believed, but Antinomian Gostics, has not found universal acceptance. In fact, E. Schürer brought sufficient proof to show that Minnim is the exact Armaean dialectic equivalent for ethne. Nevertheless Friedländer's essay retains its value in tracing strong antinomian tendencies with Gnostic colouring on Jewish soil. Not a few scholars have laboured to find the source of Gnostic theories on Hellenistic and, specifically, Alexandrian soil. In 1880 Joel sought to prove that the germ of all Gnostic theories was to be found in Plato. Though this may be dismissed as an exaggeration, some Greek influence on the birth, but especially on the growth, of Gnosticism cannot be denied. In Trismegistic literature, as pointed out by Reitzenstein (Poimandres, 1904), we find much that is strangely akin to Gnosticism. Its Egyptian origin was defended by E. Amélineau, in 1887, and illustrated by A. Dietrich, in 1891 (Abraxas Studien) and 1903 (Mithrasliturgie). The relation of Plotinus's philosophy to Gnosticsm was brought out by C. Schmidt in 1901. That Alexandrian thought had some share at least in the development of Christian Gnosticism is clear from the fact that the bulk of Gnostic literature which we possess comes to us from Egyptian (Coptic) sources. That this share was not a predominant one is, however, acknowledged by O. Gruppe in his "Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte" (1902). It is true that the Greek mysteries, as G. Anrich pointed out in 1894, had much in common with esoteric Gnosticism; but there remains the further question, in how far these Greek mysteries, as they are known to us, were the genuine product of Greek thought, and not much rather due to the overpowering influence of Orientalism.

Although the origins of Gnosticism are still largely enveloped in obscurity, so much light has been shed on the problem by the combined labours of many scholars that it is possible to give the following tentative solution: Although Gnosticism may at first sight appear a mere thoughtless syncretism of well nigh all religious systems in antiquity, it has in reality one deep root-principle, which assimilated in every soil what is needed for its life and growth; this principle is philosophical and religious pessimism. The Gnostics, it is true, borrowed their terminology almost entirely from existing religions, but they only used it to illustrate their great idea of the essential evil of this present existence and the duty to escape it by the help of magic spells and a superhuman Saviour. Whatever they borrowed, this pessimism they did not borrow -- not from Greek thought, which was a joyous acknowledgment of and homage to the beautiful and noble in this world, with a studied disregard of the element of sorrow; not from Egyptian thought, which did not allow its elaborate speculations on retribution and judgment in the netherworld to cast a gloom on this present existence, but considered the universe created or evolved under the presiding wisdom of Thoth; not from Iranian thought, which held to the absolute supremacy of Ahura Mazda and only allowed Ahriman a subordinate share in the creation, or rather counter-creation, of the world; not from Indian Brahminic thought, which was Pantheism pure and simple, or God dwelling in, nay identified with, the universe, rather than the Universe existing as the contradictory of God; not, lastly, from Semitic thought, for Semitic religions were strangely reticent as to the fate of the soul after death, and saw all practical wisdom in the worship of Baal, or Marduk, or Assur, or Hadad, that they might live long on this earth. This utter pessimism, bemoaning the existence of the whole universe as a corruption and a calamity, with a feverish craving to be freed from the body of this death and a mad hope that, if we only knew, we could by some mystic words undo the cursed spell of this existence -- this is the foundation of all Gnostic thought. It has the same parent-soil as Buddhism; but Buddhism is ethical, it endeavours to obtain its end by the extinction of all desire; Gnosticism is pseudo-intellectual, and trusts exclusively to magical knowledge. Moreover, Gnosticism, placed in other historical surroundings, developed from the first on other lines than Buddhism.

