Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a collection of religious and philosophical ideas and systems that coalesced in the late first century AD among sects of early Christianity and other faiths. It is not a singular, homogeneous tradition or religion, but an umbrella term used by modern scholars to describe different groups and beliefs that shared certain characteristics. These diverse Gnostic groups generally emphasized personal spiritual knowledge above the authority, traditions, and proto-orthodox teachings of organized religious institutions. The Gnostic worldview typically distinguished between a hidden, uncorrupted supreme being and a flawed demiurge responsible for creating material reality. Gnostics held this material existence to be evil and believed the principal element of salvation was direct knowledge of the supreme divinity, attained via mystical or esoteric insight. Many Gnostic texts deal not in concepts of sin and repentance, but with illusion and enlightenment.
Although the exact origins of Gnosticism cannot be traced, Gnostic writings flourished among certain Christian groups in the Mediterranean during the second century. In the Gnostic Christian tradition, Christ was seen as a divine being that had taken human form in order to lead humanity back to recognition of its own divine nature. Judean–Israelite Gnosticism, including the Mandaeans and Elkesaites, blended Jewish-Christian ideas with Gnostic beliefs focused on baptism and the cosmic struggle between light and darkness. Syriac–Egyptian groups like Sethianism and Valentinianism combined Platonic philosophy and Christian themes, seeing the material world as flawed but not wholly evil. Other traditions include the Basilideans, Marcionites, and Thomasines. Manichaeism, which adopted Gnostic concepts such as cosmic dualism, emerged as a major religious movement in the third century, briefly rivaling Christianity.
Early Church Fathers denounced Gnostic ideas as heresy, although early Gnostic teachers such as Valentinus saw themselves as Christians. Efforts to destroy Gnostic texts were largely successful, resulting in the survival of very little writing by Gnostic thinkers and theologians. After declining in the western Mediterranean, Gnosticism persisted in the Near East until at least the sixth century, remaining influential as far as China until the late ninth century. Gnostic ideas resurfaced periodically in medieval Europe with groups like the Paulicians, Bogomils, and Cathars. Islamic and medieval Kabbalistic thought also reflect some Gnostic ideas, while modern revivals and discoveries of Gnostic texts have influenced numerous thinkers and churches up to the present day. Gnosticism survives through Mandaeism, an ancient Middle Eastern religion sometimes described as a Gnostic sect or tradition. The second contemporary religion that may be regarded as a continuation of ancient Gnosticism, particularly Sethianism and Ophitism, is Yezidism, originally practised in northern Mesopotamia, between Mosul, Mount Sinjar and Mardin.
For centuries, most scholarly knowledge about Gnosticism was limited to the biased and often incomplete anti-heretical writings of early Christian figures such as Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome. There was a renewed interest in Gnosticism after the 1945 discovery of Egypt's Nag Hammadi library, a collection of rare early Christian and Gnostic texts. Surviving Gnostic writings such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Apocryphon of John reveal a very diverse and complex early Christian landscape; some scholars believe Gnosticism may contain historical information about Jesus from the Gnostic viewpoint, although the majority conclude that apocryphal sources, Gnostic or not, are later than the canonical sources or may have depended on or used the Synoptic Gospels. Elaine Pagels has noted the influence of sources from Hellenistic Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Middle Platonism on the Nag Hammadi texts. Since the 1990s, scholars have debated whether "Gnosticism" is a form of early Christianity; an artificial category created by early orthodox Christians to label heresies; or a distinct religious tradition in its own right. Academic studies of Gnosticism have evolved from viewing it as a Christian heresy or Greek-influenced aberration to recognizing it as a diverse set of movements with complex Jewish, Persian, and philosophical roots; consequently, modern scholars question the usefulness of "Gnosticism" as a unified category and favor more precise classifications based on texts, traditions, and socio-religious contexts.
Etymology
Gnosis is a feminine Greek noun which means "knowledge" or "awareness". It and the associated verb are often used for personal knowledge, as compared with intellectual knowledge. A related term is the adjective gnostikos, "of or for knowledge", a reasonably common adjective in Classical Greek.By the Hellenistic period, it began also to be associated with Greco-Roman mysteries, becoming synonymous with the Greek term mysterion. Consequentially, Gnosis often refers to knowledge based on personal experience or perception. In a religious context, gnosis is mystical or esoteric knowledge based on direct participation with the divine. In most Gnostic systems, the sufficient cause of salvation is this "knowledge of" the divine. It is an inward "knowing", comparable to that encouraged by Plotinus, and differs from proto-orthodox Christian views. Gnostics are "those who are oriented toward knowledge and understanding – or perception and learning – as a particular modality for living". The usual meaning of gnostikos in Classical Greek texts is "learned" or "intellectual", such as used by Plato in the comparison of "practical" and "intellectual". Plato's use of "learned" is fairly typical of Classical texts.
