TYPOLOGIES OF THE SETHIAN GNOSTIC TREATISES
FROM NAG HAMMADI
by
John D. Turner
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
This paper will suggest several ways of grouping the Nag Hammadi tractates
associated with Sethian Gnosticism based on the interrelationships of the
tractates in terms of their position within codices, their literary function,
genre and thematic content, their exegetical concerns, and their literary
interdependencies and possible chronological order of production. The paper
presupposes, without argument, the existence of a clearly identifiable
and delineable group of Nag Hammadi treatises legitimately called "Sethian,"
as well as the heuristic usefulness of presenting and treating them as
the product of a distinct school of Gnostic thought, just as one might
treat the treatises produced by Valentinus' followers as "Valentinian."
While it is doubtful that the persons who wrote and read these treatises
used the self-designation "Sethian," the set of basic characteristics to
which the term refers comprises a well-defined symbology whose presence
is unambiguously detectable in each proposed member of the Sethian text
group. In addition, the strong evidence in most of these texts for the
existence of an established baptismal ritual tends to promote the designation
"Sethian" from the status of a merely heuristic typological category to
a genuine traditio-historical one, designating the mythico-ritual traditions
of a group who called themselves variously "the great generation," "strangers,"
"the immovable, incorruptible race," "the seed of Seth," "the living and
unshakable race," "the children of Seth," "the holy seed of Seth," and
"those who are worthy."
H.-M. Schenke of the Berliner (DDR) Arbeitskreis
für koptische-gnostische Schriften was the first to delineate
these fourteen treatises from the Nag Hammadi Codices (NHC) and Berlin
Gnostic Codex (BG 8502) as those that current scholarship considers to
be representative of "Sethian" Gnosticism:[1]
The Apocryphon of John (Ap. John
four copies in two versions:
short [BG 8502,2;
NHC III,1]; long [NHC II,1; NHC IV,1);
The Hypostasis of the Archons (Hyp.
Arch.: NHC II,4);
The Gospel of the Egyptians (Gos.
Egypt.: NHC III,2; NHC IV,2);
The Apocalypse of Adam (Apoc. Adam:
NHC V,5);
The Three Steles of Seth (Steles Seth:
NHC VII,5);
Zostrianos (Zost.: VIII,1);
Marsanes (NHC X,1);
Melchizedek (Melch.: NHC IX,1);
The Thought of Norea (Norea: NHC IX,2);
Allogenes (NHC XI,3); and
The Trimorphic Protennoia (Trim. Prot.
NHC XIII,1).
Schenke has defined the following features as basic to Sethian Gnosticism:
1. The self-understanding of the Gnostics that they are the pneumatic
seed of Seth: the Apocalypse of Adam, Gospel of the Egyptians,
Apocryphon of John, Three Steles of Seth, Melchizedek,
Zostrianos.
2. Seth as the heavenly-earthly savior of his seed: the Gospel of
the Egyptians, and perhaps under different names in Allogenes,
Marsanes, Zostrianos, (and the Illuminator of the Apocalypse
of Adam)
3. The four lights of the Autogenes (Harmozel, Oroiael, Daveithai,
and Eleleth), who constitute the heavenly dwelling places of Adam, Seth,
and the seed of Seth: the Apocryphon of John, Hypostasis of the
Archons, Gospel of the Egyptians, Zostrianos, Melchizedek,
Trimorphic Protennoia
4. The heavenly trinity of the Father (Invisible Spirit), Mother (Barbelo),
and Son (the Autogenes or Anthropos): the Apocryphon of John, Trimorphic
Protennoia, Gospel of the Egyptians. Allogenes, the
Three Steles of Seth, Zostrianos, the Thought of Norea,
perhaps Marsanes
5. The evil demiurge Yaldabaoth who tried to destroy the seed of Seth:
the Apocryphon of John, Trimorphic Protennoia, Hypostasis
of the Archons
6. The division of history into three ages and the appearance of the
savior in each age: the Apocryphon of John, Apocalypse of Adam,
Gospel of the Egyptians; the Trimorphic Protennoia
7. A special prayer: the Three Steles of Seth VII,5:
125,24-126, 17, Allogenes XI, 3: 54:11-37 and Zostrianos
VIII, 1: 51,24-52,8; 86,13-24; 88,9-25
8. A specific deployment of negative theology: Apocryphon of John
and Allogenes
9. A division of the Barbelo Aeon into the triad of Kalyptos, Protophanes,
Autogenes: the Three Steles of Seth, Zostrianos, Allogenes,
Marsanes
10. A specific philosophical terminology: the Three Steles of Seth,
Zostrianos, Marsanes, Allogenes
11. Obvious (secondary) Christianization : the Apocryphon of John,
Hypostasis of the Archons, Melchizedek
12. The presupposition of a second tetrad (Gamaliel, Gabriel, Samblo,
Abrasax or the like) alongside the four luminaries: Gospel of the Egyptians,
Apocalypse of Adam, Zostrianos, Melchizedek, Marsanes,
Trimorphic Protennoia, perhaps the Thought of Norea
13. The designation (in Coptic) "Pigeradamas" for Adamas: Apocryphon
of John (CG II,1), the Three Steles of Seth,
Zostrianos, Melchizedek
To these one must add:
14. The baptismal rite of the Five Seals: longer version of the Apocryphon
of John, Gospel of the Egyptians, Trimorphic Protennoia,
and perhaps Melchizedek; as the background for the ascensional practices
of Zostrianos, Allogenes, the Three Steles of Seth,
and perhaps Marsanes
A recent proposal has been made by B. Layton to add another Nag Hammadi
treatise to the Sethian corpus, namely The Thunder, Perfect Mind
(NHC VI,2), which he hypothesizes to be an offshoot (along with
certain materials in the Hypostasis of the Archons and On the
Origin of the World, NHC II,5) of a certain Gospel of Eve
cited by Epiphanius (Haer. 26.2.6).[2]
Yet another Nag Hammadi treatise might also be added
to the Sethian corpus, namely the short piece consisting presently of two
fragmentary leaves, Hypsiphrone (NHC XI,4), which narrates
the descent of Hypsiphrone ("haughty, lofty one") from the "place of her
virginity" during which she conversed with a being named Phainops, who
is associated with a "fount of blood." To judge from the name "Hypsiphrone,"
one may have to do here with the Sethian figure of Eleleth, one of the
traditional Sethian Four Illuminators, called Phronesis in Hyp.
Arch. 93,8-97,21, and whose name might be derived from Aramaic, 'el-`alîta'
"God of the height," which might correspond to Greek hypsiphronê.[3]
Even though it bears no trace of the names of the other traditional Sethian
divine beings, Hypsiphrone may be closely related to the other Sethian
texts.[4]
Finally, although the untitled treatise from NHC
II, On the Origin of the World (also in NHC XIII), contains few
distinctive Sethian mythologumena, and therefore should be excluded from
membership in this group, it is nonetheless closely related to the Hypostasis
of the Archons; indeed both of these may stem from a common Sethian
parent[5]
Again, while devoid of distinctive Sethian mythologumena, the treatise
Eugnostos the Blessed (III, 3 and V, 1) may be distantly
related to the Sethian treatises, especially given its incorporation into
the Sophia of Jesus Christ (NHC III, 4 and BG8502, 3),
which does contain a few features prominent in the Sethian texts. L. Painchaud
has also recently demonstrated a number of literary contacts between Eugnostos
the Blessed and On the Origin of the World.[6]
Grouping by Manuscript Position
Judging from the position these Sethian treatises occupy within the codices
that contain them, little more can be said than that the Apocryphon
of John is the foundational work of the group, occurring as the first
tractate in all three Nag Hammadi codices that contain it. Its secondary
position in Codex Berolinensis is perhaps singular, especially given the
consideration that it could have occupied first position in yet another
Nag Hammadi codex, namely as the missing tractate that originally occupied
the initial 34 pages (preceding the closely related Trimorphic Protennoia)
in Codex XIII. In Codices II and IV, the distinctly Christianized
Apocryphon of John is followed immediately by the likewise distinctly
Christianized Gospel of the Egyptians, while in Codex Berolinensis
it is followed by the non-Sethian Sophia of Jesus Christ,
a clearly Christianized version of Eugnostos the Blessed (in Codex
III the order is Ap. John, Gos. Egypt., Eugnostos,
and Soph. Jes. Chr.). In Codex II, the Apocryphon
of John is separated from its accompanying Sethian treatise, the
Hypostasis of the Archons, by two intervening sayings-collections,
the Gospels of Thomas and Phillip.[7]
Given the likelihood that the Nag Hammadi Codices were produced by Christian
scribes, perhaps it would not be out of place to construe the Codex II
arrangement on the analogy of the reading of scripture in a Christian liturgy:
creation account and Genesis protology (Ap. John), gospel
(Gos. Thom., Gos. Phil.), and apostle (Hyp.
Arch., attributed to Paul), but the following three treatises do
not seem to continue such a sequence in any obvious way.
In Codex IX, the highly Christian treatise Melchizedek,
which concludes with Melchizedek's lengthy high-priestly prayer on the
occasion of his baptism, is followed by the Thought of Norea, a
distinctly non-Christian hymn invoking the supreme Sethian trinity in honor
of Norea. Among the remaining (non-Christian) Sethian treatises, Marsanes
occupies the whole of Codex X. The Three Steles of Seth concludes
Codex VII, where, once again adopting a Christian liturgical sequence,
it might be construed as concluding a scriptural sequence such as: creation
account (Para. Shem), gospel or career of the savior (Treat.
Seth), apostle (Apoc. Peter), paraenesis (Teach.
Silv.), and the final ascension (Steles Seth). Finally, in the
second part of Codex XI (whose first part contains Subachmimic Valentinian
materials in another scribal hand), one finds Allogenes (penned
in essentially the same scribal hand as Zostrianos in Codex VIII),
a revelation dialogue, which is followed by Hypsiphrone, another--possibly
Sethian--apocalypse.
It seems that no convincingly consistent grouping of the Sethian treatises
emerges from their codicological positions, in spite of the possibility
of invoking some hypothetical Christian liturgical pattern that might be
made to fit portions of one or two codicological sequences. Perhaps one
might suggest three rather topically-oriented sub-sequences that have some
basis in the codicological order of presentation:
A) a developmental/ritual sequence: the Apocryphon of John as
the fullest presentation of the Sethian sacred history, followed by the
Gospel of the Egyptians, the Trimorphic Protennoia, Melchizedek,
and the Apocalypse of Adam on the combined grounds of 1) actual
(and conjectural) manuscript order and 2) the presentation of the baptismal
rite as the appropriate means of obtaining the enlightenment promised in
the Apocryphon of John.
B) a sequence treating the figure of Norea: the Hypostasis of the
Archons as introducing the figure of Norea, followed by the hymn to
her in the Thought of Norea.
C) a Platonizing group: Zostrianos, Allogenes, Marsanes,
and the Three Steles of Seth (in that order) as forming a group
on grounds to be discussed below.
Grouping by content, function, and Literary Genre
By Genre and Function
Some of the Nag Hammadi Sethian treatises apply a literary characterization
to themselves. Thus, the Apocryphon of John designates itself as
"the teaching of the savior and revelation of the mysteries and things
hidden in silence ... taught to John his disciple." The Hypostasis of
the Archons designates itself as a response to the question about the
nature of the archontic rulers of this world. The Gospel of the Egyptians
claims to be the holy book written by Seth and deposited on Mt. Charaxio[8]
in order that it appear at the end of time and reveal the incorruptible
holy race of Seth and its associates, as well as the supreme godhead of
the Invisible Spirit, Barbelo and their only-begotten Son. The Three
Steles of Seth presents itself as Dositheus' revelation of three steles
primordially inscribed by Seth, father of the unshakable race. And Allogenes
describes itself as "the seal of all the books of Allogenes," which he
addressed to his son Messos and deposited for posterity on a mountain.
Contemporary scholarship has classified these treatises
by literary type in accordance with their presumed religious function:[9]
apocalypse, testament, didactic treatise, revelation dialogue, self-predicatory
aretalogy, and ritual doxology and etiology. The bulk of them are apocalypses,
records of ancient revelatory visions of the structure of the heavenly
realm and the course of the primordial and final moments of cosmic history.
