On 12/11/2014 5:24 PM, s3raphita wrote:
Re Gnosticism is probably derived from Mani's dualism. :
Mani (3rd century AD) was too late in the day to be the originator of
Gnosticism.
However, the Persian prophet Zoroaster (5th century BC) is the
definitive original source of all these dualistic worldviews.
Mani had a big influence on Saint Augustine. Though Augustine later
turned from Manichaeism to Christianity, one of his bitter theological
opponents sneeringly said of him Once a Manichee always a Manichee.
And so Christendom got landed with Augustine's doctrine of original
sin which has an unpleasant dualist ring to it.
Klimbert presents an astonishing collection of parables, hymns,
narratives and prayers that unveil a major Christian movement primarily
founded by the prophet Mani, who merged Gnostic Christianity with the
radical religious dualism of Persian religion and Zoroaster. As the
movement spread along the Silk Road from Turkey to Asia, it adopted
prominent features from Hinduism, Buddhism, and other faiths. The result
was a Christian philosophy and practice that was much closer to the
mystical, meditative religions of the East.
Apparently, Mani lived in India for over two years and drank deep at
Buddhist wells. According to Hans Jonas, writing in The Gnostic Religion:/
Mani is the only gnostic system which became a broad historical force,
and the religion based on it must, in spite if its eventual downfall, be
ranked among the major religions of mankind. Mani, indeed, alone among
the gnostic system-builders, intended to found, not a select group of
initiates, but a new universal religion; and so his doctrine, unlike the
teaching of all other Gnostics with the exception of Marcion, has
nothing esoteric about it.../
Works Cited:
*Gnosis on the Silk Road*
by Hans-Hoachim Klimkeit
UNESCO Publications Program, 1993
p. 206
*The Gnostic Religion*
by Hans Jonas
Boston, 1963 2nd edition
p. 185
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, punditster@... wrote :
On 12/9/2014 4:29 PM, s3raphita@... mailto:s3raphita@...
[FairfieldLife] wrote:
Take the *Gnostic* element. Where did Gnosticism originate?
Gnosticism is probably derived from Mani's dualism. It should be noted
that the first dualist philosophy was the Indian Sankhya (pertaining
to number), a Vedic first cousin to the Avestan dualism of the Persian
Zoroaster and the Manichean Manes - Sankhya being the basis of all
subsequent Asian dualism including Vaishnavism, Tantra, Gnostic
dualism and the Chinese Yin-Yang.
There are many reason for to identify the Gnostic movement with the
the dualism and the rise of Buddhist Mahayana, which is well
documented. There are clear links between the radical dualism of the
Indian Sage Kapila. According to Campbell:
/When we review these in the light of what we now have come to know,
both from the Nag-Hamadi trove and from our understanding, recently
gained, of the Docetic doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism (the growth and
flowering of which exactly coincided with the high period of the
Gnostic movement), the implications of their imagery can be judged
with enlarged appreciation./
Edward Conze noted that /This Buddhism I propose to compare with
Gnosis rather than the Gnostics, because the connotation of the
latter term is still so uncertain and remains undefined. /Conze's
speculations are supported and expanded by Pagels in /The Gnostic
Gospels/ where she appeals to Buddhist scholars to find evidence for
contact between Buddhism and Gnosticism.
We find evidence that Buddhist thought had major influence on the
teachings of Mani. Barnstone cites many authenticating references
proving the centrality of Buddhism in Mani's formulation of
Gnosticism. Apparently Buddhist influences were significant in the
formation of Mani's religious thought. After Mani's vist to India
(Kushan Empire) there were religious paintings in Bamiyan that were
attributed to Mani.
On the death of Mani:
/It was a day of pain//
//and a time of sorrow//
//when the messenger of light//
//entered death//
//when he entered complete Nirvana /
*Works cited:*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_Gnosticism
*
**The Masks of God*
Volume III Occidental; The Illusory Christ
by Joseph Campbell
Viking, 1964
p. 364
*Religions of the Silk Road*
Overland Trade and Cultural Exchange from Antiquity to the Fifteenth
Century
by Richard Foltz
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, punditster@... wrote :
On 12/9/2014 4:29 PM, s3raphita@... mailto:s3raphita@...
[FairfieldLife] wrote:
Take the *Gnostic* element. Where did Gnosticism originate?
Gnosticism is probably derived from Mani's dualism. It should be noted
that the first dualist philosophy was the Indian Sankhya (pertaining
to number), a Vedic first cousin to the Avestan dualism of the Persian
Zoroaster and the Manichean Manes - Sankhya being the basis of all
subsequent Asian
