Paul's Necessary Sin: The Experience of Liberation - Pauline Christianity = PaleoChristianity

[lainey]

Today I would like to raise a bit eschatological topics. I'll start with the question. Are you afraid of death?

Yes and no. I know that we go somewhere else, so the idea of the end of this life isn't frightening, but I'm also a bit of a nervous traveller and am the type of person who turns up at the airport hours early.

I guess it's the unknown factors that make me a little nervous, what will it feel like, who will be there, will I remember the process once I'm over there? It's like first day of school feelings, hoping the other kids in class will be nice and hoping you can find your way around ok.

I really enjoyed the Descriptions of the Afterlife thread because that helped to answer a lot of questions.

 

[Vyninho]

Actually, it is a personification to say "for instance, we can say that STS represents the "male" part of the universe, and STO represents the "female" part of the universe". But I think it is also incorrect to say "that 4D STS are only males and 4D STO women, for instance". In the densities above 3D there is no gender and that includes 4D and above.

Session 8 April 2000:

In higher densities, one will become androgynous.
Having merged / integrate male energy and female energy so forgive and accept our STS side by bringing it on the STO path.
The alchemical work:
Die in the sense of our STS part (in several times) to be reborn by becoming STO and therefore androgynous.

 

[Deleted member 4320]

In the densities above 3D there is no gender and that includes 4D and above.

Session 8 April 2000:

No? I think that, for instance, 4D STO Nordics have females and males.

1 Density - no genders.
2D - genders, and concentration only on physical aspects.
3D - gender, with physical aspects and possible development of aspects of a higher kind.
4D - gender, no sex serving pleasure and reproduction, the interaction between psychic energy of the masculine and feminine nature (with some connections to physicality).
5D - no genders.
6D - no genders.
7D - Father God. Only one gender: Man. And even, only one, male individual. No, joke. In fact, no genders, of course.

 

[goyacobol]

No? I think that, for instance, 4D STO Nordics have females and males.

1 Density - no genders.
2D - genders, and concentration only on physical aspects.
3D - gender, with physical aspects and possible development of aspects of a higher kind.
4D - gender, no sex serving pleasure and reproduction, the interaction between psychic energy of the masculine and feminine nature (with some connections to physicality).
5D - no genders.
6D - no genders.
7D - Father God. Only one gender: Man. And even, only one, male individual. No, joke. In fact, no genders, of course.

How about giving some references for those thoughts.

 

[goyacobol]

In higher densities, one will become androgynous.
Having merged / integrate male energy and female energy so forgive and accept our STS side by bringing it on the STO path.
The alchemical work:
Die in the sense of our STS part (in several times) to be reborn by becoming STO and therefore androgynous.

@Vyninho,

You may be on the right track. Perhaps gender in 4D is "variable". One may not identify with any one gender.

Session 10 December 1994:

Q: (L) In conjunction with DNA changes, is there any similarity between the human race and the idea of transformation relating to populations such as grasshoppers into locusts?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) When grasshoppers turn into locusts, they swarm when their population gets too large.

A: All is part of natural cyclical process.

Q: (L) Was the DNA change that we are experiencing programmed into us so that after so many generations these changes would just sort of kick in?

A: Close.

Q: (L) So, we all selected certain bodies before we incarnated that would be prime for this programming?

A: Are you ready to be hermaphrodites?

Q: (L) Is that what we are going to be?

A: Wait and see.

While we are thinking about the spirit and the Faith "of" Jesus it may help to realize that changes may be on the way.

Sessio 4 November 1995:

Q: (L) So, if the region disappears... (T) It's not disappearing. It's just shifting... (L) So if the region goes into fourth density, will the people living there also be in fourth density?

A: Yes.

Q: (T) Will they notice that anything is different? Will they, not us, they? Those who are within it?

A: Are you kidding?

Q: (L) I guess they will. (T) Well, I don't know, that's why I'm asking. (J) Their perception is going to change! (T) But, how can their perception change if they're not going into fourth density? (L) No, they said they are going in to fourth density! But they're not "going" anywhere (J) There will be no traveling involved. (T) We're not "going" anywhere, we're shifting our frequencies up to the next density, not moving from where we are.

