No*s
Captain Obvious
In another thread Halcyon and I were starting to debate this, but it wasn't the debate forum, so I'm transplanting her post and my response here.
Let the games begin .
The Christian form of the movement is long dead, though. There are no really reliable sources, but a few texts here and there. We have no description of their practices and beliefs. Whether he was accurate in all his portrayels, we do know a couple of things from it:
We know that St. Irenaeus argued Apostolic Succession, just as those before him did. He could do so and apparently considered it to bear weight. His portrayel, and that of other Christians of the time is that the Gnostics tended to separate from the Church and become schismatics.
I don't know of much evidence to the contrary here. If they broke away, they weren't part of the original unless we can demonstrate something really funky happening.
We also know that the Orthodox Church was pretty uniform then. We can see this in St. Irenaeus' writings, the writings of St. Ignatius, both of which conform well with the New Testament, and so on. On the converse, from St. Irenaeus' writings, we see a plethora of mutually exclucive Gnostic sects. While Gnosticism clearly predates Christianity, it cannot be a part of original Christian teaching. The heterogenous nature of it argues against it, and must be accounted for otherwise.
On this, we can largely agree. I never thought of Mandianism as Islamic, but rather, as pre-Islamic .
On Jesus' being a Gnostic, I'd like to see more explanation of what you have for this. It would contradict the Synoptic tradition, which encompasses more than our Gospels and is the earliest records of Christ's sayings. You have my curiosity picqued there.
We don't have anything extant from the sect. However, I think you're dismissing St. Irenaeus description rather quickly. In many ways, the descriptions of this side of things in Against Heresies sounds a lot like how I would describe a sect like the Church of Love.
As we both realize, after all, Gnosticism wasn't a unified group, and well, it'd be extreme idealism to expect the best out of any single group, much less dozens upon dozens each quite different from the others.
Very simple. He edited it to get rid of any references to the Jewish people, because he was anti-semitic. What makes you think it wasn't edited? That's the closest I can think of to Orthodoxy massively editing a Scripture...and here it wasn't Orthodoxy.
That misappropriates Jesus' use of parables (not riddles). Jesus' teaching in parables were aimed at hiding His teachings from the prideful, not from the simple-minded. If anything, He told very simple points and tended to strongly favor the unwashed masses. The points of the parables didn't so much hide it from the leaders because they couldn't intellectually understand them, but because their heart was far from them.
Gnosticism, though, forms its spiritual truths in such a fashion that some of humanity are by nature unfit to receive it. They lack the intellectual capacity, and thus, cannot be as spiritual as others.
In the context of Christianity, Gnosticism is a deviation, which is the definition of the term hersy (it means something akin to "schism") . I think we'll have fun with this thread.
I have too many smilies, so I'm turning off images lol.
Halcyon said:We could debate/discuss this until the cows come home.
Let the games begin .
Halcyon said:St. Irenaeus was a heresy hunter, although some truth may be found in his writings, his goal was to reassure 'good christians' that they were the righteous ones and that those who differed were all evil. I regard his views on gnosticism in a similar light to how i regard some fundamentalist christian's ignorant views on Wicca.
The Christian form of the movement is long dead, though. There are no really reliable sources, but a few texts here and there. We have no description of their practices and beliefs. Whether he was accurate in all his portrayels, we do know a couple of things from it:
We know that St. Irenaeus argued Apostolic Succession, just as those before him did. He could do so and apparently considered it to bear weight. His portrayel, and that of other Christians of the time is that the Gnostics tended to separate from the Church and become schismatics.
I don't know of much evidence to the contrary here. If they broke away, they weren't part of the original unless we can demonstrate something really funky happening.
We also know that the Orthodox Church was pretty uniform then. We can see this in St. Irenaeus' writings, the writings of St. Ignatius, both of which conform well with the New Testament, and so on. On the converse, from St. Irenaeus' writings, we see a plethora of mutually exclucive Gnostic sects. While Gnosticism clearly predates Christianity, it cannot be a part of original Christian teaching. The heterogenous nature of it argues against it, and must be accounted for otherwise.
Halcyon said:Gnosticism is not of course limited to christianity, pagan forms predate christianity, there are also extant islamic forms, the mandaeans. Gnosticism predates 'the beginning'. Many believe Jesus himself was gnostic, many of his teachings seem intrinsically gnostic and (for me) seem strange when interpreted in the messianic 'death cult' way of the orthodox church.
On this, we can largely agree. I never thought of Mandianism as Islamic, but rather, as pre-Islamic .
On Jesus' being a Gnostic, I'd like to see more explanation of what you have for this. It would contradict the Synoptic tradition, which encompasses more than our Gospels and is the earliest records of Christ's sayings. You have my curiosity picqued there.
Halcyon said:]Morals are seen as personal ideas by gnostics, what may seem right for some may not be for others. You mention some sects using women as sex slaves, where did you read this? I find it more likely that the sect in question was mearly more sexually free than the sexually inhibited church followers, if you have evidence to the contrary i'll happily retract that statement, unless the evidence is from a heresy hunter of course.
We don't have anything extant from the sect. However, I think you're dismissing St. Irenaeus description rather quickly. In many ways, the descriptions of this side of things in Against Heresies sounds a lot like how I would describe a sect like the Church of Love.
As we both realize, after all, Gnosticism wasn't a unified group, and well, it'd be extreme idealism to expect the best out of any single group, much less dozens upon dozens each quite different from the others.
Halcyon said:What makes you think Marcion's edition was the edited version? There are those who think its the other way round.
Very simple. He edited it to get rid of any references to the Jewish people, because he was anti-semitic. What makes you think it wasn't edited? That's the closest I can think of to Orthodoxy massively editing a Scripture...and here it wasn't Orthodoxy.
Halcyon said:Some people simply cannot comprehend gnostic thought, what would be the point in teaching those who will never understand. As for riddles, jesus's teachings are only riddles for those who look at them in the wrong light.
That misappropriates Jesus' use of parables (not riddles). Jesus' teaching in parables were aimed at hiding His teachings from the prideful, not from the simple-minded. If anything, He told very simple points and tended to strongly favor the unwashed masses. The points of the parables didn't so much hide it from the leaders because they couldn't intellectually understand them, but because their heart was far from them.
Gnosticism, though, forms its spiritual truths in such a fashion that some of humanity are by nature unfit to receive it. They lack the intellectual capacity, and thus, cannot be as spiritual as others.
Halcyon said:No, quite right, i may be guilty of exaggeration. What i was getting at is that heresy is subjective. For the orthodox the gnostics were heretics, for the gnostics the orthodox were heretics. Christianity considers all other religions heresy as does islam (doesn't it, i'm not totally sure?), and other faiths find fault in christianity. Everyone can't be right, otherwise we'd all be heretics.
So i think heresy simply doesn't exist, in the sense of the orignal post.
In the context of Christianity, Gnosticism is a deviation, which is the definition of the term hersy (it means something akin to "schism") . I think we'll have fun with this thread.
I have too many smilies, so I'm turning off images lol.