What is Gnosticism?

by Karen L. King

A distinctive Christian heresy? A competitor of burgeoning Christianity? A pre-Christian folk religion traceable to "Oriental syncretism"? How do we account for the disparate ideas, writings, and practices that have been placed under the Gnostic rubric? To do so, Karen King says, we must first disentangle modern historiography from the Christian discourse of orthodoxy and heresy that has pervaded--and distorted--the story.

Exciting discoveries of previously unknown ancient writings--especially the forty-six texts found at Nag Hammadi in 1945--are challenging historians of religion to rethink not only what we mean by Gnosticism but also the standard account of Christian origins. The Gospel of Mary and The Secret Book of John, for example, illustrate the variety of early Christianities and are witness to the struggle of Christians to craft an identity in the midst of the culturally pluralistic Roman Empire. King shows how historians have been misled by ancient Christian polemicists who attacked Gnostic beliefs as a "dark double" against which the new faith could define itself. Having identified past distortions, she is able to offer a new and clarifying definition of Gnosticism. Her book is thus both a thorough and innovative introduction to the twentieth-century study of Gnosticism and a revealing exploration of the concept of heresy as a tool in forming religious identity.

Genres: Religion, History, Gnosticism, Nonfiction, Christianity, Philosophy, Theology

357 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Jan Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title of this book, What is Gnosticism? is a trick question. Gnosticism doesn't exist!--other than as a concept that was reified as scholars projected a working construct back onto the ancient world. In short, "Gnosticism" is a more modern and acceptable and scholarly-sounding term for "heresy."

Hairesis, the Greek basis for our word "heresy," referred to a "coherent doctrine or tendency," a school of thought,and had a generally positive connotation. It was for the early Christian heresiologists (which for Karen King is synonymous with "polemicists") that heresy became pejorative.

The early centuries CE were the wild, wild west of Christian theology. There was not yet a canon. There was not yet an established authority. There was no common creed. Instead there were diverse groups, each claiming to be based on the revelation of Jesus Christ and all jockeying for position and power. The major aim of crying "heresy" was to define "orthodoxy." Of course to groups that later came to be considered heretical, they were "the orthodox," while for them the "proto-orthodox" (Bart Ehrman's term) were heretical.

So, while the goal of the ancient heresiologists might seem to have been to eliminate their outside competitors, their real goal was to carve out what would be considered orthodoxy, in a sense to create Christianity. And their big problem was not what was different, but what was too similar. It was what was similar that was threatening and troublesome. The heresiologists had to take the alleged insiders that were also claiming to be Christian and turn them into outsiders.

When that works--and it does--the similarities of the "other" group become nigh invisible and only the differences remain apparent.

Karen King paints the early Christians as embedded in their Mediterranean culture. They had two challenges--first, to distinguish themselves from the surrounding cultures, and second, to avoid appearing new. One cute way I've heard that latter bit expressed is that you couldn't just go make up a religion in your garage. (Probably Ehrman, but could be John Madden) The Romans didn't like new. More than any other ancient culture, Judaism provided the raw materials for establishing Christian identity, while simultaneously raising the question of how they would set themselves apart from it. How could they "reinterpret Scripture and Judaism so that they could be used to serve Christian ends" (p. 40)? A fine line--too much Judaism and they wouldn't stand out as separate; too little, and they would lose out on the prestigious heritage and scripture.

And here King makes a point at which I arrived at independently several years ago, so it is always a relief to see my idea was not so far out in left field that no one else had ever thought of it. The "Judaism" in Christianity is not Judaism; it is part of Christianity. King calls that "the Christian construct of Judaism." It is not made up out of whole cloth because it had to have some basis, but its purpose is to be a foil for Christianity.

So here's what happened. Whatever was unpopular in the Roman Empire was polemically called "Judaism"--for example, circumcision, food laws--and whatever was popular was appropriated for Christianity--for example, monotheism, ethics. So--psalms, prophets--Christian, right? And it worked so well that still today in America I've heard disapproving reference to "an Old Testament God" and "Old Testament justice" to criticize such diverse segments as the Arab Middle East, conservative Christians, or, of course, Jews--anything perceived by the critics as "not us." And yet per King that self-same text represents the "prestigious" scripture at the foundation of Christianity.

