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By byron lebeau © 2003 bulldog2000@netzero.net

[A selected commentary of one of the latest books on the Gnostics, a 2002 QUEST Publication, GNOSTICISM: NEW LIGHT ON THE ANCIENT TRADITION OF INNER KNOWING, by Stephan Hoeller.]

This book is by far one of the best all-around books on this complicated subject, (with some reservation)- written in a way the average curious layman can appreciate. Even the bibliography contains valuable information for the serious student of Gnosticism and a fuller comprehension of the term, 'gnosis'. I will try to limit myself to focusing on the subjects not already given on my website: THE GNOSTIC ELEPHANT, located at http://hey_223.tripod.com/thegnosticelephantascompiledbybyronlebeau/ however, if it becomes necessary to comment, I will simply say to cf. my Gnostic website, which will be the one indicated above, unless specifically cited as otherwise.

STEPHAN HOELLER HAS WRITTEN A REMARKABLE BOOK.  I state this up front, even though I have some reservations about some of his Gnostic sources, which he ostensibly has few if any qualms about. These touchy issues will be dealt with within the below commentary as the need arises.

TWO QUICK COMMENTS: While Christianity emphasizes faith, Gnosticism emphasizes a state of consciousness for knowing God directly-an aim which mainstream Christianity finds heretical...yet Hoeller sees Gnosticism as a living religious practice, and according to Neil Douglas-Klotz, author of THE HIDDEN
GOSPEL & PRAYERS OF THE COSMOS, the author makes a convincing case for Gnosticism as a discrete, historical tradition with relevance to the modern and postmodern condition. Stephan Hoeller is Director of Studies of the Gnostic Society in Los Angeles and the author of THE GNOSTIC JUNG as well as JUNG AND THE LOST GOSPELS.

SPEAKING OF CARL JUNG, (the famous psychologist along with Freud,) he regarded the Gnostics as visionaries who expressed their insights primarily in the form of myths. Being a psychologist, Jung favored a psychological rather than a metaphysical interpretation of religious myths; this meant that he was
opposed to the prevailing religious interpretations of the Bible, which he considered concrete and reductionistic ~ whereas the Gnostic myths lend themselves with great ease to such symbolic rather than literal treatment. (p.ix)

HOELLER TRIES TO DO A BALANCING ACT by showing on the one hand, that the Gnostics, unlike Jung, make claims to metaphysical truth in the interpretation of their myths, ALTHOUGH they also indicate avenues of interpretation that today would be seen as "depth psychology" which is the province of Carl Jung. The author blends the two by stating that the two interpretations can "coexist with each other." (x) In any event, the author suggests that the subject of Gnosticism requires a certain subtlety of thinking and a proclivity for an
intuitive perception. NOW FOR SPECIFICS....

LIGHT FROM BEYOND THE VEIL

A Gnostic is often defined as a person who seeks salvation by knowledge~but not rational knowledge; it relates to DIRECT EXPERIENCE = INSIGHT, since gnosis involves an intuitive process that embrace both self-knowledge and knowledge of ultimate, divine realities. (p.2) Thus Gnosticism originates in the
experience of the 'PSYCHE', where archetypal psychology & religious mysticism meet. This is the reason that Hoeller cites people like Carl Jung & even Joseph Campbell as being much in sympathy with Gnosticism...and he follows this by stating that those who lack this "experience" will, of necessity,
readily misunderstand Gnostic insights. (p.3) [WHAT WE HAVE HEAR IS A LACK OF COMMUNICATION: from the movie, COOL HAND LUKE.] The inevitable result from orthodoxy: THEY ARE BRANDED AS HERETICS! [Keeping in mind the words of William Penn: "Neither despise, nor oppose, what thou dost not understand" HAS EVEN MORE BLAZING MEANING WHEN YOU APPLY IT TO THE ORTHODOXY~~ WHO SEEMINGLY COULD NOT GRASP EITHER THE GNOSTICS OR WILLIAM PENN'S WORDS.]

