Abstract

© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Thursday, 24 October 2002

Montanism

Montanists were also called Phrygians after their place of origin. Montanus started his movement as an early puritanism at Hierapolis in about 156 AD. Montanist puritans plainly took their ascetic habits from the Essene monks. Celibacy was the norm, marriage was not favoured, and re-marriage forbidden. Montanists had to fast regularly—two weeks before easter—and often would only eat dry food. Absolution of any mortal sin after baptism was refused, and martyrdom was encouraged. Like all Christians, they believed the End was nigh. Christ would return “soon,” and reign for a millennium in the New Jerusalem that would descend on Phrygia—“soon!” It did not!

Mainstream bishops at the same time as Montanus were no less certain that the Parousia of Christ would be “soon.” A bishop of Pontus opined that it would be within two years. All of his flock gave up work, gave away their animals and neglected their farms. A Syrian bishop of about the same time led his flock into the desert in time honoured fashion to meet Christ as he arrived.

Montanus believed the Holy Spirit had returned to speak through people as it had through the apostles in Acts, and had two prophetesses called Priscilla and Maximilla. They believed that Easter should be a proper anniversary held on the 14 Nisan, the night of the full moon, not a moveable feast dependent on the moon because it was the first Sunday after the full moon, implying that they used the Jewish calendar.

The Montanists were unhindered for about twenty years, although Apollinarius, Bishop of Hierapolis, noted and opposed them. By about 180 BC, Montanus and the Montanists had been excommunicated—they were debarred from holy communion, the equivalent of the Essene messianic meal, and so could never enter God’s kingdom. They were condemned to eternal death. Despite persecution by the emperor, Severus, the group continued to grow. Two schools of Montanism existed in Rome, one led by Eschines and one by Proclus. Tertullian, born about 160 AD and converted to Christianity about 195 AD, became a Montanist about 207 AD. It spread by devoted missionary work, but eventually died out in the sixth century after a vigorous suppression by Justinian the Great.

Latter day Christian critics of Montanism say the Church had justifiable complaints against it, but many of these supposed errors were common in Catholic Christianity at the time, at lower levels if not among all the bishops. It is accused of adventism, but Protestant Christianity today is mainly adventist. Ultimately the Parousia is the point of Christianity, so they are all Adventist. Montanism is accused of a lust for martyrdom, an attempt to pretend that “normal” Christians did not have such a silly lust. They had, so it cannot distinguish Montanists from Christians generally. Its insistence on celibacy is picked on as a fault conducive to its extinction, but Essenism surived for several centuries with celibacy as a central feature, the Church was, at this time no less keen on it, and various orders of Christian monks have survived for centuries with celibacy required. When Montanism eventually did die as a separate movement, its ideas kept emerging in the Church, so it left ripples that are still felt.

Manichaeism

Manichaeism is named after its founder, the Persian sage, Mani (c 216-76? AD). For a period of several centuries, it presented a major challenge to Christianity. Mani was born into an aristocratic Persian family in southern Babylonia (now Iraq). His father, a pious man, brought him up as a Mandaean. At the ages of 12 and 24, Mani experienced visions in which an angel designated him the prophet of a new and ultimate revelation. On his first missionary journey, Mani reached India, where he was influenced by Buddhism. With the protection of the new Persian emperor, Shapur I (reigned 241-72 AD), Mani preached throughout the empire and sent missionaries to the Roman Empire. The rapid expansion of Manichaeism provoked the hostility of the leaders of orthodox Zoroastrianism, and when Bahram I (reigned 274-77 AD) succeeded to the throne, they persuaded him to have Mani arrested as a heretic, after which he either died in confinement or was executed.

Mani proclaimed himself the last prophet in a succession that included Zoroaster, Buddha, and Jesus, whose partial revelations were, he taught, contained and consummated in his own doctrines. Besides Zoroastrianism and Christianity, Manichaeism reflects the strong influence of Gnosticism.

