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Gnosticism

{nahs' - ti - sizm}

General Information

Gnosticism was a religious philosophical dualism that professed salvation through secret knowledge, or gnosis. The movement reached a high point of development during the 2d century AD in the Roman and Alexandrian schools founded by Valentius. Scholars have attributed the origins of gnosticism to a number of sources: the Greek mystery cults; Zoroastrianism; the Kabbalah of Judaism; and Egyptian religion. The early Christians considered Simon Magus (Acts 8:9 - 24) the founder of gnosticism. His doctrine, like that of other gnostic teachers, had nothing in common with the knowledge of the mysteries of God that Saint Paul called wisdom (1 Cor. 2:7).

Christian leaders looked upon gnosticism as a subtle, dangerous threat to Christianity during the 2d century, a time marked by religious aspirations and philosophical preoccupations about the origins of life, the source of evil in the world, and the nature of a transcendent deity. Gnosticism was perceived as an attempt to transform Christianity into a religious philosophy and to replace faith in the mysteries of revelation by philosophical explanations.

The gnostic sects set forth their teachings in complex systems of thought. Characteristic of their position was the doctrine that all material reality is evil. One of their central convictions was that salvation is achieved by freeing the spirit from its imprisonment in matter. Elaborate explanations were given on how this imprisonment came to be and how the deliverance of the soul was to be accomplished. The transcendent God was removed from all matter by a succession of intermediary eternal beings called aeons. The aeons emanated as couples (male and female); the complete series (usually 30) constituted the Pleroma, the fullness of the Godhead. Beyond the Pleroma were the material universe and human beings to be saved.

In gnostic thought, a divine seed was imprisoned in every person. The purpose of salvation was to deliver this divine seed from the matter in which it was lost. Gnostics classified people according to three categories: (1) gnostics, or those certain of salvation, because they were under the influence of the spirit (pneumatikoi); (2) those not fully gnostics, but capable of salvation through knowledge (psychikoi); and (3) those so dominated by matter that they were beyond salvation (hylikoi). Gnostics often practiced excessive asceticism, because they believed that they were thus liberated by the spirit.

Gnosticism was denounced by the Christian theologians Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Tertullian. In the 3d century, Clement of Alexandria attempted to formulate an orthodox Christian gnosticism to explain the difference in perfection attained by individuals in their response to the gospel. Gnosticism gradually merged with Manichaeism. Today, the Mandeans are the only surviving sect of Gnostics. The research of scholars has been greatly enhanced since 1945, when a Coptic gnostic library was discovered near Nag Hammadi (Nag Hammadi Papyri), in upper Egypt.

Agnes Cunningham

Bibliography
G Filoramo, Gnosticism (1990); R M Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity (1966); H Jonas, The Gnostic Religion (1963); J Lacarriere, The Gnostics (1977); E Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (1981); J M Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library (1977).

Gnosticism

General Information

Introduction

Gnosticism is an esoteric religious movement that flourished during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD and presented a major challenge to orthodox Christianity. Most Gnostic sects professed Christianity, but their beliefs sharply diverged from those of the majority of Christians in the early church. The term Gnosticism is derived from the Greek word gnosis ("revealed knowledge"). To its adherents, Gnosticism promised a secret knowledge of the divine realm. Sparks or seeds of the Divine Being fell from this transcendent realm into the material universe, which is wholly evil, and were imprisoned in human bodies. Reawakened by knowledge, the divine element in humanity can return to its proper home in the transcendent spiritual realm.

