The Ancient Poisons: Discernment Heresies of the New Testament

Historian of Revival, William De Arteaga, makes it clear that heresy is an ancient and persistent threat to genuine revival. However, the heresies he examines might surprise you.

This essay asserts that there have been three unrecognized discernment heresies in operation throughout Church history that have retarded revival and hindered the Church from coming into its Spirit-filled destiny. This insight came to me 30 years ago when I was a student at a mainline seminary.

Heresy is an unpleasant topic to write about, but necessary. St. Irenaeus and many other leaders of the Early Church consistently struggled against one heretical group after another. Indeed, the 2^nd letter of Peter warned:

But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute (2 Peter 2:1-2).

Jude also encouraged fellow Christian to battle heresy and proclaim true Apostolic teaching: “I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 1:3). The anti-heretical effort was necessary to establish fundamental biblical truths against distortions from Gnostics (see below) and other groups.

 

Biblical understanding of Heresy

In the New Testament, the Greek word that is translated as heresy is hairesis, and it simply means groups or “sects.” At times in the New Testament it is used in a neutral sense, as we might mention a certain political party (see Acts 28:22). Josephus, the First Century Jewish historian, uses the word in this sense to identify three major Jewish “sects:” the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. The Pharisees and Sadducees were often mentioned in the Gospels; not so the Essenes. The Essenes lived in ascetic monastic communities awaiting a political-military Messiah. They were not cited in the New Testament and disappeared after the Jewish-Roman war that destroyed the Temple in 70 AD.

From the way hairesis is used in 2 Peter (cited above) we can conclude that certain sects have beliefs and ways of spirituality that are deeply destructive. But note that hairesis means a group, not just one idea. Sects may be known for a predominant idea, but are more typically known for a series of interlocking ideas and agendas. They look at things from a particular perspective. “Destructive heresies,” like the one prophesied in Peter’s letter, are groups or sects with interlocking attitudes or perspectives that take a person out of spiritual fellowship with the Body of Christ.

The New Testament evidence points to three sects that were indeed spiritually deadly through their opposition to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the nascent Church. These are the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Gnostics.[1] These should be considered as the fundamental heresies of the New Testament. Although all had interlocking ideas and specific doctrinal issues, it is better to understand these heresies as distorted ways of looking at, and reacting to, the spiritual world. They are all heresies of flawed discernment.[2] Most importantly, these “destructive sects” have operated throughout Church history to limit the effectiveness of the Church, oppose the work of the Holy Spirit, and to restrict the spread of revival.

 

The Pharisees: [3]

In modern times the word “Pharisee” often is used to denote a person of legalistic beliefs. But unfortunately, theologians have not studied or labeled Phariseeism as a “heresy” in its New Testament sense – as a group discernment issue. The twenty-third chapter of Matthew contains Jesus’ strongest denouncement of the Pharisees. All the characteristics that we associate with the Pharisees—hypocrisy, legalism, and the reduction of scriptural interpretation to nitpicking—are exposed by Jesus’ sharp words.

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are (Matt 23:13-15).

Contrary to our common understanding of heresy, Phariseeism was a “destructive sect.” That is, it was heresy, in spite of its theological orthodoxy – its correct ideas about the spiritual world. Indeed, the Pharisees had defended biblical Judaism during the bloody Hellenistic onslaught under king Antiochus (215-164 BC). The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead, last judgment, and a spiritual world of angels and demons – all things passed on into Christianity. Unlike the Zealots of the era, they were mostly willing to allow Rome to rule as long as Temple worship and observance of the Law was not disturbed. This Pauline attitude, that civil governments should be respected, is yet another “good” passed down from the Pharisees to Christianity.[4]

Jesus clearly lauded the Pharisees’ correct ideas and their doctrinal orthodoxy:

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach (Matt. 23:1-3).

