While we have various Valentinian texts in the NHL, there are fragments that exist elsewhere, usually in the writings of the church Fathers, and are typically presented for negative commentary directed towards them. That being said, they do preserve these tidbits, so hey, I’ll take it. The following survives thanks to Hippolytus of Rome, in …
Tag Archives: gnosticism
Salome
Last month I posted a blog about Mary Magdalene, which included included a conversation between her and Salome from the Pistis Sophia (Link: https://culminationofwisdom.org/2022/07/20/the-feast-day-of-mary-magdalene-july-22/ ), and it got me thinking, we don’t hear much about Salome! (and no, I am not referring to the Salome in the John the Baptist beheading story) In the canonical …
The First Source
Here is another post with some MidJourney A.I. generated artwork. For these three variants of “the first source”, I used the opening section of the “Untitled text” from the Bruce Codex. I have spoken highly of this text before (it is one of my favorites) and was quite pleased with these results. As you can …
Barbelo, as envisioned by A.I.
I figured I would share this interesting artwork I was able to put together with the help of AI. Here lately it seems that artificial intelligence artwork software is all the rage. Most of these programs have you input words / phrases and it will create various artworks based on those words. Most of these …
The Unknowable Monad
One of the questions I see in social media groups about Gnosticism regard “God” and what it is like. Various Gnostic texts explain that the supreme “God” is unknowable. Actually, they specifically describe what this supreme Monad is not, and usually in great deal. I think it’s quite ridiculous that humans think they can describe …
A Gnostic Hymn
I want to highlight a fragment that is in the Bruce Codex. To me, the Bruce Codex features some of the best Gnostic material available but it seemingly gets over looked by most people. With this post, I want to highlight the segment titled “Fragment of a Gnostic Hymn”. This is fragmented but still, as …
Simon Magus’ “The Great Announcement”
To continue on my Simon Magus postings, this particular entry includes the only writing attributed to Simon himself! It survives in fragmented form thanks to Hippolytus in the book “Philosophumena“, aka “Refutations of All Heresies.” The following is the collection of sayings that G.R.S Mead put together for his book “Simon Magus: The Gnostic Magician.” To …
The tomb inscription of Flavia Sophe
This artifact is an interesting piece. It is a tomb inscription of a woman by the name of Flavia Sophe. This stone dates back to the third century and what is written by her husband, is quite beautiful. A really good example of Valentinian poetry. There is writing on the front and back of the …
More Sayings from Simon Magus
“I am the first power, who am always, and without beginning. But having entered the womb of Rachel, I was born of her as a man, that I might be visible to men. I have flown through the air; I have been mixed with fire, and been made one body with it; I have made …
Sayings of Simon Magus
Some Christians refer to Simon Magus as the first Gnostic, and/or the Father of All Heresies, but was he? I highly doubt that. But what did he say / teach that would be in the “Gnostic” school of thought? I decided to browse around on some texts that involve him and wanted to give some …