Posted on 06/08/2009 8:20:56 AM PDT by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
Ping!
I’ll never understand why there is/was so much antagonism, potential for violence, conspiracy, intrigue, and general over-all animosity involved with differing faiths.
Well, we could ask the same question for atheists and other "freethinkers" as well. After all, they managed to kill more people in the last century than did people from all religions put together in all centuries previous combined.
Save
Yes, they are included.
Oh wonderful. More schisms to read about
The only thing I fail to understand is why bother? Is there a deeply suppressed Protestant yearning for this scandalous Roman practice?
As a Catholic, of course, I consider tradition to be important for it helps us to understand Scripture and ties us to our apostolic foundations. It is an essential element of safeguarding the truth and passing it on undiluted for future generations. However, I've been lectured sufficiently about the merits of sola scriptura to have learned that "traditions" are the work of men (Roman men, wearing sinister red capes) and all that is necessary for our salvation is one man with a belief in the Bible.
Yet here I see Protestants straining to establish the very thing which I've been told is worthless!
Most peculiar!
For later read.
Sir, me thinks the author really has no idea of what he speaks.
The “hero’s” in this article were not nice people. The term “buggery” comes from one of them.
What are you babbling about?
One of them is the view that the physical world is all evil. The souls of people are trapped in an evil material body, and it is a sin to propagate (have babies) as that causes more souls to be trapped. So they often turned to buggery (term based off the Bogomils).
Also, they did not view Jesus as True Man and True God. They viewed him typically as God only (though the Cathars sometimes viewed him as a man who managed to transcend the material world). The idea that Jesus was born, and died, for our sins was viewed as very repugnant.
If some Baptists are trying to claim these folks as their forefathers, they had best do a little research.
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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
Sorry, but if you believe this, then you're the one who needs to do some more research. With respect to the Paulicians, at least, I've actually already had this discussion and demonstrated that the charges of gnosticism are completely bogus. Indeed, the charges of gnosticism come from highly polemical Greek sources which were neither honest nor correct in their discussion of the Paulicians. The Armenian source documents, themselves, paint a completely different picture. You're simply relying on outdated and false information. There is no actual, reliable first-hand source information which supports any of the claims as their being "dualist", "Marcionite", "Manichean", "docetist", or anything else along those lines. There is, however, first-hand source information which positively refutes those assertions.
I especially encourage you seemy responses on comments #25, 28,29, and 32.
Paulician
religious sectMain
member of a dualistic Christian sect that originated in Armenia in the mid-7th century. It was influenced most directly by the dualism of Marcionism, a Gnostic movement in early Christianity, and of Manichaeism, a Gnostic religion founded in the 3rd century by the Persian prophet Mani. The identity of the Paul after whom the Paulicians are called is disputed.
The fundamental doctrine of the Paulicians was that there are two principles, an evil God and a good God; the former is the creator and ruler of this world, the latter of the world to come. From this they deduced that Jesus was not truly the son of Mary, because the good God could not have taken flesh and become man. They especially honoured the Gospel According to Luke and the Letters of St. Paul, rejecting the Old Testament and the Letters of St. Peter. They rejected also the sacraments, the worship, and the hierarchy of the established church.
The founder of the Paulicians seems to have been an Armenian, Constantine, who took the additional name of Silvanus (Silas; one of St. Paul’s companions). He gave a more distinctively Christian character to the Manichaeism that at the time was prevalent in the Asian provinces of the Byzantine Empire. The sect seems to have started a widespread political and military rebellion within the empire shortly after its appearance. Between 668 and 698 Constantine III and Justinian II sent two expeditions to repress it. Constantine (Silvanus) was stoned to death, and his successor, Simeon (Titus), was burned alive.
