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Feb. 7th, 2006 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaI suppose it is okay to post this now, it should have been graded by now (though i haven't received it back yet): the essay i wrote on Gnosticism for the final in Prof. Koester's class.
What separated the gnostic Christians from the non-gnostic (hereafter ‘orthodox’) Christians was not simply a difference in beliefs or opinions, but deeply divergent ways of viewing the world, human nature, and divine nature. These divergences made reconciliation between the gnostics and the orthodox impossible.
Christianity is concerned with the state of humankind, asserting that people exist in a state of incompletion or depravity, and are therefore in need of salvation in order to achieve their potential intended by the creator. Salvation, Christians believe, comes to humankind from God by way of Christ.
The orthodox doctrine teaches that salvation comes from the presence of Christ with us, from Christ’s sacrifice, from Christ’s resurrection, from being baptized in Christ’s name, and from taking in the body and blood of Christ during the celebration of the Eucharist.
The label of ‘gnostic’ was given to Christian sects who taught instead that salvation came from knowing particular doctrine or having certain awareness. The death and resurrection of Christ or the presence of Christ in the sacraments were matters of less importance to the gnostics.
At the heart of gnostic belief is the notion that some people have a spark of divinity within them. This fragment of the divine spirit has been enchanted and so has forgotten who and what it is. The gnostics believed that the key to salvation was to re-awaken the divine spark to awareness of its nature and origin.
In contrast to this, the idea of a measure of divinity within each person became increasingly unpalatable to orthodox thinkers. The author of John’s Gospel took pains to dispel this notion, calling Jesus the “Only Begotten Son” of God, making it clear that Jesus’ divinity was unique. Later, Augustine promoted the notion of original sin, which precludes the gnostic idea altogether.
Historically, the gnostic view of Christ can be traced back to the early decades of the Christian movement, when there was some debate over whether Jesus had been a prophet or whether he was the messiah. The prophets, by and large, spoke with a tone of holy righteousness, proclaiming divine commandments for justice and compassion, and taking the rich and powerful to task when they failed to lead people towards a more just society. The messiah was an expected hero of the secular authorities, a descendent of King David who would rise to power and lead the Judeans to a new era of prominence and greatness. Historically, the prophets provided a spiritual and populist check on the secular authorities; so there is considerable tension between these two ideas of Christ. If Jesus was a prophet, then his message would be more important than who he was, or what had happened to him during his lifetime. If instead Jesus was the messiah, then his birth, life, and death among the Judean people was more important than the message he brought.
Orthodox Christianity could be characterized by an emphasis on Jesus as the messiah. That is not to say that they disregarded his moral teachings, but in the orthodox view, one could follow Jesus’ moral teachings and still be without salvation. By the gnostic view, in contrast, salvation-giving awareness came from the Logos, whose attempts to instruct humankind were not limited to incarnation in Jesus. So the gnostics were much more open to ideas from Hellenistic philosophy (and possibly even, it has been suggested, Buddhism).
Many of the gnostics believed, in fact, that Jesus possessed no degree of humanity at all, that his human appearance was merely an illusion taken on so that he could more easily teach people. His death and resurrection were elaborately staged to fool the authorities (both the earthly ones and the demonic heavenly ones, the archons). This idea appealed to the gnostics because they disdained flesh. But this position, called docetism, could not be reconciled with orthodox Christian emphasis on the humanity of Christ, and on his death and resurrection.
Valentinus, the most prominent of the Christian gnostics, wrote the Gospel of Truth, which begins with a succinct summary of the gnostic “salvation-giving knowledge:”
Valentinus, like the other gnostics, had a dualistic conception of the world. On one hand he believed in a realm he called the pleroma, the “fullness that is the father’s thought and intellect.” Contrasted with this is a realm of error, made of agitation and fear which have grown “dense like fog,” and in which enchanted sparks of divine spirit, unable to achieve ‘acquaintance’ with the father, have taken up “residence in a modeled form.” The Logos, or Word, has been sent from the pleroma to bring recipients of grace (the elect) to awareness of the father and therefore to salvation. Later, Valentinus compares coming to this awareness as waking from a nightmare – and seeing upon waking that the menacing dangers that gave one chase are merely figments, nothing to be feared.
Gnostics also differed from orthodox Christians on their beliefs about the origin of the human condition. Sin is what orthodox Christians call the separation of humankind from God, the repair of which is salvation. Sin is believed to originate in human disobedience against the commandments of God or nature, typified in scripture by the story of Adam and Eve. As conceived by Origen, humans are rational beings with free will who have been given free agency to choose between sin or salvation. The role of the Logos then is to educate us so that we will choose to follow the will of the creator, rather than to disobey and sink further away.
