CHAPTER XVTHE GNOSTICS
Difficulty in defining Gnosticism—Magic and astrology in Gnosticism—Simon Magus as a Gnostic—Simon’s Helen—The number thirty and the moon—Ophites and Sethians—A magical diagram—Employment of names and formulae—Seven metals and planets—Magic of Simon’s followers—Magic of Marcus in the Eucharist—Other magic and occult lore of Marcus—Name and number magic—The magic vowels—Magic of Carpocrates—The Abraxas and the number 365—Astrology of Basilides—The Book of Helxai—Epiphanius on the Elchasaites—The Book of the Laws of Countries—Personality of Bardesanes—Sin possible for men, angels, and stars—Does fate in the astrological sense prevail?—National laws and customs as a proof of free will—Pistis-Sophia; attitude to astrology—“Magic” condemned—Power of names and rites—Interest in natural science—“Gnostic gems” and astrology—The planets in early Christian art—Gnostic amulets in Spain—Syriac Christian charms—Priscillian executed for magic—Manichean manuscripts—The Mandaeans.
Difficulty in defining Gnosticism.
Gnosticism[1600]is not easy to define and the term Gnostic appears to have been applied to a great variety of sects with a confusing diversity of beliefs. Many of the constituents and roots at least of Gnosticism were older than Christianity, and it is now the custom to associate the Gnosis or superior knowledge and revelation, which gives the movement its name, not with Greek philosophy or mysteries but with oriental speculation and religions. Anz[1601]has been impressed by its connection with Babylonian star-worship; Amélineau[1602]has urged its debt to Egyptian magic andreligion; Bousset[1603]has argued for Persian origins. The main features of the great oriental religions which swept westward over the Roman Empire were shared by Gnosticism: the redeemer god, even the great mother goddess conception to some extent, the divinely revealed mysteries, the secret symbols, the dualism, and the cosmic theory. Gnosticism as it is known to us, however, is more closely connected with Christianity than with any other oriental religion or body of thought, for the extant sources consist almost entirely either of Gnostic treatises which pretend to be Christian Scriptures and were almost entirely written in Coptic in the second or third century of our era,[1604]or of hostile descriptions of Gnostic heresies by the early church fathers. However, the philosopher Plotinus also criticized the Gnostics, as we have seen.
Magic and astrology in Gnosticism.
What especially concerns our investigation is the great use made, or said to be made, by the Gnostics of sacred formulae, symbols, and names of demons, and the prevalence among them of astrological theory as shown by their widespread notion of the seven planets as the powers who have created our inferior and material world and who rule over its affairs. Gnosticism was deeply influenced by, albeit it to some extent represents a reaction against, the Babylonian star-worship and incantation of spirits. The seven planets and the demons occupy an important place in Gnostic myth because they intervene between our world and the world of supreme light, and their spheres must be traversed—much as in theBook of Enochand Dante’sParadiso—both by the redeeming god in his descent and return and by any human soul that would escape from this world of fate, darkness, and matter. What encouragement there is for such views in the canonical Scriptures themselves may beinferred from the following passage in which Christ foretells His second coming: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven,and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appearthe signof the Son of manin heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”[1605]But in order to pass the demons and the spheres of the planets, who are usually represented as opposed to this, one must, as in the EgyptianBook of the Dead, know the passwords, the names of the spirits, the sacred formulae, the appropriate symbols, and all the other apparatus suggestive of magic and necromancy which forms so large a part of thegnosisthat gives its name to the system. This will become the more apparent from the following particular accounts of Gnostic sects and doctrines found in the works of the Christian fathers and in the scanty remains of the Gnostics themselves. The philosopher Plotinus we have already heard charge the Gnostics with resort to magic and sorcery, and with ascribing evil and fatal influence to the stars. At the same time we shrewdly suspect that Gnosticism has been made a scapegoat for the sins in these regards of both early Christianity and pagan philosophy.
Simon Magus as a Gnostic.
