Gnosticism - Is this based on the idea that spirit is entirely good and matter is ent

Is it true that Gnosticism claims that salvation is the escape from the body, achieved not by faith in Christ but by special knowledge? The form of Gnosticism that existed around the time of the early Christian church claimed the divine Christ joined the man Jesus at baptism and left him before he died (Cerinthianism) - therefore opposed to the deity of Jesus.

Does the Bible support this?
My thanks and appreciation to Silver Tongue for such a full some and helpful explanation. If best answer was given for the amount of effort someone took to answer a question, you'd be 10 points better off now! I will print off your answer for future reference. Thanks.

My appreciation also to Troll to Troll for the definitions (very helpful because this is such a huge subject) and for the scriptural references which attack the Gnostic heresies.

The first answer (by kl) was spot on, but to get 10 points you have to do a bit more work (Lil)! Actually, it was the notes on 1 John that made me look into Gnosticism and gave me the inspiration for this question. Early Christians were confronted with an early form of Gnostic teaching and John wrote this letter to expose false teachings and to give believers assurance of salvation. John exposed the lack of morality within Gnosticism and drew upon eye-witness testimony to the incarnation - to the deity of Christ - as well as his humanity.

You are correct in your assessment of gnosticism, and the Bible so very much does *not* support gnosticism that entire books were written to refute it. 1 John, for example.

The Gnostic's believe that plus the belief that the god who created the physical realm is evil and the god who created the spiritual world is good. Humans are to try & escape the physical. This gave rise to Albigensianism. They also believe in some secret knowledge that only the Gnostic's have or can attain.

Yes, and that was why it was called the Gnostic Heresy.

Read books by Elaine Pagels, she is an authority on Gnosticism. It's fascinating. I love her books.

intimately ,Yes
there were and are so many diverse Gnostic groups

The Bible does not support radical spirit/matter incompatibility
but texts can be wildly interpreted so that they can say anything the proponent wants them to say.

Christianity has always taught that salvation is open to all who accept Jesus as Savior and follow the will of God. Gnosticism - as practiced in the first to third centuries - taught that salvation was available to those who knew certain information that was hidden from the masses.

What we now know as the New Testament grew up over a period of time. There were earlier collections of Jesus's sayings and his actions. The Christian Gospels were based upon these collections and depend heavily on Jesus's teaching and miracles. The Gnostic Gospels told a rather different story and appear to have been heavily influenced by Greek philosophy and folklore.

Most Gnostic literature was suppressed following the the Council of Nicaea, although hidden copies occasionally come to light - most notably the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, the Book of Revelation, or the Apocalypse of St John was so popular among Christians that it survived into the Christian Bible.

The doctrine of salvation by knowledge. This definition, based on the etymology of the word (nosies "knowledge", Gnostic's, "good at knowing"), is correct as far as it goes, but it gives only one, though perhaps the predominant, characteristic of Gnostic systems of thought. Whereas Judaism and Christianity, and almost all pagan systems, hold that the soul attains its proper end by obedience of mind and will to the Supreme Power, i.e. by faith and works,Gnosticism places the salvation of the soul merely in the possession of a quasi-intuitive knowledge of the mysteries of the universe and of magic formula indicative of that knowledge. Gnostics were "people who knew", and their knowledge at once constituted them a superior class of beings, whose present and future status was essentially different from that of those who, for whatever reason, did not know

A more complete and historical definition of Gnosticism would be:

A collective name for a large number of greatly-varying and pantheistic-idealistic sects, which flourished from some time before the Christian Era down to the fifth century, and which, while borrowing the phraseology and some of the tenets of the chief religions of the day, and especially of Christianity, held matter to be a deterioration of spirit, and the whole universe a deprivation of the Deity, and taught the ultimate end of all being to be the overcoming of the grossness of matter and the return to the Parent-Spirit, which return they held to be inaugurated and facilitated by the appearance of some God-sent Savior.

However unsatisfactory this definition may be, the obscurity, multiplicity, and wild confusion of Gnostic systems will hardly allow of wild confusion of Gnostic systems will hardly allow of another. Many scholars, moreover, would hold that every attempt to give a generic description of Gnostic sects is lab our lost, but we now know that in the first century of the Christian era the term ?Gnostic? came to denote a heterodox segment of the diverse new Christian community. Among early followers of Christ it appears there were groups who delineated themselves from the greater household of the Church by claiming not simply a belief in Christ and his message, but a "special witness" or revelatory experience of the divine. It was this experience or nosies that set the true follower of Christ apart, so they asserted. Stephan Hoeller explains that these Christians held a "conviction that direct, personal and absolute knowledge of the authentic truths of existence is accessible to human beings, and, moreover, that the attainment of such knowledge must always constitute the supreme achievement of human life."

During the first Century no single acceptable format of Christian thought had yet been defined. During this formative period Gnosticism was one of many currents moving within the deep waters of the new religion. The ultimate course Christianity, and Western culture with it, would take was undecided at this early moment. Gnosticism was one of the seminal influences shaping that destiny.

That Gnosticism was, at least briefly, in the mainstream of Christianity is witnessed by the fact that one of its most influential teachers, Valentinus, may have been in consideration during the mid-second century for election as the Bishop of Rome. Born in Alexandria around 100 C.E., Valentinus distinguished himself at an early age as an extraordinary teacher and leader in the highly educated and diverse Alexandrian Christian community. In mid-life he migrated from Alexandria to the Church's evolving capital, Rome, where he played an active role in the public affairs of the Church. A prime characteristic of Gnostics was their claim to be keepers of sacred traditions, gospels, rituals, and successions ? esoteric matters for which many Christians were either not properly prepared or simply not inclined. Valentinus, true to this Gnostic predilection, apparently professed to have received a special apostolic sanction through Theudas, a disciple and initiate of the Apostle Paul, and to be a custodian of doctrines and rituals neglected by what would become Christian orthodoxy. Though an influential member of the Roman church in the mid-second century, by the end of his life Valentinus had been forced from the public eye and branded a heretic by the developing orthodoxy Church.

