The main tenets of both the Judeo-Christian and Gnostic sects of Christianity include explanations concerning universal creation, the birth of human beings, sexuality, the Tree of Knowledge and the roles of men and women on earth. However, the different disciplines vary greatly in their interpretations about the origin of things. Sometimes it is almost as if the Gnostics are mocking the Christians' creation myths because they portray the male, dominating force as a reckless, arrogant, shadow side of the female unconscious while the Judeo-Christians solely embrace it. The Gnostic female creative force has tasked human beings with the responsibility of recognizing the divine within and reuniting the male and female principles while the Judeo-Christian male deity demands that humankind exist only to worship him. Both systems of belief, however, represent human beings' desire to seek a divine source and share it with all the world. It seems their differences lie in the inherent gender-nature of their human creators.
Beginning with Constantine accepting Christianity in the 4th century AD, mystic Judaism and Christianity became excluded from the Bible thereby eradicating an alternative viewpoint, Gnosticism, that offered a synthesis of both male and female principles. Gnosticism was composed of a variety of philosophical and religious ideals that revealed an equality of the sexes. By combining Hellenistic, Christian, Gnostic, Hebrew, Egyptian and Coptic magical themes and doctrine, a system of thought evolved from a belief that divinity rises out of one source from which we are all born. The Gnostic scripture, On the Origin of the World, explains that creation occurred from a separation of the divine unity into masculine and feminine principles; therefore, regaining this unity becomes a sacred act on psychological, spiritual and sexual levels.
The Gnostics believe that the universe sprang from a female source whose shadow manifested itself into the first androgynous, spiritless ruler which claimed for itself a male form that arrogantly and recklessly ruled the earth forgetting the female source from which it sprang. From this moment forward, the Gnostic creation myths center around the reunification of the male and female source in order to regain universal, spiritual, sexual and psychological balance. In the form of Sophia (wisdom) the female principle desires to mate with the spiritless First Father stemming from Eros'(love) unification with Psyche (soul). By animating the soul and love a physical, psychological union occurs which results in a paradisal earth prepared for man.
Within this Gnostic version of creation love drives the male and female characters to one another and it is the woman Eve, who breathes life into Adam. The Judeo-Christian creation myth, however, has a male God creating Adam from the earth and Eve from Adam's rib. There is no mention of love or unification, only procreation. The actual creation of the universe and earth according to Judeo-Christian mythology was the work of a male, almost human, God who encompassed all forces and made personal decisions about the relationship between humankind and itself as well as other living things. Within the Judeo-Christian Old Testament, there is a felt absence of light, love, beauty and hope that has left its mark upon the state of Western civilization.
An extremely important aspect of Gnostic and Judeo-Christian mythology centers around the Tree of Knowledge and the serpent wrapped around its base. The serpent in each myth is crucial because it guides Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. For the Judeo-Christians the serpent is evil manifested while the Gnostics believed the serpent to be a symbol of the earth goddess and the feminine universal force. In Judeo-Christian scripture Eve is the cause of humankind's suffering because she listened to the serpent and ate the Tree's fruit. Furthermore, her decision was credited with the reason for women's pain in childbirth as well as creating a permanent rift between men and women. The Gnostics, however, viewed this same act as Eve showing us our divinity because by eating from the Tree of Knowledge and by listening to the serpent she made humans god-like. However, the Judeo-Christians believe the attainment of this knowledge to be our first sin and the bane of human existence. Both the Gnostics and Judeo-Christians explain that the divine knowledge of good and evil eradicates illusion (paradise), but the Gnostics maintain that ripping the veils away brings one in union with the universe while the Judeo-Christians claim it divides us.
The practitioners of both Gnosticism and Judeo-Christianity developed systems of belief in order to explain and justify the existence of the universe. Because both doctrines are the result of humankind's exploration of the divine it is difficult to deem one right or wrong. For Western Civilization, the element of choice between the two was eliminated by Constantine so our culture has been inundated with Judeo-Christian thought for over a thousand years. All we can do is examine the effects of what we have known and it cannot be ignored that our culture suffers from so many different psychological and physical ailments that anthropologists, priests, counselors and psychologists could spend the next thousand years trying to heal everyone and those who are to come.
What our Western civilization is suffering from is an unhealthy soul, both individually and collectively. It is my opinion that the inherent, almost genetic now, influence of the patriarchal, Judeo-Christian religious and political systems is the disease from which we need curing. It is important to understand that prior to the imposition of Judeo-Christian laws, the West flourished under a system of nature and goddess worship in conjunction with a necessary, male principle. The Egyptian, Sumerian, Celtic, Gaelic, Greek, Roman and Native American, to name a few, cultures were all goddess centered in some way and each was a powerful, economically sound and spiritually healthy society. This appreciation of the combination of male and female divine sources allowed for a lifestyle much different from our own where women were revered equally. The equality of the sexes illuminated sexuality and reproduction was an act of universal re-creation on a smaller scale. Humankind was seen in all of its glory and all life on earth was considered sacred.
Spiritual scholars share the belief that the West is denying itself a soul by denying a feminine presence. The subjugation of women does not seem to be the answer which was originally assumed by Judeo-Christians. Perhaps because the Gnostics brought together so many different systems of thought in order to develop a singular belief they were able to see what the monotheistic Judeo-Christian god could not. Fortunately this century, even within the last decade, has brought an open, global-wide sharing of religious information that will enlighten those who have only seen one perspective. Initially, as with Adam and Eve, the power of knowledge will cause some to have their religious and psychological foundations shaken to the ground as the veils of illusion are ripped away. Yet through the divine power of the Gnostic, eternal love between the soul and the psyche, I believe that people will be reborn in a new awareness and understanding. So it is not so much that we should judge which belief system is better, but rather we should continue to be patient and wait it out as Nature and the Divine will always remanifest themselves when we are ready.
© Copyright Paula Vaughan
Not to be reprinted without permission.
Resources for further study
The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels