Religion and Theology

Spiritual Discovery and Christian Orthodoxy

In the book Beyond Belief The Secret Gospel of Thomas, Pagel tussles with her own faith as she wrestles to understand the question of when and why Christianity became connected almost exclusively with the ideas codified in the early church especially in the fourth century Nicene creed as well as in the canonical texts of the new testament. The book concisely uncovers the richness and diversity of the Christian philosophy. Pagel incorporates a new scholarship that has come to light as regard who Jesus really was. Arguably, the author wants us to know what Christ meant for his follower before the dogmas and doctrines were constituted. In other word, she is concerned with the original objective of Christ before Christianity was invented by the church. This paper seeks to examine the early Christian writings both as texts and in their historical milieu to concisely unravel the complex patchwork coverlet of early Christianity in light of many gospels as well as many Christianities.

At the heart of Beyond Beliefs lies what Pagel identifies as a textual battle between the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of John. Given the fact that these two gospels share many superficial similarities, Pagel postulates that John, unlike Thomas, declares that Jesus is analogous to God the Father as evidenced in the Old Testament. On the other hand, Thomas shares a belief with other supposed secret teachings that Jesus is not God but rather a teacher who contend to unearth the divine light in all human beings (Pagel, 2003).With regard to this, Pagel shows that the gospel of John was extensively used by Bishop Irenaues of Lyon as well as others, to basically define the orthodoxy in the third century. The secret teachings were thus driven underground a factor which made them to disappear until the twentieth century. As a result, this process impoverished those that Bishop Irenaues expelled as well as the churches that remained at large.

The history of Christianity and the contemporary Christian faiths are compared in a manner whereby, the examination of Thomas, if any, leaves Christians with a new found pathway to faith through Thomas. The history of the formations of the canon of the New Testament, which basically is the official list of the New Testament, dates back in the second half of the first century (Pagel, 2003).

Towards the end of the second century majority of these books were generally agreed on but it was until the fifth century that there was great agreement on the whole. Accordingly, the council of the Roman Catholic Church convened in Trento to examine and condemn teaching of protestant reformers and in the sixth century, the mater was rested with a definitive agreement that the twenty seven books we have today are those that were inspired by God (Pagel, 2003).

It is very important to us that question of our faith, morality and relationship with others as well as with God has been the baseline of Christianity from time immemorial and therefore it is not surprising that God continues to guide Christians through infallible teachings. Without infallibility, the church would not be quite sure that the inspired books were the right one. We know that assertions have been raised for many other books in the past and thus, Pagel tries to make a case for some of these books to be considered.

The discovery of the Gospel of Thomas as well as other early Christian texts provides revealing clues of how the church invented the doctrines of Christianity. Pagel compares the Gospel of Thomas, which indicates an affinity with Kabbalah, claims to give Jesus secret teaching, with the canonical texts to virtually show how the early church deliberately chose to include certain gospels and excluded others from what is presently known as the New Testament. Pagel (2003) seeks to answer the question why during the times when Christians were being persecuted, the fathers of the church constructed a canon, creed and hierarchy, thereby suppressing many of its spiritual resources in the process. Arguably, this was in a bid to avoid conflict with religion and Roman law.

In addition, certain church leaders between the second to the fourth centuries adamantly rejected many of the religious texts as well as sources of revelation and thus constructed instead the New testament gospel of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John, which has defined Christianity up to the present day (Pagel, 2003).The Gospel of John on the other hand is of special importance in the dogma of the church and its basic tenets seem to be in sharp contrast to Thomas. For instance, as John authors, so that you may believe and have life in Jesus name, Thomas in his gospel however encourages us not to so much believe in Jesus. In other words, the gospel of John postulates that to seek to know God musty be achieved through our own divinely given capacity since all are created by God.

Pagel further underscores that John is the only evangelist who precisely states that Jesus is God incarnate. While other gospels describe Jesus as human, none of them, speaks of Jesus divinity as John does. One may object that while the other three synoptic gospels call Jesus son of God, it is virtually the same thing. However, such titles as Messiah or Son of God in the early church were designated human roles and not divine ones (Pagel, 2003).Their translations centuries later, did not account for the linguistic conventions of the Greek and thus when all the four gospels alongside St Pauls letters were united in the New testament, most Christians had to read through the synoptic gospels through the lens of John that Jesus Lord and God.

If the gospel of Thomas was included in the New Testament instead of that of John or even if it was excluded alongside that of John, Christianity would have developed quite differently. For instance, while the synoptic gospels of Mathew, Mark and Luke identify Jesus as the human agent of God, Thomas and John characterize him as Gods own light in human form (Pagel, 2003). Both gospel thus reveal to some extent the secret teachings of Jesus and resides on the assumption that Christians are already familiar with the synoptic gospels.

To recap, despite these similarities between these two gospels, Thomas and John point the secrets in sharply different direction. For instance, John claims that we can ideally experience God through the divine light embodied in Jesus while on the other hand, Thomas postulates that the divine light embodied in Jesus is already shared by humanity considering the fact that we are all created in image and Likeness of God. Thomas thus elaborates that what would become a central theme in Jewish and Christian mysticism that the image of God is evident covertly in all human beings, Christianity thus becomes a conscience of recognizing Gods hidden presence and finding it through ones own efforts. As a result, Pagel argues on what is topical today as it was nearly two thousand years ago by pulling together the details that allow us to understand not only what people were arguing about but also why they were arguing about them.