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Relics of an Ancient War: The Lost Scriptures of Early Christianity
When war is declared, truth is the first casualty.
?Arthur Ponsonby
At the start of the twenty-first century we find ourselves in the middle of a religious war. Islamic terrorists have attacked America, Israel, Spain, France, and Russia in recent years, and the president of the mightiest nation on Earth has openly doubted if the West can ever win this war against these religious extremists. Most perpetrators of suicide operations around the world for the past ten years have professed to be devout Muslims, but their claim to representing true Islam has been widely disputed. Their fellow Muslims around the world have not universally united in support of this jihad against the West?but they have not done so in condemnation of it either. This should not surprise us, because Islam was born with a warlike nature, and aggression will probably always be in its blood. Although Mohammed preached peace, history leaves no doubt that he supported the use of violence for the advancement of Islam, and his followers have never forgotten that injunction. This distinguishes Islam from other religious approaches, such as Buddhism, that are not so warlike.
Official Christianity, the foundation of Western civilization, was also born of war, and will probably always have war in its blood as well. By this, I do not mean the original religion Christ taught, but rather the imposter that came later and modified His teachings. This imposter shows no evidence of being the true offspring of the Prince of Peace, but seems instead to be, much like Islam, born of a warlike parentage. The official church has been in a fairly constant state of war since its inception, fighting the Jews, the Gnostics, the Muslims, dissenting sects, and even a good portion of the scientific community. True Christianity, however, unlike that imposter that came later, could not have been originally a warlike religion. Its Founder never carried a sword, refused to defend Himself when attacked, and taught His followers to ?love their enemies,? ?give to those who ask,? ?worship not money,? ?turn the other cheek,? and ?resist not evil.? Not only did the Founder of Christianity go quietly like a lamb to His own slaughter, he also actually told His disciples that if they wanted to be saved, they would have to follow His example and do the same. There seems little doubt that that person is not represented by our Western civilization today. He is not represented by our politicians, or our priests, or by Wall Street, academia, or Hollywood. He is virtually unknown. And so are His true teachings.
That could be a problem just now. While the Islamic militants attacking the West believe they are being loyal to Mohammed?s teachings in fighting this war, anyone acquainted with Christ?s Gospel knows He did not advocate warfare. For the West to respond in kind to these terrorist attacks violates the teachings of our religion?s Founder, putting us in the untenable position of trying to win a religious war by betraying our religion, even as our enemy remains loyal to his. Such a strategy provides them a formidable psychological advantage.
These terrorists already enjoy at least one advantage over the West. Islam is visibly growing stronger and more robust around the world, while Christianity seems to be dying the fabled ?death of a thousand cuts.? In Europe, once the stronghold of a vast Christian Empire, an increasing percentage of the population considers religion irrelevant. In America, Christianity?s supposed new center of gravity on the planet, a corrupt ministry?s sexual and financial scandals have managed to make the vulgarities of popular television seem tame by comparison. And in science, more and more evidence is piling up in support of reincarnation, an idea which, if true, spells doom for conventional Christian theology.
Still, despite all the systemic weaknesses of modern Christianity, the only way the West is going to win this war is to stay united and focused, and in this particular conflict that means we have to remain true to our cultural and religious ideals, whatever they may be, at least as much as our enemies do to theirs. Make no mistake about it, this is a conflict over cultural ideals and perspectives, and if we are less devoted to our cultural vision than these Islamic militants are to theirs, we will be at a serious disadvantage. Once, all wars were ?religious? wars, and some would say that reality has never really changed. People used to believe that an army?s strength stemmed from the god it fought for; people today might instead say that an army?s true power is found in the ideal it uses to rally people to its cause. In either case, if we find ourselves entering a conflict that is at odds with our cultural ideals and religious vision, our hearts will not be in the struggle. And a halfhearted army rarely wins wars, especially against an enemy as single-minded as the suicidal militants facing the West today.
