Forbidden Faith: The Secret History of Gnosticism

by Richard Smoley

Overview

The success of books such as Elaine Pagels's Gnostic Gospels and Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code proves beyond a doubt that there is a tremendous thirst today for finding the hidden truths of Christianity – truths that may have been lost or buried by institutional religion over the last two millennia.

In Forbidden Faith, Richard Smoley narrates a popular history of one such truth, the ancient esoteric religion of gnosticism, which flourished between the first and fourth centuries A.D., but whose legacy remains even today, having survived secretly throughout the ages.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060858308
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/08/2007
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

Richard Smoley was educated at Harvard and Oxford universities and was the editor of Gnosis, the award-winning journal of Western spiritual traditions. He is the co-author (with Jay Kinney) of Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner Traditions, and is the author of Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition and The Essential Nostradamus.

Read an Excerpt

Forbidden Faith

The Gnostic Legacy from the Gospels to The Da Vinci Code

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By Richard Smoley

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright ©2006 Richard Smoley
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060783397

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Chapter One

Who Were the Gnostics?

Until fairly recently, if you were to ask about the origins of Christianity, you would hear much the same story no matter whom you asked. Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, came down from heaven. He taught the apostles the true faith and commissioned them to preach the Gospel to all nations. He also founded a church and appointed the apostles as its leaders. Sometime in the second century A.D., this organization started to call itself the Catholic Church, from the Greek katholikos, or "universal." All Christian churches today are, in one way or another, its offspring.

Human nature being what it is, however, things did not always proceed so smoothly. Groups of people sprang up who introduced their own distortions into Christ's doctrine. Some said that Christians still had to observe the Jewish Law. Others said that Christ wasn't really divine. Still others said he wasn't really human.

Throughout the centuries, the church, aided by the power of the Holy Spirit, managed to face down these heretics, as they came to be called (from the Greek hairesis, or "sect"). To this day, the Christian church haspreserved Christ's teaching in its pure form, thanks to the countless Church Fathers and theologians who fended off the assaults of error.

As I say, this was the standard picture of Christian history until comparatively recently (although, of course, certain details had to be adjusted depending on which denomination was telling the story). And this is the picture in which many sincere Christians still believe. Unfortunately, as modern scholarship has discovered, it's not entirely accurate.

If you read the Gospels carefully, you will notice that Christ does not talk much about theology. He has a lot to say about ethics, about loving your neighbor, and about going to God with inner sincerity. He argues often and heatedly with scribes and Pharisees about sacrificing the spirit of the Law to the letter. But he does not argue with them about the nature of God, nor does he even say who or what he himself is. His disciples keep asking him, but he never gives them a clear answer. If you were to summarize Christ's teaching as found in the Gospels, you might turn to a verse from the prophet Micah: "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Mic. 6:8). Christ says much the same thing in the episode of the Two Great Commandments (Matt. 22:35-40; Mark 12:28-31). There's not much theology in that.

This was the heart of Christ's teaching, and he no doubt had good reasons for stressing the things he stressed. But once Christ himself was no longer on the scene, his disciples began to teach his message in their own ways, and these ways soon began to diverge. Some stayed close to the Jewish religion; others moved away from it. You can see this in the New Testament, where Paul quarrels with the church leaders over whether Gentile converts need to follow the Mosaic Law. (The dispute is described both in Acts and in Paul's letter to the Galatians. Acts makes the whole affair sound considerably more peaceful and dignified than Paul does: Acts 15:1-31; Gal. 2:1-16.) There were other differences as well. Some emphasized a more external faith; others saw Christ's teaching in a more mystical light.

By the second century A.D., if you were to take a look at the Christian community in the Roman Empire, you would undoubtedly find a number of different, often conflicting, groups who understood the master's teaching in various ways. Some would see Jesus as a great spiritual master and nothing more. Some would resemble early versions of the Catholic or Orthodox churches today, with bishops and sacraments; others would probably look more like philosophical study groups or mystical schools. And although it would be far from true to say that these different bodies lived in perfect harmony, none of them had any special privileges, and so they all had to coexist. This picture would change radically only in the fourth century A.D., when the emperor Constantine first legalized Christianity and then began to turn it into the state religion of the Roman Empire. At this point the proto-Catholic Church -- which was previously only one strain of the Christian tradition -- consolidated its power by suppressing its Christian as well as its pagan rivals.

Christian history is, as a result, a sad and often heartbreaking story, where great Church Fathers (some of them later canonized as saints) heaped anathemas upon alleged heretics over points of doctrine that Christ and his disciples would in all likelihood neither have cared about nor even understood. At the same time the essential teaching of Christ -- to "love thy neighbor as thyself" -- was often sacrificed to this doctrinal squabbling, turning the church itself into a merciless persecutor.

The ancient Gnostics were one of those lost strains of Christianity. Who were the Gnostics, and what were they like? This isn't always easy to figure out, because much of the material we have about them comes from Church Fathers who were writing anti-Gnostic polemics. We are thus somewhat in the position of a future historian who would have to piece together a Democratic Party platform using only Republican campaign commercials as sources (or vice versa).

