St. Augustine: online material

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rdwallin/syl/GreatBooks/202.W99/Augustine/AugustineChron.html

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/archive/index.php/t-43050.html

Thus, this is not the only paradox that Origen engages in. Origen absolutely rejected the Docetists, yet his teachings on the nature of Christ borrowed heavily from Docetism. He argued against Gnosticism, yet accepted the Emanation theory of creation, and the concept of the Logos. He rejected Plotinist Dualism, yet accepted material as an "accidental" creation caused by the fall--thus matter was not evil, but was never intended.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/

In the long and difficult controversy with the Pelagians, Augustine found his own earlier writings on the will cited by his opponents as evidence that he himself once advocated the view he came so vehemently to oppose [see Retractationes I.9.3-6]. What is more, he dies just as the Vandals are besieging the gates of Hippo, leaving unfinished yet another work against Julian of Eclanum, a Pelagian opponent of considerable intellectual resources who had, among other things, accused Augustine of holding views indistinguishable from those of the Manicheans whom Augustine had opposed so many years before [Bonner, 1999]. And here, perhaps, is an irony as cruel as it is intriguing: eleven centuries later, when the Church to which Augustine had devoted the last four and a half decades of his life was to split in a manner that still shows no signs of reconciliation, both sides would appeal to Augustine as an authority on questions of doctrine [Muller 1999; Grossi 1999].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo

Augustine did not develop an independent mariology, but his statements on Mary surpass in number and depths those of other early writers. [46] The Virgin Mary “conceived as virgin, gave birth as virgin and stayed virgin forever [47] Even before the Council of Ephesus, he defended the ever Virgin Mary as the mother of God, who, because of her virginity, is full of grace [48] She was free of any temporal sin, [49] Because of a woman, the whole human race was saved. [50]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of_Genesis

Saint Augustine, one of the most influential theologians of the Catholic Church, suggested that the Biblical text should not be interpreted literally if it contradicts what we know from science and our God-given reason. From an important passage on his "The Literal Interpretation of Genesis" (early fifth century, AD), St. Augustine wrote:
"It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation." (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [AD 408])
"With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation." (ibid, 2:9)
In the book, Augustine took the view that everything in the universe was created simultaneously by God, and not in seven days like a plain account of Genesis would require. He argues that the six-day structure of creation presented in the book of Genesis represents a logical framework, rather than the passage of time in a physical way. Augustine also doesn’t envisage original sin as originating structural changes in the universe, and even suggests that the bodies of Adam and Eve were already created mortal before the Fall. Apart from his specific views, Augustine recognizes that the interpretation of the creation story is difficult, and remarks that we should be willing to change our mind about it as new information comes up. [7]
In The City of God, Augustine also defended the idea of a young Earth. Augustine rejected both the immortality of the human race proposed by pagans, and contemporary ideas of ages (such as those of certain Greeks and Egyptians) that differed from the Church's sacred writings:
"Let us, then, omit the conjectures of men who know not what they say, when they speak of the nature and origin of the human race. For some hold the same opinion regarding men that they hold regarding the world itself, that they have always been... They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed." (Augustine, Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World’s Past, The City of God, Book 12: Chapt. 10 [AD 419]).
St. Augustine also comments on the word "day" in the creation week, admitting the interpretation is difficult:
"But simultaneously with time the world was made, if in the world's creation change and motion were created, as seems evident from the order of the first six or seven days. For in these days the morning and evening are counted, until, on the sixth day, all things which God then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of God was mysteriously and sublimely signalized. What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say!" (City of God, Book 11: Chapt. 6).

http://ecole.evansville.edu/articles/allegory.html

Several points should be noted about Augustine's composite allegorization. First, although he used the Martha/Mary pair that he inherited from Origen more frequently (it has indeed been called his "favorite illustration" [Mason, 36]), the Leah/Rachel pair serves to complement the other one rather well. While he uses the Martha/Mary pair to show the superiority and eternity of the contemplative life, Augustine uses the Leah and Rachel pair as Origen had used the figure of Peter at the Transfiguration: to show that the two lives are complementary, with both being necessary, a point that he returns to several times, as in City of God, viii, 4, "To Plato is given the praise of having perfected philosophy by combining both parts [the active and the contemplative] into one" (cf. de Cons. Evang. i, 12; de Civ. Dei xix, 1, 2, 3, 19). Since both sisters were wives of Jacob (who represents the human soul in both Philo and Augustine), they also offered such a complementary relationship: "No one desires this life for its own sake, as Jacob desired not Leah, who yet was brought to him, and became his wife, and the mother of children. Though she could not be loved of herself, the Lord made her be borne with as a step to Rachel, and then she came to be approved on account of her children" (contra Faustum xxii, 52). (Augustine may be stressing Leah's role of bearing children since Christ is descended from her, not Rachel.) The fact that one sister was married first and therefore the relationships were sequential also worked well in the allegory (perhaps, Augustine thought, better than the Martha/Mary or Peter/John pairs). It also determined that it would be Leah who would represent the active life; to this end, Augustine, like Philo, quotes Gen 29:26, though for Augustine this is to show the correctness of marrying Leah first. For Augustine, the active life leads to the reward of the contemplative, as marriage to Leah leads to the reward of the beloved Rachel: "So, in the discipline of man, the toil of doing the work of righteousness precedes the delight of understanding the truth" (contra Faustum xxii, 52). (Augustine may also have been influenced in his choice of Leah as the active life by the earlier allegorizations of Justin and Irenaeus [Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 134; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer.] that identified Rachel with the Church and Leah with Israel; since for the Fathers, the Church is superior to Israel, as Rachel is superior to Leah, so here she must represent the superior life of contemplation.) Unlike the Martha/Mary or Peter/John pairs, the Leah/Rachel pair offers an image for the active and contemplative lives in which they are successive and necessary stages, the second of which is the superior, more beloved, and more divine.


http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/114/10/327

http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/07/melanchthon-aga.html

Origen and Erasmus agree on an exegetical point that was unwelcome to Augustinian thinkers. Erasmus was the first Western exegete to point out that the eph’hô in Romans 5:12 does not mean ‘in whom all had sinned’ but ‘in that all had sinned’. He notes that when Origen says that ‘the death which had come to him from the transgression consequently passed through to them as well, who were dwelling in his loins’ (V, 1.201-3; S 1.311; M 1010) he is not talking of original sin inherited by infants but is ‘showing why the blessed Paul makes neither the devil nor Eve the author of sin’ (Erasmus, 143), and the continuation of Origen’s text shows he is thinking of human imitation of the sin of Adam. Origen argues, in a way Erasmus finds ‘forced’, that ‘sin was passed down only in the world, that is, to those of a worldly spirit’ (see V, 1.215-32; M 1010). This is echoed by Pelagius, in a text ascribed to Jerome: ‘it passed to all those who lived in a human way, rather than divine... to all those who transgressed the natural law... They sinned through the example of Adam’ (Erasmus, 142).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origen

He interpreted scripture allegorically and showed himself to be a Neo-Pythagorean, and Neo-Platonist.[5] Like Plotinus, he wrote that the soul passes through successive stages of incarnation before eventually reaching God.[5] He imagined even demons being reunited with God.
---
A strict adherent of the Church, Origen yet distinguished sharply between the ideal and the empirical Church, representing "a double church of men and angels", or, in Platonic phraseology, the lower church and its celestial ideal. The ideal Church alone was the Church of Christ, scattered over all the earth; the other provided also a shelter for sinners. Holding that the Church, as being in possession of the mysteries, affords the only means of salvation, he was indifferent to her external organization, although he spoke sometimes of the office-bearers as the pillars of the Church, and of their heavy duties and responsibilities.
More important to him was the idea borrowed from Plato of the grand division between the great human multitude, capable of sensual vision only, and those who know how to comprehend the hidden meaning of Scripture and the diverse mysteries, church organization being for the former only.
---
For quite some time, Origen was counted as one of the most important church fathers and his works were widely used in the Church. His exegetical method was standard of the School of Alexandria and the Origenists were an important party in the 4th century debates on Arianism.

http://www.helsinki.fi/collegium/english/staff/Sihvola/Sihvola%5B1%5D..Aristotle,%20the%20Stoics.pdf

Augustine applied Stoic moral psychology in a rather straightforward way and interpreted, it from a theological viewpoint. For the Church Father, the aim of human life was the, union with God, and he described the nature of this union in very emotional, even erotic, terms. However, the union with God corresponded with the Stoic ideal of apatheia in the, sense that it, too, required the extirpation of all desires and emotions that disturbed, virtuous activity in the full command of reason.4,

Augustine differed in an important respect from Aristotle and the Stoics as well as from, all pagan philosophy in the antiquity. The Church Father did not hold it as possible even, in principle for the human beings to reach perfect happiness in the fusion with God by, their own efforts. The differences between Aristotle, the Stoics, and Augustine are rather, subtle here, so I try to express them clearly. All three views agree that there are not too, many humans who are virtuous and wise, but disagree on the explanations of this fact., The rareness of the virtuous is explained by the pagan philosophers, especially Aristotle, by the external circumstances that prevent the natural rational and moral capacities and, inclinations from their development. The Christian tradition represented by Augustine did, not blame circumstances but the original sin. The Christians claimed that the human, moral capacities were internally corrupted in The Fall. The differences between the three, views can also be expressed as follows. For Aristotle, natural human inclinations are, directed towards the good, and the function of virtue is to complete the natural, development. The later Stoics introduced the idea that there are irrational ones among the, natural inclinations, but they still insisted that the humans at least in principle have, resources to combat these inclinations. Augustine held that even the resources to combat, the irrational inclinations are seriously corrupted in all of us.

