Why is Gnosticism such an evil religion? Because it purports to be true "Christianity," its adherents profess to be true "Christians," and yet unfortunately this form of Christianity encourages the practice of not only witchcraft and sorcery (see Part 2), but also sexual licentiousness in the name of "Christ." This is the aspect of Gnosticism I will now cover in this present study.
Previous Study:
The Evils Of Gnosticism, Part 2
The Evils of Gnosticism, Part 3:
As scripture clearly teaches, there were heretics circulating among the churches during New Testament times who were only there to “allure unstable souls,” by presenting themselves as true believers yet entering into Christian congregations only to sexually prey upon the unsuspecting (2 Timothy 3:6-9, 2 Peter 2:13-22). According to church tradition, some of these heretics would eventually go on teach that it was even a sacred thing to engage in sexual immorality, and that only those who did so daily could inherit "eternal life." As strange as these doctrines might sound, this heresy now appears to be making a come back in the earth in modern times, and few are aware of how it is actually being promoted as true “Christianity” in things like movies and TV documentaries.
Would you recognize the foundations of this heresy if you saw them being presented? The only way for believers to be able to recognize it is by coming to a greater understanding of their Bibles, and how these things were actually being discussed within the pages of the New Testament.
- Several times the New Testament scriptures predicted that there would eventually arise false Christs in the end-times, and they would emerge performing great signs and wonders to deceive if possible even the very elect, and bewilder multitudes of people by the powers of the evil one. But these false Christs that would arise in the end-times would seduce the gullible by another means: Encouraging their followers to engage in sexual immorality in the name of "Christ." In essence, they will preach a religion that is "Christian" in name only, but in reality Satanism in practice. This is because Satan knows full well that God cannot receive into His kingdom those who honor Him with their lips yet dishonor Him with their bodies and their lives.
- This is made clear by several New Testament passages:
- For this you have known, that every person who is sexually immoral, or unclean, or [sexually] covetous, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with vain words, for on account of these things comes the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not be joint-partakers with them. (Ephesians 5:5-7a)
- Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry… which I tell you beforehand, even as also I said before, that the one doing such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)
- Or do you not know that the unjust shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be misled; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor homosexuals… shall inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)
- As covered previously in Part 2, a false Christ was already operating in the earth at the time Paul was writing his second letter to the Thessalonians. Simon the Magician was performing great signs and wonders before the Roman senate to mislead them into believing he was a "god," and actually "the Christ" who had years before manifested himself in Judaea. Now he had supposedly "returned in power," and part of Simon's appeal was that his doctrines offered his followers a presumed liberation from sexual constraints. Those who adhered to his teachings received freedom from the strict rules of sexual behavior that governed true Christianity. His followers could engage in any sexually licentiousness behavior they wished, for his brand of "Christianity" had presumably delivered them from all religious tyranny, and especially that of the God of the Jews.
- As Paul stated in 2nd Thessalonians, those who were buying into these doctrines were those who "delighting in unrighteousness" rather than "receiving the love of the truth for them to be saved."
- … the demonic activity of Satan [is manifesting itself] in all the power, signs and wonders of falsehood and in all the deceitfulness of unrighteousness unto those who are perishing, on which account they have received not the love of the truth for them to be saved. And God is sending them this demonic activity which endorses falsehood for them to believe a lie for this very reason: That all may be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)
- The religion Simon was preaching was "deceitful" in that it promised a life of sexual freedom and pleasure, yet their end would be destruction for believing the lies of the enemy rather than the true gospel of Christ.
Returning To The Sexually Immoral Teachings Of Simon The Magician
- Just as in New Testament times, in order to allure gullible souls during the end-times, the false Christs that are coming will teach doctrines that promote sin and elevate it to a place of virtue rather than vice. This will be a return to the New Testament origins of this heresy.