In the early 9th century Paulicianism was revived. It expanded into Cilicia and Asia Minor under Sergius (Tychicus), who made it strong enough to survive the persecution and massacre instigated by the emperor Michael I and the empress Theodora. The number and power of the Paulicians were greatest under Karbeas and Chrysocheir, the leaders in the third quarter of the 9th century. An expedition sent by Basil I in 872 broke their military power, but they survived in Asia at least until the Crusades. After the 9th century their importance lay chiefly in Thrace, where many Paulicians had been forcibly located to serve as a frontier force against the Bulgarians.
Paulician doctrines were disseminated among the Macedonians, Bulgarians, and Greeks, especially among the peasants, and it seems that they contributed to the development of the doctrines and practices of the Bogomils, another neo-Manichaean sect, who first appeared in Bulgaria in the early 10th century
You may want to read up a little bit on Marcion and Marcionism. The Wikipedia article is a fairly accurate summary. Here's the bottom line that you need to know: Marcion did not believe that the God that created the heavens and earth...the God of the Old Testament...was the same God that sent Jesus Christ. He believed a separate God sent Christ (who, btw, was all spirit and not really man). Marcion, thus, rejected all of the Old Testament canon. In addition, he threw out all of the Gospels, except for the one penned by St. Luke. Naturally, he also dismissed all of the remainder of the New Testament, with the exception of the Pauline Epistles.
Bottom line: are you guys SURE that you want to trace your history through this Constantine-Silvanus and these Paulicians? If that's where you get your patrimony, fine. Your business. But I really want to make absolutely sure you know what you're saying.
I thought you two might be interested to see where the Baptists apparently trace their patrimony.
Can't we just say Tradition tells us what they say isn't true?
Thank you for posting, I have to read the article later.
See comment #13 - the “Paulicians were gnostics” argument is so out-of-date and disproven it’s not even funny. Only sources like, well, Wikipedia still rely upon it.
First, I didn't use Wikipedia...I used Encyclopedia Britannica (if you bother to read the post).
Secondly, I did take a look at Conybeare's book, available on arhive.org, for anybody who's interested in reading it. That book does paint a different picture. It should be noted that subsequent writings that I've reviewed on the subject either go with the Marcion side, citing numerous sources, or with Conybeare...so I wouldn't hardly state that the argument is over...any more than I'd say that the climatology argument is over and Algore won.
Having said all of the above, let me give you some exerpts from Conybeare's translation and see if this makes more sense:
First was our Lord Jesus Christ baptized by the command of the heavenly Father, when thirty years old, as St. Luke has declared his years, iii. 23: 'And Jesus himself was of years about thirty, beginning with which as he was supposed son of Joseph.' So then it was in the season of his maturity that he received baptism ; then it was that he received authority, received the high-priesthood, received the kingdom and the office of chief shepherd. Moreover, he was then chosen, then he won lordship, then he became resplendent, then he was strengthened, then he was revered, then he was appointed to guard us, then he was glorified, then he was praised, then he was made glad, It was then he became chief of beings heavenly and earthly, then he became light of the world, then he became the way, the truth, and the life. Then he became the door of heaven, then he became the rock impregnable at the gate of hell; then he became the foundation of our faith; then he became Saviour of us sinners; then he was filled with the Godhead; then he was sealed, then anointed; then was he called by the voice, then he became the loved one, then he came to be guarded by angels, then to be the lamb without blemish. Furthermore he then put on that primal raiment of light, which Adam lost in the garden. Then accordingly it was that he was invited by the Spirit of God to converse with the heavenly Father ; yea, then also was he ordained king u of beings in heaven and on earth and under the earth; and all else [besides] all this in due order the Father gave 12 to his only born Son ;—even as he himself, being appointed our mediator and intercessor, saith to his holy, universal, and apostolic church, Matt, xxviii. 18: And Jesus came and spake unto them and said : 'There hath been given unto me all authority in heaven and on earth. As the Father sent me, so do I send you,' and what follows. Thus also the Lord, having learned from the Father, proceeded to teach us to perform holy baptism and all his other commands at an age of full growth (or lit. in a completed or mature season), and at no other time. As the lamb of God directs us after his resurrection, Mark xvi. 15, saying: ' Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to all creatures. Whoever shall believe, shall be baptized, shall live; but he that shall not believe shall be judged.'
