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: Sethian Baptism

Post by billd89 »

Again, vaguely recalling a number of things read awhile back...

'Baptism' employed different substances. Full immersion in water, sprinkling w/ ashes, and - if the Living Water is conceived as Cosmic Light - even by (focused) torchlight in a subterranean chamber. Those are a few that spring to mind.

Precisely how a Gnostic group baptized may indicate their cult and lineage.

Here's a great painting of an Alchemist gathering moonshine in a bottle ... 'The Alchemist Discovering Phosphorus' (1771/1795)
Image
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Re: Phillipian Baptism

Post by mlinssen »

billd89 wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 4:50 am Again, vaguely recalling a number of things read awhile back...

Baptism had different substances. Full immersion in water, sprinkling w/ ashes, and - if the Living Water is conceived as Cosmic Light - even by (focused) torchlight in a subterranean chamber. Those are a few that spring to mind.

Precisely how a Gnostic group baptized may indicate their cult and lineage.

There's a great painting of an Alchemist gathering moonshine in a bottle ... 'The Alchemist Discovering Phosphorus' (1771/1795)
The funny thing is that the baptism that Phillip speaks off is full-blown xtian baptism, in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit, where even said Holy spirit is received. Yet even then they call themselves only Chrestians, not Christians - in order for the latter to happen they have to receive the Chrism.
So we are presented with a baptism that is even more complete than that described in the NT, where no Chrism is received - and please do note that such, according to Philip, is the requirement for labeling oneself Christian

2 Cor 1:21 has the word but it's XS who's done the anointing there;
Hebrews 1:9 has God do anointing;
1 Joh 2:20 speaks of the χρῖσμα even, as do 1 Joh 2:26,27

There is a handful of other anointings but those are specifically directed towards eyes and such
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The Sethian School of 'Gnostic' Thought

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MrMacSon wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 6:36 pm
Leucius Charinus wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 4:51 pm Has anyone entertained the notion that the author of Zostrianos is a pagan?
MrMacSon wrote: Fri May 13, 2022 2:43 pm < . . snip . . >
As David Litwa said in the video LC posted upthread (and below [in this original post]), "the author is pretending to be a Persian sage who is living thousands of years before Jesus, so it wouldn't really be very logical for him to be mentioning Jesuses or Christ's left and right because, essentially, the life of Jesus hasn't happened yet and won't happen for another few thousand years.

"Yet Zostrianos has many Christian features eg. 'baptisms';* early Christian perceptions of Platonic daimones as demons; a reference to a being who 'suffers unsufferingly', a common way for Christians at some point in time to have referred to Jesus; and there's a coded reference to Jesus with the double mention of a figure called Yessus Mazareus Yessedekeus, a mystical name which apparently can be translated as 'Jesus of Nazareth the Just One'."

* Zostrianus is overwhelmingly positive about 'baptism' as the primary means of transformation in the heavens. There's a reference to faith, hope and love that are associated with the first three luminaries and these are [likely reflected in] the three theological virtues that appear in 1 Corinthians 13 (so there's potentially a knowledge of Paul in Zostrianus).
Thanks and I note the asterisks about "Baptism"

The question (Is Zostrianos pagan?) arises for me because - as confirmed by Martijn (later) - the text on every occasion makes reference to immersion which the translators have rendered as "baptism" with some degree of poetic license (or some degree of confirmation bias). This claim is strengthened because there is an explicit Coptic term for baptism which is used in other places in the NHL. Zostrianos does not use this term. The question must be why or why not.

Another question arises from your quote from Litwa. The claim that "early Christian perceptions of Platonic daimones as demons". People may recall that this term also caused a small controversy in the translations of the Sethian text "the Gospel of Judas". Here Judas is referred to as the "Thirteenth Daimon". The Platonists and the Stoic philosophers used this term "daimon" as a neutral guardian spirit - a personal deity allocated to all living embodied souls at birth. There is little doubt that the NT authors demonised this Graeco-Roman philosophical / metaphysical term by treating it negatively.

How does Zostrianos use this term?
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Re: The Sethian School of 'Gnostic' Thought

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mlinssen wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 8:34 pm
Leucius Charinus wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 4:51 pmBONUS POINTS: How many other words X yet Z are there in this class? If there are lots what are the "important ones" where the NT has Z as a "quasi-registered trade mark" of Christian monopoly, like "baptise".
Any other word really

The only way to do textual criticism in biblical academic, as I have learned in the past two years, is to read the native texts in their native language: the NT, the Church fathers, and the "apocrypha" - I have glanced at a bit of the Nag Hammadi Library and it is preposterous how those texts have been Christianised by their "translators". There are almost a dozen ocassions where 'wood' gets translated with 'cross':

