Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

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

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neilgodfrey wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 2:50 am
DCHindley wrote: Mon Oct 25, 2021 10:15 pm I also have the original five volume ET.
I believe I know the volumes you are speaking of but what does ET stand for? Pardon ignorance or momentary brain lapse.
English Translation IIUC.

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

Post by DCHindley »

neilgodfrey wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 2:50 am
DCHindley wrote: Mon Oct 25, 2021 10:15 pm I also have the original five volume ET.
I believe I know the volumes you are speaking of but what does ET stand for? Pardon ignorance or momentary brain lapse.
Sorry, "English Translation." The old ET of Schuerer from the 1880s (I think) was based on the 2nd German edition of his book. If I recall correctly, the revised ET is based on the 3rd German edition.
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Thomas R
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by Thomas R »

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.
The simple explanation is that the New Testament collection called Marcionite wasn't Marcion's but was rather an old collection in use among dissident Christians that the Catholics labelled as "Marcionite" (just as they would later label every heretic a Manichaean).
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by rgprice »

@Thomas No, I don't think so. How old it was may be in question, but I don't think there is any question that it was used by Marcion.

At any rate, I think the Pauling letters seem to have been adopted and used by Gnostics and related groups because they would have seem Paul as a pioneer or precursor.

We could think of this similarly to the rise of Marxism, for example.

Philo would be a figure like Adam Smith or David Ricardo. Paul would be a figure like Karl Marx. Early Gnostics were perhaps figures like Rosa Luxemburg, with Valentinian and Marcion being figures like Lenin, Trotsky, etc.

One can see that Lenin and later even Stalin and the Soviets, revered Marx and Engels, yet at the same time, even with Lenin and certainly with Stalin and later Soviets, the ideas had moved well beyond Marx even into positions that entirely contradicted Marx. So one may ask, "Why did Stalin honor Marx and deify him and have his image all over the place, etc., when many of the actual practices of Stalin contradicted the teachings of Karl Marx?"

I think we have the same answer with Paul.

It's not that the works of Paul fully laid out Gnosticism or that Paul was a Gnostic. But, while Paul and Philo were not Gnostics, they could be looked to as forbearers by Gnostics, just as Adam Smith and Karl Marx could be look on as forbearers by Leninists and Stalinists. And, just as Adam Smith has a broad legacy, in which both capitalist and Marxists claim his as a forbearer, so too with Philo.

Paul on the other hand, I think is more a case of appropriation, where the proto-Catholics simply had to appropriate him because he was too central to the whole movement. What the proto-Catholics did with Paul was as if American anti-Communists had taken Das Capital and edited it and made it sound pro-capitalist (which actually wouldn't be that hard to do). And, while I'm not up on all of my history in regard to American Socialism and counter-Socialism, I think it's reasonable to assume that watered down and revised versions of Marx's ideas were in fact use by anti-Communist in attempts to appropriate Marx in the service of anti-Communism.

At any rate, that's sort of how I'm thinking about this.

For me, the question is: Why did these various groups use Paul, when Paul didn't actually endorse or fully support their ideas? And I think the answer is the same as what we see in the development of the Communist movement and its use of prior thinking like John Locke, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and even Karl Marx. These were the progenitors. They weren't themselves Leninists or certainly not Stalinists. Just as Philo and Paul were Gnostic or Marcionite, etc.

This again is also why I think Paul was a real person with a real ministry. Paul makes more sense as someone who was revered because he was seen as a progenitor of Gnostic ideas, than as a figure who would have been invented by Gnostics/Valentinians/Marcionites, etc.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by neilgodfrey »

rgprice wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 2:44 pm Well, having thought more about this, let me put this forward:

. . . .

After the First war, tensions started to grow in this community and such God-fearers became increasingly uneasy with their ties to Judaism. This increased over time as the conflicts continued to roil. Thus, while Pauline communities may have originally been more comfortable with their ties to Judaism, and had adopted many aspects of Jewish thought and religion, there was an increasing desire to split from the Jews while also holding on to many of the religious ideas and traditions they had adopted and had become integrated into their communities.

