The Gnostic Bible: Revised and Expanded Edition

The Gnostic Bible: Revised and Expanded Edition

The Gnostic Bible: Revised and Expanded Edition

The Gnostic Bible: Revised and Expanded Edition

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Overview

A collection of Gnostic texts spanning centuries, geographical locations, and cultural traditions—“a wonderful achievement” (Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels)
 
Gnosticism was a wide-ranging religious movement of the first millennium CE—with earlier antecedents and later flourishings—whose adherents sought salvation through knowledge and personal religious experience. Gnostic writings offer striking perspectives on both early Christian and non-Christian thought. For example, some gnostic texts suggest that god should be celebrated as both mother and father, and that self-knowledge is the supreme path to the divine. Only in the past fifty years has it become clear how far the gnostic influence spread in ancient and medieval religions—and what a marvelous body of scriptures it produced.

The selections gathered here in poetic, readable translation represent Jewish, Christian, Hermetic, Mandaean, Manichaean, Islamic, and Cathar expressions of gnostic spirituality. Their regions of origin include Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, the Middle East, Syria, Iraq, China, and France. Also included are introductions, notes, an extensive glossary, and a wealth of suggestions for further reading.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780834824140
Publisher: Shambhala
Publication date: 06/30/2009
Series: Shambhala Publications
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 896
Sales rank: 304,084
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Marvin Meyer, PhD, (1948–2012) was Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at Chapman University in Orange, California. His books include The Gospel of Thomas and, with James Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Scriptures.

Born in Lewiston, Maine, Willis Barnstone was educated at Bowdoin, Columbia, the Sorbonne, and Yale. He taught in Greece at the end of the civil war (1949–51), and in Buenos Aires during the Dirty War. During the Cultural Revolution he went to China where he was later a Fulbright Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University (1984–85). Former O'Connor Professor of Greek at Colgate University, he is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and Spanish at Indiana University.

Read an Excerpt

From The Gospel of the Secret Supper

Adam and Eve Choose Sin and Become Mortal
Then, I, John, questioned the lord, “How can one say that Adam and Eve were created by god and placed in paradise to obey the father’s orders, but they were then delivered to death?”

The lord answered me, “Listen, John, beloved of my father, it is the ignorant who say, in their error, that my father made these bodies of mud. In reality he created all the virtues of heaven through the holy spirit. But it is through their sin that they found themselves with mortal bodies of mud and were consequently turned over to death.”

And again I, John, questioned the lord, “How can a man become born in spirit in a body of flesh?”

And the lord answered, “Descended from angels fallen from the sky, men enter the body of a woman and receive the desire of the flesh. Spirit is born then from the spirit and flesh from the flesh. So Satan accomplishes his reign in this world and in all nations.”

He told me further, “My father permitted him to rule seven days, which are seven centuries.”

Satan’s Angel Chooses Three Trees for the Crucifixion
And again I asked the lord. I said to him, “What did he do during all that time?”

And he told me, “From the instant the devil was expelled from the glory of the father and was forbidden to take part in affairs of heaven, he sat on the clouds and sent his ministers, angels burning with fire, down below to the people. He did so from the time of Adam to Enoch. And he raised his minister Enoch above the firmament and revealed his divinity to him. He had pen and ink brought to him. And once seated, Enoch wrote sixty-seven books under the devil’s dictation, and the devil ordered him to carry them back to earth.

Enoch kept them safely on the earth and then transmitted them to his children, and he began to teach them the way to celebrate sacrifices and iniquitous mysteries. So he concealed from people the kingdom of the skies.

And Satan said to them, “See that I am your god and that there is no other god but me.” That is why my father sent me into the world, that I make known and teach people to perceive the wicked spirit of the devil. But then Satan, having learned that I had descended from the sky to this world, sent his angel, and he took the wood of three trees and gave it to Moses so that I might be crucified on a cross made from the wood, which is at this time waiting for me. And he made his divinity known to his people, and ordered the law to be given to the children of Israel, and that he cross dry through the middle of the Red Sea.

The Lord Inseminates the Angel Mary
When my father thought of sending me to the earth, he sent before me his angel named Mary to receive me. Then I came down, entered her by the ear, and came out of her ear.

And Satan, prince of this world, knew that I had come down to seek and save the beings who had perished, and he sent his angel the prophet Elijah down to earth to baptize in water. He is called John the baptizer. Then Elijah asked the prince of this world,“How can I recognize the Christ?”

And the lord himself answered, saying, “He on whom you will see the holy spirit descend like a dove and remain there, he is immersed in the holy spirit for the remission of his sins. He alone has the power to lead astray and to save.”

Is It a Sin to Marry?
Again I, John, ask the lord, “Can one be saved by John’s immersion without your immersion?”

And the lord answered me, “If I have not immersed one through the spirit for the remission of sins, no one by only immersion in water can see the kingdom in the skies, because I am the bread of life descendant from the seventh heaven. Only those who eat my flesh and drink my blood are called the children of god.”

And I asked the lord, “What must one understand by your words, eating my flesh and drinking my blood?”

The lord told me, “Before the devil was driven out with all his troops from the glory of the father, his angels prayed and glorified the father, saying in their prayers, ‘Our father who is in the skies,’ and so all their canticles rose before the throne of god. But since their fall, they cannot glorify god, at least not in their prayer.”

And I asked the lord, “How is it that all receive John’s immersion and not yours?”

The lord made this response to me: “Because their works are bad and they do not reach the light. John’s students take husbands and wives, but my students do not marry and are like god’s angels in the sky.”

I said then, “If it is a sin to know a woman, is it wrong to marry?”

