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 THE MESSAGE OF THE ALIEN GOD & THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY
Hans Jonas (1903-1993) was born and educated in Germany,
where he was a pupil of Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Bult-
mann. He left in 1933, when Hitler came into power, and in
1940 joined the British Army in the Middle East. After the war
The Gnostic Religion
he taught at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Carleton Uni-
versity in Ottawa, finally settling in the United States. He was
the Alvin Johnson Professor of Philosophy on the Graduate Fac- HANS JONAS
ulty of Political and Social Science at the New School for Social
Research in New York. Professor Jonas was also author of, among
other books, The Phenomenon of Life (1966). He died in 1993-

THIRD EDITION

BEACON PRESS
BOSTON
Beacon Press For Lore Jonas
25 Beacon Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2892
www.beacon.org

Beacon Press books

are published under the auspices of

the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.

© 1958, 1963, 1991, 2001 by Hans Jonas

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America 05

04 03 02 01 00 87654321

This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the uncoated paper
ANSI/NISO specifications for permanence as revised in 1992.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jonas, Hans
The gnostic religion : the message of the alien God and the
beginnings of Christianity / Hans Jonas.—3rd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8070-5801-7 (pbk.) I. Gnosticism I.
Title

BT1390 J62 2001 00-060852

273'.1— dc21

Scanned: February 2005

 Contents
Preface to the Third Edition xiii
Note on the Occasion of the Third Printing (1970) xxx
Preface to the Second Edition xxvi
Preface to the First Edition xxxi
Abbreviations xxxiii
1. Introduction: East and West in Hellenism 3
(a) The Part of the West 4
Greek Culture on the Eve of Alexander's Conquests 5
Cosmopolitanism and the New Greek Colonization 6
The Hellenization of the East 7
Later Hellenism: The Change from Secular to Religious Culture 9
The Four Stages of Greek Culture 10
(b) The Part of the East 11
The East on the Eve of Alexander's Conquests 13
The East Under Hellenism 17
The Re-emergence of the East , 23

Part I. Gnostic Literature—Main Tenets,

Symbolic Language 29
2. The Meaning of Gnosis and the Extent of the Gnostic Movement 31
(a)Spiritual Climate of the Era 31
(b)The Name "Gnosticism" 32
(c)The Origin of Gnosticism 33
(d)The Nature of Gnostic "Knowledge" 34
(e)Survey of Sources 37
Secondary or Indirect Sources 37
Primary or Direct Sources 39
(0 Abstract of Main Gnostic Tenets 42
Theology 42
Cosmology 43
Anthropology 44
Eschatology 44
Morality 46

3. Gnostic Imagery and Symbolic Language 48

(a) The "Alien" 49
(b) "Beyond," "Without," "This World," and "The Other World" 51
Vlll CONTENTS CONTENTS IX
(c) Worlds and Aeons 51
The Origin of the Divine Man 154
(d) The Cosmic Habitation and the Stranger's Sojourn 55 The Descent of Man; the Planetary Soul 156
(e) "Light" and "Darkness," "Life" and "Death" 58 The Union of Man with Nature; the Narcissus Motif 161
(f) "Mixture," "Dispersal," the "One," and the "Many" 57 The Ascent of the Soul 165
(g) "Fall," "Sinking," "Capture" 62
The First Beginnings 169
(h) Forlornness, Dread, Homesickness 65
(i) Numbness, Sleep, Intoxication 68
(j) The Noise of the World 73 8. The Valentinian Speculation 174
(k) The "Call from Without" 74 (a) The Speculative Principle of Valentinianism 174
(1) The "Alien Man" 75 (b) The System 179
(m) The Content of the Call 80 Development of the Pleroma 179
(n) The Response to the Call 86 The Crisis in the Pleroma 181
(o) Gnostic Allegory 91 Consequences of the Crisis. Function of the Limit 183
Eve and the Serpent Restoration of the Pleroma
92 184
Cain and the Creator Events Outside the Pleroma
94 185
Prometheus and Zeus Sufferings of the Lower96
Sophia 187
Appendix to Chapter 3: Glossary of Mandaean Terms 97 Origination of Matter 188
Derivation of the Single Elements 189
Demiurge and Creation of the World 190
Part II. Gnostic Systems of Thought 101 Salvation 194
4. Simon Magus 103 Appendix I to Chapter 8: The Position of Fire Among the Elements 197
Appendix II to Chapter 8: The System of the Apocryphon of John 199
5. The "Hymn of the Pearl" 112
(a) The Text 113
(b) Commentary 116
9. Creation, World History, and Salvation According to Mani 206
(a) Mani's Method; His Vocation 206
Serpent, Sea, Egypt 116
(b) The System 209
The Impure Garment 118
The Primal Principles 210
The Letter 119
The Attack of the Darkness 213
The Conquering of the Serpent and the Ascent 120
The Pacifism of the World of Light 215
The Heavenly Garment; the Image 122
The First Creation: Primal Man 216
The Transcendental Self 123
The Defeat of Primal Man 218
The Pearl 125
The Sacrifice and Adulteration of the Soul 219
The Second Creation: The Living Spirit; Liberation of Primal Man 221
6. The Angels That Made the World. The Gospel of Marcion 130 Creation of the Macrocosmos 224
(a) The Angels That Made the World 132 The Third Creation: The Messenger 225
(b) The Gospel of Marcion 137 Origin of Plants and Animals 225
Marcion's Unique Position in Gnostic Thought 137 Creation of Adam and Eve 226
Redemption According to Marcion 139 Mission of the Luminous Jesus; the Jesus Patibilis 228
The Two Gods 141 Practical Conclusions; Mani's Ascetic Morality 231
"Grace Freely Given" 143 The Doctrine of the Last Things 233
Marcion's Ascetic Morality 144 (c) Recapitulation: Two Types of Dualism in Gnostic Speculation 236
Marcion and Scripture 145

7. The Poimandres of Hermes Trismegistus 147

(a) The Text 148
(b) Commentary 153
X CONTENTS

Part III. Gnosticism and the Classical Mind 239

10. The Cosmos in Greek and Gnostic Evaluation 241 Abbreviations
(a) The Idea of "Cosmos" and Man's Place in It 241
The Greek Position 241 C.H. Corpus Hermeticum
Cosmos-Piety as a Position of Retreat 247
The Gnostic Revaluation 250 G Ginza. Der Schatz oder das Grosse Buch der Mandaer, by M. Lidzbarski
The Greek Reaction 253
(tr.), Goottingen, 1925
(b) Destiny and the Stars 254
Forms of Sidereal Piety in the Ancient World 255
The Gnostic Revaluation 260 GT "Gospel of Truth": Evangelium Veritatis, by M. Malinine, H. C.
The Greek Reaction; the Brotherhood of Man and Stars 262 Puech, G. Quispel (ed. and tr.), Zurich, 1956
The Acosmic Brotherhood of Salvation 264
J Das Johannesbuch der Mandaer, by M. Lidzbarski (ed. and tr.),
11. Virtue and the Soul in Greek and Gnostic Teaching 266 Giessen, 1915
(a) The Idea of Virtue: Its Absence in Gnosticism 266
(b) Gnostic Morality 270
Nihilism and Libertinism 270
Asceticism, Self-Abnegation, the New "Virtue" 274
Arete and the Christian "Virtues" 277
Virtue in Philo Judaeus 278
(c) Gnostic Psychology 281
The Demonological Interpretation of Inwardness 281
The Soul as Female 283
Ecstatic Illumination 284
(d) Conclusion: The Unknown God 288

Supplements to the Second Edition

12. The Recent Discoveries in the Field of Gnosticism 290
Addendum to Chapter 12 319
13. Epilogue: Gnosticism, Nihilism and Existentialism 320
Corrections and Additions 341
Bibliography 342
Selected Supplementary Bibliography 351

Index to Proper Names 356

Acknowledgments 359
 Preface to the Third Edition
It may be said that in this century Gnosticism, which is bound up
with the development of Early Christianity, matured or graduated from a
field for church historians, and mainly as an object of stern criticism on the
part of the Church Fathers, to a topic that has drawn into its orbit more
scholars of different fields.* It is now difficult to define which field, which
particular section of scholarship, is the true home of research in
Gnosticism. It touches in its own essence on so many issues and predica-
ments of modern man, i.e., on questions of which the nineteenth century
was completely unaware, happily so, and of which we of necessity must be
aware in the dislocated century in which we live. There is an empathy with
Gnosticism, an element of topicality to it, which it has not had since the
time when the Church Fathers fought it as a danger to the Christian creed.
To reminisce is a dangerous matter, as everyone knows. When one
looks back, things have somehow been edited in one's mind, unintention-
ally but inevitably. The question asked of me is: What brought me to
Gnosticism? Since I am not a philologist or a theologian (and certainly not
a Christian theologian) or a historian, but entered university with the
intent of studying philosophy in the hope of becoming a philosopher, a few
words about the formative influences of my adolescence may be permitted.
In my later school years, when one begins to choose one's own intel-
lectual food somewhat independently of what the teachers in "Secunda"
and "Prima" tell one, I had three decisive reading experiences of an intel-
lectual, moral and emotional nature. Those were the concluding years of
the First World War and the beginning of the post-1918 period. A world
had collapsed and the violent motions of nascency and, as it later turned
* The talk on which this preface is based was given in free improvisation, without notes,
and inspired by the atmosphere of intimacy which the preceding days of the International
Colloquium on Gnosticism (1974) had created between the speaker and that particular small
and close-knit audience. It is this intimacy bound to the occasion more than the rambling due
to improvisation that made me hesitate to let the tape-recorded talk become part of the offi-
cial proceedings, thereby making the personal outpourings of the moment a lasting statement
to an anonymous wider public. My eventual consent owes most to the sensitive editing of the
transcript by Mr. David Hellholm, to whom I express my sincere thanks for his dedicated and
ingenious labors. The transcribed text was reviewed by me once more, and I now release it,
still not without a sense of embarrassment, but in the comforting knowledge that among the
now enlarged audience are the friends who were the original and so kindly responsive recipi-
ents of these autobiographical indulgences. ("A Retrospective View," Proceedings of the
International Colloquium on Gnosticism, 1977)
xiii
 xiv PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION xv
out, abortion of the German Republic took place. These three decisive Marburg that brought me to the study of Gnosticism by a sequence of
mental experiences were the following: First, the Prophets of Israel, whom events which I will briefly relate, and that also somewhat explains why I
I read at that time not in Hebrew, but in a translation provided by the thought and still think that Gnosticism, apart from the challenge it poses
Protestant text-critical school. The translators were H. Gressmann, H. to philologians, historians, theologians and so on, also poses a challenge to
Gunkel and others.1 It was through their historical rendering and their philosophers. Among philosophers I am still, it seems, the only one who
text-critical notes, connected with a commentary, that I discovered the has acted on that belief; in spite of everything I have always been some-
Prophets of Israel; not through the Jewish Religionsunterricht of my child- thing of an outsider, because my interest was not quite the same as that of
hood, but through the Protestant rendering of that school. Second, Imanuel the real workers with the texts, i.e., those who read Iranian, Coptic,
Kant, of whom I first read Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, which Turkish, and so on, and who know the whole field at first hand.
begins with this immortal sentence that thunders through my life simil- What was the philosophical situation at the time when I studied in
arly to the words of the Prophets: "Es ist uberall nichts in der Welt, ja auch the twenties in Germany? There was the powerful figure of Edmund
ausserhalb derselben zu denken moglich, was ohne Einschrankung konnte Husserl in Freiburg, the founder of the phenomenological school in phi-
fur gut gehalten werden, als einzig ein guter Willie."2 And third, there was losophy, and there was his disciple, a young, impressive and disturbing
Martin Buber. At that time I read Buber's famous Drei Reden uber das Privatdozent, Heidegger, who in some manner transferred the phenomeno-
Judentunv1 and Die Legende des Baalschem, the beginnings of his great work logical method, i.e., the careful description of phenomena of the mind,
on Chassidism, and strangely enough it blended with Kant and with the from the purely cognitive field to which Husserl had confined it (percep-
Prophets of Israel. It was a blending which could probably not stand a rig- tion, thinking, knowing, conceptualization and so on) to the phenomena of
orous critique of compatibility, but somehow it fused in my own mind. existence, i.e., the individual enmeshed in the concerns of life, being more
Thus, when I entered university, two things were clear for me. One was than an ego cogitans, being engaged in the business of living and dependent
that I wanted to study philosophy. The other was that religion is an essen- on the "facticity" of his being which he had not chosen himself.
tial aspect of humanity, and that no study of philosophy is possible with- Kierkegaard, in addition to Husserl, stood behind Heidegger: not the the-
out somehow being joined with a study of the religious phenomena. How ologian Kierkegaard or Kierkegaard the Christian thinker, but
much of a personal commitment to one or another religion or creed is at Kierkegaard the discoverer of "existential" thought as such. In other words,
play in such a vision is a secondary consideration. The first consideration in the person of Heidegger "existentialism" had entered the sacrosanct
was that religion, especially as part of the tradition of Western man, is as domain of the strictly objective, descriptive style of Husserlian phenome-
indispensable an aspect in giving account of oneself and one's background nology. An entire young generation came under his spell. It so happened
as is the great tradition of philosophy starting with the Greeks, with that Heidegger, after I had first experienced him as a Privatdozent under
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. This combination has somehow gone with me Husserl in Freiburg, received a call to Marburg/Lahn, and his faithful stu-
through my life, and this statement is the first attempt to explain what dents, including myself, followed him. One of the most wonderful combi-
brought a philosophy student to the study of Gnosticism. nations came about there, namely a close friendship between Heidegger
But of course, it would be a distortion to pretend that things are only and Bultmann. It was almost "bon ton" among certain of Heidegger's dis-
governed by internal consistency, by intrinsic logic; accident and chance ciples to go also to Bultmann and study New Testament theology and, if
play a role. Without certain teachers, influences and tasks set at one time admitted, to enter Bultmann's seminar on the New Testament, and vice
or another, without a certain combination of circumstances, which in my versa, for the better or more favoured or serious students of Bultmann to go
case were mainly focused in the two names of Martin Heidegger and to Heidegger's lectures and, if admitted, also to be members of his semi-
Rudolf Bultmann, I would not have become what I am, and the study of nars. As a result this consensus of young minds came about: study both
Gnosticism would have, for better or for worse, gone without the partici- fields! While I had continued the study of the Old Testament for three
pation of Hans Jonas. It was this combination which I encountered in semesters in Berlin during my early student years under Gressmann and
 xvi PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION xvii
Sellin in addition to attending the Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des
found myself in a world where I soon realized one thing: this is not just a
Judentums, I found myself, through this combination, suddenly a student
of New Testament theology. task for a seminar paper. It kept growing under my hands. The result was
Quite soon, in 1924, I was an active member of Bultmann's New that I committed what in itself is an unforgivable sin. Instead of using my
Testament seminar together with another Jewish student of Heidegger, to thirty minutes of the seminar session for the report and leaving the remain-
whom a lifelong friendship has bound me since: it will be fifty years next ing hour and a half for discussion, I kept talking from notes for two solid
year that we have been friends. She is Hannah Arendt, whose name is hours and at the end of the session still had not come remotely to the end
known as that of a political philosopher. We two were the only Jews in of what I had to say. Looking back, I believe that this determined a good
Bultmann's seminar. One day I accepted an assignment from Bultmann, part of my future. Bultmann, who had said only a few words at the end,
namely to submit a report about the concept of γιγυώσκειυ θεου — γυωσιç - talked to me afterwards and said, "Jonas, this was really important! You
θεου in the Fourth Gospel. Let me offer a few words on the importance of must go on with it! This is only a beginning!" He did more. He told
the Gospel of John to Bultmann, In his New Testament work he felt more Heidegger, who was my main teacher and under whom I was supposed to
and more attracted to this Gospel for reasons which, I would say, belong to write my doctoral dissertation, about my performance, including its unfin-
the nonarguable ones, a kind of decision about which it is entirely inap- ished character. Heidegger talked to me about it and said, "If you want to,
propriate to ask: Is it correct or incorrect? I never followed him there, since I I am willing to accept a dissertation in philosophy on that topic or some-
personally never liked the Fourth Gospel particularly. To me, the epistles of thing connected with it. I have Bultmann's assurance that he will serve as
Paul, which I also learned to know through Bultmann, became the most a Korreferent for that kind of dissertation." That settled it.
essential, the most interesting, the historically and philosophically decisive What was my conception then, when I started seriously? The time had
documents in the New Testament. But Bultmann's love was the Fourth come after many years of being a student. In Germany at that time you
Gospel, and through its medium came the point of contact with could draw out your university studies as long as you liked or your father
Gnosticism: especially with the newly discovered Mandaean documents permitted by sending his monthly Wechsel. One could also change univer-
that came out of the masterhand of Lidzbarski4 and were first, if I remember sities at will. I do not know how matters are now, but at the time I moved
rightly, treated in their possible importance for the Gospels by from Freiburg to Berlin, from Berlin back to Freiburg, from Freiburg to
Reitzenstein in Das Mandaische Buch des Herrn der Grosse und die Marburg. When Marburg became a bit boring to me, once I worked on the
Evangelienuberlieferung.5 It was the possible bearing of the Mandaean dissertation and did not attend classes anymore, I went to Heidelberg for
nomenclature, of their vocabulary and their imagery on the problem of some time, which was a much livelier place in some respects. The time had
authorship and the whole meaning and spirit of the Gospel of John, which come when I had, after all, to produce something and show my father that
brought Bultmann into the realm of gnostic studies. And so one day he
I was not the eternal student. So I "conceived a conception," to use gnostic
assigned to me the task of investigating the meaning of the terms
language, and brought forth an emanation, so to speak, a still formless
γιγυώσκειυ θεου — γυωσιç - θεου in the Fourth Gospel for a report in his
fruit, and its name was to be "Pistis and Gnosis." I wanted to take up the
seminar session. This is what I meant with the role of chance in the story
question: Why did the Church reject Gnosticism? Apart from the obvious
of a life. The Gospel of John became my destiny through this connection.
For when I prepared this seminar paper (in 1925 or 1926), I delved, of reason that many of its teachings were fantastic and not in agreement with
course, into the background which Bultmann himself had pointed out. For the Gospels, why was Gnosis as such from Paul on rejected as a possible
the first time I studied the Mandaean writings in Lidzbarski's translation. I option? Why was Pistis chosen instead? This I wanted to explain to my
studied Reitzenstein. I read Norden's Agnostos Theos, which had come out in own satisfaction and probe into the meaning of that momentous decision,
a second edition about that time. It was a powerful book, which I think was for Pistis and against Gnosis. I realized that the first thing to do was to try
subtitled Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religioser Rede.6 I to understand what is Pistis and what is Gnosis. I started with Gnosis for
obvious reasons: Gnosis had one familiar basis, namely the Greek philo-
sophical antecedents of the term "to know." As a student of Plato and
 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION xix

Aristotle, I was familiar (or thought I was ) with what knowledge means in from Plotinus and the Neoplatonists after him, even as late as Dionysius
the Greek context. And so I set myself as a first task to find out what is dif- Areopagita, i.e., from the philosophic-mystical elaborations of that "know-
ferent in the gnostic from the Greek meaning of "Gnosis." I started to col- ing" which is at the same time a union with the divine reality. My aim in
lect material from the patristic literature (which I still have lying in copi- this was not a record of its history but a hermeneutics of its phenomeno-
ous notes, destined never to be used) about the meaning of "to know" in logy as it manifested itself in those testimonies. That was the subject of my
the religious context. It turned out to be very different from that of theo- doctoral dissertation, "Der Begriff der Gnosis," which only made passing
retical knowledge in philosophy and science, and the religious thinkers references to the whole mythological area of the second century and con-
themselves were aware of the difference. As an example I refer to the centrated mainly on third- and fourth-century "spatantikes" thinking.
Genesis sentence "and Adam knew Eve his wife." There, "to know" stands However, for future publication, I had to write a historical introduction to
for the sexual union, and already the Church Fathers used the sentence that, namely on the mythological Gnosis of the second century, which more
exegeticaily for denoting a knowledge that terminates in a reciprocal union and more I realized presented the real flesh-and-blood form of what
with its object—namely God—as opposed to the "distancing" theoretical appeared in such a spiritualized, conceptually rarefied form in the later
knowledge of the Greeks. You still find Luther making the same use of this mystical thinkers who tried to keep as much as possible within the Greek
Hebrew paradigm. Clearly, to "know God" in the Hebrew sense is differ- tradition. That introduction, once the dissertation itself lay behind me,
ent from the knowledge of the Divine in the Aristotelian sense. Yet neither grew into the first volume of Gnosis und spatantiker Geist. And so, what my
of the two is "gnostic." But there is a third sense: Gnosis as mystical knowl- position in your field of scholarship rests on is the fragment of a fragment
edge, and the Genesis passage is particularly apt to represent this when of my original plan. From Pistis and Gnosis, it focused upon Gnosis, and
given that turn (from which patristic exegesis on the whole refrained). It from Gnosis it focused on the mythological Gnosis mainly of the second
was in this direction that I began to search for the meaning of γυωσιç - century.
θεου in the gnostic context; and once I had discerned such a salvational Who were the scholars in the field at that time, besides Bultmann,
type of "knowledge" with its own phenomenology, I suddenly glimpsed, as who had a wonderful way of letting me do what I wanted or felt driven to
in a blinding light, the possible, nay, persuasive hypothesis that what the do? Who were the authorities in the existing literature? Reitzenstein,
Gnostics understood by "Gnosis" is by no means confined to them in the whom I mentioned above, was a strange kind of force, one who gave me a
environment of declining antiquity: rather, that what the later Platonists— push in one direction and after some time revised himself, after he had
Plotinus, Porphyry and others—had to say about the highest form of come under some other influence, or some other light had dawned on him,
knowledge, about the union with the One, is another, more refined version and gave me a push in another direction. I first studied the Poimandres7, and
of this same type of knowledge that goes beyond the knowledge of "logos" Gnosticism was mainly of Egyptian origin. Then he discovered Iran, and
and of "theory" in the Greek tradition. In other words, I suddenly found the "Urmensch-Gayomart" traditions.8 Each time he managed to have an
my terms widened even beyond the vast enough sphere of theological expert in the field as his advisor and translator of the texts. It was, for the
thought _ Christian and Jewish, orthodox and heretical—and stretched Iranian period, I think, Andreas in Gottingen with whom he collaborated.
also over the whole sphere of late-pagan quasi-philosophical thought that Each time such a turn happened, the student of the field had to make him-
hovers on this curious borderline of philosophy and mysticism, where it is self familiar as best he could with this new background area for
difficult to say whether it is philosophy in the sense of Plato and Aristotle, Gnosticism. From Egyptology to Iranology. It was, of course, Harnack who
or whether it is mysticism. It is, of course, both. at first so strongly emphasized the Greek background with his thesis that
At this point, the vastness of the subject took matters out of my hands Gnosis is "die akute Hellenisierung des Christentums."9 Each time one had
and relegated "Pistis," the original matching mate of my twin-topic, to an to switch, not necessarily in one's conviction or in one's conception of the
indefinite "later." "Pistis and Gnosis" shrank to "Gnosis" pure and simple. subject itself, but at least in one's inventory of the knowledge of facts, and
And this I decided to attack from the end rather than from the beginning, one could never really keep pace. The happy situation in which the sources
xx PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

