Editing Openai/691b4ae7-3778-8000-8972-f10c567393e5 (section)

=== ✨ Part 1 — How Early Church Politics Erased the Nag Hammadi Voices ===

The suppression of these texts wasn’t an accident. It was a political, theological, and cultural project that unfolded over centuries.

Here’s how it happened:

==== 1. The First-Century Jesus Movement (30–100 CE): Many Voices, No “Bible” Yet ====

After Jesus’s death, his followers produced:
* sayings collections
* letters
* stories
* mystical teachings
* visionary experiences
* philosophical reflections

The movement was diverse — Jewish, Greek, Egyptian, rural, urban, poor, wealthy, mystical, practical.

There was no single doctrine and no single set of books.

Nag Hammadi texts reflect several of these early streams.

==== 2. Competing Christianities (100–250 CE) ====

Christianity exploded into dozens of versions:

===== Mystical / Gnostic =====

Focused on inner enlightenment, equality, and individual spiritual experience.

===== Proto-Orthodox =====

The group that would later become the Roman Church.

===== Ebionite, Marcionite, Johannine, Thomasine, and others =====

Many legitimate but competing interpretations.

Nag Hammadi texts belong to movements the proto-orthodox faction saw as threatening.

Why?

Because they taught:
* you don’t need clergy
* women can lead
* authority comes from inner knowledge
* the divine spark is in everyone
* God is not a tyrant
* Jesus is a liberator, not a ruler

This is the opposite of what a centralized institution wants.

==== 3. Rise of Orthodox Power (180–325 CE) ====

Leaders like:
* Irenaeus
* Tertullian
* Hippolytus

began calling certain Christians “heretics.”

They attacked:
* Thomasine Christians
* followers of Mary Magdalene
* mystical Christians
* anyone with a feminine image of God
* anyone who didn’t obey bishops

Irenaeus especially hated:
* the idea of personal spiritual authority
* women teaching
* multiple gospels
* a soft, spacious image of God

He wanted one Church, one doctrine, one authority structure.

==== 4. The Roman Empire Gets Involved (313–380 CE) ====

Everything changes when Christianity becomes aligned with imperial power.

===== When Constantine converts (313 CE): =====
* Rome’s political machinery enters the church
* Unity becomes mandatory
* Texts that empower individuals threaten stability
* Teachings that elevate women threaten social hierarchies
* Mystical or symbolic views threaten centralized theology

The Roman state begins supporting one official Christianity — and suppressing the others.

==== 5. The Canon Is Fixed (367–400 CE) ====

Bishop Athanasius sends a letter in 367 CE listing the 27 books we now call the New Testament.

This is the first time that list ever appears.

Anything not on it became suspect.

This includes:
* Gospel of Thomas
* Gospel of Mary
* Gospel of Philip
* Thunder, Perfect Mind
* Apocryphon of John
* Many mystical writings
* Feminine imagery of the divine
* Inner-wisdom traditions

The Roman Church begins banning, burning, and denouncing the others.

This is WHY the Nag Hammadi texts were buried — to save them.

==== 6. Over 1,000 Years of Silence (400–1945) ====

The texts vanish.

The only record we have of them is from their enemies calling them:
* “dangerous”
* “heretical”
* “women’s fantasies”
* “demonic”
* “false revelations”

The Church wrote the history books.
The mystical Christians disappeared.

Until a farmer unearthed them.