The beginning was rediscovered in some manuscript from Nag Hammadi. The most important of which may have been the one known as "The Apochryphon of John." This John is supposedly the same as the John of the Biblical book called "The Gospel according to John." In Nag Hammadi was found theological and philosophical material which comes from Greek and Egyptian and other unknown sources. Experts look at this material and it is readily recognized from early writings by the Christian Church. They say: "Oh yeah, this was the material which St. Irenaeus refuted in `Against Heresies' back in about 186 AD" "It was wrong then so it is wrong today!"
Before I go on it is best that we have a brief look at this Irenaeus. He was one of the prime fathers of today's Christian Church, a Bishop in the now French city of Lyon and a disciple of another prominent founder of the Church named Polykarp. The writings of Irenaeus is of a remarkable length considering the amount of time it took to write back in the days of feathered writing. He wrote and wrote, he said very little, and yet filled pages with incomplete concepts and refutations of something which was a belief by others as he thought those others saw it. When we today have read ancient records, it is abundantly clear that what he proved to be false was something entirely different than what people of the Gnostic faith believed in.
Today's experts state Irenaeus must have refuted something different than what was found at Nag Hammadi in 1947 in order to protect his integrity. They state the scriptures of the Gnostic's must have been entirely about 400 AD from what they were at the time of Irenaeus which was 200 years earlier. The only reason they speculate in that fashion is clearly to protect the honesty of Irenaeus. I do not have this need. What was thought by Polykarp and Irenaeus was entirely different from others of the same time, such as Clement of Alexandria. The only reason the church even mentions these so called saints is because of their refutation of the Gnostics. I vehemently oppose a refutation of a philosophy by clouding the issue in order to protect one's own interests. The arguments posed by Irenaeus to disgrace the Gnostic teachings are outrageous. The only thing he accomplished was to falsify a teaching he himself was incapable of understanding.
In chapter 29 of his second book Irenaeus refutes the document called "The Apochryphon of John" and the imagination must really be employed to call this a refutation. What it really demonstrates is the fact Irenaeus was incapable of understanding a deeper philosophical truth than what he could feel and see with his eyes. He also refuted the "Heretic" idea that Jesus preached for only about a year. As proof Irenaeus sites John 8:57, "Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?" Irenaeus states this is improper for if Jesus was not yet forty it would have stated "How could you who is not yet forty years old have seen Abraham?" This because he states as a fact that the Jews would have checked the public records and known how old he was. This type of "Proof" is employed throughout the entire "Against Heresies." The only thing which is made abundantly clear for anyone who reads "Against Heresies" without a preconceived notion is that Irenaeus only refutes the soundness of current Christian ideologies.
Irenaeus asserts Jesus was alive until the time of Trajan. Trajan's reign commenced 98 C.E. which would have made Jesus over a hundred years old if he was over forty before his crucifixion. His crucifixion at the hands of Pontius Pilate could not have been any later than 36 C.E. If Jesus was over forty then, and we add the 62 years until the reign of Trajan the question would be how much over one hundred Irenaeus believed Jesus was. His reporting of the facts which he is supposed to know since he was a Bishop of the Christian church can be seen to reflect the accuracy with which he reports on the Gnostic's whom he does not know, since he had not been taught the Gnostic philosophies. His account of the Gnostic's is so extensive that ignorance of what the documents stated can not be employed as an excuse. He smears the Gnostic system with false accusations and gross lies. The idea he refuted the Gnostic theologies is an insult to the intelligence of anyone who has read his material and are conversant with the Gnostic material.
What Irenaeus was incapable of comprehending was the dimension where the Gnostics disclosed we came from. The Gnostics stated our home was a dimension which was entirely separate from time/space. A dimension apart from time/space is not so easy to comprehend so we can not blame Irenaeus for not understanding this. The Gnostic material was destroyed by the Christians who emerged after the Roman emperor Constantine was converted to the Christian faith a few years after Irenaeus. For this reason the Gnostic material was just not available until about 1947 when the documents were rediscovered. It took another few years from its discovery until it was released to the public and we can finally see why it was detested by certain interests.
