File spoon-archives/deleuze-guattari.archive/deleuze-guattari_1996/96-08-12.171, message 110


From: N.E.Widder-AT-lse.ac.uk
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 96 10:34:36 GMT
Subject: Re: Deleuze and Gnosticism


          Mont,
          
          My general take on gnosticism is that the gnostics are 
          actually rejecting the Plotonian model of emanation from the 
          One (which Plotinus basically says while at the same time 
          translating gnosticism back into his model).  I find this 
          sort of rejection primarily in the section on the errors of 
          other religions and philosophies found in the "Tripartite 
          Tractate" in Nag Hammadi, and the argument found in several 
          other tractates (the Gospel of Philip primarily, if I 
          remember correctly) about the misrepresentativeness of the 
          names usually given to the Father.  Basically, I see the 
          Pleroma as presented in these tractates (especially the 
          "Tripartite Tractate" and "Zostrianos") presenting a 
          rhizomatic model of the aeons, one which lacks a centre, 
          outside and a hierarchy.  And the aeons do not degrade (even 
          though most commentators who reinscribe gnosticism into the 
          language of neo-Platonic emanation and degradation).
          
          Bascially, I think the gnostic system is much closer to 
          immanence than emanation (as Deleuze differentiates between 
          the two, most notably in Expressionism and Philosophy: 
          Spinoza, around pp. 170-178).  The demiurge creates the 
          world from the image of the aeons, and his creation is a 
          hierarchy of beings grounded in a transcendent Oneness (the 
          demiurge himself).  In other words, he mistakes positive 
          difference (the rhizomatic production and dispersion of 
          aeons) for a negative unity (difference reduced to being 
          grounded in a centre).  His negative creation is a shadow of 
          the positive Pleroma.
          
          Anyway, that's the shorthand of my take on the gnostics.
          
          
          Later,
          
          Nathan



   

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