Did the Church Fathers Really Take ΙΣ = Jesus?

[Stephan Huller]

There are many but the first thing to remember in any discussion of Alexandrian sources is the fact that it was acknowledged that the surviving source material was corrupted. When Jerome becomes a turn coat he refers to Eusebius falsifying more than Origen. Clement also comes up as a corrupted source

[Clive]

"The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" (which means "God with us").

[Clive]

Is Jesus a nephilim?

[Peter Kirby]

When Jerome becomes a turn coat he refers to Eusebius falsifying more than Origen.

This is interesting. Could you track down and share the exact reference with us?

[Secret Alias]

When I get a break at work I will look it up but it comes from Jerome's attack against Rufinus. He says (a) Origen really was a heretic (b) Rufinius glosses that over with his Latin translation and (c) Eusebius did the same thing with Origen and the Alexandrian tradition as a whole before him.

[Secret Alias]

Another point as I go through each early work looking at the nomen sacrum ΙΣ. In the early Church as we know, it wasn't just ΙΣ who suffered martyrdom. There was an expectation (in the literature at least) that what happened to Jesus (perhaps 'mythically') would become the reality for Christians in the new age. To this end, when you really think about it ΙΣ was himself a type, to argue that Joshua or some other person was a type of ΙΣ is something of a misnomer or misapplication of typology which explains Judas Thomas's and others reluctance to identify ΙΣ as being like anyone. He is a type rather than after the type of someone else.

To this end when we look at Barnabas's discussion of the Yom Kippur sacrifice it is somewhat incorrect to say that the goat is a 'type' of ΙΣ. There is something of a parallel. But ΙΣ himself is the type of the 'new man' - new humanity - who are themselves made after his image (implying again that he is a type rather than being 'after a type'). So we read:

Attend ye to the commandments which He gave. Take two goats, fair and alike, and offer them, and let the priest take the one for a whole burnt offering for sins. But the other one--what must they do with it? Accursed, saith He, is the one. Give heed how the type of ΙΣ is revealed. And do ye all spit upon it and goad it, and place scarlet wool about its head, and so let it be cast into the wilderness. And when it is so done, he that taketh the goat into the wilderness leadeth it, and taketh off the wool, and putteth it upon the branch which is called Rachia, the same whereof we are wont to eat the shoots when we find them in the country. Of this briar alone is the fruit thus sweet.

What then meaneth this? Give heed. The one at the altar, and the other accursed. And moreover the accursed one crowned. For they shall see Him in that day wearing the long scarlet robe about His flesh, and shall say, Is not this He, Whom once we crucified and set at nought and spat upon; verily this was He, Who then said that He was the Son of God. For how is He like the goat? For this reason it says the goats shall be fair and alike, that, when they shall see Him coming then, they may be astonished at the likeness of the goat. Therefore behold the type of ΙΣ that was to suffer.

But what meaneth it, that they place the wool in the midst of the thorns? It is a type of ΙΣ set forth for the Church, since whosoever should desire to take away the scarlet wool it behoved him to suffer many things owing to the terrible nature of the thorn, and through affliction to win the mastery over it. Thus, He saith, they that desire to see Me, and to attain unto My kingdom, must lay hold on Me through tribulation and affliction.

But what think ye meaneth the type, where the commandment is given to Israel that those men, whose sins are full grown, offer an heifer and slaughter and burn it, and then that the children take up the ashes, and cast them into vessels, and twist the scarlet wool on a tree (see here again is the type of the cross and the scarlet wool), and the hyssop, and that this done the children should sprinkle the people one by one, that they may be purified from their sins?

Understand ye how in all plainness it is spoken unto you; the calf is ΙΣ, the men that offer it, being sinners, are they that offered Him for the slaughter.

To say that the goat is the 'type' of ΙΣ is something of a misnomer. There is a clear distinction insofar as sinful men offer up the goat in the Pentateuch but after the type of ΙΣ sinful men clearly offer themselves up. This goes unsaid in the current version of the text but this was clearly edited deliberately this way. For this is no longer any mention of ΙΣ being a 'type' himself of the new humanity. Curiously everything is pushed on ΙΣ as a unique unattainable entity which was certainly the opposite in the early days of Christianity.

