Gnostic Elements in Early Catholicism

[Daniel_Keeran]

if I read the Pistis Sophia correctly, the cleansing mentioned was not limited to fire, but that was one element. Clearly a cleansing fire can be symbolized by the refiners fire, isn’t that what Paupl alks about? I don’t think that Catholic Dogma teaches that the fire is literal, although it doesn’t exlude that possibility either—if I understand correctly. To me it’s wild speculation that one cannot prove–your assertions. That there is a “positive” associated w/ celibacy in the Bible I think is clear from a simple reading, however it’s not imposed on believers. IF, the Church does have the power to bind and to loose, then they can impose celibacy on the clergy. I believe from reading the ECF’s that Rome has the right to bind and loose (another post I guess.) Not all Catholic priest are unmarried, only in the Latin Rite.

There is nothing in scripture to clearly teach a period of cleansing after death before entering heaven, but this concept is clearly stated in the Pistis Sophia and in Catholic teaching beginning with some ECF’s. The Councils of Elvira and Nicea clearly commanded the clergy to abstain from marriage. This also is in contrast to celibacy as a gift, not a command. Marcion commanded celibacy as requirement for baptism whereas the Catholic church in the Roman rite limits the command to clergy and religious orders.

What are some examples of married saints? The concept of limiting the level of sainthood to those who have achieved perfection, also fits with the level of pneumatics in gnosticism, in contrast to all Christians having the title of saint in sacred scripture.

There are so many gnostic elements in Catholicism that a book could easily be written on the subject.

 

[light1house]

I have been following this thread I came across some information in the Catholic Encyclopedia that may or may not be of interest. Its a long read so I just c/p the part that I feel may be of interest.

oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Tradition_and_Living_Magisterium

The thought of the Church is essentially a traditional thought and the living magisterium by taking cognizance of ancient formulas of this thought thereby recruits its strength and prepares to give to immutable truth a new expression which shall be in harmony with the circumstances of the day and within reach of contemporary minds. Revealed truth has sometimes found definitive formulas from the earliest times; then the living magisterium has only had to preserve and explain them and put them in circulation. Sometimes attempts have been made to express this truth, without success. It even happens that, in attempting to express revealed truth in the terms of some philosophy or to fuse it with some cur-rent of human thought, it has been distorted so as to be scarcely recognizable, so closely mingled with error that it becomes difficult to separate them. When the Church studies the ancient monuments of her faith she casts over the past the reflection of her living and present thought and by some sympathy of the truth of today with that of yesterday she succeeds in recognizing through the obscurities and inaccuracies of ancient formulas the portions of traditional truth, even when they are mixed with error. The Church is also (as regards religious and moral doctrines) the best interpreter of truly traditional documents; she recognizes as by instinct what belongs to the current of her living thought and distinguishes it from the foreign elements which may have become mixed with it in the course of centuries.

 

[Truthstalker]

James,

1. You have not “won”. The idea is absurd. I find your arguments unconvincing, as you seem to find mine, when you find mine rather than inventing your own to claim are mine. Further debate with you would proabably be fruitless.
2. I don’t really want to sidetrack this thread any further on celibacy.

 

[Truthstalker]

There are so many gnostic elements in Catholicism that a book could easily be written on the subject.

The problem here is that there are also so many Christian elements in gnosticism that it is difficult to separate the two. That is a problem for you in demonstrating an element is peculiarly gnostic in origin, as opposed to borrowed. It is a problem for the Catholics in that those elements are so intertwined with their beliefs that they cannot see it. One of the benefits of the Reformation was the elimination of much of the gnostic stuff that had crept into the church.

Gnostics, like all non-Christians, believed that you had to earn your way to heaven. I like what a former pastor of mine said: Christianity is God coming down to man; human religion is man trying to work his way up to God. Salvation is God’s free gift,
wholly and completely. The idea that it is anything else is pagan if not gnostic in origin and blasphemes the good and pure gift He gives. Some Catholics indulge in attempting to earn their salvation, something Paul came down hard on the Judaizers for - among whom he found Peter, as he relates in Galatians 2. That is what I get from those who apparently try to purify themselves rather than allowing God to purify them.

