What are the Gnostic gospels?

Many think that here it is only the fact of His incarnation. Assuredly the incarnation is pressed, because it is a cardinal truth of Christianity, of rich grace; and there were some then that denied it and reduced it to a mere semblance. A little book of great antiquity was discovered recently called the Gospel of Peter, not only spurious but utterly heterodox, evidencing deadly error in early days; a most sorrowful thing that it should ever have been written. For it was as false in itself as it was a vile imposture, no more coming from a Christian than from Peter. But Peter was a marked favourite because of his fervour; and many who could not fully take in Paul's teaching exceedingly enjoyed Peter's preaching. The wicked forger took advantage of the apostle's repute (probably after his death) to gain acceptance for his own Gnostic legend. For its purport is to represent that Christ did not come in flesh so as to die on the cross, that He merely took flesh as one lives in a house; that flesh did not really form part of His person; that, after living in the body for a time, on coming to the cross He left it and went up to heaven.

The argument that Jesus was married or had a child comes solely from silence. No New Testament document speaks of such relationships, nor do Christian or secular writings from the early centuries of Christianity. The closest document is the apocryphal Gospel of Philip, written approximately 275 A.D., written neither by the apostle nor in the time period of the New Testament. As our book The Da Vinci Code Controversy [10] notes, even the passage used to suggest a married Jesus is used grossly out of context.

18 John 1:14. — "Became flesh." On the Incarnation, see such works as Bishop Gore's "Bampton Lectures," Professor Orr's "Kerr Lectures," No. 6, and Turton, p. 262 ff. It was either denied or undermined by Gnosticism, in its earliest form known as "Docetism," one of the representatives of which was Cerinthus, contemporary with the Apostle John. His errors Irenæus (III., 11, 7) attributed to misuse of the Gospel of Mark. Cerinthus held that JESUS would rise again with the rest of mankind in the day of judgment, for which Ronan compares Qoran, iv. 156 (see Hansel, Lecture VIII.). The "Docetæ" derived their name from holding that our Lord had only an apparent body (see 1 John 1:1, 4:2 f., 2 John 7). They made use of the Apostle's own writings, as of the Gospel (3:5 f.), in support of the evil of matter. The Apocryphal "Gospel of Peter" issued from this school (see "Exposition of the Epistles," p. 251). Basilides (Mansel, Lecture 10) was an Alexandrian active between 117-138 A.D.; Valentinus (Lectures 11, 12) was doing his mischief from 140-155 A.D. He, too, quoted this Gospel. The error of Nicolas is referred to in Rev. 2:15 (see "Exposition of Revelation," p. 51.

As to the apocryphal Gospels which remain to us, of which there are several, their contents speak for themselves; a proof of the total want of spiritual discernment in the primitive church, and also how impossible it was than an age which concocted, and more or less valued, such stuff, could have produced anything in the least resembling our Gospels. In this sense they afford the strongest proofs of the inspiration of the others. The Epistles according to the Hebrews, of Peter to the Egyptians, are not extant, and so afford a fine field for rational criticism; the connection of these with Justin I have spoken of. In Bleek's introduction, sec. 119, and also 87, 88, the reader will find the whole system fully judged. Bleek is a rationalistic critic. Perhaps it may be well to quote his words (Clark's Translations, Lec. 119, 1, 335): "But with regard to the memoirs of the apostles, so repeatedly cited by Justin, it is at once quite clear that these were not some single treatise, but a collection of writings differing from one another, and usually called Gospels."

4a None of the narratives referred to in the text, other than the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, both of which the Expositor excludes, have survived, at least in their integrity, as applicable to the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" (supposed by Lessing to be common source of the three Synoptics), and the "Gospel according to the Egyptians," to which latter the recently-discovered Oxyrhynchus fragments of Logia may have borne some relation. The Gospels commonly called "Apocryphal" were considerably later productions (Cf. Godet, vol. i., p. 56).

And never at any time were inferior or spurious writings allowed to usurp the place of Scripture. There are several ancient books in existence, certainly written very soon after, and some even before, the Canon of the New Testament was settled: such as the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, an Epistle ascribed to Barnabas, and certainly of very ancient date: some Epistles of Ignatius and Polycarp, who were St. John's disciples, and a curious allegory, called the Shepherd of Hermas. These books are genuine and perhaps more or less valuable; but no one ever mistook them for Scripture. There are also extant, but very little known, certain manifest forgeries:— such as a pretended Epistle of Christ to King Abgarus, several pretended gospels, and some spurious Epistles. We call these forgeries manifest, for they abound in the most palpable anachronisms and mistakes, and never seem to have deceived any one. Some of the stories about the early life of Jesus are in marked contrast with the simplicity and truthfulness of the real Gospels, and are filled with the wildest accounts of his miracles.

An unknown author of an eloquent and interesting epistle to Diognetus. Nearly all the above writings are very different from the scripture except where that is quoted. There is a deep dark line of demarcation between them and the writings which are inspired. Some of them however are found at the end of some of the Greek Testaments and were formerly read in the churches. Happily all these are now eliminated from any association with the N.T. Besides the above there are six apocryphal 'Gospels,' a dozen 'Acts,' four 'Revelations,' the 'Passing away of Mary,' etc.

Now it will be seen from the above that of the early Greek copies which are complete all contain additional books, though of those which have other writings appended to them, no two copies agree in selecting the same books. Neither do those few here named comprise nearly the whole of the rejected books. There are about a score of different "Gospels," a dozen "Acts," a dozen "Epistles," and four or five "Revelations." Of the mass of these we suppose there can be no doubt among sober Christians as to their being uncanonical though most of them profess to have been written by one or other of the Apostles or their immediate successors.

"From the great original (according to him, depth, first father, first cause) with whom is the consciousness of himself ([inward] thought, silence) emanate in succession male and female Aeons (mind or firstborn and truth, word and life, man and church, &c. So that thirty Aeons together, divided into the octoad, decad, and dodecad, form the pleroma — fulness). From the passionate striving of the last Aeon, Sophia (wisdom), to unite itself with 'depth' itself, arises an untimely being, Achamoth, which, wandering about outside the Pleroma, communicates the germ of life to matter, and forms the Demiurge (creator) of psychical material (matter having the life of a living soul), who immediately creates the world. In the meantime two new Aeons had arisen, Christ and the Holy Ghost. Then there emanated from all the Aeons Jesus the Saviour, who, as the future associate (σύξυγος) of Achamoth, was to lead her and the spiritual nature into the Pleroma. The Saviour united Himself at His baptism with the psychical Messiah (having a living soul) promised by Demiurge." For the Old Testament came from the creator of the world, not from God. Hence Hyle, or matter, being from the bad god, or itself eternal and bad and put in order by him, they held it to be bad. Some or all of them held that when Christ was crucified the Aeon flew away, and indeed the Aeon only to have taken an apparent, or rather an ethereal, body, and hence never to have really suffered.

The Gnostics, who in later years so much harassed the assembly, used this word "fulness" in a mystical and peculiar sense for the sum and source (and yet after all, in the sense of a locality; for it had limits which separated it from everything else) of divinity which developed itself in four pairs of beings — syzygies — Christ being only one of a pair. It is not necessary to go further into their reveries, except to observe that, with different shades of thought, they attribute creation to a god either inferior or evil, who also was the author of the Old Testament. Matter, they said, did not proceed from the supreme God. They did not eat meat; they did not marry; at the same time they gave themselves up to all sorts of horrors and dissoluteness; and, strange to say, associated themselves with Judaism, worshipped angels, etc.