If this conflict did not come to us dressed as a religious war, these sorts of ideological issues might not bring the same weight to bear on our psyches that they do today. But this is, at least in the minds of the Islamic jihadists attacking us, an authentic religious war. And if truth be told, our response has largely been cut from that same cloth. Immediately after 9/11, images of the American president preaching at church podiums were broadcast all over the world. Bush characterized our enemy as pure ?evil? and labeled his war against them a ?crusade,? using terminology guaranteed to reawaken memories of other religious wars. But even with all this posturing, it was still surprising when Bush promoted a general who openly argued for religious war. In the summer of 2003, Lt. Gen. William ?Jerry? Boykin was made deputy undersecretary of defense after spending the previous two years giving public speeches condemning Islam as a tool of the devil, preaching that the Christian God is ?bigger? than Allah, and that America?s war on terrorism is a Christian fight against Satan. This rhetoric so outraged the Church of England that Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams scolded both Bush and Britain?s Tony Blair for using religious language and Christian imagery to justify their war against Iraq.
Is this truly a religious war, or is it just being made to appear as one? Certainly a great many on both sides of the conflict view it as such. Unfortunately, defining this conflict in religious terms may have a psychological downside that Bush and Blair failed to anticipate. It has become clear from the last century?s archaeological finds that what the world follows today is not Original Christianity, but a heavily edited, modified, and incomplete substitute.
From a purely political perspective, the timing for such revelations couldn?t be worse. At a time in history when most educated people assumed the days of religious wars were long behind us, events beyond our control seem intent on thrusting our world into yet another one. But at the same time, archaeology informs us that everything we thought we knew about Original Christianity may be wrong, disarming us of our faith at the very moment we need it most.
Accusations about Christianity having been corrupted long ago are nothing new. From its very inception, sects began splitting off from the main trunk of the faith, accusing the church of betraying and corrupting Christ?s original teachings. This accusation has been repeated by every denomination of Christianity.
While these sects don?t agree on what the true teachings of Original Christianity actually were, they do agree that those original teachings were betrayed and corrupted. Solid proof to back up those claims came in 1945, when a large cache of previously unknown early Christian scriptures was unearthed in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, a small southern village on the west bank of the Nile. These 52 early Christian writings had once so threatened the official church that it sought out and destroyed all existing copies and murdered any poor soul who happened to be caught in possession of one of these illegal scriptures. The only reason any copies of these works remained to be found at Nag Hammadi is because the official church never knew they were buried there.
The Lost Gospels
Never before had such a collection been recovered; this find brought the first serious defeat to the church?s 2,000-year censorship campaign, which had alienated the world from the earliest flowerings of Christian thought. Thanks to that censorship, some of the teachings and recurring themes in these early scriptures now seem totally alien to Christianity. In the Gospel of Thomas, for example, we are repeatedly instructed to ?make the two one?; in the Gospel of Philip, we are told that Jesus Himself ?divided? in two when He died; in the Secret Book of James, we read that salvation revolves around the relationship between one?s own soul and spirit; in the Gospel of Mary, we are warned against having a divided heart; and in the Gospel of Truth, we learn that Jesus? mission was to repair a great division. This theme of division and duality obviously permeated early Christian thought, but was later erased from the canvas of history.
A great many of these lost scriptures have been dated to the first or second century, making them some of the earliest Christian literature. Despite that, these teachings were erased from the church?s legacy; we never inherited them because the church didn?t want us to. For 1,500 years, from Constantine?s conversion in the fourth century until the end of the Spanish Inquisition in 1834, the church burned these books and killed their owners. It was the longest censorship campaign in human history.
