Gnosis and Gnosticism
By Orlando Fedeli - Perennialists of our days insist on distinguishing Gnosis from the early days of Christianity from Gnosis "in a traditional context", but in essence they are all the same
Note from the translator: This is Part 2, Chapter 4, of work “The ‘Traditionalist’ Gnosis of René Guénon and Olavo de Carvalho, not available in english”
All these traditional Gnostics insist on distinguishing Gnosis from the early days of Christianity from Gnosis “in a traditional context”. Now, both have the same content and the same meaning: the salvation of a divine particle that would exist in man, through knowledge (Gnosis).
Schuon intends to give an “explanation” about this problem — distinguishing “Traditional Gnosis” from the Gnosticism of the first centuries of Christianity — explanation or lesson that Olavo de Carvalho (another perennialist) meekly follows:
“Finally, there remains another misconception to be cleared up once and for all: the word ‘gnosis’, which appears in this book as in our previous works, refers to the supra-rational — therefore, purely intellectual — knowledge of metacosmic realities; now, this knowledge cannot be reduced to historical ‘gnosticism’, without which it would be necessary to admit that Ibn Arabi or Shankara were Alexandrian ‘gnostics’; in short, gnosis cannot be held responsible for every association of ideas and for every abuse of language. It is humanly permissible not to believe in gnosis, but what is absolutely not admissible is, when one wants to know this subject, to classify under this word things that have no relation — neither from the point of view of the genus, nor in terms of level — with the reality in question, whatever, incidentally, the value attributed to it. Instead of ‘gnosis’, we could also say in Arabic ma'rifah, or in Sanskrit jnana, but it seems quite normal to use a western term, given that we write in a language of the West; (...)" (Frithjof Schuon, Comprendre l'Islam, Ed. du Seuil, Paris, 1976, pp. 136-137).
And in a footnote, Schuon clarifies:
“If we do not ‘reduce’ the meaning of the word [Gnosis] to this syncretism, we nevertheless admit that, from all evidence and for historical reasons, heretics conventionally designated by that term are also called ‘gnostics’” (F. Schuon , Comprendre l'Islam, p. 137, note 1).
First, Schuon himself — in that note 1 — admits that ancient “Gnosticism” can be regarded as a follower of Gnosis.
Second, the doctrine of the Christian Gnostic sects is the same as that of the so-called “Traditional Gnosis” of Guénon and the like.
Third, the greatest authorities on the subject, as we have already alluded1 to, consider that it is no longer possible to distinguish between Gnosis and Gnosticism:
“The restricted sense that the word ‘Gnosis’ initially had, is substituted by a broader sense, which amplifies and encompasses the first; the first, reduced to the dimensions of a heresy, the study of which, in this title, properly belonged to the History of the Church and that did not could have been formed but within Christianity and after its appearance, Gnosticism now reaches the proportions of a general phenomenon in the history of religions, far surpassing, by its extension, the limits and the field of ancient Christianity, and external, if not prior to it by its origins. Of this phenomenon, the heterodox Christian gnoses represent only one expression among many others; strictly speaking, they are not heresies immanent in Christianity, but the results of an encounter and a junction between the new religion and a current of ideas and feelings that existed before it and that was primitively foreign to it and will remain in its essence. Gnosis took on Christian forms here, or, with time, became more and more deeply Christianized, just as it took on pagan forms elsewhere, adapting itself to oriental mythologies, mystery cults, Greek philosophy or to the sciences and occult arts” (Henri-Charles Puech, En Quête de la Gnose, Gallimard, Paris, 1978, vol. I, pp. 187-188)
Fourth, to suppose that the Gnostics of the first centuries of Christianity were the (very) first Gnostics in history is to make a childish mistake. Gnosis is the consequence of a false position of the human spirit in the face of the problem of being, and it can occur at any time, without direct historical connection with other Gnostic systems. There were Gnosis before the Christian Gnosticism of the first centuries of our era. Hindu religious systems predate Gnosticism and yet are Gnostic as well. There was, even before Christ, Gnosis in Persia, in ancient Egypt, and in China, for example.
A Gnosis already existed, even among the Jews, and in times before Christ. Gerschom Scholem states that in the period of the Second Temple, an esoteric thought had already infiltrated among the Jews, esoterism that would give rise to Kabbalah, the Gnosis of the Jews (Cfr Gershom Scholem, A Mística Judaica - (Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism), São Paulo, 1972, p. 41).
All these Gnosis, although differing from each other in detail, presented the same structure of thought and the same religious scheme of the Gnosis of the first centuries and of the “traditional” Guénonian Gnosis.
Scholars of Gnosis recognize this (Cfr. Simone de Pétrement, Le Dualisme chez Platon, les Gnostiques et Manichéens, which quotes Harnack, PUF, Paris, 1947, p. 134; Hans Jonas, Gnosis und spätantiker Geist, p. 1, cited by S. de Pétrement; the same thesis that there were Gnoses before Christianity is in R. P. Festugière La Révélation d'Hermès Trismegiste, Paris, Lecoffre et Gabalda ed., 1954, IV vol. p.3; Gerschom Scholem admits that there was a Pre-Christian Jewish Gnosis: Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism P. 4 and 5, as well as in G. Scholem, Les origines de la Kabbale, Aubier-Montaigne, paris 1966, p. 30 and pp. 41-42; G. Scholem, A Mística Judaica (Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism), Ed Perspectiva, São Paulo, 1972, p. 48).
Just now2, a book by Cardinal Ratzinger has just been published — which I have just received — in which it deals with Gnosis, identifying it, of course, with Gnosticism. In that book, the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the former Holy Office, of which I am not an outsourced member) says:
“Since knowledge (= gnosis) is the true force of redemption and therefore also the highest form of elevation, that is, of union with divinity, these systems of thought and these religious doctrines — on the other hand, very diverse among themselves — are defined as ‘Gnostic’.”
And a little further on, Cardinal Ratzinger says:
“Today, too, Gnosticism exerts its fascination again in many ways; the religions of the Far East bear the same fundamental structure” (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction allo Spírito della Liturgia, Edizioni San Paolo , Milano, 2001, p. 28.)
This book, which has just come out of the oven, could not have been more providential: it not only identifies Gnosis and Gnosticism, but also affirms that the religions of the Far East (Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism), so admired by the adherents of the "primeval tradition", has a Gnostic fundamental structure.
Orlando Fedeli
Note from the translator: Previous parts of this work were not translated yet.
Note from the translator: This article was written in 2001.