Both Paul and Minucius Felix had a problem with euhemerizers

[Joseph D. L.]

https://books.google.com/books/about/Sy ... h5DwAAQBAJ

[Joseph D. L.]

So there is no question about it, Giuseppe. Plato's cross is unambiguously an astrotheological symbol. And if you're arguing that Christians were invoking this same cross, then the significance is the same, astrotheological.

So you're wrong. As usual.

Take the log out of your eye first before trying to take the splinter out of someone else's eye.

[Giuseppe]

The celestial chi that Plato refers to is pre-existing in Greek and Egyptian mythology and religion.

Plato could think anything about X, frankly what was in his mind counts zero to explain the origin of Christianity. And it counts zero for me, too.

My point is simply to argue, with Danielou, that the Christian Limit/Horos was "read" in Plato. Hence it is not only Justin's christianization of Plato's X. We have evidence that some Christians placed the crucifixion in the same point where Plato placed his X.

What serves to know is that X was the vernal equinox, an astronomical concept.

When you connect theology with an astronomical concept, you are not doing astrotheology.

When you connect theology with an astrological concept (Zodiac), you are doing astrotheology.

Like the difference, please.

P.S. your insistence on labels more than meaning moves me to make further irony about the meaning of this symbol:

[Joseph D. L.]

The celestial chi that Plato refers to is pre-existing in Greek and Egyptian mythology and religion.

Plato could think anything about X, frankly what was in his mind counts zero to explain the origin of Christianity. And it counts zero for me, too.

So you use Plato by inserting your own misguided agenda onto what he said.

But wait, according to you what Plato said WAS of importance to early Christianity. So which is it Giuseppe?

No you're just making shit up as usual.

My point is simply to argue, with Danielou, that the Christian Limit/Horos was "read" in Plato. Hence it is not only Justin's christianization of Plato's X. We have evidence that some Christians placed the crucifixion in the same point where Plato placed his X.

Which is fine, but then don't say that Plato was of no importance, or that Christians were not actively twisting Plato to fit their agenda.

The more I think about it, the more like a Christian you are. You use the same tactics as Justin, Irenaeus and Tertullian, coupled with your own ignorance about these things.

What serves to know is that X was the vernal equinox, an astronomical concept.

When you connect theology with an astronomical concept, you are not doing astrotheology.

Yes you are. Astrotheology--get this through your head--is not limited to Zodiacal worship, but incorporates all aspects of steller, solar and celestial phenomena as religious expression. The cult of Re was astrotheological. Helios was astrotheological, and consequently Plato was astrotheological.

When you connect theology with an astrological concept (Zodiac), you are doing astrotheology.

What about Mithraism? What about Orphism? Both schools were deeply indebted to Platonism and both are astrotheological. So if it's true for them then it's true for Christianity.

Like the difference, please.

Admit you don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about and are just typing whatever ignorant idea you think off.

P.S. your insistence on labels more than meaning moves me to make further irony about the meaning of this symbol:

[Joseph D. L.]

Do you see those, Giuseppe? The celestial cross, the very same thing Plato describes.

Maybe actually fucking study this stuff and stfu.

The one preoccupied with labels is you, with you're ceaseless calling people apologists and judiazers. You're a joke.

[Giuseppe]

My point is simply to argue, with Danielou, that the Christian Limit/Horos was "read" in Plato. Hence it is not only Justin's christianization of Plato's X. We have evidence that some Christians placed the crucifixion in the same point where Plato placed his X.

Which is fine, but then don't say that Plato was of no importance, or that Christians were not actively twisting Plato to fit their agenda.

I am saying that what was in Plato's mind, with all the respect, was of no importance.

Think about the enormous effect of the fact that it is not ONLY Justin to have christianized the Plato's X.

Justin doesn't say who crucified the Logos on the cosmic X in his reading of Plato.

He says simply:

"He has X-ed the Son of God in the universe"

(1 Apology 60:1-5)

It is very probable that the other Christians (who, independently from Justin, "read" that same crucifixion in Plato) gave a name to the killer: "He" was the demiurge, who crucified the Son of God on the cosmic Stauros.

[Giuseppe]

Returning to the dichotomy:

Outer Space crucifixion AUT historical Jesus

...I think it is correct because the role of a Roman crucifixion is ignored very much often in his real meaning.

Andrew wrote:

I'm afraid I have difficulty with an obscure recent execution on earth. What is much more likely is a public execution the significance of which is not generally guessed at.

But the reasons given by Andrew to think so are not precisely the mine. Andrew says (if I understand him well): the Roman crucifixion was a public event, hence its being public breaks someway the total secrecy requested for the mission of a mythical Son of God on earth.

I don't reject Andrew's view but I would think about another reason.

My reason is:

the reference to Romans (not necessarily in a crucifixion, but in general) had always an explicative function for the highest number of people:
to say "Roman" was equivalent to say "something recognized by all the world". Just as today to say "English" means ipso facto "something potentially read by all the people in the world".

Basically, if I wanted to globalize a thing, I would have explained that thing in Roman terms.
Just as today, if I want to globalize a thing, I would describe it in English terms.

Basically, the function of a Roman reference in a story worked basically as the exact contrary of an "secrecy" motive in that story.

As the logic goes, the crucifixion has to be a public, understandable event, therefore do it a Roman crucifixion.

Hence, the corollary says:

who introduced the Roman crucifixion of Jesus did so in order to make that crucifixion a public understandable event. For Roman (i.e.globalized) hearers.

Hence a Roman crucifixion worked as the perfect denial of a secret obscure mission of the Son on the earth. You can't have both the things (a Roman crucifixion and a mythical obscure earthly Messiah).