There is no way to calculate how much we lost. Although a few listings of titles of missing early Christian scriptures still exist, we know these listings aren?t inclusive. They are just the only listings that managed to survive the editing process of the church. Still, they are enough. They make it clear that many more early Christian scriptures once existed. In the first centuries of the church, the faithful once read the following, alongside the familiar titles in today?s Bible:
listing omitted
Today?s official New Testament only offers its readers the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, along with a handful of letters from Paul, Peter, James, and Jude. Early congregations also read dozens of gospels and holy scriptures that no longer exist. All we have left today are a few of the titles, which stand as witness to the power and thoroughness of the church?s censorship campaign. Although only eight authors are represented in the official New Testament, in the earliest years of Christianity the faithful read the work of at least 38 additional authors that we know of. The earliest disciples spent their lives teaching a literate culture about Christ, and, as Luke himself testifies, a great many written works emerged from their passionate commitment to that mission:
Many have taken pen in hand to draw up an account of the things that have taken place among us, just as they were handed down to us from the first eyewitnesses and ministers of the word. Since I have perfectly followed all these things from the very beginning, it therefore seemed good for me to also write you an orderly account. (Luke 1:1?3)
Before Luke got around to writing his version of events, many others had already done so. The official church, however, condemned all of those early reports, all except the 27 books that made it into the New Testament. In making those decisions, the church demonstrated favoritism toward one author in particular: Paul, who wrote 14 of the 27 books in the New Testament?and never even met Jesus in the flesh. Today the official church embraces Paul?s letters as the standard by which all other Christian scripture is to be judged, primarily because his work, before the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas, seemed to be the oldest surviving Christian literature. Paul?s writings were given preference over a great many other scriptures, including many allegedly written by some of the actual Twelve Apostles, such as Peter, James, Andrew, Thomas, and Philip. The church?s only possible defense of this would be if all those writings were falsely attributed and were not actually written by the true Twelve; for if they were authentic, then the testimony of those who spent a year or more being instructed by Christ during His ministry would surely be preferred over someone who had only had visions of Him after His Resurrection.
The church does deny that these scriptures were written by members of the original Twelve. There are two things wrong with this position, however. First, if these scriptures were not originally written by the apostles, then where are the scriptures they wrote? Luke says that a sizable percentage of the apostles wrote their recollections or teachings. If these recently discovered scriptures are not the ones they wrote, then where are the ones they did write? Second, a very good case can be made that both the Gospel of Thomas (found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945) and the Gospel of Peter (found in Akhmim, Egypt, in 1886)actually date from the mid-first century, which is exactly when the Twelve would have been most likely to produce written works.
We know our lists of lost works are incomplete, because the Nag Hammadi find contained no fewer than 41 early Christian scriptures that we?d never heard of. Their titles had previously appeared in no list, no correspondence, no surviving document of any kind. These scriptures were considered so dangerous to the church that not one mention of them was allowed to survive. In the last century, for example, we discovered that there had once been a Gospel of Mary. We never knew that because the church didn?t want us to. If the church had wanted that text to survive, no power on earth could have erased it from our heritage.
These texts and all trace of them were to be rooted out, the church decided. History was wiped clean of any memory or mention of the ideas in these works, until their texts were unearthed in Egypt.
How many more were there? Were there another 41 scriptures written in the earliest years of the church that we still don?t know anything about? Were there a hundred? Two hundred? There doesn?t seem to be any way to know. If the church could successfully erase all memory of these 41 scriptures, it could do anything; 1,500 years is a long time to get a story straight.
Truth through Censorship
The official church openly admits this censorship. It claims that all these lost texts were erroneous representations of Christianity and so deserved to be destroyed; and in support of that position, it points to some extant writings of early church figures that say as much. This argument is disingenuous, however, for the church is arguing its case with evidence it has admitted tampering with. For all we know, the vast majority of Christians in the first two centuries preferred these forbidden scriptures over those the official church canonized. But now that all evidence that might have reflected this has been erased, we will never know. As soon as the official church began tampering with the evidence, it lost all credibility.
Over the years, many have accused the church of betraying its original integrity in order to gain political strength and stability, and such a motivation may be understandable. Christians suffered horrific persecution in its first 300 years. Many of the original apostles endured beatings, stonings, and imprisonments. Anyone who accepted a public position as a Christian leader was asking for a short and troubled life. For example, in 235 A.D., the Roman bishop Pontian was arrested almost as soon as he was ordained. Rome sent him to the lead mines of Sardinia, where prisoners were forced to toil 20 grueling hours per day on nothing but one meal of bread and water. Most died within months. Like Pontian, many high-ranking Christians were sent to the Sardinian mines in those years, or persecuted in other equally miserable ways. Less than a century later, however, after the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, everything changed. In 314 A.D., the new Roman bishop found himself showered with prestige, wealth, pomp, and the favor of the emperor. Instead of facing persecution, he was now living in the lap of luxury, with a beautiful palace, a glorious cathedral, and all the trappings of power.
