Well, thank you for being here. We do have our second packet of notes, actually, as far as a little booklet form. It covers the time of 110 to 210 A.D., but of course, we've got to go back and finish a few things from last week. On the front cover, you can see the little time chart that we've got that we had last week. We're going to be looking at the heretics starting with Serentis and Nicholas tonight. Serentis and Nicholas are both from the days of the apostles, setting some activity there. Especially Serentis appears to be one of the founders of the religious system called Gnosticism, and we'll talk about that. Following Serenthes is going to be Basilides, then Marcion, and Valentinus are going to all be Gnostic teachings that are going to be referred to by Irenaeus. Now Irenaeus, if you look up in, oh, where are we going to see? Other leaders. You can see it goes across there, in Rome was Hermes, and then Athens was Quadratus, and then Aristides in Athens, Justin Martyr in Sumeria and Rome, and then Irenaeus in Lyon's Gaul, or Lyon Gaul. Irenaeus is going to be a disciple of, again, Ignatius, Polycarp, Papias, who knew John. And so he'd be like, you'd say, like John's grandson in the faith. But he's going to talk about John and some of the details that take place in his life and record, up to his time, the Gnostic teaching. And that's going to be one of the big heresies, Gnosticism, Gnostic. It's the Greek word, it means knowledge. And it's one of those things that if people don't understand this, they think knowledge is a bad thing like the letter of the law. But this knowledge was special knowledge. It was secret knowledge. It wasn't the, like John talks about, the Word. The Word became flesh. The Word dwelt among us. Paul's trying to renew your mind that you may grow in the faith. There is a knowledge of the truth, the truth once for all. entrusted to the saints. This is another kind of knowledge beyond the truth. It is a Gnostic or the knowledge beyond this truth, beyond Christian truth that is going to become cultish. It's going to become a heresy. If you push it, or if you actually look into it, Gnosticism almost wipes out Christianity. If there was a competition with early Christianity, with the early apostolic doctrine, it was Gnosticism. It just kind of collected a bunch of information from a variety of sources. And even one of the, I think it was Valentinus, was in line to be the Bishop of Rome, lost the vote. and started his own school. And so you had a Gnostic that was leaning towards Gnosticism right up there with the bishops and got voted out. And then he went ahead and started his own system that adds to this. So we will talk about that. To start with tonight, I want to go back to the back of this packet. And start with, well, it's actually page 23, the Nicolaitans. And the Nicolaitans, Nicholas and Serenthes are two individuals I didn't get to last week, which actually take place before this. But Nicholas, We see and we hear about the Nicolaitans in the text of Scripture. I'll show you the verses here. You can see right there at the bottom. In Jude and in Revelation, Jesus refers to them in the book of Revelation. And then Peter is likely referring to them in 2 Peter 2. But Nicholas was one of the men who drifted off early on. In fact, I would just read right here, going to Irenaeus, again on page 23, the Nicolaitans. Irenaeus is writing, and I've got... This, just so you can see, this is volume one of the Anti-Nicene Fathers. This is all the writings up until the first Nicene Consul. I mean, there's, oh, I don't know, 20 some volumes of this. And so there's probably, I don't know, maybe eight volumes of the Anti-Nicene Fathers. The writings of the Christians that have been preserved after the Apostles, up until the time of Constantine, it's called the Anti-Nicene Fathers. Then you're going to have the Nicene Fathers, that's the Council of Nicaea, where they're going to create some of the creed. But before that time, from the time of Clement, you know, 96 A.D. His is here up through the first, second century, including, again, Irenaeus is in here. And it's a huge, right here, Irenaeus, Against Heresies. And that is the name of his book is Against Heresies. And it's just page after page of him using his uh... in interview of the heretics asking them questions and then refuting them and he's writing it not just to waste time but he's over in lions gull over in france and gnosticism has swept out of asia minor and is in rome and he's trying to write back to the church of rome tell look out duck you're being overrun by gnosticism and he's refuting them because they've got such a you know, a great argument, developed theology. I'll show you some of it tonight, possibly. But Irenaeus is writing back. Now, while he's writing volumes of information against the Gnostics and talking about the issues going on in the church in Christianity at that time, he mentions several things. And so when I talk about Irenaeus, if you want to see his name on a time chart right here, you go to that front page, Other Leaders, and go over here after Justin Martyr, there's Irenaeus. And he's in Lyon-Gauld. He's in France, looking back at Rome, looking back at the Western, or we'd say the West World, but looking back East to the Eastern part of the Western world. Again, and he comes out of Asia Minor. So he had been with Polycarp. papayas and Ignatius who had been with john the apostle and so he he's has his christianity his training was done by the disciples of the apostle john and john lived until 98 a.d. as you know he was an old man he'd lived 60 years some 60 years if you want to say 68 years after the resurrection john was still alive as a witness in asia and those three men heard him amongst many others and then Irenaeus heard that original teaching. So for him, he knows John's teaching. He knows the apostolic doctrine. You've got Ignatius and Polycarp both dying for their faith. So they're not compromising. And so Irenaeus is in those lines of that integrity, we would assume. So anyway, Irenaeus Here we go, talking about Nicholas and the Nicolaitans. He says, Irenaeus, point one on page 23, the Nicolaitans are the followers of that Nicholas who was one of the seven first ordained, to the deaconate by the apostles. Remember the apostles in the book of Acts go way back to the book of Acts and they're leading the church and they're collecting money and they're waiting on tables and they're teaching and there's so many things going on and then there's an argument breaks out because some of the Grecian widows are not getting the same amount of money as some of the, or same amount of food as some of the Jewish widows because they're from the Gentile world have come back to Jerusalem and these have grown up in Judea and yet this You've got Hellenistic Jews, Jewish women, and you've got Judaized women, and they're both there, and they're complaining we're not getting treated fair. And the disciples, they say, it's not right for us to neglect the teaching of the Word and wait on tables. I mean, we're trying to solve who's getting the right amount of food, and this is John and Peter. It's like, guys, we've been entrusted with the Word. Why don't we find some leadership that they can take care of these matters of the potlucks? Okay, I mean, you