- This painting by Jusepe Rivera was made in the 17th C and demonstrates a powerful obsession in the Catholic church in Spain at this time, that believed this deprivation of the body as something spiritual and admirable.
- Where does this idea come from?
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Jusepe de Ribera - lived in Naples in Italy during the Spanish occupation great admirer of Caravaggio's chiaroscuro . Seems strange that his principle buyers who were the rich and wealthy rulers, somehow loved paintings of suffering and pain and martyrdom.
This was seen as somehow 'ennobling' and an example of true spirituality that rejects the wealth and love of material goods of the world.
Biblical references such as 'pick up your cross and follow me' (matthew 16:24) and Matthew 19:21 - Jesus says to a rich young ruler, 'sell all your possessions and follow me' are seen as biblical injunctions to a life of poverty and a rejection of the trappings of a material world.
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- In order to give this a Christian context, references are made to Jesus in the Wilderness or Elijah living in a cave and John the Baptist living in the desert, these seem more justifications rather than the norm for the Christian.
- Nowhere are these examples meant to be understood as prototypes for others to follow specifically as THE means to becoming a more spiritual person.
- This is not originally a Christian teaching but rather it infiltrated into the Church from various pagan practices common at the time.
- It is fairly common in other religious traditons such as Hinduism and Buddhism who all uniformly advocate restraint with respect to actions of body, speech, and mind.
- The founders and earliest practitioners of these religions eschewed worldly pleasures and led an abstinent lifestyle, not as a rejection of the enjoyment of life or because the practices themselves are virtuous, but as an aid in the pursuit of such inner peace.
- This is different to the Gnostic principle in Christianity which is essentially a persons effort to make themselves worthy by extreme discipline and deprivation to some-how attain a higher state of spirituality. When one considers the Gnostics rejection of the material realm as evil it is simple to make this connection.
- This becomes even more obvious when one looks at some influential Christians in the third century who were overtly Gnostic in their thinking.
For example: Evagrius Ponticus,also called Evagrius the Solitary (345-399 AD)
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Evagrius the Solitary, sometimes known as Evagrius Ponticus, was a disciple of the Cappadocian Fathers, ordained reader by St. Basil the Great and deacon by St. Gregory the Theologian. He became a monk of the Egyptian desert, and is the most prolific author of the Desert Fathers. He exercised a tremendous influence on both Eastern and Western monasticism.
source - https://patristicnectar.org/bookstore_120724_1.html |
- Evagrius, was a highly educated monastic teacher who produced a large theological body of work, mainly ascetic
- His second work was called somewhat blatantly, 'The Gnostic:(Gnostikos) To the One Made Worthy of Gnosis.
- Here he teaches young monks how to reach a state of 'apatheia' basically a meditative calm through which the acquisition of 'Gnosis' which is to separate the mind from the 'material' body in order to reach the hidden truth in all things.
- His next book the Kephalaia Gnostika , was an advanced book on meditation for experienced monks and this was a widely recognised work on Asceticism.
- In her study of Evagrius , Julia Konstantinovsky (a post-doctoral fellow at Christ Church Oxford). Evagrius Ponticus: the Making of a Gnostic (Ashgate, 2008)he is automatically assumed to be Gnostic in his teaching.
- She makes an argument (as do all modern Scholars when referring to the Gnostics) for a re-examination of his contribution to scholarship since his work later became largely discredited.
- But it seems this rejection was not about asceticism, but rather his view point on re-incarnation, (there were other points of difference mostly levelled at the ideas of Origen, who Evagrius greatly admired) which was (understandably) declared heretical by the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 AD
- It is important to also acknowledge the fact that the Christian Church had not at this stage set a standard for Christian beliefs and teachings. There was no 'Canon' of Scripture at this time.
- The often heard criticism is that the gnostic teachings were there first and were later crowded out at the Council of Nicaea, that is far too simplistic a view.
- There is more to this than a clearly definable and visible polarisation of ideas.
- It seems clear that the gnostic ideas about the material world as being evil as well as all pleasure, (simeon Stylite would hurl abuse at women who came to him for 'enlightenment' , since in his belief they were evil just because they were women and therefore a source of temptation.)
- It is fair to say that these ideas tended to muddy the waters and produced a lot of confusion.
- The council of Nicaea was the first of many that was an attempt to clarify and settle many disputes and controversies , but we will discuss this in more detail.
- The point I am making for now is the whole basis for the Monastic movement right from the beginning was based on ideas that were essentially Gnostic.
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| "Christ and the rich young ruler" by Heinrich Hofmann.
The Story
A rich young ruler comes toJesus and asks him how he can achieve eternal life. Jesus asks him about the 10 commandments and the young man immediately says he has kept all of these. Jesus then tells him to go and sell all he has and follow him. The young man leaves 'because he had great possessions'
Actually it depicts a lesson on where the young man's heart lies, his love of wealth and all that accompanies it was the Focus of his life. One can link this to Matthew 6:21 where Jesus explains "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." In the previous two verses Jesus shows why one should store one's treasure in heaven rather than on earth.
