Christian Gnosticism was an early Christian movement that taught salvation through special knowledge (gnosis in Greek). Gnosticism emerged in the 2nd century AD and flourished until the 5th century. It combined elements of Christianity with Greek philosophy and mysticism.
Basic Beliefs of Gnosticism
Gnostics believed that the material world was created by an inferior deity called the Demiurge, who they identified with the God of the Old Testament. The true supreme divine being is immaterial and transcendent. Gnostics held that humans contain a spark of the divine within them but it has been trapped in the material world.
Salvation comes through gnosis or esoteric knowledge. This special knowledge is needed to help free the divine spark and unite it with the transcendent God. Gnostics reject the physical resurrection, believing salvation lies in the soul’s liberation from the body and material world.
Gnosticism was influenced by Neoplatonist philosophy that proposed a strict dualism between spirit and matter. As a result, Gnostics viewed the material world as evil, flawed, and the product of demonic forces. The human body was seen as a tomb or prison that enslaved the divine soul.
Main Gnostic Teachers and Groups
Prominent Gnostics included Valentinus, Basilides, and Marcion of Sinope. Valentinus almost became Bishop of Rome. His followers formed an influential Gnostic movement in the 2nd century AD.
Marcion rejected the Old Testament God and proposed that Jesus was sent by a different, higher God than the creator deity. He developed a following in Rome in the 2nd century and compelled Catholic leaders to establish a biblical canon.
Manichaeism was a major Gnostic sect founded in the 3rd century by Mani in Persia. It taught a complex dualistic cosmology describing a cosmic battle between the forces of light and darkness. Manichaeism spread across the Roman Empire and as far as China.
Other Gnostic sects included the Cainites, Borborites, Sethians, Archontics, Ophites, Naassenes, and the Brotherhood of the Free Spirit. Each promoted their own version of secret knowledge needed for salvation.
Gnostic Writings
Gnostic sects produced a number of texts expressing their distinctive teachings. Important Gnostic documents include:
– The Gospel of Thomas: A sayings gospel with many parallels to the Synoptic Gospels. It was discovered as part of the Nag Hammadi library in 1945.
– The Gospel of Truth: A Valentinian Gnostic text discovered in the Nag Hammadi collection. It reflects Gnostic philosophy more than narrating Jesus’ life.
– The Gospel of Judas: This late text gives a favorable depiction of Judas and his role in Jesus’ death. It claims Judas acted under Jesus’ orders.
– The Gospel of Mary: Part of the New Testament apocrypha, this work promoted Mary Magdalene as special recipient of revelation from Jesus.
– The Apocryphon of John: A Sethian Gnostic creation myth describing how the transcendent divine being becomes trapped in matter.
– The Acts of Thomas: An early text that teaches asceticism and describes the apostle Thomas bringing gnosis to India.
– Pistis Sophia: An important early Gnostic work preserved in Coptic that deals with cosmology, sin, repentance and the fate of departed souls.
Gnosticism’s View of God and Creation
Gnostics believed in a transcendent, unknowable supreme God beyond all divine beings and matter. Many Gnostics identified the high God as the Monad, Bythos or the Absolute. This utterly transcendent being was divine perfection.
In contrast, they taught that the God of the Bible was not the true supreme being, but rather an inferior, ignorant or evil entity called the Demiurge. The Demiurge created the flawed material world unaware of the transcendent God above him. The Demiurge was associated with the wrathful God of the Old Testament who Gnostics rejected.
Gnostics held that humanity originated in the transcendent spiritual realm, not the material world. Sparks or seeds of the divine became trapped in the material universe created by the Demiurge. The divine elements long to be reunited with the true supreme God.
The Gospel of Truth states: “The Father… kept him from becoming visible to the many… he cannot be grasped at all… his transcendence is… beyond reach” (Gospel of Truth 17:4-17:12)
The Gnostic View of Salvation
Gnostics did not believe in salvation through Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross. They saw Jesus as a revealer of knowledge, not a sacrificial savior. Gnostics escape the material world through inner spiritual knowledge. They seek gnosis or esoteric insight that awakens one to their true identity as part of the divine essence.
The Gnostic Gospel of Truth proclaims: “This is the gospel of him who is sought…it is he who gives…knowledge of the Father…This is the good news” (Gospel of Truth 23:35)
This saving knowledge involves awareness that the spark of God lies within one’s own alienated self. The material body and world is a prison. Gnosis frees one from ignorant attachment to the things of the flesh and the Demiurge’s worldly dominion.
Salvation comes through transcending earthly existence and physicality. Gnostics turn away from the body and created matter in order to reunite with the divine essence. Liberation comes through releasing the inner spirit from its confinement within the physical body and world.
Gnostic Asceticism and Libertinism
Gnostic groups responded differently to the challenge of dealing with human physicality and created matter. Some Gnostic sects promoted asceticism – practices of strict self-denial and detachment from the world:
– Some Gnostic ascetics chose celibacy, fasting, and other austere disciplines seeking to tame bodily passions.
– Groups like the Encratites condemned marriage, wine, and meat. Severian of Galatia was a heretical ascetic who even rejected the use of water.
– The Gospel of Thomas has a saying of Jesus praising asceticism: “Blessed are the solitary and elect, for you will find the kingdom. For you are from it, and to it you will return” (Gospel of Thomas 49).