Simon Magus, of whose magical exploits as recorded by many a Christian writer we shall treat in another chapter, is also represented by the fathers as holding Gnostic doctrine, although some writers have contended that Simon the magician named inActswas an entirely different person from Simon the heretic and author ofThe Great Declaration.[1606]Simon declared himself the Great Power of God, orthe Being who was over all, who had appeared in Samaria as the Father, in Judea as the Son, and to other nations as the Holy Spirit.[1607]In thePseudo-ClementinesSimon is represented as arguing against Peter in characteristically Gnostic style that “he who framed the world is not the highest God, but that the highest God is another who alone is good and who has remained unknown up to this time.”[1608]According to Epiphanius Simon claimed to have descended from heaven through the planetary spheres and spirits in the manner of the Gnostic redeemer. He is quoted as saying, “But in each heaven I changed my form in accordance with the form of those who were in each heaven, that I might escape the notice of my angelic powers and come down to the Thought, who is none other than she who is likewise called Prounikon and the Holy Spirit.” Epiphanius further informs us that Simon believed in a plurality of heavens, assigned certain powers to each firmament and heaven, and applied barbaric names to these spirits or cosmic forces. “Nor,” adds Epiphanius, “can anyone be saved unless he learns this mystic lore and offers such sacrifices to the Father of all through these archons and authorities.”[1609]
Simon’s Helen.
The fathers tell us that Simon went about with a woman called Helena or Helen, who Justin Martyr says had formerly been a prostitute.[1610]Simon is said to have called her the mother of all, through whom God had created the angels and aeons, who in their turn had formed the world and men. These cosmic powers had then, however, cast her down to earth, where she had been confined in various successive human and animal bodies. She seems to have obtained her name of Helen from the fact that it was for her that the Trojan war had been fought, an event which Simon seems to have subjected to much allegorical interpretation. He also spoke of Helen as “the lost sheep,” whom he, the GreatPower, had descended from heaven to release from the bonds of the flesh. She was that Thought or Holy Spirit which we have heard him say he came down to recover. Simon’s Helen also corresponds to Pistis-Sophia, who in the extant Gnostic work named after her descends through the twelve aeons, deceived by a lion-faced power whom they have formed to mislead her, and then reascends by the aid of Jesus or the true light. It seems fairly evident that the fathers[1611]have taken literally and travestied by a scandalous application to an actual woman a beautiful Gnostic myth or allegory concerning the human soul. At the same time Simon’s Helen reminds us of Jesus’s relations with the woman taken in adultery, the woman of Samaria, and Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene, it may be noted, in the Gnostic writing,Pistis-Sophia, takes a rôle superior to the twelve disciples, a fact of which Peter complains to his Lord more than once. But Simon’s Helen was that spirit of truth which lies latent in the human mind and which he endeavored to release by means of the philosophy, astrology, and magic of his time. May modern scientific method prove more successful in setting the prisoner free!
The number thirty and the moon.
We find in thePseudo-Clementinesother details concerning Simon and Helen which bring out the astrological side of Gnosticism. We are told that John the Baptist had thirty disciples, a number suggestive of the days of the moon and also of the thirty aeons of the Gnostics of whom we elsewhere hear a great deal.[1612]But the revolution of the moon does not occupy thirty full days, so that we are not surprised to learn that one of these disciples was a woman and furthermore that she was the very Helen of whom we have been speaking. At least, she is so called in theHomiliesof the Pseudo-Clement; in theRecognitionsshe is actuallycalled Luna or the Moon.[1613]After the death of John the Baptist Simon by his magic power supplanted Dositheus as leader of the thirty, and then fell in love with Luna and went about with her, proclaiming that she was Wisdom or Truth, “brought down ... from the highest heavens to this world.”[1614]The number thirty is again associated with Simon and Dositheus in a curiously insistent, although apparently unconscious, manner by Origen, who in one passage of hisReply to Celsus, written in the first half of the third century, expresses doubt whether thirty followers of Simon, the Samaritan magician, can be found in all the world, and in a second passage, while asserting that “Simonians are found nowhere throughout the world,” adds that of the followers of Dositheus there are now not more than thirty in all.[1615]
Ophites and Sethians.
