I was reading some material about early Christianity the other day, and I found a rather disturbing so called "forbidden faith"--Gnosis in the early development of Christianity. Is it true that there were many divergent views and interpretations of Jesus teaching from His disciples after He died? And Christianity and Gnosis were considered only two of those divergent beliefs? It seems to be reasonable compared to today's various denominations in Christianity. But later, Christianity became a mainstream religion, and Gnosis was considered a heresy and vanished from the world until the discovery of some acient documents in Egypt. Is it true that Constantine I was the one who first legalized the practice of Christianity and made it become a mainstream religion? Who had the authority of selecting the books in the New Testment? I have so many questions about the development of Christianity. They all comes down to one big question: "does human power overrides God's power?"
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What is Gnosis?
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ConanTheLibrarian
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Gnosticism actually arose independently of Christianity, within Greek philosophy. Like Hindus and Buddhists, Gnostics taught that the material world is an illusion, and that one must seek a secret knowledge (or gnosis) to go beyond it, perhaps like the Buddhist enlightenment.
When Gnostics encountered the early Christians, they sought to re-interpret Christianity in terms of their Gnostic beliefs, even though the two are incompatible. Since matter was impure, in the Gnostic view, the God of the Bible could not be its creator. The Christian teaching of God become Man in the person of Jesus Christ was likewise ruled out.
We have numerous writings coming from the time of the early church that assure us of the trustworthiness of the Christian Gospel. Irenaus, toward the end of the 2nd century, related how the Gospels came to be written, and the message of Christianity carefully handed down from generation to generation. For example, he had been taught by the martyr Polycarp, and Polycarp had been taught by the Apostle John. All of this is from long before the time of Constantine.
It was the successors of the Apostles, called bishops, who were, and are, entrusted with safeguarding the faith in its original purity. Indeed Irenaus reminded his readers that to seek a church that was teaching truth, one only had to seek a church that could trace its succession back to the Apostles. That succession has been preserved to this day, most notably by the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Touchstone magazine had an excellent discussion of Gnosticism in its October 2001 issue, which is available here:
http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=14-08-022-f
Hope this helps.
When Gnostics encountered the early Christians, they sought to re-interpret Christianity in terms of their Gnostic beliefs, even though the two are incompatible. Since matter was impure, in the Gnostic view, the God of the Bible could not be its creator. The Christian teaching of God become Man in the person of Jesus Christ was likewise ruled out.
We have numerous writings coming from the time of the early church that assure us of the trustworthiness of the Christian Gospel. Irenaus, toward the end of the 2nd century, related how the Gospels came to be written, and the message of Christianity carefully handed down from generation to generation. For example, he had been taught by the martyr Polycarp, and Polycarp had been taught by the Apostle John. All of this is from long before the time of Constantine.
It was the successors of the Apostles, called bishops, who were, and are, entrusted with safeguarding the faith in its original purity. Indeed Irenaus reminded his readers that to seek a church that was teaching truth, one only had to seek a church that could trace its succession back to the Apostles. That succession has been preserved to this day, most notably by the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Touchstone magazine had an excellent discussion of Gnosticism in its October 2001 issue, which is available here:
http://touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=14-08-022-f
Hope this helps.
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J
JasonV
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Yes.
Sort of. Christianity included many different beliefs, some of which would be considered orthodox today, others would be hetrodox by today's standard.
Yep.
Yes. He wanted one state religion to support the Roman State. He let the Bishops hash it out, and many were exiled for their different beliefs, and the ones who remained (who made up the majority) became the One True Church.
It was done by Church Vote through the Bishops.
It's good to ask around and learn for your self.
Of course not. The question is how much faith do you have in people to determine non-scientific "truth"?
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You need to remember that the answers to these questions reflect each person's viewpoint. The short answers don't tell nearly the whole story.