When Cyrus entered Babylon in 539 B.C., two great worlds of thought met, and syncretism in religion, as far as we know it, began. Iranian thought began to mix with the ancient civilization of Babylon. The idea of the great struggle between evil and good, ever continuing in this universe, is the parent idea of Mazdeism, or Iranian dualism. This, and the imagined existence of numberless intermediate spirits, angels and devas, as the conviction which overcame the contentedness of Semitism. On the other hand, the unshakable trust, in astrology, the persuasion that the planetary system had a fatalistic influence on this world's affairs, stood its ground on the soil of Chaldea. The greatness of the Seven -- the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, the Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn -- the sacred Hebdomad, symbolized for millenniums by the staged towers of Babylonia, remained undiminished. They ceased, indeed, to be worshipped as deities, but they remained archontes and dynameis, rules and powers whose almost irresistible force was dreaded by man. Practically, they were changed from gods to devas, or evil spirits. The religions of the invaders and of the invaded effected a compromise: the astral faith of Babylon was true, but beyond the Hebodomad was the infinite light in the Ogdoad, and every human soul had to pass the adverse influence of the god or gods of the Hebdomad before it could ascend to the only good God beyond. This ascent of the soul through the planetary spheres to the heaven beyond (an idea not unknown even to ancient Babylonian speculations) began to be conceived as a struggle with adverse powers, and became the first and predominant idea in Gnosticism. The second great component of Gnostic thought is magic, properly so called, i.e. the power ex opere operato of weird names, sounds, gestures, and actions, as also the mixture of elements to produce effects totally disproportionate to the cause. These magic formulae, which caused laughter and disgust to outsiders, are not a later and accidental corruption, but an essential part of Gnosticism, for they are found in all forms of Christian Gnosticism and likewise in Mandaeism. No Gnosis was essentially complete without the knowledge of the formulae, which, once pronounced, were the undoing of the higher hostile powers. Magic is the original sin of Gnosticism, nor is it difficult to guess whence it is inherited. To a certain extent it formed part of every pagan religion, especially the ancient mysteries, yet the thousands of magic tablets unearthed is Assyria and Babylonia show us where the rankest growth of magic was to be found. Moreover, the terms and names of earliest of Gnosticism bear an unmistakable similarity to Semitic sounds and words. Gnosticism came early into contact with Judaism, and it betrays a knowledge of the Old Testament, if only to reject it or borrow a few names from it. Considering the strong, well-organized, and highly-cultured Jewish colonies in the Euphrates valley, this early contact with Judaism is perfectly natural. Perhaps the Gnostic idea of a Redeemer is not unconnected with Jewish Messianic hopes. But from the first the Gnostic conception of a Saviour is more superhuman than that of popular Judaism; their Manda d'Haye, or Soter, is some immediate manifestation of the Deity, a Light-King, an Æon (Aion), and an emanation of the good God. When Gnosticism came in touch with Christianity, which must have happened almost immediately on its appearance, Gnosticism threw herself with strange rapidity into Christian forms of thought, borrowed its nomenclature, acknowledged Jesus as Saviour of the world, simulated its sacraments, pretended to be an esoteric revelation of Christ and His Apostles, flooded the world with aprocryphal Gospels, and Acts, and Apocalypses, to substantiate its claim. As Christianity grew within and without the Roman Empire, Gnosticism spread as a fungus at its root, and claimed to be the only true form of Christianity, unfit, indeed, for the vulgar crowd, but set apart for the gifted and the elect. So rank was its poisonous growth that there seemed danger of its stifling Christianity altogether, and the earliest Fathers devoted their energies to uprooting it. Though in reality the spirit of Gnosticism is utterly alien to that of Christianity, it then seemed to the unwary merely a modification or refinement thereof. When domiciled on Greek soil, Gnosticism, slightly changing its barbarous and Seminitic terminology and giving its "emanatons" and"syzygies" Greek names, sounded somewhat like neo-Platonism, thought it was strongly repudiated by Plotinus. In Egypt the national worship left its mark more on Gnostic practice than on its theories.

In dealing with the origins of Gnosticism, one might be tempted to mention Manichaeism, as a number of Gnostic ideas seem to be borrowed from Manichaeism, where they are obviously at home. This, however, would hardly be correct. Manichaeism, as historically connected with Mani, its founder, could not have arisen much earlier than A.D. 250, when Gnosticism was already in rapid decline. Manichaeism, however, in many of its elements dates back far beyond its commonly accepted founder; but then it is a parallel development with the Gnosis, rather than one of its sources. Sometimes Manichaeism is even classed as a form of Gnosticism and styled Parsee Gnosis, as distinguished from Syrian and Egyptian Gnosis. This classification, however, ignores the fact that the two systems, though they have the doctrine of the evil of matter in common, start from different principles, Manichaeism from dualism, while Gnosticism, as an idealistic Pantheism, proceeds from the conception of matter as a gradual deterioration of the Godhead.

