14 - Introduction to the Gospel of Judas

14 - Introduction to the Gospel of Judas

At the outset, I want to ask the question, "Why the Gnostic Gospels?" As you will see below, I am in fundamental disagreement with a crucial component of the Gnostic philosophy; I emphasize this, because there can be no doubt that these Gospels were composed by a Gnostic author who unabashedly puts a Gnostic slant on all of his material. So what's the point? Why read a piece of ancient fiction--in church? Well, as I will elucidate below, the Gnostic Gospels certainly show us a little slice of history that is usually hidden from us by the sands of time, but, more importantly, they are illustrative of Jesus' power to mythologize Himself; by that, I mean: the impact Jesus made on the world was so great that He became legend before He became bio-graphed. These scriptures are filled with legitimate portraits, and expressions of Jesus, even if they have been decorated by the embellishments of oral tradition; they may not actually turn out to be what they pretend to be, but what ancient scripture is immune to pedagogical dispute? These Gospels may or may not contain historical fact, but they are absolutely imbued with the Holy Spirit, and I have already benefited from exposure to them.

I'm going to kick off this presentation of the Gospel of Judas by first quoting the very last verse of John.

John 21:25:

"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written
every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.
Amen."

It is significant that John asserts that there are many, many more stories about Jesus that are not recorded in his gospel, (including the other four synoptic gospels, as well, of which many of the stories are the same); John is telling us that there are more untold stories of Jesus. Way cool! If you simply look at the gnostic gospels as a warehouse of new stories about Jesus, you can't go wrong. What a find! What an opportunity! The Gnostic gospels are a treasure trove of new Jesus stories, all of which are resonant with the Jesus stories recorded in the accepted four gospels.

However, let me make this hefty disclaimer before we go any further: in my brief exposure to the field, (which, I find, is immense), I have begun to suspect that the study of the Gnostic Gospels is not mostly about the content of the material, but, rather, it is about enjoying a collection of spiritual allegories and poetic inventions, stylistically characteristic Jesus' time and place.

We know that many of the stories in the Canonical Gospels were told second or third hand, before they were written down. These stories were kept alive, and circulated among believers, through oral transmission. Therefore, certain orally handed-down stories, well-known among the people, might have easily attracted some narrative embroidery, of an archetypal character--and this process of  embroidery might have easily yielded some outlandish variants. The beauty of this is that Jesus became a myth practically in his own lifetime! It is, therefore, not surprising that man's tendency to mythologize resulted in so many various religious speculations.

Simply stated, we know through faith, and habit, that the stories in the Synoptic Gospels are historically true, and that Jesus is quoted with literal accuracy. The stories in the Gnostic Gospels, though beautiful, are much more historically suspect; this suspicion compromises the validity of the works as truthful, spiritually resonance documents, because we can't really count on the FACT that Jesus actually said something that they say He said. It may be possible that He said it, it may be CONCEIVABLE that He said it, it may be LIKELY that He said it, but there is no GUARANTEE that He said it.

Admittedly everything is subject to interpretation, such that: any mythological story will communicate not only itself, but the culture and religious prejudices of the author. The stories in the Gnostic gospels are told from the viewpoint of a Gnostic, so they unavoidably tend to echo, implicitly or explicitly, the philosophy of the author. This is where the seed of doubt is planted. It appears that, according to Jesus, Gnosticism is based on a mistaken interpretation of mundane existence: the principle is that we are enslaved by our bodies, and seek, through the use of magic and meditation, to transcend our physical bodies, to become free in the Cloud of Unknowing. This is not unlike the ultimate goal of Jesus, which, to be sure, is to transcend the physical. However, Jesus' transcendence of the physical includes the glorification of the physical in the mundane dimension, finding the eternal in the temporal, and, thereby, establishing the Kingdom of God on earth. Gnostics are not big on "Heaven on Earth"; they just basically want to get the heck out of here as soon as possible.

Iraneus' rejection of the Gnostic Gospels might very well have been driven by a quarrel with Gnosticism, not in any specific sense, but merely on general principles; all of the texts he rejected are more or less actually Gnostic. Perhaps Iraneus took the easy way out--rejecting the principles of Gnosticism, as a school of heretical philosophy, would make it easy for the church fathers to reject the Gnostic Gospels outright, even though there are many non-Gnostic principles expressed in them.

It must be emphasized that the Gnostic view of the physical as a prison, (from which the spirit must enthusiastically escape), is not particularly harmonious with the idea that Jesus put forth of a possible Heaven on Earth. Jesus taught us to focus our perception of identity on the spiritual component; He taught us not to feel bound to the body, and to look forward to an ultimate destiny free of the body. But this does not mean that one's body may not be glorified. Jesus taught us that the physical experience of spirit is, in some ways, just as legitimate and necessary for the evolution of the soul, as its entry and reentry into and out of etheric dimensions.

The more I get to know about the Gnostic Gospels the more I begin to suspect that the gospel of Judas is a work of fiction. Now, that does not mean that the Gospel of Judas does not have something important to say, and true to say. The fact of whether Judas really betrayed Jesus or not, is not of primary interest to me. It's like whether the world was created in six days or not: I don't really care. I don't care if Judas did or didn't betray Jesus; I don't care if he escaped to India; I don't care if he was stoned by the other disciples. I don't know these people, and I don't really have anything to do with what exactly happened. I am a Christian Ex Post Facto--AFTER THE FACT. That Jesus is available  to me, in spirit, is the most important part. How He got there, is less important. Furthermore, if we remember that most of the Gospels, most of these these sacred texts, inspired by God, are compositions created by mere by men, who may not even have had direct experience of the events they are reporting, it becomes easier to affirm the the sacredness of the Gospel of Judas.

To be sure, the point of the Gospels is to give us an historical record of Jesus' career, including quotations of His profound sayings--sayings which give us comfort, and direct our the minds toward higher things. However, the mystical experience of Jesus does not depend on the accuracy of any history or doctrine we may have formulated in our minds; it is the higher self which is truly in communion with the Christ.


I find that the word "apologist" keeps attracting my attention. I read up on Iranaeus (who is, as I mentioned last week, largely responsible for choosing the four accepted synoptic gospels, and many other books of the New Testament, meanwhile rejecting many books of Gnostic philosophy. He wrote long books condemning Gnosticism as a false religion, and the gnostic philosophical books as works of heresy. Iraneus is labeled an "apologist" because, with his writing, he justifies his position, and attacks various other positions. So, I find the word "apologist"  means to "make apology" in the classic Greek sense of the "apologia" or "defense", the most famous of which is probably the  Apologia of Socrates to the Greek accusers who condemned him to death. C.S. Lewis is also always referred to as an apologist. I suppose Martin Luther could be considered one, as well. So in discussing the Gnostic gospels in the present apologia, we have not only the task of presenting  the material, which is new to many of us, but also to provide an historical context for it, and then to apologize, or defend, its content--that is, either to confirm it or refute it, or, in some way or other, pass judgement on it. Thus, in struggling to find the truth, we may find items which seem to be somewhat dissonant with the images from the accepted synoptic gospels we have in mind.  Those dissonant stimulants must be examined thoroughly to see whether the stimulation is a good thing or a bad thing.

Gnosticism comes in many flavors and intensities, such that it is virtually impossible to describe a single Gnostic philosophy that agrees with all the different varieties. However, this summary of Gnosticism taken from Wikipedia is a good start at providing a meaningful overview:

"Gnostic systems, particularly the Syrian-Egyptian schools, are typically marked by:
    •    The notion of a remote, supreme monadic divinity, source – this figure is known under a variety of names, including "Pleroma" (fullness, totality) and "Bythos" (depth, profundity);
    •    The introduction by emanation of further divine beings known as Aeons, which are nevertheless identifiable as aspects of the God from which they proceeded; the progressive emanations are often conceived metaphorically as a gradual and progressive distancing from the ultimate source, which brings about an instability in the fabric of the divine nature;

[Sidebar: You will remember the section on Aeons from last week's sermon. One of the sections of the Gospel of Judas summarizes the Gnostic cosmography. So do we accept the idea that these ideas as, indeed, coming out of Jesus' mouth, or do we, in rejecting this hypothesis, reject the whole of Judas as spurious and heretical?

Back to the Wikipedia summary of Gnosticism:]

"    •    The introduction of a distinct creator god or demiurge, which is an illusion and a later emanation from the single monad or source. This second god is a lesser and inferior or false god. This creator god is commonly referred to as the demiourgós used in the Platonist tradition. The gnostic demiurge bears resemblance to figures in Plato's Timaeus and Republic. In the former, the demiourgós is a central figure, a benevolent creator of the universe who works to make the universe as benevolent as the limitations of matter will allow; in the latter, the description of the leontomorphic "desire" in Socrates' model of the psyche bears a resemblance to descriptions of the demiurge as being in the shape of the lion; the relevant passage of The Republic was found within a major gnostic library discovered at Nag Hammadi, wherein a text existed describing the demiurge as a "lion-faced serpent". Elsewhere, this figure is called "Ialdabaoth", "Samael" (Aramaic: sæmʻa-ʼel, "blind god") or "Saklas" (Syriac: sækla, "the foolish one"), who is sometimes ignorant of the superior god, and sometimes opposed to it; thus in the latter case he is correspondingly malevolent. The demiurge typically creates a group of co-actors named "Archons", who preside over the material realm and, in some cases, present obstacles to the soul seeking ascent from it;
    •    The estimation of the world, owing to the above, as flawed or a production of "error" but possibly good as its constituent material might allow. This world is typically an inferior simulacrum of a higher-level reality or consciousness."

One of the interesting sidelights of Gnosticism is the idea of the demiurge, which, translated into Gnostic-ese, means "Creator God". This creator god is not the Supreme God, but merely an "emanation of the Monad". The idea of "levels of the Godhead" is actually something I had thought of before, to whit: in an infinite array, an infinite continuum of material densities, of consciousness states, it is entirely reasonable to think of the God, to whom we pray, as the Creator God--as one more (LOWER) level on an infinite continuum of levels, culminating in the highest infinite, unnamed and unnamable, unthinkable God.

One expression of the Gnostic principle of "levels of Godhead" is the so-called "Gnostic Dualism:

"Some dualism was indeed congenital with Gnosticism, yet but rarely did it overcome the main tendency of Gnosticism, i.e. Pantheism. This, however, was certainly the case in the system of Marcion, who distinguished between the God of the New Testament and the God of the Old Testament, as between two eternal principles, the first being Good, agathos; the second merely dikaios, or just; yet even Marcion did not carry this system to its ultimate consequences. He may be considered rather as a forerunner of Mani than a pure Gnostic. Three of his disciples, Potitus, Basilicus, and Lucanus, are mentioned by Eusebius as being true to their master's dualism (Church History V.13), but Apelles, his chief disciple, though he went farther than his master in rejecting the Old-Testament Scriptures, returned to monotheism by considering the Inspirer of Old-Testament prophecies to be not a god, but an evil angel. On the other hand, Syneros and Prepon, also his disciples, postulated three different principles. A somewhat different dualism was taught by Hermogenes in the beginning of the second century at Carthage. The opponent of the good God was not the God of the Jews, but Eternal Matter, the source of all evil. This Gnostic was combatted by Theophilus of Antioch and Tertullian."

In the Gospel of Judas, Jesus makes reference to an entity Who has never been named, and yet we have, in Hebrew, the Jewish name for God, which is Yahweh. This idea, of the name of God, is somewhat inconsistent with the idea of an unnamed God. This would have been an heretical thought in 200 A.D., and, therefore, would have made The Gospel of Judas a very obvious candidate for expulsion from the Gospels by Iraneus, and the later church fathers who made the final selection of acceptable Gospels. However, once again, for me, it is not a difficult leap to imagine the higher infinite consciousness of God delegating the creation of the world to a lower, co-extensive, creative entity; the idea of progressive distancing from the ultimate source doesn't trouble me at all--as if, by any literal definition, we could ever begin to measure, in anything like an adequate description of spiritual levels and degrees, the height and breadth of God .

Now, going on with more specific excerpts of the Gospel of Judas:

One of the most distinctive features of the portrait of Jesus given in the Gospel of Judas, is that it shows Jesus laughing. There are three places, in this very short book, where Jesus laughs; and, although He denies it, the disciples take this laughter as mocking or making fun of them, and they get pissed off. Where in the synoptic gospels do the disciples ever get pissed off? And yet, faced with this magnificent paradox, Jesus, how could they not? In an effort to make the disciples holy, the synoptic gospels often forget to make the disciples human.

Now, as we know, laughing at the foibles and weaknesses of our friends or children, can be a very open-hearted loving kind of  laughter, an indulgent, understanding, forgiving laughter, or it can be a snide, superior, insulting kind of laughter.  Of course the disciples, concerned with social status, as the Jews always were, (always pridefully defending their place in the pecking order), take offense at this laughter, and get quite angry with their teacher. Jesus assures them that He is not laughing at them, but with them.

We will begin our review of the Gospel of Judas with that scene. The disciples are gathered over a meal, and have been praying a blessing over the food. Jesus walks in on them and begins to laugh. The disciples get all offended, because they think He is making fun of  them. So here is the story, and here is what Jesus has to say:

"SCENE 1: Jesus dialogues with his disciples: The prayer of thanksgiving or the eucharist:

One day He was with His disciples in Judea, and He found them gathered together and seated in pious observance. When He approached, His disciples were gathered together and seated and offering a prayer of thanksgiving over the bread. Then He laughed.

The disciples said to Him,

“Master, why are you laughing at our prayer of thanksgiving? We have done what is right.”

He answered and said to them,

“I am not laughing at you. You are not doing this because of your own will but because it is through this that your god will be praised.”

[Sidebar: So we can see already, that, far from being a humorous laughter at some incongruity, between the intentions of the disciples' prayer and the effect of the prayer, Jesus is merely laughing for joy, that the Father is so intentionally glorified. It MIGHT be that Jesus is amused by the mechanical nature of the Jewish ritual ("We have done what is right."), it MIGHT be that He sees a certain shallowness in the prayer, ("You are not doing this because of your own will,"), but He MIGHT merely be affirming the mystic solemnity of a ritual of praise which transcends its social context, and elevates itself into sacred joy.

The second part of the astray is the telling part:]

"They said,

“Master, you are the son of our god.”

Jesus said to them,

“How do you know me? Truly I say to you, no generation of the people
that are among you will know me.”

When his disciples heard this, they started getting angry and infuriated and began blaspheming against him in their hearts."

[Sidebar: Notice it says, they "began blaspheming against him in their hearts". No word was spoken, and yet Jesus read their hearts, just as He had done many times in the Synoptic Gospels. This is, indeed, our old friend, whom we have cherished and adored many times before, because He always sees through our petty subterfuges.]

Now, we know that any discussion of the Gospel of Judas must eventually work its way around to the question of whether or not Judas was working FOR or AGAINST Jesus--was Judas following or NOT following Jesus' specific instructions in the matter of the betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane. This is the most difficult controversy in the book, and it is a central idea around which all the other material revolves. Next week we will take a look at that potion of the text.


For now, let us pray: Jesus, as always, we stand in awe of the focus of God that was able to communicate a sliver of its mystery to humankind. We thank you for the opportunity to experience and assess these ancient documents, and we pray, at all costs, that Your Divine Intelligence be available to us, as we explore a vision of you that has been unknown for all these years. Bless our investigations with Heavenly discrimination and open-hearted acceptance. Amen.

13 Introduction to the Gnostic Gospels

13 Introduction to the Gnostic Gospels

Having finished my 7-part series on Ecstasy and the Holy Ghost, my plan was to begin a series on the Acts of the Apostles. As you will remember, about a year ago I finished a review of the Synoptic Gospels, so it seemed about time to hit the rest of the New Testament. I've never been that interested in Peter or Paul, that is to say: I was not as interested in what they had to say as in what Jesus had to say; but recently I have been attracted to the Acts, as directed by Steiner you may recall, so I began to read the book systematically, for the first time in maybe thirty years.

I had just delved into the first chapter, when the telling of the death of Judas caught my eye. The death of Judas, as told in the first chapter of Acts, is quite unlike the story told in the synoptic Gospels:

Acts 1:18-19

"(With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled
out.  Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)"

The image of Judas dying in a field that he has just bought for 30 pieces of silver, (his guts exploding everywhere), is very different from the image of Judas hanging himself. This discrepancy led me to investigate Judas. In so doing, I found that there was in fact a Gnostic Gospel of Judas. A little more investigating revealed that there are also Gospels of Mary Magdalene, James, Thomas, Phillip, and Judas. These Gospels constitute the so-called Gnostic Gospels, which were thought to have been rejected by the Church fathers in the First Council of Nicaea:

This concise summary of that meeting is taken from Wikipedia:

"The First Council of Nicaea (/naɪˈsiːə/; Greek: Νίκαια [ˈni:kaɪja]; Turkish: Iznik) was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325. This first ecumenical council was the first effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom.

Its main accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the nature of the Son of God and his relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Creed of Nicaea, establishing uniform observance of the date of Easter, and promulgation of early canon law.
The First Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical council of the Church. Most significantly, it resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine, called the Nicene Creed. With the creation of the creed, a precedent was established for subsequent local and regional councils of Bishops (Synods) to create statements of belief and canons of doctrinal orthodoxy—the intent being to define unity of beliefs for the whole of Christendom. . . . ."

[Sidebar: The Nicene Creed is important for more than one reason. Of primary interest to me, of course, are the many beautiful musical settings of the Credo. Compared to some of the other, much shorter, texts in the Catholic Ordinary (like the Kyrie, or the Agnus Dei) the Credo is very wordy; because of this, many settings are prosaic, and run through the text, syllabically, like a speed reader (or a chanter, ha, ha); and yet some masses have credos that take 30 minutes to play through, each movement dwelling on, and glorifying, a single idea or image in the text.

But the Nicene creed is most important because it sets a tone, an attitude toward religious belief: it fixes Christian doctrine in an inflexible conceptual straight jacket. It tells people that the church assumes absolute authority in directing its flock's thinking, and makes it heresy to believe anything that is in disagreement with what the church fathers have agreed upon. To be sure, some such direction moth be considered necessary in an ignorant illiterate society, but I'm not sure we need such pervasive protections now. It has always struck me that the words of the Credo are written in stone.

Here, for the record, is the:

Nicene Creed

"I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father [and the Son]; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.
And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen."

This is indeed a wonderful text. But it must still be admitted that it carries with it some of the moral baggage of its time--prejudices which, in subtle manifestations, compromise some the universal resonance that pervades MOST of the text. The Credo has been used as a weapon, more times than I care to recall.

Going on with Wikipedia:

"A number of erroneous views have been stated regarding the council's role in establishing the biblical canon. In fact, there is no record of any discussion of the biblical canon at the council at all. The development of the biblical canon took centuries, and was nearly complete (with exceptions known as the Antilegomena, written texts whose authenticity or value is disputed) by the time the Muratorian fragment was written. . . .

The Muratorian fragment is a copy of perhaps the oldest known list of the books of the New Testament. The fragment, consisting of 85 lines, is a 7th-century Latin manuscript bound in a 7th or 8th century codex from the library of Columban's monastery at Bobbio; it contains features suggesting it is a translation from a Greek original written about 170 or as late as the 4th century. Both the degraded condition of the manuscript and the poor Latin in which it was written have made it difficult to translate. The beginning of the fragment is missing, and it ends abruptly. The fragment consists of all that remains of a section of a list of all the works that were accepted as canonical by the churches known to its anonymous original compiler. . . . .

