Playing With Heresy
Gnosticism and Orthodoxy
One of the most peculiar claims made by early proto-orthodox Christian writers is that the leading Gnostic heretics could also claim a disciplic succession going back to the Apostles and their associates. Simon Magus was reportedly baptized by Philip the Evangelist and was a student of Dositheos, a friend of John the Baptist. Basilides was a disciple of Peter’s student Glaucias as well as a student of the Apostle Matthias. Valentinus was a disciple of Paul’s disciple Theudas. The Mandaeans claim a lineage that traces back to John the Baptist. The heretics Marcion and Valentinus were members of the Church of Rome, worshiping alongside its proto-orthodox members, and Valentinus nearly became Bishop of Rome. In the early days of the Church, it was well-known that the founders of the various Gnostic heresies were legitimate disciples of the Apostles. The early proto-orthodox writers couldn’t just dismiss their claims to disciplic succession.
It seems odd, however, that members of the same Church and disciples of the same Apostles ended up having such radically different opinions of what Jesus taught. One possible explanation is that Jesus’ teachings had both esoteric and exoteric components. The mainstream proto-orthodox narrative derived from the exoteric teachings of Jesus, whereas the proto-gnostic narrative (demiurge, reincarnation, etc.) derives from the secret esoteric doctrines. Orthodoxy traces back to what Jesus openly taught to the public, whereas Gnosticism traces back to what he taught in secret. This proposition, however, may be difficult to accept since the proto-orthodox and proto-gnostic teachings are so blatantly contradictory. However, I would suggest that the two teachings are only contradictory if they are both taken literally. If the gnostic teachings are taken as largely symbolic and as representing a mystical anthropology and spiritual psychology, there may be some room for reconciling the two positions.
The Exoteric Teachings: Progressive Orthodoxy
The proto-orthodoxy of the early Church was considerably more open and less rigid than modern Orthodoxy. In order to get back to something like proto-orthodoxy, we would need to embrace what I have called progressive orthodoxy. This loosely orthodox theology allows more wiggle room and makes it easier to reconcile orthodoxy to gnosticism. What I call “progressive orthodoxy” is basically an open version of Eastern Christianity that is closer to proto-orthodoxy insofar as the edges are less well-defined.
To understand the early schism between proto-orthodox and Gnostic Christians, we must first entertain the possibility that Jesus taught on two levels: an exoteric message for the masses and an esoteric one for the initiated. This dual structure — found in many religious traditions — may not represent a corruption of his teaching, but rather a deliberate pedagogy for different levels of spiritual readiness.
In this speculative reconstruction, we imagine a “progressive orthodoxy” that reconciles these layers instead of dividing them. Outwardly, this reconstructed Christianity appears orthodox: it affirms the Incarnation, cherishes the sacraments, upholds communal liturgy, and reveres the apostolic tradition. But beneath this public face lies an inner teaching — a mystical roadmap veiled to the uninitiated yet central to the transformative path Jesus offered.
Orthodox Christianity, grounded in the teachings of the early Church and formalized in the Nicene Creed (325 AD, revised 381 AD), affirms a monotheistic faith centered on the mystery of the Holy Trinity: one God in three persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is the unbegotten source of divinity, the Son (Jesus Christ) is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Nicene Creed proclaims Jesus as fully divine and fully human, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, resurrected, and ascended — ushering in the salvation of humanity.
Orthodox theology emphasizes the Incarnation as the means by which God enters creation to restore and deify humanity, with the Church serving as the mystical body of Christ and the Eucharist as the sacrament of communion with divine life. This framework shapes traditional Christian worship, theology, and spiritual practice to this day.
As for the afterlife, the Orthodox Church holds that one will pass through aerial toll houses on their ascent to heaven, where they will be tried by demonic toll-collectors, ultimately to be either cast down to hell or allowed to pass through the seven heavens and into paradise. The souls of the departed currently reside in either hades or paradise, depending on whether they had engaged in mostly good or mostly evil deeds throughout their life. This trial via aerial toll houses is called the particular judgement. At the end of time, there will be a bodily resurrection and the general judgement, where one will pass through the “river of fire” (God’s divine presence) and experience it as either heaven or hell, depending on the condition of their soul.
