Toccata and fugue as the principal fossil of a celestial crucifixion

[Giuseppe]

The toccata and fugue of the hero, as reflected in the original layer of the Ascension of Isaiah, in the Separationist christology, in the Docetist christology, in the Simonian myth, and relative texts, is the principal fossil inherited by the oldest belief in the celestial crucifixion in heaven.

If there was a parallel old Jewish-Christian belief about an earthly Jesus, then the fossil by which it has survived is merely the earthly location of the lowest place reached by the toccata and fugue of the Hero: not more the outer space but the earth.


Two beliefs, two different factions. The anti-demiurgist faction and the Essene sect. A fusion between the two factions implied a mutual concession: the toccata and fugue from a side, the earthly location of the death from the other side.

The price to be paid for both the factions:

• The anti-demiurgists abandoned the celestial crucifixion,

• while the Essenes abandoned the distant past of the life of the Hero.

The reluctance to pay the price by the traditionalists of both the factions becomes a resistance in the following form:

• The Essene Hero from the distant past (the Teacher of Righteousness?) was allegorized as "John the Baptist" and as such an enemy of the Hero author of the toccata and fugue.

• Barabbas as the resistance to the death on a material cross and to the designation of the anti-demiurgist Hero as the Jewish Messiah (or Christos).

[Giuseppe]

This scenario gives credit to both:

• The priority of *Ev, or of any gospel with an incipit where Jesus descended already adult on the earth;

• The identification of John the Baptist with the Teacher of Righteousness (cfr Doudna's article).

[Joseph D. L.]

I can accept an allegorical Jesus ex doceticism being the original foundation. A word for a moment, a docetic reading would imply to me an earlier belief that was not docetic. It just doesn't daisy chain together for doceticism to be the view of Jesus's earthly appearance. The text mentioned, the ur-Ascension of Isaiah, would be a post-Jesus writing insofar as the author is concerned, would it not? Unless he was deliberately writing an allegory for others who also knew that it was pure allegory.

Thinking about it more and more I have slowly distanced myself from crucifixion being original to the Jesus cycle. If-yes, that ever dreaded if!-the very first theology was the Johannine theology, then we have to contend with how they considered* Jesus earthly appearance and his death. If Jesus's body was the Temple then doceticism must be ruled out to a later theology, possibly Marcionism but even I'm not sure about that anymore; and his death being a post hoc explanation for the Temple's destruction might allude to a non-spectacular death (Josephus may give a witness to this one). For the Johannine theology the manner of Jesus's death wouldn't have had the same portance it had for later Christian theologies.

But thinking about it, there might be a solution in how Paul/Marcionism regarded the processes of becoming a Christian**. For the Johannines, as an apocolyptic cult, you either believed the teachings of Jesus or you didn't. That wasn't what was vital for them because, why would it? The world, to them, was about to end. So the earthly appearance of Jesus would be the body of the Temple, and you're either in its restoration or you're not.

For Paul, one had to undergo a sacramental rite to become a Christian, a baptism, after which you are a literal a Chrest-man yourself, transfigured just as Paul had been. So for Paul doceticism would work much better. My only reservation is if Paul's Jesus had any earthly presence, spiritual or otherwise. I have come to greatly doubt this.

But for the adoptionists of Petrine Christology, I think this speaks more so to a polemic of doceticism, wherein the Holy Spirit not only descends to the man Jesus, but undergoes a transmigration to another host, and how you become a Christian is by consuming the eucharist of his body, thereby partaking a little of his virtue and becoming a Christ-man that way.

So how these sects understood the process of becoming a Christian reflects how they understood Jesus's earthly appearance to have been because they themselves would have that same appearance.

Maybe? I could just be blowing smoke.

*or even made up whole cloth
**yeah I know just bear with me

[Joseph D. L.]

I have a question, Giuseppe. Why would crucifixion be the method used for the celestial Christ's death?

There is of course astronomical and philosophical considerations, but why did these early adopters or creators need it to be crucifixion?

[Giuseppe]

I have a question, Giuseppe. Why would crucifixion be the method used for the celestial Christ's death?

There is of course astronomical and philosophical considerations, but why did these early adopters or creators need it to be crucifixion?

I will be concise because I think that you are able to find the right references:

• for the anti-demiurgist field: Plato's Impaled Man. And the anima mundi extended in form of X on the entire universe in the Timaeus.

• For the Jewish-Christian field: the "crucified" lamb during the Passover.

Ben C. Smith had collected an entire list here.

What is missing in that list is the fact that the sign put on the door of the Israelites in Egypt when the Angel of YHWH killed the Egyptian firstborns was the sign of a cross. Hence we have a very early connection between the sign of the cross and the Angel of YHWH. When the Angel of YHWH was later identified with Joshua (still in pre-Christian times), then the implication is obvious: Joshua/Jesus replaced the Egyptian firstborns in the role of who had to expiate in the place of the true Israelites, hence the apt form of death becomes the crucifixion, because the sign of the cross did the difference in the Exodus story.

[Joseph D. L.]

I hate to be pedantic about this, but I still maintain my hesitancy with latching onto a deeper meaning with the crucifixion. (Being crucified to it, as it were.)

I will admit that for years I saw this as the easiest slam dunk against historicism because the cross as a symbol of life renewed and "crossing" the threshold was so ubiquitous that it was obvious Christians would pick up on it. But that does become a problem when you try to narrow down the exact origins of Christianity, the cross has too many connotations and uses for us to know what the original Christians used it for.

More to the point, the very act of crucifixion itself defies a symbolistic reading because the focus is on the ritualistic execution, and the particular shape of the instrument used is secondary. I think the Gospel writers were self aware of this with the allusion of Psalm 22:18 to discourage turning the cross itself into an idol and to draw our attention to how Jesus is being treated. So it's not important if Jesus is trying to do the Y M C A, but that he is being killed, executed.

Plato's philosophy of the demiurge banding the universe from two substances to make a celestial chi and Abraham sacrificing the goat caught in the thicket were indeed used as a precursor's to Jesus's own crucifixion by early Christians, sometimes even at once. But would these have been on the mind(s) of the writers of Ascension of Isaiah and other such texts? It is always the niggling inconvenient impasse that what seems clear to us may not have been what they did.

That said, I can definitely get behind the crucifixion as a means of ritualistic initiation which would help a Paulite priority and which he has a ready made means of emulating.