Mythology

To explain the origin of the material universe, the Gnostics developed a complicated mythology. From the original unknowable God, a series of lesser divinities was generated by emanation. The last of these, Sophia ("wisdom"), conceived a desire to know the unknowable Supreme Being. Out of this illegitimate desire was produced a deformed, evil god, or demiurge, who created the universe. The divine sparks that dwell in humanity fell into this universe or else were sent there by the supreme God in order to redeem humanity. The Gnostics identified the evil god with the God of the Old Testament, which they interpreted as an account of this god's efforts to keep humanity immersed in ignorance and the material world and to punish their attempts to acquire knowledge. It was in this light that they understood the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, the flood, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Gnosticism and Christianity

Although most Gnostics considered themselves Christians, some sects assimilated only minor Christian elements into a body of non-Christian Gnostic texts. The Christian Gnostics refused to identify the God of the New Testament, the father of Jesus, with the God of the Old Testament, and they developed an unorthodox interpretation of Jesus' ministry. The Gnostics wrote apocryphal Gospels (such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary) to substantiate their claim that the risen Jesus told his disciples the true, Gnostic interpretation of his teachings: Christ, the divine spirit, inhabited the body of the man Jesus and did not die on the cross but ascended to the divine realm from which he had come. The Gnostics thus rejected the atoning suffering and death of Christ and the resurrection of the body. They also rejected other literal and traditional interpretations of the Gospels.

Rites

Some Gnostic sects rejected all sacraments; others observed baptism and the Eucharist, interpreting them as signs of the awakening of gnosis. Other Gnostic rites were intended to facilitate the ascent of the divine element of the human soul to the spiritual realm. Hymns and magic formulas were recited to help achieve a vision of God; other formulas were recited at death to ward off the demons who might capture the ascending spirit and imprison it again in a body. In the Valentinian sect (followers of Valentinus, a Gnostic teacher of the early 2nd century AD), a special rite, called the bridal chamber, celebrated the reunion of the lost spirit with its heavenly counterpart.

Ethics

The ethical teachings of the Gnostics ranged from asceticism to libertinism. The doctrine that the body and the material world are evil led some sects to renounce even marriage and procreation. Other Gnostics held that because their souls were completely alien to this world, it did not matter what they did in it. Gnostics generally rejected the moral commandments of the Old Testament, regarding them as part of the evil god's effort to entrap humanity.

Sources

Much scholarly knowledge of Gnosticism comes from anti-Gnostic Christian texts of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, which provide the only extensive quotations in the Greek of the original Gnostic texts. Most surviving Gnostic texts are in Coptic, into which they had been translated when Gnosticism spread to Egypt in the late 2nd and the 3rd centuries. In 1945 an Egyptian peasant found 12 codices containing more than 50 Coptic Gnostic writings near Naj'?ammâdî. It has been determined that these codices were copied in the 4th century in the monasteries of the region. It is not known whether the monks were Gnostics, or were attracted by the ascetic nature of the writings, or had assembled the writings as a study in heresy.

History

Gnostic texts reveal nothing about the history of the various sects or about the lives of their most prominent teachers. Consequently, the history of the movement must be inferred from the traditions reflected in the texts and from anti-Gnostic writings. The question of whether Gnosticism first developed as a distinct non-Christian doctrine has not been resolved, but pagan Gnostic sects did exist. Gnostic mythology may have been derived from Jewish sectarian speculation centered in Syria and Palestine during the late 1st century AD, which in turn was probably influenced by Persian dualistic religions (see Mithraism; Zoroastrianism). By the 2nd century, Christian Gnostic teachers had synthesized this mythology with Platonic metaphysical speculation and with certain heretical Christian traditions. The most prominent Christian Gnostics were Valentinus and his disciple Ptolemaeus, who during the 2nd century were influential in the Roman church. Christian Gnostics, while continuing to participate in the larger Christian community, apparently also gathered in small groups to follow their secret teachings and rituals.

During the 2nd century another strain of Gnosticism emerged in eastern Syria, stressing an ascetic interpretation of Jesus' teachings. Later in the century Gnosticism appeared in Egypt, and the emergence of monasticism there may be linked with the influence of the Syrian ascetic sects.

