Gnosis

GNOSIS. - 1. Terminology and meaning. - Gnosis in all its forms, including those of a semi-gnosis, developed a vocabulary of its own, and this particular language is proof that in gnosis one is dealing with a mentality sui generis, which nevertheless in its rich use of figurative words reveals more an artistic and subjective spirit than a scientific discipline. Characteristic of gnosis is the use of the word "stranger"; "strange" 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 the designation for Christ, among the Manichaeans for Mani). On this term see H. Jonas, Gnosis und spätantiker Geist, Göttingen 1934, p. 96 ff., 122 ff.; S. Pétrement, Le dualisme chez Platon, Paris 1947, p. 164 ff.; H. Ch. Puech,

Le manichéisme, Paris 1949, p. 153, n. 273). "Strange" is also the soul that finds itself in this world or that has passed through a series of worlds (seven or twelve), of "aeons" (see 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 gnosis. It is a matter of the world in its extension in space and time ("generations" that gnosis wishes to transcend). The universe thus becomes a "cellula creatoris" (Marcion), a "house" (see Book of Enoch, ch. 90, 28 ff.) that is about to collapse ("house" 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, see H. Jonas, op. cit., p. 101 ff.).

The "strange" world and this world are distinguished from one another as "light" and "darkness," a central term in Manichaeism, partly also in Mandaeism. The "Marcionites" distinguished the light of the demiurge of this world from the light of the world to come (A. Harnack, Marcion, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1924, p. 263 ff.). But in reality this world is a mixture of "light" and "darkness," of "living water" (see Jn 4:10) and "muddy water," of "living fire" and "dark fire" (Corpus Hermeticum I, 28, Manichaeism, Mandaeism). For the interesting distinction (Iranian?) of two fires see 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 (see P. I. de Menace, Une apologétique macédone, Fribourg 1945, p. 83), from the Jewish religion. It is a matter of the "primordial water" of Genesis when there were 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 longing for the celestial "homeland"; the famous hymn of the soul in the Acts of Thomas (ch. 108-12; on this theme see H. Jonas, op. cit., p. 109 ff.) is a most beautiful expression of this latter idea. The soul in this world is "dazed," has lost its consciousness, is intoxicated by a "poison" (on this image see 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, ch. 15; Liber gradum, ed. Kmosko, Patrologia syriaca, III, Paris 1926, p. 586). The soul has become "blind" and "deaf," has "fallen asleep" (see 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.; see ibid. also treatise I, 27: "o peoples, men born of the earth who have abandoned yourselves to drunkenness and sleep, become sober" [pp. 15, 21]). For the image, see Ed. Norden, Agnostos Theos, Leipzig 1929, pp. 3-7, 132, 139 n. 1, 199 n. 3, 4, 295 f. and L. I. Festugière, in Harvard Theol. Rev., 31 (1938), p. 4 f. Man feels himself in this world "uprooted," cut off from the "tree," from the "root," in another world (see Asclepius, ch. 6, p. 302, 21 f.; ed. by A. D. Nock-A. J. Festugière. On this important image of the root in Manichaeism see H. Ch. Puech, op. cit., pp. 74, 159 n. 285, among the Mandaeans and Bardesanites, G. Widengren, Mesopotamian Elements in Manichaeism, Uppsala 1946, p. 15 n. 1).

Reconstructing from an analysis of these images the worldview that underlies them, one sees clearly that gnosis has nothing to do with the worldview as it was among the Greeks, indeed it stands in full contrast to it. The Greek found himself in this world as in his own home, the gnostic instead feels himself a stranger in it. For the Greek the universe was a thing to be admired, for the gnostic it is a prison. The Greeks find the light in themselves and in this world

