Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... tfoot.html

It seems like Ignatius could be called the locus classicus of the "hidden Jesus" theory of the incarnation, as this passage is in one of the relatively early texts for having the full nine yards Jesus - Mary, Pilate, and the whole gang.

I think Ben C. Smith drew attention to this passage before, in this regard.

I don't think it's a loner -- what Christian parallels are there? For the hidden "dwelling" or other earthly dalliance part. Not necessarily all the detail put into it by Ignatius. (And, any Jewish parallels? Wisdom, maybe?)

And what do we know about the "silence of God"? Isn't this a technical term for the heresiologists?

Hiddenness of the mystery, in general? It's in Paul.

Peter Kirby wrote:http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... tfoot.html

CHAPTER 19
19:1 And hidden from the prince of this world were
the virginity of Mary and her child-bearing and
likewise also the death of the Lord -- three mysteries
to be cried aloud -- the which were wrought in the
silence of God.
19:2 How then were they made manifest to the ages? A
star shone forth in the heaven above all the stars;
and its light was unutterable, and its strangeness
caused amazement; and all the rest of the
constellations with the sun and moon formed themselves
into a chorus about the star; but the star itself far
outshone them all; and there was perplexity to know
whence came this strange appearance which was so
unlike them.
19:3 From that time forward every sorcery and every
spell was dissolved, the ignorance of wickedness
vanished away, the ancient kingdom was pulled down,
when God appeared in the likeness of man unto _newness
of_ everlasting _life;_ and that which had been
perfected in the counsels of God began to take effect.
Thence all things were perturbed, because the
abolishing of death was taken in hand.

It seems like Ignatius could be called the locus classicus of the "hidden Jesus" theory of the incarnation, as this passage is in one of the relatively early texts for having the full nine yards Jesus - Mary, Pilate, and the whole gang.

I think Ben C. Smith drew attention to this passage before, in this regard.

I don't think it's a loner -- what Christian parallels are there? For the hidden "dwelling" or other earthly dalliance part. Not necessarily all the detail put into it by Ignatius.

A list of some of the closer parallels might include 1 Corinthians 2.6-9:


Philippians 2.5-11 might imply that Jesus was disguised, both as a human and as a slave:


Same goes for Hebrews 2.14-18:


Ascension of Isaiah 8.8-10; 9.12-15; 10.7-12 (all from the Vision), translated by R. H. Charles (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... nsion.html):


Justin Martyr, Dialogue With Trypho 14:


Justin Martyr, Dialogue With Trypho 36:

(And, any Jewish parallels? Wisdom, maybe?)

1 Enoch 61.10:


Wisdom of Solomon 2:1-24:

Hiddenness of the mystery, in general? It's in Paul.

More here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1697. I am sure the list is not at all exhaustive, though, especially when it comes to the fathers. And it is very short on gnostic texts (including Nag Hammadi).

Ben.

Notes:

I've been scooped (nice post, Ben!).

Starts as "Lord," will be called "Christ" and "Jesus."

Does not get recognized and is "hidden" from the god of the world.

Accomplished by a series of passwords and changing into the different forms of the angels and into the appearance of the flesh of man.

Says that "to the angel in Sheol thou wilt descend" (reminds me of the argument about where Christ descends to).

Says "they will think that He is flesh and is a man" and "the god of that world will stretch forth his hand against the Son, and they will crucify Him on a tree, and will slay Him not knowing who He is" but "when He hath plundered the angel of death, He will ascend on the third day."

Have we lost the original ending? It seems to change abruptly in the last chapter and go off the rails of chapters 9-10. (The "pocket gospel" debate, sees us as having the ending but with an interruption at the start of the last chapter.)

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... nsion.html

Ascension of Isaiah, chapter 9

9. And there I saw Enoch and all who were with him, stript of the garments of the flesh, and I saw them in their garments of the upper world, and they were like angels, standing there in great glory.

10. But they sat not on their thrones, nor were their crowns of glory on them.

11. And I asked the angel who was with me: "How is it that they have received the garments, but have not the thrones and the crowns?"

12. And he said unto me: "Crowns and thrones of glory they do not receive, till the Beloved will descent in the form in which you will see Him descent [will descent, I say] into the world in the last days the Lord, who will be called Christ.

13. Nevertheless they see and know whose will be thrones, and whose the crowns when He has descended and been made in your form, and they will think that He is flesh and is a man.

14. And the god of that world will stretch forth his hand against the Son, and they will crucify Him on a tree, and will slay Him not knowing who He is.

