What is Gnostic
Now I know what the term "gnostic" means (at least according to Elaine Pagels in "Beyond Belief"). According Ms. Pagels, the framers of Christianity used the term gnostic to refer to those they dismissed as people claiming to know it all. Thus, the Gnostic Gospels were viewed as heretical while the canonical gospels were determined to be orthodox. In fact the Catholic Encyclopedia website, defines Gnosticism as not an advancement of Christianity, but as a retrogression. Yet Ms. Pagels asserts that certain early Christian leaders rejected many sources of revelation and constructed the New Testament which defines Christianity to this day.
posted by Ranmac at 12:47 AM
3 Comments:
Minor correction: The NT *does not* define Christianity. The current semantics of Christ, Christian, and Christianity were defined by a committee of bishops in the 4th century of the common era. These are the guys who restricted the canon to as many books as they could control.
I asked someone what it means to be Christian. They responded that it means that a person is a follower of Christ. As of the Nicene Council, a Christian was defined, not as a follower, but as a worshipper of a Christ defined by the Church. In fact, one of the mandates of the Nicene Creed is to hate anyone who follows Christ.
What I hope to explore (after reading Ms. Pagel's book) is how the Roman Emperor Constantine invited bishops to Nicaea to work out standards for Christian faith which later became the Nicene Creed.
Here's a copy of the text of the Nicene Creed from Ken Collins' website. Without much research, I'm assuming that this text of the Nicene Creed is accurate. I don't see anything in the text that suggests to hate anyone who "follows" Christ.
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