In 331 Constantine commissioned fifty Bibles for the Church of Constantinople, but little else is known (in fact, it is not even certain whether his request was for fifty copies of the entire Old and New Testaments, only the New Testament, or merely the Gospels), and it is doubtful that this request provided motivation for canon lists as is sometimes speculated. In Jerome's Prologue to Judith he claims that the Book of Judith was "found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures"."

So, you can see that one of the big problems with talking about ancient texts is the question of authenticity. The pedigrees of all these ancient books are shrouded in mystery, and nobody knows quite where what came from what. The questionable pedigrees, of some of these ancient texts, make it difficult to forge an allegiance with a text, because it might end up being proven to be spurious, and what fools we were for believing it!

I have long been aware of the gospel of Thomas, but stumbling onto the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Gospel of James, The Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Judas, was a very inspiring discovery. Discovering the so-called Gnostic Gospels was like discovering ANOTHER piano concerto by Mozart, or finding the missing last page of  The Art of Fugue. More Jesus stories, oh goody! And I tell you, the stories are REALLY good, although they demand a widening of many of our pre-conceptions of the personality of Jesus as portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels.

So a cursory survey of these rogue gospels sounded like a good, casual, fun idea. At first, I was just going to present a single sermon on Judas; but, looking closer, I saw that the wealth of material to be gone over demanded multiple presentations, not only about Judas, but about the other Gnostic Gospels as well. Therefore today's sermon is going to be an introduction to the whole Gnostic Gospel scenario. We will soon see a common thread that runs through all the Gnostic Gospels, unifying characteristics which make them of a piece, but which also make them distinct from the synpotic versions. In a moment we will take a first look at some of these characteristics as exemplified in the Gospel of Judas.

First, here is a Wikiedia summary of the Gnostic Gospels:

‪Gnostic Gospels‬
"The Gnostic Gospels are a collection of about fifty-two texts based upon the teachings of several spiritual leaders, written from the 2nd to the 4th century AD. The sayings of the Gospel of Thomas, compiled circa 140, may include some traditions even older than the gospels of the New Testament, possibly as early as the second half of the first century. These gospels are not part of the standard Biblical canon of any mainstream Christian denomination, and as such are part of what is called the New Testament apocrypha. Recent novels and films that refer to the gospels have increased public interest.

The word gnostic comes from the Greek word gnosis, meaning "knowledge", which is often used in Greek philosophy in a manner more consistent with the English "enlightenment". Some scholars continue to maintain traditional dating for the emergence of Gnostic philosophy and religious movements. It is now generally believed that Gnosticism was a Jewish movement which emerged directly in reaction to Christianity.
The name Christian gnostics came to represent a segment of the Early Christian community that believed that salvation lay not in merely worshipping Christ, but in psychic or pneumatic souls learning to free themselves from the material world via the revelation. According to this tradition, the answers to spiritual questions are to be found within, not without. Furthermore, the gnostic path does not require the intermediation of a church for salvation. Some scholars, such as Edward Conze and Elaine Pagels, have suggested that gnosticism blends teachings like those attributed to Jesus Christ with teachings found in Eastern traditions.

The documents which comprise the collection of gnostic gospels were not discovered at a single time, but rather as a series of finds. The Nag Hammadi Library was discovered accidentally by two farmers in December 1945 and was named for the area in Egypt where it had been hidden for centuries. Other documents included in what are now known as the gnostic gospels were found at different times and locations, such as the Gospel of Mary, which was recovered in 1896 as part of the Akhmim Codex and published in 1955. Some documents were duplicated in different finds, and others, such as with the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, only one copy is currently known to exist.

Although the manuscripts discovered at Nag Hammadi are generally dated to the 4th century, there is some debate regarding the original composition of the texts. A wide range and the majority of scholars date authorship of the Gnostic gospel of Nag Hammadi to the 2nd and 3rd century. Scholars with a focus on Christianity tend to date the gospels mentioned by Irenaeus to the 2nd century, and the gospels mentioned solely by Jerome to the 4th century. The traditional dating of the gospels derives primarily from this division. Other scholars with a deeper focus on pagan and Jewish literature of the period tend to date primarily based on the type of the work:

    1.    The Gospel of Thomas is held by most to be the earliest of the "gnostic" gospels composed. Scholars generally date the text to the early-mid 2nd century. The Gospel of Thomas, it is often claimed, has some gnostic elements but lacks the full gnostic cosmology. However, even the description of these elements as "gnostic" is based mainly upon the presupposition that the text as a whole is a "gnostic" gospel, and this idea itself is based upon little other than the fact that it was found along with gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi. Some scholars including Nicholas Perrin argue that Thomas is dependent on the Diatessaron, which was composed shortly after 172 by Tatian in Syria. A minority view contends for an early date of perhaps 50, citing a relationship to the hypothetical Q document among other reasons.
    2.    The Gospel of the Lord, a gnostic but otherwise non-canonical text, can be dated approximately during the time of Marcion in the early 2nd century. The traditional view holds Marcion did not compose the gospel directly but, "expunged [from the Gospel of Luke] all the things that oppose his view... but retained those things that accord with his opinion". The traditional view and dating has continued to be affirmed by the mainstream of biblical scholars, however, G. R. S. Mead His Gospel was presumably the collection of sayings in use among the Pauline churches of his day. Of course the patristic writers say that Marcion mutilated Luke's version, and have argued that Marcion's gospel predates the canonical Luke and was in use in Pauline churches.
    3.    The Gospel of Truth and the teachings of the Pistis Sophia can be approximately dated to the early 2nd century as they were part of the original Valentinian school, though the gospel itself is 3rd century.
    4.    Documents with a Sethian influence (like the Gospel of Judas, or outright Sethian like Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians can be dated substantially later than 40 and substantially earlier than 250; most scholars giving them a 2nd-century date. More conservative scholars using the traditional dating method would argue in these cases for the early 3rd century.
    5.    Some gnostic gospels (for example Trimorphic Protennoia) make use of fully developed Neoplatonism and thus need to be dated after Plotinus in the 3rd century.

Selected gospels

Though there are many documents that could be included among the gnostic gospels, the term most commonly refers to the following:
    •    Gospel of Mary (recovered in 1896)
    •    Gospel of Thomas (versions found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt in 1898, and again in the Nag Hammadi Library)
    •    Gospel of Truth (Nag Hammadi Library)
    •    Gospel of Philip (Nag Hammadi Library) 4 Period
    •    Gospel of Judas (recovered via the antiquities black market in 1983, and then reconstructed in 2006)."

So you can see, there is a great deal of material to look at, and I felt a moral imperative compelling me to look at it. It seems to me that an investigation of the Gnostic Gospels is really required of the seeking, literate Christian: i.e., the Christian who seeks a personal experience of Jesus, and not mere literal conformity to some moral law, generated out of the prejudices of a society. We call ourselves the Basin Bible Church, which means we place tremendous emphasis on the meaning contained in the preserved sacred writings of this time; whether they are divinely inspired, or merely historically inspired, these writings are the backbone of our faith, and provide the cognitive framework upon which we may hang our subjective, intuitive experience of grace and spirit.

Now, as I began to familiarize myself with the Gnostic Gospels, the first question I asked myself was this: why were the Gnostic Gospels rejected? Why did the church fathers feel that the material exposed in these Gospels was not acceptable? Well, one pattern that I perceived right away, that distinguished the Gnostic Gospels from the synoptic Gospels, was that the Gnostic Gospels have more magic in them; there are more Angels, and trans-dimensional travel, more miracles, and more mystic states. For instance, next week we will review the report of a vision that Judas had of his own death, and his first sight of heaven; it is very similar to the apocalyptic images portrayed in Revelation, and yet it also presages literary works such as Dante's the Divine comedy, and those many many other reports of people walking the boulevards of heaven after death-- very new age. Even the language in which these mystical experiences are expressed cross the border from mainstream Christianity into the realm of the new age--(the new age in the case of the Gospel of Judas is about 200 A.D. Can this be the problem? That in an effort to civilize religion, man has chosen to delete from his doctrine the most mystical elements of Christianity, perhaps because these most transcendent elements are also the most frightening?

The time of the creation of the Gnostic Gospels was the same exact time as for all the other Gospels. In fact, many of the accepted texts were written much later than the events which they describe, and later than some of the stories told in the Gnostic Gospels. But it cannot be denied that the Gnostic Gospels do contain some problematical content, content which, I imagine, the church fathers felt might lead the poor, stupid peasants astray. It was therefore necessary to delete this material for the sake of the peasant population of the time.

But it is not necessary for us to delete these texts now; if they truly enjoy the same status of creation as the accepted Gospels, they deserve equal attention. This is not the 3rd century, and we do not need to protect ourselves from deeply mystical reports of Jesus and his sayings. We must take the Gnostic Gospels just as seriously as the accepted ones, and make an effort to resolve the many seeming contradictions between the texts.

Of course the most popular conventional objection to the Gnostic Gospels centers around the problem of authenticity. Where, in fact, do these texts come from, and who, in fact, wrote them? Always afraid of the false prophet, the Christian must sincerely doubt any new discoveries, statements, descriptions, or ideas which have not been thoroughly tested by religious authority. The Nicene authority, which decided on the original definitive form of the Bible, must have been, in an age of superstition, very careful to direct the layman's attention away from those mystical dimensions of life which might lead him down Satan's path to hell. Nevertheless, to deny this dimension of religious experience is to starve the soul of those seekers who wish to experience more fully the heaven on earth which was promised by Jesus.

