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I 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.

long )
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In Hebrew, ha-satan means "the adversary."

Elaine Pagels argued in The Origin of Satan that the term evolved as the Tanakh was written so that by the time of Jesus it referred to the spirit of social discord. That is, Satan was not necessarily God's adversary, so much as Satan was the embodiment of adversity between people.

Jesus placed above all of the laws and commandments two which he called the greatest: to love God with all of one's heart, mind, and soul, and to love one's neighbor as oneself. If these principles indeed took center stage for Jesus, then that casts his workings against Satan in a new light. Satan is then his opponent not for opposing God but more for causing people to oppress and abuse one another.

Combine this with an argument i made in the past, that Jesus was far less concerned with the transgressions of ordinary people than he was with oppression and exploitation. In fact, to recast God's judgment so that it seems to be about everyday transgressions is to subvert and misappropriate the message of the prophets, who were concerned with social justice. It then becomes a tool of the oppressors, as many ex-Christians can tell you it was used against them to hound them into submission.

During the course of events in the early church 'heretics' were accused agents of discord and therefore were called antichrists or agents of Satan. This is further misappropriation: dissidence is not discord.

By this interpretation, then, to promote peace, understanding and togetherness, to promote justice and equality, no matter what your beliefs or background, is to be in accord with the wishes of God and Jesus, and to promote intolerance, discrimination, and abuse, to promote war and exploitation, is to be an agent of Satan.

It is more truly Satanic to misuse religious teachings to promote discrimination against or abuse of others than to commit individual transgressions.

In fact, Jesus gave special attention to those who take on the appearance of being righteous while acting as agents of Satan. This is why he gave so much of his scorn to hypocrites: he knew that this particular guise of Satan would be the hardest for people to see and understand.
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taken from [livejournal.com profile] allogenes

The eight books in my collection that I am pretty sure none of you own, but really hope that you do because it would make you my very special friend.

1. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters. In addition to being a fascinating (if dry) read, this book taught me a lot about Valentinian Gnosticism but also opened my eyes about the ways in which Paul's epistles must have felt to the ancient mind and eye.

2. Marvin Meyer and Richard Smith, Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power. A detailed translation of many early Christian scroll fragments used in spells and rituals. This shows how much early Christianity, in one place at least (as practiced in Egypt) was different in form and focus from the religion we know today. That really puts a lot into perspective.

3. Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability to Order the Universe. Strange attractors, self-organization, and quantum physics, oh my! Nature can order itself into states of increasing complexity. Does this science take God out of the equation -- or does it show that God *is* the equation? Very thought-provoking book.

4. Rupert Sheldrake, The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature. This book contains a fascinating argument that there are no "laws" of physics, but that there are "habits" which develop when nature solves problems and then repeats that solution. I'm not sure if I endorse every nuance of his theory, but I agree with it in principle and I think it is very eye-opening to see outside of the neo-platonic box of "eternal laws of physics" to see how well a scheme which has no element of permanence can work.

5. Dan Merkur, Gnosis: An Esoteric Tradition of Mystical Visions and Unions. Merkur examines the nature of different kinds of mystical vision and the things which brings them about, and argues that Jewish, Gnostic, alchemical, and Islamic visionary mysticism rely on very similar esoteric altered states. (He doesn't make the argument in *this* book that they all rely on entheogens, but he does make that argument elsewhere. I agree with Merkur's thesis that there is a single strain of esoteric technique behind Jewish, Gnostic, Islamic, and alchemical mysticism, but I'm not convinced that it's related to use of entheogens.)

6. Christopher Bamford, ed., Rediscovering Sacred Science. This book contains a collection of essays about sacred geometry in a distinctly neo-Pythagorean fold. Fascinating stuff.

7. John Read, Prelude to Chemistry. I hate the title, but this book is the most readable, informative, and well-rounded introduction to alchemy, both physical and philosophical, which I have ever seen.

