Part 14

The question of the derivation of the myth of the Primal Man is still one of the unsolved problems of religious history. It is worthy of notice that according to the old Persian myth also, the development of the world begins with the slaying of the primal man Gayomart by Angra-Mainyu (Ahriman); further, that the Primal Man ("son of man" = man) also plays a part in Jewish apocalyptic literature (Daniel, Enoch, iv. Ezra), whence this figure passes into the Gospels; and again, that the dogma of Christ's descent into hell is directly connected with this myth. But these parallels do not carry us much further. Even the Persian myth is entirely obscure, and has hitherto defied interpretation. It is certainly true that in some way an essential part in the formation of the myth has been played by the sun-god, who daily descends into darkness, to rise from it again victoriously. But how to explain the combination of the figure of the sun-god with that of the Primal Man is an unsolved riddle. The meaning of this figure in the Gnostic speculations is, however, clear. It answers the question: how did the portions of light to be found in this lower world, among which certainly belong the souls of the Gnostics, enter into it?

A parallel myth to that of the Primal Man are the accounts to be found in most of the Gnostic systems of the creation of the first man. In all these accounts the idea is expressed that so far as his body is concerned man is the work of the angels who created the world. So e.g. Satornil relates (Irenaeus i. 24. 1) that a brilliant vision appeared from above to the world-creating angels; they were unable to hold it fast, but formed man after its image. And as the man thus formed was unable to move, but could only crawl like a worm, the supreme Power put into him a spark of life, and man came into existence. Imaginations of the same sort are also to be found, e.g. in the genuine fragments of Valentinus (Hilgenfeld, _Ketzergeschichte_, p. 293), the Gnostics of Irenaeus i. 30. 6, the Mandaeans (Brandt, _Religion der Mandäer_, p. 36), and the Manichaeans (Baur, _Religionssystem_, p. 118 seq.). The Naasseni (Hippolytus, _Philosophumena_, v. 7) expressly characterize the myth as Chaldean (cf. the passage from Zosimus, in Reitzenstein's _Poimandres_, p. 104). Clearly then the question which the myth of the Primal Man is intended to answer in relation to the whole universe is answered in relation to the nature of man by this account of the coming into being of the first man, which may, moreover, have been influenced by the account in the Old Testament. That question is: how does it happen that in this inferior body of man, fallen a prey to corruption, there dwells a higher spark of the divine Being, or in other words, how are we to explain the double nature of man?

VI. Of all the fundamental ideas of Gnosticism of which we have so far treated, it can with some certainty be assumed that they were in existence before the rise of Christianity and the influence of Christian ideas on the development of Gnosticism. The main question with which we have now to deal is that of whether the dominant figure of the Saviour ([Greek: Sôtêr]) in Gnosticism is of specifically Christian derivation, or whether this can also be explained apart from the assumption of Christian influence. And here it must be premised that, intimately as the conception of salvation is bound up with the Gnostic religion, the idea of salvation accomplished in a definite historical moment to a certain extent remained foreign to it. Indeed, nearly all the Christian Gnostic systems clearly exhibit the great difficulty with which they had to contend in order to reconcile the idea of an historical redeemer, actually occurring in the form of a definite person, with their conceptions of salvation. In Gnosticism salvation always lies at the root of all existence and all history. The fundamental conception varies greatly. At one time the Primal Man, who sank down into matter, has freed himself and risen out of it again, and like him his members will rise out of darkness into the light (_Poimandres_); at another time the Primal Man who was conquered by the powers of darkness has been saved by the powers of light, and thus too all his race will be saved (Manichaeism); at another time the fallen Sophia is purified by her passions and sorrows and has found her _Syzygos_, the Soter, and wedded him, and thus all the souls of the Gnostics who still languish in matter will become the brides of the angels of the _Soter_ (Valentinus). In fact salvation, as conceived in Gnosticism, is always a myth, a history of bygone events, an allegory or figure, but not an historical event. And this decision is not affected by the fact that in certain Gnostic sects figured historical personages such as Simon Magus and Menander. The Gnostic ideas of salvation were in the later schools and sects transferred to these persons whom we must consider as rather obscure charlatans and miracle-mongers, just as in other cases they were transferred to the person of Christ. The "Helena" of the Simonian system was certainly not an historical but a mythical figure. This explains the laborious and artificial way in which the person of Jesus is connected in many Gnostic systems with the original Gnostic conception of redemption. In this patchwork the joins are everywhere still clearly to be recognized. Thus, e.g. in the Valentinian system, the myth of the fallen Sophia and the Soter, of their ultimate union, their marriage and their 70 sons (Irenaeus i. 4. 5; Hippolytus, _Philos._ vi. 34), has absolutely nothing to do with the Christian conceptions of salvation. The subject is here that of a high goddess of heaven (she has 70 sons) whose friend and lover finds her in the misery of deepest degradation, frees her, and bears her home as his bride. To this myth the idea of salvation through the earthly Christ can only be attached with difficulty. And it was openly maintained that the Soter only existed for the Gnostic, the Saviour Jesus who appeared on earth only for the "Psychicus" (Irenaeus i. 6. 1).

