Orthodox Church Service vs Valentinian Church Service

Orthodox Church Service vs Valentinian Church Service

The Biblical view: 

“All you are brothers,” Jesus had said to his disciples. “Your Leader is one, the Christ.” (Matt. 23:8, 10) So there was no clergy class within Christian congregations of the first century.  As to organization, each congregation was supervised by a body of overseers, or spiritual elders. All the elders had equal authority, and not one of them was authorized to ‘lord it over’ the flock in their care. (Acts 20:17; Phil. 1:1; 1 Pet. 5:2, 3) However, as the apostasy unfolded, things began to change—quickly.

Clergy and Laity

Among the earliest deviations was a separation between the terms “overseer” (Gr., episkopos sometimes translated Bishop) and “elder” (Gr., presbyteros ), so that they were no longer used to refer to the same position of responsibility. Just a decade or so after the death of the apostle John, Ignatius, “bishop” of Antioch, in his letter to the Smyrnaeans, wrote: “See that you all follow the bishop [overseer], as Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the presbytery [body of elders] as if it were the Apostles.” Ignatius thus advocated that each congregation be supervised by one bishop, or overseer, who was to be recognized as distinct from, and having greater authority than, the presbyters.

The English word “priest” derives from presbyteros (“elder”) as follows: from Middle English pre(e)st, from Old English preost, from Vulgar Latin prester, contracted from Late Latin presbyter, from Greek pre·sby´te·ros.
So the orthodox Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, defines the church in terms of the bishop, who represents that system:

Let no one do anything pertaining to the church without the bishop. Let that be considered a valid eucharist which is celebrated by the bishop, or by the person whom he appoints . . . Wherever the bishop offers [the eucharist], let the congregation be present, just as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church. Ignatius, Smyrneans 8.1-2.

Lest any "heretic" suggest that Christ may be present even when the bishop is absent, Ignatius sets him straight:

It is not legitimate either to baptize or to hold an agape [eucharist, breaking or bread a meal] without the bishop . . . To join with the bishop is to join the church; to separate oneself from the bishop is to separate oneself not only from the church, but from God himself. Ignatius, Smyrneans 8.1-2.

Apart from the church hierarchy, he insists, "there is nothing that can be called a church."Trallians 3.1.

The groundwork was thus laid for a clergy class gradually to emerge. About a century later, Cyprian, “bishop” of Carthage, North Africa, was a strong advocate of authority of the bishops—as a group separate from the presbyters (later known as priests), the deacons, and the laity. But he did not favor the primacy of one bishop over the others.


As bishops and presbyters ascended the hierarchical ladder, they left below it the rest of the believers in the congregation. This resulted in a separation between clergy (those taking the lead) and laity (the passive body of believers). 

In time the bishop of Rome, claiming to be a successor of Peter, was thought of as the supreme bishop and pope

Valentinian Church Service

The community would meet on Sundays (whether before sunrise or in the evening—or both—we do not know). 

Valentinian initiates took turns performing the various liturgical tasks ensuring a high degree of participation by the membership. According to Tertullian, "Today one man is bishop and tomorrow another; the person who is a deacon today, tomorrow is a reader; the one who is a priest is a layman tomorrow. For even on the laity they impose the functions of priesthood." ( Tertullian Against the Valentinians 1) He goes on to relate that even women could take the role of bishop, much to his horror.

Only the elementary Valentinian teachings were available at such public meetings. Initiates were expected to discern the newcomer's level of spiritual development and act accordingly. This discussed in the parable of appropriate diets in the Gospel of Philip: "Bodily forms will not deceive them, rather they consider the condition of each person's soul and they speak to that person accordingly. In the world there are many animals that have human form. If the disciples of God recognize that they are hogs, they feed them acorns; if cattle, barley chaff and fodder; if dogs, bones; if slaves, a first course; if children, a complete meal" (Gospel of Philip 81:3-13 cf. Hebrews 5:12-14). If a person was considered to be at a material level of development (i.e. "an animal") they received the nothing more than the teaching available at the public meeting ("acorns", "chaff" and "bones").

If the person was considered to be at an animate level (i.e. "a slave") they would be invited to private classes. In these classes they recived elementary teachings ( "a first course") in order to determine if were worthy of further instruction. Valentinians saw most Christians as fitting into this category. Pupils assigned to this category had the potential to move on to the next level. If the person had progressed to the highest spiritual level and become a "child," they were invited to join an advanced class where they would receive the complete teaching. According to Tertullian, complete instruction could last as long as five years and involved rigorous self-discipline. It should be noted that all who received the private instruction were bound by the "duty of Silence" not to disclose it to non-initiates (cf. Tertullian Against the Valentinians 1).

