T HE
BE LIE FN E T
G UI D E
TO
gNOSTICISM AND OTHER VA NI S HED CHRISTIANITIES
A lso n·onilnble
T HE BEL IEFNET ...
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T HE
BE LIE FN E T
G UI D E
TO
gNOSTICISM AND OTHER VA NI S HED CHRISTIANITIES
A lso n·onilnble
T HE BEL IEFNET GU IDE TO .10BBALAH THE BE LI EF NET GU I DE TO SVANCE LICA L CHRISTIANITY T H E SE LI EFNET G U I D E T O JSLA11'1
THE
BELIE FN ET
GU I D E T O
gNOSTICISM AND OTHER VANISHED (HRISTIANITIES Richard Valantasis Pufau hy
Marcus Borg
Three leaves Press Doublt'day I New York
THR~~
L~,\1 ~' PR~ ,-,
PUIILI S iiED IIY D O UIIL E DAY
a division of Random H ouse, Inc. and its colophon are u·ademarks of Random House, Inc., and DOUBLEDAY and its colophon are registered u·ademarks of Random House, Inc.
THREE LEAVES PRESS
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Valanrasis, Richard, 1946The Beliefnet guide to Gnosticism and other vanished Cluistianitics I by Richard Vabnrasis ; preface by Marcus Borg.- lst Three Leaves Pressed. p. cm.- (The Beliefner guides) 1. Gnosticism. 2. Heresies, Christian- History- Early church, ca. 30-600. 3. Church history- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600. I. T itle. 11. Series. BT1390.V35 2006 299'.932-dc22
2005050577
ISBN 0-385-51455-7 Copyright © 2006 by Beliefnet, lnc. Preface copyright © 2006 by Beliefnet, Inc. All Rights Reserved PRI NTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMER I CA
First Three Leaves Press Edition 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
PREFACE BY MARCUS BORG
1x
INTRODUCTION: NOT ON£ RELIGION BUT MANY
T he Invention of Orthodoxy
xv11
xx1
T he "Big Bang" Theory of C hristian Origins
xx1v
TIMEL/NE: A CHRONOLOGY OF EARLY CHRISTIAN HISTORY AND LITERATURE
x xvii
1. THE 1\i.L~NY KINGDOMS oF Goo
Jesus and Diversity
1
Multiculnual Paul
5
2. THE VARIETIES oF GNosTic E xPERIENCE
Bmied Treasure
9
What Is a G nostic?
12
\ .Vhat Did the Christian Gnostics Believe?
15
Hidden Knowledge-The Key That Unlocks the Spirit The Myth of Sophia
20
17
Gnostic Anthropology
23
Gnostic Systems of Salvation
28
Gnostic Biblical Interpretation Demons and Angels
29
30
Pmyer and Mystical Language
31
The Succession of Teachers
32
3. THREE GNOST IC SECTS
Who Were the Sethians?
35
What Did the Sethians Believe?
37
\1\Tho Were the Valentinian Gnostics? \/\That Did the Valentinians Believe? Who Were the Carpocratians?
A
49
54
What Did the Carpocratians Believe?
4.
44
55
NoN-GNoSTIC CHALLENGE TO 0RTHODO:>..'Y
Who Were the Marcionites?
63
The Marcionite Scriptures Marcionite Theology
64
67
5 . T HE OTHER GosPELS
The Gospel of iVIary The Gospel of Thomas The Gospel of the Savior
73
76 78
6. F EELING THE B uRN: AscETIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE QuEsT FOR BoDILY P uRITY
Who Were the "Continents" (aka Encratites)? A Different Kind of Romance Novel
83
What Was Solitary M onasticism? Who Were the Boskoi?
88
93
Who Were the Stylites?
94
Who Were the "Fools for Christ"?
95
Who Were the Vagrant Monks?
7. HoLY
82
96
R oLLERS AND SAcRED TERRORI STS
Who Were the Montanists?
99
What Did the Montanists Believe?
1 02
Who Were the Donatists and the Circumcellions?
1 05
8 . CHALLENGES TO CHRISTIANITY FROM THE R oMAN VVoRLD
Who Were the Manicheans?
11 5
What Did the Manicheans Believe? Who Were the Hermeticists?
121
The Legacy of the Henneticists \1\fhat Is Neoplatonism?
