S. V. Litvinenko

By this author

Cosmological and astrological ideas of the Gnostics in Coptic Gnostic treatises

Issue 3 from 01.09.2007

The Gnostics believed that heavenly objects played a decisive role in the organization of the structure of the universe and in influencing human and earthly affairs. For them, the surrounding world was divided between the higher - divine and invisible -world, and the lower - earthly - reality, full of suffering and spiritual tortures. The objects of the heavenly world, such as the planets, stars, the sun, and the moon, possessed spiritual qualities. The Gnostic cosmological system attached each day of the week to a planet and its corresponding spiritual essence. The essences of the zodiacal signs, formed in the process of creation, can probably be identified with the months, and each month divided into thirty degrees, thereby establishing the distinctive Gnostic calendar. Gnostic astrology assumed that the planets (angels and demons) affected human life, according to Fate, and that each planet, star, and area of the heavenly sphere had its own particular function. The three classes of stars (hence, also angels and demons) influenced different parts of the human organism, and people could study ways to use these properties of space. Such concepts, undoubtedly, were not uniquely Gnostic, but were shared widely throughout the Roman Empire. Gnostic thought was also influenced by the Jewish mystical tradition.

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