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Nag Hammadi and the New Testament*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

R. McL. Wilson
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Extract

Among the materials utilised to reinforce the cover of Codex VII from Nag Hammadi there are three inscribed papyrus fragments containing definite dates: a receipt dated 341 A.D., another of 346, and a deed of surety dated to 348. This provides a clear and unambiguous terminus a quo for the manufacture of this codex, although the fixing of a more precise date remains problematical. We do not know how long a receipt would be retained before it was discarded for use as scrap. As it happens, there is one case among the fragments from the cover of this codex in which the recipient of a letter has used the verso for a letter of his own. Neither however is dated, so that we do not know the interval between them. They therefore provide no help in this respect.

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Articles
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New Testament Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , July 1982 , pp. 289 - 302
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

Notes

[1] See Nag Hammadi Codices: Greek and Coptic Papyri from the Cartonnage of the Covers, ed. Barns, J. W. B., Browne, G. M. and Shelton, J. C. (NHS XVI, Leiden, 1981), pp. 53, 56, 57Google Scholar. A fourth text is fragmentary, and the date therefore uncertain, but one possible reconstruction would yield 344 A.D. (op. cit. p. 52 and note 3). For literature on the discovery in general, see Scholer., D. M., Nag Hammadi Bibliography 1948–1969 (NHS I Leiden, 1971)Google Scholar, supplemented annually in Novum Testamentum (except 1976).

[2] Ib. pp. 133–8.

[3] Plato, Rep. 588B–589B, in Codex VI, 5; translation in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. Robinson, James M. (Leiden, 1977), pp. 290 fGoogle Scholar. The text was first identified by Schenke., H. M. (OLZ 69 (1974), 236–41).Google Scholar

[4] Cf. Puech, H. C. in Hennecke-Schneemelcher, NT Apocrypha i(London, 1963, 1973), p. 245Google Scholar. MacRae, G. W. in Gnosis, ed. Aland, B. (Göttingen, 1978), p. 148Google Scholar n. 14, notes that the fragment has recently been republished by Attridge., H. W., ‘P. Oxy. 1081 and the Sophia Jesu Christi’, in Enchoria 5 (1975), 1–8.Google Scholar

[5] Cf. Puech, op. cit. pp. 295 f.; also W. Schneemelcher and J. Jeremias, ib. pp. 97 ff.

[6] ‘Ein vorirenäisches gnostisches Originalwerk in koptischer Sprache’, SPAW 1896, 839–47Google Scholar. See also ‘Irenaeus und seine Quelle in adv. haer. I, 29’, in Philotesia, Paul Kleinert … dargebracht, (Berlin, 1907), pp. 315–36.Google Scholar

[7] For a survey of some of the more recent studies, cf. Wilson, , Gnosis and the New Testament (Oxford, 1968), pp. 103 ffGoogle Scholar. Further literature in Scholer (note 1 above).

[8] The Jung Codex, ed. Cross, F. L. (London, 1955), p. 104Google Scholar. Against this view see, among others, Hans Jonas in Gnomon 32 (1960), 327 ffGoogle Scholar.; Studia Patristica VI (Berlin, 1962), pp. 96 ff.Google Scholar

[9] Op. cit. (note 4) p. 305.

[10] In Layton, B. (ed.), The Rediscovery of Gnosticism i (Numen Suppl. XLI, Leiden, 1980), p. 255Google Scholar. See also the discussion following Koester's paper, ib. 259–60.

[11] The Four Gospels (London, 1924), p. xvi.Google Scholar

[12] Cf. Bigg, Charles, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria (Oxford, 1886), p. 28 (‘their worldphilosophy is purely grotesque’)Google Scholar; The Church's Task in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1905), p. 66 (‘their monstrous systems’)Google Scholar. It is the more important to observe that Bigg already refers in both these books to a more serious side of Gnosticism: ‘The Gnostic was beset by just those difficulties which beset ourselves, and which we are accustomed to regard as our own peculiar burden, the waste, confusion and apparent cruelty of nature, the great inequality in the intellectual and physical endowments of mankind, the problem of the will, the theory of punishment and of the divine justice, and the rudimentary morality of the Hebrew Scriptures. All these are serious problems, which are as oppressive now as they were in the second century’ (Task, loc. cit.). In The Christian Platonists he writes that Gnosticism ‘was an attempt, a serious attempt, to fathom the dread mystery of sorrow and pain, to answer that spectral doubt, which is mostly crushed down by force – Can the world as we know it have been made by God?’ Some of his comments have a distinctly modern ring!