One wonders, in the light of the good which is expressed in these Gospels, "Who cares if the manuscript is a fake, if it was written by medieval commentator, or by some completely unknown ancient author?" It seems to me that the truth would be trans-temporal, and not depend on when it was written for its validity. Indeed, what is a holy Scripture? What makes these words holy, and these words unholy? We usually say, that the words of the Bible are divinely inspired, and in so doing we give the impression that a very few people in history have been divinely inspired. This seems sort of exclusive, and la dee dah. The fact is, the most attractive aspect of the Gnostic Gospels is the narratives they feature; the stories, that the Gnostic Gospels add to the portfolio of Jesus' earthly activities, are very welcome. The stories are universal, just like all the other stories of Jesus' career; they are extravagantly human, and this humanity transcends temporal origin and legitimate authorship. My feeling is that if new material is not in contradiction with the accepted holy Scriptures, then the spirit has been served.

The archaic language in which these stories are told seem to me to conceal a secret truth. The stories, imbued with divine resonance, become myth. Indeed, perhaps it was the mythological character of the Gnostic Gospels which deterred the Nicene church fathers from accepting these new myths.

Now before we go on, let me make it clear that I am not presenting any of this material as alternatives to any doctrines you may already be upholding. It is not that I am being namby-pamby about it, it is just that I really have not quite made up my mind how much of this material to take seriously, let alone believe. I merely present this material as historical fact, and leave it to you to decide how much of it you can incorporate into your personal theology. As I indicated before, some of the Gnostic Gospels give a completely new portrait of Jesus, and many unsuspected miracles are revealed. I find these items invigorating in the extreme, but they do require leaps of recognition that you may be unwilling to risk.

For instance: an example of a Gnostic story which might possibly be considered to be in conflict with accepted biblical stories, is the account in Judas of the creation of the world; in Judas, the narrative begins before "the beginning". It describes a great luminous cloud with no name, no beginning and no end, out of which the first Angel emerges. From this point on, several other items in a progression take place, before the world is even created.

I find the whole image of a cloud to be archetypal. Disappearing and reappearing, from clouds, are a events depicted in many many theologies. The cloud is of interest; consider the symbolism of a cloud: a cloud is a loosely put together thing, which prevents you from seeing clearly in front of you. Thus is the literal mind defeated by a dispersal of egoic energy outwards into the cosmos. The "cloud" is an item which appears, universally, in religious symbology in just about every global religion you can name.

I find this pre-Genesis story to be not only charming in its mythological idiom, but also very helpful in developing an image of eternity and the character of God and the religious experience. The luminous cloud is necessary not only as a visual prop to the story, it is a central feature not only of Judas' cosmology, but of his spiritual translation from the physical to the heavenly. It will not escape your notice that the luminous cloud described at least once in Judas as a "Cloud of Knowledge" is very much like the "Cloud of Unknowing" of which we have spoken many times. Cute, huh? That a cloud of knowing and a cloud of unknowing could be the same thing!

The cloud of Knowing is perceived by the subject from the outside, from which vantage point he witnesses the All-Knowingness of God. However, if the cloud is witnessed from inside, the subject finds his ego dispersed in a radiant rain of Un-Knowing; all of what he thought he knew is dispersed into a fog of discontinuous bits. What we usually consider to be knowledge is reduced to a blur. By analogy, pretend that all the things you think you know are like a tangle of wires and strings; when you untangle those strings you lose your focussed self, but, by way of this opening, you are granted clarity, a vision of  higher, laser-like knowledge. So the Cloud of Un-Knowing turns out to be "the cloud of tearing-away-the-chains-you-have-wrapped-around-your-literal-mind", so that your consciousness may expand into the higher knowing of the Cloud of Knowing.

Here is the story of creation contained in the Gospel of Judas:

"JESUS TEACHES JUDAS ABOUT COSMOLOGY:
THE SPIRIT AND THE SELF -GENERATED

Jesus said, “[Come], that I may teach you about [secrets] no person [has] ever seen. For there exists a great and boundless realm, whose extent no generation of angels has seen, [in which] there is [a] great invisible [Spirit], which no eye of an angel has ever seen, no thought of the heart has ever comprehended, and it was never called by any name.

“And a luminous cloud appeared there. He said, ‘Let an angel come into being as my attendant.’

“A great angel, the enlightened divine Self-Generated, emerged from the cloud. Because of him, four other angels came into being from another cloud, and they became attendants for the angelic Self-Generated. The Self-Generated said, ‘Let him come into being,’ and he came into being. And he [created] the first luminary to reign over him. He said, ‘Let angels come into being to serve [him],’ and myriads without number came into being. He said, ‘[Let] an enlightened aeon come into being,’ and he came into being. He created the second luminary [to] reign over him, together with myriads of angels without number, to offer service. That is how he created the rest of the enlightened aeons. He made them reign over them, and he created for them myriads of angels without number, to assist them.

[Sidebar: The next section makes reference, constantly, to the term "aeon"; I looked it up:

"In many Gnostic systems, the various emanations of God, who is also known by such names as the One, the Monad, Aion teleos (αἰών τέλεος "The Broadest Aeon"), Bythos ("depth or profundity", Greek βυθός), Proarkhe ("before the beginning", Greek προαρχή), the Arkhe ("the beginning", Greek ἀρχή), "Sophia" (wisdom), Christos (the Anointed One) are called Aeons. In the different systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described, but the emanation theory itself is common to all forms of Gnosticism.

In the Basilidian Gnosis they are called sonships (υἱότητες huiotetes; sing.: υἱότης huiotes); according to Marcus, they are numbers and sounds; in Valentinianism they form male/female pairs called "syzygies" (Greek συζυγίαι, from σύζυγοι syzygoi).

Similarly, in the Greek Magical Papyri, the term "Aion" is often used to denote the All, or the supreme aspect of God. "

Back to Judas:]

"ADAMAS AND THE LUMINARIES
“Adamas was in the first luminous cloud that no angel has ever seen among all those called ‘God.’ He created the image of Man after the likeness of [this] angel. He made the incorruptible [generation] of Seth appear. He made seventy-two luminaries appear in the incorruptible generation, in accordance with the will of the Spirit. The seventy-two luminaries themselves made three hundred sixty luminaries appear in the incorruptible generation, in accordance with the will of the Spirit, that their number should be five for each.

“The twelve aeons of the twelve luminaries constitute their father, with six heavens for each aeon, so that there are seventy-two heavens for the seventy-two luminaries, and for each [of them five] firmaments, [for a total of] three hundred sixty [firmaments ...]. They were given authority and a [great] host of angels [without number], for glory and adoration, [and after that also] virgin spirits, for glory and [adoration] of all the aeons and the heavens and their firmaments.

THE COSMOS, CHAOS, AND THE UNDERWORLD
“The multitude of those immortals is called the cosmos— that is, perdition—by the Father and the seventy-two luminaries who are with the Self-Generated and his seventy-two aeons. In him the first human appeared with his incorruptible powers.

And the aeon that appeared with his generation, the aeon in whom are the cloud of knowledge and the angel, is called. And Saklas said, ‘Let twelve angels come into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld].’ And look, from the cloud there appeared an [angel] whose face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood.

His name was Nebro, which means ‘rebel’; others call him Yaldabaoth. Another angel, Saklas, also came from the cloud. So Nebro created six angels—as well as Saklas—to be assistants, and these produced twelve angels in the heavens, with each one receiving a portion in the heavens.

THE CREATION OF HUMANITY
“Then Saklas said to his angels, ‘Let us create a human being after the likeness and after the image.’ They fashioned Adam and his wife Eve, who is called, in the cloud, Zoe. For by this name all the generations seek the man, and each of them calls the woman by these names. And the [ruler] said to Adam, ‘You shall live long, with your children.’”

I have to admit that it is nice to have an expanded Christian version of the Creation, like a lot of other world mythologies. I do not mean I believe this, literally, any more than I believe the world was created in six days, but the story (whatever it means) adds a dimension to my religious background and adds to the wonder and miracle of it all. Next week we will present one or two stories from the Gospel of Judas, including the one that makes Judas a hero rather than a villain.

For now let us pray for guidance in these murky philosophical waters, and hope for insight in the paradoxical personality of Jesus.

Let us pray: Jesus, thank you for this opportunity to add to our knowledge of the Infinite You. Give us both the powers of discrimination, and the power of an open mind. Amen.

12 What is Christianity?

12 What is Christianity?

Christianity is a word that wears many hats; it is a belief system, to be sure, but it is also a social system, a religious discipline, a global philosophy, an organization of like-minded people, and an opposition of contrary-minded people; it is a mysterious spiritual union of souls transcending time and space, and yet it is a powerful financial institution serving many mundane cross-purposes in terms, for instance, of humanitarian activities.

C.S. Lewis describes it thus:

" . . . the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners."

The fact that there exists contradiction within factions of an admittedly splintered  belief system, (the various dialects of which presumably all came from the same source,) is somewhat troubling; not because disagreement is nothing if not merely human, but because these religious differences of opinion have, historically, resulted in unspeakable violence. It is a good thing that people are passionate about their religion: the passion for God is a fire that lights our way up the spiritual path; however, when we meet other pilgrims, traveling along an ever so slightly different track along the pathway, we hail to them to join us on our ONLY TRUE path, and when they don't, we try to kill them.

I have spoken before of the evils of the spirituality that is religion-driven, as opposed to the religion that is spirit-driven. The very existence of the various Christian denominations attests to man's inborn propensity toward contentious social/moral attitudes; this only becomes a bad thing when we want to be right more than we want to be good. We cannot help but want the whole world to agree with us that the face we have painted on God is His only possible face, universally accepted by all mankind; and if somebody doesn't see the same face as we do, we try to kill them.

In a way it is beautiful thing--all these people who want to kill all the other people who don't believe the way they do: it means that people are willing to put their lives on the line for something they consider to be more important than themselves, something bigger than themselves. However, I always worry that this killing seems to be over disagreements about gradations of semantic subtlety, and not transcendent spiritual experience-- it is my feeling that true spiritual experience always obliterates the confinements of literal definition, thereby freeing the soul to soar with flights of angels, all angles of God, all one in spirit.