The Apocalypse of Adam is a deathbed testament of Adam to his son
Seth in which he reveals the content of a dream vision in which he was
instructed by three heavenly men concerning the fortunes of Eve and himself,
his son Seth and Seth's offspring in the contest between the evil creator
god Saklas and the beings of a higher world who will rescue the seed of
Seth. Melchizedek likewise contains revelations imparted to the
biblical high priest Melchizedek by the angel Gamaliel during a visionary
experience concerning future events which include his own ultimate assimilation
to the suffering, dying and rising savior Jesus Christ; like the Gospel
of the Egyptians, it concludes with a lengthy (high-priestly) prayer
spoken by Melchizedek as he receives baptism "in the holy, living names
and waters."
In contrast to these two revelations in which knowledge
concerning the future course of history is communicated from the higher
realm to the lower by an angelic intermediary, we also find three apocalypses
which relate the singular experience of a gnostic visionary who himself
achieves enlightenment through an ecstatic ascent through the divine world.
Allogenes, Zostrianos, and Marsanes feature a visionary
figure, respectively Allogenes or Zostrianos or Marsanes, each of whom
probably figures as an earthly manifestation of the primordial Sethian
gnostic savior Seth. Each figure undergoes a contemplative ascent involving
visions of the divine world and its various levels of being followed by
a subsequent descent and transmission of these visions in written form
for those who in the future would achieve a similar ascent. So also, if
admitted to the corpus of Sethian texts, the short piece Hypsiphrone
is an apocalypse, presenting itself as "the book [of visions] which were
seen [by Hypsi]phrone, and they [are revealed] in the place of [her] virginity."
One finds also two plainly didactic treatises, both having apparently
undergone a secondary Christian redaction: The Hypostasis of the Archons
contains an esoteric mythological interpretation of Genesis 1-6 in terms
of the struggle between the spiritual rulers (archons) of this world
and the exalted powers of the supreme deity over the fate of the divine
image incarnated in Adam and his descendants; it concludes with a revelation
dialogue between Eve's daughter Norea and the great angel Eleleth concerning
the origin and end of these ruling Archons. The Apocryphon of John
is cast as a dialogue between John son of Zebedee and the risen Jesus;
he reveals the unknowable deity and the divine world which emanated from
him, the creative activity of the divine wisdom resulting in the birth
of the world creator who fabricates the earthly Adam, as well as the subsequent
history of the attempts of the denizens of the divine world to awaken the
divine spirit in Adam, Seth and the seed of Seth, which is assured of its
ultimate salvation.
While these two didactic treatises are primarily
concerned with mythological theogony, cosmogony, anthropogony and a history
of salvation governed by the intervention of divine saviors, two other
treatises are devoted to Sethian ritual practice. The Gospel of the
Egyptians explains the origin of Sethian baptism and the figures invoked
and praised in the course of the ritual by means of a mythological theogony,
cosmogony and history of salvation similar to the Apocryphon of John;
the weight of the text seems to fall on a standard doxology punctuating
each major episode of the theogony,[10]
and a concluding mystical prayer celebrating the reception of the baptism
of the Five Seals. Although the Gospel of the Egyptians has undergone
Christian redaction, the Three Steles of Seth is a non-Christian
treatise in which the emphasis is again on prayer, for here Seth is represented
as originating and transmitting to his posterity a set of three doxological
prayers to be used during a community ritual; each prayer applies to a
separate stage of an ecstatic ascent through the three highest levels of
the divine world as portrayed in Allogenes and Zostrianos.
Another treatise, the Trimorphic Protennoia takes the form of
an aretalogy, or recitation of the deeds and attributes of Protennoia,
the First Thought of the Sethian supreme deity. Speaking in the first person,
she recites her attributes and saving initiatives in three separate compositions
related respectively to her establishing heavenly dwellings for her fallen
spirit trapped in mankind, her destruction of the power of the hostile
spiritual rulers of the world, and her final saving descent as the Logos
in the guise of Christ. If one includes the Thunder in the Sethian
dossier of texts, then one must add another such aretalogy consisting of
the paradoxical and diatribic self-predications of a female savior figure
rather like Sophia or Protennoia, perhaps this time speaking in the guise
of the "fleshly Eve after her separation from the masculine half of the
Adam androgyne."[11]
Finally, the short piece the Thought of Norea
is an ode to Norea, wife-sister of Seth, conceived as a manifestation of
Sophia, the "fallen" divine wisdom, who will be restored along with her
spiritual progeny into the divine world by the very aeons from which she
once departed.
Of these treatises, the Apocryphon of John
and the Gospel of the Egyptians both contain an extensive theogony
and cosmogony. The Apocryphon of John and the Hypostasis of the
Archons both contain an extensive anthropogony based on an interpretation
of Genesis 1-6. The Apocalypse of Adam, shares with the preceding
a great interest in the flood and in the connection between Adam, Eve and
Seth, yet does not follow the text of Genesis as closely as the others.
The Trimorphic Protennoia and the Three Steles of Seth share
a clearly tripartite structure, yet the former presents the threefold descent
of Protennoia/Barbelo, while the latter provides the reader with prayers
to assist in an ascent through the upper three levels of the aeonic world.
This pattern of ascent is also present in Zostrianos (articulated
as a series of transcendental baptisms) and Allogenes (articulated
in terms of an ontological stratification of the transcendent world). The
figure of Norea, wife-sister of Seth, is featured in the Thought of
Norea and the second part of the Hypostasis of the Archons.
A first person singular aretalogical recitation of the triple descent of
the divine First Thought is featured in the Trimorphic Protennoia
and in the conclusion of the longer version of the Apocryphon
of John. The alphabetic mysticism of Marsanes seems rather foreign
to the rest of the Sethian treatises, yet its first part clearly presents
the same vision of the components of the divine realm as appear in Zostrianos,
Allogenes, and the Three Steles of Seth. The furthest removed
from the core interests of the Sethian group is Melchizedek, a decidedly
Christian treatise with only a thin Sethian veneer; its affinity to the
rest seems to be limited to a baptismal invocation of the names of some
of the major dramatis personae found in the other treatises.[12]
In terms of application to the lifeways of their
hypothetical Sethian Gnostic users, it appears that some treatises may
have been aids to a form of worship, whether individual or communal (especially
the baptismal rite), while others were directed primarily toward indoctrination.
Among the former, one might include those in which prayer predominates:
the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Three Steles of Seth, the
Thought of Norea, and perhaps Melchizedek. Among the more didactic
treatises, certain sections of the dialogue between John and Jesus in the
Apocryphon of John and between Norea and Eleleth in the Hypostasis
of the Archons might lend themselves to group catachetical (erotapokrisis
or question/answer format) purposes. Although the content of the Apocalypse
of Adam differs greatly from that of Zostrianos, Allogenes
and Marsanes, all four are didactic reports of revelations received
by figures of signal importance in Sethian tradition, namely Adam and Seth
in his various guises. Even though these treatises contain instances of
prayers and hymn-like passages, they seem to betray no obvious liturgical
function. The Trimorphic Protennoia seems to have had a didactic
(or possibly polemical) purpose, yet the hymnic quality of its first-person
singular aretalogical sections and the sporadic presence of first person
plural responses (36,33-37,3; 38,28-30; 42,19-25) may betray some liturgical
usage at certain stages of its composition.
Again, a sequential arrangement of these treatises
based on literary form and implicit religious function does not clearly
emerge. Perhaps a basic twofold division into didactic and liturgical would
serve to highlight the religious and communal nature of these texts; within
each division one could arrange them by comprehensiveness of coverage of
the basic features of Sethian teaching:
Didactic: The Apocryphon of John, The Apocalypse of
Adam, The Hypostasis of the Archons, Zostrianos, Allogenes,
and Marsanes;
Liturgical: The Gospel of the Egyptians, The Trimorphic Protennoia,
The Three Steles of Seth, The Thought of Norea, and Melchizedek.
By Content
Given the criterion of content without particular regard for form and function,
a common-sense arrangement would be one in which successive tractates follow
those upon whose content, themes, dramatis personae, and concepts
they depend for general understanding. Again the list would be headed by
the Apocryphon of John as presenting the most comprehensive overview
of Sethianism (theogony, cosmogony, anthropogony, sacred history and soteriology).
Next come the Trimorphic Protennoia (amplification of the concluding
hymn of Ap. John plus Eleleth's complicity in the production
of the Archon), the Gospel of the Egyptians (theogony, cosmogony,
Eleleth's instigation of Sophia's production of the archons, the sacred
history, soteriology and the baptismal rite), the Hypostasis of the
Archons (cosmology and anthropogony plus the figures of Norea and Eleleth),
the Thought of Norea (the figure of Norea), and the Apocalypse
of Adam (anthropogony, sacred history, soteriology and baptismal polemic).
Zostrianos, Allogenes, the Three Steles of Seth, and
Marsanes then follow on the theme of soteriology and the interpretation
of the baptismal rite as a visionary ascent. Last comes Melchizedek
as the treatise most removed from the thematic center of gravity of the
entire Sethian group, but still furnishing another application of the baptismal
rite and perhaps another of the salvific guises of Seth.
Of course, another obvious arrangement might be
based on the presence or absence of specific Christian or Jewish features.
Among Christian Sethian treatises one finds the Apocryphon of John,
the Hypostasis of the Archons, the Gospel of the Egyptians,
the Trimorphic Protennoia, and Melchizedek. A Sethian treatise
with no obvious Christian, but many Judaic features, would be the Apocalypse
of Adam. The remaining treatises, with no obvious Christian or Jewish
features, would include: Zostrianos, Allogenes, the Three
Steles of Seth, Marsanes, and perhaps the Thought of Norea.
Grouping by phenomenology and exegetical concerns
The Sethian treatises can be bifurcated into two groups, one primarily
concerned with the interpretation of Jewish traditions (Ap. John,
Trim. Prot., Hyp. Arch., Gos. Egypt.,
Apoc. Adam, Norea, and perhaps Melchizedek),
and another primarily concerned with the interpretation of Platonic traditions
(Zost., Allogenes, Steles Seth, and Marsanes).
Corresponding to this one finds two characteristic patterns for the means
by which Gnostic enlightenment is achieved: in one group, it is enabled
through the earthly descent of a heavenly revealer, and in the other, it
is achieved by a self-actualized contemplative technique.
A Basically Judaic or Platonic Exegetical Agenda?
Nearly all scholars recognize the indebtedness of Gnostic myth to Platonic
metaphysics and cosmology as well as to Jewish traditions of biblical exegesis,
especially of certain problematic passages of the book of Genesis.
Ever since Hippolytus' Refutation of All Heresies, readers of
Gnostic literature have found it full of Greek, especially Platonic, philosophical
materials, and have characterized it as such in memorable phrases: Hans
Jonas noted that Plato's presentation of philosophy as "apparent religion"
enabled Gnosticism's later appearance as "apparent philosophy"; A. D. Nock
transformed S. Pétrement's characterization of Gnosticism as "une
platonisme romantique," into a "Platonism run wild;" W. Theiler called
Gnosticism a Proletarianplatonismus.[13]
At the 1967 Messina conference, R. Crahay and P. Boyancé pointed
to Plato as the source for Gnosticism's philosophical terminology as well
as a significant part of its metaphysical categories and structures; H.-J.
Krämer located various Gnostic systems as vital links along the developmental
trajectory of Platonic philosophy from Plato to Plotinus, and C. Elsas
has sought to identify the Platonizing Gnostics behind Plotinus' criticisms
of them.[14]
Indeed, Krämer outlines the narrative flow of the Gnostic myth in
terms of the vicissitudes of the divine thought itself: thought in potency
(the supreme deity), thought in actuality (the aeons, especially the maternal
First thought that emanates from the supreme deity), and thought in its
fallenness (the lower Sophia and her demiurgical son); salvation is the
reversion of this thought to its aboriginal potency in the form of the
individual Gnostic's response to the revelation of his true situation.[15]
Likewise, the rather more recent recognition of the contribution of
Judaism to the formation of Gnostic mythology has by now been well established
by scholars like G. Quispel, G. W. MacRae, B. A. Pearson, A. F. Segal,
J. E. Fossum and G. G. Stroumsa.[16]
The last three emphasize the role of an inner-Jewish exegesis of problematic
biblical passages, mainly those containing highly anthropomorphic depictions
of God which might be taken to call into question God's ultimate goodness,
transcendence and omnipotence. Such concerns led to the development of
ideas concerning subordinate angelic powers active in the cosmos and even
responsible for its creation. According to Stroumsa, the Gnostic concern
was not so much to save the transcendence of God, but an obsession with
the problem of evil and its source. Like various Jewish thinkers, they
posited a hierarchical duality between God and a subordinate demiurgical
figure, but the Gnostics radicalized this duality by demonizing the demiurgical
figure and actually identifying it with Satan.
