1. It derives its name from the Greek word ‘gnosis.’  It was one of the greatest attacks on Bible doctrine in the 1st century based on intellectual snobbery. It was picked up by those who were attracted to Hellenistic systems of philosophy and was an attempt to reconcile philosophy with doctrine.

 

2. Gnosticism combines Greek philosophy, legalistic Judaism and oriental dualism to form an apostate syncretism covered with a veneer of Christian vocabulary. Gnosticism was Satan’s greatest counter attack in the early church; it still exists today. 

 

3. Gnosticism forced Paul to develop some technical vocabulary to describe the principles and mechanics of the Christian way of life.

 

4. Gnosticism had a dualism of good (pleroma: the world of the spiritual) verses evil (‘hule’: the world of matter that is the body). These Greek words were taken from Plato (Platonic dualism). Plato said that the human body traps certain ‘aeons’ from the ‘pleroma.’ This causes man to have been created evil. That appealed to Christian doctrine for it states that man is born spiritually dead. The demi-urge (the God of the Old Testament) created man evil since he created aeons in the hule (of the body) and these aeons have to be liberated. They must be liberated into the pleroma (heaven). They can be liberated either by maximum asceticism or maximum lasciviousness. This saves man. Christ was not God and not the savior, but the highest aeon. The cross was an optical illusion.

 

5. The original Gnostics of the salvation by asceticism were called ‘Essene.’ The Dead Sea Scrolls revealed a lot of information about them.  The Essene, the Marcionites and the Manachians were all involved in this.  The antithesis are those Gnostics who said that the aeons were released into the world of Pleroma by lasciviousness. This is why there was so much immorality among the Greeks.  It all started with Plato.  One could be liberated by bestiality, homosexuality, or normal sex, but there had to be a lot of it-the daily function of sex. The Nicolaotans and the Ophites were involved in this religion. Since people like either lean toward asceticism or lasciviousness, Gnosticism appealed to everyone. 

 

6. Gnosticism was both an experiential and philosophical attack on Bible doctrine. As a form of mysticism, it claimed that it had revelation apart from Scripture. It had a system of sacraments in which they had formulae, names and symbols which were used to have a good destiny after death.  Romanism has copied much of its rituals and sacraments from Gnosticism. Gnostics believed in 7 world power of angels and so they worshipped fallen angels (Colossians 2:18).