Whose Church is the 'True Church'? - 2

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Whose Church is the 'True Church'?

 

(P.119) Orthodox writers described the church in concrete terms because they

accept the status quo; that is, they affirmed that the actual community of those

gathered for worship 'was' 'the church'. Gnostic Christians dissented.

Confronted with those in the churches whom they considered ignorant, arrogant,

or self-interested, they refused to agree that the whole community of believers,

without further qualification, constituted 'the church'. Dividing from the

majority over such issues as the value of martyrdom, they intended to

discriminate between the mass of believers and those who truly had 'gnosis',

between what they called the imitation, or the counterfeit, and the true church.

 

Consider, for example, how specific disputes with other Christians drove even

Hippolytus and Tertullian, those two fervent opponents of heresy, to redefine

the church for themselves. Hippolytus shared his teacher Irenaeus' view of the

church as the sole bearer of truth. Like Irenaeus, Hippolytus defined that truth

as what the apostolic succession of bishops guaranteed on the basis of the canon

and church doctrine. But when a deacon named Callistus was elected bishop of his

church in Rome, Hippolytus protested vehemently. He publicized a scandalous

story, slandering Callistus' integrity:

 

Callistus was a slave of Carpophorus, a Christian employed in the imperial

palace. To Callistus, as being of the faith, Carpophorus entrusted no

inconsiderable amount of money, and directed him to bring in profit from

banking. (P.120) He took the money and started business in what is called Fish

Market Ward. As time passed, not a few deposits were entrusted to him by widows

and brethren... Callistus, however, embezzled the lot, and became financially

embarrassed.[29]

 

 

When Carpophorus heard of this, he demanded an accounting, but, Hippolytus says,

Callistus absconded and fled: 'finding a vessel in the port ready for a voyage,

he went on board, intending to sail wherever she happened to be bound for'.[30]

When his master pursued him onto the ship, Callistus knew he was trapped, and,

in desperation, jumped overboard. Rescued against his will by the sailors as the

crowd on the shore shouted encouragement, Callistus was handed over to

Carpophorus, returned to Rome, and placed in penal servitude. Apparently

Hippolytus was trying to explain how Callistus came to be tortured and

imprisoned, since many revered him as a martyr; Hippolytus maintained instead

that he was a criminal. Hippolytus also objected to Callistus' views on the

Trinity, and found Callistus' policy of extending forgiveness of sins to cover

sexual transgressions shockingly 'lax'. And he denounced Callistus, the former

slave, for allowing believers to regularize liaisons with their own slaves by

recognizing them as valid marriages.

 

But Hippolytus found himself in the minority. The majority of Roman Christians

respected Callistus as a teacher and martyr, endorsed his policies, and elected

him bishop. Now that Callistus headed the Roman church, Hippolytus decided to

break away from it. In the process, he turned against the bishop the same

polemical techniques that Irenaeus had taught him to use against the gnostics.

As Irenaeus singled out certain groups of Christians as heretics, and named them

according to their teachers (as 'Valentinians', 'Simonians', etc.), so

Hippolytus accused Callistus of teaching heresy and characterized his following

as 'the Callistians' - as if they were a sect separate from 'the church', which

Hippolytus himself claimed to represent.

 

How could Hippolytus justify his claim to represent the church, when he and his

few adherents were attacking the great majority of Roman Christians and their

bishop? Hippolytus explained that the majority of 'self-professed Christians'

were incapable of living up to the standard of the 'true' church, which

consisted of 'the community of those who live in holiness'. (P.121) Like his

gnostic opponents, having refused to identify the church through its official

hierarchy, he characterized it instead in terms of the spiritual qualities of

its members.

