DeConick A.D

155
JOHN AND THE DARK COSMOS
the older position? How did the Children of Light come to experience a
schism of this magnitude only a few years after their Gospel was finished
and published?
Here we must imagine a scenario in which one of the churches of the
Children of Light began to encounter Apostolic Catholic Christians. Perhaps
a large Apostolic Catholic household moved into town and joined
the congregation of the Children of Light. Or maybe a struggling local
Apostolic Catholic congregation united with the Children of Light for
economic or social reasons. Whatever the particular scenario, it is clear
from 1 John that a powerful contingent of Apostolic Catholic Christians
had joined their community.
The assumptions of the Apostolic Catholics about God and Jesus were
very different from those of the original Children of Light, so when they
read the fourth Gospel they did so with very different eyes. They could
not imagine that Jesus had taught about any other God than the biblical
YHWH. They could not imagine salvation based on nature rather than
deeds. They could not imagine Jesus as a human container for God’s
spirit. So they imposed a new way of reading the fourth Gospel. They
may even have been responsible for the final reconfiguration of the fourth
Gospel itself, when the last chapter was added to showcase the faith of
Simon Peter, the hero of the Apostolic Catholic Christians.
Needless to say, by 110 CE, the conflict over how the fourth Gospel
ought to be read had fractured the community. The Apostolic Catholic
interpretation was perceived by the original group to be an imposition on
the Gospel and a rejection of their unique religious heritage. In their eyes,
the elder and his supporters were usurpers who had pulled off a hostile
takeover of their community. So they did what they felt was their only
recourse. They withdrew from the congregation and reconfigured themselves
as a reformed congregation of the Children of Light, claiming that
they alone knew the true Father of Jesus. And he wasn’t YHWH.
Cerinthus Is in the Bathhouse
By the year 180 CE, things had gotten out of hand when it came to the
fourth Gospel, and Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, was tired of it all. He was
fed up with Gnostic readings of the fourth Gospel and took up his pen to
defend the Apostolic Catholic position against them.