wordy

Thanks to all these very thoughtful answers.
Much appreciated. The only name that I remember
was something like Valensius or similar oops poor brain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus_%28Gnostic%29

Correct name is Valentinus
so he was not as early as Paul then or Jesus. so them seems
to be late comers?

The Essenes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essenes
they where actually before and during Jesus and Paul.

They had a Teacher
suppose this Teacher of Righteousness really existed.
could not the mythic jesus of the Church be based on
this real person that was teh Teacher of Righteousness for the Essenes.

That would both give us a historical person and a mythic Jesus.

None of them what is now referred to as Jesus Christ but a story
that could be possible and maybe true? just me like the idea. Not important.

Chili

A teacher of righteousness is never the messiah because he must be crucified to purify the flesh instead elevating it, such as in purification rituals of any sort, for flesh is flesh is flesh, they say, which in turn makes such earned righteousness like filthy rags. Ask Peter, he knows, as did the Inquisitor who could hear them singing halleluia's on the way in, and already knew enough.

And always remember that a theologian does not know, and to have followers is just the evidence of the blind leading the blind.

This sounds harsh and maybe even cruel, but that is how it is.

Religion is just the playing field for you to 'do your thing' as they would want you to, and do this freely, even, without as much as one eye asquint towards that holy night so that inside the mystery of faith it can do you in return, from behind I suppose, and kind of like a thief in the night on the way out.

This then is why [the old?] Baltimore Cathechism has stairway to heaven as the backdoor out so you will not be seen, or heard, and keep the secret to never to be seen in there again, as the temple ruckus is sure to follow after that.

jakejonesiv

There is no first hand account of Jesus by eye witnesses anywhere in New Testament.
There is no definitive evidence of Christianity in the Levant that dates to before 70 CE.


Jake

wordy

But do we have any evidence of the "Gnostics" or
are they invented enemies to teh Church?
Are they mythic enemies a kind of conspiracy myth?

Toto

There are the Nag Hammadi manuscripts.

Chili

Oh yes, lots of Gnostics, and they are those with their eyes half open and so also half shut, and must stand united in an -ism as their 'will to power' that itself is void in their own speech.

mountainman

The entire collection of "gnostic gospels and acts" represent evidence of these "gnostic authors" as a group of people who wrote their own versions of the canonical stories. It appears to be quite clear that the orthodox church neither invented these books nor had any control over their authorship or preservation or circulation when they first appeared.

The real question is when did these books first appear.

The Nicaean orthodoxy created the history of Christianity and the history of [the gnostic] opposition to the orthodoxy which they claimed existed in the centuries prior to Nicaea. I think that this claim may be false, and that there was really no opposition (or indeed any gnostic gospels and acts) until Nicaea because we have no evidence (aside from a very few palaeographically dated fragments) until the 4th century. (This included the Nag Hammadi Codices).

There is therefore no doubt that the gnostic authors (of gospels and acts) existed - because we are still digging up their books. The real question is WHEN they existed.

Did they exist before Nicaea as claimed by "Eusebius"?

Or was "Eusebius" simply lying about the massive Nicaean controversy and the sudden appearance of "prohibited books"?

The orthodox heresiologists (such as "Eusebius") have since Nicaea controlled the perception of who the gnostic authors were and when they wrote and what they wrote. It has only been in the last century or so that the books and texts of these gnostic authors have been discovered and translated and permitted to speak on their own behalf.

Toto

Note that there is no evidence for this speculation, which was contrived to fit the preconceived notion that Christianity did not exist before Constantine.

mountainman

This is completely false as can be immediately demonstrated. For the sake of the argument we may assume the existence of some form of canonical book following Christians in the earlier centuries. The question is whether the gnostic authors who composed the gnostic gospels and acts existed prior to Nicaea.

The propaganda of the Nicaean heresiologists would induce us to believe that these gnostic authors wrote before Constantine took an obscure sect with an obscure "Holy Writ" and elevated it to the purple over all other pagan religions which existed in the Roman Empire c.324/325 CE.

We have a name mentioned from the later 4th century which was cursed by the orthodox heresiologists and by Christian Roman Emperors for centuries. The name is "Leucius Charinus". This person is attributed the authorship of a large number of gnostic acts (and in some cases gospels).


So the question related to the OP becomes was this gnostic author known as "Leucius Charinus" an historical person and if so in which century did he write. See the testimony of Photius who has a book before him of these gnostic acts.

Duvduv

Toto, what would you say for the preconceived and empirically unprovable thesis that Christianity DID exist before the 4th century?
Let's keep in mind as well that texts and apologetica were all intended for a relatively small class of literati who would run the religion, and NOT. the masses.
How many of the masses today know that Vatican II created a new catholic religion which rhey think is the historical catholic religion??