The Origin of Satan (30 page)

“Pharisees and scribes” (or at least as gullible disciples,

susceptible to seduction by these teachers). Fourteen hundred

years later, Martin Luther, for example, would come to see his

former fellow Christians—Roman Catholics—as the “Pharisees

and scribes” against whom Jesus warned his disciples. While

most believers see in Christ and his message the power to

overcome the forces of evil in the world, some dissenting

Christians ever since the second century have claimed that the

gospel itself has been co-opted by the forces of evil.

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But the author of the
Testimony of Truth
goes far beyond the

“protesting” Christians of the Reformation and later times.

Convinced that Christ's message is precisely the opposite of “the

law”—that is, the Hebrew Bible—this teacher raises radical

questions:

What is the light? And what is the darkness? And who is the

one who created the world? And who is God? And who are the

angels? . . . And what is the governance (of the world)? And

why are some lame, and some blind, and some rich, and some

poor?34

Approaching the Genesis story with questions like these, this

teacher “discovers” that it reveals truth only when one reads it in

reverse, recognizing that God is actually the villain, and the

serpent the holy one! This teacher points out, for example, that

in Genesis 2:17, God commands Adam not to eat from the fruit

of the tree in the midst of Paradise, warning that “on the day that

you shall eat of it, you shall die.” But the serpent tells Eve the

opposite: “You will not die, for God knows that when you eat of

it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing

good and evil” (3:4—5). Who, asks the
Testimony
, told the truth?

When Adam and Eve obeyed the serpent, “then the eyes of both

were opened, and they knew that they were naked” (3:7). They

did not die “on that day,” as God had warned; instead, their eyes

were opened to knowledge, as the serpent had promised. But

when God realized what had happened, “he cursed the serpent,

and called him ‘devil’ ” (Gen. 3:14-15).35 Now that Adam had

attained godlike knowledge, God decided to evict him from

Paradise, “lest he reach out his hand and eat of the tree of life and

live forever” (Gen. 3:22), attaining eternal life along with

knowledge.

“What kind of god is this god? . . . Surely he has shown

himself to be a malicious envier,”36 says the author of the

Testimony.
Not only is this god jealous of his own creation, he is

also ignorant and vindictive. And what of the serpent, whom

God cursed and called “devil”? According to the
Testimony of

Truth
, the ser-

160 / THE ORIGIN OF ATAN

pent who led Adam and Eve to spiritual enlightenment is

actually
Christ
, appearing in this disguise in Paradise to release

Adam and Eve from “the error of the angels”37—that is, error

induced by malevolent supernatural “rulers,” who masquerade

as God in this world.

Another anonymous Christian teacher whose writing was

discovered at Nag Hammadi was asked by one of his students

what “the great apostle” Paul meant when he warned that “our

contest is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of

the universe and the spirits of evil” (Eph. 6:12). He replied by

writing a secret revelation called the
Reality of the Rulers
, which,

he says, “I have sent you since you have asked about the reality

of the [cosmic] rulers.”38 The teacher explains that “their chief

[the God of the Hebrew Bible] is blind; because of his power and

his ignorance and his arrogance, he said, . . . ‘It is I who am God,

and there is none apart from me.’ ”39 This teacher then says:

When he said this, he sinned against the whole place. And a

voice came forth from above the realm of absolute power,

saying,

“You are wrong, Samael,” that is, “God of the blind.” . . .

And he said, “If anything else exists before me, let it become

visible to me!”

And immediately Wisdom stretched forth her finger and

brought light into matter. . . .

And he said to his offspring, “It is I who am the god of the

whole.”

And Life, daughter of Faith-Wisdom, cried out and said, “You

are wrong, Saklas!” (that is, “fool”). She breathed into his face,

and her breath became for her a fiery angel; and that angel

bound him and cast him down into Tartyros below the abyss.40

In the universe depicted by this teacher there is no devil, and

no need for one, for “the Lord”—the God of Jews and most

Christians alike—himself acts as chief of the fallen angels who

seduce and enslave human beings. By declaring himself to be the

supreme and unique God of the universe, he “sinned against the

THE ENEMY WITHIN / 161

whole,” refusing to recognize himself as part of a much larger

divine reality. His boasts reveal him to be only a lesser, ignorant

being whose power has led him into overweening pride (
hybris
)

and into destruction.

According to the
Reality of the Rulers
, it is Samael and his

fellow “rulers of the darkness” (Eph. 6:12), not the true God,

who formed Adam’s physical body (Gen. 2:7), set him to work in

Paradise “to till it and cultivate it” (Gen. 2:15), then put him to

sleep and fashioned his female partner out of his rib (Gen. 2:21-

22). These same rulers commanded Adam not to eat from the

fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which could open his eyes to the

truth, because they jealously wanted to keep control over him.

When Adam and Eve, enlightened by the feminine spiritual

principle who appeared to her in the form of the serpent, defied

them, the rulers cursed the woman and the snake, and expelled

Adam and Eve from Paradise:

Moreover, they threw humankind into great distraction and

into a life of toil, so that humankind might be occupied with

worldly affairs, and might not have the opportunity of being

devoted to the holy spirit.41

According to the authors of such teachings, the human

condition, involving work, marriage, and procreation, does not

reflect divine blessing, but demonstrates enslavement to cosmic

forces that want to blind human beings to their innate capacity

for spiritual enlightenment. Such radical Christians believe that

most people, including most Christians, have fallen prey to the

rulers of darkness and so, like most Jews and pagans, remain

entangled in sexual, social, and economic bondage.