 

[CentralFLJames]

James,

1. You have not “won”. The idea is absurd. I find your arguments unconvincing, as you seem to find mine, when you find mine rather than inventing your own to claim are mine. Further debate with you would proabably be fruitless.
2. I don’t really want to sidetrack this thread any further on celibacy.

I didn’t win? Well it took you a while to think that through and convince yourself.

Tell you what. I will concede that I have not “won”. I will have won when I can get you to see the errors of Protestantism and return back to the Catholic Church and become a full brother in Christ. You have a good chance - a pretty good mind with a conscience, not too much ego and a Presbyterian which has a lot of Catholic roots.

I respect a charitable retreat … back to the OP.

James

 

[Daniel_Keeran]

The following is a partial bibliography for gnostic elements in early Catholicism. The full text searchable scholarly books (over 70,000) are at:
questia.com/tellafriend/?qfe=jenniequestia

Africa, Thomas W. The Immense Majesty: A History of Rome and the Roman Empire. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1991.

Benko, S. The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology. Boston: Brill, 2004.

Bernstein, Alan E. The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.

Burton-Christie, Douglas. Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Clark, Elizabeth A. Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Dunn, Marilyn. The Emergence of Monasticism. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. (not on questia)

Harnack, Adolf. History of Dogma. Trans. Neil Buchanan. Vol. 2 & 3. New York: Dover Publications, 1961.

Homilies on Leviticus: 1-16. Trans. Gary Wayne Barkley. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1990. Questia. 17 Mar. 2009

Hunt, Emily J. Christianity in the Second Century: The Case of Tatian. New York: Routledge, 2003.

McGinn, Bernard, John Meyendorff, and Jean Ledercq, eds. Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century. New York: Crossroad, 1985.

McGowan, Andrew. Ascetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christian Ritual Meals. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.

McNeill, John T., and Helena M. Gamer. Medieval Handbooks of Penance: A Translation of the Principal Libri Poenitentiales and Selections from Related Documents. New York: Columbia University Press, 1938.

Osborn, E. F. The Philosophy of Clement of Alexandria. Cambridge, England: University Press, 1957.

Plato. The Myths of Plato. Trans. J. A. Stewart. London: Macmillan, 1905.

Rohde, Erwin. Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1925.

Rose, H. J. A Handbook of Greek Mythology: Including Its Extension to Rome. London: Routledge, 1991.

Stromateis. Trans. John Ferguson. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1991.

Williams, Michael Allen. Rethinking “Gnosticism”: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.

 

[Daniel_Keeran]

Two Epistles Concerning Virginity, Ch.4 (3rd c)…falsely attributed to Clement of Rome, appended to a copy of the Syriac Peschito version of the New Testament

“…He will give to virgins a notable place in the house of God, which is something ‘better than sons and daughters,’ and BETTER THAN the place of those who have passed a wedded life in sanctity, and whose ‘bed has not been defiled’(Heb13:4). For God will give to virgins the kingdom of heaven, as to the holy angels, by reason of this great and noble profession.”

I found the above that shows asceticism in Syria influenced the value placed on celibacy in the 3rd century.

 

[LionHeart777]

[Clearly a cleansing fire can be symbolized by the refiners fire, isn’t that what Paupl alks about? /QUOTE]

maybe I didn’t have that right…but doesn’t Scripture talk about a refiners fire burning away impurities? Or am I thinking of commentary?

I might have revived or seized on the celibay “vein”, but I think it was in the O.P. I don’t want to go beack there though if no one else does, obviously I will let James speak for Catholics (look at my religion profile.) But I sometimes can’t help but to add in $0.02

God Bless, happy St. Patricks Day!