While the material was then publicized, it was not really appreciated by the general public for what it was. We still have the doctrine prevailing among us which attempts to see everything in the light of some Hebrew Deity. While the people who studied these manuscript were objective, they missed a few important points. It is not easy to see what it really states when one is attempting to align it with preconceived notions. Many were also simply interested in shaping the material in a discreditable fashion. It will however soon become apparent why this teaching was so hated by those who desired man to be a slave to the physical universe, or three dimensional world, for all eternity. It is not that Irenaeus was the only person fighting the one's he called "heretics." It is that Irenaeus along with his teacher Polykarp are the founders of many of the erroneous concepts of what has amalgamated into the religion which today is called Christianity. Since Christianity as we know it today would also have been refuted if we were to take Irenaeus at his word, the Church does not adhere to all the concepts he thought. They just take a few of the things like his refutation of the Gnostics and believe this was God inspired. What is different, they admit this "saint" was wrong about.
There were other Gnostic fighters as well. Hippolytus was another, and we may wonder at the God inspired foresight and the wisdom of people such as that. For example, when he refutes the Gnostic teachings of Demokritus (460-370 B.C.E.). Hippolytus regards this teaching as invalid as it was not really the teachings of Demokritus. He states he got his wisdom from Egyptian priests, the Indians, and other Greeks. He says some of it is from the astrologers and magicians in Babylon.
Demokritus stated that all existing things, like the earth, the moon and the sun and stars moved as in a vacuum. And he also maintained worlds were infinite, and of different sizes. He stated there were worlds where neither sun or moon existed. Demokritus stated worlds could be destroyed by clashing one with another. Some worlds are without animals and plants, and contains no moisture. Hippolytus questions this man being a philosopher, saying Demokritus but ridiculed all things, turning all concerns of humanity into laughter. (Hippolytus knew the truth as he had 1 Enoch as his reference of how God had created all things.) Hippolytus and Irenaeus were two of the Great Christian forefathers who saved us from these "heretical" teachings. There was much more to the philosophies of Demokritus than have been mentioned here. Thanks to the religion which took over after the Roman emperor Constantine was converted to Christianity, great libraries of such heretical thinking have been lost. Most were destroyed by fires by those who desired to destroy the heretical ideas of all people. The earth was to become purified so only the teachings of the one and only `true' church would be available.
The Church is no better today. Just because they have had to relent when it comes to the recovery of some scientific knowledge they are just as repressive as they ever were. The examples are far too numerous to mention here. One example may be that telescopes at one time were illegal. They indicated moons may be traveling around other planets and all good Christians knew different a few years ago. When God made the heaven and earth he made everything revolve around the earth.
There were three Great names within Christianity just before the year 200 C.E. Irenaeus was one which already has been mentioned. He attempted to refute and destroy the teachings of another Great Christian teacher named Valentinus who lived a few years earlier. Valentinus stated that Jesus had come to free mankind from the claws of the teachings of the evil Hebrew Deity. Irenaeus revered the Hebrew Deity and this notion really got him angry. The third teacher was Clement of Alexandria. The doctrine as preached by all these three different teachers was widely different. Today, both Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria are regarded as saints of the prevailing Church, yet the Christian religion taught today is entirely different from the teachings of all of the early fathers.
Today's Christians employ some of the thoughts of Clement of Alexandria. They also employ some of the thoughts of Irenaeus, while for the most part they only employ his ideas about the Gnostics. It seems the Christians have not as yet discovered that the teachings of Clement, which are the closest to today's teachings, were also proved to be heretical after the teachings of Irenaeus. How the Christians came up with the teaching as it is portrayed today must remain a mystery. They do not follow any one of the early fathers, they have culled a little from each of them and made an incoherent hole.
Clement of Alexandria also wrote a lot about the different heretical beliefs, but for some reason it seems he entirely forgot to denounce the teachings of Valentinus. The reason for this was simply that Clement did not see the Gnostic teachings Valentinus professed to be very different from the religion as he thought it himself. The most regrettable fact is that there is not anyone today who knows what any one of them truly stated since it has all been changed so many times. The most authentic early Christian material may very well have been the material which was dug up in 1946-47 in Nag Hammadi Egypt.
I am not going to advocate the Christian Gnostics. They were not the originators of the Gnostic teachings. They held that Jesus was a Gnostic teacher and not much more than other Gnostic teachers. Gnostic documents teach the basics to understanding. Not the Christian Gnostics, but the documents of the Gnostics without the holy and the glory etc. The two most important documents which describes our origin are: "The Apochryphon of John" and "The Paraphrase of Shem."
