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Gnosticism

Gnosticism. Discovery in Nag Hammadi Gnosticism: main features Valentinus & his system Modern Gnostics. Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library. Discovered in 1945 in a jar in Egypt 12 codices containing 52 writings Major source of Gnostic texts. Coptic Museum in Cairo.

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Gnosticism

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  1. Gnosticism Discovery in Nag Hammadi Gnosticism: main features Valentinus & his system Modern Gnostics

  2. Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library • Discovered in 1945 in a jar in Egypt • 12 codices containing 52 writings • Major source of Gnostic texts Coptic Museum in Cairo

  3. Main Features of Gnosticism • Intricate and obscure cosmology. • Syncretism: blending various religious world-views. • Fundamental questions of human existence. • Gnosis: secret knowledge as means of attaining salvation. • Dualism: spiritual/ material; soul/ body. • Docetic christology (some Gnostics). • Sense of non-belonging to the world. • Ethics: world-denying asceticism or extreme libertinism. • Three groups: spiritual (initiated Gnostics); psychic (ordinary believers); fleshy (unbelievers, those who will perish).

  4. Valentinian ‘Pleroma’ = Fullness (see ANF 31, pp. 198-201) • Ungenerated Father (= Profundity= first aeon) • Sophia (= Wisdom = Mother) gave birth outside of the Pleroma to the imperfect creator (= Demiurge = Craftsman = Yaldabaoth) 30 divine beings called aeons

  5. Seminar. Ptolemy’s letter to Flora. • Study questions: • 1.Identify the two positions against which the author’s argument is directed (par. 1-2)? • 2.To what sources does the author attribute the Law? What theological rationale does he offer for his attribution. • 3.What subdivisions does the author propose for the Law of God [the Demiurg]? • 4.According to Ptolemy, what is the relationship between the God of the Law and God the Father of Jesus? • 5.Do you agree with the author’s view of the Old Testament?

  6. Gnosticism today • Christian science • New Age movements • Neo-Pagan religions

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