Sophia - last emanation of the Dodecad.  Paired with Theletos (will, ordained, perfection)

R. – The intense desire that Sophia had to reintegrate with the abyssal Silence, was stronger than the Power of emanation. She knew the Abyss of the Propator; she discerned the method of generating the Eons, and wanted to imitate this divine action.

D. –    What did the desire of Sophia produce?

R. – The ardors of Sophia only succeeded in the creation of a formless being called Ektrôma. The Eons, at the sight of this, prostrated themselves at the Father’s feet to implore Him to rescue Sophia.

D. – What are the other names of Ektrôma?

R. – Enthymêsis or Sophia-Achamoth.

-from the Catechism of the Eglise Gnostique

Horos (the Limiter) also called Stauros (cross) is sent to her by the Father, and he preserves her from destruction and restores her to her first estate. 

The abortion she has brought forth — that formless substance to which she has given birth — is expelled by Horos from the Pleroma, and sinks into the Kenoma or empty space. 

Sophia-Achamoth, the lower Sophia is exiled to the Kenoma.

By command of the Father, Nous and Aletheia hereupon bring forth by emanation two new Aeons — Christ and the Holy Spirit; these enlighten the other Aeons as to their relation with Bythos, and order is again restored among them. 

In the joy that follows, all the other Aeons produce in common a new Aeon of higher excellence, who is known by several names — Jesus, Soter, or Christ, and him they offer as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father.

The Soter takes pity on that formless substance named Achamoth, the offspring of Sophia, which Horos has relegated to the Kenoma, and having given it essence and form, retires again within the Pleroma. 

As soon as Achamoth becomes sensible of the light which Christ has imparted to it, the desire springs up within it to enter into the Pleroma, but being hindered by Horos, it becomes the victim of fear, and sorrow, and want.

In response to its petitions, the Pleroma sends the Aeon Jesus to deliver it from suffering, to rescue it from the Pathê (Fear, Sorrow, Want, Supplication), and to reconcile it with God. 

But for all this, it does not succeed in attaining to the Pleroma; it reaches no further than a sphere bordering on the Pleroma, separated from the latter by Horos and the Cross, and called the lower Ogdoas. 

Achamoth generates the Demiurge- a purely physical being with no knowledge of his parent. The Demiurge produces the sensible world, the matter of which is constituted by the Pathê which Jesus separated from Achamoth. 

The Pleroma forms the archetype for the Demiurgus in his labours; the sensible world is, accordingly, modelled after the Pleroma. But in this imitation the Demiurgus is an imitator unconsciously; he does not know the Pleroma, and cannot know it, for he is a purely physical being. The place of the Demiurgus is in heaven, below Achamoth; the earth is the habitation of the Demon.

Man is a creation of the Demiurge. He is formed from matter (hylê), receives a soul (psychê) from the Demiurge, and a spirit (pneuma) from Achamoth. The nature of man is thus a compound formed of three elements, Body, Soul, and Spirit. The body of man was at first an ethereal nature, immaterial, and without difference of sex. It was only when man fell into sin that he was invested with a coarse material body. 

The spirit which Achamoth had implanted in him without knowledge of the Demiurge impelled man to raise himself above the latter. The Demiurge, with his angels, took alarm, and to keep man in subjection forbade him to eat of the tree of knowledge. Man disobeyed the command, and thereupon was driven from the ethereal region of Paradise into the coarse material sphere of this nether earth. Here he was invested with a material body. In this condition he is saved from complete subjection to matter only by the aid of Achamoth.

The Law and the Prophets are from the Demiurge. He had promised a Messiah — but a Messiah of a psychical nature only. Man, endowed as he was with a spiritual nature, was not, however, to remain for ever under the dominion of the Demiurge. 

The Saviour, Jesus, descended from the Pleroma to make known to men the mysteries of the life of God, and to free them from the dominion of the Demiurge. For this end the man Jesus was formed from the three elements of human nature, Spirit, Soul, and Body, but in such wise that his body was not of coarse material constitution, but of ethereal form. This man came into the world, passing through the body of Mary as through a channel. In the ceremony of Baptism he united himself with the Aeon, Jesus, and remained in union with him till the trial before Pilate. At this point he abandoned him and returned into the Pleroma. (Other Valentinians taught that the Aeon, Jesus, was united with the man Jesus from the time of the conception of the latter).

