The "Gnosticism" of 2 Corinthians

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
rgprice
Posts: 2056
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:57 pm

The "Gnosticism" of 2 Corinthians

Post by rgprice »

While I would say that most of the Pauline letters don't seem too overtly "Gnostic" are Marcionite in nature, 2 Corinthians 3 - 5 seem to be an extraordinary exception, even in the Catholic version.

NASB:
2 Cor 3:
1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you? 2 You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all people, 3 revealing yourselves, that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

4 Such is the confidence we have toward God through Christ. 5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, 6 who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

7 But if the ministry of death, engraved in letters on stones, came with glory so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness excel in glory. 10 For indeed what had glory in this case has no glory, because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.

12 Therefore, having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech, 13 and we are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not stare at the end of what was fading away. 14 But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. 15 But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts; 16 but whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 But we all, with unveiled faces, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

These are pretty strong statements. Paul is saying that the Law is a "ministry of death". He presents Moses as the high priest of the ministry of death.

One possibility is that this is a Marcionite interpolation/forgery, but of course that requires that the Catholic version of the letters are derived from Marcion's. I think that is the case. The question is whether this is text from an original work or a later addition by a Marcionite or something of the like. I think it is possible to see this as consistent with the rest of the "authentic" Pauline corpus, as it complies with Paul's obvious disdain for the Law, which is claimed to be a curse.
User avatar
GakuseiDon
Posts: 2295
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2013 5:10 pm

Re: The "Gnosticism" of 2 Corinthians

Post by GakuseiDon »

I have to ask: how is that Gnostic?

Gnosticism, as I understand it, is the idea that a spark of the true God lies within each human being, and there are ways to free that spark from the flesh so that it can reunite with God. Gnostic mythology explains how those sparks were struck from God and ended up trapped in flesh. I don't see any of those ideas in the passages you reproduced above, I'm sorry.
ABuddhist
Posts: 1016
Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:36 am

Re: The "Gnosticism" of 2 Corinthians

Post by ABuddhist »

GakuseiDon wrote: Wed Nov 17, 2021 1:07 pm I have to ask: how is that Gnostic?

Gnosticism, as I understand it, is the idea that a spark of the true God lies within each human being, and there are ways to free that spark from the flesh so that it can reunite with God. Gnostic mythology explains how those sparks were struck from God and ended up trapped in flesh. I don't see any of those ideas in the passages you reproduced above, I'm sorry.
Maybe we need to all agree what gnosticism is. I was under the impression that Gnosticism teaches that the material universe is evil/corrupted, created by an entity that falsely claims or is believed to be an uncreated creator god but is not, and that true goodness/purity can be found through receiving wisdom from a true uncreated creator god who created spirit/spiritual matters.

In all fairness, "Gnosticism", in modern Christian-derived polemics, seems to be a term used to describe others' religions (with a few minor exceptions), and even here there is confusion: cf., for example, Dr. Richard Carrier's "Gnosticism Didn’t Exist (Say What Now?)", synthesizing modern scholarship about the matter.
rgprice
Posts: 2056
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:57 pm

Re: The "Gnosticism" of 2 Corinthians

Post by rgprice »

I should have quoted from 2 Cor 4 as well:

2 Cor 4:
3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they will not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants on account of Jesus. 6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

It is noted in my study bible that the quote from 2 Cor 4:6, does not appear in the OT.

So, who is the "god of this world"? Who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness”? Taken with 2 Cor 3, this seems to present the "god of this world" as the god of Moses, who created the Laws of the stone tablets, who presides over a ministry of death, and puts a veil over the hearts of Jews.

The God of Jesus is the God of the Spirit, who is preparing the faithful for the heavenly spirit world.
Last edited by rgprice on Thu Nov 18, 2021 4:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
lsayre
Posts: 769
Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2015 3:39 pm

Re: The "Gnosticism" of 2 Corinthians

Post by lsayre »

The above quoted passages clearly indicate (to me) that to Paul the god of Moses was effectively the same god being referred to in harshly literal translations of John 8:44, such as the translation done by April DeConick. Moses worshiped the Serpent. As opposed to this, the very image of Paul's God was "the Spirit", and it appears to be something internal within each of us. It appears (to me) that at some clearly later juncture the "Spirit of God" referenced within Paul's letters was occasionally overwritten at strategic junctures with references to a Christ, or to a Jesus Christ, or to a Christ Jesus.

