The hidden god of the Gnostics before Jesus?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The hidden god of the Gnostics before Jesus?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

andrewcriddle wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 12:32 pmHowever, Eugnostos is clearly borrowing from a Pythagoreanizing type of Middle Platonism and is at the earliest mid 1st century CE.
Robin Lane Fox in his "Pagans and Christians" at p.414 writes that:
  • "a pagan letter of "Eugnostos the Blessed"... was then given a Christian preface and a conclusion and represented in another copy as the "wisdom" which Jesus revealed to his Apostles after his death."
The analysis runs like this:

1) Eugnostos ("Right Thinking"), the Blessed: NHC 3.3
2) --> NHC 5.1
3) --> NHC 3.4 "The Sophia of Jesus Christ"

What was in the mind of the editor(s) of the NHL?

FWIW IMO the editor was providing an exemplar of the process of how pagan literature (of the 1st century perhaps) was modified to become "Christian" literature.

The process is this.

1) Take a pagan letter,
2) add a few Christian Trademark words, and
3) then recast it into the mouth of Jesus.

Yes Eugnostos could well be a pagan letter (selected) from the mid 1st century, and, if the above analysis holds, it was purposefully manipulated in two steps, to become "The Sophia of Jesus Christ".

The mid 4th century editors IMO wanted the readers of the NHL to perceive this process. In the mid 4th century the process of the Christianisation of the populous was accompanied by the Christianisation of the literature. Is this historical allusion valid?
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billd89
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Re: Paul and the Agnostos Theos

Post by billd89 »

Paul at Agnostos Theos.jpg
Paul at Agnostos Theos.jpg (574.16 KiB) Viewed 1214 times
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mlinssen
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Re: Paul and the Agnostos Theos

Post by mlinssen »

billd89 wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 8:25 am Paul at Agnostos Theos.jpg
CIEO. or AEO. is what I read there
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billd89
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Re: Tiny Things That Irk

Post by billd89 »

mlinssen wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 9:50 pm
billd89 wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 8:25 am Paul at Agnostos Theos.jpg
CIEO. or AEO. is what I read there
That's what I like about this place: alternative thoughts, even wrong ones.

I think you've mis-read. I see/read "IGNOTO ᗡEO" or "DEO" w/ the "D" reversed (for some reason); I don't assume it's an Error.

What bothers me in that picture is the white shading/highlight. I suppose it was originally a silver paint that has since faded to this degraded pigment which photographs as white. So I wonder what it would look like, 'restored' by P-Shop.
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mlinssen
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Re: Tiny Things That Irk

Post by mlinssen »

billd89 wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 4:55 am
mlinssen wrote: Sun Jul 03, 2022 9:50 pm
billd89 wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 8:25 am Paul at Agnostos Theos.jpg
CIEO. or AEO. is what I read there
That's what I like about this place: alternative thoughts, even wrong ones.

I think you've mis-read. I see/read "IGNOTO ᗡEO" or "DEO" w/ the "D" reversed (for some reason); I don't assume it's an Error.

What bothers me in that picture is the white shading/highlight. I suppose it was originally a silver paint that has since faded to this degraded pigment which photographs as white. So I wonder what it would look like, 'restored' by P-Shop.
That's what I like about this place: you can just throw in the craziest and wildest idea without having to feel the need to explain it - and let it prevail over much more sane and sensible ideas at that!

Can you explain yourself, Bild?
What do you think it means, why?
And why would the D be reversed?

I find solely Spanish and Portuguese on Google by the way, when looking for the two words
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billd89
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Re: Myself?

Post by billd89 »

If you're trying to trigger my obsessive-compulsive research inclination, mlinssen, you will fail ;)

I accept there are LOTS of things I don't understand: reverse letters on Roman incriptions and Renaissance prints are excellent examples. Was it superstition, some guild signifier, the artist's quirk? I know not.

I'm itching to P-Shop the silvering on my jpg however. Honestly.
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mlinssen
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Re: Myself?

