Gnosticism and the ecstasy of knowing

In my times of reflection I’ve come to realise that the New Evangelization, for it to succeed, needs to take into account the question of Beauty. Beauty is one of those things that is hard to define, but we know it when we see it. How? By the reaction it produces in us — a kind of “pleasingness” which, in its highest forms, produces a sense of “ecstasy”. Ecstasy, from the Greek ek-statis, literally means “to be taken out of yourself”. Isn’t that a familiar experience? To be “beside myself”? To have one’s breath (a proverbial reference to our soul) “taken away”? Ecstasy means to be drawn out ourselves in a manner that elevates us in some way — it is the experience of “being a better person” after.

Now many things can produce feeling of ecstasy (or something resembling ecstasy). True ecstasy, of course, comes only from an encounter with the living God, because God is not merely beautiful, he is Beauty itself. But there are lesser sources of beauty that produce a sense of ecstasy as well. Sexual union, for example, when lived in a manner that is beautiful, can produce profound feelings of being taken “out of oneself”. Beauty in art forms, such as music or the visual arts, is another possible source. And then there is a source that the early Christians had to grapple with, to such an extent that it almost derailed the preaching of the Christian gospel: the ecstasy of knowing.

It is said that when the ancient Greek philosopher Archimedes discovered the principles of density and bouyancy he leapt of his bath and ran naked in the streets of Syracuse shouting “Eureka!” The word means “I have found it!”, but what had he found? In a word, knowledge. Archimedes was trying to solve a scientific problem, and when the elements of a solution came to him in a flash of understanding, he was so taken up with it he forgot himself completely and shouted his joy at the discovery. It was a moment of ecstasy, that came from the experience of insight.

The ancient Greeks were a people who placed great important in having correct knowledge. When Christianity started to come to the Greek world, it was therefore quickly seen as a potential new source of knowledge, and evaluated accordingly. We should not be surprised to learn, then, that many of the early Greco-Christians actually got a little confused about the essence of the new religion, and actually founded a parallel religious movement called gnosticism (from the Greek word gnosis, meaning knowledge.

The gnostics believe that salvation came through knowledge, i.e. through the accumulation of insights. In this perspective Christianity was a source of new knowledge, with Jesus as a profoundly enlightened bringer of knowledge, and so to be a Christian was to gain the new knowledge needed to achieve salvation. The key problem with this idea, of course, is that Jesus ceases to really be the source of salvation: he is merely an instrument of salvation, not really any more important than any other particularly enlightened philosopher. His being as Son of God, co-eternal with the Father, is far less important than the message he brings, and his teachings become far more important than his actions. (Does this sound familiar?)

I’ve often wondered how these gnostic people got the idea that becoming smarter actually made you more “divine”, but I think I get it now: the experience of learning something new brings with it an “ecstasy” related to that knowledge, and the experience of that “ecstasy” is a shadow of the true ecstasy that comes from encountering God. We should therefore not be surprised to see that people would start to confuse the “ecstasy of knowledge” with a religious experience.

All of this now leads to Dan Brown’s book “The DaVinci Code”. It has been shot down over and over again by historians, but (dammitall) there are people who cling to the idea that the book is true with a religious-like zeal. It seems puzzling — until you consider the idea of an “ecstasy of knowing”. It ain’t Shakespeare, but the DVC book does hold out a tantalizing promise: knowledge of “the truth”. Written as a mystery, its narrative brings the reader to supposed “discovery” after “discovery”, and the power of those “discoveries” carries with it a kind of “ecstasy of knowing” that stamps the reader’s mind with a kind of pseudo-religious power. It is no wonder that so many will not let go of the book’s half-truths when confronted with the facts: it is not a question of fact-claims battling fact-claims, it is a question of historical data battlying the “ecstasy of knowing” (as mediated by the book). No wonder reality often loses!

The success of the DVC points out much more than a flaw in our Catholic approach to catechism. Granted, the massive ignorance of the faithful does not help, but I have met very faithful, catechized Catholics twisted up in knots over this book. The problem is that the experience of Catholicism that we usually do impart is often done in an un-Beautiful way, with little possibility for people to be “taken out of themselves”. Good catechesis is important, yes, but it needs to be a catechesis that not only educates the mind but seizes the imagination. It needs to be backed up with a vital and alive (and Beautiful) experience of liturgy and worship that lifts up our hearts. And it needs to encourage moral virtue, and the excellence of the morally virtuous life as a sign of true human beauty.

So what are you saying, Fr. Tom? Are you saying that the reason the DaVinci Code has been so successful is because of boring preaching, clown masses and an approach to the moral life devoid of the call to conversion?

Yep, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

The solution? I’m working on it. But I do know this: the early Christians resisted the gnostic heresy, not merely with facts, but with the power of the Holy Spirit. That is the real source of human experience of salvation. People alive in the Holy Spirit (with the correct facts to back them up as well) just don’t get taken in by the Dan Brown’s of this world. They’ve tasted the real glory stored up for us in Heaven, and the rest they know to be merely shadows. It’s all about being fully alive in the Spirit, and once we are truly on that path, the rest is seen for what it is.