Ascension of Isaiah and the Nativity passage

[enricotuccinardi]

Hi Giuseppe,

in the Latin text, the subject is always the same (i.e. John). Where you insert "Jesus" the Latin text has "dictus puer" (the aforementioned boy), the one who previously appeared in Bethlehem, i.e. John.

[Giuseppe]

Thanks, but the problem remains that John is seen usually as an evil figure in Catharism (see evidence in the first text linked above). It's very strange and surprising that in this text he would be the hero.

[neilgodfrey]

Briefly his arguments are the following.

Thank you, Enrico. Most helpful indeed!

Damn shame about Studi (Ascensione di Isaia. Studi su un apocrifo al crocevia dei cristianesimi). Worldcat tells me not even a single library in Australia holds it.

[andrewcriddle]

Hi Giuseppe,

in the Latin text, the subject is always the same (i.e. John). Where you insert "Jesus" the Latin text has "dictus puer" (the aforementioned boy), the one who previously appeared in Bethlehem, i.e. John.

The angel John who comes to earth seeming to be born of Mary does not appear to be John the Baptist.

Andrew Criddle

[Giuseppe]

Hi Giuseppe,

in the Latin text, the subject is always the same (i.e. John). Where you insert "Jesus" the Latin text has "dictus puer" (the aforementioned boy), the one who previously appeared in Bethlehem, i.e. John.

The angel John who comes to earth seeming to be born of Mary does not appear to be John the Baptist.

Andrew Criddle

Clearly you say so because that angel is born in Bethlehem, of Mary, etc. Prima facie, these things describe the traditional Gospel Jesus.

But have you read what the Cathars thought about who precisely was born in Bethlehem?

Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay in his Historia Albigensis written between 1212 and 1218, describes cathar beliefs:
...
They declared that all of the patriarchs of the Old Testament were damned; they asserted that John the Baptist was one of the greatest devils.

And they also said in their secret meetings that the Christ who was born in the earthly and visible Bethlehem and crucified in Jerusalem was evil; and that Mary Magdalene was his concubine; and that she was the woman taken in adultery of whom we read in Scripture [John 8:3].

Indeed, the good Christ they say neither ate nor drank nor assumed the true flesh, nor was he ever in this world except spiritually in the body of Paul.

http://www.cathar.info/cathar_beliefs.htm

It's plausible, not impossible, to think that the Cathars identified the Messiah born in Bethlehem with John the Baptist.
And we know already that in the AoI the divine Father who is meant is the god of the Jews: a god that the Cathars did hate as Satan.

Therefore it may be plausible that in their eyes, the Son of that God was just John the Baptist.

I would like think so but there is a clear problem for this interpretation: the inquisitor's text says that Jesus is baptized by John.

Qui Dei Filius postea fuit baptizatus per Johannem;

How can the same person be both the angel who comes down and be baptized by himself? A contradiction is evident, here.

[andrewcriddle]

The Angel or Spirit John may possibly be linked to John the evangelist whom the Cathars regarded as an angelic being.
See Iconoclasm...

Andrew Criddle

[Giuseppe]

The Angel or Spirit John may possibly be linked to John the evangelist whom the Cathars regarded as an angelic being.
See Iconoclasm...

Andrew Criddle

In an Italian book about the Cathars, I read that, according to a Cathar source, the true name of the Messiah is John. He is the evangelist John what ''calls himself 'the Son of Man who is in heavens''.
It seems to be not an error of the manuscript.

The name of the Messiah in heaven is John, while in the earth, the name of the Messiah is Jesus, according to the Cathar reading of AoI (Greek version):

'' ...who said to my Lord and Christ, who will be called Jesus in this world''.

where the parallel Etiopic version reads:

''And I hear the voice of Most High, the Father of my Lord, who said to Christ my Lord, who will be called Jesus'...'

[Giuseppe]

An hypothesis of ''John'' as the true name of the Messiah, is a corrupted (clearly, theologically interested) Cathar reading of the incipit of the Gospel of John, where it seems that the verses 7 and 8 may cause embarrassment and were removed, so that the ''angel'' John was now the Light coming into the world, etc:

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

If so, then this may support partially the idea that among the Cathars the angel Jesus/''John'' had not a (even if docetical) birth, since John is clearly an adult man in the prologue of the fourth Gospel.

[Giuseppe]

The evidence is strong:

There is not that the celestial Father who is God. The Son of God, IE Christ, is not God by nature, but he is an angel, as before of coming in this world he was called John.

(Registre de Jacques Fournier, t. II, p. 53, my translation from the Italian text)

Therefore if the Gospel of John was read by Cathars with that corruption above in mind, I think it is difficult to be entirely sure, as Norelli does, that, among the Cathars, Christ was born (even if docetically) as a children in Nazareth, and not as already an adult.

[andrewcriddle]

The evidence is strong:

There is not that the celestial Father who is God. The Son of God, IE Christ, is not God by nature, but he is an angel, as before of coming in this world he was called John.

(Registre de Jacques Fournier, t. II, p. 53, my translation from the Italian text)

Therefore if the Gospel of John was read by Cathars with that corruption above in mind, I think it is difficult to be entirely sure, as Norelli does, that, among the Cathars, Christ was born (even if docetically) as a children in Nazareth, and not as already an adult.

I think it is difficult to be entirely sure, as Norelli does, that, among the Cathars, Christ was born (even if docetically) as a children in Nazareth, and not as already an adult.
I think you mean Bethlehem not Nazareth.

The issue here is that it seems quite clear that the Cathars did believe in a (docetic) birth in Bethlehem. How this fitted together with their other beliefs and the sources of their beliefs may be unclear. But the evidence for a (docetic) birth in Bethlehem seems unambiguous.

Andrew Criddle