Historical Context for My Short Story

My short story draws inspiration from the Johannine Epistles in the Bible, specifically the First Epistle of John. Scholars of ancient Christian texts believe the First Epistle of John is an open letter dedicated to a church community. From what scholars could reconstruct, the author wrote this letter in response to a recent withdrawal of people from the community. The epistle itself refers to “antichrists” (i.e., those who held contrary beliefs, not the Devil reincarnate) who had recently withdrawn because they believed that Jesus Christ was fully divine instead of both flesh and divine.The beliefs of these “antichrists” fit the beliefs of a “sect” of ancient Christianity called “Gnosticism.” Gnosticism is a bucket term that refers to many ancient Christian groups with different beliefs. There were a few shared beliefs, though. Most Gnostics were polytheistic, believed that one could attain salvation by receiving “secret teachings” about the nature of the world, and thought that Jesus Christ was fully divine.

Gnostics saw the God of the Old Testament as mean and rageful compared to the compassion of Jesus Christ. Because of this, they saw the God of the Old Testament as ignorant and sometimes even malevolent, creating a material world filled with evil. Supposedly, the “Creator God” trapped “aeons” (i.e., beings of power that existed in the heavens) into the form of a human, and they subsequently forgot their divine origin. The “Supreme God,” as in the God of the New Testament, is said to be more powerful than the “Creator God” and tried to save the trapped aeons. According to Gnostics, one achieved salvation by receiving “secret” teachings from God, called gnosis. The gnosis revealed the truth about the “Creator God,” the nature of the world, and how they must escape it and ascend back to the heavens (think Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Anything material was fake, like the shadows in the cave. Returning to the heavens is like leaving the cave). Not everyone could receive this gnosis, which is what made it secret. Only those with a divine soul trapped within them, or “the spark,”  could receive gnosis.

To Gnostics, the “Supreme God” came down from the heavens in the form of Jesus Christ and imparted the gnosis to them. Gnostics believed that this form was fully divine. Since much of gnostic teachings dealt with the material world being evil and leaving the mortal flesh behind, Jesus being both God and man made no sense. The belief that Jesus only seemed to be man is called docetism.

My short story tries to build upon the occasion hinted at in the First Epistle of John. I tried to create a scenario of what plausibly caused many Gnostics to leave the community. Ancient documents state that Proto-Orthodox (i.e., an ancient “sect” of Christianity that is the basis of all modern sects of Christianity) communities wanted to remove Gnostics from their community but struggled to, since gnostic beliefs, despite how different they might seem, could blend in with proto-orthodox beliefs very well. I hoped I showed that well in the initial subtle differences between what the elder and Caelius said. 

Authorship for this epistle is traditionally attributed to the Disciple John. However, most scholars agree that there is not enough evidence to claim that he is the author and that it’s more likely the author is someone who studied the Gospel of John. To make the plot work, I had to assume that John wasn’t the author, despite that being against my religious beliefs.