Did the Gnostics worship the Sacred Feminine?
From what Dan Brown says in 'The Da Vinci Code,' you'd think that the Gnostics were into the 'sacred feminine' in a big way, and they were pagan goddess worshippers. But this is far from the truth.
They weren't in favour of pagan sexuality; rather, they looked on the whole physical world as an evil mistake. And they weren't early feminists; rather, they devalued women. They were elitist and male to the core.
For example, look at what the Gospel of Thomas says. This is probably a second century document, and it doesn't represent what Jesus - or any of his followers - actually said. But it does give us an insight into how the Gnostics thought. According to the Gospel of Thomas, when Peter said...
...Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.
Jesus replied...
I myself shall lead her, in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
This doesn't sound very feminist, or very oriented towards 'goddess worship,' does it?
In The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown has confused Gnosticism with pagan ideas about the 'sacred feminine.' But they weren't the same thing, and the Gnostics weren't goddess-worshippers.
According to Brown, the Gnostic Gospels show us a Jesus who is just a human prophet, not a divine figure. But you could hardly get much further from the truth:
In the Gospels in the Bible, although Jesus is a divine figure, he's also thoroughly human. He gets tired, and hungry and thirsty. He gets angry and sad. He has friends and enemies. He suffers pain, and eventually he dies.
In the Gnostic Gospels, on the other hand, Jesus is a completely supernatural being. In fact, he's so divine that he's almost non-physical. He doesn't blink, and he doesn't leave footprints. He looks human, but he isn't really. This is exactly the opposite of what Dan Brown says.
We've seen that the Gnostic Gospels come from the second or third century. They aren't the earliest Christian Gospels. They don't mention the Grail, and they don't 'speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms,' as Dan Brown says. They don't 'highlight glaring historical discrepancies or fabrications.'