Can Someone Explain Gnosticism to Me?

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Lately I become very interested in the Gnostic Gospels and have skimmed a few. I’m not seeing anything too earth shattering in their contents. Personally, I think the whole Da Vinci Code fad has sort of blown the whole thing out of proportion.

Are there organized practicing Gnostics? And, if so how different are their beliefs from traditional Christianity? Can one attend a Gnostic service?

I did read something interesting about the idea of Sophia as the feminine aspect of God. But of course, that was on wikipedia. :rolleyes:

I would love to hear from a practicing Gnostic and kind of compare notes. But, wouldn’t we all?
 
I took a fourth year course in university on Gnosticism. Actually, it’s debatable whether the label should be even applied to some traditions, but scholars argue about names all the time. Unfortunately, most of the information we have on the practices of gnostic traditions were written down by their enemies, so I would say a lot of the research is purely speculative.

There are modern gnostic groups, the one my professor highlighted was the Ecclesia Gnostica Mysteriorum. You can find their website here:

gnosticsanctuary.org/index.html

They include information about rituals and a recommended reading list. I saw a bit of a ritual in a video we watched at one point, and it was actually very similar to Mass–except the celebrant was a woman and the words were changed to reflect their beliefs.

There’s also Manichaeism, which is the only surviving gnostic tradition that wasn’t completely wiped off the map, it has a different “flavour” to other gnostic schools.

These are the textbooks I used in the class:

The Gnostic Scriptures by Bentley Layton
Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism by Kurt Rudolph

Layton’s work includes translations of gnostic texts (divided by school) whereas Rudolph’s book is a more general survey of Gnosticism. Rudolph’s style is very academic, but it is a fascinating read.

For more modern stuff, Tau Malachi is another well-known writer. I haven’t read his stuff, so I can’t comment on it.

I’d say more, but there’s a lot to cover! I still have my notes so I can dig them up if you have any questions. The resources I named should get you started!

Also, I like the Da Vinci Code as fiction, but as Gnosticism 101? Er…no…it’s complicated.
 
Conor7 said:
Lately I become very interested in the Gnostic Gospels and have skimmed a few. I’m not seeing anything too earth shattering in their contents. Personally, I think the whole Da Vinci Code fad has sort of blown the whole thing out of proportion.

Are there organized practicing Gnostics? And, if so how different are their beliefs from traditional Christianity? Can one attend a Gnostic service?

I did read something interesting about the idea of Sophia as the feminine aspect of God. But of course, that was on wikipedia. :rolleyes:

I would love to hear from a practicing Gnostic and kind of compare notes. But, wouldn’t we all?
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I recently watched a DVD about the subject of gnosticism that a friend loaned to me. Father Mitch Pacwa was one of the priests on this DVD that explained about it. It truly was a mess of erroneous opinions that had to be dealt with by those in charge at the time. It was heresy mixed with some Christian teachings, but contained many serious errors.
 
Conor7 said:
Can one attend a Gnostic service?
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Sure. Ecclesia Gnostica has congregations in Los Angeles, Seattle, Salt Lake City, and Portland. Their primate, Dr. Stephan A. Hoeller has written several articles and books about Gnosticism and its intersection with Christianity.

Ecclesia Gnostica is the largest, and most stable of the Gnostic organizations in the United States.

Don’t confuse Ecclesia Gnostica with Ecclesia Gnostica Catholici which adheres to a Thelemic theology, rather than a Gnostic theology.

Amber
 
It is good to learn about Gnosticism if you want that to help you understand that it bears no resemblance to what our Lord Jesus Christ taught.

Thank God for the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic faith and its teaching authority. (Magisterium).

There are many strange philosophies and deceptions out there, and different forms of Gnosticism is among them.
 
Not really making a statement here, just sort of typing through some firing synapses… After reading a Cliff’s-notes-version of a few Gnostic Gospels, again, I’m not seeing anything radical or innately heretical. …reminds me of John’s Gospel a bit.
 
