1. Copyright © 1964 J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen. English
   translation © 1965 Lutterworth Press. Used by permission.
   Oxford University Press: Excerpts from The Acts of the Christian Martyrs,
   translated by Herbert Musurillo. Copyright © Oxford University Press
2. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.

CONTENTS

Introduction

I The Controversy over Christ's Resurrection: Historical Event or Symbol?

II "One God, One Bishop": The Politics of Monotheism

III God the Father/God the Mother

IV The Passion of Christ and
the Persecution of Christians

V Whose Church Is the "True Church"?

VI Gnosis: Self-Knowledge as Knowledge of God

Conclusion
Notes
Index

II

"One God, One Bishop":

The Politics of
Monotheism

THE CHRISTIAN CREED begins with the words "I believe in one God, Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." Some scholars suggest that this credal statement was originally formulated to exclude followers of the heretic Marcion (c. 140) from orthodox churches. A Christian from Asia Minor, Marcion was struck by what he saw as the contrast between the creator-God of the Old Testament, who demands justice and punishes every violation of his law, and the Father whom Jesus proclaims—the New Testament God of forgiveness and love. Why, he asked, would a God who is "almighty"—all-powerful —create a world that includes suffering, pain, disease—even mosquitoes and scorpions? Marcion concluded that these must be two different Gods. The majority of Christians early condemned this view as dualistic, and identified themselves as orthodox by confessing one God, who is both "Father Almighty" and "Maker of heaven and earth."

When advocates of orthodoxy confronted another challenge —the gnostics—they often attacked them as "Marcionites" and "dualists." Irenaeus states as his major complaint against the gnostics that they, like the Marcionites, say that "there is another God besides the creator." Some of the recently discovered texts confirm his account. According to the Hypostasis of the Archons, the creator's vain claim1 to hold an exclusive monopoly on divine power shows that he

is blind . . . [because of his] power and his ignorance [and his] arrogance he said . . . , "It is I who am God; there is none [other apart from me]." When he said this, he sinned against [the Entirety]. And a voice came forth from above the realm of absolute power, saying, "You are mistaken, Samael," which means, "god of the blind."2

Another text discovered in the same codex at Nag Hammadi, On the Origin of the World, tells a variant of the same story:

. . . he boasted continually, saying to (the angels) . . . "I am God, and no other one exists except me." But when he said these things, he sinned against all of the immortal ones . . . when Faith saw the impiety of the chief ruler, she was angry. . . . she said, "You err, Samael (i.e., "blind god"). An enlightened, immortal humanity [anthropos] exists before you!"3

A third text bound into the same volume, the Secret Book of John, relates how

in his madness ... he said, "I am God, and there is no other God beside me," for he is ignorant of . . . the place from which he had come. . . . And when he saw the creation which surrounds him and the multitudes of angels around him which had come forth from him, he said to them, "I am a jealous God, and there is no other God beside me." But by announcing this he indicated to the angels that another God does exist; for if there were no other one, of whom would he be jealous?4

When these same sources tell the story of the Garden of Eden, they characterize this God as the jealous master, whose tyranny the serpent (often, in ancient times, a symbol of divine wisdom) taught Adam and Eve to resist:

. . . God gave [a command] to Adam, "From every [tree] you may eat,[but] from the tree which is in the midst of Paradise do not eat, for on the day that you eat from it you will surely die." But the serpent was wiser than all the animals that were in Paradise, and he persuaded Eve, saying, "On the day when you eat from the tree which is in the midst of Paradise, the eyes of your mind will be opened." And Eve obeyed . . . she ate; she also gave to her husband.5

Observing that the serpent's promise came true—their eyes were opened—but that God's threat of immediate death did not, the gnostic author goes on to quote God's words from Genesis 3:22, adding editorial comment:

. . . "Behold, Adam has become like one of us, knowing evil and good." Then he said, "Let us cast him out of Paradise, lest he take from the tree of life, and live forever." But of what sort is this God? First [he] envied Adam that he should eat from the tree of knowledge. . . . Surely he has shown himself to be a malicious envier.6