15. And thus His descent, as you will see, will be hidden even from the heavens, so that it will not be known who He is.

16. And when He hath plundered the angel of death, He will ascend on the third day, [and he will remain in that world five hundred and forty-five days].

17. And then many of the righteous will ascend with Him, whose spirits do not receive their garments till the Lord Christ ascend and they ascend with Him.

18. Then indeed they will receive their [garments and] thrones and crowns, when He has ascended into the seventh heaven."

19. And I said unto him that which I had asked him in the third heaven:

20. "Show me how everything which is done in that world is here made known."

21. And whilst I was still speaking with him, behold one of the angels who stood nigh, more glorious than the glory of that angel, who had raised me up from the world.

22. Showed me a book, [but not as a book of this world] and he opened it, and the book was written, but not as a book of this world. And he gave (it) to me and I read it, and lo! the deeds of the children of Israel were written therein, and the deeds of those whom I know (not), my son Josab.

23. And I said: "In truth, there is nothing hidden in the seventh heaven, which is done in this world."

24. And I saw there many garments laid up, and many thrones and many crowns.

25. And I said to the angel: "Whose are these garments and thrones and crowns?"

26. And he said unto me: "These garments many from that world will receive, believing in the words of That One, who shall be named as I told thee, and they will observe those things, and believe in them, and believe in His cross: for them are these laid up."

Ascension of Isaiah, 10

7. And I heard the voice of the Most High, the Father of my Lord, saying to my Lord Christ who will be called Jesus:

8. "Go forth and descent through all the heavens, and thou wilt descent to the firmament and that world: to the angel in Sheol thou wilt descend, but to Haguel thou wilt not go.

9. And thou wilt become like unto the likeness of all who are in the five heavens.

10. And thou wilt be careful to become like the form of the angels of the firmament [and the angels also who are in Sheol].

11. And none of the angels of that world shall know that Thou art with Me of the seven heavens and of their angels.

12. And they shall not know that Thou art with Me, till with a loud voice I have called (to) the heavens, and their angels and their lights, (even) unto the sixth heaven, in order that you mayest judge and destroy the princes and angels and gods of that world, and the world that is dominated by them:

13. For they have denied Me and said: "We alone are and there is none beside us."

14. And afterwards from the angels of death Thou wilt ascend to Thy place. And Thou wilt not be transformed in each heaven, but in glory wilt Thou ascend and sit on My right hand.

15. And thereupon the princes and powers of that world will worship Thee."

16. These commands I heard the Great Glory giving to my Lord.

17. And so I saw my Lord go forth from the seventh heaven into the sixth heaven.

18. And the angel who conducted me [from this world was with me and] said unto me: "Understand, Isaiah, and see the transformation and descent of the Lord will appear."

19. And I saw, and when the angels saw Him, thereupon those in the sixth heaven praised and lauded Him; for He had not been transformed after the shape of the angels there, and they praised Him and I also praised with them.

20. And I saw when He descended into the fifth heaven, that in the fifth heaven He made Himself like unto the form of the angels there, and they did not praise Him (nor worship Him); for His form was like unto theirs.

21. And then He descended into the forth heaven, and made Himself like unto the form of the angels there.

22. And when they saw Him, they did not praise or laud Him; for His form was like unto their form.

23. And again I saw when He descended into the third heaven, and He made Himself like unto the form of the angels in the third heaven.

24. And those who kept the gate of the (third) heaven demanded the password, and the Lord gave (it) to them in order that He should not be recognized. And when they saw Him, they did not praise or laud Him; for His form was like unto their form.

25. And again I saw when He descended into the second heaven, and again He gave the password there; those who kept the gate proceeded to demand and the Lord to give.

26. And I saw when He made Himself like unto the form of the angels in the second heaven, and they saw Him and they did not praise Him; for His form was like unto their form.

27. And again I saw when He descended into the first heaven, and there also He gave the password to those who kept the gate, and He made Himself like unto the form of the angels who were on the left of that throne, and they neither praised nor lauded Him; for His form was like unto their form.

28. But as for me no one asked me on account of the angel who conducted me.

29. And again He descended into the firmament where dwelleth the ruler of this world, and He gave the password to those on the left, and His form was like theirs, and they did not praise Him there; but they were envying one another and fighting; for here there is a power of evil and envying about trifles.

30. And I saw when He descended and made Himself like unto the angels of the air, and He was like one of them.

31. And He gave no password; for one was plundering and doing violence to another.

Chapter 3 says more - and places him with wicked men.

