Gnostic Elements in Early Catholicism

[Daniel_Keeran]

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

Gnosticism was absorbed by the Catholic church through the ECF’s, so it was absorbed rather than vanished. Only the blatant elements of two gods, one evil one good, and Jesus having no body, were put down.

Now what married saints did not renounce sexual intercourse?

 

[Daniel_Keeran]

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. James

So Bridget entered religious orders and became celibate with her husband. I have doubts that any married saints, except some canonized due to martyrdom, did not renounce sexual intercourse.

Catholics and Protestants believe the spirit is contaminated at conception by the flesh stained from Adam. Correct?

 

[annem]

Gnosticism was absorbed by the Catholic church

This is false. Sorry, but you are very wrong here. Have you ever read the classic book on Gnosticism, “A Separate God” by Petrement? I suggest you pick it up at your library.

Gnosticism was never “absorbed” by the church. Church leaders unanimously condemned it. This is easy to prove.

Again, we are talking about a very small group of people. Esoteric schools.

I believe I can prove this to you. Certainly I can refer you to the best scholars on the subject. The Catholic church, spent the time since the various Gnostic schools started–around the middle of the 200’s–until they vanished condemning them. This is simply not up for argument and it’s very easy to prove.

Where on earth did you get the idea it was 'absorbed"? Some website or other? Believe me, you need to do more reading on the subject.

May God grant you a million miracles, Annem

 

[Daniel_Keeran]

This is false. Sorry, but you are very wrong here. Have you ever read the classic book on Gnosticism, “A Separate God” by Petrement? I suggest you pick it up at your library.

Gnosticism was never “absorbed” by the church. Church leaders unanimously condemned it. This is easy to prove.

Again, we are talking about a very small group of people. Esoteric schools.

I believe I can prove this to you. Certainly I can refer you to the best scholars on the subject. The Catholic church, spent the time since the various Gnostic schools started–around the middle of the 200’s–until they vanished condemning them. This is simply not up for argument and it’s very easy to prove.

Where on earth did you get the idea it was 'absorbed"? Some website or other? Believe me, you need to do more reading on the subject.

May God grant you a million miracles, Annem

Please read the original post and the bibliography provided. It is not just my idea.

 

[annem]

Please read the original post and the bibliography provided. It is not just my idea.

Thanks. Yes, I did go over your bibliography, most of which had nothing to do with Gnosticism, except a few fringe scholars who are anti-Catholic.

Very, very poor idea to read only one side of the issue. I always make it a point to read both sides.

If you had, you would not make errors of the magnitude you are making. Now at least I can understand where you went so badly wrong.

I can give you a list of scholars–not fringe scholars–and scholars who are both theist and non theist–who can enlighten you about the Gnostics.

As I said, they were small in number, of many different beliefs, and universally condemned by the Catholic church. Again, I can prove this.

May God grant you a million miracles. Annem

 

[annem]

I should have added that Williams and Harnack are good, but of course Harnack was almost a century ago. Really, your list is not good, I’m sorry.\

God bless, Annem

 

[CentralFLJames]

Thanks. Yes, I did go over your bibliography, most of which had nothing to do with Gnosticism, except a few fringe scholars who are anti-Catholic.

Very, very poor idea to read only one side of the issue. I always make it a point to read both sides.

If you had, you would not make errors of the magnitude you are making. Now at least I can understand where you went so badly wrong.

I can give you a list of scholars–not fringe scholars–and scholars who are both theist and non theist–who can enlighten you about the Gnostics.

As I said, they were small in number, of many different beliefs, and universally condemned by the Catholic church. Again, I can prove this.

May God grant you a million miracles. Annem

Pssst, I have been convinced for some time that the OP is one of those fringe pseudo-scholar anti-Catholics you are talking about. I suspect he is here to get free critical review and references for his next paperback…

James

 

[CentralFLJames]

So Bridget entered religious orders and became celibate with her husband. I have doubts that any married saints, except some canonized due to martyrdom, did not renounce sexual intercourse.

Catholics and Protestants believe the spirit is contaminated at conception by the flesh stained from Adam. Correct?

Well of course you have doubts since that does not support your agenda and your speculation. You are not here for the truth you have an anti-catholic agenda. Why speculate when you can by the book for $18.95 and get the facts. Or with productive google searches I bet you could get a list of a few dozen off the Internet and spend about 12 hours of research reading each saint’s case. I don’t know how much you make an hour but opinions won’t buy a cup a coffee and $18.95 seems fairly worth the time you are wasting here speculating and pulling ideas out of the aether.

