Naked with Jesus = Apostleship

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Secret Alias
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Re: Naked with Jesus = Apostleship

Post by Secret Alias »

Not surprisingly then the late Marvin Meyer noticed the parallel between the 'mystery of the kingdom of God' in Secret Mark and Moses in Exodus:
And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God.
Compare:
Then Moses went up to the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud. And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the mountain top
There is something to this parallel and more significantly many extremely early texts speak of a Christian interest in 'fire immersion' which I think comes from the same idea. The idea that Christians did not or did not need to engage is water baptism specifically is also well attested in Irenaeus. In ritualized form 'fire' takes the form of oil in the (surviving) baptism ritual. The final reconciliation occurs when we imaging that Moses stood naked in the fire displaying the original purity of Adam to the Israelites and then when Moses is delayed they reenact the same nakedness with fire that they saw on the mountain.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Naked with Jesus = Apostleship

Post by Secret Alias »

I just think this is rock solid reasoning. It has everything - ancient textual exegesis from Genesis, even an ancient Christian gospel fragment. If you follow the logic of the young ruler (or whatever you want to call him from Mark 10) the theme is consistent throughout the gospel - observance of the sacrificial religion of Israel doesn't lead to the desired state of purity i.e. the original state of Adam. Jesus by contrast comes to restore that by means of the mystery of the kingdom of God.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Naked with Jesus = Apostleship

Post by Secret Alias »

And presumably if Paul underwent this sort of 'baptism by fire/Jesus' this explains why 'Christ is in him' or why he 'speaks for Christ.' Moses is presumed also to have 'taken some' of the fire god when he stood in the fire on Sinai. He comes down from the mountain with his skin literally glowing. Why didn't the early Christians see Paul's skin literally 'on fire' - i.e. shining light like a fluorescent man against black light? The answer must go back to the idea that Moses put a veil over his person (not just his 'face').

The initiate might have stripped his clothes off before the baptism ritual but his flesh is still 'entombing' his soul. Whatever took place likely involved a heavenly ascent where the real 'heavenly fire' was which 'immersed' the soul. Then the soul came back down into the body (which acts as a 'veil' like Moses). But the soul is now restored to the original purity and it is the duty of each Christian to die as quickly as possible in order to pull off the veil and be restored fully to heavenly glory.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Clive
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Re: Naked with Jesus = Apostleship

Post by Clive »

This is very close to Pentecostal thinking - the tongues of fire or baptism of the Holy Spirit
"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
Secret Alias
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Re: Naked with Jesus = Apostleship

Post by Secret Alias »

So let's suppose that the first Christian Paul secretly told his disciples that he was baptized into Christ and his death. Were there any 'remembrances' of the passage from Secret Mark in the mystical circles in the late period? Maximus the Confessor who is associated with a wider body of documents written by Clement of Alexandria than know survive seems to reference the 'naked with naked' passage in the following allusion:
The Logos of God is called flesh not only inasmuch as He became incarnate, but in another sense as well. When He is contemplated in His true simplicity, in His principal state with God the Father (cf. John 1:1-2), although He embraces the models of the truth of all things in a distinct and naked manner, He does not contain within Himself parables, symbols and stories needing allegorical interpretation. But when He draws near to men who cannot with the naked intellect come into contact with noetic realities in their naked state, He selects things which are familiar to them, combining together various stories, symbols, parables and dark sayings; and in this way He becomes flesh. Thus at the first encounter our intellect comes into contact not with naked Logos but with the incarnate Logos, that is, with various sayings and stories. The incarnate Logos, though Logos by nature, is flesh in appearance. Hence most people think they see flesh and not the Logos, although in fact He is the Logos. The intellect- that is, the inner meaning- of Scripture is other than what it seems to most people. For the Logos becomes flesh in each of the recorded sayings.

61. The initial stages of learning about religious devotion are naturally related to the flesh. For in our first encounter with religion we come into contact with the letter and not the spirit. But as we get nearer to the spirit and refine the materiality of words with the more subtle forms of contemplation, we come to dwell- so far as this is possible for man- purely in the pure Christ, so that we can say with St. Paul, "Though we have known Christ according to the flesh, now we no longer know Him in this manner' (2 Cor 5:16). That is to say, we no longer know Him according to the flesh because, through the intellect's naked encounter with the Logos stripped of the veils covering Him, we have advanced from knowing Him according to the flesh to knowing His 'glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father' (John 1:14)

75. When our intellect has shaken off its many opinions about created things, then the inner principles of truth appears clearly to it, providing it with a foundation of real knowledge and removing its former preconceptions as though removing scales from the eyes, as happened in the case of St. Paul (cr Acts 9:18). For an understanding of Scripture that does not go beyond the literal meaning, and a view of the sensible world that relies exclusively on sense-perception, are indeed scales, blinding the soul's visionary faculty and preventing access to the pure Logos of truth.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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arnoldo
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Post by arnoldo »

