Leo Volont
Registered Senior Member
Paulism and Turning Logic Around
Barrie Wilson’s “How Jesus Became Christian”, though a shallow work written by an unimaginative drudge, still it raised some bookish facts. At the end of the First Century the point was raised by the Messianic Jews that since the Apostles disagreed with Paul on every single doctrinal point, that Paul must have been wrong, two contradictory points cannot both be true. Well, more completely stated, neither contradictory point needs to be True, as they could both be false, but the important point that was being made was correct, that if one believed the Apostles, the True heirs of the Messianic Legacy, than one could not also believe Paul. It was thought that the Jews finally found a Logical Tool for excluding Paulism – some weapon presented in a way that the Greek Mind could finally appreciate… that is, besides with copious amounts of wine and sexual buggery.
Well, a certain very wealthy Greek Merchant saw this Anti-Paulist Logic as something of a challenge… even as an opportunity. If the Jews wished to play Logic with the Greeks he would be pleased to oblige. Particularly as the Greeks, with their longer acquaintance with Logic, knew that it be made to point both ways, and that it had a certain sound that people would believe whether or not it really made much sense. The Greeks knew that Logic as some Perfect Ideal was much above the People it aimed to convince. Just a Swirl or a Twist of Logic was all it really took to Convince the Ordinary Greek Mind… along with the drunkenness and the buggery.
The Greek Merchant I speak of was Marcion. He used the Jewish Messianic criticism of Paul against them. Yes, he agreed. Both Paul and the Jews could not both be right. Fine. So the Jews are wrong. Marcion went on the offensive. Jesus would be presented not as a Messianic Jew, indeed as the Messiah, but instead as a Rebellious Individual challenging the Old Jewish Traditions and Laws while offering a completely New Dispensation, which the old fish mongering Apostles were too dense to understand, but which Paul, studied in Greek Philosophy, had the spiritual and mental agility to comprehend correctly. The Argument of the Jews was reversed as in Mirror Image and turned back against them, and in this format, the Greeks were quite convinced by it. And as the Greeks were sophisticated enough to know, Logic has its greatest powers of persuasion with people who are predisposed to believe. And with a People so engaged by heavy drinking and sexual buggery, it would not take much Logic to convince them of a Religion that would Forgive them their Sins.
Now, unfortunately, more about Barrie Wilson’s book “How Jesus Became Christian”. He goes far to point out the sophistic and false nature of Marcion’s reverse argument. But remember what I said earlier, about how two contradictory points can both be false, that there is no necessity that while two statement may disagree, that either one of them needs to be True. Well, that is how Barrie Wilson decided for Christianity – that Paul was false for disagreeing with the Jews, and that Jesus was false because he had claimed to be a Messiah, but never got even as far as becoming a bona fide Dog Catcher. When he proposed to give a final moral message to it all, it was that Christianity should just roll up Shop, quit Religion altogether and except themselves only as Gentiles, defined in terms only of not being Jewish, and that they should learn from it all to find a new appreciation of Jews as the Chosen People of God, to stop being so Anti-Semitic. Besides the Silver Lining around the Cloud of being considered as Sub-Human Beings unrecognized by God and beyond any possible touch of Holiness is, well, that the Gentiles can still have their Forgiveness of Sins, or rather, the same thing, and that is that as Animals, they are beneath the considerations of Morality – and that God wouldn’t care what they do anyway, treated with the same Blessed Indifference that shines upon Dog or Monkey. Only the Jews need concern themselves with matters of God.
Hmmmmm. Do you think that this book had a Jewish Publisher? No one complained that all none Jews were denigrated as Sub-Human. It was probably thought that such an objection would be considered Anti-Semitic and prosecuted under the new hate speech laws. As for the book being scholastically a silly piece of idiotic crap, well, it must be wonderful to be a tenured Professor… he teaches in Toronto, one of the Great Centers of Culture and Learning in… Canada. Anyway, what he fails to point out is that his own logic can be turned around… that if Jesus was a Failure for never having achieved his Messiah-hood, then what does this say of the Jewish People who never produced a Messiah, but only a Religion that brings us the Pornography Industry, Liquor Stores, Pawn Shops, crooked Lawyers and a Perpetual War of Aggression in the Middle East… what they call among themselves when they don’t think any Gentiles are listening, Greater Israel. Yes, Jesus was a Moral Failure, but it needs to be pointed out that he had plenty of company. But what do I know, I’m just a subhuman Gentile.
You know, maybe it is far thinking for a Canadian Professor of Religion, but it does not mean that Jesus was not the Messiah just because his people turned against him and killed him. Because his people were incredibly Evil is no indication that he wasn’t absolutely Good… indeed, it is just one more Spiritual Paradox we find ourselves having to deal with. Professor Wilson takes no look at the History of Spiritual Christianity, particularly at the High Point of Christian Civilization, when the numerous Christian Saints stood at least the equal to any Jewish Prophet or Patriarch, and when Paulism was all but forgotten except by a small cluster of the hedonistically corrupt, what we call Bishops. But the Christianity of a great Civilization believed in a God, a Messiah and a Pure Mother of a Messiah, worthy of joining with God Almighty Himself. Yes, it was a Religion that went way beyond its Judaic roots, but it is no crime to rise up above one’s roots – every plant, every flower, every tree hopes to do the same. Life reaches toward the Sky. Death reaches down, staying with the Roots. And reaching up Christianity became a Moral Religion, with Moral Expectations. Indeed everything we have today which makes us capable of Moral Reflection comes to us from that Old Christian Civilization and a Religion that was more than a dry and perhaps even fictional Tradition, but was alive with its own Miracles and deep and brilliant Visions of actual Spirituality.
