GNOSI. - 1. Terminology and Meaning. - Gnosticism in all its forms, even those of a semi-gnostic nature, developed its own vocabulary. This particular language is proof that in Gnosticism one is dealing with a sui generis mentality, which, however, in its rich use of figurative words reveals an artistic and subjective spirit rather than a scientific discipline. Characteristic of Gnosticism is the use of the word "stranger". "Foreign" is life in the beyond (e.g., among the Mandaeans and Bardesanites); "stranger" is also the divine messenger who comes into this world (in Marcionism a designation for Christ, among the Manichaeans for Mani). For this term V. H. Jonas, Gnosi und spätantiker Geist, Göttingen 1934, p. 96 sq., 122 ff.; S. Petrement, Le dualisme chez Platon, Paris 1947, p. 164 ff.; H. Ch. Puech, Le manichéisme, Paris 1949, p. 153, n. 273). "Foreign" is also the soul that finds itself in this world or that has passed through a series of worlds (seven or twelve), of "aeons" (v. H. Jonas, op. cit., p. 99). A distinction is made between Aeons of darkness and Aeons of light. The origin of this term must be sought in the doctrines of the "Chaldeans" (Babylonian astrologers), but the pejorative meaning is characteristic of Gnosticism. It concerns the world in its extension in space and time ("generations" that Gnosticism wishes to overcome). The universe thus becomes a cellula creatoris (Marcion), a "house" (v. Enoch, chap. 90, 28 sq) that is about to collapse ("house" serving both for the fabric of the universe and for the body), while the soul seeks a "dwelling" in the region of light, in the sēkī-nāh, in the "glory" (for "to dwell", as a technical term, V. H. Jonas, op. cit., p. 101 sq.).
The "foreign" world and this world are distinguished from each other like "light" and "darkness", a central term in Manichaeism, and in part also in Mandaeism. The Marcionites distinguished the light of the demiurge of this world from the light of the future world (A. Harnack, Marcion, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1924, p. 263 sq.). But in reality this world is a mixture of "light" and "darkness", of "living water" (v. Jo. 4, 10) and "turbid water", of "living fire" and "dark fire" (Corpus Hermeticum I, 28, Manichaeism, Mandaeism). For the interesting (Iranian?) distinction of two fires V. Nyberg, in Journal asiatique, 214 (1929), p. 217; ibid., 219 (1931), p. 222. The idea of "black water" comes, according to the Iranian book Shand Gunanik Vicar (v. I. de Menasce, Une apologétique mazdéenne, Fribourg 1945, p. 83), from the Jewish religion. This is the "primal water" of Genesis when there was only darkness and the abyss. Man has "fallen" into this world, where he finds himself "a prisoner", "in chains", and where he was full of anguish (Hymn of the Naassenes, Hippolytus, Refut., V, 10, 2) tormented by nostalgia for the celestial "homeland". A most beautiful expression of this latter idea is the famous Hymn of the Soul in the Acts of Thomas (chap. 108-12; V. on this theme H. Jonas, op. cit., p. 109 sq.). The soul in this world is "dazed", has lost its consciousness, is intoxicated by a "poison" (on this image V. H. Jonas, op. cit., pp. 114, 209; H. Ch. Puech, op. cit., pp. 77 and 169 n. 312). According to Christian literature, the poison was found in the tree of knowledge (Apoc. Mosis, chap. 15; Liber gradum, ed. Kmosko, Patrologia syriaca, III, Paris 1926, p. 586). The soul has become "blind" and "deaf", has "fallen asleep" (v. H. Jonas, op. cit., pp. 45, 113-18, 126-34); man behaves in this world like a "drunkard". Famous is the beginning of treatise VII of the Corpus Hermeticum: "where are you being dragged, O men, who are drunk, because you have drunk the strong wine of ignorance" (Hermès Trismégiste, ed. A. D. Nock-A. J. Festugière, I, Paris 1945, p. 81, 3 ff.; V. ibid. also treatise I, 27: "O peoples, earth-born men who have given yourselves over to drunkenness and sleep, become sober" [pp. 15, 21]). For the image, V. Ed. Norden, Agnostos Theos, Leipzig 1929, pp. 3-7, 132, 139 n. 1, 199 n. 3, 4, 295 sq. and A. J. Festugière, in Harvard Theol. Rev., 31 (1938), p. 4 sq. Man feels "uprooted" in this world, cut off from the "tree", from the "root", in another world (v. Asclepius, chap. 6, p. 302, 21 sq; ed. by A. D. Nock-A. J. Festugière. On this important image of the root in Manichaeism V. H. Ch. Puech, op. cit., pp. 74, 159 n. 285; among Mandaeans and Bardesanites, G. Widengren, Mesopotamian Elements in Manichaeism, Uppsala 1946, p. 15 n. 1).