11 7
126
127
What Did the Neoplatonists Believe? The Legacy ofNeoplatonism
APPENDICES GLOS SARY
131
134
13 7 1 47
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
15 3
PRE FACE
BY MARCUS
BORG
T his book on ''vanished Christianitics'' puts us in touch with forms of c.arly Christianity that did nor survive. It thus describes directions Christianity could have taken but d idn't. Scholars and some C hristians have become increasingly aware of cad y Christian diversity over the past few decades. Until about a half century ago, we knew abour these groups primarily from t hc.ir Christian opponents. Bm in 1945, an early Christian library from the fourth century was discovered in southc.rn Egypt. It containc.d fifty-one Christian documents from the first few cc.nrurics of Christianity, most of them hit herto unknown. T hey wc.rc published in English n·anslation in
1977 as The Nag Hammadi Library. At about the same time., Elaine Pagels's book The G11ostic
Gospels became a bestseller. More recendy, her book Beyond Belief(anoth cr bestseller) contrastS the Gospel of Thomas wit h the Gospel ofJohn as t\\'0 very different fonns of early Christianity. Along with Bart: Ehrman's Lest Christianities, it has once again brought early Christian diversity to public attention. T h is book by Richard Valantasis not only stands in t he same
PRE f AC E
'
genre, but also makes a major contribution to our awareness of the, varieties of early C hristianity. Such a\varc.ncss is both intc.r-
cscing a nd important, cspcciaUy for C hristians, and for both historical and contemporary reasons. T o begin with why it's in te resting, here you will mcc.t '(vanished " voices from the first three centuries o f C hristianity. In this book, to mention only a fc.w of the Christian groups that Valantasis describes, we meet: Valcntin.ian Christians (sc.cond century): an dire. intellectual group who devised a sophisticated allegorical and s pirjntal in te rp retation of scJip turc. Marcionitc Christians (second century): a g roup who rejected Jewish scripture (wh at Christians now call th e Old T estament) and the God of Judaism, and produced a "New Testament'' consisting o nly o f a highly editc.d version of Luke's gospel and a collc.ction o f Paul's lc.ne rs.
Montanist Christians (second and third centuries): a c harismatic Spirit-filled ''radical fe minist" g roup {to usc Valantasis' language) t hat ordained women as deaco ns, priests, and bishops. Do natist Christians (early fourth century): a rigor-
ous group that rejected any Christians who had collaooratcd with Rome during the great persecution of th e. c.ar1y 300s, and whose "te rrorist win~., the C ircwncellions, physically attacked collaoorncionist Christians cvc.n as they also sought martyr-
dom.
F'R!;fACE
You will also encounter catly C hristia n documents fro m t his pe riod t hat d id not make it in to t he New Tcstame.n t: the Gospel
of Mary, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of the Savior, Semi Gospel of Mark, and so fo rth. T hese vanished fo rms of C hristianity in vite speculation about "counterfactua1" h istory. Such history im agines what the world would be like if t he historical process had de.vcloped differently. For example, what would our world be like ifHitle.r had vanquished t he R ussians by beginning h.is R ussian campaign a month earlie r in 1941 so that he could have. conquered Leningrad and tv[oscow before the Russian winter set i n? O r, to usc Phi lip Ro th's most recent novel Tht Plot Against A mtr-
ica as an c.-...:ample: W hat would have h appe ned if an isolationist and Nazi sympath izer had won the p residential election against Franklin Roosevelt in '1940? Valantasis engages in such ''countc.rfactual" speculation in his e ngaging o pe ning chapter, in which he imagines what Christian congregational life today might be like if one or ano the.r o f these. groups had continued as the ro ad most taken. An awareness o f early C hr istian itics is not o nly interesting but importan t and hdpful. For C hr istians in particular, it mattc.rs for more than o ne reason. Many of the questions that C hristians struggled with in the first three. cenrurics arc stiU with us: Is the Bible to be interpreted o nly litcrall)\ or may it be in terpreted metaphorically and spiritually? H ow should C hristians live. in a dominant cul-
ture whose values arc radically difiCrc.m fi·om the
xii
PRE f AC E
Christian vision? Is Christianity primarily about an inner spiritual fre,cdom that can accommodate. itself to any domi nant culrure, or docs lt also lead to resistance to dominant culture? In early C hristianity, the dominant culture was the Roman Empire. In our tin1c, it is modern VVcstcrn culture. coupled (for Americans) with imperial power. How nmch can Christians comprotnisc with culture, with "the world,"' and still be C hristian? How much should d1e sacred scripture of Judaismwhat C hristians call the Old Testament-matter to Christians? Probably at least a slight majority of Christians today arc "Niarcionitc" without being aware of it.. There is a v.ridcsprcad Christian stereotype that contrasrs the God of the O ld Testament as a God of law and judgment with rlle God of d1e New Testament as a God of mercy and love. T his contrast is implicit :Marcionitism, e.ve.n as it is also wrong. To "'demote"' the God of the Old Testament impovc.rishes our understanding of the Bible and Christianity. There is yet another reason that awareness of early Christian dive.rsity matters. Namely, we arc living in a time of major change (and thus conflict) withi n North American Christianity. A way of being Christian (which I call "an earlier C hristianity"') has ceased to be. persuasive to millions of pe.oplc in our time, including manv who arc Christians as well as manv who ~ ' have left the church or never been part of it. Another way of being Christian (which I call "an emerging
