But all this time, there were also competing Christian sects and differing centers of Christian authority. Primary among these are the Gnostics, initially far surpassing in membership and influence those who clung to the Roman, literalist viewpoint organized around the belief in the historical life of Jesus. The Gnostics were more aliened with the philosophers and saw Jesus as yet another mystery cult leader. Moreover, they tended to see many other Christians as illiterate, which they were, and, therefore, being lured to the new faith by the easier, more simplistic teachings of what they called the Outer Mystery, experienced by blind faith and not through the more complex experience of being initiated into the Inner Mystery, which brought each individual to a personal sense of eternal oneness between human self and the universe of spirit. One group claimed to have received secret information from Jesus through his brother James and from Mary Magdalene. Group members prayed to both a divine mother and father.
Teacher and poet Valentinus says God is indescribable but imagines the deity as a dyad, Primal Father with Grace/Silence/Womb/Mother of All as co-creator.
Marcus, the magician, celebrated a secret mass, invoking Her Grace, envisioning the wine as Her blood, strikingly similar to the Great Goddess ceremonies of the past.33
The divine Mother was also called the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is also Wisdom, and the Greek word for wisdom is Sophia, the first creator. The followers of Valentinus and Marcus, therefore, prayed to the Mother as mystical eternal Silence and to Grace, she who is before all things, and as incorruptible Wisdom for insight, which is gnosis.34 This mother taught the people self-awareness, guided them to find food, assisted in the conception of children, just as the Goddess did before. Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels, tells us that this popular teaching which has been rediscovered was never included in what became official Christian documents. She writes, “Yet all the sources cited so far, secret gospels, revelations, mystical teachings – are among those not included in the select list that constitutes the New Testament collection. Every one of these secret texts, which Gnostic groups revered, was omitted from the canonical collection and branded as heretical by those who called themselves orthodox Christians. By the time the process of sorting the various writings ended, probably as late as the year 200, virtually all the feminine imagery for God had disappeared from orthodox Christian tradition.”35
But Marcus and Valentius who had women followers, women priests, treated women with equal respect. However, Christian writer Tertullian (c. 190 CE) says about Gnostic women, “These heretical women –how audacious they are! They have no modesty; they are bold enough to teach, to engage in argument, to enact exorcisms, to undertake cures, and it may be, even to baptize.” Tertullian lashes out against the “viper,” a woman in North Africa who led her own congregation. And he was equally outraged against Gnostic Marcion, who had appointed women on an equal basis with men as priests and bishops. “The Gnostic teacher Marcellina traveled to Rome to represent the Caprocratian group which claimed to have received secret teachings from Mary Magdalene, Salome and Martha. The Montanists, a radical prophetic circle honored two women, Priscu and Maximilla, as founders of the movement. Our evidence, then, clearly indicates a correlation between religious theory and social practice. Among such Gnostic groups as the Valentinians, women were considered equal with men; some were revered as prophets; others acted as teachers, traveling evangelists, healers, priest(ess), perhaps even bishops.”36
Three other Gnostic groups, who maintained a masculine image of God, nevertheless included women who held leadership positions. These were the Marcionites, the Montanists, and the Carpoeratians.37 The early Christian church also had what Freke & Gandy in their work Jesus Mysteries call the “literalist movement.” And they contrast them with the Gnostics as follows:
–Literalists were rigidly authoritarian; Gnostics were mystic individualists.
–Literalists wanted to enforce a common creed on all Christians; Gnostics tolerated different beliefs and practices.
–Literalists selected four gospels as holy scripture and had the rest consigned to flames as heretical works of the devil: Gnostics wrote hundreds of Christian gospels.
–Literalists taught that the true Christian believed in Jesus as preached to them by the bishops: Gnostics taught that the true Christian experienced gnosis or mystical knowledge for themselves and became a Christ, i.e. the “christ within.”38
It should be added that Literalists, following the leadership of Paul, treated women as less than equal with men, prevented their participation as clergy, subordinated them to male authority, and referred them to a life of silence. The literalists became the Roman Catholic Church. “They created a religion that required blind faith in historical events from what was originally a spiritual path through which each initiate could personally experience mystical knowledge or gnosis. To the Gnostics, the other teaching was that of only the Outer Mysteries, worldly Christianity, suitable for people in a hurry.”39
There are now a multitude of religious factions, all struggling for not only survival but also supremacy. In 70 CE the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, creating a dispersal of a vastly diminished Jewish population. At the same time, the literalist Christians were taking hold in Rome; the Gnostics were still very strong in North Africa, and the Goddess was holding in Rome, Anatolia and parts of the Near East. The Roman Empire was beginning its decline, but still fiercely in control of most of the Western world. The Romans were still semi-matriarchal, protecting some of the fundamental rights of women. For instance, Roman law prevented the execution of virgins, which later was to cause a problem to those Christian who tortured the virgins in order to have them renounce their Goddess. As shown earlier, women were also permitted to practice medicine, and some texts they wrote have come down to us.