Jesus came into the world to redeem men; that is to say, to reveal to them the divine mysteries, and to free them from subjection to the Demiurge; but all do not participate in this redemption. 

The Valentinians distinguish three classes of men, the Hylics, the Psychics, and the Pneumatics. The Hylics are wholly outside the region of the higher life, the spirit is not imparted to them in any degree, they have, therefore, no existence after death. The Psychics, on the other hand (i.e., the members of the Church who are content with mere faith), although they do not participate in the spirit, and are subject to the dominion and to the law of the Demiurge, yet if they fulfil this law, and wage the fight against matter, and practise good works, may after death attain to the kingdom of the Demiurge. But the Pneumatics, i.e., the Gnostics, have been made partakers of the spirit by Jesus; they rise above faith to the Gnosis; in the Gnosis they have knowledge of the mysteries of the Pleroma, and the knowledge leads to supreme happiness. After death they return to Achamoth their mother. There is no resurrection of the body.

When the course of this world is run, Achamoth and all the spirits of the Pneumatics that are associated with her, return again to the Pleroma; the spirits mingle with the angels, to whom they are united connubially, and with whom their existence is thenceforward continued. The Demiurge, with the souls that belong to him, ascends to the realm previously inhabited by Achamoth. As for the nether material world, the fire which was latent in matter bursts forth and entirely consumes it, and nothing is left but the Pleroma and the kingdom of the Demiurge.

Download the charts here: http://bit.ly/valentiniancosmology 

News

Bulgaria’s claim to have unearthed six bones belonging to John the Baptist has received a boost from scientists who have concluded after dating them and analyzing their genetic code that they could indeed be relics of the man who baptized Jesus.

The remains, which include a molar and a piece of cranium, were found in July 2010 in a marble sarcophagus in the ruins of a medieval church on the island of Sveti Ivan, or Saint John, off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast near the resort of Sozopol.

They are on display in a church in Sozopol where thousands of worshippers have flocked to view them, untroubled by questions about their authenticity.

Higham’s team dated a knuckle-bone to the first century AD, when John the Baptist would have lived, while geneticist colleagues from the University of Copenhagen established the full DNA code of three of the bones.

The genetic analysis showed that the bones were from the same person, a man who most probably came from the Middle East.

Higham, who is an atheist, said that it was obviously impossible to say with any certainty that the remains belonged to John the Baptist. But it could not be ruled out.

“I’m much less skeptical than I was at the beginning. I think there’s possibly more to it. But I’d like to find out more,” he told Reuters on Friday.

from http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/06/15/us-britain-bulgaria-bones-idINBRE85E0U220120615

Happy Birthday to Mar Iohannes IV, Shaun McCann, Patriarch of the Apostolic Johannite Church

If you’re in the Boston area,  join St Sarah’s Parish on Saturday, 14 July for the beginning of a new series “Primeval Source: Platonism & the Gnostic Experience.” The Johannite Gnostic Mass begins at 5 p.m., followed by this lecture and discussion at 6 p.m. at 21 Maple Street, Arlington, Massachusetts.  for more information see:

http://stsarahs.blogspot.com/

Johannite Practice book fundraiser has passed 50% with two weeks left to go! All donations received on Friday, July 13th (in honor of the Knights Templar) will be matched (up to a total of $300) by the Rose Croix Parish of the Johannite Church. http://johannitepractice.chipin.com/finishing-the-johannite-practice-book

Sethians considered themselves to be the “seed of Seth,” the third son of Adam and Eve; the Seed of Seth was the section of humanity that had received Gnosis and would thus have a different fate than the offspring of Cain and Abel.  They also referred to themselves as “the generation of Seth”, or “the immoveable race.”

John Turner has suggested that they, like the Mandaens, may have originated as a baptismal sect along the lines of the disciples of John the Baptist or the Essenes.  These early Sethians saw Adam and Seth as revealers and looked forward to a return of Seth in the future.  The Apocalypse of Adam, which dates to the mid second century or earlier, has no clearly Christian features.  Later, Seth came to be identified with Christ as Sethian communities came into contact with nascent Christianity.