DOCTRINES

Owing to the multiplicity and divergence of Gnostic theories, a detailed exposition in this article would be unsatisfactory and confusing and to acertain extent even misleading, since Gnosticism never possessed a nucleus of stable doctrine, or any sort of depositum fidei round which a number of varied developments and heresies or sects might be grouped; at most it had some leading ideas, which are more or less clearly traceable in different schools. Moreover, a fair idea of Gnostic doctrines can be obtained from the articles on leaders and phases of Gnostic thought (e.g. BASILIDES; VALENTINUS; MARCION; DOCETAE; DEMIURGE). We shall here only indicate some main phases of thought, which can be regarded as keys and which, though not fitting all systems, will unlock most of the mysteries of the Gnosis.

(a) Cosmogony

Gnosticism is thinly disguised Pantheism. In the beginning was the Depth; the Fulness of Being; the Not-Being God; the First Father, the Monad, the Man; the First Source, the unknown God (Bythos pleroma, ouk on theos, propator, monas, anthropos, proarche, hagnostos theos), or by whatever other name it might be called. This undefined infinite Something, though it might be addressed by the title of the Good God, was not a personal Being, but, like Tad of Brahma of the Hindus, the "Great Unknown" of modern thought. The Unknown God, however, was in the beginning pure spirituality; matter as yet was not. This source of all being causes to emanate (proballei) from itself a number of pure spirit forces. In the different systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described, but the emanation theory itself is common too all forms of Gnosticism. In the Basilidian Gnosis they are called sonships (uiotetes), in Valentinianism they form antithetic pairs or "syzygies" (syzygoi); Depth and Silence produce Mind and Truth; these produce Reason and Life, these again Man and State (ekklesia). According to Marcus, they are numbers and sounds. These are the primary roots of the Æons. With bewildering fertility hierarchies of Æons are thus produced, sometimes to the number of thirty. These Æons belong to the purely ideal, noumenal, intelligible, or supersensible world; they are immaterial, they are hypostatic ideas. Together with the source from which they emanate they form the pleroma. The transition fromthe immaterial to the material, from the noumenal to the sensible, is brought about by a flaw, or a passion, or a sin, in one of the Æons. According to Basilides, it is a flaw in the last sonship; according to others it is the passion of the female Æon Sophia; according to others the sin ofthe Great Archon, or Æon-Creator, of the Universe. The ultimate end of all Gnosis is metanoia, or repentance, the undoing of the sin of material existence and the return to the Pleroma.