The Esoteric Teachings: Gnosticism
Gnosticism, a diverse and mystical tradition in early Christianity, centers on the idea that the material world is a flawed or illusory creation, fashioned not by the true, unknowable God but by a lesser being — the Demiurge — identified with the Old Testament creator. Human souls are seen as divine sparks trapped in this material realm, suffering from ignorance (not sin) of their true origins. Salvation comes through gnosis — direct, experiential knowledge of the divine — awakening the soul to its higher reality. Gnostic systems teach reincarnation (the transmigration of souls) as part of the soul’s long journey back to the Pleroma, or fullness of divine light.
When the soul ascends to heaven (either during a mystical experience in this life or upon death), the soul encounters various toll houses and toll collectors. The Gnostic scriptures claim to hold the secret to successfully passing through the toll houses as one ascends through the seven heavens up toward God. One who does not have the secret gnosis will fail to pass through the toll houses and be cast back down to earth to be born again.
In the rich tapestry of early Christian thought, few traditions were as ambitious in cosmology and psychology as the Gnostic schools of the Valentinians and Basilideans. Though both were condemned by proto-orthodox theologians, their teachings reveal a deep concern with the nature of the divine, the tragic origins of the material world, and the inner transformation of the soul. While their myths differ in detail, they share a common goal: to awaken the divine spark within humanity through gnosis — a direct, experiential knowledge of God that transcends faith and ritual.
At the heart of both systems is a radical reimagining of creation. For the Valentinians, all things begin in the Pleroma, the “fullness” of divine being, emanating from a primal source called Bythos (the Abyss). From this abyss of pure potential come thirty Aeons, divine archetypes that exist in sexually complementary pairs. Among them is Sophia, whose fall, caused by a misguided yearning to imitate the Primal Father Bythos, leads to the emergence of a flawed creation outside the Pleroma. In her sorrow and ignorance, Sophia produces a formless offspring who becomes the Demiurge: the creator of the material cosmos and the god mistakenly worshipped in the Old Testament. This creator is not evil, but tragically limited, unaware that higher realities exist beyond his own domain.
The Basilideans articulate a similar theme using a slightly different mythological structure. They begin with absolute non-being, a “not-being God” who wills into existence a seed containing all future realities. This seed divides into three parts, representing a triadic sonship. From these unfold the Great Archon and subsequent rulers of the layered heavens — figures who, like the Demiurge, mistake their high station for ultimate divinity. The Gospel, in the Basilidean system, is not simply the good news of salvation through Christ’s death and resurrection, but the revelation that these celestial rulers are not supreme, and that even they must come to know and submit to the higher, hidden God.
Both traditions offer a profound vision of the human condition. The Valentinians developed a sophisticated tripartite psychology, dividing human beings into three essential types: the hylic (material), who are bound to the body and incapable of salvation; the psychic (soul-oriented), who may be saved through moral effort and faith; and the pneumatic (spiritual), who possess a divine seed within and are destined by nature to awaken through gnosis. This schema is not entirely deterministic — some sources suggest movement between types — but it underscores the core Gnostic belief that salvation is not merely a moral choice, but a matter of ontological awakening. Basilidean teaching mirrors this threefold classification, describing humanity as composed of material, intellectual, and spiritual natures, each with its own potential and destiny.
The mechanism of salvation in both systems is not external forgiveness but internal illumination. Gnosis — the deep, unmediated recognition of one’s divine origin and the falsity of the material world — is the true resurrection. For Valentinians, this awakening is not deferred to the afterlife but must happen in this life. They speak of mystical union with the divine bridegroom, the soul’s return to the Pleroma, and the experience of rebirth through knowledge. The Basilideans emphasize purification through the soul’s long journey — through multiple incarnations — toward reunion with the ineffable source. Even the celestial powers must pass through stages of enlightenment, culminating in the recognition of the one true God who lies beyond all being.
