What is "Gnosis"? (Jesus, ritual, gospel, followers)

[sandhill]

This is a question that I have been digging into since my first introduction into Gnosticism back in the late 1950;s when I read Mead's "Fragments of a Faith Forgotten".
Now almost fifty years later, I have a pretty good idea of what the early Gnostics were talking and writing about. It is a hell of a lot simpler than I thought was possible when I first started on some levels, and a hell of a lot more complex than I ever thought was possible on other levels.

This is going to be a very long and very complex thread. I intend to share my researches here and to go through many different subject areas.

I will be providing references to various books and links to various websites for additional reference material, as appropriate.

[Buttons*]

Good! *smiles* always up for more learning!

gnosis = inner knowledge

[gnostic]

Wow! 50 years?

That's staggering.

I heard there was gospel of Thomas floating about 15-18 years ago (I can't be precise, sorry), but didn't read it and I didn't associated this gospel with Gnosticism. In fact, I didn't know a single thing about Gnosticism until 3 years ago. I didn't read Thomas' gospel and other Gnostic texts until 2 years ago.

Lot of gnostic texts are very cryptic and very hard to grasp. I find it interesting enough to investigate it. That's why I am keep asking questions here.

[sandhill]

I was planning to write some items out and then copy and paste them in, but I just tried to do that and found I could not paste from a thing I had written.

Any thoughts?

[Buttons*]

did you try cntl+C then cntl+V ? That can help sometimes....

[sandhill]

First, it is important to provide a brief overview of "Gnosticism" as
it has evolved over the last hundred years.

Early Christianity was a highly unstable mix of many different
strands of evolution of Christianity. What we know as "the New
Testament" was not really stabilized until the Council of Nicea.
And many different elements of what constituted "Christianity" only
into being after extensive internal arguments among various
Christian groups.

One should study the evolution of heresies within the early
Church, as that process characterizes the formation of both the
New Testament and Christianity itself. Even the nature of Jesus was
itself an evolving process.

What many people do not know is that the early Church was in
a serious fight for its own survival. The religious movement known
as "Mithraism" was well integrated into the Roman army, and in
turn the entire Roman civilization depended on the existence of
the Army. Also, during the first two centuries Egyptian religion
played an active role in the religious movements of Rome.

And then there was Gnosticism, which was a religious movement
that seemed to incorporate and integrate elements of Christianity,
which in turn generated intense reactions from various Christian
leaders. Mithraism was an independent religion and as such
well defined, but Gnosticism used various Christian elements as
part of its own teaching. And that led to intense reactions against
those who taught within the "Gnostic context".

Now, what is that "Gnostic context"?

A gross simplication is that Gnosis is a specific form of "knowing" or
"knowledge" that provides an inner understanding or a consciousness
that frees a person from suffering and ignorance. It may be a knowing
of a myth or set of myths, or it may be an inner realization, but
whatever it is, the one who has Gnosis is somehow different from
other people who do not have Gnosis.

And in turn, the early Church Fathers went to extreme lengths to
find out who various Gnostics were, and to destroy their teachings
and written texts. All that was left were descriptions in various
canonical texts which would then be used as references for later
heresy-hunters to identify whether or not a particular Gnostic
heresy had survived.

In time, then, all that was left of the Gnostic movement were the
various fragments as contained within the writings of the early
Church Fathers.

And so that condition remained from around 350 AD until the latter
part of the nineteenth century. But as the Ancient Civilization of
Egypt began to be recovered with the deciphering of the Rosetta
Stone, so also people began to search for the foundations of what
Christianity was really about, and that in turn led to a revival of
interest in Gnostic teachings. Madam Blavatsky would initiate
the strange hybrid movement known as Theosophy, and in turn
writers of Theosophy began to project the concept that there was
an Ancient worldwide spirituality that lay both outside of and
before Christianity. One aspect of that was the existence of the
Gnostic movement. One of her followers, one George R.S. Meade,
wrote the book, "Fragments of a Faith Forgotten" as well as the
English translation of a Coptic Gnostic text discovered in the late
`1700s, that translation coming from the German translation and
edition of Carl Schmidt and published as "Pistis Sophia".

