Christian Heresies

In this volume, I tell the stories of the early Christians whom other Christians denied were Christian. the second century CE, many different Christian leaders and groups claimed to be the only or authentic version of Christianity. Over the course of twenty-six chapters, I relate what we can piece together of their histories, writings, and practices. Instead of allowing the enemies of these Christians to control the discourse, I follow a careful method in which primary sources are preferred to secondary (heresiographical) attacks. I show how countless discourses, ideas, and practices are continually recycled and adapted throughout time in the building of Christian identities. I also contextualize the histories of Christians within the larger Greco-Roman world and shows how they intersect with the traditional figures explored in church history. Furthermore, I question the notion of some Christian identities “surviving” or “perishing”, “winning” or “losing.”  By moving beyond notions of “gnostic”, “heretical” and “orthodox,” Litwa allows these “lost Christianities” to once again be found.

Most studies of Donatism tend to focus on its seemingly binary struggle with the other major expression of the Christian faith in North Africa, the Caecilianist church. And for good reason: the majority of our surviving primary sources on the movement are direct products of the polemical war that raged between the two communions. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to simply characterize the struggle as binary in nature. Like their Caecilianist counterparts, Donatist writers are in fact concerned with a whole range of sub-orthodox beliefs that characterized their own age, including Montanism, the rhetorical construct that passed as “Arianism” in North Africa, and above all Mani.

In this presentation, I will focus on the ways in which heretics outside the Caecilianist communion are addressed within Donatist writings. In doing so, I believe we can discover two important points about the dissident communion. First, Donatist concerns about heresy illustrate the fact that the movement was more well-rounded than we often give it credit for: far from merely fighting for its life against Caecilianist opponents, it was actively concerned with other threats to the life of the church. In particular, anti-Manichaean hysteria appears to have been as widespread among Donatist Christians as their Caecilianist counterparts. Second, understanding the perception of heresy within the Donatist communion may help us navigate the tricky question of how Donatists understood the phenomenon of Caecilianism itself. Several texts illustrate that one concern that Donatists had about Caecilianist baptismal theology was its troubling tendency to accept Manichaean baptisms as valid. Whether these anxieties are real or polemically-convenient, they illustrate the relevance of the wider concept of heresy to the Donatist-Caecilianist debate.

Католики оправдывали жестокие гонения на катаров тем, что это не просто ересь (т.е. религиозные взгляды, расходящиеся с ортодоксальной догматикой), а "антиобщественное, негуманное и социально опасное явление". Анн Бренон, современная исследовательница катаризма, в своей работе "Катаризм и семья в Лангедоке XIII-XIV столетий" утверждает: это мнение противоречит фактам.
В этом очерке я расскажу, каково было настоящее отношение катаров к семье и обществу и как оно влияло на социально-нравственный климат в тех областях, где катаризм имел широкое распространение – прежде всего в Окситании.

Comment parvenir au trésor de la lumière, où nous pourrons atteindre le repos et chanter la gloire du Dieu inaccessible? Fascinants et déroutants avec leurs diagrammes et leurs puissances célestes aux noms mystérieux, les Livres de Iéou nous en révèlent le chemin, parsemées d’obstacles et d’embûches, ainsi que les mots de passes et les sceaux nécessaires pour en déjouer les gardiens. Pour quiconque s’intéresse aux origines chrétiennes, ce volume rend disponible pour la première fois une traduction fiable, toutes langues modernes confondues, de ces textes énigmatiques et uniques, qui suscitent la fascination à la fois des spécialistes et des non-spécialistes. Mettant en scène un dialogue entre Jésus et ses disciples, les Livres de Iéou révèlent à leurs lecteurs la configuration des sphères célestes et fournissent tout ce que les âmes doivent connaître (sceaux, chiffres secrets et formules à réciter) et recevoir (initiation aux mystères et baptêmes) pour franchir ces mondes. Le manuscrit accompagne ces révélations de Jésus de plusieurs diagrammes et dessins, qui illustrent les mondes célestes et les sceaux dont les âmes doivent se marquer.
Malgré leur importance pour la connaissance de la diversité des courants gnostiques, les « deux Livres de Iéou » figurent parmi les textes les plus méconnus et négligés de cette littérature. Ce volume vise à leur redonner la place qui leur revient. Le lecteur y trouvera une toute nouvelle édition critique du texte copte des « deux Livres de Iéou » – la première depuis 1892 –, réalisée à partir de négatifs sur verre du manuscrit et d’une collation du codex original, conservé à la Bibliothèque bodléienne d’Oxford. L’édition critique est accompagnée d’une traduction française – la première depuis 1891 –, qui rend les traités accessibles et intelligibles, et de notes philologiques et textuelles, qui expliquent le texte copte et justifient les choix de traduction. L’édition, la traduction et les notes sont précédées d’une introduction qui renouvelle complètement la compréhension de ces textes. On y trouvera notamment l’histoire moderne du manuscrit, depuis son acquisition par l’explorateur et géographe écossais James Bruce en 1769 – d’où son nom de codex Bruce –, et des informations inédites sur l’état dans lequel se trouvait le manuscrit à ce moment. L’introduction présente également la première analyse papyrologique et codicologique du manuscrit, qui a mené à un nouvel ordonnancement du texte conservé et à l’identification, dans ce qu’on considérait traditionnellement comme un seul traité en deux parties, de trois ouvrages distincts, provenant probablement d’au moins trois manuscrits eux aussi différents. Enfin, un chapitre consacré au contenu analyse et décrit en profondeur les traités, invitant le lecteur à une nouvelle compréhension des textes.

