Why the Coptic Gospels are not Gnostic

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Post Reply
User avatar
MrMacSon
Posts: 8789
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:45 pm

Why the Coptic Gospels are not Gnostic

Post by MrMacSon »


Ever since the initial announcement of the Nag Hammadi discovery, and unto the present day, the library as a whole has been consistently called ‘gnostic’, both in the scholarly literature and in the popular press 1 ...

While there may well be Gnostic writings amongst the several dozen titles found so significantly near the site of Saint Pachomius' archetypal monastery, the three Coptic Gospels in that collection are demonstrably not gnostic in content. This can most readily be shown via an ordinary syllogism 2 ...
  1. No text which affirms the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life can properly be labelled ‘Gnostic’.
  2. The Coptic Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth (like the entire Old Testament, the New Testament Gospels and Acts) explicitly assert the sacred reality of incarnate life.
  3. Therefore: They are not Gnostic writings or compilations. QED

Proof of the First Premise:

Gnosticism, Encyclopædia Britannica, CD-ROM edition 2002: ‘In the Gnostic view, the unconscious self of man is consubstantial with the Godhead, but because of a tragic fall it is thrown into a world that is completely alien to its real being. Through revelation from above, man becomes conscious of his origin, essence, and transcendent destiny. Gnostic revelation is to be distinguished...from Christian revelation, because it is not rooted in history and transmitted by Scripture. It is rather the intuition of the mystery of the self. The world, produced from evil matter and possessed by evil demons, cannot be a creation of a good God; it is mostly conceived of as an illusion, or an abortion.’


Proof of the Second Premise:
  • Thomas 5 (Gk): ‘nothing that has been buried shall not be raised’ (τεθαμμενον ο ουκ εγερθησεται)
  • Th 12: ‘for whose sake the sky and earth have come to be’
  • Th 22a: ‘the inside as the outside and the outside as the inside’
  • Th 22b: ‘a hand in the place of a hand and a foot in the place of a foot’
  • Th 28: ‘incarnate I was manifest to them’
  • Th 29: ‘the flesh has come to be because of spirit’
  • Th 55: ‘his cross’
  • Th 101: ‘my mother bore my body’
  • Th 113: ‘the Sovereignty of the Father is spread upon the earth’
  • Philip 25: ‘it is necessary to arise in this flesh’
  • Ph 72: ‘the power of the cross’
  • Ph 77: ‘on the cross’
  • Ph 78: ‘the Lord arose from among the dead;... he is incarnate’
  • Ph 89: ‘his body came into being on that day’
  • Ph 107: ‘the Living Water is a body’
  • Ph 114: ‘the Saint is entirely holy, including his body’
  • Ph 132: ‘Abraham ... circumcised the flesh of the foreskin’
  • Ph 137: ‘under the wings of the cross and in its arms’
  • Truth 6+10: ‘he was nailed to a crossbeam’
  • Tr 8: ‘it was appointed for him who would take it and be slain’
  • Tr 9: ‘Yeshua ... knew that his death is life for many’
  • Tr 16: ‘his love embodied it [the Logos]’
  • Tr 21: ‘the Logos ... became a body’
  • Tr 29: ‘he came forth incarnate in form’
  • Tr 30: ‘light spoke thru his mouth’
  • Tr 37: ‘the Father loves his fragrance and ... blends it with matter’


It would merely beg the question to claim that all such passages were inserted into otherwise Gnostic documents; to omit from consideration all and only contrary passages per se, constitutes the logical fallacy called petitio principii. Moreover, one would then have to ask why the remaining logia of these three Gospels should be considered Gnostic to begin with, since the sanctity of incarnate reality is there nowhere denied.


Conclusion: It follows that the Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth are not Gnostic compositions or compilations.


It is admittedly scandalous that virtually an entire generation of scholars should have erred regarding something so elementary and so vitally important as this (Th 39!). There were of course a wide variety of Gnostic movements and scriptures in antiquity, often influenced by Platonism's epistemological distrust of the senses; and indeed there have been many gnostico-theosophical sects together with their writings in modern times, no doubt more often influenced by Oriental religious traditions than by Plato. But this has no direct bearing on the three Coptic Gospels, which—like the four canonical Gospels—cannot rightly be considered Gnostic documents.4

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 The citations in 'Recent' Scholarly Comments are but notable exceptions, which the student will encounter only by an extensive review of the more academic literature. More typical are the prejudicial titles Elaine Pagel's best-selling The Gnostic Gospels (1979); E.J. Brill's entire scholarly series, Nag Hammadi Studies: The Coptic Gnostic Library; and The Coptic Gnostic Library: A Complete Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, General Editor James M. Robinson (2006)—for these last two, more appropriate titles would surely be 'The Coptic Monastic Library', etc.

