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  • The Strange Case of The Secret Gospel: A Controversial New Look at the Secret Gospel According to Mark

    The Strange Case of The Secret Gospel: A Controversial New Look at the Secret Gospel According to Mark

    From New Dawn 82 (Jan-Feb 2004)

    Even with recourse to the best scholarship and offering the best proofs for events of Jesus’ life and linked issues across history, it is not enough to claim to have found Jesus’ horoscope as I do in my book Signs for a Messiah. The findings are only a beginning. There is much to discover and the findings must be interpreted and placed in a meaningful framework if they are to be any use in helping us understand more about Jesus. 

    Modern theology, much of it rationalistic and unmystical, is not necessarily the best tool with which to assess remarkable features of the emerging data. Nor can it help us deal with rarely treated questions like the sexuality of Jesus which Signs for a Messiah controversially examines with some surprising conclusions. The new perspectives and mysteries opened up by the astrological chart of Jesus need a more esoteric understanding of sex than theologians currently deal in. 

    Although the Jewish Kabbalah as presently known is of only medieval and later origin, it does have roots in trends within Jewish thought already current in Jesus’ time and associated with the Essenes whom many kabbalists regarded as their forebears. Jewish and Christian theologians have suspected links between St. Paul’s theology of Christ and proto-kabbalistic concepts, thus we certainly need to perceive Jesus and his self understanding in more specifically Jewish mystical terms. 

    And of course, all the trends one looks at are coloured in the broad sense by the astrology of the ages and eras affecting everything and everyone. As reflected in its symbols, the emergence of Christianity from Judaism is deeply involved with the transition from the Arien to Piscean era. All Christian theology and mysticism are in a sense an astro-theology and esoteric system which fails to recognise itself as such, though perhaps and hopefully the Magian wisdom can draw them back to their roots and into greater self awareness at this time of another era transition (between Pisces and Aquarius). 
    – Dr. Rollan McCleary

    Most scholars are now agreed that Morton Smith – an American historian and classicist with an almost morbid aversion to Christianity – has discovered a genuine letter of the Early Church Father, Bishop Clement of Alexandria, in a Greek monastery by the Dead Sea. In this letter, its author quotes from a gospel that scholars are less sure is, as Clement believed, from the hands of Mark.

    Clement alleges that Mark wrote a second, more spiritual gospel kept by the Alexandrian church for the exclusive use of advanced believers. But this precious Secret Gospel had been stolen and altered by a member of an extremist Gnostic sect, the Carpocratians, who taught the necessity of salvation through indulgence in every kind of experience.

    The story, which Clement quotes verbatim from The Secret Gospel is an account of resurrection, part of which may or may not duplicate an early form of the story of the raising of Lazarus given in John 11. When the young man emerges from the tomb it is said he looks upon Jesus and loves him and does not want to be separated from him. Jesus then spends some days with the man, instructing him in the teachings of the kingdom and also spends one night with him dressed only in a linen wrap. Clement acknowledges all this but says that what follows about “the naked man and the naked man” (which from delicacy he does not choose to quote) is pure fabrication.

    Smith’s thesis is that Jesus was primarily a magician of a type quite familiar to the ancient world. His speciality came to be mind dissociation techniques in especially a baptismal context; these helped people to make shaman-like, hallucinatory ascents to the heavens, while on earth he could bend them to his will. Smith does not sensationalise the sexual dimensions of The Secret Gospel and insist that Jesus was a homosexual magician, though the thesis tends to imply as much. But he does propose that along with the techniques Jesus employed, he is to be suspected of purveying a libertarian gospel which lay at the root of all subsequent law versus grace arguments in the churches. Smith feels that even if Jesus did not preach such a gospel his personal behaviour was such as to invite suspicions about his real beliefs. He evidently behaved secretly, met people secretly and, he assumes, initiated people secretly.

    The question of Jesus’ integrity has already been touched on and while admitting he could be secretive about his intentions, it was affirmed there was nothing to suggest he was the sort of person prone to involvement in secret societies or clandestine affairs. In the circumstances, then, there is nothing remarkable in the fact he should meet a leading public figure like Nicodemus at night and in private as per John 3. It is the sole recorded instance of Jesus giving anyone teaching in this fashion. A meeting at night gave cover in the face of hostile authorities and would, besides, make for clear-headedness in a hot climate. Apart from this, since the Essenes baptised daily, it is not impossible that, as The Secret Gospel has it, Jesus should take someone aside to baptise them for some particular purpose rather than the more generalised one of John.

    The young man’s wrap in The Secret Gospel story appears consistent with Essene practice since the sect did not, like fifth century Christians, baptise completely nude but might even immerse candidates completely swathed. They did this in demonstrative reaction against the sort of foreign influence that in the days before their reforming Teacher appeared had brought Israel to engage in the Greek games, a compromise they could only regard as symbolic of deeper corruptions in their society.

    Mars and Neptune, especially Neptune, are the two planets chiefly associated with nudity and nudism. With these in the modest sixth of the Joshua [horoscope] chart, the house of health and healing, if the barriers of Essene custom were ever crossed by Jesus, they would most likely serve the interests not of libertarian doctrines but matters more like yoga and health. As even Smith’s study admits in promoting its magian theory, an ancient Libyan prescription for curing snake bites has the healer lying naked with the naked patient in order to apply friction of the skin to the wound. And, more generally, ancient world efforts at reviving the dead involved a specifically naked healer applying resuscitation techniques. So as usual, the Gnostic theories are culture-blind, failing to have sufficient regard to the person and their situation.

    This said, in harmony with the principle “no smoke without fire”, to be plausible and accepted, even the falsehoods told about a person must link to some power point within their chart. Such a power point is involved in this case. It was shown how the natal Neptune could further myths of the Magdalene; in similar fashion The Secret Gospel controversy (whose core is baptismal custom and hence immediately referable to Neptune) relates to the condition and placement of that planet in Joshua’s horoscope.

    On the physical plane there are two characteristics especially associated with Neptune. The first is the long flowing locks worn by so many Neptunian people, artists, musicians, and antipodean surfers, and which Christian iconography supplied Jesus from the first. In unconscious attunement to Neptune’s rulership in this area we speak of long hair as “flowing”, “waving”, even “cascading”. It is almost certain that Jesus did wear his hair long to express Nazarene style, dedication to his cause and/or more subtly to convey his affinity with the cosmic waters. But even if he did not do so, because the whole Piscean/Neptunian principle was so strong in him, his image would eventually have acquired the long locks of the sea god by sheer archetypal attunement on the part of artists portraying him.

    But there is another characteristic of Neptune and it is sea god’s nudity, expressive of his identity with primordial Nature which, as is known, evolved from the waters. Especially in axial eras and when Neptune enters Scorpio (the sign of sex and the genitals), nudity becomes artistically, and to some extent more socially, acceptable. Modern introduction of nudity to magazine and film (Neptune, as planet of dreams, by association rules photography and film) corresponded precisely to Neptune’s slow transit through Scorpio in the 1960s.

    Jesus was not only born with Neptune in Scorpio but was himself if anything the very essence of Neptune. It would seem he was therefore fated, regardless of existing custom, to appear before the public naked on at least one occasion, and there is no question that he did so – on the cross.

    It is more open to speculation whether readers are intended to understand that, after the manner of Michelangelo’s sculpture of the resurrected Christ, Jesus was also unclothed in the garden on Easter morning. The graves clothes are described as left behind in the tomb. Pious supernaturalism can easily supply a robe, but virtual if not actual nudity is arguably implied, not only by the omission of any reference to some striking and colourful attire, but by the fact that the distraught Magdalene initially mistakes Jesus for the gardener – perhaps for the good reason gardeners commonly worked in a state of “nakedness”. Indeed it is possible that along with the abandoned graves clothes, nudity functioned in the disciples’ memory as proof of an absolute and very recent resurrection. And one of those proofs would need to be that the flesh was free of the very heavy anointings the corpse had received.

    While later appearances of Jesus must unquestionably invoke supernaturalism as regards attire – and noticeably, unlike those in the garden, the pair on the Emmaus road are not surprised by Jesus’ appearance – it is possible the Easter scene enacts a unique and rarely considered symbolism, one in which the garden of the tomb is briefly the new Eden of the second Adam. The Jesus of Easter morning is self-revealed in the radiance of his (Neptunian) essence as one totally identified with the nature of which he is the source. Whatever the truth of this matter, Luke 6:29 implies that the Jesus the disciples had known before the first Easter was never merely prudish regarding attire. Translations with “cloaks” and “shirts” are misleading.

    In the context of a two garment society the truer rendering of the verse would be, as in The Amplified Bible: “…from him who takes away your outer garment do not withhold your undergarment as well.” This, if not a form of pacifist protest, is presumably witty hyperbole to make a point; but, undeniably, subversive sages like the Cynics were sometimes prepared to go about naked to demonstrate total independence or affinity with nature. And to have said this, Jesus was speaking like a Cynic, aiming to shock because, by contrast, for Essenes to have accidentally exposed one’s nakedness merited thirty days’ penance, and six months if it was done deliberately.

    So at least as against the Essenes we may know Jesus held relaxed views that dissociate him from those criticisms of his gospel that make it the historical source of the crazed asceticisms that gave medieval society a surplus of dirt and skin diseases because it was deemed sin to expose the body in the interests of hygiene. Even so, the question raised by speculations around The Secret Gospel remains, namely whether there were ever occasions nudity featured in Jesus’ work in relation to healing, ritual or whatever.

    This seems unlikely as it was not in the interests of Jesus’ controversy-ridden mission to supply unnecessary grounds for scandal. But, however unlikely, it is conceivable The Secret Gospel is distorting something. Essene extremism apart, it is only modern, non-tribal society that automatically equates nudity with licence. Nudism can be a quite puritanical, health minded affair – Greek doctors recommended it for the health and notable Virgos, like Goethe, have practised it for that reason. A well-known religious authority, the Benedictine Fr. Dechanet, recommends that, ideally, yoga exercises be performed nude and he would surely be indignant if people like Morton Smith insinuated such opinions were a front for libertarian behaviour. To make a point, even St. Francis reportedly preached a sermon stark naked, and though his contemporaries thought he had gone mad, nobody judged him licentious.

