Christian Gnosis
Active Member
Seriously, is it? Is saying that the Jews have an evil god a statement verging on anti-semetism? I don't see how it is. No one is saying they shouldn't follow Judaism if they don't want to. :no:
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Is Gnosticism Anti-Semetic?
- Thread starter Christian Gnosis
- Start date
Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
Gnosticism as an organised religion is all but dead.
Gnosticism as a belief system and philosophy is certainly not.
Nor is Gnosticism essentially Christian, though it can be so.
It is certainly not anti Jewish, though people with Gnostic beliefs might be so, as can anyone.
One of the Difficulties with Gnosticism is "Language" Followers of most religions understand the "Language" used in their beliefs.
Gnosticism has its own Ideas and meanings that do not translate well into modern language. As a result few people have any Idea what the few remaining ancient texts actually mean, and how they might be interpreted. What is clear is that word for word translations do not work, or convey the religious content.
Gnosticism as a belief system and philosophy is certainly not.
Nor is Gnosticism essentially Christian, though it can be so.
It is certainly not anti Jewish, though people with Gnostic beliefs might be so, as can anyone.
One of the Difficulties with Gnosticism is "Language" Followers of most religions understand the "Language" used in their beliefs.
Gnosticism has its own Ideas and meanings that do not translate well into modern language. As a result few people have any Idea what the few remaining ancient texts actually mean, and how they might be interpreted. What is clear is that word for word translations do not work, or convey the religious content.
Twig pentagram
High Priest
This is how I think you should've worded your question - Is Christian Gnosticism anti-semetic?
Twig pentagram
High Priest
I could be wrong, I know that I have been before. The few gnostics that I've had conversations with seemed to be autotheistic.
Requia
Active Member
Er, I should clarify that being autotheistic (by the dictionary at least) means you think you're a god, or worship yourself. I suppose there are more than a few Gnostics attending the first church of the ego, but that's a phase you (hopefully) get over, not the end of it.
I suspect you mean something else. Maybe it even always means something else, and the dictionary is just wrong, so you may want to explain.
I suspect you mean something else. Maybe it even always means something else, and the dictionary is just wrong, so you may want to explain.
CynthiaCypher
Well-Known Member
Well some of the first gnostic to preach that Jehovah was really a flawed god and not the true God were Jews and Samaritans. What they were doing was an act of rebelion against the status quo which was oppressive at the time and Jehovah was what upheld that status quo.
They weren't being anti-semitic at all since they were Semites, they were just rejecting the Semitic concept of god and replacing it with what they thought was a better one
They weren't being anti-semitic at all since they were Semites, they were just rejecting the Semitic concept of god and replacing it with what they thought was a better one
SCHIZO
Active Member
The God of the old testament is identified with being the demiurge of Gnostic teaching. This doesn't go against the jewish people, rather, it is insight into the nature of the portrayal of an imperfect deity which the Jews worship. And that imperfection is painted throughout the old testament. Saying that the Jews worship an imperfect god is merely stating the truth, it is not anti-semitic.
Mehr Licht
Ave Sophia
Did the Jewish and Judeo-christian gnostics hate themselves? I've seen speculation that the Sethians were originally Jewish (not particularly "orthodox" ones of course) in orientation and only later embraced Christianity. Some of their scriptures seem to have been non-Christian in origin but were later thought to have been edited to add a Christian slant like the Secret Gospel of John.
biased
Active Member
I don't think they hated themselves as much if at all as much as they hated what their soul was trapped in (matter/the body). Where did you read that the Secret Gospel of John was edited to have a Christian slant? It seems that it's likely to me but I'm curious. Gnosticism does pre-date Christianity so it wouldn't be a huge surprise.
InformedIgnorance
Do you 'know' or believe?
I think saying their God is evil is not anti-semetic, however stating that they as a group have been encouraged by their god/faith to take on characteristics which are evil MAY be considered anti-semetic... but even that is borderline IMO
Father Heathen
Veteran Member
In case anyone hasn't said it yet, race and religion are two completely different things.
Sylvan
Unrepentant goofer duster
Actually a scholar I respect* has made the statement in a well-read contemporary publication that Gnosticism, and in particular the type of interpretation of universalist-mystic gnostic thought popularised by for instance Eliade was indeed "profoundly anti-Jewish".
Steve Wasserstrom "Religion After Religion: Gerschom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos."
Very interesting book, although I don't agree with the above assertion.
NeedingGnosisNow
super-human
Christians worship the same Old Testament god that the Jews worship........
You would think they would be Jewish since Jesus' body was Jewish( neither black nor white}. And, it would seem as with the Sethians as in current times: after awhile man degrades everything he can until there is little knowledge left to worshipp the Pre-exsistent Father with, but faith will get you anywhere. I say this since it seems Jesus is still the only living being to see God. Thus, the Luminaries nor Mother Sophia have not seen The Unkowable, Innefable, Incorruptable Spirit, that by his word in the end has created All. No, its not anti-SSemetic it is the Truth.
Ketoujin12
Member
Well, it depends how you interpret the pre-fix "anti-" and how much vitriol you put into the idea of a cosmology that sees Yahweh as the demi-urge.
