BELIEFS AND TEACHINGS
Gnosticism was a religious/philosophical current that entered Christianity during its first centuries. Its name is a derivation of the Greek word gnosis, “knowledge, ”applied by scholars in the eighteenth century. They saw the movement as an attempt to establish itself as the correct way to interpret Christian teachings. More recent scholars see it as a series of alternative versions of Christianity that emerged during the first centuries of the church and had significant influence until at least the fourth century.
We may see the beginnings of what later developed intoGnostic ideas within the early Christian communities. Paul warns his fellow Christians not to engage in “Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth” (Titus 1:14). He urges them to stay clear of those who spiritualize the “resurrection and are perverting the faith” (2 Tim. 2:18). He also advises that they should refrain from“profane and vain babblings … falsely called knowledge” (1 Tim. 6:20). Perhaps to counter some who denied the fact of the incarnation (the later heresy, Docetism, derives from a word that means “to seem”), John began his Gospel by saying that the “Word became flesh” (John 1:14). Later, the apostle affirmed in one of his epistles that true knowledge comes from God and always acknowledges that “Jesus Christ is come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2).
The origin of Gnosticism is obscure and much debated. But it is possible to detect the influence of certain Greek philosophical schools, speculative forms of Judaism, and traces of various Eastern religions such as Zoroastrianism and possibly Buddhism and Brahmanism. One could regard Gnosticism as the extreme Hellenization of Christianity.
Most of the evidence about Gnosticism comes from two sources: certain ancient manuscripts that taught it, beginning in the mid-second century, and the responses of Christian teachers who sought to refute it. A work entitled “Ethiopic Enoch,”authored by various Jewish writers during a period of perhaps two centuries, echoes some of the developing gnostic concepts. Archaeology has discovered several documents, especially in Egypt, whose contents exhibit Gnostic ideas. Among the movement’s advocates were such names as Saturninus, promoter of Syrian Gnosticism; Basilides, inspired by Egyptian Gnosticism; and Valentinus, perhaps the most representative exponent of Gnostic thought.
The various strands of Gnosticism did share some common doctrines but often held other contradictory ideas. For example, concerning divine nature and the beginning of things, they could differ significantly. Many claimed that creation was a mistake, that matter was inherently evil, and that a lower deity authored the Old Testament and its laws.
Valentinus first lectured in Alexandria and later in Rome. From what we can reconstruct from the writings of his opponents, he believed that Jesus was primarily a revealer of knowledge that would deliver His followers from ignorance. He also held that the primordial harmony was shattered when Sophia (Wisdom) in error produced the Demiurge, usually equated with the Creator-God of the Old Testament.
Saturninus actively promoted Persian dualism or the struggle between good and evil—light and darkness. On the boundary of the forces of good and the forces of evil, there were seven angels commanded by a being who was the God of the Jews. The Supreme Deity sent a redemptive being in human likeness (Jesus) who has become the master and guide of men.
Some have considered Marciona Gnostic because he refused to acknowledge that the God of the Old Testament was the same as the one of the New Testament. Instead, the God of the New Testament was a deity of love, while the God of the Old Testament (Jehovah) was a being of wrath and vengeance and prone to punish severely. According to this view, Marcion regarded Jehovah as an intermediary between the Supreme God and the material world, or Demiurge. The Demiurge made humanity according to his likeness.
Some gnostic thought tended to view Jesus as a human being, produced through the creative activity of the divine pair formed by Christ and the Holy Spirit. The incarnation was not real. The man Jesus at the time of His baptism received the divine nature of Christ, who accompanied Him during His ministry. This deity abandoned Jesus before His sacrifice on the cross.
Much Gnosticism teaches that human beings consist of physical matter created by the Demiurge. Matter, being evil, naturally opposes God. The soul, which is divine in essence, remains imprisoned in the material body. Based on this way of conceptualizing human nature, Gnosticism recognized three different classes of people. The Hilics who are carnal and for whom there exists no hope of salvation. The psychics have a divine spark and can attain salvation through imitating Jesus. The Gnostics are spiritual beings endowed with souls who can attain true knowledge, and for whom salvation is reserved. Gnostic teaching also claims that those who belong to the latter class of people have a secret virtue or mysterious knowledge, inaccessible to others.
The Gnostic idea of redemption focuses on the liberation of the soul from its connection to the material body. One achieves salvation through “knowledge,” gnosis, whose main objective is to unite the soul with God. Most Gnostics believed that it was necessary to lead a life of rigid asceticism that included the denial of all sensuality. They condemned marriage and procreation as evil. For Gnosticism, sin is a state of contamination that can be removed through the practice of Gnostic precepts. Eventually, the harmony of the universe will finally be restored after the total destruction of matter.
In short, Gnosticism despised God’s revelation; instead, they interpret reality through a mixture of reason and religious syncretism.It claimed that God’s “magnificent” creation (Gen. 1:31) was evil and made Jesus into little more than an esoteric teacher. As such it became a powerful threat to biblical Christianity.