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117-582: The doctrine, practices and beliefs of Valentinus and the Gnostic movement that bore his name were condemned as heretical by proto-orthodox Christian leaders and scholars. Prominent Church Fathers such as Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome wrote against Gnosticism. Because early church leaders encouraged the destruction of Gnostic texts, most evidence for the Valentinian theory comes from its critics and detractors, most notably Irenaeus, since he

234-533: A 'generic' sense ... that unity of substance was turned into equality of substance." The terms ousia and hypostasis are foundational in the Trinity doctrine. Hanson described the traditional Trinity doctrine as follows: "The champions of the Nicene faith ... developed a doctrine of God as a Trinity, as one substance or ousia who existed as three hypostases, three distinct realities or entities (I refrain from using

351-591: A 4th-century antinomian sect from Macedonia held that the Threefold God transformed himself into a single hypostasis in order to unite with the souls of the perfect. They were anti-clerical and rejected baptism and the sacraments, believing that the passions could be overcome and perfection achieved through prayer. Many groups held dualistic beliefs , maintaining that reality was composed into two radically opposing parts: matter, usually seen as evil, and spirit, seen as good. Docetism held that Jesus' humanity

468-503: A Christian apologist, Bauer's theory does not show an equality between the established church and outsiders including Simon Magus . According to Mitchell et al., each early Christian community was unique, but the tenets of the mainstream or catholic Church insured that each early Christian community did not remain isolated. The Ante-Nicene period (2nd–3rd century) saw the rise of a great number of Christian sects , cults and movements with strong unifying characteristics lacking in

585-621: A Latin transliteration of the Greek word αἵρεσις originally meaning choosing, choice, course of action, or in an extended sense a sect or school of thought, which by the first century came to denote warring factions and the party spirit. The word appears in the New Testament , usually translated as sect , and was appropriated by the Church to mean a sect or division that threatened the unity of Christians. Heresy eventually became regarded as

702-475: A Messiah. To this Messiah, however, was actually united Christ the Saviour, who redeemed men. With the doctrine of the creation of the world is connected the subject of the creation of man. According to it, the world-creating angels – not one, but many – create man, but the seed of the spirit comes into their creature without their knowledge, by the agency of a higher celestial Aeon, and they are then terrified by

819-622: A bride who awaits her bridegroom, that thou mayest become as I am, and I as thou art. Let the seed of light descend into thy bridal chamber; receive the bridegroom and give place to him, and open thine arms to embrace him. Behold, grace has descended upon thee. Heresy in Christianity Heresy in Christianity denotes the formal denial or doubt of a core doctrine of the Christian faith as defined by one or more of

936-550: A clear distinction was made between the two terms. The three Cappadocian Fathers , Basil of Caesarea (330 to 379), Gregory of Nazianzus (329 to 389), and Gregory of Nyssa (335 to about 395) who was one of Basil's younger brothers, are traditionally credited for being the first to make a clear distinction between ousia and hypostasis, particularly Basil of Caesarea, namely in his letters 214 (375 AD) and 236 (376 AD) However, Arius and Asterius were two Eusebians who made that distinction much earlier. However, Basil of Caesarea

1053-508: A departure from orthodoxy , a sense in which heterodoxy was already in Christian use soon after the year 100. Heresy is used today to denote the formal denial or doubt of a core doctrine of the Christian faith as defined by one or more of the Christian churches . It is distinguished from both apostasy and schism , apostasy being nearly always total abandonment of the Christian faith after it has been freely accepted, and schism being

1170-603: A formal and deliberate breach of Christian unity and an offense against charity without being based essentially on doctrine. The development of doctrine, the position of orthodoxy , and the relationship between the early Church and early heretical groups is a matter of academic debate. Walter Bauer , in his Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (1934/1971), proposed that in earliest Christianity, orthodoxy and heresy did not stand in relation to one another as primary to secondary, but in many regions heresy

1287-572: A passion for the First Father himself, or rather, under pretext of love she seeks to draw near to the unattainable Bythos, the Unknowable, and to comprehend his greatness. She brings forth, through her longing for that higher being, an Aeon who is higher and purer than herself, and at once rises into the celestial worlds. Christ has pity on the abortive substance born of Sophia and gives it essence and form, whereupon Sophia tries to rise again to

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1404-523: A spiritual marriage is to be performed after the pattern of the higher Syzygia." Through a fortunate chance, a liturgical formula which was used at this sacrament appears to be preserved, though in a garbled form and in an entirely different connection, the author seeming to have been uncertain as to its original meaning. It runs: I will confer my favor upon thee, for the father of all sees thine angel ever before his face ... we must now become as one; receive now this grace from me and through me; deck thyself as

1521-616: A visit to Rome. The letters of Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna to various churches warned against false teachers, and the Epistle of Barnabas accepted by many Christians as part of Scripture in the 2nd century, warned about mixing Judaism with Christianity , as did other writers, leading to decisions reached in the first ecumenical council , which was convoked by the Emperor Constantine at Nicaea in 325, in response to further disruptive polemical controversy within

1638-539: Is a cosmogonic element, pure mind as distinct from matter, mind conceived hypostatically as emanating from God and not yet darkened by contact with matter. This mind is considered as the reason of humanity, or humanity itself, as a personified idea, a category without corporeality, the human reason conceived as the World-Soul . It is possible that the role of the Anthropos is here transferred to Sophia Achamoth. It

