The Origin of Heresy

Abraxas, known from the Egyptian Gnostic Basilideans
and the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians

“The Law of Universal Genesis was the firstborn Nous [Mind]; the second Chaos shed by the firstborn. The third was received by the soul [.....] Clad in the shape of a hind she is worn away with death’s slavery, Now she has mastery and glimpses light: now she is plunged in misery and weeps. Now she is mourned, and her self rejoices. Now she weeps and is finally condemned. Now she is condemned and finally dies. And now she reaches the point where hemmed in by evil, she knows no way out. Misled, she has entered a labyrinth. Then Jesus said ‘Behold, Father, she wanders the earth pursued by evil. Far from thy Pneuma [Spirit/Wind/Breath] she is going astray. She is trying to flee bitter Chaos, and does not know how she is to escape. Send me forth, oh Father, therefore, and I, bearing the seal shall descend and wander all aeons through, all mysteries reveal. I shall manifest the forms of the gods and teach them the secrets of the holy way which I call Gnosis..…’”

The Sophia may have been equivalent to the Paraclete, or “Comforter“, of the Gospel of John (14:16) which just as the Naassene sect believed, was sent to them through Jesus. The feminine personification of Wisdom is found throughout the Canonical epistles as well:

“But the sophia that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.” -James 3:17-18

Some of the earlier Pauline Epistles show qualities that could be considered to be Gnostic, but which are preached against in later epistles like the Pastorals and the Johannine tradition. With only a precursory understanding of Gnosticism and knowledge of some of the Greek words in the early Pauline epistles, we can immediately see how they can be read in a different light:

“We do speak sophia among those who are mature, a sophia, however, of this aion [age/emanation] nor of the archons [rulers/demons] of this aion, who are passing away; but we speak of Theos’ [Zeus’/God’s] sophia in a mystery, the hidden sophia which Theos predestined before the aions to our glory; the sophia which none of the archons of this aion has understood, for if they had understood it they would not have stauroo [staked/crucified] the Kurios ho doxa [Lord of glory]; but just as it is written:

‘Things which eye has not seen
And ear has not heard,
and which have not entered the heart of man,
all that Theos has prepared for those who love him’ --

For to us Theos revealed them through the Pneuma [Spirit/Wind/Breath]; for the Pneuma searches all things, even the depths of Theos.” -1 Corinthians 2:6-10, NAS

The “archons of this aion” are presumed by most readers to be human rulers like Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas, and Herod, but the Epistle to the Ephesians, the word archon is undeniably used in the Gnostic sense: “To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles… so that the manifold sophia of Theos might now be made known through the ekklesia [church] to the archons and the exousia [authorities/powers] in the heavenly places.” (3:8); and also: “For our struggle is not against sarx [flesh] and haima [blood/grape juice], but against the archons, against the exousia [authorities/powers], against the kosmo-krator [cosmos-ruler/prince of this age] of this skotia [darkness/ignorance/ungodliness], against the pneumatikos [spiritual] forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (6:12).

The short version of Ignatius’ apocryphal Epistle to the Smyrneans says “Let no man deceive himself. Both the things which are in heaven, and the glorious angelos [angels], and archons, both visible and invisible, if they believe not in the blood of Christ, shall, in consequence, incur condemnation.” (6). The Epistle to the Colossians even has Christ defeating these archons in the spiritual realm after his death and leading them in a kind of celestial procession:

“See to it that no one takes you captive through philo-sophia [love of wisdom/philosophy] and empty deception, according to the tradition of anthropos [men/Adam], according to the stoicheion [elementary principles/elemental spirits] of the kosmos [cosmos/ world], rather than according to Kristos [Christ].

For in Him all the pleroma [fullness] of Theotes [Deity] dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all arche [rulers/principality over angels and demons] and exousia [authority/powers]; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Kristos; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of Theos, who raised Him from the dead.

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your sarx [flesh], He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the stauros [cross/stake]. When He had disarmed the archons and exousia, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.

Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day-- things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Kristos. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angelos [angels/messengers] taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his sarx [fleshly/earthy/animalistic] mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from Theos. -Colossians 2:8-22 NAS

Some scholars such as Elaine Pagels have argued through this rereading that Paul was a Gnostic. Other later historic Christians have also managed to impart Gnostic concepts of the Sophia without being labeled a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church. The cosmic figure of the Sophia was also celebrated by a Roman Catholic polymath from 12th century Germany named Hildegard of Bingen, an artist, philosopher, physician, magistra, and one of the first composers of opera. The 17th century Protestant Theosophist Jane Leade, founder of the Philadelphia Soceity, also wrote of visions that she said had been revealed to her by the “Virgin-Sophia.”


Valentinus and Marcion

One of the most famed heretics of the second century is that of Valentinus, who was born on the Egyptian Delta at Phrenobis in 100 A.D., had a Greek education in Alexandria, joined the church in Rome in the late 130s, and was believed by some Christians in the 300s to have been the first to formulate the doctrine of the Trinity. He taught that God is three hypostases, or essences, as well as three persons: the Father (Bythos), the Son (Logos), and the Holy Spirit (Pneuma). However, they were not equal, as the Father was greater than the Logos (“Word”), which was itself greater than the Pneuma (“Spirit”). Bythos, after eons of quiet contemplation, emanated four pairs of aeons, called Nous and Aletheia, male and female, respectively. They emanate the Logos and Zoe (Sophia), who in turned created Anthropos and Ekklesia (Adam and Eve). The totality of these 30 aeons, the Pleroma, was of perfect balance. Only the Nous (“Mind”) were able to comprehend Bythos (“the Deep”), but they were limited in their ability to communicate this to the other aeons due to the Sigê (“Silence”) that surrounded the Father God. The youngest and least powerful of the aeons, Zoe, tried to gain complete comprehension of the Father God, conceiving a plan called Enthymesis, but came to a great boundary between Bythos and Sigê called Horos (“Limit”). Failing in her attempt, she falls into confusion caused by the passions of the Demiurge, which existed outside the Pleroma (“Fullness”). The material universe comes into existence through her error, with man inhabiting the spheres of both matter (hylic) and soul (psyche). The mission of Christ and the Pneuma is to redeem mankind by freeing it from its servitude to the material world.