F'R!;fACE
xiii
Christianity") is lx.ing embraced by many within the church . Opponents of this change frequently defend their form of Christianity as being '"traditio nal" Christianity, that is, as the right way of bc.ing Christian, the correct fo rm of C hristianity. But this book makes us aware that there has neva been one single form of C hristianity. As Valantasis ernphasizcs, we mistakenly rend to think of Christian diversity as a relatively late development. Our conunonly told story portrays the church and C hristianity as a unified institution until the eleventh century, the period of "the o ne true church." Then in 1054 the great cUvision betw~.n western (Roman Catholic) and eastern (Orthodox) C hristianity occurred. Some centuries later, in the Protestant Reformation of the si.xteenth century, western Christianity divided again, c.ventually into hundreds of denominations, many of them scelcing to return to the "pure" form of Christianity of the Nc.w Testament and the earliest ccnruries. But thc.re were many forms of Christianity from its earliest days. There have been many ways of being Christian fTom the beginning. No one way can c1aim robe the only way. So also in our time: no particular fOrm of Christianity can claim to be the o nly true form, the only right way. This awareness raises ano ther question: Arc there some ways of being Christian that aren't really Christian? To put that diffcrc.n tly, is every group that claims the name "Christian" authentically C hristian? I don't have a prc-eisc. answer. But two things seem dear to me. On the one hand, there arc ditlCre.nccs that do not disqualifY o ne from being Christian. I usc as an example the famous conflict bct'A•ccn t\vo Christian leaders of tl1e early fourth ccntUf)') Arius and Athanasius. They were the prim ary antago nists
xiv
PRE f AC E
at the Council of Nicaca in 325 C. E., the council (as this book notes) that created most of the. Nicc.ne Creed that is used in churches to this day. At the cc.n tcr of the controversy was the ultimate status of Jesus. For both Athanasius and Arius,Jcsus \ll,'aS utterly ccnn·al. But was Jesus one with God, of the same substance as God, coeternal with God, part of the Trinity (Athanasius)? Or was Jesus of mmost importance but nevertheless a little. bit less than God, created and no t co-eternal (Arius)? Athanasius and his position won. But docs this mean that Arius wasn't really o r authentically Christian? 1\l[y own answc.r: of course. Arius was a Christian. T he difference bctwc.cn him and Athanasius wasn't great enough to disqualify him as a Christian. In general, doctrinal d.iffere.nccs like this do not seem to me to be the determining factor in whether a person o r position is Christian. On the other hand, it seems equally clear to me that there arc groups and thc.ologies that claim to be Christian that arc. not. To usc two obvious c.'\an"'ples, the Branch Davidians convc.ned by David Korcsh and white. supremacist "'Christian" groups arc far beyond anytlllng recognizably C hristian. About such groups, it is not ditlicult to say, '"Nor Christian.·• Of course, those arc the e.asy cases. Bm they do suggest that thc.re arc. boundaries to what can be called C hristian, even as those boundaries should not be narrowly drawn. Discernment about the boundaries of authentic forms of Christianity is less clear when we think about some of the forms of cad y C hr istian diversity that Valamasis reports. Fo r cx:unple, several of these groups disparaged the material wor1d as lxing the crcarion of an inferior god, a god who 'A'aS evil, and
F'R!;fACE
not the true God. So, do we say, "TI1cse people denied that the world was created by God, and therefo re they ,,.,eren't C hristian''? Or do we say, "These were Christians who denied that the material world was the good creation of G od''? Such discernment is difficult. Bur accord ing to a saying of Jesus reported in lVlatthcw's gospd} the p rimary test o f discernment is "'By t helr fruits~ you shaU know thc.m." The fruits arc o ften vc.ry mixed in t he lives of most Christians. O f the C h ristians whom Valantasis describes, we know very linle about the virtues their lives embodied. IVlost of th em viewed the world as evil. But were their lives filled with compassion, i n spite of their frequent disparagement of the world as evil? Or were their lives filled with judgmentalism, grounded in spiritual clitisrn or unredeemed anger or both? \ •Vould we sec among them~ if we knew more about t hem, the lives o f saints? Thus also in our tim e., the test of'wauthc.mic,. Christianity is
"By their fruits, you shall know them." The Spirit of God can and docs work th rough a varic.ty of \vays. So, I welcome you to this book. Read it to satisfy your curiosity about these vanished forms o f C hristianity, including some vc.ry strange ones. And usc ir to reflect about what it means to be religious today by struggling with the questions that faced th em.
