Gnostic Doctrine serves as a comprehensive research platform dedicated to exploring the intricate tapestry of Gnostic theology. Our focus revolves around the convergence of Christian mysticism and apocalyptic Judaism. Delving into texts like the Old and New Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, and the Nag Hammadi Library, we provide insights for those seeking self-discovery through the profound teachings that Christ imparted to his disciples in intimate setting
Wednesday 24 January 2024
The Exegesis on the Soul an allegory of the Church
Wednesday 27 September 2023
The Gnostic Understanding of the Resurrection
Metaphysical Understanding of the Resurrection
The Gnostic Understanding of the Resurrection
O Rheginos, do not lose yourself in details, nor live obeying the flesh for the sake of harmony. Flee from being scattered and being in bondage, and then you already have resurrection. If you know what in yourself will die, though you have lived many years, why not look at yourself and see yourself risen now? You have the resurrection, yet you go on as if you are to die when it is only the part destined to die that is moribund. Why do I put up with your poor training? Everyone finds a way, and there are many ways, to be released from this element and not to roam aimlessly in error, all with the end of recovering what one was at the beginning. (The Treatise on the Resurrection)
Resurrection, according to Paul in Romans 8:10-11, is when the logos/mind of God "dwells in you". Simply said, resurrection is reaching the Christ-Consciousness of the pleroma because here you awaken to your true perfect god-self.
Resurrection implies intellectual renewal made possible by understanding Jesus' Christ message. "The 'old man [henos anthropos] must be 'put off' (Colossians 3:9-10) in order to 'put on' the new spiritual man [pneumatic anthropos].
In this light, resurrection means the transition of our judgmental ego-consciousness to our nonjudgmental Christ-Consciousness .
This transition is made possible by understanding Jesus' knowledge teachings.
He also says, we are "renewed by knowledge” (Colossians 3:10). In this, however, he does not contradict himself, but rather makes the one phrase explanatory of the other; as if he had said, “we are renewed by the Holy Spirit through knowledge.” The Holy Spirit renews or regenerates man intellectually and morally by the truth believed. “Sanctify them by thy truth,” says Jesus; “thy word, O Father, is truth” (John xvii. 17). “Ye are clean,” said he to his apostles, “through the word which I have spoken to you” (John xv. 3). God’s power is manifested through means. His Spirit is His power by which He effects intellectual, moral, and physical results. When He wills to produce intellectual and moral effects, it is by knowledge revealed by His Spirit through the prophets and apostles. This knowledge becomes power when received into “good and honest hearts”; and because God is the author of it, it is styled “the Knowledge of God” (2 Pet. i. 2), or “the word of truth” (James i. 18), by which He begets sinners to Himself as His sons and daughters. “The word of the truth of the gospel,”” the gospel of the kingdom.” “the incorruptible seed,” “the word,” “the truth as it is in Jesus,”” the word of the kingdom,”” the word of reconciliation,” “the law and the testimony,” “the word of faith,” “the sword of the spirit which is the word of God,” “the word of Christ,” “the perfection of liberty,” etc.-are all phrases richly expressive of” the power of God” by which He saves His people from their sins, and translates them into the Hope of the kingdom and glory to which He invites them. The truth is the power that makes men free indeed (John viii. 32, 36). Hence Jesus says, “My words are spirit, and they are life.” The prophets, Jesus, and the apostles were the channels through which it was transmitted to mankind; and the spirit the agent by which the knowledge was conveyed to them. Hence, the knowledge or the truth being suggested to the prophets by the spirit is sometimes styled “the spirit” (Rom. ii. 20). The spirit is to the truth as cause and effect; and by a very common figure of speech, the one is put for the other in speaking of them relatively to the mind and heart of man. So that the phrase “renewed by the holy spirit” is equivalent to renewed by the belief of the truth testified by the Holy Spirit (John xv. 26: xiv. 13-14).
