Re: G.K. Chesterton on Job
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Re: G.K. Chesterton on Job         

Group: alt.philosophy · Group Profile
Author: Mac the Nice
Date: Sep 1, 2007 23:15

"Fedallah" gmail.com> wrote in message
news:13djgjmj2iqvda1@corp.supernews.com...
> Nah. As far as my part in that, you had me repeatedly pointing out your
> self-contradictions. You, of course refused to address them . . .

My refusal was then as it remains now, a determined and highly pleasant, if
not enjoyable choice to ignore baseless, transparently false assertions of
"contradiction" (and never mind the 'self' part which has nothing to do with
it, since it would be the logic or fact being contradicted not the
person--this being a thing certain mean-spirited thugs can never get
untangled in their endlessly dim ad hominem thinking.
> (always amazed at how many words it takes you NOT to do something. You're
> like the anti-Beckett) and ended by out-gassing your usual non-sequitor
> spew and leaving.

That's 'non-sequitur'.
>
> Just to be helpful . . .

Maybe you can teach me how to spell, teacher. Or would that be a
"non-sequitor"?
> I'll point one of 'em out to you again: An anti-semitic reading of the
> passage in question is incompatible with a Marcionite reading of that same
> passage. To be anti-semitic, it needs to be singling out the Jews as the
> progeny of the devil.

Easy to see where this is going--but first, as to 'contradiction' . . .

[15] Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.
[16] And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and
the Father that sent me.
--John 8:15,16

So this 'Jesus' created of the Marcionite imagination--whether by Marcion
himself, or more likely amplified and carried forth by him as a legacy
inherited from his father the devil, Cerdo (of Syria)--it matters not, for
all these; Cerinthus, Cerdo, Marcion, Valentinus, Fedallah, Moggin are one
in Antichrist, as also they are joined at furry thigh and cloven hoof in
that anti-Semitic forgery of the late First Century, the so-called "Gospel
According to John," the number and name of its authors which are Legion.

But the fathers of the Church had known this from the beginning, for
Marcion, like Cerdo had been positioned high in the hierarchy at Rome before
falling after their father Lucifer into the fire of their heresies. But
alas, by then it was too late! Their literary product, the "Fourth Gospel"
like the proverbial cat was already out of the ecclesiastical bag being
already published abroad among not a few of the churches, as indeed the
earliest known manuscript for which was unearthed from some corner of the
ceiling of Hell, in Egypt.

Henceforth, much of the tradition of Ante-Nicene patristic writing became an
exercise in the art of closing the barn door after the goats got out.
Observe once again, the method in action . . .

[15] Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.
[16] And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and
the Father that sent me.
--John 8:15,16

Get it? No snake could have wriggled out of the contradiction any the more
sneakily--and Verily I say unto you, no one should have to explain it for
you, either. It is just such a neat little typical trick in the serpentine
rhetoric of Antichrist gnostic homiletics.

But despite the ravings of Cerdo, and Marcion after him, it was Cerinthus,
yet another great Gnostic heresiarch for whom, contrarily the name of
Jehovah, and the Jewish Law continued to be sacred! While yet, for him it
was only the Creation itself that was dirty and beneath the dignity of God.
It was such a noble prejudice, so very patrician in its attitude, that any
Being so regal, so majestically well born, so blue-blooded as a god should
ever have to work? Heaven forefend! No, not even in the act of creation, for
so many as six days out of an eternity would be six days far too many.
Never! Roman slaves had been created (or made) for such a
purpose--certainly not their gods.

There was just something about this Hebrew notion of a god who works that
struck the high-born Greek/Asiatic sensibility as being quite strictly
boorish, or which is to say, much too "Jewish". So the problem for these
spoiled silly, silver-spoon-fed Gnostic brats of the purple Roman cloth was
how to construct for Jesus some other father. That was the trick, and for
Marcion, entirely what it came down to. Much as the Gentiles were enticed
and enthralled by the Dionysian attributes of Jesus as Paul had taught him,
even so, something simply had to be done about that all too shopkeeperish
looking Father of his.

For Cerinthus, it was not nearly quite so conceited, bigoted and
uncircumcised of mind as all that, his reason for making Creation the
production of lower angels in demiurgic function. For him, the problem was
one of strict Pauline dualism--a spirit versus flesh problem. In any case,
other Greek Gnostics were having a hard time to tell him from a Jewish
Ebionite, indeed Cerinthus it was, against whom, tradition says, the 4th
Gospel was written, and that makes every bit of sense--from the standpoint
of a Marcion, or any other raging antinomian of an arch docetic in the works
at Rome, like Cerdo his father in Antichrist--as according to the definition
of an antichrist by the real John, the Presbyter John, author of the three
epistles, wherein the matter is defined and addressed . . .

