Re: What Evidence or What Suggestions Are There that Jesus Was a Shapeshifter?
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 4:22 pm
The beginning of the ‘docetic portion’ of the Acts of John (chapters 87-90) go thus:
… Now those who were present inquired about the cause, and were especially perplexed because Drusiana has said, “The Lord appeared to me in the tomb in the form of John and in that of a young man.” So since they were perplexed and in some ways not yet established in the faith, John took it patiently and said,
“Men and brethren, you have experienced nothing strange or incredible in your perception of the , since even we whom he chose to be his apostles have suffered many temptations; and I cannot speak or write to you the things which I have seen and heard. Yet now I must adapt myself to your hearing and according to each man’s capacity I will communicate to you those things whereof you are able to become hearers, that you may see the glory that surrounds him that was and is both now and evermore.
“For when he had chosen Peter and Andrew, who were brothers, he came to me and to my brother James, saying, ‘I need you, come with me!’ And my brother said this to me, ‘John, what does he want, this child on the shore who called us?’ And I said, ‘Which child?’ And he answered me, ‘The one who is beckoning to us.’ And I said, “This is because of the long watch we kept at sea. You are not seeing straight, brother James. Do you not see the man standing there who is handsome, fair, and cheerful-looking?’ But he said to me, ‘I do not see that man, my brother. But let us go, and we will see what this means.’
“And when we had brought the boat to land we saw how he also helped us to beach the boat. And as we left the place, wishing to follow him, he appeared to me again as rather bald- but with a thick flowing beard, but to James as a young man whose beard was just beginning. So we wondered both of us about the meaning of the vision we had seen. Then as we both followed him we became gradually perplexed about this matter.
“But then there appeared to me a yet more amazing sight; I tried to see him as he was, and I never saw his eyes closing, but always open. But he sometimes appeared to me as a small man with no good looks, and then again as looking up to heaven. And he had another strange (property); when I reclined at table he would take me to his own breast, and I held him (fast); and sometimes his breast felt to me smooth and soft, but sometimes hard like rock, so that I was perplexed in my (mind) and said, ‘Why do I find it so?’ And as I thought about it, he…”
“Another time he took me and James and Peter to the mountain where he used to pray, and we saw him a light such that a man, who uses mortal speech, cannot describe what it was like. Again he took us three likewise up the mountain, saying, ‘Come with me.’ And again we went; and we saw him at a distance praying. Then I, since he loved me, went quietly up to him, as if he could not see, and stood looking at his hinder parts; and I saw him not dressed in clothes at all, but stripped of those we (usually) saw (upon him), and not like a man at all. (And I saw that) his feet were whiter than snow, so that the ground there was lit up by his feet; and that his head stretched up to heaven, so that I was afraid and cried out; and he, turning about, appeared as a small man and caught hold of my beard and pulled it and said to me, ‘John, do not be faithless, but believing, and not inquisitive.’ And I said to him, ‘Why, Lord, what have I done?’ But I tell you, my brethren, that I suffered such pain for thirty days in the place where he touched my beard, that I said to him, ‘Lord, if your playful tug has caused such pain, what (would it be) if you had dealt me a blow?’ And he said to me, ‘Let it be your concern from now on not to tempt him that cannot be tempted.’”
The docetic tone of this part of the Act of John becomes much more overt (chapters 97-99, 101-102):
After the Lord had so danced with us, my beloved, he went out. And we were like men amazed or fast asleep, and we fled this way and that. And so I saw him suffer, and did not wait by his suffering, but fled to the Mount of Olives and wept at what had come to pass. And when he was hung (upon the Cross) on Friday, at the sixth hour of the day there came a darkness over the whole earth. And my Lord stood in the middle of the cave and gave light to it and said, “John, for the people below in Jerusalem I am being crucified and pierced with lances and reeds, and given vinegar and gall to drink. But to you I am speaking, and listen to what I speak. I put into your mind to come up to this mountain so that you may hear what a disciple should learn from his teacher and a man from God.”
And when he had said this he showed me a Cross of Light firmly fixed, and around the Cross a great crowd, which had no single form; and in it (the Cross) was one form and the same likeness. And I saw the Lord himself above the Cross, having no shape but only a kind of voice; yet not that voice which we knew, but one that was sweet and gentle and truly (the voice) of God, which said to me, “John, there must (be) one man (to) hear these things from me; for I need one who is ready to bear. This Cross of Light is sometimes called Logos by me for your sakes, sometimes mind, sometimes Jesus, sometimes Christ, sometimes a door, sometimes a way, sometimes bread, sometimes seed, sometimes resurrection, sometimes Son, sometimes Father, sometimes Spirit, sometimes life, sometimes truth, sometimes faith, sometimes grace; and so (it is called) for men’s sake.
