The docetism was a reaction to old Jewish DENIERS of the historicity of Jesus

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: The docetism was a reaction to old Jewish DENIERS of the historicity of Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:26 pm
Giuseppe wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:11 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Apr 12, 2016 7:32 pm
That Jesus did in fact suffer is affirmed in a quotation of Basilides preserved by Clement (Strom. 4.83.1), a passage to which we shall return.

This is the book 4 of the Stromata of Clement:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02104.htm

Can someone say me where Basilides would say that "Jesus did in fact suffer"?

Thanks in advance.
Here it is:

Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 4.12.83a: 83a Then, in continuation, he says expressly concerning the Lord, as concerning man, "If, then, passing from all these observations, you were to proceed to put me to shame by saying, perchance impersonating certain parties, 'This man has then sinned, for this man has suffered" — if you permit, I will say, 'He has not sinned, but was like a child suffering.' If you were to insist more urgently, I would say that the man you name is man, but that God is righteous: 'For no one is pure,' as one said, 'from filth' (= Job 14:4). / 83a εἶθ' ὑποβὰς καὶ περὶ τοῦ κυρίου ἄντικρυς ὡς περὶ ἀνθρώπου λέγει· «ἐὰν μέντοι παραλιπὼν τούτους ἅπαντας τοὺς λόγους ἔλθῃς ἐπὶ τὸ δυσωπεῖν με διὰ προσώπων τινῶν, εἰ τύχοι, λέγων, ὁ δεῖνα οὖν ἥμαρτεν, ἔπαθεν γὰρ ὁ δεῖνα, ἐὰν μὲν ἐπιτρέπῃς, ἐρῶ, οὐχ ἥμαρτεν μέν, ὅμοιος δὲ ἦν τῷ πάσχοντι νηπίῳ· εἰ μέντοι σφοδρότερον ἐκβιάσαιο τὸν λόγον, ἐρῶ, ἄνθρωπον ὅντιν' ἂν ὀνομάσῃς ἄνθρωπον εἶναι, δίκαιον δὲ τὸν θεόν. καθαρὸς γὰρ οὐδείς, ὥσπερ εἶπέ τις, ἀπὸ ῥύπου.»

but that quote is evidence of precisely the contrary of what Pearson claims!

An enemy of Basilides is accusing the his Christ:

'This man has then sinned, for this man has suffered"

And Basilides replies by claiming that not only Jesus doesn't sin, but he didn't suffer really, but only in appearance, in the form of another:

'He has not sinned, but was like a child suffering.'

An equivalent translation is:
'He has not sinned, but was similar to a child suffering.'

οὐχ ἥμαρτεν μέν, ὅμοιος δὲ ἦν τῷ πάσχοντι νηπίῳ

Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: The docetism was a reaction to old Jewish DENIERS of the historicity of Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »

The fact is, that even if Basilides didn't write proto-Mark, Alexander and Rufus continue to be per se evidence that Mark was written against Basilides. Therefore: 120 CE as termimus post quem.

Why?

Because it is too much evident that they work as two witnesses (in Rome?) of the fact that Simon had carried the cross, but
that he had been NOT - absolutely not - crucified in the place of Jesus, as maintained by Basilides.

The General Rule is that one doesn't place two "witnesses" where they are not useful. But precisely in the point where they served.

Hence who disagrees with me has to face the two horns of the beast:
  • or Alexander and Rufus were put there by Basilides (hence Basilides wrote proto-Mark)
  • Or Alexander and Rufus were put there against Basilides (hence Mark comes after Basilides).
Tertium non datur.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: The docetism was a reaction to old Jewish DENIERS of the historicity of Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »


"Greet Rufus, a choice man in the Lord, also his mother and mine."

(Romans 16:13)

Not coincidentially: why didn't Paul greet also the father of Rufus ?

Was the father of Rufus absent because dead on the cross in the place of Jesus? Only ask Rufus.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: The docetism was a reaction to old Jewish DENIERS of the historicity of Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »


Pseudo-Jerome's commentary on Mark says that Simon is
"commemorated by the merits of his sons who were disciples"

. He adds the metaphor of
a sweet fruit-tree springing from a bitter root

, apparently meaning that Simon, the father, did not become a disciple.

https://books.google.it/books?id=mvw8AA ... ot&f=false

Why bitter root? Because Cyrene = Sedition (the beginning - Cyrenius's taxes - and the end - rebellion of Jews of Cyrene - of the Zealot movement)

Why sweet fruit-tree ? Because Acts of Andrew says that Alexander was a witness of the Risen one.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: The docetism was a reaction to old Jewish DENIERS of the historicity of Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »

I read in Mark 8:34 :

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

This prophecy is fulfilled by Simon of Cyrene, who "follows" Jesus by bearing his cross.

