What is The Gospel of Philip?

I don't know about you but I just can't get enough of the non-canonical gospels they're just so fascinating in themselves they offer so many questions and what ifs they Nuance our understanding of the earliest days of the largest religion in the world and they also teach us how religions and traditions like this develop over time and Inc conversation with its time and place in previous episodes we've explored the gospels of Thomas Judah and Mary and since Christmas season is approaching again I thought it would be fun to dive into another one of the Lost often termed quote unquote Gnostic Gospels and this time we're going to look into the one that has by far the greatest name of them all the gospel of Phillip a very strange and complex text that often defy a clear categorization into you know belonging to one group or another and which has themes that are sometimes very familiar to us but at other times shockingly different from what we used to in other Christian text so let's dive into the gospel of [Applause] Phillip a bit of self-promotion before we start um have you ever wondered what all the music on this channel comes from well actually the majority of the music is actually made by me and a lot of that music is available on Spotify and all these different platforms and stores and today I'm actually releasing a new single called ismus with my project zeni so if you're interested in my music and the kind of kind of music that I make then definitely go check out that song it's on Spotify it's on my other YouTube channel Philip Holm uh it's in most of those places where you'll find Know music in the streaming where you can stream music so please if you feel so inclined go check out the song if you like it then you know spread the word share it um let me know what you think of the song uh and yeah um back to the video the gospel of philli is a so-called non-canonical gospel which means it is a text that was copied spread and read by certain groups of early Christianity but which did not make it into the canonical scriptures of the Bible or the New Testament as a result many of these texts eventually lost popularity and were lost to history for Millennia existing only as myths and mentions in other writings that is until the 1940s when the so-called noamar library was found in Egypt a treasure chove of ancient text that had survived in caves and which for the first time gave us first handwritings from Lost groups like The gnostics the valentinians and the thomasine Christians this discovery is what has revolutionized our understanding of the diversity of early Christianity and given us some truly fascinating text some of which we have already explored on this channel such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary and among this fascinating group of texts there is also the mysterious Gospel of Phillip a text which can be hard to categorize but which has become famous worldwide by showing up in pop culture such as in The DaVinci Code its Fame primarily stems from a certain juicy section or quote which we will get to later but first of all what is this text who wrote it and what's it all about well there are some significant uncertainties and Mysteries surrounding this text like many other texts from the noamar library is written in Coptic the Egyptian language but has been translated from an original Greek so we think that it was written in Greek originally and because of certain users of syc terms some Scholars think that it might have been written in Syria possibly sometime in the late 2nd Century so compared to some of the other texts we have explored this one appears pretty late in other words the text is structured in a pretty interesting way um it's called a gospel but it's not a gospel in the traditional sense as we know the gospels from the New Testament in that it is not a an account of the life of Jesus and his teachings in that way at all uh neither is it like the Gospel of Thomas which is just a collection of sayings by Jesus instead the gospel of philli is like just a collection of paragraphs and and short sections about various different topics um sometimes that this gospel can feel kind of disjointed um you know a theme between the paragraphs can be very you know it it can be hard to see any any kind of clear thread between them but there are certain themes that recur and when you sort of dive deeper into you can see some of these these themes recurring and that there is a kind of internal um there's an internal logic to the text but it's very much a kind of collection of different paragraphs and short um sayings and and and teachings sometimes very esoteric teachings and so on Jesus shows up in the text but there are only about 15 sayings of Jes Jesus in the entire thing like I said the individual sections seem pretty disconnected sometimes albe it perhaps unified by certain themes which has led many scholars to consider that it might not be originally a unified work but rather precisely that a collection of quotes that have been taken from other sources as for who wrote it that is also a point of contention and quite a mystery it wasn't written by the disciple philli of course and Philip is only mentioned once in the text rather Philip might be a kind of composite figure according to scapel that symbolically represents the teaching of this gospel in some way it's clear from the text that it did not come from the group that we sometimes call the Proto Orthodox in other words