"Gnosis" is a very complicated subject. The word "gnosis" just means "knowledge." "Gnostics" were people who claimed to have access to secret knowledge that wasn't taught to ordinary Christians. Some said that they had special messages from the Holy Spirit, but others claimed that they had learned a secret tradition that had been passed down from Jesus without ever being written down. "Gnostic" is really a catch-all term for many different schools of thought which didn't necessarily have anything to do with each other.
Starting in the 2nd century, the Christianity we know, based on the written records that we now call the New Testament, became increasingly dominant. This form of Christianity held together by establishing a network of churches, each led by a bishop. The bishops checked each other and met to resolve disputes, so that no individual bishop got too far from the mainstream. Christians in the network argued that their version of Christianity was the right one because it was built on the consensus of Christians from around the world. They called themselves "Catholic," which means "universal," to distinguish themselves from variations of Christianity that were built on a secret revelation that only a few people could control.
Constantine I legalized Christianity in 313 because he was fighting a civil war and wanted to recruit Christian help. He made Christianity a legal religion, but it was already widespread and popular by then--which is why there were enough Christians to make Constantine's move a smart one.
The books of the New Testament weren't selected by any single authority.
Somewhere around 150 AD, churches started making lists of books that they recognized as genuine records of the apostles. Over time, as the "catholic" network spread, churches compared lists. Over the next 200 years, all the churches in the network settled on a single list, which is what we know as the New Testament.
Hope this helps!
"Gnosis" is a very complicated subject. The word "gnosis" just means "knowledge." "Gnostics" were people who claimed to have access to secret knowledge that wasn't taught to ordinary Christians. Some said that they had special messages from the Holy Spirit, but others claimed that they had learned a secret tradition that had been passed down from Jesus without ever being written down. "Gnostic" is really a catch-all term for many different schools of thought which didn't necessarily have anything to do with each other.
Starting in the 2nd century, the Christianity we know, based on the written records that we now call the New Testament, became increasingly dominant. This form of Christianity held together by establishing a network of churches, each led by a bishop. The bishops checked each other and met to resolve disputes, so that no individual bishop got too far from the mainstream. Christians in the network argued that their version of Christianity was the right one because it was built on the consensus of Christians from around the world. They called themselves "Catholic," which means "universal," to distinguish themselves from variations of Christianity that were built on a secret revelation that only a few people could control.
Constantine I legalized Christianity in 313 because he was fighting a civil war and wanted to recruit Christian help. He made Christianity a legal religion, but it was already widespread and popular by then--which is why there were enough Christians to make Constantine's move a smart one.
The books of the New Testament weren't selected by any single authority.
Somewhere around 150 AD, churches started making lists of books that they recognized as genuine records of the apostles. Over time, as the "catholic" network spread, churches compared lists. Over the next 200 years, all the churches in the network settled on a single list, which is what we know as the New Testament.
Hope this helps!
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The year was 325 A.D. according to the Roman calendar. A council was convened by order of Constantine, the Roman emperor. He had been a leader in the cult known as Sol Invictus (Invincible Sun) and now wanted to unite the Christian sects in the empire under his existing church; the Universal Church of Rome. Many changes to the religion of Christianity were about to take place at that council, including:[/FONT]
- [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Formulation for wording concerning the Trinity based on Anthanias (description of the formulation is mentioned below)[/FONT]
- [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Changing Verses of Bible[/FONT]
- [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Eliminating certain verses and books from the Bible[/FONT]
- [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Changing the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday[/FONT]
- [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Changing the date of Jesus' birthday to December 25th[/FONT]
- [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Introduction of Easter (pagan worship called "Feast of Ishtar")[/FONT]
- [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Church of Roman "officially" became the "Universal Church of the Holy Roman Empire" (the word 'Catholic' means 'universal'[/FONT]
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- Jun 22, 2005
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There's not a single statement in this that bears more than a vague connection to reality.
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Gnosis, or Gnosticism, is what they call "hidden knowledge". These were things that supposedly only a few people knew. The Gnostic Gospel of the Apostle Thomas is one of the types of Gnosis. Also the "Divinci Code" is also Gnostic. The teaching that Jesus had children, and supposedly only a few knew about it, is not only Gnostic, but heretical.
