This sounds like Gnosticism.
"Gnosticism was perhaps the most dangerous heresy that threatened the early church during the first three centuries. Influenced by such philosophers as Plato, Gnosticism is based on two false premises. First, it espouses a dualism regarding spirit and matter. Gnostics assert that
matter is inherently evil and spirit is good. As a result of this presupposition, Gnostics believe anything done in the body, even the grossest sin, has no meaning because real life exists in the spirit realm only.
Second, Gnostics claim to possess an elevated knowledge, a “higher truth” known only to a certain few. Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis which means “to know.” Gnostics claim to possess a higher knowledge, not from the Bible, but acquired on some mystical higher plane of existence. Gnostics see themselves as a privileged class elevated above everybody else by their higher, deeper knowledge of God.
...
Christianity asserts that there is one source of Truth and that is the Bible, the inspired, inerrant Word of the living God, the only infallible
rule of faith and practice (
John 17:17;
2 Timothy 3:15-17;
Hebrews 4:12). It is God’s written revelation to mankind and is never superseded by man’s thoughts, ideas, writings, or visions. The Gnostics, on the other hand, use a variety of early heretical writings known as the Gnostic gospels, a collection of forgeries claiming to be “lost books of the Bible.” Thankfully, the early church fathers were nearly unanimous in recognizing these Gnostic scrolls as fraudulent forgeries that espouse false doctrines about Jesus Christ, salvation, God, and every other crucial Christian truth. There are countless contradictions between the Gnostic “gospels” and the Bible. Even when the so-called Christian Gnostics quote from the Bible, they rewrite verses and parts of verses to harmonize with their philosophy, a practice that is strictly forbidden and warned against by Scripture (
Deuteronomy 4:2;
12:32;
Proverbs 30:6;
Revelation 22:18-19).
...
Gnosticism is based on a mystical, intuitive, subjective, inward, emotional approach to truth which is not new at all. It is very old, going back in some form to the Garden of Eden, where Satan questioned God and the words He spoke and convinced Adam and Eve to reject them and accept a lie. He does the same thing today as he “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (
1 Peter 5:8). He still calls God and the Bible into question and catches in his web those who are either naïve and scripturally uninformed or who are seeking some personal revelation to make them feel special, unique, and superior to others. Let us follow the Apostle Paul who said to “test everything. Hold on to the good” (
1 Thessalonians 5:21), and this we do by comparing everything to the Word of God, the only Truth." From
What is Christian Gnosticism?
"
Salvation to the Gnostics came by knowledge and experience. Those who did not have this knowledge (esoteric truth) were associated with ignorance. They
received direct revelation from the Spirit which was more important than the word."
What is Gnosticsim
"Gnosticism (1st and 2nd Centuries)
"Matter is evil!" was the cry of the Gnostics. This idea was borrowed from certain Greek philosophers. It stood against Catholic teaching, not only because it contradicts Genesis 1:31 ("And God saw everything that he had made, and behold,
it was very good") and other scriptures, but because it denies the Incarnation. If matter is evil, then Jesus Christ could not be true God and true man, for Christ is in no way evil. Thus many Gnostics denied the Incarnation, claiming that Christ only
appeared to be a man, but that his humanity was an illusion. Some Gnostics, recognizing that the Old Testament taught that God created matter, claimed that the God of the Jews was an evil deity who was distinct from the New Testament God of Jesus Christ. They also proposed belief in many divine beings, known as "aeons," who mediated between man and the ultimate, unreachable God. The lowest of these aeons, the one who had contact with men, was supposed to be Jesus Christ. " From
The Great Heresies | Catholic Answers
I noticed you quoted the Gospel of Thomas, which is not included in the Biblical canon and is believed to be written by Gnostics, as well as the Gospel of Philip, another Gnostic text:
"The
Gospel of Philip is one of the
Gnostic Gospels, a text of
New Testament apocrypha, dated to around the 3rd century but lost in modern times until an Egyptian man rediscovered it by accident, buried in a cave near
Nag Hammadi, in 1945.
[1]
The text is not related to the
canonical gospels and is not accepted as canonical by the
Christian church. Although it may seem similar to the
Gospel of Thomas, scholars are divided as to whether it is a single discourse or a collection of
Valentinian sayings.
[2][3]
Sacraments, in particular the sacrament of marriage, are a major theme. As in the other gnostic texts, the
Gospel of Thomas and
Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Philip defends the tradition that gives
Mary Magdalene special insight into Jesus' teaching" Wikipedia
On Gospel of Thomas:
"It is possible that the document originated within a
school of
early Christians, possibly
proto-Gnostics.
The
Coptic-language text, the second of seven contained in what modern-day scholars have designated as Codex II, is composed of 114 sayings attributed to
Jesus.
[2] Almost half of these sayings resemble those found in the
Canonical Gospels, while it is speculated that the other sayings were added from
Gnostic tradition.