According to St. Irenaeus, The afore mentioned Horos is also the power which came out of Jesus, such as that which healed the woman of a twelve-year menstrual ailment in Mark (5:30). It was said to have been made up of two faculties: one a sustaining power called Stauros (the Cross), referred by the verse in Luke: “Whoever does not bear his stauros cannot be my disciple” (14:27); the other a separating power called Horos, which is what the verse “I have not come for peace but a sword.” (10:34) is said to have meant. Incidentally, the Gospel of Luke uses another word for division, diamerismos, in place of “sword” (12:51). Unlike many other Gnostics, Valentinians believed that coming of Christ had caused the Demiurge to turn good and so acted as a mediator for Zoe in the material world. Although Valentinus’ belief system is characteristically Gnostic, some scholars don’t consider him to be in the same venue as the “Classical Gnosticism” which existed before the 130s.

Valentinus’ followers believed their founder had been given secret teachings that the spiritual Christ had imparted to Paul during a vision and had been revealed only to Paul’s inner circle and passed down by his disciple Theodas. The Pauline epistles themselves hint at esoteric knowledge that the author felt his readers were not yet ready for. Valentinus nearly became bishop of Rome but broke with the church after losing his bid for the seat. Tertullian, the first Latin-speaking Christian writer, accused Valentinus of making up his heresy in revenge for not becoming bishop, and Epiphanius wrote that Valentinus made it up after being shipwrecked on Cyprus and going insane. The church father Epiphanius said that Valentinus was never considered a heretic while he was in Rome and there is in fact little evidence that he was widely regarded as one before 175 A.D.

Another heretic from that time was Marcion, who had grown up in Sinope, in modern day Turkey, as a wealthy ship owner. He came to Rome in 139 A.D. and donated a large amount of money, 200,000 sesterces (equivalent to a million dollars) to the church there, just as he was known to give a large donation in Turkey. Marcion is said to have been the influenced by the Gnostic teacher Cedro, who taught that the God of the Old Testament was different from the Father God of Jesus. Marcion adopted the Gnostic concept of the Demiurge and came to believe that Paul was the only apostle who really understood what Jesus had come to accomplish. It’s said that he interpreted a verse in the Gospel of Matthew as proof that the New Testament was incompatible with the old: “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men put new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out, and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” (9:16).

Marcion was excommunicated in 144, with his money returned to him, but formed a rival ecclesiastical hierarchy that has been described by the Roman Catholic Church as the most dangerous threat to Orthodoxy the church had ever known. The church father Epiphanius alleged in the early 300s that Marcion’s father expelled him from his church at home for seducing a consecrated virgin, but this is highly dismissed today as earlier witnesses speak only of Marcionite abstinence. In fact one of the heresies of the Marcionites is to consider marriage and all forms of sex to be a corruption. Marcionites were ascetic, abstaining from meat, wine, and sex, and considered marriage to be an institution of the Demiurge. Although he taught the dualism of the Demiurge and the Docetism of a phantom messiah, most scholars consider him a Pseudo-Gnostic because his religion was based on faith alone rather than claiming to hold any real secret knowledge. In this sense, and because Marcion focused on Paul much like many Protestants did, Marcion is sometimes called the first Protestant. But his identification of the God of Abraham with the Demiurge and his view of Judaism as a different religion instead of the root of Christianity fits the definition of Gnostic as laid out for this book. Marcion’s sect lasted up to the 400s in the west until it was absorbed by another monotheistic sect, Manichaeism, but continued on into the 600s in the east.

Marcion is the first person known to have combined different books of scripture into a single identifiable canon. His canon consisted of a reportedly mutilated form of the Gospel of Luke called “the Gospel of the Lord,” along with most of the Pauline Epistles, which Marcion collectively dubbed “the Apostle.” Although none of these alternate versions survived, scholars have tried to reconstruct his gospel and epistles by analyzing the quotations of Tertullian, Epiphanius, Adamntius, Origen, and Hieronymus. Tertullian devotes five books to ranting against Marcion, and much information about the text is revealed the 4th and 5th books. He accuses Marcion of “interpreting scripture with a penknife,” cutting out to the parts of scripture he didn’t like, although some have questioned whether the differences were caused by additions to scripture. He did not believe Jesus was the Messiah because the Messiah was to inaugurate a political kingdom for the Jews and Jesus came to inaugurate the spiritual kingdom of God. It is largely believed that Marcionite scripture rendered “Christ” (“Messiah”) as “Chrestos” (“The Righteous One”). Being a rich shipmaster, he set up a church with the greatest degree of ecclesiastical organization paralleled to the Catholic church. Although Marcion believed it was unworthy and foolish of God to take the form of human flesh, Tertullian asks him to consider a quote from 1 Corinthians “if indeed you [Marcion] have not erased it: ‘God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise.’” (1:27) Tertullian uses this verse to show that if Marcion takes that stance, he uses this to argue that “it is foolish to judge God by our own conceptions.” In Chapter 4 and 5 of his 3rd book, he writes:

But some one may say, ‘These are not the foolish things; they must be other things which God has chosen to confound the wisdom of the world.’ And yet, according to the world’s wisdom, it is more easy to believe that Jupiter became a bull or a swan, if we listen to Marcion, than that Christ really became a man.

