The Apocryphal Gospels_A Very Short Introduction
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Primarily these texts say much concerning the diversity and vibrancy of those groups in the 2nd and 3rd centuries which claimed to stand in continuity with the Jesus movement of the 1st century. Given the radically divergent ways in which the core allegiance to Jesus could be expressed, such fluidity at the earliest stages of development should prompt extreme caution about interpreting Christianity as a monolithic and doctrinally unified form from which Gnostics, Docetics, and a host of other ‘heretics’ diverged. It appears far more accurate to speak of divergent and at times competing strands which sought to promote their own perspectives in relation to the significance of Jesus. While it is perhaps tempting to project contemporary concerns and theological questions back onto ancient contexts, such ancient documents may offer some significant resources for discussing current issues as long as it is recognized that they come from a culturally distant society, their perspectives are shaped by prescientific understandings, and that the worldviews they encapsulate originate from a pre-Enlightenment mode of thought.
While the texts as ‘whole documents’ may reflect a period later than the 1st century and thus enshrine the concerns of various Christian groups living in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, nonetheless there remains the possibility that individual sayings or certain accounts may occasionally go back to the life of Jesus. This situation is much the same for the canonical gospels. Perhaps the major significant difference is that the majority of scholars would date the composition of the canonical gospels to the 1st century, whereas the majority of scholars (although with some notable dissenting voices) would date the non-canonical texts in their completed forms to later centuries. While this certainly does not mean the canonical gospels are pristine historical accounts, it does mean that the greater ‘historical gap’ between the events they purport to report and the time of the writing of the non-canonical gospels should give pause for thought before building too much on their alternative portrayals of Jesus as being of greater historical worth than their canonical counterparts. The process of recovering authentic sayings or deeds of Jesus from the four canonical accounts is a highly contested endeavour. To believe that this is an easier task for the non-canonical reports is frankly naïve. Notwithstanding this important caveat, a number of scholars have felt that it may be possible to recover authentic Jesus sayings from non-canonical sources – in particular from the Gospel of Thomas. It is perhaps instructive to consider the findings of one highly controversial attempt to do just this.
The Jesus Seminar was founded by Robert Funk in 1985. Its primary aim was to determine the authentic words of Jesus. Although there have been many other attempts to do this, there had not previously been such a large-scale collaborative enterprise; the Jesus Seminar at its greatest extent grew to a body of more than 200 scholars. By 1993, after bi-annual meetings, the deliberations were completed. Using coloured beads, each scholar cast a vote relating to every saying of Jesus contained in the four canonical gospels and in Thomas to indicate their own critical sense of whether the individual saying originated with Jesus. The colours and their designations were as follows: red, Jesus almost certainly said this (or something very similar); pink, Jesus probably said something like this; grey, Jesus did not say this but it reflects his ideas; black, Jesus did not say this and it represents later perspectives or different traditions. Interestingly, of the hundreds of Jesus sayings, the votes of this body of scholars reached the required level for a ‘red’ saying (0.75 on a scale of 0 to 1.0) in relation to only 15 sayings of Jesus. Admittedly, some of these sayings occurred in more than one gospel so they had multiple attestation, but even counting repeated sayings separately gives only 25 instances of sayings deemed to be unquestionably authentic. Of these 25, 12 occur in Luke, 9 occur in Matthew, 3 in Thomas, 1 in Mark, and none in John. Many of the authentic sayings in Matthew and Luke are part of what scholars believe was an early source called Q, which these two gospels are believed to have shared as a written strand of Jesus’ sayings. While such statistics may appear shocking to some people, it illustrates the difficulty scholars have in definitively linking any saying contained in either the canonical or non-canonical gospels back to Jesus. Although many would dispute the meagre findings of the Jesus Seminar, and the approach has been widely criticized, often for downplaying the apocalyptic and end-time aspects of Jesus’ teaching, the success in bringing together so many scholars to discuss the issue was a major achievement, and very few scholars would claim that it was an easy task to determine authentic Jesus sayings in any strand of the traditions preserved about him in the early Church.