I N TROD UCT IO N
NOT ONE RE LIGI ON
BUT MANY
l n the first cc.nturics aftc.r the crucifixion o f Jesus, a rich variety of beliefs and practices developed throughout the ancient world,
n1any of thc.m C h ristian in name but startlingly d.iffc.rcnt from what we thin k o f as Christiani ty today. !VIcmbers of long forgotte n Christian movements created dauntingly complex philosoph.ical systems- some of which dcscrlbc the world as the creation of a lesser God and Jesus as a mo rtal man. There
wc.rc pious monks who sat o n pillars in the d esert; others crawled about on their hands and knees eating grass to save the wor1d; still othe rs regarded fla tulence as an audible sign of d ivine grace. Thc.rc: were. ascetics and libertines; biblical fu ndamentalists and revisionists- some C.' cated from another substance or nature,N or that "the son of God is changeable or differentiated," these the holy Catholic Church anathematizes.
a little on the edge, maybe looking peculiar or sounding a little too lnrellecrually elitist to bishops' cars-those arc the ones the emperor and the bishops drove off. Too bad. The surviving church lost some really interesting people. The hunt for herc.tics didn't begin with the Nicene Council. lrenacus (ca. 130-202), the bishop of Lyons in Gaul, first stepped up to the plate, setting the tone for every subscquc.nt heresy hunter. His cantankerous attitude toward the Gnostics and other alternative Christianities~ as well as the sniping and disdainful tone of his writings, left no doubt that he was in
xxiv
I NTRODUCT I ON
charge. But lxfore he could launch his attacks o n the alternative C hristians, lrc:nacus had to create an alternative C hristianity of his own-one that we now call ''orthodox Christianity."
What Is Orthodoxy? northodoxyn is hard to define. The easiest way to understand it is that it is what remains of Christianity after all its heresies have been removed. Various ecumenical councils of the church decided what was and wasn't heretical; the positive articulation of doctrines (ruch as the person of Christ, the Trinity, the Creeds) al. most all came in reaction to some unorthodox thinking or practice that was being condemned. Orthodoxy may also refer to those churches that are in communion with the ancient bishops of Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople, or Antioch {in Syria), who led most of the earty ecumenical councils.
TH E uB JC BANe'' THEORY OF CHRIST I AN O R JCINS
After the Council of Nicaca, the i1npc.riaUy sanctioned and militarily supportc.d separation of C hristians into rwo camps, herctica1 and o rthodox, began. Prior to that time, C hristianity had gone off in a number of different directions simultaneo usly. This diversity of beliefs goes all the way back to the carlic.st days of Christianity-to the time. of Jc.sus hirnsclf. I subscribe to what ] might call, using an analogy from physics, the "big bang'' theory of C hristian o rigins. This theory bcglns not with the bishops' stories bur with the study of Christian literature in its histo rical and chronological sequence.,
I N TRODUCT I ON
lf we loo k at New Testament writings in their chronological order, this diversity becomes self-evident. Chronologically, Paul's letters-rather than any words of Jesus- provide the earliest evidence for Christianity. Paul's earliest lcttc.r (First Thessalonians) was written sometime in 50 C .£.1 approximately twenty years after the crucifixion ofJcsus. ln contrast, rl1c earliest gospel, rl1c Gospel of Mark, was composed sometime between 65 and 70 C.E. 1 some thirty-five to forty years after the crucifixion. Matthew (written ca. 90) and Luke (written ca. tOO) used Mark's gospel as a starting point, but sig nificantly revised it for their own particular communities. The author of John wrote his gospel about 110 C. E., giving an interpretation of Jesus' life and works that was altogether diffcre.n t from his predecessors'. Each author drew as weU on collections of Jesus' sayings and o ther sources, which offered up differe.n t accounts of the same events and altogether unique stories. Evc.n this brief chronology shows how diverse Christianity was at its very beginning. Each community of bdieve.rs used the materials it inherited to develop its own story about Jesus. Each community reworked the tradition to address particular issues that spoke to its own circumstances. No monolith here. The "big bang," an explosion of diverse Christianitics, was woven into the very fabric of the New Testame.n t. ln the end, Constantine and the bishops couldn't wipe out the alternative Christianitie.s that they had compete-d with for so long. They stood too dose to the heart of Christianity to be d rive.n out without killing C hristianity it.sdf. Alternative and orthodox Christianitics were closdy bound, if nor chalncd, to one another~ they compelled c.ach o ther to articulate d early
I NTRODUCT I ON
what they believed a nd how they diffe red. I n fact, t he bishops' story of ''orthodox" Christianity makes scan t sense unless you know the he re.tieal" ideas they were reacting to. C hristian d.i11
vc.rsity lived o n fo r centuries, and it is rccmc.rging in our 0\,.'11 era. T hat diversity is what this book is about. H ere you will read about Gnostics, imeUccntals, ascetics, and charismatics. T h c.rc. were Sethians and V.-.Jentinians, lVIarcionitcs, Encratites, and Montanists-aU of them inh erito rs o f th e scripnu-cs, aU of them claiming a deep and abiding relationship to Jesus and the Kingdom of God he proclaimed. You will learn about un£,miliar gospels-by Mary, Thomas, Philip, and oth ers-that taught differen t, chaUenging , and fascina ting theologies and expressed new ways ofexperiencing the Christian G od . Finally, you
will learn about some of C hristianity's strongest cotnpetitors from outside the faith-the Manichcans and the Neoplatonists. Ovc.r the course. of its h istory, C hristianity has lea rned how to incorporate different understandings, practices, and beliefs under one umbrd la. The Protestant Reformation undermine.d t he monolithic story that the bisho ps had tried to impose fo r so long; alternative C hristianities a rc. now accepted as legitimate denominations. The f:1.ntasy wtth which I began th is book may not be so outlandish as it sce.ms. T he various fo rms o f contemporary C hristianity often reflect t he same issues, the same modes of thin king, o r similar conclusions about holiness, the world, a nd t he way to salvation that we fi nd in eatly C hristian ity. But before we can make those. conn ections, we need to know where th at d iversiry began.