(b) Sophia-Myth

In the greater number of Gnostic systems an important role is played by the Æon Wisdom -- Sophia or Achamoth. In some sense she seems to represent the supreme female principle, as for instance in the Ptolemaic system, in which the mother of the seven heavens is called Achamoth, in the Valentinian system, in which he ano Sophia, the Wisdom above, is distinguished from he kato Sophia, or Achamoth, the former being the female principle of the noumenal world, and in the Archotian system, where we find a "Lightsome Mother" (he meter he photeine), and in which beyond the heavens of the Archons is he meter ton panton and likewise in the Barbelognosis, where the female Barbelos is but the counterpart of the Unknown Father, which also occurs amongst the Ophites described by Irenaeus (Adv. Haeres., III, vii, 4). Moreover, the Eucharistic prayer in the Acts of Thomas (ch. 1) seems addressed to this supreme female principle. W. Bousset's suggestion, that the Gnostic Sophia is nothing else than a disguise for the Dea Syra, the great goddess Istar, or Astarte, seems worthy of consideration. On the other hand, the Æon Sophia usually plays another role; she is he Prouneikos or "the Lustful One", once a virginal goddess, who by her fall from original purity is the cause of this sinful material world. One of the earliest forms of this myth is found in Simonian Gnosis, in which Simon, the Great Power, finds Helena, who during ten years had been a prostitute in Tyre, but who is Simon's ennoia, or understanding, and whom his followers worshipped under the form of Athena, the goddess of wisdom. According to Valentinus's system, as described by Hippolytus (Book VI, xxv-xxvi), Sophia is the youngest of the twenty-eight æons. Observing the multitude of æons and the power of begetting them, she hurries back into the depth of the Father, and seeks to emulate him by producing offspring without conjugal intercourse, but only projects an abortion, a formless substance. Upon this she is cast out of Pleroma. According to the Valentinian system as described by Irenaeus (op. cit., I) and Tertullian (Adv. Valent., ix), Sophia conceives a passion for the First Father himself, or rather, under pretext of love she seeks to know him, the Unknowable, and to comprehend his greatness. She should have suffered the consequence of her audacity by ultimate dissolution into the immensity of the Father, but for the Boundary Spirit. According to the Pistis Sophia (ch. xxix) Sophia, daughter of Barbelos, originally dwelt in the highest, or thirteenth heaven, but she is seduced by the demon Authades by means of a ray of light, which she mistook as an emanation from the First Father. Authades thus enticed her into Chaos below the twelve Æons, where she was imprisoned by evil powers. According to these ideas, matter is the fruit of the sin of Sophia; this, however, was but a Valentinian development; in the older speculations the existence of matter is tacitly presupposed as eternal with the Pleroma, and through her sin Sophia falls from the realm of light into Chaos or realm of darkness. This original dualism, however, was overcome by the predominant spirit of Gnosticism, pantheistic emanationism. The Sophia myth is completely absent from the Basilidian and kindred systems. It is suggested, with great verisimilitude, that the Egyptian myth of Isis was the original source of the Gnostic "lower wisdom". In many systems this Kato Sophia is sharply distinguished from the Higher Wisdom mentioned above; as, for instance, in the magic formula for the dead mentioned by Irenaeus (op. cit., I, xxi, 5), in which the departed has to address the hostile archons thus: "I am a vessel more precious than the female who made you. If your mother ignores the source whence she is, I know myself, and I known whence I am and invoke the incorruptible Sophia, whois in the Father, the mother of your mother, who has neither father nor husband. A man-woman, born from a woman, has made you, not knowing her mother, but thinking herself alone. But I invoke her mother." This agrees with the system minutely described by Irenaeus (op. cit., I, iv-v), where Sophia Achamoth, or Lower Wisdom, the daughter of Higher Wisdom, becomes the mother of the Demiurge; she being the Ogdoad, her son the Hebdomad, they form a counterpart of the heavenly Ogdoad in the Pleromata. This is evidently a clumsy attempt to fuse into one two systems radically different, the Basilidian and the Valentinian; the ignorance of the Great Archon, which is the central idea of Basilides, is here transferred to Sophia, and the hybrid system ends in bewildering confusion.

(c) Soteriology

Gnostic salvation is not merely individual redemption of each human soul; it is a cosmic process. It is the return of all things to what they were before the flaw in the sphere of the Æons brought matter into existence and imprisoned some part of the Divine Light into the evil Hyle (Hyle). This setting free of the light sparks is the process of salvation; when all light shall have left Hyle, it will be burnt up, destroyed, or be a sort of everlasting hell for the Hylicoi. In Basilidianism it is the Third Filiation that is captive in matter, and is gradually being saved, now that the knowledge of its existence has been brought to the first Archon and then to the Second Archon, to each by his respective Son; and the news has been spread through the Hebdomad by Jesus the son of Mary, who died to redeem the Third Filiation. In Valentinianism the process is extraordinarily elaborate. When this world has been born from Sophia in consequence of her sin, Nous and Aletheia, two Æons, by command of the Father, produce two new Æons, Christ and the Holy Ghost; these restore order in the Pleroma, and in consequence all Æons together produce a new Æon, Jesus Logos, Soter, or Christ, whom they offer to the Father. Christ, the Son of Nous and Aletheia, has pity on the abortive substance born of Sophia and gives it essence and form. Whereupon Sophia tries to rise again to the Father, but in vain. Now the Æon Jesus-Soter is sent as second Saviour, he unites himself to the man Jesus, the son of Mary, at his baptism, and becomes the Saviour of men. Man is a creature of the Demiurge, a compound of soul, body, and spirit. His salvation consists in the return of his pneuma or spirit to the Pleroma; or if he be only a Psychicist, not a full Gnostic, his soul (psyche) shall return to Achamoth. There is no resurrection of the body. (For further details and differences see VALENTINUS.)