8. Neil Douglas-Klotz, The Hidden Gospel: Decoding the Spiritual Message of the Aramaic Jesus. This is a fascinating book presenting an argument that most of the meaning of Jesus' teachings was lost when they were translated from Aramaic to Greek. It contains a degree of conjecture, but even if it does not elucidate the "original and authentic" message of Jesus, it is very worthwhile as a mystical text in its own right. I have quoted from it several times in this journal (and indeed my very first entry contained a quote from this book), because it was very influential for me.
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I want to spend more time investigating the debate between Augustine and the Pelagians. I think this, combined with the actions of Constantine, marked the final shift within Christianity from a movement which was fundamentally radical and iconoclastic, to a movement which was a fundamental part of the authoritarian establishment.

Augustine introduced a dualistic doctrine into Christianity which, drawing from his Manichaean origins, sought to portray humanity as sinful by nature. Sin, he taught, was passed from father to child through the semen. Previous Christian tradition had taught that sin was a failure of action and attitude; Augustine's contribution portrayed humanity as entirely helpless in the face of "sin nature" which was embedded in human flesh itself.

In my opinion, this position prevailed because people are easier to herd when their sexuality is tightly controlled. If this is true, then it is always in the interests of those in authority to control access to sex and restrict the population's sexual expression.

I've been developing this idea for some time now:
Sex as defiance in the face of the 'powers and principalities'
Control by restriction of the ways in which people feel good
On the 'virtues' of suffering
Pleasure without guilt as a rebellious act
Deprivation of physical pleasure as a principal root cause of violence
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I have been re-reading Elaine Pagels' book Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, and this stood out to me:

Justin, like many Jews and many of his fellow [contemporary] Christians, tended to interpret the difficulties of human life less in terms of the fall of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2-3) than in terms of the fall of the angels (Genesis 6:1-4). According to Genesis 6, the great and famous men of ancient times -- those called giants -- were the result of a hybrid union between God's angels and human women:

The sons of God [angels] saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose... There were giants on the earth in those days... when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the mighty men of renown. (Genesis 6:2-4)

Justin explained that some of the angels whom God had entrusted to administer the universe betrayed their trust by seducing women and corrupting boys (so Justin amplified the story of Genesis 6), they "begot children, who are called demons."

... The majority of humankind fell under their power, and only an exceptional few, like Socrates and Jesus, escaped demonically induced mental slavery. This invisible network of supernatural energies proceeded, then, to promote the fortunes of their henchmen. "Taking as their ally the desire for evil in everyone," Justin explained, the demons became the patrons of powerful and ruthless men, and "instituted private and public rites in honor of those who are most powerful."

Justin saw the result at every turn -- above all in the vast panoply of imperial propaganda, which claimed for the Roman emperors and their governors, magistrates, and armies the power and protection of the gods. The injustice that dominated the law courts indisputably proved, according to Justin, that they were controlled by demons, who manipulated the judges to destroy anyone, from Socrates to Jesus to the present-day Christians [sic], who opposed the demons or threatened to expose them....


As I was reading this, it struck me that Justin's interpretation of the Pagan gods as demons, related to fallen angels, is strongly reminiscent of the Gnostic account of the Archons. Compare the above, for example, to this, from the Hypostasis of the Archons:

Then the authorities came up to their Adam. And when they saw his female counterpart speaking with him, they became agitated with great agitation; and they became enamored of her. They said to one another, "Come, let us sow our seed in her," and they pursued her. And she laughed at them for their witlessness and their blindness; and in their clutches she became a tree, and left before them her shadowy reflection resembling herself; and they defiled it foully. - And they defiled the stamp of her voice, so that by the form they had modeled, together with their (own) image, they made themselves liable to condemnation.


Later in the account we see that Cain, the firstborn to Eve, is the descendant of the Archons. So, structurally, the myth is different from the Genesis account in its details. However, the Gnostics understood their version of the myth as related to the existence of human evildoers.

They also understood the Archons as "rulers of this world" in a sense that is very similar to Justin's description of the Pagan gods and the imperial authorities associated with them: Gnosticism and Christianity both represented, at this stage, a radical revolt against the imperial order in every way -- in religious, political, economic, and cultural terms.

crossposted to my journal and crossposted to [livejournal.com profile] gnosticism
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This article in Christianity Today, linked to by Frater AMPH, concerns the role of Gnosticism in the early formation of Christian doctrine.

