Why in Marcion the centurion calls Jesus a "Just" and not "Son of God"

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Giuseppe
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Why in Marcion the centurion calls Jesus a "Just" and not "Son of God"

Post by Giuseppe »

In Mark the centurion calls the crucified Jesus "really a son of god!"

In Mcn the centurion calls the crucified Jesus "really a righteous!"

I wonder always why Jesus should be called "the Righteous" in Mcn: wasn't "the Just" a title of the demiurge?

Two options:
  • The crucified one was just the Just demiurge.
  • The crucified one was called Just as only and only he fulfilled the Law. By being crucified as the Law itself personified. The Just was Jesus, as opposed to the spiritual Christ possessing him. "Mark", by calling the crucified one as "Son of god" (as opposed to "Just"), was de facto correcting the original separationism between the Just Jesus and the Good Christ.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Why in Marcion the centurion calls Jesus a "Just" and not "Son of God"

Post by Giuseppe »

The Luke/Mcn version reflects original separationism insofar the man Jesus (differently from the spiritual Christ) had to be called "righteous" by the centurion for a precise reason:


1. Cerinthus, again, a man who was educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by the primary God, but by a certain Power far separated from him, and at a distance from that Principality who is supreme over the universe, and ignorant of him who is above all. He represented Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation, while he nevertheless was more righteous, prudent, and wise than other men. Moreover, after his baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father, and performed miracles. But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ remained impassible, inasmuch as he was a spiritual being

(Irenaeus. Adversus Haereses, Book I, Chapter XXVI. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.ii.xxvii.html).

By the centurion saying "son of god", Mark is saying that the Jesus and the Christ were one and the same person (=the "Son of God").
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Why in Marcion the centurion calls Jesus a "Just" and not "Son of God"

Post by Giuseppe »

Here there is the problem with the Marcionite priority. The fact that in any combination of proto-X and for each X, the separationism á la Cerinthus seems to be again and again the Earliest Christology of the Earliest Gospel. Above there is an example of separationism in Luke that is not preserved by Mark, even if Mark precedes probably Luke.

What moved the first euhemerizer to adopt a separationist view?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Why in Marcion the centurion calls Jesus a "Just" and not "Son of God"

Post by Giuseppe »

I think that the reason behind the separationism is a first form of co-optation of the Jesus cult by the Simonians/Satornilians.

The Just Jesus is the Just Suffering of Isaiah 53. He is not described as risen. The his resurrection was only made explicit by the Pillars and the historical Paul.

But the absence of any reference to his resurrection justified the original final of Mark in 15:39 (with the "righteous" as original reading):

39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Just!”

This makes a lot of more sense! :cheers:

Note the supreme mystical irony:

In the moment itself when a gentile recognized a figure predicted by the Jewish scriptures, the victory of the alien Son of Father happens: the alien doesn't die on the cross, but the Jewish Just dies in the his place.

This reflects also a precise historical reality: the fusion of the early Christian gnosticism with the (older) Jewish Jesus cult. The author of Mark, "Cerinthus", wanted to recognize in the same time the historical precedence of the Jewish Jesus cult and the spiritual superiority of the recent Gnostic movement (compared to the former).
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Why in Marcion the centurion calls Jesus a "Just" and not "Son of God"

Post by Giuseppe »

Said in other terms: the separationism would be real evidence of a historical Jesus remembered by Cerinthus ("Mark") as the "Just" Jesus son of Joseph and Mary...

..if only there was not the Just Suffering of Isaiah 53.


That the Gnostic Cerinthus wrote the Earliest Gospel (proto-Mark) and he euhemerized Jesus: this is the view that makes definitely more sense to me.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
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Re: Why in Marcion the centurion calls Jesus a "Just" and not "Son of God"

Post by Giuseppe »

Holy words:


The mythic-symbolic interpretation of the gospels sees in Isaiah 53 the germ-cell of the story of Jesus, the starting-point of all that is related of him, the solid nucleus round which all the rest has crystallised

(Arthur Drews)

Original Mark 15:39
39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Just!”

Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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