Gnosticism (1st-7th Century)

Gnosticism is an ancient religion stemming from the first century (approximately), and is an alternative messiah-religion that shares many features with Christianity. An inferior angelic being created the Earth, and this being is a hindrance to spiritual development. Many Gnostic schools taught that the Hebrew Scriptures were the religious creation of this inferior god. To trick this god out of power, a saviour was sent by the true god, and the sacrifice of this innocent man undermined the power of the old god, allowing the possibility for people to become saved and align themselves with the true god. Gnosticism was heavily attacked by the first Christian anti-heresy writers. Some authors such as Freke & Gandy (1999) argue that Christianity as we know it is a shallow version of Gnosticism which has mistaken symbolic stories for real ones₁, whereas many academics find that the historical and archaeological evidence is unclear: Christianity and gnosticism are related, but, and although we don't yet know which one came first, it seems that early Christianity was much more Gnostic than it is now, and perhaps the gnostic/literalist divide simply didn't exist for the first two centuries of Christian history. By the 7th century, literalist Christians had overwhelmed Gnosticism and related forms of Christianity, leaving us with modern Trinitarian Christianity.

1. Gnostic Beliefs
   1. Gnostic Theology
   2. Gnostic World-Rejection and Asceticism
2. Gnosticism and Christianity
   1. Ancient Gnostic Christianity
   2. Signs and Symbols: The Early Christian Adoption of Secret Symbols
3. The Role of Jesus in Gnosticism
   1. The Christ in Jesus, Until the Crucifixion
   2. Adoptionism (The True God Adopted Jesus)
   3. Docetism (1st - 7th Century)
   4. St Paul the Gnostic
   5. The Rise of Literalist Christianity
4. If God is an Imposter and the True God is Hidden, then who are your Friends? (Cain and Judas!)
5. Page Index Search
6. Links

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1. Gnostic Beliefs

1.1. Gnostic Theology

“There was a Syrian branch of gnosticism, represented by Saturninus in the second century, of whom Irenaeus says '... Saturninus of Antioch... Taught that there is one Father, utterly unknown, who made angels, archangels, virtues, powers; and that the world, and all things therein, was made by certain angels. [...] The God of the Jews was one of the [evil] Angels [and] Christ came to destroy the God the of the Jews.”

"Jesus Versus Christianity" by Alfred Reynolds (1993)₂

“[Gnostic Christians] held that the sensible world had been created by an inferior deity named Ialdabaoth, the rebellious son of Sophia (heavenly wisdom). He, they said, is the Yahweh of the Old Testament, while the serpent, so far from being wicked, was engaged in warning Eve against his deceptions. For a long time, the supreme deity allowed Ialdabaoth free play; at last He sent His Son to inhabit temporarily the body of the man Jesus, and to liberate the world from the false teaching of Moses.”

"History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell (1946)₃

Professor Ehrman is the foremost expert in ancient & lost religions related to Christianity, and he explains at length about the historical position of Gnosticism:

“Gnosticism refers to a number of religious groups from the early centuries of Christianity that emphasized the importance of secret knowledge to escape the trappings of this material world. The name Gnostic itself comes from the Greek word for 'knowledge,' gnosis. Gnostics, then, are the ones who are in the know. And what do they know? They know the truth that can set them free from this world of matter, which was created not by the one true God but by lower, inferior, and often ignorant deities who designed this world as a place of entrapment for elements of the divine. Gnostic religions indicate that some of us have a spark of divinity within us, a spark that longs to be set free from the prison of our bodies. These religions provide the secret knowledge that allows us to transcend our mortal, material bodies to return to the heavenly realm whence we originally came, where we will once again live with the gods. [...]
That brings us to the state of the world today. Why is it a place of such misery, pain, and suffering? Because it is not the good creation of the ultimate true God. It is a faulty creation of a lower, inferior, ignorant and (sometimes) evil deity. [...] This misshapen and imperfect being is called by different names - most commonly Yaldabaoth, which may be related to the name of God in the Old Testament, Yahweh, Lord of Sabbaths. This divine miscarriage is, in fact, the creator God of the Jews, who ignorantly proclaimed, 'I am God and there is no other.' He simply didn't know that there were other gods, far superior to him in power and knowledge. [...] The goal of salvation, therefore, is not to create a paradise on earth, a Kingdom of God in this realm. The goal is to allow the divine sparks scattered among humanity to escape this material world, to become reunited, and to return to the realm whence they came. [...] Saving knowledge [...] must come down to us from above. A divine being - an aeon from the Pleroma - must come down to tell us what we need to know.”

"The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot" by Bart Ehrman (2006)₄

Hence, Gnostic Christians believe that the God of the Old Testament, the God of the Jews with its tough and harsh covenant and punitive and hateful nature, is the inferior creator-god of this world. In order to escape, and embrace the true, ultimate godhead, you must escape from the creation of the inferior god. Jesus was sent to provide the knowledge required to break free from this world. This is a complicated affair, and the general opinion of Gnostics is that not many people are capable of realizing the truth, and breaking free of the shackles of this world ₅, thus gnosticism is often called a mystery religion, a form of religiosity that was popular in the Roman Empire, and wherein the basic idea is that hidden teachings are placed within external mysteries (stories) that can only be properly understood once you have been told the secret of their interpretation.
Although in ancient history there various divine beings that came to give us the knowledge required for salvation, it is the Christian incarnation of this story that became dominant, and it is Christian gnosticism that is codified in most of the texts found so far by archaeologists. Having said that, historians know that various groups had various gnostic ideas, and some warn against calling all of them 'gnosticism', instead preferring "gnosis":

“Generally speaking, the Gnostics were Egyptians, Essene Jews, and early Christians, 'heretics' who practiced mystery cults based on the idea of 'knowing' the divine. Gnosis is now preferred to the term to Gnosticism - a religion of its own - as a label for this loosely connected group. [...] One Gnostic creation myth says that Sophia, the spirit of wisdom, signified by the dove that also was the sign of the Holy Spirit, was the child of the primeval silence and that Sophia herself was the mother of both Christ and [who] sent Christ to earth as the dove to enter the human man Jesus as he was being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.”

"Jealous Gods & Chosen People: The Mythology of the Middle East" by David Leeming (2004)₆

2. Gnosticism and Christianity

2.1. Ancient Gnostic Christianity

Many authors have written about the striking resemblance between many gnostic pagan beliefs, symbols and theology, and those of Christianity. Some authors such as Alfred Reynolds (1993) are not sure if it was Gnostics who adopted Christian ideas, or, if it was Christians who adopted Gnostic ideas, to form early Christianity. Authors such as Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy are sure that the gnostics provided such a large part of Christian symbolism that the latter is merely a shallow rewrite of the former. Gnosticism was later heavily opposed by 2nd, 3rd and 4th century Pauline and Nicene Christianity, which eventually wiped the Gnostics out, often with much violence. The Pauline/Nicene Christians explained that the similarities were the work of "devilish mimicry".
It is clear that Gnosticism and early Christianity are intrinsically linked. Almost all discovered gnostic manuscripts are connected with Christianity, "in that it is usually Christ himself who brings the knowledge necessary for liberation. As Jesus himself is recorded as saying in the Gospel of John: 'You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free' (John 8:32)"₄. Such gnosis can explain a great deal of the features of early Christianity.