Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about who were the Nicolaitans and the Gnostics. We're going to start with the Nicolaitans.
Now, they are mentioned twice in the New Testament, both times in the book of Revelation and both times in chapter 2 of Revelation, where we read in, first of all, in verse 6, Jesus says, "But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." And then in verse 15 of that same chapter, He says, "You also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate." Now, over the years, I've heard all sorts of fanciful speculations about the Nicolaitans.
Some even say that there was no group as the Nicolaitans. It's simply a symbolic name, referring to the ascendancy of the clergy class. In fact, we're going to be talking about that interpretation specifically in just a few minutes. Now, I do find all of these fanciful interpretations rather strange, since the early Christians all seem to be quite familiar with an heretical group called the Nicolaitans, who were still around at the beginning of the 3rd century.
So we don't have to speculate who they were, and we certainly don't have to invent symbolic interpretations of the name Nicolaitans. All we have to do is look at the historical evidence. Now, we don't know an enormous amount about this group, but there are two things we do know that seem to be undisputed by the early Christians. The first thing is that they took their name from the same Nicholas who is mentioned in the book of Acts chapter 6, who was one of the seven who was appointed to serve food to the widows.
We can read about that in Acts chapter 6, verse 5, where we read, "And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch." Now, by the late 2nd century, there were two schools of thought concerning Nicholas's involvement with these people who came to be called Nicolaitans.
One school of thought said that Nicholas himself departed from the correct faith and began teaching that it was all right to live a life of sexual immorality and indulgence. Hippolytus, writing about the year 225, said this, "Nicholas has been a cause of the widespread combination of these wicked men," talking about the Nicolaitans. "He was appointed by the apostles as one of the seven for the diaconate.
However, he departed from correct doctrine and was in the habit of inculcating indifference as to both life and food. And when his disciples continued to insult the Holy Spirit, John reproved them in the Apocalypse as being fornicators and partakers of food offered to idols." So that was one school of thought that Nicholas himself had departed from the faith. The other school of thought said that the Nicolaitans misunderstood what Nicholas had been teaching.
Apparently, Nicholas had taught that Christians should "abuse their flesh." Now, the Nicolaitans were saying that that phrase meant that we should indulge our flesh in sensuous and immoral behavior. But according to this second school of thought, what Nicholas actually meant was that we should discipline our flesh and bring it into subjection to Jesus Christ.
For example, Clement of Alexandria, writing about 30 years before Hippolytus, said this, "Those who say that they follow Nicholas, quote, an adage of that man, quote, the flesh must be abused, end quote, which they pervert. But that worthy man," talking about Nicholas, "actually meant that it was necessary to curtail pleasures and lusts." You can find that quote in volume 2, page 373 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and the quote from Hippolytus is in volume 5, page 115.
Okay, so the first thing everyone seems to agree on, the first principle, is that the Nicolaitans took their name from Nicholas. There seems to be no dispute about that. The second thing that everyone seemed to agree upon is that the two noteworthy unscriptural practices of the Nicolaitans were sexual immorality and eating food sacrificed to idols.
For example, Irenaeus wrote about the year 180, "They teach that it is a matter of indifference to practice adultery and to eat things sacrificed to idols." You can find that in volume 1, page 352. So it appears that that woman Jezebel, spoken of in Revelation, was evidently one of the Nicolaitans because those were the two practices for which Jesus condemned her.
He said in verse 20 of Revelation chapter 2, "Nevertheless, I have a few things against you because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols." Now, if you're like me, you grew up being told that there was nothing wrong for a Christian to eat meat sacrificed to an idol. It was only wrong if it caused a weaker brother to stumble.
Well, all I can say is we've apparently all had 1 Corinthians 8 explained to us incorrectly. In fact, I remember when I first read the early Christian writings, which was about 20 years ago, I was very surprised that they mentioned so much the error of eating food sacrificed to idols. It struck me because, like I say, I had always been told it was all right to do it. It was just an issue of offending a brother with a weaker conscience. But let me just read to you some of the quotations from the early Christians.
The Didache, probably the earliest writing that we have outside of the New Testament, it could have been written as early as the year 80 and certainly no later than the year 140, says this, "Against that which is sacrificed to idols, be exceedingly on your guard, for it is the service of dead gods." This can be found in volume 1, page 379 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
Aristides, who wrote the earliest apology explaining Christianity to the pagans, said this, "Christians do not eat the food that is sacrificed to idols, for they are pure." That was written about the year 125, not very long after the book of Revelation was written. It's in volume 10, page 276 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. I'll read just one more, this time from Irenaeus.
He said, "The most perfect among them, that is the Gnostics, addict themselves without fear to all those kinds of forbidden deeds of which the scriptures assure us that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. For instance, they make no scruple about eating meats offered in sacrifice to idols, imagining that they can in this way contract no defilement." You can find that quote in volume 1, page 324 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
Well, as I said, those quotes surprised me because I was thinking, "No, there's nothing wrong with it." But then I went back and read the New Testament, and it jumped out at me what it says right there in Revelation.
