On the origin of Cerinthian separationism

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Giuseppe
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On the origin of Cerinthian separationism

Post by Giuseppe »

In another thread, I have argued that the Jewish Christians attacked by Ignatius were esponents of a Radical Docetism (as opposed to Moderate Docetism of a Marcion) as a form of compromise between the early post-Markan historicist belief and the mythicism of early anti-Christian polemists. Now I see that a scholar has played a similar game to explain the origin of the separationism and chiliasm in Cerinthus:

Talk of feasts, sacrifices, and slaying of victims in the Jerusalem of a millennial world sound strange on the lips of an orthodox Christian, even stranger on the lips of a gnostic Christian. But it would not sound at all strange if a «gnostic» Cerinthus were in fact describing not his version of the Christian religious ideal but the kingdom of a Jewish, Demiurgical Messiah, which he could now relegate to a lower religious plane. [86] Thus, the addition of these distinctively «Jewish» elements could have had the effect, imagined or real, of «sounding better» to Jewish sensibilites, of creating a supposed alliance with Judaism and against a common enemy, orthodox Christianity.

(Charles E. Hill, Cerinthus, Gnostic or Chiliast? A New Solution to an Old Problem)

Note 86 reads:

It is just possible, because of his adoptionist Christology, that Cerinthus could have conceived of this Jewish Messiah as the human Jesus sans his adoptive heavenly counterpart. Irenaeus, followed by Hippolytus, says that Cerinthus taught that the abandoned Jesus did rise from the dead. Presumably he ascended to the Demiurge .... It is possible, though at this point uncertain, that it is this ascended Jesus who was expected to come again to restore the Creator's people

(my bold)

Hence the separationism between Jesus and Christ would find the his answer in a form of compromise between some Christians and the anti-Christian Jewish accusations against Christ as not the expected Conqueror Messiah. Something as:

Anti-Christian Jews: your Christ didn't conquer the world, etc. At contrary he was crucified.

Cerinthians: you are right, since it is your Christ who will conquer the world, etc. Not the our Christ, who was not even crucified, but only the mere man Jesus son of Joseph died in the his place.

Curiously, in Mark the accusation thrown against Jesus on the cross is just the same accusation thrown by these anti-Christian Jews:

Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!” In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

(Mark 15:29-32)
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: On the origin of Cerinthian separationism

Post by Giuseppe »

What prof Hill had written in the following quote:
Giuseppe wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2019 8:45 am
It is just possible, because of his adoptionist Christology, that Cerinthus could have conceived of this Jewish Messiah as the human Jesus sans his adoptive heavenly counterpart. Irenaeus, followed by Hippolytus, says that Cerinthus taught that the abandoned Jesus did rise from the dead. Presumably he ascended to the Demiurge .... It is possible, though at this point uncertain, that it is this ascended Jesus who was expected to come again to restore the Creator's people

(my bold)
...is extraordinarily confirmed by the singular divine "coincidence" of having 'Nazaret' in Mark 1:6 and 'Nazarene' in the Bartimeus episode and in 16:6.

Read here (and a great THANKS to Joe Wallack for this great finding).
Giuseppe
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Re: On the origin of Cerinthian separationism

Post by Giuseppe »

The evidence that the Alien Jesus makes risen the mortal demiurgical Jesus, the same that the former had contributed to make kill on the cross!, is confirmed also here:

As for me, I put on Jesus. I bore him from the cursed wood, and established him in the dwelling places of his [of the carnal Jewish Jesus Nazarene] Father.

http://gnosis.org/naghamm/trimorph.html
Giuseppe
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Re: On the origin of Cerinthian separationism

Post by Giuseppe »

Further evidence of the belief that "Jesus Nazarene" was risen without becoming the real supreme deity, i.e. the spiritual "Christ" from the Alien Father who possessed him:

Now the psychic Christ sits on the right hand of the Creator, as David says, “Sit thou on my right hand” and so on. And he sits there until the end “that they may see him whom they pierced.” But they pierced the appearance, which is the flesh of the psychic one, “for,” it says, “a bone of him shall not be broken,” just as in the case of Adam the prophecy used bone as an allegory for the soul. For the actual soul of Christ deposited itself in the Father's hands, while the body was suffering. But the spiritual nature referred to as “bone” is not yet deposited but he keeps it.

http://gnosis.org/library/excr.htm
Giuseppe
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Re: On the origin of Cerinthian separationism

Post by Giuseppe »

Two brute facts:
  • Mark is based strongly on Jewish scriptures;
  • Mark is separationist.
The two sides of Mark are in deliberate opposition: the Nazarene Jesus had to be predicted by Jewish sciptures, afterall he was the expected Messiah of the demiurge.
Only the insiders knew the truth: the agent of the supreme god (=not YHWH) worked in the man Jesus so that only the latter could die and rise.