Nick

 

[Daniel_Keeran]

[Clearly a cleansing fire can be symbolized by the refiners fire, isn’t that what Paupl alks about? /QUOTE]

 

[Psychotheosophy]

Yes, Gnosticism has a number of core principles and concepts partially listed in the OP and reflected in Catholicism.

Here’s the problem…

I looked briefly at the Psychotheosophy thread. Thanks very much. I would like to proceed with this one then compare later to see if similar conclusions were drawn.

Since you wanted to compare the gnostic beliefs in my thread with yours, here are some…

For example, from your OP…

1. The idea of the material physical world being evil was an extension of the biblical idea of the created world being fallen. Gnostic Christianity were strongest in North Africa, especially Egypt, and Syria.

From my thread…
Gnosticism also says that Evil is Good.

1. The notion of penance as required suffering or punishment for sin in order to achieve sanctification is related to the idea of sainthood, which in gnostic terms is represented by the psychics or the perfected ones.

From my thread…
Gnosticism also says Perfection is Imperfection.

So are both threads true?
Or
How do we discern between the two?

 

[Daniel_Keeran]

Here’s the problem…

Since you wanted to compare the gnostic beliefs in my thread with yours, here are some…

For example, from your OP…

From my thread…
Gnosticism also says that Evil is Good.

From my thread…
Gnosticism also says Perfection is Imperfection.

So are both threads true?
Or
How do we discern between the two?

Yes, gnostic literature often has contradictory sounding statements an ideas like, females must become males, etc. I think one needs to look for common repeated themes in gnostic literature to get a sense of whats going on. There were a number of variations but certain themes emerge: abstain from marriage (e.g.Encratites and Manichaeans), purification after death (pistis sophia), virgin of light, queen of the holy angels (pistis sophia), asceticism and contemplation to achieve perfection, etc.

 

[Truthstalker]

Daniel,

I believe you erred when you lumped Origen in with the ECFs (which I think you did). The CC distances itself from him and he is not counted as a saint or a church father. One reason is his self-castration. I think another is his belief in the preexistence of the soul. So when you cite him as a gnostic “father”, his is a case when the church did some cleanup.

I would still like to see a Catholic try to explain the difference between gnostic asceticism and Christian asceticism. I suspect that would be difficult.

 

[Daniel_Keeran]

Daniel,

I believe you erred when you lumped Origen in with the ECFs (which I think you did). The CC distances itself from him and he is not counted as a saint or a church father. One reason is his self-castration. I think another is his belief in the preexistence of the soul. So when you cite him as a gnostic “father”, his is a case when the church did some cleanup.

I would still like to see a Catholic try to explain the difference between gnostic asceticism and Christian asceticism. I suspect that would be difficult.

I am sure James would be able to point out some differences in RC asceticism and gnostic asceticism, but the clear support for asceticism in scripture is missing. In fact, Paul condemns ascetic practice such as in
Colossians 2:23 “Such disciplines indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” and in
1 Timothy 4:3 “They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods…”

My understanding is that some of Origen’s ideas like pre-existence of the soul and universal salvation were rejected but his other views on original sin, Mary’s perpetual virginity, prayers for the dead, purification after death, etc. were retained. Evagrius Ponticus for example advocated a type of origenism that may have also been rejected but the ascetic literature of Evagrius has had a lasting influence. Gregeory of Nyssa and John Cassian were related thinkers whose influence continues today in the monastic movement.

See Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century (New York: Crossroad / Herder & Herder, 1991) The first volume of a 5-volume history of Christian mysticism; this volume focuses on the spirituality of Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius Ponticus, and Augustine.

209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:3rP6zlIikR8J:moses.creighton.edu/harmless/bibliographies_for_theology/Patristics_7.htm+monasticism+origen+evagrius+nyssa+cassian&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

 

[CentralFLJames]

Yes, gnostic literature often has contradictory sounding statements an ideas …

Yeah, kind of like the illogic and the fallacies found in this OP where it turns a blind eye to the same ideas that could just as easily be called Gnostic in the bible all the way back to Genesis if one was not holding it sacrosanct and not put to test by the same cold burning darkness of illumative nonsense.

