God's Word or Human Words - Part 11

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded Part 10 with the following words:

 

(p.102) " But how are visions received, and which are divinely inspired?

Practically speaking, who is to judge? This central--and perplexing--question is

what Christians since ancient times have called the problem of discerning

spirits: how to tell which apparent inspirations come from God, which from the

power of evil, and which from an overheated imagination. Although most people at

the time--Jews, pagans, and Christians alike--assumed that the divine reveals

itself in dreams, many people then, as now, recognized that dreams may also

express only wishes and hopes, and that some may lead to fatal delusions. We

have seen that Irenaeus recognized God's power in certain prophets, healers, and

teachers, perhaps especially in those whose teaching agreed with what many

Christians accepted in common. In others, however, he saw Satan at work--for

example, in the case of Marcus, whom he called " Satan's apostle " and accused of

inventing visions in order to deceive his followers and to exploit them for

sexual favours and money. "

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas), Chapter 3, p. 102-103.

 

Here now, is Part 11.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

 

God's Word or Human Words - Part 11

 

(p.103) In the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, discovered in Egypt in 1896, the

apostles Andrew and Peter raise the same questions that troubled Irenaeus--but

this time we hear a response from the visionary's point of view. The Gospel of

Mary dramatizes how certain group leaders--here represented by the apostles

Peter and Andrew--sometimes attacked and denounced those who claimed to see

visions. Although the opening is lost, what we have of the Gospel of Mary begins

with a vision in which the risen Jesus tells his disciples, " The Son of Man is

'within you'. Follow after him! Those who seek him will find him. Go, then, and

preach the gospel of the kingdom. " Yet most of the disciples, apparently at a

loss to find the divine within themselves, " were grieved, and wept greatly, "

terrified that they would be killed as Jesus was. Then Mary stood up, spoke, and

" turned their hearts to the good " :

 

Do not weep, and do not grieve nor be afraid, for his grace will be with you

completely, and will protect you. But rather let us praise his greatness, for he

has prepared us, and has turned us into human beings. [82]

 

(p.104) Then Peter says to Mary: " Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more

than the rest of women. Tell us the words of the Savior which you

remember--which you know but we do not, nor have we heard them. " [83] Peter

apparently expects to hear things that Jesus had said at times when he himself

was absent. But Mary startles Peter by saying that she knows not only what Peter

did not happen to hear but also what Jesus 'chose' not to tell him: " What is

hidden from you I will tell you. " So, she continues, " I saw the Lord today in a

vision, " and she says that she was so astonished that she immediately asked him

how visions occur:

 

" How does one who sees the vision see it--through the soul, or through the

spirit? " The Savior answered and said, " One does not see through the soul, nor

through the spirit, but the mind which is between the two: that is what sees the

vision. " [84]

 

After hearing that visions come through the 'mind' or 'consciousness', Mary

turns her attention to what the vision shows her. At this crucial point the

papyrus text is broken, and much is lost; what remains is a fragment in which,

as in the Dialogue of the Savior, Jesus reveals what happens after death. He

explains that the soul encounters " seven powers of wrath, " which challenge it,

saying, " Whence do you come, killer of humans, and where are you going,

conqueror of space? " Through this vision, Jesus teaches the soul how to respond,

so that it may overcome these hostile powers.

 

When Mary stops speaking, an argument breaks out:

 

(p.105) When Mary had said this, she fell silent, since it was to this point

that the Savior had spoken with her. But Andrew answered and said to the

brethren, " Say what you will about what she has said. I, at least, do not

believe that the Savior said this, for certainly these teachings are strange

ideas. " [85]

 

Andrew's brother Peter adds: " Did he really speak with a woman without our

knowledge, and not openly? Are we supposed to turn and listen to 'her'? Did he

love her more than 'us'? "

 

Then Mary wept, and said to Peter, " My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you

think that I made this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the

Savior? " Levi answered and said to Peter, " Peter, you have always been hot

tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman as our enemies do. But if

the Savior made her worthy, who are you, indeed, to reject her? Surely the

Savior knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us. Rather, let

us be ashamed, and...preach the gospel. " [86]

 

Thus the author of the Gospel of Mary differs from Irenaeus about how to

distinguish genuine visions. For when Irenaeus confronted a prophet he

mistrusted, like Marcus, he might well have said what Peter and Andrew said to

Mary, accusing those who claimed to have received visions of having " strange

ideas " or of " making them up. "

 

Irenaeus may have realized as he wrestled with this problem that it was nothing

new; some of Israel's ancient prophets had asked--and been asked--the same

questions. When Jeremiah, for example, predicted that war with Babylonia (c.580

B.C.E.) would end in Israel's defeat, prophets who had predicted victory accused

him of false prophecy. Jeremiah protested that he spoke only what came " from the

mouth of the Lord " and accused his opponents of speaking lies that came " from

their own mouths. " So, he wrote:

 

The Lord himself said to me, " I have heard what the prophets have said...who

say, 'I have dreamed, I have dreamed.' See, I am against the prophets, says the

Lord, who use 'their own tongues', and say, 'Says the Lord.' See, I am against

the prophets, says the Lord, who 'use their own tongues and prophesy lying

dreams', says the Lord, and who tell them, and who lead my people astray by

their lies and wickedness, when I did not send them, nor did I command them or

speak to them. They are prophesying to you 'a lying vision, worthless

divination, and the deceit of their own minds. " [87]

 

Thus Jeremiah dismisses as worthless whatever comes from the prophets' " own

mouths, " " their own dreams, " and " their own minds. " Irenaeus, who has Marcus in

mind, agrees, and adds what he learned from his anonymous Christian mentor, whom

he calls " that divine elder and preacher of the truth " --false prophecy,

especially Marcus's, comes from Satan.

