A thought on the mystery of the passion of the Christ.

[Giuseppe]

a motif which blankly contradicts, of course, the demons in the synoptic gospels recognizing Jesus before he exorcises them.

the question is: how much is sure this claim? The demons make it clear that Jesus is the Holy of God, i.e. the Jewish Messiah. But is this only a their assumption and not the real thought of the author about the true Father of Jesus?

There is no doubt in my mind that the gospel of Mark as we have it points to Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.

you mean: the Jewish Christ, the Son of YHWH. The exact thing denied by the heretics who used especially Mark.

[Giuseppe]

Justin says that the demons knew in advance the plan of God about the Son since they did make any Pagan mystery a parody of the death and resurrection of the Son.

This dovetails with part of the point of the OP. If knowledge of God's overall plan, including a messianic death, is known from a natural reading of scripture, then of course the demons can know it, as well.

have you considered the possibility that only out of embarrassment for the delay of Parusia, the demons were made ignorant about the death. In an original phase, the demons knew the identity of the son just as the Pillars "knew" with extreme certainty their coming end.

[Ben C. Smith]

a motif which blankly contradicts, of course, the demons in the synoptic gospels recognizing Jesus before he exorcises them.

the question is: how much is sure this claim? The demons make it clear that Jesus is the Holy of God, i.e. the Jewish Messiah. But is this only a their assumption and not the real thought of the author about the true Father of Jesus?

There is no doubt in my mind that the gospel of Mark as we have it points to Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.

you mean: the Jewish Christ, the Son of YHWH. The exact thing denied by the heretics who used especially Mark.

I am just reading the text with as much cultural context as I can find to apply to it. Nothing fancy.

Justin says that the demons knew in advance the plan of God about the Son since they did make any Pagan mystery a parody of the death and resurrection of the Son.

This dovetails with part of the point of the OP. If knowledge of God's overall plan, including a messianic death, is known from a natural reading of scripture, then of course the demons can know it, as well.

have you considered the possibility that only out of embarrassment for the delay of Parousia, the demons were made ignorant about the death. In an original phase, the demons knew the identity of the son just as the Pillars "knew" with extreme certainty their coming end.

How would that work? How does the delay of the parousia make a person want to take away the demons' knowledge?

[Giuseppe]

I am just reading the text with as much cultural context as I can find to apply to it. Nothing fancy.

that is equivalent to say that the various readers (the separationists mentioned by Irenaeus or Carpocrates) of Mark were idiots when they denied that Jesus was son of YHWH.

How would that work? How does the delay of the parousia make a person want to take away the demons' knowledge?

when their faith in the imminence of the Parusia is really strong, they were not embarrassed by the demons's knowledge of the identity of the victim. The Catholics were not embarrassed for the Jews's knowledge that Jesus was their Messiah, since the punition of the Jews was under the eyes of all (the 70 CE facts), as (forever) strong warning against the deicide people. If the Temple was still standing, they would have said that the Jews didn't know who was their victim.

Addenda: that is the reason why so many Catholics, at least here in Italy, are seriously embarrassed for the birth of the State of Israel.

[Ben C. Smith]

I am just reading the text with as much cultural context as I can find to apply to it. Nothing fancy.

that is equivalent to say that the various readers (the separationists mentioned by Irenaeus or Carpocrstes) of Mark were idiots when they denied that Jesus was son of YHWH.

Maybe they were. I am not sure how I would determine such a thing, nor do I really care about that. What I do know is that many commentators, both ancient and modern, often use exegetical tools which are virtually guaranteed to fail them with respect to trying to figure out what an author actually meant by this or that statement in his or her text.

1.

when their faith in the imminence of the Parousia is really strong, they were not embarrassed by the demons's knowledge of the identity of the victim. The Catholics were not embarrassed for the Jews's knowledge that Jesus was their Messiah, since the punition of the Jews was under the eyes of all (the 70 CE facts), as (forever) strong warning against the deicide people. If the Temple was still standing, they would have said that the Jews didn't know who was their victim.

2. "If all the animals along the equator were capable of flattery, then Thanksgiving and Halloween would fall on the same date."

I feel like I am more likely to follow the logic of the second proposition than the first.

[Giuseppe]

1.

when their faith in the imminence of the Parousia is really strong, they were not embarrassed by the demons's knowledge of the identity of the victim. The Catholics were not embarrassed for the Jews's knowledge that Jesus was their Messiah, since the punition of the Jews was under the eyes of all (the 70 CE facts), as (forever) strong warning against the deicide people. If the Temple was still standing, they would have said that the Jews didn't know who was their victim.

2. "If all the animals along the equator were capable of flattery, then Thanksgiving and Halloween would fall on the same date."

I feel like I am more likely to follow the logic of the second proposition than the first.

in Revelation the Dragon puts himself before the Woman because he knows that she will give birth to the Messiah.