Before there was Christian scripture to appeal to, the powers-that-were-to-be argued that only they understood the revelation of Christ and only they interpreted scripture--the only scripture that existed at the time--correctly.

...The polemicists attributed all (the) positive traits to true Christianity.

Their main line of argument was the claim that they alone properly understood the ancient Scriptures. The problem with this argument was that various Christians interpreted the Scriptures quite differently--an unacceptable situation given the apologetic and polemical importance of their exclusive claim to Scripture. Indeed, a single, true interpretation of Scripture was vital to the polemics of Christian theologians...insofar as constructing a usable Judaism was rhetorically intertwined with the discourse of orthodoxy and heresy. The charge of "Judaizing" could be used not only to distinguish Christians from Jews, but also to identify heretics. (p. 43)

By the fourth and fifth century, after Constantine and with episcopal authority and imperial patronage in place, some "stable and monolithic" unity had been achieved. Power had been consolidated--the power to simplify the picture into one of Christians, Jews, and pagans, to enforce practice and doctrine, and, most significant, to declare opponents to be heretics.

Karen King explains early on that she continues to use the term Gnosticism not as an ancient religion or set of groups in antiquity but as a problematic term whose use needs to be reevaluated. "Historically, Gnosticism is a term that belongs to the discourses of normative Christian identity formation" that have been used to (1) label early forms of Christianity that approved either too much or too little of Judaism, (2) label segments of Christianity that allegedly had been contaminated by outside forces, or (3) designate groups that held some semblance to Christianity but were not Christian (p. 4).

Maybe the reader can begin to see the problem with saying what Gnosticism was, if you believe it actually existed in the world as a religion at some point. What Gnosticism is, is a grab bag of whatever characteristics that normative Christianity wanted to eliminate from its self-definition.

Webster's will not inform you of that, per King. Webster's talks about the ancient Gnostics, and so forth. "Gnosis" is "esoteric knowledge of spiritual truth held by the ancient Gnostics to be essential to salvation." "Gnosticism" is "The thought and practice esp. of various cults of late pre-Christian and early Christian centuries distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil and that emancipation comes through gnosis."

Gnosis for the Greeks meant knowledge, but in pre-modern and modern theological discourse it came to stand for "false knowledge"--that is, heresy. There were no ancient groups known in ancient times as gnostics, and gnosis was not used pejoratively in ancient times. Modern bible scholarship began in Germany, at which point calling others heretics would no longer do. New rhetoric was called for. The term "Gnosticism" might first have been used in the 17th century in anti-Catholic polemics by a Protestant theologian, in the sense of "a false prophecy that seduces true Christians to idolatry."

Karen King exhaustively documents the early modern scholars in the service of demonstrating her thesis. First was Adolf von Harnack. Here were the "clear indicators" of Gnosticism according to Harnack: (1) two Gods, an inferior creator God and a supreme God; (2) The God of the Old Testament is the inferior creator God; (3) matter is independent and eternal; (4) creation is the product of an evil or rebellious God or as indicative of a fall; (5) evil is a force inherent in matter; (6) God's unity was dispersed into other powers and heavenly beings (Aeons); (7) Christ revealed a previously unknown God; (8) Gnostic Christology departed in several possible ways from Jesus' being both fully human and fully divine and identified his saving power with undoing the unnatural connection to matter; (9) humans were divided into classes depending on whether they had spirit and soul or a material nature only; and only the spiritual could have Gnosis and salvation; (10)Gnosticism rejected the second coming, the resurrection of the body, and the final judgment; and (11) Gnostics ethics were tied to the contrast between the physical and spiritual elements of human nature and so were limited in practice to either asceticism or libertinism. (from pp. 62-63) From our vantage point today, it's not too hard to see what was going on, with the characteristics of so-called Gnosticism being the unwanted leftovers from Christian identity formation.

Next come the History of Religion scholars. One of Karen King's favorite terms is "reinscribing," as when she characterizes those scholars as reinscribing the ancient heresiologial rhetorical tools--re-using them in new language in modern discourse, for example anti-Catholic polemic.

