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1
Purba, Eduward. "Memahami Penolakan Soteorologi Gnostik oleh Gereja Perdana." DIEGESIS: Jurnal Teologi Kharismatika 2, no. 2 (November 25, 2019): 91–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.53547/diegesis.v2i2.60.
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Gnostics are synchronic character ideas from a variety of Hellenistic types of beliefs and philosophies that try to influence early Christian salvation theology. The infiltration effort has opportunities because of: the cultural context of the missionary and recipient of the gospel, the decline of the Church of Jewish background, the emergence of Jewish Diaspora, the use of Hellenic terms in the New Testament and by the Early Church. This research is qualitative research literature. Researchers collected data by determining the qualifications of Gnostic library sources, both from Gnostic sources themselves and from Christian theologians. The steps taken are recording findings, combining all findings, both theories or new findings of Gnostic soteriology, analyzing findings, and finally criticizing Gnostic ideas. The results found that gnosis was the first condition in Gnostic soteriology that produced catharsis as a way of releasing divine sparks from the body with variations in business such as fasting, monasticism, torturing oneself until the legalization of murder. So, in the Gnostic idea, the principle of traditional Christian salvation has no place at all. In conclusion, ownership of gnosis by understanding the importance of releasing the spirit or divine spark from the body is a major condition in Gnostic soteriology. On this basis, the early Church rejected this gnostic idea because it was considered very speculative and heretical. AbstrakGnostik merupakan gagasan berkarakter sinkritis dari variasi tipe keyakinan dan filsafat Helenistik yang berusaha memengaruhi teologi keselamatan Kristen perdana. Usaha infiltrasi memiliki peluang karena konteks budaya pekabar dan penerima Injil, kemunduran jemaat berlatarbelakang Yahudi, kemunculan Yahudi diaspora, penggunaan istilah-istilah Helenis da-lam Perjanjian Baru dan oleh gereja perdana. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kualitatif literatur. Peneliti mengumpulkan data dengan menentukan kualifikasi sumber pustaka Gnostik, baik dari sumber Gnostik sendiri dan dari teolog Kristen. Langkah yang dilakukan yaitu men-catat temuan, memadukan segala temuan, baik teori atau temuan baru tentang soteriologi Gnostik, menganalisis temuan, terakhir mengkritisi gagasan Gnostik. Hasil yang ditemukan bahwa gnosis syarat pertama dalam soteriologi Gnostik yang menghasilkan katarsis sebagai cara melepaskan percikan ilahi dari tubuh dengan variasi usaha seperti puasa, monastik, menyiksa diri sampai legalisasi pembunuhan. Sehingga dalam gagasan Gnostik, prinsip keselamatan Kristen tradisional tidak memiliki tempat sama sekali. Kesimpulannya, bahwa kepemilikan gnosis dengan memahami pentingnya melepaskan roh atau percikan Ilahi dari tubuh merupakan syarat utama dalam soteriologi Gnostik. Atas dasar ini gereja perdana menolak gagasan Gnostik ini karena dianggap sangat spekulatif dan sesat.
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DeConick, April D. "The Countercultural Gnostic: Turning the World Upside Down and Inside Out." Gnosis 1, no. 1-2 (July 11, 2016): 7–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451859x-12340003.
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Because the gnostic heresy is a social construction imposed by the early Catholics on religious people they identified as transgressors of Christianity, scholars are entertaining the idea that ancient gnostics were actually alternative Christians. While gnostics may have been made into heretics by the early Catholics, this does not erase the fact that gnostics were operating in the margins of the conventional religions with a countercultural perspective that upset and overturned everything from traditional theology, cosmogony, cosmology, anthropology, hermeneutics, scripture, religious practices, and lifestyle choices. Making the gnostic into a Christian only imposes another grand narrative on the early Christians, one which domesticates gnostic movements. Granted, the textual evidence for the interface of the gnostic and the Christian is present, but so is the interface of the gnostic and the Greek, the gnostic and the Jew, the gnostic and the Persian, and the gnostic and the Egyptian. And the interface looks to have all the signs of transgression, not conformity. Understanding the gnostic as a spiritual orientation toward a transcendent God beyond the biblical God helps us handle this kind of diversity and transgression. As such, it survives in the artifacts that gnostics and their opponents have left behind, artifacts that help orient religious seekers to make sense of their own moments of ecstasy and revelation.
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Nosachev, Pavel. "The Gnostic Trope in Contemporary Media Culture." State Religion and Church in Russia and Worldwide 39, no. 1 (2021): 295–315. http://dx.doi.org/10.22394/2073-7203-2021-39-1-295-315.
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The article applies the Gnostic trope as the most suitable tool for analyzing religious components of contemporary mass culture. Christopher Partridge’s theory of occulture serves as a methodological framework. The Gnostic trope includes the following elements: the idea that our world is a prison created for the torment of man; that it is controlled by the evil Creator of this world — the demiurge; that some exceptional persons, the Gnostics, are able to unravel the deceptive nature of reality and offer gnosis — a kind of extra‑rational experience. The way this trope functions is illustrated by examples of the writers such as L. Darell, F. Dick, and V. Pelevin; a rapper Oxymiron; the movies such as “The Matrix” or “The Truman Show”. The article offers an explanation of the popularity of the Gnostic trope. Сurrent global trends and the spread of digital culture led to general uncertainty and disorientation, and people feel imprisoned in a sort of panopticon, as described by Michel Foucault. The Gnostic trope means an attempt to personalize this impersonal power by identifying it with the demiurge.