 

Irenaeus adopted from Israel's prophetic tradition a second way of

distinguishing which prophecies come from God: the conviction that the truth of

oracles is revealed by events that bear them out. (p.107) When Babylonian armies

defeated Israel, Jeremiah's followers, convinced that this event proved his

divine inspiration, collected his prophecies--having discarded those of his

opponents--and added them to the sacred collection that would become the Hebrew

Bible.

 

Followers of Jesus of Nazareth had made similar claims, as Irenaeus well knew.

The author of the Gospel of Matthew, for example, insists that David, Isaiah,

and Jeremiah had predicted specific events that happened at the time of Jesus,

five hundred to a thousand years after the prophecies were written; thus these

events demonstrate a divine plan. Many scholars today, however, suggest that the

correspondence between prophecy and event that Matthew describes shows that he

sometimes tailored his narrative to fit the prophecies. Matthew found, for

example, the following oracle in the writings of the prophet Zechariah:

 

Rejoice greatly...O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king comes to you;

triumphant and victorious is he; humble, and 'riding on a donkey, [and] on a

colt, the foal of a donkey'.[88]

 

Matthew read this passage as a prediction of how Jesus entered Jerusalem at

Passover, but apparently he did not notice that Zechariah repeated the final

phrases only for poetic effect. Consequently he wrote in his gospel that, when

Jesus was preparing to enter Jerusalem, he ordered his disciples to bring him

'both' a donkey and a colt. So, Matthew wrote, " the disciples went and did as

Jesus had directed them; they brought 'the donkey and the colt', and put their

clothes 'on them', and he sat 'on them'. " [89] (The gospels of Mark and Luke, by

contrast, agree that Jesus entered Jerusalem riding not on 'two' animals but on

a single colt.) (p.108) Matthew did not intend to mislead his readers; what

probably motivated him to correlate prophecy with event in this way was his

conviction that, since Jesus 'was' the messiah, his coming 'must' have fulfilled

the ancient prophecies.

 

Yet from the first century to the present, " arguments from prophecy " have

persuaded many people; apparently including Irenaeus's mentor, The philosopher

Justin Martyr, who wrote that, as a young student seeking truth (c.140 C.E.), he

had become disillusioned with one philosophy teacher after another--first a

Stoic, then a Peripatetic, a Pythagorean teacher, and a disciple of Plato.

Finally he concluded that the human mind by itself was incapable of finding

truth and asked in dismay, " Should anyone, then, employ a teacher? For how could

anyone be helped, if there is no truth even in them? " Justin writes that one

day, as he was walking along the shore and thinking about these questions, he

met an old man who told him about the Hebrew prophets, and how their ancient

oracles had been proven true by events that had happened when Jesus came. The

old man explained that

 

there existed, long before now, certain men more ancient than all those who are

regarded as philosophers--men both righteous and beloved by God who spoke by the

divine spirit, and foretold events which would take place, and are now taking

place. They are called prophets. These alone both saw and proclaimed the

truth---being filled with the holy spirit. They did not use [logical]

demonstration in their writings, since they were witnesses to truth beyond such

demonstration...and those events which have happened and are happening now,

compel you to assent to what they say. [90]

 

" After he had said these things, " Justin said, " he went away...and I have not

seen him since. But immediately a fire was kindled in my soul, and a love of the

prophets, and of those people who are friends of Christ, possessed me. " [91]

 

Justin met with a group of these people, and eventually received baptism in the

name of the " holy spirit, who through the prophets foretold everything about

Jesus, " and who, he later wrote, illuminated his mind. Then, having become a

" Christian philosopher, " he offered to prove to a Jewish philosopher named

Trypho that " we have not believed empty fables, or words without any foundation,

but words filled with the spirit of God, and great with power, and flourishing

with grace. " [92] Although he says that Trypho's companions " laughed and shouted

rudely " when they heard this, Justin offered what he believed was

incontrovertible proof. He explained to Trypho, for example, that the prophet

Isaiah had foretold that " a virgin shall conceive and bear a son " [93]--a

miracle that Matthew says occurred nearly five hundred years later, when Mary

gave birth to Jesus. Justin adds that other prophets, including David, Isaiah,

and Zechariah, had predicted in detail Jesus' birth, his final entry into

Jerusalem, the betrayal by Judas, and his crucifixion. Justin says that when he

engaged Trypho in public debate, he carefully set forth correlations between

specific prophecies and the events that he believed fulfilled them--correlations

impossible to explain, he argued, apart from divinely inspired prophecy, and

God's intervention in human history.

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas), Chapter 3, p. 103-109

Elaine Pagels

Vintage Books, New York, U.S.A

ISBN: 0-375-70316-0

 

 

Notes:

 

[82] Gospel of Mary 8.14-20, in NHL 472. For a new translation and discussion,

see the forthcoming edition of the Gospel of Mary by Karen King.

 

[83] Gospel of Mary, 10.1-6, in NHL 472.

 

[84] Ibid., 10.10-25, in NHL 472.

 

[85] Ibid., 17.7-15, in NHL 473.

 

[86] Ibid., 17.19-18.19, in NHL 473.

 

[87] Jeremiah 23:25-32.

 

[88] Zechariah 9:9.

 

[89] Matthew 21:6-7.

 

[90] Justin, 'Dialogue with Trypho' 7.

 

[91] Ibid., 8.

 

[92] Ibid., 9.

 

[93] Isaiah 7:14.