T(r)oy's Marbles

3. Remember, to arrive at the First Cause, one must go through the various Effects of the First Cause. This is because, to a Gnostic way of thinking, we are both Effects and Causes. And, yes, in that order: first Effects, then Causes.

Here’s how it works: Being causes Living Things. Here you can see that “Living Things” are the Effect of the Cause of Being. Then, the Effect (in this case “Living Things”) becomes a Cause when Living Things “gives birth to” Plants. Plants then cause Trees and Trees cause Fruit Trees, and so forth. We are first Effects, then Causes.

You can see that, in the example I’ve just cited, Fruit Trees are removed from the First Cause of Being by at least four layers. In reality, when compared with actual Gnosticism, four layers of separation between First Cause and Final Effect may be considered rather miniscule. Many Gnostics construed the Real World as consisting of hundreds of such layers!

But, what’s important to keep in mind is this: to reach the First Cause of Being (that is, “to attain salvation”), a progression through the layers, the spheres, the aeons is required. But, to progress through the spheres, a knowledge of the spheres is required. So…

A. The Gnostics believed that, from time to time, messengers would come from the “world up there” to our world to bring us privileged knowledge of the “other world”. It was a good thing, otherwise how were humans to attain this knowledge of the unknown? And, were we to fail in that regard, how would we ever attain salvation?

B. Gnosticism is a very complex philosophical thought-grid. It presents us with rather technical constructions as to the nature of Reality. Believe it or not, numerology and Gnosticism went hand-in-hand. We’ll see some examples of this later, but keep in mind, the Gnostics viewed this as an essential component to salvation. Yes, numbers upon numbers! It’s every literature major’s nightmare. But, remember, you can’t get there without this kind of specialized knowledge.

4. This is why the Gnostics were such a diverse group, because, of course, there were lots of disagreements as to which group or person had the true knowledge of Ultimate Reality. Gnosticism is actually a very exclusive kind of philosophy (exclusive in the sense of “you’re in” and “you’re out”). The various Gnostic groups believed that they (and only they) had the correct depository of sacred truth while the other groups did not. If you were not in the correct group, you would just be “out of luck.”

Keep in mind that, if you want to draw from the Gnostics, you really do need to play by their “rules”, so to speak. You can’t just go around saying, “Oh, I think I’ll take a little from this group and a little from that group, and, now that I think of it, I’ll have a pinch of this and a dash of that, and a teaspoon here with a side order of hash browns.” No, I’m sorry, my friend, the Gnostics (Christian or otherwise) would not allow you to do that. “Either you’re one hundred percent with me or you’re one hundred percent against me.” Indeed, this is what makes Gnosticism “Gnosticism”. It’s “exclusive knowledge” that no one else has, dontchyaknow. (Keep this principle in mind, because it will come back later to bite Dan Brown in his big fat butt. And now that I’ve gotten that nuanced opinion out of my system, let me go on by saying…)

It’s interesting that Brown’s novel presents this “exclusive” side of the Gnostics without overplaying it because, let’s face it, exclusivity is not popular these days. Ours is a time of inclusion, a time of tolerance, a time when we need to try to understand and accept one another, without condemning, drawing lines of “in” and “out”. The irony is: The Da Vinci Code fires this accusation at the “traditionalists”, but the Gnostic alternative is, in fact, no less exclusive. (And, where Dan Brown presents the Gnostic alternative as “inclusive” he misrepresents them, but more on that later.)

To his credit, Mr. Brown does fairly present the fact that the Priory of Sion does, in fact, have a secret depository of truth that has been kept hidden. In this way, Brown’s presentation of the Gnostic alternative is accurate. But, the “exclusive” nature of Gnosticism is not often discussed as one of the “down sides” of The Da Vinci Code alternative. It’s there, but it’s just “hidden” between the lines. Appropriate, isn’t it?