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Franzmann, Majella. "The Concept of Rebirth as the Christ and the Initiatory Rituals of the Bridal Chamber in theGospel of Philip." Antichthon 30 (November 1996): 34–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0066477400001003.
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In this article I begin with an outline of the connection between theological concepts related to the person of the Gnostic Christian Saviour and the ritual practice of Gnostic Christian groups. After setting the scene in this general way, I look specifically at theGospel of Philip, investigating the connection between the description of the rebirth of the Saviour at the Jordan and the rebirth of the Gnostic in the ritual of the bridal chamber.The Nag Hammadi corpus, to which theGospel of Philipbelongs, contains many texts which may be identified as Gnostic Christian, partly because of the fact that, in these texts, the key figure of the Saviour or Revealer is identified as Jesus or Christ. The work that Jesus performs in the world for the Gnostics is revelation, for the most part, rather than redemption in the sense in which mainstream Christianity identified his activity. His revelation may involve imparting secret knowledge, especially during that time prior to his final ascent into the heavenly region of light (for those texts which are closely aligned with the mainstream Christian pattern of descent and several stages of ascent for Jesus), but it must be generally categorised as activity designed to awaken the Gnostic to the insight (gnosis) which this person already possesses.
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Calaway, Jared C. "From Ignorant to Inspired: Moses in Gnostic Literature." Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 6, no. 1 (February 16, 2021): 1–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451859x-12340100.
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Abstract One expects that ancient Gnostic sources would be hostile towards Moses as the ignorant prophet of the deficient demiurge. While some ancient Gnostic sources uphold this perspective, others indicate greater ambivalence, as they both rely upon and resist Moses’s authority. Other sources cite Moses positively and present him as a prophet of true, spiritual realities, even to the point of portraying Moses as a proto-Gnostic. This variety of attitudes, moreover, follows exegetical patterns stemming from New Testament writings, especially Matthew, and social patterns, providing an index to how Gnostics viewed themselves vis-à-vis other Christians and other Christian Gnostics.
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Myszor, Wincenty. "The Incarnate Logos in Gnostic Theology." Roczniki Humanistyczne 66, no. 3 SELECTED PAPERS IN ENGLISH (October 23, 2019): 49–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.18290/rh.2018.66.3-4e.
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The Polish version of the article was published in “Roczniki Humanistyczne,” vol. 58–59 (2010–2011), issue 3.
The popular version of Gnostic Christology in textbooks presents it as a Docetic Christology. The new texts by Christian Gnostics, uncovered in Nag Hammadi, prove that Gnostic Christology was first and foremost the Christology of the Church. It seems thus that Adolf Harnack’s term “the doctrine of two natures” describing the Gnostic approach is correct. The article quotes examples of Gnostic utterances from Tractatus Tripartitus of Nag Hammadi Codex I. Gnostic theology was close to Logos-centred Christology. The Gnostic statements also contain many other references to ecclesiastical theology. The author of Tractatus Tripartitus was clearly influenced by Church theology, but some ideas were later abandoned by the official doctrine of the Church.
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Hakima, Fatemeh, Naser Moheseni Nia, Mohammad Shafi Saffari, and Syed Esmail Ghafelehbashi. "From the Mystical Unity to the Pantheism (Oneness of Existence)." Journal of Politics and Law 9, no. 2 (March 31, 2016): 64. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/jpl.v9n2p64.
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<p>In the gnostic literature of Iran and in the Islamic Gnosis, gnosis has been interpreted as an effort to save the individual by accessing to the real unity. <br />The unity, mystical journey (conduct) and the relation of God with creature are considered as three main axes under the theme of unity or the gnostic unity until before the pantheistic gnosis of Ibn Arabi, the concept's explanation and the definition of unity in terminological and lexical terms, expression of unity concept in the non-Islamic gnosis, explanation of unity concept in the Iranian-Islamic gnosis until the period of Ibn Arabi, expression of the way of mystical journey, explanation of mystics' attitude on the subject of mystic unity based on the belief of Gnostics of Khorasan school, expression of God's relation with creature in the Iranian and Ibn Arabi's gnosis are considered as the most fundamental under considering instances of this research work; in addition, a brief explanation on pantheism of Ibn Arabi is also under consideration. The theoretical pillars of exalted unity from the perspective of Ibn Arabi, are existence, entity and manifestation; Ibn Arabi, contrary to his preceding Gnostics doesn't consider the creatures mirageor hallucination. This view is somewhat different from the views of mystics of Khorasan, and Gnosis of Khorasan, the differences that have led to two ways of Conduct (Mystical journey) in gnosis. The scope of this research begins from the third century AD and continues by the end of the seventh century that is the rise of theoretical gnosis based on the Ibn Arabi's pantheistic opinions.</p>
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Białkowska, Anna. "“Prisoners of the Earth, come out”: Links and Parallels between William Burroughs’s Writing and Gnostic Thought." Anglica Wratislaviensia 56 (November 22, 2018): 23–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.19195/0301-7966.56.2.
