A RICH MAN IN OVER HIS HEAD
Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
Ted Waitt is a wealthy man who, like many other wealthy men, doesn't know what he's talking about.
He made his millions by founding and running Gateway, Inc., a computer maker. Now his La Jolla-based foundation gives money to causes that strike his fancy. The latest has been the "Gospel of Judas." Waitt donated more than $1 million to fund the restoration and preservation of the fourth-century manuscript that recently caused a bit of a stir among people who have an interest in, but not a participation in, religion.
You may remember how "National Geographic" touted this Gnostic text last Easter, playing it up as an important new find, even though the manuscript had been known to scholars since its discover in Egypt in the 1970s and even though it is nothing more than another ancient Gnostic text.
According to the "Gospel of Judas," Judas was not the villain of the story but the hero. It was at Jesus' own request that Judas turned him in to the authorities, and it was to Judas that Jesus promised to reveal "the mysteries of the kingdom."
Waitt was asked by a reporter for the "San Diego Union-Tribune," "What is your personal opinion about the importance of this discovery? Do you personally believe it is authentic?"
"It's absolutely authentic and extremely significant," he replied. "I believe its greatest significance lies in getting more people to understand the early evolution of Christianity."
Keep in mind what "authentic" means here: not that what the manuscript says is true but that the manuscript isn't a forgery but is really a fourth-century copy of an older Gnostic text. Many people will see the word "authentic" and think Waitt meant that what the manuscript asserts is true really is true.
"The Da Vinci Code" book you find at the book store is an "authentic" text; it is really what Dan Brown wrote. But what it relates is not true, except accidentally. Its basic story line is false.
So too with the "Gospel of Judas." Someone actually wrote that work in the second century, and in the 1970s someone in Egypt found a much-later but still ancient copy of it, but the work's antiquity didn't raise it to the level of fact. It remained what it was when it was written, a kind of fairy tale. But it is a fairy tale that Ted Waitt believes in.
He said, "It's also significant to note that the early Christians were more spiritual than religious, without the need for a hierarchical church." (He went on to describe himself as "more spiritual than religious, but I did take my kids to church on Easter.")
Waitt's private views likely color his perception of Church history. When he said that "early Christians were more spiritual than religious," he apparently meant that they operated without any sense of a formal Church structure--as Waitt himself operates now. The only problem with this idea is that it is demonstrably false.
All one needs to do is to read any of the Church Fathers. Take Ignatius of Antioch, for example. There he is, being hauled off to Rome for execution. The year is 110. The last of the apostles, John, has been dead about a decade. There still can be found old men who had heard Jesus speak.
Roman soldiers escort Ignatius toward the capital, and the man they escort is a bishop, which is to say a leader of an organized, hierarchical Church. Ignatius knows his authority and exercises it, even as he is in captivity. During his last journey he writes letters to local churches in Asia Minor.
We still have them. They can be found in translation in most larger book stores. They are short and can be read in a single sitting, and no one can read them without seeing that Ignatius was not a member of a loose agglomeration of like-minded people but was a member of--even a hierarch of--an organized Church.
When it comes to how the early Church was structured--or unstructured--whom are we to believe, Ted Waitt, a man with no apparent competence in history or religion, or a saint such as Ignatius, who lived in the first and early second centuries, who was a leader of the Church, and who died for his faith?
If Ignatius is insufficient as a witness, try Eusebius of Caesaria, the first Church historian. He wrote the "Ecclesiastical History" in 325. It gives the history of the Church from its first years to the time of the Emperor Constantine. The book largely is an account of which member of the hierarchy succeeded which member of the hierarchy.
You can't read it without realizing that Waitt simply doesn't know what he's talking about. From the very first the Church was structured. It had a leadership, a top-down arrangement. Yes, the early Christians "followed Jesus' teachings," but they did so because they were instructed in them by a hierarchy of priests, bishops, and popes. There was not then--and there never has been since--a free-form, hierarchy-less Church.
Only a man innocent of Church history could claim otherwise, but only a man innocent of Church history could think that a text such as the "Gospel of Judas" provides revolutionary insights into "real" Christianity.
When asked what new project has captured his attention, now that the "Gospel of Judas" has had its fifteen minutes of fame, Waitt said, "I'm working on looking for things at the bottom of the ocean. Interesting stuff. Not as deep as Gnostic gospels, but potentially significant nonetheless."
"Deep as Gnostic gospels"? I hope he meant this as a joke. I don't know what he hopes to find on the ocean floor, but at least the investigation will remove him from a field in which he is out of his depth: religion.
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