The New Testament Church was originally probably content and completely occupied with announcing the Savior, praising His finished work and fellowship. But something happened that threatened that simple Christian existence so severely that many of the New Testament letters needed to be sent. That threat, that sought to devour and derail the unaware Christian became known as Gnosticism. The Apostles thought the Gnostic systems of belief so dangerous that they needed to combat it through sending their letters. The Holy Spirit thus inspiring those writings testifies that God used those refutations as the source to preserve for the New Testament Scriptures.
From my studies, I have made a condensed version of main points from select sections of pertinent sources. The choice of Mensel was because he gets to the roots of Gnosticism thus weeding out all the varieties that came about later than the NT time period. The choice of Irenaeus is because his work is what many others are referencing and rewording. I thought we should just go to the source and in doing so, get his understanding from the time of AD 182-188.
Gnostic Heresies of the First and Second Centuries:
Henry Mansel-1875 (page reference from book given after quote except as noted if from me (mp) or Irenaeus)
Mansel’s book traces Gnosticism from it’s formed varied systems in later 2nd century to it’s common roots as present in the New Testament time period.
“The distinctive feature which marks Gnosticism in all its schools as a religious heresy, and not as a mere philosophical extravagance, is the presence of this idea of a redemption of the world, and the recognition, in a perverted form, of the person and work of Christ as taking part in this redemption.”5
“As the institutions of Judaism under type and symbol prefigured in the Christian belief the fuller revelation of Christ, so Christianity itself, in the estimation of the Gnostics, was but a figurative and symbolical exposition of truths, the fuller meaning of which was to be supplied by philosophical speculation.”9
“It was not merely an erroneous opinion on certain points of belief that they” [The Apostles & Church Fathers] “were combating; it” [Gnosticism] “was a principle which destroyed the possibility of any religion at all; which, in setting aside the personality of God and the personality of man, struck at the root and basis of all natural religion; which, by virtually denying the existence of sin and consequently of redemption from sin, took away the whole significance of the revelation of Christ.”13
The Meaning of Gnosis: “knowledge”
Gnosis of the Christian Church: “Already in the LXX and Apocryphal Book of Wisdom, gnosis had been employed to denote a knowledge of the true God or a knowledge especially given by Him.”6 Gnosis “was a knowledge given by divine revelation and accepted in faith; whatever fuller insight into divine things could be attained by study or contemplation was admitted only in so far as it was in accordance with the revealed teaching, and if not identical with it, at least a legitimate interpretation or explanation of it.7
Gnosis of the Gnostic: “was a knowledge designed to subordinate the revelation of Christ to the speculations of human philosophy - a curious inquiry, searching after an apprehension of God, not in what He has revealed of Himself, but in that which He has not revealed... under the pretense of giving a deeper and more spiritual meaning to the Christian revelation... making it [Christianity] subservient to theories incompatible [with Christianity]...theories of human invention, originating in heathen philosophies...”8
Christian Faith, persuasion from God, about God, for God which is the beginning of knowledge of God and the Spiritual realm of God and yet interacts with man’s free-will.(mp)
Gnostic Faith, “Gnosticism revived the idea, familiar to heathen thought, but wholly alien to the spirit of Christianity, of one religion designed for the wise and initiated, and another for the ignorant and profane vulgar. “Faith, the foundation of Christian knowledge, was fitted only for the rude mass, the
yucikoi or “animal men” who were incapable of higher things. Far above these were the privileged natures, the men of intellect, the
pneumatikoi or spiritual men, whose vocation was not to believe, but to know.”10. “The whole distinctive character of belief and unbelief cannot be liable to praise or blame, being preceded by a natural necessity sprung from Him who is all-powerful.”14
The Christian God: The Trinity co-participating in creation. The Trinity co-participating in the redemption of creation. The Trinity is light in the kingdom of light. (mp)
The Gnostic God: The absolute God is separate from the creator. The absolute or “first principle” is absolute good; It/he is the utter absence of evil and total purity, so that all that is evil which includes all matter cannot have been created by Him. The Creator is separate from “The Absolute” or “First Principle” and is either the evil counterpart or a subordinate of the absolute God who has become evil. The absolute is Light, the creator is either Darkness or in the darkness since what it created is not perfected. All that is created, because it decays, dies, etc must be outside of the reach of the First Principle’s light, or it would be purified to perfection. (Irenaeus book2 Ch. 5)
Christian Salvation: Saved through redemption by the work of a personal God by means of saving faith through repentance.
Gnostic Salvation: Those who have attained to perfect knowledge must of necessity be regenerated into that power which is above all. (Irenaeus Book1 Ch. 21)
Christian Sin: Evil appears in the form of sin...as a transgression on the part of a moral agent against the laws and will of a moral Governor.12 (Man was born in sin, with a sin nature, chooses to sin and must be delivered from the sin principle to escape judgement.(mp)
Gnostic Sin: God is not personal. God is metaphysical. So with the personality of God not existing, the personality of man naturally disappears along with it. “Man cannot offend against any law of God; for his actions are the direct consequence of the laws which God (if there be a God) has established in the world...” A man, however inconvenient his actions may be to his neighbor, is no more to blame for committing them than is a fire for consuming his neighbor's house or a sickness for destroying his life.15
Christian Man: Man is the special subject of relations towards God, peculiar to himself by virtue of that personal and moral nature, in which he alone of God’s earthly creature, bears the image of his Maker.12
Gnostic Man: Man is viewed but as a portion of the universe, an atom in that vast system of derived existence which emanates from the one “first principle” (the absolute existence).The course of the world is his course as part of the world; ...the one attribute which constitutes him a person and not a thing-the attribute of Free-Will- is swallowed up...12. The unbeliever cannot be punished because he is not the cause of his unbelief, as the believer is not the cause of his belief.14
The Biblical person of God and Man: A religious relationship between God and man interacting with his creation person to person.
