Why Gnostic Christians Should Not Use the Rosary!

Why Gnostic Christians Should Not Use the Rosary!

There are many websites claiming to be Gnostics on the internet most of them advocate the use of the rosary with prayers similar to those used by the Roman Catholic Church which have been adapted for a more Gnostic style. However not many people know the true origin of the rosary and how it was used as a spiritual weapon against Gnostic Christians this study will look into this:

Rosary a string of beads for keeping count in a rosary or in the devotions of some other religions, in Roman Catholic use 55 or 165 in number.

The term “rosary” Latin: rosarium, means "crown of roses" or "garland of roses"

The rosary was not used by Jesus, by His apostles, or by the early church fathers, nor is it referred to in the Gnostic Gospels.

A Troubled history

The original, lengthy prayer cycle is devoted to the Virgin Mary and was composed by St Dominic as an antidote to heresy at a time when the Catholic Church was seeking to crush the Cathar sect in what is now south-western France.

The crusade against the Cathars stands as one of the bloodiest episodes in Church history.

The Rosary was roundly cursed by Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century as "mere babbling, as stupid as it is wicked, nourishing a false confidence". (Pope updates ancient Rosary prayer BBC NEWS Monday, 21 October, 2002, 14:55 GMT 15:55 UK)

One Catholic website says "Our Lady gave Saint Dominic the Rosary as a weapon to combat the awful Cathar (Albigensian) heresy."

St. Dominic set up his headquarters in the town of Fanjeaux in 1206, becoming its parish priest and taking charge of its ancient church, Notre Dame de Prouille. In Fanjeaux, St. Dominic founded a convent for young women fleeing the vice and debauchery of the Cathar sect. Soon after, St. Dominic added monks to his growing community. From these small beginnings, he planted the seeds of what would later become the Dominican Order.

Church tradition tells us that, in the year 1208, St. Dominic had a vision of the Virgin Mary while praying in his church. The Blessed Mother reportedly taught him to pray the Rosary, telling him to use this weapon to defeat the heretics.

Aflame with enthusiasm, St. Dominic called on Catholics and heretics alike to pray the Rosary. By 1213, many Catholic Crusaders had taken St. Dominic’s advice. Devotion to the Rosary had spread among them like wildfire.


That year, a Crusader army under Simon de Montfort met a Cathar army under Raymond of Toulouse in the battle of Muret. The heretics were routed. Years later, when the Cathar heresy was finally extinguished, many Catholics attributed its defeat as much to St. Dominic’s zeal as to the Crusaders’ arms. (From a Catholic Website)


From a Cathar website:

Leo XIII claims that the Cathars were defeated not by human force, but by Mary's Rosary:

8. Moreover, we may well believe that the Queen of Heaven herself has granted an especial efficacy to this mode of supplication, for it was by her command and counsel that the devotion was begun and spread abroad by the holy Patriarch Dominic [Dominic Guzmán] as a most potent weapon against the enemies of the faith at an epoch not, indeed, unlike our own, of great danger to our holy religion. The heresy of the Albigenses had in effect, one while covertly, another while openly, overrun many countries, and this most vile offspring of the Manicheans, whose deadly errors it reproduced, were the cause in stirring up against the Church the most bitter animosity and a virulent persecution. There seemed to be no human hope of opposing this fanatical and most pernicious sect when timely succour came from on high through the instrument of Mary's Rosary. Thus under the favour of the powerful Virgin, the glorious vanquisher of all heresies, the forces of the wicked were destroyed and dispersed, and faith issued forth unharmed and more shining than before.


1891-09-22- SS Leo XIII - Octobri Mense: Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII promulgated on September 22, 1891 On the Rosary


Leo does not explain why Mary's Rosary had so little effect before Catharism was exterminated by physical force - a long war of extermination followed by operations of the Inquisition over generations.


Leo still seems to accept that Catharism was descended from Manicheism, as the medieval Catholic Church held, but the modern Catholic Church doubts.


Pius XI elaborates on The Rosary and likens Catharism to Communism:

19. The Holy Virgin who once victoriously drove the terrible sect of the Albigenses from Christian countries, now suppliantly invoked by us, will turn aside the new errors, especially those of Communism, which reminds us in many ways, in its motives and misdeeds, of the ancient ones.

20. And as in the times of the Crusades, in all Europe there was raised one voice of the people, one supplication; so today, in all the world, the cities, and even the smallest villages, united with courage and strength, with filial and constant insistence, the people seek to obtain from the great Mother of God the defeat of the enemies of Christian and human civilization, to the end that true peace may shine again over tired and erring men.

BUT IS IT CHRISTIAN?

Does God’s Word authorize such repetitious praying? No. Jesus said: “But when praying, do not say the same things over and over again, just as the people of the nations do, for they imagine they will get a hearing for their use of many words. So, do not make yourselves like them, for God your Father knows what things you are needing before ever you ask him.” How well Jesus knew the human tendency to want to repeat prayers! And, in view of his warning, the fact that the use of the rosary is widespread among the people of the nations carries no weight with it whatsoever!—Matt. 6:7, 8.

