The Gnostic Gospels (8 page)

Orthodox leaders, including Irenaeus, accused the gnostics of fraud. Such texts as those discovered at Nag Hammadi—the
Gospel of Thomas
, the
Gospel of Philip
, the
Letter of Peter to Philip
, and the
Apocryphon (Secret Book) of John
—proved, according to Irenaeus, that the heretics were trying to pass off as “apostolic” what they themselves had invented. He declares that the followers of the gnostic teacher Valentinus, being “utterly reckless,”

put forth their own compositions, while boasting that they have more gospels than there really are … They really have no gospel which is not full of blasphemy. For what they have published … is totally unlike what has been handed down to us from the apostles.
⁷¹

What proves the validity of the four gospels, Irenaeus says, is that they actually
were
written by Jesus’ own disciples and their followers, who personally witnessed the events they described. Some contemporary Biblical scholars have challenged this view: few today believe that contemporaries of Jesus actually wrote the New Testament gospels. Although Irenaeus, defending their exclusive legitimacy, insisted that they were written by Jesus’ own followers, we know virtually nothing about the persons who wrote the gospels we call Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We only know that these writings are attributed to apostles (Matthew and John) or followers of the apostles (Mark and Luke).

Gnostic authors, in the same way, attributed their secret writings to various disciples. Like those who wrote the New
Testament gospels, they may have received some of their material from early traditions. But in other cases, the accusation that the gnostics invented what they wrote contains some truth: certain gnostics openly acknowledged that they derived their
gnosis
from their own experience.

How, for example, could a Christian living in the second century write the
Secret Book of John?
We could imagine the author in the situation he attributes to John at the opening of the book: troubled by doubts, he begins to ponder the meaning of Jesus’ mission and destiny. In the process of such internal questioning, answers may occur spontaneously to the mind; changing patterns of images may appear. The person who understands this process not in terms of modern psychology, as the activity of the imagination or unconscious, but in religious terms, could experience these as forms of spiritual communication with Christ. Seeing his own communion with Christ as a continuation of what the disciples enjoyed, the author, when he casts the “dialogue” into literary form, could well give to them the role of the questioners. Few among his contemporaries—except the orthodox, whom he considers “literal-minded”—would accuse him of forgery; rather, the titles of these works indicate that they were written “in the spirit” of John, Mary Magdalene, Philip, or Peter.

Attributing a writing to a specific apostle may also bear a symbolic meaning. The title of the
Gospel of Mary
suggests that its revelation came from a direct, intimate communication with the Savior. The hint of an erotic relationship between him and Mary Magdalene may indicate claims to mystical communion; throughout history, mystics of many traditions have chosen sexual metaphors to describe their experiences. The titles of the
Gospel of Thomas
and the
Book of Thomas the Contender
(attributed to Jesus’ “twin brother”) may suggest that “you, the reader, are Jesus’ twin brother.” Whoever comes to understand these books discovers, like Thomas, that Jesus is his “twin,” his spiritual “other self.” Jesus’ words to Thomas, then, are addressed to the reader:

“Since it has been said that you are my twin and true companion, examine yourself so that you may understand who you are … I am the knowledge of the truth. So while you accompany me, although you do not understand (it), you already have come to know, and you will be called ‘the one who knows himself.’ For whoever has not known himself has known nothing, but whoever has known himself has simultaneously achieved knowledge about the depth of all things.”
⁷²

Like circles of artists today, gnostics considered original creative invention to be the mark of anyone who becomes spiritually alive. Each one, like students of a painter or writer, expected to express his own perceptions by revising and transforming what he was taught. Whoever merely repeated his teacher’s words was considered immature. Bishop Irenaeus complains that

every one of them generates something new every day, according to his ability; for no one is considered initiated [or: “mature”] among them unless he develops some enormous fictions!
⁷³

He charges that “they boast that they are the discoverers and inventors of this kind of imaginary fiction,” and accuses them of creating new forms of mythological poetry. No doubt he is right: first- and second-century gnostic literature includes some remarkable poems, like the “Round Dance of the Cross”
⁷⁴
and the “Thunder, Perfect Mind.” Most offensive, from his point of view, is that they admit that nothing supports their writings except their own intuition. When challenged, “they either mention mere human feelings, or else refer to the harmony that can be seen in creation”:
⁷⁵

They are to be blamed for … describing human feelings, and passions, and mental tendencies … and ascribing the things that happen to human beings, and
whatever they recognize themselves as experiencing
, to the divine Word.
⁷⁶

On this basis, like artists, they express their own insight—their own
gnosis
—by creating new myths, poems, rituals, “dialogues” with Christ, revelations, and accounts of their visions.

Like Baptists, Quakers, and many others, the gnostic is convinced that whoever receives the spirit communicates directly with the divine. One of Valentinus’ students, the gnostic teacher Heracleon (c. 160), says that “at first, people believe because of the testimony of others …” but then “they come to believe from the truth itself.”
⁷⁷
So his own teacher, Valentinus, claimed to have first learned Paul’s secret teaching; then he experienced a vision which became the source of his own
gnosis
:

He saw a newborn infant, and when he asked who he might be, the child answered, “I am the Logos.”
⁷⁸

Marcus, another student of Valentinus’ (c. 150), who went on to become a teacher himself, tells how he came to his own firsthand knowledge of the truth. He says that a vision

descended upon him … in the form of a woman … and expounded to him alone its own nature, and the origin of things, which it had never revealed to anyone, divine or human.
⁷⁹

The presence then said to him,

“I wish to show you Truth herself; for I have brought her down from above, so that you may see her without a veil, and understand her beauty.”
⁸⁰

And that, Marcus adds, is how “the naked Truth” came to him in a woman’s form, disclosing her secrets to him. Marcus expects, in turn, that everyone whom he initiates into
gnosis
will also receive such experiences. In the initiation ritual, after invoking the spirit, he commands the candidate to speak in prophecy,
⁸¹
to demonstrate that the person has received direct contact with the divine.