13. For Beliar was in great wrath against Isaiah by reason of the vision, and because of the exposure wherewith he had exposed Sammael, and because through him the going forth of the Beloved from the seventh heaven had been made known, and His transformation and His descent and the likeness into which He should be transformed (that is) the likeness of man, and the persecution wherewith he should be persecuted, and the torturers wherewith the children of Israel should torture Him, and the coming of His twelve disciples, and the teaching, and that He should before the sabbath be crucified upon the tree, and should be crucified together with wicked men, and that He should be buried in the sepulchre,

Ascension of Isaiah certainly has a lot to untangle.

Peter Kirby wrote:Have we lost the original ending? It seems to change abruptly in the last chapter and go off the rails of chapters 9-10. (The "pocket gospel" debate, sees us as having the ending but with an interruption at the start of the last chapter.)

Ever since you started speculating on this forum about Jesus being crucified in the abyss or the nether world I have become increasingly suspicious of Ascension of Isaiah 10.8: "Go forth and descend through all the heavens, and you will descend to the firmament and that world: to the angel in Sheol you will descend, but to Haguel you will not go." This verse makes "that world", which from the heavenly perspective of Isaiah as he is listening to these words I take to mean the human world (below the firmament but above Sheol), sound like just another layer in the descent, not unlike each of the heavens and the firmament itself. The real destination is the underworld, just as it is in the sevenfold descent of Inana/Ishtar: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2183.

I also think in this connection of various scholarly reconstructions which implicate Yahweh as a dying and rising (or at least descending and ascending) god who conquers death, just as Ba'al conquers Môt: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2213&p=49365. An interesting comparison, for example, presents itself at the point at which El rejoices that Ba'al has survived:


Another possible connection is Robert M. Price's discussion of the name of Jesus meaning "Yahweh saves", possibly according to the same pattern as "Zeus Soter": that is, perhaps "Yahweh saves" is the name of an avatar, so to speak, of Yahweh himself, just as "Zeus Soter" is just a manifestation of Zeus himself. I think of Margaret Barker here, who has pointed out that countless OT prophecies involving Yahweh are simply transposed to Jesus wholesale, as if Jesus were, in fact, himself Yahweh (such prophecies include most of the Second Advent stuff, for example, which in the OT are predictions of the coming of Yahweh).

Put these pieces together with Christian materials such as the "Jesus hymn" in Philippians 2 and the crucifixion by the archons in 1 Corinthians 2 and a tentative picture starts to emerge whereby Yahweh, who considers it not robbery to be equal with God (the Father), surrenders his divinity for humanity of some kind and descends to the abyss to be slain by demonic forces representing death, becoming savior of the world when he emerges triumphant, at which point he is given the name above all names, but in the theophoric form of Yehoshua (= Yahweh saves). At some point the death is thought of as taking place, not in the abyss, but rather on earth, but still in obscurity (as witnessed in fossil form by Ignatius and Justin and even Irenaeus, not to mention possibly the so-called messianic secret), on the strength of various strands of Wisdom speculation (such as the sojourn of Lady Wisdom on earth and the death of the Righteous Man); the harrowing of hell is left over as a relic of the older layer.

As a bonus theory, I like to think that perhaps there was a layer of tradition involving this obscure earthly sojourn in which Jesus was actually imagined to have been a slave, crucified not by Roman authorities but rather by a cruel master, as I speculated here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1718 (refer also here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1709). On that thread I lumped 1 Corinthians 2.6-8 in with the "earthly sojourn" layer, but I would currently prefer to see it as deriving from a previous layer in which the archons did the deed in the abyss.

Such are my fantastic speculations on this motif, at any rate. YMMV.

ETA: You wrote:

Starts as "Lord," will be called "Christ" and "Jesus."

If we take "Lord" as the standard substitute for Yahweh, then this gives us the same basic sequence, at least, as my speculation about Jesus as the Yahweh avatar: he starts off as Yahweh/Lord, but finishes up his work as Christ/anointed and Jesus/Yehoshua ("Yahweh saves"). What it does not line up with is the interpretation of the Jesus hymn in Philippians 2 that would make "Lord" the name/title which Jesus earns upon his exaltation.

Ben C. Smith wrote: 1 Enoch 61.10:

10 Then shall the kings, the princes, and all who possess the earth, glorify him who has dominion over all things, him who was concealed; for from the beginning the Son of man existed in secret, whom the Most High preserved in the presence of his power, and revealed to the elect.

Does that text really say son of man?

gmx wrote:

Ben C. Smith wrote: 1 Enoch 61.10:

10 Then shall the kings, the princes, and all who possess the earth, glorify him who has dominion over all things, him who was concealed; for from the beginning the Son of man existed in secret, whom the Most High preserved in the presence of his power, and revealed to the elect.

