This image is large and may not be laying out clearly on your browser. Try clicking on the image to see it better, and magnify if you need to. Or click and download. I'm about to enter into a debate on Christian origins, the "one true church" debate. I put together this little diagram, which still has some definite flaws, breaking down how various groups merged to form ancient Christianities.
Arrows are for strong influence or descent, these sects are interacting with one another and passing ideas between them just as religions today do. Where possible I've tried to include a sample work in parenthesis for each sect making it clear how I'm using the term, and also letting the chart do double duty explicating the origins of the bible.
In terms of colors:
Yellow are full blown alternate Christianities.
Light Blue are proto-Christianities
Salmon is for groups that are Jewish sects. They may have Christian aspects but they are not yet meaningfully Christian and are in some sense fundamentally Jewish or Samaritan.
Purple I'm using for groups that I can meaningfully call Catholic.
Pink I'm using for groups that broke away Catholicism. Sects that I would agree are "schismatic".
Dark Olive Green I'm using for non Christian religions.
Yellow Green I'm using for non-Christian groups with strong Christian influence.
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The core argument for the Catholic apologetic is:
Classically Protestants have disputed (2). That debate generally comes down to the Catholic arguing the "gates of Hell shall not prevail..." doctrine vs. the Protestant citing lots of bad stuff the Catholic did or believes. Unlike Protestant, I will grant (2). I see no evidence for a sharp breaks anytime after the early church. As this diagram implies.
- There was a unique historical church that had a clear hierarchy with other local churches and sects in the Early Christian world (say 30-150 CE)
- The church from (A) is contiguous with the current day Catholic church (I'm being ambiguous here with respect to Wester or Eastern for flexibility).
- Continuity is the key determining factor for what church one should join now.
(1) is very tricky to prove. I would argue the evidence we have is that pieces of proto-Christianity formed around 200 BCE and from 200 BCE-200 CE these diverse sects merged. The 2nd century debates over Montanism show most clearly that it there was a great deal of ambiguity about which churches were or were not associated with other churches; totally inconsistent with the notion of a universally accepted hierarchy
Going back further to the first century we see debates among equals. Paul is arguing in his letters against Judaizers and proto-gnostics based on scripture (the LXX) because he doesn't have access to an authoritative hierarchy.
From a Protestant perspective this diagram is to some extent supportive of the theory in Landmarkism, of Baptist perpetuity. The idea that the Baptists have always existed. Certainly for example the Sabians are a baptist sect: believers baptism, salvation by faith... Though I'm actually putting it several centuries earlier and disagreeing that they have rolled back nearly enough. Renowned English Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon described Baptist perpetuity as:
We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the reformation, we were reformers before Luther and Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We have always existed from the days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel under ground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents.
As for point (3) I see the affirmative primarily rests on sacramental authority. That is apostolic succession is mostly demanded in a situation where sacraments (in particular the eucharist / mass) need a laying on of hands (sacramental) to be valid.
I'd argue for any Protestant which has a theory of ordinances rather than sacraments (3) falls apart and this is mainly a begging the question argument for most Protestants. For those like Anglicans or Lutherans that do have a sacramental theology the question becomes is there any reason to believe other than assertion in the claim that the chain is completely unbroken for the first 1500 years but shattered in the last 500?
As an aside the diagram above was a lot of work and is still has errors, I'm reserving the right to update and make improvements; though the basic structure will remain intact.
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See also:
- reply to Ecclesial Deism an earlier thread on this topic.
- KJVonlyism series which discusses the origins of the bible.
- Chart for Trail of Blood which is the Baptist perpetuity version of the above.
40 comments:
I'm familiar with almost all of the works mentioned in your chart, but am intimately familiar with less than one-third of the groups (enough to repeat core doctrine), am passing familiar with an additional one-quarter, have heard of an additional one-fifth, and am unfamiliar even with the names of the additional one-fifth.
I must needs familiarise myself with them.
I also have a question: it is clear that many of my responsa, and the formatting I desire to use (along with counter-diagrammes, likely made in MS Paint) can not fit in, nor, in the latter cases, can even be accommodated to, the comment box. Where should I post them? Break them up in to several comments with links to Rapidshare, etc. .jpeg files? It seems most cumbersome, and not an effective way to get my message across (how many people will look at the links? it breaks the flow of the presentation as well, flipping back and forth, like maps in the end of a Bible, but worse): it seem that it may be prudential, if not necessary, for me to start a blog to post my responsa on, and have them copied to your blog, mutatis mutandis, or at least the links to them (the individual responsa), and possibly to post a condensed, plain-text version of the response in your comments box.
However, on reading your thesis stated, I'm not sure I have much to personally debate - I accept that there were multiple churches, independent, and that the consolidation under the Lord Jesus was the foundation of the Catholic Church, and the foundation of the One True Church, which had it's seeds planted in his earthly ministry, but did not sprout until a hundred years later, and did not bloom until the middle of the third century. It seems to be that, for the most part, we're agreed on the facts, although my interpretation (as it was with the Book of Genesis) differs sharply from your own, and I take sharp exception to several of the lines in your chart (especially, although with absolutely no bearing on the debate, not placing Ebionitism in the line of descent for Islam, as it most definitely was a direct ancestor of it, and not representing two-way dependencies, say, Marcionism and Gnosticism and Real Christianity, Marcion taking the idea of the demiurge from Gnosticism, and providing the impetus for a Christian canon, while being mainly a Christian sect, it was so heavily Christian-influenced), albeit not all, and do not know enough about several parts of the web to make an informed judgment.