The verse we read just a minute ago, Revelation 2:20, where Jesus said, "I have a few things against you because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols." So here's Jesus speaking on the subject right at the close of the 1st century, and he's held this against them that they allowed somebody to be teaching that it was all right to eat food sacrificed to idols.
In fact, avoiding food that had been sacrificed to idols was one of the "necessary things" that the apostles laid upon the Gentiles, saying, "We don't want to put on you any more burden than that which is absolutely necessary." I'll read you their words, Acts 15, verses 28 and 29. It said, "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things, that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.
If you keep yourself from these, you will do well." So interestingly, among the four things that they list there, two of them, sexual immorality and eating things sacrificed to idols, are the very two things that Jesus mentions in Revelation, that he held against the church because they were allowing that woman Jezebel to teach that those things were all right. So when I noticed that, I realized, okay, the early Christians weren't off. They were following exactly what the Bible teaches.
So I went back and reread 1 Corinthians chapter 8 and chapter 10. And on rereading those chapters, I realized that what Paul is saying is not nearly as clear as I think we've all been led to believe. Perhaps our Bible translators aren't rendering the Greek accurately, or perhaps there were some customs and usages present there that we don't understand in our day and age. Because again, as I said, all of the early Christians understood it to be a definite sin to eat meat sacrificed to idols.
And that's borne out by Acts 15, which was a letter from all of the apostles, and more importantly, the letter from Jesus himself to the seven churches. So maybe in chapter 8, Paul is simply talking about meat in general that's bought at the marketplace. And after all, he does specifically say in 1 Corinthians 10, verses 20 and 21, "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake at the Lord's table and the table of demons." Well, that's really about all there is to say about the Nicolaitans. They had no erroneous theological teachings that we know of. Their sin was practicing sexual immorality and eating meat sacrificed to idols. They took their name from Nicholas, one of the seven men appointed in Acts chapter 6, who may or may not have been guilty of the practices that they adopted.
I prefer to think that he wasn't guilty of it. However, before leaving the subject of the Nicolaitans, I do want to briefly address the rather fanciful interpretation that some Bible interpreter has come up with concerning the Nicolaitans. This Bible commentator said that the name Nicolaitans means victory over the people.
He goes on to say that there wasn't actually a sect known as the Nicolaitans, but rather Jesus there in Revelation was addressing the time when the clergy would begin ruling over the laity or people. In all honesty, I have no idea who originally came up with this teaching, but it has spread rather widely through the evangelical world. I've heard that explanation quite a number of times. Well, my response to that claim is, first, there was an actual group called the Nicolaitans.
The historical record is quite clear on this, so there's no need to come up with an imaginative interpretation. Secondly, the Greek word for Nicolaitan does not mean victory over the people. Nicolaitan means a follower of Nicholas. Now, the name Nicholas itself is a combination of those two Greek words, Nike, meaning victory, and Laos, meaning people. But Nicholas, that name does not specifically mean victory over the people. It simply means victory plus people.
Now, I've searched through several books on the meaning of the name Nicholas. I don't mean Bible commentaries. I mean just books talking about names that people give their children. I've gone on the internet and done quite a search through Google there to see what meaning linguists give to the name Nicholas. And everything I found, every source I've gone to, says that Nicholas means victory of the people or victorious people. And that makes perfect sense. I mean, think about it.
What Greek parent would name their child victory over the people? But victory of the people, yeah, that makes a little bit more sense. But again, the name itself is simply a combination of two Greek words, victory and people. You have to use common sense to fill in the preposition because it's not there.
Now, it is quite true that a problem did arise in the church of the clergy eventually dominating the laity in direct disobedience to Jesus' command that his disciples were not to lord it over the people the way the Gentile rulers did. So I agree with the position that the rise of the clergy class was a form of apostasy in the church. All I'm saying is let's not use imaginative interpretations when we read the scriptures, particularly when we have clear historical evidence that a passage had a literal application.
Jesus' words there in Matthew directly condemn a clergy class that lords over the people. We don't have to play around with the meaning of the name Nicholas in order to address that apostasy. It's clearly laid out by Jesus Christ himself in the Gospels. Now, let's talk about the Gnostics. The Gnostics were another heretical group who began in the 1st century. But in contrast to the Nicolaitans, about whom we only know very little, we know a lot about the Gnostics.
In fact, Gnosticism was the primary heresy that the pre-Nicene church faced all the way from the latter part of the 1st century all the way to the time of Constantine. Now, unlike the Nicolaitans, the Gnostics taught such differing theology from the Orthodox Church that it was practically another religion. But unfortunately, they did call themselves Christians. One of the striking characteristics about Gnosticism was the elaborate mythical cosmology that its teachers constructed.
I'll try to briefly sum up the general theme of their teaching. This is what they said. In the beginning, there was an ultimate indescribable deity known as the Father, or sometimes as the Father/Mother. He or he/she dwells in the ultimate heavens, which the Gnostics called the Pleroma, which means fullness in Greek. Here in the Pleroma, there is no evil, no passions, and no physical matter. There are, however, other divine beings besides this original Father/Mother.
