Iao-Oannes

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Giuseppe
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Iao-Oannes

Post by Giuseppe »

Iao as Chrestos:
And Jesus cried out as he turned to the four corners of the world with his disciples, and they were all robed in linen garments, and he said: "iao, iao, iao." And he caused all his disciples to be clothed with linen garments

Pistis Sophia 1:370;353

Oannes, Oes, say the scholars, in Syriac means 'foreigner'.

John/Jochanan ("Grace of YHWH")

Iao-Oannes: Iao the Foreigner.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Geocalyx
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Re: Iao-Oannes

Post by Geocalyx »

Where did you get that numbering system? That's not PIstis Sophia book 1, it's 4. Or 5. The last one, anyway - the 'Jeouian', independent one.

IAO is the sacred voice of the Tufon (the Donkey), from which the day emanates. As an Italian, have you personally ever witnessed what donkeys do before dawn all across Mediterranean coast? They start spamming the sacred voice like bloody maniacs and voe betide to any groggy tourist trying to get some shut-eye in the range of 2 kilometers. (So up in mainland Europe roosters do the same thing, and the Celts used to believe it actually makes the sun go up. I dunno about you, but the 1st book of Ieou makes much more sense to me than it used to, knowing all this.) With all this in mind, check out the kind of oldest graffiti in the world featuring a donkey-headed Jesus.

I am 70/30 on the whole "Jeouian corpus" (books of Ieou & another portion of the scrolls of the savior or whatever it's called) being nothing but elaborate and highly sophisticated (=ontologically consistent yet completely insane... to prove a point) mockery. If they could somehow throw John into it, great, even better. But it's your topic.

Edit: I for the life of me cannot comprehend where you got "Pistis Sophia 1:370;353". If anything, the numbering should be like "Askewianus 4:1,20-43", since it's right at the start of the text. Search on Google & DDG provides no hints.
Giuseppe
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Re: Iao-Oannes

Post by Giuseppe »

Geocalyx wrote: Mon May 06, 2019 2:32 pm what donkeys do before dawn all across Mediterranean coast?
thank you for this. The donkey works as a precursor of the light of the dawn. This remembers John the Baptist: was he the "Precursor of the Foreigner"? The possible meaning of IAO-OANNES ?

I am sorry, the numbering reference to Pistis Sophia is wrong but the quote is derived from that work.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Ethan
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Re: Iao-Oannes

Post by Ethan »

The Donkey is the sacred animal of Bacchus and Iao Iao is his cry, it all stems from the Winery culture of ancient Italy. John probably from Διόγονος "Given by Zeus", epithet of Bacchus and pun for δίγονος "Twice-born"
also an epithet of Βάκχος/בכות. The entire religion of Abraham is Dionysian, confirmed by Plutarch.

The Donkey of the Alexamenos graffito is flayed, the skin turned into wine-skin.

Plato. Euthyd. 285c
Then Ctesippus said: I too, Socrates, am ready to offer myself to be skinned by the strangers even more, if they choose, than they are doing now, if my hide (δορὰ ) is not to end by being made into a wine-skin (ἀσκὸν) , like that of Marsyas, but into the shape of virtue
https://vivliothikiagiasmatos.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/joseph-yahuda-hebrew-is-greek.pdf
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Geocalyx
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Re: Iao-Oannes

Post by Geocalyx »

You definitely struck a rich vein with the Bacchus reference - one of the askewianus texts (either book 1 or book 4/5) associates "Little Iao the Good" with "Sabaoth Adamas". From what I can gather from the Internet, Sabaoth is Saturn, skywise - and Saturn is associated with jubilations (btw - unrelated, but... is there any possibilty that the Roman name Saturnus stems from Greek Saturos? There's both "Saturnalia" and "Saturae" in Latin, and both words imply "fun times" in their own way). I also vaguely recall a myth about a Satyr competing with the goddess Athena in flute-playing contest, who, after losing, gets flayed, and another one in which the protagonist (maybe king Midas?) ends up with donkey's ears after having their curse removed. Both are comedies, of course.

Donkeys are, in general, often featured in ancient satyrical writings (Apuleus). The books of Ieou fail to mention the tuphon explicitly, but they do have his voice presented as mystery. While they are worded like serious technical religious texts, The Holy Book of the great invisible Spirit and Trimorphic Protennoia also feature the voice... but are definitely not serious technical religious texts... so I'm thinking the voice might be a clue to the initiated that the text in question shouldn't be taken too seriously. (Like, if the ridiculous punishments meant for sinning soul, described in books 3 and 5 of pistis sophia, didn't make it obvious enough...)
andrewcriddle
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Re: Iao-Oannes

Post by andrewcriddle »

Geocalyx wrote: Wed May 08, 2019 2:40 pm You definitely struck a rich vein with the Bacchus reference - one of the askewianus texts (either book 1 or book 4/5) associates "Little Iao the Good" with "Sabaoth Adamas". From what I can gather from the Internet, Sabaoth is Saturn, skywise - and Saturn is associated with jubilations (btw - unrelated, but... is there any possibilty that the Roman name Saturnus stems from Greek Saturos? There's both "Saturnalia" and "Saturae" in Latin, and both words imply "fun times" in their own way). I also vaguely recall a myth about a Satyr competing with the goddess Athena in flute-playing contest, who, after losing, gets flayed, and another one in which the protagonist (maybe king Midas?) ends up with donkey's ears after having their curse removed. Both are comedies, of course.

