A Flight of Fancy: A Speculative
Explanation for the Gnostics
The premise that I have been working
on is that Christianity, at least as a distinct group with its own literature,
came into being in the 2nd century, more or less concurrent or shortly after
the Bar Kochba revolt in Judea and neighboring provinces. Before that
Christianity is essentially prehistoric, we really know nothing. It is from that I posit my ten thousand foot overview of
how the Heresies evolved.
The erstwhile church history that is
the Acts of the Apostles is very dependent upon Josephus Antiquities (c. 94 AD)
for characters and storylines, indicating a 2nd century providence.
The very reference to Hellenist (Greek) Ἑλληνιστάς
in an internal Christian conflict with Hebrews (Jewish) Ἑβραίους in 6:1 (also 9:29, 11:20), but the term seems to fit the era
of the known Roman Hellenist in Caesar Hadrian (117-138 AD) not that of the
Tiberius or Claudius reigns; the source text of Josephus makes no mention to
any Hellenist Jewish faction in Temple worship. So how are we to read the New
Testament in order to understand the development of the Heterodox movements and
more specifically how did the Gnostic come about?
Concept
The concept which I follow in
analyzing the New Testament is that authors write about events and conflicts
which they know and which reflect the life and time in which they live. This is
simply common sense. [1] For example, if you
were to write a novel with the setting being a hundred years before in the time
of the First World War, you would find yourself writing contemporary
characters, modeled off contemporary figures. All you have to do to see this
effect is watch any Western of the 1950s or 1960s and you see the contemporary
society – especially the politics – simply wearing period costumes. So it is
that the religious politics and theology are contemporary projections. Even the
pseudo autobiographical materials on Paul are projections.
Where I speculate is placing the
pontifical pen name for Marcion on Paul, and what seems autobiographical, or at
least personal, is that of Marcion himself. This pontifical name may have been
inherited from another in earlier epistles he may have incorporated in his
Canon and may have been continued post mortem by another before the absorption
of the collection into the Catholic versions that have come down to us.
Hadrian
This is a good time for a brief -
and admittedly inadequate - digression into the environment where Marcion
appeared. He is from the era of Hadrian, who was known as a Hellenist Emperor.
Terming Hadrian, like the earlier Nero and the later Marcus Aurelius, a Hellenist
goes beyond the normal process of Grecian cultural influence on Judaism and its
secularization of that society; it’s an influence that was strong and
undeniable, leading for example to the writing of the Septuagint in Alexandria
(3rd century BC) and pressures from the Ptolemy influence on the upper classes
which are ranted against in books like Maccabees. There is no question that
Hellenistic Judaism played a major role in the formation of communities that
would later become the backbone of the new Christian religion - ironically I
believe they constitute the "Jewish Christians" not the
"Greeks." But here I am looking for the trigger mechanisms that led
more directly to the eruption of Christianity. But the term more should more
preferably refer to specific Roman policies toward the Jews designed to break
their identity. [2]
Hadrian's policies which included
the renaming of the Jerusalem, and the dedication of a temple to Jupiter on the
destroyed temple spot immediately before the Bar Kochba revolt, and post revolt
policies such as in 127 AD banning circumcision and its practice in Judaism, can be seen
as looming large in this critical era of 129 to 138 AD. Although Hadrian died
in 138AD, his policies no doubt lingered and had influence well into the next
decade. It is a world hostile to Jewish writings and religion. This is the
perfect environment for an antithesis to develop and for Heretical Christianity
following in the Roman footsteps, obliterating the connection the Judaism.
Marcion
The fun begins now, when we consider
the storyline of the Marcionite Paul as mimicking Marcion’s life and trials.
Noting the principle that the first is the last; that is the capstone book
which introduces the Pauline collection is that last written letter, Galatians
for Marcion.
In Marcion's Canon the capstone book
- likely the final one written - was Galatians. [3]
By the time this epistle was written the Marcionite churches were not only
established, and not only is it's leader Paul battling against Judaizing
(Orthodox) Christian missionaries, but he is losing or already lost
congregations to rival movements. It is a document meant to claim and stamp his
authority. It also gives us a history of the foundation of Paul and hence
Marcion's authority.
The claim by Marcion's Paul is of
course that he received his ministry by revelation (Galatians 1:1, 1:11-12)
directly from Jesus Christ, with no human teacher or teaching. But just when
did this revelation happen? And by that I mean when did it happen for Marcion?
Galatians 2:1-2 seems to give us a clue, if we read the circumstances as
applying to Marcion - fiction emulating life- such that:
Then after fourteen years I went up to Jerusalem, taking
Titus with me;
and went up according to a revelation, and brought with my
the Gospel which is preached to the nations.
