 The church did not approve of people turning to philosophy as a path to understanding faith  The beliefs that were not consistent with the Christian orthodox (correct teaching) understanding of faith were viewed as heresy  Orthodox means correct teaching  Heresy: an opinion or doctrine contrary to church dogma

 Christians (against Gnostics) destroyed Gnostic writings  In the middle of the 20 th century Gnostic writings were discovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt  Until the discovery of these writings, we had only the accounts of the early Church Fathers

 Gnostic beliefs caused much tension within the Christian community because:  Tore apart what many Christians saw as their basic beliefs  Tossing out the idea that Jesus’ death leads to salvation  Overturned the traditional Christian understanding of the gospel stories  Change the Christian story into the sort of myth found in all those mystery religions  Made the God of the Jews into a being that was at the very least deluded  Made creation a bad thing

 Beyond earth there is the Plenora  The divine realm of spiritual fullness, and the emanation of the various aeons that inhabit it  Sophia:  The youngest of the aeons  Was not content  Did not rebel against God but Her curiosity and desire led her to fall away

 Compare to Eve  Curious  Ate the forbidden fruit = knowledge  For Gnostics, Eve did the right thing  There was not a garden but a prison  The creator God was not a wise, all- loving God, but an ignorant, half- mad craftsman  The fall was not committed by man and is not a punishment for disobedience  Mankind is not cursed with the burden of original sin but is merely asleep to its true nature

 Sophia conceived and her child is called Yaldabaoth = demiurge  Yaldabaoth (Demiurge)  Knew nothing of God - true God  Knew nothing about the Pleroma above  Knew nothing about his mother  Thinking he was the only god, he created the material world and declared it good  In comparison to the Plenora, it was a shadow composed of gross matter

 Since the demiurge could not create life, he trapped sparks of the divine  Redeemers: have been sent from the Pleroma to bring teachings which illuminate the situation in which mankind finds itself (Jesus was a redeemer)  These teachings can lead to direct gnosis with the Pleroma

 Gnostics emphasized gnosis (knowledge) rather than faith  Gnosis: saves, redeems, and provides liberation  Jesus was the savior and redeemer by bringing knowledge of the universe and humans’ true place within it  Faith: faith in Christ, in his crucifixion and resurrection and his status as the son of God, the savior and redeemer of humanity

 Due to these teachings, the leaders of the Christian communities decided they needed to deal with these issues before they became more widespread  Church leaders decided to:  Choose which of the many writings about Jesus should be included in the canon  Established creeds to ensure that everyone in the Church agreed on the basics of faith