This would imply that the earliest 'Paul's' God was neither the God of Moses nor a Christ Jesus. But rather Paul's God was an unknown or transcendent God who (through Paul's directive guidance plus God's grace) ultimately manifests it's Spirit within us. Whereupon we become 'Pneumatikoi'.
Last edited by lsayre on Thu Nov 18, 2021 6:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
rgprice
Posts: 2056
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:57 pm

Re: The "Gnosticism" of 2 Corinthians

Post by rgprice »

lsayre wrote: Wed Nov 17, 2021 10:48 pm The above quoted passages clearly indicate (to me) that to Paul the god of Moses was effectively the same god being referred to in harshly literal translations of John 8:44, such as the translation done by April DeConick. Moses worshiped the Serpent. As opposed to this, the very image of Paul's God was "the Spirit", and it appears to be something internal within each of us. It appears (to me) that at some clearly later juncture the "Spirit of God" referenced within Paul's letters was occasionally overwritten at strategic junctures with references to a Christ, or to a Jesus Christ, or to a Christ Jesus.

This would imply that the earliest 'Paul's God' was neither the God of Moses or of a Christ Jesus. But rather to an unknown or transcendent God who manifested his Spirit within us.
Something along these lines appears to be the implication, and hence the potential "Gnosticism" of 2 Cor.

But as I said, there are two possibilities assuming this reading: Either that this does come from the original layer of the Pauline letters, in which case Paul was a lot closer to "Gnostic" than widely accepted, or these are Marcionite revisions to the letter, in which case it would require that the Catholic Pauline letters are derived from Marcion's letters (which I already think to be the case). So, either of these conclusions have grave implications for the traditional view of scriptural/Christian origins.

The other alternative is that such a reading is incorrect and that somehow this is much more innocent than it seems. According to Tertullian and Origin (if memory serves), Marcion (or Marcionites) did claim that "the god of this world" was the Jewish creator god, and they pointed to this as proof that Jesus came from a different god than the Jewish Creator. I'm not sure there is a very good way to dismiss this reading.
User avatar
Irish1975
Posts: 1057
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:01 am

Re: The "Gnosticism" of 2 Corinthians

Post by Irish1975 »

rgprice wrote: Wed Nov 17, 2021 5:27 pm
2 Cor 4:
3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they will not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants on account of Jesus. 6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

When we look at “authentic” Paul’s specific references to Satan/Belial, as I did in a recent thread, it is clear that this figure is no cosmic ruler. The “god of this aeon” in 2 Cor 4:4 is not Satan. Since the catholic redactors never cleaned up Paul’s account of the evil one, later writers had to make the connection more explicit, e.g. in 1 John, and in this verse in Hebrews 2:14-15:
Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
Paul never says this. In fact, he implies the opposite in Romans 8:20, that it was the creator who had the power of death, and reduced humans to slavery and the fear of death, a.k.a. “futility”:
τῇ γὰρ ματαιότητι ἡ κτίσις ὑπετάγη, οὐχ ἑκοῦσα ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸν ὑποτάξαντα
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it
User avatar
GakuseiDon
Posts: 2295
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2013 5:10 pm

Re: The "Gnosticism" of 2 Corinthians

Post by GakuseiDon »

rgprice wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 4:29 amThe other alternative is that such a reading is incorrect and that somehow this is much more innocent than it seems. According to Tertullian and Origin (if memory serves), Marcion (or Marcionites) did claim that "the god of this world" was the Jewish creator god, and they pointed to this as proof that Jesus came from a different god than the Jewish Creator. I'm not sure there is a very good way to dismiss this reading.
I've been thinking about this, looking at the letters of Paul. I agree that "god of this world" ("god of this age [aion]") could mean Marcion's Judgement God or the gnostics' ignorant demiurge. But looking at how Paul describes his own God, and that God's relationship with the Jews and scriptures, it seems to be the same one as the Jewish God. Some examples:

Rom 3:1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?
2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.


Similarly, Paul talks about the scriptures as being from Paul's own God. It may be all those passages were interpolated, and I'll admit ignorance on that score.

An example of Paul's God talking to Moses, where Paul is using Exodus 33:19:

Rom 9:15 For he [God] saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

Paul sees that this age itself is evil:

Gal 1:4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world ("evil age" [aion]), according to the will of God and our Father:

So, to me, Paul's "god of this age" seems more likely to refer to Satan rather than a gnostic demiurge. Just my own amateur 2 cents of analysis! Still, I'd be interested in seeing passages supporting Paul meaning a gnostic demiurge, since Paul's use of the term certainly opens up the door to that idea.
John2
Posts: 4309
Joined: Fri May 16, 2014 4:42 pm

Re: The "Gnosticism" of 2 Corinthians

Post by John2 »

So, to me, Paul's "god of this age" seems more likely to refer to Satan rather than a gnostic demiurge.