1755-556: Is also clear why the Ekklesia appears together with the Anthropos. With this is associated the community of the faithful and the redeemed, who are to share the same fate with him. Perfect gnosis (and thus the whole body of Gnostics) is connected with the Anthropos. Next to Sophia stands a male redeeming divinity. In the Valentinian system, the Christ is the son of the fallen Sophia, who is thus conceived as an individual. Sophia conceives

1872-521: Is boldly stated in the exposition in Hippolytus' Philosophumena that they produce between them 70 celestial angels . This myth can be connected with the historic Jesus of Nazareth by further relating that Christ, having been united to the Sophia, descends into the earthly Jesus, the son of Mary, at his baptism, and becomes the Saviour of men. A figure entirely peculiar to Valentinian Gnosticism

1989-623: Is connected in indissoluble union with the Father." This dispute about the number of hypostases in God was at the core of the 'Arian' Controversy . Both traditional Trinity doctrine and the Arians taught three distinct hypostases in the Godhead. The difference is that, in the Trinity doctrine, they are one also identified as a single Being. Hypostasis is the individual aspect of ousia, this means ousia

2106-411: Is disputed by Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy . Present-day nontrinitarians , such as Unitarians , Latter-day Saints and other Mormons , and Jehovah's Witnesses , reject all seven Councils. Some Eastern Orthodox consider the following council to be ecumenical, although this is not universally agreed upon: Some individual examples of the execution of Eastern Orthodox heretics do exist, such as

2223-420: Is not a unanimous belief that material or psychical people were hopeless. Some have argued from the existent sources that humans could reincarnate in any of the three times, therefore a material or psychical person might have the chance to reborn in a future lifetime as a spiritual one. We also find ideas that emphasize the distinction between the soma psychikon and the soma pneumatikon : Perfect redemption

2340-413: Is not the same as type or part, a Hypostasis holds all the nature described by its ousia. This means the ousia is equally possessed by each hypostasis & in that sense they are all the same. Each hypostasis is one as well as many at once. This is because all of them hold the same ousia, the difference is in their expressions of it. These terms originate from Greek philosophy, where they essentially had

2457-551: Is redeemed the inner, spiritual man: so that to us suffices the gnosis of universal being: and this is the true redemption. Salvation is not merely individual redemption of each human soul; it is a cosmic process. It is the return of all things to what they were before the flaw in the sphere of the Aeons brought matter into existence and imprisoned some part of the Divine Light into the evil Hyle ( matter ). This setting free of

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2574-586: Is removed from the Pleroma, and becomes the heroine of the rest of the drama. This fallen Sophia becomes a world creative power. Sophia Achamoth, or "Lower Wisdom", the daughter of "Higher Wisdom", becomes the mother of the Demiurge, identified with the God of the Old Testament. The Gnostics are children of Sophia; from her the heavenly seed, the divine spark, descended into this lower world, subject to

2691-518: Is that of Horos (the Limiter). The name is perhaps an echo of the Egyptian Horus . The task of Horos is to separate the fallen Aeons from the upper world of Aeons. At the same time he becomes a kind of world-creative power, who in this capacity helps to construct an ordered world out of Sophia and her passions. He is also called Stauros ( cross ), and we frequently meet with references to

2808-703: Is the Hussite movement in the Czech lands in the early 15th century. The last person to be burned alive at the stake on orders from Rome was Giordano Bruno , executed in 1600 for a collection of heretical beliefs including Copernicanism , belief of an unlimited universe with innumerable inhabited worlds, opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the Trinity, divinity of Christ, and Incarnation. Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon , who played an instrumental part in

2925-403: Is the chief idea of their pious practices mystically to repeat the experience of this celestial union of the Saviour with Sophia. In this respect, consequently, the myth underwent yet wider development. Just as the Saviour is the bridegroom of Sophia, so the heavenly angels, who sometimes appear as the sons of the Saviour and Sophia, sometimes as the escort of the Saviour, are the males betrothed to

3042-473: Is the cognition itself of the ineffable greatness: for since through ignorance came about the defect ... the whole system springing from ignorance is dissolved in gnosis . Therefore gnosis is the redemption of the inner man; and it is not of the body, for the body is corruptible; nor is it psychical, for even the soul is a product of the defect and it is a lodging to the spirit: pneumatic (spiritual) therefore also must be redemption itself. Through gnosis , then,

3159-590: Is the nature of that existence and all things that exist have ousia, as it's the nature of that existence in the way that it exists. Ousia is what makes a rock a rock and hypostasis is the various kinds of rocks; ousia is the form as well as nature of particles that construct an entity in the case of physical phenomena. On the other hand for spiritual phenomena it's the level of presence & creative force that differentiates one ousia from another. Like it has been said earlier this nature of existence(ousia) maybe shared by various hypostasis or instances of ousia. Hypostasis

3276-402: Is the parent characteristic that is shared by the hypostasis under it. Ousia can be shared by numerous hypostases, as hypostasis is the individual expression of that ousia just how ego is an expression of the underlying soul. In this case it's clear to see that the ego and the soul are seemingly different as well as the same thing for the ego is not without the soul, they can however coexist. Ousia

3393-568: Is to apply the later developed meanings of these terms to the Nicene Creed: [The two terms] "did not mean, and should not be translated, 'person' and 'substance', as they were used when at last the confusion was cleared up and these two distinct meanings were permanently attached to these words." As stated, when the Arian controversy began and for much of the fourth century, hypostasis and ousia were synonyms. However, later in that century,

