The Gnostic Gospels: Self-knowledge is knowledge of God; the self and the di

[Guest guest]

, " jagbir singh "

<adishakti_org wrote:

 

> Even so, ideas that we associate with Eastern religions emerged in

> the first century through the gnostic movement in the West, but they

> were suppressed and condemned by polemicists like Irenaeus. Yet

> those who called gnosticism heresy were adopting--consciously or

> not--the viewpoint of that group of Christians who called themselves >

orthodox Christians. A heretic may be anyone whose outlook someone

> else dislikes or denounces. According to tradition, a heretic is one > who

deviates from the true faith. But what defines that " true

> faith " ? Who calls it that, and for what reasons?

 

Dear Jagbir and all,

 

It is interesting that Elaine Pagels states that those who were calling

gnosticism as 'heresy', were themselves adopting, whether consciously or not,

the 'orthodox' view of a group of Christians. It was the 'orthodox viewpoint'

that prevailed, because bishops like Irenaeus, enforced it:

 

> Yet by A. D. 200, the situation had changed. Christianity had become

> an institution headed by a three-rank hierarchy of bishops, priests,

> and deacons, who understood themselves to be the guardians of the

> only " true faith. " The majority of churches, among which the church

> of Rome took a leading role, rejected all other viewpoints as

> heresy. Deploring the diversity of the earlier movement, Bishop

> Irenaeus and his followers insisted that there could be only one

> church, and outside of that church, he declared, " there is no

> salvation.

 

It was all about enforcing the 'right viewpoint', i.e. the right viewpoint,

according to the bishop or other person/s in religious authority, and not about

seeking the truth, itself. Accepting the so-called 'right viewpoint' from a

bishop, is not the same as seeking the truth. One is external; the other

internal. Jesus revealed salvation as an internal, spiritual quest, where there

was no need for any external person. He simply said: " Ask, and it shall be given

to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. "

(Matthew 7:7) There is no mention by Jesus, of any church, or any priest! That

is why we can also say that Jesus's message was a 'gnostic' and not an

'orthodox' message!

 

The 'orthodox' message is not stating the truth, when it says that salvation

comes from the church, or from a priest of the church. Salvation can only come

from the spark of the Divine, that is within a person themselves! In fact, if

one holds up the benchmark of spiritual truth, it can be seen that it was the

'orthodox' and not the 'gnostics' that were the real heretics - due to the fact

that they deviated from the truth! They deviated from the 'gnostic truth' that

Jesus taught. Therefore, there is nothing left for them, but to have a decline.

People are waking up to their millennial deceit that they have perpetrated over

the masses. People are awakening to the truth of their Spirit, which is as it

was meant to be, if one really understands what spiritual truth is all about.

The last thing that spiritual truth is about, is " religion " per se - at least, a

" dead religion " where people are expected to bow down to a church, or a priest.

The Holy Spirit just does not work that way!

 

regards to all,

 

violet

 

 

 

, " jagbir singh "

<adishakti_org wrote:

>

> The Gnostic Gospels

>

> The 52 texts discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt include " secret "

> gospels poems and myths attributed to Jesus sayings and beliefs which

> are very different from the New Testament. Scholar Elaine Pagels

> explores these documents and their implications.

>

> From Gnostic Gosples

> by Elaine Pagels

>

> " Scholars investigating the Nag Hammadi find discovered that some of

> the texts tell the origin of the human race in terms very different

> from the usual reading of Genesis: the Testimony of Truth, for

> example, tells the story of the Garden of Eden from the viewpoint of

> the serpent! Here the serpent, long known to appear in Gnostic

> literature as the principle of divine wisdom, convinces Adam and Eve

> to partake of knowledge while " the Lord " threatens them with death,

> trying jealously to prevent them from attaining knowledge, and

> expelling them from Paradise when they achieve it. Another text,

> mysteriously entitled The Thunder, Perfect Mind, offers an

> extraordinary poem spoken in the voice of a feminine divine power:

>

> For I am the first and the last.

> I am the honored one and the scorned one.

> I am the whore and the holy one.

> I am the wife and the virgin....

> I am the barren one, and many are her sons....

> I am the silence that is incomprehensible....

> I am the utterance of my name.

>

> These diverse texts range, then, from secret gospels, poems, and

> quasi-philosophic descriptions of the origin of the universe, to

> myths, magic, and instructions for mystical practice.

