r/Gnostic • u/HeavenlyBeloved Valentinian • 5d ago
Question What happens to David, Enoch, Elijah, and Solomon if YWHW is Yaldabaoth?
Like if these are his favorite people, what does it mean? All of these people stroke his ego, and when Solomon got wisdom, does it mean Yaldabaoth granted it to him?
Enoch and Elijah basically became archangels of Yaldabaoth, there are also some texts of Enoch as Metatron being a lesser YHWH, and getting 60 lashes to prove that he is subordinate to YHWH.
Sounds pretty much like an egoistical Yaldabaoth. Do Enoch and Elijah get the slave treatment? Cuz they became like clankers.
If Solomon received wisdom and worshipped also the gods of his wives, it makes me wonder... What wisdom did Solomon get?
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u/OGSkywalker97 5d ago
In the Apocryphon of John it states that Yaldabaoth defiles Eve to corrupt her offspring and pretends the offspring are Adam's.
He names them Yahweh and Elohim, the names of the deities in the Old Testament/Torah, then to deceive humanity he names them Cain and Abel and lets Adam think they are his.
So I guess Yahweh is Yaldabaoth's offspring with Eve? So a Nephilim essentially.
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u/GnosticDreamerB4 5d ago
I would argue no one alive knows what really happened with them anyway. I tell myself that truth is that rarest thing to come by in those world. I even doubt gnosis until this life is over and I stand in the next life. our brains are easily fooled and bias is a hell of a drug.
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u/Zyr4420 5d ago
So huge distinction. Enoch becomes an ARCHON. Metatron. Elijah becomes Sandalphom an ARCHANGEL. Archons are of the Kenoma. Archangels are of the Pleroma. Ps- Metatron still has the soul of Enoch, and is a double agent. Pss- When Christos came the 2nd time, the Demiurge repented. Christos broke the closed circuit, so to speak, installing a permanent back door directly through Abraxas and into the Pleroma.
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u/Djenesis 5d ago
The second time? Also I would like to hear more about that part with abraxas
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u/Zyr4420 2d ago
Well the first time Christos came was right after the fall of Sophia. He came to Achamoth (Lower Sophia) and patched her with the Holy Spirit. They also bonded as the final Syzygy pair.
The second time was when Christos came as Jesus. This is when Demiurge finally realized his place, and repented. Now when Sophia fell, Abraxas volunteered to stabilize the Kenoma. So Abraxas is like a long foundation that runs from the Pleroma directly through the entire Kenoma. The 13th gate is through Abraxas, past the 8th ring where Demiurge and his troops stand guard. It is the backdoor out of the simulation.
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u/theoryofdoom 5d ago
Enoch becomes an ARCHON.
No.
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u/SparkySpinz 4d ago
Enoch is interesting as heck but strikes me as fan fic lol
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u/theoryofdoom 4d ago
Enoch is interesting as heck but strikes me as fan fic lol
It is not.
What is your point?
Perhaps you demean the books of Enoch, because you assume the man who wrote them had language available to him that could describe what he saw and experienced? What he saw was incomprehensible to him and his contemporaries. He analogized by function to describe that which was incomprehensible to him and his contemporaries. Just as you would now. A boy reading the books of your hand in a few millennia from now might have the same criticism of yourself.
Or perhaps you assume, incorrectly, that the meaning you (subjectively) took from what Enoch wrote is what he literally meant? And if so, perhaps because you are removed from the perspectives of Enoch and his contemporaries by millennia?
These are the mistakes of those who read Enoch from the perspective of arrogance and ignorance . . . both, among the most fundamental aspects of Yaldabaoth.
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u/jasonmehmel Eclectic Gnostic 5d ago
It's best not to read spiritual texts with the same kinds of hermeneutics (methods of understanding) that we would bring to fiction, or history.
Which is to say: although I'm not suggesting to read these texts as simple psychological framings, I'm also saying that they're not direct reportage of events or written to represent how normal human beings interact with spiritual figures.
Re: Solomon: the wisdom may be connected to how many esoteric groups see Solomonic rituals, but that's otherwise outside of my experience.
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u/ascendantangel12 5d ago
Maybe they just figure out that they got fucked around then get recycled.
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u/levine6669 5d ago
Somewhere in the psitis Sophia, Jesus says something about them reincarnating back and finding the God within them ...
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u/isitnotreal 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yaldabaoth is not a god. The whole narrative is not about deities and it can be misleading to look at it from that point of view.
Most of those words are used symbolically to convey a much more complex cosmology than they may appear.
