Paul and the Vision of Isaiah

[neilgodfrey]

@neil

Thanks for posting that. So what do you think? These distinctions have pretty big implications.

If Martyrdom of Isaiah is Qumranic, then it implies that Vision of Isaiah is also Qumranic, and could be the earliest Jesus narrative. But as Norelli would have it, Martyrdom and Vision of Isaiah are late and post-date other Gospels.

I have a hard time seeing how they could be products of later Christians. I've seen no other Christian works that use so much language that is so close to the Qumranic works. But even more, Vision of Isaiah aligns so well with Paul in ways that none of the other Gospels do.

I find it extremely difficult to take seriously the view that the AI was written as a midrashic-type code to justify a Teacher of Righteousness sect from Qumran. I can accept the overlaps of dualism and demonology and interest in prophecy and sharing of certain motifs with the opponents of Ignatius. However, he does not, as far as I am aware, surmise that the AI is drawing upon the Gospel of Matthew. What he does say is that the AI draws upon the same material used by the evangelist to create his nativity scene.

To my mind, there are likewise some points in common between the AI and Gospel of Peter -- e.g. crucified by "the king", the Twelve sans Judas being sent out upon his resurrection, a special focus on Peter.

How it relates to Paul's writings, I scarcely know where to begin. If we assume Paul's letters and also think the sections in Paul that echo the AI are original to Paul then we can suggest that the ideas found in the AI were as early as Paul. But if Paul's letters or the relevant sections in Paul are late, then it follows that the ideas found in the AI were still contemporary with Paul but also late with Paul/the interpolations.

In other words, I want to do lots more reading of the various issues before committing myself. (I am expecting more material to arrive in coming months.)

[RParvus]

If we assume that Vision of Isaiah contains a narrative that existed prior to the writing of the Gospel of Mark, the question is, why was the Vision of Isaiah written or why was the narrative recorded in Vision of Isaiah developed?

I think the Vision of Isaiah was written by a Simonian as a way to bring belief in Jesus into the Simonian orbit. Simonians apparently sought to be some kind of all-encompassing belief system. Everything, whether the Pentateuch, or Homer, or Zeus had to be explained as somehow relating to Simon. Simonians wanted their Simon to have a finger in every pie.

“He was glorified as a god by many, and he taught that he himself was the one who was to appear among the Jews as Son, would descend in Samaria as Father, and would come among the other nations as Holy Spirit. He said he was the absolute sovereignty, i.e. the Father above all, and was willing to be called whatever men called him” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1,23,1).

So Simonians would have seen new fertile ground when they learned about some Jesus who, it was claimed, had worked signs and wonders, and was now alive in heaven after having been crucified by the Romans. To the Simonian mind, Jesus obviously must have been Simon under another name. In the Vision of Isaiah (9:5) the Son “is to be called in the world Jesus, but you cannot hear his name until you (Isaiah) have come up from this body.”

[Gee, I wonder what his secret name is. Hope we too don’t have to wait until we come up from our bodies. It’s probably the same as that “name that is above all names” in Phil. 2. I wonder if it has something to do with that sower named “Hear” (“Hear! The sower went out to sow… “ in gMark 4). Or that transfigured beloved son, “Hear him,” in gMark 8. But who would name their kid “Hear”? And besides, Mark is a sacred text, not a book of riddles. It was written by someone serious, a follower of Peter, not by some prankster like Basilides who has a laughing Jesus switching places with Simon of Cyrene.]

[GakuseiDon]

I think it's worth noting that both Paul and gMark reference the book of Isaiah frequently. Some of gMark seems to have 'ripped off' events in Isaiah. Paul used references to Isaiah more than to any other OT book.

For Paul: according to here:
https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/bbr/isaiah_oss.pdf

An analysis of Paul’s citations from Isaiah reveals specific tendencies on the part of Paul with regard to both his theological appropriation of Isaiah and the distribution of his citations across a variety of Isaian contexts. The tendencies of Paul with respect to the distribution of his citations from Isaiah is particularly relevant to the discussion concerning the viability of the “testimony book” hypothesis.