>

> Why were these texts buried-and why have they remained virtually

> unknown for nearly 2,000 years? Their suppression as banned

> documents, and their burial on the cliff at Nag Hammadi, it turns

> out, were both part of a struggle critical for the formation of early

> Christianity. The Nag Hammadi texts, and others like them, which

> circulated at the beginning of the Christian era, were denounced as

> heresy by orthodox Christians in the middle of the second century. We

> have long known that many early followers of Christ were condemned by

> other Christians as heretics, but nearly all we knew about them came

> from what their opponents wrote attacking them...

>

> This campaign against heresy involved an involuntary admission of its

> persuasive power; yet the bishops prevailed. By the time of the

> Emperor Constantine's conversion, when Christianity became an

> officially approved religion in the fourth century, Christian

> bishops, previously victimized by the police, now commanded them.

> Possession of books denounced as heretical was made a criminal

> offense. Copies of such books were burned and destroyed. But in Upper

> Egypt, someone; possibly a monk from a nearby monastery of St.

> Pachomius, took the banned books and hid them from destruction--in

> the jar where they remained buried for almost 1,600 years.

>

> But those who wrote and circulated these texts did not regard

> themselves as " heretics. Most of the writings use Christian

> terminology, unmistakable related to a Jewish heritage. Many claim to

> offer traditions about Jesus that are secret, hidden from " the many "

> who constitute what, in the second century, came to be called

> the " catholic church. " These Christians are now called gnostics, from

> the Greek word gnosis, usually translated as " knowledge. " For as

> those who claim to know nothing about ultimate reality are called

> agnostic (literally, " not knowing " ), the person who does claim to

> know such things is called gnostic ( " knowing " ). But gnosis is not

> primarily rational knowledge. The Greek language distinguishes

> between scientific or reflective knowledge ( " He knows mathematics " )

> and knowing through observation or experience ( " He knows me " ), which

> is gnosis. As the gnostics use the term, we could translate it

> as " insight, " for gnosis involves an intuitive process of knowing

> oneself. And to know oneself, they claimed, is to know human nature

> and human destiny. According to the gnostic teacher Theodotus,

> writing in Asia Minor (c. 140-160), the gnostic is one has come to

> understand who we were, and what we have become; where we were...

> whither we are hastening; from what we are being released; what birth

> is, and what is rebirth.

>

> Yet to know oneself, at the deepest level, is simultaneously to know

> God; this is the secret of gnosis. Another gnostic teacher, Monoimus,

> says:

>

> Abandon the search for God and the creation and other matters of a

> similar sort. Look for him by taking yourself as the starting point.

> Learn who it is within you who makes everything his own and says, " My

> God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body. " Learn the sources of

> sorrow:, joy, love, hate . . . If you carefully investigate these

> matters you will find him in yourself.

>

> What Muhammad 'All discovered at Nag Hammadi is, apparently, a

> library of writings, almost all of them gnostic. Although they claim

> to offer secret teaching, many of these texts refer to the Scriptures

> of the Old Testament, and others to the letters of Paul and the New

> Testament gospels. Many of them include the same dramatic personae as

> the New Testament--Jesus and his disciples. Yet the differences are

> striking.

>

> Orthodox Jews and Christians insist that a chasm separates humanity

> from Its creator: God is wholly other. But some of the gnostics who

> wrote these gospels contradict this: self-knowledge is knowledge of

> God; the self and the divine are identical.

>

> Second, the " living Jesus " of these texts speaks of illusion and

> enlightenment, not of sin and repentance, like the Jesus of the New

> Testament. Instead of coming to save us from sin, he comes as a guide

> who opens access to spiritual understanding. But when the disciple

> attains enlightenment, Jesus no longer serves as his spiritual

> master: the two have become equal--even identical.

>

> Third, orthodox Christians believe that Jesus is Lord and Son of God

> in a unique way: he remains forever distinct from the rest of

> humanity whom he came to save. Yet the gnostic Gospel of Thomas

> relates that as soon as Thomas recognizes him, Jesus says to Thomas

> that they have both received their being from the same source:

>

> Jesus said, " I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have

> become drunk from the bubbling stream which I have measured out....