There are, to be sure, other things also quite as foolish (as the birth of Christ), which have reference to the humiliations and sufferings of God. Or else, let them call a crucified God ‘wisdom.’ But Marcion will apply the knife to this doctrine also, and even with greater reason. For which is more unworthy of God, which is more likely to raise a blush of shame, that God should be born, or that He should die? that He should bear the flesh, or the cross? be circumcised, or be crucified? be cradled, or be coffined? be laid in a manger, or in a tomb? Talk of ‘wisdom!’ You will show more of that if you refuse to believe this also. But, after all, you will not be ‘wise’ unless you become a ‘fool’ to the world, by believing ‘the foolish things of God.’ Have you, then, cut away all sufferings from Christ, on the ground that, as a mere phantom, He was incapable of experiencing them? We have said above that He might possibly have undergone the unreal mockeries of an imaginary birth and infancy. But answer me at once, you that murder truth: Was not God really crucified? And, having been really crucified, did He not really die? And, having indeed really died, did He not really rise again? Falsely did Paul ‘determine to know nothing amongst us but Jesus and Him crucified;’ falsely has he impressed upon us that He was buried; falsely inculcated that He rose again. False, therefore, is our faith also. And all that we hope for from Christ will be a phantom. Oh thou most infamous of men, who acquittest of all guilt the murderers of God! For nothing did Christ suffer from them, if He really suffered nothing at all. Spare the whole world's one only hope, thou who art destroying the indispensable dishonour of our faith. Whatsoever is unworthy of God, is of gain to me. I am safe, if I am not ashamed of my Lord. ‘Whosoever,’ says He, ‘shall be ashamed of me, of him will I also be ashamed.’ Other matters for shame find I none which can prove me to be shameless in a good sense, and foolish in a happy one, by my own contempt of shame. The Son of God was crucified; I am not ashamed because men must be ashamed of it. And the Son of God died; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd. And He was buried, and rose again; the fact is certain, because it is impossible.

There is still debate over whether the original versions of Luke, Romans, and Galatians were edited by the Marcionites, the early church, or both. The most notable omissions in Marcion’s gospel are the birth and infancy narratives of Jesus and John the Baptist, the genealogy of Jesus, and the temptation narrative, all of which fills the first 3 and a half chapters of Luke. Marcion's version of Romans lacks arguments including Abraham’s justification through faith and that Christianity is an engrafted branch of Judaism (1:17b, 1:19-21, 3:31-4:25, 8:19-22, 9:1-33, 10:5-11:32, 15:1-16:26). Galatians is missing Paul's visit with Peter and James in Jerusalem, and more arguments on the faith of Abraham, with characteristic rhetorical questions (1:18-24, 2:6-9a; 3:1-12,14a,15-25; 4:27-30). In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus goes into a synagogue and reads from the Book of Isaiah and claims that the scripture has been fulfilled in him. When the crowd questions him, he says:

“Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard you did in Capernaum.’” “I tell you the truth,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.” -Luke 4:23-24

But Luke hasn’t said anything about Jesus performing miracles in Capernaum up to that point. And the very next story in Luke has Jesus doing just that by healing Peter’s mother in Capernaum. Mark and Matthew also place Jesus’ first miracles in Capernaum. In the 7th chapter of his 4th book, Tertullian reveals that Marcion’s gospel opens by saying that in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar, Jesus “went down” to Capernaum, a composite of Luke 3:1a and 4:31, overlapping the story the “Physician, heal thyself” in the Nazareth narrative, signifying that Marcion’s gospel did not have this chronological contradiction in his version. Jesus begins his ministry in Capernaum like the other Synoptics and when he says, “Do here…. what we have heard you did in Capernaum,” it actually refers to an earlier part of the narrative (4:33). Marcion’s version, however, did not have the part about Jesus reading from a proverb from the Book of Isaiah to prove himself the fulfillment of it’s prophecy. The end of the story, where Jesus “walked right through the crowd and went his way,” fits in well with Marcion’s Docetic perspective (4:30). Tertullian realized this as well and whipped up a rather elaborate defense:

“But Christ will be of the prophets, wheresoever He is found in accordance with the prophets. And yet even at Nazareth He is not remarked as having preached anything new, whilst in another verse He is said to have been rejected by reason of a simple proverb. Here at once, when I observe that they laid their hands on Him, I cannot help drawing a conclusion respecting His bodily substance, which cannot be believed to have been a phantom, since it was capable of being touched and even violently handled, when He was seized and taken and led to the very brink of a precipice. For although He escaped through the midst of them, He had already experienced their rough treatment, and afterwards went His way, no doubt because the crowd (as usually happens) gave way, or was even broken through; but not because it was eluded as by an impalpable disguise, which, if there had been such, would not at all have submitted to any touch.”

As seen here, the arguments Tertullian fosters on Marcion for editing Luke are poor ones. He even admits that there are parts in Marcion’s gospel that conflict with his theology that were not cut out, and actually tries to argue that it is part of the heretic’s deception: “Marcion -- on purpose I think -- has refrained from crossing out of his Gospel certain matters opposed to him, hoping that in light of these which he might have crossed out and has not, he may be thought not to have crossed out those which he has crossed out.” (4.43.7).


The Nag Hammadi Library

The Nag Hammadi library, found in central Egypt, is the principal source for our modern understanding of Gnostic Christianity. The library includes 52 mostly Gnostic treatises, all probably translated from Greek into Coptic. The library included some codices on the mystical philosophy of Hermeticism and a partial translation of Plato’s Republic, but altered to the point that it was not even recognized as such until decades after it’s discovery. The scrolls seem to have come from the nearby monastery of St. Pachomius and were probably hidden from the repression of heresy brought on by St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose.