Gnosticism was threatening the apostolic Church and it shows up in the bible. Paul warns about it.

*1 Tim 6:20 O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called “knowledge”

"…to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. jude 1:23*

Did Jude let in some gnostic ideas or was this just the same old Jewish preoccupation with ritual cleanliness (no blood, semen stained household items)?

The infection of Gnosticism in the Christian church made its appearance in the apostolic age, and is referred to by Paul in several of his epistles (Colossians and in the Pastoral Epistles). It is also referred to by the apostles Peter and Jude; references to it are found, besides, in the Apocalypse, the First Epistle of John and the Gospel of John.

The Gnostic claim to knowledge throws light upon many passages in John’s epistle. John refers to his opponents’ using such phrases as “I know God,” “I abide in Christ,” “I am in the light.” Note here that this is not much different than the self focus often seen in the pop neo-Christian jingoism of “Jesus is MY personal Lord and Savior” and “I am saved”. In John’s time these lofty claims were made by persons who did not love their brethren on earth, who did not walk in Christ’s footsteps, and who were destitute of love. The apostle therefore describes these lofty claims as false, because those who made them possessed neither love of all their fellow nor obedience to The Church. I wont go so far as to project this attitude to all the neo-Christians but there is certainly a certain we-they mentality among certain neo sects who in their own minds are “the elect” (also seen in JHW and Mormons).

Gnosticism was a strange and obscure movement that is in part intellectual and in part fanatical. While Catholicism is certainly highly intellectual in its inner theological workings it has never been described as fanatical (the brief flagellant movement was declared heretical and put down). Again however, we do see a certain emotionalism and zealotism among the fundamentalist Protestant ilk - but who escape the charge of Gnosticism by lack of intellectualism.

The difficulty in dealing with Gnosticism is that it was never a homogeneous system of either religion or philosophy, but embraced many widely diversified sects holding opinions drawn from a great variety of sources. It’s almost pointless to try to anachronistically back project an assumption of an orthodoxy that never existed. But if ever there was a legion of demons of contradicting thoughts and ideas and depraved unity of thought that attempts to pass itself off as anything other than a tower of babel leaning under its own gravity - it is the shifting sands of Gnosticism.

Orr’s scholarly insights to dogmas at large seem quite apropos to Gnosticism:
“The infinitely varied shapes assumed by the systems render it almost impossible to classify them, or even to give an account of their leading ideas, which shall not be open to objection. We might as well try to classify the products of a tropical jungle, or the shapes and hues of the sunset clouds, which change under our view as we look at them” (Orr, The Progress of Dogma, 58).

Harnak has specific comments:
“There can be no doubt that the Gnostic propaganda was seriously hindered by the inability to organize and discipline churches, which is characteristic of all philosophic systems of religion” (Harnack, History of Dogma, I, 252). “From about 210 they ceased to be a factor of the historical development, though the church of Constantine and Theodosius was alone really able to suppress them” (ibid., 251).

In contrast to Gnosticism the Catholic church held fast to the core faith, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, preexistence before the Incarnation, and manifest in the flesh and crucified for us men and for our salvation; that He rose from the dead; that the Old Testament is a true revelation of the one supreme and holy God, the Creator of all things.
Lessor known Christian gnostic religions, such as Bogomils, Catharism take up Dualism. Dualism the eternity of matter and its inherent evil, as well as Docetism and oriental mythologies were accordingly rejected as contrary to the Catholic faith.