In contradistinction to the ordinary 'I BELIEVE-CREDO' of monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity & Islam,) the Gnostic mind aspires to, and eventually attains, not faith but a certain interior knowing that liberates one from unconsciousness and eventually transports one beyond the bounds of manifest existence itself.(p.5) BUT THERE IS A CERTAIN KIND OF FAITH~~(Pistis) which is recognized as valid in Gnosticism. It is the faith of one's experience, an abiding faithfulness that one feels toward one's experience of
inner, liberating knowledge. The Gnostic divine feminine figure, Sophia, is called Pistis (Faith) because in all her adversities she remains faithful to  her vision of the light. [cf. PISTIS SOPHIA section of G.R.S. Mead's book, FRAGMENTS OF A FAITH FORGOTTEN for an excellent summary of this Gnostic tale of redemption.]

THE GNOSTIC WORLDVIEW

They hold that the world is flawed because it was created in a flawed manner.  Both the Gnostic (and Buddhists) held that there is a way out of suffering & ignorance [the HALLMARK of this darkened orb] and that the way out involves an essential, Slavonic change in consciousness. To the Gnostic, the true
"original sin" was namely, alienation & separation of the human from the Divine, which, [praise be to God] CAN BE UNDONE! The world did not fall, the Gnostics said; rather, it was imperfect from the start. (p.16)

The transcendent God does not create; the divine essence emanates, comes forth, from the unmanifest state into the manifest, making possible further, more specific creation.

The architect [Siddhartha's 'MARA'] was known in ancient Gnosticism as the 'DEMIURGE'-from the Greek 'DEMIURGOS' ("half-maker") - since he made only the form but not the inner life of the world. The workmen and future managers were called 'archons', using the Greek word for "petty rulers." Hoeller than states that it goes without saying that "the majority of the deeds and words of the Old Testament God accord with the character of the Demiurge. Gnosticism's disdain for Yahveh must be ascribed precisely to this
circumstance." (P.17)

[IT WILL NOT BE HARD FOR ANY UNBIASED VIEWER TO APPRECIATE JUST WHY THE GNOSTICS WERE REVILED SO HATEFULLY BY THE HERESIOLOGISTS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, WHO DID NOT SHARE THIS VIEW OF THE OLD TESTAMENT GOD.]

A HUMAN BEING consisted of physical & psychic components, which a fragment of the divine essence, sometimes called the divine spark.  Because the Gnostic tradition recognizes this dual nature--of the world as well as the human being--it has earned the epithet "dualistic." [This is a sometimes confusing label since some religious systems have competing gods who are opposite but equal in power...which is not the case in the Gnostic mythology, since the Demiurge is in no wise equal to or opposite of the unifying spiritual
principle, the loving divine essence.]

This ultimate divine loving essence [THE ETERNAL UNBEGOTTEN, as I refer to him on my Gnostic website and also in my manuscript, THE BUD & THE BLOSSOM,] sends messengers of Light to the sleeping humans, such as Seth (the third son of Adam,) Jesus, and the prophet Mani, according to this author. The list even includes Old Testament prophets, founders of other great religions-such as Buddha & Zarathustra, but the greatest saw Jesus as the principal savior figure. Even Mani regarded himself as the prophet of Jesus Christ, and revered Jesus as the savior. (pgs.18-19)

It follows that the idea of salvation is close to the concept of liberation found in the Hindu & Buddhist traditions. The Gnostics look to salvation not from sin (original or other), but from the ignorance of which sin is the consequence. Those who know the Divine through gnosis shed all sin, while those without gnosis cannot help but persist in transgressions. IGNORANCE-which means ignorance of spiritual realities-is dispelled by gnosis.

Jesus was the chief dispenser of this gnosis for this age.(p.19) [Although Hoeller does not mention this text, THE AQUARIAN GOSPEL OF JESUS the CHRIST accentuates the {Piscean Age Jesus} as the one who came to liberate us from our ignorance, regardless of how many lifetimes it takes to become one again with the Father.]

