THE MEANING OF PISTIS AND GNOSIS IN NOTES TO H.P.B.’S COMMENTARY ON THE PISTIS SOPHIA

“A helpful definition of the title’s meaning has been supplied by P.A. Malpas. ‘Title: Pistis-Sophia is a combination of two Greek substantives, usually translated Faith and Wisdom. But H.P. Blavatsky plainly shows that Faith in the modern sense is quite an inadequate rendering of the term Pistis. It is better described as Intuitional Knowledge, or knowledge not yet manifest to the mere intellect, though felt by the Soul to be true. This definition leaves the way open for dogmatists to say that it means precisely what they call faith, and the genuine enquirer needs to be careful in accepting dogmatic definitions of the soul and intellect and to beware of thinking that Pistis has anything to do with “believing” things that are not otherwise known. “Faith” is too often merely another name for “self-persuasion,” which may not be, but usually is, delusion, in one of its fascinating forms. The whole book is highly instructive as to what Pistis really is. The importance of the correct understanding of the word cannot be overestimated for students of the New Testament, when it is realised that Paul was a Gnostic using the Gnostic term in its technical sense, and that however pleasing it may be to attach quite another sense to it, it did not and does not mean what it is usually taken to mean by Europeans of our own day. In the drama of Pistis-Sophia and her sufferings it is clear that her unshakeable intuition that she will be saved by her divine part is the link that enables that divine part to save her. It is the actual testimony that she is not yet finally lost, and in the end it is fully vindicated. Job, another drama of initiation, teaches the same lesson in an ancient Egyptian setting. . .’

Gnosticism was a syncretistic philosophico-religious movement which included all the manifold systems of belief prevalent in the first two centuries of the Christian era. Originating somewhat prior to Christian times, it combined various elements of Babylonian, Judaic, Persian, Egyptian and Greek metaphysics with certain teachings of dawning Christianity.

As a name, Gnosticism is derived from the Greek gnosis (γνῶσις), “knowledge,” more specifically spiritual knowledge or esoteric wisdom, a knowledge not attainable by ordinary intellectual processes, and only to be gained by mystical enlightenment or the awakening of the Buddhic elements in man. The emphasis on knowledge as the means of attaining a higher evolutionary stage, and the claim to the possession of this knowledge in ones own doctrine, are common features of the numerous groups in which the Gnostic movement historically expressed itself, even though there were only a few of these groups whose members expressly called themselves Gnostics§.”—H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, Volume 13 Page 6-7; or Review article by W. T. S. Thackara on H.P.B.’s Commentaries on Pistis Sophia

§ Gr. gnostikos—γνωστικός Lat. gnosticus, meaning “knower,” and gnōsis, “knowledge” of spiritual realities)

“To connect the Mosaic Religion with the Mysteries is to wrest from the Church its position, and to show that the Old Testament is the result of human effort…”

SAMUEL F. DUNLAP. 1860. SOD: THE MYSTERIES OF ADONAI, PAGE. III

“Moreover it is Astrolatry and Sabaean worship, pure and simple, that is to be found in the Pentateuch when it is read exoterically, and Archaic Science and Astronomy to a most wonderful degree, when interpreted — Esoterically.”

H.P. BLAVATSKY, OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES

“The work of the Old Testament is the first offshoot from the Mysteries; the New Testament is the second. The Old Testament is the Reformed Judaeo-Phoenician or Rabbinical Church—The New Testament is the Essene-Nazarene Glad Tidings. Adon, Adoni, Adonis, called also Bol, was the Deity in both the Old-Phoenician and the Judaeo-Phoenician styles of worship. The Hebrew Religion stepped out from the noblest side of the Dionysian-worship, influenced no doubt, to some extent by Persian and Babylonian ideas, but still retaining the Phoenician impress.”

SAMUEL F. DUNLAP, 1860. SOD: THE MYSTERIES OF ADONAI, PAGE III-IV

“But for how long until the end comes, well may sincere Christians remember the prophetic lamentations of the thrice-great Trismegistus over his own country: Alas, alas, my son, a day will come when the sacred hieroglyphics will become but idols. The world will mistake the emblems of science for gods, and accuse grand Egypt of having worshipped hell-monsters. But those who will calumniate us thus, will themselves worship Death instead of Life, folly in place of wisdom; they will denounce love and fecundity, fill their temples with dead men’s bones, as relics, and waste their youth in solitude and tears. Their virgins will be widows (nuns) before being wives, and consume themselves in grief; because men will have despised and profaned the sacred mysteries of Isis.” (Champollion: “Hermes Trismegistus,” xxvii.).”

ISIS UNVEILED, VOL. II., 1877, PAGE 360.

“. . .you are absolutely right as to the Egyptian origin of Christianity, the carnalisation of purely metaphysical dogmas of the Gnostics . . . the archaic Esoteric Wisdom of one nation, the Egyptian, now radiating in so-called Christianity in a thousand broken rays. . .”

H.P. BLAVATSKY, LETTER TO THE EGYPTOLOGIST GERALD MASSEY, NOV. 2, 1887. PUBLISHED IN THE AGNOSTIC JOURNAL (LONDON, OCTOBER 3, 1891, 214).

“If Christianity is an expression of universal Truth, it will gain, rather than lose, by a recognition of its identity with other expressions of the same truth. If the Bible is a revelation of God, its truth will become more apparent if it is found to agree with other “revelations.” If Jesus was a “Son of God”, his position will become still more secure when he is recognized as a member of a great Fraternity of Perfected Men, all of whom have presented identical doctrines.

The study of the history of these five centuries will disclose an important fact: that there is nothing unique in Christianity. It will show that Jesus was not a unique character, but only one of a long line of Teachers. It will show that the Bible is not a unique book, but only one of the many Scriptures of the world. It will show that there is not a single dogma, ritual nor ceremony in the Christian Church that has not been taken bodily from the so-called “Pagan” religions. Finally it will show that not even the term Christian is unique.

Many persons believe that Christianity has been in existence for only two thousand years. But history shows that the terms Christ and Christians were well known to writers like Herodotus and Aeschylus fully five centuries before the “Christian” era, and were simply borrowed by the later “Christians” from the Temple terminology of the Pagans. The early Church knew this to be a fact, for it is openly admitted by no less an authority than Justin Martyr, one of the foremost Christian writers of the second century.

The terms Chrestos and Christos came from the Mysteries.”

GREAT THEOSOPHISTS: JESUS CHRIST, THEOSOPHY, VOL.. 24, NO. 7, MAY, 1936

“. . . For lo! thy law is passed
That this my love should manifestly be
To serve and honour thee;
And so I do; and my delight is full,
Accepted by the servant of thy rule.”

(Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Pannuccio dal Bagno Pisano. “Canzone. Of his Change through Love”)

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