Emphasis on praxis is an issue to think about, but I don't think we know for sure how they handled Gnosis, one way or the other, do we?
Well, if we can even talk about them handling "Gnosis" at all, then we do so by association, generally speaking. Again, I can't talk about the Cathars (Though what little I do know agrees with the point Space Debris made concerning the consolamentum), but I think we can say a great deal about this in the case of the Manichaeans. If we equate "Gnosis" with the Manichaean idea of the light giving sound that carries a kind of knowing, then we can indeed demonstrate that it had a very different function in the Manichaean belief system. Instead of the knowing BEING salvation, it simply leads to the understanding that the praxis was salvation. In other words, this knowing probably should not really be equated with the idea of "Gnosis" as the Gnostics understood it.
Many modern Christians believe in a "gnosis" that changes a person's mind (metanoia) so they can see the "true faith"... and it is faith that is salvation. I don't think anyone here would say that their "gnosis" is the same as the Gnostic "Gnosis". Essentially, the point is the same there so if we draw the line with modern Christians then it seems we should draw the same line with the Manichaeans.
In Gnosticism, praxis and pistis leads to Gnosis.... vs the others in which gnosis leads to correct praxis or pistis.
I would argue that there is an ancestor they share with the classic Gnostics, and that in their own time some of them may have been quite in tune with the ancient teachings/attitudes/approaches.
This is a messy subject, to say the least. It could be an interesting conversation in and of itself.
Well documented line of direct continuity? I find that hard to believe, considering the significant theological, mythological, and ritual differences between these groups.
Actually, this is very much the kind of statement I meant when I previously talked about "historical inaccuracies" on the page. It is not that I think there could not theorhetically BE a line of continuity (though I have my doubts), BUT, this line is NOT well documented from the perspective of critical history. On the contrary, most historians now reject the idea that the Mandaeans are pre-Christian (and pre-Manichaean is questionable... it is possible there was an influence the other way, according to some). And, while the Manichaean influence on the Bogimils remains a strong probability, it has never been historically proven.
I think our friend Jordan may sometimes state things a bit overly strongly, so that possibilities become "maters of record" or "well documented".... even when they are historically questionable.
I hope he has not gone away. While I personally think his statement about Valentinus may have come from a misreading of the heresiological source, I would love to be proven wrong on that one.
I am more comfortable about Mandean and Cather traditions. Manicheans I stay away for three reasons. First of all, they reject the Old Testament. Of all the two testaments, probably the Old Testament is the best and once one gets away opening chapters of Gensis, the most accrute. Second, the venture St Paul and we all know about the pigheadness of him. Thirdly, that Jesus did not live in human terms, but was a cosmic maserfasation. Beside sounding like new age trepe, it does not jive the true holiness of Jesus, the Nephilem-Davidic messenic bloodline.
I understand that few people are likely to agree with all the things I think, and I understand that what I have a problem with, you may not have a problem with, and the dangers I'm critical of about the Old Testament, may not have trapped you, so I realize it all can sound pointless to you.
But I'll have to disagree that the Old Testament is the best. If you took Revelations out of the New Testament, and read Paul in a way that abstracted the Spiritual Fruit and let his other mouthing off nonsense be just his opinion, and looked to spiritual meaning in the Gospels, you wouldn't do as badly as Christians have throughout the centuries. When Christians TRY to relate their spirituality to the Old Testament, they tend to act like they are the chosen rulersthe world as archon-leutenants of Jehovah, or else they become so strict on themselves and their families and so prudish and puritanical when dealing with other people in the community, it's just a mess.
Jews themselves don't do so bad with the Old Testament. I think that's because their religious traditions and ways of thinking really do organically derive from the Old Testament, and for centuries they've ARGUED with it and RE-interpreted it VERY DIFFERENTLY than the fundamentalists. Yet if the Temple is rebuilt, the religious zeal of some could be horrible and new life could be breathed into the old theocratic ways of ancient Israel. All that being said, it would be the land of Israel itself where more religiously inspired laws would be in effect, as doing their own thing in what they think is their land, is more the focus for them.
The bad examples of Joshua, etc., are still there for Jews to misuse, however, should some wish to go the way of dominionist/dominator Christians.
I also find nothing accurate about Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Dueteronomy, Numbers, Joshua, Chronicals 1&2, Kings 1&2, sorry, but there are contradictions, and besides that, not much in archaeology corroborates anything about any of it except for a small town 'david's Jerusalem', some inscriptions that don't give any proof at all of any accuracy in the Bible, I mean a name doesn't prove much about the rest of the story you might associate with the name, doesn't say it's the same dude, even inscriptions involving godnames in the Hebrew Scripture are few and far between, and point AWAY from the monotheistic Jewish interpretation of them in their scriptures.
Paul was a saint compared to Joshua and Moses. Moses had people put to death for picking up sticks on the sabbath, and Joshua did his best to commit genocide, and the Biblical 'moral' is that if he had done a better job of war crimes, Israel wouldn't have had so many troubles. I'll take Paul over them any day.
Re: Nephilem, I see no evidence of anything holy about them. Re: Davidic bloodline, I see no evidence of anything holy about that either. Just another Authority.
Obsidian,
What you are describing, would fit with some Gnostics, not all thought he was a cosmic illusion, though a large number may have speculated about it being mere appearance, and some seemed to think his body was not ordinary material, maybe something like an astral body that could become tangible, a different sort of 'body'. I think there was quite a range of views on the subject among Gnostics, but Gnostics would not emphasize the physical. A lot of Gnostics would probably be content to describe the Christ that descended on Jesus at Baptism, was fully spiritual, while Jesus himself was an ordinary man who was 'adopted', i.e., Adoptionism. I think there were docetist Gnostics, but not all of them held that view or were rigidly adherent to it.
The idea of Mary being Sophia incarnate would be similar to some Gnostic views, yes. I know of a book on Sophiology from an Orthodox perspective that argues exactly that, Sophia-Maria: A Holistic Vision of Creation, by Thomas Schipflinger. It goes into the Russian Orthodox and Medieval references to Sophia, indications that Sophia incarnated as Mary.
