Is Gnosticism anti-semetic by nature? (ritual, Creator, tradition, attend)

[spacemonkey]

This is something I've been pondering for a while and would like some outside opinions, gnostic or otherwise.

If the creator (Demiurge) is a flawed being that seeks to keep our soul/spirit/divine spark trapped on this material plane that it has created and the chosen people of this flawed, false god are the Semites, then doesn't that mean that Jews are essentally diametrically opposed from gnostics. In other words, isn't gnosticism in essance the exact opposite of Judaism.

[Random]

Originally Posted by spacemonkey

This is something I've been pondering for a while and would like some outside opinions, gnostic or otherwise.

If the creator (Demiurge) is a flawed being that seeks to keep our soul/spirit/divine spark trapped on this material plane that it has created and the chosen people of this flawed, false god are the Semites, then doesn't that mean that Jews are essentally diametrically opposed from gnostics. In other words, isn't gnosticism in essance the exact opposite of Judaism.

1) Something being ideologically opposed to Judaism does not make it anti-semitic in the sense the thread title suggests.

2) Yes, Gnostics who would hold that the God (Yahweh) of the Old Testament is the Demiurge would have an issue with Jews identifying as the Chosen of that (lesser/evil) god.

3) Saying the God of the Jews is the Devil is an entirely different thing to saying he is the Demiurge, since the Demiurge is not strictly the same as Satan, Lucifer etc. It is difficult to pinpoint exact characteristions of Gnostic figures since opinion varies on who and what they were representatively.

Check out this link: here is a site that will help to illustrate the divide of opinion as to the true meaning of Gnostic thought.

[spacemonkey]

Isn't the "Devil" nothing more than the adversary of God? Couldn't one then say that the Demiurge, through his imprisonment of our spirits, is the adversary of the inner god that gnosics speak of "waking up" through the achievment of gnosis?

[Random]

Originally Posted by spacemonkey

Isn't the "Devil" nothing more than the adversary of God? Couldn't one then say that the Demiurge, through his imprisonment of our spirits, is the adversary of the inner god that gnosics speak of "waking up" through the achievment of gnosis?

One could say that, yes, though Christ or Sophia rightly fit the profile of the Demiurge's opponents as they represent the Transcendent God that Gnostics seek to awaken to. But the Demiurge does still not resemble the figure of Satan or Lucifer.

[gnostic]

Originally Posted by space monkey

Isn't the "Devil" nothing more than the adversary of God?

Actually the original meaning was that "Satan" was "adversary of man", not of God.

I don't know meaning of the "Devil"? Possibly "slanderer"? I am not sure. It seem to be English derived from Greek or Latin.

Where is the damn dictionary when I need one.

[Halcyon]

Originally Posted by spacemonkey

This is something I've been pondering for a while and would like some outside opinions, gnostic or otherwise.

If the creator (Demiurge) is a flawed being that seeks to keep our soul/spirit/divine spark trapped on this material plane that it has created and the chosen people of this flawed, false god are the Semites, then doesn't that mean that Jews are essentally diametrically opposed from gnostics. In other words, isn't gnosticism in essance the exact opposite of Judaism.

Not in my opinion.

For starters one of the first Gnostic groups, the Sethians, were Jewish. Having a different cosmology concerning the Hebrew deity doesn't make a person or group anti-Semitic, only if they start being violent, harassing or otherwise persecuting Jews would they be anti-semitic.

Later Gnostic groups, e.g. the Valentinians, were known (and criticised) for their tolerant and liberal views concerning other faiths - for example a person whether they were Christian, Pagan or Jew could attend and take part in a Valentinian ritual prayer and/or listen to their teachings.

Gnosticism by it's nature is highly allegorical, the Demiurge could be seen as the demonising of the Jewish God, or he could be seen as the veil of ignorance that shields the light of truth from people's eyes - as the latter he is the "God of this world" the world that blinds people. Seeing as the Gnostic traditions are all of Judaic descent, the "God of this world" becomes YHWH by default as his original covenant was all about the acquisition of land, and many of his rules involved material concerns.

Remember that for the Sethians, unlike the Valentinians, there were no Christian "God of love" texts to base their cosmology on. The God of the Jews, for them, was the distant father, the monad or bythos. The Demiurge and his clergy being the veil that prevented the average Joe on the street from realising this.

[Buttons*]

Nope...

[Gnostic Witch]

I like the answers here. I would add, that Gnostics may feel that Jews were simply victims of the demiurge's deception.

Good point also, about the Sethians -- many of the original gnostics were Jewish.

I have heard it be said that gnosticism is a nice mix of jewish and hermetic thought.

[Willamena]

Originally Posted by spacemonkey

If the creator (Demiurge) is a flawed being that seeks to keep our soul/spirit/divine spark trapped on this material plane that it has created and the chosen people of this flawed, false god are the Semites, then doesn't that mean that Jews are essentally diametrically opposed from gnostics. In other words, isn't gnosticism in essance the exact opposite of Judaism.

I plainly see the Demiurge as metaphor for a particular paradigm of belief slanted to be the foundation to such things as materialism, empiricism and "objective reality". I also see in some of the Judaic beliefs that I've been exposed to an underlying mysticism revealed in imagry that is often mistaken literally (often by the same materialists). I would agree that participants in these paradigms are opposed in some ways, but we are all part of reality in the same way. This the mystic knows.

[Jayhawker Soule]

No, it is not.