The "testimony book" hypothesis is that there was an early book which contained prophecies about the coming of Christ, many of them coming from Isaiah, and this was used as a source by early Christians like Paul and Mark.

For Mark: according to here:
https://jbburnett.com/resources/mark/do ... isaiah.pdf

Mary Ann Beavis has called attention to the fact that “Isaiah is the only prophet named in Mark (1.1; 7.6)... and the prophet quoted most often in Mark...“ In fact the evangelist quotes Isaiah more often than any other biblical document...

If the investigation is widened to include not only direct quotations, but allusions and motives, the impression is strengthened that from the evangelist’s point of view, the good news began “just as it was written in Isaiah the prophet” (1.2a). In fact, Joel Marcus used the phrase, “The Gospel According to Isaiah,” as the title of his recent treatment of Mark 1.2-3.

So a book about Isaiah's vision written by Jews or Jewish Christians would have been a natural resource to exploit the idea that the advent of Christ and the early Christian apostles was seen by Isaiah and encoded into the book of Isaiah. This would have been edited and added to by later Christians, to eventually become the Ascension of Isaiah that we know today.

[Giuseppe]

by some prankster like Basilides who has a laughing Jesus switching places with Simon of Cyrene.]

Is "Basilides" (meaning "royal, kingly") a curious name for separationist readers of proto-Mark where Jesus preaches the "kingdom (βασιλεία) of god"?

[schillingklaus]

The secret name in the vision and in Philippan's is of course the tetragrammaton, which is not permitted to be pronounced.
Still Saint Ephrem identified in his Hymn to the Cross Jesus with the Jewish God, saying that he abandoned the chariot of the four beasts (see Ezekiel) and picked up the cross.

Note that the exaltation part of Phil 2 is a late (post-Marcionite) interpolation, as worked out by Stuart Waugh on his site, ( sgwau2cbeginnings.blogspot.com ). The purpose of the chapter is a call for humility and altruism, which is severely interrupted by the exaltation. Waugh even demonstrated that the Manicheans still did not know of this interpolation.

[Giuseppe]

So Simonians would have seen new fertile ground when they learned about some Jesus who, it was claimed, had worked signs and wonders, and was now alive in heaven after having been crucified by the Romans. To the Simonian mind, Jesus obviously must have been Simon under another name. In the Vision of Isaiah (9:5) the Son “is to be called in the world Jesus, but you cannot hear his name until you (Isaiah) have come up from this body.”

I love the hypothesis raised by Roger, since he detects, speaking in more general terms, the following pattern in action behind the Ascension of Isaiah, a pattern that can be instanced under the Mythicist paradigm in the following way:

• 1) a community adored only a celestial Son who had been crucified in outer space (or, which is equivalent, he underwent only a death on the earth);

• 2) this community learned the first time about a Gospel Jesus;

• 3) To the mind of that community, this Gospel Jesus obviously must have been their same Jesus under another "tradition": hence, the community harmonized the two stories, "explaining" that behind the "public" Jesus there was really in action their same "secret" Jesus.

In conclusion, this scenario assumes that the Ascension of Isaiah represented the first expected reaction, by a community focused on an outer-space Jesus, before the news about a Jesus preaching in Galilee and Judea, born by Mary etc.


A reaction that was not one of condemnation, but a reaction of harmonization and "explanation": it describes how a community of "mythicist" Christians became absorbed in a historicist Christology.

[rgprice]

I think the Vision of Isaiah was written by a Simonian as a way to bring belief in Jesus into the Simonian orbit. Simonians apparently sought to be some kind of all-encompassing belief system. Everything, whether the Pentateuch, or Homer, or Zeus had to be explained as somehow relating to Simon. Simonians wanted their Simon to have a finger in every pie.

