Gnostic Intermission I

Breaking from the recitation of gospel, it seems fitting to include a bit of opinion, reflection, real or assumed history, and just overall random scription.

Most people of the here and now begin learning about Gnosticism and the alternative scriptures when beginning with lesser-known aspects of history brought up in The Da Vinci Code, as referenced therein to Holy Blood, Holy Grail. I, on the other hand, had happened upon the documentary put together by the British authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail long before the subsequent best-selling novel was on bookshelves; sometime in either 1998 or 1999. In my reading of biblical history, I have realized that non-historians are far better at accumulating fact and drawing logical conclusions from it than seasoned historians who fixate on an outcome and draw their own exaggerated conclusions from minutia rather than objectively indulging all sources.

It also became overtly obvious several general facts which are not commonly known to even most college graduates; granted graduates may be proficient in their fields and Liberal Arts Studies only further consilience in a mind towards which the tendency already leans, it is rather intriguing with all that is known, so much has been outright ignored for so long for reasons of sheer disassociation or desire for prestigious ignorance (here meaning a deluded investment in the presumed predestination of human kind), the latter being horribly ironic (to be explained in a later episode).

Interestingly enough, everything that may have been considered Christian Heresy, or even the equivalent in Jewish terms, has been reiterated by separate traditions inadvertently carrying on those early, heretical traditions while rabidly admonishing them from time to time.

I think the most concise review of the life and times of Jesus can be found in the book on the Cathars under the family reading list. He sticks to accepted history, but never fails to mention distinctions between what church goers and seculars generally know about that time and place and what is deliberated between historians. I would love to paraphrase from the book, but I've sent it on to share the knowledge.

There is work in historical linguistics attributing the terms such as 'angel', where their meanings have followed them through time. An angel is a messenger of God, in its Greek etymology; and thus has been suggested (the author I'm actually looking for, buried in one of my books' bibliographies) that each angel's name is representative of a station within the temple; this is how the "same person" could be living generation after generation, an "immortal" entity acting as a go between from God to man, a holy man who dwells in the temple, one who has ascended to God.

There are a couple of marked exiles and exoduses of the Hebrews. The first is mentioned and analyzed at great length in Holy Blood, Holy Grail: one of the tribes goes against the tribe of David, turning a blind eye to Sodom and Gomorrah (if memory serves). There is known to have been goddess worship among the early Hebrew tribes, be it borrowed or inherent, and the mystical traditions associated with Kabalah would confirm the otherwise overlooked importance of the female aspect (a particular aside here, that the female aspect seems to function covertly in conjunction with the Holy Spirit's habits: always covert, driven to the point of seeming self-evident, but never relinquishing its mysteries...). The goddess worshipers among the Jews may not have been favored (as the favored form of Judaism today no longer indulges it, having disassociated itself with it in most aspects long ago), and Paul and Peter's misogyny remained intact in the development of Roman Catholicism (Catholic means universal, distinguishing itself from the Orthodoxy without removing itself from it).

It is generally accepted by historians that Paul (and subsequently his collaboration with Peter) was the first heretic; his principles, even as he states them in his writings, are him speaking, and rarely ever attributed or associated with the teachings of Jesus. It is generally accepted that Mary Magdalen was among the disciples, and that Peter disapproved.

The Roman church was not that popular for the first five centuries or so... at all, until they swindled a king into their favor, only then to turn and supplant his family later (either by ignoring sedition or provoking it), and here we get the now infamous Merovingians. The Goths, Visigoths and others pouring into the broken boarders of the Roman Empire were not the heathens that most people generally assume. They were Christians... albeit Arian Heretics
"Pertaining to Arius, a presbyter of the church of Alexandria, in the fourth century, or to the doctrines of Arius, who held Christ to be inferior to God the Father in nature and dignity, though the first and noblest of all created beings. " I believe they are also considered to be dualists, though there is a distinction mentioned in the book on Cathars between absolute equality between the Supreme Godhead and the Darkness and the presumed discord in all of physical existence (humans having a good soul and a bad, infectious soul that must be purged).

