Groups of gnostics and heretics, who based their ideas on alternative interpretations of the economy of salvation, developed exotic Christian myths, legends, and practices. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, dualists believed that the world of matter created by an evil god (identified as the god of the Genesis" class="md-crosslink">Book of Genesis) and the realm of the spirit created by a good god (revealed in the New Testament) were irreconcilably pitted against one another. The gnostic sects—among them the Valentinians, Basilidians, Ophites, and Simonians—developed a variety of myths. Among them were those of Valentinus, who lived in Rome and Alexandria in the mid-2nd century. Valentinian myths describe how the pleroma (spiritual realm) that existed in the beginning was disrupted by a Fall. The Creator God of Genesis, aborted from the primordial world, became a Demiurge and created the material universe. He deliberately created two kinds of human being, the hylics and the psychics, and animated them with his breath. Unknown to the Demiurge, however, certain remnants of pleromic wisdom contained in his breath lodged as spiritual particles in matter and produced a third group of beings called pneumatics. The God of Genesis then sought to prevent gnostics from discovering their past origins, present powers, and future destinies. Gnostics (the pneumatics) contain within themselves divine sparks expelled from the pleroma. Christ was sent from the pleroma to teach gnostics the saving knowledge (gnosis) of their true identities and was crucified when the Demiurge of Genesis discovered that Christ (the male partner of the feminine Holy Spirit) was in Jesus. After Christ returned to the pleroma, the Holy Spirit descended.
The Ophites (from the Greek word ophis, “serpent”) offered a new interpretation of the Fall of Genesis. According to the Ophite view, the serpent of the Garden of Eden wanted Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, to eat from the tree of knowledge (gnosis) so that they would know their true identities and “be like God” (Genesis 3:5). The serpent, thus, is interpreted as a messenger of the spiritual god, and the one who wanted to prevent Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge is viewed as the Demiurge. Linwood Fredericksen Lawrence E. Sullivan The Magi and the Child of Wondrous Light
The legend of the Magi, who were mentioned in The Gospel According to Matthew, was embellished in apocryphal books and Christian folklore. The Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum relates that 12 Magi-Kings lived near the Mountain of Victories, which they climbed every year in the hope of finding the messiah in a cave on the mountaintop. Each year they entered the cave and prayed for three days, waiting for the promised star to appear. Adam had revealed this location and the secret promises to his son Seth. Seth transmitted the mysteries to his sons, who passed the information from generation to generation. Eventually the Magi, sons of kings, entered the cave to find a star of unspeakable brightness, glowing more than many suns together. The star and its bright light led to, or became, the Holy Child, the son of the Light, who redeems the world.
The Adoration of the Magi, oil painting by Albrecht Dürer, 1504; in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.SCALA/Art Resource, New York
Relics and saints
The cult (system of religious beliefs and rituals) of the saints emerged in the 3rd century and gained momentum from the 4th to the 6th century. The bones of martyrs were believed to provide evidence of God’s power at work in the world, producing miracles and spectacles of the effectiveness of faith. The martyrs had imitated Christ even unto death, and the remains of their holy bodies were thought to be points of contact between earth and heaven. On the model of Christ’s Incarnation, the bones of martyred saints embodied God’s salvific power and thus became the centre of active cults. Relics were installed in basillicas or in special churches called martyria. The tombs of martyrs, on the margins of cities and towns, attracted pilgrims and processions. Legends described the prodigious virtues of martyrs and saints, as well as the dreams or visions that revealed the resting places of still more powerful relics. Each discovery (inventio) promised new and effective signs of divine redemption. Returning from distant places, especially Rome, pilgrims brought relics to their home churches. Thus, during the 8th century, bones and other relics were moved from southern Europe to the north and west.
Of all relic discoveries, the most impressive was that of the True Cross (the cross upon which Jesus was crucified, found in September 335 or in 326, according to other accounts). The discovery of the cross (inventio crucis) was one of the more popular legends of the Middle Ages. The basic elements of the tradition had been established by the late 4th century and were associated with a pilgrimage that St. Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, made to Jerusalem in the 320s. According to the legend, Helena, prompted by a dream, located the place where the cross lay buried and had the wood unearthed. Helena, the tale continues, realized that what she had found was the True Cross when a sick woman she had lie on it was healed. The power of the cross, the history of the wood, and the story of its discovery became legendary.
Gaddi, Agnolo: “Resurrection of Drusiana”“Resurrection of Drusiana,” scene from the fresco Legend of the True Cross, by Agnolo Gaddi, c. 1380; in the Church of Santa Croce, Florence.SCALA/Art Resource, New York
Through the symbolism of the cross, early Christian imagery perpetuated, and at the same time transformed, the myths of the World Tree. The sacred drama of Christ’s birth, death, and Resurrection participates in the rejuvenating rhythms of the fecund cosmos. Early Christians identified the cross of Christ as the World Tree, which stood at the centre of cosmic space and stretched from earth to heaven. The cross was fashioned of wood from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which grew in the Garden of Eden. Below the tree lies Adam’s buried skull, baptized in Christ’s blood. The bloodied cross-tree gives forth the oil, wheat, grapes, and herbs used to prepare the materials administered in the sacraments that revitalize a fallen world. The Italian Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca later depicted the myth of the True Cross in his frescoes in Arezzo, Italy. They portray the death of Adam, fallen at the foot of the tree that provides wood for the crucifix on which Jesus is slain. The wood of the cross, however, becomes the instrument of salvation and the holiest matter in Christendom, and the cross itself became the focus of tales of fantastic historical episodes.
Helena was responsible for another great discovery when she found Christ’s tomb, the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which also became a highlight of Christian legend. Like the body of the Saviour, the tomb is a “holy of holies.” Its discovery was tantamount to the Resurrection, for its reemergence into the light of day was seen as a restoration of life where before only darkness reigned. The cross and the tomb were woven together in legend. The desire to regain possession of the True Cross and the Holy Sepulchre was the source of inspiration for the Christian knights of the Crusades. Lawrence E. Sullivan The Middle Ages