Note: Except whC'rc othC'r trnn.slators rue noted, all of the transbtions t h:tt ~p pt'at in this volume arc my own.
T I MELI NE:
A
CH RON OLOG Y Of
E ARLY C HR I ST IA N AND
4 a.c.~;.-29 c.t:.:
H I ST ORY
L I TE RA TU RE
Jcsus'lifc
Js c.t:.: Paul embraces his mission to include the
Gentiles J;-JS: Paul's missionary activity in Arabia (Gal l:l7)
38: Paul visits with Peter in Jerusalem (G al l:l8) 3S-4S:
Paul's missionary activity in Cilicia and Syria (Gal l:21) Collections of the Sayings of Jesus (until about 50 C. E.) Early sayings of the Gospel ofThomas Sayings collected in the Synoptic Sayings Source for Matthew and Luke Collections of miracles (until about 55 c.E.) The miracle collections o f Mark and the Signs Source of John
Healing stories in the Hellenistic mode (missionary competition) Apocalyptic scenarios (Paul's letters, Mark 13, and others)
XXV iii
t I ME l I N E :
A
C H R 0 N 0 L 0 C 'I'
.
•
.
.,s: Apostolic Council in Jerusalem (Gal2:1ff.; Acts 15} .._s oR 49: Paul's "'incide.nt" wlth Peter at Antioch (Ga12:1 Iff.) 5o: 5.:
Paurs 1 Thessalonians Paul's Le tter to the Galatians
52:
Paurs 1 Corinthians and the lctcn preserved in 2 Cor 2:14-6:13; 7:2-4 Pat~'s Letter to the Philippians, Philemon, and 2 Cor 10-13 Pat~'s letter preserved in 2 Cor 1:1-2:13; 7:5-16 Paul's Letter to the Romans Pat~ travels to Jerusalem; the collection; his impnsonment Paurs imprisonme.nt in Caesarca Paul travels to Ro me Pat~'s martyrdom
54-;s:
;s:
.ss-s6: 56: 56-5s: 58:
6o:
66-7o: The Jewish uprising 6:;-7o: The Gospel of J'vlark; the beginnings o f rabbinic
Judaism 66: Fighting at Jesus was a p racticing homose).'Ual? Could Smi th be a hoaxer? Surp risingly, considering how little p hysical evidence exists to suppo rt Smit h's discovery, th e philological and li nguistic evidence is strong. The scholarly consensus is that C lc.me.n t's letter ro T heodore is indeed authentic.
Were. the C arpocrat ians so shamc.less t hat t hey libelc.d Jesus-or were the. hc.resiologists so eager to protect Jesus• reputation fo r chastity th at t hey libeled the Carpocrat ians? Could
T HREE CNOSTIC
S I:CTS
61
Jesus, acting as a mystagogue, have employed t-antric-like practices whc.n he in itiated the youth lnro the mysteries, to create an ecstatic c.xpcrience? VVas the language. simply metaphorical? T he battle continues. The Secret Gospel ofMark opens an amazing window into the varieties o f early C hristianity as they vied wit h each o ther, not o nly to produce a '"true'' gospel, but about the most basic tenets o f fait h and morality.
