Transcription
[music] Throughout the history of Christianity, there are few writings more controversial than the Gnostic Gospels. They claim [music] to reveal hidden stories left out of the original Christian narrative, like the lost relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene and how Judas Iscariot may have been the Bible's secret hero. Thought to be lost for centuries, their recent rediscovery has raised new [music] questions about early Christianity and revealed fascinating details about an ancient Gnostic faith. In this video, I'll show you what's inside these lost books and why were they banned from the Bible. Welcome to the Gnostic Gospels, Christianity's forbidden [music] writings.
Gnostic Christianity is notoriously [music] difficult to define. It doesn't refer to a single sect, nor did they follow a fixed creed. Instead, it's better seen as a range of early Christian movements [music] bound together by a shared idea that they possessed hidden knowledge about Jesus. In fact, the word Gnostic comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means knowledge. Many Gnostic Christians believed that getting into heaven was not through good deeds or even faith, but by possessing secrets about the very nature of reality itself. The Gnostics wrote their beliefs down in [music] texts we can loosely describe as the Gnostic Gospels. They are often styled as secret teachings of Jesus entrusted to an inner circle of disciples. But to understand where they came from, we must travel back 2,000 years to the dawn of Christianity itself.
In the years following the crucifixion [music] of Jesus of Nazareth, communities of his loyal followers spread across the Mediterranean. Over time, these groups developed into the very first Christian churches. But as the decades passed, a problem emerged. The generation that had known Jesus personally were growing old and passing away, and firsthand accounts of Jesus's life were fading along with them. To preserve the teachings for future generations, early believers began writing down what they had seen or heard, often drawing on eyewitness accounts. Some of the earliest writings about Jesus were biographies that announced the good news of Jesus's life, death, [snorts] and resurrection. Today, we know them as the four canonical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
These four gospels were widely [music] read in the early church and soon became the primary source for Jesus's life and teachings, especially for those who had never known him in the flesh. But at the same time, other accounts of Jesus's life began to circulate. Secret gospels that claimed to hold untold secrets about the life of Jesus with hidden teachings meant only for a select few. Many of these are what we now call the Gnostic Gospels. But here's the problem. What did the Gnostics actually believe? People knew that these texts [music] existed, but their contents were assumed to be lost to history. But that is until the mid-20th century with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library.
In 1945, a farmer named Muhammad Ali al-Saman was digging for fertilizer in the cliffs near the town of Nag Hammadi, Egypt. While searching through the soil, Muhammad stumbled upon a large red earthenware jar sealed carefully with bitumen. [music] The jar had been deliberately placed at the foot of the cliff and by the looks of things had been undisturbed for centuries. [music] Hoping for treasure, Muhammad broke open the pot. But to his surprise, he found 12 leather-bound books and part of a 13th. The texts were still visible, although they were written in a language unlike any he had seen. Unaware of the true value of his discovery, he took the books home, and according to the story, his mother is said to have used one of them as fuel for the fire. How any of these texts survived is a miracle. And from here the details get a little hazy, but it appears that the manuscripts slipped onto the black market. It would be years until one would resurface in the most unexpected of places.
In 1951, a single leather-bound codex arrives at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. It was purchased as a gift to celebrate the 76th birthday of Carl Jung, the famous psychotherapist. The so-called Jung Codex was studied and translated. It was written in Coptic, an Egyptian language descended from the one once spoken by the pharaohs. Judging by the style of the text, it may have been a copy of a much older work written in Greek. The book was soon reunited with the other texts discovered at Nag Hammadi, which by this point were in possession of the Egyptian government. It was not until the mid-1960s when they were released to a select few historians and biblical scholars and what they revealed was extraordinary. Although they were seemingly Christian in origin, they contained beliefs that were unlike any of the canonical writings. Instead, they contained teachings from a very different Christian tradition long thought to be lost. Finally, scholars had access to a library of Gnostic writings.
