Dus-Chrestos : not Chrestos (for the killers)

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Giuseppe
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Dus-Chrestos : not Chrestos (for the killers)

Post by Giuseppe »

The conception of the death and resurrection of their Lord Chrestos could hardly fail to come to the Gnostics along their own line of thought. The germ of it lies already in Ecclesiasticus, the book of the Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach, in which Wisdom says : “ I will pierce through all the lower parts of the earth : I will look upon all such as are asleep, and lighten all them that trust in the Lord.” Also in the Wisdom of Solomon
(chap, ii) we find this : “ The ungodly say.......let us defraud the righteous man : for he is not for our
profit
, and he is contrary to our doings.......He maketh his boast to have the knowledge of God (gnosis); and he calleth himself the Son of the Lord.......Let us see, then, if his words be true: let us prove what end he shall have. For if the righteous man be the Son of God, he will help him and deliver him from the hands of his enemies. Let us examine him with rebukes and torments that we may know his meekness and prove his patience. Let us condemn him to a shameful death ; for he shall be preserved as he himself saith. Such things do they imagine and go astray for they do not understand the mysteries of God.” The word translated “not to our profit” is in the Greek of the Septuagint dus-chrestos—i.e., not chrestos. If, then, the righteous man was not chrestos to the wicked, he must have been chrestos to the good. Further, the word translated “ righteous” is dikaios which also means just. Now the Gnostics had several names for the Logos; among others the Holy One, and the Just.
(p. 37-38, Rylands, Evolution of Christianity, my bold)

This interpretation is highly suggestive. Could they have read in that passage the dogma of the ignorance of the archons about the identity of their crucified victim ?

Very a sound suggestion, confirming again and again that Rylands is the best mythicist of the past....
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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