The canon of truth and the triumph of John - Part 7

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded in Part 6 with Elaine Pagels' words of:

 

(p.132) But Philip says that many people, whom he calls " the apostles and the

apostolic ones, " [59] are " in error, " since they remain oblivious of--even

offended by--this mystery. Such people, he continues, are also wrong about

resurrection, since they take this, too, as if it could be only a unique event

in which Christ died and rose bodily from the grave. Philip suggests instead

that Jesus' resurrection, like his virgin birth, is not only something that

occurred in the past but is a paradigm of what happens to each person who

undergoes spiritual transformation. Philip quotes Paul's famous teaching on

resurrection ( " flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God, " 1

Corinthians 15:50) to show that those who receive the holy spirit in baptism are

not only " born again " but also " raised from the dead. " [60]

 

Someone might object, however, that this cannot be what resurrection means:

didn't Jesus rise 'in the flesh'? Philip answers that, of course, " one must rise

'in this flesh,' since in this world everything exists in [the flesh]. " But he

challenges those who take bodily resurrection literally. After all, he asks,

" what is flesh? " In answer, he quotes from John's gospel to show that when Jesus

told his disciples to " eat my flesh and drink my blood " (John 6:53), he was

speaking in metaphor, since what he meant was that they were to partake of the

sacred meal of bread and wine, which conveys Jesus' " flesh, " that is, Philip

suggests, his divine 'word', and his " blood, " the holy spirit. [61]

 

Philip thus discriminates between nominal Christians--those who claim to be

Christians simply because they were baptized--and those who, after baptism, are

spiritually transformed. He sees himself among the latter but does not

congratulate himself for belonging to a spiritual elite; instead, he concludes

by anticipating that ultimately 'all' believers will be transformed, if not in

this world then in eternity. (p.133) Whoever undergoes such transformation, he

says " no longer is a Christian, but a Christ. " [62]

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas), Chapter 4, p.132-133.

 

Notes:

 

[59] Gospel of Philip 55.30, in NHL 134.

 

[60] Gospel of Philip 56.26-57.23, in NHL 134-135; for a fuller exposition of

the text, see Pagels, " Ritual in the Gospel of Philip. "

 

[61] Gospel of Philip 57.4-6, in NHL 134.

 

[62] Gospel of Philip 67.26-27, in NHL 140.

 

Here now, is Part 7.

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

 

 

The canon of truth and the triumph of John - Part 7

 

(p.133) If Irenaeus read the Gospel of Philip, he must have sharply rejected

such teaching; for, as we have seen, when he demands that the believer " hold

'unmoving' in his heart the rule of truth received in baptism, " he specifically

includes the " birth from the virgin, the passion, and the resurrection from the

dead...in the flesh of our beloved Jesus Christ, our Lord " ; [63] and, like many

orthodox believers ever since, Irenaeus accepted these as unique, revelatory

events through which Christ ensured human salvation. Were members of Philip's

circle to answer that they confessed the same faith, Irenaeus would have

replied, as he did to other Valentinian Christians, that although they " say the

same things, they mean something different by them. " Followers of Valentinus

might readily have admitted that this was true; but, they asked him, what is

'wrong' with that? " When we confess the same things as you, why do you call us

heretics? " [64] No doubt their interpretations 'differed' from his, and from

each other's; but why did Irenaeus think that these differences actually

'endangered' the church?

 

These questions are hard to answer, for although Irenaeus liked clear

boundaries, he was not simply narrow-minded, and he was by no means intolerant

of all difference. In fact, as he sought to realize his teacher Polycarp's

vision of a 'universal' church, he included as " apostolic " a wide range of

traditions that spanned a century and a half and, he claimed, were shared by

Christians scattered from Germany to Spain, Gaul to Asia Minor, and from Italy

to Africa, Egypt, and Palestine. (p.134) Irenaeus surely knew that the

traditions he accepted--to say nothing of many more that he disagreed with but

allowed--included the diversity of beliefs and practices that one would expect

of what he called " the catholic church...scattered throughout the whole world. "

[65]

 

