I haven’t had to think about the Gnostics in a long time! This question goes all the way back to the very beginnings of the Christian movement.

Though it’s hard to imagine now, the orthodox, Trinitarian Christianity we know today took a long time to develop. We can speak of a “proto-orthodox Christianity” as that strand of Christianity that eventually came to dominate the church, the Christianity of which we are a part.

Proto-orthodox Christianity however developed alongside other theologies and doctrines. Over time, many of these alternative beliefs were deemed to be “heretical”, that is, in opposition to the authoritative beliefs of the church. Gnosticism is one such alternate.

No one knows for certain when, where, or how the Gnostic movement began – Gnosticism is as diverse as orthodox Christianity (think of how different Lutherans are from Pentecostals, Baptists, Eastern Orthodox, or Amish, all of which are strands of generally orthodox Christianity). There’s evidence that elements of Gnosticism are pre-Christian and pre-Jewish in origin, going back to at least the teachings of ancient Greek philosophy. What is known is that very soon after the “founding” of Christianity, there were groups that put a Gnostic spin on it. Valentinus, one of the best known early Gnostic Christians, was born in 100 CE — mere years after the Gospel according to John was written.

Much of what we know about early Gnosticism comes from its opponents, writers representing orthodox Christianity who penned arguments against it. As the church developed and established its doctrines, it had to define those doctrines and exclude others (think of how Lutheranism talks about justification “by grace, through faith” and excludes justification through our own works). A lot of ink was used arguing why Gnosticism wasn’t orthodox, and probably just as much was used to argue that it was. Ultimately, the orthodox teachings came to be accepted as true doctrine, while Gnostic teachings were rejected. After about the end of the fourth century, the influence of Gnosticism declined.

But why? What does Gnosticism teach?

While Gnosticism encompasses a wide range of beliefs, there are common ideas across the movement.

The major belief that sets Gnosticism apart from orthodox Christianity is the belief that the ultimate, perfect, transcendent God is NOT the creator of the universe. Instead, this God, who in no way interacts with the world we inhabit, created the primeval “substance” of the universe. That substance, that essence, eventually brought forth other divine beings called Aeons, part of but separate from the true God. One of these Aeons, Wisdom (who appears as a similar character in the Bible, in the book of Proverbs) brought forth another divine being, but a flawed one, sometimes called the Demiurge. It’s THIS being, the Demiurge, that created the material world. Because the being that created the world was flawed and imperfect, so is the world it created, which is why evil exists.

In this system, ALL of the created world is irredeemably evil. But we human beings, though our bodies and everything physical are evil, also contain a bit of the “divine spark”, a piece of the divine essence of the true God. Gnosticism is a system then that attempts to free that divine spark from our evil bodies and return them to God – not the god that created the world, but the true, unknowable, unreachable God.

The name itself, “Gnostic”, means “knowledge”. Gnosticism teaches that human beings achieve salvation by freeing themselves from ignorance of their true nature, often through mysticism or direct experiences with the divine (note that Christian mystics have similar experiences, but with different outcomes).

Gnostic Christianity also conceives of Christ Jesus differently than orthodox Christianity. Sometimes, Jesus is the incarnation of the supreme divine being who came to earth to give special “knowledge”, willingly becoming temporarily trapped in evil flesh. Sometimes Christ is another spirit, an Aeon, who briefly inhabits the human Jesus but leaves before his crucifixion. Sometimes Christ Jesus is a spirit who never had a body at all (since all physical things are evil) and only – appeared – human. In any case, in Gnosticism, it’s not Christ or God who saves. Christ helps by sharing knowledge and fighting ignorance of our true selves, but we are responsible for shedding our ignorance and embracing our true, divine nature.

As a Lutheran pastor, part of orthodox Christianity, who relies so much on the foundational beliefs of the faith expressed in the three ecumenical creeds (Apostles’, Nicene (-Constantinopolitan), and Athanasian), I struggle with Gnosticism. I believe in a Christ that is fully God and fully human, the divine Word incarnate in the flesh, who stressed how deeply God loved all of creation, how invested God is in the well-being of the universe, and who ultimately proved it through his death on the cross; and who, in destroying the hold and power of sin and death in his resurrection, opened the way of salvation for all. The differences between Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, vast as they can be, are usually differences based on interpretations of these fundamental Christian truths. Gnosticism rejects them entirely.

Not that I think Gnosticism or Gnostics are evil. Gnosticism, like orthodox Christianity, is an attempt to make sense of the experience of God in Christ Jesus. It’s just an interpretation that I don’t find compelling or adequate. Because it relies on us to save ourselves, it neither gives me hope for a better world nor instills much confidence that salvation is even possible.

— Pastor Ken Ranos