3: Gnosticism Flashcards
What is gnosis?
Gnosis (Greek): Knowledge
This GNOSIS is the most essential thing to obtain in order to attain salvation (or enlightenment?)
Gnosis is the Secret to Salvation
The way to salvation is for humans to learn the “secret knowledge” (gnosis) that can bring liberation from the evil world of matter and enable the spirit of humans to go back to the divine
This knowledge can come only through Revelation
How was gnosis different from “faith” (as understood by the proto-orthodox)**
Gnosis is sometimes contrasted with FAITH (pistis in Greek)…
Proto-Orthodox: Salvation is universal; whoever acknowledges the death and resurrection of Christ as the means for salvation can be saved
Gnostics: Salvation is for the select; only a few select, chosen people who have “secret knowledge” can be saved
How can Gnosticism be understood as a reaction to certain currents in Judaism in the first few centuries of Christianity’s existence? (see Ehrman 1, chap 6)
Ehrman offers one theory rooted within Judaism. According to his theory, Gnosticism can be understood as a response to the failure of Apocalyptic Hopes. When apocalypticism failed, people began to think the following…
Why does suffering continue to exist? Especially suffering that is unreasonable
Perhaps, God is not really good, God doesn’t care, God is the one causing suffering
The Logical Answer is Gnosticism. The God that we have believed so far as the creator is the “lesser” God and nonmaterial. There is One who is the greater God and the really good one. He is trying to save us despite the Demiurge.
Gnosticism is most likely a reaction to certain forms of Judaism and was already present before Christianity was born (not derived from Christianity).
Gnosticism originates from Mystery and Apocalypticism. When we come to the second century, a pessimistic (apocalyptic) view of human beings and creation takes hold (matter, humans, creation is evil).
The “One”
In the beginning there was the “One” (Monad)
This “One” was totally spirit, totally perfect, but also totally unknowable, etc
The “One” generated a divine realm from itself in that the perfect essences of the “one” became themselves existent divine entities
Think of any attribute of the “One” (thinking, living, love)
Each of these become themselves existent divine entities (they emanate from the one)
Aeons
These entities that emerged from the “One” were called: Aeons (emanations of the “One”)
An Aeon could also in turn produce other aeons so that at one point an entire realm of divine aeons are now in divine existence
Pleroma: Realm of Aeons (fullness of God’s power)
Sophia: The Final (or lowest) Aeon of the “One”
According to some Gnostic myths, the final aeon identified as Wisdom (“Sophia”) has a “fall” from the Pleroma . We know a version where Sophia decides to generate a divine being apart from her male consort: Yaldabaoth
Yaldabaoth: Sophia’s malformed offspring (YAHWEH + Sabaoth)
The Demiurge, Monotheism and the God of the Old Testament
The Demiurge does not know the Pleroma from where he originally came
Hence, he declares (in the OT) “I am God and there is no other.”
It is this “God” - the Demiurge - who creates Adam and Eve and all of the other things in Genesis
Since all of those things came from the Demiurge, they are evil, because the Demiurge is evil
Notice that there is a downward movement from spirit to matter
The Divine Spark of the “One” in Humans
The “One” (true God) tricks the Demiurge by breathing the breath of life into humans
Thus, humans, although a creation of the Demiurge, have a spark from the “One” true God
But it is trapped in this evil material body
Humans were cast into the realm of matter but carry in themselves the spark from the One
This is the key to being free from matter and going back to the “One”
Jesus Christ’s role in the Gnostic scheme of things
Within that worldview, we can more or less understand the main contours of Christian Gnosticism.
Gnostic Worldview: Christ is the one sent by the “One” (true God) to provide the saving “Gnosis.”
He could not have been truly a human being because he could not take part in evil matter.
Matter/Body is evil; Spirit is good.
The Ugly Duckling Story epitomizes what gnostic legends tell us: The world is evil and ugly, but within the depths of everyone, there is a divine spark.
Pleroma
Realm of Aeons (fullness of God’s power)
Sophia
The Final (or lowest) Aeon of the “One”
According to some Gnostic myths, the final aeon identified as Wisdom (“Sophia”) has a “fall” from the Pleroma. We know a version where Sophia decides to generate a divine being apart from her male consort: Yaldabaoth
Yaldabaoth
Sophia’s malformed offspring (YAHWEH + Sabaoth)
Give some examples of how the Gnostics criticized the proto-orthodox?
The Gnostics and Docetics taunted the positions of the Proto-Orthodox…
2nd Treatise of the Great Seth
( 1 ) Those who were there punished me. And I did not die in reality but in appearance, lest I be put to shame by them because these are my kinsfolk. I removed the shame from me and I did not become faint hearted in the face of what happened to me at their hands. …
The people who wrote this passage did not believe that Jesus was fully human, because Jesus was only human in appearance. This position is taken by Docetism.
( 2 ) For my death which they think happened, to them in their error and blindness, since they nailed their man unto their death…
This position is taken by Gnostics, many of whom were docetic in their ideas.
( 3 ) Yes they saw me; they punished me. It was another, their father, who drank the gall and vinegar, it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. I was another upon Whom they placed the crown of thornes. But I was rejoicing in the height over all the wealth of the archons and the offspring of their error, of their empty glory. And I was laughing at their ignorance.
We already met this laughing Jesus in the Gospel of Jesus. Jesus is watching it happen, laughing, because they think he is dying but he is alive and among the aeons.
Inversely, how did the proto-orthodox criticize the “heretics”?
Proto-Orthodox: “Heretics are non-sensical!”
Irenaeus against Valentinians who believed that among the first group of aeons hich came forth from God are SILENCE and WORD: “Nonsense! If there is word, there is no more silence…”
Gnostics believed that Sophia (WISDOM) attempts to overcome her IGNORANCE, overreaches herself and falls
Irenaeus argued that Wisdom cannot be ignorant
Tertullian’s thought that the idea of 2 Gods is nonsensical: “Either God is one or he is not God at all…”