Which is a subtle apology to say that the supreme deity couldn't be reduced to the ignominy of the cross, even if the resurrection had rewarded the same victim at the end.

So Mark works as a compromise between outsiders who adored YHWH as supreme god and insiders who, by the separationist allusions sown in the text, rejected YHWH as supreme god.

This would be true even if Mcn preceded Mark.
Giuseppe
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Re: On the origin of Cerinthian separationism

Post by Giuseppe »

Image

Samuel Lublinski has been the first mythicist who has argued for the first gospel being separationist as a form of compromise between haters of YHWH (=anti-demiurgists) and pious Jewish-Christians.

Thanks to Neil, I will digitalize the Lublinski's book Das werdende Dogma vom Leben Jesu.
Giuseppe
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Re: On the origin of Cerinthian separationism

Post by Giuseppe »

Debt to Lublinski for this Gnostic Justin's interpretation of the words of Jesus on the cross addressed to his presumed mother, in proto-John, revealing that even proto-John was separationist, just as Mark:

Finally, however, in the days of Herod the king, Baruch is dispatched, being sent down once more by Elohim; and coming to Nazareth, he found Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, a child of twelve years, feeding sheep. And he announces to him all things from the beginning, whatsoever had been done by Edem and Elohim, and whatsoever would be likely to take place hereafter, and spoke the following words: All the prophets anterior to you have been enticed. Put forth an effort, therefore, Jesus, Son of man, not to be allured, but preach this word unto men, and carry back tidings to them of things pertaining to the Father, and things pertaining to the Good One, and ascend to the Good One, and sit there with Elohim, Father of us all. And Jesus was obedient unto the angel, saying that, I shall do all things, Lord, and proceeded to preach. Naas therefore wished to entice this one also. (Jesus, however, was not disposed to listen to his overtures ), for he remained faithful to Baruch. Therefore Naas, being inflamed with anger because he was not able to seduce him, caused him to be crucified. He, however, leaving the body of Edem on the (accursed) tree, ascended to the Good One; saying, however, to Edem, Woman, you retain your son, that is, the natural and the earthly man. But (Jesus) himself commending his spirit into the hands of the Father, ascended to the Good One.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050105.htm

"the natural and the earthly man" is crucified and, what is more, is risen! Only the resurrection doesn't make him the supreme being, the superior Jesus.
Giuseppe
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Re: On the origin of Cerinthian separationism

Post by Giuseppe »

Richard Carrier thinks quasi the same thing about the Pauline Jesus: the only way to harmonize a birth "from woman, under the law" and the "being made in form of men" (Hymn to Philippians), i.e. docet Carrier, "not truely man", but humanoid, is to think that the pre-existent Jesus entered in the body of a man from his birth:

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship

(Galatians 4:4-5)

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

According to Carrier, the humiliation on the cross follows the same birth, and not only the descent on earth already adult: accordingly, the same birth is separationist, Jesus being not really "born by woman" even if he is said in Galatians 4:4 to be "born from woman".

The human body was a corrupted body (since it was born from woman and born under the law), and it was abandoned at the death, the Risen one assuming a new celestial body. Until here, both Carrier and the Ascension of Isaiah (in its current form).

I am highly skeptical about the 'born from woman, born under the law' bit being genuine, given the evident anti-marcionite use of a similar construct. At any case, the Hymn to Philippians is explicit about Jesus being not really the human body he descended on.

I have mentioned Carrier here for the reason that he appears to agree with Lublinski's view: the divine Jesus descends on a man (beyond if the man is just born, if he is only a child of 12 years, or if he is already adult), Jesus is crucified by Satan, and then he assumes a new body (the old body is abandoned, or — if separationism is introduced more distinctly — it is risen, too, without being more the Jesus's body).
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