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Deceptive Names



I’m not sure why I’ve never read the gnostic Gospel of Philip before. There’s tons of good stuff in it. My favorite line so far is:

Names given to the worldly are very deceptive, for they divert our thoughts from what is correct to what is incorrect.

The way I interpret this is that there’s no sense in arguing over words as they are just that, words. Words and words, and things are things. And “things” aren’t really even things because when we use the word “things” we’re just using another word. Put another way: look at your hand. Go ahead. Look at it. Wiggle the fingers. “Hand.” It’s not really a hand at all. Hand is just a word, not a thing.

Interestingly, later in the Gospel, it says:

But truth brought names into existence in the world for our sakes, because it is not possible to learn it (truth) without these names.

It’s heartening to know that these people struggled with the same questions and challenges as you and I do today.







1 Reader Responses

  1. Jon Rubin Says:
    August 21st, 2005 at 10:34 am

    And “things” aren’t really even things because when we use the word “things” we’re just using another word. Put another way: look at your hand. Go ahead. Look at it. Wiggle the fingers. “Hand.” It’s not really a hand at all. Hand is just a word, not a thing.

    Makes me think of part of saying 22 from the Gospel of Thomas:

    when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom].”

    BTW, I’m glad you read the Gospel of Philip. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I always think of that gospel as having a special connection to phildickian gnosticism just because of the name;> Maybe it’s because of stuff like this bit a few lines down from the “truth brought names into existence for our sake” stuff:

    The rulers (archons) wanted to deceive man, since they saw that he had a kinship with those that are truly good. They took the name of those that are good and gave it to those that are not good, so that through the names they might deceive him and bind them to those that are not good.

    or it could be this part, which seems to flip everything around like a PKD novel:

    There are two trees growing in Paradise. The one bears animals, the other bears men. Adam ate from the tree which bore animals. He became an animal and he brought forth animals. For this reason the children of Adam worship animals. The tree […] fruit is […] increased. […] ate the […] fruit of the […] bears men, […] man. […] God created man. […] men create God. That is the way it is in the world - men make gods and worship their creation. It would be fitting for the gods to worship men!



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