ah i meant the earlier movement (slightly humourously) the epistles add intermediariesebion wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2024 9:15 amI'm not so sure that the Faulines are about "about bringing divinity into the mud-world" rather than "about bringing divinities".davidmartin wrote: ↑Tue Jan 16, 2024 10:53 pm The epistles do capture something of the earlier movement once the theologian's innovations are stripped away, I assume it was about bringing divinity into the mud-world. That's basically what Jesus does in the gospels?
The Problem of Paul and Marcionism
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davidmartin
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Re: Faul is advocating she accept the new second god of Faul and Marcion
Part 3 of The Paul Paradox by the late Patterson Brown
The author of this is Patterson Brown, the translator from Coptic of the Nag Hammadi Gospel of Philip and Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Truth, from part 3 of www.metalog.org/files/paul_p1.html (see also parts 1-2).
I don't necessarily agree with each and every on of his points, but overall I think it's one of the best compilations of the egregious affronts to Christianity that are the Faulines. Patterson Brown has done all of the hard work in identifying the verses and explicitly showing the contraditions.
When reading this, remember to substitute Faul for Paul in any verses cited from the Faulines.
The Paul Paradox III
Paul is essentially an Old Testament figure. Caught in the ethical dilemma of calling all men transgresors by the Torah, only to reject the Torah precisely for thus condemning them (Gal. 3:10), he was unacquainted with Christ's historical teachings and practice; nor was he willing to learn of them from the original Apostles (Gal. 2:6). Thus his soteriology focused entirely on the Passion, of which he was aware, interpreting Christ's mission as exclusively an OT Sacrifice. Whereas the innovating Messianic message - Christ's teachings as incarnate in his lifestyle, elaborated thruout the canonical Gospels prior to the Passion narratives - completely passed Paul by.
This is not to deny that he composed some eloquently poetic passages (such as (Col. 1:15-20); but these must, in light of the aforelisted doctrinal conflicts, be considered no more than ornamentation in Paul's writings. Those documents, in their entirety, proclaim a discipleship which is fundamentally incompatible with the message of Christ himself as recorded in the historical Gospels.
Remarkably enough, prior to Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus of Lyon at the close of the second century, there is no single author who quotes from both the Gospels and from Paul's Epistles. There was thus an exceedingly long period of schism between the traditions of the Twelve and of Paul, prior to the earliest attempts at integration.
And yet the irony, of course, is that the canonical Gospels themselves, of which tradition Paul was so manifestly ignorant, were ultimately only preserved by the Pauline Church - which indeed also disseminated the very OT which Paul himself had disparaged. The Petrine/Apostolic Church, on the other hand, seems not to have survived the persecutions of the first centuries.
Paul was personally in charge of the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58-8:1), since according to (Deut. 17:7) the "witnesses who laid their cloaks at his feet" - i.e. were under his direct authority - were obliged to cast the first stones. Might one therefore ask as to his whereabouts on the night Christ was arrested? Was he then also part of the Temple guard? (Remember that (Luke 22:63-65) takes place at their hands, not those of the Romans.) Thus perhaps the puzzling I(1Cor. 5:16), EGNWKAMEN KATA SARKA CRISTON: "We have known Christ according to the flesh." This would certainly explain his subsequent obsession with unmerited forgiveness!
My purpose here has been merely to format a set of scriptural dichotomies which exhibit the underlying logic of the ancient Messianic/Paulianity schism, as essentially a conceptual (and of course personal) rather than a factual issue. This in turn may hopefully serve to stimulate in the reader a reconsideration of the apostolic status of Saul of Tarsus. For he evidently never joined Christ's Discipleship at all - which would indisputably have meant accepting Peter's spiritual authority - much less became an Apostle.
These basic questions can no longer be papered over, nor can they be settled by institutional fiat. For their illuminating implication is that traditional Christianity - as defined by the classical NT canon including both the Gospels and Paul's Epistles - is logically self-contradictory and hence inherently unstable. Or, in a contemporary analogy, we might say that Paul's writings are like a computer virus: a surreptitious theological reprogram which, downloaded with the Gospels, changes their basic message, rendering it not gibberish but rather transmuted into another doctrine altogether - historical Church Christianity instead of the original Messianic Brotherhood.
I don't necessarily agree with each and every on of his points, but overall I think it's one of the best compilations of the egregious affronts to Christianity that are the Faulines. Patterson Brown has done all of the hard work in identifying the verses and explicitly showing the contraditions.
When reading this, remember to substitute Faul for Paul in any verses cited from the Faulines.
