The Origin of Satan (15 page)

of the New Testament.13 If the earliest of the New Testament

gospels, the gospel of Mark, dates from about 70 C.E., the
Gospel

of Thomas,
he argues, may date back a generation earlier.

Although many scholars dispute Koester’s dating of
Thomas
, this

gospel, discovered less than fifty years ago, does in some ways

resemble the kind of source that the authors of Matthew and

Luke used when they composed their own gospels.

Why was this gospel suppressed, along with many others that

have remained virtually unknown for nearly two thousand

years? Originally part of the sacred library of the oldest

monastery in Egypt, these books were buried, apparently,

around 370 C.E., after the archbishop of Alexandria ordered

Christians all over Egypt to ban such books as heresy and

demanded their destruction. Two hundred years earlier, such

works had already been attacked by another zealously orthodox

bishop, Irenaeus of Lyons. Irenaeus was the first, so far as we

know, to identify the four gospels of the New Testament as

canonical, and to exclude all the rest. Distressed that dozens of

gospels were circulating among Christians throughout the

world, including his own Greek-speaking immigrant

congregation living in Gaul, Irenaeus denounced as heretics

those who “boast that they have more gospels than there really

are . . . but really, they have no gospels that are not full of

blasphemy.”14 Only the four gospels of the New Testament,

Irenaeus insisted, are
authentic.
What was his reasoning?

Irenaeus declared that just as there are only four principal winds,

and four corners of the universe, and four pillars holding up the

sky, so there can be only four gospels. Besides, he added, only

the New Testament gospels were written by Jesus’ own disciples

(Matthew and John) or their followers (Mark, disciple of Peter,

and Luke, disciple of Paul).

Few New Testament scholars today agree with Irenaeus.

Although the gospels of the New Testament—like those dis-

70 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN

covered at Nag Hammadi—are
attributed
to Jesus’ followers, no

one knows who actually wrote any of them; furthermore, what

we know about their dating makes the traditional assumptions,

in all cases, extremely unlikely. Yet Irenaeus’s statements remind

us that the collection of books we call the New Testament was

formed as late as 180-200 C.E. Before that time, many gospels

circulated throughout the Christian communities scattered from

Asia Minor to Greece, Rome, Gaul, Spain, and Africa. Yet by the

late second century, bishops of the church who called

themselves orthodox rejected all but the four canonical gospels,

denouncing all the rest, in Irenaeus’s words, as “an abyss of

madness, and blasphemy against Christ.”15 Irenaeus wanted to

consolidate Christian groups threatened by persecution

throughout the world. The gospels he endorsed helped

institutionalize the Christian movement. Those he denounced as

heresy did not serve the purposes of institutionalization. Some,

on the contrary, urged people to seek direct access to God,

unmediated by church or clergy.

The
Gospel of Thomas
, as noted above, claims to offer secret

teaching—teaching quite different from that of Mark, Matthew,

Luke, and John. According to Mark, for example, Jesus first

appears proclaiming that “the time is at hand; the Kingdom of

God is drawing near. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (1:15).

According to Mark, the world is about to undergo cataclysmic

transformation: Jesus predicts strife, war, conflict, and suffering,

followed by a world-shattering event—the coming of the

Kingdom of God (13:1-37).

But in the
Gospel of Thomas
the “kingdom of God” is not an

event expected to happen in history, nor is it a “place.” The

author of
Thomas
seems to ridicule such views:

Jesus said, “If those who lead you say to you, ‘Lord, the

kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede

you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will

precede you” (NHC 11.32.19-24).

Here the kingdom represents a state of self-discovery:

MATTHEW’S CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE PHARISEES / 71

“Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you.

When you come to know yourselves, then you will become

known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of

the living Father” (NHC II.32.25-33.5).

But the disciples, mistaking that kingdom for a future event,

persist in naive questioning:

“When will . . . the new world come?” Jesus said to them,

“What you look forward to has already come, but you do not

recognize it” (NHC 11.42.10-12).

According to the
Gospel of Thomas
, then, the kingdom of God

symbolizes a state of transformed consciousness. One enters that

kingdom when one attains self-knowledge. The
Gospel of

Thomas
teaches that when one comes to know oneself, at the

deepest level, one simultaneously comes to know God as the

source of one’s being.

If we then ask, “Who is Jesus?,” the
Gospel of Thomas
gives an

answer different from that in the gospels of the New Testament.

Mark, for example, depicts Jesus as an utterly unique being—the

Messiah, God’s appointed king. According to Mark, it was Peter

who discovered the secret of Jesus’ identity:

And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea

Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do men

say that I am?” And they told him “John the Baptist; and

others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” And he

asked them, “But who do vou say that I am?” Peter answered

him, “You are the Messiah” (8:27-29).

But the
Gospel of Thomas
tells the same story differently:

Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me to someone, and tell

me whom I am like.” Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a

righteous messenger.” Matthew said to him, “You are like a

wise philosopher.” Thomas said to him, “Master, my mouth is

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wholly incapable of saving whom you are like” (NHC

11.34.30-35.3).

