^{page 32 note 1} For an account of these texts cf. The Jung Codex (ed. F. L. Cross, London, 1955) and the literature referred to there, to which should be added the article ‘Le quatrième Écrit du Codex Jung’ by H. C. Puech and G. Quispel in Vig. Chr. IX (1955), 65 ff. The most detailed survey of the contents of the Nag Hammadi library is that of Puech, in Coptic Studies in Honor of W. E. Crum (Boston, 1950), pp. 91ff. The circumstances and date of the discovery appear to be obscure: Puech in Crum Studies, p. 93, gives the date as 1946 (cf. Quispel, Gnosis als Weltreligion (Zürich, 1951), p. 2), but in The Jung Codex, p. 14 puts it c. 1945.

^{page 32 note 2} Evangelium Veritatis, ed. Malinine, Puech, , Quispel, (Zürich, 1956).Google Scholar

^{page 32 note 3} See the literature cited in The Jung Codex, p. 130. The first volume of a photographic edition of the texts now in the Coptic Museum in Cairo has been published by P. Labib: Coptic Gnostic Papyri in the Coptic Museum at Old Cairo (Cairo, 1956). One of these texts, the Gospel of Thomas, has been found to contain the sayings of the famous Oxyrhynchus collection (Puech, The Jung Codex, pp. 21f.). A Latin translation of the passages corresponding to the Oxyrhynchus sayings is provided by G. Garitte, Le Muséon, LXX (1957), 59ff. Garitte also translated some ‘parables of the kingdom’ examined by Cerfaux in Muséon, LXX, 307ff. Quispel in Vig. Chr. XI (1957), 189ff. discusses the possibility that these Agrapha may have been taken from a Jewish-Christian Gospel originally written in Aramaic. It should be noted that this document has nothing to do with the Infancy Gospel printed in James, Apoc. N.T. pp. 49ff. See also Puech in Rev. Hist. Rel. CLI (1957), 269f.

An edition of the Gospel of Thomas was promised for 1958 (Quispel, p. 189 n., cf. Till, B.J.R.L. XL (1957), 252 n. 2; Till's article provides a comprehensive survey of Coptic literature, with abundant references). Not all the Nag Hammadi texts are Gnostic. Four are Hermetic, and Van Unnik in Vig. Chr. x (1956), 149ff. has argued that another may be more or less orthodox.

^{page 32 note 4} For fuller discussion of some of these questions see Vig. Chr. IX (1955), 193ff.; XI (1957), 93ff, and references there.

^{page 33 note 1} Schoeps, , Urgemeinde, Judenchristentum, Gnosis (Tübingen, 1956), p. 30.Google Scholar

^{page 33 note 2} Bultmannfestschrift, p. 87, quoted by Schoeps, loc. cit.

^{page 33 note 3} H.T.R. XLVI (1953), p. 139 n. 77. Cf. Schlier, Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Ignatiusbriefen (Beihefte zur Z.N. W. VIII, Giessen, 1929), p. 32 n. I: ‘“Gnosis” im religionsgeschichtlichen, nicht dogmengeschichtlichen Sinn gebraucht, ein Unterscheid, der, wenn er im Auge behalten worden wäre, C. Schmidt viel Polemik gegen Bousset erspart hätte’. The problem is by no means new.

^{page 33 note 4} Bultmann, , Theol. N.T. (Tübingen, 1948), pp. 169 f. Cf. Primitive Christianity (E. T. London, 1956), p. 162.Google Scholar

^{page 33 note 5} Cf. Casey, in The Background of the N.T. and its Eschatology (ed. Davies, and Daube, , Cambridge, 1956), pp. 52 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 34 note 1} Cf. Van Unnik in The Jung Codex, pp. 84 f., and references there to de Zwaan and Kretschmar.

^{page 34 note 2} Dodd, , The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, 1953), pp. 97ff., esp. p. 101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{page 34 note 3} See Puech, , Le Manichéisme: son fondateur, sa doctrine (Paris, 1949), and for the Mandeans Dodd, op. cit. pp. 115ff.Google Scholar

^{page 34 note 4} Cf. Scholem, , Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (3rd ed.New York, 1954).Google Scholar

^{page 34 note 5} Cf. Runciman, , The Medieval Manichee (Cambridge, 1947); Obolensky, The Bogomils (Cambridge, 1948).Google Scholar

^{page 34 note 6} For Ignatius, cf. Schlier, , op. cit., and Molland; J.E.H. v (1954), 1 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 34 note 7} Op. cit. pp. 55ff.

^{page 35 note 1} Theol. N.T. pp. 167ff.