We disagree most in what you call "proto-Christianity" as being in the line of descent of "real Christianity"; your chart, I believe, combines a minimum of three distinct religious systems of thought that had only tangential relations before the advent of Christianity: Gnosticism (Sethian and Valentinian, and books respectively named), which was related to philosophical systems of thought more than religious, and co-opted religious principles, peoples, and places; Temple Judaism (the precursor to Rabbinic; the Torah and Talmud) and Mystical Judaism (the precursor to Kabbalah [and Hermeticism?]; 1 Enoch), which coincided in Christianity, but which developed alongside, not in line of descent from, Gnosticism, which co-opted first Jewish elements in the late BC period, and then co-opted Christian elements in the late second century. (Essentially thinking out loud, above: now, out of nowhere, I see my argument forming: the above version is very imperfect, and will be refined, even to the point of losing its original shape).
A debate revolving around your diagramme and the interpretation of it, it seems this will mostly be. An interesting way to start the debate, and should lead to an interesting departure from the "normal" apologetic that can virtually be quoted. However, if there is not enough material to "debate" (i.e. we are not in enough disagreement), I will take the traditional Catholic position after I've run through my own analysis of "the Descent of Christianity and Origin of Sects" and the consolidation of hierarchy.
I should have my first responsa posted anon (I have to watch Doctor Who when I get off work; also, as soon as I hear your opinion about the posting-issue), and as soon as I've looked up the sects-of-sects that I'm unfamiliar with to make sure I don't 1) make an ignorant ass of myself or 2) attempt to defend an indefensible position, in the off-case that one of the minor sects you've mentioned turns out to be of paramount importance in the transmission or in the very specific sort of memetic mutation of the precursors to The Religion.
Good hunting.
The question about how to do the formatting we are handling offline.
I'll start with an easy one.
Although with absolutely no bearing on the debate, not placing Ebionitism in the line of descent for Islam, as it most definitely was a direct ancestor of it,
Hard to see because it is a diagonal but:
Ebionite -> Cerdo -> Logos Christianity -> Encratites -> Collyridians -> Islam.
Collyridian Christianity comes up a lot for me in these debates for three reasons.
1) It is the Christianity described in the Qur'an. Qu'ran statements require a discussion.
2) They come up regarding the early importance of Mary. In two different ways:
a) They demonstrate the difference between what Catholics do and actual Marian worship with Mary genuinely part of the Godhead.
b) They demonstrate that the importance of Mary was early and not some middle ages innovation when discussing with Protestants who deny that Mary had early importance.
3) They come up in the context of re-imaging God.
and not representing two-way dependencies,
say, Marcionism and Gnosticism and Real Christianity,
Well in general I've tried to avoid those sorts of circles. The only place I couldn't was Neo-Platonic Sethianism and genuine Neo-Platonism.
If there are heavy 2 way dependencies the whole hierarchical model is falsified. Its my belief we can unwind these 2 way dependencies by getting more detailed. So for example the Salmon level would look like a bunch of two ways feeds between Essene, Samaritans, and various fully Hellenistic groups but by breaking out the levels I think I made those dependencies mostly 1 way.
But I don't disagree the groups feed into one another. Many of Paul's great works are responding to themes from groups that will become the Ebonites. The existence of Gnostic elements are what gives the Gospel of John some of it's character. It is using gnostic language but rejecting full on Gnosticism, taking a more nuanced approach.
Marcion taking the idea of the demiurge from Gnosticism, and providing the impetus for a Christian canon, while being mainly a Christian sect, it was so heavily Christian-influenced
Remember its more than just an idea, it is very strong influence. I agree Marcion created the idea of a canon. In fact I think the early Luke (Ur-Lukas) is Gospel of the Lord. That being said Marcion's distinctives never made it into most other sects.
Were I doing a bible history rather than a sect history, no question Marcion would be much more prominent. The idea of a New Testament and modulo details what is in it, are his.
I believe, combines a minimum of three distinct religious systems of thought that had only tangential relations before the advent of Christianity: Gnosticism (Sethian and Valentinian, and books respectively named), which was related to philosophical systems of thought more than religious, and co-opted religious principles, peoples, and places; Temple Judaism (the precursor to Rabbinic; the Torah and Talmud) and Mystical Judaism (the precursor to Kabbalah [and Hermeticism?]; 1 Enoch), which coincided in Christianity, but which developed alongside, not in line of descent from, Gnosticism, which co-opted first Jewish elements in the late BC period, and then co-opted Christian elements in the late second century.
I'm glad you are agreeing Gnosticism developed alongside. You mostly see that for example the main Sethian line: Ophites -> Barbeloite -> {Valentinians and Sethians} -> ... with none of those groups feeding back into the Catholic line (purple) ever. If we are disagreeing at all it's at a century earlier where the two lines criss cross on groups like the Essenes (the Salmon) with some light criss crossing in the light blue (Paul for example). Basically they are share grandparents, they are cousins.
Essentially my contention is that Christianity, like most religions, is a mash up of different religious systems from earlier plus its own unique features. This is why the "where did Christianity" come from question is so perplexing. There doesn't seem to be a single obvious source just pieces from multiple sources.
\\If there are heavy 2 way dependencies the whole hierarchical model is falsified.\\
There will be more on this in the context of the organic unification of the early churches under one authority, the authority under Jesus.
