De Carne Christi
''De Carne Christi'' (, On the Flesh of Christ'' ') is a polemical work by Tertullian against the Gnostic Docetism of Marcion, Apelles, Valentinus and Alexander. It purports that the body of Christ was a real human body, born from the virginal body of Mary, but not by way of human procreation. Among other justifications for the incarnation of Christ, it states that "the choice of 'foolish' flesh is part of od'sconscious rejection of conventional wisdom" and that "Without true incarnation, there can be no true redemption... God must have flesh, in order to have a real death and real resurrection." (''De Carne Christi'', Mahé edition). The work contains the phrase ''prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est'' ("it is immediately credible – because it is silly" or "it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd".), which is commonly paraphrased as ''Credo quia absurdum ''Credo quia absurdum'' is a Latin phrase that means "I believe because it is absurd", originally ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Polemic
Polemic ( , ) is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called polemics, which are seen in arguments on controversial topics. A person who writes polemics, or speaks polemically, is called a polemicist. The word derives , . Polemics often concern questions in religion or politics. A polemical style of writing was common in Ancient Greece, as in the writings of the historian Polybius. Polemic again became common in medieval and early modern times. Since then, famous polemicists have included satirist Jonathan Swift, Italian physicist and mathematician Galileo, French theologian Jean Calvin, French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher Voltaire, Russian author Leo Tolstoy, socialist philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, novelist George Orwell, playwright George Bernard Shaw, communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, linguist Noam Chomsky, so ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tertullian
Tertullian (; ; 155 – 220 AD) was a prolific Early Christianity, early Christian author from Roman Carthage, Carthage in the Africa (Roman province), Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin literature, Latin Christian literature and was an early Christian apologetics, Christian apologist and a polemicist against Heresy in Christianity, heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism. Tertullian was the first theologian to write in Latin, and so has been called "the father of Latin Christianity", as well as "History of Christian theology, the founder of Western theology". He is perhaps most famous for being the first writer in Latin known to use the term ''trinity'' (Latin: ''trinitas''). Tertullian originated new theological concepts and advanced the development of early Church doctrine. However, some of his teachings, such as the Subordinationism, subordination of God the Son, the Son and Holy Spirit in C ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek: , Romanization of Ancient Greek, romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: Help:IPA/Greek, [ɣnostiˈkos], 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Early Christianity, early Christian sects. These diverse groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (''gnosis'') above the Proto-orthodox Christianity, proto-orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions. Generally, in Gnosticism, the Monad (Gnosticism), Monad is the supreme God who emanates divine beings; one, Sophia (Gnosticism), Sophia, creates the flawed demiurge who makes the material world, trapping souls until they regain divine knowledge. Consequently, Gnostics considered material existence flawed or evil, and held the principal element of salvation to be direct knowledge of the hidden divinity, attained via mystical or esoteric insight. Many Gnostic texts deal not in co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Docetism
In the history of Christianity, docetism (from the ''dokeĩn'' "to seem", ''dókēsis'' "apparition, phantom") was the doctrine that the phenomenon of Jesus, his historical and bodily existence, and above all the human form of Jesus, was mere semblance without any true reality. Broadly, it is taken as the belief that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his human form was an illusion. The word ''Dokētaí'' ("Illusionists") referring to early groups who denied Jesus's humanity, first occurred in a letter by Bishop Serapion of Antioch (197–203), who discovered the doctrine in the Gospel of Peter, during a pastoral visit to a Christian community using it in Rhosus, and later condemned it as a forgery. It appears to have arisen over theological contentions concerning the meaning, figurative or literal, of a sentence from the Gospel of John: "the Word was made Flesh". Docetism was unequivocally rejected at the First Council of Nicaea in 325. and is regarded as heretical by ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marcion
Marcion of Sinope (; ; ) was a theologian in early Christianity. Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ, who was distinct from the "vengeful" God ( Demiurge) who had created the world. He considered himself a follower of Paul the Apostle, whom he believed to have been the only true apostle of Jesus Christ; his doctrine is called Marcionism. Marcion published the earliest record of a canon of New Testament books. Early Church writers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian denounced Marcion as a heretic or antichrist, and he was excommunicated by the church of Rome around 144. He published his own canon of Christian sacred scriptures,Bruce 1988, p. 134. which contained ten Pauline epistles (including the Epistle to the Laodiceans, while excluding the Pastoral epistles) and the Gospel of Marcion which historically is claimed to be an edited version of the Gospel of Luke. Some modern scholars, such as Matthias Klinghardt, have theorized that Marcion' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Apelles (Gnostic)
