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Gnostic Interpretations of the Resurrection

William Sasso

April 11, 2004

           Have you ever encountered someone familiar, yet unknown to you? Has that interaction made a difference in your life? [Pause] If so, I ask you to hold those thoughts or recollections, as they may relate to what some early Christians considered the resurrection to mean.

On this Easter Sunday, as Christians throughout the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, I’d like to spend some time with what we might call a “minority report” on the resurrection from the early Christian Gnostics. But before launching into that topic, before beginning our exploration into the Gnostic interpretations of the resurrection, I want be take a moment to remind us all who the Gnostics were.

Who Were the Gnostics?

Perhaps not surprisingly, the answer to the question “Who were the Gnostics?” depends on who you ask. The Gnostics, not unlike Unitarian Universalists today, were somewhat hard to pin down as a religious community organized around a consistent theological position. Some Gnostics considered themselves to be Christians, and others did not. All did seem to claim access to some special, somewhat mysterious form of “knowledge” that was usually passed on through a mainly oral tradition shared with initiates who had committed themselves to that tradition. As you might suspect, the reconstruction of oral traditions guarded carefully and passed on only to initiates presents a challenging task to today’s scholars of early Christianity (working two thousand years later).

So until about sixty years ago, only a very limited amount was known about the Gnostics, and much of what was known about them was known indirectly -- not through Gnostic writings, but from the orthodox critiques of the Gnostic “heresies.” That changed in 1945 when an Arab farmer happened to find a large earthenware jar, containing thirteen papyrus books, in a cave near Naj Hammadi, Egypt. These papyrus books were soon recognized as Coptic translations of some of the early non-canonical Christian writings, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Truth, and the Gospel to the Egyptians, as well as the Secret Book of James, the Apocalypse of Paul, the Letter of Peter to Philip, and the Apocalypse of Peter [Pagels, 1979, pp. xv-xvi] . These are works by Gnostic authors, written in the late first and second century of the Common Era, that present the Gnostic perspective on Christianity. 

According to Theodotus, a second-century Gnostic teacher, a Gnostic is “one who has come to understand who we were, and what we have become; where we were . . . whither we are hastening; from what we are being released; what birth is, and what is rebirth” [Pagels, 1979, p. xix].

On the other hand, here is a more recent, and somewhat more hostile description of Gnosticism:

            Gnosticism was (and still is) a theosophy with many ingredients. Occultism and oriental mysticism became fused with astrology, magic, cabbalistic elements from the Jewish tradition, a pessimistic reading of Plato’s doctrine that [humanity’s] true home does not lie in this bodily realm, [and] above all the catalyst of the Christian understanding of redemption in Christ. A dualism of spirit and matter, mind and body, was joined with a powerful determinism . . . : the Gnostics (or “people in the know”) are the elect, their souls fragments of the divine, needing liberation from matter and the power of the planets. The [non-Gnostic] huge majority of humanity are [for the Gnostics] earthly clods for whom no hope may be entertained [Chadwick, p. 28]

 Elaine Pagels, in The Gnostic Gospels, identifies three main theological points that were common among the Gnostics, and which distinguished them from the more orthodox [Pagels, 1979, p. xx-xxi].

First, in contrast to the orthodox doctrine that a vast gulf separated humanity from God the creator, Gnostics held that “self-knowledge is knowledge of God; the self and the divine are identical” -- or at the very least they can overlap significantly.

Second, the living Jesus of the Gnostic scriptures speaks not of sin and repentance, but of knowledge and enlightenment. Jesus comes to serve as a guide to the achievement of spiritual illumination, rather than as the “Lamb of God” to be sacrificed in atonement for our sins. In this sense, we today might understand the Gnostic Jesus as more closely akin to the Buddha than to the Jewish Messiah.

Third, the orthodox saw Jesus as a unique figure in history, fully human and fully divine, at one with God the Father and thus forever completely distinct from all other humans. Yet the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, for instance, suggests that Jesus and Thomas both receive their being from the same source, and are equivalent in at least their potential. Consider the following sections of that Gospel: “Jesus said, ‘I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become drunk from the bubbling stream which I have measured out’” [Thomas, 13], and later continues “Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the mysteries will be revealed” [Thomas, 108].

So, according to Elaine Pagels, the Christian Gnostics can be considered to have espoused three heresies considered by the orthodox to be particularly troublesome: (1) the identity of the divine and the human; (2) a focus on enlightenment and overcoming illusion (rather than sin and repentance); and (3) an understanding of Jesus as a spiritual guide rather than as “Lord and Savior.”

How Did They Understand the Resurrection?

To answer the question in a single sentence, Gnostics understood the resurrection symbolically rather than literally[Pagels, p. xxxv].

And what does that mean? Well, the Gnostics interpreted the resurrection of Jesus as an encounter between Jesus and another human being, not in the physical world, but in a spiritual realm. For instance, in the Gnostic Gospel of Mary, resurrection appearances happen in dreams, in visions, or in ecstatic trances. These encounters were not dismissed as fantasy; they were treated with respect, and served as a basis for personal religious authority within the Gnostic movement [Pagels, 1979, pp. 11-12]. For the orthodox, Jesus’ resurrection was an event of the flesh, but for the Gnostics, it was a spiritual interaction.

The implication of this symbolic understanding of the resurrection is profound. It means that the resurrection has the potential to re-occur, at any time or place, to any human being. The literal resurrection could only occur at the literal place where the flesh and blood body of Jesus was buried -- it was a unique event, and once Jesus ascended to Heaven, the resurrection could not re-occur (at least not as the orthodox understood it). The Gnostic  resurrection was NOT a unique episode in history. It could -- and can -- re-occur as individuals, perhaps some in this very room, encounter the living spirit of Jesus within their psyches.