As the American scholar Birger Pearson points out, the author uses an Aramaic pun to equate the serpent with the Instructor ("serpent," hewya; "to instruct," hawa).7 Other gnostic accounts add a four-way pun that includes Eve (Hawah): instead of tempting Adam, she gives life to him and instructs him:

After the day of rest, Sophia [literally, "wisdom"] sent Zoe [literally, "life"], her daughter, who is called Eve, as an instructor to raise up Adam . . . When Eve saw Adam cast down, she pitied him, and she said, "Adam, live! Rise up upon the earth!" Immediately her word became a deed. For when Adam rose up, immediately he opened his eyes. When he saw her, he said, "You will be called 'the mother of the living,' because you are the one who gave me life.

he Hypostasis of the Archons describes Eve as the spiritual principle in humanity who raises Adam from his merely material condition:

And the spirit-endowed Woman came to [Adam] and spoke with him, saying, "Arise, Adam." And when he saw her, he said, "It is you who have given me life; you shall be called "Mother of the living"-—for it is she who is my mother. It is she who is the Physician, and the Woman, and She Who Has Given Birth." . . . Then the Female Spiritual Principle came in the Snake, the Instructor, and it taught them, saying, ". . . you shall not die; for it was out of jealousy that he said this to you. Rather, your eyes shall open, and you shall become like gods, recognizing evil and good." . . . And the arrogant Ruler cursed the Woman . . . [and] . . .
the Snake.9

Some scholars today consider gnosticism synonymous with metaphysical dualism—or even with pluralities of gods. Irenaeus denounced as blasphemy such caricatures of the conviction, fundamental to the Hebrew Scriptures, that "the Lord your God is one God." But Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus' contemporary, tells us that there was a "monadic gnosis"; and the discoveries at Nag Hammadi also disclose that Valentinian gnosticism—the most influential and sophisticated form of gnostic teaching, and by far the most threatening to the church—differs essentially from dualism. The theme of the oneness of God dominates the opening section of the Tripartite Tractate, a Valentinian treatise from Nag Hammadi which describes the origin of all being. The author describes God as

a sole Lord and God . . . For he is unbegotten ... In the proper sense, then, the only Father and God is the one whom no one else begot. As for the universe (cosmos), he is the one who begot and created it.10

A Valentinian Exposition speaks of God who is

[Root] of the All, the [Ineffable One who] dwells in the Monad. [He dwells alone] in silence . . . since, after all, [he was] a Monad, and no one was before him . . .11

According to a third Valentinian text, the Interpretation of Knowledge, the Savior taught that "Your Father, who is in heaven, is one."12

Irenaeus himself tells us that the creed which effectively screened out Marcionites from the church proved useless against the Valentinians. In common with other Christians, they recited the orthodox creed. But Irenaeus explains that although they did "verbally confess one God," they did so with private mental reservations, "saying one thing, and thinking another."13 While the Marcionites openly blasphemed the creator, the Valentinians, he insists, did so covertly:

Such persons are, to outward appearances, sheep, for they seem to be like us, from what they say in public, repeating the same words [of
confession] that we do; but inwardly they are wolves.14

What distressed Irenaeus most was that the majority of Christians did not recognize the followers of Valentinus as heretics. Most could not tell the difference between Valentinian and orthodox teaching; after all, he says, most people cannot differentiate between cut glass and emeralds either! But, he declares, "although their language is similar to ours," their views "not only are very different, but at all points full of blasphemies."15 The apparent similarity with orthodox teaching only made this heresy more dangerous—like poison disguised as milk. So he wrote the five volumes of his massive Refutation and Overthrow of Falsely So-called Gnosis to teach the unwary to discriminate between the truth, which saves believers, and gnostic teaching, which destroys them in "an abyss of madness and
blasphemy."16