3510-555: The Corpus Hermeticum ) and in Manichaeism . According to Valentinus, the Anthropos no longer appears as the world-creative power sinking down into the material world, but as a celestial Aeon of the upper world (or even as the supreme god), who stands in a clearly defined relationship to the fallen Aeon. Adam was created in the name of Anthropos, and overawes the demons by the fear of the pre-existent man. This Anthropos

3627-589: The Heimarmene (destiny) and in the power of hostile spirits and powers; and all their sacraments and mysteries, their formulae and symbols, must be in order to find the way upwards, back to the highest heaven. This idea that the Gnostics know themselves to be in a hostile and evil world is reflected in the conception of Sophia. She became likewise a fallen Aeon, who has sunk down into the material world and seeks to free herself from it, receiving her liberation at

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3744-679: The Catholic Church has convened numerous other councils which it deems as having the same authority, making a total of twenty-one Ecumenical Councils recognised by the Catholic Church. The Assyrian Church of the East accepts only the first two, and Oriental Orthodoxy only three. Pope Sergius I rejected the Quinisext Council of 692 (see also Pentarchy ). The Fourth Council of Constantinople of 869–870 and 879–880

3861-470: The Christian churches . The study of heresy requires an understanding of the development of orthodoxy and the role of creeds in the definition of orthodox beliefs, since heresy is always defined in relation to orthodoxy. Orthodoxy has been in the process of self-definition for centuries, defining itself in terms of its faith by clarifying beliefs in opposition to people or doctrines that are perceived as incorrect. The word heresy comes from haeresis ,

3978-522: The Gospel of Truth , one of the Nag Hammadi texts . Notable Valentinians included Heracleon (fl. ca. 175), Ptolemy , Florinus, Axionicus and Theodotus . The theology that Irenaeus attributed to Valentinus is extremely complicated and difficult to follow. There is some skepticism among scholars that the system actually originated with him, and many believe that the system Irenaeus was counteracting

4095-622: The Trinity are co-equal and co-eternal. It was only after the legalisation of Christianity, which began under Constantine I in AD ;313 that the various beliefs of the proto-orthodox Church began to be made uniform and formulated as dogma, through the canons promulgated by the General Councils . The first known usage of the term 'heresy' in a civil legal context was in 380 by the " Edict of Thessalonica " of Theodosius I. Prior to

4212-629: The concept of a substance . In Neoplatonism , the hypostasis of the soul , the intellect ( nous ) and " the one " was addressed by Plotinus . In Christian theology , the Holy Trinity consists of three hypostases: that of the Father , that of the Son , and that of the Holy Spirit . Pseudo-Aristotle used "hypostasis" in the sense of material substance . Neoplatonists argue that beneath

4329-479: The "worst of all heresies". He taught that Christian believers are bound to follow the moral law for their sanctification . Methodist Christians thus teach the necessity of following the moral law as contained in the Ten Commandments, citing Jesus' teaching, "If ye love me, keep my commandments" (cf. Saint John 14:15). In the 17th century, Jansenism , which taught the doctrine of predestination ,

4446-567: The 'three hypostases' view. "What is conventionally regarded as the key-word in the Creed homoousion, falls completely out of the controversy very shortly after the Council of Nicaea and is not heard of for over twenty years." (Hanson Lecture) Athanasius re-introduced the term into the debate in the 350s, some 30 years after Nicaea. This caused the Eusebians to divide into various views. Some said

4563-523: The Christ that there would be false prophets or false teachers. Irenaeus' opponents also claimed that the wellsprings of divine inspiration were not dried up, which is the doctrine of continuing revelation . The earliest controversies in Late Antiquity were generally Christological in nature, concerning the interpretation of Jesus' (eternal) divinity and humanity. In the 4th century, Arius and Arianism held that Jesus, while not merely mortal,

4680-479: The Christian community, in that case Arianist disputes over the nature of the Trinity. Irenaeus ( c.  130  – c.  202 ) was the first to argue that his orthodox position was the same faith that Jesus gave to the apostles , and that the identity of the apostles, their successors, and the teachings of the same were all well-known public knowledge. This was therefore an early argument supported by apostolic succession . Irenaeus first established

4797-519: The Father is exhibited in Christ, so that he who knows him knows what is in the Father. And in this sense do the orthodox fathers take this term, hypostasis, considering it to be threefold in God, while the essence ( οὐσία ) is simply one. Hilary everywhere takes the Latin word substance for person. But though it be not the Apostle's object in this place to speak of what Christ is in himself, but of what he

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4914-563: The Father's and Son's substances are unlike (heterousios). Others said their substances are similar (homoiousios). Still others refused to talk about substance (the Homoians ). The Cappadocian fathers were the first pro-Nicenes to believe in three hypostases. For example, Basil of Caesarea said that the Son's statements that he does the will of the Father "is not because He lacks deliberate purpose or power of initiation " but because " His own will

5031-467: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are a single Being with a single mind. For example, Karl Rahner , a leading catholic scholar, said: "The element of consciousness ... does not belong to it [the Person] in our context [the official doctrine of the {Catholic} Church]." "But there exists in God only one power, one will , only one self-presence . ... Hence self-awareness is not a moment which distinguishes

