II. Underlying Unity Despite Wide Diversity
Gnosticism’s most conspicuous teachers were Valentinus, Saturninus, Basilides, and Marcion. Carpocrates might also be listed. Confusing diversity marked the teachings of these factional leaders, yet there was an underlying unity. All factions were united, first, in stressing pagan Dualism, and second, in considering themselves spiritual and therefore immortal by nature. The immortality sought by mankind was believed theirs by virtue of the very constitution of their being—an inherent aristocracy, not a gift of divine goodness or one obtained by impartation of divine character.CFF1 862.1
What the Apostolic and early Ante-Nicene Fathers had insisted was a conferred gift, or grace, all Gnostics regarded as innately theirs. This point is important: They would automatically be saved, they held, because they were spiritual—irrespective of conduct. The sinister effect of such a concept of immortality was inevitable. The immortal might even rightly do things sinful for others and not come under condemnation.CFF1 862.2
Such was the confusing and grossly misleading picture presented to the pagan world by these warring Gnostic factions, all claiming the name of “Christian.” Thus all Christians were divided into three categories. Some souls were spiritual and sure of salvation because of their special knowledge. Others were recognized as Psychical, having soul without spirit, whose salvation, if possible, was yet to be effected. Still others were considered material, and therefore hopelessly lost. Such was its fatalism. But this eerie medley becomes more confusing as we note the conflicting views of the factions.CFF1 862.3
1. VALENTINUS INJECTS “INTERMEDIATE” WAITING PLACE
Valentinus, for example, lists man’s accepted threefold nature as predominantly material, animal, or spiritual. The first partakes of the body of flesh, which all believed is only evil and doomed to destruction. The second is the imperfect, mundane animal soul. The third, or spiritual soul, is incorporeal like that of the Aeons, and destined to enter the Pleroma (abode of the Aeons) in the supermundane sphere, where the primary Ogdoad (Ruler) resides.CFF1 863.1
When the spiritual soul is divested of all animal sin, it is said to be irresistibly drawn back up to the Pleroma. But Valentinus, in touching on the survival of the soul after death, injects an “intermediate” waiting place for the soul until admitted to Heaven—a sort of embryonic Purgatory. The material portion passes to destruction, while the animal soul stays with the Demiurge in this intermediate place forever. CFF1 863.2
Furthermore, Valentinus held yet another pagan feature, drawn from Hinduism—immortality of things, as well as of persons. The Hindu philosophy held the immortality of all life, beasts being men in transitu. This too was part of Gnosticism. So metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, was likewise involved in its complexities.CFF1 863.3
2. FANTASTIC DEGRADING NOTIONS OF SATURNINUS
Saturninus of Rome, likewise strongly dualistic, held the fantastic notion that the Supreme but Unknowable God created a series of angels and other supernatural beings, which in turn created man. But, as originally formed, man was supposedly a “powerless entity” that wriggled on the ground like a worm, until a divine spark set him on his feet. Saturninus believed the God of the Jews to be one of the Creator-Angels. And he held that the Supreme Father sent Christ to destroy this Jewish God and to redeem such as were endowed with the divine spark. CFF1 863.4
3. BASILIDES’ “TRANSIT OF SOUL” FROM MITHRAISM
Basilides, of Syria, stressed that the Supreme God is separated from the world by 365 heavens—ranks of supermundane beings filling the space between the Supreme Being and the world of matter. This world, he held, is under the superintendency of the God of the Jews, who is of the lower rank, and always seeking to subject man to Himself. In order to free men, God sent His Nous (Mind), a spiritual being of high rank, into the world, who dwelt in Jesus, though He suffered in appearance only. But man must follow Him to secure freedom from matter, and so rise to the Supreme God. Basilides’ philosophy was also pantheistic, one of his designations of God being the “Non-existent” One. CFF1 864.1
The Basilidean doctrine—blending Persian, Hindu, and Neoplatonic ideas in its view of the descent and ascent of the soul through the heavens, appears to have borrowed this from Mithraism, which embodied such a belief. Basilides’ strange view was specifically this: The soul of man originated in the Ogdoad (eighth heaven, region of the fixed stars). From there it descended to the Hebdomad (seventh, or planetary heaven), where it acquired its “psychical nature,” and thence to earth, where it took on a carnal or corporeal nature.CFF1 864.2
On earth the soul of the spiritual man suffers until it obtains release from the body, which disintegrates into dust, while the departed soul ascends to the Hebdomad, where its psychical nature is cast off. Thus purified, it ascends to the Ogdoad, to dwell with the Great Archon (Ruler) in radiant light. Moreover, on earth the soul, having sinned in a previous life (transmigration), endures punishment in this life—being purged by appropriate punishment. This was, of course, an embryonic form of the later Purgatory. CFF1 864.3
4. MARCION REJECTS HEART OF CHRISTIAN FAITH
Marcion, of Rome, disposed of all historical foundations and established a purely imaginary system of Christianity, his special notion being that the gospel is wholly a gospel of love, to the exclusion of law. This led him to the rejection of the Old Testament. But that came from the pagan Gnosticism of ancient Egypt, which was starkly antinomian. The Demiurge, or Creator-God, revealed as the Old Testament Jehovah from Genesis 1 onward, Marcion held to be wholly a god of law, having nothing to do with the gospel of Christ.CFF1 865.1
Marcion held that it was the purpose of the Supreme God to overthrow the Demiurge. And, as the true contrast of law and spirit was understood by Paul alone, in New Testament times, only his ten epistles were accepted as canonical Scripture. Marriage and procreation were attributed to Satan, and Marcion also denied the human birth of the Saviour, regarding His body as a mere appearance, and His life and death as simply apparent—Docetism.CFF1 865.2
5. CARPOCRATES TAUGHT A LICENTIOUS ETHIC
Carpocrates of Alexandria likewise taught the transmigration of immortal souls, passing from body to body, until at last liberated, then soaring to God, the Maker of the world, who is above the angels. Carpocrates was also antinomian, preached a licentious ethic, and taught that Jesus was born by natural generation. CFF1 865.3
6. GNOSTIC HERESIES FORCE CHURCH TO DEFINE FAITH
Because of this babel of conflicting voices, confusion was confounded as to what “Christians” really believed, for the Gnostic factions all masqueraded under that name. In the very nature of the case, true Christian teachers were compelled to defend the genuine Christian faith against the multiform attacks of this vicious assailant. Thus it was that the Gnostic controversy forced the Christian Church to define her doctrinal beliefs and basic positions, and hastened the development of her early formulas of faith, or creeds, as well as defining the accepted canon of Old and New Testament Scriptures. When these were duly defined and recognized, the Gnostics were then shut out from Christian fellowship.CFF1 865.4