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William Burroughs’s works are rarely read in relation to any religious context. I would like to present a correspondence between the vision that emerges from his Nova Trilogy and some of the most popular Gnostic ideas. In the cut-up trilogy, mankind is left alone, trapped in a hostile cosmos ruled by antihuman forces. Through the manipulation of words and images, Demiurge-like agents spread their control over an illusory reality. Like Gnostics, Burroughs envisions the physical world, and also the body, as a prison to the transcendent spirit. To him, one way of escape is through cut-ups. The writer shows that by breaking away from arbitrary notions and a routine mode of thinking, one can attain gnosis — saving knowledge. Burroughs creates his own mythology which, like Gnostic teachings, promotes the ideas of self-knowledge, internal transformation and transcendence.
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Dillon, Matthew. "Impact of Scholarship on Contemporary “Gnosticism(s)”." International Journal for the Study of New Religions 9, no. 1 (December 7, 2018): 57–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.37614.
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This article examines the impact of academic discourses on Neo-Gnosticism. The identities and ritual practices of Neo-Gnostics are constructed with reference to Gnostic Studies. Analysis of two case studies (the Apostolic Johannite Church and Jeremy Puma) shows how academic discourse legitimizes, challenges, or reforms Gnostic identity in the twenty-first century.
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Zmorzanka, Anna Z. "Kobieta - uczennica i nauczycielka w przekazach gnostyckich." Vox Patrum 42 (January 15, 2003): 89–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.31743/vp.7145.
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Seven Gnostic writings were discussed in the article. They represent the mysterious teachings of the Savior, who passed it on to a chosen group of men and women. According to the author, these compositions reftect the factuai relationship of Gnostics towards women that is why they constitute an important argument for the issue of women's participation in Gnostic teachings.
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Litwa, M. David. "You Are Gods: Deification in the Naassene Writer and Clement of Alexandria." Harvard Theological Review 110, no. 1 (December 21, 2016): 125–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0017816016000419.
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Currently there is no widespread agreement on what constitutes gnosis or the gnostic identity in the ancient world. The best option, it seems, is to offer a polythetic classification wherein gnostic thinkers or groups possess a range of characteristics without any one group or thinker possessing all of them. Yet even if widespread agreement on a set of characteristics were attained, it still would not explain how gnostic groups emerged, developed, and crafted their own specific identities.
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Jafari, Fereshteh. "THEOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE IN ISLAMIC MYSTICISM AND GNOSTICISM." Kanz Philosophia A Journal for Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism 6, no. 2 (December 31, 2020): 211–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.20871/kpjipm.v6i2.92.
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In this paper, the similarities between the Gnostic and Islamic mystic beliefs about “Knowledge” (Ma‘refat) will be considered. The aim is to answer the question of whether they share a common view of divine knowledge. For this purpose, first Gnosticism and its ideas will be clarified. Second, a brief history of Islamic Mysticism will be presented. Then, in light of the evolution path of such beliefs, the main principles of both cults about the Gnosis and Mysticism will be reconsidered. The methodology of this study is based on a comparative study, by analyzing Islamic mystical books and Gnostic texts. Through the study of mystical books, the traditions and beliefs of the early mystics, in this case, are stated, and some examples from the Gnostic books about the Gnosis and mystical knowledge are mentioned. The comparative study of these two religions revealed that they have many similarities in points of view to “knowledge”. Similarities between Islamic mysticism and Gnosticism are so much that some believe that the theory of divine knowledge in the minds of Muslim Sufis originates from Gnostic ideas. But this claim cannot be completely true and the Gnostic beliefs have only had influences on it.
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DeConick, April D., and Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta. "Introducing Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies." Gnosis 1, no. 1-2 (July 11, 2016): 1–3. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451859x-12340001.
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DeConick, April D. "The Sociology of Gnostic Spirituality." Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 4, no. 1 (June 25, 2019): 9–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451859x-12340067.
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Abstract This paper owes debt to the field of study known as sociology of knowledge, which is interested in the social location of groups and their constructions of knowledge and reality. This project, however, is not about ordinary knowledge, but how gnosis, the direct knowledge of a transcendent God beyond the traditional Gods, became the foundation of a new form of spirituality in antiquity, and how this form of Gnostic spirituality has reemerged in modern America, impacting traditional religious communities and fostering new religious movements. Several social factors are involved in the emergence of Gnostic spirituality, including the dislocation of the founders and collaborators of Gnostic movements, the prominence of the seeker response, the revelatory milieu in which they find themselves, their reliance on revelatory authority, their push for alternative legitimation, and their flip-and-reveal and do-it-yourself constructions of new knowledge. Gnostic countercultures arise when Gnostic spirituality is mobilized. Much of religion and society are overturned so that we find constructions of the counter-self, calls for counter-conduct, the establishment of counter-cult, the deployment of counter-media, and the emergence of modes of Gnostic esoterization. The final section turns to the awakening, transport, and occulturation of Gnostic spirituality into modernity in America via artifact migration and alpha channels like Blavatsky.
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Gertz, S. R. P. "THE DECLINE OF SOPHIA AND A MISLEADING GLOSS IN PLOTINUS, ENN. II.9 [33].10.25." Classical Quarterly 66, no. 1 (May 2016): 413–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s000983881600029x.
