The Gnosticism of the 1832-33 Revelations

Joseph Smith’s “exaltation revelations” of 1832 and 1833 resonate strongly with certain ancient ideas that can be loosely described as “gnostic” (although of course this is a term for which there is no consensus definition).

If I may be permitted to engage in some very crude generalization, gnostics described the being of God as a pervasive and immutable realm of divine light which they called the pleroma, or fulness. Human souls were “divine sparks” emanated from the pleroma that had become trapped in the darkness of the material world. Christ (the Logos or Memra) was also emanated (“begotten”) from the pleroma, to serve as a mediator between God and the world. (In the gnostic view, God cannot interact directly with the world, because God is too transcendent.) Christ’s purpose was to serve as a redeemer, to guide human souls back to mystical union with the pleroma. In addition to light, gnostics described the divine being as pure Reason. Salvation was often framed in terms of mystical “knowing”, or gnosis—which is of course where we get the term gnostic. Many New Testament scholars have argued that the Johannine literature and the epistle to the Colossians exhibit gnosticizing or proto-gnosticizing tendencies.

Ideas like these come through very strongly in several of Joseph Smith’s revelations of 1832 and 1833. Perhaps most remarkable of all is the February 1833 revelation that says that Enoch “saw the time when Adam his fath[er] was made and he saw that he was in eternity before a grain of dust in the balance was weighed[;] he saw that he emenated and came down from God[.]”[1] The use of the word “emanated” here is remarkable because, while it is not at all biblical, it is a very crucial part of the Western gnostic and mystical traditions. Also significant is that Adam paradoxically had a beginning (was “made”), but also was present “in eternity” before anything else was created. This is strikingly parallel to the biblical conception of the pre-existence of Christ, who was paradoxically both begotten and “with God in the beginning” (John 1:1). It is also parallel to the gnosticizing idea of emanation, in which emanated entities in one sense have a beginning, but in another sense have existed in God eternally. A first-century gnostic would see the same idea reflected in D&C 76, where Jesus is said to have been “in the bosom of the Father, even from the beginning” (language borrowed from John 1:18), even though the same passage says he was begotten.[2] Similarly, humans are “the work of [Jesus’] hands” in D&C 76, but were “in the beginning with God” in D&C 93.[3] On a related note, the stated identity of Christ with light and human “intelligence” (placed in its sphere to act independently) strongly resembles the Neoplatonic/gnostic notion that human souls are free and independent sparks of the light of God’s own being.[4]

The soteriology of these revelations also bears some resemblance to gnostic notions. Generally gnostics framed salvation in terms of an ascent to the pleroma, or fulness, of God. The identification with the pleroma begins in this life, through the acquisition of mystical knowledge, or gnosis. The idea of an ascent is perhaps relatively muted in Smith’s revelations, but it is implied in the hierarchy of heavens.[5] Certainly the concept that believers can become indwelled by the fulness is present,[6] as is the connection between knowledge and exaltation.[7] In one respect these revelations do differ quite significantly from most early gnostic groups: they are insistent upon a physical resurrection and the importance of embodiment.[8] In that respect they accord with proto-gnostic works like the Gospel of John and the Odes of Solomon, but not with the more extreme Sethian or Docetic traditions.

In another respect, however, the exaltation revelations actually seem to go beyond John’s gospel. Whereas John says the world was made “through” Jesus (John 1:3), the “record of John” in D&C 93 says that the world was made “by him and through him and of him.”[9] This implies a panentheistic universe, in which Christ is not only the instrument of the universe’s creation but also the agent who initiates it and the substance from which it is constructed. It is difficult to say how carefully Smith thought about these words before he wrote them, but in any case, the implication is there.

Some of these ideas were present in Joseph Smith’s context. Neoplatonism influenced the entire Western tradition, and its views were reflected in Quakerism, Transcendentalism, Romanticism, and Universalism. Emerson, for example, taught the doctrine of emanations and held that there is “one light which beams out of a thousand stars,” and “one soul which animates all men.”[10] The Universalist preacher John Murray, too, taught the emanation of the soul from God.[11] Quaker founder George Fox, meanwhile, spoke at length about “the Light of Christ” that shines through all things. Fox argued that this Light would not only restore us to the original state of Adam, but also raise us to “the measure and stature of the fulness of Christ.” Although Fox was a mystic, he was affirming of the physical elements and believed in a physical, embodied resurrection.[12] Asael Smith had been a fan of Murray, and Martin Harris’s wife and relatives were Quakers, so these influences were at least indirectly available to Joseph Smith.[13] More immediately and more importantly, Smith had access to the Gospel and epistles of John. He was revising the Gospel during the period when the “exaltation revelations” were produced (cf. D&C 76:15).

NOTES:
[1] H. Michael Marquardt, The Joseph Smith Revelations: Text & Commentary (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1999), 232.
[2] Ibid., 186.
[3] Ibid., 188, 238.
[4] See also the comment that “man is the tabernacle of God,” just as the elements are. Ibid., 214, 238.
[5] Marquardt, Joseph Smith Revelations, 189.
[6] Ibid., 238.
[7] Ibid., 213, 238.
[8] Ibid., 223.
[9] Ibid., 237.
[10] Ralph Waldo Emerson, Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 5 (Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1880), 91, 163.
[11] John Murray, Judith Sargent Murray, and Linus S. Everett, The Life of Rev. John Murray (Boston: Marsh, Capen, and Lyon, 1832), 208.
[12] George Fox, George Fox; An Autobiography (Philadelphia: Ferris and Leach, 1904), 101, 195.
[13] Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 17; Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, vol. 2 (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 31, 34.