Clivedurdle

Were the groups in Languedoc who were bashed in crusades gnostic?

If so, are we looking at a background idea that ebbs and flows in popularity?

There is a basic logic to the idea that as this world is obviously imperfect, it cannot have been made by a perfect god!

But as we can experience love maybe there is a Most High god of love?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogomilism

Chili

Correct, as distinct from the OT God with his own lineage past the ancients right back to God as Luke presents.

The problem is that it is easy enough to father one of them that we call [super egoistic] Christian today, but 'to mother one' is not so easy and that is where the Gnostics will always be an apostel short . . . and if they are not they will no longer be 'a' Gnostic, but be gnostic and know the difference.

mountainman

You have a short memory. The OP and focus is on the gnostics who have been presumed to be Christians, albeit heretics.

What is the evidence for the pre-Nicaean existence of Christian Gnosticism?

I have attempted to have a discussion about this many times.




Why do we think the Gnostics wrote before Nicaea?

(a) because the Church Fathers said: "They did" !, and

(b) because of some unconvincing-in-its-isolation palaeographical support.






(a) The Testimonial evidence "found" in Eusebius et al

(a) The basic reason that everyone thinks that some of the "Gnostic Gospels and Acts" etc were authored "early", before the Council of Nicaea, is because that inference may be drawn from the mention made to these texts by "early authors" presented in the fourth century by Eusebius. We will examine these references.

In the following I have outlined the evidence at the basis of this commonly accepted "belief". Note that in the following the abbreviation NTC represents the "New Testament Canon" while the abbreviation NTA represents the "New Testament Apocrypha" (ie: the Gnostic Gospels and Acts, etc)

Categorizing the literary evidence supporting the Mainstream chronology

A process of categorization is employed to focus on the key literary evidence supporting the generally accepted mainstream theory of "Pre-Nicaean" authorship. The texts have been classified according to six Category Codes as follows:

Category (1): Eusebius's "Research" discloses earlier "witnesses". (12 texts)

Category (1) consists of books for which Eusebius presents literary sources that would have us infer that these books were cited by authors in the 2nd or 3rd century. These key citations will be briefly examined further below.

Category (2): Eusebius's himself is the earliest "witness". (5 texts)

In Category (2) Eusebius himself is the earliest witness. (The Acts of Andrew and John, The Acts of Andrew and Matthew, The Acts of Peter and Andrew, The Acts of Andrew, The Acts of John, The Teaching of the Apostles)

Category (3): There are no extant texts. (9 texts)

Category (3) lists books cited but for which there are no extant texts. (The Gospel of the Lord [by Marcion], The Gospel of the Egyptians, The Gospel of the Ebionites, The Gospel of the Hebrews, The Gospel of the Nazoreans)

Category (4): There are no "Early Witnesses". (27 texts)

Category (4) lists books for which there is no “early” mention. (The Acts of Thomas, The Acts of Peter, The Acts of John the Theologian, The Pistis Sophia [nb: this is misnamed and is actually entitled "A Portion of the Books of the Savior"], The Didache [Teaching of the Apostles], The Gospel of Mary [Magdalene]

Category (5): Known 4th Century (or Later) Authorship (55 texts)

Finally in the last Category (5) The Acts of Pilate heads a large list of over 77 books of the NTA currently conjectured to have been authored after the Council of Nicaea. Fourth century (or later) authorship of this large group of NTA books is accepted. Many of the 50 odd texts from the Nag Hammadi Codices fall into this category, although modern scholarship seems to be able to identify - we don't know how - more and more of these texts as belonging to the 3rd century.

This arrangement of data can be graphed as follows:

Identifying the critical evidence & texts to be examined

As can clearly be seen, both in the above diagram and table, the actual evidence underpinning the mainstream theory that some of the gnostic (non canonical) literature is "early" is restricted only to the categories 1 and 2. For texts in category 3, there is no text to examine. For those in category 4 there are no early mentions, while for those in category 5, all the evidence points to the post Nicaean epoch. These texts, respresenting 84 % of the total number of known Gnostic texts, are reasonably securely not evidenced until the 4th century.

However the books listed in Category 2, are first evidenced by Eusebius himself, but there is no guarantee that these did not appear during the period Eusebius was writing. These can therefore be ignored for the moment.

Consequently, the following section examine the 12 texts that fall into Category 1, representing just 11 % of the total number of texts, by which mainstream currently presume the Gnostics were operating before Nicaea.


Summary of Literary Citation Evidence for Mainstream chronology

It should therefore be clear from the above categorization that the historical evidence concerning at least some early authorship of the books of the NTA arises only in Category 1, and that therefore, at the basis of the mainstream postulate for early authorship, this literary evidence may be briefly summarized by listing the 12 books as follows:

The Gospel of Peter:
Eusebius cites Origen, Justin Martyr and Serapion as mentioning this text although in the case of Justin, MR James comments that “the evidence is not demonstrative”. Eusebius has an unknown Serapion report that he walked into a Gnostic library and “borrowed” a copy of this text.

The Gospel of Thomas:
Eusebius cites Hippolytus (155-235), Refutation of all Heresies, v. 1-6., as mentioning something similar to the received text, and cites Origen as mentioning some text of Thomas. Eusebius cites saying (No. 2 in the gThomas) as quoted by Clement of Alexandria (Miscellenies ii. 45. 5; v. 96.3), as coming from the Gospel according to the Hebrews. There is certainly some ambiguity here.

The Gospel of Judas:
Eusebius cites a mention of this text in Irenaeus’ “Adversus Haereses” [I.31.1] however some integrity issues have been noted with it. For example, the text is described by Irenaeus as being linked with such villainous persons as Cain, Esau, Korah, and the Sodomites, rather than with the traditionally respected person of Seth. One commentator writes “Perhaps Irenaeus was simply misinformed or deliberately confused the two as a rhetorical strategy. At any rate, it is a strange divergence that demands clarification.” [Review of Deconick, Arie Zwiep] There is further ambiguity here

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas:
Eusebius preserves a citation from Irenaeus who quotes a non-canonical story that circulated about the childhood of Jesus. Many but not all scholars consider that it is possible that the apocryphal writing cited by Irenaeus is, in fact, what is now known as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. There is room for doubt

The Infancy Gospel of James:
Early knowledge of the “Protevangelium of James” is inferred from the preservation in Eusebius of mention by Clement of Alexandria and Origen. An inference is not the same thing as unambiguous evidence.

The Vision of Isiah
Mentioned by Origen, Tertullian, Justin Martyr ?

The Apocalypse of Peter
This is not the Gnostic text! Mentioned by Clement (Eclogues 41,48,49) - but there is no extant text

The Gospel of Truth
This is the NHC text; some consider it to be mentioned by Irenaeus ?

The Apocyphon of John
Mentioned by Irenaeus ?

The Sentences of Sextus
Sextus appears to have been a Pythagorean. Some think it is quoted by Origen, Contra Celsum, viii. 30; Commentary on Matthew, xv. 3)

The Acts of Peter
Attributed to Leucius Charinus, along with the Acts of Paul. The other books attributed to "Leucius" are: The Acts of John, The Acts of Andrew, the Acts of Thomas, and possibly also The Acts of Andrew and John, The Acts of Andrew and Matthew and The Acts of Peter and Andrew. Notably, most of these are first witnessed by Eusebius, with the exception of the Acts of Paul.

The Acts of Paul:
The chief and final literary citation is from Eusebius’ often cited Latin author Tertullian, in his De baptismo 17.5. This appears as the only early instance in which information is provided concerning an author of apocryphal writings. Note that the manuscripts which preserve Tertullian's De baptismo are quite late, the earliest being the 12th century Codex Trecensis.

As for those (women) who appeal to the falsely written Acts of Paul in order to defend the right of women to teach and to baptize, let them know that the presbyter in Asia who produced this document, as if he could add something of his own to the prestige of Paul, was removed from his office after he had been convicted and had confessed that he had done it out of love for Paul.

The 4th century interpolation into Josephus, known as the "Testimonium Flavianum", is regarded by many as a critically positioned forgery, with respect to the history of the NTC. Likewise the "Testimonium Tertullianum", it is suggested, should be regarded as a critically positioned forgery, with respect to the history of the NTA.

Jerome’s novel addition to the Christian tradition - that the author of the Acts of Paul wrote in the presence of the apostle John in the 1st century - is a plainly fraudulent misrepresentation, and has been soundly rejected by many academics.



These are the chief items of evidence by which the hypothesis that the Gnostics wrote before Nicaea is held to be true.

We may summarise it as ....... "The Church Fathers said they did !!!!"


If I have made any omissions, mistakes, errors .... you know the drill by now.

Then there are these ...





(b) The Greek NTA papyri fragments "evidence"

Here is an Index of the Non Canonical Oxyrynchus papyri
A number of Greek papyri fragments related to the NTA are postulated - by means of palaeographical assessment to be dated earlier than the 4th century. However the evidence does not appear to be conclusive.


Gospel of Peter: P.Oxy.2949, P.Oxy.4008 and P.Vinbob G 2325 are often cited as “early”, whereas P.Oxy.849 is dated to 325 CE. "They are possibly but not conclusively from the Gospel of Peter." [p,258, FN:11; "Fabricating Jesus" - Craig A Evans].
Gospel of Thomas: P.Oxy.654, P.Oxy.655 and P.Oxy.1

Gospel of Mary: P.Oxy 3525 and P.Rylands 463

Infancy Gospel of James: P.Oxy 3524 and p.Bodmer 5 - cannot be regarded as conclusively certain.


Additionally, there exists a great preponderance of Greek papyri fragments of the NTA which have been dated to the 4th or 5th centuries. Finally it is worth noting in passing that few commentators note that the population demographics for the city of Oxyrhynchus is known to have hit a massive peak in the mid 4th century. The analysis of coins found at the fifteen Oxyrhynchus tip sites also suggests the same thing. (See Milne, J.G.)



SUMMARY

The above evidence is far from conclusive in establishing that the Gnostic Gospels and Acts were authored before the epoch of Nicaea and Eusebius. In addition it has not yet been argued that Eusebius himself cannot be regarded as a fair and accurate witness, since he himself must be classified as an "heresiologist" with respect to the Gnostics, and is thus a hostile witness.


A summary of Eusebius's source witnesses is therefore as follows:

Witnesses to the historicity of Gnostic books before Nicaea

Eusebius, Constantine's "Worldly Advisor" (5);
Origen, one of two in antiquity (5);
Irenaeus, the pious Bishop of Lyons (4);
Clement, the pious Bishop of Alexandria (3);
Tertullian, the pious Bishop of Carthage (2);
Justin Martyr, the pious Martyr and Foremost Apologist (2);
Serapion (1); and
Hippolytus (1).

Most if not all of these sources are suspected of forgeries.



The academic world presently assumes as true the hypothesis that the Gnostic books predate Nicaea. I have about cited and analysed the evidence out of which such an hypothesis thought to be true has arisen. I would like to see this evidence discussed.

The antithetical hypothesis that the Gnostic books do not predate Nicaea has yet to be examined and tested against the evidence.

My position is to defend the examination and investigation of this antithetical hypothesis.

I think it's highly likely that the gnostics wrote all their own Gospels and Acts in reaction to the appearance of the Nicaean Bible.