The Christian Conspiracy: The Orthodox Suppression of Original Gnostic Christianity - Part Three

Описание: The Christian Conspiracy: The Orthodox Suppression of Original Gnostic Christianity, by Ralph Macchio, Part Three.
(chapters 11 - 15)
This book chronicles the replacement of an original Christianity which was diverse and Gnostic in character by an orthodox pseudo-theology defined by a narrow set of doctrines quite different in scope and spirit. If it shatters any image, it is the myth that there was an "original" Christianity, somewhat in the image of modern fundamentalism, where all held to the four Gospels, the concept of Jesus as God, His death for our sins, the resurrection of the body at the last day, etc. Rather it lifts the curtain on a profoundly different "original" Christianity--a rich set of doctrines in the Gnostic tradition defined across many sects existing at Christianity's very earliest beginnings including even the communities and teachings of St. Paul and the Nazorean community at Jerusalem, and including doctrines of reincarnation, the origins of evil in a class of beings called "archons," the preexistence of souls, the divine spark in each, therefore the divinity of each--all befitting the universalist character Jesus in fact had. And it chronicles the grim, often political and ultimately violent destruction of this diversity and these doctrines by the end of the fourth century, their replacement by a stark orthodoxy of distorted and narrowed dogmas, the destruction or suppression of the many gospels by an arbitrary and edited canon of four, and the concomitant establishment of a power structure set in a hierarchy which moved increasingly to the denial of freedom of belief and its final alliance with the power of the state.

CONTENTS:

XI. The Manichaean-Christian Revolution

The Universal Religion of Light
The Doctrine of Mani
The Conspiracy of Darkness
The Realm of Light
The Original Purity of the Preexistent Soul
The Realm of Darkness
The Darkness Attacks the Light
The Soul Enters "Matter"
The Rescue of the Soul
The Judgment of the Archons and the Creation of the Physical Cosmos
The Archons Release Their Stolen Light
The Archons Entrap Souls in Material Bodies-"Adam and Eve"
The Redemption of Adam and Eve
Mani's Doctrine of the Last Things
Comments on Christian-Gnostic and Manichaen-Christian Anthropology
Manichaen-Christian Salvation-The Writings of Mani
The Character of Mani
The Controversy between Orthodox and Manichaean Christianity
The Manichaean Concept of Christ

XII. The Arian Controversy and the Council of Nicea

Constantine Becomes the Messiah
Origins Of Christianity
The Doctrine of Arius
The Council of Nicea
The Nicean Council's Secret Agenda?
Constantine Becomes the Messiah-The Dawn of the Papacy
Aftermath of the Arian Controversy

XIII. The Bondage of Orthodoxy

Augustine
Augustine Attacks the Manichaeans
The Theology of Augustine
The Theory of Original Sin
Augustine Denies Preexistence and the Law of Cause and Effect
The Doctrine of Infant Damnation and the Eternality of Hell
Augustine's Doctrine of the Soul
Free Will versus Human Bondage-The Donatist and Pelagian Controversies
The Legacy of Augustine

XIV. The Triumph of Totalitarian Christianity

The Keys of the Kingdom and the Supremacy of Peter
The Destruction of the Mysteries The Martyrdom of Hypatia
The Debasement of Woman Adam and Eve The Celibate Movement
The Emergence of the Vicarious Atonement Theory
The Hidden Gnostic Legacy
Conclusion

XV. Epilogue