Nag Hammadi Codices

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Why did the Vatican council refuse to recognise or accept the first century of nag hammadi codices?

-- Yew Luen Loong (cledrag@hotmail.com), June 04, 2000

Answers

Read the Stigmata thread, Yew. It explains it there. I asked that after viewing that movie.

-- jackiea (jackiea@hotmail.com), June 04, 2000.

Howdy, Yew Luen!

A good priest (Fr. Echert) recently had this to say:
"The so-called Nag Hammadi texts are named after a town in Upper Egypt in which these texts were discovered in 1945. These texts are in the Coptic language but were originally written in Greek, dating to as early as the second or third century AD. The collection includes forty-five works in full or partial form. The works are of diverse genres, including alleged sayings, homilies, letters, acts, treatises, prayers, dialogues, and apocalypses. ... A good portion of these works, if not a predominant part of it, originated among Gnostic groups and other fringe or heretical groups or movements. And while these writings have value for those who work in scholarly fields related to Sacred Scripture and sacred history, they are not of direct value to the common reader, in my opinion. ... The now famous [apochryphal] Gospel of Thomas is included in this collection."

An old issue of "This Rock" magazine had this to add:
"Although some writings are fragmentary, enough are still intact that a fairly clear picture of gnosticism emerges in the pseudo-gospels and epistles. Included in the Nag Hammadi collection are such spurious works as the , the , the , and the . Scholars were delighted to discover several works whose existence was known in the early centuries of the Church but which were presumed lost. ... Many Catholic theologians of the first several centuries devoted themselves to refuting the gnostic arguments, in particular, Irenaeus of Lyons (140-202), who wrote a devastating critique of gnosticism in his masterful five-volume work, "Detection and Overthrow of the Gnosis Falsely So-Called,", more commonly known as "Against Heresies."

[When, around 390 A.D., the Catholic bishops were deciding the list of books that ought to be in the Bible (because they were inspired by God himself), they rejected all Gnostic works as heretical, including some that were then lost, only to reappear in our own century.]

Bye-bye, buddies. Philip

-- Philip Hoodak (hoodyp@msn.net), June 06, 2000.

Sorry, buddies! Those invisible names were supposed to be "Apocryphon of John", the "Gospel of Phillip" [Don't blame me, I didn't write it], the "Apocalypse of Paul", and the "Gospel of Mary". PH

-- Philip Hoodak (hoodyp@msn.net), June 07, 2000.

But if you read any of these codices, you will see the reasons why the church rejected them, many of them are clearly veering from Christ's teachings. If anything, they were probably the work of satan, who threw up dust storms regularly to blind early followers, as if persecution from the Romans wasn't enough. Remember, we are brought up with 'the Bible', thanks to the Catholic Church, with a general acceptance from it as the word of God, back then, it was passed on by word of mouth and little hidden papers reputed to be from his apostles or the master himself. How confusing it must have been to find odd papers and books circulating, for a beginning disciple, who is searching for the truth. Think how easy we have it and send a prayer of thanks to those who died for the word of God.

-- Barb e. (Suesuesbeo@aol.com), September 28, 2000.

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