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internet order >> CLICK_HERE
Windows / Mac Compatible. Includes
live video seminars, enchanting renewal songs and a thousand page
illustrated codex.
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Keeping the Genie in the Bottle: Gnosticism, Orthodoxy and the Creed
Herein lie the versions of the Christian creed, the Apostles, Gallican and Nicene. They raise a basic question of faith orthodoxy, true communion and institutional hijack of enlightenment. Each creed in fact represents an elaborate pagan concoction of statements of idolatrous nature about the shape of the 'godhead'. These statements outline the way in which Christianity has becomes a heresy by repressing 'the other' within itself.
THE APOSTLES' CREED VERSUS GNOSTICISM
(Chalcedon Christian source with further comments - CK)
"A creed generally emphasizes the beliefs opposing those errors that the compilers of the creed think most dangerous at the time. The Creed of the Council of Trent, which was drawn up by the Roman Catholics in the 1500's, emphasized those beliefs that Roman Catholics and Protestants were arguing about most furiously at the time. The Nicene Creed, drawn up in the fourth century, is emphatic in affirming the Deity of Christ, since it is directed against the Arians, who denied that Christ was fully God. The Apostles' Creed, drawn up in the first or second century, emphasizes the true Humanity, including the material body, of Jesus, since that is the point that the heretics of the time (Gnostics, Marcionites, and later Manicheans) denied. (See 1 John 4:1-3)"
This is a true confession that both creeds are polemical statements and not divine ordination. The bodily resurrection falls immediately as does the uniqueness of Christ and Jesus.
Thus the Apostles' Creed is as follows:
* I believe in God the Father Almighty,
* Maker of Heaven and Earth,
[The Gnostics held that the physical universe is evil and that God did not make it.]
In a sense the gnostics were right and neither are the orthodox free from the stain of belief in an evil universe. The second law of thermodynamics is used as a principle argument for God creating a degenerating universe at the beginning of time, despite the marvels of evolution.
* And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord,
* Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
* Born of the Virgin Mary,
"The Gnostics were agreed that the orthodox Christians were wrong in supposing that God had taken human nature or a human body. Some of them distinguished between Christ, whom they acknowledged to be in some sense divine, and the man Jesus, who was at most an instrument through whom the Christ spoke. They held that the man Jesus did not become the bearer or instrument of the Christ until the Spirit descended upon him at his baptism, and that the Spirit left him before the crucifixion, so that the Spirit had only a brief and tenuous association with matter and humanity. Others affirmed that there was never a man Jesus at all, but only the appearance of a man, through which appearance wise teachings were given to the first disciples. Against this the orthodox Christians affirmed that Jesus was conceived through the action of the Holy Spirit (thus denying the Gnostic position that the Spirit had nothing to do with Jesus until his Baptism), that he was born (which meant that he had a real physical body, and not just an appearance) of a virgin (which implied that he had been special from the first moment of his life, and not just from the baptism on".
The orthodox are wrong that Jesus was God's only son.
We all are. This is blatant heresy.
The gnostic view of Jesus and Christ and the baptism and crucifixion
is historically and biologically true. The docetic view however
is a false excuse for martyrdom and jihad.
* Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
"There were many stories then current about gods who died and were resurrected, but they were offered quite frankly as myths, as non-historical stories symbolic of the renewal of the vegetation every spring after the seeming death of winter. If you asked, "When did Adonis die?" you would be told either, "Long ago and far away," or else, "His death is not an event in earthly time." Jesus, on the other hand, died at a particular time and place in history, under the jurisdiction of Pontius Pilate, Procurator of Judea from 26 to 36 CE, or during the last ten years of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius."
A major confession here that in fact the tradition of Jesus is the tradition of Adonis. Jesus life is in fact historically elusive, almost as much so as Adonis himself. Jesus is also Dionysus, Tammuz, Mot and Mitra, Joseph, Moses and so on.
* was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into Hades.
[Here the creed hammers home the point that he was really dead. He was not an illusion. He was nailed to a post. He died. He had a real body, a corpse, that was placed in a tomb. He was not merely unconscious -- his spirit left his body and went to the realm of the dead. It is a common belief among Christians that on this occasion he took the souls of those who had died trusting in the promises made under the Old Covenant -- Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah, and many others -- and brought them out of the realm of the dead and into heavenly glory. But the creed is not concerned with this point. The reference to the descent into Hades (or Hell, or Sheol) is here to make it clear that the death of Jesus was not just a swoon or a coma, but death in every sense of the word.]
