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Who can gainsay the prayer that headlines The Book of Allogenes? The Church decided to bury it rather than debate it. When have history's good guys ever been the people burning books?
O Lord God,
you who are above all the great eternal realms,
you who have neither beginning nor end,
bestow upon us a spirit of knowledge
for the revelation of your mysteries,
to come to a knowledge of ourselves:
where we have come from,
where we are going,
and what we should do in order to live.
THE BOOK OF ALLOGENES, 7-9: The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, p.774
Chalk it up to the biblical resolution of opposites: the first will be last and the last will be first. Imagine my surprise when I came across this in the last Gnostic scripture in the book, a codex pocked with so many lacunae1 that they rendered the lion’s share of the tractate nonsensical, fragmentary and ideologically incomplete. In other words, unreadable.
All but for this awesome prayer that elegantly sums up what it means to be Gnostic. If this is heresy, count me a fanatic. This is about the nicest prayer I’ve ever seen, with respect for God the Almighty and a special plea for “a spirit of knowledge” in respect to the world and, as well, our place within it. Contrast this entreaty to God to a pledge of fealty through blind faith—whether based on fear or the giddy props given up for a cult of personality—that swaps in a charismatic superstar for the always more difficult and often socially inconvenient ability to think. If I was a praying man, tis true that for the most part I am not, I’d say this prayer before my supper and call it grace.
Rather than trusting blindly, this prayer asks a higher power to grant you the wherewithal and agency to butter your own bread and make your own call on the often chaotic exigencies that make up our day-to-day existence. Tending your own garden like Voltaire, or having the strength to hold your head up and spit back in their face like Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson is indicative of the Gnostic spirit.
To find The Way—which is in you rather than without you—is the gnostic dialectic. Gnostics are hardwired into God whereas Orthos are connecting with Wi-Fi through multiple routers. This direct contact with the deity in comparison to orthodoxy’s more impersonal connection through a so painfully familiar hierarchical bureaucracy explains why gnostic thought had to be expunged from the early Church.
…orthodox teaching on resurrection…legitimized a hierarchy of persons through whose authority all others must approach God. Gnostic teaching, as Ireneaus and Tertullian realized, was potentially subversive of this order: it claimed to offer to every initiate direct access to God of which the priests and bishops themselves might be ignorant.2
—The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels, original copyright 1979, reprinted 1981
Orthodoxy wanted to make hay while the Son was shining, and would have forever, or at least until the Battle of Armageddon which—judging by current events and the genocidal bent and blood-thirstiness of “God’s Chosen people”3 or, if you prefer, “the Synagogue of Satan”4—may just about to be popping off.
Which is why Christians need to know the availability of this course correction, if not yesterday, then at least tomorrow, though, except through divine intervention, I’ll not be able to finish a presentable draft before next Tuesday, that is as long as I can take a break a few times between then and now to take advantage of Chili’s “3-for-Me” menu and indulge in a bottomless Arnold Palmer, chips and salsa, a basket of fries and their-far superior-to-McDonald’s-shamefully-fallen-excuse-for-what-used-to be-one-of-their-signature-divinities—the Quarter Pounder—the magnificent Big QP. Then and only then will I ascend to my life’s purpose to be the Savior of Humanity and experience perfection according to the Platonic notion that the material world is but a reflection of the ideal, these brief sojourns to Chilis are analogous to a mortal’s extended ecstasies of the highest heaven.
Yeah so, that’s blasphemy. Good thing I’m not in Salem in 1693 because I’m a heretic fit to be drowned in the dunking chair or hanged from the highest tree. A heretic who didn’t even know it until I realized that we’re going to hell in the proverbial hand basket unless we finally figure out what it is we should do in order to live, and let live. Lost and by the wind grieved, if we can’t adhere to a whole new ancient story that gradually stopped being told before and after Holy Roman Emperor Constantine called the aforementioned council of bishops in Nicaea in order to get all Christians on the same page. Granted, owing to a tightly regimented bureaucratic hierarchy, consolidated message and relentlessly proselytizing missionary system the orthodoxy and Christianity in general has grown to be a juggernaut of a religion.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? —BIBLE, Mark 8:36
What it’s worldwide hegemony has profited the Church is undue influence over its congregants through dogma that emphasizes de facto guilt for the crime of being born, the ironclad expectation of blind obedience, all held together by a protection racket that puts the Mafia to shame.
Say friend, that’s a pretty nice soul you got there, it’d be a shame of Satan came along and dragged it down into his lake of fire.
Wink. Wink. Nod. Nod. Palm out for mandatory tithing. Ten percent for the Big Guy as subcontracted out through Christianity Inc.
Fittingly, what follows is a comparative analysis of the dueling concepts of Christianity fighting for top billing before Nicaea started the wheels turning toward a unified, and in my humble opinion misguided, doctrine. I fully understand that the road to hell is filled with good intentions and that I believe that my intentions are good. So what? One man’s road to hell is another’s road to Damascus. If we can walk this road together, it will be my pleasure and maybe even to our mutual benefit. Or you can turn your mind off and float downstream like you’ve been doing since you left Sunday School: the Dead Pill or the Red Pill that will show a world subversive to the bought-and-paid-for-one you’ve heretofore been living…your choice.
Cf. E. Leach, Melchisedek and the Emperor: Icons of Subversion and Orthodoxy, in Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britian and Ireland for 1972 (London 1973)
Deuteronomy 7:6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."
Revelation 2:9 I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
Revelation 3:9 I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars—I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.