Those whom the messengers of Light awaken from their spiritual slumber-and who then put forth the required amount of spiritual effort & diligence-become true Gnostics (knowers, or pneumatics, truly spiritual persons), where others remain unconscious & earthbound [i.e. must repeat lifetime after lifetime until they get it right! AWAKE! Paramahansa Yogananda has an excellent audio tape called, 'AWAKE FROM THE COSMIC DREAM' -which, although he was a Hindu, sounds very Gnostic in his approach toward liberating the spirit back to its source.] As the author emphasizes on page 21, reincarnation is a fact of life for the Gnostics until one achieves a "transformed consciousness."

LASTLY, Gnosticism has a worldview, but it has no theology and no doctrine to believe in. [This is the reason who Hans Jonas said that it was not a religion-cf. my website, ALTHOUGH, later in the book, Hoeller correctly shows why it should be considered a TYPE OF religion, albeit from a different perspective of the nature of sacraments, etc.] The Gnostic scriptures are primarily mythical in content, and all myths can be interpreted in diverse ways...and as indicated before, Jung found psychological truths within the
Gnostic myths...and as the author has pointed out, other truths as well. (p.24)

A CREATIVE VIEW OF CREATION: GENESIS REVISITED

[NOTE: 'GENESIS REVISITED' is also the title of a book by Zecharia Sitchin, who himself has another point of view about the 'facts' surrounding the Biblical explanation of the first book of the Bible; I find  a little irony in
the fact that Sitchin is not writing from a Gnostic perspective, but rather from a Sumerian myth perspective that speaks to gods (ANUNNAKI) from elsewhere (a planet called Nibru,) who somehow have determined the beginnings of homo sapiens, i.e. the physical part of man via biogenetic engineering. What I find ironic about this is that the same name or form thereof of 'PTAH' shows up - not only in the Sitchin material, (as part of his EARTH CHRONICLES)~ but also in one of the Gnostic groups who have the same name for their god of darkness. This interesting INTER-DISCIPLINARY RESEARCH TIDBIT will be remarked on further into these snippets-but bear it in mind for the time being.]

NON-GNOSTIC CHRISTENDOM held that Adam & Eve were historical personages whose tragic transgression resulted in THE FALL, and from their Fall later human beings were to learn portentous [or ominous] moral lessons...and that all women took on the ambivalent role of "co-conspirators" with Eve. (p.26)

THE GNOSTIC CHRISTIANS, on the other hand, read Genesis, not as history with a moral, but a myth with a meaning. Adam & Eve were representative of two intra-psychic principles present within every human being. Adam was the dramatic embodiment of "psyche" or "soul": the mind-emotion complex where thinking & feeling originate. Eve stood for "pneuma" or "spirit," representing the higher, transcendental consciousness. (p.26)

In short, for the ancient Gnostics, Eve was a wise woman, a true daughter of Sophia, the celestial Wisdom. And in this capacity, she was the one who awakened the sleeping Adam. [NOTE: Examples of this concept are given by the author, citing on page 27, The Apocrypha of John, as well as On the Origin of the World.

HOELLER also quoted The Testimony of Truth, [and like the above tractates, come from THE NAG HAMMADI LIBRARY,] in which the serpent is not the embodiment of evil, but the wisest of creatures in Paradise. The Gnostics extol this wisdom ~ while CASTING ASPERSIONS ON THE CREATOR GOD, i.e. the Demiurge of the Old Testament. View their comments:

"What sort is he then, this God?" It answers that God's prohibition concerning the fruit of the tree is motivated by envy, because he does not wish humans to awaken to higher knowledge. This tractate goes on to call such a "god?" a jealous God who "inflicts cruel and unjust punishment on those who displease him. AS Hoeller relates: WITH A GOD LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES? (p.28)

