http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/438/Gnosticism__New_Age__DaVinci_Code.html
A Diverse Movement In the second century, the Roman Empire had grown tired. Under the Emperor Trajan (d.117AD) the empire had reached its greatest territorial extent. For over a hundred years the Pax Romana had reigned over the Mediterranean world, a peace kept in place by the unrivaled power of the Roman military machine. But the empire was far from its republican roots and republican virtues. Sensuality and materialism were the order of the day. Of course, no one took the religion of Jupiter, Juno, and the Vestal Virgins very seriously. Worship of the emperor and the Roman gods was a matter of civic virtue, not of true religious devotion. Affluence and corruption led to boredom and restlessness.In such an environment, people often look to far off, exotic lands for something new and exciting. So it is no wonder that ideas from Persia, married to a mish mash of ideas drawn from Greek philosophy, magic, and other exotic sects, coalesced into a something that came to be known as “Gnosticism.” Gnosticism was not a tightly organized religion, but rather a general way of thinking that characterized a wide variety of sects following different leaders and often disagreeing sharply on several points..The important thing here, though, is not what they disagreed about or even who they got their ideas from. What we want to understand is the essence of Gnosticism, the basic ideas that people called Gnostics held in common.
Christian Gnostics?
Some, hearing the Christian message that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” supposed that Jesus was the heavenly messenger bringing salvation through hidden knowledge. To these, of course, the stories of Jesus’ birth and death could not be right. No true heavenly being would ever defile himself with matter, for matter and spirit were utterly opposed. So he just appeared to be human. And the story about Golgotha was either left out entirely, or was said to be based on mistaken identity. Certainly the bearer of heavenly revelation had no body and therefore couldn’t have died.
Salvation was not, after all, accomplished through sacrifice, but through knowledge.
So how did these folks deal with the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Some tossed out all Gospels save one, regarding the others as forgeries. For Marcion, who was not a thorough Gnostic but held many of their ideas, the Gospel of Luke minus the infancy narratives was the only gospel. Others liked the view of Jesus as the wandering guru who uttered profound discourses full of riddles, and John seemed to fit the bill. Others championed gospels by other names, such as the Gospel of Thomas.
But all the so-called Christian Gnostics had one thing in common: theirs was a Christianity without the cross. The crucifixion was either explained away or, in the case of the Gospel of Thomas, left out of the story. If salvation was by knowledge, why did they need a story at all? All that was needed was a collection of parables and sayings. And that’s exactly what we find in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.
So what kind of life-style should the true Gnostic lead? Here is where the various sects diverged a bit. They all agreed that the body was of no consequence. Some said, therefore, we must deny it as much as possible, even starve it. Their ideal was an ascetic life-style of severe fasting from food and sex.
Others drew the opposite conclusion. Since the body is just a hunk of meat that has no relationship to the spiritual life, what we do with the body simply does not matter. That means there is no law–anything goes. So some Gnostic sects celebrated this license through ritual orgies. It would appear that the Nicolatians, condemned in the book of Revelation, were an early form of such a sect.(Rev 2:6, 14).
But how could the Gnostics claim that their vision of Jesus was the true one? Simple. Jesus realized that most couldn’t take his true teaching, so he secretly confided it to a few chosen confidants. And these passed on this secret tradition to those who were worthy of it, from generation to generation.