From Wikipedia, here are some comments on, and a list of some (not all) of the many various "Christian" denominations:

(November 2009)
"A Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity.
Some groups are large (e.g. Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans or Baptists), while others are just a few small churches, and in most cases the relative size is not evident in this list. Modern movements such as Fundamentalist Christianity, Pietism, Evangelicalism, Pentecostalism and the Holiness movement sometimes cross denominational lines, or in some cases create new denominations out of two or more continuing groups, (as is the case for many United and uniting churches, for example). Such subtleties and complexities are not clearly depicted here.

Note: This is not a complete list, but aims to provide a comprehensible overview of the diversity among denominations of Christianity. As there are reported to be approximately 41,000 Christian denominations (figure includes overlap between countries), many of which cannot be verified to be significant, only those denominations with Wikipedia articles will be listed in order to ensure that all entries on this list are notable and verifiable.
Between denominations, theologians, and comparative religionists there are considerable disagreements about which groups can be properly called Christian, disagreements arising primarily from doctrinal differences between groups.

There is no official recognition in most parts of the world for religious bodies, and there is no official clearinghouse which could determine the status or respectability of religious bodies. Often there is considerable disagreement between various churches about whether other churches should be labeled with pejorative terms such as "cult", or about whether this or that group enjoys some measure of respectability. Such considerations often vary from place to place, where one religious group may enjoy majority status in one region, but be widely regarded as a "dangerous cult" in another part of the world. Inclusion on this list does not indicate any judgment about the size, importance, or character of a group or its members.
·         Catholicism
·         Protestantism
·         Lutheranism
·         Anglicanism
·         Calvinism
·         Anabaptists and Schwarzenau Brethren (Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites)
·         Plymouth Brethren and Free Evangelical Churches
·         Methodists
·         Pietists and Holiness Churches
·         Baptists
·         Apostolic Churches – Irvingites
·         Pentecostalism
·         Charismatics
·         African Initiated Churches
·         Messianic Judaism / Jewish Christians
·         United and uniting churches
·         Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
·         Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
·         Southcottites
·         Millerites and comparable groups
·         Adventist (Sunday observing)
·         Adventist (Seventh Day Sabbath/Saturday observing)
·         Church of God movements (Sunday observing)
·         Church of God movements (Seventh Day Sabbath/Saturday observing)
·         9 Nontrinitarian groups
·         Latter Day Saints
·         Oneness Pentecostalism
·         Unitarianism and Universalism
·         Swedenborgianism
·         Christian Science
·         10 New Thought (Church of Divine Science, Anthroposophical Society, Theosophy, Rosicrucian Fellowship)
·         11 Esoteric Christianity
·         13 Syncretistic religions incorporating elements of Christianity (Native American Church, Cult of Santa Muerte, Voodou, Chrislam)"

Many of (let's admit it, MOST of) these denominations make claims of exclusivity when it comes to spiritual truth, even to the point of denying the spiritual validity of all the other denominations. Now, since one of the bottom lines in Christian dogma is the existence of Hell as the ultimate destination for nonbelievers, it is therefore an implicit conclusion that, members of all other opposing denominations/belief systems are condemned to Hell. There many somewhat subtle dogmatic disagreements which may thus condemn the so-called heathen infidel to Hell. This is the belief that turned me away from Christianity for about 20 years.

One big dogmatic disagreement, that divides the various denominations, is the issue of Salvation through Grace, as opposed to Salvation through Good Works. One component of the Salvation-through-Grace philosophy is the law of pre-destination--a law which grants life to certain chosen believers, and condemns rest of the world to Hell. I have spoken on this subject before, and find the disagreement to be essentially transparent and insubstantial. The question of pre-destination as opposed to free will is a quandary whose resolution resides outside time, and is, therefore, beyond man's powers of literal comprehension. As such, literal disagreements about this issue are fundamentally non-applicable if not right down silly.

Many disagreements, among the denominations, reside in the domain of BEHAVIOR. It will be no surprise to hear that many Christians disavow the legitimacy of the beliefs of other Christians on the basis of things like whether they smoke, whether they go to movies, whether they use slang expressions like "gosh", or "jeez", or "darn", or "frickin'", whether they say "a-men" or "hallelujah", after key points in sermons, whether they work on Sundays, or whether they vote Republican.

Now, so far, we have been discussing the various flavors of Christianity merely within the generally accepted world Christian community. However, one of the purposes of this address is consider how “Christian” some other world religions are, religions which do not even recognize Jesus at all. Below are some relevant comments; this first one, from Bible evidences.com sums up the conventional view:

“What About the Other Religions?
To non-Christians one of the most offensive claims of Christianity is that it provides the only path to heaven.  If you are a non-Christian it is certainly understandable why this would offend or upset you, but I would hope you can at least appreciate and respect why it is important for Christians not to skirt such an important tenet of Christianity. If the Bible truly is the Word of God, wouldn't you agree that it would be incredibly selfish of Christians to fail to mention such a far-reaching, eternally important component of the Bible?

Comparing World Religions
The first thing we should do is determine how the major religions of the world differ from each other, and to ascertain whether these differences are bridgeable. Christianity is based on the Triune God of the Bible - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and particularly the life of the Son, Jesus Christ. All other religions are based on the writings of men and not the life of any particular individual. Judaism, the sister religion to Christianity, is based on the Old Testament of the Bible, rejecting the entire New Testament and holding that the Messiah has not yet come. Islam is based on the writings of Muhammad, where they worship a single, impersonal god. Mormonism is based on the writings of Joseph Smith, where they deny the eternal divinity of Jesus, believe in many gods, and believe men can attain godhood (as their Jesus and Father did) and rule over their own planet. The Eastern religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism, and Western new-age religions, such as Christian Science, essentially believe everything is god (Pantheism - may the force be with you). These religions also teach reincarnation until the spirit reaches a level of "enlightenment" and oneness with god or the gods.

Christianity teaches one death and one judgment (Hebrews 9:27).

Christianity is also the only religion that recognizes the hopeless gap between man and a Holy and Righteous God, teaching that salvation can only be obtained through God's grace. All other religions teach that salvation can be achieved through human effort."

[Sidebar: This last paragraph is such a distortion and over-simplification of the truth, it borders on “bald-face lie.” The author uses, in the same sentence, the terms “hopeless” and “grace”. Now, it goes without saying that without grace, sinful man would indeed be hopeless; but the simultaneous reference to hopelessness and grace in the same sentence is an obvious contradiction in terms, and a logically confused concept. The words are used for dramatic effect and not clarity of meaning, hence revealing an emotionally charged subtext which defies reason. This author cares more about being right than about being good. It will also be immediately apparent that this sentence refers to the “grace vs. good works” controversy, and that the author is not only condemning the heathen masses of the world to Hell, he is also condemning the entire Catholic denomination to Hell as well. Furthermore, and finally, the sentence, “All other religions teach that salvation can be achieved through human effort,” is just plain ignorant; it makes presuppositions about the other world religions that are clearly apples and oranges contradictions. Indeed, the whole idea of “salvation”, in the sense that this author clearly means, is not even an issue for many of the Eastern religions.

Back to Bible evidences.com:]



“I think at this point we should be able to agree that that the major world religions are quite different, with many conflicting and contradictory views.  To hold that all religions are equally true is simply not a rational belief.”

[Sidebar: Sorry to disagree, but: “to hold that all religions are equally true” is, absolutely, a rational belief, because truth must forever be enslaved by the constraints of rationality. It is the UN-Truth, the NON-truth, the SUPER-Truth that interests me, and if I can find, in any of the other religions, the inarticulate Love of God permeating the Cloud of Unknowing, I spit on rationality, or, in less graphic terms, I rise above rationality. The trouble with religion is that everybody wants it to make sense!

Back to Bible evidences.com:]


"Biblical View on Other Religions
So, what does the Bible have to say about other religions?  It teaches that there is a spiritual war going on and the intention of Satan and his host of demonic spirits is to divert us from the truth. The apostle John wrote that "the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one (1 John 5:19)", and the apostle Paul warned us that people will "follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons (1 Timothy 4:1)". From the beginning Satan has been deceiving humanity.  In the garden he convinced Eve that "ye shall be as gods". Don't you find it interesting that to be divine "as God" is a common thread among many religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, and even false Christianity teachings by Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn and others?  The Bible also teaches that Satan and his servants will masquerade as ministers of righteousness (2 Corinthians 11:13-14). Satan's hoisting of false religions has been a very effective lie since it mixes in some truth.  A lie mixed in with truth is much like rat poison, which contains 99% good food and 1% poison - its that 1% of poison (or lie) that will kill you!”
 

We are quite familiar with the preceding train of thought. It is an obvious conclusion based on mainstream Christian dogma. The next comment is from the Commission for Interreligious Dialogue:





CHRIST AND THE OTHER RELIGIONS
Michael Fitzgerald



The Jewish Tradition
"With regard to the Jewish tradition it is important not to overlook the Jewishness of Jesus. There is not only the fact of his birth, but also his love for the Scriptures and for the Temple as evidenced in his preaching and his ministry in general. It should be remembered too that the first Christians were in fact Judeo-Christians, though very soon Gentiles entered the Church.

In the first two centuries there does not appear to be much opposition on the part of the Jews to Jesus as a human person. From the 3rd century onwards, as the Christian faith in the divinity of Christ became more clearly expressed, and the distance between Judaism and Christianity grew, Jews tended to ignore Jesus. After the year 1000, when persecution of Jews increased, and Jesus was perceived to be the source of all their woes, Jews adopted a more critical stance. Yet some Jewish sages, writing between the 12th and 14th centuries, could speak of Jesus as a "saint", as one who "served to prepare the whole world for the veneration of God in the communion of hearts".