(v. R. Bultmann, in Philologus, 97 [Wiesbaden 1948], p. 1 ff.; the Gnostics find it in another world. The soul, which for the Greeks elevated man above the materiality of his body, is for the Gnostics likewise a part of the baseness of this universe. To the disincarnation of man there corresponds in Gnosticism a flight from the world. For the Greeks the divine is a part of this universe; in Gnosticism God is not only separate but truly opposed to the world (Plotinus [Enneads, II, 9, 16], as a true Greek, combats the Gnostic assertion). This fact is expressed among 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 under various forms: either with terms taken from the vocabulary of the astrologers ("archon" or "cosmocrator"), or with words that have been 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. 1:28 explained by the collaboration of the angels in creation). The Gnostic demiurge is not simply an inferior God in the face of a higher God, a second god, but is an ignorant god, a being who believes himself god until he becomes aware of 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 higher god lies an interpretation of Gen. 1:4 "et vidit deus lucem" (v. the already cited 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 higher god of Gnosticism is an anticosmic 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 an absorption of 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" (μορφῆ θεοῦ), that the Gnostic seeks to attain. For this reason man, who does not recognize himself as truly existing, must, in order to attain his true existence, ask himself the three questions: a) what were we? what have we become? b) where were we? where have we been thrown? c) where are we going? from what shall we be liberated? (Excerpta ex Theodoto, 78, 2nd ed. Sagnard, p. 202 or p. 131, 17 ff., ed. Stählin; for this catechetical formulation v. from the formal point of view 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 become aware of 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" leads 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 supercelestial space (in Manichaeism: 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, one must know that this cosmological aspect of Manichaeism does not stand in contrast with the more anthropological aspect of the Excerpta ex Theodoto, and this by the fact that anthropology and cosmology stand in Gnosticism in a close relationship. An image for this fact is the doctrine of the two trees. "Man is always rooted in one of the two cosmic trees, either in the bad tree that roots his existence in the world of the demiurge or in the good tree that roots his existence in the higher world." This rooting depends and does not depend on man's attitude toward the two trees. It does not depend on his attitude inasmuch as man, when he is born, already finds himself rooted in one of the trees. Under this aspect the idea can arise of the existence of people who are "by nature" already "Gnostics" and as such also dispensed from every 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 to be rooted by their "nature" in the bad tree. But generally the idea of rooting does not exclude the possibility of a choice between the two trees. On man's attitude toward one of the two trees depends 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 sleep, of this drunkenness of the age, if the intellectual action of the Gnostic act is not accompanied by an asceticism that becomes an indispensable means, a disincarnating in order to attain this Gnostic attitude of one's own existence, which allows him to see to the bottom 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 sought in different ways. Some have sought it in Hellenism. For A. Harnack, for example, Gnosticism was "the acute Hellenization of Christianity." The Fathers of the Church (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 of Greek philosophy to make their speculations comprehensible to an educated public, educated in Hellenistic traditions.

