You stated:
Er, no they most certainly were not. Christ had not yet come.
What does the title of Messiah mean? Why was John baptiseing?
The text below sheds some light on what the ancients believed in regards to a coming messiah.
When Adam, being greatly downcast, appeals for aid against Satan (who is more than a match for him), God tells the angel Muriel, "Go down to the man Adam and instruct him in my doctrine." The Apocryphon of John says, "A messenger went down and awakened Adam and showed him how to keep himself pure against the day of another visitation."165 In some versions, Adam is awakened from his sleep by three men whom he does not recognize. As he is talking to them, the Lord himself appears and asks Adam, "Why are you so sorrowful?" He is sorrowful because he is doomed, he says. The Lord promises him that "if he hearkens to the angels, they will teach him and his posterity the Gospel."
It was by establishing ordinances, says the Gospel of Philip, that Christ completed what Adam began. Adam and others prayed to God and asked him to give them the rules to attain the promises. So he gave them ordinances, decrees, commandments, and instructions, establishing places of preparation and transition, etc.166 Adam received the teachings, the ordinances, and the seals of all the Powers above and below, the Kephalaia says. The Berlin Papyrus says that at their new birth, Adam and Eve received the seals and the tokens. As Adam stood praying and supplicating, God sent someone who came and gave him a greeting of peace (shalom), embraced him, and preached the gospel to him.167 The helper came and awakened the Lord of Mysteries, who is Adam. For Adam went through all the ordinances, including baptism, washings, and anointings, says the Mandaean Prayerbook. According to the Ginza, the Lord and two companions taught Adam and Eve all the ordinances and blessed them. "The Great Light planted us here and gave us helpers who taught us the prayer of Adam in the world." Three angels were sent to teach Adam and Eve the law of chastity, to instruct them to be true and faithful when misfortune came upon them, and to dedicate all of their property to the needy and the poor—the rule which is binding upon all the elect. They were to call upon God without ceasing, in the name of the Son, and not to trust in the things of this world.168
One text says that these ordinances which Adam received in his dispensation have always been the same. They were taught to Adam and his posterity by three angels. His descendants were required to call upon God even as he had, and thereafter to do everything as he had done. Their treasure must be their good works, not gold and silver. They must teach the law of chastity to their children. The true baptism is the baptism of Adam, which was preached by John the Baptist. The three who were sent to Adam were called "the three who belong to the twelve, who were hidden within the veil of light." And in the Apocalypse of Abraham, Abraham is awakened by the Sent Ones, and their instructions to him and the ordinances exactly parallel those of Adam. Abraham says, "I arose and looked upon him that had taken me by the right hand, and he set me on my feet. . . . The hair of his head was like snow."169 It was the Savior himself.
Adam, you recall, had lost memory of his former existence. "I have caused a sleep to come over Adam," says the Abbatôn (a significant early writing of the apostles), "and a forgetting."170 Adam's sleep was the putting of a veil between him and his former knowledge. It enveloped him like a garment, and, while his memory was shut off by it, his epinoia (intelligence) retained its force. He remained smart, but he forgot everything. In fact, during the episode of the creation, Eve was made (not from a literal rib, according to this source) while Adam was in sort of a drugged stupor, his mind separated by a veil from what was really going on.171 He is aroused, then, and taught ordinances. He is the double for Michael, for Adam is Michael. Adam is Michael throughout these writings; it's a common theme.
For some reason, the ordinances are vital. They are not mere forms or symbols, they are analogues. Standing with the apostles in the prayer circle, the Lord tells them, "I will teach you all the ordinances necessary that you may be purged by degrees and progress in the next life."172 In many of these forty-day stories (and there are several), after the Lord is about to leave the apostles, he says, "I have taught you all these things. Now we will stand in a circle, and you will repeat after me this prayer, and we will go through all the ordinances again.173 This is repeated in 2 Jeu, which, as I say, Carl Schmidt regarded as the most important of all the early Christian writings. But standing with the apostles in the prayer circle, the Lord tells them, "I will teach you all of the ordinances necessary/ that you might be purged by degrees and progress in the next life. These things," he further explains, "make it possible for you to achieve other places (topoi), but they must be performed in this life. Unless one performs them here, he cannot become a 'Son of Light.'"174 All the texts, whether Syriac, Hebrew, Coptic, or Greek, always like the title "Sons of Light," meaning those who have received the ordinances of the temple. That's what the code name "Sons of Light" means, and it's used a great deal. The Lord explains in 2 Jeu what that name means: "By very definition, the 'Sons of Light' are those that are perfect in the ordinances."175 It is interesting that this same definition applies to the mysterious title Nazorean, which means the same thing. "Until Christ came," the Pistis Sophia explains, "no soul had gone through the ordinances in their completeness. It was he who opened the gates and the way of life."176 Those who received these ordinances are in the dispensations of the "'Sons of Light" in whatever age they lived, and they receive whatever they desire. They are those upon the right hand of the Father, for it is by their faithfulness in these things that they show they are worthy to return and inherit the kingdom. Without the ordinances, therefore, there is no foothold or foundation to anything in this life. If you want to go to the Father, says 1 Jeu, you must pass through the veil.177