The lord replied to me, “Not everyone understands the sense of this word unless he has been given grace to understand. There are eunuchs who have come out of their mother’s stomach, there are men who have become eunuchs, and there are those men who have become eunuchs by renouncing marriage in exchange for the kingdom in the skies. Whoever can understand this should understand.”

Heaven or the Lake of Fire
And then I asked the lord about the day of judgment,“What will be the sign of your coming?”

He answered me, “It will be when the name of the just will be consummated according to the name of the just ones who have been crowned and fallen from the sky. Then Satan will be freed and will leave his prison, a prey to great anger, and he will make war on the just and they will cry to the lord god in a great voice. And the lord will immediately command his angel to sound the trumpet. The voice of the archangel, in the trumpet, will be heard from heaven to the inferno. And then the sun will darken and the moon give no more light. The stars will fall and the four winds will be torn from the foundations, and they will make the earth tremble, and also the mountains and hills. Immediately the sky will tremble and the sun darken until the fourth hour. Then will appear the earthly son, and with him all the saintly angels. And then the son rises, and he will place his seat on the clouds and will sit on the throne of his majesty, with twelve messengers seated on twelve chairs of glory.

The books will be opened and he will judge the universe according to the faith they revealed. And then the earthly son will send his angels to gather the elect—from the four winds and the summits of the skies and to the corners of the world—and bring them before him. The earthly son will send for the bad demons to bring all the bad nations with him, and he will say to them, “Come here, you who say, ‘We have eaten well and drunk and enjoyed the goods of this world.’”

Then he will direct them all before the tribunal, and they will be shaking with terror. And the books of life will be opened, and there will be known the thoughts of all the nations and of their impieties.And the lord will glorify the just in their patience and good deeds. Those who have followed the angelic prescriptions will gain glory, honor, and imperishability. Those who have obeyed the iniquity of the devil will share in anger, indignation, and the torments of anguish. The earthly son will take the elect from the midst of the sinners and say to them, “Come, you who are blessed by my father. Receive the kingdom that has been prepared for you since the organization of the world.”

He will say to the sinners, “Go far from me, cursed ones, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and for his angels.”

Then all the others, seeing that the time has come for the ultimate separation, will pity the sinners in their inferno, who will be there by order of the invisible father.

The souls will leave the prison of the unbelievers and also my voice will be heard, and there will be no more than one sheepfold and one pastor. And there will issue from the depths of the earth a dark gloom, which is the dark gloom of the Gehenna of fire, and fire will consume the universe from the abysses of the earth to the air of the firmament. And the lord will reign from the firmament to the infernos of the earth. The lake of fire where the sinners will live is so deep that a stone that a thirty-year-old man lifts and drops to the bottom will barely reach the floor of the lake after three years.

Table of Contents



Acknowledgments ix

Gnosticism, Gnostics, and the Gnostic Bible by Marvin Meyer 1
Letting in the Light: Translating Holy Texts by Willis Barnstone 21

PART ONE: EARLY WISDOM GOSPELS 29
Introduction by Marvin Meyer 31
1. The Gospel of Thomas 43
2. The Gospel of John 70

PART TWO: LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM 105
Introduction by Marvin Meyer 107
3. The Book of Baruch by Justin 119
Sethian Literature
4. The Gospel of Judas 135
5. The Secret Book of John 155
6. The Reality of the Rulers 186
7. The Revelation of Adam 198
8. Three Forms of First Thought 209
9. The Three Steles of Seth 221
10. The Vision of the Foreigner 232
11. The Sermon of Zostrianos 235
12. The Baptismal Ceremony of the Gospel of the Egyptians 238
13. Thunder 244
14. The Letter of Peter to Philip 253
Valentinian Literature
15. The Gospel of Truth 259
16. The Gospel of Philip 277
17. The Letter to Flora by Ptolemy 319
18. Commentary on the Gospel of John by Herakleon 327
19. The Treatise on Resurrection 346
20. The Prayer of the Messenger Paul 352
21. Valentinian Liturgical Readings 355
22. The Secret Book of James 360
23. The Round Dance of the Cross 371
Thomas and Other Syrian Literature
24. The Songs of Solomon 377
25. The Song of the Pearl 406
26. The Book of Thomas 415
Additional Literature of Gnostic Wisdom
27. The Exegesis on the Soul 425
28. On the Origin of the World 434
29. The Paraphrase of Shem 458
30. The Second Treatise of the Great Seth 485
31. The Gospel of Mary 497
32. The Naassene Sermon 502

PART THREE: HERMETIC LITERATURE 515
Introduction by Willis Barnstone 517
33. Poimandres 522
34. The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth 532
35. The Prayer of Thanksgiving 541

PART FOUR: MANDAEAN LITERATURE 545
Introduction by Nathaniel Deutsch 547
36. The Ginza 556
37. Hibil’s Lament from the Book of John 575
38. Songs from the Mandaean Liturgy 581

PART FIVE: MANICHAEAN LITERATURE 587
Introduction by Paul Mirecki 589
39. On the Origin of His Body 601
40. The Story of the Death of Mani 613
41. Kephalaia 618
42. The Coptic Manichaean Songbook 636
43. Parthian Songs 659
44. The Great Song to Mani 667

PART SIX: ISLAMIC MYSTICAL LITERATURE 675
Introduction by Marvin Meyer 677
45. The Mother of Books 685

PART SEVEN: CATHAR LITERATURE 747
Introduction by Willis Barnstone 749
46. The Gospel of the Secret Supper 760
47. The Book of the Two Principles 771
48. A Nun’s Sermon 782

Epilogue: Historical Meditation on the Inner Light of Gnosis by Willis Barnstone 785
Glossary 821
Bibliography
Further Reading 841
Sources Cited 855
Index of Proper Names 869

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