Shape shifting Jesus of Egypt???

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Fox News covered this story too. They had a great point that this is what a group of people believed, and not what is valid. However, it is curious to explore what made them believe in this. It does blow the Maudy Thursday away.
 
You answer by saying that this is one of an approximate zillion gnostic manuscripts, and that they are fun to read because they illustrate a period of time when christians let their imaginations run amok, but that they don’t have anything to do (other than historically) with orthodox Christianity.

Here’s the translator, talking about the manuscript. It can help you see that scholars don’t put these translation/commentaries out in order to say that anybody should actually believe any of this fantastical stuff, but just that some of the weirder cul de sacs of history are sort of fascinating all by themselves.
 
Revanneosl said:
You answer by saying that this is one of an approximate zillion gnostic manuscripts, and that they are fun to read because they illustrate a period of time when christians let their imaginations run amok, but that they don’t have anything to do (other than historically) with orthodox Christianity.

Here’s the translator, talking about the manuscript. It can help you see that scholars don’t put these translation/commentaries out in order to say that anybody should actually believe any of this fantastical stuff, but just that some of the weirder cul de sacs of history are sort of fascinating all by themselves.
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Just one correction: pseudo-Cyril isn’t gnostic.
 
FireFromHeaven said:
I don’t. I just want to see what other Catholics think. As for me…:rotfl:
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Before you laugh, know that the idea that Jesus could change His appearance, or at least appear differently to different people (usually based on their level of comprehension), was a serious possibility held by some early Christians. No, it wasn’t just a gnostic idea.
 
patrick457 said:
Before you laugh, know that the idea that Jesus could change His appearance, or at least appear differently to different people (usually based on their level of comprehension), was a serious possibility held by some early Christians. No, it wasn’t just a gnostic idea.
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Who held this view? Is it still believed?
 
FireFromHeaven said:
Who held this view? Is it still believed?
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I think it might derive from the nature of resurrection. If you consider what the resurrection of our bodies entails, we will receive new bodies based upon our DNA, but those bodies will not have grown from infancy into young adulthood. They will not have faced illnesses or nutritional deficiencies, for example.

So when Christ resurrected Himself, it would seem from scripture that the Apostles did not always immediately recognize him. You will read this for yourself in several places, such as when he visited Peter and John while they were fishing (end of Gospel of John). I think that had a lot to do with the fact that he was born into abject poverty and often faced starvation (once he even fasted heroically for forty days).

I think when we consider rationally what must occur when God resurrects a human body, it becomes evident that, though we have the same body in terms of genetic material, our appearance will be somewhat different since that body will be a fully grown adult which never experienced the variation that occurs throughout childhood.

So I can well see why earlier Christians might interpret these passages in the sense that Christ must have the power to change his appearance, but I have only seen these references to ambiguity during the forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension (though I might be wrong). Nor was it really as if he possessed a totally different appearance. He was just a little different such that the Apostles might not at first have recognized him. For example, his face might have been fuller. His height a little taller. His hair could very well have been of a different length, etc.

That’s just a guess, though. I obviously am no expert so if a priest or theologian corrects me, then you obviously should listen to them instead. 😉

This is just one of those weird aspects of the Gospels that interest me.
 
Rete said:
I think it might derive from the nature of resurrection. If you consider what the resurrection of our bodies entails, we will receive new bodies based upon our DNA, but those bodies will not have grown from infancy into young adulthood. They will not have faced illnesses or nutritional deficiencies, for example.

So when Christ resurrected Himself, it would seem from scripture that the Apostles did not always immediately recognize him. You will read this for yourself in several places, such as when he visited Peter and John while they were fishing (end of Gospel of John). I think that had a lot to do with the fact that he was born into abject poverty and often faced starvation (once he even fasted heroically for forty days).