For while the Valentinians publicly confessed faith in one God,17 in their own private meetings they insisted on discriminating between the popular image of God—as master, king, lord, creator, and judge— and what that image represented—God understood as the ultimate source of all being.18 Valentinus calls that source "the depth";19 his followers describe it as an invisible, incomprehensible primal principle.20 But most Christians, they say, mistake mere images of God for that reality.21 They point out that the Scriptures sometimes depict God as a mere craftsman, or as an avenging judge, as a king who rules in heaven, or even as a jealous master. But these images, they say, cannot compare with Jesus' teaching that "God is spirit" or the "Father of Truth."22 Another Valentinian, the author of the Gospel of Philip, points out that names can be

very deceptive, for they divert our thoughts from what is accurate to what is inaccurate. Thus one who hears the word "God" does not perceive what is accurate, but perceives what is inaccurate. So also with "the Father," and "the Son," and "the Holy Spirit," and "life," and "light," and "resurrection," and "the Church," and all the rest—people do not perceive what is accurate, but they perceive what is inaccurate . . .23

The Protestant theologian Paul Tillich recently drew a similar distinction between the God we imagine when we hear the term, and the "God beyond God," that is, the "ground of being" that underlies all our concepts and images.

What made their position heretical? Why did Irenaeus find such a modification of monotheism so crucial—in fact, so utterly reprehensible—that he urged his fellow believers to expel the followers of Valentinus from the churches as heretics? He admitted that this question puzzled the gnostics themselves:

They ask, when they confess the same things and participate in the
same worship . . . how is it that we, for no reason, remain aloof from them; and how is it that when they confess the same things, and hold the same doctrines, we call them heretics!24

I suggest that here again we cannot fully answer this question as long as we consider this debate exclusively in terms of religious and philosophical arguments. But when we investigate how the doctrine of God actually functions in gnostic and orthodox writings, we can see how this religious question also involves social and political issues. Specifically, by the latter part of the second century, when the orthodox insisted upon "one God," they simultaneously validated the system of governance in which the
church is ruled by "one bishop." Gnostic modification of monotheism was taken—and perhaps intended—as an attack upon that system. For when gnostic and orthodox Christians discussed the nature of God, they were at the same time debating the issue of spiritual authority.

This issue dominates one of the earliest writings we have from the church at Rome—a letter attributed to Clement, called Bishop of Rome (c. 90-100). As spokesman for the Roman church, Clement wrote to the Christian community in Corinth at a time of crisis: certain leaders of the Corinthian church had been divested of power. Clement says that "a few rash and self-willed people" drove them out of office: "those of no reputation [rose up] against those with reputation, the fools against the wise, the young against the old."25 Using political language, he calls this "a rebellion"26 and insists that the deposed leaders be restored to their authority: he warns that they must be feared, respected, and obeyed.

On what grounds? Clement argues that God, the God of Israel, alone rules all things:27 he is the lord and master whom all must obey; he is the judge who lays down the law, punishing rebels and rewarding the obedient. But how is God's rule actually administered? Here Clement's theology becomes practical: God, he says, delegates his "authority of reign" to "rulers and leaders on earth."28 Who are these designated rulers? Clement answers that they are bishops, priests, and deacons. Whoever refuses to "bow the neck"29 and obey the church leaders is guilty of insubordination against the divine master himself. Carried away with his argument, Clement warns that
whoever disobeys the divinely ordained authorities "receives the
death penalty! "30

This letter marks a dramatic moment in the history of Christianity. For the first time, we find here an argument for dividing the Christian community between "the clergy" and "the laity." The church is to be organized in terms of a strict order of superiors and subordinates. Even within the clergy, Clement insists on ranking each member, whether bishop, priest, or deacon, "in his own order":31 each must observe "the rules and commandments" of his position at all times.

Many historians are puzzled by this letter.32 What, they ask, was the basis for the dispute in Corinth? What religious issues were at stake? The letter does not tell us that directly. But this does not mean that the author ignores such issues. I suggest that he makes his own point—his religious point—entirely clear: he intended to establish the Corinthian church on the model of the divine authority. As God reigns in heaven as master, lord, commander, judge, and king, so on earth he delegates his rule to members of the church hierarchy, who serve as generals who command an army of subordinates; kings who rule over "the people"; judges who preside in God's place.

