The Sethian School of 'Gnostic' Thought

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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billd89
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Re: The Chaldaean Oracles

Post by billd89 »

I've translated Hans Lewy. The Chaldaean Oracles are irrelevant to Sethianism. Off-topic.

'Sethians' weren't 'Neo-Platonists' 'after Porphyry, Plotinus, etc.' - those heretical Egyptian Jews had disappeared long before the plagiarist librarians arrived in the 3rd C. AD.

ApAdam, a Sethian/Jessaean work, represents a much older Judeo-Egyptian theurgy.

Why would you knowingly post such misinformation on the internet?
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The Chaldaean Oracles

Post by Leucius Charinus »

billd89 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:23 am I've translated Hans Lewy. The Chaldaean Oracles are irrelevant to Sethianism. Off-topic.

'Sethians' weren't 'Neo-Platonists' 'after Porphyry, Plotinus, etc.' - those heretical Egyptian Jews had disappeared long before the plagiarist librarians arrived in the 3rd C. AD.
"Sethian" is a construct based on the presence of Seth and Platonising tendencies in various NHL tracts. Seeking Sethians as a group in antiquity may be reading into these NHL stories something that is not warranted. The authors blended Seth with Plato. The NHL was edited and and manufactured in the mid 4th century. What are the options?

The oracles have at one time been described as the "Bible of the Neoplatonists" and many of the Sethian and other NHL tracts exhibit Neo-Platonist influence.
Why would you knowingly post such misinformation on the internet?
Like what?
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Re: Why Do You Do It

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Leucius Charinus wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 5:18 am"Sethian" is a construct based on the presence of Seth and Platonising tendencies in various NHL tracts.
billd89 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:23 amWhy would you knowingly post such misinformation on the internet?
Leucius Charinus wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 5:18 amLike what?
Like that. Against history. Against truth.

1. Josephus (90 AD) testifies to the ancient Sethians of the Syriad of Egypt, in Antiquity of the Jews. (1.2.3.-1.3.4 "I will therefore only endeavour to give an account of those that proceeded from Seth. [...] Now this posterity of Seth continued to esteem God as the Lord of the universe [...] Whereby they made God to be their enemy...").
2. The heresiologists - who were real - also reported the Sethians from their (older) writings. Irenaeus (180 AD), and Pseudo-Tertullian (c.250 AD) among others.
3. The NHL (copies, not originals: c.345 AD), proof of (2) and contradiction of your weird campaign that everything is factory-product from the Church Misinformation Committee in the 5th C. AD.

You post deliberate misinformation: why do you do it?


Here's something on A. Fomenko, whose theories rationalize Russia's claim to take (back) Alaska. And California. Riiiiiiiight ... He's obviously funded by the Kremlin; no great surprise, there.

(Great Youtube Comment: "Jesus is my favorite Crimean." (Mine is Conan the Barbarian.)
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Re: The Sethians, Obviously

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Re: Pre-Xian Jewish Sects

I do believe Mechizedekianism had a cult or order of some kind (older, and/or failing), c.300 BC. Ditto, the Caanites, though probably more folk-culture c.100 BC. Naasenes/Ophites are too amorphous in writings; evidence of serpent-worship is extensive in the archaeological record but impossible to tie back to this ... 'group'? w/ precious few exceptions, the literature of these is scant.

Not so, the Sethians.


I've come to the idea that Sethians/Jessaeans were Philo's Therapeutae. I don't see this documented (yet), but I think Wm. Benjamin Smith and Arthur Drews were among the first anglophones to approach this. Prof. Drews (Berlin) is characterized as the chief instigator or intellectual light illuminating (anglophone) studies in this direction, c.1910. A number of scholars were circling around the idea, but without the Sethian cult (name) in mind.

International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 22 [1911], p.24:
Nor should it be overlooked that Professor Cheyne, of Oxford, the famous Hebraist and editor of the Encyclopædia Biblica, has given at least a qualified approval to the theory of a pre-Christian Jesus cult, holding that "the god-man, whose cult in certain Jewish circles was probably pre-Christian, was called by a name which underlies Jeshua" (Hibbert Journal, July, 1911, p. 891).