The raising of man's mind and heart from the carnal mind to the higher Christ consciousness. This is accomplished by the quickening power of the Holy Spirit. "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Rom. 8:11).
The resurrection is the lifting up of the whole mind and heart into the Christ consciousness. The resurrection lifts up the seat of reasoning and emotion of the mind and heart until they conform to the mind of God, and this renewal of the mind makes a complete transformation of the carnal mind or ego.
The resurrection is a transformation that takes place daily in all who are conforming their lives to the regenerating teachings of Jesus' anointed message. The resurrection takes place here and now in all who conform their lives to the spiritual law under which it works.
Now is the time of the resurrection. "The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God" (John 5:25).
The power of the resurrection is the Christ. "I am the resurrection, and the life" (John 11:25). This resurrection is not of the future, "but hath now been manifested by . . . our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light" (II Tim. 1:10).
Friday 16 December 2022
Gnostic Teaching On the Soul The Nag Hammadi Library
The Soul refers to the breathing frame (respiratory system) the seat of which is in the blood Lev 17:11
Genesis 9:4 Only flesh with its soul—its blood—YOU must not eat
Lev 17:11 For the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I myself have put it upon the altar for YOU to make atonement for YOUR souls, because it is the blood that makes atonement by the soul [in it]
The statement of this verse is literally true, for the bloodstream is the bearer of life throughout the body: a teaching of the Bible which science has confirmed.
Blood was prohibited as an article of diet because it represented the life of the body which should be given up to God exclusively, as it is by self-sacrifice.
Genesis 1:24 And God went on to say: “Let the earth put forth living souls according to their kinds, domestic animal and moving animal and wild beast of the earth according to its kind.” And it came to be so.
Genesis 1:30 And to every wild beast of the earth and to every flying creature of the heavens and to everything moving upon the earth in which there is life as a soul I have given all green vegetation for food.” And it came to be so
Genesis 2:19 Now Jehovah God was forming from the ground every wild beast of the field and every flying creature of the heavens, and he began bringing them to the man to see what he would call each one; and whatever the man would call it, each living soul, that was its name
The word is used 45 times in contexts where it is evident that it is subject to death. For example:
James 5:20 “.. he which converteth a sinner … saveth a soul from death”
Acts 3:23 “.. every soul that will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed..”
1cor 15:44 It is sown a body of the soul (literally in Greek - a soulical body) , it is raised a body of the spirit; if there is a body of the soul, there is also of the spirit:—
45 Thus, also, it is written—The first man, Adam, became, a living soul, the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
46 Howbeit, not first, is the [body] of the spirit, but that, of the soul,—afterwards, that of the spirit. (Rotherham's Emphasized Bible)
The body of the soul is the natural body
Spirit is a character, a personality. It is 'you'.
The soul is therefore the life carrying vehicle. Now the life, your life, you, is the spirit. We are spirits, our characters are spirits.
The soul (body) is the vehicle for the spirit.
The spirit is your character, it is 'you'. Things get confusing when one realises that spirit also represents your character as well as being the spirit of the Deity.
A living human is a spirit within a physical body
Human Person = Spirit + Physical Body = Soul (human)
Corpse = Physical Body with no Spirit = Dead Soul (human)
psuchikos Psychical psychic – "soulful", Matter-dwelling spirits
The soul belongs to the “material” realm and is part of the flesh. Leviticus 17:11
The body is the whole being. In death, there is no separation of body and soul. The soul is as mortal as the body.
The “traditional view” today, the view most common among Conservative and Protestant Christians, is not in fact the view held by most of the Fathers of the Church.
The concept of the immortality of the soul comes from Greek philosophy it is not an idea found in Jewish-Christian scriptures known as the Holy Bible
According to most Gnostics, the soul is not immortal, as Plato thought. Rather, it is mortal, just like the physical body, and will not endure. (The Gnostic New Age P. 212 April D. DeConick
The text from the Nag Hammadi Library The Exegesis on the Soul says "Wise men of old gave the soul a feminine name."