“He was glorified as a god by many, and he taught that he himself was the one who was to appear among the Jews as Son, would descend in Samaria as Father, and would come among the other nations as Holy Spirit. He said he was the absolute sovereignty, i.e. the Father above all, and was willing to be called whatever men called him” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1,23,1).

So Simonians would have seen new fertile ground when they learned about some Jesus who, it was claimed, had worked signs and wonders, and was now alive in heaven after having been crucified by the Romans. To the Simonian mind, Jesus obviously must have been Simon under another name. In the Vision of Isaiah (9:5) the Son “is to be called in the world Jesus, but you cannot hear his name until you (Isaiah) have come up from this body.”

Maybe, but...

And besides, Mark is a sacred text, not a book of riddles. It was written by someone serious, a follower of Peter, not by some prankster like Basilides who has a laughing Jesus switching places with Simon of Cyrene.]

I'm highly confused by this. Mark IS a book of riddles, and why would you think it was written by a follower of Peter? Peter is very poorly portrayed and the story is clearly drawn from the Pauline letters. It appears to be a story against Peter.

What perhaps might make some sense is that, following your theory a little, "Paul" was really Simon and the first layer of the Pauline letters was written by Simon. In Mark it appears that the Jesus character is patterned on Paul. It appears that the writer of Mark turned the Jesus preached by Paul into Paul himself. But, it is possible that the person who wrote Mark did not know of Paul by the name Paul, rather, he knew him by the name Simon. To Mark, what we call the "Pauline letters" were in fact Simon's letters.

There is a very puzzling aspect of Mark that complicates such a theory, which is that Peter is identified as Simon, but Peter is also called Satan and abandons Jesus. But then we have Simon coming in at the end as well, which does put a twist on the possible riddle. Clearly there is a relationship between the chiastic introduction of Simon in the beginning of the story, who is told to follow Jesus but ultimately does not, and the Simon at the end of the story who does "take up his cross and follow Jesus".

But it has always puzzled me that Paul is not mentioned in the story, even though Paul's letters are clearly used by the writer. However, if the writer of Mark knew the author of the letters as Simon instead of Paul, this could explain some things.

But, this isn't so simple. Paul's name is all over the letters, and no one ever indicated that the letters were from Simon. I do think that the letters we have today come from Marcion's collection. The Catholic Pauline letters are an appropriation of Marcion's letters, with orthodizing revisions. If Marcion, or the creator of the collection used by Marcion, had appropriated the Simonian letters and changed the name as a part of the appropriation, then maybe that could explain something. But I would think that Simonians would have come forward to protest the use of their letters under a false name. So I'm not entirely sold on that hypothesis.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that Vision of Isaiah must record an earlier version of the Christ crucified narrative than any of the canonical Gospels. The Christ of VI matches very closely the Christ described in the Pauline letters, in ways that the canonical Jesus does not.

[rgprice]

I think it's worth noting that both Paul and gMark reference the book of Isaiah frequently. Some of gMark seems to have 'ripped off' events in Isaiah. Paul used references to Isaiah more than to any other OT book.

For Paul: according to here:
https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/bbr/isaiah_oss.pdf

An analysis of Paul’s citations from Isaiah reveals specific tendencies on the part of Paul with regard to both his theological appropriation of Isaiah and the distribution of his citations across a variety of Isaian contexts. The tendencies of Paul with respect to the distribution of his citations from Isaiah is particularly relevant to the discussion concerning the viability of the “testimony book” hypothesis.

The "testimony book" hypothesis is that there was an early book which contained prophecies about the coming of Christ, many of them coming from Isaiah, and this was used as a source by early Christians like Paul and Mark.

For Mark: according to here:
https://jbburnett.com/resources/mark/do ... isaiah.pdf

Mary Ann Beavis has called attention to the fact that “Isaiah is the only prophet named in Mark (1.1; 7.6)... and the prophet quoted most often in Mark...“ In fact the evangelist quotes Isaiah more often than any other biblical document...

