Ancient Vegetarian Meal

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ANCIENT VEGETARIAN MEAL

 

The Manichaeans, the largest Gnostic movement in history, almost became

one of the worlds major religions, and they were vegetarian, as were

many Gnostic, Sethian and Jewish Christian groups 2,000 years ago. The

Gnostics inherited many teachings from the earlier Jewish (Essene) and

Hebrew Christian movements. There are, for instance, Hebrew Gospels

which present Jesus and John the Baptist as vegetarians, rather than

eating Passover lamb and bugs (John's famous " locusts. " )

 

A really good book on this question is, " THE GOSPEL OF JESUS - IN SEARCH

OF HIS ORIGINAL TEACHINGS, " John Davidson, Element Books. His other

book, " THE ROBE OF GLORY, " same publisher, is a good one on the 'Hymn

of the Pearl' found in the Acts of Thomas. He's one of the best authors

on the secrets of early groups: Essenes, the Jesus Movement (Aramaic),

Gnostics, Mandaeans, and Manichaeans.

 

Below is the 'Prayer of Thanksgiving,' found in the Nag Hammadi Library.

 

Peace,

 

James

 

an ancient Egyptian prayer & vegetarian meal

 

The following prayer comes from an ancient Egyptian text called, " The

Prayer of Thanksgiving, " one of 50 books found near the village of Nag

Hammadi in upper Egypt. This ancient library is the one that contains

" The Gospel of Thomas, " a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus.

 

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The Prayer of Thanksgiving

Translated by James Brashler, Peter A. Dirkse and Douglas M. Parrott

 

This the prayer that they spoke:

 

" We give thanks to You! Every soul and heart is lifted up to You,

undisturbed name, honored with the name 'God' and praised with the name

 

'Father', for to everyone and everything (comes) the fatherly kindness

and affection and love, and any teaching there may be that is sweet and

plain, giving us mind, speech, (and) knowledge: mind, so that we may

understand You, speech, so that we may expound You, knowledge, so that

we may know You. We rejoice, having been illuminated by Your knowledge.

We rejoice because You have shown us Yourself. We rejoice because while

we are in (the) body, You have made us divine through Your knowledge.

 

" The thanksgiving of the man who attains to You is one thing: that we

know You. We have known You, intellectual Light. Life of life, we have

known You. Womb of every creature, we have known You. Womb pregnant with

the nature of the Father, we have known You. Eternal permanence of the

begetting Father, thus have we worshiped Your goodness. There is one

petition that we ask: we would be preserved in knowledge. And there is

one protection that we desire: that we not stumble in this kind of life. "

 

When they had said these things in the prayer, they embraced each other

and they went to eat their holy food, which has no blood in it.*

 

* a vegetarian meal. This passage is also found in the Epilogue of Asclepius,

in " HERMETICA, " translated by Sir Walter Scott: " Having prayed thus,

let us betake ourselves to a meal unpolluted by flesh [animalia] of living

things. " The G.R.S. Mead translation of the same passage says: " With

this desire we now betake us to our pure and fleshless meal. "

 

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