Folks may have heard about Elaine Pagels, who is most famed as the author of The Gnostic Gospels (not the Gnostic gospels themselves, but a book by the same name). She is billed as an expert in Gnosticism and early Christianity and has recently been used as the go-to gal for the MSM wanting juicy pro-heresy quotes on subjects like The Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Judas.
EXCERPTS:
Pagels has carpentered a non-existent quotation, putatively from an ancient source, by silent suppression of relevant context, silent omission of troublesome words, and a mid-sentence shift of 34 chapters backwards through the cited text, so as deliberately to pervert the meaning of the original. While her endnote calls the quote "conflated," the word doesn’t fit even as a euphemism: what we have is not conflation but creation.
Put simply, Irenaeus did not write what Prof. Pagels wished he would have written, so she made good the defect by silently changing the text. Creativity, when applied to one’s sources, is not a compliment. She is a very naughty historian.
Or she would be, were she judged by the conventional canons of scholarship. At the post-graduate institute where I teach, and at any university with which I am familiar, for a professor or a grad student intentionally to falsify a source is a career-ending offense. Among professional scholars, witness tampering is no joke: once the charge is proven, the miscreant is dismissed from the guild and not re-admitted.
I am not calling for academic sanctions but, more simply, for clarification. Pagels should be billed accurately — not as an expert on Gnosticism or Coptic Christianity but as what she is: a lady novelist.
Ouch!
So what’s the fake quote and the real quote?
Pagels’ contortions remind me of the film The Prisoner, in which Sir Alec Guinness plays a cardinal whose words are recorded and then cut and pasted to assemble a confession.
One wonders if many of these neo-Gnostics have any clue what the actual, historical Gnostics believed. I’ve not seen ANY comment on the fact that the original heretics believed that women were sub-human creatures who needed to be made into men in order to enter the Kingdom of God. (See the “Gospel” of Thomas for that reference.) Even the psuedo-Gnosticism propogated by the “Duh Vinci Code” seems to say that women are mere recepticles, containers to be used to achieve self-knowledge.
Jared Weber,
One wonders if many of these neo-Gnostics have any clue what the actual, historical Gnostics believed.
The best example of this is found in both “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” and “The Da Vinci Code”, which both claim that the Cathars protected “the real truth” about Christ, that he married Mary Magdalene and had kids. Anyone who know what the Cathars believed about marrige and sexuality should wonder if not they should be the ones destroying — and not protecting — “the real truth”.
Marriage and sexuality is not sinful, and if Christ was married and had kids this would not in any way be “bad”. But we must also ask ourselves this question: why should Christ marry? Would’t that interfere with him travelling around, proclaiming the Gospel? Paul choosed not to marry, not because it was “wrong”, but because it would require him to take care of his family, and not travelling around as a missionary.
Best,
The Church is the bride of Christ, so it would not make sense for him to have a single human bride. How weird would that be anyway?
Regarding Gnosticism and Neo-Gnosticism, it seems to me that the neo-Gnostics and their spiritual kin tend to emphasise the diversity within “Christianity” in the early centuries to basically open up the cafeteria to most anything, then they pick and choose what they want and invent a religion that is pleasing to them. They don’t seem to care much that their particular set of beliefs was not held by any single ancient group.
JR hit the nail on the head. I have a degree from Yale Divinity School (for what it’s worth)and I concur. And the attempt to continually push back the dating of the gnostic gospels is another attempt to establish the “diversity” of early Christianity. This is not just to invent a religion pleasing to them, but, of course, to argue that TODAY real Christianity should be the same – so hey, if you want pansexuality to be a commandment, abortion a sacrament, etc., then you have historical basis for it. It is not different than that French anti-Semite who concocted the Priory of Sion hoax and then claimed it was centuries old; or the 1970s feminists who claimed that the Church burned millions of witches in the past – the “past” that they invent is supposed to justify today.
BTW as scholars have shown, it was not millions of witches, it was around 50,000, with a quarter of them being men; most died in Protestant countries, not Catholic; most were accused by other people, including many women, not the church; most were condemned by secular courts, not religious ones; etc. etc. etc.
pwned!
I got involved with some shady characters at university and yes, I heard about the Gnostic Gospels. And then I read them (or the fragments of them) and realized what a tremendous joke they are. They are, for lack of a better comparison, like those “slash” fan fictions of Harry Potter or other popular characters in which a fan has written sex scenes or over-the-top drama that makes absolutely no sense.
I think the text that Jared is referencing (The Gospel of Thomas) is the one that totally outraged me as a budding Catholic feminist. In it, Peter and the other apostles complain that Mary Magdalene is merely a woman. (In fact, the Apostles are bunch of insecure whiners in most of the gnostic texts.) Anyway, the text portrays Jesus as saying, “That’s okay. I’m going to take her, change her, and bring her back as a man.” Um, yeah.
Needless to say (but I’ll mention it anyway), I don’t give a lot of credence to a text that basically says that God needs to yell “do-over!” when it comes to women. Some of the other things were even more ridiculous, depicting Jesus as some sort of ghost walking around.
By the way, Father Paul Mankowski is a Jesuit! (C’mon, if you put “Jesuit” after the name of every outrageous unfaithful Jesuit, at least give us credit when the good stuff comes…)
😉
Those pesky facts.
Jesuit John,
Alright, alright: not all Jesuits are bad.
Yeah, lets encourage all the good Jesuits, out there.
It can’t be an easy gig.
May be a little complicated right now, but their roots run very deep. God has used the Jesuits to accomplish many very good things for the Church over the years – let’s pray that God will raise up great new priests to renew the order, as St. John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila did with the Carmelites!
Kjetil’s comment on marriage reveals an interesting prejudice on the meaning of the institution. There are plenty of married folks who travel freely today. Likewise, there were so at the time of Christ.
The Gospel of Thomas opens with a line that indicates why Christians have a difficult time with it. The important thing is not to know the contents of the Gospel, but to know its true meaning. The quest for meaning is a long and difficult journey. If you assume that something has a particular meaning without searching for another possible meaning, you are stuck in ignorance.
For example, what does it mean to render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar? Some pedant will tell you what they want you to think it means, but their understanding is probably far from the truth. In order to know what and how to render unto Caesar, one must climb a ladder of understanding that is more difficult than being spoon-fed a quick definition.
Likewise, the meaning of Christ saying that he would make Mary “male” cannot be understood without difficulty. Without that effort, the best thing to do is to suspend judgement.
As for the apostles looking bad in the Gnostic texts, they look bad in the canonical texts as well. They couldn’t help but look bad. For the most part, they either didn’t listen, or they just didn’t get it.
“In order to know what and how to render unto Caesar, one must climb a ladder of understanding that is more difficult than being spoon-fed a quick definition.”
“The important thing is not to know the contents of the Gospel, but to know its true meaning.”
A little Secret Knowledge going on there?
No, the Gospel of Thomas is spurious and unreliable.
As far as marriage, I don’t think travel is the central issue, there. It was more likely that the responsibilities of being an apostle and those of being a husband and father just did not mesh well.
The latter has an obligation to support and protect his family, which logically works against the idea of risking ones life, freedom and occupation for the cause of spreading the gospel.
Not that it wasn’t done, but Paul certainly didn’t recommend it.
Sophia:
The “Gospel” of “Thomas” states: “114. Simon Peter said to them, ‘Make Mary leave us, for females don’t deserve life.’ Jesus said, ‘Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven.'”
Now, if you’re going to say that there is some esoteric knowledge (a classical aspect of the Gnostic heresy) in this plainly misogynistic statement, you’re also going to have to explain why the early Gnostics took it at face value. Some moderns have gone so far as to say the Christ was, in this passage, acting as a sort of diplomat “between hate-ahs.” Their words; not mine.
Right. This from the Man who, after He appointed Peter head of the Apostles, then tells him, “get thee behind me, Satan.” The Man never minced words with his Apostles. If a saying of His was difficult to understand, He explained it.
Jared, you obviously haven’t done what you need to do to understand what the remark truly means. The misogyny is in the eye of the beholder. Given the historical inclusion of women in gnostic schools and the historic exclusion of women from Christian seminaries, it’s plain to see where the true antipathy resides.
Tim, the true meaning isn’t “secret knowledge” it simply isn’t something you will get from a handy reference manual. If you want to know deeper meaning, you must be willing to look for it. Simply dismissing it as “secret” is your first failure to learn. Seek and you will find it. But first, you have to learn that you are in desperate need of seeking.
“Tim, the true meaning isn’t ‘secret knowledge’…”
It was for the gnostics. But what did they know about gnosticism?
Sophia: If it’s not about secret knowledge, then, pray explain it to me. The very definition of the WORD “gnostic” betrays their beliefs in secret, esoteric knowledge. Sounds like you not be in on the “seekrit.”
As to the idea that exclusion from seminary equals “antipathy” for women. Sorry, “that dog don’t hunt” either. Seminaries are for training priests, so why would women go there? Thing is, the Church raised women up to be spiritual equals to men–indeed, that they are capable of learning–but She (the Church–going by the feminine pronoun) simply recognized that men and women (and, really, each individual) all have different roles.