know, in a funny way of saying it. And Nicholas was one of those leaders that was chosen according to Irenaeus. Now again, this is not Bible, this is not the Bible, but this is Irenaeus identifying who was this Nicholas? Well, he was one of the leaders chosen by the apostles in Jerusalem way back, you know, that would be 30, 31 AD, he was chosen to be a leader. Nonetheless, first ordained by the apostles, They led lives of unrestrained indulgence. The character of these men is very plainly pointed out by the apocalypse of John, now he's referring to the book of Revelation, when Jesus brings it up. When they were represented as teaching that it is a matter of indifference to practice adultery, And to eat things sacrificed to idols, that's what Jesus addresses them in Revelation. Wherefore the word has also spoken of them thus, but this," now he quotes Revelation 2, verse 6, but this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Now Jesus is addressing the seven churches of Asia Minor, John's churches, and he's addressing those. And he says, you need to improve this, and you need to change this. But hey, one thing you've got going for you, you hate the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. When someone comes in and starts teaching adultery, and you can go ahead and sacrifice the idols, and you say, absolutely not. Okay, you're good on this now. There's other things we need to improve on. So that is where this Nicholas comes from. Irenaeus continues writing, John the disciple of the Lord preaches this faith and seeks, by the proclamation of the gospel, to remove the air which by Cyrinthus, keep that name in mind, had been disseminated among men and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans. who are an offset of that knowledge, falsely called, that he might confound them." And so John was preaching against Nicholas and the Nicolaitans, Irenaeus says, and he was preaching against Serenthes. This is not expressly said in the text of scripture, but this is what John's final days were spent doing, combating these two individuals and their heresy that they were preaching. And their heresy that they were preaching, heresy, was a The reason he had to go after it and confound it was people were like, hey, this sounds good, John. John says, no, it doesn't sound good. So this right here is, again, a very, we'd say, sinful as far as sexual behavior and sacrificing the idols and the food and not being compromised. This next part, I'm going to read because it's right here, but it switches and talks about Serentis. And this is leading now. This is our first introduction to Gnostics or Gnosticism is Serentis. in our little study here. So here's what Irenaeus is writing, you know, around 170 AD. He mentions Serenthes, and then he mentions Nicholas, and then he goes on and says that he might confound them and persuade them, Irenaeus is saying about John, to persuade them that there is but one God who made all things by his word, okay? Now that's basic doctrine. One God who made all things by his word. Now for us Christians, Protestants, that's not strange. Even the concept of a Roman emperor deifying his dead father or deifying himself is like, what? It'd be like me saying, I'm God. It'd be like, no, you're not God because look, you're here. And you didn't create the universe. So you're not God unless you're really delusional. They would have no trouble saying, well, this person is deity and that dead person's deity and all my ancestors are deity. So there's their concept of in my Protestant Western Christian mind, when you say God, You're talking about one eternal being who created everything. And for someone to say, well, you know, there's a lot of gods. It's like, oh, no, I thought that those are demons in mind. Those are false gods. But in their mind, this concept was not as absolute in my mind or the Western mind, if that makes sense. So John is trying to teach that there is one God. who created all things by his word, lines up with Genesis, lines up with John, lines up with 1 John. And then it says, and not as they allege. Okay, now here you go. If you see that place where it says, and not as they allege, this is for us, our first introduction to Gnosticism described by John. Irenaeus in 170 A.D. looking back into 85, 90 A.D. when John was combating Serenthes. So we're looking back from 170 back into the first century of the roots of Gnosticism. And I say roots because by the time you get to the middle of the second century, 150, 170, 200, 250, it's like it's a monster. It's beyond comprehension. I mean, for me. And again, I don't really care to understand it, but it gets to a place where it's like, okay, I'm not tracking with this anymore. As they allege, and here's what they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father of the Lord, another. And that the Son of the Creator was, forsoth, one, but the Christ from above, another. So you've got one God, you've got another God, you've got one God who's got the Son, but then another God has got the Christ, and it's like, okay. Now you can see this is a lot more complicated than John's gospel. And also continued impassable. descending upon Jesus, the son of the Creator, and flew back again to his, here's your first introduction, to his Pleroma. Okay, the Pleroma. So there's now, he introduced that it's unpassable, un-understandable. There's this hidden spiritual realm out here that one of the creators, the God, doesn't realize that he was created. and he doesn't even know it, he doesn't understand it, and this creator's over here watching all this, and this guy thinks he's the creator. Okay, here we go. Flew back to his pleroma, and that monogenes was the beginning, but Logos was the true son of monogenes. So you've got pleroma, you've got the father, you've got the son, you've got the Christ, now you've got monogenes, who Logos was his true son. And that this creation to which we belong, now here comes us, now we're here in this creation, but there's a whole bunch of stuff happening out here. Of course, most of you are unfamiliar with what's happening out here because you are merely matter, you're merely physical. You're not like possibly Serenthes, who clearly was very spiritual, and he had this knowledge. Then there were the average Christians who were the psychic and they had an information but they really didn't understand. The physical man, the carnal man, was damned. There's no hope for him. The spiritual man who understands this, now of course he's saved and he's going to return to the Pleroma if you understand that. And then there's the Christians who are following John. You know, they've kind of got one foot in, kind of one foot out. Their future's kind of, you've really got to join us in this Gnosticism, in this knowledge, to move on. OK. Is that making sense to you? Yeah. And this is just the introduction of it. Wait until it grows. Okay, again, it's not even fair to just read this to you, necessarily. The disciple of the Lord, therefore, desiring to put an end, John, desiring to put an end to such doctrines and to establish the rule of truth in the church, that there is one Almighty God who made all things by his word, both visible and invisible, showing at the same time that by the word through whom God made the creation, He also bestowed