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Gnosticism - Coggle Diagram
Gnosticism
Threat to Christianity
God- they identified the God of Israel, the God of the O.T. and the God of creation with the demi-urge.
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secret teachings- some groups taught that Jesus continued to teach his disciples for 12 years after his resurrection. While they accepted the original Apostles they maintained that this secret teaching had been handed down in esoteric fashion.
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concerning Christ- theirs was a docetic Christ. Some groups identified Jesus as the Redeemer who would lead the divine element in humans home,
lifestyle- the emphasis on lifestyle could alternate between strict Ascericism and moral indifference.
The attempt to restate Christianity in Gnostic terms i.e. orthodox Christianity was fine for the rank and file but for the intellectual elite there was a higher and truer account available.
The doctrine of Man
Spirituals- these are the highest class of humanity and these people are those who are capable of entering into full knowledge of spiritual realities. These possess the divine sparks in its fullness and only for them was full salvation possible
Phychics- those who possessed a type of life which was inferior to the pneumatics but above the materials. They were capable of a degree of salvation
In some bodies there is trapped a particale of light, a divine spark or spiritual element which yearns for the pure world of light, a divine spark or spiritual element which yearns for the pure world of light beyond this world.
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Again dualism is very evident in their doctrine of man and their ideas of redemption. The human physical body is part of the material world brought into being by the demi-urge. The physical body is therefore part of the corruption and inferior world of matter.
the doctrine of God
At its simplest they taught in terms of a distinction between a supreme knowable deity, far removed and beyond all thought itself. From this supreme God there issued a series of emanations which together constitute the pleroma.
In the lowest ranks of the pleroma there comes into being what is known as the demi-urge or the creator of the material world.
believed in the supreme God, pure spirit, unknowable deity and absolute.
The dualistic principle is seen in the distinction between the true supreme God and a much lesser being, the demi-urge
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Gnostic Morality
Other gnostic groups seem to have drawn the opposite conclusion- since the body is material and matter is evil it is of no consequence what one did in the body.
They indulged in gross immorality, and some groups had rites involving certain disgusting sexual practices.
Some Gnostic's practise a very strict Asceticism the reason being that the divine spark must be free from bondage to the body's desires so that it may seek out its true destiny.
The doctrine of creation
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In other words for Gnostics the material type of existence is vastly inferior to the realm of the spirit
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