The metaphysical God and Man of Gnosticism: A metaphysical relationship between God and world; absolute and relative, cause and effect, principle and consequence.
Irenaeus- in his The 5 Books Against Heresies -182-188ad. at
carm.org/irenaeus.
-“John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that "knowledge" falsely so called, that he might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father of the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another, who also continued impossible, descending upon Jesus, the Son of the Creator, and flew back again into His Pleroma; and that Monogenes was the beginning, but Logos was the true son of Monogenes; and that this creation to which we belong was not made by the primary God, but by some power lying far below Him, and shut off from communion with the things invisible and ineffable. The disciple of the Lord therefore desiring to put an end to all such doctrines, and to establish the rule of truth in the Church, that there is one Almighty God, who made all things by His Word, both visible and invisible; showing at the same time, that by the Word, through whom God made the creation, He also bestowed salvation on the men included in the creation; thus commenced His teaching in the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.(5) What was made was life in Him, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."(6) "All things," he says, "were made by Him;" therefore in "all things" this creation of ours is [included], for we cannot concede to these men that [the words] "all things" are spoken in reference to those within their Pleroma. For if their Pleroma do indeed contain these, this creation, as being such, is not outside, as I have demonstrated in the preceding book;(7) but if they are outside the Pleroma, which indeed appeared impossible, it follows, in that case, that their Pleroma cannot be "all things:" therefore this vast creation is not outside [the Pleroma].”
-“John, however, does himself put this matter beyond all controversy on our part, when he says, "He was in this world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own [things], and His own [people] received Him not."(8) But according to Marcion, and those like him, neither was the world made by Him; nor did He come to His own things, but to those of another. And, according to certain of the Gnostics, this world was made by angels, and not by the Word of God. But according to the followers of Valentinus, the world was not made by Him, but by the Demiurge. For he (Soter) caused such similitudes to be made, after the pattern of things above, as they allege; but the Demiurge accomplished the work of creation. For they say that he, the Lord and Creator of the plan of creation, by whom they hold that this world was made, was produced from the Mother; while the Gospel affirms plainly, that by the Word, which was in the beginning with God, all things were made, which Word, he says, "was made flesh, and dwelt among us."
-“But, according to these men, neither was the Word made flesh, nor Christ, nor the Saviour (Soter), who was produced from [the joint contributions of] all [the Aeons]. For they will have it, that the Word and Christ never came into this world; that the Saviour, too, never became incarnate, nor suffered, but that He descended like a dove upon the dispensational Jesus; and that, as soon as He had declared the unknown Father, He did again ascend into the Pleroma. Some, however, make the assertion, that this dispensational Jesus did become incarnate, and suffered, whom they represent as having passed through Mary just as water through a tube; but others allege him to be the Son of the Demiurge, upon whom the dispensational Jesus descended; while others, again, say that Jesus was born from Joseph and Mary, and that the Christ from above descended upon him, being without flesh, and impassible. But according to the opinion of no one of the heretics was the Word of God made flesh. For if any one carefully examines the systems of them all, he will find that the Word of God is brought in by all of them as not having become incarnate (sine carne) and impassible, as is also the Christ from above. Others consider Him to have been manifested as a transfigured man; but they maintain Him to have been neither born nor to have become incarnate; whilst others [hold] that He did not assume a human form at all, but that, as a dove, He did descend upon that Jesus who was born from Mary. Therefore the Lord's disciple, pointing them all out as false witnesses, says, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us."
-“They maintain that those who have attained to perfect knowledge must of necessity be regenerated into that power which is above all.”
-“Their talk also about shadow and vacuity, in which they maintain that the creation with which we are concerned was formed, will be brought to nothing, if the things referred to were created within the territory which is contained by the Father. For if they hold that the light of their Father is such that it fills all things which are inside of Him, and illuminates them all, how can any vacuum or shadow possibly exist within that territory which is contained by the Pleroma, and by the light of the Father? For, in that case, it behoves them to point out some place within the Propator, or within the Pleroma, which is not illuminated, nor kept possession of by any one, and in which either the angels or the Demiurge formed whatever they pleased. Nor will it be a small amount of space in which such and so great a creation can be conceived of as having been formed. There will therefore be an absolute necessity that, within the Pleroma, or within the Father of whom they speak, they should conceive(1) of some place, void, formless, and full of darkness, in which those things were formed which have been formed. By such a supposition, however, the light of their Father would incur a reproach, as if He could not illuminate and fill those things which are within Himself. Thus, then, when they maintain that these things were the fruit of defect and the work of error, they do moreover introduce defect and error within the Pleroma, and into the bosom of the Father.”
