On 28 Feb, 00:22, Chuck Gould wrote:
On Feb 27, 7:00�am, "

Your remarks appear to imply an orderly transition to the orthodox
church hammered together by compromise at coucils like the one
held inNicea. Hundreds of years AD Christians were still debating the
Trinity.

Um, I'm not sure this is right. Even at Nicaea both sides were
Trinitarian. Possibly you have the various 5th century
Christological controversies in mind here?

One of the major points of debate and controversy at Nicea was the
"Arian heresy".

True.

It would be grossly inaccurate to say that both sides were trinitarian.

Ah, allow me to offer the words of Arius himself.

From "Documents of the Christian Church", second edition, Selected
and
Edited by Henry Bettenson, Oxford University Press. pp. 39-401.

The Letter of Arius to Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia, c. 321

"...But what we say and think we both have taught and continue to
teach; that the Son is not unbegottten, nor part of the unbegotten in
anyway, not is he derived from any substance; but that by his own
will
and counsel he existed before times and ages fully God, only-
begotten,
unchangeable. And before he was begotten or created or appointed or
established, he did not exist; for he was not unbegotten. We are
persecuted because we say that the Son has a beginning, but God is
without beginning. For that reason we are persecuted, and because we
say that he is from what is not. And this we say because he is
neither
part of God nor derived from any substance. For this we are
persecuted; the rest you know. I trust that you are strong in the
Lord, mindful of our afflictions, a true fellow-disciple of Lucian,
Eusebius."

The Bishop Arius postulated that if Jesus was the
son of God then Jesus was created by God and could not be equal to God
without creating a second God. Adding the Holy Spirit to the mix
created a third, as far as Arius was concerned.

I don't think that this is what Arius was saying, tho (who
incidentally was merely a presbyter). Arguments about the position of
the Holy Spirit have to wait until the pneumatomachian dispute in the
late 4th century.

Arius was banished from the church. One of his prominent supporters,
Eusebius(sp?) backed down from his support of Arius and was allowed
to remain in the church even though he refused to sign what is now
known as the Nicene Creed.

I think that perhaps you are thinking of Eusebius of Nicomedia.
Eusebius was exiled for refusing to sign up to the Nicene. However he
and Arius were later allowed to return.

The Creed places great emphasis on a triune diety.

But the point at issue was the homoousion, not the trinity; was the
Second person of the same substance (homoousios) as the First, or of
like substance?

some details:

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/g...p/aa082499.htm

Hmm. The number of 318 fathers is not recorded at the time, but
appears in later writers.

Arius was certainly not a Monarchian, as we have seen.

Constantine was an enthusiastic Christian (denial of this originated
as part of anti-Hapsburg propaganda in the 1850's, curiously enough).

Christianity was legalised by Constantine, not made the state
religion.

So this web page is just a collection of hearsay.

You can access all the ancient primary data about the council from
he

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html

Um, gnosis *is* secret knowledge. The gnostics pretended that their
ever-changing teachings were apostolic. The fathers challenged this
by pointing out that the churches founded by these apostles knew
nothing of them teaching any such thing. The gnostic response was
that these teachings were transmitted privately -- which sort of gives
the game away.

There is a difference between surpressed knowledge and secret
knowledge.

Of course; but the question is whether the gnostics were purveying
secret knowledge, surely? They were.

Many of the texts that freely circulated in the first few
hundred years AD were eventually surpressed by the othodox church.

Not sure about 'suppressed'. The church had its own scriptures. Some
of the people wanting to peddle heretical ideas tended to forge
gospels in the names of apostles (a cottage industry that has
continued to our own times). Later novelisations also appeared.

The Gospel of Thomas is an excellent example of a freely distributed text
that reflected the gnostic, vs. orthodox philosophy. It's available
today in an English translation at Barnes and Noble, how secret can
that be? :-)

You refer to the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, I think (there are
others...). It was found in a jar in modern times, I think, at Nag
Hammadi. It's ancient history consists of only a single statement by
Hippolytus, that it was a fake used in Egypt.

My advice would be: always be wary of anybody who tells you, "You
don't have the authority or capacity to understand the message, so hire
me to understand it and interpret it for you." Woa, talk about a
slippery slope........

Surely. But this is a classic gnostic position.

I would imagine that gnostic Christians were/are not too disturbed to
be called "heretics" by the orthodox church.

Of course the term 'haeresis' also applied to a philosophical school.
The Christians saw the gnostics as really just a bunch of pagans who
had borrowed some Christian ideas. Tertullian, in De praescriptione
haereticorum 6, even lists the philosophical schools to which each of
the major gnostics belongs.

That was the same charge that the Sanhedrin brought against Jesus
for such offenses as healing during Sabbat, offering to forgive sins, etc.

Are you sure? Where in the NT is the term used for this?

If the gnostics have a secret, it may well be that the Kingdom of
God is spiritual in nature

No doubt they can offer some hard evidence for this? :-)

We can all make up soapy-sounding phrases. I find that they often
conceal a hard-eyed desire for guns, girls and gold -- the Maharishi
syndrome. Which brings us back to exploitation...

I hope that helps!

All the best,

Roger Pearse