An ancient Cathar text reveals that John the Baptist pointed Jesus as the Lamb of God to move the Jews to kill him

[Giuseppe]

We all know the story:

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

(John 1:29)

An ancient Cathar text reveals that the demiurgical John the Baptist pointed Jesus as the Lamb of God to move the Jews to kill him. The evil demiurge sent John with the precise goal of baptizing Jesus to make the Jews see who they had to kill. Hence the oldest sense of John 1:29 would be that John was revealing to the Jews who they had to kill to satisfy the caprices of the evil demiurge.

[Ben C. Smith]

We all know the story:

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

(John 1:29)

An ancient Cathar text reveals that the demiurgical John the Baptist pointed Jesus as the Lamb of God to move the Jews to kill him. The evil demiurge sent John with the precise goal of baptizing Jesus to make the Jews see who they had to kill. Hence the oldest sense of John 1:29 would be that John was revealing to the Jews who they had to kill to satisfy the caprices of the evil demiurge.

Two things:

1. This may just be a language issue, but there is no such thing as an ancient Cathar text. The earliest Cathar texts are medieval, not ancient.
2. How can you come onto this forum with a straight face and post such a claim without even giving a reference for the text??? How can you not see that your point means zero unless we can view the evidence for ourselves???

[Giuseppe]

1. This may just be a language issue, but there is no such thing as an ancient Cathar text. The earliest Cathar texts are medieval, not ancient.
2. How can you come onto this forum with a straight face and post such a claim without even giving a reference for the text??? How can you not see that your point means zero unless we can view the evidence for ourselves???

I am obliged to go rapidly, because I think in Italian, I read in French, and I post here in English. Hence, more comprehension is required by the readers. The references will come later.

[Giuseppe]

This is the text:

And Satan, the prince of this world, knew that I come to find and save those who were lost. And he sent his angel Elijah the prophet who baptizes in water, and who is called John the Baptist. Now, Elijah asks to the prince of this world: How can I recognize him? And he said: "On who you will see to descend the Spirit similar to a dove, and to stay on him, he is who baptizes in holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins; he is who will can lose or save. And I, John [=the Beloved Disciple], I asked again the Lord: Can a man be saved by the baptism of John without be baptized by you ? And the Lord answered: If I have not baptized for the forgiveness of sins, by the baptism of water no man can see the Kingdom of heaven…

And I asked again the Lord: Why did all receive the baptism of John, but all didn't receive the your baptism? And the Lord answered: Because their works are evil and they didn't come from the Light. The disciples of John get married, but the my disciples don't get married at all, since they are as the angels of God in the heaven.

These passages are quoted from a Cathar text of 12° century, published by the dominican F. BENOIST in the his Histoire des Albigeois et des Vaudois ou Barbels, Paris 1691, I, 283, with the indication: "gained from the Inquisition of Carcassonne". It has been published again by REITZENSTEIN in the his Préhistoire du bapteme chrétien. This text dates to 12° century, but its content is very much more ancient; it dates to gnosticism of the early Church.

In the same way, according to Cathars, it is in order to move the Jews to kill that John had baptized Jesus and had designed him as the lamb of God, i.e. a victim who had to be immolated to God [Reitzenstein, op. cit., p. 74.]

By the mediation of the Cathars, we are reported so to a phase of early Christianity where John has been not still co-opted and assimilated by the Christians, where he was not still made the precursor of Jesus. John is still considered by the Christians as a kind of spy sent by Satan, with the mission of detecting Jesus and move the Jews to kill him.

(Robert Stahl, Les Mandéens et les origines chrétiennes, p. 158-159)

[Giuseppe]

It is very curious that in Mark 1:10:

And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him

...the reader is confirmed to believe that John didn't see the dove descending upon Jesus.

Was "Mark" answering against who claimed that, by seeing the dove, John could realize the his demiurgical mission (to move the Jews against Jesus) ?

Was John the original Judas ?

[Nasruddin]

So why was Jesus there anyway? John was baptizing for the forgiveness of sin (as the quoted Cathar text says), So what sin was Jesus seeking forgiveness for?