Recently I. Culianu[17]
has sought to combine the preceding insights by emphasizing the relation
between the Judaic and Platonic conceptual frameworks in the creation of
Gnostic myths. Borrowing H. Bloom's[18]
characterization of Gnostic exegesis as a form of "misprision" (mis-taking),
or "creative misunderstanding," he observes: "Indeed, Gnosticism is Platonic
hermeneutics so suspicious of tradition that it is willing to break through
the borders of tradition, any tradition, including its own. Conversely,
regarded through the eyes of tradition, any tradition, it appears as `misprision'."
Again: "Gnostic exegesis of Genesis admits a definition strikingly similar
to Philonic exegesis: It is an interpretation of a Jewish text according
to a set of rules derived from Platonism." Although it is odd to credit
Platonists, normally quite confident of their own tradition stemming from
Plato and Pythagoras, with such a "hermeneutics of suspicion," what occupies
Culianu's interest is the delineation of a set of hermeneutical transformations
produced by the application of Platonic philosophical principles to the
interpretation of any established tradition. Whether Culianu believes the
element of suspicion arose from a naturally Gnostic mind-set or from a
philosophical preoccupation with exegetical aporiae is not immediately
clear.
Thus, whereas Philo of Alexandria identified the
Biblical creator God with the supreme Monad presiding over the transcendent
world of ideas, the Gnostics identified that God with the demiurge of Plato's
Timaeus, who consults a divine paradigm beyond him as the model
for his creation. If the God of Genesis is identified as the world-creator,
the result of positing such a higher model is the supposition that there
must be a superior God presiding over the higher paradigmatic realm consulted
by the lower Creator. In addition, the biblical stress on the sole godhead
of the creator, who continually asserts his sole supremacy (as in Isaiah
45 and 46), would cause Platonist exegetes to raise serious questions about
a god who boasts in his supremacy, but is known not to be supreme. The
implication is that this demiurge is a faulty being, vainly boastful and
ignorant of the God beyond him. As the link between this supreme God and
the demoted creator, the Gnostics posit an intermediate Sophia/Logos figure,
who may exist in several manifestations ranging from the supreme Mother,
the First Thought or consort of the supreme God, to the actual mother of
the demiurge. While Platonists could well identify the creative aspect
of the God of Genesis with the creative Logos, the Gnostics, noting the
contradiction between a Sophia/Logos who is aware of being subordinated
to a higher deity and a demiurge who brags about being unique, would conclude
that the Sophia/Logos must be a third entity.
These three beings, God, Sophia/Logos and Demiurge,
would be connected in such a way as to maintain God's inculpability for
the faults of this world and yet allow for the demiurge's ignorance of
what is beyond him. Culpability must be assigned to the demiurge, yet the
demiurge must also maintain an essential relation to the Platonic creative
instrumentality of Sophia/Logos: thus the demiurge is produced from Sophia/Logos
as an unintended offspring. In turn, Sophia/Logos becomes an ambiguous
figure, both giving rise to the creator of a world that was not intended
to be as it is, and, at the same time, being the source of the divine substance
that takes up enforced residence in it. The unintentionally inferior creative
act of Sophia/Logos is said to be due to misdirected eroticism, or curiosity,
or inexperience, or a downward direction of attention. This ambiguity in
the Sophia/Logos figure and the ignorance of the demiurge seems to be the
fundamental point of the Gnostics' departure from the general Platonist
view of the cosmos as the necessary expression of the fullness of the world
of ideas implemented without jealousy by a demiurge who is cognizant of
the transcendent realm beyond him. Yet this same Sophia/Logos in various
guises is able to rectify much of its mistaken creative activity by acting
also as the instrument that appears in the world in various guises for
the salvation of the divine element that was taken ("stolen") from it and
enclosed in the lower world by its demiurgical offspring.
It thus appears that Platonism, defined especially by the Timaeus,
provides the basic framework for Gnostic solutions to the exegetical enigmas
of the Genesis text. Culianu does not notice, however, that the Sethian
texts do not actually call their world creator, Yaldabaoth, "demiurge."
Indeed, whereas the demiurge of the Timaeus is confronted with unformed,
chaotic matter and reduces it to order in accord with an eternal paradigm,
the Sethian Archon is himself amorphous and chaotic. As the aborted son
of Sophia, his character is essentially devoid of form and order. Even
though he copies an image of the eternal aeonic paradigm, he sees only
its reflection in the lower waters; he knows nothing of the world beyond
him, and thus produces a chaotic copy with more similarity to his own being
than to the image he copies.[19]
And his ability to copy what he does is due, not to his ungrudging intelligence,
but to the power he stole from his mother Sophia, by which an element of
perfection has nevertheless come to dwell in his creation (an element that,
once incorporated into Adam, will prove to be Yaldabaoth's own undoing).
To be sure, the overall scheme resembles that of the Timaeus, yet
it is more a parody of it than a direct implementation. This may constitute
yet another Gnostic "creative misprision," in this case, of the very Platonic
exegetical framework borrowed from the Timaeus and applied to the
solution of the more enigmatic tensions and apparent contradictions of
the biblical protology.
Perhaps there is an analogy between the Gnostic
use of these two important protological texts: just as the Jewish creator
God is subordinated to an even higher supreme deity, so also the demiurge
of the Timaeus is interpreted in terms of his lower subordinates,
the "younger gods": to them the demiurge assigns the task of combining
the rational soul substance created by him with the lower "spirited" and
"appetitive" parts of the soul, and of incarnating this mixture into the
mortal bodies of humans. In this way, the figure in each tradition responsible
for the creation of humans is demoted from its place in the original narrative
as a way of explaining the origin of a human condition perceived as defective.
Once a supreme God beyond the creator is posited,
it is once again Platonism that is called upon to characterize that deity
and the means by which it gives rise to the Sophia/Logos figure, and perhaps
also to the matter upon which the lower demiurgical creator operates in
the formation of this world. According to the Apocryphon of John,
Zostrianos, Allogenes, the Three Steles of Seth, and
Marsanes, the higher Sophia/Logos figure emanates from the supreme
deity by a process of self-reflection or self-extension or division or
procession. While the imagery of self-reflection (mainly in the Apocryphon
of John and the "Simonian" Megale Apophasis) seems to be a uniquely
Gnostic theogonic adaptation of Aristotle's notion of a self-intelligizing
Intelligence (e.g., Met. 1074b30-32),[20]
the other images of the process of emanation drew on the mathematical speculations
of the Neopythagorean contemporaries and successors[21]
of Philo of Alexandria up through the time of Plotinus and Porphyry.
Again, the further structuring of the transcendent
world is based on a creative reading of the text of Genesis. In the Gnostic
view, as in that of a Hellenistic Jew like Philo of Alexandria, the protology
of Genesis occurs on two planes, the heavenly (the creation according to
Gen 1:1-2:3) and earthly (the creation according to Gen 2:4 ff.). The first
creation story tells of the creation of an intelligible world whose contents
form the prototypes for the creation of its perceptible counterpart in
the second account. For the Gnostics, there are two creative divinities,
the supreme deity as ultimate source of the heavenly world, and his lowly
counterpart, the Archon who creates the psychic and material world as a
copy of the heavenly one. Likewise, there are two Sophia/Logos figures,
the Mother on high, the First Thought and instrument of the supreme deity
active in the world as the Logos (as in the Trimorphic Protennoia),
and the lower mother, usually called Sophia, who mistakenly gives birth
to the lower creator Yaldabaoth. Moving on to Gen 2:4 ff., one can postulate
two son figures, the heavenly Adam of Genesis 1, called Adamas or Pigeradamas
or Autogenes, and his earthly copy, the Adam of the garden, shaped by the
Archon. One can further discern two more mother figures, a heavenly Eve,
called Zoe or the Epinoia of light, and the earthly Eve produced from Adam's
side by the Archon, as well as two more sons, a heavenly Seth ("the great
Seth"), whose earthly image was born as the son of the earthly Adam and
Eve once they had been enlightened by the Mother on high. In fact, Gen
1:26 ("let us create Adam in our image, according to our likeness") could
be construed to mean that: 1) on the transcendent plane, the high deity
must be the absolute Human ("Man"); his offspring, the heavenly Adamas,
would be the Son of Man, and Adamas' son Seth would be "the son of the
Son of Man" (as in Eugnostos the Blessed) or the like; and 2) on
the earthly plane the plural "we" refers to the archontic fashioners of
Adam's' body.
Finally, the Platonic tradition may come into play again as a likely
source for the designation of the Sethian heavenly trinity of Father, Mother
and Son, for in Timaeus 50D, Plato so names his three ultimate ontological
principles, the forms, the receptacle or nurse of becoming, and the images
of the forms constituting the phenomenal world.
The Ascent of Mind or the Descent of Wisdom?
While the foregoing Platonic reading of Genesis gives rise to the protological
scheme (theogony, cosmogony, and anthropogony) of many Sethian Gnostic
texts, there is a similar interaction of Judaic and Platonic solutions
to the problem of the means by which the Gnostic becomes enlightened and
thus saved from the cosmic darkness. The corpus of Sethian Gnostic treatises
from Nag Hammadi can be bifurcated into two main groups precisely in view
of their use of various schemes to represent the process by which enlightenment
and salvation is achieved.[22]
First, the earlier Sethian treatises such as the
Apocryphon of John and the Trimorphic Protennoia portray
the advent of salvation through a series of temporally successive descents
into this world by the First Thought of the supreme Invisible Spirit appearing
in various modalities or guises. In the course of the descent, the revealer
is manifested at each cosmic level in a form and modality suited to the
being and needs of each.
On the other hand, the group of treatises comprising Allogenes,
the Three Steles of Seth, Zostrianos and Marsanes
exhibit a more vertical, non-temporal, supra-historical scheme in which
salvation is achieved, not through a higher being's descents into this
world, but through a graded series of visionary ascents initiated by the
Gnostic himself. Here an exemplary visionary employs a self-performable
technique of successive stages of mental detachment from the world of change
and multiplicity, and a corresponding assimilation of the self to the ever
more-refined levels of being to which one contemplatively ascends. Ultimately,
the visionary achieves a state of mental abstraction evacuated of all cognitive
content, a state of absolute self-unification and utter solitariness characteristic
of deification.
One might call these two models of the redemptive
process the "descent pattern" and the "ascent pattern" respectively. In
the Sethian Gnostic texts, there is a tendency to portray the descent pattern
as a series of three successive descents, in which each descent is performed
by a separate mode of the revealer figure, or to portray the ascent pattern
as a traversal of three or more levels of being, each of which is tripartitioned
and corresponds to certain mental states, often three in number. While
the descent pattern is typical of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic and
wisdom traditions,[23]
the salvific epistemology of the treatises employing the ascent pattern
is solidly at home in the Platonic tradition from Plato through Plotinus.