So, rather than simply telling me how I don’t understand, please explain your point to me. My faith can be defended (and that’s the point of Mr. Akin’s blog). If yours can, too, back it up.
Typo patrol: that third sentence should say, “Sounds like you might not be in on the ‘seekrit.'”
Sophie, I take issue with your comment that “As for the apostles looking bad in the Gnostic texts, they look bad in the canonical texts as well. They couldn’t help but look bad. For the most part, they either didn’t listen, or they just didn’t get it.”
I read all the Gnostic writing I could get my hands on, and one of the tell-tale things is that in the fictionalized accounts, the Apostles tried ordering Jesus around or getting into arguments with him.
“Likewise, the meaning of Christ saying that he would make Mary “male” cannot be understood without difficulty. Without that effort, the best thing to do is to suspend judgement.
I made the effort, much to the frustration and embarrassment of those who wanted a basically neo-pagan goddess worship. It became clear to me that the original Gnostics weren’t into sexual equality, which is why so many of the neo-Gnostics around me really didn’t want anyone to read the remnants of the original Gnostic writings.
Not to mention the false depiction of Jesus is just plain hilarious – especially the parts depicting him as floating along above the ground. The Gospels, on the other hand, make it clear that Jesus walked, wept, and suffered as a real live human being.
“The important thing is not to know the contents of the Gospel, but to know its true meaning.”
Well, we have the Magisterium and about a gazillion documents of the church throughout history, INCLUDING the time the fake gospels were written, so we DO know what the gospels mean. Unless, of course, the real meaning was totally opaque to the scholars and doctors of the Church and those at the time, but has suddenly, miraculously become transparent to 21st century feminists, etc. And unless,of course, Jesus is not who He said He was and He lied – the Holy Spirit DIDN’T guide the Church to truth, especially in the selection of the Four Gospels.
The point is that the gnostic “gospels” shed light ONLY on themselves as later syncretic pastiches and tell us NOTHING of real Christianity.
And some of us DID study the “other gospels” in Ivy divinity schools (just to say that we aren’t academic slouches, not that an Ivy div school is better or worse than any other kind – and probably they ARE worse in terms of Catholicism, but at least you can’t say I went to a school with a pro-Catholic ax to grind!)
…BTW as scholars have shown, it was not millions of witches, it was around 50,000, with a quarter of them being men; most died in Protestant countries, not Catholic… (yds | May 11, 4:19:41 AM)
The claim that Protestants killed more accused witches is one I’ve seen often in Catholic circles (often as a blame-tag rejoinder to accusations regarding the Inquisition), and I had no reason to question it. However, according to Alison Rowlands (or perhaps Lyndal Roper, I can’t distinguish the voices) in this recent BBC program, even though both Catholics and Protestants were eager witch hunters, the places with the most victims were those ruled by Catholic prince/bishops (mostly in Germany). That was the only response to a question on whether Catholics or Protestants were more guilty.
It’s not the answer I was expecting, and I don’t know if it is an error, a half-truth, an honest disagreement over the data, or indeed, the most recent and accurate assessment. Could someone shed some more light on this?
HA: I don’t have time to post it now, but the book Triumph by H.W. Crocker III goes over just this issue. I’ll post it later if no one else does before then.
“Given the historical inclusion of women in gnostic schools and the historic exclusion of women from Christian seminaries, it’s plain to see where the true antipathy resides.”
You mean, those women who wanted to be male were included in the seminaries of the Gnostics? Hehehe, one hell of a time they must have had.
Thanks, Jared. I greatly enjoyed Triumph but must have spaced the section on witches.
The Catholic Encyclopedia cites Janssen, “Hist. of Germ. People”, Eng. tr., XVI, 249-251, for its claim that Protestants were more active witch hunters.
However, this link at CatholicCulture.org paints a different picture:
“The Catholic-ruled Spanish Netherlands (today’s Belgium) saw far worse persecutions than the Protestant-ruled United Provinces of the Netherlands, which had stopped burning convicted witches by 1600….The Rhineland and Southwest Germany suffered severe outbreaks, with German ecclesiastical territories hit hardest. Three-quarters of all witchcraft trials took place in the Catholic-ruled territories of the Holy Roman Empire. But Catholic Portugal, Castile and Spanish-ruled Italy, and the Orthodox lands of Eastern Europe saw virtually none. The panic in Salem, Massachusetts, was as bad as anything in England, but there seem to have been no executions in the Latin colonies of the New World.”
Overall, it states that “Catholics and Protestants hunted witches with comparable vigor”. I get the sense that the variability between different Catholic and Protestant regions suggest the answer can’t be reduced to religious differences (though by the same token, I wish people could be equally circumspect when considering the Inquisition).
It may well be that Catholics prosecuted more people but put to death less, or vice versa, so perhaps both these articles might be right (depending on how exactly one defines “witch hunting”) , but the bottom line appears to be that neither Catholics nor Protestants have a whole lot to brag about on this matter.
From the nonChristian feminist website “Gendercide:”
“…only the most rapidly developing countries, where the Catholic church was weakest, experienced a virulent witch craze (i.e., Germany, France, Switzerland). Where the Catholic church was strong (Spain, Italy, Portugal) hardly any witch craze occurred … the Reformation was definitely the first time that the church had to cope with a large-scale threat to its very existence and legitimacy.” But Ben-Yehuda adds that “Protestants persecuted witches with almost the same zeal as the Catholics … Protestants and Catholics alike felt threatened.”
More importantly, this site and other nonChristian scholars agree that ” ‘The vast majority of witches were condemned by secular courts,’.” with local courts especially noted for their persecutory zeal
HA: I know if you go to ewtn.com, to their q and a forum, you can find boatloads of info. I cannot at this moment find the stats of the number of witches killed by the protestants vs. Catholics.
But I do recall that the Catholic Inquisitions did not perform very many of these at all. In fact, Pope Alexander IV explicitly refused to investigate charges of witchcraft, and those powers were only granted to the Inquisitors a century later and even then very few trials were held and Inquisitors even worked to prevent the civil authorities from doing so. (None of this, by the way, is meant to dismiss witch trials as being wrong, per se. Witches and the like had long been seen BY ALL SOCIETIES especially in pagan Classical Rome and Greece as a tremendous threat to society. But this is neither here nor there.)
The point is that the Inquisitions were mainly concerned with weeding out false teachers not witches. And it must be noted that the Inquisitors never killed anyone, since the Church never had Capital Punishment at its disposal. That authority belonged to the civil governments.
Further notes:
-The Catholic Inquisitors generally (not always) treated witchcraft as a form of insanity. (Will Durant, The Reformation: A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564)
-The Inquisition Myth tends to be a product of secular, protestant, and non-Spanish Catholic propaganda. (Many Italian Catholics–nationalism being more important for many than religious loyalty and truth–either went along with the myth or at least didn’t dispute it.)
-According to historian H.C.Lea (as quoted in Will Durant’s already-mentioned book), in the 350 years of the Spanish Inquisitions, perhaps 4,000 people died. H.W.Crocker (Triumph) makes the point that this is fewer people than died in a single day of the American Civil War, further stating that the issues involved (what it meant to be an American/Spaniard are similar and the limits of dissent.
-Crocker further states “Because of the Inquisition, Spain never suffered the internecine religious warfare unleashed by the Protestant Reformation (except in the Spanish Netherlands)…. Between 1551 and 1600, for example, the Spanish Inquisition claimed an average of four lives per year–making Spain by far Christendom’s safest haven in this time of religious strife.”
I really hope that this doesn’t violate Da Rulz lengthwise. It could’ve been MUCH longer.
Shoot. Italics off.
Sophia,
Kjetil’s comment on marriage reveals an interesting prejudice on the meaning of the institution. There are plenty of married folks who travel freely today. Likewise, there were so at the time of Christ.
As Tim J. pointed out, what I meant is that the responsibilities of fatherhood don’t match really well with the responsibilities of the apostles or of missionaries (or even priests). In Norway, most priests (Lutheran) are married, and the familiy of my priest find his work difficult at times, being more priest and less husband and daddy.
And anyway, If Christ was do die at age 33 and then ascend to heaven; why would he marry? And why would the Cathars — marriage and sexuality haters — guard this “real truth”?
Best,
Sophia-
It is you who is in need of Truth, but you won’t find it in esoteric knowledge or “deeper meanings”. God’s true revelation is public and plain, and what is required from us is not intellectual cleverness, but repentance, faith and love in response to His grace.
Indeed. According to your own words, Sophia, an ability to probe deeper meaning would be necessary for salvific enlightenment.
This of course means that anyone with a serious mental disorder like Downs Syndrome would be damned.
I wonder Sophie, what your views are on Ms. Pagels being a complete fraud. Seeing as she is such a strong advocate for Gnostic cafeteria-ism.
I wonder Sophie, what your views are on Ms. Pagels being a complete fraud. Seeing as she is such a strong advocate for Gnostic cafeteria-ism.
Jared,
The only secrets in our order are those that concern security. Some of us can stick our necks out, and others must remain behind the scenes. What we learn and teach is no secret, it’s public knowledge.
mt,
There are other sources of understanding besides Church documents. Even the huge body of classical literature affords us only a glimpse of the possibilities for understanding. Your assumption of intellectual completeness is part of your fallen state.