Seth - also an important figure in heterodox Jewish literature of the same period.  

Sethians are most clearly labelled as “Gnostics” in the writings of the heresiologists, and   Bentley Layton coined the phrase “classical Gnosticism” to refer to the Sethians.

One notable figure in the Sethian worldview is the female figure of Barbelo, who is the first emanation from the Father God.  She played a significant role in Sethianism, to the extent that they were also referred to as “Barbeloites.”

Sethians sometimes referred to a trinity - a father, mother and son.  The Father is the Invisible Spirit,  the mother is Barbelo and the son is Autogenes (the self-generated) or Anthropos, as the archetypal human.

Demiurge - called Yaldabaoth or Saklas.  Usually identified as the God of the Hebrew Bible.

Sethian sacraments - included baptism and the five seals (ascent).

John Turner suggests that as Sethian groups were rejected by the growing tendency towards a homogenized orthodox Christian movement, they turned towards a more Platonic emphasis.  They were, in turn, rejected by mainstream Platonists such as Plotinus.  The Sethian movement later fractured into groups like the Audians, Borborites, Archontics, and Phibionites, some of which survived for centuries, even into the early Middle Ages.

Some speculate that the inversion process in Sethianism is rooted in the spiritual evolution of a Jewish sect that rejected the orthodox Jewish faith and saw conventional Judaism of the day as a tool of the Demiurge.

Sethian thought is presented in various works including:

• Apocryphon (Secret Book) of John (NHC II,1; III,1; IV,1; BG,2)
• Apocalypse (Revelation) of Adam (NHC V,5)
• Trimorphic Protennoia (Three Forms of First Thought) (NHC XIII,1)
• Hypostasis of the Archons (Nature of the Rulers) (NHC II,4)
• Thought of Norea (NHC IX,2)
• Gospel of the Egyptians, or The Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (NHC III,2; IV,2)
• Melchizedek (NHC IX,1)
• Three Steles of Seth (NHC VII,5)
• Zostrianos (NHC VIII,1)
• Allogenes (the Stranger) (NHC XI,3)
• Marsanes (NHC X,1)
• The  Untitled Text in the Bruce Codex (CBruc., 3)
• Gospel of Judas (CTchakos,3)
• Book of Allogenes (CTchakos,4)

The Apocryphon of John gives the most complete expression of the Gnostic worldview.  It contains a classic Gnostic myth that has been Christianized by editorial revisions and the insertion of a Christian frame story.

The revised version of the Ap of John shows considerable influence from the Gospel of John, and can be construed as an esoteric continuation of the Gospel of John.

The basic myth in the Ap John begins with the Primal Father, the invisible Monad, which is above everything.  He is described in very apophatic terms: invisible, illimitable, unsearchable, immeasurable, ineffable, etc.

Thought, or the first power, named Barbelo, was the first emanation from the Monad.  She is also referred to as ‘Mother-Father” and “thrice male.”  She becomes the intiator of further emanations and the mother of Autogenes (“self-begotten”), from whom come additional emanations, including  the angels Harmozel, Oroiael, Daueithai, and Eleleth and Adamas, the perfect man.

Then comes a break in the process of emanation.  Sophia, the youngest of the Aeons, desires to bring forth a likeness of herself without the consent of the Invisible Spirit and without her consort.  The result is an ugly and deformed being called Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge.  He gives rise to twelve archons and seven rulers of the planetary spheres.  In  his blindness, he says “I am God and there is no other God beside me.”

The story continues with the creation of humans by the Archons, but Adam is lifeless until the Mother Sophia tricks Yaldabaoth into breathing into Adam the life-giving breath, a remnant of the power Sophia had given to Yaldabaoth.

The Archons, seeing that Adam surpasses them in intelligence, place him in the Garden of Eden and encourage him to eat of the “Tree of Life” - which is really a Tree of Death - while conspiring to keep him away from the Tree of Knowledge.  Yaldabaoth creates Eve, according to the image of Epinoia, the First Thought of the Ineffable Father.

Despite the Archons’ efforts, they taste of the Tree of Knowledge and are then cast out of Paradise.  Yaldabaoth then seduces Eve and she gives birth to Cain and Abel.

Adam then begets “the likeness of the Son of Man” and names him Seth, whose consort is Norea.