“But what it truly is, as known in itself and spoken to us, (is this): it is the distinction of all things, and the strong uplifting of what is firmly fixed out of what is unstable, and the harmony of wisdom, being wisdom in harmony (?). there are on the right and on the left, powers, authorities, principalities and the demons, activities, threatening, passions, devils, Satan and the inferior root from which the nature of transient things proceeded.
“This Cross then (is that) which has united all things by the word and which has separated off what is transitory and inferior, which has also compacted all things into . But this is not that wooden Cross which you shall see when you go down from here; nor am I the (man) who is on the Cross, (I) whom you now do not see but only hear (my) voice. I was taken to be what I am not, I who am not what for many others I was; but what they will say of me is mean and unworthy of me. Since then the place of (my?) rest is neither (to be) seen nor told, much more shall I, the Lord of this (place), be neither seen .
…] “So then I suffered none of those things which they will say of me; even that suffering which I showed to you and to the rest in my dance, I will that it be called a mystery. For what you are, that I have shown you, (as) you see; but what I am is known to me alone, and no one else. Let me have what is mine; what is yours you must see through me; but me you must see truly—not I am, (as) I said, but that which you, as (my) kinsman, are able to know. You hear that I suffered, yet I suffered not; and that I suffered not, yet I did suffer; and that I was pierced, yet I was not wounded; that I was hanged, yet I was not hanged; that blood flowed from me, yet it did not flow; and, in a word, that what they say of me, I did not endure, but what they do not say, those things I did suffer. Now what these are, I secretly show you; for I know that you will understand. You must know me, then, as the torment of the Logos, the piercing of the Logos, the blood of the Logos, the wounding of the Logos, the fastening of the Logos, the death of the Logos. And so I speak, discarding the man(hood). The first then (that) you must know (is) the Logos; then you shall know the Lord, and thirdly the man, and what he has suffered.”
When he had said these things to me, and others which I know not how to say as he wills, he was taken up, without any of the multitude seeing him. And going I laughed at them all, since he had told me what they had said about him; and I held this one thing fast in my (mind), that the Lord had performed everything as a symbol and a dispensation for the conversion and salvation of man.
… Now those who were present inquired about the cause, and were especially perplexed because Drusiana has said, “The Lord appeared to me in the tomb in the form of John and in that of a young man.” So since they were perplexed and in some ways not yet established in the faith, John took it patiently and said,
“Men and brethren, you have experienced nothing strange or incredible in your perception of the , since even we whom he chose to be his apostles have suffered many temptations; and I cannot speak or write to you the things which I have seen and heard. Yet now I must adapt myself to your hearing and according to each man’s capacity I will communicate to you those things whereof you are able to become hearers, that you may see the glory that surrounds him that was and is both now and evermore.
“For when he had chosen Peter and Andrew, who were brothers, he came to me and to my brother James, saying, ‘I need you, come with me!’ And my brother said this to me, ‘John, what does he want, this child on the shore who called us?’ And I said, ‘Which child?’ And he answered me, ‘The one who is beckoning to us.’ And I said, “This is because of the long watch we kept at sea. You are not seeing straight, brother James. Do you not see the man standing there who is handsome, fair, and cheerful-looking?’ But he said to me, ‘I do not see that man, my brother. But let us go, and we will see what this means.’
“And when we had brought the boat to land we saw how he also helped us to beach the boat. And as we left the place, wishing to follow him, he appeared to me again as rather bald- but with a thick flowing beard, but to James as a young man whose beard was just beginning. So we wondered both of us about the meaning of the vision we had seen. Then as we both followed him we became gradually perplexed about this matter.