2 Or, in the form of a modal inference:
  1. (x)(Φx → ~Ψx)
  2. Φa,b,c.
  3. Therefore: ~Ψa,b,c.
Where: → = logical entailment; ~ = negation; Φx = x asserts the sanctity of incarnate reality; Ψx = x is gnostic; a,b,c = the three Coptic Gospels.


4 For a recently discovered Coptic ‘Gospel’ (found in the 1970s near El Minya in Egypt), which by contrast clearly is gnostic as well as pseudonymous, see the Gospel of Judas Iscariot. That document contains such typical gnostic ramblings as: ‘The first is [S]eth who is called Christ, the second is Harmathoth who is [...], the [third] is Galila, the fourth is Yobel, the fifth [is] Adonaios; these are the five who ruled over the underworld, and first of all over chaos.... Then Saklas said to his angels: Let us create a human being after the likeness and after the image. They fashioned Adam and his wife Eve—who is called, in the cloud, Zoe.’ See also April D. DeConick, ‘Gospel Truth’, New York Times Op-Ed (1.XII.07).

https://www.metalogos.org/files/gnostic.html
.

User avatar
billd89
Posts: 1339
Joined: Thu Jun 25, 2020 6:27 pm
Location: New England, USA

Re: Why not 'Gnostic'?

Post by billd89 »


1. No text, which affirms the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life, can properly be labeled ‘Gnostic’.

Because everything thereafter hinges upon this statement, as a True/False, it must be absolutely correct (i.e. w/o exceptions or qualifications. That's implicit in the mathematical equation.

Proof of the First Premise:
Gnosticism, Encyclopædia Britannica, CD-ROM edition 2002: ‘In the Gnostic view, the unconscious self of man is consubstantial with the Godhead, but because of a tragic fall it is thrown into a world that is completely alien to its real being. Through revelation from above, man becomes conscious of his origin, essence, and transcendent destiny. Gnostic revelation is to be distinguished...from Christian revelation, because it is not rooted in history and transmitted by Scripture. It is rather the intuition of the mystery of the self. The world, produced from evil matter and possessed by evil demons, cannot be a creation of a good God; it is mostly conceived of as an illusion, or an abortion.’

"No text, which affirms the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life, can properly be labeled ‘Gnostic’."
Part 1: No text which affirms the basic reality of life on earth can be called 'Gnostic'. What does this even mean?
Part 2: No text which admits the sanctity of life on earth can be called 'Gnostic'. What does this even mean?

Both parts must be True. Is any text which conversely denies the be-all-&-end-all of earthly life - viz., that there IS a hereafter - therefore 'Gnostic'? Is a text which affirms Sin (tragically flawed Reality) and The Heavenly Good (viz., the alterity of Divine Reality) therefore 'Gnostic'? Obviously, no. But that's not ridiculous - it only shows the premise is unclear.

I think there are vast assumptions buried in this anodyne "basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life" that would crumble and defeat this overly simplistic definition of 'Gnostic', if tested against Xian and non-Xian texts. That's the obvious flaw w/ setting up an absolute, mathematical equation to define inconsistent, sometimes folkloric literature. There may be a better definition for 'Gnostic', too; sorry I cannot offer one now. But I see 'Gnosticism' more as a sliding scale, varied attributes behind which lie occult Mysteries. If a group which employed the Gospel of Philip practiced Gnosis, said group was 'Gnostic'. This should be obvious, even if we may only infer they were.

I hate quoting wikipedia, but I'm on my iPad:
Much of the Gospel of Philip is concerned with Gnostic views of the origin and nature of mankind and the sacraments it refers to as baptism, unction and marriage. It is not always clear whether these are the same literal rituals known in other parts of the early Christian movement and since, or ideal and heavenly realities. The Gospel emphasizes the sacramental nature of the embrace between man and woman (or ideas represented by these as types) in the "nuptial chamber," which is an archetype of spiritual unity.[c] Many of the sayings are identifiably related to other texts referred to by scholars as Gnostic, and often appear quite mysterious and enigmatic (these are from the translation by Isenberg 1996, pp. 139-)...