ⲉⲓϣⲉ "crucify" NHL Codex III,2 77:15 (Gospel of the Egyptians IV,2)
ϣⲉ "cross" NHL Codex VII,2 58:13 (SECOND TREATISE OF THE GREAT SETH)
ϣⲉ "cross" NHL Codex VII,2 58:25 (SECOND TREATISE OF THE GREAT SETH)
ϣⲉ "cross" NHL Codex VII,3 81:11 (Apocalypse of Peter)
ϣⲉ "cross" NHL Codex VII,3 81:16 (Apocalypse of Peter)
ϣⲉ "cross" NHL Codex VII,3 82:6 (Apocalypse of Peter)
ⲉⲓϥⲧ "crucify" NHL Codex VII,3 82:21 (Apocalypse of Peter)
ⲁϣⲧ "crucify" NHL Codex VIII,2 139:16 (Apocalypse of Peter)
ⲁϣⲧ "crucify" NHL Codex IX,1 25:5 (Melchizedek)
ϣⲉ "cross" NHL Codex XI,2 33:18 (A VALENTINIAN EXPOSITION)

'Hang, suspend': https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C1010

Have you read my Crucifixion paper containing its Discussion Content? Martin Engel, the so much lauded expert on crucifixion, falsified the majority of his cases - and quite cunningly so.
Will check that.
We are simply overwhelmed by Christian propaganda and censorship - it's an almost perfectly binary situation where people either don't give a damn about Jesus or the major part of their soul
Another term (as introduced in the above post to Mac) may be "daimon".
Has anyone entertained the notion that the author of Zostrianos is a pagan?

Don't know, likely not many if any - but you can witness the current movement to resist what's in the NHL by ​a) the increased attempts at dating everything Christian as close to 0 CE as possible and b) labeling all of the NHL as Christian.

Yes I agree that the current paradigm is being obscured by a) and b) and that this is highly problematic for the purpose of recovering the historical truth of the NHL

Perhaps there are texts in there that date from after the hostile takeover but I doubt it. Yet I haven't made a study of them all so I can't make a full claim
There are a few texts deemed to be after the hostile takeover. The bulk are dated prior to this on account of the two issues (a and b) that you raised above, and because of attestations provided by "Early heresiologists" such as Irenaeus.
Last edited by Leucius Charinus on Fri May 20, 2022 11:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Sethian School of 'Gnostic' Thought

Post by Leucius Charinus »

mlinssen wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 8:41 pm
Leucius Charinus wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 5:11 pm The Gospel According to Philip says at 47 (in your translation):

Yet whomever he baptizes°, God immerses in an inundation of watersa

Am I mistaken in suggesting that again it is only Philip who juxtaposes "baptises" and "immerses" just as it only Philip who juxtaposes "Chrestian" and "Christian"?
Be very careful, Leucius - you know very, very well that this is not my translation.
Sorry about that chief. Yes I should have cited Paterson Brown.
What's more, you could have looked up the logion yourself: https://metalogos.org/files/ph_interlin/ph047.html

A screenshot from mobile - not the right font but anyone can see where it says baptize and where it doesn't. And the footnote by Paterson Brown is immensely helpful too, isn't it?

Philip_Logion47-PatersonBrown.jpg

The translation is very wrong, as ⲙⲟⲟⲩ means water: https://coptic-dictionary.org/entry.cgi?tla=C2165

Crum talks of Inundation of Nile but that's clearly as a theme and not a definition: https://coptot.manuscriptroom.com/crum- ... &tla=C2165

The poetic joke is that the Coptic says ⲙⲙⲟⲟⲩ ϩⲛ ⲟⲩⲙⲟⲟⲩ: [dop] them in a-water, the words are ⲙⲙⲟ.ⲟⲩ ϩⲛ ⲟⲩ.ⲙⲟⲟⲩ. "An inundation of waters" is a falsification as only the last word is to be either translated as water or (incorrectly, given the context) interpreted as inundation of the Nile - the superlinear in Till on the first word designates it as ⲙⲙⲟ: https://metalogos.org/files/till/w-till-09.gif

One could even say, perhaps, "via/by water in a water" but then the nouns still are the same. I've never looked at this before but for the moment I'll go with either two grammatical breakdowns, tentatively, vastly preferring the former over the latter

You can also see how the Interlinear transcription AND translation has baptize twice yet the translation below it has the word only once - long live the falsification
This stuff is troubling.
What does Lundhaug have in his Images of Rebirth Cognitive Poetics and Transformational Soteriology in the Gospel of Philip and the Exegesis on the Soul?
But God dips those whom he dips in water.
ⲡⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲇⲉ ̄ ⲣⲃⲁⲡⲧⲓⲍⲉ ̄ ⲛⲛⲉⲧϥ ̄ ⲣⲃⲁⲡⲧⲓⲍⲉ ̄ ⲙⲙⲟⲟⲩ ϩ ̄ⲛⲟⲩⲙⲟⲟⲩ

Even worse. So now we have Lundhaug translating only 9 occurrences in Philip with bapti- whatever, whether verb or noun. How many are there then that start with ⲃⲁⲡⲧⲓ? I count 10 in the diplomatic transcription alone and you can imagine that the word being broken across lines will not be found this way. Yet right here it EXPLICITLY says "to baptise" yet naturally our beloved and biased Lundhaug can't have his cherished Gawd doing any baptism now can he?