> He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am: I myself shall

> become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him. "

>

> Does not such teaching--the identity of the divine and human. the

> concern with illusion and enlightenment, the founder who is presented

> not as Lord, but as spiritual guide sound more Eastern than Western?

> Some scholars have suggested that if the names were changed,

> the " living Buddha " appropriately could say what the Gospel of Thomas

> attributes to the living Jesus. Could Hindu or Buddhist tradition

> have influenced gnosticism?

>

> The British scholar of Buddhism, Edward Conze, suggests that it had.

> He points out that " Buddhists were in contact with the Thomas

> Christians (that is, Christians who knew and used such writings as

> the Gospel of Thomas) in South India. " Trade routes between the Greco-

> Roman world and the Far East were opening up at the time when

> gnosticism flourished (A.D. 80-200); for generations, Buddhist

> missionaries had been proselytizing in Alexandria. We note, too, that

> Hippolytus, who was a Greek speaking Christian in Rome (c. 225),

> knows of the Indian Brahmins--and includes their tradition among the

> sources of heresy:

>

> There is . . . among the Indians a heresy of those who philosophize

> among the Brahmins, who live a self-sufficient life, abstaining from

> (eating) living creatures and all cooked food . . . They say that God

> is light, not like the light one sees, nor like the sun nor fire, but

> to them God is discourse, not that which finds expression in

> articulate sounds, but that of knowledge (gnosis) through which the

> secret mysteries of nature are perceived by the wise.

>

> Could the title of the Gospel of Thomas--named for the disciple who,

> tradition tells us, went to India--suggest the influence of Indian

> tradition?

>

> These hints indicate the possibility, yet our evidence is not

> conclusive. Since parallel traditions may emerge in different

> cultures at different times, such ideas could have developed in both

> places independently. What we call Eastern and Western religions, and

> tend to regard as separate streams, were not clearly differentiated

> 2,000 years ago. Research on the Nag Hammadi texts is only beginning:

> we look forward to the work of scholars who can study these

> traditions comparatively to discover whether they can, in fact, be

> traced to Indian sources.

>

> Even so, ideas that we associate with Eastern religions emerged in

> the first century through the gnostic movement in the West, but they

> were suppressed and condemned by polemicists like Irenaeus. Yet those

> who called gnosticism heresy were adopting--consciously or not--the

> viewpoint of that group of Christians who called themselves orthodox

> Christians. A heretic may be anyone whose outlook someone else

> dislikes or denounces. According to tradition, a heretic is one who

> deviates from the true faith. But what defines that " true faith " ? Who

> calls it that, and for what reasons?

>

> We find this problem familiar in our own experience. The

> term " Christianity, " especially since the Reformation, has covered an

> astonishing range of groups. Those claiming to represent " true

> Christianity " in the twentieth century can range from a Catholic

> cardinal in the Vatican to an African Methodist Episcopal preacher

> initiating revival in Detroit, a Mormon missionary in Thailand, or

> the member of a village church on the coast of Greece. Yet Catholics,

> Protestants, and Orthodox agree that such diversity is a recent--and

> deplorable--development. According to Christian legend, the early

> church was different. Christians of every persuasion look back to the

> primitive church to find a simpler, purer form of Christian faith. In

> the apostles' time, all members of the Christian community shared

> their money and property; all believed the same teaching, and

> worshipped together; all revered the authority of the apostles. It

> was only after that golden age that conflict, then heresy emerged: so

> says the author of the Acts of the Apostles, who identifies himself

> as the first historian of Christianity.

>

> But the discoveries at Nag Hammadi have upset this picture. If we

> admit that some of these fifty-two texts represents early forms of

> Christian teaching, we may have to recognize that early Christianity

> is far more diverse than nearly anyone expected before the Nag

> Hammadi discoveries.

>

> Contemporary Christianity, diverse and complex as we find it,

> actually may show more unanimity than the Christian churches of the

> first and second centuries. For nearly all Christians since that

> time, Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox, have shared three basic

> premises. First, they accept the canon of the New Testament; second,

> they confess the apostolic creed; and third, they affirm specific

> forms of church institution. But every one of these-the canon of

> Scripture, the creed, and the institutional structure--emerged in its

> present form only toward the end of the second century. Before that

> time, as Irenaeus and others attest, numerous gospels circulated

> among various Christian groups, ranging from those of the New

> Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, to such writings as the

> Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth, as

> well as many other secret teachings, myths, and poems attributed to

> Jesus or his disciples. Some of these, apparently, were discovered at

> Nag Hammadi; many others are lost to us. Those who identified

> themselves as Christians entertained many--and radically differing-

> religious beliefs and practices. And the communities scattered

> throughout the known world organized themselves in ways that differed

> widely from one group to another.

