Mark was embarrassed for John seeing the descending of Christ on Jesus

[Giuseppe]

I had already realized for other reasons that the baptism episode in Mark is a later interpolation: basically, the author of the episode assumes that the potential embarrassment of the readers for the baptism of Jesus by John is already sanitized in advance from their knowledge of the Matthew's apology for that embarrassment.

But even in Mark there is a particular apology to overcome a real embarrassment by "Mark":

And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him

he, Jesus, not John, saw the spiritual Christ descending on Jesus.


Hence "Mark" (editor) was embarrassed by the fact that other Christians were seeing in the John's knowledge of the descending of Christ on Jesus a motive of accusation against John himself.

Something as:

But the Son of Man came forth from Imperishability, being alien to defilement. He came to the world by the Jordan river, and immediately the Jordan turned back. And John bore witness to the descent of Jesus. For it is he who saw the power which came down upon the Jordan river; for he knew that the dominion of carnal procreation had come to an end. The Jordan river is the power of the body, that is, the senses of pleasures. The water of the Jordan is the desire for sexual intercourse. John is the archon of the womb.

http://gnosis.org/naghamm/testruth.html

[Giuseppe]

If it is only Jesus who saw the spiritual Christ descending on him, then the reader may think that there is a kind of implicit alliance between the man Jesus and the spirit Christ.

While, if it is also John who saw the distinction between the man Jesus and the spirit Christ, then this raises the strong suspicion that the spirit Christ was not known, even less so predicted, by John. That it was an alien spirit from an alien god (not the god of the Jews).

[Giuseppe]

Celsus knows a Gospel tradition where John works as witness of the descending of Christ on Jesus:

,What credible witness beheld this appearance? Or who heard a voice from heaven declaring you to be the Son of God? What proof is there of it, save your own assertion, and the statement of another of those individuals who have been punished along with you?

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04161.htm
John is "another of those individuals who have been punished along with" Jesus, by having seen the spirit Christ descending on Jesus.

"Mark" was clearly embarrassed by this rival Gospel tradition, therefore he introduced the baptism episode with only Jesus being witness of the descending Christ. In this way Jesus seems not more "punished" in virtue of the his spiritual possession by Christ.

[Giuseppe]

The intere scene is evocative of the Sheol:

Jesus and the other baptized people are mere souls in Sheol.

John is the archon of Sheol.

Christ is the alien.

Marcion had condensed all these references to Sheol by simply making Jesus descend to "Capernaum" = place of Desolation = Sheol.

[Giuseppe]

Matthew 3:14-15 :

But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”

The reluctance of John is not an apology, as the historicists assume very stupidly. There is an echo in this reluctance that remembers the reluctance of Satan to open the Gates of Hades to Jesus:

And if thou bring him unto me he will set free all that are here shut up in the hard prison and bound in the chains of their sins that cannot be broken, and will bring them unto the life of his god head for ever

https://wikilivres.org/wiki/Acts_of_Pil ... anslation)

John denies baptism to Jesus because he knows that by being baptized by him Jesus wins him as archontic figure.

Just as Satan (The personified Hell) denies entry to Jesus because he knows that by entering in Sheol Jesus wins him as archontic figure.

Hence there is no real apology in Matthew 3:14-15. There is only the euhemerization of a previous myth (=Jesus who enters in Sheol by being crucified at his gates) .

[Giuseppe]

Hence, the sequences of inventions and interpolations regarding the Baptism episode is the following:


FIRST: in proto-Mark, there was no baptism episode, but only the rapid appearance of John the Baptist, the his arrest and the immediate appearance of Jesus in Galilee.

SECOND: in Matthew we have the earliest Baptism episode. The only apology that is found in Matthew, is to eclipse the negative role of John in proto-Mark as reluctant archon of Hades being moved, velim nolim, to make Jesus enter in Sheol.


THIRD: The Gnostics continue to interpret the same Baptism episode as a negative implicit portrait of John the Baptist, pace "Matthew".

FOURTH: "Mark" (editor) corrupted proto-Mark to introduce in it the baptism episode, with only an apology in it: John doesn't see the spiritual possession of Jesus by Christ. In this way, John is not really a guard, an archon, of anything.