4 On the influence of ancient psychological theories to the Christian tradition, see especially Simo, Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Oxford: Clarendon 2004.

In the Augustinean view, the natural movements of the body and soul tear the human, beings away from what is right and from God by necessity, even if the humans may know, the will of God by their reason or by revelation. This is all due to the original sin. The, original sin and its expressions in natural inclinations would not be particularly, reprehensible and the acts of human beings would not be counted as further sins, if they, immediately used their free will to extirpate the passions raised by those appearances that, have a power to move their natural inclinations. Unfortunately, the original sin did not, only corrupt our natural desires, it also corrupted our capacity to use of our free will to, control those desires. Augustine insists that our will is free, and we are responsible for, our use of it. The will weakened by the original sin is, however, only able to express itself, in choices between the different varieties of vice. Virtue is quite beyond reach by our, own efforts.

The Augustinean conception of humanity is painted in much darker colors than its, predecessors in the pagan antiquity. The Stoic influence is still prominent. Human, susceptibility to emotions and impulses that disturb the rational command of life, and the, distinction between two types of psychological movements, those that are direct, consequences of the human nature, and those that are results from voluntary acts of the, will, are to a large extent ideas derived from and expressed in the vocabulary of the Stoic, framework.

Augustine held that if there were no power to control the human beings a violent anarchy, would emerge. However, he made two important amendments that somewhat mitigated, the disastrous consequences of human sinfulness. First, God had established the secular, authority the function of which is to uphold social order and prevent a full chaos, although it cannot make human life any more acceptable to God. Second, God has in his, grace decided to save a modest number of human beings through the Christ to an eternal, happiness without any desert of their own. Salvation is a predestined part of the divine, plan, and human beings possess no capacity to understand why God has decided to do, what he has done. We do not even know, who will be saved and who will be doomed to, an eternal damnation. Even the saved themselves do not know this for certain.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/n/neostoic.htm

The existence of a forged correspondence between Seneca and St. Paul, accepted as genuine by St. Augustine and St. Jerome, may well have contributed to the thought that it was possible to combine Stoic ethics with Christian teaching.

http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/article_augustine_copan.html

The atmosphere of North African Christendom in which Augustine grew up reflected the influential thought of Tertullian (d. ca. 220), who asked, "What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?"5 The porch of Solomon, where Jesus would customarily teach, was sufficient for him. Tertullian then added: "I have no use for a Stoic or a Platonic or a dialectic Christianity. After Jesus we have no need of speculation, after the Gospel no need of research."
Although Tertullian did utilize stoic philosophy, pre-Socratic philosophers, and even Aristotle (who studied at Plato's academy in Athens, which apparently had more to do with Jerusalem than Tertullian let on), his aversion to philosophy was no secret.6 His fideistic comment, "I believe because it is foolish,"7 was not merely idiosyncratic with Tertullian. Along with his theological successor Cyprian, who was slightly less strident than his master, Tertullian exerted a powerful influence upon North African Christendom's antiintellectualism.8 Such a remark by Tertullian typified the antiintellectual Christianity among the Catholic clergy of this entire region. For instance Augustine addressed the council of bishops of the African Church in October of 393, an address preserved in his Faith and the Creed. Rather than utilize heavy theological language he had to resort to very plain speech and follow the basic creedal statements of Christianity even for high-ranking church officials.9 In 412 Augustine received a letter from Consentius, a fellow bishop, who reflected this lack of appreciation for the intellect: "God is not to be sought after by reason but followed through authority."10
Such narrow-mindedness and lack of theological and intellectual rigor are easier to understand when we consider the historical context of the North African Church. By necessity Christians devoted their energies to enduring opposition and even martyrdom up until Constantine's conversion to Christianity and his making Christianity the official religion of the empire. Christians had been understandably more concerned to gather together to pray and encourage one another than engage in scholarly discussion. But by the time of Augustine, Christians still had not devoted much time and energy to theological reflection or interaction with the intellectual ideas circulating around the Mediterranean region.
The lack of theological rigor had detrimental side effects, one of which was the infiltration of Manichean beliefs into the Church. The Donatists would mock the African Catholic congregations because of the proliferation of Manichean heresies within them. Even Augustine mentioned a subdeacon within the Catholic Church who had concurrently been a member of the Manichees for years. He aroused no one's suspicion.11 Such a heretical presence within North African Catholicism was commonplace. John O'Meara elaborates:
Men could change their allegiance from Christianity to Manicheism - and vice versa - without attracting as much attention as they would if they had changed to the Donatists. It even happened that Christian ministers were, after many years' performance of their functions, discovered to have been Manichees all the time.12
The dearth of theological endeavor had yet another negative side effect: authoritarianism and antiintellectualism among North African Catholic clergy. Closemindedness seemed to be characteristic among these Church leaders. Augustine urges the inquirer who desires to find the truth not to despair when he encounters antiintellectualism among the Church leadership:
And should the inquirer meet with some, whether bishops or presbyters, or any officials or ministers of the Catholic Church, who either avoid in all cases opening up mysteries, or, content with simple faith, have no desire for more recondite knowledge, he must not despair of finding the knowledge of the truth in a case where neither are all able to teach to whom the inquiry is addressed, nor are all inquirers worthy of learning the truth. Diligence and piety are both necessary: on the one hand, we must have knowledge to find truth, and on the other hand, we must deserve to get the knowledge.13
Augustine had once been a seeker in just this atmosphere—an authoritarian one in which church leaders offered questioners no reasoned answers but rather intimidated the laity to blindly accept Church teaching without question.14 Eugene Teselle characterizes Augustine's conservative Catholic environment as stressing "reverence for divine authority at the expense of rational inquiry" and perhaps even "inclined to counsel blind faith."15 So when the questions Augustine was raising were not answered by the Catholic clergy he looked elsewhere for intellectual satisfaction.

http://www.ul.ie/~philos/vol6/augustine.html

The most important texts of Augustine’s later period are the so-called ‘anti-Pelagian’ writings (dated 400 onwards) and the monumental City of God (completed in 426). The Pelagian conflict splits Augustine’s work through the middle, separating his earlier more "humanist" work (On Free Will, completed 388) from his later, more theocentric thought (Retractations, The City of God).
The controversy stems from what Augustine regards as a serious misinterpretation of his work by Pelagius, in particular Pelagius’ reading of On Free Will. In this latter text, Augustine is addressing the issue of "the origin of evil" and as such his emphasis is on the responsibility for this evil which attaches exclusively to the "free will" of the individual human being. In this context, he makes no reference to "God’s grace" insofar as, for Augustine, God is not responsible in any way for the existence of evil.
However, Pelagius reads this emphasis on free will as a sign that Augustine wishes to make humanity independent of God when it comes to moral action. In other words, Pelagius interprets Augustine’s claim that free will is responsible for evil as a claim that free will can choose between good and evil. This would make free will the basis of moral as well as immoral action and would credit the individual with the ability to be virtuous, independently of God’s grace.
We have already seen in our discussion of On Free Will that there are good textual grounds for such a claim and yet it is precisely this claim which Augustine wishes to unequivocally refute:
Hence the recent Pelagian heretics, who hold a theory of free choice of will which leaves no place for the grace of God, since they hold it is given in accordance with our merits, must not boast of my support (Retractations, Book 1 Chapter 9).
Pelagius has apparently interpreted Augustine’s emphasis on the autonomy of the will out of context. Augustine is now claiming that the will has an exclusively negative autonomy. That is, it is capable of doing wrong on its own volition but not capable of doing good on its own volition. Indeed Augustine tries to show that he has already clarified this very issue in the text On Free Will:
But, though man fell through his own will, he cannot rise through his own will. Therefore, let us believe firmly that God’s arm, that is, Our Lord Jesus Christ, is stretched out to us from on high (2.20.54).
There has been much debate and disagreement about the truth of this situation. Did Pelagius interpret Augustine correctly? Is Augustine being honest about his intentions in On Free Will, or rather did he over-stress human will and seek to pretend otherwise in hindsight? This is a fascinating and ongoing hermeneutic question, but I want to move on from the specifics of it here and address its primary importance from the point of view of our own thematic.

