Food for Thought
- by dominicaldays
- 07.09.10
- 8:23 AM UTC
- Filed in Costa Rica
By Laís Helena Teles
In the year 1045 in Egypt, a peasant found by accident a big clay bowl, buried and hermetically sealed. When he opened it he found some ancient parchments, which would be later referred to as the Gnostic Library of Nag Hammadi. Such texts were much more valuable then that peasant could imagine. They were a set of Christian gospels, dating back to the first centuries A.D., which had remained buried and unknown for almost two thousand years. Because they were so different from the established dogmas and ideas, these texts have never been recognized by the catholic authorities, and were cataloged as Apocryphal (non-authentic). The authorship of these gospels was attributed to an ancient Christian group that appeared in the first centuries of Christianity: the Gnostics. Who were they?
To answer this question we need to study the history of Christianity. In the first centuries after the death of Jesus, there were already many people who called themselves Christians, and according to their affinities they ended up splitting into two main groups: the Orthodox and the Gnostics. The Orthodox (those of righteous faith) were the most numerous and expansionist group. Their idea of salvation was linked to Belief, to obedience and acceptance of the rules and dogmas of the Church. In the Orthodox movement lie the origins of Catholicism. The Gnostics on the other hand, were mystical; they believed that the great human dilemma was not sin, but ignorance. To them the very aim of Jesus’ teachings was to help each person discover, through knowledge, their Inner God, their true spiritual being. The Greek word Gnosis means precisely knowledge. As opposed to the Gnostic view that it was possible for every human being to become a spiritual master, through specific practices and studies (they practiced Meditation, Astrology, Kabala and more), the Orthodox didn’t accept that there could be other Masters except from Jesus. The Gnostics saw Jesus as a man who – with a lot of effort – achieved perfection, thus becoming a God, like Krishna, Buddha, Confucius, etc. That is why they recognized all these masters as authentic messengers of one same universal truth, in different times and places. That’s why it’s so hard to define the Gnostic tradition, because it is practically a secret spiritual line that received its teachings from the oldest and most advanced spiritual schools in India, Egypt, Persia, China, Greece and so on.
In the next issue we’ll see how Gnosticism was persecuted and – apparently – extinct, and also its apparitions throughout Western history.
Codex IV of Nag Hammadi
“Reprinted with the expressed permission of Dominical Days. All rights reserved.”
© Dominical Days S. A., Dominical, Osa, Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Join Dominical Days on Facebook
Related posts:
- Food for Thought Hypochondria: The Imaginary Malady They say that “the worst enemy...
- Green Clippings Darwin Gets Dusty: how radical revisions in evolutionary theory reshape...
Like this article? Get more articles like this - Subscribe Now