[3] And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have
heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. I John
4:3

One of the most essential doctrines of Gnostic teaching, nearly all across
the board but especially in the doctrines of docetics like Marcion is that
Jesus was made of the spirit and not of the flesh. For this reason, the 4th
Gospel has absolutely nothing to say concerning the nativity. It says
nothing more than that "the Word was made flesh." And what is meant to be
understood by that is that the Word was made to *appear* as flesh. The first
chapter of the 4th Gospel begins . . .

1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God.
[2] The same was in the beginning with God.
[3] All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that
was made.

The "Word" is the *Logos*. The Logos, better translated is "the Reason". It
means a lot more than just 'word'. It means that Jesus was the Reason, or
i.e. the 'thinking', the Meaning and the Purpose that was with God from the
beginning. But as it also says . . .

[3] All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that
was made . . .

This means that Christ is the physics, the chemistry, and the biology by
which all things were made. Moreover, in this sense, in His relation to God
the Father, Jesus is the 'good demiurge' of Cerinthus. Allegorically
speaking then, it is not the Father who works, but the Son, through whose
Reason the worlds are created. And further, it is through his 'work' in the
flesh, through his teachings, and his self-sacrifice on the cross, all the
more that God's Purpose for man is made known . . .

4] In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
[5] And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Man is left in the dark with Jesus' blood on his hands, in the cup that he
sips, asking still in our thirst, what is the meaning? What was the
purpose?

Well! When you are left standing in a light so bloody bright as Pure
Reason, Meaning and Purpose, you are blinded by such an intensity of
illumination. And somehow it just doesn't quite dawn on you that just
knowing so much as this is knowing quite entirely enough. All man needs to
get on with his life is to know that there is a reason, meaning and purpose
for it, that Creation happens, your own personal existence comes into being
for a reason that has been expressed in the drama of the life of God's Son.

Of course there is meaning there! If everybody would take it into his or
her mind to live according to the Word that came of Christ, everybody would
be nice to each other, violence would disappear from the earth, people would
lose all their fear of each other, trust would be golden, charity would
abound--but fat chance for that!

Even so, as Kierkegaard put it down in his journals, the very fact that He
was here to bring his definition for what is good into the world was enough
to make at least some semblance of civilization possible. For more than
that, it can only devolve down to one's own life and sphere of relations.
All any person needs to obtain a greater balance of happiness over grief in
his life is to know (or at least have faith) that something good is meant to
come of it all; something from God, something from the very beginning from
before the worlds were created.

So anyway, unlike that *sola fide* antinomian, anti-Semitic heretic Luther
with his hatred of the Epistle of James, I do not sit here proposing to tear
the 4th Gospel from the spine of every Bible. Hardly. Clearly, the Church,
in its time, had found the way to make of the text of it something far more
in line with an orthodox epistemology than otherwise would have come of the
rough prejudices of its Gnostic origins. I surely doubt, and very strongly
so, that the text of this Gospel as we have it now, so very well put in
order and straightened out by this fine preface at the beginning of the
first chapter, is anything like what it would have been originally. We
know, for example, that the account of the Woman Taken in Adultery, in the
earliest extant Codex (Sinaiticus?) had that story in the Gospel According
to Luke.

So, the original Marcionite production of 'John' is not entirely this John.
Even so, much of the original anti-nomian and anti-Semitic polemic remains,
not only in John but also in Matthew, Luke, Acts, much of the Pauline canon,
as most notably in Galatians, Titus, Timothy (I & II), II Corinthians--such
content is in them. But, as the earliest recensions of the texts were being
edited by the fathers, mainly at Alexandria, you can be sure that changes
were being made, glosses were being added into the text itself to defuse
such utterances so as to make, such as they would suppose, the Gnostic
poison inert. This was an art not of taking things out, but of adding things
in. So you get both; you get a kind of esoteric, or hidden Gemara on the
Mishnah, and reading the New Testament is an art of learning to discern
which is which. Once you've read it more than just a few times through, so
that a memory of what you've gleaned is a fairly complete database of all
that's there, then you know. You know the wheat from the chaff.

This has been a digression from the original text as written here, so here's
getting back to brass exegetical tacks . . .
--
Whereas the contradictory assertion by the Alogi (a later heretical sect of
the 2nd or 3rd century) that it was he, Cerinthus who had written "John" and
"Revelation"--this must be considered, if possible, to be the case only in
part, for indeed, maybe it was he who wrote that lovely preface--but as to
much of rest? Utterly impossible! Let the Marcionite tone of the text in
the 8th chapter prove it . . .

[33] They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to
any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
[34] Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever
committeth sin is the servant of sin.
--John 8:33,34

Never in bondage to any man. What--the Hebrews? Verily, Verily, I say unto
you, "Whoever it was, whether Cerdo or Marcion, who wrote that utterly
ignorant lie is surely lone gone to Hell to be with his father, the Pope or
Pastor of it."