If the investigation is widened to include not only direct quotations, but allusions and motives, the impression is strengthened that from the evangelist’s point of view, the good news began “just as it was written in Isaiah the prophet” (1.2a). In fact, Joel Marcus used the phrase, “The Gospel According to Isaiah,” as the title of his recent treatment of Mark 1.2-3.

So a book about Isaiah's vision written by Jews or Jewish Christians would have been a natural resource to exploit the idea that the advent of Christ and the early Christian apostles was seen by Isaiah and encoded into the book of Isaiah. This would have been edited and added to by later Christians, to eventually become the Ascension of Isaiah that we know today.

I agree. Thanks for these references. It seems to me that there must be some relationship between Isaiah and the origin of Jesus worship, and it seems very likely that Ascension of Isaiah is a critical piece of the puzzle. I think most scholars have regarded its elements as either unrelated Jewish material or later heresy that post-dated canonical material. I don't think that to be the case. It seems to me that at lest some elements of Vision of Isaiah must pre-date the canonical Gospels. And I see the concepts regarding Belial as being related to Qumranic material.

[RParvus]

And besides, Mark is a sacred text, not a book of riddles. It was written by someone serious, a follower of Peter, not by some prankster like Basilides who has a laughing Jesus switching places with Simon of Cyrene.]

I'm highly confused by this. Mark IS a book of riddles, and why would you think it was written by a follower of Peter? Peter is very poorly portrayed and the story is clearly drawn from the Pauline letters. It appears to be a story against Peter.

Sorry for the confusion. The part within brackets in my original post was tongue-in-cheek. I do in fact think that gMark contains riddles, that the Simonian prankster Basilides was responsible for them, and that he knew the Vision of Isaiah.

[neilgodfrey]

I think the Vision of Isaiah was written by a Simonian as a way to bring belief in Jesus into the Simonian orbit. . . .

Since you mention it, here is a little discussion by Enrico Norelli on one such Simonian.

. . . . More interesting is what we know of the system of Satornilus (or Saturninus), who lived in Antioch probably in the first half of the second century. Irenaeus, our main source, attributes to him the properly gnostic trait of the creation of this world by lower powers, in this case angels (Adv. haer. 1,24,1). This feature is absent in the AI, which attributes to God the original lordship over this world (and undoubtedly its creation), to the angels of the firmament the rebellion and the usurpation of dominion over it (10,12-13; cf. 4,2). On the other hand, Saturninus has incorporated into his own system elements that we find in AI: the ingenerate character of the Savior; the mere appearance of his humanity; the spark of life as a quality of believers (compare the fragrance of the Holy Spirit in AI 6:17, which, however, does not imply consubstantiality with the divine world). Saturninus further states (1:24,2) that the angels created two kinds of men, one evil and the other good. Since demons help the bad, the Savior came for the destruction of the bad and demons and for the wicked in AI 1-5 (and cf. the motif of the destruction of the powers of the firmament on the occasion of Christ's descensus / ascensus in AI 7:12; 10, 12). But it is contextualized differently, because in Saturninus wickedness is an ontological character, transmitted apparently by generation (a comparison with the genealogy of the false prophets in AI 1-5 would be suggestive!). Quite different from AI is instead in Saturninus the attribution of prophecies partly to the creative angels, partly to Satan, an angel hostile to them. In the AI it is precisely the prophecies that open up to men the superior world, hidden from them by angelic usurpation. In conclusion, we could say that the introduction, by Saturninus, of the Gnostic principle redirects the elements of the system drawn from tradition, determining a new function within the overall structure (1).