By the 3rd century Gnosticism began to succumb to orthodox Christian opposition and persecution. Partly in reaction to the Gnostic heresy, the church strengthened its organization by centralizing authority in the office of bishop, which made its effort to suppress the poorly organized Gnostics more effective. Furthermore, as orthodox Christian theology and philosophy developed, the primarily mythological Gnostic teachings began to seem bizarre and crude. Both Christian theologians and the 3rd-century Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus attacked the Gnostic view that the material world is essentially evil. Christians defended their identification of the God of the New Testament with the God of Judaism and their belief that the New Testament is the only true revealed knowledge. The development of Christian mysticism and asceticism satisfied some of the impulses that had produced Gnosticism, and many Gnostics were converted to orthodox beliefs. By the end of the 3rd century Gnosticism as a distinct movement seems to have largely disappeared.

Survivals

One small non-Christian Gnostic sect, the Mandaeans, still exists in Iraq and Iran, although it is not certain that it began as part of the original Gnostic movement. Although the ancient sects did not survive, aspects of the Gnostic world view have periodically reappeared in many forms: the ancient dualistic religion called Manichaeism and the related medieval heresies of the Albigenses, Bogomils, and Paulicians; the medieval Jewish mystical philosophy known as Cabala (Kaballah); the metaphysical speculation surrounding the alchemy of the Renaissance; 19th-century theosophy; 20th-century existentialism and nihilism; and the writings of the 20th-century Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. The essence of Gnosticism has proved very durable: the view that the inner spirit of humanity must be liberated from a world that is basically deceptive, oppressive, and evil.

Pheme Perkins

Gnosticism

Advanced Information

Prior to the first half of the twentieth century such early heresiologists (defenders of Christianity against heresy) as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius were our principal sources of information concerning the Gnostics. These heresiologists were scathing in their denunciations of the Gnostics, who were perceived as leading Christians astray by the manipulation of words and the twisting of scriptural meanings. Of particular interest to Gnostic interpreters were the stories of Genesis, the Gospel of John, and the epistles of Paul. They used the biblical texts for their own purposes. Indeed, Gnostics such as Heracleon and Ptolemaeus were the first commentators on the Fourth Gospel. But Irenaeus likens such interpretations to someone who takes apart a beautiful picture of a king and reassembles it into a picture of a fox (Adversus Haereses 1.8.1).

The heresiologists regarded Gnosticism as the product of the combination of Greek philosophy and Christianity. For instance, after detailing the Gnostic heretics, Tertullian announces: "What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? What between heretics and Christians? Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition" (On Prescription Against Heretics 7). The heresiologists' view concerning Gnosticism was generally regarded as acceptable even at the end of the nineteenth century, when Adolf Harnack defined Gnosticism as the "acute secularizing of Christianity."

The history of religions school, of which Hans Jonas is a contemporary exponent, has challenged this definition. According to Jonas, Gnosticism is a general religious phenomenon of the hellenistic world and is the product of the fusion or Greek culture and Oriental religion. The "Greek conceptualization" of Eastern religious traditions, i.e., Jewish monotheism, Babylonian astrology, and Iranian dualism, is viewed as the basis for Gnosticism. While R M Wilson and R M Grant reject such a broad definition and affirm instead a primary basis in hellenistic Judaism or Jewish apocalyptic, the advantage of Jonas's view is that it recognizes the broad spectrum within Gnosticism. The weakness is that the definition encompasses almost everything within the concept of hellenistic religions.

The breadth of Gnostic orientations, however, has been confirmed by the discovery of a Gnostic library at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. In the thirteen ancient codices are included fifty two tractates are of various types and orientations. A large number clearly present a Christian Gnostic perspective, the most familiar being the three so - called Valentinian gospels: the Gospel of Thomas (composed of a series of brief sayings of Jesus), the Gospel of Philip (a collection of sayings, metaphors, and esoteric arguments), and the Gospel of Truth (a discourse on deity and unity reminiscent of the language of the Fourth Gospel but definitely bent in the direction of Gnostic mythology and possibly related to the Gospel of Truth by Valentinus noted in Irenaeus). Also among the Christian Gnostic tractates are the Apocryphon of James, the Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles, the Treatise on the Resurrection, the long collection known as the Tripartite Tractate, and three editions of the Apocryphon of John (the fascinating story of creation which involves a reinterpretation of the Genesis accounts).