[13] Op. cit. (note 4) pp. 146 f.

[14] For example Alan Richardson, in his Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament (London, 1958)Google Scholar, while resolutely opposing theories of gnostic influence on the New Testament (e.g. pp. 41 ff., 47 f.), himself occasionally makes statements which seem to play into the hands of the opposition. Cf. p. 158; ‘In Colossians he (Paul) finds it necessary to speak much more strongly about Gnostic speculations’; p. 161: ‘Perhaps he avoided the term (λ⋯γος) for the same reason that John avoids σοφ⋯α, namely because of its Gnostic associations’. On the other hand Ulrich Wilckens writes ‘mit der einfachen Arbeitshypothese einer vorchristlichen gnostischen Religion, die aus dem Osten in den vorderen Orient eingedrungen sei, kann heute keinesfalls mehr gearbeitet werden’ (in Theologia Crucis – Signum Crucis (FS Dinkler), ed. Andresen, C. and Klein, G. (Tübingen, 1979), p. 524)Google Scholar. At certain points this paper represents a revision and correction of Wilckens' earlier views. Cf. also Pétrement, S., Rev. de Métaphysique et de Morale 85 (1980), p. 154Google Scholar: ‘Ce qui est combattu dans ces épîtres (aux Corinthiens) me paraît être le premier indice réellement attesté d'une tendance au gnosticisme, et l'on a certainement le droit de se servir de ces textes pour essayer de retrouver, où et comment cette tendance a pu naître. Mais ce que Paul combat, c'est une attitude, une tendance, non pas, autant qu'il semble, un gnosticisme déjà formé.’

[15] Op. cit. p. 147. The Gospel of the Egyptians may also be added to the list, cf. Hedrick, C. W., Nov. Test. 23 (1981), 242–60.Google Scholar

[16] The dependence of SJC upon Eug was first argued by J. Doresse, followed by Werner Foerster. W. C. Till, editor of the Berlin text of SJC, took the opposite view, as did H. M. Schenke. The issue is generally considered to have been settled by Martin Krause (Mullus; FS Klauser, Münster, 1964, pp. 215–23). Cf. Wilson, op. cit. (note 7), pp. 111–17.

[17] Cf. Wilson, op. cit. pp. 115 f.

[18] Openbaringen uit Egyptisch Zand (Den Haag, 1958), p. 66.Google Scholar

[19] Cf. Wilson, , NTS 3 (1957), 236–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[20] In Klassen, W. and Snyder, G. F., Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation (London, 1962), pp. 210–23 (quotation from p. 223).Google Scholar

[21] Cf. Rudolph, K., Die Gnosis (Leipzig, 1977), p. 64Google Scholar and his critique of the definitions proposed at the Messina Colloquium of 1966 in ThR 36 (1971), 13 ffGoogle Scholar. But when Rudolph writes that by Gnosis and Gnosticism he understands the same thing, ‘erstere als Selbstbezeichnung einer spätantiken Erlösungsreligion, letzterer als neuere Bildung davon’, he is close to the view advocated here.

[22] Op. cit. p. 149.

[23] See most recently Rev. de Métaphysique et de Morale 72 (1967), 344 ff.Google Scholar; 85 (1980), 145 ff.

[24] See her paper at the Yale Congress of 1978, in Layton (note 10), pp. 319–42, with the following discussion.

[25] Aufsätze zur Gnosis (Göttingen, 1967)Google Scholar. This was of course before the Nag Hammadi texts became readily accessible.

[26] Pre-Christian Gnosticism (London, 1973)Google Scholar. Like Prof. MacRae (p. 145 n. 3) I should not wish to accept all the conclusions of this well-documented book without some qualification.

[27] The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, 1953), p. 100 and note 4Google Scholar. Reference should also be made to the argument of Lüdemann, G. (ZNW 70 (1979), 86–114)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, that Valentinus was not expelled, but continued as a respected teacher within the Church, and that it was only towards the end of the second century that he was condemned as heretical.

