Wilhelm Bousset

“ A combination of the Babylonian with the Persian religion could only be effected by the degradation of the Babylonian deities into half-divine, half-daemonic beings, infinitely remote from the supreme God of light and of heaven, or even into powers of darkness. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ When Gnosticism recognizes in this corporeal and material world the true seat of evil, consistently treating the bodily existence of mankind as essentially evil and the separation of the spiritual from the corporeal being as the object of salvation, this is an outcome of the contrast in Greek dualism between spirit and matter, soul and body. For in Oriental (Persian) dualism it is within this material world that the good and evil powers are at war, and this world beneath the stars is by no means conceived as entirely subject to the influence of evil. ”

“ We are at first inclined to think of Christianity itself, but it is certainly most improbable that at the time of the rise of Christianity the Babylonian teaching about the seven planet-deities governing the world should have played so great a part throughout all Syria, Asia Minor and Egypt, that the most varying sections of syncretic Christianity should over and over again adopt this doctrine and work it up into their system. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) ”

“ In short, Gnosticism, in all its various sections, its form and its character, falls under the great category of mystic religions, which were so characteristic of the religious life of decadent antiquity. In Gnosticism as in the other mystic religions we find the same contrast of the initiated and the uninitiated, the same loose organization, the same kind of petty sectarianism and mystery-mongering. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And even when there is an attempt at reconciliation, it is still quite clear how strong was the original dualism which has to be overcome. Thus the Gnostic systems make great use of the idea of a fall of the Deity himself; by the fall of the Godhead into the world of matter, this matter, previously insensible, is animated into life and activity, and then arise the powers, both partly and wholly hostile, who hold sway over this world. ”

“ This figure of the Primal Man can particularly be compared with that of the Gnostic Sophia. Wherever this figure has not become quite obscure, it represents that divine power which, whether simply owing to a fall, or as the hero who makes war on, and is partly vanquished by darkness, descends into the darkness of the material world, and with whose descent begins the great drama of the world’s development. From this power are derived those portions of light existing and held prisoner in this lower world. ”

“ 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 meaning of this cult is, of course, reinterpreted in the Gnostic sense: by this unbridled prostitution the Gnostic sects desired to prevent the sexual propagation of mankind, the origin of all evil. But the connexion is clear, and hence it also explained the curious Gnostic myth mentioned above, namely that the μήτηρ (the light-maiden) by appearing to the archontes (ἄρχοντες) , the lower powers of this world, inflames them to sexual lusts, in order to take from them that share of light which they have stolen from the upper world. ”

“ But names, symbols and formulas are not efficacious by themselves: the Gnostic must lead a life having no part in the lower world ruled by these spirits, and by his knowledge he must raise himself above them to the God of the world of light. Throughout this mystic religious world it was above all the influence of the late Greek religion, derived from Plato, that also continued to operate ”

“ A further weakening of the dualism is indicated when, in the systems of the Valentinian school, the fall of Sophia takes place within the godhead, and Sophia, inflamed with love, plunges into the Bythos, the highest divinity, and when the attempt is thus made genetically to derive the lower world from the sufferings and passions of fallen divinity. ”

“ Hence we are able to understand how the Gnostic μήτηρ, the Sophia, appears as the mother of the Hebdomas (ἑβδομάς) . The great goddess of heaven is the mother of the stars. Particularly instructive in this connexion is the fact that in those very sects, in the systems of which the figure of the μήτηρ plays a special part, unbridled prostitution appears as a distinct and essential part of the cult (cf. the accounts of particular branches of the Gnostics, Nicolaitans, Philionites, Borborites, &c. in Epiphanius, Haer. xxv., xxvi.) ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Finally, sacred formulas, names and symbols are of the highest importance among the Gnostic sects. We constantly meet with the idea that the soul, on leaving the body, finds its path to the highest heaven opposed by the deities and demons of the lower realms of heaven, and only when it is in possession of the names of these demons, and can repeat the proper holy formula, or is prepared with the right symbol, or has been anointed with the holy oil, finds its way unhindered to the heavenly home. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ It is, of course, already permeated with the Catholic spirit, but has drawn so largely upon sources of a Judaeo-Christian Gnostic character that it comes to a great extent within the category of sources for Gnosticism. Complete original Gnostic works have unfortunately survived to us only from the period of the decadence of Gnosticism. Of these we should mention the comprehensive work called the Pistis-Sophia, probably belonging to the second half of the 3rd century. ”

“ In the Valentinian systems the pair of aeons, Anthropos and Ekklesia, occupy the third or fourth place within the Oydoás, but incidentally we learn that with some representatives of this school the Anthropos took a still more prominent place (first or second; Hilgenfeld, Ketzergeschichte, p. 294 seq.) . And even in the Pistis-Sophia the Primal Man “Ieu” is frequently alluded to as the King of the Luminaries (cf. index to C. Schmidt’s translation) . We also meet with speculations of this kind about man in the circles of non-Christian Gnosis. ”

“ Again, in the text on which are based the pseudo-Clementine writings (Recognitions, i. 16, 32, 45-47, 52, ii. 47; and Homilies, iii. 17 seq. xviii. 14) , as in the closely related system of the Ebionites in Epiphanius (Haer. xxx. 3-16; cf. liii. 1) , we meet with the man who existed before the world, the prophet who goes through the world in various forms, and finally reveals himself in Christ. Among the Barbelognostics (Irenaeus i. 29. 3) , the Primal Man (Adamas, homo perfectus et verus) and Gnosis appear as a pair of aeons, occupying a prominent place in the whole series. ”

“ Hft. 3 (1890) . ↑ Cf. the same idea of the fall of mankind in the pagan Gnosticism of “Poimandres”; see Reitzenstein, Poimandres (1904) ; and the position of the Primal Man (Urmensch) among the Manichaeans is similar. ↑ These ideas may possibly be traced still further back, and perhaps even underlie St Paul’s exposition in Col. ii. 15. ↑ For the disciples of Valentinus, especially Marcus, after whom was named a separate sect, the Marcosians, with their Pythagorean theories of numbers and their strong tincture of the mystical, magic, and sacramental, see Valentinus and Valentinians. ”