I count four criteria cited above:
1) Gnostic views on the Nature of Man
2) Gnostic sacraments
3) Gnostic literary traces
4) Gnostic 'vibe'

After Schenke, Wilson's Gospel of Philip [1962] labels it "Gnostic"; who doesn't?
User avatar
mlinssen
Posts: 3431
Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:01 am
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Why not 'Gnostic'?

Post by mlinssen »

billd89 wrote: Wed Dec 01, 2021 8:34 pm
1. No text, which affirms the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life, can properly be labeled ‘Gnostic’.

Because everything thereafter hinges upon this statement, as a True/False, it must be absolutely correct (i.e. w/o exceptions or qualifications. That's implicit in the mathematical equation.

Proof of the First Premise:
Gnosticism, Encyclopædia Britannica, CD-ROM edition 2002: ‘In the Gnostic view, the unconscious self of man is consubstantial with the Godhead, but because of a tragic fall it is thrown into a world that is completely alien to its real being. Through revelation from above, man becomes conscious of his origin, essence, and transcendent destiny. Gnostic revelation is to be distinguished...from Christian revelation, because it is not rooted in history and transmitted by Scripture. It is rather the intuition of the mystery of the self. The world, produced from evil matter and possessed by evil demons, cannot be a creation of a good God; it is mostly conceived of as an illusion, or an abortion.’

"No text, which affirms the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life, can properly be labeled ‘Gnostic’."
Part 1: No text which affirms the basic reality of life on earth can be called 'Gnostic'. What does this even mean?
Part 2: No text which admits the sanctity of life on earth can be called 'Gnostic'. What does this even mean?

Both parts must be True. Is any text which conversely denies the be-all-&-end-all of earthly life - viz., that there IS a hereafter - therefore 'Gnostic'? Is a text which affirms Sin (tragically flawed Reality) and The Heavenly Good (viz., the alterity of Divine Reality) therefore 'Gnostic'? Obviously, no. But that's not ridiculous - it only shows the premise is unclear.

I think there are vast assumptions buried in this anodyne "basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life" that would crumble and defeat this overly simplistic definition of 'Gnostic', if tested against Xian and non-Xian texts. That's the obvious flaw w/ setting up an absolute, mathematical equation to define inconsistent, sometimes folkloric literature. There may be a better definition for 'Gnostic', too; sorry I cannot offer one now. But I see 'Gnosticism' more as a sliding scale, varied attributes behind which lie occult Mysteries. If a group which employed the Gospel of Philip practiced Gnosis, said group was 'Gnostic'. This should be obvious, even if we may only infer they were.

I hate quoting wikipedia, but I'm on my iPad:
Much of the Gospel of Philip is concerned with Gnostic views of the origin and nature of mankind and the sacraments it refers to as baptism, unction and marriage. It is not always clear whether these are the same literal rituals known in other parts of the early Christian movement and since, or ideal and heavenly realities. The Gospel emphasizes the sacramental nature of the embrace between man and woman (or ideas represented by these as types) in the "nuptial chamber," which is an archetype of spiritual unity.[c] Many of the sayings are identifiably related to other texts referred to by scholars as Gnostic, and often appear quite mysterious and enigmatic (these are from the translation by Isenberg 1996, pp. 139-)...

I count four criteria cited above:
1) Gnostic views on the Nature of Man
2) Gnostic sacraments
3) Gnostic literary traces
4) Gnostic 'vibe'

After Schenke, Wilson's Gospel of Philip [1962] labels it "Gnostic"; who doesn't?
Schenke and Wilson... both falsified their Philip translation for 100% by rendering 'Christ' where it says Chrestian 5 out of 5 times.
Of course they needed to label it Gnostic - divert the attention away from it all, box it with the yucky stuff, stash it in the back.
That has been very successful, hasn't it?

