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Gnosticism (Greek: γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge)
refers to diverse, syncretistic religious movements in
antiquity consisting of various belief systems generally
united in the teaching that humans are divine souls trapped in
a material world created by an imperfect god, the demiurge;
this being is frequently identified with the Abrahamic god,
(as opposed to the Gospel according to the Hebrews) and is
contrasted with a superior entity, referred to by several
terms including Pleroma and Godhead. Depictions of the
demiurge—the term originates with Plato's Timaeus—vary from
being as an embodiment of evil, to being merely imperfect and
as benevolent as its inadequacy permits. Gnosticism was a
dualistic religion, influenced by and influencing Hellenic
philosophy, Judaism (see Notzrim), and Christianity; however,
by contrast, later strands of the movement, such as the
Valentinians, held a monistic world-view. This, along with the
varying treatments of the demiurge, may be seen as indicative
of the variety of positions held within the category.
The gnōsis referred to in the term is a form of revealed,
esoteric knowledge through which the spiritual elements of
humanity are reminded of their true origins within the
superior Godhead, being thus permitted to escape materiality.
Consequently, within the sects of gnosticism only the
pneumatics or psychics obtain gnōsis; the hylic or Somatics,
though human, being incapable of perceiving the higher
reality, are unlikely to attain the gnōsis deemed by gnostic
movements as necessary for salvation. Jesus of Nazareth is
identified by some Gnostic sects as an embodiment of the
supreme being who became incarnate to bring gnōsis to the
earth. In others (e.g. the Notzrim and Mandaeans) he is
considered a mšiha kdaba or "false messiah" who perverted the
teachings entrusted to him by John the Baptist. Still other
traditions identify Mani and Seth, third son of Adam and Eve,
as salvific figures.
Whereas Gnosticism was considered by some scholars to
originate as a heretical branch of Christianity, alternate
theories have proposed traces of Gnostic systems existed some
centuries before the Christian Era. Gnostic sects may have
existed earlier than the First Century BC, thus predating the
birth of Jesus. The movement spread in areas controlled by the
Roman Empire and Arian Goths, and the Persian Empire; it
continued to develop in the Mediterranean and Middle East
before and during the second and third centuries. Conversion
to Islam and the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) greatly
reduced the remaining number of Gnostics throughout the Middle
Ages, though a few isolated communities continue to exist to
the present. Gnostic ideas became influential in the
philosophies of various esoteric mystical movements of the
late 19th and 20th centuries in Europe and North America,
including some that explicitly identify themselves as revivals
or even continuations of earlier gnostic groups.
Gnostic systems are typically marked out by:
"And the Sophia of the Epinoia [...] brought forth. And [...]
something came out of her which was imperfect and different
from her appearance, because she had created it without her
consort. And it was dissimilar to the likeness of its mother,
for it has another form.
"And when she saw (the consequences of) her desire, it changed
into a form of a lion-faced serpent. And its eyes were like
lightning fires which flash. She cast it away from her,
outside that place, that no one of the immortal ones might see
it, for she had created it in ignorance."
From The Secret Book of John (long version), Nag Hammadi
Library, Codex II, trans. Frederik Wisse.
1. The notion of a remote, supreme monadic divinity, source -
this figure is known under a variety of names, including 'Pleroma',
'Bythos' and 'Abyss' (Greek: Βυθός, "deep");
2. The introduction by emanation of further divine beings,
which are nevertheless identifiable as aspects of the God from
which they proceeded; the progressive emanations are often
conceived metaphorically as a gradual and progressive
distancing from the ultimate source, which brings about an
instability in the fabric of the divine nature;
3. The subsequent identification of the Fall of Man as an
occurrence with its ultimate foundations within divinity
itself. As mysticism, the modern word for the category of the
study of mystic knowledge or gnosis, teaches the fall of man,
and the material world are an illusion. Salvation is a radical
essentialism and not based on personal choice, action or
behavior but rather destiny or fate. Due to this, salvation
does not occur either entirely or partially through any human
behavior or agency; this stage in the divine emanation is
usually enacted through the recurrent Gnostic figure of Sophia
(Greek, "wisdom"), whose presence in a wide variety of Gnostic
texts is indicative of her central importance;
4. The introduction of a distinct creator God or demiurge.
Which is an illusion and as a later emanation from the single
monad or source, this second God is a lesser and inferior or
false God. This creator god is commonly referred to as the
demiourgós (a technical term literally denoting a public
worker the Latinized form of Greek dēmiourgos, δημιουργός,
hence "ergon or energy", "public God or skilled worker" "false
God" or "God of the masses"), used in the Platonist tradition.
The gnostic demiurge bears resemblance to figures in Plato's
Timaeus and Republic. In the former the demiourgós is a
central figure, as benevolent creator of the universe who
works to make the universe as benevolent as the limitations of
matter will allow; in the latter, the description of the
leontomorphic 'desire' in Socrates' model of the psyche bears
a resemblance to descriptions of the demiurge as being in the
shape of the lion; the relevant passage of The Republic was
found within a major gnostic library discovered at Nag Hammadi,
wherein a text existed describing the demiurge as a
'lion-faced serpent'.
Elsewhere this figure is called 'Ialdabaoth', 'Samael'
(Aramaic: sæmʕa-ʔel, 'blind god') or 'Saklas' (Syriac: sækla,
'the foolish one'), who is sometimes ignorant of the superior
God, and sometimes opposed to it; thus in the latter case he
is correspondingly malevolent.
The demiurge as a tyrannical God having caused the imperfect
material world and all of its suffering, is as the creator God
of the pagan philosophers (Zeus) and the Judeo-Christian-Muhammadan
creator God (Yahweh or Adonai) not real but a construct or
illusion of the human mind (as nous). Since no secondary
creator God is necessary or of high importance as everything
is eternal or emanated and can not be created or destroyed.
The demiurge typically creates a group of co-actors named
'Archons', who preside over the material realm and, in some
cases, present obstacles to the soul seeking ascent from it;
[The demiurge] is blind; because of his power and his
ignorance and his arrogance he said, with his power, "It is I
who am God; there is none apart from me." When he said this,
he sinned against the entirety. And this speech got up to
incorruptibility; then there was a voice that came forth from
incorruptibility, saying, "You are mistaken, Samael" - which
is, "god of the blind."
From The Hypostasis of the Archons or The Reality of the
Rulers, Nag Hammadi Library, Codex II, trans. Bentley Layton.
5. The estimation of the world, owing to the above, as flawed
or a production of 'error' but nevertheless as good as its
constituent material might allow. This world is typically an
inferior simulacrum of a higher-level reality or
consciousness. The inferiority may be compared to the
technical inferiority of a painting, sculpture, or other
handicraft to the thing(s) of which those crafts are supposed
to be a representation. In certain other cases it takes on a
more ascetic tendency to view material existence, negatively.
Which then becomes more extreme when materiality, and the
human body, is perceived as evil and constrictive, a
deliberate prison for its inhabitants;
6. The explanation of this state through the use of a complex
mythological-cosmological drama in which a divine element
'falls' into the material realm and lodges itself within
certain human beings; from here, it may be returned to the
divine realm through a process of awakening (leading towards
salvation). The salvation of the individual thus mirrors a
concurrent restoration of the divine nature; a central Gnostic
innovation was to elevate individual redemption to the level
of a cosmically significant event;
7. Knowledge of a specific kind as a central factor in this
process of restoration, achieved through the mediation of a
redeemer figure (Christ, or, in other cases, Seth or Sophia).
The model limits itself to describing characteristics of the
Syrian-Egyptian school of Gnosticism. This is for the reason
that the greatest expressions of the Persian gnostic school -
Manicheanism and Mandaeanism - are typically conceived of as
religious traditions in their own right; indeed, the typical
usage of 'Gnosticism' is to refer to the Syrian-Egyptian
schools alone, while 'Manichean' describes the movements of
the Persia school.