That's my impression as well. As the Ascension of Isaiah 2:4 puts it (for example), "the angel of lawlessness, who is the ruler of this world, is Belial." Paul goes on to mention Belial in 2 Cor. 6:15-16.

What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement can exist between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God.



Cf. 2 Cor. 4:4.

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
rgprice
Posts: 2056
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:57 pm

Re: The "Gnosticism" of 2 Corinthians

Post by rgprice »

GakuseiDon wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 2:22 pm
rgprice wrote: Thu Nov 18, 2021 4:29 amThe other alternative is that such a reading is incorrect and that somehow this is much more innocent than it seems. According to Tertullian and Origin (if memory serves), Marcion (or Marcionites) did claim that "the god of this world" was the Jewish creator god, and they pointed to this as proof that Jesus came from a different god than the Jewish Creator. I'm not sure there is a very good way to dismiss this reading.
I've been thinking about this, looking at the letters of Paul. I agree that "god of this world" ("god of this age [aion]") could mean Marcion's Judgement God or the gnostics' ignorant demiurge. But looking at how Paul describes his own God, and that God's relationship with the Jews and scriptures, it seems to be the same one as the Jewish God. Some examples:

Rom 3:1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?
2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.


Similarly, Paul talks about the scriptures as being from Paul's own God. It may be all those passages were interpolated, and I'll admit ignorance on that score.

An example of Paul's God talking to Moses, where Paul is using Exodus 33:19:

Rom 9:15 For he [God] saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

Paul sees that this age itself is evil:

Gal 1:4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world ("evil age" [aion]), according to the will of God and our Father:

So, to me, Paul's "god of this age" seems more likely to refer to Satan rather than a gnostic demiurge. Just my own amateur 2 cents of analysis! Still, I'd be interested in seeing passages supporting Paul meaning a gnostic demiurge, since Paul's use of the term certainly opens up the door to that idea.
Well, its tricky. I agree that this isn't clear. To me the biggest issue is Paul's handling of the promise to Abraham. The promise to Abraham can only be a promise from the Jewish god, so it would seem that Paul has to see the God who made the promise to Abraham as the same god who is the Father of Jesus, but... apparently all this talk about Abraham was absent from Marcion's version of the letters.

Much comes down to these Abraham themes in Galatians and Romans, but BeDuhn is uncertain if they are interpolations or not.

But, we have to also consider the possibility, as stated earlier, that "Gnosticiszing" passages are Marcionite interpolations into the letters. If that is true, then it means the Catholic letters are derived from Marcion's. If that is true then there would have been some original form, then (at least) a Marcionite form, and derived from that, a proto-orthodox form. The alternative is that these are genuine Pauline passages, which are proto-Gnostic, and the proto-orthodox revisions are more widespread than generally believed.

In either case, the there are proto-orthodox interpolations, its just a question so whether there really was a separate collection that was "unmolested" by Marcion from which the proto-orthodox worked, or if the proto-orthodox version is just an entire appropriation of Marcion's version.

At this point, I'm fairly certain that there never was an alternative collection of Pauline letters, I think they all came from Marcion, and thus the Catholic version is derived from Marcion's. This makes sense in the light of Luke, which is actually derived from Marcion's Gospel.

What I think is that whoever made GLuke, also wrote the Pastorals and also edited Marcion's Apostolikon. That person took Marcion's work and appropriated the whole thing. They revised his Gospel, they revised his Pauline letters, and they added Acts of the Apostles to try to make it all fit together. I think they explicitly edited the Pauline letters alongside writing Acts, in order to add correlations between the two that weren't in teh original. They were big on the idea of "testifying". Someone had to have another person testify for them. Likewise, a writing needed other writing to testify to its truth.

So I am not certain whether some original layer of Pauline works contained these apparently Gnostic type ideas, but I think that passage such as these from 2 Cor do imply a separate god, the "god of this world", who is different from the Father of Jesus. Ultimately, whether that was from Paul or was added by a Marcionite, it still creates major problems for the traditional understanding of the material.

Also, the whole idea of the material world being bad or corrupt is fundamentally at odds with the idea that the material world was created by "God" (the good God), and that idea is prevalent throughout Paul.
Post Reply