Satan in the heretical Christian traditions

[Leucius Charinus]

Anonymous Author of Acts of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian.
http://www.gnosis.org/library/actjnthe.htm

And when Vespasian was dead, his son Domitian, having got possession of the kingdom. along with his other wrongful acts, set himself also to make a persecution against the righteous men. For, having learned that the city was filled with Jews, remembering the orders given by his father about them, he purposed casting them all out of the city of the Romans. And some of the Jews took courage, and gave Domitian a book, in which was written as follows:--

O Domitian, Caesar and king of all the world, as many of us as are Jews entreat thee, as suppliants we beseech of thy power not to banish us from thy divine and benignant countenance; for we are obedient to thee, and the customs, and laws, and practices, and policy, doing wrong in nothing, but being of the same mind with the Romans.

But there is a new and strange nation, neither agreeing with other nations nor consenting to the religious observances of the Jews, uncircumcised, inhuman, lawless, subverting whole houses, proclaiming a man as God, all assembling together (1) under a strange name, that of Christian. These men reject God, paying no heed to the law given by Him, and proclaim to be the Son of God a man born of ourselves, Jesus by name, whose parents and brothers and all his family have been connected with the Hebrews; whom on account of his great blasphemy and his wicked fooleries we gave up to the cross.

And they add another blasphemous lie to their first one: him that was nailed up and buried, they glorify as having risen from the dead; and, more than this, they falsely assert that he has been taken up by (2) clouds into the heavens.

At all this the king, being affected with rage, ordered the senate to publish a decree that they should put to death all who confessed themselves to be Christians. Those, then, who were found in the time of his rage, and who reaped the fruit of patience, and were crowned in the triumphant contest against the works of the devil, received the repose of incorruption.


ETA: The phrase "a new and strange nation" is distinctively Eusebian which implies (at least to me) that the Anonymous Author of Acts of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian had read Eusebius. This text may (IMO) be another anti-Christian parody or a satire. How likely is it that the Jews would write an entire codex to the Emperor complaining about a "new and strange nation [of Christians]"; admitting that they crucified Jesus for blasphemy; and complaining that the Christians falsely asserted that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended through the cloud banks above Jerusalem.

[Thomas R]

Do you have a thesis which you want to illustrate with these excerpts, Thomas R?

The evidence is presented to falsify R G price's theory:

It would seem to me that Marcion or any of the Gnostics would have had nothing to do with Satan, that Satan or the devil wouldn't have been mentioned in Marcion's Gospel. Be Duhn has Satan appearing in two passages in the Evangelion..

[billd89]

Heracleon: Fragments from his Commentary on the Gospel of John

http://gnosis.org/library/fragh.htm

Fragment 20, on John 4:21 (In John it says, “Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.’”) The mountain represents the Devil, or his world, since the Devil was one part of the whole of matter, but the world is the total mountain of evil, a deserted dwelling place of beasts, to which all who lived before the law and all Gentiles render worship. But Jerusalem represents the creation or the Creator whom the Jews worship. . . The mountain is the creation which the Gentiles worship, but Jerusalem is the creator whom the Jews serve. You then who are spiritual should worship neither the creation nor the Craftsman, but the Father of Truth. And he (Jesus) accepts her (the Samaritan woman) as one of the already faithful, and to be counted with those who worship in truth.

The Greek in Origen's Commentarii In Evangelium Joannis Book 13 Section|Fragment 95 (13.95):

Ὅτε ἔδοξεν πιθανώτατα τετηρηκέναι ὁ Ἡρακλέων ἐν τούτοις τὸ ἐπὶ μὲν τῶν προτέρων μὴ εἰρῆσθαι αὐτῇ· »Πίστευέ »μοι, γύναι«, νῦν δὲ τοῦτο αὐτῇ προστετάχθαι, τότε ἐπεθόλωσεν τὸ μὴ ἀπίθανον παρατήρημα, εἰπὼν ὄρος μὲν τὸν διάβολον λέγεσθαι ἢ τὸν κόσμον αὐτοῦ, ἐπείπερ μέρος ἓν ὁ διάβολος ὅλης τῆς ὕλης, φησίν, φησίν, ὁ δὲ κόσμος τὸ σύμπαν τῆς κακίας ὄρος, ἔρημον οἰκητήριον θηρίων, ᾡ προσεκύνουν πάντες οἱ πρὸ νόμου καὶ οἱ ἐθνικοί· Ἱεροσόλυμα [*] [*] δὲ τὴν κτίσιν ἢ τὸν κτίστην, ᾡ προσεκύνουν Ἰουδαῖοι.