The books found at Nag Hammadi are often described as a library, which I think is a good way to look at it. Like a library, each text is different, but together they might hint at the interests and theology of the community the books belong to. So where to begin with a collection as large as this? Why not at the very beginning with the Gnostic creation myth? One of the most important texts from Nag Hammadi is the Apocryphon of John, claiming to be a lost biblical text. It tells the story of how the world came to be and loosely follows the plot of the creation myth in the biblical book of Genesis. However, there is a major twist. What if the God of creation was actually evil?
Throughout the Old Testament, the biblical God is capable of some pretty cruel acts, from wiping out humanity with a giant flood to striking down all the firstborn children in Egypt. Contrast this with the God of the New Testament who is seen as far more loving and compassionate. [music] So, how do we get around this problem? Well, what if they are not the same being? The Gnostics believed in two gods. A lesser god, the one found in the Hebrew scriptures, and then a higher god, a great invisible spirit who resides outside the universe. The idea of this lesser god, or demiurge, runs throughout Gnostic belief. The deity is often referred to as Yaldabaoth, and it is the Apocryphon of John that reveals how he came to be.
Before time, before reality itself, there was only the great invisible spirit, a pure being of light, eternal, incomprehensible. One day, if you can even call it that, the great spirit began to think. But the moment this happened, another being came into existence. She was called Barbelo, the mother of all creation. Together, the great spirit and Barbelo began to create more beings. Shining out like rays of light, divine qualities emanated from them. The Gnostics called these beings the Aeons. Think of them as various aspects of the great invisible spirit. The Aeons dwelt with the great invisible spirit in a perfect realm known as the Pleroma. Soon more Aeons began to emanate from the spirit. The final one was called Sophia, which means wisdom. Sophia was curious and wanted to create for herself, but acting without the consent of the great spirit. The result was a flawed creation that lacked divine light. What she created was a cruel and twisted [music] creature with the face of a lion, the body of a snake, and eyes like lightning. This being was known as Yaldabaoth. Too impure to dwell in the Pleroma, Yaldabaoth was cast out into the darkness of the lower heavens. Angry and arrogant, Yaldabaoth declared himself the ruler of this dark, empty realm. Out of his pride, Yaldabaoth began to shape the physical universe. Everything from the Earth to the stars. To assist him, he created seven monstrous beings, each with the head of a different animal. These were the Archons, who would rule creation beneath him. Yet, the world Yaldabaoth and his Archons made was lifeless and empty. And so Yaldabaoth stole a spark of divine light [music] and placed it inside the first human, Adam. Within the human body shone the light of the divine realm, the only source of goodness in this corrupt physical world. Despite creating him, Yaldabaoth feared the human. If he discovered his true origin, he would no longer need his false creator. To keep him distracted, Yaldabaoth placed him in a garden filled with delight, hoping that he would never awaken.
Meanwhile, up in the Pleroma, Sophia grieves over her mistake and over Yaldabaoth's corrupt rule. But there was still hope. For within the garden, there was something that could set Adam free. A tree bearing the fruit of knowledge. To rescue humankind, Sophia crafted Eve to live alongside Adam. Eve eats the fruit and her eyes were suddenly opened. Sharing the fruit with Adam, the humans soon realize their true divine nature. Enraged, Yaldabaoth expels them from the garden and enslaves humanity through centuries of ignorance and false worship. Yet he could never destroy the divine spark that lay within them. Instead, it lies dormant until a savior will come to reveal the true knowledge and awaken in them a way back to the Pleroma.
There are many versions of this Gnostic creation myth, but the Apocryphon of John sets out some of the core beliefs found across the Gnostic texts we'll explore in this video. The story responds to the problem of evil. If God is good, then why does evil exist in creation? The Gnostics had a radical solution. Who said God was good? The result is their creation myth. How the perfect cosmos of the great spirit was corrupted by Yaldabaoth and how humanity is trapped under his tyranny. You may have noticed his actions mirror God in the book of Genesis, but here he is portrayed as ignorant and corrupt, a usurper god who enslaves humanity. The Gnostic creation myth has another detail worth mentioning, and that's to do with the status of human beings. Though we are trapped in the material world of Yaldabaoth, each person carries a piece of divine light. The task is to awaken this spark to remember who we really are and to reunite with the true God in the Pleroma. And the way to do that is through knowledge of our true origin.
