Jerusalem: The Biography

* The Gnostics were one of these strands: they believed that the divine sparkwas released only to an elite few with special knowledge. In 1945, the discovery by Egyptian peasants of thirteen codices hidden in a jar and dating from the second or third centuries has revealed much more – and generated many bad movies and novels. In the Apocalypse of Peter and the First Apocalypse of James, it is a substitute who is crucified in place of Jesus. In the Gospel of Philip, there are fragmentary references to Jesus kissing Mary Magdalene, encouraging the idea that they may have married. The Gospel of Judas, which emerged in 2006, appears to present Judas as Jesus’ assistant in accomplishing the Crucifixion, rather than traitor. The texts were probably hidden in the fourth century when the Christian emperors started to crackdown on heresies, but the word ‘Gnostic’, based on the Greekfor knowledge, was coined in the eighteenth century. The Jewish Christians survived in tiny numbers as the Ebionites – the Poor Ones – rejecting the Virgin Birth and revering Jesus the Jewish prophet into the fourth century. As for the mainstream Christians, though relatively small in numbers, their sense of community and mission gave them a growing disdain for the gentiles whom they called bumpkins –pagani, hence pagan.