That Jesus said they occupied “Moses’ seat” means they were the authentic inheritors of Moses’ learning, just as one scholar passes on a “chair” of philosophy, or history, etc., to another in a university.[5] In fact, Matthew may have been a Pharisee at one time in his life, and wrote his Gospel partly to convince other Pharisees to accept Jesus as Messiah.[6]

Thus the Pharisees’ destructiveness did not come from their theological ideas, but from other issues. First, somewhere in the process of defending Judaism from pagan Hellenization, the primary command to love God and mankind was subordinated to correct theology. Second, they had an absolute confidence in their theological traditions as being the perfect interpretation of Scripture. They falsely placed their consensus opinions, referred to as the “traditions of the elders,” on the same level as Scripture. Two centuries later, in Babylonia, the center of Jewish studies after the destruction of the Temple, “the traditions of the elders” were put into writing and became the Jewish “Talmud.” We can call the biblically cited “tradition of the elders” as a “proto-Talmud.”

In regard to Jesus and his disciples, the Pharisees were offended by their actions in many areas, as in not washing before eating (Matt. 15:2-6). Washing before meals was not part of the Mosaic Law, but it had become part of their proto-Talmud and became the basis of their offense at Jesus. It would be fair to say that the main issue of contention between Jesus and the Pharisees was their confusion between the “Torah” (the Bible itself) and the Pharisees’ proto-Talmud.

 

Judging by Origins and Pedigrees

Faith, defined in the lives of the Old Testament patriarchs was trust in God and expectancy in His provision. But the Pharisees began to redefine faith as adherence to their theological and ritual positions – the Proto-Talmud. The center of faith moved from the heart to the head. As a natural result, the Pharisees split into factions among themselves. The principal factions were the schools of Hillel and Shammai. Gamaliel, mentioned twice in Acts, was a disciple of Hillel and a noted teacher in his own right (Acts 5:34-40 and 22:3).

Pride of scholarship and their rabbinical schools led the Pharisees to assume that spiritual issues should be evaluated by the origins and pedigree of the person in question. For instance, did the person manifesting spiritual power, such as healing or exorcism, have the right to that power by nature of his training and association with the proper rabbinic school? If not, they reasoned, the spiritual powers probably came from witchcraft (Matt. 9:34).

Consider what happened to Peter and John after a lame man was healed through their ministry (Acts 4:1-22). They were dragged before the Sanhedrin to be prosecuted, and the question they were asked was: “By what power or by what name did you do this?” Peter answered their challenge with great wisdom and boldness about his authority in Jesus. The members of the Sanhedrin were astonished by the courage and wisdom of the apostles, as they were “uneducated, common men” (Acts 4:13). In other words, Peter and John did not belong to a proper rabbinical school.

The Pharisees assumed that their command of the scriptures and their traditions, which served well in discerning against pagan Hellenism, placed them in spiritual descent with the great prophets of the past. They also expected Judaism to develop and flower along lines they had already charted, the Proto-Torah. The Messiah would thus be a “super-Pharisee” who would resolve all their disputes with brilliant interpretations.

Rather than affirm the Pharisees’ expectations and assumptions, the true Messiah short-circuited their Proto-Talmudic system of theological controversies, rabbinical authority, and proper pedigrees. Jesus declared that spiritual issues and activity must be discerned by their fruit (Matt. 7:15-18).

John the Baptist had already raised the fruit question in regard to the Pharisees who came to him seeking baptism (Matt. 3:8-10). Jesus made the fruit criterion central to authentic discernment for His disciples. He instructed them: “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they?” (Matt. 7:15-16).

The contrast between the Biblical view of discernment on the one hand (fruit) and the Pharisees’ view on the other (origins and pedigree) is summarized dramatically in the case of the man healed by Jesus of blindness from birth (John 9). When the Pharisees questioned the man and then his parents, they were not concerned with the fruit of the incident, that is, that the man had his sight restored, but rather the origins and pedigree of the healer. They wanted to know what rabbinical school Jesus came from that authorized Him to do spiritual works. The Pharisees declared, “We are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses; but as for this man [Jesus], we do not know where He is from” (John 9:28-29).[7]

 

The Pharisees’ Distorted Faith

Jesus’ ministry attacked and challenged the Pharisees’ distorted definition of faith. Jesus, in word and deed, reminded all that the primary meaning of faith was a trust-expectancy relationship with God. God would provide for the needs of the believer, deliver the afflicted from the kingdom of Satan, and do great and mighty works of power. Jesus understood that faith came from a relationship with God rather than the proto-Talmud learned in rabbinical schools.[8]

This did not mean that Jesus disdained theological knowledge and doctrine. Rather, in the total faith equation that He taught His disciples, belief in the Bible, faith-expectancy and trust in God were critically important, while Proto-Talmudic doctrines (theological commentaries) were good, but of secondary importance.

The New Testament clearly demonstrates the primacy of faith-expectancy in two incidents, the exorcism of the daughter of the Canaanite woman (Matt. 15:21-28) and the healing of the centurion’s servant (Matt. 8:5-13). In both cases the seekers had pagan or incomplete theology – far below that of the Pharisees. Yet despite their beliefs, both had faith-expectancy that God used to grant their requests for healing through Jesus. We cannot conclude that Jesus was affirming by silence the pagan doctrines of either seeker. Rather He praised and affirmed their faith-expectancy as a spiritual virtue and example for others. The basic doctrines would come later through their relationship with Him and incorporation into the Church.

 

A Hellish Spiritual Inheritance

The Pharisees’ self-evaluation was that they were on the forefront of what God was doing for Israel; Jesus’ judgment of them was considerably different. It shows Phariseeism as truly a “destructive sect:”

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, `If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Consequently you bear witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of the guilt of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell? (Matt. 23:29-33).

Jesus’ argumentation needs some clarification. He was talking about acquired spiritual inheritance, a concept not often brought up. Because of the Pharisees’ failed discernment, they opposed Him and the Holy Spirit (that is, in His person, miracles and teachings). By doing this they allied themselves with those who had opposed the prophets, and the Holy Spirit in former generations. Thus although they believed themselves to be the protectors of orthodoxy, the Pharisees were really the opponents of the Holy Spirit. This is their primary biblical definition – opposers of the presence, revelation, and activity of the Holy Spirit. Their legalism, which is most often identified as their chief fault, is an important but secondary issue.

Jesus’ revelation on acquired spiritual inheritance warns every generation that present attitudes opposing the work of the Holy Spirit place a person in the hellish spiritual inheritance of the prophet murderers. Stephen, speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit, repeated this same concept in the closing words of his defense before the Sanhedrin (Acts: 7:51-53).

The Pharisees responded to Jesus’ ministry by accusing Him of sorcery. The accusation had a certain logic to it given their assumptions. Jesus and his followers worked miracles and cast out demons, yet neither He nor His disciples came from the established rabbinical schools. Thus they must be casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub (Matt. 12:24). Through that false accusation, Jesus defines the unforgivable sin:

And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come (Matt. 12:32).

There is a critical issue here. Certainly the Satanic Kingdom can work miracles. Witchcraft, occultism, idolatry and sorcery are serious sins, and when identified they must be denounced. Certain acts of sorcery and occultism make the spiritual activities of lesser spirits look like part of the work of the Holy Spirit, as in spiritualism. In this sense, spiritualism is a sin of discernment. It is a serious sin that must be confessed and can be forgiven. That is, someone who has been in the occult can understand his or her failed discernment, and repent and receive God’s forgiveness.

However, the opposite, claiming that the works of the Holy Spirit are really the product of demonic activity, calling something sorcery when it is in fact from God, is more than a serious sin; it is unforgivable. This alone should make the accusation of sorcery for an unknown or unusual spiritual phenomenon something that a Christian makes reluctantly and only after study and prayers for discernment. Judgment of any healing or exorcism as demonic especially warrants caution.[9]

 

Phariseeism in the New Testament Church

The Pharisees continued to be a problem in the Jewish-Christian church of Jerusalem. In Acts, those Christians who had been Pharisees objected to Paul’s practice of excusing Gentile converts from circumcision and freeing them from the ritual laws of Judaism (15:5ff). Although they were overruled, we see this attitude reappear when Paul had to confront Peter who was trying to please the “men from James” (that is, the Jewish/Christians from Jerusalem) by refusing to eat with Gentile Christians (Gal. 2:11-14). They had difficulty in seeing that the Holy Spirit was moving in ways they had not anticipated.