Alongside the systems of Basilides and Valentinus stood the teachings of Marcion, whose doctrine shared many similarities with Gnostic thought in general but was rooted more explicitly in rational argument and scriptural analysis. Marcion relied on a canon consisting primarily of the Gospel of Luke and the Pauline epistles, which he interpreted as revealing a stark contrast between the wrathful, legalistic God of the Old Testament and the benevolent, merciful Father proclaimed by Jesus. From this perceived contradiction, Marcion concluded that the creator god of the Hebrew Scriptures was in fact an inferior Demiurge, distinct from and subordinate to the true God of love and grace revealed in the New Testament.
In these systems, Christ functions not only as a savior but as a revealer and spiritual guide. For the Valentinians, he descends from the Pleroma and manifests as Jesus to impart the saving gnosis to those capable of receiving it. These Gnostic groups all three embraced a form of docetism, rejecting the true humanity of Christ, arguing that he only “appeared” to be human. To them, Christ was fully divine and only seemed to take on human form.
What emerges from these teachings is a vision of Christianity that is at once mythic and psychological, metaphysical and ethical. It challenges the idea of a world created in perfection and instead asks: what if the cosmos itself is a tragedy, and our spiritual task is to remember what came before it? Gnosis is the key — not merely to escape suffering, but to restore the cosmos to its forgotten harmony.
Resolving the Contradiction
The apparent contradiction between the exoteric orthodoxy of the early Church and the esoteric teachings of the Gnostics begins to dissolve once we cease reading Gnostic cosmology as literal metaphysics and begin reading it as symbolic mysticism. In this light, the Demiurge is no longer a rogue cosmic artisan but becomes a potent mythic representation of the impersonal forces governing the material world — what Richard Dawkins famously called the “Blind Watchmaker.” This figure, who creates without wisdom and presides without compassion, is not a rival god but a poetic expression of biological evolution, entropy, and mechanistic causality — forces that shape our bodies and fates but do not define our essence.
Likewise, the Gnostic schema of seven heavens, aerial toll houses, and ascents of the soul is not a literal travelogue of the afterlife but a map of inner transformation. These stages reflect levels of consciousness, degrees of self-purification, and encounters with the various illusions and attachments that bind the soul to the material. In this framework, the toll collectors are not demons lurking in the sky but psychological forces — fears, compulsions, and self-deceptions — that test the soul at every threshold of spiritual growth. The Gnostic ascent is thus reinterpreted as the soul’s inward journey through contemplation, meditation, and mystical awakening.
The tripartite anthropology of the Valentinians — dividing humanity into hylic, psychic, and pneumatic types — becomes a sort of mystical psychology rather than a metaphysical assertion. These categories may be seen not as rigid castes but as symbolic stages of development. The “hylic” person is trapped in instinct and distraction; the “psychic” begins to awaken through moral effort and discipline; the “pneumatic” attains direct experience of the divine. Rather than a deterministic taxonomy, it becomes a dynamic framework for spiritual maturation.
When viewed in this symbolic light, Gnostic teachings no longer contradict orthodoxy but deepen it. Just as Orthodox Christianity preserves the mystery of the Trinity and the sacraments in layers of liturgical poetry and iconography, so too do the Gnostics preserve the inner mysteries in myth. The two traditions need not be enemies but may instead represent the outer and inner faces of the same truth: one proclaimed in creed and communion, the other discovered in silence and gnosis.
One of the most challenging points of tension between orthodoxy and gnosticism lies in their opposing views of the soul’s journey: the orthodox vision of a single earthly life followed by judgment versus the Gnostic teaching of reincarnation and repeated embodiment. Yet even this contradiction begins to blur when reincarnation is understood symbolically — not as literal rebirth into new physical bodies, but as the soul’s ongoing process of awakening, purification, and ascent within a single lifetime. In this reading, being “born again” is not a one-time conversion experience but an ongoing process of spiritual regeneration. Just as the Orthodox tradition affirms theosis — becoming by grace what God is by nature — so too does the Gnostic metaphor of reincarnation portray the soul passing through many interior deaths and rebirths on its way to full illumination. Thus, the soul may not cycle through bodies, but it does cycle through selves, shedding illusions, attachments, and false identities in a gradual return to its true nature.
