The "Gnostic" controversies
c. 120–4th c.
disputed. The events and texts are attested. Whether 'Gnosticism' is a coherent category is disputed in current scholarship.
Beginning with Irenaeus, mainstream writers fought a range of teachers (Basilides, Valentinus, Sethian circles, Carpocrates) who taught salvation through knowledge (gnosis) of a hidden divine origin. These teachers often held that a lower demiurge made the world. Modern scholars (M. Williams, K. King) question whether 'Gnosticism' was ever one movement or a category invented by heresiologists.
Sides
"Gnostic" teachers and schools
Leaders: Basilides, Valentinus, Ptolemy, Heracleon, Theodotus, Sethian authors
Salvation through revealed knowledge. Distinct higher and lower divine beings. Spiritual readings of scripture.
Heresiologists
Leaders: Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria (partly sympathetic to "true gnosis"), Epiphanius, Plotinus (pagan critic)
One creator God. Apostolic succession and the rule of faith as tests of truth.
Councils and places
- Alexandria (Basilides, Carpocrates, early Valentinus) 2nd
- Rome (Valentinian school) 2nd
- Lugdunum (Marcosians in the Rhône valley) 2nd
- Rome (Plotinus's circle meets the Gnostics, 260s) 3rd
- Nag Hammadi (Jabal al-Tarif codices, found 1945) 4th
- Callinicum (Valentinian chapel, 388) 4th
Outcome
No single council decided it. The rule of faith, episcopal succession and the emerging canon did. By the 4th century, Valentinian and Sethian groups were marginal.
What happened to the losers
Communities faded through the 4th–5th centuries, and the Callinicum chapel was burned in 388. Their writings largely vanished until the Nag Hammadi (1945), Berlin and Tchacos codices.
Groups
Sources
- Gnosticism (Wikipedia)
- Gnosticism (Catholic Encyclopedia 1913, confessional)Confessional source