In Marcionism, the most dualistic phase of Gnosticism, salvation consisted in the possession of the knowledge of the Good God and the rejection ofthe Demiurge. The Good God revealed himself in Jesus and appeared as man in Judea; to know him, and to become entirely free from the yoke of the World-Creator or God of the Old Testament, is the end of all salvation. The Gnostic Saviour, therefore, is entirely different from the Christian one. For

the Gnostic Saviour does not save. Gnosticism lacks the idea of atonement. There is no sin to be atoned for, except ignorance be that sin. Nor does the Saviour in any sense benefit the human race by vicarious sufferings. Nor, finally, does he immediately and actively affect any individual human soul by the power of grace or draw it to God. He was a teacher, he once brought into the world the truth, which alone can save. As a flame sets naphtha on fire, so the Saviour's light ignites predisposed souls moving down the stream of time. Of a real Saviour who with love human and Divine seeks out sinners to save them, Gnosticism knows nothing.
The Gnostic Saviour has no human nature, he is an æon, not a man; he only seemed a man, as the three Angels who visited Abraham seemed to be men. (For a detailed exposition see DOCETAE.) The Æon Soter is brought into the strangest relation to Sophia: in some systems he is her brother, in others her son, in other again her spouse. He is sometimes identified with Christ, sometimes with Jesus; sometimes Christ and Jesus are the same æon, sometimes they are different; sometimes Christ and the Holy Ghost are identified. Gnosticism did its best to utilize the Christian concept of the Holy Ghost, but never quite succeeded. She made him the Horos, or Methorion Pneuma (Horos, Metherion Pneuma), the Boundary-Spirit, the Sweet Odour of the Second Filiation, a companion æon with Christos, etc., etc. In some systems he is entirely left out.
(d) Eschatology

It is the merit of recent scholarship to have proved that Gnostic eschatology, consisting in the soul's struggle with hostile archons in its attempt to reach the Pleroma, is simply the soul's ascent, in Babylonian astrology, through the realms of the seven planets to Anu. Origen (Contra Celsum, VI, xxxi), referring to the Ophitic system, gives us the names of the seven archons as Jaldabaoth, Jao, Sabaoth, Adonaios, Astaphaios, Ailoaios, and Oraios, and tells us that Jaldabaoth is the planet Saturn. Astraphaios is beyond doubt the planet Venus, as there are gnostic gems with a female figure and the legend ASTAPHE, which name is also used in magic spells as the name of a goddess. In the Mandaean system Adonaios represents the Sun. Moreover, St. Irenaeus tells us: "Sanctam Hebdomadem VII stellas, quas dictunt planetas, esse volunt." It is safe, therefore, to take the above seven Gnostic names as designating the seven stars, then considered planets,