^{page 35 note 2} Gnosis und spätantiker Geist (Göttingen: vol.I, 1934, 1954; vol. II, I, 1954). Cf. Grant's review in J.T.S. n.s. VII (1956), 308ff.Google Scholar

^{page 35 note 3} Die Gnosis in Korinth (Göttingen, 1956), p. 73: ‘Paulus, der trotz seiner zahlreichen gnostischen Termini hier ebensowenig wie anderswo eine direkte Kenntnis des gnostischen Mythos verrät.’ Cf. ibid. p. 124: ‘An solchen kleinen and gewiß unbewußten Änderungen der überkommenen Terminologie zeigt sich die ganz andere Orientierung der paulinischen Theologie.’ See also pp. 52 n. 1, 121, 161 n. 2, 176. Schmithals begins with the presupposition that Paul's opponents in Corinth were Gnostics, which is true in a sense, but it is surely legitimate to ask if he does not approach from the wrong end, and read the material through the spectacles of second-century Gnosticism. The difficulty is that we have to reconstruct this heresy from what Paul says in reply. Since clear evidence for the existence of a full-scale Gnosticism at an earlier period is still lacking, it would seem more accurate to think of the Corinthian heresy as at most an incipient Gnosticism. There would seem to be more in favour of the view that Paul's use of terms which were later to become the catchwords of the Gnostics accounts at least in part for his temporary eclipse in the post-apostolic period (cf. Bauer, Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei (Tübingen, 1934), pp. 88f. et al.).

^{page 35 note 4} This is not of course to exclude the possibility of a pre-Christian Gnosticism, but to restrict the use of the term to those cases which are clearly Gnostic in the second-century sense. We must ask not how a passage could be read, but how it was meant to be read by the author when he wrote it. Again, what exactly is the relationship between Gnosticism and Hellenistic syncretism in general? Or between Gnosticism and the philosophy of the second century A.D.? For Jonas (op. cit. i. 77ff.) Gnosis is something new, which is ‘nicht selber der Synkretismus noch in irgendeinem Sinne sein Produkt’, but as Grant observes (op. cit. p. 313) his investigation ‘neglects the extent to which elements regarded by Jonas as mythical can actually be explained as philosophical’. Quispel has argued that, in so far as Gnosticism is pre-Christian, it goes back to Jewish speculation (The Jung Codex, pp. 62ff., Eranos Jahrbuch, XXII, (Zürich, 1954), 195ff.), although this was not the only element or the only source (see next note).

^{page 36 note 1} Jonas, op. cit. I. 77; cf. Quispel, Gnosis als Weltreligion, pp. 9f., Ned. Theol. Tijdschrift, XI, 178 (where a timely warning is entered against regarding Jewish heterodoxy as the sole source of Gnosticism). On pre-Christian Jewish Gnosticism see also Goppelt, Christentum und Judentum (Gütersloh, 1954), pp. 125ff., but cf. Schoeps, Urgemeinde, pp. 33ff. It would probably be better to regard this strand in Judaism as pre- or proto-Gnostic (Quispel, Grant). Jonas's neglect of the Jewish contribution was noted long ago by Nock (Gnomon, XII (1936), 605ff.).

^{page 36 note 2} Cf. Nock, in Essays on the Trinity and Incarnation (ed. Rawlinson, A. E. J., London, 1928), p. 68.Google Scholar

^{page 37 note 1} J.T.S. n.s. VII (1956), 308 ff. Cf. also the reviews by Nock in Gnomon, XII (1936), 605ff., XXVIII (1956), 124ff.; Van Moorsel in Vig. Chr. X (1956), 239ff.

^{page 37 note 2} ‘Möchte ich sagen, daß ich, der ich seit Jahren einen großen Teil meiner Arbeit dem Studium der Gnosis gewidmet habe, aus keiner der bisherigen Untersuchungen über dieses Gebiet…so viel für eine wirkliche Erkenntnis des geistesgeschichtlichen Phänomens der Gnosis gelernt habe, wie aus dieser.’

^{page 37 note 3} Cf. Bultmann, in J.T.S. n.s. III (1952), 22, where it is suggested that themes are already germinant in later Hellenistic philosophy and in Philo which reach their full expression in Gnosis.Google Scholar

^{page 38 note 1} Cf. Schmithals, , op. cit. p. 87 n. I, Goppelt, op. cit. p. 35.Google Scholar

^{page 38 note 2} Recueil Cerfaux (Gembloux, 1954), I, 194ff. (=R.S.R. xv (1925), 489 ff., XVI (1926), 5ff,, 265ff., 481ff., XXVI (1937), 615 ff.). See also his study ‘La gnose, essai théologique manque’, ibid. pp. 263 ff. (=Irénikon, XVII (1940), 3ff.).

^{page 38 note 3} Recueil Cerfaux, I, 256.

^{page 38 note 4} Z.Th.K. XLIX (1952), 316 ff.

^{page 38 note 5} Cf. Vig. Chr. XI (1957), 107ff.

^{page 38 note 6} Die Apostelgeschichte (Göttingen, 1956).Google Scholar

^{page 38 note 7} ‘L'homme gnostique: doctrine de Basilide’, Eranos Jahrbuch, XVI (1948), 89ff.: ‘La conception de l'homme dans la gnose valentinienne’, ibid. XV (1947), 249ff.