5148-579: The Father, but in vain. In the enigmatic figure of Christ we again find hidden the original conception of the Primal Man, who sinks down into matter but rises again. In the fully developed Ptolemaean system we find a kindred conception, but with a slight difference. Here Christ and Sophia appear as brother and sister, with Christ representing the higher and Sophia the lower element. When this world has been born from Sophia in consequence of her passion, two Aeons, Nous (mind) and Aletheia (truth), by command of

5265-463: The Father, produce two new Aeons, Christ and the Holy Ghost; these restore order in the Pleroma, and in consequence all Aeons combine their best and most wonderful qualities to produce a new Aeon (Jesus, Logos, Soter, or Christ), the " First Fruits " whom they offer to the Father. And this celestial redeemer-Aeon now enters into a marriage with the fallen Aeon; they are the "bride and bridegroom". It

5382-457: The Father, who alone is good, looks down and around him, then the soul is hallowed and lies in full light, and so he who has such a heart as this is to be called happy, for he shall behold God. But this contemplation of God, as Valentinus declares, closely and deliberately following the doctrines of the Church and with him the compiler of the Gospel of John, is accomplished through the revelation of

5499-606: The Gnostics as believing themselves to be pneumatici i.e those who exclusively have a perfect knowledge of God, and have been initiated into the mysteries of Achamoth. The chief influence at work here seems to have been the idea of the celestial Anthropos ( i.e. the Primal Man) – of whom the myth originally relates that he has sunk into matter and then raised himself up from it again – which appears in its simple form in individual Gnostic systems, e.g. in Poimandres (in

5616-458: The Hypostasis of Christ : John Calvin wrote: "The word ὑπόστασις which, by following others, I have rendered substance, denotes not, as I think, the being or essence of the Father, but his person; for it would be strange to say that the essence of God is impressed on Christ, as the essence of both is simply the same. But it may truly and fitly be said that whatever peculiarly belongs to

5733-525: The Middle Ages whose teachings were deemed heretical by the established church, such as: At the beginning of the 13th century, the Catholic Church instituted the papal or monastic Inquisition , an official body charged with the suppression of heresy. This began as an extension and more rigorous enforcement of pre-existing episcopal powers (possessed, but little used, by bishops in the early Middle Ages) to inquire about and suppress heresy, but later became

5850-518: The Mother is the object of the invocation. There are moreover various figures in the fully developed system of the Valentinians who are in the Gnostic's mind when he calls upon the Mother; sometimes it is the fallen Achamoth, sometimes the higher Sophia abiding in the celestial world, sometimes Aletheia , the consort of the supreme heavenly father, but it is always the same idea, the Mother, on whom

5967-589: The Nicene Creed was revised to be explicit, the final word, on the deity of the Holy Spirit. The Trihypostatic (tri=three; hypo=upon; static = a stationary situation of being such that it grounds upon which forces arises?) concept, that is, idea, advocates that God has three of these spaces ( Father , Son and the Holy Spirit ), each having the same ousia , that is (i.e.), one Divine nature or true being, substance, being, existence After Sabellianism

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6084-602: The Nicene Creed professes a 'one hypostasis' theology. The Dyohypostatic concept advocates that God has two hypostases (Father and Son); When the fourth-century Controversy began, the focus was only on the Son, not on the Holy Spirit. Later in that century, some groups, such as the Macedonians , accepted the Son as fully divine but not the Holy Spirit. This is why in AD 381, during the First Council of Constantinople ,

6201-514: The Son. This mystic also discusses a vision which is preserved in the Philosophumena of Hippolytus: Valentinus ... had seen an infant child lately born; and questioning (this child), he proceeded to inquire who it might be. And (the child) replied, saying that he himself is the Logos, and then subjoined a sort of tragic legend... With celestial enthusiasm Valentinus here surveys and depicts

6318-416: The Valentinians regarded Catholic Christians "as simple people to whom they attributed faith, while they think that gnosis is in themselves. Through the excellent seed that is to be found in them, they are by nature redeemed, and their gnosis is as far removed from faith as the spiritual from the physical". The superstructure of the celestial system, the celestial world of Aeons, is summarized. Aeons belong to

6435-470: The apostolic period. They had different interpretations of Scripture , particularly the divinity of Jesus and the nature of the Trinity . Some of the major sects , cults and movements with different interpretations of Scripture from those of the Proto-Orthodox church were: Before AD 313, the heretical nature of some beliefs was a matter of much debate within the churches , and there

6552-441: The bridal chamber. As Sophia was united with the Saviour, her bridegroom, so the faithful would experience a union with their angel in the Pleroma (cf. the " Higher Self " or " Holy Guardian Angel "). The ritual of this sacrament is briefly indicated: "A few of them prepare a bridal chamber and in it go through a form of consecration, employing certain fixed formulae, which are repeated over the person to be initiated, and stating that

6669-462: The corporeal elements of the world. This derivation of the material world from the passions of the fallen Sophia is next affected by an older theory, which probably occupied an important place in the main Valentinian system. According to this theory the son of Sophia, whom she forms on the model of the Christ who has disappeared in the Pleroma, becomes the Demiurge , who with his angels now appears as

6786-606: The creation of the world which now begins. Naturally, then, the figure of Horos-Stauros was often assimilated to that of the Christian Redeemer. We possibly find echoes of this in the Gospel of Peter , where the Cross itself is depicted as speaking and even floating out of the tomb. Peculiarly Valentinian is the above-mentioned derivation of the material world from the passions of Sophia. Whether this already formed part of