Thus, Anti-Semitic Gnosticism emerged as sort of the device for separating from Judaism, while taking possession of the aspects of the religion that had become integral to these communities.
Here's another thread where I'm posting a change of mind. I earlier responded to the above by questioning the view that conflict that inflicted one of two parties that considered themselves brethren would lead to the other party wanting to distance themselves from the one suffering affliction. My thought was that tragedy on one family member tends to bring the whole family together in sympathy.

But I have been re-reading Justin's Dialogue with Trypho and it is apparent that he is justifying Christians (who are mostly gentile) who distance themselves from Jews because of what they have suffered at the hands of Hadrian -- the complete destruction and exile from Jerusalem. Justin's point (Dial 108 and other paras) is that the events the Jews have suffered in Palestine have been their just deserts. They opposed the message of Christians up to then, so they deserved what they got in 132-135 CE.

Now that IS a clear case of distancing oneself as a Christian from the Jews because of the suffering of the Jews.

But it has nothing to do with Christians being embarrassed by rebels agitating against Romans, as others in this discussion suggested when all our attention was on the war of 66-70 CE.

Justin's rationale can be interpreted laying the foundations for a more general emergent Christian anti-semitism. That may have something to do with the "anti-semitic gnosticism" in RG's comment, but Justin is not a gnostic so the idea must be cast further than gnosticism.
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by rgprice »

@neil. I agree, but this is also an area of interesting complexity. BeDuhn and others also view Marcion's teachings as stemming from the wave of "anti-Semitism" that rose around the time of Hadrian. But we also know that Justin was anti-Marcionite as well.

Interestingly, Gnostic opposition to Judaism had to do with rejection of the Genesis narrative. The Gnostics and their kind were grappling with the problem of evil, and concluded that a truly good and powerful god could not be the creator of the material world, which is full of pain, suffering and injustice. They viewed the God of Israel as a harsh and arrogant god, who could not be the Highest God. Thus, the Gnostics rejected Judaism. These were, as many scholars now conclude, most likely people of a Jewish background who were rejecting the Deuteronomistic narrative and Temple priesthood. Margaret Barker suggests that they may also have been working from other Semitic traditions that the Deuteronomistic reformers had been in opposition to all along.

Marcion, then, while not necessarily "a Gnostic" worked from the same foundational ideas of the Gnostics within the context of Hadronic "anti-Semitism". As the Gnostics taught, the Jews were worshiping the evil Creator, as opposed to the Highest God, and thus we should reject the Law, Circumcision, and Judaism as a whole, viewing Jesus as the agent of the Highest God, sent in opposition to the evil Jewish Creator God.

But then we come to Justin Martyr, who rejected the teachings of Marcion, but also rejected associations with Judaism. Justin believed that there was only one God, which was the God that the Jews worshiped, and that that God was both good and just, and that the destruction brought upon the Jews was punishment from the Creator. Obviously the OT provides plenty of context for such a view, since the OT describes many instances in which the Jews are punished by their own God for their faults.

So there are two strains of anti-Judaism -- the Gnostic type strait, which rejects the god of the Jews altogether, and the "proto-orthodox" strain, which retains the god of the Jews, while rejecting Judaism.

My assumption when I started this thread was that Paul did not reject the God of Israel and Paul did not believe in a different god who was higher than the Creator. At present I'm not as confident in this assumption. My questions was, why would the Gnostics and their kind (Valentinian, Marcion, etc.) adopt the use of Paul, if Paul did not actually teach that the Father was not a god higher than the Creator? In other words, if Paul taught, or if the Pauline letters suppose, that the Lord Jesus was raised by the Creator god of Israel, and the Pauline letters express an intention to convert Gentiles to the worship of the Jewish Creator, then why did Gnostic types adopt their use? And in fact it seems that they were the first to adopt their use.