• (1) On Saturninus cf. R. M. GRANT, "Jewish Christianity at Antioch in the Second Century", RSR 60 (1972), p. 97-108; ld., Gnosticismo e cristianesimo primitivo, Bologna 1976 (orig. ed. 1966), p. 113-121 (although it seems unlikely to me the idea that the bad race consists of women); S. PETREMENT, Le Dieu sépuré. Les origines du gnoslicisme (Patrimoines / gnosticisme), Paris 1984, p. 449-458 (to be used with caution). Balanced assessment of the relations between Al and Gnosticism in U. BIANCHI, "L'Ascensione di Isaia. Soteriological themes of descensus / ascensus," in PESCE., Isaiah, p. 155-178, and in ACERBI, L'Ascensione, p. 274-276 (perhaps with too much insistence on angelology as the main common ground). Acerbi rightly concludes: "the prophetic circle from which AI comes was not remote from the circles in which the primitive gnostic systems took shape.... The commonality of ideas and also the differences are better explained if one supposes that the AI was elaborated in an environment in which the Gnostics were also present, with whom perhaps the confrontation was already open" (p. 276). As for the references to texts from Nag Hammadi, which will be found in the commentary, they seem to me to go in the same direction, illustrating the extent of the recovery and recontextualization in Gnostic writings of elements inherited from Judaism and from the older Christian tradition.

In short, by constructing its own system, AI 6-11 (1) gave its own answer, in the context of Christianity, to a problem that tormented the homo religiosus of its time: how can man escape the dominion of the angelic powers over this world (2) ? In Syria, the question was felt with particular drama, as attested by a range of solutions that arise from a similar existential perception of man, crushed by the dominant demonic powers from the firmament down. We could examine Tatian, the source common to the Pseudoclementines and Porphyry enucleated by W. Bousset (3), and the most ancient gnostic systems, especially Saturninus (4). The latter opted for the radical solution of considering the material world as an angelic creation and thus eliminating it from the sphere of salvation. The AI attempted an intermediate way: man's reality, his "garment", is in the seventh heaven, and his body of flesh, like all the reality of this world, is weak and destined to final destruction. But the AI did not attribute the creation of matter to lower powers, and it vigorously asserted that the world belongs to God. Correspondingly, the myth of the original fall of man, which presupposes in him a divine essence, is missing. The drama of the origin of evil and salvation in AI 6-11 does not have man as its center, but the rebellious powers of the firmament. On this line the AI attempted a Christian version of the Jewish apocalyptic tradition. But his attempt at a soteriological synthesis was tied to the doctrine and practice of the group that composed it, and did not survive the inevitable demise of the latter in the face of various church structures. Other "heretical" doctrines, the properly gnostic ones, were able to maintain themselves longer both because they presented a clearer, more solid and coherent doctrinal structure, and also, perhaps, because they were less directly involved in the struggle for the exercise of authority within the Christian communities.

• (1) We have seen that Al 1-5 refers back to 6-11 and takes elements from it, but largely modifies the theological perspective, under the decisive impetus of the circumstances concerning the situation of the prophetic group before the ecclesiastical authorities.
• (2) Cf. l. P. CULIANU, " 'Démonisation du cosmos' et dualisme gnostique ", RHR 96 (1979), p. 3-40, then in ID., Iter in silvis. Selected essays on gnosis and other studies (Gnosis 2), Messina 1981, p. 15-52.
• (3) "Zur Damonologie der spateren Antike", ARW 18 (1915), p. 134-172.
• (4) Without forgetting the affinities of tradition with Basilides (cf. Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 1,24,4, cited in part in the commentary on Al 7,9, p. 381-382). Already according to the genealogy of the heresy, proposed by Irenaeus (in dependence perhaps on Justin), Basilides and Saturninus both take Menander's system as their starting point, thus, despite the differences in their systems, they have related roots, which are rooted in Antioch (cf. Adv. haer. 1,24,l; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4,7,3). According to Epiphanius, Haer. 23, 1,2; 24, 1,1.5, Basilides and Saturninus would have been schoolboys of Menander in Antioch, before Basilides moved to Alexandria. But this may be an elaboration by Epiphanius from the report of Irenaeus.

Pages 62-63 of the 1995 Commentary (machine translation)