    The proper question would seem to be whether nudity serves spirituality in any way. If it does, the reason is of an “occult” order – as mentioned, some ancient healing practices incorporated nudity and we can more or less know why. The supposed etheric current in the powerful lower chakras of the subtle body (in effect those of the Nephesh, or animal soul in Jewish Kabbalism), is said to be less impeded when a person is naked, thus allowing certain spiritual/psychic energies to flow more freely and be “recharged”. This was probably the original reason the witches’ coven was nude and why, apparently, even some members of the early Jewish prophetic schools might go about naked under trance, as appears to be case according to 1 Sam 19:24.

    Such esoteric perspectives might just be relevant if Jesus’ miracles were to be seen in terms of anything like yoga. It is doubtful they should be; in Jesus’ case the comparison is surely more with the so-called “divine healer” who is recharged through the act of healing rather than depleted of energies they need to recharge by techniques like most practitioners of psychism and yoga. Even so, there seems little question that, in yogic terms, Jesus’ powers would normally have manifested through the Manipura chakra associated bodily with the solar plexus region and esoterically with the processes of alchemy, the production of apports (such as in the reported multiplication of the loaves and fishes) and the main forms of healing. Moreover, the solar plexus is associated in medical astrology specifically with Virgo and the sixth house, both important to the natus of Jesus as we are aware. If, improbably, there were any secrets or nudity in Jesus’ mission along the lines of The Secret Gospel we can be confident they had to do with health and healing.

    We have still not sorted out the young man. A colleague of Smith’s, Cyril Richardson, proposed a theory satisfactory to even the ever sceptical Smith to account for the mysterious gospel. Among the writings of Clement is a tract, What Rich Man Can Be Saved?, composed to allay the concerns of wealthy Christians in Alexandria to whom the story of the rich young ruler was not the happiest in the gospels. It can be imagined The Secret Gospel touched on Clement’s further thoughts about riches and discipleship and so was read at the Easter Liturgy of baptism where it followed upon recitation of the synoptic gospels’ account of the young ruler. Whether or not the original inspiration of The Secret Gospel story had been Lazarus, the subject was now understood to be the young ruler who, though he had rejected Jesus, subsequently fell ill and died but was then raised and given a second chance at discipleship.

    Long before Smith’s discovery, on the more maverick side of exegesis there was speculation that Lazarus was the young ruler; and though the theory is particularly untenable, the sexual origins of the idea are obvious enough. When Lazarus is taken ill, a messenger comes to Jesus reporting that “the one you love” is dying and then, when belatedly Jesus arrives, outside the tomb, in the words of the famous shortest verse in the Bible, we are told “Jesus wept”. The response of the crowd to this is: “see how he loved him”. It should be obvious that the messenger’s words are simply a courtesy, rather like someone saying, “Your beloved uncle is in danger of his life”.

    Jesus was a regular visitor at the house of Mary of Bethany, Lazarus’ sister, hence doubtless on very friendly terms with her brother. Had Mary and Lazarus been of the ruling elite of Israel like the rich young man this would surely have been indicated. As to Jesus’ emotion at the tomb – which is in a sense inexplicable if he believed he could shortly restore Lazarus – the crowd’s reaction to it is superficial and uncomprehending. It is very likely that the emotion is reserved for the human condition, the tragedy of death as it strikes people in every age and clime and which Mary and Martha in their distress are so vividly enacting.

    Even now we are not yet finished with this confusion of identity. The authors of Holy Blood Holy Grail, in pursuit of the thesis Jesus was married to the Magdalene, take a cue from Blessed James of Vorigaine (1230-1298) in his notorious hagiography The Golden Legend and combine Mary of Bethany with Mary of Magdala. This done, they are free to say that the “beloved disciple” was necessarily Lazarus as Jesus’ brother-in-law and not John the disciple. In The Golden Legend the Magdalene was going to marry John before Jesus’ call to discipleship intervened dooming the jilted woman to wild fits of promiscuity in her frustration. This piece of identification is quite novel and fits no scholarly or psychological probabilities.

    To rival such wonderful speculations but in keeping with logic within our frame of reference, for what it is worth I shall suggest why the rich young ruler attracted Jesus’ special attention. Consider what the account tells the reader of his character. He rushes up to Jesus full of an enthusiasm Jesus feels bound to check; he is a shameless self advertiser where his good qualities are concerned. He is the kind of person willing to make on the spot decisions in areas others might demand more time to reflect; he is emotional and openly so; his moods show on his face and he goes away mourning; and of course financial considerations rule his life. This amounts to something and what it amounts to is a sort of very public, “American” character and the sign of cardinal, decision-making Cancer, sign so often of advertising, materialism and the attitude of attachment.

    Since the Joshua chart is so strong in water from Pisces and Scorpio it will often favourably trine the planets of anyone in Cancer, the sign in which both the Part of Marriage and the Part of Love fall. The latter Part (at 23 of Cancer), besides, trines the era conjunction, thus perhaps merging itself with the conjunction’s universalising effects; but obviously there would still be lot of relationship potential towards the Cancerian individual. These Parts are nonetheless positioned in the second house of worldly goods and personal values, meaning that these subjects would tend to be at issue in contact with any Cancerian person. Indeed it is rather interesting to compare the very Cancerian chart of America with the Joshua chart, and perceive the many ties which help explain that country’s special relation to Christianity, the determination of so many Americans to media-sell Jesus. Nevertheless, it is to be doubted that who or what is being promoted is fully understood and would be altogether approved by the one preached about since there is a lot of faux amis to this relation as there surely was to the young man who faces Jesus.

    The story of the Rich Young Ruler is often cited by sceptics as proof positive that Jesus did not believe he was divine: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (Mark 10:18). On the contrary, this should be taken as one of those subtle hints to people that Jesus did regard himself as divine. Noticeably he does not, by way of example, confess to any imperfections in his examination of this youth with his ready-made catalogue of virtues. Jesus’ question is a rhetorical one designed to check the effusive flow and make the person truly conscious of just who and what he has chosen to confront. That divinity and a more human level of attraction can both be at stake in the encounter only confirms what has been proposed here (and in many mystical traditions), that however great the distance between them, the sexuality and the spirituality are inextricably linked.

    The above is slightly abridged from Dr. Rollan McCleary’s book, Signs for a Messiah: The First and Last Evidence for Jesus.

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  • The Gospel of Judas Revealed

    The Gospel of Judas Revealed

    From New Dawn 96 (May-June 2006)

    The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week three days before he celebrated Passover. …Jesus said to him, “Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal.”
    – The Gospel of Judas1

    From an historical point of view this find is as important as the Nag Hammadi writings discovered half a century ago. Everything tells us that we are dealing with the Gospel of Judas referred to by Irenaeus in the second century AD. It is fantastic that something like that re-appears after 1800 years.
    – Dr. Stephen Emmel2

    The story of how the Gospel of Judas arrived in the Western world is a fascinating tale. Like many of the so-called Gnostic Gospels, it somehow travelled out of Egypt and arrived in the US with a large price tag. Unlike many manuscripts which vanish sight unseen, luck or providence if you like brought this manuscript not only to light but finally to restoration and publication. In the words of Professor Elaine Pagels, “the discovery of the Gospel of Judas is astonishing.”

    Originally unearthed by a farmer in 1978 near El Minya, Egypt, from where it had been hidden in a “tomb-like box” for some 1,600 years, the leather-bound papyrus codex was in superb condition. The farmer secretly sold the codex to an antiquities dealer in Cairo, without advising Egyptian Antiquities. In a clandestine meeting in 1983, the antiquities dealer offered the codex for sale to various scholars in Geneva, however with an asking price of over $3,000,000 and a dubious provenance, the price was considered extraordinary.

    Ironically, while the Gospel survived well in Egypt, it seriously deteriorated when stored for some 16 years in a safety deposit box in Hicksville, New York. Finally purchased by antiquities dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos in 2000, the following year the codex was acquired by the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art in Switzerland. With the help of National Geographic and an agreement reached with the Egyptian government, restoration work soon began.

    Known as the Codex Tchacos (named after Dimaratos Tchacos, father of Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos), it is a 26-page document written on 13 sheets of papyrus leaf in ancient Egyptian, or Coptic. The codex contains not only the Gospel of Judas, but the First Apocalypse of James, the Letter of Peter to Philip, and a small fragment of text that scholars have called the Book of Allogene.

    If we focus on the Gospel of Judas, the document is a 3rd century Coptic translation of a now lost Greek text, thought to have been written by a group of early Gnostic Christians before 180 CE. While its significance is much debated, there is no question about its authenticity. There is universal agreement it is the genuine article. “All you had to do was look at this thing once,” said Bart Ehrman, a scholar of early Christianity. “I’ve seen a lot of ancient manuscripts, and there was no question.”3 According to James M. Robinson, America’s leading expert on ancient religious texts from Egypt, “I don’t know of any scholar who thinks this is fake.”4

    Heresy Hunting

    Back in the 2nd century of the Christian era, the Christian Bishop Irenaeus mentioned a Gospel of Judas was in use among the Kainites, an early Gnostic Christian sect. In part I of his Against Heresy, paragraph 31.1, he wrote:

    (Some) stated that Cain owes his existence to the highest power, while Esau, Korak, the Sodomites and all other men are dependants of each other. (…) They believe that Judas the Betrayer was fully informed of these things and that only he understanding the truth like no one else fulfilled the secret of betrayal that confused all things, both in heaven and on earth. They invented their own history called the Gospel of Judas.

    The Gospel had been known to exist for some time when discussed by Irenaeus around 180 CE, with his primary source being Justin Martyr. This moves the date back to around 140 CE, and most scholars therefore date the Gospel itself to around 120 CE or even earlier. This is significant because it places the Gospel of Judas within the same timeframe as the Biblical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

    The publication of the Gospel of Judas undertaken by National Geographic is unlikely to disturb the mainstream Christian church. In a recent interview, Monsignor Walter Brandmuller, president of the Vatican’s Committee for Historical Science, called it “a product of religious fantasy,” and went on to say, “There is no campaign, no movement for the rehabilitation of (Judas) the traitor of Jesus.”5

    From past experience with the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 and the Nag Hammadi Library unearthed two years earlier, whatever the merits of a document it does not bring about a religious revolution. There is an entrenched power structure within Christendom and regardless of the strength of evidence presented, the Church will use spin, distortion and, if necessary, violence (remember the first crusades were against the Cathars) to preserve its dominion.

    The significance of the Gospel of Judas needs to be seen in the context of the larger picture provided by Gnosticism and current scholarship regarding Christian origins. Too often modern Christians live in a sort of self imposed ghetto. They read Christian books, subscribe to Christian magazines, and generally are not exposed to scholarship except through the lens of their chosen leaders or churches. In many cases even when a Christian leader tries to inject scholarship and critical thinking, it is still filtered through a very antiquated religious lens. There does seem to be a surprisingly large gap between modern research into Christian origins, even that generally available, and the information the average Christian receives within his or her community.