Full initiates acted as the person's spiritual guide towards the ultimate goal of gnosis. Eventual initiation was dependent on evidence of gnosis. To become an initiate one had to "no longer believe from human testimony but from the Truth itself." (Fragments of Herakleon 39). To this end, much of the training at the advanced stage of instruction would have likely focused on meditation techniques. One the person had completed the training and demonstrated evidence of gnosis, they would be initiated by receiving the Valentinian baptism. 

Spirituals and psychics worshipped together for the first part of the service, which comprised a confession, a collection and the singing of a “hymn of the humble,” and praying for redemption. Perhaps both groups listened together to a sermon. Baptism of new members may have taken place at this point. The second part of the service was for the spirituals only, i.e., the baptized. It included the singing of psalms from Valentinus’ psalm-book. The congregation sang in an enthusiastic mode, seeking communion with the transcendent aeons.

After that, a senior member of the congregation delivered a sermon. Then followed a Eucharistic meal, with bread and wine mixed with water, or just water. The elements were consecrated by means of an invocation for the presence of spiritual power and eaten as a prefiguration of the eschatological wedding feast of the bridal chamber. During the meal, individual church members stood up to prophesy, conveying messages from the aeonic world, perhaps speaking in tongues.

The ritual sequence as a whole shows a certain family resemblance to second century Christian Sunday worship as described in Justin, 1 Apology 67, though the enthusiastic aspects are clearly more prominent than in Justin’s account. Our general knowledge about the structure of Christian services during this period is in any case very scant. In a broad perspective, the Valentinian version of regular Christian worship, with its communal style of psalm singing and its general character as a service of the word, seems to owe more to Jewish and Christian traditions of congregation ritual than to the conventional forms of Greco-Roman cult.

Eucharist in the Gospel of Philip

Eucharist in the Gospel of Philip

The Eucharist and Jesus

The eucharist is Jesus. In Syriac it is called pharisatha, which means, “that which is spread out.” For Jesus came to crucify the world.

Eucharist and Baptism

The cup of prayer contains wine and water, for it represents the blood for which thanksgiving is offered. It is full of the holy spirit, and it belongs to the completely perfect human. When we drink it, we take to ourselves the perfect human.

The living water is a body, and we must put on the living human. Thus, when one is about to go down into the water, one strips in order to put on the living human.

The Holy Person
The holy person is completely holy, including the person’s body. The holy person who takes up bread consecrates it, and does the same with the cup or anything else the person takes up and consecrates. So how would the person not consecrate the body also? 

The Breaking of Bread (Acts 2:42) is also known as “the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, and the communion meal.

From the Gospel of Philip it can be gathered that the meal consisted of bread and wine mixed with water.

82 And the bread and the oil are sanctified by the power of the Name, and they are not the same as they appeared to be when they were received, but they have been transformed by power into spiritual power. Thus, the water, also, both in exorcism and baptism, not only keeps off evil, but gives sanctification as well (Extracts from the Works of Theodotus 82)

According to the Extracts from the Works of Theodotus 82.1, the bread was “sanctified by the power of the Name.”

The same applies to “the bread and the oil”: they are transformed into a spiritual power by the power of the Name of God

The Valentinians celebrated the Eucharist with bread and a cup.  The Gospel of Philip in particular shows that Valentinians could speak without difficulty about partaking of the flesh and the blood of the Savior in the Eucharist, because they gave a symbolic meaning to these words: thus, for instance, the “flesh” is the Logos and the “blood” is the Holy Spirit. 

The author of the Gospel of Philip manages to find allusions in the Eucharistic bread both to the crucifixion (the “spreading out”: 63:21–24) and to the incarnation (“bread from heaven”: 55:6–14), and that the Eucharistic prayer in 58:10–14 is an invocation of the union with the angels, in other words of the bridal chamber.In the latter case it seems that the reference to the union with the angels served to stage the Eucharist as an image of the wedding feast associated with the bridal chamber

As a meal, the significance of the Eucharist was, as we have seen, exclusively symbolic; the enjoyment of food and drink was hardly a goal in itself.

bread The substance of the omnipresent Christ body. There is substance in words of Truth, and this substance is appropriated by prayer and meditation on Truth.

wine/blood the sustenance for spirit, mind, 

So it is also [75] with bread, the cup, and oil, though there are mysteries higher than these. (The Gospel of Philip)

What is Evil? Isaiah 45:7

What is Evil? 

Come to hate hypocrisy and the evil thought; for it is the thought that gives birth to hypocrisy; but hypocrisy is far from truth." (The Apocryphon Gospel of James)

evil--That which is not of the Deity; unreality; error thought; a product of the fallen human consciousness; negation.