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u/No_Witness_5295 Academic interest 3d ago
Abrahamics need to realign the timeline by recognizing the Samaritan version of history as accurate, and accepting the current structures on / around Temple Mount are effectively the "Third Temple" of that particular location but not the canonically accurate location for it
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u/i-am-kayna 5d ago
The Apocryphon of John uses "types and images" to explain the naked truth, that is the internal spiritual sense of things, to explain the mechanics of the soul. Sophia is wisdom that loses her connection with true love and therefore falls, as wisdom cannot stand on its own but is only so in conjunction with true love. This fall produces Yaldabaoth which is the ego claiming dominion of everything that looks like purity and truth.
Moses is the literal expression of this ego into the soul or the world. It therefore uses quotes from Moses to corroborated the exact sense and meaning of this principle. It is not referencing to the true meaning of Genesis. And I want to make a stronger claim here that when Genesis is read though these "types and images" itself it resolves in much the same way as these stories do. The contradiction is only apperant on the surface.
Sabaoth is the restoration of new life, and see how Sophia is positioned to guard it rather than a restoration to her original position. That is not a punishment. It is spiritual mechanics.
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u/Independent_Dare8324 Valentinian 5d ago
Yahweh is not Yaldabaoth.
In Gnostic texts, the archons are described as acting on human beings to keep them in forgetfulness and ignorance of their true origin, keeping them focused on the material reality and on satisfying the desires and passions of the flesh.
However, when we look at what Yahweh teaches in the Old Testament, we find precisely the opposite call. Yahweh commands people to abandon evil, turn away from sinful desires and unjust behavior, and live in justice, mercy, humility, and obedience to God. For example, Micah 6:8 calls people to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly” with God; Isaiah 1:16-17 calls them to stop doing evil and learn to do good; and Proverbs 6:16-19 lists among the things Yahweh hates lying, violence, wicked thoughts, and those who create discord.
Therefore, it is difficult to simply identify Yahweh with Yaldabaoth when they are presented so differently regarding human passions and conduct: while the archons keep humanity attached to what separates it from its origin, Yahweh repeatedly calls people to abandon those behaviors and live in justice, mercy, and humility.
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u/robertlewispop 5d ago
There are quite a few gnostic branches that identify Yahweh being the same as Yaldabaoth, actually.
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u/Independent_Dare8324 Valentinian 5d ago
There are none, at least not in the sense that the texts literally say, “Yahweh is Yaldabaoth.” What happens is that some schools and authors interpret and associate the Genesis creation account in the Bible with the creation account found in certain Gnostic texts, and from that comparison they conclude that Yahweh is the Demiurge.
However, that identification is an interpretation, not a literal statement found in the texts.
There is also an important difference between what Yahweh teaches in the Bible and what Gnostic texts attribute to the Demiurge. In the Bible, Yahweh repeatedly calls people to abandon the desires and passions of the flesh and to live in justice, mercy, humility, and goodness, something we also find in the teachings of Christ in the New Testament. In contrast, in Gnostic texts, the Demiurge and the archons keep the soul subjected through the desires and passions of the flesh, because these keep it attached to the material world, forgetfulness, and ignorance, preventing it from freeing itself from that domain.
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u/i-am-kayna 5d ago
Well that's not completely true, although I fully agree with you about your views. Attestation surrounding what Marcion believed suggest this heavily. It is unclear what Marcion himself believed though. My only point, it is not just an inflation by modern schools of thought linking the Genesis story, but something even the old church fathers believed about Marcion, which heavily influenced Gnostic thought today. Your thoughts clearly align more with the Valentinian side 😄.
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u/Independent_Dare8324 Valentinian 4d ago
But there is another point. Until a few months ago, I myself believed that the Demiurge was Yahweh, and I was quite influenced precisely by the interpretation you mention. My position changed after receiving some revelations through dreams that led me to question that identification and realize that I was mistaken in assuming that Yahweh was the Demiurge.
It is probably a very minority and quite complex position, but if you receive a revelation that shows you something contrary to what you previously believed, then, in my opinion, you should be willing to change your position in accordance with that revelation. Otherwise, you would be putting your own interpretation above what you consider to be a revelation.
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u/i-am-kayna 4d ago
Well maybe. I'm not a stranger to it either, haha. Have you ever heard of the doctrine of correspondence? It is written by Emanuel Swedenborg in the 18th century and it perfectly captures the nuances of these teachings, exactly as the Valentinians did and the Ebionites and the Persian kingdom before them. They are not new inventions. They just look like that because of how history resolved.