Those scholars had available for study both new and older archeological materials, from, for example, Manichaeism and Mandaeism. I had been familiar with "Manichaen" as a pejorative term used today to refer to dualistic thinking, but I didn't know there had actually been a Mani!

One of the sad aspects of all this is that the materials and ancient groups, such as they were, were of interest to those scholars of the late 19th and early 20th century only for the light they might shed on early Christian origins. For example, the Mandaeans, who at one point were suspected to have been a group that considered John the Baptist the messiah and to have been his followers. But once it was established the dates didn't add up and this group did not precede Christianity, all interest was lost and study was dropped like the proverbial hot potato.

I remember a story about the Mandaeans that appeared after the Iraq invasion in 2003--about how this ancient religious culture centered between the Tigris and Euphrates and that permitted no intermarriage and no conversion was being decimated by the war--and romanticized links to John the Baptist were still being touted, although the "fine print" toward the end said that origin had been discredited.

The time period in which those scholars were working was the same age during which a nationalistic and romantic interest in the "volk" was arising as well as the preoccupation with Aryan versus Semitic, so in their work, all the characteristics deemed inconsistent with Christian values were sloughed off onto a Judaism portrayed during this period as ignorant and crude. Jesus was being dissociated with Judaism; they were considered "at opposite poles" per one scholar, and Judaism was identified with politico-nationalism, legalism, and an unhealthy apocalypticism.

In that, we can see Karen King's point about how the History of Religion scholars reflected--reinscribed--the techniques of the ancient heresiologists in splitting what they disliked off from Christianity and blaming it on Judaism.

In keeping with the underlying colonialist mentality, the East was compared unfavorably to the West. "East" was passive, stagnant, and derivative, compared to "Western" rationalism and creativity. And, yes, "East" was Semitic. It still sounds odd to hear the Middle East and Islam called "Oriental," although I now know it was a convention.

It's ironic that when "Gnostics" or others incorporated and shared various aspects of theology with Christianity (thus seeming to loom threateningly over them and too close for comfort), they were viewed as unoriginal and "derivative," even "parasitic"--but when Christians themselves incorporated certain admired aspects, first, of Judaism, and later, from surrounding cultures, that's just fortuitous--materials provided by God. Syncretism is as syncretism does!

Although I'm highlighting these negative aspects of the scholarship of that time, Karen King does have reference to all their innovations. But in this book she's highlighting the underlying polemical dynamics, which is contributing to my slant.

Along came the Nag Hammadi finds in 1945 that really undermined the older scholarship, since the actual documents said to have been the products of Gnosticism failed to convincingly exemplify the supposedly typical characteristics.

In both ancient heresiology and reflected also in the modern study of Gnosticism are three themes to which Karen King returns repeatedly: origins, purity, and essence. The language of orthodoxy over against heresy returns to those themes again and again. They constitute in large part the heresiological rhetoric. In simplistic terms, "origins" means that what came first is what is true, i.e., uncorrupted, and in discussion of origins we get genealogical language. "Purity" is over against syncretism, with syncretism identified with inauthenticity. Last is "essentialism," which I'm finding most difficult right now; let's say it's the identification of the phenomena, the basic types that represent the religion. Those scholars who were trying to establish the "essence of Gnosticism" ended up ascribing to it the characteristics of tendencies they abhorred in their own day and age, e.g., Nihilism.

The problem with genealogy (origins), purity, and essence, is that they don't exist in the real world. That's what King is saying. We can apply overly simple ideas to the ancient world without anyone back then raising a fuss, because they're gone! The situation then, however, just as in our own age, was a jumble, a cacophony. There is no direct lineage that leads from a certain specified beginning to some other point. There is no faith that is not syncretic. And when we try to specify the essential types of any tradition we end up hiding variety, and we end up with oversimplification and stereotyping.

The Christian formulation of Judaism ignored the multiformity of Judaism and that of early Christianity. Christian rhetoric while painting Christianity and Judaism as clearly separate ignored the ways in which for each of them identity formation "had mutual and reciprocal effects" (p. 40)

And so she's saying there are implications for Christianity in that it can't be something totally different and original as it would like, any more than anything else can. And historiography needs to be distinguished from theology.

