The pathetic effort to make Pilate the archon of THIS aeon

[Giuseppe]

Exodus original made explicit that Jews knew of two powers.

You also have De 32 which has Elohim dividing the earth among the sons of God and YHWH's portion is the Israelites.

That is beyond my point: even if the Old Testament can be used to show the existence of another God, there is no evidence, absolutely zero evidence!, that the ''God from Sinai'' (or as SA likes to call it) would be the God of Justice, while the God from Heaven (or as SA likes to call it) would be a God of Mercy.
And even if you bear evidence for that, there is the problem of the total absence of the opposition between Justice and Mercy in the epistles of Paul, while it appears the first time in the Gospels.

Hyam Maccoby was more right when he thought that the origin of Gnosticism was unknown. And it could be only so, per the words of Bob Price quoted by me in a previous post.

[Ben C. Smith]

to Ben,

if the rulers are no cause for fear to those who do good, then why did the rulers crucify our Lord?

Because they did not know Jesus was "our Lord". Furthermore, because that crucifixion was seen by Paul as a sacrifice for atonement of sins, that would make the Romans "facilitating" that sacrifice, and not bad.
Also, in Romans 13, Paul is anxious to have the Christians in Rome not to disobey civil laws & authorities and also to pay tax.
I do not think he was thinking then at what the Romans in Judea did to Jesus. His thoughts were somewhere else.

Of course this kind of psychological harmonization can be done, and it may even be correct. I am personally not sure, however, that we should so readily explain away the serene attitude toward the authorities here.

[Bernard Muller]

to Giuseppe,

the 'archons of this aeon'' dont' love God, hence they are not innocent and therefore are held rightly in the ignorance about the real identity of the Son.

The same could be said if these 'archons of this aeon'' were Romans authorities: they did not love the god of the Jews and were ignorant about the real identity of the Son.

The human killers of Jesus would be not innocent for Paul, and therefore (the effect, not the cause) they are held in the ignorance about the Son: Paul has to explain why and the explanation is surprisingly missing.

What 1 Corinthians 2:8 says is that these archons then did not know about God's hidden wisdom (as everyone else before Paul revealed it!):
1 Cor 2:7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification.
1 Cor 2:8 None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
I do not see why these archons cannot be Roman authorities. If you think not understanding God's hidden wisdom is innocence, so be it. But I do not see a connection between the two.

Cordially, Bernard

[Giuseppe]

The same could be said if these 'archons of this aeon'' were Romans authorities: they did not love the god of the Jews and were ignorant about the real identity of the Son.

Precisely. Note that to be born Pagan and not knowing nothing about the Son (while one is killing the Son) is a state of innocence.

I do not see why these archons cannot be Roman authorities. If you think not understanding God's hidden wisdom is innocence, so be it. But I do not see a connection between the two.

See what happens if the Romans are the archons:

God has reversed only for his few apostles the knowledge of the Son, and not for the Romans (even if innocent).

If the Romans are innocent even if killers of the Son, then why they will be ''coming to nothing'' as punition?

We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

One would expect that God will destroy the Archons because they are not innocent, but we are assuming that they are innocent: contradiction of a God who punishes the innocent without reason.

To resolve this enigma (an enigma only for the historicist reading), prof Mauro Pesce (considered by me an apologist) thinks that the Archons of Romans 13 (by him identified with the same archons of 1 Cor 2:6-8) are assumed by Paul as a kind of Nazis authorities: tyrannical rulers. Not innocent people. In this way the Archons may be both human and not-innocent, and therefore they are doomed.

This interpretation is plausible but there is not textual evidence: one should assume a priori that Paul is playing the part of the collaborationist with the archons of Romans 13: he is serving them even if he knows secreteley that they are a kind of Nazi authorities.

[Giuseppe]

Note that what Mark does is in explicit contradiction with what Pesce thinks: Mark makes Pilate a totally innocent person (against Paul who would see him as a Nazi ruler and therefore would find an hypocritical compromise in Romans 13).

That Pilate is entirely innocent is strongly expected if Mark reads Paul in this way:

1) the human Archons of Romans 13 are not considered Nazis authorities,
2) the archons of this Aeon are considered the same innocent human Archons of Romans 13.

But this reading of Mark is a logical effect of the identification of the killers of Jesus with the Romans.

[Bernard Muller]

to Giuseppe,

If the Romans are innocent even if killers of the Son, then why they will be ''coming to nothing'' as punition?

The Greek word for "coming to nothing" is 'καταργέω' which can mean as well "done away", "separated from", "rendered useless".
For Paul, the good Christians, dead or alive then, will be raptured to heaven in new spiritual bodies. That process would deliver them from these "archons" (or rather from the wisdom of these archons: see later).
1 Cor 2:6 YLT:
And wisdom we speak among the perfect, and wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age -- of those becoming useless,
So Paul used an ambiguous word with a variety of meanings, some of them not implying any punishment.

Furthermore, the verse seems to deal with the wisdom of the "archons" of this age, not with the "archons" themselves.

