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From: DAVILAJ@CENTRAL.EDU
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 1994 15:29:11 -0500 (CDT)
To: gnosis@netcom.com
Subject: definition of gnosis

One of the difficulties in the current discussion about whether this or that movement is gnostic, is that there are two definitions of gnosis in widespread use:

  1. Gnosis is esoteric (i.e., limited to a select and secret group) knowledge that leads the knowers to redemption or salvation. The last two nouns are obviously open to a very wide range of interpretation. As far as I can tell, this is how the Greek word was usually used (in a technical sense) in antiquity.
  2. The more restrictive definition, used by most professional scholars of Gnosticism today, is roughly that Gnosticism is a religious system that rejects the material and mundane world as evil, created by a false and incompetent god, the Demiurge. Gnosis, again, is esoteric knowledge that leads the knowers to salvation or redemption. The latter two terms are defined as the return of the divine spark in human beings to the true heavenly realm (the "Pleroma"), above the Demiurge.

    As I said, most scholars of Gnosticism use the second definition, although Dan Merkur has defended the first in his book _Gnosis: An Esoteric Traditions of Mystical Visions and Unions_ (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1993). I also prefer the narrower second definition on the principle that more restricted definitions can help us be clearer on what we're actually talking about.

    *However*, the working definition of this list is really the first, more general one (not that anyone is unaware of the second). Certainly all the discussion implying this one is quite legitimate. But it may be helpful in our postings to keep in mind the differences between the two and perhaps, when it seems helpful, to indicate which we are presupposing in a given posting. For example, Mandaeism counts as gnosis under either definition, but Mormonism only really works with the first. I can't really see how radical feminism fits either one, simply because it is by definition an exoteric (public) tradition. Radical feminists want their ideas of, so to speak, redemption and salvation, to be known as widely as possible, not limited to an esoteric group.

    Jim Davilai
    assistant professor of religion
    Central College, IA
    davilaj@central.edu

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