Also, the language of orthodoxy--of origins, purity and essence--is at bottom the language of power, so for her, the use of such rhetoric becomes a matter of ethics.

One reason I read this book was because another author, Bart Ehrman, said in one of his books that Gnosticism came from Judaism. Oh, great, I thought. (I referred obliquely to that issue in this review, although it may not be the one in which he made that claim.) The one thing that you can hear Christians deploring as much as Judaism is Gnosticism! I had never before heard Gnosticism blamed on Judaism. I wrote to him but no luck. So, when I saw this title, I thought I would find out. Well, I did. For a certain period of time recently it was the scholarly fashion for some (not Jews, I think!) that Gnosticism originated from Judaism. How could that be, you may ask. First, Jews are saying God is one, and then Jews are turning around and talking about an evil creator God? Jews are toasting "L'Chayim" ("to life!) and then turning around and saying life is an evil creation keeping us from reuniting with God? Judaism isn't as dualistic about "the flesh" as Platonism-influenced Christianity, and yet we are supposed to have suddenly turned into believers that our souls are imprisoned in the fallen flesh?

Well, it turns out the proponents of that theory are relying on "crisis" to justify that thinking. The destruction of the Temple and the decimation after the Jewish Wars. I know what they are talking about: for example, the destruction of the way of life of the Inca by Pizarro; I used that example in another book review (for those who enjoy very long reviews of esoteric books on theological matters). Hey, but the Inca were just destroyed; they didn't suddenly invent another religion that was the opposite of the one they had previously practiced! Especially one that is suspiciously more like Christianity! Especially one that conveniently places the blame for anti-Judaism on Judaism.

Could be that old heresiological dynamic at work once again....

And, nothing originates cleanly and in a directly linear manner from anything else. That is Karen King's lesson. Yet still, as we saw with the dictionary definitions, old (and engrained and useful) ways of thinking do not just get up and slink away.

Another reason I read this book is because a couple of years ago I read an article about Karen King. If you will recall, she is the "Jesus' wife" scholar, the one who put her reputation on the line regarding that fragment about which, although the case isn't settled, there is question. That article I read speculated that if the fragment was found to be inauthentic, it might be a career-ender for her. Well, I very much liked something she was quoted as saying along ethical lines in that article, so I decided I would look at her books to see if I wanted to read one before the hypothesized career-end. This is the one I chose.

The book was maddening in its academese and over-inclusiveness. At one point I said it was dissertation-like in its seeming fear of leaving out a single scholar or work. There was a quote I read recently about academese to the effect that a sentence contained an idea but the idea couldn't escape. Haha--a "Gnostic" sentence in which an idea is evilly imprisoned! Well, most of her ideas could escape, but a lot of them were fluttering around impotently like flies that accidentally hatched inside the house. The reader has to try to corral them!

Why this difficulty with vagueness? Sometimes unclarity can be a matter of code words geared to the elect and intended to elude others, but that's not the trouble with this book. I don't want to say political correctness. That term doesn't capture the right shade of meaning. I think Karen King wants to be careful. She isn't wanting to do the very thing she is criticizing--polemicizing against anyone--and for the most part she does succeed.

Another consequence of unclarity is the evasion of controversy. She is so vague and academic that I don't think anyone is after her (or was in 2003 when the book was published) for undermining the foundations of Christianity or such like. I don't think she was interviewed on Fox News as Reza Aslan was. Who knows? If you do, please let me know! Such questions were not yet of interest to me then. If people really read this book some might be up in arms! There's that much in it about story. Story is the basis of this book, and that's why I gave it a "4."