I can't get over that this deliberate transformation away from ΙΣ being a 'type' for humanity into - what we now take for granted as 'Christ' i.e. something 'unattainable,' perfect etc is responsible for the whole confusion over the meaning of the nomen sacrum ΙΣ. Think about it. Originally ΙΣ was certainly 'the perfect man' the one we are supposed to aspire to become like. Over time, he just became a god who died for our sins and on his own 'fixed' us and redeemed humanity as a whole. But originally it was not like this.

The transformation away from being a 'typology' - i.e. the perfect man - is what single-handedly fueled the 'ΙΣ = Joshua' business. Initially there is no reason to think that Joshua could be related to the scapegoat. It's stupid. Indeed in the beginning Christians were looking for ΙΣ to be a living typology for them rather than caring about deep literary symbolism (i.e. how ΙΣ was like this or that Patriarch). The transformation of Christianity into a library religion already betrays its corruption away from its original principles.

[Secret Alias]

And this is what I have against 'mythicism' generally. Neil here at the forum is a librarian. He essentially still wants Christianity to be 'like him' - i.e. all about literary references and books. You can have the fundamentalist lose his faith but you can't take the Christ out of the Christian (or former Christian). The idea that the Roman Catholics and Orthodox had it all right (rather than the evangelicals have it wrong) never quite makes its way into his walk (metaphorically) down the aisles of books at his library. It's really quite simple. The faith of Christianity never really changed over time. It was always about ΙΣ being the type of THE suffering man, redemption through suffering because ΙΣ is the type of the perfect man. That's all.

I don't mean to belabor the point but this is why people like him (librarian types not mythicists) delight in reading, reading every sort of hair brained 'interpretation' of Christianity not acknowledging that the kind of people who were attracted to Christianity were for the most part simple (minded) people. The idea that you had to be living in a library like they currently do to make sense of all the literary allegory, symbolism and references is plainly stupid. This is when Christianity was effectively taken away from its original 'people.' There had to be a simple message that simple people could 'get.' Even the Eleusinian mysteries - attracting as they were 'the best' people - were not a tenth as complex as Neil and others imagine Christianity to be in their ever evolving (and expanding) model of Christian 'mythicism.'

All of this leads to the point that ΙΣ was originally a type of man. That why ΙΣ has to be Eesh i.e. a special 'heavenly' type of man. You don't need to know that Eesh was believed as this or that in the Jewish scriptures in order for the scheme to 'work' for you. He was the type of the perfect man. It's plainly simple.

[Peter Kirby]

One thing that I haven't seen you really attack, is that if someone consistently believed that philosophy, including (Middle) Platonism were an influence, then there would be an ideal form of Man. While many are antsy about seeing platonic influence in the New Testament for obvious reasons, it's plainly admitted to be in the background of a wide variety of non-biblical texts, both orthodox and heretical.

For example, saying 114 of the Gospel of Thomas. Why does the woman have to be made like the man? How is that a boon to her and necessary for saving her? This is easily traced back to platonic ideas. The soul of a woman is inherently inferior to the soul of a man, the soul of a tyrant inherently inferior to the soul of a farmer, and the soul of a poet is inherently inferior to the soul of a philosopher. The male philosopher and aesthete is the closest that one gets to the ideal form of Man, that is, of course, unless ones soul has already joined with the gods in heaven itself, where all true forms are.

The revelation of the redeemer acts to awaken the divine spark in men, in the gnosis. What better way to do that than as the ideal form Man, itself? The redeemer by appearing in the world as Man would save the soul many false steps and reincarnations, giving the lucky soul a shortcut out of Plato's cave of worldly deceptions. Instead of a burdensome plan of philosophy and self-improvement, simply accepting the ideal Man as lord is saving by itself.

[Ben C. Smith]

The male philosopher and aesthete is the closest that one gets to the ideal form of Man, that is, of course, unless ones soul has already joined with the gods in heaven itself, where all true forms are.

In heaven itself? Do you mean in the third heaven? In the seventh? Just the upper heavens? All of them? What are you trying to say??

[Peter Kirby]

The male philosopher and aesthete is the closest that one gets to the ideal form of Man, that is, of course, unless ones soul has already joined with the gods in heaven itself, where all true forms are.

In heaven itself? Do you mean in the third heaven? In the seventh? Just the upper heavens? All of them? What are you trying to say??

Hahaha! You picked up on that, didn't you.