Were the “Lost Gospels” Really Lost?
-Sam A. Smith
For all of the attention currently
being given to the subject of “lost gospels,” there simply are no “lost
gospels.” There are, of course, numerous post-New Testament writings that
purport to be gospels. Almost all of these documents were composed between the
mid-second century and the close of the third century A.D., over a hundred
years after the death of Christ, and well after the writing of the New
Testament. (A few documents like “The Wisdom of Jesus”—one of the Nag Hammadi
texts—might date to the early part of the second century, possibly within fifty
years after the close of the New Testament canon.) These documents, mostly
written under assumed names of early disciples or apostles, were composed by
people who did not know Christ or the early disciples and apostles personally.
Virtually all of these documents, including the popular “Gospel of Judas” and
the “Gospel of Thomas,” can be attributed to a cultic belief system called
“Gnosticism.” As Christianity spread to
the Greek and Roman world, many embraced the message of the gospel. However,
beginning in the early second century there was a widespread revival of
interest in the Greek philosophy of Platonism. Platonism was built around a
mythical cosmology in which the material world was viewed as merely an inferior
copy of ideal objects in a higher realm.
It was just a matter of time before Christianity and Platonism collided.
The result of that collision was that some people who rejected the redemptive
message of the gospel attempted to recast Christianity in the image of
Platonism. This cross between Platonism and Christianity is now broadly
referred to as “Gnosticism.” Since the Gnostics could not support their beliefs
from the Bible, they forged their own “scriptures” by writing gospel accounts
and other polemics they contrived, not based on any available and reliable
eyewitness accounts (such as contained within the New Testament), but based
solely on their own preconceptions about cosmology and spirituality, much of
which was borrowed from Platonism. In essence, the Gnostics rejected the
central message of the gospel (sin and redemption) and used the story of Christ
as a vehicle for recasting Platonic philosophy in religious terms. It would not
be extreme to say that the Gnostics literally attempted to hijack Christianity
as a vehicle for spreading their own pagan worldview. The more one understands
about Gnosticism, the easier it is to see that the Gnostic writings were
nothing more than a co-opting of Christianity in the service of paganism.
So, what did the Gnostics believe?
There were, of course, many varieties of Gnosticism in the late second century
and third century; however, there are themes that resonate throughout
Gnosticism. Gnostics universally believed that the God of the Old Testament,
called “Yahweh,” (or “Jehovah”) is not, in fact, the eternal and holy God, but
rather a very powerful angelic-like being (often referred to as “the Demiurge,”
and by the name “Ialtabaoth”) who, because he does not know of the true God, is
under the impression that he is the highest of all powers, and who in the
process is either wittingly or unwittingly keeping man from the knowledge of
the true God. According to the Gnostics, the Demiurge created heavenly powers
(rulers and authorities called, “archons”) who along with him ordered the
chaotic world created by the rogue act of a spirit being named “Sophia.”
However, the true God sent his messenger (Christ) into the world to reveal the
truth about these powers and the true God, and to tell men how they can escape
the material realm and arrive at the realm of spirit and light. (The physical
realm is, after all, only an inferior realm created by ignorant, inferior, and
self-absorbed beings who do not know the true God.)
From where does the Demiurge come?
Gnostic cosmology is both complex and somewhat obscure, but the basic story is
that the Divine Parent (expressed as the “Barbelo,” consisting of Father,
Mother {Spirit}, and Son) created Christ (not the Christ of the New Testament,
but the “spirit Christ”), who created the first man, “Adamas” (not a physical
being, but the spirit prototype of humanity), who with the help and permission
of the divine parent created Seth (again, not a physical being, but a prototype
of the incorruptible, chosen race who are capable of understanding spiritual
truth), along with a set of four “luminaries” (again, spirit beings). Somewhere
in this process other divine emanations (spirit entities) were brought into
being. The Divine Parent, Christ, Adamas, Seth, the four luminaries, and the
other divine emanations constitute what is called the “Pleroma,” or “fullness.”
The members of the Pleroma know of the existence of the true God (though he
cannot be fully known). One of these spirit emanations called “Sophia,” in a
rogue act begot the physical world (or possibly the Demiurge, who along with
the powers he begot, created and ordered the world). The Demiurge begotten by
Sophia, and the powers begotten by the Demiurge are not part of the Pleroma,
and know nothing of the true God or his realm. The Demiurge, knowing no greater
power than himself therefore thinks he is God. The Gnostics equate the God of
the Old Testament (Yahweh) with the Demiurge. (There are, of course, many
variations to this story.) Sophia’s act, which she did without the consent of
either her consort or the Divine Parent, resulted in the creation of the
chaotic physical/material realm, and at least a part of Sophia became trapped
in this realm, where it longs to return to its native realm of light and peace.
There are different Gnostic accounts
of how man was created, but the basic idea seems to be that God (the true God),
in an effort to recover the part of Sophia that had been trapped and was in the
possession of the Demiurge, allowed the Demiurge to see an image of Adamas (the
heavenly {ideal} human). The Demiurge, along with his cohort of begotten powers
was intrigued, and immediately set about to copy the image, but it had no life.