James

 

[annem]

James

Pssst, I have been convinced for some time that the OP is one of those fringe pseudo-scholar anti-Catholics you are talking about. I suspect he is here to get free critical review and references for his next paperback…

At least that explains things–thanks, God bless you with a million miracles, Annemi

 

[LionHeart777]

St. Patrick was from Scotland I believe-- *side note

 

[Daniel_Keeran]

Well of course you have doubts since that does not support your agenda and your speculation. You are not here for the truth you have an anti-catholic agenda. Why speculate when you can by the book for $18.95 and get the facts. Or with productive google searches I bet you could get a list of a few dozen off the Internet and spend about 12 hours of research reading each saint’s case. I don’t know how much you make an hour but opinions won’t buy a cup a coffee and $18.95 seems fairly worth the time you are wasting here speculating and pulling ideas out of the aether.

James

I have ordered a book on “Charity for Suffering souls in purgatory” and thanks for your reference on married saints I shall also order. Still, I would appreciate a single reference to a nonmartyr married saint who did not renounce sexual inercourse.

I think this thread has petered out since there are no new contributions to counter my OP.

 

[Psychotheosophy]

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.

Here is a rephrase of the same unanswered question…

Does Gnosticism believe that evil and good are actually the same,
yes or no?

 

[CentralFLJames]

I have ordered a book on “Charity for Suffering souls in purgatory” and thanks for your reference on married saints I shall also order. Still, I would appreciate a single reference to a nonmartyr married saint who did not renounce sexual inercourse.

I think this thread has petered out since there are no new contributions to counter my OP.

Here is another:
Title: Married Saints
Author: John F. Fink
albahouse.org/Married.htm

Description:
Most of the saints in heaven were married during their lives on earth; most of the canonized saints were not. While this book cannot change this fact, it does bring to the attention of the world many of those who were. Joseph and Mary, Isidore and Maria were married couples. Sts. Peter, Monica, Frances of Rome, Margaret of Scotland, Perpetua and Felicity, Bridget of Sweden, Elizabeth of Hungary, Elizabeth of Portugal and Elizabeth Ann Seton were married, as were St. Thomas More, St. Stephen of Hungary, St. Henry and St. Edward the Confessor. The brief biographies in this unique work will encourage husbands and wives everywhere to strive for greater holiness in their marriages and to take pride in their peers who did so before them and are now listed in the roster of the saints.

The problem I am finding so far is that most of the saints who were married often seem to outlive their spouses and become dedicated to God in that widowed state. At what point in their lives do we have to have celibacy in a case like this? After All its a normal Christian virtue to remain chaste for one’s state in life. Thus all Christians are expected to be celibate if single or widowed and not remarried. How ironic that what was considered a normal state of grace for Christians has now become the exception by which to judge their conformance to your theory of Gnostic influence.

James

 

[Truthstalker]

I am a little puzzled here. I thought a saint wasn’t a designation of having lived a particularly holy life but simply an affirmation that someone has been determined by the Church to have made heaven. Was the thief on the cross canonized? I think typically saints led the kind of life and were the kind of example the Church is looking for, but all it really takes is the Church saying that St. Bum is in heaven. and we know that we can pray through him, because God healed Sister so and so of whatever, and Brother Jones of something else, when they asked for his assistance.

You can live like hell, fall down drunk in the gutter and get run over by a bus, and if you repent at the last minute, you can STILL get into heaven, in Catholic theology. Or you can fast and pray and repent and do all the religious exercises you can think of for eighty years, and dying commit a mortal sin, and throw it all away, in Catholic theology.

 

[Truthstalker]

I think this thread has petered out since there are no new contributions to counter my OP.

Threads take on a life of their own.

I. personally, am glad there is now a mental health professional around here. It is about time some threads attract that sort of attention.

 

[diggerdomer]

Originally Posted by Daniel Keeran View Post
I think this thread has petered out since there are no new contributions to counter my OP.

I just read this and your original post. Your original post seemed to be a bunch of statements–not questions-- you put together without any reference of basis in objective fact or resources.

Was there something you wanted countered or were you just spouting off?