In The Hypostasis of the Archons [which is extensively reviewed on my Gnostic website,] both Eve & the serpent were guided by the divine Sophia, indicating that they were not lowly beings of the Creator (the Demiurge)~~but rather that their spiritual selves had originated beyond this world, in the fullness
of the ultimate Godhead. (pgs.28-29) So when Adam & Eve's "eyes were opened" it was a METAPHOR FOR GNOSIS! They saw for the first time that "the deities who had created them were loathsome in appearance, having the faces of animals, and they recoiled in horror at the sight of them. [This was the first thing that attracted me to the Gnostic thought~~THE POSSIBILITY THAT WE ALL WERE BEING DECEIVED BY gods with animal faces. In all the years I have investigated Gnosticism, I HAVE NOT REGRETTED MY SEARCH FOR THE REAL TRUTH IN THIS MATTER.]

Adam then predicts that his 3rd son “Seth & his seed” would continue to experience gnosis, but they would also be subject to further persecution by the Creator. [I wonder if the rise of the Emperor Constantine, the sabotage of Gnostic tenets like REINCARNATION, and the fleeing of the true Gnostics into the desert, as well as the persecution thereof, including the esteemed Church Father - Origen, and the subsequent persecution  of all who dared to question the HOLY ROMAN CONSTANTINE CHURCH would have anything to do with this prediction by Adam?!?]

As Hoeller relates on page 31, the ‘Creator-Demiurge’ could not tolerate people acquiring Gnostic wisdom  [MAKES ONE WONDER.] AND  “the great race of Seth” would endure until a future era when the Illuminator (Phoster), at times identified as Jesus, would initiate a time of knowledge and liberation.

GNOSTIC EXERGSESIS: The Gnostics, along with other early Christians, looked upon the Old Testament God as an embarrassment.  Those conversant with the ideas of Plato, Philo (Jewish philosopher) & Plotinus, would have difficulty relating to a God expressing vengefulness, wrath, jealousy, tribal xenophobia, and dictatorial pretensions. How much more compatible with the genteel philosophy of Gnosticism was the kindly and noble character of Jesus and his teachings. (p.32) Further,  the NAG HAMMADI scriptures reasoned that a God who behaved as Genesis and other books of the Old Testament described must be a pretender and a usurper, not worthy of worship  or obedience. (p.33)

THE CHAPTER ENDS with the idea that the Gnostics treasured the WORLD WITHIN, which pointed to the world beyond to transcendence, which was all-important. To transcend, in their view, means to go beyond the limitations not only of materiality but also of mind. JUST AS C.G. Jung differentiated between the Self and the ego--the two “gods” in the psyche--so the Gnostics spoke of two gods, one transcendental, the other a bumbling secondary deity. It ends with the notion that the reprehensible character of the Creator described in these scriptures is IN NO WAY COMPARABLE WITH THAT OF THE FATHER OF JESUS. (pgs.34-35).

[I find this last statement very interesting, and confirmable: James Charlesworth, the general editor and essayist of JESUS AND THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS, showed just why Jesus’ God (ABBA) was separate and distinct from Jehovah, which was another name for the God of the Old Testament.... This is a scholar writing this who had spent endless years sifting the truth of Jesus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the real God of the Old Testament.... and certainly should give one pause to consider JUST WHAT IS GOING ON IN GENESIS-AND GENESIS REVISITED!!!]

SOPHIA: GNOSTIC ARCHETYPE OF FEMININE WISDOM

In this next chapter of Stephan Hoeller’s book, there is a magnificent oil painting representation of the Gnostic icon of Sophia. One should get this book just to see this picture. [Sophia, is, of course, the key tragic figure of the Gnostic myth who falls, repents, and is redeemed through a long series of repentances, best represented in the full book, “PISTIS SOPHIA” with commentary by J.J. Hurtak; I have commented on this, devoting two full web pages, reflecting on Hurtak’s comments, with some observations of my own;
you can find this web page on my HOME website, located at http://hey_223.tripod.com/byronlebeauspoetryampprose/ 

