Mark, Bar-Timaeus and Plato: knowledge of the celestial Stauros/Limit

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Giuseppe
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Mark, Bar-Timaeus and Plato: knowledge of the celestial Stauros/Limit

Post by Giuseppe »

It is not only the crucifixion of the Just one of Platonic memory.

If Timeus Bar Timaeus appears in Mark as debt to Plato's Timaeus, then the author of Mark knew the other crucifixion in Plato, i.e. the celestial X intersection of the ecliptic with the equator.

What is interesting is that the blind Bartimeus recognizes Jesus in the precise moment when the latter has just crossed him. So the function of Bartimeus is implicitly to mark the passage of Jesus: allegory of the celestial Limit that has to be crossed through by the Son of God. Not coincidentially, the same celestial Stauros found by the Christians (Justin) in the Plato's Timaeus.
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Re: Mark, Bar-Timaeus and Plato: knowledge of the celestial Stauros/Limit

Post by Giuseppe »

Evidence that the cross is of cosmic proportions even in Paul, and not a mere tree as in Ascension of Isaiah:

The cross (Stauros) signifies the aeon Horos, a personal being, through which Sophia is saved. As Horos ( = border) he is the guardian of the border of the Pleroma, which separates the heavenly world from the material one; as Stauros he is the affirmer and bearer of the Pleroma. The same double function as the Logos holds with Philo, when it separates Creator and creature and is at the same time the mediator between the two. This Horos-Stauros is the Savior himself (cf. Acts v. John 98; Ev. v. Pe. 42); we also find this hypostasis of the cross in Paul (1 Corinthians 1:18; Philippians 3:18; Galatians 6:14).

(Van Eysinga)

Galatians 6:14 is decisive beyond any measure:

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

The sublunar world has been "crucified", i.e. divided by the celestial Limit/Stauros/Horos, from the high heavens.
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Re: Mark, Bar-Timaeus and Plato: knowledge of the celestial Stauros/Limit

Post by robert j »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 11:45 am
If Timeus Bar Timaeus appears in Mark as debt to Plato's Timaeus, then the author of Mark knew the other crucifixion in Plato, i.e. the celestial X intersection of the ecliptic with the equator.
How does the ecliptic intersect with the equator to form a celestial X?

Doesn't Plato characterize the celestial X as a portal or heavenly gate through which souls might pass?

I would be quite surprised if the savvy author of GMark had not read Plato. But a heavenly portal for souls to pass seems a far cry from a wooden instrument of torture, humiliation, and execution.
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Re: Mark, Bar-Timaeus and Plato: knowledge of the celestial Stauros/Limit

Post by gryan »

Re: "If Timeus Bar Timaeus appears in Mark as debt to Plato's Timaeus..."

That much I can agree with.

I am in a debt to some mainstream scholars when I suppose that when Mark's "blind" Bar Timaeus "sees", there is an allusion to Planto's Timaeus (which I have not read), and a kind of Platonic enlightenment (the nature of which I do not claim to understand), not mainly a literal physical healing of blindness (even though the story is presented as if literal).
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MrMacSon
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Re: Mark, Bar-Timaeus and Plato: knowledge of the celestial Stauros/Limit

Post by MrMacSon »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 11:45 am If Timeus Bar Timaeus appears in Mark as debt to Plato's Timaeus, then the author of Mark knew the other crucifixion in Plato, i.e. the celestial X intersection of the ecliptic with the equator.
The 'other crucifixion' in Plato, ie. in Republic II.362, doesn't involve a celestial X intersection of the ecliptic with the equator.

eta:
You do [seem to] refer to the just man in Republic with your oblique reference to "the Just one of Platonic memory".

MrMacSon wrote: Wed Feb 24, 2021 12:27 am
Giuseppe, I presume the crucifixion in Plato you're referring to is that of the just man in Plato's Republic, bk II


361e-> [Glaucon:] “We must tell it, then; and even if my language is somewhat rude and brutal, you must not suppose, Socrates, that it is I who speak thus, but those who commend injustice above justice. What they will say is this: that such being his disposition the just man will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains, [362a->] the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of suffering, he will be crucified,1 and so will learn his lesson that not to be but to seem just is what we ought to desire. And the saying of Aeschylus was, it seems, far more correctly applicable to the unjust man. For it is literally true, they will say, that the unjust man, as pursuing what clings closely to reality, to truth, and not regulating his life by opinion, desires not to seem but to be unjust ... ”

