Christian Sacraments & Magic Rituals

  / gnosticinformant   Please Consider joining my Patreon to help finding scholars to bring on. Any amount helps me. Thank you existing Patrons. Subscribe to Andrew Henry (PhD): ‪@ReligionForBreakfast‬ Subscribe to M. David Litwa (PhD): ‪@m.davidlitwa‬ Gospel of Mark Course: https://gnosticinformant--pursuit4kno... Moses Course: Dr. Bart D. Ehrman https://gnosticinformant--ehrman.thri... Mystery Cults Course: Dr. M David Litwa https://gnosticinformant--pursuit4kno... Quest for the Historical Jesus: Dr. Dale C. Allison Jr. https://gnosticinformant--pursuit4kno... The gospel of healing according to Matthew And Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every sickness among the people. And his fame spread into all of Syria, and they brought to him those who were ill, and Jesus cured them. Readers of the above quote have every reason to feel confused. Gospel of healing? And what’s with the rest of the text, which doesn’t quite agree with the canonical gospel attributed to Matthew? Indeed, this somewhat imprecise citation of Matthew 4:23–24 is not an excerpt from a Bible codex. The text was found inscribed on a piece of parchment excavated a hundred years ago at the site of ancient Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. Dating to the sixth or seventh century and measuring about 2 1/3 by 4 1/3 inches, the scrap—first published in 1911 (as P. Oxy. 8.1077)—is a Christian amulet Proclus (c. 480): theurgy is "a power higher than all human wisdom embracing the blessings of divination, the purifying powers of initiation and in a word all the operations of divine possession" Keith Thomas: "Spiritual magic or theurgy was based on the idea that one could reach God in an ascent up the scale of creation made possible by a rigorous course of prayer, fasting and devotional preparation." Pierre A. Riffard: "Theurgy is a type of magic. It consists of a set of magical practices performed to evoke beneficent spirits in order to see them or know them or in order to influence them, for instance by forcing them to animate a statue, to inhabit a human being (such as a medium), or to disclose mysteries." In late neoplatonism, the spiritual universe is regarded as a series of emanations from the One. From the One emanated the Divine Mind (Nous) and in turn from the Divine Mind emanated the World Soul (Psyche). Neoplatonists insisted that the One is absolutely transcendent and in the emanations nothing of the higher was lost or transmitted to the lower, which remained unchanged by the lower emanations. Therefore, his school resembles a school of meditation or contemplation. Iamblichus, a student of Anatolius and Porphyry (the latter himself was a student of Plotinus), taught a more ritualized method of theurgy that involved invocation and religious, as well as magical, ritual.[6] Iamblichus believed theurgy was an imitation of the gods, and in his major work, On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians, he described theurgic observance as "ritualized cosmogony" that endowed embodied souls with the divine responsibility of creating and preserving the cosmos. Julian favored ritual theurgy, with an emphasis on sacrifice and prayer. He was heavily influenced by Iamblichus' ideas. Esoteric Christianity accepts theurgy as a tradition that could greatly benefit a person. The main feat of Esoteric Christianity is to learn the mysteries of God (see Raziel) and to rise to higher consciousness in the understanding of God's relationship to individual consciousness. Theurgy, in the esoteric tradition, uses this knowledge to heighten one's own spiritual nature. Some branches of Esoteric Christianity hold that if an Esoteric Christian, Rosicrucian, or Theosopher practices it they could potentially rise to the degree of Magus or Adept after a certain level of spiritual attainment. In a traditional and magical sense, theurgy is seen as the opposite of Goetia, even though many argue that they overlap. Just like their pagan neighbors, Jesus’s followers of the first Christian centuries would commonly resort to protection amulets to guard themselves from illness and any kind of harm. Although the Church authorities used to refute what they saw as a superstition and an abomination to the Christian faith, the pagan practice of wearing protection amulets survived well into the second half of the first millennium, with some clergy even participating. https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/d... #christianity #religionforbreakfast #magic