So, how can humanity be freed from this corrupt material world? Who is the one to reveal this secret knowledge? For that, let's explore our next series of texts which deal with the figure of Jesus in Gnosticism. In the 1999 sci-fi movie, The Matrix, we are introduced to the character Morpheus. In one pivotal scene, he reveals to Neo that the world is not as it seems. In fact, [music] reality is an illusion, a prison known as the Matrix.
>> The Matrix is everywhere. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Biblical scholar [music] Nicola Denzey Lewis has pointed out that this line could just as easily belong in a Gnostic text. Like the character of Morpheus, Jesus is also portrayed as a revealer of hidden knowledge, though without the sunglasses and trench coat. [music] With this in mind, let's explore the many ways that Gnostic Christians depicted the figure of Jesus.
The Gospel of Thomas is a fascinating text. [music] It claims to have been written by a man called Didymus Judas Thomas. A curious detail about this [music] is that two of these names translate to twin in different languages. Unlike the canonical gospels, the Gospel of Thomas does not contain any narrative. There's no mention of the life of Jesus here. His betrayal and crucifixion are absent. Instead, it's a collection of 114 sayings attributed to the living Jesus. And the very first one makes a bold promise: "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."
When translators went through each of the 114 sayings, they noticed something strange. [music] Nearly two-thirds of them match passages found in the New Testament. Curiously, the Gospel of Thomas doesn't simply copy them word for word. Instead, the unique phrasing seems to suggest that the same teachings were [music] taken from an independent source. In other words, the Gospel of Thomas could be among one of the earliest Christian writings, possibly preserving [music] the original oral teachings of the historical Jesus himself. [music]
But here's where things get really interesting. There are some sayings that are found nowhere else and are completely unique to the Gospel of Thomas. And some of them are highly strange. "Blessed is the lion that a human eats so that the lion becomes human and cursed is the human whom a lion eats and the lion becomes human." [music] Now, in the canonical Bible, Jesus speaks in mysterious ways even at the best of times. But the Gospel of Thomas takes this to the next level with sayings that are downright cryptic. It's almost as if you need to meditate on these passages to draw out their deeper meaning.
The Gospel of Thomas has garnered a lot of attention from scholars. It not only contains sayings in the Bible, but also some new ones. But if this lost Gospel is genuinely old and contains canonical teachings, then why was it excluded from the Bible? There are a few reasons, but the main one is that some of the new [music] sayings found in Thomas could be seen as heretical. For example, saying number 50: Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where have you come from?' Say to them, 'We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being.'" Now, it may seem harmless enough, but when you read it a little deeper, it has certain parallels to the Gnostic creation [music] myth. If you recall, the Gnostics saw all humans as carrying the divine light within them, a light trapped by the evil Yaldabaoth. In this passage, Jesus seems to hint at this and that the spark within us must be reawakened. All this might seem like a little quibble, but it was enough to set this book apart from the canonical gospels [music] and the emerging orthodoxy.
A second major reason why the Gospel of Thomas is not in the Bible is the way in which Jesus is depicted. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus appears as a wise human teacher revealing the true nature of reality, and that's pretty [music] much it. But in Christianity as we know it today, Jesus is seen as much more than a teacher. He is the Son of God who redeemed humanity through his death and resurrection. This central element is almost entirely absent in [music] the Gospel of Thomas. Regardless of its later status, the Gospel of Thomas is one of the most fascinating texts discovered at Nag Hammadi. More surprisingly though, it's one of the few ones that we already knew about. Since the late 19th century, [music] small fragments of this gospel had been discovered, but the one uncovered at Nag Hammadi is the first complete copy. The fact that several manuscript fragments were discovered elsewhere suggests that this lost [music] gospel was once widely circulated and may have been a contender for the biblical canon. The Gospel of Thomas remains a subject of intense debate [music] among biblical scholars, particularly those who are interested in the figure of the historical Jesus.