Does that text really say son of man?

Yes. This is in the Parables section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_E ... f_Parables.

gmx wrote:

Ben C. Smith wrote: 1 Enoch 61.10:

10 Then shall the kings, the princes, and all who possess the earth, glorify him who has dominion over all things, him who was concealed; for from the beginning the Son of man existed in secret, whom the Most High preserved in the presence of his power, and revealed to the elect.

Does that text really say son of man?

Here is a 10 month old thread that contains posts about the various forms of "son of man" found in the "Parables" section of 1 Enoch:
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... lda#p42686

FWIW, I was doing one of those "post-counterpost" things I do sometimes when the action gets slow, where I would argue with myself antagonistically, so there are at least two posts with detail.

DCH <to work!>

Peter Kirby wrote:

CHAPTER 19 [of "to the Ephesians" attributed to Ignatius]

19:1 And hidden from the prince of this world were the virginity of Mary and her child-bearing and likewise also the death of the Lord -- three mysteries
to be cried aloud -- the which were wrought in the silence of God.

19:2 How then were they made manifest to the ages? A star shone forth in the heaven above all the stars; and its light was unutterable, and its strangeness
caused amazement; and all the rest of the constellations with the sun and moon formed themselves into a chorus about the star; but the star itself far outshone them all; and there was perplexity to know whence came this strange appearance which was so unlike them.

19:3 From that time forward every sorcery and every spell was dissolved, the ignorance of wickedness vanished away, the ancient kingdom was pulled down,
when God appeared in the likeness of man unto _newness of_ everlasting _life;_ and that which had been perfected in the counsels of God began to take effect.
Thence all things were perturbed, because the abolishing of death was taken in hand.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... tfoot.html

It seems like Ignatius could be called the locus classicus of the "hidden Jesus" theory of the incarnation, as this passage is in one of the [supposedly] relatively early texts for having the full nine yards Jesus - Mary, Pilate, and the whole gang.

I think Ben C. Smith drew attention to this passage before, in this regard.

I don't think it's a loner -- what Christian parallels are there? For the hidden "dwelling" or other earthly dalliance part. Not necessarily all the detail put into it by Ignatius. (And, any Jewish parallels? Wisdom, maybe?)

And what do we know about the "silence of God"? Isn't this a technical term for the heresiologists?

Hiddenness of the mystery, in general? It's in Paul.

Note what BC&H regular, and Ignatius-analyzer DCH has said about the Ignatius corpus -

DCHindley wrote:.... I have posed my uninformed opinion that the whole thing, short and long forms of Greek notwithstanding, is all from the same source and was all made up. It seems to be a tribute to a legendary figure of shady historicity.

The Idolization of the Virginity of Mary, and the details that are otherwise found in accounts of martyrdoms that seem to date to the 3rd century (this is off the top of my thinly haired head), I'd date them to at least the age of Africanus (the one cited by Eusebius, not the one who wrote the work that commented on his brilliant, if he must say so, reconstruction of Homer), unless you are willing to posit a date of composition for the Protoevangelium of James in the 2nd century (I'm not). Candida Moss puts such romanticized martyrdom accounts to the 4th century or even later.
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 810#p40810

and that Robert M Price refers to the Ignatian corpus as "almost certainly a set of bogus pseudepigrapha, it serves as a prime example of the sort of pious fabrication that forms the martyrdom tradition" when reviewing Candida Moss's The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom HarperOne, 2013. http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/ ... cution.htm

MrMacSon wrote:Note what BC&H regular, and Ignatius-analyzer DCH has said about the Ignatius corpus -

DCHindley wrote:.... I have posed my uninformed opinion that the whole thing, short and long forms of Greek notwithstanding, is all from the same source and was all made up. It seems to be a tribute to a legendary figure of shady historicity.

The Idolization of the Virginity of Mary, and the details that are otherwise found in accounts of martyrdoms that seem to date to the 3rd century (this is off the top of my thinly haired head), I'd date them to at least the age of Africanus (the one cited by Eusebius, not the one who wrote the work that commented on his brilliant, if he must say so, reconstruction of Homer), unless you are willing to posit a date of composition for the Protoevangelium of James in the 2nd century (I'm not). Candida Moss puts such romanticized martyrdom accounts to the 4th century or even later.
http://www.earlywritings.com/forum/view ... 810#p40810

and that Robert M Price refers to the Ignatian corpus as "almost certainly a set of bogus pseudepigrapha, it serves as a prime example of the sort of pious fabrication that forms the martyrdom tradition" when reviewing Candida Moss's The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom HarperOne, 2013. http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/ ... cution.htm

What are we to make of these suggestions from DCH and Robert Price, then? When was the text first written?

