christianity-in-egypt

"Then as I went, the gate opened and I went up to the fifth heaven. And I saw my fellow apostles going with me while the Spirit was going about with us. And I saw a great angel in the fifth heaven, holding an iron rod in his hand, three other angels with him. And I gazed at their faces. They were quarrelling with one another, with whips in their hands, goading the souls on to the judgement. But as for me, I was going with the Spirit, and the door opened for me."

"The little child spoke up, saying, “I know who you are, Paul: you are the one who was blessed from his mother’s womb. I saw that you were on your way up to Jerusalem, to your fellow apostles, and it is because of this that I was sent to you. I am the Spirit, who is with you. ... It is to the twelve apostles that you are going, for they are elect spirits, and they will greet you.” ... and he saw the twelve apostles at his right and at his left in the creation, and the Spirit was going before them."

"And then the seventh heaven opened and we went up to the Ogdoad. I saw the twelve apostles. They greeted me, and we went up to the ninth heaven. I greeted everyone in the ninth heaven. And we went up to the tenth heaven. And I greeted my fellow spirits."

"I saw an old man ... the light ... white ... in the seventh heaven, shining seven times more than the sun. The old man spoke, saying to me, “Where are you going, Paul, the blessed one who was set apart from his mother’s womb?” But as for me, I looked to the Spirit, and it was nodding its head, telling me to speak with him. And I spoke up, saying to the old man, “I am going to the place from which I came.”"

"For I am knowledge and ignorance. I am shame and boldness. I am shameless; I am ashamed. I am strength and I am fear. I am war and peace."

"The rulers wanted to fool people, since they saw that people have a kinship with what is truly good. They took the names of the good and assigned them to what is not good, to fool people with names and link the names to what is not good. So, as if they were doing people a favor, they took names from what is not good and transferred them to the good, in their own way of thinking. For they wished to take free people and enslave them forever."

"He greeted them all, saying, Peace be with you. Receive my peace unto yourselves. Beware that no one lead you astray saying Lo here or lo there! For the is within you. Follow after Him! Those who seek Him will find Him. Go then and preach the gospel of the Kingdom."

"Do not lay down any rules beyond what I appointed you, and do not give a law like the lawgiver lest you be constrained by it."

"Sister we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of women."

"What is hidden from you I will proclaim to you."

"I said to Him, Lord, how does he who sees the vision see it, through the soul or through the spirit? The Savior answered and said, He does not see through the soul nor through the spirit, but the mind that is between the two that is what sees the vision."

"Desire said, I did not see you descending, but now I see you ascending. Why do you lie since you belong to me? The soul answered and said, I saw you. You did not see me nor recognize me. I served you as a garment and you did not know me. When it said this, it (the soul) went away rejoicing greatly. Again it came to the third power, which is called ignorance. The power questioned the soul, saying, Where are you going? In wickedness are you bound. But you are bound; do not judge! And the soul said, Why do you judge me, although I have not judged? I was bound, though I have not bound. I was not recognized. But I have recognized that the All is being dissolved, both the earthly things and the heavenly. When the soul had overcome the third power, it went upwards and saw the fourth power, which took seven forms. The first form is darkness, the second desire, the third ignorance, the fourth is the excitement of death, the fifth is the kingdom of the flesh, the sixth is the foolish wisdom of flesh, the seventh is the wrathful wisdom. These are the seven powers of wrath. They asked the soul, Whence do you come slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space? The soul answered and said, What binds me has been slain, and what turns me about has been overcome, and my desire has been ended, and ignorance has died. In a I was released from a world, and in a Type from a type, and from the fetter of oblivion which is transient. From this time on will I attain to the rest of the time, of the season, of the aeon, in silence."

"Then Mary wept, and answered him: 'My brother Peter, what can you be thinking? Do you believe that this is just my own imagination, that I invented this vision? Or do you believe that I would lie about our Teacher?' At this, Levi spoke up: 'Peter, you have always been hot-tempered, and now we see you repudiating a woman just as our adversaries do. Yet if the Teacher held her worthy, who are you to reject her? Surely the Teacher knew her very well, for he loved her more than us. Therefore let us atone, and become fully human so that the Teacher can take root is us. Let us grow as he demanded of us, and walk forth to spread the gospel, without trying to lay down any rules and laws other than those he witnessed.'"

"[The Gospel of Mary is an] intriguing glimpse into a kind of Christianity lost for almost fifteen hundred years...[it] presents a radical interpretation of Jesus' teachings as a path to inner spiritual knowledge; it rejects His suffering and death as the path to eternal life; it exposes the erroneous view that Mary of Magdala was a prostitute for what it is—a piece of theological fiction; it presents the most straightforward and convincing argument in any early Christian writing for the legitimacy of women's leadership; it offers a sharp critique of illegitimate power and a utopian vision of spiritual perfection; it challenges our rather romantic views about the harmony and unanimity of the first Christians; and it asks us to rethink the basis for church authority. All written in the name of a woman."

"Mary stood up, greeted them all, and said to her brethren, Do not weep and do not grieve nor be irresolute, for His grace will be entirely with you and will protect you. But rather, let us praise His greatness, for He has prepared us and made us into Men."

"Will matter then be destroyed or not? The Savior said, All nature, all formations, all creatures exist in and with one another, and they will be resolved again into their own roots. For the nature of matter is resolved into the roots of its own nature alone."

"He who has ears to hear, let him hear. ... He who has a mind to understand, let him understand."

"What is the sin of the world? The Savior said: there is no sin, but it is you who make sin when you do the things that are like the nature of adultery, which is called sin. That is why the Good came into your midst, to the essence of every nature in order to restore it to its root. Then He continued and said, That is why you become sick and die, for you are deprived of the one who can heal you."

