Barbelo-Gnostic Marsanes, c.200 AD?

[billd89]

Sethian writings were referred to in detail by Josephus (90 AD). Reasonably, that material was from at least c.30 AD or even earlier. So the Sethian culture was established for generations, likely extant and widespread by at least c.50 BC.

The survival of Late Sethian (i.e. reworked, adapted, augmented) ideas or long derivative documents (c.350 AD) by ~10th generation philosophers does not negate the fact the cult (in its written myth, original content) was still hundreds of years older.

I get that most 21st C. people are cognitively challenged to understand long historical time-frames. But Late-Daters are often logically impaired, enthralled by a childish, fervid, negative/denialist sort of 'make-believe'. Odd! Reminds me of the fundie Xians' Dinosaur Problem, based on totally rubbish assumptions.

I also don't buy into the conspiracy-thinking which characterizes or underscores most of the Late-Dating fallacies on this forum.



Test: Ignore the détournement. Can you understand what's going on in the Xian subtext? Read the expressions of the two adult women, side right, in the picture above. Woman in purple-blue dress is looking at you, the viewer, almost scornful: 'Do you believe in him?' Woman in magenta scarf is looking at you, pleading: 'Won't you believe in him?'

Avoid such manipulation. It's pathological.

[andrewcriddle]

Plotinus may have been using older Sethian material but not much older. We know from Porphry that Plotinus et al challenged the antiquity of the Platonic Sethian texts

Plotinus fequently attacked their position at the Conferences and finally wrote the treatise which I have headed Against the Gnostics: he left to us of the circle the task of examining what he himself passed over. Amelius proceeded as far as a fortieth treatise in refutation of the book of Zostrianus: I myself have shown on many counts that the Zoroastrian volume is spurious and modern, concocted by the sectaries in order to pretend that the doctrines they had embraced were those of the ancient sage.

On internal evidence Zostrianos is later than the Chaldaean Oracles which seem to date from the reign of Marcus Aurelius. See e.g. Pagans and Christians...

While looking at the Zoroastrian Avesta recently, I started to think about possible parallels with both Rabbinic Judaism and the Chaldean Oracles. I believe the Chaldean Oracles only survive in fragments, preserved by their opponents, a problem shared with studies of Gnosticism although the latter has much more preserved examples. Our knowledge about the Ch. Oracles, unfortunately, is scanty.

Are you aware of any studies that look at seemingly common ideas shared by Zoroastrians, Neoplatonists, Gnostics, and whoever wrote the Chaldean oracles? I am aware that the Avestas were final-edited into the form we have them now in the 1st half of the 3rd century CE. Also that the NeoPlatonists sometimes cited the Ch. Oracles as support for their own Platonic interpretations, but from what I have read about it, the Ch. oracles were not based on a Platonic world view. So I wonder about the Zoroastrian world view having influenced the Ch. oracles.

Well, enough of my ramblings,

DCH

The Chaldean Oracles are based on a Middle Platonic world view. There are strong similarities with the teachings of the 2nd century syncretistic Platonist Numenius. (Probably Numenius is a source for the Oracles but some date the Oracles first and Numenius later.
The Section in Dillon's The Middle Platonists called The Platonic Underworld is an excellent study of movements on the fringe of Platonism in the Middle Platonic period.

Andrew Criddle

[MrMacSon]

Sethian writings were referred to in detail by Josephus (90 AD). Reasonably, that material was from at least c.30 AD or even earlier. So the Sethian culture was established for generations, likely extant and widespread by at least c.50 BC.

There are various spellings of Sethians or their derivatives, such as Sethites, Setium, Kittim, Chittim, Chethim, Chusus, Chusaeans Cethim, Cethians, or Heth.