A: Picture driving down a highway, suddenly you notice auras surrounding everything.... Being able to see around corners, going inside little cottages which become mansions, when viewed from inside... Going inside a building in Albuquerque and going out the back door into Las Vegas, going to sleep as a female, and waking up male... Flying in a plane for half an hour and landing at the same place 5 weeks later...

 

[Laura]

Somehow, this thread has run off the track.

 

[Cleopatre VII]

In my opinion, the concept of gender in the case of higher densities is significantly different from what we perceive from the perspective of biology.

The concepts of masculinity and femininity appear, among others, in the Kybalionie. However, in this case, gender is used rather as a metaphor for a kind of vibration. The description through the prism of sex is to help people understand certain characteristics of entities that exist in a way that is incomprehensible to us. This can be compared to a physical concept in which we characterize certain elementary particles through concepts such as colour and flavour.

Beings from higher densities do not exist in the same way as we do. Hence, I think that concepts that we use to describe them can be understood metaphorically.

 

[Cleopatre VII]

Somehow, this thread has run off the track.

Yes it's true. However, I think it will be easy to get back to Paul from the concept of gender.

 

[goyacobol]

Somehow, this thread has run off the track.

I think it has gone off on some tangents. Hopefully not too far and some of the issues are related enough to be helpful.

Paul's Necessary Sin does cause me to see the root causes of where Christianity has veered off course (much like this thread?).

The following makes me realize that Paul's Necessary Sin is related to many of the concepts Laura has discussed in The Wave and I include the following short excerpt
.
Jupiter, Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, and the Return of the Mongols Part 5

Even with these “polarities,” again and again we find those “big, blond” types popping up. However, it is not exactly that simple. As the research has proceeded, I have formed hypotheses and tested and discarded them innumerable times. For the moment, the current hypothesis runs as follows:

The issue does not seem to be one of skin color or “race,” (which is a ridiculous term as it is currently used). It is more an issue of the difference between human beings who have “something” inside as opposed to those who don’t have this “something.”

When this “something” is analyzed, it reveals a fundamental difference in “being” that is most easily expressed as those who worship something outside themselves, vs those who don’t worship any god or thing outside themselves because they cannot worship outside what is inside.

There are behavioral clues to the different natures of the two polarities, and it seems that the real reason that those who are of the so-called Aryan bloodlines, often “rise to the top” in many cultures for the simple reason that they have more potent “power cells” – mitochondria – that energize their bodily functions, producing greater “heat” and activity. This “rising to the top” can be positive, or it can be negative.

This poses a unique problem: very energetic negatively oriented beings have many advantages in this world over very energetic positive beings due to the fact that the former have no “moral imperative.” For them, the material world is all there is: in their core being, they worship the material universe represented by a god who is “outside” of them, and inner reflection and analysis so as to determine if they are conducting themselves in such a way so as to return to the inner “Origin” – or Edenic state – has no real meaning for them.

Many religions have been created that promise salvation or heaven via an intermediary, and these concepts are appealing to the negative orientation, but the deep, internal conviction that this can and must be accomplished by cultivating that divine spark within does not exist for them. They may claim that it does, but their actions do not match their words. Their thinking is “legalistic,” and the best way to describe is is that they “strain at gnats and swallow camels.”

Again, the important point is: those with the spark of the divine within cannot worship outside what is inside. No matter how hard they may try to “have faith” in this god or that god who has promised to save them, that divine spark within will constantly agitate, asking questions and casting doubts. Such individuals carry the bloodline – the genetic traits – to manifest the Origin – the Hyperboreans.”

The invisible "forces of the world" are noticed by Paul and Ashworth points this out in the following.

CHAPTER 3
PNS pg 170 - 171

The situation and status to which they were in danger of reverting were those of enslavement ‘under the elemental forces of the world’ (iv.3). Here the inference continues to be clear that Paul counted the law as one of these ‘elemental forces’. That is to say, the law regarded in the way it typically was within contemporary Judaism, the law being treated as it was by the other missionaries and the judaizing Gentile converts, was functioning in effect as one of those cosmic forces which were then popularly thought to control and dominate life … Life under such a power was a life dominated by fear of infringing its taboos and boundaries…. Since they had already experienced freedom from precisely such slavery Paul found it hard to credit the reports that they wished to exchange their slavery to things which were in reality no gods for a slavery to the law misrepresented to function just like another false god.”

