WI: Gnosticism becomes dominant form of Christianity

You guys are altogether too harsh on Gnosticism. Even the really looney ones like Valentinianism and Sethianism were probably talked way out of proportion by their orthodox contemporaries - for whom a significant fear was that the common people would not be able to tell the difference between Gnostics and orthodox believers. In any case, decently successful religions like Buddhism and Taoism show that you can have a bunch of loopy esoteric beliefs, allegorical or not, existing side-by-side with ordinary and positive religious worship. It's pretty easy, actually, because the "holy initiate - pious layman" dichotomy is really a quite strong and natural basis for religious society. Even orthodox Christianity got a lot more stratified in religious engagement as the centuries went on.

For the problem of an evil material world, I'd suggest people look toward the Cathars and why they were so popular despite believing, in theory, the exact same thing. The symbol of a holy man who abdicates the material world - an act considered spiritually noble but impractical for the average layman - is a very, very powerful one, and no substantial religious movement yet has really tried to get all of its followers to renounce their original lives. A Gnostic Christianity might just not look too different from the Christianity divided between church, monastery and community of OTL.

Buddhism has never been a state religion of a major empire.

This is startlingly wrong, unless you're using such a strong definition of "major" as to leave it pretty much entirely to historical coincidence. Is the entire history of continental Southeast Asia (not to mention the Mauryas and Palas of India) not "major" enough for you? Not a coincidence, then, given that's where Buddhism is.
 
Last edited:
You guys are altogether too harsh on Gnosticism. Even the really looney ones like Valentinianism and Sethianism were probably talked way out of proportion by their orthodox contemporaries - for whom a significant fear was that the common people would not be able to tell the difference between Gnostics and orthodox believers. In any case, decently successful religions like Buddhism and Taoism show that you can have a bunch of loopy esoteric beliefs, allegorical or not, existing side-by-side with ordinary and positive religious worship. It's pretty easy, actually, because the "holy initiate - pious layman" dichotomy is really a quite strong and natural basis for religious society. Even orthodox Christianity got a lot more stratified in religious engagement as the centuries went on.

For the problem of an evil material world, I'd suggest people look toward the Cathars and why they were so popular despite believing, in theory, the exact same thing. The symbol of a holy man who abdicates the material world - an act considered spiritually noble but impractical for the average layman - is a very, very powerful one, and no substantial religious movement yet has really tried to get all of its followers to renounce their original lives. A Gnostic Christianity might just not look too different from the Christianity divided between church, monastery and community of OTL.



This is startlingly wrong, unless you're using such a strong definition of "major" as to leave it pretty much entirely to historical coincidence. Is the entire history of continental Southeast Asia (not including the Mauryas and Palas of India) not "major" enough for you? Not a coincidence, then, given that's where Buddhism is.


To which empires are you referring? The Khemer empire was primarily Hindu. The various Chinese empires were primarily Confucian. That said, this is not my area of expertise so I am happy to learn more.
 
Actually, I think you are missing an important point, namely the "Theodicy Problem". The simple version of this problem could be stated as, "If God is Good and God created the world, why is their evil in the world?" Gnostics answer this question by saying, that God did not create this world the Demiurge (roughly the devil) did. Again, this is a fairly compelling argument. Augustine develops the concept of original sin to answer the question (the evil transmitted by Adam's disobedience to God spreads evil throughout the world). I think a key reason why Christianity did not follow a more Gnostic path is that it becomes the state religion of the Empire. The Gnostic answer to the theodicy problem is much more problematic for a state religion, particularly a state religion intended to be a unifying force, as Constantine pretty clearly intended. As others have noted Buddhism has some interesting parallels with Gnosticism. Buddhism has never been a state religion of a major empire. In China it has at best existed side by side with Confucian thought (with the later providing the ideological unifying force). Therefore, I would suggest that if you want a POD that allows Gnosticism to become dominant you cannot have Christianity become the state religion of the empire.
The Yuan Court, Thailand, Tibet etc. All coubtries that have/had a buddhist state religion.
 
RE Buddhism and Gnosticism.

