The Gospel of the Truth () is one of the
Gnostic
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
texts from the
New Testament apocrypha
The New Testament apocrypha (singular apocryphon) are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings were cit ...
found in the
Nag Hammadi
Nag Hammadi ( ; ar, نجع حمادى ) is a city in Upper Egypt.
It is located on the west bank of the Nile in the Qena Governorate, about north-west of Luxor. It had a population of close to 43,000 .
History
The town of Nag Hammadi is name ...
codices
The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
("NHC"). It exists in two
Coptic
Coptic may refer to:
Afro-Asia
* Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya
* Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century
* Coptic alphabet ...
translations, a
Subakhmimic rendition surviving almost in full in the first Nag Hammadi codex (the "
Jung Codex
The Nag Hammadi library (also known as the " Chenoboskion Manuscripts" and the "Gnostic Gospels") is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945.
Thirteen leather-bound papyru ...
") and a
Sahidic
Coptic (Bohairic Coptic: , ) is a language family of closely related dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Egyptian language, and historically spoken by the Copts, starting from the third-century AD in Roman Egypt. Coptic w ...
in fragments in the twelfth codex.
History
The Gospel of Truth is not titled but the name for the work is from the first three words of the text, it may have been written in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
between 140 and 180 by
Valentinian Gnostics
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
(or, as some posit, by
Valentinus himself).
It was known to
Irenaeus of Lyons
Irenaeus (; grc-gre, Εἰρηναῖος ''Eirēnaios''; c. 130 – c. 202 AD) was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the deve ...
, who objected to its Gnostic content and declared it
heresy
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
. Irenaeus declares it one of the works of the disciples of "Valentinius", and the similarity of the work to others thought to be by Valentinus and his followers has made many scholars agree.
But the followers of Valentinus, putting away all fear, bring forward their own compositions and boast that they have more Gospels than really exist. Indeed their audacity has gone so far that they entitle their recent composition the Gospel of Truth, though it agrees in nothing with the Gospels of the apostles, and so no Gospel of theirs is free from blasphemy. For if what they produce is the Gospel of Truth, and is different from those the apostles handed down to us, those who care to can learn how it can be shown from the Scriptures themselves that hen
Hen commonly refers to a female animal: a female chicken, other gallinaceous bird, any type of bird in general, or a lobster. It is also a slang term for a woman.
Hen or Hens may also refer to:
Places Norway
*Hen, Buskerud, a village in Ringer ...
what is handed down from the apostles is not the Gospel of Truth.
Other scholars have argued for a fourth century composition for the book we now have.
After its Coptic translations and their burial at Nag Hammadi, the text had been lost until the Nag Hammadi discovery.
Style
The text is written with strong poetic skill (notable even in translation), and includes a heavily cyclical presentation of themes. It is not a "gospel" in the sense of an account of the works of
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
of
Nazareth
Nazareth ( ; ar, النَّاصِرَة, ''an-Nāṣira''; he, נָצְרַת, ''Nāṣəraṯ''; arc, ܢܨܪܬ, ''Naṣrath'') is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel". In ...
, but is better understood as a
homily
A homily (from Greek ὁμιλία, ''homilía'') is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture, giving the "public explanation of a sacred doctrine" or text. The works of Origen and John Chrysostom (known as Paschal Homily) are considered ex ...
. The text is generally considered by scholars one of the best written texts in the whole Nag Hammadi collection, considering its worth highly as both a great literary work and a gnostic
exegesis
Exegesis ( ; from the Ancient Greek, Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation (logic), interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Bible, Biblical works. In modern usage, ...
on several gospels, canonical and otherwise. The ideas expressed deviate from the views of
Valentinian gnosticism.
The writing is thought to cite or allude to the New Testament Gospels of
Matthew
Matthew may refer to:
* Matthew (given name)
* Matthew (surname)
* ''Matthew'' (ship), the replica of the ship sailed by John Cabot in 1497
* ''Matthew'' (album), a 2000 album by rapper Kool Keith
* Matthew (elm cultivar), a cultivar of the Ch ...
and
John
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Secon ...
, as well as
1 and
2 Corinthians
The Second Epistle to the Corinthians is a Pauline epistle of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle and a co-author named Timothy, and is addressed to the church in Corinth and Christians in the ...
,
Galatians Galatians may refer to:
* Galatians (people)
* Epistle to the Galatians, a book of the New Testament
* English translation of the Greek ''Galatai'' or Latin ''Galatae'', ''Galli,'' or ''Gallograeci'' to refer to either the Galatians or the Gauls in ...
,
Ephesians
The Epistle to the Ephesians is the tenth book of the New Testament. Its authorship has traditionally been attributed to Paul the Apostle but starting in 1792, this has been challenged as Deutero-Pauline, that is, pseudepigrapha written in Pau ...
,
Colossians
The Epistle to the Colossians is the twelfth book of the New Testament. It was written, according to the text, by Paul the Apostle and Timothy, and addressed to the church in Colossae, a small Phrygian city near Laodicea and approximately fr ...
,
Hebrews
The terms ''Hebrews'' (Hebrew: / , Modern: ' / ', Tiberian: ' / '; ISO 259-3: ' / ') and ''Hebrew people'' are mostly considered synonymous with the Semitic-speaking Israelites, especially in the pre-monarchic period when they were still no ...
