Early Christianity · Part 1 · Gnosis · B1–B2
What Was Gnosis? A Hidden God, a Foolish Creator and a Spark of Light
Part 1 of Early Christianity: in the second century some Christians taught that the world was made not by the highest God but by a lesser, ignorant creator, and that salvation comes through knowledge. What did they believe, how do we know, and was “Gnosticism” ever really one thing? Reporting verbs: claim, argue, deny, accuse … of, describe … as.
Read: the knowledge that saves
Before you read
The Roman Empire, about 100 – 400 CE
In the first centuries of Christianity, there was no single Christian Church with one set of beliefs. Groups in different cities read different books, followed different teachers and argued about who Jesus was. Some of these Christians taught that the most important thing was gnōsis, a Greek word that means knowledge: not knowledge from books, but a secret, inner knowledge of God and of where the human soul really comes from.
Their opponents called them Gnostics, “the people who know”, and some of them may have used the name themselves. For more than 1,500 years we knew them almost only through the books of those opponents, who wrote to refute them. Then, in 1945, farmers in Egypt dug up a jar full of ancient books, and for the first time many of these Christians could speak for themselves.
For the Gnostics, people are not saved by obeying rules, but by waking up and remembering who they are.
The text
The story told in the Secret Book of John, and what its enemies said about it
One of the most important Gnostic books, the Secret Book of John, tells a story of how the world began. Above everything is a perfect God, so great that no words can describe him. From this God come other divine beings, called aeons, who together make up the “fullness”, the world of light. The last of these aeons is called Sophia, which means “Wisdom”. Sophia tries to create something on her own, without her partner and without the consent of the great God, and she produces a monster: a proud, ignorant being with the face of a lion and the body of a snake.
This being, often called Yaldabaoth, makes the material world and the bodies of the first humans. He boasts, “I am God, and there is no other God beside me,” but he is wrong: he simply does not know that there is a higher God above him. Plato had called the maker of the world the Demiurge, the “craftsman”, and had described him as good. In these Gnostic stories, the Demiurge is not good, but blind. Without knowing it, he breathes into Adam a spark of light from the true God. That spark is still in some human beings, trapped in their bodies, and a saviour comes from above to remind them of it and to lead them home.
The best-known critic of these ideas was Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon in Gaul, who wrote five books around 180 CE called Against Heresies. He accused the Gnostics of inventing myths, described their teaching as “knowledge falsely so called”, and argued that the God who made the world and the God of Jesus are one and the same. Later writers, such as Hippolytus in Rome and Epiphanius in Cyprus, added more groups to the list. Their books are very useful, but they were written by enemies, and they sometimes repeat rumours, for example that some Gnostics lived immoral lives, which the Gnostic texts themselves do not support.
In 1945, near the town of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, a man digging for fertile soil found a sealed jar. Inside were thirteen leather-bound books containing about fifty texts in Coptic, the Egyptian language of the time, translated from Greek and buried, it is thought, in the late fourth century. Among them were the Secret Book of John, the Gospel of Truth and the Gospel of Thomas. Today scholars can compare what the critics said with what the books really say.
Reporting verbs
How to report what people said
Grammar for history: saying who said what, without saying it is true
When we write about the past, we often report what someone claimed, not what we know. English has many reporting verbs, and each one tells the reader something about the speaker’s attitude: Irenaeus claimed that the Gnostics invented their myths (we are not sure he was right). The Gnostics argued that the world was made by a lesser god (they gave reasons).
Learn the patterns, because they are different: claim / argue / insist / deny + that …; deny + -ing (They denied being immoral); accuse someone of + -ing (He accused them of inventing myths); describe / dismiss someone or something as … (He dismissed their teaching as false); refuse / agree + to (They refused to obey the Demiurge).