The author of
Thomas
here interprets, for Greek-speaking

readers, Matthew’s claim that Jesus was a rabbinic teacher (“wise

philosopher”), and Peter’s conviction that Jesus was the Messiah

(“righteous messenger”). Jesus does not deny these roles, at least

in relation to Matthew and Peter. But according to Thomas, here

they—and their answers—represent an inferior level of

understanding. Thomas, who recognizes that he himself cannot

assign a specific role to Jesus, transcends at that moment the

relation of disciple to master. Jesus declares that Thomas has

become like himself:

“I am not your Master, for you have drunk, and become drunk

from the bubbling stream I measured out. . . . Whoever drinks

from my mouth will become as I am, and I myself will become

that person, and things that are hidden will be revealed to him”

(NHC II.35.4-7; 50:27-30).

The New Testament gospel of John emphasizes Jesus’

uniqueness even more strongly than Mark does. According to

John, Jesus is not a mere human being but the divine and eternal

Word of God, God’s “only begotten son,” who descends to earth

in human form to rescue the human race from eternal damnation:

God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son,

that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have

eternal life. . . . Whoever believes in him is not condemned,

but whoever does not believe in him is condemned already

because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten

Son of God (3:16-18).

But, as we have seen,
Thomas
offers a very different message.

Far from regarding himself as the only begotten son of God,

Jesus says to his disciples, “When you come to know

yourselves” (and discover the divine within you), then “you will

recognize

MATTHEW’S CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE PHARISEES / 73

that it is
you
who are the sons of the living Father”—just like

Jesus. The
Gospel of Philip
makes the same point more

succinctly: one is to “become not a Christian, but a Christ.” This,

I believe, is the symbolic meaning of attributing the
Gospel of

Thomas
to Jesus’ “twin brother.” In effect, “You, the reader, are

the twin brother of Christ” when you recognize the divine

within you. Then you will see, as Thomas does, that you and

Jesus are, so to speak, identical twins.

One who seeks to “become not a Christian, but a Christ” no

longer looks only to Jesus—and later to his church and its

leaders—as most believers do, as the source of all truth. So,

while the Jesus of the gospel of John declares, “I am the door;

whoever enters through me shall be saved,” the
Teaching of

Silvanus
points in a different direction:

Knock upon yourself as upon a door, and walk upon yourself

as on a straight road. For if you walk upon that road, it is

impossible for you to go astray. . . . Open the door for yourself,

that you may know what is. . . . Whatever you open for

yourself, you will open (NHC VII. 106.30-35; 117.5-20).

Why did the majority of early Christian churches reject such

writings as
Thomas
and accept other, possibly later accounts—for

example, Matthew, Luke, and John?
Thomas
appeals to people

engaged in spiritual transformation, but it does not answer the

practical questions of many potential converts who lived in or

near Jewish communities scattered throughout the cities of

Palestine and the imperial provinces. Potential converts asked

questions like these: Do you want us to fast? How shall we pray?

Shall we give alms? What diet should we observe? In short, are

believers to follow traditional Jewish practices, or not?

According to the
Gospel of Thomas
, when the disciples ask “the

living Jesus” these very questions, he refuses to give them

specific directions, answering only,

“Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate: for all things are

manifest in the sight of heaven” (NHC 11.33.18-21).

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This enigmatic answer leaves each person to his or her own

conscience; for who else knows when one is lying, and who else

knows what one hates? Profound as such an answer may be, it

offers no programmatic guidelines for group instruction, much

less for the formation of a religious institution. The gospels

included in the New Testament, by contrast, do offer such

guidelines. According to Matthew and Luke, for example, Jesus

answers each one of these questions authoritatively and

specifically:

“When you pray, say, ‘Our Father, who art in heaven . . .’

When you fast, wash your face. . . . When you give alms, do so

in secret” (6:2-12).

As for the kosher laws, Mark says that Jesus “proclaimed all

foods clean.”

Furthermore, while
Thomas
says that finding the kingdom of

God requires undergoing a solitary process of self-discovery, the

gospels of the New Testament offer a far simpler message: one

attains to God not by spiritual self-knowledge, but by believing

in Jesus the Messiah. Now that God has sent salvation through

Christ, repent; accept baptism and forgiveness of sins; join God’s

people and receive salvation.

Finally, while
Thomas
blesses “the solitary and the chosen”

Thomas
34:29) and addresses the solitary seeker, or at most a

select inner circle, Mark and his successors combine many

elements of earlier Jesus tradition—miracle stories, teachings,

and controversy stories, along with an account of Jesus’

passion—to show Jesus and his disciples in a social context,

contending at various times with Jewish leaders, with crowds,

both friendly and hostile, and with ruling authorities, Jewish

and Roman. In the process, Mark and his successors offer social

models by which Jesus’ followers identify themselves as a

group—often a deficient and threatened group, as they describe

it, but one that claims to be God’s own people, continuing Jesus’

work of healing, casting out demons, and proclaiming the

coming of God’s kingdom.

The author of Mark, then, offers a rudimentary model for

Christian community life. The gospels that the majority of

Christians adopted in common all follow, to some extent, Mark’s

MATTHEW’S CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE PHARISEES / 75

example. Successive generations found in the New Testament

gospels what they did not find in many other elements of early

Jesus tradition—a practical design for Christian communities.

The writer whom tradition calls Matthew updates Mark to

address the circumstances he confronts in the immediate postwar

decades. Many scholars think that Matthew lived outside of