The Resistance to Christianity : The Heresies at the Origins of the 18th Century

Bibliographical References
Bibliographical References Aegerter, E., Joachim de Flore. L’Evangile eternal, Paris, 1928. Aeneas Silvius, Piccolomini (Pius II), De hortu et historia Bohemorum, in Omnia Opera, Basle, 1551. Aland, Kurt, Bibliographie zur Geschicte des Pietismus, Berlin-New York, 1972. — , Augustin und der Montanismus in Kirchengeschichtliche Entwuerfe, Guetersloh, 1960. Albert le Grand, Determinatio de novo spiritu; in Haupt (see below). Alexandrian, Histoire de la philosophie occulte, Paris, 1983. Alfaric, P., Le probleme de Jesus, Paris, 1965. Allier, R., “Les freres du libre-esprit,” in Religions et Societes, Paris, 1905. Alphandery, P., De quelques faits de prophetisme dans les sec... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 48 : The End of the Divine Right
Chapter 48: The End of the Divine Right In the profusion of its diverse tendencies, the triumph of Protestantism — in which the economic mechanisms that chaotically governed historical evolution burst the skin of the God that had clothed them in his myth — put an end to the notion of repressive orthodoxy and, consequently, the existence of “heresy.” The sects gave the [Greek] word hairesis the neutral meanings of “choice” and “option.” They entered into the currents of opinions that soon claimed, with Destutt of Tracy and Benjamin Constant, the name “ideologies.” The decapitation of Louis XVI, monarch of divine right, removed from God the ecclesiastical head at which — like a monstrous cephalopod — were articulated the secular arms that were tasked with imposing his writs of mandamus. The jubilation that, around the end of the [Eighteenth] century, brought down the churches... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 47 : Pietists, Visionaries and Quietists
Chapter 47: Pietists, Visionaries and Quietists The Pietists Born from the preaching of the Lutherian pastor Philippe-Jacob Spener (1635–1705), Pietism proceeded from the tradition of Johannes Denck, for whom faith — or its absence, because only private conviction was important — did not bother with sacraments, priests or pastors, nor even with the allegedly sacred texts. Under German and English Pietism, there also smoldered the thought of Jacob Boehme (1575–1624), the shoemaker from Gorlitz (in Silesia), whose doctrine was part of the Hermetic tradition and the subtle alchemy of individual experience. Without entering into an analysis of a rich and dense conception, it is possible to emphasize the point at which Pietism’s God, dissolved into nature, more perfectly annihilated the idea of God than atheism, which was content to reduce God to a social function presented everywhere in the exercise of power and aut... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 46 : The Jansenists
Chapter 46: The Jansenists While Holland and England, both of which acclimated themselves to the formal freedoms of the bourgeois revolution, engendered a multitude of sects whose language — still taking on theological artifices — less and less dissimulated their ideological texture, the Catholic countries, which were prey to the distraction of the Counter-Reformation, once again found in monarchal and pontifical absolutism the guarantee of a Catholicism that was restored to its temporal and spiritual powers. Indulging in the Constantinian parody of the divine right, Louis XIV persisted in dissimulating — under the pomp of a Church in which Bossuet enjoyed Lully — the pusillanimities of a tormented nature, corroded by the sourness of prestige. The sun, with which (in the manner of the mediocre ones) he claimed to crown himself, only dispensed its light upon the courtiers of literature and the arts, apt to dilute their genius... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 45 : Levellers, Diggers and Ranters
Chapter 45: Levelers, Diggers and Ranters By decapitating King Charles , the English Revolution removed God from public affairs. Cromwell’s instauration of a new republic, which was profitable for the interests of the small landowners and the bourgeoisie, revived (with the breath of freedom) the fire of working-class insurrection that had not ceased to smolder since the days of John Ball. More than anywhere else, the legends of Robin Hood and the beloved brigand had, in England, illustrated the idea — widely held, all things considered — that robbing the rich so as to soften the misfortunes of the poor restored the natural obligations of solidarity. The development of Protestantism as the ideology of emerging modern capitalism broke the old structure of the religious myth, at the same time that the barriers and walls raised everywhere by feudalism and the predominance of the agrarian economy ceded place to the free circulation of commodi... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Paulicians and Bogomiles
Chapter 25: Paulicians and Bogomiles The Paulicians In the Fourth Century, Armenian Christianity offered to their neighborhoring particularities the same landscape as that of the cities of Latium and Greece, if not the entire Empire: an ancient Christianity of an ascetic spirit, a pro-Roman clerical party that was better and better structured, Marcionite communities, local churches like founded by Paul of Samosate, and archaic cults either Christianized or including the Christ in their ecumenicism: Naassenes, Barbelites, Sethians, Valentinians, and sometimes all of these beliefs confounded together. (Contrary to what the majority of historians affirm, and as the sepulcher of the Aurelii shows.) In Armenia, the pro-Roman faction tried to fre... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Tatian and the Fabrication of the New Testament
Chapter 16: Tatian and the Fabrication of the New Testament Born in Syria around 120, Tatian posthumously became one of the founders of the Church due to his extremism in matters of asceticism. Irenaeus attacked him because, “like Marcion and Satornil, he called marriage a corruption and debauchery. He maintained that Adam was not saved.” Converted to Christianity, and a disciple of Justin in Rome, Tatian was exposed to the attacks of Crescentius, Justin’s accuser. Teaching Christianity in Rome around 172–173, he professed the anti-Marcionism of his master and transmitted it to his disciple, Rhodon. Then he left for the East and founded schools while the New Prophecy took off. One supposes that he died at the end of ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Individualist Messiahs: David Joris, Nicolas Frey, Hendrik Niclaes
Chapter 43: The Individualist Messiahs: David Joris, Nicolas Frey, Hendrik Niclaes David Joris Among the wandering preachers whom the Reformation and the free interpretation of the sacred texts threw upon Europe’s roads, David Joris distinguished himself more through the singularity of his destiny than through the originality of his thought. Pursued by the hatred of the Catholics, Lutherians, Calvinists, Mennonites and Munsterians, this man — upon whose head there was a price wherever he went — would end his life peacefully in Basle, under the outward appearance of a notable, orthodox adept of Reformed doctrines, honorably known as John of Bruges. Born in Bruges, perhaps in Delft, less probably in Ghent, he was surnamed Da... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Three Esseno-Christian Christs: Seth, Melchizedek, and Joshua/Jesus
Chapter 8: Three Esseno-Christian Christs: Seth, Melchizedek, and Joshua/Jesus The diverse sects of the movement that was given the general name of Essenism inscribed at the top rank of their preoccupations — which were conferred a dramatic reality by the Zealot movement — the question of the Messiah, the envoy in whom God would confide the care of leading the people towards a promised new earth. Due to their collaboration with the [Roman] occupiers, the Pharisians disapproved of Messianic speculations, and in particular those that, hoping for the reincarnation of Adam or one of his sons, claimed that the first man was a partner of God and took part in the creation of the world. For them, no Messiah — infatuated with some ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Fraticelles
Chapter 35: The Fraticelles The name “Fraticelles” (from the Italian fraticelli, sometimes translated in French as frerots or the “kid brothers”) designated the radical dissidents of the “Spiritual” faction that, in the Franciscan order, opposed to the “Conventual” or orthodox wing the strict vocation of poverty, as prescribed by Francis of Assisi. Although John XXII applied the term to the Spirituals as a form of polemical malignity, he never seriously attacked the Fraticelles, who were blemished with the same spirit of freedom as the Beghards, Beguines, apostolics and Dolcinists. Respectful for the original directives of Franciscanism, the Spirituals extolled — in addition to absolute ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)