Clement may simply be stating what Roman Christians took for granted33—and what Christians outside of Rome, in the early second century, were coming to accept. The chief advocates of this theory, not surprisingly, were the bishops themselves. Only a generation later, another bishop, Ignatius of Antioch in Syria, more than a thousand miles from Rome, passionately defended the same principle. But Ignatius went further than Clement. He defended the three ranks—bishop, priests, and deacons—as a hierarchical order that mirrors the divine hierarchy in heaven. As there is only one God in heaven, Ignatius declares, so there can be only one bishop in the church. "One God, one bishop"— this became the orthodox slogan. Ignatius warns "the laity" to revere, honor, and obey the bishop "as if he were God." For the bishop, standing at the pinnacle of the church hierarchy, presides "in the place of God."34 Who, then, stands below God? The divine council, Ignatius replies. And as God rules over that council in heaven, so the bishop on earth rules over a council of priests. The heavenly divine council, in turn, stands above the apostles; so, on earth, the priests rule over the deacons—and all three of these rule over "the laity."35

Was Ignatius merely attempting to aggrandize his own position? A cynical observer might suspect him of masking power politics with religious rhetoric. But the distinction between religion and politics, so familiar to us in the twentieth century, was utterly alien to Ignatius' self-understanding. For him, as for his contemporaries, pagan and Christian alike, religious convictions necessarily involved political relationships—and vice versa. Ironically, Ignatius himself shared this view with the Roman officials who condemned him to death, judging his religious convictions as evidence for treason against Rome. For Ignatius, as for Roman pagans, politics and religion formed an inseparable unity. He believed that God became accessible to humanity through the church—and specifically, through the bishops, priests, and deacons who administer it: "without these, there is nothing which can be called a church!"36 For the sake of their eternal salvation he urged people to submit themselves to the bishop and priests. Although
Ignatius and Clement depicted the structure of the clergy in different ways,37 both bishops agreed that this human order mirrors the divine authority in heaven. Their religious views, certainly, bore political implications; yet, at the same time, the practice they urged was based on their beliefs about God.

What would happen if someone challenged their doctrine of God— as the one who stands at the pinnacle of the divine hierarchy and legitimizes the whole structure? We do not have to guess: we can see what happened when Valentinus went from Egypt to Rome (c. 140). Even his enemies spoke of him as a brilliant and eloquent man:38 his admirers revered him as a poet and spiritual master. One tradition attributes to him the poetic, evocative Gospel of Truth that was
discovered at Nag Hammadi. Valentinus claims that besides receiving the Christian tradition that all believers hold in common, he has received from Theudas, a disciple of Paul's, initiation into a secret doctrine of God.39 Paul himself taught this secret wisdom, he says, not to everyone, and not publicly, but only to a select few whom he considered to be spiritually mature.40 Valentinus offers, in turn, to initiate "those who are mature"41 into his wisdom, since not everyone is able to comprehend it.

What this secret tradition reveals is that the one whom most Christians naively worship as creator, God, and Father is, in reality, only the image of the true God. According to Valentinus, what Clement and Ignatius mistakenly ascribe to God actually applies only to the creator.42 Valentinus, following Plato, uses the Greek term for "creator" (demiurgos),43 suggesting that he is a lesser divine being who serves as the instrument of the higher powers.44 It is not God, he explains, but the demiurge who reigns as king and lord,45 who acts as a military commander,46 who gives the law and judges those who violate it47—in short, he is the "God of Israel."

Through the initiation Valentinus offers, the candidate learns to reject the creator's authority and all his demands as foolishness. What gnostics know is that the creator makes false claims to power ("I am God, and there is no other")48 that derive from his own ignorance. Achieving gnosis involves coming to recognize the true source of divine power—namely, "the depth" of all being. Whoever has come to know that source simultaneously comes to know himself and discovers his spiritual origin: he has come to know his true Father and Mother.

