Christianity Threatened to Destroy
March 31st, 2008From a pantheistic First Cause
Gnosticism traced the emanation of a series of eons beings of Light.
The source of evil was supposed to be matter, which in this material
world holds light in captivity. To liberate the light and thus redeem
the world, Christ came, and thus Christianity was added as the crowning
and victorious element in this many-sided system of speculation. But
Christ was regarded not so much as a Saviour of individual souls as an
emancipator of a disordered kosmos, and the system which seemed to
accord great honor to Christianity threatened to destroy its life and
power. So, according to some of our Modern Systems, men are to find
their future salvation in the grander future of the race.