This conception of Gnosticism has in recent times come to be
challenged. Despite this, the understanding presented above
remains the most common and is useful in aiding meaningful
discussion of the phenomena that compose Gnosticism. Above
all, the central idea of gnōsis, a knowledge superior to and
independent of faith made it welcome to many who were
half-converted from paganism to Christianity. The Valentinians,
for example, considered pistis (Greek: "faith") as consisting
of accepting a body of teaching as true, being principally
intellectual or emotional in character. The age of the
Gnostics was highly diverse, and due to there being no fixed
church authority, syncretism with pre-existing belief systems
as well as new religions were often embraced.
The relationship between Gnosticism and orthodox Christianity
during the early first and the whole of the second century is
vital in helping us to further understand the main doctrines
of Gnosticism; due in part to the fact that, prior to the
discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library (discussed below) much of
what we know today about gnosticism has only been preserved in
the summaries and assessments of early church fathers.
Irenaeus declares in his treatise "Against Heresies" that
Gnostic movements subjected all morality to the caprice of the
individual, and made any fixed rule of faith impossible.
According to Irenaeus, a certain sect known as the "Cainites"
professed to impart a knowledge "greater and more sublime"
than the ordinary doctrine of Christians, and believed that
Cain derived his power from the superior Godhead. Although a
Gnostic Christian himself, Clement of Alexandria, a 2nd
century church father and the first notable member of the
Church of Alexandria, raised a criticism against the followers
of Basilides and Valentinus in his Stromata: in his view it
annulled the efficacy of baptism, in that it held no value
faith, the gift conferred in that sacrament.
Typically, Gnostic systems are loosely described as being
'dualistic' in nature, meaning they had the view the world
consists of or is explicable as two fundamental entities. Hans
Jonas writes: "The cardinal feature of gnostic thought is the
radical dualism that governs the relation of God and world,
and correspondingly that of man and world." Within this
definition, they run the gamut from the 'radical dualist'
systems of Manicheanism to the 'mitigated dualism' of classic
gnostic movements; Valentinian developments arguably approach
a form of monism, expressed in terms previously used in a
dualistic manner.
* Radical Dualism - or absolute Dualism which posits two
co-equal divine forces. Manichaeism conceives of two
previously coexistent realms of light and darkness which
become embroiled in conflict, owing to the chaotic actions of
the latter. Subsequently, certain elements of the light became
entrapped within darkness; the purpose of material creation is
to enact the slow process of extraction of these individual
elements, at the end of which the kingdom of light will
prevail over darkness. Manicheanism likely inherits this
dualistic mythology from Zoroastrianism, in which the eternal
spirit Ahura Mazda is opposed by his antithesis, Angra Mainyu;
the two are engaged in a cosmic struggle, the conclusion of
which will likewise see Ahura Mazda triumphant.
The Mandaean creation myth witnesses the progressive
emanations of Supreme Being of Light, with each emanation
bringing about a progressive corruption resulting in the
eventual emergence of Ptahil, the god of darkness who had a
hand in creating and henceforward rules the material realm.
Additionally, general Gnostic thought (specifically to be
found in Iranian sects; for instance, see 'The Hymn of the
Pearl') commonly included the belief that the material world
corresponds to some sort of malevolent intoxication brought
about by the powers of darkness to keep elements of the light
trapped inside it, or literally to keep them 'in the dark', or
ignorant; in a state of drunken distraction.
* Mitigated Dualism - where one of the two principles is in
some way inferior to the other. Such classical Gnostic
movements as the Sethians conceived of the material world as
being created by a lesser divinity than the true God that was
the object of their devotion. The spiritual world is conceived
of as being radically different from the material world,
co-extensive with the true God, and the true home of certain
enlightened members of humanity; thus, these systems were
expressive of a feeling of acute alienation within the world,
and their resultant aim was to allow the soul to escape the
constraints presented by the physical realm.
* Qualified Monism - where it is arguable whether or not the
second entity is divine or semi-divine. Elements of
Valentinian versions of Gnostic myth suggest to some that its
understanding of the universe may have been monistic rather
than a dualistic one. Elaine Pagels states that 'Valentinian
gnosticism [...] differs essentially from dualism'; while,
according to Schoedel'a standard element in the interpretation
of Valentinianism and similar forms of Gnosticism is the
recognition that they are fundamentally monistic'. In these
myths, the malevolence of the demiurge is mitigated; his
creation of a flawed materiality is not due to any moral
failing on his part, but due to his imperfection by contrast
to the superior entities of which he is unaware. As such,
Valentinians already have less cause to treat physical reality
with contempt than might a Sethian Gnostic
The Valentinian tradition conceives of materiality, rather
than as being a separate substance from the divine, as
attributable to an error of perception, which become
symbolized mythopoetically as the act of material creation.
The question of Gnostic morality can only be resolved by
reading the claims of their contemporaries. Numerous Christian
writers accused some Gnostic teachers of claiming to eschew
the physical realm, while simultaneously freely indulging
their physical appetites; however there is reason to question
the accuracy of these claims.
Evidence in the source texts indicates Gnostic moral behaviour
as being generally ascetic in basis, expressed most fluently
in their sexual and dietary practice. Many monks would deprive
themselves of food, water, or necessary needs for living. This
presented a problem for the heresiologists writing on gnostic
movements: this mode of behavior was one which they themselves
favoured and supported, so the Church Fathers, some modern-day
Gnostic apologist presume, would be required perforce to offer
support to the practices of their theological opponents. In
order to avoid this, a common heresiological approach was to
avoid the issue completely by resorting to slanderous (and, in
some cases, excessive) allegations of libertinism (see the
Cainites), or to explain Gnostic asceticism as being based on
incorrect interpretations of scripture, or simply duplicitous
in nature. Epiphanius provides an example when he writes of
the 'Archontics' 'Some of them ruin their bodies by
dissipation, but others feign ostensible fasts and deceive
simple people while they pride themselves with a sort of
abstinence, under the disguise of monks' (Panarion, 40.1.4).
In other areas of morality, Gnostics were less rigorously
ascetic, and took a more moderate approach to correct
behaviour. Ptolemy's Epistle to Flora lays out a project of
general asceticism in which the basis of action is the moral
inclination of the individual:
External physical fasting is observed even among our
followers, for it can be of some benefit to the soul if it is
engaged on with reason (logos), whenever it is done neither by
way of limiting others, nor out of habit, nor because of the
day, as if it had been specially appointed for that purpose.
This extract marks a definite shift away from the position of
orthodoxy, that the correct behaviour for Christians is best
administered and prescribed by the central authority of the
Church, as transmitted through the Apostles to the Church's
bishops. Instead, the internalised inclination of the
individual assumes paramount importance; there is the
recognition that ritualistic behaviour, though
well-intentioned, possesses no significance or effectiveness
unless its external prescription is matched by a personal,
internal motivation. This line of Gnostic thought is echoed in
Protestantism's emphasis on private interpretation of
Scripture, and on its individualist emphasis.
Charges of Gnostic libertinism find their source in the works
of Irenaeus. According to this writer, Simon Magus (whom he
has identified as the prototypical source of Gnosticism, and
who had previously tried to buy sacramental authority of
ordination from St. Peter the Apostle) founded the school of
moral freedom ('amoralism'). Irenaeus reports that Simon's
argument was that those who put their trust in him and his
consort Helen need trouble themselves no further with the
biblical prophets or their moral exhortations and are free 'to
do what they wish', as men are saved by his (Simon's) grace
and not by their 'righteous works' (Adversus Haereses).
Simon is not known for any libertinistic practice, save for
his curious attachment to Helen, typically reputed to be a
prostitute. There is, however, clear evidence in the Testimony
of Truth that followers of Simon did, in fact, get married and
beget children, so a general tendency to asceticism can
likewise be ruled out.