Shortly after the turn of the century, the great Swiss psychologist
Carl Jung began to explore various Gnostic teachings in terms of
his own worldview (weltenschaungen) and himself channelled
a set of dialogues on Abraxas.

Then in 1947, a complete library of Coptic gnostic texts was
discovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt and by 1978, the world
was able to begin studying English translations of various
Gnostic works, so that such works could be studied without
the filtering and distortions of the Catholic Church Fathers.

The years since the 1978 publication have seen an explosion of
interest in Gnosticism, although on some levels what Gnosis actually refers to
remains a mystery.

That is my intent, I will lead you as readers through the pathways of my own
research. Perhaps the situation will become clearer in the days ahead.

[Buttons*]

yay! This should help explain to non-gnostics what it's really all about! Thank's for your insights!

[sandhill]

What is Gnosis?: Continued

The earlier Gnostic writers and teachers seemed to delight in waving
a red flag in front of others. Perhaps you may have seen a cartoon
showing a mouse flipping the bird at a hungry owl who is getting
ready to pounce on the mouse, with the caption "The Last Great
Act of Defiance". From the few traces that survived from the early
Christian times, Gnostics were not interested in any sort of
compromise.

Instead, they divided the human race into three broad classes. There
were the unawakened majority, the much smaller minority that
consisted of those who were following the Gnostic Path, and then
there were the few who had awakened Gnosis. In essence, you
either had Gnosis or you did not. And if you did not, you were
asleep and completely oblivious to the truth about "reality".

Modern writers tend to view Gnosticism with one of several
possible points of view.

The first point of view is that Gnosticism is an elitest fantasy that
has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever. Such writers tend to
refer to the early Church Fathers and reference such comments as
I was referring to. Thanks to such political earthquakes as the
French Revolution and the American Revolution, the idea that there
is an elite class of people based on something that they know or
claim to know is apparently absurd.

Then there are those who believe that Gnosticism is a dead
Christian "heresy". Gnosticism is viewed as being a prototypical
form of Christianity that came out of Christianity and which by
its own heretical rejection of the singular salvationist teaching
of Jesus, was rightly suppressed during the formative years of
the Christian expansion.

Another view is that Gnosticism is an aspect of Satanism, in that
as the Gnostics denied the unique position of Jesus, this was an
indication that Gnosticism is but one symptom of the Satanic
rebellion.

And then there are those who feel that Gnosticism is itself a
rightful religious and/or spiritual movement in its own right.
The Dutch Christian scholar, Gilles Quispel, wrote a convincing
book "Gnosis as World Religion" that emphasizes that the Gnostic
movement was a world religion in its own right. Some occultists
feel that Gnosticism is a valid path and is open.

Now, if we are to get closer to "what is Gnosis" we are going to have
to step outside of these various views. The search for Gnosis and
the meaning of Gnosis, implies that we are going to have to search
without falling back on any widely held view of Gnosis.

[opensoul7]

Gnosis to me is a knowledge from a very personal relationship with God. A knowledge only acquired through that relationship , and wich cannot ever be truly imparted to someone else. Each person can be shown the path but only they can walk it.
I like this quote also about Gnosis
"Gnosis is not simply a intellectual knowledge, a learning of certain secret doctrines; it is a realazation of God within .Like love ,it is a knowledge of the heart as well as the mind: a state of inner being."
-from "Secret Societies" by David V. Barrett

[sandhill]

You raised a good point, but on some levels your comment about "relationship with God" deflects the point about what is Gnosis. One oculd say that everyone has a relationship with God, which would be both completely true and at the same time totally meaningless. One could say that one has a relationship with the Earth, so what characterizes a meaningful relationship with the Earth ... or God?

One of the things that I discovered in my own mystical path was that while there were key stages or signposts, that the path was a continuation, a constant deepening and expansion of both the consciousness of who I am, and Whom I am approaching.

I will be arguing that the Gnostic realization has some very unique and very characteristic points, but for the moment I have to focus on what I might call "The Gnostic Process". And that leads into some very deep waters.