I don't know if I can agree with that assessment, though I can definitely get behind being seen as a god-like figure, in the same way Simon Magnus, Apollonius, and Peregrinus (all of whom I suspect may be analogous to Paul and Marcion) were thought of as gods. I guess some leeway can be given as certain gnostics held Pilate as representing a lower god, and I think Pilate is a proxy for Paul/Marcion. The question becomes, I suppose, is what makes a god?davidmartin wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:17 pm If so then his opponents might well have had a deified response. I've long suspected Paul to be the original figure behind the Gnostic demiurge, and their strange silence on Paul. Although the demiurge was not a new idea at all, he was the one that fitted into that role. Take the epithets of the demiurge 'fool', exactly what Paul's opponents called him. Also the demiurge's refrain "I am God and no-one else is beside me" - that sums up Paul's own exclusive claims to represent Christ. The demiurge's Mother would have been a person also originally.
There's also veiled oppositional references against a Paul-like figure in non-Gnostic sources, such as the infancy gospel (which I mentioned in another thread) and possibly even the gospels, in the figure of Judas Iscariot.
Judas Iscariot is a proxy for James. This becomes clearer when you unravel the confusion in the Gospels over "Judas" Iscariot, and Dydimus "Judas" Thomas. It's just John and James bar Zebedee, the Boanerges.
Giuseppe's thread about the Mother really boiled by blood. The Mother is not an antagonist in the gnostic traditions; only in the Jewish tradition. Nor do I think the passages typically pointed to where Jesus seemingly rejects his mother as clear or as obvious as is thought.