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Gnostic Texts and Early Christianity

With the discovery and translation of each new manuscript of antiquity, biblical scholars, religious historians, theologians, archeologists, and others have a new lens through which to view our ancient ancestors and their beliefs. Whether the modern mind finds their spiritual stories of creation and salvation delightful or disturbing matters less than what their stories tell us about the thinking and interpretations of those humans who were also reaching back in time to understand their world and to find meaning in it.

A Complex, Vibrant Movement

Many Christians might be surprised to learn that the birth of Christianity was anything but smooth. The polytheistic Romans ruled the world into which Christianity was born. They held political, cultural, and religious beliefs different from those of the Jews living in ancient Palestine. The Hebrew people would have had contact with myriad ideas from Roman and non-Roman influences from around the Mediterranean region and eastward into Africa and even India. Hellenistic philosophers, magicians, prophets, charismatic teachers of various belief systems, itinerant preachers, and self-proclaimed messiah figures of the Jewish tradition populated the lands around the Mediterranean. Some established schools, movements, and offshoots of existing religions. In fact, the world of Jesus was a hotbed of complex religious ideology, and the Romans enabled the spread of all the radical new ideas by making travel easier through their engineering of a vast network of roads and bridges throughout the empire.

Jesus did not found Christianity, per se. He was a Jew and his twelve disciples were all Jews, so the earliest Jesus movement was seen as a Jewish sect, albeit a reformed one. The first few centuries bore witness to the embryonic Christian religion redefining itself, not as a variant Jewish religion, but as a new movement with roots in the older faith.

As Christianity evolved, it grew increasingly diverse in both converts and various branches that soon developed. The branch of the church that remained close to the traditional Apostolic teachings and was patriarchal in its view toward women emerged as the dominant arm of the church. Eventually, its ecclesiastical hierarchy gained imperial power and authority to safeguard its doctrine. But like a vibrantly healthy plant, the church developed new branches that espoused different interpretations of the life and death of Jesus and the core teachings of the Apostles. The leaders in the dominant branch of the faith had to vigorously defend their beliefs against these new ideas and interpretations of Christianity.

Conflict, Misunderstanding, and Rising Tensions

A reading of the Acts of the Apostles and Paul's letters to various infant Christian churches he had established shows that he had to clarify misunderstandings about the teachings of Jesus and the moral conduct becoming Christians. But even before Paul dealt with the issue of proselytizing Gentiles and bringing them into the Jesus movement, conflict had been brewing among the disciples. The tension between Mary Magdalene and Peter, in particular, surfaced before Jesus' death and did not abate after the Resurrection, or so we are told in some of the Gnostic writings composed after Jesus' lifetime. The canonical gospels do not address the conflict between Mary Magdalene and Peter, but, as you already have discovered in previous chapters, several of the Gnostic texts do. The disciples had their differences. And there were also differences in texts and their interpretations by the various groups of Christians.

The Gospel According to Hebrews, which has not survived but is known through the writings of Origen and Saint Jerome, attributes to Jesus a quote about his mother, the Holy Spirit, taking him to the Mountain of Tabor. Jesus' linkage between mother and Holy Spirit also occurs in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas saying 101.

Peter also had conflicts with Paul. After Jesus' death, Peter became the spokesman for the Jewish Christian community and was credited for its growth, while Paul spread the teachings of Jesus all over Asia Minor and converted many Gentiles. But Paul refused to impose Mosaic Law upon the Gentile converts. Initially, that was a source of contention between Paul, Peter, and James. The Jewish Christians, who saw the swelling numbers of Gentile converts as a threat to their cultural heritage, became outraged. Paul was seen in the company of Trophimus the Ephesian (a non-Jew) and was arrested for a charge of bringing a Gentile into the Jerusalem Temple, thus defiling it, something he didn't actually do. The Jews vowed to kill him. He only managed to escape through Roman intervention (Acts 21:17–40). Paul, by his own admission, was by birth a Jew and a Roman citizen. The preceding represents a few instances of conflicts and misunderstandings that triggered rising tensions among the disciples themselves and the people to whom they ministered.

Differences in interpretations of the various teachings of Jesus, as you have already learned, accounted for tensions and conflicts. As various interpretations of his teachings came to be transcribed into texts, new points of contention necessarily had to be addressed by the fathers of the faith.

Spreading the Good News

After the Resurrection and Pentecost, the Apostles traveled to lands around the Mediterranean eastward to Egypt, Africa, and India and westward to Gaul and Rome to spread the gospel. As they did, they came into contact with people of varying cultures, languages, and belief systems.

How does knowledge of the Gnostic material benefit modern spiritual seekers?

It affords modern readers new ways to study and discuss the complex diversity at the heart of early Christianity. Such study also encourages open discourse about beliefs of inclusion and exclusion, tolerance and intolerance, and the power of tradition versus individual interpretation.