Apologists for the rosary try to rob Jesus’ words of their effect by pointing to Revelation 4:8, in which the word “holy” appears three times: “Holy, holy, holy.” But it is quite different from repeating one word twice in a prayer for a total of three words to repeating the forty words in Hail Mary fifty-two times for a total of 2,120 words, not to say anything of the other repetitions involved. Repeating a thing twice for emphasis is done throughout the Scriptures and makes sense. Thus when Jesus was faced with his greatest test he prayed three times to Jehovah his Father. Likewise Paul three times asked God to remove a certain “thorn in the flesh.” There is nothing, however, in the Scriptures to indicate that Jesus and Paul had memorized these prayers or had used them at some other time in their lives. These prayers were born out of the serious trials they were undergoing.—Matt. 26:39-44; 2 Cor. 12:7.

But trying to remember all the various recitations required in saying the rosary and to repeat them in their proper order makes saying the rosary a memory test rather than a spontaneous expression of heartfelt prayer. Besides, one’s mind cannot help but wander when one has to say the same forty words fifty-three times in one prayer. Such repetition is but a variation of the prayer wheel of certain Oriental religions. It consists of a cylinder in which written prayers are placed. Each time the cylinder is revolved the prayers in it are supposed to have been repeated.

Nor is that all. The Hail Mary is said nine times as often as the Paternoster, or “Our Father,” fifty-three times as compared with six times. Is the prayer composed by men and directed to Mary nine times as important or effective as the prayer taught by Jesus and directed to God himself? The fact is that, look where we will in the Scriptures, not once do we read of anyone seeking access either to God or to Jesus by way of Mary.

NO BENEFITS

As for the benefits of indulgences promised those reciting the rosary: How can anyone gain such benefits when, look where we will in God’s Word, not a word do we find about a purgatory? On the contrary, we are plainly told the following: “The wages sin pays is death.” When man “goes back to his ground, in that day his thoughts do perish.” The dead “are conscious of nothing at all.” Man’s hope lies in a resurrection from the dead, “of both the righteous and the unrighteous.”—Rom. 6:23; Ps. 146:4; Eccl. 9:5; Acts 24:15.

And regarding the forgiveness of our sins, we are assured that it is “the blood of Jesus his Son [that] cleanses us from all sin.” And “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous so as to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”—1 John 1:7, 9.

The repeating of fifty-three Hail Marys every time the rosary is recited flies in the face of Jesus’ express condemnation of saying the “same things over and over again.” Its widespread use outside of professedly Christian lands argues that its origin is pagan. And the same must also be said regarding its associated features, the exaltation of Mary, the offering of indulgences for saying the rosary, the crediting of victories to it and its claimed power to decrease purgatorial suffering. None of these find any support in the Scriptures, but they do find parallels in pagan religions.

In view of all these facts, can the rosary be said to be Christian? It cannot!

Not Biblical

Unsurprisingly, we are given various advice in the Bible, both about how we should, and how we should not pray.

In particular, we look to the words of Jesus himself, as reported in the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 6, verses 5-13. Please, look at what Jesus said and then repeated, to clearly stress the importance of what he was saying (Matthew 6:7-8 AMP)

7 “And when you pray, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
8 So do not be like them [praying as they do]; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”

Can you see this? Jesus says “do not use meaningless repetition“. If you prefer the KJV, these two verses are even stronger

7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

In the KJV, we are told even more clearly not to use vain repetitions as the heathens do.

Jesus then “doubles down”. First he castigates people who use vain/meaningless repetition and calls them unGodly, and then he tells us not to be like them.

Can this be any clearer? How can Jesus’ own words, speaking clearly and literally, be reconciled with 53 identical prayers in a row to the mother of Jesus (an unkind person would suggest that the act of praying to anyone other than the Father is in and of itself a heathenish act)?


One of the justifications for using a rosary is that it helps us to concentrate and gives us a format for our prayer. But do we need a necklace of beads to help us pray? No. We don’t. God offers us all the help we need, in the form of the Holy Spirit. In Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Rom 8:26-27), we are told (AMP)

26 In the same way the Spirit [comes to us and] helps us in our weakness. We do not know what prayer to offer or how to offer it as we should, but the Spirit Himself [knows our need and at the right time] intercedes on our behalf with sighs and groanings too deep for words.
27 And He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because the Spirit intercedes [before God] on behalf of God’s people in accordance with God’s will.

We are also encouraged not just to “not repeat empty incantations”, but to make our requests specifically known. Philippians 4:6 (AMP) says

Do not be anxious or worried about anything, but in everything [every circumstance and situation] by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, continue to make your [specific] requests known to God.

Summary

The word “Rosary” is not found in the Bible
The Rosary was created as a spiritual weapon to use against Gnostic Christians called the Cathai or the Albigensians for this reason alone Gnostic Christians today should reject the use of the Rosary.

Since gnosis does not come by repetitive praying Gnostics should not use the Rosary
Repetitive praying is a type of brainwashing or mind control 

at war prayer manual by Traci Morin:

Father God, I repent and renounce using Demons of candle burning, rosary prayers and idol worship to do evil or through ceremonies, and I take authority, dominion, bin and break and cast out all demonic spirits of curses to go to the pit of hell, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.