\\I agree Marcion created the idea of a canon. In fact I think the early Luke (Ur-Lukas) is Gospel of the Lord.\\
I don't believe this to be relevant to the debate at the time, but I, of course, hold the opposite view.
I'm going to start off by demonstrating a revised, earlier dating of the Gospels, all prior to 70 BC, with Matthean priority, as part of my defense. In this line of reasoning, it's not so much "where did Christianity come from?" but "what is the Apostolic church?" or "what was the character of the early church?"
As I assume you can see where I'm going with the argument, Markan priority throws some challenging, although not altogether insurmountable, doctrinal stumbling-blocks in the way; however, those become at best slightly gravelly paths if Matthew has priority (and it does away with Q).
I shall argue the "two-gospel hypothesis", a revision of the Augustinian, wherein Matthew and Luke were first written, in that order, and then Mark produced a digest of the two Gospels, with John writing independently, but likely with familiarity with at least two of the above, as in all synoptic theories.
I assume you are familiar with textual criticism, source criticism, and redaction criticism enough to understand terms such as "double tradition" and "triple tradition" in the context of the synoptics?
If you please, you may go ahead rebutting the two-gospel hypothesis and save me time in restating what's already known, as a cursory exposition can easily fill several dozen pages.
I will be back to re-read your posts and reply in more detail if necessary; as of now I have only skimmed them, as it's the middle of the day.
For the time being, I don't believe Mary is essential to the debate, or even justified in inclusion, as the attestation in ancient sources is virtually nil, and has not to do with the rise of Christianity in the sense we are discussing (which hasn't delved in to the theological yet), but I don't see any points of disagreement on your Marian statements.
However, I believe Ebionitism, while it influenced other groups, also out-lived many of its children, and directly, not indirectly influenced Islam, as it was current in Arabia at the time of Muhammad, and it is likely that Muhammad's wife, who had a strong influence on the Koran, was an Ebionite of the Gospel-of-the-Hebrews variety; I would also argue for its classification (Ebionitism) as a Jewish sect (and Islam itself as a Messianic Jewish sect with Christian, Zoroastrian, and Manichaean influences, cf. Hagarism, Crone and Cook 1976; Sufism the same as the above, adding a strong Mandaean influence), as Marcionism is to Christianity.
Cf. the Ebionite view of Paul as an excommunicated apostate antinomian, which has permeated Islamic thought through the ages to this day, where the first Islamic apologetic to Christianity tends to be, "Paul corrupted the gospel", with the exceptionally strong Islamic focus on works.
Also is evident in Koranic thought the absence of four Gospels; I would submit that the Gospel spoken of as the "injeel" in the Koran is either the Gospel of the Hebrews, or, less likely in my opinion (but more widely accepted) the Diatesseron of Tatian the Blind.
I digress, as I'm wasting time, bandwidth, and getting far off topic (I'm an ex-Muslim, if you couldn't tell...).
CD: I agree Marcion created the idea of a canon. In fact I think the early Luke (Ur-Lukas) is Gospel of the Lord.\\
Chr: I don't believe this to be relevant to the debate at the time, but I, of course, hold the opposite view.
Understood. It will likely be relevant depending on how much use you want to make of Luke/Acts in terms of history. I'm not sure where you are going with the Matthew thing. But this is part of how I get the Luke and Matthew late date. I will agree that the whole Ur-Lukas is dependent on Markian priority.
There will be more on this in the context of the organic unification of the early churches under one authority, the authority under Jesus.
OK well the primary questions are going to be:
a) which groups unified?
b) why not the others?
c) why did the unity fall apart so quickly?
dating of the Gospels, all prior to 70 BC, with Matthean priority
I assume you mean 70 CE. Matthew priority OK basically I'm familiar with the various schools though this will be first time on that debate.
I guess first question is just to clarify
b) Two gospel: Hebrew Matthew (Aramaic) -> gentile (greek) Luke and Mark being derived from mostly Luke with some Matthew? That's the one you are arguing?
Second question is what do you do about all the standard counter arguments: Differences in genealogy, in context... Why does Matthew sound greek? Why do all the gospels agree in their theology so heavily with the LXX over the Aramaic or Hebrew versions of the OT?
I agree to do 2 tracks. One where you present your affirmative case without me getting caught up on Matthew. I'm just saying Matthew priority will be a big sticking point.
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On Islam. I don't Islamic history that well. We can talk Islamic origins but we both agree it's later. I do think Islam offers interesting evidence in terms of the lack of unity that existed. As for as gospel source, I have it coming from Diatesseron in my thinking as well but that's not a sophisticated opinion rather I'm parroting.
Iin terms of ties to Judaism, I agree. The ties are stronger.
Just noting I uploaded a slightly corrected diagram.
Sorry for the delay. I had a power outage on my computer (and lost some data, but not much related to the debate, as I didn't have time to write it before the PC lost power).
I'm back and ready to go. If you don't mind, what application is that you used to make the flowchart? I tried in MS Paint and it just doesn't work (the arrows, that is). Is it free and open source?
I'm trying to make a "counter-chart", as I mentioned earlier, but I suck at artistic/graphical stuff. Badly.
I used graphviz, because of the number of nodes, easier to just program the graph than draw it. And yes that's open source. It's available for most platforms. I use OmniGraffle quite a bit too, and graffle can do imports from .dot (graphviz) files so you can start in graphviz and once it is stable move to Omni for stuff like shading.