Much like our guidelines for this forum, Paul does not see the law as malignant but as a "divinely appointed guardian" but as one needs to grow spiritually being bound too tightly to rules/laws without the nuances of the spirit within us we become limited and fall short of "the freedom of the sons of God".

PNS pg 173

Paul’s logic in this Galatians passage ceases to be a problem once the correct definition of stoicheia is seen and consequently there is no need to make a split between his ‘explicit sense’ and his ‘mental conceptions’ (PLJP , 69). For Paul, it is in their common ability to offer ‘direction for behaviour’ that the law and pagan religion can be placed in the same category.”

“Unlike sin, Law is not malignant … In Galatians one answer is that it was a divinely appointed guardian whose day is now over, so that to remain in its guardianship now that the freedom of Christ and of his Spirit has arrived is anachronistic bondage. Its function was to keep Israel in line, preparing her for the coming freedom (Gal 3:21–6). To remain in its tutelage now is to reject the freedom of the sons of God (Gal 4:5).

Much of what Paul was trying to express seems to me to be like trying to identify an OP from a souled individual. Speaking about matters of the invisible soul and spirit is a challenge, to say the least.

PNS pg 177

“Living by the Spirit is entry into a new intimacy with God, characterized by a knowledge of or being known by God. Guidance from the Spirit arises from this new openness to God in which God’s will is revealed directly; any law, even the law of Moses, is, by comparison, an inferior way of knowing God’s will.”

“Paul directly contrasts living by faith, by the Spirit, by the cross with living by any religious law, Jewish or Gentile.”

This internal guidance system is not one easily defined or monitored but seems to have been very important to Paul.

PNS pg 178

“For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Gal 5:1)

“As has been shown, Paul talks of ‘keeping aligned’ by faith, by the Spirit, by the cross.”

“The implication is that the guidance from the Spirit or faith is not experienced as coming from an external directing force that constrains freedom. Faith’s prophetic word provides guidance which arises within the individual and the community (pp. 20 –25 ).”

Identifying the invisible is attempted I think by a method of evaluating the "fruits" of the spirit. Or "the proof is in the pudding" type logic.
Below some of the "fruits of the spirit" are listed. Those positive traits certainly could be used in these chaotic days I think.

PNS pg 186-187

“In the main text we examined the passage that follows on from this Galatians text (5:16–25) because it contains stoicheō . In that passage Paul’s list of ‘the fruits of the Spirit’ is headed by love. The list also includes ‘joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control’ and finishes with the statement: ‘There is no law against such things. “This conclusion is directly related to the conclusion in the Romans 13 passage. There Paul lists statements in the law that prohibit wrong actions towards a neighbour: adultery, murder, stealing, coveting. He then states as a definition that actions of love do no wrong to a neighbour and says, therefore, that ‘love is the fulfilling of the law’. In the Galatians passage, Paul says that if you live – ‘keep aligned’ – by the Spirit this will naturally issue in actions of love. There is no law against such ‘actions of love’. In other words, the law is unnecessary for one acting from the love that the Spirit enables. The law is fulfilled in the sense that it has become unnecessary for the one who acts in love. In each passage, Paul is affirming that there is an alternative and more effective ‘source of motivation’ than the law. To say that his purpose in these passages is to affirm that the law should be ‘accepted’ or ‘observed’ or ‘kept’ is seriously missing the point.”

The following was Paul's attempt I think to dismiss the exclusiveness of not only the "God of Jews" but I think any identification with a God that is not Universal in scope.

CHAPTER 4
PNS pg 208

“Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.”

Whether it is dealing with dead religions or "dead dudes". The Cs do emphasize 'there is only one "God"'

Session 13 January 1996:

Q: (P) Next question: How does one determine if they are channeling a 3rd density dead dude, or a higher density being?

