Just how much Gnostic dogma seeped into Christianity?

[Rainbow Mage]

Examples: The idea that the flesh and the world is evil, and that the spirit is good and true. The idea that taking the Eucharist mystically joins a person to Christ. The idea that Baptism, Confirmation, Orders, etc. are levels of initiation into Christianity.

These were commonly Gnostic beliefs in the early centuries, and ideas that the church fathers didn't seem to speak of much. We see some fringe church fathers such as Origen speaking highly of these ideas.

So how much Gnosticism did go into Christianity exactly, when a split between the two took place? Because we know a split did take place. Valentinus and other Gnostic fathers considered themselves "Catholic".

 

[KennethM]

Hard to say, I mean Gnosticism, generally speaking, is a fairly wide array of beliefs with sets of common themes: duality, secret knowledge, etc. But there are a number of scholars who read the Johannine literature as being influenced by Gnostic beliefs in many ways and I recently read a journal article on Luke's influence on the Gospel of Thomas, so it works both ways. Though that's not surprising considering that Marcion of Sinope was a Gnostic and his canon list was Luke and 10 Epistles of Paul.

 

[outhouse]

Marcion of Sinope was a Gnostic

not really true. he had a form of it but not all together there.


Marcionism conceptualizes God in a way which cannot be reconciled with broader Gnostic thought

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Hard to say, I mean Gnosticism, generally speaking, is a fairly wide array of beliefs with sets of common themes: duality, secret knowledge, etc. But there are a number of scholars who read the Johannine literature as being influenced by Gnostic beliefs in many ways and I recently read a journal article on Luke's influence on the Gospel of Thomas, so it works both ways. Though that's not surprising considering that Marcion of Sinope was a Gnostic and his canon list was Luke and 10 Epistles of Paul.

Well both Gnostics and Orthodox Christians considered the sacraments of great importance, especially the Eucharist, but it can't be said if Gnostics influenced this in Orthodoxy.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

not really true. he had a form of it but not all together there.


Marcionism conceptualizes God in a way which cannot be reconciled with broader Gnostic thought

I don't know, Marcionism could sync pretty well with Sethianism. Sethianism held to the idea that the Jewish god was literally an evil god, and so did Marcion. Marcion said the Jewish god was none other then the Prince of Darkness, the devil himself.

 

[savethedreams]

I seen on a website during my studies of Religions a video on gnostic on a website. I always wonder.. How is gnostic different from any new age movement? How is it even Christian to begin with. I doesn't really make any sense to me, just much of meditation, and I don't and can't fathom on this universe being created on evil grounds.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

I seen on a website during my studies of Religions a video on gnostic on a website. I always wonder.. How is gnostic different from any new age movement? How is it even Christian to begin with. I doesn't really make any sense to me, just much of meditation, and I don't and can't fathom on this universe being created on evil grounds.

Gnosticism isn't new age for one. Gnosticism existed before Christianity, and the Gnostics who became Christians were likely already Gnostics who just picked up Christian ideas. Christian Gnosticism is Christian, but not all Gnosticism. Sufism, for example, is a form of Gnosticism, so is Zoroastrianism, arguably.

The argument of the Gnostic believing the universe was created evil is very open. Some Christian Gnostics took it very literally that the universe was created evil, and some not so literally.

Valentinus for example, said the demiurge is not literally an existing being, but a wrong view of the carnal mind about the Father. He said the Father cannot be a jealous god, because he cannot be jealous of his own members.

Some, like the Zoroastrians, believe there was a good god who created the world, but that an evil god messed it up. They don't believe these two are equal. They believe the evil god, Ahriman, was good when Ahura Mazda made him, and that he perverted this goodness.

I as a Gnostic don't believe in a creation of the physical world at all. I believe our personal souls have been created by a god or goddess, but it's up to each person to decide what that means, and how they respond to it.

 

[savethedreams]

Gnosticism isn't new age for one. Gnosticism existed before Christianity, and the Gnostics who became Christians were likely already Gnostics who just picked up Christian ideas. Christian Gnosticism is Christian, but not all Gnosticism. Sufism, for example, is a form of Gnosticism, so is Zoroastrianism, arguably.

The argument of the Gnostic believing the universe was created evil is very open. Some Christian Gnostics took it very literally that the universe was created evil, and some not so literally.

Valentinus for example, said the demiurge is not literally an existing being, but a wrong view of the carnal mind about the Father. He said the Father cannot be a jealous god, because he cannot be jealous of his own members.

Some, like the Zoroastrians, believe there was a good god who created the world, but that an evil god messed it up. They don't believe these two are equal. They believe the evil god, Ahriman, was good when Ahura Mazda made him, and that he perverted this goodness.

I as a Gnostic don't believe in a creation of the physical world at all. I believe our personal souls have been created by a god or goddess, but it's up to each person to decide what that means, and how they respond to it.

What is your belief based off of? What leads you to believe that? Under what foundation... (I AM NOT ATTACKING just understanding)

 

[Rainbow Mage]

What is your belief based off of? What leads you to believe that? Under what foundation... (I AM NOT ATTACKING just understanding)

Well my syncretized beliefs lead me to believe that for one, since I'm also a Kemetic and a Buddhist, sometimes my many paths are hard to harmonize. They don't necessarily have to, one can practice them seperately, but it's good to understand how they can harmonize when they can.

I believe my personal soul was created by a deity because Kemetics believe this. I do not believe a deity created my impersonal soul, however. I think that is always one with the force/Brahman/father, and that it isn't affected by anything in this carnal existence.

I think these two souls are seperate from one another, and there are also other types of souls. This is a very complex subject.

I don't believe in a creator god, because I don't believe a deity could make such a messed up world, if they could even make it at all. I'm not sure deities are that powerful, seeing as from my personal perspective, there was a time the personal gods of humans were literally born from the universal one.

Gnosticism agrees with most Pagan religions in this, that the personal gods of humans are beings who were born, they didn't always exist. They are also not perfect, and are not always good and loving.

This is why Christian Gnostics could formulate an argument of the Jewish god being a lesser god. Those who literally believed this based his character on what the OT says about this god, at a time these texts were read quite literally.

The Sethians wrote in their literature that this god was an ugly and twisted thing to be despised by one with true wisdom.

That is pretty much my view though, that the OT or any religious text should never be read literally, therefore the Jewish god likely isn't as evil as the text says. IMO, even if he was an evil deity, that wouldn't be bad. This plane of things needs evil just as much as good.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

To backtrack though, did any Gnostic beliefs actually seep into Christianity? After all, many fringe church fathers like Origen favored Gnostic ideas.

 

[KennethM]

Well like I was saying, a number of scholars believe that the Johannine literature is very influenced by Gnostic ideas. A cursory search led me to find the word "know" (usually either ειδω or γινωσκ&#969 71 times in just the Gospel of John. Bear in mind that John is also heavily dualistic relying on concepts of light/dark and life/non-life.

You're not going to find blatantly Gnostic concepts staring you in the face in orthodox Christianity, even in the Johannine literature but compare it to the Synoptics (or the Johannine epistles with Paul's) and you see something markedly different.

 

[esmith]

Until around 1945 little was known about the ancient Gnostic religion. In that year, near Nag Hammaid Egypt, some camel drives discovered 13 leather bound books. These books were original writings of gnostics. Within these 13 books were 42 tractates (anthologies) written sometime in the 4th century CE, but the tractates within them are much older, many back to the 2nd century or earlier. They are widely known as the Nag Hammadi library. The basic belief of the ancient Christian Gnostics are as follows:

[FONT=&quot]Gnostics were basically dualistic, understanding all realty was divided into two fundamental parts: matter(evil), spirit(good).
There were two Gods. The ultimate divine being was completely spirit and therefore, was not only unknown to humans, who acquired knowledge through their material sense, but unknowable.
The one true God propagated other spiritual deities, known as aeons, which taken together constituted the divine realm, the Pleroma. To make a long story short, one of the aeons made an imperfect divine who was removed from the Pelroma and as an evil act created the material world. The evil beings captured the mother deity (divine spark) and imprisoned her here in human bodies. Redemption for the divine spark can come by:
Redemption: acquiring the true knowledge of where the spark came from, how it came to be here and how it can escape.
Divine emissary: This knowledge cannot come by natural means, however. I t can come only from above if a divine aeon comes down to impart this knowledge (Jesus)

One problem for scholars reading these books is that they are written by Gnostics for Gnostics an presuppose gnostic beliefs. They do not therefor completely spell out these beliefs. The above "basic beliefs" were obtained by "reading between the lines" of the gnostic text themselves.

So how much Christian Gnostic beliefs filtered into orthodox Christian beliefs? I don't know, do you see any orthodox Christian beliefs.
[/FONT]

 

[Rainbow Mage]

No Gnosticism was known of before the discovery of the Nag Hammadi. Some of Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian's beliefs were deemed Gnostic and heretical. The Cathars are for all extensive purposes, Gnostic.

 

[esmith]

What was known prior to the Nag Hammadi books were lengthy and vitriolic attacks against them in the writings of orthodox church fathers, such as Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in Gaul (180 CE); Tertullian of Carthage (200 CE); and Hippolytus of Rome (220 CE). Obviously they knew about the Gnostic religion, albeit, being quite ruthless in their attacks. There may have been writings available to them, but if there were they were destroyed as heretic writings. The early orthodox church fathers were quite good at eradicating any beliefs that went against their beliefs; whether they were right or "wrong". (which has filtered down to the present time)

 

[astarath]

I think the question is backward. How much Christianity seeped into Gnosticism

 

[Rainbow Mage]

I think the question is backward. How much Christianity seeped into Gnosticism

That is a fair question, because the two certainly influenced each other. It's hard to tell if Gnosticism was a movement that picked up Christianity, or if Christian Gnosticism really does date back to the Apostles. Certainly some of the Gnostic fathers had apostolic sucession, and the Gnostics maintained traditions about sayings of Jesus, which were penned into gospels.

 

[esmith]

I think the question is backward. How much Christianity seeped into Gnosticism

It has been speculated that the Gospel of Thomas did not use the gospels of the NT and it is possible that the Gospel of Thomas was written before the NT gospels. Of course this is all speculation and whether Gnosticism influenced Christianity or Christianity influenced Gnosticism is strictly a conjecture. Possible the answer is they both influenced each other.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

It has been speculated that the Gospel of Thomas did not use the gospels of the NT and it is possible that the Gospel of Thomas was written before the NT gospels. Of course this is all speculation and whether Gnosticism influenced Christianity or Christianity influenced Gnosticism is strictly a conjecture. Possible the answer is they both influenced each other.

I think they both influenced each other, but I think Gnosticism influenced Christianity more. They say Christianity was a Jewish movement at it's origins. Gnosticism certainly isn't Jewish. Gnosticism is a philosophy based on Dualism, or either a direct evolution of Dualism into a more complex philosophy.

 

[astarath]

It has been speculated that the Gospel of Thomas did not use the gospels of the NT and it is possible that the Gospel of Thomas was written before the NT gospels. Of course this is all speculation and whether Gnosticism influenced Christianity or Christianity influenced Gnosticism is strictly a conjecture. Possible the answer is they both influenced each other.

Unfortunately the language of Thomas places it sometime after the writing of the canonized Gospels. The speculations don't match the facts of the etimology.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Unfortunately the language of Thomas places it sometime after the writing of the canonized Gospels. The speculations don't match the facts of the etimology.

No, many scholars maintain there is a source tradition between Thomas and Mark, like there is Q between Matthew and Luke. That's why many are now starting to place Thomas in the 40-70 CE bracket.