Why the Gnostics Lost!
There is no term more misunderstood and more misused than “Gnostic.”
For some people, Gnostic means means “heresy” or anything that denigrates the body or focuses on the cerebral side of things. Gnostics, Gnostics everywhere!
However, “Gnostic” itself really means “Knower” or perhaps even “Intellectual.” Clement of Alexandria considered himself to be a “Gnostic” in the sense of a Christian thinker.
Now there are HUGE debates about the origins of Gnosticism (is it a pagan system, a Jewish heresy, or Christian Platonism), debates about what Gnosticism even is (focus on knowledge, belief in a demiurge, or a neotic-cosmology), debates about who is and is not a Gnostic (Marcion, Valentinus?), and debates about the diversities of Gnosticism (e.g., Sethians and Valentinians).
For a good intro, I really do recommend the podcast NT Review where they review Michael Williams’ famous book on the topic and look at recent scholarship on the subject. Excellent stuff!
Otherwise, scholarship can sometimes have a Gnostophilia, as if the Gnostics represented a more culturally savvy, inclusive, and intellectually satisfying version of Christianity. A religion where the focus is on self-discovery, not a gruesome crucifixion and a mythical resurrection. You can imagine why many might find that attractive.
Christian Gnostics were a significant group and posed a significant threat to the proto-orthodox church as they established a mode of Christianity that was far more compatible with the Greco-Roman world. They had their own sacred literature, even Gospels, apologists, churches, and sacraments. Precisely why Christian leaders like Irenaeus spent so much time and effort refuting them.
That said, I love how Rodney Stark explains their failure to win over most Christians with their scheme:
Had the Gnostics prevailed, they presumably would be viewed today rather more in the manner that Pagels and other ‘Ivy League’ Gnostics would wish, assuming that such a thing as Christianity still existed. But the Gnostics did not prevail, because they did not present so nearly a faith, nor did they seem to understand how to create sturdy organizations. Instead, most of the gospels, were rejected for good reason: they constitute idiosyncratic, often lurid personal visions reported by scholarly mystics, ambitious pretenders, and various outsiders who found their life’s calling in dissent. Whatever else might be said about them, surely they were heretics. As N.T. Wright put it, they ‘represent … a form of spirituality which, while still claiming the name of Jesus, has left behind the very things that made Jesus who he was, and that made the early Christians what they were’. Rodney Stark, Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2007), 154.
In the end, for many, the Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas was not as inspiring as the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew. Who would want to face persecution for faith in Jesus the dispenser of esoteric wisdom or run the gauntlet of imprisonment for owning a copy of the Gospel of Philip? To be honest, the best way to describe the victory of orthodoxy is not through a top-down power-game, but more like some annoying git getting voted off the island. The majority rules.
In Peter Lampe's superb book From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries I like how he explains the victory of what became “orthodoxy”:
Behind ‘orthodoxy’ stands the mass of uneducated Christian folk. The orthodox Christian does not need a perfect secular education to grasp the truths of his or her faith, as is often attested (Lactatius, Inst. Div. 6.21; Clement, Strom. 1.99.1; Tertullian, Praescr. 7.9-13; Origen, Contra Cel. 3.44. ‘Any Christian manual laborer can find God!’ (Tertullian, Apol. 46.9). The victory of orthodoxy was thus also a ‘majority decisions’: the followers of the heretics were numerically outnumbered; orthodoxy, easily comprehended by the masses, constituted the ‘Great Church’ (Origen, Contra Cel. 5.59: megalē ekklēsia; the term was coined by Celsus). Whoever has this ‘Great Church’ behind him succeeds. It is a simple law of gravity. (p. 383-84).
Much more can be said about Gnostics and Gnosticism, but that will do for now.