But eventually, there was a fall from this perfect divine universe, the Pleroma. One of the youngest of the divine beings, named Sophia or Wisdom, wanted to give birth to a being apart from something generated from the Father/Mother. So she cohabits with one of the other divine beings and eventually gives birth to a dark creature with beast-like features.
Now, Sophia, in utter rejection of this creature that she's brought forth, she decides to just cast him out of the Pleroma to try to hide the fact that he ever existed. At least that was the story in some of the mythology. Other teachers said, "No, it was the Father/Mother who discovered him and cast him out of the Pleroma." Anyway, he's cast out. No evil exists anymore in the Pleroma. But now this creature that Sophia, through her illicit love, gave birth to, wanted to imitate the Father/Mother.
He wanted to create. So he began creating, but what he created was a material world, totally unlike the spiritual world of the Father/Mother. Now, in these Gnostic myths, he's usually called the Demiurge, which is a Greek word that literally means worker of the people. You've got two words there, Demos, which means people, as we mentioned with the Nicolaitans. Laos means people as well. There are two different Greek words. And then the Greek word, ergos, which means worker. And basically, that means creator.
So if we were translating the Greek Demiurge, we would probably translate it as creator, but usually the books just leave it untranslated so it's clear who we're talking about. Well, anyway, this Demiurge, this creator, creates an entire universe, an imitation of the heavenly universe. But as I said, his world is physical. Furthermore, because he is this beast-like creature, his world contains the seeds of evil, of discord, and of death. Being imperfect himself, he cannot create something better than what he is.
So everything that he makes, everything in the physical world, is ultimately corrupt, including our own human flesh, which is totally depraved according to the Gnostic teaching. Now, this Demiurge calls himself Yahweh, and he boasts that he alone is God. However, when he created man, when he breathed into them the breath of life, into Adam and Eve, he unknowingly was breathing into them a portion of the heavenly divine world of the Father/Mother.
So Adam and Eve, at least as to their souls, didn't really belong to the world of the Demiurge, but of the world of the Father/Mother, the Pleroma. Well, when the Demiurge discovered this, that he had unwittingly passed on the heavenly world into these humans he had created, he did everything in his power to keep Adam and Eve and their offspring from knowing their true origin. He wanted them to think that he was the only God.
And throughout history, this is how he has worked to try to keep mankind ignorant of the Pleroma and of the true Father/Mother. He does not want us to know that our soul actually belongs to the heavenly world, not to the material world that he has created. And so in various Gnostic legends, they have him throwing Adam and Eve outside of the Garden of Eden because they were about to discover this secret of the universe, and he didn't want them to know about it.
Likewise, when mankind began coming close to discovering the truth, he brought the flood to wipe all of them out so that they wouldn't learn about or pass on this knowledge of the true Pleroma, the true Father who is above all. Well, now, meanwhile, this Father/Mother had discovered what Sophia had done, and so they punished her by banishing her from the Pleroma. So her son, the Demiurge, gets thrown out, but then she gets thrown out as well.
But she dwells in a realm midway between the physical world of her ill-begotten son and the ultimate Pleroma. At the same time, Sophia is on our side. She regrets what she did in bringing birth to this creature, the Demiurge, and so she has tried to make mankind aware of the truth about who their creator is and about the true heavenly origin of their souls. Now, again, there were many different Gnostic teachers, and each teacher had a slightly different version of this basic mythological universe.
But there was considerable similarity in their teaching. They all taught that the God of the Old Testament was this Demiurge, that he was a harsh and cruel God. He was not the true God, the ultimate God, the one who existed from the beginning. Now, some Gnostics labeled the God of the Old Testament, this Demiurge, as the just God, in contrast to the ultimate Father or Father/Mother, who is the good God according to their teaching.
Now, not only did Sophia have pity on mankind, so did the ultimate God, this Father/Mother, who had also brought forth Jesus in the heavenly Pleroma. And so this Father decided to send his true son, Jesus, to earth to make us humans aware of the truth about our origin and our relationship to the true divine beings.
However, since according to the Gnostic teachings, the flesh, our material bodies, are inherently corrupt, this true Son of God never actually became human because to do so would have been to acknowledge the work of the imposter God, this Demiurge. Now, some Gnostics who are called Docetists, they taught that the Son took on only the illusion of flesh. It looked like flesh and blood, but it wasn't.
Other Gnostic teachers said that there was an actual man named Jesus whose body this heavenly Son of God possessed and used, sort of like the demons would possess someone. Well, this heavenly Son of God possessed an actual man named Jesus and lived in his body up until the crucifixion. And then the heavenly Son of God left, and this poor guy Jesus gets crucified at the cross, not even knowing what's going on.
In other Gnostic legends, this Jesus is being led to the crucifixion, but then when they call Simon to come and help him carry the cross, he's able to change appearance with Simon. And so they think Simon is Jesus, and he not only finishes carrying the cross, but he's crucified. And the real Jesus sits back against the tree and laughs while they crucify Simon. Not really an attractive universe that they create.