If I were on a PC, Visio is really good.
You do use a Unix machine, right, if not a PC, then what else?
Not a twice-damned, God-forsaken Macintosh, I hope.
Yep, I use a Mac. I loved NeXTStep. 80% of the Unix power of a Linux, 80% of the business support of a Windows box and then all the cool Mac stuff. I'm a happy camper.
But anyway you can use graphviz on just about anything.
Yeah, but it's annoying as hell. I've never attempted to program a graph before, nor a web page, nor anything of a graphical or tangible nature (unless you count loadable kernel modules as tangible). Why can't they make it IDA Pro/Visual Basic style, a flow-chart where you can drag everything around by hand?!
80% the power of UNIX and 80% the support sounds like the worst of both worlds to me.
You should run Linux and WINE, or Windows and a Linux shell emulator, as long as you don't play games (which don't run that well in Macintosh or WINE, except for War Craft, which seems like it's the only game around these days).
You're trying to cloud my mind with unreasoned rage against Macintosh and iYou, iMe, iThis, iEverything iProfit from, so I can't debate, aren't you?!?!
Oh, by the way, I am working on that graph, but given how it's going so far, it might be a couple of days after the second coming that it looks decent.
Maybe I'll have to go on with one prong (the Matthean argument I was talking about earlier) of a two-prong assault (Matthew and alternative development) if I can't get this graph done in a few hours (that is, a day or two, since I can't work at it non-stop).
Graphviz reminds me of Photoshop when I first saw it - thousands of options, but absolutely all of them impossible to use or implement in any sense for a beginner - but I had no incentive to learn Photoshop, since I don't like artistry, and I loathe photography. On the other hand, learning how to make professional graphs might actually be useful for my network/information security consulting half-job... you know, so I can show faster routers with more arrows going each way, and slower routers with less.
Why can't they make it IDA Pro/Visual Basic style, a flow-chart where you can drag everything around by hand?!
Now that I know you are a LInux guy if you want a GUI, Calligra Flow (KDE) or DIA (Gnome). And if it is small enough open office Draw.
That being said, as far as Graphviz for professional use absolutely, though of course you need to also be using visio. You can use http://www.calvert.ch/graphvizio/ Very nice if the diagram keeps getting more complex. Being able to cut and paste the same 6 objects make minor changes to each and have them look totally different (like you laid them out by hand) is a huge plus.
As far hard to use. Try looking at the examples in the examples directory. Excluding comments mine looks essentially like:
digraph ChristianOrigins {
node [style=filled]
// Salmon
// XX0 are legacies from not wanting to shift names
HelJew0[label="Hellenized Judaism\n(Septuagint)",color=salmon];
HelJew0->HelJew;
HelJew [label="Hellenistic Judaism\n(Assumption of Moses)", color=salmon];
HelJew-> HermJew;
Samaritans [label="Samaritan Judaism\n(Samaritan Pentateuch)", color=salmon];
Samaritans -> Dositheans;
....
Hi CD-Host,
The chart is interesting, and I can tell you put a lot of work into it. It seems a bit confusing and misleading though. Is there any sort of scale in any dimension? For instance, "Catholic (Creeds)" (which I take is your shorthand for Nicea & similar) is shown horizontal to "Islam (Qu'ran)" and far underneath "Rabbinic Judaism (Gemara)", which I don't think how things happened historically. Also, bubble size seems to be purely a function of text size, not estimated group of adherents, `importance' (according to whatever criteria), or longevity. So the "Cathars (Book of the Two Principles)" look enormous, and seem to exist in a period of time where their only contemporaries are in the "Bosnian Church".
I know you're trying to show a lot, and this is certainly a better way than a battery of wikipedia links, but if you use it in a debate you're going to run into comments like those.
Francesco --
Welcome to Church Discipline! and thank you for the feedback! I agree with your critique statements. I throw out the why it is the way it is. Once the chart is heavily vetted I think trying a "by-hand" layout makes sense. At present the data in the chart is being auto laid out hierarchically. Sizing is definitely simply a function of amount of text, as you gathered.
In terms of vertical position that's basically representing "generation", like a family tree. And just like a family tree going multiple generations you can have 2nd and 3rd cousins that are decades apart in when they were born.
Encratites -> Collyridians -> Islam
Encratites -> Syriac -> Catholic
Islam and Catholicism share a grandparent. That's what their being at the same level represents. And intellectually they have the same kind of spirit, the religions that emerged at the start of the dark ages. Religions that see themselves as replacements for the Roman Empire. I don't have that much of a problem as seeing them in the same "generation". They feel similar and they didn't emerge that far apart, given that middle eastern sects tended to be older than the sects in Rome during the same time periods.
If you think of them in comparison to religions that emerged in different generations you can see the difference. You don't see anything like the love/hate relationship with empire in: Mormonism, Christian Science, Unification Church or Baha'i. Those religions on the other hand have a tremendous amount of focus on trying to address issues of alienation. Different generations of religions are genuinely concerned with different issues.
Going back to vertical position, If I were to try and organize this temporally I'm not sure I could and I'd be concerned about the degree of misleading verticality. Buddhism only touches the map on one place and never crosses over into mainstream Christianity. On the other hand it would be a bar the entire size of the map. Samaritans would also have a similarly sized bar. On the other hand Sethianism / Gnosticism only lasts a few hundred years and is really key to the whole "one church" debate. That is showing that these alternate forms of Christianity are not schisms but rather cousins is the point of the graph, even though they died out I wouldn't want to lose the focus. I like the fact that Sethianism and Manichaeism take up the lower left hand side of the graph even though it turns out given how history actually played out they aren't that important. Starting from which sects won and working backwards is sort of the opposite of what this graph aims for. I think this graph makes it clear where the Gospel of Thomas fits and why it didn't end up in the canon.