But few texts have gained as much attention and controversy as this next one. You may know Judas Iscariot as the villain of the canonical gospels, the corrupt disciple who betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. But what if I told you that Judas might have been instructed to by Jesus and was the only disciple who truly understood his [music] message? It may seem like the stuff of conspiracy, but that's the focus of the Gospel of Judas, a Gnostic writing dating to the 4th century AD. This ancient text was not found at Nag Hammadi. Instead, it was discovered elsewhere in the Egyptian desert, and as you'd expect from a long-lost Gnostic writing, it too has a fascinating backstory.
This document has been known [music] about since the late 1970s and belonged to a series of owners. But once it left Egypt's hot, dry climate, the delicate papyrus [music] began to rapidly deteriorate. Fearing its destruction, a later owner placed it in a freezer, hoping that the cold temperatures would preserve it. Unfortunately, this had the opposite effect. The icy temperatures damaged the fragile fibers that held it together, only accelerating its decay. Although it was badly damaged, enough of it survived to be translated. And here's what they found.
The Gospel of Judas claims to be a secret conversation between Jesus and Judas set during the final week of Jesus's life. It begins with the 12 disciples praying to him, only for Jesus to laugh, saying that they are all acting superstitious and do not truly know him. But only Judas dares to speak out, declaring, "I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo." If you recall, Barbelo is one of the Aeons, a divine being from the heavenly realm in Gnosticism. By invoking her name, Judas reveals that he knows something that the other disciples do not, and that he alone understands Jesus's true identity. [music]
Jesus then takes Judas aside and reveals to him the hidden secrets of the universe: how the physical world is ruled by the corrupt demiurge and how only those who recognize the divine spark within them can ascend into the Pleroma. After finishing this long exposition of Gnostic cosmology, Jesus entrusts Judas with a special mission: to betray him so that his soul can finally be released. Speaking directly to Judas, Jesus says, "For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me." Understanding the nature of Jesus's request, Judas departs and betrays him just as he was instructed to.
When the Gospel of Judas was revealed to the public, it was the subject of widespread media attention. It makes some compelling claims, especially that Judas wasn't the villain as he is seen today. Instead, he is portrayed as a loyal disciple who has simply been misunderstood. Although it is a fascinating story, the Gospel of Judas was likely composed [music] centuries after the canonical gospels, making it difficult to treat as a historical account. That said, it does open a window into the struggles of early Gnostic communities against the church. By using the figure of Judas, they attempted to reclaim this often rejected biblical character and suggesting that he was the victim of a biblical smear campaign. If you ever get the chance to read this text in full, I highly recommend it. And if you're curious to hear what it sounds like, I've recently made a complete audiobook of it on my Patreon.
The Gospels of Thomas and Judas are among the most famous non-canonical writings. They hint at a much wider world of Christian belief. But where these texts are most interesting is how they add to the Christian story. You see, in the canonical New Testament, there are a few gaps in the life of Jesus. For example, his preaching career begins at around age 30. But what happened before then? What was Jesus like as a child? One answer is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Despite the name, this text has no relation to the Gospel of Thomas we saw before. Instead, it's a collection of apocryphal stories about the young Jesus, and many of them are really strange.
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas is kind of like Jesus's origin story. [music] It describes the boy Jesus learning to control his divine powers, but often at the risk of those around him. In one story, a child runs into Jesus and bumps him on the shoulder. Angered, Jesus strikes him down, killing the boy. Frightened, the neighborhood children run away and tell on Jesus. When Jesus finds this out, he curses them and turns them blind. Jesus's childhood tantrum only comes to an end when his father, Joseph, scolds him. He can't go around killing people, but instead must use his powers for good. To make amends, Jesus reverses his punishments and raises the children back to life. Now, it's no surprise why these stories didn't make it into the Bible. This version of Jesus is downright malevolent. Still, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas circulated widely for centuries. In fact, there are even medieval illustrations of these tall tales. But most curious of all is how one of these episodes, where Jesus forms clay birds and breathes life into them, is even mentioned in the Quran, the Holy Book of Islam.