- According to the early Ecclesiastical writers, Simon went about with a prostitute named Helena whom he had purchased out of slavery. She assisted him to initiate people into the "higher" mysteries of his religion by performing sexual rites in private before the eyes of adherents
- To cite both early church and modern authors regarding Simon's methodology:
- This Simon of Samaria, from whom all sorts of heresies derive their origin... redeemed from slavery in Tyre, a city in Phoenicia, a certain woman named Helena, [and] was in the the habit of carrying her about with him... (Irenaeus, Ante-Nicene Fathers, V.1, P.348)
- Simon Magus, who taught that his prostitute Helena was "the Holy Spirit," instituted certain foul and infamous mysteries inexpressibly filthy, and had assemblies equally filthy to celebrate them, these being the Mysteries of Life, and of the most perfect "knowledge." (Queenborough, Occult Theocracy, P.119)
- Simon mocked the commandments of God to abstain from sexual immorality by teaching that they were only given because the God of the Jews and His angels wanted only to dominate over humanity and bring them under subjugation. But Simon had come to reveal that those who believed in him no longer needed to fear such tyranny any longer, but should reject the Biblical prophesies that stated the God of the Jews would cast sinners into a Lake of Fire when the Day of the Lord came. These promises however were all a lie:
- Since the angels ruled the world wickedly because each of them coveted the highest power for himself [Simon] had come to amend matters... Moreover, (i.e. according to Simon) the [Biblical] prophets uttered their predictions under the inspiration of the angels who formed the world, for which reason those who place their trust in him and Helena no longer feared them but, as being free, live as they please... (Irenaeus, Ante-Nicene Fathers, V.1, P.348)
- Many of Simon's later successors, men like Nicholaus, Carpocrates and Valentinian, went so far as to teach that practicing sexual immorality should be a law, and only those who participated in fornication every day could be saved, since practicing sexual immorality commemorated the "mystery" that those with true spiritual "knowledge" were supposed to be meditating upon daily:
- The Carpocratians grew to the degree of madness that, unable to conceal their debaucheries, they made sexual incontinence to be a law... Podicus added to the tenets of Carpocrates that fornication ought to be open and public, and the use of women common. For which reason, when the candles were extinguished in their feasts, each lay with the women as chance appointed it, and they call this licentiousness a mystical "initiation," a mystical communion. (Queenborough, Occult Theocracy, P.120)
- Both Epiphanius and Irenaeus before him say of the founder of the Nicolatians: "Being ashamed of his own remissness, audaciously pronounced that no one who was not lascivious every day could be an inheritor of eternal life... therefore those Gnostics, after a debauchery, used to boast of their happiness as having done a virtuous thing..." (Queenborough, Occult Theocracy, P.121)
(Continued next post)
Previous Study:
The Evils Of Gnosticism, Part 2
The Evils of Gnosticism, Part 3:
As scripture clearly teaches, there were heretics circulating among the churches during New Testament times who were only there to “allure unstable souls,” by presenting themselves as true believers yet entering into Christian congregations only to sexually prey upon the unsuspecting (2 Timothy 3:6-9, 2 Peter 2:13-22). According to church tradition, some of these heretics would eventually go on teach that it was even a sacred thing to engage in sexual immorality, and that only those who did so daily could inherit "eternal life." As strange as these doctrines might sound, this heresy now appears to be making a come back in the earth in modern times, and few are aware of how it is actually being promoted as true “Christianity” in things like movies and TV documentaries.
Would you recognize the foundations of this heresy if you saw them being presented? The only way for believers to be able to recognize it is by coming to a greater understanding of their Bibles, and how these things were actually being discussed within the pages of the New Testament.
- Several times the New Testament scriptures predicted that there would eventually arise false Christs in the end-times, and they would emerge performing great signs and wonders to deceive if possible even the very elect, and bewilder multitudes of people by the powers of the evil one. But these false Christs that would arise in the end-times would seduce the gullible by another means: Encouraging their followers to engage in sexual immorality in the name of "Christ." In essence, they will preach a religion that is "Christian" in name only, but in reality Satanism in practice. This is because Satan knows full well that God cannot receive into His kingdom those who honor Him with their lips yet dishonor Him with their bodies and their lives.