Since the Apostles believed the apocalypse would come within their lifetimes, they did not immediately write down their recollections of the Lord's life, events, or teachings. They had received Jesus' teachings through oral tradition. Most likely, they endeavored to avoid corrupting the teachings in their recounting of the stories of Jesus' life, ministry, death, and resurrection. By the end of the Apostles' lifetimes, gospels, accounts of acts of the Apostles, hymns, prayers, dialogues with the Savior, catechesis texts, poems, and other religious writings were circulating in various Christian churches throughout the world. It is easy to imagine a tiny community of Christians in some far flung corner of the Roman empire possessing a letter or perhaps a copy of some sayings or gospel that they treasured. In time, such materials surely helped to keep the gospel message alive and spread the teachings of Jesus. The Gnostics, too, had some textual materials. Those that have survived continue to be studied by modern scholars.

Many Gnostic texts that were circulating revealed differences with the traditional four gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These four were considered by church fathers to be legitimately written by the Apostles and their followers, while other accounts (especially those of the Gnostics) were suspect and without authority or authenticity. In short, various Gnostic texts were thought to be works of fiction and fantasy.

The Gnostic Variants

Some of the ancient Gnostic communities listened to voices from their past such as Pythagoras and Plato. The former argued that humans were of three kinds: lovers of gain, lovers of honor, and lovers of wisdom. The Gnostics most likely fell into the last category. They liked Plato's ideas as well and incorporated his argument for a lesser god (demiurge) into their spiritual cosmology. Other ancient influences resonated as well, not surprisingly, since theirs was a syncretistic approach to spiritual belief.

The Tripartite Tractate, Codex I, 5 in the Nag Hammadi library almost appears to be an apology for Western Valentinianism. It emphasizes that the Psychics, the second division of humans in the Gnostic hierarchy, have a choice about their ultimate destiny of whether or not to return to the Pleroma. It goes beyond the elitism of other Gnostic texts that favor the Pneumatics for such a return.

In antiquity, the Mandaeans were a sect of Gnostics who revered John the Baptist as their last great holy teacher and believed that the first Mandaean was Adam, who communed directly with God. They did not believe in Moses or Jesus and had differences with later Gnostic sects while also sharing some of the same beliefs, including the dualistic ideas of a divine Mother and Father, male-female pairs of Aeons in divine and lower realms, light and dark, right and left, etc. They engaged in public worship and baptismal rites, adhered to strict dietary rules, and rested on Sunday, their holy day.

The Gnostic Christians placed upon the framework of Christianity diverse ideas that set them apart from traditional Christians and also other Gnostic sects. But Gnostic ideas, because they necessarily relied on personal visions and revelation of spiritual truths, posed the biggest threat to the dominant branch of the early church. The early church fathers accused the Gnostics of perpetually changing their opinions and viewpoints in contradiction of their own doctrines. Those fathers believed that the Gnostics were innovators and their various schools of thought formed no part of Jesus' original teachings. The Gnostic claims of possessing secret teachings of Jesus brought about vigorous refutations by the orthodox fathers. However, there must have been some truth that Jesus imparted secret teachings or gnosis, because even the canonical gospels refer to them.

And he said…Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them. — Mark 4:11–12

A similar saying appears in the Gospel of Matthew. “He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given…Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand” (Matthew 13:11–13).

The Gnostics Speak Through Their Writings

Christian heresiologists — Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, Irenaeus of Lyons, Hippolytus of Rome, Tertullian of Carthage, and others — used their rhetorical, reasoning, and writing skills to wage a rigorous campaign against false teachers and their Jewish, Gnostic, pagan, and otherwise heretical ideas that polluted the Christian doctrine, at least as the traditional Christian fathers understood it. After Emperor Constantine stopped religious persecution and allowed Christians to worship freely, the church leadership was able to police its own congregations, label individuals as heretics, and excommunicate offenders. Once the offenders were cast out of the church, their writings were destroyed, often burned. But modern scholars were able to learn about them through the writings of the heresiologists, who, in their defense of traditional Christianity, wrote polemics against the opposition and often quoted the offensive works, sometimes in totality.

The loss of Gnostic texts was irreversible. Modern scholars have known about secret texts, but many such writings did not survive the destruction by the Church. Modern excavations, mainly in Egypt, have turned up spectacular discoveries of Gnostic materials. Of course, there have been amazing accidental discoveries of manuscripts by peasants. Insightful scholars who kept a vigilant eye on the antiquities trade have also recovered some ancient sacred texts having to do with the origins of early Christianity. In these ways, many of the Gnostic writings that were once thought forever lost to humankind have been found (and in some cases, purchased for a great deal of money).

What is a creed?

A creed is a doctrine of faith that includes a statement of belief to live by. Ancient creeds included the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. Modern creeds in Christianity are found in branches including Baptist, Episcopal, Lutheran, Mennonite, Reformed, Orthodox, Puritan, Quaker, Roman Catholic, and others. The Creed of Apelles is a Gnostic creed from the second century.