Conor7 said:
Not really making a statement here, just sort of typing through some firing synapses… After reading a Cliff’s-notes-version of a few Gnostic Gospels, again, I’m not seeing anything radical or innately heretical. …reminds me of John’s Gospel a bit.
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Then you haven’t read the Gnostic Gospels. Read the Gospels of Judas or John the Baptist.
 
Gnosticism, according to “Catholicism for Dummies”, by Rev. John Trigilio Jr. and Rev. Kenneth Brighenti:
Gnosticism comes from the Greek work gnosis, for knowledge. During the first century B.C. to the fifth century A.D., Gnostics believed in secret knowledge, whereas the Judeo-Christians were free and public about disclosing the truth divinely revealed by God. Gnostics believed that the material world was evil and the only way to salvation was through discovering the “secrets” of the universe. This belief flew in the face of the Hebrew and Christian religions, which believed that God created the world (Genesis) and that it was good, not evil. Keeping revelation secret wasn’t meant to be; rather, it should be shared openly with others.
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Docetism come from the Greek word dokesis, meaning appearance. Docetists, a spin-off from Gnosticism, first and second centuries A.D., asserted that Jesus Christ only appeared to be human. They considered the material world, including the human body, so evil and corrupt that God, who is all good, couldn’t have assumed a real body and human nature. He must have pretended.
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The Gnostic antagonism between the spiritual and the material worlds led Docetists to deny that Jesus was true man. They had no problem with his divinity, only with believing in his real humanity. So if that part was an illusion, then the horrible and immense suffering and death of Jesus on the cross means nothing. If his human nature was a parlor trick, then his Passion also was an illusion.
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The core of Christianity and of Catholic Christianity, is that Jesus died for the sins of all humankind. Only a real human nature can feel pain and actually die. Docetism and Gnosticism were considered hostile to authentic Christianity, or more accurately, orthodox Christianity. (The word orthodox with a small letter o means correct or right believer. However, if you see the capital letter O, then Orthodox refers to the eastern Orthodox Churches, such as the Greek, Russian, and Serbian Orthodox Churches.)
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Note that, even today, remnants of neo-Gnosticism are in some modern ideologies and theories of religion. New Age spirituality and Dianetics, which is the the Church of Scientology, propose to reveal secrets and unlock secret powers of human nature. Docetism seems to have died out pretty much, however.
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It should be mentioned that the result of Gnostic belief is that Jesus didn’t come to save mankind, the “hidden knowledge” contained within the Bible did. All one simply had to do was decode it, and entry into heaven would be yours. Neither belief in Jesus nor morality meant anything. It didn’t matter whether you were Mother Teresa or Adolf Hitler… if you cracked the code, you got into heaven. You can begin to understand why this idea was deemed heretical.
 
Conor7 said:
Lately I become very interested in the Gnostic Gospels and have skimmed a few. I’m not seeing anything too earth shattering in their contents. Personally, I think the whole Da Vinci Code fad has sort of blown the whole thing out of proportion.

Are there organized practicing Gnostics? And, if so how different are their beliefs from traditional Christianity? Can one attend a Gnostic service?

I did read something interesting about the idea of Sophia as the feminine aspect of God. But of course, that was on wikipedia. :rolleyes:

I would love to hear from a practicing Gnostic and kind of compare notes. But, wouldn’t we all?
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I know this post is a little old, but I thought I’d chime in anyway. 🙂

The largest and oldest practicing Gnostic church in the US is the Ecclesia Gnostica (A.K.A. The Pre-Nicene Gnostic Catholic Church), which was founded in England, and brought to America in 1953-ish. In practice, it’s Catholic; but theologically it’s rooted in Pre-Nicene Christianity. The Rt. Rev. Stephan Hoeller is the regional bishop of the Americas, whose parish is located in Los Angeles. He’s written some excellent books on Gnosticism, and also offers weekly lectures at his parish on various Gnostic topics, which are available to download online (some of which are free). The EG’s website also maintains the Gnosis Archive, the largest collection of Gnostic scripture online, if you want to explore it. Their website is: gnosis.org.

