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I wonder how many of us have paused to consider that we might be Gnostics?<\/p>\n
Many people have never heard of Gnosticism<\/a>; some have come across the description \u201cThe Gnostic Gospels\u201d to describe the documents found at Nag Hammadi in 1945; not translated into English until 1975, they have become famous mostly for having the first complete text of the Gospel of Thomas. Others have come across reference to the second century bishop Irenaeus who inveighed against Gnosticism and whose works are now the best source for the contents of many lost \u201cGnostic\u201d books. Some recall that Simon Magus (mentioned in Acts 8:9-24) was called a Gnostic by Irenaeus and Justin Martyr; others recall that the Albigensians or Cathars<\/a> who were wiped out by the Albigensian Crusade of 1208-1321 were Christian Gnostics.<\/p>\n So what is Gnosticism?<\/p>\n The roots of Gnosticism seem to lie in Neoplatonic philosophy<\/a>, in Zoroastrian dualism<\/a> and in Merkabah mysticism<\/a>. It is difficult to describe Gnosticism completely accurately, as there have over the last two thousand years and more been many \u201cGnostic\u201d groups, the traditions of which have varied; some argue that all of these are merely offshoots of a much older secret tradition.<\/p>\n However, classically, Gnosticism had first the characteristic that salvation (or personal fulfilment) comes from esoteric or intuitive knowledge; secret teachings and\/or personal revelations. Commonly the esoteric aspect involved the reading of works of scripture using a key to symbolism which unlocked a completely different meaning from that gleaned from a straightforward reading. These concepts are commonly linked to the words \u201cLogos\u201d and \u201cSophia\u201d. This also led to a tendency to reject central authority in favour of individual understandings.<\/p>\n Secondly it was normally dualist, and postulated a remote \u201ctrue deity\u201d from which came emanations<\/a>; a more proximate emanation from that deity, the demiurge, was commonly regarded as the actual creator and was commonly regarded as evil, sometimes identified with the God of the Hebrew Scriptures, sometimes with the Devil or Satan.<\/p>\n Thirdly, Gnostics were either seriously ascetic or completely self-indulgent; in either case this flowed from a contempt for the irredeemably flawed material world; for them the unseen higher world of spirit was pure and true, the material world was debased and valueless.<\/p>\n Fourthly, Gnostics had a huge tendency to produce extremely variant readings of passages of scripture, sometimes diametrically opposed to the overt reading. This was particularly irritating to the early Church, because Gnostics could nod and agree to things which they actually interpreted completely differently from the expected way. Much as Conservative and Historical-Critical Bible scholars end up with completely different readings…<\/p>\n The works of the New Testament may well already display Gnostic thinking<\/a>. In particular, Mark refers to keeping teachings secret and to additional secret teachings, the Fourth Gospel starts with a completely emanationist prologue and continues with a theology drawn from Philo of Alexandria<\/a> with an emphasis on Logos and Sophia. Paul certainly talks of levels of understanding, outer and inner knowledge, and talks of Christ living in him, which plays to concepts of gnosis.<\/p>\n