Prof Vinzent: why Marcion created Christianity
Posted: Tue May 05, 2020 10:09 am
Ye olde BC&H forum of IIDB lives on...
https://earlywritings.com/forum/
one can easily see how the separationism is a first naive way to incapsulate the Light in a human recipient who is a creature of the demiurge (so Cerinthus) or is the demiurge himself (so Cleomenes and the patripassianism). In order to rehabilitate the creature (by pointing out that the man Jesus son of Joseph and Mary was a pious Jew respectful of the Law etc), hence the creator too. The Catholic rehabilitation of the demiurge as the supreme god is only the last answer against Marcion.Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed May 06, 2020 9:09 pm What strikes me about the incipit of Marcion, is the probable midrash from the Genesis:
Fiat lux. Et lux fuit.
Interpreted, obviously, according to the distorted Gnostic exegesis of Genesis, with the Light coming from a supreme god who is distinct from the (evil) creator, and the Serpent as friend of the First Man. The demiurge is without the Light, the only able to give life to his inert creation. Hence the demiurge could only DESIRE the Light, just as John the Baptist could only dedire/predict the coming of the "Stronger one". Not coincidentially, for Heracleon the Baptist allegorizes the demiurge.
In this case, Jesus's rapidity to descend on Capernaum is very probably the allegory of the sudden apparition of the Light, coming from the supreme god to help a second time the demiurge in a new creation.
One where the presence of the evil demiurge is not more tolerated.
The problem raised by Tertullian (total absence of witnesses at the descent on Capernaum) was signaled by Celsus, too:Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed May 06, 2020 9:14 pmone can easily see how the separationism is a first naive way to incapsulate the Light in a human recipient who is a creature of the demiurge (so Cerinthus) or is the demiurge himself (so Cleomenes and the patripassianism). In order to rehabilitate the creature (by pointing out that the man Jesus son of Joseph and Mary was a pious Jew respectful of the Law etc), hence the creator too. The Catholic rehabilitation of the demiurge as the supreme god is only the last answer against Marcion.Giuseppe wrote: ↑Wed May 06, 2020 9:09 pm What strikes me about the incipit of Marcion, is the probable midrash from the Genesis:
Fiat lux. Et lux fuit.
Interpreted, obviously, according to the distorted Gnostic exegesis of Genesis, with the Light coming from a supreme god who is distinct from the (evil) creator, and the Serpent as friend of the First Man. The demiurge is without the Light, the only able to give life to his inert creation. Hence the demiurge could only DESIRE the Light, just as John the Baptist could only dedire/predict the coming of the "Stronger one". Not coincidentially, for Heracleon the Baptist allegorizes the demiurge.
In this case, Jesus's rapidity to descend on Capernaum is very probably the allegory of the sudden apparition of the Light, coming from the supreme god to help a second time the demiurge in a new creation.
One where the presence of the evil demiurge is not more tolerated.