The descent pattern clearly predominates in the
three-stanzaed Pronoia hymn that concludes the longer version of the Apocryphon
of John (NHC II, 1: 30,11-31,25), where the same figure (Pronoia)
makes three successive descents; the saving gnosis is manifested on the
third descent of the First Thought where she communicates the celestial
baptismal ascent ritual called the Five Seals. Similarly, in the Trimorphic
Protennoia, the divine First Thought, Protennoia, makes three saving
descents: first as Father, second as Mother, and third as Son, when she
enters the "tents" of her members in the form of Jesus to lead them back
into the light by means of the baptismal rite of celestial ascent called
the Five Seals. Likewise, the main body of all four versions of the Apocryphon
of John narrates three saving missions inaugurated by Barbelo, the
merciful Mother-Father. First, she causes the demiurge to blow the spiritual
power stolen from his mother Sophia into Adam's face, unwittingly making
him luminous. Second, she descends as the Epinoia of Light in the form
of Eve, enlightens Adam, bears Seth, and elevates him and his seed to heavenly
dwellings. Thirdly and finally, she appears as the Christ who communicates
the entire saving history to John as a saving revelation.[24]
Recent scholarship locates the milieu of the descent
pattern in the Jewish myth of the descending and demiurgic figure of the
divine wisdom (Sophia) portrayed in Proverbs 8, 1 Enoch 42, Sirach 24,
Wisdom of Solomon 6-10 and other Jewish sources.[25]
In addition to Gnostic mythologies, this myth seems to have influenced
Philo's doctrine of the Logos (especially the logos prophorikos)
as well as the doctrine, found in the Johannine prologue and the Alexandrian
Fathers, of Christ as the Logos.
On the other hand, the ascent pattern is found in
the treatises Allogenes, Three Steles of Seth, Zostrianos
and Marsanes, where salvation is not brought from above to
below by divine visitations, but rather occurs through the Gnostic's contemplative
ascent through ever higher levels of the divine realm. Allogenes
and Three Steles of Seth depict this ascent in three stages: through
the intelligible levels of the Aeon of Barbelo, through the supra-intelligible
levels of the Triple-Powered One of the Invisible Spirit, and culminating
in a "primary revelation" or "command" of the Unknowable One. A similar
ascent is portrayed in Zostrianos, except that it has been supplemented
by a series of initial stages within the sense-perceptible realm, and each
successive stage of ascent after these is associated with a certain baptismal
sealing. Marsanes merely comments on certain features of the ascent,
which its author claims to have already undergone.
Of the two patterns, it is the ascent pattern that
can be shown to be most at home in the Platonic tradition. A firm prototype
of this threefold ascent is certainly to be found in Plato's Symposium
(210A-212A) in the speech where Socrates recounts the path to the vision
of absolute beauty into which he had been initiated by the wise Diotima.
The method consists of a three-stage qualitative and quantitative purification
or purgation of the soul by a redirection of Eros, the moving force of
the soul, away from the lower realm to the higher.[26]
Successively higher stages are achieved by a purifying and unifying synthesis
of the experience of the previous ones, until absolute beauty discloses
itself as a sudden and immediate intuition. As in the Symposium,
so also in the Republic (532A-B) the final moment of attainment
is conceived as a revelation of the supreme form. After long preliminary
effort, the contemplative intellect has transcended discursive science,
even dialectic itself, for an unmediated vision, a direct and sudden contact
with the object sought. No longer does one "know about" the object things
that can be predicated of it, but one actually possesses and is possessed
by the object of one's quest.
In the first four centuries of our era to which
the Sethian treatises belong, the Platonic tradition regarded metaphysics
or theology as the highest of the three stages of enlightenment or spiritual
progress.[27]
It corresponded to the highest stage of initiation into the mysteries and
was in fact called epopteia, the supreme vision of the highest reality,
tantamount to assimilating oneself to God insofar as possible (Theaetetus
176B). This traditional Platonic quest is found not only in Plato, but
also in later Platonists from Philo of Alexandria (who however shunned
the notion of assimilation to God) to Plotinus.[28]
In sum, typically Judaic and Platonic exegetical
agendas and methods for seeking enlightenment stand side-by-side in nearly
all the Sethian treatises. Yet there is a clear predominance of a Platonic
approach and conceptuality in the treatises Allogenes, Three
Steles of Seth, Zostrianos and Marsanes, if only because
of their use of the ascent pattern. To be sure, in those treatises featuring
the descent pattern, the Apocryphon of John, the Trimorphic Protennoia,
and the Gospel of the Egyptians, the result of the final descent
of the Logos is the conferral of the baptismal rite of the Five Seals,
which the Trimorphic Protennoia portrays as a stripping away of
the corporeal and psychic element and an ascension into the light. In this
sense, the goal of all the Sethian treatises is to enable the (re)ascent
of the Gnostics' spiritual essence into the realm of light.
The distinction between Judaic and Platonic approaches to the acquisition
of liberating enlightenment seems to lie in the treatment of the phenomenon
of temporality, the experience and awareness of the passage of time. Central
to the Judaic approach is the notion of a sacred history centered on interlocking
generations of a special people, in this case the seed of Seth, with an
origin and a goal or eschaton. Central to the Platonic approach is the
epistemological distinction between degrees of truth or reality graspable
by thought, which form an essentially vertical teleological scale as opposed
to the essentially horizontal teleological scale of the Judaic model.[29]
Both approaches seek to make sense out of individual
and communal experience by some form of periodization or hierarchicizing.
In the Gnostic appropriation, the descent pattern divides history diachronically
into epochs by the intervention of divine beings at certain crucial points;
in the ascent pattern, the experience of any moment of time whatsoever
offers the possibility of a synchronic division of both actual and imagined
reality into various levels or planes ranging from most ephemeral and least
authentic to most permanent and authentic. The goal is the same, but the
approach is conditioned by the set of familiar traditions which serve as
the lenses through which one perceives reality. Both approaches seek to
escape the burdens of temporal existence, one seeking the undoing of history
by an imaginative return to its beginings (Endzeit ist Urzeit),
the other seeking a contemplative stability and permanence presumed to
undo or transcend the temporal flux of phenomenal experience. In actual
experience, as in the religious experience projected by the Sethian treatises,
these two approaches are rarely found in pure form, but are merely heuristic
distinctions of emphasis. One can certainly find within both approaches
temporal-historical schemes of a nostalgic return to a lost Golden Age
as well as instances of the flight of the visionary soul to the beyond.
Based on these observations, a logical arrangement
of the treatises would be to set first those treatises which start at the
beginning of the story of the spark of light or soul which must make the
ascent toward reunification with its original essence, that is, the story
of how that spark came to take up its enforced residence in the lower world,
necessitating a means of its extrication, whether by a redemptive visitation
from the higher world or a praxis of self-performable visionary ascent.
The Descent Pattern
Within this group, the treatises employing the descent pattern can be arranged
in two series, one which consists of treatises that deal with the origin
of the human condition and proclaim the future coming of a savior, and
another that contains similar depictions of origins, but tends to portray
the descent (usually threefold) of the savior as having already happened.
The first series, employing mostly futuristic eschatology,
might naturally begin with the Hypostasis of the Archons, since
it concentrates on the origin of the world creator and the creation of
humanity, and ends with the promise to Norea of the coming of the true
man. The Thought of Norea forms a brief sequel on the figure of
Norea and her future deliverance. The Apocalypse of Adam might form
a sequel to the anthropogony of the Hypostasis of the Archons, taking
the primeval history down through Seth, the flood, the separation of the
seed of Seth from the offspring of Noah, the conflagration, and the promise
of the coming of the Illuminator. Melchizedek likewise proclaims
the coming of a high-priestly savior, the ancient Melchizedek of Genesis
14, in the person of Jesus Christ.
The second series, containing mostly a realized
eschatology, would begin with the Apocryphon of John, which gives
a comprehensive treatment of the origin of the human condition stemming
from Sophia's desire to produce a creation by herself, which results in
the theft of her spiritual essence and its entrapment into human bodies,
and concludes with the salvific triple descent of Pronoia. The Trimorphic
Protennoia forms the natural sequel to the Apocryphon of John's
concluding Pronoia aretalogy; its treatment of the baptism of the Five
Seals and exculpation of Sophia in favor of Eleleth as the cause of the
lower world lead rather naturally to the Gospel of the Egyptians,
with which it shares these themes.
The Ascent Pattern
The treatises employing the ascent pattern might be laid out with Zostrianos
coming first, since it has many features maintaining continuity with the
treatises using the descent pattern (the story of Sophia, the figures of
the four Lights, baptismal ascension, etc.). The Three Steles of Seth
might then follow on the grounds that it also continues to employ terminology
found in the first group, mainly the figures of Geradamas and Mirothea.
These would be followed by Allogenes and finally Marsanes.
Grouping by Chronology and Literary Dependencies
In the case of the Sethian treatises Zostrianos and Allogenes,
we possess materials that can be rather accurately coordinated with datable
events and known historical figures, since it can be shown that these treatises
were read and refuted by specific persons in specific places during a specific
period. Given this anchor, it then becomes possible to work from such a
fixed point backward to earlier Sethian sources and forward to later ones,
thus establishing a chronological framework.
Literary Dependencies
Supplementing such historical synchronisms, it is also possible to detect
evidence of redactional activity within certain treatises as well as instances
of literary dependence among them. First, in the three treatises featuring
a celestial ascent, Allogenes (NHC XI, 3: 54,11-37), the
Three Steles of Seth (NHC VII,5: 125,24-126, 17) and Zostrianos
(NHC VIII,1: 51,24-52,8; 86,13-24; 88,9-25), there occurs a special
aretalogical ascription of praise delivered to or invoking certain beings
that seem to belong to the Aeon of Barbelo and are associated with her
subaeons Kalyptos, Protophanes and Autogenes.
In addition, Allogenes (XI,3: 62,27-63,25)
sustains a nearly word-for-word parallel with the Coptic text of the negative
theology applied to the Invisible Spirit in the Apocryphon of John
(BG 8502, 2: 24,9-25,7 and NHC II,1: 3,20-34). This may suggest a dependence
of Allogenes upon some form of the Apocryphon of John (which
is probably the older of the two texts), although it is clear that, aside
from the Father-Mother-Son figures of Invisible Spirit, Barbelo and Autogenes,
Allogenes represents an entirely different development of Sethian
motifs.
Irenaeus and the Apocryphon of John
The Apocryphon of John contains a theogony and cosmogony extremely
similar to the "Barbeloite" doctrine outlined by Irenaeus in his work Against
the Heresies (Haer. I.29), written around 175-180 C.E. Therefore
the Apocryphon of John or a treatise very much like it, possibly
its literary source, must have been in circulation and available to Irenaeus
by at least 150 C.E. Since Irenaeus' Barbeloite account describes neither
the anthropogony and history of salvation based on Gen. 1-6, nor evinces
any trace of the Christian dialogical frame-story of the Apocryphon
of John, it is usually assumed that it is not based upon a copy of
our extant versions of the Apocryphon of John. On the other hand,
Irenaeus' succeeding chapter (Haer. I 30,1-10) outlines a gnostic
myth which Theodoret (Haer. Fab. I.14) claims to be Sethian
and Ophite; it indeed contains features found in Sethian texts, such as
the name "First Man" for the high deity and a figure called the Son of
Man, as well as a cosmogony similar to that of the Apocryphon of John,
including accounts concerning the "fall" of Sophia, who creates Yaldabaoth
and six angels whose names are the same as those in the Apocryphon of
John), Yaldabaoth's boasting in his sole deity and the heavenly response,
and the creation of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Seth and Norea. Distinctly
Sethian features are missing, however, such as the elevation of the seed
of Seth, the divine Adamas-Autogenes, and his four Lights, features which
it seems that Irenaeus would surely have described had his source employed
the anthropogony and history of salvation underlying the extant versions
of the Apocryphon of John. It is conceivable that in Haer.
1.30.7-10 Irenaeus used a source or sources resembling the Apocryphon
of John at a stage prior to its redaction as a Christian dialogue between
John and Jesus. Since Irenaeus separates the theogony in Haer. I.29
from the cosmogony, anthropogony and soteriology in Haer. I.30,
one is inclined to assume that he based these chapters on separate sources.
Aside from the question of the relationship of the Apocryphon of John
to the "Barbeloite" (and "Ophite) material summarized by Irenaeus, there
is also the question of the relative priority of the accounts found in
both the longer and shorter versions of the Apocryphon of John;
at present this issue has not been decided.
