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Gnostic sects and founders
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TheSethians (Greek: Σηθιανοί) were one of the main currents ofGnosticism during the 2nd and 3rd century AD, along withValentinianism andBasilideanism. According toJohn D. Turner, it originated in the 2nd century AD as a fusion of two distinctHellenistic Judaic philosophies and was influenced byChristianity andMiddle Platonism.[1] However, the exact origin of Sethianism is not properly understood.[2]
The Sethians (LatinSethoitae) are first mentioned, alongside theOphites, in the 2nd century, byIrenaeus (who was antagonistic towards Gnosticism) and inPseudo-Tertullian (Ch. 30).[3][4] According to Frederik Wisse, all subsequent accounts appear to be largely dependent on Irenaeus.[5] Hippolytus repeats information from Irenaeus.
According toEpiphanius of Salamis (c. 375), Sethians were in his time found only in Egypt and Palestine, but fifty years earlier, they had been found as far away asGreater Armenia.[6][note 1]
Philaster's (4th century AD)Catalogue of Heresies[note 2] places theOphites,Cainites, and Sethians as pre-Christian Jewish sects.[note 3] However, since Sethians identified Seth with Christ (Second Logos of the Great Seth), Philaster's belief that the Sethians had pre-Christian origins, other than insyncretic absorption of Jewish and Greek pre-Christian sources, has not found acceptance in later scholarship.[8]
Hans-Martin Schenke was one of the first scholars to categorize several texts in theNag Hammadi library as Sethian.[9]
According toJohn D. Turner, British and French scholarship tends to see Sethianism as "a form ofheterodox Christian speculation", while German and American scholarship views it as "a distinctly inner-Jewish, albeit syncretistic and heterodox, phenomenon."[1] Roelof van den Broek notes that "Sethianism" may never have been a separate religious movement but that the term rather refers to a set of mythological themes that occur in various texts.[10] According to Turner, Sethianism was influenced byChristianity andMiddle Platonism, and six phases can be discerned in the interaction of Sethianism with Christianity and Platonism.[1]
Phase 1. According to Turner, two different groups, existing before the 2nd century CE,[11] formed the basis for the Sethians: a Jewish group of possibly priestly lineage, the so-calledBarbeloites,[12] named afterBarbelo, the first emanation of the Highest God, and a group of Biblical exegetes, theSethites, the "seed ofSeth".[13]
Phase 2. TheBarbeloites were a baptizing group that in the mid-2nd century fused with Christian baptizing groups. They started to view the pre-existing Christ as the "self-generated (Autogenes) Son of Barbelo", who was "anointed with the Invisible Spirit's 'Christhood'". According to Turner, this "same anointing [was] received by the Barbeloites in their baptismal rite by which they were assimilated to the archetypalSon of Man." The earthly Jesus was regarded as the guise of Barbelo, appearing as the Divine Logos, and receiving Christhood when he was baptized.[13]
Phase 3. In the later 2nd century CE, the Christianized Barbeloites fused with the Sethites, together forming the Gnostic Sethianists. Seth and Christ were identified as bearers of "the true image of God who had recently appeared in the world as the Logos to rescue Jesus from the cross."[14]
Phase 4. At the end of the 2nd century, Sethianism grew apart from the developing Christian orthodoxy, which rejected theDocetian view of the Sethians on Christ.[14]
Phase 5. In the early 3rd century, Sethianism was fully rejected by Christian heresiologists, and Sethianism shifted toward the contemplative practices of Platonism, while losing their interest in their own origins.[15]
Phase 6. In the late 3rd century, Sethianism was attacked by neo-Platonists likePlotinus, and Sethianism alienated from Platonism. In the early to mid-4th century, Sethianism fragmented into various sectarian Gnostic groups, like theArchontics,Audians,Borborites, andPhibionites. Some of these groups existed into the Middle Ages.[16]
Various scholars have noted many similarities betweenMandaeism and Sethianism.Kurt Rudolph (1975) has observed many parallels betweenMandaean texts and Sethian Gnostic texts from theNag Hammadi library.[17]Birger A. Pearson also compares the "Five Seals" of Sethianism, which he believes is a reference to quintuple ritual immersion in water, to Mandaeanmasbuta.[18] According toBuckley (2010), "Sethian Gnostic literature ... is related, perhaps as a younger sibling, to Mandaean baptism ideology."[19]
Sethianism claims thatgnosis first descended uponSeth, the third son ofEve and Adam, whose knowledge the Sethians regard as their origin.Norea, the wife ofNoah, may also have played a role, as seen inMandeanism andManicheanism. The Sethiancosmogonic myth gives a prologue toGenesis and the rest of thePentateuch, presenting a radical reinterpretation of the orthodoxJewish conception of creation and the divine's relation to reality. The Sethian cosmogony is most famously contained in theApocryphon of John, which describes anUnknown God.[note 4] Many of the Sethian concepts were derived from a fusion ofPlatonic orNeoplatonic concepts with theOld Testament (Hebrew Bible), as was common inHellenistic Judaism, exemplified byPhilo (20 BC–40 AD).[citation needed]
From the "Unknown God"emanateaeons, a series of paired female and male beings. The first of these isBarbelo, who is a co-actor in subsequent emanations. Theaeons that result are representative of the various attributes of God, which are indiscernible when they are not abstracted from their origin.[note 5] God and theaeons comprise the sum total of the spiritual universe, known as thePleroma.