Is that because the earth is the corrupt creation of an evil Demiurge, and we need to resist the temptation to accept its pleasures in order to fiend true enlightenment?That would be a Gnostic response.
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- We will discuss the rise of desert monasteries and Monasticism in greater depth later and this is not to say they were Gnostic on every level, But there certainly is a strong connection to Gnostic thinking
- This is seen in certain ideas ideas like. . .
- celibacy
- withdrawing from the world into a life of deprivation
- self imposed hardship
- rejection of fellowship with other people
- rejection of all that pleasures the flesh including food and drink.
- rejection in partaking of sex and even marriage.
- These are essentially and originally Gnostic in concept, not Christian.
There is a scene in the movie The Da Vinci Code where Silas, the mad Opus Dei monk is seen whipping himself in imitation of the flogging of Christ, and using the cilice, this is a chain wrapped tightly around one's thigh or stomach deliberately to cause discomfort, but is meant to be done secretly, to increase your spirituality of course.
Asceticism
That doesn't sound too Gnostic does it?
Asceticism
The word is derived from Greek askesis meaning 'exercise' or 'training'. The term can be traced back to Stoics, Cynics, and to eastern religions including Buddhism.
How is it seen in Christianity?
"If anyone would come after me let them deny self and take up the cross and follow me".
In the gospels it contains two elements: Leaving the self behind, and following Christ. The call to follow Christ involves a constant watchfulness — "Keep awake for the Lord is coming", a commitment to the poor, and fasting. In the case of some followers it also involves renunciation of possessions and celibacy. The same ideal can be found in St Paul: "I punish my body and enslave it so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified".
One can see how this is so attractive to the mentality of the Gnostic who then equates suffering and depravation as a core of the faith rather than a discipline.
The essence of this thinking is to earn one's salvation by strict discipline and depravation.
GUILT
Not to mention Guilt, what does a saint do when plagued with desire for a woman's embrace (we must resist this evil desire of the flesh) and as so often happens FAILS. The answer to many was 'MORTIFY' in other words to reject the evil material realm by doing the opposite of pleasure which means . . . pain
There is such irony here, as the saints all compete for higher and higher spirituality the measure is made through comparison and in the end we have a game of one-upmanship that produces superior beings who are at various levels of enlightenment the more they suffer the more they can demonstrate their superiority. The irony is this is a demonstration to elevate myself in the eye of man
Brings to mind Paul's reference it seems directed towards Asceticism
in Colossians 2:23. . . Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
1 Timothy 4:3
They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.
- Remember the material world with its fleshly pursuits was part of a deception of the demiurge and so to deprive oneself of pleasure and just eat enough to keep the body barely alive became an obsessive game of one-upmanship as ascetics went to bizarre extremes to outdo each other in increasingly ridiculous acts of self-denial.
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| By the end of the fourth century, there were hundreds of monasteries, and thousands of cells and caves scattered throughout the Egyptian hills. |
- Perhaps the most famous example is Simeon stylites who lived for 37 years atop a column in Aleppo Syria. His memory is much revered and his excesses are regarded as great examples of his holiness and purity.
- Stylites comes from the Greek word stylos, which means pillar, or column.
- His story goes like this: When he was just 13-years-old, he heard the Gospel passage: “Blessed are they that mourn; blessed are the clean of heart.” He went to a wise old man and asked him the meaning of these words.
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| 50 years after Simeon’s death, the Byzantine emperor Zeno had a large octagonal church and monastery complex constructed around the pillar. The sanctuary was the largest in the Christian world, surpassed only by the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople more than two generations later. |
He explained to the boy that eternal happiness can only be achieved with suffering, and that solitude is the most secure way to attain it.
In Conclusion
- As a means of demonstrating his religious devotion Simeon began sitting on top of a 10-foot pillar in a remote area outside the city of Aleppo in northern Syria. Over the next 30-plus years he increased the pillar’s height to almost 50 feet.
- He added to his suffering by wearing an iron collar; he was tied to the pillar, and food was brought up by a
- basket on a rope.
- Simeon preached to the crowds who, as his fame spread, made pilgrimages to see and hear the famous ascetic.
- So revered was he a huge Church was build around his pillar after his death, the ruins survive to this day.
- It's not that hard to understand why these people did this to themselves, there is a kind of self centred satisfaction in achieving a higher level than all the others around you which Paul called 'self imposed worship'
- But one wonders at the adulation of the crowds
- Why did they flock to these people for guidance and wisdom?
- As if a person sitting on top a column in the desert had anything practical to teach.
- It was simple an idea engendered in the Church that had accepted an element of Gnostic teaching that created a sense of adulation and awe in ordinary people who marvelled at these heavyweight contenders for the ascetic awards.
In Conclusion
- It may be easy to criticise on the one hand but there was no centralised belief and people were influenced by many viewpoints all claiming to be Christian.
- The third century was quite a melting pot of divergent points of view which had simply not yet crystallised.
- These are in fact still in evidence today
- What other areas of the Church were influenced by Gnostic thinking?
- Quite a few as we shall see