VII. Thus the essential part of most of the conceptions of what we call Gnosticism was already in existence and fully developed before the rise of Christianity. But the fundamental ideas of Gnosticism and of early Christianity had a kind of magnetic attraction for each other. What drew these two forces together was the energy exerted by the universal idea of salvation in both systems. Christian Gnosticism actually introduced only one new figure into the already existing Gnostic theories, namely that of the historical Saviour Jesus Christ. This figure afforded, as it were, a new point of crystallization for the existing Gnostic ideas, which now grouped themselves round this point in all their manifold diversity. Thus there came into the fluctuating mass a strong movement and formative impulse, and the individual systems and sects sprang up like mushrooms from this soil.

It must now be our task to make plain the position of Gnosticism within the Christian religion, and its significance for the development of the latter. Above all the Gnostics represented and developed the distinctly anti-Jewish tendency in Christianity. Paul was the apostle whom they reverenced, and his spiritual influence on them is quite unmistakable. The Gnostic Marcion has been rightly characterized as a direct disciple of Paul. Paul's battle against the law and the narrow national conception of Christianity found a willing following in a movement, the syncretic origin of which directed it towards a universal religion. St Paul's ideas were here developed to their extremest consequences, and in an entirely one-sided fashion such as was far from being in his intention. In nearly all the Gnostic systems the doctrine of the seven world-creating spirits is given an anti-Jewish tendency, the god of the Jews and of the Old Testament appearing as the highest of the seven. The demiurge of the Valentinians always clearly bears the features of the Old Testament creator-God.

The Old Testament was absolutely rejected by most of the Gnostics. Even the so-called Judaeo-Christian Gnostics (Cerinthus), the Ebionite (Essenian) sect of the Pseudo-Clementine writings (the Elkesaites), take up an inconsistent attitude towards Jewish antiquity and the Old Testament. In this respect the opposition to Gnosticism led to a reactionary movement. If the growing Christian Church, in quite a different fashion from Paul, laid stress on the literal authority of the Old Testament, interpreted, it is true, allegorically; if it took up a much more friendly and definite attitude towards the Old Testament, and gave wider scope to the legal conception of religion, this must be in part ascribed to the involuntary reaction upon it of Gnosticism.

The attitude of Gnosticism to the Old Testament and to the creator-God proclaimed in it had its deeper roots, as we have already seen, in the dualism by which it was dominated. With this dualism and the recognition of the worthlessness and absolutely vicious nature of the material world is combined a decided spiritualism. The conception of a resurrection of the body, of a further existence for the body after death, was unattainable by almost all of the Gnostics, with the possible exception of a few Gnostic sects dominated by Judaeo-Christian tendencies. With the dualistic philosophy is further connected an attitude of absolute indifference towards this lower and material world, and the practice of asceticism. Marriage and sexual propagation are considered either as absolute Evil or as altogether worthless, and carnal pleasure is frequently looked upon as forbidden. Then again asceticism sometimes changes into wild libertinism. Here again Gnosticism has exercised an influence on the development of the Church by way of contrast and opposition. If here a return was made to the old material view of the resurrection (the apostolic [Greek: anastasis tês sarkos]), entirely abandoning the more spiritual conception which had been arrived at as a compromise by Paul, this is probably the result of a reaction from the views of Gnosticism. It was just at this point, too, that Gnosticism started a development which was followed later by the Catholic Church. In spite of the rejection of the ascetic attitude of the Gnostics, as a blasphemy against the Creator, a part of this ascetic principle became at a later date dominant throughout all Christendom. And it is interesting to observe how, e.g., St Augustine, though desperately combating the dualism of the Manichaeans, yet afterwards introduced a number of dualistic ideas into Christianity, which are distinguishable from those of Manichaeism only by a very keen eye, and even then with difficulty.

