by Kater Moggin

In October 2007, Kater Moggin posted a two-part scholarly analysis to alt.religion.gnostic, responding to Wahid Azal's sharing of Henri Corbin's essay "The Dramatic Element Common to the Gnostic Cosmogonies of the Religions of the Book." Moggin — a scholar of Gnosticism and a longstanding and combative presence on alt.religion.gnostic throughout the early 2000s — took issue with Corbin's reading of Valentinian Gnosticism.

Corbin, the great French scholar of Islamic mysticism and Ismaili Shi'a thought, had argued that the Valentinian demiurge was not truly evil — merely ignorant and limited — and that Valentinian gnosis therefore had more in common with Islamic esotericism and Kabbalah than with the "vituperation" of Marcion. Moggin systematically dismantles this claim, drawing on Irenaeus of Lyon's Against Heresies, Hippolytus of Rome's Refutation of All Heresies, the Gospel of Truth, Clement of Alexandria's Excerpta ex Theodoto, and Heracleon's Commentary on John (preserved in Origen).

The essay also makes a broader point about the misuse of the word "gnosis": Moggin argues that gnosis specifically designates a tradition that rejects the Creator-God (the demiurge) as inferior or evil and distinguishes him from the true transcendent God — thereby separating gnosis from Islamic mysticism and most of Kabbalah, which affirm the Creator as the supreme God. Corbin, Moggin contends, applies "gnosis" so loosely that he uses it "to precisely the opposite" of what it means.

The two posts are here combined into a single essay.

Part One

[Henri Corbin, "The Dramatic Element Common to the Gnostic Cosmogonies of the Religions of the Book"]

I was curious what Corbin would say about the Valentinians. He ain't always wrong. His reference to Sophia's "journey into the abyss" is astute, since she's attempting to comprehend Bythos, literally "Depth" or "Abyss," thus trying to fathom the fathomless.

Corbin's worst and most revealing mistake is his assertion the demiurge in Valentinian mythology is "by no means the malicious and evil God with whom other gnostic schools, in particular that of Marcion, identified the god of the Bible." It's true that the Valentinians are conservatives when compared with the Marcionites, Sethians, etc., but to claim the Valentinian demiurge is never evil and malicious is a plain falsehood, since the Gospel of Truth — identified as Valentinian scripture by Irenaeus in AH 3.11.9 — describes him or her in just that way, "preparing with power and beauty the substitute for the truth" — the Creation — and "preparing works and oblivions and terrors" (see the GT 17:18-20 and 17:31-35), exactly what Corbin says is missing from Valentinian thinking.

Just for kicks, let's look at Corbin's reasoning. He asks "For the Valentinians, how can he be an evil god, since as the son of Sophia, he is the fruit of her movement of conversion?" Simple. The demiurge is rotten fruit produced by Sophia's failed effort to know the unknowable Aeon. The Valentinians call him an abortion (Hippolytus, RH 6.26), say he was the result of Sophia's "impossible and impracticable" desire to comprehend Bythos, and describe the grief that Sophia felt after seeing what she'd created: "She was grieved because of the imperfection of its origin." Irenaeus, AH 1.2.3.

Here again the sources show what Corbin is unable or maybe unwilling to notice.

Discussing the demiurge's later conversion, Corbin asserts that he "reveals his true nature, which is entirely in agreement and accord with the Savior:" a statement saying more about the story Corbin wants to hear than the one in Valentinian mythology, where the demiurge is ignorant and arrogant (Ptolemy), evil (the Gospel of Truth), incompetent (in Marcus), disgusting (Theodotus), etc. — hardly "in accord with the Savior," despite what Corbin claims. The Savior comes bearing gnosis. The demiurge is explicitly said to lack gnosis (Irenaeus 1.7.4) until then, and he's unable to be fully saved: although he survives the final destruction of the material world he remains forever outside the Pleroma, confined to the place of Sophia's exile.

Corbin spins that part of the story by saying, "He manages to raise himself to a rank that is intermediary between the Pleroma and this world that had formerly been hers; and he brings with him, in joy and peace, all of the just men who have remained at the psychic level," neatly obscuring the Valentinian belief that the demiurge and everybody like him are incapable of genuine salvation.