The descent into Hades is central to the sacrificial story of Inanna sending Dumuzzi to hell. Magdalen's seven devils parallelling the seven gallas of Inanna, and the three Marys and the exaltation completing the cycle of the dark moon on the third day. The omission of this passage from the Nicene creed is indicative of its true significance.
* The third day he rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven,
* and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
* From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.
* I believe in the Holy Ghost,
* the holy catholic church,
[The Gnostics believed that the most important Christian doctrines were reserved for a select few. The orthodox belief was that the fullness of the Gospel was to be preached to the entire human race. Hence the term "catholic," or universal, which distinguished them from the Gnostics.]
Catholicism only becomes meaningful in its broad-minded tolerance of all. This embraces all forms of the Goddess as well as the many shades of the one God. Gnosticism is the inner cabal who undertake the dangerous direct route to realization. They are the elect by their commitment and dedication to illumination. The true Kingom only comes with the renewal of the Garden in the Tree of Life as we all know.
* the communion of saints,
* the forgiveness of sins,
[The Gnostics considered that what men needed was not forgiveness, but enlightenment. Ignorance, not sin, was the problem. Some of them, believing the body to be a snare and delusion, led lives of great asceticism. Others, believing the body to be quite separate from the soul, held that it did not matter what the body did, since it was completely foul anyway, and its actions had no effect on the soul. They accordingly led lives that were not ascetic at all. Either way, the notion of forgiveness was alien to them.]
The orthodox are here committing heresy. Only ture understanding can bring remorse and full awareness of what one has done. Forgiveness and compassion are also essential on all sides, not just the Church or God. The forgiveness of sins comes with the notion of original sin, committing us to be in spirit as well as body flawed and evil unless 'straightened' by the Church. Gnostics who rejected sex were in error. Gnostics who were liberated in their relations taught that an enlightened person could exercise more freedom of choice in ethical life. This is true and helpful.
* the resurrection of the body,
[The chief goal of the Gnostics was to become free forever from the taint of matter and the shackles of the body, and to return to the heavenly realm as Pure Spirit. They totally rejected any idea of the resurrection of the body.]
Resurrection of the body is a heresy. It is biological idolatry. It is an attempt to make Jesus physically different form all other beings. The gnostic view of Jesus as human and Christ as an apotheosis of the Holy Ghost is correct. The Aztec nagual is the same. This is a root tradition. This is key to the full dimensions of Christ nature being sharable naturally among all people - the Gnostic twinning of Thomas.
* and the life everlasting. AMEN
The eternal conscious Tao realizes immortal life through manifesting the physical. The Tree of Life is evolution liberated.
Apostles Creed
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I believe in God, the Father Almighty, |
The Gallican Creed
Moorhouse, Goeffrey 1997 Sun Dancing: A Medieval Vision.
Weidenfield & Nicholson, London ISBN 0-297-81595-4
[The Gallican Creed] is an amended version of the Old Roman Creed, derived from the Gallican Liturgy. We do not know why the rites of northern Italy, Gaul, Spain and Ireland differed from the practice of Rome at an early stage in the development of the Church in these areas, but one theory maintains that the amended form was, in fact, the Creed used at Ephesus in apostolic times and therefore had the sounder pedigree. The shorter version may have been used in Rome as early as 150, though the first documention for it is in the Apostolic Tradition of St Hyppolitus, who died in 235; that is, ninety years before the Council of Nicaea, which promulgated the Nicene Creed in order to defend orthodoxy against the Arian heresy. As a fundamental statement of Christian belief, this was adopted by both the Western and the Eastern (Orthodox) Churches and is still used by them today. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Nicene Creed is said at mass on Sundays, the greater feasts and the Feasts of Doctors, in the Anglican Church at all communion services; otherwise the shorter Apostles' Creed is generally used.