Hoeller devotes a whole chapter to this mystical and mystifying figure, shedding some light, especially from a Jewish perspective, on who this mysterious essence may be. The first focus bears on the forlornness of exile ~ BUT NOT AS AN ENEMY ~according to the Gnostics. Alienation & forlornness are FRIENDS, for they point to a necessary truth that demands our awareness.  THIS GREAT DRAMA OF SOPHIA was played out long before there were men & women, states the author. (p.38) Sophia was the youngest of the great beings who populate the Fullness.... Seeking the Light, she journeys farther & farther into the deceptive depths, until she is at last stopped by a power known as the Limit (Horos). At this point a strange division occurs within Sophia’s nature. Her higher self, her essential core, becomes enlightened and mystically ascends back to the Fullness. (pgs. 38-39)

THE LOWER SOPHIA, on the other hand, reflects, according to Hoeller, our very selves, split in two: our human personality which abides in confusion & alienation, while our eternal self partakes of wholeness & wisdom.. [Could this be what is behind the conscience of man, that inner spirit who whispers what is right & wrong to us...a whispering from the Fullness itself???]

ACHAMOTH is THE LOWER SOPHIA (an anagram of ‘CHOKMAH”, the Hebrew name for Wisdom, which struggles in her alienated condition....And in her distress, she emanates powers that eventually condense into the building blocks of the material universe-envisioned in antiquity as earth, water, fire, and air. She also produces a hybrid form of consciousness, a lion-faced, monstrous being who becomes the Demiurge. [This story, of course, is dramatized in the Gnostic tractate, The Apocrypha of John, which, when I first read it, became another disturbance; I wondered how this IDEA related to the ENIGMA of Ufology, and I tried, back in 1996, to come to some overall understanding of these things, by exploring them in my manuscript, THE BUD & THE BLOSSOM.]

Sophia’s offspring proceeds to “design” [NOTE: NOT CREATE] his own kingdom, which is composed of seven spheres, presided over by seven rulers (archontes) of time, who are the rulers of destiny and the jailers of spirits. Sophia in her lower selfhood remains ensconced in the eighth sphere, above the seven. [In the NAG HAMMADI material, James the Just is the one who waits for the overcoming spirits who manage to break through the seven spheres, escorting them to ~ what is called in THE AQUARIAN GOSPEL OF JESUS the CHRIST ~ “the plane of soul” which starts yet another journey in order to be finally united
with the Father of All.]

The chief characteristic of the Demiurge is IGNORANCE (not evil,) since he is unaware of what is above him. This ignorance allows Sophia to insert her own design into creation, which he believes he has made by himself. To make matters worse, the Demiurge is filled with conceit & presumption, and that “he is the only God and that there is no other God above him.” When Sophia harshly tells him the [SPIRITUAL FACTS OF LIFE] ~about the superior powers, and that he is only a minor figure in all this, the Demiurge keeps this information to himself. (pgs. 41-42)

RETURN OF THE EXILE: A number of the high Aeons [degrees of separation from the Father (in pairs) but part of the Fullness] including the Holy Spirit, the Christos, and Jesus (destined to become the outer manifestation of the Christos), join forces in a mission of rescue. The powers of the Fullness also
pool their strengths and fill the rescuers with invincible light and perspicacity or penetration. (p.42) THE DRAMA ENDS with Sophia ~ having called repeatedly in a mighty, magical voice to the Light, whereupon she was gifted with strength and sanctification from her bridegroom, Jesus, and led by his holy hand, she resumed her sear of wisdom in the kingdom of the mighty Aeons. (p.45)

THE HEBREW CONNECTION: The Hebrew word for “wisdom” is “CHOKMAH” which during the Hellenistic period was translated into Greek as “SOPHIA”, with an entire body of “wisdom literature” that included PROVERBS ~ECCLESIASTES~ECCLESIASTICUS~THE BOOK OF WISDOM & THE SONG OF SONGS. The greatest Jewish theologian & philosopher to develop the biblical teaching concerning Sophia was - according to this author - Philo of Alexandria or Philo the Jew. He developed many ideas similar to the Gnostics. [He also is featured as one of the seven sages in THE AQUARIAN GOSPEL OF JESUS
the CHRIST.]

