Word: christly
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...earthly life. The only escape was salvation through possession of an esoteric gnosis (Greek for knowledge), which led to union with an abstract supreme being. Such was the creed of Gnosticism, a strange amalgam of beliefs that was orthodox Christianity's main rival in the early centuries after Christ...
...Christianity and became its archenemy, not only as a separate religion but also as a heretical wing within the early church. Yet some experts, among them Germany's New Testament Critic Rudolf Bultmann, are persuaded that Gnosticism was a full-fledged, working religion even before the arrival of Christ...
Christianity and Gnosticism both flourished during the unraveling of the Roman Empire, but dealt with this era of upheaval in different ways. The more optimistic Christians came to terms with the secular world; they embraced the belief that God had become incarnate on earth in the person of Jesus Christ, as well as the Jewish idea of a "good" creation. It was the world-hating Gnostics, says Robinson, who "expressed most clearly the mood of defeatism and despair that swept the ancient world...
...some men's bodies, and that redemption meant union with the supreme being through possession of the mystical, Zen-Like gnosis; a Gnostic could thus achieve gnosis and partial redemption long before corporeal death. The Gnostic creed left no room for the Christian belief in redemption through Christ's atonement on the cross for the sins of mankind. In fact, Nag Hammadi texts depict a Jesus who did not die on the cross at all. In their version, Simon of Cyrene carried the cross to Golgotha and-by ghoulish accident-was crucified in Christ's place while...
...believe in the rules and precepts that Christ handed down to us," said Laine while recovering. "The ill will of a few people is not indicative of the feeling of harmony in that group. I've lived for 46 years with two eyes, and I can make it the rest of the way, the good Lord willing, with...