Although so much is uncertain about the origin of the Creed that the Irish monks recited, one thing is clear: unless it reached Ireland before 432, it must have been brought by Patrick himself, who would have become familiar with during his time in Lerins. Here it is in full, with the Gallic amendments to the Old Roman Creed set in italics:
| Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, creatorem caeli et terrae; Et in jesum Christum, filium eius unicum, Dominum nostrum; Qui conceptus est de Spiritu sancto, natus est Maria Virgins; Passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus, et sepultus; Descendit ad inferno; Tertia die resurrexit a mortuis; Ascendit ad caelos; Sedit ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis; Inde venturus est Judicare vivos et mortuos. Credo in Spiritum sanctum, Sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam, Sanctorum communionem, Remissionem peccatorum, Carnis resurrectionem, vitam aeternam. Amen. |
I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, his only son our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; He descended into hell; The third day he rose from the dead He ascended into heaven To sit at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, The holy catholic Church The communion of saints The forgiveness of sins The resurrection of the body, The life everlasting. Amen |
The Nicene Creed
The Nicene Creed, also called the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed, is a statement of the orthodox faith of the early Christian church in opposition to certain heresies, especially Arianism. These heresies, which disturbed the church during the fourth century, concerned the doctrine of the trinity and of the person of Christ. Both the Greek (Eastern) and the Latin (Western) church held this creed in honor, though with one important difference: the Western church insisted on the inclusion of the phrase and the Son (known as the filioque) in the article on the procession of the Holy Spirit; this phrase still is repudiated by the Eastern Orthodox church. In its present form this creed goes back partially to the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) with additions by the Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381). It was accepted in its present form at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, but the filioque phrase was not added until 589.
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I believe in one God the Father almighty, |
The following position by sets out just how heretical the orthodox position is. It is in fact a frank hijacking of the spiritual tradition by the very church which set out to be the 'bride of God'. This is parallelled in certain millennial cults where the movement considers that its actions are seizing the opportunity to manifest Jesus in advance of Parousia. While this is valid gnostic thinking, for the othodox it is an act of spiritual theft from God.
No offence is intended to the Eastern Church towards which I hold source affection.
Christology, Ecclesiology, and Heresy from Credo By Clark Carlton
Even if one is willing to grant that the Divine Scriptures are not Christ and should not be the object of belief, it is another matter altogether to assert that the Church is an object of faith and a subject of Credal affirmation. Yet, this is precisely what Orthodox Christians profess when they recite the Nicene Creed.
It is common place for modern commentators to play down this Credal affirmation. Belief in the Church, so it is often argued, is not to be taken literally. One is to believe only in God, and the Church - whatever excellent things may be said about Her - cannot be the object of such faith.
Ironically, one of the most forceful presentations of this position comes, not from a Protestant theologian, but from the German Catholic Hans Kung. In his book, The Church, Kung argues that belief in the Church as an object of faith is a distortion of the image of the Church.7 Kung writes:
" To say that we do not believe in the Church means that the Church is not God. The Church as a fellowship of believers is, in spite of everything positive that can be said about it, neither God nor a god-like being. Of course, the believer is convinced that God works in the Church and in the work of the Church. But God's work and the Church's are neither identical nor overlapping, there is indeed a functional distinction between them."
For Kung, the Credal affirmation regarding the Church has to do with the Spirit, Who works in the Church, not with the Church Herself as an institution.9
Although Kung's analysis seems convincing, it is born of a mindset that is not only foreign to that of the Fathers of the Church, but wholly antithetical to the faith of the early Church. In short, it manifests an ecclesiology that is blatantly heretical.
Arius taught that the Logos was a created being because his rationalistic concept of God had no room for a God who could become man. Thus, the Word, Who became flesh, was a creature to begin with.
Arius was correct. Jesus was a creature to begin with. God becomes man in each of us.
In the same way, Nestorius posited two subjects in Christ: the Divine Logos and the Assumed Man. It was the Assumed Man Jesus Who was born of the Virgin and Who suffered and died on the Cross. Nestorius, working with the same rationalistic concept of God as Arius, could not conceive of God being born in a manger or dying on the Cross. In other words, he could not conceive of God as a genuinely personal being Who could truly take humanity upon Himself and make the life of man His own.
The question which should be put is why should God do this at all? Why crucify Jesus to forgive us? What sort of God is this who can make the entire universe and then crucify one particular Jew only to blame the entire Jewish nation forever more? Is this a God of love and forgiveness? Then why not have Jesus live and us all learn to love oneanother of our own free will? Good God!
To say that we do not believe in the Church because the Church is not God sounds perfectly reasonable. It sounds as though we are safeguarding ourselves from any pagan confusion between Creator and creature. Yet, this obsession with protecting the"honor" of God was precisely the motivation behind both the Arian and Nestorian heresies. Indeed, this is nothing else than the application of Nestorian theology to the doctrine of the Church.