So this is a somewhat common claim to compare the two as similar, but this isnt really true on much of any front, particularly for the time period we are discussing. I have discussed much of this in the recent Christian reincarnation thread, so in this I will discuss the more gnostic specific issues.

1) as stated earlier, Gnosticism is a catchall term rather than a unified system of thought.
In short, due to this and the closer to Christianity we get, the less Buddhist the religion is going to be. As such, I will be dealing with the catchall stereotypes.

2) Buddhism is not anti-materialism.
The conception that it is, afaik the kind of thing the theosophical society put out that has slowly been accepted over time.
Buddhism in the ancient world adopted an atomism that it has maintained for millenia, with both Mahayana and Therevada expanding on this over time. Not only does Nagarjuna (the founding philosopher of Mahayana and imho the plato of the east) discuss materialism, but even includes it in the cycle of rebirth (literally in opposition to the Brahminical style of reincarnation which is closer to the Gnostic standard).
Is this still present? Yes, and indeed Dr Peter Timmerman (the author of the quote in my link) is a Buddhist who writes about this misunderstanding.

3) is the world evil?
Kind of.
Its more accurate to say that Samsara is evil, but this isnt the same as the earth itself.
The earth in most Buddhist systems is itself sacred.
Many Mahayana adherants consider enlightenment to be the embodying of realising Samsara and Nirvana are two sides of the same coin. Mahayana cosmology (such as the famous wheel) has the Earth higher than the Daeva realm due to it being the only realm from which achieving Enlightenment is possible. Therevadans may point to Buddha himself placing his enlightened vows to the earth itself as an authority (fun fact, the famous pose of Buddha with one hand pointed to the ground embodies this).

3) There is no Demiurge or supreme deity.
Buddhism is very in opposition to a prime mover on an epistemic level, but gods arent really good or bad, just misguided or practitioners themselves.

4) There are reasonable candidates for comparrison closer to home.
The esoteric conception of god is native to both Stoicism and Platonism, with the Pythagorean transmigration of the soul being well known. Dualism was known well enough from Zoroastrianism which (iirc) playo even mentiones in one of his dialogues as the Persian religion.
The surrounding secretive knowledge grew up in partnership with things like Hermeticism etc.


In conclusion, comparing Buddhism to Gnosticism is a dead end, becausr they are very, very different from eachother.
 
RE Buddhism and Gnosticism.

So this is a somewhat common claim to compare the two as similar, but this isnt really true on much of any front, particularly for the time period we are discussing. I have discussed much of this in the recent Christian reincarnation thread, so in this I will discuss the more gnostic specific issues.

1) as stated earlier, Gnosticism is a catchall term rather than a unified system of thought.
In short, due to this and the closer to Christianity we get, the less Buddhist the religion is going to be. As such, I will be dealing with the catchall stereotypes.

2) Buddhism is not anti-materialism.
The conception that it is, afaik the kind of thing the theosophical society put out that has slowly been accepted over time.
Buddhism in the ancient world adopted an atomism that it has maintained for millenia, with both Mahayana and Therevada expanding on this over time. Not only does Nagarjuna (the founding philosopher of Mahayana and imho the plato of the east) discuss materialism, but even includes it in the cycle of rebirth (literally in opposition to the Brahminical style of reincarnation which is closer to the Gnostic standard).
Is this still present? Yes, and indeed Dr Peter Timmerman (the author of the quote in my link) is a Buddhist who writes about this misunderstanding.

3) is the world evil?
Kind of.
Its more accurate to say that Samsara is evil, but this isnt the same as the earth itself.
The earth in most Buddhist systems is itself sacred.
Many Mahayana adherants consider enlightenment to be the embodying of realising Samsara and Nirvana are two sides of the same coin. Mahayana cosmology (such as the famous wheel) has the Earth higher than the Daeva realm due to it being the only realm from which achieving Enlightenment is possible. Therevadans may point to Buddha himself placing his enlightened vows to the earth itself as an authority (fun fact, the famous pose of Buddha with one hand pointed to the ground embodies this).

3) There is no Demiurge or supreme deity.
Buddhism is very in opposition to a prime mover on an epistemic level, but gods arent really good or bad, just misguided or practitioners themselves.