salvation on men included in the creation. So the same God who created creation came into creation to save creation and bring it to Himself. And that's why you get into, it's like, oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you've got, you know, Paul writing one God, one Lord, one. It's like, OK, why this? It's like because these guys are being overrun by people who've got a very elaborate system. And people are going, wow, that's really cool. And the church is drifting. And this was a major pull. It sounds ridiculous, but it's attracting these people. It goes on, now we're talking about Serentis. You see right there where it says, right here it says John 1, 1, etc. to these men that the words, all things are spoken in reference to those within their pleroma. So in other words, they're taking John's writings and saying, when John says all things, he means all things in the pleroma. They're redefining the words. And Irenaeus says, we can't let the redefinition of the apostolic words be changed by the Gnostics. They're going to quote scripture and then morph it into their crazy system. For if their pleroma do indeed contain these, this creation, as being such, is not outside, as I have demonstrated in the preceding book. But if they are outside the pleroma, which indeed appeared impossible, it follows that in this case, that their pleroma cannot be all things. Therefore, this vast creation is not outside the pleroma." It's like, what is he saying there? But he's using their logic to say, you're illogical. Okay, and I apologize for having read that to you because, okay. And now we're coming back to Sorenthes in a minute. But on the notes, here's some references back to Nicolaitans or Nicholas. Point three, the Nicolaitans may be the same group identified as those holding to their teachings of Balaam mentioned elsewhere in Jude 11. Woe to them for they walked in the way of Cain, have abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's heir, and perished in Korah's rebellion. That may be a reference to the Nicolaitans. In Jude, 2 Peter 2, 15, forsaking the right way, they've gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from the wrongdoing. And then clearly, Revelation 2, 14 through 15, writing to the church of Pergamum, I have a few things against you, Jesus says through John to the church of Pergamum. You have some there who hold, listen, who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food, sacrifice the idols, and practice sexual immorality. So also, you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. So that's your connection. The Nicolaitans and what they were teaching is connected by Jesus to Balaam, who taught the sons of Israel to commit adultery and sacrifice to the idols, and that is what Irenaeus says the Nicolaitans were doing, and that's why you can tie back when it talks about Balaam and 2 Peter and Jude, that that may be a direct reference to the followers of Nicholas, who was one of the seven deacons appointed to wait on the tables for the apostles that took matters in his own hand and twisted, apparently, the gospel and the scriptures to his own need. Now, that is the end of our discussion on Nicholas. But I do want to then go back another page, and that is now, guess what? Three pages of our man Serinthus. And this is on page 20. At the top of there, you can just see Nicholas. I've got the dates written there. It would be 30 AD until about 70 AD. Nicholas was in operation. Serinthus is around 30 to 100 AD and has, well, .1. He is active between 50 and 100 AD. None of his writings have survived, but there are people writing about him. People who wrote about him are Irenaeus. Hippolytus, who was one of the bishops of Rome, writes in his work around 170 to 235. Hippolytus' name, you don't want to forget that. His name is going to come up. He's one of the leaders of the Church of Rome. Catholics would call him one of the popes. And then Epiphanius, who was the bishop of Salamis in the 300s, is going to write about Serentis. Now, Salamis is on the island of Cyprus. Serentis was trained in Egypt, had Egyptian knowledge, he was Jewish by religion, was trained in the school of Philo, a Jew, but who was teaching the interpretation of scripture in a Grecian style of interpretation. So Philo is a great writer, lived around the time of Jesus, and, you know, did advance knowledge in many ways, but also brought in a lot of allegory and symbolism. And so you got to kind of be careful. It's possible that Apollos, who came out of Egypt to join Paul and was with Aquila and Priscilla, came from that same school as a believer, but then it says Aquila and Priscilla taught him a more accurate way. In other words, they kind of shaved off some of the heresy and got him in line with Paul's doctrine or the apostolic doctrine. He might have came from that same school. This is where Serenthes is coming from, that same area. He made an appearance in Jerusalem, in Judea. Apparently he had conflict with Peter and Paul in Syria. Remember the Antioch church in Syria? It seems like Serenthes went through there and caused some problems. We don't see in Timothy, in 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, We see names, Paul dropping names like Hymenaeus and Alexander as being heretics. When we get over to like 1st and 2nd Corinthians, we hear about the super apostles or the false apostles, but we don't have names. We hear about the Judaizers that came up from Jerusalem up to Galatia or up to Antioch in Syria, and they misled the people. Some men came from James. Well, those men had names. Those men were people. They had a birth and a death. They had a time of ministry that they either rejoined Christianity or they went astray. The early writers refer that Serenthes was one of those. that made appearances in Galatia, in Antioch, in Ephesus, and has followed the apostles around, causing trouble for them. Not so much trying to cause trouble for the apostles, but trying to present the gospel in their own twisted way, which was going on throughout the, you say, well, is that true? I can't tell you exactly what Serentis was doing, but Serentis is doing exactly what the Bible says these people were doing. Sorenthes put it in quotes if you want to, but this is one of the problems in the first century. Point nine, according to traditions collected by, and then you got some names there, Sorenthes was one of the first false apostles who opposed Paul in 2 Corinthians and demanded circumcision in Galatians chapter two. Now that is some of the early writers saying that he was causing trouble in Galatia. He was causing trouble in Corinth. This is who Paul's writing against. It goes on, he was in Israel, he was in Ephesus. Serentis founded a school in Asia, collected disciples there. Irenaeus writes in Against Heresies, again Irenaeus, the same one who wrote, you know, about Nicholas. He writes here, Serentis, again, a man who was educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by the primary God, but by a certain power far separated from Him. So you've got the primary God, what we'd call God the Father, but he was made by another God in a planet far, far away. So something like this. Again, that's what Irenaeus is saying Sorenthes was teaching. And again, Irenaeus is writing around 170 AD and got his