>

> Yet by A. D. 200, the situation had changed. Christianity had become

> an institution headed by a three-rank hierarchy of bishops, priests,

> and deacons, who understood themselves to be the guardians of the

> only " true faith. " The majority of churches, among which the church

> of Rome took a leading role, rejected all other viewpoints as heresy.

> Deploring the diversity of the earlier movement, Bishop Irenaeus and

> his followers insisted that there could be only one church, and

> outside of that church, he declared, " there is no salvation. " Members

> of this church alone are orthodox (literally, " straight-thinking " )

> Christians. And, he claimed, this church must be catholic-- that is,

> universal. Whoever challenged that consensus, arguing instead for

> other forms of Christian teaching, was declared to be a heretic, and

> expelled. When the orthodox gained military support, sometime after

> the Emperor Constantine became Christian in the fourth century, the

> penalty for heresy escalated. "

>

>

> From The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels. Published by Vintage Books.

>

>

> www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/pagels.html

>

[Guest guest]

> , " jagbir singh "

> <adishakti_org@> wrote:

>

> Even so, ideas that we associate with Eastern religions emerged in

> the first century through the gnostic movement in the West, but they

> were suppressed and condemned by polemicists like Irenaeus. Yet

> those who called gnosticism heresy were adopting--consciously or

> not--the viewpoint of that group of Christians who called themselves

> orthodox Christians. A heretic may be anyone whose outlook someone

> else dislikes or denounces. According to tradition, a heretic is one

> who deviates from the true faith. But what defines that " true

> faith " ? Who calls it that, and for what reasons?

 

Dear Jagbir and all,

 

It is interesting that Elaine Pagels states that those who were calling

gnosticism as 'heresy', were themselves adopting, whether consciously or not,

the 'orthodox' view of a group of Christians. It was the 'orthodox viewpoint'

that prevailed, because bishops like Irenaeus, enforced it:

 

" Yet by A. D. 200, the situation had changed. Christianity had become an

institution headed by a three-rank hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons,

who understood themselves to be the guardians of the only " true faith. " The

majority of churches, among which the church of Rome took a leading role,

rejected all other viewpoints as heresy. Deploring the diversity of the earlier

movement, Bishop Irenaeus and his followers insisted that there could be only

one church, and outside of that church, he declared, " there is no salvation. " "

 

It was all about enforcing the 'right viewpoint', i.e. the right viewpoint,

according to the bishop or other person/s in religious authority, and not about

seeking the truth, itself. Accepting the so-called 'right viewpoint' from a

bishop, is not the same as seeking the truth. One is external; the other

internal. Jesus revealed salvation as an internal, spiritual quest, where there

was no need for any external person. He simply said: " Ask, and it shall be given

to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. "

(Matthew 7:7) There is no mention by Jesus, of any church, or any priest! That

is why we can also say that Jesus's message was a 'gnostic' and not an

'orthodox' message!

 

The 'orthodox' message is not stating the truth, when it says that salvation

comes from the church, or from a priest of the church. Salvation can only come

from the spark of the Divine, that is within a person themselves! In fact, if

one holds up the benchmark of spiritual truth, it can be seen that it was the

'orthodox' and not the 'gnostics' that were the real heretics - due to the fact

that they deviated from the truth! They deviated from the 'gnostic truth' that

Jesus taught. Therefore, there is nothing left for them, but to have a decline.

People are waking up to their millennial deceit that they have perpetrated over

the masses. People are awakening to the truth of their Spirit, which is as it

was meant to be, if one really understands what spiritual truth is all about.

The last thing that spiritual truth is about, is " religion " per se - at least, a

" dead religion " where people are expected to bow down to a church, or a priest.

The Holy Spirit just does not work that way!

 

This is what Shri Mataji said on this subject:

 

" Because all such people take charge, they become in charge, they think they are

responsible for this--while they are not at all capable, and don't have the

right to do this. As a result, Christianity took a very wrong attitude towards

the inner growth of human beings. You see the result of that today, when you see

what's happening with the Catholic Church. You are amazed how such an

organisation can be a religious organisation, where all kinds of nonsensical

things are going on.