The name of Sophia reached its heights within the school of Valentinus during the 3rd & 4th centuries, after which the Church subjected her to deliberate neglect. [A good rendering of the Valentinian school can be found on my Gnostic website, under the web page: SHELLING THE GNOSTIC NUTS.] In the esoteric Judaism of the Kabbalah that one encounters a close approximation to Sophia in the greatly revered figure of the Shekinah [God’s presence on Earth,] the feminine spiritual presence in the Sephira Malkuth. The author cites a present-day scholar, Gershom Scholem, referring to the Kabbalists as Jewish Gnostics, so he did not find it surprising to find Sophia as being at home in their midst. (pgs. 50-51)

A FINAL NOTE ON THIS CHAPTER: Sophia also found refuge in  Eastern Orthodox Christianity.  Sophiology (theology related to Sophia,) got a boost in the late 19th and early 20th century by one, Vladimir S. Soloviev, a Russian philosopher & poet (and mystic) who was deeply influenced by ancient Gnostic
ideas. His poems and essays had overtly Gnostic themes. [If you do a GOOGLE search, you will find an intriguing short story he had written about THE ANTI-CHRIST.] Three times during his life, in 1862, 1875 and at his death in 1900, he EXPERIENCED ENCOUNTERS WITH SOPHIA, according to Stephan Hoeller.
(p.52)

THE GNOSTIC CHRIST

The Gnostic Jesus is the enlightener who burst open the prison of humanity’s confinement in the material and mental unconsciousness.  His ministry was one of teaching, and of initiating the liberating mysteries. He reminds his listeners of the harm done by their anxieties, their dogmatic fixations, and their attachment to earthly things as well as their psychological foibles. What matters is whether you make sincere efforts to know yourselves and thus be prepared for liberating gnosis. His message is well characterized by
the shortest saying in The Gospel of Thomas: “Be passers by” (saying 42). [This non-attachment does not mean ‘DO NOT BECOME INVOLVED;’ ~ FAR FROM IT. It has to do with helping everybody, and being sensitive to the needs of all, without becoming attached (have a desire for) the person or thing of your
assistance. In this sense, Jesus is saying the same thing that holy yogis of Hinduism say, or those that aspire to the essence of Buddhism. Even the sacred Chinese 'I Ching' echoes the same sentiments.] Jesus
addresses his teaching not to the thinking minds and the emotions of people as such as to their incipient intuitive gnosis. His words are not so much intended to inform as to stimulate latent creative and imaginative faculties. Jesus uses metaphor & myth, cryptic mystical adages and explicitly Gnostic parables, to induce extraordinary states of consciousness in his followers. (pgs. 58-59)

There are indications that the Gnostics believed that the spiritual Christ descended into the person of Jesus at the time of his baptism in the river Jordan at the hands of John. Yet Jesus was also regarded as a holy and
supernal being from birth. (p.63) [What the author is referring to is a passage from the Nag Hammadi tractate, The Testimony of Truth, where the Logos descended upon Jesus at the Jordan River, ((and the river fell back!}} But it is no mystery that Jesus was holy from birth since the PISTIS SOPHIA relates that once one has integrated himself (herself), that person may elect to come back (to Earth) as a RIGHTEOUS MAN, which means that that person then chooses which course of action he wishes to follow. (In the AQUARIAN GOSPEL, as indicated before, it is apparent that Jesus was already born perfect, and only needed to go through the motions of becoming initiated into the CHRISTHOOD.]

ON THE RESURRECTION: In saying 21 of The Gospel of Philip, the author says: “If  men do not first experience the resurrection while they are alive, they will not receive anything when they die.”

