Who were the Gnostics?

With the discovery of texts such as the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, the Apocalypse of Peter, and many others, a group of early Christian believers known as the Gnostics are being reexamined. Who were these Gnostics, what did they believe that was different from other Christian faiths, and what can they teach us today. 

The questions can best be answered by examining the gospels they left behind and comparing their teachings and doctrines with what the Nicean churches teach. In a previous article recording the Nicean Creed, certain doctrines and beliefs about Christ were established among the churches which claimed to hold lines of authority. These beliefs included ideas such as Christ being a divine diety, that He lived a celibate lifestyle, that He was not subject to temptation or mortal weakness, and that He is unlike mortal man. 

The gnostics on the other hand had a very different view of Christ. They believed that he was the son of God, but that he was completely 100% mortal. They believe that he was in fact married, they believe that he was subject to every temptation and weakness which mortal man is subject to. In other words the major churches believed that Christ was immortal and the gnostics believed that Christ was human. 

Now this leads to another area where the two differed. The churches taught that through a long line of authority that had been passed down that could be traced to Christ and His disciples, that they had the power to administer in the saving ordinances, that the church in other words was like the gatekeeper. The churches claimed that they represented Christ here on the earth and that men in their wicked sinful state could obtain salvation by being baptized into their church, confessing their sins to the proper appointed legal administrators, through the paying of tithes as a penalty for sin, through partaking of the Eucharist (sacrament, mass), etc. 

The Gnostics on the other hand claimed that the lines of authority were not so important because you could receive the same authority straight from Jesus Christ. They claimed to have authority to baptize, administer Eucharist, and perform other blessings. They claimed that you needed to confess your sins to Christ, that paying tithes (not to be confused with charity or communal living) was unnecessary, etc. 

In other words, one of the defining key differences between the churches and the Gnostics was that the churches acted as a mediator for Christ because Christ was so perfect and devine that He is beyond the reach of the wicked sinful man. The Gnostics claimed you needed no mediator because you could gain direct access to Christ through prayer and humility, that He was a man like us and that through faith and repentance we could develop a personal relationship with Him. They also teach that because Christ was a man, that in turn we can be like Him and that we too can be sons and daughters of God. 

So with those differences in mind, it demonstrates the differences in the scriptures they valued. Many gnostic gospels emphasis this personal relationship with Christ, and emphasis the nature of our connection with God.