And I now feel inclined to translate the ⲙⲙⲟⲟⲩ not as ⲙⲙⲟ.ⲟⲩ but as ⲙ.ⲙⲟⲟⲩ, where the first ⲙ is an assimilated ⲛ due to it being directly followed by an ⲙ: ⲙ.ⲙⲟⲟⲩ ϩⲛ ⲟⲩ.ⲙⲟⲟⲩ - with.water in a.water, which is exactly what we see happening in the NT as well, where people physically place themselves in a body of water in order to be immersed in water.
Not fit for mass or pragmatic baptism of course as you'd always need a body of water to be around

I'm sure you have gotten the memo by now...
I get the general drift but unfortunately do not have the sharp focus enabled by the ability to locate and translate the source Coptic text in the NHL. For this I rely on your work.

The general drift seems to be that the prior NHL translators have made the assumption (not without some evidence) that the NHL is a "Christian Time Capsule". The proposition that the NHL is a pagan (largely Platonist) reaction to the political appearance of the Christian hostile takeover has not been considered, and is probably not yet above the horizon.
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Re: Phillipian Baptism

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mlinssen wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 6:10 am
billd89 wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 4:50 am Again, vaguely recalling a number of things read awhile back...

Baptism had different substances. Full immersion in water, sprinkling w/ ashes, and - if the Living Water is conceived as Cosmic Light - even by (focused) torchlight in a subterranean chamber. Those are a few that spring to mind.

Precisely how a Gnostic group baptized may indicate their cult and lineage.

There's a great painting of an Alchemist gathering moonshine in a bottle ... 'The Alchemist Discovering Phosphorus' (1771/1795)
The funny thing is that the baptism that Phillip speaks off is full-blown xtian baptism, in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit, where even said Holy spirit is received. Yet even then they call themselves only Chrestians, not Christians - in order for the latter to happen they have to receive the Chrism.
So we are presented with a baptism that is even more complete than that described in the NT, where no Chrism is received - and please do note that such, according to Philip, is the requirement for labeling oneself Christian

2 Cor 1:21 has the word but it's XS who's done the anointing there;
Hebrews 1:9 has God do anointing;
1 Joh 2:20 speaks of the χρῖσμα even, as do 1 Joh 2:26,27

There is a handful of other anointings but those are specifically directed towards eyes and such
What do you make of Lundhaug's "Begotten, Not Made, to Arise in This Flesh: The Post-Nicene Soteriology of the Gospel of Philip"? Not as a translator but in respect of the claim that Philip has knowledge of the Arian controversy and the "full-blown xtian baptism, in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit, where even said Holy spirit is received."? That Philip was therefore written after the hostile takeover and his story is somehow related to the controversy it caused.

https://www.academia.edu/5895809/Begott ... ilip_2013_

Did the Graeco-Roman world have any ritual akin to baptism and/or immersion in water? I'd be inclined to suggest they certainly did.

Chrism at WIKI does not mention anything other than the Christian ritual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrism
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Re: The Sethian School of 'Gnostic' Thought

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Leucius Charinus wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 5:38 pm I get the general drift but unfortunately do not have the sharp focus enabled by the ability to locate and translate the source Coptic text in the NHL. For this I rely on your work.
Every single papyrus leaf in the NHL is available from Claremont Colleges
The general drift seems to be that the prior NHL translators have made the assumption (not without some evidence) that the NHL is a "Christian Time Capsule".
They didn't need, have or use evidence - they used their biased assumptions and kept those intact under any and all circumstances.
Say what you will, but one single comment in ALL OF THE BLOODY NHL regarding xrhstos versus xristos - really? How scholarly and academic and professional is that?
I have seen all indexes of the NHL, and there is immense and intense juggling going on between the sections Coptic, Greek and Proper Names. The editors are a team of two dozen people just about, and they act all like amateurs. There is very little consistency in the Brill NHL series but the complete suppression and obfuscation of all the really quirky aspects
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Re: Phillipian Baptism

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Leucius Charinus wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 6:01 pm What do you make of Lundhaug's "Begotten, Not Made, to Arise in This Flesh: The Post-Nicene Soteriology of the Gospel of Philip"? Not as a translator but in respect of the claim that Philip has knowledge of the Arian controversy and the "full-blown xtian baptism, in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit, where even said Holy spirit is received."? That Philip was therefore written after the hostile takeover and his story is somehow related to the controversy it caused.

