Tuesday, August 25, 2015
A great purge must have been organized to get rid of these Gnostics
RODOLPHE
KASSER – MARVIN MEYER – GREGOR WURST – FRANÇOIS GAUDARD – THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS and
other texts of the CODEX TCHACOS – CRITICAL EDITION – NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC –
2007
This book is of course essential. But I would like to
make several remarks that imply a wider opening of the perspective under which
we consider these documents.
To say that these documents were written at the end of
the second century or the beginning of the third century is correct but only
formally? They were written then, at least 150 years after the events they
speak of but from a long oral tradition from the very time when these events
took place. They were transmitted orally from one generation to the next and
they started from people who had been witnesses of the events and that could
remember what the various characters did or said and first of all Jesus and of
course Judas. The proof of this oral tradition is in the fact that there are
differences between three of these documents who have other versions in the Nag
Hammadi Library for example. And I find it rather easy to say it is only a
question of varying translation from Greek. In fact originally all that started
in Jerusalem
The proof is in the fact that the disciples address Jesus as
“Rabbi” and not “Lord” or even “Master.” The term “Rabbi” is Jewish and from
Hebrew or other directly connected Semitic languages. It is one way to
differentiate the parallel verses of the New Testament: the original verses
were in a Semitic language and call Jesus “Rabbi” whereas the added verses were
in Greek and address Jesus as “Lord.” (Note Lord is used in the first document
the Letter of Peter to Philip.) This
tradition was transmitted at first in those Semitic languages, Hebrew or
Aramaic over at least five generations and it was set in Greek progressively
and finally written in Greek at the end of the 2nd century or the
beginning of the 3rd. Then it was translated into Coptic and this
time from the Greek version with maybe some older people who might have
remembered the old oral Semitic version.
This is essential because these documents are not forgeries
or fakes but they are truly coming from the time of the events, the time when
Jesus was preaching and was crucified and then when James later was stoned to
death. Note by the way the document called “James” could not come from James
himself because he was not able to tell the way he ended up stoned by illegal
decision of the High Priest of the temple, since the Great Sanhedrin did not
meet in the temple but at the High Priest’s home. Obviously this text is from
that period (62 CE) but told by a witness who could report on what James had told him about
his conversations with Jesus before and after the crucifixion. It is a typical
case where only someone very close to James could start the story, the telling,
the memory, the oral tradition.
Apart from the first document the three others report about
what Jesus actually told his disciples. That could only come from people in the
inner circle around Jesus. Even Paul could not have been one of these because
he had not yet declared himself an apostle since he had not had yet his vision
on the road to Damascus .
This remark is essential because numerous apocryphal documents contain such
reports of Jesus telling one of his disciple something personal, inspired and visionary.
I insist on the personal dimension because too often critics want to generalize
what is being said, abstract it from the direct context and from the people it
was said to. They have the tendency to dehumanize Jesus though they assert all
along Jesus made himself a man to be close to other human beings. If he is a
man in a man’s body then he has normal human reactions and what is says is
supposed to be understood in the context and the direct environment at that
moment.
The best part is when Jesus comes back after his
resurrection. It is the basic debate here. Did he come back in a man’s body and
Thomas could put his fingers in the holes of the feet and the hands, or did he
come back as a spirit and Thomas could not put his fingers in non-corporeal
feet and hands. You cannot “touch” a spirit, though you can be in contact with
it, if you believe in spirits, of course. But that’s not the point here.
Was Jesus still in his human body after his resurrection or
was he a pure spirit visible as if he were in his human body, hence in an image
of this body. Martin Meyer says very clearly: “The Letter of Peter to Philip shares with the other three texts in the
codex a commitment to a spiritual understanding of Jesus, in particular a
spiritual understanding of his passion and death.” (p. 86) That does not mean
his crucifixion is fictional but it means that his crucifixion and his
subsequent resurrection have to be understood as a spiritual event and
experience. The trauma for the people directly associated to Jesus was probably
too strong to be alleviated in a minute and survival to this trauma could only
be a spiritual dealing with it that made it bearable. What I say here is that
the resurrection and the coming back of Jesus is not at all an illusion but it
is a direct construction of the traumatized and mourning passion (in the
meaning of love, attachment, fascination) nourished and nurtured in the
followers by Jesus himself and the very difficult atmosphere in Jerusalem at
the time. In fact I am quite ready to say that this is Post Torture and Martyrdom
Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and this particular PTSS inspired the surviving
witnesses into creating a whole religion out of it, out of what after all was a
common death penalty in those days. This creative procedure has more to do with
the charisma and brilliance of Jesus and his teachings than with the inhumane and
nonhuman method used to accuse him and execute him, an obvious miscarriage of
justice and vengeful retribution against someone who had dared to challenge the
authority of established temple bureaucrats and executives turning themselves
into executioners.
