What would the World be like today?

Post Reply New Topic

If the Gnostic Gospels were accepted as canon by the Church of Rome?

Gnostalgia topic

Religion is also political. These gospels were not accepted for probably more than one reason.

Insufficient data.

My guess is, not much different. The distinction between illuminate elite and client masses that is claimed for the gnostics is a basic human trait, seen in various [lowercase] orthodox Christian churches at times and in much of American politics and education, not only among the Manichaeans and the Albigensians. The lack of a deep interest in active theology - or any kind of theory - on the part of the majority in any culture and clime and time is also a basic human trait, and so is I think the probably inevitable rise of a down to earth materialist elite rejecting any religious or philosophical dominion.

The map of languages and national boundaries wouyld be very diffrrent, and we would have had differently placed and timed wars.

But the issue is that people am what they am, not particular beliefs.

If any one is interested, I also expect that essentially the same people would be truly seeking and following the same God .And pretty much the same not.

Probably very different, but beyond our reasonable ability to determine. The Gnostic Gospels, however, did not tie themselves up as strongly with the hierarchical aspects of Christianity, so accepting them would probably mean that many elements of the church would be more relaxed. At the same time though, not everything in our history was driven by Christianity. The intellectual history would take a very different turn as well... I don't even know exactly what would replace Aquinas.

Given that the Nag Habdi[? spelling - sorry ] collection was in extremely poor condition and given that attempts to translate and then fill the gaps has left us with possibly as corrupt a 'data' set as modern versions of the 'bible' - who could possibly guess.

Romes agenda in accepting christianity in the first place was a weird form of conquering by assimilating, the motives were basically political not spiritual.

Perhaps the form would be more akin to the Coptic branches of christianity?

Personally, 'burn the lot' - s**t did I say that? enough harm done already...

peace j

People are people, nature abhors a vacuum, and Green Monkeys are with us forever. If there had been no Rome, we would be dealing with the aftershocks of maybe the Hittite Embpire. If there had been no Christianity, we might well be hearing much the same gripes about the legacy of Mithraism - which could easily have beat out the Christians. If no Marx, we would have the social theories of Echeveria. If no Rome Berlin Tokyo axis - and what could that shape be the axis of? - the bomb would have been dropped on Timbuctoo.

Details differ - humanity is the same - and unless you give an alternative history with no Homo sapiens, all your alternative histories will be interchageable.

And I suspect it would not be much different even in a neanderthalensis dominated world.

But the problem is that the church was already hierarchical when the gnostics were driven out and their texts were declared heresy so I don't think there is any way MP's what if scenario could have happened. A more interesting possibility would be what if there had been no cannon and rather than everyone reading the same texts different ways everyone was reading different texts.

Things would be different then but I don't know if for the better or for the worse. There were a lot of good points about the gnotics but a lot of bad ones too. I doubt the church would be any stronger if they had prevailed.

It is interesting that the church had few problems with the mystics which can be seen as a purer form of gnosticism. To the gnostics knowledge was their ultimate objective, but to the mystics it was a by-product of establishing a union with God. Meister Eckhart was tried for heresy but acquitted after his death though his doctrine of Quietism is still considered to be heresy. But Tomas Aquinas, John of the Cross, and Teresa of Avila have all been canonized.

I would love to see statistics on what percentage of the Christian clergy today associates with the hierarchic churches. The liturgical curches, of course, Probably most variants of Methodists?

One could debate whether Presbyterians and Baptists count as hierarchic. But there a a lot of independents and loose confederacies.

In any case, the Jehovah's Witnesses, who might not unreasonably be described as a contemporary and fairly significant Gnostic group, are labelled hierarchic in their Wikipedia description. I have no idea whether their structure would meet your standards or mine for hierarchy.