Keys of Truth, Ch 2
We confess and believe that there is one true God, of whom our Lord Christ speaketh, John xvii. 3 : This is life Eternal, that they should know thee the only true God and him whom thou didst send, Jesus Christ. Again we confess and believe in Jesus Christ, [a new creature and not] creator, as St. Paul saith to the Hebrews, ch. iii. 2 : He is faithful to his creator, as was Moses in all his house. Again ye shall believe in the intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ and of no others. Ye shall believe in the holy apostles and in all who are the Universal Catholic Church, and are not Latins, Greeks, or [Armenians].
Furthermore ye shall believe in Jesus Christ, that by his father's command he is to come to judge the quick and the dead.
Keys of Truth, Ch 20
Let me ask you again the same question I asked before:
Bottom line: are you guys SURE that you want to trace your history through this Constantine-Silvanus and these Paulicians? If that's where you get your patrimony, fine. Your business. But I really want to make absolutely sure you know what you're saying.And let me ask one more question: If this is your patrimony, do all Baptist denominations believe this or just certain ones?
“I thought you two might be interested to see where the Baptists apparently trace their patrimony.”
The Paulicians weren’t named after +Paul but rather an heresiarch from Antioch named Paul who denied the divinity of Christ. He was essentially, as were the Paulicians, an Adoptionist heretic though they were also iconoclast heretics which as I remember it, the bishop wasn’t. The article also points to one of their most noted failings which was their syncretism. It seems they adopted all sorts of heretical practices with which, as we know, the East was infested in the 7th and 8th centuries. My understanding has been that the Paulicians adopted a number of Mohammedan practices and beliefs so I am amused to read that there are Baptists who believe that Mohammedanism is in part a product of their claimed spiritual ancestors. The weed of heresy, like the weed of crime, bears bitter fruit!
Its sort of pathetic that some in ecclesial groups are so driven to find a mythological spiritual pedigree that they will embrace particularly bizarre ancient heresies in a failing attempt to find some legitimacy. Frankly, it would be far less sad if they simply stuck to the idea that the HS went off for a 1500 year nap after Pentecost and woke up in Thubingen.
I was a little flummoxed that this was re-posted. As the Key of Truth makes plain, the Paulicians were not Gnostics in that they did not believe in Satanic beliefs such as the demi-urge. But they were not Christians, and they certainly were not Baptists. I frankly learned a lot about them from discussing Conybeare.
They did have adult Baptisms, but not because they were credobaptists, but because they were Adoptionists, who believed that at 30 years old (yes, THIRTY, not the age of reason) a soul was capable of being attaining the spiritual enlightenment that led Jesus to become a god. They also believed that it was OK to lie about their faith, and to pretend to be Catholic, including to receive the Catholic sacraments, even though they held the sacraments to be worthless. This may account for both some appearance of orthodoxy as well as some extrapolation of their heresies. It is even possible that the “Key of Truth” represents the beliefs of Paulicians who moved somewhat closer to Christianity than those Photius, et al refer to, much in the same way that today’s Mormons sound far more Christian than Joseph Smith’s Mormons did; one has to expect that by remaining so thoroughly assimilated into orthodox churches that as to continue to receive the sacraments may well have led to them moving close to Catholicism theologically. The “Key of Truth” dates ONE THOUSAND YEARS after the Paulician movement was suppressed.
If the point of calling the Paulicians “Baptists” is to assert that certain Baptist doctrines existed before the Reformation, one might do so, since the Paulicians rejected baptizing infants and the necessity of sacraments. If the point of calling them Baptists, however, is to establish that there existed since the age of the Apostles a Christian church which fits the Baptists’ notion of what Christian is apart from the Catholic church, then the person making such an argument is a fool.
(Herein, I use the term “Catholic” to include Eastern Orthodoxy, as much of what I refer to predates the Great Schism.)
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