Evolution of Gnosis in the New Testament

Evolution of Gnosis in the New Testament

Although most Gnostics considered themselves Christians, some sects assimilated only minor Christian elements into a body of non-Christian Gnostic texts. The Christian Gnostics refused to identify the God of the New Testament, the father of Jesus, with the God of the Old Testament, and they developed an unorthodox interpretation of Jesus’s ministry. The Gnostics wrote apocryphal gospels (such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary) to substantiate their claim that the risen Jesus told his disciples the true, Gnostic interpretation of his teachings. Christ, the divine spirit, inhabited the body of the man Jesus and did not die on the cross,m but ascended to the divine realm from which he had come. The Gnostics thus rejected the atoning suffering and death of Christ and the resurrection of the body. They also rejected other literal and traditional interpretations of the gospels. 

Matthew 11:27 and Luke 10:22 sounds Gnostic: 

All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

The son is the sole instrument of revelation, but did it really mean Israel? Jesus identified himself with Israel because he saw the Children of Israel as the targets of his saving mission rather than the whole of humanity as Christians later taught. A reference to "hidden thingsq in the previous verses is plainly Essene. "Infants" was originally "children" or "sons" or perhaps "thy sons," the same change having been made elsewhere in the gospels to make Jesus a friend of babes and infants when adult Children of Israel was the original reading in all cases. Perhaps all the subsequent mentions of "the Son" were "thy sons" meaning the Essenes. In John’s gospel "the Son" probably often meant "thy sons" in the works which John used or remembered in the writing of his piece. 

Matthew 11:28–30 sounds like Sirach 51:1, 23–27, wisdom literature. 

Paul’s early letters like Thessalonians (1 Thess 4:16–17; 2 Thess 1:7–8) are more apocalyptic and contain nothing that seems Gnostic. In Galatians 4:8–10 Paul tells his converts not to serve the "weak and impoverished 'stoicheia'" which they served when they employed a calendar which had "days, months, seasons and years". This sounds like a speech to former Essenes, but what precisely are the "stoicheia?" Possibly angels because Paul rejected the Mosaic law which was commanded by angels (Gal 3:19). 

Paul gradually comes to dwell more on Jesus’s redeeming death and less on his renewing return. Like Gnostics, Paul took the present time, if not the world itself, to be evil (Gal 1:4) but Jesus had saved those who believe; the new creation had already happened (Gal 6:15). In Colossians, we have all died with Christ to be separated from the "stoicheia" of the world. He sounds singularly Gnostic in 1 Corinthians 2:8 where he says the "archons of this aeon" murdered Christ because they did not know God’s hidden wisdom. Here he calls Christ "lord of Glory" one of God’s titles in the Book of Enoch, so there is a bit of apocalyptic and a bit of gnosis, though "archons" might simply mean rulers. 

Elsewhere (1 Cor 8:5) he speaks of many gods and many lords, possibly meaning the "archons," one of which is Death (1 Cor 15:25–26). In 2 Corinthians, Paul sounds even more Gnostic speaking of "the god of this age, who has blinded the minds of unbelievers" (2 Cor 4:4) but also harks back to Essene phraseology (2 Cor 6:14–15) including the name Belial for Satan. In 2 Corinthians 11:2–3, he speaks of the serpent seducing Eve and says they will become angels of light (2 Cor 11:14), also Gnostic. He declares with false modesty that he has himselve visited the third heaven where paradise is and heard "unutterable words" (2 Cor 12:2–4). Judaeo–Christian belief is in the exisence of seven heavens. Paul firmly believes now that Christ has won the cosmic battle over the evil angels. His outlook always sits between the Essenes and the Gnostics. 

Some of Paul’s followers got carried away with such talk and the Colossians seemed to worship "the elemental spirits of this world"—the angels—and to practise certain ascetic ways (2 Cor 2:16,21). Paul responds that all authority was created in Christ so they should not worship any of these authorities, angels or rulers (a suggestion of the deification of the Emperors?) (2 Cor 1:16, 2:14–15). 