http://www.lost-history.com/fallofrome.php

Much of Rome’s previous cultural identity was destroyed during Theodosius’ reign as he sought to transform the pagan west into the Christian east. Despite the fact that it had been less than 80 years since Emperors Diocletian and his cohort Galerius had inaugurated the worst of the great persecutions against Christianity, the entire empire was now expected to instantly convert to the once-despised religion. Constantine had spent a great amount of time and energy in unifying the church, but now that the church was more unified in structure and popularity, the emperor Theodosius found himself being beckoned by the church rather than the other way around. When Theodosius conducted a massacre of some 10,000 people from Thessalonica in revenge for an uprising, St. Ambrose excommunicated him and refused him communion until he acknowledged his sin of shedding innocent blood. At first Theodosius refused, but was eventually forced into several months of public penance at Milan’s cathedral, giving ample proof of the church‘s political power.The laws banning the traditional gods from the Roman Empire soon took the form of destroying any and all things pagan. Even though Theodosius was at first against this, arguing that Pagan statues should be left intact and temples should be converted into public buildings, he soon bowed to the church’s pressure. The Theodosian Decrees he issued in 391, which are believed to have been heavily influenced by or credited to St. Ambrose, brought about the destruction of the gigantic Serapeum temple in Egypt and its adjacent library, built in the 200s B.C. in honor of the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis. The Latin theologian and historian Tyrannius Rufinus located the destruction in the city of Canopus, but the church historians Sozomen and Socrates of Constantinople placed it in Alexandria. All three make mention of a story, from either 389 or 391, in which the looting Christians were surprised to find symbols so close to the cross: the ankh, the familiar Egyptian symbol of eternal life, and the Tau cross, symbol of Tammuz and root of the letter T. Socrates gives further particulars in his Ecclesiastical History, saying:
“Whilst they were demolishing and despoiling the temple of Serapis, they found characters, engraved in stone, of the kind called hieroglyphics, the which chracters had the figure of the cross. When the Christians and the [Pagan] Greeks saw this, they referred the signs to their own religions. The Christians, who regarded the cross as the symbol of the salutary passion of Christ, thought that this character was their own. But the Greeks said it was common to Christ and Serapis; though this cruciform character is, in fact, one thing to the Christians, and another to the Greeks. A controversy having arisen, some of the Greeks converted to Christianity, who understood the hieroglyphics, interpreted the cross-like figure to signify ‘The Life to come.’ The Christians, seizing on this as in favor of their religion, gathered boldness and assurance; and as it was shown by other sacred characters that the temple of Serapis was to have an end when was brought to light this cruciform character, signifying ‘The Life to come,’ a great number were converted and were baptized, confessing their sins.”
---
In the 18th century classic, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon provides an exhaustive analysis of the factors leading the empire’s demise. Chief among these reasons is the supplanting of the classical tradition of the Roman community with Christian beliefs. No doubt influenced by works like that of St. Augustine, Gibbon saw Christianity as bringing about a mystical ambivalence that translated into neglect towards the real world. In the 38th chapter, Gibbon writes:
"As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear, without surprise or scandal, that the introduction, or at least the abuse, of Christianity had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of the military spirit were buried in the cloister; a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes, who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and the more earthly passions of malice and ambition kindled the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody, and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country. Yet party-spirit, however pernicious or absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their frequent assemblies, and perpetual correspondence, maintained the communion of distant churches: and the benevolent temper of the gospel was strengthened, though confined, by the spiritual alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but, if superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser motives, the standard of the republic. Religious precepts are easily obeyed, which indulge and sanctify the natural inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though imperfect, effects on the Barbarian proselytes of the North. If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Marius_Victorinus

Victorinus at some unknown point left Africa for Rome (hence some modern scholars have dubbed him Afer), probably for a position teaching, and had great success in his career, eventually being promoted to the lowest level of the senatorial order. That promotion probably came at the time when he received an honorific statue in the Forum of Trajan in 354 (Jerome supplied biographical information but was not his student). Victorinus' conversion from a Platonist to Roman Catholic (c. 355)--"at an advanced old age" according to Jerome-- made a great impression on Augustine of Hippo, as recounted in Book 8[1] of the latter's Confessions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caelestius

It is believed Caelestius met Pelagius in the late 4th century in the city of Rome. Pelagius taught that a rigorous moral asceticism was required of Christians by God, Who they said required Christians to struggle against evil behavior using, for the most part, the teachings of the Bible and the example of the Christian saints.
For several decades before the doctrine of sin was fully worked out by the Roman Catholic Church, this teaching brought both of them into numerous theological disputes about the nature of sin with several Christian leaders in the church.
Among them were the Bishop of the northern African Roman province of Hippo, Augustine, (later known as "Saint Augustine,") and the theologian Jerome. Augustine especially did more than any other Father of the Church to develop the doctrine of Original sin, mostly in reaction to his disputes with Pelagius and Caelestius, which remain in Augustine's numerous writings.
---
After they left Rome when it was attacked and burned by the Visigoths in 410, Pelagius and Caelestius faced constant attacks against their teachings by Augustine, Jerome and their followers, who sought to have the Pope declare their views "heretical," or contrary to Christian teachings.
---
Throughout their career, both Pelagius and Caelestius found a more welcome reception in the Eastern Roman Empire for their teachings than in the west. This same view is also shared by the German Protestant theologian Hans von Campenhausen in his book "The Fathers of Church" when discussing the relationship of pelagianism with the orthodox champion Saint Augustine.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_of_Alexandria

Theophilus of Alexandria, (died 412) was Patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt from 385 to 412. He is regarded as a saint by the Coptic Orthodox Church.
He was a Coptic Pope at a time of conflict between the newly dominant Christians and the pagan establishment in Alexandria, each supported by a segment of the Alexandrian populace.
In 391, Theophilus (according to Rufinus and Sozomen) discovered a hidden pagan temple. He and his followers mockingly displayed the pagan artifacts to the public which offended the pagans enough to provoke an attack on the Christians. The Christian faction counter-attacked, forcing the pagans to retreat to the Serapeum. A letter was sent by the emperor that Theophilus should grant the offending pagans pardon, but destroy the temple.
The destruction of the Serapeum was seen by many ancient and modern authors as representative of the triumph of Christianity over other religions. When the philosopher Hypatia was lynched by an Alexandrian mob, they acclaimed Theophilus's nephew and successor Cyril as "the new Theophilus, for he had destroyed the last remains of idolatry in the city".[1]
Theophilus turned on the followers of Origen after having supported them for a time. He was accompanied by his nephew Cyril to Constantinople in 403 and there presided at the "Synod of the Oak" that deposed John Chrysostom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chrysostom

Saint John Chrysostom (c. 347–407, Greek: Ιωάννης ο Χρυσόστομος), archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his eloquence in preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and his ascetic sensibilities.
---
Chrysostom held Jews responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus and deicide (killing God, see "Jewish deicide" for the subject) and added that they continued to rejoice in Jesus's death.[37] He compared the synagogue to a pagan temple, representing it as the source of all vices and heresies.[38] He described it as a place worse than a brothel and a drinking shop; it was a den of scoundrels, the repair of wild beasts, a temple of demons, the refuge of brigands and debauchees, and the cavern of devils, a criminal assembly of the assassins of Christ.[39] Palladius, Chrysostom's contemporary biographer, also recorded his claim that among the Jews the priesthood may be purchased and sold for money.[40] Finally, he declared that he - in accordance with the sentiments of the saints - hated both the synagogue and the Jews.[41]
---
Chrysostom's Adversus Judaeos homilies have been circulated by many groups to foster anti-Semitism.[48] James Parkes called the writing on Jews "the most horrible and violent denunciations of Judaism to be found in the writings of a Christian theologian".[49] His sermons against Jews gave momentum to the idea that Jews are collectively responsible for the death of Jesus.[50] British historian Paul Johnson claimed that Chrysostom's homilies "became the pattern for anti-Jewish tirades, making the fullest possible use (and misuse) of key passages in the gospels of Saints Matthew and John. Thus a specifically Christian anti-Semitism, presenting the Jews as murderers of Christ, was grafted on to the seething mass of pagan smears and rumours, and Jewish communities were now at risk in every Christian city."[51] During World War II, the Nazi Party in Germany abused his work in an attempt to legitimize the Holocaust in the eyes of German and Austrian Christians. His works were frequently quoted and reprinted as a witness for the prosecution.[48]
After World War II, the Christian churches denounced Nazi use of Chrysostom's works, explaining his words with reference to the historical context. According to Laqueur, it was argued that in the 4th century, the general discourse was brutal and aggressive and that at the time when the Christian church was fighting for survival and recognition, mercy and forgiveness were not in demand.[48] According to Patristics scholars, opposition to any particular view during the late fourth century was conventionally expressed in a manner, utilizing the rhetorical form known as the psogos, whose literary conventions were to vilify opponents in an uncompromising manner; thus, it has been argued that to call Chrysostom an "anti-Semite" is to employ anachronistic terminology in a way incongruous with historical context and record.[52]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Innocent_I

