The documents from Nag Hammadi first showed up in Cairo in 1946, when Togo Mina, Director of the Coptic Museum, purchased one of the manuscripts for 250 Egyptian pounds. Mina and Jean Doresse, a French graduate student in Egyptology, thought the find was of great historical significance and worked together to reunite the rest of the collection. In 1948 the world was informed of the discovery, but the announcement caused barely a ripple.
In 1950 Doresse tracked down the original site of discovery to Nag Hammadi, 280 miles south of Cairo. Some peasants in the area directed him to the site of the ancient town of Chenosboskion. Its ancient Coptic name, Shenesit, means "acacias of the God Seth". The name may have been chosen by a Gnostic group, for in many of the Scriptures they honor and claim descent from Seth, who they say was the righteous son of Adam and Eve.
The influences in the area that visibly survive are Egyptian and orthodox Christian. The jar containing the codices had been unearthed from an abandoned Christian cemetery at the foot of a mountain called Gebel et-Tarif. In the cliffs above are caves, the burial places of ancient Egyptian officials. Nearby are the ruins of a monastery established by St Pachomius, known in church history as one of the 'desert fathers' who established monastic communities in the Egyptian desert. Perhaps it was pressure from such communities, widely spread and known for their strict orthodoxy, which caused the Gnostics to hide their books. There survives a letter from Pachomius' successor, dated AD 367, condemning heretical writings. This corresponds to the dating of the finds.
The documents that were found are called codices. Bound in leather, they were a forerunner of the modern book. At the time of their composition, the codice had begun to replace the scroll because it was more durable and easier to read. In all, there were 13 codices, containing 52 tractates (separate texts). Forty of them were entirely new to the modern world. They were written in Coptic -- the Egyptian language written in Greek characters, and probably translated from an original Greek text.
Because of the tumultuous post World War II situation in Egypt, efforts to translate and publish the Nag Hammadi codices were continually thwarted. It was a tremendous frustration for biblical scholars because they knew that the codices would contain answers to important historical questions. Despite repeated efforts by Mina and Doresse, the Gnostic scriptures would have to wait 30 years to be properly translated. The American theologian James Robinson was instrumental in finally gathering a team to translate the texts. The Nag Hammadi Library, published in 1977, is a result of this effort.
Gnostic esotericism
In approaching the Gnostic texts, one is immediately struck by the many concepts which have a root in esoteric tradition. Without this key, the writings are elusive, mysterious and sometimes incomprehensible. Though certain of their texts claim to be secret teachings, it is probable that there was an even more secret teaching shared by an inner circle, possibly contained in only one copy or transmitted by word of mouth.
To make sense of their writings, first we will outline a few concepts from the writings of Blavatsky and Bailey. These will give us a framework in which to view Gnostic thought. We propose that the truths we find in these ideas were the same as that taught by the Gnostics.
Unknown God
The latter-day religion of Jesus Christ has never really encouraged an inquiry into the nature of God. Its emphasis has always been on Jesus as the Son of God, the second person of an original Trinity. Beyond assigning creation as the function of this Trinity, ideas are nebulous about its nature and mechanism.
By contrast, every esoteric tradition devotes much thought to cosmological ideas and presents a view that is vast in its complexity. Of importance in this approach is the distinction made between the highest God and the Gods of manifestation. The highest or Unknown God can never be described because our finite minds are wholly unable to comprehend its nature. It can only be described in terms of what it is not. It sets in motion the process of manifestation and remains as the underlying energy, but at no point does it take an active role in the creation of the physical order. All we can know of the Unknown God is that "it shows its face from time to time."
We assume that the Unknown God is the essence of perfection. But the material creation, though a reflection of the Unknown God, can never be called perfect. Therefore we have an uncreated sphere of unity and perfection and a created sphere of physical manifestation. When the process of manifestation begins, from this Unknown God issues the seed matter of the future creation. It implants a spark of life to awaken the seed matter and thus begins the evolution of solar systems and worlds. Symbolically, from the first union of spirit/male and matter/female, the son is born. This is the first primordial trinity.
