Magharians, a Heretical Hermit Sect c.50 BC?
Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2021 2:01 pm
I'm starting a new thread, on this odd and largely ignored Jewish Heretical cult.
billd89 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:30 pm Höhlenbewohner: Meghärija OR Makariba OR Makärija OR Maghariya
Especially interested in any German or French pre-1939 scholarship.
This 1981 essay by I.P. Culianu adds smthg:
The idea that an angel of the Lord is the creator of the world is assigned to Simon Magus by the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitiones33 and to Cerinthus by Irenaeus34 and by Pseudo-Tertullian.35 The same belief was also shared by other Gnostics.36 Thus, it is likely that Simon Magus borrowed the idea of a second Creator from the Magharians, i.e., from representatives of the heresy of "Two Powers in Heaven", but this second Creator became, in the Samaritan gnosis, the God of the Jews.37 One may certainly infer that Simon's perverse interpretation was meant to put in a bad light the God of his neighbours, i.e., to show that he was only an angel of the true Lord.
Personally, I'm reading the 'Magharians' as primitive, rural ascetics: crude, dissident 'Therapeutae' beyond the margins of orthodox Judaica. Wild men, outcasts, the insane - folk-healers & radical preachers to ethnically-mixed 'Old Jewish' communities deep in Egypt (or elsewhere). Among the most heterodoxically 'Jewish' congregations, some of these wild men might even dare to worship Serapis as Joseph, for example.
Following Quispel (1974), Culianu (1981) declares that the Magharians' Gnostic Demiurge was bequeathed to Simon Magus (c.60 AD) and Cerinthus (c.75 AD) among many others. To be so popular, this Binitarian Jewish concept must have circulated at least 25-50 years earlier (c.20 AD) likewise, Philo's work* (c.45 AD) addresses a pre-existent Binitarian belief system. Or should we assume the '2nd Creator' idea began generations before 20 AD, within some some radical 'cave community' or synagogal network?
I suspect the origin & transition goes smthg like ... Melchizedek, c.175 BC, expressed as God the guardian of Jewish mercenaries in Egypt and far-flung Jewish communities, then as a Judge etc. (c.50 BC), then in a ditheistic role as abstract Power (Logos) c.25 BC, then - a turmoil: repressed in name, splintering c.70 AD? - as the un-named Mighty Power, Demiurge, Angel. I'd guess that rabbinical authorities had begun aggressively stamping out the Minim belief in of 'Melchizedek' within a generation after Philo. So Epistle to the Hebrews captures the transit of 'Melchizedek' to 'Christ' c.55 AD; one Judaic cult symbol dies, another iteration is born.
*'Philo, De conf. ling. 146, De migr. Abr. 174, Quis rer. div. her. sit. 205 f.