The Apocryphon of John and The Trimorphic Protennoia
While much of the material found in the Apocryphon of John, which
is arguably the earliest complete "Sethian" treatise, is echoed in the
other Sethian treatises, one section of the Apocryphon of John in
particular seems very much as though it could have served as the inspiration
for the composition of an entire Sethian treatise, namely the Trimorphic
Protennoia. Both longer versions of the Apocryphon of John conclude
with a hymnic composition of three stanzas (NHC II,1: 30,13-31,25
= NHC IV,1: 46,26-48,13), each of which narrates a separate saving
descent of Pronoia, probably to be identified with Ennoia/Pronoia/Barbelo
the merciful Mother-Father of the main narrative. The absence of this passage
in the shorter versions suggests that it was added to the Apocryphon
of John after its redaction as a Christian revelation dialogue.
In the main body of the Apocryphon of John,
Pronoia/Barbelo initiates three significant redemptive visitations from
the higher to the lower world: 1) the downward projection of the image
of the First Man; 2) the sending of the spiritual Eve as Adam's enlightener
and mother of the savior Seth, and 3) the final sending of her son in the
guise of Christ into the world to enlighten the contemporary Sethians by
revealing to John the sacred history of the Sethians told in the main body
of the work. Similarly, in the hymnic ending of the Apocryphon of John,
Pronoia descends twice into the lower world and shakes the foundations
of chaos, but then in a third descent enters the "prison," said to be the
body, awakens the soul from its corporeal forgetfulness, and raises it
into the light by sealing it with the luminous water of the Five Seals.
This is the only direct reference to the Sethian baptismal rite of the
Five Seals in the longer version of the Apocryphon of John; this
singularity and its absence from the shorter versions suggests that the
conferral of this rite was not an original feature of the Apocryphon
of John. Elsewhere, the Five Seals are mentioned only in the Gospel
of the Egyptians and developed significantly in the Trimorphic Protennoia.
I suggest that the key to the relationship between
these two texts lies in the recognition that the Trimorphic Protennoia
has undergone three stages of composition. At the time of its initial composition,
it was a product of non-Christian Barbeloite wisdom speculation. The theme
of the triple descent of Protennoia was derived from a source similar to
or identical with the triple descent narrated in the self-predicatory aretalogy
of Pronoia at a point prior to its inclusion in the longer ending of the
Apocryphon of John. The Logos theology of its tripartite aretalogy
of Protennoia drew upon a fund of oriental speculation on the divine Word
and Wisdom as did the prologue of the Gospel of John in a similar but independent
way. The creative act of the original author of the Trimorphic Protennoia
was his application of a theory of the increasing articulateness of verbal
communication as one moves from mere sound to explicit word, perhaps of
Stoic provenance.[30]
Subsequently, all three texts, the Johannine prologue, the Pronoia aretalogy,
and the Trimorphic Protennoia underwent Christianization in a later
stage of redaction, the prologue in Johannine Christian circles when it
was adopted by the evangelist, the Pronoia hymn by virtue of its inclusion
on the Apocryphon of John, and the Trimorphic Protennoia
in Christianized Sethian circles. The Christianizing process was unlikely
to have occurred simultaneously in the two communities, since the Christian
version of the Trimorphic Protennoia probably did not materialize
until after the generally accepted date for the production of the Fourth
Gospel in the last decade of the first century. The similarity of the narrative
cosmogony inserted into the aretalogy of the first subtractate of the
Trimorphic Protennoia (NHC XIII,1: 36,27-40,29) to that of the
Apocryphon of John suggests that the original Christianization of the
Trimorphic Protennoia was contemporary with the earliest Christian
version of the Apocryphon of John which many scholars assign to
the first quarter of the second century, since its theogony and cosmogony
is clearly expounded by Irenaeus Haer. I.29 around 175 to 180 C.E.
Thus the second, Christian version of the Trimorphic Protennoia
likely appeared in the first quarter of the second century, less than a
generation after the Fourth Gospel. The Trimorphic Protennoia also
seems evince another, final stage of Christianization by means of a deliberately
polemical incorporation of Christian (specifically Johannine Christian:
NHC XIII,1: 49, 7-20; 50,10-16) materials into the aretalogical
portion of the third subtractate. One might assign this stage to the period
of struggle over the interpretation of the Christology of the Fourth Gospel
witnessed by the N.T. Letters of John, perhaps the second quarter of the
second century.
The Trimorphic Protennoia is a key text,
sustaining obvious relationships to other Sethian literature. In its development
of the Father-Mother-Son triad as applied to Protennoia-Barbelo, the
Trimorphic Protennoia draws on the triple descent and cosmological
materials found also in the Apocryphon of John. But unlike the Apocryphon
of John, the Trimorphic Protennoia transfers Sophia's creative
initiative to the fourth Light Eleleth, as in the Gospel of the Egyptians.
Sophia is thus blameless, only a victim of circumstance. As the Epinoia
of the Light Eleleth, she appeals to Eleleth to restore her former rank
(NHC XIII,39,32-40,4) in much the same way as does Norea, who in the
Hypostasis of the Archons functions as the undefiled, virginal "helper"
of Mankind (which is the function of the figure called the Epinoia of light
in the Apocryphon of John). The treatise the Thought of Norea
likewise portrays Norea as a Sophia figure. Like the Epinoia in the
Trimorphic Protennoia and the Apocryphon of John, she cries
out (or repents) to be restored to her place in the light so as to make
up her deficiency, perhaps by the agency of the four Lights or their ministers
(Gamaliel, Gabriel, Abrasax and Samblo). The Thought of Norea, the
Trimorphic Protennoia and the Gospel of the Egyptians seem to
assume or stress the innocence of Epinoia-Sophia such that her restoration
to the Light requires no repentance for a willful act performed without
her consort. In fact, the Gospel of the Egyptians distinguishes
between the hylic Sophia cloud and another figure called Repentance (Metanoia),
who descended to the world as an image of the night, prays for the seed
of Adam and Seth (and the seed of the Archon and authorities!), and will
sow the seed of Seth into the aeons to make up the deficiency (NHC III,2:
59,9-60,2).
In terms of its stress upon the baptismal ascent
ritual, the Trimorphic Protennoia seems to sustain a close relationship
especially to the Gospel of the Egyptians, Zostrianos, the
Apocryphon of John, and, more distantly, to Melchizedek, perhaps
Marsanes and even the Apocalypse of Adam. Owing to their
fragmentary nature, it is difficult to see what role the Sethian baptismal
ritual plays in Melchizedek and Marsanes. In Marsanes,
"washing" is mentioned on page 55; pages 64-66 seem to narrate Marsanes'
vision of certain angels, which include Gamaliel, who is over the spirit(s)
and "takes" him somewhere in an action which involves a "spring," probably
of "living" water, a "washing" and a "sealing" with the "seal of heaven."
The Apocalypse of Adam
On the basis of Epiphanius' (Haer. 39-40) reports on the Sethians
and Archontics, C. W. Hedrick[31]
places the Apocalypse of Adam at an early date (before 100 AD) before
the Sethians bifurcated into Christianized Sethians and non-Christianized
Archontics who condemned the Christian sacraments, especially baptism,
and attached little significance to Jesus. More recent opinion has tended
to reject such an early dating for the Apocalypse of Adam. G. Stroumsa
and J.-M. Sevrin both see it as a work which betrays Christian influences,
especially in the name of the imperishable illuminators Yesseus, Mazareus,
Yessedekeus (85,30), the description of the third appearance of the Illuminator
(76,8-18) and in the thirteenth kingdom's description of the Illuminator
(82,11-19). In any case, it seems probable that the emphasis on an undefiled
baptism in Living Water of celestial quality in these Sethian works may
be explained by the likelihood that in the early second century the Sethians
were reacting strongly, as did the Manichaeans and the Sethian-like Archontics
described by Epiphanius (Haer. 40), against certain cults, perhaps
especially Christians, who practiced water baptism. On the other hand,
the Sethian emphasis on a baptism involving celestial vision and spiritual
transformation could proceed in a rapprochement with Christianity, as in
Melchizedek, the Trimorphic Protennoia and the Gospel
of the Egyptians, as well as with a contemporary Platonism that advocated
a mystical procedure of celestial ascent, as is shown by Zostrianos
and Marsanes. My own inclination is to locate at least the Sethite
history (Hedrick's source "A")[32]
at an early date, in the first century.
Zostrianos and Marsanes
Zostrianos and, to a lesser extent, Marsanes, form a special
case, since, although their transcendentalia are basically structured along
lines most clearly articulated in Allogenes, they retain an additional
fund of the figures traditionally associated with the Sethian protology
and baptismal practices. In the case of Marsanes one finds Gamaliel,
one of the servants of the four Lights, as commander of the spirits (NHC
X,1: 64,19). In the case of Zostrianos, which seems to constitute
a deliberate attempt to reinterpret the more traditional Sethian cosmology
and baptismal ritual in terms of the metaphysics and transcendentalia found
in Allogenes and the Three Steles of Seth there are many
more such "holdovers." As in the theogonical triad (Father, Mother Son)
of the Apocryphon of John, one finds the Invisible Spirit and the
emergence of Barbelo as his self-knowledge. Barbelo still subsumes a triad,
but with different names (Kalyptos, Protophanes and Autogenes instead of
Prognosis, Aphtharsia and Aionia Zoe). The thrice-masculine aspect of Barbelo
is hypostatized as the Triple-Male Child (an ideal Adamas figure identified
by the Gospel of the Egyptians with the Great Christ) and Geradamas
is called his eye. The Son member of the supreme trinity is Autogenes,
who presides over his four Lights Harmozel, Oroiael, Daveithe and Eleleth,
which contain respectively Adamas, Seth, the seed of Seth, and their morally
repentant associates. Although the generation of Sophia from Eleleth is
apparently not narrated, Sophia's downward inclination resulting in her
production of the Archon creator and her subsequent repentance and restoration
is summarized, as is the Archon's creation of the celestial aeons copied
as a reflection from Sophia's reflection of the aeons above.
In regard to its application of baptismal motifs,
it appears that Zostrianos was dependent on traditions most clearly
evident in the Gospel of the Egyptians, from which it derived almost
all of its baptismal dramatis personae as well as the figures
of Youel (not Yoel), Doxomedon, Esephech, Meirothea, Prophania, Plesithea
and Metanoia, and perhaps many others which can no longer be identified
in the extant state of the two texts.[33]
Yet it is also clear that Zostrianos derives its basic metaphysical
structure from a source much like that of Allogenes. In fact, nearly
everything in Zostrianos as it now stands can be derived from the
Apocryphon of John, the Gospel of the Egyptians and Allogenes
except for the names of certain figures peculiar to itself. Most of these
names unique to Zostrianos are Greek or Graecicizing formations,
suggesting a weakening of Judaic influence.
The Sethians and the Gnostics of Plotinus
When one realizes that Allogenes and Zostrianos are probably
to be included in the "apocalypses of Zoroaster and Zostrianos and Nicotheos
and Allogenes and Messos and of other such figures" (Porphyry, Vita
Plot. 16) whose stance was attacked by Plotinus and whose doctrines
were refuted at great length by Amelius and Porphyry himself in the period
244-269 CE,[34]
one may date Allogenes and Zostrianos around 225-270 CE.[35]
In his antignostic treatise (Enn. III.8; V.8; V.5 and II.9, chronologically
30-33), Plotinus surely has these tractates in view.[36] Closely
associated with these treatises are The Three Steles of Seth and
Marsanes. While the date of The Three Steles of Seth seems
indeterminate, Marsanes seems to come slightly later than Allogenes
and Zostrianos. B. A. Pearson[37]
suggests that the name Marsanes, mentioned in the Untitled text of the
Bruce Codex (235-13-23 Schmidt-MacDermot) in connection with Nicotheos
(and Marsianos in Epiphanius' account of the Archontics, Haer. 40.7.6),
reflects a Syrian background for its author, and dates Marsanes
in the early third century. But one may also argue for dating it to the
last quarter of the third century in that it posits an unknown Silent One
above even the Invisible Spirit in much the same way Iamblichus during
this same period posited an ineffable One beyond even the Plotinian One
that heads the noetic triad (apud Damascius, De Princ. I
86,3-15; 101,14-15; 103,6-10).