Irenaeus reports of the Valentinians, whom he characterizes as
eventual inheritors of Simon, that they are lax in their
dietary habits (eating food that has been 'offered to idols'),
sexually promiscuous ('immoderately given over to the desires
of the flesh') and guilty of taking wives under the pretence
of living with them as adopted 'sisters'. In the latter case,
Michael Allen Williams has argued plausibly that Irenaeus was
here broadly correct in the behaviour described, but not in
his apprehension of its causes. Williams argues that members
of a cult might live together as 'brother' and 'sister':
intimate, yet not sexually active. Over time, however, the
self-denial required of such an endeavour becomes harder and
harder to maintain, leading to the state of affairs Irenaeus
criticizes.
Irenaeus also makes reference to the Valentinian practise of
the Bridal Chamber, a ritualistic sacrament in which sexual
union is seen as analogous to the activities of the paired
syzygies that constitute the Valentinian Pleroma. Though it is
known that Valentinus had a more relaxed approach to sexuality
than much of the Catholic Church (he allowed women to hold
positions of ordination in his community), it is not known
whether the Bridal Chamber was a ritual involving actual
intercourse, or whether human sexuality is here simply being
used in a metaphorical sense.
Of the Carpocratians Irenaeus makes much the same report: they
'are so abandoned in their recklessness that they claim to
have in their power and be able to practise anything
whatsoever that is ungodly (irreligious) and impious ... they
say that conduct is only good or evil in the eyes of man'.
Once again a differentiation might be detected between a man's
actions and the grace he has received through his adherence to
a system of gnosis; whether this is due to a common sharing of
such an attitude amongst Gnostic circles, or whether this is
simply a blanket-charge used by Irenaeus is open to
conjecture.
On the whole, it would seem that Gnostic behavior tended
towards the ascetic. This said, the heresiological accusation
of duplicity in such practises should not be taken at face
value; nor should similar accusations of amoral libertinism.
The Nag Hammadi library itself is full of passages which
appear to encourage abstinence over indulgence. Fundamentally,
however, gnostic movements appear to take the 'ancient schema
of the two ways, which leaves the decision to do what is right
to human endeavour and promises a reward for those who make
the effort, and punishment for those who are negligent' (Kurt
Rudolph, Gnosis:The Nature and History of Gnosticism, 262).
As noted above, schools of Gnosticism can be defined according
to one classification system as being a member of two broad
categories. These are the 'Eastern'/'Persian' school, and a
'Syrian-Egyptic' school. The former possesses more
demonstrably dualist tendencies, reflecting a strong influence
from the beliefs of the Persian Zoroastrians. Among the
Syrian-Egyptian schools and the movements they spawned are a
typically more Monist view. Notable exceptions include
relatively modern movements which seem to include elements of
both categories, namely: the Cathars, Bogomils, and
Carpocratians which are included in their own section.
The Persian Schools, which appeared in the western Persian
province of Babylon, and whose writings were originally
produced in the Aramaic dialects spoken in Babylon at the
time, are representative of what is believed to be among the
oldest of the Gnostic thought forms. These movements are
considered by most to be religions in their own right, and are
not emanations from Christianity or Judaism.
* Mandaeanism is still practiced in small numbers, in parts of
southern Iraq and the Iranian province of Khuzestan. The name
of the group derives from the term Mandā d-Heyyi, which
roughly means "Knowledge of Life." Although the exact
chronological origins of this movement are not known, John the
Baptist eventually would come to be a key figure in the
religion, as an emphasis on baptism is part of their core
beliefs. As with Manichaeism, despite certain ties with
Christianity, Mandaeans do not believe in Moses, Jesus, or
Mohammed. Their beliefs and practices likewise have little
overlap with the religions that manifested from those
religious figures and the two should not be confused.
Significant amounts of original Mandaean Scripture survive in
the modern era. The primary source text is known as the Genzā
Rabbā and has portions identified by some scholars as being
copied as early as the 2nd century CE. There is also the
Qolastā, or Canonical Book of Prayer and The Book of John the
Baptist (sidra ḏ-iahia).
* Manichaeism which represented an entire independent
religious heritage, but is now mostly extinct was founded by
the Prophet Mani (210-276 CE). Although most of the
literature/scripture of the Manichaeans was believed lost, the
discovery of an original series of documents have helped to
shed new light on the subject. Now housed in Cologne Germany,
the Codex Manichaicus Coloniensis contains mainly biographical
information on the prophet and details on his claims and
teachings. Despite connections with Jesus Christ, it is not
believed that the Manichaeans in any way practiced a religion
with identifiable overlap with any of the various Jewish or
Christian sects. As Mani stated, "The true God has nothing to
do with the material world or cosmos", and, "It is the Prince
of Darkness who spoke with Moses, the Jews and their priests.
Thus the Christians, the Jews, and the Pagans are involved in
the same error when they worship this God. For he leads them
astray in the lusts he taught them."
The Syrian-Egyptian school derives much of its outlook from
Platonist influences. Typically, it depicts creation in a
series of emanations from a primal monadic source, finally
resulting in the creation of the material universe. As a
result, there is a tendency in these schools to view evil in
terms of matter which is markedly inferior to goodness, evil
as lacking spiritual insight and goodness, rather than to
emphasize portrayals of evil as an equal force. These schools
of gnosticism may be said to use the terms 'evil' and 'good'
as being relative descriptive terms, as they refer to the
relative plight of human existence caught between such
realities and confused in its orientation, with 'evil'
indicating the extremes of distance from the principle and
source of goodness, without necessarily emphasizing an
inherent negativity. As can be seen below, many of these
movements included source material related to Christianity,
with some identifying themselves as specifically Christian
(albeit quite different from the so-called Orthodox or Roman
Catholic forms).
Most of the literature from this category is known/confirmed
to us in the modern age through the Library discovered at Nag
Hammadi.
* Sethian works are named after the third son of Adam and Eve,
believed to be a possessor and disseminator of gnosis. These
typically include:
o The Apocryphon of John
o The Apocalypse of Adam
o The Reality of the Rulers, Also known as The hypostasis of
the Archons
o The Thunder-Perfect Mind
o The Three-fold First Thought (Trimorphic Protennoia)
o The Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (also known as
the (Coptic) Gospel of the Egyptians)
o Zostrianos
o Allogenes
o The Three Steles of Seth
* Thomasine works are so-named after the School of St. Thomas
the Apostle. The texts commonly attributed to this school are:
o The Hymn of the Pearl, or, the Hymn of Jude Thomas the
Apostle in the Country of Indians
o The Gospel of Thomas
o The Book of Thomas: The Contender Writing to the Perfect
* Valentinian works are named in reference to the Bishop and
teacher Valentinius, also spelled Valentinus. ca. 153 AD/CE,
Valentinius developed a complex Cosmology outside of the
Sethian tradition. At one point he was close to being
appointed the Bishop of Rome of what is now the Roman Catholic
Church. Works attributed to his school are listed below, and
fragmentary pieces directly linked to him are noted with an
asterisk:
o The Divine Word Present in the Infant (Fragment A) *
o On the Three Natures (Fragment B) *
o Adam's Faculty of Speech (Fragment C) *
o To Agathopous: Jesus' Digestive System (Fragment D) *
o Annihilation of the Realm of Death (Fragment F) *
o On Friends: The Source of Common Wisdom (Fragment G) *
o Epistle on Attachments (Fragment H) *
o Summer Harvest*
o The Gospel of Truth*
o Ptolemy's Version of the Gnostic Myth
o The Prayer of the Apostle Paul
o Ptolemy's Epistle to Flora
o Treatise on Resurrection (Epistle to Rheginus)
o Gospel of Philip
* Basilidian works are named for the founder of their school,
Basilides (132–? CE/AD). These works are mainly known to us
through the criticisms of one of his opponents, Irenaeus in
his work Adversus Haereses. The other pieces are known through
the work of Clement of Alexandria:
o The Octet of Subsistent Entities (Fragment A)
o The Uniqueness of the World (Fragment B)
o Election Naturally Entails Faith and Virtue (Fragment C)
o The State of Virtue (Fragment D)
o The Elect Transcend the World (Fragment E)
o Reincarnation (Fragment F)
o Human Suffering and the Goodness of Providence (Fragment G)
o Forgivable Sins (Fragment H)
* The Gospel of Judas is the most recently discovered Gnostic
text. National Geographic has published an English translation
of it, bringing it into mainstream awareness. It portrays
Judas Iscariot as the most enlightened disciple, who acted at
Jesus' request when he handed Jesus over to the authorities.
