Still on Moses and Elijiah as the two crucified thieves and the same Rulers of this Age

[Giuseppe]

This post is inspired from this post, where the principal argument (see the title) is slightly different.


Evidence in Tertullian that the two crucified thieves (Moses and Elijiah) are sharing indirectly the same glory of the crucified(=transfigured) Jesus:

Now, even if their presence was necessary, they surely should not be represented as conversing together, which is a sign of familiarity; nor as associated in glory with him, for this indicates respect and graciousness; but they should be shown in some slough as a sure token of their ruin, or even in that darkness of the Creator which Christ was sent to disperse, far removed from the glory of Him who was about to sever their words and writings from His gospel. This, then, is the way how he demonstrates them to be aliens, even by keeping them in his own company! This is how he shows they ought to be relinquished: he associates them with himself instead! This is how he destroys them: he irradiates them with his glory! How would their own Christ act? I suppose He would have imitated the frowardness (of heresy), and revealed them just as Marcion's Christ was bound to do, or at least as having with Him any others rather than His own prophets! But what could so well befit the Creator's Christ, as to manifest Him in the company of His own foreannouncers? — to let Him be seen with those to whom He had appeared in revelations?— to let Him be speaking with those who had spoken of Him?— to share His glory with those by whom He used to be called the Lord of glory; even with those chief servants of His, one of whom was once the moulder of His people, the other afterwards the reformer thereof; one the initiator of the Old Testament, the other the consummator of the New? Well therefore does Peter, when recognizing the companions of his Christ in their indissoluble connection with Him, suggest an expedient: It is good for us to be here (good: that evidently means to be where Moses and Elias are)

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03124.htm

Are Moses and Elijiah the same "rulers of this age"? They are against the Son of the Good God, they crucify him, and without realize it, they are sharing the his same Glory. Since they are doing precisely what the Good God had planned in advance for them: to help to their same destruction, by crucifying Jesus. The plastic image of this is to see the two thieves in the same time as:

• Killers of Jesus (they insult him)

• Victims with Jesus (they are crucified, too)

Insofar they insult Jesus, they are condemned also.
Insofar they are crucified with Jesus, they are already sharing (doing experience of) the Glorious Cosmic Celestial Crucifixion/Ascension/Resurrection of Jesus.

Since they allegorize Moses and Elijiah and since Moses and Elijiah are mere servants of the Creator, then it is the Creator itself to crucify the Son of the Good God.

This betrayes strongly the marcionite nature of Mark.

[Giuseppe]

Colossians 2:15 is clearly in view here, confirming definitely the Gnostic nature of proto-Mark (being Colossians the Gnostic epistle by definition):

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross

This is the reason why the Rulers of this Age (= Moses and Elijiah) are the two crucified thieves: themselves are part of the "public spectacle", too.

The Greek original is even more explicit:

ἀπεκδυσάμενος τὰς ἀρχὰς καὶ τὰς ἐξουσίας ἐδειγμάτισεν ἐν παρρησίᾳ, θριαμβεύσας αὐτοὺς ἐν αὐτῷ

"...triumphing over them in it".

[Giuseppe]

On the archontic nature of Moses:

Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator.

(Galatians 3:19)

[Giuseppe]

On the archontic nature of Elijiah (and of all the prophets as an entire):

11. Moreover, they distribute the prophets in the following manner: Moses, and Joshua the Son of Nun, and Amos, and Habakkuk, belonged to Ialdabaoth; Samuel, and Nathan, and Jonah, and Micah, to Iao; Elijah, Joel, and Zechariah to Sabaoth; Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel, to Adonai; Tobias and Haggai to Eloi; Michaiah and Nahum to Oreus; Esdras and Zephaniah to Astanphæus. Each one of these, then, glorifies his own father and God, and they maintain that Sophia, herself has also spoken many things through them regarding the first Anthropos (man), and concerning that Christ who is above, thus admonishing and reminding men of the incorruptible light, the first Anthropos, and of the descent of Christ.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103130.htm

[Giuseppe]

Still on the archontic, even satanic nature of Elijiah as the "Prophet":

After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world". (ὁ προφήτης ὁ ἐρχόμενος εἰς τὸν κόσμον)

(John 6:14)

I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming (ἔρχεται γὰρ ὁ τοῦ κόσμου ἄρχων)

(John 14:30)

Hence the "Prophet" (i.e. Elijiah) is the same "prince of this world".

[Giuseppe]

Elijah as the Demiurge himself:

33 At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 34 And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

35 When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”

(Mark 15:33-35)

Clearly then, who is calling the Demiurge is not Jesus, but the his mere human recipient (separationism).

[Giuseppe]

Question that the historicists can't never answer: how can the crucifixion of Jesus be embarrassing if the "archons of this age" themselves are crucified with him?

[Giuseppe]

38 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”
39 “We can,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, 40 but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”

The two Pillars didn't understand the fact that who has crucified really Jesus (in the past: during the Transfiguration episode; in the future: on the Golgotha) are just who was/will be around him "in the his glory": Moses and Elijah, aka the two thieves.
So Tertullian captured really the Marcion's irony when he wrote:

This is how he destroys them: he irradiates them with his glory!

[Giuseppe]

Here the equation "archons of this age == OT prophets" is made definitely more and more explicit:
John 10:8:

All who have come before me are thieves and robbers

So Couchoud was 100% right about Barabbas as a mere judaizing parody of the marcionite Son of Father.

[Giuseppe]

Thus, Jesus has appeared ‘between the two living beings’, Anastasius writes (239.19-20), both on the Mountain of the Skull (between the two thieves, in a manner befitting the Cross, stauroprep¬v) and on the Mountain of the Transfiguration, between Moses and Elijah, in a manner befitting God (qeoprep¬v). Here again, Anastasius is part of the rich reception history of Hab. 3:2 LXX, which includes an application to Tabor (Christ between Moses and Elijah) and Golgotha (Christ between the two thieves).

(p. 253, my bold)
https://www.academia.edu/5460613/Exeges ... figuration