CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

 

MIDTERM

 

QUESTION TWO:

 

GNOSTICISM, MARCION AND ORTHODOXY

 

BY

 

NATHAN D. MARCH

 

 

DR. GÖSTA HALLONSTEN

TRS620 INTRO TO PATRISTIC THEOLOGY

FEBRUARY 25 2004

 

 

Gnosticism was a loosely organized synchronistic religious movement of the second and third centuries that responded to increasing cultural anxiety and hopelessness by offering liberation from negative and oppressive powers.  As a movement it is difficult to define since there were varied instances and much of what is known comes from anti-Gnostic sources. The term “Gnostic” is derived from the Greek word “gnosis” meaning “knowledge” or “wisdom.” In order to explain the problem of evil Gnostics held to a dualism between matter and spirit which denigrated matter.  They believed that individuals contain a divine spark, uncreated and imprisoned in the material body, in need of freedom which can only be achieved by the recognition of its true spiritual identity through the gnosis of experience rather than human reason. They explained the creation of an evil material order as the result of a Demiurge who upset the original perfection of the cosmological hierarchy. Attempting to re-articulate the Gospel of Jesus in light of Gnostic teaching some Christian Gnostics interpreted the Christ as the Savior Aeon sent to restore balance to the Pleroma.

The Teaching of Basileides according to Irenaeus provides evidence of Gnostic teachings.  Basileides’ cosmology is described as a hierarchy of powers that are formed by emanation with the God of the Jews occupying the lowest heaven.[1] He radically interprets Scripture when he states that the first-begotten Mind who is called Christ did not suffer death.[2]  Rather Simon of Cyrene, who was transfigured by Christ when forced to carry the Cross, was thought to be Jesus and crucified.  While he died, Jesus who had taken the form of Simon stood by laughing. Gnostic dualism is apparent in the comment, “salvation belongs to the soul alone, for the body is by nature subject to corruption.”[3]

Marcion shared many of the convictions of the Gnostics, especially their dualistic tendencies and denigration of matter and history.  However, he addressed the problem of evil with the Old Testament concluding that there were two Gods: the Demiurge who created the negatively material universe which he attributed to the God of the Jews and the Supreme God revealed as the Father of Jesus Christ.[4]  He believed the Apostles and Evangelists had misunderstood the teachings of Christ and that the Jewish Scriptures could not be reconciled with the New Testament. Therefore, in preparing his canon of Scripture he completely rejected the Old Testament and edited Christian texts he considered to be influenced by Judaism.

Gnostics and Marcion appealed to private interpretation of Scripture or outside hidden realities reserved for the elite which put them in opposition to Church authorities. The doctrine of apostolic succession was used by the Orthodox Christians to argue against such hidden or secret knowledge in favor of public tradition faithfully handed down from the Apostles.  Irenaeus of Lyons states in Adversus haereses, “For if the apostles had known hidden mysteries, which they were in the habit of imparting to ‘the perfect’ apart and privily from the rest, they would have delivered them especially to those to whom they were also committing the Churches themselves.”[5] They held that there could be no secret interpretation of Scripture only public interpretation in communion with the Church: the rule of faith was the rule of truth.[6]  Tertullian claimed that only those in communion with the Apostolic Church had the right to argue from the Scriptures.[7] 

To explain the problem of evil the Gnostics relied on a dualism that denigrated matter and had a negative view of history.  Likewise, Marcion relying on dualism separated the God of Creation and the God of Jesus Christ.  The Orthodox response was to affirm the goodness of matter and creation. Tertullian remarks in Adversus Marcionem, “the temporal order was brought about by God’s goodness,”[8] not out of preexisting material but ex nihilo, out of nothing.[9] His statement that “goodness fashioned man out of clay to make this wonderful structure of flesh,”[10] stands in sharp contrast to the Gnostic notion of the divine spark imprisoned in the body.  Orthodox theologians explained salvation in terms of recapitulation which reconciled the dualisms proposed by the Gnostics and Marcion.  In the Incarnation, the union of God and man, the image and likeness of God disfigured by the sin of Adam was restored and the body and soul reconnected.  Irenaeus notes: “the Word became flesh that by means of the flesh which sin had mastered and seized and dominated, by this, it might be abolished and no longer be in us…for it was necessary for Adam to be recapitulated in Christ, that mortality might be swallowed up in immortality.”[11]  Furthermore, such a notion of recapitulation reaffirmed the positive notion of history and the Old Testament.  Irenaeus states that Christ fulfilled the promise made to Abraham.[12]  He writes, “We, believing in God, are made righteous…by faith, which receives testimony from the Law and Prophets, and which the Word of God offers us.”[13]