But not all the tractates reveal a pseudo - Christian orientation. The Paraphrase of Shem seems to reflect a Jewish Gnostic perspective. The Discourse on the Eighth and the Ninth is patently a Hermetic treatise. The longest tractate in the library (132 pages) bears the designation Zostrianos and purports to be from Zoroaster. One of the interesting features of this library is the presence of two editions of Eugnostos the Blessed, which seems to be a non - Christian philosophic document which has apparently been "Christianized" in a redacted tractate called the Sophia of Jesus Christ. Finally, the presence of a segment from Plato's Republic among these documents gives further witness to the syncretistic nature of Gnostic thinking. As a result of Gnostic borrowing, readers will sense a certain fluidity in the Gnostic designations.

Types of Gnosticism

Despite a fluidity within Gnosticism, however, Jonas identifies two basic patterns or structures of Gnostic thought. Both are mythological structures which seek to explain the problem of evil in terms of its relationship to the process of creation.

Iranian

This branch of Gnosticism developed in Mesopotamia and reflects a horizontal dualism associated with Zoroastrian worship and is epitomized in its later Gnostic form of Manichaeism. In this pattern light and darkness, the two primal principles or deities, are locked in a decisive struggle. This struggle has been positionalized by the fact that, since light transcends itself and shines beyond its own realm, light particles were subjected to capture by its jealous enemy, darkness. In order to launch a counterattack and recapture its lost particles, therefore, light gives birth to (or "emanates") a series of subordinate deities that are emanated for the purpose of doing battle. In defense, darkness likewise sets in motion a comparable birthing of subdeities and arranges for the entombment of the light particles in a created world. This cosmic realm becomes the sphere of combat for the protagonists. The object of the struggle is the winning of the human beings who bear the light particles and the effecting of their release from the prison of this world so that they may reenter the sphere of heavenly light.

Syrian

This type arose in the area of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt and reflects a much more complex vertical dualism. In this system the ultimate principle is good, and the task of the Gnostic thinkers is to explain how evil emerged from the singular principle of good. The method employed is the identification of some deficiency or error in the good.

The Valentinian solution to the problem of evil is that the good god (the ultimate depth) with his consort (silence) initiates the birthing process of (or "emanates") a series of paired deities. The last of the subordinate deities (usually designated as Sophia, wisdom) is unhappy with her consort and desires, instead, a relationship with the ultimate depth. This desire is unacceptable in the godhead and is extracted from Sophia and excluded from the heavenly realm (pleroma). While Sophia is thus rescued from her lust, the godhead has lost a portion of its divine nature. The goal, therefore, is the recovery of the fallen light.

But the excluded desire (or lower Sophia) is unaware of its fallen nature, and depending on the various accounts, either it or its offspring, the Creator, begins a "demiurgical" or birthing process which partially mirrors the "emanating" process in the pleroma and ultimately results in the creation of the world. The upper godhead (pleroma) by its divine messenger (often called Christ or the Holy Spirit) tricks the Creator - Demiurge into breathing into man the breath of life, and thus the light particles are passed to a light man. The defense strategy of the lower godhead (realm of the Demiurge) is that the lightman is entombed in a body of death which, under the direction of the Demiurge, has been formed by its pseudosubdeities, also known as "the fates" or identified with the realm of the planets.