The Paul Paradox III
Paul is essentially an Old Testament figure. Caught in the ethical dilemma of calling all men transgresors by the Torah, only to reject the Torah precisely for thus condemning them (Gal. 3:10), he was unacquainted with Christ's historical teachings and practice; nor was he willing to learn of them from the original Apostles (Gal. 2:6). Thus his soteriology focused entirely on the Passion, of which he was aware, interpreting Christ's mission as exclusively an OT Sacrifice. Whereas the innovating Messianic message - Christ's teachings as incarnate in his lifestyle, elaborated thruout the canonical Gospels prior to the Passion narratives - completely passed Paul by.
This is not to deny that he composed some eloquently poetic passages (such as (Col. 1:15-20); but these must, in light of the aforelisted doctrinal conflicts, be considered no more than ornamentation in Paul's writings. Those documents, in their entirety, proclaim a discipleship which is fundamentally incompatible with the message of Christ himself as recorded in the historical Gospels.
Remarkably enough, prior to Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus of Lyon at the close of the second century, there is no single author who quotes from both the Gospels and from Paul's Epistles. There was thus an exceedingly long period of schism between the traditions of the Twelve and of Paul, prior to the earliest attempts at integration.
And yet the irony, of course, is that the canonical Gospels themselves, of which tradition Paul was so manifestly ignorant, were ultimately only preserved by the Pauline Church - which indeed also disseminated the very OT which Paul himself had disparaged. The Petrine/Apostolic Church, on the other hand, seems not to have survived the persecutions of the first centuries.
Paul was personally in charge of the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58-8:1), since according to (Deut. 17:7) the "witnesses who laid their cloaks at his feet" - i.e. were under his direct authority - were obliged to cast the first stones. Might one therefore ask as to his whereabouts on the night Christ was arrested? Was he then also part of the Temple guard? (Remember that (Luke 22:63-65) takes place at their hands, not those of the Romans.) Thus perhaps the puzzling I(1Cor. 5:16), EGNWKAMEN KATA SARKA CRISTON: "We have known Christ according to the flesh." This would certainly explain his subsequent obsession with unmerited forgiveness!
My purpose here has been merely to format a set of scriptural dichotomies which exhibit the underlying logic of the ancient Messianic/Paulianity schism, as essentially a conceptual (and of course personal) rather than a factual issue. This in turn may hopefully serve to stimulate in the reader a reconsideration of the apostolic status of Saul of Tarsus. For he evidently never joined Christ's Discipleship at all - which would indisputably have meant accepting Peter's spiritual authority - much less became an Apostle.
These basic questions can no longer be papered over, nor can they be settled by institutional fiat. For their illuminating implication is that traditional Christianity - as defined by the classical NT canon including both the Gospels and Paul's Epistles - is logically self-contradictory and hence inherently unstable. Or, in a contemporary analogy, we might say that Paul's writings are like a computer virus: a surreptitious theological reprogram which, downloaded with the Gospels, changes their basic message, rendering it not gibberish but rather transmuted into another doctrine altogether - historical Church Christianity instead of the original Messianic Brotherhood.
Re: the trail appears into recorded history
I'm unconvinced and so are others, others that founded the biggest church in Christendom for 1000 years. They contend that they received their teachers (Thomas, Bartholomew and Thaddeus/Addai), their teachings, and some of their texts back into the 1st century, even before the fall of the second temple,davidmartin wrote: ↑Sat Dec 30, 2023 1:04 pm there's no such thing as there not being a historical movement, humans wrote the texts we have and there were adherents of the movement we can trace back to the 2nd century. then the trail disappears into unrecorded history.
The Catholic church tried to erase them, and their history, For a good synopsis see:
viewtopic.php?p=111567#p111567
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davidmartin
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Re: The Problem of Paul and Marcionism
Maybe, I notice the writings of Ephrem are very different in character from the 'western' church. they got their own traditions
the epistles need re-dating and seen as pseudographical theological works. Linssen's work proves they post-date the gospels
the epistles need re-dating and seen as pseudographical theological works. Linssen's work proves they post-date the gospels
Re: The Problem of Paul and Marcionism
I don't know Ephrem or his writings. Could you give us a short summary with links of his writings and point usdavidmartin wrote: ↑Thu Jan 25, 2024 12:41 am Maybe, I notice the writings of Ephrem are very different in character from the 'western' church. they got their own traditions
to a summary of his positions?