It is for this reason that claims that the non-canonical gospels as a whole reveal an alternative portrait of Jesus free from the theological overlays of a developing ‘orthodoxy’ must be seen as being false. Admittedly, the early Church developed hierarchical structures and male-dominated forms of leadership, and a number of the non-canonical gospels critique such developments. However, these texts defend the perspectives of their authors and of the communities that read them, but not by presenting a more historically reliable version of the life and teachings of Jesus. Instead, for ideological purposes they create a new way of thinking about salvation, the universe, and the individual’s personal search for completeness. In order to critique apostolic Christianity, many of these texts re-invent the story of Jesus, rather than taking readers back to authentic historical bedrock. Thus, the value of these texts must be understood for what it is – a glimpse into the battles fought during the 2nd and 3rd centuries between Christians with radically different understandings of salvation, church order, and the significance of Jesus.
Chapter 2
The ‘gospels’ from Nag Hammadi
Discovery and publication
The story of the discovery of the 12 bound codices and the remains of a 13th volume at Nag Hammadi is shrouded in intrigue, murder, and revenge. The manuscript collection was unearthed by a fieldworker by the name of Muhammad Ali al-Samman who lived across the Nile from Nag Hammadi in a small hamlet called Qasr. After the sugarcane harvest he was out digging for fertilizer at the base of a nearby cliff. This incident occurred about half a year after the murder of his father in a blood feud. The date of the father’s death is recorded in the Nag Hammadi register of deaths as 7 May 1945. Muhammad Ali, although unable to date events by the calendar, was able to remember that the discovery was a few weeks before Coptic Christmas (7 January 1946) and about half a year after his father’s death. This makes the likely date of discovery early December 1945.
What Muhammad Ali actually unearthed was a large jar sealed with a bowl that had been attached by bitumen at its opening. In the hope of treasure, he broke the jar open, but he was disappointed to discover only a collection of old books. Apparently he tore some codices up to share among the camel drivers who were present with him. However, the majority declined his offer, so he bundled
5. The site of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices, which were unearthed when Muhammad Ali al-Samman was digging for soft soil to use as fertilizer. The books were discovered near Nag Hammadi, between Denderah and Panopolis. The collection of codices had been carefully placed in a tomb in the Pacomian cemetery at the foot of the Djebel el Tarif cliff
them up together again and took them home. These were left in the enclosed courtyard of his house, and it has been reported that his mother burned some of the pages as kindling for the outdoor clay oven. After having attempted to sell the books for about an Egyptian pound or to barter them for some cigarettes, Muhammad Ali was informed by somebody who saw the codices that they were written in Coptic not Arabic. After having deposited Codex III with a Coptic priest, this volume eventually came into the possession of the Coptic Museum in Cairo. Codex I, which turned up in an antique shop and then was smuggled out of Egypt, was finally purchased by the Jung Institute in Zurich and hence became known as the Jung codex. Most of the remaining codices were acquired by a Cypriot antiquities dealer in Cairo, Phocion J. Tano(s).
6. The Nag Hammadi
codices. The papyrus sheets were carefully housed in robust leather bindings tied with leather straps
After the application of some pressure, he was persuaded to ‘entrust’ them to the government. The Egyptian government then nationalized the codices and housed them in the Coptic Museum in Cairo.
During the time immediately after the discovery of the codices, other events took place in Muhammad Ali’s life which were personally of greater significance. After the murder of his father in the blood feud, Muhammad Ali’s mother had charged her seven sons to keep their mattocks sharpened. The opportunity for revenge came unexpectedly but action was taken swiftly. James Robinson, a leading Nag Hammadi specialist who had direct contact with Muhammad Ali, recorded the recollection of the bloodthirsty attack in the following manner:
Muhammad Ali’s memory of revenge: Someone ran to his house to tell the family that the murderer Amad sma*l was asleep in the heat of the day on a dirty road nearby, with a jug of sugarcane molasses, the local product, by his side. The sons grabbed their mattocks, fell on the hapless person before he could flee, hacked him up, cut open his heart, and, dividing it up among them, ate it raw, the ultimate act of blood vengeance.