It was only natural for Christians to welcome a more politically approved status for the church. But ever since that status was granted, historians have been asking if accepting it was a mistake. Before Constantine, the church had been a pure fellowship of selfless heroes, people so committed to serving Jesus that they endured any hardship. There was no question of their personal dedication to the church?s ideals and teachings, since they were putting their lives on the line just to be a member. But after Constantine?s conversion, the newly ?politically correct? church became an attractive career option for the average person. Simply claiming to be a Christian could bring power, prestige, and promotion, where it had previously brought persecution. This placed the church at risk of being infiltrated by unscrupulous people seeking nothing more than worldly power and political advancement. Such people, if they succeeded in securing a foothold in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, could ascend to positions where their ambition could compromise the church.
The Emperor?s New Sword
As Constantine came to power in the fourth century, the Roman Empire was struggling with a dilemma. After centuries of persecutions, it had become obvious that the flood of Christians refusing to pay religious homage to the emperor was not going to end, even under penalty of death. Constantine knew a radically new approach was needed. The masses had become unacceptably unruly, and the empire needed to find something to render them servile and cooperative again.
Until Christianity entered the picture, state and religion had operated in tandem in Rome. The emperor had been viewed as a god and had exercised a god?s unlimited control over his subjects. Christianity was the first real interruption of that privilege. This strange new religion gave its followers the courage to defy the state, as they so famously did during the Christian persecutions. This open defiance made a huge impression on Rome. It left the emperor looking weak, which threatened the stability of the whole empire.
But the emperor eventually realized that this new faith might be made to work for him, just as all the former religions had done. Constantine tried to increase his control over the population by reunifying state and religion. With Christianity working for the state, the emperor reasoned, he could reestablish his traditional control over the populace, giving commands the masses would again be afraid to disobey. Indeed, Christianity seemed to hold the potential to make the emperor?s power over the masses greater than it had ever been before. With a renewed alignment of church and state, the people would no longer merely fear the ability of the state to take their lives, but would then also fear its ability to condemn their souls to eternal damnation in the afterlife. A government that could get the population to believe it had such power would possess the most successful populace control system imaginable.
But some adjustments would be needed first. The state?s claim to religious power would rest on one assumption: that earthly authorities could damn one?s soul to eternal punishment. That, of course, would require the people to believe that a single, eternal afterlife immediately followed one?s present earthly life. There was no room in this picture for any idea that a person might have more than one chance to get things right. Belief in reincarnation, if it was there, would have to go.
Reincarnation in the Early Church
Belief in reincarnation was there. There?s really no questioning the presence of the concept of reincarnation in early Christian theology. In fact, the doctrine of rebirth was so mainstream in the earliest years of the church that one of its most prominent teachers, Valentinus, almost became pope. Born in Alexandria around 100 A.D., Valentinus claimed to have been personally initiated by Theudas, a disciple and initiate of the apostle Paul, who had passed down secret teachings and rituals from Christ Himself. Like Paul, Valentinus also claimed to have had a vision of the risen Christ. After this mystical experience, he began teaching in Alexandria but migrated to Rome around 135 A.D., where he quickly became an influential and widely respected member of the official church. His pro-reincarnational teachings were so well received there that he became a candidate for the papacy. After losing what is said to have been a very close election, he continued to teach in Rome for many years, and his theology attracted a large following, especially in Egypt and Syria.
The official church openly admits that some portion of pre-Nicene Christianity believed in reincarnation, and the recovered gospels from Nag Hammadi, preserved for 1,500 years in their original unedited condition, say the same thing. In fact, it would have been surprising if the concept of reincarnation had not been a part of the original teachings of the church, since the world in which Christianity arose was utterly saturated with the idea. In Egypt, that massive cultural force on Israel?s western border, the doctrine was so ancient that a number of Pharaohs even had the idea incorporated into their very names. And the concept of rebirth was at the foundation of India?s entire culture. But by far the most direct influx came through Hellenistic thought; ever since Alexander the Great conquered the Mediterranean world in the fourth century B.C., the pro-reincarnational teachings of Plato and Socrates flowed like water through the Holy Land. By enforcing the spread of Greek language, Alexander and his successors brought everyone into communication in an unprecedented way.
