The excitement surrounding the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls overshadowed two other momentous discoveries which, unlike the Scrolls, penetrate to the core of Christianity. Ancient manuscripts exhumed in the Near East often pass through many clandestine hands - always for a price - before entering the public arena. Their origins may never be known, and their place of burial may be obliterated forever. Occasionally, however, careful sleuthing provides clues. The Dead Sea Scrolls were apparently discovered in 1947 by a shepherd boy in a cave high above the Dead Sea near ancient Qumran. They were sealed in earthen jars by the inhabitants of that isolated community in about 68 A.D. when the Tenth Roman Legion entered the area to suppress the First Jewish Revolt. The ascetic brotherhood of Qumran was probably Essene and philosophically related to the Therapeutae.

In the same year the first part of a large Coptic Gnostic library was discovered in Egypt. eventually thirteen codices were recovered, containing forty-nine manuscripts. While some of them were previously known, at least in part, they presented a panorama of Gnostic teaching which brilliantly illumines the early evolution of Christianity. Apparently they were found in an earthen jar in a grave near Nag Hammadi about sixty miles from Luxor. In the mountain Gebel el-Tarif are seven tombs of Sixth Dynasty pharaonic princes. Here the ascetic Palaemon taught Pachomius, who in turn founded the order of Coptic monasticism which spread throughout Egypt. Here also the Greek-named (Diospolis Parva) ancient Egyptian city of Hiw (or Hu) flourished as capital of Upper Egypt, across the Nile from Sheneset (‘the acacias of Seth'), which became Chenoboskion and later Nag Hammadi. The stern ascetic Fathers vigorously purged every pagan vestige from this area, but Gnostic 'heresies' sprang up with equal strength. The grave in which the Gnostic library was found had been dug in the fourth century, after the abandonment of Nag Hammadi by Christian monasticism. One of the documents in this collection is the Gospel According to Thomas.

Eleven years after these discoveries, in 1958, Morton Smith was looking through the library of the oldest Christian monastery still in use, Mar Saba, situated in a Dead Sea wadi about fifteen miles from Qumran. In the back of Isaac Voss' 1646 edition of the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, he found a letter of Clement of Alexandria. It is the only known extant letter of Clement, and it refers to and quotes from the Secret Gospel of Mark.

Gnostic schools - only a few of which used the appellation - held that the redemption of humanity is possible only through gnosis or knowledge of reality. Gnosis in its philosophical meaning is 'enlightenment,' the full intuitive awakening of consciousness to its spiritual origin and source. Jesus and others had the gnosis and freely imparted it to those who were ready, but many who heard did not understand because their minds were beclouded by agnosia or ignorance. While the details of Gnostic cosmogony vary with the school, there is an underlying unity of thought. The Ever-Hidden Deity - deus absconditus - radiates pleroma, the divine, perfect and archetypal fullness. Within pleroma a hierarchical sequence of primordial polarities emerge. These intelligent potencies, syzygies, give rise to the manifest universe. Potential spirit and matter manifest as pneuma and hyle. In some systems, aeons and archons preside over the successively emerging planes of being, each more differentiated than its parent. The aeons are the intelligent centres of spiritual force which link planes of being with pleroma, while the archons preside over their material evolution. Being ignorant of their own glorious origin, they look away from the divine. Gnostics familiar with Judeo-Christian scriptures taught that the stern and jealous God Jehovah is the lowest archon, presiding over the psycho-physical world. The Father in the teachings of Jesus, they held, is not this archon, but the divine source of the pleroma itself, the unmanifest Cause. Man, as a self-conscious being, must choose between them, since psyche, self-consciousness, links them together. If psyche identifies with the perishable physical man, it becomes more deeply enmeshed in matter, a divine luminous spark locked in a prison of darkness. But if psyche identifies with its pneumatic Self, man gains gnosis and is redeemed through self-consciously entering the divine pleroma. Redemption is the total transformation of man from an ephemeral being into an immortal spiritual entity, a living temple of the Christos. In the words of Paul, all men of gnosis

... have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him who created him: where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christos is all, and in all.

Colossians, 3:10-11

The universal Gnostic vision, united in aim and spirit with the authentic Mysteries of every age and culture, was eventually lost by the church. Gnosis - difficult to achieve but infinitely valuable - was displaced by sacrament - easy to obtain from priests for a price. The early Church Fathers treated the Gnostics as heretics, accusing them of a demonic inversion of orthodoxy and perversion of Christian rites. The Gnostics, however, arose in ancient times and only later became associated with Christian heresies. Scholars have been unwilling to trace their ultimate origins on the ground that the empirical evidence is conflicting and fragmentary. Some say the Gnostics were derived from the Iranian fire mysteries. Zoroastrians influenced the Jews during the Babylonian captivity to the extent that Cyrus the Great, a Zoroastrian, is called the shepherd of God in the Old Testament. The Gnostic language of light and darkness, the teaching of the Unnameable Father, and the cosmic significance of human conduct have affinities with oriental religious philosophy.