It is embarrasing to see an article like this from an accomplished scholar like Ben Witherington III. It is particularly puzzling that Witherington chose to cloud his arguments in a disingenous and misleading way instead of simply acknowledging the truth about these matters, since the truth of what happened is not inherently damaging to Christian doctrine.

He starts by quoting from the The Da Vinci Code, a popular work of fiction which suggests that bishops changed Christian doctrine at the Council of Nicea and then instituted a massive cover-up. He uses this clearly fictional scenario to muddy the issues at hand:

Read more... )

crossposting in my journal and crossposting in [livejournal.com profile] questionofgod
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There's something that doesn't add up with the argument that Elaine Pagels made in Beyond Belief about the Gospel of John being an orthodox Christian answer to the Gospel of Thomas.

She writes, in Beyond Belief and in The Gnostic Gospels, that the earliest known Christian commentary on scripture is the commentary of Heracleon (a student of Valentinus) on the Gospel of John. In fact, all of the members of the Valentinian school quoted from John approvingly; it could even be said to be their favorite piece of scripture.

That doesn't sound like the response that one would expect to an anti-Gnostic piece of literature.

Compare this to their reactions to the Pauline "Pastoral" epistles, or the epistles of Peter, James, and Jude, all of which were strongly anti-Gnostic. Valentinian commentary or exegesis did not reference this material at all, and Pagels writes in The Gnostic Paul that they did not consider it "apostolic."

Bentley Layton mentions, in his essay on the Valentinians in The Gnostic Scriptures, that the Valentinians were most heavily influenced by the Johannine and the Pauline scripture. They also display influences from Luke and Matthew.

On the other hand, there are very few attributions to the Gospel of Thomas in the Valentinian literature.

All of the above makes me think that perhaps the Gospel of John reflected originally an alternative Gnostic (or at least "pro-Gnostic") viewpoint that differed from the Thomas perspective. If so, then it still may be a response to Thomas. The implication of this would be that the differentiation between "Gnostic" and "orthodox" was an innovation of the Second Century.

crossposted to my journal and crossposted to [livejournal.com profile] gnosticism
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I was interested to hear [livejournal.com profile] lady_babalon's feedback after reading Pagel's The Gnostic Gospels. Her primary thought was that she could relate a bit more to Gnostic ideas than she could to orthodox Christianity, but she was dismayed that the basic idea was still, at its core, salvation -- the idea that we are in some way inherently "broken" and need to be fixed. Specifically, Christianity, in both its orthodox and Gnostic forms, asserts that we are unable to fix what is broken about ourselves without some sort of outside guidance.

In Gnostic mythology, the pneumatic soul is described as an alien presence trapped this material world -- and so Gnostic salvation means that Christ has come to rescue us from our entrapment. (The Valentinian version of this myth, which is closer to my own thoughts, is that our mind is trapped in a fog of unknowing, that we have forgotten who and what we are, and that salvation takes the form of being reminded of our nature as parts of the body of Christ.)

The orthodox or mainstream Christian view is that our soul bears a taint that we are not able to rectify on our own. This differs from the Gnostic view in two important ways: (1) the taint is said to be within us, not something outside of us, and (2) salvation is seen as a transformation or purification that must take place within our soul.

I'm curious as to whether or not these ideas have any kind of origin in our everyday experience. What is it that we see or think or feel that might give us the idea that we are inherently and fundamentally broken?

Do you (my readers) feel broken or unsaved?

Alternately, do you feel like an alien trapped in an unfamiliar world?

Or, do you feel as though you need guidance in healing or becoming somehow more "whole" or complete than you are now?

