Chrestians/Christians?

[davidmartin]

As far I can tell from following this, the 'idea' of Chrestians does not just rest on the GoP (the naming issue is almost a separate question)
The evidence for these guys comes from other places as well
There's more going for it than a lot of slop that gets put forward

They amount to Thomasine style people, mystic esoterics - who are not Gnostics or proto-orthodox and don't fit into existing categories well
This might seem like splitting hairs to steer away from these labels when there's shared ideas going on - but if an identifiable, unique group emerges it should have it's own name

* Thomas dated early points to an esoteric teaching (but without gnostic layers)
* The Odes fit into the esoteric side of things nicely
* From the theology of John's gospel can be easily extracted standalone teachings very in keeping with this

If Jesus is portrayed as a parable speaking mystic it just seems natural to look for a mystical type of Christianity at the outset
this is the kind of base both gnostics and proto-orthodox could spring from - explaining how come two opposites sects emerged?

The theory I got is the gnostic myth of Sophia explains where orthodox Christianity came from. and the gnostics really hated orthodoxy so i think they baked their dislike into their founding myth itself

They connected a real historical narrative to a spiritual cosmology - believing I think the synchronicity worked whichever way you looked at it
Sophia translates to Magdalene who plays the key role in orthodoxy of witness to the resurrection, but an early church leader as well
Springing off from this first beginning comes Paul, the demiurge in the myth who engenders orthodoxy
Sophia/Mary is then to blame for it, neatly explaining the corrupted material universe and it's demiurge at the same time
It's crazy, i know. But after that sucker of a myth kept me awake, Sophia looks like a person, a human too much, so yeah, that Sophia myth I think is a historical account of Christian origins from a gnostic perspective

In this reading the gnostics are really divided from the earlier mystic phase, a third group that isn't gnostic, proto-orthodox, Pauline or Ebionite is detectable. That's what I see connecting up to this Chrestians

[mlinssen]

ML, I think you have the texts of gPhilip 56.12-13; 62.8-17.
And I would guess that you are a faster and better typist than I am.
Is gPhilip correct about e.g. Nazarene?
No.
If I may say so, better explanation is in Anchor Bible Dictionary, "Nazarenes."

PS Just hypothetically, if lexicographer W. E. Crum, graduate of Eton and Oxford, had lived long enough to offer a translation of gThomas, which would you imagine might have been closer to your evaluation:
a) well done, WEC
or
b) you falsifier!

Crum would undoubtedly have used his own dictionary, and translated Logion 96 with 'colostrum' instead of 'leaven'. Had her done the reverse, he works have been a falsifier

It's not that hard to evaluate a translation, you just take a dictionary and verify it - and that is a completely objective exercise. And when you detect consistent deviations from the dictionary, and discover that all those are harmonisations with Matthew: then the label of falsification is a very apt one

[Peter Kirby]

Clement of Rome (90 AD: The Epistle of S. CLEMENT to the CORINTHIANS, 26) quotes Job 19:26 (c.550 BC? 300 BC?): Καὶ ἀναστήσεις τὴν σάρκα μου ταύτην τὴν ἀναντλήσασαν ταῦτα πάντα {And Thou shall raise this my flesh which hath endured all these things}, which strongly suggests this was an old Jewish concept, pre-Christian, and acceptable. Isaiah 26:19: "Your dead will live; their bodies will rise." Etc. Ancient!

I have a hypothesis according to which this section of First Clement is itself a Jewish text (arguably before 70 CE):

https://peterkirby.com/a-study-in-1-clement.html

[dbz]

• marriage/unification gnosis Chrestian == ultimate gnosis level/rank.

proto-orthodox Christian == fl. early first century C.E. or possibly even B.C.E. A Chrestian with any gnosis level/rank.

A concise definition of enlightenment could be to be reborn in the flesh: old flesh, new spirit / state of being.

• spiritual enlightenment gnosis Chrestian == to be reborn in the flesh with the old flesh but with a new spirit state of being. Symbolized by marriage/unification, i.e. the ultimate gnosis results in inπνευματική διαφώτιση [pnevmatikí diafótisi] spiritual enlightenment

[StephenGoranson]

mlinssen wrote above, in part:
"... you just take a dictionary and verify it - and that is a completely objective exercise."

May I, SG, suggest that such is not "completely objective"?
For example, when one word has more than one sense?

Some dictionaries (such as OED online) are updated, in portions, regularly.
Let me guess, if WE Crum had lived long enough to include Nag Hammadi texts, would he have made any additions or changes to his dictionary?

Dear reader, you are free to give your own answer to that question.

[mlinssen]

mlinssen wrote above, in part:
"... you just take a dictionary and verify it - and that is a completely objective exercise."

May I, SG, suggest that such is not "completely objective"?
For example, when one word has more than one sense?

