Is Col 2:15 a “Kenosis Hymn” similar to Philippians Hymn ?

[Giuseppe]

"Having stripped off from himself the principalities and powers, he made show of them boldly, triumphing over them in it"

(Col 2:15)

Usually this passage is interpreted as Christ who wins the rulers of this age (as beings totally distinct from him).


But what if Jesus is winning just himself, his lower carnal demiurgical temptations?

In this way he is “stripping off from himself” the his previous desire of “principalities” and “powers”, just what the Satan wanted to give him in the Wilderness (in exchange for submission to Satan himself) ?


By the cross, a new (purified) Jesus is saying “No!” to a previous (corrupted) demiurge Jesus (basically, denying the latter), a previous Jesus-Sabaoth (just as the Sabaoth of the Hypostasis of Archontes) who is redeemed thanks the possession by the divine Sophia/Holy Spirit.

A demiurge who denies his evil past, and the his same evil powers, to be rewarded after by regaining the his same role (as now a positive demiurge and Lord of the his creation).

If this is the case, then what Col 1:15 is telling is just the kenosis made by Jesus in the hymn to Philippians.

So the question is raised again and again: were all these texts the reflection of a previous myth where Jesus was the evil demiurge who was cast in a positive figure after the his conversion?

And was in turn that myth the judaization of an older myth where the demiurge was entirely evil and enemy of the true Jesus, the Serpent? ???

[Giuseppe]

A question arising from this suggestion:

In Mark Jesus represents this repented Demiurge. He goes to be baptized by John because he is the most sinner of all. He gives up any temptation by Satan and preaches the kingdom of the unique god creator. The "sin" of this Jesus in the eyes of the his inventor is that he was adored as Second God by the Gnostic half-judaizers, threatening so the pure monotheism of the Jewish religion.

As result, the story of this Jesus is the story of a king who has abandoned the his power and who has to persuade the his same disciples about his not being more what they hoped. The "kingdom of God" (creator) means that it is not more the kingdom of Jesus.
Just as reward for the his act of deliberate kenosis, this Jesus is proclaimed "Christ" by the god creator, and possessed by the his spirit: this means that he was KNOWN and witnessed in the scriptures. So the adoptionism serves only to remark both the distance and the closeness between Jesus (as impoverished king or ex-Second God) and the creator god (as the true "higher god" in opposition to the "higher god" of the Gnostics).

The people of Nazareth rejected Jesus as still the old not-repented Second God (or demiurge-"craftsman") but they don't realize that Jesus is the Christ of the Creator.

The scribes and pharisees confirm, by their opposition against Jesus called Christ, both:

1) the Jewish ignorance about the OT knowledge of the Jesus as Christ

2) the previous opposition ("free Barabbas!") against the identification Jesus = Christ (being Jesus the Serpent of the gnosis in a older myth)

So the Gospel of Mark (in particular the ambiguity deriving from the his traces of separationism) would reflect the initial perplexity about the good result of the operation: was really possible to convert an embarrassing Second God in a mere pious man (even if feigned as Christ and adopted Son of God) who was the Righteous Servant of the Creator?

Hence I wonder: were the traces of separationism the message in code sown by the author of the story to give the following warning: insofar you (reader) are still tempted to see Jesus as great as the Creator, as a kind of Second God (equivalent to consider Jesus as divine without the possession by the Christ of the Creator), then remember that Jesus was only a man - even a man in need of a baptism for the purification of the sins! - in comparison (even) to the Christ (of the Creator) possessing him.

The empty tomb would represent the final act of kenosis: Jesus disappears totally, so he will return as the victorious messiah of the creator. It is as if Jesus was never existed - afterall, the messianic hope existed already before the gospel - , but in whiletime the message is passed: don't adore more Jesus as a Second God (not even as a rival god enemy of the creator!), but recognize a good time that he is inferior to the creator and is his humble servant ("why do you call me good? only god is good").

[Giuseppe]

This gives us a totally different portrait of Peter and of the 12 idiots in Mark.

Peter and the 12 are idiots not because they are the Pillars who judaized in Galatians 1 and 2.

Peter and the 12 are idiots in Mark because they didn't know that Jesus called Christ was KNOWN in the scriptures, against any (midrashic) evidence (given by "Mark") of the contrary.

The inference is that, for "Mark" (author), Peter and the 12 are symbols of the original early "Jesuans": their sin (in the eyes of "Mark") was to adore a Jesus without calling him Christ.

Note that even when in Caesarea Philippi Peter realizes that Jesus is the Christ, he is still in defect: since he believes that Jesus was a victorious Christ. That is still a residual form of the presumption of who adored Jesus as a Second God.

[Giuseppe]

So it is possible that if Marcion wrote Galatians, then he invented the legend of the Pillars as Judaizers against whom he and Paul had to combat.

Not coincidentially, Marcion is who gave a new interpretation of the gospel, one where the judaizers are the 12 while Jesus was the son of another god.

But my analysis above would argue the contrary: the 12 did their first apparition in "Mark" not as Judaizers, but as allegory of the early adorers of Jesus as the Second God.

Only insofar this Second God himself was per se the judaizing evolution of the Jesus-Serpent, then the 12 can be considered themselves as Gnostic half-judaizers.

[Giuseppe]

So the evolution is the following:

1) the early Gnostics adored the Serpent of Genesis as "Jesus", a prometheus figure enemy of the creator.

2) the half-Gnostic judaizers (the historical Peter, James, John etc) converted Jesus in a Second God of judaism, friend of the creator.

3) Mark was written by a Judaizer against the Gnostics (1) and the half-Judaizers (2), to insist that Jesus emptyed himself to obey to the creator and him alone.

4) Marcion gave a different interpretation of Mark: the 12 stand for Mark himself (=monotheistic Christians). To this end he invented Paul and falsified Mark.

5) Matthew was written against Marcion. The 12 (being meant as judaizers, with marcionite lens, and not more, as in Mark, as Gnostic half-Judaizers) are rehabilitated since "Matthew" himself is the king of the judaizers.

6) Luke was the correction of Mcn.

7) and the rest is history.