Coptic Christian "lot oracle" text

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ficino
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Coptic Christian "lot oracle" text

Post by ficino »

review of text, translation, comm. of fifth- or sixth-century Coptic oracle text:

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2014/2014-12-17.html

It entitles itself The Gospel of the Lots of Mary. It is not a "gospel" in the sense of a bio of Jesus. It is a handbook for Christian divination by means of lots, and it gives 37 oracular answers. The practice of divination by lots, as also by randomly opening the bible (bibliomancy) was forbidden by the authorities but widely practiced; hence the small size of the codex.
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Coptic Christian "lot oracle" text

Post by Leucius Charinus »

Fascinating stuff. Thanks ficino.
  • She argues that in late antiquity for many the term euangelion had become synonym with ‘sacred book’ and the author capitalized on the awe this term provoked. “In commencing with the word Gospel, the author of our divinatory text intentionally tapped both into the ritual connotation of the term gospel and its status as sacred book” (24). In addition to that, as she demonstrates, the term euangelion was still used in its original sense of ‘good news’ or ‘positive message.’ That this gospel is said to be a message of Mary is to be viewed in the context of the flourishing of Mariolatry in late ancient Egypt. “In attributing the divinatory good news to the exchange between Gabriel and Mary [see Luke 1], each individual consultation of the oracular answers in the codex becomes an imitation, a reenactment of that divine communication”
Reminds me of an unofficial underground press which was very active in the Roman empire once the empire realised it was subject to a "sacred book".



LC
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
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DCHindley
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Re: Coptic Christian "lot oracle" text

Post by DCHindley »

Leucius Charinus wrote:Reminds me of an unofficial underground press which was very active in the Roman empire once the empire realised it was subject to a "sacred book".
Could you give some details? The closest thing I can think of is the Neo-Platonist shift to using the Chaldean Oracles as a sort of a sacred text to give Platonism a "revealed religion" look and feel, apparently in competition with revealed belief systems such as Judaism and Christianity.

I am not aware of an "underground press" movement to counter Christianity, though. While philosophers were occasionally suppressed by some Christian emperors, they were mostly operating out in the open, serving in Roman government, etc.

DCH (must rush off to work now ... boo hoo!) :goodmorning:
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Coptic Christian "lot oracle" text

Post by Leucius Charinus »

DCHindley wrote:
Leucius Charinus wrote:Reminds me of an unofficial underground press which was very active in the Roman empire once the empire realised it was subject to a "sacred book".
Could you give some details? The closest thing I can think of is the Neo-Platonist shift to using the Chaldean Oracles as a sort of a sacred text to give Platonism a "revealed religion" look and feel, apparently in competition with revealed belief systems such as Judaism and Christianity.
That's a specific example, but a good one in that it includes (Neo-) Platonist agendas. Many of the texts in the NHC exhibit the same agendas.
I am not aware of an "underground press" movement to counter Christianity, though. While philosophers were occasionally suppressed by some Christian emperors, they were mostly operating out in the open, serving in Roman government, etc.
DCH you're forgetting Constantine publically executed the philosopher Sopater c.336 CE. He also sternly warned in his first PR meeting that "Socrates critical question was a menace to the state". Sozomen tells us that although Constantine's doctrine was not universally approved, no one, during the life of Constantine, had dared to reject it openly.. This sounds like a scenario in which there was a press which was forced underground. Athanasius tells us that the Greeks derided the Christian mystery. Eusebius tells us that the sacred scripture were ridiculed in Alexandrian theatres. The underground press operated in the theatres. It was a Greek press.


By the "underground press" I am [also] referring to the large number of non canonical gospels and acts which are considered to have been authored after Nicaea. The Gnostic authors were operative throughout the 4th century apparently. Everyone seems to be only interested in the Gnostic Gospels and Acts which they THINK were authored in the "Early Period" before the Great Christian revolution under Constantine the Great. They seem unaware that many of these texts were authored in the 4th century.

We could also include the writings of Arius in the "underground press". Constantine wanted to wring his scrawny neck if he could find him on account of the books Arius was writing. These books "wounded" and "pained" and "grieved" Constantine's church organisation. Need I mention the story reported by Epiphanius in the book "The Greater Questions of Mary" in which Jesus has explicit sex with a woman he pulls from his side? If this isn't an underground press release, what was?

DCH (must rush off to work now ... boo hoo!) :goodmorning:
I did the mowing today. Needed to get the front wheels fixed. The grass was so high a number of kangaroos moved in.


LC
A "cobbler of fables" [Augustine]; "Leucius is the disciple of the devil" [Decretum Gelasianum]; and his books "should be utterly swept away and burned" [Pope Leo I]; they are the "source and mother of all heresy" [Photius]
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