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Aug. 24th, 2003 05:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaThis weekend I've been working quite heavily on my book. Applause is welcome but not required. ::grin::
I was examining Paul's letter to the Colossians and noticed something interesting. This book and Ephesians are generally considered by scholars to have been written after Paul by members of the "Pauline school," and it has been my contention for some time that these two books actually represent a pro-Gnostic plank of the Pauline school.
The Christology of these books is considerably more "cosmic;" for example, the fullness or pleroma of God is said to reside within Christ. This Christological development seems to bridge the Christ described in earlier Pauline literature with the proto-Gnostic conception of Christ as logos found in the Johannine gospel. But that is not what I came to talk to you about today.
While the letter to the Colossians describes ideas that are Gnostic in character, there is also some condemnation of esoteric and ascetic practices associated with the Gnostic groups. For example we see in the letter this:
[Colossians 2:18] Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking,
[19] and not holding fast to the head [Christ], from whom the whole body [the church], nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.
[20] If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations,
[21] "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch?"
[22] All these regulations refer to things that perish with use; they are simply human commands and teachings.
[23] These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety, humility, and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value in checking self-indulgence.
Here we see typical Gnostic thinking: dualistic denial of the material world and the literal unity of Christians into a single body. But many of the things Gnostics were known to have done -- magic, visionary scrying, and encratism (abstainance from meat, wine, and sex) are criticized.
While this may seem contradictory, there is a simple explanation. The author of Colossians wants to claim certain Gnostic metaphysical concepts, while seeking to disassociate these ideas from Gnostic practices such as scrying, invocation of angels, "rising on the planes," and encratism.
I was examining Paul's letter to the Colossians and noticed something interesting. This book and Ephesians are generally considered by scholars to have been written after Paul by members of the "Pauline school," and it has been my contention for some time that these two books actually represent a pro-Gnostic plank of the Pauline school.
The Christology of these books is considerably more "cosmic;" for example, the fullness or pleroma of God is said to reside within Christ. This Christological development seems to bridge the Christ described in earlier Pauline literature with the proto-Gnostic conception of Christ as logos found in the Johannine gospel. But that is not what I came to talk to you about today.
While the letter to the Colossians describes ideas that are Gnostic in character, there is also some condemnation of esoteric and ascetic practices associated with the Gnostic groups. For example we see in the letter this:
[Colossians 2:18] Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking,
[19] and not holding fast to the head [Christ], from whom the whole body [the church], nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.
[20] If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations,
[21] "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch?"
[22] All these regulations refer to things that perish with use; they are simply human commands and teachings.
[23] These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety, humility, and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value in checking self-indulgence.
Here we see typical Gnostic thinking: dualistic denial of the material world and the literal unity of Christians into a single body. But many of the things Gnostics were known to have done -- magic, visionary scrying, and encratism (abstainance from meat, wine, and sex) are criticized.
While this may seem contradictory, there is a simple explanation. The author of Colossians wants to claim certain Gnostic metaphysical concepts, while seeking to disassociate these ideas from Gnostic practices such as scrying, invocation of angels, "rising on the planes," and encratism.