But, I now question whether the Pauline works were not in fact more Gnostic in nature than I had previously believed, which would also explain why they were used by Gnostic types. I'm not convinced either way at the moment. It's not clear to me whether Paul rejected the Creator and was worshiping a higher god, or if the Pauline letters advocate for the worship of the Jewish Creator. It's not clear to be whether the Pauline letters portray the Father as the God of the Jews or a different god.

But I do find it very interesting that Justin certainly seems not to have known the New Testament, and that Justin both rejected the Gnostic concept of Jesus having been sent by a different god, while also taking an anti-Semitic position. Clearly the "'easiest" anti-Semitic position was the Gnostic/Marcionite one, which rejected the Jewish God altogether.

Justin took a different approach, in which he both rejected the Jews and worshiped the Jewish God. This ultimately ends up being the approach taken by the creator of the New Testament. This ends up being sort of the defining feature of orthodoxy. But, from what I have seen, all of the other church fathers took this position based on their reading of the New Testament. From Irenaeus on, everyone appears to be reading the same works that now exist in the New Testament that we know today. And the New Testament that we know today, I argue, is an anthology that was created with the express intention of advocating for the both the rejection of Judaism and belief that the Father is the Creator, i.e. rejecting Judaism while worshiping the Jewish God.

So, that Irenaeus and others take this position is understandable, because they are all reading from a collection of works that was created in order to advocate for that position. In other words, from Irenaeus on, church fathers believe that Jesus was sent by the Jewish God because the New Testament told them so.

Justin appears to be the only person that we still have record of, who believed this, even though the New Testament did not tell him so, because Justin appears not to have known the New Testament. Yet, we can see in Justin's works, the root for this belief, which was Justin's belief in Jewish prophecy. Marcion rejected the idea that the coming of Jesus was foretold by prophecy, while the main reason that Justin believed in the divinity of Jesus was because Justin believed in Jesus' fulfillment of prophecy. And this was why Justin believed that the God of Jesus was the Jewish Creator, because Justin believed that the Jewish scriptures foretold the events described in the Gospels that he read -- whatever those Gospels may have been. So, Justin was reading pre-canonical versions of the Gospels that tied Jesus to Jewish prophecy.
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by neilgodfrey »

rgprice wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 5:13 am . . . . .
But I do find it very interesting that Justin certainly seems not to have known the New Testament, . . . .


Justin appears to be the only person that we still have record of, who believed this, even though the New Testament did not tell him so, because Justin appears not to have known the New Testament. Yet, we can see in Justin's works, the root for this belief, which was Justin's belief in Jewish prophecy. . . .
There was certainly no "New Testament" in Justin's time, but I think you are referring to Paul's letters specifically. In another thread I posted my change of mind on Justin's apparent non-use of Paul's letters. There are good reasons to think he did know and use them in his Dialogue with Trypho: see detais and link to a key article at viewtopic.php?p=129090#p129090

If Justin did use Paul's letters then clearly, for Justin, Paul did not express a belief in a god higher than the OT Creator.
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

Post by rgprice »

Yes, but see my reply to you in that thread.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

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rgprice wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 5:13 am ... BeDuhn and others also view Marcion's teachings as stemming from the wave of "anti-Semitism" that rose around the time of Hadrian. But we also know that Justin was anti-Marcionite as well.
< . . snip . > >
Marcion, then, while not necessarily "a Gnostic" worked from the same foundational ideas of the Gnostics within the context of Hadronic "anti-Semitism".
An article by Alexandru Ioniță, Israel in Marcion’s Theology and the Challenge of Contemporary Marcionism for the Orthodox Church, Revista Teologica 3 (2013), 67-84, is interesting in this respect.

Ioniță cites three scholars who say Marcion was not anti-Semetic, "direct[ing] his criticism mainly at scripture and the God of the Old Testament" eg. a J. Gager (cited from Sebastian Moll's book, The Arch-heretic Marcion..., H Räisänen, and Stephen G Wilson (and seemingly, Paula Fredriksen & Oded Irshai).

