Difficulty in defining Gnosticism—Magic and astrology in Gnosticism—Simon Magus as a Gnostic—Simon’s Helen—The number thirty and the moon—Ophites and Sethians—A magical diagram—Employment of names and formulae—Seven metals and planets—Magic of Simon’s followers—Magic of Marcus in the Eucharist—Other magic and occult lore of Marcus—Name and number magic—The magic vowels—Magic of Carpocrates—The Abraxas and the number 365—Astrology of Basilides—The Book of Helxai—Epiphanius on the Elchasaites—The Book of the Laws of Countries—Personality of Bardesanes—Sin possible for men, angels, and stars—Does fate in the astrological sense prevail?—National laws and customs as a proof of free will—Pistis-Sophia; attitude to astrology—“Magic” condemned—Power of names and rites—Interest in natural science—“Gnostic gems” and astrology—The planets in early Christian art—Gnostic amulets in Spain—Syriac Christian charms—Priscillian executed for magic—Manichean manuscripts—The Mandaeans.
Difficulty in defining Gnosticism.
Gnosticism[1600] is not easy to define and the term Gnostic appears to have been applied to a great variety of sects with a confusing diversity of beliefs. Many of the constituents and roots at least of Gnosticism were older than Christianity, and it is now the custom to associate the Gnosis or superior knowledge and revelation, which gives the movement its name, not with Greek philosophy or mysteries but with oriental speculation and religions. Anz[1601] has been impressed by its connection with Babylonian star-worship; Amélineau[1602] has urged its debt to Egyptian magic and religion; Bousset[1603] has argued for Persian origins. The main features of the great oriental religions which swept westward over the Roman Empire were shared by Gnosticism: the redeemer god, even the great mother goddess conception to some extent, the divinely revealed mysteries, the secret symbols, the dualism, and the cosmic theory. Gnosticism as it is known to us, however, is more closely connected with Christianity than with any other oriental religion or body of thought, for the extant sources consist almost entirely either of Gnostic treatises which pretend to be Christian Scriptures and were almost entirely written in Coptic in the second or third century of our era,[1604] or of hostile descriptions of Gnostic heresies by the early church fathers. However, the philosopher Plotinus also criticized the Gnostics, as we have seen.
Magic and astrology in Gnosticism.
What especially concerns our investigation is the great use made, or said to be made, by the Gnostics of sacred formulae, symbols, and names of demons, and the prevalence among them of astrological theory as shown by their widespread notion of the seven planets as the powers who have created our inferior and material world and who rule over its affairs. Gnosticism was deeply influenced by, albeit it to some extent represents a reaction against, the Babylonian star-worship and incantation of spirits. The seven planets and the demons occupy an important place in Gnostic myth because they intervene between our world and the world of supreme light, and their spheres must be traversed—much as in the Book of Enoch and Dante’s Paradiso—both by the redeeming god in his descent and return and by any human soul that would escape from this world of fate, darkness, and matter. What encouragement there is for such views in the canonical Scriptures themselves may be inferred from the following passage in which Christ foretells His second coming: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”[1605] But in order to pass the demons and the spheres of the planets, who are usually represented as opposed to this, one must, as in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, know the passwords, the names of the spirits, the sacred formulae, the appropriate symbols, and all the other apparatus suggestive of magic and necromancy which forms so large a part of the gnosis that gives its name to the system. This will become the more apparent from the following particular accounts of Gnostic sects and doctrines found in the works of the Christian fathers and in the scanty remains of the Gnostics themselves. The philosopher Plotinus we have already heard charge the Gnostics with resort to magic and sorcery, and with ascribing evil and fatal influence to the stars. At the same time we shrewdly suspect that Gnosticism has been made a scapegoat for the sins in these regards of both early Christianity and pagan philosophy.
Simon Magus as a Gnostic.
Simon Magus, of whose magical exploits as recorded by many a Christian writer we shall treat in another chapter, is also represented by the fathers as holding Gnostic doctrine, although some writers have contended that Simon the magician named in Acts was an entirely different person from Simon the heretic and author of The Great Declaration.[1606] Simon declared himself the Great Power of God, or the Being who was over all, who had appeared in Samaria as the Father, in Judea as the Son, and to other nations as the Holy Spirit.[1607] In the Pseudo-Clementines Simon is represented as arguing against Peter in characteristically Gnostic style that “he who framed the world is not the highest God, but that the highest God is another who alone is good and who has remained unknown up to this time.”[1608] According to Epiphanius Simon claimed to have descended from heaven through the planetary spheres and spirits in the manner of the Gnostic redeemer. He is quoted as saying, “But in each heaven I changed my form in accordance with the form of those who were in each heaven, that I might escape the notice of my angelic powers and come down to the Thought, who is none other than she who is likewise called Prounikon and the Holy Spirit.” Epiphanius further informs us that Simon believed in a plurality of heavens, assigned certain powers to each firmament and heaven, and applied barbaric names to these spirits or cosmic forces. “Nor,” adds Epiphanius, “can anyone be saved unless he learns this mystic lore and offers such sacrifices to the Father of all through these archons and authorities.”[1609]
Simon’s Helen.
The fathers tell us that Simon went about with a woman called Helena or Helen, who Justin Martyr says had formerly been a prostitute.[1610] Simon is said to have called her the mother of all, through whom God had created the angels and aeons, who in their turn had formed the world and men. These cosmic powers had then, however, cast her down to earth, where she had been confined in various successive human and animal bodies. She seems to have obtained her name of Helen from the fact that it was for her that the Trojan war had been fought, an event which Simon seems to have subjected to much allegorical interpretation. He also spoke of Helen as “the lost sheep,” whom he, the Great Power, had descended from heaven to release from the bonds of the flesh. She was that Thought or Holy Spirit which we have heard him say he came down to recover. Simon’s Helen also corresponds to Pistis-Sophia, who in the extant Gnostic work named after her descends through the twelve aeons, deceived by a lion-faced power whom they have formed to mislead her, and then reascends by the aid of Jesus or the true light. It seems fairly evident that the fathers[1611] have taken literally and travestied by a scandalous application to an actual woman a beautiful Gnostic myth or allegory concerning the human soul. At the same time Simon’s Helen reminds us of Jesus’s relations with the woman taken in adultery, the woman of Samaria, and Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene, it may be noted, in the Gnostic writing, Pistis-Sophia, takes a rôle superior to the twelve disciples, a fact of which Peter complains to his Lord more than once. But Simon’s Helen was that spirit of truth which lies latent in the human mind and which he endeavored to release by means of the philosophy, astrology, and magic of his time. May modern scientific method prove more successful in setting the prisoner free!
The number thirty and the moon.