 

I was also born in a Christian family and I was shocked the way they interpreted

Christ's life and the way it was talked about with such great authority. Books

after books were written. They gave big, big, sermons, though there is no truth

in what they say. Even my father, [a scholar], said the same, that the books

came much after the author [i.e. 'original teachers'] of these books.

 

Secondly, those who tried to write it, were not authorised to do that. They were

not spiritual people. They all wanted to have power. They wanted to have power

in religion. The power of religion is 'inside', and 'that' should be 'awakened'.

I must say 'thanks' to the Sufis of this and other countries, that people still

think there is something beyond these 'words, talks, and books'. It is such a

blessing, that in every country we had someone who talked about reality, about

the truth--though they were condemned, tortured and so many of them were killed.

This is happening even today. I find that people just don't want to listen to

reality, to the truth. " (Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi - Easter Puja, 23 April, 2000)

 

regards to all,

 

violet

>

>

>

> , " jagbir singh "

> <adishakti_org@> wrote:

> >

> > The Gnostic Gospels

> >

> > The 52 texts discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt include " secret "

> > gospels poems and myths attributed to Jesus sayings and beliefs which

> > are very different from the New Testament. Scholar Elaine Pagels

> > explores these documents and their implications.

> >

> > From Gnostic Gosples

> > by Elaine Pagels

> >

> > " Scholars investigating the Nag Hammadi find discovered that some of

> > the texts tell the origin of the human race in terms very different

> > from the usual reading of Genesis: the Testimony of Truth, for

> > example, tells the story of the Garden of Eden from the viewpoint of

> > the serpent! Here the serpent, long known to appear in Gnostic

> > literature as the principle of divine wisdom, convinces Adam and Eve

> > to partake of knowledge while " the Lord " threatens them with death,

> > trying jealously to prevent them from attaining knowledge, and

> > expelling them from Paradise when they achieve it. Another text,

> > mysteriously entitled The Thunder, Perfect Mind, offers an

> > extraordinary poem spoken in the voice of a feminine divine power:

> >

> > For I am the first and the last.

> > I am the honored one and the scorned one.

> > I am the whore and the holy one.

> > I am the wife and the virgin....

> > I am the barren one, and many are her sons....

> > I am the silence that is incomprehensible....

> > I am the utterance of my name.

> >

> > These diverse texts range, then, from secret gospels, poems, and

> > quasi-philosophic descriptions of the origin of the universe, to

> > myths, magic, and instructions for mystical practice.

> >

> > Why were these texts buried-and why have they remained virtually

> > unknown for nearly 2,000 years? Their suppression as banned

> > documents, and their burial on the cliff at Nag Hammadi, it turns

> > out, were both part of a struggle critical for the formation of early

> > Christianity. The Nag Hammadi texts, and others like them, which

> > circulated at the beginning of the Christian era, were denounced as

> > heresy by orthodox Christians in the middle of the second century. We

> > have long known that many early followers of Christ were condemned by

> > other Christians as heretics, but nearly all we knew about them came

> > from what their opponents wrote attacking them...

> >

> > This campaign against heresy involved an involuntary admission of its

> > persuasive power; yet the bishops prevailed. By the time of the

> > Emperor Constantine's conversion, when Christianity became an

> > officially approved religion in the fourth century, Christian

> > bishops, previously victimized by the police, now commanded them.

> > Possession of books denounced as heretical was made a criminal

> > offense. Copies of such books were burned and destroyed. But in Upper

> > Egypt, someone; possibly a monk from a nearby monastery of St.

> > Pachomius, took the banned books and hid them from destruction--in

> > the jar where they remained buried for almost 1,600 years.