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In two chapters of Enn. II.9 [33], Plotinus discusses the Gnostic idea that the creation of the world is due to the ‘decline’ (νεῦσις) of a principle that he variously calls Soul or Sophia. The identity of Plotinus' Gnostics is notoriously difficult to establish with any degree of precision; I can only note here that the idea of Sophia's ‘decline’ features in a number of extant Gnostic texts, such as those from Nag Hammadi and the Berlin Codex (Papyrus Berolinensis 8502), as a recent survey of the evidence by Poirier has demonstrated.
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Brakke, David. "Pseudonymity, Gnosis, and the Self in Gnostic Literature." Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 2, no. 2 (July 17, 2017): 194–211. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451859x-12340036.
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Why did Sethian gnostic authors write pseudonymously? In addition to making a claim to authority, gnostic pseudepigraphy, exemplified by The Three Tablets of Seth, was multiple and performative, implying that the self is multiple—a manifestation of selfhood at different levels of a single reality—and that performing one’s self as multiple provides a path to higher knowledge of one’s self and thus of God. That is, gnostic pseudonymity stems from a distinctive understanding of the self and functions as a mystical practice that performs that understanding. The eschewal of pseudonymity in Valentinian literature reflects different conceptions of the self and of the path to gnosis.
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Lüdemann, Gerd. "The Acts of the Apostles and the Beginnings of Simonian Gnosis." New Testament Studies 33, no. 3 (July 1987): 420–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0028688500014363.
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The person of Simon encountered in Acts 8 has been a controversial figure ever since the rise of historical criticism. The range of opinions in the history of research varies from denying his existence to regarding him as the instigator of the gnostic movement that threatened the nascent early church in the second century. These contradictory results reflect the particular difficulty of the Simon question, which consists not least in the span of time that lies between the two oldest sources (Acts and Justin). Furthermore, an orderly report of Simon's gnostic teaching is encountered first in Irenaeus. In modern research, Simon Magus has been treated more or less as a test case for the larger question about gnostic backgrounds of the NT or about the existence of a first century Gnosis. With conscious or unconscious reference to this first century Gnosis, the majority of investigators (especially of German origin) has affirmed the existence of a first-century Gnostic Simon, and has neglected the above mentioned chronological problem. Only recently has the following judgement begun to gain dominance: ‘All attempts so far made have failed to bridge the gap between the Simon of Acts and the Simon of the heresiologists.’ This statement points to the lack of Simon's companion Helen (= ἔννοια) in Acts 8 and to the fact that the expression ‘great power (of God)’ (Acts 8. 10b) is not gnostic as such.
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Shaw, Gregory. "Can We Recover Gnosis Today?" Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 4, no. 1 (June 25, 2019): 67–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451859x-12340068.
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Abstract This paper attempts to redefine what we mean by “gnosis.” It begins with a critique of scholars who—in order to maintain their supposed objectivity—avoid wrestling with the subjective experience of gnosis. They reduce gnosis to its literary, political, and religious contexts, and their explanation of these influences passes for our scholarly understanding of gnosis. Yet gnosis remains unknown to them. Once we dare to explore gnosis as a transforming experience, we can recognize it outside of the historical context of the late antique world. What, then, is the gnostic experience? Following Frances Yates, I suggest that there are two kinds of gnosis: the pessimistic, dualist, and anti-cosmic gnosis, and the optimistic, non-dual gnosis that sees the material cosmos as divine. I trace the lineage of this non-dual gnosis from Neoplatonic theurgists who speak of an “innate gnosis” that allows us to see the world as theophany, to its expression in our own American Gnostic, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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Dobkowski, Mariusz. "„Uważam się za heretyka i za gnostyka, i szczycę się, że nim jestem”. Jerzego Prokopiuka ezoteryczna recepcja gnozy i gnostycyzmu." Studia Religiologica 54, no. 3 (December 1, 2021): 269–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.4467/20844077sr.21.017.16554.
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“I Consider Myself a Heretic and a Gnostic, and I Pride Myself on Being One.” Jerzy Prokopiuk’s Esoteric Reception of Gnosis and Gnosticism In the paper, the author presents Jerzy Prokopiuk’s (1931–2021) outlook on gnosis and Gnosticism. Prokopiuk was a Polish esotericist, translator, and non-academic specialist in religious studies. His views on this subject can be divided into four areas: (1) definition of gnosis; (2) the essence and de- scription of Gnosticism as a historical religious formation; (3) description and understanding of the post-Gnostic tradition; (4) gnosis and Gnosticism as a hermeneutic tool. As to (1) definition of gno- sis, the Prokopiuk presents three forms of this special kind of knowledge: escapist gnosis (know- ledge liberates the human spirit from material body and the physical world); transformational gnosis (knowledge transforms the human soul, body and earthly nature); lateral gnosis (idea of alternative worlds). Regarding (2) Gnosticism, Prokopiuk says that its source was ancient mysteries and a par- ticular type of religious experience. He sees (3) the post-Gnostic tradition as an unbroken chain of esoteric groups and figures from late antiquity to the present day. Finally, gnosis and Gnosticism are (4) a hermeneutic tool for Prokopiuk because they allow him to interpret phenomena and texts of culture (in the field of literature, cinema, psychology, and others). The paper also reflects on the usefulness of some of Prokopiuk’s ideas for contemporary humanities.
