The Secret Teachings of Jesus

04/07/23 • 26 min

1 Listener

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

Is this saying from a Zen Buddhist Text? The Hindu Bhagavad Gita? Actually, these are the words of Jesus . . . according to the 2,000-year-old Gospel of Thomas. The Princeton University scholar Elaine Pagels, PhD '70, says that this text—discovered in Egypt in 1945 along with the Gospel of Philip—contains Christ’s “secret teachings,” in contrast to those meant for public worship and included in the four canonical gospels of the New Testament.

So why were the gospels of Thomas and Philip banned by the church as illegitimate and heretical over 1600 years ago? And how do they change the way we understand the Christian tradition today?

This month on Colloquy: The “Gnostic Gospels” and their place in the history of early Christianity with Elaine Pagels.

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

So why were the gospels of Thomas and Philip banned by the church as illegitimate and heretical over 1600 years ago? And how do they change the way we understand the Christian tradition today?

This month on Colloquy: The “Gnostic Gospels” and their place in the history of early Christianity with Elaine Pagels.

Previous Episode

Colloquy Podcast: The Debt Ceiling—and Beyond—with Laurence Kotlikoff

As politicians and pundits wring their hands over the debt ceiling, the economist and Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff, PhD ’77, says the United States is already bankrupt. He calculates the health care and pension obligations to the country's rapidly aging population in the many trillions of dollars, far outpacing tax revenue in the coming decades. And he says economic growth won't save us. But he claims to have a few proposals that may, as well as some advice about personal investing, saving, and spending in uncertain times.

Next Episode

The Best Poetry Critic in America

For this special Poetry Month bonus episode of Colloquy, a conversation with Harvard Professor Helen Vendler, PhD ’60—once called “the best poetry critic in America” by The New Republic’s Alfred Kazin—about the art of verse and why both the poetic form and its great works have enduring value in the era of the social media-induced seven-second attention span.