The most thought provoking fact I'm now indulging in, is the influence of Zoroastrianism on the religious philosophy of the Middle East. Add Hebrew history and names, a bit of Greek terminology and Stoic philosophy, a touch of one man's life and an apocalyptic cultural mood with people on a mission to get their lives back, you've got Christianity. Or so it seems to me, but I'm not a practitioner, so continuities are all too apparent to my pattern-loving mind... to be discussed when sleep has been sated.

Gospel of Thomas, 26-35

and i realize now i should have included author's notes respectively while posting each one as clarification would deem it necessary... alas

26. "Let there be among you [such] a prudent man : when the fruit arrived, quickly, sickle in hand, he went and harvested it. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"

27. Jesus saw some children who were taking the breast : he said to his disciples: "These little ones who suck are like those who enter the Kingdom." They said to him: "If we are little, shall we enter the Kingdom?" Jesus says to them: "When you make the two [become] one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the upper like the lower! And if you make the male and the female one, so that the male is no longer male and the female no longer female, and when you put eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in the place of a hand, and a foot in the place of a foot, and an image in the place of an image, then you will enter [the Kingdom]!"

28. Jesus says: "I will choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten thousand, and those [whom I have chosen] will be lifted up, being one!"

29. His disciples say to him: "Instruct us about the place where thou art, for we must know about it!" He says to them: "He who has ears, let him hear! If a light exists inside a luminous one, then it gives light to the whole world; but if it does not give light, [it means that it is] a darkness."

30. Jesus says: "Love thy brother like thy soul; watch over him like the apple of thine eye."

31. Jesus says: "The straw that is in thy brother's eye, thou seest; but the beam that is in thine own eye, thou seest not! When thou hast cast out the beam that is in thine own eye, then thou wilt see to cast out the straw from thy brother's eye."

32. "If you do not fast from the world, you will not find the Kingdom. If you do not make the Sabbath the [true] Sabbath, you will not see the Father."

33. Jesus says: "I stood in the midst of teh world, and in the flesh I manifested myself to them. I found them all drunk; I found none athirst among them. And my soul was afflicted for the children of men. Because they are blind in their heart and do not see, because they have come into the world empty, [that is why] they seek still to go out from the world empty. But let someone come who will correct them! Then, when they have slept off their wine, they will repent."

34. Jesus says: "If the flesh was produced for the sake of the spirit, it is a miracle. But if the spirit [was produced] for the sake of the body, it is a miracle of a miracle." But for myself (?), I marvel at that because the [... of] this (?) great wealth has dwelt in this poverty.

35. Jesus says: " There where there are three gods, they are gods. Where there are two, or [else] one, I am with him!"

notes : darkness and light refer to unenlightened and the enlightened; being one or solitary refers to a loss of gender or becoming of both genders to be hermaphroditic like the supreme godhead and therefore becoming as the original state; poverty and wealth are actually euphemisms for classes such as gentiles, but I don't rightly recall the designations.

author's notes : ...The solution would appear to lie in the fact that the duality is in fact an aspect of the unity; for the state of "being two" is a synthesis of opposites -- male and female, upper and lower, etc. The sense therefore would appear as follows: "In that state where every pair of opposites is united in perfect unity..."

Gospel of Thomas, 11-25

11. Jesus says : "This heaven will pass away, and the heaven which is above it will pass: but those who are dead will not live, and those who live will not die!"

12. "Today you eat dead things and make them into something living: [but] when you will be in Light, what will you do then? For then you will become two instead of one; and when you become two what will you do then?"

13. The disciples say to Jesus : "We know that Thou wilt leave us: who will [then] be the great over us?" Jesus says to them : "Wherever you go, you will turn to James the Just for whose sake heaven as well as earth was produced."