Zostrianos and Plotinus
Zostrianos in particular contains doctrines refuted by Plotinus
in Ennead II.9. The question then arises as to the relative chronology
of Allogenes and Zostrianos with respect to Plotinus. It
would be comforting to conclude that these Sethian treatises are dependent
on the philosophy of Plotinus and the anonymous Parmenides commentary
(which Hadot ascribes to Porphyry), since then a specific source for the
ontology of these documents could be determined. However, the fact that
documents under these names were read in Plotinus' circle suggests that
they were produced earlier than Plotinus' refutation, during Porphyry's
six-year stay with Plotinus in Rome from 263 to 268 C.E. In the case of
Zostrianos, so many of whose features are echoed in Plotinus' critique
of the Gnostics, it seems nearly certain that Plotinus' circle had some
version of this document in view during the course of his refutations of
the Gnostics, and that it is this treatise which Porphyry regarded as late
and spurious, and against which Amelius composed a forty-book refutation.
Of course, since both Allogenes and Zostrianos bear traces
of redaction and literary dependency, one cannot be certain of the precise
version of these treatises available to Plotinus and his circle.
No definitive solution to the chronological priority
of sources is possible owing to the possibility of multiple versions of
these Sethian treatises. However, there may be adequate warrant for placing
Allogenes and Zostrianos at a time before Plotinus, since
most of their doctrine could be drawn from Numenius, the Chaldaean Oracles
and other second century Platonic sources, in addition to similar notions
found in the Apocryphon of John. Given Porphyry's love for oracular
literature, the incredible parallels to Allogenes found in the Parmenides
commentary attributed to Porphyry could be explained as originating with
the authors behind Allogenes et al. just as well as originating
from the more sophisticated philosophy of Porphyry. The existence-vitality-mentality
triad could be derived from the Chaldaean Oracles; Proclus, Damascius,
and probably Porphyry exegeted them in this way. There is also a striking
parallel between Allogenes (NHC XI,3: 49,26-38) and Proclus, Elem.
theol. prop. 103, but the Elements is much later work than
Allogenes on any reading.
R. Majercik has recently argued that these treatises
neither predate nor are contemporaneous with Plotinus, on the grounds that
the triadic groupings used in them have an explicit and fixed form uncharacteristic
of Plotinus; their technical use of the term hyparxis for the first
member of the Existence-Vitality-Mentality triad has no specific significance
for Plotinus (who employs the nomenclature Being-Life-Mind); and that the
nomenclature of these triads on various levels reflects a method of paronymy
and doctrine of predominance and cyclical implication likewise uncharacteristic
of Plotinus.[38]
Instead, all of these features are found in Plotinus' disciple Porphyry,
whose lost commentary on the Chaldaean Oracles (and perhaps the
anonymous Parmenides commentary attributed to him by P. Hadot) must
have been the Greek source that mediated them not only to the Sethian treatises,
but also to the Christian Neoplatonists Victorinus and Synesius.
Yet the principle of mutual implication and predominance is clearly
present already in Plotinus (e.g., Enn. V.8.4.7-24), Numenius (frg.
41 des Places = test. 33 Leemans), and perhaps in the Chaldaean Oracles
(frgg. 21, 27),[39]
and the dependence of Victorinus on Porphyry does not mean that Porphyry
is the ultimate source of the terms tridynamos (not in Porphyry's
extant works), hyparxis, ontotês, ousiotês (occurring
earlier in Albinus/Alcinous, Didask. X.3.7), zôotês,
and nootês. The ultimate source of these ideas probably cannot
be identified as a particular individual, but more than likely they stem
from the philosophical exchange within Plotinus' circle in Rome 244-269
C.E., which included not only Plotinus, Porphyry, and Amelius, but also
quite likely the authors and revisers of these selfsame Platonizing Sethian
treatises.
The Baptismal Tradition and Sethian Textual Interrelationships
My hypothesis of Sethian origins is that the Sethianism of the Nag Hammadi
treatises seems to be a product of two distinct but not entirely unrelated
speculative movements within or on the fringe of Hellenistic Judaism: 1)
that segment of the wisdom tradition that was in conversation with contemporary
Platonism, which I take to be the originating milieu of the "Barbeloite"
speculation on the divine Wisdom and Name, and 2) the rather more apocalyptically
oriented form of speculation on the traditions concerning the primordial
figures of Adam and Seth that gave rise to the sacred history of the Sethians.
The name "Barbeloite" is inspired by Irenaeus' ascription to this group
or school of the theogony and cosmogony he describes in Haer. I.29,
recognized by contemporary scholars as being nearly identical with that
found in the four versions of the Apocryphon of John.
The first movement conceived the receipt of revelation
as a kind of baptism in wisdom, conceived as a light or knowledge, and
conferred by the Logos or Voice or First Thought of the high deity; sometime
in the first century this movement was influenced by Christian baptizing
groups, causing them to construe Christ as the revealer of this saving
baptism. The second group, which I call "Sethites" (in distinction from
Gnostic Sethians), conceived of revelation as deriving from certain ancient
records containing the sacred history of the enlightenment of their primordial
ancestors, records of which had been brought to light by a recent reappearance
of Seth, the original and chief recipient of this revelation. The fusion
of this group with previously Christianized Barbeloites resulted in an
implicit or explicit identification between Seth and Christ typical of
many Sethian Gnostic treatises.
It seems as if the baptismal rite was originally
foreign to the pre-Sethian-Gnostic Sethites and was adopted by them in
the course of their contact with other baptismal movements, probably Christian
or Christian-influenced, such as the group behind the theogonies featuring
the figure of Barbelo. Furthermore, it seems likely that the baptismal
rite was the cultic setting within which the apparently non-baptismal visionary
ascension in texts like Allogenes and the Three Steles of Seth
arose. In these two texts, it appears that the ascensional rite has become
detached from the older baptismal mystery, while in Zostrianos (and
perhaps Marsanes) it is still associated with the baptismal rite,
or at least interpreted in terms of it. Such a detachment or abandonment
of traditional baptismal symbolism seems a rather radical step. The
Three Steles of Seth continues to maintain some of the traditional
terminology associated with the Sethian primeval history and baptismal
rite, such as the names Geradamas, Emmacha Seth and Mirotheas / Mirotheos
(as well as the traditional-sounding doxology in VII, 7: 126,1-16,
echoed also in Allogenes, XI, 3: 53,32-55,11). Allogenes,
on the other hand, carries over only such Sethian traditional nomenclature
(the Invisible Spirit, Barbelo and Autogenes) as seems to be typical of
those materials which I have classified as "Barbeloite." Although it directly
quotes a segment of the negative theology found also near the beginning
of the Apocryphon of John, it shows no interest in the details or
characters of the "Sethite" sacred history derived from Genesis 1-6. In
both of these texts, the specifically baptismal terminology, such as the
"Five Seals," the "Living Water" and the like, are absent, while at least
some baptismal terminology is maintained in Marsanes and Zostrianos.
Instead, the process of enlightenment is now presented in a new conceptual
framework derived from contemporary Platonic appropriation of the ascent
to and vision of ultimate Beauty presented in Plato's Symposium
210A-212A, whose stages of conceptual abstraction leading to a vision of
ultimate Beauty are interpreted in terms of an increasingly cognitively
vacant intellection of ever higher levels of transcendent reality.
The precise textual interrelationships within this
group are difficult to determine. All four texts show no interest in the
Sethite primeval history, but they continue to trade in the traditional
nomenclature for the denizens of the divine world found in that part of
the Apocryphon of John that overlaps the Barbeloite account of Irenaeus
(Haer. I.29) and which is also found in the Trimorphic Protennoia
and the Gospel of the Egyptians (the Invisible Spirit, Barbelo,
the Autogenes Son, and the Four Lights; only Zostrianos tells the
story of Sophia). Even more obviously, none of these texts shows any distinctive
Christian influence. When it comes to the question of compositional priority
within this text group, however, one might suggest either of two basic
scenarios.
On the one hand, the clearer, more systematic presentation
of this contemplative praxis in Allogenes without the benefit of
baptismal concepts and the relative precision of its use of Platonic philosophical
terminology might be taken to bespeak its relative originality and priority
within this group, followed next by the Three Steles of Seth. By
contrast, Zostrianos would be a less precise version of the metaphysics
and ascensional practice found in Allogenes, but represent a distinct
effort to maintain continuity with the baptismal rite by interpreting the
stages of ascent in Allogenes as baptismal sealings. Marsanes
would continue this trend, but with attenuated interest in the baptismal
rite, mentioning only some vague "washings" and completely reapplying the
term "seal" to designate various ontological levels in the spiritual hierarchy.
On this construction, Allogenes and the Three Steles of Seth
would represent a straight-line development from a stage of the Barbeloite
tradition prior to its fusion with the Sethite sacred history, perhaps
even prior to its adoption of Christian motifs, in which there was either
no interest in baptismal practice or else a decisive break with it. Zostrianos
and, to a lesser degree, Marsanes, represent not only a continuation
of the Barbeloite nomenclature, but also either a continuation of the baptismal
tradition or a restorative reinterpretation of it, perhaps in reaction
to its absence in Allogenes and the Three Steles of Seth,
upon whose metaphysical doctrine they could be seen to depend. Again, if
the portion of negative theology that Allogenes shares in word-for-word
parallel with the Apocryphon of John derives from the Apocryphon
of John and not a source from which the Apocryphon of John derived
this negative theology, the author of Allogenes could also have
had access to the Apocryphon of John's Sethite primeval history
as well as its doctrine of the Five Seals, but chose to ignore it. The
absence of such features in Allogenes tends to support the hypothesis
that it represents a radical break with the Sethian baptismal tradition.
On the other hand, one might also argue for the
chronological priority of Zostrianos within this text group, on
the grounds that it not only evinces traditional Sethian baptismal concerns,
but also contains a number of features not present in the other three treatises,
and which are singled out for criticism and ridicule by Plotinus in his
second Ennead: the story of the "fall" of Sophia; many instances
of glossalalia; frequent lists of multiple divine beings whose names may
have seemed to have magical import; and various technical terms denoting
levels of reality in addition to those of the Invisible Spirit, Triple-Powered
One, and the tripartite Barbelo-Aeon, such as the Antitypoi, the
Paroikeseis, the Metanoiai and the Ge Aerodios.
Since such features were criticized by Plotinus himself, and since the
late and spurious character of Zostrianos was pointed out by Porphyry,
and since Amelius composed a 40 volume refutation of the same work, one
might surmise that Allogenes, which lacks these features, was composed
as a refinement of Zostrianos which would be more acceptable to
the circle of Plotinus by virtue of a clearer and more accurate and technical
exposition of the ontology and visionary ascent basic to Zostrianos
freed from its objectionable excesses.[40]
Indeed, Allogenes explicitly represents even the Luminaries of the
Barbelo-Aeon as being ignorant about the existence of any spiritual powers
other than the Invisible Spirit, his Triple-Power, and the tripartite Barbelo-Aeon;
to seek beyond these is a "waste of time" (NHC XI, 67,22-35). Perhaps in
like spirit, the author of Allogenes designated his work as the
"seal" -- i.e. the summary and final instance of -- "all the books of Allogenes"
(NHC XI, 69,17-19; cf. Epiphanius, Haer. 31.75; 31.82), perhaps
a designation comprising these four treatises and others we do not possess.
On this construction, Zostrianos would constitute either an early
witness to a break with Christian Sethianism in favor of an alliance with
religious Platonism along the lines of a Neopythagorean and Middle Platonic
ontology similar to that found in the Chaldaean Oracles and
in the early Neoplatonists, or a direct continuation of the Barbeloite
baptismal theology along a trajectory that by-passed Christianity altogether.
Marsanes, with its alphabet mysticism, would represent a continuation
of this trend in an even more theurgical direction, while Allogenes
and the Three Steles of Seth would represent a break with the baptismal
theology in favor of developing and clarifying a praxis of contemplative
ascent structured according to the traditional Barbeloite theogony, but
free of the excesses of Zostrianos.
In contrast with my earlier views on the subject, I am now inclined
to think in terms of the chronological priority of Zostrianos with
respect to Allogenes. If Allogenes represents a refinement
of Zostrianos, the problem of determining antecedents to the Platonizing
metaphysics of these treatises is now shifted to a topological and source
analysis of Zostrianos, which is rendered problematic by its fragmentary
state. Its dependence on Sethian baptismal theology, especially of the
sort found in the Gospel of the Egyptians, is clear, but the question
of the philosophical sources is much more difficult, since key passages
are either missing or seriously truncated by lacunae invariably located
at crucial expository points. The most likely sources of its philosophical
conceptuality are to be found in Numenius and in the Chaldaean Oracles,
works which are unfortunately equally if not more fragmentary.