This is true because the word soul is a Feminine Noun, in Hebrew, Greek and Coptic.
Next the text says "Indeed she is female in her nature as well. She even has her womb."
If we compare this with the Letter of James from the Bible we can see that nothing good is born of the soul:
James 3:15 This wisdom is not one, from above, coming down, but is earthly, born of the soul, demoniacal! (Rotherham's Emphasized Bible)
Philo: Now the female offspring of the soul are wickedness and passion, by which we are made effeminate in every one of our pursuits; but a healthy state of the passions and virtue is male, by which we are excited and invigorated.
The soul-endowed aeon is the human race after the flood. This aeon will remain in place until the final consummation
The defilement of the soul is by begetting negative emotions see James 3:15 as quoted above and Psalm 7:14
Psalm 7:14, ESV: Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies
Yes the gospel of Philip and the Extracts from the Works of Theodotus describe the creation of the soul:
50 “Taking dust from the earth”: not of the land but a portion of matter but of varied constitution and colour, he fashioned a soul, earthly and material, irrational and consubstantial with that of the beasts. (Extracts from the Works of Theodotus)
The soul of Adam came into being by means of a breath, the partner of his soul is the spirit, and the spirit given to him is his mother. (Gospel of Philip).
Is there a distinction between soul and spirit?
Yes like the Bible the Gnostic texts or apocryphal gospels make a distinction between soul and spirit
Then Peter answered, “Look, three times you have told us, ‘Be filled,’ but we are filled.”
The savior answered and said, “For this reason I have told you, ‘Be filled,’ that you may not lack. Those who lack will not be saved. To be filled is good and to lack is bad. Yet since it is also good for you to lack but bad for you to be filled, whoever is filled also lacks. One who lacks is not filled in the way another who lacks is filled, but whoever is filled is brought to an appropriate end. So you should lack when you can fill yourselves and be filled when you lack, that you may be able to fill yourselves more. Be filled with spirit but lack in reason, for reason is of the soul. It is soul.” (The Apocryphon of James)
14 The demons are said to be incorporeal, not because they have no bodies (for they have even shape and are, therefore, capable of feeling punishment), but they are said to be incorporeal because, in comparison with the spiritual bodies which are saved, they are a shade. And the angels are bodies; at any rate they are seen. Why even the soul is a body, for the Apostle says, "It is sown a body of soul, it is raised a body of spirit." (1cor 15:44) And how can the souls which are being punished be sensible of it, if they are not bodies? Certainly he says, "Fear him who, after death, is able to cast soul and body into hell." () Now that which is visible is not purged by fire, but is dissolved into dust. (Extracts from the Works of Theodotus)
Here the Extracts from the Works of Theodotus is quoting from 1 Corinthians 15:44 this is to show the soul is a body notice it says "is a body" not "has a body"
Also the Extracts from the Works of Theodotus shows that the soul can be destroyed in Gehenna
Original Word: ψυχικός, ή, όν
Part of Speech: Adjective
Transliteration: psuchikos
Phonetic Spelling: (psoo-khee-kos')
Definition: natural, of the soul or mind
Usage: animal, natural, sensuous.
And the natural man doth not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for to him they are foolishness, and he is not able to know them, because spiritually they are discerned; (1 Corinthians 2:14,)
Natural.--That is, literally, that part of our nature which we call "mind,"
People who have not been initiated are called by Paul “psychics,” people who have only their own psyches or souls but not yet God’s Spirit. Because God’s Spirit has not united with their own spirits, these people are unable to receive gnosis (1 Corinthians 2:14, 15:34).
