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Updated: May 15, 2025
It was sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes boldly asserted, that the same bloody sacrifices, and the same incestuous festivals, which were so falsely ascribed to the orthodox believers, were in reality celebrated by the Marcionites, by the Carpocratians, and by several other sects of the Gnostics, who, notwithstanding they might deviate into the paths of heresy, were still actuated by the sentiments of men, and still governed by the precepts of Christianity.
And he considers that corruption and destruction are of the flesh alone, but that there is a purification of souls and that, only if they are established in initiation by means of his misleading Gnôsis. This is the beginning of the so-called Gnostics.
This was the crucial point for the Gnostics. Some settled it in one way, some in another. The essential point common to them all was that to arrive at a true understanding of the Christ-idea, mere historical tradition was not enough, but that it must be sought either in the wisdom of the Mysteries, or in the Neo-Platonic philosophy which was derived from the same source.
A scandal is better than a lie;" or Saint Epiphanius' plain speaking in discussing the Gnostics and describing in detail the abominations of that sect, quietly adding in the face of the congregation, "Why should I shrink from speaking of the things you do not fear to do? By speaking thus, I hope to fill you with horror of the turpitude you commit."
In the sixth century B.C. it was in a fair way to becoming as obsolete as Neoplatonism or Gnosticism in the nineteenth A.D.; and Laotse and Confucius simply restated some aspects of it with a new force and sanction; just as H.P. Blavatsky, in the Key to Theosophy, begins, you will remember, with an appeal to and restatement of the Theosophy of the Gnostics and Neoplatonists of Alexandria.
It has added a third Person but we won't go into that." The bishop was reminded suddenly of the dispute at Mrs. Garstein Fellows'. "We won't go into that," he agreed. "No!" "Other religions have told the story in a different way. The Cathars and Gnostics did.
Ten years before he coined the word "Agnostic" to label his attitude towards the unproved, whether likely or unlikely, in contradistinction to the Gnostics, who professed to "know" from within apart from external proof, Huxley described the Agnostic position he had already reached the position of suspending judgment where actual proof is not possible; the attitude of mind which regards the words "I believe" as a momentous assertion, not to be uttered on incomplete grounds.
They also were charged with homosexuality, and with them as with the Rosicrucians and the Gnostics, homosexuality was a part of their teachings. They likewise advocated communal marriage. At their secret meetings and initiations many vices existed; idols were worshipped, phallic features were introduced, and the entire ceremony was similar to the mysteries of antiquity.
For a while there was a flourishing meeting-house of Tertullianists, who had scared more humble minds by pronouncing the eternal perdition of every Catholic; there had also been various descriptions of Gnostics, who had carried off the clever youths and restless speculators; and then there had been the lapse of time, gradually consuming the generation which had survived the flourishing old days of the African Church.
The sacred character of this reptile among the Gnostics is shown by the accounts given of their religious rites and ceremonies. By many of these sects this holy creature was kept in a box, ark, or chest, and when the eucharistic service was to be performed, he was enticed forth from his resting-place by a bit of bread.
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