1 or strictly “impaled.” cf. Cicero De Rep. iii. 27. Writers on Plato and Christianity have often compared the fate of Plato's just man with the crucifixion. .. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ion%3D362a



Different versions of Plato's Timaeus differ slightly in how they describe this aspect of the passage of the soul
(and, it seems, different versions of the same translation, as seen below)

1. via https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1572/1572-h/1572-h.htm | translated by Benjamin Jowett


And so the thought of God made a God in the image of a perfect body, having intercourse with himself and needing no other, but in every part harmonious and self-contained and truly blessed. The soul was first made by him—the elder to rule the younger; not in the order in which our wayward fancy has led us to describe them, but the soul first and afterwards the body. God took of the unchangeable and indivisible and also of the divisible and corporeal, and out of the two he made a third nature, essence, which was in a mean between them, and partook of the same and the other, the intractable nature of the other being compressed into the same. Having made a compound of all the three, he proceeded to divide the entire mass into portions related to one another in the ratios of 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27, and proceeded to fill up the double and triple intervals thus—

....- over 1, 4/3, 3/2, - over 2, 8/3, 3, - over 4, 16/3, 6, - over 8:
....- over 1, 3/2, 2, - over 3, 9/2, 6, - over 9, 27/2, 18, - over 27;


in which double series of numbers are two kinds of means; the one exceeds and is exceeded by equal parts of the extremes, e.g. 1, 4/3, 2; the other kind of mean is one which is equidistant from the extremes—2, 4, 6. In this manner there were formed intervals of thirds, 3:2, of fourths, 4:3, and of ninths, 9:8. And next he filled up the intervals of a fourth with ninths, leaving a remnant which is in the ratio of 256:243. The entire compound was divided by him lengthways into two parts, which he united at the centre like the letter X, and bent into an inner and outer circle or sphere, cutting one another again at a point over against the point at which they cross. The outer circle or sphere was named the sphere of the same—the inner, the sphere of the other or diverse; and the one revolved horizontally to the right, the other diagonally to the left. To the sphere of the same which was undivided he gave dominion, but the sphere of the other or diverse was distributed into seven unequal orbits, having intervals in ratios of twos and threes, three of either sort, and he bade the orbits move in opposite directions to one another—three of them, the Sun, Mercury, Venus, with equal swiftness, and the remaining four—the Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, with unequal swiftness to the three and to one another, but all in due proportion.

When the Creator had made the soul he made the body within her; and the soul interfused everywhere from the centre to the circumference of heaven, herself turning in herself, began a divine life of rational and everlasting motion. The body of heaven is visible, but the soul is invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony, and is the best of creations, being the work of the best ...



2. via http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/timaeus.html | also said to be a translation by Benjamin Jowett


Now God did not make the soul after the body, although we are speaking of them in this order; for having brought them together he would never have allowed that the elder should be ruled by the younger; but this is a random manner of speaking which we have, because somehow we ourselves too are very much under the dominion of chance. Whereas he made the soul in origin and excellence prior to and older than the body, to be the ruler and mistress, of whom the body was to be the subject. And he made her out of the following elements and on this wise: Out of the indivisible and unchangeable, and also out of that which is divisible and has to do with material bodies, he compounded a third and intermediate kind of essence, partaking of the nature of the same and of the other, and this compound he placed accordingly in a mean between the indivisible, and the divisible and material. He took the three elements of the same, the other, and the essence, and mingled them into one form, compressing by force the reluctant and unsociable nature of the other into the same. When he had mingled them with the essence and out of three made one, he again divided this whole into as many portions as was fitting, each portion being a compound of the same, the other, and the essence.