Good night. Never in bondage to any man? How people can sit there and read
a thing like that and not have the sense to see right through it is only a
reflection of their idolatry and cowardice.
> A Marcionite reading would be one where Yahweh is the father of
> *EVERYONE.*

Indeed? Then certainly a Marcionite would have him or her one hard time with
something like this, again from the *8th chapter . . .

[37] I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my
word hath no place in you.
[38] I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye
have seen with your father.

Jesus has one father, the Jews another. And if Fedallah is right about what
a Marcionite 'reading' in this is, then just as he says . . .
> You can't claim both simultaneously without contradicting yourself.

But never fear! For Mackie would never be trapped in a snare of such
transparently tricky construction. F's assertion that "a Marcionite reading
would be one where Yahweh is the father of *EVERYONE*," can arise not from
texts, not from tradition but only from the faulty view that Jehovah, being
Creator of everything, is by necessity of that, also the 'father' of
everything. But now we shall see how it is strictly one thing to be 'father'
and utterly another to be Creator.

By F's reasoning, as fatherhood is somehow made universal and not
particular, not a matter of choosing, and a special begetting of the Chosen,
it would be willy-nilly, across the board, broad as creation itself, and
Jehovah would be father not only to the Jews and the Norwegians but as
according to the "Jesus" of the 4th Gospel, Father also to "their father the
Devil."

It is one thing to be the objective creator of evil and the Devil, and quite
another to be the loving, caring Father of Evil and the Devil. The office of
God the creator is not by any means the same as the office of God, the
Father.
> And, in any case, for Marcion, Yahweh wasn't the devil . . .

That statement made on pure authority of nothing, and of no more substance
than the spume of your own mouth is altogether so full of sheer caprice as
not to rate comment.
> so a Marcionite reading wouldn't really pan out either, if you decided to
> settle on that one.

Har! Read on MacBluff, and dig very closely down to every single little word
of it, for if these are not the words of your darling heresiarch Marcion,
then they can only be those of the writer that he came to Rome to represent
in a then little known so-called 'gospel' that he meant, by his riches to
publish through all the Roman world . . .

[37] I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my
word hath no place in you.

{Lies! Only the highest ranking, swanky rich envious swine of priests in
the Sanhedrin wanted to kill Jesus--not the "Jews," not the "Seed of
Abraham."}

[38] I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye
have seen with your father.

{And what is this slander? That their Father is not Jehovah? No! For in the
view of Marcion, their Father *is* Jehovah, the low Demiurge, but the father
of Jesus is an Unknown God--and *that* is Marcionism, totally.}

[39] They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith
unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.

{Which they indeed are doing! if this so-called 'Jesus' word is true, or if
this writer, this "John" knew his Torah--what else but that they should seek
to kill him, even as Abraham did with his only son Isaac, as begotten of his
own wife, Sarah? Indeed they do the works of their father, Abraham.

[40] But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I
have heard of God: this did not Abraham.

{What 'did not Abraham'? Abraham did not seek to kill somebody? He sought
to kill his own beloved son, in obedience to the word of God. What 'did not
Abraham'? Where does it say that Abraham did not tell the truth which he had
heard of God? Abraham twice told lies that he heard from his own mind to two
separate big shots, a king of Canaan and the Pharaoh of Egypt, when he
introduced Sarai as his "sister". But as to anything Abraham ever heard of
God--of this there is nothing on record to show that he ever held back or
misrepresented any such word from God. The content of verse 40 is absolutely
meaningless.

[41] Ye do the deeds of your father.

{Contradiction! Now the Jews do do the deeds of their father. This
so-called 'Jesus' should make up his mind.}

Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father,
even God.

{Apparently, Cerdo or Marcion had got wind of that scuttlebutt going around
among the rabbis about Jesus being the bastard son of a Roman centurion, got
of his Jewish prostitute mother, Mary?}

[42] Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father . . .

{He clears up his meaning as to who the 'father' is in verse 41. Abraham is
no longer the 'father' in question, but God.}

. . . ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither
came I of myself, but he sent me.
[43] Why do ye not understand my speech?

{Clearly because the Jews have been predestined to burn in hell.}

. . . even because ye cannot hear my word.
[44] Ye are of your father the devil . . .

[See?}

. . . and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the
beginning . . .

{That doesn't mean Abraham. That means Jehovah.}

and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he
speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own . . .

{the Jews. Strictly, the Jews.}

. . . for he is a liar, and the father of it.
--

The Jews have the devil, the Demiurge for a father, and the name of that
demiurge is Jehovah.

That is Marcionism. There is no other.
--
Mackie
http://www.mackiemesser.zoomshare.com/0.html
http://vignettes-mackie.blogspot.com/

--

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