6903-480: The depth of the Father, and seeks to emulate him by producing offspring without conjugal intercourse, but only projects an abortion, a formless substance. Upon this she is cast out of Pleroma and into the primal sub-stratum of matter. In the Valentinian systems, the fall of Sophia appears in double guise. The higher Sophia still remains within the upper world after creating a disturbance, and after her expiation and repentance; but her premature offspring, Sophia Achamoth ,

7020-510: The distinction between ousia and hypostases is the same as that between the general and the particular; as, for instance, between the animal and the particular man. "In the DSS [Basil] discusses the idea that the distinction between the Godhead and the Persons is that between an abstract essence, such as humanity, and its concrete manifestations, such as man." Basil "argued that [homoousios]

7137-513: The divine "persons" one from the other." Consensus was not achieved without some confusion at first in the minds of Western theologians since in the West the vocabulary was different. Many Latin-speaking theologians understood hypo-stasis as 'sub-stantia' ( substance ); thus when speaking of three hypostases in the Godhead , they may have suspected three substances or tritheism . However, after

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7254-477: The divine monarchy 'into three ... separated hypostases ... people who hold this in effect produce three gods'." In the fourth century, Sabellians (such as Eustathius and Marcellus, ), Alexander, Athanasius, and the Western Church taught a single hypostasis in God. The "clear inference from [Athanasius'] usage" is that "there is only one hypostasis in God." Some leading scholars claim that even

7371-431: The doctrine of four gospels and no more, with the synoptic gospels interpreted in the light of the Gospel of John . Irenaeus' opponents, however, claimed to have received secret teachings from Jesus via other apostles which were not publicly known. Gnosticism is predicated on the existence of such hidden knowledge, but brief references to private teachings of Jesus have also survived in the canonic Scripture as did warning by

7488-586: The domain of selected Dominicans and Franciscans under the direct power of the Pope. The use of torture to extract confessions was authorized by Innocent IV in 1252. The Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) was part of the Catholic Church 's efforts to crush the Cathars . It is linked to the movement now known as the Medieval Inquisition . Another example of a medieval movement condemend as heretic

7605-607: The execution of Avvakum in 1682. From the late 11th century onward, heresy once again came to be a concern for Catholic authorities, as reports became increasingly common. The reasons for this are still not fully understood, but the causes for this new period of heresy include popular response to the 11th-century clerical reform movement, greater lay familiarity with the Bible , exclusion of lay people from sacramental activity, and more rigorous definition and supervision of Catholic dogma . The question of how heresy should be suppressed

7722-502: The extolling of natural over supernatural virtues, the preference of active over passive virtues, the rejection of religious vows as not compatible with Christian liberty, and the adoption of a new method of apologetics and approach to non-Catholics." Cardinal James Gibbons responded to Pope Leo XIII that no educated Catholic Christian in the United States subscribed to these condemned doctrines. The last case of an execution by

7839-468: The faculty of speech by which their creature rises above them and try to destroy him. It is significant that Valentinus himself is credited with having written a treatise upon the threefold nature of man, who is represented as at once spiritual, psychical, and material. In accordance with this there also arise three classes of men: the pneumatici , the psychici , and the hylici . This doctrine dates at least as far back as Plato's Republic . However, it

7956-515: The faith of the Gnostics is fixed. Thus a baptismal confession of faith of the Gnostics runs: In the name of the unknown Father of all, by Aletheia, the Mother of all, by the name which descended upon Jesus. The chief sacrament of the Valentinians seems to have been that of the bridal chamber ( nymphon ). The Gospel of Philip , a probable Valentinian text, reads: There were three buildings specifically for sacrifice in Jerusalem. The one facing

8073-401: The figure of Stauros. Speculations about the Stauros are older than Christianity, and a Platonic conception may have been at work here. Plato had already stated that the World-Soul revealed itself in the form of the letter Chi (X) , by which he meant that figure described in the heavens by the intersecting orbits of the sun and the planetary ecliptic . Since through this double orbit all

8190-418: The formation of the Lutheran Churches condemned Johannes Agricola and his doctrine of antinomianism —the belief that Christians were free from the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments —as a heresy. Traditional Lutheranism, espoused by Luther himself, teaches that after justification, "the Law of God continued to guide people in how they were to live before God". Among the positions in violation of

8307-421: The former from the latter. One needed to recognize the Father, the depth of all being , as the true source of divine power in order to achieve gnosis (knowledge). The Valentinians believed that the attainment of this knowledge by the human individual had positive consequences within the universal order and contributed to restoring that order, and that gnosis, not faith, was the key to salvation. Clement wrote that

8424-455: The grace of salvation and not by following God's commandments ( sola fide ), and that the only Christian priesthood can be a universal priesthood of all believers . Hypostasis (philosophy and religion) Hypostasis (plural: hypostases ), from the Greek ὑπόστασις ( hypóstasis ), is the underlying, fundamental state or substance that supports all of reality . It is not the same as

8541-525: The hands of a heavenly Redeemer, exactly like the Gnostics. The goddess who sinks down into the material may readily be identified with Ruach (רוח), the Spirit of God, who broods over Chaos, or even with the later Chokmah , who was generally conceived of as a world-creating agent. This system was very closely followed by Valentinus, who may have come to know these doctrines in Egypt . Irenaeus characterizes