The Hellenic concern with the Hermetic channels between the divine and human realms, the deific personifications and the inner temple mysteries are equally reflected in Gnostic doctrine. The early Kabbalah - especially the Sephirothal Tree - and the Essene affirmation of the Teachers of Righteousness are closely related to the Gnostic hierarchy of wisdom as told in the wanderings of Sophia. Gnosticism embraced a broad association of groups, each gathered around a Teacher who had attained some insight into gnosis. They recognized one another by the spirit of their doctrines and life rather than through the comparison of catechisms. Gnosis as a state entails preparation, purgation and purification including self-restraint in mind and body and the cultivation of the spiritual will. As knowledge, it is transmitted within the sanctified secrecy of the relationship of Teacher and disciple. When the disciple has become like a clear, smooth receptive mirror, the Wisdom-light which radiates through the Teacher shines upon him and fills him with light. Earned on the one hand and granted on the other, the gnosis of disciple and Teacher is subsumed in the irreversible law of spiritual transmission. With the emergence of Christianity, Gnostics within and without the church naturally adopted the clothing of Christian language, tailored to their own conceptions, which they held were those of the great Gnostic Teacher Jesus. Seven centuries later, the pre-Islamic Sufis would similarly adopt the language and outer form of Islam.

The Gnostic mysteries were an embarrassment to the church, for it wished to win over the uncultured masses on the one hand and become a political force on the other. Its bid for popularity and power left little room for a doctrine of truth through renunciation, universal love and mutual toleration. The desire to be influential in the world prevented its bishops from taking up the quiet and arduous path of inner transformation. By the time of Clement of Alexandria (d. 203 A.D.), the tension between those who knew or at least sensed the mysteries, and those who were building a new empire, had become severe. Clement was torn between loyalty to the small core of Initiates and an attraction to making converts in vast numbers. He could not bring himself to risk losing either. Hence, he could neither stem the tide against Christian gnosis nor wholeheartedly give himself to dogma. His vacillation cost him both Gnostic support and posthumous Christian sainthood.

The church's claim to be the unique possessor and guardian of wisdom was utterly unacceptable to Gnostics within and outside its fold. This insult to the beneficence of Nature and blasphemy against the sacred names of Masters of Wisdom in every race and time were vigorously challenged by the Gnostic movement. The church declared Gnostics heretics and embarked on a program to revise history to suit its purposes. It took the costumes of the Vestal Virgins and the title of their head - Pontifex Maximus - along with the Egyptian Madonna and Child - Isis and Horus - and the Mithraic communion, only to disfigure them all and proffer them as original sacramental mysteries. By the end of the third century, Gnostic movements had mostly dispersed, though their teachings persisted through history like a thorn in the papal paw - Manichaeism in Byzantium, Paulicians in Rome, the Albigenses in France. While its vivifying and ameliorating effect was shunned and lost by the church, the torch of gnosis was never allowed to burn out.

At the turn of the century, researchers sifting the soil of the once great city of Oxyrhynchus[JP2] in the Middle Nile Valley of Upper Egypt uncovered numerous fragments of papyrus. Three of the Oxyrhynchus papyri contain logia (sayings) of Jesus not found in the canonical gospels. Some scholars suspected that these fragments belonged to one collection passed down outside the canon. The discovery of the Gospel According to Thomas revealed the source of these logia.

A fascinating portrait of Thomas emerges from these and other extra-canonical documents. Tradition calls him Didymus Judas Thomas, the twin brother of Jesus as well as his most intimate disciple. After Jesus departed from the world and the disciples spread out in every direction to bring the gospel - the 'good news' - to humanity, Thomas went to India. Today, the St. Thomas Christians, an Indian church, trace their origins back to Thomas.

'Doubting' Thomas is often thought of as the weakest of the disciples because he questioned whether the being who appeared to the disciples after the resurrection was Jesus.

But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

John, 20:24-25

Eight days later he had the opportunity to do so. The Gnostic documents do not portray a vacillating Thomas. Rather, he is initiated into the Mysteries by Jesus as a spiritual companion. Presumably his 'doubt' is the insistence on seeing firsthand the marks of the Initiate, symbolically given as the wounds suffered in the crucifixion.

The Gospel According to Thomas begins: "These are the secret words spoken by the Living Jesus and recorded by Didymus Judas Thomas." The word 'Living' in Gnostic literature refers to Jesus after the resurrection, that is, after the three days in the tomb. The story of the crucifixion, entombment and resurrection of Jesus is the story of sacred initiation.