Taking 'Yesseus Mazareus Yessedekeus' as Yesseus, Host of the Righteous Jessaean (or: Y., Sacrifice of the Righteous Jessaean; Y., Branch of the Righteous Jessaean, etc.), the 'Mighty Name' appears not as a God so much as an angelic intermediary.

Arthur Drews, The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus [1912],pp.216-8:
According to Epiphanius, the Nazoraeans were closely related to the Jessaeans ; indeed, the name is said to have that of Jahveh himself, and it was he who was to hold the last judgment and lead his people into the coveted kingdom (Isaiah xiii, 7 ; xxv, xxvi, xxxi, etc.) ; at other times he seemed to be a special being, beside or below Jahveh, the ‘son of God,’ or the representative of ‘the just,’ who, according to Plato and Wisdom, endure much from their enemies on earth, but are raised to divine heights after death and attain eternal life. It was a view closely akin to the belief, among non-Jewish peoples, in a suffering, dying, and rising saviour-god, celebrated in secret cults and represented by various sects. It is natural to suspect that the idea of the Messiah's mission derived from Isaiah was a secret doctrine among the Jews, and had its chief representatives in peculiarly mystic circles or sects apart from the official Jewish
religion.

Possibly the Nazorseans or Nazaraeans, as Epiphanius calls the first Christians, were such a sect, as he observes that they existed before Christ, and knew nothing of Christ that is to say, of an historical man of that name (Hares, xviii, 29). It is true that he only affirms this of the Nasaraeans, a Jewish sect that lived east of the Jordan, practised circumcision, observed the Sabbath and the Jewish festivals, but rejected animal food and sacrifices, and regarded the Pentateuch as a forgery, 1 and takes the greatest care to distinguish between the two sects, the Nazoraeans and the Nasaraeans. But it is not easy to believe that they were really distinct, and the confusion of his text at the relevant passage is due, Smith suspects (The Pre-Christian Jesus), merely to his attempt to obscure the real situation.

According to Epiphanius, the Nazoraeans were closely related to the Jessaeans ; indeed, the name is said to have been originally a name of the Nazoraeans. Epiphanius leaves it open whether they took their name from Jesus or from Jesse (Isai), father of David and ancestor of the Messiah. Either is possible, since the Hebrew name Joshua can be rendered either Jesus or Jessus in Greek, as is seen in the relation of Maschiach and Messiah. Possibly, however, we have in their name (Jessaeans = Jesaiseans [Jessaioi]) an echo of the name of the prophet to whom they owed their particular conception of the suffering Messiah. The name Isaiah is, moreover, closely connected with the name Jesus, Jehoschua, or Joshua, and means ‘Jahveh salvation.’ ‘God-salvation’ would, of course, be just as fitting a name for the ‘saviour-god’ as ‘God-Help.’

Further, the Jessaeans or Jessenes must have been closely connected with the Essaeans or Essenians who, like the Therapeuts of Egypt, cultivated a mystic esoteric doctrine, and cured disease and expelled devils by the magic of names. The ‘servant of God’ in Isaiah was also a physician of the soul, a healer, and an expeller of demons. When, therefore, Epiphanius observes that the name 'Jesus' means in Hebrew 'curator' or 'Therapeut' (healer or physician), it is not at all improbable that the Essaeans worshipped their god under the name Jesus or Joshua.

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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Why Do You Do It

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billd89 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 6:18 am
Leucius Charinus wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 5:18 am
"Sethian" is a construct based on the presence of Seth and Platonising tendencies in various NHL tracts.
billd89 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:23 amWhy would you knowingly post such misinformation on the internet?
Leucius Charinus wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 5:18 amLike what?
Like that. Against history. Against truth.
Hans-Martin Schenke in 1974 ("Das sethianische System nach Nag-Hammadi-Handschriften") was one of the first scholars to categorize several texts in the Nag Hammadi library (NHL) as Sethian. We do not know the exact origin of Sethianism, although a number of competing hypotheses have been put forward. What we do know is that we have at least seventeen (17) texts from antiquity which scholars class as Sethian. For many of these we have physical manuscripts from the NHL.

