Who is a Modern Gnostic?

I came across a website by women fed up with the patriarchal church and its centuries-long subjugation of the feminine. I liked their section exploring the importance of women in early Christianity and thought they might like to know about my novel Marriages of the Magdalene. So I made contact.

A message came back. ‘Sorry to be blunt when you have been so complimentary, but we couldn’t possibly have anything in common or continue to communicate. It appears to us that you are a Gnostic!’ (they had looked over my website).

There was no explanation. Mystified I was motivated to find possible reasons for the rebuff. After all, Gnosticism didn’t reject the feminine spirit or her human counterpart. Wisdom, Sophia in Greek was very much part of it, and Mary Magdalene was often cast as a guide to wisdom.

A look at Gnostic origins

Gnostic comes from gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge, the kind of knowledge that enables insight into spiritual things unknowable to the senses. Widespread by the 2^nd century CE, Gnosticism had some affinity with ancient mystery cults and Platonic philosophy. As a branch of Christianity Gnosticism co-existed with the church until about the 4^th century, although many church fathers condemned the beliefs as heretical.

What we knew about Gnosticism came from those complaining churchmen until the discovery in 1945 of a cache of gnostic Christian writings at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. These revealed philosophical attempts to explain why earthly existence is filled with suffering. The explanations took many forms. One radical version portrayed a separation between the perfect realm of the divine and the flawed physical world created by a lesser being called the Demiurge. This thinking led to extremes of renunciation and denial of ‘things of this world’ including the physical body. The Cathars in the Languedoc region of southern France still thought that way in the 13^th century, but so did mainstream Christianity, although today it is a fringe belief.

But another gnostic idea of a divine spark hiding within the soul is different. It continues to resonate widely. So, what would a modern Gnostic think about that?

Searching for the ‘divine spark’ – faith and knowledge

In any area of life, from a scientific problem to discovering your purpose, you begin with faith that answers can be found. When you have faith, you trust, and this is the impetus to begin your work, to form a relationship, to travel to an unexplored place.

Gnosticism acknowledged the need for faith, and for spiritual guides, the greatest of whom was Jesus Christ, who revealed the way for a human race generally ignorant of the divine spark within. But for a Gnostic this spark could never be discovered without the seeker’s personal commitment and the knowledge of the steps involved. The opposing religious notion was dependence, on the favour of God, Christ, divine Sophia, Mary or some other spiritual power set apart from humans. It’s called ‘blind faith’.

Dig down today and you find that many spiritually inclined and religious people continue to see a heavenly ‘him’ or ‘her’ making the longed-for event happen. All you do is believe and ask, as in ‘Ask and it will be given to you’ (Matthew 7:7). This kind of faith ignores the significance of the rest of that quote: ‘… seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened unto you’.

Knowledge is never perfect, there is always more to discover, but seeking knowledge and understanding opens the mind and provides the opportunity to explore profound ideas, and to grow in wisdom. The modern Gnostic recognises this. As with any serious undertaking, the spiritual quest requires a persistent and exacting personal effort.

I still didn’t know for sure why that website’s editors disapproved. But striving to know one’s spiritual self and finding the courage to express this self in the world – that feels contemporary to me. If to be on this journey is to be a ‘Gnostic’, I think it’s great to be among all of you who travel too.