The Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew

by Bart D. Ehrman

  In the nineteenth century, one of the principal objections to the existence of this hypothetical lost Gospel, Q, was that it was hard to imagine—impossible for some scholars—that any Christian would have written a Gospel containing almost exclusively Jesus' teachings. Most striking was the circumstance that in none of the Q materials (that is, in none of the passages found in Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark) is there an account of Jesus' death and resurrection. How, asked skeptical scholars, could any early Christian write a Gospel that focused on Jesus' sayings without emphasizing his death and resurrection? Surely that is what Gospels are all about: the death of Jesus for the sins of the world and his resurrection as God's vindication of him and his mission.

  This was a common argument against the existence of Q, until the Gospel of Thomas was discovered. For here was a Gospel consisting of 114 sayings of Jesus, with no account of Jesus' death and resurrection. Even more than that, this was a Gospel that was concerned about salvation but that did not consider Jesus' death and resurrection to be significant for it, a Gospel that understood salvation to come through some other means.

  Salvation through some other means? What other means? Through correctly interpreting the secret sayings of Jesus.

  The very beginning of the Gospel of Thomas is quite striking, in that it reveals the author's purpose and his understanding of the importance of his collection of sayings and, relatedly, of how one can acquire eternal life:

  These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down. And he said, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death." (Saying 1)

  The sayings recorded here are said to be secret; they are not obvious, self-explanatory, or commonsensical. They are hidden, mysterious, puzzling, secret. Jesus spoke them, and Didymus Judas Thomas, his twin brother—wrote them down. And the way to have eternal life is to discover their true interpretation. Rarely has an author applied so much pressure on his readers. If you want to live forever, you need to figure out what he means.

  Before proceeding to an interpretation of the Gospel, an interpretation that has suddenly assumed an eternal importance, I should say a final word about Thomas in relation to the Synoptics.

  No one thinks that Thomas represents the long-lost Q source. A large number of the sayings in Q are not in Thomas, and a number of the sayings in Thomas are not in Q. But they may have been similar documents with comparable theological views. The author of Q, too, may have thought that it was the sayings of Jesus that were the key to a right relationship with God. If so, in losing Q we have lost a significant alternative voice in the very earliest period of early Christianity. Most scholars date Q to the 50s of the Common Era, prior to the writing of the Synoptic Gospels (Mark was some ten or fifteen years later; Matthew and Luke some ten or fifteen years after that) and contemporary with Paul. Paul, of course, stressed the death and resurrection of Jesus as the way of salvation. Did the author of Q stress the sayings of Jesus as the way? Many people still today have trouble accepting a literal belief in Jesus' resurrection or traditional understandings of his death as an atonement, but call themselves Christian because they try to follow Jesus' teachings. Maybe there were early Christians who agreed with them, and maybe the author of Q was one of them. If so, the view lost out, and the document was buried. In part, it was buried in the later Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which transformed and thereby negated Q's message by incorporating it into an account of Jesus' death and resurrection. One more form of Christianity lost to view until rediscovered in modern times.

  We are still left with the question of where the pseudonymous author of the Gospel of Thomas, posing as Jesus' twin, Didymus Judas Thomas, derived his sayings. While the matter continues to be debated among scholars, most think that he did not use the Synoptic Gospels as a source: There are not enough word-for-word agreements to think he did (unlike the extensive agreements among the Synoptics themselves). Most think, instead, that he had heard the sayings of Jesus as they had been transmitted orally, by word of mouth (just as Mark, for example, heard his stories), and then collected a number of them together, some similar to those found in the Synoptics, some like the Synoptic sayings but with a twist, some not at all like the Synoptic sayings.

  Interpreting the Gospel of Thomas

  If understanding these sayings correctly is the prerequisite for eternal life, how are we to interpret them? Few matters have been more hotly debated by scholars of early Christianity over the past several years. As we will see in a later chapter, a majority of the documents discovered at Nag Hammadi are closely tied into one or another of the various forms of religious belief and identity that scholars have identified under the umbrella term Gnosticism. On those grounds, from the beginning, a majority of interpreters have understood the Gospel of Thomas itself as some kind of Gnostic Gospel. More recently, this view has come under attack, principally by scholars who fear that interpreting Thomas from a Gnostic perspective requires one to import Gnosticism into a text that does not itself show signs of Gnostic perspectives. The debates have therefore centered on whether or not there are Gnostic perspectives evident in the text itself. I will be arguing below that there are and that these can help us explain some of the more difficult sayings of the Gospel.

  I will be giving a fuller explanation of that system later. For now it is enough to give it in broad outline and show how it can unpack some of the more peculiar sayings of this fascinating book, which was lost and now is found.

  Gnostic Christians varied widely among themselves in basic and fundamental issues. But many appear to have believed that the material world we live in is awful at best and evil at worst, that it came about as part of a cosmic catastrophe, and that the spiritual beings who inhabit it (i.e., human spirits) are in fact entrapped or imprisoned here. Most of the people imprisoned in the material world of the body, however, do not realize the true state of things; they are like a drunk person who needs to become sober or like someone sound asleep who needs to be awakened. In fact, the human spirit does not come from this world; it comes from the world above, from the divine realm. It is only when it realizes its true nature and origin that it can escape this world and return to the blessed existence of its eternal home. Salvation, in other words, comes through saving knowledge. The Greek term for knowledge is gnosis. And so these people are called Gnostics, "the ones who know." But how do they acquire the knowledge they need for salvation? In Christian Gnostic texts, it is Jesus himself who comes down from the heavenly realm to reveal the necessary knowledge for salvation to those who have the spark of the divine spirit within.

  Let me stress that I do not think the Gospel of Thomas attempts to describe such a Gnostic view for its readers or to explicate its mythological undergirding. I think that it presupposes some such viewpoint and that if readers read the text with these presuppositions in mind, they can make sense of almost all the difficult sayings of the book.

  For example: Saying One claims that the one who finds the interpretation of Jesus' secret sayings will not experience death. The sayings are thus secret; they are not open to the public but only for those in the know. Moreover, their interpretation—knowing what they mean—is what brings an escape from the death of this world. Saying Two, quoted above, is about seeking and finding. Knowledge is to be sought after, and when you realize that everything you thought you knew about this world is wrong, you become troubled. But then you realize the truth about this world, and you become amazed. And when that happens, you return, ultimately, to the divine realm from which you came and rule with the other divine beings over all there is. Or as expressed in another saying, "Whoever has come to understand the world has found only a corpse, and whoever has found a corpse is superior to the world" (Saying 56). This material world is dead; there is no life in it. Life is a matter of the spirit. Once you realize what the world really is—death—you are superior to the world and you rise above it. That is why the one who comes to this realization "will not experie
nce death" (Saying 1).

  Coming to this realization of the worthlessness of this material world, and then escaping it, is like taking off the clothing of matter (the body) and being liberated from its constraints. Thus an effective image of salvation: "When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then will you see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid" (Saying 37). Salvation means escaping the constraints of the body.

  According to this Gospel, human spirits did not originate in this material world but in the world above:

  Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where did you come from?' say to them, 'We came from the light, the place where the light came into being of its own accord.' If they say to you, 'Is it you?' say, 'We are its children, and we are the elect of the living father.'" (Saying 50)

  Thus we came from the world above, the world of light, where there is no enmity, no division, no darkness; we ourselves came from the one God and are his elect, and he is our ultimate destination: "Jesus said, 'Blessed are the solitary and elect, for you will find the kingdom. For you are from it, and to it you will return'" (Saying 49).

  It is indeed amazing that this material world came into being as a place of confinement for divine spirits. But as amazing as it is, it would have been completely impossible for it to be the other way around, that human spirits came into being as a result of the creation of matter:

  If the flesh came into being because of spirit, it is a wonder. But if spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. Indeed, I am amazed at how this great wealth [i.e., the spirit] made its home in this poverty [i.e., the material world/body]. (Saying 29)

  For spirits trapped in this material world it is like being drunk and not being able to think straight, or being blind and unable to see. Jesus came from above, according to this Gospel, to provide the sobering knowledge or the brilliant insight necessary for salvation, and those who were trapped here were in desperate need of it:

  Jesus said, "I took my place in the midst of the world and I appeared to them in flesh. I found all of them intoxicated; I found none of them thirsty. And my soul became afflicted for the sons of men, because they are blind in their hearts and do not have sight.... But for the moment they are intoxicated. When they shake off their wine, then they will repent." (Saying 28)

  Why then is it that the "dead are not living and the living will not die" (Saying 11)? Because the dead are merely matter; and what is not matter but spirit can never die. How is it that "on the day you were one you became two" (Saying 11)? Because you were once a unified spirit, but becoming entrapped in a body, you became two things—a body and a spirit—not one. The spirit must escape, and then it will be one again.

  This salvation will not, therefore, be salvation that comes to this world; it will be salvation from this world. The world itself, this material existence, is not something that was created good (contrary to the doctrines of the proto-orthodox). It is a cosmic catastrophe, and salvation means escaping it. For that reason, the Kingdom of God is not something coming to this world as a physical entity that can actually be said to be here in this world of matter. The Kingdom is something spiritual, within:

  If those who lead you say to you, "See the kingdom is in the sky," then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, "It is in the sea," then the fish will precede you. Rather the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. ... When you come to know yourselves ... you will realize it is you who are the sons of the living Father. (Saying 3)

  Notice once again the key: knowing yourself, who you really are.