I think when we consider rationally what must occur when God resurrects a human body, it becomes evident that, though we have the same body in terms of genetic material, our appearance will be somewhat different since that body will be a fully grown adult which never experienced the variation that occurs throughout childhood.

So I can well see why earlier Christians might interpret these passages in the sense that Christ must have the power to change his appearance, but I have only seen these references to ambiguity during the forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension (though I might be wrong). Nor was it really as if he possessed a totally different appearance. He was just a little different such that the Apostles might not at first have recognized him. For example, his face might have been fuller. His height a little taller. His hair could very well have been of a different length, etc.

That’s just a guess, though. I obviously am no expert so if a priest or theologian corrects me, then you obviously should listen to them instead. 😉

This is just one of those weird aspects of the Gospels that interest me.
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As a biologist, I have always wondered what the resurrected body is/would be like. Or if God would provide a completely new framework of existence.
 
I thought the bodies are supposed to be similar to the one which Christ possessed after the Resurrection. Basically the same body but with all of the traits described by St. Thomas, such as incorruptibility.

It seems to me that God would want to give us the same bodies, more or less, in order to maximize happiness and eliminate internal discord. I find it difficult to imagine myself with a completely different body, though I am sure genetic defects would need be eliminated.

Other things I wonder about is if, in this perfected material universe, we are able to do things like build spaceships and explore, etc. What exactly do we set our minds and bodies to for eternity besides worshiping God?
 
FireFromHeaven said:
Who held this view? Is it still believed?
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One author we know who held this view was Origen. Responding to the author Celsus, who had claimed that if Jesus were truly divine, He would have looked different from other men and be physically handsome, whereas he (Celsus) had heard that Jesus was short and ugly, Origen countered that Celsus knew only Isaiah 53:2 (“without form or comeliness”), and proceeded to invoke Psalm 45:2 (“fairest among the sons of men”). For Origen, both passages are correct: Jesus’ physical appearance has so many variations and is so capable of transformation, at one time possessing beauty, and at another time having an ignoble form. Thus He is both free and able to appear in different guises, including that of judge and mother, as we are free to envision Christ in these different ways. For Origen, the ability to assume another form was not limited to the incarnate or the resurrected Jesus: the Logos is polymorphous and transpersonal both prior to and after the incarnation and the resurrection.

He appealed to certain details in Scripture which he thought supported the idea that Jesus could not always be recognized: Judas had to give a sign to those who came to arrest Jesus (Matthew 26:48); though Jesus had always been preaching in the Temple, no one had arrested Him then (Matthew 26:5); and finally, Jesus was transformed before Peter, James, and John (Matthew 17:2).

Although Jesus was only a single individual, He was nevertheless more things than one, according to the different standpoint from which He might be regarded; nor was He seen in the same way by all who beheld Him. Now, that He was more things than one, according to the varying point of view, is clear from this statement, I* am the way, and the truth, and the life*; and from this, I am the bread; and this, I am the door, and innumerable others. And that when seen He did not appear in like fashion to all those who saw Him, but according to their several ability to receive Him, will be clear to those who notice why, at the time when He was about to be transfigured on the high mountain, He did not admit all His apostles (to this sight), but only Peter, and James, and John, because they alone were capable of beholding His glory on that occasion, and of observing the glorified appearance of Moses and Elijah, and of listening to their conversation, and to the voice from the heavenly cloud. I am of opinion, too, that before He ascended the mountain where His disciples came to Him alone, and where He taught them the beatitudes, when He was somewhere in the lower part of the mountain, and when, as it became late, He healed those who were brought to Him, freeing them from all sickness and disease, He did not appear the same person to the sick, and to those who needed His healing aid, as to those who were able by reason of their strength to go up the mountain along with Him. Nay, even when He interpreted privately to His own disciples the parables which were delivered to the multitudes without, from whom the explanation was withheld, as they who heard them explained were endowed with higher organs of hearing than they who heard them without explanation, so was it altogether the same with the eyes of their soul, and, I think, also with those of their body. And the following statement shows that He had not always the same appearance, viz., that Judas, when about to betray Him, said to the multitudes who were setting out with him, as not being acquainted with Him, Whomsoever I shall kiss, the same is He. And I think that the Saviour Himself indicates the same thing by the words: I was daily with you, teaching in the temple, and you laid no hold on Me. Entertaining, then, such exalted views regarding Jesus, not only with respect to the Deity within, and which was hidden from the view of the multitude, but with respect to the transfiguration of His body, which took place when and to whom He would, we say, that before Jesus had put off the governments and powers, and while as yet He was not dead unto sin, all men were capable of seeing Him; but that, when He had put off the governments and powers, and had no longer anything which was capable of being seen by the multitude, all who had formerly seen Him were not now able to behold Him. And therefore, sparing them, He did not show Himself to all after His resurrection from the dead.
 