[continued]

James

 

[CentralFLJames]

[continued from prior]
Notwithstanding the natural revulsion an illumined mind has for Gnosticism and Docetism there is a subtle fractional truth to be found in these systems. Docetism was an over-statement of a great truth, an over-statement so large as to destroy the true humanity of our Lord – a humanity cherished and embraced from the very beginning by Catholics and celebrated in is esteem and tender reverence for the Virgin with Child. But the truth in Docetism is that the eternal Christ touches and appeals to and has a definite relationship to and actually influences every human heart; and also, that, to the Christian believer, Christ is more and does more than this; Christ dwells in the believer’s heart by faith, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:27). Docetism is a primitive form of the belief in the mystical element of Christianity; a mystical nature that extends to the Catholic Church as divine Body of Christ.

But it is the neo-Christians that come to us in the after-birth of the new secular-messiah “Lord Luther” (to me something like an anachronistic Popeye weened from mother’s milk tainted with the ferments of bitter sauerkraut ) **that conspire to rebirth Gnosticism. **The modern denial of the virgin birth of our Lord is that form of Gnosticism which taught that the man Jesus became Christ only at His baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him from heaven. This is alien to Catholicism but not some christian sects.

Phases of Gnostic teaching are latently reproduced in modern pantheistic philosophies and other forms of religious doctrine, which hold that there has been no objective atonement and no resurrection of Christ from the dead. This is not Catholic.

But here is some secular Gnosticism:
“Basilides with his powerful speculative grasp and all-embracing evolutionary process might be termed the Hegel of the movement; Valentinus with his robe of fantasy and triple fall and redemption was its Schelling; Marcion with his severe practical bent, his doctrine of faith, and his antitheses of the just God and the good, might without straining be termed its Ritschl” (Orr, The Progress of Dogma, 59). "

And then Fichte re-spawns Gnosticism when he spoke:There are no external realities at all, they were the mere objectivity of the subject or creations of the inward eye'; and Fichte begot Schelling, and Schelling said, Then this creating eye is God’s own eye’; and Schelling begot Hegel, and Hegel said `God and man are one, and God all men, and all men God, and the whole universe God eternally thinking in the process of development,’ and that or something like it is Hegelianism. And then the heavens shook like a woman in birth but with a more dreadful sense of restlessness and insecurity about what was about to emerge from the plurality of circular knowledge and then “the ground seems to give way beneath, and the earth and the heaven to dissolve, the universe becomes a dream, a myth” (embellishments from W.B. Robertson, D.D., Martin Luther, German Student Life, etc., 138).

Nope - scholarship shows that the main elements of gnosticism were put down in the 210 AD time-frame by Constantine - the same guy anti-Catholics want to claim injected paganism into The Church. How ironic.

James

 

[Daniel_Keeran]

Nope - scholarship shows that the main elements of gnosticism were put down in the 210 AD time-frame by Constantine - the same guy anti-Catholics want to claim injected paganism into The Church. How ironic.

James

Constantine was not around in 210 AD, rather 310-325 AD, but you did some good research. Nonetheless, the forbidding of marriage to clergy crept into the Council of Nicea (Canon 9 as James pointed out).

There is no gnosticism in scripture but to be sure the gnostics did think they saw their views supported in scripture, in the Old Testament and in Paul and in John.

Re Jude 1:15-23 “ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way… their own evil desires… their own ungodly desires…hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.” See also Ephesians 4:22, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.”

The flesh becomes corrupted by the evil behaviour of these individuals, NOT because they were born into flesh that is intrinsically corrupt as Catholic and Protestant theology teaches as well as Gnostics.

Certainly gnosticism has emerged in Protestantism, e.g. Baptist theology says one is saved by a direct personal experience of salvation, not by baptism. They say even that nothing physical like water can have anything to do with your salvation. In recent years we have seen gnosticism emerge in the New Age movement and in the growth of Buddhism and its marriage with Catholic monasticism through various writers such as Thomas Keating “Intimacy With God.”