According to Corbin, "We are truly far from the vituperation of a Marcion against the God of the Bible." There we see what Corbin is striving for, but he's wrong as wrong can be. The Valentinians fully agree with Marcion in rejecting Creator-worship, demoting the Maker of this world from supreme deity to highly inferior demiurge: one of gnosticism's defining themes, setting gnosis apart from claims to spiritual knowledge in Islam, most sorts of Kabbalah, Christian orthodoxy, and so on.

I'm fully willing to be proved wrong about Islam. Show me an Islamic heresy rejecting Allah by lowering him from God Supreme to crappy demiurge while dividing him from the true God and I'll stand corrected.

Another of Corbin's distortions: he contends the demiurge is "in exile" in Valentinian myth. Not the case. He was never in the Pleroma to begin with. Sophia — or more strictly speaking the lower Sophia, Achamoth — produces him only after entering into her own state of exile. See Irenaeus, AH 1.4.1–1.5.1.

Despite his talk about "eyes of fire," Corbin blinks every time the light is too strong for him.

In a "remarkable text" (the footnote is oddly missing from the article, but Corbin probably means Hippolytus on the Valentinians, RF 6.31), the demiurge is supposedly initiated by Sophia "from the beginning," allowing him to know his exile and his salvation. False. Again, he isn't in exile since he was never anywhere else, and Hippolytus says in the Valentinian perspective the demiurge "knows nothing at all," a foolish being "devoid of understanding" who wrongly contends that there are no other gods beside him. RF 6.28. So obviously he isn't enlightened all along. On the contrary, he's still the arrogant, ignorant Creator-god standard in Valentinian thinking. Like his conversion in Irenaeus, his "initiation" in Hippolytus arrives late.

One more for now. In Corbin's opinion, "Only our gnostics have perceived" that by calling himself the only God, the demiurge was making a "cry of distress," asking for freedom and deliverance from his posited exile. Evidence given: none. Evidence against: in context (Irenaeus 1.5.4), the demiurge is accused of speaking from ignorance, not said to be expressing distress, complaining he's exiled, or requesting any kind of salvation.

"Gnosis is a permanent hermeneutic" to Corbin. "Among its interpretations of great significance," he says, "is the way in which it understands the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman (John 4), for she is par excellence the image of exiled Sophia."

Let's look at Heracleon's reading of the story (it's preserved in Origen's Commentary on John 13:95-96 and 13:102-104). "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father:" Jesus to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:21. Heracleon takes Jerusalem to signify the Creator and the mountain to stand for the Creation — a "total mountain of evil." Jews worship the Creator, he notes, Gentiles worship the Creation, but pneumatics — gnostics — "...worship neither the creation nor the Creator, but the Father of truth."

Gnosticism in a nutshell: rejection of Creator and Creation in favor of a truth above both.

That divides gnosis — the spiritual truth asserted by the gnostics — from Kabbalah in most of its forms as well as from Shi'ite theology, even though Corbin puts all of the three underneath the same heading. He should know better: he criticizes people who "forget the sense of words" and therefore "speak at random of Manicheism (instead of saying simply dichotomy or dualism)..." and he objects to "misuse of the word 'gnosis' on the part of some modern scholars, scholars even who are reputed to be serious," writing, "One has no scientific or moral right to apply this word to what is precisely its opposite." Just what Corbin does on a regular basis: he talks randomly about "gnosis" when he means nothing more than mysticism, esoterism, or the like, thereby forgetting the sense of the word, and he applies it to precisely the opposite outlook, e.g. the Creator-worship of Shi'ism and Kabbalah, even though he's reputedly a serious person.

Part Two

Corbin accurately states that to the ancient gnostics, the identification of "the Creator of the world with the transcendental God of goodness" was a mistake — the definitive error of Christian and Jewish orthodoxy — they corrected by invoking "another and superior God, exalted and good" in opposition to the demiurge. So far, so good. But he goes very wrong in claiming the Valentinians are an exception. According to him, the Valentinian demiurge "is not in the least an evil a wicked and evil God," merely a deity lacking in omnipotence and omniscience.