The possibility is that Jesus did not go to John to be baptized. He went to John to question his authority. The Gospel of John 1:19-30 reads:

"When the religious authorities in Jerusalem sent some Priests and Levites to ask John – "Who are you?", he told them clearly and simply: "I am not the Christ." "What then?" they asked. "Are you Elijah?" "No," he said, "I am not." "Are you 'the prophet'?" He answered, "No." "Who then are you?" they continued; "tell us so that we have an answer to give to those who have sent us. What do you say about yourself?" "I," he answered, "am – 'The voice of one crying aloud in the wilderness – "make a straight road for the Lord"', as the prophet Isaiah said." These men had been sent from the Pharisees; and their next question was: "Why then do you baptize, if you are not the Christ or Elijah or 'the prophet'?" John's answer was – "I baptize with water, but among you stands one whom you do not know; he is coming after me, yet I am not worthy even to unfasten his sandal." This happened at Bethany, across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him, and exclaimed: "Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! I was talking about him when I said 'After me there is coming a man who ranks ahead of me, because before I was born he already was.' "

The scene places Jesus as one of representatives of the Pharisees, one among the Priests and Levites, sent to question John about his religious calling and claims. The ignorance among the other representatives about who Jesus really was (i.e. the coming Messiah), was also shared by John, who knew that the Messiah was 'one of the them', but not precisely which one.

John explains how he finally knew [John 1:31-36];
I did not know who he was, but I have come baptizing with water to make him known to Israel." John also said: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven like a dove and rest on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water, he said to me 'He on whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him – he it is who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' This I have seen myself, and I have declared my belief that he is the Son of God." The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ "

It is noticeable that in this account, nowhere is it said that John the Baptist saw the Spirit descend on Jesus at the time of his baptism. In fact, John doesn't baptize Jesus at all. John first meets Jesus as an agent of the religious authorities in Jerusalem, and only sees the Spirit descend on him the next day as Jesus is walking towards him. This then prompts John's exclamations of "Here he is!!".

I wonder what Jesus was walking towards John to discuss? Probably more annoying questions from the Pharisees. Was John trying to deflect attention away from himself by making people talk about Jesus? Neat trick to turn your interrogator into the suspect.

[Giuseppe]

I save from the your post only the idea of a basic ambivalence about John by the Christians. An ambivalence of this kind is strongly expected if the earliest approach of Christians with John was one of open rivalry, without compromise. Hence the quoted Cathar text, pace Ben, is ancient insofar it preserves the echo of this open rivalry Christians versus John.

[Nasruddin]

There was, and continued to be, rivalry between the two groups. If there was no rivalry, then John the Baptist declaring in the presence of his own disciples that Jesus was the coming Messiah (as the Gospels claim he did), would have immediately meant that John and his disciples would become followers of Jesus. Otherwise what was John preaching for? Yet John did not give up his baptising and preaching, and his disciples did not all abandon him. So therefore John did not exhort his own disciples to leave him and follow Jesus, and did not contemplate doing so himself. The Gospels tell us that John continued to have doubts about whether Jesus really was the one that he had been predicting. The accounts that after John's death, many people were wondering whether Jesus was John resurrected, shows us that John was a much more popular figure in the contemporary Messianic milieu, then Jesus was.

If Jesus was a Levite and a priest, as the Gospel of John suggests, this puts him on a par with John, who was himself a Levite and a priest (through his father Zachariah). Once Jesus was turned into a Judahite and the King of Israel, and his priesthood turned into a spiritual one, then his credentials increased within the Jewish militaristic atmosphere for revolt and regaining independence from Rome and the Herodians. After the fall of Jerusalem, his kingship and priesthood both became spiritual, and Jesus became a symbol for future hope.

[Giuseppe]

I don't like to have an interlocutor who assumes dogmatically that not only John, but even Jesus existed. Please don't post in my threads, where I write under the paradigm that Jesus never existed in the real past.

[Joseph D. L.]

I don't like to have an interlocutor who assumes dogmatically that not only John, but even Jesus existed. Please don't post in my threads, where I write under the paradigm that Jesus never existed in the real past.

translation: "Unless you're going to agree with me don't bother even posting relevant points that counterpoint me!"

#BanGiuseppe