for Gnosticism were the Church Fathers—Irenaeus, Hippolytos,

Ephiphanius, Tertullian, etc.—which after all you could read and where
you had your material well defined, was changed beyond recognition. The
Turfan fragments, which had been discovered at the beginning of the cen-
tury, began slowly to be published step by step, a process which I think is
still going on.10 Then the Coptic Mani-library was discovered in Egypt,
which Schmidt and Polotsky started to edit.11 Furthermore, Lidzbarski, as I
mentioned earlier, brought out the Mandaean documents. In other words,
the ideal situation in which everything could be kept in the family, the
family of New Testament theologians and early church historians, was gone
and one was thrown into this open field of ever new texts, in ever new lan-
guages, and you could never be sure that you had the evidence now. On the
contrary, you could never keep pace, and I still remember how it was a race
with time to get some of the Kephalaia material into the first edition of
Gnosis und spatantiker Geist. It was just touch and go. I think the first two
Lieferungen were out by that time. Little did I dream that twenty years later
the floodgates would open. Nobody anticipated the Nag Hammadi.
Meanwhile I had advanced in my work in spite of these handicaps, the
greatest of which was that my language knowledge was restricted to Greek,
Latin, Hebrew and a bit of Aramaic. I knew enough Aramaic to understand
Mandaean terms, but I never went on to learn Coptic. I did not foresee, of
course, what would happen later. Somehow I managed by 1933 to have fin-
ished the manuscript of Gnosis und spatantiker Geist. Erster Teil: Die mythol-
ogische Gnosis.12 In that year the idea of a "Habilitation" was finished; but I
had the manuscript. I made my farewell visit to Bultmann in Marburg, the
only one of my academic teachers I wanted to see once more before I emi-
grated. London was the first stop of my emigre life. I went there, not
because I had any intention of settling in England, but because I wanted to
finish the studies on Gnosticism, and the library of the British Museum
was there, as was also another, the Doctor William's Library, which I found
very useful. I considered London a better place to do this work and also the
proofreading of the first volume, then my final destination, Jerusalem,
where I would hardly have found all I needed by way of sources and litera-
ture. In any case, I thought this was the moment to make contact with
some British scholars in the field of Gnosticism. So far, all my direct teach-
ers and the indirect teachers, i.e., authors of the books that had instructed
me, were German: Reitzenstein, Bousset13, the whole "Religions-
geschichtliche Schule," and the orientalists too (Cumont14 excepted). I sent
 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION xxi
a part of my manuscript on "Gnosis und spatantiker Geist" to Burkitt,
whose Church and Gnosis15 I had read with the little English I knew at the
time. Of course, I had not missed the fact that his view of Gnosticism was
very different, not only from mine, but from German scholarship at that
time.
Nevertheless, I was unprepared for the response I got in a letter from
Burkitt. I had, of course, something practical in mind. After all, I had to
seek contact in the non-German world, having ceased to be a member not
only of the nation but also of the German academic community. I had to
establish myself somehow in a non-German world. I got back a letter, to
the effect: I have read your manuscript with interest, but I must tell you
frankly that with this kind of view of the matter, which is completely in
the German vein, you cannot hope to cut any ice here. I even remember the
sentence, "Of what audience are you thinking? Who should read that
here?" It was not an encouraging letter to a young emigre scholar, but it
opened my eyes for the first time to how nationally determined the differ-
ent views of one and the same subject were at that time. I think it is no
longer that way, but at that time, to come from the German school, mean-
ing Reitzenstein and Bousset and Schaeder and Bultmann and so on, was a
bad thing. It gave one a bad name, but incidentally so and certainly not
politically at that time. This is no longer the spirit of international schol-
arship today.
I had one other attempt at British "contacts." Gershom Sholem in
Jerusalem, the great scholar of Jewish mysticism, had become interested in
my work since he had read parts of the manuscript. When he heard that I
was gong to London, he said, "You must visit an old friend of mine, Evelyn
Underhill, an internationally renowned authority on mysticism. She will
surely be interested in what you are doing," and he wrote me a letter of
introduction to her. I sent it to Underhill and got a kind reply. In due
course, I was invited to tea, and there I learned to know the English tea cer-
emonial: a beautifully laid table, old silver and china, the presence of three
or four couples and so on. It was absolutely a ritual. Underhill, a frail old
lady of noble features, poured the tea, and then she addressed the seated
guests in turn with the proper polite questions. When my turn came, she
said, "Dr. Jonas, I understand you are working on Gnosticism?" I replied
eagerly, "Yes, I am." She said, "That must be interesting!"—and passed on
to the next. Well, so much for my attempt to break into the British estab-
lishment.
xxii PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION xxiii

In 1934 the first volume of Gnosis und spatantiker Geist came out in philosophical problems not connected with particular historical situations.
Germany, with that remarkable foreword by Bultmann. Incidentally, my However, I made the experience that many a "goodbye" may in fact be an
publishers too have always behaved in a very fine manner in everything "Auf Wiedersehen," and somehow I had from that time on to live a double
concerning me and my work. In 1935 I went to Jerusalem, to continue my life rather than be in one area of work.
work and to become part of this new Zionist-Hebrew community. This Let me now say something about my coming back to Germany, which
meant a switch in language—a long toil of "blood, sweat and tears." In to some extent meant picking up where my scholarly beginnings had ear-
between I asked myself: How is Gnosis und spatantiker Geist doing? An lier been broken off; that was in the rather dramatic context of entering
author, and certainly a beginner, waits for reviews. But it was a difficult sit- Germany with the British occupying forces in 1945. Incidentally, it gave
uation for German reviewers. How does one review the work of a Jewish me the opportunity to make true the vow with which I had left Germany
emigre scholar? If you praise it, that may be dangerous, and if you blame in 1933: namely never to return except as the soldier of a conquering army.
it, you come under the suspicion that you have not been objective for polit- I visited those I thought I ought to visit. There was Karl Jaspers on the one
ical reasons. The way out of the dilemma was mostly no reviews. There was hand and Bultmann on the other, but unfortunately, not Heidegger.
a notable and clever exception. Gnomon brought a long and searching The meeting with Bultmann is so memorable—a reunion exactly
review, in English, by A. D. Nock16: the one extensive review in Germany of twelve years after saying goodbye to him—that I recount it here. In 1945
Gnosis und spatantiker Geist was in the English language and by a British I stood on the threshold of his house, in the battle dress of a British artillery
scholar living in America.17 Then I remember a Dutch review by G. A. van sergeant, with my battle decorations on it. Mrs. Bultmann opened the door,
den Bergh van Eysinga18, and a few from France. Finally, a French-Canadian stared at me for some seconds and then burst into a torrent of words and
Dominican wrote a long monograph of fifty or sixty pages on Gnosis und tears. I cannot trust myself to repeat that scene here. . . . With the words
spatantiker Geist in a periodical which, I think, was a semiannual publica- "Rudolf, you have a visitor," she led me into his study. There he was sit-
tion edited by the House of the Dominican Order in Ottawa.19 Well, things in ting, as always, at his desk, pale but peaceful, his collar several sizes too
Palestine and the developments in Germany and the world eventually wide for his neck shrunken from undernourishment. "Herr Jonas!" he
diverted my attention and often my time from the unfinished job on exclaimed and hastened toward me. And then, after the first hurried
Gnosticism, and the question of reviews was no longer even of vestigal exchange of words—both of us still standing in the middle of the room—
interest. something unforgettable happened. I had come to Marburg from
I will not bother with the war years, in which I served as a volunteer Gottingen and carried under my arm a book20 which Mr. Ruprecht,
in the British Army, except to say that, cut off from books and from all the Bultmann's publisher and mine, had asked me to take to him, because
paraphernalia of scholarship, I was forced to suspend all work—research civilian mail service was not yet restored in devastated Germany so soon
and writing, even thinking—on Gnosis and its halfborn second part. after the surrender. At this wrapped book Bultmann pointed and asked,
Instead, I undertook a thorough revision of my philosophical views, and I "Darf ich hoffen, dass dies der zweite Band der Gnosis ist?" ("May I hope
came back from the war with the decision to work out a philosophical pro- that this is the second volume of the Gnosis?")21 Words fail to express what
gram which would take me far afield from historical studies, from Late these words of loving interest and unshaken faith in the continuity of the
Antiquity, from Gnosticism and so on: namely the philosophical under- mind's business did to me at that moment. Twelve cataclysmic years—of
standing of our organic Being, and not only ours, but of life in general. Hitler, of a world war, of the destruction and collapse of Germany, of
Why the experience of the war and the parallel rethinking of first princi- untold sorrow—were bridged by this stunningly sober and touching ques-
ples led me to this particular philosophical decision is not part of the story tion. In all the deafening noise of the world, he had not ceased to think of
now. In 1945 I decided to say goodbye to Gnosticism. I also thought that this unfinished matter and to care about it!
twelve years of a philosopher's life devoted to the inquiry of a historical After this encounter, and some others (as with Jaspers), it became
subject was enough of an apprenticeship that now I should directly attack extremely difficult for me to abide by my decision to make a clean break
XXIV PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION XXV

and keep myself exclusively free for the philosophical task I have referred to time. Formerly, one could count on an occasional publication in the field
to. Then, with time, came other factors. One was that I suddenly heard of which a synthesizer like me could integrate with his previous knowledge—
the Nag Hammadi. I think it was first in the Vigiliae Christianae, edited by something from the pen of a Reitzenstein or Schaeder or Cumont (whom I
Quispel, that I became acquainted with this new fact and, of course, one must not fail to mention among the great elders), or from Polotsky or
held one's breath. What would come from it? By the decree of fate, it was Henning among the later ones. Somehow the "whole" seemed still man-
the Evangelium Veritatis22 that came out first and that, of course, was irre- ageable, if with a dash of impudence and at the price of some dilettantism.
sistible to me. That was the type of Gnosis which I had mostly thought of; Today, however, a process is under way, and I now definitely am on the side-
that to me was somehow the core, the essence of Gnosticism. Rightly, yet lines, an observer of what others do.
by sheer accident, it was the first piece of the Nag Hammadi treasure to Sometimes I find cause for believing that I was right in the way I saw
become public. So when Gnomon asked me to review it, I agreed. And so, I it at the time when we did not have the new evidence yet. At other times
was "in" again.23 One such event after another enticed me back—for I see that I probably guessed wrong. I think that, in a sense, this is a
instance, Bianchi's invitation to Messina in 1966 to present a paper on the farewell insofar as my own further participation in the ongoing work. It is
phenomenology and typology of the gnostic phenomenon24 and the appear- not only a question of age, which of course is a factor; it is a question of
ance of Doresse's book The Secret Book of the Egyptian Gnostics in English competence in the particular fields of knowledge. It is the Coptologist's
translation25, which again I was asked to review, this time by the Journal of day. It is the Iranologist's day. The philosopher, the historian of religion
Religion in Chicago26; or an almost private New Testament colloquium of and the explorer of the history of ideas have to defer, for a time now, to what
theologians in the United States, to which James Robinson recruited me the specialists and those working with the texts come up with. There will
and which used to meet annually on the occasion of some public conven- come again a time when the likes of me may try their hands in attempts at
tion, more than once in my home in New Rochelle for long sessions (sus- integration and new interpretation of the total phenomenon and the extrac-
tained by potato salad, sausages and beer). Such events, following one tion of some philosophical relevance.
another over the years, brought it about that I returned again and again to But may I, nevertheless, not conclude with a message of such resigna-
my old, if often betrayed, love—though with diminishing expertise in the tion or withdrawal. I want to explain why I think that Gnosticism is really
newer developments of the field. Yet I must not conceal the satisfaction I interesting, apart from the fact that so many documents happened to be dis-
felt when, in Messina, at the first international conference on Gnosticism covered, which somehow cry out for editing and interpretation. What is re-
(who would have dreamt of such a thing ever to happen when I did my ally important here? What is interesting? In other words, why should a
wayward work in the early thirties!), I found that some of the vocabulary I philosopher spend his time on the interpretation of such a phenomenon?
had coined more than three decades before had become part of the lingua Now, I have given one answer to that question in an essay which I published
franca of the field and was used almost as a matter of course. first in 1952 under the title "Gnosticism and Modern Nihilism,"27 and
But meanwhile, the work in the field had really changed. Much of which later was added as an epilogue to The Gnostic Religion.28 What attracted
what was formerly guesswork had now become a matter for very solid ques- me originally was not just the assignment that I write a seminar paper on
tions of fact. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), the texts are of such a kind γυωσιç - θεου in the Fourth Gospel. Something in Gnosticism knocks at the
that they again admit different interpretations. So we will never really get door of our Being and of our twentieth-century Being in particular. Here is
out of the guessing game in this field. Also, since the time when I started humanity in a crisis and in some of the radical possibilities of choices that
work on it under Bultmann, and with Bousset, Reitzenstein and others as man can make concerning his view of his position in the world, of his rela-
the guiding lights, I think that the whole style of work in this field has so tion to himself, to the absolute and to his mortal Being. And there is cer-
changed that there must now be a division of labour, a distribution of tasks, tainly something in Gnosticism that helps one to understand humanity bet-
a collectivity of effort which justifies and necessitates the kind of meetings ter than one would understand it if one had never known of Gnosticism. The
that started in Messina, which, it is to be hoped, will be repeated from time same can be said of other historical phenomena, but there it has never been
 XXVI PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION XXV11

contested: everybody agrees that the knowledge of Greek Antiquity, of 1. H. Gressmann, H. Gunkel, M. Haller, H. Schmidt, W. Stark und P. Volz, trans. Die
Socrates and Plato, of the Greek tragedians is an essential contribution to an Schriften des Alten Testaments in Auswahl neu iibersetzt und fur die Gegenwart erkldrt, GTttingen,
1911.
understanding of what man is. But to see it in this strange and even shock- 2. I. Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, 3rd ed., 1906. p. 10.
ing form of an extreme option about the meaning of Being, the situation of 3. M. Buber, Drei Reden uber das Judentum, Frankfurt am Main, 1920; idem, Die Legende
man, the absolute importance of selfhood and the wrestling with the saving des Baalscbem, Frankfurt am Main, 1922.
4. M. Lidzbarski, Manddische Liturgien, Gottingen, 1920; idem, Das Johannesbuch der
of this selfhood from all the powers of alienation that impinge on man—to
Mandder, Giessen, 1925; idem, Ginza, DerSchatz oder das Grosse Buch der Mandder. Gottingen,
live in the company of this kind of thinking and imagery (in this case the 1925.
most congenial vehicle of thought) is, I think, of interest not merely to the 5. R. Reitzenstein, Das Manddische Buck des Herrn der Gr'dsse und die
historian of religion. I still confess to a primary philosophical interest in the Evangelienuberlieferung (Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften,
1919 Abh. 12), Heidelberg, 1919.
subject of Gnosticism and that is, in my own eyes, the true apologia for my 6. Ed. Norden, Agnostos Theos: Untersucbungen zur Formengeschicbte religioser Rede, 2nd
life as a scholar, for my having spent so many years (with so many others ed. Leipzig and Berlin, 1923.
7. R. Reitzenstein, Poimandres: Studien zur griechisch-dgyptischen und frubcbristlichen
forcibly diverted to non-contemplative pursuits) on the exploration of a field Literatur, Leipzig, 1904.
of which my fellow philosophers do not know a thing and of which most of 8. R. Reitzenstein, Das iraniscbe Erlb'sungsmysterium, Bonn, 1921; idem, Die hellenistiscben
them could not care less. I think, though, it is their loss. Thus, I like to think Mysterienreligionen, 3rd ed. Leipzig, 1927.
9. A. von Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, vol. 1, Freiburg, 1886. ,
that even in my present philosophical project, which is technology and
10. E.g. EC. Andreas-W. Henning, Mitteliranische Manicbaica aus Cbinesisch-Turkestan, I-
ethics, I can still profit from what Gnosticism has taught me. III, hrsg. von W. Henning (SPAW 1932-34), Berlin, 1932-34. Cf. now M. Boyce, A
One may say that one link between the study of Gnosticism and that of Catalogue of the Iranian Manuscripts in Manichean Script in the German Turf an Collection, Berlin,
I960.
the modern situation of man is provided by dualism as such, which figures 11. C. Schmidt and HJ. Polotsky, eds., Ein Mani-Fund in egypten: Originalschriften des
very prominently in the story of what leads to a philosophy of organism.29 Mani und seiner Schuler (SPAW 1933), Berlin, 1933; C. Schmidt, "Neue Originalquellen des
Gnosticism has been the most radical embodiment of dualism ever to have Manichaismus aus Egypten," ZKG 52 (1933), pp. Iff.
12. H. Jonas, Gnosis und spdtantiker Geist. Erster Teil: Die mythologische Gnosis. Mit einer
appeared on the stage of history, and its exploration provides a case study of Einleitung zur Geschichte und Methodologie der Forschung (FRLANT 51), Gottingen,
all that is implicated in it. It is a split between self and world, man's alien- 1934. 3rd revised and enlarged edition, 1964.
ation from nature, the metaphysical devaluation of nature, the cosmic soli- 13. W. Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis (FRLANT 10), Gottingen, 1907; idem,
"Gnosis," in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopddie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaften, vol. 7,
tude of the spirit and the nihilism of mundane norms; and in its general ex- Stuttgart, 1912, col. 1503-1533, and "Gnostiker," ibid., col. 1534-1547; idem, Kyrios
tremist style it shows what radicalism really is. All this has been acted out in Christos, 2nd ed., Gottingen, 1921, pp. 183-215.
that deeply moving play as a lasting paradigm of the human condition. The 14. E.g., F. Cumont, Die Mysterien des Mithra, 3rd German ed., Leipzig, 1923; idem, Die
orientalischen Religionnen im romischen Heidentum, 3rd German ed., Leipzig, 1931-
analogical modernity of ancient Gnosticism, or the hidden Gnosticism in 15. F.C. Burkitt, Church and Gnosis, Cambridge, 1932.
the modern mind, has struck me early and was expounded in my essay 16. A.D. Nock, "Review of Hans Jonas, Gnosis und spatantiker Geist I," Gnomon 3
"Gnosticism and Modern Nihilism." So in the gnostic paradigm we have all (1936), pp. 605-612. First German version in Gnosis und Gnostizismus (WdF CCLXII), ed. K.
Rudolph, Darmstadt, 1975, pp. 374-386.
these things with the sharpness of unblushing naivete, and that proves an en- 17. In fairness, it should be added that some German periodicals may have waited for Part
lightening help. I could go on arguing an analogy between things gnostic II, whose impending publication had been announced—optimistically—on the cover of Part
and things modern, or a relevance of things gnostic to things modern and of I.
18. G.A. van den Bergh van Eysinga, "Review of Hans Jonas, Gnosis und spatantiker
Gnosticism to philosophy. But it would be possible that what I would really Geist I," Nieuw Theologisch Tijdschrift 24 (1935), pp. 74-77.
be doing is trying to persuade myself of some continuity in my life's intel- 19- Attempts at identification of this publication were regretfully in vain.
20. R. Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Myers KEK II), Gottingen, 1941.
lectual journey—and of that, one's own biased self is the last judge to be 21. H. Jonas, Gnosis und spdtantiker Geist. Zweiter Teil/erste Hdlfie: Von der Mythologie zur
trusted. But at least my bias, for what it is worth, tells me that I did keep mystischen Pbilosophie (FRLANT 63), Gottingen, 1954. 2nd ed., 1966.
faith of some sort with my theoretical beginnings—that is, with Gnosti- 22. Evangelium Veritatis, ed. M. Malinine, H.-Ch. Puech, and G. Quispel, Zurich, 1956,
and Supplementum, ed. The same and W. Till, Zurich, 1961.
23. H. Jonas, "Review of Evangelium Veritatis," Gnomon 32 (I960), pp. 327-335.
XXV111 PR EF AC E TO T H E T HI RD E DITI O N
24. H. Jonas, "Delimination of the gnostic phenomenon—typological and historical," in
he Origini dello Gnosticismo, Leiden, 1967, pp. 90—104. Reprinted under the title "The Gnostic
Note on the Occasion of the
Syndrome: Typology of its Thought, Imagination, and Mood" in the author's work mentioned
in note 30. German version under the title "Typologische und historische Abgrenzung des Third Printing (1970)
Phanomens der Gnosis," in Gnosis und Gnostizismus (WdF CCLXII), ed. K. Rudolph,
Darmstadt, 1975, pp. 626-645.
25. J. Doresse, Les livres secrets des Gnostiques d'Egypte, Paris, 1958, and the enlarged Great changes have taken place in the field of Gnosticism since this
English edition, The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics, London and New York, I960. book was first published. Only the barest beginnings of information on the
26. H. Jonas, "Review of J. Doresse, The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics," Journal
of Religion 42 (1962), pp. 262-273.
famous Nag Hammadi documents were then in the public domain. Of the
27. H. Jonas, "Gnosticism and Modern Nihilism," Social Research 19 (1952), pp. about fifty-three or more tractates, only the Gospel of Truth had been pub-
430—452. Reprinted also in the author's works mentioned below in note 29. lished and could just be inserted with a few quotations into my text. It was
28. H. Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of
Christianity, 2nd ed., Boston, 1963.
evident from the first, and has become ever more so, that the stunning
29- H. Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life: Towards a Philosophical Biology, New York, 1966. chance discovery of 1946 marks a turning point in our knowledge of things
German edition, Organismus und Freiheit: Ansdtze zu einer philosophischen Biologie, Gottingen, Gnostic. Never before has a single archaeological find so radically altered
1973.
30. H. Jonas, Philosophical Essays: From Ancient Creed to Technological Man, Englewood Cliffs,
the state of documentation for a whole field. From great scarcity we were
N.J., 1974. Part Three of this book deals in particular with "Religious Thought of the First overnight catapulted into great wealth with regard to original sources
Christian Centuries." Besides the essay mentioned already in note 24, cf. "The Hymn of the uncontaminated by secondary tradition. Yet circumstances conspired to
Pearl: Case Study of a Symbol, and the Claims for a Jewish Origin of Gnosticism" (originally
in The Bible of Modern Scholarship, ed. J.P. Hyatt, Nashville, 1965); "Myth and
make the opening up of this treasure to international scholarship frustrat-
Mysticism: A Study of Objectification and Interiorization in Religious Thought" (originally ingly slow. Such progress as had been made by 1962 was taken account of
in Journal of Religion 4 [1969}); "Origen's Metaphysics of Free Will, Fall, and Salvation: A in this second edition (Chapter 12); it still represented a minor fraction of
'Divine Comedy' of the Universe" (originally in Journal of the Vniversalist Historical Society 8
{1969-70]); "The Soul in Gnosticism and Plotinus" (originally in Le Neoplatonisme, Paris, the total corpus. Things have moved forward since. Work has at last been
1971). pooled, and teams of scholars are busy on all thirteen codices.* At this
moment it looks as if the main body of the new evidence will be in our
hands within the next few years. It is the Coptologists' day. Everybody else
is holding his breath and, if wise, his hand. A summing up of the new
knowledge and its import for the gnostic image as a whole will be a prime
necessity some day, but must wait. On the other hand, the student has a
right to find in a 1970 reprinting some guidance for making his own way
to the evidence at its present intermediate stage. I have tried to serve this
purpose by bringing the Supplementary Bibliography up to the beginning
of 1970 and paying special attention to the Nag Hammadi complex. In
this, I received valuable help from Professors James M. Robinson and
David M. Scholer. An Addendum to Chapter 12 provides a key for con-
verting its references to individual tractates into the system of numeration
that has meanwhile become standard.