Some dictionaries (such as OED online) are updated, in portions, regularly.
Let me guess, if WE Crum had lived long enough to include Nag Hammadi texts, would he have made any additions or changes to his dictionary?

Dear reader, you are free to give your own answer to that question.

Dictionaries to living languages naturally get updated, as the language changes. How often have you a new definition of a word appear in for instance LSJ?
Obviously, new texts can shed new light on existing words definitions, and in that sense a dead language can still live - and bring about change. Yet the frequency to that is minimal when compared to living languages

Westerhof changed his dictionary - or rather, added to it - after Thomas; quite recently, following a conversation, Pierre Cherix also did

1. Colostrum / first milk or butter
2. Leaven

https://coptic-dictionary.org/results.c ... e&lang=any

Pick one, Stephen - any one

[StephenGoranson]

Here is one sentence from mlinssen, above, that I agree with:
"Obviously, new texts can shed new light on existing words definitions, and in that sense a dead language can still live - and bring about change."

Now, added to the fact that dictionaries are not objectively perfect,
and
neither are translations--such as Coptic Thomas--right?

A translation of one word may or may not be "best," according to one or another subjective analysis,
but such may not be a secure basis upon which to "solve" the (diachronic) synoptic problem.

[dbz]

Dictionaries to living languages naturally get updated, as the language changes.

In the context of Paul, the meaning of his specific idiomatic words were also changed by later Christians who who were lilkey "social infuencers".

• It is an indisputable fact that when Paul says this, he uses a word he only uses of manufactured, not birthed bodies (ginomai, referring to Adam’s body: 1 Corinthians 15:45, in the very context of describing Adam’s body; and our future resurrection bodies: 1 Corinthians 15:37, which, as for Adam, God will manufacture for us).
• It is an indisputable fact that Paul uses a different word every time he refers to birthed bodies (gennaô, e.g. Romans 9:11, Galatians 4:23 and 4:29).
• It is an indisputable fact that subsequent Christian scribes were so bothered by the above two facts that they tried to doctor the manuscripts of Paul to change his word for “made” into his word for “born” (and did this in both places where Paul alludes to Jesus’s origin: Romans 1:3 and Galatians 4:4).
• It is an indisputable fact that Paul depicts Jesus’s body being manufactured for him in Philippians 2:7. No mention of birth, childhood or parents. And all this matters because…

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--Carrier (27 November 2019). "What Did Paul Mean in Romans 1:3?". Richard Carrier Blogs.

[dbz]

[47:10] The gnostics [i.e. Chrestian proto-orthodox Christians] were dying in that amphitheater as bravely as members of his own congregation . . . Irenaeus believed that true Christianity was his Christianity [i.e. pseudo-orthodox Christianity]—he thought that the Gnostics were holy anarchists. He wanted to show the world an organized and universal Church, not a secret sect. [47:51]

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"TESTAMENT with John Romer. Part 4 - Gospel Truth?". YouTube.

[dbz]

[T]he GoP author would have called the "orthodox" Christians of his time as "Chrestians"?

• There are multiple GoP authors over multiple periods!

• True Paul is related to *Ev.

Plutarch certainly is a source of inspiration and text for the Churchians, but not Thomas or *Ev.

Is *Ev. oriented in a monistic direction? Is True Paul monistic and or Plutarchian?

[04:50] What Middle-Platonism does decisively .. is to push from dualism in a monistic direction...

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Lecture #18 by Arthur Holmes per the course, "A History of Philosophy" at Wheaton College, Illinois.
"A History of Philosophy | 18 Middle and Neo-Platonism". YouTube. @time:00:04:50.

Thomas isn't concerned with anything else but Us, We, You: what is our essence, who are we, what makes us, what drives us? (Radical non duality) is a fine fit as it also doesn't care about anything but ouselves

[Thomas] teaches what today is known as radical non-duality, only 2 millennia earlier.

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--"Martijn Linssen | Leiden University". Academia.edu.

Nonduality and interconnectedness (monism)

According to Espín and Nickoloff, referring to monism, "nondualism" is the thought in some Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist schools, which, generally speaking, "teaches that the multiplicity of the universe is reducible to one essential reality." The idea of nondualism as monism is typically contrasted with dualism, with dualism defined as the view that the universe and the nature of existence consists of two realities, such as the God and the world, or as God and Devil, or as mind and matter, and so on. In Advaita Vedanta, nonduality refers to monism, the nonduality of Atman and Brahman.

In a more general sense, nonduality refers to "the interconnectedness of everything which is dependent upon the nondual One, Transcendent Reality," "the singular wholeness of existence that suggests that the personal self is an illusion."

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"Nondualism § Nonduality and interconnectedness (monism)". Wikipedia. retrieved 26 April 2023.