.
Challenges of Contemporary Marcionism for the Orthodox Church [p.80]

In the ’80s of the last century, J. Gager noted that Marcion directs his criticism mainly at scripture and the God of the Old Testament,65 while on the Jews, as such, he did not have too much to say … only in the controversy between the followers of Marcion and theologians of the Church was there a shift of emphasis from the theoretical [theological?] level related to Jewish writings and rituals to their keepers, ie. the Jews themselves.66

65 On Marcion’s attitude towards the Old Testament see concise information at S. Moll, op.cit., p. 78-82. [S. Moll ‘Marcion’s Bible’, in: idem, The Arch-heretic Marcion …, p.77-106.]

66 “Marcion’s own criticism focuses almost exclusively on the god and the scriptures of Judaism and says little of Jews as such. It was among his orthodox opponents that the focus shifted from the god of the Jews to the Jews themselves.” cf. J. Gager, op. cit. , p. 172



[H Räisänen] even states that anti-Semitic[ism] could be considered rather [to be] Marcion’s opponents from the orthodox camp, because unlike them, Marcion did not impute to the Jews the killing of Jesus:

“… Can Marcion really be regarded as an enemy of the Jews? Do not his “orthodox” opponents seem more anti-Jewish in comparison? Marcion was simply a catalyst. He forced Tertullian and others to pose the question with new seriousness: If, as is agreed, parts of the law are to be abandoned, how can one take seriously the God who made such an inferior arrangement in the first place? How can one avoid criticisms by the Jews on one hand (to the effect that the Christians have transgressed God’s will in giving up his law) and Marcion’s conclusion on the other (a God who gives an inferior law is himself inferior, and thus not a true God after all)? Tertullian’s answer is representative and clear: since the giver of the law cannot (by definition) be criticized, the blame is transferred to the people who cling to this law. The Old Testament law was deficient and had to be replaced, yet this was not the fault of God, but of the Jews”.68

[and] “Räisänen says that:

“Marcion represented an exclusivist position: there was no connection be-tween Judaism and Christianity. […] He picked one side of the Pauline legacy and radicalized it to the extreme. His orthodox opponents developed the other side of his legacy: but their way of establishing continuity was also arbitrary, both from the Jewish and from an historical point of view. Perhaps unexpectedly, with regard to practical consequences, the exclusive view of Marcion seems less harmful”.69

68, 69 H. Räisänen, ‘Marcion and the Origins of Christian Anti-Judaism: A Reappraisal’, in: Challenges to Biblical Interpretation: Collected Essays 1991—2001, Brill, Leiden-Boston,2001, pp. 116-7, 203.

[also H. Räisänen, ‘Attacking the Book, Not the People: Marcion and the Jewish Roots of Christianity’, in: Marcion, Muhammad and Mahatma: Exegetical Perspectives on the Encounter of Cultures and Faiths, SCM Press LTD, London, 1997]



“Wilson says that 'Marcion attacked the symbols and left in peace the people [Israel], while the Church took the symbols and attacked the people'." [70 Stephen G. Wilson, Related Strangers: Jews and Christians 70—170 C.E., Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1995, p. 221]


Ioniță:
“… one can say, in short, that, in regard to the relationship with Israel, there were two extreme paths for the first three centuries of Christianity: phobia towards Jewish scriptures and practices. Being forced to defend the Jewish Scriptures, when Gnostics and Marcion expressed their phobia, the Church often fell for Judeo-phobia, because the blame for misunderstanding the Scripture was transferred from the text to the people whom [it] was entrusted to.”

.

Ioniță cites Alan Segal as noting a gap [a tension] between the Jewish notion of a Messiah and Jesus Christ : a proposed Jewish Messiah could have been seen [and perhaps portrayed as] as an anti-Christ.

In the Conclusion Ioniță refers to Marcion being accused of "un-Judaization of Scripture," citing:
P. Fredriksen & Oded Irshai, 'Christian Anti-Judaism: Polemics and Policies', in: StevenT. Katz (ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. IV: the Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, Cam- bridge University Press, NY – Madrid u.a., 2006, p. 979.