Here are some questions for James and others:

1. What was the gnostic view of afterlife according to the Pistis Sophia and how does it compare with Catholic purgatory?
2. What was the gnostic idea of the pneumatic level of spirituality and how does it compare with the Catholic idea of sainthood?
3. What was the gnostic idea of Mother of the Angels and Virgin of Light in the Pistis Sophia and how does it compare with the Catholic idea of Mary?
4. What was the gnostic view of the value and purpose of asceticism and celibacy and how does it compare with the Catholic view of asceticism and celibacy?
5. What was the gnostic idea of the intrinsic value of the human body and how does it compare with the Catholic idea?

Also, re my question on married saints, I found a few examples but cannot identify any who did not renounce sexual intercourse. Have any married couples been beatified or canonized who did not renounce sexual intercourse?

 

[annem]

. What was the gnostic view of afterlife according to the Pistis Sophia and how does it compare with Catholic purgatory?

Catholic purgatory came from Second Temple Judaism. Pistis Sophia has nothing to do with it.

.
2. What was the gnostic idea of the pneumatic level of spirituality and how does it compare with the Catholic idea of sainthood?
e?

Not at all, of course. And good luck trying to find a Gnostic brand of spirituality. There were a dozen different Gnostic schools, all apparently quite small and esoteric and equally silly.

.
3. What was the gnostic idea of Mother of the Angels and Virgin of Light in the Pistis Sophia and how does it compare with the Catholic idea of Mary?
?

YIKES!!! what have you been reading??? Of course it doesn’t in any way compare. Haven’t you ever heard of the Protoevangelium??

. 5. What was the gnostic idea of the intrinsic value of the human body and how does it compare with the Catholic idea?

Good luck finding a Gnostic idea of anything. They were small schools. In general, however, the Gnostics felt the body was evil, women were evil, and flesh was evil. Whereas Catholics say the body is good, women are good, and flesh is good.

.Also, re my question on married saints, I found a few examples but cannot identify any who did not renounce sexual intercourse. Have any married couples been beatified or canonized who did not renounce sexual intercourse?

Are you kidding?

God bless you with a million miracles. Annem

 

[Daniel_Keeran]

Catholic purgatory came from Second Temple Judaism. Pistis Sophia has nothing to do with it.

YIKES!!! what have you been reading??? Of course it doesn’t in any way compare. Haven’t you ever heard of the Protoevangelium??

Good luck finding a Gnostic idea of anything. They were small schools. In general, however, the Gnostics felt the body was evil, women were evil, and flesh was evil. Whereas Catholics say the body is good, women are good, and flesh is good.

Are you kidding?

God bless you with a million miracles. Annem

You missed #4: What was the gnostic view of the value and purpose of asceticism and celibacy and how does it compare with the Catholic view of asceticism and celibacy?

What about married saints who did not renounce sexual intercourse?

Gnostics and Catholics say every spirit born into flesh is stained; this is why they said Jesus did not come in the flesh and why Catholics made Mary’s conception “immaculate” as if ALL conceptions are not immaculate.

 

[annem]

You missed #4: What was the gnostic view of the value and purpose of asceticism and celibacy and how does it compare with the Catholic view of asceticism and celibacy?

Ah, sorry. Again, calling anything the Gnostic view is difficult, since there were so many, and so utterly different Gnostic schools. However, certainly the larger number of the schools condemned flesh and the world and felt them evil. Celibacy in that case followed.

Catholics, of course, taught that the world and flesh were good. They condemned those who called them evil. Catholics insisted that sex was good, and even holy in marriage. To give it up and be celibate was not to condemn marriage but to try to sacrifice something out of love for God.

And you will notice that the Gnostics vanished from the earth but Catholics are now a billion strong and growing.

May God grant you a million miracles, Annem

 

[CentralFLJames]

Also, re my question on married saints, I found a few examples but cannot identify any who did not renounce sexual intercourse. Have any married couples been beatified or canonized who did not renounce sexual intercourse?

There are over 200 married saints. I don’t have the time to do your book research for you but here is reference to a source:

Married Saints and Blesseds Through the Centuries - Catholic Saint Book, Paperback, 507 pp.

catholicfreeshipping.com/Products/cfs_marsainandbl.html#

Pope John Paul II was big on pushing forward saint canonizations and I read somewhere that he did more to canonize saints in his papacy than would normally be done in 4 papacies.