In the Sethian book the Apocryphon of John, we learn that the soul parts are given by each of the planetary rulers, including the soul’s bone, sinew, flesh, marrow, blood, skin, and hair. Each of these soul parts is aligned with a psychic capacity [Mind], such as goodness, intention, piety, tyranny, domination, envy, or wisdom (Apocryphon of John, Nag Hammadi codices [NHC] II.1 11.23–12.25, 15.14–24; compare with Apocryphon of John in Berlin Codex 2 48.11–50.2). (The Gnostic New Age, April D. DeConick)
59 First, then, he put on a seed from the Mother, not being separated but containing it by power, and it is given form little by little through knowledge. And when he came into Space Jesus found Christ, whom it was foretold that he would put on, whom the Prophets and the Law announced as an image of the Saviour. But even this psychic Christ whom he put on, was invisible, and it was necessary for him when he came into the world to be seen here, to be held, to be a citizen, and to hold on to a sensible body. A body, therefore, was spun for him out of invisible psychic substance, and arrived in the world of sense with power from a divine preparation. (Extracts from the Works of Theodotus)
60 Therefore, “Holy Spirit shall come upon thee” refers to the formation of the Lord's body, “and a Power of the Most High shall overshadow thee” indicates the formation of God with which he imprinted the body in the Virgin. (Extracts from the Works of Theodotus)
Theodotus understood the incarnation to be a kind of ensoulment of God’s mind in matter, when the Logos descended into the flesh at Jesus’ birth and became Jesus’ psyche or soul. So Theodotus understood that Jesus came into being not through the water baptism only, but through the blood of birth too (1 John 5:6;)
Remember the soul of the flesh is in the blood Levit 17:11
- For he knows the desire, and also what it is that the flesh needs! - (Or do you think) that it is not this (flesh) that desires the soul? For without the soul, the body does not sin, just as the soul is not saved without the spirit. But if the soul is saved (when it is) without evil, and the spirit is also saved, then the body becomes free from sin. For it is the spirit that raises the soul, but the body that kills it; that is, it is it (the soul) which kills itself. (The Apocryphon of James)
Here the soul is equivalent in value or interdependent with the flesh and the body the soul needs to be saved from death as the text says “it is it (the soul) which kills itself”
The Treatise of the Resurrection:
"From the savior we radiate beams, and we are held in his arms until our own sunset, our death in this life. We are drawn to heaven by him, like beams, by the sun, and nothing holds us down. This is the resurrection of the spirit, which swallows up the soul and the flesh."
Tripartite Tractate:
"They became flesh and soul, that is, eternally which (things) hold them and with corruptible things they die. "
The Gospel of Philip:
"Adam’s soul came from a breath. The soul’s companion is spirit, and the spirit given to him is his mother. His soul was [taken] from him and replaced with [spirit]. "
Apocalypse of Peter:
`For evil cannot produce good fruit. For the place from which each of them is produces that which is like itself; for not every soul is of the truth, nor of immortality. For every soul of these ages has death assigned to it in our view, because it is always a slave, since it is created for its desires and their eternal destruction, in which they are and from which they are. They love the creatures of the matter which came forth with them.`
In this text there are mortal souls of this age and immortal souls in the age to come
Apoc of Adam
`But we have done every deed of the powers senselessly. We have boasted in the transgression of all our works. We have cried against the God of truth because all his works [...] is eternal. These are against our spirits. For now we have known that our souls will die the death.`
Here the soul needs to be redeem from death if the soul is immortal how can it die?
Heracleon was a Valentinian Gnostic in his Commentary on the Gospel of John he rejects the doctrine of the immortal soul
Fragment 40, on John 4:46-53 (In John 4:46, “So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose child was ill.) The official was the Craftsman, for he himself ruled like a king over those under him. Because his domain is small and transitory, he was called an “official,” like a petty princeling who is set over a small kingdom by the universal king. The “child” “in Capernaun” is one who is in the lower part of the Middle (i.e. of animate substance), which lies near the sea, that is, which is linked with matter. The child’s proper person was sick, that is, in a condition not in accordance with the child’s proper nature, in ignorance and sins. (In John 4:47, “When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his child , for it was at the point of death.”) The words “from Judea to Galilee” mean ‘from the Judea above.’. . . By the words “it was at the point of death,” the teaching of those who claim that the soul is immortal is refuted. In agreement with this is the statement that “the body and soul are destoyed in Hell.” (Matthew 10:28) The soul is not immortal, but is possessed only of a disposition towards salvation, for it is the perishable which puts on imperishability and the mortal which puts on immortality when “its death is swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:54) [Heracleon: Fragments from his Commentary on the Gospel of John]
both canonical and gnostic text support the teaching that the soul is temporary.
