Nag Hammadi texts
I was asked some time ago about Gnosticism. If you recall, Pastor Phil has even mentioned Gnostic thought in some of his sermons from the book of Hebrews. So, what is Gnosticism? What about those “lost Gospels” we hear about on TV? Let’s take a look:
Gnosticism is modern term to describe a number of religious and philosophical perspectives that existed before the establishment of Christianity and extended into the first two centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus. In reecent years there has been a been a resurgence in this school of thought due primarily to the findings of their writings at Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945 as well as books like Dan Brown’s, “Davinci Code”. The term “gnosticism” is derived from the Greek word gnosis (knowledge) because secret knowledge was so crucial a doctrine in gnosticism. These writings found at Nag Hammadi are often called Christen Gnostic writings because they attribitute themselves to Christian’s such as the Prayer of the Apostle Paul, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Sophia of Jesus Christ and more. However, few scholars believe at all that they were written by the persons they were attributed to.
Irenaeus
Gnosticism was and is considered heresy in the early church as well as today. Irenaeus, an early church leader from the 3rd century reported that one of the reasons the Apostle John wrote his Gospel was to refute the views of Cerinthus, an early Gnostic. Over against the gnostic assertion that the true God would not enter our world, John stressed in his Gospel that Jesus was God’s incarnate Son.
Gnosticism emerged in schools of thought within the church in the early second century and soon established itself as a way of understanding Christianity. By the end of the second century many of the Gnostics belonged to separate, alternative churches or belief systems viewed by the church as heretical. Gnosticism was a major threat to the early church; and the early church leaders, such as Irenaeus (died about 200), Tertullian (died about 220), and Hippolytus (died about 236), wrote many volumes against it.
Although wide variations existed among the many gnostic sects, certain major features were common to most of them:
- the separation of the god of creation from the god of redemption
- the division of Christians into categories with one group being superior
- the stress on secret teachings which only divine persons could comprehend
- the exaltation of knowledge over faith.
Marcion
Gnostics generally distinguished between an inferior god whom they felt was responsible for the creation and the superior god revealed in Jesus as the Redeemer. This was a logical belief for them because they opposed matter to thought in a radical way. Matter was seen as inferior, sin-causing, and always deteriorating; thought or knowledge distinguished persons from matter and animals and was imperishable, capable of revealing god, and the only channel of redemption. The gnostic Marcion rejected the Old Testament, pointing out that the lesser or subordinate god revealed in it dealt with matter, insisted on law rather than grace, and was responsible for our decaying, tragedy-filled world. The god who revealed himself in Jesus and through the additional secret teachings was, on the other hand, the absolute god, and was not incarnate in human flesh because the absolute god would not enter evil matter—Christ only seemed or appeared to be a person, but He was not.
Gnostics divided Christians into groups, usually the spiritual and the carnal. The spiritual Christians were in a special or higher class than the ordinary Christians because they had received, as the elect of the good deity, a divine spark or spiritual seed in their beings which allowed them to be redeemed. Gnostics claimed that the spiritual Christians were not responsible for what they did and could not really sin. Thus they could act in any way they pleased without fear of discipline.
Again, gnostics always placed great stress on secret teachings or traditions. When a person received the gnosis or true knowledge, he became aware of his true identity with a divine inner self, was set free (saved) from the dominion of the inferior creator god, and was enabled to live as a true child of the absolute and superior deity. To be able to attain to your true destiny as the true deity’s child, you had to engage in specific secret rituals and in some instances to memorize the secret data which enabled you to pass through the network of powers of the inferior deity who sought to keep people imprisoned. Salvation was seen by the gnostics in a cosmic rather than a moral context—to be saved was to be enabled to return to the one true deity beyond this world.
The Gnostics thought faith was inferior to knowledge. The true sons of the absolute deity were saved through knowledge rather than faith. Yet what this precise knowledge was is quite vague. It was more a perception of one’s own existence that solved life’s mysteries for the Gnostic than it was a body of doctrine. The knowledge through which salvation came could be enhanced by participation in rituals or through instruction, but ultimately it was a self-discovery each Gnostic had to experience.
What about all those lost Gospels? I believe that were not ever true Gospels in the first place 
