(Author: Janus J Gluck, Vol. 68, No. 1, Pesach 2013)
A short while before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, another historic find was unearthed in 1945 near the village of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt: a batch of 12 codices containing 53 tractates of ancient texts. They are copies of some early Christian literature, some or most of which were written in or around the second century C.E. At that time, Christians still regarded themselves as the true Jews, and the codices throw additional light on the spiritual ambience of that fateful period. Consequently, the Nag Hammadi documents should be of interest not only to historians of early Christianity but also to Jews, particularly those interested in the conservative Jewish reaction to the sect of Shaul of Tarshish – St Paul.
It was the newly converted Roman Emperor Constantine the Great who, in 325 CE, forbade Christians from praying in synagogues, thus severing all ties with parent Judaism. The schism was thenceforth officially acknowledged and enforced, initiating Christian antisemitism. That was some three centuries after the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, three turbulent centuries largely ignored by the traditional Jewish sources.
What had caused that social turmoil in the Roman Empire of the period that had made life so unbearable? What had made people so desperate for succour, for a god even, that offered a hope for something better to come, be it even from beyond the grave?
The main cause of misery was economics, the utter privation brought about by Roman greed and corruption. The Roman historian Tacitus,1 no friend of the Jews and Orientals, mentioned that Syria and Judea were exhausted by the burden of taxation. Josephus, the Jewish historian of the late-First Century CE, recorded the extent of poverty and famine in Judea. He wrote, inter alia, that in years of drought, wars, plagues or calamities, the Jewish farmer had to paint the legs of one of his children white to be able to pay his taxes. (Those on the slave market had their legs painted white.)2 Another Jewish-born chronicler of the period, Philo of Alexandria, noted that taxes were exacted with such severity that villagers abandoned their homes and ran for their lives at the approach of the taxmen.3
The main taxable items were agricultural products, but there were also land taxes, poll tax, water tax, road tax, salt tax, border tax and yet others, whatever the liberal tax system closed its eyes to. The Roman treasury demanded only 2½% from the value of taxable items, but its collection was auctioned out and the highest bidder could add his commission. He, in turn, auctioned the collection to regional bidders, who auctioned it further until the last possible yield was wrung from the people. Nor were there higher authorities to which to appeal against this.
Josephus mentions a case from Gadara (a town on the border of the Golan), whose citizens sent a petition complaining against the Roman client king Herod to the Emperor Augustus during the latter’s visit to Syria. After Augustus’s refusal to see them, the members of the delegation sent were so afraid of Herod’s revenge that instead of returning home, they chose to commit suicide.4
The Romans in their vainglory coined the historic assignation of Pax Romana (Roman peace). In reality, Pax Romana survived through cruelly corrupt administrations backed by cruelly efficient military power. The obscenely rich Roman officialdom loomed large over the hard-pressed masses, especially so in the provinces, where people existed in debased conditions of absolute hopelessness.
The various modes of local worships did little to alleviate the wholesale misery of life under Roman domination. Rome knew of the reputation and respected the invisible God of the Jews but ridiculed their dietary laws, regarded circumcision as barbaric and saw Jewish exclusiveness as xenophobic. But Judaism has had another inherent element, not generally appreciated, a prophetic certitude about the coming of the Messiah who was expected to redeem Israel, and through her mankind – not only in the spiritual sense, in Heaven, but in the real terms of life down on earth. That Messiah, according to prophetic teachings, was to be a scion of David and was to come from Bethlehem, the birthplace of King David. According to Josephus,5 1st Century Judea was bustling with Messianic expectations, with a number of holy men being regarded as, or claiming to be, the Messiah. Nor were the claims about Davidic ancestry necessarily far-fetched. The Davidic families had many children in the course of the millennium since King David, and the descendants were certainly proud to remember their family history in good times and bad.
Prophets appear when prophets are expected. When Jesus of Nazareth appeared, Messianic hopes were at their highest and his followers certainly made the biggest impact on history.
The creation of myths around leaders and holy men is characteristic of religions, especially in their incipient stages, as is the spawning of endless gnostic speculations. This makes the re-consolidation of historical facts difficult, if not altogether impossible.
