davidstarlingm

Sorry, I reworked that a couple of times. I shouldn't have had "merely" in there at all. Do you think orthodox Christianity was only one of several divergent competing ideologies in the 4th century....or that it had state sanctioned violent suppression helping it in the 4th century?

Which environment are you referencing? And what persecution are you referencing? I'm sure that the Cathars would have grown more if the Catholics hadn't massacred them, yes, but that was quite a bit later....

Very good point. Thanks for bringing this up.

Horatio Parker

I agree that the meaning isn't monolithic. The meanings you mention don't conflict; they could all be considered true AFAICT.

But I disagree with the last two sentences on what's most important. My take on it is that our most important possessions are our rationality and our sense of free will or if you prefer good and evil.

Horatio Parker

Both
The environment was post-Nicea. I'm generalizing, not referencing a single persecution or set thereof.

I didn't bring up the Cathars.

davidstarlingm

What historical sources or theoretical conjectures do you base that model on?

Horatio Parker

Just had the thought that if "work" is meant to be we have to tend to our souls, nurture our rationality and our ethics then yes that is the most important part of the story. Just because I prefer analogy doesn't mean I'm the quickest...

Horatio Parker

This is too much like your earlier question.

I was not the only one to ask you and you never answered: was Gnosticism suppressed post-Nicea or not?

davidstarlingm

Sorry, I thought I had answered.

I don't know of any examples of the ideology of gnosticism being "suppressed" on a large scale at any time. Examples like the Cathars, which Toto mentioned, weren't really suppression of an ideology so much as aggression toward any group that wouldn't submit to Catholic rule.

As far as my previous question was concerned:
I'm genuinely curious as to what books these are and what incidents they are referring to. By "early church", do you mean post-Nicaea or pre-Nicaea?

Horatio Parker

Sounds like a "no", tho "large scale" is a hedge.

Gnosticism apparently isn't a religion to you, but an ideology. Who decides what's a religion and what isn't?

And Cathars and Catholics were people of different "ideologies" who had a secular disagreement about who was in charge. Maybe their faith was just a handy way to tell them apart.

Sounds like an apologist to me(not that there's anything wrong with that).

Does anyone here have a better understanding of post-Nicea Gnostic suppression? It's a challenge...

Horatio Parker

That's not an easy question because the focus of my reading has never been the suppression of Gnosticism, or for that matter suppression by the church at all. It has come up incidentally. Over and over.

I could look at my bookshelf, at my Amazon and NPYL lists, examine the indexes etc and give you an answer, but I don't see much value in such an exercise at this point. Do you?

davidstarlingm

Yes, it's a no. I wasn't trying to hedge; I'm just anticipating that there were probably plenty of times that any given religious ideas would have been suppressed by some local authorities somewhere. The "ruthlessly stomped out" part was what I was thinking when I said "large scale".

Gnosticism is certainly a set of religious ideas that has described various religions at very different times. I was just skeptical of your assertion that specific gnostic ideology attracted a ruthless stomping-out.

The Cathars were just one of many groups that the Catholics attacked for not adhering to their religion; I don't see why we'd think there was anything specific about gnosticism that made them any more of a target than Muslims, Jews, or Protestants.

I don't think there is anything terribly controversial about what I'm saying....just looking for reasons why people hold the preconceptions that they do.