heretic!

February 7, 2006 12:00 PM

There's a bit in, I'm sure, Foucault's Pendulum where one of the characters has attributed to her a heretical belief to the effect that one must experience all sins before being saved. It wasn't, I think, simply antinomianism. Is this an actual "respectable" heresy, and if so, what's it's name?
posted by kenko to religion & philosophy (8 comments total)

I'm not sure about this, but in the book the character (Lorenza) drunkenly calls herself Sophia and says she has to "perpetrate all sins" in order to be freed from the flesh. It could be a reference to the Pistis Sophia featured in Gnosticism. In the text it says, among other things, Jesus said: "Such a man who hath committed all sins and all iniquities, and he findeth the mysteries of the Light, and performeth and fulfilleth them and ceaseth not nor doeth sins, will inherit the Treasury of the Light."
posted by Gator at 12:29 PM on February 7, 2006

Irenaeus regarding Carpocrates

Note that this is a hostile account--Irenaeus' goal was to discredit Carpocrates and his followers.
posted by gimonca at 2:27 PM on February 7, 2006

The Borges story “Three Versions of Judas” discusses some (fictional?) heresies similar to this; given how close together Borges and Eco fall I wouldn't be surprised if this was a reference.
posted by monocyte at 2:40 PM on February 7, 2006

I'm pretty sure, without having the book in hand, that its the Cainites (descendants of Cain). In any case, as those above, a Gnostic sect:

They also hold, like Carpocrates, that men cannot be saved until they have gone through all kinds of experience. An angel, they maintain, attends them in every one of their sinful and abominable actions, and urges them to venture on audacity and incur pollution. Whatever may be the nature329 of the action, they declare that they do it in the name of the angel, saying, "O thou angel, I use thy work; O thou power, I accomplish thy operation!" And they maintain that this is "perfect knowledge," without shrinking to rush into such actions as it is not lawful even to name.

from Irenaeus
posted by vacapinta at 3:03 PM on February 7, 2006

Oddly, this brought to mind a Bible verse (oddly because I haven't cracked a bible or listened to a sermon in 4+ years now.)

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? - Romans 6:1-2

This would seem to canonically invalidate that particular heresy, in perhaps the most doctrinally crucial Pauline Epistle...
posted by The Confessor at 6:40 PM on February 7, 2006

Jules Feiffer apparently said "Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?"
posted by obiwanwasabi at 12:14 AM on February 8, 2006

Off-topic, but if you're interested in heresies, you should read The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Flaubert. There's a newer edition floating around with an essay discussing the book by Foucault (you know, Michel).
posted by OmieWise at 7:34 AM on February 8, 2006

Sorry, that was lazy. It's the Modern Library edition that I'm thinking of. You can search inside at Amazon.
posted by OmieWise at 7:35 AM on February 8, 2006