Gnostic Origins
GNOSTIC ORIGINS
No one knows how the Gnostics originated, though they obviously came out of "fringe"
Judaism and Christianity. They knew something of Greek philosophy, more about theosophy, and their fondness for dualistic thought, speculative cosmology, mythology, and spiritualizing ideas about Christ, all expressed in mysterious language, won them some converts. Gnostics "knew" the real meaning of Christianity (not what others supposed it was) and kept it fairly secret. No one knows how many there were. If the mediaeval
Albigensians present any parallel, there were relatively few. There were few Christians, fewer Gnostics.
Though Irenaeus wrote primarily against the Valentinians, he used earlier Gnostic heresies to indicate their "source and root" and their unapostolic succession, claiming that thus the system would be overthrown (1.23–31) and relying primarily on Justin's lost treatise Against all Heresies, which Justin himself said discussed Simon Magus, his disciple
Menander, and Marcion (and others not listed).1 Since in his Dialogue Justin also mentions the followers of Saturninus, Basilides, and Valentinus, he may have discussed them in the lost work too.2 Irenaeus has done his own research for Valentinus, and presumably also for Carpocrates, whose successful missionary Marcellina was at Rome under Anicetus, and Cerinthus, active in Asia. Supposedly the Ebionites and the Nicolaitans shared the Christology of Carpocrates and Cerinthus. Irenaeus promises a separate refutation of Marcion with use of his writings. His own (later?) research involved the Oration and other writings of his contemporary Tatian, Justin's disciple but a heretic after his master's death. He investigated what we know as the Apocryphon of John for the doctrines of the "Barbelo-Gnostics" and did further research for his account of what must be the Ophites, without troubling to see how repetitious the description was. He could not stop writing until he had dealt with the "Cainites," whose literature, including the Gospel of Judas, he says he has read.3
Irenaeus' basic approach was genetic. He believed that he could undermine contemporary
Valentinians by showing that they had forerunners and that these forerunners were wrong and perverted. Justin had pointed out that the demons inspired the Gnostic teacher Simon
Magus only in the reign of Claudius (41–54), after the ascension of Christ, and that he had a disciple named Menander; then he skipped to Marcion in his own time.4 The argument that wrong interpretations of school teaching are late comes from the philosophical schools, notably in the debates over correctness as to what Plato taught.5
The first of Valentinus' supposed ancestors was Simon Magus. Irenaeus begins his account of him by weaving together several sources, prefacing quotations from Acts 8:9–
11 and 20–23, adding anti-heretical materials derived from Justin on Simon's expertise in magic and his statue erected by Claudius Caesar, and ending with the heretical theological statement that Simon appeared among the Jews as Son, descended in Samaria as Father, and came to the other nations as Holy Spirit.
Then he turns to sketch the Simonian myth. In the beginning Simon conceived his First
Thought, the Mother of all, so that she would give birth to the angels and archangels by whom this world was made. Farther on, in the account of Simon's fallen Thought, Helen,
Gnostic origins the duplication is fairly obvious. We hear twice about the attitude and activities of the rebellious angels, in accounts we may call A and B, presumably reflecting two sources again.
A B
Simon was unknown to them After she generated them she was held captive by them out of envy since they did not want to be considered the offspring of anyone but his Thought was held captive by the powers and angels she had emitted.
And she suffered complete disgrace from them unable to return upward to her father .
She passed from body to body and always suffered disgrace. Finally she was in a brothel; She was the "lost sheep."
She was enclosed in a human body, and through the ages passed into other female bodies as from one case into another.
Since she was in Helen of Troy, when the poet Stesichorus cursed her in his poems he went blind, but later when he repented and praised her in his "palinodes," he saw again.
Stesichorus did write a Helen and two Palinodes on Homer and Hesiod,6 but the story about recovering sight is in Plato, where Simonian theologians may have found it.7 Finally she stood in a brothel in Tyre, the "lost sheep" (Luke 15:4–6), where Simon found her and took her with him (1.23.2).
There also seem to be two accounts of Simon's descent to earth.
When the angels misgoverned the world, since each desired the primacy, he came down in order to correct the situation.
He himself came in order to recover her and set her free and provide salvation by the Gnosis of himself.
He appeared among the Jews as Son, When Simon came down to earth he appeared as a man, though not a man, and was thought to suffer in Judaea, though he did not suffer.
He came down in Samaria as Father, and arrived among the other nations as Holy Spirit.
He was really the Supreme Power.
He was the Father above all, though he was willing to be called Zeus or other names.