Similar to Simon’s account of the heavens and of his descent through them were the teachings of the Ophites and Sethians who, according to Irenaeus,[1616]held that Christ “descended through the seven heavens, having assumed the likeness of their sons, and gradually emptied them of their power.” These heretics also represented the “heavens, potentates, powers, angels, and creators as sitting in their proper order in heaven, according to their generation, and as invisibly ruling over things celestial and terrestrial.” All ruling spirits were not invisible, however, since the Ophites and Sethians identified with the seven planets their Holy Hebdomad, consisting of Ialdabaoth, Iao, Sabaoth, Adonaus (or, Adonai), Eloeus, Oreus, and Astanphaeus,—names often employed in the Greek magical papyri,[1617]in medieval incantations, and in the Jewish Cabbala. The Ophites and Sethians further asserted that when the serpent was cast down into the lower world by the Father, he begat six sonswho, with himself, constitute a group of seven corresponding and in contrast to the Holy Hebdomad which surround the Father. They are the seven mundane demons who are ever hostile to humanity. The Sethians of course took their name from Seth, son of Adam, who in the middle ages was regarded sometimes, like Enoch, as the especial recipient of divine revelation and as the author of sacred books. The historian Josephus states in hisJewish Antiquitiesthat Seth and his descendants discovered the art of astronomy and that one of the two pillars on which they recorded their findings was still extant in his time, the first century.[1618]Under the caption,Sethian Tablets of Curses, Wünsch has published some magical imprecations scratched on lead tablets between 390 and 420 A. D. at Rome.[1619]Eight revelations ascribed to Adam and Seth are also extant in Armenian.[1620]
A magical diagram.
In Origen’sReply to Celsusis described a mystic diagram with details redolent of magic and astrological necromancy,[1621]which Celsus had laid to the charge of Christians generally but which Origen declares is probably the product of the “very insignificant sect called Ophites.” Origen himself has seen this diagram or one something like it, and assures his readers that “we know the depth of these unhallowed mysteries,” but he declares that he has never met anybody anywhere who put any faith in this diagram. Obviously, however, such a diagram would not have been in existence if no one had ever had faith in it. Furthermore, its survival into Origen’s time, when he asserts that men had ceased to use it, is evidence of the antiquity of the sect and the superstition. In this diagram ten distinct circles were united by a single circle representing the soul of allthings and called Leviathan. Celsus spoke of the upper circles, of which at least some were in colors, as “those that are above the heavens.” On these were inscribed such words and phrases as “Father and Son,” “Love,” “Life,” “Knowledge,” and “Understanding.” Then there were “the seven circles of archontic demons,” who are probably to be connected with the spheres of the seven planets. These seven ruling demons were represented by animal heads or figures, somewhat resembling the symbols of the four evangelists to be seen in the mosaics at Ravenna and elsewhere in Christian art. The angel Michael was depicted by a sort of chimaera, the words of Celsus being, “The goat was shaped like a lion”; Suriel, by a bull; Raphael, by a dragon; Gabriel, by an eagle; Thautabaoth, by a bear; Erataoth, by a dog; and Thaphabaoth or Onoel, by an ass. The diagram was divided by a thick black line called Gehenna and beneath the lowest circle was placed “the being named Behemoth.” There was also “a square pattern” with inscriptions concerning the gates of paradise, a flaming circle with a flaming sword as its diameter guarding the tree of knowledge and of life, “a barrier inscribed in the shape of a hatchet,” and a rhomboid with the words, “The foresight of wisdom.” Celsus further mentioned a seal with which the Father impresses the Son, who says, “I have been anointed with white ointment from the tree of life,” and seven angels who contend with the seven ruling demons for the soul of the dying body.
Employment of names and formulae.