These five things you have asked me about (the Lord tells the apostles after his resurrection, in the Kephalaia) appear very small and unimportant to the world, but they are really a very great and holy thing. I will teach you the mysteries now. These tokens (semeia) go back to the ordinances of the first man, Adam himself. He brought them with him when he came out of the garden of Eden, and having completed his struggle upon the earth, he mounted up by these very same signs and was received again into the Aeons of Light. The person who receives these becomes a Son. He both gives and receives the signs and the tokens of the God of truth, while demonstrating the same to the Church—all in hopes that some day these things may become a reality. So the apostles realized that these things are but forms and types, yet you can't do without them. You cannot do without analogues. For us they may only be symbols, but they must be done here, the Lord says. They may be but symbols here, but they are indispensable steps to the attainment of real power. "In fact," says the Pistis Sophia, "without the mysteries one loses one's power. Without the ordinances, one has no way of controlling matter, for such control begins with the control of one's self. The ordinances provide the very means and the discipline by which light operates on material things. You don't understand this now," it continues, "but your level, or taxis, in the next world will depend on the ordinances you receive in this world. Whoever receives the highest here will understand the whys and the wherefores of the great plan." "You can't understand it now, but you will. Your faith is being tested here. It is through the ordinances that one makes this progress in knowledge, so that those who receive all available ordinances and teachings here shall pass by all the intermediate topoi and shall not have to give the answers and signs, nor stand certain tests hereafter."178
John the Baptist, who performed the ordinances with which he was entrusted, foretold in a special language that Christ would bring the ordinances of the higher priesthood after him, because John the Baptist had only the ordinances of the Aaronic, or lesser priesthood, the Pistis Sophia tells us.179 And in the Epistle of the Apostles: Indeed, it was the Lord who, during the forty days, finally revealed all the ordinances in full. To repeat, "Everyone goes to the place indicated by the ordinances he has received. Even a sinless person," the Lord tells them, "cannot save others without these ordinances."180 Let us not think this trivial because these things should be given to all who ask for them. If they are not worthy, the risk is theirs. For everyone should be given the highest ordinance he is capable of receiving at any time. No one is to be refused, for the risk is theirs, the ordinances are so important to have.
"The all important thing is that the ordinances must be received in this world," says the Pistis Sophia, for we may never get another chance.181 "It is here that one must look upon the Living One; for if he does not, he will seek him in vain after death," says the Gospel of Thomas.182 He reveals the gate to those who are willing to enter. Each of us will receive his reward. For us, God has provided a Savior and helper. You, James, will be the enlightener and redeemer of those who are mine. You will become a Savior to them, he tells James, and they will be thine also. Whoever receives these ordinances, signs, and tokens will be added upon and have true increase forever and ever, says the Kephalaia. By means of these good signs and tokens, such shall enter into the light and shall become perfect men, and give honor and praise to the God of truth
footnotes:
165. Apocryphon of John 20:14–25, in NHLE, 110.
166. Gospel of Philip 55:5–25, in NHLE, 133.
167. Cf. Apocryphon of John 20:15–25, in NHLE, 110.
168. Lidzbarski, Ginza, 14–27.
169. Apocalypse of Abraham 11:1–2, in OTP 1:694.
170. "Discourse on Abbatôn," in Budge, Coptic Martyrdoms, 225–249,474–96.
171. Cf. Apocryphon of John 20:14–21:16; 22:20–21; 22:34–23:14, in NHLE, 110–11.
172. 2 Jeu 44, in Schmidt, Books of Jeu and the Untitled Text, 105.
173. Cf. 2 Jeu 42, in ibid., 99; Pistis Sophia IV, 136, in Schmidt, Pistis Sophia, 353–54.
174. 2 Jeu 51, in Schmidt, Books of Jeu and the Untitled Text, 126; cf. Pistis Sophia III, 125, in Schmidt, Pistis Sophia, 314–15.
175. 2 Jeu 51, in Schmidt, Books of Jeu and the Untitled Text, 126.
176. Pistis Sophia III, 135, in Schmidt, Pistis Sophia, 350.
177. Cf. 1 Jeu 39, in Schmidt, Books of Jeu and the Untitled Text, 89. This subject is discussed generally throughout the whole text of the books of Jeu.
178. Pistis Sophia II, 97, in Schmidt, Pistis Sophia, 234–35.
179. Cf. Pistis Sophia III, 132, in ibid., 347–48.
180. Pistis Sophia II, 97; III, 133, in Schmidt, Pistis Sophia, 234–35; 346–47.
181. Pistis Sophia III, 125, in Schmidt, Pistis Sophia, 314.
182. Gospel of Thomas, logion 59, in NHLE, 124
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. - Plato