1. Josephus (90 AD) testifies to the ancient Sethians of the Syriad of Egypt, in Antiquity of the Jews. (1.2.3.-1.3.4)

"I will therefore only endeavour to give an account of those that proceeded from Seth. [...] Now this posterity of Seth continued to esteem God as the Lord of the universe [...] Whereby they made God to be their enemy...").
In this section Josephus discusses the antedeluvian Seth, the son of Adam from the book of Genesis. There is nothing here related to history or historical truth or to the authors of the so-called Sethian tracts in the NHL.



So as not to tangentiate this thread I have responded to your other two questions here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9320&p=137735#p137735
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Re: The Sethian School of 'Gnostic' Thought

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Transliteration from the Coptic: “iesseos masareos iessedekeos”. A correct Greek transliteration is needed, Ἰεσσεος Μασσάρεος Ἰεσσέδεκεος ?

Yessedekeus = Iesse + Zedek + eus ; ~Ishai-tzedekeus; Zedek (σέδεκ) is ‘Righteousness’.

Bodinger (1994) called Melchizedek the only character in the OT who, in eschatological literature, as a mortal, becomes a divine figure with messianic features. This supposes the myth was part of the propaganda formula (c.145 BC) to legitimize the Hasmonean dynasty of kings-priests, with Melchizedek as the archetype. But was Melchizedek an historic king and priest in Jerusalem, or rather a god? Zedek was a Phoencian god, 1500-1000 BC in the area around Jerusalem. Perhaps –zedek connects Yessedekeus with the Zadokites, Egyptian Jews from a nome south of the Sethrum, but I haven’t examined that.

Yesse = Latin Iesse; ⲓⲉⲥⲥⲉⲩⲥ ; Ιεσσαι/ϊσεσσαι, Ἰεσσαιος, ϊσεσσεδεκεύς

In MT Psalm 45.7 the anointed king (note the verb mashach, v 8) is probably addressed as elohim.46 The ideal king is called adoni or, on a different pointing, adonay in Psa. 110. 1, where he is said to sit at God’s right hand in heaven.47 A series of remarkable titles is piled onto the coming son of David in Isa. 9. 5: ‘Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God (el gibbor, Everlasting Father (abi—ad), Prince of Peace’. According to Isa. 11. 1–5 the ‘shoot from the stump of Jesse’ will possess the Spirit of YHWH (v 2) and will ‘smite the earth with the rod of his mouth’ (v 4). The ‘Servant of the Lord’ in Isaiah will judge the proud (41. 15–16), he functions as God’s agent for bringing revelation and redemption to the nations (42. 6–8; 49. 6), he makes atonement for Israel by the sacrifice of himself (53. 1–12),48 and after his death he will rise again to surprise kings (52. 13–15; 53. 10) and to bring justification to many (53. 11–12).49 Some of these passages show that there was a tendency in the biblical period to conceive of the Messiah in divine and not merely human terms, but they fall short of applying to the Messiah monotheistic language in either the narrow or the broad sense.

We can readily see how this ‘Yesseus-Sacrifice-of-the-Righteous Jessaeans’ might be all promises of the Messiah: a Therapeut (Servant of God), God’s Agent (intermediary, to men), Judge, Redeemer, a Righteous Savior with a Death & Resurrection (‘Arise!’ = Anatole in Philo). In other words, to be baptized in the Living Water (presumably: under the Y-M-Y holy name) is to take on the attributes of Sethic Man, in this divinization process.

As the presumed Founder of the 'Sethian cult,' this Yesseus- was a mortal (or two: Father-Son) who became an Illuminator of the Race, the Attendant (Therapeut) of 'Baptism in the Living Water': a divine figure with messianic features.