It is a true but useless idea that Islam was at first a Christian heresy. Or as the academic study of Christian history would prefer to say today: Isalm was one of many "christianities" started throughout the ages. In this paper I illustrate that Muhammed and his closest Christian discussants saw his religious ideas as innovations on the exisiting monotheisms of Judaism and Christianity not the foundation of a new religion. I contend for but poorly argue for the uselessness of this idea however as the Isalm of today is very little like the early Islam of its founder.

The definition of "theocracy" has perplexed scholars for many centuries.  Some argue that theocracy exists only when religious leaders are also the actual, official political leaders and, as such, impose their particular theological views on the populace at large.  This essay argues that effective control of a polity by religious leaders and their theology is dispositive, regardless of the governmental organization that exists on paper.  For example, Roger Williams pointed out that in many theocracies (including that of seventeenth-century Massachusetts Bay) "the Magistrate is but the Ministers Cane through which the Clergy speaks . . . ."  "The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody" (London, 1652), 131.  The present essay was incorporated, with some additions and revisions, into Appendix B of Alan E. Johnson's book "The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience" (http://www.amazon.com/First-American-Founder-Williams-Conscience/dp/1511823712/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436397728&sr=1-1).  For a summary of some of the points in this book, see the author's YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOlUZaehYk7WmwW8v9oBMzQ) about Roger Williams, including an interview (https://youtu.be/mGRl5lIbdYY) with the author about this book.

Note:  The sentence and citation on page 5, n.1, in this article referring to John M. Barry's book on Roger Williams should be qualified by Barry's remarks elsewhere in his book:  "Technically, the Bay was not a theocracy. Consistent with the admonition to render unto Caesar the things that were Caesar’s, and to God those which were God’s, the plantation prohibited a minister or church officer from simultaneously holding a government office. (For this reason some historians have argued that Puritan Massachusetts actually advanced the concept of separation of church and state.) But if not a theocracy, Massachusetts was theocentric."  Barry, Roger Williams, 169.  As discussed in this article, I disagree with the position that Massachusetts Bay was not a theocracy.

Dans son Panarion, Épiphane dénonce un groupe gnostique pratiquant la manducation de sang menstruel et de sperme (26,3,3; 4,4–5,3; 8,4–9,6; 10,9-10; 11,1.10) et ayant composé plusieurs livres dont un est intitulé les « Questions de Marie » (26,8,1). Or, le traité gnostique intitulé Pistis Sophia (PSoph) se présente comme un dialogue entre Jésus et ses disciples, dans lequel les entretiens entre Jésus et Marie Madeleine occupent une large part. On y dénonce aussi la consommation du sperme et du sang menstruel à laquelle se livrent certains sur cette terre (PSoph IV, §147), pratique également condamnée dans l’écrit gnostique intitulé Livres de Iéou (B17 [55],14-21). Y-a-t-il ou non un lien de dépendance entre ces traités? Si oui, quel est ce lien et permet-il de dater la PSoph? Est-il possible d’identifier les Questions de Marie et la PSoph? Voilà autant de questions sur lesquelles nous tenterons de faire la lumière dans cette communication.

