Gnosticism

[Pegg]

Thank you everyone, I now have a better understanding. I had read the Gospel of Thomas before and recently purchased the Nag Hammadi library. What exactly makes the Gospel of Thomas a Gnostic text? Just because it says "secret words" in the beginning?

its gnostic because it provides information that the inspired writings do not. It goes into the activities and events relating to Jesus’ life from his early childhood on up to the time of his baptism, but these accounts have no basis in the Bible. Both Thomas and the Protevangelium of James are filled with fanciful accounts of miracles performed by Jesus as a child but none of this information comes from Jesus or his apostles.

These accounts may be the one Peter spoke of when he reminded Christians that they came to know of Christs power through 'eyewitnesses' rather then 'stories' about his power.
2Peter 1:16 "No, it was not by following artfully contrived false stories that we acquainted YOU with the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, but it was by having become eyewitnesses of his magnificence"

 

[David_2010]

One can informally use the term evil, evil is a privation of Good though, which itself is an attribute of God. So in this sense Satan is evil, but of course this simply means he is as far away from God, to put it in a limited but acceptable way, as it is possible to be. His exact being, whether he is a fallen angel or a principle, like the Homeric Gods, or some such I'm unsure of though.

Thanks for explaining it to me .

 

[Requia]

Thank you everyone, I now have a better understanding. I had read the Gospel of Thomas before and recently purchased the Nag Hammadi library. What exactly makes the Gospel of Thomas a Gnostic text? Just because it says "secret words" in the beginning?

It was part of those christian sects that were labeled Gnostic.