In Ephesians, Paul is plainly Gnostic, if the letter is to be attributed to him—it might have been written pseudepigraphically after his death and the fall of Jerusalem. In Ephesians 2:14, the suggestion is made that the wall separating off the court of the gentiles from the holier parts of the temple has been broken. If this is not metaphorical, it means that the temple had been destroyed. Christians already live in heaven, the church having ascended to heaven to make the wisdom of God known to the powers that his followers battled against, "the world rulers of this darkness", "the spiritual beings of wickedness in the heavenly regions" (Eph 6:12). The apocalyptic expectations of the Essenes had turned into the cosmological myths of the Gnostics. Later Gnostics were fond of citing Paul as a proof text (2 Peter 3:15–16) and an elder of the church finds it necessary to write the Pastoral Epistles as pseudepigraphs to combat "myths and genealogies" (1 Tim 1:4) or "Jewish myths" (Tit 1:14) and the "profane babblings and contradictions of gnosis which is falsely so–called" (1 Tim 6:20). Everything created by God is good (1 Tim 4:4) and a gnosis opposed to marriage and to meat must be opposed (1 Tim 4:3). 

Luke also inclines towards gnosis when he says "the kingdom of God is your possession" (Lk 17:21) or "within you". In Acts 21:38–39 and in Acts 8:9–24 is Luke divorcing the apocalyptic easchatological traditions from Gnosticism? 

John might have remembered the sayings of Jesus but recast them in his own style (under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, of course, (Jn 14:26)). That is one Christian explanation of the vast difference between the Jesus of the synoptic gospels and of John. The prologue of John is proabably an Essene song of thanksgiving for the creation with Christian insertions (Jn 1:6–8, 15) to provide a link with the arrival on the scene of John the Baptist a few verses later. The word translated "Word" is "Logos" which can mean matter, deed, reason, thought. All the attributes of "Logos" in the prologue are the attributes of Wisdom in Jewish tradition. Philo who was Jewish has "the Word" as a second level god after the primal God, the god of the wise and the perfect", and the creator of imperfect men. In Sirach 24:3, Wisdom is considered to have come from God’s mouth, as when Gog says, "Let there be… " in Genesis. 

Much of this is punning in Hebrew and is probably the source of the Essene love of punning and punning exegesis. The verb "to be" was associated with God’s name which is "I am"—God was "being". So when God repeatedly says: "Let there be… " he is repeatedly saying God. "Let there be light" can be read as meaning "God is light." Let there be is "YEHI" which is like "YHWH" and "HYN" which is life—the punning or at least the assonance of these words is plain. 

In John, the same occurs where Jesus identifies himself with God in the "I am" statements, which could not have been written by an Essene, unless he was thoroughly disillusioned with Judaism—the Father has given Jesus his own name, so Jesus is the Father (Jn 17:11). Similar aretalogies occur in Hellenistic religious literature. John also has Jesus saying he is at one with the Father (Jn 10:30) and by way of explanation he says (Jn 5:46) that Moses wrote all of this—it was therefore prophesied—apparently referring to the puns on God’s name in Genesis and Exodus. 

This kind of speculation is like that of the Gospel of Truth and the Odes of Solomon. It might have its roots in Essenism but was fully used by the Gnostics. However, because "its own did not receive it" it must be seen as Essene, the sign for a Gnostic of having the spark being that they received it. In the Essene outlook "its own" would have meant all Israel who had been led astray rather than God’s Elect who like the Gnostics were confident that they would be or had been saved. John 4:22 tells us "salvation originates with the Jews". In Sirach 24:13 God says to Wisdom she had to tabernacle in Jacob and be an inheritance in Israel so she "dwelt with" the Jews. No Gnostic could have understood Wisdom "becoming" flesh. 

The gospel of John paints a picture of Jesus which is essentially mythical. A redeemer descends from the invisible unknown God above. He defeats Satan, the prince of this world. He returns above exalted on the cross, opening the way for his followers. This is not the synoptists' story but it is close to those of Simon and Menander, though the redeemer is flesh, a real man. John's gospel is another intermediary between the Essenes and the Gnostics which is why the Gnostics made such use of it, whereas the synoptics remain essentially Essene.