And we claim them to be MarcionOrLater (>138-144 AD).davidmartin wrote: ↑Thu Jan 25, 2024 12:41 am the epistles need re-dating and seen as pseudographical theological works. Linssen's work proves they post-date the gospels
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davidmartin
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- Joined: Fri Jul 12, 2019 2:51 pm
Re: We're all the indigenous peoples of Gaza now
This was raised in another thread:
Constantine was a pagan and turned the Churchians into minions of his Mithras/Molech cult:
Constantine built on the solid Pontifex Maximus base laid down by his predecessors, who used their pagan army to execute anyone possessing Christian writings: look at the way the Ste. Katherines monastery in Sinai got its name. The massacres of the Christians in the East under the Shapurs were much worse, and have continued till today by the same crowd: "The Syriac speaking Christians of Mesopotamia, (Assyrians) of Iraq, Turkey, and Northwest Iran survived 2000 years of persecutions including repeated massacres by the Sassanians, Arabs, Mongols, Tatars, Kurds and Turks". We're all in Gaza now - they are the indigenous people of Palestine. And that's why the work on the Early Christian writings is so hard - so much has been destroyed.
The key point is that the Constantinian Churches are not only not Christian, they are anti-Christian.
I think I addressed the question in a post in another thread: We're all the indigenous peoples in Gaza now, but i'll reproduce it here because it's central to the OP, and I'd like to expand on it:Vanished wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 8:54 am And follow-up question - everything I can see suggests that all the early Church Fathers were vehemently anti-Marcion. If that's the case, then how did the epistles that originated with him (whether he authored them or not) and any other potential works/revisions/redactions of his end up making it into canon?
Constantine was a pagan and turned the Churchians into minions of his Mithras/Molech cult:
- Saturday into Sunday
- Passover into OEaster
- Hebrews into Heathens
- The patriarch of the Romans into the Pontifex Maximus
- And then the Churchunists turned Paul from an apostate into an Apostle (sic.)
Constantine built on the solid Pontifex Maximus base laid down by his predecessors, who used their pagan army to execute anyone possessing Christian writings: look at the way the Ste. Katherines monastery in Sinai got its name. The massacres of the Christians in the East under the Shapurs were much worse, and have continued till today by the same crowd: "The Syriac speaking Christians of Mesopotamia, (Assyrians) of Iraq, Turkey, and Northwest Iran survived 2000 years of persecutions including repeated massacres by the Sassanians, Arabs, Mongols, Tatars, Kurds and Turks". We're all in Gaza now - they are the indigenous people of Palestine. And that's why the work on the Early Christian writings is so hard - so much has been destroyed.
The key point is that the Constantinian Churches are not only not Christian, they are anti-Christian.
Re: We're all the indigenous peoples of Gaza now
I get where you're coming from, but maybe I should have phrased my question differently: how did the Church Fathers come to accept Marcionite epistles while being so anti-Marcion? Marcion's epistles were in wide Christian use for nearly two centuries before Constantine's reign, and were commented on positively by the Church Fathers. The only way I can personally imagine this happening is either by them rewriting these epistles to have a more Catholicized view and suppressing all copies of the already-very-popular Marcionite versions of the epistles, OR because they came together and after reading these epistles, decided their ideology was close enough to what they believed that they were inclined to consider the epistles genuine works of Paul. I don't find the former possibility to be particularly likely, but I also can't imagine they'd miss/ignore the clear Marcionite ideology shown in some epistles if they were considering its approval. That's why I'm so torn on this. There doesn't seem to be any good explanation for how we got what we did unless the epistles did not in fact originate with Marcion or if there was perhaps some third party endorsing the epistles that they placed more trust in.ebion wrote: ↑Sat Jan 27, 2024 6:59 am This was raised in another thread:I think I addressed the question in a post in another thread: We're all the indigenous peoples in Gaza now, but i'll reproduce it here because it's central to the OP, and I'd like to expand on it:Vanished wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 8:54 am And follow-up question - everything I can see suggests that all the early Church Fathers were vehemently anti-Marcion. If that's the case, then how did the epistles that originated with him (whether he authored them or not) and any other potential works/revisions/redactions of his end up making it into canon?
Constantine was a pagan and turned the Churchians into minions of his Mithras/Molech cult:The bishops at the Council of Nicaea didn't have much choice: Constantine drafted the resolutions - nobody voted against him, and the 5 bishops that abstained were banished from the Empire. He built his new city of Constantinople around pagan monuments to Sol Invictus with his face on it after the Council of Nicaea. Just as they built cathedrals in the Vaticant and in London over the Mithran grottos. Just as their succesors, the Constantinian Churches of today, did when they who voted with the Emporers for CovID. A plague upon them all!