information from people who knew Sorenthes and knew John who argued against Sorenthes. So it's not just hearsay. How do you say that? Hearsay, okay. but by the certain power far separated from him, and at a distance from that principality who is supreme over the universe, and ignorant of him who is above all." Once again, the God, the Creator God, He thinks He's God. He thinks, I'm the all-powerful. It's like, fool, look behind the curtain. If you've got gnosis, There's another God who created you and then hid himself, and you don't even know about him. So the Christian God, the Father, is like, oh, I'm all this bad, you know, God controlling everything. It's like gnosis pulled back. Oh, I didn't know. And so this is where Sorenthes, and John is arguing against this. He represented Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation. So Jesus is just a man. while he nevertheless was more righteous, prudent, and wise than other men. Moreover, after his baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the supreme ruler." Well, I thought Christ was a mere man. No, no, no. That's Jesus who is a mere man. There's another person here called Christ who comes from the spiritual dimension, from one of the gods, who descends on Christ and in a sense, because he's there makes God or makes Jesus God like this is Gnosticism. Moreover, after his baptism, Christ descended upon OK, and that then he proclaimed the unknown father and perform miracles. So when Jesus starts teaching, he's not talking about this God. He's talking about the God behind the curtain. And that's why some people like struggling with his honor, because he's got gnosis. He's got knowledge. which is heresy. I mean, this is not what Jesus did. and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father and performed miracles. But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again. But at some point, the Christ that had descended on the man Jesus, Joseph and Mary's son, the Christ says, okay, I'm out. He leaves, and Jesus is like, oh no, I'm Christless. And then he ends up dying on the cross, but then God raises him from the dead. So, and all these people are like, oh, this is interesting, this makes sense now. And they're writing notes, you know, they're writing all this stuff down. And John is saying, stop, no, that's not what he said. So he says, well, don't listen to that foolish John. I really know. I've got gnosis. John, do you got gnosis? Well, not that kind of gnosis. He's still ignorant. He goes on and talks more about that. Irenaeus, point 12, writes also, John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith and seeks by the proclamation of the gospel to remove that air, which by Cyrinthus, there's his name, had been disseminating among men and a long time previous by those terms, Nicolaeans, who were offset by that knowledge. And that goes through some things I think we've already read. Go down to point 13, Shaft, a great church historian, writing in volume two, Anti-Nicene Christianity. He says, Sorenthes appeared towards the close of the first century in Asia Minor. Sorenthes came into conflict with the apostle John who wrote the gospel of John to oppose Sorenthes Gnostic. So if you understand, it's possible that if you understand a little bit about Gnosticism, you can understand what John is aiming at in first and second and third John. And when he says his teachers, his students are not allowed, when he sends out his men, some churches have been taken over. They won't allow John's men to come in. That may be a result of Serentis having overrun those churches, and they don't want John's foolish teachers coming into their churches. Because John says we're not allowed in some of these churches in 2 and 3 John. which is what we know as Millennialism, that there's going to be a kingdom on Earth. And then the Ebionism, which teaches that Jesus was a man anointed by the Spirit. Jesus was not God, it teaches. And they need the Mosaic Law for salvation. They combine that together. Sorrento's Doctrine, very early Gnosticism, teaches that there's going to be a kingdom on Earth. There was a combination of Judaism and Gnosticism. It rejected all the Gospels except a heavily edited Matthew. They could work with Matthews. There you've got the human genealogy of Jesus, and you can make it appear that Jesus was just a man. in the book of math if you added it correctly. There's one supreme being. The world was created by a different and inferior, say, an angel other than this supreme being. Get this again. I'll say it again. There is this hidden behind the curtain supreme being, not God the Father. This is beyond God the Father. He's behind the curtain. And then there is something that he created, but this creation, call it an angel, they call it the one that created the world, who thinks, look, I'm the greatest being there is, I'm God. not realizing that he was created, but he creates the physical world in confusion and thinks he's the God. And so the world was created, point E, by a different and inferior being than the supreme being. According to Sorenthes, this inferior creator is not Yahweh, but an angel. The angels created the world according to him. The angels then gave the law. The Jewish law was sacred. Circumcision was necessary, on and on and on. And you've got all this taking place. There's more information. Point 16, one more time we read Irenaeus here. Irenaeus records in Against Heresies, book three, He writes, now he's gonna mention Polycarp, one of his teachers, who was trained by John. But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the church of Smyrna. So when Jesus addresses the letter to the church of Smyrna through John in Revelation, he's probably addressing the bishop or the pastor or the messenger, the angel, who is Polycarp, the messenger of the church. Converse with many who had seen Christ, was appointed Bishop of the Church of Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth. For he tarried on earth a very long time, and when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles and which the church has handed down and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic churches, the churches of Asia, testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to this very present time, 170 AD or around. A man who was a much greater weight and a more steadfast witness of truth than Valentinus. Now that's going to be one of the Gnostics that's going to follow Cyrenthes. And Marcion, another one who's going to develop it even further. And the rest of all the heretics. So you've got Cyrenthes, Valentinus, Marcion. According to Irenaeus, they're not worthy of being listened to because they've changed the teaching of the Lord, of what John taught, and of those who saw the Lord. And the rest of the heretics, he was who coming to Rome in the time of Anticetus. Now, Anticetus, don't forget that name. He's one of the bishops of Rome, or what they'd call a pope, and he's on the charts. In the time of Anticetus, he came to Rome, caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles, that namely, which is handed down by the church. So Anticetus, or Cetus comes to Rome and shuts down the Gnosticism says I've got the original truth and many came back to the church. There are also those who heard from him that John the