*UNESCO, by arrangement with the United Arab Republic, plans to publish photo-
graphic plates. For the English-speaking world, The Coptic Gnostic Library Project of the
Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at the Claremont University Center serves, under the
directorship of James M. Robinson, as a coordinating center for research and publication. It is
preparing an English edition to appear at Brill in Leiden.
 Preface to the Second Edition Preface to the First Edition
This second edition of The Gnostic Religion has been enlarged by two Out of the mist of the beginning of our era there looms a pageant of
substantial additions: a new chapter (12), dealing with the great find at mythical figures whose vast, superhuman contours might people the walls
Nag Hamadi in Egypt, of whose contents too little was known at the time and ceiling of another Sistine Chapel. Their countenances and gestures, the
of the first writing of this book to permit more than a few references and roles in which they are cast, the drama which they enact, would yield images
quotations; and, for an epilogue to the historical subject as a whole, an different from the biblical ones on which the imagination of the beholder
essay relating Gnosticism to more recent and even to contemporary forms was reared, yet strangely familiar to him and disturbingly moving. The
of spiritual life: "Gnosticism, Nihilism, and Existentialism." The text of stage would be the same, the theme as transcending: the creation of the
the first edition of The Gnostic Religion has been retained in its entirety, world, the destiny of man, fall and redemption, the first and the last things.
unchanged except for a few minor corrections. But how much more numerous would be the cast, how much more bizarre
The new epilogue, as printed here, is the revised version of an article the symbolism, how much more extravagant the emotions! Almost all the
first published in 1952.* Since parts of that article were later incorporated action would be in the heights, in the divine or angelic or daimonic realm, a
in the body of this book, its present reproduction as an epilogue—to avoid drama of pre-cosmic persons in the supranatural world, of which the drama
major duplications—omits from its text two passages which the reader at of man in the natural world is but a distant echo. And yet that transcenden-
those points is asked to look up in the main body of the book: they do tal drama before all time, depicted in the actions and passions of manlike fig-
remain integral to the argument of the essay considered as an entity by ures, would be of intense human appeal: divinity tempted, unrest stirring
itself. That argument, venturing into a confrontation of ancient Gnos- among the blessed Aeons, God's erring Wisdom, the Sophia, falling prey to
ticism with things highly modern, transcends the strict terms of the his- her folly, wandering in the void and darkness of her own making, endlessly
torical study to which this book is otherwise committed. But the under- searching, lamenting, suffering, repenting, laboring her passion into matter,
standing of ancient Gnosticism itself is advanced by discussing, however her yearning into soul; a blind and arrogant Creator believing himself the
speculatively, its relationships to contemporary religious and spiritual phe- Most High and lording it over the creation, the product, like himself, of fault
nomena; and even the understanding of the latter may profit from such an and ignorance; the Soul, trapped and lost in the labyrinth of the world, seek-
undertaking. ing to escape and frightened back by the gatekeepers of the cosmic prison,
H.J. the terrible archons; a Savior from the Light beyond venturing into the
nether world, illumining the darkness, opening a path, healing the divine
New Rochelle, N.Y. breach: a tale of light and darkness, of knowledge and ignorance, of serenity
July 1962 and passion, of conceit and pity, on the scale not of man but of eternal beings
that are not exempt from suffering and error.
* "Gnosticism and Modem Nihilism," Social Research 19 (1952), pp. 430-452. An The tale has found no Michelangelo to retell it, no Dante and no
expanded German version, "Gnosis und moderner Nihilismus," appeared in Kerygma und Milton. The sterner discipline of biblical creed weathered the storm of
Dogma 6 (I960), pp. 155-171.
those days, and both Old and New Testament were left to inform the mind
and imagination of Western man. Those teachings which, in the feverish
hour of transition, challenged, tempted, tried to twist the new faith are for-
gotten, their written record buried in the tomes of their refuters or in the
sands of ancient lands. Our art and literature and much else would be dif-
ferent, had the gnostic message prevailed.
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION XXX1I1

Where the painter and the poet are silent, the scholar must, from its It was then that diverse schools of thought about the historical nature
fragments, reconstruct the vanished world and with his feebler means bring of Gnosticism began to spring up. Naturally enough, the Hellenic, and
its form to life. He can do so better now than ever before, as the sands have more particularly "Platonic," thesis of the Church Fathers was revived, and
begun to yield up some of the buried trust. This resuscitation is of more not merely on their authority, for suggestive aspects of the literary evi-
than antiquarian interest: with all its strangeness, its violence to reason, its dence, including gnostic use of philosophical terms, as well as the general
immoderateness of judgment, that world of feeling, vision, and thought probabilities of the age, almost inevitably at first point in that direction.
had its profundity, and without its voice, its insights, and even its errors, Indeed there hardly seemed to be a choice of alternatives as long as only
the evidence of humanity is incomplete. Rejected as it was, it represents Judaeo-Christian and Greek thought were reckoned with as the forces
one of the possibilities then offered at the crossroads of creeds. Its glow which could exert influence in that period. But somehow the division of the
throws light upon the beginnings of Christianity, the birth pangs of our quantity that is Gnosticism by these known factors leaves too large a
world; and the heirs of a decision made long ago will better understand reminder, and from the early nineteenth century the "Hellenic" school was
their heritage by knowing what once competed with it for the soul of man. confronted by an "oriental" one which argued that Gnosticism derived
The investigation of Gnosticism is almost as old as Gnosticism itself. from an older "oriental philosophy." Though this position reflected a cor-
Chiefly by its own choosing—being the aggressor—it was an embattled rect instinct, it suffered from the weakness that it operated with an ill-
cause from the beginning and thus came under the scrutiny of those whose defined and really unknown magnitude—that oriental philosophy the
cause it threatened to subvert. The investigation, carried on in the heat of nature and previous existence of which were inferred from the facts of
conflict, was that of a prosecutor. Attorneys for the prosecution were the Gnosticism itself rather than independently established. The position
Fathers of the early Church, stating its case against the heresies in lengthy gained firmer ground, however, once the mythological rather than the
works (we have no record of the defense, if there was any); and they philosophical character of what was felt to be oriental in Gnosticism was
inquired into the spiritual ancestry of Gnosticism as part of their under- recognized and the search for the mysterious philosophy abandoned. It is
taking to expose its error. Their writings, therefore, provide not only our generally true to say that to this day the "Greek" and "oriental" emphases
main—until recently, our sole—source of knowledge of gnostic teaching shift back and forth according to whether the philosophical or the mytho-
itself, but also the earliest theory about its nature and origin. To them, logical, the rational or the irrational facet of the phenomenon is seen as
their finding that Gnosticism, or what in it distorted the Christian truth, decisive. The culmination of the Greek and rational thesis may be found at
hailed from Hellenic philosophy, amounted to an indictment: to us, it must the end of the century in Adolf von Harnack's famous formula that
still count as a hypothesis, among alternative ones, relevant for the histor- Gnosticism is "the acute Hellenization of Christianity."
ical diagnosis of the phenomenon, and must be considered on its merits. Meanwhile, however, the scientific scene changed with the classical
The last of the major heresiologists to deal extensively with the gnos- scholar and the orientalist entering the field where before the theologian had
tic sects, Epiphanius of Salamis, wrote in the fourth century A.D. From then been alone. The investigation of Gnosticism became part of the comprehen-
on, with the danger past and the polemical interest no longer alive, obliv- sive study of the whole age of later Antiquity in which a variety of disciplines
ion settled down on the whole subject, until the historical interest of the joined hands. Here it was the younger science of the orientalists which could
nineteenth century returned to it in the spirit of dispassionate inquiry. By add most to what theology and classical philology had to offer. The vague
reason of subject matter it still fell into the domain of the theologian, like concept of generally "oriental" thought gave way to a concrete knowledge of
everything connected with the beginnings of Christianity. But the Prot- the several national traditions mingling in the culture of the time; and the
estant theologians (mostly German) who engaged in the new investigation concept of Hellenism itself was modified by the inclusion of these distinct
approached their task as historians who are no longer party to the conflict, heterogeneous influences in its hitherto predominantly Greek picture. As to
though intellectual trends of their own time might way their sympathies Gnosticism in particular, the acquaintance with such massively mythologi-
and judgments. cal material as the Coptic and Mandaean texts dealt a blow to the "Greek-
XXXIV PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION XXXV
philosophical" position from which it never fully recovered, though in the insights which only that radical position could bring forth, and thereby
nature of the case it can never be entirely abandoned either. Diagnosis be- adds to our human understanding in general.
came largely a matter of genealogy, and for this the field was thrown wide The results of these prolonged studies are published in German under
open: one by one, or in varying combinations, the different oriental filiations the title Gnosis und spatantiker Geist, of which the first volume appeared in
suggested by the rainbow colors of the material—Babylonian, Egyptian, 1934, the second—because of the circumstances of the times—only in 1954,
Iranian—were elaborated to determine the principal "whence" and "what" and the third and concluding one is still to come. The present volume, while
of Gnosis, with the overall result that its picture became more and more syn- retaining the point of view of the larger work and restating many of its ar-
cretistic. The latest turn in the quest for one dominant line of descent is to guments, is different in scope, in organization, and in literary intention. For
derive Gnosticism from Judaism: a needful correction of a previous neglect, one thing, it keeps to the area which is by general consent termed gnostic
but in the end probably no more adequate to the total and integral phenom- and refrains from striking out into the wider and more controversial ground
enon than other partial and partially true explanations. Indeed, so far as where the other work, by an extension of meaning, attempts to uncover the
traceable pedigrees of elements go, all investigations of detail over the last presence of a metamorphized "gnostic principle" in manifestations quite dif-
half century have proved divergent rather than convergent, and leave us with ferent from the primary ones (as in the systems of Origen and Plotinus). This
a portrait of Gnosticism in which the salient feature seems to be the absence restriction in scope is due not to a change of view but merely to the kind of
of a unifying character. But these same investigations have also gradually en- book this is intended to be. Then, much of the more difficult philosophical
larged the range of the phenomenon beyond the group of Christian heresies elaboration, with its too technical language—the cause for much complaint
originally comprised by the name, and in this greater breadth, as well as in in the German volumes—has been excluded from this treatment, which
the greater complexity, Gnosticism became increasingly revealing of the strives to reach the general educated reader as well as the scholar. Method-
whole civilization in which it arose, and whose all-pervading feature was ological discussions and scholarly controversy have been ruled out for the
syncretism. same reason (excepting occasional footnotes). On the other hand, in some re-
Both the wealth of historical detail and the atomization of the subject spects the present volume goes beyond the earlier presentation: certain texts
into motifs from separate traditions are well reflected in Wilhelm Bousset's are more fully interpreted, as in the extensive commentaries to the "Hymn
work of 1907, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis (Principal Problems of Gnosticism), of the Pearl" and the Poimandres; and it has been possible to include new ma-
which typified a whole school and for long dominated the field. The pres- terial of recent discovery. Inevitably, although this is a new book and not a
ent work is not entirely of that lineage. When, many years ago, under the translation, it does duplicate, with some rephrasing, certain parts of the
guidance of Rudolf Bultmann, I first approached the study of Gnosticism, German work.
the field was rich with the solid fruit of philology and the bewildering har- All sources are rendered in English. Translations from the Greek and
vest of the genetic method. To these I neither presumed nor intended to Latin are my own, unless stated otherwise. Mandaean texts are given in my
add. My aim, somewhat different from that of the preceding and still con- English version of Lidzbarski's German translation, and a similar procedure
tinuing research, but complementary to it, was a philosophic one: to under- has been adopted with Coptic, Syriac, Persian, and other texts: where there
stand the spirit speaking through these voices and in its light to restore an exists a translation in only one modern language, other than English (usu-
intelligible unity to the baffling multiplicity of its expressions. That there ally German or French, as with much of the Coptic material), I have trans-
was such a gnostic spirit, and therefore an essence of Gnosticism as a whole, lated this into English; where several translations exist (as with much of the
was the impression which struck me at my initial encounter with the evi- Eastern-Manichaean material and the "Hymn of the Pearl"), I arrived, by
dence, and it deepened with increasing intimacy. To explore and interpret their synopsis and the exercise of my judgment, at some composite version
that essence became a matter, not only of historical interest, as it substan- as the one that seemed best to me.
tially adds to our understanding of a crucial period of Western mankind, I make grateful acknowledgment to my German publishers,
but also of intrinsic philosophical interest, as it brings us face to face with Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht in Gottingen, who, in so fine a point as the
one of the more radical answers of man to his predicament and with the relation of this to the earlier treatment of the same subject, left me enti-
XXXvi PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

rely free to use my judgment and sense of fitness. My other acknowledg-

ment is to Miss Jay Macpherson of Victoria College, Toronto, scholar and
poet, who with great patience and unfailing linguistic tact, by comment, THE GNOSTIC RELIGION
approval and disapproval throughout the writing of this book, helped me
in the English formulation of my thought without thrusting on me a style
not my own.

H.J.
New Rochelle, N.Y.
November 1957
Chapter 1. Introduction: East and West
in Hellenism
Any portrayal of the Hellenistic era must begin with Alexander
the Great. His conquest of the East (334-323 B.C.) marks a turning
point in the history of the ancient world. Out of the conditions it
created grew a cultural unity larger than any that had existed be-
fore, a unity which was to last for almost a thousand years until
destroyed in its turn by the conquests of Islam. The new historical
fact made possible, and indeed intended, by Alexander was the
union of West and East. "West" means here the Greek world cen-
tered around the Aegaean; "East," the area of the old oriental civili-
zations, stretching from Egypt to the borders of India. Although
Alexander's political creation fell apart with his death, the merging
of cultures proceeded undisturbed through the succeeding centuries,
both as regional processes of fusion within the several kingdoms
of the Diadochi and as the rise of an essentially supra-national,
Hellenistic, culture common to them all. When finally Rome dis-
solved the separate political entities in the area and transformed
them into provinces of the Empire, she simply gave form to that
homogeneity which in fact had long prevailed irrespective of dynastic
boundaries.
In the larger geographical framework of the Roman Empire,
the terms "East" and "West" assume new meanings, "East" being
the Greek and "West" the Latin half of the Roman world. The
Greek half, however, comprised the whole Hellenistic world, in
which Greece proper had become a minor part; that is, it comprised
all that part of Alexander's heritage which had not slipped back
into "barbarian" control. Thus in the enlarged perspective of the
Empire the East is constituted by a synthesis of what we first dis-
tinguished as the Hellenic West and the Asiatic East. In the per-
manent division of Rome from the time of Theodosius into an
Eastern and a Western Empire, the cultural situation finds final
political expression: under Byzantium the unified eastern half of the
world came at last to form that Greek empire which Alexander
3
4 INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM 5

had envisioned and which Hellenism had made possible,

although the Persian renascence beyond the Euphrates had Greek Culture on the Eve of Alexander's Conquests
diminished its geographical scope. The parallel division of When Alexander appeared, Hellas had, both in point of fact
Christendom into a Latin and a Greek Church reflects and and in its own consciousness, reached this stage of cosmopolitan
perpetuates the same cultural situation in the realm of religious maturity, and this was the positive precondition of his success,
dogma. which was matched by a negative one on the oriental side. For
It is this spatio-cultural unity, created by Alexander and existing more than a century the whole evolution of Greek culture had been
in turn as the kingdoms of the Diadochi, as the eastern provinces leading in this direction. The ideals of a Pindar could hardly have
of Rome, as the Byzantine Empire, and concurrently as the Greek been grafted onto the court of a Nebuchadnezzar or an Artaxerxes
Church, a unity bound together in the Hellenistic-oriental synthesis, and the bureaucracies of their realms. Since Herodotus, "the father
which provides the setting for those spiritual movements with of history" (fifth century B.C.), Greek curiosity had interested itself
which this book is concerned. In this introductory chapter we have in the customs and opinions of the "barbarians"; but the Hellenic
to fill in their background by saying something more about Hellen- way was conceived for and suited to Hellenes alone, and of them
ism in general and by clarifying on the one hand some aspects of only those who were freeborn and full citizens. Moral and political
its two components, namely, Hellas and Asia, and on the other the ideals, and even the idea of knowledge, were bound up with very
manner of their meeting, marriage, and common issue. definite social conditions and did not claim to apply to men in gen-
eral—indeed, the concept of "man in general" had for practical
(a) THE PART OF THE WEST purposes not yet come into its own. However, philosophical reflec-
tion and the development of urban civilization in the century pre-
What were the historical conditions and circumstances of the ceding Alexander led gradually to its emergence and explicit formu-
development we have indicated? The union which Alexander's lation. The sophistic enlightenment of the fifth century had set the
conquest initiated was prepared for on both sides. East and West individual over against the state and its norms and in conceiving the
had each progressed previously to the maximum degree of unifica- opposition of nature and law had divested the latter, as resting on
tion in its own realm, most obviously so in political terms: the East convention alone, of its ancient sanctity: moral and political norms
had been unified under Persian rule, the Greek world under the are relative. Against their skeptical challenge, the Socratic-Platonic
Macedonian hegemony. Thus the conquest of the Persian monarchy answer appealed, not indeed to tradition, but to conceptual knowl-
by the Macedonian was an event involving the whole "West" and edge of the intelligible, i.e., to rational theory; and rationalism
the whole "East." carries in itself the germ of universalism. The Cynics preached a
No less had cultural developments prepared each side, though revaluation of existing norms of conduct, self-sufficiency of the pri-
in a very different manner, for the roles they were destined to play vate individual, indifference to the traditional values of society, such
in the new combination. Cultures can best mix when the thought as patriotism, and freedom from all prejudice. The internal decline
of each has become sufficiently emancipated from particular local, of the old city-states together with the loss of their external inde-
social, and national conditions to assume some degree of general pendence weakened the particularistic aspect of their culture while
validity and thereby become transmissible and exchangeable. It is it strengthened the consciousness of what in it was of general spirit-
then no longer bound to such specific historical facts as the Athe- ual validity.
nian polis or the oriental caste society but has passed into the freer In short, at the time of Alexander the Hellenic idea of culture
form of abstract principles that can claim to apply to all mankind, had evolved to a point where it was possible to say that one was a
that can be learned, be supported by argument, and compete with Hellene not by birth but by education, so that one born a barbarian
others in the sphere of rational discussion.
6 INTRODUCTION : EAST AND WEST IN H ELLENISM INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM 7

could become a true Hellene. The enthroning of reason as the longer clung to geographic continuity with the mother country, and
highest part in man had led to the discovery of man as such, and generally with what had hitherto been the Greek world, but spread
at the same time to the conception of the Hellenic way as a general far into the continental expanses of the Hellenistic Empire. Unlike
humanistic culture. The last step on this road was taken when the the earlier colonies, the cities thus founded were not daughter cities
Stoics later advanced the proposition that freedom, that highest of individual metropoles but were fed from the reservoir of the
good of Hellenic ethics, is a purely inner quality not dependent on cosmopolitan Greek nation. Their main relations were not to one
external conditions, so that true freedom may well be found in a another and to the distant mother city but each acted as a center of
slave if only he is wise. So much does all that is Greek become a crystallization in its own environment, that is, in relation to its
matter of mental attitude and quality that participation in it is open indigenous neighbors. Above all, these cities were no longer sover-
to every rational subject, i.e., to every man. Prevailing theory placed eign states but parts of centrally administered kingdoms. This
man no longer primarily in the context of the polis, as did Plato and changed the relation of the inhabitants to the political whole. The
still Aristotle, but in that of the cosmos, which we sometimes find classical city-state engaged the citizen in its concerns, and these he
called "the true and great polis for all." To be a good citizen of the could identify with his own, as through the laws of his city he gov-
cosmos, a cosmopolites, is the moral end of man; and his title to this erned himself. The large Hellenistic monarchies neither called for
citizenship is his possession of logos, or reason, and nothing else— nor permitted such close personal identification; and just as they
that is, the principle that distinguishes him as man and puts him made no moral demands on their subjects, so the individual de-
into immediate relationship to the same principle governing the tached himself in regard to them and as a private person (a status
universe. The full growth of this cosmopolitan ideology was hardly admitted in the Hellenic world before) found satisfaction of
reached under the Roman Empire; but in all essential features the his social needs in voluntarily organized associations based on com-
universalistic stage of Greek thought was present by Alexander's munity of ideas, religion, and occupation.
time. This turn of the collective mind inspired his venture and was The nuclei of the newly founded cities were as a rule consti-
itself powerfully reinforced by his success. tuted by Greek nationals; but from the outset the inclusion of com-
pact native populations was part of the plan and of the charter by
Cosmopolitanism and the New Greek Colonization which each city came into being. In many cases such groups of
Such was the inner breadth of the spirit which Alexander carried natives were thus transformed into city populations for the first
into the outward expanses of the world. From now on, Hellas was time, and into the populations of cities organized and self-adminis-
everywhere that urban life with its institutions and organization tering in the Greek manner. How thoroughly Alexander himself
flourished after the Greek pattern. Into this life the native popula- understood his policy of fusion in racial terms as well is shown by
tions could enter with equal rights by way of cultural and linguistic the famous marriage celebration at Susa when in compliance with
assimilation. This marks an important difference from the older his wishes ten thousand of his Macedonian officers and men took
Greek colonization of the Mediterranean coastline, which estab- Persian wives.
lished purely Greek colonies on the fringes of the great "barbarian"
The Hellenization of the East
hinterland and envisaged no amalgamation of colonists and natives.
The colonization following in the footsteps of Alexander intended The assimilating power of such an entity as the Hellenistic city
from the outset, and indeed as part of his own political program, a must have been overwhelming. Participating in its institutions and
symbiosis of an entirely new kind, one which though most obvi- ways of life, the non-Hellenic citizens underwent rapid Helleniza-
ously a Hellenization of the East required for its success a certain tion, shown most plainly in their adoption of the Greek language:
reciprocity. In the new geopolitical area the Greek element no and this in spite of the fact that probably from the beginning the
 INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM 9
8 INTRODUCTION : EAST AND WEST IN H ELLENISM
still going on at a time when movements of renascence of national
non-Hellenes outnumbered the born Greeks or Macedonians. The languages and literatures were already under way. The earliest,
tremendous subsequent growth of some of these cities, like Alexan- indeed anachronistic, example of such a situation is provided by the
dria or Antioch, can be explained only by the continual influx of familiar events of the Maccabaean period in Palestine in the second
native oriental populations, which yet did not change the Hellenis- century B.C. Even as late as the third century A.D., after five hundred
tic character of the communities. Finally, in the Seleucid kingdom, years of Hellenistic civilization, we observe a native of the ancient
in Syria and Asia Minor, even originally oriental cities transformed city of Tyre, Malchus son of Malchus, becoming a prominent Greek
themselves through the adoption of Hellenic corporative constitu- philosophic writer and at the instance of his Hellenic friends chang-
tions and the introduction of gymnasia and other typical institutions ing (or suffering them to change) his Semitic name first to the
into cities of the Greek type and received from the central govern- Greek Basileus,1 then to Porphyrius,2 thereby symbolically declaring
ment the charter granting the rights and duties of such cities. his adherence to the Hellenic cause together with his Phoenician
This was a kind of refounding, evidence of the progress of Helleni- extraction. The interesting point in this case is that at the same
zation and at the same time a factor adding momentum to it. time the counter-movement was gathering momentum in his native
Besides the cities, the Greek-speaking administration of the mon- country—the creation of a Syrian vernacular literature associated
archies was of course also a Hellenizing agent. with the names of Bardesanes, Mani, and Ephraem. This move-
The invitation suggested in the formula that one is a Hellene ment and its parallels everywhere were part of the rise of the new
not by birth but by education was eagerly taken up by the more popular religions against which Hellenism was forced to defend
responsive among the sons of the conquered East. Already in the itself.
generation after Aristotle we find them active in the very sanctuaries
of Greek wisdom. Zeno, son of Mnaseas (i.e., Manasseh), founder Later Hellenism: The Change from Secular to
of the Stoic school, was of Phoenician-Cypriote origin: he learned Religious Culture
Greek as an adopted language, and throughout his long teaching
With the situation just indicated the concept of Hellenism
career at Athens his accent always remained noticeable. From then
underwent a significant change. In late antiquity the unchallenged
until the end of antiquity the Hellenistic East produced a continual
universalism of the first Hellenistic centuries was succeeded by an
stream of men, often of Semitic origin, who under Greek names
age of new differentiation, based primarily on spiritual issues and
and in the Greek language and spirit contributed to the dominant
only secondarily also of a national, regional, and linguistic character.
civilization. The old centers of the Aegaean area remained in
The common secular culture was increasingly affected by a mental
existence, but the center of gravity of Greek culture, now the uni-
polarization in religious terms, leading finally to a breaking up of
versal culture, had shifted to the new regions. The Hellenistic cities
the former unity into exclusive camps. Under these new circum-
of the Near East were its fertile seedbeds: among them Alexandria
stances, "Hellenic," used as a watchword within a world already
in Egypt was pre-eminent. With names generally Hellenized, we
thoroughly Hellenized, distinguishes an embattled cause from its
can mostly no longer determine whether an author from Apameia
Christian or gnostic opponents, who yet, in language and literary
or Byblos in Syria, or from Gadara in Trans-Jordan, is of Greek or
form, are themselves no less part of the Greek milieu. On this
Semitic race; but in these melting-pots of Hellenism the question
finally becomes irrelevant—a third entity had come into being. common ground Hellenism became almost equivalent to conserva-
In the newly founded Greek cities the result of the fusion was tism and crystallized into a definable doctrine in which the whole
1
Greek from the outset. In other places the process was gradual, and "King"—the literal translation of Malchus.
8
continued into the period of late antiquity: people became converted "The purple-clad"—an allusion to his original name as well as to the
major industry of his native city, purple-dyeing.
to Hellenism as one might change one's party or creed, and this was
 10 INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENIST

tradition of pagan antiquity, religious as well as philosophical, progressing. The transition from this to the third phase, the turn- 11
was for the last time systematized. Its adherents as well as its ing to religion of ancient civilization as a whole and of the Greek
opponents lived everywhere, so that the battlefield extended over the mind with it, was the work of profoundly un-Greek forces which,
whole civilized world. But the rising tide of religion had engulfed originating in the East, entered history as new factors. Between
"Greek" thought itself and transformed its own character: Hellenistic the rule of Hellenistic secular culture and the final defensive posi-
secular culture changed into a pronouncedly religious pagan tion of a late Hellenism turned religious lie three centuries of revo-
culture, both in self-defense against Christianity and from an inner lutionary spiritual movements which effected this transformation,
necessity. This means that in the age of the rising world-religion, among which the gnostic movement occupies a prominent place.
Hellenism itself became a denominational creed. This is how With these we have to deal later.
Plotinus and still more Julian the Apostate conceived their Hellenic,
i.e., pagan, cause, which in Neoplatonism founded a kind of
church with its own dogma and apologetic. Doomed Hellenism had
{b) THE PART OF THE EAST
come to be a particular cause on its own native ground. In this So far we have considered the role of the Greek side in the
hour of its twilight the concept of Hellenism was at the same time combination of West and East, and in doing so started from the
broadened and narrowed. It was broadened in so far as, in the final internal preconditions that enabled Hellenic culture to become a
entrenchment, even purely oriental creations like the religions of world civilization following upon Alexander's conquests. These
Mithras or of Attis were counted in with the Hellenistic tradition preconditions had of course to be matched by preconditions on the
that was to be defended; it was narrowed in that the whole cause oriental side which explain the role of the East in the combination
became a party cause, and more and more that of a minority —its apparent or real passivity, docility, and readiness for assimila-
party. Yet, as we have said, the whole struggle was enacted within a tion. Military and political subjection alone is not sufficient to ex-
Greek framework, that is, within the frame of the one universal plain the course of events, as the comparison with other conquests
Hellenic culture and language. So much is this the case that the of areas of high culture shows throughout history, where often
victor and heir in this struggle, the Christian Church of the East, enough the victor culturally succumbs to the vanquished. We may
was to be predominantly a Greek church: the work of Alexander even raise the question whether in a deeper sense, or at least par-
the Great triumphed even in this defeat of the classical spirit. tially, something of the kind did not also happen in the case of
Hellenism; but what is certainly manifest at first is the unequivocal
The Four Stages of Greek Culture ascendancy of the Greek side, and this determined at least the form
We can accordingly distinguish four historical phases of Greek of all future cultural expression. What, then, was the condition of
culture: (1) before Alexander, the classical phase as a national the oriental world on the eve of Alexander's conquest to explain its
culture; (2) after Alexander, Hellenism as a cosmopolitan secular succumbing to the expansion of Greek culture? And in what shape
culture; (3) later Hellenism as a pagan religious culture; and (4) did native oriental forces survive and express themselves under the
Byzantinism as a Greek Christian culture. The transition from the new conditions of Hellenism? For naturally this great East with its
first to the second phase is for the most part to be explained as an ancient and proud civilizations was not simply so much dead matter
autonomous Greek development. In the second phase (300 B.C.— for the Greek form. Both questions, that concerning the antecedent
first century B.C.) the Greek spirit was represented by the great rival conditions and that concerning the manner of survival, are incom-
schools of philosophy, the Academy, the Epicureans, and above all parably harder to answer for the oriental side than the parallel ones
the Stoics, while at the same time the Greek-oriental synthesis was were for the Greek side. The reasons for this are as follows.
12 INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM
INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM 13

In the first place, for the time before Alexander, in contrast conjectural idea, and we shall briefly indicate as much of it as is
with the wealth of Greek sources we are faced with an utter paucity necessary for our purpose. First a few words about the state of the
of oriental ones, except for the Jewish literature. Yet this negative Eastern world on the eve of the Greek conquest that accounts for
fact, if we may take it as a sign of literary sterility, is itself a histori- its lethargy at first and the slowness of its reawakening afterwards.
cal testimony which confirms what we can infer from Greek sources The East on the Eve of Alexander's Conquests
about the contemporary state of the Eastern nations.
Moreover, this vast East, unified in the Persian Empire by sheer Political Apathy and Cultural Stagnation. Politically, this state
force, was far from being a cultural unity like the Greek world. was determined by the sequence of despotic empires that had swept
Hellas was the same everywhere; the East, different from region to over the East in the preceding centuries. Their methods of conquest
region. Thus an answer to the question regarding cultural precon- and rule had broken the political backbone of the local populations
ditions would have to fall into as many parts as there were cultural and accustomed them passively to accept each new master in the
change of empires. The destinies of the central power were undis-
entities involved. This fact also complicates the problem of Hellen-
puted fate for the subject peoples, who were simply thrown in with
ism itself as regards its oriental component. Indeed, Gustav Droy-
the spoils. At a much later time, Daniel's vision of the four king-
sen, the originator of the term "Hellenism" for the post-Alexandrian
doms still reflects this passive relation of the oriental peoples to the
Greek-oriental synthesis, has himself qualified the term by stating
succession of political powers. So it came about that three battles
that in effect as many different kinds of Hellenism evolved as there
which broke the military might of the Persian monarchy delivered
were different national individualities concerned. In many cases,
to the victor an enormous empire of innumerable peoples which had
however, these local factors are little known to us in their original become estranged from the idea of self-determination and did not
form. Nevertheless, the overall homogeneity of the ensuing Hellen- even feel the urge to take a hand in the decision. The only serious
istic development suggests some overall similarity of conditions. In local resistance of a popular nature was encountered by Alexander
fact, if we except Egypt, we can discern in the pre-Hellenistic in Tyre and Gaza, which had to be reduced in long-drawn-out
Orient certain universalistic tendencies, beginnings of a spiritual sieges. This exception was no accident: the Phoenician city—and
syncretism, which may be taken as a counterpart to the cosmopoli- Gaza's case was probably similar—was in spite of its vassal relation
tan turn of the Greek mind. Of this we shall have more to say. to the Great King a sovereign polity, and its citizens fought for
Finally, in the period after Alexander the supremacy of pan- their own cause in the long-standing Phoenician-Greek rivalry for
Hellenic civilization meant precisely that the East itself, if it aspired sea power.
to literary expression at all, had to express itself in the Greek lan- The political apathy was matched by a cultural stagnation,
guage and manner. Consequently the recognition of such instances arising in part from different causes. In the old centers of oriental
of self-expression as voices of the East within the totality of Hellen- civilization, on the Euphrates and on the Nile, which prior to the
istic literature is for us frequently a matter of subtle and not un- Persian epoch were also the centers of political power, after several
equivocally demonstrable distinction: that is to say, the situation thousand years of existence all intellectual movement had come to
created by Hellenism is itself an ambiguous one. With the inter- a standstill, and only the inertia of formidable traditions was left.
esting methodological problem this presents we shall have to deal We cannot go here into explanations which would lead us far from
later. our path; we simply note the fact, which especially in the case of
These are some of the difficulties encountered in any attempt Egypt is very obvious indeed. We may, however, remark that the
to clarify the picture of the Eastern half of the dual fact which we immobility that our dynamic predilections are inclined to derogate
call Hellenism. We can nonetheless obtain a general though partly
14 INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM 15
as petrifaction could also be regarded as a mark of the perfection The earliest description of the genesis of an intentional
which a system of life has attained—this consideration may religious syncretism is found in the narrative in II Kings
well apply in the case of Egypt. 17:24-41 concerning the new inhabitants settled by the
In addition, the Assyrian and Babylonian practice of expatri- Assyrian king in evacuated Samaria, that well-known story of
ating and transplanting whole conquered peoples, or more accu- the origin of the Samaritan sect which closes with the words:
rately their socially and culturally leading strata, had destroyed the So these nations feared the Lord, and served their graven
forces of cultural growth in many of the regions outside the old images, both their children and their children's children: as did
centers. This fate had in many cases overtaken peoples of a more their fathers, so do they unto this day.
youthful cultural age who were still to unfold their
potentialities. For the imperial manageability thus gained, the On a world-wide scale religious syncretism was later to
central power paid with the drying up of the potential sources of become a decisive characteristic of Hellenism: we see here its
its own regeneration. Here we have doubtless one of the reasons inception in the East itself.
for the torpor of the old centers we mentioned before: by breaking Beginnings of Theological Abstraction in Jewish,
the national and regional vital forces throughout the kingdom, they Babylonian, and Persian Religion. Even more important is
had as it were surrounded themselves with a desert, and under the other development we mentioned, the transformation of
these conditions the isolated summit of power was denied the the substance of local cultures into ideologies. To take
benefit of whatever rejuvenating influences might have come another classic example from the Bible, the Babylonian exile
from below. This may in part explain the state of paralysis in forced the Jews to develop that aspect of their religion whose
which the East seems to have been sunk prior to Alexander and validity transcended the particular Palestinian conditions and
from which it was delivered by the revivifying influence of the to oppose the creed thus extracted in its purity to the other
religious principles of the world into which they had been cast.
Hellenic spirit.
This meant a confrontation of ideas with ideas. We find the
Beginnings of Religious Syncretism. Yet this same state of
position fully realized in Second Isaiah, who enunciated the
affairs contained also some positive conditions for the role which
pure principle of monotheism as a world cause, freed from the
the East was to play in the Hellenistic age. It is not just that the
specifically Palestinian limitations of the cult of Jahweh. Thus
prevailing passivity, the absence of consciously resisting forces,
the very uprooting brought to fulfillment a process which
facilitated assimilation. The very weakening of the strictly local
had started, it is true, with the older prophets.
aspects of indigenous cultures meant the removal of so many
The uniqueness of the Jewish case notwithstanding,
obstacles to a merging in a wider synthesis and thus made
certain parallels to these developments can be discerned
possible the entry of these elements into the common stock. In
elsewhere in the political disintegration of the East or can be
particular, the uprooting and transplantation of whole inferred from the later course of events. Thus, after the
populations had two significant effects. On the one hand, it overthrow of Babylon by the Persians the Old-Babylonian
favored the disengagement of cultural contents from their religion ceased to be a state cult attached to the political
native soil, their abstraction into the transmissible form of center and bound up with its functions of rule. As one of the
teachings, and their consequently becoming available as elements institutions of the monarchy it had enjoyed a defined official
in a cosmopolitan interchange of ideas—just as Hellenism could status, and this connection with a local system of secular
use them. On the other hand, it favored already a pre-Hellenistic power had supported and at the same time limited its role.
syncretism, a merging of gods and cults of different and Both support and restriction fell away with the loss of
sometimes widely distant origins, which again anticipates an statehood. The release of the religion from a political function
important feature of the ensuing Hellenistic development. was an uprooting comparable to the territorial uprooting of
Biblical history offers examples of both these processes. Israel. The fate of
16 INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM INTRODUCTION! EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM 17
subjection and political impotence in the Persian Empire forced the process in some ways analogous to the contemporary creation of
Babylonian religion to stand henceforth on its spiritual content the Talmud. Thus in the homeland and in the diaspora alike, the
alone. No longer connected with the institutions of a local power- changing conditions produced a similar result: the transformation
system and enjoying the prestige of its authority, it was thrown of traditional religion into a theological system whose characteris-
back upon its inherent theological qualities, which had to be formu- tics approach those of a rational doctrine.
lated as such if they were to hold their own against other religious We may suppose comparable processes to have taken place
systems which had similarly been set afloat and were now com- throughout the East, processes by which originally national and
peting for the minds of men. Political uprooting thus led to a local beliefs were fitted to become elements of an international
liberation of spiritual substance. As a subject for speculation, the exchange of ideas. The general direction of these processes was
generalized principle acquired a life of its own and unfolded its toward dogmatization, in the sense that a principle was abstracted
abstract implications. We may discern here the working of a his- from the body of tradition and unfolded into a coherent doctrine.
torical law which helps us to understand many mental develop- Greek influence, furnishing both incentive and logical tools, every-
ments of later antiquity. In the case of the Babylonian religion, where brought this process to maturity; but as we have just tried
the success of this movement toward abstraction is apparent in its to show, the East itself had on the eve of Hellenism already initi-
later form as it emerged into the full light of Hellenism. In a one- ated it in significant instances. The three we have mentioned were
sided development of its original astral features, the older cult was chosen with particular intent: Jewish monotheism, Babylonian as-
transformed into an abstract doctrine, the reasoned system of trology, and Iranian dualism were probably the three main spiritual
astrology, which simply by the appeal of its thought-content, pre- forces that the East contributed to the configuration of Hellenism,
sented in Greek form, became a powerful force in the Hellenistic and they increasingly influenced its later course.
world of ideas. So much for what we called "preconditions." We may just
In a comparable manner, to take a final example, the Old Per- pause to note the fact that the first cosmopolitan civilization known
sian religion of Mazdaism detached itself from its native Iranian to history, for so we may regard the Hellenistic, was made possible
soil. Carried over all the countries from Syria to India by the by catastrophes overtaking the original units of regional culture.
numerically small ruling nation, it had in the midst of the religious Without the fall of states and nations, this process of abstraction
plurality of the Persian Empire already found itself in something and interchange might never have occurred on such a scale. This
like a cosmopolitan situation. Through the fall of the Empire it is true, though less obviously, even for the Greek side, where the
lost with the support also the odium of a foreign rule and hence- political decline of the polis, this most intensive of particularistic
forth shared in the countries outside Persia proper with other formations, provided a comparable negative precondition. Only in
creeds the burdens and advantages of diaspora. Here again, out of the case of Egypt, which we omitted in our survey, were conditions
the less-defined national tradition there was extracted an unequivo- entirely different. In the main, however, it was from Asia, whether
cal metaphysical principle which evolved into a system of general Semitic or Iranian, that the forces issued that were actively operative
intellectual significance: the system of theological dualism. This in the Hellenistic synthesis together with the Greek heritage: thus
dualistic doctrine in its generalized content was to be one of the we can confine our sketch to the Asiatic conditions.
great forces in the Hellenistic syncretism of ideas. In Persia itself
The East Under Hellenism
the national reaction which led in succession to the founding of the
Parthian and neo-Persian kingdoms was prepared for and accom- Having dealt with the preconditions, we must briefly consider
panied by a religious restoration which in its turn was forced to the destiny of the East under the new dispensation of Hellenism.
systematize and dogmatize the content of the old folk-religion, a The first thing we note is that the East became silent for several
18 INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM 19
centuries and was all but invisible in the overpowering light of the lenistic" in distinction to the classical "Hellenic." "Hellenistic" was
Hellenic day. With regard to what followed from the first century intended to denote not just the enlargement of the polis culture to
A.D. onward, we may call this opening stage the period of latency a cosmopolitan culture and the transformations inherent in this
of the oriental mind and derive from this observation a division of process alone but also the change of character following from the
the Hellenistic age into two distinct periods: the period of manifest reception of oriental influences into this enlarged whole.
Greek dominance and oriental submersion, and the period of reac- However, the anonymity of the Eastern contributions makes
tion of a renascent East, which in its turn advanced victoriously in these influences in the first period hard to identify. Men like Zeno,
a kind of spiritual counterattack into the West and reshaped the whom we mentioned before, wished to be nothing but Hellenes,
universal culture. We are speaking of course in terms of intellectual and their assimilation was as complete as any such can be. Phi-
and not of political events. In this sense, Hellenization of the East losophy generally ran on very much in the tracks laid down by the
prevails in the first period, orientalization of the West in the sec- native Greek schools; but toward the end of the period, about two
ond, the latter process coming to an end by about 300 A.D. The centuries after Zeno, it too began to show significant signs of change
result of both is a synthesis which carried over into the Middle in its hitherto autonomous development. The signs are at first by
Ages. no means unambiguous. The continuing controversy about Posei-
The Submersion of the East. About the first period we can donius of Apameia (about 135-50 B.C.) well illustrates the diffi-
be brief. It was the age of the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms, culty of any confident attribution of influences and in general the
particularly characterized by the efflorescence of Alexandria. Hel- uncertainty as to what in this period is genuinely Greek and what
lenism triumphed throughout the East and constituted the general tinged with orientalism. Is the fervent astral piety that pervades his
culture whose canons of thought and expression were adopted by philosophy an expression of the Eastern mind or not? Both sides
everyone who wished to participate in the intellectual life of the can be argued, and probably will continue to be, though there can
age. Only the Greek voice was heard: all public literary utterance be no doubt that, whether or not he was Greek by birth, to his
was in its idiom. In view of what we said about the entering of own mind his thought was truly Greek. In this case, so in the
orientals into the stream of Greek intellectual life, the muteness general picture: we cannot demand a greater certainty than the
of the East cannot be construed as a lack of intellectual vitality on complex nature of the situation admits. Faced with the peculiar
the part of its individuals: it consists rather in its not speaking for anonymity, we might even say pseudonymity, that cloaks the oriental
itself, in its own name. Anyone who had something to say had no element, we must be content with the general impression that
choice but to say it in Greek, not only in terms of language but oriental influences in the broadest sense were at work throughout
also in terms of concept, ideas, and literary form, that is, as ostensi- this period in the domain of Greek thought.
bly part of the Greek tradition. A clearer case is presented by the growing literature on "the
To be sure, the Hellenistic civilization, wide open and hospi- wisdom of the barbarians" that made its appearance in Greek let-
table, had room for creations of the oriental mind once they had ters: in the long run it did not remain a matter of merely anti-
assumed the Greek form. Thus the formal unity of this culture quarian interest but gradually assumed a propagandist character.
covered in fact a plurality, yet always as it were under the official The initiative of Greek authors in this field was taken up in the
Greek stamp. For the East, this situation engendered a kind of old centers of the East, Babylon and Egypt, by native priests, who
mimicry which had far-reaching consequences for its whole future. turned to composing accounts of their national histories and cultures
The Greek mind on its part could not remain unaffected: it was the in the Greek language. The very ancient could always count on a
recognition of the difference in what was called "Greek" before and respectful curiosity on the part of the Greek public, but as this was
after Alexander that prompted Droysen to introduce the term "Hel- increasingly accompanied by a receptivity toward the spiritual con-
20 INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM
INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM 21
tents themselves, the antiquarians were encouraged revival of Mazdaism parallel the Jewish case. These events do
imperceptibly to turn into teachers and preachers. little to disturb the general picture of Hellas as the assimilating and
The most important form, however, in which the East con- the East as the assimilated part during this period.
tributed at this time to the Hellenistic culture was in the field not Greek Conceptualization of Eastern Thought. Nevertheless,
of literature but of cult: the religious syncretism which was to be- this period of latency was of profound significance in the life his-
come the most decisive fact in the later phase begins to take shape tory of the East itself. The Greek monopoly of all forms of intellec-
in this first period of the Hellenistic era. The meaning of the term tual expression had for the oriental spirit simultaneously the aspects
"syncretism" may be extended, and usually is, to cover secular phe- of suppression and of liberation: suppression because this monopoly
nomena as well; and in this case the whole Hellenistic civilization deprived it of its native medium and forced a dissimulation upon the
may be called syncretistic, in that it increasingly became a mixed expression of its own contents; liberation because the Greek concep-
tual form offered to the oriental mind an entirely new possibility of
culture. Strictly speaking, however, syncretism denotes a religious
bringing to light the meaning of its own heritage. We have seen
phenomenon which the ancient term "theocrasy," i.e., mixing of
that the lifting of generally communicable spiritual principles out
gods, expresses more adequately. This is a central phenomenon of
of the mass of popular tradition was under way on the eve of
the period and one to which we, otherwise familiar with the inter-
Hellenism; but it was with the logical means provided by the Greek
mingling of ideas and cultural values, have no exact parallel in our
spirit that this process came to fruition. For Greece had invented the
contemporary experience. It was the ever-growing range and depth
logos, the abstract concept, the method of theoretical exposition, the
of just this process that eventually led over from the first to the
reasoned system—one of the greatest discoveries in the history of the
second, the religious-oriental, period of Hellenism. The theocrasy
human mind. This formal instrument, applicable to any content
expressed itself in myth as well as in cult, and one of its most
whatsoever, Hellenism made available to the East, whose self-
important logical tools was allegory, of which philosophy had al-
expression could now benefit from it. The effect, delayed in its
ready been making use in its relation to religion and myth. Of all
manifestation, was immeasurable. Oriental thought had been non-
the phenomena noted in this survey of the first period of Hellenism,
conceptual, conveyed in images and symbols, rather disguising its
it is in this religious one that the East is most active and most itself. ultimate objects in myths and rites than expounding them logically.
The growing prestige of Eastern gods and cults within the Western In the rigidity of its ancient symbols it lay bound; from this im-
world heralded the role which the East was to play in the second prisonment it was liberated by the vivifying breath of Greek
period, when the leadership passed into its hands. It was a religious thought, which gave new momentum and at the same time ade-
role, whereas the Greek contribution to the Hellenistic whole was quate tools to whatever tendencies of abstraction had been at work
that of a secular culture. before. At bottom, oriental thought remained mythological, as
In sum, we may state of the first half of Hellenism, which lasts became clear when it presented itself anew to the world; but it had
roughly until the time of Christ, that it is in the main characterized learned in the meantime to bring its ideas into the form of theories
by this Greek secular culture. For the East, it is a time of prepara- and to employ rational concepts, instead of sensuous imagery alone,
tion for its re-emergence, comparable to a period of incubation. We in expounding them. In this way, the definite formulation of the
can only guess from its subsequent eruption at the profound trans- systems of dualism, astrological fatalism, and transcendent mono-
formations that must have occurred there at this time under the theism came about with the help of Greek conceptualization. With
Hellenistic surface. With the one great exception of the Maccabaean the status of metaphysical doctrines they gained general currency,
revolt, there is hardly any sign of oriental self-assertion within the and their message could address itself to all. Thus the Greek spirit
Hellenistic orbit in the whole period from Alexander to Caesar. delivered Eastern thought from the bondage of its own symbolism
Beyond the borders, the founding of the Parthian kingdom and the
22 INTRODUCTION: EAST AN, WEST IN HELLENISM INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM 23
and enabled it in the reflection of the logos to discover itself. And of an invisible East whose secret life formed an antagonistic under-
it was with the arms acquired from. the Greek arsenal that the East, current beneath the surface of the public Hellenistic civilization.
when its time came, launched its counteroffensive. Processes of profound transformation, far-reaching new departures,
The Eastern "Underground.' Inevitably the blessings of a must have been under way in this period of submergence. We do
development of this kind are no unmixed, and the dangers in- not know them, of course; and our whole description, conjectural
herent in it for the genuine substance of oriental thought are obvi- as it is, would be without foundation were it not for the sudden
ous. For one thing, every generation or rationalization is paid eruption of a new East which we witness at the turn of the era and
for with the loss of specificity. In particular, the Greek ascendancy from whose force and scale we can draw inferences as to its incuba-
naturally tempted oriental thinkers to profit from the prestige of tion.
everything Greek by expressing their cause not directly but in the
disguise of analogues gleaned from the Greek tradition of thought. The Re-emergence of the East
Thus, for instance, astrological fatalism and magic could be What we do witness at the period roughly coinciding with the
clothed in the garments of the Stoic cosmology with its doctrines beginnings of Christianity is an explosion of the East. Like long-
of sympathy and cosmic law, religious dualism in the garment of pent-up waters its forces broke through the Hellenistic crust and
Plato-nism. To the mentality of assimilation this was certainly a flooded the ancient world, flowing into the established Greek forms
rise in the world; but the mimicry thus initiated reacted upon the and filling them with their content, besides creating their own new
further growth of the Eastern mind and presents peculiar problems beds. The metamorphosis of Hellenism into a religious oriental
of interpretation to the historian. The phenomenon which Oswald culture was set on foot. The time of the breakthrough was probably
Spengler called, with a term borrowed from mineralogy, determined by the coinciding of two complementary conditions, the
"pseudomorphosis" will engage our attention as we go on (see maturing of the subterranean growth in the East, which enabled it
below, Ch. 2, d). to emerge into the light of day, and the readiness of the West for a
There was another, perhaps sill profounder, effect which Greek religious renewal, even its deeply felt need of it, which was
ascendancy had upon the inner life of the East, an effect which was grounded in the whole spiritual state of that world and disposed
to become manifest only much later: the division of the oriental it to respond eagerly to the message of the East. This complemen-
spirit into a surface and a sub-surface stream, a public and a secret tary relation of activity and receptivity is not unlike the converse
tradition. For the force of the Greek exemplar had not only a one which obtained three centuries earlier when Greece advanced
stimulating but also a repressive effect. Its selective standards acted into the East.
like a filter: what was capable of Hellenization was passed and The Novelty of Revived Eastern Thought. Now it is important
gained a place in the light, that is, became part of the articulate to recognize that in these events we are dealing, not with a reaction
upper stratum of the cosmopolitan culture; the remainder, the of the old East, but with a novel phenomenon which at that crucial
radically different and unassimilated was excluded and went under- hour entered the stage of history. The "Old East" was dead. The
ground. This "other" could not feel itself represented by the con- new awakening did not mean a classicist resuscitation of its time-
ventional creations of the literary world, could not in the general honored heritage. Not even the more recent conceptualizations of
message recognize its own. To oppose its message to the dominant earlier oriental thought were the real substance of the movement.
one it had to find its own language; and to find it became a Traditional dualism, traditional astrological fatalism, traditional
process of long toil. In the nature of things it was the most monotheism were all drawn into it, yet with such a peculiarly new
genuine and original tendencies of the spirit of the East, those of the twist to them, that in the present setting they subserved the repre-
future rather than of the past, that were subjected to this condition of sentation of a novel spiritual principle; and the same is true of the
subterranean existence. Thus the spiritual monopoly of Greece
caused the growth
24 INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM 25

