The Secret Book of James

 Understand what the great light is. The Father does not need me. A father does not need a son, but it is the son who needs the father. --- The Secret Book of James

 The Secret Book of James comes from the Nag Hammadi library discovered in 1945 in Egypt. In the year 367CE Athanasius sent out an Easter letter declaring there were 27 books to be read as sacred.(the first known list of what ended up to be the New Testament) Other books were destroyed, but at least some monks hid the other books for safe keeping. Some have been found including the find in 1945. Because of this we now can read books that were quoted by some of the early fathers, but we didn't have copies of. I thought I would share bits of it along the way with you.

One thing is that we have discovered is that for sure early Christianity had a lot of diversity. There was deep thinking in all sorts of directions.  For me it's exciting to go back to those days and read what was being written and circulated by the early Christian thinkers.

The quote above brings something of a new idea. God doesn't need us, we need God.  Since it is Jesus speaking, he needs God, God doesn't need him -  now there's an interesting twist! 

Another quote reminds me of something from our New Testament. "Become better than I. Be like the child of the Holy Spirit.” That reminds me of when Jesus said greater things than this shall you do. I see those statements as related. It is somewhat startling to phrase it this way - become better than I. Although many of us strive to be as Christ-like as possible, I don't imagine any of us thinks we've come better than Christ. I guess that's an aspirational goal flung at us.

I hope you will think about these things and join me in a little romp through these ancient books and letters.