The First Christians / pt. 9
Prior posts have noted that (a) the Naṣarenes disparaged the material realm and termed God “the Lord of Spirits” (Parables of Enoch); (b) they were radically ebionite, despising the rich and identifying with the poor of the world; and (c) “Rather than being immersed in the affairs of the world, raising a family, and accruing riches, the first Christians were symbolically immersed in gnosis as in flowing water.” At Qumran we similarly witness a general flight from the world, together with asceticism. But Qumran, as we have seen, attempted a fusion (or compromise) between the radically uncompromising message of Yeshu on the one hand, and Judaism on the other. Thus, the Qumranites present a mixture of the possible and the impossible—they tried to lead perfect lives while believing in determinism, valuing Temple and Torah, and maintaining Jewish tradition. As Yeshu/John himself probably perceived from the beginning, that fusion is simply not possible.
John “the Baptist’s” followers set out on a different trajectory, one that included a radical denial of the world—as mirrored in many texts, including the canonical gospels: “It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life” (Jn 6:63). Such a saying may come directly out of the earliest Christian movement, and perhaps even out of the mouth of the founding prophet himself. Other uncompromising sayings that I consider authentic are peppered throughout the canonical gospels, works in which one must distinguish between authentic utterances of “Jesus” and the detailed but inauthentic narrative frame in which those utterances are placed. These radical, Naṣarene sayings disparage materiality, worldly riches, and customary social ties. For ordinary people, they are impossibly rigorous. For the few saints among us, religious “athletes” as it were, those teachings are barely feasible—if, that is, one gives up everything else (cf. Mt 13:45 ff) for the sake of “understanding.”
Consider the following striking sayings, to which I have added some questions:
a) “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Lk 18:25) [Question: What is “the kingdom of God”?]
b) “Truly, I say to you, there is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive manifold more in this time…” (Lk 18:29–30) [Question: Ditto.]
c) “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.” (Lk 20:34–35) [Question: What is “the resurrection from the dead”?]
d) “I will give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind.” (GTh17) [Question: What is this mysterious substance that “I will give you”?]
e) “If you do not fast from the world you will not find the kingdom.” (Gth 27) [Question: What is “the kingdom”?]
f) “Become passers-by.” (GTh 42) [Question: What enables us to become passers-by?]
g) “Blessed are the solitary and the elect, for you will find the kingdom. For you are from it, and to it you will return.” (GTh 49) [Question: Once again, what is “the kingdom”?]
h) “Whoever has come to understand the world has found a corpse, and whoever has found a corpse is superior to the world.” (GTh 56) [Question: What is this understanding?]
i) “Many are standing at the door, but it is the solitary who will enter the bridal chamber.” (GTh 75) [Question: What is “the bridal chamber”?]
j) “It is I who am the light that is above them all. It is I who am the All. From Me did the All come forth, and to Me did the All extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find Me there.” (GTh 77) [Question: Who/What is “I”?]
k) “You read the face of the sky and of the earth, but you have not recognized that which is in front of you…” (GTh 91b) [Question: What is this recognition?]
L) “Seek and you will find.” (GTh 92) [Questions: Seek what? Find what?]
For the early Christians, the answer to all the above questions is one word: “gnosis.” The word means the understanding of “hidden things” (Heb. neṣuroth, from which Semitic Naṣraiia [Mandaic], Notsri/Noṣri [Talmud], as well as the defective Greek Nazarene, Nazoraean, and Nazareth [New Testament]).
The radical disparagement of materiality in favor of gnosis—evident in the above sayings, as well as in the Parables of Enoch that we examined in prior posts, and in other early Christian writings (Odes of Solomon, Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs, etc)—inevitably leads to the conception of two worlds: (a) this inferior world of materiality, and (b) a superior world of spirit. But such a conception of two worlds was not the original teaching and is nowhere reflected in the sayings above. It is certain, however, that soon enough—perhaps by the turn of the era—the gnostic followers of Yeshu haNotsri had made a conceptual leap from a doctrine that teaches understanding of this world to the existence of two worlds: this inferior world in which we all live, and the perfect, invisible world of spirit that Yeshu taught. The “two worlds” conception is the beginning of mythological gnosticism, a manner of thinking quite foreign to John/Yeshu but eventually developed by his followers.
Two worlds requires two gods. Because the Naṣarenes disparaged materiality, the Jewish creator Yahweh became the inferior God, the demiurgos, while the ethereal God of the spirit and of gnosis became the “Unknown God.” Later traditions ascribe the beginning of this doctrine to “Simon Magus,” a renegade disciple of John the Baptist (whom we have identified with Yeshu haNotsri). The connection is significant for it betrays a genetic relationship between Simon’s gnosticism and the original teachings of Yeshu.
