I wasn't aware that there was any reincarnational element in Gnostic thought and I've never heard of Plstonic Gnostics ... although neo-Platonism certainly had a strong influence on early forms of Christianity.
Apologies for being boringly Creedal but I'm happy to stock wotj the mainstream traditional narrative, although I can see how the line of reasoning that @Gramps49 has outlined and which I've echoed could certainly resolve some issues in the more gnostic schema you appear to favour.
No apologies necessary. It may come as a surprise to you that reincarnation was not a rare concept in first century Mediterranean thought. Plato got it from his mystery school in Alexandria and the Hebrews have long held the concept of the gilgul or transmigrational soul.
Not every gnostic school of thought held the same concept, but it was far from unusual.
Has anyone pointed out that the more common concept of hell today is based on Dante's Inferno?
Yes, a number of shipmates have noted how Inferno shaped concepts of Hell.
The ancient concept of the place of the dead (Sheol in Hebrew) or the Underworld in Greek was basically a place of shadows, dark, dreary. No real torture, just a place of nonexistence.
Not nonexistence. The spirits there existed; it was just a very static existence.
Plato's wisdom school was one of the earliest gentile adopters of the Christian narrative because they recognized that Christ solved the problem of eternal recurrence with no hope of fixing the mess left behind in each incarnation.
The narrative of Christ punching a hole in the back wall of Hades and liberating those divine sparks trapped in the cycle of eternal recurrence, while simultaneously rising again into the world to rule and cleanse it of all the impossibly tangled and unintended consequences of our sins was a powerful "happily ever after" that Plato couldn't offer.
Given the chronology involved (Plato died in the mid-fourth century BCE) wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Christianity adopted a Platonist narrative than the other way around? You can't adopt a Christian narrative if Christianity doesn't exist.
Plato's wisdom school was one of the earliest gentile adopters of the Christian narrative because they recognized that Christ solved the problem of eternal recurrence with no hope of fixing the mess left behind in each incarnation.
The narrative of Christ punching a hole in the back wall of Hades and liberating those divine sparks trapped in the cycle of eternal recurrence, while simultaneously rising again into the world to rule and cleanse it of all the impossibly tangled and unintended consequences of our sins was a powerful "happily ever after" that Plato couldn't offer.
Given the chronology involved (Plato died in the mid-fourth century BCE) wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Christianity adopted a Platonist narrative than the other way around? You can't adopt a Christian narrative if Christianity doesn't exist.
Do you think that everyone who incorporated Plato's work into their educational systems and world views lived and died only in Plato's lifetime? Greek schools of thought survived long past the founding philosophers' lifetimes. How do you suppose the Greeks educated themselves?
Christianity came along after Plato. It was a narrative that appealed to Greek people who were educated in Greece in Greek schools of thought that included thinkers like Pythagoras and Plato.
Plato's wisdom school was one of the earliest gentile adopters of the Christian narrative because they recognized that Christ solved the problem of eternal recurrence with no hope of fixing the mess left behind in each incarnation.
The narrative of Christ punching a hole in the back wall of Hades and liberating those divine sparks trapped in the cycle of eternal recurrence, while simultaneously rising again into the world to rule and cleanse it of all the impossibly tangled and unintended consequences of our sins was a powerful "happily ever after" that Plato couldn't offer.
Given the chronology involved (Plato died in the mid-fourth century BCE) wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Christianity adopted a Platonist narrative than the other way around? You can't adopt a Christian narrative if Christianity doesn't exist.
Do you think that everyone who incorporated Plato's work into their educational systems and world views lived and died only in Plato's lifetime? Greek schools of thought survived long past the founding philosophers' lifetimes.
True, but the Myth of Er is right there in The Republic. That seems to be the source of Plato's adherents' idea of "promot[ing] the development of wisdom through successive incarnations", so it demonstrably dates back to Plato's own lifetime. It's not a later addition to Platonic thought.
Plato's wisdom school was one of the earliest gentile adopters of the Christian narrative because they recognized that Christ solved the problem of eternal recurrence with no hope of fixing the mess left behind in each incarnation.
The narrative of Christ punching a hole in the back wall of Hades and liberating those divine sparks trapped in the cycle of eternal recurrence, while simultaneously rising again into the world to rule and cleanse it of all the impossibly tangled and unintended consequences of our sins was a powerful "happily ever after" that Plato couldn't offer.
Given the chronology involved (Plato died in the mid-fourth century BCE) wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Christianity adopted a Platonist narrative than the other way around? You can't adopt a Christian narrative if Christianity doesn't exist.
Do you think that everyone who incorporated Plato's work into their educational systems and world views lived and died only in Plato's lifetime? Greek schools of thought survived long past the founding philosophers' lifetimes.