I’m currently serving in Minor Holy Orders at the Seattle parish, and I’m a monk in a religious order, if you want to talk to a practicing Gnostic. 🙂

There are also other Christian Gnostic churches in the US: The Apostolic Johannite Church, the Ecclesia Gnostica Mysteriorum, the Alexandrian Gnostic Church, and the Eglise Gnostique Apostolique (which is about as old as the Ecclesia Gnostica, but originated in the French Gnostic line), just to name a few.

The only group of Gnostics that have continuously existed since antiquity are the Mandaeans in Iraq (not the Manichaeans, as someone else said… Manichaeism is extinct), but their religion is now in danger, and many have had to flee the country since the US invasion due to persecution. Their tradition isn’t Christian, but they trace their history through Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, and John the Baptist.

Gnosticism basically relies on salvation through Gnosis: direct knowledge of the Divine, rather than faith alone. It’s not a “secret” knowledge in the sense that it’s something special only available to a few, as a lot of people believe; and Gnostics aren’t world-hating dualists, as has often been claimed. They simply believe that the physical world is imperfect, and that our true home is in God. Historical Gnostics practiced the same sacraments as other Christians, but also had two unique sacraments that have been lost in Christianity: Redemption and Bride-Chamber. To my knowledge, the Ecclesia Gnostica is the only Gnostic church that currently utilizes these two sacraments.

Gnosticism also has a complex mythos involving the fall of Sophia, the Wisdom of God, that explains the origin of the world, the creation of man, the Tree of Knowledge, and the salvation through Christ. But all that would take up a lot of space on here to explain, haha! I’m more than happy to talk about Gnosticism with you, if you have any questions. 🙂
 
Rolltide said:
It should be mentioned that the result of Gnostic belief is that Jesus didn’t come to save mankind, the “hidden knowledge” contained within the Bible did. All one simply had to do was decode it, and entry into heaven would be yours. Neither belief in Jesus nor morality meant anything. It didn’t matter whether you were Mother Teresa or Adolf Hitler… if you cracked the code, you got into heaven. You can begin to understand why this idea was deemed heretical.
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Sorry, but none of that’s true… For the Gnostics, Christ most certainly came to save mankind. The difference is that the salvation He brought wasn’t through dying on a cross, but through the very act of God descending into the limitations of matter and taking on a human body. He came to reveal to mankind the knowledge that we are not of this world, and that our true home rests in God. When we’re born into the world, it’s as if we’re asleep, and we forget our true origin – Christ came to wake us up. Jesus said in the Gospel of Thomas: “I stood in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in the flesh. I found them all drunk.”

Gnosticism has nothing to do with decoding the Bible – the canon of the Bible didn’t exist in the first century AD. And the Gnostic scriptures are full of teachings on morality (The Gospel of Thomas is the most succinct example: “Jesus said, ‘Don’t lie, and don’t do what you hate.’”), and faith in Christ is the very foundation of Gnosis. The Gospel of Philip says, “Faith is the earth in which we take root; hope is the water through which we are nourished; love is the wind through which we grow; knowledge is the light through which we ripen.” And the Pistis Sophia is an entire story about the faith of Wisdom after Her fall from the Fullness.

All this talk of “hidden knowledge” available to an elite few, engaging in depravity, and hating the world is nothing more than sensationalized propaganda by heresiologists to convince their followers that Gnostics are evil. But if you actually sit down and read the Gnostic scriptures, you begin to see that none of it is true. What does become clear is that Gnostics challenged authority, because they believed the only real authority came from God – not man. And that was a threat to the emerging orthodox church’s power.
 
There has been some good stuff here… And a little that isn’t so great? I just thought that I’d add that Henry Chadwick’s The Early Church is a brilliantly detailed and accessible book on the Church from Christ to The Imperium Christiana. It has a chapter on the gnostic heresy which will probably give you all you’ll really need to know. Interestingly here is where there is a suggestion that Gnosticism influenced Coptic Christianity.
Anyway just generally speaking Gnosticism ranged from the genuinely philosophical to the extensively mythological and magical. Among their ideas is: the distinction between the remote supreme Divine Being and the inferior Demiurge or creator god responsible for the imperfect and perverted material world; the importance of ‘gnosis’ as a means of redemption for at least some people and a Christology of Jesus as the emissary of the supreme God in docetic human form.
Hope that helps
 
It doesn’t matter how gnosticism is painted, it is NOT the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church that Our Lord Jesus Christ left us.

