You may recall that my position is that classic Gnosticism was created in order to counter the information contained in the Gospel of Thomas, which is a real work of Gnosticism, in the true sense of the word.
When one understands the proper manner in which to approach the Gospel of Thomas, the secrets contained within the Judeo-Christian tradition can be accessed. But there were those who wished to keep this information hidden. And so a text was constructed which answered the enigmas raised within the Gospel of Thomas, so that one need look no further. This text was the Apocryphon of John, the defining text of classic Gnosticism.
For example take:
(7) Jesus said: Blessed is the lion which the man eats, and the lion will become man; and cursed is the man whom the lion eats, and the lion will become man.
And when she saw (the consequences of) her desire, it changed into a form of a lion-faced serpent. And its eyes were like lightning fires which flash. She cast it away from her, outside that place, that no one of the immortal ones might see it, for she had created it in ignorance. And she surrounded it with a luminous cloud, and she placed a throne in the middle of the cloud that no one might see it except the holy Spirit who is called the mother of the living. And she called his name Yaltabaoth.
AoJ 10:7-19
(18) The disciples said to Jesus: Tell us how our end will be.
Jesus said: Since you have discovered the beginning, why do you seek the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who shall stand at the beginning (in the beginning), and he shall know the end, and shall not taste death.
In the Apocryphon of John we learn what happened before the beginning as recounted in Genesis.
(29) Jesus said, "It is amazing if it was for the spirit that flesh came into existence. And it is amazing indeed if spirit (came into existence) for the sake of the body. But as for me, I am amazed at how this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty."
The Apocryphon of John shows how it came to pass that spirit became trapped in the flesh.
The Apocryphon of John
Due to the many themes which Thomas shares with John it is easy to see how Thomas came to be regarded simply as another work in the classic Gnostic tradition. But Thomas does not belong in this tradition at all. This tradition was created in order to provide answers to the questions raised by Thomas, but these answers are not the ones that the text of Thomas originally referred to. In order to discover the intended solutions one would have to dig deeply through the Judeo-Christian tradition. However since Thomas is classified as belonging to the same tradition as the Apocryphon of John one wouldn't feel any need to dig deeper since a quick glance through John provides a ready answer to each enigma. Hence there is no apparent reason to look any further.
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