'Evil' in the New Testament can denote three things-misleading standards (stoichiea) like henos anthropos; wrong disposition in the sense of a materialistic world-view; and dehumanizing acts. For Paul, evil is not associated with demons in the sense of supernatural beings. He clearly supports this in Gal 4:8-9 when he says, "stoichieas [daemons] are not gods."

Isaiah 45:7 7 I form the light and create darkness, I make peace [national well-being] and I create [physical] evil (calamity); I am the Lord, Who does all these things.

Moral evil proceeds from the will of men, but physical evil proceeds from the will of God

.

Sin and evil are as cause and effect. God is the author of evil, but not of sin; for the evil is the punishment of sin. "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I, Yahweh, do all these things." (Isa. 45:7) "Shall there be evil in a city, and Yahweh has not done it?" (Amos 3:6) The evil then to which man is subjected is Yahweh's doing. War, famine, pestilence, flood, earthquake, disease, and death, are the terrible evils which God inflicts upon mankind for their transgressions. Nations cannot go to war when they please, any more than they can shake the earth at their will and pleasure; neither can they preserve peace, when He proclaims war. Evil is the artillery with which He combats the enemies of His law, and of His the holy ones; consequently, there will be neither peace nor blessedness for the nations, until sin is put down, His people avenged, and truth and righteousness be established in the earth. 

Apparent evil is the result of ignorance, and when Truth is presented the error disappears.

Evil appears in the world because man is not in spiritual understanding.

evil, overcoming--Evil must be overcome with good. We must dwell in the good so wholly that all the substance of our thoughts and our being is given over to the promotion of the good. This is a mental process in which all negation (evil) is denied, and creative, fearless affirmation of God's perfect good is steadfastly adhered to.

A hymn to Sol Invictus

A hymn to Sol Invictus

Thine is the glory, risen, unconqu'ring Sun;
endless is the vict'ry Thou o’er winter hast won.

The time is with the month of winter solstice
When the change is due to come
Thunder in the other course of heaven
Things cannot be destroyed once and for all

Thine is the glory, risen, unconqu'ring Sun;
endless is the vict'ry Thou o’er winter hast won

I dont identify with any religion.We did always celebrate Christmas,complete with nativity,but the date/season itself was definitely hijacked. We still celebrate,but for me,I am celebrating the fact it will start getting light again.Bring on the Solstice!

Heretic of the week: Valentinus

  Valentinus (second century), a Greek poet and the most prominent Gnostic of all time

 Heretic of the week: Valentinus 
article from the catholic herald:

Valentinus (100-160), was born in a small town in northern Egypt, and moved to Alexandria as a child. There he received a Greek education and became a disciple of Theudas, who himself had been a student of St Paul the Apostle.

He went to Rome about 136, and became a popular teacher – so much so that when the papal chair became vacant in 157, he was a favoured contender – and certainly himself expected to win the position. When St Anicetus won instead, Valentinus left Rome in a huff for Cyprus.

Once ensconced in that island, he began to spread teachings that he claimed were secret doctrines of St Paul, passed on to Theudas. These were something of a riff on Gnosticism and Neoplatonism – a good deity named Bythos emanating spiritual beings, the Aeons, in a higher realm. Owing to a cosmic mishap, the lowest of these beings created the physical world, in which we find our souls entrapped. Christ came to liberate us from this trap.

There was much more along the same lines, and the result was a body of doctrines called Valentinianism. Among other things, the Valentinians believed that mankind was divided into three varieties; the truly spiritual, who received the divine knowledge (or Gnosis) that allowed them to return to the Godhead; the ordinary Christians, who would go to a sort of cut-rate paradise; and the rest who would simply be destroyed after death. Although Valentinianism was one among many Gnostic sects in the first few centuries after Christ, it was particularly popular because of its interesting ritual [services]. Among these were a relatively orthodox-appearing baptismal rite, and the mysterious “Mystery of the Bedchamber” – a sort of spiritualisation of marriage, which did not, however, necessarily require consummation. Extinct relatively early, it attracted new interest after the discovery in 1945 of the Nag Hammadi library in Egypt, which contained important works of the Valentinian school.

Heretic of the week: Valentinus

Comments 

In that period there were many Christianities. Most would only later be thought heretical. Valentinus at the time was not a heretic, only declared so in hindsight.


