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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
It is always somewhat precarious to speak about a Gnostic book and to assess its importance. Experience shows that some people, attracted by the very fact that a completely unknown book has been discovered, are more or less disappointed when they make their first acquaintance with one of these ‘Gospels from the Nile-sand’. Now this is a fairly general reaction; places marked in travel-guides with three stars very seldom meet with general approval except for snobs. I for one must always suppress a feeling of disappointment on entering a site of archaeological excavation of which I read glowing descriptions. But in the case of these Gnostic writings there is more that can explain the feeling I have mentioned.
page 153 note 1 The German title of my book Newly Discovered Gnostic Writings, London 1960Google Scholar.
page 154 note 1 O. Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur2, Freiburg i. Br. 1914, 41a f.
page 154 note 2 Evans, E., Tertullian's Treatise on the Resurrection, London 1960Google Scholar (quotations from Tertullian's work are taken from Evans's translation; in other cases, unless otherwise stated, the English translation is that of the ‘Ante-Nicene Christian Library’). The text quoted is from ch. 1.
page 154 note 3 Minucius Felix, xxxiv. 11.
page 154 note 4 Acts of Paul and Thecla, v. (James, M. R., The Apocryphal New Testament, Oxford 1924. 273Google Scholar).
page 154 note 5 Acts of Paul and Thecla, xii. (James, op. cit., 275).
page 154 note 6 Mart. Polycarpi, xiv. Cf. also Justin, Dial., xlvi, 7: ‘undergo extreme penalties, and rejoice in death, believing that God will raise us up by His Christ, and will make us incorruptible’.
page 155 note 1 Letter of Lugdunum and Vienna in Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., v. i, 62.
page 155 note 2 (Pseudo) Justin, De Resurrectione, x., cf. also Acts of Paul and Thecla, xiv. (the new teaching of the Christians).
page 155 note 3 Athenagoras, De Resurectione, xiv.
page 155 note 4 L Boliek, The Resurrection of the Flesh, Amsterdam 1962 (thesis Free University), 29.
page 155 note 5 Mark xii. 18 ff. and parallels.
page 155 note 6 I Cor. xv. 20.
page 155 note 7 I Cor. xv. 12.
page 156 note 1 Acts, xvii. 32.
page 156 note 2 Tertullian, De Res. Carnis, iii.
page 156 note 3 Chadwick, H., ‘Origen, Celsus, and the Resurrection of the Body’, in Harvard Theological Review, xli (1948), 83 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; L. Boliek, loc. cit., 40 ff.
page 156 note 4 Tertullian, De Res. Carnis, lxiii.
page 156 note 5 Origen, Contra Celsum, vii. 32 (trs. H. Chadwick, Cambridge 1953).
page 156 note 6 See the interesting articles by Grant, R. M., ‘The Resurrection of the Body’, I–II, in The Journal of Religion, xxviii (1948), 120 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 188 ff.
page 156 note 7 Tertullian, De Res. Carnis, i.
page 156 note 8 In Origen, Contra Celsum, v. 14.
page 156 note 9 I Clem, xxvii. 2; Just. Martyr, Apol., xix.; Athenagoras, De Resurrectione, ix.; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., v. 3, 2–3; Tertullian, De Res. Carnis, lvii; Apoc. Petri (eth. text), in James, Apoc. N.T., 512.
page 157 note 1 Theophilus, Ad Autolycum, i. 13.
page 157 note 2 Minucius Felix, 11.
page 157 note 3 Athenagoras, De Resurr., iv; Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos, vi; Tertullian, De Res. Camis, iv; Porphyry, fr. 94; cf. Harnack in the Apoc. Petri (eth. text). James (op. cit., 512) reacts against this opinion: ‘And the wild beasts and the fowls shall he command to restore all the flesh that they have devoured, because he willeth that men should appear; for nothing perisheth before God, and nothing is impossible with him, because all things are his’.
page 157 note 4 Origen, Contra Cels., v. 14.
page 157 note 5 Origen, Contra Cels., v. 61.
page 157 note 6 Justin, Dial., lxxx.
page 157 note 7 Tertullian, De Res. Carnis, ii.
page 158 note 1 Epistle of the Apostles, 5 (the Creed, 9–12) (resurrection of Jesus; cf. ch. 12: ‘confessing our sin that we had been unbelieving’, James, op. cit., 487 ff.
page 158 note 2 Epistle of the Apostles, 22–25, James, op. cit., 493 f.; see also the discussion of Schmidt, C., Gespräche Jesu mit seinen Jüngem nach der Auferstehung, Leipzig 1919, 345 ff.Google Scholar
page 158 note 3 Polycarp, Ad Philipp., vii. 2.