Assuming that the foregoing textual comparisons
are not to be explained by dependencies upon versions of texts to which
we have no access, the obvious conclusion seems to be that these four texts
represent a departure from a Christian Sethianism in which both the baptismal
rite and the Sethite primeval history played a fundamental role. Such a
departure would be most likely occasioned by a Christian rejection of the
Sethian interpretation of the significance of Christ, namely that Christ
is the pre-existent Son of Barbelo and the Invisible Spirit, and that Seth's
appearance in the guise of Jesus is to be explained as the form in which
Barbelo or Seth appeared on the third of three descents, namely as the
Logos who confers the celestial baptismal rite of the Five Seals. In such
a situation, these authors may have been forced to seek a less mythological
and Christian interpretation of the transcendental theology of the Barbeloite
tradition than that offered by baptismal conceptuality or by the Sethite
speculation on Genesis 1-6 typical of such texts as the Apocryphon of
John, the Trimorphic Protennoia, and the Gospel of the Egyptians.
The most hospitable environment for such a venture would have been that
wing of contemporary Neopythagorean Platonism represented by Philo of Alexandria,
Numenius, the Chaldaean Oracles, and whoever else was committed
to the Platonic philosophical articulation of biblical and other traditional
wisdom.
Textual Interrelationships Extending beyond the
Sethian Corpus
The earliest (before 175 C.E.) examples of a developed transcendental wisdom
theology that might serve as a basis for the theology and cosmology of
the Sethian treatises seem to be the curiously self-contained, rather hymnic
account of the three descents of the divine Pronoia found at the end of
the longer versions of the Apocryphon of John (NHC II, 30,12-31:25),
the Barbeloite theogony of Irenaeus (Haer. I.29) and the non-Christian,
non-Barbeloite and conceivably pre-Sethian theogony of Eugnostos the
Blessed (NHC III, 3 and V, 1). It is noteworthy that
these accounts, which display no interest in the Sethite primeval history,
focus on transcendental personifications of the divine wisdom occupying
various ontological levels, such as the figure of Barbelo and the numerous
Sophia figures of Eugnostos the Blessed.
Within these accounts, baptismal motifs occur only
in the Pronoia hymn, in which the divine Pronoia confers the Five Seals
on her third and final descent. The Pronoia hymn displays no Christian
features except the possible allusion to Eph 5:14 (the awakening of sleepers)
in a section of the hymn that seems like a later gloss (NHC II,1:
31,4-10). The Irenaeus account relates the origin and deployment of the
primal triad of the Invisible Spirit, Barbelo, the Autogenes Son, and the
Four Lights, in the lowest of which dwells Sophia; it is superficially
Christianized by the identification of the Autogenes Son with Christ, whose
only function is to inaugurate the possibility of the enlightenment and
subsequent generation of all things; in addition the account concludes
with a lengthy account of Sophia's generation of the creator Archon.
The non-Sethian Eugnostos the Blessed has
no such Christian features, but is subsequently Christianized by its incorporation
into the Sophia of Jesus Christ (NHC III, 4 and BG 8502,
3), which adds the story of Sophia's role in the creation of the
lower world, Yaldabaoth's stealing of her power, the production of the
psychic Adam and his progeny from a drop of the pleromatic light, and introduces
the figure of the risen Jesus as narrator of the entire theogony, cosmogony
and anthropogony, and as the savior of those caught in the lower world.
The lengthy cosmological and soteriological conclusion of the Sophia
of Jesus Christ introduced by Mary's question (BG 8502, 3: 117,13-127,11)
displays features which resemble materials in both the Hypostasis of
the Archons and the Trimorphic Protennoia. In BG 117,13-121,13
the Sophia of Jesus Christ shares a number of motifs with the
Hypostasis of the Archons, such as Sophia's desire to create without
a consort, her emanation of a drop of light below the veil separating the
higher and lower worlds, the alternate name Yaldabaoth of the arch-creator,
the formation of Adam as a molded form endowed with soul insufflated from
on high, yet inert and slumbering, and Adam's naming of the animals. On
the other hand, the Sophia of Jesus Christ (BG 121,13-127,11) shares
a number of features with the Trimorphic Protennoia, such as the
savior's "loosening of the bonds" and "breaking the gates of the pitiless
ones," the names "Invisible Spirit," "Archigenetor" (also in Eugnostos)
and "Sons of Light," as well as the boasting of the creator and angels.
These similarities between the Sophia of Jesus
Christ and the Sethian treatises (Hyp. Arch. and Trim.
Prot.), which do not seem to stem from the Sophia of Jesus Christ's
dependence on Eugnostos the Blessed, seem to suggest that the Sophia
of Jesus Christ was composed in an environment informed by these two
Sethian treatises or their immediate sources. By contrast with the elaborate
Sethian accounts containing these features, the Sophia of Jesus Christ's
account is highly abbreviated, suggesting that the Sethian materials influenced
the Sophia of Jesus Christ rather than vice versa. On the
other hand, Eugnostos the Blessed, with its supreme pantheon and
multiple Sophia figures shows very little similarity with the theogonical
sections of the Sethian treatises, save perhaps the triad of Immortal Man
= God, Son of Man = Adam and Son of the Son of Man = Savior (= Seth?).
Another theogony and cosmogony is offered by the
Apocryphon of John, which is almost a duplicate of that in the Irenaeus
account, but continues with an extensive anthropogony that draws upon the
Sethite primordial history from Genesis 2-6. The Apocryphon of John,
with its extensive theogony, cosmogony and anthropogony, contains a single
reference to the baptism of the Five Seals by virtue of its incorporation
of the Pronoia hymn, which seems foreign to the rest of the text. This
hymn, however, seems to form the underlying basis of the Trimorphic
Protennoia, a document devoid of interest in the interpretation of
Genesis 2-6, but which contains a brief version of the cosmogony (Christ's
establishment of the four lights) found in Irenaeus, Haer. I.29
and the Apocryphon of John; it is heavily steeped in baptismal motifs.
As in the Pronoia hymn of the Apocryphon of John, the
Trimorphic Protennoia ascribes the origin of the baptism of the Five
Seals to the third descent of Pronoia or Protennoia, but unlike the
Apocryphon of John, it clearly presents baptism as involving some kind
of celestial ascent.
In Haer. I. 30, Irenaeus ascribes a gnostic
mythology to anonymous "others" (alii) whom Theodoret (Haeret.
fab. compend. I, 14) identifies as "Sethians whom some call
Ophians or Ophites." Here one finds a triad of highest beings: The high
deity (First) Man is Father of All. His Thought (ennoia) which proceeds
from him is the Son of Man. Below these is the Holy Spirit, the Mother
of the Living, from whom the First Man begets Christ, the "Third Male"
(tertius masculus).[41]
The Spirit emits Sophia-Prunicos, who by gravity descends to and agitates
the waters below, taking on a material body. When she is empowered from
above to escape this body and ascend to the height, it becomes the father
of the Archon Yaldabaoth. The Archon produces seven sons named as in the
Apocryphon of John and boasts that he alone is God, to which his
mother responds that "Man and the Son of Man" are above him. Although this
theogony and cosmogony is quite different than the Barbeloite account in
the preceding chapter, it too is extant in Irenaeus' original Greek and
covers the same mythical territory from the appearance of first principles
to Sophia's generation of the Archon and his boasting. At the point where
the original Greek gives way to the Latin text alone (Haer. 1.30.7),
one finds an anthropogony and soteriology with many similarities to that
found in the Apocryphon of John. It relates Yaldabaoth's making
of the man and the woman, both of whom are specially enlightened by Sophia,
followed by the stories of the tree of gnosis, the expulsion from paradise,
the birth of Cain, Abel, Seth and Norea, and the flood. The final act is
the incognito descent of Christ, the Third Male, through the seven heavens,
who puts on his sister Sophia and rescues the crucified Jesus. Just as
the Apocryphon of John portrays Barbelo as repeatedly initiating
the salvific process, so too the Ophite system describes repeated salvific
acts of Sophia: she provides the divine model for the protoplast and assures
the enlightenment of Eve and the protection of her light-trace from conception
through the Archon; she reveals the bitter significance of Adam and Eve's
bodies and aids the conception of Seth and Norea as well as the birth of
the wise Jesus. The final salvific act is the deliverance of Sophia and
Jesus by Christ. Many of these motifs are at home in the Sethian treatises,
but especially in the second half of the Apocryphon of John (BG
8502,2: 44,19ff, NHC II,1: 13,3ff; similarly in other versions),
which is not paralleled by the Barbeloite system of Irenaeus (Haer.
I. 29). Much of this material common to the Apocryphon of John and
the Ophites is connected with the interpretation of Genesis 1-6, and one
finds versions of this not only in the Apocryphon of John but also
extensively in the Hypostasis of the Archons, and to a lesser extent
in the Apocalypse of Adam and the Gospel of the Egyptians.
A Possible Compositional Sequence
A possible way of sorting out these interrelationships would be to attribute
chronological primacy to those texts that seem to be sources of other texts
in this group. Two obvious non- or pre-Christian candidates would be the
theogony in Eugnostos the Blessed and the triple descent of the
divine wisdom as reflected in the Pronoia hymn. One might add to this the
Christianized Barbeloite theogony of Irenaeus, although it may derive from
a source it shared in common with the various versions of the Apocryphon
of John.
The Pronoia hymn or its equivalent, focusing upon
Pronoia's three descents culminating in the conferral of the Five Seals,
was eventually incorporated into the Apocryphon of John and the
Trimorphic Protennoia, which were subsequently Christianized; all these
materials reflect varying degrees of concern with a baptismal rite in the
course of which one experiences final enlightenment. Along a separate but
parallel path, Eugnostos the Blessed, focusing upon a primal pentad
of masculine divine beings and various manifestations of the divine wisdom
associated with them, was incorporated into the (basically non-Sethian)
Sophia of Jesus Christ. Along with other sources, it is conceivable
that Eugnostos the Blessed may have formed part of the inspiration
for the Apocryphon of John's negative theology (ultimately derived
from Plato's Parmenides), its doctrine of the emergence of the second
principle (Barbelo) from the supreme deity's (the Invisible Spirit's) self-reflection,
and possibly its conception of the relations between Autogenes, Pigeradamas,
and Seth (from the triad Immortal Man, Son of Man, and Son of the Son of
Man). So too, one must postulate sources for the Sethite primeval history,
such as the anthropogony and story of the flood in the Hypostasis of
the Archons and the Apocryphon of John, amplified by the postdiluvian
Sethite history offered by the first half of the Apocalypse of Adam.
Proceeding to the level of texts which are dependent
upon the first two (Eugnostos and the Pronoia hymn), the Trimorphic
Protennoia builds upon the Pronoia hymn, and clearly develops its "sealing
with Five Seals" in the direction of a celestial ascent. The conclusion
of the Sophia of Jesus Christ elaborates upon the descent of the
divine wisdom as a mistaken act of Sophia (as does the Irenaeus account),
using motifs and phrases reminiscent of those found in the Hypostasis
of the Archons and the Trimorphic Protennoia. The Apocryphon
of John and, to a lesser extent, the Trimorphic Protennoia,
develop the theme of the descent of the divine wisdom by distinguishing
the salvific descents of Barbelo as a higher wisdom figure from the mistaken
creative act of Sophia as a lower wisdom figure, which latter also leads
naturally to a greater concern with cosmogony and anthropogony. In contrast
to the Apocryphon of John, the Trimorphic Protennoia stresses
the innocence of Sophia, a theme that reappears in the Gospel of the
Egyptians. In the case of the Apocryphon of John, concern with
anthropogony and soteriology seems to lead to the initial introduction
into this text group of the Sethite primordial history derived from Genesis
2-6, much of which is also reflected in the Hypostasis of the Archons
and Irenaeus' [Haer. I.30] Sethian-Ophite account.
