Did the author of the Earliest Gospel hate the god of the Jews?

[Giuseppe]

The question naturally presents itself: If the representation of the disciples involved in these incidents displeased Matthew, why did he not omit the incident altogether instead of accepting it and then endeavouring to parry the attack, which he could do only partially and imperfectly ? There can be but one answer : Matthew found them in his source, which he considered authoritative, and
he did not wish to exclude them. Now, Mark was not that source, nor was Marcion’s Gospel. It is generally agreed that Matthew’s Gospel is founded upon earlier ones, including, perhaps, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which Harnack dates between 65 and 100 a .d ., and the Gospel according to Peter. The actual date of the Gospel according to the Hebrews is probably nearer 100 than 65. That Gospel itself is, of course, derived from an earlier one, as all the Gospels go back to a single primitive Gospel; and since it was written more particularly for Jews, and was current in the Jewish Christian communities, it follows that episodes derogatory to the Jewish apostles were not the inventions of the writer of it, but that he, like Matthew, found them in the earlier Gospel which he used. This conclusion points to the fact that the primitive Gospel, like Marcion’s Gospel, was anti-Jewish, and further suggests that, also like Marcion’s Gospel, it was a Gnostic production. This inference is so fully confirmed by what we know of the Gospel according to the Hebrews as to raise it to complete certainty.

(Rylands, Evolution of Christianity, p. 177-178, my bold).

But note that Rylands doesn't say explicitly if the author of the Earliest Gospel did hate the god of the Jews. Only that it was an anti-Jewish Gospel (i.e. a Gospel where ''the Jews'' killed Jesus, with or without Pilate).

[Giuseppe]

The legend of the appearances of Jesus after his death was a growing one, the development of which can be traced. In Marcion’s Gospel, which presumably was founded upon the earliest Gnostic Gospel, Jesus appears to no one after his death.[Mark’s Gospel, as before said, is a later form of Marcion’s. The best critics agree that Mark's Gospel originally ended with chap, xvi, verse 8, and therefore, like Marcion's Gospel, had no mention of any appearance of Jesus after his death.] In the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which was earlier than our Gospels, two appearances Were recorded. According to Matthew also, whose Gospel comes later in order of time, Jesus appeared twice, on each occasion to the eleven disciples and to nobody else. In Luke, which is later, than Matthew, three appearances are recorded—to the two disciples who were journeying to Emmaus, to Simon Peter, and to the eleven and others who were with them. In John’s Gospel the number of appearances has increased to four. In 1 Corinthians, xv, 5-7, there is still further development. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that we find in this passage a very late stage of the developing legend—in fact, later than the Gospels; so that the witness is not Paul, but some writer of the second century.

(ibid., p. 150-151, my bold)

Therefore the possibility is concrete, that the author of the Earliest Gospel (even if he was not Marcion) was hostile to the same god of the Jews and not only against the Jews.

[Giuseppe]

Marcion himself, after all, represented a first timide compromise with the Judaism insofar he rehabilitated the god of Jews as a just, but cruel, but still just, god, and not the crazy and savage god creator of the proper Gnostics.

In this sense Marcion is already a ''Catholic''.

[Secret Alias]

Yes but back to your first point "anti-Jewish" isn't always what it seems and it makes little sense in the greater context of the narrative. Why doesn't Jesus announce who is in order to justify his punishment? Again the Jews can't be blamed for not knowing a god who was never known to anyone. The irony gets lost

[Giuseppe]

Effectively you are right, in this. I should think about it more and more...

[Giuseppe]

What I believe at the moment is that Mark 4:11-12 was not of the Earliest Gospel. Jesus wanted to make his identity known in the Earliest Gospel. That is the entire sense of the Parable of the Lamp. That is also the sense of the Prologue to the fourth gospel. If even Jesus wanted to hide his identity with Mark 4:11-12 it is why he wanted to confirm his intention of a punishment for a people basically unaware of the his identity. Also in this way the irony gets lost. Where the irony in a god who wanted a people ignorant to better condemn it. This is a moral monster, not a god. The entire point to accept Mark 4:11-12 as a moral discourse by a god is to have respect for the same phrase found in Isaiah. In essentia: a kafkian execution of ignorant people is morally justified because the scripture say so. This is "rational" only against the marcionite despise of the scriptures.

[Giuseppe]

The irony gets lost in both the cases:
1) Jesus is son of an unknown god and is as such not recognized, "therefore" the Jews are punished.
2) Jesus is son of YHWH but he makes the people deliberately ignorant about himself "therefore" the Jews are punished.

Clearly there is no logical "therefore" here. Religion is irrational. A more rational version would be the following:

3) Jesus wants to reveal his identity but a Jewish conspiracy hides his real identity, therefore the Jews are punished.

Is this more expected under the hypothesis that Jesus was Son of an Unknown God or under the hypothesis that Jesus was Son of YHWH?

I think that this was not the principal concern of the author of the Earliest Gospel. But in whiletime Marcion was right on a point: those who had the guilty of hiding the true identity of Jesus were the his same disciples. That was the Earliest Gospel.