According to Hoeller on page 66, “The Gnostics regarded the term RESURRECTION as a word-symbol for gnosis, or true spiritual awakening.  When we awaken to the consciousness of who we are, where we come from , and where we are going, we have arrived at knowledge of the things that truly are.  To the Gnostic tradition, Christ’s resurrection is the mysterious inducement facilitating our own resurrection or awakening.  If this awakening does not take place, then Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension were in vain.

In the latter part of this section, the author makes an astute observation on the person of Jesus the Christ: The Gnostic Jesus Christ is truly much more than the carpenter’s son from Nazareth.  In certain ways, he is also more than the precisely defined and described Son of God of the theologians.  If the Gnostic Jesus appears as a paradox and an enigma to some, it is because the Gnostic perception of Jesus originates in the experience of gnosis.  The Gnostics saw Jesus with visionary eyes. To them he was a transcendental being, a denizen of another dimension [I AM FROM ABOVE-YOU ARE FROM BELOW] or realm who had temporarily found himself on earth. To know Jesus, one had to receive Gnosis. [If you read The Gospel of Thomas, Thomas indeed knew him, and referred to Jesus as one whom Thomas was utterly unable to say what Jesus was like, when asked to compare him to someone or something. (Saying 13)] (p.68)

THE GNOSTIC VIEW OF EVIL

[This chapter is pretty straight forward and informative, but I will mainly focus on what the Gnostics thought, although there are many ideas on this all-important subject; yet the Gnostics, to their credit, I believe, have the
most convincing specific mythology of EVIL.]

A sophisticated but impersonal view of evil and its origins can be found in the great religions originating in India. These traditions view evil as part of the unenlightened state of existence and see the cause of evil as ignorance (avidya).  By attaining enlightened consciousness and thus rising above all dualities, one is liberated from karma and from all conditions in which evil plays a role.... Judeo-Christian thought assigns the origin of evil to human sin...(p.73)

The Gnostics, both ancient & modern, agree with the Buddhist that suffering is the existential manifestation of evil in the world. The Gnostics see this imperfect state of the world as the result, not of original sin, but of an
original flaw (as mentioned before.)  Put in slightly more abstract terms, evil is part of the fabric of the world we live in. If there is a Creator of this reality, then surely this Creator is responsible for the evil in it.  [THIS IS BLASPHEMY ACCORDING TO THE ORTHODOX VIEW.] Yet the Gnostics asked the great question: Is this flawed Creator truly the ultimate, true, and good God, or is he a lesser deity who is either ignorant of a power beyond himself or is conscious of a divine authority superior to himself but decides to usurp the position of the highest Deity? THE GNOSTICS ANSERED: The Creator is a ‘Demiurgos’- or secondary deity who is the originator of evil and imperfection in the world. (p.74 74)

DUALISM: The Gnostics were in the “QUALIFIED” camp, which does not postulate warfare between a good deity and an evil deity, as does radical dualism. In simple terms, it simply allows for good & evil to be mixed together.

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL is in the words of St. Paul, “spiritual wickedness in high places” [which, is the famous quote of the epistle EPHESIANS 6:12] HOWEVER...owing to the indwelling spirit (pneuma) that is deeply encased within our physical & psychic selves, we are capable of responding to the divine love coming to us from beyond the flawed system where we presently find ourselves. (p.79)

HOELLER ENDS THIS SECTION WITH AN INTERESTING STATEMENT on page 80: The Gnostic teachings speak of the reality and power of evil and its fundamental presence throughout manifest existence.  They declare that while we may not be able to rid the world or ourselves of evil, we may, and indeed will, rise above it through gnosis. And when this extrication is accomplished, we shall indeed no longer fear the noonday devil or the terror that walks by night. [Me thinks this sounds like the beautiful Psalm 91, as numbered in most Bibles, and a beautiful psalm it is. BECAUSE YOU HAVE MADE THE LORD YOUR REFUGE; YOU HAVE MADE THE MOST HIGH YOUR STRONGHOLD. NO EVIL SHALL BEFALL YOU.... Yes, most beautiful indeed.]

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