Apelles () was a second-century Gnostic Christian thinker. He began his ministry as a disciple of Marcion of Sinope, likely in Rome. However, at some point, Apelles either left or was expelled from the Marcionite church. According to Tertullian, this separation occurred because Apelles became involved with a woman named Philumena, who claimed to be possessed by an angel that revealed 'revelations' to her. Apelles publicly read these revelations, which was seen as controversial. Since Marcion preached that Christians should practice celibacy and abstain from marriage, Apelles' relationship with Philumena was deemed unacceptable by the Marcionite church. After his departure from the Marcionite community, Apelles traveled to Alexandria, where he developed his own distinctive theological doctrine — a modified form of Marcionism. Doctrine Philosophy and beliefs Apelles' philosophy appears to have been a departure from the strict dualism and complete rejection of the material worl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Valentinus (Gnostic)
Valentinus ( Greek: Οὐαλεντῖνος; ) was the best known and, for a time, most successful early Christian Gnostic theologian. He founded his school in Rome. According to Tertullian, Valentinus was a candidate for bishop but started his own group when another was chosen. Valentinus produced a variety of writings, but only fragments survive, largely those quoted in rebuttal arguments in the works of his opponents, not enough to reconstruct his system except in broad outline. His doctrine is known only in the developed and modified form given to it by his disciples, the Valentinians. He taught that there were three kinds of people, the spiritual, psychical, and material; and that only those of a spiritual nature received the '' gnosis'' (knowledge) that allowed them to return to the divine Pleroma, while those of a psychic nature (ordinary Christians) would attain a lesser or uncertain form of salvation, and that those of a material nature were doomed to perish. Valentinu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pope Alexander I
Pope Alexander I (, died 115) was the bishop of Rome from about 108/109 to 116/119 (according to the 2012 ''Annuario Pontificio''). Some believe he suffered martyrdom under the Roman emperor Trajan or Hadrian. Life and legend According to the ''Liber Pontificalis'', it was Alexander I who inserted the narration of the Last Supper (the ''Qui pridie'') into the liturgy of the Mass. However, the article on Saint Alexander I in the 1907 ''Catholic Encyclopedia'', written by Thomas Joseph Shahan, Thomas Shahan, judges this tradition to be inaccurate, a view shared by Roman Catholic and non-Roman Catholic experts alike. It is viewed as a product of the agenda of ''Liber Pontificalis''—this section of the book was probably written in the late 5th century—to show an ancient pattern of the earliest bishops of Rome ruling the church by papal decree. The chronology of his pontificate is disputed, but he probably assumed office around 108/109 AD and died around 118/119 AD, after a tenu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Christ
Jesus ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Christianity, central figure of Christianity, the Major religious groups, world's largest religion. Most Christians consider Jesus to be the Incarnation (Christianity), incarnation of God the Son and awaited Messiah#Christianity, messiah, or Christ (title), Christ, a descendant from the Davidic line that is prophesied in the Old Testament. Virtually all modern scholars of classical antiquity, antiquity agree that Historicity of Jesus, Jesus existed historically. Accounts of Life of Jesus, Jesus's life are contained in the Gospels, especially the four canonical Gospels in the New Testament. Since the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment, Quest for the historical Jesus, academic research has yielded various views on the historical reliability of the Gospels and how closely they reflect the hi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mary, Mother Of Jesus
Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity of Mary, virgin or Queen of Heaven, queen, many of them mentioned in the Litany of Loreto. The Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Reformed Christianity, Reformed, Baptist, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, as mother of Jesus, is the Theotokos, Mother of God. The Church of the East historically regarded her as Christotokos, a term still used in Assyrian Church of the East liturgy. Other Protestant views on Mary vary, with some holding her to have lesser status. She has the Mary in Islam, highest position in Islam among all women and is mentioned numerous times in the Quran, including in a chapter Maryam (surah), named after her.Jestice, Phyllis G. ''Holy people of the world: a cros ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Conventional Wisdom
The conventional wisdom or received opinion is the body of ideas or explanations generally accepted by the public and/or by experts in a field. History The term "conventional wisdom" dates back to at least 1838, as a synonym for "commonplace knowledge". It was used in a number of works, occasionally in a benign''E.g.,'1 Nahum Capen, ''The History of Democracy'' (1874), page 477("millions of all classes alike are equally interested and protected by the practical judgment and conventional wisdom of ages"). or neutral''E.g.,'"Shallow Theorists", ''American Educational Monthly'' 383 (Oct. 1866)("What is the result? Just what conventional wisdom assumes it would be."). sense, but more often pejoratively.''E.g.,'Joseph Warren Beach, ''The Technique of Thomas Hardy'' (1922), page 152("He has not the colorless monotony of the business man who follows sure ways to success, who has conformed to every rule of conventional wisdom, and made himself as featureless as a potato field, as tame as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Credo Quia Absurdum
''Credo quia absurdum'' is a Latin phrase that means "I believe because it is absurd", originally misattributed to Tertullian in his '' De Carne Christi''. It is believed to be a paraphrasing of Tertullian's "''prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est''" which means "it is completely credible because it is unsuitable", or "''certum est, quia impossibile''" which means "it is certain because it is impossible". Early modern, Protestant and Enlightenment rhetoric against Catholicism and religion more broadly resulted in this phrase being changed to "I believe because it is absurd", displaced from its original anti-Marcionite context into a personally religious one. Tertullian's phrase originated in a rebuttal to Marcion's view that a human death for the divine Son of God would be paradoxical and thus ought to be rejected. History of the phrase Origins The original phrase, before being transmuted through Enlightenment rhetoric to its modern form "I believe because it is absurd", ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |