Gnosticism

Gnosticism is a blanket term for various mystical initiatory religions and sects, which were most prominent in the first few centuries CE. It is also applied to modern revivals of these sects and, sometimes, by analogy to all religious movements based on secret knowledge gnosis, thus leading to confusion.

Theology

It is generally accepted by most historians that there is a significant amount of Buddhist/Hindu influence in Gnostic interpretations of the Bible. The standard tactic of Gnostic texts is to radically reinterpret a well-known text (usually Genesis and its related Biblical books) through the addition of an original prologue. However, this is not to say that gnosticism necessarily post-dates orthodox Christianity or Judaism; rather, the two developed side by side, and ideas often inter-penetrated from one strand to another.

Related Topics:
Buddhist - Hindu

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A common point of contention is whether or not the Gnostics believed seriously in the events they chronicled, or whether they were understood to be mere representations of the truth; a mythologised philosophy comprising both a cosmogony and a moral system, rather than a literally factual account of creation. It is difficult to state that one or the other is universally correct; it seems likely that a mixture of the two positions was common.

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Commonly, the gnostic prologue to Genesis describes an unknown God, very different in nature to the common conception of God. The normal conception defines God through a series of positives commonly taken to their superlative degrees: as well as being explicitly male, he is omniscient, omnipotent and truly benevolent. The gnostic conception of God is often defined through a string of negatives: he is immovable, invisible, intangible, ineffable; commonly, "he" is seen as being androgynous, a potent symbol for being, as it were, 'all-containing'. This mode of thinking about God is so important in gnosticism that he is sometimes referred to as "the uncontained"; otherwise he may be referred to as Bythos, the Monad as it is called by Monoimus, or the first Aeon. In essence, gnosticism posits a God that may not be described in any rational sense; it is only possible to say what God isn't, and the experience of it remains something, again, in defiance of rational description.

Related Topics:
Bythos - Monad - Monoimus - Aeon

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This original God went through a series of emanations, during which its essence is seen as expanding into many successive "generations" of paired male and female beings, called "aeons". A frequent complaint concerning gnostic texts is the complexity of their narratives and the numerous characters within them. Some gnostic texts posit as many as twenty of these aeons (Valentinius listed 30 such pairs). These should be seen as representative of the various attributes of God, themselves indiscernible when not abstracted from their origin. In this sense, the aeons and their emanation are more akin to a poetic device; They allow an otherwise utterly unknowable God to be discussed in a meaningful way amongst initiates. Collectively, God and the aeons comprise the sum total of the spiritual universe, known as the Pleroma.

Related Topics:
Emanations - Pleroma

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At this point in the myth the universe was still entirely non-material. The increasing fragmentation of the nature of God into more and more aeons led, eventually, to instability within the primordial universe. This growing problem reached its climax with the appearance of the lowest aeon, called Sophia (Gr. "wisdom"). In several versions, Sophia attempts to surmount the rigid hierarchy of the divine nature, trying to approach close to God himself. (Recall that though the aeons comprise God in his totally, they are nevertheless at the same time individual characters abstracted from him, otherwise we would have the paradoxical situation of God divided into many essences.) In other cases, Sophia imitates God in performing an emanation of her own. In both cases, this intransigence causes a crisis within the Pleroma, leading to the creation of Yaldabaoth, a "serpent with a lion's head" (Apocryphon of John). This figure is commonly known as the Demiurge, after the figure in Plato's Timaeus (Gr. demiurgos - "one who shapes" (typical translation); "Tame Worker / One Who Domesticates" (literal translation)). This being is at first hidden by Sophia, but later escapes, stealing a portion of divine power from his mother.

Related Topics:
Sophia - Apocryphon of John - Demiurge - Plato - Timaeus

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Using this stolen power, Yaldabaoth creates a material world in imitation of the divine Pleroma. To complete this task, he spawns a group of entities known collectively as Archons, "petty rulers" and craftsmen of the physical world. Like him they are commonly depicted as theriomorphic, having the heads of animals. At this point the events of the Gnostic narrative join with the events of Genesis, with the Demiurge and his Archontic cohorts fulfilling the role of the creator. The Demiurge declares himself to be the only god, and that none exist superior to him.

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From here the events follow in the familiar fashion. God creates Adam, during the process unwittingly transferring into Adam's body the portion of power stolen from his mother. He then creates Eve from the Adam's rib; the two are tempted by the serpent, and fall. However, the addition of the prologue radically alters the nature of the fall; rather than attributing the fall to human weakness, gnostics locate the ultimate cause of the fall in the instability of the divine nature itself. The fall of Adam and Eve thus becomes something of a redemption. Eating the fruit of Knowledge is the first act of human salvation from cruel, oppressive powers. The Gnostic conception of the Fall as a divinely caused event follows.

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