For the gnostics, however, the separation from God began before the creation of humanity, with the fall of Sophia and the birth of the archons. Human choice plays no role in this separation. In their variations on the story of Adam and Eve, the gnostics averred that the creator is merely the chief archon, a misguided and arrogant demigod, a rebel against a transcendent divine power whose presence or nature he cannot begin to comprehend. The garden of Eden was a false paradise, an enchantment built by the creator to keep us unaware of our true divine nature. Here, Adam and Eve are portrayed as heroic rebels against the archons, guided by Christ to become aware of the way in which they had been trapped and reduced by the creator. The authors of these variations on Genesis turn the original story entirely on its head because they want us to understand that society, wealth, political power, and even our identity as human beings, are all illusions. Our reconciliation with the divine therefore does not come from obedience to divine law, but from maintaining awareness of these illusions and then refusing to participate in them.
Gnostics, like other Christians, saw the material world as a place of suffering and injustice. But unlike other Christians, they believed that this world was a mere shadow, second to the ideal realm, the pleroma, where the divine presence resides. The pleroma is both origin and destination: the realm from where the spark of divinity within us came, and to where it must return.
Most of the gnostics believed that salvation was not granted to everyone, only a few who had been chosen, the ‘elect’. This was a point of major contention with the orthodox Christians, most of whom believed that salvation was potentially open to everyone. This idea of election took on an elaborate form in the gnostic sect of Manichaeism, where everyday life was governed by whether or not one was deemed to be among the elect.1 In the Valentinian sect, a distinction was made between people who were “spirit-natured,” the elect whose salvation had been pre-ordained before the creation of the world, and the “soul-natured,” to whom the opportunity of salvation had been extended if they worshipped the creator and kept moral laws.2 In this way the Valentinians attempted to reconcile their views with those of the orthodox Christians (affording the orthodox a somewhat less exalted place in their own scheme).
From the beginning Christianity was a movement that raised awareness of social injustice. It was in large part a response to the cruelty of the Roman hegemony and the corrupt Herodian regime. The orthodox Christians raised direct challenges to injustice, and many were executed for it. The gnostics felt that this effort was largely wasted in a world hopelessly corrupted by its demonic rulers. Martyrdom was considered a waste too, a matter that inflamed the orthodox to anger against the gnostics.3
But while the gnostics downplayed the quest for social justice, they did place a strong emphasis on one’s own conduct. Pleasure and suffering were both indications of the material world’s enchantment over an individual, so they were to be avoided. Many gnostic groups therefore sought to disassociate themselves from society at large, refusing to participate in society, and forming monastic communities isolated from the rest of the world. There, they forsook meat, alcohol, and sex, and engaged in prayerful contemplation of the pleroma, or in some cases conducted elaborate esoteric rituals during which the participants had visions of ascending past the planetary spheres (associated with the archons) into the heavenly realm. Some gnostic sects forbade even reproduction, claiming that it was cruel to bring new souls into this realm of suffering.
This radical separation from society was opposed by the orthodox bishops, especially as the church began to take a place of prominence in society. The orthodox felt that those who had positions of prominence within society should not simply squander their wealth and influence, but can use it for good. For example, this argument was raised by Tertullian in his Apologeticum. The gnostics countered that Jesus himself commanded his followers to sell their possessions and give away all their money, a position not popular among influential, well-educated, or well-to-do Christians, who played a prominent part in supporting the church. The more the church became a part of society rather than a response to it, the more the church became something to which the gnostics found themselves opposed. The gnostic texts and lifestyle demonstrate a profound distrust of every kind of authority, and the church hierarchy and growing influence of the bishops is no exception.
This contention occurred at a time when several groups were challenging the orthodox bishops and their claims to Christian authority. The orthodox response to gnosticism and other challenges was spearheaded by Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon, who in 180 CE published a large missive laying out numerous challenges to gnostic thought and doctrine. Against All Heresies catalogues the beliefs of various gnostic groups and argues against their validity point by point.
In Book 1, Chapter XVIII, he writes:
There had certainly been a proliferation of gnostic literature offering diverse interpretations of scripture or variations on specific scriptural themes; for example, the Coptic gnostic library found at Nag Hammadi contains at least a dozen versions of the story of Adam and Eve. Irenaeus accused the gnostics of taking glee in creating new blasphemies, but the form of Irenaeus’s attacks shows that a great divergence had grown between the orthodox and the gnostics on the proper approach to scripture and doctrine.
