GNOSTICISM, (from gnostic, from Lat. gnosticus, Gk. yvidartsoc, gndstikos, re lating to knowledge, from rweroc, gnOstos, knowable, from ytyvexalv, gignilskein, to know). The name given to several more or less closely related speculative systems, which flourished in the Church of the second century. Like much of the philosophy of that time, the Gnostic sys tems were syncretistic, drawing their materials from Jewish. Christian, and pagan (Oriental) sources. They were cosmological rather than theological in character, their aim being to de scribe how the cosmic order was originally pro jected, then lost, and finally restored.
Knowledge appears among the 'spiritual gifts' of the New Testament (I. Cor. xii. 8; xiii. 2), and Paul refers also to a 'hidden wisdom' (aooia), which he ventured to use among the 'perfect' (I. Cor. ii. 6, 7). Such expressions as these make it easy to understand how the apostolic teaching might easily come to be regarded as esoteric, as was the case among some Gnostic sects in the second century. Even before the close of the New Testament we find warnings against a 'false' knowledge (I. Tim. vi. 20), which doubtless refers to some kind of Gnostic speculation already judged to be dangerous to the faith. Nevertheless, Gnostic ideas were long current within the Church, and often during the early period they were maintained without of fense. Ignatius of Antioch, at the beginning of the second century, uses Gnostic language in speaking of Christ as the Logos of God, 'who proceeded from silence' (Ep. to Magnesians, 8). And in II. Clement, 14, we meet ag,ain, with Gnos tic terms, where the preacher says: "I do not sup pose ye are ignorant that the living Church is the body of Christ, for the Scripture saith God made man male and female. The male is Christ, and the female is the Church." In other words, the Gnostics were Christian theologians, a fact which is forgotten by some who have attempted to describe them. Their form of religious thought was but one out of many tendencies in their time —a tendency, to be sure, diverging from the main line of development until at last it was pro nounced heretical, yet whose history, until that time came, falls within, not without, the Church. Their leaders were persistent in maintaining that they drew their inspiration and authority from apostolic sources. So Valentinus traced his con nection with Paul through one Theudas; Basili des with Saint Peter through Glaukias (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, vii. 17). We learn from Epiphanius that Ptolemy declared he had the authority of 'apostolic tradition' for what he taught. In this respect the Gnostics pursued the same course as the ancient Catholic Church. But when Irena‘us wrote his great work, Against Heresies (A.D. 180-90), the Church had already begun to distinguish between 'ordinary' (i.e. orthodox) Christians and Gnostics, whom Irente us calls 'heretics.' We may therefore infer that about this time the exclusion of Gnostics from Church fellowship was beginning. After the close of the second century, whenever the claims of 'knowledge' are freely advanced and main tained by prominent writers (as, e.g. by Clement of Alexandria and Origen), it is a permissible Christian Gnosticism which they are describing and defending, not the Gnostic heresy which the Church had by that time rejected. To Clement the Christian is the only true Gnostic (Stromata, vii. passim).
In the almost complete absence of Gnostic literature, we are forced to rely upon its ortho dox opponents for information concerning the heresy. Our most important witnesses are Tre mens, Tertullian, Hippolytus. and Epiphanius; but light is also cast upon its early forms by Ignatius and Justin Martyr. Gnostics were nu merous after the end of the first century, and found in widely separated localities. (For the names of the leaders and sects, see GNosTics.) Their teachers differed from one another in de tails and in some important doctrines; neverthe less a remark made by Hippolytus in his account of the serpent-worshipers (Refutatio, v. i.) might be applied to all Gnostics alike: "Their detached heresies are essentially one." All were practically agreed in holding some sort of dualistic theory of the world, that spirit and matter, good and evil, are essen tially opposed to each other. Whatever comes in contact with matter shares in its con tamination; therefore the supreme God cannot be the Creator of the world. Of the supreme God indeed hardly anything can be predicated. He (It) is wholly transcendent, utterly remote from all that we know as existing. We might even call Him (It) the 'Non-existent,' as does Hippolytus. From information given mainly by Irenueus in his work Against Heresies we are able to construct an outline of the teaching of Valentinus, from which the place occupied by the Creating God will appear in due course. At the two extrem ities of thought are transcendent Deity and the Void, or Emptiness ( simtut). Between them there is no connection or communication. No world exists, nor is there any creative agency to produce a world. There is a series of divine be ings, ideas, or powers, called "Eons (aii,5vsc), which emanate in pairs from the First Cause, with diminishing dignity as they proceed. These iEons together constitute the Pleroma or Fullness of divine existence, as over against the Kenoma, or great Void. They are endowed with sexual polarity, a masculine a feminine ap pearing together; for example, Nous (voic, mind) and Aletheia ( et2,0Ha, truth) ; Logos (.16yoc, word or reason) and Zoe (("wui, life). These names remind one of the Gospel of John, from which very likely they were derived. The total number is thirty, corresponding to the un known and mysterious years of Christ's life, be fore he began his public ministry. They are arranged in groups of an Ogdoad, a Decad, and a Duodecad. One of the lowest and feeblest .Eons, Sophia (coda, wisdom), rashly attempts to mount up to a union with the great First Cause, or Father of All, and thereby interrupts the order or equilibrium of the whole system, which is the Gnostic 'fall.' By a complicated process some sparks of divinity become entangled with their opposite, namely the great Void, and from the resulting confusion emerges the Creator, or Dem iurge (dpuovpy6c, which suggests Plato's creat ing god), who proceeds to form the visible world, including man. He is the Jehovah of the Old Testament, the only God known to the Jews, but of course not the Supreme Being himself. The material creation, being more or less directly the consequence of an interrupted order, is itself by nature evil. And this evil quality, from which nothing material escapes, includes the human race.