14. Jesus says to his disciples : "Compare me, and tell me whom I am like." Simon Peter says to him : "Thou art like a just angel!" Matthew says to him : "Thou art like a wise man and a philosopher!" Thomas says to him : "Master, my tongue cannot find words to say whom thou art like." Jesus says : "I am no longer they master; for thou hast drunk, thou art inebriated from the bubbling spring which is mine and which I sent forth." Then he took him aside; he said three words to him. And when Thomas came back to his companions, they asked him : "What did Jesus say to thee?" And Thomas answered them : "If I tell you [a single] one of the words he said to me, you will take up stones and throw them at me, and fire will come out of the stones and consume you!"

15. Jesus says to them: "When you fast, you will beget sin for yourselves; when you pray, you will be condemned; when you give alms, you will do evil to your souls! [but] when you enter any land and travel over the country, when you are welcomed eat what is put before you; those who are ill in those places, heal them. For what enters into your mouth will not defile you, but what comes out of your mouth, it is that which will defile you!"

16. Jesus says : "When you see Him who has not been born of woman, bow down face to the earth and adore Him: He is your father!"

17. Jesus says : "Men indeed think I have come to bring peace to the world. But they do not know that I have come to bring to the world discord, fire, sword, war. Indeed, if there are five [people] in a house, they will become three against two and two against three -- father against son and son against father -- and they will be lifted up, being solitaries."

18. Jesus says : "I will give you what eye has never seen, and what ear has never heard, and what hand has never touched, and what has never entered into the heart of man."

19. The disciples say to Jesus : "Tell us what our end will be." Jesus says : "Have you then deciphered the beginning, that you ask about the end? For where the beginning is, there shall be the end. Blessed is the man who reaches the beginning; he will know the end, and will not taste death!"

20. Jesus says : "Blessed is the man who existed before he came into being!"

21. "If you become my disciples and if you hear my words, these stones will serve you."

22. "For you have there, in Paradise, five trees which change not winter nor summer, whose leaves do not fall: whoever knows them will not taste death!"

23. The disciples say to Jesus : "Tell us what the Kingdom of heaven is like!" He says to them: "It is like a grain of mustard: it is smaller than all the [other] seeds, but when it falls on ploughed land it produces a big stalk and becomes a shelter for the birds of heaven."

24. Mary says to Jesus : "Who are your disciples like?" He says to her : "They are like little children who have made their way into a field that does not belong to them. When the owners of the field come, they will say : 'Get out of our field!' They [then] will give up the field to these [people] and let them have their field back again."

25. "That is why I tell you this: If the master of the house knows that the thief is coming, he will watch before he comes and will not allow him to force an entry into his royal house to carry off its furniture. You, then, be on the watch against the world. Gird your loins with great energy, so that the brigands do not find any way of reaching you; for they will find any place you fail to watch."

NOTES: there was a lengthy explanation of the terms solitary and the reference to being two; I'll have to address it in the next installment

Gospel of Thomas, 1-10

The Coptic version of The Gospel of Thomas as it corresponds to the Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 654

Here are the secret words which Jesus the Living spoke, and which Didymus [twin] Jude Thomas wrote down.
And he said: “Whoever penetrates the meaning of these words will not taste death!”

1. Jesus says: “Let him who seeks cease not to seek until he finds: when he finds he will be astonished; and when he is astonished he will wonder, and will reign over the universe!”

2. Jesus says: “If those who seek to attract you say to you: ‘See, the Kingdom is in heaven!’ then the birds of heaven will be there before you. If they say to you: ‘It is in the sea!’ then the fish will be there before you. But the kingdom is within you and it is outside of you!”

3. “When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will know that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you will be in a state of poverty, and it is you the poverty!”

4. Jesus says : “Let the old man heavy with days hesitate not to ask the little child of seven days about the Place of Life, and he will live! For it will be seen that many of the first will be the last, and they will become a ”

5. Jesus says : “Know what is before your face, and what is hidden from you will be revealed to you. For nothing hidden will fail to be revealed!”