The Gnostic religion also anticipated other tendencies. As we have seen, it is above all things a religion of sacraments and mysteries. Through its syncretic origin Gnosticism introduced for the first time into Christianity a whole mass of sacramental, mystical ideas, which had hitherto existed in it only in its earliest phases. But in the long run even genuine Christianity has been unable to free itself from the magic of the sacraments; and the Eastern Church especially has taken the same direction as Gnosticism. Gnosticism was also the pioneer of the Christian Church in the strong emphasis laid on the idea of salvation in religion. And since the Gnostics were compelled to draw the figure of the Saviour into a world of quite alien myths, their Christology became so complicated in character that it frequently recalls the Christology of the later dogmatic of the Greek Fathers.

Finally, it was Gnosticism which gave the most decided impulse to the consolidation of the Christian Church as a church. Gnosticism itself is a free, naturally-growing religion, the religion of isolated minds, of separate little circles and minute sects. The homogeneity of wide circles, the sense of responsibility engendered by it, and continuity with the past are almost entirely lacking in it. It is based upon revelation, which even at the present time is imparted to the individual, upon the more or less convincing force of the religious imagination and speculations of a few leaders, upon the voluntary and unstable grouping of the schools round the master. Its adherents feel themselves to be the isolated, the few, the free and the enlightened, as opposed to the sluggish and inert masses of mankind degraded into matter, or the initiated as opposed to the uninitiated, the Gnostics as opposed to the "Hylici" ([Greek: hulikoi]); at most in the later and more moderate schools a middle place was given to the adherents of the Church as Psychici ([Greek: psychikoi]).

This freely-growing Gnostic religiosity aroused in the Church an increasingly strong movement towards unity and a firm and inelastic organization, towards authority and tradition. An organized hierarchy, a definitive canon of the Holy Scriptures, a confession of faith and rule of faith, and unbending doctrinal discipline, these were the means employed. A part was also played in this movement by a free theology which arose within the Church, itself a kind of Gnosticism which aimed at holding fast whatever was good in the Gnostic movement, and obtaining its recognition within the limits of the Church (Clement of Alexandria, Origen). But the mightiest forces, to which in the end this theology too had absolutely to give way, were outward organization and tradition.

It must be considered as an unqualified advantage for the further development of Christianity, as a universal religion, that at its very outset it prevailed against the great movement of Gnosticism. In spite of the fact that in a few of its later representatives Gnosticism assumed a more refined and spiritual aspect, and even produced blossoms of a true and beautiful piety, it is fundamentally and essentially an unstable religious syncretism, a religion in which the determining forces were a fantastic oriental imagination and a sacramentalism which degenerated into the wildest superstitions, a weak dualism fluctuating unsteadily between asceticism and libertinism. Indirectly, however, Gnosticism was certainly one of the most powerful factors in the development of Christianity in the 1st century.

