#gnostism

(Heads up! Gnosticism, like much of early Christianity, has anti-semitism baked in! It’s still an interesting theological lens to critique The Locked Tomb through, but just be aware that if you wanna dig deeper you’re gonna have some yikes moments!)

(Also heads up! Spoilers for Nona the Ninth ahead!)

(Also Also heads up! I am not a scholar on early Christian heresies! Take what I say with a grain of salt!)

So what is Gnosticism?

Gnosticism holds that there is an original hidden spiritual God and a not so nice lesser God (the demiurge) who did the creation of the material world thing. Humans can gain salvation through personal spiritual knowledge of the secret divine within themselves (gnosis) and denial of the material world. The school of thought took hold in a bunch of religions ‘round the Mediterranean at about the time that Christianity was starting to get a foothold (100-200 CE-ish).

However we’re gonna focus in on Christian Gnosticism for this post because The Locked Tomb is chockablock full of references to Christianity in specific. For Gnostic Christians, the God of the Old Testament is the malevolent creator God and Jesus is a messenger from the OG God sent down into the material world to guide people to divine knowledge. This eventually got branded a heresy and the Gnostics got booted from the club. (For a deeper dive into Gnosticism’s cosmology check out the Apocryphon of John, also known as the Secret Book of John. It’s WILD.)

Ok, but what does that have to do with The Locked Tomb Series?

Well, if you look at Jod as, not the Jesus figure he paints himself to be, but rather as a gnostic Old Testament God figure and Nona as a Jesus figure, it has an awful fucking lot.

In both GtN and HtN we get a lot of comparisons between John and Christ. First off the whole resurrects-the-dead-and-is-the-savior-of-the-universe thing? Classic Jesus. “The God who became man, and the man who became God” (HtN pg. 24) title is incredibly similar to the titles “Son of God” and “Son of Man” which are sometimes used together to describe the duality of Christ. His description of how his friends (later his lyctors) came to him and stuck by him through the end of the world paints them as disciple figures. Hell, they’re even called “saints” (GtN pg. 405). All the times John tries to get them to eat together in HtN have a very Last Supper vibe (especially once he’s betrayed with a kiss). 

But who’s the one shaping this narrative? John himself. He’s the one who crafted his titles, the titles of his “Saints”, the whole belief system of the empire was shaped by him. Before the Resurrection he certainly knows who Jesus was and afterwards he intentionally paints himself as this world’s Christ.*

John’s actions, however, paint him as a gnostic Old Testament God. For starters he made Alecto from “the dirt, my blood, my vomit, my bone.” (pg. 408) just like in Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” He is vengeful, wiping the whole world clean with nukes just like the flood. Just look at Genesis 6:13 (The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them.) and tell me that isn’t 100% John about to destroy the entire solar system to get back at a few hundred escaping billionaires. Later he leads his chosen people to bloody victory after bloody victory just like God leading his people back out of Egypt into Canaan. In that vein Canaan House is the promised land for his lyctors, his most loved people. 

In addition to all this John and his kingdom are described in very lush, materialistic, fleshy terms. From the intricate description of the doorways to the necromancer/cavaliear’s quarters (GtN pg. 96-97) to the pristine and showy regalia of Ianthe and Kiriona (NtN pg. 207) the emphasis is placed on the material instead of the spiritual. Even John’s proclivity to be the fandom bicycle fits into him being a demiurge figure. Sex was a huge no-no for gnostics. (The Acts of Thomas, another piece of gnostic apocrypha, has a whole story where it’s totally understandable to murder your girlfriend if she gets too horny.)

So if John is a demiurge figure instead of a Christ figure, who is Christ?

Nona! If you thought Muir was being a bit obvious with the John as Jesus signs, wait until you see how she writes Nona.

First off, if you’re talking humble, born-in-a-manger lifestyles, Nona’s got that. Pyrrha, Palamedes, and Camilla are constantly working their asses off to find enough food to eat. Their idea of splurging, after selling months’ worth of hoarded cigarettes, is some stale meat-filled pastries (NtN pg. 104). 

Nona is also held up as an apocalyptic savior figure by those around her. Blood of Eden sees her as a weapon, their own personal lyctor, who will swing the war in their favor and bring down the end of the empire. In early Christianity, Jesus’s proclamation that he would be back to save them and rain down destruction on those who persecute them was taken to mean he would be back literally any day now. “The stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.”(Mark 13:25-26) and  “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man” (Mark 13:32). For the first couple of centuries of Christianity everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting for the apocalypse and imminent salvation just like the Blood of Eden and their creeping deadline for results from Nona (NtN pg.155). 

One of Nona’s defining characteristics is her innocence. She’s 6 months old and a clean slate before that. She’s only ever had 3 tantrums and even in the one we see, she’s not moved by any sinister motives, just pure animal fear and anger (NtN pg. 275). Jesus is (usually) seen as pure and sinless, a blameless sacrificial lamb for the sins of mankind. 

Perhaps most obviously, Nona dies and is placed in the tomb, only to rise again.**

But what makes her a gnostic figure rather than a standard Christ figure is how Alecto, how knowledge of the divine, was in her all along and she only needed to remember to transcend herself and become something more. 

Ok, but what does this mean?

I don’t know!! But isn’t it interesting??

For one thing the series isn’t over. Things may happen that completely overturn this analysis in AtN. And for another thing Muir is a very good writer. It’s not as simple as antagonist-shaped peg fits into demiurge-shaped hole. It’s not a moralizing tale where all materiality is bad and all spirituality is good. John is a sympathetic and loving character in addition to being an absolute fucknugget. Nona is too comfortable in her innocence instead of truly owning up to the consequences of her actions. NtN doesn’t paint Nona’s moment of gnosis (her return to Alecto) as a wholly good thing. It recognizes what is lost and cherishes it. Divine knowledge is at best a bittersweet and profoundly uncanny thing. But that’s what’s so good about the books: They’re complicated.

However, given her proclivity to reference biblical sources, I think it’s a worthwhile activity to investigate the text with more obscure Christian philosophies in mind. If nothing else, it’s really fun.

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* An argument could be made that he is a failed Christ figure instead of just a false Christ figure. The line on page 471 in NtN “For she so loved the world that she had given them John” is almost word for word John 3:16 and is not influenced by him at all.

** While not evidence of Nona being a gnostic Christ figure, Muir’s mirroring of famous depictions of the passion of Jesus in those final scenes down in the depths of the Ninth is wicked clever. It’s not an exact match in posture to a traditional Pietà (depiction of Mary cradling the dead Christ) but Pyrrha carrying Nona down from the megatruck (NtN pg. 443-459) and then her and Paul talking to Nona while she lay by the heater (NtnN pg. 459-462) very strongly call up the Pietà vibe (Fig. 1, Pietà by Titian, 1576). But the bit where she’s carried “Kiriona’s arms beneath her shoulders, Pyrrha’s beneath her hips.” (NtN pg. 470) is exactly the way the Deposition (taking Jesus off the cross) is always depicted. (Fig. 2, The Deposition by Michelangelo, 1555)