Origen was of the view that the Incarnation was God’s way of adapting to the level of our human capacities. He saw the “flesh” of Christ as belonging to the world of sensory perceptions and therefore assigns it to the realm of “shadows” and images, as opposed to the ‘truth’ (Commentary on John 2.4). This explains why he held the view that people who look at Jesus see Him differently depending on their ability to recognize Him.

Now the Lord Jehovah, according to Moses, is Faithful and True. He is true also in respect of His relation to shadow, type, and image; for such is the Word who is in the opened heaven, for He is not on earth as He is in heaven; on earth He is made flesh and speaks through shadow, type, and image. The multitude, therefore, of those who are reputed to believe are disciples of the shadow of the Word, not of the true Word of God which is in the opened heaven. Hence Jeremiah says, “The Spirit of our face is Christ the Lord, of whom we said, In His shadow shall we live among the nations.”

A side effect of this thinking is the rather disturbing implication that the events in Jesus’ life would mean nothing more than representation of the first and most elementary step of initiation, of induction. This becomes even more disturbing if it considers the suffering of Christ as merely the lowest level of this initiation process, whose highest level would be the Transfiguration and Resurrection. For Origen, those who see Jesus as only being “without form or comeliness” (Isaiah 53:2) - such as his opponent Celsus - are caught in their earthly mentality and are thus unable to climb to the mountain of Transfiguration. In fact, he sees the message of the Cross as a “somatic gospel” intended for those “in the flesh,” distinct from the “spiritual gospel” which the perfected could understand (Commentary on John 1.9):

We must, therefore, be Christians both somatically and spiritually, and where there is a call for the somatic (bodily) Gospel, in which a man says to those who are carnal that he knows nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, so we must do. But should we find those who are perfected in the spirit, and bear fruit in it, and are enamoured of the heavenly wisdom, these must be made to partake of that Word which, after it was made flesh, rose again to what it was in the beginning, with God.

This text portrays the Incarnation as a simple transition, after which the Logos returns to His “original state.” For Origen, the aim of our knowledge of Christ is to behold the Logos “uncovered,” without the wrapping of the flesh.

True to the tradition of the Alexandrian school, Origen thus understands John the Baptist’s statement that he is not worthy to untie Jesus’ sandal strap (John 1:27) allegorically as meaning that the Logos, by becoming flesh, went into hiding, as it were, and “strapped” down. The task, therefore, is to loosen the thong in order to see the Word as He truly is (Commentary on John 6.19):

We must not, however, omit to ask how it comes that Luke and John give the speech without the phrase to stoop down. He, perhaps, who stoops down may be held to unloose in the sense which we have stated. On the other hand, it may be that one who fixes his eyes on the height of the exaltation of the Logos, may find the loosing of those shoes which when one is seeking them seem to be bound, so that He also looses those shoes which are separable from the Logos, and beholds the Logos divested of inferior things, as He is, the Son of God.

