Abstract
The research on the origins of the Gnostic phenomenon cannot leave out the analysis of its Iranian-Aramaic background. Common themes to Mandaeism, Manichaeism and primitive Christianity join in it. Starting from this assumption, the article studies a specific Gnostic motive, that of the catabasis and anabasis of divine and shining essence, with regard to the figure of the Redeemer and in comparative perspective. In the Manichaean Gnosis Jesus is a «Moon-god» and at the same time he is identified in Zurwan, the Iranian god of Time. Because the Moon is the heavenly place where the particles of Light gather in a Column raising up from the Earth, and this «Column of Glory» is the cosmic image of prŌtos anthrŌpos. This symbolism refers to the passage from a form of existence to another, and we find the same symbolical structure in the late cosmology of the Kurds Ahl-e Haqq.
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