Fortunately, the situation has improved of late, thanks to the discovery of Gnostic texts at various archaeological sites in the Middle East over the last century. The most celebrated of these took place at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945. Two peasants, digging for fertilizer, unearthed a cache of scriptures, many of them previously unknown, that cast an entirely new light on Gnostic teachings. This discovery is so important that it in itself is one of the main reasons for the resurgent interest in Gnosticism. The Nag Hammadi texts were written by different authors at different times and represent the views of a number of sects and teachers. But they still offer an extremely valuable window onto a tradition that had previously been known mainly through the words of its enemies.

Continues...

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Excerpted from Forbidden Faith by Richard Smoley Copyright ©2006 by Richard Smoley. Excerpted by permission.
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Editorial Reviews

[A] clear, concise primer... a wide, clear path to understanding Gnosticism, accessible even by the weekend seeker.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A compelling and accessible argument. A thoroughly enjoyable read; highly recommended for all libraries with strong religious collections.” — Library Journal

“If you are interested in the appeal of these popular manifestations of Gnosticism, Smoley is certainly your best guide.” — Spirituality and Health magazine

From the Publisher

If you are interested in the appeal of these popular manifestations of Gnosticism, Smoley is certainly your best guide.

Spirituality and Health magazine

"If you are interested in the appeal of these popular manifestations of Gnosticism, Smoley is certainly your best guide."

Spirituality and Health Magazine

If you are interested in the appeal of these popular manifestations of Gnosticism, Smoley is certainly your best guide.

Spirituality & Health magazine

Tackling the perplexing, if not esoteric, topic of Gnosticism has proved a daunting challenge for most who have tried to introduce it to the general reading public. Not so for Smoley, former editor of the journal Gnosis. This clear, concise (albeit cursory in spots) primer traces the Gnostic threads of philosophy, religion, science and popular culture from their biblical references through to their 21st-century appearances in novels and film. Moving easily from one century to the next while at the same time connecting them to each other, Smoley is at once thoughtful and thought-provoking, suggesting that if the history of the Gnostic legacy were a drama, he'd script it in two acts, divided between the "rise and fall of the great dualist heresy... [and]... the entrance of Kabbalah" into Western heritage. Beside the usual examples of the Gospel of Thomas, the Cathars, Rosicrucians and Masons, he resuscitates Manichaeism and Hesychasm. He highlights not only William Blake and Carl Jung, but Theosophy maven Helena Blavatsky, German philosopher Eric Voegelin and, surprisingly, literary critic Harold Bloom. Throughout, Smoley reinforces that Gnosticism is, and always has been, here to stay. He paves a wide, clear path to understanding it, accessible even to the weekend seeker. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

In his latest work, Smoley (former editor, Gnosis; Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner Traditions) provides a popularized history of the ancient, esoteric religion known as Gnosticism. Drawing on an impressive mastery of the subject matter, he traces Gnosticism from the first century C.E. to the present. High points include a discussion of the lost religion of Manichaeism (a precursor to Gnosticism) and of how Gnosticism may have influenced Judaism and early Christianity. Smoley concludes by arguing that Gnosticism should be placed on the same level as institutionalized religion and science. Though orthodox theists and scientists may disagree, he presents a compelling and accessible argument. A thoroughly enjoyable read; highly recommended for all libraries with strong religious collections. [The publication of Forbidden Faith is timed in conjunction with the May 19 theatrical release of The Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks.-Ed.]-Brad S. Matthies, Butler Univ. Lib., Indianapolis Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Forbidden faith . . . in what? A look at the elusive legacy of Gnosticism and its mystical counterparts. In his sometimes disjointed narrative, Smoley (Inner Christianity, 2002, etc.) launches from the Da Vinci Code platform to introduce Gnosticism to the general public. His first chapter does a capable job of depicting Gnosticism as it's known from Christianity's early history. The author describes it as a belief aimed at gnosis (spiritual enlightenment) rather than at salvation. Heavily influenced by Plato and Eastern philosophies, Gnostics painted a far different picture of the creation and of Jesus than that taught by what Smoley calls "proto-Catholics." Hence, the creed was slowly but viciously beaten out of existence by the official church. Much of the rest of the book discusses people and systems of thought only tangentially connected to Gnosticism, including Manichaeism, Catharism and Rosicrucianism. The Kabbalah often seems to be more of a unifying thread in these pages than Gnosticism; indeed, Smoley admits that some of the connections he forms are "oblique." Though much of it is interesting, the reader often tends to wonder what this actually has to do with the Gnostics. He returns more fully to his topic in the concluding paragraphs, which explore the historical and social implications of renewed interest in Gnosticism over the past several decades. Though it influenced a wide range of intellectuals, from William Blake to Karl Jung, Gnosticism did not enter modern popular consciousness until the 1970s. The archaeological recovery and publication of the Nag Hammadi texts, coincident with the emergence of New Age thought, feminism and similar movements, prepared the groundworkfor a Gnostic resurgence. This has led, directly or indirectly, to such cultural expressions as The Matrix and The Da Vinci Code. More an exploration of gnosis itself than of Gnosticism the religion.

Kirkus Reviews