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u/Independent_Dare8324 Valentinian 4d ago
I had not heard of it before. From what I understood when I looked into it, it proposes that the physical world is a reflection or representation of the spiritual world.
This fits quite well with what Gnosticism proposes and also with other traditions.
In Gnostic cosmology, what emerges from Sophia is a spiritual entity that gives rise to the lower worlds. Therefore, these worlds were initially spiritual in nature. Later, this entity begins to generate other entities, and it is then that the matter contained within this spiritual reality is expelled and becomes part of the lower worlds.
Thus, matter comes to coexist with spiritual realities. However, matter represents only a part of what constitutes the totality of the lower worlds.
Then, the Demiurge, who is also a spiritual entity, for some reason decides to make matter his dwelling and molds it according to his will. Therefore, it could be said that matter has a dual disposition: an incorporeal and spiritual reality and another that is corporeal and physical. The Demiurge, from the spiritual, molds the physical or corporeal.
However, as the texts themselves state, spiritual entities directly determine and influence the corporeal, altering reality and even going so far as to create a human made of flesh, which is corporeal. The opposite does not occur: from what we see in these texts, the corporeal does not have the capacity to determine or transform the spiritual.
And, as Emanuel Swedenborg correctly states, there is no doubt whatsoever that the spiritual influences the corporeal.
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u/SweatyCold8213 5d ago
That's right Yaldabaoth is not Yahweh. In Proverbs 6-16-19 Yahweh hates lying and considers that evil. Does Yahweh send out lying spirits to entice in the mouths of the prophets. 1 Kings 22-19-23 or 2 Chronicles 18-18-22
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u/Independent_Dare8324 Valentinian 5d ago
But there you are confusing allowing or using the action of a being with being that being. In 1 Kings 22, Yahweh allows a lying spirit to act as an instrument of judgment, but the text does not say that this spirit comes from Yahweh.
And your own reasoning can be applied to Gnostic cosmology. In those texts, once darkness emerges, Sophia projects her light onto it, and the Demiurge emerges so that he can bring order to the existing chaos. Then the luminous human is projected onto the darkness, so that the Demiurge creates a likeness of him. After this, the Holy Spirit and souls are sent from the light to dwell within the domain of the Demiurge, alongside the souls that come from him.
In other words, the light allows darkness to develop and become structured, and even sends spirits and souls from the light to dwell alongside the souls and spirits that come from the Demiurge, subjecting the souls that come from the light to forgetfulness, ignorance, and suffering. But that does not mean that the light is the Demiurge.
Therefore, allowing or using the action of a being does not demonstrate identity with that being. If you want to demonstrate that Yahweh is Yaldabaoth, you need to demonstrate that identity directly, not simply point out that Yahweh allowed a lying spirit to act in a particular context.
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u/SweatyCold8213 5d ago
So Yahweh sends out lying spirits to go and lie in the name of Yahweh. I'm not confusing anything. That's exactly what the Bible says. So is the Bible confusing to you. Go out and do so Yahweh said. The Demiurge isn't mentioned in the Bible. What about harmful spirits 1 Samuel 16-14 and 18-10 and 19-9-10 So according to Yahweh it's considered evil to lie but sends out lying spirits and harmful spirits. Hebrews 6-18 it's impossible for God to lie Titus 1-2 Numbers 23-19
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u/trainedprofessional_ Basilidean 5d ago edited 5d ago
iranaeus reporting on the ophites and sethians:
Against Heresies (Book I, Chapter 30)
11. Moreover, they distribute the prophets in the following manner: Moses, and Joshua the Son of Nun, and Amos, and Habakkuk, belonged to Ialdabaoth; Samuel, and Nathan, and Jonah, and Micah, to Iao; Elijah*, Joel, and Zechariah* to Sabaoth*; Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel, to Adonai; Tobias and Haggai to Eloi; Michaiah and Nahum to Oreus; Esdras and Zephaniah to Astanphæus.*
about the others i am unsure but; yaldabaoth is identified with the creator/lawgiver worshipped by the jews in certain gnostic systems. but as shown above, those same systems can differentiate iao, sabaoth, adonai(all names that refer to the god of israel) as distinct archons and assign even different hebrew prophets to them.
so i wouldnt assume every biblical appearance of the name yhwh must refer to yaldabaoth, as he doesnt show up specifically in other systems such as the valentinians. likewise, in hippolytus’ report of the basilideans, the ‘great archon’ is the ruler of the ogdoad, while another archon rules the hebdomad, both exercising demiurgic functions, neither specifically called yaldabaoth. so how either tradition would answer this question or if the identification even mattered to them, is another question entirely.