Well, anyway, despite his doing what to us would be pretty horrible things, letting innocent people suffer, this Jesus came to reveal to mankind this sacred knowledge, and in Greek, the word for knowledge is gnosis. At least that's how they think they pronounce it in Greek, g-n-o-s-i-s. But when we Anglicize it, we don't say gnostics, we say Gnostics. Anyway, so in order for us to be saved, we had to know this secret truth that Jesus came to reveal.
Because without this revealed knowledge, this gnosis, or gnosis as they say it's pronounced, humans can't be saved. That's because when we die, the Demiurge and his cohorts are going to seize our souls unless we know the secret words or secret incantations to say once we die and our soul begins to pass through the spiritual world. Now, Irenaeus was a Christian leader who wrote a lengthy work around the year 170 or 180 that's entitled Against All Heresies.
And he tells us in great detail, in fact, in such detail that it gets tedious for most of us. But anyway, he explains what each of these Gnostic groups believed, what they had taught. And he said that one of the Gnostic groups instructed their disciples to say the following words to the spiritual powers who would seize our soul upon death or at least attempt to do so. And I'm quoting now.
You're supposed to say, "I am a Son from the Father, the Father who had a pre-existence, and I am a Son in Him who is pre-existent.
I have come to behold all things, both those which belong to myself and others, although strictly speaking, they do not belong to others, but to Achamoth who is female in nature and made these things for herself." And then Irenaeus goes on and says, "And they maintain that by saying these things, the dead person escapes from the spiritual powers." Well, then he advances to the next level, who would be the personal companions of the Demiurge. And he's supposed to address them in this manner.
And again, quoting from the Gnostics themselves, you're supposed to say, "I am a vessel more precious than the female who formed you. If your mother is ignorant of her own descent, I know myself, and I am aware from where I am. And I call upon the incorruptible Sophia, who is in the Father and is the mother of your mother." And that would then get him past the next level, and they would eventually go up to the Pleroma.
Now, that particular Gnostic group taught that it was not Sophia who had brought forth this child. It was another deity there in the Pleroma. And that's why they said, "Take me up to Sophia." In other Gnostic groups, no, you want to go beyond Sophia to the ultimate Pleroma. So like I say, they had some differences, but it was the same basic mythical universe that they constructed.
But in short, in the Gnostic system, salvation was by knowledge, particularly knowing what to say upon death to each level of the various powers who make up the spiritual hierarchy above man. If you don't know what to say, then you're going to remain bound by these lesser spiritual powers, and you'll never reach the ultimate heaven. So in a nutshell, that was the mythical cosmology that the Gnostics created with, as I said, numerous variations among the different Gnostic groups.
Now, let's talk a moment about the lifestyle of the Gnostics. The differing Gnostic groups took two different approaches as to how their followers should live, both based on their foundational teaching that the Demiurge, or perhaps fallen angels, created man's flesh and the entire material world. One school of thought, which was evidently the majority of the Gnostics, said that it doesn't matter how you live.
Since fleshly things don't concern the ultimate passionless Father/Mother, he doesn't care about sexual immorality, drunkenness, earthly indulgences. These are things totally foreign to his world. They're of no concern to him. The other school of thought said that since all of the material world was created by this fallen God or by fallen angels, then we should use the material world only to an absolute minimum.
So they forbid their followers to marry since marriage only propagates the creation that was made by these fallen deities. They abstain from all sorts of foods, particularly animal foods such as meat, milk, cheese, things like that. And they live very ascetic lives. So in short, some Gnostics were licentious like the Nicolaitans, even worse than the Nicolaitans, and others lived more like monks. It just depended on which group, which teacher you were under.
Okay, you may be wondering now, well, who on earth came up with this elaborate mythical world, this whole system of Gnosticism? Well, we don't know for certain. What we do know is that it is something that developed over a period of time. It started off with a pretty simple mythology, and then it grew and grew over the decades of the first century and the second century.
Now, Irenaeus, who had thoroughly researched all of the Gnostic sects and wrote a definitive work about all of them, he states that it all began with Simon Magus. I'm sure you remember him from the book of Acts. He's the one who tried to pay money to the apostles to receive the power to impart the Holy Spirit by laying on hands. Now, the book of Acts tells us about this Simon.
He was a native of Samaria, and it says in chapter 8 of Acts, verses 9 and 10, "But there was a certain man called Simon who previously practiced sorcery in the city and astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great, to whom they all gave heed from the least to the greatest, saying, 'This man is the great power of God.'" Now, although Simon did believe for a while and was baptized, he didn't stay in the faith very long.
After a while, he went back to his old life, claiming that he was the power of God and that he had come to save mankind. So basically, he was claiming for himself the position that the scriptures assigned to Jesus, the Son of God. After he left Christianity, Simon traveled about teaching, and he was accompanied by a woman named Helena, who had been a prostitute. Simon and Helena claimed that she was Sophia, who had been brought forth by Simon in ages past.
They claimed that she had created the material world, but she had somehow become trapped there and had transmigrated into the body of a harlot. And then they said that Simon rescued her when he came down to earth. Well, Simon later went to Rome with all of these fantastic claims, and he was well received there. In fact, he was proclaimed a god. And throughout his entire life, most of the Samaritans hailed Simon as the primary god. And his followers continued on long after Simon had died.