A: Corrections and clarifications needed: "Dead Dudes" are 5th density beings. Either they are stuck in 3rd density, or they are communicating from 5th density, not 3rd density!! They are not 3rd density! 1st density includes all physical matter below the level of consciousness. 6th density is uniform in the level pattern of lightness, as there is complete balance on this density level, and the lightness is represented as knowledge. 7th density is union with the one... it is timeless in every sense of the word, as its "essence" radiates through all that exists in all possible awareness realms. The light one sees at the termination of each conscious physical manifestation is the union, itself. Remember, 4th density is the first that includes variable physicality!! Ponder this carefully!!! And, remember, there is only one "God," and that the creator includes all that is created and vice versa!

 

[Laura]

Thanks Goyacobal for that bit of analysis. It's very useful.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

From Neil Godfrey over at Vridar:

The thirteenth-century Cathars in southern France that I compared with today’s political opposition in my previous post embraced the Ascension of Isaiah as one of their core texts. (The reason I was re-reading the Sibly translation of Peter’s chronicle of the crusade against them was to try to get a clearer picture of the history of different manuscript lines of the Ascension of Isaiah — those containing and those lacking the “pocket gospel” (11:2-22) of Jesus being born through Mary in Bethlehem and being crucified in Jerusalem.)

Peter begins by describing the beliefs of these Cathars and at one point makes this intriguing note:

[11] Further, in their secret meetings they said that the Christ who was born in the earthly and visible Bethlehem and crucified at Jerusalem was ‘evil’, and that Mary Magdalene was his concubine – and that she was the woman taken in adultery who is referred to in the Scriptures; the ‘good’ Christ, they said, neither ate nor drank nor assumed the true flesh and was never in this world, except spiritually in the body of Paul. I have used the term ‘the earthly and visible Bethlehem’ because the heretics believed there is a different and invisible earth in which – according to some of them – the ‘good’ Christ was born and crucified. Again, they said that the good God had two wives, Oolla and Ooliba, on whom he begat sons and daughters. There were other heretics who said that there was only one Creator, but that he had two sons, Christ and the Devil; they said moreover that all created beings had once been good, but that everything had been corrupted by the vials referred to in the Book of Revelations.

What was that about Christ being crucified not on earth but in some spiritual counterpart to earth?

Cathars were dualists. They believed that this world was created by Satan. Note, though, that Peter writes that “some” of the Cathars believed Jesus was crucified (and born!) in a “celestial” realm of some kind. Most texts discussing the Cathars that I have come across do not mention that this was a belief of “some” of them. The Cathars did have a religious hierarchy, though — the “perfects” who lived a most ascentic life-style and “the rest” of the followers. It is tempting to speculate that the “some” who believed in a “heavenly” crucifixion were the “perfects”. But that is only speculation.

Peter. 1998. The History of the Albigensian Crusade: Peter of Les Vaux-De-Cernay’s Historia Albigensis. Translated by W. A Sibly and M. D Sibly. Woodbridge: Boydell.

I think the Cathars were a bit loopy in some of their dualist beliefs and practices, but I hadn't seen the connection with the Ascension of Isaiah before, or the idea of Christ only being present (on Earth) in Paul. Whether or not that was precisely Paul's position, it at least shows that there were some Christians at various times that actual adopted what would today be called the mythicist position.

 

[goyacobol]

@Approaching Infinity ,

I had not been aware of The Ascension of Isaiah and that there was a connection with the Cathars. Thanks for making the connection.

I don't know which version you were reading but Wikipedia has a link to a translation from Ethiopian text with free download in several formats here for anyone interested.

 

[Laura]

Regarding Paul's understanding of higher realms and their denizens, Wells writes:

In the Jewish literature of the period we find a highly developed angelology. The writer of the book of Daniel (c. 165 BC) was the first by whom angels were individualized and endowed with names and titles, and later apocalyptic literature assumed a heavenly hierarchy of stupendous proportions. In Enoch seven classes of angels are distinguished – the cherubim, seraphim, ofanim, the angels of power, the principalities, the Elect One (the Messiah) and the elementary powers of the earth.[1] Josephus tells us, concerning the Essene oath, that the sectary undertook to preserve, without alteration, ‘the names of the angels’, and the Qumran scrolls refer to them at every turn, calling them also ‘holy ones’, ‘spirits’, ‘gods’ (elim), ‘honourable ones’, ‘sons of Heaven’. The members of the Covenant lived in the company of the celestial spirits all the time, and believed that angels, both good and evil, would join in the final eschatological war between themselves and all the heathen nations.

