heresiologists to penetrating criticism, arguing that investigations
of heresy were ‘usually done with implicit, or even explicit assent
to the view that any such divergence really is a corruption of
Christianity’ (Bauer 1972: xxi). He went on to state:Perhaps – I repeat, perhaps – certain manifestations of
Christian life that the authors of the Church renounce as
‘heresies’ originally had not been such at all, but, at least
here and there, were the only form of the new religion –
that is, for those regions they were simply ‘Christianity.’
The possibility also exists that their adherents constituted a
majority, and that they looked down with hatred and scorn
on the orthodox, who for them were the false believers.
(Bauer 1972: xxii)Bauer’s book initially met with a frosty reception, but the discov-
eries at Nag Hammadi suggested that he had been unusually
prescient. Among the texts were not only depictions of the
conventional Christian God as imperfect and deceitful, but also
denunciations of ‘orthodox’ Christianity and its hierarchy. The
Gospel of Philip, for example, teaches that true knowledge and
enlightenment are hindered by the conventional names of things.
Its selection of examples is instructive:Names given to earthly things are very deceptive, for they
divert our thoughts from what is correct to what is incorrect.
Thus one who hears the word ‘God’ does not perceive what
is correct, but perceives what is incorrect. So also with ‘the
Father’ and ‘the Son’ and ‘the Holy Spirit’ and ‘life’ and
‘light’ and ‘resurrection’ and ‘the Church’ and all the rest.
(Nag Hammadi Codex II, 53.24–32,
in Robinson 1988: 142)A more emphatic attack is found in the Apocalypse of Peter,
where the Saviour predicts to Peter that many will subvert the
truth of his message to humankind:ORTHODOXY AND ORGANIZATION IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY
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