The fundamental doctrine of Manichaeism is its dualistic division of the universe into contending realms of good and evil: the realm of Light (spirit), ruled by God, and the realm of Darkness (matter), ruled by Satan. Originally, the two realms were entirely separate, but in a primal catastrophe the realm of Darkness invaded the realm of Light, and the two became mixed and engaged in a perpetual struggle. The human race is a result and a microcosm of this struggle. The human body is material, therefore evil. The human soul is spiritual, a fragment of the divine Light, and must be redeemed from its imprisonment in the body and the world. The path of redemption is through knowledge of the realm of Light imparted by the succession of divine messengers that includes Buddha and Jesus and ends in Mani. With this knowledge the human soul can conquer the carnal desires that perpetuate its imprisonment and so ascend to the divine realm.

The Manichaeans divided themselves into two classes according to their degree of spiritual perfection. Those who were called the “Elect” practiced strict celibacy and vegetarianism, abstained from wine, did no labour, and preached. They were assured of ascent to the realm of Light after death. The “Auditors,” (Hearers) much more numerous, were those of lower spiritual attainment. They were permitted marriage (although procreation was discouraged), observed weekly fasts, and served the Elect. They hoped to be reborn as Elect. Eventually all fragments of divine Light would be redeemed, the world would be destroyed, and Light and Darkness would be eternally separated.

Mani, believing that the failure of previous prophets to record their teachings led to their dilution and distortion by disciples, wrote several books to serve as the scripture of his religion. Fragments of these, along with hymns, catechisms, and other texts, were found in Chinese Turkestan and Egypt during the early twentieth century. During the century after Mani’s death, Manichaeism spread as far as China in the East and gained followers throughout the Roman Empire, especially in North Africa. The fourth century theologian, Augustine, was a Manichaean for nine years before his conversion to Christianity. He subsequently wrote polemics against the movement, which was also condemned by several popes and Roman emperors.

The Manichees were purged by the Christians, and although it had disappeared as a distinct religion in the West by the early Middle Ages, its continuing influence can be traced in the medieval dualistic heresies of the Paulicians, Bogomils, and Albigenses (Cathars). A subsect of the Manichees, the Paulicians, were exiled by Justinian, and they settled in what is now Bulgaria. A twelfth century monk, Basil, formed the Friends of God, called the Bogomili, an Indo-European word, based on Paulicians and Manichaean lines. They survived until the Turks came in the sixteenth century.

The Paulicians also seem to have influenced the formation of the Cathari, the Pure Ones, who also thought the world was evil, created by an evil god. Their human body was therefore unimportant, and Christ came to save men’s souls. Marriage and procreation were also worldly and so wrong. Like the Manichees, the Cathari had two castes—the Catharistae or Most Pure Ones and the Adherents, or “Hearers.” Catharistae did not marry, engage in trade or shed blood, and did not eat any animal matter such as meat, eggs or even cheese. The Hearers did all the work and, like some earlier Gnostics were purified on their deathbeds. The Catholic Church considered the Cathari immoral and in a crusade exterminated them all and stole their property.

Much of the Gnostic-Manichaean world view survives in many modern religious movements and sects, including Theosophy and the Anthroposophy of the clever Austrian pseud, Rudolf Steiner.

Gnostic Gospels

The most important discovery of ancient Gnostic works turned up at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. Irenaeus wrote volumes against the Gnostic heresies and their gospels full of “blasphemies” and when the Christians were given religious control in the fourth century all heretical books were banned and burned. It seems a pious monk in Egypt, hoping it was merely a passing phase, buried his library in a large jar. It remained buried for over 1500 years.

Gospel of Thomas

The Jesus of the Nag Hammadi writings is not a saviour from sin but a guide to spiritual understanding. The enlightened Gnostic became the equal of Christ, and therefore equal to God. The books of Thomas the Twin are addressed to the reader as the spiritual twin or equal of Jesus. The Gospel of Thomas says Christ teaches the Gnostic will “become as I am”. In short, a “Son of God” like Jesus and therefore a god. Much of this sounds Buddhist and indeed might reflect the activities of Buddhist missionaries who had been in Alexandria for a long time before Gnostic teachers appeared on the scenes. Hyppolytus in 225 AD even wrote that the ideas of the Brahmins of India were a heresy. Eventually the church leaders who defined themselves as orthodox banned the heretics—but who is to know now who were the more heretical at the beginning. Most Gnostic churches considered themselves to be Christian. The explosions of Judaism in the first century left many splinters and sherds. Christianity in the beginning was not monolithic.

