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Abstract
The present paper tackles the issue of deification in some Nag Hammadi writings in the context of other ancient strategies of (self)deification. It pays attention simultaneously to Greek and to Jewish-Christian traditions – both to mythical and philosophical contexts – trying to clarify how ancient “Gnostic” texts should be read in dialogue with surrounding culture(s). Despite the many obvious differences of conceptual assumptions in the surveyed models, an underlying typological similarity is glimpsed.
Abstract
The article intends to argue in favor of the dependence of Valentinus’s Fragment 1 (Clement, Strom. 2.36.2-4) on the Greek text of the Book of the Watchers. Moving from Valentinus’s recourse to specific expressions of the latter – and in particular of his “technical” use of the term
Abstract
Several texts of ritual power in Coptic contain the names of four spiritual powers known in the Sethian sources as luminaries. The article explores the relations between luminaries of the Nag Hammadi works and the “magical” and related texts. Two aspects are analysed. First, the sequence of luminaries, which is highly standardised in the Nag Hammadi Sethian dossier, and deviations from this standard in other texts help assess relations with original Sethian sources. Second, the texts of ritual power portray luminaries singing and playing musical instruments. The article traces the elements of the heavenly concert already in the Sethian texts. It also presents a development of this motif under the influence of the common Christian concept of the angelic concert in heaven.
Abstract
Most scholars currently tend to see a biblical or “Gnostic” Sophia-Eve figure as the true identity of the enigmatic feminine self-revealer pronouncing the “I am” statements in Thunder: Perfect Mind (NHC VI,2). At an early stage of research, the similarities with the aretalogies of Isis, also framed as “I am” self-predications, were pointed out, but Isis has largely been left behind as a possible identity of Thunder, because of the latter’s ambiguous status, combining both elevated and lowly epithets (whore and matron, honored and despised, etc.). The present contribution reevaluates the Egyptian background of Thunder: Perfect Mind and considers the text as a demythologized, Platonic-Stoic, performative epiphany of a self-begotten, female, divine mind, similar in many respects to the Egyptian goddess Isis-Neith. Furthermore, it will be proposed that Thunder: Perfect Mind lies behind the common source of the self-predicative passage of On the Origins of the World (NHC II,5; XIII,2) and its parallel in the Hypostasis of the Archons (NHC II,4), likely mediated by the Gospel of Eve mentioned by Epiphanius of Salamis.
Abstract
This article provides some data and remarks on the reception of the Gospel of John in the Pistis Sophia (Codex Askew), with the twofold aim to shed new light on Pistis Sophia’s use of canonized Scriptures, and to contribute to the research on the Gnostic reception of the Gospel of John. Selected Johannine references in Pistis Sophia are listed and commented on, especially those in Pistis Sophia 4.141, a dense section which is key to understanding the distinctive soteriology and Christology of this text. The analysis shows that certain passages from John play an important role for Pistis Sophia. Pistis Sophia may have elaborated its soteriology in response to criticisms from “mainstream” Christianity and in parallel with certain developments that occurred in Sethianism and Valentinianism.