Gnosticism

“ The dualistic principle, one of the chief elements of Gnosticism, harmonized with the prevailing temper of that age, even as the pantheistic principle rules the schools of philosophy in our own. All Christians were alive to consciousness of the power of evil. Gnosticism recognized it. Christianity triumphs over it by the power of the Cross which procures redemption. Gnosticism would work out salvation by abstractions, by ascetic severities, by a renunciation of the pleasures of the world. ”

“ We should have, perhaps, to go back to the fourth century to find an exact parallel and then we should find in the vast and confused movement of Gnosticism an unexpected parallel to a great deal of what is happening about us. Gnosticism was the effort of a reason excessively given to speculation, undisciplined and greatly unrestrained by any sense of reality to possess and transform the Church. ”

“ Not the doing either of good or of evil is what nature cares for, but the knowing of them. Life is one long eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. I am in the habit, in thinking to myself, of calling this point of view the gnostical point of view. According to it, the world is neither an optimism nor a pessimism, but a gnosticism. But as this term may perhaps lead to some misunderstandings, I will use it as little as possible here, and speak rather of subjectivism, and the subjectivistic point of view. ”

“ Whatever touches the Bible and its interpretation touches Christianity at a vital point. The fundamental difference between the pagan gnosticism and Christianity lay in the fact that Christianity was a revealed religion, finding its beginning and end in the divine love and life unfolded in Christ Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. On the contrary, gnosticism found its source in human reasoning, human philosophy, and speculations. ”

“ In short, Gnosticism, in all its various sections, its form and its character, falls under the great category of mystic religions, which were so characteristic of the religious life of decadent antiquity. In Gnosticism as in the other mystic religions we find the same contrast of the initiated and the uninitiated, the same loose organization, the same kind of petty sectarianism and mystery-mongering. ”

“ Every earnest Christian knows from personal experience this evidence of the Divine character of the Gospel. It is full of compassion for those who have sinned; not because, like the Gnostic teachers, it glosses over the malignity and culpability of sin, but because, unlike Gnosticism, it recognizes the preciousness of each human soul, and the difficulties which beset it. Every Christian knows that he has inherited an evil nature:—so far he and the Gnostic are agreed. ”

“ Gnosticism completely altered and defaced Christian doctrine under each of the four great heads, the Being of God, the Person of Christ, the nature of man, the office and function of the Church. Into the Godhead it introduced a dualism, recognising with the absolute good an [pg 259] absolute evil represented by matter: it denied the reality of the Incarnation; it made the body a principle of evil in man's nature: but we will here limit ourselves to the characteristic and formal principle of the system from which it derived its name, to Gnosis as the means of acquiring divine truth. ”

“ To many it sings a truly siren strain; and so long as it is held only as a postulate, as a mere vanishing {140} point to give perspective to our intellectual aim, it is hard to see any empirical title by which we may deny the legitimacy of gnosticism's claims. That we are not as yet near the goal it prefigures can never be a reason why we might not continue indefinitely to approach it; and to all sceptical arguments, drawn from our reason's actual finiteness, gnosticism can still oppose its indomitable faith in the infinite character of its potential destiny. ”

“ The two highest principles being spirit and matter, and the true conception of a creation of the world being thus excluded, it follows in the Gnostic systems, and is a characteristic feature of them, that they separate the creator of the world from the supreme God, and give him a position subordinate to the latter. He is therefore rather the artificer than the creator of the world. ... The oldest Gnostic sects are without doubt those whose name is not derived from a special founder, but only stand for the general notion of Gnosticism. ”

“ Gnosticism was the natural daughter of the solar theology. The doctrine that knowledge is salvation and [pg 203] that the gods of the popular cult are manifestations of the sun-god, was applied to explain the origin of evil. Evil became the result of imperfection and ignorance, necessarily inherent in matter, and arising from the fact that the creation is due to the last of a long series of æons or emanations from the supreme God. ”

“ Like Christianity, it expected the deliverance of the oppressed souls of men by a supernatural Redeemer. He came down from Heaven upon earth and assumed a human form, establishing, through a mystic union with himself, the connection between the spheres of heaven and earth. He thereby guarantees to mankind an eternal life in a bliss to come. Gnosticism also involves a completely dualistic philosophy in its opposition of God and world, of spirit and matter, of soul and body, &c. ”

“ Gnosticism is not so much the name of a particular philosophy or definite system of belief, as it is a point of view, which sought to harmonize the speculative achievement of Greek thought with the oriental myths and with Christian teachings. The philosophical interpretation of pagan mythology was extended to Hebrew and Christian tradition. Thus, in accordance with the tenets of Neoplatonism, the primeval being has produced the universal mind and, in turn, mind has produced the soul which in contact with evil phases of matter has lost its original purity. ”

“ For after Gnosticism is seen to be the acute secularising of Christianity the only question that remains is, how are we to account for the origin of the great Gnostic schools, that is, whether it is possible to indicate their preliminary stages. ”

“ In fact salvation, as conceived in Gnosticism, is always a myth, a history of bygone events, an allegory or figure, but not an historical event. And this decision is not affected by the fact that in certain Gnostic sects figured historical personages such as Simon Magus and Menander. ”

“ All alike boast a mystic revelation and a deeply-veiled wisdom. As in many mystical religions, so in Gnosticism, the ultimate object is individual salvation, the assurance of a fortunate destiny for the soul after death. As in the others, so in this the central object of worship is a redeemer-deity who has already trodden the difficult way which the faithful have to follow. And finally, as in all mystical religions, so here too, holy rites and formulas, acts of initiation and consecration, all those things which we call sacraments, play a very prominent part. ”