In his ethical teaching he rejected the Old Testament prophets, claiming that they were inspired by the angels who made the world, no doubt because of the diverse divine names in the Old Testament. "Those who have hoped on him and Helen" can ignore the prophets and do whatever they will. Like Pauline Christians, they are saved by his grace, not by just works (Eph. 2:8–9).
Both Justin and Irenaeus regard Menander as Simon's successor, though Irenaeus reports that Menander was sent by the first unknown Power as another Savior of mankind.
Menander therefore must have been not Simon's successor but an independent religious teacher who demanded baptism into himself, not Simon or Helen. Unfortunately he promised immortality on earth and lost credibility when his followers died (1.23.5).
Saturninus, in turn, knows Menander's Father unknown to all, who made various spiritual powers, seven of whom then made "the world and everything in it." When a
Irenaeus of Lyons luminous image appeared from the Supreme Power, the angels could not prevent its upward escape, but then encouraged one another to "make man after the image and the likeness" (1.24.1–2). They were too weak to make a product that could stand erect. Instead, it wriggled like a worm until the Power from above took pity on it (for it was made in its likeness) and emitted a spark of life that raised the man, set him on his feet, and made him live. After death this spark of life runs back above, but the rest returns to the original material elements.
Saturninus' story of redemption is based on the Christian one. He himself is not the Savior. Once more, we perceive a double narrative, with Christian sources more transparent in the first one.
The god of the Jews is one of the angels.
Two races of men were fashioned by the angels. one bad, the other good.
Because the Father wanted to destroy all the Archons, the Christ came for the destruction of the god of the Jews and for the salvation of those who believe in him.
As the demons helped the evil, the Savior came for the destruction of evil men and demons and for the salvation of the good.
Marriage and generation are from Satan.
Many disciples also abstain from meat and by feigned "abstinence" lead many astray.
The Savior was ungenerated, incorporeal, and shapeless, and he was seen only in appearance.
As for the prophecies, some have been spoken by the angels who made the world, others by Satan. He is an angel opposed to those who made the world, especially the god of the Jews.
Perhaps the term "the god of the Jews" is a Christian Gnostic alternative to "the God of the Hebrews" in Exodus 7:16 and other passages. After this point the double narrative disappears.
Presumably Justin or some other source described no one later than Saturninus.
Irenaeus' picture of Basilides' doctrine (1.24.3–7) is often neglected in favor of a different one by Hippolytus,8 more philosophical and poetic, which scholars tend to suppose came first though perhaps kept secret in Basilidian circles. It seems just as likely that a later theologian developed Basilides' theology in a new direction, and that Irenaeus' account is relatively reliable.
Basilides postulated five primal psychological powers: Mind, first born from the ungenerated Father, from Mind Logos, from Logos Forethought, from Forethought Wisdom and Power, and from Wisdom and Power the powers, archons, and angels whom he calls first, who made the first heaven. Later they made further copies of those above them to a total of 365, equivalent to the days of the solar year and summed up in the magical name
Abrasax.9
Like Saturninus, Basilides explains salvation out of biblical passages though he calls
"the god of the Jews" the chief of the hostile angels. The most important passage is Psalm
2:2: "The kings of the earth rose up and the archons gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ." When the god of the Jews wanted to subject the other nations to his own people, the other archons rose up against him and fought him, and the other peoples rose against his people. The Father, however, sent his First-Begotten Mind, called
Gnostic origins 11 Christ, to liberate believers. After Christ appeared on earth as a man and worked miracles, a certain Simon of Cyrene was pressed into service to carry his cross and was crucified by ignorance and error,10 transfigured so that he was supposed to be Jesus (compare 1 Cor. 2:8: the Wisdom of God "which none of the archons of this aeon knew; for if they had known they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory"). Jesus [Christ] took the appearance of Simon and stood by to deride the archons. This looks like severely literal exegesis of Mark
15:21–24 (where Simon of Cyrene is named but then Jesus is not mentioned until after the crucifixion)11 and Psalm 2:4: "He who dwells in the heavens will ridicule them and the Lord will mock them." As an incorporeal power and the Mind of the ungenerated Father, he transfigured himself as he wished, and ascended to the Father who sent him, deriding the archons because he could not be held and was invisible to all.
Gnostics must confess not the one who was really crucified (Simon of Cyrene) but the Christ who came in human form, was called Jesus, and was sent by the Father to destroy the works of the world-makers. Whoever confesses the Crucified is still a slave, but he who denies is freed from them and knows the plan of the Father. Only the soul can obtain salvation, for the body is perishable by nature. The Old Testament prophecies come from the archons who made the world, while the law comes specifically from their chief, the god of the Jews, who led the people out of the land of Egypt.
