[MatthewU]

During our last intermediate Greek class with Prof Schwandt we briefly touched on the question of the origin of Gnosticism. I mentioned that I thought it had its origins before Christ in the intermingling of Jewish, Greek and Persian theology. Prof Schwandt was curious as to where I had gotten that idea and asked me to post it here in the Agora. As a quick response to that request I am quoting Neve, A History of Christian Thought:

"The investigations of Bousset have made it clear that Gnosticism began as a movement within paganism. It was one of the results of the process of religious fusion which had begun before the advent of Christianity. Following the religious syncretism of that time, Gnosticism approached Christianity with the intention of adding it to the long list of contributing religions."

Here is also a quote from Qualben, A History of the Christian Church

"Traditionaly, the gnostic movement has been considered a heathen or Gentile perversion of the Gospel . . . Consequently the movement could not have started until Christianity had had sufficient time to come in contact with the great Gentile world. Recent research has proved, however, that there existed a fairly well developed Jewish gnosticism even at the time of Christ, and that the prominent early gnostic leaders - Cerinthus, Basilides, Valentinus, and others - were Jews, who in turn recieved their main gnostic tenets from Philo Judeas, a learned Jew of Alexandria (20 B.C. - 40 A.D.). Gnosticism originated on Jewish soil, and from the Jews the movement spread to the Gentiles."

[stephenR]

My reading of Gnostic writings suggests that Gnosticism has many similarities to neo-platonism and to modern New Age thought

(Not sure what this has to do with translation, though)

Stephen

[MatthewU]

NeoPlatonism is a mixture of Christian and Platonic philosophy. Gnosticism is a mixture of these same philosophies as well as Persian and Jewish philosophies. So it isn't surprising that NeoPlatonism has many similarities. Also Stephen Hoeller depicted Gnosticism as an underground river, it comes up thrives for a while than seems to disappear, although it is really always there. Gnosticism appeared not only early in the first few centuries but also the 8th, the 12th and since the beginning of the 20th has been on the rise again. It has therefore influenced not only much of the philosophy from which modern philosophy has arisen but also very directly modern philosophy as well. If you ever consider Tolkien's books in depth there is quite a bit of Gnostic like history in them, which becomes very apparent when you read his Silmarillion. Also the Matrix movies are very heavily Gnostic, in thought and attitude.