Cheers

 

[CentralFLJames]

I am a little puzzled here. I thought a saint wasn’t a designation of having lived a particularly holy life but simply an affirmation that someone has been determined by the Church to have made heaven. Was the thief on the cross canonized? I think typically saints led the kind of life and were the kind of example the Church is looking for, but all it really takes is the Church saying that St. Bum is in heaven. and we know that we can pray through him, because God healed Sister so and so of whatever, and Brother Jones of something else, when they asked for his assistance.

You can live like hell, fall down drunk in the gutter and get run over by a bus, and if you repent at the last minute, you can STILL get into heaven, in Catholic theology. Or you can fast and pray and repent and do all the religious exercises you can think of for eighty years, and dying commit a mortal sin, and throw it all away, in Catholic theology.

It’s a very involved process that requires at least 2 certifiable miracles to get all the way to a cannonized saint.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonization

St. Dismas, aka The Good Thief is a saint by tradition only but is not formally canonized.
Most saints need to have a holy life but if there was an extraordinary conversion showing a marked change from a prior life of sin to saintliness then this is sufficient depending on circumstances. If miracles are associated soon after death then its of special consideration. St. Augustine was a bad sinner in his early life and had a mistress and an illegitimate son. But his mother’s prayers said on his behalf over his life resulted in a radical conversion and the rest is history.

Your complaints about finishing in grace after living a life of decadence or the opposite of living chastely all one’s life and tossing it away at the end and dieing impenitent are all scriptural. Catholic “theology” is not inventing anything here. Check out the story of Mary Magdalene and the parable of the Prodigal’s Son verses the story of Judas and other dire warnings from Paul. There is no OSAS concept.

But of course outside of sainthood determination we can not verify those that live a good life but then die impenitent since we do not presume to judge for God in the case of some-one’s damnation. I suspect this would be rare anyway since as one is perfected there is less gravity toward sin. Ironically, while The Church has no motive to infallibly declare somone “Damned” we actually do have real cases of knowledge of specific souls that are damned from miracalous visions from God. For example there is a case a deceased religious person (ordained I think) rising in the coffin at a funeral mass and pleading in agony with his surviving religious brothers to please stop praying for him since he was being tormented in hell. Apparently God forced this damned soul to admit to those present that he was an apostate and in life was living a secret double life and pretending to be religious all along. Every prayer was increasing his torment in hell. And we have accounts of souls in hell from exorcisms etc. forced under the weight of Jesus’ name to reveal their name and their companions. Little of this gets out to the public quite naturally.

It sounds like you don’t like the Christian idea of justice where the last will be first and the first last etc. I always used to identify with the prodigals “good son” and felt he got cheated but this is exactly God’s justice. We get a fair wage or reward so to speak but we can not deny God’s right to be generous to who he wants to be or to not show mercy on someone who never showed any themselves.

James

 

[Truthstalker]

I ran across this today, for what it is worth:

In this whole matter we must carefully distinguish two forms of asceticism, antagonistic and irreconcilable in spirit and principle, though similar in form: the Gnostic dualistic, and the Catholic. The former of these did certainly come from heathenism; but the latter sprang independently from the Christian spirit of self-denial and longing for moral perfection, and, in spite of all its excrescences, has fulfilled an important mission in the history of the church.
The pagan monachism, the pseudo-Jewish, the heretical Christian, above all the Gnostic and Manichaean, is based on in irreconcilable metaphysical dualism between mind and matter; the Catholic Christian Monachism arises from the moral conflict between the spirit and the flesh. The former is prompted throughout by spiritual pride and selfishness; the latter, by humility and love to God and man.

ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc3.iii.vii.i.html

Schaff comes off as rather Catholic here.

 

[Truthstalker]

Your complaints

I thought I was just describing Catholic theology.

 

[CentralFLJames]

I thought I was just describing Catholic theology.

Sorry. Maybe I did over read your tone or attitude from the diminutive names you selected for the example (e.g. “St. Bum”). It looked like you were implying that this person did not deserve heaven for a late life conversion when in fact the apostles taught us that none of us deserve heaven and only gain it by cooperating with God’s grace and conforming our will to His commandments. It also came across as singling out the atypical case rather than the normative case for a Catholic saint. In the early church “the normal” case was a saint martyred for her faith or a person who lived a devout and exceptional life most of their life if not all of it.

James