GNOSTICISM

During the early centuries of Christianity, one of the
strongest threats to the development of the new religion was a 
parallel philosophical-religious movement called Gnosticism. The term 
is derived from the Greek work gnostikos, meaning "one who knows," in 
turn based on a word for "knowledge," gnosis. To the Gnostics there 
were different types of knowledge. The knowledge they claimed to have 
was not derived from ordinary sources; it was a special knowledge that 
came only from a divine revelation. It came only to a select number of 
people, and Jesus Christ was the main source of revelation.

Gnosticism is a diverse set of ideas and doctrines that became quite 
popular throughout the Mediterranean world during the 2nd and 3rd 
centuries AD. Despite some wide divergence among the many schools, the 
core belief is that there is in mankind a divine spark that can be 
awakened by its divine counterpart through the means of revelation. 
One of the most prominent Gnostic teachers Valentinus taught in the 
2nd century that there are three types of human beings: spiritual, 
psychic, and fleshly. The spiritual are the Gnostics, those who are 
open to divine revelation and can receive the special knowledge that 
conveys salvation. Psychic people possess a soul and can, therefore, 
exercise free will. They can progress upward and become spiritual; if 
so, they are Christians. Or they can go downward into decay and become 
fleshly, or material--individuals who have no hope of true knowledge 
or salvation. According to the teachings of Valentinus, proof of his 
three classes of people can be found in the collected sayings of Jesus 
Christ and in the writings of Saint Paul as recorded in the New 
Testament.

Basic to the beliefs of Gnosticism is the conviction that the created, 
material world is evil. It was not created by the true, good God but 
was made by a lesser being. Only by escape from the material into the 
spiritual can there be any salvation. Only such an explanation, the 
Gnostics believe, explains the presence of evil in the world because 
the true, good God could not have created anything less than perfect.

Because the material body is inferior and evil, the spirit of an 
individual is dwelling in an alien atmosphere. This belief led the 
Gnostics to look upon Jesus as a human who received his Christ 
component, or part, during his lifetime, probably at his baptism. 
Therefore at his crucifixion he did not die but ascended to God from 
whom he came.

No specific origins of Gnosticism have ever been traced. It probably 
emerged from a variety of religious and philosophical trends in the 
Middle East and Greece. Some of its ideas certainly originated with 
the Greek philosopher Plato. The movement produced a large volume of 
writings, many of which perished because of opposition from 
Christians. In 1945 a sizable number of Gnostic texts was discovered 
in a jar by two men digging in the ground in a cemetery near Nag (or 
Naj') Hammadi, Egypt. This remarkable find was translated into English 
and published in 1977 as 'The Nag Hammadi Library'.
