The Gospel of the Egyptians

The Gospel of the Egyptians is another Gospel that has been lost since the early centuries of Christianity. The only access we have to it is in the quotations of an early church father, the late second-century Clement of Alexandria, who at one point identiﬁes one of his non-canonical quotations of the words of Jesus as having come from this book (fragment 5). Most of Clement’s quotations of the Gospel involve conversations between Jesus and a woman named Salome, mentioned in the New Testament as one of the women who discovered Jesus’ empty tomb (Mark 15:40; 16:1). Eventually Salome became a prominent ﬁgure in some circles of Christianity, including those that produced this Gospel according to the Egyptians, where her questions and comments lead to important sayings of Jesus. These sayings embody ascetic concerns, in which the desires of the ﬂesh and sexual activity are condemned as being opposed to the will of God. In particular, the Gospel appears originally to have condemned the practices of marriage and procreation. In a number of instances Clement himself interprets these sayings; it is sometimes difﬁcult to know, however, whether Clement’s interpretations represent the views of the Gospel’s anonymous author, or are instead Clement’s own attempts to make sense of the Gospel in light of his own views. At least one of the sayings stresses a Gnostic notion that the revelation of God will be complete when people trample on the “shameful garment” (⫽ the human body?) and all things are restored to their ultimate unity— including male and female, which will no longer be differentiated but made one (fragment 5). Similar notions can be found in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, also used in Egypt (see Gospel of Thomas 22, 37, 114). Some scholars maintain that the Gospel was named “according to the Egyptians” to differentiate it from another Gospel used in Egypt, the Gospel “according to the Hebrews”—the latter in use among Jewish-Christians and the former, therefore, among Gentile Christians. Others ﬁnd it more likely Translation by Bart D. Ehrman based on the Greek text found in Egbert Schlarb and Dieter Lührmann, Fragmente apocryph gewordener Evangelien in griechischer und lateinischer Sprache (Marburg: N. G. Elwert, 2000) 29–31.

NON-CANONICAL GOSPELS

that the book was ﬁrst given its name by those living outside of Egypt, to identify it as a book in common use there. Since the Gospel is well-known to Clement and, evidently, his community, it may have been composed already by the ﬁrst part of the second century.

When Salome asked, “How long will death prevail?” the Lord replied, “For as long as you women bear children.” But he did not say this because life is evil or creation wicked; instead he was teaching the natural succession of things; for everything degenerates after coming into being. (Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 3, 45, 3)

Those who oppose God’s creation because of self-control—which at least sounds good—quote the words spoken to Salome, the ﬁrst of which we have already mentioned, found, I think, in the Gospel according to the Egyptians. For they claim that the Savior himself said, “I have come to destroy the works of the female.” By “the female” he meant desire and by “works” he meant birth and degeneration. (Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 3, 63, 1)

When the Word made a reasonable disclosure concerning the consummation of all things, Salome asked, “How long will people continue to die?” Now Scripture refers to people in two ways, as having a visible part and the soul, that is, the part that is saved and the part that is not. And sin is called the death of the soul. For this reason, the Lord replied shrewdly, “For as long as women bear children”—that is to say, for as long as

desires continue to be active. (Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 3, 64, 1)

Why do those who adhere to everything except the gospel rule of truth not cite the following words spoken to Salome? For when she said, “Then I have done well not to bear children” (supposing that it was not suitable to give birth), the Lord responded, “Eat every herb, but not the one that is bitter.” (Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 3, 66, 1–2)

This is why Cassian indicates that when Salome asked when the things she had asked about would become known, the Lord replied: “When you trample on the shameful garment and when the two become one and the male with the female is neither male nor female.” The ﬁrst thing to note, then, is that we do not ﬁnd this saying in the four Gospels handed down to us, but in the Gospel according to the Egyptians. (Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 3, 92, 2–93, 1)

And when the Savior said to Salome, “Death will last as long as women give birth,” he was not denigrating birth—since it is, after all, necessary for the salvation of those who believe. (Clement of Alexandria, Excerpts from Theodotus 67, 2)