The Marcionite Gospel Began at Adumim (= the place of those of Adam/the Red Ones)

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Secret Alias
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Re: The Marcionite Gospel Began at Adumim (= the place of those of Adam/the Red Ones)

Post by Secret Alias »

This passage in Clement of Alexandria seems to know the opening premise of the Marcionite gospel:
The first man, when in Paradise, sported free, because he was the child of God; but when he succumbed to pleasure (for the serpent allegorically signifies pleasure crawling on its belly, earthly wickedness nour ished for fuel to the flames), was as a child seduced by lusts, and grew old in disobedience; and by disobeying his Father, dishonoured God. Such was the influence of pleasure. Man, that had been free by reason of simplicity, was found fettered to sins. The Lord then wished to release him from his bonds, and clothing Himself with flesh--O divine mystery!--vanquished the serpent, and enslaved the tyrant death; and, most marvellous of all, man that had been deceived by pleasure, and bound fast by corruption, had his hands unloosed, and was set free. O mystic wonder! The Lord was laid low, and man rose up; and he that fell from Paradise receives as the reward of obedience something greater [than Paradise]--namely, heaven itself. Wherefore, since the Word Himself has come to us from heaven, we need not, I reckon, go any more in search of human learning to Athens and the rest of Greece, and to Ionia. For if we have as our teacher Him that filled the universe with His holy energies in creation, salvation, beneficence, legislation, prophecy, teaching, we have the Teacher from whom all instruction comes; and the whole world, with Athens and Greece, has already become the domain of the Word. For you, who believed the poetical fable which designated Minos the Cretan as the bosom friend of Zeus, will not refuse to believe that we who have become the disciples of God have received the only true wisdom; and that which the chiefs of philosophy only guessed at, the disciples of Christ have both apprehended and proclaimed. And the one whole Christ is not divided: "There is neither barbarian, nor Jew, nor Greek, neither male nor female, but a new man," transformed by God's Holy Spirit.