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas is not the only piece of wacky Christian fanfiction. Another story comes from a text known as the Gospel of Peter, dated to the 2nd century. It features by far one of the strangest entities in all of Christian mythology: a talking cross. The gospel offers an alternate version of the Easter story and begins with the guards outside Jesus's tomb. Suddenly, it bursts open and strange men come out [music] with the risen Jesus. But following behind them is the true cross, the same one used to crucify Jesus. Here's what happens next. They heard a voice from heaven that said, "Did you preach to those who sleep?" And an answer was heard from the cross. >> "Yes." >> Now, this simple answer is the only word the cross actually speaks. Still, to my mind, a giant walking, talking cross would have been a fantastic addition to the Easter story.
The figure of Jesus appears in a number of ways in the Gnostic Gospels. From the wise human teacher in the Gospel of Thomas to the divine seer in the Gospel of Judas, [music] what connects these together is that the Gnostics saw Jesus primarily as one who revealed hidden knowledge about reality itself. Like the character of Morpheus in The Matrix, the Gnostics believed that Jesus's hidden teachings revealed that the world is not what it seems, but is an illusion created by Yaldabaoth. All we have to do is wake up.
But the disciples of Judas and Thomas weren't the only ones to receive hidden wisdom. In fact, some claim [music] that Jesus's closest disciple wasn't even a man. Of all the characters in the Christian story, none have captured the imagination quite like Mary Magdalene, especially surrounding her relationship with [music] Jesus. In the New Testament, Mary Magdalene is a follower of Jesus and one of the very first to witness his resurrection. However, in later Christian tradition, she developed a bad reputation. Early church fathers began to identify her with an unnamed sinner who washes Jesus's feet or with a prostitute who repents her former ways. But nowhere in the Bible does it explicitly say that they are the [music] same person.
In recent years, there have been efforts to restore the status of Mary Magdalene. Some even suggesting that she might have been Jesus's favorite disciple. Mary Magdalene features in many of the Gnostic Gospels, [music] but one text in particular has inspired endless speculation: the Gospel of Philip. [music] Now, it's not a gospel in the strictest sense. Instead, it's a collection of esoteric [music] sermons, cosmologies, and ritual teachings, but one passage has caught the attention of scholars as it seems to suggest that Mary and Jesus had an intimate relationship. The text is fragmentary, so parts are missing. But here's what it says: "Mary Magdalene was the companion of the Savior. He loved her more than all the other disciples [music] and kissed her on her [text missing] more often than he kissed the rest of the disciples. The disciples asked him, 'Why do you love her more than any of us?'" [awkward missing text aside], the Gospel of Philip has often been interpreted as evidence of a long-standing rumor about Jesus and Mary that they may have been romantic partners. However, others urge caution. You see, it all depends on how you translate this passage. The word "companion" here can have a range of meanings, from associate all the way to spouse. Secondly, there is debate over what this [music] kiss actually means. You see, throughout the New Testament, it often appears as a form of greeting. Most famously, of course, when Judas Iscariot identified Jesus with a kiss. Elsewhere, the Apostle Paul describes a holy kiss as a common greeting among Christians. Whatever the nature of their relationship, the Gnostic Gospel of Philip clearly suggests that Mary Magdalene held a privileged position among the disciples.