The tenacity the Roman Catholic Church to call Valentinian a heretic when he was in the church he saw things that did not seem right to him. From what St. Paul actually taught to what the church plagiarized his writings and letters even adding several letters St. Paul never even wrote. St. Paul in my mind was an inner seeker who taught Christ Consciousness. He was a Gnostic writer his original letters price it.

the beginning gospel of thomas saying 18

saying 18

18 The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will come to pass." Jesus said, "Then have you laid bare the beginning, so that you are seeking the end? For the end will be where the beginning is. Blessed is the person who stands at rest in the beginning. And that person will be acquainted with the end and will not taste death.

BEGINNING: "Archee"; signifying "first in order",

it is the beginning of a new, or spiritual "creation" in Christ. As there was a Sun, created or ordained in the heavens by God, in the Genesis-beginning when He decreed, "Let there be light", so likewise… "In the (new, spiritual) beginning" God testified of Christ: "Let there be light" (cp Gen 1:3 with 2Co 4:6; Mat 4:17; Mar 1:1; Luk 1:1,2; Act 10:37), and this time a new spiritual Light came into the world. And so God made and ordained His Son Jesus Christ the "beginning" and the first cause of His new spiritual creation (Rev 3:14).

It is instructive and significant that each gospel begins with a "beginning": cp Mat 1:1 (genesis); Mar 1:1 (archee); Luk 1:3 (anothen). And that the four gospel accounts are placed at the head of the New Testament. Here, in the coming of His Son, God has begun the work of His new, spiritual, "creation" -- the corner piece, the foundation stone of which is His Son.

Tell us about our end? What I see in this and other verses is that his disciples were usually thinking naturally while Jesus was usually answering spiritually. Like many naturally minded souls today, the disciples were worried about their death or their end or the end of the age. Jesus was basically saying: “what! You think you have found the beginning in other words have you then found Christ? Well if you have found Christ then you have also met the end of your old self. Now your new true self lives”. Thus we become a new creature in Christ this is a new beginning when we are born again as I have already said about being begotten from above, this is a twofold birth: first, from water which is the word, add v., and secondly, from the grave by the spirit the first begettal is putting on the Christ, than you become a new man this is becoming a new creature in Christ.

When you have done this you shall enter the Kingdom of the son of his love than the kingdom of God will be within you as hope in the heart as the one hope of the true with that the kingdom of God will be manifested on the earth. However, the second begettal you will still have the Kingdom within you but no longer as hope in the heart but fully manifest in you and upon the earth as it is in heaven the below become like the above, for this to happen the saints must become “spiritual bodies” or “spiritual flesh” as Paul says (add from bible) there are different type of flesh and as the Gospel of Philip says “the Lord rose from the dead, but he did not come into being as he was. Rather, his body was completely perfect. It was of flesh, and this flesh was true flesh. Our flesh is not true flesh, but only an image of the true” Gospel of Philip Nag Hammadi Scriptures p. 174. Thus after becoming spiritual flesh or true flesh only than can they “see” so as to possess the Kingdom of God

18) The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will be." Jesus said, "Have you discovered, then, the beginning [how the first Adam was in the life before he put his trust in the arm of flesh (doctrines of the serpent)], that you look for the end [the finishing of your faith in that fleshly mind]? For where the beginning is, there will the end be [of your spiritual journey (you must crucify "the old man")]. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning ["in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God" (all in all)]; he will know the end and will not experience death [for this one has gained everlasting life]."

"For even as, in Adam [flesh], all are dying [eventually for mankind's very nature which is carnal requires it], thus also, in Christ [spirit], shall all be vivified [eventually for angelic nature which is and means "strength" requires it]."  This is what we must come to understand and have rectified through our Savior "who is the author and finisher of our faith".  We must own our sins, repent of them and be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb.  We must become as the last man Adam (who was in the beginning) perfected in spirit while still in the earth; and then we shall be transformed in the wink of an eye into Christ's (we will become as He is).

The Seed Gospel of Thomas Saying 57

Gospel of Thomas Saying 57

(57) Jesus said: The kingdom of the Father is like a man who had [good] seed. His enemy came by night and sowed weeds among the good seed. The man did not allow them to pull up the weeds. He said to them: Lest you go and pull up the weeds, (and) pull up the wheat with it. For on the day of the harvest the weeds will be manifest; they will be pulled up and burned.

"The Kingdom of the Father is like a man who had [good] seed.”

Seed cp. Saying 9 and signifies the word “The word,” it is perhaps needless to say, is a synonym for the class of ideas comprehended in the gospel, called “the word” because it has been divinely spoken (1Thess. 2:13), and “the truth,” because it is pre-eminently that form of truth without which men cannot live in the ultimate sense (Jn. 8:32). Also The Lord Jesus Christ identifies "the good seed" in verse 38 as "the children of the kingdom." "The good seed" must be the true seed of Abraham which is referred to in such passages as Luke 1:55; Acts 3:25; 7:5; Romans 4:13, 16, 18; 9:7, 8; Galatians 3:16, 19, 29; Hebrews 11:18; and the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15), Rev. 12:17-in all of these passages the word for seed is identical to that for seed in Matthew 13. It was "the word of the kingdom" which was taught by the Lord Jesus Christ that produced this class of "good seed."