The questions asked by the disciples are typical of something
that is not said by the commentators. Let me quote them: “Lord, (…) [the]
deficiency of the aeons and their fullnesses, [how] are we detained [in this]
very dwelling [place]? [Again, how] have we come to this place? And, how [shall
we] leave? And, how do [we] have the authority [of] this very boldness? [Why]
do [the] powers fight against [us]?” (p. 97) The idea that is behind these
questions is that the people asking the questions, hence the disciples, the
apostles are not originally from this world but are from another world and they
have been in a way or another transported to this world where they are
detained. The answer with the “Mother” is supernatural and sets at the original
point of the existence of human beings, and these disciples or apostles are
human beings, the “Mother” ’s decision to do something that was not supported
by the Great One. We can interpret that Mother the way we want, humanity is
thus brought into existence out of nothing at all and under a fatal sin by the
Mother herself that dooms this humanity to its or their fate. If sin has
brought humanity into its alienated existence, then they have to “arm yourselves
with the power of my Father and express your prayer.” (p. 103) Their mission is
to go and preach for the salvation of the world. “. . . ‘You will have joy and
peace and power. Do not be afraid. [I] am with you forever.’ Then the apostles
parted [---] sent them too [preach. And] they went in the power of Jesus, in peace.”
(p. 109) But that peace comes from the knowledge of the end of this alienation
on earth is in the end of life itself that enables man to merge with the divine
dimension of this creation: “ ‘I often told you, you are to die, and you are to
be brought into synagogues and before governors, and you are to [---]” (p. 105)
It is clear they have to integrate the spiritual dimension of
Jesus’ teachings and that gives them the power and the motivation to preach for
the salvation of the world that can only be reached individually when death
comes as the final test of Christian peace and Christian faith. The questions
then lead to the strange idea that humanity came from some other place by being
created out of a fundamental disobedient sin by the Mother herself. And to
correct this mistake humanity has to find its salvation in the repented sins of
each sinner at the moment of their death. This repentance will be all the more
effective if the power and conviction to preach salvation in the name of Jesus
has been achieved as soon as possible in life.
The document called James
is one more piece in the puzzle of James’ death, Jesus’ brother, though the
text is ambiguous in its form on the subject of being the brother of Jesus
since it says: “For not without reason are you called ‘brother,’ though [you]
are not physically a brother. . . “ (p. 121) It does not mean James is not the
son of Joseph and Mary (if we consider James as younger than Jesus) but Jesus
is not the son of Joseph, and Mary, his mother, is only a vessel used by God to
bring his son into a human body. And yet James is called “brother” “not without
reason,” thus meaning that spiritually James is the brother of Jesus. But the
interest of the document is it first asserts that James was stoned to death and
second it gives a rather long testimony about what kind of accusations were
leveled at him and what kind of defense he brought forward. This could only be
known by very few people who actually took part in the Sanhedrin meeting which
was an emergency meeting that was not held in the legal proper place. And that
could only be after James’ death and not from him. That’s what the oral
tradition is all about. The procedure in the Sanhedrin must have been in
Hebrew, certainly not in Greek. And that oral tradition was kept for five
generations.
The Gospel of Judas is interesting but I have already discussed it in
the earlier National Geographic edition of this Gospel alone. I would like to
come back on a couple of points. Page 207, Jesus calls Judas the “thirteenth
daimon.” We could discuss this word “daimon” a long time especially since it is
rendered in French by the word “démon.” In English the word comes from Greek
and means a lesser divine being, like a dead hero, or the inner spirit of a
person. The American Heritage Dictionary says: “1. An inferior deity,
such as a deified hero. 2. An attendant spirit; a genius.”