[William2 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is sort of wonderful. King follows the ancient polemical and modern scholarly views of Gnosticism down through the ages. Her main point is that the late 19th-early 20th century scholars for the most part accepted and reinforced the views of the early church polemicists (Irenaeus, Tertullian, etc.). She gives detailed example after detailed example. We look at the work of Harnack, Reitzenstein, Bousset, Bultmann, Bauer, Jonas and others. She then undertakes a review of shifting scholarly positions after the astonishing discovery in 1945 of a trove of ancient mostly Gnostic manuscripts near the Upper Egypt village of Nag Hammadi. These manuscripts, written in Coptic, were hidden in a jar under the sand and estimated to be 1,600 years old. They threw much light on the formation of the early church and raised many questions. Does King belabor her point a bit? Yes, she is nothing if not a scholar, but it's such a fascinating overview, requiring only minimal googling for the general reader, that one is borne along nicely. Her writing is clear and free of jargon save for the first chapter or so where she pays the requisite obeisance to scholarly argot. Though she isn't the writer her peer Elaine Pagels is, King nevertheless does a rock solid job. She wants to follow the sequence of ideas and compare and contrast them as she goes along. Just the sort of treatment I was looking for. Thorough and admirable.

[Peggy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very academic. Very, very academic. Yet, at the same time, helped me understand that the popular presentations of gnosticism (and some of the reasons I became attracted to it)tend to be by people with agendas having little to do with the actual historic records.
Gnosticism doesn't redeem Christianity but it doesn't refute it either. But I'll tell you, Christianity is not the tidy little bundle we were all handed to put in the manger during our Christmas pageants either.
So while the book was quite a wade, for me it was worth it, as I work through my own attitudes and beliefs, having grown up indifferently Protestant, coming back to faith through my political activism, and now, finally, feeling that I have to reject organized religion, no matter how "cool" an individual congregation might be.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

very glad to have read this as my introduction to Gnosticism and what have you. invaluable context for the nag hammadi library as well as some nice information on early christianity which i knew nothing (and still honestly know nothing) about. its also cool to learn that historians are people who just make things up and say whatever. solidified the inkling i had while reading hero with 1k faces where Mr campbell would say some of the most insane things ive ever seen written in an academic paper appended with a superscript number that i see now was supposed to give it a kind of critical authority despite being obviously just a (usually kinda batshit) opinion. anyway. gnosticism as i choose to define it is so sick. the works ive decided to include under its banner are so hard. i 100% believe in everything within the meticulously curated list of primary sources that i personally decided upon.

[Valentín Serrano García · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. Although the polemic/methodological points of view of Mrs King are grounded on postcolonialism and power-relations, this book is not reducible to that school (i.e. Bourdieau, Bhaba, Foucault...). It is not only a exhibition of how to approach gnosticism from that perspective.

King shows us the construction of Gnosticism, following the scholars' flaws since Ireneous and Tertullian, pointing out the inefficacy of the traditional methodology and the biased ideological commitments of historians of this field.

What does she offer? Questions. And a panoramic view. Perhaps it is not as brilliant as expected, Furthermore, I rather prefer the Spanish Scholar Antonio Piñero for these matters, but King overviews shouldn't be avoided.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the seemingly simplistic title, this is not exactly a primer on the subject, but it does serve as a useful introduction nevertheless. King essentially spends the book denoting the trouble with defining the term gnosticism and then covering the history of its definition.

Gnosticism, in its earliest variety, was simply heresy. If something did not fit into what became Christian orthodoxy, early writers termed it gnostic--or more often heretical (because the gnostic term itself didn't really come to be until the Middle Ages, and even then, regular usage only really comes into being much later).

Attempts to define and determine the origins of gnosticism begin to make some real headway under Adolf von Harnack, who tied it to the hellenization of Judaism and Christianity. The History of Religions school said, not quite, finding ways to tie it to ancient Eastern philosophies (in, for example, Iran). Still other scholars tied it into pre-Christian Jewish ideas. In general, it would be easiest just to say that gnosticism is syncretic.

But this still begs the question of what gnosticism is. King spends the rest of the book looking at various definitions and then also at primary documents from the gnostics themselves. One trick with regard to discussing gnosticism has been that has largely been defined by its enemies. But when we look at so-called gnostic documents, suddenly there is not as much unity of belief, and "heresies" are not the same across the board. One could easily point to various origins or create various definitions depending on the document examined. For this reason, the term gnosticism may better be simply jettisoned. As King notes, early Christian teachings were in flux, and one can't really say that there was a uniform alternative.

