(no subject)
Aug. 12th, 2003 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaJust posted this as a comment to a post in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
questionofgod and I wanted to record it here, with some editing and elaboration.
The Gnostics claimed Jesus worshipped a different God than the Jews. This is perhaps the biggest "sticking point" in the differences between the Gnostic teachings and mainstream Christian teachings, and basically goes like this (for anyone who doesn't know):
1. The "Father" of which Jesus spoke is a remote cosmic being who resides in a perfect realm of stillness and silence.
2. The Lord Yahweh worshipped by the Jews, however, is a fallen being who dared to claim he was the only God, and who created this world of pain and suffering as a simulacrum of the perfect realm where the Father resides. Yahweh caught a glimpse of Sophia (whose face was moving over the waters) and became entranced with her beauty, and so created a clay simulacrum -- the lifeless body of Adam. Sophia breathed a piece of her divine essence into Adam, and this made him able to stand and move around.
3. They said of Jesus that the Father sent him to rescue the divine pieces of Sophia spread throughout humanity.
This is the Gnostic myth as described in the Nag Hammadi library. Specifically, this was taken from The Hypostasis of the Archons, though several variations on this same theme can be found throughout the Library: The Apocalypse of Adam, The Apocryphon of John, On the Origin of the World, Trimorphic Protennoia (First Thought in Three Forms), The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, and so on.
At face value, of course, there is no way to reconcile it with mainstream Christianity. However, having studied it at length, I am convinced that the myth was meant to be taken as a mystical "slap in the face" by people raised to believe the mainstream versions of Genesis and the gospel.
The net effect of this "slap in the face" was, IMO, meant to illustrate that religious edifice is a trap that prevents us from living in accord with the harmonious principles of cosmic order.
This same message is central to the social criticism offered by Jesus, and the antinomian logic presented by Paul. In fact, it seems obvious to me that many Gnostics, who had already been exploring these ideas before the founding of Christianity, clearly saw Jesus and Paul as kindred spirits, and, being caught up in the excitement of the new movement, sought to demonstrate the ways in which their ideas paralleled those of the Christians. This synchretism reached its apex in the school of Valentinus.
questionofgod and I wanted to record it here, with some editing and elaboration.The Gnostics claimed Jesus worshipped a different God than the Jews. This is perhaps the biggest "sticking point" in the differences between the Gnostic teachings and mainstream Christian teachings, and basically goes like this (for anyone who doesn't know):
1. The "Father" of which Jesus spoke is a remote cosmic being who resides in a perfect realm of stillness and silence.
2. The Lord Yahweh worshipped by the Jews, however, is a fallen being who dared to claim he was the only God, and who created this world of pain and suffering as a simulacrum of the perfect realm where the Father resides. Yahweh caught a glimpse of Sophia (whose face was moving over the waters) and became entranced with her beauty, and so created a clay simulacrum -- the lifeless body of Adam. Sophia breathed a piece of her divine essence into Adam, and this made him able to stand and move around.
3. They said of Jesus that the Father sent him to rescue the divine pieces of Sophia spread throughout humanity.
This is the Gnostic myth as described in the Nag Hammadi library. Specifically, this was taken from The Hypostasis of the Archons, though several variations on this same theme can be found throughout the Library: The Apocalypse of Adam, The Apocryphon of John, On the Origin of the World, Trimorphic Protennoia (First Thought in Three Forms), The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, and so on.
At face value, of course, there is no way to reconcile it with mainstream Christianity. However, having studied it at length, I am convinced that the myth was meant to be taken as a mystical "slap in the face" by people raised to believe the mainstream versions of Genesis and the gospel.
The net effect of this "slap in the face" was, IMO, meant to illustrate that religious edifice is a trap that prevents us from living in accord with the harmonious principles of cosmic order.
This same message is central to the social criticism offered by Jesus, and the antinomian logic presented by Paul. In fact, it seems obvious to me that many Gnostics, who had already been exploring these ideas before the founding of Christianity, clearly saw Jesus and Paul as kindred spirits, and, being caught up in the excitement of the new movement, sought to demonstrate the ways in which their ideas paralleled those of the Christians. This synchretism reached its apex in the school of Valentinus.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-08-12 11:58 am (UTC)I've only read the first few chapters thus far, but it seems nicely written and makes some interesting points. She also seems less-obviously to be riding the ideological horse she was on in _Gnostic Gospels_.
Lu
no subject
Date: 2003-08-12 12:14 pm (UTC)It's kind of difficult to pin Pagels down theologically. See strikes me as a liberal but essentially orthodox Christian sympathetic to the historical plight faced by Gnostics in the early church.
It could also be, however, that she is a Gnostic but avoids saying so to retain the appearance of objectivity.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-12 12:33 pm (UTC)I get the impression that she's attempting to bring some of the freedom of debate, the active spiritual seeking, the anti-authoritarianism and the strong tendencies of identification between god and creature in the Gnostic texts she likes into modern Christianity.
By asking why these things have become excluded, I think she's offering them to be re-included. Thus, she tends to pick the texts that are the most available to liberal modern Christians (and, as in the Gnostic Gospels, feminist Christians) to focus on, and always sort of offers the struggles of the Gnostics as a sort of parallel to the struggles of those who are fighting for a more inclusive and spiritual church today.
Lu.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-12 03:48 pm (UTC)I definitely sense that she comes from a feminist perspective, though she avoids using key words that would make that perspective obvious.
Belive it or Not...
Date: 2004-04-27 01:42 pm (UTC)Also saw some of this in a book called The Other Bible wich contains some of the texts you mentioned. Can you list some other books that talk about Gnostics? Thanks.