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The Sethians (Greek language: Σηθιανοί) were one of the main currents of Gnosticism during the 2nd and 3rd century AD, along with Valentinianism and Basilideans. According to John D. Turner, it originated in the 2nd century AD as a fusion of two distinct Hellenistic Judaic philosophies and was influenced by Christianity and Middle Platonism. However, the exact origin of Sethianism is not properly understood.Tuomas Rasimus Paradise Reconsidered in Gnostic Mythmaking: Retaining Sethianism in Light of the Ophite Evidence BRILL, 31.10.2009 p. 9
According to Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 375), Sethians were in his time found only in Egypt and Palestine, but fifty years earlier, they had been found as far away as Greater Armenia.
Philaster's (4th century AD) Catalogue of Heresies places the Ophites, Cainites, and Sethians as pre-Christian Jewish sects. However, since Sethians identified Seth with Christ ( Second Logos of the Great Seth), Philaster's belief that the Sethians had pre-Christian origins, other than in syncretic absorption of Jewish and Greek pre-Christian sources, has not found acceptance in later scholarship.
According to John D. Turner, British and French scholarship tends to see Sethianism as "a form of Heterodoxy Christian speculation", while German and American scholarship views it as "a distinctly inner-Jewish, albeit syncretistic and heterodox, phenomenon." Roelof van den Broek notes that "Sethianism" may never have been a separate religious movement but that the term rather refers to a set of mythological themes that occur in various texts. According to Turner, Sethianism was influenced by Christianity and Middle Platonism, and six phases can be discerned in the interaction of Sethianism with Christianity and Platonism.
Phase 1. According to Turner, two different groups, existing before the 2nd century CE, formed the basis for the Sethians: a Jewish group of possibly priestly lineage, the so-called Barbeloites, named after Barbelo, the first emanation of the Highest God, and a group of Biblical exegetes, the Sethites, the "seed of Seth".
Phase 2. The Barbeloites were a baptizing group that in the mid-2nd century fused with Christian baptizing groups. They started to view the pre-existing Christ as the "self-generated (Autogenes) Son of Barbelo", who was "anointing with the Invisible Spirit's 'Christhood. According to Turner, this "same anointing was received by the Barbeloites in their baptismal rite by which they were assimilated to the archetypal Son of Man." The earthly Jesus was regarded as the guise of Barbelo, appearing as the Divine Logos, and receiving Christhood when he was baptized.
Phase 3. In the later 2nd century CE, the Christianized Barbeloites fused with the Sethites, together forming the Gnostic Sethianists. Seth and Christ were identified as bearers of "the true image of God who had recently appeared in the world as the Logos to rescue Jesus from the cross."
Phase 4. At the end of the 2nd century, Sethianism grew apart from the developing Christian orthodoxy, which rejected the Docetism view of the Sethians on Christ.
Phase 5. In the early 3rd century, Sethianism was fully rejected by Christian heresiologists, and Sethianism shifted toward the contemplative practices of Platonism, while losing their interest in their own origins.
Phase 6. In the late 3rd century, Sethianism was attacked by neo-Platonists like Plotinus, and Sethianism alienated from Platonism. In the early to mid-4th century, Sethianism fragmented into various sectarian Gnostic groups, like the Archontics, Audianism, Borborites, and Phibionites. Some of these groups existed into the Middle Ages.
In some versions of the myth, the aeon Sophia imitates God's actions, performing an emanation of her own without the prior approval of the other aeons in the Pleroma. This results in a crisis within the Pleroma, leading to the appearance of the Yaldabaoth, a "serpent with a lion's head". This figure is commonly known as the demiurge, the "artisan" or "craftsman", after the figure in Plato's Timaeus. Sophia at first hides this being but it subsequently escapes, stealing a portion of divine power from her in the process.
The Yaldabaoth uses this stolen power to create a material world imitating the divine Pleroma. To complete this task, he spawns a group of entities known collectively as Archons, "petty rulers" and craftsmen of the physical world. Like him, they are commonly depicted as Zoomorphism, having the heads of animals.
At this point, the events of the Sethian narrative begin to cohere with the events of Genesis, with the demiurge and his archontic cohorts fulfilling the role of the creator. In Genesis, the demiurge proclaims himself to be the only god, claiming that there are no other gods superior to him. However, the audience's understanding of the context and prior events reinterprets this declaration and the nature of the creator in a dramatically different way.
The demiurge unknowingly emanates a shadow "Image" of Adam while unwittingly transferring the portion of power stolen from Sophia into the first physical human body. He then creates Eve from Adam's rib in an attempt to isolate and regain the power he has lost. By way of this, he attempts to rape Eve, who now contains Sophia's divine power; several texts depict him as failing when Sophia's spirit transplants itself into the Tree of Knowledge.The pair eat of the tree of the divine epi-gnosis guided by Christ appearing as an "eagle" above it to guide them to remember their true "nature above".
The Gospel of Judas is the most recently discovered Gnostic text. National Geographic has published an English translation of it, bringing it into mainstream awareness. It portrays Judas Iscariot as the "thirteenth spirit (daemon)",Gospel of Judas, pg 44. translated by Kasser, Meyer, Wurst. who "exceeded" the evil sacrifices the disciples offered to Saklas by sacrificing the "man who clothed me (Jesus)".Gospel of Judas, pg 56. translated by Kasser, Meyer, Wurst. Its reference to Barbelo and inclusion of material similar to the Apocryphon of John and other such texts, connects the text to Barbeloite and/or Sethian Gnosticism.
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