ἀλλὰ καὶ δευτέρως ὄρος μὲν ἐνόμισεν εἶναι τὴν κτίσιν ᾗ οἱ ἐθνικοὶ προσεκύνουν· Ἱεροσόλυμα δὲ τὸν ᾦ οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ελάτρευον.

ὑμεῖς οὐν, φησίν, οἱονεὶ πνευματικοὶ ουτε τῇ κτίσει ουτε τῷ δημιουργῷ προσκυνήσετε, ἀλλὰ τῷ πατρὶ τῆς ἀληθείας· καὶ συμπαρα- λαμβάνει γε, φησίν, αὐτὴν ὡς ἤδη πιστὴν καὶ συναριθμουμένην τοῖς κατὰ ἀλήθειαν προσκυνηταῖς.

To capture more of the gnostic sensibility, here is my translation:

The Mountain {desert/wasteland; district = ὄρος} is called the Accuser {διάβολος}, the Cosmos or 'His Cosmos' (since the Accuser is in all Matter), but the Cosmos is 'the Boundary of Evil' {or: 'Mountain of Vice'? = κακίας ὄρος} -- the solitary {ἔρημον} habitation {οἰκητήριον} of brutes {θηρίων} -- which all before the Law and Gentiles have worshipped.

But the Second Horos {δευτέρως ὄρος} is accordingly acknowledged to be The Work, or what the Gentiles worship, and 'Jerusalem' what the Jews serve.

We -- O ye that are Pneumatikoi -- worship not the Work {or Ordinance? = κτίσις}, nor the Demiurge {Divine Architect, Artificer = Δημιουργός}, but the Father of Truth {πατήρ ἀληθείας}. And take it, O ye that worship, for being already faithful and as being numbered with they who worship in Truth.

DeepL gives this, with very minor editing:

… then he made the not unlikely remark, saying that the devil is called the world or his world, for the devil is a part of all matter, and the world is the universe. A place of evil, a desolate dwelling place of beasts, O all that are under the law, and the Gentiles, shall worship; and Jerusalem the creation, or the builder, O Judaeans, shall worship.

But the second part of the place is the creation, which the Gentiles worship; and Jerusalem, which the Jews worship.

We, O ye that are spiritual, worship not the creation, nor the Creator, but the Father of truth; and be ye joined together: take her, O ye that are worshipped, as already faithful, and numbered among them that worship in truth.

Curious!

My interpretation:

If Heracleon's commentary dates c.125-150 AD and that source myth is not from Alexandria, then this God(s) concept should be at least 30-50 years older still, so ~100 AD or earlier. I have no idea if a putative Historical Jesus was a Member of or trained by the (Judeo-Egyptian?) cult of the unnamed (Judeo-Egyptian) Father-God. The Unknown Father-God is still a great cipher for me (although I suspect it might be a cryptic interpretation or convolution of Osiris-Usorus in a complex Judaic form), I don't know. There may have been simultaneous, competing and discordant Gnostic definitions for THIS god in the 1st C. AD, so there can be no one true answer: that also doesn't make sense and it remains a wholly unsatisfactory conclusion. However, Philo Judaeus speaks with contempt about 'radical allegorizers' and that opprobrium may indicate a breakdown of consensus: the Jews' God was abstracting and pluralizing in the Diaspora c.25 AD. This is certainly one possibility, but speculation.

Other key points are obvious. Whether it is a ‘Mountain of Vice’, a 'wasteland of brutes' (i.e. accursed Cain-ish landscape) or an isolating dungeon, this Cosmos is deplorable if not Evil. Those ‘before the Law’ might be older Semite groups who did not follow Moses’ Pentateuch (in addition to gentiles): Cainites, Naaseni, etc? That heretics and pagans still ‘worship Creation’ is the point, for that is 'the realm of the Accuser' and 'the Boundary of Evil'. Cosmic Reality is corrupt, so logically it is corrupting to be pantheist, worship Substances, Nature, etc. Those who put themselves 'under the horos' are denizens of Accuser's district. So WHO is the Accuser god? I see Apollyon -- Horon, in the Egyptian definition. Where Oros = Horos is suggested, the realm of Horon, i.e. Baal Zeboul/Horon, suits the property of 'Lord of the Pit' and Horon/Horus also (confoundingly) 'God of a Lofty Place', of the Divine Palace, etc. This leads me to conclude that an older competing deity is intended and demonized, obscured.