Ἔπειτα διὰ δεκατεσσάρων ἐτῶν ἀνέβην εἰς Ἰεροσόλυμα συμπαραλαβὼν καὶ Tίτoν·
ἀνέβην δὲ κατὰ ἀποκάλυψιν καὶ ἀνεθέμην αὐτοῖς το εὐαγγέλιον ὃ κηρύσσω ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν. [4]
Which it seems to read as referring
to the time between when Marcion had his revelation and when he journeyed to
Rome. Marcion's legendary trip to Rome is generally placed 143-144 AD, a decade
after Jerusalem was no more, destroyed, and now a new city Aelia Capitolina
stood in its place. [5] Jerusalem could only be
but symbolic by this time as a seat of power. But if we accept that Marcion
came to Rome in 143 AD to present his Gospel to the leaders of the assembly in
Rome though they were nothing to him (Galatians 2:6-7a, 9), as the Heresiarch
accounts state, [6] then by counting backwards
14 years we arrive at the date of 129 AD for his revelation.
Curiously 129 AD turns out to be 100
years exactly after Christ appears in Marcion's Gospel, "In the fifteenth
year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar." One can readily see the
irresistible allure for a writer to place the date of his hero's entrance in
the past to so obvious a date. 'I had a revelation that one hundred years
ago on this day' flows as naturally today as it would have then, as a
natural addition. [7] And so we have the start
of the Gospel Marcion preached. Forward 115 1/2 years and 15 days, and you have
the date the Marcionite order formally started, something hinted in Galatians
2:9 (AM 5.3.4) as having blessing of the so called pillars (καὶ
γνόντες τὴν χάrιν τὴν δoθεῖσάν μoι, ... oἱ δoκoςντες στῦλoi
εἶνaι, δεξιὰv ἔδωκaν ἐμoὶ κοινωνίας, ἵνα ἡμεῖς εἰς τὰ ἔθνη).
When Marcion splits from the other
churches, in Paul's projected version, it is with the blessing of the Christian
leadership. This stands in stark contrast to the orthodox claim by the
Heresiarchs fifty or more years later of being excommunication by the orthodox
Bishop Pius; if he existed at all, the structure presented in Galatians lacks a
single leader. Be that as it may we still have no explanation for the Gnostic
Christians yet.
Excommunication:
The picture presented by Paul, continuing
on our literary twin theory, more or less parallels Marcion's life in allegory,
discussing a Christian community already deeply divided. There are two camps,
one that is Heterodox ("Greeks") and one that is Orthodox
("Jews"), the former rejecting the LXX, the latter accepting as
Scripture. Organizationally the churches are only beginning to align with one
or the other movement. By the time Galatians was written, which following this
parallel is some years after the Marcionite churches have formed in the wake of
Marcion's Jerusalem/Rome trip. Attitudes have hardened, and now Heterodox are
being put out of the Orthodox assemblies.
We see evidence of this in both Paul
and the Gospels. Much has been made of the so-called Johannine communities of
the first century, which fit much better here in the 2nd century. Again we rely
on parallels, where Jews are stand-ins for Orthodox and the Synagogues are
meeting places of the Assemblies. So in John 9:22, in the aftermath of Jesus
giving the man born blind sight, it is reported that the Jews (Orthodox) have
decided that anyone who confessed Christ (the Heterodox Christ, not the son of
the Jewish God) they will be put out of the Synagogue. Reading the report of
Galatians 2:9, it becomes clear, following our time line, that this decision to
expel the Heterodox must have come at a time after Marcion started forming his
own church and hierarchy, what he believed the right hand of fellowship
entailed. One can logically conclude that Marcion founding his own church was
likely the trigger that started the Jewish Christian or Orthodox to organize
and begin to draw lines, start expelling those who sympathize with theologies
like Marcion's.
Continuing the story of man born
blind, when questioned by the Jews, he marvels that the Jews, who just said
they know Moses, do not know Jesus and where he comes from (9:29-30). From this
it is clear that writer of John’s opponents defend Moses and the God of the
Jews, but do not acknowledge the Christ of an unknown God. It is this group of Christians which will through them out of the
Synagogue (John 16:1-3) because they think they are serving their God, the
Jewish God of Moses, and who do not know the unknown God of the Heretics
Christ. This after Christ had been openly proclaimed, as in the Marcionite sense
(John 18:20).