ApAdam: “The twelfth kingdom says of him that he came from two illuminators. He was nourished there.” Two Illuminators, Unnamed.

But no, several other Sethian works have FOUR Illuminators; see the common view today, following Mayer [2007], Michael J. Svigel, The Center and the Source: Second Century Incarnational Christology and Early Catholic Christianity [2016], p.338:
In broad terms the Sethian-gnostic ‘system’ includes the following elements: the figure of Seth, son of Adam, who functions both as a heavenly Being and as a Savior, and whose spiritual descendants constitute the gnostic elect; a primordial divine triad of Father, Mother, and Son; four ‘luminaries’ (φωστῆρες: Harmozel, Oroiael, Daveithe, and Eleleth), and other angelic beings subordinate to them; and an apocalyptic schematization of history.

None of these four Illuminators is known in ApAdam; the Two Illuminators are directly associated with the Prayer of the Holy Name. Mayer [2007] thinks Gospel of the Egyptians 52.19-53.1 has 'Gamaliel, Gabriel, Samlo, and Abrasax' for 'Harmozel, Oroiael, Daveithe, and Eleleth.' Eleleth appears in the Hypostasis of the Archons, Apocryphon of John, and The Three Forms of the First Thought; these are later works, or from a different Sethian branch than ApAdam.

At the Twelfth Stage, the Divinized Man learns he came by Two Angels. Then: “This is the Gnosis of Adam, which he gave to Seth, which is the Holy Baptism of those who receive Gnosis by those born of the Logos and the incorruptible luminaries {άφθαρτοι φωστήρες; φωστῆρες τοῦ οὐρανοῦ = luminaries from heaven}, who came from the holy seed {σπέρμα τοῦ φωτός = Seed of Light}: Yesseus, Mazareus, Yessedekeus, the Living Water.”

To me, Y-M-Y looks like Three Names (i.e. Three Angels), unless we should read Two: ‘Yesseus the Sacrifice’ (Yesseus & Mazareus) and ‘Yesseus of the Righteous God’ (Yessedekeus); Litwa has interpreted two (2), if not the identical 'name-reading'. With regards to the # of Iluminators, the Two-fold should be older than the Four-fold team. At this earlier stage, the Seed is/are still memorialized cult member(s) - their role is passed on to mainstream Jewish Angels later on, as the cult migrated/evolved. ApAdam's Unnamed Two Illuminators might be reiteration (i.e. 1 name, 2x) or some Lineage Combination (Father-Son): ‘Yesseus the Sacrifice’ and ‘Yesseus of the Righteous God’.

The Holy Name(s) "Yesseus, Mazareus, Yessedekeus" is revealed only at the end. This is important: in other NHCs, the Holy Name is just another factoid, even repeated casually - not so crucial, 'old news.' The meaning was changing, the symbols have been substituted in later works of the First Century. Why the First? After the Pogroms of 38 AD, the Temple's Destruction in 70 AD and War in 115 AD, 'orthodox' Judaism was in retreat while the heretics' cults exploded. The antisemitism of Alexandria produced a flight of 'Jewish' intellectuals across the Mediterranean; the cult could not be controlled thereafter. And yet, Sethianism was basically dead; Irenaeus (c.175 AD) is working with old materials from libraries, probably +60-100 years older. Turner (2001) is too generous; Irenaeus is working historically and he doesn't know Sethians. They were already gone or disappearing, c.175 AD.