    Over the last 100 years the academic model that has arisen in regards to Christian origins is radically different from the traditional Christian worldview. It would be fair to say Christianity is sometimes even seen as a Gnostic heresy and not vice versa. While this is an inflammatory way of describing Christian origins, it does seem quite clear that within the early Christian “spectrum” there was an exceptionally wide range of traditions and practices. This diversity was not only tolerated but encouraged and embraced. Christianity was not a single, monolithic tradition handed down from one leader to another in succession; it was diverse and multi-faceted with many dispersed centres of power.

    Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton who specialises in studies of the Gnostics, recently said in a statement, “These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion, and demonstrating how diverse – and fascinating – the early Christian movement really was.”6

    Gnostic Christianity

    Although later denounced by certain leaders as ‘heretics’, many of these Christians saw themselves as not so much believers as seekers, people who ‘seek for God.’7
    – Elaine Pagels

    Early Christianity seems to have included many differing viewpoints from the rather staid Judaic Christian mix of James the Brother of Jesus to the esoteric Gnosticism of the followers of Mary Magdalene and Simon Magus. Variations in approach were such that within one movement there were libertine sects that used sex and mind altering substances, and others which were strictly ascetic and celibate. There were groups which were strictly Judaic in focus even to the point of keeping the old laws and festivals of Israel, while others were clearly influenced by the Greek Mysteries and even Buddhist traditions.

    Each of these communities had their own sacred texts and interpretations of the teachings of Jesus; the majority would now be considered Gnostic, i.e. they emphasised personal and direct experience of the divine. Accordingly, each of these groups acted like a “Mystery Cult” and had their own specialised practices, mythologies and rites. Many had distinct Gospels which included unique revelations from Jesus to their founders. For example, in the Pistis Sophia, we read of the secret teachings of Jesus to Mary Magdalene and the Gospel of Thomas begins… “These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and Didymus Judas Thomas wrote them down.”8

    These secret writings and communities flourished for hundreds of years. It was only in the early 4th century that Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria wrote a letter to some Christians in Egypt ordering them to reject what he called “secret, illegitimate books.”9 In 363 CE the first synod (of Laodicea) was held to decide the official contents of the Bible.

    Certainly by the middle of the 4th century, Christianity had become a political force and dissenting views were not tolerated. Under threat and violent persecution, Gnostic communities withdrew from public view, to survive as an ‘underground’ movement. This continued right through to such groups as the Templars and Rosicrucians, and even to the present day.

    Clearly, early Christianity offered a wide spectrum of beliefs and practices catering to the unique needs of people with differing levels of spiritual development. This helps us understand the Gospel of Judas. While Christendom has attempted to downplay the significance of this Gospel, its message, like that of Gnosticism in general, is actually quite confronting and challenging.

    Secret Teachings

    The Gospel of Judas is a secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke to Judas Iscariot. It portrays Judas as one of the initiates, a specially loved and favoured disciple who undertook one of the most painful missions asked by his teacher, to betray the saviour as part of a greater plan of spiritual import.

    The Gospel outlines a specifically Gnostic worldview, offering a cosmology which is fairly consistent with the radical Gnostic sects of the period. Cosmology in Gnosticism is a complex idea with many Aeons, worlds, dimensions and forms. It is impossible to appreciate the cosmology of the Gospel of Judas without these, however, I cannot give them comprehensive coverage here, but I will try to give a general outline.

    There is a world of light which is beyond all created forms. This spiritual realm contains various dynamic intelligences or energies, of which one, Barbelo, is discussed in the Gospel of Judas.

    For there exists a great and boundless realm, whose extent no generation of angels has seen.
    – Gospel of Judas

    There are many dimensions or worlds which exist between this higher reality and the physical world, and all are populated with forms of varying potencies.

    The physical world is depicted as flawed, even evil, and is beyond the boundary of these worlds. It is the product of a bloodthirsty and ignorant creator deity. His name is given as Nebro, which means ‘rebel’; while others Gnostics call him Yaldabaoth. There are many myths and stories about how he came to exist and create the physical world.

    Judas said to Jesus, “[What] is the long duration of time that the human being will live?”

    Jesus said, “Why are you wondering about this, that Adam, with his generation, has lived his span of life in the place where he has received his kingdom, with longevity with his ruler?”

    Judas said to Jesus, “Does the human spirit die?”

    Jesus said, “This is why God ordered Michael to give the spirits of people to them as a loan, so that they might offer service, but the Great One ordered Gabriel to grant spirits to the great generation with no ruler over it – that is, the spirit and the soul…
    – Gospel of Judas

    While the Gospel of Judas does not present a full account of the creation process, when interpreted in conjunction with other Gnostic texts it certainly presents a mythos which is very much at odds with the standard Judeo-Christian legend. Saklas, a demi-god under Yaldabaoth, creates the body of man while the angels Michael and Gabriel, emissaries of the world of light, allow spirits from the world of light to incarnate within these shells.

    This is very similar to Mandaean myths of creation where the physical bodies created by lesser spirits cannot even move off the ground, writhing and screaming in the dirt. In sympathy, emissaries of the light world allow spirits to enter them. But becoming trapped, fascinated by the allure of the flesh, these spirits now believe they are physical rather than spiritual beings.

    There is a suggestion, also found in other Gnostic literature, of various degrees of spiritual awakening. Some beings only have one soul, some have two, some have none. In the Gospel of Judas, those with one soul receive it from Michael, while those with both a soul and spirit have received them from Gabriel. Each of these classes are under varying degrees of control by the rulers (principalities and dominions) that manipulate our world.

    This model is found within the Gnostic schools where there are three levels of initiation:

    1. Hylic – most of sleeping humanity, under full control of rulers.

    2. Psychic – partially awakened, under partial control of the rulers.

    3. Pneumatics – awakened.

    There is an essential dualism within the Gospel of Judas which helps explain the significance of Jesus’s death and the role of Judas. Since man’s origin is within the spiritual dimensions and the flesh is a cage, then death is not to be feared but a form of liberation. Accordingly, Judas helps Jesus escape his prison of flesh and liberate the essential true nature within him.

    You will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.
    – Gospel of Judas

    The Gnostics taught that in some way or another we must each overcome the body and its demands and liberate the true Christ nature within. While individual praxis may vary from asceticism to libertinism, the goal is the same. In addition, these Gnostics also identify the creator of the physical world as our enemy, and hence see Yaldabaoth as the primary force holding us back from achieving true liberation.

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    Indeed, in the Sethian tradition, Yaldabaoth is identified with Jehovah and the serpent of Genesis is actually seen as the liberator. This relates back to Irenaeus’ claim the followers of the Gospel of Judas were “Kainites” since in this interpretation, Cain is the saviour, not Abel, and the Sodomites are the people of God, not the slaughtering puritans and so on.

    We also find within the Gospel of Judas reference to both Seth and Adamas which is significant as they tie elements of the Gospel to the Naassene or Serpent Gnostic traditions. This has strong resonance with the Greek Orphic Tradition which is superbly covered in The Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes by Mark Gaffney.

    There is a distinct absence of the saving power of the blood of Christ or the vicarious nature of the crucifixion in the Gnostic texts. Indeed the crucifixion and Resurrection are not even mentioned in the Gospel of Judas. The role of Judas shows the path to liberation is in awakening the Christ within and overcoming the restrictions created by both the physical body and the forces of the lower spiritual/physical worlds. These are sometimes represented as the planets, powers and dominions or rulers.

    The multitude of those immortals is called the cosmos –  that is, perdition – by the Father and the seventy-two luminaries who are with the Self-Generated and his seventy-two aeons. In him the first human appeared with his incorruptible powers. And the aeon that appeared with his generation, the aeon in whom are the cloud of knowledge and the angel, is called [51] El. […] aeon […] after that […] said, ‘Let twelve angels come into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld].’ And look, from the cloud there appeared an [angel] whose face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood. His name was Nebro, which means ‘rebel’; others call him Yaldabaoth. Another angel, Saklas, also came from the cloud. So Nebro created six angels – as well as Saklas – to be assistants, and these produced twelve angels in the heavens, with each one receiving a portion in the heavens.
    – Gospel of Judas

    Judas works with Jesus to help liberate him from the power of the body; he plays an important role within the initiatory process of the crucifixion and Resurrection, which some suggest was actually an initiatory drama rather than a real historical event, but that is outside our discussion here.

    This Gospel needs to be interpreted within the larger framework of the dualist Gnostic tradition. The motif of Judas as special disciple and the negative interpretation of both the body and the world resonate through the vast majority of the Gnostic sects. In addition, the emphasis on Jesus as a giver of light, a transmitter of the message from the higher dimensions rather than as a sacrifice, is central to a Gnostic view of salvation.

    Jesus was seen as a way-shower, an emissary, a being whom we should emulate, not worship. This approach is central to the Gnostic vision; liberation comes through individual effort inspired perhaps by the life of Jesus, but ultimately through our own perseverance. In this way we move towards achieving our own state of divinity, our own theosis.

    The Gospel of Judas is certainly a fascinating revelation, though it does not necessarily add greatly to what we already know about the Gnostic vision. What it does do, however, is bring home the significance of this message for today’s world. If the Gospel of Judas had been taken seriously by the early Church and the Gnostics not suppressed, anti-Semitism and all its related violence may not have had such a disastrous effect within Western history. If Judas was only doing his job as a “special” disciple of Jesus, then the whole myth of “Judas the Christ Killer” dissolves and is replaced by Judas, the holder of the Mysteries.

    In 2006 with continued violence instigated by self-proclaimed religious fundamentalists, it is perhaps time we rehabilitate the Gnostic tradition. Gnosticism brings a spirit of openness, diversity, individual responsibility and freedom. With the publicity brought about by The Da Vinci Code and now the publication of the Gospel of Judas, it is time we let go of old prejudices, superstitions and narrowly held opinions and allow a different light to shine from beyond the confines of matter.

