Spiritual Kinship

Thanks for the links. I am particularly interested in what these writers used as their sources of information. Many of the others, if I recall correctly, seemed to use Mosheim; but now we are calling Mosheim into question. Oh well, I'll read them over.

Thanks.

CA

 

I thought most of the people litsted on the reformed reader site quoted him as authoritative. Certainly, SH Ford did.

Anyway, I'll read the sites you noted. Thanks again.

CA

 

I thought Mosheim was Lutheran and a university professor. Where did you get idea that he was a Catholic?

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Johann_Lorenz_Von_Mosheim

 

Allan,

Are there any current, say after the 1950's, Baptist writers that believe that the Paulicians were precursors to the present day Baptists?

 

RE "...Even Luther was declared by the Synod of Sens to be a Manichaean..."

RE "... Did you note that Martin Luther was called an Albigensian which according to Mosheim (and the Catholic Church) was pretty much identical in beliefs..."

What teachings of Luther did the synod believe were Manichaean/Albigensian?

 

Thanks for your input.

CA

 

I have recently had these books recommended to me:

Torbet, A History of the Baptists (3rd ed.)
B. White, English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century
McGoldrick, Baptist Successionism

Have you read them? If yes, what are your thoughts on the case they make? (I am in the process of getting them from the library.)

I have read the McGoldrick book. I thought that he actually refuted the idea of spiritual kinship, but I will reread him.

CA

 

At this point it seems advisable to review the primary sources.

 

Because of -

1. The brief, but powerful critique of the 19th century successionist writers given by W. Morgan Patterson in Baptist Successionism: A Critical View (Judson Press, 1969).

2. James Edward McGoldrick's equally brief, but convincing review of the groups claimed by successionist's in Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question in Baptist History (Scarecrow Press, 2000)

3. The fact that, to my knowledge, no major Baptist seminary subscribes to the idea that Paulicians were a form of early Baptists, nor do they subscribe to the overall theory.

CA

 

Pardon the long post, but there was no web link available. Part 1 of 2 parts.

Extract from the Introduction (pages xxxiii to xl) to The Key of Truth: A Manual of the Paulician Church of Armenia by Fred C. Conybeare (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1898). A Summary of Paulician Tenants.

(1) The writer and reader of the Key did not call themselves Paulicians, still less Thonraketzi. They were the ‘holy, universal, and apostolic Church,’ founded by Jesus Christ and his apostles. In describing themselves the words catholic and orthodox are sometimes, but less often, added; perhaps because they shrank from the use of titles so closely identified with their persecutors.

(2) The church consists of all baptized persons, and preserves the apostolic tradition which Christ revealed to the apostles and they to the Church, which has handed it on by unbroken transmission from the first.

(3) The sacraments are three which are requisite to salvation, to wit, Repentance, Baptism, and the Body and Blood of Christ. Marriage, ordination, confirmation, extreme unction are not necessary to salvation.

(4) All true baptism in accordance with the precepts of Christ, especially Mark xvi. 16, must be preceded by repentance and faith.

(5) Consequently infant baptism is invalid; and, in admitting it, the Latins, Greeks, and Armenians have lost their Christianity, lost the sacraments, forfeited their orders, and have become a mere Satanic mimicry of the true faith. If any of them, even their patriarchs, would rejoin the true Church, they must be baptized.

(6) The catechumen or candidate for baptism must be of mature age, as was Jesus of Nazareth, in order that he may be able to understand, recognize, and repent of his sin, which is twofold, viz.: original and operative.

(7) Baptism is only to be performed by an elect or ordained member of the Church, and in answer to the personal demand of the person who seeks to be admitted into the Church.

(8) On the eighth day from birth the elect one shall solemnly confer a name on the new-born child, using a prescribed form of prayer. But he shall not allow any mythical or superstitious names.

(9) In doctrine the Paulicians were Adoptionist, and held that Jesus the Messiah was born a man, though a new man, of the Virgin Mary; and that, having fulfilled all righteousness and having come to John for baptism, he received in reward for his struggles the Lordship of all things in heaven and earth, the grace of the divine spirit, whereby he was anointed and became the Messiah, and was elected or chosen to be the eternal only-born Son, mediator of God and man, and intercessor.

(10) They may also be called Unitarians, in so far as they believed that Jesus Christ was not creator but created, man, made and not maker. He was never God at all, but only the new-created Adam.

(11) Jesus was born without original sin.

(12) The Holy Ghost enters the catechumen immediately after baptism (to exclude evil spirits), when a third handful of water is, in his honor, poured out over the catechumen’s head. He is also breathed into the elect one by the bishop at the close of the ordination service.

(13) The word Trinity is nowhere used, and was almost certainly rejected as being unscriptural. In baptism, however, three separate handfuls of water were poured over the head in the name of the father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit. Two or three words are erased in the baptismal formula, which would have explained more clearly the significance they attach to the proceeding, but it was clearly heretical or they would not have been erased. A ‘figure’ follows in the text, p. 98, shadowing forth the meaning. The king, we learn, releases certain rulers from the prison of sin; the Son calls them to himself and comforts and gives them hope; and then the Holy Spirit at once crowns them and dwells in them for ever and ever. This figure is also meant to exhibit the significance of genuine baptism.

