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Were gnostics a bunch sexual deviants or was it just slander?
>Numerous early Christian Fathers accused some Gnostic teachers of claiming to eschew the physical realm, while simultaneously freely indulging their physical appetites; however, there is reason to question the accuracy of these claims. Evidence in the source texts indicates Gnostic moral behaviour as being generally ascetic in basis, expressed most fluently in their sexual and dietary practice.[22] Many monks would deprive themselves of food, water, or necessary needs for living. This presented a problem for the heresiologists writing on gnostic movements: this mode of behaviour was one they themselves favoured and supported, so the Church Fathers would be required perforce to offer support to the practices of their theological opponents. To avoid this, a common heresiological approach was to avoid the issue completely by resorting to slanderous (and, in some cases, exaggerated) allegations of libertinism, or to explain Gnostic asceticism as being either based on incorrect interpretations of scripture or simply duplicitous in nature. Irenaeus declares in his treatise "Against Heresies"[23] that Gnostic movements subjected all morality to the caprice of the individual and made any fixed rule of faith impossible.
I've heard others claim that various movements believed morality only applied to the devout, Manichaeism for example, where it's followers were divided into the "Elect" who took on the vows of Manichaeism, and the "Hearers" who participated in the church but did not take the vows. The Elect depended on the Hearers for sustenance because tending to crops was supposedly a sin. The best a Hearer could hope for was to be reborn as an Elect and live an ascetic life to end the cycle of transmigrations - basically giving them a free pass to be exempt from any moral duty.
Many claim this is slander but giving it a closer look seems to reveal it as fact. Is there information that would show otherwise?
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>>2271207
Weren't most Gnostic religions notoriously ascetic when it came to sexuality? Procreation would have prolonged the cycle of earthly life and prevented people from reaching gnosis.
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>>2271447
That's what they claim.
>Numerous early Christian Fathers accused some Gnostic teachers of claiming to eschew the physical realm, while simultaneously freely indulging their physical appetites
I think this is slander, but in manichaeism, it seems to enable amorality in another way:
>The best a Hearer could hope for was to be reborn as an Elect and live an ascetic life to end the cycle of transmigrations - basically giving them a free pass to be exempt from any moral duty
I want to see if any of you can find evidence against Manichaeism giving its followers a free pass on morality.
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>>2271447
Mixed bag.
>>2271207
Lemme pull a quote from Rudolph:
"At the beginning of the 3rd C. Clement of Alexandria condemns the Carpocratians for their rites which he describes as excuses to indulge in gluttony and lust. A little while later Celsus accuses Origen of doing this shit, and he quickly points the finger at the Ophites. What's less known is that even the Gnostics were accusing each other of practicing this sort of thing: Pistis Sophia curses, even into the outer darkness, in the name of Christ, those who eat of a lentil dish made with semen and menstrual blood. Two Egyptian testimonies appear in the 3-4th C. that continue this motif, probably in the vein of Phibionite festive meals. The Book of Jesu condemns similar practices. Oddly, though someone then in turn accuses the Barbeloites (who consider the text Pistis Sophia as a core component of their faith, the one that condemns sexual practices) of “obscene rites:...Epiphanius (died. 403) makes this claim in Panarion 26. Irenaeus accuses some Gnostic sect of eating a lentil dish made from menstrual fluid and semen.
A lot of people like to paint the Gnostics writ large as this highly puritanical sort of ascetic group. The fact remains that SOMEONE out there was practicing sexual rites, and I wanna know who, goddamnit.
They are probably singularly important for transmitting what few scraps of practice the West inherited.
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>>2271501
>>2271447
>>2271501
Sloterdijk's distinction between libertine and ascetic Gnosis is illuminating: "The amoral style leads to a homeopathic ascetic: this weakens the Evil of sin, in that they are committed thoughtfully and ironically, as if by quota: the Gnostic embraces the sin and experiences thereby a critical decay in his own body, finally to climb out of the gutter fully burnt out. — The world is a pornographic purgatory, from which to filter the immaculate Pneumata. The abstaining style, in contrast, applies allopathic methods against the sickness of the World: against the poisons of the cosmos it administers immediate flight from the world as an antidote. Civil disobedience against the lower body, general strike against the astral works, bathings in tears, fasting of the heart."
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I've become really interested in learning about Manichaeism recently.
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