(855) 4-ESSAYS

Type a new keyword(s) and press Enter to search

The Gnostic Gospels

            This book is a study of the Gnostic religion versus the Roman Catholic Church and other orthodox Christian sects. It looks into the differences in their beliefs in the writings of The New Testament.
             The book also explains what Gnosis is. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as "esoteric knowledge of spiritual truth held by the ancient Gnostics to be essential to salvation." In other words, it is what the ancient Gnostics believed to be the truth of spirituality, which was necessary for them to be saved. The book raises questions like whether God is male or female, and whether there is more than one God proven in the Bible.
             Elaine Pagels also discusses how the two Christian churches were formed in the beginning and how and why the present version won out. She explains in her book that the legal authority given by the Roman Emperors to the orthodox church eventually led to the lawful persecution of both the Gnostic sects and the pagan religions. She makes it clear in The Gnostic Gospels that Orthodoxy's legal authority nearly eradicated the various groups along with their beliefs, rituals and ceremonies.
             She gives a rational explanation for why the Church deemed the Gnostic gospels to be dangerous and banned them. The coexistence of the Gnostic ideas alongside all the other views of Jesus" divinity was a direct challenge to the power structure of the Church. This power was a consolidating one, to strengthen the Church. The orthodox position that developed was aimed at keeping the early Christian movement together in order that it might survive the state persecution of the Roman Empire.
             The Gnostic understanding of Jesus took the Church's existence to be unnecessary. It said that one did not have to go through Jesus and the Church, but could approach God on one's own. In later eras, the popes adopted the belief that there is no salvation outside the Church.
             I find this to be a fascinating conflict.


Essays Related to The Gnostic Gospels

1. The Widespread Influence of Christianity

... roles were deemed heretical as claimed, "Worst of all, from Irenaeus' viewpoint, Marcus invited women to act as priests in celebrating the eucharist with him (University Readers 85)." According to Thomas in the Gnostic Gospels, Jesus states, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit ... by the higher classes, not the working masses. The formation of the Roman Orthodox Church was a political affair and in most political affairs, the working class had little influence on what happened. So while the majority of the working class followed...

  • Word Count: 864
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

2. Gnosticism It's Early Beginnings and It's Assault on today's Christianity

... how much more widespread and diverse Gnosticism was than previously imagined. At the heart of the gnostic concern was the revelation of the hidden Gnosis (Greek meaning "knowledge"), the possession of which would free one from the fragmentary and illusory (or evil) material world (bodily existence) and teach one about the origins of the spiritual world to which the gnostic belonged by nature. Radical discontinuity between appearance and reality; between bodily ... Septimus Florens Tertullianus who was the initiator of ecclesiastical Latin defined the orthodox position: as Christ rose fr...

  • Word Count: 1846
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

3. Iconic Women of Islam and Christianity

... "kind of intense and transforming love, which is really the birth-pangs of union at a higher plane."5 Another point of controversy arises from the discovery of the Gnostic Gospels. Here, Mary's depiction starkly contrasts with that of the canonical gospels in two fundamental ways. Mary is seen as " first among the apostles" because she is Jesus' only disciple to fully ... understand his teachings and to successfully integrate them into her own life. Dialogue Two of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene ... increasing obsession with celibacy and sexual purity."35 It follows, then, that the schis...

  • Word Count: 3461
  • Approx Pages: 14
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

4. Life of christ

... that contained more than fifty individual documents. After these documents were translated they were found to be from the Gnostic origin, such as the Gospel of Truth, The Gospel of the Egyptians, the Apocryphon of John, the Acts of peter and the twelve Disciples, and the Apocalypse of Peter. Of the greatest significance was the entire Gospel of Thomas. This Gospel was only known in a few Greek fragments. One of ... conception or his miraculous birth. There is so much information about Jesus and His disciples that people don't know about. Some of the information that is in the content of ...

  • Word Count: 1304
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

5. A Brief History of Christianity

... means" Anointed One. (Ingman, 2014). Christianity - The Religion of Immorality Christianity is the religion of immortality. Without this, no one understands the mission of Jesus; one cannot quite understand their inward thought. "In Jesus" are not only words but also the examples, and facts that base their doctrine. These parts of the Gospels proves their claim exuberantly. One may ask: What would ... Christianity without the appearances of Jesus? Is it possible that the unique doctrine he had founded finding for death? In this case, why would those who do ... a sect that preached that k...

  • Word Count: 2426
  • Approx Pages: 10
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

Got a writing question? Ask our professional writer!
Submit My Question