VIII. This sketch may be completed by a short review of the various separate sects and their probable connexion with each other. As a point of departure for the history of the development of Gnosticism may be taken the numerous little sects which were apparently first included under the name of "Gnostics" in the narrower sense. Among these probably belong the Ophites of Celsus (in Origen), the many little sects included by Epiphanius under the name of Nicolaitans and Gnostics (_Haer._ 25, 26); the Archontici (Epiphanius, _Haer._ xl.), Sethites (Cainites) should also here be mentioned, and finally the Carpocratians. Common to all these is the dominant position assumed by the "Seven" (headed by Ialdabaoth); the heavenly world lying above the spheres of the Seven is occupied by comparatively few figures, among which the most important part is played by the [Greek: mêtêr], who is sometimes enthroned as the supreme goddess in heaven, but in a few systems has already descended from there into matter, been taken prisoner, &c. Numerous little groups are distinguished from the mass, sometimes by one peculiarity, sometimes by another. On the one hand we have sects with a strongly ascetic tendency, on the other we find some characterized by unbridled libertinism; in some the most abandoned prostitution has come to be the most sacred mystery; in others again appears the worship of serpents, which here appears to be connected in various and often very loose ways with the other ideas of these Gnostics--hence the names of the "Ophites," "Naasseni." To this class also fundamentally belong the Simoniani, who have included the probably historical figure of Simon Magus in a system which seems to be closely connected with those we have mentioned, especially if we look upon the "Helena" of this system as a mythical figure. A particular branch of the "Gnostic" sects is represented by those systems in which the figure of Sophia sinking down into matter already appears. To these belong the Barbelognostics (in the description given by Irenaeus the figure of the Spirit takes the place of that of Sophia), and the Gnostics whom Irenaeus (i. 30) describes (cf. Epiphanius, _Haer._ xxvi.). And here may best be included Bardesanes, a famous leader of a Gnostic school of the end of the 2nd century. Most scholars, it is true, following an old tradition, reckon Bardesanes among the Valentinians. But from the little we know of Bardesanes, his system bears no trace of relationship with the complicated Valentinian system, but is rather completely derived from the ordinary Gnosticism, and is distinguished from it apparently only by its more strongly dualistic character. The systems of Valentinus and his disciples must be considered as a further development of what we have just characterized as the popular Gnosticism, and especially of that branch of it to which the figure of Sophia is already known. In them above all the world of the higher aeons is further extended and filled with a throng of varied figures. They also exhibit a variation from the characteristic dualism of Gnosticism into monism, in their conception of the fall of Sophia and their derivation of matter from the passions of the fallen Sophia. The figures of the Seven have here entirely disappeared, the remembrance of them being merely preserved in the name of the [Greek: Dêmiourgos (hebdomas)]. In general, Valentinianism displays a particular resemblance to the dominant ideas of the Church, both in its complicated Christology, its triple division of mankind into [Greek: pneumatikoi, psychikoi] and [Greek: hulikoi], and its far-fetched interpretation of texts.[7] A quite different position from those mentioned above is taken by Basilides (q.v.). From what little we know of him he was an uncompromising dualist. Both the systems which are handed down under his name by Irenaeus and Hippolytus, that of emanations and the monistic-evolutionary system, represent further developments of his ideas with a tendency away from dualism towards monism. Characteristically, in these Basilidian systems the figure of the "Mother" or of Sophia does not appear. This peculiarity the Basilidian system shares with that of Satornil of Antioch, which has only come down to us in a very fragmentary state, and in other respects recalls in many ways the popular Gnosticism. By itself, on the other hand, stands the system preserved for us by Hippolytus in the _Philosophumena_ under the name of the Naasseni, with its central figure of "the Man," which, as we have seen, is very closely related with certain specifically pagan Gnostic speculations which have come down to us (in the _Poimandres_, in Zosimus and Plotinus, _Ennead_ ii. 9). With the Naasseni, moreover, are related also the other sects of which Hippolytus alone gives us a notice in his _Philosophumena_ (Docetae, Perates, Sethiani, the adherents of Justin, the Gnostic of Monoimos). Finally, apart from all other Gnostics stands Marcion. With him, as far as we are able to conclude from the scanty notices of him, the manifold Gnostic speculations