Origen further informs us of the forms of salutation to each ruling spirit employed by “those sorcerers,” as they pass through “the fence of wickedness” or the gate to the realm of each spirit. The names of the spirits are now given as Ialdabaoth, who is the lion-like archon and with whom the planet Saturn is in sympathy, Iao or Jah, Sabaoth, Adonaeus, Astaphaeus, Aloaeus or Eloaeus, and Horaeus. The following is an example of the salutations or invocations addressed to these spirits: “Thou, O second Iao, who shinest by night, who art the ruler of the secret mysteriesof Son and Father, first prince of death, and portion of the innocent, bearing now thine own beard as symbol, I am ready to pass through thy realm, having strengthened him who is born of thee by the living word. Grace be with me; Father, let it be with me!” Origen also states that the makers of this diagram have borrowed from magic the names Ialdabaoth, Astaphaeus, and Horaeus, while the other four are names of God drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures.
Seven metals and planets.
It is worth noting that immediately before this account of the diagram Celsus had described similar Persian mysteries of Mithras, in which seven heavens through which the soul has to pass were arranged in an ascending scale like a ladder.[1622]Each successive heaven was entered by a gate of a metal corresponding to the planet in question, lead for Saturn, tin for Venus, copper for Jupiter, iron for Mercury, a mixed metal for Mars, silver for the moon, and gold for the sun. This association of metals and planets became a common feature of medieval alchemy. At the same time the passage is said to be our chief literary source for the mysteries of Mithras.[1623]
Magic of Simon’s followers.
The Simonians, according to Irenaeus, were as addicted to magic as their founder had been, employing exorcisms and incantations, love-philters and enchantments, familiar spirits and “dream-senders.” “And whatever other curious arts may be resorted to are eagerly employed by them.” Menander, the immediate successor of Simon in Samaria, was “a perfect adept in the practice of magic” and taught that by means of it one could overcome the angels who had created this world.[1624]In a treatise on rebaptism, falsely ascribed to Cyprian but very likely contemporary with him, it is stated that the Simonians regard their baptism as superior to that of orthodox Christians, because when they descend into the water fire appears upon its surface. The writer thinks that this is done by some trick, or that there is some natural explanation of it, or that they merely imagine that they see a flame on the water, or that it is the work of some evil one and of magic power.[1625]Epiphanius states that Simon employed such obscene substances assemenandmenstruumin his magic,[1626]but this seems to be a slander, at least against Gnosticism, since in a passage of the GnosticBook of the Saviour, adjoined to thePistis-Sophia, Thomas asks Jesus what shall be the punishment of men who eat “semen maris et menstruum feminae” mixed with lentils, saying as they do so, “We believe in Esau and Jacob,” and is told that this is the worst of sins and that the souls of those committing it will be absolutely blotted out.[1627]
Magic of Marcus in the Eucharist.
Next to Simon Magus, Marcus was the Gnostic and heretic most notorious as a practitioner of the magic arts, as Irenaeus states at the close of the second century, and Hippolytus and Epiphanius repeat in the third and fourth centuries respectively.[1628]In performing the Eucharist he would change white wine placed in three wine cups into three different colors, one blood-red, one purple, and one dark blue, according to Epiphanius, while Irenaeus and Hippolytus more vaguely state, although they lived closer to Marcus’s time, that he gave the wine a purple or reddish hue as if it had been changed into blood, an alteration which Marcus himself regarded as a manifestation of divine grace. Epiphanius attributes the change to an incantation muttered by Marcus while pretending to perform the Eucharist.Hippolytus, who ascribes Marcus’s feats partly to sleight-of-hand and partly to demons, in this case charges that he furtively dropped some drug into the wine. Marcus was also accustomed to fill a large cup from a smaller one so that it would overflow, a marvel which Hippolytus again tries to account for by stating that “very many drugs, when mingled in this way with liquid substances” temporarily increase their volume, “especially when diluted in wine.”
Other magic and occult lore of Marcus.
