Self-Knowledge as Gnosis — The Delphic Oracle
The Gnostic tradition takes the Delphic 'Know thyself' to its ultimate conclusion — genuine self-knowledge is the recognition of one's divine nature, and this recognition IS liberation.
The Delphic maxim 'Know thyself' (gnothi seauton) is taken to its most radical conclusion in the Gnostic tradition: genuine self-knowledge is not psychological self-awareness but the recognition of one's ultimate identity as a fragment of the divine Pleroma. The Gospel of Thomas (Saying 3): 'When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that it is you who are the children of the living Father.' Self-knowledge in this sense is not introspection (examining one's thoughts, feelings, and memories) but the recognition of the self's true nature as divine — the recognition that the one who observes thoughts, feelings, and memories is not limited to them but is the divine spark that transcends them. This self-knowledge (Gnosis) is simultaneously knowledge of God: to know oneself as divine is to know the divine as oneself. The Socratic 'know thyself' and the Gnostic self-knowledge share a method (sustained self-inquiry) but differ in what they find: Socrates finds human limitation; the Gnostic finds divine infinity.
He who knows himself will find it, and he will know whence he came and whither he is going.
Philosopher Socrates' insight — that the unexamined life is not worth living — takes on a distinctly Gnostic quality when the examination of life reveals not mere human limitation (Socrates' conclusion) but divine infinity (the Gnostic conclusion): the quality of the examination is the same; what it uncovers differs radically.
Nag Hammadi Library
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- What Gnosticism says about knowing yourself
The Greek maxim was to know yourself. The Gnostic texts take it further than introspection: follow the question far enough, they say, and what you find is not a personality but something of the divine. Recognising that is treated as the liberation itself, not a step towards it.