Neoplatonism and Gnosticism

Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is the modern term for a school of Hellenistic philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and some of his early followers. Neoplatonism took definitive shape with the philosopher Plotinus, who claimed to have received his teachings from Ammonius Saccas, a dock worker and philosopher in Alexandria. Neoplatonists considered themselves simply "Platonists", although they also wished to distinguish themselves from various earlier interpreters of Plato, such as the New Academy skeptics like Arcesilaus and Cicero, Clitomachus, Carneades with its probabilistic account of knowledge. A more precise term for the group, suggested by the scholar John D. Turner, is orthodox (neo)Platonism.

Gnosticism is a term created by modern scholars to describe a collection of religious groups, many of which thought of themselves as Christians, and which were active in the first few centuries AD. There has been considerable scholarly controversy over exactly which sects fall within this grouping. Sometimes Gnosticism is used narrowly to refer only to religious groups such as Sethians and Archontics who seem to have used the term gnostikoi as a self-designation, even though early Platonists and Ebionites also used the term and are not considered to be Gnostics. Sometimes it is used a little more broadly to include groups similar to or influenced by Sethians, such as followers of Basilides or Valentinius and later the Paulicians. Sometimes it is used even more broadly to cover all groups which heavily emphasized gnosis, therefore including Hermetics and Neoplatonists as well.

This article discusses the relationship between Neoplatonism and Gnosticism.

Platonic Origins of the Term "Gnostikoi"

Gnosis is a Greek word, originally used in specifically Platonic philosophical contexts. Plato's original use of the terms gnostikoi and gnostike episteme were in his text known as Politikos in Greek and Politicus in Latin (258e-267a). In this work, the modern name of which is the Statesman, gnostikoi meant the knowledge to influence and control. Gnostike episteme also was used to indicate one's aptitude. In Plato's writings the terms do not appear to intimate anything esoteric or hidden, but rather express a sort of higher intelligence and ability akin to talent.

Within the text of Politikos, the Stranger (the main speaker in the dialog) indicates that the best political leaders are those that have this certain "knowledge" indicative of a competency to rule. Gnostikoi therefore was a quality characteristic of the ideal attendee of the Platonic Academy, since high aptitude would be a necessary qualification to understand and grasp its teachings.

Although the Greek stem gno- was in common use, "like many of the new words formed with -(t)ikos, gnostikos was never very widely used and never entered ordinary Greek; it remained the more or less exclusive property of Plato's subsequent admirers, such as Aristotle, Philo Judaeus, Plutarch, Albinus, Iamblichus and Ioannes Philoponus. Most important of all in its normal philosophical usage gnostikos was never applied to the person as a whole, but only to mental endeavours, facilities, or components of personality.". Thus, if it really is true that some Christians referred to themselves as gnostikos, or "professed to be" gnostikos, as Porphyry and Celsus (two pagans who wrote against Christianity), Clement of Alexandria, and Irenaeus claim, then this would be the novel coinage of a very distinctive moniker as opposed to a continuation of traditional usage. Further, it might well mark a self-designating proper name rather than merely a self-description. Indeed, it would have sounded like technical philosophical jargon at the time. In contrast, merely claiming to have or supply gnosis would have been a common claim in the 2nd century CE, unworthy of notice in many Christian and Hellenistic circles.

Historical relations between Neoplatonism and Gnosticism

There are four major epocs in the history of Platonic thought: the "Old Academy," the "New Academy," Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism. After Plato's death in 348 BC, the leadership of his Academy was taken up by his nephew, Speusippus, and then by Xenocrates, Polemon, Crantor, and Crates of Athens, who had been leaders of the "Old Academy." Following Crates, in 268 BC was Arcesilaus of Pitane who founded the "New Academy," under the influence of Pyrrhonian scepticism. Arcelisaus modeled his philosophy after the Socrates of Plato's early dialogues, "suspending judgment" (epokhê peri pantôn Template:Polytonic).