,
1 John and the
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of R ...
. It cites John's Gospel the most often. It is also influenced by the
Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel of Thomas (also known as the Coptic Gospel of Thomas) is an extra-canonical Logia, sayings gospel. It was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945 among a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library. Scholars specu ...
; for instance at one point (22:13-19) it cites John 3:8 alongside Thomas 28.
Content
The text says that ignorance caused the formation of the world by the
aeon
The word aeon , also spelled eon (in American and Australian English), originally meant "life", "vital force" or "being", "generation" or "a period of time", though it tended to be translated as "age" in the sense of "ages", "forever", "timele ...
s. It then describes
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
as having been sent down by God to remove ignorance from humans and the aeons, to perfect them and restore union with the Father and correct the error that was the creation of the world.
Jesus was a teacher confounding the other
scribe
A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing.
The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...
s and teachers, and asserted they were foolish since they tried to understand the world by analyzing the law. But Error grew angry at this, and nailed Jesus to a cross. It also proceeds to describe how it is knowledge of the father that grants salvation, which constitutes eternal rest, describing ignorance as a nightmare.
Having next described the parable of the good shepherd, in an esoteric manner, it then describes how feeding the hungry and giving rest to the weary is to be understood as feeding spiritual hunger, and resting the world weary.
This is followed by a parable about anointing, the meaning of which is obscure, but may be connected with the way in which a sealed amphora meant it was full, a metaphor for knowledge - having the final "seal" in the jigsaw and one understands, but without it, the scraps of understanding that one has put together can still be easily undone:
But those whom he has anointed are the ones who have become perfect. For full jars are the ones that are usually anointed. But when the anointing of one (jar) is dissolved, it is emptied, and the reason for there being a deficiency is the thing by which its ointment goes. For at that time a breath draws it, a thing in the power of that which is with it. But from him who has no deficiency, no seal is removed, nor is anything emptied, but what he lacks, the perfect Father fills again.
Aside from a final description of achieving rest by gnosis, the remainder of the text concerns a treatise on the connection between the relationship between the Son and the Father, and the relationship of a name to its owner. The prime example of this is the phrase it uses that ''the name of the Father is the Son'', which is to be understood in the esoteric manner that the ''Son'' is the ''name'', rather than as meaning that ''Son'' was a name for the ''Father''.
Unlike the canonical gospels, this gospel does not contain an account of Jesus' life or teaching. It does contain insights concerning the resurrected Jesus' 40-day ministry.
This gospel, like some other gnostic texts, can be interpreted as proclaiming predestination. One section states:
Relation to Valentinian fragments
Layton printed eight fragments of Valentinian literature, each being a quote which at least one of the Church Fathers claimed to take from the Valentinian corpus although none from the "Gospel of Truth". Layton further noted where the excerpts agree with one another.
"Fragment G", which
Clement of Alexandria
Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria ( grc , Κλήμης ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς; – ), was a Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen and ...
(
Stromateis 6.52.3-4) related to "On Friends", asserts that there is shared matter between Gnostic Christian material, and material found in "publicly available books"; which is the result of "the law that is written in the
uman
Uman ( uk, Умань, ; pl, Humań; yi, אומאַן) is a city located in Cherkasy Oblast in central Ukraine, to the east of Vinnytsia. Located in the historical region of the eastern Podolia, the city rests on the banks of the Umanka River ...
heart". Layton relates this to GTr 19.34 - when Jesus taught, "in their hearts appeared the living book of the living, which is written in the Father's thought and intellect". Both rely on a shared concept of pre-existent yet obscured knowledge, which emanated from the Father of the Gnostics.
"Fragment F" also comes from the
Stromateis, 4.89.1-3. Directed to the Gnostics, it calls the congregation "children of eternal life" and hopes that they will "nullify the world without being yourselves nullified". Layton relates the former to GTr 43.22 at the end of the work, which emphasises that the Gnostics are the Father's children and will live eternally. Layton relates the latter to GTr 24.20, which proposes to "nullify the realm of appearance" and then explains this as the world that lacks the Father.
The concept that fear and the lack of knowledge are connected is evident;
There is also the mentioning of an awakening brought about through the acquiring of knowledge, and the dismissal of that which is not real, namely fear. Fear is not real because it does not come from the Father. That which is not light is not from the Father, such as a tree only brings forth one fruit, the Father's only fruit is light.
The level to which these writings express the power of the "self" in the coming of knowledge, and the conflict of the innate perception that the average person is too weak, too full of misconceptions to be able to lift themselves up is addressed. The theme of the Gospels is that Christ saves only those whom the Father gives to him. The average person is not poor in spirit, but haughty, and therefore too weak to save himself without the sacrifice of God on our behalf.
Editions
English translations
* Republished in
*
*
*
*
* (Coptic and English)
See also
*
List of Gospels
A gospel (a contraction of Old English , meaning "good news/glad tidings", comparable to Greek , ) is a written account of the career and teachings of Jesus. The term originally meant the Christian message itself, but came to be used for the bo ...
References
Sources
*
*
*
{{Authority control
2nd-century Christian texts
Truth
Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs ...
Coptic literature
Nag Hammadi library
Valentinian texts