Re: Gnosticism and the Roman Catholic Church

[Anderson Whittle <andwhit@iafrica.com>]

Thanks very much for this Sally. I also thought that
gnosticism had a dualistic belief that there was a bad god
at the beginning as well as a good God, and the world
would only become good when the bad god ( Lucifer )
was redeemed, which clearly has'nt happened yet.
Catholic Christianity only brought in the bad god when
Eve took the fruit from the serpent, which animal is the
wise serpent of gnosticism. There are obvious differences
to the concept of evil in mankind in the above. The one evil existed,
the other one evil was introduced.

Catharism and Protestantism  tended to point the soul directly to heaven,
whilst the Catholic faith went via the Church to heaven.In this way
one could reduce the evil, although it did'nt reduce the loss of lives
in the Reformation in Scotland.

But it is interesting to note that Pictish ( pre 10th  C  ) carved stones
show the serpent. So perhaps there was an element of gnosticism
in the early Celtic Church, prior to the Crusades. Even today the
Welsh and Scots may be seen to have a leaning towards
non-conformist churches, which may show a leaning towards the ancient
Celtic Church.The other Celtic race is firmly Catholic.

But as you point out agnosticism does not hold with a first cause, while
gnosticism does.So Rosslyn is  a temple to gnosticism, being brought
back from the middle east during the crusades, if not existent
already from the Picts (and Scotti?), who had only been Christian
for a few centuries in Scotland, this being overlaid on the Druidic
religion.

I agree Freemasonry is certainly not non-Christian as well
as being anti-evil in concept. But its' roots are unclear. I think that to
know where you come from means a better chance of knowing where you
are going to, let alone what you are. To term something an ideal does not
mean it is ideal.
Nazisim was an ideal for many, but to know where it came from one has to
look at Nietzche,
German mythology, and numerous other causes;economics, even the German
mentality.
To understand even an ideal one needs to know the roots.One of the clear
truths of life is evil. But even the root of this is uncertain.
So Andrew Sinclairs' book must be very useful to the Freemasons,
as well as the Sinclairs.

Mark

ANDERSON WHITTLE cc

Tel:  + 27 21 557 6438
Fax: + 27 21 557 6434

Website:  users.iafrica.com/a/an/andwhit
----- Original Message -----
From: Sally Spangler <esdemio@worldnet.att.net>
To: Sinclair Digest <sinclair@matrix.net>
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2001 4:45 PM
Subject: Gnosticism and the Roman Catholic Church


> From my reading "The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary" edited by
> Charles M. Laymon, page 1048.
> As the early Christian Church formed, there were many splinters.
> Gnosticism (knowledge)being one of the "great heresies". Began as
> "Docetism" - denying Christ's earthly life reality. It became the

[ Excess quotations omitted. ]

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