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Updated: May 15, 2025
In regard to the whole Poem of the World I will observe that, up to the time I finished the last line, I had never studied the kindred systems of the Neo-Platonics or the Gnostics.
It is called the "Moonlight Cross" of the Gnostics. I gave it to her on the night of our betrothal. She was a Roman Catholic. It is made of precious stones cut in facets, with rubies and diamonds and beryls so cunningly set that, when the moonlight falls on them, the cross flashes almost as brilliantly as when the sunlight falls on them and is kindled into living fire.
The Gnostics, a mystic order and school in the early church, taught Reincarnation plainly and openly, bringing upon themselves much persecution at the hands of the more conservative. Others held to some form of the teaching, the disputes among them being principally regarding points of doctrine and detail, the main teachings being admitted.
Thomas: Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names; Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism. Jennings, Hargrave: The Rosicrucians; The Indian Religions. King, C. W: The Gnostics and their Remains; Hand-book of Engraved Gems. Knight, R. P.: The Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology; Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus. Layard, A.: Babylon and Nineveh; Nineveh and its Remains.
But if such big wigs will come abroad in disguise, and with names as long as Fielding's Hononchrononthononthologus, they must submit to be hustled by pickpockets and critics, and to have their names docked as well as profane authors. Phil, then, be it that's settled. Now, let us inquire what it is that Phil. has been saying, to cause such a sensation amongst the Gnostics.
The bland and easy-going catholicity which professes so much in our day, which embraces all faiths and unfaiths in one sweet emulsion of meaningless negations, which patronizes the Christ and His doctrines, and applies the nomenclature of Christianity to doctrines the very opposite of its teachings, finds a counterpart in the smooth and vapid compromises of the old Gnostics.
It is the stage that we learn, or mis-learn, from the statues and the handbooks of mythology. Critics have said that this Olympian stage has value only as art and not as religion. That is just one of the points into which we shall inquire. Thirdly, there is the Hellenistic period, reaching roughly from Plato to St. Paul and the earlier Gnostics.
As the Alexandrian Jews intertwined the teachings of Judaism and Platonism; as Manichæans and Gnostics corrupted the truths of the Old and New Testaments with ideas borrowed from Persian mysticism; as various eclectic systems gathered up all types of thought which the wide conquests of the Roman Empire brought together, and mingled them with Christian teachings; so now the increased intercommunication, and the quickened intellectual activity of our age have led to the fusion of different systems, ancient and modern, in a negative and nerveless religion of humanity.
It is difficult to learn a great deal about the Gnostics, but some of their beliefs are known. Gnostic symbols consisted for a great part of phallic emblems, it having been shown that their gems and secret talismans were of phallic significance. The Gnostics also gave evidences of reverting to a more primitive civilization in other than religious spheres.
Hence the Persians were noble types of the great Indo-European family, whose civilization has spread throughout the world. Their religion was the least corrupted of the ancient races, and was marked by a keen desire to arrive at truth, and entered, in the time of the Gnostics, into the speculations of the Christian fathers, of whom Origen was the type.
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