Some of the Nag Hammadi documents seem not to be Gnostic at all, but pagan or Jewish. Others are distinctly Christian but of an unusual type compared with that which survives to today.

The Church did not emerge fully formed as most Christians seem to believe. The elements of the modern institution of Christianity—the organized Church, the New Testament canon and the apostolic creed—did not emerge until the end of the second century. Before then there had been a good deal of variety in its experimental approaches to satisfying the needs of its believers and the aims of its bishops.

Irenaeus wrote that the heretics possessed more gospels than there really were and that such writings were widespread in the empire. This was about 180 AD. To have become so widespread they must have been in circulation for decades, perhaps more than a half century, before then. Scholars contend whether many of the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas particularly preced the four Christian gospels. If they reflected Essene beliefs, they might indeed and still bear an important relationship to the foundation of Christianity.

Harnack declared that the Gnostic writers were the first Christian theologians, trying to make sense of the Christian myths, but too influenced by Greek philosophy.

Gospel of Philip

The Gospel of Philip, which was found bound together with the Gospel of Thomas, criticizes the Christian belief in the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection. This same book says that Jesus’s companion, who he kissed on the mouth more than any of the others, was Mary Magdalene. While it is possible to accept the first, the second is more difficult since Jesus was surely an Essene and would have eschewed any such familiarity with a woman. Also bound with them was The Apocryphon (Secret Book) of John which claims to reveal “the mysteries and the hidden things in silence” which Jesus taught to his disciple John.

The Gospel of Philip denies that baptism itself is sufficient to admit someone into the circle of Christianity. Many rose from the water not having received anything yet believing they were Christians because of the ritual. Gnostics, following Essene tradition, wanted evidence of spiritual maturity and apparently assessed proselytes and neophytes for spiritual maturity, gnosis and saintliness. The Apocalypse of Peter speaks of “the remnant… summoned to knowledge”, sounding remarkably Essene. The orthodox church saw all this as incompatible with growth and requiring too complex an administration. Orthodoxy wanted people to join, accept Church doctrine and ritual, and do as they were told. Fear was used as a weapon. Ignatius could say with equanimity that separation from the Church was separation from God. Gnostics saw knowledge and the behaviour of members not membership itself as evidence of closeness to God. Gnostics accused the orthodox as “not seeking after God” but instead treating the sacraments as formulae offering them salvation by magic.

The orthodox Church modelled its hierarchy on the hierarchy of the Roman empire. It was therefore easily absorbed into the fabric of the imperial system in the fourth century. For this reason and because it made no intellectual demands on its congregations, requiring only obedience to dogma, it succeeded whereas the more challenging demands and apparent elitism of Gnosticism led to its downfall.

In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says:

Blessed are the “solitary” and the chosen for you will find the kingdom.

One can feel confident that this is a misunderstanding or mistranslation of an Essene blessing which originally will have read “separated” for “solitary.” “Nazarites and the Elect” was probably the original Aramaic reading.

Redemption though is essentially a solitary quest. Others can help, acting as a guide, pointing a way, teaching and discussing difficulties but each Gnostic had to find their own truth. everyday pastimes like work, sex, commerce and politics were paths in life in which one could display one’s enlightenment but were of no primary worth in seeking Gnosis.

Gnostics did not regard misfortune as evil. Evil was not a material or physical thing but an emotional or psychic thing. Evil was horror, confusion and sorrow and the cause and answer to it could only be found within where each of us has a spark of God.

