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[sophiaserpentia]

This confirms beyond any doubt my theory that the Gnostics considered the mind of the individual to share its essence with the cosmos-as-mind. This links Gnosticism strongly to the Vedic philosophy equating Brahman with the Atman.

[the Savior said,] "Those who have not known themselves do not have Gnosis of anything. But those who have only known themselves have also received Gnosis with the depth of the Pleroma. So for this reason, Thomas my brother, you have personally seen what is obscure to humankind and what people are impeded by when they lack Gnosis."

from The Book of Thomas the Contender, Writing to the Perfect, adapted from the translation by Bentley Layton

Comments

response

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

well just to give some kind of response to a post
and probably I am at least middling able to deal
with this sort of material among the audience gathered...
but it will be sort of predictable since you know
my canon of good gnostic writing is limited...
but at least a response and you can indicate I need
to give thomas the contender a break or whatever but...
to me it is sort of making a silk purse out of a
sow's ear here..the verse as it stands does not
seem very well written nor does it raise the
inner elan.
with abstractions like this one rule of thumb I go on
in making my personal canon is this business of elan.
Anyone can say yes" you are in your self THE ONE
or at least participant in the same and so on with
all the potential benefits" it is an old story...to
draw the mind and heart to vision though seems to call
for something more lest the reader say "vieu jeux"
or "that and a buck fifty will get you on the subway."

Now even if I am making a fair point here, even if I say,
it is also fair to say well if old Thomas the Contender
was not exactly a prize winner it doesnt mean he didnt
know something and that too I would have to agree...
or of course reading the overwraught mystical writing of
someone like the theologian
von Balthasar who does know something(say
in the hideous failed poetry of "Heart of the Earth" one might
say "simmer down son" or "put a sock in it" as at times may
readers of yours,
+Seraphim.

Re: response

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

LOL, Seraphim, I do not require agreement or praise to be thankful for a reply. In fact I prefer having people around who are willing to keep me honest, who force me to "put up or shut up" as they say on the street.

Anyway I don't disagree that Thomas the Contender "coulda been a contender" or more of one anyway, it's not the brightest star in the Gnostic library.

Also the excerpt above was not helped when it was translated by Bentley Layton, who though an excellent scholar has no poetic instinct whatsoever. His translations are the driest imaginable, though they are indispensable because they are so literal.

What interested me about this passage was the directness with which it connects the Gnostic experience with that notion central to Vedic mysticism -- while at the same time connecting both (perhaps more tenuously in the case of the Vedas) to Neoplatonism.

The concept of cosmos-as-mind strikes me as one of the most important mystic assertions, because it demonstrates the cosmic importance of each persons' putting their mind in order -- of "repentance" in what was perhaps the original sence of the word: inner rectification.

Inner rectification was also a theme that appears in the alchemical literature of course, but that's a whole other journal entry...

Re: response

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Oh BTW I did read the Chemists Shop post, though I am not sure yet how to respond intelligently... I did of course appreciate it very much... many of the people studying Sophia noawadays come from the POV of wanting to treat her as a "goddess" when the situation is much more complex.