Faith and Reason in the Early Christian Church Term Paper

Faith and Reason in the Early Christian Church - Term Paper Example The result is that the Gnostic view was used to inspire a subjective inquiry into the nature of mind, universe, and religion, whereas the Imperial or Orthodox construct was effective in building the social structures of the Church through formal, standardized expression of faith. This further translated into the growth of religious authority through the priesthood in orthodox Christianity, which ultimately resulted in Gnosticism being branded as heretical and its documents destroyed. Beginning with the two groups led symbolically by St. Paul and Simon Magus at the time of the life of Jesus and crucifixion, this division can be charted over the first four centuries of Christian evolution through the early leaders of the Christian church such as Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Hippolytus through their preserved historical writings. Essential to the Gnostic view is the belief that Jesus taught on two levels to his disciples. Openly and publicly, he preached in parables and moral examples of a perennial wisdom that was radical enough to challenge existing tenets of Judaism and the doctrinal foundations of other schools present in the Mediterranean region at the time. Yet, secretly, according to the Gnostics, Jesus also taught his closest students the inner-aspects of the mysteries of God and the universe. Just as the Buddha is believed to have tailored his sermons to address the level of consciousness and moral development of the individuals he was speaking to directly at the time, resulting in different vehicles of salvation constructed according to the needs of the individuals who believed in and practiced the teachings, so too did Jesus in the Gnostic view. This can be seen further in the Gnostics preserving Gospels such as those recorded by Phillip and Thomas that were not accepted by the Orthodoxy in the construction of the New Testament. Critically, the leader of the Orthodox movement is St. Paul, who was not one of the direct disciples duri ng the lifetime of Jesus, but converts to the faith and becomes its most ardent champion historically in the early days of the church following the crucifixion. It can be argued, that if one accepts the distinction between esoteric and exoteric teachings as given by Jesus during his lifetime, that the absence of Paul from these events historically limits him to a textual interpretation of Christianity or encourages him to emphasize that aspect over the esoteric. In contrast are figures such as Simon Magus and Barnabas who represent the magical, mystical aspects of early Christian religion. As Miguel Conner writes in â€Å"The Great Declaration by Simon Magus,† â€Å"Simon Magus was almost universally called the Father of Gnosticism or the Father of All Heresies. Referring to him as the fountainhead of Gnostic ideology is odd, since Orthodox Christianity bragged it preceded Gnosticism yet openly admitted Simon Magus was a contemporary of Jesus... Beyond these ancient allegati ons, the legend of Simon Magus mutated throughout history. Along with Apollonius of Tyana and Hermes Trismegistus, Simon Magus is certainly both the prototype and archetype of the mercurial wizard in much of western folklore, literature and occult studies... The Great Declarat