Varieties of Syncretism

1. Varieties of Syncretism “It has become received wisdom among historians of Christianity to hold that, from the start, many distinct internal alternatives competed in the shaping of the Christian movement.” Valle, The Shaping of Christianity, 60.

2. Variety and Division • NT: Peter, James, Paul; Synoptics and John • Who was Jesus and what was the real meaning of his life and work? • Salvation, eschatology, conduct of life in community, leadership • Early period: difficulty of always discerning the difference between the periphery and centre • Pluralism unavoidable and perhaps even legitimate?

3. Syncretism • Distinct from pluralism; involves factors which are external to original vision and emerging tradition • Some syncretism unavoidable in the origins of the religion • Religious climate of syncretism in Roman world • For some the term implies corruption, but scholars today essentially use the term without value judgement • Three religious constellations: mystery religions, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism

4. Mystery Religions • Secrecy, initiation rites, allows for privileged relationship with god or goddesses and benefits • Ex: Grain-goddess Demeter, Egyptian Isis and Osiris/Saparis, Phrygian goddess Cybele (Great mother) cult of Dionysus (Roman Bacchus), revival of healing cult of Asclepius, growth of Mithraism (includes moral code). Gain international flavour through assimilation and mingling of elements (some have seen focus on Sophia in Hellenistic Judaism as similar to tendencies among the mysteries) • Similarities between Christianity and Mysteries, but Christianity lacks focus on “secret knowledge” and initiation is not to be repeated. Great similarities however to Gnosticism

5. Gnosticism: Sources and Origins • Greatest threat to second-century Christianity • Exists also outside of Christianity and may predate Christianity (though this is debated) • Some argue for a Jewish origin • Before 1945 known mainly from writings of “heresiologists” such as Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (130-202) or Tertullian (160-225) • Importance of Nag Hammadi find, works such as the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Truth, etc.

6. Main Gnostic Tenets • Major question: How could transcendent all-powerful God produced a divided and deficient cosmos and physical body characterized by suffering and death? • Highly variegated responses • Jesus and apostles are messengers of superior knowledge sometimes on par with others such as Greek philosophers • Complicated myths describe origin of evil, the human condition, and path to being “released”

7. Major Gnostic Tenets: Continued • Transcendent (unknowable directly) deity. Typically emanations (aeons) are said to proceed from the Father. Sophia is expelled from divine world for disorderly “passions” condemned to wander below the “pleroma”. Creator god (demiurge) made from her passions and goes on to create world which hold divine sparks captive within it. • Gnostics who “know” the situation of their captivity are thereby released and assured of escape from created order. Reject law, many rites, and organizational structures as associated with created world. • Often rejection of created order is lived out as asceticism (or indulgence of the flesh) • Sometimes manifests itself as a rejection of the Jewish God • Varieties of openness to Gnostic influences among the Fathers.