Gnostic Elements in Early Catholicism

[Truthstalker]

Sorry. Maybe I did over read your tone or attitude from the diminutive names you selected for the example (e.g. “St. Bum”). It looked like you were implying that this person did not deserve heaven for a late life conversion when in fact the apostles taught us that none of us deserve heaven and only gain it by cooperating with God’s grace and conforming our will to His commandments. It also came across as singling out the atypical case rather than the normative case for a Catholic saint. In the early church “the normal” case was a saint martyred for her faith or a person who lived a devout and exceptional life most of their life if not all of it.

James

I will admit that tone could be read into it. “St.Bum” seemed amusing and illustrative of the antithesis I was describing. I described the two poles of the situation. None of us deserve heaven. At the same time there are those who have led admirable and noble Christian lives and have lived as examples and inspirations to us. I think part of this thread is to explore what that means.

 

[jimmy]

Gnosticism and docetism were pervasive in Roman society and contributed to the development of a gnostic form of Christianity that looked similar to orthodox biblical Christianity.

1. The idea of the material physical world being evil was an extension of the biblical idea of the created world being fallen. Gnostic Christianity were strongest in North Africa, especially Egypt, and Syria.

Gnosticism is not a Christian religion. Yes, there were Christian gnostics but it encompassed non-Christians, including pagans. The idea of the created world being evil is not an extension of the fall, it is an extension of platonism. It was due to Plato’s focus on the noumenal realm and the rest of his cosmology.

1. The most influential school of thought was centered in Alexandria where Tertullian, Clement of A. (Pantaeus was his teacher who travelled to India), Origen (Ambrose was his patron), Cyprian, and Augustine (former gnosic Manichean) emerged.

What is your point with this one? Pointing out saints who lived in the same area as gnostics is pointless. Origen was before Ambrose so Ambrose could not be his patron.

1. Asceticism was central to gnostic life in which Marcion founded celibate congregations in Syria. Monasticism, ascetic celibate life, first emerged in the Egyptian desert. As the church developed a hierarchy, its members and priests, were drawn from ascetic orders.

Asceticism in gnostic thought and Christian tradition are different. In gnosticism its purpose is complete detachment from the world because the world is evil. In Christianity monasticism is preparation for the kingdom.

1. Origen was rejected because of gnostic-like ideas that human souls pre-existed and were sent into material bodies as punishment for previous sins. The idea of inherited corruption, stain, and contagion acquired when the soul enters a fleshly body, came out of Alexandrian fathers and had this in common with gnostic thought.

Origen was a neo-platonist and that is why his ideas were condemned, not for gnosticism. He was specifically condemned for his ideas of the pre-existence of souls, the apokatastasis, and his Christology. These ideas are essentially from the philosophy of Plato. Origen said that souls existed in the beginning and they were all equally good. But pretty much all of them sinned but to different degrees so they all fell different distances from God. So now you have the angels who are closest to God, and then humans and the furthest from God are the demons and the devil. His Christology was similar to Nestorianism but also had a tinge of docetism.

1. The gnostic trinity was Father, Mother, and Son, in which God has a female consort. Then we find Athanasius of Alexandria first describing Mary as ever-Virgin, and in gnostic writing Mary is queen of angels. In Catholicism, Mary is the consort or spouse of God, and so for Joseph to have intimate relations with her after Jesus’ birth would be considered adultery.

Mary is not the third person of the Trinity and she is not espoused to God in the sense you say. It would not have been adultery for her to have sex with Joseph.

 

[Truthstalker]

. It would not have been adultery for her to have sex with Joseph.

What would it have been (leaving the idea of her having taken a vow of virginity aside)?

 

[Justafool]

I believe that when the Orthodox Church outlawed the Gnostic sect, the Church stopped their search for truth and God. By stopping irreverent debate within their own ranks they forced what was later to become the Protestent movement.