use of Greek philosophical terms. It is necessary to emphasize this ena in which the oriental wave manifests itself in the Hellenistic
fact from the outset because of the strong suggestion to the contrary world from about the beginning of the Christian era onward. They
created by the outer appearances, which have long misled historians are in the main as follows: the spread of Hellenistic Judaism, and
into regarding the fabric of thought they were confronted with, especially the rise of Alexandrian Jewish philosophy; the spread of
except for its Christian part, as simply made up of the remnants of Babylonian astrology and of magic, coinciding with a general
older traditions. They all do in fact appear in the new stream: growth of fatalism in the Western world; the spread of diverse
symbols of old oriental thought, indeed its whole mythological Eastern mystery-cults over the Hellenistic-Roman world, and their
heritage; ideas and figures from Biblical lore; doctrinal and termi- evolution into spiritual mystery-religions; the rise of Christianity;
nological elements from Greek philosophy, particularly Platonism. the efflorescence of the gnostic movements with their great system-
It is in the nature of the syncretistic situation that all these different formations inside and outside the Christian framework; and the
.elements were available and could be combined at will. But syncre- transcendental philosophies of late antiquity, beginning with Neo-
tism itself provides only the outer aspect and not the essence of the pythagoreanism and culminating in the Neoplatonic school.
phenomenon. The outer aspect is confusing by its compositeness, All these phenomena, different as they are, are in a broad sense
and even more so by the associations of the old names. However, interrelated. Their teachings have important points in common and
though these associations are by no means irrelevant, we can discern even in their divergences share in a common climate of thought: the
a new spiritual center around which the elements of tradition now literature of each can supplement our understanding of the others.
crystallize, the unity behind their multiplicity; and this rather than More obvious than kinship of spiritual substance is the recurrence of
the syncretistic means of expression is the true entity with which typical patterns of expression, specific images and formulas, through-
we are confronted. If we acknowledge this center as an autonomous out the literature of the whole group. In Philo of Alexandria we
force, then we must say that it makes use of those elements rather encounter, besides the Platonic and Stoic elements with which the
than that it is constituted by their confluence; and the whole which Jewish core is overlaid, also the language of the mystery-cults and
thus originated will in spite of its manifestly synthetic character the incipient terminology of a new mysticism. The mystery-
have to be understood not as the product of an uncommitted religions on their part have strong relations to the astral complex of
eclecticism but as an original and determinate system of ideas. ideas. Neoplatonism is wide open to all pagan, and especially East-
Yet this system has to be elicited as such from the mass of dis- ern, religious lore having a pretense to antiquity and a halo of
parate materials, which yield it only under proper questioning, that spirituality. Christianity, even in its "orthodox" utterances, had
is, to an interpretation already guided by an anticipatory knowledge from the outset (certainly as early as St. Paul) syncretistic aspects,
of the underlying unity. A certain circularity in the proof thus ob- far exceeded however in this respect by its heretical offshoots: the
tained cannot be denied, nor can the subjective element involved in gnostic systems compounded everything—oriental mythologies, as-
the intuitive anticipation of the goal toward which the interpreta- trological doctrines, Iranian theology, elements of Jewish tradition,
tion is to move. Such, however, is the nature and risk of historical whether Biblical, rabbinical, or occult, Christian salvation-eschatol-
interpretation, which has to take its cues from an initial impression ogy, Platonic terms and concepts. Syncretism attained in this period
of the material and is vindicated only by the result, its intrinsic con- its greatest efficacy. It was no longer confined to specific cults and
vincingness or plausibility, and above all by the progressively con- the concern of their priests but pervaded the whole thought of the
firmatory experience of things falling into their place when brought age and showed itself in all provinces of literary expression. Thus,
into contact with the hypothetical pattern. none of the phenomena we have enumerated can be considered
Major Manifestations of the Oriental Wave in the Hellenistic apart from the rest.
World. We have now to give a brief enumeration of the phenom- Yet the syncretism, the intermingling of given ideas and
26 INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM INTRODUCTION: EAST AND WEST IN HELLENISM 27
images, i.e., of the coined currencies of the several traditions, is of nator can wear many masks and admits of many degrees of dilu-
course a formal fact only which leaves open the question of the tion and of compromise with conflicting principles. It may thus in
mental content whose external appearance it thus determines. Is many cases itself be only one of the elements in a complex set of
there a one in the many, and what is it? we ask in the face of such intellectual motives, only partially effective and imperfectly realized
a compound phenomenon. What is the organizing force in the in the resulting whole. But it is a novel factor wherever it makes
syncretistic matter? We said before by way of preliminary assertion itself felt, and its most unadulterated revelation is to be found in
that in spite of its "synthetic" exterior the new spirit was not a the gnostic literature properly so called. To this we now turn, re-
directionless eclecticism. What then was the directing principle, and serving for later (Part III) the attempt to place its message within
what the direction? the wider setting of contemporary culture.
The Underlying Unity: Representativeness of Gnostic Thought.
In order to reach an answer to this question, one has to fix one's
attention upon certain characteristic mental attitudes which are
more or less distinctly exhibited throughout the whole group, ir-
respective of otherwise greatly differing content and intellectual
level. If in these common features we find at work a spiritual prin-
ciple which was not present in the given elements of the mixture,
we may identify this as the true agent of it. Now such a novel
principle can in fact be discerned, though in many shadings of
determinateness, throughout the literature we mentioned. It appears
everywhere in the movements coming from the East, and most con-
spicuously in that group of spiritual movements which are com-
prised under the name "gnostic." We can therefore take the latter
as the most radical and uncompromising representatives of a new
spirit, and may consequently call the general principle, which in
less unequivocal representations extends beyond the area of gnostic
literature proper, by way of analogy the "gnostic principle." What-
ever the usefulness of such an extension of the meaning of the
name, it is certain that the study of this particular group not only
is highly interesting in itself but also can furnish, if not the key to
the whole epoch, at least a vital contribution toward its understand-
ing. I personally am strongly inclined to regard the whole series of
phenomena in which the oriental wave manifests itself as different
refractions of, and reactions to, this hypothetical gnostic principle,
and I have elsewhere argued my reasons for this view.3 However
far such a view may be granted, it carries in its own meaning the
qualification that what can be thus identified as a common denomi-
8
H. Jonas, Gnosis und spatantiker Geist, I and II, 1, passim; see especially the
introduction to vol. I, and Ch. 4 of vol. II, 1.
 PART I

Gnostic Literature—Main Tenets,

Symbolic Language
Chapter 2. The Meaning of Gnosis and
the Extent of the Gnostic Movement
(a) SPIRITUAL CLIMATE OF THE ERA
At the beginning of the Christian era and progressively
throughout the two following centuries, the eastern Mediterranean
world was in profound spiritual ferment. The genesis of Christian-
ity itself and the response to its message are evidence of this fer-
ment, but they do not stand alone. With regard to the environment
in which Christianity originated, the recently discovered Dead Sea
Scrolls have added powerful support to the view, reasonably certain
before, that Palestine was seething with eschatological (i.e., salva-
tional) movements and that the emergence of the Christian sect was
anything but an isolated incident. In the thought of the manifold
gnostic sects which soon began to spring up everywhere in the wake
of the Christian expansion, the spiritual crisis of the age found its
boldest expression and, as it were, its extremist representation. The
abstruseness of their speculations, in part intentionally provocative,
does not diminish but rather enhances their symbolic representative-
ness for the thought of an agitated period. Before narrowing down
our investigation to the particular phenomenon of Gnosticism, we
must briefly indicate the main features that characterize this con-
temporary thought as a whole.
First, all the phenomena which we noted in connection with
the "oriental wave" are of a decidedly religious nature; and this, as
we have repeatedly stated, is the prominent characteristic of the
second phase of Hellenistic culture in general. Second, all these
currents have in some way to do with salvation: the general religion
of the period is a religion of salvation. Third, all of them exhibit
an exceedingly transcendent (i.e., transmundane) conception of God
and in connection with it an equally transcendent and other-worldly
idea of the goal of salvation. Finally, they maintain a radical dual-
ism of realms of being—God and the world, spirit and matter, soul
and body, light and darkness, good and evil, life and death—and
31
 GNOSTIC LITERATURE—MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE MEANING OF GNOSIS AND EXTENT OF GNOSTIC MOVEMENT 33
32
consequently an extreme polarization of existence affecting not Simon Magus). Modern research has progressively broadened this
only man but reality as a whole: the general religion of the period is traditional range by arguing the existence of a pre-Christian Jewish
a dualistic transcendent religion of salvation. and a Hellenistic pagan Gnosticism, and by making known the
Mandaean sources, the most striking example of Eastern Gnosticism
outside the Hellenistic orbit, and other new material. Finally, if we
(b) THE NAME "GNOSTICISM"
take as a criterion not so much the special motif of "knowledge"
Turning to Gnosticism in particular, we ask what the name as the dualistic-anticosmic spirit in general, the religion of Mani too
means, where the movement originated, and what literary evidence must be classified as gnostic.
it left. The name "Gnosticism," which has come to serve as a collec-
tive heading for a manifoldness of sectarian doctrines appearing (c) THE ORIGIN OF GNOSTICISM
within and around Christianity during its critical first centuries, is
derived from gnosis, the Greek word for "knowledge." The empha- Asking next the question where or from what historical tradi-
sis on knowledge as the means for the attainment of salvation, or tion Gnosticism originated, we are confronted with an old crux
even as the form of salvation itself, and the claim to the possession of historical speculation: the most conflicting theories have been
of this knowledge in one's own articulate doctrine, are common fea- advanced in the course of time and are still in the field today. The
tures of the numerous sects in which the gnostic movement his- early Church Fathers, and independently of them Plotinus, empha-
torically expressed itself. Actually there were only a few groups sized the influence upon a Christian thinking not yet firmly consoli-
whose members expressly called themselves Gnostics, "the Knowing dated of Plato and of misunderstood Hellenic philosophy in general.
ones"; but already Irenaeus, in the title of his work, used the name Modern scholars have advanced in turn Hellenic, Babylonian, Egyp-
"gnosis" (with the addition "falsely so called") to cover all those tian, and Iranian origins and every possible combination of these
sects that shared with them that emphasis and certain other charac- with one another and with Jewish and Christian elements. Since
teristics. In this sense we can speak of gnostic schools, sects, and in the material of its representation Gnosticism actually is a product
cults, of gnostic writings and teachings, of gnostic myths and specu- of syncretism, each of these theories can be supported from the
lations, even of gnostic religion in general. sources and none of them is satisfactory alone; but neither is the
In following the example of the ancient authors who first ex- combination of all of them, which would make Gnosticism out to be
tended the name beyond the self-styling of a few groups, we are not a mere mosaic of these elements and so miss its autonomous essence.
obliged to stop where their knowledge or polemical interest did On the whole, however, the oriental thesis has an edge over the
and may treat the term as a class-concept, to be applied wherever Hellenic one, once the meaning of the term "knowledge" is freed
the defining properties are present. Thus the extent of the gnostic from the misleading associations suggested by the tradition of classi-
area can be taken as narrower or broader, depending on the cri- cal philosophy. The recent Coptic discoveries in Upper Egypt (see
terion employed. The Church Fathers considered Gnosticism as below, sec. e) are said to underline the share of a heterodox oc-
essentially a Christian heresy and confined their reports and refuta- cultist Judaism, though judgment must be reserved pending the
tions to systems which either had sprouted already from the soil of translation of the vast body of material.1 Some connection of Gnos-
Christianity (e.g., the Valentinian system), or had somehow added ticism with the beginnings of the Cabbala has in any case to be as-
and adapted the figure of Christ to their otherwise heterogeneous sumed, whatever the order of cause and effect. The violently anti-
teaching (e.g., that of the Phrygian Naassenes), or else through a Jewish bias of the more prominent gnostic systems is by itself not
common Jewish background were close enough to be felt as com- incompatible with Jewish heretical origin at some distance. Inde-
1
peting with and distorting the Christian message (e.g., that of See Chapt. 12.
 MEANING OF GNOSIS AND EXTENT OF GNOSTIC MOVEMENT
34 GNOSTIC LITERATURE—MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE
35
pendently, however, of who the first Gnostics were and what the through sacred and secret lore or through inner illumination re-
main religious traditions drawn into the movement and suffering ar- places rational argument and theory (though this extra-rational basis
bitrary reinterpretation at its hands, the movement itself transcended may then provide scope for independent speculation); on the other
ethnic and denominational boundaries, and its spiritual principle hand, being concerned with the secrets of salvation, "knowledge"
was new. The Jewish strain in Gnosticism is as little the orthodox is not just theoretical information about certain things but is itself,
Jewish as the Babylonian is the orthodox Babylonian, the Iranian as a modification of the human condition, charged with perform-
the orthodox Iranian, and so on. Regarding the case made out for ing a function in the bringing about of salvation. Thus gnostic
a preponderance of Hellenic influence, much depends on how the "knowledge" has an eminently practical aspect. The ultimate "ob-
crucial concept of "knowledge" is to be understood in this context. ject" of gnosis is God: its event in the soul transforms the knower
himself by making him a partaker in the divine existence (which
{d) THE NATURE OF GNOSTIC "KNOWLEDGE" means more than assimilating him to the divine essence). Thus in
"Knowledge" is by itself a purely formal term and does not the more radical systems like the Valentinian the "knowledge" is
specify what is to be known; neither does it specify the psychologi- not only an instrument of salvation but itself the very form in which
cal manner and subjective significance of possessing knowledge or the goal of salvation, i.e., ultimate perfection, is possessed. In these
the ways in which it is acquired. As for what the knowledge is cases knowledge and the attainment of the known by the soul are
about, the associations of the term most familiar to the classically claimed to coincide—the claim of all true mysticism. It is, to be
trained reader point to rational objects, and accordingly to natural sure, also the claim of Greek theoria, but in a different sense.
reason as the organ for acquiring and possessing knowledge. In There, the object of knowledge is the universal, and the cognitive
the gnostic context, however, "knowledge" has an emphatically reli- relation is "optical," i.e., an analogue of the visual relation to objec-
gious or supranatural meaning and refers to objects which we tive form that remains unaffected by the relation. Gnostic "knowl-
nowadays should call those of faith rather than of reason. Now edge" is about the particular (for the transcendent deity is still a
although the relation between faith and knowledge (pistis and particular), and the relation of knowing is mutual, i.e., a being
gnosis) became a major issue in the Church between the gnostic known at the same time, and involving active self-divulgence on
heretics and the orthodox, this was not the modern issue between the part of the "known." There, the mind is "informed" with the
faith and reason with which we are familiar; for the "knowledge” forms it beholds and while it beholds (thinks) them: here, the
of the Gnostics with which simple Christian faith was contrasted subject is "transformed" (from "soul" to "spirit") by the union with
whether in praise or blame was not of the rational kind. Gnosis a reality that in truth is itself the supreme subject in the situation
meant pre-eminently knowledge of God, and from what we have and strictly speaking never an object at all.
said about the radical transcendence of the deity it follows that These few preliminary remarks are sufficient to delimitate the
"knowledge of God" is the knowledge of something naturally un- gnostic type of "knowledge" from the idea of rational theory in
knowable and therefore itself not a natural condition. Its objects terms of which Greek philosophy had developed the concept. Yet
include everything that belongs to the divine realm of being, the suggestions of the term "knowledge" as such, reinforced by the
namely, the order and history of the upper worlds, and what is to fact that Gnosticism produced real thinkers who unfolded the con-
issue from it, namely, the salvation of man. With objects of this tents of the secret "knowledge" in elaborate doctrinal systems and
kind, knowledge as a mental act is vastly different from the rational used abstract concepts, often with philosophical antecedents, in
cognition of philosophy. On the one hand it is closely bound up their exposition, have favored a strong tendency among theologians
with revelationary experience, so that reception of the truth either and historians to explain Gnosticism by the impact of the Greek
ideal of knowledge on the new religious forces which came to the
36 GNOSTIC LITERATURE—MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE MEANING OF GNOSIS AND EXTENT OF GNOSTIC MOVEMENT 37
fore at that time, and more especially on the infancy of Christian integrated, it is forced by the mold to take on a crystal form not its
thought. The genuine theoretical aspirations revealed in the higher own and without chemical analysis will mislead the observer into
type of gnostic speculation, bearing out as it seemed the testimony taking it for a crystal of the original kind. Such a formation is
of the early Church Fathers, led Adolf von Harnack to his famous called in mineralogy a "pseudomorphosis." With the inspired in-
formulation that Gnosticism was "the acute Hellenization of Chris- tuition that distinguished him, amateur as he was in the field,
tianity," while the slower and more measured evolution of orthodox Spengler discerned a similar situation in the period under view and
theology was to be regarded as its "chronic Hellenization." The argued that the recognition of it must govern the understanding of
medical analogy was not meant to designate Hellenization as such all its utterances. According to him, disintegrating Greek thought is
as a disease; but the "acute" stage which! provoked the reaction of the older crystal of the simile, Eastern thought the new substance
the healthy forces in the organism of the Church was understood forced into its mold. Leaving aside the wider historical vista within
as the hasty and therefore disruptive anticipation of the same proc- which Spengler places his observation, it is a brilliant contribution
ess that in its more cautious and less spectacular form led to the to the diagnosis of a historical situation and if used with discrimina-
incorporation of those aspects of the Greek heritage from which tion can greatly help our understanding.
Christian thought could truly benefit. Perspicacious as this diagno-
sis is, as a definition of Gnosticism it falls short in both the terms (e) SURVEY OF SOURCES
that make up the formula, "Hellenization" and "Christianity." It
treats Gnosticism as a solely Christian phenomenon, whereas sub- What are the sources, that is, the literature, from which we have
sequent research has established its wider range; and it gives way to to reconstruct the image of this forgotten creed? The following
the Hellenic appearance of gnostic conceptualization and of the survey aims at representativeness rather than completeness. We
concept of gnosis itself, which in fact only thinly disguises a hetero- have to divide the sources into original and secondary ones, of
geneous spiritual substance. It is the genuineness, i.e., the underiva- which until fairly recently almost none but the latter were known.
tive nature, of this substance that defeats all attempts at derivation We shall take this group first.
that concern more than the outer shell of expression. About the idea Secondary or Indirect Sources
of "knowledge," the great watchword of the movement, it must be
emphasized that its objectification in articulate systems of thought 1. The struggle against Gnosticism as a danger to the true faith
concerning God and the universe was an autonomous achievement occupied a large space in early Christian literature, and the writings
of this substance, not its subjection to a borrowed scheme of theory. devoted to its refutation are by their discussion, by the summaries
The combination of the practical, salvational concept of knowledge they give of gnostic teachings, and frequently also by extensive ver-
with its theoretical satisfaction in quasi-rational systems of thought batim quotation from gnostic writings the most important second-
—the rationalization of the supranatural—was typical of the higher ary source of our knowledge. We may add that until the nineteenth
forms of Gnosticism and gave rise to a kind of speculation previ- century they were (apart from Plotinus' treatise) the only source,
ously unknown but never afterwards to disappear from religious as the victory of the Church naturally led to the disappearance of
thought. the gnostic originals. Of this group we name the great polemical
Yet Harnack's half-truth reflects a fact which is almost as inte- works of the Fathers Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Origen, and Epiphanius
gral to the destiny of the new oriental wisdom as its original sub- in Greek and Tertullian in Latin. Another Father, Clement of
stance: the fact called by Spengler "pseudomorphosis" to which we Alexandria, left among his writings an extremely valuable collection
have alluded before. If a different crystalline substance happens to of Greek Excerpts from the writings of Theodotus, a member of the
fill the hollow left in a geological layer by crystals that have dis- Valentinian school of Gnosticism, representing its Eastern ("Ana-
 MEANING OF GNOSIS AND EXTENT OF GNOSTIC MOVEMENT