those Christians whose theology would eventually end up as the mainstream instead the text shares many features with various other groups making it hard to attribute it to any single one many have argued that its doctrines are rather Thomas sign in nature thus perhaps coming from the same group repres presented by the the Gospel of Thomas um on the other hand there are many other features that are decidedly so-called Gnostic in nature as well as others that are more valentinian the role of Mary in the text also reminds us of the Gospel of Mary and how it portrays her so the text could originate with any of these groups really or perhaps given the nature of the scripture perhaps it contains bits and pieces from multiple sources the most popular consensus is that the text primarily functioned within a valentinian context but it's definitely still open for discussion the valentinians were a certain group of early Christians uh founded by a guy called valentinus in Rome was a pretty prominent figure was actually up for becoming the bishop of Rome in other words the pope but uh sort of just missed out on on that um position uh and they became known for their very unique doctrines they are closely connected to the so-called gnostics um or the sethian gnostics which is what I refer to as gnostics usually um there are similarity in teachings with Gnostic but they're also quite different in other ways so it's it's hard to sort of just equate the two um but so yeah that's the valentinians it's an important early group of of Christians that had significant differences in their sort of doctrines and ideas compared to the so-called Proto Orthodox which would become the mainstream or Orthodox later on so what does this gospel say well in a general sense we could categorize it as a kind of esoteric text or at least a text concerned with esotericism and esoteric doctrines there's a kind of dichotomy presented between those who are in the no s to say the ones that have access to the true doctrines and interpretations of the Bible the ingroup in this case and the other the apostolic Christians who are misled and misinterpret scripture and Jesus by reading things too literally this other quot unquote misled group clearly represents the so-called Proto Orthodox who are misappropriating the message of Jesus Jus they are even referred to in a derogatory way as Hebrews in the text quote some say Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit they are wrong they do not know what they're saying when did a woman ever conceive by a woman Mary is the Virgin whom no power defiled it is a great anathema to the Hebrews who are the apostles and Apostolic people so by saying that you know when did a woman ever conceive by a woman um they're commenting on the fact that the Holy Spirit grammatically is is female right so that the spirit would be a female that impregnates a female and that sort of makes no sense that's the point that's being made here so already this indicates what kind of people the text was aimed at one of the groups of Christians at the time that were concerned with gnosis or true knowledge as the way to Salvation now this doesn't mean that it was written by the gnostics as in these Seth the agnostics but that it shares that common doctrine that we find in many non-canonical Gospels including those by the gnostics in other words that salvation comes through the true knowledge or gnosis that Jesus taught and not necessarily through his death on the cross and his resurrection in fact the text seems like the gnostics and valentinians to hold to what is known as dotism in terms of their christology this means that they believe that Jesus wasn't actually human at all but fully Divine and that it only appeared like he had a human body quot Jesus took them all stealthily for he did not appear as he was but he appeared as one that could not be seen but to each of these he appeared he appeared to the great as great he appeared to the small as small he appeared to the angels as an angel and to humans as a human this also means that the death and suffering on the cross doesn't play a major role in this theology in the way that it would in mainstream Christianity instead just like in the Gospel of Thomas or Mary and the Gnostic Gospels it's all about knowledge gnosis quot the one who has knowledge of the truth is free but the free person does not sin for the one who sins is the slave to sin knowledge is the way to Salvation that is knowledge of our true selves and in that self knowledge become United not only to that higher self but with Christ and the Divine itself meline scapel says quote one of the major themes of the Gospel of philli is the reunification of Soul and Spirit in a Heavenly Union that realizes the identification of the Soul with its true self this theme of Union is a recurring theme in the text and it is always in conversation with a kind of inherent Duality that runs through the entire thing first of all we seem to find references to the characteristically Gnostic dualistic cosmology so in the wider category that is often referred to as Gnostic although I am skeptical and careful with this term since it is a modern categorization we find it Rec curring cosmology where there is a clear distinction between the physical material world and the spiritual Divine World referred to by The sethians Who are the ones I refer to as gnostics again as the ploma or entirety in fact the physical world and the body is even seen as something very dirty and