Jaldabaoth (Child of Chaos? -- Saturn, called "the Lion-faced", leontoeides) is the outermost, and therefore the chief ruler, and later on the Demiurge par excellence.
Jao (Iao, perhaps from Jahu, Jahveh, but possibly also from the magic cry iao in the mysteries) is Jupiter.
Sabaoth (the Old-Testament title -- God of Hosts) was misunderstood; "of hosts" was thought a proper name, hence Jupiter Sabbas (Jahve Sabaoth) was Mars.
Astaphaios (taken from magic tablets) was Venus.
Adonaios (from the Hebrew term for "the Lord", used of God; Adonis of the Syrians representing the Winter sun in the cosmic tragedy of Tammuz) was the Sun;
Ailoaios, or sometimes Ailoein (Elohim, God), Mercury;
Oraios (Jaroah? or light?), the Moon.
In the hellenized form of Gnosticism either all or some of these names are replaced by personified vices. Authadia (Authades), or Audacity, is the obvious description of Jaldabaoth, the presumptuous Demiurge, who is lion-faced as the Archon Authadia. Of the Archons Kakia, Zelos, Phthonos, Errinnys, Epithymia, the last obviously represents Venus. The number seven is obtained by placing a proarchon or chief archon at the head. That these names areonly a disguise for the Sancta Hebdomas is clear, for Sophia, the mother of them, retains the name of Ogdoas, Octonatio. Occasionally one meets with the Archon Esaldaios, which is evidently the El Shaddai of the Bible, and he is described as the Archon "number four" (harithmo tetartos) and must represent the Sun. In the system of the Gnostics mentioned by Epiphanius we find, as the Seven Archons, Iao, Saklas, Seth, David, Eloiein, Elilaios, and Jaldabaoth (or no. 6 Jaldaboath, no. 7 Sabaoth). Of these, Saklas is the chief demon of Manichaeism; Elilaios is probably connected with En-lil, the Bel of Nippur, the ancient god of Babylonia. In this, as in several other systems, the traces of the planetary seven have been obscured, but hardly in any have they become totally effaced. What tended most to obliterate the sevenfold distinction was the identification of the God of the Jews, the Lawgiver, with Jaldabaoth and his designation as World-creator, whereas formerly the seven planets together ruled the world. This confusion, however, was suggested by the very fact that at least five of the seven archons bore Old-Testament names for God -- El Shaddai, Adonai, Elohim, Jehovah, Sabaoth.
(e) Doctrine of the Primeval Man

The speculations on Primeval Man (Protanthropos, Adam) occupy a prominent place in several Gnostic systems. According to Irenaeus (I, xxix, 3) the Æon Autogenes emits the true and perfect Anthrôpos, also called Adamas; he has a helpmate, "Perfect Knowledge", and receives an irresistible force, so that all things rest in him. Others say (Irenaeus, I, xxx) there is a blessed and incorruptible and endless light in the power of Bythos; this is the Father of all things who is invoked as the First Man, who, with his Ennœa, emits "the Son of Man", or Euteranthrôpos. According to Valentinus, Adam was created in the name of Anthrôpos and overawes the demons by the fear of the pre-existent man (tou proontos anthropou). In the Valentinian syzygies and in the Marcosian system we meet in the fourth (originally the third) place Anthrôpos and Ecclesia. In the Pistis Sophia the Æon Jeu is called the First Man, he is the overseer of the Light, messenger of the First Precept, and constitutes the forces of the Heimarmene. In the Books of the Jeu this "great Man" is the King of the Light-treasure, he is enthroned above all things and is the goal of all souls. According to the Naassenes, the Protanthropos is the first element; the fundamental being before its differentiation into individuals. "The Son of Man" is the same being after it has been individualized into existing things and thus sunk into matter. The Gnostic Anthrôpos, therefore, or Adamas, as it is sometimes called, is a cosmogonic element, pure mind as distinct from matter, mind conceived hypostatically as emanating from God and not yet darkened by contact with matter. This mind is considered as the reason of humanity, or humanity itself, as a personified idea, a category without corporeality, the human reason conceived as the World-Soul. This speculation about the Anthrôpos is completely developed in Manichaeism, where, in fact, it is the basis of the whole system. God, in danger of the power of darkness, creates with the help of the Spirit, the five worlds, the twelve elements, and the Eternal Man, and makes him combat the darkness. But this Man is somehow overcome by evil and swallowed up by darkness. The present universe is in throes to deliver the captive Man from the powers of darkness. In the Clementine Homilies the cosmogonic Anthrôpos is strangely mixed up with the historical figure of the first man, Adam. Adam "was the true prophet, running through all ages, and hastening to rest"; "the Christ, who was from the beginning and is always, who was ever present to every generation in a hidden manner indeed, yet ever present". In fact Adam was, to use Modernist language, the Godhead immanent in the world and ever manifesting itself to the inner consciousness of the elect. The same idea, somewhat modified, occurs in Hermetic literature, especially the "Poimandres". It is elaborated by Philo, makes an ingenious distinction between the human being created first "after God's image and likeness" and the historic figures of Adam and Eve created afterwards. Adam kat eikona is: "Idea, Genus, Character, belonging to the world, of Understanding, without body, neither male nor female; he is the Beginning, the Name of God, the Logos, immortal, incorruptible" (De opif. mund., 134-148; De conf. ling.,146). These ideas in Talmudism, Philonism, Gnosticism, and Trismegistic literature, all come from once source, the late Mazdea development of the Gayomarthians, or worshipper of the Super-Man.