In 90 AD, Josephus knew of the 'progeny of of Seth' from the Syriad of Egypt. They were ancient, several hundred years old. So, to hypothetically date the Founders of sect - ‘Yesseus of the Righteous God’ (perhaps as a Judeo-Samaritan Egyptian 250 BC) and ‘Yesseus the Sacrifice’ one or two generations later - the cult had established their monuments as reported by the First Century.
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Re: The Sethian School of 'Gnostic' Thought

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billd89 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 7:45 am Transliteration from the Coptic: “iesseos masareos iessedekeos”.
Just nudging you here:

The thing is, Ἰησοῦς in full only occurs in Melchizedek, very first line:

https://ccdl.claremont.edu/digital/iiif ... efault.jpg

Coptic, so no conjugation / case: ⲓⲏⲥⲟⲩⲥ ⲡⲉ ⲭ̅ⲥ̅

It's the only occurrence that I know of, and it certainly is the only one in all of the NHL
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Re: Yesseus

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mlinssen wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:50 am
billd89 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 7:45 am Transliteration from the Coptic: “iesseos masareos iessedekeos”.
Just nudging you here:
The thing is, Ἰησοῦς in full only occurs in Melchizedek, very first line:

Image

Coptic, so no conjugation / case: ⲓⲏⲥⲟⲩⲥ ⲡⲉ ⲭ̅ⲥ̅

It's the only occurrence that I know of, and it certainly is the only one in all of the NHL
What are you say - can you be explicit, not opaque? On point: do you think ⲓⲉⲥⲥⲉⲟⲥ or ⲓⲉⲥⲥⲉⲩⲥ is identical with ⲓⲏⲥⲟⲩⲥ ? Why?

And (for those of without Coptic) is the correct transliteration from the Coptic:
a) iesseos masareos iessedekeos and
b) Ἰεσσεος Μασσάρεος Ἰεσσέδεκεος

thanks
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Re: Yesseus

Post by mlinssen »

billd89 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 12:38 pm
mlinssen wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:50 am
billd89 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 7:45 am Transliteration from the Coptic: “iesseos masareos iessedekeos”.
Just nudging you here:
The thing is, Ἰησοῦς in full only occurs in Melchizedek, very first line:

Image

Coptic, so no conjugation / case: ⲓⲏⲥⲟⲩⲥ ⲡⲉ ⲭ̅ⲥ̅

It's the only occurrence that I know of, and it certainly is the only one in all of the NHL
What are you say - can you be explicit, not opaque? On point: do you think ⲓⲉⲥⲥⲉⲟⲥ or ⲓⲉⲥⲥⲉⲩⲥ is identical with ⲓⲏⲥⲟⲩⲥ ? Why?

And (for those of without Coptic) is the correct transliteration from the Coptic:
a) iesseos masareos iessedekeos and
b) Ἰεσσεος Μασσάρεος Ἰεσσέδεκεος

thanks
Once more, with feeling:

In all of the Nag Hammadi Library, and any other text for that matter, "Jesus" is spelled either ⲓ̅ⲥ̅ or ⲓⲏ̅ⲥ̅ - YMMV with the extent to which the superlinear covers all letters.
However, in Codex IX there is a Tractate called Melchizedek, and it covers leaf 1 through 27 line 10.
Melchizedek is very lacunose yet the first visible words are "Jesus the XS" in full: ⲓⲏⲥⲟⲩⲥ ⲡⲉ ⲭ̅ⲥ̅

Coptic is mostly just Greek, so you are correct in your transcription.
Here's the first page of Melchizedek: do note the footnote to line 1,2
Melchizedek_Ihsous-the-XS.png
Melchizedek_Ihsous-the-XS.png (102.54 KiB) Viewed 1563 times
do you think ⲓⲉⲥⲥⲉⲟⲥ or ⲓⲉⲥⲥⲉⲩⲥ is identical with ⲓⲏⲥⲟⲩⲥ ? Why?
I'm mulling on it, it is so similar.
Don't you think that ⲙⲁⲥⲁⲣⲉⲟⲥ and ⲙⲁⲍⲁⲣⲉⲁ look dangerously close to our beloved Ναζωραῖος and Ναζαρηνός?
It's an M and not an N, yes; but those two are best buddies in any language
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Re: Why Do You Do It

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billd89 wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 6:18 amHere's something on A. Fomenko, whose theories ...
Fomenko's theories are precluded by C14 dating. OTOH there are no radiocarbon dates for Christian literature which preclude a 4th century terminus ad quem.
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