> >

> > But those who wrote and circulated these texts did not regard

> > themselves as " heretics. Most of the writings use Christian

> > terminology, unmistakable related to a Jewish heritage. Many claim to

> > offer traditions about Jesus that are secret, hidden from " the many "

> > who constitute what, in the second century, came to be called

> > the " catholic church. " These Christians are now called gnostics, from

> > the Greek word gnosis, usually translated as " knowledge. " For as

> > those who claim to know nothing about ultimate reality are called

> > agnostic (literally, " not knowing " ), the person who does claim to

> > know such things is called gnostic ( " knowing " ). But gnosis is not

> > primarily rational knowledge. The Greek language distinguishes

> > between scientific or reflective knowledge ( " He knows mathematics " )

> > and knowing through observation or experience ( " He knows me " ), which

> > is gnosis. As the gnostics use the term, we could translate it

> > as " insight, " for gnosis involves an intuitive process of knowing

> > oneself. And to know oneself, they claimed, is to know human nature

> > and human destiny. According to the gnostic teacher Theodotus,

> > writing in Asia Minor (c. 140-160), the gnostic is one has come to

> > understand who we were, and what we have become; where we were...

> > whither we are hastening; from what we are being released; what birth

> > is, and what is rebirth.

> >

> > Yet to know oneself, at the deepest level, is simultaneously to know

> > God; this is the secret of gnosis. Another gnostic teacher, Monoimus,

> > says:

> >

> > Abandon the search for God and the creation and other matters of a

> > similar sort. Look for him by taking yourself as the starting point.

> > Learn who it is within you who makes everything his own and says, " My

> > God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body. " Learn the sources of

> > sorrow:, joy, love, hate . . . If you carefully investigate these

> > matters you will find him in yourself.

> >

> > What Muhammad 'All discovered at Nag Hammadi is, apparently, a

> > library of writings, almost all of them gnostic. Although they claim

> > to offer secret teaching, many of these texts refer to the Scriptures

> > of the Old Testament, and others to the letters of Paul and the New

> > Testament gospels. Many of them include the same dramatic personae as

> > the New Testament--Jesus and his disciples. Yet the differences are

> > striking.

> >

> > Orthodox Jews and Christians insist that a chasm separates humanity

> > from Its creator: God is wholly other. But some of the gnostics who

> > wrote these gospels contradict this: self-knowledge is knowledge of

> > God; the self and the divine are identical.

> >

> > Second, the " living Jesus " of these texts speaks of illusion and

> > enlightenment, not of sin and repentance, like the Jesus of the New

> > Testament. Instead of coming to save us from sin, he comes as a guide

> > who opens access to spiritual understanding. But when the disciple

> > attains enlightenment, Jesus no longer serves as his spiritual

> > master: the two have become equal--even identical.

> >

> > Third, orthodox Christians believe that Jesus is Lord and Son of God

> > in a unique way: he remains forever distinct from the rest of

> > humanity whom he came to save. Yet the gnostic Gospel of Thomas

> > relates that as soon as Thomas recognizes him, Jesus says to Thomas

> > that they have both received their being from the same source:

> >

> > Jesus said, " I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have

> > become drunk from the bubbling stream which I have measured out....

> > He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am: I myself shall

> > become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him. "

> >

> > Does not such teaching--the identity of the divine and human. the

> > concern with illusion and enlightenment, the founder who is presented

> > not as Lord, but as spiritual guide sound more Eastern than Western?

> > Some scholars have suggested that if the names were changed,

> > the " living Buddha " appropriately could say what the Gospel of Thomas

> > attributes to the living Jesus. Could Hindu or Buddhist tradition

> > have influenced gnosticism?

> >

> > The British scholar of Buddhism, Edward Conze, suggests that it had.

> > He points out that " Buddhists were in contact with the Thomas

> > Christians (that is, Christians who knew and used such writings as

> > the Gospel of Thomas) in South India. " Trade routes between the Greco-

> > Roman world and the Far East were opening up at the time when

> > gnosticism flourished (A.D. 80-200); for generations, Buddhist

> > missionaries had been proselytizing in Alexandria. We note, too, that

> > Hippolytus, who was a Greek speaking Christian in Rome (c. 225),

> > knows of the Indian Brahmins--and includes their tradition among the

> > sources of heresy:

> >

> > There is . . . among the Indians a heresy of those who philosophize

> > among the Brahmins, who live a self-sufficient life, abstaining from

> > (eating) living creatures and all cooked food . . . They say that God

> > is light, not like the light one sees, nor like the sun nor fire, but

> > to them God is discourse, not that which finds expression in

> > articulate sounds, but that of knowledge (gnosis) through which the

> > secret mysteries of nature are perceived by the wise.

> >

> > Could the title of the Gospel of Thomas--named for the disciple who,

> > tradition tells us, went to India--suggest the influence of Indian

> > tradition?