Basilides espoused a kind of Cynic morality, holding that one must despise the foods offered to idols, regard them as nothing and use them without the slightest fear, and treat sins such as debauchery with indifference. His followers also practise magic and invent names for the angels, claiming that some are in the first heaven, others in the second, and go on to give the names of the archons, angels, and powers of the 365 supposed heavens. They also say that the name under which the Savior descended and ascended is Caulacau—unintelligible Hebrew words (Kau lakau), hence mysterious, in an "oracle of the Lord" in Isaiah 28:10.12 The person who has learned all these things will become invisible and intangible to the angels and their powers just as Caulacau was. "You must know everyone," they say, "but no one should know you." Here Basilides came close to the Gospel of Thomas. "Not many can know these things, but one out of a thousand and two out of ten thousand."13
Carpocrates and the Gnostics noted after him are not mentioned by Justin, and presumably
Irenaeus has to follow special sources for them. Like other Gnostics, Carpocrates and his disciples say that the world and what is in it was made by angels much inferior to the ungenerated Father. Jesus, the son of Joseph, lived a virtuous life, and therefore the Father sent him a special power that enabled him to go above. Other souls can imitate him and become superior to Peter and Paul or even to Jesus himself. Unless they exercise absolute freedom and thus escape from the world, their souls will return to bodies.
Irenaeus ascribes a rather commonplace form of Gnosticism to the Asian Cerinthus.14
The world was made by an inferior power that did not know the absolute Being above.
Jesus, again the son of Joseph and Mary, was supremely virtuous and, after his baptism,15 was deemed suited for the Christ to descend into him from above and empower him to proclaim the unknown Father and perform miracles. Finally the Christ flew away, remaining impassible, while Jesus suffered and was raised.
Irenaeus describes the Ebionites and the Nicolaitans as quite different from the Gnostics he has been discussing, though he claims, without evidence, that the Ebionites' views of
Irenaeus of Lyons "the Lord" are those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. What he must mean is that they regarded
Jesus as the son of Joseph (cf. 3.21.1). The most significant statement is that the Ebionites
"adorant [supply "the temple in"] Jerusalem as the house of God." Adorare here means
"pray toward," as in the usage of the second-century synagogue.
For the Nicolaitans Irenaeus relies exclusively on a brief notice in the Apocalypse of John (2:6, 14–15) and, for the name Nicolaus, on Acts 6:5. His account does not come from Justin, who did not use Acts.
The mysterious Cerdo, at Rome under Hyginus, is called another descendant of Simon.
For him the just God proclaimed by the law and the prophets was not the unknown good
Father of Jesus. The sole reason for mentioning him is to provide the greater Marcion with an unreliable predecessor and connect him to Simon.
Marcion's own arrival from Pontus around 137 is also mysterious. Irenaeus may cast some light when he tells how Marcion interpreted Jesus' descent into Hades, where Old
Testament saints rejected his offer of salvation and Old Testament sinners accepted it. This is essentially the doctrine of 1 Peter 3:18–20, in a letter sent to Pontus, the province from which Marcion went to Rome. Christ was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.
The point is that Christ's preaching "in prison" (presumably in Hades) was addressed to the disobedient, not the saints like Noah. With the author of 1 Peter, Marcion believed that Cain and other Old Testament sinners were saved by the Lord when he descended into Hades.
They ran to him and he took them into his kingdom, while none of the Old Testament saints shared in salvation. In the belief that their god was still testing them, they did not believe
Jesus but remained in Hades (1.27.3). Irenaeus probably acquired this information about Marcion's doctrine from a famous letter of his.16 Naturally when Marcion wrote his Gospel he revised Luke 13:28 so that "all the righteous" were within the kingdom of God rather than "Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets."17
Toward the middle of the second century, however, the Christian view sharpened, perhaps in reaction against Gnostics. Justin, who did not use 1 Peter, claimed that Jews had cut out an important passage from the Greek text of Jeremiah: "The Lord God remembered his dead from Israel, those who had slept in the earth of dust, and he descended to them to proclaim his salvation to them."18 Irenaeus uses this text: "The Lord, the Holy One of Israel, remembered his dead who had slept in the earth of dust, and he descended to them to proclaim his salvation to them and save them." "Jeremiah" agrees with the teaching of an earlier presbyter recalled by Irenaeus: Christ went down to preach to the righteous, the prophets, and the patriarchs.19 Marcion's paradoxical view was not tolerated.
