In other words if Manicheism as it is now understood reveals an overwhelming influence from Gnostic Christianity then this is likely to be because the Christianity of Mani's time was in fact overwhelmingly Gnostic – a controversial conclusion that is nevertheless supported by much recent scholarship. In 1945 a great hoard of hitherto unknown Gnostic texts from the early centuries of the Christian era was found at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt. Since the translation and eventual publication of these texts in 1977 it has become apparent that Christianity's relationship with Gnosticism goes back to the very beginnings of the Christian cult in the first century AD. Likewise it is now obvious, and widely accepted, that ‘Christian Gnosticism’ was not some weird offshoot from the ‘mainstream’ of Christianity. On the contrary it was part of the mainstream – perhaps even the major part as we will see in the next chapter.
And then something happened. From the beginning of the fourth century AD, as it acquired state power, the Church undertook a radical change of direction. The freethinking and sometimes anarchical approach of the Gnostics began to be frowned upon, their allegorical interpretations of the scriptures were dropped in favour of literal ones, and persecutions for heresy began almost immediately. Could it possibly be true, as the Cathars always claimed, that this was the time when the authentic church of Christianity was forced underground and the imposter Church of Rome was put in its place? And the corollary: could it be true that the authentic church – persecuted, outlawed, oppressed – had nevertheless somehow managed to survive from the fourth century until its doctrines reappeared again 600 years later with the Bogomils?
It seems like a long shot. Nonetheless we've shown that a viable chain of transmission exists connecting the central ideas behind the Cathar and Bogomil religions to the ideas of Mani in the third century. And if the primary influence on Mani was Christian Gnosticism, as the scholars now agree, then it is to the Gnostics we should look for the final links in the chain of the ‘Great Heresy’.
CHAPTER FIVE
KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUE NATURE OF THINGS
I shall use the term Gnosticism to indicate the ideas or coherent systems that are characterised by an absolutely negative view of the visible world and its creator and the assumption of a divine spark in man, his inner self, which had become enclosed within the material body as the result of a tragic event in the precosmic world, from which it can only escape to its divine origin by means of the saving Gnosis. These ideas are found in most of the original Gnostic writings that have survived, for the greater part in the Nag Hammadi Library…
Professor Roelof van den Broek, editor of
Gnosis and Hermeticism From Antiquity to Modern Times
There is no easy sound-bite description of what Gnosticism was, or is. As we've already had reason to note several times, the Gnostic tradition was one in which special emphasis was placed on individual revelation and self-expression. In consequence, though it is true that a number of underlying themes, and even certainties, were shared by all Gnostic sects, there was also a rich and confusing proliferation of differences amongst them. Sects typically developed around the teachings of inspired men – the most famous names from the first and second centuries AD include Simon Magus, Marcion, Basilides and Valentinus. Depending on the precise nature of the revelation of the founder, each sect then added its own speculations, metaphors and teaching-myths, sometimes even complete cosmological systems, to the vast and eclectic body of ideas and behaviour already loosely categorised as ‘Gnosticism’.
This background state of intellectual anarchy, coupled with the luxuriant multiplication of ‘systems’ within Gnosticism, make the subject a daunting one. But the matter is even further complicated by the determined persecutions inflicted on the Gnostics by the Christian Church between the fourth and the sixth centuries AD.1 As well as the holocausts of countless individuals, who were prepared to die terrible deaths rather than relinquish their faith, these persecutions resulted in the collection and burning of huge numbers of Gnostic texts. In this way one of the precious ‘hard disks’, on which was stored a vibrant portion of the intellectual and spiritual heritage of mankind, went up literally in smoke, leaving virtually nothing behind for future generations to ponder over. The thoughts on the human condition of inspired mystics and great philosophers, their journeys into the enigma of death, the liberating gnosis that they believed they had discovered of the true nature and purpose of our existence – all this seemed to have been lost. For fifteen centuries those few scholars who still had any interest in learning about this smashed and apparently forgotten religion were obliged to depend for their knowledge almost exclusively on the works of those responsible for smashing it in the first place. The heresy hunters would frequently quote passages from suppressed Gnostic works, or report the content of those works in some detail, in order to preach against and attempt to refute them. But relying on such one-sided material, even – or perhaps especially – in the choice of original texts quoted, was almost bound to produce a very one-sided understanding of Gnosticism. A roughly comparable exercise would be trying to build-up an accurate picture of Judaism from books written by Nazi propagandists.
In the case of the latter we can ignore the Nazi trash because Judaism, unlike Gnosticism, is still a living religion and can speak for itself. But there has been some good fortune too in the case of Gnosticism. The vast majority of its scriptures were destroyed in the pogroms that the Christians unleashed. But towards the end of the fourth century AD an unknown group of heretics in Upper Egypt took the precaution of assembling a ‘time-capsule’ containing a substantial collection of banned Gnostic texts. Possession of such texts, if detected, was extremely dangerous, so the ‘capsule’ – actually a large earthenware jar – was buried in the ground, by the side of a great boulder, at the foot of cliffs overlooking the ever-flowing Nile.