A lot of this may fit with your comment
rgprice wrote: Mon Nov 22, 2021 5:13 am So there are two strains of anti-Judaism -- the Gnostic type strait, which rejects the god of the Jews altogether, and the "proto-orthodox" strain, which retains the god of the Jews, while rejecting Judaism.
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Re: Why did the Gnostics use Paul and Gospels?

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maryhelena wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 1:02 am
mlinssen wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 2:26 pm
maryhelena wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:49 am 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
Martin - my thinking about the whole body and spirit scenario is to try and understand what is at the root of what it was that the ancients were trying to articulate. After all, we do not live in the world of their imagination. Our 21st century world strives for logic and rationality. We can use science and psychology etc in attempting to understand our human nature. Yes, unfortunately, there are many today who choose to add a 'spiritual' component to their lives and deaths.

( a recent comment on Twitter, quoting I understand a Catholic hymn) regarding the stabbing to death of a UK politician: ''May the angels lead him into paradise; may the martyrs receive him at his arrival and lead him to the holy city Jerusalem. May choirs of angels receive him and may he have eternal rest.'')

The ancients had two options when looking around the world they lived in. The material world and the 'spiritual' world - the unknown world. Animals die, men die - but - vegetation dies but is reborn in the spring. Thus, went the thinking, man being part of nature, reflects not only nature's material aspect but also it's rebirth in the spring spiritual aspect. (Man being a higher animal than other animals...) Since no material/physical rebirth was observed for man - a spiritual rebirth, an unseen rebirth, was man's destiny. Gods and an unknown heaven became man's rebirth reward. A spiritual rebirth in the unknown heaven became the goal of man - hence Gnostics and all those who seek spiritual enlightenment - often at the expense of overlooking the material needs of themselves or the natural environment.

Logic and rationality lead us to question the ideas of the ancients; belief in the existence of spiritual beings in some spiritual world is simply imagination not scientific knowledge nor rational thought. But if god does not exist in the way attributed to such beings by the ancients - what is the god idea all about? If god is that North Star that leads the way to safety - then god is nothing more, or nothing less, than our human intellectual capacity. God then becomes the driving force, the spirit, that drives forward our intellectual evolution. Ideas come, they die, and they are reborn in the spring. Knowledge grows on what went before. Intellectual evolution reflects the natural cycles of the vegetation we see all around us. In contrast, our material bodies simply decay back into the natural environment. Our 'spiritual' aspect, our evolving evolutional intellect, dies with our material body. Man only lives forever in the 'body' of knowledge he has contributed to while living.

Plain, simple, facts of 21st century knowledge.

The intricacies of ancient thought might be interesting, in and of themselves - however, it's the underlying concepts that provide a way forward. Ancient concepts of body and spirit - concepts of human nature - need to be expressed in 21st century language. The intellectual framework in which the ancients lived is not our world. It is, in effect, a dead world. Our job today is not to attempt it's rebirth but to seek that new intellectual world that the ancients perhaps sensed in their musings but were unable to grasp and hence to articulate.

My thought for the day... :)
Hi maryhelena, I'm back for just a few minutes

People have longed for whatever is out of their reach for as long as they have existed.
In order to justify (the seemingly experienced as embarassing fact of) not having what they want, they have come up with excuses; and storytelling / fantasising is what people are great at, hence all the different mythologies, creation stories, and so on.
There is no limit to them as there is no limit to our imagination, and every story needs a make-over every now and then because they get old - and they do get old exactly because they were created at a specific moment in time, thus responding to and using contemporary notions, concepts, words, and so on. The term "anachronistic"
As interesting as it may seem to try to make sense of myths, that is a circular movement and motion in itself because myths exist by virtue of them trying to make sense of what is not had - or, as Thomas would say: 'held in hand'

End of story

- on topic: I reacted because you made claims about Marcion. I trust that your absence of reactions to my reaction implies that you concur with the latter
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