It was during Innocent I's papacy that the siege of Rome by Alaric I (395-410) and the Visigoths (408) took place, when, according to an anecdote of Zosimus, the ravages of plague and famine were so frightful, and divine help seemed so far off, that papal permission was granted to sacrifice and pray to the pagan deities. The pope, however, happened to be absent from the city on a mission to Honorius at Ravenna at the time of the sack in 410.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Anastasius_I

Pope Saint Anastasius I was pope from November 27, 399 to 401.
He condemned the writings of the Alexandrian theologian Origen shortly after their translation into Latin.
Among his friends were Augustine, Jerome, and Paulinus. Jerome speaks of him as a man of great holiness who was rich in his poverty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Aurelius_Symmachus

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 340 – c. 402), the cultured and prominent son of a prominent father, Lucius Aurelius Avianius Symmachus, in the patrician gens Aurelia, held the offices of proconsul of Africa in 373, urban prefect of Rome in 384 and 385, and consul in 391. A representative of the traditional cursus honorum, Symmachus was a pagan at a time when the senatorial aristocracy was rapidly converting to Christianity.
In 382, the Emperor Gratian, a Christian, ordered the Altar of Victory removed from the Curia, the Roman Senate house in the Forum. Symmachus led a delegation of protest, which the emperor refused to receive. Two years later, Gratian was assassinated in Lugdunum, and Symmachus, now Prefect of Rome, renewed the appeal to Gratian's successor, Valentinian II, in a famous dispatch that was rebutted by Ambrose, the bishop of Milan. In an age when all religious communities credited the divine power with direct involvement in human affairs, Symmachus argues that the removal of the altar had caused a famine and its restoration would be beneficial in other ways. Subtly he pleads for tolerance for traditional cult practices and beliefs that Christianity was poised to suppress in the Theodosian edicts of 391.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose

Ambrose's influence upon Theodosius is credited with eliciting the enactment of the "Theodosian decrees" of 391 (see entry Theodosius I).
---
One interpretation of Ambrose's writings is that he was a Christian universalist.[12] It has been noted that Ambrose's theology was significantly influenced by that of Origen and Didymus the Blind, two other early Christian universalists.[12]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome

He seems to have abstained for a considerable time from the study of the classics and to have plunged deeply into that of the Bible, under the impulse of Apollinaris of Laodicea, then teaching in Antioch and not yet suspected of heresy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orosius
After entering the priesthood, he took an interest in the Priscillianist controversy then going on in his native country. He went to consult with Augustine at Hippo (now Annaba in Algeria) in 413 or 414, possibly in connection with this controversy. After staying for some time in North Africa as Augustine's disciple, he was reportedly sent by him in 415 to Palestine with a letter of introduction to Jerome, then living in Bethlehem.
The ostensible purpose of his mission (apart from the typical intent of pilgrimage and perhaps relic-hunting) was that he might gain further instruction from Jerome on the points raised by the Priscillianists and Origenists. In reality, it would seem that his business was to assist Jerome and others against Pelagius, who, after the synod of Carthage in 411, had been living in Palestine, and finding some acceptance there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priscillian

Priscillian, bishop of Ávila (died 385), a theologian from Roman Gallaecia (in the Iberian Peninsula), was the first person in the history of Christianity to be executed for heresy (though the civil charges were for the practice of magic). He founded an ascetic group that, in spite of persecution, continued to subsist in Hispania and Gaul until the later 6th century.
---
The long prevalent estimation of Priscillian as a heretic and Manichaean rested upon Augustine, Turibius of Astorga, Leo the Great and Orosius (who quotes a fragment of a letter of Priscillian's), although at the Council of Toledo in 400, fifteen years after Priscillian's death, when his case was reviewed, the most serious charge that could be brought was the error of language involved in a misrendering of the word innascibilis ("unbegettable").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priscillianism

Priscillianism is a Christian doctrine developed in the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania) in the 4th century by Priscillian, derived from the Gnostic-Manichaean doctrines taught by Marcus, an Egyptian from Memphis, and later considered a heresy by the Roman Catholic Church.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turibius_of_Astorga

Priscillian's ascetic beliefs, which originated in Galicia[4], spread over the Tierra de Campos ruled by the Arian Visigoths, and was opposed by him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Gaul

The Church of Gaul passed through three dogmatic crises. Its bishops seem to have been greatly preoccupied with Arianism; as a rule they clung to the teaching of the Council of Nicaea, in spite of a few temporary or partial defections. Athanasius, who had been exiled to Trier (336-38), exerted a powerful influence on the episcopate of Gaul; one of the great champions of orthodoxy in the West was Hilary of Poitiers, who also suffered exile for his constancy. Priscillianism had a greater hold on the masses of the faithful. It was above all a method, an ideal of Christian life, which appealed to all, even to women. It was condemned (380) at the Synod of Saragossa where the Bishops of Bordeaux and Agen were present; none the less it spread rapidly in Central Gaul, Eauze in particular being a stronghold. When in 385 the usurper Maximus put Priscillian and his friends to death, St. Martin was in doubt how to act, but repudiated with horror communion with the bishops who had condemned the unfortunates. Priscillianism, indeed, was more or less bound up with the cause of asceticism in general. Finally the bishops and monks of Gaul were long divided over Pelagianism. Proculus, Bishop of Marseille, had obliged Leporius, a disciple of Pelagius, to leave Gaul, but it was not long before Marseille and Lérins, led by Cassian, Vincent and Faustus, became hotbeds of a teaching opposed to St. Augustine's and known as Semipelagianism. Prosper of Aquitaine wrote against it, and was obliged to take refuge at Rome. It was not until the beginning of the sixth century that the teaching of Augustine triumphed, when a monk of Lérins, Caesarius of Arles, an almost servile disciple of Augustine, caused it to be adopted by the Council of Orange (529).
---
The barbarians, however, were on the march. The great invasion of 407 made the Goths masters of all the country to the south of the Loire, with the exception of Bourges and Clermont, which did not fall into their hands until 475; Arles succumbed in 480. Then the Visigoth kingdom was organized, Arian in religion, and at first hostile to Catholicism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_heresies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinomianism

Beginning with Augustine[5], many have seen a connection to Noahide Law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audianism

Audianism was a fourth-century Christian heresy, named after the leader of the sect, Audius (or Audaeus).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcellions

The circumcellions were fanatical bands of predatory peasants that flourished in North Africa in the 4th century.[1] They preferred to be known as agonistici ("fighters(for Christ)").[1] At first they were concerned with remedying social grievances, but they became linked with the Donatist sect.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donatism

The Donatists (named for the Berber Christian Donatus Magnus) were followers of a belief considered a schism by the broader churches of the Catholic tradition, and most particularly within the context of the religious milieu of the provinces of Roman North Africa in Late Antiquity. They lived in the Roman province of Africa and flourished in the fourth and fifth centuries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebionites

In 375, Epiphanius records the settlement of Ebionites on Cyprus, but by the mid-5th century, Theodoret of Cyrrhus reported that they were no longer present in the region.[28]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euchites

The Euchites or Messalians were a sect condemned as heretical in a synod of 383CE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism

However, the strictures against Marcionism predate the authority, claimed by the First Council of Nicaea in 325, to declare what is heretical against the Church.
---
Marcionism continued in the West for 300 years, although Marcionistic ideas persisted much longer.[3]
The organization continued in the East for some centuries later, particularly outside the Byzantine Empire in areas which later would be dominated by Manichaeism. This is no accident: Mani is believed to have been a Mandaean, and Mandaeanism is related to Marcionism in several ways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennialism

Into the late fourth century, the Bishop known as Ambrose of Milan had millennial leanings (Ambrose of Milan. Book II. On the Belief in the Resurrection, verse 108).
---
Chiliasm was, however, according to the interpretation of non-chiliasts, condemned as a heresy in the 4th century by the Church, which included the phrase whose Kingdom shall have no end in the Nicene Creed in order to rule out the idea of a Kingdom of God which would last for only 1000 literal years.[8] Despite some writers' belief in millennialism, it was a decided minority view, as expressed in the nearly universal condemnation of the doctrine over a gradual period of time, beginning with Augustine of Hippo. It is vigorously disputed whether or not caesaropapism had a role in the virtual annihilation of millennialism from the 4th Century onwards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montanism

