Re: Jewish-Christian interactions in Italy before 1500
Posted: 05 Mar 2015, 10:40
Good summary, and thanks for highlighting the part about Scholem's "song of the bride" and the gnostic parallels.
I looked again at http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/ps/ps145.htm. Different powers have different numbers of demons. One has 27, one has 32, another later on has 49. This chapter is not the end of the Pistis Sophia, it's just the end of a particular narrative. it keeps going. There are also the "36 repentances" of Sophia.
Huck wrote
A short piece with an 8 and a 12 is the "Round Dance of the Cross", or "Hymn of Jesus".
What parallels the song of the bride is the various Gnostic writings about Sophia, and also the Wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible.
I once wrote some introductory material on these subjects, and collected others' material, if you want to look: http://psychandgnosticessays.blogspot.c ... ntary.html. The other subjects I mentioned are in the sidebar on the right. I have more in that same blog, too, but mostly about how Gnosticism connects with other things, like Shakespare and Native American myths. No numbers there, however.
One thing to keep in mind: "Gnosticism" in most of the literature, is--or should be--a proper name, not a theoretical concept. Historically it gets its meaning from Irenaeus, pointing at certain texts, most of which we only know from him. He may or may not have understood them. So he just means those texts plus whatever else from the same period that is similar, in a way that was deemed heretical, mostly after the fact. "Similar" is rather loose, but not so much so as to include orthodox writers. Clement of Alexandria, for example, endorsed something he called "gnosis", but that is not Gnosticism.
Added later: Only one or two of the Gnostic sects reviewed by Irenaeus actually called themselves "gnostic".
I looked again at http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/ps/ps145.htm. Different powers have different numbers of demons. One has 27, one has 32, another later on has 49. This chapter is not the end of the Pistis Sophia, it's just the end of a particular narrative. it keeps going. There are also the "36 repentances" of Sophia.
Huck wrote
That is a very big topic! If you're mainly interested in their use of numbers, the Pistis Sophia is a good place to look. It's so long I don't doubt you can find any number you want there. It seems to be a treasure trove of reworked older material.I think I should learn something about gnosticism.
A short piece with an 8 and a 12 is the "Round Dance of the Cross", or "Hymn of Jesus".
What parallels the song of the bride is the various Gnostic writings about Sophia, and also the Wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible.
I once wrote some introductory material on these subjects, and collected others' material, if you want to look: http://psychandgnosticessays.blogspot.c ... ntary.html. The other subjects I mentioned are in the sidebar on the right. I have more in that same blog, too, but mostly about how Gnosticism connects with other things, like Shakespare and Native American myths. No numbers there, however.
One thing to keep in mind: "Gnosticism" in most of the literature, is--or should be--a proper name, not a theoretical concept. Historically it gets its meaning from Irenaeus, pointing at certain texts, most of which we only know from him. He may or may not have understood them. So he just means those texts plus whatever else from the same period that is similar, in a way that was deemed heretical, mostly after the fact. "Similar" is rather loose, but not so much so as to include orthodox writers. Clement of Alexandria, for example, endorsed something he called "gnosis", but that is not Gnosticism.
Added later: Only one or two of the Gnostic sects reviewed by Irenaeus actually called themselves "gnostic".