are reduced essentially to the one problem of the good and the just God, the God of the Christians and the God of the Old Testament. Between these two powers Marcion affirms a sharp and, as it appears, originally irreconcilable dualism which with him rests moreover on a speculative basis. Thanks to the noble simplicity and specifically religious character of his ideas, Marcion was able to found not only schools, but a community, a church of his own, which gave trouble to the Church longer than any other Gnostic sect. Among his disciples the speculative and fantastic element of Gnosticism again became more apparent. As we have already intimated, Gnosticism had such a power of attraction that it now drew within its limits even Judaeo-Christian sects. Among these we must mention the Judaeo-Christian Gnostic Cerinthus, also the Gnostic Ebionites, of whom Epiphanius (_Haer._) gives us an account, and whose writings are to be found in a recension in the collected works of the Pseudo-Clementine _Recognitions and Homilies_; to the same class belong the Elkesaites with their mystical scripture, the _Elxai_, extracts of which are given by Hippolytus in the _Philos._ (ix. 13). Later evidence of the decadence of Gnosticism occurs in the _Pistis-Sophia_ and the Coptic Gnostic writings discovered and edited by Schmidt. In these confused records of human imagination gone mad, we possess a veritable herbarium of all possible Gnostic ideas, which were once active and now rest peacefully side by side. None the less, the stream of the Gnostic religion is not yet dried up, but continues on its way; and it is beyond a doubt that the later Mandaeanism and the great religious movement of Mani are most closely connected with Gnosticism. These manifestations are all the more characteristic since in them we meet with a Gnosticism which remained essentially more untouched by Christian influences than the Gnostic systems of the 2nd century A.D. Thus these systems throw an important light on the past, and a true perception of the nature and purpose of Gnosticism is not to be obtained without taking them into consideration.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A. Neander, _Genetische Entwicklung d. vornehmsten gnostischen Systeme_ (Berlin, 1818); F. Chr. Baur, _Die christl. Gnosis in ihrer geschichtl. Entwicklung_ (Tübingen, 1835); E. W. Möller, _Gesch. der Kosmologie in der griechischen Kirche bis Origenes_ (Halle, 1860); R. A. Lipsius, _Der Gnosticismus_ (Leipzig, 1860; originally in Ersch and Gruber's _Encyclopädie_); H. L. Mansel, _The Gnostic Heresies of the 1st and 2nd Centuries_ (London, 1875); K. Kepler, _Über Gnosis und altbabylonische Religion_, a lecture delivered at the Congress of Orientalists (Berlin, 1881); A. Hilgenfeld, _Ketzergeschichte des Urchristentums_ (Leipzig, 1884); and in _Ztschr. für wissenschaftl. Theol._ 1890, i. "Der Gnosticismus"; A. Harnack, _Dogmengeschichte_, i. 271 seq. (cf. the corresponding sections of the _Dogmengeschichten_ of Loofs and Seeberg); W. Anz, "Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnosticismus," _Texte u. Untersuchungen_, xv. 4 (Leipzig, 1897); R. Liechtenhahn, _Die Offenbarung im Gnosticismus_ (Göttingen, 1901); C. Schmidt, "Plotins Stellung zum Gnosticismus u. kirchl. Christentum" _Texte u. Untersuch._ xx. 4 (1902); E. de Faye, _Introduction à l'étude du Gnosticisme_ (Paris, 1903); R. Reitzenstein, _Poimandres_ (Leipzig, 1904); G. Krüger, article "Gnosticismus" in Herzog-Hauck's _Realencyklopädie_ (3rd ed.) vi. 728 ff.; Bousset, "Hauptprobleme der Gnosis," _Forschungen z. Relig. u. Lit. d. alten u. neuen Testaments_, 10 (1907); T. Wendland, _Hellenistisch-römische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zu Judentum und Christentum_ (1907), p. 161 seq. See further among important monographs on the individual Gnostic systems, R. A. Lipsius, "Die ophitischen Systeme," _Ztschr. f. wissensch. Theologie_ (1863); G. Heinrici, _Die valentinianische Gnosis u. d. Heilige Schrift_ (Berlin, 1871); A. Merx, _Bardesanes von Edessa_ (Halle, 1863); A. Hilgenfeld, _Bardesanes, der letzte Gnostiker_ (Leipzig, 1864); A. Harnack, "Über das gnostische Buch Pistis-Sophia," _Texte u. Untersuch._ vii. 2; C. Schmidt, "Gnostische Schriften," _Texte u. Untersuch._ viii. 1, 2; and also the works mentioned under § II. of this article. (W. Bo.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See the list of their titles in A. Harnack, _Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur_, Teil I. v. 171; ib. Teil II. _Chronologie der altchristl. Literatur_, i. 533 seq.; also Liechtenhahn, _Die Offenbarung im Gnosticismus_ (1901).

[2] For the text see A. Merx, _Bardesanes von Edessa_ (1863), and A. Hilgenfeld, _Bardesanes der letzte Gnostiker_ (1864).

[3] Ed. Petermann-Schwartze; newly translated by C. Schmidt, _Koptisch-gnostische Schriften_, i. (1905), in the series _Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte_; see also A. Harnack, _Texte und Untersuchungen_, Bd. vii. Heft 2 (1891), and _Chronologie der altchristlichen Literatur_, ii. 193-195.