4
A NoN-GNosTic
CHALLENGE TO ORTHODOXY
Some also heardfrom Pol)<arp [a """'d bishop who""" martyred} that the I.mrl! discipleJohn, mitring a bathhouse in Ephesus, saw Cerinthus {a kutr<JJI/ herrtir] there. john ran out ifthe baths screaming, 'Get out if hm. The bathhouse itselfmight rollapse buause Ceriuthu~ truths tt~emy, is imide. • And Polymrp himselfresponded to lvfardon, who whm !Meting him asked, .:Do;~u k11ow mer' Pol)'<arp amv.:tred, '1 dt; indttd JmtJ'W )\'JU, firstborn ifSatan: - I Jll': NA EU S , A CAI.V$T 1/J:' H.f:Sif!S III . .J
Among the early Christians were sects that radically challenged some of the core lxlicfs of the orthodox church. These groups-like some fundamentalist Christians today-had a few nonnegotiable bedrock beliefS that they used as a litmus test to settle every question. from which books of the Bible
,,.,ere legitimate. to how Christians should live their lives. This prlnciplc-bascd intellectualism diffc.rs from the Gnostics• ap-
proach to theology. Gnostics made an ctTort to blend their 0\,.'11 intcUccrual tradition with that o f the psychic churches, supplementing, but not supplanting, their theological and biblical teachings.
A
NON .C N OST t C
CHAllENGE
t O
OJt t HODOXY
63
T he principle-based believers, on the other hand, wc.re revisionists and refo rmers. They came to certain conclusions and then tried to mold the church and its scriptures to suit the.ir beliefple devoted themselves to the production of spiritual children: rhe virtues, acts of mercy, unceasi ng prayc.r) and the work of the church. T hey would set up a household just like other households, but their houses were dedicate.d to the development o f their spirirual lives. Obviously sometimes these '"spiritual marriages,. fell in to carnalicy. Many bishops derided these. rdationships as far too dangerous fo r t he common pc.rson and encouraged pe.oplc either to marry and engage in licit sexual relationships o r to ente.r the monastic communities t hat had begun to blossom at chat same period. The spiritual marriages occurred primarily in urban contexts, while mo nastc.r ies g rew up in mostly rural o r isolated environments. VVe will learn more about monastic Christianity in the nc.xt chapter.
A D IF fER ENT K IN D OF ROMANC E NOV E L
1\'Iost of what we know about t he. Encratltcs comes fro m a fascinating body of literature: the early C h ristian novds. Ye.s, I
84
gNOST I C I SM .. .
said novels. These novds, usually categorized undc.r the rubric of the "apocryphal acts of the apostles," relate stories about d1e missionary work that th e apostles u ndertook afte r the rc-surn:.c-
tion of Jesus. They arc replete with miraculous events. T he apostles raise the d ead, heal the sick, convc.rt the recalcitrant. T h e powc.r of God is so great that even fresh converts can accomplish t he same miraculous dcc.ds.
The Best-Known ''Chri stia n Novels" The Acts of Paul and Theda The Acts of Andrew
The Acts of John
The Acts of Peter The Acts of Thomas
The Acts of Peter and lhe Twelve Apostles The Acts of Perer and Poul The Acts of Andrew and Matthew
The Acts of Perer and Andrew The Acts of Paul and Andrew
The Acts of Philip
T h e apostles and their converts pcrformc.d these mlraclcs to show t hat th eir God was supe rior to all othe r gods. In the Arts
ifJobn, for example, John went to d1e famous sanctuary of d1e Roman goddess Artemis at Ephesus (in modern T urkey) a nd by prayer smashed all the idols and holy places to prove to d1e people who wc.rc watching t hat his God was stronger a nd better than theirs. Of course, t hey were all cotwc.rtcd.
I'EE t iN C.
TH£
BUftN
85
But the apostles' contests with the Rornan gods were about mo re than brute force. The Christian God demanded that all social relationships and all familial relationships be redefinc.d. Now t hat the ir bodies were temples o f the H oly Spirit, the
newly baptized were expected to remain pure, unmarried, chaste, and undefiled. The wiU to persevere. as a virg in showed forth the majesty of their God as much as any act of healing or de-
struction. T hat message o f chastity and virginity surprised people then as much as it docs now. Listen to Paul's reworking of the bc.atirudcs in the Arts ofPaul and Theda (2:5) : Blessed arc the pure in heart; they shall sc.c God. Blessed arc they that ke.cp their bodies from sex; they will be a temple of God.
Blessed arc the continents; God will speak to them. Blessed arc the world-rcnounccrs; they please God.
Blessed arc those who have wives as if they were singic; they will inherit God . .. .