Post by mlinssen »

billd89 wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 6:32 am If you're trying to trigger my obsessive-compulsive research inclination, mlinssen, you will fail ;)

I accept there are LOTS of things I don't understand: reverse letters on Roman incriptions and Renaissance prints are excellent examples. Was it superstition, some guild signifier, the artist's quirk? I know not.

I'm itching to P-Shop the silvering on my jpg however. Honestly.
LOL. And I was so hopeful!

https://latin.cactus2000.de/showverb.en ... en=0&voc=1

"To the forgiven god" - I could make anything out of that, save for my own suggestions really. It would be a very unnatural A to chisel into stone, yet it would be very meaningful to say "I put in motion to the forgiven / unknown", which would also be a much more logical order in Latin. Deo ignoto could be a thing, sure - but I'm unsure about ignoto deo

Fun though. What's the occasion for and to this pic? I'm entirely unfamiliar with it of course, being the ignorant that I am

https://logeion.uchicago.edu/cieo
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billd89
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Re: Neo-Classical Painter Tommaso Minardi c.1815

Post by billd89 »

Not Renaissance, 200 years later.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collectio ... 99-0626-16

The British Museum says that's white chalk.
mlinssen wrote: Mon Jul 04, 2022 7:46 am What's the occasion for and to this pic? I'm entirely unfamiliar with it of course
"The Hidden God of the Gnostics before Jesus" is the Agnostos Theos according to Eduard Norden, the professor of Hans Jonas, Hans Lewy, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and Ludwig Edelstein (among others: Friedrich Bräuninger, etc.).

This is the occasion:
22Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus, and said, "You men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things. 23For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you. 24The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, 25neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things. 26He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28'For in him we live, and move, and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also his offspring.' 29Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man. 30The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent, 31because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead."
— Acts 17:22-31 (WEB)

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mlinssen
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Re: The hidden god of the Gnostics before Jesus?

Post by mlinssen »

Ah! Thank you very much Bild

ΑΓΝΩΣΤΩ ΘΕΩ

The Greek is solid, the Latin rather odd. Incognito naturally is the right word, and the mirrored D likely isn't that either.
Tommaso Minardi must have been a bit of a joker, a rebel:

ignotus, adjective - unfamiliar, ignorant, obscure, ignoble, low-born

It would seem that he looks at the other side of the coin, where the countless victims of Christianity are found: the obscure and ignoble, the low-borns - those at the very bottom of the food chain that the religion got out of the way in order to ease the past.
That, or he raises a pedestal for the ignorant - and that perhaps is the core of the religion, that can only be upheld by those who are ignorant of the truth

Cieo, from ciere: I set in motion, excite. Can't do much with just a few letters, yet he managed nonetheless
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Jagd
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Re: The hidden god of the Gnostics before Jesus?

Post by Jagd »

rgprice wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 3:54 am Firstly, we can follow Gmirkin in concluding that the Torah and Judaism as we know it, originated in the 3rd century BCE. The Torah was constructed from a collection of polytheistic myths of Canaanite and Babylonian origin. In the Torah, existing myths about multiple Gods were recast in a monotheistic manner. The identities of multiple gods were assigned to a single God in the Torah, with some gods also being assigned to other heavenly figures, earthly figures and various presences.

We may then assume that from the 3rd century BCE on into the second century, the accounts of Judaism co-existed alongside many other polytheistic traditions, including the traditions from which the Torah was created.
I used to wonder why Judaism had especially extensive religious texts compared to its neighbors, but the Gmirkin hypothesis showed that the Old Testament is really the result of the Library of Alexandria + Alexandrian Judaeans. This new expanded Judaism was then carried over back to Jerusalem, where it co-existed with the more-ancient Temple cult.

This could also be why Judaism seemed to catch the attention of the Greco-Roman world: it had elevated itself to relevancy. Philo spent his whole life trying to make Judaism appear as sophisticated as Hellenic philosophy, and the whole Rabbinic sage tradition appears to be based on the influence of the Hellenic philosopher sages (Moses = Judaism's Plato?). It is no wonder that Christianity was (seemingly) Hellenistic from the very beginning.

There is also the fact that because Christianity tethered itself to Judaism all the non-Judaic ancient beliefs were neglected/abandoned/destroyed.
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