Antiochus of Ascalon, who headed the Academy from 79-78 BC, sought to intellectually maneuver around the scepticism of the New Academy by way of a return to the dogmata of Plato and the Old Academy philosophers. Antiochus argued that the Platonic Forms (see Platonic realism) are not transcendent but immanent to rational minds (including that of God). This position, along with his treatment of the Platonic Demiurge (from the Theaetetus) and the World-Soul (a notion from the Timaeus that the physical world was an animated being), framed the work of other middle Platonists (such as Philo of Alexandria) and later Platonists such as Plutarch of Chaeronea, Numenius of Apamea, and Albinus. These treatments of the forms and of the Demiurge were crucially influential to both Neoplatonism and Gnosticism. Neopythagoreanism seems to have influenced both the Neoplatonists and the Gnostics as well. Further, Neopythagoreanism and Middle Platonism seem to be important influences on Basilides and on the Hermetic tradition, which seem in turn to have influenced the Valentinians. Indeed, the Nag Hammadi texts included excerpts from Plato, and Irenaeus claims that followers of Carpocrates honored images of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle along with images of Jesus Christ.

Neoplatonism

By the third century Plotinus had shifted Platonist thought far enough that modern scholars consider the period a new movement called "Neoplatonism" -- although Plotinus took his position to conform with the Old Academics and the Middle Platonists, especially via his teacher Ammonius Saccas; Alexander of Aphrodisias, who was later head of the Lyceum in Athens; and Numenius of Apamea a forerunner of the Neo-Pythagoreans and Neo-Platonists. Plotinus seems to have been influenced by Gnostics only to the extent of writing a polemic against them (which Porphyry has rearranged into Ennead 3.8, 5.8, 5.5, and 2.9).

Gnosticism

Scholarship on Gnosticism has been greatly advanced by the discovery and translation of the Nag Hammadi texts, which shed light on some of the more puzzling comments by Plotinus and Porphyry regarding the Gnostics. More importantly, the texts help to distinguish different kinds of early Gnostics. It now seems clear that "Sethian" and "Valentinian" gnostics attempted "an effort towards conciliation, even affiliation" with late antique philosophy , and were rebuffed by some Neoplatonists, including Plotinus. Plotinus considered his opponents "heretics","imbeciles" and "blasphemers" erroneously arriving at misotheism as the solution to the problem of evil, taking all their truths over from Plato. Coupled with the idea expressed by Plotinus that the approach to the infinite force which is the One or Monad can not be though knowing or not knowing. Although there has been dispute as to which gnostics Plotinus was referring to it appears they were indeed Sethian.

The earliest origins of Gnosticism are still obscure and disputed, but they probably include influence from Plato, Middle Platonism and Neo-Pythagoreanism, and this seems to be true both of the more Sethian Gnostics, and of the Valentinian Gnostics. . Further, if we compare different Sethian texts to each other in an attempted chronology of the development of Sethianism during the first few centuries, it seems that later texts are continuing to interact with Platonism. Earlier texts such as Apocalypse of Adam show signs of being pre-Christian and focus on the Seth of the Jewish bible (not the Egyptian God Set who is sometimes called Seth in Greek). These early Sethians may be identical to or related to the Ophites or to the sectarian group called the Minuth by Philo. Later Sethian texts such as Zostrianos and Allogenes draw on the imagery of older Sethian texts, but utilize "a large fund of philosophical conceptuality derived from contemporary Platonism, (that is late middle Platonism) with no traces of Christian content.". Indeed the Allogenes doctrine of the "triple-powered one" is "the same doctrine as found in the anonymous Parmenides commentary (Fragment XIV) ascribed by Hadot to Porphyry ... and is also found in Plotinus' Ennead 6.7, 17, 13-26." However, by the 3rd century Neoplatonists, such as Plotinus, Porphyry and Amelius are all attacking the Sethians. It looks as if Sethianism began as a pre-Christian tradition, possibly a syncretic Hebrew Mediterranean baptismal movement from the Jordan Valley. With Babylonian and Egyptian pagan elements, Hellenic philosophy. That incorporated elements of Christianity and Platonism as it grew, only to have both Christianity and Platonism reject and turn against it. Professor John D Turner believes that this double attack led to Sethianism fragmentation into numerous smaller groups (Audians, Borborites, Archontics and perhaps Phibionites, Stratiotici, and Secundians).

