Gnosticism is Rising

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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flatearther
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Gnosticism is Rising

Post by flatearther »

What do you think about Nag Hammadi library and all sort of Gnostic teachings?
Stuart
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Re: Gnosticism is Rising

Post by Stuart »

I think about stuff, and other stuff mostly
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Jax
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Re: Gnosticism is Rising

Post by Jax »

Stuart wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 9:04 pm I think about stuff, and other stuff mostly
Double stuff is my thing. 👍
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billd89
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Re: Gnosticism is Rising

Post by billd89 »

And here I think of
Image

Rising or Risen ? When was the Golden Age of Gnostic scholarship, or is it yet to come? I suppose the 1980s-90s, but I'm not fixed on that.

My two cents? The Christological origins of the Jesus cult are proto-Gnostic or Early Gnostic (c.125 BC-75 AD), though a Middle or 'Golden Age' of Gnosticism (100-300 AD) is what most people mean by "Gnostic." A Late Gnostic Period overlaps Late Antiquity and the old 'Dark Ages' (Early Medieval Period, when Gnostic writings were predominantly Arabic) in a declining continuum to Ficino: Renaissance Gnosticism is then a (4th Stage) 'retro' phenonenon.

My own interest is a particular German interpretation (Anonymous Authors) of proto-Gnostic Jewish mysticism, probably inspired by Hans Jonas, who helpfully outlines how he became involved with the subject. This strongly suggests how my Anon. approached his own work. Why? Jonas studied under Ernst Sellin at Berlin (at the same time as my Anon Author, they may have been in the same class); Jonas was friends w/ Hannah Arendt (as was my Anon Author, who may have seen Jonas as a romantic rival) and Hans Lewy (my Anon. blatantly tapped his Sobia Ebrietas). Jonas was directed to the Gnostic-Hermetic subject via R. Bultmann c.1924, reviewing Reitzenstein, Bousset et al. (There is also archival evidence my Anon. was friends w/ Bultmann - although it's unclear exactly when that relationship began.) These are just a few of the obvious connections - two colleagues in the same epistolary network, students together under same professors, etc. tackling the Hermetic-Gnostic material in the same decade. No coincidence!

I can see how my Anon. Author was influenced by the critically important but deeply flawed Gnosis und spätantiker Geist [1934], though his own mentors Karl Jaspers and Erich Frank were counterpoints to (Jonas') Heidegger. Consider how Jonas conflated Hermeticism and Gnosticism. That's one very notable error, but it suggested a similar 'creative' syncreticism that my Anon. Author also adopted (in fact: found previously explored, in parts, by Moritz Friedlander and Erwin Goodenough). The apparent similarities are not accidental: rather, 'same-same, but different.'

H. Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, p.xix:
Who were the scholars in the field at that time, besides Bultmann, who had a wonderful way of letting me do what I wanted or felt driven to do? Who were the authorities in the existing literature? Reitzenstein, whom I mentioned above, was a strange kind of force, one who gave me a push in one direction and after some time revised himself, after he had come under some other influence, or some other light had dawned on him, and gave me a push in another direction. I first studied the Poimandres [1904], and Gnosticism was mainly of Egyptian origin.

See especially an entire chapter of that late book, on the Poimandres: pp. 148-173.


So the scholarship of 'Gnosticism' before 1938 - especially, works of the German luminaries - is something of great relevance to my thesis.
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