“His enemy came by night and sowed weeds among the good seed.” 

The enemy signifies the devil, some misunderstand this as a supernatural devil but in Matthew 13:28 see Rvm and Young‘s LT), the Lord was careful to phrase it: “A man, an enemy hath done this”, the rather awkward pleonasm emphasizing the need to identify with some evil human influence at work in the early days of the church.

consisting of the authorities of the nation, who everywhere stealthily neutralised the teaching of Christ, disseminating evil doctrines, and scattering wide their sypathisers and disciples, who drew away the people, and multiplied their own number greatly by the energy of their operations and the popularity of their influence.

The “night” signifies: the times of the Gentiles At John 9:4 Jesus spoke of “the night . . . coming when no man can work. Paul also uses the figure in reference to the Parousia (#Ro 13:12), where "night" seems to refer to the present aeon and "day" to the aeon to come. He also uses it in #1Th 5:5,7 where the status of the redeemed is depicted by "day," that of the unregenerate by "night," again, as the context shows, in reference to the Parousia. In #Re 21:25 and 22:5, the passing of the "night" indicates the realization of that to which the Parousia looked forward, the establishment of the kingdom of God forever. Type of Ignorance and Sin {#Ro 13:12 1Th 5:5 Re 21:25 22:5}

The “Weeds” or TARES tarz (zizania (#Mt 13:25 ), margin "darnel"): signifies contrasting “the wheat” or “the sons of the kingdom” with “the weeds,” “the sons of the wicked one.” It should be noted that the “weeds” are not, as some Jewish Talmudists and others once believed, a degenerate form of wheat. Wheat seed never transforms itself into weeds. This would be contrary to God’s immutable law: “Let the earth cause grass to shoot forth, vegetation bearing seed, fruit trees yielding fruit according to their kinds.” (Gen. 1:11, 12) This scientific fact exonerates the “Son of man,” Christ Jesus, the “sower of the fine seed,” from any responsibility for what happened in “his field.” The “fine seed” he sowed would never have become a crop of weeds. It could only produce “wheat,” or true “sons of the kingdom.” What later developed in his “field” was the direct result of his enemy’s deliberate and malicious oversowing of “weeds,” or “sons of the wicked one.”

16 Thus, Jesus’ illustration of the “wheat” and the “weeds” does much to explain the history of Christianity throughout the centuries. Historical facts show that after the death of the apostles Satan introduced among the congregations of true Christians many “weeds,” “oppressive wolves” and “antichrists,” just as Jesus, Paul, Peter, John and Jude had foretold. (Acts 20:29; 2 Pet. 2:1-3; 1 John 2:18; Jude 4) It has been just as Jesus stated: “When the blade sprouted and produced fruit, then the weeds appeared also.”—Matt. 13:26.
These “weeds” became particularly apparent during the second and third centuries, at which time such unscriptural doctrines as the inherent immortality of the soul, hellfire and the Trinity began to be taught by so-called church fathers. Many of these men were more philosophers than true Christian overseers faithful to the teachings of the Bible. The climax came early in the fourth century, when pagan Emperor Constantine fused this apostate Christianity with the pagan religion of Rome. Such counterfeit Christianity, in its Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox and Protestant varieties, has produced a bumper crop of “weeds” not only throughout the centuries but also right up until the present time.

“The man did not allow them to pull up the weeds; he said to them, 'I am afraid that you will go intending to pull up the weeds and pull up the wheat along with them.'“
“For on the day of the harvest the weeds will be plainly visible, and they will be pulled up and burned." Harvest signifies “the end of the world” (aeon) the Lord Jesus did not mean the end of the nation-world. He used the word aeon instead of kosmos. The harvest was to be at the end of the aeon, sunteleia tou aeonos: and not at the end of the kosmos. And this has two meanings the 1st the aeon in which he flourished Then he would send his reapers; namely, the Romans, his angels, or messenger (aggeloi) of destruction, to "gather out of his kingdom" of Judea, all the tare-like children of Israel, and cast them into the place of the Lord, "whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem" (Isaiah 31:9), where there should be wailing, and gnashing of teeth. When this should be accomplished the aeon would be finished, and the commonwealth of Israel should "be no more until He should come whose right it is to reign." (Ezekiel 21:25-27). "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