> >

> > These hints indicate the possibility, yet our evidence is not

> > conclusive. Since parallel traditions may emerge in different

> > cultures at different times, such ideas could have developed in both

> > places independently. What we call Eastern and Western religions, and

> > tend to regard as separate streams, were not clearly differentiated

> > 2,000 years ago. Research on the Nag Hammadi texts is only beginning:

> > we look forward to the work of scholars who can study these

> > traditions comparatively to discover whether they can, in fact, be

> > traced to Indian sources.

> >

> > Even so, ideas that we associate with Eastern religions emerged in

> > the first century through the gnostic movement in the West, but they

> > were suppressed and condemned by polemicists like Irenaeus. Yet those

> > who called gnosticism heresy were adopting--consciously or not--the

> > viewpoint of that group of Christians who called themselves orthodox

> > Christians. A heretic may be anyone whose outlook someone else

> > dislikes or denounces. According to tradition, a heretic is one who

> > deviates from the true faith. But what defines that " true faith " ? Who

> > calls it that, and for what reasons?

> >

> > We find this problem familiar in our own experience. The

> > term " Christianity, " especially since the Reformation, has covered an

> > astonishing range of groups. Those claiming to represent " true

> > Christianity " in the twentieth century can range from a Catholic

> > cardinal in the Vatican to an African Methodist Episcopal preacher

> > initiating revival in Detroit, a Mormon missionary in Thailand, or

> > the member of a village church on the coast of Greece. Yet Catholics,

> > Protestants, and Orthodox agree that such diversity is a recent--and

> > deplorable--development. According to Christian legend, the early

> > church was different. Christians of every persuasion look back to the

> > primitive church to find a simpler, purer form of Christian faith. In

> > the apostles' time, all members of the Christian community shared

> > their money and property; all believed the same teaching, and

> > worshipped together; all revered the authority of the apostles. It

> > was only after that golden age that conflict, then heresy emerged: so

> > says the author of the Acts of the Apostles, who identifies himself

> > as the first historian of Christianity.

> >

> > But the discoveries at Nag Hammadi have upset this picture. If we

> > admit that some of these fifty-two texts represents early forms of

> > Christian teaching, we may have to recognize that early Christianity

> > is far more diverse than nearly anyone expected before the Nag

> > Hammadi discoveries.

> >

> > Contemporary Christianity, diverse and complex as we find it,

> > actually may show more unanimity than the Christian churches of the

> > first and second centuries. For nearly all Christians since that

> > time, Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox, have shared three basic

> > premises. First, they accept the canon of the New Testament; second,

> > they confess the apostolic creed; and third, they affirm specific

> > forms of church institution. But every one of these-the canon of

> > Scripture, the creed, and the institutional structure--emerged in its

> > present form only toward the end of the second century. Before that

> > time, as Irenaeus and others attest, numerous gospels circulated

> > among various Christian groups, ranging from those of the New

> > Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, to such writings as the

> > Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth, as

> > well as many other secret teachings, myths, and poems attributed to

> > Jesus or his disciples. Some of these, apparently, were discovered at

> > Nag Hammadi; many others are lost to us. Those who identified

> > themselves as Christians entertained many--and radically differing-

> > religious beliefs and practices. And the communities scattered

> > throughout the known world organized themselves in ways that differed

> > widely from one group to another.

> >

> > Yet by A. D. 200, the situation had changed. Christianity had become

> > an institution headed by a three-rank hierarchy of bishops, priests,

> > and deacons, who understood themselves to be the guardians of the

> > only " true faith. " The majority of churches, among which the church

> > of Rome took a leading role, rejected all other viewpoints as heresy.

> > Deploring the diversity of the earlier movement, Bishop Irenaeus and

> > his followers insisted that there could be only one church, and

> > outside of that church, he declared, " there is no salvation. " Members

> > of this church alone are orthodox (literally, " straight-thinking " )

> > Christians. And, he claimed, this church must be catholic-- that is,

> > universal. Whoever challenged that consensus, arguing instead for

> > other forms of Christian teaching, was declared to be a heretic, and

> > expelled. When the orthodox gained military support, sometime after

> > the Emperor Constantine became Christian in the fourth century, the

> > penalty for heresy escalated. "

> >

> >

> > From The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels. Published by Vintage Books.

> >

> >

> > www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/pagels.html

> >

>