For those who have studied theology and the Bible in any depth, at some point we hear about Gnosticism and the gnostic gospels. It also depends on different conversations we have with friends and people of various faiths. Those who criticize the Bible will bring up the “other” writings like the Gospel of Thomas, and how religious leaders kept books such as this from being in the Bible. Atheists and other critics will argue that this supports some level of religious control or outright trying to hide the real truth expressed in these writings.
From the beginning of Christianity, as it grew from a Jewish subculture to a major religion, it had to combat conflicting ideas to protect the simple and powerful Gospel handed down from Jesus to the apostles and then to the Church. Gnosticism was one of the first of these “heresies” the apostolic church had to stand against.
What Were the Gnostic Gospels?
The Gnostics copied early Christianity and wrote their own gospels. The Gnostic Gospels weren’t found until 1945 at Nag Hammadi. Unlike the New Testament Gospels, these writings focus on secret teachings and mystical knowledge, a different path to salvation than the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
- The most famous, the Gospel of Thomas is a collection of quotes or sayings from Jesus without a narrative format. Instead of telling the story about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, this writing focuses on Jesus as a teacher of hidden wisdom. While the style is similar to some gospel teachings, many encourage people to seek inner enlightenment. For example, the Gospel of Thomas teaches that knowledge of self leads to more knowledge of God.
- The Gospel of Philip also teaches the importance of spiritual knowledge, the evil of the material world, and how to participate in sacraments. A famous and debated passage discusses a relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, suggesting a romantic connection, but scholars argue about the exact meaning.
- The Gospel of Truth is attributed to a Gnostic teacher, Valentinus, and it also contains teaching more than a story of Jesus’ life. This writing points to the ignorance keeping people separated from God and celebrates the secret knowledge leading to salvation. The Gospel of Truth also shows God as a loving being, a supposed contrast to the mean and hateful God of the Old Testament.
- The Gospel of Mary describes Mary Magdalene as a major disciple of Jesus and a main leader of the apostles. Once Jesus ascends, Mary teaches the other disciples through visions and teachings, emphasizing her secret and inner spiritual knowledge instead of any religious authority. The Gospel also portrays conflict between Mary and Peter to suggest early problems with women leading in the Christian church.
- Finally, there was the Gospel of Judas, not discovered until the 1970s and published in 2006. This book tries to convince people Judas Iscariot wasn’t a villain but a hero, obeying Jesus to betray Christ and fulfilling the divine plan. In this text, Jesus shares more secret knowledge with Judas about creation (true God and Demiurge, etc) and how people are imprisoned in their material bodies.
What Is Gnosticism?
Let's back up a moment and look at what Gnosticism really is. It becomes difficult to properly define Gnosticism since it holds a very diverse and complex set of beliefs, even contradictory at times. Gnosticism arose in the first century. Put simply, it centered on the pursuit of gnosis, a Greek word translated to “knowledge.” This wasn’t ordinary knowledge but secret, spiritual knowledge that would grant salvation.
Gnostics believed this secret information freed the soul from the material world and returned it to its supernatural beginning. Gnosticism borrowed from a mix of different religions and philosophies, and it became a major threat and rival to early Christianity. The early church eventually condemned it as a heresy.
The word “heresy” comes from the Greek word hairesis, which literally means division, a faction. The New Testament uses the term to refer to false teachings, opposing the truth of God’s Word and leading to divisions, drawing people away from God and his reality. Paul and Peter both warn the church against “heresies” that distort the simplicity of the Gospel and lead people away from worshipping Christ alone (Galatians 5:20, 2 Peter 2:1).
Although Gnosticism in this form faded away by the 5th century, discoveries like the Nag Hammadi texts showed scholars a clearer picture of Gnostic writings.
Gnosticism probably grew out of a combination of ideas—Jewish apocalyptic thought, Greek philosophy like Plato, and Eastern religions. While the Pax Romana helped Christianity spread, it also allowed other new ideas to find fame, as well. As Christianity spread, Gnosticism took Christian terms and ideas and adapted them for itself, making it sound Christian but fundamentally different.
The core of Gnosticism taught the material world was evil, created not by the one God but a lesser god called the Demiurge. Gnostics often associated the Demiurge with the Old Testament God, and this lesser god trapped human, eternal souls into evil, physical bodies. Salvation, for them, would be awakening this divine spark through a secret spiritual knowledge so people could escape the corrupt material prison of the body and “ascend” to a spiritual realm. In general, Gnostics believed spirit and matter couldn’t coexist, and the true, higher God was unknowable. But he sent a series of aeons, or emanations, one of which was Sophia, or Wisdom, who supposedly accidentally created the Demiurge. Therefore, Gnostics taught Jesus was a divine messenger to reveal their hidden truth. Because of their view of the material, they rejected the idea Jesus became fully human or died on the cross. Some said Jesus only looked human (a belief called Docetism), while others explained the spirit of Christ entered the man Jesus but left at some point.