After this, the Ap John continues with a discussion of the destiny of human souls.  Those of the “immoveable race,” the descendents of Seth on whom the spirit of life descends, will be given eternal life.  Ignorant souls, dominated by the spirit of error, will be reincarnated and given another opportunity.

Salvation is aided by the threefold descent of an aspect of Barbelo named Pronoia.  

Recommended Reading:

• The Gnostics: History • Tradition • Scriptures by Andrew Phillip Smith
• The Secret Revelation of John by Karen L. King
• John Turner’s website http://jdt.unl.edu
• charts: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u5d53aoex9f8x26/fywe7OoAia/Cosmology%20Apocryphon%20of%20John

News (+TL)

• New homilies by Origen found: http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=19402

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican newspaper reported Tuesday that 29 previously unpublished homilies said to be the work of one of the most important and prolific early church fathers have been discovered in a German library.

The 3rd Century theologian Origen of Alexandria is considered to have played a critical role in the development of Christian thought. Pope Benedict XVI, himself a theologian, dedicated two of his 2007 weekly church teaching sessions to the importance of Origen’s life and work.

Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said that despite Origen’s importance, few of his original texts remain in part because he was condemned by the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 553.

• Congratulations to the newly-consecrated bishop, +Timotheus, Bishop of New South Wales for the AJC.  You can read some of Bishop Tim’s writings at his blog, “That Our Hearts May Burn With Fire” at http://father-tim.blogspot.com/.
• Although the event happened late last year, we also want to congratulate the Ecclesia Gnostica’s new bishop, Steven Marshall, who serves as auxillary bishop and has contributed many helpful homilies which you can find at the Gnosis.org website.

News (AS+)

• GNOSTIC CONCEPT ALBUM “THE 13 REPENTANCES OF THE PISTIS SOPHIA” TO BE PERFORMED IN ITS ENTIRETY, WITH NARRATION, AT MEDICINE SHOW, 549 WEST 52nd, 7:30 PM, JUNE 15, 2012
  • The Thirteen Repentances of the Pistis Sophia— presented by Medicine Show’s Word/Play series— lyrics by Gary Heidt and Cassandra Victoria Chopourian, based on the Pistis Sophia; music by Fist of Kindness— will emerge, glistening, into consensual reality on June 15, 7:30 pm at Medicine Show, 549 West 52nd.  Tickets are $10 at the door.
  • This event is made possible in part by New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and also by the apparently benign neglect of the Demiurge.
  • http://fistofkindness.bandcamp.com/
  • http://www.facebook.com/events/184757238317650/
• Book: Gnostic Trends in the Local Church (via the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview http://www.colsoncenter.org/the-center/columns/worldview/17898-gnostic-trends-in-the-local-church)
  • Michael Philliber opens his recent book Gnostic Trends in the Local Church by recounting how the Christian section of his local bookstore recently became bloated with books by pro-Gnostic authors like Elaine Pagels and Marvin Meyer.

Content

recap of last week, intro to this week

Simon Magus

• Simon Magus is often claimed as the earliest Gnostic

but it is difficult to tell how much of this might be historical and how much is merely a political ploy to blame the origin of Gnosticism on a notorious character from the book of Acts.

• A text called The Great Exposition, probably dating to the 2nd Century, purports to expound Simon’s true teachings.

• a disciple of John the Baptist (some say of Dositheos, a disciple of John the Baptist), whom he eventually succeeded.

• “simony.” (initiation fee)

• Simon’s cosmology
  • Fire is the first principle of all things.
  • This Fire is androgynous, having both sexes within itself. Its male aspect was hidden, and its female aspect was manifested in the name Silence.
  • The Cosmos came into being from the unbegotten Fire through Silence by means of six aspects of the Fire — six “Roots” or “Powers,” in three male-female polarities or syzygies:
    • Nous (Mind), also called Dynamis (Power), and Ennoia (Thought);
    • Phonê (Voice) and Onoma (Name);
    • Logismos (Reason) and Enthymêsis (Reflection or Plan).

• The process of emanation continued, with additional pairs.

• The material world, according to Simon, was produced by angelic beings who did not know the Father and wished to rule the Cosmos themselves.

• They divided the Man, who contained the Spirit of the Father, into two sexes.