disciple of the Lord going to the bath at Ephesus Now, if you remember, we went through in 1 Timothy at the beginning, and we saw the channel of water coming into Ephesus and the port that was there, then the main street going up to where the theater is and the Agora. And right there where the ships were laying, there was a bathhouse, the remains of the bathhouse. That would likely be the bathhouse that this event took place in. And again, a bathhouse, it's not like, well, what kind of people go to the bathhouse? Well, that's where they washed. They all didn't have bathrooms in their house. They had some kind of, you know, restroom facilities, if you would. But they didn't have, in a sense, places to bathe. Like we've all got, you know, how many showers do we got in our house? you didn't have that in. Okay, nonetheless. So it's not that's not like a strange thing that John's in a bathhouse. It's like, well, John's bathing. Okay. And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion. Now here's another, this is Polycarp now later on after Serenthes and John are dead, he's confronting Marcion, whom met him on one occasion and says, do you know me? And he says to him, I know you, the firstborn of Satan. So Marcion says to Polycarp, hey, do you know who I am? Yeah, you're the firstborn of Satan. Again, that's why Polycarp isn't writing books on how to make friends and build a megachurch. Such was the horror which he which the Apostles and watches such was the horror which the Apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal Communication with any corruptors of the truth. So in other words, how did John deal with Serenthis? let's get out of here before the whole place falls down because God will judge this place of Serenthis is here and Polycarp when he meets one of the false teachers Hey, do you know who I am? Yeah the firstborn a saint you loser and walks away from it's like whoa And he says that's how they felt about these heretics As Paul also says, a man that is a heretic, now he's quoting Paul from Titus, a man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject, knowing that he that is such is subverted in sins, being condemned of himself. In other words, talk to him, talk to him a second time, and that third time, Let them go. In other words, we still got the writings of Polycarp. If you want to build your faith and learn what Polycarp taught, he says that's in circulation. I've got a copy if you want to borrow it because that was his teacher. Okay, so that is Sorenthes introducing now Again, that's an introduction to Gnosticism with Serentis, with some people that are coming here in the future. Now go to the opening pages of this. And where we're actually starting here, again, we're moving to 110 to 220. The first thing we've got here is a list of the emperors during this time. I'll read their names. We're on page two. Hadrian. Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, then Lucius Verus, who's co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius, and then Marcus Aurelius' son Commodus, And then Septimius Cerverus. Those are the ones we're looking at right here, the emperors. Now, just a little bit of insight into this. Hadrian, as you know, is the one who fought the Jewish wars the second time. The Jewish wars between 132 and 135. The Jews regrouped after 70 AD. By the time they got to 132, they were ready to lead another revolt against the Roman legions. just 3060 years before they were just annihilated by 60 years later they've regrouped kind of like Germany in World War One and World War Two, I guess I don't know. But, uh, nonetheless, Hadrian at that time, then, you know, the Romans were in control of the city of Hadrian. They were in control of the city of Hadrian. They were in control of the city of Hadrian. plowed Jerusalem, renamed it Aliyah, capital Aliyah, named the land of Israel Palestine, after Israel's enemies, the Palestinians, or excuse me, the Philistines, and they called it Palestine, which we get the Palestinians from that name there, and would not allow the Jews back in the city. It was illegal for a Jew to come into the city. So at that time, that's when the Gentiles started leading the church in Jerusalem, during Hadrian's reign, ends in 138. Now, This is confusing for us. They didn't just have sons that would be their heirs. Like we did have Vespasian who had Titus and Domitian. And they didn't have elections like we have, you know, who are you gonna vote for? And you have your leadership changes with elections. They would often find a man have him trained and then adopt him as their son. If they lost their son or they didn't have a son or they wanted this young man to be their heir, they would adopt him, train them, and then they would inherit the throne. So I'm going to read through this very quickly. Hadrian, Antonius Pius, So he was not Hadrian's son, but he was adopted and trained. And when Hadrian died, Antonius Pius became the emperor. Now, when I say Antonius Pius, this is again, I'm going to now show you something. This is the, I don't have the steps right, I got a picture upstairs, but these are the southern steps coming up to the temple right here. See right here, these steps coming up right here, coming up, and you'd go in a doorway there, a gate, go up stairs that were under the temple mount and come out right there on the surface. You can still see down those stairs, and if you get in there, you can still see the dome of that gate. That is that Southern, here we go. Let's try this. That's our chart. That's a map. That's our false doctrine. There we go. This right here, you go up these steps, and there's a gate. It's blocked shut by a crusader wall, blocking what is called the double gate. This is blocked shut. The gate is blocked shut. If you could move those stones, there's steps right in there. And there's arches on the inside that are still from the first century temple. If you could get in there, if you were a Muslim and you could get in there, because that's the prayer room and everything. Now they just turn it into a mosque or whatever. But you can still, I've seen pictures of it. I've looked down those steps, wanted to run down and just see what would happen but I knew that it would not go well, so I just reframe myself and took a picture. Nonetheless. These walls were knocked over by the Romans and the Christians, 70 AD, and the Christians never rebuilt them. This is interesting. It's in the Jerusalem book. If you take this right here and you look it up right here, I've got a map or diagram of that southern wall. I've got it kind of colorized, showing the steps of when things were built. And it tells you when it was put on. But the Christians never rebuilt these, these walls. But after the Muslims took over, the Muslims came in and rebuilt it. And so they just used random stones. Well, right here is a stone. It's turned upside down. And it's a stone. And it's a stone. And it's a stone. And it's a stone. And that stone is this right here. And I took a picture of it and turned it the right side up. This is that stone. It's from a statue that used to sit on the temple mound. And the Bordeaux pilgrim, I address that in the Jerusalem book, he records going through the temple mound and going over and seeing different things. And when he came through, he saw