There is evidence that Jewish scriptures were heavily redacted and revised over the centuries to meet the changing needs and views of an evolving culture.4 The same appears to be true of Christian scripture in the first two centuries of the Common Era. We might suppose that scribes and priests historically saw the revision of scripture as entirely compatible with preserving the faith. The gnostic approach might then be a continuation of this view.
The orthodox, however, came to mistrust this approach to scripture, perhaps because of the proliferation of untamable apocalyptic, prophetic, and visionary groups in the Second and Third Centuries C.E. They began to assert as the canon developed that revelation was complete, and that scripture was inviolable. Scripture became a weapon for defending the faith and the unity of the church. As this view developed, new thought would have to pass a scriptural test, or else be discounted as heresy.
As a final note, it is clear also from the scriptural record that a debate raged between the gnostics and orthodox on the role of women within the church. In Paul’s writing it is clear that women played an active and prominent role in the early formation of the church, but in later generations, many churches cited the pseudo-Pauline passage of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 as justification for excluding women from giving instruction or serving as presbyter or bishop.
The gnostics did not reject scripture that offered a pro-female viewpoint (such as the Hypostasis of the Archons or the Thunder: Perfect Mind), but even so it is not accurate to characterize gnosticism as feminist, since gnostic mythology largely portrays femininity as a shortcoming. However, in practice it appears that many gnostic groups did not prevent women from giving instruction, offering sacrament, or serving as bishops.5
In the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and Pistis Sophia, this debate is depicted vividly with attacks by Peter on the legitimacy of Mary’s participation in the disciples’ discussions with Jesus. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus presents a solution to the dilemma: he will “make Mary male” (logion 114). The gnostics believed that the shape of our material bodies is less consequential than our character of spirit; and so one might be feminine of body but still ‘masculine’ (i.e., virtuous or perfect) of spirit.
1 cf. Kurt Rudolph, Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism, pp. 340-1
2 cf. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters
3 cf. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels
4 consider for example the Documentary Hypothesis. cf. Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?
5 cf. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels
What separated the gnostic Christians from the non-gnostic (hereafter ‘orthodox’) Christians was not simply a difference in beliefs or opinions, but deeply divergent ways of viewing the world, human nature, and divine nature. These divergences made reconciliation between the gnostics and the orthodox impossible.
Christianity is concerned with the state of humankind, asserting that people exist in a state of incompletion or depravity, and are therefore in need of salvation in order to achieve their potential intended by the creator. Salvation, Christians believe, comes to humankind from God by way of Christ.
The orthodox doctrine teaches that salvation comes from the presence of Christ with us, from Christ’s sacrifice, from Christ’s resurrection, from being baptized in Christ’s name, and from taking in the body and blood of Christ during the celebration of the Eucharist.
The label of ‘gnostic’ was given to Christian sects who taught instead that salvation came from knowing particular doctrine or having certain awareness. The death and resurrection of Christ or the presence of Christ in the sacraments were matters of less importance to the gnostics.
At the heart of gnostic belief is the notion that some people have a spark of divinity within them. This fragment of the divine spirit has been enchanted and so has forgotten who and what it is. The gnostics believed that the key to salvation was to re-awaken the divine spark to awareness of its nature and origin.
In contrast to this, the idea of a measure of divinity within each person became increasingly unpalatable to orthodox thinkers. The author of John’s Gospel took pains to dispel this notion, calling Jesus the “Only Begotten Son” of God, making it clear that Jesus’ divinity was unique. Later, Augustine promoted the notion of original sin, which precludes the gnostic idea altogether.
Historically, the gnostic view of Christ can be traced back to the early decades of the Christian movement, when there was some debate over whether Jesus had been a prophet or whether he was the messiah. The prophets, by and large, spoke with a tone of holy righteousness, proclaiming divine commandments for justice and compassion, and taking the rich and powerful to task when they failed to lead people towards a more just society. The messiah was an expected hero of the secular authorities, a descendent of King David who would rise to power and lead the Judeans to a new era of prominence and greatness. Historically, the prophets provided a spiritual and populist check on the secular authorities; so there is considerable tension between these two ideas of Christ. If Jesus was a prophet, then his message would be more important than who he was, or what had happened to him during his lifetime. If instead Jesus was the messiah, then his birth, life, and death among the Judean people was more important than the message he brought.
Orthodox Christianity could be characterized by an emphasis on Jesus as the messiah. That is not to say that they disregarded his moral teachings, but in the orthodox view, one could follow Jesus’ moral teachings and still be without salvation. By the gnostic view, in contrast, salvation-giving awareness came from the Logos, whose attempts to instruct humankind were not limited to incarnation in Jesus. So the gnostics were much more open to ideas from Hellenistic philosophy (and possibly even, it has been suggested, Buddhism).