These angels of Jewish imagination are often represented as occupying different levels in the universe. In the Slavonic Enoch the universe consists of a number of tiers; the abyss, then the prison of the dead, then the earth, then the firmament peopled by Satan and cruel invisible princes, then seven heavens. In the centre of each heaven is a ‘throne’ around which throng principalities, dominions and powers. Above them all is God, surrounded by the celestial beings called his powers, his throne, his spirit, his wisdom, his glory, his name. …

The terms ‘throne’, ‘principalities’, ‘powers’ and ‘dominions’ are used to designate celestial beings in the Testaments of the Patriarchs (e.g. Test. Levi III) and also, as Christian commentators admit ¼ in the following passages from the NT epistles: … Coloss. i.16, … Ephes. i.21, … Rom. viii.38, … I Pet. iii.22.

It is clear that Paul not only believes in these angels, but also in the multi-layered universe … For he tells of a Christian who was ‘caught up into the third heaven’ and also ‘into paradise and heard words so secret that human lips may not repeat them’ (II Cor. xii, 2–5, NEB). The continuation shows that this man was Paul himself.

It seems that certain Jews (not orthodox ones, but so-called Gnostics) not only owned the existence of angels but also worshipped them as divine beings. According to the NBC (p. 1044) the basis of Gnosticism is the doctrine that matter is evil, so that in creation, God cannot come into direct contact with it. ‘It is necessary, therefore, to posit a number of emanations of deity, a number of spiritual beings germinating, as it were, the first from God, the second from the first and so on until they sink lower and lower and make contact with matter possible. Only thus could God have created the universe and at the same time maintained His holiness inviolate. It follows, then, that these graded beings are in control of the material universe in which man has to live. He must enlist their support.’ The sum total of emanations of the godhead is denoted by the Greek word pleroma, and these Jewish Gnostics worshipped the pleroma.

This is the intellectual background against which the Pauline letters were written, and Colossians (ii, 8, 18) seems specifically to combat this doctrine that angelic agencies are necessary to salvation. Paul shows what their true place is, and asserts that one single privileged being, called Jesus the Messiah, absorbs the pleroma in himself, that he is the first after God, or with God, among all the celestial beings. …

Couchoud remarks that in the passage from Colossians we have the most primitive idea of Jesus – that of a being who absorbed the pleroma in himself. He also notes that clearly, in Paul’s view, the death of Jesus redeemed creatures in the heavens as well as on earth. …

From Phil. ii, 5–11 we learn that Jesus is a divine figure who came down into the material world to suffer an ignominious death. Then he re-ascended and received a mystic name as powerful as the name of God. Couchoud regards this story of the descent and re-ascension of the divine being as the key to Paul’s conception of Jesus and he remarks that we are fortunate enough to posses an ancient Jewish apocalypse which gives the story in greater detail, and so fills out the picture which is merely sketched by Paul. He is referring to the so-called Ascension of Isaiah. (Wells (1971), pp. 288–91, citing P. L. Couchoud, The Enigma of Jesus (London, 1924), p. 122, and Le mystère de Jésus (Paris, 1926).

Carrier, too, gives the Ascension of Isaiah an important place in the literature. (Carrier (2014), pp. 36–48, 540–45.) Its “as above, so below” cosmology is typical for the time. The author sees heavenly objects and beings as having “copies” of some sort on earth: “In this worldview everything on earth was thought to be a mere imperfect copy of their truer forms in heaven, which were not asbract Platonic forms but actual physical objects in outer space.”(Carrier (2014), p. 194. This is actually a Zoroastrian idea at its origins.) And its Jesus is thoroughly cosmic: Jesus descends through the heavens, progressively taking on the form of each as a disguise, so that when he reaches the lowest spiritual level, he is unrecognized as the preexistent son of God. Satan and the demons crucify him (in the heavens and a reflection of this even occurs on earth in some manner), he rises after the standard three days, and stays around for 1.5 years in order to appear to humans in visions.