https://www.academia.edu/5895809/Begott ... ilip_2013_

It has routinely been regarded as evidence not only for such unfortunate scholarly constructs as “Gnosticism” or “Valentinianism,” but also for second- or third-century Christianity in general. I will argue here, however, that this particular piece is more properly at home in fourth- or even fifth-century Christianity in Egypt, thecontext of the manuscript in which it has actually been

It's evident what Lundhaug has realised, and what his corresponding action is - one only needs to read between the lines. Here's highly likely what happened:

1) Hugo realised that it actually is an unfortunate scholarly constructs as “Gnosticism”
2. He has also realised that it is not second- or third-century Christianity - but way earlier than that

And then comes the strategy: he must tackle both points 1) and 2), and regards it as his task to revert both trends:

A) so he endeavours to claim that it is the opposite of 1) and the opposite of 2): Philip is more properly at home in fourth- or even fifth-century Christianity

I'm not even going to read the remainder, it will be a complete waste of my time just as every other second that I spend on Lundhaug. The man is biased, Christian, and doesn't respond to anything but in a highly evasive manner or completely not
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Re: The Sethian School of 'Gnostic' Thought

Post by Leucius Charinus »

mlinssen wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 12:15 am Say what you will, but one single comment in ALL OF THE BLOODY NHL regarding xrhstos versus xristos - really? How scholarly and academic and professional is that?
Clearly it is not.
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Re: Phillipian Baptism

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The term "baptism" or "baptise" occurs 19 times in the text Zostrianos, yet we have since understood that the Coptic word should be translated as "immersed" and the Coptic term for "baptism" / "baptise" does not appear in the text. It appears to have been used in order to reinforce a Christian confirmation bias.
Leucius Charinus wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 6:01 pm Did the Graeco-Roman world have any ritual akin to baptism and/or immersion in water? I'd be inclined to suggest they certainly did.

Chrism at WIKI does not mention anything other than the Christian ritual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrism

Baptism: A Pre-Christian History

... the act of baptism itself has a history beyond the Scriptures.

The Greek World

"The Greek word "baptizo" as used in Mark 1:4 ( "And so John came, baptizing in the desert region . . ." ) was very common among Greek-speaking people; it is used in every period of Greek literature and was applied to a great variety of matters, including the most familiar acts of everyday life. Greek speakers and hearers understood the word at the time John was preaching; it had no doubtful meaning. It meant what we express by the Latin word 'immerse' and kindred terms; no one could then have thought of attributing to it a different meaning, such as 'sprinkle' or 'pour.'" (Boles, H. Leo Commentary on Matthew. Gospel Advocate Pub. Pg 74).

The Encyclopedia of Religion (McMillan. 1987. Pg. 59) continues by pointing out that the word baptism means to plunge, to immerse, or to wash; it also signifies, from the Homeric period onward, any rite of immersion in water. The baptismal rite is similar to many other ablution (the washing of one's body or part of it as a religious rite) rituals found in a number of religions..."

Pre-Christian Religions

The practice of baptism in pagan religions seems to have been based on a belief in the purifying properties of water. In ancient Babylon, according to the Tablets of Maklu, water was important as a spiritual cleansing agent in the cult of Enke, lord of Eridu. In Egypt, the Book of Going Forth by Day contains a treatise on the baptism of newborn children, which is performed to purify them of blemishes acquired in the womb. Water, especially the Nile's cold water, which was believed to have regenerative powers, is used to baptize the dead in a ritual based on the Osiris myth. Egyptian cults also developed the idea of regeneration through water. The bath preceding initiation into the cult of Isis seems to have been more than a simple ritual purification; it was probably intended to represent symbolically the initiate's death to the life of this world by recalling Osiris' drowning in the Nile.

In the cult of Cybele, a baptism of blood was practiced in the rite of the Taurobolium: where one was covered with the blood of a bull. At first this rite seems to have been to provide the initiate with greater physical vitality, but later it acquired more of a spiritual importance. A well-known inscription attests that he who has received baptism of blood has received a new birth in eternity. However, the fact that this baptism was repeated periodically shows that the idea of complete spiritual regeneration was not associated with it.

The property of immortality was also associated with baptism in the ancient Greek world. A bath in the sanctuary of Trophonion procured for the initiate a blessed immortality even while in this world. The mystery religions of that period often included ablution rites of either immersion or a washing of the body for the purposes of purification or initiation. Other concepts said to have been associated with these forms of cultic baptisms included the transformation of one's life, the removal of sins, symbolic representation, the attainment of greater physical vitality, a new beginning, spiritual regeneration. It is believed that all ancient religions recognized some form of spiritual cleansing, renewal or initiation that was accomplished through a washing or immersion in water.

https://www.bible.ca/ef/topical-baptism ... istory.htm

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