An Aberrant Gnostic

    With things getting exciting in 1957 regarding the potential discovery of A long lost "Fifth Gospel," a Catholic Biblical researcher tells the public to slow down and "pump the breaks." By slow down, I mean discount the NHL discovery and the alleged Gospel of Thomas . Famed Dead Sea Scroll researcher, Msgr. Patrick W. Skehan felt it prudent to tell the public that to "label this work the Lost Fifth Gospel is to falsify its place in history."  How so? For starters, Skehan mentions that the preliminary work and reporting of Professor Henri C. Puech regarding the NHL has nothing to do with St. Thomas.  Instead, the 43 sayings are "old chestnuts," and were sayings quoted by third century writers Origen and Clement of Alexandria.  Old chestnut, for those curious, is defined by the Google machine as a "subject, idea, or joke that been discussed or repeated so often that it is not funny any more." Ouch. Skeban also discounts the NHL as be...

  Nothing can grab a newspaper reader's attention more so than mentioning the United States dollar.  In an article titled "Egyptian Scholars in Studies of Ancient Religious Scrolls," per the The Marion Star newspaper, dated December 26, 1956, the USD is mentioned straight away.  As are all the articles from this time period in respect to this news item regarding the NHL.  What's the number, you might ask?  I'll let the Associated Press speak to it... Eleven years ago an Egyptian peasant sold for nine dollars to the son of a Coptic priest a collection of musty, unimportant-looking documents discovered in an old earthenware jar while digging for fertilizer. They may be worth a fortune. Curious that the number 911 is tucked in here, and I'm sure I could go on and on about that possible red herring, but I'm going to skip it and call it coincidence.  I do find it fascinating that the unimportant looking documents containing the The Gospel According to Thomas ...

  Logia, according to the Google machine, is a word borrowed from Latin and Ancient Greek.  It it implies communications of divine origin. Maybe it originated from the abyss, or deities, gods, monsters, aliens...who knows, but logia is communicated to someone from something .  Curious, indeed. According to an article included in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa The Gazette, dated October 9, 1956, the Nag Hammadi library is known as "Logia."  Or even more acutely, the "Sayings of Jesus."  The article returns to an early hero of the NHL saga, Professor Henri Puech, and his identification of a"Fifth Gospel of Jesus."  The Gospel is of course the Gospel of Thomas...and Puech mentions the famous opening line of said Gospel, "These hidden words which Jesus the Living spoke..."   The article further mentions that this unique set of Logia is linked to the previously discovered Logia at Oxyrhynchus, circa 1897.   The article further mentions that that when...

 In the last post, there was a discussion surrounding the mysterious obtainment of  the so-called  Jung Codex through what I can only imagine were "shady dealings."  Such is the way the world works, I guess, but at least Dr. Jung somehow managed to accumulate the collection and have his named attached to it forever more.  So what is the  Jung Codex? According to a Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky dated November 19, 1953, more details were shared with the public.  According to the article and the statements of Professor Henri-Charles Puech, the  Codex contains four texts.  They include: Gospel of Truth Apocryphal Letter of Jacobus Letter to Rheginos Treastie in the Free Natures Professor Puech is mentioned in the article as saying all four works were written by Valentinus himself.  The four works deal with the Christ's ascension, resurrection, and the outline of Valentinus system of belief...interesting. My plan is to read all four...

  Per the The Dayton Daily News of November 1953, a query on my favorite newspaper database queues up an article regarding the Jung Codex .  The article hints that one book of the NHL curiously made its way out of Egypt and into the hands of Dr. Carl Jung at his Jung Institute for Analytical Psychology.  No real details are given on how the Institute managed to obtain the copy; however, it hints that a "lengthy and somewhat bizarre negotiation" was required to obtain the leather-bound book. Jung is referenced in the article with respect to his interest in Gnosticism.  Gnosticism, as I think the article defines Jung's reference of the ancient religion, is "a process of discovering the self in response to a call of God and by doing so renewing man's lost knowledge of God and his oneness of God."  The human experience is constantly encountering problems of reality and illusion...unconscious and conscious stimulation,...symbols, dreams, and images...and the re...

  Once more, if you found this post, you don’t need a definition as to what an Archon is.  Years ago, at a very highly, highly, highly uneducated attempt to translate some original digital NHL texts online with the Google machine, my first sense of the source material was that Archons related to tax collectors.  Am I surprised that someone was bitching about tax collection in ancient Greece/Roman times?  Would I be surprised if the whole sensibility of Gnosticism was a gripe about church collection/state collection of personal funds?  Absolutely not! Money makes the world go round, and human beings love it, cherish it, and will do whatever it takes to get more of it.  If you take it away from someone…look out.   Yet, that isn’t as exciting as some other work and thoughts on Archons.  Archons being a symbol of the tax man?  George Harrison would probably agree…but let’s pretend that Gnostic thought didn’t originate as a complaint about mo...

 Roughly one week after the initial report by The Guardian , a second update was given by the newspaper regarding the Nag Hammadi Library .  Published on June 24, 1949, this article gives, what I can only imagine, a summation of what these works represent per the initial translations made by M. Dorresse at the time.  To quote the paper, the worldview of the Gnostics per the then newly translated Gnostic scriptures is that : [Gnostisicm and said scriptures] will turn out to be the product of provincial and rather humble intellectuals out of touch with the big cultural centres.  [The library] will cast light on the feelings and aspirations of educated men, small officials, merchants, and the like in the smaller towns of Egypt and the Near East during the first century BC and the first centuries AD. No mention of the documents giving hope of enlightenment or hinting at the true religion of the world...this article states that the ancient texts were simply the dreams and...