Irenaeus, who is quoted verbatim by Epiphanius, further states that Marcus had a familiar demon by whose aid he was able to prophesy, and that he pretended to confer this gift upon others. He also accuses Marcus of seducing women by means of philters and love potions which he compounded. Hippolytus does not make these charges, but unites with the others in describing at length Marcus’s theory of mystic names and his symbolical and mystical interpretation of the letters of the alphabet and of numbers. Marcus made various calculations based upon the number of letters in a name, the number of letters in the name of each letter, and so on. When Christ, whose ineffable name has thirty letters, said, “I am Alpha and Omega,” He was believed by Marcus to have displayed the dove, whose number is 801. These reveries “are mere bits,” as Hippolytus says, of astrological theory and Pythagorean philosophy. We shall find them perpetuated in the middle ages in the method of divination known as the Sphere of Pythagoras.
Name and number magic.
Such symbolism and mysticism concerning numbers and letters seldom indeed remain a matter of mere theory but readily lend themselves to operative magic. Thus Hippolytus can speak in the same breath of “magical arts and Pythagorean numbers” or tell that Pythagoras himself “also touched on magic, as they say, and himself discovered an art of physiognomy, laying down as a basis certain numbers and measures.” Or note a third passage where Hippolytus is discussing Egyptian theology based on the theory of numbers.[1629]After treating of the monad, duad, and enneads,of the four elements in pairs, of the 360 parts of the circle, of “ascending and beneficent and masculine names” which end in odd numbers, and of feminine and malicious and descending names which terminate in even numbers, Hippolytus continues, “Moreover, they assert that they have calculated the word, ‘Deity.’ Now this name is an even number, and they write it down and attach it to the body and accomplish cures by it. In the same way an herb which terminates in this number is bound around the body and operates by reason of a similar calculation of the number. Nay, even a doctor cures the sick by such calculations.“ Similarly Censorinus states that the number seven is ascribed to Apollo and used in the cure of bodily ills, while nine is associated with the Muses and heals mental diseases.[1630]But to return to Gnosticism.
The magic vowels.
The seven vowels were much employed by the Gnostics, undoubtedly as symbols for the seven planets and the spirits associated with them, but as symbols possessed of magic power as well as of mystic significance. “The Saviour and His disciples are supposed in the midst of their sentences to have broken out in an interminable gibberish of only vowels; magic spells have come down to us consisting of vowels by the fourscore; on amulets the seven vowels, repeated according to all sorts of artifices, form a very common inscription.”[1631]As the seven planets made the music of the spheres, so the seven vowels seem to have represented the musical scale, “and many a Gnostic sheet of vowels is in fact a sheet of music.”[1632]
Magic of Carpocrates.
Other heretics with Gnostic views who were accused of magic by the fathers were the followers of Carpocrates, who employed incantations and spells, philters and potions, who attracted spirits to themselves and made light of the cosmic angels, and who pretended to have great power over allthings so that they were able by their magic to satisfy every desire.[1633]
The Abraxas and the number 365.
Saturninus and Basilides were charged with “practicing magic, and employing images, incantations, invocations, and every other kind of curious art.” They also believed in a supreme power named Abrasax or Abraxas, whose number was 365; and they contended that there were 365 heavens and as many bones in the human body; “and they strive to set forth the names, principles, angels, and powers of the 365 imagined heavens.”[1634]
Astrology of Basilides.
Hippolytus gives further indication of the astrological leanings of Basilides, who held that each thing had its own particular time, and supported his view by citing theMagigazing wistfully at the star of Bethlehem and the remark of Christ Himself, “Mine hour is not yet come.”[1635]I suppose that by this Hippolytus means to suggest that Basilides held the astrological doctrine of elections; Basilides further affirmed, according to Hippolytus, that Jesus was “mentally preconceived at the time of the generation of the stars; and of the complete return to their starting point of all the seasons in the vast conglomeration,” that is, at the end of the astronomicalmagnus annus, variously reckoned as of 36,000 or 15,000 years in duration.
The Book of Helxai.
