What inspired you to identify yourself as "Gnostic"? (Jesus, ritual)

[Buttons*]

Jacob Needleman

[SimonMagus]

yeah that never made any sense where they got the idea that Paul expressed similar beliefs with the Simon Magus tradition. Those early Pauline gnostics were not started specifically with Marcion either as we know, remember Cerdon was even before him professing a Duo-Theism of sorts.

So what we have is, well, unclear origins. The Pauline Gnostic Jesus was very similar to Simon, and some Gnostics may have broken away with Simonian tradition and started thinking it was Jesus who revealed the supreme unknown God, forgetting about Simon.

There was another very early Gnostic in the later years of John the apostle that I've been interested in, his name was Cerinthus, what do you think about his beliefs? He was like Judeo-Gnostic or something like that...

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by SimonMagus

There was another very early Gnostic in the later years of John the apostle that I've been interested in, his name was Cerinthus, what do you think about his beliefs? He was like Judeo-Gnostic or something like that...

He was an Egyptian Gnostic who some believed wrote the original version of what would later be changed by the proto-orthodox and called "The Gospel of John". Which, of course, would be an interesting irony since orthodox tradition holds that "John" (the version we have now) was "written" to refute Cerinthus. This little detail about the "orthodox" origin of the gospel comes, of course, courtesy of exclusively one person. Guess who . . .?

the doppleganger

[gnostic]

My alias here is "gnostic", but I am truly an "agnostic". But that's a long story, I would not bother you with this, unless someone ask why I call myself "gnostic".

However, I do have interested in reading gnostic texts from the Nag Hammadi Library. I had know the existence of the gospels of Thomas and Philip, when I was a teenager, but could not find any copy of the Gnostic texts. I didn't know Thomas and Philip gospels had to do with Gnosticism. Actually, I never heard of Gnosticism until a few years ago (2003, I think), when I finally came across the gospel of Thomas on the Internet.

Since then I have read some of the Gnostic texts that sparked my interested. I am very interested in the Gnostic version of the Creation, the Demiurge and of course, my favourite personality in Gnosticism - Sophia. Sophia is the reason why I became interested in the feminine principle, in otherwise monotheistic-based religion.

Of all, the Christian groups, I think I find myself more at home with Gnosticism, then elsewhere. And even though I find the Gnosticism and gnosis to be quite fascinating subject and point of great interest, I am still an agnostic at heart.

[SimonMagus]

let's see....Irenaeus right? Alot of the others copied off of him so I'll bet he's the culprit.

So do you think there was an original gospel of Cerinthus, including even epistles (formerly John's) and a proto-Revelations text? I'm aware of the accusations against him from others, they actually said he was the original author which was surprising....

It was claimed he was inspired by "angels," and wrote these revelations down, but so far no definite writings of his has survived...

he was one of the first to claim Jesus was merely a prophet, and just a man (so his beliefs were similar to the Jewish Ebionite sect). When baptized by John the spirit of God in the form of a dove came down and empowered Jesus to perform miracles and proclaim the great Unknown God. His religious system was confusing, I don't see how he could have kept Judaistic principles and at the same time rejected the lower angels of the world including the Demiurge. Probably Cerinthus was like Marcion, following the Ethical and Libertine tenets of Jesus, rather than the Jewish Law, which the new God under Jesus abolished. Maybe this was a kind of "New Law" for the people to follow....

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by SimonMagus

let's see....Irenaeus right?

Bingo! He claims to know it from Polycarp, who Irenaeus claims knew it from John the Apostle. But there's no reference to it in the one surviving writing attributed to Polycarp (Epistle to the Phillipians).

Of course, that all comes viaIrenaeus, who had need to establish all his "apostolic succession" arguments to counter Valentinus and Marcion similar, earlier claims. The former claimed to be a disciple of Theudas who was a direct disciple of Paul. The latter, of course, formed the first "canon" of New Testament scriptures containing a "gospel" now lost to us that it is said looked like a version of Luke and ten Pauline epistles (all but Hebrews and the Pastorals). Curiously, not only do these apostolic succession stories for Peter and John first appear with Irenaeus, but Irenaeus's writings contain the first known extant mention of Acts of the Apostles, which conveniently depicts a very different "Paul" then the one found in the Epistles, and the "Pastoral epistles", 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus.

Originally Posted by SimonMagus

So do you think there was an original gospel of Cerinthus, including even epistles (formerly John's) and a proto-Revelations text? I'm aware of the accusations against him from others, they actually said he was the original author which was surprising....

I don't know. There was such an effort to cleanse the historical record, destroying writings and erasing "heresies" that the picture we have of the first three centuries of "Christianity" will likely be forever tainted, imcomplete and unreliable.