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Williams, Frank. "The Gospel of Judas: Its Polemic, its Exegesis, and its Place in Church History." Vigiliae Christianae 62, no. 4 (2008): 371–403. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157007208x287670.
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AbstractThe Gospel of Judas is a Sethian gnostic revelation dialogue which contains an unusual amount of narrative movement and casts Judas as recipient of the revelation. It is in large part polemic and is comparable to other early polemics, both of the gnostics and of their opponents. It inveighs against the eucharist and the clergy who celebrate it, attempts to substitute, for the supposedly inaccurate passion narrative of the four gospels, an account of the events as they really transpired, and sharply contrasts the character and fate of gnostic with those of catholic Christians. We treat first of its attack on the eucharist, next of its handling of the gospel narratives, and then of its polemic stance, comparing this with that of three other gnostic polemics, The Testimony of the Truth, The Apocalypse of Peter, and The Second Treatise of the Great Seth. In the light of this comparison we conclude with suggestions concerning the sort of situation our document might reflect, and the reasons for the selection of Judas as its protagonist.
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Geraths, Cory. "Early Christian Rhetoric(s) In Situ." Journal for the History of Rhetoric 20, no. 2 (May 2017): 209–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.5325/jhistrhetoric.20.2.0209.
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ABSTRACT In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an unprecedented number of Gnostic manuscripts were unearthed at sites across Egypt. Discovered on the Cairo antiquities market, in ancient trash heaps, and in buried jars, these papyri have radically refigured the landscape of early Christian history. Rhetoric, however, has overlooked the Gnostics. Long denigrated as heretical, Gnostic texts invite historians of rhetoric to (re)consider the role of gender in the early Church, the interplay between gnōsis and contemporary rhetorical concepts, and the
development of early Christian rhetorical practice(s) within diverse historical contexts, including the Second Sophistic. In response to recent calls for rhetorical archaeology, this essay returns to Cairo, Oxyrhynchus, and Nag Hammadi. These three locations refigure early Christian rhetoric(s) in situ.
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Rossbach, Stefan. "Gnosis, science, and mysticism: a history of self-referential theory designs." Social Science Information 35, no. 2 (June 1996): 233–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/053901896035002004.
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In this paper, we understand the advent of a “scientific spirit” as a revival of Gnosticism, which proclaims the superiority of man over his creator and considers knowledge (gnosis) to be the key to salvation. Salvation is here understood as a form of “emancipation”. Empirically, we see our interpretation confirmed in the tremendous influence of the Corpus Hermeticum and the Lurianic Cabala on all the Renaissance scientists. In the second part of this essay, we continue a line of research inaugurated by Ferdinand Christian Baur in the 19th century, and look for Gnostic outlooks in contemporary philosophy and social science. By reading Niklas Luhmann's systems theory as a modern version of Gnostic mysticism, we do not intend to dismiss the relevance of his work. For if Gnosticism defines “modernity”, we should not be surprised to find a speculative, Gnostic system among society's self-descriptions.
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Junping, Zhang, and Zhang Bin. "The Gnostic Hunters in Nabokov’s 'The Real Life of Sebastian Knight'." Interlitteraria 25, no. 2 (December 31, 2020): 476–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/il.2020.25.2.17.
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Nabokov’s The Real Life of Sebastian Knight presents the ambiguous identities of the two heroes, V. and Sebastian, attracting great attention among Nabokovian scholarship. The present article intends to reveal that Nabokov’s design of Sebastian and V. pertains to his own Gnostic faith and the ambiguous identities of V. and Sebastian, in light of certain Gnostic tenets and concepts, are the representation of their spiritual evolution and their merging spirits during their respective quest of “gnosis”. The article will show how the heroes as “aliens” break the shackles of “this world,” undo the chains of the heavy flesh, regain their spiritual identities of the inner selves, start the journey of spiritual evolution and self-revelation, and finally achieve the fusion of spirits in “the other world” by way of attaining “gnosis”.
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Junping, Zhang, and Zhang Bin. "The Gnostic Hunters in Nabokov’s 'The Real Life of Sebastian Knight'." Interlitteraria 25, no. 2 (December 31, 2020): 476–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/il.2020.25.2.17.
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Nabokov’s The Real Life of Sebastian Knight presents the ambiguous identities of the two heroes, V. and Sebastian, attracting great attention among Nabokovian scholarship. The present article intends to reveal that Nabokov’s design of Sebastian and V. pertains to his own Gnostic faith and the ambiguous identities of V. and Sebastian, in light of certain Gnostic tenets and concepts, are the representation of their spiritual evolution and their merging spirits during their respective quest of “gnosis”. The article will show how the heroes as “aliens” break the shackles of “this world,” undo the chains of the heavy flesh, regain their spiritual identities of the inner selves, start the journey of spiritual evolution and self-revelation, and finally achieve the fusion of spirits in “the other world” by way of attaining “gnosis”.
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Versluis, Arthur. "The Cosmological Gnosis of Miguel Serrano." Gnosis 7, no. 1 (March 10, 2022): 53–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451859x-00701003.