In fact, the second-century Christians were familiar with his followers, who were known as the Simonians. Now, the Simonians represented only the beginning point of Gnosticism. It had some of the basic tenets of the Gnostic system, but most of the elaborate mythology didn't develop until later.
At the same time, I should tell you that most modern historians sort of brush off the idea that Simon was the first Gnostic, not because they have any contrary information and not because it's not plausible, because it's quite plausible. They simply think it's too convenient. They say that Irenaeus simply wanted to link Gnosticism with someone notorious like Simon Magus.
Of course, the problem with these modern so-called Christian historians is that they want to present Gnosticism as a valid alternative form of Christianity. They say there was no such thing as orthodoxy. Gnosticism had just as much right to claim orthodoxy as anything else. There wasn't a body of teaching handed down by the apostles. Christian doctrine was something that was invented as it went along.
So naturally, they don't want to acknowledge that Simon Magus started this whole thing because then they would have to say, "Yes, it was started by a rather deviant person." Of course, it makes no difference whether or not we call Simon Magus the first Gnostic. But I do think the historical evidence supports Irenaeus's conclusion quite nicely because the book of Acts does tell us that before his baptism, he was hailing himself as the great power of God and that virtually everyone in Samaria gave heed to him.
So he certainly had the power base to start a rival religion, a religion that claimed to be Christian. Secondly, the facts that Simon later apostatized from Christianity, that he went back to calling himself the great power and that he was accompanied by this woman, Helena, who he designated as the divine Sophia, that he was accepted as a god in Rome and throughout Samaria. All of these are supported by various historical witnesses, not just by Irenaeus, and most modern church historians don't doubt those facts.
Third, whoever did start Gnosticism appears to have been someone who had at one time been a Christian but who apostatized from the faith. It was not started by just some pagan out there. I say that because Gnosticism is built on rather fanciful interpretations of the events in the Old and the New Testament. A purely pagan teacher would not have constructed his system around the Jewish and Christian scriptures. Another point is that Gnosticism was obviously well established before the year AD 65.
That's the year that Paul died. And I say that because Paul refers specifically to the Gnostics in his first letter to Timothy. First Timothy 6:20 and 21 says this, "O Timothy, guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and vain babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, the Gnosis, by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith." Now, every scholar I've read acknowledges that that passage is a direct reference to Gnosticism.
However, since they don't want to acknowledge that Gnosticism began during the lifetime of Paul and was therefore a deviant form of Christianity, they now claim that, well, Paul didn't really write First Timothy, that it's a forgery that was written later on by people wanting to denounce the Gnostics. Well, that's a rather fanciful claim in itself and an absurd one because Polycarp quoted from First Timothy, and he wrote just a short time after the apostle John died.
So First Timothy was already a well-established and accepted letter of Paul's at a very early date. In fact, nobody in the early Christian church doubted the authenticity of Timothy. It was not one of the disputed books that went through a lot of discussion before it was accepted in the canon. Everybody accepted it.
If it was a forgery, it's unthinkable that it could have passed through all of the churches and been accepted by them so quickly because they caught all of the other false gospels and false epistles that were circulating. But anyway, as I've said, nearly all Bible scholars acknowledge that First Timothy 6:20 is a direct reference to Gnosticism. And therefore, for those of us who believe orthodoxy, well, it was obviously well established before Paul's death.
Actually, understanding the challenge and danger that Gnosticism presented to the New Testament Christians helps us to understand some of the New Testament passages that we might otherwise totally miss the significance of or that we might completely misinterpret. For example, there are other statements in Paul's first letter to Timothy that are probably, although not necessarily, references to Gnostic teachings.
The first is First Timothy 1:3 and 4, where Paul instructed Timothy, "As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies." That certainly sounds to most scholars like a reference to the fables and endless heavenly genealogies taught by the Gnostics. It may not, but more than likely it is.
Likewise, chapter 4 of First Timothy, the first three verses, Paul said, "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know, again, a form of Gnosis, the truth." Now, as I said, Paul is not necessarily
referring to Gnostics there, but he probably is because there were some of the Gnostic leaders who were teaching those very things, forbidding to marry and commanding their followers to abstain from certain foods.
I know it's become popular to apply First Timothy 4 to the Roman Catholics because of their requirement of celibate priests and their, in times past, requiring all Catholics to fast on Friday, which had been watered down to eat fish on Friday instead of red meat. I doubt that's what Paul was talking about because he's referring to his times as being the last days and giving Timothy specific warnings of what he needed to be on guard against.
There was no point in writing those things to Timothy if they weren't going to come about until three or four hundred years later. Now, of course, throughout Christian history, there have been other groups who have taught those very same things, and so they're valid instruction throughout all ages. But I think he was specifically talking to Timothy about things that he needed to be on guard against in their very day.
Now, by the time we get to John's epistles, which were written about the year AD 95, well, by then, Gnosticism is in full bloom. Gnostic teachers had become quite bold because the other 11 apostles had already died. John was the only one left to counter them. So John's first two letters are specifically addressing the claims and teachings of the Gnostics.