Reconstructing from an analysis of these images the underlying worldview, one clearly sees that Gnosticism has nothing to do with the worldview as it was among the Greeks; indeed, it stands in complete contrast to II. The Greek found himself in this world as if at home; the Gnostic, instead, feels like a stranger in II. For the Greek the universe was an admirable thing; for the Gnostic it is a prison. The Greeks find light within themselves and in this world
(v. R. Bultmann, in Philologus, 97 [Wiesbaden 1948], p. 1 f; universe; in gnosticism God is not only separated, but directly opposed to the world (Plotinus [*Enneads, II, 9, 16], like a true Greek, combats the gnostic assertion). This fact is expressed by the gnostics in the distinction between a "god of this world" and a higher, unintelligible God, an "unknown" god. The "god of this world" can be designated in various forms: either with terms taken from the astrologers' vocabulary ("archon" or "cosmocrator"), or with words taken from the Old Testament (Iao, Sabaoth, etc.; cf. H. Jonas, op. cit., p. 229) and finally also with the more general term "demiurge" (artificer). The gnostic demiurge has his collaborators: either the seven planets or the twelve constellations of the zodiac, according to astrological language, or the angels according to a Jewish tradition (the plural: "faciamus hominem" in Gen. 1:26 explained by the collaboration of angels in creation). The gnostic demiurge is not simply an inferior God in the face of a superior God, a second god, but rather an ignorant god, a being who believes himself to be God until he notices the light of him who is truly God (Irenaeus, I, 29, 4, p. 263; St., 30, 6, p. 267; Hippolytus, Refut., VII, 25, 3, 26, 1). At the basis of the concept that the demiurge saw the light of the superior god lies an interpretation of Gen. 1:4 "et vidit deus lucem" (v. the aforementioned book: Shand-Gunanik Vicar, p. 185, 52; V. also the Manichaeans in St. Augustine, De genesi contra manich., I, 13 and Contra Faustum, XXII, 4). Just as the superior god of gnosticism is an anti-cosmic god, so the anthropology of gnosticism demands a disincarnation of man, a tendency toward the destruction of the body, while the divine pneuma assumes the function of absorbing the human soul, bound to the body and through the body also to the materiality of this world. In other words: in gnosticism man loses not only his individuality but also his personality; his person has its center in the beyond, and it is the celestial form, the "form of God" ($\mu o\rho\phi\tilde{\eta}\ \theta\epsilon\tilde{o}\upsilon$) that the gnostic seeks to attain. For this reason man, who does not recognize himself as truly existing, must ask himself three questions in order to attain his true existence: a) what were we? what have we become? b) where were we? where have we been cast? c) where shall we go? from what shall we be delivered? (Excerpta ex Theodoto, 78, 2nd ed. Sagnard, p. 202 or p. 131, 17 ff., ed. Stählin; for this catechetical formulation v., from a formal standpoint, Ed. Norden, op. cit., p. 103 ff.). The questions are oriented according to the scheme of the three times, a doctrine that was formulated in an analogous way also in Manichaeism (v. H. Ch. Puech, op. cit.*, p. 74 and note 284, p. 157 ff).