And he proceeded to divide after this manner: First of all, he took away one part of the whole [1], and then he separated a second part which was double the first [2], and then he took away a third part which was half as much again as the second and three times as much as the first [3], and then he took a fourth part which was twice as much as the second [4], and a fifth part which was three times the third [9], and a sixth part which was eight times the first [8], and a seventh part which was twenty-seven times the first [27]. After this he filled up the double intervals [i.e. between 1, 2, 4, 8] and the triple [i.e. between 1, 3, 9, 27] cutting off yet other portions from the mixture and placing them in the intervals, so that in each interval there were two kinds of means, the one exceeding and exceeded by equal parts of its extremes [as for example 1, 4/3, 2, in which the mean 4/3 is one-third of 1 more than 1, and one-third of 2 less than 2], the other being that kind of mean which exceeds and is exceeded by an equal number. Where there were intervals of 3/2 and of 4/3 and of 9/8, made by the connecting terms in the former intervals, he filled up all the intervals of 4/3 with the interval of 9/8, leaving a fraction over; and the interval which this fraction expressed was in the ratio of 256 to 243. And thus the whole mixture out of which he cut these portions was all exhausted by him. This entire compound he divided lengthways into two parts, which he joined to one another at the centre like the letter X, and bent them into a circular form, connecting them with themselves and each other at the point opposite to their original meeting-point; and, comprehending them in a uniform revolution upon the same axis, he made the one the outer and the other the inner circle. Now the motion of the outer circle he called the motion of the same, and the motion of the inner circle the motion of the other or diverse. The motion of the same he carried round by the side to the right, and the motion of the diverse diagonally to the left. And he gave dominion to the motion of the same and like, for that he left single and undivided; but the inner motion he divided in six places and made seven unequal circles having their intervals in ratios of two-and three, three of each, and bade the orbits proceed in a direction opposite to one another; and three [Sun, Mercury, Venus] he made to move with equal swiftness, and the remaining four [Moon, Saturn, Mars, Jupiter] to move with unequal swiftness to the three and to one another, but in due proportion.

Now when the Creator had framed the soul according to his will, he formed within her the corporeal universe, and brought the two together, and united them centre to centre. The soul, interfused everywhere from the centre to the circumference of heaven, of which also she is the external envelopment, herself turning in herself, began a divine beginning of never ceasing and rational life enduring throughout all time. The body of heaven is visible, but the soul is invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony, and being made by the best of intellectual and everlasting natures, is the best of things created ...



3. https://www.platonicfoundation.org/platos-timaeus/ | translated by David Horan


He began to divide it as follows: first he separated one part from the entire; after this he separated a part double the first, and next a third, which was one-and-a-half times the second and three times the first; a fourth part, double the second; a fifth, three times the third; 35C a sixth, eight times the first; and a seventh, twenty-seven times the first. After this he filled up 36A the double and triple intervals, cutting off further sections of the mixture and placing these in between them so that in each interval there were two means: one exceeding its extremes and being exceeded by them by the same portion; the other exceeding one extreme and being exceeded by the other extreme by an equal number.[7] These connections gave rise to intervals of 3/2, 4/3 and 9/8 between the previous intervals.[8] All the 4/3 intervals were filled up by the 9/8 intervals 36B leaving a portion of each of them, and the interval associated with this remaining portion had the numerical relation 256/243. What’s more, the mixture from which these were cut was at that stage, entirely used up in the process.

He then cut this entire compound along its length into two and situated the middles of each together like the letter X, 36C bent each into a circle and attached each to itself and to the other one at the point opposite to where they overlap, included them in that kind of motion which turns around uniformly in the same place, and made one of the circles inner and the other outer. The outer movement he designated as the movement of Same, the inner as the movement of Other. He set the movement of Same revolving sideways and to the right, and that of Other diagonally and to the left, and he granted supremacy to the movement of Same 36D and similar, for he left it single and undivided. However he divided the inner circle six times producing seven circles based on the double and triple intervals, there being three of each.[9] He commanded the circles to go in opposite directions to one another, three at similar speeds; four at speeds dissimilar to one another and to the other three, but their movements were proportional.

When the entire construction of the soul had been completed in accordance with the reasoning of the one who constructed it, he then fashioned within it 36E all that has bodily form, and having brought both together, he fastened them centre to centre. And soul, being woven entirely throughout the heaven from centre to extremity, enfolding it in a complete circle on the outside and revolving in herself, initiated a divine beginning of unceasing and intelligent life for all time. Now while the body of the heaven is indeed visible, soul for its part is invisible, partaking of reason and harmony, 37A the best of created things, created by the very best of all that is known by Nous and is always.



For posterity:

Justin Martyr's First Apology 60 (in which Justin mangles the biblical accounts of Moses)*


And the physiological discussion concerning the Son of God in the Timoeus of Plato, where he says, "He placed him crosswise in the universe", he borrowed in like manner from Moses; for in the writings of Moses it is related how at that time, when the Israelites went out of Egypt and were in the wilderness, they fell in with poisonous beasts, both vipers and asps, and every kind of serpent, which slew the people; and that Moses, by the inspiration and influence of God, took brass, and made it into the figure of a cross, and set it in the holy tabernacle, and said to the people, "If ye look to this figure, and believe, ye shall be saved thereby".

And when this was done, it is recorded that the serpents died, and it is handed down that the people thus escaped death.

“Which things Plato reading, and not accurately understanding, and not apprehending that it was the figure of the cross, but taking it to be a placing crosswise, he said that the power next to the first God was placed crosswise in the universe.

