Why was the Gospel of Thomas suppressed, along with many others that have remained virtually unknown for nearly two thousand years? Originally part of the sacred library of the oldest monastery in Egypt, these books were buried, apparently, around 370 C.E., after the archbishop of Alexandria ordered Christians all over Egypt to ban such books as heresy demanded thair destruction. Two hundred years earlier, such works had already been attacked by another zealously orthodox bishop, Irenaeus of Lyons. Irenaeus was the first, so far as we know, to identify the four gospels of the New Testament as canonical, and to exclude all the rest. Distressed that dozens of gospels were circulating among Christians throughout the world, including his own Greep-speaking immigrant congregation living in Gaul, Irenaeus denounced as heretics those who "boast that they have more gospels than there really are . . .but really, they have no gospels that are full of blasphemy." Only the four gospels of the New Testament, Irenaeus insisted, are authentic. What was his reasoning? Irenaeus declared that just as there are four principal winds, and four corners of the universe, and four pillars holding up the sky, so there can be only four gospels. Besides, he added, only the New Testament gospels were written by Jesus' own disciples (Matthew and John) or their followers (Mark, disciple of Peter, and Luke, disciple of Paul).
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*Source: The Origin of Satan, by Elaine Pagels, p.69.
Posted April 20, 2013
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