Finally, my notes on "archons" from http://historical-jesus.info/68.html:
a) the emphasis of the verse is on an unspecified God's plan being at work. The larger context is about human wisdom versus God's one, and the role of the Spirit. Therefore, the identity of these (generic) rulers is of no consequence for Paul's argument; specific identification was not required.
b) from 1 Corinthians 1:18 to 1 Corinthians 2:16, the ones who do not understand God's wisdom (& his plan) are specified to be humans (ref: 1:20, 22-25; 2:5, 9, 11, 13-14) and not spirits.
c) 'Archons' are human rulers in Lk 24:20, Mat 20:15 and Acts 4:26.
d) In 1 Cor 3:18 and 10:11, 'aion' (world, age) is placed in a human context.

Cordially, Bernard

[GakuseiDon]

The Roman Pilate can't be the 'archon of this age' because 'this age' refers to a so great temporal space that it can't be ruled by a so insignificant historical person as Pilate.

There is a source that Paul may have used: the Hebrew Scriptures. No-one doubts that Paul and the early Christians looked to the Old Testament to 'find' information about the Messiah. Does it say anything that might help us understand Paul?

First, let's recap what Paul is saying in 1 Cor. 2:

1. The rulers of this age did not know that Christ was being sent to be crucified
2. If they had known it, e.g. if they had been wise enough, they wouldn't have crucified Christ
3. Now that they have crucified Christ, they are perishing

Is there anything in the Old Testament where Paul might have seen such an event 'predicted'? Yes there is: Psalm 2. Psalm 2 refers to the Messiah and what will happen when he comes. I've reproduced this short Psalm below (KJV). I've bolded key words, though it is worth reading the whole Psalm to recognise the echoes in the unhighlighted passages that are undoubtedly reflected in the later New Testament:

• Psalm 2:
  
  2.1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
  2.2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed [Messiah], saying,
  2.3 "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
  2.4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision."
  2.5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
  2.6 "Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
  2.7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
  2.8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
  2.9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."
  2.10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
  2.11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
  2.12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

Here we see the 'prediction' laid out: the kings of the earth and the rulers will work together against God and His Messiah. But they should 'be wise' and 'kiss the Son'. If they don't, the kings and rulers will 'perish from the way'.

Obviously, from Paul's perspective, the kings and rulers did not 'kiss the Son'. They crucified Christ, and so Paul expects them to perish.

If Paul understood Psalm 2 as a prophecy about the Messiah, then he would have assumed that Christ was crucified as a conspiracy at the end of this age by the kings and rulers of the earth. I doubt that Paul would have put much thought into this, like wondering 'Is it fair to include Jewish rulers or Roman rulers like Pilate into this?' Simply: the Hebrew Scriptures said it was rulers as a collective group, and that was good enough for him.

Again, compare the passage in 1 Cor 2 to the 'prediction' in Psalm 2 above:

• 1 Cor 2:
  6. Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the rulers of this age, that come to nought:
  7. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the age unto our glory:
  8. Which none of the rulers of this age knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

The sense of it does match pretty well. And the Old Testament is an obvious suspect as a source about the Messiah.

[Giuseppe]

Very much often I have seen to quote (somewhere by Bernard) the 'archon of this world' of Johannine memory as presumed evidence that the archons are behind the human rulers.

Now this possibility is definitely denied by April D DeConick who translates Jhon 8:44 as:

“You are from the father of the devil”

Therefore there is not the devil ''behind'' the Jews, but rather the Jews are adoring the devil, according to John 8:44.

This is another 'coup of grace' (+ the words of Dale Allison, see above) against the historicist interpretation of 1 Cor 2:6-8 as saying that the spiritual archons of this age are behind earthly Roman rulers.

In short, I think that it is not a fallacy of the false dichotomy to reduce the problem of 1 Cor 2:6-8 to a rigid AUT-AUT:

1) the ''archons of this age'' are demonic forces, or

2) ...they are earthly rulers.

Tertium non datur.

[Charles Wilson]

There are a number of Nero Stories in the NT and this is one of them. This is at the end of the Julio-Claudian Line.

John 8: 44 (RSV):

[44] You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Suetonius, 12 Caesars, "Nero":

"He had by the elder Antonia a son Domitius who became the father of Nero, a man hateful in every walk of life; for when he had gone to the East on the staff of the young Gaius Caesar, he slew one of his own freedmen for refusing to drink as much as he ordered, and when he was in consequence dismissed from the number of Gaius' friends, he lived not a whit less lawlessly. On the contrary, in a village on the Appian Way, suddenly whipping up his team, he purposely ran over and killed a boy; and right in the Roman Forum he gouged out the eye of a Roman knight for being too outspoken in chiding him. He was moreover so dishonest that he not only cheated some bankers of the prices of wares which he had bought, but in his praetorship he even defrauded the victors in the chariot races of the amount of their prizes..."

[Secret Alias]

Just as a point about 'the ruler of the world.' If you notice that as early as Justin the Platonic chi is likened to the cross (because presumably of his understanding that it was saltire) surely it stands to reason that the best guess is that the Demiurge was crucified in the shape of a chi as a 'sign' that he was present at the crucifixion. Is there a better guess than that? In other words, Jesus crucified = a sign of who he was (= the Demiurge). The author of the material behind Adv Marc makes the same point over and over again (= he is the Creator). I think this fact helps explain the plural 'rulers' throughout the writings of Paul (= None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory). If this verse was in the singular it would exclude the possibility that the Demiurge was on the Cross.