Orthodox Forge

Essays

Gnosticism and the Main Gnostic Sects

A ND

T HE M AIN G NOSTIC S ECTS

In the apostolic age, before the appearance of the Gnostic movement as a school (or schools), or as separate sects, the apostles dealt with false teachings similar to the Gnostic systems, as in 1 John and the pastoral epistles.

Gnosticism was the most influential of the early heresies. The term is generic and embraces a great variety of teachings. The study of Gnosticism entered a new phase, however, with the discovery of a large collection of Coptic Gnostic documents found at Nag-Hammadi ( Chenoboskion ) in Upper-Egypt in 1945. Before this discovery all our information on the Gnostic sects and doctrines relied on anti-Gnostic writings, such as those of Sts. Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Hippolytus of Rome, and Epiphanius. This discovery has made available a wealth of original documents that are being studied now for the first time.

Gnosticism designates a complex religious and philosophical movement that started probably before Christianity and flourished from about 100 to 700. There were many Christian, Jewish and pagan Gnostic sects that stressed salvation through a secret “ knowledge ” or “ Gnosis - gnw/sij ” The term “ Gnostics ” was first applied by 2nd and 3rd century patristic writers to a large number of teachers, such as Valentinus, Basilides, and many others.

W.H.C Frend believes that gnosis held a worthy, if limited place, in the Jewish and the earliest Christian scales of values. “Knowing” God to Jews meant acknowledging that Yahweh was God and recognizing the acts of God. Indeed, the Septuagint describes God as the “God of knowledge” (1 Sam. 2:3), and the word “ gnosis ” is used to denote this. The representative and teacher of gnosis is the pious sage and Servant of the Lord (Is. 53:11), and gnosis is denied to the worldly-minded and to sinners.

1. GNOSTIC TEACHINGS

  • Most of the Gnostic schools were thoroughly dualistic , setting an infinite chasm between the spiritual world and the world of matter. Their systems were based on the inseparable division and antagonism between the Demiurge or “creator god” and the supreme unknowable Divine Being.
  • In some systems the creation of the material universe is believed to result from the fall of Sophia (wisdom); this creation is viewed as evil.
  • Usually Gnostics divided men into two or three classes: The “spiritual” ( pneumatics ) are those who have illuminated souls. The “carnal” ( hylics ) or “material,” are slaves of matter, and are earthbound. The Gnostics add a psychic, intermediate class.
  • They claimed to possess secret knowledge by a sudden illumination that enabled them to understand the ways of God, the universe, and themselves.

Gnosticism and the Main Gnostic Sects

  • They claimed that they alone know the unutterable mysteries of the spirit .
  • For them Christ either temporarily inhabited a human being (Jesus) or assumed a merely phantasmal human appearance .
  • The Gnostics and their Orthodox opponents hotly debated the relationship between the Old and New Testaments .
  • The Gnostic’s dualist view of creation led to two opposing attitudes toward marriage and sexuality : the extreme of a rigorous and negative asceticism on the one hand, and a licentious antinomianism on the other. Both repudiate nature; the one through abstention and the other through excess.

2. GNOSTICISM AND ALEXANDRIA

  • The most important center of Gnosticism was Alexandria which had become the heir of Jewish traditions, classical thought, and the old mysticism of oriental religions. It was in Alexandria that the greatest doctors of Gnosticism - Basilides, Carpocrates and Valentinus - flourished. St. Athanasius frequently refers to them, as well as to Marcion, warning of their danger to Christian doctrine. St. Clement of Alexandria, “the most reliable of early Christian writers on Gnosticism,” provides us with a systematic analysis of the various sects.

3. WHY DID GNOSTICISM SPREAD IN ALEXANDRIA?

  • In contrast to other religions, Gnosticism first appeared in the city not as a religious sect or school, but as an attitude accepted by some pagans, Jews and even Christians. The Gnostics took advantage of the importance of Alexandria as a center of interchange of religious ideas and as the intellectual meeting point between Jew and Greek.
  • The pseudo-Christian Gnostic sects could offer a religious system, with a guaranteed way of salvation, and much more similar to the pagan systems, from which the converts were changing.
  • The Gnostics tried to answer the following problems:
  • If God is Goodness, why is there evil in the world, unless the matter from which it was created was irredeemably bad?
  • If God is good, who created the evil?
  • If the universe was not governed by fate, how did one explain calamity, sickness, and sudden death?
  • What was the use of attempting to practice moral excellence when one might be swept away overnight?
  • Gnosticism provided the well-educated members with the sense of superiority, as they felt that they alone were trust-worthy of the divine mysteries.
  • Many of the founders of the Christian Gnostics belonged to Pre-Christian Gnosticism, who instead of surrendering their former beliefs, only added some Christian doctrines to their Gnostic views. They also were very interested in literature, thus they wrote many Apocryphal gospels, epistles and apocalypses and attributed most of them to St. Mary, the disciples, and the apostles, which had a tremendous effect because of their popular content.

Gnosticism and the Main Gnostic Sects

4. OUR CONCEPT OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE

  • The Incarnate Word of God is the Source of knowledge.
  • Knowledge is received through the Church, as the body of Christ, especially by participation in the Eucharist.
  • Knowledge is revealed in our inner man, if it has been purified and sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
  • The knowledge of God and His eternal glory can be realized partially in this world, through our unity with the Father in His OnlyBegotten Son, by the work of the Holy Spirit, and completed in the kingdom of God.

List of Christian Gnostics According to J Quasten3

  1. Basilides. 4. Ptolemy. 7. Bardaisan. 2. Isidore. 5. Heracleon. 8. Harmonius. 3. Valentinus. 6. Florinus. 9. Theodotus.
  1. Marcus. 11. Carpocrates. 12. Epiphanes.
  1. Marcion. 16. Julius Cassianus.
  1. Apelles. 15. The Encratites.
  1. Other Gnostics.

Classification of Gnosticism According to H Bettenson4

1. The Syrian Type : eg. Saturninus (or Saturnilus) ca. 120.

2. The Egyptian Type : eg. Basilides, ca. 130.

3. The Judaizing Type : eg. Cerinthus and Ebionites, late 1st century.

4. The Pontic Type : eg. Marcion, ca. 160.

Selected Christian Gnostics