Its reference to Barbelo and inclusion of material similar to
the Apocryphon of John and other such texts, connects the text
to Barbeloite and/or Sethian Gnosticism.
Other schools and related movements; these are presented in
chronological order:
The circular, harmonic cross was an emblem used most notably
by the Cathars, a medieval group that related to Gnosticism.
o Simon Magus and Marcion of Sinope both had Gnostic
tendencies, but such familiar ideas as they presented were
as-yet unformed; they might thus be described as pseudo- or
proto-Gnostics. Both developed a sizable following. Simon
Magus' pupil Menander of Antioch could potentially be included
within this grouping. Marcion is popularly labelled a gnostic,
however most scholars do not consider him a gnostic at all,
for example, the Encyclopædia Britannica article on Marcion
clearly states: "In Marcion's own view, therefore, the
founding of his church — to which he was first driven by
opposition — amounts to a reformation of Christendom through a
return to the gospel of Christ and to Paul; nothing was to be
accepted beyond that. This of itself shows that it is a
mistake to reckon Marcion among the Gnostics. A dualist he
certainly was, but he was not a Gnostic - Depending of course
on one's definition of 'Gnostic'."
o Cerinthus (c. 100 AD), the founder of a heretical school
with gnostic elements. Like a Gnostic, Cerinthus depicted
Christ as a heavenly spirit separate from the man Jesus, and
he cited the demiurge as creating the material world. Unlike
the Gnostics, Cerinthus taught Christians to observe the
Jewish law; his demiurge was holy, not lowly; and he taught
the Second Coming. His gnosis was a secret teaching attributed
to an apostle. Some scholars believe that the First Epistle of
John was written as a response to Cerinthus.
o The Ophites, so-named because they worshiped the serpent of
Genesis as the bestower of knowledge.
o The Cainites, as the term implies, worshiped Cain, as well
as Esau, Korah, and the Sodomites. There is little evidence
concerning the nature of this group; however, it is surmisable
that they believed that indulgence in sin was the key to
salvation because since the body is evil, one must defile it
through immoral activity (see libertinism). The name Cainite
is used as the name of a religious movement, and not in the
usual Biblical sense of people descended from Cain. According
to Biblical text, which is our only source of knowledge about
the man Cain, all descendants of Cain perished in Noah's
Flood, as only Noah's family survived, deriving from the line
of Seth.
o The Carpocratians
o The Borborites
o The Paulicans
o The Bogomils
o The Cathars (Cathari, Albigenses or Albigensians) are
typically seen as being imitative of Gnosticism; whether or
not the Cathari possessed direct historical influence from
ancient Gnosticism is disputed. Though the basic conceptions
of Gnostic cosmology are to be found in Cathar beliefs (most
distinctly in their notion of a lesser, Satanic, creator god),
they did not apparently place any special relevance upon
knowledge (gnosis) as an effective salvific force. For the
relationship between these medieval heresies and earlier
Gnostic forms, see historical discussion above.
Gnostic ideas found a Jewish variation in the mystical study
of Kabbalah. The Kabbalists took many core Gnostic ideas and
used them to dramatically reinterpret earlier Jewish sources
according to this new influence. See Gershom Scholem's Origins
of the Kabbalah for further discussion. The Kabbalists
originated in Provence which was at that time also the center
of the Gnostic Cathars. It is thus believed that Cathar
Gnostics persuaded Jews to Gnostic ideas, leading to the
development of Kabbalah. Another influence on Kabbalah was
probably that of the Muslim Ismailis. By contrast, however,
followers of Kabbalah date its origins as early as the Garden
of Eden.
Kabbalah, however, does not employ the terminology or labels
of gentile Gnosticism, but grounds the same or similar
concepts in the language of the Torah (first five books of the
Hebrew Bible). Nevertheless, during the time periods when
Gnosticism was drawing large numbers of followers from various
religions, creating Gnostic versions of those religions, many
Jews also developed a mystical version of Judaism remarkably
similar to Gnostic beliefs.
While Kabbalah shares several themes with Gnosticism, such as
a multiplicity of heavenly levels and archetypes and the
importance of mystical knowledge of these, it does not reflect
the distinctive Gnostic belief that the material world and the
Hebrew Bible are the work of an inferior and malevolent deity.
Rather than describing Kabbalah as a form of Gnosticism, it
would be more accurate to describe both Kabbalah and
Gnosticism as members of a family of Neoplatonic/Neopythagorean
Oriental mystical traditions, which would also include Sufism.
Gershom Scholem once described Gnosticism as "the Greatest
case of metaphysical anti-Semitism."
Please note that the following are only summaries of various
Gnostic interpretations that exist. The roles of familiar
beings such as Jesus Christ, Sophia, and the Demiurge usually
share the same general themes between systems but may have
somewhat different functions or identities ascribed to them.
Æon
In many Gnostic systems, the æons are the various emanations
of the superior God, who is also known by such names as the
One, the Monad, Aion teleos (Greek: "The Complete Æon"),
Bythos (Greek: Βυθος, 'Depth' or 'profundity'), Proarkhe
(Greek: προαρχη, "Before the Beginning'), E Arkhe (Greek: ἡ
ἀρχή, 'The Beginning'), Ennoia (Greek: "Thought") of the Light
or Sige (Greek: Σιγη, "Silence"). From this first being, also
an æon, a series of different emanations occur, beginning in
certain Gnostic texts with the hermaphroditic Barbelo, from
which successive pairs of aeons emanate, often in male-female
pairings called syzygies; the numbers of these pairings varied
from text to text, though some identify their number as being
thirty. The aeons as a totality constitute the pleroma, the
"region of light". The lowest regions of the pleroma are
closest to the darkness; that is, the physical world.
Two of the most commonly paired æons were Jesus and Sophia
(Greek: "Wisdom"); the latter refers to Jesus as her 'consort'
in A Valentinian Exposition. Sophia, emanating without her
partner, resulting in the production of the Demiurge (Greek:
lit. "public builder"), who is also referred to as Yaldabaoth
and variations thereof in some Gnostic texts. This creature is
concealed outside the Pleroma; in isolation, and thinking
itself alone, it creates materiality and a host of co-actors,
referred to as archons. The demiurge is responsible for the
creation of mankind, by create he traps elements of the
Pleroma stolen from Sophia in human bodies. In response, the
Godhead emanates two savior æons, Christ and the Holy Spirit;
Christ then embodies itself in the form of Jesus, in order to
be able to teach man how to achieve gnosis, by which they may
return to the Pleroma.
Archon
In late antiquity some variants of Gnosticism used the term
Archon to refer to several servants of the Demiurge. In this
context they may be seen as having the roles of the angels and
demons of the Old Testament.
According to Origen's Contra Celsum, a sect called the Ophites
posited the existence of seven archons, beginning with
Iadabaoth or Ialdabaoth, who created the six that follow: Iao,
Sabaoth, Adonaios, Elaios, Astaphanos and Horaios. Similarly
to the Mithraic Kronos and Vedic Narasimha, a form of Vishnu,
Ialdabaoth had a head of a lion.