Barrie Wilson’s “How Jesus Became Christian”, though a shallow work written by an unimaginative drudge, still it raised some bookish facts. At the end of the First Century the point was raised by the Messianic Jews that since the Apostles disagreed with Paul on every single doctrinal point, that Paul must have been wrong, two contradictory points cannot both be true. Well, more completely stated, neither contradictory point needs to be True, as they could both be false, but the important point that was being made was correct, that if one believed the Apostles, the True heirs of the Messianic Legacy, than one could not also believe Paul. It was thought that the Jews finally found a Logical Tool for excluding Paulism – some weapon presented in a way that the Greek Mind could finally appreciate… that is, besides with copious amounts of wine and sexual buggery.
Well, a certain very wealthy Greek Merchant saw this Anti-Paulist Logic as something of a challenge… even as an opportunity. If the Jews wished to play Logic with the Greeks he would be pleased to oblige. Particularly as the Greeks, with their longer acquaintance with Logic, knew that it be made to point both ways, and that it had a certain sound that people would believe whether or not it really made much sense. The Greeks knew that Logic as some Perfect Ideal was much above the People it aimed to convince. Just a Swirl or a Twist of Logic was all it really took to Convince the Ordinary Greek Mind… along with the drunkenness and the buggery.
The Greek Merchant I speak of was Marcion. He used the Jewish Messianic criticism of Paul against them. Yes, he agreed. Both Paul and the Jews could not both be right. Fine. So the Jews are wrong. Marcion went on the offensive. Jesus would be presented not as a Messianic Jew, indeed as the Messiah, but instead as a Rebellious Individual challenging the Old Jewish Traditions and Laws while offering a completely New Dispensation, which the old fish mongering Apostles were too dense to understand, but which Paul, studied in Greek Philosophy, had the spiritual and mental agility to comprehend correctly. The Argument of the Jews was reversed as in Mirror Image and turned back against them, and in this format, the Greeks were quite convinced by it. And as the Greeks were sophisticated enough to know, Logic has its greatest powers of persuasion with people who are predisposed to believe. And with a People so engaged by heavy drinking and sexual buggery, it would not take much Logic to convince them of a Religion that would Forgive them their Sins.
Now, unfortunately, more about Barrie Wilson’s book “How Jesus Became Christian”. He goes far to point out the sophistic and false nature of Marcion’s reverse argument. But remember what I said earlier, about how two contradictory points can both be false, that there is no necessity that while two statement may disagree, that either one of them needs to be True. Well, that is how Barrie Wilson decided for Christianity – that Paul was false for disagreeing with the Jews, and that Jesus was false because he had claimed to be a Messiah, but never got even as far as becoming a bona fide Dog Catcher. When he proposed to give a final moral message to it all, it was that Christianity should just roll up Shop, quit Religion altogether and except themselves only as Gentiles, defined in terms only of not being Jewish, and that they should learn from it all to find a new appreciation of Jews as the Chosen People of God, to stop being so Anti-Semitic. Besides the Silver Lining around the Cloud of being considered as Sub-Human Beings unrecognized by God and beyond any possible touch of Holiness is, well, that the Gentiles can still have their Forgiveness of Sins, or rather, the same thing, and that is that as Animals, they are beneath the considerations of Morality – and that God wouldn’t care what they do anyway, treated with the same Blessed Indifference that shines upon Dog or Monkey. Only the Jews need concern themselves with matters of God.
Hmmmmm. Do you think that this book had a Jewish Publisher? No one complained that all none Jews were denigrated as Sub-Human. It was probably thought that such an objection would be considered Anti-Semitic and prosecuted under the new hate speech laws. As for the book being scholastically a silly piece of idiotic crap, well, it must be wonderful to be a tenured Professor… he teaches in Toronto, one of the Great Centers of Culture and Learning in… Canada. Anyway, what he fails to point out is that his own logic can be turned around… that if Jesus was a Failure for never having achieved his Messiah-hood, then what does this say of the Jewish People who never produced a Messiah, but only a Religion that brings us the Pornography Industry, Liquor Stores, Pawn Shops, crooked Lawyers and a Perpetual War of Aggression in the Middle East… what they call among themselves when they don’t think any Gentiles are listening, Greater Israel. Yes, Jesus was a Moral Failure, but it needs to be pointed out that he had plenty of company. But what do I know, I’m just a subhuman Gentile.
You know, maybe it is far thinking for a Canadian Professor of Religion, but it does not mean that Jesus was not the Messiah just because his people turned against him and killed him. Because his people were incredibly Evil is no indication that he wasn’t absolutely Good… indeed, it is just one more Spiritual Paradox we find ourselves having to deal with. Professor Wilson takes no look at the History of Spiritual Christianity, particularly at the High Point of Christian Civilization, when the numerous Christian Saints stood at least the equal to any Jewish Prophet or Patriarch, and when Paulism was all but forgotten except by a small cluster of the hedonistically corrupt, what we call Bishops. But the Christianity of a great Civilization believed in a God, a Messiah and a Pure Mother of a Messiah, worthy of joining with God Almighty Himself. Yes, it was a Religion that went way beyond its Judaic roots, but it is no crime to rise up above one’s roots – every plant, every flower, every tree hopes to do the same. Life reaches toward the Sky. Death reaches down, staying with the Roots. And reaching up Christianity became a Moral Religion, with Moral Expectations. Indeed everything we have today which makes us capable of Moral Reflection comes to us from that Old Christian Civilization and a Religion that was more than a dry and perhaps even fictional Tradition, but was alive with its own Miracles and deep and brilliant Visions of actual Spirituality.