evil as a kind of prison that needs to be escaped this is indeed an overarching theme in many of these schools that are sometimes clumsily referred to as Gnostic including the sethians the marianites and the valentinians although there are of course also nuances and differences among them regarding this too this cosmology has a dramatic tale about the true hidden God which is called The Invisible Spirits by the sethians and the father by the valentinians from which emanates a number of different eons or eternities Divine principles representing different attributes like wisdom logos truth Etc at some point though one of these eons often the one called Sophia wisdom conceived in secret of another kind of being of her own which becomes a deformed creature that is cast out of the Divine ploma this ignorant sometimes evil or at the very least sort of unrelentingly just being is referred to with names like the Demi urge meaning the Craftsman yalo or saklas and he is the creator of the physical world along with his archons or rulers in other words the physical world that we live in was not created by the true God but by this ignorant pseudo deity who of course created a flawed and evil world to be escaped this is also identified as the god of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament who gives you know the Ten Commandments to Moses and so on and we find clear traces of these doctrines in the gospel of philli for example quote the world came about through a blunder for the one who created it wanted to create it imperishable and Immortal he failed and he did not not achieve the objective for the imperishability of the world never came to be and the imperishability of the one who made the world did not exist clearly referring to the Demi urge and his flawed creation but there's also talk in the text about another kind of Duality namely the inherent oppositions in the world that create tension and strife and this Duality is perhaps primarily represented in the text uh through the imagery of the male and the female quote if the woman had not separated from the man she would not have died along with the man his separation became the beginning from death for this reason Christ came so that he might rectify the division that came about from the beginning and again join the two and so that those who have died in the division he might give life and join them the world is full of such oppositions and dualities not only male and female but good and bad up and down inside and outside Etc the perfect human the principle of humanity which exists in the ploma was androgynous and it is only in this world that the human is separated into male and female this reunion of male and female also probably refers to a reunion of Soul and Spirit PS and pneuma in Greek to their original State of Union in the True Divine self of the human at the same time this might also be a reference or certainly seems to be connected to the common idea in Gnostic cosmology that the Divine eons in the ploma are usually conceived of as existing in male female pairs but just like in many other so-called Gnostic texts if we can call this one that there's an emphasis on the ugliness of this world the prison from which we must escape unlike the other Christians who interpret scripture literally and misunderstand Christ's message and the nature of the world the true Community knows the esoteric truths and aim to escape the world and body instead clothing themselves with a body of light and live out a spiritual ual existence quote this world is a corpse eater all things that are eaten die as well truth is a life eater for this reason none of those nourished by the truth will die Jesus came from that place and he brought nourishment from there to those who desired he gave life so that they might not die like we said this is achieved through the teachings of Jesus particularly the true esoteric teachings confer to select people and involves some kind of Union of dualities and ultimately a union with the Divine itself in some way these dualities that we have talked about male and female Pia and Puma should be United once again quot while the union dwells in this world as male and female the place that is strong and weakness in the entirety the image of the Union is different although we refer to them by these names but the others exist they are exalted above every name that is named and they are exalted above the mighty for where there is strength there those chosen for power dwell they are not different things but both of them are this one single thing this talk of the reunion of the Opposites is one of the recurring themes in the text and sometimes takes on romantic and even erotic imagery indeed following these themes of male and female uniting one of the most characteristic terms and Concepts in the text is the idea of marriage and the so-called Bridal chamber quote but the woman is joined to her husband in the bridal chamber but those who have joined in the bridal chamber will no longer be separated these references have puzzled Scholars what does this Bridal chamber refer to is it some kind of symbolic language for some kind of Union with the Divine or is it referring to something more practical some kind of ritual maybe in fact one of the most striking aspects of this text is that it seems to mention some kind of sequence of of sacraments even like some kind of ritual or rituals in some way now we don't know anything really about Gnostic or valentinian rituals like how the