4) There are reasonable candidates for comparrison closer to home.
The esoteric conception of god is native to both Stoicism and Platonism, with the Pythagorean transmigration of the soul being well known. Dualism was known well enough from Zoroastrianism which (iirc) playo even mentiones in one of his dialogues as the Persian religion.
The surrounding secretive knowledge grew up in partnership with things like Hermeticism etc.


In conclusion, comparing Buddhism to Gnosticism is a dead end, becausr they are very, very different from eachother.

As was shown by the Pamiers chronicles regarding the Cathars, the anti materialistic viewpoints was reserved for those of the know if you like, whilst the majority of the people with Cathar sympathies or religion had their own adaptations of these principles. Attributing items and creatures of noble character as created by the God of Light while those whom the society saw as evil or wicked, were to be seen as created by this Demiurge. Meanwhile items seen to be created by humans, such as wheat, were of neutral character. Likewise, despite the Catharism, this did not preclude the nature and tendency of people to superimpose additional beliefs, often rural and Catholic into Catharism, especially the continued usage of prayers toward the Virgin Mary and or simply simplifying the demiurge to some sort of conception of nature, whilst the God of Light was sort of on the exterior of what was seen as nature and of this planet.

In relation to the Gnostic as state religion issue as you addressed in relation to Buddhism, would it also not be somewhat possible to have groups develop which while admonishing all of the Manichaen or Cathar or what have you views, yet as it did within the Occitan, become painted over preceding beliefs, superstition and religious mythos? In my opinion, there is not huge differences between this conception and the myriad of countries which used Buddhism as its primary religion (if we go further int he past, is the Kushan not a fair example or the many Buddhist states of Tocharia, Sogdia, Shahi of Qabul, Hepthalites, etc etc).

It should be remembered that in regards to the state religion, there is issues that one may raise with religions such as Islam or Christianity in terms of the rights, privileges of the state. Islam for instance brings forward with it conceptions of tagha of exceeding the limit and the moral obligation of the Muslim to overthrow the rulings of heretical or kuffar (disbeliever) regimes. Likewise, Islam frames in its law the Sharia clearly that Allah is the ruler above any temporal ruler and the law codes limit what ever haphazard or power grabbing innovation or reform bold rulers wish to enumerate. In this sense, one may argue that according to some rulers, the assertion of a divine ruler is god or some sort of folk mythos which does not place large amounts of enumerated regulations for the state, are superior to the Abrahamic religions. Thus, to the people who are saying a 'Gnostic' religion is inferior in state situations, will you also accept my argument that the two most prominent religions on the planet today are inferior to sort of ancient Egyptian ruler worship or something similar or that they are inferior to the traditional folk religions in ancient Iraq, which placed the ruler and state as its foremost mover.
 
To which empires are you referring? The Khemer empire was primarily Hindu. The various Chinese empires were primarily Confucian. That said, this is not my area of expertise so I am happy to learn more.

Ayutthaya, Taungoo, Lan Xang, and Dai Viet - all in the second millennium, there were several more before them. Taungoo came pretty close to uniting continental Southeast Asia, which I'd definitely consider "major" (albeit only for a short period of active conquest). The Khmer Empire gradually transitioned towards Buddhism, as well, following some of its kings.

In conclusion, comparing Buddhism to Gnosticism is a dead end, becausr they are very, very different from eachother.

But they're not (or wouldn't have been) that different in social function, which is what really matters. Nor are they that different to orthodox Christianity after the communal/itinerant period. Looking for ATL probabilities in explicit belief systems is wrong - structure and function are much more important.
 
Ayutthaya, Taungoo, Lan Xang, and Dai Viet - all in the second millennium, there were several more before them. Taungoo came pretty close to uniting continental Southeast Asia, which I'd definitely consider "major" (albeit only for a short period of active conquest). The Khmer Empire gradually transitioned towards Buddhism, as well, following some of its kings.



But they're not (or wouldn't have been) that different in social function, which is what really matters. Nor are they that different to orthodox Christianity after the communal/itinerant period. Looking for ATL probabilities in explicit belief systems is wrong - structure and function are much more important.
Could you clarify what you mean by social function? I think I know what you mean but I dont want to strawman you.
 
Top