A Short Look At Gnosticism
Throughout the first, second, and third centuries, Christianity competed with a host of similar mystical religions all throughout the Greek world. The most important was Mithraism, which shared many similar characteristics with Christianity. Unlike Christianity, though, Mithraism barred women from worship; a large number of the earliest converts to Christianity were women, even though Paul argued that women should be silent on religious matters.
Another religion popular throughout the Greek world was Gnosticism, which comes from the Greek word for "knowledge." We don't much about the origins of Gnosticism; the first recorded Gnostic teacher is Simon Magus, who lived at the time of the ministry of the Twelve. The Gnostic religion centered around the figure of Sophia, or Wisdom, which was believed to have come down from Heaven to earth, where she became besmirched, but was raised up again by God to heaven. This religion derived from the Canaanite religion, which also worshipped a Wisdom that had descended and risen to Heaven; so the roots of Gnosticism go back to at least the seventh century BC. The Hebrews incorporated some aspects of Gnosticism, including a proto-Gnostic Canaanite religious text embedded in Proverbs 8-9.
What is significant about Gnosticism is that it made itself at home with practically every religion circulating around the Mediterranean. The worship of Sophia was easily folded into Zoroastrianism, with its battle between good and evil, Judaism, with its concept of a supreme God, Stoicism, with its myth of the descent of light to the earth, Mithraism, with its story of the descent and resurrection of the sun-god, and, finally, Christianity, with its story of the descent and resurrection of Christ. There were Zoroastrian Gnostics, Jewish Gnostics, Stoic Gnostics, and, of course, Christian Gnostics.
Christian Gnosticism was a major competing religion for early Christianity; one of its most popular manifestations was the assertion that the Divine spirit of Christ dwelled in the body of the man Jesus. In this respect, then, the spirit of Christ did not die on the cross with Jesus.
