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Confronting The Da Vinci Code
Part 4: Villains Ancient and Modern
“Orthodoxy tends to distrust our
capacity to make such distinctions [about good and evil, truth and
falsehood] and insists on making them for us. … Many of us, wishing to
be spared hard work, gladly accept what tradition teaches.”
Elaine Pagels, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, p. 184
One of
the myths of the ancient church age that is being widely proclaimed
today, especially in light of the attention it is given because of
The DaVinci Code, is that the doctrines of traditional, orthodox
Christianity slowly evolved and developed from the simple, moral
teachings of Jesus into the rather fantastic claims currently held by
orthodoxy of Jesus being divine, the resurrected Messiah, the way, the
truth and the light. In other words, doctrine is believed to have
slowly grown and become codified right along with the growth of the
political institution that the Christian church became, even as early as
the 4th century.
But if
you really know ancient church history and have read the documents of
the early church fathers you know that what is known today as
traditional, orthodox Christianity was, from the very beginning,
radical, understood and practiced, and was clearly proclaimed, taught,
believed and died for. Literally from the time of Christ forward, the
church declared Christ to the world and demanded that the world change –
to repent and believe the good news.
Meanwhile, as time progressed, it was heresy that, like weeds in the
field, grew up, evolved, developed and fought against the truth both
theologically and politically. But this pressure forced the hands of
the church’s apologists to approach, recognize, confront and refute the
mistakes. And as they did so, their ability to cogently argue and
defend the faith became more and more precise and exacting. By the
providence of God, such refutation allowed the church to better define
its terms and defend the gospel.
Gnosticism, which has expressed itself in many varied forms of thought
and schools, is just one of those ancient, man-centered and slippery
mysticisms that was, at its core, anti-Christian. Whereas the word
“agnostic” means “unknown”, “nostic” means “known” and Gnosticism touts
its disciples as superior because they are said to hold a knowledge that
is itself superior. A Gnostic is one who is constantly searching for
truth in his mind, he is a serious student seeking the reward of deeper
insight. As such, the farther a student progresses, the more secret his
understanding becomes. Gnosticism prides itself in its mystery, its
secrets, puzzles and games. It is, inherently a man-centered world
view, an over-evaluation of the value of knowledge and the coinciding,
depreciation of faith.
Ancient
forms of Gnosticism can be seen in various schools of Greek philosophy
including Plato. In Judaism, it is called Cabbala and the Syrian
version is Zoroastrianism. During the time of the ancient church, the
most popular version, running from about 170-240 AD was Mithraism. As
Gnosticism found in Christianity an emphasis on true knowledge, various
of its teachers, like Basilides, Valentinius and even Marcion to an
extent, embraced what they liked about the Christian message and
rejected what did not suit them. Gnosticism’s essential dualistic
worldview changed Jehovah into a demiurge, separated Jesus the man from
Christ the Spirit and eliminated the sacrificial atonement from the
gospel message and replaced it with the call to find salvation (re:
transcendence) through the continual study of “secret” knowledge which
the seeker alone may find.
Gnosticism is not only dangerous because it decimates the gospel while
portraying itself to be its friend, it’s implications carry its
followers in very predictable directions. Gnostics are antinomian (no
need for law or obedience) and are given to sensuality and debauchery
(the body is, by its nature evil and is separate from one’s spirit).
But the
clear and present danger of Gnosticism was seen by the early church even
before the gospels were finished. John, whose gospel is accepted the
most readily by the Gnostic camp, is the apostle who most clearly warns
us against them. Irenaeus, in 180 AD, recognized Gnosticism as a
vicious, anti-Christian lie and wrote against it in his book Against
Heresies:
Inasmuch as
certain men have set the truth aside, and bring in lying words and vain
genealogies, which, as the apostle says, ‘minister questions rather than
godly edifying which is in faith,’ and by means of their
craftily-constructed plausibilities draw away the minds of the
inexperienced and take them captive, [I have felt constrained, my dear
friend, to compose the following treatise in order to expose and
counteract their machinations.] These men falsify the oracles of God,
and prove themselves evil interpreters of the good word of revelation.
They also overthrow the faith of many, by drawing them away, under a
pretence of [superior] knowledge, from Him who rounded and adorned the
universe; as if, forsooth, they had something more excellent and sublime
to reveal, than that God who created the heaven and the earth, and all
things that are therein. By means of specious and plausible words, they
cunningly allure the simple-minded to inquire into their system; but
they nevertheless clumsily destroy them, while they initiate them into
their blasphemous and impious opinions respecting the Demiurge; and
these simple ones are unable, even in such a matter, to distinguish
falsehood from truth.
Tertullian (197-220), likewise, wrote clearly and concisely as well in
his Prescription of Heretics, and Against
Praxeus. Also, Justin Martyr (150-160) in Against Heresies
and Against Marcion:
If He
had no need of the flesh, why did He heal it? And what is most forcible
of all, He raised the dead. Why? Was it not to show what the
resurrection should be? How then did He raise the dead? Their souls or
their bodies? Manifestly both. If the resurrection were only spiritual,
it was requisite that He, in raising the dead, should show the body
lying apart by itself, and the soul living apart by itself. But now He
did not do so, but raised the body, confirming in it the promise of
life. Why did He rise in the flesh in which He suffered, unless to show
the resurrection of the flesh? And wishing to confirm this, when His
disciples did not know whether to believe He had truly risen in the
body, and were looking upon Him and doubting, He said to them, "Ye have
not yet faith, see that it is I;" and He let them handle Him, and showed
them the prints of the nails in His hands. And when they were by every
kind of proof persuaded that it was Himself, and in the body, they asked
Him to eat with them, that they might thus still more accurately
ascertain that He had in verity risen bodily; and He did eat honey-comb
and fish. And when He had thus shown them that there is truly a
resurrection of the flesh, wishing to show them this also, that it is
not impossible for flesh to ascend into heaven (as He had said that our
dwelling-place is in heaven), "He was taken up into heaven while they
beheld," as He was in the flesh. If, therefore, after all that has been
said, any one demand demonstration of the resurrection, he is in no
respect different from the Sadducees, since the resurrection of the
flesh is the power of God, and, being above all reasoning, is
established by faith, and seen in works.
These
apologists of the true Christian faith recognized that all of these
Gnostic schools and views rejected the truth; that they did not want to
be accepted alongside the gospel they wanted to replace it. Those who advocate modern-day Gnosticism also cry for tolerance and yet
their goal is the same: to replace the gospel. But those who wrote against
them and defended the faith did not see it as their Christian duty to be
tolerant and accepting but to sound the alarm when lies infested the
church, when wolves invaded the sheepfold.
Today,
Christians often talk of continuing to change the world but they aren’t
willing to be and live in such a convicted and radical way as those in
the ancient church did. Many hope that by maintaining the status quo,
voting right, staying moral themselves, going to and giving to the church,
simply living a good, Christian life, that the world will slowly evolve
back into the world with a Christian worldview they once had and all the
while they themselves can remain comfortable.
But Christianity will not happen by evolution. Gnosticism, on
other hand, grows every day. Truth is the doctrine Christ brings
into the world, error and darkness must be dispelled. That will
always take boldness, clarity, conviction & sacrifice. Tolerance
for lies is the plea of
unbelief. Grace and mercy and a conviction for the truth is the banner of Christ.
David G. Barker,
2005
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