In this perspective, the body of Jesus is but “the earthly image” of the “higher reality,” that is, of the Word, which “appears to us in Jesus.” He thus leaves something of a distance between the man Jesus and the Logos. For Origen, Jesus is not entirely identical with the Word; He is its instrument; the Word uses the man Jesus in order to avoid working in its “naked divinity.” Jesus is the manifestation of the Logos, but is not Himself the substance of revelation. Believing in the preexistence of souls (a teaching which would plunge him into controversy after his death), Origen thought that one human soul in particular was destined for Jesus. This soul was like all of the others, but is exceptional in that it is attached to the Logos with fervent devotion and love - whereas other souls use their free will in wrong ways and thus fall away from the Logos to whom they are supposed to be attached. This was a complete union - as complete as when a lump of iron is plunged into a fire and becomes red-hot (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:17 “he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him”). This unique soul, says Origen, became the meeting place of the infinite Logos and finite human nature.

While this somewhat does come dangerously close to Docetism, Origen (unlike Docetists) did believe that the body of Jesus was real. However, due to his emphasis on the Logos as the mediator between God and the created order, at the same time he thought that this physical body could also be altered at will and was more divine than other bodies.

Speaking of Docetists…I went in more detail about this on another thread. Rather than repeat all that here I’ll just give the link: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=10559128

For the record, pseudo-Cyril is miaphysite. (It is a Coptic work, after all.)
 
I think the idea is kind of silly. It’s not that I think Christ could not alter the appearance of His human body if He chooses. He is God and can obviously do whatever He wills.

But His body is a definite and particular human body. It possesses a unique DNA encoding. Thus, there must exist a single and unique appearance. Whether He chooses to disguise Himself is another matter. He can do whatever He wills. So if He wishes to take a different appearance, then that’s what He will do.

Yet He does possess a very distinct and singular natural appearance. It strikes me as diminishing of our humanity to state that Christ would walk around like a human chameleon.
 
Rete said:
I think the idea is kind of silly. It’s not that I think Christ could not alter the appearance of His human body if He chooses. He is God and can obviously do whatever He wills.

But His body is a definite and particular human body. It possesses a unique DNA encoding. Thus, there must exist a single and unique appearance. Whether He chooses to disguise Himself is another matter. He can do whatever He wills. So if He wishes to take a different appearance, then that’s what He will do.

Yet He does possess a very distinct and singular natural appearance. It strikes me as diminishing of our humanity to state that Christ would walk around like a human chameleon.
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You have to remember that in the early centuries, there were two major centers of biblical exegesis and theology: that of Antioch and that of Alexandria. The school of Alexandria is particularly known for its allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures, while the Antiochene school had a more literal and occasionally typological exegesis.

Concerning the matter of christology, the Alexandrian school had traditionally approached the question from the divine angle (on how God could become a human being), while the Antiochian school focused on the human angle (on how the man Jesus could be divine). Consequently, the Alexandrians tended toward a christology that emphasized the union of the human and the divine in Jesus, while the Antiochenes emphasized the distinction between the human and the divine natures of Christ. In fact, taken to the extreme, these different emphases gave birth to two of the major heresies of the early Church. From Antioch came Nestorianism (i.e. Christ had two loosely-united natures), while Monophysitism (i.e. Christ had only one nature, His divinity ‘consuming’ His humanity) - which emerged in reaction to Nestorianism - had its origins from Alexandria.

Gnostic or orthodox, those who held the idea that different people perceive Jesus differently according to their level of understanding usually did so in order to emphasize the divinity of Jesus - although from our point of view it does seem to come dangerously close to emphasizing His divinity at the expense of His humanity.