Or, do you feel nothing of this sort at all, and have no sense in your body, mind, and heart that you need the assistance of the divine?
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I finally made time last night to start reading Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas by Elaine Pagels. The basic thesis of this book is simple and astonishing:

I was amazed when I went back to the Gospel of John after reading Thomas, for Thomas and John clearly draw upon similar language and images, and both, apparently, begin with similar "secret teaching." But John takes this teaching to mean something so different from Thomas that I wondered whether John could have written his gospel to refute what Thomas teaches. For months I investgated this possibility, and explored the work of other scholars who also have compared these sources, and I was finally convinced that this is what happened. As the scholar Gregory Riley points out, John -- and only John -- presents a challenging and critical portrait of the disciple he calls "Thomas, the one called Didymus," and as Riley suggests, it is John who invented the character we call Doubting Thomas, perhaps as a way of caricaturing those who revered a teacher -- and a version of Jesus' teaching -- that he regarded as faithless and false. (p. 57-58, italic emphasis in original, bold emphasis added)


This is actually not the first time I've encountered the idea that the Gospel of John was written specifically to answer the Gnostic idea of divinity, or Kingdom of God, within each of us. I first heard this suggestion on Beliefnet two years ago from Bnet user finnfire, who suggested that John's intent was to incorporate certain of the Gnostic ideas into mainstream Christianity, while refuting others. Pagels would seem to agree:

John's gospel begins by recalling, as Thomas does, the opening of the first chapter of Genesis -- saying that, since the beginning of time, divine light, "the light of all people," has shone forth.... But John's next lines suggest that he intends not to complement but to reject Thomas's claim that we have direct access to God through the divine image within us, for John immediately adds -- three times! -- that the divine light did not penetrate the deep darkness into which the world has plunged. Though he agrees that, since the beginning of time, the divine light "shines into the darkness," he also declares that "the darkness has not grasped it." ... Moreover, he says that, although the divine light had come into the world, "and the world was made through it, the world did not recognize it." [but cf. the Gospel of Truth, Valentinus retained this idea -- SS] John then adds that even when the light "came unto its own, its own -- God's people, Israel -- did not receive it." ... But to anyone who claims, as Thomas does, that we are (or may become) like Jesus, John emphatically says no: Jesus is unique or, as John loves to call him, monogenes -- "only begotten" or "one of a kind" -- for he insists that God has only one son, and he is different from you and me. ...[H]e argues that humankind has no innate capacity to know God. What John's gospel does... is claim that only by believing in Jesus can we find divine truth. (p. 66-67, emphasis in original)
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A post on [livejournal.com profile] challenging_god this morning has me thinking about the Pauline comments on "powers and authorities."

The Gnostics had a special way of reading the words ruler (arche) and authority (exousia). I also speculate, based on other evidence, that the Gnostics also had esoteric meanings for thrones (thronos) and dominions (kyriotes).

Many scholars do not think that the Pauline epistles to the Colossians and the Ephesians were not written by Paul but by members of his community or by some of his students. I think it is likely that they were written by Pauline followers with a considerably Gnostic bent, because there are many statements therein which have strong Gnostic significance.

Colossians 1:15-20 )

I have a related earlier entry which contains a Gnostic exegesis of Ephesians 6:12.
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I found this while pouring through The Gnostic Paul by Elaine Pagels. Now, while I describe myself as Gnostic, and in particular one who is heavily influenced by the Valentinians, this is one area where I don't simply buy into the Gnostic "party line."

Still, their solution to a particularly contentious passage of scripture is rather intriguing. Romans 9 deals with the subject of predestination and the idea that some people are created explicitly for destruction.

The Valentinian answer to this passage is to suggest that predestination applies primarily to two sets of people. Read more... )

crossposting to [livejournal.com profile] questionofgod
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The following is an excerpt from Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels, regarding the way Valentinian Gnostic groups conducted their meetings.

Irenaeus tells us that when they met, all the members first participated in drawing lots. Whoever received a certain lot apparently was designated to take the role of priest; another was to offer the sacrament, as bishop; another would read the Scriptures for worship; and others would address the group as a prophet, offering extemporaneous spiritual instruction. The next time the group met, they would throw lots again so that the persons taking each role changed continually.

...At a time when orthodox Christians increasingly discriminated between clergy and laity, this group of gnostic Christians demonstrated that, among themselves, they refused to acknowledge such distinctions. Instead of ranking their members into superior and inferior "orders" within a heirarchy, they followed the principle of strict equality. All initiates, men and women alike, participated equally in the drawing; anyone might be selected to serve as priest, bishop, or prophet.... (p. 41)


On the next page Pagels includes this quote from Tertullian:

To begin with, it is uncertain who is a catechumen, and who a believer; they all have access equally, they listen equally, they pray equally -- even pagans, if any happen to come... They also share the kiss of peace with all who come, for they do not care how differently they treat topics.... (p. 42)


Sounds like my kind of group.
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At the request of [livejournal.com profile] kerri_tgrl, I have compiled a short bibliography on progressive and Gnostic Christianity.

One star (*) means that I have read the book and found it helpful, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to beginners.

Two stars (**) means that I have read the book and recommend it as a must-read for anyone with any interest in these topics.

No stars () means that the book has been recommended to me by others in the progressive Christian or Gnostic communities.

Recommended reading for Liberal Christians )

Recommended reading for those with an interest in Gnosticism )

A while back I listed some recommended web resources here:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/sacred_opinion/12341.html
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Interesting interview with Elaine Pagels (author of The Gnostic Gospels and new book, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas) on Beliefnet.

Sheahen. So when 'Doubting Thomas' felt Jesus' nail wounds and exclaimed, "My Lord and my God," that was a way for the author of John's gospel to tell the author of Thomas "You've got it wrong, there isn't necessarily this universal access to God, you have to go through Jesus, who is Lord"?

Pagels. Yes, it's really a way to tell people who follow that kind of teaching--you might call them 'Thomas Christians'--that even their own apostle realized at a certain point that he was absolutely wrong, and that John was right. It's quite a wonderful device. And it worked! If I mention Thomas, most people say, "Oh, you mean Doubting Thomas."
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I Corinthians 15:44 Speiretai swma psuxikon, egeiretai swma pneumatikon. Estin swma psuxikon kai estin swma pneumatikon.
Translation: [It] is sown/planted an animal body, it is raised/awakened a spiritual body. There is an animal body and there is a spiritual body.

The common translation makes this a contrast between a natural (or animal) body and a spiritual one. But this begs the question, what is a "spiritual body"?

Read more... )
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Hmm, I haven't written about scripture for a while. The idea of struggling with or against turbulence has been on my mind lately, as I contemplate the effectiveness of my actions and the sphere of influence I want to exemplify in my own life.

[Ephesians 6:12] Our struggle is not with blood and flesh, but with the archons, with the exousias, with the cosmic rulers of the darkness of this aion, with the spirits of wickedness in the heavens. (Adapted from Young's Literal Translation)


The usual interpretation of this verse insinuates merely that the primary struggle is not against human enemies but against demons. The Gnostic reading goes much deeper, as is readily obvious.

"Spirits of wickedness in the heavens" suggests a reference to the planets as agents of fortune. This view of the planets as evil survives today in Mandaeism (whose surviving adherents reside today in southern Iraq; may the principle of mercy protect them). I suggest though not a literal struggle against the planets but against the imposition of fate.

"Cosmic Rulers of the Darkness of this aion": Aiwn could refer to "age" or "world" or "realm" or "facet of the divine," and in a sense all of them apply simultaneously. Darkness is that which prevents one from seeing; and in the Valentinian reading the "cosmic rulers of darkness" would be the agents of illusion who like Mara the Tempter weave a cloak of deceit around us.

Exousia: This is an interesting term that any student of the New Testament can't but wonder over. In many instances this refers to the "authority" by which Jesus spoke, a kind of forceful charisma that astounds his listeners. It refers to the ability to give commands and have them carried out, or the power of choice, the ability to do as one pleases. IOW it refers to agents possessing free will.

Archons: Specifically the Greek word arxh implies the principle of dominion. There is no "victory" against the forces of nature, any more than one can prevail against the wind by huffing and puffing against it. The archons are deluded though in thinking they have ultimate dominion over Earth. In this sense they represent us, when we have surrendered to the illusion that we have dominion.

Strugging with (not necessarily against) fate, free will, illusion, and dominion sounds like a metaphysical struggle, not against demons but against conceptual errors that separate us from clearer awareness of what is. In a sense what this means is that we struggle with our own ego, our sense of importance and of self-determination. This struggle, writ large, appears like a cosmic struggle between a liberator (Christ or Buddha) and a weaver of illusion (the Tempter).

It seems to me that in the end we learn how to carve a course that matches the watercourse way -- because this is the way of things.

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