Philo's guide to decoding the Hebrew Bible

[Minimalist]

Hmmm, synchronicity across the Atlantic.

Let us know when one of you lights up a cigarette.

[seeker]

I'm good but not THAT good.

[Ishtar]

I'm sure you are THAT good, Seeker!

Anyway, on to the word 'heretics'.

When I was in the nunnery, I found a book in the Abbey's library about Gnostic Christians, and it told about what a terrible time the early Church had with these terrible 'heretics' that were threatening the very existence of Christianity, which is why they had to stamp them out.

But when it said: "threat to Christianity", what did they really mean? It turns out that these Gnostics sects, who were living peacably enough and were not about to mount a crusade against anyone, let alone against Literal Christianity, were a threat for one reason only. Anyone examining the Platonic, Gnostic and the Mystery schools teachings around the Mediterranean about the cross and the dying and resurrecting godmen would soon realise that the story of a historical figure called Jesus Christ was a sham. So in eradicating the 'heretics', the Literal Christians were trying to eradicate their true roots.

The worse thing they did was to draw this fake line in the sands of Time. Even though we now say Before Common Era and Common Era (instead of Before Christ and Anno Domini) we are still abiding by the same illusory boundary between an imaginery 'Old Testament time' and 'New Testament time'. And so we have archaeologists in Jerusalem digging for 1st century evidence of a Jesus and his fishermen followers that they will never find.

[seeker]

The big problem with Gnosticism for the Catholic Church, IMO, was that it wasn't centralized. The first thing the literal Church did was create a hierarchy to control doctrine.

[Ishtar]

The whole point with Gnosticism is that it wasn't controlled by a hierarchy. It is about an inner mystical experience over which the person having it takes total ownership of their own power. I'm not saying that there weren't aspects of religous thinking from time to time, but compared to Literal Christianity, it was an 'easy come, easy go' world of tolerance for others' views or experiences. There was no need or desire to enforce a one size fits all mentality on what is, after all, a personal issue between one and one's God/god.

[Ishtar]

Another interesting point is that early Gnostic leaders, like Valentinus and Origen, were originally accepted members of the orthodox church. So this is how we can tell that the Literalist version of a real skin and blood Jeus didn't become orthodoxy until around the middle of the second century, when these two guys and others like them were chucked out.

[Minimalist]

It is about an inner mystical experience over which the person having it takes total ownership of their own power.

And that is no use to anyone!

[Ishtar]

Of no use politically.....

[seeker]

Kind of makes you wonder just how much Constantine's political aims really influenced Christianity.

[Minimalist]

Of no use politically.....

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

--Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[Ishtar]

Of no use politically.....

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

--Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Then mysticism, being of no use to anyone politically as you correctly pointed out, by your own definition, cannot be a religion. QED.

[Minimalist]

That's why it has to be converted into something which controls people or, if that can't be done, declared a public menace and eradicated.

[Ishtar]

Who were you in your last lifetime? Iranaeus of Lyons?

[Minimalist]

Niccolo Machiavelli

[Ishtar]

See Min, it was more than about political control. If it was just that, these mystic guys would have been wiped out a lot sooner.

As it was, they'd existed quite happily for thousands of years, at least since 1900 BC, which was when the Greek Mystery schools began. So why did they have to be wiped out now? It was because anyone looking at what these 'heretics' believed would quickly see that Iraneus's and Esubius's flesh and blood Saviour had never lived and that the Literalists were propagating a lie.

Otherwise, why destroy Plato's Academy, which had happily existed as no threat to anyone in Athens since mid 500 BC? Why burn down the Library of Alexandria which, to the best of my knowledge, had never declared war on anyone? Why destroy the Mystery groves of Eleusis?

These institutions were only a threat to Literal Christianity because their sacred stories in themselves constituted a pulling up of the prudish and prurient petticoats of Literal Christianity and revealing its true nature.