Blessed arc the ones who have kept their baptism purci they will certainly rest with the Father and the Son... . Blessed arc the virginal bodies; they really please God
and will forfeit the reward of their self-controL Upon hearing this n1essage the sainted Thecla, a very popular female apostle o f the early church, vowed that she would ne.vc.r marry and became a Christian instead. Rejecting hc.r arranged marriage with Thamyris, she set off to become an itinerant
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missionary like Paul, preach ing fideury to Christ through virginity alone. Fo r the Encratites th e purity of t heir bodies, their u ndefiled state, formc.d the basis of t hc.ir power. The c haste could keep t hc.ir rninds o n God without th e rustraction of raising children, or keeping a househ old, or catc.ring to a spouse. Real pov.•cr consisted in purging the body of its carnal desires i n order to become a habitarion for G od alone. Power an d c hastity went hand in hand. W omc.n in particular play an important role. in t hese stories. W ives who have rcjc.ctcd thc.ir husbands fo rm communities
v.•hcrc they can dedicate themselves to prayer. Renouncing social status an d wealth , th ey exchange \\'oddly fo r spiritual power. T he underpinni ng to t his rcvc.rsaJ rested in th e. contrast bcf\A•ccn pe rmanent a nd imperma nent things. The riches o f the Roman nobility-gold, fi ne clothing, large households filled with slaves a nd cJjcnr servants- were things that would evc.n tually corrode and d ie. The thi ngs of t he Spirit of G od, however, were eternal. Husban ds and households d ie, but Jesus will always live, so these WOI'n c.n took o n Jesus as their eternal, spiritual spouse. In the following exerpt from t he Aa1 of T!Jomas (section 123), Mygdonia, who has rejected her fiance now that she has be.c.n converted to a life of continc.ncc., explains th e theology of her marriage to Jesus. I begin with the conversation that leads imo th e theology:
Coming d ose [ 0 her, Charisius emrc~uod her again, saying: "Please ~stcn to me and I will grieve no longer. Do
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you rcmembc.r the day that you .first saw me? TeU me truthfuUy, was 1 not more beautiful to you than Jesus is to vou now?"
'
Mygdonia answered, "That was then, this is now. That
was a beginning, but this time is an ending. That time was passing, but this time is eternal. That pleasure was transient, but this pleasure lasts forever. That time [was marked by the passing) of day and night, but this time (consists of) day without night. You saw the earthly marriage that passed away, but this marriage L'\Sts forever. T hat scx'Ual relationship was tUll of corruptjon, but this intim acy is fuU of etc m al life. 'TI1osc bridal anendants arc lllCt'C pa.ssing human
men and women>but these [with Je-
sus) wlU remain with me forever. That bridal chamber would be disassembled, but this bridal chamber lasts forever. You spread that bed with blankets, but this one is spread with faith and love. You arc a bridegroom ·who wiU die and dissolve, but Jesus, the true bridegroom, will live immortally forever. Your bridal gifts consist of money and clothes that age, bur this bridal gift [of Jesus) consists of ~\~ng words
that will never pass away.,.
\~'ithdrawal from society o pe ned th e possibility o f doing
something really nc.w, really different. But the way of life that these C hr is tian novds celebrated was just as alte rnative for
n1any C hristians as it \'VaS for the Roma ns. Not every C hris tian considered virginity to be the normative state. after baptism; not all Christians c.xpc.cted t heir religious leaders to perform miracles. The Eneratite way of life seemed ext reme; it was held
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in suspicion as vaguely heretical o r dualistic. T he Romans sim-
ply th ought it weird and strange. Some C hristians, I a m sure., ag reed with them. T he o ne way that these novels might be. genuinely heretical is in how they image Jesus. Very o ften the women of these Acts would look at t he a postle and see Jesus h imself sitting tl1ere. To t hose who needed to sec a n o ld man, Jesus presented hirnsclf as an old ma n; to th ose who needed a young boy, Jesus a ppcarc.d
as a young boy; to those who needed to sec an angelic being, Jesus would appear as a bright ange l. Later on the. b ishops would fi nd such a polymorphous Christology to be dangerous, but a t the time that these novels were written such fluidity of idc.ntity made fo r in teresting plot rwists. T hese novels were the most popular fo rm of early Christian literature. They formed gcnc.rations o f early C h ristian women and c hildren, introducing them to new ways of llving. The.ir early n:.aders may have also read them as libc.rating fantasies. While they remained locked beh ind the social require me nts of households both C hristian and Roman, these novels gave t hem a g limpse of a complcrely different way of life.
WHAT W A S S OL IT ARY MONASTICJSM?
T here is a circus sideshow aspect to many o f the early C hristian ascetic 1novements-and not just lxcause sotne of the n"! were. deeply strange and bizarre. The circus, after all, calls day-to-day life imo question) offering in its place a vision of an alternative world, fiiled with u nfamiliar anim als a nd unexpected events.
