Gnosticism

Article i. Gnosticism

a) Name; b) Doctrine; c) Chief Gnostics; d) Remarks.

a) Na me: The Greek word “gnosis” (knowledge), from which the Gnostics take their name, was employed by these 144 heretics of early Christian times to signify a special illumination claimed by themselves, but not given to ordinary men, for the study and contemplation of things divine. The syncretic or harmonizing movement which resulted in the Greco-Jewish and the Neoplatonic philosophies also affected certain pagans newly converted to Christianity and imperfectly instructed in the truths of Faith. These men tried to warp Christian dogma into agreement with their pagan philosophy, and justified their procedure by claiming that a special illumination or gnosis guided them in the work.

b) Doct r ine: The fundamental principles of Gnosticism are : i. There can be no contact between the all-perfect and the wholly imperfect ; therefore there is no immediate relation between God and the bodily world. ii. God made certain spiritual beings; these made others less perfect; these made others still less perfect, and so on. From the least perfect of these beings came the bodily world as a creature. iii. Matter is vile; it is the root of evil. Man must subjugate his body and its tendencies to the control of the soul, so that, when the body is cast away by death, the soul may return to the world whence it came. iv. Christ is one of the spiritual beings that intervene between God and the world. Jesus is another. Jesus assumed an apparent, not a real body, and came on earth to perform a certain work for human weal. To amplify somewhat these points of doctrine: Basilides, Marcion, and a few other Gnostics teach the absolute transcendence of God over matter (dualism) ; but most exponents of this doctrine profess a pantheism of emanation, explaining the universe as the outpouring of God, or as His manifestation. Such a pantheist was Valentinus, the chief Gnostic, and it is from his teachings that we draw the the following elaboration of the Gnostic outline given above : All things came from an infinite and invisible Abyss, a being of limitless perfection, and wholly beyond the grasp of any understanding. From the Abyss, as rays from light, came certain manifestations or powers called Aeons. Some of these Aeons were Thought, Mind, Truth, The Word or Logos, Wisdom, Jesus, Christ. Wisdom burned with such a passionate desire of beholding the Abyss that her wish took substantial form and was born of her as a daughter called Achamoth. Because of the strong desire wherein she was conceived, Achamoth was subject to passions and pains. Christ, moved by mercy, sent Jesus to liberate Achamoth from her afflictions. Freed from pains, but not utterly released from the thrall of passions, Achamoth bequeathed these to her own son, who is called Demiurge. Man is the creature of Demiurge. It was not the intention of Demiurge to communicate anything of a spiritual nature to man, but Achamoth, wishing man to share the divine (spiritual) nature, infused into Demiurge the germ of the spiritual, and Demiurge unknowingly transmitted this to man. When he discovered that man had a spiritual element in his nature, Demiurge was angry. He dismissed man from the paradise in which he had been placed, and made humanity the heir of passions and the pains of sense. So great was man’s distress that the merciful Aeon called Jesus took an apparent human body from the Virgin Mary and lived among men on earth. When Jesus was baptized in the River Jordan, the Aeon called Christ joined itself unto Him, and together they worked for the redemption of mankind from pains. In the Passion, Christ withdrew from Jesus ; and Jesus alone suffered pains and death in His apparent body. The spiritual element in man (soul), when purified and relieved of the body, will dwell in the supernal world with the Aeons and the Abyss. There will be no resurrection of the body, for the body is material and matter is evil, and nothing evil can enter the supernal world. Unpurified souls will be debarred from the presence of the Aeons and the Abyss. Some Gnostics leave the matter there; others teach transmigration until the necessary purification is achieved. Now how is such purification accomplished? By contemplation of the supernal world. But man cannot learn to enter into this purifying contemplation if he is forever distracted by a war between the tendencies of the flesh and those of the spirit. Man must, therefore, not try to subdue his passions ; he must give in to them, and quiet them by perfectly satisfying them. The soul must indeed overcome and subjugate the body, but it does this by flattering the body, and by apparent submission, not by warring with the body.

c) Chief Gnost ics : i. Valentinus (2 century), a Christian Oriental, probably an Egyptian, aspired to the episcopacy, and, when disappointed, abandoned the Faith for Gnostic philosophy. He is the chief representative of pantheistic Gnosticism. He taught at Rome 136-160. He wrote many books, among which were commentaries on the Gospel of St. John, and the so-called Gospel of the Truth of Valentinus. This philosopher excelled in talent, elegance of expression, and orderliness of development in his doctrine. ii. Marcion of Sinope in Paphlagonia (flourished in the middle of the 2 century) was second only to Valentinus in ability, and was first of his School in the ardent propagation of its doctrines. He wrote commentaries on the Gospel of St. Luke and on some of the Epistles of St. Paul. He also composed the Antitheses of Marcion, and certain other works. iii. Basilides, an Alexandrian, taught in his native city 120- 140, and was, on the testimony of St. Epiphanius, the chief propagator of Gnosticism in Egypt. Another Alexandrian Gnostic, contemporary of Basilides, was Carpocrates.

iv. Bardesanes (154-223), a pupil of Valentinus, was a minor Gnostic, but one of some influence. iii. With the Gnostics must be aligned Simon Magus, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles; Menander the Samaritan, disciple of Simon Magus; Cerinthus the Jew, against whose doctrines the Gospel and Epistles of St. John were directed, as St. Jerome asserts; Nicholas and the Nicholaites. These older Gnostics did not, indeed, profess systematic Gnosticism ; but they began opposition to Apostolic doctrine, and professed some theories that the Gnostics later adopted.

d) Remar ks : The horrible doctrine of Gnosticism is a mixture of Neoplatonism, Christianity, and pure paganism. Its history is short. For a time it was accepted by many as true because it satisfied the syncretizing tendency of the times, and because it pleased vicious men by teaching that the lower passions are to be given free sway. But it failed quickly because it had no foundation in reason, being a purely gratuitous theory and supported only by grotesque interpretations of Scripture, and also because its Ethics conflicts with the common sense of normal men. Gnosticism was extinct by the end of the 3 century, although its influence endured in gradually weakening measure for some time longer. It is to be noted that some of the moré diplomatic of the Christian Apologists took the terminology of Gnosticism, in part at least, and used it in expressing the truths of Christian Revelation. Modern Theosophy is something of a reversion to Gnosticism.