God's Word or Human Words - Part 5

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

Part 4 concluded with the following:

 

(p.84) Apollinarius, who became bishop of the Asian town of Hierapolis in 171

C.E., says that when he went to Ancyra (contemporary Ankara, in Turkey) " and saw

that the church in that place was torn in two by this new movement, " he opposed

it, declaring that " it is not 'prophecy', as they call it, but, as I shall show,

'false prophecy'. " [22] Such opponents accused Montanus, Maximilla, and

Priscilla of being opportunists, or even demon-possessed. (p.85) In one town a

Christian named Zotimus interrupted Maximilla while she was prophesying and

tried to exorcise her, ordering her " demons " to leave, until her followers

seized him and dragged him outside the church. Maximilla had received

outpourings of the spirit and had left her husband to devote herself to

prophecy. Speaking in an ecstatic trance, she declared, " Do not listen to me,

but to Christ.... I am compelled, whether willing or not, to come to know God's

'gnosis'. " [23] Priscilla claimed that Christ had appeared to her in female

form. Opponents accused both Maximilla and Priscilla of breaking their marriage

vows, wearing expensive clothes, and making money by deceiving gullible people.

After a group of bishops in Turkey finally excommunicated her, Maximilla

protested: " I am driven away like the wolf from the sheep. I am no wolf; I am

word, and spirit, and power! " [24]

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas), Chapter 3, p. 84-85.

 

Notes:

 

[22] Eusebius, 'Historia Ecclesiae', quoting Apollinarius, in 5.16.5.

 

[23] Ibid., 5.17.12; for a careful account of the controversy, see Christine

Trevett, 'Montanism: Gender, Authority, and the New Prophecy' (Cambridge, 1996);

among ancient authors, a primary source is Eusebius's account in 5.16.1-19.2.

For an edition of the sayings attributed to the prophets, see Kurt Aland, " Der

Montanismus und die Kleinasiatische Theologie, " 'Zeitschrift fur Neue

Testamenten Wissenschaft' 46 (1955), 109-116.

 

[24] Eusebius, 'Historia Ecclesiae' 5.16.17; Aland, 'Montanismus', saying 16.

 

Here now, is Part 5.

 

violet

 

 

 

God's Word or Human Words - Part 5

 

(p.85) When Irenaeus arrived in Rome, he found on every side groups and factions

that challenged his own understanding of the gospel. The letter he brought may

have helped persuade Bishop Eleutherus to refrain from censuring the new

prophecy, but the movement was dividing Christians throughout Asia Minor as well

as Rome. While many attacked its leaders as liars and frauds, others defended

it--and those on both sides drew the Gospel of John into the controversy. Some

members of the new prophecy claimed that the spirit's presence among them

fulfilled what Jesus promised in John's gospel: " I will send you the advocate

['paraclete'], the spirit of truth,...[who] will guide you into all truth. " [25]

Angered by such argument, Gaius, a Christian leader in Rome, charged that the

Gospel of John, along with that other controversial book of " spiritual

prophecy, " the Revelation, was written not by " John, the disciple of the Lord, "

but by his worst enemy, Cerinthus--the man whom Polycarp said John had

personally denounced as a heretic. [26] (p.86) Not long afterward, however,

Tertullian, already famous as a champion of orthodoxy, himself joined the new

prophecy and defended its members as genuinely spirit-filled Christians.

Although to this day Tertullian stands among the " fathers of the church, " at the

end of his life he turned against what, at this point, he now began to call " the

church of a bunch of bishops. " [27]

 

When Irenaeus met in Rome a childhood friend from Smyrna named Florinus, who

like himself as a young man had studied with Polycarp, he was shocked to learn

that his friend now had joined a group headed by Valentinus and

Ptolemy--sophisticated theologians who, nevertheless, like the new prophets,

often relied on dreams and revelations. [28] Although they called themselves

spiritual Christians, Irenaeus regarded them as dangerously deviant. Hoping to

persuade his friend to reconsider, Irenaeus wrote a letter to warn him that

" these views, Florinus, to put it mildly, are not sound; are not consonant with

the church, and involve their devotees in the worst impiety, even heresy. " [29]

Irenaeus was distressed to learn that an increasing number of educated

Christians were moving in the same direction.

 

When he returned from Rome to Gaul, Irenaeus found his own community devastated;

some thirty people had been brutally tortured and killed in the public arena on

a day set aside to entertain the townspeople with this spectacle. With Bishop

Pothinus dead, the remaining members of his group now looked to Irenaeus for

leadership. (p.87) Aware of the danger, he nevertheless agreed, determined to

unify the survivors. But he saw that members of his own " flock " were splintered

into various, often fractious groups--all of them claiming to be inspired by the

holy spirit.

 

How could he sort out these conflicting claims and impose some kind of order?

The task was enormous and perplexing. Irenaeus believed, certainly, that the

holy spirit had initiated the Christian movement. From the time it began, a

hundred and fifty years earlier, both Jesus and his followers claimed to have

experienced outpourings of the holy spirit--dreams, visions, stories, sayings,

ecstatic speech--many communicated orally, many others written down--reflecting

the vitality and diversity of the movement. The New Testament gospels abound in

visions, dreams, and revelations, like the one that Mark says initiated Jesus'

public activity:

 

In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth, and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

And just as he was coming up out of the water, 'he saw the heavens torn apart

and the spirit descending like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven':

" You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased. " [30]

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas), Chapter 3, p. 85-87

Elaine Pagels

Vintage Books, New York, U.S.A

ISBN: 0-375-70316-0

 

Notes:

 

[25] John 16:4. See the intriguing and provocative article by M.E. Boring, " The

Influence of Christian Prophecy on the Johannine Portrayal of the Paraclete and

Jesus, " 'New Testament Studies' 25 (1978), 113-122; see also 'Sayings of the

Risen Christ: Christian Prophecy in the Synoptic Tradition' (Cambridge, 1982);

R.E. Heine, " The Role of the Gospel of John in the Montanist Controversy, "

'Second Century' 6 (1987), 1-18; see also his article " The Gospel of John and

the Montanist Debate at Rome, " 'Studia Patristica' 21 (1989), 95-100; and Dennis

E. Groh, " Utterance and Exegesis: Biblical Interpretation in the Montanist

Crisis, " in D.E. Groh and R. Jewett, eds., 'The Living Text' (New York, 1985),

73-95.

 

[26] Irenaeus, AH 3.11.9; Eusebius, 'Historia Ecclesiae' 3.28.1; see Dionysios

bar Salibi, 'Commentary on the Apocalypse' 1.

 

[27] 'On Modesty', 21. On Tertullian, see Timothy D. Barnes, 'Tertullian: A

Historical and Literary Study' (Oxford, 1971).

 

[28] On the media of revelation, see David E. Aune, 'Prophecy in Early

Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World' (Grand Rapids, 1983); on

Valentinus, see the definitive study by Christoph Markschies, 'Valentinus

Gnosticus? Untersuchungen zur valentinianischen Gnosis mit einem Kommentar zu

den Fragmenten Valentins' (Tubingen, 1992).

 

[29] Eusebius, 'Historia Ecclesiae' 5.20.4.

 

[30] Mark 1:10-11.