    [alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]This article was published in New Dawn 96.[/alert]

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    Recommended Reading

    Adam, Eve and the Serpent by Elaine Pagels
    Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism by Kurt Rudolph
    The Gnostic Bible: Gnostic Texts of Mystical Wisdom form the Ancient and Medieval Worlds by Willis Barnstone
    The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
    Gnostic Philosophy: From Ancient Persia to Modern Times by Tobias Churton
    The Gnostic Religion by Hans Jonas
    The Gospel of Judas by Bart D. Ehrman, Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor Wurst
    Jesus and the Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy
    The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God? by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy
    The Other God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy by Yuri Stoyanov
    The Secrets of Judas: The Story of the Misunderstood Disciple and His Lost Gospel by James M. Robinson

    Footnotes

    1. The Gospel of Judas, as translated by a team led by Rodolphe Kasser and provided by the National Geographic Society.
    2. www.michelvanrijn.nl
    3. “Scholars have ‘no question’ on authenticity”, by Tom Avril, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 7 April, www.philly.com
    4. “Another Take on Gospel Truth About Judas, Manuscript Could Add to Understanding of Gnostic Sect”, by Stacy Meichtry, 25 February, Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com
    5. Ibid.
    6. “In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal”, by John Noble Wilford & Laurie Goodstein, 7 April, New York Times, www.nytimes.com
    7. “The ongoing evolution of Christianity”, by Jane Lampman, May 15, 2003, Christian Science Monitor, www.csmonitor.com
    8. “The Gospel Truth”, by Elaine Pagels, April 8, New York Times, www.nytimes.com
    9. Ibid.

    © New Dawn Magazine and the respective author.
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  • A Pagan Christ? Reflections on the Real Christmas Story

    A Pagan Christ? Reflections on the Real Christmas Story

    From New Dawn 105 (Nov-Dec 2007)

    Strictly speaking, a pagan Christ is a contradiction in terms. The very concept of paganism was constructed by Christians who wanted to distinguish their faith from the old religion of Greece and Rome, which by the end of classical antiquity was observed only by peasants in remote rural areas – the pagani, or “country people,” or – to use words that are similar in tone – rustics, rubes, hayseeds. So there can be no pagan Christ. Paganism is all that Christianity is not.

    Once we go past this elementary point, however, we see that the situation is not so simple. The resemblance between Christianity and its rivals could never be entirely overlooked. The Church Father Augustine (354–430) wrote, “That which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients, and never did not exist from the planting of the human race until Christ came in the flesh, at which time the true religion which already existed began to be called Christianity.” Whatever Augustine meant by this – and it’s not entirely clear from the context – one thing it could mean is that the “true religion” is universal and has always existed; only comparatively late did it come to be codified in the teachings of Christ.

    Before I go further into what this “true religion” might be, it’s necessary to stop and take a look at early Christianity in its context. Christianity, as is well known, grew up in the Roman Empire, a time of remarkable fecundity in religious belief, with a huge and dizzying marketplace of gods and cults and philosophies for the seeker to choose from, many of which bore more than a passing resemblance to one another. It’s impossible to believe that Christianity was not affected by this background. Although the Christians insisted that their religion was true and all the others were false, they still had to account for the fact that theirs was not so different from many of those they were denouncing.

    Over the past century, one of the most influential views of the relationship between Christianity and paganism has been that of Sir J.G. Frazer (1854–1941), author of the classic work The Golden Bough, first published in 1890 and updated in many editions thereafter. A pioneer of comparative mythology, Frazer delved into the compendious collections of lore and legend that scholars were amassing in his time and noticed that Christianity had taken many of its elements from the religions it would eventually displace.

    The most famous instance is Christmas. The birthday of Christ was not recorded and is not known; in the early centuries of the religion that bears his name it was not celebrated. But by the fourth century, Christ’s birthday came to be observed as a holiday. In the East (starting in Egypt), the date selected was January 6. But the Western church, which had never observed this date, set Christ’s birthday as December 25. Why? One Christian writer quoted (but not named) by Frazer explains: “It was a custom of the heathen to celebrate on the same twenty-fifth of December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and festivities the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day and the festival of the Epiphany on the sixth of January.”

    Another, possibly more revealing, case involves the festival commemorating the death and resurrection of Christ. Today Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon after the March equinox. (This is to some extent a simplification of the complex process of fixing the date of Easter, but it will serve our purposes here.) Frazer noted that there was an ancient tradition by which the death of Christ was observed on March 25, regardless of the phase of the moon. Remarkably, this coincided with the date on which the death and resurrection of a pagan god, Attis, was celebrated. Still more significantly, the parts of the world where Christians observed Easter on this date – western Asia Minor and Rome – were precisely the areas where the cult of Attis was most popular.

    Attis, according to the myth, was a handsome young shepherd who was born of a virgin. Beloved of the Great Goddess of life, he was said in some legends to have been killed by a boar, in others to have died after castrating himself. (The priests of the Attis cult were all self-made eunuchs, in imitation of him.) After his death, he was changed into a pine tree.

    It’s curious that the death and resurrection of Christ should have been celebrated in such close conjunction with that of one of the deities that the Christians so detested. What’s even more interesting is the underlying similarity of the myths: both are celebrations of a god, born of a virgin, who has died and risen again. More surprisingly still, Attis was not the only god in antiquity who was believed to have died and risen again. There was also Adonis, worshipped in Babylonia and Syria. Adonis, another beautiful young man, was said to die every year. His death caused passion to cease and beasts and men to forget to reproduce; all life would be extinguished if Ishtar, the goddess of life, did not rescue him annually from the halls of death. And of course there is Osiris, the slain and dismembered king of Egypt who was reassembled by his wife Isis (another goddess of life) to serve as the lord of the dead.

    Even this cursory sketch suggests how many parallels we can find between Christianity and pagan religions. Moreover, it was obvious that the pagan faiths were much older than the Christian one. Christianity looked like a mere copycat of these religions, and that’s exactly what many of its pagan critics contended. The Christian fathers countered with a remarkably clumsy response: that Satan, foreseeing that Christ would come to earth, came down first and created religions that were merely diabolical imitations of the truth.

    Those of us who find this argument implausible are left wondering exactly what the relationship between Christianity and these pagan cults was. Frazer saw the mystery religions of Attis and Adonis and Osiris as essentially fertility cults: Their rites were designed to mimic and foster the rebirth of life each spring. According to Frazer, Christ had come as a teacher of “ethical reforms”; the mythologies of the fertility cults were gradually assimilated to the faith of Christ’s followers “so as to accord in some measure with the prejudices, the passions, the superstitions of the vulgar.” Frazer writes:

    To live and to cause to live, to eat food and to beget children, these were the primary wants of men in the past, and they will be the primary wants of men in the future so long as the world lasts…. These two things, therefore, food and children, were what men chiefly sought to procure by the performance of magical rites for the regulation of the seasons.

    This all may sound plausible – as it certainly did to Frazer’s rationalistic late-Victorian contemporaries – but there’s one small problem with it. The idea that the mysteries of Attis and Adonis and Osiris, and by extension of Christ, were mere attempts to reproduce and sustain the cycles of life was known to the ancients and explicitly refuted by them. Plutarch, writing in the late first century CE, contends:

    And we shall also get our hands on the dull crowd who take pleasure in associating the [mystic recitals] about these Gods either with changes of the atmosphere according to the seasons, or with the generation of the corn and sowing and ploughings, and in saying that Osiris is buried when the corn is hidden by the earth, and comes to life and shows himself again when it begins to sprout.

    Cicero, the Roman statesman and philosopher (106–43 BCE), also says there is something more to the mysteries:

    These Mysteries have brought us from rustic savagery to a cultivated and refined civilisation. The rites of the Mysteries are called “initiations” and in truth we have learned from them the first principles of life. We have gained the understanding not only to live happily but to die with better hope.

    We can safely say this much: The ancient mysteries were more than rites intended merely to ensure that the crops grew and the animals bred. But what, then, were they? What is the dying “with better hope” that Cicero mentions? And why does the story of Christ, springing from the monotheistic world of Judaism, so much resemble those of the gods that went before?

    At this point it would be helpful to address an extremely important issue: the reliability of the historical accounts of Jesus. Apart from a few extremely brief references in non-Christian writers such as Tacitus and Pliny the Younger (which talk about the Christians as a sect but say practically nothing about Christ himself), we have to rely on the canonical gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Scholars unanimously accept these as the oldest gospels, with the possible exception of the Gospel of Thomas, an early sayings collection with a strongly Gnostic tinge; the many other gospels that were written are almost certainly later – one reason they didn’t find their way into the New Testament.

    Unfortunately, even these texts present Jesus at a remove. None of them, it is now generally acknowledged, was written by any of the Twelve Apostles or even by anyone who knew or saw Jesus personally. The earliest Gospel, Mark, is dated to around 70 CE; the latest, John, to around 100 (these dates are highly approximate). Nowhere in these Gospels is the claim that the writer himself has seen what he is describing. Indeed most scholars today agree that none of the texts in the entire New Testament was written by any of the Twelve Apostles.

    The only surviving eyewitness account of Christ is found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Paul did not know Jesus when he was alive, but he writes that after Jesus had appeared to Cephas (Peter), the twelve, and various other witnesses, “last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time” (1 Cor. 15:5). (Biblical quotations are from the Authorised King James Version.) This experience, usually equated with Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1–7), is an eyewitness account: Paul is claiming that he has had a vision of the risen Christ like that of the other apostles. Inasmuch as Paul died during Nero’s persecution in Rome in 64 CE, this text is almost certainly earlier than any of the Gospels. But Paul does not say anything more about his experience, and he says almost nothing at all about Jesus before his death.

    In their 1999 book The Jesus Mysteries, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy argue that the extreme scarcity of direct evidence about Jesus, together with the strong resemblance of his story to other pagan myths, means that Jesus did not exist as a historical figure. He was created by Gnostic sages as a kind of Jewish equivalent of the dead and reborn gods of the pagan Mediterranean world.

    Freke’s and Gandy’s view, although interesting, seems to be an overstatement given the evidence. They say that Paul’s vision (as described by himself) may have been a later addition to 1 Corinthians, a claim that, to my knowledge, no reputable scholar would agree with; or perhaps that it was a mystical vision of some sort. But the context of 1 Corinthians 15 indicates that, as Christians have always claimed, Paul, like the others who claimed they had witnessed the resurrection of Christ, regarded it as an actual encounter with the risen Jesus. Whatever it was they saw or did not see, this much seems indisputable. Indeed, if we go to 1 Thessalonians, another letter of Paul’s, which was the first New Testament book to be written (it’s generally dated to around 50 CE), we see Paul saying, “The Jews… both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets” (1 Thess. 2:14–15). “We believe that Jesus died and rose again,” he writes in the same letter (1 Thess. 4:14). In both these instances, he is stressing the historical actuality of these events: they are not a myth. Furthermore, Paul is not introducing this idea as a novelty but as a premise that he expects his readers to share.

    About the historical Jesus, then, we can say this much: that as early as 50 CE, no more than twenty years after his death and still well in the lifetime of his disciples, his followers preached that he had suffered and died and was resurrected. These facts are not later mythic accretions but among the first things the historical record says about Jesus.

    What, then, does this all mean? Paul’s own ideas seem to have grown and changed over time. In 1 Thessalonians, his first surviving epistle, he sounds like a modern-day fundamentalist, obsessed with the Rapture. In fact the idea of the Rapture comes from 1 Thess. 4:17: “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with [the dead] in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” Later, Paul becomes more mystical. In 1 Corinthians he explicitly denies the physical resurrection of the dead: “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body…. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption” (1 Cor. 15:44, 50). This, incidentally, puts mainstream Christianity in the bizarre position of teaching a doctrine – the resurrection of the physical body – that is explicitly denied by its own scriptures. I do not know of any other such case in all of world religion.

    Nonetheless, resurrection is at the core of Christianity from its earliest days, just as it was of the mystery religions of Attis and Adonis and Osiris that preceded it. And, like the pagan mysteries, which enabled its initiates to die “with better hope,” Christianity viewed the resurrection not an isolated case that happened to one (possibly divine) man, but something that is the common human inheritance, potentially available to everyone: “Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Cor. 15:20). This was not the concept of resurrection as commonly taught, but part of what the Church Father Origen (185–253) called “the deeper and more mystical doctrines which are rightly concealed from the multitude.”

    The nature of this resurrection lies at the heart of the old pagan mysteries and the Christian faith alike. To best understand it in a short space, it would be helpful to use the common metaphor of a seed, used both by Jesus in the Gospels and by Paul (as well as in some of the pagan mysteries). A seed is something extremely small and contains only in germ the full plant; this is the metaphor Paul uses to compare what he calls “the resurrection body” with the “natural body.” Christ in the Gospels likens the kingdom of heaven to a seed on several occasions as well: for example, “the kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed” (Matt. 13:31).

    What, then, is this “seed”? What is the kingdom of heaven, for that matter? If you were to read the works of many theologians, you might conclude that they don’t know. But this is a central concept in esoteric Christianity. It is not difficult to grasp, but it is subtle. I’ve discussed it in detail in my book Inner Christianity, but in essence it comes to this: There is that in you which says “I.” It is consciousness in its pure form; it is never seen, but always that which sees. You may think you are your body or your emotions or your thoughts, but the fact that you can step back and look at all these things at a distance proves that these things are not you – not in the truest and fullest sense. In fact it is your very confusion of your “I” with your thoughts, emotions, and sensations that constitutes the fundamental problem of human existence. Liberation or enlightenment or, as the early Christians called it, gnosis is the freeing of the “I” from its identification with its own experience. Paul writes, “That which thou sowest is not quickened until it die” (1 Cor. 15:36). Esoterically, this means that the “I” must “die” – must detach itself from its former identifications – before it can be “resurrected” or “born again,” that is, realise its fullest potential in a life that is not limited by the body or the psyche. In the course of this liberation the “I” realises its own immortality.

    This, in the simplest and most concise language that I can muster, is the secret that I believe lies at the heart of esoteric Christianity and of the Christian mystery itself. To speak of the resurrection of the physical body, explicitly denied by Paul, is to misunderstand; it is the symbolic death and rebirth of the true “I” – called “I am” in the Gospel of John – that is really the point. But it is an arcane point, and not everyone can grasp it. Early Christianity eventually allowed ordinary believers to believe in a physical resurrection because it was easier to understand; only those who wanted to go deeper were told the truth. As Origen writes, “The resurrection of the body,… while preached in the churches, is understood more clearly by the intelligent.” Origen is saying that the doctrine “preached in the churches” is not the whole story. Regrettably, however, as Christianity developed in later centuries, those who had only an inaccurate, secondary understanding of this truth came to lead the church. Because they did not understand the deeper message, they suppressed it, with consequences that have been disastrous for the spiritual life of the West.

    In any event, the revelation of the true nature of the “I” makes the correspondence between the Christian mystery and those of the pagans much easier to understand. If these things are true, they are universally true, and if they are universally true, they must have been known in many times and places and cannot be the bailiwick of a single religion. That, I would suggest, is why Augustine can say that the “true religion” always existed. It’s also why the mystery religions so resembled Christianity. They were expressing a universal truth to which Christianity was also pointing.

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    All the same, this does not entirely explain the innumerable parallels between the Christ of the Gospels and the figures of ancient myth. Often it does seem that characteristics of the ancient pagan gods were later associated with Christ – and at a fairly early stage. The virgin birth, for example, is not mentioned in Mark, the earliest canonical Gospel, or for that matter by Paul. But it does appear in Matthew and Luke, which are generally dated to between 80 and 100. This suggests that by this point certain myths and legends had attached themselves to the basic story of Christ’s death and resurrection.

    Exactly how this happened is unclear. There is no contemporary documentation of this process, or, for that matter, of Christ himself apart from the Gospels to serve as a check. The best guess seems to be something like this: The earliest Christians believed they had some experience of the risen Christ, and this was the central part of their message from the very beginning. By the end of the first century, as the Gospels were being written, the historical kernel of the story of Christ was expanded and recast, partly to imitate familiar aspects of pagan myths but also to symbolically express certain truths. That’s why Origen could write:

    Very many mistakes have been made because the right method of examining the holy texts has not been discovered by the greater number of readers… because it is their habit to follow the bare letter….

    Scripture interweaves the imaginary with the historical, sometimes introducing what is utterly impossible, sometimes what is possible but never occurred…. [The Word] has done the same with the Gospels and the writings of the Apostles; for not even they are purely historical, incidents which never occurred being interwoven in the “corporeal” sense…. These passages, by means of seeming history, though the incidents never occurred, figuratively reveal certain mysteries.

    This process began with the Gospels but did not end with them. It continued for several centuries later, as we’ve seen with the Christian appropriation of Christmas and Easter in the fourth century. Later still, in the fifth century, when the cult of the pagan goddesses was suppressed, there was a need for a feminine face of divinity, and the mother of Christ was elevated to this role; many of the attributes of Ishtar and particularly Isis were then attached to her. Christianity’s success was at least partly due to its remarkable genius and flexibility in adapting pagan myths to its own ends. Ultimately, however, the true greatness of the faith lies in its profound and haunting expression of what may be the central mystery of human existence.

    [alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]This article was published in New Dawn 105.[/alert]

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    Bibliography

    Raymond E. Brown,  Introduction to the New Testament, New York: Doubleday, 1997.
    J.G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, New York: Macmillan, 1922.
    Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God?, New York: Three Rivers, 1999.
    The Greek New Testament, edited by Kurt Aland et al. Third edition. N.p.: United Bible Societies, 1966.
    G.R.S. Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis, York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1972. Originally published 1906.
    Origen, Contra Celsum, translated by Henry Chadwick, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.
    Origen, On First Principles, Edited and translated by G.W. Butterworth, New York: Harper & Row, 1966.

    © New Dawn Magazine and the respective author.
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  • Mary Magdalene, Apostle of the Apostles

    Mary Magdalene, Apostle of the Apostles

    From New Dawn Special Issue No. 2 (Autumn/Winter 2006)

    With the publication of Holy Blood, Holy Grail in the mid-nineties and the Gnostic Gospels found in Nag Hammadi, a new perspective on the role of Mary Magdalene in the revelation and dissemination of the esoteric teachings of Christ has emerged onto the public stage. With the release of The Da Vinci Code, she has been placed firmly in the public consciousness, her story awakening both excitement and controversy.

    It is my contention that Mary Magdalene was the carrier of a tradition of respect and reverence for the Divine Feminine, a secret initiatory tradition that leads back through Jesus, Gnosticism, the esoteric teachings of Judaism, and the Egyptian mysteries of Isis to the ultimate ground or source of all religions. By seeking out the alternative roads to understanding, by looking at the Gnostic texts, legends, symbols, and iconography, one discovers the distinct possibility Mary Magdalene was not only first witness to and herald of the Resurrection, but the chief disciple and recipient of Christ’s’ gnosis, as well as teacher and transmitter of these extraordinary Mysteries to the people of France.

    On the shores of the Mediterranean Sea outside Marseilles at Les Saintes Marie de la Mere there is a small chapel dedicated to Mary Magdalene and consecrated by Archbishop Roncalli (who later became Pope John XXIII). Given a place of prominence within this chapel are paintings of her arrival from Palestine in a small rudderless boat.According to legend, soon after the crucifixion and Resurrection, Mary Magdalene and her family were expelled from the Holy Land, set adrift on the Mediterranean Sea and made their way to this region, particularly the area around Southern France and Northern Spain. At this time in history, aside from the already established Celts, many Greeks, Arabs, Jews and others lived and travelled in this area. There was even a Jewish city known as Glanum Levi whose ruins can be found today in Provence.

    In the midst of this cosmopolitan confluence of cultures, along with the exchange of goods there must have been an exchange of philosophical and religious ideas. It is very possible that during this period many spiritual and symbolic links were discovered between these diverse peoples and their traditional belief systems that stretched back to the temples of Egypt. Before her arrival in Les Saintes Marie Sur Les Mere, France was riddled with Isis cults. The name Paris etymologically can be linked to the pre-Celtic ParIsis, the grove of Isis. Clearly this region was fertile ground for Mary Magdalene’s mission.Following her arrival in France, she was said to have travelled the land, preaching the authentic Gnostic gospel of Jesus, which had been directly transmitted to her during his time on Earth and in mystic visions after his return to the more subtle dimensions of light. French religious literature from the Middle Ages is filled with legends and stories of the life of Mary Magdalene from this period until her death. Tales abound of her miraculous healings, her performance of the ritual of baptism, her aid in fertility and childbearing and even her ability to raise the dead. There are even reports of a secret tradition of the healing arts that exists today in France and traces its roots back to Mary Magdalene.1

    After this prophetic mission was accomplished, Mary is reported to have withdrawn to a cave in Ste. Baum, where she spent the remainder of her days in pray and seclusion. She is believed to have been buried at Ste. Maximin where her remains were watched over by Cassianite monks from the fifth century until the Saracen invasion. Then in 1058, in a papal bull, Pope Stephen acknowledged the existence of her relics in the church of Vezeley, which became one of the major places of pilgrimage during the Middle Ages.

