Gnosis Undomesticated: Archon-Seduction, Demon Sex, and Sodomites in the Paraphrase of Shem (nhc vii,1)
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Scholarship has of late sought to “domesticate” Gnostic literature, situating the Nag Hammadi texts in late ancient Egyptian asceticism. Evidence about “libertine” Gnosticism is now regarded by many to be sheer fiction, entirely without parallel in the Nag Hammadi corpus. Yet not all Gnostic texts are so easy to tame; the Paraphrase of Shem, for instance, is a work replete with seemingly shocking material—ranging from the seduction of an archontic womb to a demonic sex scene and valorization of the Sodomites. This paper will address these sexually explicit passages and demonstrate that they derive from mythic strata associated with “libertine” Gnostic practices, particularly amongst the Manichaeans and the “Borborites” known to Epiphanius of Salamis.
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1
M.A. Williams 1996, esp. 263–65.
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2
On the Nag Hammadi codices, see Emmel 2008.
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4
M.A. Williams 1996, 179–84, 184: “we probably are dealing with instances in the life history of a rumor, much like other widely circulated and richly embroidered rumors about obscene practices among Christians and others in antiquity”; similarly, see Knust 2006, 3; van den Broek 2008, 2; Rasimus 2009, 253–54 regarding “libertines,” his term for “Borborites.” For skepticism specifically regarding the veracity of Epiphanius’s report about the sexual rites of the Borborites, see Rudolph 1987, 250; Layton 1987, 200.
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5
M.A. Williams 1996, 165, 184.
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7
Chadwick 1981, 11: “I fear I owe my audience some apology,” he continues, “for having made gnosticism more credible but the subject duller.”
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8
In 1987, Tardieu famously declared Paraph. Shem to be “le chef-d’œuvre de l’obscurité gnostique,” 411. Wisse, 1996a, 20, its English translator for the Coptic Gnostic Library, despaired that he had perhaps imparted more sense to the text than is actually there.
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13
Wisse 1996a, 18; Schenke 2003a, 547.
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14
Roberge 2006, 864–68. See further Burns 2015, 90–94, regarding Porphyry, Gaur. 10.3 (Wilberding 2011).
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18
As noted by Benko 1967, 114.
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19
Recognized by Good 1997, 203. See also Tardieu 1987, 423.
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27
Roberge 2000a, 80, recalling Hippolytus, Haer. 5.8 (Marcovich 1986), which reports that the Naassenes call “sterile” those who do not possess reason; see also Roberge 2006, 870. On the three classes of the saved in Paraph. Shem, see Roberge 1986.
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30
See inter alia Sevrin 1975, 72–73; Krause 1977, 105; Roberge 2000a, 107–13.
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31
See Krause 1977, 108; Schenke, 2003a, 544. Early scholarship, such as Sevrin 1975, 75, identified the first part of Paraph. Shem with Paraph. Seth, holding that the two works probably came from the “same school.”
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32
Sevrin 1975.
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37
Rasimus 2009, 84–85, recalling the sixth-century Platonist Damascius’ discussion of a serpentine, winged (i.e., borne on “wind”), demiurgic deity named Chronos-Hercules known, Damascius says, from an Orphic theogony transmitted by “Hieronymus or Hellanicus” (Princ. ch. 123; for translation and commentary, see Ahbel-Rappe 2010, 416–17; text in Ruelle 1889, 1:317–18). Meanwhile, several Church Fathers complain that Orphic myths tell of Zeus having intercourse in the form of a serpent (Athenagoras, Leg. 20; Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 2.16.1; Arnobius, Adv. nat. 5.21, cited in Rasimus 2009, 85 n. 71). See also Roig Lanzillotta 2010, 136. Herrero de Jáuregui 2010, 161–62, meanwhile, speculates that “If Hippolytus,” in his notice on the Bacchica in Haer. 5.20.4, “was referring to a more specific work than the Orphica in general, it might have been the Rhapsodies. The ‘womb, the serpent, and the navel that is a virile member’ of the Sethians refer back to earlier paragraphs that described the Sethian doctrine according to which a serpent fertilizes the womb of a virgin and also to the way that the heavens and the earth are similar in form to a womb with an omphalos at its center (5.19.19–21). If there is anything similar to this related to Orpheus, it is doubtless the theogonic poetry, with the primordial couple of Uranus and Gaia and with Zeus’s intercourse with Core in the form of a serpent.” What kind of bestial form Derdekeas adopts in Paraph. Shem is not clear. Immediately prior to the seduction, intellect is said to possess “the likeness of a fish that has a drop of fire and firey power”; Derdekeas dons the light of the spirit, “and I rested with my garment upon the sight of the fish” (Paraph. Shem nhc vii,1.19.2–4, 11–13). Roberge therefore hypothesizes that Derdekeas becomes a fish when he seduces Nature, with reference to the mermaid-like Syrian Goddess Atargatis, whose cult worshipped fish and prohibited their consumption (Roberge 2000a, 77 n. 226, 76 n. 224). One might add that Ephrem Syrus condemns the “sons of Bardaisan” for holding that “something flowed out and descended from that Father of Life, and the Mother, in the likeness of a fish, conceived and gave birth to him; he was called, ‘the Son of Life, Jesus, the holy one’ ” (Hymns against Heresies 55.1, text in Beck 1957, 207).