The Orthodox Church sold out to Constantine’s and his Bible. He wanted easy to lead sheeple and did not want to suffer the goats of Gnosticism. God became a book instead of the living breathing God that was present when good debate and seeking for truth took place.

Now, what could have been a good Bible, has become a book the many consider a fairy tale with talking snakes and ten headed monsters.

Medium and soft Christians are now lumped in with Fundamentals and thus we all suffer their stigma.

This is perhaps why Christianity has taken such a beating lately. that and the fact that the Pope is as accessible as God himself. Not that is.

If nothing is done relatively soon, I fear that Christianity will disappear and if the good men within it do nothing then evil will reign through Secularism winning the hearts of men with better laws than our 2-3000 yr old laws that the Vatican refuses to amend.

A wise man once said, for evil to grow, all good men need do is nothing. That is exactly what Church leadership is doing. Nothing.

What the Church needs more than anything else at this point in time is a good Gnostic chewing on the papal ear. That is the only thing that will save the Church.

Regards
DL

 

[CentralFLJames]

I believe that when the Orthodox Church outlawed the Gnostic sect, the Church stopped their search for truth and God. By stopping irreverent debate within their own ranks they forced what was later to become the Protestent movement.

The Orthodox Church sold out to Constantine’s and his Bible. He wanted easy to lead sheeple and did not want to suffer the goats of Gnosticism. God became a book instead of the living breathing God that was present when good debate and seeking for truth took place.

Now, what could have been a good Bible, has become a book the many consider a fairy tale with talking snakes and ten headed monsters.

Medium and soft Christians are now lumped in with Fundamentals and thus we all suffer their stigma.

This is perhaps why Christianity has taken such a beating lately. that and the fact that the Pope is as accessible as God himself. Not that is.

If nothing is done relatively soon, I fear that Christianity will disappear and if the good men within it do nothing then evil will reign through Secularism winning the hearts of men with better laws than our 2-3000 yr old laws that the Vatican refuses to amend.

A wise man once said, for evil to grow, all good men need do is nothing. That is exactly what Church leadership is doing. Nothing.

What the Church needs more than anything else at this point in time is a good Gnostic chewing on the papal ear. That is the only thing that will save the Church.

Regards
DL

That’s a very peculiar perspective Justafool. Pardon me if it comes across a little like defeatism where “men have to do something” to save Christianity as an alternative to secularism. Men would only have to do something if Christianity is false. God has told us that “the gates of hell will not prevail”. Either one believes that or they do not. If one does believe the gates of hell will prevail against God’s Providence then one is not a Christian. And if the gates of hell do prevail then Christianity is false. Your argument is unsymmetrical. You argue for the merits of Gnosticism keeping Christianity “sharp” by giving it a wet stone by which to sharpen its quill and wit. But you won’t let the secularists become that same wet stone vacated by the Gnostics by which Christianity proves yet again that it will prevail against all evil. Secularism is as doomed as was the Gnostics. Denomominizationalism is likewise doomed - there is only one visible and mystical Church but with imperfect members. That Church is The Catholic Church and time and time again it has prevailed against all historical enemies. That’s staying power that only a sucker would bet against. Given the stakes are eternity only a “fool” would bet against the Catholic Church.

When the lights go out and come on again the only one’s left standing with light will be Catholics.

James

 

[Truthstalker]

I believe that when the Orthodox Church outlawed the Gnostic sect, the Church stopped their search for truth and God. By stopping irreverent debate within their own ranks they forced what was later to become the Protestent movement.

Your post can be taken apart piece by piece (and I think it may be). Let’s stop here for know. For starters, the Church did not outlaw the “gnostic sect.” The Empire made the laws, not the church, although they worked together. That, an aside, indicates the imprecision of your post and signals defective reasoning to follow.