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Abstract A close look at a very unusual instance of how gnosis, and specific concepts from early Christian-era Gnosticism, appear directly in the numerous late works of a recent Chilean author, Miguel Serrano (1917–2009), and of how his work and thought exemplifies cosmological gnosis. Many international readers knew Serrano as author of unusual fictional works, and as an ambassador for Chile to several countries. During his time abroad, he met, and in many cases befriended, famous figures of the day, including Carl Jung, Herman Hesse, Ezra Pound and the fourteenth Dalai Lama. But fewer are aware of his works promoting a grand cosmological synthesis of many world religious traditions with esoteric Hitlerism expressed in gnostic terms. His syncretic system includes references to a demiurge and to gnosis, as well as to many other esoteric traditions from Europe, India, Tibet, and elsewhere, largely in a Gnostic context. This article by Arthur Versluis is the first to explore this aspect of Serrano’s work.
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Davis, Erik. "Gnostic Psychedelia." Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 5, no. 1 (March 26, 2020): 97–120. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451859x-12340078.
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Abstract Today the clinical return of research into psychedelic medicine has been accompanied by a model of religious experience that stresses the healing effects of unitive, immanent experiences. This paper instead unearths a counter-narrative of psychedelic religiosity: a more suspicious and critical sense of spiritual encounter that I illuminate through the classic gnostic mythology of the archons. In a number of movement texts from the 1960s through the 2000s, I trace the appearance of archon-like figures—both explicitly linked to gnostic traditions and not—and how their appearance motivates social critique and a more engaged politics of consciousness.
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Attridge, Harold W. "Gnostic Platonism." Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 7, no. 1 (1991): 1–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2213441791x00024.
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Gaston, Thomas. "The Egyptian Background of Gnostic Mythology." Numen 62, no. 4 (June 8, 2015): 389–407. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341378.
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The mythologies recorded by Irenaeus that he ascribes to the Gnostics contain many features that are difficult to explain by reference solely to Jewish sources, whether orthodox or heterodox. Previously, Douglas Parrott proposed an Egyptian background for the pattern of divinities found in the Gnostic textEugnostos. In this article, it is argued that the so-called Ophite mythology recorded by Irenaeus is earlier thanEugnostosand has more compelling parallels with Egyptian theogony. An Egyptian background for the Barbeloite mythology is also speculated. These parallels demonstrate that there is scope for further research into the Egyptian origins of Gnosticism.
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Goulder, Michael. "Colossians And Barbelo." New Testament Studies 41, no. 4 (October 1995): 601–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s002868850002172x.
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The nature of the ‘Colossian heresy’ remains obscure. It has gnostic features, but ChristianGnosticism is usually dated to the second century. It has elements of Judaism, but we know nothingof first-century Jewish gnosis. It may be a syncretistic ‘philosophy’, but such a description is barren, and explains nothing. It may be a kind of mysticism, but again the idea is difficult todefine, and the picture is left vague. I am proposing in this article to draw a comparison with anearly Gnostic document, the Apocryphon Johannis, which has clear Jewish roots; and to explain Colossians as Paul's response to a Jewish-Christian countermission which preached a myth close to, but distinct from, that in Apoc. Joh.
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Mazur, Zeke. "A Gnostic Icarus? Traces of the Controversy Between Plotinus and the Gnostics Over a Surprising Source for the Fall of Sophia: The Pseudo-Platonic 2nd Letter." International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 11, no. 1 (April 18, 2017): 3–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18725473-12341348.
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In several iterations of the Gnostic ontogenetic myth, we find variations on an intriguing notion: namely, that the first rupture in the otherwise eternal and continuous procession of ‘aeons’ in the divine ‘pleroma’ is caused by a cognitive overreach and failure (the “fall of Sophia”). As much as it might contain a distant echo of certain myths concerning hubris in the classical tradition or in biblical literature, this general schema of cognitive overreach—cognitive failure—fall has no obvious parallel in Greek philosophy prior to Plotinus, in some of whose more pessimistic accounts of hypostatic procession we find a similar schema, in which the generation of each ontological stratum occurs as the result of a cognitive failure on the superjacent level. If Plotinus borrowed this schema from the Gnostics, one might ask how the latter came up with it in the first place. In response, this paper makes the following three points. [1] Gnostic thinkers ultimately derived this schema from a particular juxtaposition of two profoundly aporetic Platonic passages referring to the travails of the individual soul, one certainly genuine (the description of the unexplained but catastrophic fall of the soul that fails to follow the heavenly train of the gods through the intelligible realm at Phaedrus 248c2-d3), the other quite possibly spurious (the claim that the cause of all evils is the desire, and the failure, of the soul to understand the nature of the notoriously enigmatic ‘King,’ ‘Second,’ and ‘Third,’ at 2nd Letter 312e1-313a6). [2] The Platonizing Sethian Gnostics closest to Plotinus also employed this latter source text to justify their conception of the individual soul, whose vicissitudes were understood to parallel those of Sophia. [3] This hypothesis is confirmed by evidence of tacit anti-Gnostic argumentation alluding to the 2nd Letter throughout Plotinus’ oeuvre.
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Mazur, Zeke. "Forbidden Knowledge: Cognitive Transgression and “Ascent Above Intellect” in the Debate Between Plotinus and the Gnostics." Gnosis 1, no. 1-2 (July 11, 2016): 86–109. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451859x-12340006.