8658-424: The heavenly world of Aeons, and its connection with the lower world. Exalted joy of battle and a valiant courage breathe forth in the sermon in which Valentinus addresses the faithful: Ye are from the beginning immortal and children of eternal life, and desire to divide death amongst you like a prey, in order to destroy it and utterly to annihilate it, that thus death may die in you and through you, for if ye dissolve

8775-517: The inquisition was that of the schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll , accused of deism by the waning Spanish Inquisition and hanged on 26 July 1826 in Valencia after a two-year trial. Some of the doctrines of Protestantism that the Catholic Church considers heretical are the belief that the Bible is the only supremely authoritative source and rule of faith and practice in Christianity ( sola scriptura ), that only by faith alone can anyone ever accept

8892-565: The issuance of this edict, the Church had no state-sponsored support for any particular legal mechanism to counter what it perceived as 'heresy'. By this edict, in some senses, the line between the Christian Church's spiritual authority and the Roman State's jurisdiction was blurred . One of the outcomes of this blurring of Church and State was a sharing of State powers of legal enforcement between Church and State authorities, with

9009-464: The last of the thirty Aeons, the Demiurge was distant by many emanations from the Supreme God. The Demiurge in creating this world out of Chaos was unconsciously influenced for good by Christ; and the universe, to the surprise even of its Maker, became almost perfect. The Demiurge regretted even its slight imperfection, and as he thought himself the Supreme God, he attempted to remedy this by sending

9126-490: The light sparks is the process of salvation; when all light shall have left Hyle, it will be burnt up and destroyed. In Valentinianism the process is extraordinarily elaborate, and we find here developed particularly clearly the myth of the heavenly marriage. This myth, as we shall see more fully below, and as may be mentioned here, is of great significance for the practical piety of the Valentinian Gnostics. It

9243-562: The main custodian of the Nicene Creed, also used these terms as synonyms. It is, therefore, not surprising that one of the anathemas in the Creed seems to use these terms as synonyms. However, since they were used as synonyms, the Early Church Texts, which translates ousia as 'substance' is misleading. As mentioned below, the meanings of these terms changed during the Arian Controversy and what Early Church Texts does

9360-493: The mid-fifth-century Council of Chalcedon , the word came to be contrasted with ousia and was used to mean 'individual reality', especially in the trinitarian and Christological contexts. The Christian concept of the Trinity is often described as being one God existing in three distinct hypostases/personae/persons . Within Christology , two specific theological concepts have emerged throughout history, in reference to

9477-460: The misleading word 'Person'), three ways of being or modes of existing as God." Hanson explains hypostases as 'ways of being' or 'modes of existing' but says that the term 'person' is misleading. As the term is used in English, each 'person' is a distinct entity with his or her own mind and will. This is not equivalent to the concept of hypostasis in the Trinity doctrine because, in that doctrine,

9594-468: The movements of the heavenly powers are determined, so all "becoming" and all life depend on it, and thus we can understand the statement that the World-Soul appears in the form of an X, or a cross. The cross can also stand for the wondrous Aeon on whom depends the ordering and life of the world, and thus Horos-Stauros appears here as the first redeemer of Sophia from her passions, and as the orderer of

9711-411: The number and interrelationship of the hypostases : The monohypostatic (or miahypostatic ) concept advocates that the Father, Son, and Spirit are one single hypostasis in a single ousia —meaning that the Father, Son, and Spirit are a single Person . Historically, there were variations of this view: Among the pre-Nicene Church Fathers, " Dionysius of Rome ... said that it is wrong to divide

9828-409: The original system of Valentinus is questionable, but at any rate it plays a prominent part in the Valentinian school, and consequently appears with the most diverse variations in the account given by Irenaeus. By it is effected the comparative monism of the Valentinian system, and the dualism of the conception of two separate worlds of light and darkness is overcome: This collection [of passions] ...

9945-471: The party of Basil of Ancyra) was an acceptable formula, provided that the word ' unalterably ' was added to it, for then it would be equivalent to homoousios ." "Basil himself prefers homoousios." "Basil has moved away from but has not completely repudiated his origins. This means that Basil understood homoousios in a generic sense of two beings with the same type of substance, rather than two beings sharing one single substance. Consequently, he explained that

10062-416: The prologue of the fourth Gospel (we also find the probably Johannine names Monogenes and Parakletos in the series of Aeons). In Valentinianism, Sophia always stands absolutely at the center of the system, and in some sense she seems to represent the supreme female principle. Sophia is the youngest of the Aeons. Observing the multitude of Aeons and the power of begetting them, she hurries back into

10179-483: The purely ideal, noumenal, intelligible, or supersensible world; they are immaterial, they are hypostatic ideas. Together with the source from which they emanate they form the Pleroma. The transition from the immaterial to the material, from the noumenal to the sensible, is brought about by a flaw, or a passion, or a sin, in the female Aeon Sophia. Epiphanius alleges that the Valentinians "set forth their thirty aeons in mythologic fashion, thinking that they conformed to

10296-400: The real-world creative power. According to the older conception, he was an evil and malicious offspring of his mother, who has already been deprived of any particle of light. In the Valentinian systems, the Demiurge was the offspring of a union of Sophia Achamoth with matter, and appears as the fruit of Sophia's repentance and conversion. But as Achamoth herself was only the daughter of Sophia,

