54 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
54 lines
3.1 KiB
Plaintext
GNOSTICISM
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During the early centuries of Christianity, one of the
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strongest threats to the development of the new religion was a
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parallel philosophical-religious movement called Gnosticism. The term
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is derived from the Greek work gnostikos, meaning "one who knows," in
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turn based on a word for "knowledge," gnosis. To the Gnostics there
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were different types of knowledge. The knowledge they claimed to have
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was not derived from ordinary sources; it was a special knowledge that
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came only from a divine revelation. It came only to a select number of
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people, and Jesus Christ was the main source of revelation.
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Gnosticism is a diverse set of ideas and doctrines that became quite
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popular throughout the Mediterranean world during the 2nd and 3rd
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centuries AD. Despite some wide divergence among the many schools, the
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core belief is that there is in mankind a divine spark that can be
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awakened by its divine counterpart through the means of revelation.
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One of the most prominent Gnostic teachers Valentinus taught in the
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2nd century that there are three types of human beings: spiritual,
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psychic, and fleshly. The spiritual are the Gnostics, those who are
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open to divine revelation and can receive the special knowledge that
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conveys salvation. Psychic people possess a soul and can, therefore,
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exercise free will. They can progress upward and become spiritual; if
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so, they are Christians. Or they can go downward into decay and become
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fleshly, or material--individuals who have no hope of true knowledge
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or salvation. According to the teachings of Valentinus, proof of his
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three classes of people can be found in the collected sayings of Jesus
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Christ and in the writings of Saint Paul as recorded in the New
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Testament.
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Basic to the beliefs of Gnosticism is the conviction that the created,
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material world is evil. It was not created by the true, good God but
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was made by a lesser being. Only by escape from the material into the
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spiritual can there be any salvation. Only such an explanation, the
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Gnostics believe, explains the presence of evil in the world because
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the true, good God could not have created anything less than perfect.
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Because the material body is inferior and evil, the spirit of an
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individual is dwelling in an alien atmosphere. This belief led the
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Gnostics to look upon Jesus as a human who received his Christ
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component, or part, during his lifetime, probably at his baptism.
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Therefore at his crucifixion he did not die but ascended to God from
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whom he came.
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No specific origins of Gnosticism have ever been traced. It probably
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emerged from a variety of religious and philosophical trends in the
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Middle East and Greece. Some of its ideas certainly originated with
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the Greek philosopher Plato. The movement produced a large volume of
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writings, many of which perished because of opposition from
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Christians. In 1945 a sizable number of Gnostic texts was discovered
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in a jar by two men digging in the ground in a cemetery near Nag (or
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Naj') Hammadi, Egypt. This remarkable find was translated into English
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and published in 1977 as 'The Nag Hammadi Library'.
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