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adding section on Gnostic Elitism
Today, Gnosticism still exists in small, isolated communities throughout the world.
Today, Gnosticism still exists in small, isolated communities throughout the world.
==Gnostic Elitism==
One of the characteristics of gnostic heresy was that it had to do with making people feel significant. The Gnostics did not present their message as something destined for a layman, but rather as something that only an exclusive and highly elevated group of people should hear and could grasp. They considered themselves to belong to the elect part of humanity with extraordinary access to spiritual secret knowledge. From this perspective, Gnosticism was never meant to be, and probably never became, a mass movement. It may primarily have appealed to intelligentsia in the Roman cities. Gnosticism threatened to invade the leaders of the Church. The typical Gnostic community was a circle of initiates adhering to a charismatic teacher, rapidly dissolving with the disappearance of the leader. [[Irenaeus]] ironically remarked about them that everybody had ambition of being a teacher of others and establishing his own group. Due to their elite character, the Gnostics, with one significant exception of Manichaeism from the third century onward, never established a church of any duration.<ref name="Skarsaune">{{cite book
|author=Oskar Skarsaune
|title=In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influence on Early Christianity
|publisher=IVP Academic
|year=2002
|location=Downers Grove, IL
|pages=246, 251-253
|chapter=12:Orthodoxy and Heresy
|isbn=978-0-8308-2844-9
|url=http://books.google.no/books?id=2q6qTb-A7GwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Oskar+Skarsaune+In+the+shadow+of+the+temple&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6WuMUIihIJTN4QSbnoGIBQ&redir_esc=y
}}</ref>
==Gnostic Groups==
==Gnostic Groups==
==Gnosticism Today==
==Gnosticism Today==
Although there are no explicit declarations of any direct connections, it is still of great curiosity to find parallels of gnostic attitudes and traits in modern [[history]]:
Although there are no explicit declarations of any direct connections, it is still of great curiosity to find parallels of gnostic attitudes and traits in modern [[history]]{{#tag:ref|cf.''"[Gnosticism] is by no means an outdated phenomenon of only historical interest"''<ref name="Skarsaune"/>|group=note}}:
*Rejection of Old Testament and manipulating (editing) the [[Scripture]] by [[Nazism|Nazists]] resulting in dejudaized version of the New Testament (NT), titled ''Die Botschaft Gottes'' (The Message of God)<ref name="Die Botschaft Gottes">{{cite web
*Rejection of Old Testament and manipulating (editing) the [[Scripture]] by [[Nazism|Nazists]] resulting in dejudaized version of the New Testament (NT), titled ''Die Botschaft Gottes'' (The Message of God)<ref name="Die Botschaft Gottes">{{cite web
|title=Did Hitler rewrite the Bible?
|title=Did Hitler rewrite the Bible?