The answer is this: man must realize what he once was before coming into this world and into this body, created by the demiurge; he must also understand the state in which he finds himself today and must know where his "way" is leading him. Thus the two moments of the descent and the ascent of man (better to say: man and not soul) in the past and in the future become very important. The framing of the descent and ascent within the schema of space is inevitable, because if evil is sought in the spatial creation of the demiurge, salvation too must be sought in the superselestial space (in Manichaeism: the luminous earth) of a god who is not the creator of this world, but of another world. If in Manichaeism the doctrine of the three times concerns primarily the problem of the three times of the world, it must be understood that this cosmological aspect of Manichaeism does not stand in contrast to the more anthropological aspect of the Excerpta ex Theodoto, and this due to the fact that anthropology and cosmology stand in gnosticism in a close relationship. An image of this fact is the doctrine of the two trees. "Man is always rooted in one of the two cosmic trees, either in the evil tree that roots its existence in the world of the demiurge, or in the good tree that roots its existence in the superior world." This rooting depends, and does not depend, on man's attitude toward the two trees. It does not depend on his attitude insofar as man, when he is born, already finds himself rooted in one of the trees. From this perspective the idea may arise of the existence of people who are "by nature" already "gnostics" and as such also dispensed from any moral effort, with the consequence of libertinism (on gnostic libertinism V. H. Jonas, op. cit., pp. 204, 215, 234-38; H. Ch. Petrement, op. cit., p. 268), just as on the other hand there exist men who are destined by their "nature" to be rooted in the evil tree. But generally the idea of rooting does not exclude the possibility of a choice between the two trees. It depends on man's attitude toward one of the two trees where man seeks his roots. This freedom finds its expression in the fact that man can acquire gnosticism. But since gnosticism is not the knowledge of a fact within the framework of this world, one cannot overcome the fact of unconsciousness, of this state of cosmic slumber, of this intoxication of the age, unless the intellectual action of the gnostic act is accompanied by an asceticism that becomes an indispensable means—a disincarnation in order to attain this gnostic attitude of one's own existence, which allows him to see through the deception of this world of the senses and to arrive at a life of awareness and consciousness.
2. Origin of gnosticism. — The problem of the origin of gnosticism has been investigated in various ways. Some have sought it in Hellenism. For A. Harnack, for example, gnosticism was "the acute Hellenization of Christianity." The Church Fathers (especially Hippolytus) compared the doctrines of individual gnostics with the doctrines of Greek philosophers. There is no doubt that some gnostics made use of ideas and terms from Greek philosophy to make their speculations comprehensible to a cultured public educated in Hellenistic traditions.
Thus, for example, the doctrine of man's descent was expressed in the forms of the soul's fall in Plato. However, the fact remains that the worldview of the gnostic mentality contrasts completely with that of the Greeks. Greek philosophical language is therefore merely a way of making oneself understood by people of Greek culture. The theory that gnosis derives from Babylonian-Persian religion (Anz-Bousset) fails to realize that the anti-cosmic character of gnosis finds no analogy in astrological Chaldeanism, and that the pessimism of gnosis corresponds to nothing in the Persian religion, just as gnostic dualism is not identical with Persian dualism (H. Jonas, op. cit., p. 34 sq., 352). Dualism in Iran is not a theoretical dualism (H. Ch. Petrement, op. cit., p. 322 sq.). Reitzenstein's recourse to Zoroastrian books is very problematic, because a large part of this literature is written in the 9th century A.D. and presupposes the activity of gnostic sects in Iran (v. H. W. Bailey, Zoroastrian problems in the Ninth-Century Books, Oxford 1943). The function of Iranian and Babylonian religion in the development of gnosis in the East was not very different from that of Greek philosophy in the West. It was a means of making oneself understood, but nothing more. Very significant in this sense is Manichaeism, which for the West uses Greek philosophical terminology in its propaganda, in Iran the Zoroastrian religious vocabulary, and elsewhere Chinese or Indian vocabulary. Therefore it would be imprudent to seek the origin of gnosis outside the geographical space where the gnostic movement had its center, namely
in western and eastern Syria (Mesopotamia) and in Egypt. In the Aramaic-speaking environment (the liturgical formulas of the gnostic Mark who carried out his activity in southern Gaul are Aramaic; V. Irenaeus, Haer., I, 14, 2, p. 183; Harvey — 21, 3 St.; V. also the formula of Elxai in Epiphanius, Panar., 19, 4, 3, p. 221, 17 Holl), gnosis developed. But this means that practically at the beginning gnosis is the work of Jews or Jewish-Christians, and that only later did others who had come into contact with Jews and Jewish-Christians resume their activity. It is often said that the gnosis of the Corpus hermeticum would be proof for the existence of a pagan gnosis, but in truth hermetic gnosis shows many evident traces of Jewish gnosis (v. C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks, Cambridge 1935), although the latest editors A. D. Nock and A. J. Festugière have tried to minimize this Jewish substratum. By studying gnostic texts one easily discovers how they draw inspiration especially from the Pentateuch, and in particular from Genesis. It is known that cosmogony was part of esoteric doctrines among the Jews (Chag. 2, 1; ibid., 13 a; V. Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, I, Munich 1922, p. 977; II [1924], p. 186, 307); speculations on the merhābhāh (Ex. 1 and 10) could not be taught publicly either. If gnosis interprets texts of biblical cosmogony, it evidently brings to light esoteric Jewish doctrines. It is very significant to see that a gnostic term like "black water" comes from a Jewish interpretation of Gen. 1, just as, on the other hand, the importance given to the concept of light in gnosis must be related to Jewish speculation on primitive "light" (Gen. 1, 4; interpretation regarding the Messiah: cf. Strack-Billerbeck, op. cit., I, 161). Even the doctrine of the creation of consecutive pairs (syzygies) which gave rise to many speculations in gnosis, comes from the cosmogonic narrative of Genesis, as does the fantastic manner of gnosis in representing primitive Adam as a being lying down, motionless and blind on the ground, who is "erected" only by the "breath of life." Finally, gnostic ideas on the descent or ascension of primitive man do not come from a pretended Iranian myth on "primeval man" (Urmensch) but from the biblical narrative of Adam's fall and from Jewish apocryphal texts that spoke of a "liberation" of Adam (v. E. Peterson, in Revue biblique, 55 [1948], p. 199 ff). But one might object: the relationship of gnosis with the Jewish religion is fundamentally no different from that which gnosis has with the Iranian-Babylonian religion or with Greek philosophy. The anti-cosmic attitude of gnosis also puts it in contrast with the Jewish belief in a good God and creator of the world; its pessimism and asceticism have nothing to do with the Hebrew optimism of implementing justice in this world and with the positive valuation of natural rights (property, marriage, etc.). However, one can observe in late Judaism the existence of an anthropological dualism in the form of the doctrine of the two inclinations in man: the evil inclination (yezer har-ra) and the good inclination (yezer hat-tōbh), which seems to have been the origin of gnosis. It is interesting that according to this doctrine each of these inclinations is presided over by an angel; this means that every man is no longer master of himself, but subject either to a good power or to an evil power. The doctrine of the two yezer appears in apocalyptic literature (v. B. Violet, Die Apokalypsen des Esra und des Baruch, Leipzig 1924, p. 5, n. 4), in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, in New Testament literature, and in the Talmud. Nor was this doctrine unknown to early Christian literature, especially to the author of the Shepherd of Hermas, and also to pseudo-Clementine literature. That, moreover, this was not a particular or sectarian idea is proven by the fact that the Jewish morning prayer (Berakh, 60 b) mentions the two yezer (v. Strack-Billerbeck, op. cit., II, 152). It should also be noted that in Jewish doctrine the evil inclination, which is born with every man ("the good inclination" instead begins only with the obligatory study of the law at the age of twelve), is related to concupiscence, and thus one can observe that
concupiscence appears as the most characteristic sin of this world (v. Io. 2, 16) while it is expected, from the coming age, that the evil inclination will be eradicated or sealed (v. IV. Ebd. 8, 53 [Vulgata], in the edition by B. Violet, p. 120. On the end of the jezer har-ra' in eschatological times V. I. Schoeps, Aus fröhlichstlicher Zeit, Tübingen 1950, p. 49 and 224, n. 4). Concupiscence leads to death; the end of the concupiscence of the future world brings "life" with II. From such a starting point one can now explain the origin of Jewish gosis. The doctrine of the two inclinations broke the unity of the human person and led to the consequence that the consecutive distinction between this world of death and the future world of "life" was transformed (as, for example, in the Pseudo-Clementines) into a state of "war" between the leaders of the two aeons (centuries). Thus this world is viewed with hostile eyes from the standpoint of the other world, and the political destiny of the Jewish world, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, further contributed to the pessimistic evaluation of this world. It is certainly no, coincidence that in IV Esdras and in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, which refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, there are so many texts important for the doctrine of the two jezer, though the doctrine itself predates the destruction of