Although orthodox Nicene Christianity prevailed against Montanism within a few generations, labeling it a heresy, the sect persisted in some isolated places into the 8th century. Some people have drawn parallels between Montanism and modern Pentecostalism (which some call Neo-Montanism). The most widely known Montanist was undoubtedly Tertullian, who was the foremost Latin church writer before he converted to Montanism.
---
A letter of Jerome to Marcella, written in 385, refutes the claims of Montanists that had been troubling her (letter 41) [1].
A group of "Tertullianists" continued to exist at Carthage. The anonymous author of Praedestinatus records that a preacher came to Rome in 388 where he made many converts and obtained the use of a church for his congregation on the grounds that the martyrs to whom it was dedicated had been Montanists.[2] He was obliged to flee after the victory of Theodosius I. Augustine records that the Tertullianist group dwindled to almost nothing in his own time, and finally was reconciled to the church and handed over their basilica.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagianism

Pelagianism was opposed by Augustine of Hippo, who is known today as a Church Father of Catholicism. Augustine was converted to Christianity out of the Gnostic sect Manicheanism. When Pelagius taught that moral perfection was attainable in this life because of free will, Augustine counteracted this by saying that perfection was impossible because we are born sinners with a sinful flesh. The Pelagians charged Augustine with teaching Gnosticism by teaching original sin, because the Gnostics taught that the flesh was sinful, which was why they denied that Jesus came in the flesh. Augustine also taught that a person's salvation comes solely through an irresistible free gift, the efficacious grace of God, and that no free choice was involved in salvation. The debate of Pelagius vs. Augustine was free will vs. original sin. Augustine was not successful in having Pelagius condemned by the Church. He therefore had the political powers severely persecute him.[citation needed] Years after Pelagius died, Pelagianism was condemned, aided by the fact that Pelagius could not defend himself against Augustine's charges.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentianism

Disciples of Valentinus continued to be active into the fourth century CE, after the Roman Empire was declared to be Christian[2].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollinarism

Apollinarism or Apollinarianism was a view proposed by Apollinaris of Laodicea (died 390) that Jesus had a human body and lower soul (the seat of the emotions) but a divine mind.
---
It was declared to be a heresy in 381 by the First Council of Constantinople, since Christ was officially depicted as fully human and fully God.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism

The controversy over Arianism began to rise in the late 3rd century and extended over the greater part of the 4th century and involved most church members, simple believers, priests and monks as well as bishops, emperors and members of Rome's imperial family. Yet, such a deep controversy within the Church could not have materialized in the 3rd and 4th centuries without some significant historical influences providing the basis for the Arian doctrines. Most orthodox or mainstream Christian historians define and minimize the Arian conflict as the exclusive construct of Arius and a handful of rogue bishops engaging in heresy. Of the roughly three hundred bishops in attendance at the Council of Nicea, only three bishops did not sign the Nicene Creed. However to minimize the extent of Arianism ignores the fact that extremely prominent Emperors such as Constantius II, the first Christian Emperor, and Valens were Arians, as well as prominent Gothic, Vandal and Lombard warlords both before and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and that none of these groups were out of the mainstream of the Roman Empire in the 4th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docetism

In the contra epistulam fundamenti, Augustine of Hippo makes reference to the Manichaeans believing that Jesus was Docetic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonians_(religious_group)

The Macedonians were a Christian sect of the 4th century AD, named after Bishop Macedonius I of Constantinople. They professed a belief similar[1][dubious – discuss] to that of Arianism, but apparently denying the divinity of the Holy Spirit,[2] and regarding the substance of Jesus Christ as being the same in kind as that of God the Father. They are regarded to have taught that the Holy Spirit was a creation of the Son, and a servant of the Father and the Son. This is what prompted the addition of “And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son is equally worshipped and glorified, Who spake by the Prophets,” into the Nicene Creed at the second ecumenical council. [3]
---
Their teachings were formally condemned in 381 by the First Council of Constantinople. The Council responded to the theological challenge of the Macedonians by revising the Nicene Creed into present form used in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches and prohibited[citation needed] any further alteration of the Creed without the assent of an Ecumenical Council. The Macedonian heresy was subsequently suppressed by the emperor Theodosius I.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutychianism

Eutychianism refers to a set of Christian theological doctrines derived from the ideas of Eutyches of Constantinople (c. 380—456).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorianism

Nestorius (c. 386–c. 451) was a pupil of Theodore of Mopsuestia in Antioch in Syria (modern Turkey) and later became Archbishop of Constantinople.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilanthropism

In Christology, Psilanthropism is the view that Jesus was merely human. The expression "merely human" can refer either to Jesus' substance (nothing more than a man) or to his existence in time (no existence prior to his becoming a man), or both. The presumed etymology of "psilanthropism" stems from the Greek psilo (merely, only) and anthropos (man, human being).
Psilanthropism was rejected by the ecumenical councils, especially in the First Council of Nicaea, which was convened to deal directly with this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabellianism

Epiphanius (Haeres 62) about 375 AD notes that the adherents of Sabellius were still to be found in great numbers, both in Mesopotamia and at Rome.[4]

http://www.soaringoaks.org/userFiles/File/resources/ancient_church_history/Ancient%20Church%20History%20Part%2014%20Lecture%20Notes.doc

Gnosticism Defined… sort of

I’ve been reading about Gnosticism quite a bit lately, and a major issue is definition. How you define Gnosticism determines which Gnostic sects you include and which Gnostic sects you include determines how you define Gnosticism. It can be rather circular. The confusion is partly because the heresiologists who used the term didn’t seem to really know what they meant by it other than lumping all heretical early Christianities together. Defined by the heresiologists, Christianity came first and the Gnostics were just minor splinter groups. However, the evidence doesn’t really support this view. You can define Gnostics narrowly enough so that the term becomes limited to a set of groups starting in the second century, but that is just a definition of convvenience.

It all starts seeming rather silly. Gnostics often have been categorized as dualistic with hatred of earthly existence. But some Gnostics seemed less dualistic than the Catholics and I don’t sense that all Gnostics hated earthly existence, not any more than Christianity in general. The Gnostics believed there was something wrong with the world, but pretty much every religion believes this in one way or another.

As I see it at the moment, there are two major defining elements and two more minor elements.
The first major element is that the Gnostics were syncretistic, but this can get over-emphasized. The second major element is that they didn’t just syncretize anything they came across. They favored certain thought systems and fit them to the cultural environment they found themselves in. They favored Greek Thought and Mystery Religions of the more philosophical varieties (Platonism, Orphism, Cynicism). These in turn were grounded in the Alexandrian mixture of ideas from Egypt.

When you get down to it, Egyptian mythology is at the core of Gnosticism. The Egyptian core is more important than the syncretism. Gnostic syncretism formed around this seed of solar mythology which is a mix of complex relationships of deities held together by the early formlations of monotheism.

This is why Gnostics are similar to the Hermeticists in some ways. Through the Hermeticist similarities, we discover the two minor elements: a layered reality and archons. Basically, they saw the world as a complex play of realms, powers, and beings… but its unclear to what extent they believed in these literally or as allegories.

So, using this more broad definition, Gnostics preceded Christianity. The difference is that Gnosticism represents a broad grouping of religious sects and Christianity is a specific religion. All Christians believe in Jesus Christ, but not all Gnostics do.

Gnosticism as we normally think of it is nothing other than these earlier strains colliding with Romanized Jewish culture. On the Graeco-Roman side, solar deities (Mithras, Horus, etc.) became a prototype of savior god-man. On the Jewish side, the Messiah conformed the solar deity to a specific cultural hope. On the other side of these influences, Gnosticism came out with the Christ figure… and later in the second century Catholicism formed. However, Hellenized Jews were only one variety of Gnostics. Gnostics was just a trend and in other cultures it became other things.

Buddhists and Hindus were also around in the Roman Empire. The Gnostics influenced by these religions became someting else, but we don’t know much about them besides detecting the influence in some Gnostic texts. Hinduism in particular has a lot of Gnostic-like elements: solar deities, savior god-men, hierarchical universe, secret names (mantras) that help one to pass through the hierarchical realms, etc.

Ultimately, no one is really clear what groups specifically were what. The Therapeutae may have been early Gnostics or Buddhist or ascetic Jews… or even a mix of all three. The Gnostics formed distinctive strains, but then also kept mixing with eachother further until it became a big confusing mess. And then the Catholics gained power thus destroying most of the evidence.

Christianity is normally thought to have arisen out of Judaism. Jesus and the early Christians are portrayed as Jewish in the surviving texts, but the Christ concept came before Jesus. Judaism might simply be a later overlay. There is no clear evidence that the earlier Christ concept was originally connected to the Jewish messianic concept. There were Jewish Gnostics, but some Gnostics hated Judaism. Similarly, some Gnostics hated Jesus. Schisms and conflicting theologies abound. This is probably because there wasn’t a single original Gnosticism, but separate traditions.