Abraxas/Abrasax
The Egyptian Gnostic Basilideans referred to a figure called
Abraxas who was at the head of 365 spiritual beings (Irenaeus,
Adversus Haereses, I.24); it is unclear what to make of
Irenaeus' use of the term 'Archon', which may simply mean
'ruler' in this context. The role and function of Abraxas for
Basilideans is not clear.
The word Abraxas was engraved on certain antique gemstones,
called on that account Abraxas stones, which may have been
used as amulets or charms by Gnostic sects. In popular
culture, Abraxas is sometimes considered the name of a god who
incorporated both Good and Evil (God and Demiurge) in one
entity, and therefore representing the monotheistic God,
singular, but (unlike, for example, the Christian God) not
omni-benevolent (See Hesse's Demian, and Jung's Seven Sermons
to the Dead). Opinions abound on Abraxas, who in recent
centuries has been claimed to be both an Egyptian god and a
demon, sometimes even being associated with the dual nature of
Satan/Lucifer. The word abracadabra may be related to Abraxas.
The above information relates to interpretations of ancient
amulets and to reports of Christian heresy hunters which are
not always clear.
Actual ancient Gnostic texts from the Nag Hammadi Library,
such as the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians, refer to Abrasax
as an Aeon dwelling with Sophia and other Aeons of the
Spiritual Fullness in the light of the luminary Eleleth. In
several texts, the luminary Eleleth is the last of the
luminaries (Spiritual Lights) that come forward, and it is the
Aeon Sophia, associated with Eleleth, who encounters darkness
and becomes involved in the chain of events that leads to the
Demiurge and Archon's rule of this world, and the salvage
effort that ensues. As such, the role of Aeons of Eleleth,
including Abrasax, Sophia, and others, pertains to this outer
border of the Divine Fullness that encounters the ignorance of
the world of Lack and interacts to rectify the error of
ignorance in the world of materiality.
Words like or similar to Abraxas or Abrasax also appear in the
Greek Magical Papyri. There are similarities and differences
between such figures in reports about Basiledes' teaching, in
the larger magical traditions of the Graeco-Roman world, in
the classic ancient Gnostic texts such as the Gospel of the
Egyptians, and in later magical and esoteric writings.
The Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung wrote a short Gnostic
treatise in 1916 called The Seven Sermons to the Dead, which
called Abraxas a God higher than the Christian God and Devil,
that combines all opposites into one Being.
A lion-faced deity found on a Gnostic gem in Bernard de
Montfaucon's L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures
may be a depiction of the Demiurge; however, cf. Mithraic
Zervan Akarana
The term Demiurge derives from the Latinized form of the Greek
term dēmiourgos, δημιουργός, (literally "public or skilled
worker") and refers to an entity responsible for the creation
of the physical universe and the physical aspect of humanity.
The term dēmiourgos occurs in a number of other religious and
philosophical systems, most notably Platonism. Moral
judgements of the demiurge vary from group to group within the
broad category of gnosticism - such judgements usually
correspond to each group's judgement of the status of
materiality as being inherently evil, or else merely flawed
and as good as its passive constituent matter will allow.
Like Plato does, Gnosticism presents a distinction between a
supranatural, unknowable reality and the sensible materiality
of which the demiurge is creator. However, in contrast to
Plato, several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge
as antagonistic to the Supreme God: his act of creation either
in unconscious and fundamentally flawed imitation of the
divine model, or else formed with the malevolent intention of
entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. Thus, in such
systems, the Demiurge acts as a solution to the problem of
evil. In the Apocryphon of John (several versions of which are
found in the Nag Hammadi library), the Demiurge has the name "Yaltabaoth",
and proclaims himself as God:
"Now the archon who is weak has three names. The first name is
Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas, and the third is Samael. And
he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said,
'I am God and there is no other God beside me,' for he is
ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come."
"Samael", in the Judeo-Christian tradition, refers to the evil
Angel of Death, and corresponds to the Christian demon of that
name, one second only to Satan. Literally, it can mean "blind
god" or "god of the blind" in Aramaic (Syriac sæmʕa-ʔel);
another alternative title is "Saklas", Aramaic for "fool" (Syriac
sækla "the foolish one").
Gnostic myth recounts that Sophia (Greek, literally meaning
"wisdom"), the Demiurge's mother and a partial aspect of the
divine Pleroma or "Fullness", desired to create something
apart from the divine totality, and without the receipt of
divine assent. In this abortive act of separate creation, she
gave birth to the monstrous Demiurge and, being ashamed of her
deed, she wrapped him in a cloud and created a throne for him
within it. The Demiurge, isolated, did not behold his mother,
nor anyone else, and thus concluded that only he himself
existed, being ignorant of the superior levels of reality that
were his birth-place.
The Gnostic myths describing these events are full of
intricate nuances portraying the declination of aspects of the
divine into human form; this process occurs through the agency
of the Demiurge who, having stolen a portion of power from his
mother, sets about a work of creation in unconscious imitation
of the superior Pleromatic realm. Thus Sophia's power becomes
enclosed within the material forms of humanity, themselves
entrapped within the material universe: the goal of Gnostic
movements was typically the awakening of this spark, which
permitted a return by the subject to the superior,
non-material realities which were its primal source. (See
Sethian Gnosticism.)
Some Gnostic philosophers identify the Demiurge with Yahweh,
the God of the Old Testament, in opposition and contrast to
the God of the New Testament. Still others equated the being
with Satan. Catharism apparently inherited their idea of Satan
as the creator of the evil world directly or indirectly from
Gnosticism.
The word 'Gnosticism' is a modern construction, though based
on an antiquated linguistic expression: it comes from the
Greek word meaning 'knowledge', gnosis (γνῶσις). However,
gnosis itself refers to a very specialised form of knowledge,
deriving both from the exact meaning of the original Greek
term and its usage in Platonist philosophy.
Unlike modern English, ancient Greek was capable of discerning
between several different forms of knowing. These different
forms may be described in English as being propositional
knowledge, indicative of knowledge acquired indirectly through
the reports of others or otherwise by inference (such as "I
know of George Bush" or "I know Berlin is in Germany"), and
empirical knowledge acquired by direct participation or
acquaintance (such as "I know George Bush personally" or "I
know Berlin, having visited").
Gnosis (γνῶσις) refers to knowledge of the second kind.
Therefore, in a religious context, to be 'Gnostic' should be
understood as being reliant not on knowledge in a general
sense, but as being specially receptive to mystical or
esoteric experiences of direct participation with the divine.
Indeed, in most Gnostic systems the sufficient cause of
salvation is this 'knowledge of' ('acquaintance with') the
divine. This is commonly identified with a process of inward
'knowing' or self-exploration, comparable to that encouraged
by Plotinus (ca. 205–270 AD). However, as may be seen, the
term 'gnostic' also had precedent usage in several ancient
philosophical traditions, which must also be weighed in
considering the very subtle implications of its appellation to
a set of ancient religious groups.
In many Gnostic systems (and heresiologies), God is known as
the Monad, the One, The Absolute, Aion teleos (The Perfect Æon),
Bythos (Depth or Profundity, Βυθος), Proarkhe (Before the
Beginning, προαρχη), and E Arkhe (The Beginning, η αρχη). God
is the high source of the pleroma, the region of light. The
various emanations of God are called æons.
Within certain variations of Gnosticism, especially those
inspired by Monoimus, the Monad was the highest God which
created lesser gods, or elements (similar to æons).
According to Hippolytus, this view was inspired by the
Pythagoreans, who called the first thing that came into
existence the Monad, which begat the dyad, which begat the
numbers, which begat the point, begetting lines, etc. This was
also clarified in the writings of Plato, Aristotle and
Plotinus. This teaching being largely Neopythagorean via
Numenius as well.
This Monad is the spiritual source of everything which
emanates the pleroma, and could be contrasted to the dark
Demiurge (Yaldabaoth) that controls matter.