5. Christian Gnosticism thought of Jesus as a “messenger” from the “world out there”. The value of Jesus, to the Christian Gnostic, lay in the knowledge, the information Jesus imparted about the unseen world. To the Christian Gnostic, salvation equals knowledge, and this is what Jesus brought. But…

A. There were different brands of Christian Gnosticism. This should come as no surprise, since there would likely be various “takes” on the content of the knowledge that Jesus imparted. The Christian Gnostics were by no means in agreement one with another.

B. In the early centuries, you needed to choose which group of Christian Gnostics you wanted to identify with. You could not be a part of more than one group, because one group’s version of what Jesus said did not match up with another group’s version. That was the point, you see. “Our group is right” and “Your group is wrong.” “Join us”.

C. We can learn about what the various Christian Gnostics thought about Jesus and his teachings by reading their writings, which are known as “The Gnostic Gospels”. Dan Brown portrays these “Gnostic Gospels” in his book as if they present a “united front” in providing an alternative to the traditionalist viewpoint, but, in fact, they do anything but present a united front. They do have one thing in common, however. They all taught that Jesus was merely a messenger from the “other world” imparting knowledge of “the divine”—a point, interestingly enough, that Dan Brown does not draw out. But beyond that point of commonality, each of them portrays Jesus as presenting a different teaching. This, of course, is to be expected. That’s the point of the various groups. That’s why they all wrote a different so-called gospel.

D. The Gnostic Gospels often take an incident recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John or Acts and expand on it in some way, letting the reader in on “what really happened.” For example, in the Gnostic writing entitled The Sophia of Jesus Christ, we come into the scene recorded in Acts 1 where, according to Luke, the disciples ask the risen Jesus a question: “When will you restore the kingdom to Israel?” In Luke’s account of this scene, Jesus responds simply and succinctly, moving on to a matter of greater import: the commissioning of the disciples to be witnesses for Christ throughout the world. But in The Sophia we see a different rendering of this scene.

The Sophia of Jesus Christ expands on this scene by, first of all, asserting that Jesus really is going to answer their rather Platonic question in a certain Platonic way. Then, the rest of the document records all that Jesus said, an interesting extended Q & A session with the Twelve.

You see? “There’s a whole lot more to tell,” the Gnostic writers claim. “And we’re here to tell it. We have the inside scoop.”

Another example is The Gospel of Judas which is famous now because it was covered heavily by the media fairly recently. In this writing, Jesus is at the Last Supper with his disciples, when, suddenly, he pulls Judas aside and imparts to him some special knowledge that Judas is then expected to protect, presumably for the purpose of forming an exclusive little group of “people who really know the truth.”

Of course, many of the Gnostic Gospels fit this model: Jesus pulls one of the disciples aside and gives to that one—and to that one only—the knowledge of metaphysic salvation. Do you see? This plays into the hands of the various Gnostic groups. If one particular group can say, “Well, here’s what our man Thomas said” or “Here’s what Judas taught us” then they can claim the “inside story”; they can claim to be valid “authorities” on the matter. But there is a big problem with this: the Gnostics rely on dividing the testimony of the twelve disciples, whereas in the traditionalist viewpoint we see that the disciples stand quite simply in agreement with one another (without a dogmatic insistence that each agrees with the other on “every jot and tittle”—a kind of free unity).

Because the Gnostic Gospels often present Jesus as “the dispenser of specialized knowledge to one of the disciples”, all of the Gnostic Gospels therefore contain very complicated descriptions of Metaphysical Reality, involving delineations as to “aeons” and “spheres” and nuances steeped in Platonic philosophy. Numerology abounds. But, of course, that part is left out of the story that Dan Brown tells. I wonder why? (Could he have left those bits out of the story because that part of the paradigm is, oh, let’s say, completely idiotic? Yes, I think so.)

Let’s look now at just a sampling of the Gnostic Gospels. I’ll pick just the two examples we’ve already cited (The Sophia and The Gospel of Judas), so as not to overwhelm the reader. As we go along, I’ll make some comments, interfacing what we’ve noted thus far in the essay.

We'll start with The Sophia of Jesus Christ tomorrow. Come along for the ride, because I've tried to sprinkle some humor into it!

To go on to the next part of "The Alternate Account" click here.