What differentiates these gnostics from those who, throughout the history of Christianity, have claimed to receive special visions and revelations, and who have expressed these in art,
poetry, and mystical literature? Christians who stand in orthodox tradition, Catholics and Protestants, expect that the revelations they receive will confirm (in principle, at least) apostolic tradition: this, they agree, sets the boundaries of Christian faith. The apostles’ original teaching remains the criterion; whatever deviates is heresy. Bishop Irenaeus declares that the apostles,

like a rich man (depositing money) in a bank, placed in the church fully everything that belongs to truth: so that everyone, whoever will, can draw from her the water of life.
⁸²

The orthodox Christian believes “the one and only truth from the apostles, which is handed down by the church.” And he accepts no gospels but the four in the New Testament which serve as the canon (literally, “guideline”) to measure all future doctrine and practice.

But the gnostic Christians, whom Irenaeus opposed, assumed that they had gone far beyond the apostles’ original teaching. Just as many people today assume that the most recent experiments in science or psychology will surpass earlier ones, so the gnostics anticipated that the present and future would yield a continual increase in knowledge. Irenaeus takes this as proof of their arrogance:

They consider themselves “mature,” so that no one can be compared with them in the greatness of their
gnosis
, not even if you mention Peter or Paul or any of the other apostles.… They imagine that they themselves have discovered more than the apostles, and that the apostles preached the gospel still under the influence of Jewish opinions, but that they themselves are wiser and more intelligent than the apostles.
⁸³

And those who consider themselves “wiser than the apostles” also consider themselves “wiser than the priests.”
⁸⁴
For what the gnostics say about the apostles—and, in particular, about the Twelve—expresses their attitude toward the priests and bishops, who claim to stand in the orthodox apostolic succession.

But despite their emphasis on free creativity, some gnostic
teachers—rather inconsistently—claim to have their own, secret sources of “apostolic tradition.” Thereby they claim access to different lines of apostolic sucession from that commonly accepted in the churches. The gnostic teacher Ptolemy explains to Flora, a woman he sees as a potential initiate, that “we too have received” apostolic tradition from a sucession of teachers—one that, he says, offers an esoteric supplement to the canonical collection of Jesus’ words.
⁸⁵

Gnostic authors often attribute their own traditions to persons who stand
outside
the circle of the Twelve—Paul, Mary Magdalene, and James. Some insist that the Twelve—including Peter—had not received
gnosis
when they first witnessed to Christ’s resurrection. Another group of gnostics, called Sethians because they identified themselves as sons of Seth, the third child of Adam and Eve, say that the disciples, deluded by “a very great error,” imagined that Christ had risen from the dead in bodily form. But the risen Christ appeared to “a few of these disciples, who he recognized were capable of understanding such great mysteries,”
⁸⁶
and taught them to understand his resurrection in spiritual, not physical, terms. Furthermore, as we have seen, the
Gospel of Mary
depicts Mary Magdalene (never recognized as an apostle by the orthodox) as the one favored with visions and insight that far surpass Peter’s. The
Dialogue of the Savior
praises her not only as a visionary, but as the apostle who excels all the rest. She is the “woman who knew the All.”
⁸⁷
Valentinus claims that his apostolic tradition comes from Paul—another outsider to the Twelve, but one of the greatest authorities of the orthodox, and, after Luke, the author most extensively represented in the New Testament.

Other gnostics explain that certain members of the Twelve later received special visions and revelations, and so attained enlightenment. The
Apocalypse of Peter
describes how Peter, deep in trance, experiences the presence of Christ, who opens his eyes to spiritual insight:

[The Savior] said to me …, “… put your hands upon (your) eyes … and say what you see!” But when I had done it, I did not see anything. I said, “No one sees (this way).” Again he told me, “Do it again.” And there came into me fear with joy, for I saw a new light, greater than the light of day. Then it came down upon the Savior. And I told him about the things which I saw.
⁸⁸

The
Secret Book of James
tells how “the twelve disciples were all sitting together and recalling what the Savior had said to each one of them, whether in secret or openly, and [setting it in order] in books.”
⁸⁹
But when Christ appeared, he chose Peter and James, and drew them apart from the rest to tell them what the others were not to know. Either version of this theory bears the same implication: it asserts the superiority of gnostic forms of secret tradition—and hence, of gnostic teachers—over that of the priests and bishops, who can offer only “common” tradition. Further, because earlier traditions, from this point of view, are at best incomplete, and at worst simply false, gnostic Christians continually drew upon their own spiritual experience—their own
gnosis
—to revise and transform them.

But what gnostics celebrated as proof of spiritual maturity, the orthodox denounced as “deviation” from apostolic tradition. Tertullian finds it outrageous that

every one of them, just as it suits his own temperament, modifies the traditions he has received, just as the one who handed them down modified them, when he shaped them according to his own will.
⁹⁰