Through the diligent efforts of scholars, the voices of ancient Gnostics and early Christians reveal that Christianity did not come about through one being founding a movement, but rather by a group effort during a tumultuous time in history. Christianity survived to become a major world religion, with Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches representing the dominant traditional branches and numerous divisions splitting off to establish reformed congregations.

The Orthodoxy's Fear of Gnostic Views

Assuredly, the emerging dominant branch of the Christian church viewed the Gnostic doctrine as a threat for various reasons, among them the Gnostic belief in a feminine aspect of God (as opposed to the God of Israel who did not share his authority and power with a female), an elaborate cosmology with androgynous male-female Aeons, a belief that the creator God is the Demiurge and that the physical world he created was evil, the role of women in Gnostic religious services, an emphasis on salvation through gnosis, and a refusal to submit to the leadership and authority of the church through its priests and bishops. Despite the suppression of their texts and teachings, some Gnostic sects remained popular until between the fourth and fifth centuries, eventually dying out only to resurface and flourish again at different points in history and in various parts of the world.

Today there are two main branches of Gnosticism, the French and the English. France, formerly called Gaul, was home to Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons. The Gnostics in France trace their lineage back to those whose ancestors lived during the lifetime of Irenaeus. Of the various sects of French Gnostics, the medieval Cathars, also known as the Albigensians, are perhaps best known. Their movement rivaled the popularity of Marcion and Arian in the early centuries of Christianity, and that worried the church. Pope Innocent III, in concert with the French King and crusaders, made a bold attempt to eradicate Gnostic and Arian heresy entrenched in the south of France, first through peaceful means and then, when that didn't work, through a massacre of the Cathars on Mary Magdalene's feast day (July 22). The Inquisition followed.

Gnostics Reinterpreted Orthodox Views

Traditional early church fathers scoffed at the claims of some Gnostic sects to possess teachings of Jesus so sacred as to be guarded and kept secret from the masses and imparted only to those souls “ready and mature enough” to receive them. The early church fathers welcomed people of all races and social strata if they were willing to say the creeds, be baptized, partake of communion, and promise to live a Christian life. The Gnostics, on the other hand, were more selective and welcomed into their groups only those who would adhere to the sect's teaching with a strict devotion and high level of self-discipline. This necessarily eliminated a lot of people. Gnostic Christians sought deeper insights and meanings from the gospels, whether or not the texts were “authorized” versions. They honored those who derived understanding from Jesus' teachings for their spiritual maturity. Those who received inspired revelation were not criticized for indulging in flights of fancy or accused of lying, as Peter had inferred with Mary Magdalene's vision, but instead were considered blessed.

Secret Teachings

The Gnostics welcomed the gifts of Spirit in whatever form they took — that is, whether through inner visions, revelations, the charismatic speaking in tongues, or prophecies. They were in some ways elitist in that they believed that not everyone who practiced religion was spiritually evolved or could ever be among the “chosen ones.” Only their most spiritually advanced received secret teachings. In the Gnostic Secret Book of James, in the midst of the twelve disciples, Christ appears and chooses only James and Peter from all the others to whom to impart some secret knowledge. The orthodox fathers rejected the notion that Jesus imparted secret teachings that the Gnostics possessed, and also found offensive the implied superiority of those receiving such knowledge. Irenaeus accused the Gnostics of claiming to have discovered more knowledge through their gnosis than what the Apostles knew. He wrote that the Gnostics thought the Apostles had preached a gospel influenced by Jewish opinion.

The discovery of numerous Gnostic writings unearthed at Nag Hammadi that were copies of original texts, some of which may date to the Apostolic Age, suggests that perhaps the Gnostics did possess some secret teachings. The Gospel of Thomas contains sayings (on which that gospel was based) that may even predate the New Testament gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, according to some academics.

Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory. — 1 Corinthians 2:6–7

The early orthodox leaders stressed unity of their churches in the doctrine taught and obedience to the church's growing power and authority. They saw any deviation as a threat that could erode the church's growing power and authority. The Gnostic emphasis on individual effort to gain spiritual knowledge and salvation ran counter to the orthodox position. Despite their popularity, many Gnostic sects lacked a strong organization. That worked against them and helped the dominant branch of early Christianity suppress the various Gnostic doctrines and sects. The Gnostic systems flourished from the second century to roughly the middle of the fifth century. Their numbers continued a steady decline, and they were eventually eradicated as heretics — that is, except for isolated secret underground movements. Some say the Gnostic sects disappeared because of political and social reasons, a lack of hierarchy, no organized means for holding the sects together, and doctrines that appealed to those who were intellectually and philosophically inclined rather than to the masses.

It is possible that on some library shelf in a monastery somewhere, a research scholar might still discover an unknown Gnostic manuscript, or that another earthenware jar in Egypt will be unearthed and found to hold priceless ancient Gnostic writings. After all, no one knew about the texts at Nag Hammadi until a peasant looking for fertilizer happened upon them. The world might just get lucky again and find some ancient Gnostic text that a versatile scribe copied and a well-meaning monk hid for future generations. Archeologists are still digging in Egypt and elsewhere.