And there is evidence for the
procedure to expel the heterodox. In Matthew, the most orthodox of all Gospels,
verse 5:22 refers to a calling of Christian Religious Council Court or Sanhedrin
(συνεδρίῳ) anyone who calls a brother the mysterious 'Raca' (ῥακά), an Aramaic term that has yet to be satisfactorily
explained. But the context of the statement seems to be an offense of a
Christian leader of some status to another, as it is 'your brother' (τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ) implies something of equal standing –a brother meaning
much the same as you hear today when reverends and monks refer to their
compatriots as such, not an ordinary believer (πιστῷ) of the congregation. And the offense must be religious in nature,
and an insult of considerable power – no doubt against proto-Orthodox held
position – that it requires a formal Council of elders, deacons, and certainly
presided by the Bishop. As I have noted before, this would constitute a post
Marcion era, a larger church organization than when Paul simple declares he has
decided to hand one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (Marcion’s 1
Corinthians 5:5 παραδοῦναι τὸν τοιοῦτον τῷ Σατανᾷ εἰς ὄλεθρον) without consultation of any
council.
Underground: (faulty logic, incorrect conclusion, but I'm leaving it up for humility)
These post Marcion rupture
excommunications indicate that the circumstances have changed by the writing of
the first layers of the Gospel of John. Marcion mission is booming, and the
proto-Orthodox are starting to organize and exert their authority, purging
Heretics who preach other than what they approve, and beginning to preach
against Marcion with their own missions.
It is in this era, when the Gnostics
began to bloom. It is not that they may not have existed before, it is almost
certain they did, and even that they had teachers, and they knew the same
unknown God as the father of Christ, and the same Jewish God as the demiurge.
But the systems they developed, which Irenaeus other Heresiarchs reported, was
based on the full Pauline collection and the four Gospels, to a large extent in
Catholic form. They unknown God they knew (hence “gnosis”), could be detected through
the various methods of exegesis they developed to identify the text which was
authentic or spiritual, and that which was meant for the fleshy Christians
(Jewish or Orthodox). In truth what they were trying to do was to recover the Marcionite
readings from the Catholic, something they had mixed success with. And with the
new additional text and their methodologies, they sometimes discovered (or invented)
new teachings.
In essence they sprang from the same
camp as Marcion (it was large and varied) but not part of Marcion’s Church,
they remained behind in the Churches that became Orthodox, and so went
underground. Not recognizing the elders [8] or teachers the Orthodox were
beginning to install over the Synagogues and Assemblies, instead recognizing
their own Apostles and Deacons. John 16:1-3 refers to this expulsion and its
reason (also 9:34), worshiping a different God. Those that remained behind
must meet and worship their Christ in secret "for fear of the Jews"
(John 19:38, see also 9:22, 20:19).
Dates:
The only reasonably reliable date is
Marcion’s rupture around 143-144 AD. The Marcionite collection of Paul that Tertullian
knows includes material in 1 Corinthians related to succession of Marcion, as
well as activities and disciplines in his congregations. Galatians represents
an even later time when an Apostle has betrayed him (2:11-15) turning to the
Jewish Christian or Orthodox camp. Some of his congregations have been lost to
the counter missionary work of the Orthodox, and it is necessary to declare his
authority. There is also at least one more Gospel, which I posit is Matthew
(not completely in present form), in circulation challenges his antithesis
directly, and which the antithesis expanded to incorporate a jab (Matthew
5:17). This pushes the date to a decade after his split, the mid 150s for the
final collection. I posit a date within a decade of this for the Gospel John,
or about 160 AD. The Catholic version of Paul comes soon after, as does Acts
and Luke. This is the ear that the Gnostics begin to thrive as secret
societies, formerly open, in the Orthodox controlled churches. The first
Heresiarch Church Father writings begin to appear in the last quarter of the 2nd
century.
So it is necessary to push back
Irenaeus to the late 180s or even 190s (fits better his theology), Justin’s dialogue only just before, Ignatius and Polycarp
epistles not yet extant. Some books of the New Testament would not make their appearance
until the 3rd century (James, Hebrews, 2 Peter, maybe Jude). Valentinus
may have existed in the 140s, but the formulas attributed to him for exegesis
of the Catholic version of Paul and the Gospel of John and others must have
come from followers a generation or more later. These are the dates that fit if
one accepts Paul as semi-autobiographical parallel to Marcion’s missionary
work, and that dates should be worked out from the internal content.
Final Comments:
This is purely a speculative
narrative of the development of Christianity. I laid it out not as proof of
anything, but to show the general conclusions I have come to after learning the
Marcionite and Heretical exegesis of Scripture, and then applying the social
conditions of the era.