Sadly, people are looking for novelties and they get caught up in it.
 
Guess that’s why this is posted in the Non-Catholic Religions forum.
 
‘He who knows one religion, knows no religion,’
[Muller]
Even heretical views are essential reference points for understanding the truth - without them theology would never have existed
 
Gnosticism was the main opposition to authentic Christianity based on the witness of the Apostles. There were a number of Early Church Fathers defending the true faith, as well as work done to discern in the Holy Spirit to discern which books were meant for public revelation in the Church, that which was private revelation, and then those that were not inspired such as a number of gnostic writings.
 
The view has been put forth that Christianity in the first three centuries was not yet one solidified movement, which meakes discerning “authentic” Christianity difficult. This has only become clear to scholars since the discovery of long buried Gnostic texts. For most of Christian history, the Gnostics had no voice – the only descriptions of them we had access to were from heresiologists. Slowly their voices started to be heard as texts were discovered, and since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library, it’s been noticed that there was obviously a proto-orthodox movement in Christianity in the early centuries, but there isn’t much evidence to support the idea that there was a “One True Church” out of which all these so-called heresies grew.

Basically, after the crucifixion, the apostles went out into the world to spread the gospel, and started up churches in various cities. These churches were essentially autonomous, and often developed their own ideologies. Things we take for granted today, like the dual nature of Jesus Christ, and his relationship to the Father and Holy Spirit, hadn’t been codified by councils yet. So naturally, various different explanations arose. Even the idea of the crucifixion as an act of salvation was debated.

The Council of Nicea really marks the beginnings of any sort of orthodoxy. They were backed by the power of the emporer, who wanted to bring all the various types of Christianity under one single set of beliefs that he could support. This brought an end to many of the ante-Nicene movements, and caused the systematic persecution and murder of “heretics,” and the suppression of their writings.

The Gnostic writings do show that they put up just as much of a fight as the Orthodox Fathers, though. You have statements challenging the crucifixion-as-sacrifice belief and the authority of dogma, such as: “And they will cleave to the name of a dead man, thinking that they will become pure. But they will become greatly defiled and they will fall into a name of error, and into the hand of an evil, cunning man and a manifold dogma, and they will be ruled without law. (Apocalypse of Peter)” And passages indicating that St. Peter was not the first pope, such as: “The disciples said to Jesus, ‘We know that you are going to leave us. Who will be our leader?’ Jesus said to them, ‘No matter where you are, you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being.’ (Gospel of Thomas 12).”

Many of these writings date back to the exact same era as the New Testament scriptures (heck, the Gospel of Thomas dates to the first century, and, based on the language used, may pre-date all of the canonical Gospels), so it’s more likely that these various different traditions grew up simultaneously – not one before another.

A good book on the pre-Nicene Christian traditions is: The Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew, by Bart Ehrman. The writing style is fairly simple, it’s designed to be accessable to the average Joe… but it provides a good overview of early Christianity, proto-orthodoxy, Gnosticism, and the development of scripture.
 
The Apostles Creed, the structure of administration based on the episcopacy, and the Apostles appointing successors and teaching their followers were in place by 100 AD, including the basic elements, structure, and spirit we witness today in our liturgy, based not on man but the working of Pentecost – the coming of the Holy Spirit Who draws all believers into Christ…

Gnosticism does not bear witness to the tradition of faith…God coming to a gathering of people…as well as bearing the marks of Christ’s Churcn – noting order here, One as we are of One B ody, Soul, Mind and Divinity in Christ, Holy – sanctity sourced in Christ, Apstolic–teachings are insured through the Holy Spirit and passed down through each generation, and Catholic, Greek word meaning universal and signifying Christ came for all, not a select few.
 
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