How Did Paul Know Jesus Was Resurrected?

[Secret Alias]

A strange thought has come into my head. The earliest authority on Jesus's resurrection - an authority absolutely independent of the apostles - was that of Pilate who, according to the Acts of Pilate known to Justin and Tertullian was not only a Christian but also 'knew' that Jesus had ascended to heaven:

But at His doctrine, by which the masters and leaders of the Jews were convicted, they were so exasperated, especially when a vast multitude turned away after Him, that at last they brought Him up before Pontius Pilate, at that time the procurator of Syria under the Roman government, and by the violence of their votes extorted from him the sentence that He should be surrendered to them for crucifixion. He Himself had predicted that they would so act. This would not, perhaps, be of great weight had not the prophets of old also foretold the same. And yet when He was crucified He spontaneously yielded up His Spirit with a word, and anticipated the duty of the executioner. At the same moment, while the sun was pointing to midday, the daylight was withdrawn. Those who were ignorant that this also was predicted of Christ thought that it was merely an eclipse [but no reason being found for it, they then denied the fact]; and yet you have this event that befel the world registered in your archives After that the Jews took Him down from the cross and placed Him in a sepulchre, which they in their great care even surrounded with a military guard, lest, as He had predicted His resurrection from the dead on the third day, His disciples should stealthily remove the body and deceive the suspicious rulers. But lo, on the third day there was suddenly an earthquake, and the stone was rolled away which closed the sepulchre, and the guard was scattered through fear; yet no disciples appeared, nor was anything found in the sepulchre but the grave-clothes. Yet none the less the rulers, to whose interest it was both to circulate a lie, and to recal the enthralled and servile people to themselves from the faith, bruited it abroad that He was stolen by His disciples. For He did not shew Himself forth to the people, lest they should be delivered from their wicked error, and in order that faith, destined to receive no mean reward, should not stand firm without difficulty. But He passed forty days with certain of His disciples in Galilee, a region of Judaea, teaching them what they were to teach. Afterwards having commissioned them to the duty of preaching throughout the world, He was snatched up into Heaven enveloped in a cloud (Dehinc ordinatis eis ad officium praedicandi per orbem, circumfusa nube in cœlum est ereptus), much more truly than your Proculi are wont to assert of Romulus. All these things concerning Christ, Pilate, himself also already a Christian in his own conscience, announced to Tiberius the Caesar at that time. [Apology 21]

Like Paul Pilate was originally a persecutor who turned to a believer. When exactly? Well if we follow the story line here Pilate's 'inner man' was already a believer. This is why in the Acts of Pilate tradition and the Gospel of Peter he insists over and over again Jesus's innocence. Is it possible that Paul was Pilate originally and was snatched up to heaven? It seems unlikely on the one hand. But surely Paul was someone like Pilate. Notice at once that his knowledge of the ascension does not likely rest on the authority of the apostles. Also, the specific wording 'snatched' to heaven in Tertullian likely derives from the Acts of Pilate tradition.

[outhouse]

Is it possible that Paul was Pilate originally and was snatched up to heaven?

Understanding what can be found by thinking outside the box, but isn't there a point were its just being silly?

[Secret Alias]

Treating the Acts of Pilate and the Acts of the Apostles as equally credible (not credible) sources isn't silly. It's like watching a U9 soccer game. You deal with what's there in terms of what it pretends to be rather than what it is.

[MrMacSon]

Is it possible that Paul was Pilate originally and was snatched up to heaven?

Paulate?

[MrMacSon]

The 'Pilate literature' is an interesting collection.

Tertullian's Apology 5 says Pontius Pilate informed the Emperor of the 'unjust sentence of death' which he had pronounced against an innocent and divine person; the Emperor was supposedly so moved by Pilate's 'report' of the miracles of Christ and his resurrection, that he proposed the reception of Christ among the gods of Rome. But the Senate refused!

There is also a 'Report of Pilate to the Emperor Claudius’, which is appears as (i) a Latin-translation appendix to the 'Evangelium Nicodemix' (ie. the 'Gospel of Nicodemus'; aka Gesta Salvatoris), and (ii) in Greek in the late Acts of Peter and Paul.

There is also a body of Middle Ages derived 'Pilate' documents.