As for the existence or
non-existence of Jesus as a human, who knows? The literature we have is post
Bar Kochba, and Bar Kochba appears to have been the catalyst for the appearance
of both Heretic and Orthodox Scripture, and for the definition of the Christian
religion distinct from Judaism. It is that literature which presents a
fascinating picture into the development of Christianity. And that is what I am
interested in.
(New Post will correct problems, date TBD - sgw 7/2/2013)
The fundamental problem with the description above is my lack of understanding of the impact of the reading of the stars and constellations. which was closely associated with Judaism, Zoraostorism, and Christianity. The eclipses of 29 CE, 59 CE, 71 CE, 118 CE, and possibly even 197 CE, all played a role in the development of theology. The interpretations of these events is hinted throughout the New Testament. I will do a blog post in July on the various references to the stars, moon, sun, and planets and show which event each applies. It is an interpretive swamp, but we have to wade into it if we wish to understand the why and how Christianity was born.
Notes:
[1] I have written an unpublished article on the purpose of
Galatians and Romans, a few points of which were extracted
[2] This is a blog entry so I leave the discussion of the
nature of the New Testament writing to others. Robert Price, The Christ Myth
Theory and Its Problems, covers the nature of the writings, for one example.
[3] I have written an unpublished article on the purpose of
Galatians and Romans, a few points of which were extracted in my post about
Marcionite Openings: Romans in March, 2013. The basic idea is that when the
main collection was complete a letter had to be chosen to head the collection,
or a new one written. It is my belief that Marcion wrote Galatians, as the
conditions seem to describe the situation in his congregations toward the end
of his ministry. It is my belief also that Romans was chosen by the Catholic
editor to lead the Canon we have received, because the theme had to be changed
from holding the "true" church together to one of reconciliation of
the "Greek" (rehabilitated Heretical congregations) and
"Jewish" (Orthodox) factions as opposed to drawing lines in the sand
that we see in Galatians. Each starts with its own creed (Romans lacked the
creed of 1:1(b)-1:6 in the Marcionite version, likely reading only Παῦλος ἀπόστολος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ,
πᾶσιν τοῖς οὖσιν [ἐν Ῥώμῃ] τοῖς ἁγίοις), declaring the authority of the
writer and the collection.
[4] Marcionite version of the text
[5] Roman Coins from 132 AD bear the inscription Aelia
Capitolina, for the city to be built, starting in 130 AD in place of the
destroyed Jerusalem of the prior Jewish revolt (67-70 AD) that saw the
destruction of the temple, and the spiritual center moved to Yavne on the
coast. Hadrian, in addition to expelling the Jews from Jerusalem and executing
the ten leading members of the Sanhedrin, banned Torah Law and Circumcision -
which he saw as mutilation.. Hadrian is widely referred to as a Hellenist,
which has significance to NT dating.
It is not unusual
in Christian literature to refer to Cities in allegorical parallels. The most
famous is Revelation 11:8-9 where Rome is clearly identified ("the great
city, the one called spiritually Sodom and Egypt" τῆς πόλεως τῆς μεγάλης, ἥτις καλεῖται πνευματικῶς σόδομα καὶ αἴγυπτος),
by its broad streets (τῆς πλατείας) and the many peoples, tribes, languages, and nationalities
present (τῶν λαῶν καὶ φυλῶν καὶ γλωσσῶν καὶ ἐθνῶν). None of these fit Jerusalem. And yet the verse seems to
imply this was the place Christ was crucified (ὅπου καὶ ὁ κύριος αὐτῶν ἐσταυρώθη). A similar parallel in Revelation 17:4-6, 18 where Rome is
called Babylon (i.e., tower of babble, languages of the earth) that mother of
prostitutes, killer of Christian Saints, who we are told finally is the
"the great city having a kingdom over the kings of the earth" (ἡ πόλις ἡ μεγάλη ἡ ἔχουσα βασιλείαν ἐπὶ τῶν βασιλέων τῆς γῆς).
Only Rome fit that description.
[6] Tertullianm AM 1.19.2 dates the Marcionite movement, that
is as a separate sect, as coming 115 1/2 years and 15 days after the appearance
of the Lord in Marcion's account in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius
(Luke 3:1) or 29 AD, to his introduction of a new God or in the last months of
144 AD: Anno
xv Tiberii Christus Iesus de caelo manare dignatus est, spiritus salutaris. Marcionis
salutis, qui ita voluit, quoto quidem anno Antonini maioris de Ponto suo
exhalaverit
[7] I postulate that Marcion, or one of his colleagues, built
upon a proto-Synoptic Gospel shared with Mark.
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