Docetists = Mythicists ?

[Giuseppe]

Often I receive a bold 'NO!' as (prima facie dogmatic) answer.

I'm reading NazarethGate of Renè Salm.

In particular:

The various stages of docetism can be summarized as follows:

Stage 1: The 'savior' (Jesus/Jeshua) is the abstract gnosis. It has no material body. (This is 'Primary Gnosticism' and requires neither God nor a redeemer.) [Until c. 50 BCE]

Stage 2: The savior/gnosis is associated with ''God.'' It comes down and merges with one or more saints. The savior has no material body except what it ''puts on'' while temporarily inhabiting the saint(s) below. (This stage describes the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jamesian theology, and the 'Pauline' epistles.) [C. 50 BCE-c. 150 CE]

Stage 3: The savior, now associated with God, is divorced from gnosis. It assumes the material body of Jesus the Nazarene (Gospel of Mark) and Jesus of Nazareth (Gospel of Matthew, Luke, John). This is the basis of normative Christianity. Ancient Jesus mythicists who affirmed the invention of Jesus of Nazareth would have used docetic-like terms in rejecting this stage: ''He didn't walk on earth,'' etc. [Mid-second century CE.]

Stage 4: Later gnostics assimilated the Catholic figure of Jesus while retaining gnostic theology: Jesus of Nazareth was a 'phantom', without a material body, etc. This is a fusion of Stages 2 and 3 above. [Later second century CE.]

Unfortunately, scholarship uses the term ''docetic'' only for stage 4. It does not recognize the preceding three stages. To broaden the discussion and include those other stages, of course, very much threatens the traditional view. Such a broadening admits the possibility that there were people in the first Christian centuries who actually denied the existence of Jesus of Nazareth altogheter (stage 3). I would suggest, in fact, that the vast majority of references in the Church Fathers to ''those tho deny the existence of Jesus'' are to ancient Jesus mythicists (not references to those who maintained he was a phantom). Such mythicists certainly existed.

(p.418, my bold).


How do you answer my question and why?

Thanks,
Giuseppe

[Secret Alias]

I am not sure anyone knows what exact it means when ancient sources say that there were groups of Christians who allegedly held that Jesus only 'seemed' to have flesh. Semblance IMO likely means he had flesh but not flesh as we have it. The Samaritans have a long tradition dating back to their earliest sources (Marqe) that Moses after Sinai had luminous flesh. The same idea seems to be behind R Meir's reading in Genesis chapter 3 'skins of light' as opposed to 'skins of flesh' (by the means of the substitution of one letter ayin for alef). The same idea seems to be at the core of the heretical opinion in De Carne Christi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Carne_Christi

If you were a betting man (and all of these arguments ultimately come down to 'what is most likely' rather than 'what we know for certain' it would seem that Jesus was thought to have 'light flesh' as opposed to no flesh. Moreover 'Christ' as a separate being from 'Jesus' (cf. Irenaeus Adv Haer 3.11.7 and at least 20 other references) may well have been 'spiritual' or made of spirit but because the orthodox argument for only one god (i.e. rather than two powers 'Jesus' and 'Christ') the heretics saying 'Christ' was wholly spiritual was transferred to a belief that 'Jesus' had no substance which is often at the core of a polemic or ridicule against the heretics.

[Secret Alias]

I don't know why you waste your time with these agenda-driven scholars. First Carrier now this guy. I don't know about you but when a someone tells me they love me but in the next breath wants 'us' to go shopping for stuff for her, my faith in the first statement is conditioned by the second. The fact that people like Carrier or Salm interpret statements in the Church Fathers in ways that support their agenda to disprove the existence of Jesus, disprove Nazareth, disprove God etc always makes me suspicious of their claims. It is no different when we read apologists argue here and elsewhere about the 'science' behind the resurrection.