The humanity of Christ had no existence of its own apart from its union with Him. There was no Man Jesus prior to the Incarnation. The eternal Son and Word of God the Father is the Man Jesus, and the Man Jesus is none other than the Logos of God. Thus, the Church decreed at the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431) that one must confess the Virgin Mary to be the Mother of God, for the One Who was born of her was God Himself, not simply a man joined to God. Likewise, the Church confesses that it was God Himself Who suffered and died on the cross in the flesh.10
According to St. Paul, the Church is nothing less than the Body of Christ, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all (Eph. 1:23). He goes on to say, For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones (Eph 5:30). Likewise, Christ Himself said, He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him (John 6:56).
Sorry but this is Dionysus speaking. The flesh and blood is a grotesque link between kiddush and crucifixion which takes its meaning from the Dionysian tragic drama which the crucifixion is. The last supper is this link of blood. The Church as the fullness of Christ is sheer heresy - the medium is the message pure and simple.
Nestorius could not conceive of a genuine union of God and man, so he denied that the Son of God could be born of a woman. He eventually agreed to accept the term Theotokos (God-bearer), but only if understood metaphorically, not literally. Similarly, those who deny that the Church is a proper object of faith are forced by the logic of their theology to interpret St. Paul's words about the Church metaphorically.
The difficulty about the union of God and man is made profound by the discovery of the ovum. Did God fertilize an ovum? But the offspring was a boy! Whose Y chromosome was it, God's? Nestorius was right to fail to conceive by this union. The facts are that Mary was a Kadesha and the parthenos was almah.
If in Christ there is a true and indissoluble union of God and man, then His body must be worthy of the one and undivided glory due to the Son and Word of God. Therefore, if one denies that the Church is a proper object of belief-because"the Church is not God"-then it must be the case that the Church is not the Body of Christ in any real sense of the term.
Right on.
For the Church of the first two centuries, there was an unbreakable link between the doctrine of the Incarnation and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.11 To deny one was to deny the other. This fact has tremendous ecclesiological implications, for the Eucharist is that which most clearly and profoundly manifests the nature of the Church. Thus, the Incarnation, the Eucharist, and the doctrine of the Church are all bound together-or, more precisely, they are three sides of one and the same doctrine: the true union of God and man in Christ.
The only true eucharist is the one which manifests the visionary state. Christ being in the eucharist is to say the eucharist IS the flest of God. This is the name of the Toltec sacrament. Gordon Wasson was present at the first communion of the living church and said so.
For the Orthodox Church, therefore, Christology and ecclesiology are inseparable. Christ implies the Church, for the Incarnate Lord cannot be without His Body. This explains why Kungs attempt to shift the emphasis in the Creed from the Church to the Spirit working in the Church, is absolutely unacceptable.
This amounts to totalitarian dictatorship of God and man by the Church. Fascist = religio.
At what time did the Spirit ever act"on His own"? At the Annunciation to the Virgin, the Spirit came upon her and she conceived the Son of God in the flesh. At the Baptism of the Lord, the Spirit alighted upon Him and anointed Him to be the Christ. At Pentecost, the Spirit descended upon the Apostles and made them to be not merely disciples, but the Church, the very Body of Christ. At the Holy Eucharist, the Spirit consecrates the bread and wine to be the Body and Blood of the Lord, through which we have true communion with Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16).
To say that we believe not in the Church, but in the Spirit, Who works in the Church is the same as saying that we believe not in the historical Jesus, but in the Spirit, Who anointed Him. Indeed, the parallel with the Nestorian controversy is striking: the ninth of St. Cyril of Alexandrias famous twelve anathemas was directed against anyone who says "that the one Lord Jesus Christ was glorified by the Spirit, as if He exercised a power alien to Himself which came to Him through the Spirit..."
Simply a move to eliminate all direct spiritual experience within the church
Summation
"The Church is God's Christ Himself, the Kingdom of God which 'is within us' (Luke 17:21)."12 This statement by a renowned abbot in Greece is, on first hearing, shocking to Protestant ears. Yet, it succinctly expresses the self-understanding of the Orthodox Church. The tragic mistake of Protestantism is that the Church-the very Body of Christ on earth-has been replaced, both in theory and in practice-by a book.
Regardless of its divine origin-the Orthodox Church has never denied that the Bible is wholly inspired by God-the Bible is a book. A book is a book; the Church is life-life in Christ. To grasp this is to grasp the real difference between Orthodoxy and Protestantism. The Way: What Every Protestant Should Know about the Orthodox Church explores this thesis in great detail, demonstrating that Orthodoxy and Protestantism are two fundamentally different conceptions of the nature of Christianity.