Is St Paul gnostic christian?

• solomon1983

  1 Jan 07, 04:48

  Don't you realize that each of us, who has been immersed into Jesus Christ, has been immersed into his death? 4When we are buried under the waters of immersion, we are being placed in the tomb with Jesus, so that we can start a new life when we are raised up from the water, just as Christ came alive again through the Light of the Father and Mother entering him. 5If we have been buried in the similitude of his death, we will also be lifted up to a new life in the similitude of his resurrection, 6for when we are immersed, the person we were is crucified with Jesus, so that our fallen nature is destroyed, and we cease to be slaves of darkness. (Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Branch of the Body of Christ in Rome 6:3-6)
  
  http://www.thepearl.org/What_is_Gnosticism.htm
  
  Lost Christianities
  
  "Paul was originally a Jewish Pharisee from outside Palestine, who had heard the Christian proclamation of Jesus, found it blasphemous, and worked to oppose it with all his heart and strength, one of the first the most forceful persecutors of the new faith (Gal. 1:13; cf. Acts 8:3). But Paul himself then had some kind of visionary experience of Jesus (Gal. 1:15-16; 1 Cor. 15:8-11) and changed from being the Christian movement's chief adversary to being its chief advocate, transformed from persecutor to proclaimer."
  Bart Ehrman, "Lost Christianities", p96
  
  http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/paul.html
• solomon1983

  1 Jan 07, 04:54

  The Gnostic Theology of Paul
  
  Paul's writings are the oldest documents in the New Testament. The teaching of Paul when examined closely bears little resemblance to the orthodox Christianity of today and yet Paul has been considered one of the pillars of Christendom for centuries. Paul's theogoly is decidedly "gnostic."
  Paul did not base his teaching exclusively on the "tradition" of the Nazorean (Jerusalem) community but states unequivocally that his gospel was given to him "through a revelation of Jesus Christ." (Gal. 1:12) Paul's appeal to private revelation for the source of his gospel places him in the category of the "gnostic," that is, one who knows through divine insight or revelation. Ironically, several "gnostic" teachers, including Valentinus, pointed to Paul as the source of their teaching.
  
  There are several key ideas in Paul's theology which have been either ignored or misinterpreted but which are, nevertheless, firmly embedded in Paul's theological system. According to orthodox Christians, the following ideas which I will attribute to Paul would be considered "heretical." Why? Not only because they have been re-interpreted by orthodox fabricators from the close of the first century onward, but because the "gnostic" quality of Paul's theology became too uncomfortable for the early Church Fathers..
  
  http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Styx/8676/files/paulgno.htm