Giordano Bruno burns at the stake at Camp dei Fiore, Rome, 1600
As always, this is my naked opinion, and mine alone.
Gnosticism is not an end-all. People are. Some would have us believe that the ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and modern streams of our tradition should be segregated. These theorists would like us to think that these epochs, that inform much of today’s Gnostic church, are to be "purified" only to include the literary prognosticators among the surviving pre-Nicene Gnostic Christian texts (as they have appeared in the haphazard grouping of texts found within the Nag Hammadi codeces, along with Hermetic and Platonic texts).
These new prognosticators tell me that we must forfeit the invaluable contributions of those brave enough to espouse gnosis as a personal experience within a real community if they happened to live after the time of the ancient Gnostics. The likes of Giordano Bruno must therefore be left aside, despite Bruno’s tortured death on a stake planted firmly in the middle of Campo dei Fiore, Rome, the victim of the Roman Pontiff and the curia. Some of Gnosticism’s most fervent opponents are also accepted by Gnostic Catholics as our sisters and brothers, despite the historical abuses that we have suffered. Which is more Christ like?
These new prognosticators tell me that we must forfeit the invaluable contributions of those brave enough to espouse gnosis as a personal experience within a real community if they happened to live after the time of the ancient Gnostics. The likes of Giordano Bruno must therefore be left aside, despite Bruno’s tortured death on a stake planted firmly in the middle of Campo dei Fiore, Rome, the victim of the Roman Pontiff and the curia. Some of Gnosticism’s most fervent opponents are also accepted by Gnostic Catholics as our sisters and brothers, despite the historical abuses that we have suffered. Which is more Christ like?
Sitting in a room alone, or among several Internet friends, one might assume that gnosis can be coaxed by repeating or reading some 2nd century texts from the “authentic” Gnostics. At an abstract level, any religion can be “practiced” in such a way that it seems to be effective. Following their respective scriptures, all religions could be observed alone, but Gnostic Christianity and its adherents have always found ways to provide tools for learning and sharing, while dodging the many pyres of extermination – mostly set by Rome. Today, thankfully, the Inquisition is left to the court of each person’s judgment. If you don’t want to acknowledge the Johannite Gnostic Tradition, that is your perfect right. Remember, however, that before the publication of the scrolls found at Nag Hammadi in 1945, there were, and still are, communities of people who have kept the Sacred Flame alive – burning without knowledge of the Nag Hammadi texts, much less creating a “new” fundamentalist Gnostic way.
Again, as a person, I have never sought any enemy regarding my religion, but there seems to be a small minority of people, who were once friendly to me, who have decided to attack my beliefs, my church, and the values upon which it rests. My enemy is not the communion of Rome or alternative doctrines or approaches in the Gnostic world. I stand firmly against any entity, person, or group of persons who actively seek to destroy the community of people whose only wish is to fortify their experiences of gnosis with a real and lasting communion of the living and the dead.