tice, silence was there considered the more effective way of dealing
with heresy.
38 GNOSTIC LITERATURE—MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE 5. Finally, the branch of Islamic literature that deals with the 39
variety of religions, late as it is, contains valuable accounts, espe-
tolian") branch. Of its Italic branch Epiphanius has preserved an
cially of the Manichaean religion but also of some more obscure
entire literary document, Ptolemaeus' Letter to Flora. In the case
gnostic sects whose writings had survived into the Islamic period.
of such complete, or almost complete, renderings of the subject of
In language these secondary sources are Greek, Latin, Hebrew,
the attack (among which may be counted also Hippolytus' reports
Syriac, and Arabic.
on the Naassenes and on the book Baruch), our distinction between
secondary and primary sources of course becomes blurred. It is in Primary or Direct Sources
the nature of the case that all the originals preserved through this
These for the most part have come to light only since the
medium, whether whole or in part (the latter is the rule), were
nineteenth century and are constantly being added to through fortu-
Greek. Taken together, these patristic sources give information
nate archaeological finds. The following enumeration is independ-
about a large number of sects, all of them at least nominally Chris-
ent of order of origin and discovery.
tian, though in some cases the Christian veneer is rather thin. A
1. Of inestimable value for the knowledge of Gnosticism out
unique contribution from the pagan camp concerning this group is
side the Christian orbit are the sacred books of the Mandaeans, a
the treatise of Plotinus, the Neoplatonic philosopher, Against the
sect which survives in a few remnants in the region of the lower
Gnostics, or against those who say that the Creator of the World
Euphrates (the modern Iraq), no less violently anti-Christian than
is evil and that the World is bad (Enn. II. 9). It is directed against
anti-Jewish, but including among its prophets John the Baptist in
the teachings of one particular Christian gnostic sect which cannot
opposition to and at the expense of Christ. This is the only instance
be definitely identified with any individual one named in the patristic
of the continued existence of a gnostic religion to the present day.
catalogues but clearly falls into one of their major groupings.
The name is derived from the Aramaic manda, "knowledge," so
2. After the third century the anti-heretical writers had to con
that "Mandaeans" means literally "Gnostics." Their scriptures, writ
cern themselves with the refutation of Manichaeism. They did not
ten in an Aramaic dialect closely related to that of the Talmud,
consider this new religion as part of the gnostic heresy, which in
make up the largest corpus—with the possible exception of the next
its narrower sense had by then been disposed of; but by the broader
group—of original gnostic writings in our possession. It includes
criteria of the history of religion it belongs to the same circle of
mythological and doctrinal treatises, ritual and moral teaching,
ideas. Of the very extensive Christian literature we need name only
liturgy, and collections of hymns and psalms, these last containing
the Acta Archelai, the works of Titus of Bostra (Greek), of St.
some profoundly moving religious poetry.
Augustine (Latin), and of Theodore bar Konai (Syriac). Here too
2. A constantly growing group of sources is constituted by the
a philosophically trained pagan author, Alexander of Lycopolis (in
Christian Coptic-gnostic writings, mostly of the Valentinian school
Egypt), writing one generation after Mani, supplements the Chris
or the larger family of which this school is the outstanding member.
tian chorus.
Coptic was the Egyptian vernacular of the later Hellenistic period,
3. In a qualified way, some of the mystery-religions of late an
descended from the ancient Egyptian with an admixture of Greek.
tiquity also belong to the gnostic circle, insofar as they allegorized
The promotion of this popular language to use as a literary me
their ritual and their original cult-myths in a spirit similar to the
dium reflects the rise of a mass-religion as against the Greek secular
gnostic one: we may mention the mysteries of Isis, Mithras, and
culture of the Hellenistically educated. Until recently, the bulk of
Attis. The sources in this case consist of reports by contemporary
Greek and Latin, mostly pagan, writers.
4. A certain amount of veiled information is scattered in rab'
binical literature, though on the whole, unlike the Christian prac-
40 GNOSTIC LITERATURE—MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE
MEANING OF GNOSIS AND EXTENT OF GNOSTIC MOVEMENT 41
the Coptic-gnostic writings in our possession, such as the Pistis terial. In this case the translation is presumably from the Syriac,
Sophia and the Books of Jeu, represented a rather low and degen- though the interposition of a Greek translation cannot be ruled out.
erate level of gnostic thought, belonging to the declining stage of 4. Another group of original, though later, sources for the
the Sophia speculation. But lately (about 1945) a sensational find at Manichaean religion, this time in its Eastern form, is the so-called
Nag-Hammadi (Chenoboskion) in Upper Egypt has brought to Turfan fragments in Persian and Turkish, found in explorations
light a whole library of a gnostic community, containing in Coptic at the oasis of Turfan in Chinese Turkestan at the beginning of
translation from the Greek hitherto unknown writings of what may this century; to which must be added two Chinese texts also found
be termed the "classical" phase of gnostic literature: among them in Turkestan, a hymn scroll and a treatise quoted by the name of
one of the major books of the Valentinians, the Gospel of Truth— its discoverer and editor Pelliot. These documents—also not yet
if not by Valentinus himself, certainly dating back to the founding edited in full—are evidence of the flowering of a gnostic religion
generation of the school—of which the mere existence and title had so far away as central Asia.
been known from Irenaeus. With the exception of this one part of 5. Longest known to Western scholars has been the corpus of
one codex, just published in full (1956), and some excerpts from Greek writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and often quoted
other parts, the remainder of the extensive new material (thirteen as Poimandres, which strictly speaking is the name of the first
codices, some fragmentary, some almost intact, totaling about 1000 treatise only. The extant corpus, first published in the sixteenth
papyrus pages and presenting about forty-eight writings) has not century, is the remnant of an Egyptian Hellenistic literature of
yet been made known. On the other hand, one codex of the older revelation, called "Hermetic" because of the syncretistic identifica-
Coptic discoveries, after sixty years in the Berlin Museum, has re- tion of the Egyptian god Thoth with the Greek Hermes. A num
cently (1955) for the first time been published in its gnostic parts, ber of references and quotations in late classical writers, both pagan
of which the most important is the Apocryphon of John, a main and Christian, add to the sources for Hermetic thought. This
work of the Barbelo-Gnostics already used by Irenaeus in his ac- literature, not as a whole but in certain portions, reflects gnostic
count of this second-century system. (This and another writing of spirit. The same goes for the closely related alchemistic literature
this collection, the somewhat later Wisdom of Jesus Christ, are also and some of the Greek and Coptic magical papyri, which show an
found in the unedited part of the Nag-Hammadi library—the admixture of gnostic ideas. The Hermetic Poimandres treatise
Apocryphon in no less than three versions, evidence of the esteem it itself, in spite of some signs of Jewish influence, is to be regarded
enjoyed.) as a prime document of independent pagan Gnosticism.
3. Also in the Coptic language is the library of Manichaean 6. There is, finally, gnostic material in some of the New Testa
papyri discovered in Egypt in 1930, the editing of which is still in ment Apocrypha, like the Acts of Thomas and the Odes of Solo
progress. Dating back to the fourth century A.D., the very badly mon—in both these cases in the shape of poems which are among
preserved codices, estimated at about 3500 pages, have so far yielded the finest expressions of gnostic sentiment and belief.
one of Mani's own books, known before by title and, like all his In terms of language, these original sources are Greek, Coptic,
writings, believed irretrievably lost: the Kephalaia, i.e., "Chapters"; Aramaic, Persian, Turkish, and Chinese. (The term "original"
a (the?) Psalm-Boo^ of the early Manichaean community; also does not here exclude ancient translations, like the Turkish and
part of a collection of Homilies (sermons) from the first generation Chinese and most of the Coptic documents.)
after Mani. Barring the Dead Sea Scrolls, this find is easily the
greatest event for the history of religion which archaeology has This survey gives some idea of the wide geographical and
provided within this generation. Like the Mandaean corpus, the linguistic range of gnostic sources and the great variety of gnostic
Coptic Manichaean corpus contains doctrinal as well as poetic ma- groups. Accordingly we can speak of the gnostic doctrine only as
42 GNOSTIC LITERATURE—MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE MEANING OF GNOSIS AND EXTENT OF GNOSTIC MOVEMENT 43
an abstraction. The leading Gnostics displayed pronounced revelation and illumination and even then can hardly be
intellectual individualism, and the mythological imagination of the expressed otherwise than in negative terms.
whole movement was incessantly fertile. Non-conformism was
almost a principle of the gnostic mind and was closely connected Cosmology
with the doctrine of the sovereign "spirit" as a source of direct The universe, the domain of the Archons, is like a vast prison
knowledge and illumination. Already Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. I. 18. 1) whose innermost dungeon is the earth, the scene of man's life.
observed that "Every day every one of them invents something Around and above it the cosmic spheres are ranged like concentric
new." The great system builders like Ptolemaeus, Basilides, Mani enclosing shells. Most frequently there are the seven spheres of the
erected ingenious and elaborate speculative structures which are planets surrounded by the eighth, that of the fixed stars. There
original creations of individual minds yet at the same time variations was, however, a tendency to multiply the structures and make the
and developments of certain main themes shared by all: these scheme more and more extensive: Basilides counted no fewer than
together form what we may call the simpler "basic myth." On a less 365 "heavens." The religious significance of this cosmic architec-
intellectual level, the same basic content is conveyed in fables, ture lies in the idea that everything which intervenes between here
exhortations, practical instructions (moral and magical), hymns, and and the beyond serves to separate man from God, not merely by
prayers. In order to help the reader to see the unity of the whole field spatial distance but through active demonic force. Thus the vast-
before entering into the detailed treatment, we shall outline this ness and multiplicity of the cosmic system express the degree to
"basic myth" that can be abstracted from the confusing variety of which man is removed from God.
the actual material. The spheres are the seats of the Archons, especially of the
"Seven," that is, of the planetary gods borrowed from the Baby-
(f) ABSTRACT OF MAIN GNOSTIC TENETS lonian pantheon. It is significant that these are now often called
by Old Testament names for God (Iao, Sabaoth, Adonai, Elohim,
Theology El Shaddai), which from being synonyms for the one and supreme
The cardinal feature of gnostic thought is the radical dualism God are by this transposition turned into proper names of inferior
that governs the relation of God and world, and correspondingly demonic beings—an example of the pejorative revaluation to which
that of man and world. The deity is absolutely transmundane, its Gnosticism subjected ancient traditions in general and Jewish tra-
nature alien to that of the universe, which it neither created nor dition in particular. The Archons collectively rule over the world,
governs and to which it is the complete antithesis: to the divine and each individually in his sphere is a warder of the cosmic prison.
realm of light, self-contained and remote, the cosmos is opposed as Their tyrannical world-rule is called heimarmene, universal Fate,
the realm of darkness. The world is the work of lowly powers a concept taken over from astrology but now tinged with the
which though they may mediately be descended from Him do not gnostic anti-cosmic spirit. In its physical aspect this rule is the law
know the true God and obstruct the knowledge of Him in the of nature; in its psychical aspect, which includes for instance the
cosmos over which they rule. The genesis of these lower powers, the institution and enforcement of the Mosaic Law, it aims at the
Archons (rulers), and in general that of all the orders of being enslavement of man. As guardian of his sphere, each Archon bars
outside God, including the world itself, is a main theme of gnostic the passage to the souls that seek to ascend after death, in order
speculation, of which we shall give examples later. The transcendent to prevent their escape from the world and their return to God.
God Himself is hidden from all creatures and is unknowable by The Archons are also the creators of the world, except where this
natural concepts. Knowledge of Him requires supranatural role is reserved for their leader, who then has the name of demi-
44 GNOSTIC LITERATURE—MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE MEANING OF GNOSIS AND EXTENT OF GNOSTIC MOVEMENT 45
urge (the world-artificer in Plato's Timaeus) and is often painted What liberates is the knowledge of who we were, what we became;
with the distorted features of the Old Testament God. where we were, where into we have been thrown; whereto we speed,
wherefrom we are redeemed; what birth is, and what rebirth.
Anthropology (Exc. Theod. 78. 2)

Man, the main object of these vast dispositions, is composed of This knowledge, however, is withheld from him by his very situa-
flesh, soul, and spirit. But reduced to ultimate principles, his origin tion, since "ignorance" is the essence of mundane existence, just as
is twofold: mundane and extra-mundane. Not only the body but it was the principle of the world's coming into existence. In par-
also the "soul" is a product of the cosmic powers, which shaped the ticular, the transcendent God is unknown in the world and cannot
body in the image of the divine Primal (or Archetypal) Man and be discovered from it; therefore revelation is needed. The necessity
animated it with their own psychical forces: these are the appetites for it is grounded in the nature of the cosmic situation; and its
and passions of natural man, each of which stems from and corre- occurrence alters this situation in its decisive respect, that of "ig-
sponds to one of the cosmic spheres and all of which together make norance," and is thus itself already a part of salvation. Its bearer
up the astral soul of man, his "psyche." Through his body and his is a messenger from the world of light who penetrates the barriers
soul man is a part of the world and subjected to the heimarmene. of the spheres, outwits the Archons, awakens the spirit from its
Enclosed in the soul is the spirit, or "pneuma" (called also the earthly slumber, and imparts to it the saving knowledge "from
"spark"), a portion of the divine substance from beyond which has without." The mission of this transcendent savior begins even
fallen into the world; and the Archons created man for the express before the creation of the world (since the fall of the divine element
purpose of keeping it captive there. Thus, as in the macrocosm man preceded the creation) and runs parallel to its history. The knowl-
is enclosed by the seven spheres, so in the human microcosm again edge thus revealed, even though called simply "the knowledge of
the pneuma is enclosed by the seven soul-vestments originating God," comprises the whole content of the gnostic myth, with every-
from them. In its unredeemed state the pneuma thus immersed in thing it has to teach about God, man, and world; that is, it con-
soul and flesh is unconscious of itself, benumbed, asleep, or intox- tains the elements of a theoretical system. On the practical side,
icated by the poison of the world: in brief, it is "ignorant." Its however, it is more particularly "knowledge of the way," namely,
awakening and liberation is effected through "knowledge."
of the soul's way out of the world, comprising the sacramental and
magical preparations for its future ascent and the secret names and
Eschatology formulas that force the passage through each sphere. Equipped
The radical nature of the dualism determines that of the doc- with this gnosis, the soul after death travels upwards, leaving be-
trine of salvation. As alien as the transcendent God is to "this hind at each sphere the psychical "vestment" contributed by it:
world" is the pneumatic self in the midst of it. The goal of gnostic thus the spirit stripped of all foreign accretions reaches the God
striving is the release of the "inner man" from the bonds of the beyond the world and becomes reunited with the divine substance.
world and his return to his native realm of light. The necessary On the scale of the total divine drama, this process is part of the
condition for this is that he knows about the transmundane God restoration of the deity's own wholeness, which in pre-cosmic times
and about himself, that is, about his divine origin as well as his has become impaired by the loss of portions of the divine substance.
present situation, and accordingly also about the nature of the world It is through these alone that the deity became involved in the
which determines this situation. As a famous Valentinian formula destiny of the world, and it is to retrieve them that its messenger
puts it, intervenes in cosmic history. With the completion of this process
46 GNO6TIC LITERATURE—MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE MEANING OF GNOSIS AND EXTENT OF GNOSTIC MOVEMENT 47
of gathering in (according to some systems), the cosmos, deprived in the denser medium of imagery and personification. In the fol-
of its elements of light, will come to an end. lowing chapters we have to fill in the framework of our generalized
account with the substance of gnostic metaphor and myth, and on
Morality the other hand present some of the elaborations of this basic con-
In this life the pneumatics, as the possessors of gnosis called tent into speculative systems of thought.
themselves, are 8et apart from the great mass of mankind. The
immediate illumination not only makes the individual sovereign in
the sphere of knowledge (hence the limitless variety of gnostic
doctrines) but also determines the sphere of action. Generally
speaking, the pneumatic morality is determined by hostility toward
the world and contempt for all mundane ties. From this principle,
however, two contrary conclusions could be drawn, and both found
their extreme representatives: the ascetic and the libertine. The
former deduces from the possession of gnosis the obligation to avoid
further contamination by the world and therefore to reduce contact
with it to a minimum; the latter derives from the same possession
the privilege of absolute freedom. We shall deal later with the
complex theory of gnostic libertinism. In this preliminary account
a few remarks must suffice. The law of "Thou shalt" and "Thou
shalt not" promulgated by the Creator is just one more form of the
"cosmic" tyranny. The sanctions attaching to its transgression can
affect only the body and the psyche. As the pneumatic is free from
the heimarmene, so he is free from the yoke of the moral law. To
him all things are permitted, since the pneuma is "saved in its
nature" and can be neither sullied by actions nor frightened by the
threat of archontic retribution. The pneumatic freedom, however,
is a matter of more than mere indifferent permission: through in-
tentional violation of the demiurgical norms the pneumatic thwarts
the design of the Archons and paradoxically contributes to the
work of salvation. This antinomian libertinism exhibits more force-
fully than the ascetic version the nihilistic element contained in
gnostic acosmism.
Even the reader unfamiliar with the subject will realize from
the foregoing abstract that, whatever heights of conceptualization
gnostic theory attained to in individual thinkers, there is an in-
dissoluble mythological core to gnostic thought as such. Far remote
from the rarefied atmosphere of philosophical reasoning, it moves
 GNOSTIC IMAGERY AND SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE 49
to exaggerate the importance of the Mandaeans in the general
picture of Gnosticism.

Chapter 3. Gnostic Imagery and Symbolic (a) THE "ALIEN"