  The opening of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, which begins (in the middle of the page) with the words "These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and Didymus Judas Thomas wrote them down."

  has to offer, all the riches it can provide, should be rejected in order to escape this world: "Whoever finds the world and becomes rich, let him renounce the world" (Saying 110). And so, one should not be attached to anything in this world; as indicated in the pithiest of the sayings of the Gospel, "Become passers-by" (Saying 42).

  The key to the salvation brought by Jesus is having the proper knowledge, gnosis—knowledge of your true identity:

  When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty [i.e., the material world/the body] and you are that poverty. (Saying 3b)

  Jesus himself is the one who can provide this knowledge, knowledge that the human spirit is divine, as divine as Jesus himself and one with Jesus: "He who will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him" (Saying 108). And so Jesus brings the knowledge necessary for the divine spirits to be reunited with the realm whence they came. That is why Jesus is not a "divider" (Saying 72). He is not a divider but a unifier.

  This stress on becoming "one," reunified with the divine realm in which there is no conflict and no division, is why the text emphasizes so strongly oneness, singleness, solidarity: "For many who are first will become last, and they will become one and the same" (Saying 4); "Blessed are the solitary and elect, for you will find the Kingdom" (Saying 22). Or as Jesus indicates when the disciples ask, "Shall we then as children enter the Kingdom?":

  When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness, then you will enter the kingdom. (Saying 22)

  Restore all things to their original unity, where there are not parts but only a whole, no above and below, no outside and inside, no male and female. That is where there is salvation to those who have been separated off, divided from the divine realm. Perhaps it is this idea which can make sense of what is possibly the most peculiar and certainly the most controversial saying of the Gospel of Thomas, Saying M.Simon Peter said to them, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life." Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."

  The saying has caused a good bit of consternation, especially among feminist historians of early Christianity who are inclined to see, for good reason, that many Gnostic groups were more open to women and their leadership roles in the church than were the proto-orthodox. But how does one understand this verse, that women must become male in order to enter the Kingdom?

  It is virtually impossible to understand what the verse can mean without recognizing that in the ancient world, the world of this text, people generally understood gender relations differently than we do. Today we tend to think of men and women as two kinds of the same thing. There are humans, and they are either male or female. In the ancient world, genders were not imagined like that. For ancient people, male and female were not two kinds of human: they were two degrees of human.

  As we know from medical writers, philosophers, poets, and others, women in the Greek and Roman worlds were widely understood to be imperfect men. They were men who had not developed fully. In the womb they did not grow penises. When born, they did not develop fully, did not grow muscular, did not develop facial hair, did not acquire deep voices. Women were quite literally the weaker sex. And in a world permeated with an ideology of power and dominance, that made women subservient and, necessarily, subordinate to men.

  All the world, it was believed, operates along a continuum of perfection. Lifeless things are less perfect than living; plants less perfect than animals; animals less perfect than humans; women less perfect than men; men less perfect than gods. To have salvation, to be unite
d with God, required men to be perfected. For some thinkers in the ancient world, the implications were clear: For a woman to be perfected, she must first pass through the next stage along the continuum and become a man.

  And so, salvation for this Gospel of Thomas, which presupposes a unification of all things so that there is no up and down, in and out, male and female, requires that all divine spirits return to their place of origin. But for women to achieve this salvation, they obviously must first become male. The knowledge that Jesus reveals allows for that transformation, so that every woman who makes herself male, through understanding his teaching, will enter then into the Kingdom.

  As I have pointed out, for this Gospel, it is Jesus himself who brings that knowledge. "When you see one who was not born of a woman [i.e., Jesus, who only "appeared" to be human], prostrate yourselves on your faces and worship him. That one is your father" (Saying 15). Or as he says later in the Gospel, "It is I who am the light which is above them all. It is I who am the all. From me did the all come forth, and unto me did the all extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there" (Saying 77). Jesus, the all in all, permeates the world and yet comes to the world as the light of the world that can bring the human spirit out of darkness so as to return to its heavenly home by acquiring the self-knowledge necessary for salvation.

  This then is the Gospel of Thomas, a valuable collection of 114 sayings of Jesus, many of which may reflect the historical teachings of Jesus, but all of which appear to be framed within the context of later Gnostic reflections on the salvation that Jesus has brought. Unlike the Gospels of the New Testament, in this Gospel Jesus does not talk about the God of Israel, about sin against God and the need for repentance. In this Gospel it is not Jesus' death and resurrection that bring salvation. In this Gospel there is no anticipation of a coming Kingdom of God on earth.