Weber’s typology of social authority is based on what Weber calls the increasing rationalization of society, with charismatic authority being the least rational and bureaucracy being the most rational. We must keep in mind that Weber tries to avoid adding or implying any value judgments in his sociology, although he does use common terms, like rational, that most of us implicitly assign value. Rationalization for Weber meant increasing dependency on laws or rules rather then personal authority which he considered neither good nor bad.
The major difference between Christian Gnosticism and Christian Orthodoxy was that Orthodoxy by rhe xecond century had established a basic hierarchy(bishop, priest and deacon) who’s authority was grounded not in the personal charisma of the titleholder but rather the power of the position. This power was rooted in the tradition of apostolic succession, I.E. each deacon, priest or bishop was ordained into his office by someone who’s ordination could be trace back to one of the original disciples. In the early church the bishops were seen as the direct descendants/successors of the disciples.
The Catholic Tradition has taught from the second century to the present that Peter was the first witness of the Resurrection, although both Synoptic and Gnostic Gospels provide evidence to the contrary. The alternative evidence states that Mary Magdellane was the first to see and speak to the Risen Christ, and that Peter, along with several others, did not see Christ until later in the day. For whatever reasons (which we will discuss in our posts on Magdellane), Orthodoxy shows to ignore that evidence, and the Catholic Church, uses the argument that Peter was the first witness as grounds for the primacy of the bishop of Rome – The Pope. Elaine Pagels, in her book the Gnostic Gospels, makes a very powerful argument for the necessity of the Orthodox Christian doctrine of bodily Resurrection in order to establish the tripartite hierarchy mentioned above. It is the fact that the disciples were the only valid witnesses to the actual Resurrected Jesus in bodily form. The Orthodox Doctrine of the Resurrection does not allow for any other witnesses other then those of the original disciples and perhaps Paul.
The Gnostics had a more charismatic view of the Resurrection. They believe that bodily Resurrection as taught by the Orthodox was a misinterpretation of what actually happened. They taught that bodily death was not necessary for resurrection. They saw resurrection more as a spiritual event rather then a physical one. They also taught that one could experience the Resurrected Jesus mystically if one was not alive at the time of the actual Resurrection. The implications of this Gnostic understanding of the Resurrection are extraordinary, and something that Pagels does not discuss, but we will in a later post.
I am not sure wether the Orthodox Doctrine came first or the Orthodox Doctrine of the Resurrection was first. This is one of those “chicken or egg” questions, which probably will never be answered difinitivly, however, I do agree with Pagels that there is a very close link between the Orthodox struggle for power and the development of Orthodox theology. The whole history of Christian Heresy can be understood as the struggle between charismatic authority and bureaucratic authority. Obviously, this will be a major theme of our discussions.
I feel that this dichotomy between Charisma and Bureaucracy, between Gnostic and Orthodox, is rooted in some very ancient western philosophical ideas that date back to ancient Greece. Remember that most of the earliest Christian polemicists were grounded in Greek philosophy, specifically Aristotle and Plato. The first of these philosophical assumptions, which we will discuss next time, is between Gnosis and Episteme, intuition and deductive reasoning.
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