Could Valentinianism have become the dominant Christian sect?

[Midnight-Blue766]

As per the title. What would it have taken for Valentinianism to have become the dominant Christian sect? What would a Valentinianism that became the dominant form of Christianity look like?

Also, Valentinus was apparently a candidate for Pope at one point. Could he have become Pope, and if so could this have been the main vehicle for spreading his ideas? How?

 

[Evil Crusader]

It is far too complex, so it would likely remain a fringe movement, though one with a strong intellectual tradition; I think a Valentinus that becomes Bishop is one that goes on to become a Church Father, remaining inside the Early Church orthodoxy, maybe with some eventually decried ideas like it happened to Origen OTL.

For any strand of Christianity to overtake the Early Ecumenic Orthodoxy, it has to be simple yet effective.

 

[Practical Lobster]

Too complex always seems a little weird to me. Plenty of real world religions are wildly complex. Hell, the core idea of Christianity isn't all that straightforward except the majority of the board were raised with an idea of it.

Valentinian Gnosticism hot take: the God as you know it is actually the evil demiurge. Pure spirit is good. Free your soul from the material world and reject it's trappings. The Heavenly Sophia will help you in this. Christ is her son.

Okay, I left a lot out and I whitewashed all the complexity, but thats what you'd have to do. The deeper esotericism would become a sort of cabbalistic upper level of initiation for the educated.

 

[Demothenes]

Too complex always seems a little weird to me. Plenty of real world religions are wildly complex. Hell, the core idea of Christianity isn't all that straightforward except the majority of the board were raised with an idea of it.

Valentinian Gnosticism hot take: the God as you know it is actually the evil demiurge. Pure spirit is good. Free your soul from the material world and reject it's trappings. The Heavenly Sophia will help you in this. Christ is her son.

Okay, I left a lot out and I whitewashed all the complexity, but thats what you'd have to do. The deeper esotericism would become a sort of cabbalistic upper level of initiation for the educated.

That's still super complex if you think about it. Think about what is required to get across the reality of the religion in that. First you have to accept there is a god, and then decide that actually that God isn't actually a God but really a sort of Daemon and that the true God is beyond that God and dwells in a different plane. That's very different and much more complex than the basic Christianity, which is basically that there is a God and that he is good, and his son is Jesus Christ who will bring you to Heaven. Also, the idea of rejecting the material existence always seemed to be something of a defeatist religion to me, one that would have a hard time taking hold in the everyday. That goes especially for how it was practiced in those centuries in which it was popular in Christianity...

 

[Practical Lobster]

Also, the idea of rejecting the material existence always seemed to be something of a defeatist religion to me, one that would have a hard time taking hold in the everyday.

And yet that was a lot of early Christianity.

The idea of a god that created the world is commonplace enough in the Near East of the time period. Now, boom, that God is misguided/evil, salvation comes through renouncing worldly wealth and pursuits embracing Sophia (wisdom) and Christ, who is her son and was killed for trying to spread the Logos.

I know it isn't exactly Gnosticism, but it's a compelling narrative. Why is life awful (and being a day laborer or menial worker or slave, your life is awful, so that's just an assumption)? Evil deity mucked it up and made your life suck. How do we fix it? Well funny you should ask...

A lot of early Christianity had the same message of worldly renounciation and spiritual battle. This is just an (admittedly weird) take on it.

Imo, people aren't dumb. They can handle some wacky concepts as long as the initial sales pitch is simple. If I can tell you why the world is sometimes a miserable, lonely, scary place filled with forces outside your control, and give you a solution...

 

[Demothenes]

And yet that was a lot of early Christianity.

The idea of a god that created the world is commonplace enough in the Near East of the time period. Now, boom, that God is misguided/evil, salvation comes through renouncing worldly wealth and pursuits embracing Sophia (wisdom) and Christ, who is her son and was killed for trying to spread the Logos.

I know it isn't exactly Gnosticism, but it's a compelling narrative. Why is life awful (and being a day laborer or menial worker or slave, your life is awful, so that's just an assumption)? Evil deity mucked it up and made your life suck. How do we fix it? Well funny you should ask...

A lot of early Christianity had the same message of worldly renounciation and spiritual battle. This is just an (admittedly weird) take on it.

Imo, people aren't dumb. They can handle some wacky concepts as long as the initial sales pitch is simple. If I can tell you why the world is sometimes a miserable, lonely, scary place filled with forces outside your control, and give you a solution...

But the sales pitch isn’t simple. Sure, that spiritual battle was a part of early christianity, but there was a reason that on the whole it stuck to the higher intellectual/philosophical side of Christianity. The problem isn’t exactly that it’s too complicated to understand, it’s that it is too complicated to be worth it.

 

[CountPeter]

I think people are overly complicating theology.

Whilst it is true that Valentinian theology is very dense, for the layman who literally doesnt have the time and often the opportunity to learn that, it isnt any more complex than trinitarian Christianity with the devil as opposition.

Where Trinitarianism has the father, son and holy spirit as all part of one godhead, Valentinianism has the father (it has been a while but I want to say bython?), and the son (Jesus) + Holy Spirit (Sophia) as emanations of the father, with Yaldabaoth as the devil stand in.

 

[Heliogabalus]

Also, the idea of rejecting the material existence always seemed to be something of a defeatist religion to me, one that would have a hard time taking hold in the everyday.

At the risk of oversimplification, plenty of anti-materialistic religions have managed to find mass appeal. After all, the main goal of Buddhism is the cessation of existence.

 

[CountPeter]

At the risk of oversimplification, plenty of anti-materialistic religions have managed to find mass appeal. After all, the main goal of Buddhism is the cessation of existence.

Whilst I agree RE anti-materialist religions, the bolded isnt technically correct and Buddhism is not anti-materialist.

Buddhism has always been part of the philosophical atomist position, the world is generally celebrated for it's giving the chance to achieve nibbina/nirvana and it is more the case that enlightenment represents the end of karmic existence rather than cessasion of existence alltogether (which is quite a lot to go into, but thinj of it like removing oneself from cause and effect).

 

[Practical Lobster]

Oh, and here I thought we meant antimaterialist in the sense of repudiating material possessions and wealth.