Luminous Texts

In Occidental Christianity--the Christianity of the West--we inheret texts which are already being shaped by the tendency toward exclusivity. The hermeneutics of rejection, that is, the predisposition to reject anything that did not conform to the dogmatic assertions established by imperial Christianity under Constantine became the norm, and so many luminous and sacred texts from the early period of Christian formation were discarded and lost. Among them were the Gospels of Thomas, Mary Magdalene, and Philip. These Gospel texts never fit into the rigid formulations of Latin "orthodoxy." They failed the dogmatic test, and so were deemed heretical. If they had appeared in any other tradition, however, they would have remained sacred, valued, and much studied instead of spurned, dismissed and avoided.

These texts are indeed luminous--filled with the light of wisdom and insight, and a form of spiritual seeing that will not be controlled by exoteric Christianity. They are from the esoteric (the inner dimensions) of early visionary Christianity and first-century Judaism. In an act of miraculous providence they have been recovered and restored to us again. That which was lost has been found and perhaps now Christianity can be made whole again.