Gnosticism and Samaritan theology

A few scattered notes from Jarl Fossum’s book examining the links between the figure of the “angel of Yahweh” in Samaritan theology and the “demiurge” of gnosticism.

1) Fossum points out that Simon Magus, legendarily the fountain of Gnosticism, venerated the Torah, and that some of the church Fathers said Cerinthus advocated circumcision and the keeping of Sabbath. He also finds texts in the Nag Hammadi collection that express a similar veneration for the law as well. The first gnostics were Jews who adhered to their Bibles.

2) The demiurge not always seen as evil in Gnosticism, and there is often no identification of Demiurge with God of the OT. Rather, the demiurge is identified with ngelic mediator of creation. The gnostics took the model and terminology of a “demiurge” from Plato, but also had a model of their own in the Angel of Yahweh. The original Gnostics were not radically dualistic. The demiurge was agent of God, formed by wisdom, and not an equally ultimate evil principle.

3) According to testimonies about the teaching of Simon, angels created as well as delivered law. Fossum finds in Simon an attempt to distinguish the national God of Israel from the Creator, as a way of underscoring the universalism of Christianity.

4) Fossum cites A. Honig’s theory that the first Gnostics were Jews who used the demiurge to explain the origin of evil

5) The Magharians in Palestine distinguished between the ultimate God, who was beyond anthropomorphism, and the angel that is the subject of all the anthropomorphisms of the OT.