Jerusalem. The unity of the person of Adam, who found himself between the two trees of paradise, was also fractured. The problem of Adam's sin was posed; rather than a simple transgression of a divine commandment, it became identical with concupiscence itself, and thus one ended up not only relating today's world to concupiscence, but also attributing its creation to a power that likewise possessed within itself some kind of concupiscence. Just as procreation is linked to concupiscence, so too the origin of the material world was attributed to a cosmic concupiscence. The origin of gosis is therefore not to be explained by an anonymous movement of syncretism of different religions, but is understandable only as the logical development of an anthropological dualism that identified original sin with concupiscence and framed concupiscence, which had become a cosmic power, within the scheme of apocalyptic thought. Gosis is prior to Christianity; but respect for the traditions of the Jewish people, from whom the Church had inherited the sacred book, led to the infiltration of Jewish gnostic and chiliastic ideas into the early Christian environment. However, remaining faithful to the letter and spirit of the Old Testament and reflecting on the real facts of the life of Jesus (the virginal birth and the Resurrection of Jesus' body from the dead), the Church managed to free itself from those who "were not plantings of the Father" (Ignatius, Ad Trall., 4, 1; Ad Philad., 3, 1). However, the perspicacity to discover the error was not equal everywhere. Thus one can also note the persistence of a kind of semi-gnosis in certain elements of the Church, especially in ascetic circles (e.g., in encratism or messianism). The study of this semi-gnosis is very useful for understanding the great gosis with its fantastic speculative systems (Valentinianism, Manichaeism), because they clearly show the relationships that exist between Jewish gosis and the Jewish doctrine of concupiscence. Regarding the problem of the relationship between gosis and Christian preaching, one must take into account that the Church (due to a common fund of ideas: the self-insufficiency of the world, the necessity of salvation) could use the gnostic vocabulary, modifying its original meaning, for propaganda purposes, whereas gosis could not truly assimilate the figure of Christ, given that the mystery of the incarnation transcended the possibilities that were given to gosis itself.
Erik Peterson
CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN GNOSIS. - The gnosis developed by contemporary Russian thinkers aims to be an in-depth and universal philosophy of natural and revealed truths; an attempt at a Christian philosophy; a concrete synthesis, rather than an abstract and rational system, which lays claim to the perception of reality and existence through mystical and intuitive means. Hence, in it, the three planes of the metaphysical, the supernatural, and the mystical coincide. It is influenced by Platonism, Origenism, Neoplatonism; by the Protestant mysticism of Jacob Böhme (1575-1624), renewed by Schelling and von Baader; and it depends on German idealism.
The principal representatives are V. Solov'ev (1853-1900) and his disciples, first and foremost Florenskij (born 1881) and Bulgakov (1871-1944), Berdjaev (1874-1948), and Karsavin (born 1882). Among them, some consider more central the idea of vse-edinstvo ("uni-totality", that is, of God and the universe): Solov'ev and Karsavin; or the idea of Sophia (i.e., uncreated wisdom as prototype, and created wisdom as its image): Solov'ev himself, Florenskij, Bulgakov, Karsavin; or the idea of personal and tragic human existence: Berdjaev and Sestov (1866-1938), the two representatives of contemporary Russian existentialism. Sestov, a Jew who approached Christianity without, however, attaining it, is in his own way a gnostic philosopher within the perspective of the Old Testament. The others, instead, insofar as they presuppose the revelation of the New Testament, can be called Christian philosophers, and their thought moves mostly, especially in Berdjaev, between monism and dualism; they also teach the fall of man and the world (in a more or less Platonic-Origenistic sense), their renewal through Christ's redemption, and the eschatological consummation of human history. Bulgakov and Berdjaev are explicit proponents of the ἀποκατάστασις πάντων.
Modern Russian gnosis is rich in elevated and universal aspects, deepens natural and revealed human knowledge, reveals connections and opens new horizons, and seeks above all the organic connection between nature and supernatural revelation. Nevertheless, it carries with it the danger of pantheism (especially in the doctrine of Sophia, conceived as identical with God and with the creature); of gnosticism (Sophia appears as an intermediary between God and the creature); of illuminism and prophetism (reserved for gnostic philosopher-seers). Furthermore, it tends toward the confusion of natural knowledge of God with revealed knowledge, and therefore on the one hand toward rationalizing the mysteries of the Faith (the danger of rationalism or at least semi-rationalism) and on the other toward underestimating the rational, juridical order of the visible and hierarchical structure of the Church.