The Sethian cosmogony as most famously contained in the
Apocryphon ('Secret book') of John describes an unknown God,
very similar to the orthodox apophatic theology, although very
different from the orthodox credal teachings that there is one
such god who is identified also as creator of heaven and
earth. In describing the nature of a creator god associated
with Biblical texts, orthodox theologians often attempt to
define God through a series of explicit positive statements,
themselves universal but in the divine taken to their
superlative degrees: he is omniscient, omnipotent and truly
benevolent. The Sethian conception of the most hidden
transcendent God is, by contrast, defined through negative
theology: he is immovable, invisible, intangible, ineffable;
commonly, 'he' is seen as being hermaphroditic, a potent
symbol for being, as it were, 'all-containing'. In the
Apocryphon of John, this god is good in that it bestows
goodness. After the apophatic statements, the process of the
Divine in action are used to describe the effect of such a
god.
An apophatic approach to discussing the Divine is found
throughout gnosticism, Vedanta, and Platonic and Aristotelian
theology as well. It is also found in some Judaic sources.
Pleroma (Greek πληρωμα) generally refers to the totality of
God's powers. The term means fullness, and is used in
Christian theological contexts: both in Gnosticism generally,
and in Colossians 2.9.
Gnosticism holds that the world is controlled by evil archons,
one of whom is the demiurge, the deity of the Old Testament
who holds the human spirit captive.
The heavenly pleroma is the center of divine life, a region of
light "above" (the term is not to be understood spatially) our
world, occupied by spiritual beings such as aeons (eternal
beings) and sometimes archons. Jesus is interpreted as an
intermediary aeon who was sent from the pleroma, with whose
aid humanity can recover the lost knowledge of the divine
origins of humanity. The term is thus a central element of
Gnostic cosmology.
Pleroma is also used in the general Greek language and is used
by the Greek Orthodox church in this general form since the
word appears under the book of Colossians. Proponents of the
view that Paul was actually a gnostic, such as Elaine Pagels
of Princeton University, view the reference in Colossians as
something that was to be interpreted in the gnostic sense.
In Gnostic tradition, the term Sophia (Σoφíα, Greek for
"wisdom") refers to the final and lowest emanation of God.
In most if not all versions of the gnostic myth, Sophia births
the demiurge, who in turn brings about the creation of
materiality. The positive or negative depiction of materiality
thus resides a great deal on mythic depictions of Sophia's
actions. She is occasionally referred to by the Hebrew
equivalent of Achamoth (this is a feature of Ptolemy's version
of the Valentinian gnostic myth). Jewish Gnosticism with a
focus on Sophia was active by 90.
Almost all gnostic systems of the Syrian or Egyptian type
taught that the universe began with an original, unknowable
God, referred to as the Parent or Bythos, as the Monad by
Monoimus, or the first Aeon by still other traditions. From
this initial unitary beginning, the One spontaneously emanated
further Aeons, pairs of progressively 'lesser' beings in
sequence. The lowest of these pairs were Sophia and Christ.
The Aeons together made up the Pleroma, or fullness, of God,
and thus should not be seen as distinct from the divine, but
symbolic abstractions of the divine nature.
The development of the Syrian-Egyptian school
Bentley Layton has sketched out a relationship between the
various gnostic movements in his introduction to The Gnostic
Scriptures (SCM Press, London, 1987). In this model,
'Classical Gnosticism' and 'The School of Thomas' antedated
and influenced the development of Valentinus, who was to found
his own school of Gnosticism in both Alexandria and Rome, whom
Layton called 'the great [Gnostic] reformer' and 'the focal
point' of Gnostic development. While in Alexandria, where he
was born, Valentinus probably would have had contact with the
Gnostic teacher Basilides, and may have been influenced by
him.
Valentinianism flourished throughout the early centuries of
the common era: while Valentinus himself lived from ca.
100–180 AD/CE, a list of sectarians or heretics, composed in
388 AD/CE, against whom Emperor Constantine intended
legislation includes Valentinus (and, presumably, his
inheritors). The school is also known to have been extremely
popular: several varieties of their central myth are known,
and we know of 'reports from outsiders from which the
intellectual liveliness of the group is evident' (Markschies,
Gnosis: An Introduction, 94). It is known that Valentinus'
students, in further evidence of their intellectual activity,
elaborated upon the teachings and materials they received from
him (though the exact extent of their changes remains
unknown), for example, in the version of the Valentinian myth
brought to us through Ptolemy.
Valentinianism might be described as the most elaborate and
philosophically 'dense' form of the Syrian-Egyptian schools of
Gnosticism, though it should be acknowledged that this in no
way debarred other schools from attracting followers:
Basilides' own school was popular also, and survived in Egypt
until the 4th century.
Simone Petrement, in A Separate God, in arguing for a
Christian origin of Gnosticism, places Valentinus after
Basilides, but before the Sethians. It is her assertion that
Valentinus represented a moderation of the anti-Judaism of the
earlier Hellenized teachers; the demiurge, widely regarded to
be a mythological depiction of the Old Testament God of the
Hebrews, is depicted as more ignorant than evil. (See below.)
Manichean priests writing at their desks, with panel
inscription in Sogdian. Manuscript from Khocho, Tarim Basin.
The development of the Persian school
An alternate heritage is offered by Kurt Rudolph in his book
Gnosis: The Nature & Structure of Gnosticism (Koehler and
Amelang, Leipzig, 1977), to explain the lineage of Persian
Gnostic schools. The decline of Manicheism that occurred in
Persia in the 5th century AD was too late to prevent the
spread of the movement into the east and the west. In the
west, the teachings of the school moved into Syria, Northern
Arabia, Egypt and North Africa (where Augustine was a member
of the school from 373-382); from Syria it progressed still
farther, into Palestine, Asia Minor and Armenia. There is
evidence for Manicheans in Rome and Dalmatia in the 4th
century, and also in Gaul and Spain. The influence of
Manicheanism was attacked by imperial elects and polemical
writings, but the religion remained prevalent until the 6th
century, and still exerted influence in the emergence of the
Paulicians, Bogomils and Cathari in the Middle Ages, until it
was ultimately stamped out as a heresy by the Catholic Church.
In the east, Rudolph relates, Manicheanism was able to bloom,
given that the religious monopoly position previously held by
Christianity and Zoroastrianism had been broken by nascent
Islam. In the early years of the Arab conquest, Manicheanism
again found followers in Persia (mostly amongst educated
circles), but flourished most in Central Asia, to which it had
spread through Iran. Here, in 762, Manicheanism became the
state religion of the Uyghur Empire.
Historical relations between antique Greek Philosophy and
Gnosticism
The earliest origins of Gnosticism are still obscure and
disputed, but they probably include influence from Plato,
Middle Platonism and Neo-Pythagoreanism academies or schools
of thought, and this seems to be true both of the more Sethian
Gnostics, and of the Valentinian Gnostics. Further, if we
compare different Sethian texts to each other in an attempted
chronology of the development of Sethianism during the first
few centuries, it seems that later texts are continuing to
interact with Platonism. Earlier texts such as Apocalypse of
Adam show signs of being pre-Christian and focus on the Seth,
third son of Adam and Eve. These early Sethians may be
identical to or related to the Notzrim, Ophites or to the
sectarian group called the Minuth by Philo. Later Sethian
texts such as Zostrianos and Allogenes draw on the imagery of
older Sethian texts, but utilize "a large fund of
philosophical conceptuality derived from contemporary
Platonism, (that is late middle Platonism) with no traces of
Christian content." Indeed the doctrine of the "triple-powered
one" found in the text Allogenes, as discovered in the Nag
Hammadi Library, is "the same doctrine as found in the
anonymous Parmenides commentary (Fragment XIV) ascribed by
Hadot to Porphyry [...] and is also found in Plotinus'
Ennead6.7, 17, 13-26."