page 158 note 4 This is based upon the expression ‘firstborn of Satan’ which, according to Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., iii. 3, 4, was applied to Marcion by Polycarp; but see Bauer, W., Die Briefs des Ignatius von Antiochia und der Polykarpbrief, Tübingen 1920, 291 f.Google Scholar, who rejects this exegesis.
page 159 note 1 The 3rd Epistle to the Corinthians 10–15, James, oP. cit., 289.
page 159 note 2 In 24, James, op. cit., 290: ‘And as for that which they say, that there is no resurrection of the flesh, they indeed shall have no resurrection unto life, but unto judgement, 25 because they believe not in him that is risen from the dead, not believino nor understanding, 26 for they know not, O Corinthians, the seed of wheat or of other seeds (grain), how they are cast bare into the earth and are corrupted and rise again by the will of God with bodies, and clothed’; then follow some O.T. examples (Jonas, Elisha and Elijah raising the widow's son).
page 159 note 3 Klijn, A. F. J., ‘The Apocryphal Correspondence between Paul and the Corinthians, in Vigiliae Christianae’, xvi (1963), 22.Google Scholar
page 159 note 4 Didascalia Apostolorum, ed. Connolly, R. H., Oxford 1929, 202, 240 ff.Google Scholar
page 159 note 5 (Ps.) Justin, De Resurr., ii.
page 160 note 1 Ps. Tertullian, Adv. Haer., resp. ch. 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, 16, 19.
page 160 note 2 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., v. 2, 2.
page 160 note 3 Tertullian, De Resurr. Camis, ii.
page 160 note 4 Tertullian, De Resurr. Carnis, iv.
page 160 note 5 See the commentary of Dibelius, M.–Conzelmann, H., Die Pastoralbriefe3, Tübingen 1955, 52 ff.Google Scholar
page 160 note 6 Clement of Alexandria, Stromat., iii. 6, 28, 1.
page 160 note 7 Epiphanius, Panarion, xlvii. 1, 8.
page 161 note 1 Cf. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., i. 28, 1.
page 161 note 2 Acts of Paul and Thecla, xiv, James, loc. cit., 275.
page 161 note 3 Zahn, Th., Einleitung in das Neue Testament3, Leipzig 1906Google Scholar, Bd. I, 491, 17, 492.
page 161 note 4 Lock, W., The Pastoral Epistles, Edinburgh 1936, 99 f.Google Scholar But it is not out of place to refer to the remarks about the Sadducees in Hippolytus, Refutatio, ix. 29.
page 161 note 5 In the edition of H. Achelis, Bd. I, 2, 251.
page 161 note 6 See the extensive note of Zahn, Th., Die Offenbarung des Johannes, Leipzig-Erlangen 1924Google Scholar, Bd. I, 265 ff.
page 161 note 7 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., i. 23 and 25.
page 162 note 1 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., ii. 31, 2.
page 162 note 2 It is interesting to read the comments of a non-Christian, Indian philosopher, the present President of India, in Radhakrishnan, S., Eastern Religions and Western Thought (1939), Galaxy edition, Oxford 1959, 206 f.Google Scholar: ‘The doctrine of the resurrection of the body is opposed to the Gnostic view, which separated spirit and body. If personal existence is possible only in the body of the flesh, the dead will remain dead until the date of the general resurrection. If we cannot exist without the flesh, no one whose flesh is dead can be said to be alive. Its position was not impossible so long as the last day was believed to be imminent, but when it receded into the background the Gnostic view seemed more attractive. For the Gnostic the chief object of man was to set free his spiritual nature from its material imprisonment, and this can be accomplished by gnosis or sacramental rites’. However, the ‘great church’ rejected this view altogether (cf. Origen, De Principiis, ii. 10, 1), even though the date of the Parousia was uncertain, and professed against Gnosticism its faith in the resurrection of the dead or of the flesh.
page 162 note 3 Tertullian, De Res. Carnis, ii.
page 162 note 4 So Ps. Tertullian, Adv. Haer., xii.
page 162 note 5 Tertullian, De Praescr. Haer., xxxiii.
page 162 note 6 Origen, ap. Hieronymus, Epist., xxxviii.
page 162 note 7 Epiphanius, Pan., xxxi. 7, 5.
page 163 note 1 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., iii. 15, 2.
page 163 note 2 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., i. 21.
page 163 note 3 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., v. 31, 2.
page 163 note 4 Tertullian, De Res. Carnis, xix.
page 164 note 1 Cf. Tertullian, Be Praescr. Haer., xxxviii. 7.
page 164 note 2 Aristides, Apol., xv. 3.
page 164 note 3 See Talmud Babli, Sanhedrin fol. 90b–91a.
page 164 note 4 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. i. 10, 1.
page 165 note 1 See above, 157.