Marsyas competed with Apollo not Athena.

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Giuseppe
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Re: Iao-Oannes

Post by Giuseppe »

Marsyas a version of Attis, a dying and rising god.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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billd89
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Re: Ieou, from Egypt?

Post by billd89 »

Vasileiadis, “The pronunciation”, 16–20: Ἰαῶ, Ἰαοὺ, Ἰευώ, Ἰεωά, Ἰηουά, Ἰαβά, Ἰωβὰ, Ἰεωβὰ, Γεοβά, and Ἰαχωβᾶ.

I'm honing in on Time and Place, re: Hellenistic Judaism of the Diaspora 100 BC - 200 AD.

If - from another thread - we accept that Philo of Byblos' Sanchuniathon
1) properly dates c.135 AD, and
2) derives from at least 'somewhat older' (c.115 AD) Temple documents shared by a local "Priest of Ieou" {Ἰεωά},
3) the local Jewish "Ieou" cult was not new in 135 AD, therefore present in the vicinity of Byblos before 100 AD,
4) repeated and emphatic references to Thoth from data suggests a Serapis (Alexandrian Library/scribal) connection,

then we can admit the strong likelihood that IN BYBLOS c.100-120 AD a heterodox Jewish "Ieou" cult already possessed Hermetic texts and Gnostic tendencies. IN BYBLOS, outside Alexandria and (the Fayum) Egypt ... where the Hermetica had originated in its primitive elements, c.100-150 years before, or at least c.50 BC if not earlier.

I've seen no evidence there were Jewish cults active in Egypt after 115 AD; any Egyptian Jewish Ieou materials should pre-date the pogroms. I cannot see Jewish cultaic works imported into the Fayum later; it's wrong to assume that. But local Gnostics might have exploited older Jewish writings re-discovered several generations later.

Given all this, dating the oldest parts of the Books of Jeu (Ieou) c.200 AD seems reasonable. 'Books of Jeu' is a misnomer, misleading: it's 3rd C. Xtian Gnostic material (not Jewish). Textual emendations and Christianizing additions to this popular work led Mead [1906] to 'late-date' the work c.300 AD. Nothing supports the idea any vital, operative 'Ieou cult' existed in Egypt c.200 AD - far too late and almost 100 yrs after any such would have disappeared. Ieou material in Egyptian documents c.200 AD is anachronistic, dislocated.

In the Pistis Sophia, where (Alexandrian) Melchizedek material is re-cycled, some early and original 1st C. AD Egyptian Jewish material might be revealed. As an exalted psychopomp, (orig. Phoenician) Melchizedek purified and liberated souls, the Jewish alternative to Hermes Trismegistos/Poimandres. I've seen no evidence of Melchizedekianism in Northern Semitic materials: M. looks almost purely Judeo-Egyptian, possibly exported to a few Diaspora synagogues before 115 AD. However, Melchizedekianism conflicted more than corresponded with (Judeo-)Hermeticism in this period, as these would have been competing Jewish and Judaic cults. A resurgence of literary Melchizedekianism (i.e. spotty reports of Late Antiquity, among heresiologists) seems more imaginary, literary fiction. Among Diaspora Jews in the 3rd and 4th C. AD, Yahoel and then Metatron appear as the prime intermediaries. Melchizedekianism had long since been in decline, replaced inadequately by a Moses Savior cult (c.275 BC) then effectively and ever more by the radical Christos Savior cult (c.10 AD?), or the swelling Serapis (Hermetic) cult in Alexandria (40 AD -). New gods took over as the old Phonecian god Melchizedek faded then disappeared among Jewish groups in the 1st C. AD.

This is to say any Gnostically-divergent "Ieou Priesthood" (antinomian Judaism) outside Egypt after 100 AD wasn't likely to have been 'Melchizedekian'. On the contrary, scorned Melchizedekianism was rapidly disappearing after 75 AD. And all this is to explain why most (Judeo-) Gnostic systems across the Diaspora developed alternative (dissimilar) Jewish elements... and converted so quickly to the most popular (Jewish) Xtian cult.

The donkey-call of 'Yao, Yao' (braying Jews?) sounds anti-Jewish, but "Alexamenos worships [his] god" would be a Roman graffito playing upon (Late First/Early Second C. AD) 'Sethian' misconceptions to slander (Egyptian?) Judeo-Christians. Curious!
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