From Gnosticism to a contemporary spiritu

From Gnosticism to a contemporary spirituality

by Sarah Benson

When I discovered Gnosticism and early Christianity, I felt like a detective who has finally found the vital clue to a baffling mystery. For maybe here lay the origins of contemporary Western spirituality.

Today many religious scholars are returning to the origins of Christianity - the period before 'right belief' (which is the meaning of the Greek word, ortho-doxia) replaced the culture of experiences and beliefs.

The word Gnostic derives from the Greek word meaning knowledge, or insight that which revealed God, the origin and destiny of mankind, and how the spiritual element in people could find redemption by uniting with the spiritual in the cosmos.

The pre-Christian Gnostic movement was complex. The Jewish sects of what is now northern Syria provided the foundation for Gnostic ideas. These sects were also influenced by Iranian religious thought (Zoroastrianism) and by the Greek-speaking Jews. Ancient Egyptian spiritual culture was also incorporated, for instance the mystery cult of Isis and Osiris. Existing within the Roman Empire, the Gnostics were nevertheless also in conflict with it. They were a movement of the spirit without definite frontiers, in many lands, through many centuries.

Since then, scholars have indicated that the Roman Empire's role in the crucifixion of Christ was significant. Could the early confluence of Christian and Judaic ideas have implications for the religious and political conflicts that still exist today could people of diverse religious backgrounds find common ground once again in ideas arising from the search for truth?

Christian ideas, in the two centuries after Christ's death, entered a world of astonishing religious and intellectual richness and diversity. Yet the emerging Christian orthodoxy regarded as heretics those who had received 'gnosis'. The Gnostics, with their belief in an individual path to God, without earthly leaders, challenged the Christian hierarchy that had become the spiritual bulwark of the Roman Empire. As a result they were persecuted for at least a thousand years. In the 13th century more than a million gnostic Cathari were killed in Europe. Gnostics hid; they often met in underground gravesites known as catacombs.

Our knowledge of Gnosticism has been considerably broadened by the discovery in 1945 of a library of Gnostic texts in the cliffs at Nag Hammadi, Egypt. These extraordinary documents largely recount meetings between the risen Christ and his followers. The ideas in them are revolutionary, and reveal some very contemporary ideas.

For example, the risen Christ speaks of the importance of the individual's search for truth. 'I am knowledge of the truth, for whoever has not known himself has known nothing, but whoever has known himself has simultaneously achieved knowledge about the depth of all things.'

In the Gospel of Thomas, one of the discovered texts, Christ says to his companions, 'If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.' Carl Jung called Gnostics the first psychologists, and psychologists, sometimes called the new priesthood would appreciate these ideas.

A scholar of the Gnostics, Elaine Pagels, explains: "No one else can tell another which way to go, what to do, how to act. People are first led to believe in the saviour through others, but when they become mature they no longer rely on mere human testimony but discover instead their own immediate relationship with truth." How this is to be done is one of the great questions of our time.

A renewed search has been under way during the latter half of this century for paths back to knowledge and enlightenment, and this new exploration of the spiritual is happening in a way that very much emphasises the individual path.

In the Gnostic texts, Christ exhorts his followers to seek knowledge, enlightenment and spiritual transformation themselves, by going inwards, rather than in subservience to an outer authority for it is through spiritual transformation that the evil in the world can be overcome.

The Nag Hammadi discovery may also help to explain why people such as Blake, Rembrandt, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Nietsche were fascinated by Christ but found themselves at odds with Christian orthodoxy. In a way, these men were modern Gnostics, asking questions that many are asking today. Who was Christ, and how is one to understand the resurrection or the Second Coming? Why are we here; why good and evil? Does gnostic Chrisianity, with its belief in a personal path to enlightenment, bear similarities to eastern religions?

Twentieth century thinker and clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner had similar connection to Christianity as did these artists and writers, seeing his work as a development of Gnosticism, although presented in a way that was compatible with Western consciousness. He devoted his life to the union of clear, logical thought and spiritual endeavour. In this way he attempted to modernise spiritual 'gnosis' and to bring it in a form that would help human and spiritual development become attuned to the civilisational needs of the times.

Anthroposophy, he said, was a development of 'esoteric' Christianity - the thread of which has been woven through history from the time of Christ through the Rosicrucians, Cathars, Albighenses, Knights Templar and the Theosophical movement. Contemporary Gnostic scholar van Unnik also cites both Theosophy and Anthroposophy as modern forms of Gnosticism. This knowledge was given in such a way as to minimise the possibility of it becoming dogma.

Hence my experience an exciting discovery on first reading these gnostic sayings of Christ: that Rudolf Steiner was in contact with the absolute essence of Christ's message. Particularly interesting to me was the fact that the Nag Hammadi manuscripts were discovered long after the death of Steiner.

He also worked to prepare human beings for the possibility of meeting Christ once again at this time, not in the physical body but in the etheric realm that dimension of the life-forces that permeates the material world. This 'second coming' is to become more visible and apparent in the decades to come, he says. How can we begin to approach such a path?

In his book 'Knowledge of the Higher Worlds' Steiner describes a path of enlightenment that can be followed by everyone. It takes as its starting point the faculties that are possessed by all of us: observation, reflection, and thought. The meditative exercises, practiced in seclusion, are a path for the individual 'I'; one that stresses ethical development to protect against the emergence of egoism: 'For every step in spiritual perception, three steps are to be taken in moral development.' Without this aspect we would never become a community. A path is offered that not only leads to 'gnosis' but also to an understanding of the spiritual path as one of service and love to the world and to the very highest principles one that leads to a union of both head and heart and therefore to the promotion of life.

The development of thought in the right way was of particular importance to Rudolf Steiner. In 'Philosophy of Freedom', he further seeks to show that the function of thinking is not to be separated from the spiritual path. He sets out in a logical and clear way how thinking as a spiritual activity can be a gateway to human freedom and perception and consequently a bridge between spirit and matter via its own activity. In this way he was able to bring spirituality into harmony with western intellectuality - seeing this as the essential step in healing the division that had developed in the west between the human and the divine.

The activity of thinking is inextricably linked with the 'I'. Thinking does not occur of its own accord, only with conscious effort. French philosopher Descartes knew this: 'Cogito ergo sum', he concluded: 'I think, therefore I am.'

It is in this activity that I believe we bring the light and being of Christ into our thinking something that will help us to deal with the extraordinary challenges that are being presented to us today.

When Christ spoke to his disciples he spoke directly to their hearts via the parables. This was appropriate then, as the intellect was not as developed as it is now. However we have evolved highly sophisticated left-brain thinking, and this type of thought is increasingly dominating civilisation. For this reason it seems appropriate that a spiritual path should include the training of thinking to become more attuned to spiritual realities.

'If you bring forth what is within you, (spirit, knowledge of spirit and therefore self knowledge) what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

Sarah Benson has studied and worked in the spiritual for 30 years and wishes to bring whatever she has gleaned to the political/corporate world so that we can better prepare for future generations.

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