The Gnostics honored women, prayed to a female deity in their mother/father dyad and purported to have received secret teachings from Mary Magdalene, who may well have been intended as the first Apostle. The very early Christians respected women for their intellect and contributions to the new movement. Dr. Jean Acterberg, in Women as Healer, says, “Jesus himself challenged the religious and social institutions of his day with a frontal assault on patriarchy, shocking his contemporaries with his open consort with and esteem for women. Jesus selected the most compassionate, maternal images from the Jewish tradition, creating a Christian god as androgynous in character as any male god in history. In the early years, feminine-masculine imagery was pronounced.”40 Achterberg notes that, in this context, women as healers flourished because they were still regarded as having been created in the image of the divine. And, women gravitated toward service in the diverse Christian sects which demonstrated love for community and love of the feminine. However tolerant Christian communities of Anatolia, Egypt, North Africa may have been toward women, their contributions and status, a very different trend was occurring in Rome.
Not only was Rome the center of the vast Roman Empire, it was also center of the Christian church of Rome, the so-called Western church which was said to have been founded by Peter, one of the disciples of Jesus. Therefore, it claimed a double-seated status of power. Robert Eno, SS in The Rise of the Papacy, reviews this historical Peter in Rome, saying, “It is largely based on conjecture and later Roman traditions. Since the Reformation, many have sought to contest the massive Petrine tradition of the Christian Church of Rome … they (Peter and Paul) died in Rome … were buried in Rome and had monuments built to them in Rome and on the road to Ostia; (however), purists may claim this proves nothing except that circa 200 (CE) the Roman Church believed that these were the burial places of Peter and Paul.”41
Then the question is posed as to whether Peter is the founder of the church in Rome because Paul cannot be, because his letters are to an already existing church years later. And if Peter is the founder, is he also the first Bishop? The answer to that is No. An obscure man by the name of Linus holds that position. Furthermore, the early bishop lists
do not consider that the founder is automatically the bishop, citing Mark the founder of the Alexandrian church but not its bishop. So, Peter is not the first bishop of Rome. This somewhat tedious explanation is necessary because the Roman Church bases its claim to primacy among the churches on its “unique” position of its bishops’ (who are destined to become the Popes) direct descent from Peter, apostle/bishop. But this is simply not true, and the rest of the elaborate identification, using that position to declare supremacy among the other early churches is not true either, even though it continues to be taught. In fact, a hierarchy of controlling leadership (bishops, presbyters, deacons) was “not instituted explicitly by Jesus during his ministry.”42
What is a fact is that all the various churches in the first century and a half after the death of Jesus evolved in their own ways, under different structures and with differing ceremonies. Some were the “charismatics” with little structure, some such as the Gnostics did not believe in anyone having to go through an intercessionary to reach the divine because they believed it was the unique journey of every human to search within to find the universal truths and connect with the deity. But, circa 175 CE, a universal form of ministerial structure was being required by the Christian church of Rome. And this church would go even further to create a monarchial bishop, later based on the first century notion of James, brother of Jesus in the Jewish Christian community of Jerusalem. Successors of James were to come from the blood relatives of Jesus or their descendants. But with the destruction of Jerusalem, the Christian community there was replaced by one of Gentile (non-Jewish) origins. Nevertheless, a formal structure replaced itinerant preachers and miracle workers, and strict rules of adherence replaced individual experiences. And from there, it is only a short step from leader to “ruler,” a step credited to Ignatius of Antioch c. 112 CE, bishop of Syria. He says that the people were clearly to “submit themselves and obey the bishop without question.” This is an onward march of structural centralization and concentration of authority within the church (of Rome).43 Partially, this reaction was in response to the fragmenting quality of early Christian communities because they were constructed from many differing populations who had converted from entirely different belief systems to the new ideology, but they had also brought with them many of their previous habits, customs, and traditions.
From the point of view of those who were comfortable only when in complete control, these communities were actually perceived as a threat to the movement, precisely because of their diversity, which was viewed as unruly, disorganized, mistaken, and potentially (if not already) radical. A furthering of the means of control was to no longer rely on the oral tradition to teach the congregations, but rather to gather in writing the approved texts (which would become the canon of the New Testament) and the approved statements of beliefs, now known as the creeds. And the guardians of this repository became the Church of Rome, unique in the West because of its claim that an apostle was its founder. In contrast, the Eastern Christian churches of Africa and Asia Minor had many claims to apostolic sees (church headquarters in prominent cities), such as John in Ephesus and Mark in Alexandria. Nevertheless, they did not win ultimate control from Rome. But for the first century and half of the second century, there is no
“Bishop of Rome” and, therefore, no “Petrine succession” so prized by later Pope monarchs.