Understandably Muhammad Ali was reluctant to lead Robinson to the site of the discovery after this, since it would take him close to the territory of the family of Amad sma*l and he feared that a further act of blood vengeance would be exacted against him. Robinson sought out the family of Amad sma*l who said they felt that they had exacted revenge when, at a later date, they had opened fire on a funeral cortège involving the family of Muhammad Ali. At this, Muhammad Ali was persuaded to take Robinson to the site where the jar containing the codex had been found.
The story of the discovery took some time to come to light, and the publication of the texts was an equally slow and delayed task. The 1950s was a period of virtual inaction due to political turmoil in Egypt and a lack of impetus from certain academic quarters. It is not fruitful to lay blame or to name individuals involved in this tardy translation and publication process. What should not be entertained is the notion of any conspiracy theory involving the suppression of these texts. Like the Dead Sea Scrolls, there was no Vatican cover-up, simply individual scholars wished to have the glory of publishing as many of the hitherto unknown texts as possible. The surprising thing is that those who had this opportunity in the first decade or two after the discovery did not capitalize on it. Not until the late 1960s did the photographs of the codices begin to filter into the public domain, thanks largely to the semi-clandestine work of James Robinson in reproducing the UNESCO copies of the images at a Paris photographic shop over a single weekend when he had been given access to the files. Facsimile editions were then published at a relatively brisk pace between 1972 and 1977, at which stage the whole corpus was made available in the public domain. Also during 1977, the one-volume edition entitled The Nag Hammadi Library in English was published. This brought together the English translations that had appeared in the facsimile volumes. At last scholars could readily consult the entire corpus of texts that had been unearthed some 33 years earlier.
The ‘gospel’ texts from Nag Hammadi
The question concerning the number of ‘gospel’ texts discovered among the Nag Hammadi writings is not easily answered. This is not due to fragmentary manuscripts, for on the whole the texts are well preserved, but stems from the difficulty that has been discussed in Chapter 1 of defining what actually is a gospel, and what is not. One helpful clue, at least to the ancient attitude to these texts, is self-reference. Yet as has been mentioned, this can result in too narrow a definition. A number of the documents discovered at Nag Hammadi include the word ‘gospel’ in self-referential description. Four texts explicitly contain the term ‘gospel’, either in titles at the beginning or end of the documents, or in the opening sentences – not so much as a title, but as a description of contents.
For pragmatic reasons, in this chapter four Nag Hammadi texts will be discussed: The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Truth, and The Gospel of the Egyptians. Although these have either had the term ‘gospel’ applied to them, or use the word as a description of their contents, they represent a disparate collection of writings. There are other texts in the Nag Hammadi collection which could also be thought of as gospel-type texts. These include ‘revelation dialogues’ such as the Apocryphon of John or the Sophia of Jesus Christ. Although those two texts are not discussed at length in this book, in some ways they share greater similarities in genre with dialogue gospel texts discussed in Chapter 5.
The Gospel of Thomas
Amongst the non-canonical gospels, Thomas has generated the most interest and offered the greatest prospect of recovering independent early Jesus material outside of the corpus of the four canonical gospels. Although various Greek fragments of Thomas were excavated at Oxyrhynchus in 1897 and 1903, it was not until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices in 1945 that these fragments could be conclusively identified as part of the Gospel of Thomas, and that a thoroughgoing analysis of its theological ideas could be undertaken due to the possession of a fairly complete text. The Nag Hammadi text was written in Coptic (the indigenous language of Egypt which began to be widely used from the 1st century AD and continued until the language was finally replaced by Arabic in the 17th century), and that Coptic version of Thomas dates to around the 4th century.