In some Gnostic circles, Mary Magdalene was seen as the recipient of Jesus's innermost teachings, and that's certainly the case with the Gospel of Mary. It's one of the few texts that we knew of before Nag Hammadi. It appears to describe a conversation between Jesus and Mary. One of the topics they discuss is what happens to us when we die. Jesus reveals to Mary the journey every soul must undertake to reach the highest heaven. The soul must recite certain passwords, often in the form of hymns. After Jesus reveals these things to Mary, the disciples speak with her, consumed by jealousy. Much to their disappointment, they cannot understand why Jesus would withhold such important information and reveal it to, well, a woman. The status of Mary Magdalene in the Gnostic Gospels is a fascinating subject. Aside from the popular rumors about whether she and Jesus had a secret romance, scholars have been interested in what these texts reveal about the role of women [music] in these early Christian communities. Mary's privileged status may suggest that the Gnostic communities were far more equal than other churches. Yet, according to some Gnostic gospels, the keys to heaven appear to be given to Mary Magdalene, whose hidden knowledge contains Jesus's most secret teachings.
On our journey through the Gnostic Gospels, so far we've dived into lost teachings and misunderstood disciples. But there's one final thing that often doesn't get talked about enough. What was it like to be a Gnostic Christian? Based on what we know about early Christianity and from the Gnostic texts, there are a few practices that we can piece together. Since many Gnostics viewed the physical world as corrupt, they may have practiced asceticism, meaning that they denied themselves of physical comforts. This could include a whole range of things, including fasting, celibacy, and prohibitions against eating meat. They would have likely lived in small communities headed by a teacher, and in some cases, they would have lived far away from cities. For many Christians, including the Gnostics, the deserts of Egypt were considered an ideal setting for a life of prayer, far removed from the pleasures of the earthly world. This may partially explain why so many of these texts were discovered in this region.
But for one of the most secretive Gnostic practices, we must again turn to the Gospel of Philip. It speaks of a holy sacrament known as the bridal chamber. What this practice actually involved is a mystery. The Gospel of Philip seems reluctant to divulge its secrets. "The bridal chamber remains hidden. It is the holy of holies." Now, the name itself might suggest some sort of wedding ceremony, but the details in the text hint that the bridal chamber only involved a single person. Many believe it was a ritual meant to unite the believer's earthly soul with its heavenly counterpart. Those who successfully passed this rite were known as the sons of the bridal chamber and were regarded as the holiest members of the community.
The Gnostic gospels are also full of hymns and liturgies. But one of the most unusual among them are the many vowel chants. In one liturgical text, you can find these long strings of letters. It's believed that chanting these vowels in a long, sustained manner could bring the practitioner closer to the divine. Much like the Om in Hindu and Buddhist meditation, ancient rituals like these give us a new angle to understand the Gnostic Christians. Just like the Christianity of today, their religion was not just about writing things down, but about practicing it through worship. With these ancient prayers and rituals, believers may have connected to something that words cannot describe: a far deeper form of gnosis.
The Gnostic Gospels reveal a world of alternative Christian teachings and esoteric beliefs. Through chance discoveries like the Nag Hammadi Library, we can finally hear the Gnostic Christians in their own words. Words that were long thought to be lost to history. But what happened to the Gnostics? If they were once so widespread, why did they fall into obscurity? Well, another type of Christianity rose to replace them: the Christianity that endures to this day. How did the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John make it into the Bible and not the Gospels of Thomas, Mary, and Judas?
The story of how the 27 books of the New Testament came to be is a long and winding one. Now, contrary to what you might have expected, the Christian canon didn't just begin as a complete set of writings. Instead, it was a much more gradual process. And within it lies the fate of the Gnostic Gospels. Let's start the story where we left off before: the Christianity of the 2nd century. Now, during this time, Christianity was spreading rapidly across the Mediterranean. But it was rather different to the one we see today. In fact, it may be easier to see what it didn't have: a formal recognized creed, consensus on the nature of the Trinity, a doctrine of original sin, but most of all, a fixed, agreed-upon scripture. Because of this lack of consensus, rival Christian groups emerged. The most established of these early Christian groups coalesced around the earliest writings, from the letters of Paul to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They broadly shared the same beliefs, especially that Jesus was divine and had died for the sins of humanity. Later, they would call themselves the followers of the correct opinion, or in Greek, Orthodox. Of course, we've spent our time looking at another group, the Gnostics, who believed that salvation was through the possession of secret knowledge. Soon, they began to compete against one another, vying for supremacy over the very soul of Christianity itself, but only one would emerge victorious.