[Secret Alias]

I think it is most likely that the idea regarding Jesus only having a 'semblance' of flesh is rooted in these concepts - https://books.google.com/books?id=JNGvC ... ah&f=false

[Giuseppe]

but when a someone tells me they love me

I will read your future book (because it will be my only way to understand you fully and I am only a curious guy) but I have already explained my personal prejudice about you: that you are an Irenaeus 2.0 to the extent that instead of catholicizing the Jesus of the Marcionites, you catholicize the Marcionites directly. The result does not change. Your suspected ''agenda'' seems to want to save some kind of deep spirituality coming from Judaism. While I may concede that the true spirituality of all times, if indeed existed, is at most only one Gnostic.



I find interesting and persuasive what Salm implies if the pauline epistles are all interpolated (A): their ''Jesus'' (one or more 'saints', i.e. the original gnostic apostles) was surely historical but lost for the pseudo-Paul writer. And 'Jesus of Nazaret' was definitively not him, even if claiming to speak in his name.

Vice versa, if Paul was the real author of these epistles (B), then his Jesus was totally mythical.


In case (A) the historicity of (who is called) ''Jesus'' in Paul is more probable than the existence himself of 'Paul', even if that 'historical Jesus' is lost to us.

In case (B), the historicity of Paul destroyes virtually all the historicity of Jesus.

This resolves the conundrum of what happened if you think that Paul is an invention of II CE.

In short, only the proposition

Paul existed XOR Jesus existed

may be true.

[Secret Alias]

that you are an Irenaeus 2.0 to the extent that instead of catholicizing the Jesus of the Marcionites

You always have to remember the statement of Tertullian warning a believer that they could walk into a Marcionite synagogue and fail to recognize it for it was (i.e. a bad place). In other words, on the surface at least Catholics wouldn't know they weren't in a Catholic place of worship.

[Secret Alias]

You can continue to wrestle with books no one will ever read or take seriously. Just realize it is dangerous only to read books you agree with.

[Ulan]

I think it is most likely that the idea regarding Jesus only having a 'semblance' of flesh is rooted in these concepts - https://books.google.com/books?id=JNGvC ... ah&f=false

It's also the Pauline concept in 1Cor 15. I guess Jewish spirits had bodies, just of matter from the spiritual realm. Paul's Jesus is a spirit, but that doesn't preclude a spiritual body.

The bodiless spirit is rather a Greek concept.

[Ulan]

Also, this thread is a good example why the term "Mythicist" (vs. "Historicist") is a bad choice. The term "Mythicist" as it is used in the current debate has nothing to do with the theological background.

[MrMacSon]

the heretics saying 'Christ' was wholly spiritual was transferred to a belief that 'Jesus' had no substance, which is often at the core of a polemic or ridicule against the heretics.

'Heretics' are called *heretics* to discredit pre-Catholic beliefs or pre-Catholic theology - i.e. so-called heresies were part of developing Christian theology - 'theology 101', 102, if you like - yet the powers-that-be want us to believe that theology 302 was always the predominant theology.

You have essentially confirmed that with your antecedent -

... it would seem that Jesus was thought to have 'light flesh' as opposed to no flesh. Moreover 'Christ' as a separate being from 'Jesus' (cf. Irenaeus Adv Haer 3.11.7 and at least 20 other references) may well have been 'spiritual', or made of spirit, but because [of] the orthodox argument for only one god (i.e. rather than two powers 'Jesus' and 'Christ') the heretics saying 'Christ' was wholly spiritual was transferred to a belief that 'Jesus' had no substance; which is often at the core of a polemic or ridicule against the heretics.

I am not sure anyone knows what exact it means when ancient sources say that there were groups of Christians who allegedly held that Jesus only 'seemed' to have flesh ... The Samaritans have a long tradition dating back to their earliest sources (Marqe) that Moses after Sinai had luminous flesh.

The same idea seems to be behind R Meir's reading in Genesis Chapter 3 'skins of light' as opposed to 'skins of flesh' (by the means of the substitution of one letter ayin for alef). The same idea seems to be at the core of the heretical opinion in De Carne Christi