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Satanic Mythology and Gnosticism

To: alt.religion.gnostic,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.satanism,talk.religion.misc,alt.mythology,alt.religion.all-worlds
From: Moggin Goldberg 
Subject: Re: Satanic Mythology and Gnosticism
Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2001 06:31:19 GMT

boboroshi@satanservice.org (SOD of the CoE):

> cf. authors of repute on the subject of Gnosticism such as
> Elaine Pagels ("The Gnostic Gospels" goes into the nature of
> the 'demiourgos' somewhat, if memory serves). 

     Pagels barely touches on the subject.  Jonas' _The Gnostic
Religion_ and Rudolph's _Gnosis_ both have much more info.  
You could also go to the sources:  i.e., the gnostics' writings 
and the reports of their contemporaries.

> basically
> we're talking about a constructor of limited portions of the
> cosmos whose relation to the rest of the 'heavenly court'
> ('elohim' in Jewish scripture) or the 'other archons'
> (world-constructors) was not as their overseer or supreme
> chief. 

     No.  The demiurge is the Creator of the cosmos, comparable 
to the Old Testament god (although the term is from Plato).
Certain gnostic texts even give him Yahweh's lines, for example
"I am a jealous god" (in _The Apocryphon of John_, _The 2nd 
Treatise of the Great Seth_, _The Testimony of Truth_, and _The 
Gospel of the Egyptians_).  

     He _is_ called the "chief archon" (e.g. in _The Apocryphon 
of John_, _On the Origin of the World_, and _The Hypostasis 
of the Archons_).  But the gnostics denied that he was the true 
God.  In other words, they distinguished between God and the 
Creator, who they viewed as evil, ignorant, arrogant, 
disgusting, etc. (the details varied) in keeping with the world
he made.

-- Moggin

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