Sometimes employed in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible, the adjective is not used in the New Testament, but Clement of Alexandria who speaks of the "learned" Christian quite often, uses it in complimentary terms. The use of gnostikos in relation to heresy originates with interpreters of Irenaeus. Some scholars consider that Irenaeus sometimes uses gnostikos to simply mean "intellectual", whereas his mention of "the intellectual sect" is a specific designation. The term "Gnosticism" does not appear in ancient sources, and was first coined in the 17th century by Henry More in a commentary on the seven letters of the Book of Revelation, where More used the term "Gnosticisme" to describe the heresy in Thyatira. The term Gnosticism was derived from the use of the Greek adjective gnostikos by St. Irenaeus to describe the school of Valentinus as he legomene gnostike haeresis "the heresy called Learned ".
Origins
The origins of Gnosticism are obscure and still disputed. Alexandria was of central importance for the birth of Gnosticism. Gnosticism is strongly influenced by Middle Platonism and its theory of forms. Elaine Pagels has noted the influence of sources from Hellenistic Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Middle Platonism on the Nag Hammadi texts. The Christian ecclesia was of Jewish–Christian origin, but also attracted Greek members, and various strands of thought were available, such as "Judaic apocalypticism, speculation on divine wisdom, Greek philosophy, and Hellenistic mystery religions." The proto-orthodox Christian groups called Gnostics a heresy of Christianity.While rejecting the underlying framing that proto-orthodox Christianity is the 'original' and 'true' Christianity from which Gnosticism and other 'heresies' then deviated, scholars such as Simone Pétrement and David Brakke have argued that Gnosticism originated as an intra-Christian movement, being one of several responses to the life, death, and presumed resurrection of Jesus, with Pétrement tracing it specifically to tendencies in the letters of Paul and the Gospel of John. Within early Christianity, the teachings of Paul the Apostle and John the Evangelist may have been a starting point for Gnostic ideas, with a growing emphasis on the opposition between flesh and spirit, the value of charisma, and the disqualification of the Jewish law. The mortal body belonged to the world of inferior, worldly powers, and only the spirit or soul could be saved. The term gnostikos may have acquired a deeper significance here.
Other modern scholars hold that Gnosticism arose within Judaism and later incorporated stories about Jesus into pre-existing speculation about a cosmic Savior and Philo's Jewish interpretation of Middle Platonic thought about the demiurge and the logos. A small minority of scholars debate Gnosticism's origins as having roots in Buddhism, due to similarities in beliefs.
Some scholars prefer to speak of "gnosis" when referring to first-century ideas that later developed into Gnosticism, and to reserve the term "Gnosticism" for the synthesis of these ideas into a coherent movement in the second century. According to James M. Robinson, no Gnostic texts clearly pre-date Christianity, and "pre-Christian Gnosticism as such is hardly attested in a way to settle the debate once and for all."
Jewish Christian origins
A common position is that Gnosticism has Jewish Christian origins, originating in the late first century AD in nonrabbinical Jewish sects and early Christian sects. Ethel S. Drower adds, "heterodox Judaism in Galilee and Samaria appears to have taken shape in the form we now call Gnostic, and it may well have existed some time before the Christian era."Many heads of Gnostic schools were identified as Jewish Christians by Church Fathers, and Hebrew words and names of God were applied in some Gnostic systems. The cosmogonic speculations among Christian Gnostics had partial origins in Maaseh Breshit and Maaseh Merkabah. This thesis is most notably put forward by Gershom Scholem and Gilles Quispel. Scholem detected Jewish gnosis in the imagery of merkabah mysticism, which can also be found in certain Gnostic documents. Quispel sees Gnosticism as an independent Jewish development, tracing its origins to Alexandrian Jews, to which group Valentinus was also connected.
Many of the Nag Hammadi texts make reference to stories and characters from the Hebrew Bible, in some cases with a violent rejection of the Jewish God. Gershom Scholem once described Gnosticism as "the Greatest case of metaphysical anti-Semitism", though Professor Steven Bayme said Gnosticism would be better characterized as anti-Judaism. However, recent research into the origins of Gnosticism shows a strong Jewish influence, particularly from Hekhalot literature.