two statues, he said, of Hadrian. But they both had beards. And so people think that he made a mistake, that one was Hadrian and one was Pius, Antonius Pius. And now there would have been an inscription on the base of those statues. And we believe this is the base of one of those statues that the Romans had placed, Alea Cappellia, after Hadrian destroyed Jerusalem and renamed it Alea Cappellia, they built a temple to the Roman gods and put Hadrian's statue and Antonius Pius' statue there. And they got destroyed by Christians or Muslims or somebody. And this base of this monument or that statue is here. And you can see in your notes, if you turn your page, you can see in the notes there. But I've also got it right here. It says here's the Latin that's written on there right here and like these are a DD is an abbreviation for Decreed by the D deserions. Oh, so DD that's like an abbreviation PP Pontiff augur it means the father the pontiff the father of the fatherland pontiff augur meaning the father okay so in other words what this says now watch this this says to titus alias hadrianus antonius augustus pious it's like who are those people uh Antonius Pius is who it is. And one of the reasons why the Brodo pilgrim, besides looking at the beard on the statue, thought, oh, that's Hadrian, is because it says right here, Aelius Hadrian. And see, that's the family name, Aelius, and that's where they named the city, Aelia Capitolia. He's naming it the capital of the family, Aelius. So this second emperor, I know this is way off. But Antoninus Pius, who was adopted by Hadrian, he receives the family name, but his name is Antoninus Augustus Pius, the father of the fatherland, Pontiff, Augur, decreed by the Decorians. And that is what that stone says. And so that is just interesting. Nothing more than saying, You see, there's his name on the southern wall of the temple. And that is right, if you see this right here, this is the eastern wall, southern wall, the western wall's on the other side. And this is, that would be right there above those stairs. See those stairs right there? That's how, how small they are. Okay. Anyway, thank you for tolerating that. Now, Marcus Aurelius and the next guy, Lucius Verus, are both going to be adopted by Antonius Pius, by this guy right here. And when he dies, they're both going to reign together. They're going to be the co-rulers. Now Marcus Aurelius, if you know the movie Gladiator, that's Marcus Aurelius is the guy in the movie there. He's going to have a son named Commodus. And here is a Commodus, uh, uh, uh, what do you got? Daenerys. And there's some detail on there's Commodus on that side. And then there's a, the reverse side is Hilarietas, a female, which is a goddess with, with a, that's a silver Daenerys from Commodus' time, 180 to 192 AD. Uh, details of that. Here we go. Go to the very back page, very back page. And I got a picture of it right there. I took right before class real fast, the front and the back or the averse and the reverse. And then you see what it says. It's just got, again, you've got the Latin on there with, you know, all that can be translated. And I try to translate it for you, what it says. Okay, going back to this. Marcus Aurelius is going to be the last of what they call the five good emperors. And again, I know they're fighting the Jews and they're leading a Roman empire, but there was five great emperors that kind of established peace, including Trajan. Remember we read Trajan last week when Pliny asked him for advice and Trajan says, don't hunt them down. If a Christian becomes obstinate, no one should be obstinate. Punish them for being obstinate. But if they're cooperating with society, let them go is basically what he says. What he established, that principle is going to continue up until Septimius Severus, who himself appears to be working with Christians and allowing them. There's going to be local persecutions. But as far as the empire, they're not going to be persecuting Christians. There's going to be local persecutions. There's definitely going to be martyrdoms and local. Well, Polycarp's going to die. And there's gonna be others that are gonna be killed. But nonetheless, Marcus Aurelius' son, Commodus, is not gonna be a very good ruler. He's gonna be more, he's gonna start ruling at 16. He's gonna have a lot of conspiracies coming against him. He's gonna basically become a dictator, which is gonna make it even more oppressive. He's gonna try to raise money for gladiator games. He's gonna restore the gladiator games. So he's going to tax the Senate, you know, the upper class very heavily, so they want to get rid of him. He's going to end up being assassinated by a wrestler who holds him underwater. So he'd enter the games like Nero would want to be a gladiator, so Nero would go out and fight and win, or a chariot race driver, he'd go out and race and win. Well, Commodus is going to try the same thing, and enough people want him dead, so one of the rest just holds him underwater and kills him, gets rewarded. And following him is going to be Septimus Severus from 202 to 211, and continued Trajan's policy of tolerance, which has gone all the way through that second century. Not saying there's not pockets of persecution, because in Lyons, France, there's going to be some major persecution during, in fact, one of the people before Irenaeus, as far as the leaders, they themselves were martyred. So there will be pockets of persecution, but these emperors are holding things together. Coming down here on page three, you've got some leaders coming through this time period. I'll read their names very quickly. Papias, up until 163, he knew John. Polycarp in Smyrna is martyred in 155 AD. And then in Athens, you've got two guys, Quadratus and Aristides. They're in the city of Athens as the church leaders. Again, we know about them, and you can find people referring to them or quoting them. Anticetus in Rome. Victor is going to be very important in Rome coming up in a story, apparently next week now. Justin Martyr from 100 to 165. born in Sechem in Israel and ends up dying in Rome. He's going to be a great, one of the great, what they call, apologists. He's going to begin explaining the Christian faith to the Gentile world, saying, hey guys, here's what we're really about. We've got this faith, but our lifestyle is not about, you know, overthrowing the Roman government. And we're, you know, he described, and there's a lot of writing he does, Irenaeus, we've mentioned him. He's born in Smyrna, so that's where Polycarp was his pastor. We like to think that Polycarp was his youth pastor and baptized him and stuff, but I don't know. But he did know Polycarp in Smyrna. And he dies in Lyons. And then Tertullian, one of the great apologists, lived and died in Carthage. And then Hypoletus, again, born in Rome, died in exile. on the Isle of Sardinia, off the land of Rome, off Italy there. But Hippolytus is going to be also very important. Now, we continue with the heretics. After going through Cerinthus, we now come to Basilides. I think I spelled that close. He is our second of the Gnostics we're going to mention. Irenaeus refers to Basilides in his book, Against Heresies. Basilides, again, he says that he may appear to have discovered something more sublime and plausible. gives an