So I guess I'd summarize by saying I agree with the objection, but one of the aims of the graph is to look at the history differently treating different variables as important.
As far as horizontal positioning I think the system is trying to minimize the number of line crossings. As such it gives you some information particularly going one level to the next. Rabbinic Judaism is on the chart, mainly informationally I wanted to point out where today's Judaism would fit. It has no children.
Mainly the reason Islam and Catholicism are centralized is because they both come down from Cerdo via. Logos Christianity and Cerdo is central because he represents a mixing of different strands of proto-Christianity.
Damn, why didn't I argue that?
I understand it the way it is - as a flow chart - not as a historical diagramme or a representation of size, importance, historical influence, or even era.
It may come from the fact that both CD and I have backgrounds in information technology (or so I assume)? Charts like this are very common in IT, such as when breaking down the control flow of a programme, all boxes may be the same size, regardless of the size of the code or of the relative "importance" of it in the operation of the programme, or even when it is executed in relation to everything else (or else the "system call" code would always take up the entire screen), but go from first execution to last, branch out and back in, even though the second cell of the graph may include code that executes concurrently with every other cell, up to and including the second-to-last instruction before the termination sequence. Such graphs are colour-coded in a similar way, based on general principles, i.e. "salmon is in ring 0", "green is in ring 3", "purple is a system call", "red are modules", "yellow is .rsrc", etc.
I didn't even notice the depth of similarity until now.
The graph isn't shaping up yet, but given your code snippet, at least it's starting to output something that looks like a graph.
I've made it a personal mission to get this done without a GUI now.
CD-Host,
I hear you. You're trying to show over a thousand years of theological/philosophical development, which is inevitably going to be messy.
One thing that I think you should make clear when/if you use the chart is the rule by which a group is included or excluded and the place they're put on the chart. For instance, it seems odd to include Sufism and not Kabbalah, given that you're keeping the window on Christian origins open well into the Middle Ages.
Also, what do square brackets mean in this chart? Almost every bubble has a parenthetical of a work or event that helps identify the group or idea, but a few have brackets. How are they different? With "Philo [Middle Platonism]" I get the impression that you're trying to put a Jewish name with a larger Hellenistic idea (which may have influenced bubbles downstream without actually any input from Philo himself); with "Tzadok Movement [anti-Hellenist, anti-Pharisee]" the brackets are a short description of the group's political positions; with "Cybele Cult [Attis]" the name is a mythological figure. Am I reading too much into this?
but a few have brackets. How are they different? With "Philo [Middle Platonism]" I get the impression that you're trying to put a Jewish name with a larger Hellenistic idea (which may have influenced bubbles downstream without actually any input from Philo himself); with "Tzadok Movement [anti-Hellenist, anti-Pharisee]" the brackets are a short description of the group's political positions; with "Cybele Cult [Attis]" the name is a mythological figure. Am I reading too much into this?
No you aren't reading too much into this. With some of the groups I thought it made sense to talk about what their contributions were and focus on something that was minor for them but important in context. For example with Philo, Philo is the gateway by which Middle Platonism gets mixed with Judaism and gets into Christianity.
The word of God / the son of God / the Logos begotten not made as the instrument by which the Father (the Theos) acts on matter comes from Philo. That's what's mostly important. But I get your point that isn't clear and the later focus on Logos Christianity makes that clear enough.
Similarly and less obviously with Cybele Cult [Attis]. I wanted to point out where Attis material injected into Christianity.
In the case of Tzadok Movement I wanted to explain the anti-Pharisee themes in books like Matthew.
I think I can lose the bracket on Philo and Tzadok. Maybe "Cybele Cult / Attis" with a book for the 3rd bracket.
Good comments!
For instance, it seems odd to include Sufism and not Kabbalah, given that you're keeping the window on Christian origins open well into the Middle Ages
Sufism I'm including because there are Sufi materials on Jesus. I'll include "Saying of Jesus". I don't see Middle ages Kabbalah as having any influence of Christianity, essentially ever. I think Kabbalah does contain material from much earlier strands of Judaism, but we find better sources in pure Christian Hermetic sources.
I guess what do see as the connection with Kabbalah? What sorts of links would you like to see?
Francesco -
I made a few adjustments per our conversation. Let me know what you think.
Hi CH,
I guess I see Kabbalah's influence as being mostly on Christian mysticism in the Renaissance/Reformation eras. There is a bit of a missing link between Kabbalah and Sts. Teresa of Avila & John of the Cross, and is better attested in earlier humanists like Pico della Mirandola. Kabbalah is also accused of having a pseudo-Trinitarian conception of God, so I guess maybe the relationship is stronger the other way.
As for the re-worked chart, it seems more compact, which is better. I notice that Philo is now more descriptive, which is also an improvement.
I think that putting people on your chart is problematic. How did you decide between putting a person and putting a group named after them? Why does Polycarp get his own bubble but Maricon is be there as "Mariconism"? Or even better, why "Pauline Churches" and not "Paul", "Paul (Undisputed Epistles)", or "Paul & Pseudo-Pauls"?