But the logion, docet Hengel, is of Zealot origin. Hence Simon comes from Cyrene because he allegorizes the Zealots. It was a Divine Justice, for Basilides, that the evil Zealot from Cyrene was crucified in the place of Jesus the Son of Father. He adored a god of war.


I wonder if calling someone as "father of Rufus" was synonimous of an accusation of seditionism. Independently from the Christian tradition, Bar-Kokhba's son was called Rufus. Was it a way to say that a Zealot root finds always Zealot fruits? That the removal of the root doesn't prevent his evil offshots?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: The docetism was a reaction to old Jewish DENIERS of the historicity of Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »


What bearing on these questions have the Docetes, the most ancient Christian heretics, who contended that Jesus had been but a phantom, that He had only assumed the semblance of a body—and this, exclaims St. Jerome, when the blood of Jesus was not yet dry in Judaea ? The great antiquity of the sect is confirmed by two letters attributed to St. John, which are partly directed against Docetism, and perhaps also by the passage in the Fourth Gospel (xx. 24) concerning the incredulity of St. Thomas. Works by Docetes have not come down to us and we have no adequate knowledge of their tenets. One thing, however, is certain : the so-called extreme Docetes denied the Crucifixion. Irenseus (c. 180 a.d.) says that the heretic Basilides (c. 125) related the Crucifixion as follows : Simon of Cyrene was crucified by mistake "and Jesus himself took the form of Simon, and stood by and laughed at the executioners." Foolish as this may be, how could a fact be so ludicrously denied, if it had been historically ascertained ?

43. A keen adversary of the Docetes, St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, writing about 110, says that the birth and death of Jesus were unknown to Satan, the Prince of the world ; he also speaks of certain persons who declared : " What we do not find in the archives we cannot accept in the Gospel." Efforts have been made to twist these texts, which are undoubtedly very odd, but must be taken as they stand and interpreted honestly. They seem to show that the Bishop of Antioch had to contend with unbelievers inspired by the Devil, who stated that they could find no evidences of the birth and death of Jesus in the public archives (of Caesarea ?). Ignatius answered them only with pious phrases ; after him, from the first half of the second century, forgeries were concocted to refute them.

44. St. Paul preached "Christ crucified," not Gospel history. He talked with men who had lived with Jesus, like Peter and James ; but their recollections of the earthly life of the master do not seem to have interested him. In his Epistles to distant communities he hardly says anything about Jesus, but dwells on Christ. We may nevertheless assert that the Epistles of Paul are the best historical evidence we possess relating to Jesus, so far do all the rest fall short of the demands of criticism. If these Epistles were not by St. Paul, or if the decisive passages in them were spurious—of which we have, so far, no proof at all—it would almost be a pardonable paradox to doubt the historical existence of Jesus. All we can safely say is, that if historical facts are imbedded in the Gospel narrative, they are so overlaid with legend that it is impossible to extract from them the elements of a scientific biography.

(Salomon Reinach, A short history of Christianity, my bold)
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: The docetism was a reaction to old Jewish DENIERS of the historicity of Jesus

Post by Giuseppe »

Somethins says me that this is the essence of the Earliest Gospel:


It was not, he says, the first hypostatic emanation who was crucified. Rather, it was a Jew named Simon from Cyrenaica who was executed on the Cross. The first hypostasis had transformed its manifestation into the form of Simon of Cyrene, and Simon into the form of Jesus. Thus, one might say, formally Jesus Christ was crucified, but substantially he was not.

There is room for theological reflection on the point that Basilides raised, and its relation to the meaning of Christian docetism. But as a historian, I want to note also that on this point, as in his treatment of the history of Israel, Basilides may have been speaking from an ingrained anti-Jewish sensibility. Cyrene, the capital of Cyrenaica in the Libyan coast, had been a major battle zone between Jews and gentiles in the Jewish uprising of 115-116. Here, reputedly, the Jews of Cyrene had brutally slaughtered hundreds of thousands of gentile residents; when some gentile survivors had fled from Cyrene to Alexandria a severe disturbance had resulted, leading to a pogrom of the Alexandrian Jews. Thus in a political reading of Basilides's exegesis, Roman reprisal for the Jewish uprising is symbolized by the crucifixion of Simon of Cyrene.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2928589?Se ... b_contents
(my bold)
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Post Reply