DeConick A.D

146
JOHN AND THE DARK COSMOS
recognizes the Temple as Jesus’ body, the author appears to think that
the Christian church, as Jesus’ body, has replaced the Jewish Temple and
is the true locus of worship of the Father.
In fact, this very understanding of the story can be found in Gnostic
sources from the second century that represent our oldest commentaries
on the Gospel of John, such as Heracleon’s commentary quoted by
the famous Alexandrian teacher Origen ( Commentary on John 10.210–28).
There is no reason to assume that this understanding is secondarily imposed
on the Gospel by later Gnostics. Indeed, it may very well represent
the author’s original intent, which the Apostolic Catholics have to
subdue. To be sure, Origen agreed with the Gnostics that the passage
referred to the supremacy of the Christian church, which, as Jesus’ body,
had replaced the Jewish Temple. What he tries to dismiss is the Gnostic
insistence that this story demonstrated that Jesus’ Father is a separate God
from the God of the Jews.
The Apostolic Catholic interpretation of the fourth Gospel won the
day, but it does not appear to be the original or even the oldest known
understanding of the Gospel. Rather, the amassed evidence leads us to envisage
the metaphysical system woven into the fabric of the fourth Gospel
as a unique cognitive blend. This innovative worldview emerged when
Gnostic spirituality interfaced with the Jewish Bible and early Christian
mythology.
In terms of theology, YHWH has been bifurcated into the lord of the
heavens, a celestial God, and the lawgiver, a cosmic God. The celestial
lord remains in the highest heaven. He is the good, righteous Father,
the God of love and mercy. The lawgiver, YHWH’s capricious half, is
demoted to live in the world with his son the devil. He is the malicious
God of Moses, the world ruler. The celestial lord is identified with Jesus’
loving Father, who had been unknown until the advent of Jesus. The
celestial lord is the God who redeems the world by sending his son to
conquer the world ruler.
This theology has more affinities with known Gnostic systems than
with the theology of the Apostolic Catholics, but the metaphysical system
presupposed by the fourth Gospel is not identical with the Hermetic or
Sethian systems we learned about in chapter 3. The supreme God in the
fourth Gospel is not a transcendent deity who lives in another universe.
We do not have Gnostic spirituality and Platonism meeting the Bible,
where YHWH encounters the transcendent Platonic God, the Good.