And if we don't realize that, it's very easy to come up with all kinds of really weird doctrine in reading First and Second John, applying them to things that John is not in any way intending them to be applied to. Now, I'm going to just briefly go through First John and just point out some of the verses that are either definitely talking about the Gnostics or very likely are.
Of course, there are other concerns that John addresses in his epistles, particularly First John, that is, that are not limited to the Gnostics.
But just at the very beginning, he says, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled concerning the word of life, the life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us, that which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us.
And truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." The reason why John makes such a point of what was heard from the beginning and that he says we talking, I assume, about perhaps the other apostles who've already died or other disciples who had known Jesus who were still living, that they are teaching what they got directly from Jesus Christ, what was taught from the very beginning in contrast to what the Gnostics were teaching, which was something very new, which was something not
taught from the beginning.
Verses 5 and 6, he says, "This is the message which we have heard from him and declare to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth." So there is no darkness in the real creator of our world. He's not the Demiurge. Furthermore, if we walk in darkness here on the earth, then we don't have fellowship with God.
See, the Gnostics were saying, "Oh, you can live any way you want because the true God doesn't really care. Material things are of no concern to him." Not true, John says. If we don't walk in the light, then we don't even know God. Chapter 2, verses 18 and 19, he says, "Little children, it is the last hour.
And as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many Antichrists have come by which we know that it is the last hour." So the last apostle was only a few years from his death, and the Antichrists were already present, already trying to poison Christianity with their false teaching. He continues, "They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.
But they went out that they might be made manifest that none of them were with us." And then verse 24, he says, "Therefore, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father." Verses 26 and 27, "These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. But the anointing which you have received from him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you.
But as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true and is not a lie. And just as it has taught you, you will abide in him." So again, he's telling them, "Hold fast to what you heard from the beginning. You don't need any new teachers. There is no new doctrine to be revealed." Now, I've seen this verse so misapplied today.
People say, "Well, if you're a Christian, then you don't need any teachers because John says here that the Spirit teaches you." Well, that's taking his verse totally out of context of what he's addressing there. But it is true. We don't need anyone coming and saying that, "Oh, they have new doctrine. They have new light. God has revealed this and that to them on what the scriptures really mean.
All we need is to hold fast to what was handed down from the beginning." Moving to chapter 3 of First John, verse 10, "In this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest.
Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who did not love his brother." So again, the Gnostics were saying, "You can live an ungodly life, and it doesn't matter because you've been born from this heavenly seed." John says, "No, if you're living and walking in darkness, then you have not been born from him. Or of course, if you have been born from him, then you've left the faith." And then chapter 4, he makes it absolutely clear who he's been talking about.
He says, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this, you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.
And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming and is now already in the world." Again, the Gnostics were denying that Jesus had come in the flesh. They said either he appeared to have flesh, but it wasn't really flesh, or that he had come as a spirit and merely possessed another human, this man, Jesus Christ. Again, chapter 5 of First John, verse 6, he says, "This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not only by water, but by water and blood.
And it is the Spirit who bears witness because the Spirit is truth." Again, the Gnostics could not acknowledge that Jesus had real blood in him. Now, in John's second epistle, he is again very specifically addressing the problem and danger of the Gnostics. Verse 7, he says, "For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an Antichrist.
Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we work for, but that we may receive a full reward. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him.
For he who greets him shares in his evil deeds." Now, again, that passage has been taken by some churches totally out of context and applied in a way that is not what John is addressing. In verse 7, he makes it clear he's talking about deceivers who do not confess Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh.
And then he tells the woman he is writing to, "Do not let anyone in your home who does not have the teaching of Christ, the one that has been handed down, don't even say a word of greeting to them." Or if you interpret Second John as being written to a church, not to an actual woman, well, the same teaching applies that a congregation should not allow some teacher to come in who is saying that Jesus did not really come in the flesh. Don't even bid him God speed because you don't want God to speed up his deception.
But some would apply this to a Christian who simply doesn't agree with the teaching of his church where they go beyond scripture. Now, John gives some pretty strong medicine here telling his listeners to not even say a word of greeting to such a person. But he's limiting this to false teachers, to Gnostic teachers who do not declare that Jesus came in the flesh. Now, if you have such a Gnostic teacher come to your house, then you have full scriptural authority to not say a word to such a person.
But outside of that limited application, you do not have scriptural authority to refuse to talk to a fellow Christian because they have a different view than you do on some other issue. Now, you might be wondering how the Gnostics got away with their fanciful teachings. Well, you have to remember that when Gnosticism got started, there was no New Testament canon. Many of the New Testament works hadn't even been written yet. And even those that had been written had not circulated to every congregation.
So Gnostic teachers could come into a congregation and pretend that they were sharing what the apostles had privately imparted to them. Now, while the apostles were still living, they were able to keep Gnosticism in check. They weren't able to eradicate it, but they were able to keep it to a very small movement. But once they died, the Gnostic teachers became quite bold, as I've already mentioned.