    But before we look at the evidence for her distinctive role as Apostle of the Apostles and prophetic mission, let us take a look at the hidden history of Gnosticism, the powerful doctrine of Divine grace, healing and illumination that she was said to have transmitted.

    The Gnostic Teachings

    It was during the Hellenistic period that the mystic knowledge of Egypt, the great symbols, myths, astronomical, scientific and metaphysical teachings passed into the heart of the Mystery Schools of Greece and Rome, which included the region of Gaul where Mary Magdalene is reported to have lived and preached. These secret initiatory teachings of the Egyptians were also retained and transmitted through the inner circles of Judaism to Jesus himself.

    At the heart of this lineage of transmission was an extraordinary metaphysical teaching known as Gnosticism. This teaching is believed to be the spiritual basis of his essential message to humanity, a message revealed to Mary Magdalene, his disciples and followers through the vehicles of metaphor, allegory and parable. Unlike the patriarchal, dogmatic, materially based teachings prevalent during this period, Gnosticism placed primary value on the feminine qualities of receptivity, intuitive perception, visionary experience and the art of healing. It was a teaching of love, selflessness, harmony and communion.

    The mystic experience of, and communion with, the essential grace and majesty of Divinity, lay at the heart of this Gnostic transmission. The clear and immediate experience of this awakening was known as gnosis or wisdom. Often translated from its Greek root as ‘knowledge’, Gnosticism goes much deeper than mere intellectual understanding. Like a brilliant flash of light arising from the darkness, this understanding arises in the individual as a bright lucid awareness – an intuitive realisation of the pure essence, nature and energy of Divinity as it flows within oneself, the luminous realms and all of creation.

    From the Gnostic viewpoint, the answers to all of life’s mysteries can only be found when one “opens oneself to this divine current and allows oneself to be penetrated by it to the point where one is fully transformed and illuminated by it.”2 From the viewpoint of many early Gnostic communities, this divine current was perceived as the feminine, healing and nurturing energy of God’s Holy Spirit.

    The fundamental doctrine of the Gnostics relates the dualistic nature of the world in which we reside, the eternal struggle between good and evil. They believed that Jehovah, the wrathful god of the Old Testament was a false god and expression of what they called the demiurge. For how could a fully enlightened divinity contain within him the base emotions of anger, jealousy and vengeance? For them, the real God was a loving deity equally and directly accessible to all. This God taught that love, compassion and the true sacrifice and transformation of the self, or ego, was the highest spiritual path.

    The Gnostics believed that the plan of this demiurge, or Satan, was to trap spirit in matter, and the Earth itself was a prison in which souls were exiled from their divine home. For them, the real world was the non-material world of spirit and all of their rituals and practices were designed to purify them and provide them with the means to find their way out of the impure world of matter, darkness and suffering and return to their true home in the Light.

    Clearly, these sacred esoteric teachings were revolutionary. Unlike the fixed, restrictive, hierarchical systems prevalent during this period, these teachings were open to all, female, male, rich, poor Jew or Pagan. This all-inclusive transmission of teachings formerly reserved for the elite was at odds with the practices of Orthodox Judaism and the emerging Church of Rome. For once the seeker had been touched by this Gnostic current, she or he came to recognise their own divine nature and perceive their place in the world from a whole new perspective. No longer did they need the intercession of a priest or rabbi to connect them with their spiritual inheritance.

    Evidence of Mary Magdalene’s primary role as disciple, visionary, mediatrix and herald of these revolutionary teachings can be found in a number of Gnostic texts. These include The Pistis Sophia, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Mary and more.

    Apostle of the Apostles

    The Pistis Sophia is a Coptic Gnostic revelatory work composed and/or compiled in Egypt around the middle of the second century CE. It claims to disclose the “secret teachings of the Savior,” reserved for his inner circle of initiates during the eleven years following his Resurrection. Filled with powerful, poetic imagery, this text reveals the intimate connections between this emerging form of Christianity, Paganism and beliefs and rituals founds in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.3 It also clearly recognises and demonstrates Mary Magdalene’s essential role as foremost disciple, seer and prophetess.

    It appears the teachings found in the Pistis Sophia were created specifically for the apostles who would go forth and spread his gospel. It takes the form of a dialogue between Jesus and these apostles and consists primarily of questions and answers. It is fascinating to note that in this text, out of the forty-six questions asked of him, thirty-nine of them come from Mary Magdalene. Due to her sincerity, astute level of inquiry and ability to comprehend the essence of his words, time and time again she is praised and recognised by him for her clarity and insight.

    For example, after Jesus presents the first part of these mystical teachings concerning the aeons, orders and regions of the “Great Invisible,” he acknowledges Mary Magdalene’s superior capacity for contemplation, insight and revelation.

    It came to pass then, when Mary had heard the Savior say these words, that she gazed fixedly into the air for the space of an hour. She said: “My Lord, give commandment to me to speak in openness.” And Jesus, the compassionate, answered and said unto Mary:

    “Mary, thou blessed one, whom I will perfect in all mysteries, of those of the height, discourse in openness, thou, whose heart is raised to the Kingdom of Heaven more than all thy brethren.”

    Throughout the text, after listening to her interpretation of his teachings, he acknowledges her perceptive abilities,

    Well, said, Mary, for thou art blessed before all women on earth, because thou shalt be the fullness of all fullness and the perfection of all perfections.

    This is only the first of a number of texts that speak of Mary Magdalene’s gifts and unique relationship with Jesus. According to a group of Gnostic Gospels discovered in 1945 in a cave in Upper Egypt near the village of Nag Hammadi, she was said to be an inspired prophetess who continuously experienced the living presence of her Lord within her.

    In The Gospel of Mary, from this collection, Mary Magdalene, the visionary, reveals to the other disciples teachings that were transmitted to her through visionary experience. In this gospel, she clearly takes the lead, not only soothing and reassuring the male apostles who fear capture and death, but relating to them teachings of the Savior that she alone has been privileged to receive. As in the Pistis Sophia, the Savior blesses her for her visionary capacity. When Peter questions her vision, Levi responds with, “If the Teacher held her worthy, who are you to reject her? Surely the Teacher knew her very well, for he loved her more than us.”4

    In The Gospel of Philip, from the same collection, the disciples appear to be jealous of the intimate relationship between the Savior and Mary Magdalene.

    The Companion of the savior is Mary Magdalene. But Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, “Why do you love her more than all of us?” The Savior answered and said to them, “Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness.”

    Because I have no reason to doubt Philip’s account or the words found in these early texts, I feel that the Christianity brought to France by Mary Magdalene has a different feel about it because it was closer to the authentic teachings of Jesus. If Mary Magdalene truly was the Apostle of the Apostles, then Jesus transmitted more to her or perhaps she understood this transmission better than the rest of the apostles. Through this lens we can begin to perceive and acknowledge the different understanding and practice of Christianity that emerged in Southern France, one that lasted over 1,200 years and in a sense pervades the place to this day.

    Magdalene’s Legacy

    When one looks at the history of the region one finds evidence that with her arrival, a surge of spiritual awareness, code of ethics and respect for feminine values began, which wove itself into the very fabric of the psychic landscape of Europe. The Order of the Knights Templar was created in this region. The alchemists began their flurry of Cathedral building to preserve the secret metaphysical teachings passed down to them from ancient Egypt. The Crusades and the entire Back to Jerusalem movement began in this area. The mystical Kabbalistic texts the Bahir and Zohar emerged from this region, bringing to the Jewish people knowledge of the Shekhina, or ‘indwelling presence’ and ‘feminine potency of God’. The cults of the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and Black Madonna, symbolically representing the three aspects of Isis in her role as Universal Goddess, arose here and spread throughout Europe.

    It was here the troubadours and poets such as Wolfram von Eschenbach, Robert de Bouron and others sang their songs of devotion to the feminine principle and wrote their fables of the Holy Grail. And it was here in the beautiful mountains and valleys of Provence and Languedoc that the Cathars, as carriers of the Gnostic transmission of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, rebelled against what they considered to be the excesses of the priestly hierarchy, renounced all worldly possessions and fully committed themselves to the path of spirit. Among the Cathars, women as well as men were priests who transmitted divine grace and healing power through the laying on of hands in their sacred initiatory rites that link back to Mary Magdalene, Isis and the healing traditions held by the temple priestess.

    As time marched on, the Church of Rome, threatened by the inroads these powerful Gnostic teachings were making among the local populace, labelled them heretical and moved to suppress them. To cement the rule of the Church of Rome, Pope Innocent III called for a Crusade against this Gnostic Cathar heresy. This crusade, which had as its focus the torture, murder and eradication of these loving and compassionate people was the starting point of a wave of fear, suffering and suppression of the feminine in both her divine and worldly aspects that would spread throughout Europe and become known as the Holy Inquisition.

    Closer to our time, there are the visions of Saint Bernadette and the healing waters of Lourdes, as well as the mystery of Father Sauniere, Rennes Le Chateau and his strange chapel dedicated to Mary Magdalene. Then there is the saga of Otto Rahn searching through the hills and valleys of this region for the Nazis trying to find the Holy Grail for the upper echelon of the SS. There are the legends of the secret alchemists who live in a magical castle somewhere in the Pyrenees recently popularised in the Harry Potter series. Finally, emerging from this region, is the mystery of the Alchemical Cross of Hendaye, the prophetic visions of Nostradamus and the Basque legend that John of the Apocalypse still lives in a cave in the Pyrenees and will leave that cave only at the end of time.5

    These events and stories reveal that Mary Magdalene and the Gnostic current may very possibly be the driving force behind the rich history of this region. Whether it is fact or legend that Mary Magdalene actually came to this area is less important than the power and impact her life and teachings had upon the people of France. It is obvious to anyone who opens their eyes to see, that early in the history of this grace-filled tradition, Mary Magdalene, Apostle of the Apostles entered and has remained at the heart of Christianity.