 

Tertullian presented an even more dramatic case. As long as he identified

himself as a 'catholic Christian', Tertullian defined the church as Irenaeus

had. Writing his 'Preemptive Objection against Heretics', Tertullian proclaimed

that his church alone bore the apostolic rule of faith, revered the canon of

Scriptures, and bore through its ecclesiastical hierarchy the sanction of

apostolic succession. Like Irenaeus, Tertullian indicted the heretics for

violating each of these boundaries. He complains that they refused simply to

accept and believe the rule of faith as others did: instead, they challenged

others to raise theological questions, when they themselves claimed no answers,

 

being ready to say, and sincerely, of certain points of their belief, 'This is

not so,' and 'I take this in a different sense,' and 'I do not admit that.'[31]

 

Tertullian warns that such questioning leads to heresy: 'This rule... was taught

by Christ, and raises among ourselves no other questions than those which the

heresies introduce and which make men heretics!'[32] He also charges that the

heretics did not restrict themselves to the Scriptures of the New Testament:

either they added other writings or they challenged the orthodox interpretation

of key texts.[33] Further, as noted already, he condemns the heretics for being

'a camp of rebels' who refused to submit to the authority of the bishop. Arguing

for a strict order of obedience and submission, he concludes that 'evidence of a

stricter discipline existing among us is an additional proof of truth'.[34]

 

So speaks Tertullian the catholic. But at the end of his life, when his own

intense fervor impelled him to break with the orthodox community, he rejected

and branded it as the church of mere 'psychic' Christians. He joined instead the

Montanist movement, whose adherents called it the 'new prophecy', claiming to be

inspired by the Holy Spirit. At this time Tertullian began to distinguish

sharply between the empirical church and another, spiritual vision of the

church. Now he no longer identified the church in terms of its ecclesiastical

organization, but only with the spirit that sanctified individual members. He

scorns the catholic community as 'the church of a number of bishops':

 

For the church itself, properly and principally, is spirit, in which there is

the trinity of one divinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit...The church

congregates where the Lord plans it - a spiritual church for spiritual people -

'not' the church of a number of bishops![35]

 

(P.122) What impelled dissidents from catholic Christianity to maintain or

develop such visionary descriptions of the church? Were their visions 'up in the

air' because they were interested in theoretical speculation? On the contrary,

their motives were sometimes traditional and polemical, but also sometimes

political. They were convinced that the 'visible church' - the actual network of

catholic communities - either had been wrong from the beginning or had gone

wrong. The true church, by contrast, was 'invisible': only its members perceived

who belonged to it and who did not. Dissidents intended their idea of an

invisible church to oppose the claims of those who said they represented the

universal church. Martin Luther made the same move 1,300 years later. When his

devotion to the Catholic Church changed to criticism, then rejection, he began

to insist, with other protestant reformers, that the true church was 'invisible'

- that is, not identical with Catholicism.

 

The gnostic author of the 'Testimony of Truth' would have agreed with Luther and

gone much further. He rejects as fallacious all the marks of ecclesiastical

Christianity. Obedience to the clerical hierarchy requires believers to submit

themselves to 'blind guides' whose authority comes from the malevolent creator.

Conformity to the rule of faith attempts to limit all Christians to an inferior

ideology: 'They say, " [Even if]an [angel] comes from heaven, and preaches to you

beyond what we preach to you, let him be accursed! " '[36] Faith in the sacraments

shows naive and magical thinking: catholic Christians practice baptism as an

initiation rite which guarantees them 'a hope of salvation',[37] believing that

only those who receive baptism are 'headed for life'.[38]

 

Against such 'lies' the gnostic declares that 'this, therefore, is the 'true'

testimony: when man knows himself, and God who is over the truth, he will be

saved'.[39] Only those who come to recognize that they have been living in

ignorance, and learn to release themselves by discovering who they are,

experience enlightenment as a new life, as 'the resurrection'. Physical rituals

like baptism become irrelevant, for 'the baptism of truth is something else; it

is by renunciation of [the] world that it is found'.[40]

 

Against those who claimed exclusive access to truth, those who followed law and

authority, and who placed their faith in ritual, this author sets his own

vision: 'Whoever is able to renounce them [money and sexual intercourse] shows

[that] he is [from] the generation of the [son of Man], and that he has power to

accuse [them].'[41] (P.123) Like Hippolytus and Tertullian, but more radical

than either, this teacher praises sexual abstinence and economic renunciation as

the marks of the true Christian.