Philosophical relations between Neoplatonism and Gnosticism

Gnostics borrow a lot of ideas and terms from Platonism. They exhibit a keen understanding of Greek philosophical terms and the Greek Koine language in general, and use Greek philosophical concepts through out their text, including such concepts as hypostasis (reality, existence), ousia (essence, substance, being), and demiurge (creator God). Good examples include texts such as the Hypostasis of the Archons (Reality of the Rulers) or Trimorphic Protennoia (The first thought in three forms).

Gnostics structured their world of transcendent being by ontological distinctions whereby the plentitude of the divine world emerges from a sole high deity by emanation, radiation, unfolding and mental self-reflection. Likewise the technique of self-performable contemplative mystical ascent towards and beyond a realm of pure being is rooted in Plato's Symposium, and common in Gnostic thought, was also expressed by Plotinus (see Life of Plotinus). Divine triads, tetrads, and ogdoads in Gnostic thought often are closely related to Neo-Pythagorean Arithmology. The trinity of the "triple-powered one" (with the powers consisting of the modalities of existence, life and mind) in Allogenes mirrors quite closely the Neoplatonic doctrine of the Intellect differentiating itself from the One in three phases called Existence or reality (hypostasis), Life, and Intellect (nous). Both traditions heavily emphasize the role of negative theology or apophasis, and Gnostic emphasis on the ineffability of God often echoes Platonic (and Neoplatonic) formulations of the ineffability of the One or the Good.

Nonetheless there were some important philosophical differences. Gnostics emphasized magic and ritual in a way that the more sober Neoplatonists such as Plotinus and Porphyry would have been uncomfortable with (although perhaps not later Neoplatonists such as Iamblichus). But Plotinus' main objection to the Gnostics he was familiar with was their rejection of the goodness of the demiurge and the material world. He attacks the Gnostics as vilifing Plato's ontology of the universe as contained in the Timaeus. Plotinus accused Gnosticism of vilifying the Demiurge or craftsman that crafted the material world, even thinking of the material world as evil or a prison. As Plotinus explains in his works that the demiurge is the nous (as an emanation of the One). The nous is the ordering principle or mind also reason. Plotinus was also critical of the gnostic origin of the demiurge coming from wisdom as a deity. Wisdom (called Sophia) being anthropomorphically expressed as a feminine spirit deity not unlike the goddess Athena or the Christian Holy Spirit. Plotinus stating at one point that if the gnostics did so believe this world was a prison then they could at any moment free themselves by committing suicide. These charges do seem to hold for some of the texts discovered in Nag Hammadi, although others such as the Valentinians, or the Tripartite Tractate, wished to insist on the goodness of the world and the Demiurge.

First International Conference on Neoplatonism and Gnosticism

Conferences and topics covered in relation to the topic of Neoplatonism and Gnosticism.

Neoplatonism, Gnosticism and other movements

Neoplatonism and Gnosticism are probably also both influences on certain later movements. A good example, is Hermeticism. Hermeticism seems to have roots prior to the 3rd century, but also to have been influenced heavily by both Gnosticism and Neoplatonism.

• Hermeticism- Egyptian and Greek movements.
• Persian Gnosticism- Manicheanism and Mandaeism
• Neoplatonism and Christianity: Irenaeus, Origen, Pseudo-Dionysius, Cappadocian Fathers, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus
• Islam- sufism, Druze

See also

• Plotinus
• Plato
• Timaeus (dialogue)
• Politicus
• Julian the Apostate
• Neoplatonism
• History of Gnosticism
• Iamblichus
• Sophism
• Neoplatonism and Christianity
• Hellenistic philosophy

References

• Wallis, Richard T. (1992). Neoplatonism and Gnosticism for the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-1337-3 - ISBN 0-7914-1338-1.
• Turner, John D., The Platonizing Sethian texts from Nag Hammadi in their Relation to Later Platonic Literature, ISBN 0-7914-1338-1.
• Turner, John D., and Ruth Majercik, eds. Gnosticism and Later Platonism: Themes, Figures, and Texts. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000.

External links

• International Society of Neoplatonic Studies
• ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY SOCIETY
• State University of New York SUNY
• University Press of the South
• Universite Laval
• Society of Biblical Literature