Aspects of the ancient heretical religion of Gnosticism are common in movies and video games –from Star Wars to Titanic to The Legend of Zelda.  This year’s reboot of Superman does not deviate from this pattern.

There are many variations of Gnosticism, but the basic features are fairly similar across the board:

• There exists a sacred realm inhabited by a supreme deity (Monad) which exists in a perfect, blissful relationship with the male and female pairs who are emanations of the Monad (aeons).  This perfect order taken altogether is the pleroma.
• The perfection of the pleroma was shattered when one of the aeons, Sophia, chose to create something without the consent of her partner/syzygy, which resulted in a monster, Yaltabaoth (also called the demiurge), that she hid in a cloud.
• Yaltabaoth, thinking himself all alone, believed that he was a deity and proceeded to create the physical cosmos that we know, and set up 365 spiritual rulers (archons) to rule it.
• Sophia took pity on the human beings that Yaltabaoth had created and scattered fragments of the Monad into the bodies of some of them, but because of the materiality of their flesh, they were unaware of the divinity that was within them.
• The Monad sent Jesus to awaken the people to the knowledge (gnosis) of the sparks of divinity hidden within them and of the true nature of the cosmos (matter is evil; Yaltabaoth is a false god), and to lead them up to the pleroma, where all would be reunited as a single, peaceful, and happy whole once again (Peter Burfeind, Gnostic America, Pax Domini Press, United States, 2014, pgs. 22-3).

Turning to the plot of Superman, we see that several of these themes are present.

• The catastrophe on Krypton is the shattering of the pleromic unity.
• Lex Luthor is Yaltabaoth, a monstrous man who seeks to rule over the world, and his minions are the archons.
• Superman and the other metahumans fit the definition of the Gnostics, those special beings who have sparks of divinity within them.  Superman also is clearly the Jesus figure who saves the world from the demiurge (Luthor).
• Lois Lane is the Sophia figure who helps restore the damaged world (Ibid. p. 46).
• Jor-El and Jonathan Kent are symbols of the bad, false god (Yaltabaoth) and the good, true god (Monad), respectively.

Having settled that there are Gnostic elements in Superman and many other productions, why should we care?  What difference does it make that Hollywood, etc., are placing an old religion constantly before our eyes?

Because Gnosticism in overt or covert forms is at the heart of the anti-Christian Revolution happening in the West.

• Gnosticism teaches that the world we live in and all its established authorities and institutions are the result of the actions of an evil being (Yaltabaoth).  Therefore, anything done to overturn and destroy them, including violence, is legitimate (Gnostic America, p. 42).
• Since the world/matter is evil in itself, it is a sin to cause more people to be born into this prison.  Therefore, having children is discouraged, and abortion is praiseworthy (Ibid., p. 60).
• Logos, form, pattern, distinction, etc., are bad; our true existence in the pleroma is one of formlessness.  Therefore, lawlessness and chaos are upheld as ideals for society (p. 43).
• Traditional human sexual distinctions (male-female) are also therefore illegitimate, a repressive restriction/distinction that must be overcome in order to discover one’s ‘authentic self’ (p. 38), whatever letter(s) of LGBTQIA+ that may involve.  All other traditional forms of identity, such as family lineage, national or ethnic origin, religious creed, etc., must also be thrown off in that quest.
• As everything exists in the highest happiness in formless unity in the pleroma, then life in this world will get better the more it approximates to the former.  Thus, a society that forces all its members into an indistinct mass of conformity (socialism/communism) will be upheld as the ideal. (p. 33)

Quite obviously, Christianity is in fierce opposition to this satanic religion.  The Holy Apostles themselves fought against it (St Paul in Colossians particularly and St John in his Gospel and letters), as did their successors, St Irenaeus especially.

Definitive, unchangeable teachings, Christ as God and man, the goodness of the cosmos, and so on:  The Church upholds all of these things.

Fr Athanasios Mitilinaios, a recent holy elder of the Orthodox Church, emphasizes some of these key differences with the Gnostics:

‘In our day and age, people do not even want to hear the word “dogma”, let alone its content. (Incidentally, someone has written that our era which liberalizes3 is the most dogmatic era of all.) I would like to make it clear what dogma is, these dogmas which so terrify modern man when he hears about them. Modern man thinks that dogma is something you must accept whether you want to or not, whether you like it or not, no matter if it binds or doesn’t bind your freedom. That is, they think of dogma as something forced upon them. This is the perception out there.

‘ . . . Because you also see people who want no distinction among religions, and others who have the most uncompromising faith in their atheism. Yes, there is faith in atheism, because have you proved that God does not exist? You believe that God does not exist. Well, today, of course, you also see people with this belief who worship freedom, while they are the most unfree people in all of history. These modern people, while being enslaved to their passions, are inclined to react and say that dogma restricts human freedom, the human intellect, from accepting whatever it wants. This is not how it is, my beloved.

‘Dogma is truth revealed and enshrined. An example: The sun is a truth. This truth is a dogma. Whether you want to accept it or not, it is a reality. So you will accept that the sun exists and that it has the characteristics it has. Now, when I tell you what the sun is, what do I make? A shrine.

‘When science reveals what the sun is, after examining it and manifesting what the sun is, this finding is a scientific truth. In the field of Religion, of Faith, such a finding is called a dogma. So it is a reality. Now what does science do with it? It enshrines the truth and presents it to us. This, my beloved, is what dogma is.