(f) The Barbelo

This Gnostic figure, appearing in a number of systems, the Nicolaites, the "Gnostics" of Epiphanius, the Sethians, the system of the "Evangelium Mariae" and that in Iren., I, xxix, 2 sq., remains to a certain extent an enigma. The name barbelo, barbeloth, barthenos has not been explained with certainty. In any case she represents the supreme female principle, is in fact the highest Godhead in its female aspect. Barbelo has most of the functions of the ano Sophia as described above. So prominent was her place amongst some Gnostics that some schools were designated as Barbeliotae, Barbelo worshippers of Barbelognostics. She is probably none other than the Light-Maiden of the Pistis Sophia, the thygater tou photos or simply the Maiden, parthenos. In Epiphanius (Haer., xxvi, 1) and Philastrius (Haer., xxxiii) Parthenos (Barbelos) seems identical with Noria, whoplays a great role as wife either of Noe or of Seth. The suggestion, that Noria is "Maiden", parthenos, Istar, Athena, Wisdom, Sophia, or Archamoth, seems worthy of consideration.

RITES

We are not so well informed about the practical and ritual side of Gnosticism as we are about its doctrinal and theoretical side. However, St. Irenaeus's account of the Marcosians, Hippolytus's account of the Elcesaites,the liturgical portions of the "Acta Thomae", some passages in the Pseudo-Clementines, and above all Coptic Gnostic and Mandaean literature gives us at least some insight into their liturgical practices.
(a) Baptism

All Gnostic sects possessed this rite in some way; in Mandaeism daily baptism is one of the great practices of the system. The formulae used by Christian Gnostics seem to have varied widely from that enjoyed by Christ. The Marcosians said: "In [eis] the name of the unknown Father of all, in [eis] the Truth, the Mother of all, in him, who came down on Jesus [eis ton katelthonta eis Iesoun]". The Elcesaites said: "In [en] the name of the great and highest God and in the name of his Son, the great King". In Iren. (I, xxi, 3) we find the formula: "In the name that was hidden from every divinity and lordship and truth, which [name] Jesus the Nazarene has put on in the regions of light" and several other formulae, which were sometimes pronounced in Hebrew or Aramaid. The Mandaeans said: "The name of the Life and the name of the Manda d'Haye is named over thee". In connection with Baptism the Sphragis was of great importance; in what the seal or sign consisted wherewith they were marked is not easy to say. There was also the tradition of a name either by utterance or by handing a tablet with some mystic word on it.

(b) Confirmation

The anointing of the candidate with chrism, or odoriferous ointment, is a Gnostic rite which overshadows the importance of baptism. In the "Acta Thomae", so some scholars maintain, it had completely replaced baptism, and was the sole sacrament of initiation. This however is not yet proven. The Marcosians went so far as to reject Christian baptism and to substitute a mixture of oil and water which they poured over the head of the candidate. By confirmation the Gnostics intended not so much to give the Holy Ghost as to seal the candidates against the attacks of the archons, or to drive them away by the sweet odour which is above all things (tes uter ta hola euodias). The balsam was somehow supposed to have flowed from the Tree of Life, and this tree was again mystically connected with the Cross; for the chrism is in the "Acta Thomae" called "the hidden mystery in which the Cross is shown to us".

