What is wrong with Gnosticism | Clip from June Patreon Q&A

all right what is your opinion of Gnosticism I think I've talked about this before I think one of the problems one of the problems with people who look at Gnosticism is that okay if you read the book by st. Irenaeus on Gnosticism it is actually called I think it's called something like for the overthrow for the identification and overthrow of the so-called Gnostics right and the reason why they're called so-called Gnostics is because the notion of gnosis in Christianity is actually very important it's a very important it's a very important aspect of Christianity the the difference between the Gnostics and and the traditional gnosis in Christianity is that gnosis in Christianity is really in a manner what I talk about when I talk about symbolism that is it is gnosis is viewed as a sexual Union in the Bible right knowledge like he knew his wife it's not it's seen as this this coming together of two realities right and if those who are reading Matthews book will see it in that manner - it's that it's the joining of heaven and earth that's what gnosis is knowledge is is is the the two coming together right in in the in the traditional sense and so in Christianity that's why we have this whole incarnation or vision of the world right Christ is incarnate he is the total joining of of divinity and humanity the total joining of meaning and and in a person everything is joined together right so that's that's what gnosis is in in the Christian tradition where the Gnostics they tended to view gnosis as this in the platonic sense as moving out of the cave right the world of manifestation is actually an illusion and a kind of lie and you have to you have to kind of transcend the the manifestation so that you see the principles for themselves okay and and and because of that then their vision of Christ is that either he was not either there's a separation between the logos of God and the human Jesus right that those two are separate and that you know the logos of God leaves Jesus before his crucifixion that type of thinking or you have this idea that Christ was a ghostly figure that he wasn't fully manifested you have these images like you know it's feet didn't touch the ground or or these types of images to say to say that that that that Christ was not a fully incarnate me okay whereas in Christianity really is this notion of incarnation um so I think that narcissism you know in Turin Christianity you do have this notion of transcending you do you do have this notion of ascending the mountain right of going up the ladder of principality let's say moving towards the divine darkness so removing the garments of skin all of those images could be seen as akin to this notion of leaving the cave let's say but if you look at the final result of that it's always that in the end we recover what we had removed let's say so that as you move into the divine darkness you find that everything was joined together you see that in st. Maximus the Confessor he talks about how how as the the spiritual person sees the the lobby sees the spiritual reasons for things separate from the the manifestations like the particularities he sees that there's no contradiction between the two that they're actually there they're actually they actually are in full agreement with each other and so when Moses enters into the divine darkness in saint gregory of nyssa he he encounters the pattern of the tabernacle and in the pattern of the tabernacle he finds the garments of skin in the tabernacle and so he removed his sandals at the base of the mountain to ascend the mountain but once he enters into the highest point then he finds that the whole mountain you could say that the whole mountain is actually inside that point right that that the highest point of the hierarchy is actually not that which transcends the hierarchy but that which contains the whole hierarchy and that's one of the things maybe that's kind of different between what I think in andorran Peterson we we've actually talked about this in I think even online talk about this how Christ it's not that Christ transcends the hierarchy it's that Christ fills the hierarchy and so the image of Christ is is is not of the this just the image of the the the Emperor or the image of the highly successful you know person he's and and and even he's not just the image of the person who accepts suffering but he's also an image of a criminal being being crucified so he's both the judge you know of all things he's the he's the son of man he's all this glorious has all this glorious imagery but at the same time he is the the crucified criminal outside the city right and you see it like and you see it and you can see it in the opposition in the story where Christ goes into the temple clears out the temple right acts as this holy scourging fire which purifies everything but then he's taken outside the city and he's crucified so it's like bang those two those two radical opposites just jammed together and and Christ always manifests that fullness of the hierarchy where he's both the top of the hierarchy and the bottom of the hierarchy at the same time right and then he says right that he says the Alpha and the Omega right I am the beginning in the end and he also says that those two things are related to each other that there's a connection between the beginning and the end right you know you see it in that snake eating its tail

Channel: Jonathan Pageau

Views: 53,882

Keywords: symbolism, christianity, gnosticism, jonathan pageau, christian symbolism, religious symbolism, biblical symbolism, the symbolic world, christian symbology, religious skepticism

Id: JOFJOzRu-H4

Length: 5min 54sec (354 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 18 2018