“ Gnosis is a general idea; it is only as defined in one particular manner that it signifies Christian Gnosticism in a special sense: Gnosis is higher Knowledge, Knowledge that has a clear perception of the foundations on which it rests, and the manner in which its structure has been built up; a Knowledge that is completely that which, as Knowledge, it is called to be. ”

“ The exciting and moving effect of Gnosticism on the Church depended at the same time on the fact, that its representatives practically apprehended Christianity in the manner of the antique religious mysteries, and in so doing sought to lean upon the Christian communities and make themselves at home in them, according as their religious life and usages seemed to invite them, and to establish in them a community of the initiated and perfect ”

“ Applying this doctrine to the Scriptures, the Jewish Gnostics taught that a hidden meaning was to be found in all laws, ceremonies, and rituals. They invented the theory that a secret tradition had been handed down from the time of Moses; the interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures had been greatly perverted in this way. Gnosticism said: “Nothing is what it seems to be; everything tangible is the symbol of something invisible. By this means the history of the Old Testament was sublimated into a history of the emancipation of reason from sense.” ”

“ While the Gnosticism of the early ages asserted the infinite distance of God from the world and the intrinsic evil of matter, modern Agnosticism removes God still further from us, beyond the reach of thought, and leaves us with material nature as the one positive and accessible reality, as the basis of life and law. ”

“ In spite of the fact that in a few of its later representatives Gnosticism assumed a more refined and spiritual aspect, and even produced blossoms of a true and beautiful piety, it is fundamentally and essentially an unstable religious syncretism, a religion in which the determining forces were a fantastic oriental imagination and a sacramentalism which degenerated into the wildest superstitions, a weak dualism fluctuating unsteadily between asceticism and libertinism. ”

“ Another point in which it is distinguished from Gnosticism is that it does not present itself as an esoteric form of religion meant only for the few specially gifted spirits, but distinctly endeavours to build up a community of its own with a regularly articulated constitution and a well organized ritual. ”

“ Our author’s demonstration of the essential harmony of Gnosticism with the old mythologies, and the philosophies of the heathen, explains the hold it seems to have gained among nominal converts to Christianity, and also the necessity for a painstaking refutation of what seem to us mere absurdities. ”

“ Gnosticism knew how to utilize every mental product of the age. Elements, Oriental and Occidental, in a curious medley, philosophy and popular superstition—all were [69] collected and used as materials for the building of gnostic systems. The myths of the heathen may be found side by side with the Gospel histories, which were only myths to the gnostic. One proof text is taken from the Bible, and the next from Homer or Hesiod, and both alike are used by an allegorical exegesis to support the ready-made creations of the author’s fancy. Breadth enough, too, in morality ”

“ But that it should have taken hold on the minds of men to such an extent and at such a time, is surely one of the most unaccountable facts in the history of the human mind. To us, even the Platonic system would appear so much more rational and intelligible, and the Christian doctrine so much more simple and natural, and, if I may so say, manly, that in their presence one wonders what there could have been to recommend Gnosticism. ”

“ All natural growths, forces, and phenomena are thus typified." The outline here furnished needs only to be extended indefinitely in order to take in quite easily the countless generations of Gnosticism. The whole moral and physical world, analyzed and classified with an inconceivable minuteness, will find place in it. ”

“ Christianity is truth, and there is only one truth. Christianity is wisdom, and there is only one wisdom; for the wisdom of the world is not wisdom but folly. And at once the rival claim is made. Why not a division of territory? Knowledge for the philosopher; faith for the Christian. The Gnostics taught, as a modern philosopher teaches, that religion is 'reason talking naively,' and that, good as it is for ordinary people, the Gnostic can afford to do without it. Every one knows the answer of the Apostles to the insidious suggestions of Gnosticism. ”

“ His own experience of the Gospel, especially in connexion with his conversion from being a persecutor to becoming a preacher, offer [53] further points of contrast between Gnosticism and Christianity.
The false teachers wasted thought and attention upon barren speculations, which, even if they could under any conceivable circumstances be proved true, would have supplied no guidance to mankind in regulating conduct. And whenever Gnostic teaching became practical, it frittered away morality in servile observances, based on capricious interpretations of the Mosaic Law. ”

“ They who pretend to know all concerning the founding and the founder know nothing of the foundations....
“Gnosticism, according to those who are ignorant of its origin and relationships, was supposed and assumed to have originated in the second century; the first being carefully avoided, only proves that the A-Gnostics, who had literally adopted the pre-Christian types, and believed they had been historically fulfilled, were then for the first time becoming conscious of the cult that preceded theirs and face to face with those who held them to be the heretics. ”

“ There is no system of philosophy which has been traced to a greater number of sources than that which we are now discussing; and the variety of opinions seems to have arisen from persons either not observing the very different aspects which Gnosticism assumed, or from wishing to derive it from one exclusive quarter. Thus, some have deduced it from the eastern notion of a good and evil principle, some from the Jewish Cabbala, and others from the doctrines of the later Platonists. ”

“ From a pantheistic First Cause, Gnosticism traced the emanation of a series of æons—beings of Light. The source of evil was supposed to be matter, which in this material world holds light in captivity. ”

“ In the ante-Nicene age gnosticism, with its pretensions to a theosophy more profound, a knowledge more extensive and exact, a code of ethics more consistent, and a self-denial more rigid than those of the faithful, was a more dangerous adversary than the Roman empire; and we who appreciate the skillfulness of its specious arguments realize that nothing but the providence of God carried the artless and unsuspicious Church safely through the peril.1 And throughout the ages since there has been a continuous reappearance of this spirit, sometimes within, sometimes outside the Church ”