The Garden of Eden story is then transformed so that the biblical tree of the knowledge of good and evil becomes a vehicle of knowledge (gnosis) established by the heavenly or pleromatic realm. But the tree of life becomes a vehicle of bondage and dependence established by the demiurgical realm. The divine messenger from the pleroma encourages man to eat from the tree of knowledge; and in so eating, man discovers that the jealous Creator - Demiurge (often linked with misspelled forms of Yahweh such as Yaldabaoth or Yao) is not in fact the ultimate God but really an enemy of God. Man, as a result of divine help, thus comes to know more than the Creator. In anger the Creator casts man into an earthly body of forgetfulness, and the pleromatic realm is forced to initiate a process of spiritual awakening through the divine messenger.

The divine messenger is frequently identified with the figure of the Christian's Jesus Christ, but such identification has some very significant alterations. Since the divine realm is basically opposed to the creation of the lower realm, bodies at best are part of the created process and therefore need only to be regarded as vehicles which the divine may use for its own purposes. The divine messenger Christ, for the purpose of modeling the divine perspective, "adopted" the body of Jesus at a point such as the baptism and departed at a point such as just prior to the crucifixion. It is the risen "Jesus" or Christ, devoid of bodily restrictions, that based on the modeling has power to awaken man from his sleep of forgetfulness. This assumption of the body of Jesus by the divine messenger is generally termed as "adoptionism" and is related to docetism, wherein Christ merely appears to be a man.

Gnostics are those set within a world where they are the spiritual persons (pneumatikoi) who possess the light particles and need only to be awakened in order to inherit their destinies. In the world there are also said to be psychic persons (psychikoi), who are a grade lower and need to work for whatever salvation they may be able to attain. The Gnostics often identified such psychics with Christians and understandably irritated the Christian heresiologists such as Irenaus. The third division of this view of humanity is composed of material persons (hylikoi or sarkikoi), who have no chance to inherit any form of salvation but are destined for destruction. Accordingly, it should be obvious that such a view of anthropology is very deterministic in orientation.

The Valentinian goal is reentry into the pleroma, which is often symbolized by terms such as "union" or "unity." In documents such as the Gospel of Philip, however, the use of the term "bridal chamber" may suggest a sacrament of union. Such expressions highlight the fact that in many Gnostic documents sexually suggestive terminology is employed. For some Gnostics sexual interests may be attached to a spiritual alternative within an ascetic life style which seems to issue in warning not to fragment further the light particles in one's self through conjugation or sexual intercourse. For others, however, such as the followers of Marcus, spiritual awareness was apparently transferred through copulative activity outside of marriage.

At death the Gnostics, who had experienced awakening, shed the rags of mortality as they ascended through the realms of the fates (or planets). Thus, passing through the purgatory of the planets, they came at last to the limit (horos) or border (sometimes called the "cross") where, devoid of all that constitutes evil, they are welcomed into the eternal realm. The concept of purgatory in the Roman Catholic tradition is not unrelated to the purging pattern in Gnostic thought.

The above description is a pattern for understanding the Syrian type of Gnostic structure. While this structure should provide a helpful model for readers in interpreting Gnostic documents, it is imperative to recognize the syncretistic nature of Gnosticism and the wide variety of forms which are evident. The Sethians, for example, used Seth as their human figurehead, whereas the Ophites concentrated on the role of the serpent in giving knowledge. The vast possibilities for variation in struction make Gnostic studies both an intriguing and exercising enterprise.

The Gnostics obviously used sources such as Platonic dualism and Eastern religious thought, including ideas derived from Christianity. Their use of sources, however, often resulted in an attack upon those sources. For example, the Gnostics employ the concept of wisdom (the goal of Greek philosophy) in such a way that it is made the cause of all evil in the world. Such an ingenious attack on the concept of wisdom is far more hostile than Paul's statements in 1 Cor. 1:22 - 2:16.

In addition to the Valentinian system and its many related forms Hermetic literature provides a somewhat similar vertical structured dualism. This arose in Egypt, and most of the writings seem to be generally unrelated to Christianity or Judaism, although the principal tractate of the Corpus Hermeticum known as Poimandres may not be totally unlike the thought world of the Fourth Gospel. Hermetic literature thus raises the problem of Gnostic origins.