While the historical and theological details are far too complex for proper explication here, the tide of history can be said to have turned against Gnosticism in the middle of the second century. No Gnostic after Valentinus would ever come so near prominence in the greater Church. Gnosticism's emphasis on personal experience, its continuing revelations and production of new scripture, its asceticism and paradoxically contrasting libertine postures, were all met with increasing suspicion. By 180 C.E. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, was publishing his first attacks on Gnosticism as heresy, a labor that would be continued with increasing vehemence by the church Fathers throughout the next century.

Orthodoxy Christianity was deeply and profoundly influenced by its struggles with Gnosticism in the second and third centuries. Formulations of many central traditions in Christian theology came as reflections and shadows of this confrontation with the Gnosis. But by the end of the fourth century the struggle was essentially over: the evolving ecclesia had added the force of political correctness to dogmatic denunciation, and with this sword so-called "heresy" was painfully cut from the Christian body. Gnosticism as a Christian tradition was largely eradicated, its remaining teachers ostracized, and its sacred books destroyed. All that remained for students seeking to understand Gnosticism in later centuries were the denunciations and fragments preserved in the patristic heresiologies. Or at least so it seemed until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library and the Dead Sea Scrolls in the mid-twentieth century.

Silver Tongue's detailed answer is excellent in explaining something of the essence of Gnosticism as it affected Christianity, and its subsequent demise. It's fair comment that political intrigues in Christendom had a lot to do with that. However, long before Christianity became politicized, the apostles flagged up the strongest possible warnings about the threat Gnosticism posed to Christian doctrine and practice. At a very early stage (around 50 C.E.) the subtle threat to the teachings of Christ by Gnostic infiltration was spotted and 'dealt with' as can be seen in many of the apostolic epistles.

A theological problem was that Christians taught Christ was fully human. Gnostics abhorred such an idea as they taught flesh was corrupt and that God could have nothing to do with corrupt flesh. But the whole basis of Christianity is that God incarnated and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld the glory of God in Christ - perfect Man and perfect God. The fact that Christ's body was resurrected further offended Gnostics. Christ now has a glorified body, made fit for heaven, and the Bible speaks of 'the man' Christ Jesus after His resurrection, and that believers shall bear the image of the heavenly Man. (Rom 5:17-19 & 1 Cor 15:49) So the political agenda of the politicized Catholic church is actually irrelevant in the battle against Gnosticism, for the Bible itself is united in attacking the idea of esoteric knowledge as key to salvation. Faith is the one requirement for sinful flesh to become the dwelling of God's Holy Spirit and God's love (1 John chapter 4).

Paul covers these forms of heresy in his letters to Timothy.

2 Timothy particularly.

A shorter definition of Gnostic and Gnosticism is:

Gnostic
1. A label from late Latin and late Greek meaning one with "knowledge", 2. a person claiming knowledge of God and/or the spiritual, 3. a wise person, 4. a label given a person possessing intellectual or spiritual knowledge of God and/or the spiritual.

Gnosticism
1. Any number of religious sects existent over a four hundred year period from approximately 150 B.C.E. until 250 A.D. with non standard and generally unaccepted variations of Judaism and later Judeo-Christian beliefs and writings. 2. Modern twentieth century belief and study systems that are used to attain spiritual enlightenment.

Here is a good page for reference:
A Gnostic is a label from late Latin and late Greek meaning one with "knowledge", a wise person, a person possessing intellectual or spiritual knowledge of God and/or the spiritual.

A Gnostic was a person that belonged to certain Prue Christian and semi Christian religious sects existent over a four hundred year period from approximately 150 B.C.E. until 250 A.D. with non standard and generally unaccepted variations of Judaism and later Judeo-Christian beliefs and writings.

Most Gnostic groups died off with the acceptance of the currently standard texts of Christianity. Certain Gnostic groups continued to exist in various forms after 250 A.D. in smaller and hidden numbers until basically dying off in the east with the advent and spread of Islam about 620 A.D. but, this early influence has continued in the west to this day.

One example is the Coptic Church which is now more than nineteen centuries old is based on Gnostic texts exists today with over 9 million ?Copts? who pray and share communion in daily masses in thousands of Coptic Churches mostly in Egypt but throughout the world.

Modern Gnosticism, as practiced in the west uses every path possible to find a spiritual insight and knowledge about self and the world. There are many twentieth century belief and study systems that are used to attain spiritual enlightenment.

The most popular paths modern western Gnostics use are variations of Buddhism and New Age materials. M. Scott Peck?s The Road Less Traveled (1978) and Helen Schucman?s A Course in Miracles (1975) are considered, by some, two late twentieth century Gnostic approaches to study, knowledge, and spiritual attainment.

Nothing in the bible supports the Gnostic ideas about the physical or material world.

Jesus:
1 Corinthians 15:
45 So also it is written, ?The first MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL.? The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.
47 The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.

If a discerning Christian reads verse forty seven of First Corinthians chapter 15 the verse has a level of meaning that's states the our Lord and Saviour came from heaven. This means there was not a transition from not the only begotten Son of God to begotten Son of God, he was the only begotten Son of God from conception.