[Secret Alias]

Back to what happened when Paul was 'snatched' by Jesus to the third heaven. Not only did we uncover Morton Smith's opinion that 'this man' in 2 Corinthians 12 was Jesus, Tertullian seems to hint as much in De Anima:

It (the soul), too, has eyes and ears of its own, by means of which Paul must have heard and seen the Lord [De Anima 9]

Clearly then Paul 'heard' and 'saw' Jesus in heaven. While Hippolytus reports the Naasenes have a very similar understanding:

Jacob, he says, saw this entrance and this gate in his journey into Mesopotamia, that is, when from a child he was now becoming a youth and a man; that is, (the entrance and gate) were made known unto him as he journeyed into Mesopotamia. But Mesopotamia, he says, is the current of the great ocean flowing from the midst of the Perfect Man; and he was astonished at the celestial gate, exclaiming, How terrible is this place! It is nought else than the house of God, and this (is) the gate of heaven. On account of this, he says, Jesus uses the words, I am the true gate. John 10:9; Matthew 7:13 Now he who makes these statements is, he says, the Perfect Man that is imaged from the unportrayable one from above. The Perfect Man therefore cannot, he says, be saved, unless, entering in through this gate, he be born again. But this very one the Phrygians, he says, call also Papa, because he tranquillized all things which, prior to his manifestation, were confusedly and dissonantly moved. For the name, he says, of Papa belongs simultaneously to all creatures -celestial, and terrestrial, and infernal— who exclaim, Cause to cease, cause to cease the discord of the world, and make peace for those that are afar off, that is, for material and earthly beings; and peace for those that are near, Ephesians 2:17 that is, for perfect men that are spiritual and endued with reason. But the Phrygians denominate this same also corpse— buried in the body, as it were, in a mausoleum and tomb. This, he says, is what has been declared, You are whited sepulchres, full, he says, of dead men's bones within, Matthew 23:27 because there is not in you the living man. And again he exclaims, The dead shall start forth from the graves, Matthew 27:52-53 that is, from the earthly bodies, being born again spiritual, not carnal. For this, he says, is the Resurrection that takes place through the gate of heaven, through which, he says, all those that do not enter remain dead. These same Phrygians, however, he says, affirm again that this very (man), as a consequence of the change, (becomes) a god. For, he says, he becomes a god when, having risen from the dead, he will enter into heaven through a gate of this kind. Paul the apostle, he says, knew of this gate, partially opening it in a mystery, and stating that he was caught up by an angel, and ascended as far as the second and third heaven into paradise itself; and that he beheld sights and heard unspeakable words which it would not be possible for man to declare.

The obvious implications on my IC = Man theory not withstanding the understanding here inches closer with a context for Paul's ascent in the heretical traditions. Paul experienced a resurrection (or perhaps better THE Resurrection from we know from other texts) then ascended to the heavens and became one with the heavenly Man and ultimately a god.

[Secret Alias]

And once we read Eznik's Marcionite myth (most scholars ignore it thinking it only represents 'late' Marcionitism) we see immediately that the whole concept was known to Irenaeus. Here is what I cited earlier from Eznik:

And when he had raised him on a cross, they say, he descended into the Harsh and emptied it. And having raised the souls from the middle of it, he led them into the third heaven, to his Father. And the Lord of creatures having become angry, in his anger he rent his robe and the curtain of his temple. And he darkened his sun, and he clothed his world in umber. And in his affliction he dwelt in mourning. Then when Jesus descended a second time in the form of his divinity to the Lord of creatures, he brought a lawsuit against him on account of his death. And when the Lord of the world saw that divinity of Jesus, he discovered that another god apart from himself existed [...], so having fallen down in supplication, he was praying to him: Whereas I sinned and slaughtered you ignorantly because I did not know that you were a god, but rather I considered you a man, let there be given to you in exchange, for revenge, all of those who wish to believe in you to take wheresoever you wish. So Jesus having released him, he carried off Paul from the astonished ones, and he revealed to him their prices, and he sent him forth to preach that we have been brought for a price, and everyone who believes in Jesus has been sold by that Just One to the Good One.

Now look at what Irenaeus writes:

For if they maintain that they themselves, that is, their man, at once ascends above the Demiurge, and departs to the Mother, much more must this have occurred to the man of the apostle; for the Demiurge would not have hindered him, being, as they assert, himself already subject to the Saviour. But if he had tried to hinder him, the effort would have gone for nothing. For it is not possible that he should prove stronger than the providence of the Father, and that when the inner man is said to be invisible even to the Demiurge.

The reference to 'the Demiurge being already subject to the Saviour' is clearly the whole 'lawsuit' narrative that precedes the calling of Paul above. Somehow Paul and the Man (= Jesus) ascend past the Demiurge where Paul is clearly united with the spiritual Jesus:

But since he (Paul) has described that assumption of himself up to the third heaven as something great and pre-eminent, it cannot be that these men ascend above the seventh heaven, for they are certainly not superior to the apostle. If they do maintain that they are more excellent than he, let them prove themselves so by their works, for they have never pretended to anything like [what he describes as occurring to himself]. And for this reason he added, Whether in the body, or whether out of the body, God knows, that the body might neither be thought to be a partaker in that vision, as if it could have participated in those things which it had seen and heard; nor, again, that any one should say that he was not carried higher on account of the weight of the body; but it is therefore thus far permitted even without the body to behold spiritual mysteries which are the operations of God, who made the heavens and the earth, and formed man, and placed him in paradise, so that those should be spectators of them who, like the apostle, have reached a high degree of perfection in the love of God.