"Q1" and "Q2" are now on opposite ends of the chart: are those supposed to refer to Q used (according to scholarly solutions to the Synoptic problem) by Matthew and Luke? [By the way, wouldn't Luke show up under "Proto-Catholicism" way down there with Acts?]
With respect to color, you've got two major books of the NT appearing in salmon bubbles ("Essenic Sophia Cult (Hebrews)" and "Hermetic Judaism (Mark)"). Are you going to argue that those works are fundamentally Jewish works (or products of Jewish thought) in the way that the other books of the NT aren't? Are you arguing that Mark is a pro-Pharisee work while Hebrews is anti-Pharisee?
I take it that you've made the strategic decision that a more complicated story is better for you than a simpler story, correct?
BTW now that we've gone back and forth a bit mind doing a few sentences on where you are coming from theologically?
I guess I see Kabbalah's influence as being mostly on Christian mysticism in the Renaissance/Reformation eras. There is a bit of a missing link between Kabbalah and Sts. Teresa of Avila & John of the Cross, and is better attested in earlier humanists like Pico della Mirandola.
I would agree that as Hermetic Christianity gets reborn, which incidentally happens starting around 1000, then you have it, there is some Kabbalistic influence on a few individuals but I'm unclear on whether I would call these sects. Mirandola is a good example, I wouldn't call it a sect. I would do something like Medieval Hermeticism and Kabbalah as fathers of Renaissance Hermeticism. I'm unclear where Kabbalah comes from so I'd need a few earlier steps, connecting it to earlier forms of Judaism. Medieval Hermeticism comes from Benedictine Monastic Movement which probably should be on the chart. (I cover this a bit in Mormonism as Hermetic Christianity part 2).
So that's the other barrier, I actually don't have the right facts.
Kabbalah is also accused of having a pseudo-Trinitarian conception of God, so I guess maybe the relationship is stronger the other way.
I think you are talking Sephirot. Sephirot is very similar to what you see in the gnostic organization of the aeons. I would suspect if anything that Sephirot came out of Jewish Gnosticism. I think the aeon approach and the trinity evolved separately, though both addressing the same root question: How does a changeless God interact?
I think that putting people on your chart is problematic. How did you decide between putting a person and putting a group named after them? Why does Polycarp get his own bubble but Maricon is be there as "Mariconism"?
I don't think Polycarp's sect lasts for long. I think it lasts for his lifetime and them becomes Encratites and Montanism. Marcionism lasts for a few centuries though peaks strongly in Marcion's lifetime.
Or even better, why "Pauline Churches" and not "Paul", "Paul (Undisputed Epistles)", or "Paul & Pseudo-Pauls"?
The reason I go with Pauline Churches is I think Paul did found a series of churches and those churches continued to identify with Paul. That is there is a sect there not just an individual. As far as undisputed epistles.... I'm not sure I don't dispute them to some extent. For example I agree with Schmithals that Corinthians shows signs of a reorganization of earlier works. Which means Cerdo or possibly even Marcion might be the author of the version we have. At the very least I think Cerdo is a likely candidate for a redactor.
Colossians and Galatians I feel more confident about, maybe I'll do that. I agree something should be under Paul. I just dispute some of the "undisputed epistles" as being entirely his, though I'd agree with mostly his.
"Q1" and "Q2" are now on opposite ends of the chart: are those supposed to refer to Q used (according to scholarly solutions to the Synoptic problem) by Matthew and Luke?
Actually I meant
Q1 = Cynical material
Q2 = Apocalyptic material
I agree that's probably unclear, I'll switch that in next version.
[By the way, wouldn't Luke show up under "Proto-Catholicism" way down there with Acts?]
I think canonical Luke has a much more complex authorship than Acts. This is what Chrysostom and I were discussing earlier. I see Luke as coming out of the Gospel of the Lord with the infancy material coming from somewhere else. There is some additional material that gets in there from other sources (possibly Matthew). Ideologically Luke is a mess.
Acts though is a clear cut, clearly Catholic clearly anti-Marcionite and late. Ideologically it is perfectly representative of the key distinctive of Catholicism, "We are the true church because we were founded by Jesus while all you other sects merely have the scriptures and human reason". It also represents the Catholic syncretism of trying to claim that Paul was really a Catholic in league with James and Peter and not a bitter idealogical opponent. I discuss my thinking on Acts from a different angle in Paul's evil twin.
With respect to color, you've got two major books of the NT appearing in salmon bubbles ("Essenic Sophia Cult (Hebrews)" and "Hermetic Judaism (Mark)"). Are you going to argue that those works are fundamentally Jewish works (or products of Jewish thought) in the way that the other books of the NT aren't?
Yes, exactly they are earlier and represent a Christianity that is still fundamentally ideas and groups within Judaism. Not dominant ideas but still part of groups that Jews would have seen as within the bounds of Jewish thought.
For example an American might not agree with Timothy McVeigh or Timothy Leary but everyone would agree they are fundamentally American and addressing Americans.
That's different in the critiques as we move to light blue.
Are you arguing that Mark is a pro-Pharisee work while Hebrews is anti-Pharisee?
Hebrews is deeply rejecting mainstream Judaism the core of the sacrificial system. They have a love / hate relationship with the Pharisees the same way a communist would feel about the Democrats as opposed to the Republicans. On the other hand the book is deeply Jewish in style in interests in focus...