Which it does. Apparently no one thought, anymore, about anything, after this particular event (which seems to lack some documentation that I am sure you will be happy to produce). Ever since, the Church has been silent intellectually. It has been in complete agreement, with a complete lack of debate or any dissension of any kind, thanks to this outlawing activity. The church ground to a halt somewheres around 325 AD and hasn’t budged since. That wipes out just about everything that happened after Nicea, which is breathtaking in scope. The Orthodox reject all but the first seven ecumenical councils, due to the 1054 split, but you go further and reject all but the first one. Wow. Jerusalem was ok (Acts 15) and Nicea (325) but ever since the Church has been this picture of harmony and stifled thought.

You maintain they stopped all irreverent debate within their own ranks. Apparently then there was no problem with Arianism or any of the other heresies that the Church fought for centuries.

And somehow this legal transaction not only stopped all thought and dissension, but gave rise to the Reformation some 1200 years later. I suppose you swallowed CFJ’s tongue in cheek fairy tale about Protestantism being gnostic in origin. Sorry, but that does not follow. The Reformers point back to the Bible, not to gnosticism.

Please provide links to the sources for your statements so we may evaluate them. HINT:Jack Chick tracts are generally not regarded around here as valid historical documents.

 

[Justafool]

That’s a very peculiar perspective Justafool. Pardon me if it comes across a little like defeatism where “men have to do something” to save Christianity as an alternative to secularism. Men would only have to do something if Christianity is false. God has told us that “the gates of hell will not prevail”. Either one believes that or they do not. If one does believe the gates of hell will prevail against God’s Providence then one is not a Christian. And if the gates of hell do prevail then Christianity is false. Your argument is unsymmetrical. You argue for the merits of Gnosticism keeping Christianity “sharp” by giving it a wet stone by which to sharpen its quill and wit. But you won’t let the secularists become that same wet stone vacated by the Gnostics by which Christianity proves yet again that it will prevail against all evil. Secularism is as doomed as was the Gnostics. Denomominizationalism is likewise doomed - there is only one visible and mystical Church but with imperfect members. That Church is The Catholic Church and time and time again it has prevailed against all historical enemies. That’s staying power that only a sucker would bet against. Given the stakes are eternity only a “fool” would bet against the Catholic Church.

When the lights go out and come on again the only one’s left standing with light will be Catholics.

James

It is true that the impetus that Constantine started lasted till the Protestant epoch but you should remember the immorality that the Church had to adopt to maintain it’s power and position. that was then and this is now. A time when Islam and Secularism is, pardon the language, kicking the **** out of the Church. That and the fact that the original Church is split to the point where a house divided cannot stand. Pick your Christian God, one wife or many. Anything goes. Add in the anti God signs and aptitudes coming up and it is easy to see that the Church is being told to put up it’s God or shut up. Religulous is the beginning, not the end of woes.

One of our biggest draw backs is the fact that, because of papal sloth, many view the Bible not as a work of religious philosophy but as a book of fairy tales that begin with talking snakes and ends with a ten headed monster. A shame on the Church.

Early Gnostics did not take scripture literally and were quite good at showing Christian inconsistencies that we have yet to hone and may never get the chance to hone if the pope keeps himself surrounded by yes men and sheeple instead of thinking people.
People want to get closer to God without having to climb the hierarchic pyramid that leads to God through the many layers of church authority.

The Church forgot that it was supposed to have smaller close knit church units for community strength and opted instead for massive cathedrals for people to worship as idols.
not what God wanted.
Instead of the one God, now people pray to a host of saints/idols and a chimera /God/Jesus.

No wonder Islam is growing faster than the Church. It has become the laughing stock of religions. From it’s Jesus theme parks to it’s anti Darwin museum. Something is needed to reverse this yet the Pope sleeps and those in forums like this that dare say **** when they have a mouth full of it are booted out or screamed down wit a turn or burn aptitude.

All Christians are being hurt by the silence of the Church or indeed a church that does the wrong thing like this.

video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1546500823932425961&hl=en

We all get cursed to hell because of fools like these and because church fathers are silent and complacent and are too busy trying to cover their own asses.