And I also disagree with others who say that the flesh will not arise. Both views are wrong. You say that the flesh will not arise? Then tell me what will arise, so we may salute you. You say it is the spirit in the flesh, and also the light in the flesh? But what is in the flesh is the word, and what you are talking about is nothing other than flesh. It is necessary to arise in this sort of flesh, since everything exists in it.
Friday 11 February 2022
Errors Doctrines to be Rejected by Gnostic Christians
Errors Doctrines to be Rejected by Gnostic Christians
- And you who were loved in the Beloved, and you who are kept in Him who lives, and you who are saved in Him who was saved.
- May we also be saved with You, because You are our Savior.
He was born before there was birth.
He was anointed once and was anointed anew.
He who was redeemed redeemed the world.
Heracleon: Fragments from his
Commentary on the Gospel of John
Heracleon: Fragments from his
Commentary on the Gospel of John
A child claims the father’s legacy,
but those who inherit the dead are dead.
Heirs to the living are alive
and are heirs to life and death.
The dead are heirs to nothing.
How can the dead inherit?
Yet if the dead inherits the living,
the living won’t die and the dead will survive.
GENTILES, JEWS, CHRISTIANS
A gentile doesn’t die, never
having been alive to die.
If your leaders tell you, “Look, the kingdom is in heaven,”
then the birds of heaven will precede you.
If they say to you, “It’s in the sea,”
then the fish will precede you.
But the kingdom is inside you and it is outside you.
When you know yourselves, then you will be known,
and you will understand that you are children of the living father.
But if you do not know yourselves,
then you dwell in poverty and you are poverty.
We reject the doctrine that the Demiurge is evil
The Valentinian teacher Ptolemy strongly criticizes non-Valentinian Gnostics who taught that the Demiurge was evil. In his view, those who view the creator as evil "do not comprehend what was said by the Savior...Only thoughtless people have this idea, people who do not recognize the providence of the creator and so are blind not only the eye of the soul but even in the eye of the body" (Letter to Flora 3:2-6). They are as "completely in error" as orthodox Christians who taught that the Demiurge was the highest God (Letter to Flora 3:2).
In contrast, he and other Valentinians steadfastly maintained that "the creation is not due to a god who corrupts but to one who is just and hates evil" (Letter to Flora 3:6). He carefully distinguished the Demiurge from both God and the Devil. According to Ptolemy, "he is essentially different from these two (God and the Devil) and is between them, he is rightly given the name, Middle" (Letter to Flora 7:4). He is "neither good nor evil and unjust, can properly be called just , since he is the arbitrator of the justice which depends on him" (Letter to Flora 7:5).
Some are afraid that they will ascend from death naked, and they want to climb back to life in their flesh.They are unaware that those who wear their flesh are naked, and those who strip are not naked. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of god.” What will we not inherit? The flesh we wear on us.
But what then will we inherit as our own? The body of Jesus and his blood. And Jesus said, “Whoever will not eat my flesh and drink my blood has no life within him.” What does he mean? His flesh is the word and blood the holy spirit.
Who has received these has food and drink and clothing. I condemn those who say the flesh won’t rise. Then both are wrong. You say the flesh won’t ascend. Tell me, what will rise so I can honor you? You say spirit in the flesh and light in the flesh. What is the flesh?
You say there is nothing outside the flesh. Then rise in the flesh, since everything exists in it. In this world those wearing garments are better than garments. In heaven the garments are better than the wearers.