As Carrier points out, this is essentially the same story as the Descent of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love (“characteristic repetitions, seven-stage descent and disrobing, crucifixion by demons, and resurrection”, resurrection secured by divine food and water of life). (Carrier (2014), p. 46.) Inanna was popular among Jews, and it looks as if someone took her story and wrapped it in contemporary Jewish elements. Most intriguingly, it is possible that Paul directly paraphrases the Ascension in 1 Corinthians, where Carrier says:

God’s plan of Christ’s death-defeating sacrifice was a ‘secret’ kept ‘hidden’ (1 Cor. 2.7) and only recently known by ‘revelation’ (1 Cor. 2. 10), such that ‘none of the rulers of this world knew; for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory’ (1 Cor. 2.8). This looks like a direct paraphrase of an early version of the Ascension of Isaiah, wherein Jesus is also the ‘Lord of Glory’, his descent and divine plan is also ‘hidden’ and the ‘rulers of this world’ are indeed the ones who crucify him, in ignorance of that hidden plan (see the Ascension of Isaiah 9.15; 9.32; 10.12, 15). It even has an angel predict his resurrection on the third day (9.16), and the Latin/Slavonic contains a verse (in 11.34) that Paul actually cites as scripture, in the very same place (1 Cor. 2.9).(Carrier (2014), pp. 47–8.)

Another curious verse in Ascension (9.1) has to do with Jesus’ name: the Lord Christ “will be called ‘Jesus’ on earth, but his name you cannot hear until you have ascended out of your body.” In other words, Jesus is not his heavenly name, which is presumably a mystery, nor is it his earthly name, having been given to him after his death and resurrection to the heavenly spheres. So much for a guy named “Jesus” in Nazareth.

After describing the Ascension of Isaiah in some detail, Wells then explains what is happening with the Epistle of Barnabas:

According to Dibelius ... the motive of the author of this whole story is to explain to those who believed in a celestial redeemer, called Christ, how it could happen that this figure was able to reach the earth without opposition; why it was that the angels of the various heavens let their worst enemy redeem man without resisting his passage.

What relevance has all this to Paul’s idea of Jesus? Couchoud, and Dibelius some years before him¼, answer that Paul seems to have had a revelation very similar to that here ascribed to Isaiah. In I Cor. ii, 9, he tells that God has revealed marvelous things to him – things, he adds, which pertain to our salvation, to God’s gift to us (verse 12). … The purpose of this descent and re-ascent is given in the passage from Colossians. By the blood of his cross he laid the basis for reconciling all things in heaven and earth to the Father; by his death and resurrection he broke the power of those angels who opposed God, and also put an end to man’s dependence on angels, good or bad. Man can now commune with God via Jesus, without other intermediaries. Thus Paul declares that we need no longer be slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe (Gal. iv, 3–5); that no spirits need now separate us from the love of God (Rom viii, 38–9); and that the ‘rulers of this world’ are declining to their end (I Cor. ii, 6). The reference is to Satan and his angels, and in this passage from Corinthians Paul is thus saying that it is these wicked creatures who crucified ‘the Lord of Glory’, not knowing who he was. Couchoud compares this with the Ascension of Isaiah, ix. 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.’ They do not know his identity because at every stage in his journey down he was transformed into the likeness of the creatures at that level. Just as this work goes on to tell how he rose from the dead and punished them by confronting them in his true form, so too Paul describes (Coloss. ii, 15) how they were tricked and vanquished: ‘Having put off from himself the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it’. The NEB says he ‘made a spectacle of the cosmic powers and authorities, and led them as captives in his triumphal procession’. …

Paul distinguishes as stages in the winding-up of the universe: first Christ’s resurrection, then the resurrection of the dead at his second coming, and finally his destruction of the angels; he will ‘abolish every kind of dominion, authority and power’. Then he will abdicate or ‘deliver up the kingdom to God the Father’, and the celestial harmony will be complete (I Cor. xv, 51 f.)

