Extract from Ptolemy's letter to Flora

[kaufmannphillips]

dwilkins wrote:
The former Jews, who founded Gnosticism in ~115AD, couldn't come to grips with the fact that God had rejected them so they were forced down this path.

Source/evidence for this claim, please.

[Paidion]

Actually, gnosticism wasn't founded in 115 A.D.

There were three stages of gnostic development. The Pre-Christian drew its inspiration from Greek, Jewish and eastern sources.

(A History of Heresy, David Christie-Murray ch.3, p.22)

Also, in the Christian era, John the apostle speaks against what seems to have been gnosticism in his day.

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. (I John 4:2,3)

Some of the gnostics held that Jesus was not born as a human being (had come in the flesh), but that He was a spirit being who only appeared to be human. It seems this idea was already in the world in John's day.

However, gnostic of not, Ptolemy makes some points which explain a lot of the supposed commands of God which are recorded in the Old Testament. Nowhere in this extract, does he suggest the Lawgiver was a lesser god. What Ptolemy does suggest is that at least some of the Mosaic law was influenced by Moses own ideas.

...the second [part of the Law must be attributed] to Moses - not in the sense that God legislates through him, but in the sense that Moses gave some legislation under the influence of his own ideas.

If we do not accept this, then we must accept a "god" who commanded parents to have their disobedient children stoned to death, and who commanded women to have their hands cut off under particular circumstances, and to show no mercy to such women. Such a "god" is not the Father whom Messiah revealed.

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. Matthew 5:44,45)

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:35,36)

With these statements Jesus clearly stated that the Father is merciful, that He does good things for both the righteous and the unrighteous, and that He is kind to ungrateful and evil people. Then Jesus tells us that if we do likewise, we will demonstate that we are truly the children of the Heavenly Father.

Can you imagine Jesus commanding people to stone to death their disobedient children? — the One who shamed those who thought it right to stone to death an adulteress by saying, "He who is without sin can throw the first stone at her"? And then told her, "I don't condemn you. Go, and sin no more"?

There must be a better explanation of the harsh elements of the Mosaic law than holding to a belief in a schizophenic "God" who is "loving but also just" by which people mean that He expresses love to some but hatred to others, accompanied by painful punishment or even death.

Jesus clearly contrasted that law with His own teaching. He didn't say that God gave those laws. Rather He said, "It was said by those of old time ..., but I tell you..."

[dwilkins]

According to the best current scholarship I've found there was no coherent gnosticism before ~115AD (per Smith) when the Jews in Alexandria were defeated in a rebellion against the Romans. I haven't run across a modern scholar that doesn't allow for this as a notional beginning date, though some don't try to be specific because they haven't postulated a catalyst for the creation of gnosticism. This defeat in the early 2nd Century, coming on the heels of the Roman defeat of Jerusalem in 70AD, likely caused some of them to rethink their religion (and hence national heritage, etc.). Per most sources (even older traditional ones like Rudolph), coherent gnosticism is essentially Biblical Demiurge Tradition, which says that the God of the Old Testament was an evil sub-god (Smith would say that YHWH rejected them, so they demoted him), the world her made is inherently evil (since YHWH was a sub-god then his creation was inherently flawed), and that the path to salvation was an individual one of enlightenment (since corporate or national identify for salvation had obviously not worked out they made it an individual effort). There are no verifiable sources of coherent gnosticism (defined as adhering to at least these three points) before the fall of Jerusalem per Yamauchi (which brings into question us dragging a not yet existent movement into the Biblical narrative instead of looking at the otherwise ubiquitous enemies, the pre-invasion Jews).

We have been handicapped over the years because until the middle of the last century our only understanding of gnosticism came through anti-gnostics of the early church. And, we had none of the original writings of their opponents, which is a recipe for misrepresentation. Most of the pop Christian teaching on the matter is essentially hundreds of years old and completely out of date due to the Nag Hammadi discovery. If you think about it, most retiring professors were taught in their youth by people who learned gnosticism before Nag Hammadi was either discovered or analyzed. It has taken a generation for this work to make its way into scholarship, but not that it has things are becoming more clear.

For those who are completely skeptical of the category, there is an interesting argument made by Williams that there isn't actually any such thing as gnosticism. Since the word essentially means “knowledge”, the point of its use was basically to accuse someone of being a “know it all”. But, there are a lot of know it alls and none of them have to necessarily teach the same thing. So, it's possible that “gnostic” is essentially meaningless as a label. If we follow this line of thought then we can simply stop talking about the category. I think that Smith is more persuasive that we can come up with at least some coherent definition, but he jettisons the non-Biblical Demiurge Traditions to do so.

Below are some links to some helpful books on the topic:

http://www.amazon.com/Gnosis-The-Nature ... gnosticism

http://www.amazon.com/Pre-Christian-Gno ... gnosticism

http://www.amazon.com/No-Longer-Jews-Gn ... onger+jews

http://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Gnosti ... gnosticism

[kaufmannphillips]

Hi, Doug -

Thanks for your response. I have not given a lot of attention to gnostic studies, and will not expend time engaging the merits or liabilities of Smith's thesis. But I will point out that mainstream Judaism came to grips with the disappointments of the revolutionary era - without rejecting HSHM, and without imagining that HSHM had rejected the Jewish people or faith.