by Brian Vuyk, student at Redeemer University College [1]
Introduction
In the first few centuries of the Church's existence, Gnosticism was a threat. It attacked many of the doctrines which we take for granted, such as those dealing with the nature of God, and Jesus, and the role of Jesus in God's redemptive plan, and directly attacked our doctrines of the sufficiency of scripture.
Gnosticism as a type of theology can be described as “Salvation by Knowledge”. The tern 'Gnosticism' is derived from the Greek word for knowledge: gnosis.1 Most Gnostics did not expressly refer to them selves as such; rather, this name was in most cases applied by early Christian fathers such as Irenaeus of Lyons to refer to those sects which held an emphasis on such a deeper knowledge, among other characteristics.2
The knowledge, or gnosis, which formed the basis of Gnosticism, was “the knowledge of our origin, nature, and destiny, and knowledge which tells Gnostics who they really are, and frees them from their present state of ignorance and imprisonment in an alien body and a hostile world governed by Fate.”3
Gnosticism as a system of theology is well described in the words on Pheme Perkins, “Thus, when we use the term 'Gnosticism', we should remember that it was not a neatly defined sociological entity. Rather, gnosis seems to flourish as a religious or intellectual movement which claims to give the deeper significance of a tradition held by members of a larger group to which the Gnostics also belong.”4
Gnostics were not an organized religion in the way of Christianity, or other traditional religions, and, as we mentioned above, did not even generally refer to themselves as Gnostics. Since the Gnostic system of thought depended on revelations of new knowledge for salvation, Gnosticism could not maintain an orderly development of theology. Rather the fathers of each different sect had revelations, and preached them to their followers, often in conflict with what was preached as truth in other sects. This lead to a very diverse system of theologies all grouped under the heading of Gnosticism
The Gnostics, at the time when Gnosticism was a threat to the church, were a subgroup of Christianity. Whereas most Christians believed the Christian doctrines to the extent that they were revealed to us in the word of God, the Gnostics believed that they held a deeper knowledge of the order of reality, and believed that they were saved by this deeper knowledge.
A point to be made is that some of the early Gnostics such as Simon Magus, Menander, Carpocrates and his followers were skilled in the use of magic. This is well documented by Irenaeus in Adverses Haereses, and is a strong indicator of the power that was present in them. One might hypothesize that Satan empowered them, that they might make themselves more believable.
The Traditional Rise of Gnosticism
To gain an understanding of Gnosticism, and to understand the threat it posed to the church, we must first understand the rise of Gnosticism, and the beliefs and doctrines put forth by the early Gnostics in the first and second centuries before Christ. Most of the information we have concerning the early Gnostics comes from the account of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons from his book Adverses Haereses. The descriptions below are based heavily upon Irenaeus.
Simon Magus
Traditionally, Gnosticism can be traced back to Simon Magus. Simon Magus is mentioned in Acts 8:9-25. According to Irenaeus, Simon desired to contend with the apostles, so he delved into magic, and taught among the Jew that he “appeared among the Jews as Son, came down in Samaria as Father, and arrived among the other nations as Holy Spirit. He was the Supreme Power, the Father above all, though he was willing to be called by all the names people call him.”5
Simon is generally associated with a prostitute named Helen, whom he purchased while in Tyre. He took her with her as he traveled, and taught that held within the body of Helen was the first being created by him. Through her, he claimed to have made the angels and powers, which in turn created the world, and all beings in the world. After being creating the angels, she was captured by them out of jealousy, and degraded by the angels, until she was put into a human body. Ever since, she has passed from female body to female body, as if from one vessel to another.
Menander
After Simon came Menander. Menander, like Simon, practiced magic, and gained quite a following. He claimed that he was sent by the “First Power” as the Savior, for the salvation of all humanity. He claimed, much as Simon did, that the world was made by angels. However, he also claimed that he had been given a “gnosis”, or knowledge, to overcome these angels. He taught his disciples that in order to be resurrected, they must first be baptized into himself, that they may “continue on, immortal and ageless.”6
Saturninus of Antioch
Up until this point, Gnostic thought generally, with few minor variations, fell upon the lines set out by Simon Magus and Menander. However, after Menander, the school of gnostic thought split, with two separate schools of thought, one led by Baslides of Alexandria, and another by Saturninus of Antioch. Neither Baslides nor Saturninus claimed the office of Savior for themselves; nor did they claim Simon or Menander were the Savior. They believed Christ was the savior, although not in the way we believe.