Why Didn’t the Early Church Include the Gnostic Gospels?
In early Christianity, church leaders such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus identified and refuted Gnostic teachings. Irenaeus’ famous work Against Heresies directly opposed Gnostic interpretations of Scripture and their secret traditions. The early church saw Gnosticism as a threat because it denied key Christian doctrines like the goodness of creation, the incarnation of Christ, and bodily resurrection.
The early church didn’t include the Gnostic Gospels because the writings failed to meet the main criteria for using them in the church. As false teachings like Gnosticism grew, the church became careful about which writings they recognized as apostolic and from the Spirit.
1. The first criteria: a book had to be consistent with apostolic doctrine, what Jesus passed down to the apostles. This was a huge problem. The apostles first taught the authority of the Old Testament and the continuity between Yahweh’s master redemptive plan from Abraham to Jesus. They explained the new covenant from the Old Testament, so to dismiss the Old Testament God as evil created a problem. The apostles further taught God created the world good, Jesus became fully human and fully God, and salvation came through faith in his death and resurrection. The Gnostics opposed all these ideas.
In relation to the Gospels, the church required one to have the narrative of Jesus’ life and include the death and resurrection, which all of the Gnostics gospels failed to do.
As we can see, the Gnostic beliefs hearken back to the temptation of the Garden. The Devil promised how beneficial this fruit would be, giving secret wisdom to be like God, which, of course, was a lie and led to death and destruction. At the core, this explains why Gnostics rejected the God of the Old Testament because this “secret knowledge” became the first sin, which chose self and rebelled against God. Gnosticism taught we could all become gods with such secret knowledge, almost literally what the serpent said to Eve. Of course, the early church dismissed and warned against such heresy.
2. Second, a book needed to have a direct connection to an apostle, whether the apostle himself or one of his companions. The Gnostic Gospels weren’t written by their namesakes. While they used popular biblical names (Thomas, Mary, Judas), they were written much later, mostly in the second century. In the time of the early church, many philosophers would write their thoughts and put a popular person’s name on it. It makes sense the early leaders would guard against such forgeries, since they sought to only pass on Jesus’ apostolic teaching.
Early Christian leaders like Tertullian and Irenaeus warned against these writings as forgeries. Lies can’t teach the truth.
3. Third, all churches must universally affirm and use the writing for teaching and raising up Jesus’ disciples. Of course, due to the first two issues, the whole church never accepted these writings as valid. The Gnostic writings spread in small or secretive groups. The universal church rejected them. Writings like the four Gospels were agreed upon in part because the whole church used them from the beginning.
What Can We Learn from the Gnostic Gospels?
While we may not use the term Gnosticism, today, we deal with the same temptations. The Devil isn’t creative; he twists the same truths since the beginning. He only uses different names and voices to do it. Our culture today seeks the power of the self, to self-identify and have our own personal truth, as if we can each have one. We’re told to “believe in yourself” and “live your truth.” With these modern religious ideas, vague and vapid, the current culture rejects the biblical truths which give life.
Like the early church, we must stay faithful to the teachings of Jesus and the apostolic doctrine, because only faith in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ has the power to save us. Paul writes in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” Even in the early church, false teachings tried to distort the message of Christ.
This struggle to maintain truth continued throughout history. The Gnostic Gospels tried to use Christian language to promote worldly, evil philosophies like Greek dualism. John 1:14 (likely arguing against an early form of Gnosticism), says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Being fully human and God was crucial to the work on the cross and in the resurrection, necessary for our salvation and rebirth.
Even today, we must learn to watch out for worldly ideas that twist the Gospel to fit human wisdom or change it from the simplicity of Christ. “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8). The apostles remind us that we have everything we need from knowing the person of Christ, not secret teachings (2 Peter 1:3).
We can express the Gospel in our culture, using language and other expressions to explain the truth of Christ. But we should never let culture encroach upon or change the truth of the Gospel. We can and should use modern music, art, and technology to share Jesus. However, we can’t adjust the message of Christ to fit worldly ideas. Jesus never changes, which gives us the security we long for. “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:8-9)
Finally, like we have all we need within the person of Jesus, our spiritual experience with Christ will never contradict the biblical canon. We don’t need any secret, hidden teachings. The Bible contains enough to teach us what we require. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)
Ultimately, we should learn from the Gnostic Gospels the value of contending for the faith and passing it down to others as it was passed to us (Jude 1:3), the Good News of Jesus that alone saves.
Peace.
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