Kjetil,
There’s a lot of deception in the Christian study of heretics. Don’t believe everything you read. A number of groups, such as the Cathari, practiced severe asceticism among their leadership. That doesn’t mean that they “hated” laxer practice.
My response was not intended to support Dan Brown’s plot point, but to deflate an absurd argument. People who think that it matters whether or not Jesus had a child have missed the point of his spiritual mission. It’s a distraction from the important stuff.
Tim J.,
From the history of your god, it seems that what is required is repentence from virtue, faith in deception, and a love of theft, murder, and destruction. But, then, that history wasn’t written by the Church, but by its detractors.
Stub,
Given Ms. Pagels’ level of education, she has done a decent job. I don’t agree with all of her conclusions, but her work doesn’t strike me as fraudulent.
In studying the writings of Athanasius, I encountered complete and deliberate fraud. His followers would naturally perceive the truth as being fictitious.
As for the Down’s Syndrome remark, you seem to be misrepresenting the gnostic position on salvation. Since such people do not practice hellish governance in the first place, they’re not in league with the forces of diabolism. It is not they who need to be saved.
“What we learn and teach is no secret, it’s public knowledge.” So what is it that you teach?
From my experience, one taught that humans are all fallen spirits encapsulated in flesh that need to transcend their unimportant bodies. Then there were a couple who taught that NOTHING is real but rather a fabrication by a misguided being and one can only reach a state of perfection by concentrating on one’s own inner spirit. Some taught about reincarnation, but one in particular believed that some people weren’t “real” and didn’t have a full spirit. (I recall that she called them “empty creations of the demiurge”.) I must admit that quite a few did no teaching at all, but greeted each personal discovery with, “No, that’s not quite right. You aren’t looking deeply and fully enough to learn yet.” It was like a game of Hot-or-Cold.
Then again, I rather suspect that many were engaging in the practice of making things up as they went.
As for
“From the history of your god, it seems that what is required is repentence (sic) from virtue, faith in deception, and a love of theft, murder, and destruction”.
And there was me thinking that New Agers prided themselves on being non-judgemental. It just goes to show.
“But, then, that history wasn’t written by the Church, but by it’s detractors”.
Yes Sophie. If you are reading baloney such as that, you would well to question it’s source.
Sophie: I ask, YET AGAIN, along with several others here (with regard to the woman becoming men) …
What
does
it
mean?
Your argumentation style appears to be without any substance, save the standard, “Yeah? So’s your old man!” … or probably more appropriately “Old Man.” (Case in point: “From the history of your god, it seems that what is required is repentence from virtue, faith in deception….” with, then, nothing to back up what you mean. What virtue? What deception? It’s all very vague. One wonders if you HAVE any specifics in mind–any beliefs whatsoever–or if, rather, you’re simply–like a frustated district attorney with no case to plead–throwing stuff out there to see who buys it.)
I’m just a reader of this board like you but, this is the last time I, personally, will dignify any of your non-responses with any reaction until you can explain to me how making a woman “male” is not misogynistic. Just that for starters.
Is one explanation too much?
“From the history of your god, it seems that what is required is repentence from virtue, faith in deception, and a love of theft, murder, and destruction. But, then, that history wasn’t written by the Church, but by its detractors.”
Umm… no.
That would be repentence from sin (like spiritual pride, fr’instance), faith in Christ (the real one… Ya know, crucified, died & was buried… bodily rose on the third day… THAT Jesus), love of God, and love of neighbor for His sake.
As far as history goes, I’m not much of a conspiracy buff. If that reflects the quality of your sources, then frankly I’m not worried.
Miss Jean,
One of the things that we teach is that Christians worship the Antichrist. That’s no secret.
There is a history of secrecy of knowledge before the time of Christ. For example, the existence of transcendental numbers was a closely guarded secret. Early in the Common Era, there were those who trafficked in sacred texts. In order to try to end that practice and in order to protect texts from the fires of despots, they were kept secret.
Jared,
I can’t simply write up what it meant to be male in the context in which the Gospel was written. In order for you to understand, you need to get off of your high horse and do your own grunt work.
When you read that Jesus said that a seed dies before it grows, do you take that literally, or do you interpret it as an allegory? Also, do you ignore all science on the development of plants that transcends that primitive paradigm?
In the ancient seminal principle, the seed was male, the plant was male, the flower was male. The only feminine component was the dirt. Like the seed that dies, the male-only seed is an obsolete concept. Both have been demonstrated to be incorrect.
Your comment on different roles for men and women reminds me of that ole school mentality that a woman’s place is in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. A place for women and every woman in her place.
Even in the overtly misogynistic culture of ancient Greece, the voice of Apollo was feminine. Given the difference between the quality of craftsmanship of the Delphic Oracle and that of the Vatican, it’s no wonder the latter has kept out women. The god of Peter is a jealous god.
Tim,
There seems to have been a whole lot of neighborly love in the wars waged in the name of Christ. Of course, the history of those wars was written by the detractors of the Church.
Neighborly love is not one of the finer aspects of Christianity. One of our students observed that Christians learn to hate themselves, then they learn to extend that hatred to their neighbors.
And for her next trick, Sophia proves that black is white, and gets killed at the next zebra crossing.
I wasn’t aware that there were many real Gnostics left.
It just goes to show that there is no moth-eaten, abandoned creed that SOMEBODY won’t pull out of the dustbin of history and adopt as their own, in a desperate attempt to avoid an encounter with the risen Christ, and confronting their owns sins.
I hear the ancient Greek Gods are making a comeback in Athens, also, not to mention Wicca, that chameleon religion that seems to be all things to all pagans.
Anything but Jesus!
As for the argument from war, I wouldn’t put much stock in the idea that gnosticism is superior to Christianity because the Gnostics have not engaged in war.
For one thing, the Gnostics could not have started a war if they wanted to, being that hardly anyone IS a Gnostic. Who would lead these great and terrible Gnostic armies?
Also, I doubt that many who now call themselves Gnostic would care to risk death, or even injury, for such a faith.
“Also, do you ignore all science on the development of plants that transcends that primitive paradigm.”
Why is it so difficult to parody Gnostics and New Agers?
MaryC,
Is the answer because they are so good at hiding knowledge…especially from themselves?
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Inocencio
The pat answer to this question is: because they do such a splendid job of it themselves.
But seriously, I think you are right. Christ’s message is clear and available to all if they would only accept it. God does not require us to jump through all these exclusive, esoteric hoops in order to be saved.
Doctrinal dance, anyone?
I wondered as to how to answer the latest from … well, I said I wouldn’t respond ’til I got an answer.
I’ve decided to be somewhat forgiving, to practice a bit of patience. Why I’m not sure as my high horse got ticked off at having to wait so long for an answer and ran home on his own.
Oh, Trigger. Why hast thou forsaken me?
The seed story’s meaning is simple, having nothing to do with male/female dicotomies or even with science since neither gender nor science are mentioned.
Unless one dies to oneself–kills selfishness in his life and learns to live not by his own will but by the Will of the Father–one can never have true life. If all I do is try to seek my “own” will–enslaved as it can be to moods and passions and false allegiences to the world, the flesh, or the devil–rather than see that it is the Father’s Will with which I must be brought into line, my life has no meaning … I might as well be dead. The Father wills only good for His creations, whereas I, left to my own devices, will invariably fail to reach my potential.
It has nothing whatever to do with sex or gender. Or science.
The anti-Christian, anti-Christ words of the man in the Gospel of Thomas have everything to gender. So, barring an explanation from … certain parties … we must assume that Neo-Gnostics who claim to be “enlightened” either don’t understand what their teachers meant or are hiding something. Or both.
As I said, my religion can be defended. I guess some religions can only attack. For that reason, so far, this has really not been a fruitful dialogue. Kinda one-sided. Kinda boring. Guess I’ll go make dinner for my oppressed wife while she takes a nap. (I ordered her to take her socks off before she fell asleep; gotta have at least HALF of the equation going.)
Gotta go find that horse, too.
Jared, you’re not forcing your oppressed wife to eat horsemeat, are you?
Meat?!?! Meat is for men….just like salvation.
…And socks…
Meat?!?! Meat is for men….just like salvation.
…And socks…
Jared,
Once again, you missed the point. I did not say that the seed death parable had anything to do with gender.
Your ability to interpret it in an allegorical fashion demonstrates that you have the capacity to interpret becoming “male” in an allegorical fashion, but choose not to.
MaryC,
Are you saved? If so, from what?
A Christian fundamentalist attacked our network facility. We asked what would drive him to do such a thing. “He wants us to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior.”
But it wasn’t we who needed to be saved. It was Jesus who needs to be saved from fundamentalist bigotry.
It’s good that you find humor in our work. It brings us great joy.
Sophia, I am not a Christian Fundamentalist I am a Catholic. I do not claim to be “saved”. Rather I have been redeemed, as you have been, by Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross. I believe that it is possible for me to forfeit my salvation.
My point is, that there is no esoteric secret about what is required for salvation. If you read the New Testament, you will see that it is very clear: repent, be baptized and believe. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, an your neighbour as yourself. Here endeth the first lesson.
I’m glad that you appreciate humour, it is a great gift of God.