Originally Posted by SimonMagus

he was one of the first to claim Jesus was merely a prophet, and just a man (so his beliefs were similar to the Jewish Ebionite sect).

In some details perhaps. But, setting aside the issue of whether Gnostic "cosmology" is intended to be taken metaphorically, Cerinthus was also a proponent of the idea of the O.T. "God" being the self-deceived "Demiurge," which doesn't sound like an idea the Ebionites would have accepted. But who really knows at this point? Everything was destroyed over the centuries except the writings of the anti-heresy polemicists of proto-orthodoxy. Maybe there's another treasure trove of writings like Nag Hammadi stashed somewhere, waiting to be discovered . . .

Until then, my personal approach is to apply the legal principles of "spoliation." When someone sets out to destroy evidence, it should be presumed that the evidence destroyed would have signficantly undermined their assertions.

Where does that leave me? I give little to no weight to apologetic arguments for orthodoxy based on appeals to the authority of scripture or tradition because the sources are not trustworthy.

the doppleganger

[allogenes]

So doppleganger, how about giving us your answers to the question you asked at the beginning of the post?

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by allogenes

So doppleganger, how about giving us your answers to the question you asked at the beginning of the post?

I'm not so sure I identify myself as "Gnostic," though I once did. I'll still try to answer my questions though:

If you haven't always identified yourself as "Gnostic," how did you indentify yourself before you decided upon "Gnostic"?

I was born to an Irish-Catholic family in the Pacific Northwest United States. The youngest of six kids (4 older sisters and one older brother), I was raised very loosely "Catholic" (a couple years of sunday school early on, and just Christmas and Easter after that). My older sisters all became "born again" Evangelical Christians when I was a teen. At age 15, under the guidance of one of my sisters (who is and always has been my one, lifelong confidant), I also became a Bible-thumping, conservative Evangelical Christian. That's how I viewed my self for about 4 or 5 years, but gradually grew disillusioned because I never could reconcile the fundamentalist Christian worldview with the message of Love and Grace that had originally inspired me to identify myself as "Christian" and I am just too inquisitive by nature to take "because tradition says so" for an answer to my questions. After a time, I gradually just dropped the facade and stopped identifying my self as "Christian."

What kinds of ideas, experiences and feeling made you decide to identify yourself as "Gnostic"?

I studied philosophy, anthopoology, history, psychology, law and government and became particularly enamored of the writings of Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Ernst Cassirer and Friedrich Nietzsche. It was with the help of these four that I developed a methodology of deconstructing mythology, culture and symbolic language to arrive at my own original experiences. That made Buddhism, Taoism, and Sufism especially attractive to me because I was able to apply this methodoloy in those traditions much more easily. It was through Campbell that I first encountered the Gospel of Thomas, which turned my attention back toward my native "Christianity" with new eyes. For a while I identified myself as "Christian Gnostic" working on deconstructing Christianity for its meanings.

How does your "gnostic" identity relate to those who you perceive identify themselves with other identities, such as "Catholic", "Muslim," "Mormon," "Buddhist," etc.?

My experience over the years has been that there is a common, absolute truth being expressed in every major tradition (including "atheist" traditions like humanism), because there is a common human experience of empathy for others and confusion about identity and the operation of language that lies at the heart of all of them. Finding it under all the politics, fear and culture is not always easy - it takes a lot of questions - and more importantly - a lot of careful and patient listening and observation. But it is always rewarding.


the doppleganger

[SimonMagus]

The Gospel of John looks like it's been tampered with if you ask me. Why the heck would a Gospel written to refute such deadly Gnosticism have so much Gnostic undertones and strange differences from the Synoptic Gospels.

Why trust the authorship of any Gospel at all since none even sign their names to the work lol, sheesh...like foreigners (who weren't hebrew) a century later are gonna know who wrote them? yeah right

(just my opinion but still...)

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by SimonMagus

Why trust the authorship of any Gospel at all since none even sign their names to the work lol, sheesh...like foreigners (who weren't hebrew) a century later are gonna know who wrote them? yeah right

(just my opinion but still...)

The authorship of all four "canonical" gospels is unknown. There's "tradition" about who wrote them, but if you trace it back to it's origins (almost all paths lead to one person), the tradition turns out to be third and fourth-hand hearsay. None of the four canonical gospels have any extant reference before the second half of the Second Century. More important than the unknown authorship is the unknown purpose for which they were written. For all we know, they are or were based on teachings myths or midrash, or were written or altered sometime in the latter half of the second century by polemicists. Since we have no idea where they came from, who wrote them, when, or what they originally said, it seems a little presumptuous to have spent the last 2000 years hating, torturing and murdering people over differences in the way one chooses to understand a turn of phrase here or there.