(14) The Virgin Mary lost her virginity at the birth of Jesus, and is not ‘ever virgin.’ She was a virgin, however, till the new Adam was born. She cannot intercede for us, for Christ, our only intercessor, expressly denied blessedness to her because of her unbelief.

(15) There is no intercession of the saints, for the dead rather need the prayers of the living than the living of the lead.

(16) The idea of Purgatory is false and vain. There is but one last judgment for all, for which the quick and the dead (including saints) wait.

(17) Images, pictures, holy crosses, springs, incense, candles are all to be condemned as idolatrous and unnecessary, and alien to the teaching of Christ.

(18) The Paulicians are not dualists in any other sense than the New Testament is itself dualistic. Satan is simply the adversary of man and God, and owing to the fall of Adam held all, even patriarchs and prophets, in his bonds before the advent of Christ.

(19) Sin must be publicly confessed before God and the Church, which consists of the faithful.

(20) The elect ones alone have the power of binding and loosing given by Christ to the Apostles and by them transmitted to their universal and apostolic Church.

(21) Their canon included the whole of the New Testament except perhaps the Apocalypse, which is not mentioned or cited. The newly-elected one has given to him the Gospel and Apostolicon. The Old Testament is not rejected; and although rarely cited, is nevertheless, when it is cited, called the God-inspired book, “Astouadsashountch”, which in Armenian answers to our phrase ‘Holy Scripture’ or ‘Bible.’

 

Part 2 of 2 parts.

Extract from the Introduction (pages xxxiii to xl) to The Key of Truth: A Manual of the Paulician Church of Armenia by Fred C. Conybeare (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1898). A Summary of Paulician Tenants.

(22) In the Eucharist the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ through the blessing invoked. Yet when he said to his followers” ‘My body is the true food and my blood the true drink,’ and again, ‘I am the bread of life which came down from heaven,’ he spoke in figures. However, in the last supper, when he blessed the elements, i.e. prayed the Lord that the bread might be truly changed into his body, it was verily so changed by the Holy Spirit, and Jesus “saw” that it was so and thanked the Almighty Father for the change of it into his body and blood.

(23) The false priests (of the orthodox Churches) either deceive the simple-minded with mere bread, or – what is worse – they change the elements into their own sinful bodies when they say ‘This is “my” body,’ instead of changing them into Christ’s.

(24) One unleavened loaf and wine are to be offered in the Eucharistic sacrifice.

(25) In baptism the catechumens pass naked into the middle of the water on their knees; but beside this immersion it was necessary to pour three handfuls of water over the head.

(26) Exorcism of the catechumen is performed by the elect one before baptism.

(27) The sponsors in the infant baptism of the heretics (i.e. the orthodox) churches are at best mere false witnesses.

(28) There is but a single grade of ecclesiastical authority, and this is that of the elect one. He bears the authority to bind and loose given by the Father to Jesus in the descent of the Holy Spirit in Jordan, handed on by Jesus to the apostles and by them to their successors.

(29) But although all authority is one and the same, the elect depository of it may have various titles; and according to the particular function he is fulfilling he is called in the Key, priest, elder, bishop, doctor, president, apostle, and chief.

(30) The word used to denote authority i s “ishkhan-uthiun. Hence is it probably that the “ishkhanq,” or rulers who choose out and present to the bishop a candidate for election, and in conjunction with the bishop lay hands on him in ordination, were themselves elect ones.

(31) The presbyters and arch-presbyter mentioned in the ordinal or Service of Election seem to be identical with these “ishkhanq,” or rulers. They seem to have the same duty of testing, choosing and presenting before the bishop the candidate for election. On p. 108 the parties present at that service are summed up thus: ‘The bishop, the newly-elected one, the rulers, archrulers, and congregation.’ A little before we read that the presbyters and arch-presbyters bring up the candidate to the bishop and pray him to ordain. It would seem then that the rulers and presbyters are the same people.

(32) There is no trace of Docetism in the Key, nor any denial of the real character of the Passion. Christ’s sufferings are indeed declared to have been insupportable.

(33) The office of Reader is mentioned. In the Ordination Service he is the candidate for election.

(34) There is no rejection of the epistles of Peter, not is any disrespect shown to that apostle. It is merely affirmed, p. 93, that the church does not rest on him alone, but on all the apostles, including Paul. In the Election Service, p. 107, the bishop formally confers upon the candidate the ritual name of Peter, in token of the authority to loose and bind now bestowed on him. There was a similar ritual among the Cathars of France.

(35) Sacrifice of animals (to expiate the sins of the dead) are condemned as contrary to Christ’s teaching.

(36) New-born children have neither original nor operative sin, and do not therefore need to be baptized.

(37) A strong prejudice against monks animates the Key. The devils favorite disguise is that of a monk.

(38) The scripture and a knowledge of divine truth are not to remain the exclusive possession of the orthodox priests.

(39) Rejection of the Logos doctrine as developed in the other Churches. There is indeed no explicit rejection of it in the Key, but it is ignored, and the doctrine that Jesus is a man and not God, leaves no room for it in Paulician theology.

(40) For the same reason they must have rejected the term “theotokos.”

(41) The elect one was an anointed one, a Christ, and the ordinal is a ritual for the election and anointing of a presbyter in the same way as Jesus was elected and anointed, namely by the Holy Spirit.

END

 

What interpretative principle allows for the acceptance of some of these tenants and the rejection of others?