The fifty-odd Nag Hammadi documents reveal an unsettled state in the early Church. There seems to have existed around that time a wealth of pious literature of diverse origin and nature, most of which was declared by the Church to be heretical and as such to be destroyed. Around the 4th Century C.E. there existed a monastery at Nag Hammadi, and modern scholars presume that the codices, buried in a sealed jar, originated from its library. Credit is due to that nameless librarian who disobeyed the directive of his superiors and hid the codices instead of destroying them.
The language of the Nag Hammadi texts is Coptic, a remnant of ancient Egyptian used by the Copts, a Christian community in Egypt a few million-strong. The original tongue of these scriptures is regarded by scholars to have all been Greek, though at least one of the texts states explicitly that it was written in Hebrew.
The context of most of the books is pious speculation, such as adding details to what is told about Christ in the New Testament, or evangelizing, sermonizing and lecturing. Their general character is gnostic, claiming esoteric knowledge in the realm of spirit. The one we have chosen to cite is a part of ‘The Nature of the Rulers’, an account of the Creation but with a difference.
This book, like many of the others, is written in an epistolary form. Our text, like most of the others, was translated by a foremost scholar of the codices, Professor Marvin Meyer. We, however, have introduced a few synonyms and changed a few particles to facilitate understanding for our readers. The bracketed words are our own additions. The three dots stand for lacunae in the text.
The Nature of the Rulers6
Concerning the nature of the authorities, the great apostle, through the spirit of the Father of Truth, referred to authorities of darkness and told us that our struggle is not against fl esh and blood but against authorities of the world and spirits of wickedness. I have sent you this writing because you have asked about the real nature of [such] authorities.
The leader of the authorities is blind. In his power, of ignorance and arrogance he said, ‘I am God; there is no other but me.’”
When he said this, he sinned against [the] Almighty. This boast rose up to an anger and a voice answered from the anger said “You are wrong Samael”, which means “blind god”7 [the god of dark forces].
His thoughts were blind. He expressed his power – that is, the blasphemy he had uttered – and pursued it down to chaos and his mother the abyss, at the instigation of pistis sophia.8 She established each of his offspring according to its power, after the pattern of the eternal realms above. For the visible had originated from the invisible Angel looked down into the region of the waters. Her image appeared as a reflection in the waters and the authorities of darkness fell in love with her. But they could not grasp the image that appeared to them in the waters, for they were weak, and what is only of soul cannot grasp what is of spirit. For the authorities were from below but the image of the angel was from above.
That is why the angel looked down into that region, so that, by the Father’s will, she might bring all into union with the light.
The rulers [or ‘the authorities’/‘the gods’] made plans and said, “Come let us create a human of soil from the earth.” They formed their creature as being entirely of the earth.
These archons have bodies that are both female and male and faces that are the faces of beasts. They took soil from the earth and formed their human after their own bodies and after the image of God that had appeared to them in the water.
They said, “… let’s grasp the image by means of the form we have shaped, so that the image may see its male partner … and we may seize it with the form we have shaped.” They did not understand the power of god, because they are powerless.
He [Samael] blew into his face, and the human acquired a soul and stayed upon the ground for many days. The rulers could not make him arise, because they are powerless. Like storm winds they kept on blowing, that they might try to capture the image that appeared to them in the waters. And they did not know what power was.
All these things came to be by the will of the Father [the Almighty]
Later the spirit saw the person of soul upon the ground. The spirit came forth from the hard land. It descended and made its home within him, and that person became a living soul. And the spirit called his name Adam, since he was found moving around upon the ground.9 A voice came from the Incorruptible to help Adam. The rulers gathered all the animals of the earth and all the birds of the sky and brought them to Adam to see what Adam would call them, that he might give a name to each of the birds and all the animals.
The rulers took Adam and put him in the garden, that he might cultivate it and watch over it. They commanded him and said, “You may eat from [every] tree in the garden, but do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Do not touch it, for the day you eat from it, you will surely die.”
They [said] but they did not understand what [they said] to him. Rather, by the Father’s will, they said this in such a way that Adam might eat, and Adam might perceive them as would a completely material person.
The rulers plotted together and said, “Come let’s make a deep sleep fall upon Adam.” So Adam slept. The deep sleep they made to fall upon him, and he slept, is ignorance. They cut open his side … like a living woman. Then they repaired his side with flesh in place of her, and Adam had only a soul.
