Marcionism: Doctrine and discipline

New Advent ^ | 2000 | New Advent

[wagglebee]

No, you should believe them bad because they believed that the God of the OT was distinct from the God of the NT and that the God of the OT was no more than a demiurge, or rather, a false god.

Odd how some some will embrace any heresy that they BELIEVE furthers an anti-Catholic agenda.

[Cronos]

Which Paulician documents? There were some recent links posted as facts which they were not and on reading the actual details of the book BY the Armenian Paulicians, it is clearly apparent that they WERE dualistic

The Key of Truth: A manual of the Paulician Church of Armenia by F.C. Conybeare

It represents a very late stage of their history, and it is disputed whether it is really Paulician at all

[Cronos]

Apologies for not knowing more -- Wagglebee, did you say that ALL Christians consider Paulicians to be heretics? So, not only members of the Apostolic Church (Catholics, Orthodox, Orientals, Assyrians), but also Protestant groups like Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists and also Pent-c-costals and Baptist consider Paulicians to be heretics?

I guess Iscool doesn't subscribe to any of these groups then -- is that correct, Iscool?

Though, at last read, even Jehovah's Witnesses and seventh day adventists would reject Paulician teachings.

So, that begs a question -- which religion do you belong to Iscool, considering that all Christians consider Paulicians to be heretics?

[wagglebee]

Wagglebee, did you say that ALL Christians consider Paulicians to be heretics? So, not only members of the Apostolic Church (Catholics, Orthodox, Orientals, Assyrians), but also Protestant groups like Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists and also Pent-c-costals and Baptist consider Paulicians to be heretics?

The early Church declared groups such as the Paulicans, Marcionists, Nestorians and Arians to be heretics. As no Protestant group I am aware of has declared to NOT be heretics, the only logical conclusion is that the still consider such beliefs to be heretical. There would be no reason for Protestants to reaffirm that they are heretical as the beliefs of these groups clearly dispute Protestant confessions regarding the Trinity.

[jmc159]

Do you have any more info on this Jesuit who exposed Pagels as a fraud? Thanks!

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

LOL, the only people who doubt that the KoT is a Paulician document are Catholics who need to believe that so that they can try to deny it as evidence.

And the only people who see “dualism” in the KoT are people who have never actually read it.

[Campion]

Okay, I looked at the "Key of Truth". By the time you get to page 41 in the introduction, it's crystal clear that the Paulicians, at least by the time this was written (it's evidently based on documents from the 1830's), completely denied the divinity of Christ. Christ was just a created man who was elected Messiah by God and installed by God as lord of everything else. (That's according to Conybeare, who is as venomous an anti-Catholic as you're likely to find, so no use pretending it's just the dastardly Pope slandering those simple Christian believers.)

That means they flunk one of the essential characteristics of Christianity.

It's a cult. Walter Martin would call it a cult. Hank Hannegraff would call it a cult. Billy Graham would call it a cult. Martin Luther would call it a cult.

[Cronos]

I have read it — I even posted a link where you can read it online. This document, the Key of Truth shows clearly that they thought of Christ as just a man, not God. I apologize if that is what you believe, but that is not a Christian belief

[bronx2]

There were two separate substantive attacks on Pagels and her seminal work The Gnostic Gospels. The first was published in America, Feb 16,1980 written by Joseph Fitzmyer S.J. Throughout the next twenty five years (1980 to 2005) many scholars accused Pagels of shoddy scholarship twisting the writings of the Gnostics to suit her agenda. Theses can be accessed whenever she had a new book published especially Beyond Belief which was called by some as “How I Pay the Rent”.
Pagels was accused of scholarly fraud in 2006 by Paul Mankowski S.J.a Jesuit scholar in the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome He stated that Pagels in the Gnostic Gospels constructed a quotation from Irenaeus by omitting critical words to alter meaning. There were several other examples given where her duplicity was alleged.