A careful reading of the Corinthian letters and the letter to the Galatians reveals that some of the Christians in those communities spontaneously drifted into a form of doctrinal nitpicking which Paul had to reprove forcefully. Apparently the Pharisee-influenced Corinthian Christians were judging each other on the basis of factional theological viewpoints or proto-Talmud. Paul reprimands the Corinthians for this and counters with the assertion that Christians are free from all such man-inspired judgments but must remain attentive to Scripture (“what is written”).

Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time…that in us you might learn not to exceed what is written, in order that no one of you might become arrogant in behalf of one against the other (1 Cor. 4: 5-6).

The very next item on Paul’s agenda is the assertion that a young man who was sleeping with his stepmother be excommunicated (1 Cor. 5:1). This seems like a contradiction, but it reaffirms Jesus’ basic insight that the moral law of the Bible (Torah) has eternal validity, but human commentaries are not and cannot be a basis of judgment.

 

Sadduceeism: The heresy of “religion light”[10]

The Gospel accounts of the Sadducees give us a few details about them, especially in comparison to the Pharisees. They are identified with the Temple priesthood and administration, and were the high priest during all of Jesus’ ministry period (Acts:5:17). They did not believe in either the resurrection of the dead nor in the existence of angels, and contended with the Pharisees over these issues (Mt 22:23 & Acts 23:8). Their failed discernment was of a materialistic slant. For them, there was very little to the spiritual world. In Matthew 22:29, Jesus rebuked the Sadducees saying: “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.”

Josephus (37-100 AD), the Jewish historian, gives us some additional details about the Sadducees which confirm their New Testament descriptions. He paints them as forming the social and political élites of Israel. He also reports that the Sadducees did not believe in the immortality of the soul, and thus no rewards or punishments from God in the afterlife. But they enjoyed philosophical discussions – something like the typical Hellenistic Epicurean philosopher of the age.[11]

The Pharisees and Sadducees were at odds with each other constantly, as pictured in Acts 23, where Paul was brought before the Sanhedrin. Paul caused a “great uproar” when he declared his belief in the resurrection of the body, in solidarity with the Pharisees on the Sanhedrin. The Sadducees began arguing with the Pharisees over this issue and the argument became so heated that the Roman guards had to remove Paul from the court for his own safety.

Besides differing views on the resurrection and angels, there was another critical division between the Pharisees and Sadducees. This was of how one became righteous and holy. The Pharisees’ believed that holiness was the result of following God’s commandments as given in the Mosaic Law. The Sadducees believed, to the contrary, that holiness came from participating in Temple worship and being near the holy utensils and garments of the Temple rituals.[12]

In effect, both sides, Pharisees and Sadducees held theologies as to the way to holiness. The Pharisees, who were not priests and had no direct access to the inner Temple, believed holiness could be achieved only by study and obedience of the Law. This was something any Jew could achieve as they joined the Pharisee club. The Sadducees believed that what they did in the Temple was the road to holiness, and only they could do it![13] Unlike the Pharisees and the Essenes, there are no surviving Sadducee documents explaining their side of the story.[14] But like the Essenes, they disappeared as a political/religious sect with the Jewish revolt and the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.

Yet for us, they serve as the Biblical prototype and warning of faith-deficient groups that can gain control of religious institutions. In fact, the term Sadducee has periodically been used at times by Evangelical Christians to define certain form of “weak faith” Christianity such as Deism and Unitarianism.[15]

 

Gnosticism: The heresy that “knows”[16]

Gnosticism is the other major discernment heresy of the New Testament, though not directly named. Former generations of scholars believed Gnosticism to be a development of the 2^nd and 3^rd Centuries. More Recent scholarship has demonstrated conclusively that Gnosticism existed even before New Testament times and that various Jewish Gnostics infiltrated Paul’s churches and opposed his teachings.[17] Gnosticism grew as a strong movement for the first centuries of the Church era; but was driven underground in the Middle Ages. It reappeared forcefully within the Idealist Sects of the 19^th Century and lives on today in the New Age Movement.