- Saturday into Sunday
- Passover into OEaster
- Hebrews into Heathens
- The patriarch of the Romans into the Pontifex Maximus
- And then the Churchunists turned Paul from an apostate into an Apostle (sic.)
Constantine built on the solid Pontifex Maximus base laid down by his predecessors, who used their pagan army to execute anyone possessing Christian writings: look at the way the Ste. Katherines monastery in Sinai got its name. The massacres of the Christians in the East under the Shapurs were much worse, and have continued till today by the same crowd: "The Syriac speaking Christians of Mesopotamia, (Assyrians) of Iraq, Turkey, and Northwest Iran survived 2000 years of persecutions including repeated massacres by the Sassanians, Arabs, Mongols, Tatars, Kurds and Turks". We're all in Gaza now - they are the indigenous people of Palestine. And that's why the work on the Early Christian writings is so hard - so much has been destroyed.
The key point is that the Constantinian Churches are not only not Christian, they are anti-Christian.
Re: The Problem of Paul and Marcionism
One of the third parties was Constantine, who had Eusebius as his boot-licker and biographer. Constantine. the Pontifex Maximus of the SolInvictus/Mithras pagan religion would have liked the Faulines because the fit his agenda which I enumerated upthread. The "Church Fathers" were appointed Bishop of Constantinople by the Emporer - Constantine or his successors. Nobody went against him and lived. At the council of Nicea, nobody voted against him, and the 5 that abstained were exiled from the Empire (loss of all possesions and titles).
The senior/arch-bishops were hired and fired (or banished or executed) by the Roman emporer. Paul made it into the canon because one powerful bishop (of Alexandria) wrote one of his annual letters to all the churches where he listed the books he said should be in the canon and which he said were heretical, around 367AD. That's it: there was no discussion. No "church fathers" or anyone else ever debated the current canon before 1500 AD. His list was adopted without discussion at an African synod about 30 years later, and I think by a council shortly after that.
We have the Nag Hammadi Library because of that letter: the Pachomian monastery(s) in Athansius' country and maybe his bishopric feared for their lives because of that letter and buried the NHL not long afterwards (~20 years).
If you want a logically reasoned and debated canon you'll have to either call a Council of Bishops or do it yourself, or join us in doing it in the Early Ebionaen Canon thread.
What would you cite as examples of "commented on positively by the Church Fathers" after 138-144 before Nicea 325AD? AFAIK there's only Iraeneus and Tertullian; which of them "commented on positively" on the Faulines? If you can't find some good citations then I'll suggest that you were (mis)led into thinking that the Faulines were "commented on positively by the Church Fathers" by the Constantinian Churchunists, when in fact there are no such comments/citations before Nicea.
(I'm guessing you've got your work cut out for you finding any good Paul quotes in Tertullian.)
The senior/arch-bishops were hired and fired (or banished or executed) by the Roman emporer. Paul made it into the canon because one powerful bishop (of Alexandria) wrote one of his annual letters to all the churches where he listed the books he said should be in the canon and which he said were heretical, around 367AD. That's it: there was no discussion. No "church fathers" or anyone else ever debated the current canon before 1500 AD. His list was adopted without discussion at an African synod about 30 years later, and I think by a council shortly after that.
We have the Nag Hammadi Library because of that letter: the Pachomian monastery(s) in Athansius' country and maybe his bishopric feared for their lives because of that letter and buried the NHL not long afterwards (~20 years).
If you want a logically reasoned and debated canon you'll have to either call a Council of Bishops or do it yourself, or join us in doing it in the Early Ebionaen Canon thread.
What would you cite as examples of "commented on positively by the Church Fathers" after 138-144 before Nicea 325AD? AFAIK there's only Iraeneus and Tertullian; which of them "commented on positively" on the Faulines? If you can't find some good citations then I'll suggest that you were (mis)led into thinking that the Faulines were "commented on positively by the Church Fathers" by the Constantinian Churchunists, when in fact there are no such comments/citations before Nicea.
(I'm guessing you've got your work cut out for you finding any good Paul quotes in Tertullian.)
Last edited by ebion on Thu Feb 08, 2024 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: The Spirit of Python Promoted Paul in Acts 16:16
From Doug del Tondo:
The Spirit of Python Promoted Paul in Acts 16:16
In Acts 14, wherever Paul went to evangelize with Barnabas, Paul was the "chief speaker." (Acts 14:12.) In Acts 16, Paul is preaching at Philippi, and is heard by a demon possessed woman known as Python. (Acts 16:16.) She was popular at Philippi as a soothsayer whom people paid for prophecies. Those aspiring to be kings and rulers would vie for her endorsement to gain acceptance from among the people. Large parts of Greece fell to Philip of Macedon because Philip bribed the Python priestess to prophesy he would conquer. The Pythoness thus was a 'rock-star' -- to use a modern equivalent.
