nazz
Doubting Thomas
You are quite welcomethanks to you both
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Monism and Gnosticism
- Thread starter nazz
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nazz
Doubting Thomas
oh and I'm sorry for using Hinduism as a reference
The Father could be compared to Saguna Brahman and the Source to Nirguna Brahman. The Pleroma is composed of all the higher perfect entities. I don't necesarily subscribe to the systems of syzigies proposed. It's just one understanding of how things fit together.
But bear in my mind these are all just my ideas. They don't necessarily reflect the ideas of other Gnostic thinkers in all details.
nazz
Doubting Thomas
Consciousness would certainly be an aspect of the Father
nazz
Doubting Thomas
No. The Source is that from what the All sprang. The depths (Bythos) of eternal Silence (Sige). It is reality in unrealized, unmanifested, potential form. It is Proarche, "Before the Beginning". Again, comparable to Nirguna Brahman, the Brahman without (manifested) qualities. The Source has no attributes but is the source of all attributes. All qualities and quantities.
The Pleroma consists of the original manifestations of the Source in pure, perfected form.
nazz
Doubting Thomas
- Then was neither non-existence nor existence: There was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. what covered it, and where? And what gave shelter? Was there, an unfathomed depth of water?
- Death was not then, nor was there anything immortal: no sign was there, the Day's and Night's divider. That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.
- Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos. All that existed then was void and formless: by the great power of Warmth was born that One.
- Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit. Sages who searched with their heart's thought discovered the kinship of existence with non-existence.
- Transversely [across the universe] was their dividing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it? There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder.
- Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation? The Gods are later than this world's production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
- He the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it, whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows it not.
This is a very similar to the Gnostic concept. I can't locate the Vedic verse which speaks of Brahman as "one without a [possibility of a] second) but maybe you know it. It's basically the same idea.
Pleroma can also be used as an adjective when compared to the imperfect counterpart. Each Aeon is a pleroma, for example, as well as the divine twin.
I did find this (thanks to Wiki). From Ireneaus, Against Heresies, Book 2, Chapter 4:
"[Some] confess that the Father of all contains all things, and that there is nothing whatever outside of the Pleroma (for it is an absolute necessity that, [if there be anything outside of it,] it should be bounded and circumscribed by something greater than itself), and that they speak of what is without and what within in reference to knowledge and ignorance, and not with respect to local distance; but that, in the Pleroma, or in those things which are contained by the Father, the whole creation which we know to have been formed, having been made by the Demiurge, or by the angels, is contained by the unspeakable greatness, as the centre is in a circle, or as a spot is in a garment."
So there was some pantheism with some groups.
I did find this (thanks to Wiki). From Ireneaus, Against Heresies, Book 2, Chapter 4:
"[Some] confess that the Father of all contains all things, and that there is nothing whatever outside of the Pleroma (for it is an absolute necessity that, [if there be anything outside of it,] it should be bounded and circumscribed by something greater than itself), and that they speak of what is without and what within in reference to knowledge and ignorance, and not with respect to local distance; but that, in the Pleroma, or in those things which are contained by the Father, the whole creation which we know to have been formed, having been made by the Demiurge, or by the angels, is contained by the unspeakable greatness, as the centre is in a circle, or as a spot is in a garment."
So there was some pantheism with some groups.