Words of belief and argument
| Word | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| gnosis | knowledge, especially secret knowledge of God | salvation through gnosis |
| heresy / heretic | a belief the majority Church rejected / a person who holds it | a book against heresies |
| orthodox | accepted as correct by the main tradition | orthodox Christians |
| myth | a sacred story about gods and the beginning of things | the myth of Sophia |
| the material world | the world of matter and bodies | made by the Demiurge |
| refute | prove that someone is wrong | Irenaeus wrote to refute them. |
| codex (pl. codices) | an ancient book with pages, not a scroll | thirteen codices |
Evidence check
| Claim | Label | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Some early Christians taught that a lesser god made the world. | Consensus | Their own texts, found at Nag Hammadi, say so, and so do their critics. |
| “Gnosticism” was one movement with one set of beliefs. | Debated | Many scholars now say the label joins very different groups; others keep it for one group that called itself “Gnostic”. |
| Gnosticism existed before Christianity. | Debated | Once a popular theory; most scholars today doubt it, though the ideas drew on Jewish and Platonic sources. |
| The Gnostics lived immoral lives. | Not supported | A charge made by their enemies; most of the texts recommend a strict, self-denying life. |
| The Nag Hammadi books were buried in the fourth century. | Likely | The covers and the papers used to stiffen them date from that time; why they were buried is not known. |
Comparison: what lived on
After the Gnostics
Mani, the Mandaeans and the Cathars
In the third century, a Persian prophet called Mani founded a religion that also taught that sparks of light are trapped in the world of darkness. Manichaeism spread from North Africa to China before it disappeared. The Mandaeans, a small religious community from Iraq and Iran who honour John the Baptist, are often described as the only surviving religion with Gnostic beliefs, though scholars debate how they are related to the ancient groups. In the Middle Ages, the Cathars of southern France also believed that an evil power made the material world; whether there is a direct line from the ancient Gnostics to them is doubtful.
Summary
| Words and forms | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| claim / argue / insist that | reporting an opinion or argument | They argued that the world was flawed. |
| deny + that / -ing | saying something is not true | They denied being immoral. |
| accuse someone of + -ing | reporting a charge | He accused them of inventing myths. |
| describe / dismiss … as | reporting a judgement | He dismissed it as false knowledge. |
| gnosis, aeon, Demiurge | Gnostic ideas | The Demiurge made the material world. |
| heresy, orthodox, refute, codex | words of debate and sources | a codex from Nag Hammadi |
Practice
Read the text for Section A, then do the rest. Press “Check my answers” at the end. You can try again as many times as you like.
A · The text
Read the text and choose the best answer.
1. What does the Greek word gnōsis mean?
2. In the Secret Book of John, who makes the material world?
3. How was the Gnostic Demiurge different from Plato’s?
4. What is trapped in some human beings, according to the myth?
5. Why must we read Irenaeus with care?
6. Why is the Nag Hammadi find so important?
B · Grammar and vocabulary
Write the missing word.
7. Irenaeus accused the Gnostics inventing myths.
8. He described their teaching “knowledge falsely so called”.
9. The Gnostics denied immoral. (be)
10. Irenaeus wrote five books to them: to prove them wrong. (r…)
11. Thirteen ancient books with pages were found in the jar: thirteen . (plural of codex)
12. A belief that the majority Church rejected was called a . (h…)
C · Right or wrong?
Is the sentence correct English?
13. “Irenaeus accused them to invent myths.”
14. “Some scholars argue that the label is misleading.”
15. “They denied to live immoral lives.”
16. “He dismissed their teaching as false knowledge.”
Talk and write
Discussion and writing
Two witnesses. Imagine one account of a group written by its members and one written by its enemies. What would each include, and what would each leave out? Report both with reporting verbs: The members claim that…, Their critics accuse them of…
Discuss. 1. Why might the idea that the world was made by an ignorant god appeal to people who saw much suffering? 2. Is it fair to judge a group only by what its opponents wrote? 3. Should historians keep a label like “Gnosticism” if the groups it covers were very different?
Write (100–130 words). What the Gnostics believed. Report their beliefs and their critics’ views fairly, using at least five different reporting verbs.