Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas.

Elaine Pagels.

Saint Iranaeus – 2nd century; Bishop of Lyons; architect of the four gospels; key work is five volume Against Heresies; Gospel of John was the first and foremost of the Gospels; readings of John are contentious and there are non-canonical gnostic Johannian readings that are of note.

“Heretical” teachers put a high value on spiritual experience and the limitations of human language in expressing the ineffable.

It was Constantine who was ultimately responsible for recognizing the best organized and largest group as the lawful church. It was not theology that won the day but politics.

Arius: 3rd century Alexandrian clergy initiated a crisis in the church that resulted in the Council of Nicaea in 325 and the formulation of the Nicene Creed which emphasized the unitary nature of God.

Athanasius: 4th century Bishop of Alexandria; wrote a letter in 367 that decreed the list of canonical books of scripture, Old and New Testaments; the purpose was to combat heresy and to outlaw apocryphal books.

Although Athanasius intended the “canon of truth,” now enshrined in the Nicene Creed, to safeguard “orthodox” interpretation of Scripture, his experience of Christians who disagreed with him showed that these “heretics” could still read the “canonical Scriptures” in ways that he considered unorthodox. To prevent such readings, he insists that anyone who reads the Scriptures must do so through dianoia – the capacity to discern the meaning or intention implicit in each text. Above all, he warns believers to shun epinoia. What others revere as spiritual intuition Athanasius declares is a deceptive, all-too-human capacity to think subjectively, according to one’s preconceptions. Epinoia leads only to error – a view that the “catholic church” endorsed then and holds to this day.”