I’ve explained my allegory. After repeated attempted … certain parties have proven unable to explain theirs.
‘Nuff said.
Typo: My last post should read “After repeated attempts … certain parties have proven unable to explain theirs.”
Certain parties have no wish for serious dialogue, only accusations without merit or foundation.
Don’t feed the trolls.
“One of the things that we teach is that Christians worship the Antichrist. That’s no secret.”
Then your group must be so different from other Gnostic groups who don’t talk about an anti-Christ. They tend to treat Jesus in a manner similar to a Buddhist avatar. To ask again, what is it that YOU teach? Because all you’re writing so far is that you’re an anti- this or that you’re contrary to that. The implication is that your brand of Gnosticism is merely Contrarism.
“There is a history of secrecy of knowledge before the time of Christ.”
Yes, yes… the secret history of secret knowledge that was in itself a secret, which is why it doesn’t show up in any historical record. It’s been passed down for generations as oral history… with all the problems of oral history, I might add. And so forth. The only problem is that now there are “neo-ancient” religious groups who claim to trace their knowledge back to the Celtic druids, but they contradict each other and have no means to justify what is true since the druids kept no written records. (My personal favorite is are the ones who claim Stonehenge was a structure built by the Druids.) There is also L. Ron Hubbard, who evidently discovered African secret knowledge which is now the basis of Scientology. And the now-lost books of Mormon and their decoding glasses… Need I go on? So what is “knowledge” and what is fable?
Gnosticism also falls into another problem when compared to Christianity. Even the most anti-Christian archeologists testify that Gnostic books related to Christianity didn’t appear until well AFTER the historical accounts of Jesus were written. So saying “but the Gnostics knew the REAL, SECRET truth about Him” is like a 10-year-old telling me, “Let me tell you what it was like in ‘Nam.” Or, to use another example, the recently-released Kennedy assassination tapes reveal that it was CLEARLY a lone gunman who killed the president. Before the graphic footage was released, eyewitness accounts pointed to a lone gunman, but conspiracy theorists had a field day. In 700 years, should historians use the conspiracy theories or the eyewitness accounts?
“For example, the existence of transcendental numbers was a closely guarded secret.”
Oh, that’s just messed up. Why would they be a closely-guarded secret? The only people who might want to know about them were the ones who were stuck while using compasses or the Greek straight-edge system. Unless, of course, you’re implying that there were evil people INTERESTED in prolonging the agony of the plague-ridden Athenians. (Sorry, a little math-meets-mythology humour there.) But seriously, there’s no proof that anyone was able to solve the geometric problems of antiquity IN antiquity, and I’m not inclined to believe anyone who declares they had this “secret knowledge” after 1752.
Early in the Common Era, there were those who trafficked in sacred texts. In order to try to end that practice and in order to protect texts from the fires of despots, they were kept secret.
Oh, I meant to comment on that last quote there:
“Early in the Common Era, there were those who trafficked in sacred texts. In order to try to end that practice and in order to protect texts from the fires of despots, they were kept hidden.”
I think I detect a hint of the mysterious Sphinx (from “Mystery Men”, not Eqypt). That is, say a truism with a knowing or spooky voice…
This doesn’t have a point. It’s not that it’s false or true – vague pronouns make it a little vague. It’s a floating fact. The Christians of Ireland hid books from the burning Vikings. So that proves that the Christian gospels were… hidden knowledge! And so is my friend Fran’s weight and my grandmother’s recipe for gnocci. (Gnoccisism…. mmmmmm!)
“But it wasn’t we who needed to be saved.” Don’t worry, it won’t be forced upon you. God only admits beggars to His Kingdom.
Miss Jean-
Are you a Gnoccic?
MaryC,
Perhaps you will eventually come to repent, experience a legitimate baptism, and come to an understanding that transcends belief in a false paradigm of divinity.
I wish you the best.
MissJean,
If one perceives Jesus as a Buddhist avatar, one has a better understanding than those who worship his antithesis in his name.
I invite you to study history other than the Vatican-approved variety. You’ll be surprised to discover how advanced mathematics was at the time of Christ. There were even people who taught a spherical, rotating Earth paradigm.
As for oral vs. written literature, you underestimate the capacity of oral tradition and overestimate the purity of written texts. Oral discipline does not suffer from some of the corruptions that have plagued the written record.
Also, having to memorize a large body of oral literature cultivates a consciousness that transcends the boundaries of time and place.
As for the difference between fact and fable, there are those who receive fable as fact (as well as those who reject facts as fabulous). For example, some view the story of Noah and the Ark as fact. Some view the story of Jesus walking on water as fact.
Fable has a valid role when it is received as a symbolic representation. Of course, that requires abstract thought. There are those who reject abstract thought because people with Down’s Syndrom may not have the capacity for it.
No, Tim J. I’m more of a Ravolinian. 🙂
Sophia Sadek,
Our Blessed Lord established a hierarchy to authoritativly teach and preach His Gospel. Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and history establish that as fact. We accept that you do not.
God has given you free will to reject Him and His established Church, but you cannot chose the consequence of that decision only suffer it. I pray someday you will accept the gift of faith that you may have understanding.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
I wouldn’t be too upset regarding Sophia’s posts. y’all.
I don’t believe that Sophia, as such, really exists, but that we should search for the more profound, symbolic meaning of these posts.
Obviously, finding the real, deeper meaning of her comments means that the actual factual sense of the text can be dismissed as irrelevant.
C’mon, folks! Words are just gateways to… something.
Anyway, I gotta run. The local gas company has sent me a mysterious letter, and I feel that there is something that they mean to communicate to me, if I can only release my mind from all the pedantic and mundane meaning of these words (and numbers!).
“I invite you to study history other than the Vatican-approved variety.”
You can’t invite me to do something I’ve already done. As it should be clear to you if you’d bothered to read my previous posts, studying history, mathematics and other fields is what blew away the clouds of gnosticism.
“As for oral vs. written literature, you underestimate the capacity of oral tradition and overestimate the purity of written texts. Oral discipline does not suffer from some of the corruptions that have plagued the written record.”
Again, you’re mincing words. Oral tradition does not suffer from SOME of the corruptions, indeed. However, oral tradition, as I mentioned before, suffers from corruptions that are unique to oral tradition; e.g. communicative error via environmental change.
“Also, having to memorize a large body of oral literature cultivates a consciousness that transcends the boundaries of time and place.”
This is just a fancy way of saying that oral narratives (not literature) can be passed to descendents who emigrate from the country of origin. Again, I know this all too well. (Eighty-five cycles of verse on one side of the family and The Kalevala on the other side of the family – to be recited at will or request – joy!)
But perhaps the communicative approach is best if we look at oral tradition. Oral tradition is meant to pass on information in a particular way, with no additions or subtractions. It’s culturally relevant to a particular group. Suffice to say that one major problem with many “neo-ancient” religions is their deconstruction of various cultures and shoving them all together.
For example, your comment about transcendental numbers made little sense in the context of the discussion. You appear to be using transcendental numbers in place of a discussion of transcendentalism itself. In a similar way, one of my Gnostic “teachers” got totally hung up on what she called a “defeminization of the Holy Spirit” because the word “espiritu” is masculine like it’s Latin root; however, she couldn’t explain how this so-called conspiracy allowed for “alma”. (We were speaking in Spanish, btw.) Unfortunately, a linguist solved our problem by explaining that our understanding of Greek and Latin was so poor as to make our conversation a complete joke. (See the 10-year-old telling a Vietnam Vet about ‘Nam example above.)
And before you chide me about opening my mind to see that experts are all dupes of the Vatican-approved linguists – which, by the way, is a totally stupid idea since the Vatican isn’t as old as linguists – allow me to hang you with your own rope. In previous posts you mentioned the Oracle of Delphi and transcendental numbers. Strangely enough, they fit in together. There was a plague devastating Athens, so the Oracle’s advice was sought. The solution, the Oracle said, was to double a cube – namely, a certain altar had to be expanded into another cube with twice the volume. The Athenians tried, but discovered that they couldn’t do it – it became one of the classic Impossible Greek Geometric Problems. However, as you pointed out, many people closely guarded the secret of transcendental numbers, which would have helped the Athenians avert the massive suffering and death which ravaged their land. No doubt the Oracle was in on the conspiracy. Therefore, this story illustrates that Gnostics use their secret hoarded knowledge in order to revel in the suffering of others.
BTW, the above was just an example of the mind-numbing convolutions that neo-Gnosticism encourages. Despite the facade of relying on “oral tradition” and “hidden texts”, the truth is that neo-Gnosticism relies on written translations, published archeological and historical tracts, the Internet, etc. Plus there iis the irony that neo-Gnostics critique other religious truths with Postmodern eyes, yet maintain that they have the secret Truth.
In the end, the Gnostics (the real ones) left Christ to the Christians. And Buddha to the Buddhists, one presumes.
Tim, you merely need to use the ancient Hindu mathematical knowledge (not guarded closely enough, as Arabic traders picked it up and later shared it with the Greeks). Aw, I know you’re having trouble figuring out what I mean, so just once I’ll give you a simple explanation: Scrawl “zero” over the “amount owed” and that will cancel out the negative energy of the gas company. Or something like that…
*insert secret handshake here*
Inocencio,
You may think of the Church as some sort of divine authority, but it is a construct of the mortal imagination. Once you have climbed out of the domain of deception, you will be able to perceive a higher authority.