Here are a couple more ‘orthodox’ sources which also express the same idea. First is the apocryphal Acts of Peter (late 2nd century):

And Peter went into the dining-room and saw that the gospel was being read. So he rolled up (the book) and said, ‘You men who believe and hope in Christ, you must know how the holy scriptures of our Lord should be declared. What we have written by his grace, so far as we were able, although it seems weak to you as yet, yet (we have written) according to our powers, so far as it is endurable to be implanted in human flesh. We should therefore first learn to know the will of God, or (his) goodness; for when error was in full flood and many thousands of men were plunging to destruction, the Lord in his mercy was moved to show himself in another shape and to be seen in the form of a man, on whom neither the Jews nor we were worthy to be enlightened. For each one of us saw (him) as he was able, as he had power to see.

‘And now will I explain to you what has just been read to you. Our Lord, wished me to see his majesty in the holy mountain; but when I with the sons of Zebedee saw the brilliance of his light, I fell as one dead, and closed my eyes and heard his voice, such as I cannot describe, and thought that I had been blinded by his radiance. And recovering my breath a little I said to myself, “Perhaps my Lord willed to bring me here to deprieve me of my sight.” And I said, “If this be you will, Lord, I do not gainsay it.” And he gave me his hand and lifted me up. And when I stood up I saw him in such a form as I was able to take in.

‘So, my dearest brethren, as God as merciful, he has borne our weaknesses and carried our sins, as the prophet says, “He beareth our sins and is afflicted for us; yet we thought him to be afflicted and stricken with wounds.” For “he is in the Father and the Father in him”; he also is himself the fullness of all majesty, who has shown us all his goodness. He ate and drank for our sakes, though himself without hunger or thirst; he bore and suffered reproaches for our sakes; he died and rose again because of us. He who defended me also when I sinned and strengthened me with his greatness, will also comfort you that you may love him, this (God) who is both great and little, beautiful and ugly, young and old, appearing in time and yet in eternity wholly invisible; whom no human hand has grasped, yet is held by his servants, whom no flesh has seen, yet now he is seen; who no hearing has found yet now he is known as the word that is heard; whom no suffering can reach, yet now is (chastened) as we are; who was never chastened, yet now is chastened; who is before the world, yet now is comprehended in time; the beginning greater than all princedom, yet now delivered to the princes; beauteous, yet appearing among us as poor and ugly, yet foreseeing; this Jesus you have, brethren, the door, the light, the way, the bread, the water, the life, the resurrection, the refreshment, the pearl, the treasure, the seed, the abundance, the mustard-seed, the vine, the plough, the grace, the faith, the word: He is all things, and there is no other greater than he. To him be praise for ever and ever. Amen.’

Note that the Acts of Peter is at pains to emphasize that Jesus’ physical body is real (and hence, does not express docetism), and that Jesus really suffered and died for our sakes. Again, as in Origen’s idea, here each of the disciples perceive Jesus “as he was able, as he had power to see.”
 
By the way, concerning the comment about Jesus “[eating] and [drinking] for our sakes, though himself without hunger or thirst.” This ties in with the belief espoused by the contemporaneous Clement of Alexandria (who, as his name implies, is of the same place of origin and school of thought as Origen ;)) that Jesus’ body was incapable of feeling any pleasure or pain. In fact, He never really needed to eat, but He did so anyway in order to keep appearances. Again, this ‘over-spiritualization’ of Jesus (note that Clement also compares the Incarnation to a dream or to a putting on of clothes; Stromata 5.105.4; 5.40.2-3) does seem to veer into docetic territory, but note that Clement argues that Jesus ate precisely so that people would not fall into docetism (Stromata 6.9).

The Gnostic is such, that he is subject only to the affections that exist for the maintenance of the body, such as hunger, thirst, and the like. But in the case of the Saviour, it were ludicrous [to suppose] that the body, as a body, demanded the necessary aids in order to its duration. For He ate, not for the sake of the body, which was kept together by a holy energy, but in order that it might not enter into the minds of those who were with Him to entertain a different opinion of Him; in like manner as certainly some afterwards supposed that He appeared in a phantasmal shape. But He was entirely impassible; inaccessible to any movement of feeling— either pleasure or pain.
 