"Matter gave birth to a passion that has no equal, which proceeded from something contrary to nature. Then there arises a disturbance in its whole body."

"Be of good courage, and if you are discouraged be encouraged in the presence of the different forms of nature."

"Light and darkness, life and death, and right and left are siblings of one another, and inseparable. For this reason the good are not good, the bad are not bad, life is not life, death is not death. Each will dissolve into its original nature, but what is superior to the world cannot be dissolved, for it is eternal."

"And the companion of the [...] Mary Magdalene. [...] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth."

"The rulers wanted to deceive man, since they saw that he had a kinship with those that are truly good. They took the name of those that are good and gave it to those that are not good, so that through the names they might deceive him and bind them."

"The rulers wanted to fool people, since they saw that people have a kinship with what is truly good. They took the names of the good and assigned them to what is not good, to fool people with names and link the names to what is not good. So, as if they were doing people a favor, they took names from what is not good and transferred them to the good, in their own way of thinking. For they wished to take free people and enslave them forever."

"Truth brought forth names in the world for us, and no one can refer to truth without names. Truth is one and many, for our sakes, to teach us about the one, in love, through the many."

"The names of worldly things are utterly deceptive, for they turn the heart from what is real to what is unreal. Whoever hears the word god thinks not of what is real but rather of what is unreal. So also with the words father, son, holy spirit, life, light, resurrection, church, and all the rest, people do not think of what is real but of what is unreal, [though] the words refer to what is real. The words [that are] heard belong to this world. [Do not be] deceived. If words belonged to the eternal realm, they would never be pronounced in this world, nor would they designate worldly things. They would refer to what is in the eternal realm."

"His disciples said to Him, "When will the Kingdom come?" [Jesus said,] "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'Here it is' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.""

"[Λέγ]ει [᾿Ιησοῦς, ὅη]ου ἐὰν ὦσιν [β οὔκ] ε[ἰσι]ν ἄθεοι, καὶ [ὅ]που ε[ἷς] ἐστιν μόνος, [λέγω, ἐγώ εἰμι μετ᾿ αὐτ[οῦ·] ἔγει[ρ]ον τὸν λίθον κἀκεῖ εὑρήσεις με, σχίσον τὸ ξύλον κἀγὼ ἐκεῖ εἰμι."

"Λέγει Ἰησοῦς, οὐκ ἔστιν δεκτὸς προφήτης ἐν τῇ πατρίδι αὐτ[ο]ῦ, οὐδὲ ἰατρὸς ποιεῖ θεραπείας εἰς τοὺς γινώσκοντας αὐτόν."

"Λέγει Ἰησοῦς, πόλις ᾠκοδομημένη ἐπ᾿ ἄκρον [ὄ]ρους ὑψηλοῦ καὶ ἐστηριγμένη οὔτε πε[σ]εῖν δύναται οὔτε κρυ[β]ῆναι."

"[T]he gnostic Gospel of Thomas relates that as soon as Thomas recognizes him, Jesus says to Thomas that they have both received their being from the same source...Does not such teaching—the identity of the divine and human, the concern with illusion and enlightenment, the founder who is presented not as Lord, but as spiritual guide—sound more Eastern than Western? Some scholars have suggested that if the names were changed, the "living Buddha" appropriately could say what the Gospel of Thomas attributes to the living Jesus. Could Hindu or Buddhist tradition have influenced gnosticism?"

"Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."

"A. Guillaumont, H.-Ch. Puech, G. Quispel, W. Till and Yassah ʿAbd al Masīh, The Gospel According to Thomas: The Coptic Text Established and Translated (New York: Harper & Bros, 1959)"

"Thomas O. Lambdin, The Gospel of Thomas, in James M. Robinson (ed.) The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977). Digitised, and somewhat revised, for The Gnostic Society Library, The Gnosis Archive"

"Marvin W. Meyer, The Secret Teachings of Jesus: Four Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1984)"

"Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987)"

"William G. Morrice, Hidden Sayings of Jesus: Words Attributed to Jesus Outside the Four Gospels (London: SPCK, 1997)"

"Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, New Sayings of Jesus and Fragment of a Lost Gospel from Oxyrhynchus (New York and London: for the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1904)"

"If those who lead you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

"The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a little child of seven days about the place of Life, and he will live."

"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered."

"I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am watching over it until it blazes."

"This heaven shall pass away and the one above it shall pass away, and the dead are not alive and the living shall not die."

"Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me with someone and tell me whom I am like." Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a just angel." Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher." Thomas said to him, "Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say whom you are like." Jesus said, "I am not your teacher. You have become intoxicated because you have drunk from the bubbling spring that I have tended.""

"The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will come to pass." Jesus said, "Then have you laid bare the beginning, so that you are seeking the end? For the end will be where the beginning is. Blessed is the person who stands at rest in the beginning. And that person will be acquainted with the end and will not taste death."

"When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter [the Kingdom]."

"Within a person of light there is light which lights the whole world. When this light does not shine there is darkness."

"If you do not abstain from the world you will not find the kingdom. If you do not make the sabbath a sabbath you will not behold the father."

"I stood at rest in the midst of the world. And unto them I was shown forth incarnate; I found them all intoxicated. And I found none of them thirsty. And my soul was pained for the children of humankind, for they are blind in their hearts and cannot see. For, empty did they enter the world, and again empty they seek to leave the world."

"His disciples said, "When will You become revealed to us and when shall we see You?" Jesus said, "When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then [will you see] the Son of the Living One, and you will not be afraid"."