Sorry for the rant but I am a competitive Religionist that likes to win and recognizes when Religionists and especially Christianity is loosing.

I also recognize that I am not a sheeple but a goat.

Regards
DL

 

[Justafool]

Your post can be taken apart piece by piece (and I think it may be). Let’s stop here for know. For starters, the Church did not outlaw the “gnostic sect.” The Empire made the laws, not the church, although they worked together. That, an aside, indicates the imprecision of your post and signals defective reasoning to follow.

Which it does. Apparently no one thought, anymore, about anything, after this particular event (which seems to lack some documentation that I am sure you will be happy to produce). Ever since, the Church has been silent intellectually. It has been in complete agreement, with a complete lack of debate or any dissension of any kind, thanks to this outlawing activity. The church ground to a halt somewheres around 325 AD and hasn’t budged since. That wipes out just about everything that happened after Nicea, which is breathtaking in scope. The Orthodox reject all but the first seven ecumenical councils, due to the 1054 split, but you go further and reject all but the first one. Wow. Jerusalem was ok (Acts 15) and Nicea (325) but ever since the Church has been this picture of harmony and stifled thought.

You maintain they stopped all irreverent debate within their own ranks. Apparently then there was no problem with Arianism or any of the other heresies that the Church fought for centuries.

And somehow this legal transaction not only stopped all thought and dissension, but gave rise to the Reformation some 1200 years later. I suppose you swallowed CFJ’s tongue in cheek fairy tale about Protestantism being gnostic in origin. Sorry, but that does not follow. The Reformers point back to the Bible, not to gnosticism.

Please provide links to the sources for your statements so we may evaluate them. HINT:Jack Chick tracts are generally not regarded around here as valid historical documents.

i can link you to YouTube if you like.

There is no link that goes to my mind. I have also forgotten most of the sources for what I remember. I just listen to experts on these issues and remember what I can and discard the rest. I like to think I retain anything of importance. There might be some truth to the idea that Protestants had gnostic tendencies. Some of their sects are much more free with their thinking than Catholics. They are also better versed in scripture from what I have seen so far. I went to RC mass till I was 14 and the moment I saw how protestants worshiped as compared to what little I knew of my RC, I was hooked. It happens that conditions took me away from churches and God altogether for a time but If I ever do join another church I’m not sure at this point which one it would be.

As to Constantine. He made the state laws and the Orthodox Church gave him the tool he wanted for social control and manipulation. He financed Church expeditions to go burn scriptures they did not want and killed when convenient. Like it or not the Church has much blood to account for when God comes into it again. There was good reason for the Church not wanting it’s flock not to read scripture in the past and if it had it’s way it would still prefer to keep it’s sheeple ignorant. People are so unruly. They ask questions. can’t have that now.

I see the Bible as the Church’s first best guess. If they do not come out with a better revised edition soon, I fear death within 50 years.

Intelligent people just cannot fathom a God that must use talking snakes and ten headed monsters to show His philosophy. Hard to blame them.

Regards
DL

 

[Truthstalker]

i can link you to YouTube if you like.

There is no link that goes to my mind.

There is so much to respond to, and so many ways, that I hardly know where to start or what approach to use.

There is so much on YouTube - don’t tell me you believe it all. No, you don’t, because you listen to “experts.” Tell me, what makes one person an expert and another not an expert? Is it just a feeling you have, or a reason, or because someone else says they are an expert? Or do you view your mind as the ultimate decider of what is right and wrong, true and false, etc.? How do you know that you hear, see, or read correctly? Or that you are not deceiving yourself, because there are things that are so bad out there that you need to deny they exist? How do you know you can reason? How do you know that you know anything?

There are answers to these questions, good answers. But those answers are only found in Christ. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Anything else is going astray, false, death.