Islam
The Qur' an contains several passages on Jesus and Mary. The virginal birth, the role of Jesus as a prophet, his mission to confirm the Torah, but to abrogate some of its prohibitions, the calling of "helpers" in his mission, - these are all features of the Quranic portrait of Jesus.
There are thus similarities with the Christian understanding of Jesus, but there are essential differences. The divinity of Christ is denied, as is also the reality of the Crucifixion. . . .

Hinduism
Hindus, who have heard about Jesus Christ from Christian missionaries, have reacted in various ways. Some have come to admire Jesus, but without any feeling of commitment to him. Others have come to know and love Jesus and have committed themselves to him, but within the context of Hinduism. Still others have responded to the person of Christ by seeking baptism and incorporation into the Church.
Mahatma Gandhi is an example of one who greatly admired the teaching of Jesus but who, as he himself said, was not interested in the historical person of the teacher. He was particularly struck by the Sermon on the Mount. For him Jesus, through his message, became an ethical symbol.

Many Hindus have no difficulty in accepting Jesus as divine. What they find difficult is the Christian understanding that the Incarnation of God in Jesus is unique. Jesus is often seen as the supreme example of self-realization, the goal of the Hindi dharma. He is taken to be a symbol of human progress. For some he becomes more of an ideal than a historical person. According to Hindu traditions, history always provides an imperfect knowledge of reality. In such a context, to identify the mystery of Jesus Christ with historical fact is seen as reducing God to imperfection.

Buddhism
Since Buddha deliberately avoided talking about the existence or non-existence of God, it is obvious that Buddhists will have difficulty when faced with the Christian belief in Jesus as the Son of God, true God and true man. Yet some Buddhists have paid serious attention to Jesus Christ. A contemporary Japanese scholar, Masao Abe, has reflected on the self-emptying of Christ as referred to by Paul (Phil 2: 5-8). He compares this kenosis with the concept of sunyata (emptiness) in Buddhism. Christ is here an example of denial of the self (ego). So it can be said that «Every day, here and now, we die as the old person, and resurrect as the new person with Christ».

Other Buddhists see Jesus as the liberator, because he teaches people the correct view of life, helping them out of darkness and blindness. Jesus does not impose liberation, but offers it, through faith in him. For the Dalai Lama it is the compassion of Jesus that is most striking. He sees the importance of the Gospel teaching on love of neighbour, kindness, forgiveness.”

It must be apparent from the foregoing quotations I have chosen, that I am building a case for a sort of “religion without walls”, a dogmatic system that includes more than it excludes. To some, this may seem like the road to insanity. Indeed, it is well understood that your egoic definition of who you are consists of two opposing components: who you are, and who you are not. I give this lecture all the time to children who have turned 13, and have contracted the “Jr. High Disease”-- the state of mind where you have to disagree with everything your parents say because that is the only way you can separate yourself from them and find yourself. Of course, as natural as it is, victims of the Jr. High Disease typically throw the baby out with the bath. There is a philosophy that affirms that “the more people you can relate to without going crazy, the wiser you are.” Clearly not everybody’s threshold of insanity is not the same, so most people cannot embrace the humanity of all without losing themselves. Everybody needs to have somebody they are NOT; every right needs a wrong. When it comes right down to it, the RELIGION part of Christianity is merely a question of the devotee's RANGE of intellectual capacity, NOT absolute truth.

The next comment is from, you guessed it, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Religious perspectives on Jesus

"The religious perspectives on Jesus vary among major world religions. Jesus' teachings and the retelling of his life story have significantly influenced the course of human history, and have directly or indirectly affected the lives of billions of people, even non-Christians.

Christianity teaches that Jesus is the Messiah (Christ) and the Son of God Incarnate. Christians believe that through his death and resurrection, humans can be reconciled to God and thereby are offered salvation and the promise of eternal life. These teachings emphasize that as the willing Lamb of God, Jesus chose to suffer in Calvary as a sign of his full obedience to the will of his Father, as an "agent and servant of God". Christians view Jesus as a role model, whose God-focused life believers are encouraged to imitate.

The Bahá'í Faith consider Jesus to be a manifestation of God, who are a series of personages who reflect the attributes of the divine into the human world. Bahá'ís rejects the idea that divinity was contained with a single human body.

Traditionally, Buddhists as a group take no particular view on Jesus, and Buddhism and Christianity have but a minor intersection. However, some scholars have noted similarities between the life and teachings of Gautama Buddha and Jesus. These similarities might be attributed to Buddhist missionaries sent as early as Emperor Ashoka around 250 BCE in many of the Greek Seleucid kingdoms that existed then and then later became the same regions that Christianity began. Jesus was seen as the savior and bringer of gnosis by various Gnostic sects, such as the extinct Manichaeism. In the Ahmadiyya Islamic view, Jesus survived the crucifixion and later travelled to India, where he lived as a prophet (and died) under the name of Yuz Asaf.

The Religious Science/Science of Mind teaching generally incorporates idealistic and panentheistic philosophies. RS/SOM teaches that all beings are expressions of and part of Infinite Intelligence, also known as Spirit, Christ Consciousness, or God. It teaches that, because God is all there is in the universe (not just present in Heaven, or in assigned deities, as believed by traditional teachings), Its power can be used by all humans to the extent that they recognize and align themselves with Its presence. Ernest Holmes said "God is not ... a person, but a Universal Presence ... already in our own soul, already operating through our own consciousness."

It will be noticed that even belief systems that include science fiction in their catechisms, find it difficult to keep clear of this notion of the “Christ”. Even though the orientations of these religions toward spiritual discipline may be obliquely opposed, sometimes, they can’t seem to stay clear of this idea of God incarnate. Even though they can’t look at the historical record and give a name to this Christ, they cannot escape a compulsion to acknowledge His presence. The Holy Trinity seems also to be an inescapable conclusion even for philosophers who are not wholly committed to the divinity of Jesus--as we saw last week in the writing of Joseph Campbell in A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living:

"The key to understanding the problem that’s solved with the symbolic idea of the Trinity is the Tantric saying,
'To worship a god, one must become a god.'
That is to say, you must hit that level of consciousness within yourself that is equivalent to the deity to whom you are addressing your attention.

"In the Trinity, the Father is the deity your attention is addressed to; you are the Son, knower of the Father; and the Holy Spirit represents the relationship between the two.

It seems to me you cannot have the notion of a god without having implicit the notion of a Trinity: a god, the knower of the god, and the relationship between the two, a progressive knowing that brings you closer and closer to the divine.
"The divine lives within you."

Now, I know that to many people what I am saying resides in the frontier between truth and blasphemy, and to many more it crosses way over the border into the realm of heresy. In this regard, we know that unfamiliar material is always greeted with suspicion by those who do not understand it. The shadow of "false prophet" lurks on many pages of the Bible; thus the greatest philosophical feat of all is to be able to distinguish something that is true from something that is Satanic in character. Is something Satanic because you never heard of it before? Or is something new, also true, because we are eternally directed to "Sing unto the Lord a new song!"?

Last week I sent my "HolyGhost III" sermon to my brother, a Nazarene minister. He wrote back and mentioned the section on angels.

"Richard,
Thanks for sharing. Your idea about angels being messengers for the Spirit is intriguing."

I wrote back and said:

"By the way, the bit about angels is not an "idea". I have either talked with angels many times, I am delusional, or I am the victim of satanic possession and am a false prophet. I feel pretty good about the "talked with angels many times" sentence. The impressions we get in prayer are heaven-sent, and the mechanism of transmission is the Angel. The fact that angels have no personal identity does not make their messages impersonal, because they come from God, the BIG PERSON. The abstract nature of the angelic "personality" is what makes their messages resonate in eternity."

It must never escape our attention that forays into the realm of the so-called "occult" may lead us down paths forged by Satan; heightened spiritual sensitivity always includes the threat of misdirection by the Prince of Liars and his minions. Still, communion with higher beings is very Biblical, and was known to all the great saints. In our thirst for higher knowledge, we must not only keep an open mind, but a DISCRIMINATING mind. As John says in 1 John 4:1-13:

"1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
4 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
5 They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.
6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit."

This passage is loaded with nuggets of encouragement and warning for the seeker of spiritual knowledge in the psychic world.

1. The sentence, "believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God" says that we do receive messages, from the Holy Spirit, message which come from the super-physical dimension, but we must not trust every impression that floats into our consciousness.

2. The sentence "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God" attributes ultimate authority to Jesus. Thus, a simple test of the spiritual validity of any psychic impression is whether   it claims, as its source, the Divinity of the Son. This is something that the spiritual devotee learns to FEEL. Trust me, I have been deceived enough times to tell the difference, but it is not an easy road, and it requires constant exercise of high-minded discrimination.

3. The sentence, "And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist," reveals the fatal weakness of Satan: he cannot bear the name of Jesus. He may twist and squirm around it, but Jesus' name is filled with the power of the armor of God, and can defeat every trick of the devil to confound us.

4. The sentence, "We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us," affirms that the devotee's love for God reveals the knowledge of God in unmitigated purity and strength.

5. Finally, the sentence, "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God," draws a pretty clear bottom line: spirituality is love of God. We Christians have given a name to God's love: it is Jesus. Conversely, when we use the word Jesus, we mean, and will always and ultimately mean: LOVE.

I have only one point to make today: the bottom line of Christianity, in all its articulate, (and thereby contradictory), expressions, is Jesus Christ. Jesus created the moment in human history when the voice of God came to Earth incarnate in the body of a Man; Jesus accepted responsibility for Original Sin, and gave His life in order to demonstrate to humankind that death is an illusion, and that God has established a Kingdom on Earth which is habitable by any who are willing to open their eyes and see it. True, absolutely essential moral imperatives are imbedded in the teachings of Jesus; but they are very, very few, and all are specific to the individual anomalous soul and not to any generalized, or culturally specific principles.

