Is Gnosticism its own religion that just happened to overlap with Christianity at some point, or is it simply a purer version of Christianity devoid of authoritarianism (i.e. Church-enforced dogmas) ?
Is Gnosticism its own religion that just happened to overlap with Christianity at some point, or is it simply a purer version of Christianity devoid o...
Second is correct. Gnosticism is the true teaching of Jesus.
Can you explain why the Orphic mysteries feel Gnostic despite belonging to a non-Christian environment?
Christian gnosis began when early christians made the connection between the fabled jesus and orpheus.
>bro Yahweh is literally the demiurge!!!
>Jesus and the authors of the New Testament constantly reference the Old?
>uhhhhh errrrrr durrrr just like ignore 90% of it then yeah!!!
Mystery cults were just that. Mysteries, as in wanting to keep their beliefs and practices hidden beyond their select members. How exactly you can confuse the most missionary driven faith to ever exist for being one of these is utterly beyond me
The Nicene Churches openly say which books they include in the Bible and which ones they deem "apocryphal".
What prevents them from editing or deleting single passages? Especially at a time when few people outside the clergy could read, they could have easily got away with it
Because the oldest found surviving documents of the New Testament all date to the late 1st and early 2nd century AD and bear close resemblance to the NT we know today.
Whereas virtually every gnostic themed gospel or anything connecting it to Christ all show up later in the historical record.
Also there’s a differences between books deemed apocryphal like the Shepard of Hermas or Enoch, and what the Niceans deemed as gnostic heresies like the gospels of Mary and Thomas infancy.
>Because the oldest found surviving documents of the New Testament all date to the late 1st and early 2nd century AD
And you think that's no big deal?
50+ years of distance from the event they were supposed to record.
Imagine if no biography of Mao Zedong existed until this very year, and only now someone tried to write one on the basis of surviving oral evidence, that's the equivalent
>Whereas virtually every gnostic themed gospel or anything connecting it to Christ all show up later in the historical record.
Marcion is *the* oldest Gospel according to at least some scholars. And if you think Marcion doesn't count as a Gnostic because something something hairsplitting, then Thomas, could be as early as late 1st century AD
>Also there’s a differences between books deemed apocryphal like the Shepard of Hermas or Enoch, and what the Niceans deemed as gnostic heresies like the gospels of Mary and Thomas infancy.
What's the difference? Either something is in the canon or it isn't
The point is A comes before B, and the OG gospels and Paul’s letters came decades or centuries before the gnostic ones.
>the Marxian gospel
Is predominantly made up of an edited gospel of Luke and a few letters.
Pretty much all scholars place Mark being the earliest around 64 AD
>what’s the difference
The difference is one is widely accredited as noncannoical but still faithful to the message, and one is seen as a twisted inversion.
Literally every sign on the road points to Gnosticism being an attempt of Hellenized philosophers like the middle platonists attempting to interpret the existing gospels in their own world view.
>Whereas virtually every gnostic themed gospel or anything connecting it to Christ all show up later in the historical record.
Anon we have gnostic texts from before he was supposed to have been born.
Gnosticism was just the Mystery-Religions attempts to survive within Christianity.
Their 'OT god/EL' is not 'the father' and the Serpent and Jesus are allied against him and working for 'the father'" retcon is kinda fun.
non-sense, christianity itself is a mystery religion
In a sense. It was a syncretism of all sorts of Mediterranean thought (including those mystery cults you mentioned
That anon is referring to the pre-Christian mystery cults - Orpheus, Mithras, Isis, Bacchus, etc.
This is important too. People really try to make Gnosticism and all gnostic shit into one cohesive movement when that’s simply not the case.
Very well said.
Neither. Gnosticism was a heterogenous movement of early christianity that shared some ideas about a flawed cosmos and demiurge. It is not a single movement and what we call gnosticism didn’t form outside of early christianity or predate it. Even so it was in dialogue with other religions around at the time like israeli movements, platonism, other mysteries, and, most importantly, other christian movements and thinkers we call more orthodox today
If you’re a heresiologist or a modern christian abiding by good ol nicene orthodoxy, you’d regard gnosticism as just a heretical offshoot of the early church. But instead we know that thinkers like Origin, Basilides, and Valentinus, who have gnostic or gnostic-adjacent ideas in the case of Origin, were very important thinkers for the early church and development of the coherent christian theology which emerged, who are still to some extent respected today. It wasn’t diametrically opposed to other christianities and some kind of “pure real message of christ” nor was it some evil heresy off doing their own evil heretic thing, or a secret prechristian freemason type group with the One™ True™ Truth™ of the universe. I recommend reading Nag Hammadi texts and the writings of Basilides, Valentinus, and even the heresiologists Iranaeus and Tertullian rather than just consuming le demiurge memes
>who are still to some extent respected today
By which mainstream Christian church?
Also, you answered "neither" at the beginning, but it seems to me that you're leaning towards the second option
>but it seems to me that you're leaning towards the second option
How so? I never implied gnosticism is somehow more true or purer than orthodox christianity. I only said it was not some far off unrelated thing, it was an important part of the dialogue of early christianity. Valentinus was nearly bishop of Rome. Origen, while probably not a “gnostic” is still regarded well by the Catholics. His biblical exegesis was a foundation for many writings that came later. He believed in metampsychosis which is a major heresy today and also had a somewhat negative view of matter. Clement is a canonized saint and also held many heretical ideas like docetism and metampsychosis which “gnostics” also held
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Photius the only source about Clement holding heretical beliefs?
It should be noted the only surviving Gnostic sect is Mandaeism which does not even believe in Jesus or Abraham, which suggests that Gnosticism isn't purely an offshoot of Christianity.
>which suggests that Gnosticism isn't purely an offshoot of Christianity.
True, but that's not the only hint in that sense.
Studying Greek and Egyptian mysteries will also lead you to the conclusion that the basic Gnostic ideas (world as a prison and not a home, duality of spirit and matter) can be found outside of the Nag Hammadi library (if not too easily)
Christianity + Platonism + Mysterian religions = Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a israeli psyop.
Starting at 1:01:34.
Gnosticism isn't really a thing, it's a scapegoat used by Christians.
Plotinus didn't write a work called "against the gnostics" but "against those who believe the creator is evil".
I notice the Gnostic hysteria comes mostly from Protestant -- who essentially worship a book compiled and officiated by the Church of Rome. They can't comprehend that real Christianity was Gnosticism as it will break down their whole belief structure from a to b. There is a deep insecurity about it all.