Exegesis Volume 07 Issue #041

In This Issue:

From: "Roger L. Satterlee"
Subject: [e] Re: exegesis Digest V7 #40

From: "JG or DF"
Subject: [e] Re: exegesis Digest V7 #39


Exegesis Digest Sun, 10 Mar 2002


From: "Roger L. Satterlee"
Subject: [e] Re: exegesis Digest V7 #40
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 05:32:18 -0500


 > >
 > >Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2002 09:08:31 +0100
 > >From: L:Smerillo
 > >Subject: [e] Re: exegesis Digest V7 #38
 > > "[..]For the Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman periods, what records we have indicate that astrologers were absolutely dependent upon their 'tables.' This only stands to reason as an astrologer would be consulted only well after the birth, except in the case of an influential birth [..]"

As long as my intuition leads me to the same conclusions as all of your academic efforts, I think I'll continue to forgo all the extra eye strain...:)

Rog


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From: "JG or DF"
Subject: [e] Re: exegesis Digest V7 #39
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 18:16:14 +1300


 > >>>Origen by the way was not a gnostic
 > >
 > >>Wrong. Alexandria "produced the great second and third-century Gnostic
 > >>masters Carpocrates, Basilides, Valentinus, Clement and Origen". ["The
 > >>Jesus Mysteries", T Freke & P Gandy, 1999, p249.]
 > >
 > >Take it from someone who has several degrees in theology and classics
 > >and is a specialist in Late Antiquity that Origen was not a gnostic.

Why? Just because your particular peer group believes it? Or because you wish to appear as an authority figure? Or both?


 > >Some of his christological views were later thought (albeit mistakenly)
 > >to be dangerously near some views espoused by some gnostic sects and
 > >were out of concordance with the accepted orthodox views of the later
 > >oecumenical councils, hence he was condemned.

He was redefined as a heretic by the Roman Catholics after they finally achieved their monopoly strangle-hold of the Christian market-place - centuries after his death, right? Because he asserted the truth of reincarnation.

Better recall the relevance to the purposes of Exegesis. Origen: "Know that you are another world in miniature and have in you Sol and Luna and even the stars" (Homiliae in Leviticum, 5..2). This statement asserts the hermetic doctrine `as above, so below' in a specifically astrological form. Are you arguing that this assertion does not qualify him as a gnostic? If so, is the obvious implication that Catholic orthodoxy approves this astrological doctrine also something you believe?


 > >The Gnostics were a group
 > >of weirdoes who believed in all sorts of odd tomfoolery.

Oh, okay. Haven't seen this definition of gnostics before, but it sounds awfully like the Roman Catholics. How does one distinguish one sort of mumbo-jumbo from the other?


 > >Origen was much
 > >to bright ( = he had too much gnosis, knowledge) to be one of those,
 > >and I have read much in Origen. Your source is a popular book, which
 > >often contain errors: caveat emptor!
 > >Should you wish to pursue the matter at leisure, I would recommend: < snipped: possibly useful sources; no doubt selected in conformity to the prevailing ideology of your particular academic niche >

One is inclined to muse over the reasons such sources are unpopular. My source did at least go so far as to provide numerous quotes from Origen to prove that he was gnostic.


 > >>>I do not see that the extensive quotes of this author further any
 > >>>discussion, nor apparently do you.
 > >
 > >>Discussion normally proceeds on the basis of intelligent feedback that
 > >>addresses the issues. I may still get some.
 > >
 > >But if the issues are naive?

Well, normal English usage restricts application of this adjective to people. Having checked my dictionary, I acknowledge the possibility that you may mean simplistic issues. If so, I would have thought it obvious that the opposite was the case.

I guess the main reason I compiled and sent those passages of Thomas Moore's to this list was the suitability they provided as an illustration of what draws a large section of the human race to astrology. What psychological buttons are being pushed? Why does the imagination play such a profound functional role in human life? The quotes were windows upon huge vistas of collective experience, with multi-dimensional issues specifically indicated within these, any one of which could have been subject to discussion.

However simplicity lies in the eye of the beholder, along with truth, beauty, etc. If you want, you can use Occam's razor to slash our many-shaded world into divisions of black and white, falsity and truth, so you can peer out through the bars of your own cage...

Dennis Frank


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End of exegesis Digest V7 #41

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