Doresse started it all of course, but they didn't drag him in there for no reason - he saw Gnosticism everywhere, and was a bit of a chaotic person. Very useful
User avatar
mlinssen
Posts: 3431
Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:01 am
Location: The Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Why the Coptic Gospels are not Gnostic

Post by mlinssen »

MrMacSon wrote: Wed Dec 01, 2021 6:42 pm
Ever since the initial announcement of the Nag Hammadi discovery, and unto the present day, the library as a whole has been consistently called ‘gnostic’, both in the scholarly literature and in the popular press 1 ...

While there may well be Gnostic writings amongst the several dozen titles found so significantly near the site of Saint Pachomius' archetypal monastery, the three Coptic Gospels in that collection are demonstrably not gnostic in content. This can most readily be shown via an ordinary syllogism 2 ...
  1. No text which affirms the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life can properly be labelled ‘Gnostic’.
  2. The Coptic Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth (like the entire Old Testament, the New Testament Gospels and Acts) explicitly assert the sacred reality of incarnate life.
  3. Therefore: They are not Gnostic writings or compilations. QED

Proof of the First Premise:

Gnosticism, Encyclopædia Britannica, CD-ROM edition 2002: ‘In the Gnostic view, the unconscious self of man is consubstantial with the Godhead, but because of a tragic fall it is thrown into a world that is completely alien to its real being. Through revelation from above, man becomes conscious of his origin, essence, and transcendent destiny. Gnostic revelation is to be distinguished...from Christian revelation, because it is not rooted in history and transmitted by Scripture. It is rather the intuition of the mystery of the self. The world, produced from evil matter and possessed by evil demons, cannot be a creation of a good God; it is mostly conceived of as an illusion, or an abortion.’


Proof of the Second Premise:
  • Thomas 5 (Gk): ‘nothing that has been buried shall not be raised’ (τεθαμμενον ο ουκ εγερθησεται)
  • Th 12: ‘for whose sake the sky and earth have come to be’
  • Th 22a: ‘the inside as the outside and the outside as the inside’
  • Th 22b: ‘a hand in the place of a hand and a foot in the place of a foot’
  • Th 28: ‘incarnate I was manifest to them’
  • Th 29: ‘the flesh has come to be because of spirit’
  • Th 55: ‘his cross’
  • Th 101: ‘my mother bore my body’
  • Th 113: ‘the Sovereignty of the Father is spread upon the earth’
  • Philip 25: ‘it is necessary to arise in this flesh’
  • Ph 72: ‘the power of the cross’
  • Ph 77: ‘on the cross’
  • Ph 78: ‘the Lord arose from among the dead;... he is incarnate’
  • Ph 89: ‘his body came into being on that day’
  • Ph 107: ‘the Living Water is a body’
  • Ph 114: ‘the Saint is entirely holy, including his body’
  • Ph 132: ‘Abraham ... circumcised the flesh of the foreskin’
  • Ph 137: ‘under the wings of the cross and in its arms’
  • Truth 6+10: ‘he was nailed to a crossbeam’
  • Tr 8: ‘it was appointed for him who would take it and be slain’
  • Tr 9: ‘Yeshua ... knew that his death is life for many’
  • Tr 16: ‘his love embodied it [the Logos]’
  • Tr 21: ‘the Logos ... became a body’
  • Tr 29: ‘he came forth incarnate in form’
  • Tr 30: ‘light spoke thru his mouth’
  • Tr 37: ‘the Father loves his fragrance and ... blends it with matter’


It would merely beg the question to claim that all such passages were inserted into otherwise Gnostic documents; to omit from consideration all and only contrary passages per se, constitutes the logical fallacy called petitio principii. Moreover, one would then have to ask why the remaining logia of these three Gospels should be considered Gnostic to begin with, since the sanctity of incarnate reality is there nowhere denied.


Conclusion: It follows that the Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth are not Gnostic compositions or compilations.


It is admittedly scandalous that virtually an entire generation of scholars should have erred regarding something so elementary and so vitally important as this (Th 39!). There were of course a wide variety of Gnostic movements and scriptures in antiquity, often influenced by Platonism's epistemological distrust of the senses; and indeed there have been many gnostico-theosophical sects together with their writings in modern times, no doubt more often influenced by Oriental religious traditions than by Plato. But this has no direct bearing on the three Coptic Gospels, which—like the four canonical Gospels—cannot rightly be considered Gnostic documents.4

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 The citations in 'Recent' Scholarly Comments are but notable exceptions, which the student will encounter only by an extensive review of the more academic literature. More typical are the prejudicial titles Elaine Pagel's best-selling The Gnostic Gospels (1979); E.J. Brill's entire scholarly series, Nag Hammadi Studies: The Coptic Gnostic Library; and The Coptic Gnostic Library: A Complete Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, General Editor James M. Robinson (2006)—for these last two, more appropriate titles would surely be 'The Coptic Monastic Library', etc.

2 Or, in the form of a modal inference:
  1. (x)(Φx → ~Ψx)
  2. Φa,b,c.
  3. Therefore: ~Ψa,b,c.
Where: → = logical entailment; ~ = negation; Φx = x asserts the sanctity of incarnate reality; Ψx = x is gnostic; a,b,c = the three Coptic Gospels.


4 For a recently discovered Coptic ‘Gospel’ (found in the 1970s near El Minya in Egypt), which by contrast clearly is gnostic as well as pseudonymous, see the Gospel of Judas Iscariot. That document contains such typical gnostic ramblings as: ‘The first is [S]eth who is called Christ, the second is Harmathoth who is [...], the [third] is Galila, the fourth is Yobel, the fifth [is] Adonaios; these are the five who ruled over the underworld, and first of all over chaos.... Then Saklas said to his angels: Let us create a human being after the likeness and after the image. They fashioned Adam and his wife Eve—who is called, in the cloud, Zoe.’ See also April D. DeConick, ‘Gospel Truth’, New York Times Op-Ed (1.XII.07).

https://www.metalogos.org/files/gnostic.html
.

While I consider Paterson Brown to have made the most useful Thomas translation in terms of grammatical breakdown of the Coptic (and Detlev Koepke to have made the most precise translation), I agree with few of his ideas and certainly not with all of his translation.
Brown was a typical Yeshua-sayer, determined to drive his IS into some prefab (yet unique, "of course") box - and that shows in his plain English translation, and ideas

His Thomas had to be Christy, Jesus-y, Yeshua-ish. And let me point to a common issue that everyone wants to overlook: the most straightforward translation and interpretation of

Th 28: ‘incarnate I was manifest to them’

https://www.metalogos.org/files/th_interlin/th028.html for the interlinear

The relevant Coptic part:

ⲁ ⲉⲓ ⲟⲩⲱⲛϩ ⲉⲃⲟⲗ ⲛⲁ ⲩ ϩⲛ ̄ ⲥⲁⲣⲝ
Did I reveal outward to them in flesh

That's it, that's what it literally says, and you can compare Brown's to it. And the usual Thomasine question is: well then where does that word point to?
The most logical conclusion is that them in flesh belong together, and naturally I have a very hard time to get conclusive answers from Coptologists

But this is one of the many (many) logia that has been dragged into the least likely corner, to fit the mould of Christianity - for very good reasons, of course, with this forming the origin to the latter

Drop the label Gnosticism: it only serves confirmation bias.
The very first question is: what are the different elements in the story of the Nag Hammadi Library?
Answer that question, make a list, and tick off the boxes and you will see that hardly two of them share much if anything. Take the Dialogue of the Saviour, for instance: no Christ in any of it, no Jesus, no cross

Amazing, isn't it?

Now drop the label Christianity, and go by all their writings. Now the elements, make a list, tick off the boxes.
John? Spiritual and beautiful
Matthew? Eschatological and ugly
Revelation? Gnostic craziness - could be a label

The whole label of "Gnostic" was invented as part of the dating game: whatever is shoved in there is late, and Christianity came earlier - is the intended drive behind it.
Just stop mentioning the word - and whenever one brings it into the conversation, pop the question: "Hmmm, Gnosticism - how exactly would you define that, what are the key elements for a story to be labelled Gnostic?"
User avatar
MrMacSon
Posts: 8789
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:45 pm

Re: Why the Coptic Gospels are not Gnostic

Post by MrMacSon »

billd89 wrote: Wed Dec 01, 2021 8:34 pm
1. No text, which affirms the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life, can properly be labelled ‘Gnostic’.

Because everything thereafter hinges upon this statement, as a True/False, it must be absolutely correct (i.e. w/o exceptions or qualifications. That's implicit in the mathematical equation.

Part 1: No text which affirms the basic reality of life on earth can be called 'Gnostic'. What does this even mean?
Part 2: No text which admits the sanctity of life on earth can be called 'Gnostic'. What does this even mean?
.
Sure. I take the main component of that statement to be 'incarnate life [in the text].'

