IN CONSTRUCTION FROM GNOSTIC TEXTS
The earliest Christian communities, remote from Judaic power and without means, were led by agitators, prophets and "teachers" who claimed their antagonistic message was received directly from the Holy Spirit of God. (Acts 13.2; 15.23).
In 1945 early Christian writings, considered by scholars of the transcendental as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls, containing unknown details of the early Christian religion, were found in upper Egypt, where many Jewish people carrying a now-called Christian faith during the Roman invasion of Jerusalem.
These original Christian mystics, referred to as Gnostic, were later destroyed by the orthodox Church for being heretics. Many of their sacred writings were destroyed and those discovered were hidden with the belief that they would be revealed at an appropriate time in the future.
But a discovery in 1945 yielded writings that included some long lost gospels of the Essenes, some of which were written earlier than the famous New Testament gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Late 1st century/early 2nd century writers did not quote Jesus at all. They say almost nothing about Jesus the Nazarene and his life, his legendary actions or his miracles. The virgin-born, miracle-working, seems to be unknown to them. When their ideas required the endorsement of "higher authority" they turned to traditional Jewish scripture, to the old patriarchs, the prophets and the words of the Jewish God himself.
In all of the 13 epistles ascribed to Paul there is not one quotation ascribed to Jesus. He refers only to a to a spiritual Christ who performed a reedeeming sacrifice and had se redeeming sacrifice had conquered death.
For Paul and the other early Christians it seems that the Christ was not a human being, but an emanation from God who was a medium for God's words.
Paul's Gnostic logic declared that "from time immemorial "Christos" had been the Son of God. This Christos had sacrificed himself in a remote past in order to be reborn within man. His "resurrection" and "life" are realized again within initiates such as Paul himself and those who accept him."
In December, 1945,
Brian A. Bain, M.A., has this to say about the 1945 discovery:
"Long considered to be heretical, ancient Gnostic Christian texts unearthed this century display compelling similarities between Gnostic conceptions of life and death and modern near-death experiences. The Gnostic texts devoted extensive tracts to what readers could expect to encounter when they died. Other passages make numerous allusions to near-death-like experiences that can be realized in this life, most notably the human encounter with a divine light. The Gnostic Christian literature gives us one more example of NDEs and similar experiences in the ancient world."
The Christian Gnostics were regarded by some only as a new Jewish sect who believed they had finally found the long-awaited Messiah and some of the apostles affirming this became Jewish. Christian Gnostics.
So they had a Messiah, but what were his teachings?
First there was "Logos, (Greek λóγος) signifying a sense oe "existing" within the One. In the words of John 1:1 it is said, "In the beginning there was the Logos and the Logos was with God and Gad was the Logos."
In other words, Existence itself was God.
This has been in other texts translated as "the Word."
In a philosophical and psychological sense we might then well say that there is no cognitive "Existence without the Word."
Now this becomes quite subtle and requires close attention.
The Gnostic view then is that Jesus was the Logos, the divine spark of God within humans that requires awakening. That is described when John says "Jesus is the Logos".
Everyone has the "image of the Word (Logos)" within them and it is for this reason that Genesis describes humanity as created "in the image and likeness of God." The Logos is the divine Spirit in humanity. By using the Christian Gnostic idea of the Logos, John is not only affirming the preexistence and divinity of Jesus, but he is affirming that all sons of God created in the "image of the Word" as Jesus was, preexisted in spirit before being born. In other words, every human is an incarnation of the Logos and every human has to potential of becoming like Jesus, a manifestation of the human-divine unity. Every human can be a "Christ" and because of this, every soul will eventually be drawn back to God.
The Roman Church misunderstood what the Logos was in John and incorrectly concluded from this that only Jesus is divine - the Word made flesh.
The orthodox Church either rejected or ignored this Christian Gnostic concept found in John. This may have been a factor when the gospel of John was almost rejected from New Testament canon as it was being put together. This was during a time when Christian Gnosticism became an enemy of the organized Church. Nevertheless, it was the idea of the preexistence of the soul and its corresponding doctrine of reincarnation that the Roman Church had great difficulty with.
The Christian Gnostics emphasized spiritual knowledge rather blind faith as the road to salvation. They indicated that they possessed secret knowledge (i.e., "gnosis" in Greek) concerning the hidden meaning of the "resurrection." This was a part of the secret teachings of Jesus handed down to them by the apostles. This special knowledge was restricted to people who were given the public teachings of Christianity before qualifying to be initiated and receive the secret teachings. In contrast, the very term "Catholic" means "universal", implying that anyone could become a member of the Church by adhering to the public teachings of faith and rituals.
The Christian Gnostics were harsh critics of the orthodox Church. The Christian Gnostics accused the Church of watering down the gospel in order to popularize it for the masses. The orthodox Church stressed salvation through faith alone and by the rituals of the Church.
This secret gnosis emphasized spiritual "resurrection" (i.e,. spiritual rebirth) and physical "resurrection" (i.e., reincarnation) as opposed to a resurrection defined as people sleeping in their graves until it is time their corpses to crawl out of their graves at the last day. Christian Gnostics held the view that if spiritual resurrection was not attained in one lifetime, then the soul would be subjected to as many reincarnations as it takes until spiritual rebirth is attained.