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Updated: May 3, 2025
Peter, who fell in with him originally in Samaria, seems to have encountered him again at Rome. At Rome St. Polycarp met Marcion of Pontus, whose followers spread through Italy, Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and Persia. Burton, "he finds that Gnosticism, under some form or other, was professed in every part of the then civilized world.
I do not think it is saying too much when I state that there is nothing in Gnosticism which modern science and philosophy can recognize as having a valid foundation. We can understand why it developed, just as we can understand why mythology arose, but it was a mistaken movement because it followed the old mythological path of explanation.
It ushered in the reign of rationalism, which still refuses to abdicate her throne, and which is absolutely rampant and exulting in the great universities of the most learned and inquiring of European nations. But Gnosticism partook more of the haughty and exclusive spirit of the eastern sages, than of the patient and inquiring nature of the Grecian schools.
The reader most sincerely is asked to devote the required time in any public library and study this very interesting subject of "Gnosticism" from which the most detrimental system in the Christian era was originated, "The Monasticism." In this ecclesiastical order the writer had been distinguished with the rank of "Archimandrites."
Asia Minor was then the theatre of a strange movement of syncretical philosophy; all the germs of Gnosticism existed there already. John appears to have drunk deeply from these strange springs. In attributing these new ideas to Jesus, he only followed a very natural tendency. Our remembrances are transformed with our circumstances; the ideal of a person that we have known changes as we change.
It may be doubted whether its attractiveness lay so much in its dualism as in its gnosticism, though the former element maintained itself in some minor Christian sects. However this may be, it gradually faded away, leaving no lasting impression; it was a form of faith not suited to the peoples who professed Christianity.
Had it been connected with the ethical teaching of the classic Greek tradition, had a myth of the resurrection of some noble teacher like Plato arisen to control the phantasy of the oriental mind, the result would not have been far different from Christianity. It was only natural that Gnosticism with its belief in a savior-god should feel itself drawn to Christianity with its similar teaching.
This new science is not new, but is the revival, through satanic powers, of ancient Gnosticism, a denial of every article of the faith once and for all delivered unto the saints. Prominent in this system is the denial of the physical resurrection, and the bodily presence of the Lord Jesus in Glory. It is the masterpiece of Satan.
While the Gnostic sects disappear in the sixth century, the influence of Gnosticism can be followed down to the twelfth century, a significant testimony to the enduring qualities of Babylonian doctrines. In the ancient world, prior to the rise of Christianity, Egypt, Persia, and Greece felt the influence of the Babylonian religion.
Gnosticism busied itself with the solution of insoluble questions respecting the origin of evil, which Christianity justly relinquished to the domain of useless inquiries "the wisdom of the world." Gnosticism would acknowledge no limits to human speculation; Christianity accepts mysteries hidden from the wise and prudent, and yet revealed unto babes.
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