I think 'basic reality' refers to a proposition of incarnate life.

And that the text 'sanctifies incarnate life'.

It's probably too narrow a definition, and as Martijn has pointed out, it seems Brown was reifying these concepts in these texts through a Christian lens.

We probably need to revisit the texts through literalist transcriptions and translations such as those Martijn is doing

billd89 wrote: Wed Dec 01, 2021 8:34 pm I think there are vast assumptions buried in this anodyne "basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life" that would crumble and defeat this overly simplistic definition of 'Gnostic', if tested against Xian and non-Xian texts. That's the obvious flaw w/ setting up an absolute, mathematical equation to define inconsistent, sometimes folkloric literature. There may be a better definition for 'Gnostic', too; sorry I cannot offer one now. But I see 'Gnosticism' more as a sliding scale, varied attributes behind which lie occult Mysteries. If a group which employed the Gospel of Philip practiced Gnosis, said group was 'Gnostic'. This should be obvious, even if we may only infer they were.

I hate quoting wikipedia, but I'm on my iPad:
Much of the Gospel of Philip is concerned with Gnostic views of the origin and nature of mankind and the sacraments it refers to as baptism, unction and marriage. It is not always clear whether these are the same literal rituals known in other parts of the early Christian movement and since, or ideal and heavenly realities. The Gospel emphasizes the sacramental nature of the embrace between man and woman (or ideas represented by these as types) in the "nuptial chamber," which is an archetype of spiritual unity.[c] Many of the sayings are identifiably related to other texts referred to by scholars as Gnostic, and often appear quite mysterious and enigmatic (these are from the translation by Isenberg 1996, pp. 139-)...

I count four criteria cited above:
  1. Gnostic views on the Nature of Man
  2. Gnostic sacraments
  3. Gnostic literary traces
  4. Gnostic 'vibe'
I can only offer

.
Proof of the First Premise:

Gnosticism, Encyclopædia Britannica, CD-ROM edition 2002: '...Gnostic revelation is to be distinguished...from Christian revelation, because it is not rooted in [prior] history and [not] transmitted by Scripture...
.

I'm not sure what Brown's view of history or Scripture would have been: there may be an answer in his writings somewhere, though I wonder if he considered
  1. the history of early Christianity to be more secure than some people and some discussions on this forum indicate;
  2. genuinely thought 'Gnostics' didn't use Scripture the way Judaism of Christianity did; and/or
  3. was referring to Christianity using or relying heavily on Jewish Scriptures.
There's also this

....There were of course a wide variety of Gnostic movements and scriptures in antiquity, often influenced by Platonism's epistemological distrust of the senses; and indeed there have been many gnostico-theosophical sects together with their writings in modern times, no doubt more often influenced by Oriental religious traditions than by Plato. But this has no direct bearing on the three Coptic Gospels, which—like the four canonical Gospels—cannot rightly be considered Gnostic documents.

As I said indicated above, we need to go back to fundamentals about what these texts might really mean and where they might fit in relation to Christianity and known so-called 'Gnostic' literature such as that attributed to or associated with the Valentinians and what the so-called heresiologists said about them and others.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18321
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Why the Coptic Gospels are not Gnostic

Post by Secret Alias »

'Gnostic' as a term denoting a group or tradition should be avoided by serious scholars. Clement and various others use it as a reference - in keeping with its Platonic origins - to note an inner receptiveness to knowledge and enlightenment. A capacity for knowledge. It's Hebrew equivalent is in Daniel chapter 12 and has been used by religious leaders in Judaism as an honorific title. Was never meant to be a distinctive name of a group or association. Was only turned into this by the use of the forged Pastoral epistles.
User avatar
MrMacSon
Posts: 8789
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:45 pm

Re: Why the Coptic Gospels are not Gnostic

Post by MrMacSon »

Yeah, I know it should generally be avoided (except perhaps for Sethians or similar supposedly earlier groups). I thought Brown was giving reason to think these three texts might be intermediate texts more closely aligned with orthodox/catholic Christianity than earlier 'traditions' but, as Martijn L suggests, we need to revisit these texts directly and not through the lens of Brown et al before situating them in 'the milieu.'
Post Reply