Anti-non-catholics (catholics) Fear This

[RemnantRules]

what's hard for me is that the bible, mainly the OT was written BEFORE CHRIST! The Jewish religon had it and it with Jesus he was the fullfillment of the OT. So how can Protestant's come in and change the OT when in actuality it's been around MUCH LONGER than the NT.

[Guest JeffCR07]

Dairygirl, "docites" was a term used at the time for a particular group of Gnostics. Gnosticism is a heresy that has sprung up again and again over the course of many, many centuries. The basic premise of Gnosticism is that God is incapable of dying, and as such, Christ must not have died.

The gnostics believe in a "superdivine" Christ who did not actually have a physical body, but merely [i]appeared[/i] to have a physical body. It then follows that, to a gnostic, Jesus only appeared to have died and ressurrected when, in fact, he was always "alive" in a strictly spiritual sense.

This leads logically to another gnostic believe: All flesh and physical matter is evil, while all that is spiritual is good. They believe this notion in totality, and so reject any and all good whatsoever in matter and man, and that the only good is spiritual. They believe in a idea of "gnosis" which is an inner light of external revelation - that is, God places the light of revelation within each of us, and if we find it, or are given it, we have achieved "gnosis" and will pass from the physical realm into the spiritual after death. They believe that Christ gave the gnosis to his apostles and disciples, and it is usually is designated in the form of a kiss or a touch to the forehead.

The gnostics use texts called the "Gnostic Gospels" in order to support their believes, most notably the "Gospel of Thomas," the "Gospel of Phillip," the "Gospel of Mary Magdalene," the "Pistis Sophia," and a few others. The earliest of these text date to early 300 AD.

Tertullian was arguing contra Valentinian gnosticism, and was trying to prove that Christ was in fact dual in nature: entirely God and entirely man, and that, as such, Christ really did have a body and really did die.

So you see, if the eucharist was a "symbol" of Christ, that would not have helped his case against these docites, because they believed that Christ created an image - a symbol, if you will - of himself that was not his actual body. However, we can now see that, if Tertullian truly believed that the Eucharist IS the body and blood of Christ we can imagine Tertullian arguing that "If I hold in my hand the flesh and blood of Jesus (the eucharist), then he [i]must[/i] have had flesh and blood. If this is true, then his body [i]must[/i] have been real. If his body was real, then gnosticism is wrong. Take it Valentinus."

I apologize for the immature, adolescent portrayal of Tertullian, lol.

Hope that helps clear things up!

- Your Brother In Christ, Jeff