57)# Jesus said, "The Kingdom of the Father is like a man [Jesus] who had [good] seed [the true Word of God]. His enemy [the devil - those with the spirit of anti-Christ] came by night [the two thousand year age of darkness in the world] and sowed weeds [institutions of false teachings/doctrine] among the good seed [the Truth]. The man did not allow them [the reapers] to pull up the weeds [remove these institutions]; he said to them, 'I am afraid that you will go intending [without the helper even our best intentions may lead to error] to pull up the weeds and pull up the wheat [the faithful who are still in those institutions and darkened by its falsehoods and have not yet "come out from her.."] along with them [leaving them void and empty].' For on the day of the harvest [the third day - when His "body" is raised up (which is also the seventh day) in the millennial Kingdom] the weeds [these institutions and their false teachings] will be plainly visible [to the Elect], and they will be pulled up [forsaken] and burned [destroyed]."

The World Gospel of Thomas Saying 56

Gospel of Thomas Saying 56 

Jesus said: He who has known the world has found a corpse; and he who has found a corpse, the world is not worthy of him.

This world is one of shadows and deceptions. Because the mind of man has come to accept it as another home, he remains here to suffer and die as a creature of flesh. But this too is also a lie. Because of this deception of the carnal mind and ego, this world has become the place of the dead; it is Hades. For our sake God’s Son came down into Hades, to set us captives free. So if one has come to know the world and has discovered it is death (a carcass), then he has overcome the world and the world is not worthy of him anymore. This is why we must be resurrected because we are spiritually dead in sin and in the darkness of deception. This is why we must live by the Spirit of Christ because we are being called to a higher level of life- a higher nature that is not part of the animal kingdom. Our higher nature is found in the Kingdom of God! 

Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write: "Knowing the world is equivalent to finding a corpse (or, in the parallel Saying 80, a body); this knowledge and this discovery are evidently regarded as good, for the world is not worthy of the discoverer (cf., Hebrews 11:38, and page 77). Knowing the world, then, must be truly knowing it for what it is. But we must also consider one more saying (109). The world is not worthy of the one 'who will find himself.' We conclude that Saying 57 [56], like these variants we have cited, is based on the verse which in Matthew (10:39; cf., Mark 8:34-35) follows the verses cited in Saying 56 [55]. 'He who finds his soul [life] will lose it, and he who loses his soul for my sake will find it.' Either Thomas simply mystifies his readers by speaking of a corpse or he uses 'corpse' as the equivalent for 'body' and hence for 'self.' The Naassenes used

'corpse' of the spiritual man (Hippolytus, Ref., 5, 8, 22)." (The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 164)
F. F. Bruce writes: "To say that the world is not worthy of someone (cf. Hebrews 11.38) is to commend him; therefore (strange as it may seem) to find a corpse is praiseworthy. The Naassenes, according to Hippolytus, spoke of the spiritual body as a 'corpse'. [The reason for this strange use of 'corpse' was that the spiritual essence is 'buried' in the body as a corpse is buried in a tomb (Hippolytus, Refutation v.8.22).] But the analogy of Saying 111 ('as for him who finds himself, the world is not worthy of him') suggests that here 'corpse' means 'body' as used in the sense of 'self'. If so, we may have a cryptic parallel to the canonical saying about gaining the world and losing one's own self, or vice versa (Luke 9.24f.; Matthew 16.25f.), which follows a saying about denying self and taking up the cross (cf. Saying 55)." (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 135) (Cp. Hebrews 11:38 Saying 27:1; 80 110; 111:3)

56) Jesus said, "Whoever has come to understand the world [who through many deceptions has hidden the Keys of Knowledge (spiritual meanings) behind a veil of fleshly traditions, ordinances and festivals etc..] has found (only) a corpse [it is dead for the spirit of the world is poverty having no insight], and whoever has found a corpse [discovered the truth about the world and how religions still uses types and images, customs and rituals etc.. as forms and works to observe which only serves to undermine the Truth (every state has its own "holi-days"] is superior to the world [the Elect are not subject to the strong delusion "For roused shall be false christs and false prophets, and they shall be giving great signs and miracles, so as to deceive, if possible, even the Elect" but since He will not lose any of His Own it is not possible! Halleluiah!!]." 

Hate their fathers and their mothers Gospel of Thomas Saying 55

Saying 55

(55) Jesus said, "Those who do not hate their fathers and their mothers cannot be disciples of me, and those who do not hate their brothers and their sisters and take up their cross like me will not become worthy of me."

