Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/675

 GNOSTICISM

597

GNOSTICISM

said: "In [iv] the name of the great and highest God one with water, the other with wine, and branches of

and in the name of liis Son, the great King". In the vine are used. Christ crowns the Apostles with

Iren. (I, xxi, 3) we find the formula: "In the name olive wreaths, begs Melchisedech to come and change

that was hidden from every divinity and lordship and wine into waterfor baptism, puts herbs in the Apostles'

truth, which [name] Jesus the Nazarene has put on in mouths and hands. Whether these actions in some

the regions of light" and several other formuhe, which sense reflect the ritual of Gnosticism, or are only im-

were sometimes pronounced in Hebrew or Aramaic, aginations of the author, cannot be decided. The

The Mandarins said: "The name of the Life and the Gnostics seem also to have used oil sacramentally for

name of the Manda d'Haye is named over thee". In the healing of the sick, and even the dead were anoin-

connexion with Baptism the Sphragis CScppayh) was of ted by them to be rendered safe and invisible in their

great importance ; m what the seal or sign consisted wherewith they were marked is not easy to say. There was also the tradition of a name either by utterance or by handing a tablet with some mystic word on it.

(b) Confirmation. — The anoint- ing of the candidate with chrism, or odoriferous ointment, is a Gnostic rite which overshadows the importance of baptism. In the "Acta Thomse", so some scholars maintain, it had com- pletely replaced baptism, and was the sole sacrament of initiation. This however is not yet proven. The Marcosians went so far as to reject Christian baptism and to substitute a mixture of oil and water which they poured over the head of the candidate. By confirmation the Gnostics in- tended not so much to give the Holy Ghost as to seal the candi- date against the attacks of the archons, or to drive them away by the sweet odour which is above all things (t^s vrip ra 8\a evuidLas). The balsam was somehow sup- posed to have flowed from the Tree of Life, and this tree was again mystically connected with the Cross; for the chrism is in the " .\cta Thoraie" called " the hid- den mystery in which the Cross is shown to us".

(c) The Eucharist. — It is re- markable that so little is known of the Gnostic substitute for the Eucharist. In a number of pa.s- sages we read of the breaking of the bread, but in what this con- sisted is not easy to determine. The use of salt in this rite seems to have been important (Clem., Hom. xiv), for we read distinctly how St. Peter broke the bread of the Eucharist and "putting salt thereon, he gave first to the mother and then to us". There

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transit through the realms of the archons.

(d) The NymphSn. — They pos- sessed a special Gnostic sacrament of the bridechamber (fvfupwv) in which, through some symbolical actions, their souls were wedded to their angels in the Pleroma. Details of its rites are not as yet known. Tertullian no doubt alluded to them in the words " Eleusinia fecerunt lenocinia".

(e) The Magic Vowels. — An ex- traordinary prominence is given to the utterance of the vowels: aernova. The Saviour and His disciples are supposed in the midst of their sentences to have broken out in an interminable gibberi.sh of only vowels; magic spells have come down to us con- sisting of vowels by the fourscore ; on amulets the seven vowels, re- peated according to all sorts of artifices, form a very common inscription. Within the last few years these Gnostic vowels, so long a mystery, have been the object of careful study by Ruelle, Poir^e, and Leclercq, and it may be considered proven that each vowel represents one of the seven planets, or archons; that the seven together represent the Uni- verse, but without consonants they represent the Ideal and In- finite not yet imprisoned and limited by matter; that they rep- resent a musical scale, probably like the Gregorian 1 tone re-re, or d, e, f, g, a, b, c, and many a Gnostic sheet of vowels is in fact a sheet of music. But research on this subject has only ju.st be- gun. Among the Gnostics the Ophites were particularly fond of representing their cosmogonic speculations by diagrams, circles within circles, squares, and par- allel lines, and other mathemati-

cal figures combined, with names is furthermore a great _ likelihood, though no cer- written within them. How far these sacred diagrams tainty, that the Eucharist referred to in the "Acta were used as symbols in their liturgy, we do not know. Thoma;" was merely a breaking of bread without Schools of Gnosticism. — Gnosticism possessed no the use of the cup. This point is strongly con- central authority for either doctrine or discipline; con- troverted, but the contrary can hardly be proven. It sidered as a whole it had no organization similar to the is beyond doubt that the Gnostics often substituted vast organization of the Catholic Church. It was but water for the wine (Acta Thomae, Baptism of Myg- a large "conglomeration of sects, of which Marcionisni donia, ch. cxxi). What formula of consecration was alone attempted in some way to rival the constitution used we do not know, but the bread was certainly of the Church, and even Marcionisni had no unity, signed with the Cross. It is to be noted that the No other classification of these sects is possible than Gnostics called the Eucharist by Christian sacrificial that according to their main trend of thought. We terms — Trpocr^opd, "oblation", Gw^a (II Bk. of JeO, 45). can therefore distinguish: (a) Syrian or Semitic; (b) In the Coptic Books (Pistis Sophia, 142; II Jed, 45-47) Hellenistic or Alexandrian ; (c) dualistic; (d) antino- we find a long description of some apparently Euchar- niian Gnostics.

istic ceremonies carried out by Jesus Himself. In (a) The Stjrian School. — This school represents the

these fire and incense, two flasks, and also two cups, oldest phase of Gnosticism, as Western Asia was the