MissJean,
I admit to the lack of familiarity with the story of the Athenian plague. The flaws in the criticism are two fold. First, it is dubious whether doubling the size of an altar would cure a plague. Second, the math could have been done without divulging the method, only releasing the solution.
BTW, my comment on the quality of craftsmanship of the Delphic priestesses didn’t depend on the accuracy of their predictions. The quality of the presentation is enough to show the validity of women in the practice of priestcraft.
Your observations on our reliance on written texts is well founded. On the other hand, we don’t accept those texts as being some divine authority. We assume that they are flawed. We also look for symbols that can survive the degradation of translation.
As for the defeminization of divinity, it can be seen overtly performed in the writings of Athanasius. He deliberately represented wisdom as masculine in his quotes of Proverbs 8:22.
We’ll agree to leave the Antichrist to Christians. He’s all yours. Jesus, on the other hand, was obviously a gnostic practitioner.
Sophia: Loosen the tinfoil.
Sophia Sadek,
“It’s good that you find humor in our work. It brings us great joy.” “Jesus, on the other hand, was obviously a gnostic practitioner.”
Still laughing at your last comment and I am glad it gives you such joy.
Your beliefs, like your self-given authority to interpret Sacred Scripture are a “construct of the mortal imagination” and not Divine Revelation. The Church is a Divine institution and has survived because of that fact and it will even survive your silliness. I have to admit I look forward to your next joke/post.
Our Blessed Lord willing died upon the cross for you and waits for you to hear those He sent to teach all that He commanded. You remain in my prayers.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
“I admit to the lack of familiarity with the story of the Athenian plague… First, it is dubious whether doubling the size of an altar would cure a plague. Second, the math could have been done without divulging the method, only releasing the solution.”
Actually, the dubiousness of curing a plague through increasing an altar is no less dubious than Gnosticism’s claim that we can transcend our bodies whilst focusing on the sex of them. But as to the second point, the ancient Athenians were quite capable of using backward engineering to determine the mathematics based on the result.
“BTW, my comment on the quality of craftsmanship of the Delphic priestesses didn’t depend on the accuracy of their predictions. The quality of the presentation is enough to show the validity of women in the practice of priestcraft.”
Actually, your statement does. Engineers, for example, have to produce products that are accurate. Presentation is not enough. Showing me that a woman could be as inaccurate as a man doesn’t show anything valid at all. It’s like seeing that a chimpanzee can hold and maneuver a scalpel even though he isn’t accurate in surgery; therefore, it illustrates the validity of chimpanzees as neurosurgeons. Similarly, your choice of examples was a poor one.
Your comments on looking for symbols that can “survive translation” is wishful thinking. As you unwittingly illustrate, cultural and perceptive bias affects translation. In the writings of Athanasius, he uses a masculine GENDER of wisdom but that doesn’t mean that the SEX of wisdom is masculine. I use “gender”, not “sex”, because English-speakers seem not to really understand the difference. For example, I speak of my education using the feminine gender and of my knowledge using the masculine gender. This does not actually affect my view of my sex or imply any sex-based component to either “my education” or “my knowledge”. (Unless of course, my audience decides to twist my words because of their own gender or cultural issues.) Even in a case where there are both a masculine and a feminine version for a word (e.g. “the soul”), my choice doesn’t depend on my view of the sex of my soul but rather such things as alliteration, syllabic emphasis, etc. If listeners or readers decide to use my word choice as an indication of how I view my soul, then the problem lies in them. If I’m charitable, I assume that it’s because their native language is, like English, prevalently gender-neutral.
The best English example I can think of to illustrate this is that, if I say to a cook, “Begin with the dry ingredients”, someone COULD choose to become irate and say, “Clearly, you meant something different from ‘Start with dry ingredients’.” Someone else could even deconstruct the sound of my words and say that the “b” is a hard sound and therefore threatening, whereas the “s” is a softer and more cooperative sound… And then it would devolve from there.
Personally, I don’t think it would hurt if you attempted to answer questions more clearly. For example, you have used phrases like “transcendental numbers” and “anti-Christ” in ways that clearly illustrate that you don’t know their common meaning. Perhaps you could explain what you mean using other words. You also tend to use vague pronouns without clarifying their antecedents. Other than the Athenian plague story – which honestly, I thought you would know since you brought up both the Oracle of Delphi and transcendental numbers – I think my own and other posters comments and illustrations were clear and well-explained. If your purpose is merely to make random contrary statements, then there is no point in continuing this thread.
Inocencio,
Which cross did Satan die on? Inquiring minds want to know.
Anon,
Your comments on the accuracy of oracular consultation demonstrates a lack of understanding. The delphic oracle never responded in the precise manner of an engineer. Those who accepted their consultation in a literal manner wound up falling into a trap.
There are two ways to read the writings of Athanasius. One of them is to receive them as if the man were a valid authority. The other way is to read him critically.
Given his role as a secular power player, the latter technique is more appropriate. A critical reading cannot help but uncover that which a faithful reading glosses over.
The best way to understand feminine divinity is to conceive of two levels of existence: mortal and eternal. A mortal mother gives birth to a mortal entity. An eternal mother gives birth to a non-mortal entity.
There is no spiritual life without spiritual birth. There is no spiritual birth without a spiritual mother.
There are those who may object by saying, “that which is born is subject to death.” Yet those same objectors would probably accept the language of “begotten, not made.”
There is no spiritual life without spiritual birth. There is no spiritual birth without a spiritual mother.
What a pedantic and literal-minded projection of human biology into spiritual realms that have no truck with that sort of limitation.
So, does our spiritual father have sex with our spiritual mother nine months before our spiritual birth (which bestows spiritual life)?
Does our spiritual father then pass out spiritual cigars? (Probably in tin foil wrappers).
“Your comments on the accuracy of oracular consultation demonstrates a lack of understanding.”
Actually, that was me posting. You’ve already written, “I admit to the lack of familiarity with the story of the Athenian plague.” Since we’ve already established that I know more about that particular incident with the Oracle then you do, it’s rather silly of you to say that you understand more about the accuracy of its advice in this incident.
“There are two ways to read the writings of Athanasius. One of them is to receive them as if the man were a valid authority. The other way is to read him critically.”
I was reading him critically. That’s why I noted, at the time, that my Anglo friends didn’t understand that a feminine word (gender) doesn’t reflect the actual sex of what is being described.
“Given his role as a secular power player…”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re the one saying he’s some sort of authority here. So how do you define “valid authority”? For exampl, how do you determine that the Gospel of Thomas is valid? Why do you consider it more authoritative than the Gospels written earlier and within living memory?
“Your comments on the accuracy of oracular consultation demonstrates a lack of understanding.”
Actually, that was me posting. You’ve already written, “I admit to the lack of familiarity with the story of the Athenian plague.” Since we’ve already established that I know more about that particular incident with the Oracle then you do, it’s rather silly of you to say that you understand more about the accuracy of its advice in this incident.
“There are two ways to read the writings of Athanasius. One of them is to receive them as if the man were a valid authority. The other way is to read him critically.”
I was reading him critically. That’s why I noted, at the time, that my Anglo friends didn’t understand that a feminine word (gender) doesn’t reflect the actual sex of what is being described.
“Given his role as a secular power player…”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re the one saying he’s some sort of authority here. So how do you define “valid authority”? For exampl, how do you determine that the Gospel of Thomas is valid? Why do you consider it more authoritative than the Gospels written earlier and within living memory?
Argh, double postings…
I almost forgot: The comment about the accuracy of the oracle was in direct response to your comment that “The quality of craftsmanship of the Delphic priestesses didn’t depend on the accuracy of their predictions. The quality of the presentation is enough to show the validity of women in the practice of priestcraft.” I still insist that validity is dependent on accuracy. To use another example, a cook can present a sumptuous feast to guests, but if the food is spoiled or otherwise inedible, it would not show the validity of her practice of being a cook.
Sophia Sadek,
“It’s good that you find humor in our work. It brings us great joy.” “Which cross did Satan die on? Inquiring minds want to know.
Laughing so hard my sides hurt. Definitely your best “work” so far. Please keep it up since it is such a joy to us both. Really looking forward to your next joke.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Eastern/Gnostic/New Age “spirituality” has always left me cold.
Even the forms of Christian meditation which apply Eastern methods, such as centering prayer, I find to nebulous and wishy-washy.
Give me something substantial to meditate upon, such as a passage from the Gospels – the TRUE gospels, anytime.
Sophia Sadek, it just occurred to me that I should ask you another few questions about your previous posts.
First, I am curious about your statement that modern Gnostics find “symbols that can survive the degradation of translation”. You didn’t give an example of such a symbol. Please do so.
Second, what do YOU think it means in the Gnostic writings when it says “For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven”? You wrote that Christians don’t understand what that means, so here is your opportunity to enlighten us.
I understand that it make take some time to gather your thoughts, consult teachers at your center, etc. I’ll be off-line for about a week, but I’ll check back when I get back.