Other Gnostic groups pursued antinomianism – the idea that spirituality transcends morality. For them, gnosis meant liberation from all moral confines to do whatever one desires:
– The Carpocratians embraced sexual licentiousness, orgiastic rituals, and homosexual activity on the grounds that they were utterly unbound by the Demiurge’s laws.
– The Cainites even honored infamous Old Testament figures like Cain, Esau and the inhabitants of Sodom for seemingly rebelling against the Demiurge.
– The Borborites engaged in voluntary vomiting and filthy rituals to physically express their disdain for the material body and the Demiurge’s created order.
The Gnostic Jesus
Gnostics had an esoteric, mystical view of Jesus. Instead of the eternal Son of God made flesh, they saw Christ as a transient divine manifestation come to impart secret knowledge. Gnostics valued Jesus’ teachings over his sacrificial death and resurrection.
The canonical gospels portray Jesus as teaching openly to the multitudes. But Gnostic texts like the Gospel of Thomas depict him sharing esoteric wisdom only with trusted disciples:
– “Jesus said, “I took my place in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in the flesh… I found all of them intoxicated; I found none of them thirsty. And my soul became afflicted for the sons of men, because they are blind in their hearts and do not have sight” (Gospel of Thomas 28).
– “His disciples said to him, “When will the kingdom come?” Jesus said, “It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying ‘Here it is’ or ‘There it is.’ Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it” (Gospel of Thomas 113).
The Gnostic Christ does not love the world or identify with humanity. The true Gnostic despises earthly existence, seeking escape through secret knowledge. The Gnostic Jesus reveals how to ascend back to the unknown God beyond all creation.
Gnosticism’s Dualism
Gnosticism was built on metaphysical dualism – the concept that existence involves two fundamental principles, especially spirit and matter. They saw a radical division between the ideal immaterial world and inferior material creation.
The transcendent spiritual realm of the high God was pure and unsullied. In contrast, the physical universe was intrinsically corrupt, constraining and painful. Gnostic dualism led them to regard matter and bodies as evil, petty, or a cosmic mistake.
Humanity originated in the high spiritual realm and carries seeds of the divine in the inner self. But people have fallen into bondage in the merely material world. Salvation involves escaping the created physical prison controlled by the Demiurge and reuniting with the spiritual domain.
Gnostic texts convey this negative view of physicality using the metaphor of light versus darkness:
– “You saw…the living light…the inferiority of the flesh to the soul…the light which shineth in the darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not” (The Naassenes).
– “When darkness had been cast upon the whole earth, God said ‘Let there be light.’ Then souls were brought forth…” (On the Origin of the World).
Gnostic Myths
Gnostic sects developed elaborate mythological systems to explain humanity’s condition and path to salvation. These complex narratives gave symbolic expression to Gnostic philosophy.
The Apocryphon of John contains a lengthy Gnostic creation myth. It describes how beings called Aeons emanate from the supreme Father. Sophia, an Aeon, brings the Demiurge into existence. The ignorant Demiurge fashions the flawed material world.
In other Gnostic myths, the high transcendent God emanates a being named Barbelo who engenders Christ to reveal knowledge that saves lost souls. Different Gnostic groups interpreted these allegorical myths in a variety of ways.
The Poimandres of Hermes is a popular Gnostic text that personifies creative wisdom as Poimandres and describes his conversations with Hermes. It depicts the fall of primordial man from the spiritual realm into materiality.
In Manichaeism, the cosmic realms of Light, Darkness and Humanity all have elaborate mythic histories. The creation of the world comes about from Darkness assaulting the realm of Light. The human task is to free the Light that has been swallowed up in Darkness.
Early Christian Rejection of Gnosticism
Gnostic teachings provoked opposition from early Christian leaders seeking to define orthodox doctrine against heresy. Irenaeus, Tertullian and other apologists condemned Gnosticism as a false distortion of truth.
Gnostic rejection of the Old Testament and material creation contradicted the biblical doctrines of incarnation and bodily resurrection.
Gnostic denial of Christ’s real incarnation and death on the cross undercut Christian hopes of salvation. The Gnostic concept of salvation by inner enlightenment seemed elitist and amoral to early church leaders.
The Christian apologists argued that authentic apostolic tradition preserved in the leadership of bishops trained by apostles preserved the truth against Gnostic errors. These debates helped establish the Biblical canon and creedal doctrines as means to combat heresy.
1 John directly addresses early proto-Gnostic ideas with practical apostolic counsel:
– “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
– “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God” (1 John 4:2).
– “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Legacy and Influence
Gnosticism declined in the early medieval era but left an influential impact on philosophy, literature and modern spirituality. Concepts of secret inner knowledge resonate in various esoteric traditions. Dualist views of spirit versus matter inspire thinkers like Descartes.
Gnostic views of creation and salvation appear in philosophical works by Kant, Hegel, Jung and existentialists. Films like The Matrix reflect the Gnostic vision of escaping illusory reality. Novelists such as William Blake, Goethe, Flaubert and Tolstoy incorporated Gnostic themes in their writings.
While orthodox Christianity firmly resisted Gnosticism, its cosmic pessimism and negative view of bodily existence still arose in some medieval heretical sects like the Cathars and Bogomils as well as fringe esoteric groups. The rediscovery of Gnostic texts recently has sparked new scholarly interest in this once-forgotten ancient movement.