Evidently the author of Revelation was less embarrassed than Paul about the knowledge of Satan about the Son.

[Ben C. Smith]

1.

when their faith in the imminence of the Parousia is really strong, they were not embarrassed by the demons's knowledge of the identity of the victim. The Catholics were not embarrassed for the Jews's knowledge that Jesus was their Messiah, since the punition of the Jews was under the eyes of all (the 70 CE facts), as (forever) strong warning against the deicide people. If the Temple was still standing, they would have said that the Jews didn't know who was their victim.

2. "If all the animals along the equator were capable of flattery, then Thanksgiving and Halloween would fall on the same date."

I feel like I am more likely to follow the logic of the second proposition than the first.

in Revelation the Dragon puts himself before the Woman because he knows that she will give birth to the Messiah.

Evidently the author of Revelation was less embarrassed than Paul about the knowledge of Satan about the Son.

One thing I am having trouble understanding about your views on this topic is what embarrassment (whether the raw human emotion or the criterion built upon that emotion) has to do with any of it.

[Giuseppe]

One thing I am having trouble understanding about your views on this topic is what embarrassment (whether the raw human emotion or the criterion built upon that emotion) has to do with any of it.

but how? Satan has just killed the Son in full knowledge of him, and he is still ruling this world totally undisturbed?!??

Remove from him at least the feeling and the pleasure of winning (for a so long time from the crucifixion) by making him ignorant about the his victim!

[Ben C. Smith]

One thing I am having trouble understanding about your views on this topic is what embarrassment (whether the raw human emotion or the criterion built upon that emotion) has to do with any of it.

but how? Satan has just killed the Son in full knowledge of him, and he is still ruling this world totally undisturbed?!??

Remove from him at least the feeling and the pleasure of winning (for a so long time from the crucifixion) by making him ignorant about the his victim!

So the embarrassment of which you speak is Satan's embarrassment, not any human author's embarrassment?

[nightshadetwine]

Justin says that the demons knew in advance the plan of God about the Son since they did make any Pagan mystery a parody of the death and resurrection of the Son.

Interestingly, in Ephesians 3 Paul says:

This is the reason that I Paul am a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles— 2 for surely you have already heard of the commission of God’s grace that was given me for you, 3 and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words, 4 a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ. 5 In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: 6 that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

So Paul says the mystery which is now being revealed is that Jews and Gentiles have become members of the same body through Christ. This sounds like it's coming straight out of the mystery cults where the followers of Dionysus and Osiris would make up their body. The mystery cults of Dionysus and Osiris/Isis didn't exclude anyone. They offered salvation to all people, which is what Paul is saying about Jesus.

Porphyry's Against the Christians: The Literary Remains, R. Joseph Hoffmann

...Paul's use of body imagery in his first letter to the Corinthians and the theme of spiritual communion through the incorporation into "the body of Christ"(1 Cor. 12.27f.) is familiar from the language of the Dionysiac mysteries:"Blessed is he who hallows his life in the worship of God, he whom the spirit of God possesseth, who is one with those who belong to the holy body of God"(Euripides, Bacchae 73-75). Pagan critics of the early movement pointed to the fact that Christians addressed Jesus in terms equivalent to those used by the bacchantes(Dionysus' worshipers). Jesus was kyrios(lord) and lysios, redeemer. In the Dionysiac cult, the god redeemed adherents from a world of darkness and death by revealing himself in ecstatic visions and providing glimpses of a world-to-come.

Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt, Jan Assmann

A myth that took tangible form only in the later periods of history identified the forty-two nomes of Egypt with forty-two body parts of Osiris. Like the Pauline concept of the church as the body of Christ, according to this myth, the forty-two nomes of Egypt symbolized the body of Osiris. 21 When the reuniting and revivification of Osiris were celebrated during the annual Osiris mysteries, Egyptians were reassured of the unity of the land...

Reading Dionysus: Euripides’ Bacchae and the Cultural Contestations of Greeks, Jews, Romans, and Christians(Mohr Siebeck, 2015), Courtney Friesen

The tragedy presents a religious vision in which Dionysus appeals to, and indeed requires, the allegiance of all humanity, both Greeks and barbarians. As E.R. Dodds observes, "Euripides represents the Dionysiac cult as a sort of 'world religion', carried by missionaries (as no native Greek cult ever was) from one land to another." The universal scope of Dionysus' mythological conquests and his power to unite barbarians and Greeks under common religion were important factors in the god's appeal as a divine model in subsequent imperial ideology, beginning with the legends surrounding Alexander. Thus, for example, Diodorus Siculus, in his summary of the mythologies of the Dionysus' conquests of the inhabited world, characterizes the god as a model statesman who "furnished unity of mind and much peace in place of divisions and war". Acts similarly represents Christianity as a religion with universal claims, one that must reach "to the end of the earth" (1:8).