Many ancient reports that came out of Egypt insist that the belief was common among the earliest Christians, being imparted in secret to the faith?s most advanced initiates According to tradition, Christianity was originally brought to Egypt by Saint Mark in the second half of the first century. Although we possess no records describing the theology of Mark aside from the canonical gospel, he may have authored a Secret Gospel of Mark that contained more advanced teaching for those being initiated into the Christian mysteries. Excerpts from that ?secret gospel,? rediscovered in the twentieth century, seem to portray Jesus initiating a student into secret mysteries of the church. From the very beginning of the Egyptian church, then, a ?secret doctrine? seems to have been taught to those who were deemed worthy.
The Alexandrian Catechism
The intellectual center of the Roman Empire at the time was in Alexandria, Egypt, and the Catechetical School, an official institution of the church, was founded there sometime in the second century. Before the establishment of that school, the Christian sects of Carpocrates, Basilides, Isidore, Valentinus, and Heracleon all flourished in Alexandria. These groups all taught a form of Christianity that included the doctrine of reincarnation, which put them in familiar company in that corner of the world. The famous Jewish philosopher Philo, also an Alexandrian, taught a version of Judaism that included belief in reincarnation and, back then, Christianity was widely thought of as another Jewish sect. Alexandria?s Judeo-Christian reincarnationist schools have been dated as far back as 117 A.D.
The original founding date of the Catechetical School is unknown; any documents that might have provided that information have been deleted from the historical record. In any case, we know the school dates at least as far back as 175 A.D., when it was headed by a man named Pantaenus. Although this school became very famous and influential, history has left no record of the teachings of Pantaenus. All we know is that he passed the leadership of the school to Saint Clement in 190 A.D., who ran the institution until he, in turn, passed the reins to Origen in 203 A.D.
Born about 150 A.D., Clement of Alexandria was deeply respected in the early Christian community; in addition to being the head of the most prestigious theological college of his day, he was also a presbyter in the church of Alexandria. He was exceptionally well read, holding a comprehensive knowledge of Judeo-Christian literature, including both ?orthodox? and ?heretical? works. Clement used and honored many scriptures that the official church later condemned, including the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Traditions of Matthias, the Teaching of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Preaching of Peter, all of which he seems to have considered authentic. He claimed to have received a secret esoteric Christian tradition from Pantaenus, which had been passed down directly from the apostles Peter, James, John, and Paul. These mysteries had to remain hidden, Clement insisted, and could never be written or taught publicly:
. . . the wise do not utter with their mouth what they reason to council. ?But what ye hear in the ear,? says the Lord, ?proclaim upon the houses,? bidding them receive the secret traditions of the true knowledge, and expound them aloft and conspicuously; and as we have heard in the ear, so to deliver them to whom it is requisite; but not enjoining us to communicate to all without distinction, what is said to them in parables. (Clement of Alexandria, ?The Mysteries of the Faith Not to Be Divulged to All?)
Did those secret teachings include a belief in reincarnation? The ninth century Greek theologian Photius thought so, accusing him of teaching reincarnation in his work Hypotyposeis (Outlines).
Although he possessed an extraordinary education and was hailed as a theological pioneer, Clement was dwarfed in all of these by his student Origen, who is widely recognized as the most prominent, distinguished, and influential of all the early church fathers. The most prolific theologian of early Christianity, he is said to have written over 6,000 works, although the vast majority of those failed to survive the church?s later censorship. Still, in Origen?s extant works, we seem to catch a far more substantial glimpse of the esoteric teachings passed down to him from Pantaenus and Clement. And one of Origen?s contemporaries, Saint Jerome, publicly accused him of teaching reincarnation in his writings. Origen makes a curious distinction, however. Whereas he enthusiastically condemns belief in the reincarnation of the soul, he seems to openly support belief in the reincarnation of the spirit. Origen taught that the living are born into this world after having already experienced previous lives:
The soul has neither beginning nor end . . . [They] come into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of their previous lives.
