Subj : Bible
To   : RALPH ZETTER
From : Curtis Johnson
Date : Fri Nov 03 2000 07:15 pm

 > Uncapitalized, "gnostic" is more of a general attitude that there is
 > secret spiritual wisdom, etc.  Church Father Clement of Alexandria,
 > for instance, while arguing against Gnostics, went on at great length
 > about the path of the "true Christian gnostic" such as himself.

 RZ> Really? A Christian gnostic. I'd like to hear more about that.

	I have to admit I haven't yet read the Clement stuff I have,
and only a couple of works by Origen.  But the Alexandrian school
of theology is pretty interesting, directly influenced by Neo-
Platonism and also somewhat by the Gnostics.  Clement and Origen
were also trying do real philosophy with a Christian flavor.
There's no question that they were the two best intellects 
Christianity had to offer in its first three centuries.  Origen
was also quite influential in the allegorical interpretation of
scripture.
	The work in which Clement goes on at length about the true
Christian "gnostic" is _Stromateis_.  As I said, I haven't yet read
that, but I do know that one characteristic of their "true Christian
gnostic" that was shared with the Gnostics was secrecy about doctrine,
and the duty, if need be, to lie about that doctrine to fellow 
Christians.  Clement was explicit about this, and Origen, for example,
did not believe in Hell but thought that preaching about it to the
"simple Christians" was necessary to terrorize them into virtue.
	Another characteristic that the Alexandrian school shared
with the Gnostics was secret literature.  Of especial interest here
is the discovery by Morton Smith of a letter by Clement in which
he quotes texts that Clement claimed were part of the original
Gospel of Mark and which were to be read only among a secret inner
circle.  They are of great textual interest, one reason being that
in the letter Clement said they were to be inserted at two places
where scholars had earlier suspected that passages had been deleted.
This is gone into in excruciating scholarly detail in Smith's 
_Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark_, which I have
read.
	I'm afraid that to go much further into about this Secret
Gospel of Mark, however, would bring me into a topic that the moderator
just banned.  
   
 >  The Gnostics were a pretty diverse bunch, and their cosmogonies
 > were quite complex and varied, so one hesitates to generalize.  But
 > your statement tends to fit the Neo-Platonists (IIRC) and the Manicheans
 > much better.  A lot depends also on what you mean by "regain our
 > divinity."  The Gnostics did not have a program of becoming God(s),
 > nor did the Manicheans.

 RZ> What did those people believe then?

	As I said, they were a pretty diverse bunch.  One common factor
is belief in salvation through a secret knowledge to be given only to
the uninitiated.  A usual form of this knowledge was the steps to be
taken to ensure an ascent to the uppermost heaven at death to make
it past the guardians of the respective spheres.  (There seem to be
interesting links to this with Paul's claim to have ascended to the
third heaven when he learned something "it is not lawful to utter,"
and his allusions to principalities and powers, etc.).
	Another common feature of Gnostics was the notion that this
world had created by a demiurge (a term borrowed from Plato) who was
either evil or incompetent, and that this demiurge is to be identified
with the God of the Old Testament, as opposed to the God of the New
Testament.  (Gnostics loved to quote Paul and GJohn.)  This belief
alone doesn't qualify a sect as Gnostic, however--the Marcionites
believed this, and they weren't Gnostics.
	A good introduction to the Gnostics is Elaine Pagel's book,
which is relatively short.


			



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