Because of my poor English, I can't say it better than the following way:

The Roman crucifixion's function is to shed light on an otherwise obscure crucifixion.

But a recent crucifixion has to be necessarily a Roman one. Hence, a recent crucifixion on earth has to be necessarily the contrary of an obscure crucifixion.

[Giuseppe]

(...continuing from previous post...) Note that a typical Roman way to say:

I don't know him, he is totally obscure in my eyes, I have never heard about him, he is perfectly unknown to me

is to deny IN PRIMIS that he received a Roman crucifixion:

Instead, it was something about their religion and a dead man named Jesus, who Paul insists is alive.

(words spoken by the Roman Festus in Jerusalem before 70 CE, according to Acts 25:19)

[Giuseppe]

I would add another reason to reject a mythical Jesus on earth in the recent past:

The oldest evidence of old deniers of the historicity of Jesus is found in the epistles of Ignatius:

What bearing on these questions have the Docetes, the most ancient Christian heretics, who contended that Jesus had been but a phantom, that He had only assumed the semblance of a body—and this, exclaims St. Jerome, when the blood of Jesus was not yet dry in Judaea ? The great antiquity of the sect is confirmed by two letters attributed to St. John, which are partly directed against Docetism, and perhaps also by the passage in the Fourth Gospel (xx. 24) concerning the incredulity of St. Thomas. Works by Docetes have not come down to us and we have no adequate knowledge of their tenets. One thing, however, is certain : the so-called extreme Docetes denied the Crucifixion. Irenseus (c. 180 a.d.) says that the heretic Basilides (c. 125) related the Crucifixion as follows : Simon of Cyrene was crucified by mistake "and Jesus himself took the form of Simon, and stood by and laughed at the executioners." Foolish as this may be, how could a fact be so ludicrously denied, if it had been historically ascertained ?

43. A keen adversary of the Docetes, St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, writing about 110, says that the birth and death of Jesus were unknown to Satan, the Prince of the world ; he also speaks of certain persons who declared : " What we do not find in the archives we cannot accept in the Gospel." Efforts have been made to twist these texts, which are undoubtedly very odd, but must be taken as they stand and interpreted honestly. They seem to show that the Bishop of Antioch had to contend with unbelievers inspired by the Devil, who stated that they could find no evidences of the birth and death of Jesus in the public archives (of Caesarea ?). Ignatius answered them only with pious phrases ; after him, from the first half of the second century, forgeries were concocted to refute them.

44. St. Paul preached "Christ crucified," not Gospel history. He talked with men who had lived with Jesus, like Peter and James ; but their recollections of the earthly life of the master do not seem to have interested him. In his Epistles to distant communities he hardly says anything about Jesus, but dwells on Christ. We may nevertheless assert that the Epistles of Paul are the best historical evidence we possess relating to Jesus, so far do all the rest fall short of the demands of criticism. If these Epistles were not by St. Paul, or if the decisive passages in them were spurious—of which we have, so far, no proof at all—it would almost be a pardonable paradox to doubt the historical existence of Jesus. All we can safely say is, that if historical facts are imbedded in the Gospel narrative, they are so overlaid with legend that it is impossible to extract from them the elements of a scientific biography.

(Salomon Reinach, A short history of Christianity, my bold)

Note that the argument of these deniers was the following:

The docetism was the way by early Jewish Christians (Readers of the First Gospel) to harmonize the Jewish «mythicist» (ante litteram) accusation that Jesus was an unknown X with the Gospel idea that Jesus existed in Judea:

How can that Jewish accusation be expressed? In the following manner:

The Jesus of which you talk was not a descendant of David; he was not a son of Mary; he didn't come in the world; he didn't eat, he didn't drink; he was not baptized by John; he wasn't crucified under Pilate and Herod; he was for us completely unknown.

In other terms, they denied the historicity of the Gospel Jesus.

What provoked their skepticism was the Gospel-based hearsay.

If they had heard about a Jesus crucified by demons on earth, we would have had evidence of skepticism of that kind addressed against Paul and the Pillars. But Paul and the Pillars didn't polemize against deniers of the historicity of Jesus.

The best explanation for Paul's absence of an apology against old skeptics is that he was not attacked by old skeptics, since there was no need of questioning the historicity of an archangel working always and only in Outer Space.


Hence, until now, I have collected 3 arguments against a mythical earthly Jesus crucified in the recent past:

• Andrew Criddle's argument: the Roman crucifixion was a public event

• Giuseppe's 1° argument: the Roman crucifixion was (designed as) the exact denial of an obscure crucifixion (evidence in Festus's words in Acts)

• Giuseppe's 2°argument: absence of evidence of old deniers of an earthly Jesus in Paul, as opposed to presence of evidence of old deniers of a Gospel Jesus in Ignatius.

[Giuseppe]

From Vridar, I have discovered a very interesting information about 1 Co 2:6-8: the passage is APOLOGETICAL IN NATURE.

De facto, I write:

‘we [too] speak wisdom’. Removed from their present context, however, the verses appear neither polemical nor apologetic
I agree a lot that the verses are apologetical, even when removed from their present context, in virtue of that “But” in the incipit.
the author feared a confusion of his own ideas, just along the lines of Ephesians 6:12:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers…

He could specify so only if his views were confused as saying:

“we do indeed wrestle against flesh and blood”.

In virtue of the same apologetical motive in 1 Cor 2:6-8, Paul were answering against who believed that the crucifixion was a mere earthly fact. No, it was not. The “perfects”, at least them, knew that the demons crucified Jesus, hence it has to be not confused with an earthly crucifixion.

https://vridar.org/2020/05/20/rulers-of ... ent-104118