Rejection by antique Greek Philosophy
However, by the 3rd century Neoplatonists, such as Plotinus,
Porphyry and Amelius are all attacking the Sethians. It looks
as if Sethianism began as a pre-Christian tradition, possibly
a syncretic that incorporated elements of Christianity and
Platonism as it grew, only to have both Christianity and
Platonism reject and turn against it. Professor John D Turner
believes that this double attack led to Sethianism
fragmentation into numerous smaller groups (Audians,
Borborites, Archontics and perhaps Phibionites, Stratiotici,
and Secundians). Scholarship on Gnosticism has been greatly
advanced by the discovery and translation of the Nag Hammadi
texts, which shed light on some of the more puzzling comments
by Plotinus and Porphyry regarding the Gnostics. More
importantly, the texts help to distinguish different kinds of
early Gnostics. It now seems clear that "Sethian" and "Valentinian"
gnostics attempted "an effort towards conciliation, even
affiliation" with late antique philosophy, and were rebuffed
by some Neoplatonists, including Plotinus.
Gnostics borrow a lot of ideas and terms from Platonism. They
exhibit a keen understanding of Greek philosophical terms and
the Greek Koine language in general, and use Greek
philosophical concepts throughout their text, including such
concepts as hypostasis (reality, existence), ousia (essence,
substance, being), and demiurge (creator God). Good examples
include texts such as the Hypostasis of the Archons (Reality
of the Rulers) or Trimorphic Protennoia (The first thought in
three forms).
Criticism of gnosticism by antique Greek Philosophy
As a pagan mystic Plotinus considered his opponents heretics
and elitist blasphemers, arriving at misotheism as the
solution to the problem of evil, being not traditional or
genuine Hellenism (in philosophy or mysticism), but rather one
invented taking all their truths over from Plato, coupled with
the idea expressed by Plotinus that the approach to the
infinite force which is the One or Monad cannot be through
knowing or not knowing (i.e., dualist, which is of the dyad or
demiurge). Although there has been dispute as to which
Gnostics Plotinus was referring to it appears they were indeed
Sethian. Plotinus' main objection to the Gnostics he was
familiar with, however, was their rejection of the goodness of
the demiurge and the material world. He attacks the Gnostics
as vilifying Plato's ontology of the universe as contained in
the Timaeus. He accused Gnosticism of vilifying the Demiurge,
or craftsman that crafted the material world, and even of
thinking that the material world is evil, or a prison. As
Plotinus explains, the demiurge is the nous (as the first
emanation of the One), the ordering principle or mind, and
also reason. Plotinus was also critical of the Gnostic origin
of the demiurge as the offspring of wisdom, represented as a
deity called Sophia. She was anthropomorphically expressed as
a feminine spirit deity not unlike the goddess Athena or the
Christian Holy Spirit. Plotinus even went so far as to state
at one point that if the Gnostics did believe this world was a
prison then they could at any moment free themselves by
committing suicide. To some degree the texts discovered in Nag
Hammadi support his allegations, but others such as the
Valentinians and the Tripartite Tractate insist on the
goodness of the world and the Demiurge.
Early 3rd century–4th century Christian writers such as
Hippolytus and Epiphanius write about a Scythianus, who
visited India around 50 AD from where he brought "the doctrine
of the Two Principles". According to Cyril of Jerusalem,
Scythianus' pupil Terebinthus presented himself as a "Buddha"
("He called himself Buddas"). Terebinthus went to Palestine
and Judaea ("becoming known and condemned"), and ultimately
settled in Babylon, where he transmitted his teachings to Mani,
thereby creating the foundation of Manichaeism:
"But Terebinthus, his disciple in this wicked error, inherited
his money and books and heresy, and came to Palestine, and
becoming known and condemned in Judæa he resolved to pass into
Persia: but lest he should be recognised there also by his
name he changed it and called himself Buddas."
—Cyril of Jerusalem, "Catechetical lecture 6"
In the 3rd century, the Syrian writer and Christian Gnostic
theologian Bar Daisan described his exchanges with the
religious missions of holy men from India (Greek: Σαρμαναίοι,
Sramanas), passing through Syria on their way to Elagabalus or
another Severan dynasty Roman Emperor. His accounts were
quoted by Porphyry (De abstin., iv, 17) and Stobaeus (Eccles.,
iii, 56, 141).
Finally, from the 3rd century to the 12th century, some
Gnostic religions such as Manichaeism, which combined
Christian, Hebrew and Buddhist influences (Mani, the founder
of the religion, resided for some time in Kushan lands),
spread throughout the Old World, to Gaul and Great Britain in
the West, and to China in the East. Some leading Christian
theologians such as Augustine of Hippo were Manichaeans before
converting to orthodox Christianity.
Such exchanges, many more of which may have gone unrecorded,
suggest that Buddhism may have had some influence on early
Christianity: "Scholars have often considered the possibility
that Buddhism influenced the early development of
Christianity. They have drawn attention to many parallels
concerning the births, lives, doctrines, and deaths of the
Buddha and Jesus" (Bentley, "Old World Encounters").
The ascetic notion of immediate revelation through divine
knowledge sought to find an absolute transcendence in a
Supreme Deity. This concept is very important in identifying
what evidence there is pertaining to Gnosticism in the NT,
which would influence orthodox teaching. Main Gnostic beliefs
that differ from Biblical teachings include: the creator as a
lower being [‘Demiurge’] and not a Supreme Deity; scripture
having a deep, hidden meaning whose true message could only be
understood through “secret wisdom”; and Jesus as a spirit that
“seemed” to be human, leading to a belief in the incarnation.
The traditional “formula which enshrines the Incarnation…is
that in some sense God, without ceasing to be God, was made
man…which is a prima facie [‘at first sight’ a] contradiction
in theological terms…the [NT] nowhere reflects on the virgin
birth of Jesus as witnessing to the conjunction of deity and
manhood in His person…the deity of Jesus was not…clearly
stated in words and [the book of] Acts gives no hint that it
was”. This philosophy was known by the so-called “Church
Fathers” such as Origen, Irenaeus, and Tertullian.
At its core, Gnosticism formed a speculative interest in the
relationship of the oneness of God to the ‘triplicity’ of his
manifestations. It seems to have taken Neoplatonic metaphysics
of substance and hypostases [“being”] as a departure point for
interpreting the relationship of the “Father” to the “Son” in
its attempt to define a new theology. This would point to the
infamous theological controversies by Arius against followers
of the Greek Alexandrian school, headed by Athanasius.
The discovery of the ancient Nag Hammadi Library in Egypt in
the 1940s shows how varied this movement was. The writers of
these manuscripts considered themselves ‘Christians’, but due
to their syncretistic beliefs, borrowed heavily from the Greek
philosopher Plato. The find included the hotly debated Gospel
of Thomas, which parallels some of Jesus’ sayings in the
Synoptic Gospels. This may point to the existence of a
postulated lost textual source for the Gospels of Luke and
Matthew, known as the Q document. Thus, modern debate is split
between those who see Gnosticism as a pre-Christian form of
‘theosophy’ and those who see it as a post-Christian
counter-movement.
NT scripture was largely unwritten, at least in the form of
canon, existing in the practices, customs and teachings of the
early Christian community. What largely was communicated
generation to generation was an oral tradition passed from the
apostles to the Bishops and from Bishops and priests to the
faithful through their preaching and way of life.
Constantine’s call for unity in the building of the new Roman
Church led to his request for Eusebius to produce some 50
copies of manuscripts. These were approved and accepted by the
emperor, which later influenced the final stages of
canonization.