Thus the Demiurge was tricked into breathing the part of Sophia that he
possessed into the human body in order to bring it to life. This portion of the
spiritual essence of Sophia was then passed down from Adam and Eve to Adam’s
descendants through the line of Seth—who was formed after the pattern of the
heavenly Seth. The Gnostics believed Cain and Abel to have been of inferior
birth (possibly even the result of the rape of Eve by the Demiurge or others
among his cohort of angelic powers). The result of this cosmology is that
the line of Seth (the “Sethites) are the only descendants of Adam and Eve
capable of true good and of understanding certain spiritual truths. Naturally, the Gnostics viewed
themselves as Sethites. Non-Sethites may escape the bondage of the physical
realm, but can only ascend to the lower levels of the heavens.
There are a number of theological
conclusions that derive from this cosmology. 1) The God of the Old
Testament (Yahweh) is not God at all, he is instead, a very powerful but
ignorant, possibly paranoid, self-serving, finite spiritual being.
2) Since Yahweh promotes the worship of himself, and thus a false
religion, he is an obstruction to true worship and religion, and thus in some
sense serves an evil purpose (that is not to say that all Gnostics believed Yahweh
to be personally evil). 3) Therefore, it stands to reason (given Gnostic
cosmology) that the acts of the God of the Old Testament result in and
perpetuate evil. 4) Given the fact that the Gnostics viewed the religion
of Yahweh as perpetuating evil, it goes without saying that they viewed the
Jewish religion in the Old Testament as a false religion, and consequently they
largely viewed the Old Testament as the literature of a false religion, and the
Jewish people as being in league with a false God. (Some Gnostics did believe
that the true God spoke indirectly through some of the Old Testament prophets.)
This explains why the Gnostics had an aversion to the Old Testament (other than
to adapting bits and pieces of the creation story), and it also explains why
Gnosticism tended to have an anti-Jewish bias. 5) Given their view of
Yahweh, the Gnostics believed he and the powers begotten by him are intent on
keeping the souls of men trapped in the material cycle of existence so they
would always have subjects, and so the Demiurge would always have worshipers.
The Gnostics believed in reincarnation, and so they believed that when a person
dies, the powers of the Demiurge would prevent their soul from escaping the
gates of the various levels of the realm of this world. The key to escaping
this existence is to learn and believe in the existence of the true God and his
kingdom of light, and to know how to gain passage through the gates kept by the
powers of the Demiurge. That body of knowledge that allows one to pass to the
realm beyond at death is called the “gnosis.” It was this gnosis
that Christ came to deliver to those who could receive the message—i.e.,
to the Sethites. (Both Freemasonry and Mormonism inherited much of their
theology, particularly regarding the passage of gates at death, from
Gnosticism.) 6) The Gnostics did not believe in original sin (to them that
was part of the corrupt religion of the Jews), and so they saw no need of
redemption. To the Gnostic, Christ was not a redeemer from the power of sin,
but a deliverer from the power of the false God of the Jews. 7) Given
their cosmology, the Gnostics viewed the material world as inferior, deficient,
and in some sense “evil”—at least contrary to “good.” Therefore, they denied
that Christ came in the flesh as is so forcefully declared in the New Testament
(1 Jn. 4:2-3). The Gnostics also believed that Christ did not die on the
cross. Some Gnostics believed that the “Christ spirit” departed from Jesus
before he went to the cross, others believed that he mysteriously switched
places with Simon of Cyrene who carried his cross, making Simon appear to look
like him, and he to look like Simon, while Jesus (in the form of Simon) stood
at a distance looking on laughing. (Gnostic literature seems to have a penchant
for picturing Jesus laughing at the ignorance of others.) 7) Since the
Gnostics viewed Yahweh (the Demiurge) as a self-serving creature, they tended
to view the people whom Yahweh punished as righteous. In fact, since they
viewed the religion of the Old Testament as evil, they saw that which the Old
Testament said was “evil,” as good; and that which the Old Testament said was
“good,” as evil. Thus, according to the Gnostics, the real heroes of the Old
Testament were the Serpent in the Garden, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and
later, the enemies of Israel—while the Ten Commandments and the worship of
Yahweh were thought to be part of the deception of the Demiurge and his cohort.
This inversion tended to carry over into the New Testament, and some Gnostics
(as evidenced in the “Gospel of Judas”) viewed only Judas as the good
(insightful and faithful) disciple, while all the other disciples were viewed
as having been deluded by the false religion of the Old Testament. Naturally,
the Gnostics viewed the Old Testament promises to Israel as simply a ploy on
the part of the Demiurge to bribe Israel into worshiping him.