Perhaps the owners hoped that things might improve and that they would eventually be able to return to collect their library. But they never did. It's very likely that their heresy was detected and they were killed. During the last two decades of the fourth century the dogmatic faction of Christianity that had converted Emperor Constantine years before was flexing its muscles under the full protection of the Roman state. With tacit support from the local authorities, and sometimes with direct military assistance,2 hysterical mobs of religious fanatics and unkempt monks were on the loose in Egypt, spreading fear wherever they went.3 They vandalised temples that had stood for thousands of years in homage to the gods. They defaced ancient inscriptions. They murdered priests and philosophers. It was under their pressure that the sublime religion of ancient Egypt breathed its last. However it was not ‘pagans’ that the Christian terrorists reserved their worst excesses for. Much higher priority, and the greatest violence, was focussed on fellow Christians – heretics of the numerous Christian Gnostic sects that had been developing and multiplying in Egypt since the first century.4
It would have been the members of one such sect who buried the ‘time-capsule’ beside the boulder at the foot of the cliffs. There it was to remain intact and undisturbed for nearly 1600 years while the life of Egypt, slowly changing, went on around it.
The Nag Hammadi library: time capsule or time bomb?
In December 1945, near the modern town of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, a local farmer named Muhammad Ali was clearing land at the edge of a field owned by his family. By chance he exposed a large intact earthenware jar that had obviously been purposefully buried in an upright position by the side of a boulder. When he broke the jar open out spilled thirteen leather-bound papyrus books and a large number of loose papyrus leaves. He brought the complete haul of priceless knowledge about a long lost religion to his home where his mother put much of the loose-leaf material to use as kindling. But the books – codices is the correct term – survived and eventually found their way onto the black market in Egypt. Through good detective work the government's antiquities service succeeded in buying one and confiscating ten and a half
of the thirteen codices. A large part of another was smuggled out of Egypt and offered for sale in the US. Professor Gilles Quispel, an expert on Gnosticism at Utrecht University was quickly able to certify to its importance and the codex was rescued.
As Professor Quispel made a provisional translation of the text he found to his astonishment that it seemed to be a Christian gospel but one previously unknown to him that did not appear anywhere in the New Testament. Its title was the Gospel Of Thomas and it claimed to contain secret words spoken by Jesus to his ‘twin’ – one Judas Thomas. The New Testament says nothing about Jesus having a twin .5
Despite the pages burnt by Muhammad Ali's mother a total of 52 separate texts survived in the approximately twelve and a half salvaged codices. Direct scientific tests on the papyrus used in their bindings, as well as linguistic analysis of the Coptic script in which they are written, indicates that the codices were manufactured between AD 350 and 400.6 The age of their content is another matter since the texts themselves are translations into Coptic, the vernacular of Egypt in the early Christian age, of somewhat older source texts originally written in Greek. Scholars are in general agreement that the majority of these were composed or compiled between AD 120 and 150.7 But it has been persuasively argued that the Gospel Of Thomas, at least, is an exception to this rule. Professor Helmut Koester of Harvard University has proposed that this heretical gospel includes some content that may possibly be: … as early as the second half of the first century [AD 50 – 100] – as early, or earlier than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.8
The date normally ascribed to the four canonical Gospels of the New Testament is in the range of AD 60 – 110.9 But in the case of Thomas we're dealing with a banned text claiming to be a genuine Christian gospel that may also be genuinely older – i.e. nearer in time to Christ – than any of the canonical Gospels. This has to raise disturbing questions about the canonical Gospels themselves. How canonical are they really? How can we be sure that they contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Christ and the Christic phenomenon? The existence of this ‘elder’ gospel in the Nag Hammadi collection suggests that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John may have been part of a much wider literature that was at some point ‘edited out’ of the New Testament. That impression is enhanced by the inclusion of several other heretical gospels amongst the 52 Nag Hammadi texts – the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Truth and the Gospel to the Egyptians. Were there others still that Muhammad Ali's mother burnt? Or that didn't make it into the precious Nag Hammadi time capsule and were erased from history by the heresy hunters?
