Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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rgprice
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Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by rgprice »

It seems that even Marcion's Gospel and Marcion's version of the Pauline letters still deal with the Jewish scriptures and still present a Jesus who is at least tangentially tied to Judaism. Given the teachings of the Gnostics, why did they deal with these materials at all? How did the canon that Marcion put forward inspire or support his teachings?

It seems that if one were going to simply fabricate a set of scriptures to promote the idea that an unknown god had come to earth to reveal himself, and that this god was not god of the Jews, that Paul's letters wouldn't have been the ideal candidates for this.
perseusomega9
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by perseusomega9 »

I suppose one would have to decide if Markion was as rabidly anti-jewish as the CF claim he was, and themselves actually were,or if he was actually in a jewish/semitic/samaritan tradition and was critical of of the reigning temple tradition/political power/philosophical school etc and multiple combinations of the above. But that's too hard.
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by Giuseppe »

The assumption of the thread is that Paul was a "Jewish" thing, but Detering is rather clear about his name alluding to gentile anti-nomianism.

Moreover, that the name Paul could already be conceived in a figurative sense by the writer of the Pauline letters can be clearly seen in 1 Cor 15:9, where “Paul” speaks of himself as the last and the smallest, like a “miscarriage” as it were. B. Bauer correctly commented about this: “He is the last, the unexpected, the conclusion, the dear nestling. Even his Latin name, Paul, expresses smallness, which stands in contrast to the majesty to which he is elevated by grace in the preceding passages of the letter.”

(The Falsified Paul, p. 145)

Bolland says that the historical Paul lived after the 70 and he was a Naassene/Sethian. i.e. an enemy of YHWH.
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maryhelena
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by maryhelena »

rgprice wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:25 pm It seems that even Marcion's Gospel and Marcion's version of the Pauline letters still deal with the Jewish scriptures and still present a Jesus who is at least tangentially tied to Judaism.
The spirit does not exist in a vacuum - body and spirit go together like a horse and carriage...you can't have one without the other. That is of course, if one wants to be rational and leave aside notions of spirits wandering around in the invisible heavens. The word became flesh (gJohn) is not about an invisible spirit from the invisible heavens taking on human flesh. In our modern 21st century speak - 'flesh it out' relates to an idea, an argument, given some substance. For instance; an architect might imagine how his design will look - but only when the brick and mortar are used to build that design will his idea become 'flesh', become a physical reality.

We really need to get away from the archaic idea that invisible heavenly spirits come down to earth, from outer space, and put on human flesh....Carrier notwithstanding....

Marcion has his Jesus decent in the 15th year of Tiberius - Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea. His Jesus descends into Jewish history. The heavenly spirit Jesus and the earthly Jewish Jesus are one and the same Jesus - in other words - the body and spirit of human reality. The flesh is Jewish but the spirit is free. However far Marcion was going with his non-Jewish Jesus - he did not, he could not, get away from the very Jewish Jesus of the gospel story. Downplay the Jewish Jesus, side-step the Jewish Jesus - and Marcion's non-Jewish Jesus would have faded away.......In effect, Marcion has combined the bodily Jewish Jesus with the spiritual, the intellectual or philosophical, Jesus. He has combined body and spirit - mind and matter.

A simple concept really - but one which the early church 'father's failed to grasp in their condemnation of Marcion.
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by andrewcriddle »

rgprice wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:25 pm It seems that even Marcion's Gospel and Marcion's version of the Pauline letters still deal with the Jewish scriptures and still present a Jesus who is at least tangentially tied to Judaism. Given the teachings of the Gnostics, why did they deal with these materials at all? How did the canon that Marcion put forward inspire or support his teachings?

It seems that if one were going to simply fabricate a set of scriptures to promote the idea that an unknown god had come to earth to reveal himself, and that this god was not god of the Jews, that Paul's letters wouldn't have been the ideal candidates for this.
Marcion Valentinus et al were seeking to reinterpret the existing Christian message, not proclaim an entirely new one. (Some Sethian groups may have been much less in dialogue with preexisting Christianity but that is another matter.)