True, but the Myth of Er is right there in The Republic. That seems to be the source of Plato's adherents' idea of "promot[ing] the development of wisdom through successive incarnations", so it demonstrably dates back to Plato's own lifetime. It's not a later addition to Platonic thought.
No it isn't a later addition. What it seems to me that we're doing is putting the philosophical cart before the horse chronologically.
First Plato. Then his wisdom school which survived him. Then the problems and cognitive dissonances arising from the narrative of Er, as I described earlier, within the surviving school, which persisted for a long time. Then Christianity coming along with the resolution of this cognitive dissonance. For a time.
That thread of early Christian conversation that included reincarnation was driven out of common parlance pretty early. Paul was pretty adamant about the "it is appointed to a man to live once and then the judgment" thing. But I think in general, leaving reincarnation out of the equation was a much more attractive and simpler way of viewing reality.
Neo-Platonism is something that I think came up later.
True, but the Myth of Er is right there in The Republic. That seems to be the source of Plato's adherents' idea of "promot[ing] the development of wisdom through successive incarnations", so it demonstrably dates back to Plato's own lifetime. It's not a later addition to Platonic thought.
No it isn't a later addition. What it seems to me that we're doing is putting the philosophical cart before the horse chronologically.
First Plato. Then his wisdom school which survived him. Then the problems and cognitive dissonances arising from the narrative of Er, as I described earlier, within the surviving school, which persisted for a long time. Then Christianity coming along with the resolution of this cognitive dissonance. For a time.
I think you're assuming that any non-Christian school of thought must be cognitively dissonant (i.e. containing some inherent self-contradiction).
Plato's wisdom tradition promoted the development of wisdom through successive incarnations so that one would be able to choose a life from the pile of lives offered that resulted in the least amount of suffering and harm inflicted on oneself and others. This was the best that could be hoped for, but it didn't address the clearing of all the subsequent consequences of lives lived in folly.
Plato's wisdom school was one of the earliest gentile adopters of the Christian narrative because they recognized that Christ solved the problem of eternal recurrence with no hope of fixing the mess left behind in each incarnation.
The idea that eternal recurrence is a problem to be solved seems like it requires an implicit assumption that some kind of Christian salvation is the ultimate goal of human existence. If you make a different assumption, like the idea that the pursuit of wisdom and/or virtue is a goal in itself (as opposed to being a means to an end), the dissonance does not exist.
The more likely cognitive dissonance that would be noted by various pre-Christian Greeks would be something like this.
Comments
No apologies necessary. It may come as a surprise to you that reincarnation was not a rare concept in first century Mediterranean thought. Plato got it from his mystery school in Alexandria and the Hebrews have long held the concept of the gilgul or transmigrational soul.
Not every gnostic school of thought held the same concept, but it was far from unusual.
AFF
Not nonexistence. The spirits there existed; it was just a very static existence.
Given the chronology involved (Plato died in the mid-fourth century BCE) wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Christianity adopted a Platonist narrative than the other way around? You can't adopt a Christian narrative if Christianity doesn't exist.
Do you think that everyone who incorporated Plato's work into their educational systems and world views lived and died only in Plato's lifetime? Greek schools of thought survived long past the founding philosophers' lifetimes. How do you suppose the Greeks educated themselves?
Christianity came along after Plato. It was a narrative that appealed to Greek people who were educated in Greece in Greek schools of thought that included thinkers like Pythagoras and Plato.
AFF
True, but the Myth of Er is right there in The Republic. That seems to be the source of Plato's adherents' idea of "promot[ing] the development of wisdom through successive incarnations", so it demonstrably dates back to Plato's own lifetime. It's not a later addition to Platonic thought.
No it isn't a later addition. What it seems to me that we're doing is putting the philosophical cart before the horse chronologically.
First Plato. Then his wisdom school which survived him. Then the problems and cognitive dissonances arising from the narrative of Er, as I described earlier, within the surviving school, which persisted for a long time. Then Christianity coming along with the resolution of this cognitive dissonance. For a time.
That thread of early Christian conversation that included reincarnation was driven out of common parlance pretty early. Paul was pretty adamant about the "it is appointed to a man to live once and then the judgment" thing. But I think in general, leaving reincarnation out of the equation was a much more attractive and simpler way of viewing reality.
Neo-Platonism is something that I think came up later.
AFF
I think you're assuming that any non-Christian school of thought must be cognitively dissonant (i.e. containing some inherent self-contradiction).
The idea that eternal recurrence is a problem to be solved seems like it requires an implicit assumption that some kind of Christian salvation is the ultimate goal of human existence. If you make a different assumption, like the idea that the pursuit of wisdom and/or virtue is a goal in itself (as opposed to being a means to an end), the dissonance does not exist.
The more likely cognitive dissonance that would be noted by various pre-Christian Greeks would be something like this.