The Hermetic works are self-proclaimed messages of hidden wisdom from Hermes “the Thrice-Greatest.” Hermes Trismegistus was a syncretism of the Greek messenger and shepherd god, Hermes, and the Egyptian god of wisdom, Thoth. He was also known s Serapis and Hermanubis, and was the god of writing and medicine. The 2nd century church father Clement of Alexandria wrote that the Egyptians had 42 sacred writings by Hermes, used for training the Egyptian priests. It embodied a pantheistic philosophy that would later influence Jewish Kabala. The teaching that followed three great teachers, all named Hermes, and identified with the Biblical Enoch. Some of the writings of the third teacher are believed to be a part of Hermetic codices, but are so entwined with Gnostic exegesis that it’s hard to separate the original message out. The situation seems to be similar to the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, which includes teachings from the Synoptic Gospels mixed with Gnostic wisdom literature.

The Gnostic gospels of Jesus are neither stories nor histories, but recorded conversations between Jesus and his disciples. Quoting the historical Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan, “Jesus is essentially a talking head.” Both Hermes and Jesus act as “fountains of divine wisdom,” which are freely re-adapted and elaborated upon. The sayings have no real historic context but rather seem to serve as conduits to mystical wisdom given to the author of the gospel. This combined with their late dating explain why the majority of New Testament scholars do not put very much weight behind the words of the historic Jesus in Gnostic scripture, with the Coptic Gospel of Thomas being a partial exception. Some of the gospels from the Nag Hammadi library are entitled “Apocryphon,” which also means “hidden,” as opposed to “apocalypses“ which connotes a “revealing“ or “revelation.” Hence the last book in the Bible, the Apocalypse of John, is called Revelation. Gnostic gospels include written titles like “Apocryphon of James” or “Apocryphon of John,” meaning “Secret Book” of James or John.

Enoch, although the subject of only a couple of lines in the Book of Genesis, was the subject of a huge library of apocryphal literature that appeared during the Maccabeean Revolt of Judah during the Hasmonian Period (166-135 B.C.). Although it was heavily related to the Book of Daniel, which made it into both the Jewish and Christian canons, the Enochian literature also made neither canon. The Book of Hebrews makes mention of Enoch as well, and the canonical Epistle of Jude even quotes the book (1:14). The Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Church of Alexandria both accept portions of 1 Enoch to be inspired as well. Just about every early church father considered it to be scripture: Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Justin the Martyr, Irenaeus and even St. Augustine accepted the First Book of Enoch to be genuinely inspired. But it lost favor with the church and was discredited at the Council of Lacedonia, held in modern Turkey around 363, and was mysteriously lost for centuries. During the 1400s, rumors began to spread that some of the lost Enoch books were found and being sold, but these were only frauds. The Jewish Essenes from the first century B.C. also kept an Aramaic version of Enoch in the Dead Sea Scrolls, found near Qumran in 1947, yet that isn’t where the Book of Enoch was first rediscovered. In 1773, the African adventurer James Bruce returned from 6 years exploring Ethiopia with 3 copies of the Book of Enoch. There, the book had never been considered lost at all. Although most scholars believed it had originally been translated from Greek into Ethiopic, the African clerics held it as proof that Enoch was himself Ethiopian and that it was the original language of mankind. The ancient book came just in time to heavily influence the Romantic era genius William Blake, who combined art, poetry, philosophy, Pre-Freudian psychoanalysis, and a Humanistic spirituality into a sect of Christianity that could only be categorized as Gnostic.

The Book of Enoch is a combination of several texts including a Book of Noah, and is divided into 108 chapters, but their divisions are a mess, with some chapters being small or completely missing and in other places reoccurring chapter numbers. It’s generally seen to be divided into five different sections, which scholars call: the Book of Watchers, the Book of Parables (which includes fragments of the Book of Noah), the Book of Heavenly Luminaries, Dream Visions, and the Epistle of Enoch. Each of the sections have been interwoven into a single narrative but is believed to have been written by different people at different times. It expands on the story in Genesis in which the Sons of God marry the Daughters of Man, and plays out much like John Milton‘s 17th century epic Paradise Lost, in that it attempts to map out to universe with an amalgamation of monotheism and polytheism. From this union between the Watchers and humans comes a breed of giants called the Nephilim. Twenty-one Satans, led by Samyaza, come together and make an oath of mutual intention to seduce the daughters of man. Samyaza, or better translated, Shem-Azaz, means “Name-Rebel,” or “Famed Rebel.” Two hundred angels are led by the Satans to the earth below where they are seduced by mortal women, and for the sin of defiling themselves with mankind, they are cast out of heaven. One of the Satans, Azaz-El, whose name means “Rebel of God,” is said to have used heaven’s wisdom to teach men how to make weapons and the women how to apply makeup, and caused sin to flourish on the earth. Azazel is believed to be a goat-demon of ancient Semitic tribes, said to haunt the desert wilderness at night. In the Book of Leviticus, the Day of Atonement is marked by the releasing of two goats, one marked for Yahweh and the other for Azazel (16:8). The sins of the Israelites would then be ritually placed in Azazel’s scapegoat and released to gain forgiveness. The concept of a god of wisdom being punished for bestowing heaven’s wisdom to mortals is also echoed in the Greek myth of Prometheus, the God of Forethought who gave mankind fire and was punished by Zeus by having the wise god’s liver eaten by a vulture every day.

The Grigori, or fallen angels, try to make peace with God by going to the scribe Enoch and asking for him to intervene on their behalf. Enoch then meets some archangels who take him down to the netherworld to see where the fallen ones will be kept until judgment. They take him to the ends of the earth to see the Tree of Life, and then up to see the secrets of the heavens. He sees chambers for the sun and the moon and dwelling places for the righteous and unrighteous. And Enoch is told the day will come when those who have committed sin and deny the name of the Lord of Spirits and will not ascend when the Elect One sits upon the throne of glory.