[28] In a postscript to the discussion of Prof. Aland's paper (n. 24 above), p. 347. He mentions in particular the Hypostasis of the Archons, On the Origin of the World and the Sethian tractates VII 1 and 2. Böhlig, A. however, in his edition (Die kopt.-gnost. Schrift ohne Titel, Berlin, 1962, p. 33)Google Scholar, considers the Christian influence in On OrgWld to be greater than might often appear.

[29] Gnosis, ed. Aland, (note 4), p. 436Google Scholar. I am not certain that I should agree with his judgment on all the examples listed in his notes (e.g. those which ‘could pass for orthodox’), but the general principle holds. The main purpose of his paper is to suggest that the collection should be linked with some ascetic and rather heterodox group within early Egyptian monasticism.

[30] Op. cit. pp. 151 f. For Krause's classification see Essays on the Nag Hammadi Texts, ed. Krause, (NHS VI, Leiden, 1975), pp. 65–89Google Scholar. On the paraphrase of Shem cf. Wisse, in Novum Testamentum 12 (1970), 130–40Google Scholar, where he notes ‘slim and controversial’ parallels to Christianity, but a clear dependence on the Old Testament (cf. however Fischer, K. M. in Essays on the Nag Hammadi Texts, ed. Krause, (NHS VI, Leiden, 1975) p. 266)Google Scholar. It is the fact that so often the Christian elements are clearly secondary, but the Jewish integral to the fabric of such texts, that has prompted scholars to seek the origins of Gnosticism somewhere on the fringe of late Judaism. In regard to the works of Christian gnostic origin, Krause remarks (p. 84) that one could put together from them a complete gnostic New Testament – ‘was wohl auch von den Gnostikern beabsichtigt war’. This makes a considerable addition to our stock of New Testament Apocrypha (cf. Wilson, in TRE Bd. III 316ff., esp. 353–6).Google Scholar

[31] Jonas, , in Layton (note 10) p. 346Google Scholar, sees three possibilities, but one of them is not strictly relevant to the debate under discussion here.

[32] Cf. Rudolph, op. cit. (note 21), p. 291: ‘Im folgenden kann es sich demnach nur um einen Versuch handeln, in einem Überblick einige neuere Ergebnisse der Forschung zusammenzufassen, wobei nicht ohne Hypothesen und vom Autor bevorzügte Auffassungen – besonders im Hinblick auf die Anfange – auszukommen ist.’

[33] Op. cit. (note 30) p. 135.

[34] See note 28 above. The Hypostasis of the Archons also appears in Krause's list of ‘Christian re-workings’.

[35] See Böhlig, op. cit. (note 28), pp. 33 f. The quotation (text in Böhlig p. 103) is also identified in NHLE p. 178, but the echo is perhaps more problematic, since it is the mention of a (guardian) angel at 124.12 f. that leads Böhlig (p. 100) to link the passage with Matt. 18. 10.

[36] Böhlig, loc. cit.

[37] Op. cit. (note 4) pp. 149 f.

[38] NTS 27 (1980), 32–51.

[39] Robinson, James M. and Koester, Helmut, Trajectories through Early Christianity (Philadelphia, 1971), pp. 105, 104.Google Scholar

[40] Friedländer, M., Der vorchristliche jüdische Gnosticismus (Göttingen, 1898).Google Scholar

[41] Cf. already Böhlig's, A. Messina paper, Le Origini dello Gnosticismo, ed. Bianchi, (Numen Suppl. XII, Leiden, 1967), pp. 109 ff.Google Scholar, reprinted as two separate chapters in his Mysterion und Wahrheit (Leiden, 1968), pp. 80–111.Google Scholar

[42] See Jonas, in The Bible and Modern Scholarship, ed. Hyatt, J. P. (Nashville, 1965), pp. 286 ff.Google Scholar; Unnik, van, Vig. Chr. 15 (1961), 65–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Gnosis und Gnostizismus, ed. Rudolph, (Darmstadt, 1975), pp. 476 ff.Google Scholar

[43] Cf. Yamauchi, E. M., Pre-Christian Gnosticism (note 26) pp. 144 f.Google Scholar

[44] See e.g. Wilson, , in Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Gnosticism, Stockholm 1973, ed. Widengren, (Stockholm, 1977), pp. 164–8.Google Scholar

[45] Cf. Wilson, in Essays on the Nag Hammadi Texts, ed. Krause, (NHS VI, Leiden, 1975), pp. 217–24.Google Scholar

[46] The final chapter of Martin Hengel's Jews, Greeks and Barbarians (ET London, 1980) bears the title ‘The Influence of Hellenistic Civilization in Jewish Palestine down to the Maccabean Period’ (italics mine). His influential Judaism and Hellenism (ET London, 1974) does not essentially take the story any further. It is a mistake to appeal to these works as proof for Hellenism in Palestine in a later period.

