r/PlatonicMysticism

Finally, Mazur concludes his work with the following regarding the relative closeness of Neoplatonism & Sethianism:

“Although I cannot claim to have done more than a preliminary exploration of the topic in the present study, I believe we can conclude with more or less certainty that Plotinus’s mysticism must now be understood to be inextricably embedded in the context of contemporaneous Sethian thought and ritual praxis.

This comprised the intellectual, spiritual, and practical ground from which Plotinus’s mysticism originally germinated, and with which he remained in continuous dialogue throughout his life. The exact historical relation between Plotinus and his Sethian contemporaries may prove impossible to determine.

Nevertheless, the recognition of the true intellectual- and religio-historical context of Plotinian mysticism—and in particular, its close interrelation with both Sethian derivational schemata and visionary praxis—allows us to understand elements that had previously remained bewilderingly obscure, and that had often been relegated to the inscrutable domain of ‘mystical experience.’

Ironically, however, it is its close relation with Sethian thought that allows us to recuperate Plotinian mysticism for the domain of the history of philosophy.”

“With respect to the study of Sethianism itself, the present study suggests a reconsideration of the position of the Sethians in the course of intellectual history. As I have mentioned in the introduction, the most common assumption is that the Sethians were generally derivative. What we have seen here, however, suggests quite the reverse, that the Platonizing Sethians and other Sethians were extremely innovative interpreters of ancient philosophical tradition, and that they had a far greater degree of intellectual agency with respect to contemporaneous academic philosophy than is usually supposed.

We have seen that Plotinus’s mysticism itself relied upon several Sethian innovations that had emerged from speculation on the nature of the hypertranscendental deity. According to the broad scenario I have suggested, the Sethians are a necessary phase in the development of Plotinian mysticism. Three tendencies specific to the Sethians are at play: first, the emphasis on subjective visionary experience; second, the tendency to reify and hypostatize psychological states and metaphysical abstractions into discrete objective entities; and third, a tradition of sophisticated speculation on the mechanism of transcendental apprehension in the practical service of salvation. Without these Sethian developments, I submit, we would not have Plotinus’s mysticism.”

Mazur’s final word is as regards the actual intersection of Philosophy & Spirituality, often neglected by many in the academic community:

“The final point I would like to make concerns the categorical delimitations of ancient philosophy itself. I believe that this study has demonstrated that Plotinus’s mysticism lies in the liminal domain between discursive philosophy and ritual praxis. Indeed, we cannot assume the conceptual boundaries of the contemporary categories of either “philosophy” or “ritual” are valid for other historical periods.

Precisely what these categories involve and their semantic contours vary over time and between cultures. Therefore, I would suggest that—by contrast with the conventional history of philosophy and the study of religion—we dissolve these boundaries, and not limit our definition of philosophical praxis to discursive reason alone, but expand it to encompass non-discursive ritual praxis as well, while also, simultaneously, broadening the category of ritual so as to include purely contemplative acts. This richer conception—which is, after all, merely a robust interpretation of Hadot’s exercises spirituels—will allow us to reconceptualize both Plotinus’s mysticism and Platonizing Sethian ritual as part of a common enterprise. In so doing, we will come to a better appreciation of the seemingly esoteric thought-world of those late antique sectaries who sought salvation through ritual techniques, while simultaneously enriching our conception of ancient philosophy itself.”

Thus, Alexander Mazur’s work suggests a close relationship between Neoplatonism and Sethianism. Mazur argues that Plotinus’s mysticism is deeply rooted in Sethian thought and ritual practices, challenging the notion that Sethians were merely derivative. This connection, along with the possibility of Plotinus’s early association with Johannine secessionists/Sethians, prompts a reevaluation of the boundaries between philosophy and spirituality in ancient thought, the fundamental argument of this thesis.

Two major dissident sects of Christians were relatively hidden from history until discoveries in the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, including the Berlin Codex and the Nag Hammadi Corpus. The latter is comprised of twelve codices plus several leaves from a thirteenth. Included therein are forty-five separate titles, with some duplication. Prior to the discoveries, scholars were aware of such Christians, those who were ostracized as heretics, but material that accurately described who they were and what they believed was scarce. In fact, much of the knowledge we had was based on commentaries written by the clergy of the Catholic Church (the heresiologists including Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius,) clearly not objective sources. In this work, I’d like to explore the differences between two of the main groups often in opposition with the Orthodox, the Valentinians and the Sethians. The codices mentioned have given us a glimpse into how diverse the beliefs of the early Christians were at the time.

The Valentinians were a part of the Orthodox Christian community; they attended church services and often led them. Additionally, though their beliefs incorporated traditional doctrine, they practiced their own tenets separately. This secret teaching conflicted with the views of the proto- orthodox. However, the Nicene Council of 325CE put an end to some of the more esoteric beliefs of this school.

The Sethians appear to have been much less likely to be concerned with the activities of the proto-orthodox. We know that this Sect, as defined today, was a fusion of the Barbeloites and the Sethites, two smaller schools of thought that have been combined by scholars. The Sethites held the biblical character Seth from Genesis (who was born after Cain and Abel) in such high regard as to position him with Christ himself. I find the Barbeloite branch to be much more intriguing, and we’ll delve deeper into this subject throughout this work. Going forward, whenever I mention the Sethians, it’s the Barbeloites being referenced. Later, I make the case that the Sethians were the Johannine secessionists, and I devote an entire Section to this group after discussing The Gospel of John. In fact, I believe this wing of the Johannine School represents the evangelist’s original intent–and notably not the author some scholars refer to as John the Elder (whom many scholars believe wrote the Epistles and possibly added some later additions to the Gospel, though not its core.)