In Chapter 46, Enoch says, “There I beheld the Ancient of Days, whose head was like white wool, and with him another, whose countenance resembled that of man. His countenance was full of grace, like one of the holy angels. Then I inquired of one of the angels, who went with me, and who showed me every secret thing, concerning this Son of Man; who he was; whence he was and why he accompanied the Ancient of Days.” (46:1). John of Patmos, the author of Revelation, also describes “one like the Son of Man, dressed in robes that ran down to his feet with a golden sash around his waist. His head and hair was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.” (1:13). It’s unknown whether the Book of Parables section, which contains references to the Son of Man, is before or after the Christian era. The archangels Michael and Raphael are astonished at the severity of the punishment, with Micha-El asking Rapha-El, “Who is he whose heart is not softened by concerning it, and whose reins are not troubled by the word of judgment that has gone forth upon them because of those that have led them out?” (68:3). It then lists the names of functions of the 21 Satans, and identifies Gadre-El as the fallen angel who tempted Eve. Enoch is then translated into heaven and becomes an angel and the scribe of heaven.

The section referred to as the Book of Heavenly Bodies writes about the Sun, the lunar cycle, the 12 Winds and their portals, and the seven mountains, seven rivers, and seven great islands making up the four corners of the world. The Dream Visions acts as a history of the world from it’s creation to the Maccabean Revolt, foreseeing a final battle between Jews and Gentiles leading to the End of Days. The apostates would then be judged along with the fallen angels and a New Jerusalem would appear along with the resurrection of the righteous and led by the Messiah. At this Enoch wakes up and cries. The Epistle of Enoch contains more apocalyptic literature in the form of Enoch admonishing his children (including the aged Methuselah), assuring them that the righteous will be exhorted on the Day of Judgment while the Sinners will destroy each other. The final part of the book draws on the Book of Noah, telling how the King of the Ages will judge the fallen angels guilty and sentence them to lament their children’s destruction yet never find forgiveness.

Another book, called the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, or 2 Enoch, is a Jewish apocalyptic text not found in Ethiopia or the Dead Sea Scrolls, but has only been preserved in the 10th century Eastern European language of Old Church Slavonic. It was originally translated from Greek, and possibly Hebrew or Aramaic before that. The apocalypse follows Enoch as he describes his ascent to the seven heavens, how Satan fell from heaven when he wanted to construct his throne higher than the clouds, and how Enoch told his sons to be meek and give to the poor (like the Synoptic Gospels) in order to attain eternal life. The apocryphal book ends with Enoch using his heavenly knowledge to write 366 books in order to instruct his sons, apparently for every day of the year and then one.

A third Book of Enoch, called 3 Enoch, is said to have been written by Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha. However, many scholars believe that the work is made up of several people over a period of time, the final version written sometime around the 400s or 500s. Rabbi Ishmael who became a high priest in 132 A.D. after receiving a vision in which he ascended into heaven. That same year the Bar Kochba Revolt began after the Roman Emperor Hadrian tried to have Jerusalem rebuilt as a Hellenisitic city with a restored temple dedicated to Zeus. The Third Book of Enoch is written in Hebrew with a few Greek and Latin loan words. Heavily based on 1 Enoch, the book describes Rabbi Ishmael ascending to heaven and meeting Enoch. Like 1 Enoch, it describes Enoch’s ascension to heaven and the fall of some of the angels, including Azazel. It also describes Enoch’s transformation into an angel, this time called Metatron. Metatron is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud 3 times as an angel so powerful that he is often mistaken for God. The name itself, although hard to translate, is believed by some to be derived from Meta-thronos, or “Throne beside the throne,” and is sometimes referred to as the ‘little Yahweh.’ The Third Book of Enoch writes, “Out of the love which he had for me, more than for all the denizens of the heights, the Holy One, blessed be he, fashioned for me a majestic robe… He fashioned for me a kingly crown… He set it upon my head, and He called me, ‘The lesser Yahweh’ in the presence of his whole household in the height, as it is written, ‘My name is in him’”(12:1-5). The name Metatron is thought to have first been spoken of by the Jewish heretic Elisha ben Abuyah, who some time before 70 A.D. said that he had entered Paradise and proclaimed that there were two powers in heaven. The Talmud explains this was a mistake in that Metatron was only allowed to sit beside Yahweh because he was the scribe of heaven, second only to God.


Early Presbyter Apocrypha

It could be said that 1 Enoch is the missing book of the Bible due to the similarity to the oral tradition of Satan’s rebellion against God and it’s prominence in antiquity, but there are other books that are known to have been kept in Bibles of the early Catholic/Orthodox church fathers but later dropped, such as the Epistle of Clement. St. Clement was bishop of Rome, reportedly after Linus and Cletus, both of whom almost nothing is known. Tertullian, writing in 199 A.D., said that Clement had been ordained by Peter himself, and St. Jerome, writing in the late 300s, said that many in the west believed that he had immediately succeeded Peter. The Epistle of Clement is addressed to Corinth and is dated to around 100 A.D. Like the Pauline Epistles, Clement focuses on humility and articulates that people are saved through faith, not works, nor godliness, nor wisdom. The 59-chapter Epistle of Clement is addressed to Corinth, and starts by saying it’s writing was delayed by “sudden and repeated misfortunes and hindrances which have befallen us,” thought perhaps to be a reference to the persecution of the Emperor Domitian. The author commends their virtue for keeping the “commandments and ordinances of the Lord” during a sedition said to have been brought on by jealousy. Several of the Elders are said to have been decommissioned due to the disturbance at Corinth and 1 Clement blames this same kind of envy for the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, who he calls “spiritual heroes” and “greatest and most righteous pillars.” It is also the first known Christian writing to include a specific hierarchy with a bishop taking charge over several deacons, and continues to show the same kind of male-dominated organization present in other canonical epistles linked to the Presbyters. The letter itself is not signed with St. Clement’s name, but another letter from Galatia to Rome mentions “the letter we received from your bishop Clement, which we still read regularly.” It reads:

“Who did not admire the sobriety and moderation of your godliness in Christ? Who did not proclaim the magnificence of your habitual hospitality? And who did not rejoice over your perfect and well-grounded knowledge? For you did all things without respect of persons, and walked in the commandments of God, being obedient to those who had the rule over you, and giving all fitting honor to the Presbyters among you. You enjoined young men to be of a sober and serious mind; you instructed your wives to do all things with a blameless, becoming, and pure conscience, loving their husbands as in duty bound; and you taught them that, living in the rule of obedience, they should manage their household affairs becomingly, and be in every respect marked by discretion.”

Although Clement’s epistle shows a long standing familiarity with the Old Testament and cites it as scripture over 100 times, gospel traditions are only referred to as “wise council.” And while Clement speaks of Paul and quotes his epistles, the gospel traditions he writes of are only reflections of the gospel tradition and give no credit to Jesus as their source. This insinuates that Clement had the Pauline epistles but did not possess any gospels, which is unusual since Mark is generally believed to have been written in Rome by 80 A.D. Another Clementine tradition purports to be a dogmatic discourse from Clement to James the Just in Jerusalem. It is relegated to Pseudo-Clementine Literature and is categorized as a Christian Romance.

The epistles of St. Ignatius, believed to have been written around 110 A.D., are even more riddled with pseudographia. There are seven epistles to the churches of Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, Rome, Philadelphia, Smyrna, and a letter to the bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp. More epistles were forged afterwards, and as the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia says, “even the genuine epistles were greatly interpolated to lend weight to the personal views of its author.” The epistles propose to have been written by the third Bishop of Antioch (after Peter and the little-known Evodius) as he was led by the authorities to be fed to the lions in Rome. Ignatius celebrates his fate and describes a nearly ecstatic desire to be martyred and attain a new life. The Epistle to the Romans reads, “May I enjoy the wild beasts that are prepared for me; and I pray they may be found eager to rush upon me, which also I will entice to devour me speedily, and not deal with me as with some, whom, out of fear, they have not touched. But if they be unwilling to assail me, I will compel them to do so.” The epistles are written very unsystematically and contain many run-on sentences. Unlike Clement, Ignatius doesn’t quote from any scripture verbatim but instead uses ideas from both the Pauline epistles and the four gospels without making any references. His is the first Christian document to refer to the Catholic Church. There are two versions of the epistle, a short version (in green), as which was quoted previously, and a long version (including lime green minus the text in brackets):

“See that you all follow the bishop, even as [Jesus] Christ Jesus does the Father, and the Presbyters as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, [as being the institution of God] as those that carry out the appointment of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude also be; even as, where [ever Jesus] Christ is, [there is the Catholic Church] there does all the heavenly host stand by, waiting upon Him as the Chief Captain of the Lord’s might, and the Governor of every intelligent nature. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize, or to offer, or to present sacrifice, or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.” -Epistle to the Smyrnaeans

There has been some debate over whether this was meant to be the proper name, Catholic, or only the generic sense, katholikos, meaning “universal.” The fact that it was edited over by Pseudo-Ignatius doesn’t lend much weight to it’s importance. Chapter 9 of the Epistle to the Magnesians speaks of replacing the Saturday with Sunday as the holy day, saying, “If then those who had walked in ancient practices attained unto newness of hope, no longer observing Sabbaths but fashioning their lives after the Lord's day…” In the following chapter, Igantius and Pseudo-Ignatius define Christianity against Judaism:

“Let us not, therefore, be insensible to His kindness. For were He to reward us according to our works, we should cease to be. For ‘if Thou, Lord, shall mark iniquities, Oh Lord, who shall stand?’ [Psalms 130:3] Let us therefore prove ourselves worthy of that name which we have received. [Therefore, having become His disciples, let us learn to live according to the principles of Christianity.] For whosoever is called by any other name besides this, he is not of God; for he has not received the prophecy which speaks thus concerning us: ‘The people shall be called by a new name, which the Lord shall name them, and shall be a holy people.’ [Isaiah 62:2,12] This was first fulfilled in Syria; for ‘the disciples were called Christians at Antioch,’ [Acts 11:26] when Paul and Peter were laying the foundations of the Church. Lay aside, therefore, the evil, the old, the sour [corrupt] leaven, and be changed into the new leaven [of grace], [which is Jesus Christ. Be salted in Him, unless any one among you should be corrupted, since by your savor you shall be convicted.] Abide in Christ, that the Stranger may not have dominion over you. [It is absurd to profess Christ Jesus, and to Judaize. For Christianity did not embrace Judaism, but Judaism Christianity, that so every tongue which believes might be gathered together to God.] It is absurd to speak of Jesus Christ with the tongue, and to cherish in the mind a Judaism which has now come to an end. For where there is Christianity there cannot be Judaism. For Christ is one, in whom every nation that believes, and every tongue that confesses, is gathered unto God. And those that were of a stony heart have become the children of Abraham, the friend of God; and in his seed all those have been blessed who were ordained to eternal life in Christ.” -Epistle to the Magnesians, Ch. 10 (Short version) (Long version)

The rhetoric against Judaism noticeably increases over time, as shown by the differences between the short and long versions. The short version only inhibits proselytizing Judaism and goes so far as to suggest that Judaism “embraced“ Christianity. The long version berates the very idea that Judaism still existed. The long version also crosses a threshold in declaring that a reference to the name of Christianity in Antioch was a fulfillment of Old Testament scripture, further solemnizing a disassociation with Judaism. The short version only goes so far as to mention “the birth, and passion, and resurrection which took place in the time of the government of Pontius Pilate.” The long version describes how Jesus was born of the virgin, lived a holy life, and “showed signs and wonders” for the benefit of men that they would know that he was the Christ, another notable focus of the Johannine tradition. It also says Jesus taught those “who had fallen into the error of polytheism” before he endured the passion of the crucifixion “at the hands of the Christ-killing Jews, under Pontius Pilate the governor and Herod the king.”