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rgprice
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by rgprice »

andrewcriddle wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 10:34 am Marcion Valentinus et al were seeking to reinterpret the existing Christian message, not proclaim an entirely new one. (Some Sethian groups may have been much less in dialogue with preexisting Christianity but that is another matter.)

Andrew Criddle
My contention is that orthodox Christianity didn't exist prior to the "Gnostics", it was actually a reaction to Gnosticism, primarily to the idea that there was more than one God and that the Creation was the product of some defective process.

I would contend that it was the proto-Catholics who were "reinterpreting the existing Christian". The first "Christian" message appears to have been Gnostic.

What, realistically, could have preceded Gnosticism? This is really teh big question, because historically it has been assumed that the Catholic account is correct, that the religion began with the ideas that the church fathers defended, as descried by Acts of the Apostles. There was an original first stage of "true Christianity" in which a figure like the Jesus of Matthew was worshiped, this then, got taken over by Gnostics, who turned the earthly Jesus into a fleshless spiritual being and claimed that he came from an unknown God, only to have the church father swoop in to save the world from the perversion of the "original truth" that is reveled in the scriptures of the New Testament.

But that can't be the case. The pre-Gnostic state of Christianity that has been imagined since the middle of the second century is all a fabrication. Once we realize that, we have to return to a state were we recognize that Gnosticism is the earliest known form of Christianity. So why were these Gnostics interested in Paul and the Gospels to begin with?
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by andrewcriddle »

rgprice wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 11:13 am
andrewcriddle wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 10:34 am Marcion Valentinus et al were seeking to reinterpret the existing Christian message, not proclaim an entirely new one. (Some Sethian groups may have been much less in dialogue with preexisting Christianity but that is another matter.)

Andrew Criddle
My contention is that orthodox Christianity didn't exist prior to the "Gnostics", it was actually a reaction to Gnosticism, primarily to the idea that there was more than one God and that the Creation was the product of some defective process.

I would contend that it was the proto-Catholics who were "reinterpreting the existing Christian". The first "Christian" message appears to have been Gnostic.

What, realistically, could have preceded Gnosticism? This is really teh big question, because historically it has been assumed that the Catholic account is correct, that the religion began with the ideas that the church fathers defended, as descried by Acts of the Apostles. There was an original first stage of "true Christianity" in which a figure like the Jesus of Matthew was worshiped, this then, got taken over by Gnostics, who turned the earthly Jesus into a fleshless spiritual being and claimed that he came from an unknown God, only to have the church father swoop in to save the world from the perversion of the "original truth" that is reveled in the scriptures of the New Testament.

But that can't be the case. The pre-Gnostic state of Christianity that has been imagined since the middle of the second century is all a fabrication. Once we realize that, we have to return to a state were we recognize that Gnosticism is the earliest known form of Christianity. So why were these Gnostics interested in Paul and the Gospels to begin with?
IIUC you believe that Gnostics created Paul's epistles and the first Gospel while recognising that these texts do not at first sight clearly support a Gnostic agenda. It might be simpler to have the Gospel and Paul's epistles be composed by non-Gnostics (not necessarily orthodox Christians) and then be reinterpreted by people like Marcion and Valentinus.

Andrew Criddle
rgprice
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by rgprice »

I don't think Paul and the first Gospels were created by Gnostics. I wonder why they took any interest in them, at a time when they were apparently more interested in them than anyone else? I think that even if you read a reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel and Pauline letters, the Judaism in them still shines through. So why were they bothering with these works at all?
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Logically...

Post by billd89 »

I reject the limiting definition of an Ialdaboath Demiurge for ALL Gnostics, although it is a typus for flourishing Classical Gnosticism c.125 AD. I agree with B. Pearson (1973) and follow Friedländer (1889), mostly: Gnosticism pre-dates Christianity.

1) The Logos Myth precedes Philo Judaeus by several generations (probably). The Christos myth has appeared (from somewhere) before Philo's day, but hadn't yet spread widely. By Apollos c.55 AD, it is taught in Alexandria and it widely disperses.
2) 'Gnostics' (Jewish mystics) spread certain allegorical teachings of Jewish Alexandrian radicals (Apocalytics) in heterodox communities, probably 2-4 generations before Philo.
3) Of course the Xian Gospels preached in these communities are born of and against competing Gnostic Christos ideas/variations.
4) The very particular strain of Essene/Therapeut Judaism first represented by the tiny Jesus Circle grew and morphed, and was imposed upon a much larger and older ideological matrix over generations, not overnight and not consistently.

True Proto-Gnostics? The 'first' Jews who entered the Temples of Aesculapius and Thoth, or more likely Serapis, seeking healing, wisdom, etc. c.200 BC. I'm comfortable calling them 'Hermeticists' in Egypt, and I agree 'Gnosticism' likely originates there.

Marcion (c.140) is a provincial 'Turkish' book collector, he possessed multiple versions of The Gospel (probably +60yrs older). Valentinus is a syncretist, merging the 60-80 year old Jesus Myth(s) with the leading Gnostic Thought of Alexandria (130 AD). Both big contenders for the prize, but both were losers in The Struggle @ Rome. Also, 4th Generation Gnostics; imagining them as 'the beginning' (error) naturally leads to befuddlement.
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by mlinssen »

maryhelena wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:49 am
rgprice wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:25 pm It seems that even Marcion's Gospel and Marcion's version of the Pauline letters still deal with the Jewish scriptures and still present a Jesus who is at least tangentially tied to Judaism.
The spirit does not exist in a vacuum - body and spirit go together like a horse and carriage...you can't have one without the other. That is of course, if one wants to be rational and leave aside notions of spirits wandering around in the invisible heavens. The word became flesh (gJohn) is not about an invisible spirit from the invisible heavens taking on human flesh. In our modern 21st century speak - 'flesh it out' relates to an idea, an argument, given some substance. For instance; an architect might imagine how his design will look - but only when the brick and mortar are used to build that design will his idea become 'flesh', become a physical reality.

We really need to get away from the archaic idea that invisible heavenly spirits come down to earth, from outer space, and put on human flesh....Carrier notwithstanding....

Marcion has his Jesus decent in the 15th year of Tiberius - Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea. His Jesus descends into Jewish history. The heavenly spirit Jesus and the earthly Jewish Jesus are one and the same Jesus - in other words - the body and spirit of human reality. The flesh is Jewish but the spirit is free. However far Marcion was going with his non-Jewish Jesus - he did not, he could not, get away from the very Jewish Jesus of the gospel story. Downplay the Jewish Jesus, side-step the Jewish Jesus - and Marcion's non-Jewish Jesus would have faded away.......In effect, Marcion has combined the bodily Jewish Jesus with the spiritual, the intellectual or philosophical, Jesus. He has combined body and spirit - mind and matter.

A simple concept really - but one which the early church 'father's failed to grasp in their condemnation of Marcion.
Emphasis mine.
Of course Marcion didn't, why would he be interested in predating his story?
The Church Fathers naturally abused Marcion to insert some of their own inventions, such as this one. Brilliant hey, just claim that Marcion had the same material as they did but different so you can name and refute it, while its core is left intact

To Marcion, I am sure, IS was a concept: he comes 'from above', and John knows that and uses that.
Marcion highly likely did not have Coptic Thomas but only Greek copies that interpreted logion 28 in the wrong way:

28. said IS : did I stand to foot in the(F) middle of the World and did I reveal outward to they in Flesh ...

The Coptic is clear, IS "reveals" to "them in Flesh". How else could it be, the World in Thomas is everyone's own perceived Decoration (KOSMOS) of the world indeed.
Macrion didn't mention either body or spirit or flesh of IS, he just left it all like it is in Thomas: utterly unspecified. Which was a great problem for those who wanted to turn him into a man
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