"him who judges justly" is allegory of the demiurge: Pilate

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Giuseppe
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"him who judges justly" is allegory of the demiurge: Pilate

Post by Giuseppe »

1 Peter 2:23
23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

I thought, believing that 1 Peter was an epistle written before the 70 (or at any rate in not-marcionite and Gnostic times), that 'him who judges justly' is precisely the Creator, the god of which there was still no doubt about his being the Father of Jesus by any Christian in circulation there out…

The point is that I was correct but only partially. Yes, the 'just judge' is the Creator...


...but, being 1 Peter really written against Marcion, then the "him who judges justly" is who better allegorized the Creator in the same Gospels: Pilate.

The Roman was the person to which Jesus entrusted himself, knowing that at least Pilate called him 'the king of the Jews' and so judged him correctly.


This gives us the rival Marcionite interpretation: Pilate, as 'just judge' of Jesus, is the perfect allegory of the demiurge, the 'Just God' adored by the Judaizers in opposition to the 'Good God' of Marcion.

addenda:
2 “Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate.
“You have said so,” Jesus replied.
3 The chief priests accused him of many things. 4 So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.”
5 But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.

(Mark 15:2-5)

The wonder of Pilate is the same wonder that galvanized the first audience of Jesus at Capharnaum: a recognition of the extraordinary nature of man (effect of the his essential foreignness to this world).
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: "him who judges justly" is allegory of the demiurge: Pilate

Post by Giuseppe »

The fact that any 'wonder' in the Gospels is evidence of the essential foreignness of the marcionite Jesus was recognized even by the proto-catholic editor of Mcn, 'Luke', when his angel punished a man only in virtue of the his heretical 'wonder':

18 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”
19 The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. 20 And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

(Luke 1:18-20)
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: "him who judges justly" is allegory of the demiurge: Pilate

Post by Giuseppe »

The demiurgical nature of Pilate is well described in the Fourth Gospel (19:19-22):


19 Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20 Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. 21 The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”
22 Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

So who better than Pilate was 'him who judges justly' ?

Only the Creator.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: "him who judges justly" is allegory of the demiurge: Pilate

Post by Giuseppe »

Correctly, Neil does a good observation about Pilate in Mark:

A passage in Mark’s gospel, omitted from subsequent gospels, explains that Pilate knew that the chief priests charged Jesus with a capital crime because they envied him. So in Mark’s gospel Pilate not only judges Jesus to be innocent, but even sees through the motives of those wanting him dead. Pilate acts in the full knowledge of both Jesus’ innocence and the criminal motive of his enemies. This makes Pilate guilty at more than one level. He is not merely pressured against his desire to save an innocent man; he is cynically folding to the whims of evildoers.

https://vridar.org/2009/05/17/that-vill ... l-of-mark/

Mark 15:9-15
1. But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?
For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy.
But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them.
2. And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews? And they cried out again, Crucify him.
3. Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him.
And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.



If Pilate is the demiurge, then the demiurge could read the mind of the his worshippers, the Jews: hence Pilate knew the ''envy'' that moved the scribes against Jesus.

But why would the demiurge help these sinners?

Sebastian Moll gives the answer:

The best example to demonstrate Marcion’s explicit blame of the Creator instead of his
people, however, is his concept of Christ’s descent into Hades274. According to Marcion,
Christ, when he descended into Hades, saved Cain, the Sodomites, the Egyptians and all
the others who were condemned by the Creator, whereas Abel, Enoch, Noah and all the
patriarchs and prophets were not saved by him. The interesting, and often neglected part
of this story is the reason why the latter group was not saved. One might perhaps simply
assume that they did not follow Christ because they stuck to their own God275. However,
Irenaeus clearly states that the patriarchs and prophets did not follow Christ because they
knew that their God was always tempting them, and so they suspected that he was
tempting them again. In other words, they did by no means remain faithful to their God
and therefore refused to follow Christ, but their horrible experience with their God had
blinded them and made them lose all hope for salvation.

(At the Left Hand of Christ: The Arch-Heretic Marcion, by Sebastian Moll, p. 88, my bold)

So there is no better tempter than who helps you to do the precise temptation who is assailing you: the Demiurge.


Pilate helped the Jews to kill Jesus because he, as allegory of the Demiurge, wanted the Jews to committ sin of 'envy'.