6. His disciples asked and said to him: “Do you want us to fast? How shall we pray, how shall we give alms, what rules concerning eating shall we follow?” Jesus says : “Tell no lie, and whatever you hate, do not do: for all these things are manifest to the face of heaven; nothing hidden will fail to be revealed, and nothing disguised will fail before long to be made public!”

7. Jesus says : “Blessed is the lion which a man eats so that the lion becomes a man. But cursed is the man whom a lion eats so that the man becomes a lion!”

8. Then he says: “A man is like a skilled fisherman who casts his net into the sea. He brought it up out of the sea full of little fishes, and among them the skilled fisherman found one that was big and excellent. He threw all the little fishes back into the sea; without hesitating he chose the big fish. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

9. Jesus says : “See, the sower went out. He filled his hand and scattered . Some fell on the path : birds came and gathered them. Others fell on rocky ground: they found no means of taking root in the soil and did not send up ears of corn. Others fell among thorns; stifled the grain, and the worm at the . Others fell on good soil, and this produced an excellent crop: it gave as much as sixty- fold, and a hundred and twenty-fold!”

10. Jesus says : “I have cast a fire onto the world, and see, I watch over it until it blazes up!”

Sophia and the Demiurge, Part II

I was hoping to generate some questions to know where to angle my future postings, but I suppose I will just continue with my generalities... A warning: this is going to be a mish-mash of different sources, since I'm not feeling the need for precision and citation.

The Gnostic beliefs tend to be what is considered a more conservative Christianity. The books and views it shares with Romanized Christianity is the Gospel of John and their intended separation from the passions of the physical world. However, the difference in concept is that the Gnostics believed much in the sense of Stoics and Eastern philosophy in the detachment from the physical world in order to lead an enlightened life, not necessarily that all pleasures must be abstained from because they are pleasurable and thereby evil.

Since the world was created by the proclaimed adversary to the true Godhead, everything of the world and this realm is seen as being separated from the Godhead, and thereby evil. In affect, humankind is inherently of the light, and imprisoned here in these bodies, subject to the Demiurge to defile, or to detach from worldly existence to once again transcend into the light. Where conservative Christianity believes in chastity and sanctity of marriage for the sake of averting promiscuity and promoting sinlessness, Gnostic faith would indicate that marriage is evil because it inherently produces children, and subjects more souls to the scrutiny of the Demiurge, being trapped in the darkness of physical existence; additionally, that the pleasure of union is a delight of the physical realm and can become a distraction.

However proscribed these perspectives may sound, the structure of the churches and actual practices were much less cumbersome and condemning than the Catholic Church. There were three levels of belief : the Listeners, the Believers, and the Perfect. Anyone and everyone could be a Listener, could come to services and hear the sermons, no obligations were placed on you, save your sole responsibility for yourself; Believers led a chaste life insomuch as honoring marriage vows and being an upright citizen; the Perfect were those who withdrew from such common existence as proprietor or spouse - those things which required a dependence on the physical world - and gave sermons and traveled. More often than not, the common person would live their life as a Believer and upon their deathbed be given the rights to be made Perfect. There were no other specific proscriptions.

Random tidbit :

All Protestant Churches acknowledge the Catholic Church as sovereign; the Affirmation of Faith and the Apostles Creed both decisively give the procession of the "Key" from the hand of Jesus to Peter to the first Bishop and then Pope. Most historians actually consider Peter and Paul's diversions to be the first heresy, and Jesus's brother James was the true receiver of the "Key" and the first Bishop of the Christian Church.

The only prevalent Christian Church that does not believe in the procession of the "Key" to Catholicism is the Mormon Church (founded by Masons... linked to the Templars... who fraternized with Gnostics and other "heresies")

A further tangent on the Apostles Creed : the creed itself was originally the Nicene Creed, the Apostolic right was given to it by Constantius who proclaimed himself descendant of the Apostles, and, as some believe, used it to establish a validity to the Roman church since at the time it was rather unpopular, most favoring either the "Heresies" or the other Orthodoxies (Eastern and Coptic).