Saying 54 and 55 belong together. This saying is a combination of Luke 14:26-27 (hating father and mother, brothers and sisters, carrying cross, becoming disciple) with Matthew 10:37-38 (being worthy of me). From Luke, Thomas omits mention of wife and children, perhaps because the Gnostic will have neither; he adds to carrying the cross 'as I do' 'like me,' for 'and come after Me.'
Matthew and Luke evidently give variant translations of the same original saying, and it is therefore possible that what seems at first sight to be a conflation is, in fact, another rendering.
perhaps because as in John 19:17, Jesus bears his own cross

The key words mathetes (disciple), stauros (cross), and axios (worthy) appear in Greek in the Coptic text. The theme of imitating Jesus carrying his cross, which is implicit in the passages of the Synoptic Gospels, is made explicit by the addition in the Gospel of Thomas: '.. . carry his cross as I have.
The word “hate” ought to read “put aside” we have to put aside our families to become a disciple of Christ if one wants to become bone of Christ's bone, and flesh of His flesh, they must "leave father and mother, and be joined unto the wife." They find themselves now, perhaps, members of denominations as they happen to be led. These are their parentage according to the fleshly mind. They must be forsaken, and men must become "one flesh" and "one spirit" in the Lord, if they would inherit the kingdom of God (Mat 10:37). "This is a great mystery," says Paul, "but I speak concerning Christ and the church" (Eph 5:22-32). Just as Jesus says “as I do will not be worthy of me” we must put aside our brothers and sisters and pick up our cross just as Jesus did thus “as I do”

We must try to imitate Jesus’ crucifixion which is the crucifixion of the flesh and its appetites. Now  Jesus was tempted in all things as we are so the carrying of the cross “as I do” here is the ultimate model of conquering the passions of the flesh Rom 8:3. In doing this “as I do” we become like unto Christ himself by shaping yourself into the image of the Lord crucifying the flesh with its passions.
Manichaean Psalm Book 175:25-30 as saying: "I have left father and mother and brother and sister. I have come a stranger for the sake of your name. I have taken up my cross, and I have followed you. I have left the things of the flesh for the sake of the things of the spirit. I have disregarded the glory of the world for the sake of your glory that does not pass away."

55)### Jesus said, "Whoever does not put aside his father [the devil (who is one's father until "the old man" is put to death)] and his mother [the spirit of the world (flesh) which he is currently bound by (a religion)] cannot become a disciple to Me [one must reconcile with these first - for "one cannot serve two masters"]. And whoever does not aside his brothers and sisters [who are also "of" the world in a religion] and take up his cross [begin to crucify his flesh] in My way [according to his will and not our own or another's (religious leader) - "call One your Master"] will not be worthy of Me [the Word - these will not be given the Keys of Knowledge nor with they find "the life" in them]." 

Sorrow and Suffering Gospel of Thomas Saying 58

Gospel of Thomas Saying 58

(58) Jesus said: Blessed is the man who has suffered; he has found life.

This life is naturally fraught with sorrow and suffering and great challenges. Trials and tribulations come and go and they are unavoidable. If you must endure sorrow and suffering, than let it not be without purpose and meaning. Seek to draw from it the blessings that may be found in it, so that when the period of sorrow or suffering has passed, you will have the good from it. When you meet the challenges of life in this way, you will naturally be blessed and your faith will grow stronger and you will find life.

58)# Jesus said, "Blessed is the [spiritual] man who has suffered [for the testimony of Jesus] and found life [Christ in you, the hope of glory - who gives one the Keys of Knowledge of the Kingdom so they too become a fountain of life to others]."

Lost Books

Lost Books 

Just from the writing of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, alone, we learn of a number of books and letters, in the Hebrew Scriptures: the book of the wars of Yahweh (Numbers 21:14), the book of Jashar (Joshua 10:12,13 2 Samuel 1:18-27), the book of the acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41), the book of Annals of the Kings of Israel (1 Kings 14:19; 2 Chronicles 20:34; 2 Chronicles 33:18), the book of Annals of the Kings of Judah (1 Kings 14:29; 15:7), the Annals of Samuel the seer (1 Chronicles 29:29), the History of Nathan the prophet (2 Chronicles 9:29) the Annals of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer (2 Chronicles 12:15) the Annals of Jehu son of Hanani (2 Chronicles 20:34) an unknown and untilled writing of Isaiah (2 Chronicles 26:22) the Annals of Hozai (2 Chronicles 33:18) and an unknown lament for Josiah by Jeremiah (2 Chronicles 35:25) and in the Christian Scriptures we know that Paul sent to the Christians of Corinth before he wrote 1 Corinthians (1 Corinthians 5:9), a letter that some of the Corinthians had sent to him (1 Corinthians 7:1), a letter forged in Paul’s name to the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 2:2). 

