Yes, I think the “ Gospel” of Thomas is a major example of this. Years back in TAW, I posted an example of such manipulation.
Two questions, two parts on St Ignatius Brianchaninov's words. 1. He who reads the books of a heretic immediately communes with an evil, dark spirit of falsehood. This should not seem strange or incredible to you—this is the unanimous opinion of the Holy Fathers… 2. Let each personally choose...
www.christianforums.com
Indeed. It contains subtle Gnostic interpolations, which if one knows Orthodox theology and also if one knows about the different Gnostic sects, for example, if one has read St. Irenaeus and St. Epiphanios of Salamis, one can detect them, but someone reading it who has not benefitted from such knowledge in advance is at risk of being deluded.
The tragedy with that document is that it might well have at one time been a legitimate text, maybe not written by the Holy Apostle Thomas, but nonetheless a useful list of sayings attributed to Our Lord, which had been compiled by someone to help in preaching, perhaps in the Syriac speaking eastern areas of the Church in Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia and India, where St. Thomas evangelized, as it was not until the third century that they had the benefit of a translation of the four canonical Gospels (the Vetus Syra, which would later be replaced by the Peshitta). However, my hypothesis is that this legitimate document was acquired by Gnostics of the Syrian school (as there are traces of Syrian Gnosticism in it specifically, although the text of the work was written in Coptic and found in Egypt, but it could well be a translation; I don’t recall if anyone has done enough philological analysis to say what language it originally might have been written in but if I recall, it is thought to have been translated), and then subtly corrupted in such a way as to provide an entry point for their teaching.
The result would be directly analogous to how the Jehovah’s Witnesses have modified the Gospel according St. John the Theologian and certain other texts in order to make it look like their neo-Arian heresy is scripturally based. And likewise the heresiarch Marcion famously modified the Gospel according to St. Luke the Evangelist, but he was in such a state of
prelest* that he did so openly, since he believed all content contrary to his beliefs was not authentic.
*For the benefit of people unacquainted with Eastern Orthodox theology who may be reading this thread,
prelest is an Orthodox theological term used to refer to a state of spiritual delusion.
pursuingveritas.com
