Lesson 6: The Stigmata: Pains of Grace and Gnostic Scripture
Gnosticism
For this next section, we’ll leave Joseph Campbell and pick up Elaine Pagels’ The Gnostic Gospels.
Gnosticism is a huge subject. People have spent their lives analyzing just one Gnostic gospel. Pagels’ book, however, is a great introduction to the subject, even if, as it might be with Campbell, you don’t agree with her conclusions. For this class, we’ll be reading just the introduction to her book (pages xi – xxxix). In the future, take some time to read the whole book. It will be worth it.
Take a look as well at the gnosticism web site: http://www.gnosis.org/welcome.html
It's extensive archives will give you the actual gnostic texts that Pagels refers to in her book.
History
When we say Gnostic Gospels and Gnostic texts we are referring to a group of writings written, arguably, about the same time or just after most of the New Testament was written. These writings vary greatly in structure and content and range from philosophical summas to poetic texts and magical narratives. Although they often have characters that we know from the Bible – Adam, Jesus, Mary Magdalene – these characters are often shown in a very different light than how the Bible presents them.
Gnostic influences include Jewish mysticism, Christian themes, and Eastern themes as well.
It seems apparent that, at least in the first century and early second centuries, there were many different ideas about what Jesus’ message was. Some have compared the situation of Christianity then to the situation today: many beliefs (and churches) falling under the general category of Christians.
At some point in the second century, the Christians unified their beliefs, decided on their Christian scriptures, and came to an agreement on some of the more important tenets. The writings that did not make it into the Bible at that time, and the belief structures based on those writings, were considered heretical. These were the Gnostic texts and the belief system based on those texts.
Up until the last century, most of what we knew about the Gnostic texts and beliefs were based on the writings of early Christian leaders who wanted to see gnosticism stamped out. We had only bits and pieces of certain Gnostic texts. The early Church, we thought, had been quite successful at destroying the texts and the movements that sprung from those texts.
The Nag Hammadi Texts
Gnosticism would have remained a general term for ancient religions that just didn’t cut the mustard if it weren’t for a discovery by an Arab peasant named Muhammad Ali in 1945. Ali discovered a clay pot that held a number of old papyrus that became known as the Nag Hammadi texts (because they were found in Nag Hammadi). These texts included many of the Gnostic scriptures that the Christian writers had talked about as well as some that we had never heard of.
The Nag Hammadi discovery was exciting on many levels. First, the discovery and its subsequent revelation are exciting stories of intrigue and murder, full of politics and religious conspiracies. Pagels tells this part of the story well in her Intro.
On a more academic level, however, the texts tell us more about the early Christian Church; how certain ideas about Christ became accepted as dogma while others fell to the wayside. The texts help us date and do exegeses on other New Testament writings. They tell us more about the 1st and 2nd centuries in the Roman Empire, the Jewish and Greek populations at that time, and the historical events and philosophical ideas that were swimming around that milieu.
Some scholars, like Pagels, find evidence that the early Christian church suppressed ideas that encouraged women to be active leaders in the church. Others find philosophies that described Jesus’ mission as much different from the accepted version.
Still others are skeptical of the research that has been done on the texts. For the viewpoint of a Christian, read http://www.mustardseed.net/html/body_tog...
As you can see by the gnosticism web site, still others started (or restarted) an actual religion of gnosticism. Many of the themes in gnosticism have attracted a New Age following.
Many, though by no means all, of these Gnostic texts have been traditionally thought to present three general themes:
- That there are two Gods fighting over this world. One is an evil God that was the creator god that has been misleading humanity. (Thus, the view that The Matrix is Gnostic in philosophy.) For some of the Gnostic texts, the bad creator god is the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible. The other God, of course, is the good God.
- Jesus was fully divine, and he came to earth wearing humanity as a mask. In this sense, he did not suffer nor was he actually killed because he was all God.
- In order to be saved, you must have secret knowledge or gnosis. (Thus, the title of Gnosticism). This secret knowledge is different from grace or faith. It is like a code that you must know.
However, as scholars analyze the scripts ever more closely, and other discoveries are made which help this analysis, it has become more and more difficult to give over-arching characteristics of Gnosticism and the Gnostic texts. Scholars have found that the texts are so diverse in their themes and theologies, that it is impossible to say, “The Gnostics believed this or the Gnostics believed that.”
Furthermore, as with Christian and even Jewish and Islamic sacred scripture, the actual interpretations of the Gnostic words were, and still are, greatly disputed. That is, it is one thing to read a sentence that was written 2000 years ago – but what did the writer mean by that sentence and how did the reader of that time understand it?
Take the first line of the Gospel According to Thomas, the Gnostic script which drives the plot of Stigmata: “These are the obscure sayings that the living Jesus uttered and which Didymus Jude Thomas wrote down. And he said, ‘Whoever finds the meaning of these sayings will not taste death.’”
What does the writer mean by “whoever finds the meaning of these sayings?” Does he mean that, like contemporary Christians, we should meditate on the writings in order to find our own personal meanings in them? Or does it mean that there is a more esoteric meaning, perhaps hidden in a sort of numerology, that the reader must find? Is the meaning of the writings to be taken literally, metaphorically, or is there a secret code – a gnosis? (For more on the Gospel of St. Thomas see the Gospel of St. Thomas web site, featuring Pagels' new book on the subject: http://home.epix.net/~miser17/Thomas.html
And what does it mean that the reader “will not taste death?” Does it mean literally the reader will become immortal? Or does it mean it in a more contemporary Christian sense – that Christ has made it possible to be resurrected and reborn into heaven? The line also implies that the all the reader has to do is understand the writings and he or she will not taste death. Is that right?
You see the problem.
Nevertheless, the Gnostic texts are a fascinating read. After you read Pagels, try reading some of the Gnostic texts that the website lists. There are fascinating stories of Jesus’ childhood that most of us haven’t heard. As well, there are stories of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene. There are strange sounding myths of heroes going through the layers of heaven and even stranger stories of the creation of the world.
Regardless of how you feel about these texts on a spiritual level, it is always worth reading how someone nearly 2000 years ago felt about the world.