- This is made clear by several New Testament passages:
- For this you have known, that every person who is sexually immoral, or unclean, or [sexually] covetous, who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with vain words, for on account of these things comes the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not be joint-partakers with them. (Ephesians 5:5-7a)
- Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry… which I tell you beforehand, even as also I said before, that the one doing such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)
- Or do you not know that the unjust shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be misled; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor homosexuals… shall inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)
- As covered previously in Part 2, a false Christ was already operating in the earth at the time Paul was writing his second letter to the Thessalonians. Simon the Magician was performing great signs and wonders before the Roman senate to mislead them into believing he was a "god," and actually "the Christ" who had years before manifested himself in Judaea. Now he had supposedly "returned in power," and part of Simon's appeal was that his doctrines offered his followers a presumed liberation from sexual constraints. Those who adhered to his teachings received freedom from the strict rules of sexual behavior that governed true Christianity. His followers could engage in any sexually licentiousness behavior they wished, for his brand of "Christianity" had presumably delivered them from all religious tyranny, and especially that of the God of the Jews.
- As Paul stated in 2nd Thessalonians, those who were buying into these doctrines were those who "delighting in unrighteousness" rather than "receiving the love of the truth for them to be saved."
- … the demonic activity of Satan [is manifesting itself] in all the power, signs and wonders of falsehood and in all the deceitfulness of unrighteousness unto those who are perishing, on which account they have received not the love of the truth for them to be saved. And God is sending them this demonic activity which endorses falsehood for them to believe a lie for this very reason: That all may be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)
- The religion Simon was preaching was "deceitful" in that it promised a life of sexual freedom and pleasure, yet their end would be destruction for believing the lies of the enemy rather than the true gospel of Christ.
Returning To The Sexually Immoral Teachings Of Simon The Magician
- Just as in New Testament times, in order to allure gullible souls during the end-times, the false Christs that are coming will teach doctrines that promote sin and elevate it to a place of virtue rather than vice. This will be a return to the New Testament origins of this heresy.
- According to the early Ecclesiastical writers, Simon went about with a prostitute named Helena whom he had purchased out of slavery. She assisted him to initiate people into the "higher" mysteries of his religion by performing sexual rites in private before the eyes of adherents
- To cite both early church and modern authors regarding Simon's methodology:
- This Simon of Samaria, from whom all sorts of heresies derive their origin... redeemed from slavery in Tyre, a city in Phoenicia, a certain woman named Helena, [and] was in the the habit of carrying her about with him... (Irenaeus, Ante-Nicene Fathers, V.1, P.348)
- Simon Magus, who taught that his prostitute Helena was "the Holy Spirit," instituted certain foul and infamous mysteries inexpressibly filthy, and had assemblies equally filthy to celebrate them, these being the Mysteries of Life, and of the most perfect "knowledge." (Queenborough, Occult Theocracy, P.119)
- Simon mocked the commandments of God to abstain from sexual immorality by teaching that they were only given because the God of the Jews and His angels wanted only to dominate over humanity and bring them under subjugation. But Simon had come to reveal that those who believed in him no longer needed to fear such tyranny any longer, but should reject the Biblical prophesies that stated the God of the Jews would cast sinners into a Lake of Fire when the Day of the Lord came. These promises however were all a lie:
- Since the angels ruled the world wickedly because each of them coveted the highest power for himself [Simon] had come to amend matters... Moreover, (i.e. according to Simon) the [Biblical] prophets uttered their predictions under the inspiration of the angels who formed the world, for which reason those who place their trust in him and Helena no longer feared them but, as being free, live as they please... (Irenaeus, Ante-Nicene Fathers, V.1, P.348)
- Many of Simon's later successors, men like Nicholaus, Carpocrates and Valentinian, went so far as to teach that practicing sexual immorality should be a law, and only those who participated in fornication every day could be saved, since practicing sexual immorality commemorated the "mystery" that those with true spiritual "knowledge" were supposed to be meditating upon daily:
- The Carpocratians grew to the degree of madness that, unable to conceal their debaucheries, they made sexual incontinence to be a law... Podicus added to the tenets of Carpocrates that fornication ought to be open and public, and the use of women common. For which reason, when the candles were extinguished in their feasts, each lay with the women as chance appointed it, and they call this licentiousness a mystical "initiation," a mystical communion. (Queenborough, Occult Theocracy, P.120)
- Both Epiphanius and Irenaeus before him say of the founder of the Nicolatians: "Being ashamed of his own remissness, audaciously pronounced that no one who was not lascivious every day could be an inheritor of eternal life... therefore those Gnostics, after a debauchery, used to boast of their happiness as having done a virtuous thing..." (Queenborough, Occult Theocracy, P.121)
(Continued next post)