Whoever comes to this gnosis—this insight—is ready to receive the secret sacrament called the redemption (apolytrosis; literally, "release").49 Before gaining gnosis, the candidate worshiped the demiurge, mistaking him for the true God: now, through the sacrament of redemption, the candidate indicates that he has been released from the demiurge's power. In this ritual he addresses the demiurge, declaring his independence, serving notice that he no longer belongs to the demiurge's sphere of authority and judgment,50 but to what transcends it:

I am a son from the Father—the Father who is pre-existent. . . . I derive being from Him who is preexistent, and I come again to my own place whence I came forth.51

What are the practical—even political—implications of this religious theory? Consider how Valentinus or one of his initiates might respond to Clement's claim that the bishop rules over the community "as God rules in heaven"—as master, king, judge, and lord. Would not an initiate be likely to reply to such a bishop: "You claim to represent God, but, in reality, you represent only the demiurge, whom you blindly serve and obey. I, however, have passed beyond the sphere of his authority and so, for that matter, beyond yours!"

Irenaeus, as bishop, recognized the danger to clerical authority. The redemption ritual, which dramatically changed the initiate's relation to the demiurge, changed simultaneously his relationship to the bishop. Before, the believer was taught to submit to the bishop "as to God himself," since, he was told, the bishop rules, commands, and judges "in God's place." But now he sees that such restrictions apply only to naive believers who still fear and serve the demiurge.52 Gnosis offers nothing less than a theological justification for refusing to obey the bishops and priests! The initiate now sees them as the "rulers and powers" who rule on earth in the demiurge's name. The gnostic admits that the bishop, like the demiurge, exercises legitimate authority over most Christians—those who are uninitiated.53 But the bishop's demands, warnings, and threats, like those of the demiurge himself, can no longer touch the one who has been "redeemed." Irenaeus explains the effect of this ritual:

They maintain that they have attained to a height beyond every power, and that therefore they are free in every respect to act as they please, having no one to fear in anything. For they claim that because of the redemption . . . they cannot be apprehended, or even perceived, by the judge.54

The candidate receives from his initiation into gnosis an entirely new relation to spiritual authority. Now he knows that the clerical hierarchy derives its authority from the demiurge—not from the Father. When a bishop like Clement commands the believer to "fear God" or to "confess that you have a Lord," or when Irenaeus warns that "God will judge" the sinner, the gnostic may hear all of these as their attempt to reassert the false claims of the demiurge's power, and of his earthly representatives, over the believer. In the demiurge's foolish assertion that "I am God, and there is no other," the gnostic could hear the bishop's claim to exercise exclusive power over the community. In his warning, "I am a jealous God," the gnostic might recognize the bishop's jealousy for those who are beyond his authority. Bishop Irenaeus, in turn, satirizes their tantalizing and seductive style:

If anyone yields himself to them like a little sheep, and follows out their practice and their redemption, such a person becomes so puffed up that ... he walks with a strutting gait and a supercilious countenance, possessing all the pompous air of a cock!55

Tertullian traces such arrogance to the example of their teacher Valentinus, who, he says, refused to submit himself to the superior authority of the bishop of Rome. For what reason? Tertullian says that Valentinus wanted to become bishop himself. But when another man was chosen instead, he was filled with envy and frustrated ambition, and cut himself off from the church to found a rival group of his own.56

Few historians believe Tertullian's story. In the first place, it follows a typical polemic against heresy which maintains that envy and ambition lead heretics to deviate from the true faith. Second, some twenty years after this alleged incident, followers of Valentinus considered themselves to be fully members of the church, and indignantly resisted orthodox attempts to expel them.57 This suggests that the orthodox, rather than those they called heretics, initiated the break.