I think of the language of religion in very much the same way I think of the language of music: I know there are many levels of literacy, many vernacular and elitist dialects, but I also know that all these levels come from and lead back to a single source. The legitimacy of your chosen musical dialect depends on YOU not IT. For an example of "vernacular" Christianity we merely turn to the Fundamentalist Southern Baptist denomination; these people like things simple, down-to-earth, anti-intellectual, and black-and-white, in Alabama, mostly white, ha ha.

For an example of a more mainstream denomination we could look to the Methodists (mainstream for the present, anyway, as the fundamentalists gain ground every day); these people place a high value on church family potlucks, and community Christmas trees; the language of their catechism reads a lot like the constitution of the United States—nothing extreme, nothing particularly charismatic, very familiar, very comfortable, very 1950s, very Chamber of Commerce.

For an example of an elitist form of Christianity, or a so-called “New Thought” dialect, we turn to Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy; as you well know, I lean hard toward this body of literature for my articulated theology, and, like any snob, I have a hard time not feeling superior to lower forms of Christianity; but I know enough to recognize prideful vanity when I see it, so I never let these thoughts lead me down unwholesome paths.

The quality that distinguishes these three points on the continuum is nothing more than language, and the amount of information that language expresses. I like Steiner because, while he places Jesus squarely in the center of his belief system, his theology INCLUDES vocabulary, concepts, events, and consciousness states from many more points of origin than that of the Baptist old time religion. The problems I always had, making sense of the many socially generated articles of faith included in the Baptist (Nazarene) dogma, are done away with in Steiner’s cosmic view. Of course, it is this very cosmic dimension that is so off-putting to Fundamentalist or even Mainstream Christians, because, in an effort to do away with superstition, both of these schools of thought have tended to suspect (and condemn) anything that smacks of magic or mysticism. They seem to have lost the idea of a Heaven on Earth, where miracles are a stock in trade; they prefer to put off the experience of heavenly ecstasy for after death.

Still, what is it that makes these people one body—THE CHURCH. It is the unifying power of Jesus—Jesus the Mediator between God and Man, Jesus the perfect superman whose beneficent smile neutralizes all our estrangements in a great wave of love. Jesus’ divine intellect is available to all in whatever dialect they need to see it in. Jesus’ patience and tolerance are available to all, in whatever capacity or degree they are able to receive it.

In this regard, I have one more important point to make: much is made, in Christian dogma, of the necessity of BELIEVING in Jesus. I do not think that believing in Jesus has much to do with our ultimate salvation, nor do I consider it a requirement for membership in the Invisible Church; Jesus believes in YOU, whether you believe in Him or not; thus, as we mentioned above, religions that don’t even recognize the historical Jesus as significant, let alone divine, are not cut off from His boundless mercy and grace. Here I quote these words from C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle:

Even C. S. Lewis, a man who could never be confused with a namby-pamby, or Pantheist Christian, made allowances for differences of opinion at this basic level. At the end of The Last Battle there appears the following conversation between Aslan and a Calormene soldier--a soldier who, though born an enemy of Aslan, was, at heart, a friend:

“Then I fell at his feet and thought, surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him.”

“But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.”

“Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one?

The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him.
For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him.Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him.

And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.
Dost thou understand, Child?

I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days.

Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou shouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."

I have read this passage before; to me, it is one of the most meaningful sections in all of C.S. Lewis, because it affirms a basic principle: that Jesus' love is universal, and not restricted by verbal constraints. Jesus loves us all equally, and makes Himself available to everyone who tries to do good, regardless of creed or allegiance.

Religious snobs are not able to understand how Jesus can love all equally; they are not able to accept that there is no continuum in Heaven—that we are all poured into an infinity of molds, from exactly the same well; they are not able to see that One in Christ means ONE IN CHRIST. This is what it means to be a Christian—every other definition is vanity and declusion. If this belief makes me a false prophet, I have truly been deceived--but I don't think so; in Jesus' name, I don't think so.

Let us pray: Jesus, lead us to each other, and to You. Teach us to listen to our minds JUST ENOUGH for our hearts to open to your divinity in all its glory and diversity. Teach us to recognize your voice in the din; teach us the simplicity of silence. Amen.

11-Holy Ghost III- Modern Slant

11-Holy Ghost III- Modern Slant

For the past six weeks we have been exploring the subject of “ecstasy”; it is a spiritual experience I am recommending. Eventually, our discussion worked its way around to a concept the Holy Ghost as the motivator of the ecstatic experience. Last week we studied writings, by Boethius and St. Thomas Aquinas, concerned with establishing without doubt the nature of the Holy Trinity. This week, beginning with Martin Luther, we will be looking at what a group of more modern philosophers have to say about the Holy Ghost. Eventually, we hope to tie all these thoughts in with some of our previously espoused ideas about ecstasy.

From the Boethius/St. Thomas Aquinas excerpts we sampled last week, we can come to one general conclusion about the neo-Platonist Christians: they love to play word games. I do not wish to trivialize the effort that went into creating these magnificently complex and insightful rational structures, but sometimes the delight these philosophers take, in creating long flawless trains of thought, is lost on me. I know, a lot of the time, I do the same thing, but, for me, after an hour of testing the strength of a subtle semantic distinction, the radiance fades from it, and I welcome some good old Martin Luther charisma.

[Sidebar: Just to be clear, here is a dictionary definition of “charismatic” as it pertains to certain aspects of Christianity;

":  a member of a religious group or movement that stresses the seeking of direct divine inspiration and charisms (as glossolalia or healing)"

What is Charismatic Spirituality?
"We are familiar with many different spiritualities: Benedictine, Carmelite, Dominican, Franciscan, Holy Cross, Jesuit, Marian, Pauline, Vincentian. There are spiritualities for priests, religious, contemplatives, families, singles for Christ, missionaries, social ministries, various professions, and the like. These various spiritualities provide scriptural norms for spiritual maturity in these specialized lifestyles. We are grateful to the Holy Spirit for these spiritualities which are approved and are embraced by many disciples.

We must keep in mind that these various spiritualities presuppose and are built on the sacraments of initiation and the spirituality of the Christian life. A Christian's life, like the life of Christ, is led and empowered by the Holy Spirit. "Charismatic" means something initiated by the Holy Spirit or someone cooperating with the Holy Spirit. A "charismatic" spirituality is the Pentecostal spirituality initiated by the Holy Spirit for all Christians."]

As I have said many times, the index of truth in spiritual matters is DIRECT experience. We need language to give us a leg up in thought and meditation, but there is no substitute for direct experience. Clearly, no matter how dogmatic Luther may be, however tough-guy unsentimental he is, however GERMAN he is, his beliefs spring from a deep well of personal experience—through his sermons we can see that he truly knows Jesus; and, yet,even if he sometimes indulges in conclusions that are culture-driven, or, as I am fond of saying, “religion-driven”, there can be no doubt, from his writing, that he has personal knowledge of Jesus, which is to say knowledge of Jesus as manifested in the mundane world, which is to say, as the Holy Spirit.

The following is from an online article published by the Lutheran Church.

“Martin Luther wrote; "I believe that by my own reason or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in the true faith."”

[Sidebar: This sentence is chock full of nuggets of meaningful significance:

1.   The statement,“I believe that by my own reason or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ,” puts Jesus beyond the reach of rational thought or mundane commitment. Luther emphasizes the fact that spiritual knowledge gained through ecstasies self-consciously triggered by concentration on divine symbols, is still ultimately a gift of grace. Furthermore there is the glaring implication that rational belief is inferior to direct personal experience.
2.   The phrase, “the Holy Spirit has called me,” makes it clear, again, that it is not by our own efforts that we peek around the corner of the physical into infinity, but through a WILL greater than and beyond our own. This expression also impugns the Catholic idea of salvation through good works; Luther thinks that no matter how hard we try, we cannot achieve sainthood without the aid and consent of the Holy Spirit.
3.   Lastly, this comment on the gifts of spirit, “enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and preserved me in the true faith,” makes it perfectly clear that the Christian life in quintessentially inspired, at it source, by the Holy Spirit—thus “no one may come to the Father but by me.” Also, it is clear that the “true faith” is, once again, inspired, nay, DEFINED by the imprint of the Holy Spirit on the devotee.

Now, the problem with this, again, comes down to “RELIGION” with a capital R. The Holy Spirit may, transform the heart of the devotee, but when translated into the verbal language of dogma, mistakes of a social or strategic nature may seriously flaw the behaviors of followers who are not so generously blessed with insight. Remember, this is why Jesus spoke in parables: He did not want His meanings misconstrued by people who are apt at interpreting the letter but not the spirit of the Word.

Back to the Luther article:]

“For Lutherans, the Holy Spirit “as person” teaches that the Holy Spirit is one of God’s "three revealed faces." These faces are God the Creator, Jesus Christ the Redeemer, and The Holy Spirit. The center of God’s divine activity is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Yet, just as the Son performed the work of the Father who sent him, so the Spirit performs the work of the Son in the believer, whom Christ “sends” into the world just as Jesus was sent into the world. In carrying on Jesus’ earthly ministry, the Spirit’s ongoing work is to reveal truth, give life and strengthen faith."

[Sidebar: At this point, I would like to interject this idea: I feel strongly that that the Will and the Word of the Holy Ghost are made manifest, in the soul of Man, via the activities of the Angels--that it is the Angels who are the mechanism through which the work of the Holy Spirit is performed. Indeed, there are several concepts that link the Holy Spirit and Angels in my mind. For one thing, remember that the Holy Ghost is often symbolized by a faceless WIND. Keywords are "FACELESS", (that is, lacking a personal identity of its own), and WIND (an amorphous, indiscrete, yet potent, cloud of invisibility). Both of these designations may be appropriately applied to Angels.

