Neutralized Gender. Understanding the Symbolic Language in Gnostic Sources

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Women Studies / Gender Studies, grade: 1,0, University of Göttingen, language: English, abstract: This paper analyses accounts of gender in gnostic sources. Until the discoveries of the Nag Hammadi codices in 1945, which fundamentally changed the opinions of scientists, very less was known about ...

Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Women Studies / Gender Studies, grade: 1,0, University of Göttingen, language: English, abstract: This paper analyses accounts of gender in gnostic sources. Until the discoveries of the Nag Hammadi codices in 1945, which fundamentally changed the opinions of scientists, very less was known about this complex religious movement. The only source of its research constituted polemical texts of already long known antiheretical church fathers (such as Epiphanius, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Clement) and only some gnostic codices among other fragments were known to the scientists.
Both, the polemical texts of the church fathers and the original manuscript finds testify that there were different schools and forms of Gnosticism. Its syncretic nature, which allowed gnosis to mingle itself with other religions easily, makes it difficult for the scientists to recognize a primordial system of gnosis from those writings. There is a soul that has fallen from the heaven into the material world and has lost a part of itself. The salvation is only possible through reunion with the heavenly part, through having this knowledge. Even this basic platonic idea has been interpreted variously. While some renounced the material world, others in libertine circles interpreted that one could do whatever one wanted to do with one's own body, since that would not harm the soul.

As there is a platonic philosophy based on strong dualism between immaterial and material world behind this thought system of Gnosticism , a symbolical language appears in the sources regarding the immaterial side. This symbolical language is demanding itself already. It makes the source material challenging for scientists to analyze the content, to understand it, and to continue to draw safe conclusions from it. Furthermore it makes an extensive use of gender imagery. The main interest of this work is firstly to summarize the ongoing gender debate in gnosticism, to point out problems of analysis based on a few selected examples and to present existing alternative explanatory models.