From the Feast of Agape to the Nicene Creed - Part 9

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded Part 8 with the following:

 

(p.27) " Such gatherings can also communicate joy--celebrating birth, marriage,

or simply, as Paul said, " communion " , [69] such worship refracts a spectrum of

meaning as varied as the experience of those who participate. Those repenting

acts of violence they have done, for example, might find hope for release and

forgiveness, while those who have suffered harm might take comfort in the

conviction that their sufferings are known to--even shared by--God. Perhaps most

often believers experience the shared meal as " communion " with one another and

with God; thus when Paul speaks of the " body of Christ, " he often means the

collective " body " of believers--the union of all who, he says, were " baptized

into 'one body', Jews or Greeks, slaves and free, and all were made to drink

from one spirit. " [70]

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas) Chapter 1, pg. 27.

 

Notes:

 

[69] The Greek term 'koinonia' can be translated " communion " or

" participation, " in passages such as 1 Corinthians 10:16: " The cup of

blessing which we bless, is it not a 'koinonia' in the blood of

Christ: The bread which we break, is it not a 'koinonia' in the body

of Christ? "

 

[70] 1 Corinthians 10:17; Galatians 3:28; 1 Corinthians 10:3-4.

 

Here now is the conclusion of 'From the Feast of Agape to the Nicene Creed'.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

From the Feast of Agape to the Nicene Creed - Part 9

 

(p.27) Yet, since the fourth century, most churches have required those who

would join such communion to profess a complex set of beliefs about God and

Jesus--beliefs formulated by fourth-century bishops into the ancient Christian

creeds. Some, of course, have no difficulty doing so. Many others, myself

included, have had to reflect on what the creeds mean, as well as on what we

believe (what does it mean to say that Jesus is the " only Son of God, eternally

begotten of the Father, " or that " we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic

Church " ?). Anyone with an ear for poetry can hear this creed as a sonorous tone

poem in praise of God and Jesus. Certainly, as a historian, I can recognize how

these creeds came to be part of tradition, and can appreciate how Constantine,

the first Christian emperor, became convinced that making--and enforcing--such

creeds helped to unify and standardize rival groups and leaders during the

turmoil of the fourth century. Yet how do such demands for belief look today, in

light of what we now know about the origins of the Christian movement?

 

As we have seen, for nearly three hundred years before these creeds were

written, diverse Christian groups had welcomed newcomers in various ways. Groups

represented by the Didache required those who would join them to embrace the

" way of life " taught by Moses and by Jesus, " God's child. " Justin Martyr the

philosopher, now regarded as one of the " fathers of the church, " cared about

belief, of course--above all, that the pagan gods were false, and that one

should acknowledge only the one true God, along with " Jesus Christ, his

son " --but what mattered most was to share--and practice--the values of " God's

people. " So, Justin says, " we baptize those " who not only accept Jesus' teaching

but " 'undertake to be able to live accordingly.' " [71] What sustained many

Christians, even more than belief, were stories--above all, shared stories of

Jesus' birth and baptism, and his teachings, his death, and his resurrection.

Furthermore, the astonishing discovery of the gnostic gospels--a cache of

ancient secret gospels and other revelations attributed to Jesus and his

disciples--has revealed a much wider range of Christian groups than we had ever

known before. [72] Although later denounced by certain leaders as " heretics, "

many of these (p.29) Christians saw themselves as not so much 'believers' as

'seekers', people who " seek for God. "

 

The Church of the Heavenly Rest helped me to realize much that I love about

religious tradition, and Christianity in particular--including how powerfully

these may affect us, and perhaps even transform us. At the same time, I was also

exploring in my academic work the history of Christianity in the light of the

Nag Hammadi discoveries, and this research helped clarify what I cannot love:

the tendency to identify Christianity with a single, authorized set of

beliefs--however these actually vary from church to church--coupled with the

conviction that Christian belief alone offers access to God.

 

Now that scholars have begun to place the sources discovered at Nag Hammadi,

like newly discovered pieces of a complex puzzle, next to what we have long

known from tradition, we find that these remarkable texts, only now becoming

widely known, are transforming what we know as Christianity. [73] As we shall

see in the following chapters, we are now beginning to understand these

" gospels " much better than we did when I first wrote about them twenty years

ago. Let us start by taking a fresh look at the most familiar of all Christian

sources--the gospels of the New Testament--in the perspective offered by one of

the 'other' Christian gospels composed in the first century and discovered at

Nag Hammadi, the Gospel of Thomas. As we shall soon see, those who later

enshrined the Gospel of John within the New Testament and denounced Thomas's

gospel as " heresy " decisively shaped--and inevitably limited--what would become

Western Christianity.

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas)

Chapter 1, pg. 27-29

Elaine Pagels

Vintage Books, New York, U.S.A

ISBN: 0-375-70316-0

 

Notes:

 

[71] Justin, 1 'Apology' 61; see also 65-66.

 

[72] For discussion, see my earlier book 'The Gnostic Gospels' (New York, 1979);

and I especially recommend to the interested reader several important recent

discussions that, to my regret, were not available to me during the time I was

writing: Bart Ehrman, 'Lost Christianities' (New York, 2003); Marvin Meyer,

'Secret Gospels' (Harrisburg, Pa., 2003); and Richard Valantasis, 'The Gospel of

Thomas' (London, New York, 1997).

 

[73] The work of many scholars today is changing our earlier, more simplistic

picture of the origins of Christianity. Among notable books being published

currently see, for example, Daniel Boyarin, 'Border Lines: The Idea of Orthodoxy

and the Partitioning of Judeo-Christianity' (Pennsylvania, 2004); Bart Ehrman,

'Lost Christianities' (New York and London, 2003); Karen King, 'What is

Gnosticism?' (Cambridge, 2003); Marvin Meyer, 'Secret Gospels' (Harrisburg, Pa.,

2003). I am enormously grateful to these colleagues for allowing me to read each

of these books in manuscript.