Curiously, if you read this novel, reviewed here:

https://www.dailygrail.com/2014/07/a-gn ... s-war-god/

...the point is made again, in a modern work of pure fiction, that the Demiurge is the Tempter par excellence:

In Graham’s novel he portrays the god as a demonic being – or a ‘demiurge’, in the proper Gnostic lingo – using Moctezuma as a puppet who subserviently tends to its insatiable hunger for blood and human hearts; but the demon also manipulates Cortés, to whom he appears as the figure of St. Peter in his dreams, filling his head with promises of glory and endless riches.

Just as Pilate in Mark. :popcorn:
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: "him who judges justly" is allegory of the demiurge: Pilate

Post by Giuseppe »

According to Marcion the demiurge wants only to condemn the highest number of people in the his fire on the final day.

Sebastian Moll agrees with me:

The uncertain element in this context is the term ‘sinner’. What
do the Marcionites, if it is not actually Tertullian’s term, understand by this? The
Adamantius Dialogue may offer an answer to that question when we hear the Marcionite
Marcus say: “The good God saves those who believe in him, without, however,
condemning the unbelievers.”631 In this case the term sinner is replaced by unbeliever,
which may in fact be the Marcionite understanding. As we have established before, any
kind of moral understanding of sin is alien to Marcion, so if he ever actually used the
term in connection with his good God, then he did so only in the meaning of not
believing in him632. This element of Marcion’s theology is in fact the only case where
we can actually detect a certain resemblance to Luther. Sola fide – the salvation lies in
faith alone, for Marcion as well as for the German Reformer. Only those who believe in
Marcion’s good God are saved by him. Tertullian satirises this situation by pointing out
that the good God once again is in need of the Creator’s element, his fire in this case, to
punish sinners, but this time Tertullian’s criticism is beside the point. For Marcion’s
good God does indeed, as expressed in the Adamantius Dialogue, not actively punish
anyone. Marcion’s depiction of Christ’s descent to Hades (see Chapter III) may help to
understand this idea. Christ came to save everyone, but he could only save those who
would let themselves be saved. Therefore, the Patriarchs had a chance to be saved, but
they did not believe in Christ’s words, and thus decided to stay behind. Viewed in this
light, Marcion’s good God does indeed not condemn the unbelievers, he only leaves
them, based on their own decision, within the realm of the Creator, where nothing else
awaits them than the Creator’s fire on the final day
. Coming back to our original
question about a soteriological factor in Marcionite ethics, the answer is a clear ‘no’ –
sola fide. Marcion probably believed, just as Luther did, that good deeds are the fruits of
faith: everyone who believes in Christ and thus despises the Creator will do their best to
defy him without any ulterior motive.

(At the Left Hand of Christ: The Arch-Heretic Marcion, by Sebastian Moll, p. 189-190, my bold)

So the bloodthirsty Pilate was the best icon of the sadistic nature of the demiurge. He was chosen, as the best allegory for the demiurge in the Marcion's Gospel (assuming here with prof Vinzent that the Euangelion was the Earliest Gospel), only in virtue of the his historical violent nature. Therefore there would be no link between the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE and the Earliest Gospel, in this case. That destruction in 70 CE was only another way the Demiurge had to frustrate the false Messianic hopes himself sowed in the mind of the his people, so he was both on the side of the Jews and the Romans, in order to sow death and destruction everywhere, as cruel 'god of this world'.


A question I would raise, is the following: what is more probable, that the Earliest Gospel was written as theodicy for the destruction of Jerusalem (as RG Price argues) or that it was only a Gnostic allegory to represent what were already fixed in any Gnostic theology (hate against the Creator, in primis).
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: "him who judges justly" is allegory of the demiurge: Pilate

Post by Giuseppe »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 7:29 am A question I would raise, is the following: what is more probable, that the Earliest Gospel was written as theodicy for the destruction of Jerusalem (as RG Price argues) or that it was only a Gnostic allegory to represent what were already fixed in any Gnostic theology (hate against the Creator, in primis).
The problem is that both the hypotheses give a valid reason about the question: 'why under Pilate?'. Under the Marcion's Gospel Priority hypothesis, at any rate, it is explained why the proto-catholics (à la Ignatius) did insist so vehemently that Jesus was crucified 'under Pilate'. Pilate, for the proto-catholics, was the just judge of Jesus (since he fixed, with good judgement, the titulus crucis). For the same reason, according to Marcion, Pilate was a dishonest judge (he didn't realize that Jesus was not the Jewish Christ). The only difference is that the marcionites couldn't cry that Pilate was an asshole with the same freedom they could insult the God of the Jews. So the Romans could suspect clues of sediction in the Marcion's Gospel, but not in the canonical Gospels.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: "him who judges justly" is allegory of the demiurge: Pilate

Post by Joseph D. L. »

You're overlooking one major componant in all of this, Giusseppe...

