Hello.
First, let's start with Eco's actual text:
"On pages 44 and 45 we find the following:
'in the course of my reading about the Templars and the various
atrocities attributed to them, I had come across Carpocrates's
assertion that to escape the tyranny of the angels, the masters of the
cosmos, every possible ignominy should be perpetrated, that you should
discharge all debts to the world and to your own body, for only by
committing every act can the soul be freed of its passions and
returned to its original purity.'"
source:
Foucault's Pendulum, A Review, hosted by Geocities
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/7069/pendulum.html
Eco is actually stating Carpocrates' assertion right there (i.e., "to
escape the tyranny of the angels... every possible ignominy should be
perpetrated").
In other words, the soul will not be free until it has committed every
possible sin.
Here's a quotation from Carpocrates where he makes the assertion:
"'...souls are always made reincarnate until they have completed all
sins, when nothing is lacking, then the freed soul departs to... the
God above the word-creating angels, and thus all souls will be saved.
The souls which in a single life on earth manage to participate in all
sins will no longer become reincarnate but, having paid all their
'debts', will be freed so that they no longer come to be in a body.'23
Footnote 23. Carpocrates in The Other Bible: Ancient Alternative
Scriptures, ed. Willis Barnstone (New York, Harper San Francisco,
1984), p. 649"
source:
Page 56 in:
"The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics" by Robin Gill
(read using Amazon's new "search inside" feature).
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521779189/
As indicated, a citation for the Carpocrates quotation is page 649 of
"The Other Bible: Ancient Alternative Scriptures," ed. Willis
Barnstone. That book is also available from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0062500309/
---------------
As for the 'where' and 'when'...
Carpocrates lived in Alexandria, Egypt, in the early Second Century
A.D.
Sources:
Carpocrates 2nd century
Ancient Christian Church
Alexandria/Egypt
http://www.gospelcom.net/dacb/stories/egypt/carpocrates_.html
'The Carpocratians
The Carpocratians were followers of Carpocrates, a Platonic
philosopher, who incorporated some of the elements of the Christian
religion into his system of philosophy. The sect flourished in Egypt
and vicinity early in the Second Century. Like the Basilidians they
called themselves Gnostics, and taught a somewhat similar set of
theories. Irenĉus says that the Carpocratians explained the text:
"Thou shalt not go out thence until thou hast paid the uttermost
farthing," as teaching "that no one can escape from the power of those
angels who made the world, but that he must pass from body to body
until he has experience of every kind of action which can be practiced
in this world, and when nothing is wanting longer to him, then his
liberated soul should soar upwards to that God who is above the
angels, the makers of the world. In this way all souls are saved," '
source: "Three Gnostic Sects"
http://hellbusters.8m.com/upd7.html
-----------
search strategy:
"carpocrates assertion"
amazon.com: carpocrates
carpocrates, alexandria
I hope this helps. If anything is unclear, please use the "request
clarification" feature to let me know. Thanks. |