The best known origin story in the NT comes in the person of
Simon the ‘mage’ [Acts 8:9-24]. Although, nothing is
historically known about this obscure figure, his first
disciple is said to have been Basilides. Paul’s epistles to
Timothy contain refutations to “false doctrine [and] myths” [1
Tim 1:3-5]. The importance placed here, as in most NT
scripture, is to uphold the truth since through such knowledge
God hopes for “all men” to be saved [1 Tim 2:4]. Paul’s
letters to the Corinthians have a lot to say regarding false
teachers (2 Co 11:4), “spiritualists” [pneumatikos—1 Co
2:14-15; 15:44-46] and their gnosis. Warning against the
“wisdom of the wise” and their “hollow and deceptive
philosophy” (1 Co 1:19; 2:5—NIV; cp. Col 2:1-10; 2:8). These
are seen as the clearest texts to early Gnostic evidence. The
book of Jude also contains scripture exhorting believers to
seek the true faith (Jude 3) and it is nowhere more
influential than in the nature of the man, Jesus.
But the writings attributed to the Apostle John contain the
most significant amount of content directed at combating the
progenitors of heresies. Most Bible scholars agree that these
were some of the last parts of the NT written and as such, can
offer the most insights into a 1st century perspective. The
writer’s repeated adherence to true knowledge (“hereby we
know”—inherent in Jesus’ ministry) and nature seem to
challenge other speculative and opposing beliefs.
The 2nd epistle of John is only 13 verses long but puts strong
emphasis on the ‘Christology’ of Jesus. From its context we
see the importance placed on “knowing…walking” and loving the
truth (v. 1-4), on the humanity of the man Jesus (v. 7-11) and
adherence to “teaching [the doctrine] of Christ” [cp. John
7:14-18]. These point to false teachers who claimed to bring
some higher teaching than what the apostles taught.
From the evidence at hand, it seems that early Christian
apologists used their biblical faith to teach a pagan audience
how best to adopt the new religion. Wrapping their
understanding of scripture and worldly wisdom in the process
and taking their lead from such Jewish apologists like Philo
of Alexandria. Whether even without Philo the ‘Fathers of the
Church’ would have attempted to harmonize scripture and
philosophy is a plausible assumption. Whether the result of
their harmonization would have been the same as it is now is a
matter of conjecture. But it happens that Philo came before
them and it also happens that all kinds of evidence show the
influence of Philo upon them.
It is hard to sift through what actual evidence there is
regarding Gnosticism in the NT due to their historical
synchronicity. The Hammadi library find contains Pagan,
Jewish, Greek and early Gnostic influences, further
reinforcing the need to tread lightly. The antiquity of the
find being of utmost importance since it shows primary
evidence of texts that may also have influenced the process of
NT canonization.
If any conclusion is to be made at this point is that
Gnosticism was considered a real enough threat by the apostles
themselves, showing us how early it started to infiltrate the
Church, through which several of its undercurrents were to
strongly influence later ‘orthodox’ doctrine.
In 1966 in Messina, Italy, a conference was held concerning
systems of gnosis. Among its several aims were the need to
establish a program to translate the recently-acquired Nag
Hammadi library (discussed above) and the need to arrive at an
agreement concerning an accurate definition of 'Gnosticism'.
This was in answer to the tendency, prevalent since the
eighteenth century, to use the term 'gnostic' less as its
origins implied, but rather as an interpretive category for
contemporary philosophical and religious movements. For
example, in 1835, New Testament scholar Ferdinand Christian
Baur constructed a developmental model of Gnosticism that
culminated in the religious philosophy of Hegel; one might
compare literary critic Harold Bloom's recent attempts to
identify Gnostic elements in contemporary American religion,
or Eric Voegelin's analysis of totalitarian impulses through
the interpretive lens of Gnosticism.
The 'cautious proposal' reached by the conference concerning
Gnosticism is described by Markschies:
In the concluding document of Messina the proposal was 'by the
simultaneous application of historical and typological
methods' to designate 'a particular group of systems of the
second century after Christ' as 'gnosticism', and to use
'gnosis' to define a conception of knowledge transcending the
times which was described as 'knowledge of divine mysteries
for an élite'.
– Markschies, Gnosis: An Introduction, p. 13
In essence, it had been decided that 'Gnosticism' would become
a historically-specific term, restricted to mean the Gnostic
movements prevalent in the 3rd century, while 'gnosis' would
be a universal term, denoting a system of knowledge retained
'for a privileged élite.' However, this effort towards
providing clarity in fact created more conceptual confusion,
as the historical term 'Gnosticism' was an entirely modern
construction, while the new universal term 'gnosis' was a
historical term: 'something was being called "gnosticism" that
the ancient theologians had called "gnosis" ... [A] concept of
gnosis had been created by Messina that was almost unusable in
a historical sense'. In antiquity, all agreed that knowledge
was centrally important to life, but few were agreed as to
what exactly constituted knowledge; the unitary conception
that the Messina proposal presupposed did not exist.
These flaws have meant that the problems concerning an exact
definition of Gnosticism persist. It remains current
convention to use 'Gnosticism' in a historical sense, and
'gnosis' universally. Leaving aside the issues with the latter
noted above, the usage of 'Gnosticism' to designate a category
of 3rd century religions has recently been questioned as well.
Of note is Michael Allen Williams' Rethinking Gnosticism: An
Argument for the Dismantling of a Dubious Category, in which
the author examines the terms by which Gnosticism as a
category is defined, and then closely compares these
suppositions with the contents of actual Gnostic texts (the
newly-recovered Nag Hammadi library was of central importance
to his argument).
Williams argues that the conceptual foundations on which the
category of Gnosticism rests are the remains of the agenda of
the heresiologists. Too much emphasis has been laid on
perceptions of dualism, body- and matter-hatred, and
anticosmism without these suppositions being properly tested.
In essence, the interpretive definition of Gnosticism that was
created by the antagonistic efforts of the early church
heresiologists has been taken up by modern scholarship and
reflected in a categorical definition, even though the means
now existed to verify its accuracy. Attempting to do so,
Williams contests, reveals the dubious nature of categorical
'Gnosticism', and he concludes that the term needs replacing
in order to more accurately reflect those movements it
comprises. Williams' observations have provoked debate;
however, to date his suggested replacement term 'the Biblical
demiurgical tradition' has not become widely used.
A number of 19th century thinkers such as William Blake,
Arthur Schopenhauer, Albert Pike and Madame Blavatsky studied
Gnostic thought extensively and were influenced by it, and
even figures like Herman Melville and W. B. Yeats were more
tangentially influenced. Jules Doinel "re-established" a
Gnostic church in France in 1890 which altered its form as it
passed through various direct successors (Fabre des Essarts as
Tau Synésius and Joanny Bricaud as Tau Jean II most notably),
and which, although small, is still active today.
Early 20th century thinkers who heavily studied and were
influenced by Gnosticism include Carl Jung (who supported
Gnosticism), Eric Voegelin (who opposed it), Jorge Luis Borges
(who included it in many of his short stories), and Aleister
Crowley, with figures such as Hermann Hesse being more
moderatedly influenced. Rene Guenon founded the gnostic
review, Le Gnose in 1909 (before moving to a more "Perennialist"
position). Gnostic Thelemite organizations, such as Ecclesia
Gnostica Catholica and Ordo Templi Orientis, trace themselves
to Crowley's thought.
The discovery and translation of the Nag Hammadi library after
1945 had a huge impact on Gnosticism since World War II.
Thinkers who were heavily influenced by Gnosticism in this
period include Hans Jonas, Philip K. Dick and Harold Bloom,
with Albert Camus and Allen Ginsberg being more moderately
influenced. A number of ecclesiastical bodies which think of
themselves as Gnostic have been set up or re-founded since
World War II as well, including the Society of Novus Spiritus,
Ecclesia Gnostica, the Thomasine Church, the Apostolic
Johannite Church, the Alexandrian Gnostic Church, the North
American College of Gnostic Bishops. Celia Green has written
on Gnostic Christianity in relation to her own philosophy.
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