Language "In the name of the great first alien Life from the worlds of
light, the sublime that stands above all works": this is the standard
At his first encounter with gnostic literature, the reader will be opening of Mandaean compositions, and "alien" is a constant at-
struck by certain recurrent elements of expression which by their tribute of the "Life" that by its nature is alien to this world and
intrinsic quality, even outside the wider context, reveal something under certain conditions alien within it. The formula quoted speaks
of the fundamental experience, the mode of feeling, and the vision of the "first" Life "that stands above all works," where we have to
of reality distinctively characteristic of the gnostic mind. These supply "of creation," i.e., above the world. The concept of the
expressions range from single words with symbolic suggestion to alien Life is one of the great impressive word-symbols which we
extensive metaphors; and more than for their frequency of occur- encounter in gnostic speech, and it is new in the history of human
rence, they are significant for their inherent eloquence, often en- speech in general. It has equivalents throughout gnostic literature,
hanced by startling novelty. In this chapter we shall consider some for example Marcion's concept of the "alien God" or just "the Al-
of them. The advantage of this line of approach is that it confronts ien," "the Other," "the Unknown," "the Nameless," "the Hidden";
us with a level of utterance more fundamental than the doctrinal or the "unknown Father" in many Christian-gnostic writings. Its
differentiation into which gnostic thought branched out in the philosophic counterpart is the "absolute transcendence" of Neopla-
completed systems. tonic thought. But even apart from these theological uses where it
Especially rich in the kind of original coinage that displays the is one of the predicates of God or of the highest Being, the word
stamp of the gnostic mind with telling force is the Mandaean "alien" (and its equivalents) has its own symbolic significance as an
literature. This wealth of expressiveness is at least in part the ob- expression of an elemental human experience, and this underlies the
verse of its poorness on the theoretical side; it is also connected different uses of the word in the more theoretical contexts. Re-
with the fact that owing to their geographical and social remoteness garding this underlying experience, the combination "the alien
from Hellenistic influence the Mandaeans were less exposed than life" is particularly instructive.
most to the temptation to assimilate the expression of their ideas The alien is that which stems from elsewhere and does not
to Western intellectual and literary conventions. In their writings belong here. To those who do belong here it is thus the strange,
mythological fantasy abounds, the compactness of its imagery un- the unfamiliar and incomprehensible; but their world on its part
attenuated by any ambition toward conceptualization, its variety is just as incomprehensible to the alien that comes to dwell here, and
unchecked by care for consistency and system. Although this lack like a foreign land where it is far from home. Then it suffers the
of intellectual discipline often makes tedious the reading of their lot of the stranger who is lonely, unprotected, uncomprehended,
larger compositions, which are highly repetitious, the unsophisti- and uncomprehending in a situation full of danger. Anguish and
cated colorfulness of mythical vision that permeates them offers homesickness are a part of the stranger's lot. The stranger who does
ample compensation; and in Mandaean poetry the gnostic soul not know the ways of the foreign land wanders about lost; if he
pours forth its anguish, nostalgia, and relief in an unending stream learns its ways too well, he forgets that he is a stranger and gets
of powerful symbolism. For the purposes of this chapter, we shall lost in a different sense by succumbing to the lure of the alien
accordingly draw heavily on this source, without thereby wishing world and becoming estranged from his own origin. Then he has
48
 GNOSTIC LITERATURE—MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE GNOSTIC IMAGERY AND SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE 51
50
become a "son of the house." This too is part of the alien's time it most directly expresses the basic experience which first
fate. In his alienation from himself the distress has gone, but this led to this conception of the "way" of existence—the elementary ex-
very fact is the culmination of the stranger's tragedy. The perience of alienness and transcendence. We may therefore regard
recollection of his own alienness, the recognition of his place of the figure of the "alien Life" as a primary symbol of Gnosticism.
exile for what it is, is the first step back; the awakened homesickness
is the beginning of the return. All this belongs to the "suffering" side
(b) "BEYOND," "WITHOUT," "THIS WORLD,"
of alien-ness. Yet with relation to its origin it is at the same time
AND "THE OTHER WORLD"
a mark of excellence, a source of power and of a secret life unknown
to the environment and in the last resort impregnable to it, as it is To this central concept other terms and images are organically
incomprehensible to the creatures of this world. This superiority of related. If the "Life" is originally alien, then its home is "outside"
the alien which distinguishes it even here, though secretly, is its or "beyond" this world. "Beyond" here means beyond everything
manifest glory in its own native realm, which is outside this world. that is of the cosmos, heaven and its stars included. And "included"
In such position the alien is the remote, the inaccessible, and its literally: the idea of an absolute "without" limits the world to a
strangeness means majesty. Thus the alien taken absolutely is the closed and bounded system, terrifying in its vastness and inclusive-
wholly transcendent, the "beyond," and an eminent attribute of ness to those who are lost in it, yet finite within the total scope of
God. being. It is a power-system, a demonic entity charged with personal
Both sides of the idea of the-"Alien," the positive and the tendencies and compulsive forces. The limitation by the idea of the
negative, alienness as superiority and as suffering, as the preroga- "beyond" deprives the "world" of its claim to totality. As long as
tive of remoteness and as the fate of involvement, alternate as the "world" means "the All," the sum total of reality, there is only
characteristics of one and the same subject—the "Life." As the "the" world, and further specification would be pointless: if the
"great first Life" it partakes in the positive aspect alone: it is "be- cosmos ceases to be the All, if it is limited by something radically
yond," "above the world," "in the worlds of light," "in the fruits of "other" yet eminently real, then it must be designated as "this"
splendor, in the courts of light, in the house of perfection," and world. All relations of man's terrestrial existence are "in this
so forth. In its split-off existence in the world it tragically partakes world," "of this world," which is in contrast to "the other world,"
in the interpenetration of both sides; and the actualization of all the habitation of "Life." Seen from beyond, however, and in the
the features outlined above, in a dramatic succession that is gov- eyes of the inhabitants of the worlds of Light and Life, it is our
erned by the theme of salvation, makes up the metaphysical history world which appears as "that world." The demonstrative pro-
of the light exiled from Light, of the life exiled from Life and noun has thus become a relevant addition to the term "world";
involved in the world—the history of its alienation and recovery, and the combination is again a fundamental linguistic symbol of
its "way" down and through the nether world and up again. Ac- Gnosticism, closely related to the primary concept of the "alien."
cording to the various stages of this history, the term "alien" or its
equivalents can enter into manifold combinations: "my alien soul,"
(c) WORLDS AND AEONS
"my worldsick heart," "the lonely vine," apply to the human condi-
tion, while "the alien man" and "the stranger" apply to the mes- It is in line with this view of things that "world" comes to be
senger from the world of Light—though he may apply to himself used in the plural. The expression "the worlds" denotes the long
the former terms as well, as we shall see when we consider the "re- chain of such closed power-domains, divisions of the larger cosmic
deemed redeemer." Thus by implication the very concept of the system, through which Life has to pass on its way, all of them
"alien" includes in its meaning all the aspects which the "way" equally alien to it. Only by losing its status of totality, by becoming
explicates in the form of temporally distinct phases. At the same
 GNOSTIC IMAGERY AND SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE 53
52 GNOSTIC LITERATURE—MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE
themselves are as much spatial realms as they are persons. To
particularized and at the same time demonized, did the concept
overcome them is the same thing as to pass through them, and in
"world" come to admit of plurality. We might also say that
breaking through their boundaries this passage at the same time
"world" denotes a collective rather than a unity, a demonic family
breaks their power and achieves the liberation from the magic of
rather than a unique individual. The plurality denotes also the
their sphere. Thus even in its role as redeemer the Life in Man-
labyrinthine aspect of the world: in the worlds the soul loses its
daean writings says of itself that it "wandered through the worlds":
way and wanders about, and wherever it seeks an escape it only
or as Jesus is made to say in the Naassene Psalm, "All the worlds
passes from one world into another that is no less world. This
shall I journey through, all the mysteries unlock."
multiplication of demonic systems to which unredeemed life is
This is the spatial aspect of the conception. No less demonized
banished is a theme of many gnostic teachings. To the "worlds"
is the time dimension of life's cosmic existence, which also is repre-
of the Mandaeans correspond the "aeons" of Hellenistic Gnosticism. sented as an order of quasi-personal powers (e.g., the "Aeons"). Its
Usually there are seven or twelve (corresponding to the number of quality, like that of the world's space, reflects the basic experience
the planets or the signs of the zodiac), but in some systems the of alienness and exile. Here too we meet the plurality we observed
plurality proliferates to dizzying and terrifying dimensions, up to there: whole series of ages stretch between the soul and its goal, and
365 "heavens" or the innumerable "spaces," "mysteries" (here used their mere number expresses the hold which the cosmos as a prin-
topologically), and "aeons" of the Pistis Sophia. Through all of ciple has over its captives. Here again, escape is achieved only by
them, representing so many degrees of separation from the light, passing through them all. Thus the way of salvation leads through
"Life" must pass in order to get out. the temporal order of the "generations": through chains of unnum-
You see, O child, through how many bodies [elements?], how many bered generations the transcendent Life enters the world, sojourns
ranks of demons, how many concatenations and revolutions of stars, we in it, and endures its seemingly endless duration, and only through
have to work our way in order to hasten to the one and only God. this long and laborious way, with memory lost and regained, can
(CM. IV. 8) it fulfill its destiny. This explains the impressive formula "worlds
It is to be understood even where it is not expressly stated that the and generations" which constantly occurs in Mandaean writings:
role of these intervening forces is inimical and obstructive: with "I wandered through worlds and generations," says the redeemer.
the spatial extent they symbolize at the same time the anti-divine To the unredeemed soul (which may be that of the redeemer him-
and imprisoning power of this world. "The way that we have to self), this time perspective is a source of anguish. The terror of
go is long and endless" (G 433) j 1 "How wide are the boundaries the vastness of cosmic spaces is matched by the terror of the times
of these worlds of darkness!" (G 155); that have to be endured: "How long have I endured already and
Having once strayed into the labyrinth of evils, been dwelling in the world!" (G 458).
The wretched [Soul] finds no way out . . . She This twofold aspect of the cosmic terror, the spatial and the
seeks to escape from the bitter chaos, And knows temporal, is well exhibited in the complex meaning of the gnosti-
not how she shall get through. cally adapted Hellenistic concept of "Aeon." Originally a time-
(Naassene Psalm, Hippol. V. 10. 2) concept purely (duration of life, length of cosmic time, hence
eternity), it underwent personification in pre-gnostic Hellenistic
Apart from all personification, the whole of space in which life
religion—possibly an adaptation of the Persian god Zervan—and
finds itself has a malevolently spiritual character, and the "demons"
x
became an object of worship, even then with some fearsome associa-
Mandaean quotations are based on the German translation by M. Lidzbarski,
"G" standing for Ginza: Der Schatz oder das Crosse Buck der Mandiier, Gottingen,
tions. In Gnosticism it takes a further mythological turn and be-
1925, "J" for Das Johannesbuch der Mandiier, Giessen, 1915. Numbers after the comes a class-name for whole categories of either divine, semi-
letter indicate pages of these publications.
54 GNOSTIC LITERATURE—MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE GNOSTIC IMAGERY AND SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE 55
divine, or demonic beings. In the last sense "the Aeons" represent
with temporal as well as spatial implications the demonic power of (d) THE COSMIC HABITATION AND THE STRANGER'S
the universe or (as in the Pistis Sophia) of the realm of darkness in SOJOURN
its enormity. Their extreme personification may sometimes all but
obliterate the original time aspect, but in the frequent equating For the world as a whole, vast as it appears to its inhabitants,
of "aeons" with "worlds" that aspect is kept alive as part of a mean- we have thus the visual image of an enclosed cell—what Marcion
ing become rather protean through the drifts of mythical imagina- contemptuously called haec cellula creatoris—into which or out of
tion.2 which life may move. "To come from outside" and "to get out"
The feeling inspired by the time aspect of cosmic exile finds are standard phrases in gnostic literature. Thus the Life or the
moving expression in words like these: Light "has come into this world," "has travelled here"; it "departs
into the world," it can stand "at the outer rim of the worlds" and
In that world [of darkness] I dwelt thousands of myriads of years, thence, "from without," "call into" the world. We shall later deal
and nobody knew of me that I was there. . . . Year upon year and with the religious significance of these expressions: at present we
generation upon generation I was there, and they did not know about are concerned with the symbolic topology and with the immediate
me that I dwelt in their world. eloquence of the imagery.
(G 153 f.)8 The sojourn "in the world" is called "dwelling," the world
itself a "dwelling" or "house," and in contrast to the bright dwell-
or (from a Turkish Manichaean text):
ings, the "dark" or the "base" dwelling, "the mortal house." The
Now, O our gracious Father, numberless myriads of years have idea of "dwelling" has two aspects: on the one hand it implies a
passed since we were separated from thee. Thy beloved shining living temporary state, something contingent and therefore revocable—a
countenance we long to behold. . . . dwelling can be exchanged for another, it can be abandoned and
(Abh. d. Pr. A\ad. 1912, p. 10) even allowed to go to ruin; on the other hand, it implies the de-
pendence of life on its surroundings—the place where he dwells
The immeasurable cosmic duration means separation from God, as makes a decisive difference to the dweller and determines his
does the towering scale of cosmic spaces, and the demonic quality whole condition. He can therefore only change one dwelling for
of both consists in maintaining this separation. another one, and the extra-mundane existence is also called "dwell-
"In the singular, "aeon" can simply mean "the world," and is as "this ing," this time in the seats of Light and Life, which though infinite
aeon" in Jewish and Christian thought opposed to "the coming aeon": here the have their own order of bounded regions. When Life settles in the
model was probably the Hebrew word olam (Aram, alma), whose original meaning world, the temporary belonging thus established may lead to its
of "eternity" came to include that of "world." The Mandaean plural almaya can
mean "worlds" and "beings," the latter in a personal (superhuman) sense. Per- becoming "a son of the house" and make necessary the reminder,
sonification is joined to the New Testament concept of "this aeon" by expressions "Thou wert not from here, and thy root was not of the world"
like "the god [or, "the rulers"] of this aeon." (G 379). If the emphasis is on the temporary and transient nature
"These are words spoken by the savior; but how close his situation is to
that of the life exiled in the world in general, i.e., of those to be saved, is shown of the worldly sojourn and on the condition of being a stranger,
by the words with which he is sent forth on his mission: "Go, go, our son and our the world is called also the "inn," in which one "lodges"; and
image. . . . The place to which thou goest—grievous suffering awaits thee in those "to keep the inn" is a formula for "to be in the world" or "in the
worlds of darkness. Generation after generation shalt thou remain there, until we
forget thee. Thy form will remain there, until we read for thee the mass for the body." The creatures of this world are the "fellow-dwellers of the
dead" (G 152 f.). inn," though their relation to it is not that of guests: "Since I was
 GNOSTIC IMAGERY AND SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE 57
56 GNOSTIC LITERATURE—MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE

one and kept to myself, I was a stranger to my fellow-dwellers in

the inn" ("Hymn of the Pearl" in the Ada Thomae). (e) "LIGHT" AND "DARKNESS," "LIFE" AND "DEATH"
The same expressions can refer also to the body, which is
We have to add a few words about the antithesis of light and
eminently the "house" of life and the instrument of the world's
darkness that is so constant a feature in this account. Its symbolism
power over the Life that is enclosed in it. More particularly,
meets us everywhere in gnostic literature, but for reasons we shall
"tent" and "garment" denote the body as a passing earthly form
discuss later its most emphatic and doctrinally important use is to
encasing the soul; these too, however, can also be applied to the
be found in what we shall call the Iranian strain of Gnosticism,
world. A garment is donned and doffed and changed, the earthly
which is also one component of Mandaean thought. Most of the
garment for that of light.
following examples are taken from this area and therefore imply
Cut off from its fountainhead, the Life languishes in the bodily the Iranian version of gnostic dualism. Irrespective of the theoret-
garment:
ical context, however, the symbolism reflects a universal gnostic
I am a Mana4 of the great Life. Who has made me live in the attitude. The first alien Life is the "King of Light," whose world
Tibil,5 who has thrown me into the body-stump? is "a world of splendor and of light without darkness," "a world
(G 454) of mildness without rebellion, a world of righteousness without
turbulence, a world of eternal life without decay and death, a world
A Mana am I of the great Life. Who has thrown me into the
of goodness without evil. . . . A pure world unmixed with ill"
suffering of the worlds, who has transported me to the evil darkness?
So long I endured and dwelt in the world, so long I dwelt among the (G 10). Opposed to it is the "world of darkness, utterly full of
works of my hands. evil, . . . full of devouring fire . . . full of falsehood and deceit.
(G 457 f.) . . . A world of turbulence without steadfastness, a world of dark-
ness without light . . . a world of death without eternal life, a
Grief and woe I suffer in the body-garment into which they trans- world in which the good things perish and plans come to naught"
ported and cast me. How often must I put it off, how often put it on, (G 14). Mani, who most completely adopted the Iranian version
must ever and again settle my strife6 and not behold the Life in its
of dualism, commences his doctrine of origins, as reported in the
sh'kina.7
Fihrist, an Arabic source, as follows: "Two beings were at the
(G 461)
beginning of the world, the one Light, the other Darkness." On
From all this arises the question addressed to the great Life: "Why this assumption the existing world, "this" world, is a mixture of
hast thou created this world, why hast thou ordered the tribes [of light and darkness, yet with a preponderance of darkness: its main
Life] into it out of thy midst?" (G 437). The answer to such ques- substance is darkness, its foreign admixture, light. In the given
tions differs from system to system: the questions themselves are state of things, the duality of darkness and light coincides with
more basic than any particular doctrine and immediately reflect that of "this world" and "the other world," since darkness has
the underlying human condition. embodied its whole essence and power in this world, which now
4 therefore is the world of darkness. 8 The equation "world (cos-
See Glossary at end of chapter, pp. 97-99.
5 8
See Glossary, p. 98. The king of primal darkness is even in the pre-cosmic stage called "the
6
"Settle my strife": formula for "die." King of this world" and "of these aeons," although according to the system the
7
See Glossary, p. 98. "world" stems only from a mingling of the two principles. A Mandaean parallel
to Mani's teaching about the origins whose opening sentence we quoted above reads:
"Two kings there were, two natures were created: one king of this world and one
king of outside the worlds. The king of these aeons put on a sword and a crown
58 GNOSTIC LITERATURE—MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE GNOSTIC IMAGERY AND SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE 59

mos) = darkness" is in fact independent of and more basic than brought the refreshing wind and cast it into the scorching wind. They
brought the living fire and cast it into the devouring fire. They brought
the particular theory of origins just exemplified, and as an expres-
the soul, the pure Mana, and cast it into the worthless body.
sion of the given condition admits of widely divergent types of
(J56)
derivation, as we shall see later. The equation as such is symbol-
ically valid for Gnosticism in general. In the Hermetic Corpus we The mixing is here expressed in terms of the five basic elements
find the exhortation, "Turn ye away from the dark light" (CU. I. of the Manichaean scheme, which obviously underlies this Man-
28), where the paradoxical combination drives home the point that daean text.
even the light so called in this world is in truth darkness. "For the
Thou hast taken the treasure of Life and cast it onto the worthless
cosmos is the fulness of evil, God the fulness of good" (C.H. VI.
earth. Thou hast taken the word of Life and cast it into the word of
4); and as "darkness" and "evil," so is "death" a symbol of the mortality.
world as such. "He who is born of the mother is brought forth into (G 362)
death and the cosmos: he who is reborn of Christ is transported
into life and the Eight [i.e., removed from the power of the As it entered the turbid water, the living water lamented and wept.
Seven]" (Exc. Theod. 80. 1). Thus we understand the Hermetic . . . As he mingled the living water with the turbid, darkness entered
the light.
statement quoted in Macrobius (In somn. Scip. I. 11) that the soul
(J 216)
"through as many deaths as she passes spheres descends to what on
earth is called life." Even the messenger is subject to the fate of mixture:
Then the living fire in him became changed. . . . His splendor
(/) "MIXTURE," "DISPERSAL," THE "ONE," was impaired and dulled. . . . See how the splendor of the alien man
AND THE "MANY" is diminished!
(G 98 f.)
To return once more to the Iranian conception, the idea of two
In Manichaeism the doctrine of mixing, with its counterpart of
original and opposite entities leads to the metaphor of "mixture"
unmixing, forms the basis of the whole cosmological and soteriolog-
for the origin and composition of this world. The mixture is,
ical system, as will be shown in a later chapter.
however, an uneven one, and the term essentially denotes the
Closely connected with the idea of "mixing" is that of "dis-
tragedy of the portions of the Light separated from its main body
persal." If portions of the Light or the first Life have been sep-
and immersed in the foreign element.
arated from it and mixed in with the darkness, then an original
I am I, the son of the mild ones [i.e., the beings of Light], Mingled unity has been split up and given over to plurality: the splinters are
am I, and lamentation I see. Lead me out of the embracement of death. the sparks dispersed throughout the creation. "Who took the song
(Turfan fragment M 7) of praise, broke it asunder and cast it hither and thither?" (J 13).
They brought living water9 and poured it into the turbid water;9 The very creation of Eve and the scheme of reproduction initiated
they brought shining light and cast it into the dense darkness. They by it subserve the indefinite further dispersion of the particles of
light which the powers of darkness have succeeded in engulfing
of darkness [etc.]" (J 55). Logically speaking, this is inconsistent; but symbolically
it is more genuinely gnostic than Mani's abstraction, since the principle of "dark- and by this means endeavor to retain the more securely. Conse-
ness" is here from the outset defined as that of the "world" from whose gnostic quently, salvation involves a process of gathering in, of re-collection
experience it had first been conceived. "World" is determined by darkness, and of what has been so dispersed, and salvation aims at the restoration
"darkness" solely by world.
9
See Glossary, pp. 97 and 99, respectively. of the original unity.
60 GNOSTIC LITERATURE --- MAIN TENETS, SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE GNOSTIC IMAGERY AND SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE 61

I am thou and thou art I, and where thou art I am, and in all the "restoring of Unity" and the "engulfing of Matter" mean no
things am I dispersed. And from wherever thou willst thou gatherest less than the actual dissolution of the whole lower world, i.e.,
me; but in gathering me thou gatherest thyself.10 sensible nature as such—not by an act of external force but solely
by an inner event of mind: "knowledge" on a transcendental scale.
This self-gathering is regarded as proceeding pari passu with the
We shall see later (Ch. 8) by what speculative principle the Valen-
progress of "knowledge," and its completion as a condition for
tinians established this objective and ontological efficacy of what at
the ultimate release from the world:
first sight seems to be a merely private and subjective act; and
He who attains to this gnosis and gathers himself from the cosmos how their doctrine justified the equating of individual unification
. . . is no longer detained here but rises above the Archons;11 with the reuniting of the universe with God.
and by proclaiming this very feat the ascending soul answers the Both the universal (metaphysical) and the individual (mys-
challenge of the celestial gatekeepers: tical) aspects of the idea of unity and its opposites became abiding
themes of succeeding speculation as it moved even farther away
I have come to know myself and have gathered myself from every- from mythology. Origen, whose proximity to gnostic thought is
where. . . ,12
obvious in his system (duly anathematized by the Church), viewed
It is easy to see from these quotations that the concept of unity the whole movement of reality in the categories of the loss and
and unification, like that of plurality, diversity, and dispersal, has recovery of metaphysical Unity.13 But it was Plotinus who in his
an inward as well as metaphysical aspect, i.e., applies to the in- speculation drew the full mystical conclusions from the metaphysics
dividual self as it does to universal being, ft is a mark of the of "Unity versus Plurality." Dispersal and gathering, ontological
higher, or more philosophical, forms of Gnosis that these two categories of total reality, are at the same time action-patterns of
aspects, complementary from the beginning, come to ever more each soul's potential experience, and unification within is union
complete coincidence; and that the increasing realization of the with the One. Thus emerges the Neoplatonic scheme of the inner
internal aspect purifies the metaphysical one of the cruder mytho- ascent from the Many to the One that is ethical on the first rungs
logical meanings it had to begin with. To the Valentinians, whose of the ladder, then theoretical, and at the culminating stage mys-
spiritualized symbolism marks an important step on the road of de- tical.
mythologizing, "unification" is the very definition of what the
"knowledge of the Father" is to achieve for "each one": Endeavor to ascend into thyself, gathering in from the body all thy
members which have been dispersed and scattered into multiplicity from
It is by means of Unity that each one shall receive himself back that unity which once abounded in the greatness of its power. Bring
again. Through knowledge he shall purify himself of diversity with a together and unify the inborn ideas and try to articulate those that are
view to Unity, by engulfing (devouring) the Matter within himself like confused and to draw into light those that are obscured.
a flame, Darkness by Light and Death by Life. (Porphyr. Ad Marcell. x)
(GT 25:10-19)
It must be noted that in the Valentinian system the same achieve- It was probably through the writings of Porphyry that this
ment is ascribed to gnosis on the plane of universal being where Neoplatonic conception of unification as a principle of personal life
came to Augustine, in whose intensely subjective manner the em-
"From a fragment of the gnostic Gospel of Eve preserved by Epiphanius (Haer..
26. 3). phasis at last shifts from the metaphysical aspect entirely to the
n
Ibid., 26. 10. moral one.
**lbtd., 26. 13; the passage is quoted below in full, p. 168.
13
See Jonas, Gnosis und spatantiker Geist, II, 1, pp. 175-223.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
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 CHAPTER XI

THE MANIPULATION OF GLASS

GLASS MAKERS’ TOOLS AND MACHINES

The tools used by the glass blowers are few and simple. The greater
part of the crude form is produced by blowing out the hot glass into
a spherical or pear-shaped bulb and regulating the size and
thickness by gathering more or less material. The tools are mainly
employed in finishing and shaping this bulb into the desired form,
such as shearing, forming the neck spout, crimpling, and sticking on
the handles to the various shapes made.
According to the type of the goods manufactured, different
manipulative methods in forming the articles are adopted in various
works.
The best English table glassware is mostly hand-made blown
ware, generally entirely executed by the handicraft of the workman
without the aid of moulds to form any part of the articles, and a
considerable amount of skill and practice is necessary before the
workman is competent enough to shape a number of articles exactly
to the form of his model. It is astonishing to notice the skill and
precision with which a workman produces wine-glasses one after
another, so uniform that one cannot trace any dissimilarity between
them.
A second class, or cheaper form, of tableware is made by blowing
the sphere or bulb of hot glass within a mould, to give some part, or
the whole form, of the desired article. If only a portion of the
intended shape is thus formed by the mould, it is afterwards finished
by hand with tools. This is the general continental method of
working, and has only been partially adopted by this country for
making tableware. Where a number of articles of one shape have to
be produced, this is by far the most economical method. Glass
tumblers, honey pots, and rose bowls illustrate this class of ware.
Another class of tableware produced by a method of pressing the
form is known as “Pressed glassware.” The hot metal is gathered
from the pot and a portion cut off, and allowed to fall into an iron
mould fixed within a lever press, which carries a plunger fitting
within the mould formed to shape the interior and exterior, with the
thickness of the glass as the intermediate space between them. As
the hot glass is introduced, the workman brings down the lever arm
and the plunger presses the hot metal to shape. The plunger is then
released and the mould reversed, turning out the pressed form of
glass, which is then carried away to be fire-polished or further
manipulated with tools before it goes to the lehr. The case or mould
portion is made in two halves, to facilitate the removal of the hot
glass after being pressed. Pressed glass tableware can be recognised
by the presence of seams, showing these divisions of the mould.
Many exquisite designs imitating cut-glass tableware are executed in
pressed glassware. The moulds are a very expensive item, as there
is much tool work in cutting the patterns and refacing them after
prolonged use. In making pressed goods, an oily, carbonaceous
liquid is used to give the moulds some protection and prevent the
oxidation of the iron. This liquid is from time to time applied, as the
work of pressing proceeds, by mopping the interior of the mould
with a mop dipped in the preparation.
Another process in glassmaking is that of bottle-making by
automatic machinery, in which the glass worker does little but gather
the requisite quantity of glass from the pot and place it into the
revolving clips of a bottle-making machine, which does the work of
formation, by the aid of compressed air delivered from a supply
main. This is largely of American introduction, and is the method
adopted in making common bottles. In some cases the bottle neck
may be finished by a hand tool after a mould has done its part of
forming the bottle. Modern machines have been perfected to do the
whole work of gathering the metal, forming the shape, and
completing the bottle; a number of arms travelling round a track
carry the mould forms, which alternately dip into water to keep them
cool, open to receive the hot metal, close, deliver a requisite
pressure of air to extend the hot glass within the mould, and then
deliver the bottle on to a travelling belt, which takes them to be
annealed.
In the manufacture of bottles by machines, hand labour is
practically eliminated as far as the actual making of the bottle is
concerned. The bottle-making industry is undergoing great changes
by the introduction of such machinery. In some plants a ten-armed
machine will produce automatically 120 gross of 16 oz. bottles in
twenty-four hours, at an average cost of 1s. 6d. a gross.
Owen’s Bottle-making Machines are of this type. Such machines
produce 700 bottles an hour, according to their size and the number
of arms fitted to the machine.
As an illustration of a less complicated bottle-making machine,
“The Harlington” may be described.
This machine consists principally of a table, on which is arranged
on the left-hand side a parrison mould, and on the right-hand side a
column with a revolving table carrying two finishing moulds.
 By permission of Melin & Co.
“THE HARLINGTON” BOTTLE-MAKING MACHINE

Below the table, near the parrison mould, is arranged an air

cylinder, through which a piston runs, operated by a hand lever. On
the upper part of the column, on which revolves the table with the
two finishing moulds, is also arranged an air cylinder operated by a
hand lever.
The method of working is now as follows—
A gatherer puts the metal into the parrison mould into which it is
sucked by moving the left-hand lever. Through this operation the
head of the bottle is formed and finished. By reversing the lever, air
enters the parrison, thus blowing the same out to the height of the
parrison mould. The parrison mould is now opened and the parrison
hanging in the head-mould held by the tongues is placed under the
blowing cylinder above the open finishing mould. Now the latter is
closed, and by moving the lever, the bottle is blown and finished.
Whilst this last operation is being effected by a boy, the table is
revolved and the previously finished bottle is taken out and another
parrison is made ready to be handled in the described way. This
machine produces 200 bottles per hour.
The Glass Blower’s Tools. The glass maker’s chief tool is the
blow-iron. This is a tube of iron 1/2 to 1-1/4 in. wide and about 4 to
5 ft. long, one end of which is shaped or drawn in so as to be
convenient for holding to the lips, and the other end is slightly
thickened into a pear-shaped form, on which the hot metal is
gathered.
In making crystal tableware the workman manipulates the glass
he has gathered on this blow-iron by marvering it on a marver. This
is a heavy slab of iron with a polished face about 1 ft. by 1 ft. 6 in.,
and 1 in. thick, supported on a low table. Sometimes this marver
may be a block of wood with hollows of definite forms, in which the
workman rotates the hot glass he has gathered to regulate the form
and thickness of the metal to suit his work before beginning to blow
it out into a hollow bulb.
The pontil is a solid rod of iron of similar length and thickness to
the blow-iron. By gathering a little wad of hot glass on the pontil and
sticking it against the end of the bulb attached to the blow-iron, the
workman can detach the bulb from the blow-iron and hold it by the
pontil to which it has been transferred, and which enables him to
work on the other end or opening in the bulb which is exposed in
detaching it from the blow-iron.