Another common but ultimately dropped piece of apocrypha is the Didakhe, pronounced “did-a-KAY,” which is Greek for “teaching.” The Didakhe was a Christian handbook believed to have been written in Egypt. The dating for it is completely across the board, with some suggesting as early a date as 47, making it’s teachings a source of the gospels, to as late as 160. Although considered to be canonical scripture by both Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and many other Egyptian Christians it was lost for centuries before it was found inside a dingy library in Constantinople by Archbishop Philotheos Bryennios in 1873. It was included in a book called the Codex Hierosolymitanus and was signed by self-described “scribe and sinner” Leon in 1056. It opens by saying, “There are two Ways, one of Life and one of Death, and there is a great difference between the two Ways.” This seems to hearken back to an earlier time when Christianity was known as “the Way,” as mentioned in Acts (19:9). The Old Testament is quoted, but nothing connected to Paul or the epistles. The only gospel it quotes is from Matthew, which is called the “Gospel of the Lord,” indicative of it‘s Syrio-Egyptian roots:

“The way of life is indeed this: First, you will love the God who made you; secondly, ‘you will love your neighbor as yourself.’ Now all the things that you do not want to have happen to you, you too do not do to one another. Now the teaching of these sayings is this: ‘Praise those who curse you‘, and pray for your enemies; now fast for those who are persecuting you. For what favor is it if you love those who love you? Don’t the Gentiles do the same? But you love those who hate you, and you will have no enemies. ‘Abstain from the bodily and cosmic [worldly] lusts. ‘If someone should give you a blow to your right cheek, turn to him also the left one,’ and you will be complete. ‘If anyone should force you to go one mile, go with him two.’ ‘If anyone takes your cloak, give him your tunic also.’ If anyone takes what is yours away from you, do not ask for it back. For neither are you able. ‘Give to everyone who asks from you,’ and do not ask for it back. For the Father wants to give of his own free gifts to everyone.”

The Didakhe speaks of baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and also includes the Lord‘s Prayer. Regarding holy days it says, “But do not let your fasts be with the hypocrites. For they fast on the second day of the week and on the fifth. But you fast on the fourth day and the day of preparation.” When going over the definition of murder, the Didakhe includes abortion whereas nothing in the canonical Bible makes such a distinction. It also warns not to “take your hand away from your son or your daughter, but from youth you will teach the fear of God.” It tells readers to choose overseers “who are meek, not lovers of money, true and proved.” At the end of the manual, it foretells that false prophets and corrupters will multiply, and “sheep will be turned into wolves, and love will be turned into hate,” which precedes the rise of a single antichrist and then the Second Coming, also called the Parousia.

The oldest surviving set of the Holy Bible, both Old and New Testament, is the Codex Sinaiticus, consisting of 347 folios, and transcribed some time between 330 and 350 A.D. It was found by the German Biblical scholar Constantin von Tischendorf in the Monastary of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai in 1859. Tischendorf found parts of it in a basket of manuscripts which had originally been deemed to be burned in the monastery ovens. Other parts were found in a chamber underneath the monastery that the monks discovered while doing renovations. It has been suggested that it is one of the 50 copies of scripture Emperor Constantine had commissioned. But with this canon included two books that were later dropped: the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas.

Barnabas was a companion of Paul, but the name given to the epistle is generally accepted to be a spurious identification and doesn‘t appear in the text itself. The book is dated between 70 and 130 A.D. and was cited by Clement of Alexandria. It lost favor in the west when Eusebius of Caeserea, a Palestinian bishop instrumental in the formation of the Council of Nicea, vetoed it. It also criticizes Christians who were trying to “Judaize.” The author doesn’t show any direct knowledge of the canon but is in general agreement with the Presbyter perspective of salvation. The epistle cites many Old Testament passages by name and quotes apocrypha like 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra, but doesn‘t give any sources when it uses ideas from the epistles and gospels. The New Testament book that most shares it’s ideas and phraseology is the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Rather than saying that the Old Testament no longer applies due to the death of Christ as the Pauline epistles do, the Epistle of Barnabas instead attempts preposterous arguments that the laws of Moses were never meant to be taken literally and that the Jews have always misinterpreted them. For example, the Jews were never meant to rest on the seventh day of the week. The true interpretation is that the day is actually symbolic for 1000 years, meaning that after 6000 years, the Son of God will “destroy the time of the wicked one, and will judge the godless, and will change the sun and the moon and the stars, and then he will truly rest on the seventh day.” (15:5). The laws of Moses also prohibit eating various animals like pigs, birds, cuttle fish, hares, and hyenas, but the epistle says that these laws only meant that you should not associate with pig-like gluttons, those who are vulturous like birds, those who are condemned to death like cuttle fish, homosexual pedophiles like the hare (old wives’ tales said hares grew a new orifice every year), or adulterers like the hyena.

