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Wednesday, April 19, 2006




STEVE KELLMEYER DOESN'T QUIT !

Once again he has argued that Olson got it wrong, in an editorial at Renew America. And once again he neglects to cite the source he is using for his claim to know what Gnosticism teaches. Kellmeyer writes:

Since created matter is an evil prison, the act of procreative sex is evil: it traps immortal souls in this torture chamber we call the universe. Marriage is evil because it leads to procreative sex. Women are spiritually lower forms of life because they actually incubate the prisoners; they cooperate with the demi-urge by the very nature of who they are. This is why the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas says women cannot be saved unless they become like men. These teachings form the white-hot core, the beating heart, of Gnosticism.


Indeed there was a branch of Gnosticism which disdained sex. It was not the only branch, however.

Irenaeus cites the teachings of both types of Gnostics in Chapter XXVIII of AGAINST HERESIES:

1. Many offshoots of numerous heresies have already been formed from those heretics we have described. This arises from the fact that numbers of them-indeed, we may say all-desire themselves to be teachers, and to break off from the particular heresy in which they have been involved. Forming one set of doctrines out of a totally different system of opinions, and then again others from others, they insist upon teaching something new, declaring themselves the inventors of any sort of opinion which they may have been able to call into existence. To give an example: Springing from Saturninus and Marcion, those who are called Encratites (self-controlled) preached against marriage, thus setting aside the original creation of God, and indirectly blaming Him who made the male and female for the propagation of the human race. Some of those reckoned among them have also introduced abstinence from animal food, thus proving themselves ungrateful to God, who formed all things. They deny, too, the salvation of him who was first created. It is but lately, however, that this opinion has been invented among them. A certain man named Tatian first introduced the blasphemy. He was a hearer of Justin's, and as long as he continued with him he expressed no such views; but after his martyrdom he separated from the Church, and, excited and puffed up by the thought of being a teacher, as if he were superior to others, he composed his own peculiar type of doctrine. He invented a system of certain invisible Aeons, like the followers of Valentinus; while, like Marcion and Saturninus, he declared that marriage was nothing else than corruption and fornication.308 But his denial of Adam's salvation was an opinion due entirely to himself.

2. Others, again, following upon Basilides and Carpocrates, have introduced promiscuous intercourse and a plurality of wives, and are indifferent about eating meats sacrificed to idols, maintaining that God does not greatly regard such matters. But why continue? For it is an impracticable attempt to mention all those who, in one way or another, have fallen away from the truth.


Gershom Scholem also cites the Carpocratians:

In the history of Gnosticism, the Carpocratians are regarded as the outstanding representatives of this libertinistic and nihilistic form of gnosis. (MAJOR TRENDS IN JEWISH MYSTICISM, 1946, p. 316)


That quote appears in the chapter describing Sabbatianism, a mystical Jewish heresy that appeared in the 1700s. It taught that a believer did evil things in order to force the hand of God to bring good out of it.

Kellmeyer closes with:

In fact, what Brown teaches — what all the "modern gnostics" teach — has essentially nothing to do with real Gnosticism. The whole charade is just a verbal shell game played by historians looking for collegial respect and feminist theologians searching for authenticity.


Once again he fails to cite any source for the "Gnosticism" that he is willing to call genuine as opposed to the Gnosticism that he believes is false. I would suggest that the reason he cannot cite a source is that there is no source. Rather he has taken a narrow definition of Gnosticism and generalized.

And that doesn't even begin to address neo-Gnosticism, which has made an impact via the web and which is growing. For the beliefs of neo-Gnostics I would not look to Steve Kellmeyer but rather to the neo-Gnostics themselves, just as I would look to Catholic sources to discover the beliefs of Catholics.

Kellmeyer once again fails to make his point, and beating this drum for a second time is making me begin to ask what his agenda might be?

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UPDATE

Carl Olson responds to Kellmeyer's second editorial. (Scroll down.)



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