Constantine?s Choice
In addition to Valentinus, Clement, and Origen, we know that many other prominent figures in the early church taught a form of Christianity that included belief in reincarnation. But we know too that the concept of reincarnation did not mesh with the empire?s political needs. And, of course, we know that the church subsequently edited and modified the literature of the time to suit its purposes. Knowing all that, only one question remains: Did Constantine intentionally compromise Christ?s original teachings to further his political ambitions?
Our knowledge of the history of these first centuries is far from complete, and scholars still dispute various details of the early church councils. Nonetheless, it is quite clear that, like all emperors, Constantine didn?t think anything was forbidden him. Although he paid lip service to Christianity, Constantine demonstrated virtually no loyalty to Christ?s teachings. In the course of his life, he murdered his own wife, his eldest son, and many of his closest friends and reveled in the mutilation and torture of political enemies and prisoners of war. Despotic and ambitious, Constantine seemed ruthlessly determined to achieve complete dominance over the empire. And although he claimed to be a Christian, he at the same time also worshiped the traditional Roman sun god. Such a life would seem to be a far cry from the ideals and teachings of Christ, but it does seem to have a lot in common with the subsequent history of the official church, a parallel that has led many over the centuries to suspect that the true founder of the official church was not Christ at all, but Constantine.
Shortly after acquiring control of the united empire and ending the Christian persecutions, Constantine found himself facing yet another domestic crisis over religion. In the East, rioting was breaking out in one city after another; bishop was contending against bishop and people were fighting in the streets. Although Constantine did not fully comprehend what all the fuss was about, he resolved to put an end to it. He needed a united church for his united empire, so for the first time in the history of the church, the state intervened in a dispute about belief. It wouldn?t be the last time.
By Constantine?s orders, 1,800 bishops from all corners of the empire were invited to attend a great church council at Nicaea, but only about 300 answered the imperial summons, perhaps because they realized that Constantine intended to chair the meeting himself. The thought of a Roman emperor presiding over church affairs must have been very intimidating and troubling to the Christians of that era; many of the attendees still bore scars of torture from previous emperors.
At the heart of the matter to be addressed was a simple question: Had Jesus always been God, or had He once just been a man who at some point became God?s Son? Was there, in other words, a time when the Father alone existed, but not the Son? This was no mere academic question. If Jesus was originally a man who later became God?s Son, that implied that other men could potentially also become Sons of God. And if others could become Sons of God, then no one would need the church for their salvation, but could instead achieve that goal on their own, the same way Christ did. This question was ripping the church apart, just when Constantine needed it to hold the empire together.
It was decided in that meeting that Jesus had always been God, and that other men could not follow in His footsteps to achieve the same result. The council declared that the souls of men were not like Jesus? soul and did not, in and of themselves, possess inherent potential for divinity. While Christ?s soul had always existed, the council decided, man?s soul was a created thing and did not come into existence until the person was physically born. There was thus a huge gulf between God and man, and the church was the only bridge between them. In short, man had to rely on the church to acquire eternal life. In denying the soul?s divine origin, the council implicitly ruled out all possibility of preexistence and reincarnation, while emphasizing the power and authority of the church over the individual. In the end, one definition of Christianity was chosen in that meeting, and all others were rejected. Shortly after, the Christian persecutions began anew, this time orchestrated by the church itself.
Return of the Christian Persecutions
From the earliest days of the Roman Empire, anyone refusing to pledge allegiance to the emperor was put to death, and this did not change just because Constantine converted. After the Council of Nicaea, all who practiced those rejected versions of Christianity were labeled enemies of the state, and officials began hunting them down. These new persecutions involved unprecedented literary censorship, starting with Emperor Constantine?s order that all writings of the Christian theologian Arius had to be delivered up to the authorities to be burned, and that anyone found concealing them would be put to death. But that was just the beginning.
When Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official state religion a few years later, the Roman government published an edict requiring all subjects of the empire to profess the faith of the bishop of Rome. Those who refused were again labeled enemies of the state. Much as before, everyone was forced to pledge allegiance to the official state religion or suffer harsh punishment. Instead of being prey, Christians were now the hunters. Church leaders became ?heretic? hunters, mercilessly killing any who dared disagree with them. All writings inconsistent with the official teachings of the church were outlawed and those who read them risked being killed.
Historians think that this was just about when texts began to be gathered up and buried at Nag Hammadi. For the next thousand years, the church continued to hunt and kill ?heretics.?
Curiously, Jesus seems to have predicted all this: ?The time is coming when whoever kills you will think he is doing God a service? (John 16:2).
Thousands of books were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of ?heretics? with them. Less than 100 years after Constantine?s conversion, the church burnt down the famous Library of Alexandria in Egypt. It continued to launch similar campaigns for the next 1,000 years. It massacred tens of thousands of Christian ?heretics? in France in the Albigensian crusade of 1209?1255, and possibly hundreds of thousands more during the Inquisition. Like George Orwell?s fictional ?Big Brother,? the official church sought complete control over public and private opinion. When the printing press was invented in the fifteenth century, the church demanded the right to approve all manuscripts before publication. The church even refused to let people read its own book. As unlikely as it seems today, it was actually illegal to possess the Bible, and simply reading it was considered proof that someone was a heretic. Men and women were actually burned at the stake for reading the Roman Catholic Bible.
Obviously, something had gone horribly wrong. Christianity had taken a wrong turn. Love had warped into hatred and fear. Before Constantine, the church had been different, a pure fellowship of selfless heroes filled with the love, courage, and fruitfulness that only come from authentic health and wholeness. Even though the original church contained the disparate elements that would later become known as the Orthodox and Gnostic churches, they were originally very successful together. Before Constantine, Christians had been known throughout the empire for their remarkably advanced social innovations. Christian communities had been very organized, cohesive, and creative, introducing artisan associations, charitable groups, and retirement and funeral insurance agencies that supported all members regardless of social class. The Roman government tried to emulate their new social systems, but Rome bungled the job so badly that it only emphasized how well the Christians had done.
Orphans of War
After the Council of Nicaea, everything changed. Now there seemed to be two separate churches, the Orthodox and the Gnostic, at war with each other. Each believed that it alone represented the true Church, the original teachings of Christ, but?as we will see from the recovered scriptures from Nag Hammadi?they were both wrong. Neither half was the whole. A dynamic and creative complexity had been shattered, leaving two equally crippled halves. The official church, the Orthodox church, became a dictator, murderer, and thief, waging endless wars of conquest at home and abroad, while the Gnostic Church became a disorganized and ineffective dreamer that receded into the shadows of history, occasionally reappearing with new names like Manichaeism, Bogomilism, and Catharism. Each time it resurfaced, it taught an otherworldly version of Christianity that incorporated belief in reincarnation, and each time it was hunted down anew by the official church. Both halves are the orphaned offspring of Christianity?s first war, and neither has known any peace since.
These two halves were very different, but their difference is familiar. One exhibited the characteristics of one half of the human psyche, while the other behaved like the other half of the mind. The Orthodox Church focused on objective left-brain issues like discrimination, order, and authority, while the Gnostic Church paid more attention to subjective right-brain issues like intuition, imagination, and personal experience. Like the conscious mind, the official church was more dominant and out in the open, while the Gnostic Church was more like the unconscious, carrying out its activity in the background. We will run across this pattern again and again in our search for Original Christianity.
The divorce between the Orthodox and Gnostic factions of Christianity did not actually begin in Nicaea. They seem to have started to differentiate from one another almost as soon as Christ was lowered from the cross; the Council of Nicaea just brought this process to a head. And ever since that first climactic division in Nicaea, Christianity has continued on the same self-destructive course, fracturing ever further with each new century. Where there had originally been just one church, there are now, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia, more than 34,000 different Christian denominations. Each has its own unique teachings and practices, but none, the lost gospels suggest, reflect the original teachings of Christ.
And so, at the dawn of the first great conflict of the third millennium, the West finds itself unarmed, in a religious war without its religion.
Continues . . .
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