Gnostica

One of the biggest problems with much of modern Gnosticism, in my humble opinion, is the crazy notion that somehow being a Gnostic means you get to make stuff up. Or, in other words, for some reason the idea has been propogated in certain Gnostic circles that if you claim you’re a Gnostic, you can disregard any recent scholarship on historical Gnosticism and just make up whatever you want and claim your personal “gnosis” as an excuse.

The fact of the matter is, a lot of preconceived notions about historical Gnosticism are being turned on their heads by modern scholarship, and when these notions are continually flogged by so-called Gnostics, it makes us all look out-of-touch and kind of disingenuous. Although the song remains the same regarding the dearth of evidence for any solid conclusions, some serious misconceptions about historical Gnosticism have become so ingrained that many modern Gnostics continue to use them as doctrinal points.

As examples, let’s address and hopefully shed some light on a few of these misconceptions:

- There was no monolithic Gnosticism fighting against some kind of monolithic Orthodoxy. In reality, Christianity at the height of the Gnostic movement was likely as fragmented as the Gnostic sects. No monolithic Church was doing any more to “oppress” Gnostic viewpoints than the Gnostics were to oppress other Gnostic viewpoints (and yes, some of that was also going on).

- The Gnostics were not “protesting” or “rebelling” against established religion. As illustrated very clearly by Michael Williams in Rethinking Gnosticism, the idea that Gnostic movements were rebelling against some kind of religious authority is contraindicated by the very Church Fathers who claimed the Gnostics were too *inclusive.*

- The Gnostics were not world-haters. The real world-haters are the ones now celebrated by mainline Christians as the Desert Fathers, who were far more ascetic than 90% of the Gnostics.

- The Gnostics did not understand gnosis as a Buddhist-style enlightenment. I’m as guilty as any for spreading this misconception, but even a cursory glance through the Nag Hammadi texts reveals that, to the historical Gnostics, gnosis is far more nuanced than epiphany, and includes ritual instruction into Mysteries and initiation into a tradition.

- The Gnostics did not believe that “personal experience” was more important than religious teaching. Again, the question is a matter of actual evidence, and nothing really exists in the literature that supports this claim. Rather, personal experience was supposed to verify or bolster the religious teaching, and vice-versa.

- The Gnostics were dogmatic. Again, a cursory glance through the literature establishes that the Gnostics were just as dogmatic as the average mainstream Christian sect at the time. The NHL texts are, at their root, a collection of dogmas. The third bookm of the Pistis Sophia contains a giant laundry list of dogmas for practicing Gnostics.

- There is virtually no solid evidence for a pre-Christian Gnosticism. This has been proven again and again, but is one of the biggest sticking-points. This isn’t to say that there absolutely was not a pre-Christian Gnosticism, but literally no evidence exists that this is the case.

These are just a few examples. Just about every valued notion about Gnosticism held prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library has been exploded in recent years. Even the automatic assumption that many have that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’s fave has been called into question in a paper called “Rethinking the Gnostic Mary” by Prof. Stephen Shoemaker, which rather convincingly suggests that the Mary so often appearing with Jesus in the Gnostic literature is in fact Jesus’s mother, Mary of Nazareth, and not Mary Magdalene at all!

My point isn’t that these conclusions must be wholeheartedly embraced by modern Gnostics. My point is simply that modern Gnostic movements *must* acknowledge that they are modern Gnostic movements, with innovations for our modern society, which is fine. They must become comfortable with the idea that knowing history and embracing scholarship is not a bad thing, even when scholarship comes to a different conclusion than you.

Many original Gnostics were likely very literate people, with a high regard for scholastics. Denying historical truths due to sentimentalism, romanticism or a desire for rebellion may feel good, but will only harm contemporary Gnosticism in the long run. If we want to be taken seriously instead of viewed as a bunch of people playing at church (and I include myself in this), Contemporary Gnostics need to check and cite their sources, keep up on the research, and underline their differences with historical Gnostics.

Religious innovation is a good thing. If historical Gnostics didn’t actually focus on Mary Magdalene, but your group does, that’s fine, as long as you’re honest with the history. As an example, I, personally, think that in many cases understanding gnosis as more of an enlightenment experience is fine in our contemporary society, but I’m also careful to underscore that the original Gnostics very likely saw it differently. There’s nothing wrong with that; it doesn’t detract from your path to embrace history. Ignoring scholarship because your “personal gnosis” tells you that the Gnostics did this or that thing isn’t just dishonest, its antithetical to what our forebears sought since the very beginning: a true comprehension of the inbreaking of the Pleroma into the World of Forms.