Saturninus, like Menander, put forth the idea of one true Father god over all, and unknown to all, and creator of “angels, archangels, principalities and powers.”7 According to Saturninus, by seven of these angels was made “the world, and everything in it” (cf. Acts 17:24 NIV)
Man, according to Saturninus, is a creation of the angels as well. According to the myth, the angels saw the father above, and desired to “make man in the image and likeness” (cf. Gen. 1:26 NIV). Because of the relative weak power of the angels, the being whom they made, man, could not stand upright. However, the power from above took pity on man, because he was made in his image, and sent a spark of life into the man, and made him live. After death, the spark which had been the life of man, goes back up to re-join with the father, while the rest, the body, returns to the elements.
The Saviour receives an interesting treatment from Saturninus. He claims that the Savior was “ungenerated, incorporeal, and shapeless”. The Saviour was sent to earth in the form of a man. The God of the Jews is, according to Saturninus, one of the angels. And when God the father wanted to destroy all the angels, he sent the Savior to the earth in order to redeem those who followed the God of the Jews and to destroy the God of the Jews.
Baslides of Alexandria
Baslides took the doctrines first put forth by Simon and Menander, and took them even farther yet.
From Irenaeus, “He postulated the Mind was the first born from the ungenerated Father, from Mind Logos, from Logos Forethought, for Forethought Wisdom and Power, and from Power and Wisdom the powers, archons, and angels whom he calls first, who made the first heaven. Similarly the other angels emanated from these and made another heaven like the first, and so on with copies of those above them to a total of 365; the year therefore has 365 days.”8
Baslides taught that the chief among these angels was the God of the Jews. He decided to subject all other nations to his people, and in response, all the other angels turned against him. Similarly, all his people turned against the Jews.
According to Baslides, the Father, seeing the fighting among the angels and their people, sent Mind, his first born, to come to the earth as Christ in order to redeem those who believed in him. Christ “appeared on earth as a man to the peoples of the archons, and worked miracles. Consequently he did not suffer, but a certain Simon of Cyrene was impressed into service, and carried his cross for him, and he was crucified by ignorance and error, transfigured by him so that he was supposed to be Jesus. As for Jesus himself, he assumed the appearance of Simon, and stood by to deride the archons.”9 Clearly, this shows that Baslides taught that Christ was not man at all, but rather strictly a supreme being who could not suffer the agonies of humanity, including death.
Those who know this, in keeping with Gnostic doctrine, have been freed from the angels who created the world. It was not proper to worship the one who was crucified, as this was merely Simon of Cyrene, but to instead worship the one who appeared on the earth to teach the people.
Later Gnostics
After Saturninus and Baslides, Irenaeus describes a procession of further Gnostic leaders, including Valentinus, Carpocrates, Cerinthus, the Ebionites, the Nicolaitans, Cerdo, Marcion, the Encratites, and Taian. after describing these leaders, Irenaeus goes on to describe the Barbelo-Gnostics, and the Ophites. I will not go into any detail over these; suffice it to say that their beliefs were further derivations the the ones presented above.
Major Conflicts Between Gnostic and Christian Doctrines
Knowledge That Saves
The biggest conflict between Christianity and Gnosticism falls in the realms of Scripture as the extent of God's revelations to man, and to the concept of salvation through knowledge in place of salvation by faith in Christ.
The Gnostics, in their Gospel of Truth, put forth, “What exists in him is knowledge, which is revealed so that forgetfulness might be destroyed and that they might know the Father. Since forgetfulness existed because they did not know the Father, if they then come to know the Father, from that moment on forgetfulness will cease to exist. That is the Gospel of him whom they seek, which he has revealed to the perfect through the mercies of the Father as the hidden mystery, Jesus the Christ.”10
A similar statement can be found by Irenaeus when describing the Valentinian Gnostics: “Perfect redemption is simply the Gnosis of the inexpressible Greatness, for the deficiency and passion took place out of ignorance. By Gnosis, the whole state of ignorance will be dissolved, so that Gnosis is the redemption of the inner man. This redemption is neither corporeal, since the body is perishable, nor psychic, since the soul comes from the deficiency and is like a dwelling for the spirit. Redemption must therefore be spiritual. By Gnosis the inner, spiritual man is redeemed, and for such persons the knowledge of everything is sufficient: such is true redemption.”11
We believe in the salvation though faith as presented in the Bible, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boats.”12
We are forced to reject the Gnostic heresy of a knowledge of deeper things beyond what is revealed in the Bible. We currently accept as the word of God those books which compose the Old and New Testaments. The Gnostic Gospels, as the various writings of the the Gnostics are sometimes termed, are in many places contrary to what is revealed to us in Scripture, and therefore cannot be considered to be from the Lord. Therefore, we will not even bring into consideration or further discussion their heretical ideas of the God we know being only an angel and servant of the true God, or the manner of Creation.
