Christ Conspiracy_ The Greatest Story Ever Sold - Acharya S [37]
The impression has been cast that the philosophy or religion of Gnosticism began only during the Christian era and that the former was a corruption of the latter. However, Gnosticism is far older than Christianity, extending back thousands of years. The term Gnosticism, in fact, comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means knowledge, and "Gnostic" simply means "one who knows," rather than designating a follower of a particular doctrine. From time immemorial, those who understood "the mysteries" were considered "keepers of the gnosis." The Greek philosophers Pythagoras and Plato were "Gnostics," as was the historian Philo, whose works influenced the writer of the Gospel of John.
Nevertheless, during the early centuries of the Christian era, "Gnosticism" became more of a monolithic movement, as certain groups and individuals began to amalgamate the many religions, sects, cults, mystery schools and ideologies that permeated the Roman Empire and beyond, from England to Egypt to India and China. This latest infusion of Gnosticism traced its roots to Syria, oddly enough the same nation in which Christians were first so called, at Antioch. Of this development, Massey says:
We are told in the Book of Acts that the name of the Christiana was first given at Antioch; but so late as the year 200 A.D. no canonical New Testament was known at Antioch, the alleged birth-place of the Christian name. There was no special reason why "the disciples" should have been named as Christians at Antioch, except that this was a great centre of the Gnostic Christians, who were previously identified with the teachings and works of the mage Simon of Samaria.?
These Antiochan Gnostic-Christians were followers of "Simon the Magus," who was impugned as the "heresiarch" or originator of all Christian heresies. Yet, this Simon Magus appears to have been a mythical character derived from two mystical entities, Saman and Maga, esteemed by the Syrians prior to the Christian era. This religion could be called Syro-Samaritan Gnostic Christianity. Syro-Judeo-Gnosticism, on the other hand, was originally a Jewish heresy, starting with Mandaeanism, a highly astrological ideology dating to the fourth century BCE that tried to bridge between Judaism and Zoroastrianism and that was very influential on Christianity. The Gnostic tree of thought thus had many branches, such that it was not uniform and was colored by the variety of cultures and places in which it appeared, a development that created competition. Pagels says, "These socalled gnostics, then, did not share a single ideology or belong to a specific group; not all, in fact, were Christians."H Indeed, the various Gnostic "Christian" texts from Chenoboskion were found in non-Christian, Pagan tombs.`> Thus, we find in the ancient world Syrian or Samaritan Gnosticism, Jewish Gnosticism, Christian Gnosticism and Pagan Gnosticism.
Yet, as stated, Gnosticism was eclectic, gathering together virtually all religious and cultic ideologies of the time, and constituting a combination of "the philosophies of Plato and Philo, the Avesta and the Kabbala, the mysteries of Samothrace, Eleusis and of Orphism."'° Buddhism and Osirianism were major influences as well. The Gnostic texts were multinational, using terms from the Hebrew, Persian, Greek, Syriac/Aramaic, Sanskrit and Egyptian languages.
Although there now seems to be a clear-cut distinction between Gnostics and Christians, there was not one at the beginning, and the fact is that Gnosticism was proto-Christianity. The distinction was not even very great as late as the third century, when Neoplatonic philosopher and fierce Christian critic Porphyry attacked "Gnostics," whom he considered to be Christians, as did Plotinus (205-270), both of whom indicted the Christians/ Gnostics for making up their texts. Pagels describes the murky division between the "Gnostics" and the "Christians":
... one revered father of the church, Clement of Alexandria