In hisRefutation of all Heresies[1636]Hippolytus tells of an Alcibiades from Apamea in Syria who in his time brought to Rome a book supposed to contain revelations made to a holy man, Elchasai or Helxai, by an angel ninety-six miles in height and from sixteen to twenty-four miles in breadth and leaving a footprint fourteen miles long. This angel was the Son of God, and was accompanied by a female of corresponding size who was the Holy Spirit. This apparition and revelation was accompanied by a preaching of a new remission of sins in the third year of Trajan’s reign, at which time we are led to suppose that theBook of Helxaicame into existence. It imposed secrecy upon those initiated into its mysteries. The sect, according to Hippolytus, were much given to magic, astrology, and the number mysticism of Pythagoras. The Elchasaites employed incantations and formulae to cure persons bitten by mad dogs or afflicted with disease. In such cases and also in the case of rebaptism for the remission of sins it was customary with them to invoke or adjure “seven witnesses,” not however in this case the planets, but “the heaven, and the water, and the holy spirits, and the angels of prayer, and the oil (or, the olive), and the salt, and the earth.” Hippolytus declares that their formulae of this sort were “very numerous and very ridiculous.” They dipped consumptives and persons possessed by demons in cold water forty times in seven days. They believed in the astrological doctrine of elections, since their sacred book warned them not to baptize or begin other important undertakings upon those days which were governed by the evil stars. They also seem to have predicted political events from the stars, foretelling that three years after Trajan’s subjugation of the Parthians “war rages between the impious angels of the northern (constellations), and on this account all kingdoms of impiety are in confusion.”
Epiphanius on the Elchasaites.
In the next century Epiphanius adds one or two further details to Hippolytus’ account of the Elchasaites. Besides the list of seven witnesses already given he mentions another slightly different one: salt, water, earth, wheat, heaven, ether, and wind. He also tells of two sisters in the time of Constantine who were supposed to be descendants of Helxai. One of them was still alive the last Epiphanius knew, and crowds followed “this witch” to collect the dust of her footprints or her spittle to use in curing diseases.[1637]
The Book of the Laws of Countries.
We possess an important document for the attitude of early Christianity and Gnosticism towards astrology inThe Dialogue concerning FateorThe Book of the Laws of Countriesof Bardesanes or Bardaisan.[1638]The completeSyriac text is extant;[1639]there is a long and somewhat modified extract adopted from it in the LatinRecognitionsof Clement,[1640]and briefer fragments in the Greek fathers. Strictly speaking, the text seems to be written by some follower of Bardesanes named Philip who represents his master as discussing the problem of human free will with Avida, himself, and other disciples. The bulk of the treatise is in any case put in Bardesanes’ mouth and it probably reflects his views with fair accuracy. Eusebius ascribed it to Bardesanes himself.
Personality of Bardesanes
Bardesanes (154-222 A. D.) was born in Edessa. He spent most of his life in Mesopotamia but for a time went to Armenia as a missionary. His many works in Syriac included apologies for Christianity, attacks upon heresies, and numerous hymns, but the only work extant is the treatise we are about to examine, with the possible exception ofThe Hymn of the Soul[1641]ascribed to him and contained in the SyriacActs of St. Thomas. His doctrines were regarded by Ephraem Syrus and others as tainted with Gnostic heresy. He is often represented as a follower of Valentinus, but the ancient authorities, such as Epiphanius and Eusebius, disagree as to whether he degenerated from orthodoxy to Valentinianism or reformed in the opposite direction. In the dialogue which we consider he is represented as a Christian, but his remarks have often been thought to have a Gnostic flavor. F. Nau, however, has argued that he was not a Gnostic and that the statements in question in the dialogue can be explained as purely astrological.[1642]
Sin possible for men, angels, and stars.
The treatise opens with the query, why did not God make men so that they could not sin? The reply of course is that moral freedom for good or evil is a greater gift of God than compulsory morality. By virtue of his individual freedom of action man is equal to the angels, some of whom,too, have sinned with the daughters of men and fallen, and is superior even to the sun, moon, and signs of the zodiac which are fixed in their courses. The stars, however, as inThe Book of Enoch, “are not absolutely destitute of all freedom” and will be held responsible at the day of judgment. Presently some of them are called evil.