Many of the gnostics believed, in fact, that Jesus possessed no degree of humanity at all, that his human appearance was merely an illusion taken on so that he could more easily teach people. His death and resurrection were elaborately staged to fool the authorities (both the earthly ones and the demonic heavenly ones, the archons). This idea appealed to the gnostics because they disdained flesh. But this position, called docetism, could not be reconciled with orthodox Christian emphasis on the humanity of Christ, and on his death and resurrection.
Valentinus, the most prominent of the Christian gnostics, wrote the Gospel of Truth, which begins with a succinct summary of the gnostic “salvation-giving knowledge:”
The proclamation of the truth is a joy for those who have received grace from the father of truth, that they might learn to know him through the power of the Word that emanated from the fullness that is the father’s thought and intellect – the Word, who is spoken of as “savior”: for, that is the term for the work that he was to accomplish to ransom those who had fallen ignorant of the father; while the term “proclamation” refers to the manifestation of hope, a discovery for those who are searching for him.
Inasmuch as the entirety had searched for the one from whom they had emanated, and the entirety was inside of him – the inconceivable uncontained, who is superior to all thought – ignorance of the father caused agitation and fear. And the agitation grew dense like fog, so that no one could see. Thus error found strength and labored at her matter in emptiness. Without having learned to know the truth, she took up residence in a modeled form, preparing by means of the power, in beauty, a substitute for truth.
Valentinus, like the other gnostics, had a dualistic conception of the world. On one hand he believed in a realm he called the pleroma, the “fullness that is the father’s thought and intellect.” Contrasted with this is a realm of error, made of agitation and fear which have grown “dense like fog,” and in which enchanted sparks of divine spirit, unable to achieve ‘acquaintance’ with the father, have taken up “residence in a modeled form.” The Logos, or Word, has been sent from the pleroma to bring recipients of grace (the elect) to awareness of the father and therefore to salvation. Later, Valentinus compares coming to this awareness as waking from a nightmare – and seeing upon waking that the menacing dangers that gave one chase are merely figments, nothing to be feared.
Gnostics also differed from orthodox Christians on their beliefs about the origin of the human condition. Sin is what orthodox Christians call the separation of humankind from God, the repair of which is salvation. Sin is believed to originate in human disobedience against the commandments of God or nature, typified in scripture by the story of Adam and Eve. As conceived by Origen, humans are rational beings with free will who have been given free agency to choose between sin or salvation. The role of the Logos then is to educate us so that we will choose to follow the will of the creator, rather than to disobey and sink further away.
For the gnostics, however, the separation from God began before the creation of humanity, with the fall of Sophia and the birth of the archons. Human choice plays no role in this separation. In their variations on the story of Adam and Eve, the gnostics averred that the creator is merely the chief archon, a misguided and arrogant demigod, a rebel against a transcendent divine power whose presence or nature he cannot begin to comprehend. The garden of Eden was a false paradise, an enchantment built by the creator to keep us unaware of our true divine nature. Here, Adam and Eve are portrayed as heroic rebels against the archons, guided by Christ to become aware of the way in which they had been trapped and reduced by the creator. The authors of these variations on Genesis turn the original story entirely on its head because they want us to understand that society, wealth, political power, and even our identity as human beings, are all illusions. Our reconciliation with the divine therefore does not come from obedience to divine law, but from maintaining awareness of these illusions and then refusing to participate in them.
Gnostics, like other Christians, saw the material world as a place of suffering and injustice. But unlike other Christians, they believed that this world was a mere shadow, second to the ideal realm, the pleroma, where the divine presence resides. The pleroma is both origin and destination: the realm from where the spark of divinity within us came, and to where it must return.
Most of the gnostics believed that salvation was not granted to everyone, only a few who had been chosen, the ‘elect’. This was a point of major contention with the orthodox Christians, most of whom believed that salvation was potentially open to everyone. This idea of election took on an elaborate form in the gnostic sect of Manichaeism, where everyday life was governed by whether or not one was deemed to be among the elect.1 In the Valentinian sect, a distinction was made between people who were “spirit-natured,” the elect whose salvation had been pre-ordained before the creation of the world, and the “soul-natured,” to whom the opportunity of salvation had been extended if they worshipped the creator and kept moral laws.2 In this way the Valentinians attempted to reconcile their views with those of the orthodox Christians (affording the orthodox a somewhat less exalted place in their own scheme).
