Gnosis: Self-Knowledge as Knowledge of God - Part 3

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Gnosis: Self-Knowledge as Knowledge of God - Part 3

 

(P.135) " The teacher Silvanus, whose 'Teachings' [31] were discovered at Nag

Hammadi, encourages his followers to resist unconsciousness:

 

.... end the sleep which weighs heavy upon you. Depart from the oblivion which

fills you with darkness... Why do you pursue the darkness, though the light is

available for you? ... Wisdom calls you, yet you desire foolishness.... a

foolish man ... goes the ways of the desire of every passion. He swims in the

desires of life and has foundered.... he is like a ship which the wind tosses to

and fro, and like a loose horse which has no rider. For this (one) needed the

rider, which is reason ... before everything else ... know yourself ... [32] "

 

The 'Gospel of Thomas' also warns that self-discovery involves inner turmoil:

 

Jesus said, 'Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds,

he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he

will rule over all things.' [33]

 

(P.136)What is the source of the 'light' discovered within? Like Freud, who

professed to follow the 'light of reason', most gnostic sources agreed that 'the

lamp of the body is the mind'[34] (a saying which the 'Dialogue of the Savior'

attributes to Jesus). Silvanus, the teacher, says:

 

....Bring in your guide and your teacher. The mind is the guide, but reason is

the teacher...Live according to your mind...Acquire strength, for the mind is

strong...Enlighten your mind...Light the lamp within you.[35]

 

To do this, Silvanus continues,

 

Knock on yourself as upon a door and walk upon yourself as on a straight road.

For if you walk on the road, it is impossible for you to go astray...Open the

door for yourself that you may know what is...Whatever you will open for

yourself, you will open. [36]

 

The 'Gospel of Truth' expresses the same thought:

 

....If one has knowledge, he receives what is his own, and draws it to

himself...Whoever is to have knowledge in this way knows where he comes from,

and where he is going. [37]

 

The 'Gospel of Truth' also expresses this in metaphor: each person must receive

'his own name' - not, of course, one's ordinary name, but one's true identity.

Those who are 'the sons of interior knowledge' [38] gain the power to speak

their own names. The gnostic teacher addresses them:

 

....Say, then, from the heart that you are the perfect day, and in you dwells the

light that does not fail...For you are the understanding that is drawn

forth...Be concerned with yourselves; do not be concerned with other things

which you have rejected from yourselves. [39]

 

So, according to the 'Gospel of Thomas', Jesus ridiculed those who thought of

the 'Kingdom of God' in literal terms, as if it were a specific place: 'If those

who lead you say to you, " Look, the Kingdom is in the sky, " then the birds will

arrive there before you. If they say to you, " It is in the sea, " ', then, he

says, the fish will arrive before you. Instead, it is a state of self-discovery:

 

'...Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you

come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you

are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, then you

dwell in poverty, and it is you who 'are' that poverty.' [40]

 

(P.137) But the disciples, mistaking that 'Kingdom' for a future event,

persisted in their questioning:

 

His disciples said to him, 'When will...the new world come?' He said to them,

'What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it.'...His

disciples said to him, 'When will the Kingdom come?' (Jesus said), 'It will not

come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying " Here it is " or " There

it is " . Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men

do not see it.' [41]

 

That 'Kingdom', then, symbolizes a state of transformed consciousness:

 

Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to the disciples, 'These infants being

suckled are like those who enter the Kingdom.' They said to him, 'Shall we,

then, as children, enter the Kingdom?' Jesus said to them, 'When you make the

two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the

inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female

one and the same...then you will enter [the Kingdom].' [42]

 

The Gnostic Gospels

(Long Buried And Suppressed, The Gnostic Gospels Contain

The Secret Writings Attributed To The Followers of Jesus)

Chapter 6, Pg. 135-137

Elaine Pagels

Phoenix Publishers - St. Martin's Lane, London

ISBN 13: 978-0-7538-2114-5

 

Notes:

 

[31] Professors M.L. Peel and J. Zandee have stated that the 'Teachings of

Silvanus' is clearly 'non-Gnostic' (NHL 346). Nevertheless, what Peel and Zandee

describe as characteristic of gnostic teaching (dualistic theology, docetic

Christology, the doctrine that 'only some persons are saved " by nature " ') does

not, as they apparently assume, characterize such teaching as that of Valentinus

(which undisputably 'is' gnostic). The 'Teachings of Silvanus' certainly is

unique among the Nag Hammadi find in that most of its elements do not contradict

orthodox doctrine. Whether or not it is itself a gnostic document, I suggest

that what warrants its inclusion with gnostic writings is its premise that

divine reason (and, apparently, divine nature) is discovered 'within' oneself.

 

[32] 'Teachings of Silvanus' 88.24-92.12, in NHL 349-50.

 

[33] 'Gospel of Thomas' 32.14-19, in NHL 118.

 

[34] 'Dialogue of the Savior' 125.18-19, in NHL 231.

 

[35] 'Teachings of Silvanus' 85.24-106.14, in NHL 347-56.

 

[36] ibid., 106.30-117.20, in NHL 356-61.

 

[37] 'Gospel of Truth' 21.11-22.15, in NHL 40.

 

[38] ibid., 32.38-9, in NHL 44.

 

[39] ibid., 32.31-33.14, in NHL 44.

 

[40] 'Gospel of Thomas' 32.19-33.5, in NHL 118. Emphasis added.

 

[41] ibid., 42.7-51.18, in NHL 123-30.

 

[42] ibid., 37.20-35, in NHL 121.