(It may well be that we have a Soul. The one we have is not the thinking Soul yet it contains data.)
The Apochryphon of John, without the holy and great etc., describes how the thinking entity which perceives came about in clear terms. This was supposedly written by the same John who was the disciple of Jesus. This document indicates that we were not created, but came into being. Isaiah 1:14, "Your new moon and feasts my soul hates." Speaks the God. What came into being here is the Soul which the God indicates hates the new moon feasts of the Israelis and all other Canaanites. That same Soul which came into being is no different than the soul of this God. It is also the Soul which is each and every one of us. The Soul is awareness!
The "Paraphrase of Shem," tells us how the physical universe came into being. The spiritual entity who reveals this to Shem, the son of Noah, is Dardakeas. He claims to be "Son of Man" and that concept is one we will have a lot to say about later. Man was the spiritual entity, less the physical body and corrupt thinking.
Dardakeas indicates to Shem that the best thing to do is to remember the document. He states it is nearly impossible to understand it by those inhabiting a body. That was true back in those days, but not today with modern physics where it is. All that is required is to substitute a few words and the document becomes a scientific exposition on the creation of the physical universe.
The Gnostic Christians and the Christians we have today inherited, along with many other peoples, the habit of employing writings of others. They rewrote these to validate their point of view. I will, whenever possible, refer to the material and indicate where one can get more information on these subject from the sources I used. I have nothing to hide when it comes to my interpretation, and would welcome criticism and constructive contributions by anyone.
An open mind is a mind into which data is brought, analyzed in view of other data, and either rejected or accepted. But there is more to an open mind than that. An open mind is adjusted according to the validity of the data. It is not a mind where the data is adjusted to validate preconceived notions. Our incessant search for information is just as often a mere search to validate erroneous beliefs and not a search for the truth. We all believe we know the truth, or at least desire to discover a truth we can fit in with our earlier notions. But if we love the truth so much, why do we get so scared whenever someone comes up with an idea which would destroy the truth as we see it? If we desired to know real truth there would not be such a fear. If your truth has to include any one figure or philosophy or doctrine then it is not truth you desire. It is the validation of a preconceived notion.
We are always searching for information. Entire ancient cities are unearthed, great libraries of information are translated, yet we hear only a smidgen of the information. Most information is stored in material which is reserved for the "specialist" whose vested interest it is to ensure we do not become enlightened. The problem is not that these "experts" are attempting to keep us ignorant. These experts know which material is true and when they unearth material written down ages ago which contradict the truth to which they subscribe they label it false. It is of interest to the specialist only, and they keep it from us to protect us. They know what reality is, they know who God is, and what this God would have said if he spoke in material which they unearthed. The strange part is that they keep digging up material as if they already know the truth. The answer is they would not keep digging if they really knew. They believe in allegations and are searching for proof. The material they believe in is not correct thus it can never be verified. The reason they dig is to uncover material which can verify the theories they have. So they uncover information which disprove these theories and have to uncover more material to disprove those theories. What they find is not real to them because it indicates they may be mistaken. They know they can not be mistaken because they have held the same belief for millenniums. This proves they are right, they think.
The answer is of course that they are not correct. They believe alleged truths and waste enormous amounts of money and energy in an attempt to prove this knowledge they have is correct. Because the faith they have is incorrect it is of course impossible to prove. This in turn makes them dig and dig in order to get more information. Almost everything they uncover disprove their theories, this in turn means they have to unearth more material to disprove the new data they uncovered. In this fashion, will it go on in an unending circle? The only way for anyone to know the truth is to look at the material and see what it really states and drop old preconceived notions as soon as it is discovered they are wrong.
The material which today is unearthed by the scientists are not real to them since it proves they are wrong. They do not regard the possibility of an erroneous theology because they have had the same belief for two thousand years, they say. That they have stated the same thing for two thousand years is not in itself proof positive they are correct. Some people believed the earth was flat even longer than that, they were wrong. No amount of excuses will make the earth flat or the sun revolve around the earth.
