Tuesday, September 04, 2007
"JEWISH AND GNOSTIC MAN"
That is the title of a short book--46 pages--which contains two lectures delivered at the Eranos Conference, Ascona, Switzerland, 1972/1973.
The two lectures are "The Birth of the Child: Some Gnostic and Jewish Aspects" by Gilles Quispel and "Three Types of Jewish Piety" by Gershom Scholem. I obtained the book through interlibrary loan because Scholem is the pre-eminent scholar of Jewish mysticism. Quispel was new to me. He died recently. Here is his obit. He is considered an expert on some of the Nag Hamadi codexes.
As it turns out, while Scholem's lecture was interesting, I found Quispel's lecture to be a repeated jaw-dropper. Quispel's subject is Jewish Christianity and its relationship to the Mandaeans, the Syrian Christians, the St. Thomas Christians, the Manicheans, and other groups considered heretical by Roman Catholicism. Some quotes:
In its present form, the Gospel according to Thomas, a collection of Logia also found at Nag Hammadi, seems to indicate that its redactor was a Gnostic, at least on the basis of present interpretations. The words attributed to Jesus in this Gospel reveal an independent tradition and were transmitted by Jewish Christian circles. Evidence to this effect is provided by the fact that the Lord's brother James, the Pope of Jewish Christianity, appears in this document as Jesus' legitimate heir and the ruler of the entire Church. Jewish Christianity was, however, a Jewish sect, which, it would seem, influenced Gnosticism in this respect. (p. 4)
It should be recalled that the Samaritans were a heterodox Jewish group, and the question concerning the relationship between Gnosis and Judaism cannot be answered as long as we identify present-day Rabbinical Judaism with the Judaism of those days. At that time, Palestine harboured not only Pharisees, but also Essenes, Baptists, Samaritans, Wisdom teachers, Jewish Christians, as well as a host of heretics of all kinds. As Gershom Scholem demonstrated, there were even a number of strict Pharisees in Palestine who handed down esoteric traditions known to the Gnostics and which later gave rise to a truly Jewish form of Gnosis, the Kabbalah.
Until recently it seemed impossible to find convincing evidence to show that the classis Gnosis of antiquity developed or was able to develop out of Judaism.
The Cologne Mani Codex seems to be of particular importance in this connection, because it shows how Gnosis evolved out of Judaism, or Jewish Christianity, as a result of a dialectical process. (p. 5)
...there was Aramaic Christianity, whose center was in Edessa and which lives on in the Thomas Christians of India and in other remnants of Nestorianism. This was a pluriform and colorful kind of Christianity, whose adepts could be found among the wandering and the poor (and as I pointed out earlier, it never was catholic). The reason was that it did not have its origins in Gentile Christianity, but in Palestinian Judaism. (p. 6)
From Jean Cardinal Danielou's contribution to The Crucible of Christianity, it becomes quite apparent that for a long time Christianity continued to exist as a Jewish sect, whose activities paralleled and even went counter to those of St. Paul. This sect was responsible for the beginnings of Christianity in Egypt, Carthage and Rome. There, it was soon replaced by Gentile Christianity, but outside the Roman Empire, i.e., in Babylonia and Mesopotamia this was not the case. I fail to understand how scholars can possibly deny the Jewish Christian elements in Aramaic Christianity, especially since Hieronymus reported that in Aleppo he had visited Jewish Christians in the fourth century. ...they had their own gospel, the Nazorean Gospel, and adhered to Jewish law. (p. 7)
Owing to the discovery of the Cologne Codex, we now know, however, that southern Babylonia had also been inhabited by Elkesaites, who had called themselves Baptists, because after the actual baptism, they practised certain additional ablutions for the purification and atonement of their sins.
Baptists (Sabians) were mentioned in the Koran in three places...as members of a recognized religion of the Book, which, according to Mohammed's precepts, was to be tolerated along with Judaism and Christianity It is too early to make any definitive statement in this matter, because the whole problem will have to be investigated by a scholar specialized in Islamic studies. But as a working hypothesis we are quite justified in assuming even now that these Sabians, the Baptists of the Koran, should be identified with the Jewish Christian Elkesaites. This would mean that Mohammed was acquainted both with the existence and the views of the Jewish Christians. The parallelism in concept regarding the true Prophet would thus have to be attributed to Jewish Christianity's historically verifiable influence on Mohammed. (p. 14)
The Jewish Christians were entirely convinced that the Holy Spirit was a feminine hypostasis. A fragment from the Jewish Christian Gospels reads as follows: "Even so did my Mother, the Holy Spirit, take me by one of my hairs and carry me away onto the great mountain Tabor."...Every Jewish Christian should therefore be thought of as having been reborn by his mother the Holy Spirit after emerging from complete immersion in the baptismal bath. Here, we come to a very simple realization: just as birth requires a mother, so rebirth requires a spiritual mother. Originally, the Christian term "rebirth" must therefore have been associated with the concept of the spirit as a feminine hypostasis. (p. 23)
Mani was a Jewish Christian. For this reason, his basic experience, the encounter with the Self, should be explained against this background. In this case, it should, however, also be possible to understand the fundamental concepts of Manichaeism, the identity of the ego and the self, the empirical ego and the guardian angel, in terms of his Jewish Christian origins. We would thus have to interpret Manichaeism, a religion without sacraments, as a spiritualization of Jewish Christian baptism. (p. 16)
Finally, brief reference should be made to the bridal chamber. This custom seems to have been practiced by the Valentinians, as well as the Manichaeans, and we find mention of it in the recently discovered Gospel of Philip, written by a Valentinian in Antioch around 200 B.C. It is unlikely that the ceremony of the bridal chamber is of Gnostic origin, because it is also part of Syrian Church practices. It should probably be attributed to Jewish Christianity... (p. 25)
We should by no means draw the conclusion that the Jewish Christians were influenced by the Eleusinian mysteries. The symbolism developed spontaneously. The Pseudo-Clementines said that in the beginning the Spirit hovered over the waters, and inasmuch as everything was created out of water and Spirit, the Spirit or Mother also created man anew by hovering over the baptismal waters. The premise for this statement is, of course, that the Holy Spirit is feminine. (p. 25)
The Jewish Christians believed that Jesus became Christ at His baptism. A number of present-day occult sects continue to hold this view, but is is very ancient and originated with the Jewish Christians. Jesus was believed to have become the Messiah, because during His baptism the Holy Spirit descended upon Him. (p. 20)
The Holy Spirit descended to earth when Jesus became Christ at His baptism and this has been repeated in the lives of all initiates ever since. (p. 21)
I hardly know where to stop. The entire 26 pages of this lecture are simply incredible.