10413-504: The same meaning, namely, the fundamental reality that supports all else. In a Christian context, this concept may refer to God or the Ultimate Reality . The Bible never refers to God's ousia and only once to God's hypostasis (Hebrews 1:3). In Hebrews 1:3, it is not clear whether hypostasis refers to God's nature or His entire 'Person' (hypostasis) and is variously translated. In early Christian writings, hypostasis

10530-405: The same type of substance, but each has his own substance. Basil began his career as theologian as a Homoiousian. As such, he believed that the Son's substance is similar to the Father's, meaning two distinct hypostases. Later, after he had accepted homoousios (same substance), he retained the idea of two distinct hypostases: He says that in his own view ' like in respect of ousia ' (the slogan of

10647-537: The secret of the heavenly union (the Syzygia). "The final consummation of all things will take place when all that is spiritual has been formed and perfected by gnosis ." The central point of the piety of Valentinus seems to have been that mystical contemplation of God; in a letter preserved in Clement of Alexandria, he sets forth that the soul of man is like an inn, which is inhabited by many evil spirits. But when

10764-510: The souls of the Gnostics, which are looked upon as feminine. Thus every Gnostic had her unfallen counterpart standing in the presence of God, and the object of a pious life was to bring about and experience this inner union with the celestial abstract personage. This leads us straight to the sacramental ideas of this branch of Gnosticism (see below). And it also explains the expression used of the Gnostics in Irenaeus, that they always meditate upon

10881-884: The state enforcing what it determined to be orthodox teaching. Within five years of the official criminalization of heresy by the emperor, the first Christian heretic, Priscillian , was executed in 385 by Roman officials. For some years after the Protestant Reformation , Protestant denominations were also known to execute those whom they considered heretics. The edict of Theodosius II (435) provided severe punishments for those who had or spread writings of Nestorius. Those who possessed writings of Arius were sentenced to death. Seven councils considered by main Christian denominations as ecumenical were convened between 325 and 787. These were mostly concerned with Christological disputes: Not all of these Councils have been universally recognised as ecumenical . In addition,

10998-716: The surface phenomena that present themselves to our senses are three higher spiritual principles (or hypostases ): each one more sublime than the preceding. For Plotinus , these are the Soul , the Intellect , and the One . The term hypostasis has particular significance in Christian theology ; particularly in Christian triadology —the study of the Christian doctrine of the trinity —as well as Christology (study of Christ ). In Christian triadology, three specific theological concepts have emerged throughout history in reference to

11115-407: The terms hypostasis and ousia: "But as for those ... who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance [ousia] ... these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes." ( Early Church Texts ) These terms were not used by any previous creed. At the time of the Nicene Creed, different people used these terms differently. Many used them as synonyms. Importantly, Athanasius,

11232-546: The views of the Catholic Church that Luther had taken when he was a Catholic priest were, " Haereticos comburi est contra voluntatem Spiritus " (It is contrary to the Spirit to burn heretics). This phrase was the name given to summarized version of his comments that were included in Exsurge Domine , a 1520 papal bull that listed his anti-heretic killing sympathies along with 40 other positions Luther had taken in his writings that were allegedly heretical, and which he

11349-503: The west was called "The Holy". Another, facing south, was called "The Holy of the Holy". The third, facing east, was called "The Holy of the Holies", the place where only the high priest enters. Baptism is "the Holy" building. Redemption is the "Holy of the Holy". "The Holy of the Holies" is the bridal chamber. Baptism includes the resurrection and the redemption; the redemption (takes place) in

11466-487: The world, and are not yourselves dissolved, then are ye lords over creation and over all that passes away. The authorities for the sacramental practices of the Valentinians are preserved especially in the accounts of the Marcosians given in Irenaeus i. 13 and 20, and in the last section of Clement of Alexandria's Excerpta ex Theodoto . In almost all the sacramental prayers of the Gnostics handed down to us by Irenaeus,

11583-573: The years of Jesus". Of the eight celestial beings of the Ogdoad , four are peculiar to the Valentinian system. The third pair of Aeons, Logos and Zoe, occur only here, and the place of this pair is not firmly established, and occur sometimes before and sometimes after the fourth pair of Aeons, the Anthropos and the Ekklesia . We cannot be far wrong in suspecting that Valentinus was influenced by

11700-537: Was Sophia . Sophia's weakness, curiosity and passion led to her fall from the Pleroma and the creation of the world and man, both of which are flawed. Valentinians identified the God of the Old Testament as the Demiurge , the imperfect creator of the material world. Man, the highest being in this material world, participates in both the spiritual and the material nature. The work of redemption consists in freeing

11817-589: Was condemned in the third century, Origen's three-hypostases view dominated. The Eusebians (traditionally but erroneously called 'Arians') believed in three hypostases. The leaders of the Eusebians were Eusebius of Caesarea and Eusebius of Nicomedia. In this view, Father, Son, and Spirit are three distinct minds. For example, the Eastern Dedication Creed says, "They are three in hypostasis but one in agreement." (Hanson, p. 286) "Agreement" implies distinct minds. There were also variations of

11934-596: Was especially concerned with refuting Valentinianism. Valentinus was born in approximately 100 AD and died in Alexandria circa 180 AD. According to the Christian scholar Epiphanius of Salamis , he was born in Egypt and schooled in Alexandria, where the Gnostic Basilides was teaching. However, Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215), another Christian scholar and teacher, reports that Valentinus