(c) The Eucharist

It is remarkable that so little is known of the Gnostic substitute for the Eucharist. In a number of passages we read of the breaking of the bread, but in what this consisted is not easy to determine. The use of salt in this rite seems to have been important (Clem., Hom. xiv), for we read distinctly how St. Peter broke the bread of the Eucharist and "putting salt thereon, he gave first to the mother and then to us". There is furthermore a great likelihood, though no certainty, that the Eucharist referred to in the "Acta "Thomae" was merely a breaking of bread without the use of the cup. This point is strongly controverted, but the contrary can hardly be proven. It is beyond doubt that the Gnostics often substituted water for the wine (Acta Thomae, Baptism of Mygdonia, ch. cxxi). What formula of consecration was used we do not know, but the bread was certainly signed with the Cross. It is to be noted that the Gnostics called the Eucharist by Christian sacrificial terms -- prosphora, "oblation", Thysia (II bk. of Jeû, 45). In the Coptic Books (Pistis Sophia, 142; II Jeû, 45-47) we find a long description of some apparently Eucharistic ceremonies carried out by Jesus Himself. In these fire and incense, two flasks, and also two cups, one with water, the other with wine, and branches of the vine are used. Christ crows the Apostles with olive wreaths, begs Melchisedech to come and change wine into water for baptism, puts herbs in the Apostles' mouths and hands. Whether these actions in some sense reflect the ritual of Gnosticism, or are only imaginations of the author, cannot be decided. The Gnostics seem also to have used oil sacramentally for the healing of the sick, and even the dead were anointed by them to be rendered safe and invisible in their transit through the realms of the archons.

(d) The Nymphôn

They possessed a special Gnostic sacrament of the bridechamber (nymphon) in which, through some symbolical actions, their souls were wedded to their angels in the Pleroma. Details of its rites are not as yet known. Tertullian no doubt alluded to them in the words "Eleusinia fecerunt lenocinia".

(e) The Magic Vowels

An extraordinary prominence is given to the utterance of the vowels: alpha, epsilon, eta, iota, omicron, upsilon, omega. The Saviour and His disciples are supposed in the midst of their sentences to have broken out in an interminable gibberish of only vowels; magic spells have come down to us consisting of vowels by the fourscore; on amulets the seven vowels, repeated according to all sorts of artifices, form a very common inscription. Within the last few years these Gnostic vowels, so long a mystery, have been the object of careful study by Ruelle, Poirée, and Leclercq, and it may be considered proven that each vowel represents one of the seven planets, or archons; that the seven together represent the Universe, but without consonants they represent the Ideal and Infinite not yet imprisoned and limited by matter; that they represent a musical scale, probably like the Gregorian 1 tone re-re, or d, e, f, g, a, b, c, and many a Gnostic sheet of vowels is in fact a sheet of music. But research on this subject has only just begun. Among the Gnostics the Ophites were particularly fond of representing their cosmogonic speculations by diagrams, circles within circles, squares, and parallel lines, and other mathematical figures combined, with names written within them. How far these sacred diagrams were used as symbols in their liturgy, we do not know.

 

[Cruentus]

The significance is (drum roll)....

These folks didn't try to prove that Jesus was not "REAL"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you....thank you very much...

O.K....ya got me though. They DID try to say that Christ never had a body. They believed that he was a spirit who did his deeds through sorcery and magic spells. They believed that they could too be that powerful through magic. So, if you are using this as a reference, you either accept this belief, or you are sorely mistakenly thinking that they are supporting the idea that Jesus was made up.

So...now let's see who's history we should believe.

#1.The Gnostics, Docetists, and Celsus say in their history that Jesus was in fact "REAL," but he was a spirit who performed magic.

#2. Modern Day Skeptics who believe that Jesus was a made up character, with no IMPERICAL evidence, or even non-imperical evidence to support this claim.

#3. Christian History says Jesus was a real person who is the messiah.

#4. MOST of the rest of the educated world says in their history, at the very least, that Jesus was a REAL person who had a following of people who BELIEVED he was the Messiah.

Hmmmmm......I think at the very least, if I am logical, and if my brain functions on this planet, I am going to go for that he was at least a real person. At least. AT LEAST # 4. Now...I personally would take it a step up and pick #3, but that is just me.

But #2 with no evidence (or, less evidence then #4 at least)? Or #1, that he was a spirit using magic spells!?!?!? Come on! Let's wake up to the real world.

 

[Cruentus]

Originally posted by r erman
STOP DEBATING!!!


PAUL. It's been fun "talking" with you. You ain't bad for a christian BTW, I assumed you were fundamentalist, but a level-headed one. I wasn't refering to you when I mentioned me not trafficking with fundies.

LOL thanks man. Dude...fundamentalist!?!?! Catholic, I say Catholic! :soapbox: Oh well...I guess I don't sound Catholic here.