Thus, for example, the doctrine of the descent of man was expressed under the forms of the fall of the soul in Plato. However, the fact remains that the worldview in the Gnostic mentality contrasts completely with that of the Greeks. Greek philosophical language is therefore only a way of making oneself understood by people of Greek culture. The theory that Gnosticism comes from Babylonian-Persian religion (Anz-Bousset) does not take into account that the anti-cosmic character of Gnosticism finds no analogy in astrological Chaldeanism and that the pessimism of Gnosticism finds no correspondence in Persian religion, just as Gnostic dualism is not identical with Persian dualism (H. Jonas, op. cit., p. 34 ff., 352). Dualism in Iran is not a theoretical dualism (H. Ch. Petrement, op. cit., p. 322 ff.). Reitzenstein's recourse to Zoroastrian books is very problematic, because a large part of this literature was 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 Gnosticism 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 makes use in its propaganda of Greek philosophical terminology, in Iran of Zoroastrian religious vocabulary, and elsewhere of Chinese or Indian vocabulary. It would therefore be imprudent to seek the origin of Gnosticism outside the geographical area where the Gnostic movement had its center, that is, in western and eastern Syria (Mesopotamia) and in Egypt. In the Aramaic-speaking environment (the liturgical formulas of the Gnostic Marcus, 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 Elchasai in Epiphanius, Panar., 19, 4, 3, p. 221, 17 Holl), Gnosticism developed. But this means that practically at the beginning Gnosticism is the work of Jews or Jewish Christians and that only later did others who had come into contact with Jews and Jewish Christians also take up their activity. It is often said that the Gnosticism of the Corpus hermeticum would be the proof for the existence of a pagan Gnosticism, but in truth Hermetic Gnosticism shows many evident traces of Jewish Gnosticism (v. C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks, Cambridge 1935), although the latest editors A. D. Nock and A. I. Festugiere have sought to minimize this Jewish substratum. In studying the Gnostic texts one easily discovers how they are inspired especially by the Pentateuch, and in particular by Genesis. It is known that cosmogony was part of the secret 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); even the speculations on the merhābhāh (Ex. 1 and 10) could not be taught publicly. If Gnosticism interprets texts of biblical cosmogony, it evidently brings to light Jewish secret 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 Gnosticism must be placed in relation to Jewish speculation on the primordial "light" (Gen. 1, 4; interpretation with regard to the Messiah: cf. Strack-Billerbeck, op. cit., I, 161). Even the doctrine of the creation of consecutive pairs (syzygies), which in Gnosticism gave rise to many speculations, comes from the cosmogonic account of Genesis, as does also the fantastic manner of Gnosticism in representing the primordial Adam as a being who lies stretched out, motionless and blind on the ground and who only with the "breath of life" is "raised up." Finally, the Gnostic ideas on the descent or ascent of the primordial man do not come from a supposed Iranian myth about the "initial man" (Urmensch) but from the biblical account of the fall of Adam and from Jewish apocryphal texts that spoke of a "liberation" of Adam (v. E. Peterson, in Revue biblique, 55 [1948], p. 199 ff.). But it may be objected: the relationship of Gnosticism with Jewish religion is fundamentally no different from that which Gnosticism has with Iranian-Babylonian religion or with Greek philosophy. The anti-cosmic attitude of Gnosticism puts it in contrast also with the Jewish belief in a good God and creator of the world; its pessimism, its asceticism, have nothing to do with the Hebrew optimism of realizing justice in this world and with the positive evaluation of natural rights (possession, marriage, etc.). However, one can observe in late Judaism the existence of an anthropological dualism under the form of the doctrine of the two inclinations in man: the evil inclination (jezer har-ra) and the good inclination (jezer hat-tōbh), which appears to have been the origin of Gnosticism. 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 jezer 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. Even early Christian literature, especially the author of the Shepherd of Hermas, but also the pseudo-Clementine literature, was not ignorant of this doctrine. That, moreover, it was not a particular or sectarian idea is proved by the fact that the morning prayer of the Jews (Berakh, 60 b) mentions the two jezer (v. Strack-Billerbeck, op. cit., II, 152). It should be noted further that in Jewish doctrine the evil inclination, which is born with every man ("the good inclination," on the other hand, begins only with the obligatory study of the law at the age of twelve), is placed in relation to concupiscence, and thus one can observe that concupiscence appears as the sin most characteristic of this world (v. I John 2:16), while it is awaited, from the world to come, that the evil inclination be uprooted or sealed (v. IV Ezra 8:53 [Vulgate], in the edition of B. Violet, p. 120. On the end of the jezer har-ra' in the eschatological times v. H. J. Schoeps, Aus frühchristlicher Zeit, Tübingen 1950, p. 49 and 224, n. 4). Concupiscence leads to death, the end of concupiscence in the future world brings with it "life." From such a starting point the origin of Jewish g. can now be explained. The doctrine of the two inclinations broke the unity of the human person and led to the consequence that the consecutive distinction of 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 chiefs of the two aeons (ages). Thus this world is regarded with hostile eyes from the standpoint of the other world, and the pessimistic evaluation of this world was further contributed to by the political destiny of the Jewish world, the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple. It is certainly not by chance that in IV Ezra and in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, which refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, there are found so many important texts for the doctrine of the two jezer; the doctrine itself, however, is earlier than the destruction of Jerusalem. Even the unity of the person of Adam, who found himself between the two trees of paradise, was compromised. There arose the problem of Adam's sin, which, instead of a simple transgression of a divine commandment, became identical with concupiscence itself, and thus one ended up relating to concupiscence not only the world of today but also attributing its creation to a power that likewise had in itself some kind of concupiscence. As procreation is bound to concupiscence, so too the origin of the material world was attributed to a cosmic concupiscence. The origin of g., therefore, is not to be explained by an anonymous movement of syncretism of different religions, but is comprehensible only as the logical development of an anthropological dualism that identified original sin with concupiscence and framed concupiscence, having become a cosmic power, within the scheme of apocalyptic thought. G. is earlier than Christianity; but respect for the traditions of the Jewish people, from which the Church had inherited the sacred book, led to the infiltration of Jewish gnostic and chiliastic ideas into the primitive Christian milieu. Remaining however faithful to the letter and the spirit of the Old Testament and reflecting on the real facts of Jesus' life (virginal birth and Resurrection of Jesus' body from the dead), the Church succeeded in freeing itself from those who "were not plantings of the Father" (Ignatius, Ad Trall., 4, 1; Ad Philad., 3, 1). Yet the perspicacity to discover error was not everywhere equal. Thus one can also observe the persistence of a kind of semi-gnosis in some elements of the Church, especially in ascetic circles (for example, in encratism or messianism). The study of this semi-gnosis is very useful for the understanding of the great g. with its fantastic speculative systems (Valentinianism, Manichaeism), because they clearly show the relations that exist between Jewish g. and the Jewish doctrine of concupiscence. Regarding the problem of the relations between g. and Christian preaching, one must bear in mind that the Church (owing to a common fund of ideas: self-insufficiency of the world, necessity of a salvation) could make use of the gnostic vocabulary, modifying its original sense, for purposes of propaganda, whereas g. could not truly assimilate the figure of Christ, since the mystery of the Incarnation transcended the possibilities that were given to g. itself.