Who are we to say that an existence does not influence us of which we can not today put our measuring instruments of the physical universe to use. Quantum physics tells us a reality of separate dimensions does indeed exist. In ages past people from all over the globe have insisted there is just such a dimension. They have been accrediting this to the domain of their God(s), but could this have been an error? What lies beyond the dimension we readily perceive with our senses of the physical universe? We have to realize that all our senses with the exception of our minds are of a three dimensional universe. Three dimensional measuring instruments can not detect anything of a different dimension. It can only be done with the mind. If the mind was a creation of the physical universe it would not be capable of perceiving a fourth dimension. A fourth dimension is more real than the world in which we live today. The Soul is that mind in it's purest form, and as Plato stated in vol. 6 of "The Republic":
"Understand then, that it is the same with the Soul: when it settles itself firmly in that region in which truth and real being brightly shine, it understands and knows it and has reason; but when it has no stable datum but that which is mingled with darknessthat which becomes, and then again perishesit opines, it grows dim-sighted, changing opinions back and forth, and is like someone without reason."
The Christians have for centuries attempted to make this a better place to live. Despite the fact that some of the greatest people on earth have employed the Christian doctrine in an effort to make the earth safer and better, all their efforts have come to naught. The world today is even more corrupt and there is even more criminality on the planet on a percentage basis, than there has been in any of the so-called primitive cultures which previously existed. The fact that there is more crime among society today speaks loud enough in itself: It clearly indicates the fact that the Christian society is the most primitive that ever existed.
The reason it is so bad is because we took a wrong turn along the road to serenity. The biggest documented turning point in the history of man was about two thousand years ago. At that time there were two opposing but similar doctrines fighting for supremacy. One was the Christianity which we have here today, and the other was the Christian Gnostic's. We took a wrong turn and are now on the road to oblivion. Man today sits around waiting for a so-called second coming. He has done so for two thousand years, and all that time he has known the turning point was just around the corner. The truth is a little different than that. We are supposed to sit around in oblivion staring at the walls hoping a redeemer will come along to save us in order that we will remain in the darkness. Let us reopen the files and look at the facts.
We all know it is easier to solve a problem from a distance. A person in the middle of a meddle does not have as complete a grasp of the situation as someone looking at it from afar. The other important factor today is that we now have scientific information which was not available to the people in the day of formative Christianity.
In the process of discovering the truth, we will have to touch upon many other religious concepts of the Near-Eastern thought including those of the Israelites. If the material discovered should seem cruel, it is a part of the discovery. Truth can not be perceived through colored glasses. There is in fact no cruelty in exposing erroneous concepts. Cruelty is to go along with outdated notions and erroneous beliefs in order not to upset the apple cart. No one among you would spend a lot of money to purchase any expensive item you had not examined or even seen. How can it be that when it comes to that which is most valuable of all, which is what happens to you after you leave your mortal body, you are willing to follow a feeble doctrine? Why is it some are afraid to look at the facts and hide behind excuses? If you spent the family fortune on orange groves in Alaska the loss would have been infinitesimal in comparison to the loss many now subscribe to.
The Gnostic's claimed we were hibernating in a dismal reality. A reality they stated, which was but a poor imitation of real life. They said we looked but did not see. We listened but did not hear. And then there is the question of Christ. Could he have been a teacher of Gnostic doctrines? Could it be that the new testament, none of which was written before 50 years after the death of Christ could reflect the philosophies of those who came after Christ. Did they teach in his name their own philosophies instead of his teachings. If we really are spiritual entities with an artificial Soul which the Gnostics claim; if we really are being thought an evil doctrine intent on suppressing and silencing us as the Gnostics stated, should we not try and find out? And if we really live in Hades, and by ignorance our real hell could be confinement within a black hole, as the alteration and retranslating of some Gnostic documents might indicate, I for one do not have any desire to remain ignorant for the sake of conformity. If there is any valor in lemmings following each other over a cliff, I for one do not see it. I do not wish to discover the truth millenniums down the road. If the teachings are in error, there is no teaching holy enough for me to refrain from investigating.
Let us go first to the Gnostic documents and examine their newly rediscovered philosophies in regards to theology and cosmogony. Let us see first hand what it was our Christian forefathers had to battle so arduously at the inception of their beliefs. It has been stated that since the current doctrine won back then, it is proof enough that it is the correct doctrine. That is about the same as stating that the most cruel of the bullies on a hill is the one which is correct. Let us now see who will prevail. Two thousand years is a very short span of time on the grand scheme of things.