I’m just spit-balling here, but I have always had the intuitive impression that the work of the Holy Spirit is done by the so-called "angles of God", the purely impersonal thought forms of God. Angels are lower than Man because they have no personal identity--they exist in the purely abstract realm of thought, and convey their meanings to the Human souls, innocent of all carnal context. (Steiner says the angels IMPRINT the divine truth on the astral body of the devotee.) Since Angels are pure thought, AND pure energy, the logical consequence of injecting pure thought into the sequential stream of time and material, is movement--it is not the MATERIALITY but the ENERGY of the Angelic touch that imprints itself upon the devotee's spiritual body, creating a thought form, i.e., a coherent sequence of images which synergistically convey a holistic meaning, from a string of partial meanings, and which refer to an Eternal Truth unencumbered by the fetters of Time.

Let us examine the word "Form" more closely, especially as it pertains to the expression "Thought Form". A reasonable definition of the term, FORM, might run thus: the sequential creation of a continuum of variously weighted values, whose impact on the physical is capable of:

1. making an imprint on the soul of, and
2. initiating change in, the subjective reality of the devotee. 

In other words, a thought form is an ACTIVE thought, an entity originating in the lofty stratosphere of the abstract, but which is capable of descending into the physical and exerting a TANGIBLE effect on the material plane. The FORM is the sequence as it is played out in time, and recorded into MEMORY. In memory the thought form may be repeated again and again like a favorite TV episode; thus, the thought form's positive benefits may be reinforced with each repetition. Divine Truth is imperceptible to the rational mind, but these angelic thought Forms act kind of like the carrier waves of the Divine Truth--Truth imparted to us from the Will of the Father, through the personal affection of Jesus, into the abstract notes of Gabriel's trumpet (so to speak).

Steiner talks about angels IMPRINTING divine images on the soul; indeed, I have always kind of suspected that these images were transmitted to the devotee from the Father by way of the angel, the, you might say, MOUTHPIECE of the Holy Ghost. It’s just a thought. This is one of the subtleties of spiritual mechanism I fear we are destined to understand only much later.

Back to the Luther article:]

"Much of our understanding of “the work” of the Holy spirit comes from the New Testament book of John – specifically verses 14:26:

“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

John 15:26,
“But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:”

and John 16:7-15:

“7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment:
9 about sin, because people do not believe in me;
10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer;
11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.
13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.
15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

According to the New Testament the “new life in Christ” from beginning to end is solely the work of the Spirit. The Spirit’s essential work of bestowing God’s grace of forgiveness is pure gift, renewing us so that Christ may dwell in us.”

[Sidebar: And here is the kicker:]

“For Christians, the Spirit makes the living and lifechanging Christ a personally experienced reality."

[Sidebar: PERSONALLY EXPERIENCED REALITY.]

"In John 14:16 we are told by Jesus that the Spirit is our Advocate which is given to dwell with us forever. John goes on to say, 

John 14:17:

"You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you."

Thus the Spirit, equal in time, power and glory, comes to humanity from both Father and Son. The Spirit not only creates faith, but also sustains the church in the “one true faith” passed on from the first disciples.”

I wish to emphasize the point made here that the CHURCH is not a building, nor an institution, nor a constitution of dogmatic guidelines--it is a mystical structure of interlocking personal experiences and angelic transmissions from the Holy Ghost. It is the commonality of Spirit, not anything else, that makes the church holy and indestructible.

In line with this thinking  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, says in The Cost of Discipleship:

“The temple of God is the holy people in Jesus Christ. The Body of Christ is the living temple of God and of the new humanity.”

C.S. Lewis describes the essence of THE CHURCH in this back-handed report from The Screwtape Letters:

" . . . the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy."

I could not resist throwing in a few more quotes from various philosophers and poets to round out our perspective:



 William Blake:

“I myself do nothing. The Holy Spirit accomplishes all through me.”

Rudolf Steiner from Le Mystere Chretien et les Mysteres Antiques:

        “In the early days of Christianity there sprang up in the old Pagan world, systems of the universe which seemed to be a prolongation of the philosophy of Plato, but which could be understood also as a spiritualisation of the wisdom of the Mysteries. All these systems had their starting-point in Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, who said : `It is necessary for the soul to come out of the ordinary ” I.” Then it enters into a state of spiritual ecstasy, of illumination, when it ceases to know, to think, and to recognise in the ordinary sense of the words. For it has identified itself with the divine, they have become one.”

Edgar Cayce:

"Jesus Christ and His comforting spirit -- the Holy Spirit -- are a powerful force for helping us to forgive. Cayce identifies the Holy Spirit as “the motivating force of man’s relationship to God and to the fellow man.” He identifies the mind as “the Christ-Way,” saying that the mind “becomes the channel through which there is builded the greater understanding with ourselves, others, and God” (1947-1). Therefore, we need to evoke the motivating force (the Holy Spirit) and channel it through our thoughts about ourselves and others each day. When negative thoughts come, clear them away with the higher motivation of the Holy Spirit and the rebuilding power of the Christ Consciousness."

Joseph Campbell in A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living:

"The key to understanding the problem that’s solved with the symbolic idea of the Trinity is the Tantric saying,
'To worship a god, one must become a god.'
That is to say, you must hit that level of consciousness within yourself that is equivalent to the deity to whom you are addressing your attention.

"In the Trinity, the Father is the deity your attention is addressed to; you are the Son, knower of the Father; and the Holy Spirit represents the relationship between the two.

It seems to me you cannot have the notion of a god without having implicit the notion of a Trinity: a god, the knower of the god, and the relationship between the two, a progressive knowing that brings you closer and closer to the divine.
"The divine lives within you."

Jack London from The Call of the Wild:

“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.

This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad in a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight.”

David A. Bednar:

"Revelation is communication from God to His children on the earth and one of the great blessings associated with the gift and constant companionship of the Holy Ghost."

Dallin Oaks:

“The Spirit of God speaking to the spirit of man has power to impart truth with greater effect and understanding than the truth can be imparted by personal contact even with heavenly beings. Through the Holy Ghost the truth is woven into the very fibre and sinews of the body so that it cannot be forgotten”.

Watchman Nee: from The Normal Christian Life:

“There is nothing stereotyped about God's dealings with His children. Therefore, we must not by our prejudices and preconceptions make watertight compartments for the working out His Spirit, either in our own lives or in the lives of others. We must leave God free to work as He wills and to leave what evidence He pleases of the work He does.”

[Sidebar: I like this quote a lot because it emphasizes the vital spiritual technique of letting go. As rational beings, we want desperately for the universe to make sense, but whatever "sense" we stumble on to will be ultimately inadequate to satisfy our minds. Only when we rebuke the tyranny of the mind on our attitudes and let the heart lead us into abstruse and foreign terrains, will we be engulfed by the Cloud of Unknowing and be free.

It also touches on a point we made about prophecy: that prophecy is a BY-PRODUCT of ecstasy, not the object of ecstasy. Thus, the divine truths, delivered down to us from on high, are never complete, never definitive, always ambiguous because, as stated above:

"We must leave God free to work as He wills and to leave what evidence He pleases of the work He does.”]

Martin Luther King Jr.:

“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.”

[Sidebar: We have heard these words many times--that words can't convey true meaning. But I wonder about the term MEMORY. How do we remember? Is it always in words, or images, OR is it in the "inaudible language of the heart" that our best memories are expressed?]


Arthur Rimbaud: Sensation

“On the blue summer evenings, I will go along the paths,
And walk over the short grass, as I am pricked by the wheat:
Daydreaming I will feel the coolness on my feet.
I will let the wind bathe my bare head. I will not speak,
I will have no thoughts: But infinite love will mount in my soul;
And I will go far, far off, like a gypsy,
through the countryside - as happy as if I were a woman."

Virginia Woolf, from Orlando:

“A toy boat, a toy boat, a toy boat,’ she repeated, thus enforcing upon herself the fact that it is not articles by Nick Greene on John Donne nor eight-hour bills nor covenants nor factory acts that matter; it’s something useless, sudden, violent; something that costs a life; red, blue, purple; a spirit; a splash; like those hyacinths (she was passing a fine bed of them); free from taint, dependence, soilure of humanity or care for one’s kind; something rash, ridiculous, like my hyacinth, husband I mean, Bonthrop: that’s what it is — a toy boat on the Serpentine, ecstasy — it’s ecstasy that matters.”

 T.S. Eliot, from Four Quartets:

“The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.”

Rabindranth Tagore:

"There the whole sky is filled with sound,
and there that music is made without fingers and without strings;
There the game of pleasure and pain does not cease.
If you merge your life in the Ocean of Life,
you will find your life in the Supreme Land of Bliss.

What a frenzy of ecstasy there is in every hour!
and the worshipper is pressing out and drinking the essence of the hours.
I speak truth, for I have accepted truth in life;
I am now attached to truth, I have swept all tinsel away.
Thus is the worshipper set free from fear;
thus have all errors of life and of death left him."

Thus endeth this lengthy discourse on ecstasy and the Holy Spirit. If I have learned anything from this series, it has been to sharpen my will to acquire Divine Sight, because my thirst for living water has grown incrementally.

To conclude, here, once again, is St.Augustine from his Confessions:

“We are inflamed, by Thy Gift we are kindled; and are carried upwards; we glow inwardly, and go forwards. We ascend Thy ways that be in our heart, and sing a song of degrees; we glow inwardly with Thy fire, with Thy good fire, and we go; because we go upwards to the peace of Jerusalem: for gladdened was I in those who said unto me, We will go up to the house of the Lord. There hath Thy good pleasure placed us, that we may desire nothing else, but to abide there for ever.”

Let us pray: Jesus, we thank You for the blessings of the Holy Ghost which rain upon us unceasingly. We pray that, in striving for perfect understanding, we may be blessed with that which passeth understanding. We pray the Holy Ghost may visit our community here and now, and abide in our hearts no matter where our bodies are. Amen.