Did Augustine corrupt Christianity with Gnostic doctrine

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Choosethisday
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Did Augustine corrupt Christianity with Gnostic doctrine

Post by Choosethisday » Sun Oct 19, 2014 4:39 pm

I found this about an hour long video which asks and answers the question "Did Augustine corrupt the church with Manichean or Gnostic doctrine?" Although books usually do a more thorough job of documenting something such as this I have also found it difficult to convince the average church goer to read any book, much less one that requires much thinking. I think the video does a good job of tying early Manichaeism and Greek philosophy to Augustine and then on to the reformation and modern Calvinism. Just one more resource.

https://openairoutreach.wordpress.com/2 ... -doctrine/

dizerner

Re: Did Augustine corupt Christianity with Gnostic doctrine

Post by dizerner » Sun Oct 19, 2014 5:50 pm

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dwilkins
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Re: Did Augustine corrupt Christianity with Gnostic doctrine

Post by dwilkins » Tue Oct 21, 2014 2:01 am

I watched most of the video, but it seemed like the standard incorrect pitch of gnosticism that has been around for hundreds of years. There is no evidence that anyone in the New Testament was directly addressing a gnostic crisis. There is no evidence that there were any gnostics until at least 50 years after the New Testament was written. I think the producer of this video is close to correct in some ways, but his argument is fatally flawed. There was in fact gnosticism by the time of Augustine, and I'm sure that he drug a bunch of his personal gnotic background into Christianity. But, just as important was the invasion of Platonic cosmology, which Chistianity and gnosticism shared by the time of Augustine.

Doug

Choosethisday
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Re: Did Augustine corrupt Christianity with Gnostic doctrine

Post by Choosethisday » Tue Oct 21, 2014 7:39 am

I think the question is more whether Augustine is perhaps the main vector for this doctrine infecting Christianity. I think the video did a reasonable job giving evidence connecting his background of Gnosticism and his incorporating it into his Christian doctrine.

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Paidion
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Re: Did Augustine corrupt Christianity with Gnostic doctrine

Post by Paidion » Tue Oct 21, 2014 10:26 am

Hi Doug,
You wrote:There is no evidence that there were any gnostics until at least 50 years after the New Testament was written.
I consider the following words of the apostle John to be evidence of at least an incipient form of gnosticism.
The apostle John wrote:Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. (1 John 4:1-3 NKJV)
Most of the gnostics did not believe that Jesus was born as a normal human being. Rather they regarded Him as God who appeared to be a human being but was actually pure spirit (God is spirit, John 4:24). The gnostics didn't have the problem of not believing in the deity of Christ. Their problem was that they did not believe in the humanity of Christ.
Paidion

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