Ὁ πρῶτος ὅτε ἐν παραδείσῳ ἔπαιζε λελυμένος, ἔτι παιδίον ἦν τοῦ θεοῦ· ὅτε δὲ ὑποπίπτων ἡδονῇ (ὄφις ἀλληγο ρεῖται ἡδονὴ ἐπὶ γαστέρα ἕρπουσα, κακία γηΐνη, εἰς ὕλας στρεφομένη) παρήγετο ἐπιθυμίαις, ὁ παῖς ἀνδριζόμενος ἀπειθείᾳ καὶ παρακούσας τοῦ πατρὸς ᾐσχύνετο τὸν θεόν. Οἷον ἴσχυσεν ἡδονή· ὁ δι' ἁπλότητα λελυμένος ἄνθρωπος 11.111.2 ἁμαρτίαις εὑρέθη δεδεμένος. Τῶν δεσμῶν λῦσαι τοῦτον ὁ κύριος αὖθις ἠθέλησεν, καὶ σαρκὶ ἐνδεθείς (μυστήριον θεῖον τοῦτο) τὸν ὄφιν ἐχειρώσατο καὶ τὸν τύραννον ἐδουλώσατο, τὸν θάνατον, καί, τὸ παραδοξότατον, ἐκεῖνον τὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν ἡδονῇ πεπλανημένον, τὸν τῇ φθορᾷ δεδεμένον, χερσὶν 11.111.3 ἡπλωμέναις ἔδειξε λελυμένον. Ὢ θαύματος μυστικοῦ· κέκλιται μὲν ὁ κύριος, ἀνέστη δὲ ἄνθρωπος καὶ ὁ ἐκ τοῦ παραδείσου πεσὼν μεῖζον ὑπακοῆς ἆθλον, οὐρανούς, ἀπολαμ βάνει. 11.112.1 ∆ιό μοι δοκεῖ, ἐπεὶ αὐτὸς ἧκεν ὡς ἡμᾶς οὐρανόθεν ὁ λόγος, ἡμᾶς ἐπ' ἀνθρωπίνην ἰέναι μὴ χρῆναι διδασκαλίαν ἔτι, Ἀθήνας καὶ τὴν ἄλλην Ἑλλάδα, πρὸς δὲ καὶ Ἰωνίανπολυπραγμονοῦντας. Εἰ γὰρ ἡμῖν ὁ διδάσκαλος ὁ πληρώσας τὰ πάντα δυνάμεσιν ἁγίαις, δημιουργίᾳ σωτηρίᾳ εὐεργεσίᾳ, νομοθεσίᾳ προφητείᾳ διδασκαλίᾳ, πάντα νῦν ὁ διδάσκαλος κατηχεῖ, καὶ τὸ πᾶν ἤδη Ἀθῆναι καὶ Ἑλλὰς γέγονεν τῷ 11.112.2 λόγῳ. Οὐ γὰρ δὴ μύθῳ μὲν ἐπιστεύετε ποιητικῷ τὸν Μίνω τὸν Κρῆτα τοῦ ∆ιὸς ὀαριστὴν ἀναγράφοντι, ἡμᾶς δὲ ἀπιστή σετε μαθητὰς θεοῦ γεγονότας, τὴν ὄντως ἀληθῆ σοφίαν
ἐπανῃρημένους, ἣν φιλοσοφίας ἄκροι μόνον ᾐνίξαντο, οἱ δὲ 11.112.3 τοῦ Χριστοῦ μαθηταὶ καὶ κατειλήφασι καὶ ἀνεκήρυξαν. Καὶ δὴ καὶ πᾶς, ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν, ὁ Χριστὸς οὐ μερίζεται· οὔτε βάρβαρός ἐστιν οὔτε Ἰουδαῖος οὔτε Ἕλλην, οὐκ ἄρρεν, οὐ θῆλυ· καινὸς δὲ ἄνθρωπος θεοῦ πνεύματι ἁγίῳ μεταπε πλασμένος. [Exhortation 11]
Notice that Adam is presumed not to have died in this scenario. The Savior has come for Adam at the start of the gospel narrative.

Clement interprets Adam as a “child of God”(παιδίον τοῦ θεοῦ) who “freely played in Paradise,” before he was seduced by desires and subdued by pleasure. Interestingly, Clement explains this surrender as an act of “disobedience” to God, by means of which “the boy became a man” (ὁ παῖς ἀνδριζόμενος ἀπειθείᾳ). Afterwards, since God “bent down” (κέκλιται) and let himself be “bound in flesh” in order to liberate man from the bonds of sin, man has had a possibility to gain a “greater prize for his obedience” (μεῖζον ὑπακοῆς ἆθλον) than the Paradise from which he fell, namely to reach the heavens.
“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: The Marcionite Gospel Began at Adumim (= the place of those of Adam/the Red Ones)

Post by Secret Alias »

More Adamian imagery in Clement:

It is, however, one and the self-same word which rescues man from the custom of this world in which he has been reared, and trains him up in the one salvation of faith in God. When, then, the heavenly guide, the Word, was inviting men to salvation, the appellation of hortatory was properly applied to Him: his same word was called rousing (the whole from a part). For the whole of piety is hortatory, engendering in the kindred faculty of reason a yearning after true life now and to come. But now, being at once curative and preceptive, following in His own steps, He makes what had been prescribed the subject of persuasion, promising the cure of the passions within us.
“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: The Marcionite Gospel Began at Adumim (= the place of those of Adam/the Red Ones)

Post by Secret Alias »

Apparently the basic equation of Adam with the wounded man, Christ with the Samaritan and other ideas remains consistent in the East too.

