The Seductions of Gnosticism: Lev Karsavin and Gnosis

ABSTRACT

This article looks at Lev P. Karsavin’s experience with the heritage of early Christian Gnosticism, from his attempts at stylization based on his study of genuine Gnostic texts and his systematic presentation of Gnostic systems in art almanacs published in the Soviet Union, to his perception of Gnosticism as a kind of “other principle” in his original religious–philosophical texts. We show that, following Silver-Age traditions, Karsavin uses myth as a form of philosophical thinking. He teeters on the edge of Gnosticism, applying certain Gnostic concepts, but he generally turns to Gnostic thought only to distinguish it from his own, which he presents as authentic to the Christian tradition. He criticizes both ontological and anthropological postulates of Gnosticism: the hierarchization of intradivine life, the introduction of the cosmic feminine into the bosom of the Divine, the interpretation of the Fall as the kenosis of God in time, and the explanation of the perfect God from the imperfect world, as well as the type of religious personhood that leads to a rupture in theory and personal faith. We examine Karsavin’s reception of Gnosticism against the background of interest in Gnosticism in post-revolutionary Russia, as expressed by Kropotkinite anarchists, A. Karelin, V. Murav’ev, Yu. Danzas, and M. Kuzmin.

KEYWORDS:

• Gnosticism
• Sophia
• the Fall
• personalism
• pantheism
• dualism
• emanationism
• personhood
• myth
• Pistis Sophia
• Symbolism
• stylization

Notes

Notes have been renumbered for this edition.—Ed.

1. A.D. Siklari [Siclari], “Simvol i mif v myshlenii Karsavina,” Istoriko-filosofskii al’manakh (Moscow, 2010), vol. 3, p. 235.

2. Ibid., p. 241.

3. See A.P. Kozyrev, Solov’ev i gnostiki (Moscow: Izdatel’ Savin S.A., 2007), p. 30.

4. “Partialated” (uchastnennoe), a Karsavinian term for something dispersed into parts, something not whole.—Trans.

5. L.P. Karsavin, “Glubiny sataniskie (Ofity i Vasilid),” in L.P. Karsavin, Malye sochineniia (St. Petersburg: Aleteiia, 1994), p. 58.

6. Ibid., p. 65.

7. Ibid., p. 67.

8. L.P. Karsavin, Sviatye otsy i uchiteli Tserkvi (raskrytie Pravoslaviia v ikh tvoreniiakh) (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1994), pp. 26, 30.

9. L.P. Karsavin, “Sofiia zemnaia i gorniaia,” in Karsavin, Malye sochineniia, p. 94.

10. I. Protopopova, “‘Pistis Sofiia’, ili Misteriia Istolkovaniia” (available at http://kogni.narod.ru/pistis.htm).

11. Karsavin, “Sofiia zemnaia i gorniaia,” p. 86.

12. B. Gornung, “Iz vospominanii o Mikh. Al. Kuzmine,” in Piatye tynianovskie chteniia. Tezisy dokladov i materialy dlia obsuzhdeniia (Riga, 1990), p. 178.

13. Karsavin, “Sofiia zemnaia i gorniaia,” p. 97.

14. S. Shargorodskii, “Dzooe—Dzoi—Dzaioo: ‘Dzhiade’ A. Belensona,” in A. Lugin (A.E. Belenson), Dzhiade: Roman ni o chem (Salamandra P.V.V., 2015), pp. 212–224 (e-publication).

15. L. Katsis, “Velimir Khlebnikov i Lev Karsavin (Ob odnoi filosofskoi paralleli k ‘Iazyku bogov’),” in L. Katsis, Russkai eskhatologiia i russkaia literatura (Moscow: O.G.I., 2000), pp. 177–192.

16. L.P. Karsavin, “Venok sonetov. Tertsiny. Naibolee polnaia avtorskaia redaktsiia tiuremnogo tsikla stikhov” (available at htttp://russophile.ru/2021/09/02).

17. V.N. Nazarov, “‘Kazhdyi iz nas v glubine svoei est’ Sofiia,’” Voprosy filosofii, 1991, no. 9, p. 174.

18. H. Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958).

19. Orden rossiiskikh tamplierov, vol. 3. Dokumenty 1922–1930 g. (Moscow: Minuvshee, 2003), pp. 413–415.

20. V.N. Murav’ev, Sochineniia. V 2 t. (Moscow: IMLI RAN, 2011), vol. 1, p. 90.

21. Murav’ev, Sochineniia, vol. 1, p. 360.

22. On this, see A. Kozyrev, “‘Zhenshchina s profilem Napoleona’ i sud’by russkogo gnozisa,” Istoriko-filosofskii ezhegodnik-2003 (Moscow, 2004), pp. 158–190. The course of her life and work has been exhaustively presented in a recently published monograph: M. Niqueux, Julia Danzas (1879–1942). De la cour impériale au bagne rouge (Geneva, 2020).

23. Yu. Danzas, “Gnosticheskie reministsentsii v sovremennoi russkoi religioznoi filosofii,” Simvol (Paris, 1998), no. 39, p. 128.

24. See our publication of this work, S.N. Bulgakov: religiozno-filosofskii put’. Mezhdunarodnyi nauchnaia konferentsiia, posviashchennaia 130-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia (Moscow: Russkii put’, 2003), pp. 343–365.

25. L.P. Karsavin, O nachalakh, Simvol, 1994, no. 31, p. 198.

26. A.F. Losev, Istoriia antichnoi estetiki. Itogi tysiacheletnego razvitiia. V 2 kn., book 1 (Moscow: Isskustvo, 1992), pp. 248–249.

27. Karsavin, Malye sochineniia, p. 65.

28. L.P. Karsavin, “Komentarii k Venku Sonetov Tertsinam,” in A.A. Vaneev, Dva goda v Abezi (Brussels: Zhizn’ s Bogom, 1990), pp. 326–327.

29. Karsavin, O nachalakh, p. 228.

30. Ibid., pp. 252–253.

31. N. Gavriushin, “Perepiska A. Vettera s L. Karsavinym,” Simvol (Paris, 1994), no. 31, p. 101.

32. Ibid., p. 136.

33. Vaneev, Dva goda v Abezi, p. 61.