With respect to the third heaven/Paradise question it should be noted that the Naasenes see Paul and Jesus going beyond the third heaven to Paradise. Their citation of 2 Corinthians reads:

... and ascended as far as the second and third heaven into paradise itself ...

I've seen this 'second' and 'third' reference to 2 Corinthians elsewhere.

[Charles Wilson]

That Mucianus fellow was a very busy...ummm...man, so to speak.

[Secret Alias]

That Clement understood Paul to have seen Jesus 'face to face' like Moses on Sinai is clear from the Paedagogue:

And what follows next, "not meat, for ye were not able," may indicate the clear revelation in the future world, like food, face to face. "For now we see as through a glass," the same apostle says, "but then face to face." Wherefore also he has added, "neither yet are ye now able, for ye are still carnal," minding the things of the flesh,--desiring, loving, feeling jealousy, wrath, envy. "For we are no more in the flesh," as some suppose. For with it [they say], having the face which is like an angel's, we shall see the promise face to face. How then, if that is truly the promise after our departure hence, say they that they know "what eye hath not known, nor hath entered into the mind of man," who have not perceived by the Spirit, but received from instruction "what ear hath not heard," or that ear alone which "was rapt up into the third heaven?" But it even then was commanded to preserve it unspoken.

[Secret Alias]

The Marcionites understood another perfect world existed 'above the third heaven':

After all, or, if you like, before all, since you have said that he has a creation of his own, and his own world, and his own sky; we shall see,185 indeed, about that third heaven, when we come to discuss even your own apostle [Tertullian Adv Marc 1.15.1]

Clement knows a different text of 2 Corinthians a text shared by the heretics:

To these statements the apostle will testify: "I know a man in Christ, caught up into the third heaven, and thence into Paradise, who heard unutterable words which it is not lawful for a man to speak (οἶδα λέγων ἄνθρωπον ἐν Χριστῷ ἁρπαγέντα ἕως τρίτου οὐρανοῦ, κἀκεῖθεν εἰς τὸν παράδεισον, ὃς ἤκουσεν ἄρρηταῥήματα, ἃ οὐκ ἐξὸν ἀνθρώπῳ λαλῆσαι)," -- intimating thus the impossibility of expressing God, and indicating that what is divine is unutterable by human power; if, indeed, he begins to speak above the third heaven, as it is lawful to initiate the elect souls in the mysteries there. For I know what is in Plato (for the examples from the barbarian philosophy, which are many, are suggested now by the composition which, in accordance with promises previously given, waits the suitable time). For doubting, in Timaoeus, whether we ought to regard several worlds as to be understood by many heavens, or this one, he makes no distinction in the names, calling the world and heaven by the same name. But the words of the statement are as follows: "Whether, then, have we rightly spoken of one heaven, or of many and infinite? It were more correct to say one, if indeed it was created according to the model." Further, in the Epistle of the Romans to the Corinthians it is written, "An ocean illimitable by men and the worlds after it." Consequently, therefore, the noble apostle exclaims, "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!"

Clement's text of 2 Corinthians 12:1 - 2

οἶδα λέγων ἄνθρωπον ἐν Χριστῷ ἁρπαγέντα ἕως τρίτου οὐρανοῦ, κἀκεῖθεν εἰς τὸν παράδεισον, ὃς ἤκουσεν ἄρρητα ῥήματα, ἃ οὐκ ἐξὸν ἀνθρώπῳ λαλῆσαι

Look at all the additions by a later hand, additions I long noted even without Clement's testimony:

οἶδα ἄνθρωπον ἐν Χριστῷ πρὸ ἐτῶν δεκατεσσάρων,— εἴτε ἐν σώματι οὐκ οἶδα, εἴτε ἐκτὸς τοῦ σώματος οὐκ οἶδα, ὁ Θεὸς οἶδεν,— ἁρπαγέντα τὸν τοιοῦτον ἕως τρίτου οὐρανοῦ. καὶ οἶδα τὸν τοιοῦτον ἄνθρωπον— εἴτε ἐν σώματι εἴτε χωρὶς τοῦ σώματος οὐκ οἶδα, ὁ Θεὸς οἶδεν,— 4 ὅτι ἡρπάγη εἰς τὸν Παράδεισον καὶ ἤκουσεν ἄρρητα ῥήματα ἃ οὐκ ἐξὸν ἀνθρώπῳ λαλῆσαι

Clement's text of 2 Corinthians was used by the Naasenes.