Excellent question. The answer, I’m afraid, is a very prosaic: I’m not a real gnostic or at least not a very orthodox one; gnosticism is what comes closest to what I believe to be true, and I use its disperse theology to make myself understood. Gnosticism is but an allegory within an allegory. Back to Irenaeus, his conceptual framework and mythological imagery are simply incompatible with those of the gnostics he attacks. The first monad is not identical in any way to the traditional god, and the demiurge is not free at all, quite the opposite. Originally he intended to make a perfect mirror image of the pleroma but failed dismally in the task. To be honest, the objections that Plotinus makes to the gnostics are far more substantial.
“The so called “Gospel of John” is essentially a Gnostic text and interpretation of “Source gospel” or Z document, to which the closest Gospel to that is that called “Mark”.”
I suppose you mean the Q document. Anyway, when it comes to John’s gospel I take my cues from Elaine Pagels study of its relationship with St. Thomas gospel. There are somo quasi-gnostic elements in the John’s gospel but to be honest I wouldn’t characterise it as being truly gnostic, but the jury is still out there.
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