And as to his speaking of a third, he did this because he read, as we said above, that which was spoken by Moses, "that the Spirit of God moved over the waters." For he gives the second place to the Logos which is with God, who he said was placed crosswise in the universe; and the third place4 to the Spirit who was said to be borne upon the water, saying, "And the third around the third".

And hear how the Spirit of prophecy signified through Moses that there should be a conflagration.


  • eg. Justin has 'reconfigured' the "serpent of brass upon a signal-staff" of Numbers 21:8-9 as 'the figure of a/the cross'
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MrMacSon
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Re: Mark, Bar-Timaeus and Plato: knowledge of the celestial Stauros/Limit

Post by MrMacSon »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 11:45 am
It is not only the crucifixion of the Just one of Platonic memory.

If Timeus Bar Timaeus appears in Mark as debt to Plato's Timaeus, then the author of Mark knew the other crucifixion in Plato, i.e. the celestial X intersection of the ecliptic with the equator.

What is interesting is that the blind Bartimeus recognizes Jesus in the precise moment when the latter has just crossed him. So the function of Bartimeus is implicitly to mark the passage of Jesus: allegory of the celestial Limit that has to be crossed through by the Son of God. Not coincidentially, the same celestial Stauros found by the Christians (Justin) in the Plato's Timaeus.



Bartimaeus [S]
son of Timaeus, one of the two blind beggars of Jericho ( Mark 10:46 ; Matthew 20:30 ). His blindness was miraculously cured on the ground of his faith.

Bartimaeus [E]
(son of Timeus), a blind beggar of Jericho who, (Mark 10:46) ff., sat by the wayside begging as our Lord passed out of Jericho on his last journey to Jerusalem

BARTIMAEUS
bar-ti-me'-us (Bartimaios):
A hybrid word from Aramaic bar = "son," and Greek timaios = "honorable." For the improbability of the derivation from bar-tim'ai = "son of the unclean," and of the allegorical meaning = the Gentiles or spiritually blind, see Schmiedel in Encyclopedia Biblica. In Mark (10:46-52) Bartimeus is given as the name of a blind beggar, whose eyes Jesus Christ opened as He went out from Jericho on His last journey to Jerusalem. An almost identical account is given by Luke (18:35-43), except that the incident occurred "as he drew nigh unto Jericho," and the name of the blind man is not given ... according to Matthew (20:29-34), "as they went out from Jericho" (like Mk), two blind men (unlike Mk and Lk) receive their sight ...



https://biblehub.com/topical/b/bartimaeus.htm, and
https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/bartimaeus/



Mark 10:46-52


46 Next, they came to Jericho. And as Jesus and His disciples were leaving Jericho with a large crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting beside the road. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

48 Many people admonished him to be silent, but he cried out all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

49 Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called the blind man. “Take courage!” they said. “Get up! He is calling for you.”

50 Throwing off his cloak, Bartimaeus jumped up and came to Jesus.

51 “What do you want Me to do for you?” Jesus asked.

“Rabboni,” said the blind man, “let me see again.”

52 “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.



Matthew 20:29-34


29 As they were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed Him. 30 And there were two blind men sitting beside the road. When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

31 The crowd admonished them to be silent, but they cried out all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

32 Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want Me to do for you?” He asked.

33 “Lord,” they answered, “let our eyes be opened.”

34 Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes, and at once they received their sight and followed Him.


Luke 18:35-42


35 As Jesus drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting beside the road, begging. 36 When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening.

37 “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by,” they told him.

38 So he called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

39 Those who led the way admonished him to be silent, but he cried out all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

40 Jesus stopped and directed that the man be brought to Him. When he had been brought near, Jesus asked him, 41 “What do you want Me to do for you?”

“Lord,” he said, “let me see again.”

42 “Receive your sight!” Jesus replied. “Your faith has healed you.” 43 Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, glorifying God. And all the people who saw this gave praise to God.