When the risen Jesus did appear, did resurrect himself to another, as the Gnostics tell it, he might not be easily recognized. He seems to have appeared either as a familiar yet unknown (and sometimes shifting) human, or else as a vision of light that spoke, a luminous presence, a literally “enlightened” voice [Pagels, 1979, p. 16]. Here are some examples of these encounters, beginning with a description from the Secret Book of John:

Immediately . . . the [heavens were opened and the whole] creation [which is] under heaven shone, and [the world] was shaken. [I was afraid, and I] saw in the light [a child] . . . while I looked, he became like an old man. And he [changed his] form again, becoming like a servant . . . I saw a[n image] with multiple forms in the light . . . 

 In the Letter of Peter to Philip, we read this description:

a great light appeared, so that the mountain shone from the sight of him who had appeared. And a voice called out to them saying “Listen . . . I am Jesus Christ, who is with you forever.” 

And from the Gospel of Philip, we learn this . . .

Jesus took them all by stealth, for he did not reveal himself in the manner [in which] he was, but in the manner in which [they would] be able to see him. He revealed himself [to them all. He revealed himself] to the great as great . . . (and) to the small as small.

 For the Gnostics, the resurrected Jesus appears to many, and he appears in forms that relate to the situation. As the Gnostic teacher Theodotus explains, “each person recognizes the Lord in his own way, not all alike” [Pagels, 1979, p. 17].

There were, of course, echoes of these Gnostic impressions of the resurrected Jesus in the canonical Christian scriptures as well. For instance, the Gospel of Luke tells how the resurrected Jesus appeared to several disciples as they made their way to Emmaus, and traveled with them, yet they only recognized him when he revealed himself to them, a story that includes two of these motifs: that of  the different human appearance and that of the shifting human embodiment. Similarly, the story of Mary Magdalene mistaking Jesus for the gardener when she seeks him at the tomb, or that of the young man dressed in bright raiment seem at least as congruent with the Gnostic treatments of the resurrection as with the orthodox ones. 

A second element often present in the Gnostic treatment of the resurrection was that of the transformation of those who experience it. For the Gnostic, an encounter with the spirit of Jesus was a life-transforming event, just as an encounter with the physically resurrected Jesus was a transformative event for the orthodox. Curiously, the most striking description of such a spiritual encounter seems to come from Paul, who, while not a Gnostic, had a life-reorganizing transformation in his encounter with the resurrected Jesus. Paul’s transformation, as described in the Acts of the Apostles (9:3-8), seems to me to typify the Gnostic resurrection experience.

 While [Paul, then called Saul,] was still on the road and nearing Damascus, suddenly a light flashed from the sky all around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Tell me, Lord,” he said, “who you are.” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you have to do.” Meanwhile the men who were traveling with him stood speechless; they heard the voice but could see no one.

 I have not had an experience like Paul’s, yet there have been times in my life where some event has caused me to re-examine an episode in my past, leading to a new understanding and sometimes a new acceptance of those past events. My father’s death, which I have spoken of here several times, is a primary example in terms of my coming to a new understanding of who I am as a person: my strengths and limitations, the connections between my strengths and my weaknesses, and the possibilities that I might grow and change as a human being. I think, too, of the endings of a few particularly significant romantic relationships, and how those experiences changed my life by extending my understanding of what commitment and relationship meant. These encounters with others have transformed me. They may actually be said, in a limited sense, to have “resurrected” my soul.

 So What Can We Learn from the Gnostics?

I believe it is fair to consider the Gnostic scriptures a “minority report” from early Christianity. As such, they demonstrate that Christianity has never been a monolithic belief system, but rather, that it has always, even in its first century, included significantly different viewpoints, different value systems, and even different “scriptures.” In today’s world with its many Christian denominations, many yearn for that simpler time when Christianity was “cut from a single cloth.” Gnosticism reminds us that there really was no such time, that even in its first century, there were segments of Christianity that understood Jesus and his teachings in a significantly different way. 

Second, like the noted Unitarian scholar James Luther Adams, the Gnostics believed that “revelation is not sealed” -- that our collective religious wisdom is intended to continue to grow and increase through the active efforts of both the individual and the spiritual community [Pagels, 1979, p. 21]. Gnosticism, like Unitarian Universalism, embodies the freedom -- with the corresponding responsibility -- to modify and extend the religious tradition that one has received in accordance with one’s experiences, intuitions, and encounters with the transcendent, although some of us might temper those sources with reason to a greater extent than we feel the Gnostics did.

And finally, the great lesson we can learn has two aspects -- the spirit of the living Jesus can come to any of us, at any time, in the appearance of anyone (or of no one). And that resurrection can transform us, can change us to our core, as Paul was changed from one of the leading persecutors of Christians to one of the greatest champions of the Christian faith. 

Elaine Pagels describes the Gnostics as “seekers” rather than “believers” [Pagels, 2003, pp. 28-29]. We often use the term “seekers” to describe ourselves. But to find that which we seek, and more importantly, to change and grow in accordance with what we find, we need to open ourselves, as individuals and as a community, to the personal and collective possibilities of rebirth and, yes, even resurrection from the dead.

Sources

Chadwick, Henry. “The Early Christian Community” in McManners, John (ed.), The Oxford History of Christianity. Oxford University Press, New York: 1990.

Gonzalez, Justo L. A History of Christian Thought: Volume I (rev. ed.). Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN: 1987.

Pagels, Elaine. The Gnostic Gospels. Vintage Books, New York: 1979.