21. Hedrick, Charles W. and Robert Hodgson Jr., (Eds.) Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, and Early Christianity: Fourteen leading scholars discuss the current issues in gnostic studies (Hendrickson Publishers 1986) The title of this book is very promising, and, surprise (1), its content is right on the mark in addressing the question I am attempting to address, which is whether or not the Gnostics were the first Christians as Freke and Gandy have alleged. The answer is no, in Frederik Wisse s chapter in the book which covers pages 177-190. It is impossible to reconstruct the nature of any factionalism in Christianity in its first century historically, says Wisse, there is just not enough evidence except for the very obvious rift mentioned by Paul but covered up in Acts, between the followers of Paul and of Peter. Wisse gives some good evidence for there being no real organized factions in earliest Christianity, there was instead a heterodox mix of beliefs brought in by those who were attracted to the new teaching, and it seems they wrote som e of their ideas down to convince others of their particular views, not at all to criticize and orthodoxy that didn t yet exist. The generation of a structure in the decades after Jesus death began to define the structure of the movement, denoting its leaders and thus spokespersons. This resulted in an "orthocracy" which eventually led to efforts to control the message, and thus to conflicts within what used to be a loose-knit association based on a common core belief in the Messianic promise of Jesus. That was the first century. It is very different in the second century as we will see after some discussion of what I think, as if anyone cares. If we entertain the Freke and Gandy idea that Paul is a Gnostic, this would be a rift between Gnostic-Christians and Jewish-Christians. But since Paul became what he became Page 1 of 5
after the death of Christ, it still means that the original Christians were the Jewish-Christians and not the Gnostic- Christians. In my opinion, however, calling Paul a Gnostic is going a bit too far, unless what they say about the Clementina, the Clementine recognitions is true: that the Simon Magus they so berate and vilify is actually Paul. For those who so believe it is obvious there is struggle between Jewish- and Gnostic-Christians at the very start of Christianity. But Peter and his group, with James the brother of Jesus as their head at some point in time, were the original Christians. Paul came later, though still early enough to, as Freke and Gandy probably rightly claim, write the first letters to be received as scripture that came to overlay all the subsequent writings, including the Gospels written by the three evangelists, one of whom also wrote Acts which smooths over the Paul/Peter rift. But, rather than continuing to tell you what I think, I should cite the book I am here reviewing on these points, and it doesn t say quite what I said just now in that last paragraph. It said what I said in the next to the last paragraph, the rest is my own opinions and speculations. But I did say the picture of conflicts within Christianity became clearer in the second century. For that discussion we turn to the next chapter in the book, one by Douglas M. Parrott, which covers pages 193-219. This is the chapter to which I alluded in my review of the book by Dart. One of its primary points is the likelihood that the tract Sophia of Jesus Christ is a missionary tract designed to appeal to non-christian Gnostics. The fact that it contains no polemic against the orthodox church suggests it was early, from the time described in the previous chapter when it was OK to be heterodox as long as one believed in the importance of the Christ. Other arguments are also given for an early date, very early in the second century Page 2 of 5
before structure and orthodoxy were imposed on the new religion. Parrott makes some very interesting observations, at quite some length, on how to tell one faction from another by the apostles they name and thus favor and the ones they exclude (see item # 25 by Leloup, for a minor example). The popularity of the name Peter stands out as an enigma, but is explainable as being the name everyone recognizes as important to making any claim to legitimacy. Though Peter is often mentioned, he does not have a sayings Gospel named after him, his G ospel is a resurrection story showing Jesus had preached to those who slept. Whether it is Gnostic or not is a matter of subjective interpretation it seems. It is nowhere in this entire book mentioned, except by Parrott, and he doesn t mention it as Gnostic in origin. The general thrust of Parrott s paper of direct applicability to what I am looking for is that the earliest tracts written by Gnostics did not attack the church, whereas later tracts, using the sam e apostolic names (including women, especially Mary Magdalene) used for authorities in the earlier texts, do take on the church and attack its authority and teachings. Much of the content of these tracts claims to know the teachings left by Jesus during his stay (40 days long) with the apostles (men and women) after his resurrection. This was the basis of their claim to special knowledge not had by the church which discounted the importance of that period mentioned in the Acts, in the New Testament. The editor for this volume, Charles W. Hedrick, wrote an introductory chapter, a "Beginner s Guide." Obviously I read it first, it goes from page 1 to 11. It addresses the overall topic of the relation between Gnosticism and early Christianity by drawing on his own expertise and each of the chapters that follow by the other authors. The points I have Page 3 of 5
already made above are also reflected in his well written and easy to read chapter. He also points to some language in the chapter by Birger A. Pearson I found intriguing (pages 15 through 35) because as I read that piece somehow I missed the point being made about the earliest Gnostic writings:... "the earliest Gnostic literature was produced by Jewish intellectuals, as a product of their revolt against the Jewish God and his capacity as World-Creator and Lawgiver." So, I went back to Pearson and found a larger discussion, but still in summary form, of this topic on his pages 16 through 19 and 34 through 35. In a nutshell, he presents evidence between these summaries to show that Jews wrote the first Gnostic texts, but over time some did, and some did not, become Christianized to some degree. It was Jewish intellectuals who rejected the God of Israel that did this, adopting the ideas of Gnostics in the non-jewish world around them. In fact and effect they passed the boundaries of Judaism, wrote materials that were anti-jewish, and created a new religion, to still be labeled Jewish-Gnosticism because it was a reaction against Judaism, especially its God. Is it this Jewish-Gnosticism that embraced and tried to take over Christianity? Pearson says, to my surprise, no, it is not that simple (page 34): The "building blocks" of this new gnosis, as expressed in literature,, are Jewish; yet the interpretation can be seen to be "anti-jewish" in the extreme, if by "Judaism" we mean (at least) devotion to the Creator, his Law, and his people. This new gnosis quickly assumed Christian forms, as is illustrated by the Apocryphon of John, wherein Jesus Christ assumes the role of a revealer. But while there seems to be a necessary relationship between Gnosticism (at least in its earliest forms) and Judaism, there is no such necessary relationship between Gnosticism and Christianity. Nor is Page 4 of 5
there a single trajectory running from Jewish to Christian forms of the Gnostic religion. And on page 35: We can readily posit as authors and avid readers of the Gnostic materials Jewish intellectuals who, estranged from the "mainstream" of their own culture and dissatisfied with traditional answers, adopted a revolutionary stance vis-a-vis their religious traditions, not by rejecting them altogether but by applying to them a new interpretation. Pearson says that both Gnosticism and Christianity were, therefore, derivatives from and new interpretations of Judaistic scriptures and oral traditions. On his page 16 he notes that by the end of the first century of the Christian era Jewish-Gnosticism was waning and Christian-Gnosticism was waxing, and the rest of his paper documents from the Nag Hammadi codexes that the Christian Gnostics reworked and reinterpreted what were originally Jewish-Gnostic works. Were they the same people, converted? I think so myself, but there is no evidence one way or the other. Page 5 of 5