A Prayer

Mother Sophia, I pray You stand guard by my lips; that I shall say nothing to unwittingly harm or endanger those whom You in Your infinite Wisdom have placed in my concern. Hold before me the promise that we shall know the truth, and it is the truth which will set us free. Restore to us peace, even when it is beyond our comprehension. And may those who are blameless be not stained by others.

So mote it be.

The Hidden History of the West

This one is embarrassing, but relevant.  It's a speech I wrote and delivered at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana on 28 March 2005.  If I were to deliver it today, it would be a very different speech, although some of the structure and most of the underlying info would be there.

Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like tonight to introduce you to a world, a world you may never have known existed. I'd like to introduce you toyour world.

In order to introduce you to this world, we must first clear some presuppositions about the world you thought existed. You knew I couldn't get through tonight's speech on Gnosticism without a reference to The Matrix, so let's get it out of the way now: The world as you know it is a lie.

No, that doesn't mean I'm trying to tell you that we're all Energizer fluffbunnies plugged into some cosmic supercomputer. I think y'all would worry where Carter found this guy if that were the case. Instead, I'm here tonight to challenge the presuppositions we have about our history, and about the ability of Pagans to relate to other religions; in particular, Christianity.

You may believe, as many people do, that the institution of Christianity was passed seamlessly from being a unified mystery cult, to being the united Religio Romana in Constantine's time, to being the monolithic force which conquered Europe and much of the world through violence. However, that's not entirely accurate. The history of early Christianity was never as unified as even the Christians would have us believe.

From the beginning, from when Paul wrote letters scorning the various churches in Asia Minor, there have been scores of so-called "heretical" sects which have come to be known as the Gnostic sects. These sects were as much in opposition with one another as with the sects which came to be known as the catholic, or universal, church.

Speaking of which, you did know, did you not, that the Catholic Church was not founded by Christ nor His twelve disciples. Nor was it founded by Paul. Instead, the Catholic Church came into being in 325 CE, when Constantine brought together at Nicaea [nīsē'u] a council of the various Christian sects to form a united religion. Even after that time, sects separate from the Catholic Church persisted. For example, the sect which has come to be known as the Celtic Orthodox Church survived in Ireland and elsewhere in the British Isles until 664 CE, when King Oswy of Northumbria assented to the Roman Catholic Church at the Synod of Whitby.

In any case, these Gnostic sects, as I mention, each had differing ideas about such topics as Christ, evangelism, personal morality, and more. Some, we might consider more straight-laced than the Church. Others were more hedonistic than modern Pagans. For example, the Barbelites are reported to have practiced the ritual ingestion of the menses, a notion that I'm sure squicks some of you out.

I say that, however, with some amount of caution. Our primary source for information on the Gnostics, particularly before the discovery of manuscripts at Nag Hammadi [näg hä'mädi], Egypt, in 1945, has been the Catholic Church itself. It's not unreasonable to suppose that some of this information is biased, if not outrightly slanderous. However, because even slander often contains a kernel of truth, we can ascertain many of the Gnostics' beliefs through the writings of the Church fathers.

Central to many of these writings is the charge that the Gnostics rejected the Old Testament. This charge was particularly levelled against the Marcionites, which represented the largest of the Gnostic sects. I'll address the validity of that charge in a moment, but first I'd like to go into more depth on the Marcionites, as this is the sect which most closely resembles my beliefs.

Marcion was born circa 110 CE at Sinope, in what is now Turkey. He was the son of the Bishop of Sinope, and was also a child of wealth. The early Church alleges that Marcion sinned with a young maiden and was driven from Sinope as a result. However, some modern scholars theorize that the "young maiden" may be an allegory for Marcion's unorthodox beliefs.

Marcion travelled to Rome, where he founded a church which competed against the Petronian church which was, of course, eventually to be known as the Roman Catholic Church. The Marcionite church was founded in 144 CE, and represented what modern Catholic authors admit was the greatest threat the Catholic Church has ever known. Much of this threat came in organization: The Marcionites were perhaps the best organized of all the Gnostic sects.

Indeed, they survived in the Middle East until becoming absorbed by the Manichaeans. As the Manichaeans gave way in Iraq to the Mandaeans, and as the Mandaeans claim both Christianity and a dualistic view of good and evil, it could be said that the Mandaeans are the survivors and heirs of the Marcionite sect. I should warn, though, that much of Mandaean belief has been influenced by centuries of exposure to Islam, and that some Marcionite beliefs have been lost in the process.

The Marcionites, along with some other Gnostic sects, believe that mankind was created sometime before Adam by an encompassing pantheon of deities known as Elohim: The "us" in the phrase, "Let us make man in our own image." From Elohim sprung an entity known as the Demiurge, also called Samael (the god of the blind). Marcionites believe that Samael and the deity some have called "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" are one and the same.

The reason for equating the two can be found in a text called "The Hypostasis of the Archons", which was found amongst the other manuscripts at Nag Hammadi: Samael claimed the power of all creation for himself, thus declaring himself alone and above all. For this error, Elohim proclaimed, "You are mistaken," and the power Samael coveted was expelled, or expired; literally, breathed out. You might find a parallel to this in the Bible, where the god of the Old Testament breathed his power into Adam, yet declares himself alone and above all.

We Marcionites consider much of the Old Testament not to be false, as the Catholics claim, but rather as a history of the dealings of this fallen god with humanity. This god told Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, lest we die in that same day. We ate anyway, and did not die, but became as the gods... just as Samael himself admits. The children of Adam and Eve procreated with the true men of God's creation. For this, Samael sought to destroy the world, but unwittingly provides mankind with our salvation through Noah. Samael gave the Law to destroy us with our own shortcomings, only to have that Law fulfilled in Christ.

So what does all this mean to modern Pagans? Frankly, not much. Because the Law was fulfilled, there is nothing we need to do ourselves to fulfill it. Christians today talk about accepting Christ into our hearts, which is well and good, until they seek to replace the old Law with one of Christianity's own invention. This is entirely unnecessary, and perhaps even harmful: As Saint Paul writes, if we are justified by the Law, are we not void of Grace?

However, Pagans may be interested to note that Marcionism and other Gnostic sects formed the foundation not only of an alternative form of Christianity, but perhaps their own faiths as well. I mentioned how Marcionism survived in the Middle East. It is believed by John Robinson and other Masonic authors that Freemasonry contains elements which were found in the Middle East by the Knights Templar, and carried back to Europe, where the Knights Templar then went into hiding. This was in 1314 CE, when King Philip the Fair of France persecuted the Templars. Some have theorized that the Templars fled to Scotland, where they came to disguise themselves as a guild of stonemasons.

Fast-forward to the beginning of the 20th century, when occultists such as Aleister Crowley and Gerald Gardner became involved in Masonic lodges, and credit Freemasonry for some of their ideas. Now ask yourself: Is it possible that some of the secrets passed down to Wiccans, witches, and Pagans today are those once held by Marcion, his followers, and contemporary Gnostics? There is much we don't know about the Gnostic sects even now. This may be the hidden history of the West.

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Source material

• The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia


• The Nag Hammadi Library at The Gnosis Archive


• The Gnostic Friends Network, from which some information on the Barbelites is derived. [Warning: Not work safe]


• Mandaean Official Site


• Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry by John J Robinson


• A History and Mythos of the Knights Templar


• www.geraldgardner.com