The Pharisees to Mark represent mainstream Judaism in an untroubled way. Of course to some extent I think the writer's change the tone. The writer of Hebrews is a much more serious thinker.
BTW now that we've gone back and forth a bit mind doing a few sentences on where you are coming from theologically?
Sure. I'm a sweat-the-small-stuff Catholic. I go to Mass regularly and pray daily. I am not more Catholic than the Pope.
However, "where [I'm] coming from" in our discussion is not driven by my theology so much as my career. I work in a litigation support firm, where we prepare expert witnesses for court. In my line of work we frequently have to describe specialized and complicated things as simply as possible. In the expert witness field reputation is everything. There is an incredible emphasis on making the most conservative assessment given the facts of the case, and there is an equally large emphasis on never being proven wrong. If an expert hired by opposing counsel submitted an exhibit as complicated as the one you've made here we would spend his entire deposition (which could be 6-7 hours long) going through it with a fine-tooth comb. If we found an error (or an over-statement, or an imprecision) we'd crucify him with it. Something like this could be a career-ending exhibit.
Which is why I find it interesting. You've responded well enough to my questions to show that you've thought about it a bit. I asked whether you've made a strategic decision to be complicated because my guess is that you could skip half of the sects and names in this chart and it wouldn't hurt your argument measurably. Including Buddhism, for instance, seems like overkill.
Your positions on Luke and Corintians are interesting. Would it be fair to call them "far left" in terms of the scholarly consensus on such questions?
There is an incredible emphasis on making the most conservative assessment given the facts of the case
No question this doesn't qualify. We don't know nearly enough about the evolution of various sects to have a conservative assessment say much of anything. We have good reason to believe these sects existed we have some ideas about geographical areas they operated in and we often have a work or two.
Beyond that we need to make supposition after supposition after supposition. Essentially my point is that "something like this" is true. We don't know enough to say "this exactly" is true. I had to make far to many unjustified guesses in building the chart to swear to this under oath. And a court case is mainly a one time testimony. This chart is going to be iterative. You had problems with some things and that led to a few rounds of changes. Chrysostom will poke some holes and that leads to changes. Over the course of dozen good debates the chart gets much stronger.
Also there are things I know that are wrong like I need to do a full blow out of all the Eastern Rite churches, this chart has a western Catholic bias. On the other hand if I were an expert witness, I'd be getting paid to do this work and could have spent a lot more time.
Including Buddhism, for instance, seems like overkill.
That's a good example. I need Buddhism to explain where some of the ideas in Manichaeism come from. I could have skipped it, but Manichaeism is yellow green (i.e. heavy Christian influence). Manichaeism is very important sect historically in and of itself. And then to compound all this, Manichaeism fathers the Cathars, who are (very much IMHO) one of the most important sects for these conversations. My argument for the legitimacy of the Reformation comes from what happened with the Cathars. So having the Cathars is key.
Mandaeans -> Elcesaites -> Manichaeism->Bagnolians->Cathars
is the kind of chain this whole chart is about.
Finally, since you mentioned Christian mysticism. If I ever were to extend this chart to Christian mysticism, that's where you pick up Mani's influence and there is the connection with Buddhism. Basically the chart is complex because the reality is complex.
As far as strategically. No, I think strategically a much less complex chart would have been useful. And if this had been a post I might have included a "big picture" chart with the main steps:
1) Pagan savior Gods
2) Sophia worship
3) Jewish Gnosticism
4) Christian Gnosticism
5) orthodox Christianity
That's the simple version.
Your positions on Luke and Corintians are interesting. Would it be fair to call them "far left" in terms of the scholarly consensus on such questions?
Schmithals (Corinthians redactor discussion) is one of Bultmann's best known students. I think a lot of left intellectuals support Bultmann's view, but as in most things the left mainstream has moved to where the right was decades ago.
As far as the 4 document hypothesis for Luke, I'd say even the moderate right accepts that. I'm not being radical at all in putting Luke in a different category than Acts in terms of how it was authored and when most of it was authored. Even a moderate conservative would be comfortable saying that the vast majority of Luke is earlier than the majority of Acts.
Now as far as Luke being late and Gospel of the Lord being Ur-Lukas that's coming from the History of Religions school which puts the Gospels later than the Epistles. And that's where I'm not so comfortable with left / right. As I see it there are really 3 schools that address Christian origins, with oversimplified descriptions:
a) Traditional Christianity (the bible and traditional legends are mostly true)
b) Liberal Christianity (Jesus / the early church were liberal and then the church fell under the control of conservatives.)
c) History of Religions (The big monotheistic religions evolved in ways not much different than pagan faiths. There is nothing uniquely historical about these faiths other than they happened to be the ones to win).
There was an old wikipedia article that did a great job covering this 3 way distinction Chart.
This debate is definitely history of religions vs. traditional not liberal vs. traditional.
\\Your positions on Luke and Corintians [sic] are interesting. Would it be fair to call them "far left" in terms of the scholarly consensus on such questions?\\
I would call CD's entire argument "far left", and his chart so far left that it's out of the ballpark; that is, those positions are outside of anything that can reasonably be called scholarly consensus, which, by definition, is a group process.
I'm a right-of-centrist.
That's what (has the potential) to make a discussion interesting. Having two Eastern Orthodox debate about the Papacy or the filioque isn't going to go much of anywhere.