The Coptic text comprises a series of a brief prologue and 114 sayings attributed to the ‘living Jesus’. The text opens in the following manner: ‘These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and which Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down.’ The designation of Jesus as ‘living’ has occasioned discussion. Various suggestions have been offered. It is possible that the word ‘living’ is used to denote Jesus in his post-resurrection state – such resurrection dialogues are well known in the corpus of apocryphal writings. Alternatively, it has been noted that the epithet ‘living’ could be used to indicate that Jesus possesses eternal life and provides such life to others. A more literary variation is to point out that this description represents Jesus as living through his sayings.
Furthermore, the names attributed to the one who wrote down the sayings, ‘Didymus Judas Thomas’, also require some explanation. Taking these three names in reverse order, first, Thomas is the name used in the canonical gospels for one of Jesus’ twelve disciples. While this name occurs only once in the disciple lists of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it is in the Gospel of John that Thomas gains most prominence, being mentioned on seven occasions. Interestingly, the word ‘Thomas’ may be related to the Syriac term t’oma, meaning ‘twin’. Second, the name ‘Judas’ became stigmatized in early Christianity because of the infamous Judas Iscariot. This meant that those who also possessed this name, especially among the circle of disciples, were distinguished from the betrayer of Jesus either by name changes or the addition of further names. In the Old Syriac version of John’s Gospel, in one place where the Greek text refers simply to ‘Thomas’ the Syriac text describes him as ‘Judas Thomas’ (John 14.5). Third, the term ‘Didymus’ is used in John’s Gospel to describe Thomas both in John 11.16 and 20.24, as well as in a variant reading at John 14.5. Didymus is the Greek word for ‘twin’. This means that the notion of Thomas’ ‘twinship’ is heavily and intentionally emphasized by calling him ‘Didymus Judas Thomas’. In another non-canonical text, The Acts of Thomas, the apostle known as Judas Thomas is identified by a talking colt as ‘twin of the Messiah and Apostle of the Most High’ (Acts Thom. 39). So in one branch of early Christianity, which appears to be centred in Syria, this Thomas who is a twin is in fact the twin (in some way) of Jesus. Such proximity to the foundational figure of Christianity instils the words of Thomas with great authority. This privileged wisdom allows the readers (or probably originally hearers) to enter into a narrative world and access a set of different Jesus traditions, which are not totally unrelated to the four Gospels of the Bible.
Nearly all of the sayings op
en with the standard phrase ‘Jesus said’, but Saying 1 is different. It states, ‘And he said, “Whoever finds the interpretation of these words will not taste death”’ (Gos. Thom. 1). The very fact that this opening saying does not explicitly identify the subject as Jesus lends weight to the suggestion that this is an editorial comment addressed to the readers, instructing them what they must do. However, the means of finding the interpretation of the ‘words’ that follow is not stated. Presumably for the original readers of this text, authorized meanings would have been discussed within the community that preserved it. It is not until Saying 2 that the actual words of Jesus are unambiguously presented. The second saying states: ‘Jesus said, “Whoever seeks, let him not cease seeking until he finds; and when he finds he will be troubled, and when he is troubled he will be amazed, and he will reign over the All.”’ Again the emphasis is on the pathway of discovering hidden understanding. Such a saying may align with later Gnostic ideas about privileged knowledge and elitist forms of Christianity. However, since Thomas lacks an overarching description of a cosmological system consisting of multilayered heavens, this may well mean that Thomas itself did not originate in the context of a well-formed Gnostic belief system, but was attractive to later readers who adhered to those more fully developed cosmologies. The progression that saying outlines, through the stages of being troubled, then amazed, then reigning, suggests that perplexity and confusion are prior stages on a journey of spiritual discovery. There is an important difference between the form of the final clause in the Coptic and Greek versions of this saying. The later Coptic version promises that the ‘seeker’ addressed in this saying will eventual ‘reign over the all’. By contrast, in the Greek version, which although lacunous (i.e. there are some holes in the manuscript) can be reconstructed with a fair degree of certainty, the final clause states ‘he will reign, and reigning he will have rest’.