Gnosis And Charis:Research On The Second Century Gnosticism

Moving from the apostolic age in the first century to the patristic age in the second century,the Christian Church was confronted with some severe challenges.One of these challenges in the second century is Gnosticism which exerted considerable influence on the church.These Gnostics(Γυωστικοζ),the advocates of Gnosticism,asserted that human beings are saved through the grace and knowledge from God and further designated this kind of God’s gracious knowledge as "gnosis"(γυωσιζ).Gnostics claimed that successive syzygies of aeons,which constituted the Pleroma(Πληρωμα),a mysterious world,emanated from the Father.On the basis of this system,they formed their own way of hermeneutics,reading into the Bible that includes the Hebrew Bible and uncanonized texts of New Testament at that time.In terms of epistemology,in the beginning Gnostics were heavily conscious of the role of grace during the process of cognitive activity.They believed the texts of New Testament come from the revelation in the faith which is the starting point of knowledge and assists them to be recipients of God’s grace in the pursuit of the spiritual knowledge of truth.As soon as grasping the true knowledge,however,Gnostics becamerational subjects and began to formulate a system of true knowledge.As it can be seen that,the grace of God is the hope they cling to at first;however,after knowing that they have received the grace,Gnostics proceeded to make use of this received grace to erect the idol of the true knowledge for themselves.In this case,if the grace,which originally means human beings possess what is not supposed to be had,is treated as the object of rational activity,then the grace-oriented epistemology would be replaced by the rationality-oriented epistemology.Irenaeus of Lyon(AD 130-202),who was familiar with Gnostic theories,criticized the Gnostics for misinterpretation of the texts of New Testament.He denounced Gnostics as a group of blasphemers rather than so-called the spiritual seeds.More importantly,their teaching was contrary to the apostolic tradition.In the refutation of Gnosticism,the succession of apostolic tradition was the cornerstone of Irenaeus’ argument.Although Irenaeus was not aware of the importance of the concept of grace in terms of epistemology,his "rule of faith" in effect reflected the fulfillment of God’s grace.As far as Irenaeus’ concern,the significant aspect was to establish a faithful relationship in the holy texts and apostolic tradition rather than a system of interpretation oriented by the true knowledge.This thesis proposes to understand the emergence of Gnosticism in terms of epistemology,basing on the concepts of knowledge and grace,in an attempt to present the dynamic of history of thought in the second century.In the process of analysis,I have clarified the concept of Gnosticism,provided a analysis from epistemology,and explained why it was deemed to be a doomed heresy.