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    Footnotes:

    1. From a conversation with minister and playwright Lila Sophia Tresemer, co-author of the play and DVD, Re-Discovering Mary Magdalene (written with her husband, David Tresemer), for which I created the choreography. In their travels through France, she discovered a tradition of using the healing oils of Mary Magdalene that was said to have been passed down to healers now living in the south of France.
    2. Sharron Rose, The Path of the Priestess; A Guidebook for Awakening the Divine Feminine (Inner Traditions, 2002) p.104
    3. From the forward by Leslie Shepard to G.R.S. Mead’s, Pistis Sophia (University Books, 1974), p. xvii
    4. From the recent translation by Jean-Yves Leloup, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene (Inner Traditions, 2002).
    5. For greater insight into these events see Weidner and Bridges, The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye: Alchemy and the End of Time (Destiny Books, 2003) and the Sacred Mysteries DVD, Secrets of Alchemy: The Great Cross and the End of Time.
    Top image caption: The “Mother of the World” by mystic and artist Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947). Nicholas and his wife Helena taught that the World Mother has manifested many times over the millennia. (Image courtesy of the Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York, www.roerich.org).

    © New Dawn Magazine and the respective author.
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  • Gnosticism: Ancient and Modern

    Gnosticism: Ancient and Modern

    From New Dawn 85

    Every dog has its day, so they say, and it looks like Gnosticism, an ancient approach to spiritual experience, may be having its day, once again. Of course, despite the best efforts of the early Catholic Church, Gnosticism never really disappeared, but its reappearance over the centuries has been fleeting and sporadic. Why, as we march into a new millennium, is this hidden stream of quasi-Christian mysticism triggering a fresh interest among both spiritual seekers and readers of popular novels?

    Dan Brown’s mega-bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, surely shares part of the credit. This publishing phenomenon, which sold over 6 million copies, took a simmering interest in the Knights Templar, the Divine Feminine, alleged secret societies such as the Priory of Sion, the Holy Grail, and the question of the historical Jesus, and stirred these ingredients together with a generous dollop of Gnosticism.

    The result was a blockbuster thriller that unexpectedly caught the popular imagination. Despite the fact that at least two other previous thrillers, The Da Vinci Legacy by Lewis Perdue (1983), and Kingdom Come (2000) by Jim Hougan, had overlapped much of the same territory, lightning struck Brown’s novel and sparked innumerable dinner-table discussions of heretofore-arcane topics such as Mary Magdalene’s real relationship to Jesus.

    But the success of The Da Vinci Code is just the culminating phase of a gradual public awareness of Gnostic matters that extends back at least a century to the great Occult Revival of the late 19th century. At that time, Gnosticism slowly re-emerged from the shadows, nudged by the French occultist Eliphas Lévi, and propelled along by Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society, French neo-gnostics such as Papus and Jean Bricaud, and researchers such as G.R.S. Mead (whose pioneering discussion of the Gnostics, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, was for many decades one of the few sourcebooks on the subject for general readers).

    However, it was the discovery of a cache of ancient Gnostic scriptures at Nag Hammadi in the Egyptian desert in 1945 that really set off the modern phase of the Gnostic revival. Although their translation into English was not complete until the late 1970s, early access to some of the writings inspired the great psychologist Carl Jung to draw parallels between the ancient Gnostics and modern depth psychology. The publication in 1977 of the Nag Hammadi Librarytranslations, followed in 1978 by religious scholar Elaine Pagels’ best-selling exposition, The Gnostic Gospels, guaranteed that Gnosticism would not go away anytime soon. But before we take a further look at the burgeoning phenomenon of modern Gnosticism, a review of the ancient Gnostic teachings is in order.

    Gnosis and the Church

    Though scholars argue there were Gnostic teachings that predated the early Christian era, what is most commonly thought of as Gnosticism consisted of numerous Christian sects that thrived in the immediate centuries after the ministry of Jesus. These sects, often gathered around charismatic mystics, certainly thought of themselves as Christian, and it was only their emphasis ongnosis, or divine knowledge, that later earned them the sweeping label of Gnostic.

    As Christianity spread outside the confines of a specifically Jewish faith, it was perhaps inevitable that some gentile Christians would reinterpret their conception of God to distinguish Him from the tribal “G-d of Israel” Whose Covenant with His people seemed anchored to their particular identity as Jews. Christian aspirations to a universal faith, applicable to anyone with ears to hear, led many Gnostics to posit that God the Father, of whom Jesus spoke, must be a different God altogether: a hitherto Unknown God Who existed far above the earthly realm and was free of ethnic contracts or favouritism. Christ functioned as the messenger from this remote and impartial God, and some Gnostic scriptures downgraded the Jealous God of the Old Testament to the role of Demiurge, a lesser creator-god who brought a flawed Creation into existence and mistakenly ruled it with a heavy hand as if he were the True God.1

    Thus, in the Gnostic view, salvation from this diminished material realm of suffering and injustice depended less on one’s mere beliefs or on the following of religious laws that the Demiurge put in place, than on the individual’s inner experience of gnosis – a divine knowledge of the cosmic order and one’s true identity. The Gnostic scriptures alluded to Christ’s secret teachings, which would aid the Gnostic to embrace gnosis, and armed with this knowledge, to escape the illusory realm of the Demiurge at the time of death.

    There are any number of reasons why Gnosticism was bound to come into conflict with that portion of the Church which was consolidating into an institutional monolith. Gnosis, by its very nature, was an individual experience that eluded systematisation. While the Gnostics had priests and even bishops, their leadership derived from their mystical bonafides, not from a bureaucratic position of authority. Furthermore, the canonical Gospels portrayed Jesus as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and the Messiah promised to the Hebrews. The Gnostics’ break with what they considered the Demiurge was at cross purposes with this historical reading and undermined the working mythos of the institutional Church.

    In another example of scriptural reversal, some Gnostic versions of the Creation story of Adam and Eve portrayed the Serpent as Liberator, offering the apple as a means to knowledge unfairly denied to humankind by the despotic Demiurge. There was obviously no way to accept this counter-version and the traditional version at the same time.

    Divine Feminine

    The most common Gnostic revision of the Creation story spoke of Sophia (Wisdom), an extension of the True God, venturing forth from the Pleroma (the fullness of the ineffable divine realm), producing an aborted spiritual being, Ialdobaoth (the Demiurge), who in turn created the flawed material world. Sophia, seeing sparks of the divine entrapped in matter, descended to try and free them and was herself entrapped. It took the efforts of the Christ (pre-existing in the Pleroma) to extricate her and return her, past the Archons presiding over intermediate planes, to her rightful place beside Him: a tale symbolic of the plight of the soul enmeshed in illusion.

    Finally, the indications in Gnostic scriptures, such as the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary, that Mary Magdalene was closer to Jesus than the other disciples and received secret teachings denied to them, undercut both St. Paul’s misogynist version of Christianity and the Catholic Church’s claim to legitimacy based on St. Peter’s supposed selection as the “rock” on which the Church would be built. The prominent role given to the Divine Feminine via the Gnostic veneration of the Magdalene and Sophia was partly recuperated by the Roman Church through the significance it later afforded the Virgin Mary, but this status was subsumed within the overall supremacy of a Church run by celibate males.

    Whatever Gnosticism’s virtues as an effective path to gnosis and to unconditioned consciousness, it was simply too idiosyncratic and contrarian to make the grade as a stabilising component of Roman power. Its subversive counter-myths stood little chance of being integrated into a social order based on top-down power relations emanating from Rome and Constantinople. The prevailing Church absorbed those elements of the Gnostic worldview that best served its own ends and scuttled the rest, consigning the Gnostics to the oblivion of heresy and their scriptures to the bonfires of proscribed texts.

    Of course attempts to obliterate ideas or spiritual currents that remain attractive to some are never wholly successful. Pockets of Gnostic alienation persisted among the Eastern European Bogomils, and eventually influenced the Cathars of Languedoc (southern France). The scourge of the Inquisition originated as a response to the growing influence of the Cathars, whose 12th century challenge to the Catholic Church could no longer be tolerated. The Albigensian Crusade in the 13th century effectively wiped out the Cathars.2  Subsequent Gnostic impulses and teachings survived as heavily-cloaked myths and symbol systems within marginal esoteric currents of the West.

    It was only once the religious and social hegemony of the Church was diminished by the succeeding blows of the Protestant Reformation, the Renaissance, and the scientific rationalism of the Enlightenment, that there was sufficient elbow room for Gnosticism to re-emerge into the light of day.

    Yet, the question remains why Gnosticism should prove of special interest to increasing numbers today. Are there particular characteristics of today’s society that resonate with the Gnostic worldview? One answer is provided if we consider the popularity of “The Matrix” movies and the influential ideas of science fiction author Philip K. Dick.

    The Illusion of Daily Life

    Central to both the Matrix and to Dick is the creeping perception that things are not as they seem: our perception of reality, both individual and collective, is an artificial construct masking the unnerving truth. In ripping away the façade of normality, we come face to face with our true dilemma – we live in a maze of illusions and self-delusions from which we must extricate ourselves. This is, of course, a fundamentally Gnostic worldview.

    The ancient Gnostics were aware that material existence is, at its root, a beguiling and temporary illusion. (Hindus called this “Maya.”) Modern physics has confirmed this at the sub-molecular level, where one can see that apparently solid objects are, in fact, composed of moving bits of energy that are neither wholly particle nor wave. The closer one looks, the less there is to see. The vast emptiness of outer space is mirrored by the vast emptiness within matter itself.

    Esoteric traditions around the world teach that consciousness can exist independent of the body, and that the ability to deliver our consciousness from its addiction to sensory input and compulsive thought patterns can lead to an experience of divine consciousness (gnosis). The message of the Christ of the Gnostics was not that he considered himself the unique and only Son of God, but that each person has the potential to expand their consciousness across the vast emptiness to the level of godhood or Self-realisation.

    If the illusoriness of daily life was self-evident in the relatively simple world of two millennia ago, it is becoming even more so, for those with the eyes to see, in the present world of cybernetic virtual realities, Hollywood dream-worlds, instant messaging, corporate branding campaigns, and information warfare. The ancient Gnostics were resigned to the fact that the majority of humans were fatally caught in the illusion, and for this they were called elitists.  Similarly, modern Gnostics perceive that most people around them are inextricably locked into a delusory existence in which their potential consciousness is siphoned off in exchange for corporate profit and material survival. This, too, is a minority perception, but it is steadily growing.

    The Gnostic rush many of us felt upon first seeing the Wachowski Brothers’ “The Matrix” was the heady sensation that somehow a deprogramming meme had made it through the corporate maze of AOL-Time-Warner, and that the dream factory itself had been tricked into promulgating a flash of gnosis. Millions responded and suddenly there was much more money on the table. All too predictably, the second and third Matrix films smothered the first film’s spark of insight under tons of ever more dazzling special effects, violence, and pretentious symbolism. The still small voice of the wake-up call embedded in film one was drowned out by the din of its own success. The series’ degeneration was an uncanny recapitulation of the suppression of ancient Gnosticism by the early Church. In the end, the Matrix – like the Church before it – emerged triumphant.

