The earliest Christians were manifestly not gnostic. In fact, the early Christians were bitter enemies of the gnostics.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06592a.htm
And here's St. Irenaeus' (my current avatar)
Against Heresies, which is a monument of a book indicting gnostics.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103.htmGnosticism is extremely evil, from what I can gather. All heresies are evil of course, it's just that there seems to be something particularly pernicious about gnosticism. It reminds me of the Fall when the serpent tempted Eve to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, saying that if she did so she would be equal to God: that's gnosticism in a nutshell, the idea that if you acquire this special knowledge you will be equal to God.
Gnosticism is at the core of the New Age movement, which is satanic. Gnosticism is also at the root of much of Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ and Jєωιѕн Kabbalah, and I think that most of you know how destructive these have been; how instrumental they have been in Satan's gradual overthrow of Catholicism as we once knew it. I've also said in another thread about how Evolution savours of gnosticism, because there is this idea implicit in Evolution that mankind can become God through eugenics / breeding the "master race", and DNA becomes a kind of pantheistic "life force" and the desire to reproduce becomes the centre of all existence and of all of our acts and motivations. I believe that the indoctrination of children in public schools is tantamount to the people being inducted into a gnostic religion on a mass scale; Evolution shapes the most basic idea of how you look at the world, and the metaphysics and spirituality of Evolution is extremely far removed from the Faith.
That the most important discovery in Gnostic history took place in 1945 (the Nag Hammadi library) makes me wonder about Providence. It seems that God is allowing Satan to have all the resources he needs to corrupt people.
johnnyci, do you really think that God would keep himself hidden from mankind for about 2000 years and then reappear in obscure texts like those of the Nag Hammadi library (The Gospel of Thomas, etc.) and in books like the one you have read? When Christ established his Church upon Peter and promised that the gates of hell would never prevail against it? And what have been the fruits of these gnostic texts (because Christ says that we will know men by their fruits)? Have there been any great gnostic saints, martyrs, monks? From the tiniest bit of gnostic history that I know it seems as though that gnostics generally have always had a bad habit of practising occult rituals, of engaging in sɛҳuąƖ misconduct, of considering themselves to be gods and the rest of mankind as cattle to be lead according to their whims, etc. So what has happened since the discovery of "The Gospel of Thomas", etc.? Has there been a resurgence in Faith? Has there been a rush for monastic living, for evangelization and for martyrdom? It seems to me as though the world has only become more anti-christ, and that these texts have rather expedited that process rather than checked it.
But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there shall be among you lying teachers, who shall bring in sects of perdition, and deny the Lord who bought them: bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
There have always been false prophets misleading people. Read
Against Heresies. The Gnostic Tactic of telling people that you have a special revelation from God and that you have the True Religion and the True God and that the mass of people don't have either is very
ancient; it appeals to people's pride, the idea that most people
don't get it and that you in particular have been chosen to become a god through instruction in esoteric wisdom. It's usually very easy to spot these liars because they tend to glorify themselves to an absurd degree, they present themselves as second Christs:
For many will come in my name saying, I am Christ: and they will seduce many.
Your error is in thinking that we need a book from some modern academic or guru to save us, as though the last 2000 years of catholic tradition are irrelevant and were never really what God wanted anyway. This is the sheer arrogance of the modern world: the idea that the people before the modern world were
savages and were
superstitious, and that we are now entering into a New Age of spiritual enlightenment. This is all a demonic deception; it's the Devil appealing to men's pride. Truthfully, there has never been a more savage or superstitious age than our own; we are so backwards. For our savagery: see the World Wars. For our superstition: see the idea of "progress" (the idea that as history unfolds civilization becomes more civilized, humanity becomes human, truth becomes more true, etc.) and New Age "spirituality".
I'm not well-read at all; I've barely read anything. However, from the very scant pieces I've read here and there I can perceive the footprints that the Devil has left throughout history and these footprints have often been in the shape of gnosticism. In antiquity it was the so-called Mystery Religions, the Pythagoreans, the "Christian Gnostics". In Medieval times it was the Rosicrucians and the Kabbalists. In modern times it's Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ, Theosophy and the New Age. It's like the Devil has been keeping his own hidden priesthood alive throughout all of the centuries, and it just so happens that now, though they are still quite hidden, this priesthood has come to power by replacing the Catholic Church as the spiritual authority in the world.
You need to throw this stuff away, mate, the sooner the better. It is the Devil.
God bless.
Topic: Gnosis-mysticism-turbulences (Read 2300 times)