Question:
Gospel of the Egyptians “In the last year I was given a handoutby a homilist that quoted from the “The Gospel of the Egyptians” included in the “The Nag Hammadi Library”. (The Nag Hammadi Library is a collection of Gnostic texts).
The quote was as follows: “Three powers came forth from the great invisible Spirit, they are the Father, the Mother and the Son.” The priest/homilist said thatthe “Father, the Mother and the Son meant the Trinity according to nature, not according to Church Doctrine, and that we should think of God as Father, Mother and Son. I heard this message again to-day, that the Trinity is Father, Mother, and Son, and that motherhood had to do withthe personhood of the Trinity.
As Christians can we accept this teaching derived from the Gospel of the Egyptians, when the Creed of Nicea I and Constantinople I teaches that God’s name is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the whole of our Melkite Liturgy confirms the latter?
Bishop John’s Answer:
The Egyptian Trinity teaching is a strange teaching to which we do not subscribe as Melkite Catholics in full communion and in full agreement theologically with the Catholic Church at large. There have been too many heretical teachings in history. Some are beautiful poetically, but theologically incorrect. I think that, in this case, the Gospel of the Egyptians is theologically incorrect.