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Part Two: The Gnostic Jesus In Gnostic mythology, Jesus is more of a revealer than a redeemer. This is driven by the Gnostic belief that knowledge can be the one thing that affords eternal salvation, and that human sinfulness is the result of spiritual ignorance. According to the Gnostic gospels, Jesus came not to save by his own deeds, but to enlighten. The first recipients of this spiritual enlightenment (the attainment of gnosis) were his disciples, according to works such as the Gospel of Thomas. The Gnostics claim that they have the “secret sayings” of Jesus, for use in unlocking that knowledge which leads one to the Pleroma (father god). It is also important to remember here that the Gnostics believe a false god created the earth. And as a result, the whole physical universe is evil. Therefore, in order for God to send a personal messenger, to bring gnosis to the corrupt world, the messenger would have to remain untainted by the mark that Gnostics believe physical existence places on humans. Because of the Gnostic preoccupation with the incorporeal over the corporeal—essentially ‘mind over matter’—Christ could not have been human to be a worthy vessel through which to bring salvation. He is certainly viewed as the Son of God, as he refers to the Pleroma continually as his father. And at the same time, unlike the Christian view of Christ, he is no man. In The Gospel of Truth (one of the Gnostic texts), it is written that “the name of the Father is the Son [Christ]. It is he who first gave a name to the one who came forth from him who was himself, and he begot him as a son.” (Gospel of Truth 38:7-10). There are other references to the divinity of Jesus in other Gnostic writings such as The Gospel of Thomas, the Tripartite Tractate, The Prayer of the Apostle Paul, and the Apocryphon of John. One of the most significant references to the spirit-like and inhuman nature of Christ as Gnostics believe was in Acts of John 93, where it is written that “sometimes when I [John] meant to touch him [Christ] I encountered a material, solid body; but at other times again when I felt him, his substance was immaterial and incorporeal…as if he did not exist at all.” This inhuman nature of Jesus believed by the Gnostics also possesses significant implications for their view of resurrection of the body. Because the physical self is viewed as more of a prison than an extension of the mind, a resurrected body would be insignificant. Therefore the Gnostics interpret Christ’s resurrection as meaning more of a rebirth—the kind experienced when one attains gnosis. In this he was living more by example than by some kind of plan for a redemptive act. Jesus in the Gnostic mind is no redeemer—he is a messenger, the message itself being the redemption. Here we divide into two separate schools of Gnosticism: Sethian and Valentinian. As explained in part one, the former of these groups focused much of their theology on the figure of Seth, son of Adam. These are sometimes referred to as Jewish Gnostics, their mythology having more of an Old Testament focus. In this school of Gnosticism, Christ is the reappearance (not precisely a reincarnation as he was supposed to be spirit) of Seth, who returned to earth bringing gnosis out of a desire to see his literal ‘children’ redeemed. Christ was Seth in disguise. The second branch of Gnosticism is called Valentinian, or Christian Gnosticism. This group emerged more directly out of the Apostolic church of the second century A.D., led by Valentinus. This leader was born in Africa, somewhere near Carthage around the year 100, and became a well-known part of the Christian community beginning around 135 A.D. From here until his death he was frequently condemned by the church as a heretic, since he preached the newer doctrines that differed from traditional Christianity. Finally, Jesus’ passion on the cross was also less significant in the eyes of both Gnostic sects. The Gnostics were unanimous in diminishing the importance of Christ’s crucifixion. This view is best summed up in this selection from the Apocalypse of Peter: I saw him apparently being seized by them. And I said, “What am I seeing, O Lord? Is it really you whom they take? And are you holding on to me? And are they hammering the feet and hands of another? Who is the one above the cross, who is glad and laughing?” The Savior said to me, “He whom you saw being glad and laughing above the cross is the Living Jesus. But he into whose hands and feet they are driving the nails is his fleshy part, which is the substitute. They put to shame that which remained in his likeness. And look at him, and [look at] me!” -Apocalypse of Peter 81:4-24. This passage points clearly to a detached and incorporeal savior, who does not suffer truly, but instead laughs at the ignorance of the men who bound and defiled his body. This defilement means nothing to Gnostics—as it was written in the passage, they believe his flesh was “the substitute”. In the Second Treatise of the Great Seth, Jesus expresses to his disciples the Sethian view of Jesus: ”It was another…who drank the gall and vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. It was another upon whom they placed the crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height…over their error…And I was laughing at their ignorance.” - Second Treatise of the Great Seth 56:6-19. In each case, we are given a metaphysical Jesus who differs strongly from the Christian savior who is cast in terms as human as they are divine. This view of Jesus is essential to the argument put forward by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code, because he claims that these first Gnostic Christians believed in Jesus differently than later Christians would. In the next part, we will examine just how well these claims about Gnosticism and the Gnostic Jesus match up historically. |