Jericho is a type for this earth: Marutha, following Severus, here alludes to the widespread patristic understanding of the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the wounded man is Adam and the Samaritan Christ. https://books.google.com/books?id=b1bYA ... 0Q6AEIKTAA

Here is the passage in Severus:

A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. The use of the specific noun is to the point: not 'somebody was going down' but 'a certain man'; for the whole of humanity is in question, inasmuch as it has fallen, through the disobedience of Adam, from the height of the abode of Paradise - lofty and calm, passionless and godlike, here aptly called 'Jerusalem', which means 'peace of God' - to the depth of Jericho, low-lying and stifled in heat - meaning the ardent life of this world, which separates from God and drags down, which causes suffocation in the heat of shameful desire, and chokes to death. Once humanity had gone astray towards this life, and had lost her balance and been drawn down, borne little by little to the lowest point of the downward path, as I have said, there settled on her a swarm of savage demons, like a band of brigands; and they stripped her of the cloak of virtue, leaving her not a vestige of fortitude or temperance or justice or prudence, or of anything that represented the image of God: and so they hacked her to death with the repeated wounds of various sins, leaving her cut to pieces; in a word half-dead. So while humanity was lying prostrate and all but fainting to death, she was visited by the Mosaic Law; for this is, of course, the meaning of the priest and levite, since it was the Law that taught the levitic priesthood https://books.google.com/books?id=0CLZZ ... 22&f=false

Early English variants - https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/indexableconten ... cf04836775
“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: The Marcionite Gospel Began at Adumim (= the place of those of Adam/the Red Ones)

Post by Secret Alias »

I just discovered that Origen makes reference to the Good Samaritan situation in book 16 of the Commentary on Matthew:

“There was a man descending from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell in with robbers” (Lk 10.30) ... perhaps you can also understand that Jericho here is mentioned as a symbol of the earthly place that Scripture is in the habit of calling “world” (kosmos). When Adam (that is, mankind), therefore, descends “from Jerusalem to Jericho,” he fell in “with robbers.” But on account of the multitudes in Jericho (for a great crowd was in Jericho) let our Jesus,37 who was in [the city] along with the disciples, go out, undertaking (on account of having entered into Jericho) to lead those [out of the city] who desire [K504] to follow. For those who are in Jericho do not know to come out from the worldly way of thinking, unless they might observe not only Jesus going out from Jericho but also his disciples. And after seeing these things, a great crowd follows him. It is for him who perceives those who desire to live according to the word and are choosing to despise the world and the <whole> earthly realm, who follow Jesus and his disciples and are advancing in step with those who are going out from Jericho, to see the things according to this passage. Nevertheless the great crowd follows Jesus, so that travelling behind him and accepting his guidance they might ascend to Jerusalem ***. 10. (After a little, then, it is mentioned that “when they were drawing near to Jerusalem they came to Bethpage, to the mount of Olives, then Jesus sent out two disciples,” etc. [Matt 21.1]).
“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: The Marcionite Gospel Began at Adumim (= the place of those of Adam/the Red Ones)

Post by Secret Alias »

The third century Letter of Joseph:

And He wrote thus: Jesus Christ the Son of God, who have come down from the heights of the heavens, who have come forth out of the bosom of the invisible Father without being separated from Him,2044 and who have come down into the world to be made flesh, and to be nailed to a cross, in order that I might save Adam, whom I fashioned. https://books.google.com/books?id=zsEUD ... 22&f=false
“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: The Marcionite Gospel Began at Adumim (= the place of those of Adam/the Red Ones)

Post by Secret Alias »

Jesus coming to 'save' Adam in the principal Manichaean text that survives:

https://books.google.com/books?id=7wwQ8 ... an&f=false
“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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Re: The Marcionite Gospel Began at Adumim (= the place of those of Adam/the Red Ones)

Post by Secret Alias »

Is Clement's reference to Jesus giving Adam wine derived from the Good Samaritan narrative or its heretical precursor?

With reason, therefore, the apostle enjoins, "Be not drunk with wine, in which there is much excess;" by the term excess (aswtia) intimating the inconsistence of drunkenness with salvation (to aswston). For if He made water wine at the marriage, He did not give permission to get drunk. He gave life to the watery element of the meaning of the law, filling with His blood the doer of it who is of Adam, that is, the whole world; supplying piety with drink from the vine of truth, the mixture of the old law and of the new word, in order to the fulfilment of the predestined time. The Scripture, accordingly, has named wine the symbol of the sacred blood; but reproving the base tippling with the dregs of wine, it says: "Intemperate is wine, and insolent is drunkenness." It is agreeable, therefore, to right reason, to drink on account of the cold of winter, till the numbness is dispelled from those who are subject to feel it; and on other occasions as a medicine for the intestines. [Instructor 2]
“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: The Marcionite Gospel Began at Adumim (= the place of those of Adam/the Red Ones)

Post by Secret Alias »

The Valentinians on the role the angels had 'marring' the creation of Adam:

And Valentinus appears also in an epistle to have adopted such views. For he writes in these very words: "And as terror fell on the angels at this creature, because he uttered things greater than proceeded from his formation, by reason of the being in him who had invisibly communicated a germ of the supernal essence, and who spoke with free utterance; so also among the tribes of men in the world, the works of men became terrors to those who made them, -- as, for example, images and statues. And the hands of all fashion things to bear the name of God: for Adam formed into the name of man inspired the dread attaching to the pre-existent man, as having his being in him; and they were terror-stricken, and speedily marred the work." ... And if the fear of the pre-existent man made the angels conspire against their own handiwork, under the idea that an invisible germ of the supernal essence was lodged within that creation, or through unfounded suspicion excited envy, which is incredible, the angels became murderers of the creature which had been entrusted to them, as a child might be, they being thus convicted of the grossest ignorance. Or suppose they were influenced by being involved in foreknowledge. But they would not have conspired against what they foreknew in the assault they made; nor would they have been terror-struck at their own work, in consequence of foreknowledge, on their perceiving the supernal germ. Or, finally, suppose, trusting to their knowledge, they dared (but this also were impossible for them), on learning the excellence that is in the Pleroma, to conspire against man. Furthermore also they laid hands on that which was according to the image, in which also is the archetype, and which, along with the knowledge that remains, is indestructible.
“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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Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: The Marcionite Gospel Began at Adumim (= the place of those of Adam/the Red Ones)

Post by Secret Alias »

Remember that if Jesus literally descends into the desert to save Adam at the beginning of the gospel all these mystical ideas are rooted in the ur-text. Jacob of Sarug:

While this human Jesus did not exist in actuality at the time of the creation of man, he already had a kind of potential existence.1 Mankind was created originally, then, as a kind of double image — as an image of the Son, who is the image of the Father, but also as the image of the Son made man. What Ezekiel saw on the throne-chariot, says Jacob, was itself also a kind of double image ; it was the image of the servant, but also the image of God the Father.2 The humanity of Christ, then, is in a primordial relationship to the human race.3 Adam is in a very special sense the image of God. Again and again Jacob describes the necessity of Christ's mission to Sheol, not just to rescue Adam, but to save 'the Great Adam'4 or 'the Great Image',5 the Image of the Father.6 The title of Christ as 'the second Adam'7 has special significance in Jacob's system, which is almost bewildering with its series of images of God and man, reflected and re-reflected from the beginning. https://books.google.com/books?id=XdjYA ... %22+christ
“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
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: The Marcionite Gospel Began at Adumim (= the place of those of Adam/the Red Ones)

Post by Secret Alias »

As always Origen represents a sublimation or adaptation of Marcionism whether owing to his own initiative or that of his posthumous editor (Eusebius) is now unclear:

Origen is also the first to say that Christ rescued Adam from the depths of the underworld (Hom. Gen. 15.5) and that Christ conquered Satan in the underworld ( Comm. Rom. 5.10.12). https://books.google.com/books?id=WQuvC ... st&f=false

Maybe not. Irenaeus and possibly Theophilus had this view

https://books.google.com/books?id=jX9bA ... ld&f=false
“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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