“But then there appeared to me a yet more amazing sight; I tried to see him as he was, and I never saw his eyes closing, but always open. But he sometimes appeared to me as a small man with no good looks, and then again as looking up to heaven. And he had another strange (property); when I reclined at table he would take me to his own breast, and I held him (fast); and sometimes his breast felt to me smooth and soft, but sometimes hard like rock, so that I was perplexed in my (mind) and said, ‘Why do I find it so?’ And as I thought about it, he…”
“Another time he took me and James and Peter to the mountain where he used to pray, and we saw him a light such that a man, who uses mortal speech, cannot describe what it was like. Again he took us three likewise up the mountain, saying, ‘Come with me.’ And again we went; and we saw him at a distance praying. Then I, since he loved me, went quietly up to him, as if he could not see, and stood looking at his hinder parts; and I saw him not dressed in clothes at all, but stripped of those we (usually) saw (upon him), and not like a man at all. (And I saw that) his feet were whiter than snow, so that the ground there was lit up by his feet; and that his head stretched up to heaven, so that I was afraid and cried out; and he, turning about, appeared as a small man and caught hold of my beard and pulled it and said to me, ‘John, do not be faithless, but believing, and not inquisitive.’ And I said to him, ‘Why, Lord, what have I done?’ But I tell you, my brethren, that I suffered such pain for thirty days in the place where he touched my beard, that I said to him, ‘Lord, if your playful tug has caused such pain, what (would it be) if you had dealt me a blow?’ And he said to me, ‘Let it be your concern from now on not to tempt him that cannot be tempted.’”
The docetic tone of this part of the Act of John becomes much more overt (chapters 97-99, 101-102):
After the Lord had so danced with us, my beloved, he went out. And we were like men amazed or fast asleep, and we fled this way and that. And so I saw him suffer, and did not wait by his suffering, but fled to the Mount of Olives and wept at what had come to pass. And when he was hung (upon the Cross) on Friday, at the sixth hour of the day there came a darkness over the whole earth. And my Lord stood in the middle of the cave and gave light to it and said, “John, for the people below in Jerusalem I am being crucified and pierced with lances and reeds, and given vinegar and gall to drink. But to you I am speaking, and listen to what I speak. I put into your mind to come up to this mountain so that you may hear what a disciple should learn from his teacher and a man from God.”
And when he had said this he showed me a Cross of Light firmly fixed, and around the Cross a great crowd, which had no single form; and in it (the Cross) was one form and the same likeness. And I saw the Lord himself above the Cross, having no shape but only a kind of voice; yet not that voice which we knew, but one that was sweet and gentle and truly (the voice) of God, which said to me, “John, there must (be) one man (to) hear these things from me; for I need one who is ready to bear. This Cross of Light is sometimes called Logos by me for your sakes, sometimes mind, sometimes Jesus, sometimes Christ, sometimes a door, sometimes a way, sometimes bread, sometimes seed, sometimes resurrection, sometimes Son, sometimes Father, sometimes Spirit, sometimes life, sometimes truth, sometimes faith, sometimes grace; and so (it is called) for men’s sake.
“But what it truly is, as known in itself and spoken to us, (is this): it is the distinction of all things, and the strong uplifting of what is firmly fixed out of what is unstable, and the harmony of wisdom, being wisdom in harmony (?). there are on the right and on the left, powers, authorities, principalities and the demons, activities, threatening, passions, devils, Satan and the inferior root from which the nature of transient things proceeded.
“This Cross then (is that) which has united all things by the word and which has separated off what is transitory and inferior, which has also compacted all things into . But this is not that wooden Cross which you shall see when you go down from here; nor am I the (man) who is on the Cross, (I) whom you now do not see but only hear (my) voice. I was taken to be what I am not, I who am not what for many others I was; but what they will say of me is mean and unworthy of me. Since then the place of (my?) rest is neither (to be) seen nor told, much more shall I, the Lord of this (place), be neither seen .
…] “So then I suffered none of those things which they will say of me; even that suffering which I showed to you and to the rest in my dance, I will that it be called a mystery. For what you are, that I have shown you, (as) you see; but what I am is known to me alone, and no one else. Let me have what is mine; what is yours you must see through me; but me you must see truly—not I am, (as) I said, but that which you, as (my) kinsman, are able to know. You hear that I suffered, yet I suffered not; and that I suffered not, yet I did suffer; and that I was pierced, yet I was not wounded; that I was hanged, yet I was not hanged; that blood flowed from me, yet it did not flow; and, in a word, that what they say of me, I did not endure, but what they do not say, those things I did suffer. Now what these are, I secretly show you; for I know that you will understand. You must know me, then, as the torment of the Logos, the piercing of the Logos, the blood of the Logos, the wounding of the Logos, the fastening of the Logos, the death of the Logos. And so I speak, discarding the man(hood). The first then (that) you must know (is) the Logos; then you shall know the Lord, and thirdly the man, and what he has suffered.”
When he had said these things to me, and others which I know not how to say as he wills, he was taken up, without any of the multitude seeing him. And going I laughed at them all, since he had told me what they had said about him; and I held this one thing fast in my (mind), that the Lord had performed everything as a symbol and a dispensation for the conversion and salvation of man.