The gospel of Mary Magdalene was an interesting read. Unlike some of the other works in regards to, or by the Christians, this one was relatively short. Granted more than half of it was missing, the translation left over was something simple to read, yet difficult to follow.
There are only eight pages, which likely ends up as more if you’re viewing it in an online reader like I did. Only a few lines in I was immediately reminded of the tenants of Gnosticism. Though I am poorly versed in this field, the line “If they have ears, let them hear” when contextualized is one of the core principals of Gnosticism. It is easy to see why this text would be considered incredibly controversial by Christians, whether it was in the era that it was written in, or the era that it was rediscovered and translated. While it is hypothesized by Christians and historians alike that the writer of this scroll could not possibly have had reliable firsthand information confirming these interactions between Mary and the disciples, with just how old the texts are, and with the implications that they were making, it’s easy to see why the Christians might not take too kindly to it. It has notable similarities to mainstream Christianity, though with the primary subtle difference between the two being that Christianity demands reverence of a god in able to save your soul and escape the material world into heaven, and that Gnosticism explicitly doesn’t mention a cohesive higher power. It is this deliberate withdrawal of the concept of a god that makes it so controversial, as the savior said through his mother that the disciples were to seek enlightenment and escape from the material plain.
Another controversial tenant of Gnosticism that is solidified in this short passage is that to escape from the material plane, a person must have the devices in which to do so. The line “If they have ears, let them hear” is symbolic more than literal. While yes, it is possible for a person not to have ears, this typically wasn’t the primary barrier between a person and enlightenment. More so, it is a requirement that the person truly be able to listen, which in a world drenched in Christianity, was a tall order. The line “Whoever has a mind, let them understand!” is another solidifying factor to this concept that there are factors to being capable of pursuing this path.
While the tenants of Gnosticism are certainly interesting, I wanted to highlight one more thing in particular that really stuck out to me. While of course the constant degradation of the material world is a factor of Gnosticism, it is also a universally agreed-upon scientific principal referred to as “Entropy”. So many reinforcing factors come up during the text, incredibly deliberate explanations that sound as if they came right out of a text book. Whether you believe the gospel or not, the fact that there was someone writing about the incredibly abstract concept of entropy in a nearly identical manner as to how we do today is absolutely astounding. Coincidental pessimism, or deliberate machinations of the mind?