valentinians actually practice their form of Christianity but in this text there seems to be a mention of some kind of sequence of rituals quote the Lord did everything in a mystery a baptism and a crism and a Eucharist and a Redemption and a bridal chamber not only is this striking in the sense of using baptism and Eucharist as sacraments or rituals which are certainly more associated with Orthodox Christianity which this text and those like it seem to reject so strongly although it seems pretty clear that they interpret these rituals in some different ways but it's also striking in invoking this Bridal chamber among such rituals seemingly indicating that it too involves some kind of practice maybe even some kind of sexual one the idea that these quote unquote Gnostic groups performed some kind of sexual rituals was often used as a kind of argument by their enemies to discredit the movement for example in his classic text against the heresies irus says quote for some of them prepare a bridal chamber and perform a sort of Mystic right pronouncing certain expressions with those who are being initiated and affirm that it is a spiritual marriage which is celebrated by them after the likeness of the conjunctions above we simply don't know exactly what this Bridal chamber thing actually means in this text um the gospel mentions it several times it's one of the most recurring themes in the entire text um and it seems also to indicate that it is the sort of highest achievement the highest spiritual achievement on this you know path or in this tradition or whatever they actually use a kind of allegory in the text comparing these sacraments these rituals with the temple in Jerusalem which has sort of um increasing or sort of maybe descending or ascending levels of of of Holiness right so so the first baptism is sort of the outer courts of the temple and then crism is like you go into the next um room and then further and further in and the bridal chamber is represented by the holy of holies right this the holiest part of the temple where only the high priest could enter and where the you know not of course in Jerusalem but where in other places like the actual image of the God would be housed in in this most inner sanctum right so the bridal chamber seems in this Al is like the the the most holy the most sacred uh and profound um peak of of the spiritual you know maybe experience or path or whatever is going on here I think that this imagery certainly has something to do with Divine Union the whole text talks about the dichotomy of male and female and how these dualities are to be unified and imagery of kissing and marriage are clear indications of the male and female uniting a simp symbol of the marriage and Union of the Divine ploma with the sexual act in the bridal chamber being the ultimate consummation of that Unity it seems that the bridal chamber thus represents perhaps the highest mystical experience a kind of Union with Christ or with God which represents the end of the journey it is possible though that this may have also been some kind of a right at the same time as many passages and outside sources seem to indicate so this is the ultimate aim of the practitioner to turn away from the material world embody and somehow reach a kind of unification with his true self in the Divine realm quote there is no other way that someone will be able to produce for himself this Grace unless he should clothe himself in the perfect light and also become the perfect light this is how one becomes free and it's the true meaning of the resurrection of course a group that view the material world in this way wouldn't hold the idea that the dead will be physically resurrected at the end of time instead true Resurrection happens spiritually and in fact can take place in this life quote what is the resurrection it is necessary for the image to rise through the image it is necessary for the bridal chamber and the image to come through the image into truth that is the restoration and quote those who say they will die first and then rise are in error if they do not first receive the resurrection while they are alive when they die they will not receive anything in other words the resurrection of the Dead is something that takes place here in this life and spiritually it is the Awakening to the Divine Life a resurrection from being dead as in being in this false um maybe evil or at least sort of flawed world and body to Awakening and being resurrected restored in the Divine realm which is our true home that is the true Resurrection and only then will we receive you know our reward when we when our body dies eventually these are all of course fascinating and striking themes but the most famous aspect of this gospel by far is of course the way that it talks about the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene right um it's it's really fascinating stuff um Mary just like in the Gospel of Mary the gospel of philli seems to portray her as being somehow the favorite disciple of Jesus that she's the sort of foremost disciple whom he liked more than anyone else and who whom he gave sort of the deepest truth or the most full truth to in some way the text mentions three different Maries but indicates that one is quite special quote three women always walked with the master Mary his mother his sister and Mary of magdala who is called His companion for Mary is the name name of his sister his mother and his companion what does the author actually mean by the word