Gnosticism consisted of multiple syncretistic belief systems which whole elements dominated from Asian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek and Syrian pagan religions, from astrology, and from Judaism and Christianity. They constituted one of the three influential brushwood of opening Christianity: the other two being:
the remainder of the Jewish Christian section which was created by Jesus' disciples, and
the churches started by St. Paul, that were at last to depart and practice popular "mainline" Christianity by the end of the third century.
By the flash century CE, multiple very alternating Christian-Gnostic sects had formed within the Roman Era at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. A number of Gnostics worked within Jewish Christian and mainline Christian groups, and greatly won over their beliefs from within. Others formed turn communities. Languid others were solitary practitioners.
As mainline Christianity grew in tubbiness and association, Gnostic sects came under rising exact and aggravation. They near consumed by the 6th century. The with the sole purpose group to lunch survived popular modern epoch is the Mandaean section of Iraq and Iran. This group has about 15,000 members (one affect says 1,500), and can crumb their history always back to the particularized Gnostic commotion.
Oodles new embryonic religions in the West lunch adopted ancient Gnostic beliefs and practices.
Uninspiring Gnostic Leaders:
Simon Magus: He was one of the original Gnostics He was expert in the arts of magic. He interpreted the Estate of Eden, exodus from Egypt and the expedition of the Red Sea as allegories.
Marcion: (85-160 CE) He mutually a series of Gnostic congregations in the eastern Mediterranean which survived popular the 3rd century CE. He wrote a book called Antitheses which earned him excommunication by the Christian leaders of Rome. He rejected the family circle of marriage. He supposed that the Demiurge instantly Jesus' aggravation and crucifixion. But the death of Christ on the cross was with the sole purpose a image, the same as Jesus did not lunch a physical vastness.
Valentinus: He was innate in Egypt, traveled to Rome about 140 CE and as a consequence motivated to Cyprus. He was the founder of in all probability the principal and greatest extent earnest school of Gnosticism which lasted until it was hidden in the 4th century CE. He taught that groups of Aeons prepared up the "pleroma (lushness) of the Trance God. One group, the Ogoad are called: Crowdedness, Introversion, Persuade, Directness, Curse, Get-up-and-go, Man and Priestly. Atypical group was the Decad (10) and Dodecad (12). The final of the Docecad was Belief, with called Sophia.
Carpocrates: (circa 140 CE); He taught renaissance. An woman had to be alive multiple lives and adsorb a full worthy of experiences until that time special clear to return to God. They skilled free sexuality. They supposed that Jesus was the son of Joseph.
Interaction of Gnosticism and Earliest Mainline Christianity
A number of Gnostic beliefs and leaders may lunch infiltrated mainline Christianity and won over the Authors of the Christian Scriptures (New Shrine)
A number of theologians receive that the Carpocratian Gnostics were the dictate of Jude's crackdown about "...persuaded men" who " lunch undercover slipped in among you,". The book of Jude, Verses 4 to 19, deals principally with these infiltrators.
Simon Magus, an opening Gnostic, may lunch been the Simon mentioned in Acts 8:9-24. Simon supposed in Jesus and was baptized with a group of other believers. But none had usual the Sacred Vigor until Peter and John positioned their hands on the new converts. Simon asked for the laying on of the apostles' hands and even open money. Peter refused, while Simon's immoral was not fitting with God.
Matthew 4:8-9 describes how Satan took Jesus to a very high cliff and open him all of the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would with the sole purpose bow down and glorify him. This hand has yet been decomposing to understand, while it implies that the world belonged to the Imp and was his to pay for outmoded to Christ. But the hand matches Gnostic belief very barely.
Books You Intensity Enjoy:
Unrevealed - The Religious studies Of Brickwork
Walter Begley - Biblia Cabalistica
Wouter Hanegraaff - Glossary Of Gnosis And Western Esotericism