immense development to his doctrine. He's going to develop the Gnostic doctrine. I'm going to stop and show you something that's going to make you choke here in just a minute when I show you the Gnostic diagrams that I don't fully even understand. I just read things and drew things and compared things. But nonetheless, he's going to develop these, his doctrines, and he thinks he's really smart. He sets forth, this is Irenaeus writing, he sets forth that, now here's a new character, Knos was the first born of the unborn father, that from him, again, was born Logos, and from Logos, Pronesis. Now you see this? You've got this, you've got the father, the unknown father who's gonna give birth to, help me out here, he sets forth gnos. And Knos is going to be the father of the firstborn and father from him, Logos. And I've got all this on a chart, so I should have memorized because this is really important stuff. And it goes down to then you've got this guy here. And then from there comes Sophia. And Sophia, of course, means wisdom. Here's word, wisdom. Knos, meaning knowledge or name. Again, gnosis, that's a form of knowledge. And they all keep having these. And then comes the principalities and then the angels. Now, we're not even to you yet. You're way down here. These are all the escalons and aeons that you've got to go through to get to the Father. Now, you can understand why some of the Christians are really going to struggle when they get to the spiritual, because they're way down here talking to this man named Jesus, who the Christ left. And you've got to go and follow Christ, who's the lowest. Because he became a man. None of these powers are human. They're up there. But the very, very bottom of the stack is this man, Jesus, who's just like you. And Jesus is saying, hey, come here. Let me show you the ladder. And you start here at Jesus, which is the very, very bottom of this escalon. And then you work your way through. And once you know Sophia, Sophia can lead you. And then they can lead you to Logos, to Nose. And eventually, if you're like Cyrenthes, or like Valentinas, or Masian, you can reach up here. But if you're still just talking about Jesus, Oh, God help your soul. You've got so far to go in your growth is what they would say. Okay. Irenaeus continues. And that by them, the first heaven was made. Then other powers being formed by emanation from these created another heaven similar to the first. So these are all created in this first heaven. And then they created another heaven, which is your heaven. And in like manner, when others again had been formed by emanation from them, meaning like, that means like a sun, like the sun sends out rays. And like when a sun ray goes down and it hits my yard or hits my deck out here, that's an emanation from the sun. And so the God is like sending out these rays, and one little ray comes out here and creates another universe. And in that little universe that was created, you're a little speck of dust in that universe that is from an emanation from a God, who's an emanation from another God, who's a light ray from another God, and this goes on forever. But you better be in class so you can keep up with this information, they would say. Of course, OK, that's enough of that. That is Basilides. Okay, he declared on top of page four, declared that more and more principalities and angels were formed, and 365 heavens. Okay, there we go. Now there's 365 heavens, and each of them has their own sets of these emanations. And what's nice about this, 365 is a nice round number, matches the days of the year. And then they're gonna tie it all into natural science. And they're just taking God's reality and just, you think about going woke, Woke is totally asleep compared to the Gnostics. Gnostics are so woke, they're Gnostics. Okay. Then in 140, Valentinus shows up, and he's an early Gnostic. That should scare you. An early Gnostic. It's not fully developed yet. Who founded a school in Rome? Tertullian says Valentinus was a candidate for the Roman bishop. He was almost one of the popes. They had the ballot. And the last primary, it's either Valentinus or Anticetus. And it's like, oh, you know, everybody's having their speeches and talking about their doctrine. And Valentinus was, he was almost voted to be the bishop, the leader of the Church of Rome. And he becomes the leader of the Church of Rome. Catholics would call him the Pope. We're just calling him the Bishop, the leader of the Church. But when that happened, he started his own school and says, I'm just going to teach over here and be anti-Catholic. Catholic, you know, whatever. Fragments of his writings exist in the form of quotes by other critics, such as Irenaeus. Valentinus taught that there were three kinds of people. Here we go. I referred to this earlier. There was three in 140 AD. Valentinus, here we go. Valentinus, I just pretend I spelled that right, because anybody that's looking at it probably, unless it got notes, don't know if it's spelled right. Valentinus, he taught there's three kinds of people. Now you've got to be very serious, because you would fall into this category. The spiritual, the psychical, and the material. Now, for the truth to be known, only the spiritual who have obtained this knowledge, or gnosis, will ever return to the divine pleroma. which we as Christians would call heaven, eternal life. But of course, it's like through 365 heavens and multitudes of different emanations. Anyway, it's a long ways away. And then there's the, only the spiritual obtain, only the spiritual obtain the knowledge will attain the divine pleroma. The average Christian was merely a psychic. or had a psychic nature, that means mental nature, with a lower or uncertain salvation. Meaning you've been introduced to this system through Jesus, but now you're going to, you just have a little bit of understanding, but you're gonna have to enter this and ascend through these different levels of knowledge. And then maybe there's a chance, but you're gonna have to become spiritual. And then, of course, the material nature, they're just damned. I mean, there's no hope for them. I mean, they rejected Jesus. They reject this. When they die, it's all over. And then, of course, coming would be Marcion. We'll have to talk about that next week, but I promise you, this will be Marcion. Now just, again, here we go. I didn't even put these on a screen. I should have a screen for these. Here we go. But they're on your notes. I'll put them on the screen next week. If you're following along online, they're on your notes. Beginning, are you ready for this? Page 16. The Pleroma. And now we're teaching Gnosticism. You're going to have the Pleroma. All right, now the pleroma is the fullness. Now they get this word out of Paul. Paul writes, Jesus Christ is the pleroma. He is the fullness of deity. These are Christian terms. Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior, your creator, is the pleroma of deity. He is the full Jesus Christ when He walked on the earth, when He ascended heaven, when He comes back to the earth. He is the fullness of deity. You can't get any higher than the pleroma, which is in Jesus Christ. He is God. If you have Jesus, you can't have anything. You're there. He's a creator. Okay, that's Christianity. They take the word pleroma, which in the Greek means fullest. It's the Gnostic heaven and it exists before creation. Sophia, a divine being who was rebelliously attempted creation by conceiving on her own and gave birth to a formless mass called the Demiurge. Now this will all make sense in a moment. Sophia conceived by herself. Now that, okay, just go with it. And she gave birth to this mass, just this blob. It was called the Demiurge. Okay. The Demiurge was cast out. And so the Demiurge finds itself here. There's this, it doesn't know anything about Sophia. or the fullness. It thinks it's the fullness. It thinks it's God. And so that's that box. The demiurge is ignorant of Sophia and Pleroma. The demiurge creates physical matter and the world. So the demiurge is sitting around in this spiritual condition and says, you know what we're missing? So this demiurge creates physical matter, and out of the physical matter creates the world, or we could say the universe. And the demiurge is the God of this world. But the demiurge was cast out. It's ignorant. He's got no knowledge. This is God, the fullness. This is the creator. Now, you see, I said, I don't even want to talk about it, but Jesus Christ is the fullness. Jesus Christ is the creator. This is not a mistake. See, Demiurge is a mistake. Then the mistake makes a mistake, which is the physical matter which comes to the world. And this is all a screw up. This is all rebellion. It's the ideal of the Demiurge, which was a blob, a matter without mass, without... And out of this world, guess where you're at? You're standing right here. You're in this mistake world by a mistake Demiurge who's totally confused, and you're the product of this chaos. Do you understand why you need some gnosis? Thank God I'm here to help you get some gnosis. And now the teachers are going to help you find your way. And that's, again, we'll go back through this. So Demiurge makes matter, makes the earth. And then, if that's not confusing, Bam! Here's this one. There's the Pleroma. And then we're going to have all these others. And not only Sophia's up here, but there's all these others up here. And it all makes sense to see that there's aeons. 8 plus 10 plus 12 equals 30. And then there's other aeons. 6 plus 12 plus 12 is 30. Together, there's 60. and all this right here. And amazingly, in this book, Irenaeus has went to all, I would just say, nevermind, I'm just going to teach verse by verse through the Bible. Irenaeus feels the need to interview and ask these people questions and figure out what they're teaching and put it into a system. And the reason he's doing that is because the Asian churches, and remember, Valentinus was almost the Bishop of Rome. And this was his theology. And so Irenaeus is like, oh my gosh, I'm losing Asia. I'm losing Italy. I'm losing Christianity to Gnosticism. So he says, how do I combat it? It's like, I've got to understand it. And he spends his time understanding it and writing all these pages that if you read them, it's like, oh, well, see, look, see, I've highlighted it. I've read it. And it's like, see, you know what those highlights mean? I still don't get it. I don't know what you're talking about. But Irenaeus has enough that he's like taking them. He can stand and go like, well, so this is what you think? Yeah, that's what we think. It's like, well, then. And then he picks it apart and says, well, that's illogical because this is true and this is true. It doesn't make sense. It's like they go, hmm, never thought of that. And so he's explaining their Gnosticism to them, which makes them realize how stupid it is. That's his attempt. He's actually, well, it's like studying trying to figure out evolution so that you can dismantle it in front of an evolutionist and say, you think this? Yes. And you hold this? Yes. Now watch. They don't fit. I was like, oh, I never thought of that. Well, and like who wants to waste their time? Well, that would be a gift from God, I'd assume. And Irenaeus is doing that. And then what year was this discovered, Steve? 1920s? I know I've highlighted it, but I can't remember. The discovery of the Nag Hammadi library took place about December 1945. I'm just fortunate I picked the numbers. This is in Egypt. And we had Irenaeus and we had a few other writers talking about this Gnosticism, but then they uncover all these ancient papyrus of all these writings. And they begin to, and like these, these are Demotic from Egypt. These were from Egypt also, and they're all, it's a whole library of Gnostic writings from Egypt. So, Irenaeus is in France, combating, and they've got Nazi there, combating Nazism in Rome, in Asia Minor, all the way down into Israel, and now we're in Egypt, and these, you can see the, that's one letter, that's one letter, that's another letter. They're just pages of all these little fragments of papyrus being translated into here, and this is Nazism. And again, do you know what year, what year is it comes from? Is it? What year is this capturing? It would be after, it'd be after Serenthes and Bacillides and... Some of it is, some of it goes back to the Greek. I mean, to BC. Oh, it goes back to, okay, okay. Some of it's Egyptian religion. And that's where you see it starts combining. It's Christianity coming out of, it's philosophy and religion coming out of Egypt, coming out of Greece, the Greece, coming out of Persia. And then it collides with Christianity and picks up Christianity terms just keeps rolling together. So it's just this big, It's a, it's like the unified. It's the first attempt, probably, you know, not the first time Babylon was, but it's like an attempt of unifying all the religions into just one chaotic mess or something. Again, it's, it's, it's, it gets the place where it just, it drops off my, I can't even stay focused on it, but we, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to teach it. I'm going to teach it. I don't know what I'm talking about, but I ain't going to stop. Has that ever stopped me before? No. All right. But anyway, that's, that's what we're looking at. Serenthes come and John dealt with Serenthes. Then you've got Basilides, Valentinus, and then we've got Marcion coming up next week. We'll talk a little bit about him. And we've got eventually just drop Gnosis because it just becomes But again, it was, and I'll close, it was not just, to me I'm making fun of it, but it was so strong, it almost, many writers, many church historians, you read them, it almost conquered Christianity. You would have a choice today, you would be either Islam, Muslim, or Gnostic. You'd maybe call it Christianity, but you'd be a Gnostic Christian, or you'd be a Muslim, if that was just left to run wild. And it got stopped, fortunately. Okay, I'll pray, and then we're done. Father, we do thank you for the chance to look into these things. We do ask that you continue to guide us and lead us. open our hearts that we may understand the truth, that we would not be misled. And Father, I do thank you for the opportunity to be in a country that we can talk, that we can examine these things, that we can compare and seek the truth. And we do ask that you'd help us take advantage of the freedom that we do have and protect the freedom that we have at this time in history. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you very much for being here.