Yet Tertullian's story, even—perhaps especially—if untrue, illustrates what many Christians saw as one of the dangers of heresy: it encourages insubordination to clerical authority. And, apparently, the orthodox were right. Bishop Irenaeus tells us that followers of Valentinus "assemble in unauthorized meetings"58— that is, in meetings that he himself, as bishop, has not authorized. At these meetings they attempted to raise doubts in the minds of their hearers: Does the church's teaching really satisfy them, or not?59 Have the sacraments which the church dispenses—baptism and the eucharist—given them a complete initiation into Christian faith, or only the first step?60 Members of the inner circle suggested that what the bishop and priests taught publicly were only elementary doctrines. They themselves claimed to offer more—the secret mysteries, the higher teachings.

This controversy occurred at the very time when earlier, diversified forms of church leadership were giving way to a unified hierarchy of church office.61 For the first time, certain Christian communities were organizing into a strict order of subordinate "ranks" of bishops, priests, deacons, laity. In many churches the bishop was emerging, for the first time, as a "monarch" (literally, "sole ruler"). Increasingly, he claimed the power to act as disciplinarian and judge over those he called "the laity." Could certain gnostic movements represent resistance to this process? Could gnostics stand among the critics who opposed the development of church hierarchy? Evidence from Nag Hammadi suggests that they did. We have noted before how the author of the Apocalypse of Peter ridicules the claims of church officials:

Others . . . outside our number . . . call themselves bishops and also deacons, as if they had received their authority from God. . . . Those people are waterless canals.62

The Tripartite Tractate, written by a follower of Valentinus, contrasts those who are gnostics, "children of the Father," with those who are uninitiates, offspring of the demiurge.63 The Father's children, he says, join together as equals, enjoying mutual love, spontaneously helping one another. But the demiurge's offspring—the ordinary Christians—"wanted to command one another, outrivalling one another in their empty ambition"; they are inflated with "lust for power," "each one imagining that he is superior to the others."64 If gnostic Christians criticized the development of church hierarchy, how could they themselves form a social organization? If they
rejected the principle of rank, insisting that all are equal, how could they even hold a meeting? Irenaeus tells us about the practice of one group that he knows from his own congregation in Lyons—the group led by Marcus, a disciple of Valentinus'.65 Every member of the group had been initiated: this meant that every one had been "released" from the demiurge's power. For this reason, they dared to meet without the authority of the bishop, whom they regarded as the demiurge's spokesman—Irenaeus himself! Second, every initiate was assumed to have received, through the initiation ritual, the charismatic gift of direct inspiration through the Holy Spirit.66

How did members of this circle of "pneumatics" (literally, "those who are spiritual") conduct their meetings? Irenaeus tells us that when they met, all the members first participated in drawing lots.67 Whoever received a certain lot apparently was designated to take the role of priest; another was to offer the sacrament, as bishop; another would read the Scriptures for worship, and others would address the group as a prophet, offering extemporaneous spiritual instruction. The next time the group met, they would throw lots again so that the persons taking each role changed continually.

This practice effectively created a very different structure of authority. At a time when the orthodox Christians increasingly discriminated between clergy and laity, this group of gnostic Christians demonstrated that, among themselves, they refused to acknowledge such distinctions. Instead of ranking their members into superior and inferior "orders" within a hierarchy, they followed the principle of strict equality. All initiates, men and women alike, participated equally in the drawing; anyone might be selected to serve as priest, bishop, or prophet. Furthermore, because they cast lots at each meeting, even the distinctions established by lot could never become permanent "ranks." Finally— most important—they intended, through this practice, to remove the element of human choice. A twentieth-century observer might assume that the gnostics left these matters to random chance, but the gnostics saw it differently. They believed that since God directs everything in the universe, the way the lots fell expressed his choice.

