The Roots of Christian Mysticism Session 2
Summary of Kim Nataraja's
"The Diversity of Early Christianity and the Gospel of Thomas"
talk, The London Christian Meditation Centre, St Mark's, Clerkenwell,
20 September 2005
The Diversity of Early Christianity
In the early days there was no recognizable institution called
the Church. There were very few bishops, there were no creeds and
there was no agreed canon of scripture.
Christians in the early years were just as divided as they are
today! At least eighty different groups have been counted. The divisions
were caused by the fact that everyone hears and interprets the teaching
of Jesus through their own emotional, intellectual and cultural/social
filters. The diversity among Christians caused conflict, as we can
see with Peter/Paul, Paul/James and John/Thomas. (The only Gospel
in which we don’t get a good picture of Thomas is in John’s!)
This internal conflict mattered even more because it occurred during
a time of dreadful persecutions and martyrdom.
Moreover, as Christianity (and Judaism) was monotheistic it mattered
to be in the right relationship with the one God and it therefore
mattered very much what a person believed – their salvation
depended on it.
Some examples of the different Christian groups are as follows:
The Ebionites
They believed that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah sent from God
to save Jews only. Therefore to be part of the people of God you
had to be a Jew. They did not believe in the virgin birth or in
Jesus’ pre-existence. (John’s ‘logos’) Jesus
was the Son of God by adoption. They hated Paul but loved the Gospel
of Matthew (minus the first two chapters). Up until the third or
fourth century the Ebionites were still attending synagogue, followed
Jewish dietary laws and practiced circumcision.
The Marcionites
This group gathered around Marcion in the second century. They
liked Paul but rejected anything Jewish. They rejected the Old Testament,
Jewish customs and the Jewish God. The God of Jesus Christ was not
the same god as the god of the Old Testament. They did not believe
that Jesus was truly human. He only appeared to be (this view is
called docetism). This important group spread all over Asia Minor.
There were various other groups which also held a docetic view
of Christ and interpreted passages of scripture accordingly for
example “My God, my God, Why hast thou forsaken me?”
was interpreted by docetists as the spirit of Christ leaving the
human Jesus bereft on the cross. The literal translation is “Why
have you left me behind?” which they took to support their
view.
The Montanists
They were a group of charismatics whose founder was Montanus.
Women were prominent and visions were commonplace. Tertullian, the
first major figure in African Christianity became a Montanist. The
Montanists were a problem to the Church because they believed in
direct access to God without the Church as mediator. Irenaeus, Bishop
of Lyons was sent to Rome to deal with this group. Irenaeus who
saw himself in the line of apostolic succession (through his teacher
Polycarp from the Apostle John) did not believe that revelations
and visions were valid after the time of the Apostles. The problem
with visions is how do you discern where they are from? Are they
from the spirit or from your own ego?
The “Gnostics”
However they were not such a threat as the groups Irenaeus persisted
in calling “Gnostic”. He especially singled out the
one led by Valentinus. Yet Gilles Quispel, a Dutch scholar of Gnosticism
found that reading Valentinus’ ‘Gospel of Truth’
during the Second World War gave him such hope and faith. Tertullian,
moreover, called the Gnostics “the most faithful and wisest
and most experienced members of the church.” Ireneaus wrote
a treatise against these various groups who he lumped together under
this umbrella term. Most of these groups, with some justification,
called themselves Christians. In his treatise ‘Against Heresies’
Irenaeus talked about “gnosis falsely so-called” thereby
implying that Christianity as he saw it was the true gnosis. He
called the “false Gnostics” the “know it alls”!
Clement of Alexandria certainly called the mature Christian, including
himself, a Gnostic. The word “Gnostic” comes from “Gnosis”
meaning an intuitive form of knowledge.
For centuries the only information we had about the “Gnostics”
was from Irenaeus and others who wrote treatises against the “heretics”
but in 1945 a find at Nag Hammadi uncovered documents written by
the “Gnostics” themselves. It is clear from these documents
that some are Christian, some even in the ‘apostolic tradition’,
for example The Gospel of Philip, The Apocryphon of John and the
Apocryphon of James. Irenaeus recognised only four gospels, Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John and the letters of St Paul.
Gospel of Thomas
This was originally regarded as a Gnostic gospel because of its
belief in a divine spark within each individual. The date is unclear
but it is thought that some of the sayings in Thomas predate the
Synoptic gospels. The Gospel itself may be as early as 50 A.D. Fifty
per cent of the sayings are in the Synoptic gospels. Scholars think
it was probably written in Syria.
Similarities between Gospel of Thomas and John’s
Gospel
1) Both talk about a private teaching of Jesus.
2) Neither speaks particularly of Jesus’ death or resurrection;
they assume we know the story.
3) Both identify Christ with the light that came into being in the
beginning. The primordial light connects Christ with the whole cosmos.
(Bede Griffiths speaks about the ‘Cosmic Christ’.)
4) Both believe that the kingdom of God, ‘the day of the Lord’
, ‘the eternal life’ is already here; we already live
in the presence of God. (N.B. the story of the raising of Lazarus
from the dead)
Difference between the two Gospels
For John, Jesus is not God’s servant but unique; his only-begotten
son. This is God himself revealed in human form. In John you can
only be saved through your belief in Christ. Although John’s
view has been taken up as part of ‘orthodox’ Christian
doctrine, it was not universally accepted in the early centuries.
Thomas stated that God’s light shines potentially in everyone,
as we are all made in the image of God. We are all children of light
and all we must do is wake up from our blindness. Salvation lies
in seeing through the illusions and Jesus is our guide to true spiritual
understanding. The Gospel of Mary Magdala says: “Let no-one
lead you astray saying ‘Lo, here! Or ‘Lo, there!’
for the Son of Man is within you. Follow after him!” (Cf ‘Luke’)
The Secret Teaching
There is evidence of this in Mark: “To you has been given
the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything
comes in parables”. (Mark 4:11) This also appears in Matthew
(13:11) and Luke (8:10). Paul talks about the discovery of the hidden
mysteries by the mature, not by everyone (1 Corinthians 2:6-7).
The reason for personal teaching of Jesus to some is that a good
teacher tailors his teaching to his pupils. He will tell them what
they are ready to hear.
From the diversity two noticeable strands of Christianity began
to develop. One stressed the importance of belief and a literal
interpretation of scripture. This strand tended to attract the more
simple-minded Christian who preferred not to reflect or intellectualise.
This strand developed into mainstream Christianity. The other strand
preferring to go deeper into the meaning of scripture and prayer
appealed to the more questioning and developed into the contemplative
tradition.
In the second and third centuries in Alexandria Clement and Origen
had to cater for the needs of both groups hence the seeming discrepancies
in their writings can be explained by the fact that they had to
adapt their teaching to their audience.
“Perhaps this is why most religious institutions, jealous
of their authority, have suspected or tried to control the contemplative
force. Whenever they have succeeded religion itself has been damaged
because it is contemplation that authenticates the way religion
witnesses to truth and revelation.” (Laurence Freeman)
The result of this is that religion and spirituality are considered
to be separate – even nowadays opposed – entities. But
of course they are integrally connected:
“If religion is the prose of the soul then spirituality is
its poetry.” (Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs)
Some of the sayings from the Gospel of Thomas which we looked at
in the second half of the evening are attached. Why not use them
as lectio divina?
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