The Book of Thomas the Contender

In the Book of Thomas the Contender we have Jesus explaining before his ascension to Thomas, the Twin, about the attractions of bodily lust and how they must be resisted. Jesus says Thomas must know himself to know, effectively echoing one of the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas. In one passage he says:

You are babes until you become perfect,

suggesting that the Essene terminology was to call the Simple of Ephraim, babes or children. Jesus refers to the Elect and the doctrine of the perfect suggesting the work has some connexion with the Essenes. Condemning lust Jesus says:

O bitterness of the fire that blazes in the bodies of men and in their marrow,

an interesting use of the word “bitterness” since it is the very meaning of Mary. The word is repeatedly used in this sense throughout the rest of the book. Later he denounces:

Woe to you who love intimacy with womankind and polluted intercourse with them!

proving there is no mistake. He continues:

This is the doctrine of the perfect. If, now, you desire to become perfect, you shall observe these things; if not , your names is Ignorant, since it is impossible for an intelligent man to dwell with a fool, for the intelligent man is perfect in all wisdom. To the fool, however, the good and bad are the same - indeed the wise man will be nourished by the truth and (Ps 1:3) will be like a tree growing by the meandering stream—seeing that there are some who, although having wings, rush upon the visible things, things that are far from the truth. For that which guides them, the fire, will give them the illusion of truth, and will shine on them with a perishable beauty, and it will imprison them in a dark sweetness and captivate them with fragrant pleasure. And it will blind them with insatiable lust and burn their souls and become for them like a stake stuck in their heart which they can never dislodge. And like a bit in the mouth, leads them according to its own desire. And it has fettered them with its chains and bound all their limbs with bitterness of the bondage of lust for those visible things that will decay and change and swerve by impulse. They have always been attracted downwards; as they are killed, they are assimilated to all the beasts of the perishable realm. Those who do not renounce the fire within: then shapeless shades will emerge and in the midst of tombs they will forever dwell upon the corpses in pain and corruption of soul.

He adds:

They will be thrown down to the abyss and be afflicted by the torment of the bitterness of their evil nature.

Thomas refers to sinners as blind men. Jesus concludes with:

Watch and pray that you not come to be in the flesh, but rather that you come forth from the bondage of bitterness of this life. And as you pray, you will find rest, for you have left behind the suffering and the disgrace. For when you come forth from the sufferings and passions of the body, you will receive rest from the good one , and you will reign with the king, you joined with him and he with you, from now on, for ever and ever, Amen.

The Giving Up of Pilate

In a document purporting to be the trial of Pilate before Caesar called The Giving Up of Pilate we find a ready admission that Pilate had crucified Jesus because of the rebelliousness of the Jews. He says:

1. And Pilate said—O almighty king, I am innocent of these things
2. the multitude of the Jews are violent and guilty
3. And Pilate says—Their nation is rebellious and insubmissive, not submitting themselves to thy power
4. Pilate said—On account of the wickedness and rebellion of the lawless and ungodly Jews.

Praying to Jesus after he is condemned by Caesar Pilate repeats:

Lord, do not destroy me along with the wicked Hebrews, because I would not have laid hands upon Thee, except for the nation of the lawless Jews, because they were exciting rebellion against me.

The document is not historic in general but it seems odd that the defendant, Pilate, should state repeatedly that the Jews were in rebellion if they were not.

The Death of Pilate who Condemned Jesus

In a work called The Death of Pilate who Condemned Jesus Tiberius is ill and hearing of the wondrous physician in Palestine called Jesus sends to Pilate for him to cure him. Pilate however has crucified Jesus:

Hearing this, was very much afraid, knowing that through envy he had caused Him to be put to death. Pilate answered the same messenger thus, saying: This man was a malefactor, and a man who drew to himself all the people; so a council of the wise men of the city was held, and I caused him to be crucified.

The messenger also hears from a follower Veronica:

my God and my Lord, whom Pilate for envy delivered, condemned, and ordered to be crucified.

Veronica cures Tiberius with a picture of Jesus and Pilate commits suicide. The point is that Pilate is solely responsible here, there being only the slightest attempt through the mention of a council of Jews to place blame on them.