MissJean,
The fact that there is a hole in my familiarity with Delphic history does not mean that I lack an understanding of the oracular craft. That’s like saying that I fail to comprehend the Constitution simply because I don’t know the histories of all of the presidencies.
WRT Athanasius, secular power players are not true authorities. They sit on the throne of “might,” but typically are not “right.”
We do not depend on the Gospel of Thomas as a source of authority. It contains pointers. The other Gospels also contain pointers. One of the benefits of Thomas is that it doesn’t distract people with fabulous episodes.
Although Thomas was committed to writing after the other Gospels, it has not undergone the corruptions of copyists and interpolators. Also, it is free of apostolic error, though we see that the error factory is hard at work attempting to “control” its contents.
I can satisfy your request for a symbol that has survived corruption: the symbol of petrification. It is a key concept.
WRT the meaning of making Mary “male,” how I understand the text is not important to you. Ultimately, what I think is irrelevant. What truly matters is that it is a pointer to something deeper than any surface meaning that either of us can ascribe to it.
“We do not depend on the Gospel of Thomas as a source of authority. It contains pointers. The other Gospels also contain pointers.”
This all reminds me of the kind of “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” rot that passed for deep thinking when I was growing up in the sixties & seventies.
Interesting that, even though the Gnostics can’t say what all these “pointers” actually point TO, they all agree that they point AWAY from Christ.
That’s about it.
Anything but Jesus! Anything but my PARENTS religion!!
They sit on the throne of “might,” but typically are not “right.”
Hmm reminds me of something we have heard before…
“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” Johnnie Cochran
In fact your whole argument reminds of Al Gore’s approach to law. “When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler.”
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
WRT the meaning of making Mary “male,” how I understand the text is not important to you. Ultimately, what I think is irrelevant. What truly matters is that it is a pointer to something deeper than any surface meaning that either of us can ascribe to it.
What it points to for me is … well, I can’t really say. But I’m giving you my answer in my head. Can you guess what it is? I’ll give you a hint: it’s a gesture.
Yeah, and all this from the same person who wrote that I “obviously haven’t done what you need to do to understand what the remark truly means.” But what it means is “irrelevant.”
You’re right, Inocencio … this is frikkin’ hilarious.
I wonder if my parish could hire someone to do this kind of stand up at the next church picnic. Gotta be better than the balloon animal guy.
Actually Sophia Sadeks site is here
http://sophia-sadek.livejournal.com/
and like here she doesn’t actually say anything.
Oh that’s funny.
Also, check the “livejournal community info” for the gnosticism community. More than two dozen members with deleted journals.
Could it be (as Tim J said earlier) that they never existed?
Tim J.
I’m sorry, the Gospels do not point away from Christ. Instead, they point away from the Bishop of Rome as the “vicar of Christ.” They point to a path that leads away from deception.
I’m sorry to hear that you are a prisoner of your parents’ prejudices. Whatever works for you.
Jared,
You’ve misread the comment. What the passage means to me is not relevant to other people. If you cannot perceive a pointer to something higher, perhaps you are not meant to make the passage. It’s as Christ implied, if the damned could understand, then they would no longer be damned.
“Now who can argue with that!”
Sophia Sadek,
Thanks for all the laughs. Especially this one:
smell the fragrance itself submerged in the fragrance. . .
Ok, sides hurting from laughing so hard and giving joy to the gnostics.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
“It’s as Christ implied, if the damned could understand, then they would no longer be damned.” She must be referring to the alternate reality Christ.
Wow. Sophie. That sounds a LOT like one of those fundamentalists you hate so much. Or possibly a Puritan.
Or, you know, something you’d find in a fortune cookie.
Talk about prejudices.
Bill: you mean the one with the goatee?
Jared: don’t worry; we’re only symbolically damned.
“WRT the meaning of making Mary “male,” how I understand the text is not important to you. Ultimately, what I think is irrelevant.”
I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks, Sophia.
To everyone else, I found the following webpage while doing research on Liberation Theology. It saddens me that This particular gnostic group features Fr. Oscar Romero without reference to his Roman Catholicism and Liberation Theology without the understanding that people like Fr. Rutiho Grande based this on Christian beliefs, not Gnostic “knowledge”.
http://www.gnosticcenter.org/liberationtheology.html
I am caught between being annoyed and laughing aloud that neo-Gnostic centres are calling their services “Mass” (as opposed to “Divine Services” or “Divine Rites”, which was at least original). The people that I knew were very clear that Gnosticism wanted nothing to do with the Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, or any similar entity. But there are several of these centres that mix Western rosaries and Orthodox icons with their own practices. Or maybe it’s just a ploy to attract cultural Catholics and other Christians who don’t know the difference.
What truly matters is that it is a pointer to something deeper than any surface meaning that either of us can ascribe to it.
Or shallower.
How can you claim to know it is deep when you don’t know what it is?
How even can you claim to know to know that it’s not literal if you don’t know what it means?
If someone says of a signpost that it points to some place better than around here, and then admits to never having been there and not know what is there — how seriously would you take them? And why should we have lower standards for more important matters?
BTW, before I am subjected to a history of prayer beads, I am aware of the Jyuzu, the string of 108 beads which Buddhists recite “Nam Buddha, nam dharma, nam sangha”. The recitation and meditation was supposed to help eliminate earthly desires.
But the term “rosary” refers to particular Western beads dedicated to recalling the Anunciation, etc. it would be incorrect to say a “Christian jyuzu”, although calling them “Catholic prayer beads” is a decent synonym.
Jared,
I don’t hate fundamentalists. Sometimes the things that they say and do disturb me, but I cannot “hate” them for it.
As for my puritanism, when asked if I thought that Christians should be burned at the stake, I replied that as an Epicurean, I advocate feeding them blackened steak instead.
Our school uses educational methods, not physical ones. I must say, that some folks appear to be pretty burned up over some of my remarks.
MissJean,
You’ve already caught yourself on the rosary. Most of the images are pre-Christian as well. Santa Claus, for example, is a druidic icon.
Mary,
In saying that I don’t know what the passage means, you’ve missed the point of my remark. If you chose to subscribe to a shallow “misogynistic” meaning, that’s your prerogative.
Nope. I like my steak rare, thank you. The redder, the better.
And I’m not burned up. I’m just amused by the irony of one who claims to be wise (congratulating herself on her puns), then won’t explain herself (preferring attack to defense of … whatever), and then condemns someone to Hell for asking (repeatedly and always fruitlessly) for explanation.
When … certain parties … first posted here, I wondered why in the world anyone would be a student of such a thing. After asking questions, I’m left with the only possible explanation being that the students just want to attend stand-up routines. You know, fer laughs.
“Santa Claus, for example, is a druidic icon.” And I always thought St. Nicholas of Myra was a Father of the Council of Nicaea!
“…you’ve missed the point of my remark.” You’ve managed to expend a lot of verbiage without making one.
“When…certain parties…first posted here, I wondered why in the worldanyone would be a student of such a thing.” We are handicapped by rational thought, Jared.
Hey, Bill, y’know, I just learned something from … certain parties. “Evil is in the eye of the beholder.” Seems it doesn’t really exist. So, actually, this conversation never happened … unless I want it to have happened.
And Santa Claus? He could be a Druid if I want ‘im ta be. Heck, he could even be that creepy Senor Cardgage* from down the street. You know the one. Eh? Ah! You know. The guy with the wicked comb-over.
*If you don’t know who Senor Cardgage is, here’s a link** http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/Senor_Cardgage
**I highly recommend visiting http://www.homestarrunner.com for more amusing passtimes than … well, this conversation. It was funny for a while, but now it’s just too easy. Time for me to move on to funnier pastures.
Santa claus is a Druid!!
Oh… that’s too much!
Coffee up my nose.
Oh man, laughing ’til my sides ache.
Bill & Tim,
You may want to re-read the comment. It was a reference to iconography. The druids are real people. Santa Claus is an icon from druidic culture.
There are many such pagan icons in Christianity. Don’t forget that the dispute over icons divided the Church. Those icons were introduced around the time that the Church outlawed the pagan religions. At the time of the Nicene Council, those images were purely pagan. The ante-Nicene Churches followed the Jewish example of excluding images from their holy places.
The next bit if rational thought I’ll hear from you guys is that Cupid is really a martyred priest named Valentine.
Oh but it’s all “in the eye of the beholder,” Sophie. So, no matter what anyone says, be it Bill or Tim or yourself, I can see it if I want to, or not if I don’t.
Your words, Sophie. All of your arguments and attacks are moot if we follow your own words.
But keep ’em comin’ anyway. Tim J. has coffee in his nose and I wouldn’t miss another shot at seeing him snarf his bologna sandwich.
The icons were introduced around the time that the Church outlawed the pagan religions.” The pagan religions weren’t outlawed, they just faded away.
At the time of the Nicene Council, those images were purely pagan.” How did all those icons of Christ, Mary, Peter, and other saints get on the walls of the Catacombs, dating all the way back to the first century?
Oops! I allowed rational thought to intrude again!
I know, I know: I only have facts and logic on my side; I am not privy to Higher Truth.
Sophia Sadek,
“The ante-Nicene Churches followed the Jewish example of excluding images from their holy places.”
