The Gnostic Gospels (19 page)

Irenaeus here denies to gnostics who die for the faith even the name of martyrs: at best they are only “a sort of retinue” granted to the
true
martyrs, who are orthodox Christians.

Although Irenaeus undoubtedly exaggerated the infrequency of martyrdom among the heretics, martyrdom did occur rarely among gnostic Christians. The reason was not simply cowardice, as the orthodox charged, but also the differences of opinion among them. What attitudes did gnostics take toward martyrdom, and on what grounds? Evidence from Nag Hammadi shows that their views were astonishingly diverse. Some advocated it; others repudiated it on principle. Followers of Valentinus took a mediating position between these extremes. But one thing is clear: in every case, the attitude toward martyrdom corresponds to the interpretation of Christ’s suffering and death.

Some groups of gnostics, like the orthodox, insisted that Christ really suffered and died. It is claimed that several texts discovered at Nag Hammadi, including the
Secret Book of James
, the
Second Apocalypse of James
, and the
Apocalypse of Peter
, were written by disciples known to have undergone martyrdom—James, the brother of Jesus, and Peter. The author of the
Secret Book of James
, probably a Christian living in the second century who was anxious about the prospect of persecution, places himself in the situation of James and Peter. As they anticipate undergoing torture and death, he reports, they receive a vision of the risen Lord, who interprets the ordeals they face in terms of his own:

 … If you are oppressed by Satan and persecuted, and you do his [the Father’s] will, I [say] that he will love you and make you equal with me … 
Do you not know that you have yet to be abused and to be accused unjustly; and have yet to be shut up in prison, and condemned unlawfully, and crucified (without) reason, and buried (shamefully), as I (was) myself?
 … Truly I say to you, none will be saved unless they believe in my cross. But those who have believed in my cross, theirs is the kingdom of God.… Truly I say to you, none of those who fear death will be saved; for
the kingdom of death belongs to those who put themselves to death
.
⁶³

This gnostic author not only insists that Christ really suffered and died, but even encourages believers to choose suffering and death. Like Ignatius, this gnostic teacher believes that one becomes identified with Christ through suffering: “Make yourselves like the Son of the Holy Spirit!”
⁶⁴

The same concern with persecution, and a similar analogy between the believer’s experience and the Savior’s passion, dominates the
Second Apocalypse of James.
The Savior, “who lived [without] blasphemy, died by means of [blasphemy].”
⁶⁵
As he dies he says, “I am surely dying, but I shall be found in life.”
⁶⁶
The
Apocalypse
climaxes with the brutal scene of James’s own torture and death by stoning:

 … the priests … found him standing beside the columns of the temple, beside the mighty corner stone. And they decided to throw him down from the height, and they cast him down. And … they seized him and [struck] him as they dragged him on the ground. They stretched him out, and placed a stone on his abdomen. They all placed their feet on him, saying, “You have erred!” Again they raised him up, since he was alive, and made him dig a hole. They made him stand in it. After having covered him up to his abdomen, they stoned him.
⁶⁷

As he dies he offers a prayer intended to strengthen other Christians who face martyrdom. Like Jesus, James is “surely dying,” but “shall be found in life.”

But while some gnostics affirmed the reality of Christ’s passion and expressed enthusiasm for martyrdom, others denied that reality and attacked such enthusiasm. The
Testimony of Truth
declares that enthusiasts for martyrdom do not know “who Christ is”:

The foolish—thinking in their heart that if they confess, “We are Christians,” in word only [but] not with power, while giving themselves over to ignorance, to a human death, not knowing where they are going, nor who Christ is, thinking that they will live, when they are (really) in error—hasten toward the principalities and authorities. They fall into their clutches because of the ignorance that is in them.
⁶⁸

The author ridicules the popular view that martyrdom ensures salvation: if it were that simple, he says,
everyone
would confess Christ and be saved! Those who live under such illusions

are [empty] martyrs, since they bear witness only [to] themselves.… When they are “perfected” with a (martyr’s) death, this is what they are thinking: “If we deliver ourselves over to death for the sake of the Name, we shall be saved.” These matters are not settled in this way.… They do not have the Word which gives [life].
⁶⁹

This gnostic author attacks specific views of martyrdom familiar from orthodox sources. First, he attacks the conviction that the martyr’s death offers forgiveness of sins, a view expressed, for example, in the orthodox account of Polycarp’s martyrdom: “Through suffering of one hour they purchase for themselves eternal life.”
⁷⁰
Tertullian, too, declares that he himself desires to suffer “that he may obtain from God complete forgiveness, by giving in exchange his blood.”
⁷¹
Second, this author ridicules orthodox teachers who, like Ignatius and Tertullian, see martyrdom as an offering to God and who have the idea that God desires “human sacrifice”: such a belief makes God into a cannibal. Third, he attacks those who believe that martyrdom ensures their resurrection. Rusticus, the Roman judge, asked Justin, only moments before ordering his execution, “Listen, you who are considered educated … do you suppose you will ascend to heaven?” Justin answered, “I do not
suppose
it, but I know it certainly and am fully persuaded of it.”
⁷²
But the
Testimony of Truth
declares that such Christians are only “destroying themselves”—they were deluded into thinking that Christ shared their own mortality, when in reality he, being filled with divine power, was alien to suffering and to death:

The Son of Man [came] forth from imperishability, [being] alien to defilement.… he went down to Hades and performed mighty works. He raised the dead therein … and he also destroyed their works from among men, so that the lame, the blind, the paralytic, and the dumb, (and) the demon-possessed were granted healing.… For this reason he [destroyed] his flesh from [the cross] which he [bore].
⁷³

The
Apocalypse of Peter
discloses how Peter, noted for his misunderstanding, becomes enlightened and discovers the true secret of Jesus’ passion. The author of this book, like the author of the
Secret Book of James
, apparently was a gnostic Christian concerned with the threat of persecution. As the
Apocalypse
opens, “Peter” fears that he and his Lord face the same danger: “…  I saw the priests and the people running up to us with stones as if they would kill us; and I was afraid we were going to die.”
⁷⁴
But Peter falls into an ecstatic trance and receives a vision of the Lord, who warns him that many who “accept our teaching in the beginning”
⁷⁵
will fall into error. These “false believers” (described, of course, from the gnostic viewpoint) represent orthodox Christians. All who fall under their influence “shall become their prisoners, since they are without perception.”
⁷⁶

What the gnostic author dislikes most about these Christians is that they coerce innocent fellow believers “to the executioner”—apparently the forces of the Roman state—under the illusion that if they “hold fast to the name of a dead man,” confessing the crucified Christ, “they will become pure.”
⁷⁷
The author says,

“…  These are the ones who oppress their brothers, saying to them, ‘Through this [martyrdom] our God shows mercy, since salvation comes to us from this.’ They do not know the punishment of those who are gladdened by those who have done this deed to the little ones who have been sought out and imprisoned.”
⁷⁸

The author rejects orthodox propaganda for martyrdom—that it earns salvation—and expresses horror at their exclamations of joy over acts of violence done to the “little ones.” In this way
the catholic community will “set forth a harsh fate”;
⁷⁹
many believers “will be ground to pieces among them.”
⁸⁰

Yet while the
Apocalypse of Peter
rejects the orthodox view of martyrdom, it does not reject martyrdom altogether: “others of those who suffer” (that is, those who have attained
gnosis
) acquire a new understanding of the meaning of their own suffering; they understand that it “will perfect the wisdom of the brotherhood that really exists.”
⁸¹
In place of the teaching that enslaves believers—the orthodox teaching of the crucified Christ—the Savior gives Peter the new vision of his passion that we noted before:

 … He whom you saw being glad and laughing above the cross, he is the Living Jesus. But he into whose hands and feet they are driving the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute. They put to shame that which remained in his likeness. And look at him, and (look at) me!”
⁸²

Through this vision, Peter learns to face suffering. Initially, he feared that he and the Lord “would die”; now he understands that only the body, “the fleshly counterpart,” the “substitute,” can die. The Lord explains that the “primal part,” the intelligent spirit, is released to join “the perfect light with my holy spirit.”
⁸³
Gnostic sources written by Valentinus and his followers are more complex than either those which simply affirm Christ’s passion or those which claim that, apart from his mortal body, Christ remained utterly impervious to suffering. Several major Valentinian texts discovered at Nag Hammadi clearly acknowledge Jesus’ passion and death. The
Gospel of Truth
, which Quispel attributes to Valentinus or a follower of his, tells how Jesus, “nailed to a tree,” was “slain.”
⁸⁴
Extending the common Christian metaphor, the author envisions Jesus on the cross as fruit on a tree, a new “fruit of the tree of knowledge” that yields life, not death:

 … nailed to a tree; he became a fruit of the knowledge
[gnosis]
of the Father, which did not, however, become destructive because it (was) eaten, but gave to those who ate it cause to become glad in the discovery. For he discovered them in himself, and they discovered him in themselves …
⁸⁵

Contrary to orthodox sources, which interpret Christ’s death as a sacrifice redeeming humanity from guilt and sin, this gnostic gospel sees the crucifixion as the occasion for discovering the divine self within. Yet with this different interpretation, the
Gospel of Truth
gives a moving account of Jesus’ death:

 … the merciful one, the faithful one, Jesus, was patient in accepting sufferings … since he knows that his death is life for many.… He was nailed to a tree … He draws himself down to death though eternal life clothes him. Having stripped himself of the perishable rags, he put on imperishability …
⁸⁶

Another remarkable Valentinian text, the
Tripartite Tractate
, introduces the Savior as “the one who will be begotten and who will suffer.”
⁸⁷
Moved by compassion for humanity, he willingly became

what they were. So, for their sake, he became manifest in an involuntary suffering.… Not only did he take upon himself the death of those whom he intended to save, but also he accepted their smallness … He let himself be conceived and born as an infant in body and soul.
⁸⁸

Yet the Savior’s nature is a paradox. The
Tripartite Tractate
explains that the one who is born and who suffers is the Savior foreseen by the Hebrew prophets; what they did not envision is “that which he was before, and what he is eternally, an unbegotten, impassible Word, who came into being in flesh.”
⁸⁹
Similarly, the
Gospel of Truth
, having described Jesus’ human death, goes on to say that

the Word of the Father goes forth into the all … purifying it, bringing it back into the Father, into the Mother, Jesus of the infiniteness of gentleness.
⁹⁰

A third Valentinian text, the
Interpretation of the Gnosis
, articulates the same paradox. On the one hand the Savior becomes
vulnerable to suffering and death; on the other, he is the Word, full of divine power. The Savior explains: “I became very small, so that through my humility I might take you up to the great height, whence you had fallen.”
⁹¹