Actually I was thinking, can we consider the gnostics as
Christians at all?
Think they are similiar to the macionites, a cult who believe the
old testament writes abt a evil lower god known as the demuirge,
while the god of the new testament is the good higher god who sent
Jesus.
Somehow I think these pple cannot recouncilate between the old and
the new testament that they form different theories. Chinese say:"
Zou Huo Ru Mo"....
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(continued)
DID YOU KNOW?
The early Christians known as Gnostics, whose beliefs are reflected
in the Judas gospel, were not a homogeneous group; scholars even
debate whether the many strains of Gnosticism should be lumped
together under one banner. The Gnostic idea that individuals carry
a spark of the divine within them may well have existed before
Christianity. But after the time of Christ a number of Gnostics
adopted Jesus as their savioras the man who told humankind the
truth about Godand thus considered themselves Christian. However,
they understood his role and teachings in a very different way than
orthodox Christians.
So, where did Jesus fit into Christian Gnostic cosmology?
Many Gnostics believed that Jesus was sent to Earth to teach
humankind about a kind, loving, accepting God, who was very
different from the tough, vengeful creator God of the Old
Testament. Because Gnostics could not reconcile the two opposing
aspects of the divine in one God, they believed there must be
another god in addition to the creator God.
They came to view that second, greater God as a divine mind, who at
the beginning of time had thoughts that spun off and became divine
entities known as Aeons. The Aeons lived in the Pleroma, or
fullness of God, which was a type of celestial ether or realm of
light. One of these ideas made into substance was Wisdom, called
"Sophia." She started to think and to have a mind of her own, and
so she brought forth a new being without consulting the divine
mind, and without its approval. This offspring was known as
Yaldobaoth, and was called the demiurge, or creator.
The Gnostics believed it was Yaldobaoth who scooped up Adam and Eve
from dirt and blew the breath of life into them. The creator
spirit, an aberration in the pure world of the divine mind, brought
evil into the world. But he also carried the essence of Sophia, and
he exhaled some of the divine into Adam and Eve when he brought
them to life. All of humankind has inherited that divine
spark.
Jesus' role on Earth, according to the Gnostic Christians, was to
tell humankind that they are descended from the divine. By knowing
this, and looking inward to discover the divine spark, a Gnostic
can be reunited with the divine and live in the fullness of
God.
Elizabeth Snodgrass