The woman of spirit came to him and spoke with him, saying, “Arise, Adam.” When he saw her, he said, “You have given me life. You will be called the Mother of the living. For she is my mother/She is a birth-giver/a woman/one who has given birth.”10
The gods approached their Adam. When they saw his female partner speaking with him, they became aroused and lusted after her. They said to each other, “Come, let’s ejaculate our semen into her,” and they chased her. But she laughed at them because of their foolishness. In their grasp she turned into a tree, and when she left for them a shadow of herself that looked like her, they defiled it sexually. They defiled the seal of her voice, and so they convicted themselves through the form they had shaped in their own image.
Then the female spiritual presence came in the shape of the serpent, the talker. The serpent taught Adam and Eve and said, “What did Samael [say to] you? Did he say, “You may eat from every tree in the garden, but do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil”?
The serpent, the talker, said, “You will not surely die, for he said this to you out of jealousy. Rather, your eyes will open and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” And the female talker was taken away from the serpent and she abandoned it as something of the earth.
The woman of flesh took from the tree and ate, and she gave to her husband as well, and thus these beings, who had only a soul, ate. Their imperfection became apparent in their ignorance. They recognised that they were stripped of the spiritual, and they took fig leaves and tied them around their naked bodies.
The leader of the gods came and said, “Where are you Adam?” For he did not know what had happened.
Adam said, “I heard your voice and was afraid because I was naked, and so I hid.”
The ruler said, “Why did you hide, unless it is because you ate from the only tree which I commanded you not to eat!”
Adam said, “The woman you gave me offered the fruit, and I ate.” And the arrogant god cursed the woman.
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” The gods turned to the serpent and cursed its shadow, [so that it was] powerless, and they did not know it was a form they themselves had shaped. From then on, the serpent was under the curse of the authorities. The curse was on the serpent until the perfect human was to come.
The gods turned to their Adam. They took him and cast him and his wife out of the garden. They have no blessing, for they are also under the curse.
The gods threw humanity into great confusion and a life of toil, so that their people might be preoccupied with things of the world and not have time to be occupied with the holy spirit.After this Eve gave birth to Cain, their son and Cain farmed the land, then Adam had sex with his wife. She became pregnant again and gave birth to Abel, and Abel was a shepherd. Cain brought in produce from his field, and Abel brought in an offering from his lambs. God looked with favor upon the offering of Abel, but he did not accept the offerings of Cain. Cain, man of flesh, pursued Abel his brother.God said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”Cain answered and said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
God said to Cain, “Listen. The voice of your brother’s blood is calling to me. You have sinned with your mouth, and it will come back to you. Whoever kills Cain will release seven vendettas, and you will live groaning and shaking upon the earth”.
Adam [had sex] with his partner Eve again. She became pregnant and bore [Seth] for Adam. She said, “I have given birth to another person through God, in place [of Abel]”.
Eve became pregnant again and gave birth of Norea. Eve said, “He has produced for me a virgin to help many human generations.” Norea is the virgin whom the forces did not defile. And humanity began to multiply and develop.
The confusion of personae and imageries is a hallmark of Gnostic literature. However, the aim of bringing the Nag Hammadi codices to Jewish attention has been historical and not to compare it to Jewish mysticism.
Our biblical story of the Creation, in this befuddled recounting by a Hellenized author and steeped in Greek mythology of major and minor gods, of divinities, angels, demons and spirits, was not accepted by the early Christian Church either. It is, however, revealing of the mystic, convoluted spiritual-intellectual milieu in which Jewish monotheism was slowly withdrawing and within which a nascent Christianity was being accommodated.
Professor Janus J Gluck is a former Head of Department of Semitics, University of South Africa.
Notes
- Annals (CE 17,) II 42:52 Josephus, Antiquities, XX, 51.
- , et pas. Wars II, 85:6
- De Legibus … III 159-62.
- Antiquities, XIV 5 Antiquities XX 162-
- , 169-72, 188. Wars II 261-3.
- Also called here below ‘Authorities’, ‘spirits’, ‘gods’ and others, with or without capitals.
- Pure Aramaic and also in post-Biblical Hebrew.
- Greek: ‘Faith’ and ‘Wisdom’.
- The author of this story was most likely a Hebrew, Phoenician or Syrian, for he knew that adama means ground. It does not mean that in either Coptic or Greek.
- There may be a play on words here, like in the Hebrew (chava) not evident in the Modern Coptic.
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