In light of our discussion, I offer the opinion of two very different second century church fathers for today's Apocryphote:
I shall endeavour to persuade you that there is, and that there is said to be, another God and Lord subject to the Maker of all things; who is also called an Angel, because he announces to men whatsoever the Maker of all things, above whom there is no other God, wishes to announce to them;....that he who is said to have appeared to Abraham, and to Jacob, and to Moses, and who is called God, is distinct from Him who made all things, I mean numerically, not in will.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 56 (mid-second century Rome)
Origen: Is the Son distinct from the Father?
Heraclides: Of course. How can he be Son if he is also Father?
Origen: While being distinct from the Father is the Son himself also God?
Heraclides: He himself is also God.
Origen: And do two Gods become a unity?
Heraclides: Yes.
Origen: Do we confess two Gods?
Hearclides: Yes. The power is one.
Origen: But since our brothers take offense at the statement that there are two Gods, we must formulate the doctrine carefully, and show in what sense they are two and in what sense the two are one God.
Origen, Dialogue with Heraclides 124 (early third century Alexandria)
3 comments:
How could Justin have been so close to the truth on this point? Closer yet if the final "Him" had been referred to as "It," as in the Great Spirit or Universal Consciousness or Creation.
I thought I'd offer an apocryphote of my own in return to your pieces from Justin Martyr and Origen...
Jesus said, "Where there are three deities, they are divine. Where there are two or one, I am present."
Saying 30 of the Gospel of Thomas
I'd be curious to see if you'd translate it the same way Marvin Meyer did, and what your thoughts on it are in relation to this concept.
In short, is it perhaps a Thomasine thread in this vein, or is it a Thomasine variant of Matthew 18:20.
This IS what is comes down to, I think.
That is, who was Jesus of Nazareth?
And what was it that he was really desiring to fulfill in his time period, and in light of the future of humanity, beginning with Israel?
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