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Throughout Enneads ii.9[33], commonly called Against the Gnostics, Plotinus repeatedly complains that the gnostics claim to possess an extraordinary capability to undertake a visionary ascent beyond the divine Intellect itself so as to attain the transcendent (and hyper-noetic) deity: a claim which he considers the height of arrogance. Plotinus further implies that this gnostic claim was in some way connected with the disparagement of Plato and the Greek philosophical tradition. No explicit trace of such disparagement has been found. This paper argues that (1) the extant Platonizing Sethian corpus, and in particular the tractate Zostrianos (nhc viii,1), envisions a complex hierarchy of types of souls, each correlated with both a different potential for visionary ascent and a corresponding position in the postmortem cycle of transmigration; that (2) Zostrianos tacitly suggests that the non-Sethian academic Platonists are those condemned to exile in the intermediary strata due to their cognitive overreach for the Good in the absence of Sethian revelation, and that (3) this reflects a gnostic deployment—against the Platonists themselves—of the supposedly Platonic injunction (in the 2nd Letter) that the soul’s attempt to comprehend the supreme principle, with which the soul has no kinship, inevitably leads to a fall into evil.
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Slade, Joseph W., and Dwight Eddins. "The Gnostic Pynchon." South Atlantic Review 57, no. 1 (January 1992): 149. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3200359.
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Sayers, Dorothy L. "The Gnostic Danger." Chesterton Review 26, no. 1 (2000): 225. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/chesterton2000261/231.
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Lohr, Winrich Alfried. "Gnostic Determinism Reconsidered." Vigiliae Christianae 46, no. 4 (December 1992): 381. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1583715.
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Quispel, Gilles, and Bentley Layton. "The Gnostic Scriptures." Vigiliae Christianae 42, no. 2 (June 1988): 199. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1583925.
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Hume, Kathryn, and Dwight Eddins. "The Gnostic Pynchon." American Literature 63, no. 2 (June 1991): 358. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2927192.
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Fuller, Steve. "Demystifying Gnostic Scientism." Rhetoric & Public Affairs 5, no. 4 (2002): 718–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/rap.2003.0004.
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Alfried Löhr, Winrich. "Gnostic Determinism Reconsidered." Vigiliae Christianae 46, no. 4 (1992): 381–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157007292x00188.
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Trompf, Garry W. "Gnostic Islam: Transformations of Classic Gnostic Speculation in Muslim Thought." Journal for the Academic Study of Religion 33, no. 2 (October 8, 2020): 119–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jasr.42429.
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Robertson, David G. "A Gnostic History of Religions." Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 32, no. 1 (January 24, 2020): 75–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341464.
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Abstract April DeConick’s The Gnostic New Age demonstrates that scholarship of Gnosticism is still entrenched in an Eliadian phenomenological paradigm which essentializes an ahistorical sui generis “Gnosis”. This approach is traceable to the Eranos Circle, particularly Carl G. Jung and Gilles Quispel, and builds certain philosophical and psychoanalytical affinities into an ahistorical religious current. DeConick’ comparison with New Age is tenuous, and misses the important fact that Gnosticism and New Age share specific genealogical antecedents. Interdisciplinary work needs to pay more attention to the theological and colonial implications of categories, or such problematic categories will continue to take root in the gaps between academic specialisms.
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Korenkova, Oleksandra. "Lexical-Semantic Classification of Cognitive Psych Verbs in Ukrainian, German and English." Studia Linguistica, no. 13 (2018): 123–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.17721/studling2018.13.123-133.
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The article deals with the concept and lexical-semantic classification of the gnostic mental state verbs on the material of modern Ukrainian, German and English languages. Particular attention is given to determination of common and distinctive features in the semantics of the gnostic mental state verbs in Ukrainian, German and English. The theoretical significance of the research lies in the definition of the concept and lexical-semantic features of the gnostic mental state verbs as a separate lexical-semantic class in each of the researched languages, which might lead to the further development of the study of lexics denoting mental states. The lexical-semantic classification of the gnostic mental verbs in Ukrainian, German and English, identification of common and distinctive features in the researched languages was made basing on the body of the authoritative dictionaries of modern Ukrainian, German and English languages. The results of the statistical processing of the dictionary samples helped to establish the degree of productivity of lexical-semantic groups in each of the above mentioned languages. The analysis of already made attempts to create some classifications of gnostic mental states in psychology and verbal lexicon, which denotes gnostic mental states in linguistics, revealed the absence of an adequate classification and description of these notions – ” gnostic mental state” and ” gnostic mental verbs”. Systematic analysis of the scientific data provided an opportunity to define the gnostic mental verbs in the research and describe the features of this verbal class on the lexical-semantic level within the framework of comparative research on the material of Ukrainian, German and English.
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Moldovan, Petru. "Books Received for Review in Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies." Gnosis 7, no. 2 (August 17, 2022): 269–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451859x-00702009.
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Moldovan, Petru. "Books Received for Review in Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies." Gnosis 1, no. 1-2 (July 11, 2016): 345–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451859x-12340022.
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Monfrinotti, Matteo. "«Leggere secondo le sillabe»." Augustinianum 60, no. 1 (2020): 9–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/agstm20206011.