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a_ntv
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That is not historically correct.
Not at all.
The Creed of the council Nicaea did not included the part about the Holy Spirit: so no statment about trinity.
No changes in the verse of the Bible were done.
No book were canceled (also beceuse the canon of the Bible was not jet settled)
Also all other point are not correct.
Prove of it: two Churches were not under the Empire of Costantine: the Assirian Church (that has always been in the Persian Empire) and the Armenian Church: so Cotantine did not had any power on these churches, that on the contrary were enemies of Costantine.
Well, these Churches: believe in Trinity in the same way, worship on Sunday, have Easter, have bishops and many sacraments, and so on...
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If these were all historically accurate, then what would be the source of the truth that we all believe in? Is God the pure source of the truth in the Bible? Or is it merely a modified version of the truth mixed with human subjectivity? -I hope the former.
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Can you explain how all the churches in the network eventually settled on a single list in the course of 200 years?
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Some claim that Gnostic gospels are the earliest version of the Christianity and thus the true teachings of Jesus Christ, and the later version of the Christianity that we know today suppressed the Gnosticism becasue teaching some "secret knowledge" would not have a general application to the public and thus would not gain the power from a "universal" religion.
I was very troubled when I first read those arguements above, but I've just found a verse in the Bible that clarifies the issue/debate of the truth and heresy for me.
"O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called KNOWLEDGE - by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith."
I was very troubled when I first read those arguements above, but I've just found a verse in the Bible that clarifies the issue/debate of the truth and heresy for me.
"O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called KNOWLEDGE - by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith."
1 Timothy 6:20
I don't read Greek, but I suppose the "knowledge" here that Paul talked about is "gnosis".
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ConanTheLibrarian
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Envoy had an in-depth two-part discussion on Gnosticism, the early church, the Da Vinci code etc. It can be found here:
http://www.envoymagazine.com/planetenvoy/Review-DaVinci-part1.htm
http://www.envoymagazine.com/planetenvoy/Review-DaVinci-part1.htm
http://www.envoymagazine.com/planetenvoy/Review-DaVinci-part1.htm
http://www.envoymagazine.com/planetenvoy/Review-DaVinci-part1.htm
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The word "gnosis" means to know and it reflects the idea that those who claimed to be gnostic believed that they had secret knowledge that other believers did not have. They really were not fully developed at the end of the 1st century, but were beginning to and were more fully developed later in the 2nd and 3rd century, particularly in places like modern day Turkey.
The gnostics believed in a hierarchy of spirits, one more pure than the other in a chain of command if you will between God and man. They believed that mainly because of their belief that all flesh is bad and the spirit is good and the two cannot mix. You can see how that would effect their acceptance of the idea of the incarnation of Jesus into a human body. They simply could not accept him as fully God and fully man.
It could also lead to the idea that it didn't matter how sinful you were in the body since it could not corrupt the spirit or the other way around. Many gnostic people were brutal to their bodies insisting that they beat down all desires of the flesh.
I believe if you look at the letter to the Colossae church you see hints of this kind of problem particularly in the 2nd chapter.
One thing you have to keep in mind in the development of the Canon is that God worked all throughout history with imperfect people. Some of whom didn't know that God was working through them. God preserves his word, but as one brother on a forum told me, "He didn't fax his word down to us."
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Yup, that's it..
w timoqee, thn paraqhkhn fulaxon, ektrepomenoV taV bebhlouV kenofwniaV kai antiqeseiV thV yeudwnumou gnwsewV
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Paisley
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Jesus promised us that the church will prevail. I believe this promise, and it is good that you are questioning this. No, man's will cannot change the true Church. The Holy Spirit protects it.
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revanneosl
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The Wikipedia article entitled "Biblical canon" will tell you probably more than you'd ever want to know about the historical development of the several canons of the Bible. It's well-researched and accurate as far as I can tell.
Grace & Peace,
Anne
Grace & Peace,
Anne
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