The Acts of Barnabas

In the Acts of Barnabas supposedly written by John Mark, presumably author of the gospel, we find this explanation of the conversion and re-naming of Mark:

I John, accompanying the holy apostles Barnabas and Paul, being formerly a servant of Cyrillus the high priest of Jupiter, but now having received the gift of the Holy Spirit through Paul and Barnabas and Silos, who were worthy of the calling, and who baptized me in Iconium. After I was baptized, then, I saw a certain man standing clothed in white raiment; and he said to me: Be of good courage, John, for assuredly thy name shall be changed to Mark, and thy glory shall be proclaimed in all the world. the darkness in thee has passed away from thee, and there has been given to thee understanding to know the mysteries of God.

The Acts of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian

In The Acts of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, a late work, we find that the persecutions of Domitian were against Jews—described as “righteous men” implying they were Essenes—because he still hated them from the Jewish War, not at first against Christians. It says:

And when Vespasian was dead, his son Domitian, having got possession of the kingdom. along with his other wrongful acts, set himself also to make a persecution against the righteous men. For, having learned that the city was filled with Jews, remembering the orders given by his father about them, he purposed casting them all out of the city of the Romans.

In the story, the Jews responded by turning the attentions of Domitian to the Christians. The Emperor heard of John the Apostle at Ephesus and sent a centurion to bring him to Rome: The centurion found him at a gate:

They inquired of him where John lived. And he answered and said: I am he. And they, despising his common, and low, and poor appearance, were filled with threats, and said: Tell us the truth,

showing that John apparently did live as one of the Ebionites. John eats no food for a week but when he does we read:

And having washed his hands and face, he prayed, and brought out the linen cloth, and took one of the dates, and ate it.

He still followed the Jewish practice of washing before eating. John impresses Domitian by withstanding a poison that readily kills a condemned man who he then brings back to life along with an afflicted girl. His reward is merely banishment to Patmos for a fixed term, then to Ephesus again. He lived into the reign of Trajan then made Polycarp bishop. Finally in a long scene preparing his death he gives thanks that God saved him from marriage thrice and made looking upon a woman hateful and saved him from the filthy madness of the flesh, before sending away his brethren and turning into a spring.

The letter from Abgarus, king of the Edessenes, is in The Acts of Thaddeus. Interestingly Jesus sends his image on a cloth to Abgarus in reply. Shroud of Turin?

Acts of Paul

In The Acts of Paul and Thecla is a description of Paul which is not physically flattering so possibly true. It describes him as:

A man small in size, bald-headed, bandy-legged, well-built, with eyebrows meeting, rather long-nosed, full of grace, for sometimes he seemed like a man, and sometimes he had the countenance of an angel.

In The Acts of Peter and Paul, he is also described as bald-headed and another bald man is mistaken for him and killed. Thecla, the virgin, is captivated by Paul’s sermons on chastity, and indeed the men of the city of Icomium are concerned that many women listen to his message—paraphrased as:

There is for you a resurrection in no other way, unless you remain chaste, and pullute not the flesh, but keep it chaste

and they fear they will have no wives. It is interesting that the premise is that Paul apparently considered chastity an absolute virtue, though even in this work he seems to make a narrow allowance for marriage. The implication is that it is a poor second, if it is not an insertion. Paul seems to be arguing for chastity as the perfect state as the Essenes apparently believed. The citizens have the entirely sensible view that:

The resurrection of which this man speaks has taken place, because it has already taken place in the children which we have; we rose again when we came to the knowledge of the true God.

Thecla, enamoured of Paul’s teaching, was condemned to be burnt but a miraculous hailstorm saves her. Later she is also saved from arenas of wild beasts. Released she dressed as a man to follow Paul and lived in a cave for 72 years effecting cures. Eventually, driven out by jealous physicians, she went seeking Paul to Rome but he was dead. She died too and was buried two or three stadia only from Paul.

Acts and Martyrdom of St Matthew the Apostle

In the Acts and Martyrdom of St Matthew the Apostle, Jesus, appearing to Matthew in the form of a beautiful boy, declares he is:

The strength of those that restrain themselves, the crown of the virgins, the self-control of the once married,

placing strong emphasis on chastity but perhaps with the hint of homosexual temptation as a test

In The Acts of Philip we also get chastity praised when a woman says it were better I never married and Philip replies:

You are right. Chastity is especially dear to God.