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The present contribution proposes the study of the exegetical-soteriological assumption, elaborated by Clement of Alexandria in Str. 6, 15, 131, 1-5, where a passage taken from the Vis. II, 1, 3-4 of Hermas is reinterpreted. The Gnostic exegete, who professes the true gnosis, must be aware that while it is possible for everyone to read the sacrad Scripture “letter by letter”, not everyone will be in a position to undertake the “Gnostic explanation”, but only those to which faith has opened the depths of the text, “the elect”, so that they are able to progress from the “letter” to the “syllable” bringing to light the message that goes beyond the letter, which is already engraved in the “new heart” and now preserved in the book that has been “renewed” by the Savior, the Logos of God.
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Springer, Don W. "Tell us no secrets: St. Irenaeus’ contra-gnostic doctrine of communion." Vox Patrum 68 (December 16, 2018): 85–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.31743/vp.3332.
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Discussion related to the potential for mystical union with God was largely absent from the writings of the Church Fathers prior to the late-second century. Toward the end of that century, however, the concept of communion with God emerged as a topic of interest in both early Christian and Gnostic literature. St. Irenaeus of Lyons was among the earliest Christian writers to critically reflect on the subject. He argued that participation with the divine was possible only in the “orthodox” churches and required three key elements: a life lived in connection to the Spirit of God, in community with the true people of God, while bearing evidence of godly piety and virtue. Whereas Gnostic conceptions of communion frequently included an emphasis on the reception of an exclusive, secret gnosis, Irenaeus’ paradigm offered a public, progressive path of ascent to God.
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Albano, Emmanuel. "Rivelare e Tacere: Note per una riflessione su Scrittura e Tradizione nel pensiero di Clemente di Alessandria." Augustinianum 56, no. 2 (2016): 301–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/agstm201656220.
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This article intends to highlight the idea of revelation that Clement expresses throughout his work. Drawing both from Greek philosophical culture and biblical thought, Clement shows how supernatural revelation, on the level of both faith and gnosis, corresponds to select ‘places’ of Scripture and the Church’s Tradition, culminating in the embodiment of gnosis by men who have reached the highest degree of knowledge and holiness of life. A comparison with the theme of revelation in Gnostic texts sheds more light on the peculiarities of Clementine thought.
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Abdygaliyeva, N. N., and A. T. Taubeyeva. "Content of scientific and pedagogical features of formation of gnostic competence of future foreign language teachers." Journal of Almaty Technological University, no. 2 (August 20, 2021): 54–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.48184/2304-568x-2021-2-54-60.
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This article discusses the main features of the formation of gnostic competencies in the training of future foreign language teachers in language universities. The author emphasizes that gnostic competence also plays an important role in improving a teacher's pedagogical skills, emphasizing that gnostic competence is the basis of a teacher's professional activity and is a determinant of achieving a high level of pedagogical skill, as well as design or structural skills.
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Guillory, Margarita Simon. "Gnostic and Countercultural Elements in Zora Neale Hurston’s “Hoodoo in America”." Gnosis 1, no. 1-2 (July 11, 2016): 310–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2451859x-12340016.
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Over the last decade, religious studies scholars have given attention to Zora Neale Hurston’s “Hoodoo in America.” These works, however, have not considered the important role of gnosis in hoodoo. This article acts to extend this literature by examining how Hurston employs secret knowledge to advance a particular understanding of hoodoo. Specifically, I argue that Hurston’s ethnographic study of New Orleans hoodoo captures a system of African-derived magical practices that is characterized by both gnostic and countercultural elements. These elements in turn reveal an intricate relationship between gnosis, human agency, and material culture that finds expression in the complex ritual system of New Orleans hoodoo.
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Kilner-Johnson. "Bernard Shaw's Gnostic Genius." Shaw 41, no. 1 (2021): 35. http://dx.doi.org/10.5325/shaw.41.1.0035.
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Nguyen, Martin. "Gnostic Apocalypse and Islam." American Journal of Islam and Society 30, no. 1 (January 1, 2013): 102–4. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v30i1.1158.
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In his Gnostic Apocalypse and Islam, Todd Lawson provides a rich and multifacetedexploration of an unconventional exegetical text by Ali MuhammadShirazi (d. 1850), more prominently known as the Bab. The text in questionis Tafs¥r S´rah Y´suf, also known as Qayy´m al-AsmOE’ and Aúsan al-Qa§a§.Available only in manuscript form, the Tafs¥r is an early and critically importanttext for understanding the rise of Babism, a messianic new religiousmovement that emerged out of Shi‘ism. Lawson’s study will not only be of interest to scholars of Ithna’ ‘Ashari Shi‘ism, Babism, and Baha’ism, but isalso a valuable contribution to tafs¥r studies and the burgeoning field of Muslimapocalyptic literature.The Tafs¥r S´rah Y´suf, however, is not a conventional scriptural commentary,for its relationship to the Qur’an is far more complex. Being deeplyconnected to the Bab’s emerging identity as the “gate” of the hidden Imam,the Tafs¥r moves beyond the sphere of the explanatory into that of the revelatory.As a result, the text bears explicitly scriptural resonances. Among the examplesprovided is that the chapters of the Tafs¥r are called s´rahs, the text hasprostration (sajdah) markers, each s´rah opens with the basmalah, and nearlyall of them have disconnected letters at their beginning. In Lawson’s ownwords, “…it is clear from the structure of the work that the author is introducinga new scripture or revelation by means of the Trojan horse of exegesis” (p. 22) ...