Because you say, I am ashir (rich) and have become wealthy and in nothing am I nitzrach (needy), and you do not have da’as that you are the one wretched and pitiful and poor and blind and naked, [HOSHEA 12:8]
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=OJB
Secret Alias
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Re: Naked with Jesus = Apostleship

Post by Secret Alias »

Philo, who certainly must have had good information, says the high priest met God naked:
On this account the high priest "will not come into the holy of holies clad in a garment reaching to the feet; {13}{#le 16:1.} but having put off the robe of opinion and vain fancy of the soul, and having left that for those who love the things which are without, and who honour opinion in preference to truth, will come forward naked, without colours or any sounds, to make an offering of the blood of the soul, and to sacrifice the whole mind to God the Saviour and Benefactor; (57) and certainly Nadab and Abihu, {14}{#le 10:1.} who came near to God, and left this mortal life and received a share of immortal life, are seen to be naked, that is, free from all new and mortal opinion; for they would not have carried it in their garments and borne it about, if they had not been naked, having broken to pieces every bond of passion and of corporeal necessity, in order that their nakedness and absence of corporeality might not be adulterated by the accession of atheistical reasonings; for it may not be permitted to all men to behold the secret mysteries of God, but only to those who are able to cover them up and guard them; (58) on which account Mishael and his partisans concealed them not in their own garments, but in those of Nadab and Abihu, who had been burnt with fire and taken upwards; for having stripped off all the garments that covered them, they brought their nakedness before God, and left their tunics about Mishael. But clothes belong to the irrational part of the animal, which overshadow the rational part. Abraham also was naked when he heard, (59) "Come forth out of thy land and from thy kindred;"{15} {#Ge 13:1.} and as for Isaac, he indeed was not stripped, but was at all times naked and incorporeal; for a commandment was given to him not to go down into Egypt, {16}{#ge 26:2.} that is to say, into the body. Jacob also was fond of the nakedness of the soul, for his smoothness is nakedness, "for Esau was a hairy man, but Jacob," says Moses, "was a smooth Man,"{17}{#ge 25:25.} on which account he was also the husband of Leah. This is the most excellent nakedness ... [Alleg Int 2.56f]
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Solo
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Re: Naked with Jesus = Apostleship

Post by Solo »

Kunigunde Kreuzerin wrote:.
First, a good indication could be possibly the wording
14:51 And a young man (νεανίσκος) followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, 52 but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.
16:5 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man (νεανίσκον) sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe (στολὴν), and they were alarmed.
robe = στολή (stolé)
apostle = ἀπόστολος = ἀπό-στολος (apostolos)
Interesting idea, Kunigunde! It could be a play on words (Mark loved to throw little "curves" like that), given that the scene in the tomb is one that ties it to the baptism of John at the start of the gospel. Furthermore, as I have already pointed out here on a number of occasions, fragments the first verse of the third chapter of Malachi is paraphrased in both Mk1:2 ("Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me...", and Mk16:6 ("the Lord whom you seek..."). This can be hardly a coincidence since the very next verse says :

Mal 3:2 "But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?" which directly bears on the flight of the women from the tomb and the youth when Jesus is taken. The youth recovers and becomes the baptising messenger (who attempts to baptize the women into Christ's death, thus complementing John's baptism at Jordan, in fulfilment of Rom 6:3-6). There are also some echoes of Amos 2:16 in Mk 14:51-52, and the loss of garment would symbolize the lack of the youth's girding (i.e. his lack of preparedness for the coming of the Lord on Passover, Exo 12:11) - which is presented by Mark with an ironical twist, as the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane.

Best,
Jiri
Secret Alias
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Re: Naked with Jesus = Apostleship

Post by Secret Alias »

I have always noticed that Paul in Syriac (Peshitta) often transforms the possible interpretations. Take for example Col 2:15 in English then Greek then Syriac:

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them

ἀπεκδυσάμενος τὰς ἀρχὰς καὶ τὰς ἐξουσίας ἐδειγμάτισεν ἐν παρρησίᾳ, θριαμβεύσας αὐτοὺς ἐν αὐτῶ

And by stripping off [or 'making naked' = wb$lH)] his mortal body, he exposed [p'arsiy] the powers of evil, and through his person put them openly [g'alya)yit] to shame
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Naked with Jesus = Apostleship

Post by Secret Alias »

Notice the 'naked' assumption in the Docetae employment of Col 2:15 and an underlying connection with Secret Mark:
And He who came from above put on that which was born; and so did He all things, as it has been written in the Gospels. He washed in Jordan, and when He was baptized He received a figure and a seal in the water of the body born of the Virgin when the Archon condemned his own peculiar figment (of flesh) to death, (that is,) to the cross, that that soul which had been nourished in the body might strip off that body and nail it to the tree. (In this way the soul) would triumph by means of this (body) over principalities and powers, and would not be found naked, but would, instead of that flesh, assume the (other) body, which had been represented in the water when he was being baptized. (Phil. 8.10)
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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