Various Christian Gnostic sects had slightly different beliefs in the innate wickidness of Yahweh. The Valentinians for instance believed that he was not actually scornful of the higher God - termed the Pleroma in some quarters - but merely ignorant of anything above him. This does not mean that the Valentinians didn't view him wtih fear or disgust and see him as at best irrelevant to spiritual progress or at worst a jailer of the divine spark due to his creation of the temporal world but they saw him, much like they saw hyletics - those fellow humans who did not (yet) have gnosis - as deluded and it was this deluded state out of which his jealousy, anger, and harmful actions toward men, whether good or bad, guilty or innocent, came. Naturally, though, I assume that the Gnostics had proportionally more compassion for the unenlightened amongst their fellow humans - including, naturally, worshipers of the Jewish god and followers of Mosaic Law - than they did to the similiarly unrealized god but that is an idea of my own - though I am a sympathizer of the Gnostics myself I cannot speak unequivocally for the historical Gnostics in this area, it merely seems a good assumption to make though.
The whole "anti-semitism" issue is a bit hard to parse. If one is speaking merely in religious terms and thus equates disdain toward the tribal god of the Jews as being bigotry toward human beings who self-identify as Jews than I suppose the Gnostics were indeed "anti-semitic." Yet, I personally believe that Yahweh was merely a stand-in for all of the various propitiatory tribal dieties man has created that distract, in the eyes of the gnostics anyway, from the true universal divine. Since for the Christian Gnostics Yahweh was the primary example of such a propitiatory tribal diety that they encountered in their time and place he was the entity that was named explicitly as the demiurge as in the story of Norea which is also associated with the foundation of the Sethians.
Replacement theology which the Catholic and other orthodox (non-Gnostic) Christian churches believed in until recently, and some still believe in, whereby the adherents of such churches believe that they have replaced the Jews as people of the covenant....as the true "chosen people" through their acceptance of Christ as the messiah probably fits the anti-Jewish bill more closely. Still, it remains in the theological realm. If they were calling for harm toward Jews because of this belief I think it would be more of an open and shut case of "anti-Semitism" but since they do not, or at least none do that I know of....maybe some weird schismatic and apocalyptic group like Westboro Baptist or something.....I think that label is hard to stick to them as well.
As for the Gnostics they repudiated Yahweh so by wanting to avoid that god, his covenant, and anything associated with him I can hardly call them anti-Jewish especially as compared with orthodox Christian believers in replacement theology where the title of "chosen" - accorded by Yahweh - is seen as up for grabs with Jews and RT adherents see themselves in competition with Jews for the title.
The Gnostics may have been disdainful of Juadism perhaps but then again they were disdainful of all propitiatory dieties in my view.
Best,
Gunnar
Various Christian Gnostic sects had slightly different beliefs in the innate wickidness of Yahweh. The Valentinians for instance believed that he was not actually scornful of the higher God - termed the Pleroma in some quarters - but merely ignorant of anything above him. This does not mean that the Valentinians didn't view him wtih fear or disgust and see him as at best irrelevant to spiritual progress or at worst a jailer of the divine spark due to his creation of the temporal world but they saw him, much like they saw hyletics - those fellow humans who did not (yet) have gnosis - as deluded and it was this deluded state out of which his jealousy, anger, and harmful actions toward men, whether good or bad, guilty or innocent, came. Naturally, though, I assume that the Gnostics had proportionally more compassion for the unenlightened amongst their fellow humans - including, naturally, worshipers of the Jewish god and followers of Mosaic Law - than they did to the similiarly unrealized god but that is an idea of my own - though I am a sympathizer of the Gnostics myself I cannot speak unequivocally for the historical Gnostics in this area, it merely seems a good assumption to make though.
The whole "anti-semitism" issue is a bit hard to parse. If one is speaking merely in religious terms and thus equates disdain toward the tribal god of the Jews as being bigotry toward human beings who self-identify as Jews than I suppose the Gnostics were indeed "anti-semitic." Yet, I personally believe that Yahweh was merely a stand-in for all of the various propitiatory tribal dieties man has created that distract, in the eyes of the gnostics anyway, from the true universal divine. Since for the Christian Gnostics Yahweh was the primary example of such a propitiatory tribal diety that they encountered in their time and place he was the entity that was named explicitly as the demiurge as in the story of Norea which is also associated with the foundation of the Sethians.
Replacement theology which the Catholic and other orthodox (non-Gnostic) Christian churches believed in until recently, and some still believe in, whereby the adherents of such churches believe that they have replaced the Jews as people of the covenant....as the true "chosen people" through their acceptance of Christ as the messiah probably fits the anti-Jewish bill more closely. Still, it remains in the theological realm. If they were calling for harm toward Jews because of this belief I think it would be more of an open and shut case of "anti-Semitism" but since they do not, or at least none do that I know of....maybe some weird schismatic and apocalyptic group like Westboro Baptist or something.....I think that label is hard to stick to them as well.
As for the Gnostics they repudiated Yahweh so by wanting to avoid that god, his covenant, and anything associated with him I can hardly call them anti-Jewish especially as compared with orthodox Christian believers in replacement theology where the title of "chosen" - accorded by Yahweh - is seen as up for grabs with Jews and RT adherents see themselves in competition with Jews for the title.
The Gnostics may have been disdainful of Juadism perhaps but then again they were disdainful of all propitiatory dieties in my view.
Best,
Gunnar
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Desert Snake
Veteran Member
I know this is a DIR, but it seems to me that Gnosticism isn't actually involved in Judaism. My opinion on it at least.
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Ketoujin12
Member
I would agree with you. From my admittedly still improving historical understanding of the early Gnostic Christians I was just giving my opinion of Gnostic view of Yahweh. Obviously I think what we call "Gnosticism" existed before the start of the Abrahamic religions - indeed there were several "pagan gnostics" as well - and will likely continue after they have run their course but, again, that is only subjective opinion on my part.
Best,
Gunnar