From the beginning Christianity was a movement that raised awareness of social injustice. It was in large part a response to the cruelty of the Roman hegemony and the corrupt Herodian regime. The orthodox Christians raised direct challenges to injustice, and many were executed for it. The gnostics felt that this effort was largely wasted in a world hopelessly corrupted by its demonic rulers. Martyrdom was considered a waste too, a matter that inflamed the orthodox to anger against the gnostics.3
But while the gnostics downplayed the quest for social justice, they did place a strong emphasis on one’s own conduct. Pleasure and suffering were both indications of the material world’s enchantment over an individual, so they were to be avoided. Many gnostic groups therefore sought to disassociate themselves from society at large, refusing to participate in society, and forming monastic communities isolated from the rest of the world. There, they forsook meat, alcohol, and sex, and engaged in prayerful contemplation of the pleroma, or in some cases conducted elaborate esoteric rituals during which the participants had visions of ascending past the planetary spheres (associated with the archons) into the heavenly realm. Some gnostic sects forbade even reproduction, claiming that it was cruel to bring new souls into this realm of suffering.
This radical separation from society was opposed by the orthodox bishops, especially as the church began to take a place of prominence in society. The orthodox felt that those who had positions of prominence within society should not simply squander their wealth and influence, but can use it for good. For example, this argument was raised by Tertullian in his Apologeticum. The gnostics countered that Jesus himself commanded his followers to sell their possessions and give away all their money, a position not popular among influential, well-educated, or well-to-do Christians, who played a prominent part in supporting the church. The more the church became a part of society rather than a response to it, the more the church became something to which the gnostics found themselves opposed. The gnostic texts and lifestyle demonstrate a profound distrust of every kind of authority, and the church hierarchy and growing influence of the bishops is no exception.
This contention occurred at a time when several groups were challenging the orthodox bishops and their claims to Christian authority. The orthodox response to gnosticism and other challenges was spearheaded by Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon, who in 180 CE published a large missive laying out numerous challenges to gnostic thought and doctrine. Against All Heresies catalogues the beliefs of various gnostic groups and argues against their validity point by point.
In Book 1, Chapter XVIII, he writes:
[E]very one of them generates something new, day by day, according to his ability; for no one is deemed ‘perfect,’ who does not develop among them some mighty fictions. It is thus necessary, first, to indicate what things they metamorphose [to their own use] out of the prophetical writings, and next, to refute them.
There had certainly been a proliferation of gnostic literature offering diverse interpretations of scripture or variations on specific scriptural themes; for example, the Coptic gnostic library found at Nag Hammadi contains at least a dozen versions of the story of Adam and Eve. Irenaeus accused the gnostics of taking glee in creating new blasphemies, but the form of Irenaeus’s attacks shows that a great divergence had grown between the orthodox and the gnostics on the proper approach to scripture and doctrine.
There is evidence that Jewish scriptures were heavily redacted and revised over the centuries to meet the changing needs and views of an evolving culture.4 The same appears to be true of Christian scripture in the first two centuries of the Common Era. We might suppose that scribes and priests historically saw the revision of scripture as entirely compatible with preserving the faith. The gnostic approach might then be a continuation of this view.
The orthodox, however, came to mistrust this approach to scripture, perhaps because of the proliferation of untamable apocalyptic, prophetic, and visionary groups in the Second and Third Centuries C.E. They began to assert as the canon developed that revelation was complete, and that scripture was inviolable. Scripture became a weapon for defending the faith and the unity of the church. As this view developed, new thought would have to pass a scriptural test, or else be discounted as heresy.
As a final note, it is clear also from the scriptural record that a debate raged between the gnostics and orthodox on the role of women within the church. In Paul’s writing it is clear that women played an active and prominent role in the early formation of the church, but in later generations, many churches cited the pseudo-Pauline passage of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 as justification for excluding women from giving instruction or serving as presbyter or bishop.
The gnostics did not reject scripture that offered a pro-female viewpoint (such as the Hypostasis of the Archons or the Thunder: Perfect Mind), but even so it is not accurate to characterize gnosticism as feminist, since gnostic mythology largely portrays femininity as a shortcoming. However, in practice it appears that many gnostic groups did not prevent women from giving instruction, offering sacrament, or serving as bishops.5
In the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and Pistis Sophia, this debate is depicted vividly with attacks by Peter on the legitimacy of Mary’s participation in the disciples’ discussions with Jesus. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus presents a solution to the dilemma: he will “make Mary male” (logion 114). The gnostics believed that the shape of our material bodies is less consequential than our character of spirit; and so one might be feminine of body but still ‘masculine’ (i.e., virtuous or perfect) of spirit.
1 cf. Kurt Rudolph, Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism, pp. 340-1
2 cf. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters
3 cf. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels
4 consider for example the Documentary Hypothesis. cf. Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?
5 cf. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels
