The Christ 'kata sarka' is not the true Christ (for both Paul and Mark)

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Post Reply
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

The Christ 'kata sarka' is not the true Christ (for both Paul and Mark)

Post by Giuseppe »


So from now on we regard no one according to flesh. Though we once regarded Christ according to flesh, we do so no longer.

(2 Corinthinas 5:16)

I think about the construct ''according to flesh'', that, even if this construct refers to the knowledge of X, it extends the his essential negativity on the thing X itself that is going to be seen 'according to flesh'.

So this means that, admitted and not conceded that Paul and the his original Readers had seen a crucified man who was Jesus himself, that knowledge was absolutely vain for them, now.

This contempt of the knowledge that behind a crucified man there is just the Son of God seems to be in apparent contradiction with 1 Cor 2:6-8, where that knowledge represented just the only reason to glory themselves, as Christians, against the 'rulers of this age'.

But this is not more a contradiction in view of the radical apocalypticism of Paul: if the End is near, not only the world of flesh, but also the same flesh of a crucified man had to be strongly despised and even hated as all the rest.

This contradiction was vividly allegorized by the pauline 'Mark' by the following episode:

Mark 8:27-33

27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”
28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”
29 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “You are the Christ.”
30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

Not coincidentially the scene happens around Caesarea Philippi, symbol of the imperial power and hence of the entire known World. So the rejection of being called 'Christ [implicitly:] according to flesh' by Peter coincides with the rejection of the entire fleshly world ruled by Caesar.


Paul had preached that the Christ in the flesh was not to be accepted, but only the Crucified Christ, the Son of God whom God had revealed to him.

So the error of Peter was that Peter had called 'Christ' the carnal man Jesus possessed by the divine Christ, but not the divine Christ himself (the only being who has to be called and known and seen as 'Christ').

This is the origin of the separationism in Mark.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Post Reply