    Of course, it is a bit of a leap from perceiving daily life as delusory to embracing an ancient cosmology that specifies a false god, a True God, a malevolent pantheon of Archons, and a hieros gamos (divine marriage) of Christ and Sophia. Unless one is in the market for a ready-made dramatic cast of spiritual entities to believe in, the Gnostic myths best serve as metaphors for one’s dilemma – and, in fact, that may have been the role they played for the early Gnostics, as well.

    There are two ways to view the Gnostic myths as potent metaphors: one inner and one outer. The inner way is to see the Gnostic cosmology as a visionary description of the hurdles one must leap in meditation. In trying to ascend to a contemplative state of pure consciousness, one must move beyond the incessant activity of the mind (the Demiurge), and past one’s fears and compulsions (the Archons), before one can arrive at a consciousness beyond time and space (the Pleroma). The successful achievement of this gnosis while still “in the body” prepares one for the similar passage that one’s consciousness must take after death.

    An outer reading of the Gnostic cosmology, on the other hand, might consider the Demiurge to be anyone’s flawed and limited image of God, which must be seen through and surpassed on the way to true spiritual insight. The Archons would be the many social laws, institutions, and corporate entities that hamstring one’s existence. On this level, a kind of external gnosis would be one’s realisation of the ultimate inability of these earthly captors to imprison our higher self. In this reading, Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection serve as metaphors for our own daily immolation and extrication. In this instance, a Gnostic motto might be: “Don’t let the bastards get you down!”

    Wandering Bishops

    Reading The Da Vinci Code or The Gnostic Gospels or watching “The Matrix” are all very well, but such books and movies do not by themselves constitute a Gnostic revival. Revivals or movements require actual social vehicles to engage and embody people’s interests. One place this is happening – albeit on a small scale – is in the low-profile milieu of small independent Gnostic churches. An examination of this phenomenon leads us to the quirky turf of “wandering bishops” – a curious subculture of purported Catholic, Orthodox, and Gnostic bishops who usually (and painstakingly) trace their lines of apostolic succession back to (wait for it) St. Peter or one of the other apostles. This requires some explaining.

    The mainstream Roman Catholic Church hangs its legitimacy on unbroken lines of consecration from bishop to bishop, extending all the way back to St. Peter. Only bishops (or higher clergy) can ordain priests or consecrate other bishops – a form of organisational quality-control, as well as a narrow conduit for the divine grace that is said to be conveyed in the sacrament of ordination. Since an ordination or a consecration makes the recipient “a priest forever unto the order of Melchizadek,” a priest or bishop who later turns heretic, or otherwise runs afoul of the Church’s hierarchy, retains legitimate Orders – even if forbidden to celebrate Mass or excommunicated from the Church.

    Employing a liberal interpretation of this curious rule, schismatic churches such as the Jansenist Dutch Church, which broke with Rome in 1723, could claim legitimate apostolic succession despite their status outside the Roman Church’s umbrella.  Taking this logic one step further, some bishops consecrated by bishops of the Dutch Church (later the Old Catholic Church, following an alignment with other “national” churches in 1889) claimed the right to start their own churches and pass on the line of “valid” consecration. For instance, Bishop James Ingall Wedgewood was consecrated a bishop in the Old Catholic Church in 1916 and within two years had founded the Liberal Catholic Church, which became a kind of esoteric house church for the Theosophical Society.3

    One of the most influential of these independent bishops was Joseph René Vilatte, an Old Catholic missionary in Wisconsin, who sought and received consecration as bishop from the Syrian Jacobite Church in 1892 in Ceylon and subsequently consecrated several other bishops in North America and France who consecrated numerous other bishops in turn.

    Needless to say, notions of doctrinal fidelity or consistency – which were understandably a key concern of Rome – were lost in the shuffle, with the result that independent bishops, who were often “more Catholic than the Pope,” sometimes shared the same apostolic lines as esoterically inclined bishops with Gnostic leanings. Over time, this led to a new generation of Gnostic bishops who could now claim apostolic succession. Exactly why apostolic succession would matter to latter-day Gnostics is something of a mystery, particularly since whatever legitimacy the original Gnostics claimed derived from gnosis itself, not from institutional standing. One suspects that even heretics desire approval, and in the absence of Gnostic lines of succession, most latter-day Gnostic bishops are quite happy to gain succession from St. Peter, illicit though it may be – especially if it tweaks the nose of the Vatican.4

    One Gnostic “Patriarch” in France, Jules Doinel (Tau Valentin II), sidestepped the issue altogether by receiving “a double spiritual consecration; the first by Jesus in person, the second during a spiritualist séance by two Bogomile bishops.”5  Doinel, who founded the Universal Gnostic Church, went on to consecrate the noted French occultists Papus and Sédir, thus empowering further Gnostic lines, some of which have continued to the present. Another Gnostic group of French origin, the elusive Holy Order of Miriam of Magdala, has cited traditions of a female apostolic line extending back to Mary Magdalene, but has attached no importance to providing verification of such traditions. The spurious Priory of Sion, celebrated in The Da Vinci Code and hyped in Holy Blood, Holy Grail – and likely of no earlier origin than 1956 – avoided ecclesiastical trappings altogether, preferring to concoct a lineage based on the supposed bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene which the Priory claimed to guard.6

    Perhaps representative of the Gnostic branch of bishops in the English-speaking world was one Richard Duc de Palatine, an Australian originally named Ronald Powell, who was initially ordained in the Liberal Catholic Church and, in 1953, consecrated a bishop by Mar Georgius I (Hugh George de Willmott Newman), Patriarch of Glastonbury, one of the most fecund independent bishops. Palatine then founded his own Pre-Nicene Gnostic Catholic Church. Palatine, whose penchant for organising esoteric orders was second to none, also founded the Order of the Pleroma, the Brotherhood of the Pleroma, the Disciplina Arcani, and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light. These appear to have led a largely mail-order existence.7  Palatine’s episcopal concerns were intermingled with esoteric, magical, and even Freemasonic preoccupations, but in spite of this – or perhaps due to it – some serious modern Gnostics became associated with him. The most notable is Bishop Stephan Hoeller, arguably the foremost proponent of a contemporary Gnosticism.

    Hoeller was consecrated by Palatine in 1967 and for a number of years worked within the fold of his Church and other groups. His Los Angeles-based Ecclesia Gnostica (Church of Gnosis) grew out of his work with the Pre-Nicene Church, and Hoeller has been an indefatigable author and synthesizer, drawing upon ancient Gnostic sources, Jungian psychology, and esoteric Christian concepts, in an effort to construct a modern Gnostic presence.

    Secret Teachings of Jesus

    As a diligent search of the Web will show, there are an ever increasing number of fledgling Gnostic churches, most of them situated in, or derived from, the “wandering bishop” milieu. Many of them consist of little more than a bishop and a local congregation, if that. This is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. After all, the ancient Gnostic sects amounted to the same thing: scattered groups with little uniformity between them. But it also presents the would-be seeker of gnosis with a certain dilemma: Can gnosis be taught? And if it can, who is qualified to teach it?

    The ancient Gnostics claimed to be guardians of the secret teachings of Jesus, teachings that were lost when Gnosticism was defeated. Formal issues of apostolic succession aside, no modern Gnostics can claim to perpetuate those teachings in unaltered form, because the chains of transmission have been lost. Even the scriptures that have been recovered – as fascinating as they may be – retain an opaque quality, because the original interpretive keys are absent.

    Thus, any modern Gnostic group or teacher must be carefully evaluated, based on subtle qualities that evidence real spiritual depth and understanding. Impressive lists of titles, degrees, and credentials mean little if there is no indication of a voice that speaks from the experience of gnosis. While it may be too much to expect that any given Gnostic teacher is going to be the embodiment of divine illumination, one still has the right to expect that those who talk the talk can walk the walk.

    Divine knowledge may be gained in a variety of ways – after all, it was not the exclusive possession of the Gnostics, any more than the True God is the possession of any single religion. If teachers of real attainment choose to use the metaphors of ancient Gnosticism to encourage self-discovery, then the Gnostic revival may fulfill its promise. But if the rekindled interest in Gnosticism is going to amount to anything besides a few books and movies and an unsatisfied hunger for enlightenment, we need to see a growing indication of the true discovery of inner godhood, not a fruitless scramble to decipher a few fragments of someone else’s gnosis.

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    Footnotes:

    1. Some scholars have suggested that this reframing of G-d was first done by Jewish intellectuals who were themselves dissatisfied with the Torah’s portrayal of the deity. Thus early Christian Gnosticism may have been influenced by, or may have been an extension of, a Jewish Gnosticism intent on reinterpreting the Jewish religious traditions. See: Birger A. Pearson, “The Problem of ‘Jewish Gnostic’ Literature,” in Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, and Early Christianity, edited by Charles W. Hedrick and Robert Hodgson, Jr. (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 1986), pp. 15-35.
    2. Yuri Stoyanov, The Hidden Tradition in Europe (London: Penguin/Arkana, 1994).
    3. The premiere exposition of this milieu is Peter F. Anson’s Bishops at Large (London: Faber & Faber, 1964), which is both droll and exhaustively detailed. It is, sadly, long out of print. A more recent (and apologetic) discussion of the phenomenon can be found in Lewis Keizer’s The Wandering Bishops: Apostles of a New Spirituality (2000), available in PDF format at:www.hometemple.org/WanBishWeb%20Complete.pdf.
    4. The Vatican, for its part, seems to have nothing encouraging to say about independent bishops. One of the more common claims of Vatican recognition for the sacraments and orders of the Liberal Catholic Church, for instance – a supposed positive ruling by the Roman Congregation of Rites – has been exposed as a hoax. (See: “Rome and Liberal Catholic Orders,” by Rev. L. K. Langley at: www.lcc.cc/tlc/lxvi1/rome.htm) The Vatican’s stance appears to be that so-called valid orders are worthless without the Church’s recognition.
    5. Anson, p. 307.
    6. See: Robert Richardson, “The Priory of Sion Hoax,” GNOSIS Magazine #51, pp. 49-55, (www.gnosismagazine.com). Reprinted in New Dawn No. 61 (July-August 2000).
    7. Anson, pp. 492-495, and J. Gordon Melton, The Encyclopedia of American Religions, Second Edition (Detroit, Mich: Gale Research, 1987), pp. 612, 618.

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