Монография посвящена исследованию русской религиозности конца XIV — начала XVI вв., понимаемой как область отношения народного сознания к догматам веры. На материале большого количества разнообразных источников, памятников оригинальной и переводной древнерусской книжности, актах, монастырских синодиках и др. рассматриваются такие загадочные явления русского Средневековья как ересь стригольников, противоборство «иосифлян» и «нестяжателей», некоторые аспекты взаимоотношений светской и духовной властей. В центре внимания автора находится феномен нараставших по мере истечения седьмой тысячи лет от сотворения мира (1492 г.) эсхатологических ожиданий. Впервые предпринята попытка проследить многообразное воздействие этих процессов на социальную психологию и тип социального поведения. Обозначены типологические параллели факторам эсхатологических ожиданий в истории Византии и Западной Европы.

In this research thesis we will discover that Augustine’s opinion that concupiscence was an evil, hereditary stain of original sin was not in line with the agreed-upon tradition of the earliest of Church fathers but there are strong arguments for believing that this opinion was based on non-Christian or spurious sources, the most probable direct source being the “Ambrosiaster” document. On this shaky foundation of the inheritance of concupiscence, Augustine built the idea of the massa damnata. It was a novel doctrine, since it was incompatible with the earlier Orthodox tradition. Augustine's claim that this denial of limbo and the positive damnation of unbaptized infants was part of the Catholic tradition, was a novelty to the Church universal. It was unsupported by early sources. This leads me to conclude that Augustine’s threefold philosophical structure of concupiscence, massa damnata and the positive damnation of unbaptized infants was not in accordance with “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3b, NKJV). The lack of orthodox evidence supporting an idea of genetically inheriting sin substantially weakens the basis as proffered by Augustine.

RE: Facades, illusions & ideological concepts created & promoted by ancient royalty out of necessity; effective creation of an alternate version of reality. It is only by knowing this information that the true nature of ancient texts may be understood correctly. Not knowing, means making incorrect assumptions & conclusions. Important!

PART ONE: STUDIES ON AUGUSTINE: CONFESSIONS, SERMONS, LETTERS & DE HAERESIBUS; AUGUSTINE ON GRACE & PLURALISM; AUGUSTINIAN 'GNOSIS';  PART TWO: STUDIES IN MANICHAEISM: ORIGINS & MYTH; DOCTRINES & CULT; DIFFUSION & ART; PART THREE: STUDIES IN MANICHAEISM AND AUGUSTINE: DOCTRINES; POLEMICS & DEBATES; PART FOUR: STUDIES IN 'OTHER GNOSTICISM': GNOSTICISM & APOCRYPHAL TEXTS; SOURCES OF (PS.) HYPPOLYTUS; GOSPEL OF JUDEAS; YESIDI GNOSTICISM

Fourth Century A.D. has had a key role in the transformation of the ancient Greco-Roman world because of Christianity’s progress in the political arena. Paganism, persistently discredited in previous centuries by educated Christians familiar with Greek culture –such as Tatian, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus or Origenes-, was unable to oppose the new religion´s vigor, whose providentialist (like in the case of
Platonism) prided itself in its ethics of free will. This was the more important reason for the Christian radical confrontation with astrology, which claimed authority after eight centuries of experimentation in Hellenism and which had managed to permeate into the Empire´s elites. Preceded by the edicts of Diocletian at the end of the 3rd Century against sorcerers, idolaters, and astrologers, Fourth Century AD witnessed the legal criminalization (which benefited from the conversion of Constantine) of astrology. Despite this, people still consults astrologers and magicians, makes horoscopes and writes astrological treaties. Astrological doctrines however took shelter in Gnosticism, and in some Christian heresies that borrowed part of its eschatology, and, above all, in the temples of astral divinities (Mithras, Isis, Osiris, Serapis) which will lose ground until the destruction of the Serapeum of Alexandria, including its excellent library. Symbolically this fact means the definitive triumph of a new culture based on the previous, but which will guide Rome into the way of the Middle Ages. In this context, Paulus of Alexandria writes the last original treatise on
this topic of the ancient world; a treatise which, although accepting some principles formulated by Ptolemy in the Tetrabiblos, indeed means a return to traditional astrology, based on the Egyptians and Hermetism; this is the astrology with which maybe Paulo sided against the attacks to the Alexandrian pagan gods.

