A] Sketchy outline:
One of the differences between Christianity and its gnostic cousins is highlighted by St Augustine in the ninth book of his Confessions. Augustine spent a number of years as a follower of the Manichean sect, a group that had a gnostic bent.
A hallmark of gnosticism is that the path to God went mainly through the intellect. Images of 'enlightenment' abound in gnosticism, as does a disparaging of attempting to reach a vision of God by other means, such as physical activity. Remember second year philosophy and the Platonic ascent? You get to God through your mind - leave this earthly stuff and its activities behind.
In the ninth book of the Confessions, Augustine (the intellectual) sits down with his mother Monica (the faithful Christian mother). As they sit and talk together, they have a vision of God. What happens in this vision? Well, two things. First, as might be expected by the philosophers, Augustine grasps something of God - this is not news for the ancient world, nor for the gnostics in general. We get to know God by enlightenment, right?
Well, Monica has the same vision of God that Augustine does. Now how do the gnostics/ the ancients/ the philosophers explain this? One answer is to discount it. "This can't possibly be true. Only the enlightened, the ones with the knowledge, can see the true God". BZZZ . Wrong answer.
Monica has been a faithful Christian. There is something about simply living the Christian life in all its practical, earthy demands and details, that brings you closer to the living God. It's as if "doing the truth", as exemplified by Monica, is how she "gets to see God". The gnostics would never understand this. How can this fool of a woman who "merely" goes to church and prays and lives a rather ordinary life of charitable works with no intellectual training get to have a vision of God? Impossible, they say. Yet there it is. For the Christian, 'knowing the truth' and 'doing the truth' go hand in hand. Augustine and Monica sit down together, and together they see God.
Part B] later: "mystical vision" in the early church.
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