Such practices prompted Tertullian to attack "the behavior of the heretics":

How frivolous, how worldly, how merely human it is, without seriousness, without authority, without discipline, as fits their faith! To begin with, it is uncertain who is a catechumen, and who a believer: they all have access equally, they listen equally, they pray equally—even pagans, if any happen to come. . . . They also share the kiss of peace with all who come, for they do not care how differently they treat topics, if they meet together to storm the citadel of the one only truth. . . . All of them are arrogant. . . all offer you gnosis.6

The principle of equal access, equal participation, and equal claims to knowledge certainly impressed Tertullian. But he took this as evidence that the heretics "overthrow discipline": proper discipline, in his view, required certain degrees of distinction between community members. Tertullian protests especially the participation of "those women among the heretics" who shared with men
positions of authority: "They teach, they engage in discussion; they exorcise; they cure"69—he suspects that they might even baptize, which meant that they also acted as bishops! Tertullian also objected
to the fact that

their ordinations are carelessly administered, capricious, and changeable. At one time they put novices in office; at another, persons bound by secular employment. . . . Nowhere is promotion easier than in the camp of rebels, where even the mere fact of being there is a foremost service. So today one man is bishop and tomorrow another;
the person who is a deacon today, tomorrow is a reader; the one who is a priest today is a layman tomorrow; for even on the laity they impose the functions of priesthood!70

This remarkable passage reveals what distinctions Tertullian considered essential to church order distinctions between newcomers and experienced Christians; between women and men; between a professional clergy and people occupied with secular employment; between readers, deacons, priests, and bishops—and above all, between the clergy and the laity. Valentinian Christians, on the other hand, followed a practice which insured the equality of all participants. Their system allowed no hierarchy to form, and no fixed "orders" of clergy. Since each person's role changed every day, occasions for envy against prominent persons were minimized.

How was the bishop who defined his role in traditional Roman terms, as ruler, teacher, and judge of the church, to respond to this gnostic critique? Irenaeus saw that he, as bishop, had been placed in a double-bind situation. Certain members of his flock had been meeting without his authority in private sessions; Marcus, a self-appointed leader, whom Irenaeus derides as an "adept in magical impostures,"71 had initiated them into secret sacraments and had encouraged them to ignore the bishop's moral warnings. Contrary to his orders, he says, they did eat meat sacrificed to idols; they freely attended pagan festivals, and they violated his strict warnings concerning sexual abstinence and monogamy.72 What Irenaeus found most galling of all was that, instead of repenting or even openly defying the bishop, they responded to his protests with diabolically clever theological arguments:

They call [us] "unspiritual," "common," and "ecclesiastic." . . . Because we do not accept their monstrous allegations, they say that we go on living in the hebdomad [the lower regions], as if we could not lift our minds to the things on high, nor understand the things that are above.73

Irenaeus was outraged at their claim that they, being spiritual, were
released from the ethical restraints that he, as a mere servant of the
demiurge, ignorantly sought to foist upon them.7

To defend the church against these self-styled theologians, Irenaeus realized that he must forge theological weapons. He believed that if he could demolish the heretical teaching of "another God besides the creator," he could destroy the possibility of ignoring or defying—on allegedly theological grounds —the authority of the "one catholic church" and of its bishop. Like his opponents, Irenaeus took for granted the correlation between the structure of divine authority
and human authority in the church. If God is One, then there can be
only one true church, and only one representative of the God in the
community—the bishop.

Irenaeus declared, therefore, that orthodox Christians must believe above all that God is One—creator, Father, lord, and judge. He warned that it is this one God who established the catholic church, and who "presides with those who exercise moral discipline"75 within it. Yet he found it difficult to argue theology with the gnostics: they claimed to agree with everything he said, but he knew that secretly they discounted his words as coming from someone unspiritual. So he felt impelled to end his treatise with a solemn call to judgment:

Let those persons who blaspheme the Creator . . . as [do] the Valentinians and all the falsely so-called "gnostics," be recognized as agents of Satan by all who worship God. Through their agency Satan even now . . . has been seen to speak against God, that God who has prepared eternal fire for every kind of apostasy.76