Completely wrong again! Solomon built the Temple with images of cherubim, trees, flowers, bronze oxen, and lions. See 1Kings 6:23-29 and 1Kings 7:25-45.
“Don’t forget that the dispute over icons divided the Church.”
Please don’t forget that the Church with its God-given authority settle the
dispute.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
“I wouldn’t miss another shot at seeing him snarf his bologna sandwich.”
Not a chance, after this thread I have had about all the baloney I can handle.
This high-level Gnosticism now begins to remind me of the Firesign Theater album “Everything You Know is Wrong”.
Gnosticism is NOT an early heresy discarded by the Christian Church… Christianity is the heresy, rejected by the Gnostics. Somehow, the upstart Catholics got the upper hand, went back and changed every historical document ever written by anyone.
Those crafty Papists.
And God commanded that the images of Cherubim be placed on the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18021).
That should be Exodus 25:18-21
Tim, I see that you have tapped into the Higher Truth and thus have become dangerous. Beware of Black Helicopters and Albino Monks.
Don’t forget about the bronze serpent Moses put up to cure the people of their snake bites.
Also, beware the MothMan. Gonna gitcaha!
And beware Sophia’s power of causing liquid to shoot forth from our noses just by her “knowledge!”
Note to self: remember no drinking coffee while reading her post.
Bill,
You claim that other religions weren’t outlawed. I suppose witches weren’t burned either. They simply got on their broomsticks and flew off.
Your sense of history reminds me of the woman who, at the time of the Chernoble meltdown, asserted that there was never a nuclear power accident in the U.S.
I suppose you believe that Native Americans were never given disease-ridden blankets. African Americans were never lynched for being uppity, and other such myths of irrational history.
Inocencio,
Yes, I agree that the Church has divine authority, but you must realize that above the level of the creator of the flat and immobile Earth, there is a higher level of divinity.
BTW, in your last comment you omitted your usual signature. Was that an oversight, or are you considering repenting from idolatry?
As for the idle chatter about icons, correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t those images excluded from the interior of the holy of holies? There is a description of pagan surprise over the absense of images from the interior of the temple.
You may think this somewhat shy of reason, but there is a connection between the Jewish attitude towards temple statuary and that of the Zoroastrians. When Persians invaded Greek territory, they removed statues from temples saying that it was impious to imprison the gods in such a manner.
*…above the level of the creator of the flat and immobile Earth….*
Sophia, so you are a flat-earther. Now why doesn’t that surprise me.
“You may think this somewhat shy of reason…”
Yeah.
Everybody knows the earth is actually banana-shaped. Didn’t you people see “Monty Python And The Holy Grail”?
And no, I do not know the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow (neither African nor European).
“correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t those images excluded from the interior of the holy of holies?”
1Kings6:23 In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olivewood, each ten cubits high.
As Bill912 pointed out God instructed that the Ark of the Covenant have cherubim on it.
“BTW, in your last comment you omitted your usual signature. Was that an oversight, or are you considering repenting from idolatry?”
I usually sign when I am addressing a particular person and not when making a general comment.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
“Yes, I agree that the Church has divine authority, but you must realize that above the level of the creator of the flat and immobile Earth, there is a higher level of divinity.”
Oh, here we go with the Gnostic line about the Catholic Church being the church of Satan … ooo, the demiurge. AND the “flat and immobile Earth” comment only underlines the clearly comic intent. But, Sophie, you’re funnier when you don’t try so hard. I know you’re trying out new material but, c’mon.
Sophia, Fr. Oscar Romero wasn’t a druid. He was a Roman Catholic priest who espoused Liberation Theology which was based on Catholic beliefs, especially the idea of service to the poor, the uneducated, and the outcasts. So why would an icon of him be on a gnostic centre site, along with a quote from the Gospel of Matthew?
I would think that, as a professor of Metaphysics, you’d be qualified to comment. Oh, and another question: Why a “Saint” Sophia Community of Gnostics? Why apply an honorific for a mere human being if “Sophia” refers to wisdom itself?
MaryC,
Au contraire, it is the Church that has a history of flatearthiness.
MissJean,
Traditionally, the Church has promoted poverty, opposed education, and been a force for casting people out. Certainly, Mr. Romero has acted admirably by espousing the antitraditionalist discipline of Liberation Theology. There have been many closet and overt gnostics within the Roman Communion.
I don’t know where the druid comment comes from. Although druids are gnostic practitioners, not all gnostic practitioners are druids.
As for the order of St. Sophia, they appear to be Rosicrucian. You’re better off asking them the origin of their name and their use of a saintly title. I can say that, although it is used as such by the Church, the word does not necessarily imply a human honorific.
Sophia Sadek,
Traditionally, the Church has promoted poverty, opposed education, and been a force for casting people out.
Talk about being unknowledgeable. No comment about being wrong about images in the holy of holies?
I agree with Jared.
Sophie, you’re funnier when you don’t try so hard.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
*Au contraire, it is the Church that has a history of flatearthiness*.
And Gnosticism that has a history of pretentiousness.
“Traditionally, the Church has…opposed education.” For about a millenium, the Church operated the *only* schools in Europe.
Too easy. I’ve had enough of this silliness.
I agree Bill. Should we stop feeding this troll?
Bill,
Those “schools” were notoriously bad. The reason they were the only ones is that the Church actively opposed higher quality education. They even shot their own parents by shutting down the schools that provided the training for their top clerics.
Inocencio,
I haven’t checked your scriptural reference because it doesn’t relate to the practice of Jews at the time of Christ. The temple was constructed centuries before. Besides the images you mention would not be considered icons of deity. The closest you come is the cherubim, which was a standard embelishment in ancient Middle Eastern structures.
“I don’t know where the druid comment comes from. Although druids are gnostic practitioners, not all gnostic practitioners are druids.”
So you also practice human sacrafice or has your enlightenment progressed. Check your history the druids practiced human sacrafice.
All the major Universities in Europe and many in the US were started by the church ie., Oxford, Tubingen, Harvard, Cambridge. Also the modern concept of hospitals were started by the church including the red cross. During the plague it was the priests and nuns who suffered high mortality rates because they cared for the sick.
Don’t follow the trap of deconsructing all history. Deconstructionism is what you want history to be not necessarily how it was ie., geschicte vs. historie
If you chose to subscribe to a shallow “misogynistic” meaning, that’s your prerogative.
You claim not to know the meaning of it. Perhaps it is just your shallow rejection of it as misogynistic that prevents you from understanding it.
Mary,
Once again, saying that my understanding is irrelevant to you is not the same thing as saying that I don’t understand. I beg leave to refrain from putting out anything shallow. The deeper meaning is ineffable.
Ron,
Yes, it’s true that the druids were accused of human sacrifice. So were the Jews. The Zoroastrian Magi were also accused of human sacrifice.
One of the druidic leaders was sacrificed by the Romans at the temple of Mars. It was the Romans who used the accusation of human sacrifice to attack the druids.
The American practice of lynching and burning African Americans could be considered a form of human sacrifice. Likewise, the performance of certain psychiatric “treatments,” such as lobotamies and chemical straight-jacketing. The execution of criminals could also be so construed.
If you knew how much of your cultural heritage comes from druidic culture, you would not be so disrespectful. In a sense, they made you what you are today. You wouldn’t want to disrespect your creator, would you?
Sophia: this thread now stands at 126. I think you are aiming to break the record for the number of posts to a single thread. anyone any idea what the record is ?
You wouldn’t want to disrespect your creator, would you?
I am indebted to the Celtic church, and the druids created me? interesting i did not realize they were also gods.
There is a difference between execution and sacrafice, your saying then the druids executed rather then sacraficed.
where is your source material oh enlightened one.
“The American practice of lynching and burning African Americans could be considered a form of human sacrifice.”
No, not actually. At least, not by anyone with a functioning cerebelum.
“Likewise, the performance of certain psychiatric “treatments,” such as lobotamies and chemical straight-jacketing. The execution of criminals could also be so construed.”
See, this is the preposterousness of the Dan Brown-ian/Gnostic take on history. If two things are similar, they are the SAME (if it helps your argument).
If it COULD be true, it MUST be true!
From my research it would seem that human sacrifice was practiced but rare among both the Celtic and Germanic peoples. As someone of mostly Germanic/Norse decent, I would like to say that the “pre-Christian” attributes of Santa Claus are pretty clearly Germanic in origin, not druidic.
Let’s not argue though against the fact of pagan cultural elements in conteporary Christian culture. They are there, and provide a certain depth to Western Culture and provide a sort of cultural connection to our ancestors (those of us with European ancestry that is, I would like to see a simiar situation with other cultures). At the same time these pre-Christian cultural elements have been pretty thoroughly “baptized,” loosing their specific pagan meaning and becoming as innocent as children’s fairy tales.
Our friend Sophia is isolating the mistakes made and sins commited by some Christians in certain historical time periods and using it to argue against the Christian Faith. Does she realize that we accept fully that we view the Church as, among other things, the place where God sits down with sinners? Telling us that there were sinners in the Church of the past is not news to us, nor does it cast doubt uppon orthodox Catholicism. It rather confirms it. We are sinners, in need of redemption.
