The Origins of Gnosticism

Depths of Pentecost ^ | October 27, 2018 | Philip Cottraux

[pcottraux]

The Origins of Gnosticism

By Philip Cottraux

At the end of last week’s blog I mentioned the “Christian supernova,” a period roughly between 100-200 AD when Christianity exploded rapidly across the Roman Empire. The movement became more diverse as it grew. Orthodox and Coptic Christians divided into more and more complex subgroups. Unfortunately, some got more radicalized until they became isolated cults with teachings directly contradicting the gospel. Perhaps the most infamous of these were the Gnostics.

Gnosis is Greek for “received knowledge” or “secret wisdom.” However, “Gnostic” is a modern term; there was no actual group that called themselves that. Gnosticism was mostly unified by a single set of esoteric beliefs that mixed Christian theology with paganism.

Although its history is complicated and its origins mysterious, historians believe that Gnosticism’s roots were in Ephesus, a Greek seaport in Asia Minor with a large, wealthy population. Ephesus was most famous for worship of Diana; its magnificent temple to her, the largest in the world at the time, was 220 feet by 425, supported by 127 columns, and built of pure white marble. Paul planted the first Christian church here in AD 54.

After writing his first letter to the church seven years later (AD 61), which is our New Testament book of Ephesians, Paul sent one of his best assistants, Timothy of Lystra, to lead the church. The typical false doctrine Paul combated involved the role of the Old Testament law in the New Testament age. Jewish Christians insisted Gentile converts practice Judaism, including circumcision and total obedience to the Mosaic Law, which is the main reason he wrote books like Romans and Galatians.

But two years later, Timothy sent word to Paul that a new form of “super false doctrine” was spreading in Ephesus like a cancer. A message of female empowerment, influenced by Diana worship, had infiltrated the church. Christian women were embracing it in droves. It taught:

1. Marriage is a sin.
2. Eating meat is a sin.
3. God created Eve first.
4. Eve was actually the heroine of Genesis; by eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, she had introduced cosmic knowledge (gnosis) to the human race.
5. Women were called to dominate men, following in Eve’s footsteps. Because of Christ, women were now free to lead people to this “secret knowledge.”

I believe modern feminism, while claiming to seek equality among the sexes, actually has a disastrous effect on the nuclear family as well as women’s long-term health and stability (there is solid scientific data demonstrating that girls raised in single-mother households have higher risks of breast and ovarian cancer later in life). Women at Ephesus were abandoning their husbands and children, dressing like prostitutes, and committing adultery with strangers. Outside of raising families, their chief role at Ephesus was to care for elderly widows. This was a sacred responsibility in ancient Christian communities; but now the new “freed” women were leaving lonely older women to neglect and starvation.

Adorning oneself with jewelry, piercings, and gold plating was a sign of devotion to Diana. This, along with the fact that these women were introducing false doctrine to the church, explains two of Paul’s most controversial verses: In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; (1 Timothy 2:9). Many churches in the Pentecostal movement declared it a sin to wear jewelry or makeup because of this verse. But though dressing modestly is clearly universally godly, placing this scripture in its proper historical context makes it problematic to say that it’s actually sinful to wear makeup or jewelry. In verses 11-12 Paul says Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. A literal reading of this seems to support women not preaching or teaching, but remember that Paul was speaking to a specific issue regarding Ephesus, compounded by the fact that in the very next verse, he addresses the false doctrine head-on: For Adam was first formed, then Eve (verse 13). This specifically confronted the early Gnostic lies about Genesis. Verse 14: And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

Paul ominously predicted this would become a bigger problem over the years (1 Timothy 4:1-2). As Christianity grew, Gnosticism only grew with it. The church fathers (who took over after all the original apostles had died) wrote extensively about this heresy, though these writings are heavily biased, to say the least. We do, however, have an extensive collection of Gnostic texts at the Nag Hammadi library to shed light on what exactly these early heretics believed.

Some time in the second century, a controversial church figure named Marcion gained a large following in Rome. Marcion would make the largest contribution to Gnosticism, ditheism (two-god theology). To say that the church fathers despised him would be an understatement. Tertullian (160-220 AD) said of him “More ill-conducted also is Marcion than the wild beasts of the barbarous homeland.”

