"I don’t think the Gnostics or the Pythagoreans — or anyone, really — had a full picture of what deserves to be called “gnosis”. Otherwise we wouldn’t be in our modern predicament."
They might well have, as for all we know the knowledge could have been destroyed deliberately (like what happened with the Mayan corpus thanks to a Spanish Bishop MFer). Or simply failed to make it through the sive of Christian monasteries deciding such-and-such a Pagan papyrus was(n't) worth expensive parchment.
Footnote 11 has a typo where I believe you meant to say "unforgetfulness". Appreciate you reposting this series.
Corrected! Thank you for pointing it out.
"I don’t think the Gnostics or the Pythagoreans — or anyone, really — had a full picture of what deserves to be called “gnosis”. Otherwise we wouldn’t be in our modern predicament."
They might well have, as for all we know the knowledge could have been destroyed deliberately (like what happened with the Mayan corpus thanks to a Spanish Bishop MFer). Or simply failed to make it through the sive of Christian monasteries deciding such-and-such a Pagan papyrus was(n't) worth expensive parchment.