Perhaps Bartimaeus may be being portrayed as joining or bending into an inner circle or sphere as per Plato's Timaeus, "connecting...each other" or "the inner as the movement of Other", though perhaps not "at the point opposite to their original meeting-point"
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Re: Mark, Bar-Timaeus and Plato: knowledge of the celestial Stauros/Limit

Post by MrMacSon »

MrMacSon wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 6:29 pm

BARTIMAEUS
bar-ti-me'-us (Bartimaios):
A hybrid word from Aramaic bar = "son," and Greek timaios = "honorable."
For the improbability of the derivation from bar-tim'ai = "son of the unclean," and of the allegorical meaning = the Gentiles or spiritually blind, see Schmiedel in Encyclopedia Biblica


From the Encyclopedia Biblica bottom of 490 [a page or column number(?)] :


According to Payne Smith's Thes. Syr. 588, 1461-2, the Syrian lexicographers Bar 'Ali (circa 885 A.D.) and Elias of Anbar (circa 922) interpret Timaeus as meaning blind (samyā). similarly Onom. Sacr., ed. Lag.(1) 17635 ; Βαρτιμαΐος, υίός τυφλος; and Jerome (ib. 66 IO) even gives the corrected form ' Barsemla filius caecus' and adds: 'quod et ipsum conrupte quidam Bartimaeum legunt.' The reading Barsemia, however, has no support except in Barhebraeus (ob. 1286 A.D.), who found in two Greek MSS 'Samya bar Samya';1 and the interpretation 'blind' cannot be established ...
  1. The reading is suspicious for the very reason that it depends on that of the Syriac translation, which could not render ό υίός Τιμαίου Βαρτιμαΐος otherwise than by the awkward and meaningless repetition of [...]. It accordingly left ό υίός untranslated, thus making Timaeus the blind man's own name, and designating him [...] (so in Syr. sin. and nearly so in Syr. hr. ; cp Land Anec. 4 141 : [...]). This might be held to indicate that the combination ό υίός Τιμαίου Βαρτιμαΐος cannot be due to the evangelist who habitually introduces the Greek translation of an Aramaik expression by ό έστιν (317 7 TI 34) or ό έστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον (541 152234). Thus ό υίός Τιμαίου [may be] the marginal note of some very ancient reader.
https://christogenea.org/system/files/r ... _Vol_I.pdf


491:


... Volkmar still regarded the name as only a description of the actor in the story. Uncleanness, he armed, is the characteristic of the Gentile world: what Mk means to say is, not that an individual man but that the whole Gentile world, is freed from spiritual blindness by Jesus - that is, hy the preaching of his gospel (Marcus u. d. Synpose 422, 502-6, 675, 711f.; Jesus Nazarenus, 266f.). But in the sight of Christianity, Judaism, as well as heathenism, is blind, and Volkmar finds Judaism too, represented, in the blind man whose healing is described in an earlier chapter (Mark 8:22-26; see Marcus, 338f., 403-11; Jesus Nazarenus, 243-5). The text, however, supplies not the slightest indication or hint that in the one place the Jews, in the other the Gentiles, are intended; in fact, as Bartimaeus uses the words ‘son of David’ and 'Rabbuni,’ Volkmar finds himself constrained to pronounce him not a Gentile in the full sense of the word, but a proselyte - thereby, however, destroying his own position which is that the two healings taken together express the deliverance hy the gospel of the whole of humanity from spiritual blindness.

We are shut up, then, to the conclusion that Bartimaeus is a proper name like Barnabas, Barjesus, and the like; and it is a matter of indifference whether the second element be the appellative [...] ‘unclean,’ or the personal name [...] (Levy, Neuhehr. Worterb. 2 154), or the place name [...] (ib. 166), or the second part of the Syriac place-name [...] (Thes. Syr. 486, 1462); and whether any or all of the last three forms 'admit' of being traced to a Jewish-Aramaic root [...], ‘to close up’ (Syr. [...]).

Bartimaeus remains a proper name, also, if the second part of it be supposed to be the Greek name Τίμαιος (found eg. in Plato). Origen seems to have had this derivation in his mind when he called Bartimaeus ό τήσ τιμής έπωνυμος. Such a blending, however, of Aramaic and Greek is unlikely. On the other hand, it is not impossible that the Greek word may have had influence on the accent. With a Semitic derivation this would naturally be Βαρτιμαΐος as in Ματθαΐος, Ζακχαΐος, and so forth.

But just as, on the analogy of the very common Greek termination -ανός, the accepted pronunciation of Urbanus and Silvanus was Ούρβανός and Ειλουανός (Rom. 169 (sic) 2/& Cor. 1:19), although in Latin the accent lay on the penultimate, so conceivably the name under consideration may have been accented Βαρτίμαιος, even without supposing it to be etymologically derived from the Greek.

For the philology see, especially Nestle, Marg. u. Mat., 1893, pp.83-92, and for the subject in general, Keim, Gesch. Jes. von Naz. 3 51-54 (ET 5 61-64).. . . . . . . P. W. S.

https://christogenea.org/system/files/r ... _Vol_I.pdf


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