Furthermore, the Gnostics began writing and circulating fake gospels like the Gospel of Thomas, which purported to be writings from the apostles themselves. And so an individual Christian wouldn't necessarily know reading it that, "Oh, this is not really an authentic gospel." In addition to that, the Gnostics had their proof text just like everybody else does.
For example, they would quote Second Corinthians 4, verses 3 and 4, where Paul said, "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." So the Gnostics said, "See, it says right here that the God of this world, that's the Demiurge, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe.
He doesn't want the true light of Christ and his Father to shine through." Likewise, they would quote First Corinthians 2, verses 14 and 15, where it says, "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one." So the Gnostics referred to themselves as the spiritual man.
And when someone said, "Well, that's absurd what you're saying," they would say, "Well, that's because you're a natural man. And of course, it's foolishness to you because you can't discern these things unless you are spiritually attuned to it." And again, since extremely few individual Christians would have had a personal copy of the scriptures, it made it a lot easier for these Gnostic teachers to pull texts here and there totally out of context.
And again, why John had to give such strong instructions towards these Gnostic teachers? "Don't even let them into your home. Don't say a word of greeting to them. Don't let them into your congregations." Now, one of the reasons that Gnosticism had such a strong following is that there were some appealing aspects of it. For example, except for the Gnostic teachers who taught asceticism, Gnosticism required nothing from its followers except to believe. You were saved by faith and knowledge alone.
No obedience to Christ was required. In contrast, the Orthodox Christians were teaching that you had to maintain an obedient love-faith relationship with Jesus Christ. And that would often mean having to carry the cross. But in Gnosticism, there was no cross to bear. They didn't even believe Jesus had died on a cross, so there was certainly no need for them to carry a cross and die on a cross either.
So when persecution came, the Gnostics readily denied Christ and sacrificed to idols because their teachers said that none of those things really mattered. Furthermore, many people in the ancient world found this fanciful mythology of the Gnostics quite intriguing. And Gnosticism did address the problem of evil in a way that made sense to a lot of people. "Oh, that's why there's so much evil on earth.
Our world was created by an inferior fallen God." Furthermore, Gnostics could provide ready explanations for all of the problem passages in the Old Testament by saying, "See, look what kind of God the Demiurge is. And see the contrast with the God of the New Testament." So as false as their teachings were, they did have an appeal to a lot of people. Now, the Gnostic views of God and the material world naturally affected their views on many of the standard Christian doctrines.
Among these were their views on salvation, baptism, communion, life after death, the resurrection, free will, and eternal security. I'm not going to go into detail on those subjects because I have discussed all of them at length in separate recorded messages discussing what the early Christians believed and in contrast what the Gnostics were teaching.
But if you haven't listened to those messages yet, I would encourage you to do so for the simple reason that so many of the Gnostic false teachings are accepted today as Orthodox. Now, thankfully, I don't know of anyone who professes to be an Orthodox Christian who holds to the mythical cosmos of the Gnostics or who believes in the Demiurge or that Jesus didn't come in the flesh or that the God of the Old Testament was someone different than Jesus's Father.
Those primary basic tenets of Gnosticism are not being taught as Orthodox today that I know of. Rather, when I say that many Gnostic teachings are accepted today as Orthodox, I'm referring to their views on salvation, on baptism, communion, life after death, and doctrines like that. In the same vein, so many of the original tenets of the historic Christian faith are now labeled as heresy. It's all a little scary. Well, before closing, I want to take just a few minutes to discuss what became of Gnosticism.
As I've already mentioned, Gnosticism began during the time of Paul's ministry, but was held in check by the apostles. By the end of the first century, when only the apostle John was living, the Gnostic teachers became quite bold. One of them, named Cerinthus, was openly teaching that Jesus had not come in the flesh, but that the Son of God had merely descended upon the man Jesus at his baptism and then left him at the time of the crucifixion.
Polycarp, who was a companion of John, relates that John was entering one of the public baths with some other Christians when he spied Cerinthus there. John then yelled to his fellow Christians, "Let us fly, lest even the bathhouse falls down because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within." After the death of John, the Gnostics became even stronger, deceiving many. They wrote more fake gospels than there are true ones.
Ironically, because of the presence of the Gnostics, we know much more about what the early Christians believed than we would otherwise. That's because a large portion of the early Christian writings, perhaps about 20% of what is still in existence, was written in an effort to refute Gnosticism. In attacking what the Gnostics were teaching, these early Christian writers state what the Orthodox body of Christians believed, thereby leaving us a record. Gnosticism found its most able proponent in a man named Marcion.
Marcion was the son of a Christian leader and had been a zealous Christian early in his life. He had journeyed to Rome around the year 140, and he donated a huge sum of money to the church there. However, he later came under the influence of a Gnostic teacher, and he accepted their basic tenets that this world was created by the Demiurge, not by the Father of Jesus, and that the God of the Old Testament was not the same God of the New.