In some versions of the myth, theaeonSophia imitates God's actions, performing an emanation of her own without the prior approval of the other aeons in the Pleroma. This results in a crisis within thePleroma, leading to the appearance of theYaldabaoth, a "serpent with a lion's head". This figure is commonly known as thedemiurge, the "artisan" or "craftsman", after the figure inPlato'sTimaeus.[note 6] Sophia at first hides this being but it subsequently escapes, stealing a portion of divine power from her in the process.
TheYaldabaoth uses this stolen power to create a material world imitating the divine Pleroma. To complete this task, he spawns a group of entities known collectively asArchons, "petty rulers" and craftsmen of the physical world. Like him, they are commonly depicted aszoomorphic, having the heads of animals.
At this point, the events of the Sethian narrative begin to cohere with the events of Genesis, with the demiurge and hisarchontic cohorts fulfilling the role of the creator. In Genesis, the demiurge proclaims himself to be the only god, claiming that there are no other gods superior to him. However, the audience's understanding of the context and prior events reinterprets this declaration and the nature of the creator in a dramatically different way.
The demiurge unknowingly emanates a shadow "Image" of Adam while unwittingly transferring the portion of power stolen from Sophia into the first physical human body. He then creates Eve from Adam's rib in an attempt to isolate and regain the power he has lost. By way of this, he attempts to rape Eve, who now contains Sophia's divine power; several texts depict him as failing when Sophia's spirit transplants itself into theTree of Knowledge.The pair eat of the tree of the divine epi-gnosis guided by Christ appearing as an "eagle" above it to guide them to remember their true "nature above".
The addition of the prologue radically alters the significance of events inEden. Rather than emphasizing a fall of human weakness in breaking God's command, Sethians (and their inheritors) emphasize a crisis of the Divine Fullness as it encounters the ignorance of matter, as depicted in stories about Sophia. Eve and Adam's removal from the Archon's paradise is seen as a pronoic part towards freedom from the Archons as part of the "Sacred Plan" hinted at in the Secret Apocryphon of John.[citation needed]
Most surviving Sethian texts are preserved only in Coptic translation of the Greek original. Very little direct evidence of Gnostic teaching was available prior to the discovery of theNag Hammadi library, a collection of 4th-century Coptic translations of Gnostic texts, perhaps hidden in reaction toAthanasius of Alexandria'sEaster letter of 367, which banned the use of non-canonical books. Some of these texts are known to have been in existence in the 2nd century, but it is impossible to exclude the presence of later syncretic material in their 4th-century translations.
TheGospel of Judas is the most recently discovered Gnostic text.National Geographic has published an English translation of it, bringing it into mainstream awareness. It portraysJudas Iscariot as the "thirteenth spirit (daemon)",[22] who "exceeded" the evil sacrifices the disciples offered toSaklas by sacrificing the "man who clothed me (Jesus)".[23] Its reference toBarbelo and inclusion of material similar to the Apocryphon of John and other such texts, connects the text to Barbeloite and/or Sethian Gnosticism.