The Problem of Dating

Because of the methodological problems concerning Gnostic origins, it is imperative to mention briefly Mandaeanism. In the 1930s many scholars were referring to Mandaeanism as being pre - Christian, in spite of the fact that the documents used in the interpretive process were obtained from the small contemporary sect in Persia. There is of course no doubt that the traditions of this baptismal sect (which refers to John the Baptist) come from a much earlier time. But how long before the rise of Islam, which considered Mandaeans a valid religious group possessing both sacred writings and a prophet prior to Mohammed, is totally unknown. The matter of dating is, therefore, extremely problematic in the entire study of Gnosticism.

Some documents like the Hermetic materials seem to evidence very few influences from Christianity, whereas a few documents, such as the Sophia of Jesus, may be Christianized redactions of earlier non - Christian documents. But the question that still remains to be answered is: When did Gnosticism arise? Clearly by the middle of the second century AD. Gnosticism had reached its flowering. But contrary to Schmithals (Gnosticism in Corinth) the opponents of Paul in Corinth were hardly Gnostics. Were the opponents described in Colossians or Ephesians Gnostics? Were the opponents in the Johannine letters Gnostics? It is hard to read the NT and gain any secure feeling at the present that canonical writers were attacking the Gnostic devotees or mythologizers.

G L Borchert

Bibliography
D M Scholer, Nag Hammadi Bibliography 1948 - 1969; J Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English; R M Grant, ed., Gnosticism: A Source Book of Heretical Writings from the Early Christian Period; W Foerster, Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts; B Aland, Gnosis: Festschrift fur Hans Jonas; G L Borchert, "Insights into the Gnostic Threat to Christianity as Gained Through the Gospel of Philip," in New Dimensions in New Testament Study, ed. R N Longenecker and M C Tenney; R M Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity; H Jonas, The Gnostic Religion; E Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels; G Quispel, Gnosis als Weltreligion; W Schmithals, Gnosticism in Corinth and Paul and the Gnostics; R M Wilson, The Gnostic Problem and Gnosis and the New Testament; E Yamauchi, Pre - Christian Gnosticism.

Nag Hammadi Library Alphabetical Index

The articles above mention a massive Coptic gnostic library that was discovered near Nag Hammadi (Nag Hammadi Papyri), in upper Egypt, in 1945. The contents of the 52 tractates of this collection of scrolls includes the following:

The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles

Allogenes

The Apocalypse of Adam

The (First) Apocalypse of James

The (Second) Apocalypse of James

The Apocalypse of Paul

The Apocalypse of Peter

The Apocryphon of James

The Apocryphon of John

Asclepius 21-29

Authoritative Teaching

The Book of Thomas the Contender

The Concept of Our Great Power

The Dialogue of the Savior

The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth

Eugnostos the Blessed

The Exegesis on the Soul

The Gospel of the Egyptians

The Gospel of Philip

The Gospel of Thomas

The Gospel of Truth

The Hypostasis of the Archons

Hypsiphrone

The Interpretation of Knowledge

The Letter of Peter to Philip

Marsanes

Melchizedek

On the Anointing

On the Baptism A

On the Baptism B

On the Eucharist A

On the Eucharist B

On the Origin of the World

The Paraphrase of Shem

Plato, Republic 588A-589B

The Prayer of the Apostle Paul

The Prayer of Thanksgiving

The Second Treatise of the Great Seth

The Sentences of Sextus

The Sophia of Jesus Christ

The Teachings of Silvanus

The Testimony of Truth

The Thought of Norea

The Three Steles of Seth

The Thunder, Perfect Mind

The Treatise on the Resurrection

Trimorphic Protennoia

The Tripartite Tractate

A Valentinian Exposition

Zostrianos

(BELIEVE contains the full text of of several of these)

subject=Gnosticismgnostic

gnosticism

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