NAG
HAMMADI LIBRARY GNOSTIC INFLUENCE
Early Christianity was much more diverse than anyone imagined before the
Nag Hammadi discoveries. The establishment of Bible Canon by the early Christian church
was due in part from its determination to eliminate Gnostic teachings.
 In upper Egypt there
is a town called Naj 'Hammadi which is located at Jabal al-Tarif, a mountain honeycombed
with over 150 caves. In December of 1945 an Arab peasant named Muhammad 'Ali
al-Samman was searching for sabakh, a topsoil that was used for crop fertilizer. He
discovered a red earthenware jar measuring about a meter high. When he cracked it
open he discovered leather bound books and some book leaves. Bringing them home he
laid them on top of some straw next to the family stove. His mother unwittingly
burned some of this in building a fire. Eventually the books became the property of the
Egyptian government and are housed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo. The Nag Hammadi
consisted of twelve books, plus 8 leaves of a 13th book. They were written in
Coptic (book form instead of scrolls form) and are regarded to be translations of earlier
Greek writings. It is estimated that they were buried shortly after the
establishment of New Testament canon. These books are a record of beliefs held by
thousands of Christians in the first several centuries after Christ. Scholars disagree
about the dating of these writings. Some say the writings were between 350-400A.D.
while others contend that they were from 120-150A.D. The content of these books and others
like them were circulated at the beginning of the Christian era, and were strongly
denounced as heresy by the orthodox Christians in the middle of the second century.
Christians who held to these teachings were referred to as 'gnostics' which comes from the
Greek word gnosis, usually translated as "knowledge". The opposite of
gnostic was called agnostic which meant "not knowing".
A Gnostic claimed to
know who we were, what we have become, where we were, what we have become, from what we
are being released, what birth is, and what is rebirth. A Gnostic believed that to
know oneself at the deepest level, is simultaneously to know God. This was the
secret of gnosis. The original Gnosticism predated Christianity and was among the
belief systems probably in Jesus' day. It was a branch off of a Greek philosophy
that taught that matter was evil and the Spirit was good. They held that the created
order was evil, opposed to the good, and inferior. In their belief, God created the
first order, but subsequent creations were the work of demiurges (subordinate deities), or
archons. According to them, these lesser spheres are ruled by archons who block the
souls seeking to ascend from darkness into the realm of light. Breaking the barrier
could be achieved through enlightenment.
Among there teachings
was their insistence that matter was evil. Some held that since matter was evil, God
could not truly incarnate in a human body and be subject to human feelings and
experiences. Consequently, in their belief, Jesus body was not a real body, but
rather a phantom spirit. According to them, he only appeared to be in suffer and be
in human form and that if he suffered, he could not be divine, since God cannot
suffer. Christian writers combated these beliefs in some Holy Bible writings:
Joh:1:14: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld
his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
1Jo:4:1: Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God:
because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
1Jo:4:2: Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh is of God:
1Jo:4:3: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is
not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should
come; and even now already is it in the world.
Although
in this day and age we would disapprove of the methods used by the early Christian church
in combating some gnostic teachings, we can see why they opposed the idea that Jesus did
not actually come in the flesh. Gnosticism believed that an evil god (the deminrge)
created the material world as a place to hold human's divine spark captive. Further, they
identified this evil creator with the God of the Old Testament. They viewed Jesus'
ministry as a liberation effort to free men from the dominion of the evil god by sharing
secret divine wisdom. The Demiurge was believed to be the son of Sophia, the
feminine creative force. It is easy to see why early church officials considered
these teachings to be heresy.
We seem to forever be
confronted with a situation of having tares and wheat mingled together. Among the
teachings is one that Jesus dispenses Gnosis to those trapped in ignorance. In
Gnosticism, its initiates became transformed after a recognition of the "Kingdom of
God" within the self. The following shows that these concepts are among those
found in Bible canon:
Lu:4:18: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to
the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised,
Lu:17:21: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God
is within you.
One of the texts of
the Nag Hammadi library was Book of Thomas the Contender. In it we read:
"He who has not known himself has known nothing, but he who has known himself has at
the same time already achieved knowledge about the depth of all". This could be
paraphrased to say "When you become one with ("know") the God within, you
will have become one with all that is." The early Christian church took exception to
the concept of man having 'innate' eternal life. Among the Gnostic teaching was the
concept that you descended into mortality leaving behind your divine image and therefore
became an incomplete person. You "fell asleep" when you forgot your origin. You
must awaken and find your way back to the realm of light and reintegrate with your divine
image. Once you have recovered your soul and reintegrated with the divine, you will have
achieved gnosis (knowledge), which is salvation. To them to achieve gnosis
was to achieve union with God. They believed that each person has a divine spark
which sustains a divine potential. When an awakened soul pursues union with the God
within, they are are pursuing a union which is salvation. Orthodox Christianity had
and continues to have a problem with the concept that our souls existed in a divine state
before they fell to earth.
Modern scholars
regard The Gospel of Thomas to be older than the gospels of Matthew,Mark,Luke,
and John. Some date this writing to be from 50-100A.D. Historians believe that
Thomas went into Egypt with the intent of writing and that this work is the result.
Quite possibly the Apostle Paul was unaware of the writing. Although it is included
in the Nag Hammadi Library, it somewhat stands apart in the opinions of many as a true
gospel which could be equally ranked with the four canonized gospels. It contains
phrases which are better understood after acquainting oneself with some of the phraseology
unique to the other Gnostic writings.
In the Bible, Jesus
referred to himself as 'The Son of Man' which is a phrase found in the Nag Hammadi library
and may have depended upon the listener making a connection with that figure. He
referred to the 'pearl of great price' which is referenced in the library. Possibly
his parable of the prodigal son was utilizing the listeners familiarity with a story found
in the library. Much of Gnosis was not written down but rather passed on verbally
from member to member. The discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library puts the present day
reader in the posture of reviewing the concepts and writings which were burned and
destroyed by early church officials.
Those who penned the
writings literally did it with a stylus or quill. They did not have liquid paper or
erasers. Imagine yourself undertaking the writing of such things without
air-conditioning, a refrigerator nearby, electric lights, running water, or even window
screens. The writers genuinely believed all that they wrote and faithfully recorded
that which to them was the highest truths they knew. They are to be applauded for
their dedication and faithfulness to that which had been intrusted to them. We are
not to assume that everything which is very old is therefore without error. I am
living proof of that. I am old and contain much truth knowledge but no doubt some
misinformation as well. Likewise, old writings may contain much truth and also
contain erroneous beliefs as well. When confronted with wheat and tares we would do
well to follow Jesus' advice:
M't:13:29: But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat
with them.
M't:13:30: Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say
to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them:
but gather the wheat into my barn.
Harry Hebert 10/7/03
The two sites listed below
enable the student to read the Nag Hammadi Library on-line:
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html
Nag Hammadi and
Berlin Gnostic Library Colletion
The sites listed below contain excellent
historical data and viewpoints about the Nag Hammadi Library:
Dennis's History
of Christianity - Heresies Gnosticism
Gnostic Christianity
and the Myth of Sophia, Bette Stockbauer; Share International Archives
Gnostic Teachings
The Gnostic Jesus
The Gnostics
WWW Resources for
Gnosticism and Nag Hammadi
|