Creation then proceeds in stages. Forces or entities, called emanations, shape and occupy the vast and varied layers of creation. These layers are called planes and they are arranged in steps like a ladder, proceeding from the highest and most spiritual, downward, to the densest and most material. Each higher plane gives birth to the one below it. Each higher plane holds an image of the ideal plan of perfection as a goal for the lower to strive towards. The further from the original Godhead, the less perfect and pure is the creation.
Similarly, as the Unknown God is an essential unity, so the densest matter of manifestation exhibits characteristics of extreme differentiation and separation. This movement proceeding from the essential unity of the original Unknown God to the vast separation of our manifested universe is called the involutionary arc. At the end of the involutionary process, when matter is the most dense, the process reverses and what was a vast differentiation moves back again to the original unity which gave it life. This is called the evolutionary arc.
It is this constant interplay between spirit and matter, unity and separation, involution and evolution, which produces a middle region, that of consciousness, a totally new quality which comes of the interaction between the opposite poles. Essentially it is an electrical phenomenon, an interplay between positive and negative polarities which creates (much like a light bulb on the physical plane) the quality of light or consciousness. This is the dynamic which propels evolution.
Second-ray solar system
The Seven Rays are the seven streams of universal divine energy, each the expression of a great Life, whose interaction, at every conceivable frequency, creates the solar systems, galaxies and universes. Movement of these energies, in spiraling cycles, draws all Being into and out of manifestation, coloring and saturating it with specific qualities and attributes.
The Master DK through Alice A.Bailey says that the solar system that preceded, and gave birth to, ours, was a 3rd-ray system, expressing the predominantly material aspect of Active Intelligence. Our own system is 2nd ray, perfecting the purer, more spiritual, expression of Love-Wisdom. In its next incarnation the system will express the even purer attribute of 1st-ray Will. In knowing this, we can understand that the solar system itself is on the evolutionary arc, evolving towards an increasingly unified spiritual expression.
When evolution is thus proceeding upwards there is always a great resistance to change. The lower forces try to hold to a separative tendency while the higher are seeking a more unified expression. All duality, the eternal conflict between good and evil, arises from this interplay; when the lower refuses to give way, and evolve, into the higher, the result is evil. This duality pervades creation. Humanity is always confronted with challenges to its expression of a more adequate spiritual truth by the sheer resistance of matter itself. In the end humanity must make a personal decision, and choose to overcome the resistance if it wishes to proceed to a higher level. If, however, mankind chooses apathy, it can negate many possibilities for upward growth.
With these ideas as background, perhaps we can better understand the dualism of the Gnostics. They knew the nature of creation and the challenges of humanity within that creation. They accepted that all evolution, both material and spiritual, was merely part of the larger plan, but they also knew that for their era it was time to overcome the resistance of material existence and orient themselves as totally as possible towards spiritual life.
World view of Gnostic Christianity
The Gnostic scriptures are of three kinds: esoteric cosmological works, gospels that contain discourses between Jesus and his followers, and ethical books of sayings or pure teaching. Some books combine these aspects. In sophistication, scope and insight they take us far beyond our biblical teachings. One scholar has described their effort as nothing less than an attempt to chart the very mind of God. The Gnostics were a group of thinkers with their heads, almost literally, in the clouds and their eyes on the stars.
In this section we will look into their teachings, and draw analogies with our own esoteric tradition. Interestingly, they spoke little of reincarnation, probably because it was an implicit assumption among the religions of the day. They probably accepted, as well, the idea of the cyclic return of Avatars, understanding that the work of the Christ was such a manifestation. We know that they drew a distinction between the Unknown God and the lower hierarchies for, as we shall see, this became a very divisive issue in their time.