Anyways, despite the diversity, its not hard to define Christianity in a way most people can understand. By the second century, Catholicism was showing its peculiar traits and was well on its way to being an established institution. The challenge with Gnosticism is that it gets defined by the ways in which it isn’t like Catholicism.

I really don’t know whether first century people such as Paul were Christians or Gnostics. I tend to go with the idea that he was both proto-Christian and proto-Gnostic, but proto-Gnositcism may have earlier roots… depending, of course, how we define these terms.

Despite Christianity claiming Judaism as its roots, Christianity has very little to do with Judaism other than the midrash attempts to justify a Savior figure that didn’t fit the Jewish definition of Messiah. Some Christians were born Jewish and had to find some way to rationalize their new faith and give it a sense of being a part of a larger tradition. Christianity is closer to the solar mythologies than Judaism, but maybe a solar deity just didn’t seem respectable enough to a Jew. Heck if I know.

The difference with Gnosticism is that Gnostics seemed to have worn their influences on their sleeves. Maybe a Christian is simply a Gnostic who doesn’t want to admit their syncretistic influences. This could make sense. As a syncretistic religion in the Roman Empire, you’re just one of many. However, to claim the Jewish Messiah for your religion makes you special and gives you some respectability. This would support the view that Catholics seemed more exclusionary (i.e., elitist) than many Gnostics. For example, the greatest Gnostic heretic of them all, Valentinus was the least exclusionary of these early Christian and Gnostic sects. Valentinus was intentionally trying to include a greater variety of people in the salvific plan. Syncretism would serve Valentinus’ purposes. Only later Christians such as Augustine openly admitted to Christianity’s commonality to other religions.

Of all that I said, much of it’s just opinion guided by intuition. There is a lot of scholarship out there, but it’s often conflicting. When you get down to it, nobody really knows. The only thing that is clear is that much of the Catholic’s version of its own history is extremely unreliable.
For me, the issue is that there is evidence that helps us to buid up various possible pictures, but the average person is largely ignorant of it all. This isn’t the type of info they teach you in Bible study class at your local church and quite possibly the same goes for many seminaries. You’d think Christians would be more curious about the actual scholarly evidence of what we actually know about the first century, but I suppose for most people it doesn’t seem that important. It’s ancient history, afterall.

Most people probably never think to question the story they hear in church. Gnosticism may be the very origins of Christianity, and yet the vast majority of Christians probably are clueless about even the slightest detail of the subject.

I often wonder why most people lack curiosity in general, but it amazes me even more when it involves something of importance… such as the origins of one’s entire faith. I noticed something similar when I was having the recent discussion with the Jewish guy. He got defensive about the discussion because he thought I was only discussing Christianity. The fact was that I certainly was discussing Judaism as well, but it wasn’t his own understanding of Judaism and so he didn’t recognize it as “Judaism”. I brought up Philo Judaeus, Jewish mysticism, and Jewish sects from the first century.

What I realized was that his interest in his own religion was as narrow as what I had observed in many Christians. He said he wasn’t really interested in mysticism and that he found the daily rituals profound enough as is. Like many people, he simply has limited curiosity.
I actually can pinpoint when he got defensive. I said that there was no clear evidence that early Christianity had its origins in Judaism. When I had taken the position that the early Christians were all Jewish, he was happy to consider Christianity as a bastardization of the true faith of Judaism. However, when I speculated that Christianity (via Gnosticism) may be an independent tradition, then he felt like I had deceived him.

He just wanted me to support him in bashing Christianity. I made a joke about Paul and psychedelic mushrooms, and this guy thought I would join him in his righteous bigotry. The poor silly fool.

He really must’ve been clueless if he thought I was any less critical of Judaism than I am of Christianity. I generally don’t like traditional religion in any form, but I’m a curious person. I only set up the discussion comparing Christian and Jewish messianic traditions in order to learn something new. But I wasn’t taking any side. As an agnostic with pessimistic leanings, I’m an equal opportunity critic.

In talking to him, I did get a better sense of Judaism. One thing became clear to me. Modern Judaism is as far away from first century Judaism as modern Christianity is from first century Christianity. It was just a very different world two thousand years ago.

The weird thing about that time is that there probably were people who would’ve considered themselves simultaneously Jewish, Christian, and Gnostic… and they wouldn’t have seen any conflict in it. There was a mixing of culture and ideas which was completely normal for the time. Someone like Philo could allegorically interpret the Torah according to Platonic philosophy. Many Jews were familiar with Greek thought and many Greeks were familiar with the Torah.

So, that is the short answer to the question of the definition of Gnosticism. :rolleyes:

Fundies vs Atheists, Agnostics, and Mythicists

I had an interesting discussion about the messianic concept in Judaism and Christianity. It was interesting partly because I was talking to a Jew who was fairly knowledgeable about Judaism. I gained some new understandings or maybe just some new info.

The problem was that he was a convert from Christianity and converts are often a bit on the zealous side (btw this can include converts to atheism as well). He seemed fairly open-minded, but there was this aspect of him that was as annoying as a Christian Fundamentalist… defensive and righteous, a very bad combination especially when you throw in a slight victim complex. He quite likely used to be a Christian Fundamentalist and seems to have this distorted view of what all Christianity is. I’m sorry he had such a bad experience with Christianity, but I have no desire to help him work through his issues.

This guy seems to think of himself as a representative of Judaism… which, I must say, is unfortunate for Judaism. The Jews should be more careful about who they convert.
The discussion mostly went well, but after a while it felt like walking across a minefield as he was so touchy about so many things. He had a lot of emotional baggage. The issue for me isn’t the emotional baggage. Rather, the issue is that a person like him who is always projecting their problems onto others. I have a lot of psychological problems of my own, but I try my best and (hopefully) am somewhat succesful at separating my problems from my interactions.

Anyways, that discussion put the nail in the coffin for that particular forum. I give up on trying to have intelligent discussions with people in online forums. Why are there so many mentally disturbed people online? I’ll save that question for another day.

Well… water under the bridge. All of that isn’t what I wanted to talk about, not exactly at least. The topic of this blog post is religion. I’m attracted to religion and I enjoy discussing it, but religion can be such a depressing subject. When I study some aspects of religious history, I start thinking that religion itself can even be the problem. Religion can inspire people to do great and wonderful things, but it also can justify the psychotic (if not homicidal) delusions of various kinds of nutjobs. The history of Christianity can particularly depress me. The first thousand years of Christianity was almost and endless spree of destruction.

And then there are people who leave Christianity because of its history of bigotry and hatred only to join another religion that isn’t any better. To pick a random example (wink wink), Judaism is in some ways worse than Christianity. At least, Christians were going against their own scripture when persecuting and killing various peoples. The Jewish history as recorded in their scriptures is utterly horrific. The Jewish God even commands the Jews to commit genocide, rape, and enslavement.

Talk about depressing. And this whole Judeo-Christian tradition is the foundation of Western civilization. It about makes me want to kill myself to consider that this is my cultural heritage.
This is a major issue that religious people never consider seriously. Some religious people would respond that athiests commit horrible things as well. Yes, this is true to an extent. Humans in general have great capacity for cruelty. However, the point of religion is supposed to be to help humanity strive towards higher ideals. The evidence, unfortunately, is to the contrary.
I’m not dismissing religion. As I see it, religion is something like the scientific knowledge of the atom. Scientists can make atomic energy and scientists can make an atomic bomb. Now consider what happens if some religious nut gets hold of an atomic bomb. Forget about 9/11. The real fun has yet to start.

I should point out that that Fundamentalism as we know it is actually a modern invention. Fundamentalism is a response to modernity. For instance, the extreme forms of literalism came into existence in response to modern understanding of objective reality. In the past, people had less sense of distinction between subjective and objective realities, between myth and history. It wasn’t even that imporant for ancient people to make such distinctions. Literalism is the attempt of religion to retain its authority in the face of science and the secular academia in general.

So, Fundamentalism isn’t fundamental, ie., isn’t original to religion. However, the awareness of literalism as opposed to allegorical thinking did start to develop thousands of years ago. This was a distinction that Greek philosophers were starting to consider. Even though literalism didn’t clearly and fully manifest until modernity, its been there from the beginning of religions such as Christianity and Islam.

For example, some early Christians were aware of and even open to the allegorical interpretation of scripture. Christianity, in fact, developed out of the milieu that included a growing trend of allegorical thinking. But this was still a very new way of thinking for the human species. The new mentality arose all of a sudden during the Axial Age; and then, within the centuries after Christianity began, the new mentality was disappearing again. The former Roman Empire was lost in the Dark Ages.

It took Europe another thousand years or so to remember these ancient ideas. The re-introduction of Greek thought (strangely enough, from Islamic culture) helped to jumpstart the Renaissance, but to balance out the Renaissance was the Reformation. The Reformation set the groundwork for modern Fundamentalism.

Okay, all of that is basic enough. Here we all are in the wake of modernity. The Fundamentalists are on the defense and they become ever more dangerous as they become cornered into their own dogmatic righteousness. In the US, we shouldn’t worry about the Islamic Fundamentalists from the Middle East. We should be worrying about our homegrown Christian Fundamentalists. Right now, our Fundamentalists are fat and contented by American wealth and power. But throw in enough dissatisfaction (such as if this economic downturn lasts long enough), and we’ll start to see a new breed of American Fundamentalists.

The Fundamentalists, in the past, at least had control of the Biblical studies in academia. However, they’re losing their grip and their apologetics is becoming obvious for what it is. A battle is going on right now even though many people are unaware of it and of it’s greater significance. The battle is occurring on multiple fronts. The Fundamentalists have three mortal enemies.

Christian theologians/apologists essentially created the Atheist movement (by creating the term) as a way of containing secularism. They defined the terms of battle and many Atheists have been happy to play their pre-designed part. This battle gets a lot of public attention, but its just a front for a more complex battle.

Agnostics are even more dangerous to the Fundamentalists. Agnostics refuse to play by the rules that the apologists are familiar with. Many Agnostics are even Christian. Fundamentalists simply don’t understand this opponent even if they happen to notice him. Agnosticism is more like a cancer than an enemy that can be fought. The Agnostics are the Aikido masters. And, to mix in another metaphor, they fly below the radar… which is to say they don’t get much publicity. Being an Agnostic just isn’t sexy. To think of it another way, Agnostics are like Martin Luther King Jr during the race riots. King once said that the only reason white people listened to him was because there was an angry young black man behind him with a molotov cocktail. In this manner, the Agnostic slips in and seems quite moderate in comparison to the raving Atheists.

Related to the Agnostics, is a new faction of Christians. The Agnostics have been an agitating force within Christianity. Many believers have felt a need to resolve this unsettling sense that something isn’t quite right within Christianity. The seeds of doubt have were planted and a call of a renewal of faith has been sent out: Spong, Harpur, etc. Christianity is not only being forced to take academia seriously, but also other religions as well. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for Christians to live in isolation from the larger world.

So, the first two groups (Atheists and Agnostics) are the one-two punch, and the latter group (the new Christians) are the knock out. Christianity won’t be left behind in the cultural transformation going on… even though that is what many Atheists would like. What is happening is that Christianity (along with all the other religions) is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

This is what I’m actually interested in. There is change in the air, but its hard to know what exactly it is or where it’s heading. Starting with the Theosophists, there has been a lineage of proponents of allegorical thinking: Theosophists to Jung to Campbell to the present Mythicists (G.A. Wells, D.M. Murdock, Tom Harpur, Freke and Gandy). What recently brought this to the greater public attention is the movie Zeitgeist (the first part to be specific). Many great thinkers had pointed out these mythical parallels to Christianity long before, but nobody was listening. Zeitgeist had the advantage of being able to bypass the media censors and went straight to the internet where it went, as they say, viral.

The Fundamnetalists thought they had forced the mythicist movement permanently underground back in the 1800s. The Apologists gained control of Biblical studies (especially in the US) and held that control for the last hundred years or so. The internet has turned out to be the Apologists undoing despite their heavy use of it in their proseletyzing. The Tektonics website is no match for the Mythicists.

Part of the reason is that mythology is now cool. Movies such as Star Wars and the Matrix have given a foothold for comparative mythology to break into mainstream culture. The imagination of Western Culture has been awoken. Even Apologists have been forced to use these movies to reach a younger generation, but in doing so they’ve created a foothold for comparative mythology to enter Christianity. They can’t win for losing because they chose the wrong battle in the first place.

Movies have had this power because special effects have improved vastly in recent decades (and, of course, technology will continue to improve). As a culture, we can create (in fiction) anything we can imagine. This is more profound than many people realize. And the internet has brought to the masses this ability to imaginatively create. The collective imagination has been democratized. Our society isn’t prepared for what will be the results of this. A generation is being raised with all of this and they’re going to utterly transform society. The generation growing up right now is bigger than the Baby Boomers. The Boomers are retiring, and (because Gen X is a small generation) the Millennials will flood the job market.

I have no idea what this will mean, but it’s going to big. To put it into the terms of Strauss and Howe, we are in the Fourth Turning.

Mani’s Influence

I was just reading about an intriguing confluence of religions. There is a continuum of influences from Gnosticism and Manichaeanism to Islam and Sufis and to Bogomils, Paulicians and Albigensians/Cathars… and then to the Reformation. The confluence of this was in Arab countries that kept alive many Greek and Gnostic strains of belief. Later on, Southern France became a second Alexandria where a confusion of heresies were spread across Europe. Italy and Germany were also major centers of heresy.

Okay, let me begin at the beginning. *deep breath* I find all of this fascinating, and I hope I don’t bore anyone.

Mani was born in 216 in Mesopotamia which was a time when many religions were spreading. This is right after the heresiologists were gaining power of Catholicism and the Gnostics were growing into large religions of their own.

Mani’s mother was related to the ruling class that I presume was pagan of some sort and his father belonged to a Jewish-Christian baptismal religion. He was particularly influenced by the tradition of Thomas visiting the East as he also visited the East. He might’ve also been influenced by the first century Gnostic Mandaeans which were followers of John the Baptist and still exist today. After various visions and after travelling widely, he formed a religion that combined Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism. He believed that all previous religions had pieces of the truth… talk about new age.

In his lifetime, he saw his religion spread across the whole known world and become a state religion after converting a Buddhist king. Manichaeanism (or Manichaeism) which incorporated Christianity had become a larger religion than Christianity. The religion split into Eastern and Western traditions. It flourished between the third and seventh centuries, and survived in China until the fifteenth century.

Manichaeanism had three lines of influence on Christian Europe.

First, Augustine was originally a Manichaean during a time when it was dangerous to be one. His later Christian theology may have been influenced by his Manichaean education, and this is quite important considering Augustine is possibly the single most influential theologian within Christianity.

Second, Manichaean beliefs seem to have been incorporated into the Koran. Also, the Shi’ites had many converts from other religions including Manichaeanism along with Christianity and Gnosticism. It’s from the Shi’ites that we got both the Assasins and the Sufis. Islamic scholarship (along with Greek, Gnostic, and Manichaean ideas) was reintroduced into Europe through Spain.

Third, some scholars detect a continuous tradition of Manichaeanism within Southern France. From here, the rest of Europe was influenced.

In Europe, the traditions that possibly had roots in Manichaeanism were the Bogomils, Paulicians, and the Cathars. The Paulicians were the earliest and still survive today. Paulicianism was synthesiszed (along with the tenth century Bulgarian Slavonic Church reform movement) into the Bogomil religion. Identified with or closely connected with the Bogomils have been the following groups: the Cathars and Patarenes, the Waldenses, and the Anabaptists. The Cathars in particular spread widely… often in places where Protestantism would later take hold. Germany became a center for the Cathars and it’s where they got their name. Many of these heretical belief systems created the groundwork for some Catholic mystic theology and also some later Reformation groups (e.g., Anabaptists).

Manichaeanism also influenced Christianity in another way. Even though many of their own texts didn’t survive, they did keep many Christian apocyphal texts that would have othewise been lost. There are many similarities between Manichaean scripture and that of Gnosticism, Christianity and Judaism. One parallel that interests me is his division of people into three types along the lines of Valeninus’ theology.

Christianity’s Early Development

I'm fascinated by the beginnings of what would later be called Christianity... and how it became something entirely different. Partly, I'm just curious to peer behind the facade of apologetic historicizing which was created through centuries of social oppression, fear-mongering, and occasional genocide. Still today, New Testament scholarship is strongly influenced by Christian belief. Even a mainstream project such as the Jesus Seminar started off with the assumption that Jesus historically existed. Few Christians (or atheists for that matter) realize how complex and inconclusive most of the evidence is.

So, let us begin at the beginning, the very beginning of it all, the beginning of civilization. The earliest city-states developed the basic elements of mythology and theology, ritual and symbolism that would make the groundwork for all later religions. As any educated person knows, the culture eventually known as the Jews started off pagan and borrowed much from pagan cultures. Monotheism first arose in Egypt and most of the Old Testament stories can be found in cultures such as the Babylonians. The Jews likely wouldn't have been much of a culture if they hadn't been influenced to such an extent. Their kingdoms were pretty small which would probably equate to the size of what we now call a village. The Jewish tribes were constantly fighting and slaughtering eachother.

The Jews were primarily an oral culture for most of their history. Their oral traditions weren't fully written down and collected as canonical scripture until around 450 BCE. At one point, they had destroyed all of their copies of their scriptures during their constant tribal warfare. They had to go to the Alexandrian Library because the only copy left in the world was kept there. That must've been embarassing.

Anyways, this period of Jewish history includes several important factors. This was after the Babylonian Exile and Jewish culture was coming into its own. The Jewish Reformation had just happened. Also, around this time the Jews were coming under Greek influence and the Alexandrian Age was flourishing. It was a time of great change. There were many competing Jewish sects and many claims of Messiahs. The earliest origins of Gnosticism and Christianity can be detected in the centuries prior to the Common Era: Jewish philosophers, the Qumran community, Neo-Platonism, Mystery religions such as Orphism, Cynics, etc.

To give some context, the era of Jewish Reformation coincided with the Axial Age. Cultures across the world were experiencing major religious change. All of the great world religions arose to prominence within the following few centuries. The later blooming of the Axial Age followed after Rome's annexation of the land of Israel. Oddly (or not), Judaism gained great stability by being under Roman rule. They benefitted greatly from the economic wealth and intellectual diversity of Roman culture. Despite its imperialism, Rome was much more open to the religions of other cultures than the Jews were themselves. So, Jewish culture was forced into contact with other religions... in particular the solar mythologies of the Middle East and the savior god-men of the Graeco-Roman culture. Even Far Eastern religions (such as Hinduism and Buddhism) had found their way into the Roman Empire which might explain why some Gnostic scriptures seem somewhat Buddhist in flavor.

This brings us to the first century of the Common Era, the aftermath of the Alexandrian Age. Religious cults were forming and mixing. There was such a confusing mess of ideas that none of them could be fully disentangled. For instance, commentators of the time couldn't tell the difference between Cynics and Christians. In fact, many Cynics became Christians and brought their teachings along with them... or was the Cynic tradition one of the various early forms of Christianity. The hypothetical Q document that is common to Matthew and Luke has strong similarities to the sayings of the Cynics. The so-called Christians likewise inherited ideas from Orphism. Actually, there was no clearly distinguishable religion called Christianity in the first century. There were many groups with many scriptures. Part of the confusion is that these groups all used similar terminology. Certain words (such as Jesus, Christ, Son of Man, and the Word) were all commonly used prior to and during the early formation of Christianity. Many Jews were using foreign myths and ideas in their midrashic interpretations of the Torah.

Let me get down to specifics. The earliest known Christian writings are those of Paul and/or the scribes writing in Paul's name. The earliest layer of Paul's writings show elements of both Proto-Gnosticism and Proto-Christianity. More significantly, Paul never mentions an historical Christ. This makes sense for the idea of a spiritual savior was a common motif, and many Jews had at this point been initiated in various Mystery religions. The Jews were oppressed and they'd been waiting a long time for the Messiah-King to arrive. Some Jews gave up on such worldly hopes and turned to the saving grace of gnosis.

It's important to note that the earliest commentators on the "Christian" scriptures were all later deemed to be Gnostics. Of course, not all supposed Gnostics identified themselves this way as many of them were followers of Christ. To be honest, Gnosticism and Christianity as later determined by Catholic heresiologists didn't yet exist. There were no heretics in early Christianity. There was no way even to split everyone into two simple categories.

I've never come across information on how the Catholic Church formed. I'd guess that it started as a loose coalition of diverse churches. This makes sense when one considers the definition of the term 'catholic'. There was no official canon at this point and there was disagreement about the degree to which the Bishop of Rome (not yet titled Pope) had authority over the other Bishops. It's hard to know precisely what the common beliefs were, but it's safe to assume that they involved Paul's teachings. Paul was revered by both Christians and Gnostics.

One of Paul's earliest commentators was Valentinus who had converted to Christianity and was claimed to be in the direct lineage of Paul's teachings. In fact, he was a respected member of the Catholic Church who was highly praised by other prominent Christians. He held a position of authority in the Church and almost became what today would be equivalent to the Pope. It's unclear what happened, but he didn't become Bishop of Rome and left the Church around 154 CE. He was at some point designated Gnostic, but he originally desired to bridge the growing gap between the Gnostics and Christians. He saw them both as a part of the same religion: the Inner and Outer Mysteries. If there ever was a single original Christianity, Valentinus might've been one of the last representatives of it.

Sadly, Catholicism was not destined to live up to its own name. For reasons unknown, the heresiologists gained political power. Thus begins the tyranny that continued for way too many centuries. The heresiologists essentially invented the term Gnostic as we now use it. For them, it was a blanket term meaning that you weren't a respectable Christian. Irenaeus was particularly influential and he condemned Valentinus as a heretic. The method in determining Gnosticism seemed to be any person or tradition, scripture or version of scripture that a Catholic politico happened to personally dislike or for some reason perceived as "threatening". Lists of banned scriptures were announced and what quickly followed was the destruction of scriptures once considered holy even by Christians.

Some scriptures such as that of proto-Gnostic Paul and probably Gnostic John couldn't be banned because they were so popular. In these cases, they were heavily redacted and harmonized with the more respectable scriptures. Scriptures now became official documents upholding official dogma. Once someone was accused of heresy, they couldn't use scripture to defend themselves.

(By the way, it was sometime in the following century or so that the Nag Hammadi library was buried... probably by Coptic Christians... just to let you know that there were still some moral Christians left in the world. It's because of the Nag Hammadi library that we are fortunate to be able to read for ourselves the teachings of such great Gnostic Christians as Valentinus and also to read the alternative versions of the canonical scriptures.)

Overall, the heresiologists helped to consolidate the power of the Catholic Church. For example, Irenaeus defended the Papacy as founded upon Peter. Of course, he wouldn't have had to defend it if it had already been a concensus belief. As the Pauline tradition was the oldest, some early Christians had originally seen him as the founder of Christianity. Actually, there were many scriptures claiming many founders that were written in the first couple of centuries.

Let me make an important connection here. It was because of this oppressive trend that Catholicism was so easily assimilated into the oppressive Roman Empire's scheme to save it's declining power. Catholicism had become the perfect tool for imperialism of the likes the Roman people had never seen before. My main point here is that the heresiologists had set themselves up for this. If Catholicism had remained a loose coalition, then there wouldn't have been a central power that could be easily taken over. Still, this leads to a more fundamental question: what caused the shift in the latter part of the second century? Catholicism was open and diverse, and then in a short period of time it was something entirely different. What undermined Valentinus' attempt to lessen the conflict between the factions?

Everything about Jesus Christ was antithetical to what Catholicism became. Jesus said to give unto Caesar what belonged to Caesar, and so his followers gave the whole damned religion to Caesar... a Pagan Caesar at that. After the First Council of Nicaea, Constantine went home and murdered his family. Having taken control of Christianity, he didn't convert until his deathbed. He did this so he could continue his bloody reign and then get divine "forgiveness" at the last possible moment. It just blows my mind. Couldn't the Catholics see the irony of it all?

I guess it makes sense when you consider the heresiologists decided to make their claim on the Papacy through Peter. Let us recall what Peter did after Jesus died. Oh yeah, he denied him three times. Thusly, Catholicism was built upon the denial of Christ and the wisdom of Christ was bashed on the Rock of Peter.

Okay, that is enough of ridiculing traditional Christianity for the moment. I'm just genuinely bewildered about how the decisions of a few heresiologists sets the stage for the entire history of Christianity. How does Europe go from the intellectual and scientiific burgeoning of the Axial Age to the ignorance and backwardness of the Dark Ages?

Of course, it's unfair to blame it all on the heresiologists. Something was shifting in the whole culture.

Take as an example Augustine. Like Valentinus who was one of the last great Christians of the early era, Augustine was one of the last great Pagan thinkers during the Decline of Rome. Why did an intellectual like him convert to a religion that lacked intellectual respectability (compared to his Pagan education)? Before Augustine, the Catholic Church had no clear theological claims to its own authority besides mentioning Peter. Augustine lived during a time that included the Roman Empire falling apart beneath the rule of the Roman Catholic Church and along with this Hypatia's notorious murder by his fellow Christians. Hypatia was an even greater Pagan thinker than Augustine had been and with her died all that was good about Roman culture. How could he remain in such a corrupt religion 15 years after Hypatia's murder? How could he continue to defend such religious corruption? Augustine thought the Roman Catholic Church was a bright light in the darkness. Why couldn't he see that it was the rot at the core?

At any point, the Dark Ages might've been prevented. Valentinus could've become the Bishop of Rome. The heresiologists and politicos could've been run out of the Church. Paul's teachings (in un-redacted form) could've created the foundation of a truly spiritual Christianity. The Church leaders during Constantine's rule could've chosen moral righteousness (even if it meant persecution) rather than assenting to immoral imperialism. Constantine himself could've chosen to embrace Rome's tradition of religious diversity and openness. Augustine could've devoted himself to trying to save what was remaining of Graeco-Roman culture. Christians could've chosen to not kill Hypatia and instead embrace or at least be tolerant of the Paganism that their own religion was built upon.

It was a slow accumulation of generations of choices made, and at the heart of it all was that moment in time in the middle of the second century. The future of the Christianity hung in the balance. We can only imagine what Christianity might've become.