When Paul is at Philippi, this Python priestess -- a female-soothsayer -- followed him around for many days in the city. Everywhere Paul went she proclaimed him a man of God who declared "to us a way of salvation." Her intent was obvious: this demon-possessed woman hoped many would recognize and accept Paul as God's prophet, and accept his plan of salvation. (She said nothing about the true Jesus.) Paul did nothing to stop her for many days. Luke records in Acts 16:16-18:
21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' 23 And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of [ANOMIA (Greek for "lawlessness" or "negation of the Law."] (' (Matt 7:21-23 ESV.)
An anomian message of salvation means one predicated upon the negation of the Law which God gave Moses. For discussion of "Anomia" in Matthew 7:21, see ch. 5 of Jesus Words Only. See also our in depth study of the Greek word ANOMIA at this link.
Jesus warns us in this quote that those coming with an anomian message who teach a salvation message that you need not obey the will of "my Father" and yet you will be saved anyway may cast out demons in Jesus' name, but this does not validate their false message.
(Please note the Law applicable to Gentiles is primarily the Ten Commandments by restatements in the Law that extend them to a "sojourner" within the community of the Israelites. The circumcision command is solely on "sons of Israel" in Lev 12:1-3, and only extended to Gentiles who want to partake in Passover or enter the Temple standing at Jerusalem until 70 AD. See this link.)
The Spirit of Python Promoted Paul in Acts 16:16
In Acts 14, wherever Paul went to evangelize with Barnabas, Paul was the "chief speaker." (Acts 14:12.) In Acts 16, Paul is preaching at Philippi, and is heard by a demon possessed woman known as Python. (Acts 16:16.) She was popular at Philippi as a soothsayer whom people paid for prophecies. Those aspiring to be kings and rulers would vie for her endorsement to gain acceptance from among the people. Large parts of Greece fell to Philip of Macedon because Philip bribed the Python priestess to prophesy he would conquer. The Pythoness thus was a 'rock-star' -- to use a modern equivalent.
When Paul is at Philippi, this Python priestess -- a female-soothsayer -- followed him around for many days in the city. Everywhere Paul went she proclaimed him a man of God who declared "to us a way of salvation." Her intent was obvious: this demon-possessed woman hoped many would recognize and accept Paul as God's prophet, and accept his plan of salvation. (She said nothing about the true Jesus.) Paul did nothing to stop her for many days. Luke records in Acts 16:16-18:
Paul's casting out in the name of Jesus the Spirit of Python from the young girl after "many days" of delay doing so does not prove Paul knew the true Jesus. For our Lord specifically said that many who call on His name and use His name to cast out demons will be told by Jesus that "I never knew you." We must keep this passage in mind as we study whether the Spirit of Python's behavior proves Paul's salvation doctrines -- faith-alone / no works necessary / anti-law aka anomianism -- did not come from the true Christ:16 And it came to pass in our going on to prayer, a certain maid, having a spirit
of Python, did meet us, who brought much employment to her masters by soothsaying
[manteuomai, "practice divination as in a 'false divination or false prophet'" -
Strongs G3132. Cf. mantis = seer]
17she having followed Paul and us, was crying, saying, `These men are servants of
the Most High God, who declare to us a way of salvation;'
18and this she was doing for manydays, but Paul having been grieved, and having
turned, said to the spirit, `I command thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come
forth from her;' and it came forth the same hour. (Acts 16:16-19 YLT.)
21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' 23 And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of [ANOMIA (Greek for "lawlessness" or "negation of the Law."] (' (Matt 7:21-23 ESV.)
An anomian message of salvation means one predicated upon the negation of the Law which God gave Moses. For discussion of "Anomia" in Matthew 7:21, see ch. 5 of Jesus Words Only. See also our in depth study of the Greek word ANOMIA at this link.
Jesus warns us in this quote that those coming with an anomian message who teach a salvation message that you need not obey the will of "my Father" and yet you will be saved anyway may cast out demons in Jesus' name, but this does not validate their false message.
(Please note the Law applicable to Gentiles is primarily the Ten Commandments by restatements in the Law that extend them to a "sojourner" within the community of the Israelites. The circumcision command is solely on "sons of Israel" in Lev 12:1-3, and only extended to Gentiles who want to partake in Passover or enter the Temple standing at Jerusalem until 70 AD. See this link.)