The original church

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On Sunday, April 26, 1998 1:32 PM, box191@iland.net [SMTP:box191@iland.net] wrote:

> >> DICK

> >> Basic Christianity must learned from Catholicism

> >> since that was the ONLY Christianity until Martin Luther

> >> started his competing church and then married a nun. The

> >> advanced Christianity about Jesus can come only after the

> >> basic Christianity is understood.



JASON FILLEY

Something I posted to Ron a month or so ago:

The following is an overview from "The Gnostic Gospels," by Elaine Pagels, 
 ISBN 0-679-72453-2, Introduction.  (Highly recommended book.  Go to 
http://www.amazon.com and get it.)

	"Contemporary Christianity, diverse and complex as we find it, actually 
may show more unanimity than the Christian churches of the first and second 
centuries.  For nearly all Christians  since that time, Catholics, 
Protestants, or Orthodox, have shared three basic premises.  First, they 
accept the canon of the New Testament; second, they confess the apostolic 
creed; and third, they affirm specific forms of church institution.  But 
every one of these -- the canon of Scripture, the creed, and the 
institutional structure -- emerged in its present form only toward the end 
of the second century.  Before that time, as Irenaeus and others attest, 
numerous gospels circulated among various Christian groups, ranging from 
those of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, to such writings 
as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth, as 
well as many other secret teachings, myths, and poems attributed to Jesus 
or his disciples.  Some of these, apparently, were discovered at Nag 
Hammadi; many others are lost to us.  Those who identified themselves as 
Christians entertained many--and radically differing--religious beliefs and 
practices.  And the communities scattered throughout the known world 
organized themselves in ways that differed widely from one group to 
another.

	Yet by A.D. 200, the situation had changed.  Christianity had become an 
institution headed by a three-rank hierarchy of bishops, priests, and 
deacons, who understood themselves to be the guardians of the only 'true 
faith.'  The majority of churches, among which the church of Rome took a 
leading role, rejected all other viewpoints as heresy.  Deploring the 
diversity of the earlier movement, Bishop Irenaeus and his followers 
insisted that there could be only one church, and outside of that church, 
he declared, 'there is no salvation.'  Members of this church alone are 
orthodox (literally, 'straight-thinking') Christians.  And, he claimed, 
this church must be catholic--that is, universal.  Whoever challenged that 
consensus, arguing instead for other forms of Christian teaching, was 
declared to be a heretic, and expelled.  When the orthodox gained military 
support, sometime after the Emperor Constantine became Christian in the 
fourth century, the penalty for heresy escalated.

	The efforts of the majority to destroy every trace of heretical 
'blasphemy' proved so successful that, until the discoveries at Nag 
Hammadi, nearly all our information concerning alternative forms of early 
Christianity came from the massive orthodox attacks upon them......"

Regards,
Jason

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