If only Sophia knew the joy and peace that comes with accepting Christ. I just got back from volunteering in New Orleans, gutting houses by day and sleeping in a tent with over 300 people in it by night (btw FEMA is pulling out of Camp Algiers June 1 and I hope Jimmy will post something on that). The work was hard, and the devastation heartbreaking, yet as St. Francis said “when I left them, what had seemed bitter to me was turned into sweetness of soul and body.” The sun and the trees and my aching muscles sang to me of God, and in the Eucharist I was united to him. G.K. Chesterton once wrote something like “you can tell you really believe something not when one thing proves it to you, but when everything proves it to you.”
I write this not to boast of my own spiritual progress, but to give a little bit of a first hand experience of the peace and joy that comes from a relationship with Christ. Traditional Christianity is not shallow, nor is it beyond the capacity of ordinary human beings. It is about love, especialy love between yourself the Love who is is all in all.
It would seem that Sophia has eyes but does not see and ears but does not hear, and has hardened her heart agaist the Lord, prefering the appearance of wisdom and mystery to the clear and wonderful (but still mysterious) reality of God. I doubt arguing with her on specific matters of doctrine or history will accomplish anything. What she needs is a conversion of heart. So do I (again) and I suspect the rest of you do too. Let us pray that as Pentecost approaches the Holy Spirit may fill us and help us to get past our own illusions, so that we may truly come to know, and love, the true God of Light.
I beg leave to refrain from putting out anything shallow. The deeper meaning is ineffable.
That’s just your unenlightened perception of what is deep and what shallow.
0:)
Ron,
The goal of any sacrifice is propitiation. In the case of the death penalty and Klanster activity, there is an element of propitiation.
As for my sources, I wish I could name them, but my time is too valuable for such a mundane task. I leave the math to the serious student.
Stoodley,
I’ve read many scholarly accounts of the differences between Celtic and Germanic culture. Given the number of commonalities, it is like describing the differences between Japanese and Chinese culture. Certainly there are distinctions, but the level of cultural intercourse was greater than you might expect. It appears that druids were active in Germanic territory. Certainly, for a place like the British Isles, the German invaders could not have avoided being influenced by the sea of Celtic culture in which they swam.
If we look back even further in time, the extent of druidic influence at the peak of their empire stretched from the Iberian Peninsula, up through the British Isles, across the continent through the alps and into the colony of Galatia in Anatolia.
As for my sources, I wish I could name them, but my time is too valuable for such a mundane task. I leave the math to the serious student.
The fact that you post here so much would tend to indicate that you’ve plenty of time on your hands.
“As for my sources, I wish I could name them, but my time is too valuable for such a mundane task.”
Ha! Oh, I think this is her best line yet!! Just classic.
Well, as entertaining as this thread has been, I am dropping it… my time is too valuable, and I think beating a dead horse could be a sin.
We are accountable for the use of our time, after all.
Since I missed out on most of the discussion, I think I will give the old carcass another kick or two.
Sophia,
My own reading has suggested that the religion of the Germanic peoples was more derived from their Indo-European roots and the Ugro-Finnic people that the proto-Germanic (or should it be pre-proto-Germanic?) invaders conquered.
I would have nothing against a major Celtic/druidic (there seems to be some debate as to how interchagable those two terms are), I’m also part Irish to after all, but my impression is that the similarities are largely derived from a similar history and Indo-European roots. Thus Santa Claus, with his qualities of a Germanic shaman, would be more related to Finnish or Sámi or maybe even Siberian and Inuit shamans (I’m guessing that bit based on the whole circumpolar culture idea) than to druids.
An analogy might be made to Germanic art. While there was probably some Celtic influence on Germanic art, the consensus seems to be that the main influence was from the faunaform art of central Asia, brought to Europe by the Huns and Avars.
You may know more about this matter than I do, but it seems to me you want to claim Santa Claus and Germanic religion in general for a reason similar to why a VERY Irish friend of mine when I showed him some pictures of the carvings on medieval Norwegian stave churches immediately tried to say they must have been copied from Irish art. You have given a sort of loyalty to the druids, and thus want to credit them with as much as possible.
I think I like you, Sophia. Like I tend to have plenty of time to post here but not to look up my sources, so I will not hold that against you.
You reject the secularism of this age and clearly have considerable respect for human life. You concern yourelf with spirituality, supernatural truth, morality, and tradition. Great!
I would encourage you though to do some more research into Christianity, especially Catholicism which perhaps from your vantage point you can see is the central form traditional Christianity. Many things you have said reveal a simple lack of understanding of our Faith. Perhaps reading primary sourse documents on Christianity, like the Catechism of the Catholic Church or the documents of Vatican II or the Pope’s new encyclical Deus Caritas Est. If you insist on edgy, controvercial spiritual stuff then you might read a book or two by Thomas Merton.
As a gnostic I presume you seek understanding. Is it not important to learn how others relate to God (or at least think they do if you deny we worship the God worth worshiping), at least if you wish to interact with Christians like this? Millions of people have reached great spiritual fulfillment as Christians. It is a religion that incorporates everything imaginable around the simple but incomprehensible idea of one eternal God. From this God comes great meaning and purpose for everything else, and everything else leads passionately to Him.
Christianity is something deeper than the sea and higher than the farthest star, sharper and more piercing than a sword yet wider and stronger than the roots of the mountians. It has all the grandeure and nobility of Solomon’s palace and all the simplicity of Nazareth.
Even if my silly prose does nothing to describe it, the Christian vision is beautiful, and as limitless but exact as our God. You would do well to try to comprehend it.
Stoodley,
My adversity to the failings of the Church does not mean that I do not respect the good things that have been done in the name of Christ. I’ve read nearly as many Christian texts as non-Christian. Of course, the negative aspects of those texts have made a greater impression than the positive. Just as the negative aspects of my own banter is more striking.
One of the little known intersections of the druidic tradition and that of Christianity is the seminary established by Columkill in the sixth century. It preserved the cultural aspects of the druidic tradition related to language and oratory while adopting the Judeo-Christian mythic tradition.
It successfully replaced the charlatan school that Patrick had established in the previous century. It also lasted through centuries of persecution and attempted destruction by the Roman authorities.
The sad irony is that it was also attacked by Anglicans as being a “popish” seminary. It just goes to show that Julian’s observation has continued to remain true throughout history: Christians are their own worst enemies.
We all know Christians are terrible sinners, same as everyone else. What is important is the substance of Christianity itself, which is the expression of God.
There is a fine distinction between asserting that Christians are vicious in spite of being Christian and asserting that they are vicious becasue of being Christian.
From the inside, you see an expression of the divine. From the outside, we see a manifestation of enforced ignorance. It’s obvious to the casual observer that the Christian tree is not the same as the tree of Christ. The fruits of the Christian tree are rotten to the core.
This makes sense from a historical perspective. The fruitless brance of the vine was severed from the original root stalk. In its jealousy over the productive branches, it attacked with vigor and without ruth.
Sophia Sadek,
I thank you for your most recent comments I needed a good laugh.
Your silliness brings great joy!
And feel free to “understand” the deeper “truths” of my words with your “knowledge” of higher meanings.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Welcome to Fantasy Island, indeed.
Any attempt to seperate the Church from it’s roots in Christ, by the use of historical sleight-of-hand or in any other way, is a lie and Satanic in it’s origins.
It can’t be done, except by false claims of “secret” or “hidden” knowledge.
“We can’t give evidence because it’s a secret, or is hidden from the unenlightened, or is just too sublime for your mundane minds to accept.”
How convenient. A continuous intellectual shell game.
The Church conspired to destroy all the evidence, so our lack of evidence is PROOF of the conspiracy!
We will be called to account, dear Sophia, for the way in which we respond to the Truth that is laid out plainly in front of us. It is not in the least hidden, not secret, not too sublime for us. Scripture tells us that it is hidden, not from the simple, but from those who think themselves wise.
We face a choice. All the mental gymnastics of the neo-Gnostics are a desperate attempt to avoid making that choice. As one of the Existentialists said, “Man is in flight from thinking”.
It’s never too late to turn around, though. Christ stands behind you and waits for your repentance. He will be there when you make the choice to follow him.
Christ (the real one… Son of God, died and rose, THAT one) said that if our hand or our eye was leading us in to hell, that it would be better to cut them off. Make a clean break from this rot, and make that choice while you can.
I know I said I was done beating this dead horse, but it won’t quit thrashing!
It’s like that SNL “Death of Rasputin” sketch.
Our opponents are not encumbered by logic.
“There is a fine distinction between asserting that Christians are vicious in spite of being Christian and asserting that they are vicious becasue of being Christian.”
Or, to be blunt, maybe Christians aren’t vicious at all. Or as one of my Muslim friends put it so succinctly, “If my religion was as bad as people say, you’d already be dead.”
I enquired about the icon at that Gnostic church. No response. I suppose they’re coming up with reasons to justify that a Roman Catholic priest who died for his faith is somehow a Gnostic. If a Catholic priest is really secretly a Gnostic – why, then he’s a hypocrite living a lie, isn’t he? And to die while standing up for Christ as the world’s Saviour? Well, that would be the futile suicide of a madman, no?