Perhaps at a tertiary stage of literary development,
the theogony, baptismal rite, and the primordial history become elaborated
in the Apocalypse of Adam and the Gospel of the Egyptians,
while the theme of the primal triad is developed in a very different and
strongly Platonic direction by Allogenes, the Three Steles of
Seth, Zostrianos, and Marsanes, with almost no attention
paid to the primal anthropogony and the Sethite primeval history. In the
light of this, it seems that the wing of Sethianism behind the Platonizing
texts was responsible for developing the ascensional praxis out of the
original baptismal context it occupies in the Trimorphic Protennoia
and the Gospel of the Egyptians. Most of the Christian traces in
the other Sethian treatises were expunged by this move, as was the scheme
of successive salvific descents of Barbelo marking out the epochs of the
Sethian sacred history.
The initial Sethian rapprochement with Christian
ideas, ranging between positive in the case of the Apocryphon of John,
the Hypostasis of the Archons, and Melchizedek, and more
polemical in the case of the Trimorphic Protennoia and the
Gospel of the Egyptians, and perhaps neutral in the Apocalypse of
Adam, may have proved a liability. While current Christological
concepts could clearly articulate the impending or recent eschatological
advent of Seth in their own era, to adopt these meant also to reinterpret
them in a Sethian way and thus challenge a more "orthodox" Christological
interpretation. Although this preserved for a time their separate conscious
identity as an elect body, in the long run it would have earned the hostility
of the increasingly better organized institutional "orthodox" Church. Influential
church fathers holding powerful positions in the Church singled out the
Sethians along with many others for attack. This may have led certain Sethians
to make common cause with the devotees of another prestigious religio-philosophical
position, namely Platonism. While initially welcomed in pagan Platonic
circles, their insistence on enumerating and praising their traditional
divine beings with hymns, glossalalia, and other forms of ecstatic incantation
irritated the more sober Platonists such as Plotinus, Porphyry and Amelius.
Although the Platonists initially regarded the Sethians as friends, soon
they too, like the heresiologists of the Church, began writing pointed
and lengthy attacks upon them for distorting the teaching of Plato which
they adapted to depict their own spiritual world and the path towards assimilation
with it.
In accord with this developmental scenario, one
may suggest the following stemma of dependencies:
| Apoc. Adam |
|
Pronoia hymn |
(Eugnostos) |
|
Iren. Haer I.30 |
Iren. Haer I.29 |
| |
| |
|
Hyp. Arch. |
|
Ap. John |
<--|
Trim. Prot. |
<-- | |
| | |
\ |
| |
| |
| | |
|
Gos. Egypt. |
(Soph. Jes. Chr.) |
| Norea |
Melch. / |
Zost. |
|
|
|
Allogenes |
|
|
|
Steles Seth |
|
|
|
Marsanes |
|
This suggested stemma of the Sethian treatises would yield the sequence:
the Apocalypse of Adam, the Hypostasis of the Archons, and
the Thought of Norea, the Trimorphic Protennoia, the Apocryphon
of John, the Gospel of the Egyptians, Melchizedek, Zostrianos,
Allogenes, the Three Steles of Seth, and Marsanes.
[1]
H.-M. Schenke, "Das sethianische System nach Nag-hammadi-Handschriften,"
Studia Coptica (ed. P. Nagel; Berliner Byzantinische Arbeiten 45;
Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1974), 165-173, hereafter cited as "Das sethianische
System," and "The Phenomenon and Significance of Gnostic Sethianism," in
The Rediscovery of Gnosticism: Proceedings of the International
Conference on Gnosticism at Yale, March 28-31, 1978,
(ed. B. Layton; Supplements to Numen 41; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1980-1981
[hereafter cited as Rediscovery]) 2.588-616, hereafter cited as "Gnostic
Sethianism."
[2]
"The Riddle of the Thunder (NHC VI, 2)," in C.W. Hedrick and R.
Hodgson, eds., Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism and Early Christianity (Peabody,
MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1986, 37-54).
[3]
In this connection, Stroumsa, Another Seed, 55 n.77, refers to 2
Enoch 18, where the size of the angelic "watchers" of Gen 6:1-4 who fathered
the race of giants on mortal women is said to be "greater than that of
giants." Cf. P.H. Poirier and M. Tardieu, "Catégories du temps dans
les écrits gnostiques non valentiniens," Laval Théologique
et Philosophique 37 (1981), 3-13. The fount of blood may refer to the
heavenly Adamas or heavenly archetype of Adam, described in Orig. World
(108,2-31) as the "enlightened bloody one" (based on the Hebrew pun on
'adam, "man," and dam, "blood"). In Gos. Egypt. III,
2: 56,22-59,9, Eleleth is probably the one responsible for the emission
of the "blood drop" enshrining the image of the heavenly Adam. In this
case, Hypsiphrone would be the Illuminator Eleleth, who in some Sethian
texts is regarded as the abode of Sophia and certain "repentant souls"
and in others (Trim. Prot., Gos. Egypt.) is held responsible
for the act usually ascribed to Sophia: that of producing the demiurge
Yaldabaoth. Eleleth/Hypsiphrone would also be responsible for the downward
projection of Adamas, the image of God after whom the earthly Adam is modeled.
In any case, Hypsiphrone is certainly a figure similar to that of the descending
and restored Sophia. Phainops, "radiant-faced one," might then be a name
for either the enlightened archetypal Adamas, or, since he seems to be
distinguished from the "fount of blood," for the fiery angel Sabbaoth,
the brother of the evil demiurge produced by the breath of Zoe, Pistis
Sophia's daughter, in an effort to imprison the demiurge (Hyp Arch.
95,5-96,4).
[4]
See my "Hypsiphrone," in The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Vol. III,
Edited by D.N. Freedman, New York: Doubleday, 1992, 352-353.
[5]
Schenke, "Gnostic Sethianism," 596-7.
[6]
In a paper at the 1993 SBL Annual meeting, "The Literary Contacts between
the Writing without Title (CG II,5) and Eugnostos
(III, 3 and V, 1).
[7]
Is it merely a coincidence that in Codex VIII, the apparently non-Christian
Zostrianos, which contains some cosmological material resembling that in
Ap. John, is followed by the Christian Letter of Peter to Philip?.
[8]
Charaxio (III,2: 68,13) might mean something like "mountain [Heb.
har] of the worthy [Gk. axios, i.e. "those who are worthy,"
a frequent self-designation for persons to whom the Sethian texts are addressed],
where Seth put the treatise, and upon which the sun cannot rise (i.e. in
the southern hemisphere; cf. Virgil, Aeneid 1.243-251; Cicero, Luc.
123; Tusc. 1.68). A Charaxio is also mentioned by Ovid at Metam.
12.272 as a Lapith and at Heroides 15.117 as a brother of Sappho.
For "worthy" as a formulaic self-designation of the Sethians, cf. Ap.
John (NHC II,1: 4,29-30; 7,29-30; 25,19-26,7); Trim.
Prot. (NHC XIII,1: 42,25-26; 44, 31-32); Gos. Egypt.
(NHC III,2: 55,12-16; 65,26-66,8); Zost. (VIII,1:
4,16-17; 24,21-23); Allogenes (NHC XI,3: 52,22-25; 57,35-39;
68,16-20); Steles Seth (NHC VII,5: 118,20-22; 121,14-15);
Marsanes (NHC X,1: 40,20-22).
[9]
See H.-M. Schenke, "Gnostic Sethianism," 597-602.
[10]
IV, 2: 59,13-29; III, 2: 49,22-50,17; 53,12-54,11; 55,16-56,3;
61,23-62,13.
[11]
B. Layton, "The Riddle of the Thunder (NHC VI,2)," in C.W. Hedrick
and R. Hodgson, eds., Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism and Early Christianity
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1986, 47).
[12]
Namely Barbelo, Doxomedon, the Light Oroiael (and probably Harmozel, Daveithe
and Eleleth), the Man of Light Pigeradamas, and Mirocheirothetos (cf. Meirothea).
[13]
H. Jonas, Gnosis und spätantiker Geist Vol. I (Göttingen,
1934, 251-4) and Vol. II, Part 1: Von der Mythologie zur mystischen Philosophie
(Göttingen, 1954). Part 2, which was to treat Plotinus, did not appear,
but the basic outlines of his approach to Plotinus may be seen in his essays:
"The soul in Gnosticism and Plotinus," and "Myth and Mysticism: A Study
of Objectification and Interiorization in Religious Thought," both in Philosophical
Essays: From Ancient Creed to Technological
Man (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: 1974); "Plotin über Ewigkeit und
Zeit: Interpretation von Enn. III 7," in Politische Ordnung und menschllche
Existenz: Festgabe für E. Voeglin (Munich, 1962),
pp. 295-319; "Plotins Tugendlehre: Analyse und Kritik," in Epimeleia:
Die Sorge der Philosophie um den Menschen (Ed. F. Wiedemann (Munich,
1964), pp. 143-173; A.D. Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and its Hellenistic
Background (New York, 1964); W. Theiler, "Gott und Seele in kaiserzeitlichen
Denken." in Recherches sur la tradition platonicienne (Entretiens
sur l'antiquité classique III; Geneva: 1955), pp. 66-80; reprinted
in W. Theiler, Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus (Berlin, 1966), pp.
104-123.
[14]
P. Boyancé, "Dieu cosmique et dualisme: Les archontes et Platon,"
in Le Origini dello Gnosticismo, Colloquio di Messina 13-18
Aprille 1966; Testi e discussioni publicati a cura di
Ugo Bianchi (Supplements to Numen XII; Leiden, 1967), 340-86; R. Crahay,
"Elements d'une mythopée gnostique dans le Grèce classique,
in Le Origini dello Gnosticismo, pp. 323-38; H.J. Krämer, Der
Ursprung der Geistmetaphysik (Amsterdam: 1964, 2nd ed. 1967). Christoph
Elsas, Neuplatonische und gnostische Weltablehnung in der Schule Plotins,
(Berlin 1975), which seeks to build on the earlier work of Carl Schmidt
(Plotins' Stellung zum Gnosticismus und Kirchlichen Christentums.
[TU NF V,4]. Leipzig, 1901).
[15]
Der Ursprung der Geistmetaphysik, 259. Allogenes frequently
stresses the necessarily non-active character of contemplative thought
in its reversion to the primal source.
[16]
G.W. MacRae, "The Jewish Background of the Gnostic Sophia Myth," Novum
Testamentum 12 (1970), 86-101; B.A. Pearson, "Friedländer Revisited:
Alexandrian Judaism and Gnostic Origins," Studia Philonica 2 (1973),
2331; "Jewish Haggadic Traditions in the Testimony of Truth from NH (IX.3),"
in J. Bergmann, K. Drynjeff, and H. Ringgren, eds., Ex Orbe Religionum:
Studia Geo Widengren oblata (Leiden: Brill, 1973), vol. 1, 457-70;
"Biblical Exegesis in Gnostic Literature," in Michael Stone, ed., Armenian
and Biblical Studies (Jerusalem, 1976), 70-80; "Gnostic Interpretation
of the Old Testament in the Testimony of Truth," Harvard Theological
Review 73 (1980), 311-19; "The Problem of 'Jewish Gnostic' Literature,"
in Hedrick and Hodgson, eds., Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism and the New Testament
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1986), 15-36; Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in
Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism
(Leiden: Brill, 1977); Jarl E. Fossum, The Name of God and the Angel
of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and
the Origin of Gnosticism (WUNT 36; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1985);
see also his articles "Gen. 1,26 and 2,7 in Judaism, Samaritanism, and
Gnosticism," Journal for the Study of Judaism 16 (1985), 202-39;
"The Origin of the Gnostic Concept of the Demiurge," in Ephemerides
Theologicae Lovanienses 61 (1985), 145-52; G.A.G. Stroumsa, Another
Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology (NHS 24; Leiden: Brill, 1984).
[17]
I.P. Culiano, The Tree of Gnosis: Gnostic Mythology from Early
Christianity to Modern Nihilism, (trans. H.S. Weiser, San Francisco:
Harper, 1990), 123-5.
[18]
Harold Bloom, Kabbalah and Criticism (New York: Continuum, 1983),
esp. 62.
[19]
These observations are made in E. Thomassen, "The Platonic and Gnostic
'Demiurge'," in Apocryphon Severini: Essays presented to Sø