4. The Anthropology of the Gnostics corresponds with their theology. Man is a microcosm consisting of spirit, body, and soul reflecting the three principles, God, Matter, and Demiurge, though in very different degrees. There are three classes of men: the spiritual, [817] 17 in whom the divine element, a spark of light from the ideal world, predominates; the material, [818] 18 bodily, carnal, physical, in whom matter, the gross sensuous principle, rules; and the psychical, [819] 19 in whom the demiurgic, quasi-divine rules; principle, the mean between the two preceding, prevails.
These three classes are frequently identified with the adherents of the three religions respectively; the spiritual with the Christians, the carnal with the heathens, the psychical with the Jews. But they also made the same distinction among the professors of any one religion, particularly among the Christians; and they regarded themselves as the genuine spiritual men in the full sense of the word; while they looked upon the great mass of Christians [820] 20 as only psychical, not able to rise from blind faith to true knowledge, too weak for the good, and too tender for the evil, longing for the divine, yet unable to attain it, and thus hovering between the Pleroma of the ideal world and the Kenoma of the sensual.
Ingenious as this thought is, it is just the basis of that unchristian distinction of esoteric and exoteric religion, and that pride of knowledge, in which Gnosticism runs directly counter to the Christian virtues of humility and love.
[804] Even some of the more recent writers, as Bishop Kaye (Eccl. History of the Second arid Third Centuries), and the translators of Irenaeus in the "Ante-Nicene Christian Library" (Edinb. 1868, vol. 1st, Introductory Notice) have the same idea of the Gnostic system as an impenetrable wilderness, of absurdities. But Mansel, Lightfoot, and Salmon show a clear knowledge of the subject, and agree; substantially with Neander's account.
[805] Pothen to kakon, or he kakia: unde malum? (See Tertullian, De Praescript. 7; Adv. Marc. I. 2; Euseb. H. E, V. 27; Baur, Gnosis, p. 19.
[806] Dr. Lipsius, Die Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden (1883), vol. 1. P. 7.
[807] Adv. Haer.l.c. 20. §1: Amutheton plethos apokruphon kai nothon graphon, ha`s autoi eplasan, pareispherousin eis kataplexin ton anoeton kai ta tes aletheias me epistamenon grammata.
[808] Hippol. Philos. IV. 46, V. 8, 13, 20.
[809] Doketis, phantasma.
[810] Buthos.
[811] So in the old Hindu philosophy, absolute Being is regarded as the ground of all existence. It is itself devoid of qualities, incapable of definition, inconceivable, neither one thing nor another thing, yet containing in itself the possibilities; of all things; and out from its dark depths the universe was evolved through some mysterious impulse. The Vedas describe it thus: "It is neither Brahma, nor Vishnoo, nor Sivan, but something back of these, without passion, neither great nor small, neither male nor female, but something far beyond."
[812] Nous, logos , sophia, dunamis, aletheia, zoe , etc.
[813] Probole (from proballo), a putting forward, a projection.
[814] Basilides and Saturninus use the former illustration; Marcos uses the latter.
[815] He kato sophia, Achamoth (Iren. 1. 4; in Stieren, I. 44), hchkmrt or 'kymvt the Chaldaic form of the Hebrew chkmh
[816] Demiourgos, a term used by Plato in a similar sense.
[817] Peumatikoi.
[818] Somatikoi, phusikoi, sarkikoi, hulikoi.
[819] Psuchikoi.
[820] Hoi polloi.
§ 118. Ethics of Gnosticism.
All the Gnostic heretics agree in disparaging the divinely created body, and over-rating the intellect. Beyond this, we perceive among them two opposite tendencies: a gloomy asceticism, and a frivolous antinomianism; both grounded in the dualistic principle, which falsely ascribes evil to matter, and traces nature to the devil. The two extremes frequently met, and the Nicolaitan maxim in regard to the abuse of the flesh [821] 21 was made to serve asceticism first, and then libertinism.
The ascetic Gnostics, like Marcion, Saturninus, Tatian, and the Manichaeans were pessimists. They felt uncomfortable in the sensuous and perishing world, ruled by the Demiurge, and by Satan; they abhorred the body as formed from Matter, and forbade the use of certain kinds of food and all nuptial intercourse, as an adulteration of themselves with sinful Matter; like the Essenes and the errorists noticed by Paul in the Colossians and Pastoral Epistles. They thus confounded sin with matter, and vainly imagined that, matter being dropped, sin, its accident, would fall with it. Instead of hating sin only, which God has not made, they hated the world, which he has made.
The licentious Gnostics, as the Nicolaitans, the Ophites, the Carpocratians, and the Antitactes, in a proud conceit of the exaltation of the spirit above matter, or even on the diabolical principle, that sensuality must be overcome by indulging it, bade defiance to all moral laws, and gave themselves up to the most shameless licentiousness. It is no great thing, said they, according to Clement of Alexandria, to restrain lust; but it is surely a great thing not to be conquered by Iust, when one indulges in it. According to Epiphanius there were Gnostic sects in Egypt, which, starting from a filthy, materialistic pantheism and identifying Christ with the generative powers of nature, practised debauchery as a mode of worship, and after having, as they thought, offered and collected all their strength, blasphemously exclaimed: "I am Christ." From these pools of sensuality and Satanic pride arose the malaria of a vast literature, of which, however, fortunately, nothing more than a few names has come down to us.
[821] Dei katachresthai te sarki, the flesh must be abused to be conquered.