HOW MANY GNOSTICS?
Our sense of the evolution of religion from the Hellenistic
cults to Christianity at a time when "philosophy became more
religious and religion more philosophic," as has been quipped, has
prepared us to accept the phenomenon of Gnosticism as a widespread
development which represented a significant threat as a Christian
heresy, and had "pagan" and Jewish counterparts which if not
"Gnostic" by definition showed some strong affinities to communities which we would admit to being Gnostic. I first discussed
Gnosticism with William Willis, and although he warned me I might
not find the contents of the Nag Hammadi texts congenial, I persisted, and welcome this opportunity to present him with this
produce of my stubbornness.1
Modern explanation of the ideas called Gnostic had developed
through the interpretation of remarks by the church fathers, examination of such Hermetic texts as that known as "Poimandres,"
study of new discoveries such as the seventeenth-century finds,
the Bruce and Askew codices and the Berlin Gnostic papyrus, until
the massive collection from Nag Hammadi burst upon the world just
after mid-century. Now, characteristically, scholars are able to
present an extensive theology and mythology as Gnostic, drawing
heavily on the Nag Hammadi texts to supplement what can be said
about the belief from Christian attacks, from pagan writings, from
remarks by neoplatonists and even from the Manichaean and Mandaean
2
texts. Despite the spanking administered by Morton Smith in 1978,
we persist in treating Gnosticism as a "stance" which, if not a
single religion, is found in a large number of cults and systems
from the end of the pre-Christian era on into the early centuries
of the Christian era, perhaps because we mean by "Gnostic" any
system which exhibits dualism or reliance on nonratiocinative
knowledge. That would make Gnosticism a modern construct, of
1 I should like to thank my colleague, T. D. Barnes, for
generous and very helpful advice as I was preparing this material
for publication.
2 "History of the Term Gnosticos," The Rediscovery of Gnosticism. Proceedings of the International Conference on Gnosticism
at Yale: New Haven, Connecticut, March 28-31, 1978, Bentley Layton,
ed., Vol. 2 (Leiden 1981) 796-807.
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