Gnosis: Self-Knowledge as Knowledge of God - Part 5

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Dear All,

 

Part 4 concluded with:

 

(P.139) The disciple who comes to know himself can discover, then, what even

Jesus cannot teach. The 'Testimony of Truth' says that the gnostic becomes a

'disciple of his [own] mind', [56] discovering that his own mind 'is the father

of the truth'. [57] He learns what he needs to know by himself in meditative

silence. Consequently, he considers himself equal to everyone, maintaining his

own independence of anyone else's authority: 'And he is patient with everyone;

he makes himself equal to everyone, and he also separates himself from them.'

[58] Silvanus, too, regards 'your mind' as 'a guiding principle'. Whoever

follows the direction of his own mind need not accept anyone else's advice:

 

Have a great number of friends, but not counselors....But if you do acquire [a

friend], do not entrust yourself to him. Entrust yourself to God alone as father

and as friend. [59]

 

Here now is Part 5.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

Gnosis: Self-Knowledge as Knowledge of God - Part 5

 

(P.139) Finally, those gnostics who conceived of 'gnosis' as a subjective,

immediate experience, concerned themselves above all with the internal

significance of events. Here again they diverged from orthodox tradition, which

maintained that human destiny depends upon the events of 'salvation history' -

the history of Israel, especially the prophets' predictions of Christ and then

his actual coming, his life, and his death and resurrection. (P.140) All of the

New Testament gospels, whatever their differences, concern themselves with Jesus

as a historical person. And all of them rely on the prophets' predictions to

prove the validity of the Christian message. Matthew, for example, continually

repeats the refrain, 'This was done to fulfill what was spoken by the prophets.'

[60] Justin, too, attempting to persuade the emperor of the truth of

Christianity, points as proof toward the fulfillment of prophecy: 'And this

indeed you can see for yourselves, and be convinced of by fact.' [61] But

according to the 'Gospel of Thomas', Jesus dismisses as irrelevant the prophets'

predictions:

 

His disciples said to him, 'Twenty-four prophets spoke in Israel, and all of

them spoke in you.' He said to them, 'You have ignored the one living in your

presence, and have spoken (only) of the dead.' [62]

 

Such gnostic Christians saw actual events as secondary to their perceived

meaning.

 

For this reason, this type of gnosticism shares with psychotherapy a fascination

with the non-literal significance of language, as both attempt to understand the

internal quality of experience. The psychoanalyst C.G. Jung has interpreted

Valentinus' creation myth as a description of the psychological processes.

Valentinus tells how all things originate from 'the depth', the 'abyss' [63] -

in psychoanalytic terms, from the unconscious. From that 'depth' emerge Mind and

Truth, and from them, in turn, the Word (Logos) and Life. And it was the Word

that brought humanity into being. Jung read this as a mythical account of the

origin of human consciousness.

 

A psychoanalyst might find significance as well in the continuation of this

myth, as Valentinus tells how Wisdom, youngest daughter of the primal Couple,

was seized by a passion to know the Father which she interpreted as love. Her

attempts to know him would have led her to self-destruction had she not

encountered a power called The Limit, 'a power which supports all things and

preserves them', [64] which freed her of emotional turmoil and restored her to

her original place.

 

A follower of Valentinus, the author of the 'Gospel of Philip', explores the

relationship of experiential truth to verbal description. He says that 'truth

brought names into existence in the world because it is not possible to teach it

without names'. [65] But truth must be clothed in symbols: 'Truth did not come

into the world naked, but it came in types and images. One will not receive

truth in any other way.' [66] (P.141) This gnostic teacher criticizes those who

mistake religious language for a literal language, professing faith in God, in

Christ, in the resurrection of the church, as if these were all 'things'

external to themselves. For, he explains, in ordinary speech, each word refers

to a specific, external phenomenon; a person 'sees the sun without being a sun,

and he sees the sky and the earth and everything else, but he is not these

things'. [67] Religious language, on the other hand, is a language of internal

transformation; whoever perceives divine reality 'becomes what he sees':

 

....You saw the spirit, you became spirit. You saw Christ, you became Christ. You

saw [the Father, you] shall become Father....you see yourself, and what you see

you shall [become]. [68]

 

Whoever achieves 'gnosis' becomes 'no longer a Christian, but a Christ'. [69]

 

We can see, then, that such gnosticism was more than a protest movement against

orthodox Christianity. Gnosticism also included a religious perspective that

implicitly opposed the development of the kind of institution that became the

early catholic church. Those who expected to 'become Christ' themselves were not

likely to recognize the institutional structures of the church - its bishop,

priest, creed, canon, or ritual - as bearing ultimate authority.

 

This religious perspective differentiates gnosticism not only from orthodoxy,

but also, for all the similarities, from psychotherapy, for most members of the

psychotherapeutic profession follow Freud in refusing to attribute real

existence to the figments of imagination. They do not regard their attempt to

discover what is within the psyche as equivalent to discovering the secrets of

the universe. But many gnostics, like many artists, search for interior

self-knowledge as the key to understanding universal truths - 'who we are, where

we came from, where we go'. According to the 'Book of Thomas the Contender',

'whoever has not known himself has known nothing, but he who has known himself

has at the same time already achieved knowledge about the depths of all things'.

[70]

 

This conviction - that whoever explores human experience simultaneously

discovers divine reality - is one of the elements that marks gnosticism as a

distinctly religious movement. Simon Magus, Hippolytus reports, claimed that

each human being is a dwelling place, 'and that in him dwells an infinite

power...the root of the universe'. [71] (P.142) But since that infinite power

exists in two modes, one actual, the other potential, so this infinite power

'exists in a latent condition in everyone', but 'potentially, not actually'.

[72]

 

 

The Gnostic Gospels

(Long Buried And Suppressed, The Gnostic Gospels Contain

The Secret Writings Attributed To The Followers of Jesus)

Chapter 6, Pg. 139-142

Elaine Pagels

Phoenix Publishers - St. Martin's Lane, London

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

 

 

Notes:

 

[56] 'Testimony of Truth' 44.2, in NHL 410-11.

 

[57] ibid., 43.26, in NHL 410.

 

[58] ibid., 44.13-16, in NHL 411.

 

[59] 'Teachings of Silvanus' 97.18-98.10, in NHL 352.

 

[60] Matthew 2:15, 'passim'.

 

[61] Justin, I 'Apology' 31.

 

[62] 'Gospel of Thomas' 42.13-18, in NHL 124.

 

[63] Irenaeus, AH 1.11.1.

 

[64] ibid., 1.2.2.

 

[65] 'Gospel of Philip' 54.13-15, in NHL 133.

 

[66] ibid., 67.9-12, in NHL 140.

 

[67] ibid., 61.24-6, in NHL 137.

 

[68] ibid., 61.29-35, in NHL 137.

 

[69] ibid., 67.26-7, in NHL 140.

 

[70] 'Book of Thomas the Contender' 138.16-18, in NHL 189.

 

[71] Hippolytus, REF 6.9.

 

[72] ibid., 6.17.