Summarizing, the Gnostics generally
held to these tenants: 1) Yahweh (Jehovah) is not God at all. 2) The
creation of the physical world was due to the blunder of one of the divine
emanations (i.e., Sophia—an angelic-like being). 3) The religion
taught in the Old Testament is corrupt and serves an evil purpose. 4) The
serpent in the Garden was actually an agent of good and tried to help man see
the truth about the Demiurge. 5) Many of the peoples judged by Jehovah in
the Old Testament were treated unjustly, since Jehovah was acting only in his
own self-interest. The Jews and their religion in the Old Testament serve an
evil purpose. 6) The material realm is intrinsically corrupt by reason of
its nature and origin. 7) There was no fall of man (original sin) in the
Garden. 8) Men are not born in sin (i.e., they do not have a sin
nature). 9) There is no need for redemption from sin. 10) Christ did
not come in the flesh, and he did not die for sin. 11) Much of the Old and
New Testament Scriptures reflect the religion of the Demiurge, and are
therefore unreliable.
Gnosticism can in no sense be viewed
as an alternate form of Christianity as has been suggested by some. It is
nothing less that an “anti-Christianity”—an anti-Christianity that, at least in
part, the writers of the New Testament anticipated and concerning which they
warned the church (see the New Testament books of 1 John, Colossians,
Philippians)—though only the seminal ideas which would later emerge as
Gnosticism were present in the apostolic era. To be sure, Gnosticism was built
upon Christian themes, but more accurately it was a perversion of those themes
set within the framework of a Platonic and anti-Semitic worldview.
Gnostic
Documents
English translations of the following
documents related to Gnosticism are available at the Gnostic Society’s Library
(http://www.gnosis.org/library.html). The documents generally fall into two
categories: those that come to us through the opponents of the Gnostics (i.e.,
the early Christian apologists), and actual source material produced by the
Gnostics themselves (most of which comes from the Coptic writings found at Nag
Hammadi Egypt in 1945).
Gnostism as
viewed from the writings of early Christian apologists:
Ireneaus: Against All Heresies
Tertullian: Against Marcion (Books 1-5)
Against Hermogenes
Against Praxeas
Against the Valentinians
Appendix: Against all
Heresy
Prescription Against
Heretics
Scorpiace
Origen: Contra Celsum (Books 1-8)
Hippolytus: Refutation of all Heresies (Books 1-10)
Clement of
Alexandria: Stromata (Books 1-7)
(Psudo-Clementine):
Recognitions, Book 2 (the Duel Between Simon Magnus and Peter)
Augustine: Contra Epistolam Fundmenti Manichaei
Contra Faustum
Manichaeum (Books 1-33)
De Moribus Ecclesiae
Catholicae
De Moribus Manichaerorum
De Duabus Animabus
Contra Manichaeos
Disputatio Contra
Fortunatum Manichaeum
De Natura Boni, Contra
Manichaeos
Chrysostom:
Homily Against Marcionists and
Manichaeans
Jerome: Letter to Pammachius Against John
of Jerusalem
Ephraim: Third Discourse to Hypatius Against
Mani, Marcion, and Bardaisan
Documents (some
previously known from other sources) discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi Egypt
which were written from a Gnostic perspective include:
The Acts of
Peter and the Twelve Apostles
Allogenes
The Apocalypse
of Adam
The (First)
Apocalypse of James
The (Second)
Apocalypse of James
The Apocalypse
of Paul
The Apocalypse
of Peter
The Apocryphon
of James:
The Apocryphon
of John
Asclepius 21-29
Authoritative
Teaching
The Book of
Thomas the Contender
The Concept of
Our Great Power
The Dialogue of
the Savior
The Discourse on
the Eighth and Ninth
Eugnostos the
Blessed
The Exegesis on
the Soul
The Gospel of
the Egyptians
The Gospel of
Philip
The Gospel of
Thomas:
The Gospel of
Truth
The Hypostasis
of the Archons
Hypsiphrone
The
Interpretation of Knowledge
The Letter of
Peter to Philip
Marsanes
Melchizedek
On the Anointing
On the Baptism A
On the Baptism B
On the Eucharist
A
On the Eucharist
B
On the Origin of
the World
The Prayer of
the Apostle Paul
The Prayer of
Thanksgiving
The Second
Treatise of the Great Seth
The Sentences of
Sextus
The Sophia of
Jesus Christ
The Teachings of
Silvanus
The Testimony of
Truth
The Thought of
Norea
The Three Steles
of Seth
The Thunder,
Perfect Mind
The Treatise on
the Resurrection
Trimorphic
Protennoia
The Tripartite
Tractate
A Valentinian
Exposition
Zostrianos
Other important
Gnostic documents include:
The Pistis
Sophia
The Epistle of
Rheginus, On the Resurrection
Eugnostos the
Blessed and The Sophia of Jesus Christ
The Second
Treatise of the Great Seth
Copyright 2006, by Sam A. Smith / Biblical Reader
Communications
May be copied for non-commercial, educational use
only, subject to the following:
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Available at: www.BiblicalReader.com
Published May 2006