264 



GNOSTICISM 



of time not only the Old Testament, but even the 

 gospel history, was thrown into the melting-pot, 

 and alloyed with the philosophic doctrines of 

 Jewish Hellenism, to produce a religious theory of 

 the universe. There was a general tendency to 

 trace the same religious idea through different 

 mythologies (which were held to be the popular 

 expression of religious ideas originally revealed), 

 and the new religion which aimed at the redemption 

 of the whole world was eagerly seized on as the 

 embodiment of their unifying principle. Christianity 

 was believed to be the full revelation of the deeper 

 truth embedded in all the nature-religions. By 

 adapting their presentation of Christianity to the 

 form of the ancient mysteries the Gnostic teachers 

 the more easily fastened themselves upon the 

 Christian congregations, and succeeded in taking 

 up a position within them as specially initiated 

 persons, for which they found a natural support in 

 the prevalent ascetic views and the powerful 

 influence of free prophecy. In Syria and the 

 East they imparted a distinctly Gnostic tinge 

 to Christian teaching generally ; in the Greek 

 and Roman world they formed esoteric schools, 

 which endangered the organisation of the Christian 

 congregations ( ' they undermine ours, in order to 

 build up their own ' Tertullian, De Prcescr. Hceret. 

 42). But these were in time forced to separate 

 themselves, and form sects, whose great diversity 

 becoming the more apparent greatly counteracted 

 the influence of the Gnostic leaven in the Christian 

 communities. To maintain their theories in the 

 face of the traditional doctrine of the churches 

 they had recourse to the sources of that doctrine. 

 They claimed to have special traditions from certain 

 of Christ's disciples, and applied their exegetical 

 skill to the allegorical interpretation of the written 

 monuments of the apostolic age. The Gnostics, 

 indeed, were the first New Testament exegetes, and 

 the first who set the apostolic writings side by side 

 with the gospel histories as authoritative Scrip- 

 tures. Both in their interpretation and in their 

 presentation of the texts they allowed themselves 

 a free hand, omitting, adding, and sometimes forg- 

 ing, to suit their theories. Marcion (about 150), 

 believing himself to be a consistent follower of 

 Paul, rejected the authority of the earliest apostles, 

 as well as the gospels emanating from the circles 

 of their influence, and professed to hold ' the 

 gospel ' known to Paul only. His collection of ten 

 epistles of Paul was the first attempt to fix the 

 canon of the apostolic Scriptures. Such arbitrary 

 treatment of the Scriptures led the church to resort 

 to a more thorough study of the historical tradition. 

 In the struggle with Gnosticism it obtained a firm 

 hold of the principle that that alone is to be held 

 true Christianity which can be shown to be 

 historically derived from Christ and his apostles, 

 and it found the only means to check the license 

 of Gnostic speculation in the development of a 

 Christian theology in accordance with the positive 

 character of historical Christianity. 



The general principles of Gnostic thought may 

 be here summarised, as fuller accounts of the 

 principal schools are given under their own names 

 or under those of their founders. For the practical 

 doctrine of the redeniption of men's souls from sin 

 by Jesus Christ the Gnostics substituted a specu- 

 lative doctrine of the redemption of the human 

 spirit from matter by religious knowledge. The 

 realistic eschatology of the primitive church they 

 entirely set aside. The evangelic element in their 

 teaching was obscured by a cloud of heathen 

 mythologies and philosophic subtleties. The 

 Divine Demiurgos and Lawgiver of the Old Testa- 

 ment was distinguished from the Supreme Being, 

 and the Hebrew idea of creation was superseded 

 by that of a continuous process of emanations from 



the divine first cause. The present world was 

 believed to be the result of a catastrophe in which 

 the spirit fell under the power of matter, or of an 

 original destiny that powers hostile to God should 

 bring into existence a world in which the spirit 

 born of God should be held in unwilling estrange- 

 ment from him. All the Gnostic systems are more 

 or less dualistic. In these dualistic theories a 

 philosophical foundation was secured for the 

 practical asceticism of primitive Christianity, which 

 was by the Gnostics developed to an extreme. The 

 highest duty of man was to become united to the 

 First Source of Spirit through gnosis and the abso- 

 lute alienation of the human spirit from the body. 

 Others, like Carpocrates and his son Epiphanes, 

 expressed their contempt for the flesh and the 

 ordinances of the Demiurgos in unbridled license. 

 The contrasts of the flesh and the spirit and of the 

 world and the kingdom of God are interpreted as 

 the physical conflict of vast cosmic forces, and are 

 thereby stripped of their moral and religious 

 significance. The intervention of Christ is the 

 crisis, not only of the religious history of mankind, 

 but of the whole development of the universe. As 

 the final and perfect Aon he is distinguished from 

 his visible manifestation. This is held to be 

 either ( 1 ) a real human life with which he was 

 connected for a time, or ( 2 ) a heavenly or ' psychical ' 

 creation, or (3) a mere phantasm. Men are divided 

 into two classes : the Pneumatic, or ' spiritual/ 

 who are constitutionally receptive of Christ's 

 revelation and life everlasting, and the Hylic or 

 ' material,' who are doomed to perish. Valentinians 

 and others add a third, or intermediate class, the 

 Psychical, or men of 'soul,' who are not capable of 

 apprehending a divine revelation, but only of the 

 popular faith (pistis], yet thereby may attain to a 

 degree of knowledge and salvation. 



Various classifications of the Gnostic schools 

 have been attempted. Matter arranged them 

 according to their historical and national origin. 

 Baur classified the different systems according to 

 the degree in which they realised the idea of 

 Christianity as opposed to Judaism and Paganism, 

 and thus distinguished three principal schools : ( 1 ) 

 that of Basilides, Valentinus, and others, who held 

 the old faiths to be relatively valid developments 

 of the religious consciousness ; ( 2 ) that represented 

 in the Clementines, where Judaism alone is recog- 

 nised ; and (3) that of the Ophites and the nobler 

 teaching of Marcion, who found the perfect 

 expression of truth in Jesus Christ. Neander's 

 principle of division is the position which the 

 different systems take up towards the God of the 

 Old Testament : whether he is regarded as a sub- 

 ordinate deity, subservient to the supreme, or as 

 eternally opposed to him, and therefore absolutely 

 evil. Harnack distinguishes between Jewish- 

 Christian and Gentile-Christian Gnostics, group- 

 ing the latter according to the greater or less 

 divergence from the common Christianity which 

 expresses itself in their various views of the Old 

 Testament and the Demiurgos. The church 

 fathers attributed the origin of Gnosticism to the 

 demons, or (later) to ambition and insubordination 

 to the episcopate. Hegesippus traced it to the 

 Jewish sects; Irenseus and others to the influence 

 of the Greek philosophers. They all believed that 

 the first founder of the heresy was Simon Magus, 

 who, with his confederate Helena, was held by the 

 Samaritans to be an incarnation of the divine 

 principle (Helena being his female counterpart, 

 like the moon-goddess corresponding to the 

 sun-god in Syro-Phosnician mythology). It is 

 clear that about the beginning of the 2d century 

 there were numerous teachers in Syria who 

 endeavoured, not by the accepted allegorical inter- 

 pretation, but by means of a negative criticism, to- 



