mountainman

THE GNOSTIC MYSTERY: A Connection Between Ancient and Modern Mysticism

By Andrea Grace Diem, Ph.D

Makes an interesting read ....

premjan

Gnosticism is a facet of all major religions - e.g. Sufism, Kabbalah, Vedanta etc.

mg01

premjan, would you mind elaborating on this? I've been trying to relate various works considered Gnostic such as the gospels of Thomas and Truth that don't include the archon mythology to other gnostic ideas. Is this a situation such as with the Upanishads as wisdom works extracted from they mythologica/ritual Vedas?

premjan

Nondualism (jnana/gnosis) is basically a common facet of all religions (believing with the mind rather than the heart). Dualistic religion is what is practiced day to day though.

mountainman

I just realised I posted the link to the introduction only
and that the rest of the full article is not "user friendly".

Here is the INDEX PAGE

The Gnostic Mystery

Abstract

Chapter One: Introduction (quoted above)

Chapter Two: the Gnostic Movement

Chapter Three: The Sant Tradition

Chapter Four: A Comparative Study

Chapter Five: Conclusion

Bibliography


Reviews:

Andrea Diem has done an excellent and enlightening cross-cultural study.
-- Professor Ninian Smart
-- Author of The Long Search



Excellent work and a very interesting study.
-- Professor Birger Pearson
-- Editor of Nag Hammadhi Codices IX and X



It is an interesting comparative essay, and the comparisons generally are too numerous and specific to be explained away by chance.
-- Professor Gerald Larson
-- Author of Classical Samkhya

mountainman

Gnosis is a Hellenistic term.

The "mystery component" relates to the question as to how
related was the Hellenistic concept of gnosis to the eastern
concept of enlightment, and secondly, in what manner were
the Hellenistic gnostics (think Pythagoras, Plato, and followers)
related to the history of christianity, since the ancient
christian heresiologists assert this claim. (eg: Eusebius)

The question might be asked whether the Hellenistic term
"gnosis" is similar to the Vedanta, Buddhist, etc term
"enlightenment" --- self-knowledge, self-awareness.

The Nag Hammadi time capsules represent as primary
documents in regard to the Hellenistic gnostics.

premjan

The Hindu term is "jnana" which may have a similar root as it means the same thing as "gnosis".

Elijah

I kind of fell off topic but... For me; the Gnostics are mostly related to the Platonic concept of recollection of forms. Plato had the idea of gaining knowledge as recollecting lost forms and salvation was found in the more forms you collected the higher up you could move in reincarnation cycles. I’m not sure how any specific Gnostic group used any text exactly but it’s my assumption that they were used in a similar manner, where the teachings of the nature of the universe understood properly could lead to some kind of salvation or ease of suffering.

Now salvation for the Jews that started Christianity was the resurrection of the dead, not working your way up to a better form of being on your next trip through. This is going to lead to drastically different salvation theories since it’s a case of just getting on the list to be resurrected and not about what you know/your gnosis. This makes way for someone to come up with the idea of promising to put your name on the list to be resurrected if you support this particular dead messiah who already supposedly came back from the dead once.

This idea doesn’t go over well with the Jews because if they do believe in an actual reincarnation then they probably have their own reasoning for who will get resurrected (probably being Jews) and faith in this dead Jew seems like ridiculous reasoning. But with the gentiles this idea goes over like gangbusters. Throw in a self sacrifice meme to help convince the masses that they really believe in a reward after death (or actually saw the dead return) and pretty soon just the size of the movement begins to convince people.

This popularity is confusing to most and unfortunately easily exploitable, both by philosophical schools who can claim that the orthodox religion is withholding teachings/Gnosticism of Jesus that leads to salvation, teachings they have if you come join their school. Also by politicians like your Constantine, who can see the benefit in exploiting his popularity with the people to help gain favor and power over them.

mountainman

I think that at the end of the day we may discover that
the Hellenistic gnostics were living in a social milieu very
similar to India. That is, the practices of the academy
of Plato and the followers of Pythagoras were essentially
very similar to the practices of Hindus and Buddhists.

Of course, an entirely differently named pantheon of traditional
divinities existed from the sanskrit and greek language perspectives.
The gnostics, like the Hindus and Buddhists, valued both the
intellectual pursuits and the ascetic pursuits in parallel.

Does this make sense?

There are many problems in discussions about the "gnostics":

1) Info about the gnostics has traditionally been sourced from heresiologists.

2) we dont know any specific historical figures termed "gnostics" from these sources - no historical figures are provided.

3) who were the gnostics? we dont really know.

4) what did they teach and preserve? Again, all that was previously known before the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library was via the christian orthodox heresiologists - largely Eusebius.

mountainman

I tend to agree with you on this Elijah.

With respect to those critical years between 000 and 325 CE I can see no useful distinction between those of the academy of Plato (and in addition the self-professed followers of Pythagoras) and those whom we seek to identify as the historical academy of the gnostics.



The Nag Hammadi library covers this sort of subject matter.
The mystery appears to be related to the "christianisation of the gnostics".


Your point about the issue of the doctrine of reincarnation is well taken.

Many scholars claim that Platonic philosophy underlies christianity.
Yet on this issue about the doctrine of reincarnation we can see
an extreme divergence. Belief in reincarnation became a heresy in
the fourth century.



Precisely.

"Religion is regarded
by the common people as true,
by the wise as false,
and by the ruler as useful"

---- Seneca the Younger