Does fate in the astrological sense prevail?
After some discussion whether man does wrong from his nature, the treatise turns to the question, how far are men controlled by fate, that is, by the power of the seven planets in accordance with the doctrine of the Chaldeans, which is the term here usually employed for astrologers. Some men attack astrology as “a lying invention” and hold that the human will is free and that such evils as man cannot avoid are due to chance or to divine punishment but not to the stars. Between these extremes Bardesanes takes middle ground. He believes that there is such a force in the stars, whom he refers to as Potentates and Governors, as the fate of which the astrologers speak, but that this fate evidently does not rule everything, since it is itself established by the one God who imposed upon the stars and elements that motion in conformity with which “intelligences undergo change when they descend to the soul, and souls undergo change when they descend to bodies,” a statement which appears to have a Gnostic flavor. This fate furthermore is limited by nature on the one hand and human free will on the other hand. The vital processes and periods which are common to all men, such as birth, generation, child-bearing, eating, drinking, old age, and death, Bardesanes regards as governed by nature. “The body,” he says, “is neither hindered nor helped by fate in the several acts it performs,” a view which most astrologers would probably not accept. On the contrary, in Bardesanes’ opinion wealth and honors, power and subjection, sickness and health, are controlled by fate which often disturbs the regular course of nature. This is because in genesis or the nativity the stars, some of which work with and some against nature,are in conflict. In short, some stars are good and some are evil.
National laws and customs as a proof of free will.
If nature is thus often upset by the stars, fate in its turn may be resisted and overpowered by man’s exercise of will. This assertion Bardesanes proceeds to prove by the argument which has given to the dialogue the title,The Book of the Laws of the Countries, and which we find much repeated in subsequent writers. Briefly it is that in various nations certain laws are enforced upon, or customs observed by all the people alike regardless of their diverse individual horoscopes. In illustration of this are listed various prohibitions and practices fondly supposed by Bardesanes and his audience to characterize the Seres, Brahmans, Persians, Geli, Bactrians, Arabs, Britons, Parthians, Amazons, and other peoples. Savage tribes are mentioned among whom there are no artists, bankers, perfumers, musicians, and poets to fit the nativities decreed by the constellations for certain times. Bardesanes is aware of the astrological theory of seven zones or climes, by which the science of individual horoscopes is corrected and modified, but he contends that there are many different laws in each of these zones, and would be, even if the number were raised to twelve according to the number of the signs or to thirty-six after the decans. He also contends that men retain their laws or customs when they migrate to other climes, and adduces the fidelity of Jews and Christians to the commandments of their respective religions as a further illustration of the triumph of free will over the stars. He concedes, however, as before that “in every country and in every nation there are rich and poor, and rulers and subjects, and people in health and those who are sick, each one according as fate and his nativity have affected him.” Incidentally to the foregoing discussion it is affirmed that the astrology of Egypt and that of the Chaldeans in Babylon are identical. At the close of the treatise is appended a note stating that Bardesanes estimated the duration of the world at six thousand years on the basis of sixty as the least number ofyears in which the seven planets complete an even number of revolutions.
ThePistis-Sophia: attitude to astrology.
If the work ascribed to Bardesanes is not certainly Gnostic, thePistis-Sophiais, and we turn next to it and first of all to its attitude towards astrology. This treatise is extant in a Coptic codex of the fifth or sixth century;[1643]the Greek original text was probably written in the second half of the third century. It gives the revelations made by Jesus to his disciples after He had ascended to heaven and returned again to them. When He ascended through the heavens, He changed the fatal influence of the lords of the spheres and made the planets turn to the right for six months of the year, whereas before they had faced the left continually.[1644]In a long passage near the close of thePistis-Sophiaproper[1645]Jesus asserts the absolute control of human destiny hitherto by “the rulers of the fate” and describes how they fashion the new soul, control the process of generation and of the formation of the child in the womb, and decree every event of life down to the day and manner of death. Only by the Gnostic key to the mysteries can one escape their control.[1646]In the followingBook of the Saviour, moreover, even the finding of this key is subjected to astral control, since a constellation is described under which all souls descending to this world will be just and good and will discover the mysteries of light.[1647]
“Magic” condemned.
