Mark Gagnon

Again, you have to understand that the Gnostics are thinking, okay, if Christ is this messenger, basically from the ultimate spirit, this monad, the supreme God, and comes to earth, how could

this supreme spirit have a physical form?

Wouldn't that make it the same as the creation of the demiurge?

So they basically tried to come up with a story to square that hole.

So, you know, in the text, the narrator sees the crucifixion happening.

He sees Jesus being nailed to the cross, but then he sees another Jesus standing above the cross, floating and like literally laughing at the entire event.

And the narrator asks, Lord, who is this one glad and laughing on the tree?

And is it another one whose feet and hands they are striking?

And the Savior replied, he whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus.

But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness.

Now, this is called docetism, the belief that Jesus didn't have a real physical body, that he wasn't fully human or that the divine spirit basically left the body before the pain actually started.

Because basically, the text is saying the Romans thought that they won, that they killed Jesus Christ.

But the real Jesus was standing right there laughing at how stupid they were because he

You can kill flesh, but you can't kill the spirit.

Now, again, this is a controversial verse that is not accepted within mainstream Christianity, but it exists in the Nag Hammadi codices.

Now, there's one more text that we have to talk about, because honestly, it's unlike anything else in the ancient world.

It's called The Thunder Perfect Mind.

It's a poem spoken in the voice of a female divine power.

And to be honest, it's fascinating.

This female divine power describes herself in the text saying, for I am the first and the last.