When Philip goes to Greece preaching the new gospel the Greeks send to Jerusalem for confirmation. They send to Ananias, described as High Priest of the Jews! No mention of Caiaphas. Ananias arrives in Athens with a body of men and says:

Thou sorcerer and wizard, I know thee, that thy master the deceiver at Jerusalem called thee son of thunder.

Thus Philip is a son of Thunder, besides John and James of Zebedee, implying that they all were. Later a voice from heaven says:

Philip, once son of thunder but now of meekness,

proving that this is not a metaphorical phrase or mistakenly used. Ananias explained that Jesus destroyed the law and allowed all meats but was crucified. The disciples stole his body, did many wonders and were cast out of Jerusalem, and now went all about the world deceiving every one, like this Philip.

But I will take him to Jerusalem, for the king Archelaus seeketh him to kill him.

The remarkable thing here is that Archelaus is still king, so the story is set before 6 AD which makes the name of the High Priest correct! Philip is accuse by Ananias of being a magician and a sorcerer, and so in the story he has Ananias sucked slowly into the earth, to prove it. At Azotus, he was also described as a wizard. It seems that these stories might actually have been invented to answer the charge. Effectively they admit it but show his wizardry to be the act of God. Here Philip is also accused of separating husbands and wives and preaching chastity. It seems to be true for at Nicatera Philip meets Ireus, described as a just man but also as wealthy. Philip recognises him as just and promises him salvation but says to cleanse his house he has to:

Do no wrong, and leave thy wife.

There is a big row between Ireus and his wife. In the story it is plain that women wore veils, and that slaves and sometimes women were burned along with a dead man’s corpse just like Indian suttee. Curiously Philip raises the man in the name of Jesus Christ who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, contradicting the earlier mention of Archelaus, but possibly an indication of a correction or insertion. Another story in the book describes a Miriamne and Martha as Philip’s sisters. In the final part the action is said to have been in the time of Trajan, making Philip as long-lived as John. It is also declared to have been after the martyrdom of Simon son of Clopas, Bishop of Jerusalem, successor to James. Bartholemew, one of the 70, and his sister, Miriamne (again) is with Philip in the city of Snakestreet. There they are captured and crucified, Philip upside down. Jesus appears and promises to send Michael to let Philip into Paradise after being kept out by the flaming sword for 40 days (because he had been sometimes unforgiving).

Modalism: Towards the Trinity

The Jewish messiah was expected to have been a man. He was of the line of David, and early Christians believed this because they inluded genealogies to prove it. How then did Jesus come to be thought of as a God? The Essenes, so strongly retaining the original Zoroastrian Saoshyant of Judaism, could explain it. Jesus was a man appointed by God as messiah. However, as messiah he would be a military leader who would fight evil on earth in the shape of the Romans and their Jewish collaborators.

Meanwhile, God’s chief angel, Michael, would be fighting evil on the spiritual or cosmic scale. Michael was the Jewish Mithras, the Angel of the Lord, the Holy Spirit whom the Essenes saw as the fravashi or heavenly likeness of the earthly messiah. Michael was identical with God. He was God able to appear in human form so as not to burn up human observers with his solar power. He was the leader of the hosts of heaven, and could appear at the Eschaton in human form, “like unto a son of man,” on the clouds leading the heavenly hosts to earth to reclaim it for heaven.

The Essene expectation seems to have been that the earthly messiah and the heavenly one would unite at the instance of union of heaven and earth, when the victory of God was accomplished. Then the resurrection of the dead and the Judgement would follow. The difference for the Christians was that the messiah had died leading his earthly battle, but his victory had been sufficient, so he was resurrected as the first of the saints to enter the heavenly kingdom. Ascending to heaven, he united with his fravashi, the angel Michael, and would return as him at the Second Coming to complete tha task he had started.

While all of this seems straightforward, the spread of Christianity into the empire, and the scattering of the Jerusalem Church in the Jewish Wat, just when the heavenly hosts were expected to be victorious, left generations of gentile Christians unfamiliar with these original ideas. They began to squabble about whether Jesus was a man or a God. His resurrection seemed to say to them that he was God, but the rest of his career and the Jewish messianic expectaion was of a man.