Aeons, archons and emanations
The Gnostics drew heavily on the pure Buddhist idea of overcoming desire. They were acutely aware of any influence that kept them bound too closely to physical life. These included the world of the passions, whether for money, sex, intoxicants, or fame. They were aware, beyond these obvious temptations of the flesh, of the invisible influences that hold mankind in bondage. A Gnostic tenet that became hated by the heresiologists was that of emanations.
The Gnostics claimed that the whole spiritual and material universe is peopled with countless numbers of entities which make up the many varied levels of existence. These are all the successive creation of an original primordial Trinity. They gave the name aeon to the higher classes of inhabitant, those which beckon humanity upwards. The inhabitants of the lower classes, those below the level of the human kingdom, they call the archons. These entities are depicted as jealous of the higher state that mankind has reached. They constantly try to pull him back into a lower, more material realm.
When reading Gnostic descriptions of the cosmos, one encounters a bewildering array of these entities, with strange and unusual names. In the Master DK's Treatise on Cosmic Fire through Alice Bailey, however, we see the very same picture of multiplicity, the same descriptions of the higher and lower forces influencing mankind for good or for evil. The whole intent of the Gnostic path was to extricate itself from the influence of the archons, to learn to manipulate the lower forces rather than constantly being at their mercy. In this way the Gnostics themselves became participants in the creative process.
Denigration of the Demiurge
In the Palestine of Jesus' day people in general viewed their Gods as intimately watchful of their private lives. Personal success was counted as a demonstration of righteousness -- failure and misfortune as punishment for wrongdoing. Worship was, therefore, centered around placating the Gods. The Jewish priesthood held an iron grip on the minds of the people. Their temples were the center of sacrificial rites, and worshippers went to great expense to mollify the Gods.
In breaking free of this narrow religious model, the Gnostics directly confronted the Jewish idea of God. Because of the biblical descriptions of him as a jealous and wrathful God, they introduced the idea that Jehovah, whom they called the Demiurge (Gk. demiourgos, builder or public worker) is not the highest God, the Unknown God over all, but a much lower one. He is merely one of the lower emanations, the builder of the physical planet earth, and though powerful in his own sphere of material creation, overall he occupies a very low plane on the ladder of evolution. They said, in fact, that humanity could surpass the Demiurge in spiritual attainment.
Blavatsky expresses this idea of the lower and the higher creators (emanations) in her concept of creative hierarchies, classes of beings or entities which are responsible for producing the various kingdoms and forms of manifested life. She says that there are seven hierarchies which fashion our present world. The four lower are responsible for purely physical creation, the world of forms visible to the eye. The three higher groups, though, cannot work on the physical plane. They create in subtle matter, producing thought, intuition and spiritual faculties that the human kingdom is just beginning to sense.
She says that Jehovah belongs to one of the lower class of creators. He is able to create purely physical man but cannot endow him with the spark of mind and soul that will enable him to become truly human. That Divine Spark has to come from a higher plane. In this sense the Gnostics could make the claim (considered outrageous at the time) that humankind could surpass Jehovah, the Demiurge.
Because humanity has been endowed with a soul, fashioned by the higher order of creators, it belongs to an order of evolution beyond the physical, and can, therefore, aspire to the heights of the spiritual kingdom. The Gnostics considered those who worshipped the Demiurge to be centered on the material plane; they had not yet found their connection to the spiritual universe. It is the attainment of the human stage of evolution that marks the transition from the lower world of the physical into a higher spiritual realm.
Ideas such as these were bound to cause great resentment in both Jewish and orthodox Christian circles and further threaten an already tenuous relationship with these groups, but few there were who could grasp the subtle distinctions that the Gnostics drew. The Gnostics understood God on a mystical level and suggested a much more mature relationship. Instead of being at the whim of the Gods, they spoke of man himself as a potential god, with the capability of assuming power over the physical world. Thus could Jesus heal the sick and walk on water. This the Gnostics understood.
Overshadowing by the Christ