The Valentinians likely fused the Sethian concepts into their beliefs. However, some of the original texts, particularly The Apocryphon of John (ApJohn,) seem to have been rewritten entirely. Thus, additional treatises were drafted that relied on Sethian tenets that were woven into the respective Valentinian works. Rather than describing the Father solely in mysterious, negative-theology terms, which paradoxically he really should be for means of clarity, the Valentinians attempt to canonize the notion by way of using softer descriptions in addition to a subset of this negative-theology, such as “in his sweetness.”

Though I believe that the Father (and the Neoplatonic One) does in fact encapsulate such expressions, I prefer the strength of the Sethian/Barbeloite and potentially Johannine secessionist exposition of his character: ineffable, incomprehensible, incorruptible, illimitable, unsearchable, immeasurable, invisible, eternal, and unnameable.

My preliminary thought is that I am a Johannine Sethian, though I’ll revisit this discussion repeatedly. As Princeton’s Elaine Pagels says on p. 162 of The Origin of Satan, “Those who have ‘the Spirit of truth within them’ refuse to enter into marriage, business, or any other worldly entanglements, in order to remain an ‘undominated generation’, ‘free to devote themselves to the Holy Spirit.’”

Some of the New Testament is critically important; many of the works discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945 are also key. Of note, the latter were discovered shortly after WWII. I will attempt to piece this puzzle together in this work, and I believe that tenets of the Johannine School are crucial.

Ultimately, I will put forward my take on what I entitled The Protennoia Johannine Secessionist Canon.

Many of the secessionists resided in Alexandria, where Plotinus' philosophical school started, though he later migrated to Rome. If in fact the latter was originally a secessionist, which is certainly possible, then the Johannine secessionists later became the Neoplatonists. Furthermore, Alexander J. Mazur (Ph.D., The University of Chicago) argues that many Neoplatonic concepts and ideas are ultimately derived from Sethianism during the third century in Lower Egypt, and that Plotinus himself may have been a Sethian before nominally distancing himself from the movement.

Interestingly, from the work's Epligue, "Plotinus was a student of Ammonius Saccas, along with Origen, and Trimorphic Protennoia is attributed to The Father, or in Platonic terms the Form of The Good." This occurred in Alexandria, prior to Plotinus going East to Persia with Emperor Gordion III, an unfortunate failure; afterwards, Plotinus settled in Rome, where of course he started his academy.

In a review by Mateusz Strozynski, University Adam Mickiewicza, the last Chapter of Mazur's groundbreaking work is both the most exciting and the most methodologically problematic. It is an ex silentio “hypothesis”, as Mazur calls it, but it is also much more. A “scientific myth” (as Sigmund Freud described his account of the murder of the primal father in Totem and taboo) or perhaps a sketch for a fascinating historical novel would fit almost as well as the term “hypothesis”.

According to this hypothesis, Plotinus was a Sethian in his youth. His teacher, Ammonius Saccas himself, was (possibly) an ex-Christian/Sethian/Platonic philosopher, and in his school Plotinus met those whom, decades later, he calls his Gnostic friends (Enn. 2.9.10.3-6). For reasons unknown, and which Mazur does not even speculate about, Plotinus broke up with the Sethians and left Ammonius in order to join Gordian III’s military campaign against the Sassanid Empire in 244.

After the Emperor’s death, he managed to get to Rome, where he founded his own school. The growing presence of the Sethians in Rome in the 260s and even the coming of Porphyry, with his occult and esoteric interests, was for Plotinus a meeting with the ghosts of the past. He produced his Großschrift (divided by Porphyry into Enn. 3.8, 5.8, 5.5, and 2.9), crowned by the anti-Gnostic polemic, to persuade both himself and others that he was an orthodox Platonist and had nothing to do with “them”. Plotinus’ philosophy and its contemplative or mystical side is a result of the conscious and unconscious struggle between the Sethian baggage and the Platonic aspirations of the Egyptian philosopher.

Furthermore, the following from Tuomas Rasimus' The Sethians and the Gnostics of Plotinus lends further support to this work:

Summary and Conclusion

"The author of the Sethian The Apocryphon of John conceived of the true godhead as an intellectual triad of Father-Mother-and-Son. His description of the intellect’s autogeneration via mirror and childbirth metaphors anticipates the later Neoplatonic procession-and-return scheme and being-life-mind triad, but the Apocryphon’s speculations derive from the author’s Philonic reading of The Gospel of John and other biblical materials. Later Sethians then modified this material into the recognizable Neoplatonic scheme and triad, as we can see in Zostrianos and Allogenes. These texts circulated in Plotinus’ seminars and Plotinus, on his own testimony, had been open to the ideas of his Sethian friends. Though he later discarded his Two Intellect theory as an essentially Sethian misinterpretation of Timaeus 39e, Plotinus continued to use the being-life-mind triad, which he does seem to have inherited somewhere, as Hadot already suspected. Today, the Nag Hammadi evidence, which was not yet available to Hadot, suggests that Plotinus learned of the triad from his Sethian friends and appropriated it as a Platonic doctrine, compatible as it was with Sophist 248e-249a. It may even be due to Plotinus’ own influence on his friends that the raw material in the Apocryphon received its recognizably Neoplatonic form in Zostrianos and Allogenes. Porphyry, then, having arrived at the seminars, learned of the triad and its enneadic structuring (either directly from Allogenes or indirectly from Plotinus’ early works) and appropriated these ideas as compatible with his dear Chaldean Oracles. At any rate, the original innovators of these important metaphysical concepts appear to be Sethian Gnostics, whose role in the history of Neoplatonism has been greatly underestimated.”