Gnosticism.

Gnosticism. In the New Testament the charisma of gnosis, or the 'knowledge' of the mysteries of God, is distinguished from sophia, or practical religious 'wisdom' (cf. 1 Cor. xii. 8). This Christian gnosis was at first the natural product of theological reflection on the positive doctrines contained in the Gospel. A Jewish theology, based on the religious ideas of the Old Testament, was already in existence, and had received a powerful impulse from the combination of Greek philosophy with Hellenistic Judaism by Philo. The chief function of the earlier gnosis had been to discover the ideal value of the various religious histories, myths, mysteries, and ordinances, and to get behind the letter of the written word. In course 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 Præscr. Hæret. 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 Scriptures. Both in their interpretation and in their presentation of the texts they allowed themselves a free hand, omitting, adding, and sometimes forging, 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 redemption of men's souls from sin by Jesus Christ the Gnostics substituted a speculative 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 Testament 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 estrangement 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 absolute 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 Æon 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. Baer 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 recognised; 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 subordinate deity, subservient to the supreme, or as eternally opposed to him, and therefore absolutely evil. Harnack distinguishes between Jewish-Christian and Gentile-Christian Gnostics, grouping 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; Irenæus 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-Phœnician 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 interpretation, but by means of a negative criticism, to adapt the Old Testament to their idea of a universal religion. Cerinthus held that Christianity was identical with pure Mosaism, laying great stress on part of the ceremonial law, and holding the creator of the world to be subordinate to the Supreme Being; others traced the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament to the devil, and held the God of the Jews to be the highest God. Others, again, entirely discarded Judaism, and connected their Christianity with allegorical interpretations of Syrian and Babylonian mythology. The chief representatives of Syrian Gnosticism were Saturninus (or Satornil) of Antioch, and the various sects of the Ophites (including the Naascenes, Peratai, and others). It is uncertain in what relation these isolated Syrian sects may have stood to the great Gnostic schools of Egypt and the West, the Basilidians and Valentinians. After the confederation of the Christian communities into the Catholic Church even these great schools were not long able to maintain a separate existence, and by the end of the first decade of the 3d century their ecclesiastical influence had well-nigh disappeared. But, though the organic energy of Gnosticism was thus quickly exhausted, Gnostic ideas held their ground to a much later date, and may be traced in the writings of some of the most highly reputed Christian fathers. The Pistis Sophia, edited by Schwartz and Petermann (Berlin, 1853), is the only Gnostic work that has come down to us in a complete form, except those apocryphal Gospels and Acts of the apostles which show a Gnostic tendency. Tatian's Diatessaron was used in the Syrian Church down to the 5th century. The Gnostic Bardesanes of Edessa, one of the last of the Syrian Gnostics, was the founder of Syrian hymnology.

See Neander, Genetische Entwicklung der vornehmsten Gnostischen Systeme (1818); Matter, Histoire critique du Gnosticisme (2 vols. 1828; 2d ed. 1843); J. A. Möller, Versuche über den Gnost. (1831; also forming vol. i. of his Gesamm. Schrift., ed. by Döllinger); Baur, Die christliche Gnosis (1835); Möller, Geschichte der Kosmologie in der Griechischen Kirche bis auf Origenes (1860); Lipsius, Der Gnostizismus (1860); King, The Gnostics and their Remains (1873); Mansel, The Gnostic Heresies (ed. by Lightfoot, 1875); Joel, Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte zu Anfang des 2 Christlichen Jahrhunderts (2 parts, 1880-83); Koffmanne, Die Gnosis nach ihrer Tendenz und Organisation (1882); Hilgenfeld, Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums (1884), with the Gnostic fragments, and lists of books relating to the various Gnostic teachers; Renan, Origines du Christianisme (vols. v. to vii.); Harnack, Zur Quellenkritik der Gesch. des Gnost. (1873) and Dogmengeschichte (vol. i., 2d ed. 1888); and for a concise account of the different systems, Möller, Kirchengeschichte (vol. i. 1889).