A solid centrist, maybe slightly left-centrist, in my mind is represented by someone like Fr Ray Brown, right-of-center by someone like William Farmer, and far right represented by no one who is published or taken seriously, and I don't think it's even present in "for the proletariat" materials and commentaries (i.e FF Bruce and John MacArthur) - CD here is more left in his main thesis than John Dominic Crossan, laicised man of "Jesus Seminar" fame (and I have a feeling he's more left on everything else too, such as "what did Jesus say?" that the JS addresses, but it letting it slide here).
Although it has no bearing on any discussion, there is absolutely no scholarly consensus, and hardly any support (none of it what could be called "mainstream"), for what CD is arguing - but the point of discussion isn't to defend theses that have already been advanced and defended!
I have broad support for my main thesis (the traditional emergence of Christianity) but little to no support for some of the individual supports underpinning it, such as Matthean priority, as I've heard one hundred and one defences of "the Catholic Church is the true Church" and mutatis mutandis, but I've never heard of it defended how I wish to: attempting to come at it in a historical way, without the need to invoke anything supernatural, from the historical evidence we now possess (of course, history's written by the victors, but I don't think CD is such a "leftist" in that sense as to pull some relativistic bullshit like that). I'm trying to play the game on his own field; he's an atheist, so it's much harder to defend the proposition against him than it is to defend even against an avidly anti-Catholic Protestant, as, with the Protestants, one can always invoke the deity in a similar way to the "Ecclesiastical Deism" apologetic, wherein the opponent must concede the point, or concede that some of his own articles of faith are in error, which leave the path open for the coup de grace, once denials of essential articles have taken place. Not so with an atheist, or even, to a lesser extent, a non-Christian.
It's not a court-room, it's not a defence of dissertation, it's an internet debate for trying out new apologetics and expanding one's horizons.
However, I do find the discussion of absolute minutiae that I either never consciously noticed or thought absolutely unimportant to be endlessly fascinating, especially coming from someone whose life revolves around the most trivial minutiae possible, i.e. stacking up enough trivial minutiae to win in a court-room (as, from my very limited knowledge, almost all cases are based on circumstantial evidence, making infinitesimal minutiae deal-breakers instead).
And that's why I never wanted to become a lawyer or have anything to do with court. I learned that when I was young and went through a little court: "technicalities" is the word of the day. It's not "understandable", it's "error-free", so on and so forth; it's beyond "reasonable doubt".
\\I'd be getting paid to do this work and could have spent a lot more time.\\
If I was getting paid, I'd produce a minimum of five to seven pages of good, strong argumentation every day.
By the way, CD: that graph is coming along. I've actually got half a dozen cells out of it, now I just need to figure out I want to arrange it, and hope that repetitive copy-pasting of code will do the job. It's so much simpler than even simple ring 0 programming, but so much harder to actually do - I suppose everything actually does come down to experience. I managed to finagle and finesse it for about half or three quarters of an hour every day, and more on weekends. I've not worked on it at all (or anything on the computer for that matter) for the past two days, as the "Holy Spirit" or God, or a private obsession, or whatever it is you want to call it, grabbed me again and gave me the force of obsession to read through the entire New Testament again - I couldn't put it down any more than most people can put down a thriller; each time it left my hand for me to watch Dr Who, or to try to work, five minutes later it was back in my hands again.
I finally woke up and have gone almost four hours without reading any Bible, so I think it may have passed (but I did read Matt to Rev); these spells usually come upon me about once a month.
Now I can get back to Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun", which reminds me of Isaac Asimov crossed with some mediaeval-style writer (you know, taverns and wenches) crossed with James Joyce and pollinated by Gene Rodenberry. It's absolutely amazing, but, the vocabulary used is hard for even me to understand, as every fifth word is some sort of quasi-Latin or quasi-Greek derivative, and some parts are quite stream-of-consciousness.
Hello; I've returned. A broken air conditioner where I live (poorly insulated top floor with the two largest walls east and south) meant 90+ degrees, a stay in a hotel, and the inability to work my computers (due to the heat and less-than-the-best airflow and heatsinks, 90F ambient means the processors run at 80C at idle) meant I couldn't continue the discussion here (nor work for money, nor work on the graph).
After a week and a half in a hotel (what a waste of money), I decided in desperation to look at air conditioners - I'm not allowed a window unit where I live, so I assumed I could jury-rig a window unit to not stick out the window - I found such a thing as a "portable" air conditioner, a hundred-pound monstrosity that has hoses to vent heat out of a dryer hose or window, and got two from Amazon, got them delivered (and had to wheel them a mile down the street with a handcart, since I don't have a car - I imagine it was a funny sit), got them turned on and got my domicile cooled down (at least the computer room [i.e. the first bedroom], if not the library [i.e. the second bedroom]) the point where my computers aren't about to die a heat death.
I'm still waiting for the air conditioner to be fixed, as my unit - as described above - functions much like a green-house (25F temperatures in winter leave my unit a comfortable mid-60s). The promised two-day delay has now become 16 days. Hopefully it'll be fixed before next summer.
Sorry for the great delay (I'm glad after all we didn't do it on debate.org, or I would have automatically forfeited, I think, surpassing the time limits), and I look forward to continuing the discussion if you are still interested.
Thank you for your patience,
Chrysostom
OK so its been a few more weeks. What's going on?
Waiting for your go-ahead!
Well yeah I setup a thread. Go ahead start posting. If you need me to put something up for you just email me with pictures...
For anyone who is subscribed. I've created a new version, Sects to the Reformation, with an expanded chart.
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