And he tried to persuade the Christians in Rome that these were, in fact, the true doctrines. Well, as a result of teaching this, he was put out of the church, and his money was given back to him. Thereafter, Marcion started his own rival church organization, and he acquired a huge following. Now, most church historians today do not classify Marcion as a Gnostic because in his system, there was not this extended hierarchy of celestial beings as there were in the doctrines of most of the Gnostic teachers.
Of course, it comes down to how you want to define Gnosticism. I tend to classify Marcion with the Gnostics because he held to their foundational belief that the world was created by the Demiurge, not by the Father of Jesus, and that the God of the Old Testament was this Demiurge, not the true God. Marcion actually formed his own canon, and this was before the New Testament canon itself had been fixed, which consisted of only 10 letters of Paul along with the Gospel of Luke. That's all that was in Marcion's canon.
However, he even severely edited those books so that they would fit his doctrines. He taught that Paul was the only one who really understood Jesus, that the 12 apostles were simply Judaizers who never really understood the message of Jesus. He accepted a highly modified version of Luke in his canon only because Luke had been a companion of the apostle Paul.
The disciples of Marcion, along with the disciples of many of the other Gnostic teachers, such as Valentinus, continued in existence all the way to the time of the Council of Nicaea and beyond. That's because the early Christians did not persecute them. They taught that religious persecution was wrong. So they fought Gnosticism with the pen, not with the sword. However, after the Council of Nicaea, Constantine outlawed the Gnostics, including the Marcionites, and he took their places of meeting away from them.
And because of that persecution, Gnosticism severely declined within the Roman Empire, although it was perhaps never totally eradicated until centuries after. It was evidently during the time of this persecution that some Gnostics buried a collection of their books near the small Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi. They were probably hiding them from persecution. And there those books lay in the dry climate of Egypt for nearly 2,000 years.
In 1945, these books were discovered by a camel driver who was digging in the sand for fertilizer. And these books have now been recovered, and they're in the Coptic Museum in Cairo. Provisional translations of these books into English have been made as well. Not surprisingly, in reading these books, historians find that these actual books of the Gnostics themselves reveal that the Gnostics believed and taught all of the things that the early Christians said that they were teaching.
So the early Christian writings proved to be a very reliable source as to what the Gnostics were teaching. Now, a form of Gnosticism grew up in the East known as Manichaeism. It was started by a Persian man named Mani, and he was heavily influenced by the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism. And one of the earmarks of the religion of Zoroastrianism is that it teaches a duality in the universe. There are two gods: a god of good and a god of evil, a god of light and a god of darkness.
When Manichaeism spread beyond the Persian Empire and reached the Roman Empire during the late third century, this was before the time of Constantine, well, it readily mixed in with Western Gnosticism because Western Gnosticism was teaching these two gods, although they certainly aren't two equal gods. One is the inferior Demiurge, and one is this good God, the Father of Jesus Christ. And so the two blended, and so Manichaeism became a form of Gnosticism in the West.
Now, unlike many of the Western Gnostic groups, the religion of Manichaeism taught a strict asceticism. So they lived very disciplined lives, rejecting marriage, rejecting any sort of pleasure, loose living, luxurious living, that sort of thing. Now, since the foundational base of Manichaeism was outside the Roman Empire, it flourished while the other Gnostic sects were declining under persecution.
Also, when the church became rich, powerful, and worldly after the time of Constantine, the simple ascetic living of the Manichees attracted many professing Christians. The same people who were attracted to the monastic movement were also attracted to Manichaeism. In fact, Augustine had been a disciple of Manichaeism before he converted to Orthodox Christianity. Furthermore, the disciples of Manichaeism were very missionary-minded, and they took Manichaeism all over Central Asia and even into China.
And it apparently lasted in China until the 17th century. During the Middle Ages, Manichaeism reemerged in Europe, in Eastern Europe, through the Paulicians and the Bogomils. Later, during the Middle Ages, during the Crusades, many of the Crusaders came in contact with the Bogomils when they were in Eastern Europe. And they noticed that these simple people lived more godly lives than did the Catholics. And so many of them were attracted to the religion of the Bogomils.
And when these Crusaders returned to Western Europe, they imported this Gnostic faith back into Western Europe, particularly to France, where these Gnostic believers were known as the Cathari, which means the pure, or also as the Albigenses, based on the region of France where they were located. The Cathari lived very strict lives, and as I said, they didn't allow marriage. Because of their upright lives, they attracted many of the Catholic peasants into their folds.
The Roman Catholic Church tried to combat the Cathari through preaching against them, but it was unsuccessful. So finally, in the 13th century, the church brought an armed crusade against them and slaughtered every one of them who wouldn't renounce their faith and become Catholic again, and eventually wiped them out. So that's the history of the Gnostics, one of the earliest heresies and one of the longest lasting.
In fact, as I said, when Gnosticism finally disappeared in the West, the Gnostics were actually living more upright lives than were the so-called Orthodox Christians of their day. And Gnosticism hasn't completely disappeared. It's making a comeback today among various new age groups. But more importantly, as I said earlier, many Gnostic teachings and viewpoints have been adopted by so-called Orthodox Christians.
And many of what were originally Gnostic viewpoints have become the predominant teachings today within the visible church.