PILATE IS NOT THE ONE WHO CRUCIFIES JESUS

Time and time again, the Synoptics, John, and Marcion, make this point clear. It is always the Jews who demand the death of Christ. Not Pilate. So then, how is Pilate a representative of the demiurge? Wouldn't the Jews be appropriately representatives of the demiurge?

Or is this an example of your nonesensical 'judiazer/marcionite' reactions?

"I find no guilt in this man."
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MrMacSon
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Re: "him who judges justly" is allegory of the demiurge: Pilate

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Giuseppe wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 7:29 am
A question I would raise, is the following: what is more probable, that the Earliest Gospel was written as theodicy for the destruction of Jerusalem (as RG Price argues), or that it was only a Gnostic allegory to represent what were already fixed in any Gnostic theology (hate against the Creator, in primis).
or kind of both, with 'the earliest Gospel' written as theodicy for the abomination of the desolation of Jerusalem - not being able to rebuild the Temple - and as an allegory to represent hate against the imperial forces, using some Gnostic tropes.




Giuseppe wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 7:48 am The problem is that both the hypotheses give a valid reason about the question: 'why under Pilate?'
To move the narratives into a time with no witnesses or contrary memory a la Lena Einhorn's A Shift in Time arguments and what Jörg Rüpke similarly says in Pantheon -

.
[Marcion] thus orchestrated a rupture that he relocated a century into the past, carefully keeping his narrative free of contemporary references131 (pp. 355-358)

The narrow timeframe of the narrative [of Marcion] extends from the descent into Capernaum to the return to Jerusalem. This timeframe is expanded by an elaborate synchronization that aligns the fifteenth year of Tiberius’s rule with Pontius Pilate’s governorship of the province of Judaea. [71; Marcion 1:2 Klinghardt = Luke 3:1]. (p. 342).

Rüpke, Jörg. Pantheon: A New History of Roman Religion Princeton University Press.


It had nothing to do with Pilate: he was just something to anchor a prophetic narrative to. The situation was to make the Jews look bad ( as persecutors) - Jesus was the ultimate martyr and sacrifice.

.
Giuseppe
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Re: "him who judges justly" is allegory of the demiurge: Pilate

Post by Giuseppe »

MrMacSon wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 8:39 pm or kind of both, with 'the earliest Gospel' written as theodicy for the abomination of the desolation of Jerusalem - not being able to rebuild the Temple - and as an allegory to represent hate against the imperial forces, using some Gnostic tropes.
the point is that you are using the term "gnostic" not in the way I use it: as hate against the creator-god. It doesn't matter to me the use of "Gnostic tropes" when the Father of Jesus is still the Jewish god.

To move the narratives into a time with no witnesses or contrary memory a la Lena Einhorn's A Shift in Time arguments and what Jörg Rüpke similarly says in Pantheon -

It had nothing to do with Pilate: he was just something to anchor a prophetic narrative to. The situation was to make the Jews look bad ( as persecutors) - Jesus was the ultimate martyr and sacrifice.
this is too much generic. The best explanation to my knowledge is the affair of 70 - 40 = 30 CE (hence Pilate) but this inference follows only under the hypothesis that the Earliest Gospel was written as a reaction (and theodicy) against the destruction of Jerusalem. It doesn't follow from the Gnostic hypothesis (the Earliest Gospel as allegory of the conflict between the Demiurge and another god).

As to Joseph D.L., I explain in the thread the strange fact that Pilate is a negative person in Mark: he satisfies the Jews despite of (or just because of) he knows their envy against Jesus. This is really a diabolic thing.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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MrMacSon
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Re: "him who judges justly" is allegory of the demiurge: Pilate

Post by MrMacSon »

Giuseppe wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 9:42 pm the point is that you are using the term "gnostic" not in the way I use it: as hate against the creator-god.
I've just been doing some reading about [pure] gnosticism and I don't think it generally means 'hate against the creator god' (as Marcion's theology seems to be)

http://gnosis.org/hermes.htm

https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/article ... -a-hoeller

http://gnosis.org/library/grs-mead/grsm_gnosismind.htm
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