The evolution of “Simon Magus” is fascinating and requires a separate study, for “Simon” (< Heb. Sum/Sim, “be established,” BDB 963) and “Peter” ( = Petros/Cephas, “rock, stone”) are actually synonyms for the “one who stands” which, as we saw in the preceding post, was Naṣarene code for the “enlightened” one. “Simon” became the father of the gnostic trajectory which, though original, was now vilified by the Church. “Peter,” on the other hand, became the father of the Catholics (“and on this rock I shall build my church”—Mt 16:18). The Catholics could not deny the existence of gnosticism, so they attempted to co-opt it by making Simon another name for their hero, Peter—thus “Simon Peter” in the New Testament (Mt 4:18 etc). This supports the thesis that the canonical gospels do not actually combat gnosticism but, perhaps more effectively, attempt to bring gnostics into the fold. After all, there are many gnostic-type sayings among the canonical words of Jesus (and even more in the Gospel of Thomas). The Pseudo-Clementine literature took a different tack. There, Simon and Peter are not only separate individuals but are also rivals to the death.
Other clues, hardly detected even by scholars, exist that tie Simon Magus to the original message of Yeshu haNotsri. For example, Yeshu was tried and executed in Lydda (Lod) in Samaria, where he conducted his ministry. Archeology has identified the town of Lydda with that of Gitta/Gath. The latter is the town where the Samaritan Simon was reputedly born (Justin Apol. 1.26, 56; Epiph. Pan. 21.1.2). Thus, Simon metaphorically and chronologically “took over” when his master John the Baptist/Yeshu haNotsri died.
According to Peter, God the Creator first made the world and all that is in it, and then his creature Adam. Peter is a monotheist and defends his position as such, whereas Simon, according to Peter, is a polytheist who places another Unknown and Unknowable God above the Jewish God the Creator, and thus turns Jehovah into his Agent.
In sum, Naṣarene teachings originated in a pure, non-mythological gnosticism in which gnosis itself saves. In this religion there are no worlds, no gods, and no aeons. This spiritual religion that deprecates the flesh is found in (Theravada) Buddhism, the Gospel of Thomas, and carefully selected sayings and parables from the New Testament and the Christian apocrypha. As time went on, however, Naṣarene theology became mythologized, with multiple worlds that were considered real (not merely abstract conceptions), with multiple gods and aeons (i.e. discrete stages to enlightenment), and with the reality of a “soul” and an afterlife.
The original message devolved into mythological gnosticism during the first centuries of our era, and in the process it was greatly diluted and altered in innumerable ways. The reasons are clear. Firstly, the gnostics had no institutional support. This meant there was no central control of the message (in contrast to Catholic Christianity). Secondly, the gnostics were fragmented from the start. These poor (ebionite), world-denying ascetics removed themselves to the fringes of civilization, to deserts, mountains, and unpopulated places where they would not be persecuted and attempted to live in peace. Given the geography of the Levant, this meant that they migrated from Palestine in three general directions: (1) east into Syria, Iraq, and Iran (beginning with the flight to Pella); (2) south down the Nile River valley into Upper Egypt (where the Nag Hammadi writings were eventually found) and Ethiopia; and (3) west along the Mediterranean littoral, through the Nitrean desert all the way to Carthage and beyond. Each group in every region, no longer in communication with its siblings, evolved its own views that were loosely related to the parent theology. These are the reasons for so many and varied gnostic groups, as venomously described by the Church Fathers.
Those Church Fathers began writing in the later second century CE and observed a landscape full of all sorts of baptist sects, many of which espoused strange views of existence with complex systems of creation and exotic heavenly dynamics (e.g. The Gospel of the Egyptians, Zostrianos). In them we find personified powers (“Aeons”) and theories of creation leading from the one to the many. Gnostic works that lack an evolved cosmic mythology, however, are probably earlier texts. Such works are largely sapiential (how to think) and ethical (how to act). In the Nag Hammadi Library, these include:
– The Gospels of Thomas and Philip (II.2,3)
– The Book of Thomas the Contender (II.7)
– The Second Apocalypse of James (V.4)
– The Sentences of Sextus (XII.1)
The above and other important works betray signs of having originated in early Naṣarene circles. They contain valuable clues regarding the religion of the first Christians and, indeed, clues regarding the teachings of their founder, Yeshu haNotsri.