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People walk on wires that arc suspended high above the ground, happy- and sad-looking clowns perfo rm both to emertain and to teach lessons about life. So it ·was fo r some o f the solitary mo nks and ascetics of the early church. They lived on the very edge o f society, if not completely outside of it, commenting on the world as they saw it from their unique perspective. T wo kinds of monasticism emerged in the early church: ce.nobitic and eremiticaL The cenobitic monks formed small com munities; the. ere.miticaJ monks lived independently but were gathered very loosely around a charismatic teacher. T he en: mi tical mo nks tc.ndcd to be the most outrageous and theatrical monks of t he early church. Both kinds of monasticism have survived i nto the rnodem day, but the eremi tical is much rarer than it was. Eremites were women and me.n who withdrew from aU social rd ationships, including the church, in order to spe.n d all their time alone wit h God. St. An t hony, the famous Egyptian hermit, set the course: at first he withdrew to t he. cemetery outside his small Egyptian village; then he went farther i.mo the desert; and fi nally he walled himself into a building in the deep inner desert so that he could be completely alone. A nt hony withdrew in o rder to contend with detnons, his intc.rior thoug hts made physically manifes t in his contest with evil fo rces. Actually he wasn't all that alone. His followe rs gat hered about a day's walk away so they could p rovide fo r him. Sometimes the.y gathered together o n a Sarurday evening fo r prayc.r and convc.rsation, maybe even a liturgy or two. But this was not ah vays the case. Hermi ts were rcduses; they did not want the company of any o ther monk, nor of any church o fficiaL Mostly
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The Eight Monastic Deadly Sins
These sins were considered "deadly" because they thwarted the spiritual impulse and caused a kind of deadening of the soul. Usually we hear about seven deadly sins, but the hermit monk< of Egypt, Syria, fra nce, and Italy actually had e.ight deadly sins against which they fought. The eighth, called acedia in Greek, was so hard to translate that it was simply easier to leave it out. But here are the eight and their significance: Gluttony. Since monks fast so much, the desire tor food can really be d ebilitat ing. Too much
food~r
comfort
of any sort-hinders an ascetic's progress. Lust. living alone, con.stanlty attending to one's fantasies, an ascetic can easity succumb to lust. lust can impel the ascetic to k>ave t he monastery or hermil'age al together, or. just as bad, to indulge in masturbation. Impurity as an act
and lust .u a desire bolh caused serious problems and t he ascetic needed to light both assiduously. Greed. This i s the materi al side of lust. when the a.scetic is overwhelmed by intense desires for such c reature comforts as a soft bed, or books, or a better place lo live. These desires for things try to fill a voi d Lhal only prayer and medi tation shoul d fill. Things get in the way o f the one truth, which ~ that God should be the ascetic's only true possenioll-e'Verything el se has no signifi cance. Sadness. An ascetic could easily become melancholy living alone, l osl in his or her own thoughts, lhling a subsi stence existence far away from f riends, family, and oth-
ers. The ascetic has to light the tendency toward sad· ness by envisioning the company of ascetic saints, an· gels, and even God himself. Anger. Spending so much time by
themselw~,
ascetics
can begin to persew.rate about all the people and events that did them harm. Sin<e they have no means of reconciliation, they can easily become mired in anger and frustration. Anger prevents the ascetic trom making progress toward holiness of life. Acedia is a name for the tediousness of religious striv·
ing. It is also called the noonday sin, because when the sun is high in the sky the heat can make the hermit feel the tedium of praying and fasting all the more acutety. Time often seems to stand still for the ascetic-prayer becomes frustrating, habitual patterns become more stubborn, spiritual progress feels illusory. SuVisdo m of God announced thro ug h Solomon: "An swer the fool with his fooJjshncss," [therebyj teaching that the: light of the truth should be h idden fro m the inteUc:ctuaUy b lind . l W isdom] also says, "It shall be taken away from the one who has,"' and "Let the fool walk in darkness.,. Hut we: are ..c h ildren of light" who have: been c:nlig htenocl by "the d ayspring from o n h ig h" of the spirit of the Lord. And it says, "\>Vhere the: S pirit o f the Lord is, there i-s freedom," for "aU things are pure to the pure. "' So, J will not he.sitatc to answe-r your que;Stions by exposing the falsifications by [quoting] the words of the gospel. For insta nce, after '"And they we re o n the road going up to Jerusale m," a nd what foll ows un til ..After th ree d ays he will arise," here lthe mystical gospd j brings forth [ and I quote it] word for word:
And th-ey carne to Bethany nnd thcrt' \VVilliams, M ichad Allen, ton
Rt~tbinking
University Press, 1999).
·onosti(ism" (Princeton: Prince-
RI CHARD VALANTASIS
is the Clifford E. Baldridge Professor of New Tes-
tament and Christian Origins at the Iliff School ofTheology in Denver, Colorado. He is the author of several books, including Spiritual Guides~( the Third Centmy, Tbe Gospel
~(Thomas,
and The New Q: A Fresh Trans-
lation and Commentary. An ordained Episcopal priest, Valantasis is well
known for his translations and analyses of the New Testament and esoteric writings. He lives in Denver, Colorado. Beliefnet is the leading multifaith spirituality and religion website. Through its newsletters and online, Beliefnet reaches four million people daily. It is the winner of numerous prestigious awards, including the Webby for Best Spirituality Site and the Online News Association's top award for ge neral excellence for independent websites. Its book Taking
Back Islam won the Wilbur Award for Best Religion Book of 2003.