Marcion himself, developing a new version of a gospel and the Pauline epistles, had reached
Rome under Hyginus and flourished under Anicetus. Literary heresies tended to flourish in the intellectual environment of Rome, the setting for the trilogy Antitheses-Gospel-Apostle, the book of Syllogisms by Apelles, and the syllogisms of the Adoptionists. Marcion was able
Gnostic origins 13 to remain within the church until 144, when he was excommunicated under Pius, perhaps by a college of presbyters.20
In discussing Encratites and their denial of Adam's salvation, Irenaeus tells us something about Tatian, the first heretic to deny it.
While he heard the teaching of Justin and stayed with him, he set forth no such doctrine, but after Justin's martyrdom he separated from the church.
Lifted up and inflated by his claim to be a teacher, as if he were better than the rest, he created his own style of doctrine. Like the Valentinians he set forth a myth about invisible Aeons; like Marcion and Saturninus he called marriage corruption and debauchery, and finally he rejected the ultimate salvation of Adam.
The description of Tatian shows that Irenaeus knew his address Against the Greeks, in which he claimed that people said of him: "Tatian, beyond the Greeks and beyond the infinite multitude of philosophers, is innovating with barbarian doctrines."21
Later on Irenaeus says again that Tatian denied the salvation of Adam. "Becoming the synthesis of all heresies, as we have shown, he personally invented this doctrine. By thus adding something novel he was trying with words devoid of meaning to gain hearers devoid of faith."22 This picture of Tatian's conceit and would-be innovation also comes from his address Against the Greeks, with its claim that people said how wonderful he was.
The other points are derived from Tatian's more theological writings such as his treatise On Perfection according to the Savior, denounced by Clement of Alexandria.23
Irenaeus devotes a chapter (1.29) to a Greek version of the Apocryphon of John, preserved in four Coptic versions from Egypt. The first of these to be edited comes from a fifth-century Berlin papyrus that contains two other Gnostic works (part of the Gospel of Mary and all of the Sophia of Jesus Christ) and part of the non-Gnostic Acts of Peter.24 This text is much the same as the one found in Codex III among the "Gnostic" papyri from Nag
Hammadi, although Codex II and Codex IV contain a version with two long additions, the first with the names of 365 angels responsible for parts of the human body, the second with the descent of "the perfect Pronoia of the All" into the darkness below.25 Irenaeus does not know this enlarged version but almost certainly used the shorter Greek Apocryphon.
An even stranger but similar system appears in the next chapter (1.30), with the Father of all called "First Man" and his Son-Thought called "Second Man," while below them is the Holy Spirit, called "First Woman." Christ is the "Third Male," son of the First and Second Men and First Woman. As the story develops it turns out to be a rewriting of Genesis on the basis of a highly distorted and sexualized version of the Christian story. A power that proceeded from the First Woman and was called Left or Prunicus or Wisdom or Male-Female, with a "watery body," produced a son Ialdabaoth, from whom proceeded in turn six other powers—from which ultimately the world and humanity came into existence.
From that point these Ophites proceeded to retell the whole biblical story from their special viewpoint. A related sect claimed that the serpent of Eden was Wisdom, which gave Gnosis to men and was called more intelligent than any other being (Gen. 3:1). Further proof? Our intestines, which give life, are shaped like a serpent.
Irenaeus of Lyons Already in the New Testament Paul had cited what a Marcionite or Cainite would consider the Creator-god's words in Malachi 1.2–3: "Jacob I loved but Esau I hated" (Rom.
9:13). The Epistle of Jude goes farther and refers to heretics who walk in the way of Cain, to those who perished in Korah's rebellion, and to Sodom and Gomorrah.26 For the Cainite sect, as for Marcion, the sinners involved were the real saints of the Old Testament, for they resisted the Creator-god. Cain and the other Old Testament sinners came from the Absolute Sovereignty above. The Creator hated them but could not harm them, for they were protected by Sophia. The traitor Judas knew this and therefore brought about the mystery of the betrayal, as the Cainite Gospel of Judas shows.
Irenaeus has collected Cainite documents urging the destruction of the works of the Womb, the Creator of heaven and earth. Perfect Gnosis, they say, is the performance of unmentionable acts without fear (1.31.1–2).27 Presumably he discusses the Cainites, selfevidently perverse, at the end of his account because he believes that to know Gnostic doctrine is to apprehend its falsity.