Despite these ludicrously poor attempts at reinterpretation, there is one good point of criticism it brings towards the traditional view of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. The Epistle of Barnabas says that God made clear through the prophets that sacrifices were never necessary by referencing Jeremiah 7:22, saying, “Did I command your fathers when they came out of the land of Egypt to offer me burnt offerings and sacrifices?” (2:7). The insinuated answer is no, but that would contradict a great deal of Levitical laws in the Torah. The desire for justice to replace animal sacrifice is a theme of the short version of the Book of Jeremiah, found in the Greek Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls, but the traditional long version found in the Hebrew Masoretic Bible adds text that legitimizes animal sacrifice, saying, “Levitical priests shall never lack a man before Me to… prepare sacrifices forever.” (33:18). Regarding the Jewish Temple, the Epistle of Barnabas says, “Look, they who destroyed this temple shall themselves build it. That is happening now. For owing to the war it was destroyed by the enemy; at present even the servants of the enemy will build it up again.” (16:3-4). This statement makes most scholars place it before the Bar Kochba Revolt in 132, after which the Emperor Hadrian built a Roman temple in it’s place.

The Shepherd of Hermas was considered divinely inspired by St. Irenaeus, St. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian. This very long allegorical romance was originally written in Greek but appeared in Latin soon afterwards. Origen of Alexandria believed it’s author was the Hermas from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (16:14), but the nature of the theology and use of Johannine sources make scholars believe it was written some time between 100 and 160. The book consists of five visions from a former Roman slave named Hermas, which are followed by 12 commandments and 10 parables to give as examples. The first vision consists of Hermas going to the Greek-founded colony of Cumae when he sees a vision of a dead woman he knows named Rhoda. She tells him that she will be his accuser in heaven because he had impure thoughts about her while he was married. He also sees a vision of the church in the form of an old woman but as he does penance for his sin and corrects it in his children, her form grows younger and more beautiful. The book makes references from the Old and New Testament, most notably Epistle of James and Apocalypse of John (Revelation), but the only book it cites is the apocryphal Jewish text, the Book of Eldad and Modat. Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian both gave the impression that the work was highly controversial in the early 200s and Pope Callixtus is said by Tertullian to have considered it apocryphal, dismissing it as being even less accepted than the Epistle of Barnabas. St. Jerome wrote it was all but it was unknown in the west by the 400s.

What conclusions can be made about early Christianity based on these early examples of Christian scripture? They are certainly distinct in having little to speak on the subject of the historic Jesus. Later Orthodox apocrypha greatly elaborated on the infancy of Jesus, the lives of his parents, and the legends about what happened to the disciples after Jesus‘ death. In contrast, later Gnostic apocrypha like in the Nag Hammadi centered more on mystical sayings of Jesus and on his relationship with the inner workings of the cosmos. The Pauline epistles, the earliest dated scripture in the canons of both Presbyter and Gnostic, themselves fail to quote Jesus or even give more than hints at his historical life, but instead focuses his attention on the changes brought on to earth by Christ’s death. Only the canonical gospel and late Orthodox authors seem to have been interested in providing times and places for the events they describe. It is often put upon Paul that the apostle shifted focus away from the historical Jesus to that of a resurrected Christ, but this is clearly a common trait in the early scriptures. The Shepherd of Hermas probably sticks out as the most unexpected of all apocryphal works, even more so considering the authority invested upon it by Irenaeus and Clement. Why was a story about an otherwise unknown slave who was completely unrelated to Jesus or any of his apostles considered as authoritative as the gospels? Within time, this absence of interest in Jesus would swing to the opposite extreme, with continuous sectarian splits based on various pretexts about differing beliefs of how Jesus was related to God. No quaint stories of anonymous slaves were going to be spread around when the souls of mankind depended on whether the hypostatic union of God and man brought about a unified nature or not.

By the time the earliest Christian scripture to survive was written, the early Christian community had already fractured into different religious sects, no more than an estimated 25 years after Jesus‘ death. These first contentions brought on in the Pauline epistles are directed at first towards Jewish Christians who believed that still followed the Torah. But by the Epistle of Colossians, it was also criticizing Gnostics, calling them “false teachers.” These earliest documents originated around Asia Minor (Turkey) where there seems to have been tug of war going on between Gnostics and Jewish Christians over the soul of Christianity. Asia Minor found itself conflicted between the rationalism of Neo-Platonic philosophy and the religious fervor of Judaism, somewhat like how modern Turkey has found a niche between the secularism of the west and the Islamic faith of the east. A good deal of evidence, including references in Acts, points towards Egypt as being the general focal point where Gnostic “false teachers” originated from. Turkey was also the origin of Marcion, who came from Sinope. The most influential city in Turkey was Ephesus, where Cerinthus and John the Elder competed against one another. Ephesus also acted as the head church for the “seven churches of Asia” spoken of in Revelation, which is part of the Johannine tradition. Parts of these churches were later linked to Irenaeus’ Apostolic community in France, who in turn met with Pope St. Victor in Rome in their mission to reconcile the many different traditions of Christianity in a bid to unify the Church.

The Presbyters seem to have taken one of the middle courses, denying both the Laws of Moses of Judaism and the “human tradition and basic principles” of the Gnostics, and primarily focused on faith in Christ alone. At first authority seems to have rested greatly on Paul, but later the history of Jesus and his disciples, especially Peter, would arouse far more interest. The Gospel of Mark would try to counter the factionalism within Christianity by having Jesus portray James and John as misguided and ego-driven, but this lesson would be lost with it’s combination to the far more polemical gospels of Matthew and John. The question of authority and the attempts to trace Christianity back through the disciples of Jesus seems to have begun with Justin Martyr, whose student Tatian, is the first theologian to enact an official canon for the church, although it was not exactly the same one that would come to be endorsed by Irenaeus.