Conclusion - Part 3

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

Part 2 concluded with the following:

 

(p.153) " We can see, then, how conflicts arose in the formation of Christianity

between those restless, inquiring people who marked out a solitary path of

self-discovery and the institutional framework that gave to the great majority

of people religious sanction and ethical direction for their daily lives.

Adapting for its own purposes the model of Roman political and military

organization, and gaining, in the fourth century, imperial support, orthodox

Christianity grew increasingly stable and enduring. Gnostic Christianity proved

no match for the orthodox faith, either in terms of orthodoxy's wide popular

appeal, what Nock called its 'perfect because unconscious correspondence to the

needs and aspirations of ordinary humanity', [27] or in terms of its effective

organization. Both have ensured its survival through time. But the process of

establishing orthodoxy ruled out every other option. To the impoverishment of

Christian tradition, gnosticism, which offered alternatives to what became the

main thrust of Christian orthodoxy, was forced outside. "

 

The Gnostic Gospels, Chapter 6, p. 153

 

Here now is Part 3, the conclusion.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

Conclusion - Part 3

 

(p.153) The concerns of gnostic Christians survived only as a suppressed

current, like a river driven underground. Such currents resurfaced throughout

the Middle Ages in various forms of heresy; then, with the Reformation,

Christian tradition again took on new and diverse forms. Mystics like Jacob

Boehme, himself accused of heresy, and radical visionaries like George Fox,

themselves unfamiliar, in all probability, with gnostic tradition, nevertheless

articulated analogous interpretations of religious experience. But the great

majority of the movements that emerged from the Reformation - Baptist,

Pentecostal, Methodist, Episcopal, Congregational, Presbyterian, Quaker -

remained within the basic framework of orthodoxy established in the second

century. All regarded the New Testament writings alone as authoritative; most

accepted the orthodox creed and retained the Christian sacraments, even when

they altered their form and interpretation.

 

Now that the Nag Hammadi discoveries give us a new perspective on this process,

we can understand why certain creative persons throughout the ages, from

Valentinus and Heracleon to Blake, Rembrandt, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and

Nietzsche, found themselves at the edges of orthodoxy. All were fascinated by

the figure of Christ - his birth, life, teachings, death and resurrection: all

returned constantly to Christian symbols to express their own experience. And

yet they found themselves in revolt against orthodox institutions. An increasing

number of people today share their experience. They cannot rest solely on the

authority of the Scriptures, the apostles, the church - at least not without

inquiring how that authority constituted itself, and what, if anything, gives it

legitimacy. All the old questions - the original questions, sharply debated at

the beginning of Christianity - are being reopened: How is one to understand the

resurrection? What about women's participation in priestly and episcopal office?

Who was Christ, and how does he relate to the believer? What are the

similarities between Christianity and other world religions?

 

That I have devoted so much of this discussion to gnosticism does not mean, as

the casual reader might assume, that I advocate going back to gnosticism - much

less that I 'side with it' against orthodox Christianity. As a historian, of

course, I find the discoveries at Nag Hammadi enormously exciting, since the

evidence they offer opens a new perspective for understanding what fascinates me

most - the history of Christianity. But the task of the historian, as I

understand it, is not to advocate any side, but to explore the evidence - in

this instance, to attempt to discover how Christianity originated. Furthermore,

as a person concerned with religious questions, I find that rediscovering the

controversies that occupied early Christianity sharpens our awareness of the

major issue in the whole debate, then and now: What is the source of religious

authority? For the Christian, the question takes more specific form: What is the

relation between the authority of one's own experience and that claimed for the

Scriptures, the ritual, and the clergy?

 

When Muhammed' Ali smashed that jar filled with papyrus on the cliff near Nag

Hammadi and was disappointed not to find gold, he could not have imagined the

implications of his accidental find. Had they been discovered 1,000 years

earlier, the gnostic texts almost certainly would have been burned for their

heresy. (p.155) But they remained hidden until the twentieth century, when our

own cultural experience has given us a new perspective on the issues they raise.

Today we read them with different eyes, not merely as 'madness and blasphemy'

but as Christians in the first centuries experienced them - a powerful

alternative to what we know as orthodox Christian tradition. Only now are we

beginning to consider the questions with which they confront us.

 

The Gnostic Gospels

(Long Buried And Suppressed, The Gnostic Gospels Contain

The Secret Writings Attributed To The Followers of Jesus)

Chapter 6, Pg. 153-155

Elaine Pagels

Phoenix Publishers - St. Martin's Lane, London

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

 

Notes:

 

[27] A.D. Nock, 'The Study of the History of Religion', in 'Arthur Darby Nock',

Vol. 1, 339.