According to his research for Saharasia, DeMeo says that “Christian theologian Origen (c. 250 CE) viewed women as ‘the daughters of Satan,’ castrated himself to avoid sexual temptation, creating a self-castration cult known as the Valesians. Believing they were serving god, the Valesians would forcibly castrate or mutilate the sexual organs of anyone unfortunate enough to fall into their hands.”44
Contemporaneously, the philosopher Mani (c. 260 CE) founder of the Manichean cult “taught that sexual intercourse chained the soul to the devil. His sect combined elements from Gnostic, Christian, Zoroastrian (Persian) and Greek ideas and Manichaenism spread across the Near East into Greece and Rome.”45
Irenaeus of Lugdunium was one of the first in what will be a long line of “thought patrol police” in ecclesiastical robes. He has the distinction of relentlessly pursuing the Gnostics on the following basis: Tradition and authority of the Roman church have vested their leaders with absolute preservation of the apostolic tradition, as they define it and the defense of the Gospel, as they write it, and Roman views on unity included uniformity of practice as well as of faith. Therefore, days of celebration were to be the same in all the churches and done so according to the way Rome dictated. Not everyone agreed. The Christian churches of Asia Minor kept their traditional feast days after squabbling extensively with Rome over changing them. Then for nearly 50 years, from 260 to 300 CE, there is a black hole in Roman church history, with no documents in existence, and the first Pope occurs almost another seventy years afterwards. That first Pope is Damascus, 336–384 CE. As the Church of Rome was struggling year after year to assert its dominance over all other Christian churches, the Empire of Rome was battling to preserve its conquered territories. It is in this turbulence that the idea of martyrdom, acts of persecution, and accusations of heresy become prevalent.
Although the word “heresy” conjures up a frightening array of terrors, what is it and how did it come to be such a powerhouse of destruction? The ancient Greek root of the word heresy is “hairetikos” which means able to choose. Being “able to choose” is precisely what the Roman church was emphatically against. And, therefore, heresy came to mean anything which did not completely conform to the doctrine, practice or rule of the Church of Rome, which was narrowly, precisely defined and neither open to question nor up for discussion. There was one belief, one church, one set of those in command and nothing else was tolerated. Deviation was, therefore, heresy. A rigidity beset the Church of Rome early in its history. Popes had to follow their predecessors; Bishops had to obey the Pope, and people had to obey the Bishops.
By now the Roman Empire itself was under constant attack from without and raging licentiousness from within. Into this fray comes Emperor Diocletian ruling from 284 to 305 CE. He was a military man who succeeded in temporarily stabilizing the Empire, but at a high price. According to Eno, “The new empire of Diocletian the Dominate, as historians call it, is usually pictured as the Roman Empire restored to order because it was placed under martial law, in effect in a strait jacket of raw authoritarianism greater than anything hither to experienced. Scholars have debated the effectiveness of measures which threatened to put society into a sort of deep-freeze or into an intellectual and financial suit of armor.”46
It is now that we arrive at the Christian martyr myths, largely fictionalized later in the ninth century, which actually took place under the rule of Diocletian in the third century, and of which there are few, if any, secular records contemporaneously. In fact, Diocletian paid little attention to Christians until 298 CE when his own clergy complained that Christian non-believers who were present at a state religious ceremony prevented favorable omens from being received. Diocletian ordered the Christians to honor these gods by burning a piece of incense on the imperial altar. Refusal carried a civil penalty of dismissal from service. But the conflict continued until five years later, in 302, when the disputes between Imperial priests and Christians became so frequent that the official oracles demanded closing of Christian churches. Christian zealots attacked. Two fires were set in the Emperor’s palace in Nicomedia. Three Christian eunuchs were accused and executed. Centuries later these eunuchs were canonized as Saints Dorotheus, Gorgonius and Peter. Subsequently, Diocletian ordered some Christian priests arrested, forced to sacrifice to the imperial gods and released. Obstinate ones were executed and the persecutions ended by 313 CE.
Why this fascination with martyrdom? Paul started preaching ideas of spirit vs. flesh in c. 50 CE, a doctrine incorporated into the Roman Christian theology, advocating celibacy, teaching marriage was sinful, that women were to be segregated and silen
ced. These ideas formed the basis for Roman church practice.
Until 250 CE, the cult of Mithra was more popular in the Roman Empire than Christianity. But as part of the transition from Mithrasim to Christianity, “the doctrine of the mortification of the flesh brought about episode of intense fasting, flagellation, and brutal masochistic actions among Christian devotees.”47
Additionally, some of the Christian churches taught that martyrdom automatically brought oneness with Jesus, as the soul of an Egyptian man could become one with Osirus of the past. Other early Christian churches taught that martyrdom was required to be among the blessed in heaven. Now the church was following an older tradition of achieving union with a deity and consequent immortality, which came from the earliest ideas of sacred kingship, also adopted by the Church of Rome.
In pursuit of this “imitation of Christ,” so many Christians purposely broke laws and clamored for the death penalty that Antonious of Antioch asked whether Christians had no ropes or precipices to kill themselves without constantly making trouble for the authorities. Sadly, however, the persecutions of any regime toward the Christians paled in comparison with actions Christians took against all other population segments after they received power from Emperor Constantine in 325 CE. They tortured women, non-Christians, and non-orthodox Christians in a reign of terror across Asia Minor, Rome, Greece, and along the Mediterranean coasts.
Daughters of the Inquisition Page 24