The Ebionites who seem to have been what remained of the Jerusalem Church, could explain the paradox, but when no Jesus or Michael arrived 40 years later to ensure the Jews victory in the Jewish War—the final battle to them—the Ebionites mainly reverted to Judaism or became cynical and started Gnostic groups. A few remained faithful to Essene ideals and to their former leader and went back to the scriptures to find out what miscalculation they had made.

There seems to have been a schism among the remnant of Ebionites shortly after this point, as gentile Christianity grew stronger. Some Ebionites accepted some of the Christian argument that Jesus was a god, such as the virgin birth, thus becoming a Christian fringe sect. Christians called Jesus “the express image of God’s person,” virtually an admission that Jesus was the angel Michael. But the others stayed with their Judaism, and were never strictly Christians at all, believing that Jesus was a human leader, not a god. Cerinthus, and the Gnostic sect of Carpocratians considered Jesus a man.

The Monarchians believed in the sole rule, the monarchy, of God. In one subsect, Jesus was a man but had been given the power, “dynamis,” of God. The connexion with the dual person of messiah and Michael again shines through. Some Monarchians were also Adoptionists in believing that this power was given to Jesus at his baptism or resurrection. In the other subsect—called Modalists, Petripassians, Sibellians and Noetists—God had different aspects or modes with which he could present Himself.

This seems to be the view of the Persian religionists for whom Ahuramazda was also Mithras and the Holy Spirit. They were not different entities constituting a single God, but a single God putting on different masks—“persona” being the Latin for an actor’s mask (prosopon, in Greek)—to appear before humanity as appropriate. God wore His masks for different purposes, but when He had accomplished a purpose, He returned to being the unitary God.

Melchion, a priest from Antioch, at synods held in 264 AD and 268 AD to consider the troublesome Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch (260-272 AD), who was a dynamic Monarchian, actually compared the union of Christ and God with the union of a body and a soul. Essentially, it is the belief that the Essenes held, although for Essenism, it was the fravashi rather than a soul—though it is unclear whether anyone other than the Zoroastrians could clearly distinguish them—and Melchion wanted the Logos, not Michael, to be the spirit.

Many of the differences revolved around the permanence of these modes or aspects. The Modalist idea of masks shows they were not permanent but put on and discarded by God as he needed them. The Christian Church finally decided that the three were permanently existing but still constituted the same God. It was like the Monarchian, Sibellius, who explained Modalism as meaning no more than describing the sun as simultaneously bright, hot and round.

If the Christians want Jesus to be nothing more than a man, then he could not have been given any special soul or Logos in his human life without spoiling his ordinary humanity. Yet that is the Christian solution adopted. Human beings cannot walk on water and still storms, so these proofs that Jesus is God show that he was not a plain man.

The apparently Nazarene solution, that Jesus was a man who was crucified as a man, and rose as the first saint to be resurrected in the general resurrection of saints before the Judgement is all sensibly Jewish. The surmise is that, since the Essenes expected Michael to lead the heavenly host, when the Nazarenes believed that Jesus actually had been resurrected, and they thought that he must return soon when the one still expected was the archangel Michael, that Jesus must have united with Michael on his ascension. That is an easy idea for people who believed that everyone had their own personal angel. Jesus had one too, but it was not going to be an average angel, but a most important one.

So Jesus spent his whole career on earth as a man but became united with Michael when he entered heaven. Michael was the Right Hand (the Power) of God, and Michael was God’s visible human face, so Jesus was united with God in heaven even though he had never been other than a man in his human career. Christians always insist that they worship the risen Jesus, who is therefore united with God, although they like to read the stories about him as if he already were God before his ascension.

The Essene notion, allows Jesus to be fully human and therefore serve as the second Adam. Nothing else will allow this. Adam was created as a man out of clay and vivified by God’s breath—in Latin, “spiritus”—and nothing else. Many famous Churchmen of the early centuries of the church were Modalists, or inclined to Modalism, including the Church’s first real theologian, S Augustine.