In French the word “démon” is definitely connected to devils and satanic beings
like a bad spirit possessing a person and requiring exorcism. But the point is
not there. The point is in the number thirteen. It is in those days a zodiacal
sign, the Serpent holder who represents knowledge, science, medicine, healing,
and many other things. On the Benedictine abbey church
of Issoire , France , there used to be the
thirteenth zodiacal sign at the meeting point between the choir of the abbey
church and the scriptorium or library of the abbey. The meaning was clear and
it was there till at least the thirteenth century. It has just been reinstated.
That implies that this “daimon” is someone who has the key to healing, who is
the key to healing, and Judas sure is that key since Jesus asks him to help him
get rid of his body by enabling the crucifixion that could not happen since the
Temple people
did not know who Jesus was, but Judas did. And there the “thirteenth” reference
is clear: “. . . You will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man
who bears me. . . “ (p. 231) “. . . And Judas received money and handed him
over to them.” (p. 235) The translation into French of this last sentence is
very poor by making the thing miserable and so little that we wonder where the
dignity of the fulfilled mission has gone: the “money” is translated by “des
sous” meaning precisely “a few pennies” or “their few pennies.” A “sou” is an
old French currency in the times of French francs. In the 1950s twenty “sous”
were equivalent to one old Franc of the time, and was worth nothing or so
little. Note that’s the second time I wonder about the French version of this
text. Without having checked it all I am surprised that on these two crucial
elements the French version is from my point of view wrong.
Note the vision Judas has of being stoned by the twelve apostles is
strange since at the time of this vision he is one of the twelve. But then the
remark from Jesus about the “thirteenth daimon” before and the second remark
after the vision this time: “You will become the thirteenth, and you will be
cursed by the other generations, and you will come to rule over them. In the last
day they to you, and (that?) you will not ascend on high to
the holy generation.” We can see how ambiguous this thirteen becomes: a curse,
and yet Judas will rule over the other twelve, and yet again he will “not
ascend to the holy generation.” It is regrettable that the critics do not
discuss these numbers and this Gospel contains a whole set of number: 5, 6, 12,
24, 72, 360; 5 firmaments, 6 heavens, 12 aeons and luminaries. Obviously 13 is
not in that logic. It should have been discussed.
The last document, Allogenes,
is about Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve to replace Abel killed by Cain,
the latter banned by God. That Seth is identified with Jesus, which sounds
normal if we remember that Jesus defines himself as the “son of man” and that
man is Adam, derived from Adamas, the earth. Adam is the first man and his son
is Seth, hence Jesus is Seth. The interest though of this identification is
that Seth is the very symbol of one trend in the emerging Christian faith and
church in the second and third centuries. That trend is the Gnostics also
called Sethians. Here we are dealing with an essential school of Christian
affiliation in those distant centuries and this trend is declared heretic by
Iraneus and the documents that compose the Nag Hammadi Library and this Codex
are definitely sethian and hence gnostic. These documents were stored away in
the Egyptian desert by communities that were following that branch of
Christianity, a branch that was banned. Were they dispersed, or eliminated, we
do not know. Probably some of both.
These documents are essential if we want to understand how Christianity
emerged in nearly three centuries from the crucifixion and martyrdom of one man
in Jerusalem in
33 CE and then the stoning of his brother in 62 CE. This led to the destruction
of the temple of Jerusalem
and then of the walls of the city and the order of all Jews to disappear from
the Levant . That was the radical Diaspora that
is still haunting our modern world. It seems in the case of the Roman Empire and Christianity the emergence of this new
faith would never have occurred if it had not been unified enough via the elimination
of some trends to impress a Roman Emperor and inspire him into declaring this
new religion the official and only religion of the empire. What I say here is
that without the elimination of the “heretic” Gnostics and the unification behind
Pauline and Petrine vision Christianity would never have been able to become
the religion we know. Was it though justified? That’s another question these
documents cannot answer. It is the more spiritual, philosophical and maybe
rebellious side of Christianity that was eliminated in the name of the more down
to earth, realistic and maybe submissive side.
A shame that specialists of this subject remain closed up in their
Biblical learned erudition because there was a whole world out there and they
do not consider it.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
# posted by Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU @ 2:25 PM 
