Reader Q&A: Gnostic Catechism – Why Are Some Things Unknown?

In my travelling on the Net,I came across the website that has “Gnostic Catechism” in it. It is very interesting and unorthodox site and as I was directed there through my study(amateur)of Carl Jung “teachings” I enjoyed it. I recommend that you yourself enter it so you have a better idea how to answer my question.

The author of this “catechism of Gnosticism”claims a detailed knowledge of origin of universe, primary God out of which everything came into being, Sophia, Holy Ghost, Jesus, Demiurge that created material universe, etc.

That means the author have a knowledge of absolute (if you accept this cosmology.)
The one illogical information in this catechism that is causing me trouble is this:

According to catechism, there are a demons that nobody knows origins off that are truly malevolent and without redemption(contrary to Satan and his Archons who can be redeemed according to this article)One of these demons is called Yachtanabas (no demon of that name is listed on your site)I am troubled by this not because of assumed fact that Yachtanabas exists but because author or anybody knows of its origin. My thinking is:If somebody knows an Absolute (primary God, origin of universe and all the lesser Gods, such as Sophia, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Demiurge(Lucifer or Satan)and his Archons, why he/she does not know the part of Absolute-that is origin of demons such as Yachtanabas?

That does not make any sense to me.

I asked the same question on the website of the “Society of Jesus”-Jesuits, but never got any answer from them. Can you help, if you can?

First, any type of “Gnostic Catechism” you find is a modern interpretation of gnosticism. The various sects that grew in antiquity along with early Christianity did not have such a formalized teaching.

Having googled “Yachtanabas”, the only site I find that references this entity is http://www.gnosis.org/ecclesia/catechism.htm so I assume you refer to this site as well.

Note that both Stephan A. Hoeller and Carl Jung have/had a specific agenda for interpreting “gnostic” texts as they do. Hoeller obviously has created his own modern belief system around it. Jung used it, like alchemy and eastern studies, within his own archetype framework.

That being said, aside from a few random manuscripts that have surfaced, we know of “gnostic” beliefs from 2 main sources:

1) the writings of the Early Church Fathers who wrote against what they considered heresy and often cited primary sources used by these heretics

2) the Nag Hammadi corpus that was found in the mid 1940s and contained a number of primary texts

Therefore, if you are curious about this “demon”, I’d write to Mr. Hoeller or Gnosis.org and ask which sources he was referencing in his article. The primary source might shed some light on the context in which this name was used.

Keep in mind, however, it’s VERY possible that there are a number of “gnostic” writings and teachings that were destroyed (on purpose by the Church or through the natural wear and tear of nature and usage and the like) or are still buried and waiting for some lucky archaeologist to dig up.

Therefore, it may be that we just don’t know because we don’t have the original text that this bit of info came from. Maybe it was a brief reference from one of the Church Fathers, or maybe the document that contained the reference was too fragmented to read, or maybe the text refers to something well known among “gnostic” circles of the day, but we don’t know anything about it because we don’t have the original text.

Remember, “gnostic” ideas flourished roughly between 100-400AD (give or take a few years). We only know about them because those that disagreed with them wrote extensively and because we found a handful of documents written by members of the different movements. There will be gaps in what we know they believed, how they lived, etc because we only have a small sliver of the big picture.