Gnostic Tenets
While there was pronounced intellectual individualism among Gnostics, they generally held certain ideas in common:
Theology
In gnostic thought God is absolutely transcendent and completely removed from the physical universe, which it neither created nor rules. The Divine realm of Light is separate from and opposed to the physical cosmos, which is a realm of darkness ruled by lower powers called the “Archons” (rulers). Because God is transcendent He is hidden and unknowable by natural concepts. Knowledge of God therefore requires revelation and illumination.
Cosmology
In gnostic cosmology the universe is depicted as existing in multiple layers, orders, or spheres, expressing the degree to which man is removed from God. The spheres are the seats of the Archons, whose tyrannical rule is called heimarmene, or universal Fate. Each Archon bars the passage of souls that seek to ascend after death to escape from the world and return to God. The Archons are also the creators of the world, except where this role is reserved for their leader, the demiurge or world-artificer.
Anthropology
Man is both mundane and spiritual. Being part of the physical universe, he is animated with appetites and passions corresponding to the cosmic spheres, which together make up his astral soul or “psyche”. Through his body and his soul man is a part of the world and subjected to the heimarmene.
Enclosed in the soul is the spirit, or ‘pneuma” (called also the “spark”), a portion of the divine substance which has fallen into the world; and the Archons created man for the express purpose of keeping it captive there. The divine spark is as alien to this world as the transcendent God is. The pneuma is enclosed and immersed in the body and soul and is unconscious of itself, as if asleep. Its awakening and liberation is accomplished through “knowledge”.
Eschatology
The goal of gnostic striving is the release of the “inner man” from the bonds of the world and his return to his native realm of light. The necessary condition for this is that he knows about the transmundane God, about his divine origin and his present situation, and about the nature of the world. A famous Valentiniam formula says:
What liberates is the knowledge of who we were, what we became; where we were, whereinto we have been thrown; whereto we speed, wherefrom we are redeemed; what birth is, and what rebirth.
Adapted from: Jonas, H. (1963). The gnostic religion: The message of the alien God and the beginnings of Christianity. Boston: Beacon Press.
Theology
In gnostic thought God is absolutely transcendent and completely removed from the physical universe, which it neither created nor rules. The Divine realm of Light is separate from and opposed to the physical cosmos, which is a realm of darkness ruled by lower powers called the “Archons” (rulers). Because God is transcendent He is hidden and unknowable by natural concepts. Knowledge of God therefore requires revelation and illumination.
Cosmology
In gnostic cosmology the universe is depicted as existing in multiple layers, orders, or spheres, expressing the degree to which man is removed from God. The spheres are the seats of the Archons, whose tyrannical rule is called heimarmene, or universal Fate. Each Archon bars the passage of souls that seek to ascend after death to escape from the world and return to God. The Archons are also the creators of the world, except where this role is reserved for their leader, the demiurge or world-artificer.
Anthropology
Man is both mundane and spiritual. Being part of the physical universe, he is animated with appetites and passions corresponding to the cosmic spheres, which together make up his astral soul or “psyche”. Through his body and his soul man is a part of the world and subjected to the heimarmene.
Enclosed in the soul is the spirit, or ‘pneuma” (called also the “spark”), a portion of the divine substance which has fallen into the world; and the Archons created man for the express purpose of keeping it captive there. The divine spark is as alien to this world as the transcendent God is. The pneuma is enclosed and immersed in the body and soul and is unconscious of itself, as if asleep. Its awakening and liberation is accomplished through “knowledge”.
Eschatology
The goal of gnostic striving is the release of the “inner man” from the bonds of the world and his return to his native realm of light. The necessary condition for this is that he knows about the transmundane God, about his divine origin and his present situation, and about the nature of the world. A famous Valentiniam formula says:
What liberates is the knowledge of who we were, what we became; where we were, whereinto we have been thrown; whereto we speed, wherefrom we are redeemed; what birth is, and what rebirth.
Adapted from: Jonas, H. (1963). The gnostic religion: The message of the alien God and the beginnings of Christianity. Boston: Beacon Press.