And it was largely due to the work of one man: Irenaeus of Lyon. Irenaeus of Lyon is one of the most prominent early Christians and would prove to be the Gnostics' greatest enemy. His most famous work is a series of writings known as Against Heresies. Written in five volumes, it was a methodical takedown of every Gnostic belief and text that the author came across. Irenaeus argued that Jesus's message was available to all and wasn't about hiding secrets. For Irenaeus, the writings he believed were the most authoritative are the ones we'd find in today's New Testament. They were some of the oldest writings around and therefore closest to the historical life of Jesus. He did not defeat Gnosticism in one stroke, but his devastating arguments against them likely marked the beginning of the end. To my mind, the secretive nature of Gnostic belief meant that it was always destined for decline. A religion that's withdrawn from society is not designed for growth or converts. This is in contrast to the emerging church, which at the time was far more open and benefited from a highly organized structure. This allowed it to grow larger, gain more followers, and become more assertive against what it saw as the threat of Gnosticism.
By the start of the 4th century, Gnosticism was already in decline. Meanwhile, the church was in the ascendancy and was about to receive a massive advantage. For centuries, Roman emperors saw Christians as a threat and carried out a policy of persecution. But that was all to change with Constantine, who adopted a position of tolerance towards Christians. In fact, he convened the Council of Nicaea, where bishops drafted their first great statement of faith, the Nicene Creed. It affirmed their version of Christianity and that anything else was heresy. In the years that followed, Christianity became the state religion.
But there was still one more step in the journey of the New Testament canon. Even now, many churches lacked a universally recognized list of writings. A key milestone came in 367 AD when the influential bishop Athanasius wrote an Easter letter to the various churches. In it, he outlined [music] the 27 books he considered authoritative, a list identical to the New Testament canon we know today. By the end of the 4th century, the official books of the Bible were established, and the Gnostics were further pushed to the margins of society. What remained of this ancient Christian movement retreated to the fringes of the empire, like the community of Nag Hammadi. There they continued in secrecy and copied down their writings and seemingly left them for future generations. While most of their texts are likely lost to us, a few of them were preserved, buried in the shifting sands of the Egyptian desert.
Although the Gnostics were regarded as the first major threat to the church, they may have done more to define Christianity than anything else. By forcing early church fathers to reflect and draw boundaries of belief, the Gnostics actually helped shape the Christianity that we know today. And while there may have been schisms, reformations, and counter-reformations, almost every branch of Christianity today descends from those early Orthodox communities. I don't know about you, but when I read the Gnostic writings, it feels like I'm peering into a parallel universe. It all sounds familiar, yet so alien at the same time, where figures like Jesus coexist [music] with demiurges and divine emanations. I sometimes wonder what the world would look like if Gnosticism had become the dominant form of Christianity.
It's a miracle that any of these texts have survived, [music] especially the collection discovered at Nag Hammadi. While the Gnostic Gospels contain unusual ideas and even controversial teachings, to me, what they really reveal is the diversity of Christianity in its earliest years. From the very beginning, there was never a single Christianity, but instead, Christianities in the [music] plural. As long as Christianity has existed, there have been debates about the life and message of Jesus. And the Gnostic Gospels bring those debates [music] to life in all their strange and imaginative ways.
Hey, thanks for watching. I really hope you enjoyed this one. If you like this video and want to see more, why not subscribe? A like and a comment also go a really long way. Wow, this has got to be one of my longest videos. So many of you have asked for a deep dive, so I'm happy to oblige, especially as this topic is something I've always wanted to cover. So, would you like me to do more of these? Let me know down in the comments. [music] And as always, thank you to my patrons. If you'd like to be part of the discussion, check out the description below. Anyway, I look forward to seeing you next time. Goodbye.