Gnosticism and The Matrix Trilogy....in a Nutshell

[spacemonkey]

In another thread about the tree of knowledge Nutshell quoted a line from The Matrix and I congradulated him for quoting the most heavily gnostic themed movie ever. He wanted an explanation of what led me to this conclusion, so here it is.

Hmmmm....where to start.....

In the gnostic belief, the creator of this world is not the True God, but a lesser being created out of pride. In the Matrix, " We marveled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to AI." In both instances the creations are matierial but without spirit.
Morpheus explains that the AI "spawned an entire race of machines"; in the gnostic creation story, the creator being or Demiurge first creates the Archons (angels) before creating the earth. The AI (known in the third film as Deus ex Machina, or "God from the Machine") creates the Matrix as "a prison for your mind", gnostics believe that the earth is a prison for the "divine spark" of mankind.

And the power of the mother [Sophia, in our analogy, humankind] went out of Yaldabaoth [AI] into the natural body which they had fashioned [the humans grown on farms by AI]... And in that moment the rest of the powers [archons / Agents ] became jealous, because he had come into being through all of them and they had given their power to the man, and his intelligence ["mind"] was greater than that of those who had made him, and greater than that of the chief archon [Agent Smith?]. And when they recognized that he was luminous, and that he could think better than they... they took him and threw him into the lowest region of all matter [simulated by the Matrix]. (Apocry. of John 19-20)

Lets look at Neo, the Christ figure of the movie. Neo sets people free from the Matrix by waking them up to the fact that the world around them is a fake, this is the role of the Gnostic Redeemer, not one usually attributed to Christ in orthodox ideologies. His name inside the Matrix is Thomas Anderson, this name has a double meaning. First, Anderson comes from the greek root Andros, meaning man, so Anderson literally means "son of man". Thomas just happens to be the name of the author of the most famous Gnostic Gospel, the Gospel of Thomas. Before he becomes Neo, he is doubing Thomas, and doesn't believe in his role as a redeemer. It is interesting to note hear that Thomas means "the twin" and in early christian legend Thomas was Jesus' twin brother.

I'm going to save anymore comparisons to be able to counter any arguments with, so on that note, I'd like to hear what you guys think.

 

[Buttons*]

well that movie has nothing to do with Gnosticism, thank gods

 

[nutshell]

spacemonkey,

this is fascinating...please keep going.