Dualism
Gnosticism is strictly dualistic in nature. There is a very definite line drawn between the spiritual nature of Christ, the Father, and the spiritual realm above, and the dirty, broken world that we know. God the Father, Christ, and the angels are all strictly bounded by the spiritual realm above, although Christ does walk upon the earth in many Gnostic systems, and the humans and this creation are bounded by the physical realm. Christ, while appearing to walk upon the earth, still stays strictly in heavenly realm in most Gnostic traditions, because he does not take on humanity in full, rather only appears as human.
Gnostic dualism is probably best seen in the contrast between the Gnostic view of the relation between the soul and the body. To the Gnostics, the soul was the divine spark that descended from the unknown father of all into the weak, imperfect body created by the angels, one of whom was the God of the Jews. The Gnostics often held the body of man in a very low regard, regarding it as “the enemy without that constantly tries to undo the best efforts of the soul within.” 13
This dualism within the body led to one of two results for various Gnostic sects. Either they would live a very ascetic, spartan lifestyle out of disdain for the body and it's wants, or they would lead very rich, gluttonous, and promiscuous lives either justifying it philosophically,14 or blaming it all on the weakness of the flesh, justifying themselves in that the spirit, or divine spark within themselves would remain pure, and eventually return to rejoin the unknown Father from whence it came.15
The Person of Christ
Docetism, from the Greek 'dokeō' (meaning 'to seem to be') was triggered by Gnostic thought in the early church. Baslides and many later Gnostics taught that Christ was not in truth a man, but merely only appeared to be so. They taught that Christ was purely divine, and that he had a celestial, heavenly body, instead of an earthly body.16
This docetic tendency is particularly evident when you read the Acts of John. found in the collection of Gnostic writings discovered at Nag Hammadi. the gnostic John reports concerning Jesus, “Another glory also will I tell you, brethren: Sometimes when I would lay hold on him, I met with a material and solid body, and at other times, again, when I felt him, the substance was immaterial and as if it existed not at all.”17
This tendency is also evident when John proceeds to relate “And oftentimes when I walked with him, I desired to see the print of his foot, whether it appeared on the earth; for I saw him as it were lifting himself up from the earth: and I never saw it.”18
We know from such verses as Gal. 4:4. Phil. 2:5-8, Hebrews 4:15 and 5:8 that Christ was fully human, indeed, we know that he had to be in order to fully be able to atone, and make full atonement of God's justice. If Christ were no human in every way, he would not have been acceptable to God as a substitute for our sins, any more than the traditional sacrificial goat was able to make complete atonement for our sins.
Conclusion
“And I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy in this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.”19
These are some of the closing words of the book of Revelation, and I believe that they in themselves speak out strongly against Gnosticism. Gnosticism is in itself the addition of heretical revelations from mere men which they take in addition to the words of the Bible, even though at times they are in direct contrast. We have to believe that everything that is needed for our salvation is to be found in the Bible. Any claims of a deeper knowledge of who were are in the grand scheme of things are not to be believed, for they are the mere fancy of men.
Footnotes
1. Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, 32
2. Ibid. 32
3. Logan, Gnostic Truth, 211
4. Perkins, The Gnostic Dialogue, 15
5. Grant, Irenaeus, 88
6. Grant, Iranaeus, 90
7. Ibid. 90
8. Grant, Irenaeus, 91
9. Ibid, 91
10. Grant, Gnosticism: A Sourcebook, 147
11. Grant, Irenaeus, .86
12. Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV
13. Lee, Against The Protestant Gnostics, 130
14. Grant, Gnosticism: A Sourcebook, 90
15. Grant, Irenaeus, 90
Bibliography
Grant, Robert M. Gnosticism: A Sourcebook of Heretical Writings from the Early Christian Period. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961
Grant, Robert M. Irenaeus of Lyons. London: Routledge, 1997
James, M.R. The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924
Jonas, Hans. The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity. Boston: Beacon Press, 1958
Lee, Philip J. Against the Protestant Gnostics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987
Logan, Alastair H. B. Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy: A Study in the History of Gnosticism. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 1996
Perkins, Pheme. The Gnostic Dialogue: The Early Church and the Crisis of Gnosticism. New York: Paulist Press, 1980
Spykman, Gordon J. Reformation Theology: A New Paradigm for Doing Dogmatics. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company