Jesus the Chréstos became Jesus the Christos. H.P. Blavatsky wrote, "Chréstos was the lonely traveller journeying on to reach the ultimate goal through that 'Path,' which goal was Christos, the glorified Spirit of 'TRUTH,' the reunion with which makes the soul (the Son) ONE with the (Father) Spirit." In language to which every ancient Gnostic would assent, she adds:

Christos is the crown of glory of the suffering Chréstos of the mysteries, as of the candidate to the final UNION, of whatever race and creed. To the true follower of the SPIRIT OF TRUTH, it matters little, therefore, whether Jesus, as man and Chréstos, lived during the era called Christian, or before, or never lived at all. The Adepts, who lived and died for humanity, have existed in many and all the ages, and many were the good and holy men in antiquity who bore the surname or title of Chréstos before Jesus of Nazareth, otherwise Jesus (or Jehoshua) Ben Pandira was born. Therefore, one may be permitted to conclude, with good reason, that Jesus, or Jehoshua, was like Socrates, like Phocian, like Theodorus, and so many others surnamed Chrestos, i.e., the 'good, the excellent,' the gentle, and the holy Initiate, who showed the 'way' to the Christos condition, and thus became himself 'the Way' in the hearts of his enthusiastic admirers.

The Gospel According to Thomas is one of several writings found at Nag Hammadi in which Jesus and his disciples appear. Like the Wisdom of Jesus, the Apocryphon of John and the Gospel of Philip, it constitutes a bridge between the canonical gospels, proffered as the basis of orthodoxy, and those Gnostic works which do not consider Jesus and his disciples. In the Gospel According to Thomas, two themes are threaded through one central event. There is frequent reference in the logia to Light, suggesting an ontology common to all Gnostics, and numerous analogies are drawn to illustrate the meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven, a concept found in the canon and in Essene documents. In the midst of his explication of these two themes, Jesus initiates Thomas.

Light is the manifest veil which covers the Hidden Deity in every religious tradition. Light is the first period ('day') of creation in Genesis. The Egyptian Atum is the first bubble of light in Infinite Darkness. It divides itself into two halves - Shu and Tefnut, Life and Order - just as the Hindu Brahma arises as Hiranyagarbha, the effulgent Golden Egg, to emit Vach and Viraj, the creative and archetypal sides of Nature. "In the beginning was the Word," John wrote, "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Logos (Word) emerges from Darkness and is Light. "And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not," for the Hidden Deity stands out of all to manifestation. Atum is life, light, substance and consciousness, according to the Egyptians, while John said, "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." The highest Logoic radiance is in every human being though it is unperceived. Hence Jesus says in the Gospel According to Thomas (logion 50), "If you are asked your origins, answer: 'We have come out of the Light where the Light came of itself.' ”

When Jesus asked his disciples to compare him with someone, Simon Peter likened him to an angel and Matthew to a philosopher. But Thomas said that he could not make any comparison. Jesus responded, "You have drunk from the bubbling fountain which I brought" (logion 13) and took Thomas aside from the other disciples. He gave Thomas three words of great potency - mantrams. In this initiation lies the key to the unique position of Thomas in Gnostic literature: Jesus transmitted the gnosis to Thomas who had demonstrated himself worthy of it.

Clement's letter to Theodore on the Secret Gospel of Mark is suggestive in this regard. Theodore had heard rumours of a secret gospel and made inquiries. In response, Clement explained that Mark had come to Alexandria and while there had added to his gospel "the things suitable to whatever makes for progress toward gnosis." When Mark was dying, "he left his composition to the church in Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries." After noting some of the erroneous impressions garnered by Theodore, Clement quotes a passage from the Secret Gospel reminiscent of John's story of the raising of Lazarus.

And they came into Bethany, and a certain woman, whose brother had died, was there. She came and prostrated herself before Jesus and said to him, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and at once a great cry was heard from the tomb. Going near, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. Immediately going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. The youth, looking upon Jesus, loved him, and began to beseech him that he might be with him. Leaving the tomb, they entered the house of the youth - who was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do: in the evening the youth came to him, wearing only a linen cloth over his nudity. He remained with Jesus that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God.

According to Clement of Alexandria, the mystery of Initiation, preserved in the Gnostic sanctuaries until their destruction by bigoted orthodoxy, can be traced directly to Jesus. The esoteric Christianity of the Gnostics was the vital core of the teachings of Jesus.

For the Gnostic, as for Clement of Alexandria, who "was an Initiate, a new Platonist, before he became a Christian, "the Kingdom of Heaven is not an eschatological promise fulfilled for the blind believer ritualistically redeemed only after death: rather it is a present reality which can be witnessed by the purified and prepared consciousness. The Kingdom of Heaven is the self-conscious abiding in the realization of the Light in which we live and move and have our being. It ever was, is, and will be. Jesus says, "The Sanctuary you expect is here, although you cannot recognize it" (logion 51), and "the Kingdom of the Father is spread throughout the earth and no man sees it" (logion 113). The Gospel According to Thomas invites us to seek it within, to enter into it, and to offer it to all humanity.

Words can merely clothe the ideas, but no number of words can convey an idea to one who is incapable of perceiving it. Every one of us has within him the latent capacity or a sense dormant in us which can take cognisance of Abstract Truth, although the development of that sense or, more correctly speaking, the assimilation of our intellect with that higher sense, may vary in different persons, according to circumstances, education and discipline. That higher sense which is the potential capacity of every human being is in eternal contact with Reality, and every one of us has experienced moments when, being for the time en rapport with that higher sense, we realise the eternal verities. The sole question is how to focalise ourselves entirely in that higher sense.

Damodar K. Mavalankar