ThePistis-Sophiaassumes the usual attitude of condemnation of magic so-called. Among the evils which Jesus warns his followers to renounce are superstition and invocations and drugs or magic potions.[1648]One object of his reducing by one-third the power of the lords of the spheres when He ascended through the heavens was that men might not henceforth invoke them by magic rites for evil purposes. Marvels may still, however, be accomplished by “those who know the mysteries of the magic of the thirteenth aeon” or power above the spheres.[1649]
Power of names and rites.
But while magic is renounced, great faith is shown in the power of names and rites. Thus after a description of the dragon of outer darkness and the twelve main dungeons into which it divides and the animal faces and names of the twelve rulers thereof, who evidently represent in an inaccurate fashion the signs of the zodiac, it is added that even unrepentant sinners, if they know the mystery of any one of these twelve names, can escape from these dungeons.[1650]In theBook of the SaviourJesus not only utters several long lists of strange and presumably magic words by way of invocation to the Power or powers above, but these are accompanied by careful observance of ceremonial. On both occasions Jesus and the disciples are clad in linen.[1651]In the first case the disciples are carefully grouped with reference to the points of the compass, towards which Jesus turns successively as He utters the magic words standing at a sacrificial altar. The result of this ceremony and invocation was that the heavens were displaced and the earth left behind and that Jesus and the disciples found themselves in the region of mid-air. Before uttering the other invocation Jesus commanded that fire and vine branches be brought, placed an offering on the flame, and carefully arranged two vessels of wine, two cups of water, and as many pieces of bread as there were disciples. In this case the object was to remit the sins of the disciples. In theBook of Jeûin the Bruce Papyrus there is a perfect riot of such magic names and invocations, seals and diagrams, and accompanying ceremonial.[1652]
Interest in natural science.
The interest of the Gnostics in natural science is seen in the list of things that will be known by one who has penetrated all the mysteries and fully entered upon the inheritance of the kingdom of light. Not only will he understand why there is light and darkness, and why sin and vice exist and life and death, but also why there are reptiles and wild beasts and why they shall be destroyed, why there are birds and beasts of burden, why there are gems and precious metals, why there are brass, iron and steel, lead, glass, wax, herbs, waters, “and why the wild denizens of the sea.” Why there are four points of the compass, why demons and men, why heat and cold, stars, winds, and clouds, frost, snow, planets, aeons, decans, and so on and so forth.[1653]
“Gnostic gems” and astrology.
King has shown that many of the so-called “Gnostic gems” are purely astrological talismans and that “only a very small minority amidst their multitude present any traces of the influence of Christian doctrines.”[1654]Many are for medicinal or magical purposes rather than of a religious character. Some nevertheless are engraved with the truly Gnostic figure of Pantheus Abraxas which King regards as “the actual invention of Basilides.” Another common symbol, borrowed from Egypt, is the Agathodaemon, which by the third century had become the popular designation of the hooded snake of Egypt, or Chnuphis or Chneph, a great serpent with a lion’s head encircled by a crown of seven or twelve rays, representing the planets or signs. Often the seven Greek vowels are placed at the tips of the seven rays. On the obverse of the gem the letter “s” is engraved thrice and traversed by a straight rod, a design probably meant to depict a snake twisting about a wand. We are reminded, not only with King of the club of Aesculapius, but of Aaron’s rod, the magicians of Pharaoh, and the serpent lifted up in the wilderness; also of Lucian’s tale of the pretended discovery of the god Asclepius by the pseudo-prophet, Alexander. At least one “Gnostic amulet” has on the back the legend “Iao Sabao” (th).[1655]