12051-582: Was even a prominent and well-respected member of the proto-orthodox community in Rome. At one point during his career he had even hoped to attain the office of bishop, and apparently it was after he was passed over for the position that he broke from the Catholic Church. Valentinus was said to have been a prolific writer; however, the only surviving remains of his work come from quotes that have been transmitted by Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus and Marcellus of Ancyra . Most scholars also believe that Valentinus wrote

12168-486: Was fragmented, and with contemporaneous competing orthodoxies. Ehrman's view is that while the specifics of Bauer's demonstration were later rejected, his intuitions are broadly accepted by scholars and were confirmed beyond what Bauer might have guessed. According to H. E. W. Turner , responding to Bauer's thesis in 1954, "what became official orthodoxy was taught early on by the majority of church teachers, albeit not in fully developed form." According to Darrell Bock ,

12285-418: Was merely an illusion, thus denying the incarnation. Others held that both the material and spiritual worlds were created by God and were therefore both good, and that this was represented in the unified divine and human natures of Christ. The orthodox teaching, as it developed in response to these interpretations, is that Christ was fully divine and at the same time fully human, and that the three persons of

12402-551: Was no true mechanism in place to resolve the various differences of beliefs. Heresy was to be approached by the leader of the church according to Eusebius , author of the Church History . Early attacks upon alleged heresies formed the matter of Tertullian 's Prescription Against Heretics (in 44 chapters, written from Rome), and of Irenaeus' Against Heresies (c. 180, in five volumes), written in Lyon after his return from

12519-432: Was not eternally divine and was, therefore, of lesser status than God the Father . Arianism was condemned at the Council of Nicea (325), but nevertheless dominated most of the church for the greater part of the 4th century, often with the aid of Roman emperors who favoured them. Trinitarianism held that God the Father , God the Son , and the Holy Spirit were all strictly one being with three hypostases . The Euchites ,

12636-405: Was not resolved, and there was initially substantial clerical resistance to the use of physical force by secular authorities to correct spiritual deviance. As heresy was viewed with increasing concern by the papacy , however, the secular arm was used more frequently and freely during the 12th century and afterward. There were many Christian sects , cults , movements and individuals throughout

12753-703: Was ordered to recant. When Luther failed to accept the bull and give a broad recantation of his writings, he was excommunicated in the subsequent 1521 papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem . The Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Communion and the Twenty-five Articles of the Methodist Churches condemn Pelagianism . John Wesley , the founder of the Methodist tradition, harshly criticized antinomianism, considering it

12870-478: Was preferable because it actually excluded identity of hypostases . This, with the instances which we have already seen in which Basil compared the relation of hypostasis to ousia in the Godhead to that of particular to general, or of a man to 'living beings', forms the strongest argument for Harnack's hypothesis ." "Harnack ... argued that Basil and all the Cappadocians interpreted homoousios only in

12987-508: Was regarded by the Catholic Church as a heresy; the Jesuits were particularly strong opponents of Jansenism. The text Augustinus , which propagated Jansenist beliefs, was repudiated by the Holy See . In Testem benevolentiae nostrae , issued on 22 January 1899, Pope Leo XIII condemned as heresy, Americanism , "the rejection of external spiritual direction as no longer necessary,

13104-414: Was taught by Theudas , a disciple of the apostle Paul . He was reputed to be an extremely eloquent man who possessed a great deal of charisma and had an innate ability to attract people. He went to Rome some time between AD 136 and 140, in the time of Pope Hyginus , and had risen to the peak of his teaching career between AD 150 and 155, during the time of Pius . For some time in the mid-2nd century he

13221-428: Was the construct of later Valentinians. According to Irenaeus, the Valentinians believed that at the beginning there was a Pleroma (literally, a 'fullness'). At the centre of the Pleroma was the primal Father or Bythos , the beginning of all things who, after ages of silence and contemplation, projected thirty Aeons , heavenly archetypes representing fifteen syzygies or sexually complementary pairs. Among them

13338-420: Was the first pro-Nicene to make that distinction. While Basil was a three-hypostasis theologian , Athanasius and the earlier pro-Nicene theologians were one-hypostasis theologians and did not need a distinction between hypostasis and ousia. However, the Cappadocians did not yet understand God as one undivided ousia (substance), as in the Trinity doctrine. They said that the Father, Son, and Spirit have exactly

13455-562: Was the original manifestation of Christianity. Bauer reassessed as a historian the overwhelmingly dominant view that for the period of Christian origins, ecclesiastical doctrine already represented what is primary, while heresies, on the other hand somehow are a deviation from the genuine (Bauer, "Introduction"). Scholars such as Pagels and Ehrman have built on Bauer's original thesis. Drawing upon distinctions between Jewish Christians , Gentile Christians, and other groups such as Gnostics and Marcionites , they argue that early Christianity

13572-413: Was the substance of the matter from which this world was formed. From [her desire of] returning [to him who gave her life], every soul belonging to this world, and that of the Demiurge himself, derived its origin. All other things owed their beginning to her terror and sorrow. For from her tears all that is of a liquid nature was formed; from her smile all that is lucent; and from her grief and perplexity all

13689-518: Was used to denote 'being' or 'substantive reality' and was not always distinguished in meaning from terms like ousia ('essence'), substantia ('substance') or qnoma (specific term in Syriac Christianity ). It was used in this way by Tatian and Origen . Tertullian, writing in Latin, did not use the Greek terms hypostasis and ousia but he did use the related term substantia. The Nicene Creed of 325, in one of its anathemas, used

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