Peter Kirby wrote: What are we to make of these suggestions from DCH and Robert Price, then? When was the text first written?

It seems Moss didn't much address the Ignatian texts in the book that Bob Price was reviewing (The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom HarperOne, 2013)-

Martyr accounts started to flourish once the Diocletian trouble was past, and for reasons of ecclesiastical power politics. Eusebius, a great cataloguer of martyr-fictions, tended to meld the (real and imagined) pagan persecutors of the past with their supposed successors in his own day, the so-called heretics, both of them Satan’s agents to subvert and to destroy the One True Church. This equation allowed him to invoke the martyrs as endorsing the theological opinions of Eusebius’ own party. For instance, Eusebius tells his readers that just before they were killed the blessed martyrs of Lyons petitioned the Bishop of Rome to name Irenaeus to succeed the bishop about to bite the dust. Moss early on mentions the stale argument of Christian apologists that Jesus must really have risen from the dead because the apostles would scarcely have yielded up their lives for a falsehood (though we have no evidence at all as to how they may have died..). She warns us that this bad argument will be found writ large over the history of martyrdom, and this is what she means: Eusebius and the other spin-doctors invoked the testimony of martyrs and confessors to establish Orthodoxy. If these saintly folks attested to the truth of our faith (and not yours!), this must mean they (ie. we) are right!

It is a bit surprising that Moss does not make more of Ignatius of Antioch in this regard than she does. In a couple of footnotes she does mention the Ignatian Epistles as examples of a martyr’s clout being used to reinforce the authority of the bishops. And, as such, Ignatius is an even better example of what she is talking about than is Eusebius. But, more than this, since the Ignatian corpus is almost certainly a set of bogus pseudepigrapha, it serves as a prime example of the sort of pious fabrication that forms the martyrdom tradition. Especially given that the Antiochene martyr is portrayed in these writings as a suicidal fanatic who just cannot wait to have the shreds of his flesh picked from the teeth of the lions who will munch on him in the Coliseum.

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/ ... cution.htm

I think some of Price's comments about Eusebius have some relevance to the current discussions in the thread 'Eusebius and the Apology for Origen'.


Price makes some other interesting comments -

Throughout The Myth of Persecution I could not help noticing again and again how what Moss says about the fictive and anachronistic features of the martyr accounts applies equally to the New Testament writings. She seems to draw a distinction.

• The reason it was so easy to forge or invent martyrdom stories is that, unlike the New Testament but like the overwhelming majority of early Christian literature, stories about martyrs weren’t canonized. This meant that when they were copied, the scribes responsible had considerable freedom to alter, expand, edit, or invent traditions as they saw fit. Sometimes authors were just adding to an earlier tradition. They set down in writing campfire stories or gossipy oral traditions, the origins of which are completely unknown. Other times they edited a text to make it more orthodox, placing creeds, statements of faith, or denouncements of heretics on the lips of the saints. (p. 235)

... She just means, I think, that, once canonized, the New Testament books could not be casually expanded or rewritten as the non-canonical materials could. But comparison of New Testament manuscripts shows that, the farther back into the manuscript genealogy one goes, the greater the fluidity of the text and the scribal liberty to emend and to amend. And then we must wonder if the same tendencies were more rampant in the decades during which the New Testament books were taking shape, before canonization. For instance, Moss shows how ostensible trial records in martyr accounts do not really conform to the legal patterns on record in actual trial transcripts from the ancient world, and that the martyrs are often depicted as standing up for much later theological beliefs than prevailed in the era in which the scenes are set.

... is it possible that the reports about the third-century persecutors demanding that Christians hand over their sacred books should be understood along the same lines that Old Testament Minimalists understand 4 Ezra 14? --where the seer reminds God how, apparently during the Babylonian capture of Jerusalem in 567 BCE, “thy Law has been burned, and so no one knows the things that have been done or will be done by thee” (v. 21) and asks that he may be supernaturally inspired to replace the lost 24 books of the canon (vv. 22-45)? -Is not this passage an attempt to create a false ancient pedigree for books written, de novo, in one’s own day? And dare we consider whether various New Testament writings were likewise composed as ostensible “replacements” for hypothetical apostolic scriptures that had actually had no previous existence? That would sure explain all those apparently anachronistic references to persecution.

...if Eusebius trumped up the myth of a long age of Christian martyrdom in order to advance the interests of his preferred brand of Christianity...

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/ ... cution.htm