Re: Both Paul and Minucius Felix had a problem with euhemerizers
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2020 3:29 pm
Investigating the roots of western civilization (ye olde BC&H forum of IIDB lives on...)
https://earlywritings.com/forum/
Plato could think anything about X, frankly what was in his mind counts zero to explain the origin of Christianity. And it counts zero for me, too.Joseph D. L. wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2020 3:09 pmThe celestial chi that Plato refers to is pre-existing in Greek and Egyptian mythology and religion.
So you use Plato by inserting your own misguided agenda onto what he said.Giuseppe wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2020 9:25 pmPlato could think anything about X, frankly what was in his mind counts zero to explain the origin of Christianity. And it counts zero for me, too.Joseph D. L. wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2020 3:09 pmThe celestial chi that Plato refers to is pre-existing in Greek and Egyptian mythology and religion.
Which is fine, but then don't say that Plato was of no importance, or that Christians were not actively twisting Plato to fit their agenda.My point is simply to argue, with Danielou, that the Christian Limit/Horos was "read" in Plato. Hence it is not only Justin's christianization of Plato's X. We have evidence that some Christians placed the crucifixion in the same point where Plato placed his X.
Yes you are. Astrotheology--get this through your head--is not limited to Zodiacal worship, but incorporates all aspects of steller, solar and celestial phenomena as religious expression. The cult of Re was astrotheological. Helios was astrotheological, and consequently Plato was astrotheological.What serves to know is that X was the vernal equinox, an astronomical concept.
When you connect theology with an astronomical concept, you are not doing astrotheology.
What about Mithraism? What about Orphism? Both schools were deeply indebted to Platonism and both are astrotheological. So if it's true for them then it's true for Christianity.When you connect theology with an astrological concept (Zodiac), you are doing astrotheology.
Admit you don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about and are just typing whatever ignorant idea you think off.Like the difference, please.
P.S. your insistence on labels more than meaning moves me to make further irony about the meaning of this symbol:
I am saying that what was in Plato's mind, with all the respect, was of no importance.Joseph D. L. wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2020 10:10 pmWhich is fine, but then don't say that Plato was of no importance, or that Christians were not actively twisting Plato to fit their agenda.My point is simply to argue, with Danielou, that the Christian Limit/Horos was "read" in Plato. Hence it is not only Justin's christianization of Plato's X. We have evidence that some Christians placed the crucifixion in the same point where Plato placed his X.
But the reasons given by Andrew to think so are not precisely the mine. Andrew says (if I understand him well): the Roman crucifixion was a public event, hence its being public breaks someway the total secrecy requested for the mission of a mythical Son of God on earth.andrewcriddle wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2015 11:15 am I'm afraid I have difficulty with an obscure recent execution on earth. What is much more likely is a public execution the significance of which is not generally guessed at.
Note that the argument of these deniers was the following:Giuseppe wrote: ↑Mon Apr 20, 2020 5:52 amWhat 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)
In other terms, they denied the historicity of the Gospel Jesus.Giuseppe wrote: ↑Tue Sep 17, 2019 4:46 am The docetism was the way by early Jewish Christians (Readers of the First Gospel) to harmonize the Jewish «mythicist» (ante litteram) accusation that Jesus was an unknown X with the Gospel idea that Jesus existed in Judea:
How can that Jewish accusation be expressed? In the following manner:
The Jesus of which you talk was not a descendant of David; he was not a son of Mary; he didn't come in the world; he didn't eat, he didn't drink; he was not baptized by John; he wasn't crucified under Pilate and Herod; he was for us completely unknown.