[Giuseppe]

Acts of Pilate	Baptism episode
Hell predicted that Jesus will descend in Sheol	John predicted the arrival of the Messiah
Hell is reluctant to open the gates of Sheol to Jesus	John is reluctant to baptize Jesus
but Satan wants that Hell opens the gates of Sheol to Jesus	John is persuaded by Jesus to baptize Jesus.
Hell opens the gates of Sheol to Jesus	Herod arrests John. The prison of John is already allegory of Sheol.
Jesus enters in Sheol.	Jesus starts the his preaching in Galilee.

Note how Satan imposing the his own desire on Hell is euhemerized as Herod arresting John.

[Giuseppe]

If Herod (Satan) arrests/kills John (Hell) only because the error of John(Hell), in the eyes of Herod(Satan), is to have failed to prevent the entry of Jesus, being John(Hell) the archon of Sheol(Galilee)…

...then the Josephian narrative about Herod killing John for the threat of a sedition by John is virtually false. The author of the Josephian passage knew:


1) that John was under the kingdom of Herod

2) that John was potentially rebel against Herod insofar he was winning a lot of followers.


But this is also true about Hell regarding Satan in Acts of Pilate:

1 And as Satan the prince, and Hell, spoke this together, suddenly there came a voice as of thunder and a spiritual cry: Remove, O princes, your gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. When Hell heard that he said unto Satan the prince: Depart from me and go out of mine abode: if thou be a mighty man of war, fight thou against the King of glory. But what hast thou to do with him? And Hell cast Satan forth out of his dwelling. Then said Hell unto his wicked ministers: Shut ye the hard gates of brass and put on them the bars of iron and withstand stoutly, lest we that hold captivity be taken captive.
2 But when all the multitude of the saints heard it, they spake with a voice of rebuking unto Hell: Open thy gates, that the King of glory may come in. And David cried out, saying: Did I not when I was alive upon earth, foretell unto you: Let them give thanks unto the Lord, even his mercies and his wonders unto the children of men; who hath broken the gates of brass and smitten the bars of iron in sunder? he hath taken them out of the way of their iniquity. And thereafter in like manner Esaias said: Did not I when I was alive upon earth foretell unto you: The dead shall arise, and they that are in the tombs shall rise again, and they that are in the earth shall rejoice, for the dew which cometh of the Lord is their healing? And again I said: O death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory?
3 When they heard that of Esaias, all the saints said unto Hell: Open thy gates: now shalt thou be overcome and weak and without strength. And there came a great voice as of thunder, saying: Remove, O princes, your gates, and be ye lift up ye doors of hell, and the King of glory shall come in. And when Hell saw that they so cried out twice, he said, as if he knew it not: Who is the King of glory? And David answered Hell and said: The words of this cry do I know, for by his spirit I prophesied the same; and now I say unto thee that which I said before: The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle, he is the King of glory. And: The Lord looked down from heaven that he might hear the groanings of them that are in fetters and deliver the children of them that have been slain. And now, O thou most foul and stinking Hell, open thy gates, that the King of glory may come in. And as David spake thus unto Hell, the Lord of majesty appeared in the form of a man and lightened the eternal darkness and brake the bonds that could not be loosed: and the succour of his everlasting might visited us that sat in the deep darkness of our transgressions and in the shadow of death of our sins.
VI (XXII)
1 When Hell and death and their wicked ministers saw that, they were stricken with fear, they and their cruel officers, at the sight of the brightness of so great light in their own realm, seeing Christ of a sudden in their abode, and they cried out, saying: We are overcome by thee.

• Hell is under the kindgom of Satan.

• Hell was potentially a rebel against Satan insofar he was reluctant to open the gates, against the fact that an entire “multitude of the saints” moved him to open the gates.

Hence John is caught between two fires in Josephus: he is pacifist, but he is potentially a seditious, given the increasing number of followers moving him against Herod and the ignorance of Herod about his real intentions.

But also Hell is caught between two fires in Acts of Pilate: he would like to close the gates to save Satan and himself from Jesus, but he is moved to open the gates, given the insistence of the “multitude of the saints” and the ignorance of Satan.