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38
Cumont 1912, although Jackson (1932, 236 n. 61) held the term “seduction” to be a misnomer. For discussion of this complex of evidence, see van Oort 2016a and van Oort 2016b, as well as the notes below. The two most lengthy and well-preserved passages include Theodore bar Konai, LiberScholiarum 2:311.12–318.4 (Scher 1910–12), and Augustine, Nat. bon. 44 (quoting Mani’s Thesaurus). Sadly, our Coptic evidence about the mytheme is obscure or fragmentary; van Oort (2016a, n. 83–84) suggests “reminisces” of the scene in the Psalm-Book (Allberry 1938, 2.27–31, 10.6–9) and the Kephalaia (Böhlig and Polotsky 1940, 30–34). Further Coptic parallels are discussed in the following. Better preserved but brief is a Middle Persian fragment (M268, on which see Sundermann 1991).
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46
Pettipiece 2012, 50–51.
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57
Goehring 1988, 340–43. Buckley 1994, 15–17.
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58
See e.g. Irenaeus, Haer. 1.30.6; Ap. John nhc ii,1 19.21–32 and parallel; Nat. Rul. nhc ii,4 87.20–88.11.
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59
Benko 1967, 117; similarly, van den Broek 2006, 195; DeConick 2011, 108–10.
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60
Van den Broek 2006, 196; idem 2008, 17.
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61
M.A. Williams 1996, 182.
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67
Painchaud 1995b, 335–36.
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73
Sevrin 1975, 80n63, Gos. Eg. nhc iv,2 71.22–30 = (iii,2) 60.12–18.
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74
Stroumsa 1984, 106, Apoc. Adam nhc v,5 75.9–28.
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75
Stroumsa 1984, 106–10; cf. Sevrin 1975, 80: “Comme le déluge, l’incendie de Sodome sert d’allégorie à l’action des puissances mauvaises contre la révélation salutaire. Ce peut n’être que l’utilisation assez libre d’images de destruction totale prises dans le patrimoine culturel du judaīsme. . . . Si l’on voulait pourtant que ce texte se réfère à la Bible avec des intentions plus précises, il faudrait que ce soit à rebours, de façon polémique, par une sorte de processus de dé-judaïsation.”
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76
M.A. Williams 1996, 74–76 argues that we find no consistent pattern of “reversal of value” in Gnostic exegesis, but rather that such reversals focused on “problem passages.” Yet this argument does not address these passages about the Sodomites in Gnostic literature.
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Gnosis Undomesticated: Archon-Seduction, Demon Sex, and Sodomites in the Paraphrase of Shem (nhc vii,1)
In: Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic StudiesSearch for other papers by Dylan M. Burns in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Scholarship has of late sought to “domesticate” Gnostic literature, situating the Nag Hammadi texts in late ancient Egyptian asceticism. Evidence about “libertine” Gnosticism is now regarded by many to be sheer fiction, entirely without parallel in the Nag Hammadi corpus. Yet not all Gnostic texts are so easy to tame; the Paraphrase of Shem, for instance, is a work replete with seemingly shocking material—ranging from the seduction of an archontic womb to a demonic sex scene and valorization of the Sodomites. This paper will address these sexually explicit passages and demonstrate that they derive from mythic strata associated with “libertine” Gnostic practices, particularly amongst the Manichaeans and the “Borborites” known to Epiphanius of Salamis.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 3344 | 152 | 8 |
| Full Text Views | 291 | 4 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 145 | 18 | 2 |