There are a few, however, among whom these authors number

themselves, whose eyes have been opened, who have awakened

to the divine source from which human beings come and to

which they belong—a source deeply hidden in ordinary

experience. The prototype of the spiritually awakened person is

Eve’s daughter, Norea. When the “rulers” try to seduce and

deceive her, Norea cries out to God and receives divine help; the

angel

162 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN

Eleleth (whose Hebrew name means “understanding”) reveals to

her how these corrupt and limited powers have come to rule over

the world, and assures her that she herself belongs not to them

but to the powers above—the Father of the whole, and to his

emanation and “daughter,” Wisdom, and to divine Life:

You, together with your offspring, are from above; these souls

have come out of the imperishable light. Thus the rulers

cannot approach her because of the spirit of truth present

within her; and all who know this way live deathless in the

midst of dying mankind.42

Those who have “the spirit of truth within them” refuse to

enter into marriage, business, or any other worldly entangle-

ments, in order to remain an “undominated generation,” free “to

devote themselves to the holy spirit.”43

The
Secret Book of John
, another well-known “revelation”

discovered at Nag Hammadi, offers another wildly mythological

reading of Genesis intended to reveal the ties that bind people to

futile and unsatisfying lives. The
Secret Book
explains that after

Adam was created, the chief ruler and his allies carried out a

series of three assaults intended to overpower and capture the

children of Adam. First the chief ruler “seduced [Eve] . . . and

begot in her two sons,” Cain and Abel; thus from that time “up

to the present day, sexual intercourse continued, because of the

chief ruler,” who “planted sexual desire” in Eve. Yet because

certain people still eluded his domination despite the pressures

of sexual desire,44 the chief ruler next “made a plan together with

his powers” to subdue even the strongest of human spirits: the

rulers “committed adultery with Wisdom, and bitter fate was

begotten by them.”43 From that time on, fate proved to be the

most inescapable of bonds:

For from that fate came forth every sin and every injustice and

blasphemy and oblivion and ignorance, and every harsh

condition, and serious violations, and great terrors. And the

whole creation was blinded, so that they might not know God,

who is above all of them.46

THE ENEMY WITHIN / 163

Since even the invention of fate left the rulers uneasy about

their control over human beings, they planned a third

conspiracy. The chief ruler “sent his angels to the daughters of

men”47 (cf. Gen. 6:2) to mate and procreate with them, and to

share with them and to teach them how to mine gold and silver,

iron and copper. Thus the
Secret Book
depicts the misery of

ordinary human life, enmeshed in labor, driven by instinctive

passion, dominated by fate, spent in getting money and trying to

amass wealth. By all these devices the rulers kept human beings

under their control:

and they steered the people who followed them into great

distraction; the people became old without having joy; they

died without having found truth, and without knowing God. . . .

And thus the whole creation became enslaved to them, from

the foundation of the world until now.48

Certain Christians who stood with the majority responded to

these extremists. Tertullian, a convert in the North African city

of Carthage, and a contemporary of Irenaeus (c. 180 C.E.), agreed

with Irenaeus in denouncing all who deviated from the majority

consensus as “heretics.” Both fathers of the church insist that

what characterizes the true church is unanimity— agreement in

doctrine, morals, and leadership. Christians, Tertullian says,

quoting Paul, should “all speak and think the very same

things.”49 Whoever deviates from the consensus is, by

definition, a heretic; for, as Tertullian points out, the Greek

word translated “heresy” (
hairesis
) literally means “choice”; thus

a “heretic” is “one who makes a choice.”50 Tertullian notes that

heretics actually pride themselves on the points at which they

differ from the majority, regarding these as evidence of their

own deeper insight. He says sardonically,

Wherever they have hit upon any novelty, they immediately

call their presumption a “spiritual gift,” since they value not

unity but diversity. . . . Consequently, most often they are in a

divided state themselves, being ready to say—and indeed,

quite

164 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN

sincerely—of certain points in their belief, “This is not so,”

and “I take this in a different sense,” and “I do not accept

that.”5l

But Tertullian insists that making choices is evil, since choice

destroys group unity. To stamp out heresy, Tertullian says,

church leaders must not allow people to ask questions, for it is

“questions that make people heretics”52—above all, questions

like these: Whence comes evil? Why is it permitted? And what

is the origin of human beings? Tertullian wants to stop such

questions and impose upon all believers the same
regula fidei
,

“rule of faith,” or creed. Tertullian knows that the “heretics”

undoubtedly will object, saying that Jesus himself encouraged

questioning, saying, “Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you

shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7). But

Tertullian has no patience with such people: “Where will the

end of seeking be? The point of seeking is to find; the purpose in

finding, to believe.”53 Now that the church can provide a direct

and simple answer to all questions in its rule of faith, Tertullian

says, the only excuse for continuing to seek is sheer obstinacy:

Away with the one who is always seeking, for he never finds

anything; for he is seeking where nothing can be found. Away

with the one who is always knocking, for he knocks where

there is no one to open; away with the one who is always

asking, for he asks of one who does not hear.54

The true Christian, Tertullian declares, simply determines to