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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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Date: 2005-06-09 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-09 04:16 pm (UTC)some thought on it
Date: 2005-06-09 04:35 pm (UTC)and think important the saying that there is not
a clear line between things at the beginning...
personally(and no doubt predictably) I would not
quite understand the perspective of creative thought
within the gnostic groups indfluencing the Church
or rather not understand it as being the best image...
it seems turned around in some way...the Church
produced many things and the separating out of
gnostic groups, or interaction with external ones.
was part of the process but it seems ot me a considerable
and almost bizarre over emphasis on the importance of
these groups. Their real importance should be
sufficient... but if the perspective in some way
denies the fecundity and creativity of the Church itself
it is finally not believable.
Secondly I sense an anachronistic vision of the social
mission of the church and I kind of flattening out of
history to allow John Kerry to run again as an early
Christian or perhaps Leonardo Boff as Church Father etc
or something...I am putting this in an exaggerated
way because, just my opinion, again the real importance
of social thought can stand on its own and when it is
presented in an unfevered way it is finally more believable
and the book not only have perhaps a quick sale but also
endure as true.
I do not know what is meant by 'radical rejection of institutional
trappings' but a police report on a raid on an early Christian house
church in north africa ennumerates a quantity of vestments and
censers and stuff which would delight any anglocathlic sacristan...
again they were not anglocatholics of course but...
I wonder also if you will agree, I hope you will, that the awareness
of the Risen Christ who as Ezra Pound said ate honey by the sea after
Easter, is the starting point of it all? If you do then I expect
you understand Christianity well enough to write truly about the
gnostics and their place in things, and if not I would fear every sort
of anachronism...I am betting that you (at least sort of) do and so
on that bet this note not intended as in any way destructive criticism.
+Seraphim
postscript
Date: 2005-06-09 04:38 pm (UTC)it whatever its contents are! :)
blessin's
+S.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-09 05:30 pm (UTC)keep up The Great Work!
no subject
Date: 2005-06-09 06:56 pm (UTC)Also: Hello!
no subject
Date: 2005-06-09 07:14 pm (UTC)Gook Luck.
Do you have a publisher lined up yet?
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
no subject
Date: 2005-06-10 10:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-10 10:59 am (UTC)1 Enoch: something to which I definitely have not devoted enough time.
The Dead Sea Scrolls give an interesting perspective on Paul, I find.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-10 11:01 am (UTC)I don't have a publisher lined up, I'm not even sure it will be publishable. I'm thinking perhaps Beacon Press (the UU publishing company) or maybe Weiser.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-10 02:47 pm (UTC)If not, maybe Luxor Press? Gerald Del Campo referred me to them at one point after my disaster with Weiser.
Good Luck.!