Were the Gnostics the Original Christians?

Were the Gnostics the Original Christians : Part Three Enlightenment

Entire article found at: http://www.awitness.org/journal/gnostic_enlightenment.html


In part one of this discussion I made the case that the violence and threats of the Christian conversion experience leads to a traumatic stress disorder common to victims of violence, which then evolves into a Paranoid Personality Disorder. In part two I discussed the origins of the doctrine of sin, since it is the fear inculcated by this doctrine that creates the disorder. This disorder is regarded as very difficult to treat, but the treatment involves the gradual introduction of doubt. Given the harmful effect of the doctrine of sin (paranoia) and the irrational inconsistency of the doctrine (it is reactionary) a satisfactory conclusion can be drawn the revolutionary doctrine of Gnosticism was the original Christian doctrine in that, unlike the doctrine of sin, its revolutionary philosophy is match (rather than a hindrance) to the cross symbol.



Gnosticism : Knowledge and Enlightenment
Revolution and reaction in the early church
A mini commentary on the Gospel of Thomas
In a desert in Egypt around the middle of the previous century a collection of previously hidden documents was discovered (now known as the Nag Hammadi library). The books were written by persecuted early Christians, and are often referred to as the Coptic Gnostic texts. Gnosticism was not one monolithic movement but rather a number of different groups are typically classified under the blanket umbrella of Gnosticism.

It was the attractiveness of the gnostic teachings and their resulting popularity that made necessary the persecution of this early gnostic movement on the charge of heresy, and scholars have discovered extant copies of manuscripts that were once previously known only through the polemical attacks launched against them in writingsb the early church Patriarchs.

Anyone who first reads these ancient Christian texts is at first struck by how incomprehensible, how utterly foreign is the language of these documents. The view of the world represented by the Gnostics was so completely oppressed, and so thoroughly was every trace of their thought removed from our collective history that their ideas have become so alien to our culture's way of thinking that it seems that they can no longer be understood.

The defining difference between gnostic Christianity (the word gnosis means ‘knowledge' or ‘insight') and what came to be known as Orthodox Christianity is a controversy over the meaning of ‘salvation'. In what became orthodox thought the world is to be understood in terms of sin and punishment or redemption and reward. To the Gnostics what was important was knowledge, insight and understanding which then led to enlightenment. Their Gnosis (knowledge or insight) was not of the scientific sort but rather consisted of an intuitive, very personal way of knowing something, in the same way that through personal experience you might know another person (and one of the highest goals is to know yourself, since if you knew yourself you gained an understanding of human nature that resulted in prophetic insights into the course of the future as well as an understanding of the nature of God, since your nature was a product of the working of God, and thus to know oneself was to know God). The problem with the world then was a kind of ignorance, rather than ‘sin', and in Gnostic thought then ‘salvation' consisted of enlightenment.

As orthodox Christianity developed as a patriarchal hierarchy, there was an emphasis placed on the authority of certain sources of ‘divine revelation' which were located outside the individual (situated then in some authority figure) while to Gnostics the most important source of revelation was to be found by each person embarking on a search for enlightenment within themselves (in this way Gnosticism developed in a way which was not hierarchical).

The difference in outlook between these two viewpoints can then be seen in the political and social order which would result from the application of these two divergent ideologies. Buddhism was another ideology which emphasized ‘enlightenment' rather than a doctrine of ‘sin and atonement' (and it is this viewpoint that characterizes the historical differences meant when comparing ‘East' and ‘West'). According to the Buddha's doctrine crime was the result of poverty. At the time, the Eastern Kings regarded crime as ‘sin' and dealt out severe punishments which were then criticized by the Buddha because they were unjust in that they failed to deal with the fundamental problem. In this way the Orthodox Christian doctrines of ‘sin and punishment versus redemption and reward' can be seen to be a proxy for a system of punitive justice which characteristically ignores all the root causes of social problems and focuses instead on punishing individuals while the doctrine of enlightenment emphasizes a collective social responsibility. An analysis of such things as the intransigent violence surrounding the conflict over resources in the world's poorest nations would then be seen as a problem with ‘individual sinners', a world view which logically results from viewing the world from the perspective of ‘sin and redemption', and in this way it can be seen that what has been called ‘Orthodox theology' actually perpetuates class divisions and inequality, focuses on treating symptoms, and if we ask whose interests are served by such an approach this leads to the conclusion that the doctrine of ‘sin and redemption', with its characteristic dualistic polarity between good and evil, between judge and sinner, mimics the polarity of a society with rigid class divisions, and in that sense is actually an elitist doctrine. The fact that this doctrine was formulated by elitist priests, who were then granted authority by the ultimate elitist, Caesar, and who then ruled as part of the elite alongside Caesar, can be seen as logically connected, in that elites created a doctrine which in the end protected the interests of the elite. The doctrine of sin then cemented into place class divisions by rationalizing the subjugation of lower classes who were ‘defective' by their very nature (having been ‘born sinful').