I suggest you forget about Constantine. There are more basic issues, such as I talked about, that you need to grapple with. What is truth, and how do you know it when you find it?

 

[CentralFLJames]

It is true that the impetus that Constantine started lasted till the Protestant epoch but you should remember the immorality that the Church had to adopt to maintain it’s power and position. that was then and this is now. A time when Islam and Secularism is, pardon the language, kicking the **** out of the Church. That and the fact that the original Church is split to the point where a house divided cannot stand. Pick your Christian God, one wife or many. Anything goes. Add in the anti God signs and aptitudes coming up and it is easy to see that the Church is being told to put up it’s God or shut up. Religulous is the beginning, not the end of woes.

…

I also recognize that I am not a sheeple but a goat.

Regards
DL

I don’t see any merit in a single thing you have ranted of here. All you offer is an opinionated perspective that I don’t imagine but a fringe would agree with. You sound frustrated and desperate and following hysterical thoughts like a sheeple.

• The church has never followed immorality and has spoken out against it for 2,000 years
• Islam while being devoid of any intellectual appeal other than keep one’s head only to bow has never been dominant in the world and never will be since it goes against natural reason as much as its seen as a religion of a single unholy man interested only in his own pleasures and power.
• Secularism is kicking the stuffing out of its own dogma of “me-ism” as we speak. Or have you not looked at your bank account lately and see the world economies founded on materialism and human systems wiping out everyone’s life’s works and savings?
• The original church is not split. The original church, the Catholic Church still is growing strong. You just imagine that the denominalization and many sects that came out of the protestant revolution are The Church. They are not - a few have appearances of Christianity and some elements of same but everyone in these non Catholic denominations is “anti ecclesial authority” and that is what will condemn each one who should have known better. Obedience to Christ’s commandments and His authority is what is central to Christianity. God saves those who are obedient - all we have to do is trust and follow. Catholicism has no divisions whatsoever since its automatic excommunication to adopt heretical views or a mortal sin which is spiritual separation. There is no cafeteria Christianity - there is only a single legitimate offering and that is Catholicism.
• The woes you mention are the chastisements that Catholics have warned about for millennium. And yes they are coming and are already just beginning. God is cleaning house as we speak. Christ did not come to unify the world and bring it peace under an umbrella of secular-religions but to give all an equal playing field by which to choose who they served. Most have chosen to serve themselves and these are the ones who bring woe that all must suffer - even the elect.
• You mock 1.2 billion Catholics by saying the bible is seen as a book of fairy tales. That ignores the fact that the majority of he world’s educated think differently. Who appointed you pope of criticism to speak on behalf of the ignorant and those on the outside? For shame.
• Jesus surrounded himself with yes men so what is your problem? You speak like you imagine yourself a true Christian but your despair and hysteria suggests you are not of the same stuff as those brave and confident early church members who were martyred for their faith.
• There is no deep Church hiearchy - only 3 levels at any point in the Church - Priest-Bishop and Pope. Find a corporate org chart that has this few levels of authority. Further God is accessible directly by each person in prayer 24/7. It is only in the sacrifice of the mass that we need a priest to attain to the highest form of worship (Latria) that is unreachable without the true sacrifice of Christ himself being offered up as pleasing to God in the representation of Christ Crucified to God. You seem like you subscribe to a Maslow hiearchy of needs and are making a mountain out of a mole-hill of despair.
• The church was supposed to be a small knit community? Says who? There is no basis for this. In the apostolic era Church there was worship in the synagogues for those communities where the Jews did not persecute Christians (perhaps another motivation for shifting worship to Sunday, The Lord’s Day, when the Jews were not to be found in the temples after the Sabbath ).
• One is only cursed for 2 things: 1) Teaching a different gospel than what the apostles taught and 2) caving into despair. You seem to be treading deeply into both of these areas if I say so myself and ought to rein in your hysteria (this is evidence that you being chastised by the way).

Get a grip. There is not one single thing that evil men can do to change one letter of God’s Plan. He has already seen every outcome and every man’s decision and constructed His Plan around those decisions. We know a greater good comes out of evil and all we have to do now is do as we are told, have faith in God and those who he appoints on earth as his leaders (The Popes and bishops) and everything comes out right for us personally. So you are either with us or against us and a sheeple or a goat. Pick your fate.

James

 

[Justafool]

There is so much to respond to, and so many ways, that I hardly know where to start or what approach to use.

QUOTE]

I see that you decided on the, run away after some BS approach.

I must have hit a nerve. Sorry.

Regards
DL

 

[Justafool]

I don’t see any merit in a single thing you have ranted of here. All

Get a grip. There is not one single thing that evil men can do to change one letter of God’s Plan. He has already seen every outcome and every man’s decision and constructed His Plan around those decisions. We know a greater good comes out of evil and all we have to do now is do as we are told, have faith in God and those who he appoints on earth as his leaders (The Popes and bishops) and everything comes out right for us personally. So you are either with us or against us and a sheeple or a goat. Pick your fate.

James

Your slave mentallity is showing. Sheep.
I see God’s plan is for you not change anything.

Told you I was a free goat.

Regards
DL

 

[jimmy]

What would it have been (leaving the idea of her having taken a vow of virginity aside)?

It wouldn’t have been anything. She wasn’t litterally married to God. She didn’t have a sexual relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Justafool:

I believe that when the Orthodox Church outlawed the Gnostic sect, the Church stopped their search for truth and God. By stopping irreverent debate within their own ranks they forced what was later to become the Protestent movement.

The Orthodox Church sold out to Constantine’s and his Bible. He wanted easy to lead sheeple and did not want to suffer the goats of Gnosticism. God became a book instead of the living breathing God that was present when good debate and seeking for truth took place.

Justafool, The problem with your arguement is that Constantine was an arian heretic. The orthodox bishops like Athanasius were exiled.

The fact is that the dogmas of the councils guided the Church down the path of a true spirituality based on Christ and open to all rather than some esoteric spirituality which was open to only a few who had special knowledge.

Your slave mentallity is showing. Sheep.

Insulting people isn’t going to win you a debate.

 

[jimmy]

As to Constantine. He made the state laws and the Orthodox Church gave him the tool he wanted for social control and manipulation. He financed Church expeditions to go burn scriptures they did not want and killed when convenient. Like it or not the Church has much blood to account for when God comes into it again. There was good reason for the Church not wanting it’s flock not to read scripture in the past and if it had it’s way it would still prefer to keep it’s sheeple ignorant. People are so unruly. They ask questions. can’t have that now.

I see the Bible as the Church’s first best guess. If they do not come out with a better revised edition soon, I fear death within 50 years.

Intelligent people just cannot fathom a God that must use talking snakes and ten headed monsters to show His philosophy. Hard to blame them.

Regards
DL

Constantine did not determine the canon of the scriptures. The council of Nicea did not discuss it.

 

[Justafool]

It wouldn’t have been anything. She wasn’t litterally married to God. She didn’t have a sexual relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Justafool, The problem with your arguement is that Constantine was an arian heretic. The orthodox bishops like Athanasius were exiled.

The fact is that the dogmas of the councils guided the Church down the path of a true spirituality based on Christ and open to all rather than some esoteric spirituality which was open to only a few who had special knowledge.

Insulting people isn’t going to win you a debate.

I sheep them the way I see them. According to scripture, to say someone is a sheep is a compliment.
I am a goat, I can tell the difference. If truth hurts so be it. I will not lie.

Gnostics believed that all had individual access to God, not just a few. They did not believe that they had to climb some pyramidal demographic shape to find God. They were right and that is why the Church feared them and their philosophy. You do not burn documents and kill people that you do not fear.

They believed in the more pure communistic demographic shape that they saw in heaven. Not the man made demographic ladder of authority that the Church was selling.

Whatever Constantine was, he got the tool he paid for. He bough a Church. We are still under his thumb and suffer the shame of the Bible we ended up with.

Regards
DL

 

[Justafool]

Constantine did not determine the canon of the scriptures. The council of Nicea did not discuss it.

He who pays the bill buys what he wants.

Regards
DL

 

[Truthstalker]

Truthstalker;4969520:

There is so much to respond to, and so many ways, that I hardly know where to start or what approach to use.

QUOTE]

I see that you decided on the, run away after some BS approach.

I must have hit a nerve. Sorry.

Regards
DL

Amusing. I am off line for a few hours and you conclude that I ran away. This is consistent with your overall lack of logic. Your stuff is so way out there that it hits nothing, let along a nerve, let along anything approximating the truth. No BS in what I said. You need to figure out what the basis for what you believe is, or the lies will trip you up.

 

[Truthstalker]

He who pays the bill buys what he wants.

Regards
DL

Constantine was Arian. The Church is not Arian. Therefore your argument fails.

 

[jimmy]

I sheep them the way I see them. According to scripture, to say someone is a sheep is a compliment.
I am a goat, I can tell the difference. If truth hurts so be it. I will not lie.

Gnostics believed that all had individual access to God, not just a few. They did not believe that they had to climb some pyramidal demographic shape to find God. They were right and that is why the Church feared them and their philosophy. You do not burn documents and kill people that you do not fear.

They believed in the more pure communistic demographic shape that they saw in heaven. Not the man made demographic ladder of authority that the Church was selling.

Whatever Constantine was, he got the tool he paid for. He bough a Church. We are still under his thumb and suffer the shame of the Bible we ended up with.

Regards
DL

You avoid the points as you accused Truthstalker of doing. The fact is that Constantine was an Arian and the orthodox bishops like Athanasius and Marcellus were exiled. To say that Constantine bought the Church is a completely ignorant comment. It avoids the facts of reality for an agenda.

The very idea of gnosticism is that it was based on a secret knowledge.

“The designation Gnosticism, derived from the Greek gnostikos (one who has gnosis, or “secret knowledge”), is a term of modern scholarship. Evidence for the Gnostic phenomenon, found in the Church Fathers who opposed Gnostic teachings (Irenaeus, c. 185; Hippolytus, c. 230; Epiphanius, c. 375) and in the Gnostic writings themselves, reveals a diversity in theology, ethics, and ritual that defies strict classification. Yet Gnostic sects appear to have shared an emphasis on the redemptive power of esoteric knowledge, acquired not by learning or empirical observation but by divine revelation.” [From the Encyclopedia Britanica as quoted here HughesNet Satellite Internet | 1-855-782-4594 | Satellite Internet ]

Or there is this here

“Among the majority of the followers of the movement, ‘Gnosis’ was understood not as meaning ‘knowledge’ or ‘understanding’, in our sense of the word, but ‘revelation’. These little Gnostic sects and groups all lived in the conviction that they possessed a secret and mysterious knowledge, in no way accessible to those outside, which was not to be proved or propagated, but believed in by the initiated, and anxiously guarded as a secret. This knowledge of theirs was not based on reflection, on scientific inquiry and proof, but on revelation… [encyclopedia Britannica as quoted here An Overview of Gnosticism and the Bible ]

This is the very reason why St. Irenaeus (in AD 170) anchors the faith to the scriptures and to the Tradition handed down from the apostles and present in the apostolic Churches like that at Rome. He is arguing against the secret knowledge of the gnostics (gnosis means knowledge). It is through him and other early Christians that we know what the gnostics believed.

 

[jimmy]

He who pays the bill buys what he wants.

Regards
DL

Too bad his theology was condemned by a council that was held during his reign. If that weren’t the case you might have had a point.