Ireneus

Since Ireneus crusade against Gnosticism in the latter half of the second century,  a paradigm of intellectual heresy vs orthodoxy has defined the Christian faith.  (See Ireneus - Against Heresy)

This should never have been so.

The core of early Christianity was Gnosis.  It was the paradigm by which all latter Christianities should have been judged - the intimate loving knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, and our knowing who we are in God.

Gnosis is the Greek word for knowledge.  Like Agape, the word Gnosis is also one of the words used in the Greek translaton of the Old Testament for male female love.

Orthodoxy vs Gnosticism

Ireneus faction seem to have missed the point of the intimate Bride and Bridegroom motif of Christ and the Church, and also missed St John's point that 'eternal life is about KNOWING (gnosis) God and Jesus Chirst'

Deceived by their own authoritarian intellectual paradigm as distinct from a loving relational paradigm, Ireneus and those who followed him painted Gnosticism as an exclusive hidden intellectual knowledge setting itself up above and in opposition to proto-orthodox Christian theology.

The ultimate category mistake!

Sadly, the Ireneus faction conquered the mainstream church of his day.  His proto-orthodox movement going on to spawn a myriad of Christianities over the following centuries.  Excommunicating and worse, their Gnostic brothers and sisters who loved the Father Son and Holy Spirit with an intimate passion.  All scared of error, some even prepared to torture and kill to maintain their own versions of theological and doctrinal purity.

After his excommunication from the Church in 160 AD, the Gnostic Valentinus was maligned by the Ireneus faction as an arch heretic.  His works were very selectively quoted by those who cristised him, and subsequently banned and destroyed when the Church became a temporal power under the Emperor Constantine.

With the finding of Valentinus' 'Gospel of Truth' and other Gnostic texts in the desert at Nag Hammadi in the 1940s, the proto-orthodox Churches treatment of Gnostics is clearly shown to have been dishonest.  

When you read the 'Gospel of Truth', it is difficult to think of any other second Century Christian Text where intimate loving knowledge of God and Jesus Christ is more central.

Valentinus 'Gospel of Truth' shows us that Christian Gnosticism is not some new age fringe thing, it is about the new covenant and the very keys of the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus preached.

Valentinus affirmed that the Kingdom of Heaven is to be known and experienced now.

Ireneus and the Kingdom

Ireneus referred to the Kingdom often in 'Against Heresies', but had no understanding of  any present tense experience....or did he?

Interestingly while Against Heresies has made it to the 21st Century, only excerpts of Ireneus other writings have survived.  The Kingdom of God is also mentioned by  Ireneus in these other works and here we see a far more accurate portrayal of the Kingdom of God.

Why?

The answer is obvious if you accept that the true Kingdom that Jesus preached was experiential 'knowing'.  This was the last thing Ireneus needed in his attack on Gnosticism, so from Ireneus Against Heresies Christian orthodoxy has inherited a distorted understanding of the Kingdom.  All part of the Great Redaction of 180 AD.