boccaderlupo (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
boccaderlupo) wrote2025-06-25 06:43 am
boccaderlupo) wrote2025-06-25 06:43 am
Entry tags:
Pleroma
It's worth looking closer at the Biblical book of Colossians, as this likely has some arguments that bear on the burgeoning "Gnostic" sects of that era, and, more broadly, bears on humanity's subjection to the heavenly powers, themes later resounded, for example, in Ficino and elsewhere:
"Visible and invisible" later come into play in the Nicene creed, and echo the closing idea of "those on earth or those in heaven"—namely the thrones, dominions, and principalities, the hosts of heaven, the Divine powers. The apostle here reiterates that the Logos, as the image of God, is antecedent to all these "numini," and that they are ultimately all reconciled to him...an important point to which we'll return later.
That "fullness" is pleroma, which will be used elsewhere in the epistle and which was a focal point of the purported Gnostic teachings. I'm not going to even try to address the historical and scholarly aspects of Gnosticism—those are murky waters where scholars fear to tread, and I'm no scholar. My suspicion is that there are multiple schools that could fit under that umbrella, to say nothing of the modern thought that draws from it. Suffice it to say that there seemed to be a system of thought developing in late antiquity that held a number of beliefs that, from here out, I will refer to as "Gnostic," namely that matter is fundamentally corrupt and needs to be fled, that the Creator (Demiurge) is either evil or misguided, and that human beings are subject to certain heavenly rulers that only knowledge can overcome, so that practitioners can return to their former state.
For both Paul and the likes of Plotinus, there are problems with these concepts. For the Neoplatonist, as for later Christian thinkers, the idea that the material cosmos is inherently wicked is an obstacle—the latter because the Creator is thought to have made his creation good (Genesis 1:31), whereas for the Neoplatonist the material universe is a reflection of the "higher" levels from which it emanates and originates, ultimately coalescing in the One, which is the Good.
More to my purpose is the latter problem, the idea of subjection to various Divine intelligences. The King James Version of the Bible unhelpfully uses the term "rudiments" in Colossians, but other translations get at the heart of it:
The English Standard Version uses the term "elemental spirits," which gets even closer. One does not think of the classical elements so much as the Divine intelligences who govern certain aspects of the cosmos.
He is the image of the invisible God
the firstborn of all creation.
For in him* were created all things in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile all things for him
making peace by the blood of his cross
[through him], whether those on earth or those in heaven.
"Visible and invisible" later come into play in the Nicene creed, and echo the closing idea of "those on earth or those in heaven"—namely the thrones, dominions, and principalities, the hosts of heaven, the Divine powers. The apostle here reiterates that the Logos, as the image of God, is antecedent to all these "numini," and that they are ultimately all reconciled to him...an important point to which we'll return later.
That "fullness" is pleroma, which will be used elsewhere in the epistle and which was a focal point of the purported Gnostic teachings. I'm not going to even try to address the historical and scholarly aspects of Gnosticism—those are murky waters where scholars fear to tread, and I'm no scholar. My suspicion is that there are multiple schools that could fit under that umbrella, to say nothing of the modern thought that draws from it. Suffice it to say that there seemed to be a system of thought developing in late antiquity that held a number of beliefs that, from here out, I will refer to as "Gnostic," namely that matter is fundamentally corrupt and needs to be fled, that the Creator (Demiurge) is either evil or misguided, and that human beings are subject to certain heavenly rulers that only knowledge can overcome, so that practitioners can return to their former state.
For both Paul and the likes of Plotinus, there are problems with these concepts. For the Neoplatonist, as for later Christian thinkers, the idea that the material cosmos is inherently wicked is an obstacle—the latter because the Creator is thought to have made his creation good (Genesis 1:31), whereas for the Neoplatonist the material universe is a reflection of the "higher" levels from which it emanates and originates, ultimately coalescing in the One, which is the Good.
More to my purpose is the latter problem, the idea of subjection to various Divine intelligences. The King James Version of the Bible unhelpfully uses the term "rudiments" in Colossians, but other translations get at the heart of it:
New American Bible
"...according to the elemental powers of the world..." (Colossians 2:8)
"If you died with Christ to the elemental powers of the world, why do you submit to regulations as if you were still living in the world?" (Colossians 2:20)
The English Standard Version uses the term "elemental spirits," which gets even closer. One does not think of the classical elements so much as the Divine intelligences who govern certain aspects of the cosmos.
For Paul, "pleroma" seems to imply the full powers of the Divine, present in God the Father and invested in Jesus Christ. In Gnosticism, however, it seems to take on a more technical meeting. In Irenaeus's characterization of their beliefs, the pleroma of the Divine seems to be set against the void that is mere phenomena; alternately, in Valentinus, it may be the totality of the Aeons, the Divine emanations that proceed from the Godhead. Not having direct access to these systems it's hard to make a definitive pronouncement, but what jumps out at me is the apparent daylight between the Gnostic systems and the mainstream Christian idea—which seems to already be captured by the apostle in Colossians, as he argues that the Christian shares "in this fullness in [Christ], who is the head of every principality and power." Christ is characterized as the head whereby that which comprises the body—the Many, the plurality of powers—are held together in unity.
He goes to issue a warning about various practices, including "worship of angels," since on dying with Christ one is dead to the elemental powers. Of perhaps particular note is the forceful language, "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!" To me, this threefold injunction is reminiscent of the "things done, things shown, things said" in the ancient mystery cults (although the church of course has its own permissible formulae when it comes to enacting the Christian mysteries). An aside: Plotinus, like Paul, objects to a Gnostic approach to such ritual, although on different grounds—if I remember right, the presumption that the operator is somehow manipulating "higher" entities.
Why then, would Paul be writing to affirm the centrality of the Logos and his full investiture with the Godhead and warn about a "philosophy" that instead elevates angelic worship? Presumably because some in Colossae where questioning the centrality of the Logos, his full investiture with the Godhead, and turning to a philosophy that involved angelic worship. (Interestingly, there is exists the tradition of an apparition of Michael Archangel at Colossae.) It's fascinating to me, then, to see Paul deploying a potentially loaded term ("pleroma") so as to contextualize it within a Christian framework.
Why then, would Paul be writing to affirm the centrality of the Logos and his full investiture with the Godhead and warn about a "philosophy" that instead elevates angelic worship? Presumably because some in Colossae where questioning the centrality of the Logos, his full investiture with the Godhead, and turning to a philosophy that involved angelic worship. (Interestingly, there is exists the tradition of an apparition of Michael Archangel at Colossae.) It's fascinating to me, then, to see Paul deploying a potentially loaded term ("pleroma") so as to contextualize it within a Christian framework.
The objection to such operations would hold if, according to the above assessments, one was trying to navigate the various levels of the Divine intelligences on the path of return, as has been suggested of the "Gnostics." And yet this admonition also dovetails with much later instances of spiritual supplication, such as that found in say, Picatrix or Ficino (the latter may have drawn much material from the former). True, Ficino is employing such methods in almost a medicinal sense, but both cases, not unlike that of the Gnostics long before, involve appeals to angelic interlocutors. Of note, the Picatrix perhaps especially stresses the need for the operator to have personal piety to God—perhaps, as Colossians suggests, as an "override" for subordinate spirits, who would otherwise overwhelm the operator, but who remain under the authority and ultimately answerable to their Creator.