Bishop
Eusebius (AD 260/265 – 339/340) included it among a group of books that he believed to be not only spurious, but "the fictions of heretics"." From the wikipedia
"The Gospel of Thomas is considered to be an example of gnostic literature, a body of religious writing characterized by a rejection of the flesh and the material world in favor of a focus on the spirit. Although gnosticism’s emphasis on the spiritual faintly echoes Christianity’s condemnation of worldliness and carnal living, gnosticism’s rejection of the physical world goes far beyond Christianity’s teachings." Biblegateway.com
"The Gospel of Thomas likely came from a group of people sometimes called “
gnostics.” These folk tried to make teachings about Jesus mesh with certain philosophical principles that grew in popularity especially between the years 100 and 200. There’s a lot we could say about these gnostic ideas and their influence on Christianity, but most other ancient Christians firmly rejected them, considering them an innovation -- a departure from foundational Christian convictions about Jesus. Gnostic ideas tended to conflict with the belief that Jesus had been a real person with a real body, and that he spoke a message rooted in Jewish beliefs about the God revealed in the Hebrew scriptures (the Christian Old Testament).
A few scholars insist that Thomas -- or parts of it -- was written around the same time as, if not earlier than, the biblical Gospels (which are usually dated between the years 66–100). Maybe you’ve heard of The Jesus Seminar, which made a lot of fuss (and a lot of money) when they published a book called The Five Gospels in 1993. Those scholars tried to give Thomas a place at the table with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in their efforts to determine which gospel sayings may have really come from Jesus’ mouth.
Remind me again -- why should we care?
Certainly parts of Thomas reflect well-traveled and perhaps authentic words attributed to Jesus. Yet the book’s odder parts indicate that it was produced later, probably between the years 100 and 140, as gnostic ideas became more influential. Probably gnostic Christians took material from Matthew, Mark, and Luke and altered it, making Jesus more a disseminator of secret mysteries than an inaugurator of God’s kingdom on earth.
The Gospel of Thomas tells us more about different theological movements vying with one another about a century after Jesus left this earth than it tells us about Jesus and how his earliest followers understood him. That’s interesting stuff, but it also makes for a pretty good reason for not including the book in the Bible.
...
A few of the book’s quotations resemble words we also find in the biblical Gospels. For example, the 54th saying in Thomas is very close to Luke 6:20 (“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God”). Those sayings may reflect traditions, or remembrances, that many ancient Christians cherished, and that may go back to words Jesus actually spoke.
On the other hand, many quotations in Thomas are quite strange. Consider the 22nd saying, which reads: “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and what is above like what is below, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make a pair of eyes in place of one 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].”1
And you thought Jesus said some confusing stuff in the biblical Gospels.
As for understanding why the Gospel of Thomas isn’t in the Bible -- read it, and compare it to what you see in the New Testament. It’s a very different kind of book, presenting a quite different Jesus."
Why isn't the Gospel of Thomas in the Bible? - Matt Skinner by Matt Skinner - Blog - Enter the Bible
"The first half of Paul's letter to the Colossians, especially the second chapter, is an effort to combat false teachings that were being promoted to the Church there. This epistle is generally dated to the period of 58-60 CE, and is commonly thought to have been written by Paul while he was imprisoned in Rome. In recent years, many scholars have concluded that the internal evidence within the epistle indicates an early form of Gnosticism was the culprit in Colosse.
In order to grasp some of the points Paul makes in his letter, a rudimentary understanding of the basic tenets of Gnosticism is required. Gnosticism wasn't a separate religion; rather, it was a philosophy that was blended with components of existing religions. Apparently, elements of Judaism/Christianity were combined with Gnostic beliefs soon after the Church began, creating the heretical teachings that Paul combats in his letter to the Colossians.
The term "Gnostic" comes from the Greek word
gnosis, which means
knowledge."
What Was the Colossian Heresy? - Here a little, there a little - Commentary
1 Timothy 6:20-21
O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “
knowledge,” for by professing it some have
swerved from the faith. Grace be with you.
Colossians 2:8
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
1 John 4
1Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
3but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the
antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
("As I explained in
my essay on Gnosticism, one of the tenets of Gnosticism is that Christ had not actually had a physical existence. What the apostles had interacted with, and what had been killed by the Romans, had actually been an illusion. This was necessitated by Gnostic dualism, which posited that matter, or the physical, was evil, and only light was good. Since they believed Christ to have been "good," then logically, the Gnostics were forced to assert that he had not actually had a physical form."
Early Christian History / Heresies: Docetism
"Christ was so divine that he could not have been human, since God lacked a material body, which therefore could not physically suffer. Jesus only
appeared to be a flesh-and-blood man; his body was a
phantasm." Wikipedia. Is this where your name comes from, Phantasman?)
Galatians 1
6I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a
different gospel— 7which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to
pervert the gospel of Christ.
8But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!
9As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!
2 Corinthians 11
1I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness. Yes, please put up with me!
2I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.
3But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
4For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a
different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.
5I do not think I am in the least inferior to those “super-apostles.”
a 6I may indeed be untrained as a speaker, but I do have knowledge. We have made this perfectly clear to you in every way.
7Was it a sin for me to lower myself in order to elevate you by preaching the gospel of God to you free of charge?
8I robbed other churches by receiving support from them so as to serve you.
9And when I was with you and needed something, I was not a burden to anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied what I needed. I have kept myself from being a burden to you in any way, and will continue to do so.
10As surely as the truth of Christ is in me, nobody in the regions of Achaia will stop this boasting of mine.
11Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!
12And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about.
13For such people are
false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.
14And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
15It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.
Jude 1:8
Yet in like manner these people also,
relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
John 1:14
And the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
2 Timothy 3:16
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness
Romans 1
1Paul, a servant
a of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,
2which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures,
3concerning his Son, who was descended from David
b according to the flesh 4and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
5through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the
obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,
6including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