First of all, Valentinian thinking clearly depicts an evil demiurge in the Gospel of Truth, which describes her or him "preparing with power and beauty the substitute for the truth" (namely the Creation) and "preparing works and oblivions and terrors" (GT 17:18-20 and 17:31-35): precisely what Corbin repeatedly denies is part of the Valentinian perspective.

Second, even relatively mild Valentinian criticisms of the demiurge go beyond Corbin's statement, "Merely he is not either all-powerful or omniscient." He's ignorant and arrogant (Ptolemy), evil (the Gospel of Truth), incompetent (in Marcus), disgusting (Theodotus), etc. — highly critical commentary on the Creator missing from Corbin's diluted version of Valentinian gnosis.

"Valentinian eschatology presents him as hastening joyfully to encounter the gnostic Savior," Corbin says. Mostly true: the Demiurge is reported to receive the Savior with gladness (see Irenaeus, AH 1.7.4) and to learn from the teachings the Savior offers. What he learns about is the existence of a world beyond his and a god above him, the things he had previously denied. So where Corbin says the Valentinian position on the demiurge differs fundamentally from "other gnostic systems, notably that of Marcion," the similarity is unmistakable. Granted, the Valentinians are much more conservative in their commentary than Marcion, the Sethians, et al., but like those other gnostics they reduce the Creator from supreme deity to highly inferior demiurge, an arrogant and ignorant being unable to reach the Pleroma despite his late-arriving conversion.

Back to Corbin. He borrows Scholem's poorly-chosen phrase "metaphysical anti-Semitism" for Marcion and other gnostics hostile to Yahweh (bad choice of words because anti-Semitism by definition is hostility to the Jewish people, not just a critique of the Jewish religion), then insists it doesn't apply to the Valentinians, claiming "Valentinian gnosis did not share in the 'metaphysical anti-Semitism'" seen in other gnostic schools. But looking at Scholem shows otherwise. Here are the features Scholem lists:

Distinction between a good, hidden God worthy of receiving worship and a demiurge connected with the OT deity. Conversely, rejection of the equation between the transcendental God of goodness and the Creator of this world in Jewish and Christian orthodoxy. Partial acceptance of the Hebrew scriptures, but denial that they describe a superior God. On the contrary: reference to him in pejorative terms. Salvation sent from the hidden God to rescue the soul from life under the demiurge in the material world. Rule over this world symbolizing the demiurge's "lowly status." The overthrow of his reign. Messianic Idea, 104.

The Valentinians match that picture almost perfectly (it's possible to quibble over some details) despite Corbin's assertion. Their rejection of Creator and Creation aligns them with gnostics generally speaking while dividing them from Islamic mystics and the more or less orthodox Kabbalists Corbin wrongly gives the same label.

Colophon

Written by Kater Moggin and posted to alt.religion.gnostic, October 2007. Part 1 Message-ID: <[email protected]>. Part 2 Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

Kater Moggin was a longstanding presence on alt.religion.gnostic, known for his rigorous engagement with primary Gnostic sources and his combative style. The essay here responds to Henri Corbin's "The Dramatic Element Common to the Gnostic Cosmogonies of the Religions of the Book," shared by Wahid Azal. Corbin — the great scholar of Islamic mysticism and imaginal philosophy — had argued that Valentinian Gnosticism lacked the anti-cosmic demiurge found in Marcion and the Sethians, and had placed Valentinian gnosis in a continuum with Ismaili Shi'a and Kabbalistic esotericism. Moggin's correction is systematic: he marshals Irenaeus (Against Heresies), Hippolytus (Refutation of All Heresies), the Gospel of Truth, and Heracleon's commentary (preserved in Origen) to show that the Valentinian demiurge is consistently depicted as ignorant, arrogant, and incapable of true salvation. The closing argument — that "gnosis" specifically designates a rejection of Creator-worship, and that Corbin therefore applies the word to its opposite — is among the clearest brief statements of what distinguishes Gnosticism from other mystical traditions.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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