Oppression of the Gnostics

By the third century Gnosticism began to succumb to orthodox Christian opposition and persecution. The church became more authoritarian, placing more power in the hands of the bishops to strengthen its organization and make suppression of the heretics and pagans, including Gnostics easier. The Gnostic heresy was liberal and loosely organized and unsuited for such assaults. As orthodox Christian theology and philosophy developed, the Essene idea of the world as evil began to seem wrong, and it was attacked by the neo-Platonists too. It would seem quite true in a few hundred more years time when the Christians were lighting human pyres all over Christendom. Christians defended their identification of the God of the New Testament with the God of Judaism and their belief that the New Testament is the only true revealed knowledge. The development of Christian mysticism and asceticism satisfied some of the impulses that had produced Gnosticism, and many Gnostics were converted to orthodox beliefs. By the end of the third century Gnosticism as a distinct movement seems to have largely disappeared.

The term, “heresy,” originally meant a belief that one arrived at by oneself, from the Greek which means “choosing for oneself” and is used to denote sectarianism in the Acts of the Apostles and in Paul’s Epistles. In later Christian writings, the term is used in the opprobrious sense of a belief held in opposition to the teaching of the church. With the establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire, heresy came to be considered a crime against the state, punishable by civil law. Heresy was also generally outlawed in countries with an established or state-supported church. After the Reformation, however, the principles of private interpretation of the Scriptures and denial of ecclesiastical authority in all matters of belief were eventually adopted in Protestant countries, and during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Roman Catholic countries have also adopted the principle of religious toleration.

The essence of Gnosticism, that the inner spirit of humanity must be freed from a world that is deceptive, oppressive and evil, has proved very durable. One small non-Christian Gnostic sect, the Mandaeans, still exists in Iraq and Iran, although it is not certain that it began as part of the original Gnostic movement. Although the ancient sects did not survive, aspects of the Gnostic world view have periodically reappeared in many forms.

Though Christian theologians find ingenious theoretical reasons to justify Christianity as monist not dualist, few Christians bother, understand or believe them. For them, God is good, and the evil in the world is caused by the Devil. That is simple Zoroastrian dualism. In trying to say otherwise, the theologians are practising sophistry. The Christian God has not overcome evil. In Christian terms, the Evil Spirit, Satan, is alive and God cannot defeat him. The theologians say Satan is a fallen angel who will be enchained at the End of the world, but that is identically Zoroastrianism. Christianity is a distorted form of Zoroastrianism, and so were the Gnostic systems to different degrees.

Ismailis

Another eastern sect influenced by Gnosticism is the Ismailis, a sect of Shiite Muslims, most important from the tenth to the twelfth century. The Ismailis are also known as Seveners, because they accept only 7 imams, rather than the 12 who are recognized by other Shiites.

Although Ismailis subscribe to basic orthodox Islamic doctrines, they also maintain esoteric teachings and corresponding interpretations of the Quran, involving the Gnostic idea of emanations of the supreme God.

In the late ninth century an Ismaili state was organized on communistic principles in Iraq by Hamdan Qarmat. His followers became known as Qarmatians. When his state disintegrated, some of his followers combined with other Ismaili groups to form the Fatimid dynasty of North Africa in the tenth century. The Fatimids conquered Egypt in 969 AD and developed a strong and culturally brilliant state that flourished until the twelfth century.

A splinter group of Ismailis, called Assassins, established a stronghold in the mountains of northern Iran in the twelfth century and carried out terrorist acts of assassination against important religious and political leaders of Sunni Islam.

Some Links

1. Enlightenment, Love and Liberation, One Breath…
2. Scientific Pantheism site.
3. Where Can I Find God?
4. EFF
5. Gnosis Archive
6. Gnostic Friends Network
7. Gnostic Society Virtual Library
8. New Age Web Works
9. The Thunder: Perfect Mind
10. Dead Sea Scrolls - Qumran Library
11. The Ten Major Principles of the Gnostic Revelation - Philip K Dick
12. MYSTICAL-WORLD WIDE WEB

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