It’s important to understand the history of canonization.
The early Church considered all martyrs to be saints; they gave their lives for Christ.

Toward the end of the persecutions, this veneration was extended to those who led exemplary Christian lives. The list grew so rapidly than an official process for canonization was developed to control it. Of course you do know that the lack of designation of “saint” does not impute anything less than that for those not canonized. The church only researches and canonizes a relatively few cases that are brought to its attention (usually with post-death miracles associated with the person’s effects etc.).

The popes eventually gave the task of preparing causes for papal review to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. A cause presented to the bishop where the person resided in life follows a series of procedural reviews prior to beatification and canonization. The process assures the validity of sainthood but can be long and difficult. Some saints have taken hundreds of years to canonize since its a tedious process. Many candidates never make it through the 2 preliminary levels of recognition: venerable, blessed, then saint.

There was originally a natural bias for religious orders simply because these have given their whole lives up and were most often the ones forwarding candidates to the Vatican for review of deceased members who were exemplary and well known to their orders. These orders had their own staff and time to do preliminary investigation to facilitate the canonization of members in their orders (which frankly a new saint added to an order was good for recruitment of new religious persons so there were motives to get recognition).

The laity were not really thinking about sainthood as much and so no doubt many saintly laity were never recognized only because no one filed the request for consideration to sainthood. Married people and lay people in general do not promote many causes for sainthood.

Several married persons have been canonized, however. Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, and Saint Thomas Moore were married. Occasionally, the Church even recognises married couples together as saints. These include Mary’s parents, Saints Joachim and Anne, and Saints Isidore and Maria. But this is rare.

I am reasonably certain without double checking that St. Bridget of Sweden (a princess of Sweden) was married to royalty and had 8 children. She was well known for her charitable life and she later converted her husband and they later mutually agreed to enter religious life (celibate) and relate only as brother and sister. She went on to found a very renown religious order - the Brigittines.

In general I think you are WAY off base imagining Catholics believe the flesh is evil etc. Someone is putting that anti-catholic idea into your head. This is a Protestant phenomena and you hear a lot of “fleshy this” and “fleshy that” when you get into dialog with them. Catholics don’t talk that way at all since we see the body as good and unititive with the soul - the soul being MADE FOR THE BODY and incomplete without it. We look forward to the reunification of the soul to the perfected body at the 2nd comming. Paul’s letters have a lot of “flesh” at war with the “spirit” in them but Catholics think of it more abstractly in terms of concupiscence - the tendency of the will to desire any kinds of selfish sensuousness it can get - chastely or not. It’s the general “desire” arising from our fallen nature not the body that is evil per say. So I really think you are going down a rabbit hole on the idea that Catholics see the body as evil. It’s just not true at all. On the contrary the Body is considered Holy and to be reverenced, honored and respected - even in death.

It is only in modern times that Catholics permit limited use of cremation of the remains of deceased whereas before it was always entombed whole and undefiled. Compare the reverence shown the deceased person at a Catholic funeral to a fundamentalist funeral and its shocking to Catholic in some cases. Intellectually we know the soul is departed but we don’t call it a “corpse”. Rather we still perceive it as a lingering “sign” of the person who now is in heaven or purgatory. The remains becomes “the deceased” or “dear wife” or whatever the case may be and is still revered through final internment. I won’t generalize to all but fundamentalist Protestants may refer to the deceased remains impersonally and unemotionally as “a hull” or “corpse” that is empty and not worthy of much consideration or attention. The “dead flesh” is often wheeled off non chalantly from the ceremony early for private burial with no fanfare or notice as songs continue. Where Catholics will usually do vigil/wake services and the next day a full funeral mass with a full procession to the grave yard with blessing of cemetery plot and casket and final prayers internment. So as you can see Catholics have high regard and reverence for the body.

Hope this helps,
James