The Organisation (1): hints of a Gnostic secret society
There is much more that is disturbing about the texts of the Nag Hammadi library. Remember that they were composed mainly between the first and third centuries AD, originally in Greek, translated into Coptic some time later, and finally concealed during the late fourth century. We've noted that this was a time when the newly Christianised empire of Rome was beginning to turn all its resources against Christian heretics – particularly, and most savagely, against the Gnostics. It is intriguing, therefore, that several of the Nag Hammadi documents make allusions to the existence of something very much like a secret society, usually referred to as the ‘Organisation’. 10 Part of its mission, which we will return to in later chapters, is to build monuments ‘as a representation of the spiritual places’ (i.e. the stars).11 It is also to use every means possible, including guile and stealth, to protect the sacred knowledge of Gnosticism and to oppose the universal forces of darkness and ignorance that are said to have: Steered the people who followed them into great troubles, by leading them astray with many deceptions. They became old without having enjoyment. They died not having found truth and without knowing the God of Truth. And thus the whole creation became enslaved forever from the foundations of the world until now.12
The Gnostic religion revealed by the Nag Hammadi texts is unambiguously dualistic. It starkly envisages two potent spiritual forces at work in the fullness of all existence: the God of Light, Love and Goodness, and the God of Darkness, Hate and Evil. As with the Bogomils and the Cathars a millennium later, the Gnostics believed that it was the latter – the God of Evil – who had constructed the material universe and created human bodies. Our souls, however, were from the spiritual realm of the God of Good and yearned to return there. A primary purpose of the God of Evil was to frustrate this desire and keep these lost souls imprisoned forever on the earth – to ‘make them drink the water of forgetfulness … in order that they might not know from whence they came.’13 The evil powers worked to anaesthetise intelligence and spread the cancer of ‘mind blindness’14 because: Ignorance is the mother of all evil … Ignorance is a slave. Knowledge is freedom.15
By contrast the Nag Hammadi texts make it clear that the ‘Organisation’ serves the spiritual forces of Light. Its sacred purpose is to free human beings from their state of enslavement by initiating them into the cult of knowledge. There could hardly be a more important or more urgent task: in the Gnostic view mankind is the focus, or fulcrum, of a cosmic struggle; individual choices for evil, arising out of ignorance, therefore have ramifications far beyond the merely material and mortal and human plane. 16 For these reasons the Gnostics said ‘Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the world rulers of this darkness and the spirits of wickedness.’17
The public craftsman
In Alexandria, one of their prime centres, the Gnostics lived in close contact with the last vestiges of the ancient Egyptian religion, and also co-existed with Judaism and early Christianity. They honoured Christ. And in precisely the same way as the later Cathars and Bogomils (as well as the Manicheans and Paulicians) they did not believe him to have been born in the flesh but favoured the apparition or ‘phantasm’ theory.
Evidence from Alexandria suggests that the Gnostic communities there during the first three centuries after Christ also honoured Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god of rebirth,18 ‘who stands before darkness as a guardian of the Light’.19 This was not a cult shared by any of the other post-Christian dualist groups.
On the other hand – once again like the Manicheans, Messalians, Paulicians, Cathars and Bogomils – the Gnostics saw Jehovah, the Old Testament God of the Jews and Christians, as a dark force, indeed as one of the ‘world rulers of darkness’. He was to them the evil demiurge – a Greek term, somewhat derogatory, that means, literally, ‘public craftsman’ .20 In other words he was a low-class sub-deity who had created the earth as his personal fief (rather like an odd-job man with a hobby), placed the human race upon it to worship and adore him, and deluded the poor creatures into believing that he was the only God in existence. His sole purpose for us, therefore, was to keep us enchained in spiritual ignorance and darkness for all eternity and enmesh us in acts of evil that would make us truly his forever. For this reason the account given in the Nag Hammadi texts of the ‘temptation’ of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden depicts the serpent not as the villain of the piece, as the Old Testament book of Genesis portrays him, but rather as the hero and true benefactor of mankind: ‘What did God say to you?’ the Serpent asked Eve. ‘Was it “Do not eat from the tree of knowledge” [gnosis]’ ?
She replied: ‘He said, “Not only do not eat from it, but do not touch it lest you die”.’ The serpent reassured her, saying, ‘Do not be afraid.
With death you shall not die; for it was out of jealousy that he said this to you. Rather your eyes shall open and you shall come to be like gods, recognising evil and good.’21
After Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of knowledge, the Gnostics taught that they experienced enlightenment, awoke to their own luminous nature and could distinguish good from evil, just as the serpent had promised. Seeing their intellectual and spiritual transformation the demiurge was jealous and roused his demonic companions: ‘Behold, Adam! He has come to be like one of us, so that he knows the difference between the light and the darkness. Now perhaps he also
will come to the tree of life and eat from it and become immortal. Come let us expel him from Paradise down to the land from which he was taken, so that henceforth he might not be able to recognise anything better.’
And so they expelled Adam from Paradise, along with his wife .22
What stands out in this Gnostic Genesis story is the way in which Adam and Eve are expelled from ‘Paradise’ down to the ‘land’ – where henceforth they are to live in ignorance of their true potential. The underlying concept of a descent from a spiritual paradise into a fleshly and material world is extremely close to the Bogomil and Cathar notion of angels falling from heaven to earth to inhabit human bodies. In both cases the predicament of the soul is the same – trapped in matter, forgetful of its true nature, unmindful of its divine potential, deluded by the wiles of an Evil God, and carried in a frame (the body) that is subject to every whim of that supernatural monster.
The Master Game: Unmasking the Secret Rulers of the World Page 15