Now to go to pseudo-Cyril (the work we’re talking about).

A homily which the holy Apa Cyril, the archbishop of Jerusalem, delivered in the early morning of the fourth day of the Great Pascha. He delivered it at the door of the sanctuary, as the people beseeched him: ‘Give us to drink from the well of your blessing.’ He, then, began with the writings of the apostles and related a good deal of their contents. And they marvelled at his teaching, which was sweeter than honey. He started with the sufferings our Saviour endured for us, which are as follows. In the peace of God. Amen.

Our author is likewise no docetic: on the contrary, he understands Jesus’ suffering and death as being real. On the other hand, he emphasizes now and again that this suffering man is actually God. This view of the “suffering God,” in itself an expression of popular ‘monophysitism’ (or more accurately, miaphysitism - the view held by the Coptic Church to this day) allowed the author to insert some elements of a seemingly docetic character which in fact served to show the divine nature of Jesus.

In the work, when Judas goes to the chief priests to sell information about Jesus, they say to him:

“How shall we arrest him, for he does not have a single shape but his appearance changes? Sometimes he is ruddy, sometimes he is white, sometimes he is red, sometimes he is wheat-coloured, sometimes he is pallid like ascetics, sometimes he is a youth, sometimes an old man, sometimes his hair is straight and black, sometimes it is curled, sometimes he is tall, sometimes he is short. In one word, we have never seen him in one and the same appearance.”

Judas answered and said to the chief priests: “Come, pay me the rest of the money and I shall tell you everything. For you know that except for this man’s friend nobody is able to deliver him up to affliction, because no stranger knows his manner of life.” Then the Jews paid him the rest of the money and he told them the way he would deliver him to them, and he said: “Jesus will make preparations to eat the unleavened bread, too, like all of the people, and it is for this reason that he has come to the city. Therefore, prepare good weapons, for there are some among his disciples who are outstanding warriors, and prepare good torches. Since you said to me: ‘We have never seen him in a single shape,’ this is the sign which I shall give to those who will follow me: He whom I shall kiss on his mouth and embrace and to whom I shall say: ‘Hail rabbi!’ he is your man. Arrest him!” As he, then, had said this to the Jews, he took the rest of the money, went to his home and gave it to his wicked wife. He said to her: “Behold, the total of the price of my master!” Then she was very pleased and said to him: “Excellent that you came home today with a better result than on all (other) days. In truth, when you listen to me, I shall make you deliver Mary too, and Peter and John, and then all the apostles.”

Pseudo-Cyril shows an agreement with Origen here: Judas had to identify Jesus to the arrest party because He does not always appear the same to people.

As a little aside, I’d like to point out the comment about Jesus’ hair was sometimes “straight and black” and at other times “curled.” Before the iconography of Christ became fixed, artists often did not agree on how to portray Him: some showed Him as a clean-shaven young man, others showed Him as having a close-cropped, curly hair and a short beard, while still others showed Him with long, flowing hair.

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/4467/solidusjustinianiichris.jpg

http://www.college.columbia.edu/core/sites/core/files/images/2Christ-RomeSP.thumbnail.jpg

The Semitic-looking Jesus with short, frizzy hair - which, somewhat appropriately enough, could be traced to Syria and Palestine - was the main competitor for the depiction of Christ with long hair during the early Byzantine period. In fact, an early 6th-century Byzantine historian, Theodorus Lector, reported an anecdote (preserved in allusions to it by later writers) from the time when St. Gennadius was patriarch of Constantinople (458-471), about a painter whose hand shriveled because “he had depicted [Jesus’] hair divided on his forehead, so that his eyes were not covered, for in such a way the children of the pagans depict Zeus.” Theodorus apparently commented that the depiction of Jesus with the curly hair is “the more authentic.” Despite Theodorus, however, the long-haired Christ eventually won out over the ‘Syrian’ Jesus.
 
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