There are TWO Horoses. The first should be The Horon himself, the Cosmocrator; the second is his Cosmic Work, 'Creation' ('Cosmos'). The Jews have replaced this Cosmos concept with ‘Jerusalem’ on earth; it is unclear if they imagine the same Cosmocrator. Heracleon's Gnostic interpretation ignores any other possible world-views, so his audience is obviously those influenced by Judaism and (lapsed) Jews. What is presented is a counterpoint to Judaism, not Christianity. So I believe this philosophy is pre-Xian, or from a time when Christianity was forming, although later on Jesus is added and made the mouthpiece for this (older) Pneumatic doctrine which was Judeo-Gnostic and (probably Sethian).

(Sethian) Gnostics/Pneumatikoi worship neither the Law/Work (i.e anything 'Material' or 'made'), nor do they serve the Creator God (i.e. Logos/ Cosmocrator/Demiurge), but instead they worship ‘The Father of Truth’. One may also be included with those who worship in Truth, if they are faithful to ‘Truth’. Exactly who is the Father-god remains a mystery, although there are two Father Gods (one True, one false.) "The Father of Truth" appears in a number of 'Gnostic' or quasi-Gnostic sources, for examples, the so-called Valentinian Gospel of Truth (which dates c.150 AD, though the Sethian concept must be older), and far more prominently in the frankly Sethian but adapted Second Treatise of the Great Seth (c.175 AD). Sethianism is far older than Valentinianism (or the surviving Christianized Sethian tractates), so it is reasonable to date this abstraction to the First C. AD at least. Furthermore, and independently, if NT Gospel of John 8 (c.90 AD) would have the same 'Father of Truth' and διαβόλου (John 8:44), this (Sethian) gnostic notion must be at least c.30 AD or older. We cannot be more precise than that, and this is admittedly speculative.

Satan is not defined here, although I can easily imagine that elaborated after Origen (c.230 AD).

This passage from the 'Gospel of Truth' might elaborate an instruction to Therapeutae or their direct inheritors (in which case, 'God' is some form of their 'Being' = On, with Horon as his Son) in Alexandria and the Diaspora:

Speak concerning Truth to those who seek it and of Gnosis to those who, in their error, have committed sin. Make sure-footed those who stumble and stretch forth your hands to the sick. Nourish the hungry and set at ease those who are troubled. Foster men who love. Raise up and awaken those who sleep. For you are this understanding which encourages. If the strong follow this course, they are even stronger. Turn your attention to yourselves. Do not be concerned with other things, namely, that which you have cast forth from yourselves, that which you have dismissed. Do not return to eat what you have vomited. Do not be moth-eaten. Do not be worm-eaten, for you have already shaken it off. Do not be a place of the devil, for you have already destroyed him. Do not strengthen your last obstacles, because that is reprehensible. For the lawless one is nothing. He harms himself more than the law. For that one does his works because he is a lawless person. But this one, because he is a righteous person, does his works among others. Do the will of the Father, then, for you are from him.

'The Gospel of Truth', refined (LINK):

The 'Gospel of Truth' is Chara {χαρά} to those who have received from Father of Truth {=On} the gift {χάρισμα} of 'Gnosis of God' by the Power of Logos, who came from the Pleroma and who is within Thought and Mind of the Father of Truth {On); it is Logos {=Hor-On} who is addressed as 'Savior,' for that is what we call the work He performs for the redemption of those ignorant of the Father of Truth.

What we have here is a parallel and rival Judeo-Egyptian religion (i.e. veritable Jewish Mystery-Cult) -- largely and broadly: 'Sethianism' -- which was anathematized by Jerusalem's Judaism in the First C. and rapidly subsumed by nascent Roman Christianity throughout the Second C. AD.