[Matt Tyler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the title, Karen King does not set out to define Gnosticism. Instead, her purpose is to, "consider the ways in which the early Christian polemicists' discourse of orthodoxy and heresy has been intertwined with twentieth-century scholarship on Gnosticism in order to show where and how that involvement has distorted our analysis of the ancient texts."

In a limited sense, I agree with King's basic thesis, especially as she demonstrates how scholars can reify gnosticism when they approach ancient texts. However, I cannot follow King to all of her conclusions, especially because I find her historical methodology untenable. In my opinion, one of the benefits of the Nag Hammadi texts is that it allows us to better read these writings on their own terms. However, contra King it seems, I also believe we should read the "early Christian polemicists" (her phrase) on their own terms. Though we may not agree with everything they wrote or even all of their strategies, I think the early Fathers sought to examine their opponents on their own terms without lumping them all together, though of course in so far as these opponents shared common traits they could be lumped together. It is appropriate for historians to ask, "What if the Fathers, who despite differences were unanimous in their judgment on these 'gnostic' texts, were right?"

I'm a Christian and therefore I am sympathetic to some of the positions of the "polemicists." I'm not at all convinced that's a bad thing so long as I am aware of how this colors my reading of the early texts. And, I don't think it prevents me from making sound historical arguments and judgments. I want King to have the same intellectual honesty in her own work regarding her own commitments.

[Rick Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Karen King has with this opus dealt a death blow to historic takes on the "gnostic" heresy. Thanks in large part to the Nag Hammadi find over seven decades ago, the models of gnostic belief and genealogy developed over the past 1700 years have to be discarded. They have developed from the anti-heresy campaigns of several church fathers, and have been in essence tweaked and updated by philologists, historians of religion, and like scholars. But these efforts were struggles in the dark. The reality of the recent finds of "gnostic" literature make it clear that there were many different currents in early Christian thought. The effort to define Christian orthodoxy, in part to accommodate the needs of the now-Christian Roman Empire, produced a polemic literature that only now can be understood in relation to those whose views were different. King calls for a new approach to Christian history that explores its diversity rather than assuming a uniform beginning.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rather convoluted. The usual diversity school of history and valuing all early versions of Christianity as equally valid. Her aversion to the term Gnosticism has not won the day and it continues go be helpful catchall term, even if we have to recognize that it is broad and describes a wide range of often contradictory beliefs.

[Dr. Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was somewhat interesting. I think I would have liked it more if early Christianity were my field. She did touch on some ideas about how we study religion in general that have got me thinking and I appreciate that. I read this for a class.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

It felt more like it was answering the question, "How have people looked at Gnosticism?" rather than the titular question. Still, full of interesting historical information both about the writings and beliefs lumped under the umbrella of Gnosticism, and of those who have attempted to define it.

[Aaron Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A post-colonial polemicist. Orthodoxy is reduced to a game of power relations.

[Ted Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am recalling this work from decades ago, when as an interested lay person, I read from a master scholar about the complex universes of gnosticism/Gnosticism. I remember all this fondly

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book presents a history of scholarship on Gnosticism. It is a critique of the major trends is scholarship and not an introduction to the texts or traditions commonly called "Gnostic."

It's a great history & critique of scholarship, essential reading for all in the field of ancient Christian traditions.

It's an essential compliment to Williams "Rethinking Gnosticism" which addresses the texts and traditions, but is not a history of scholarship.

[Ben Morrison]

don't let the number of pages fool you! a third of it is bibliography and footnotes! haha suckers. and the other two-thirds is about... well, what the title pretty much spells out for you (literally)

[Pat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I read the book and can say that I still don't know what Gnosticism is, but I sure know what it is not!

[Maxfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an truly fantastic and sweeping examination of the idea of Gnosticism.

[Yasmine Flodin-Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well written and organized, would have enjoyed more if I had more prior knowledge of the subject.

[Kai Palchikoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harvard University Press

[Stephen Victor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seems rather to answer the question What is not Gnosticism? but a nice review of the scholarship on the Gnostic texts nonetheless.