 

The 'Authoritative Teaching', another text discovered at Nag Hammadi, also

offers vehement attack on catholic Christianity. The author tells the story of

the soul, who originally came from heaven, from the 'fullness of being',[42] but

when she 'was cast into the body'[43] she experienced sensual desire, passions,

hatred, and envy. Clearly the allegory refers to the individual soul's struggle

against passions and sin; yet the language of the account suggests a wider,

social referent as well. It relates the struggle of those who are spiritual,

akin to the soul (with whom the author identifies), against those who are

essentially alien to her. The author explains that some who were called 'our

brothers', who claimed to be Christians, actually were outsiders. Although 'the

word has been preached'[44] to them, and they heard 'the call'[45] and performed

acts of worship, these self-professed Christians were 'worse than...the

pagans',[46] who had an excuse for their ignorance.

 

On what counts does the gnostic accuse these believers? First, that they 'do not

seek after God'.[47] The gnostic understands Christ's message not as offering a

set of answers, but as encouragement to engage in a process of searching: 'seek

and inquire about the ways you should go, since there is nothing else as good as

this'.[48] The rational soul longs to

 

see with her mind, and perceive her kinsmen, and learn about her root...in order

that she might receive what is hers...[49]

 

What is the result? The author declares that she attains fulfillment:

 

....the rational soul who wearied herself in seeking - she learned about God. She

labored with inquiring, enduring distress in the body, wearing out her feet

after the evangelists, learning about the Inscrutable One....She came to rest in

him who is at rest. She reclined in the bride-chamber. She ate of the banquet

for which she had hungered.... She found what she had sought.[50]

 

Those who are gnostics follow her path. But non-gnostic Christians 'do not

seek':

 

....these - the ones who are ignorant - do not seek after God...they do not

inquire about God...the senseless man hears the call, but he is ignorant of the

place to which he has been called. And he did not ask, during the preaching,

'Where is the temple into which I should go and worship?'[51]

 

(P.124) Those who merely believe the preaching they hear, without asking

questions, and who accept the worship set before them, not only remain ignorant

themselves, but 'if they find someone else who asks about his salvation',[52]

they act immediately to censor and silence him.

 

Second, these 'enemies' assert that they themselves are the soul's 'shepherd':

 

....They did not realize that she has an invisible, spiritual body; they think

'We are her shepherd, who feeds her.' But they did not realize that she knows

another way which is hidden from them. This her true shepherd taught her in

'gnosis'.[53]

 

Using the common term for bishop (poimen, 'shepherd'), the author refers,

apparently, to members of the clergy: they did not know that the gnostic

Christian had direct access to Christ himself, the soul's true shepherd, and did

not need their guidance. Nor did these would-be shepherds realize that the true

church was not the visible one (the community over which they preside), but that

'she has an invisible, spiritual body'[54] - that is, she included only those

who were spiritual. Only Christ, and they themselves, knew who they were.

Furthermore, these 'outsiders' indulged themselves in drinking wine, in sexual

activity, and they worked at ordinary business, like pagans. To justify their

conduct, they oppressed and slandered those who had attained 'gnosis', and who

practiced total renunciation. The gnostic declares:

 

....we take no interest in them when they [malign] us. And we ignore them when

they curse us. When they cast shame in our face, we look at them, and do not

speak. For they work at their business, but we go around in hunger and

thirst...[55]

 

These 'enemies', I submit, were following the kind of advice that orthodox

leaders like Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus prescribed for dealing with

heretics. In the first place, they refused to question the rule of faith and

common doctrine. Tertullian warns that 'the heretics and the philosophers' both

ask the same questions, and urges believers to dismiss them all:

 

Away with all attempts to produce a mixed Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, or

dialectic composition! We want no curious disputation after possessing Christ

Jesus, no inquiring after enjoying the gospel! With our faith, we desire no

further belief.[56]

 

He complains that heretics welcome anyone to join with them, 'for they do not

care how differently they treat topics', so long as they meet together to

approach 'the city of the one sole truth'.[57] Yet their metaphor indicates that

the gnostics were neither relativists nor skeptics. Like the orthodox, they

sought the 'one sole truth'. But gnostics tended to regard all doctrines,

speculations, and myths - their own as well as others' - only as approaches to

truth. The orthodox, by contrast, were coming to identify their own doctrine as

itself the truth - the sole legitimate form of Christian faith. Tertullian

admits that the heretics claimed to follow Jesus' counsel ('Seek, and you shall

find; knock, and it shall be opened to you').[58] But this means, he says, that

Christ taught 'one definite thing' - what the rule of faith contains. Once

having found and believed this, the Christian has nothing further to seek:

 

Away with the person who is seeking where he never finds; for he seeks where

nothing can be found. Away with him who is always knocking; because it will

never be opened to him, for he knocks where there is no one to open. Away with

the one who is always asking, because he will never be heard, for he asks of one

who does not hear.[59]

 

Irenaeus agrees: 'According to this course of procedure, one would be always

inquiring, but never finding, because he has rejected the very method of

discovery.'[60] The only safe and accurate course, he says, is to accept in

faith what the church teaches, recognizing the limits of human understanding.

 

As we have seen, these 'enemies' of the gnostics followed the church fathers'

advice in asserting the claims of the clergy over gnostic Christians. Also, they

treated 'unrepentant' gnostics as outsiders to Christian faith; and finally,

they affirmed the value of ordinary employment and family life over the demands

of radical asceticism.

 

The Gnostic Gospels, Pg. 119-125

Elaine Pagels

Phoenix Publishers - St. Martin's Lane, London

ISBN 13: 978-0-7538-2114-5

 

 

References:

 

[29] Hippolytus, REF 9.7.

 

[30] ibid., 9.12.

 

[31] Tertullian, 'Adversus Valentinianos' 4.

 

[32] Tertullian, DE PRAESCR. 13.

 

[33] ibid., 38.

 

[34] ibid., 44.

 

[35] Tertullian, 'De Pudicitia' 21.

 

[36] 'Testimony of Truth' 73.18-22, in NHL 415.

 

[37] ibid., 69.9-10, in NHL 414.

 

[38] ibid., 69.18, in NHL 414.

 

[39] ibid., 44.30-45.45.4, in NHL 411. Emphasis added.

 

[40] ibid., 69.22-4, in NHL 414.

 

[41] ibid., 68.8-12, in NHL 414.

 

[42] 'Authoritative Teaching' 22.19 (passim), in NHL 278 ff.

 

[43] ibid., 23.13-14, in NHL 279.

 

[44] ibid., 34.19, in NHL 283.

 

[45] ibid., 34.4, in NHL 282.

 

[46] ibid., 34.12-13, in NHL 282.

 

[47] ibid., 33.4-5, in NHL 282.

 

[48] ibid., 34.20-23, in NHL 283.

 

[49] ibid., 22.28-34, in NHL 278.

 

[50] ibid., 34.32-35.16, in NHL 283.

 

[51] ibid., 33.4-34.9, in NHL 282.

 

[52] ibid., 33.16-17, in NHL 282.

 

[53] ibid., 32.30-33.3, in NHL 282.

 

[54] ibid., 32.30-32, in NHL 282.

 

[55] ibid., 27.6-15, in NHL 280.

 

[56] Tertullian, 'DE PRAESCR.7.

 

[57] ibid., 41.

 

[58] ibid., 8-11.

 

[59] ibid., 11.

 

[60] Irenaeus, AH 2.27.2.