Marcion had read over the New Testament and found a loving God who sent His Son to die for humanity. However, the Old Testament seems to depict an angry God who destroys with fire and judgment. Seizing on the classic Gnostic tradition of misrepresenting Genesis, Marcion saw a god who had created a world full of pain and suffering and decided that the Old Testament deity was an impostor. He concluded that the original supreme God (called the Monad) was replaced by an evil impersonator (the Demiurge).

By the third century, the Gnostics had given the Demiurge a name, Saklas. They rejected the idea of Jesus dying and rising again and instead portrayed Him as a secret agent of the Monad, sent to bring “secret knowledge” (gnosis) to free humanity from the spell of Saklas. Marcion even released his own butchered version of some of the New Testament books, heavily editing out scriptures that quoted the Old Testament. Irenaeus (104-202 AD) said of his work: “Beside all this, Marcion mutilated the gospel according to Luke, discarding all that is written about the birth of the Lord and discarding also many of the Lord‘s discourses containing teachings in which it is most clearly written that the Lord confessed His Father as the Maker of the universe.”

Gnosticism eventually died, but not before producing scores of ancient texts that have been discovered in recent years. Sadly, critics of Christianity have pointed to these as evidence that the New Testament is “incomplete” and that a sinister council must have met to ban these “alternative” gospels because they were “dangerous.” These include the gospel of Thomas, the gospel of Peter, Allogonese, the apocryphon of John, and the most infamously, the gospel of Judas.

A careful study of these so-called banned texts, however, reveals that they are far removed from the historical birth of Christianity. The gospel of Judas, for example, is a product of a Gnostic subgroup called the Cainites who identified with villains from the Bible. Furthermore, their contents are bizarre; the gospel of Peter features Jesus’ head so big on the resurrection morning that it reaches into the clouds and a talking cross emerging from the tomb. Contrary to popular belief, there was no sinister council of bishops that conspired to canonize certain books while leaving out others, though it could be argued that the Council of Laodicea‘s publishing of 26 New Testament books (364 AD) was one of the first considered definitive. Canonization was an organic process that had more to do with the popularity and rapid reproduction of books than a shady group of conspirators protecting their own power. Most of the 27 books had been canonized long before either the Laodicean or Nicene councils. Copies have been plentiful among the New Testament papyri discoveries while Gnostic texts have been rare and in poorer condition, indicating that they simply weren’t well-respected among early church Christians.

Gnosticism itself never completely died away, though. Many of its ideas live on in modern New Ageism.

For more information, I’m including links to videos from Andrew Mark Henry’s YouTube channel, “Religion for Breakfast.” Andrew is a religious scholar who doesn’t promote the truth of one religion over the other but provides objective academic studies. I highly recommend checking out his videos on this is enormously fascinating topic.

[Ezekiel]

He IS God.

Since you brought it up,

No, he's not, no matter how many people repeat it, believe it, and push that settled doctrine onto others, even with threats of eternal damnation for "denying" the trinity, as if it's the defacto truth that can never be questioned.

It's not that complicated. The Messiah is God's representative, like being the face of a company. He's the son going out as the representative of his father's business, with all the authority given to him by his father. He shows people how to enter the kingdom: what to do. You know, follow him, follow his example. Love your neighbor as yourself. Be kind, generous, and merciful.

The message of the real, "can-do" Messiah - the embodiment of the Law - is going to come as a shock. He's the ultimate anti-establishment type.

As I've stated before, he's the man who's been the greatest victim of false witness and character assassination in the entire history of the world. When a person has his reputation destroyed by media slander, we say that he's been crucified by the press. There you go, here's a man who's image has been so marred that he doesn't even resemble a man. If he believed in trinity doctrine, he wouldn't recognize himself.

Meanwhile, he IS everything a man should be, and is busy setting the proper example that should be followed.

Keep an eye out in a barn for a simple, humble man caring for the needs of his animals, or milking a cow, or out in the field with the sheep. In fact, the shepherds were told to look for a babe lying in a manger. Shoudn't be that difficult to locate him because how many people put out nativity scenes anymore. Eh, but who's looking there.

Crazy funny, really, yet humor is almost extinct. Almost.