This paper discusses the use of the names of heresies: bogomilism, messalianism and the heresy of autoproscoptae in 14th century Bulgarian sources. The author underlines that the names of bogomilism and messalianism do not always refer to dualism. Two wider unknown examples of such use of the name “messalinism” are recalled. In the Pseudo-Zonaras Nomocanon (CIAI 1160), the name “messalianism” is treated as being equal to the “heresy of autoproscoptae”. In the Rule for hermits, messalians are presented not as heretics, but as monks disregarding their rules.

Certains théologiens et certains canonistes considèrent qu'un pape peut tomber dans l'hérésie. Selon eux, il devrait alors être déposé par un concile général. Cette théorie remonte au Décret de Gratien (XIIe siècle). Elle a engendré les erreurs du conciliarisme et du gallicanisme. Même si elle a été défendue par des théologiens de renom (Cajetan, Jean de Saint-Thomas...), cette doctrine a été réfutée par saint Robert Bellarmin.

Some theologians and canonists Believe a pope might fall in heresy. According to them he should therefore be deposited by the General Council. This theory dates from Gratian Decretum (XIIth century). It generated Conciliarism and Gallicanism errors. Although this theory was adopted by well-established theologians (Cajetanus, John of St-Thomas...), it has been thoroughly refuted by saint Robert Bellarmine.

A short essay examining the relationship between Gospel of John and Gnosticism through the lens of Temple Theology. This essay is a collection of excerpt from a longer paper on the Johannite Tradition submitted to the formation program of the Apostolic Johannite Church. The longer paper, however, is currently not available for the public.

La libertà di coscienza è il criterio principale per valutare la risposta delle società alle domande di spazi di autonomia degli individui. Il volume analizza le forme di repressione della dissidenza religiosa dall’Impero romano–cristiano ai secoli XVI–XVII, mediante la comparazione tra la legislazione antiereticale tardo–romana e le normative emanate nell’Europa della prima età moderna. Particolare attenzione è riservata alle discussioni tra i giuristi in favore o contro le pene di sangue e all’analisi del tentativo, prospettato da François Bauduin (1520–1573), di ridimensionare la portata sanguinaria delle normative tardo–antiche che disponevano la pena capitale per gli eretici, realizzato con una critica interpolazionistica impiegata non a scopi filologici ma per indurre i legislatori a mitigare le normative penali antiereticali. Il libro viene così a toccare il tema delle vie sanguinose e irte di sofferenze per le quali si è arrivati prima all’idea di tolleranza e poi di convivenza religiosa.

La Charte de Niquinta, texte qui rapporte un grand rassemblement hérétique à Saint-Félix de Lauragais en 1167 et qui se réclame de la provenance dissidente, est un enjeu essentiel de la recherche actuelle sur le catharisme et le bogomilisme. La Charte est le seul document dissident à témoigner d’une organisation assez solide de la dissidence cathare dans le Midi dès le XIIe siècle et à postuler les liens des hérétiques méridionaux avec la dissidence orientale. L’hypothèse d’un faux moderne se montre plutôt improbable. Mais il reste plusieurs autres hypothèses de sa rédaction au Moyen Âge, donc de son interprétation : il peut s’agir d’une stylisation antihérétique, d’un document relatant largement des faits historiques, d’un faux dissident, d’une légende dissidente du XIIIe siècle. Cet article résume l’état actuel de la discussion et apporte des arguments pour et contre les différentes hypothèses.

In 1964, the remains of a large house were discovered in the Israeli city of Beth-Shean/ Beth-Shan (also known as Scythopolis). Once excavated, the mid-5th century CE house was found to contain many interesting artifacts, but none as fascinating as a large, elaborate mosaic and two inscribed column lintels. The meanings of the words and images found in the mosaic have spawned several theories, but it is our contention that the theories about the inscriptions in the mosaic must be viewed in light of an intriguing inscription found on one of the column lintels. Unfortunately, of the two major studies published since the initial publication of the house's discovery, neither attempts to address the column lintels. The current article seeks to rectify this situation and reexamines the previous theories and the mosaic inscriptions in light of the inscription from one of the column lintels. The result is a series of conclusions that, it is hoped, help to clarify certain important points regarding the House of Leontis Kloubas.