(no subject)
Jun. 9th, 2005 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaThe working title of my book is The Serpent's Wisdom: Radicalism in Early Christianity.
I decided against using the word Gnosticism for various reasons. For one thing, the phrase "serpent's wisdom" implies it. It will also be obvious in the contents that much of the material strongly involves Gnosticism.
But also, many scholars of Gnosticism and early Christianity are moving away from the appellation "Gnostic," because the movements which were labelled "Gnostic" by Irenaeus and Tertullian and the other heresiologists have very little actual common ground. It would be like lumping Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism together and calling them by the same name.
On top of that, the appellation "Gnostic" makes it seem as though there was a more strongly polemic give-and-take between diverse Christian groups in the early stages (pre-Irenaeus) than there perhaps actually was. Much of the theology which came out of the "gnostic" groups shaped and strongly influenced the eventual "orthodox" theology that resulted.
So IMO the strongest axis of actual disagreement between early Christian groups was over the element of political and economic radicalism in the movement. Debates over doctrine were piggybacked on the "carrier wave" of debates over egalitarianism and anti-imperialism. Underlying theological discourse was a dispute between comfortable middle-class people who wanted to be nominally "Christian" without taking on the austerity and wealth-sharing which characterized the movement from the beginning (when it was made up of mostly poor and disenfranchised Galileans), and those who promoted a radical rejection of institutional trappings.
I decided against using the word Gnosticism for various reasons. For one thing, the phrase "serpent's wisdom" implies it. It will also be obvious in the contents that much of the material strongly involves Gnosticism.
But also, many scholars of Gnosticism and early Christianity are moving away from the appellation "Gnostic," because the movements which were labelled "Gnostic" by Irenaeus and Tertullian and the other heresiologists have very little actual common ground. It would be like lumping Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism together and calling them by the same name.
On top of that, the appellation "Gnostic" makes it seem as though there was a more strongly polemic give-and-take between diverse Christian groups in the early stages (pre-Irenaeus) than there perhaps actually was. Much of the theology which came out of the "gnostic" groups shaped and strongly influenced the eventual "orthodox" theology that resulted.
So IMO the strongest axis of actual disagreement between early Christian groups was over the element of political and economic radicalism in the movement. Debates over doctrine were piggybacked on the "carrier wave" of debates over egalitarianism and anti-imperialism. Underlying theological discourse was a dispute between comfortable middle-class people who wanted to be nominally "Christian" without taking on the austerity and wealth-sharing which characterized the movement from the beginning (when it was made up of mostly poor and disenfranchised Galileans), and those who promoted a radical rejection of institutional trappings.
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Re: some thought on it
Date: 2005-06-09 08:12 pm (UTC)I think that what is driving interest in the Gnostics and other aspects of the early Church is that they are exotic. For many people who grew up as Christians their religion seems mundane and disconnected, and this "exotic" perspective gives people a opening to re-examine it, and perhaps to see how it could still be relevant.
About the Risen Christ: I suppose you and I might have some different views on that, but I suppose we would agree that without any sense of Jesus' spirit being with us in some way, then all of this is irrelevant sophistry.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-09 08:16 pm (UTC)"the spirit of the risen christ" my gut
reaction is to say that fella doesnt believe
jack...
"he lives on in the memory of his friends
and community and everyone at yamaha piano
here in dayton" or something, gimme a break
if thats all the guy is dead. fini.
our nada who art in nada nada be thy name
would be the only prayer (is that from
hemingway in one of his less fideistic
moments, of which alas another was his last?)
but assuming you mean more than that, then
the difference can be considerably verbal.
but do you know what more than that you believe
etc? ill let you alone now, I know I am risking
to be a bore... yours
+Seraphim