One of the most prominent scholars of Gnosticism, R.M. Grant, identified three interlocking attitudes that are common to Gnosticism in all its forms.[18] The first is that salvation comes through knowledge. This is where the word Gnostic originates, as it means “one who knows.” For the Gnostic, a relationship with God or Jesus is not as important as “knowing” that one is enlightened or “christed.”

The second is an attitude that is self-centered, as contrasted with most religions which are God-centered. Gnostics do not generally worship God, but they meditate on the “god within.” Third, Gnosticism is subjective; it relies on personal revelations and continuous spiritual experiences with little or no concern for scripture, tradition or discernment.

St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (177-200), one of the earliest and ablest “Fathers” of the Church, spent much of his career fighting various Gnostics sects that were trying to infiltrate the churches. His great work, Against the Heretics (circa 180), shows us much about early Gnosticism.[19] Because of their subjectivity, Irenaeus found specific Gnostic ideas most difficult to categorize:

Since they disagree with one another in teaching and in tradition, and the more recent converts pretend to find something new every day and to produce what no one ever thought of, it is difficult to describe the opinions of each.[20]

Thus, like the Pharisees, the Gnostics should not be seen primarily as teachers of wrong ideas (although often their ideas are erroneous and bizarre). Rather, their radical non-discernment is the key to their destructiveness. With Gnosticism the value of the scriptures is debased and made subject to the latest vision or revelation.

Gnosticism is fatal to the human spirit (and thus a true heresy) principally because it obstructs a faith-trust relationship with God and Jesus. The person, cut off from trust in the scriptures, believes himself spiritually autonomous and a god. This is why meditation instead of prayer is the central spiritual activity of Gnostic sects. By universalizing the meaning of “Christ” as one who is enlightened, Gnosticism trivializes and cuts the worship relationship with Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ.

Gnosticism and Phariseeism are direct opposites. The Pharisee venerates the Scriptures and believes that his specific traditions are equal, or almost equal, to scripture. At the same time, the Pharisee is deeply suspicious of spiritual experiences he cannot locate within his traditions. The Gnostic has little use for either scripture or tradition. What is important for him is a steady flow of new visions, revelations and spiritual experiences. The Pharisees may believe that certain spiritual experiences or phenomenon are from the devil when they are really from God, and the Gnostic errs in the opposite way by believing everything they experience is from God, when in fact it is mostly self-delusion or from demonic sources. The Sadducees were out of this argument, as they would have claimed that spiritual experiences and visions were all self-delusional and not caused by spiritual agents.

 

PR

 

Notes

[1]Aside from Gnosticism, little work has been done by modern scholars in showing that these groups have had a permanent presence and influence on the Church. An exception is an insightful article by the Evangelical scholar, Craig Blomberg, “The New Testament Definition of Heresy (Or, When do Jesus and the Apostles really get mad?),” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 45:1 (March 2002), 59-72. Blomberg stresses the Judaizers as prototypes of modern legalists and ritualizers, close to what I term Pharisees, but only hints at the Gnostics as being present in New Testament times, missing the work of Walter Schmithals and others (see below).

[2] Another term for these heresies might be “epistemological heresies,” which would impress seminary professors and intimidate enemies, but is too technical for common usage.

[3]On the Pharisees see: John Bowker, Jesus and the Pharisees (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973) and William Coleman, Those Pharisees (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1977). Not until my paper, “Phariseeism: A Pneumatological Perspective” (paper presented to the Twenty-first Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Lakeland Florida, 1991), was Phariseeism noted as primarily an anti-Holy Spirit movement. I elaborated the idea in my book, Quenching the Spirit (Lake Mary: Creation House, 1992). Perhaps the best description of Phariseeism as destructive legalism in the Church Age may be found in Dietrich von Hilderbrand’s True Morality and Its Counterfeits (New York: McKay Co. 1955).

[4] W.H.C. Frend, “Early Christianity and Society: A Jewish Legacy in the pre-Constantinian era,” Harvard Theological Review 76 #1 (January 1983, 55-71).

[5] On this see: Noel S Rabbinowitz, “Matthew 23:2-4: Does Jesus encourage the authority of the Pharisees and does he endorse their Halakah?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 46 #3 (summer 2003), 423-447. Rabbinowitz believes that “Moses’ seat” both represented the Pharisees’ teaching tradition and referred to a real, physical seat in the synagogue where the rabbi sat to read and expounded the scriptures.