• The angels captured Ennoia and shut her up in a human body, forcing her to wander through the ages from one body to another on the wheel of generation.

• Simon’s disciples revered him as an incarnation of the “Great Power of God,” i.e. of Nous, or the Boundless Power.

• Simon’s followers believed that the Boundless Power, beholding the crimes of the angels, had descended into the lower regions where he appeared as a man, though he was not a man. They believed that he had revealed himself as the Father to the Samaritans, and as the Son (Jesus) to the Jews.

• As the Son he suffered a docetic passion, i.e., in appearance only, for a true manifestation of divinity cannot truly suffer or die. In his current form, he offered salvation to his followers from angelic tyranny through his divine knowledge (Gnôsis), the knowledge of the Male-Female Mother-Father whose divided essence pervades all Humanity.

• To the Simonians, the term “salvation” meant liberation from the tyranny of the angels, from the repetitive cycles of physical life.

• While teaching in the Phoenician city of Tyre, the divine Simon beheld a courtesan on the roof of a brothel. Her name was Helena, and he recognized her immediately as the current incarnation of Ennoia, His First Thought, the Holy Spirit, the Mother of All. She was the Lost Sheep, forced by her progeny the angels to wander through the centuries from vessel to vessel (including that of Helen of Troy), until she ended up at the brothel in Tyre. He purchased her from her master and she became his constant companion during his travels and teachings. Their reunion represented the beginning of the redemption of the world, and was the model for the process of salvation to Simon’s followers.

• According to one rather questionable legend (which is nevertheless taken at face value by the Roman Catholic Church), Simon eventually ended up in Rome where he was defeated by the apostle Peter in magical combat. Simon allegedly flew into the air to demonstrate his power to the Emperor Nero, but Peter canceled his spell and brought him crashing to the ground. According to a more plausible account, he died peacefully among his followers in Antioch.

• Simonian churches persisted until the time of Constantine, mainly in Syria, Phrygia, Egypt and Rome.

• Whether Simon was or was not the “Father of all Heresies,” his teachings certainly exerted considerable influence in the development of later Gnostic systems. All have made use of similar systems of aeonic emanations. Also, the story of Simon and Helena seems to be a precursor of the Sophia mythos of Valentinus and the writings of the Sethians

Basilides

• Basilides, who lived in Alexandria,  taught by the Apostle Matthias, as well as being a disciple of Glaucias, who was a disciple of St. Peter.  Basilides may have been a teacher of the Great Valentinus, who we shall discuss at length in a later episode.

• His system was probably an attempt to reconcile the Pauline Christianity, Egyptian Gnosticism, and popular Alexandrian Platonist philosophy of his day with his own mystical experiences.

• He wrote 24 commentaries, called Exegetica, on the Gospels, only fragments of which now remain. He also wrote hymns and odes for his congregation, none of which have been discovered to date.

• According to preserved fragments of his writings, the doctrines of Basilides apparently included those of reincarnation and of “karma,” but there is no convincing evidence that he was directly influenced by Eastern systems.

• Like most other Gnostics, Basilides believed that matter and spirit were of opposing natures.

• To Basilides, the passions were unnatural accretions which encrusted the spiritual essence due to its entanglement in matter. Sin consisted of preoccupation with materiality, of which everyone is, by nature, guilty.

• Salvation involved the disentanglement of spirit from matter, and was to be accomplished through ascetism and faith.

• To Basilides, there were those who had the capacity for faith, the elect, who were characterized by a sense that they are somehow aliens in this world, and by a sort of “nostalgia” and longing for the transcendent. There are also those who are incapable of faith, who feel perfectly at home in the world and are, indeed, entirely a part of it; these Basilides labels “pigs and dogs.”

• Basilides rejected the orthodox Christian idea of the resurrection of the flesh; Basilides taught that only souls are saved, bodies are worth nothing.

• According to Irenaeus, Basilides taught that the universe began when five Aeons (or Aions, literally “eternities”) emanated in succession from the Unbegotten Father. These were:

• Mind (Nous) or Christ, Word (Logos),
• Intelligence or Prudence (Phronêsis),
• Wisdom (Sophia)
• and Strength or Power (Dynamis).

• These five Aeons constitute the Plêrôma (“Fullness”).