L. Blau, in Jewish Encyclop., V. 686; G. Scholem, Les grands courants de la mystique juive, Paris 1950 (a masterpiece, but it does not treat ex professo of the relations between Jewish g. [earlier] and ancient and Christian g.).

Erik Peterson

CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN GNOSIS

The g. developed by contemporary Russian thinkers aspires to be a profound 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 claims to perceive reality and existence by way of mystical and intuitive means. Hence in it the three planes of the metaphysical, the supernatural and the mystical coincide. It is subject to the influence of Platonism, Origenism, Neoplatonism; of the Protestant mysticism of Jakob Böhme (1575-1624), renewed by Schelling and von Baader, and it depends on German idealism.

The principal representatives are V. Solovyov (1853-1900) and his disciples, first of all Florensky (b. 1881) and Bulgakov (1871-1944), Berdyaev (1874-1948), Karsavin (b. 1882). Among them some hold the idea of vse-edinstvo ("uni-totality," that is, of God and the universe) to be more central: Solovyov and Karsavin; or the idea of Sophia (that is, uncreated wisdom as prototype, and created wisdom as its image): Solovyov himself, Florensky, Bulgakov, Karsavin; or the idea of personal and tragic human existence: Berdyaev and Shestov (1866-1938), the two representatives of contemporary Russian existentialism. Shestov, a Jew who drew near to Christianity without however reaching it, is in his own way a Gnostic philosopher in the perspective of the Old Testament. The others, on the other hand, insofar as they presuppose the revelation of the New Testament, may be called Christian philosophers, and their thought moves for the most part, in Berdyaev especially, between monism and dualism; they further teach the fall of man and of the world (in a more or less Platonic-Origenist sense), their renewal through the redemption of Christ, and the eschatological consummation of human history. Bulgakov and Berdyaev are explicit partisans of the ἀποκατάστασις πάντων.

Modern Russian g. is rich in elevated and universal aspects, deepens natural and revealed human knowledge, shows 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 a mediator between God and the creature); of illuminism and prophetism (reserved to the visionary Gnostic philosophers). It further tends to the confusion of the natural knowledge of God with the revealed, and therefore on the one hand to rationalize the mysteries of the Faith (danger of rationalism or at least semi-rationalism) and on the other to undervalue the rational, juridical order of the visible and hierarchical structure of the Church.

Bernardo Schultze