Gnostics and Christians

Gnostics and Christians

Marcion contrasted the God of love of Jesus with the wrathful God of the scriptures who made the evil world and sent laws so that he could enjoy punishing those who broke them. These must have been different gods, one good and one evil. Irenaeus and the orthodox Christians denied that there was another god and that the creator was evil and introduced the creed: "I believe in one God, Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth". 

The Valentinians happily recited this creed because they also accepted only one God. Irenaeus was distressed that the ordinary religious punter could not distinguish between the orthodox and the Valentinian churches. Actually Valentinians thought that Christians had mistaken the image of God for the real thing. For them, the real God was incomprehensible but the Christians pictured Him as a tetchy old craftsman, a king or a judge. But Jesus taught "God is Spirit" and the "Father of Truth" according to Heraclaon, quoted by Origen. 

Remember that in the empire at the time of the first bishops, gods were rife. Besides the Greek and Roman pantheons, many eastern gods had been introduced and often identified with one or other of the old pantheon. Nobody was concerned with blasphemy, and nobody boasted that their god was superior to another's because they still feared the revenge of the offended god. Christians had no such qualms, labelling all other gods as devils. 

The Christian bishops in Rome were interested in centralized authority. The political authority of the Empire rested in Rome. So too the religious authority should rest in Rome. Yet, other churches were as prominent, though not always as orthodox as the Roman church. So it suited the powers of orthodoxy to emphasise the sole power of God. Ignatius of Antioch declaimed: "One God! One bishop!" The bishop had to obeyed as if he were God on earth. 

The archons of the Gnostics are really these earthly rulers though they came to be understood as evil angels. In his epistle, 1 Clement, Clement, an early Pope, threatens those in the church of Corinth who disobey the rulers of the earth with death—presumably the everlasting death of the Essenes—excommunication. He insists on strict rankings within the church, again from the Essene tradition but lacking the strict humility of the Essenes. 

The "Hidden Tradition" which Valentinus claimed to receive from a student of Paul is that the God of the Christians is really only the Creator or the Demiurgos, a servant of the Highest God. He makes false claims of power as the only god because he is blind (Samael) and ignorant. Gnosis is the recognition that God is really "the Depth". Those who get this revelation of knowledge receives the secret sacrament called the release or the redemption (apolytrosis)—he is released from the power of the Demiurge. The ritual involves a spoken defiance of the Demiurge and an assertion that the proper place to be is with the pre-existent Father. This again is reminiscent of the Essene chants against Satan. 

Because the Christian bishop receives his authority from the God of the Hebrews, the Gnostic who does not recognize this god as God, can defy the power of the Church—the power of the earthly rulers or archons. The Gnostics were egalitarian, at least after their "apolytrosis," and had no hierarchies. The sevices they held were conducted by one of their number chosen by lot—a bishop, a priest, a prophet and a reader each with their own role. This egalitarianism is closer to the Essenes' idea of precedence than the authoritarian Church's. The choice by lot was simply an expression of God's will.