In the Nag Hammadi library, there is a text identified as the “Gospel of the Egyptians”, but did you know there is another text that goes by the same name? This other text has the name of the “Greek” Gospel of the Egyptians and only survives in fragmented / quotation form, as the Nag Hammadi version is sometimes identified as the “Coptic” Gospel of the Egyptians. I will present all the known fragments below. I did take out the commentary remarks from the various church fathers that these come from (I will provide a link at the bottom to the source of the sayings) and structured them in a way that the quotes flow a bit better.
Salome asked the Lord “Until when shall men continue to die?” The Lord answers “So long as women bear children.” Salome replies “I have done well, then, in not bearing children?” The Lord responds “Every plant eat thou, but that which hath bitterness eat not.” Salome inquired when the things concerning which she asked should be known, the Lord responds with “When ye have trampled on the garment of shame, and when the two become one and the male with the female is neither male nor female.”
This is the longest fragment that survives. It does feel incomplete and without context, but as is, we have Salome asking about if by not giving birth would it mean there is no longer death for people. So to take this in a Gnostic context, when a child is born, this child would be the “life source” for the demiurge and the archons. If you wish for people not to suffer and to escape this material plane, then don’t have children. With life comes the eventual decay into death. You can also view this in a re-incarnation scenario where one re-incarnates via their offspring (ancestral memory and genetics), but if you stopped having children, then this stops. A short cut out of samsara? lol
To take it another way, by not bearing children, ideally you would be celibate hence abstaining from the desires of the world. So in an Orthodox Christian monastic way of thinking, this would apply. I like all these interpretations but it’s all how you perceive it.
The fragment then has the Savior speaking about eating all fruits except those that are bitter. This phrase can be a bit puzzling. Does it really provide an answer to Salome or is it out of context / missing phrase(s)? If it really does answer her question, then it would seem that bitter fruit would be an allegory for the things that are not good for us. Pretty standard advice I would say.
The last part of this segment is quite interesting as this is basically saying 22 from the Gospel of Thomas. Gotta love these Thomas sayings popping up elsewhere! The way it is phrased, it would seem that once a person truly knows who they are, this is the time in which this knowledge will become known, thus the answer the Savior is giving to Salome.
The Savior said “I came to destroy the works of the female.”
Clement of Alexandria interprets this as the female means lust, and that the works are birth and decay. So if we read this with the first segment, by destroying/stopping the works, i.e. birth from the female, this will end the cycle of death/suffering. He could have phrased it a bit differently, lol.
The soul is very hard to find and to perceive; for it does not continue in the same fashion or shape or in one emotion so that one can either describe it or comprehend it’s essence.
Once again, no context, but this reads to me as the ascension of the soul through the heavens.
The Savior showed his disciples that the same person was Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Here is a pro-Trinity statement that appears, at least how it is presented since we have no context in how it is used.
There you have it, the remains of the “Greek” Gospel of the Egyptians. Definitely some interesting quotes there and the first segment is one I often contemplate on.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/gospelegyptians.html
Featured artwork made with Midjourney.
bP
Culmination of Wisdom 