In fact, Irenaeus encouraged his fellow believers to tolerate certain variations

of viewpoint and practice. For example, he argued against those who accepted

only 'one' gospel, such as those he calls the Ebionites, who, he says, accepted

only Matthew, and followers of Marcion, who accepted only Luke. And while his

contemporary Tatian, who, like himself, was a student of Justin, attempted to

harmonize the various gospels by rewriting them into one single, composite

account, Irenaeus was the first, so far as we know, to urge believers to accept

all 'four' distinct gospels, despite their obvious differences, and to join them

into the collage that he called the " four formed gospel. " Furthermore, when

Victor, bishop of Rome, demanded that all Christians in the capital city

celebrate Easter on the same day, Irenaeus traveled to Rome to urge the bishop

not to cause trouble for Greek-speaking Christians, who like Irenaeus himself,

had emigrated from Asia Minor and traditionally celebrated Easter on a different

day (as Greek, Russian, Ethiopic, Serbian, and Coptic Orthodox Christians still

do). [66]

 

Given, then, that Irenaeus acknowledged a wide range of views and practices, at

what point did he find " heterodoxy " --which literally means " different

opinions " --'problematic', and for what reasons? Why does he declare that the

Gospel of Truth, like all the " heretical " gospels, " has nothing to do with the

apostolic gospel " but is " full of blasphemy " ? [67] Why does he insist that the

Secret Book of John simply shows " the kind of lies the heretics invent " ? [68]

(p.135) To answer these questions, we should recall that Irenaeus was not a

theoretically minded philosopher engaging in theological debate so much as a

young man thrust into leadership of the survivors of a group of Christians in

Gaul after a violent and bloody persecution. As we have seen, Irenaeus could not

forget that in Smyrna, where he had grown up in the household of Bishop

Polycarp, his aged and renowned spiritual father had been hounded by the police,

and after escaping and hiding in a country house, had been captured and brought

back to the public amphitheater, where, as the mob shouted insults, he was

stripped naked and burned alive. Then, as we noted, about twenty years later

(c.177), in Gaul, where Polycarp may have sent him to work as a missionary,

Irenaeus had seen more violence against Christians, some of whom were lynched

while dozens of others were arrested and tortured, many strangled to death in

prison. According to 'The Letters of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne', some

thirty to fifty who survived and refused to renounce their witness were torn

apart by wild animals and killed by gladiators in a public spectacle attended by

his fellow townspeople. And we have seen that only after the aged bishop

Pothinus had died of torture and exposure in prison, Irenaeus, perhaps in his

thirties, having somehow escaped arrest, apparently stepped in to serve as

leader of those who were left.

 

As he did so, determined to consolidate these scattered believers and provide

them the shelter of a community by joining them into the worldwide network

Polycarp had envisioned as a " catholic " church, what concerned Irenaeus was

whatever proved seriously divisive. What, then, 'did' prove divisive? (p.136)

Irenaeus would have answered 'heresy'--and because of the way he characterized

it, historians traditionally have identified 'orthodoxy' (which literally means

" straight thinking " ) with a certain set of ideas and opinions, and heterodoxy

(that is, " thinking otherwise " ) as an opposite set of ideas. Yet I now realize

that we greatly oversimplify when we accept the traditional identification of

'orthodoxy' and 'heresy' solely in terms of the philosophical and theological

content of certain ideas. What especially concerned Irenaeus was the way the

activities of these " spiritual teachers " threatened Christian solidarity by

offering 'second baptism' to initiate believers into distinct groups 'within'

congregations.

 

Beyond Belief (The Secret Gospel of Thomas), Chapter 4, p.133-136

Elaine Pagels

Vintage Books, New York, U.S.A

ISBN: 0-375-70316-0

 

 

Notes:

 

For fuller and more technical discussions of the research summarized in this

chapter, see Elaine Pagels, " Irenaeus, the 'Canon of Truth' and the Gospel of

John: 'Making a Difference' Through Hermeneutics and Ritual, " in 'Vigiliae

Christianae' 56.4 (2002), 339-371; also Pagels, " Ritual in the Gospel of

Phillip, " in Turner and McGuire, 'Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years',

280-294; " The Mystery of Marriage in the Gospel of Phillip, " in Pearson, 'Future

of Early Christianity', 442-452; and 'Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis'.

 

[63] Irenaeus, AH 1.9.4; 1.10.1.

 

[64] Irenaeus, 3.15.2.

 

[65] Irenaeus, 1.10.2.

 

[66] Eusebius, 'Historia Ecclesiae' 5.23-26.

 

[67] Irenaeus, AH 1.11.9; however, we cannot be certain that the Gospel of Truth

that Irenaeus mentions here, and ascribes to " Valentinians, " is the same as the

text by that name discovered at Nag Hammadi.

 

[68] Irenaeus, 1.29.4; most scholars regard the teaching Irenaeus summarizes in

AH 1.29.1-4 as a paraphrase of the kind of teaching given in the Apocryphon of

John.