[Giuseppe]

The Earliest Gospel posed the problem of the identity of Jesus. That identity was revealed to them but the Jews didn't want to accept that identity for Jesus. Therefore they were punished.

This raised two reactions:

1) the reaction of Marcion: the Jews couldn't accept that above their god there was a more high god.

2) the reaction of Mark: the Jews couldn't see what Jesus himself had concealed to them.

Mark has all the air of being a reaction against Marcion. The irony in Marcion is that the Jews killed someone who was more powerful than their god. For pure envy. So it is explained why Pilate knew that the pharisees had put Jesus before to him "for envy". This is the same envoy of the creator god for a god more powerful than him.

[MrMacSon]

The question naturally presents itself: If the representation of the disciples involved in these incidents displeased Matthew, why did he not omit the incident altogether instead of accepting it and then endeavouring to parry the attack, which he could do only partially and imperfectly ?

There can be but one answer : Matthew found them in his source, which he considered authoritative, and he did not wish to exclude them. Now, Mark was not that source, nor was Marcion’s Gospel.

It is generally agreed that Matthew’s Gospel is founded upon earlier ones, including, perhaps, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which Harnack dates between 65 and 100 a .d ., and the Gospel according to Peter. The actual date of the Gospel according to the Hebrews is probably nearer 100 than 65. That Gospel itself is, of course, derived from an earlier one, as all the Gospels go back to a single primitive Gospel; and since it was written more particularly for Jews, and was current in the Jewish Christian communities, it follows that episodes derogatory to the Jewish apostles were not the inventions of the writer of it, but that he, like Matthew, found them in the earlier Gospel which he used.

This conclusion points to the fact that the primitive Gospel, like Marcion’s Gospel, was anti-Jewish, and further suggests that, also like Marcion’s Gospel, it was a Gnostic production. This inference is so fully confirmed by what we know of the Gospel according to the Hebrews as to raise it to complete certainty.

(Rylands, Evolution of Christianity, p. 177-178).

But note that Rylands doesn't say explicitly if the author of the Earliest Gospel did hate the god of the Jews. Only that it was an anti-Jewish Gospel (i.e. a Gospel where ''the Jews'' killed Jesus, with or without Pilate).

I was looking at Irenaeus's Adv Haers recently. Books I and II cover a plethora of concepts -

Book I
Chapter 1 Absurd ideas of the disciples of Valentinus as to the origin, name, order, and conjugal productions of their fancied aeons, with the passages of Scripture which they adapt to their opinions.
Chapter 2 The Propator was known to Monogenes alone. Ambition, disturbance, and danger into which Sophia fell; her shapeless offspring: she is restored by Horos. The production of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, in order to the completion of the aeons. Manner of the production of Jesus.
Chapter 3 Texts of Holy Scripture used by these heretics to support their opinions
Chapter 4 Account given by the heretics of the formation of Achamoth; origin of the visible world from her disturbances
Chapter 5 Formation of the Demiurge; description of him. He is the creator of everything outside of the Pleroma ....
[to Chapter 31 Doctrines of the Cainites]


Book II
Chapter 1 There is but one God: the impossibility of its being otherwise
Chapter 2 The world was not formed by angels, or by any other being, contrary to the will of the Most High God, but was made by the Father through the Word
Chapter 3 The Bythus and Pleroma of the Valentinians, as well as the God of Marcion, shown to be absurd; the world was actually created by the same Being Who had conceived the idea of it, and was not the fruit of defect or ignorance
Chapter 4 The absurdity of the supposed vacuum and defect of the heretics is demonstrated
Chapter 5 This world was not formed by any other beings within the territory which is contained by the Father
Chapter 6 The angels and the Creator of the world could not have been ignorant of the Supreme God
Chapter 7 Created things are not the images of those aeons who are within the Pleroma
Chapter 8 Created things are not a shadow of the Pleroma
Chapter 9 There is but one Creator of the world, God the Father: this the constant belief of the Church ...
[to Chapter 35 Refutation of Basilides, and of the opinion that the prophets uttered their predictions under the inspiration of different gods]

Then Book III Chap 1 says, generally, the apostles did not commence to preach the Gospel, or to place anything on record, until they were endowed with the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit. Chapter 2 is about 'the heretics follow neither Scripture nor Tradition', and Chapter 3 is a "refutation of the heretics..."

There is a a whole lot of interesting commentary throughout Adv Haers that oscillates between vaguely affirming the Christian doctrine and reflecting on other doctrine/s --- eg. Adv Haers 3.5.1 -

Since, therefore, the tradition from the apostles does thus exist in the Church, and is permanent among us, let us revert to the Scriptural proof furnished by those apostles who did also write the Gospel, in which they recorded the doctrine regarding God, pointing out that our Lord Jesus Christ is the truth ...

.. Our Lord... being the truth, did not speak lies ... never would have acknowledged as God, even the God of all, the Supreme King, too, and His own Father, an imperfect being as a perfect one, an animal one as a spiritual, Him who was without the Pleroma as Him who was within it. Neither did His disciples make mention of any other God, or term any other Lord, except Him, who was truly the God and Lord of all, as these most vain sophists affirm that the apostles did with hypocrisy frame their doctrine according to the capacity of their hearers ...