‘For example, the Church comes to us and says that God is Triune. We did not make this up. It was revealed to us. And since it has been revealed to us, it means that we will accept it as a revelation. When someone comes along and wishes to question this truth, then the Church acts to safeguard it, and this safeguard is called a “dogma”. Why does the Church act to safeguard this truth? Because she believes (and this is in fact how it is) that this dogma, this revealed truth, is the foundation of man’s salvation, and if he loses this foundation then he cannot have salvation.

‘And so, for reasons of love and charity, the Church enshrines this truth, precisely so that man can achieve his salvation, just as we will say Medicine comes to us with a truth and tells us, You will live like this and like this; you will take precautions against sickness by doing this and this and this, so that you do not get sick. This is what our Church is doing, my beloved; it is doing nothing more than to guard, entrench and manifest the revealed truth.  . . .  This is precisely what the Church does. This is dogma. Why, then, are we afraid of it? Why are we terrified? We have even removed the verb “dogmatize” from our vocabulary. Today if we use the verb “dogmatize”, it means I speak an arbitrary opinion. The Church does not speak arbitrarily. That which has been revealed – I repeat – is enshrined and presented’ (‘Who Do You Say That I Am?’, orthodoxwitness.org, bolding in the original text).

One of the very things that Gnostics rage against, unchanging truth, is the foundation of Christianity (which makes Gnosticism part of that class of innovators and renovators of religion that Jeff LeJeune was warning us about the other day).  And one of the most fundamental truths is that Jesus Christ is both perfect God and perfect man.  Elder Athanasios again:

‘The person of Christ, my beloved, is the great question and the great question mark in all of world history. There is absolutely no other more burning, fundamentally significant, life-or-death subject than the subject of the person of Jesus Christ, of who Jesus Christ is. I’m not sure if you understand, beloved, just what this question is… Whether there is an America or not, I can live happily. Whether there are stars or not, however many they may be and whether they are inhabited or uninhabited, it is not my concern. If I do not know anything about Science and Technology, it does not concern me; again, I can live happily. If, however, Christ is this or He is not this, it concerns both my present life and my eternal life, because the person of Christ answers “Who am I” as a human being and what my destiny is.

‘ . . . “Who is Jesus Christ?” is the most relevant of subjects. Some people say, “He is a socialist”; others say, “He is a sage”; a third group says, “He is a magician” (that He studied magical things and tricks somewhere and that He came to show them); still others say, “He is a very good man”, and so on. And the Lord asks the question: “And what about all of you, you who have lived around Me, who have the experience of My person – not mere knowledge, but personal experience with Me. “What do you say?” (Because this question, “What do you say?” is asked to every believer of every era.) And the Apostle Peter says: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16:16). As if he were saying to Him: You are a God-man, perfect God and perfect man, because “Christ” refers to the human nature, and “Son of the living God” refers to the divine nature. So this was the Apostle Peter’s answer. This is the answer given by everyone who believes in the person of Christ and is asked: Who is Christ?’

For those who question what the acceptance or rejection of the nature of Christ has to do with their lives, Fr Athanasios has a reply to help them understand its profound relevance.  First is that true healing of the human person is not possible without Christ being both God and man:

‘So if I reject the human nature, what consequences does this have? It has dreadful consequences, as does the first case as well. What are they? It means I believe that God did not really become man, that God did not assume the creation, and because He did not assume it, He cannot heal it. The Fathers say: “That which is not assumed is not healed.”4 Christ assumed not only the material body but also the human soul. There are three things: God the Logos, His human soul and His human body. When we say “became man”, it means that He became these two: soul and body. Moreover, He is one person. He is not two persons, the divine and the human, but one person.’

And secondly, our goal of communion with a Personal God is also not possible apart from the True Jesus:

‘Someone can say: “I believe that He is perfect God and perfect Man”, but what does he get out of this? He understands that God came to visit us to become like us – not like He visited us on Sinai – and not only to become like us and to associate with us, but for us to take Him in us, and for Him to take us in Him. That is, an incomprehensible union. We did this today. We communed [through receiving the Holy Mysteries/Sacraments—W.G.]. How else might one say “we communed”? We became communicants of God. Communicants of God? Yes, through His human nature, and since He is one person, we become communicants of God. This is the great subject, the unfathomable, the most precious. In this present life and in the life to come, the crowning glory for man is that he has communion with God! Do you realize this? It is incomprehensible. And yet, my beloved, this is the reality.’

The individual human personality is destroyed in Gnosticism as it dissolves into the pleromic oneness.  In Christianity, the individual personhood of God, men, and angels are all retained, though through the Grace of God all are also mysteriously joined together in the Church.

The various entertainment spectacles we are exposed to in the States and in the broader West are not merely dumbing us down.  That would be bad enough.  They are sowing the seeds of dangerous religions like Gnosticism that threaten to choke out Christianity from the hearts of men and women and children.

If we as Louisianans, Southerners, etc., take Christianity seriously, it is imperative that we guard against the teachings of Gnosticism.  Placing the Ten Commandments in classrooms is a tiny step in the right direction.  Much more will need to be done in addition to that.

But let us at least go into the battle with our eyes open and identify who is a friend and who is an enemy.  And, clearly, most of the ‘culture creators’ at work in Hollywood, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, etc., are not our friends.