[47] Scholer's Bibliography (note 1) already lists over 200 articles, and the flow has continued.

[48] MacRae op. cit. (note 4) p. 152. A recent study of the Parable of the Lost Sheep by Petersen, W. L. (Nov. Test. 23 (1981), 128–47)CrossRefGoogle Scholar claims that Thomas is not gnostic and not dependent on the Synoptics, and that it is more primitive; but MacRae (p. 153) believes it ‘thoroughly Gnostic’. The issues thus still cannot be regarded as finally settled.

[49] Op. cit. pp. 152 f. (the following quotations are all from these pages). Having argued in the past for some form of independence, I can only welcome this judgment.

[50] In Robinson and Koester, op. cit. (note 39) p. 186, cf. pp. 166 ff.

[51] We may recall the contrasting positions of Leivestad, R. (NTS 18 (1972), 243 ff.) andCrossRefGoogle ScholarLindars, B. (NTS 22 (1976), 52 ff.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar – without entering into discussion of this much-debated problem.

[52] In Layton (note 10) pp. 238 ff. (see p. 255). Cf. also Koester's, article ‘Dialog und Spruchüberlieferung in den gnostischen Texten von Nag Hammadi’, Evang. Theol. 39 (1979), 532–54.Google Scholar

[53] Op. cit. p.249.

[54] Cf. Pétrement (note 23) 1980, 154 f. and references there; Wilson, , NTS 19 (1972), 65–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; S. Arai, ib. 430–7.

[55] Schenke, G., TLZ 99 (1974), 733–4Google Scholar. English translation of this and of extracts from Colpe (see note 58) by Robinson, J. M. in Gnosis, ed. Aland, (note 4) pp. 128 ffGoogle Scholar. See also Evans, Craig A., NTS 17 (1981), 395 ffGoogle Scholar. In a paper prepared for the Yale Congress in 1978 (modified version in Layton, , The Rediscovery of Gnosticism 2, 643 ff.)Google Scholar, Robinson, J. M. had some severe criticisms of a short communication of mine in Gnosis and Gnosticism, ed. Krause, (NHS VIII, Leiden, 1977) pp. 50–4Google Scholar. These criticisms overlook two facts: a) that it was only a short communication, a preliminary study, and not a full investigation; and b) that it was intended to leave the question of possible relationships open, pending publication of a detailed statement of Dr Schenke's case. Colpe's article was not available when this short communication was written.

[56] Cf. Janssens, Y. in L'Evangile de Jean, ed. de Jonge, (Gembloux, 1977), pp. 355–8Google Scholar. Janssens, Mile has edited the text for the Laval Bibliothèque Copte (section ‘textes’, No. 4) (Quebec, 1978)Google Scholar. Cf. earlier Le Muséon 87 (1974), 341–413Google Scholar. In her edition she writes (p. 82) ‘Nous restons, quant à nous, convaincue qu'il s'agit là de réminiscences nèotestamentaires dans la PrôTri, et non le contraire.’ See also Yamauchi, E. M. in Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions (FS Quispel, Leiden, 1981), pp. 467 ff.Google Scholar, esp. 480 ff.

[57] 44.34. NHLE however (p. 467) translates ‘hidden from the Aeons’ (but Mlle Janssens ‘caché depuis l'éternité’).

[58] JAC 17 (1974), 122–4.Google Scholar

[59] Op. cit. (note 27) pp. 274–5.

[60] Koschorke, K., Die Polemik der Gnostiker gegen das kirchliche Christentum (NHS XII, Leiden, 1978).Google Scholar

[61] Pagels, E., The Gnostic Gospels (New York and London, 1979)Google Scholar. To say that it ‘might have passed unnoticed’ is not to detract from the merits of a useful and imaginative popular book; it is merely that the media, with their hunger for sensation, might have ignored it as they have ignored others.

[62] Ap. Euseb. HE iv. 22.