.. And to those who imagined that the Demiurge alone was God, they preached him; but to those who are capable of comprehending the unnameable Father, they did declare the unspeakable mystery through parables and enigmas: so that the Lord and the apostles exercised the office of teacher not to further the cause of truth, but even in hypocrisy, and as each individual was able to receive it!

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103305.htm

Previously, Adv Haers 2.9.1-2 -

1. That God is the Creator of the world is accepted even by those very persons who in many ways speak against Him, and yet acknowledge Him, styling Him the Creator, and an angel, not to mention that all the Scriptures call out [to the same effect], and the Lord teaches us of this Father who is in heaven ...

2. This God, then, being acknowledged, as I have said, and receiving testimony from all to the fact of His existence, that Father whom they conjure into existence is beyond doubt untenable, and has no witnesses. Simon Magus was the first who said that he himself was God over all, and that the world was formed by his angels. Then those who succeeded him, as I have shown in the first book, by their several opinions, still further depraved [his teaching] through their impious and irreligious doctrines against the Creator. These being the disciples of those mentioned, render such as assent to them worse than the heathen...

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103209.htm

[Giuseppe]

M. David Litwa has written an article about the Gnosticism,

You Are Gods: Deification in the Naassene Writer and Clement of Alexandria

His conclusion:

To close: just as there is widespread recognition in the study of Jesus and Paul that the “Judaism vs. Hellenism” divide has collapsed, so there is increasing recognition in Gnostic and Early Christian studies that the wall separating “Gnosis/ Gnosticism” and “Christianity” is without foundation. To be sure, there were non-Christian gnostic sects (whose origins are still vigorously debated). Nevertheless, there were also gnostic groups so thoroughly Christian that contemporary catholic apologists spared no effort in their rhetorical attempt to make them seem “other” and alienated from the “true” Christian myth. It was the threat of similarity that built the wall of (supposedly insurmountable) difference.79 This study is offered as yet another pick to undermine that wall.

(my bold)

What impressed me was to realize the true reason why the castration of Attis was not embarrassing at all:

The Naassene and Clementine restrictive attitude toward sex and marriage can be traced to a common ethical goal: the subordination of bodily passions. Both theologians believe in the full cutting off of the passions (ἀπάθεια). The Naassene writer represents this cutting with the image of Attis’s castration (Ref. 5.7.13, 15).65 For the Naassene writer, castration has the additional implication of removal from generation itself.

(my bold)

The analogy works: in the case of Attis, the Nassenes didn't invent the story of an earthly Attis shepard in Frigy etc.
But they allegorized the pre-existing myth. The castration of Attis represents the liberation of the soul from the body. This is a Gnostic meaning, since the same penis of Attis could be as well a symbol of fertility and therefore an exaltation of the good things of this world. But evidently the Naassenes interpreted in positive terms that castration, as a liberation from this material world created by evil demiurges.

Could they have done the same thing with a pre-existing Christ Myth, just after the 70 ?

I have realized, via Rylands, that the Earliest Gospel was Gnostic.

I have realized, via Couchoud, that Mark 4:11-12 is the more clever interpolation in all the NT.

This means that in the Earliest Gospel the meaning is well allegorized by the Parable of Sower: the material world and all that has to do with it (the apostles, in particular) are trying (deliberately or not) to hide and bury the novelty represented by Christ (who was going to reveal the Gnosis to men).

This is precisely what the Nassenes say, counting the ''Apostles'' in a list of material things, where there are the same evil archontes:

This, he says, is the word of God, which, he says, is a word of revelation of the Great Power. Wherefore it will be sealed, and hid, and concealed, lying in the habitation where lies the basis of the root of the universe, viz. Aeons, Powers, Intelligences,
Gods, Angels, Spirits, Apostles, Entities, Nonentities, Generables, Ingenerables, Incomprehensibles, Comprehensibles, Years, Months, Days, Hours, (and) Invisible Point from which what is least begins to increase gradually.

(Hippolytus, Refutation 5:9)

The Gnostic meaning (Gnostic in my preferred sense: hate of the god creator) is clear by:

They assert, however, that the living are rational faculties and minds, and men— pearls of that shapeless one cast before the creature below. This, he says, is what (Jesus) asserts: Throw not that which is holy unto the dogs, nor pearls unto the swine.

(ibid., 5:8)

Therefore the ''swine'' are the same Apostles in the Earliest Gospel: to them the ''pearl'' Jesus is cast, and they do a evil use of it, by hiding it.

Therefore the Crucifixion was a positive event insofar it is not a purification of the material world (as in Revelation), but a liberation from the material world. Just as the castration of Attis was not the end of the material fertility (the interpretation of the stupid hoi polloi) but the beginning of the spiritual life of the soul (the Gnostic esoteric interpretation).

Therefore in this sense I can say that the author of the Earliest Gospel was a Gnostic of the Naassene type.