[6]See the very credible arguments on this by Anders Runesson, “Rethinking Early Jewish Christian Relations,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 127 #1 (spring 2008), 95-132.

[7]In fairness to the Pharisees’ position, it is true that the demonic can produce “good fruit” such as healings, in the short run, but Jesus’ point is that the fruit criterion should be considered first. If there is evidence of spiritualism or idolatry, then a further discernment is needed.

[8] On this see: Bowker, Jesus and the Pharisees 43.

[9] In my ministry among Hispanics I have had to be especially careful on this issue. Many curanderos (herbal healers) do indeed heal through spiritualism (i.e., demonic spirits), but some are authentically Christian who have not been able to practice their gift of healing within the traditions of the Catholic Church. One such person was in my congregation. She was from the Maya speaking area of Mexico, and knew much about healing herbs, but the only spirits she invoked was Jesus and His Spirit.

[10] The literature on the Sadducees is much less extensive than on the Pharisees. An excellent article on the Sadducees is an old one; Hugo Mantel’s, “Dichotomy of Judaism During the Second Temple,” Hebrew Union College Annual, 44 (1973), 55-87, which traces the origins of the Pharisees and Sadducees back to the time of Ezra and Nehemiah.

[11] Josephus, Antiquities, xviii, 1:4

[12] This latter view seems utterly ridiculous to moderns, but it is not without some biblical warrant. Note what the prophet Ezekiel wrote as he described the Temple worship of the priests (Ezk. 44:19).

[13] This insight on the Pharisee/Sadducee divide comes from the seminal article by Rabbi Victor Eppstein, “When and How the Sadducees were Excommunicated,” Journal of Biblical Literature 85 #7 (June 1966), 213-224. Rabbi Eppstein belied that the Sadducees were maneuvered into impotence by the Pharisees a decade before the destruction of the temple in 70AD through an esoteric dispute over the handling of the “red heifer” ashes of purification (Numbers 19).

[14] Pointed out in Bernard Jacob Bamberger, “Sadducees and Their Belief in Angels,” Journal of Biblical Studies, 82 #4 (Dec 1965), 33-435.

[15] See for example: Ernest G. Gordon, The Leaven of the Sadducees or Old and New Apostasies (Chicago: Bible Institute Colportage Association, 1926).

[16] For a good, brief review article on the state of Gnostic studies see: Berger A. Pearson’s, “Early Christianity and Gnosticism: A Review Essay,” Religious Studies Review, 13 #1 (Jan. 1987), 1-8.

[17] The older theory that Gnosticism arose in the 2^nd and 3^rd Centuries was superseded by the splendid scholarly work of Walter Schmithals, Gnosticism in Corinth: An Investigation of the Letters to the Corinthians. Trans. By John E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972). Schmithals’ work showed that Gnosticism was contemporary with the New Testament Church, and Jewish Gnostics a major opposing faction to Paul’s gospel. This has since been collaborated by others, see, for instance, the now standard work on early Gnosticism: Kurt Rudolph Gnosis: The nature and history of Gnosticism (New York: Harper & Roe, 1983). Rudolph shows the origins of Gnosticism as a pre-Christian and movement within Judaism which inverted the meaning of Old Testament scriptures. These discoveries had been foreseen in Fr. Ronald Knox’ book Enthusiasm: A chapter in the history of religion (New York; Oxford University Press, 1950), chapter 2. Scholars with liberal or non-Christian views often distort the evidence on early Gnosticism to make it some sort of valid Christianity that was unfairly suppressed by authoritarian bishops. On this point see the discussion of Elaine Pagel’s work, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1979), by Pierson in the above note.

[18] R. M. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957). Chapter 1.

[19] Irenaeus’ sound judgment on the Gnostics has been verified as more and more Gnostic texts are uncovered. See: Terrance L Tiessen, “Gnosticism as Heresy: The Witness of Irenaeus,” Dioskala, 18 #1 (winter 2007), 31-48.

[20] Grant, Gnosticism, 11.