GLASS WORKER’S CHAIR

After re-heating the glass, he may shear it with his scissors or

shears, open it out with his pucellas, crimple it with his tongs,
measure and caliper it, or shape it to a template.
Whilst he is doing such operations he sits in a glass worker’s chair.
This chair has two long extending arms, which are slightly inclined,
and along which he rolls his blow-iron or pontil, with the glass article
attached, working upon the rotating form, turning the iron with one
hand, whilst he uses his tools with the other hand, to shape or cut
the glass to its requisite form whilst it is hot, soft, and malleable.
 The shears are like an ordinary pair of scissors, and are used for
cutting the hot glass, or shearing off the tops of bowls and wines to
their proper height.
The pucellas is a steel, spring-handled tool in the form of tongs,
which the workman uses to widen, extend, or reduce the open forms
of glass by bringing pressure upon the grips of the tool whilst
applying it to the hot glass.
The glass maker also uses another form of spring tool in taking
hold of hot glass or pinching hot glass to form. These are the tongs.
The battledore, or palette, is a flat board of wood with a handle,
used for flattening and trueing the bottoms of jugs or decanters, etc.
The chest knife is a flat bar of iron, usually an old file, used for
knocking off the waste glass remaining on the blow-irons and pontils
after use. A chest or iron box is kept for collecting such waste glass
for further use. A pair of compasses, calipers, and a foot rule
complete the glass maker’s outfit of tools.
Making a Wine-glass. The manipulations in the manufacture of
a wine-glass will now be described. A common mule wine-glass is
formed from three distinct pieces of glass: (a) the bowl; (b) the leg;
(c) the foot.
A wine “shop,” or “chair,” consists of three men; a “workman,”
whose main work consists of finishing the wine-glass; a “servitor,”
who forms or shapes the bulb; a “foot maker,” who gathers and
marvers the glass; and a boy who carries away and cleans the blow-
irons.
The “footmaker” of the “chair” gathers on the end of a blowing-
iron sufficient glass to form a bowl. This is then shaped on a marver
until the required shape is obtained. The footmaker then blows this
out to a hollow bulb similar in size to the pattern to which he is
working. When the bulb leaves the footmaker it is the shape of the
bowl of the wine-glass.
 This is then handed over to the servitor, who drops a small piece
of hot glass on to the end of the bulb, and heats the whole by
holding it in the furnace. This serves to make the joint of the two
pieces perfect. The servitor next proceeds to draw out the leg from
the small piece of glass at the end of the bulb, leaving a button of
glass at the end of the leg. The servitor then dips the end of the leg
into the molten glass within the pot and gathers on sufficient glass
to form a foot. He spreads this portion of the glass out to the
required shape and size with a pair of wooden clappers, with which
he squeezes the hot glass to form the foot.
The servitor has now done his part of the work, and the glass is
handed to the workman. It is then cracked off, and the foot caught
by a spring clip arrangement attached to a pontil, called a “gadget.”
The workman now re-heats or melts the top edge of the glass by
holding it within the furnace, and when it is hot he cuts off the
surplus glass with a pair of shears. A line is chalked on at the correct
distance from the foot, and guides the workman in cutting the glass
to the proper height. He then melts the top again and opens it out
with his spring tool to the required shape, after which the glass is
taken to the annealing lehr by the boy, to be annealed.
Other forms of wine-glasses are made, and various methods are
adopted, according to the district and class of workmen.
For instance, the method of making the above common mule
wine-glass varies in different districts. Instead of gathering the metal
for the foot upon the leg of the glass, the workman may drop a
piece of hot glass, which has been gathered by the servitor, on to
the button at the end of the leg, and by means of a pair of wood
clappers spread the hot glass to form the foot.
In another method of making a wine-glass, the stem or leg is
drawn out from the body of the bulb by pinching down a knob at the
end of the glass. The servitor draws the leg out of this knob and
knocks off the extreme end. Meanwhile, the footmaker has been
preparing a foot, gathering a small portion of metal on a blow-iron
and blowing it out and shaping it into a double globule. The end
globule forms the foot and the second merely acts as a support. The
footmaker takes these globules, and the servitor sticks them on to
the drawn stem of the wine whilst it is hot; the blow-iron holding the
globules is knocked away, leaving them adhering to the leg of the
wine-glass. The footmaker then knocks off the second globule at the
line between the two and, re-heating the bulb at the foot of the
glass, opens and widens the edges out. The glass then goes to the
workman to be finished in the same way as the common mule wine-
glass.
Many articles of glassware are formed with the aid of moulds.
Take as an illustration the manufacture of tumblers and honey pots.
A quantity of glass is gathered on the blow-iron, marvered, and
blown out into an elongated bulb, which is introduced into a mould
divided in two halves, which open or shut by hinges, a handle being
fixed on either half to facilitate the operation. The interior of the
mould is made to the shape of the article, and as the bulb of hot
glass is introduced it is shut, and the workman blows down his blow-
iron and extends the glass until it expands and fills the space within
the mould, giving the complete form of the article with a surplus of
metal just where the blow-iron is attached to the glass at the top.
These tops are then cut off and finished, either by the workman re-
heating the article by attaching the bottom to a pontil and shearing
off the top edges, or the glass is annealed in its unfinished state and
the top surplus portion cut off by an automatic machine specially
constructed for cracking off such goods.
 GLASSWARE BLOWN IN MOULDS SHOWING PORTIONS CRACKED
OFF
(a) Tumbler.
(b) Honey Pot.

Such machines consist of a set of revolving tables upon which the

glass articles are centred, and each in turn revolves in front of a
thin, pointed, hot jet of gas flame, which impinges on the glass at
the height at which the glass is to be cracked off. After one or two
revolutions in front of this hot pencil of flame, it is removed, and, by
applying a cold steel point so adjusted as to touch the part where
the jet has heated the glass, a chill is imparted which causes the
upper portion of the glass to crack away in a clear, sharp line round
the glass. This top portion of surplus glass is thrown aside and
returned to the furnace for re-melting as cullet.
The tumbler or honey pot is then conveyed to another machine
which fire-polishes the edges to a smooth finish.
This machine consists of a circular revolving frame carrying small
supports, which themselves rotate on their own centres. Upon each
support an article is placed to be fire-polished and the frame carries
them round, and they travel into another section of the machine,
passing under a hooded chamber, which is heated by a fierce jet of
flame. The jet of flame, which is localised on to the top edges of the
tumblers or other goods passing through the hood, gives just
sufficient heat to melt and round off the sharp edges of the
glassware where they have been cracked off by the previous
machines. By using these machines in this way labour is
considerably economised, and as many as 300 or more articles an
hour can be cracked off and fire-polished with unskilled labour.
These machines are extensively adopted in the manufacture of
electric light bulbs, shades, lamp chimneys, and tumblers.
Moulds are usually opened, shut, and dipped by boys, but in up-
to-date glass works an automatic machine called a “Mechanical Boy”
is used. With this machine, the mould is operated at the desire of
the workman and not at the desire of the boy. The output is
considerably expedited by the use of these automatic devices for
opening and shutting the moulds.
It is obvious that whatever the shape of the mould, or whatever
the design within the case, the glass takes the impression and
retains it in after working. In this way, square sections, fluted
indentations, or raised bosses can be formed with facility and
regularity.
 By permission of Melin & Co.
VERTICAL CRACKING-OFF MACHINE

The Glass Workers’ Union consider that the introduction of

machinery deprives men of their independence and right to work,
but as yet the glass blowers have been always fully occupied with
useful work about the factories in which such machines have been
introduced, so it cannot be said that they have been forced to be
idle.
The advantages possessed by these automatic machines in their
larger output at so much less cost compared with hand labour is the
great factor in inducing their adoption; and in these days of progress
and competition such machines enable the glass manufacturers to
cope with the increasing demand and go far towards bringing a
factory up to date and making it well equipped.
Manufacturers should certainly turn their attention to these
mechanical methods, as their use is quite general on the Continent
and in America, and by their use the metal can be worked out of the
pots or tanks much more quickly, increasing considerably the turnout
or capacity of the furnace against the fuel consumption. Much of the
glassware imported into this country is composed of such articles as
would have been manipulated by machines, and, unless a similar
method of manufacturing them is adopted here, we cannot hope to
compete with other countries in supplying our own needs. In the
writer’s opinion, it is mainly due to the adoption of machinery for
producing glassware that the continental people have been enabled
to undersell us in our own market, and English manufacturers could
produce at a much cheaper rate if they would only adopt similar
methods of manufacture and the gas-fired furnaces as used abroad.
 CHAPTER XII

CROWN, SHEET, AND PLATE GLASS

The glass used in windows may be either crown, sheet, or plate.

Crown Glass is made in the form of circular flat discs about 4 ft.
in diameter. The workman, by repeated gatherings, collects sufficient
glass on the end of his blow-iron until he has a mass approximately
10 or 14 lb. in weight, which he marvers into a pear-shaped lump by
rotating the hot glass in the hollow of a wooden block. He then
blows the glass into a spherical bulb (a), which, by quick rotation, is
widened and assumes a mushroom shape (b). Another workman
attaches a pontil to the outer centre of this bulb by welding it on
with a small portion of hot metal.
The blow-iron is then detached by wetting and chilling the glass
near to the blow pipe, which breaks away, leaving an opening in the
bulb where it has become detached (c).
This is then carried to an auxiliary heated furnace, which has a
wide opening emitting great heat, and by resting the pontil upon a
convenient support and rotating it quickly the action of centrifugal
force and heat causes the glass to spread out at the opening, which
becomes larger and larger until the glass finally opens out into a flat
circular disc of fairly even thickness throughout, with the pontil still
at the centre, forming a bullion point or slight swelling, due to the
knob of glass used in affixing it (d).
Next, the workman, keeping the disc in rotation, brings it away
from the furnace and allows the metal to stiffen and set by cooling,
when it is carried to the annealing oven and detached from the
pontil. The discs are then stacked up for annealing. When annealed,
these are afterwards cut across in sections or squares of convenient
size by using a glass cutter’s diamond.

FOUR STAGES IN CROWN GLASS-MAKING

It is evident that the centre portion, containing the bullion point or

bull’s eye, is useless for plain window glazing, but occasionally these
are sought after by glass decorators for use in coloured leaded lights
for door panels, etc.
Sheet Glass is made in the form of thin, walled, hollow cylinders
of glass, which are split along their length and round the cap and
then opened out by heat and allowed to uncurl until each sheet lies
out flat. The workman gathers a sufficiency of glass upon his blow-
iron by repeated gatherings, and marvers it into a ball about as big
as one’s head. This is blown out (a) and widened by rotating the
blow-iron until he gets a mushroom shape (b), with a heavier bulk of
glass at the extremity than at the sides.

SIX STAGES IN SHEET GLASS-MAKING

This extra thickness of glass at the extremity of the bulb tends to

lengthen the bulb of glass as he swings it in a pendulum fashion,
and by blowing and swinging it alternately he gets an extended form
(c).
 To permit the workman to swing the mass of glass out
conveniently to the full length of the intended cylinder, a long,
narrow pit or trench is provided below the floor level, and by
standing alongside this trench the workman is enabled to swing the
glass within the trench at arm’s length until the requisite length and
width of cylinder are obtained. This work requires a high degree of
skill and strength. The shape of the cylinder of glass is now as
shown on page 91 (d).
The extremity of this cylinder is now re-heated and opened with
the aid of a spring tool with charred wooden prongs, until the
opening is enlarged and drawn out to the same diameter as it is
throughout the cylinder. It is now in the form of an open-ended
cylinder (e).
The cap of the cylinder at the blow-iron end is now cracked off. A
thread of hot glass is wrapped round the shoulder near the cap, and
the line chilled by using a curved, hook-shaped rod of iron. Whilst
the cap is being cracked off, the cylinder is allowed to rest supported
by a wooden cradle.
The cylinder is now open at both ends (f) and is taken to the
flattening kiln or furnace. This kiln has a level, smooth floor, heated
from below, upon which the cylinders are flattened out. Placing the
cylinder on the floor in front of him, the workman places along the
inside length of the cylinder a long red-hot iron rod touching the
glass, and then chills the line with a touch from a cold iron rod. This
causes a split to take place along the whole length of the cylinder. As
these cylinders are split open, they are removed to a hotter zone
within the flattening kiln, where the heat causes the cylinder to
uncurl and gradually flatten out.
As the sheet becomes flat the workman levels it out with a flat
block of charred wood called a polisher. This is attached to a long
handle, and is rubbed over the face of the sheet of glass. The weight
of the wooden block is just sufficient to smooth out any creases and
assists in levelling out any irregularities of the surface. It is essential
that the floor upon which the glass is resting should be perfectly
smooth and level, and uniformly heated. As each sheet is levelled, it
is removed to the annealing oven and afterwards stacked up until
cool, after which the rectangular sheets are cut up to the various
sizes required for window panes.
It is evident that the crown glass method gives more waste in
cutting up, and does not provide such large sheets as the cylinder
method. On the other hand, cylinder glass always shows a certain
amount of waviness on the surface, and is not so brilliant as crown
glass. The better surface of crown glass no doubt is due to the fire-
polishing it receives when being expanded out into the disc. It
appears to be somewhat difficult to get a perfectly smooth level face
to cylinder glass by using the wooden polisher.
Plate Glass is used as mirror glass and in glazing shop windows
and showcases. It may vary between 1/4 and 3/4 in. in thickness,
and is more expensive to produce than crown or cylinder glass.
In the manufacture of best plate glass, the materials are melted in
open crucible-shaped pots of varying sizes; sometimes, in making
large, heavy plate, their capacity reaches 25 cwts. of metal. When
the metal is plain and clear from seeds it is either ladled out into
smaller crucible pots for casting, or, as in the case of casting large
sheets, the whole crucible of metal is lifted bodily out of the furnace
by means of a crane, and, after being skimmed, is conveyed by an
overhead travelling derrick to the casting table.
This table is a level iron bench the size of the plate to be cast, the
face of which consists of thick sheets of iron plate riveted together
to form a level top; along the whole length of each side of this table
is a raised flange of a height sufficient to give the thickness of the
plate of glass to be cast: resting on these two outer edges a long,
heavy metal roller runs, covering the full width of the table. The
crucible of hot metal is brought to a convenient position and the
contents poured out on the table in front of the metal rollers. These
rollers then travel along and squeeze or roll out the hot metal over
the surface of the table to the thickness regulated by the side
pieces, which also prevent the metal from flowing over the sides.
The empty crucible is then conveyed back to the furnace for refilling.
The cast plate of glass is then trimmed from any excess of glass at
the ends, and when set and stiff is lifted at one end slightly and
pushed forward into a conveniently situated annealing oven, where it
is re-heated and subjected to a gradually diminishing temperature to
anneal it. The plate of glass, as delivered from the annealing oven,
shows surfaces somewhat rough, wavy, and uneven, from the marks
left by the table and the roller, and it has to be ground and polished
level and smooth on both sides. This is done by fixing one face of
the glass plate in a plaster of Paris bedding and setting it within a
mechanical grinding machine.
This machine carries several revolving arms, to which are attached
other smaller plates of glass. These are used as the rubbers, a slurry
or paste of sharp sand and water, or abrasive powder, being
interposed between the two. The revolving circular motion of the
arms causes a grinding action between the two plates, which wears
down any irregularities and gives a more even face. After this, finer
grades of abrasive materials are employed, and, finally, polishing
powder, until the face of the glass plate is polished smooth and level.
The large plate of glass is then reversed and the process of grinding
resumed on the other side.
Much care is necessary in handling these large plates, and every
attention is necessary and devoted to get the largest pieces of plate
without defects. All portions showing defects have to be cut away,
and, consequently, reduce the size of the plate when finished.
In another method of making plate glass the molten metal is fed
between two or more parallel rollers, which are spaced apart to the
thickness of the glass required (about 1/4 in.). These rollers squeeze
the glass out to a uniform thickness. A roughly decorated surface is
sometimes given to this glass intentionally, by the metal rollers being
indented with some form of set star pattern. This glass is not ground
or polished, and is sold under the name of muffled or cathedral
glass. It is mostly used for roof lighting, where the transparency may
be somewhat obscured.
Wired glass, or strengthened plate, is formed by embedding in the
soft glass, whilst being rolled, a network of metallic wire of special
composition to suit the temper of the glass. This wire is fed from a
separate roller into the space between the parallel rolls as the hot
metal is fed in from either side. It is necessary that the wire should
be made from a metallic alloy which is not easily oxidised. Another
method of strengthening plate glass consists in sealing together two
plates with an intersecting film of celluloid.
A decorated coloured rolled plate is made for use in leaded lights
by mixing portions of several differently coloured glasses together in
a small pot and slightly agitating the contents so as to intermix the
respective colours. When the glass is rolled out, a pretty agate or
marbled effect is obtained, due to the distributed coloured glasses
becoming intermixed. As a rule, these glasses are more or less
opalescent, and are only used for decorative purposes, church lights,
etc.
 CHAPTER XIII

TUBE, CANE, AND CHEMICAL GLASSWARE

Laboratory and chemical glassware consists of thin blown ware in

the form of flasks, beakers, test tubes, etc., used in chemical
operations. Most of these goods are blown in hinged moulds
mechanically or automatically operated by the worker. The lips and
flanges of the necks are neatly formed afterwards by re-heating and
working the edge to a form allowing them to pour cleanly, and
prevent any fluid contained therein from running down the sides of
the flask or beaker whilst in use. The heavier glassware, in the form
of desiccators, measuring cylinders, specimen jars, and three-necked
bottles, are made by handwork. Chemical apparatus has necessarily
to be made from a permanent stable highly refractory glass, so as to
resist the solvent actions of mineral acids, alkaline solutions, and
boiling water, as well as sudden changes in temperature.
The manufacture of tube and cane glass for various purposes
forms a large and extensive portion of the glass trade. Considerable
quantities of tube and cane glass in various sizes are used by lamp
workers in the manufacture of certain forms of chemical apparatus
and filling electric light bulbs. By re-heating glass tube and working
before a blow-pipe flame, the various forms of test tubes, pipettes,
burettes, soda-lime U-tubes, and condensers are made. Generally,
for chemical apparatus two classes of tube are made, one a soft
soda tube, and the other hard combustion tubing. Particular care has
to be devoted to the grading and sorting of the various sizes. The
bore of the tube, the thickness of the walls, and the outside width
have all to be checked and the lengths classed accordingly.
In the manufacture of tubing, unless the glass is of large size or
great thickness, it is not annealed, and shows a case-hardened
condition which materially increases the strength of the tube to
resist internal pressure, as is the case with boiler gauge tubing. In
the manufacture of apparatus from tube and cane, care must be
taken that the various pieces used in welding together the different
portions of the apparatus should be of the same temper and
composition, and supplied from one source, so that they may join
and work perfectly together.
The lamp worker or glass blower should take care to get his
supplies from a reliable source, so that the glass pieces will be
adapted to work together. Trouble occurs when odd tubings from
various makers are worked together. The same applies to fancy glass
working, where various coloured canes are worked into ornaments.
Reputable firms can always supply from stock such colours and
tubing properly adapted for their specific purposes, and they take
every precaution to see that the various colours join and work
together. Supplies of glass rod can be had that will join on to
platinum, nickel, iron, or copper wire with sound joints.
In making cane glass, the workman gathers sufficient metal upon
a pontil: for thin cane he would gather less than for heavy thick
cane. After gathering, he marvers the metal into the form of a solid
cylinder. Meanwhile, an assistant gathers a little metal on a post or
pontil with a flattened end. The metal he has gathered has covered
the flat end of the post, and he holds this in readiness for the
workman, who is now re-heating the cylinder of glass at the pot
mouth. As the cylinder of glass becomes soft, he withdraws it and
allows the end of the cylindrical shaped mass of glass to fall gently
upon the flat end of the post, to which it adheres. They then carry
the glass between them to a wooden track or run-way, along which
they walk at a smart pace in opposite directions; stretching out the
hot glass between them, it gradually thins out and rests on the floor.
The pace the men separate apart from each other is regulated
according to the thickness of the cane desired: for very thin cane a
smart trot is necessary, but for a thick cane a slow walk is sufficient.
As the glass is drawn out it is allowed to rest on wooden supports,
and when cool is cut up into convenient lengths by scratching the
glass with a steel file. These lengths are collected and bundled up
for sorting and classification. All portions distorted or over-size are
returned as cullet for re-melting and re-use.
In tube making, instead of a solid cylinder as in cane making, the
workman, by gathering the glass on a blow-iron and blowing and
marvering it, obtains a thick-walled, hollow, cylindrical form. This is
re-heated and the end stuck to a post and drawn apart as before
described in cane making, forming a tube of a width proportional to
the rate the two have travelled apart in drawing it out, and to the
quantity of metal gathered. In this way the respective sizes and
thicknesses are regulated. A narrow cane or tube may be drawn out
for 300 ft., but for a thick or wide one probably only 30 ft. may be
drawn. In making the larger widths, some method of cooling, or
fanning, is adopted, to ensure uniform size by cooling the hot glass
quickly as it is drawn out. It is evident that, whatever shape is given
to the original mass of glass whilst being marvered, the tube will
bear a similar shape in proportion, either within or outside the glass.
In this way, square, triangular, or oval sections can be produced in
both tube and cane.
The manufacture of white opal, coloured cane, and tube is carried
out on like methods to those used in ordinary cane and tube making.
We will now describe the manufacture of Filigree. This is rod or
tube containing opal or coloured threads, either straight, spiral, or
interlaced within a transparent glass; these threads follow the whole
length of the cane or tube.
This curious form of glasswork was originated by the Venetians,
who are exceptionally skilled in producing some elegant and
ornamental filigree decorated glassware.
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