But we would be wrong to assume that this struggle involves only
members of the laity claiming charismatic inspiration, contending against an organized, spiritless hierarchy of priests and bishops. Irenaeus clearly indicates the opposite. Many whom he censured for propagating gnostic teaching were themselves prominent members of the church hierarchy. In one case Irenaeus wrote to Victor, Bishop of Rome, to warn him that certain gnostic writings were circulating among his congregations.77 He considered these writings especially dangerous because their author, Florinus, claimed the prestige of being a priest. Yet renaeus warns Victor that this priest is also, secretly, a gnostic initiate. Irenaeus warned his own congregations that "those whom many believe to be priests, . . . but who do not place the fear of God supreme in their hearts . . . are full of pride at their prominence in the community." Such persons, he explained, are secretly gnostics, who "do evil deeds in secret, saying, 'No one sees us.’ "78 Irenaeus makes clear that he intended to expose those who outwardly acted like orthodox Christians, but who were privately members of gnostic circles.

How could the ordinary Christian tell the difference between true and false priests? Irenaeus declares that those who are orthodox will follow the lines of apostolic succession:

One must obey the priests who are in the church—that is . . . those who possess the succession from the apostles. For they receive simultaneously with the episcopal succession the sure gift of truth.79

The heretics, he explains, depart from common tradition and meet without the bishop's approval:

One must hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves in any place at all. These one must recognize as heretics . . . or as schismatics . . . or as hypocrites. All of these have fallen from the truth.80

Irenaeus is pronouncing a solemn episcopal judgment. The gnostics claim to have two sources of tradition, one open, the other secret. Irenaeus ironically agrees with them that there are two sources of tradition—but, he declares, as God is one, only one of these derives from God—that is the one the church receives through Christ and his chosen apostles, especially Peter. The other comes from Satan—and goes back to the gnostic teacher Simon Magus (literally, "magician"), Peter's archenemy, who tried to buy the apostle's spiritual power and earned his curse. As Peter heads the true succession, so Simon epitomizes the false, demon-inspired succession of the heretics; he is the "father of all heresies":

All those who in any way corrupt the truth, and harm the teaching of the church, are the disciples and successors of Simon Magus of Samaria. . . . They put forth, indeed, the name of Jesus Christ as a kind of lure, but in many ways they introduce the impieties of Simon . . . spreading to their hearers the bitter and malignant poison of the great serpent (Satan), the great author of apostasy.81

Finally he warns that "some who are considered to be among the orthodox"82 have much to fear in the coming judgment unless (and this is his main practical point) they now repent, repudiate the teaching of "another God," and submit themselves to the bishop, accepting the "advance discipline"83 that he will administer to spare them eternal damnation.

Were Irenaeus' religious convictions nothing but political tenets in disguise? Or, conversely, were his politics subordinate to his religious beliefs? Either of these interpretations oversimplifies the situation. Irenaeus' religious convictions and his position—like those of his gnostic opponents—reciprocally influenced one another. If certain gnostics opposed the development of church hierarchy, we need not reduce gnosticism to a political movement that arose in reaction to that development. Followers of Valentinus shared a religious vision of the nature of God that they found incompatible with the rule of priests and bishops that was emerging in the catholic church—and so they resisted it. Irenaeus' religious convictions, conversely, coincided with the structure of the church he defended.

This case is far from unique: we can see throughout the history of Christianity how varying beliefs about the nature of God inevitably bear different political implications. Martin Luther, more than 1,300 years later, felt impelled by his own religious experience and his transformed understanding of God to challenge practices endorsed by his superiors in the Catholic Church, and finally to reject its entire papal and priestly system. George Fox, the radical visionary who founded the Quaker movement, was moved by his encounter with the "inner light" to
denounce the whole structure of Puritan authority—legal, governmental, and religious. Paul Tillich proclaimed the doctrine of "God beyond God" as he criticized both Protestant and Catholic churches along with nationalistic and fascist governments.

As the doctrine of Christ's bodily resurrection establishes the initial framework for clerical authority, so the doctrine of the "one God" confirms, for orthodox Christians, the emerging institution of the "one bishop" as monarch ("sole ruler") of the church. We may not be surprised, then, to discover next how the orthodox description of God (as "Father Almighty," for example) serves to define who is included—and who excluded—from participation in the power of priests and bishops.

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