It can then be understood that the Gnostics were persecuted, and eliminated, not because their doctrine was ‘heresy', but rather because the political implications of the doctrine of ‘enlightenment' was that this would result in a challenge to the class structure of Roman society and would also result in the loss of influence of religious authorities, who placed the emphasis on the outside, in outside sources of revelation, such authorities as ‘scripture' and ‘canon law'. When an individual looks within themselves for Gnosis, religious hierarchy is nullified, and this nullification of the religious elite only mirrors the inevitable political challenge to the Roman elite in general, since if all individuals can seek revelation, then all individuals must be equal and all supposed differences in authority or equality between individuals must be artificial. This classless analysis of social problems would lead to a critique of society at large, and demands for sweeping reforms in the system (of the type demanded by the Buddha, as one example) in contrast to the focus on ‘individual sinners' which is the logical outcome of the opposing doctrine of sin and redemption, which then serves to perpetuate inequality and hierarchical class divisions in society by ignoring root causes and focusing on an erroneous analysis of the symptoms (with the root cause, it is claimed, being ‘inherited sinfulness', such an evil nature being it is claimed the natural state of all humanity apart from the saving intervention of powerful religious elites...that such a thing is a self serving doctrine which perpetuates a power structure should be self evident upon even a cursory examination).

This difference is emphasized in the opening verses of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, where we are told not to look outside oneself for enlightenment and thus ‘salvation', but rather to look within. To turn away from outside revelation is considered the most natural course of action (since it is suggested that by nature this is what the birds and the animals do) and in this sense then what we have here is an argument which insists that God must have created the world correctly (in opposition to the doctrine of ‘sin and redemption' which incongruously attempts to make the argument that humanity is ‘defective and sinful' from birth, while at the same attempting to uphold the contradictory doctrine which states that God is perfect and thus incapable of error...on this matter the Gnostic doctrine provides a more intellectually satisfying description of the nature of reality than Orthodox thinking ever has).

According to the Gnostics, salvation, we are told is to be found both inside of oneself and can also be discerned in the natural world, being displayed without any doubting or second thoughts, without the need for any leaders, by such creatures as the birds and the animals and the fish. The Gnostics mad a call to people to ignore the religious leaders, and then draw the conclusion that by rejecting their necessarily authoritarian doctrines the path would be open to ‘come to know yourself' which would then lead enlightenment, this enlightenment being the only ‘salvation' people require in Gnostic thought, with the implication being that religious leaders and authority figures are actually an impediment to human salvation, since it would appear then that people need to be saved from religion. There is no doctrine of ‘punishment' in Gnostic thought, but rather if you fail to achieve enlightenment, you pay the price by living a life of inner ‘poverty'. When you achieve enlightenment then you will realize that you were not born an incomplete or somehow defective ‘sinner', and thus in the need of authoritarian religion as a form of social control, but rather you are by your very nature children of God. On the other hand, it is implied, if you continue to listen to your religious authorities then you become an impoverished pauper as a result of accepting their doctrines, which are hostile to your very nature, and to the nature of the world around you (which is very true of Orthodox doctrines of ‘corrupted nature' and ‘fallen Eden' and ‘hereditary sinfulness').