The historical reality is that most of the non-canonical books mentioned in our early surviving sources have been lost. Some were destroyed when Christian leaders found their teachings dangerous. Others simply disappeared out of general disinterest, in any event, most of the writings that survive from early Christianity have come down to us in the Christian Scriptures itself. 

Other lost text we learn about from the nag hammadi scriptures

Since you asked that I send you a secret book which was revealed to me and Peter by the Lord, I could not turn you away or gainsay (?) you; but I have written it in the Hebrew alphabet and sent it to you, and you alone. (The Apocryphon of James)


I also sent you, ten months ago, another secret book which the Savior had revealed to me. Under the circumstances, however, regard that one as revealed to me, James; but this one ... [untranslatable fragments] (The Apocryphon of James)

You will find the effect of these names and the force of the male entities in the Archangelic (Book) of the Prophet Moses, and the names of the female entities in the first Book of Noraia. (On the Origian of the world)

They had intercourse with one another, and each one begot seven, so that they amount to forty-nine androgynous demons. Their names and their effects you will find in the Book of Solomon.

"My father, the progress that has come to me now, and the foreknowledge, according to the books, that has come to me, exceeding the deficiency - these things are foremost in me." 

Other hidden codices revealed in the nag hammadi scriptures

The great Seth wrote this book with letters in one hundred and thirty years. He placed it in the mountain that is called 'Charaxio,' in order that, at the end of the times and the eras, by the will of the divine Autogenes and the whole pleroma, through the gift of the untraceable, unthinkable, fatherly love, it may come forth and reveal this incorruptible, holy race of the great savior, and those who dwell with them in love, and the great, invisible, eternal Spirit, and his only-begotten Son, and the eternal light, and his great, incorruptible consort, and the incorruptible Sophia, and the Barbelon, and the whole pleroma in eternity. Amen.

The Holy Book of the Great 


But I said, "Sir, am I also from their matter?"
"You, together with your offspring, are from the primeval father; from above, out of the imperishable light, their souls are come. Thus the authorities cannot approach them, because of the spirit of truth present within them; and all who have become acquainted with this way exist deathless in the midst of dying mankind. Still, that sown element will not become known now. Instead, after three ages it will come to be known, and it has freed them from the bondage of the authorities' error." 
Then I said, "Sir, how much longer?"
He said to me, "Until the moment when the true man, within a modeled form, reveals the existence of the spirit of truth, which the father has sent. 
Then he will teach them about everything, and he will anoint them with the unction of life eternal, given him from the undominated generation.
Then they will be freed of blind thought, and they will trample underfoot death, which is of the authorities, and they will ascend into the limitless light where this sown element belongs.
Then the authorities will relinquish their ages, and their angels will weep over their destruction, and their demons will lament their death.
Then all the children of the light will be truly acquainted with the truth and their root, and the father of the entirety and the holy spirit. They will all say with a single voice, 'The father's truth is just, and the son presides over the entirety", and from everyone unto the ages of ages, "Holy - holy - holy! Amen!'"
The Reality
of the Rulers

the archons daniel 7

The four winds of heaven could be four angelic rulers of the heavens, and the wind means four types of leadership to be given to four different types of leaders who all shall not be in power at the same time.

These leaders shall be born out of the race of mankind which is the sea.

The First Leader........... The Lion, he shall rule for a short period of time, then will be force to advocate his seat of authority and live as a citizen.

The Bear........... A strong leader by whose very spoken word shall cause fear and death to befall a great and large number of people to die and as long as he is in power he shall fear none.

The Leopard......... The third angel ( wind) shall endow four governments ( country leaders) to rule together as one nation.

The leadership and governing system of the previous beast shall still stand until the fourth beast arises to power.

The Fourth Beast........ This beast and his angel shall not make themselves known openly as the the three beast before it but shall appoint and set up ten nations who shall be under it's authority.

By this Angel's command the fourth beast shall put to an end the previous governing system, beliefs and leadership, that was set up by the former angels who gave power to their leaders, establishing a new system of leadership that angel who has given it's power to the Beast over them.

This beast by the word from it's angel shall offer peace to this world, once this peace has Been established then all power shall be given to that angel while the people will be forced to worship it through it's Image, it is after this shall sudden destruction come upon all nations and men then shall the end of things come.

The fourth wind and beast is the religious beliefs and churches that shall come into power and many shall die and kill in the name of their beliefs the churches are ignorant of Christ and preach that ignorance, but Christ will save those who truly believe in him although the preaching of the churches are foolishness, this is what we must unlearn.

the archons can be called the great winds that give power to the beasts, and the archons are beasts themselves,

But I say to you brothers and sisters has not the first wind come and the first Beast soon to Rise.