• From the last two Aeons, Sophia and Dynamis, issued 365 spirit-realms or “heavens” in an unbroken descending sequence, each with its own set of angelic rulers. These 365 “heavens” or “Aethyrs” are constituted under the name Abrasax. By Greek Gematria, ABRASAX = 365.

• The God of the Hebrews, who created this illusory world and is its ruler (Archon) was not the supreme Deity, but merely the leader of the angels ruling the lowest “heaven.”

• Ignorant of the existence of the Supreme Deity, this Dêmiourgos, or Demiurge, accomplished his pseudo-creation through the activities of his six sons, the planetary spirits, and demanded the worship of those he had created.

• Humanity is actually of the essence of the Supreme Deity, but clothed about with the illusion of the Demiurge.

• When the Supreme Deity perceived the corruption of the world of illusion and the suffering of humanity, he sent his firstborn, Nous or Christ, into the world to bring them to salvation from illusion through the transcendent Knowledge (Gnôsis) of their Divine Nature.

• Nous incarnated as Jesus.  Since Nous was a divine power, and not corporeal, He could not die— Jesus, therefore, did not die on the cross, as assumed by those in the bonds of illusion. He was instead replaced thereon by a substitute, Simon of Cyrene, and ascended again to the Father.

Carpocrates

• Followers of Carpocrates believed that Jesus was not divine; but because his soul was “steadfast and pure”, he “remembered those things which he had witnessed within the sphere of the unbegotten God” (similar to Plato’s concept of Anamnesis).

• Because of this, Jesus was able to free himself from the material powers (what other Gnostics call Archons, the Demiurge, etc.).

• Carpocratians believed they themselves could transcend the material realm, and therefore were no longer bound by Mosaic law, which was based on the material powers, or by any other morality, which, they held, was mere human opinion.

• He taught that in the beginning was the divine primitive source, “the father of all,” “the one beginning “.

• Angels, far removed from this source, have created the world.

• The world-builders have imprisoned in bodies the fallen souls, who originally worked with God, and now have to go through every form of life and every act to regain their freedom.

• During their transmigrations the souls have retained the power of remembering (Gk. anamnesis), though in different degree.

• The soul of Jesus, son of Joseph, possessed the power of remembering God in greatest purity. Therefore God bestowed upon him power to escape the world-builders and to despise the customs in which he was brought up.

• Whosoever thinks and acts like him obtains the same power; whosoever is still more perfect can reach higher. This is the faith and the love through which we are saved; everything else, essentially indifferent, is good or bad, godless or shameless only according to human conceptions; for by nature nothing is bad.

• The Carpocratians rendered divine honor to Jesus as to the other secular sages (Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle). they possessed a portrait of Christ, a painting they claimed had been made by Pilate during his lifetime, which they honoured along with images of Plato, Pythagoras and Aristotle “in the manner of the Gentiles”.

• Irenaeus says that they practised various magical arts as well as leading a licentious life. They claimed for themselves the power of ruling the world-builders: magic arts, exorcism, and love-potions, dreams and cures were at their command, and like other secret societies they had a special mark of recognition, which they burned with a hot iron on the back of the lobe of the right ear.

We’re talking about Simon Magus, Carpocrates and Basilides. These were some really interesting folks hanging out in the desert about 2000 years ago and we geek out about them pretty hard. Cosmogonies! Don’t miss it.

Wednesday June 6th 2012 9pm Eastern on YouTube and Google+.

Here are our rough notes for the first episode of Talk Gnosis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfauTGcUopc

Tonight we discuss the definition of Gnosis and the classical Gnostics; what they have in common, what they thought about the world, and what stories they told about themselves.

Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions And Literature by Birger A. Pearson

The Gnostics: History*Tradition*Scriptures by Andrew Phillip Smith

The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions - Bentley Layton

email us your comments and questions to [email protected], or leave them in the Comments section below.

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Commonalities among classical Gnostic theologies/ Working definition of Gnosis

It was in December 1945 that the Nag Hammadi codices were discovered.  Mohammed Ali es-Samman and his brother Khalifah Ali, two Arab camel drivers, were out looking for fertilizer and they found a large earthenware jar, which they smashed open to discover 12 codices, which eventually made their way into the hands of scholars.


Some Key Terms:

Emanations - Emanationism - from the Latin emanare meaning “to flow from” or “to pour forth or out of.”  Example: stone thrown into a lake emanates ripples. Emanationism is distinct from the mainstream Judeo-Christian doctrine of Creationism - the idea that the world was created out of nothing by a God who is separate from creation.

Kenoma - “deficiency.”  The world of form and matter, which is separated from the fullness.  Its existence is relative and transient.

Pleroma - “fullness.”  The world of the Ineffable Godhead and the Divine Aeons.  The place where things truly exist

Apophatic Theology - also known as negative theology—is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation, to speak of God only in absolutely certain terms and to avoid what may not be said. In Orthodox Christianity, apophatic theology is based on the assumption that God’s essence is unknowable or ineffable and on the recognition of the inadequacy of human language to describe God.  One of the first to articulate the theology in Christianity was the Apostle Paul, whose reference to the Unknown God is included in the book of Acts .  



Cosmology

Gnostics teach that from the Ineffable God, the Father, emanated numberless Aeons, whose number varied from system to system and who, taken all together, make up the the fullness - the Pleroma.  

In most Gnostic creation narratives, Sophia - Greek for Wisdom, the last of the emanations, produced an inferior wisdom named Achamoth (Hebrew Chokhmah), and also the psychical and material worlds.

Emanations - The Gnostic teacher Basilides used the term aporria (flowing from or efflux), while the Holy Valentinus used the term probole (throwing forth, projection).

Inverse exegesis and allegorical interpretation.  Sethians, who we will talk more about in a later episode, tended to turn stories from the Hebrew Scriptures around 180 degrees, with the serpent in the Garden of Eden and figures like Cain becoming heroes instead of villains.  Valentinians tended towards an allegorical interpretation of Scripture.

Dualism/Monism

“The ancient Gnostics drew a clear line between the material world and the spiritual world of gnosis.  Gnosticism is thus dualistic.  There is spirit and there is matter.  There is the spiritual world and there is the world of the spirit, often called the Pleroma, from a Greek word meaning ‘fulness’ or ‘completness.’  To many, this dualism may initially seem to be surprising, being perceived as a quality that belongs more to fundamentalists religion than to true spirituality…but classical Gnostic dualism was a dualism within unity.  All and everything springs forth from God, but the material world is a result of a cosmic fall, an error made in the lowest reaches of the spiritual realm.” - Andrew Philip Smith

The Gospel of Philip says, “The world came about through a mistake.”

Dr. Birger Pearson, in Ancient Gnosticism, writes, “A characteristic feature of Gnosticism is a dualistic way of looking at God, humanity, and the world, involving a radical reinterpretation of earlier scriptures.”

“In terms of cosmology, the spatiotemporal universe in which we live (the cosmos) is regarded by the Gnostics as a prison in which the true human self is shackled.  Create and governed by the lower creator and his minions, it is the realm of chaos and darkness in the view of most ancient Gnostics.  However, it must be admitted that this radical dualism is somewhat mitigated in later Gnostic systems.” - Birger Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism

The Sethians, who we will talk about in a later program, held to a radically dualistic position, while the view of the Valentinians was more nuanced and mitigated.  The Sethians saw matter as evil, an abortion caused by the fall of Sophia; Valentinians held to a dualistic model, but believed that the cosmos had been shaped to assist in the maturity of the seeds of light.


The Demiurge

The Demiurge, literally means “Craftsman”; its use can be traced back to Plato’s Timaeus, written circa 360 BC, where the Demiurge is described as the literal Creator of the Universe.  In Neoplatonism school, the demiurge is the fashioner of the real, perceptible world, and of the Ideas, but is not the Monad.

“In terms of theology, the Gnostics split the transcendent God into two: a super-transcendent supreme God who is utterly alien to the world, and a lower diety who is responsible for creating and governing the world in which we live.” - Birger Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism

In Gnostic systems, the Demiurge is the being that gives shape to the kenoma, the physical universe.  Some Gnostics viewed the Demiurge as a malevolent figure - the Sethians, for instance, called him Saklas (“fool”) and saw him as the spirit responsible for trying to keep humans trapped in the world of illusion and ignorance.  Others, such as the Valentinians, saw him in a more positive light, as the one who gave shape to the material world in order to provide a space for the seeds of light to mature.  We’ll talk more about that in later programs, where we’ll go into depth on the Sethians and the Valentinians.

The actual term “Demiurge” (D?miourgos) was only used in the Valentinian schools.  Sethians, Ophites and others had a variety of different names for him.  The Sethian Apocryphon of John says:  

Now the archon (ruler) who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas (“fool”), and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, “I am God and there is no other God beside me,” for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.

The idea of the Demiurge and the fall of Sophia from the Pleroma allowed the Gnostics to come up with a unique approach to the problem of evil/original sin.  In mainstream Judeo-Christian thought, evil is the result of man’s disobedience.  In other systems, such as Zoroastrianism, there is an equal, or almost equal, evil God.  In Gnosticism, evil doesn’t originate with the ineffable Godhead or with man’s disobedience, but with a snafu in the process of emanation.  
 

The Catechism of the Gnostic Church describes it thusly:

In effect, the imbalance occurred thus: as the mysterious Eogonie developped itself in the splendors of the Empyrée, the strength of the emanation decreased in power, while the desire for reintegration rose with more force in the heart of the Eons. There came a time when this desire was carried away by the radiating Power: at that moment, Sophia began to act…The intense desire that Sophia had to reintegrate with the abyssal Silence, was stronger than the Power of emanation. She knew the Abyss of the Propator; she discerned the method of generating the Eons, and wanted to imitate this divine action.  

Salvation through Gnosis

The goal of the Gnostic is to be saved from the cosmic prison in which it now exists and to be restored to the realm of light from which the true human self originated.  Gnosis provides the means for achieving this and ensuring the passage of the soul after death back to God.  Once the process of liberation is completed, that is when all the elect are redeemed, the material world will be annihilated or become subject to eternal darkness.

Gnosis is frequently translated as “direct, experiential knowledge,” as opposed to abstract or merely intellectual knowledge.  But this is not at all how the Gnostics used the term.  To them it meant specific revealed knowledge about the origins of the cosmos, the soul, and the path of liberation.  The Excerpta Ex Theodoto says:

“What makes us free is the gnosis

of who we were,

of what we have become;

of where we were,

of wherein we have been cast;

of whereto we speed,

of wherefrom we are redeemed;

of what birth truly is,

and of what rebirth truly is.”

Andrew Philip Smith’s definition of Gnosis: the direct experience of higher reality and of the divine self, accompanied by the knowledge of what is being experienced, the importance of the experience, and its relationship to the rest of the universe.

He also says, “We humans are somehow asleep to our lives and to the true meaning of reality, and yet can awaken; that there is a higher form of personal religion in comparison with which organized religion is a travesty; that reality is not what it seems to be.”

Gnosis begins with the soul and finds fulfilment in the spirit.  The most important rite of the Valentinians was the Apolytrosis, which included the Bridal Chamber, where the psyche was united with its Pleromic counterpart.

In the world but not of it - those who are psychic and pneumatic are alienated from the world by nature.

Awakening from sleep, arising from drunkenness, resurrection from the dead, escape from prison, escaping from the Matrix.

Direct knowledge of the true God, as opposed to the Demiurge, who is the false or lesser God.

Tripartite division of humanity - According to Valentinus, the Human Race is divided into three Races corresponding to the three sons of Adam: the Hylic, corresponding to Cain; the Psychic, corresponding to Abel; and the Pneumatic, corresponding to Seth.

Now that we’ve talked a little about what we mean by Gnosis and Gnosticism, let’s talk a little about some of the early Gnostic figures.

Gnosticism emerged in Syria and Samaria and later in Alexandria, as apocalyptic Judaism and merkabah mysticism met Platonic philosophy and the Egyptian mystery religions and the nascent Christian movement, producing various systems that synthesized all of these influences in different ways.

May 30th, 2012 9pm Eastern on our YouTube and Google+ pages.

Our first three episodes of Talk Gnosis will be about classical Gnosticism. We will cover the basics of what the first Gnostics believed and practiced, along with more detailed discussions of the Sethians and Valentinians. Send us your questions or comments to [email protected] or Tweet us @GnosticNYC #talkgnosis