companion here is it simply something equivalent to disciple or companion in that sense well a section later on seems to clarify this and makes a statement that may appear shocking and controversial to many quote the companion of the savior is Mary of magdala the Savior loved her more than all the disciples and he used to kiss her often on her and here we have perhaps one of the most frustrating lacunas in history the very last word in this sentence is missing so we don't know what it is that Jesus used to kiss many including Marvin Mayer have chosen to translate it as to kiss or often on the mouth and this has become a very popular interpretation which would be quite striking indeed If This Were true along with the rest of the passage which indicates that she was His companion and that he loved her more than the other disciples seemed to many to indicate that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had some kind of romantic relationship now putting aside mainstream Christian theology this is of course entirely plausible a Jewish man of that age would have been expected to be married indeed it would have been weird for someone like that to not be married at that time but taking into account Christian Theology and christology this is of course quite problematic in many different ways even within an internal valentinian or Gnostic theology it doesn't make all that much sense given that they hold the Dost view that Jesus wasn't actually truly human others have translated the passage differently as kissing her on the hand or the forehead but given the sentences preceding it it still poses quite a striking question about their relationship so how should we interpret it well this puzzles actual Scholars on the topic so I won't pretend to know better than them of course but I do think it is worthwhile considering the wider context of the text and its theme as we've seen we find the recurring theme of kissing marriage and the bridal chamber as symbols of divine ascent and symbols of divine truth it certainly seems that these passages indicate that Mary Magdalene had a special role among the disciples as the formost one who inherited the true teachings of Jesus which like we said is a theme in the Gospel of Mary as well and while leaving the possibility that Jesus and her had a romantic relationship totally open as a possibility I think we can probably read this passage in symbolic way too indeed in another passage it says quote people are nourished from the promise of the Heavenly place if they would be there's a gap here from the mouth from which the word comes they would be nourished from the mouth and would be perfect the perfect conceive and give birth through a kiss that is why we also kiss each other we conceive from the grace within each other here is a clear indication to me at least that the true teachings of which the gospel speaks are conceived or transmitted perhaps in a way through a kind of sacred kiss with this in mind I think it's quite plausible that the passage talking about Jesus kissing Mary possibly on the mouth can also be an indication or symbolic way of saying that he conferred special knowledge or gnosis to her especially considering she was supposedly his favorite among the disciples whatever the case the Gospel of Philip remains one of the most fascinating and puzzling of the non-canonical Gospels not only for these famous passages about Mary but also for its unique language and imagery involving marriage and the bridal chamber as well as the way that it seems to draw from or at least have similarities with different schools of early Christianity at the same time from the sethian gnostics to the valentinians Thomas signs and the authors of the Gospel of Mary most Scholars attributed to a primarily valentinian context and I am ready to at least carefully accept that idea but it is certainly a text that once again shows us the the great diversity and intellectual melting path that was early Christianity and all its different schools and movements it may not have made its way into the canonical Bible but it can surely still Fascinate and Inspire us today in the Contemporary world thank you as always to all my patrons who support this Channel and keep the channel going none of this would be possible without you and I will never Tire of saying that so thank you all so so much might as well take the opportunity to give a special shout out to everyone in the Saint category the highest tier at my patreon um both old and new some of these aren't even active still but I would still like to just mention all these people because they've been uh supporters at one time or another and which is so highly appreciated so thank you so much wasif Khan while Muhammad Thomas bla Ole kirovski this guy with all the numbers and letters soale gokal Faris badawi Mary Carmen oronas W Osiris Marcel Wester 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Channel: Let's Talk Religion

Views: 251,055

Keywords: gospel of philip, ancient texts, gnostic gospels, early christian literature, spiritual wisdom, hidden teachings, mystical christianity, sacred scriptures, spiritual enlightenment, union with God, unio mystica, esotericism, esoteric knowledge, Mary Magdalene, christian mysticism, ancient wisdom, biblical studies, secret gospel, religious texts, da vinci code, mary and jesus, Mary of Magdala, was jesus married, jesus wife

Id: xFCYAeihJOk

Length: 29min 32sec (1772 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 01 2023