The later development of Christianity can be understood as an attempt to explain the repeated failure of the final judgment to materialize. … as Dibelius puts it, ‘the centre of gravity of Christian expectations shifted from the future into the … past’ … And as attention became more concentrated on Jesus’ sojourn on earth, biographical details would begin to be invented, and traditions initiated which eventually became fixed in the gospels. Apocalypses and apocalyptic visions would be ousted by biographies. … Further biographic details could be furnished by interpreting some of the prophecies which referred to a supernatural redeemer in such a way as to make them apply to a human messiah. …

It was, then, disappointment in Jesus’ failure to come in his glory to judge and end the world that led believers to concentrate their attention on what had already been achieved by his first coming, and in this way to invent traditions about the details of his stay on earth. … Mt. [Matthew] tells how, at the death of Jesus, an earthquake occurred, rocks and graves were split open, and the saints occupying them were resurrected. … catastrophes such as Mt. depicts were what the Jews expected would occur at the second coming. Mt.’s story was, then, invented in order to show that Christians need not be disappointed at the failure of the second coming to occur, since the phenomena associated with it had, at any rate in part, been manifested at the first coming. Disappointment is being rectified in that the frustrated hopes of a future denouement are replaced by faith and belief in one that had already occurred in a definite historical situation. (Wells (1971), pp. 294–5.)

As to the process by which the biography of Jesus of Nazareth was gradually developed, Paul himself described how it was done in 1 Corinthians 14:26:

To sum up, my friends: when you meet for worship, each of you contributes a hymn, some instruction, a revelation, an ecstatic utterance, or the interpretation of such an utterance.

That is exactly what the author of Barnabas says he did: “I know that the Lord journeyed with me on the way of righteousness. … considering this therefore, that, if it shall be my care to communicate to you some portion of that which I received, it shall turn to my reward”. As Wells points out:

Paul, obsessed with fears about the powers of the angels in the firmament, found consolation in his visions, which informed him that the redeemer had come down to earth in order to trick and put to shame these beings; and that he had tricked them by suffering an ignominious death at their hands. (Wells (1971), p. 316.)

But the Messiah did not come and destroy the evils of the world. Instead, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, and the march of elite dominance, slavery, oppression of the poor, and myriad manifestations of social inequity and insecurity continued. Nothing got better and a lot of people died in the destruction caused by the drive to absolute power. The same kinds of fears and obsessions that led to the longing for a Messiah would have grown up around the failure of the predicted Messianic arrival and would then have led to those who believed that they were involved in a mystic union with Christ to produce solutions to this problem in their prophetic and ecstatic utterances. Faith in the redeemer is what mattered and what would bring personal salvation since, obviously, the world isn’t being saved or transformed; at least, not yet.

Already the groundwork had been laid for prophecy to become the purview of an ecclesiastical elite. The Didache says in Chapter 13:

Every genuine prophet who wants to live among you is worthy of support. So also, every true teacher is, like a workman, entitled to his support. Every first fruit, therefore, of the products of vintage and harvest, of cattle and of sheep, should be given as first fruits to the prophets, for they are your high priests. But if you have no prophet, give it all to the poor. If you bake bread, take the first loaf and give it according to the commandment. If you open a new jar of wine or of oil, take the first fruit and give it to the prophets. If you acquire money or cloth or any other possession, set aside a portion first, as it may seem good to you, and give according to the commandment.

It was in the context of competing claims of self-described “genuine prophets” that controversies raged during the development of Christianity, and it wasn’t truth and righteousness that prevailed in the end: it was power of persuasion, rhetoric, drama, and playing on the fears of humans adrift in a violent and terrifying reality. In the end, orthodoxy expressed itself as raw power. “By their fruits, you shall know them.”

 

[gnosisxsophia]

I hadn't seen the connection with the Ascension of Isaiah before, or the idea of Christ only being present (on Earth) in Paul.

That’s an interesting assertion isn’t it.

It is tempting to speculate that the “some” who believed in a “heavenly” crucifixion were the “perfects”.

The Cathar designation of ‘perfect’ intriguing too imo.

 

[goyacobol]

That’s an interesting assertion isn’t it.





The Cathar designation of ‘perfect’ intriguing too imo.


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@gnosisxsophia,

How about giving a reference for "Artemes" vs Artemis and what you think that implies. A She-bear goddess and "perfects" connection do not seem very logical with such little information. Anything can seem mysterious without knowledge.

I see no Artemis connection. Artemes is found only once in Wikipedia related to Plato.

like Plato did in Cratylus, to ἀρτεμής, artemḗs, i.e. "safe", "unharmed", "uninjured", "pure", "the stainless maiden".[11][10][14]