^{page 38 note 8} ‘The Original Doctrine of Valentine’, Vig. Chr. I (1947), 43ff. Ptolemy to Flora, in the series Sources chrétiennes (Paris, 1949).Google Scholar

^{page 38 note 9} The Jung Codex (London, 1955). See N.T.S. I (1955), 309ff.Google Scholar

^{page 39 note 1} Eranos Jahrbuch, XXII (1953), 195ff. See also The Jung Codex, pp. 61ff. On Quispel's earlier book Gnosis als Weltreligion Turner observes that Quispel can even reverse Harnack's famous judgement. ‘The leading Gnostics do not so much hellenize Christianity as themselves hellenize and christianize the dominant Oriental mysticism of their respective systems’ (The Pattern of Christian Truth (London, 1954), p. 115). Turner's own work treats of Gnosticism in the context of a comprehensive survey of the relations between orthodoxy and heresy in the early centuries.

^{page 39 note 2} Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls (London, 1956), pp. 252ff. See also Nötscher, Zur theologischen Terminologie der Qumran-Texte (Bonn, 1956). Bultmann says (Theol. N.T. pp. 361 n. I): ‘Konnte ein vorchristliches gnostisierenden Judentum bisher nur aus spateren Quellen erschlossen werden, so wird es jetzt durch die neugefundenen Handschriften in Palastina bezeugt.’ But what does ‘gnostisierend’ mean in this context? Schmithals (op. cit. pp. 99f.) admits that we have no direct evidence for the presence of a Jewish Gnosis in which Messiah and Son of Man are identified in the pre-Christian period: original documents ‘sind den vereinten Anstrengungen der jüdischen und christlichen Ketzerbekampfer zum Opfer gefallen’. On such a basis one could prove almost anythg. But he continues: ‘Auch die neuen Funde vom Toten Meer…gehören keiner jüdischen Gnosis, sondern einem gnostisierenden Judentum an.’ If this implies that the Scrolls are not yet Gnostic, although they show certain affinities with Gnosticism, there might be fairly general agreement; but is this what Bultmann meant?

On Schubert's attempt to find Gnosticism in the Manual of Discipline (T.L.Z. =LXXVIII (1953), 495ff.) see Vig. Chr. XI (1957), 99ff. For a possible line of connexion, see Z.R.G.G. IX (1957), 21 ff. (cf. Quispel, Gnosis, pp. 7 f.). Braun (Spätjüdisch-häretischer u. früchristlicher Radkikalismus (Tübingen, 1957)) claims the presence of ‘Gnostic’ terminology in the Scrolls (1, 23 n. 3, cf. pp. 19 n. 2, 20 n. 4, 21 n. 1), but notes that in the Damascus document the ‘gnostisch-dualistisch Linie…tritt spürbar zurück’ (pp. 93f.).

^{page 39 note 3} La gnose valentinenne et le témoignage de saint Irénée (Paris, 1947). Sagnard has also edited the Excerpta ex Theodoto in the Sources chrétiennes series (Paris, 1948).

^{page 39 note 4} Beihefte zur Z.N.W. VII (Giessen, 1928).Google Scholar

^{page 39 note 5} La christologie de saint Irénée (Gembloux, 1955).Google Scholar

^{page 39 note 6} Vig. Chr. VIII (1954), 193ff.

^{page 40 note 1} See p. 32n. 2, above, and reviews by Leipoldt in T.L.Z. LXXXII (1957), 425ff., and Barrett in Exp. Times, LXIX (1958), 167ff. Also the notes by Till, Orientalia, XXVII (1958), 269ff.

^{page 40 note 2} The Jung Codex, pp. 81ff.

^{page 40 note 3} Cf. Barrett (op. cit. p. 169): ‘While I should wish to share Dr van Unnik's caution and to regard his hypothesis as tentative, I am bound to add that, within these limits, it appears to me convincing.’ The editors of the published edition are (very properly) rather more reserved.

^{page 40 note 4} See Puech in R.H.R. CLI (1957), 269.

^{page 41 note 1} Die gnostischen Schriften des koptischen Papyrus Berolinensis 8502 (T.U. 60, Berlin, 1955). Cf. K. H. Kuhn in J.T.S. n.s. VIII (1957), 162ff.

^{page 41 note 2} Schmidt in Philotesia. Paul Kleinert…dargebracht (Berlin, 1907), pp. 315 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 41 note 3} Cf. Doresse, in Vig. Chr. II (1948), 137 ff., but see also Till, op. cit. p. 54.Google Scholar

^{page 41 note 4} ‘Ein Grundtyp gnostischer Urmensch-Adam Spekulation’, Z.R.G.G. IX (1957), I ff. For a summary of the Apocryphon see Till in J.E.H. III (1952), 14ff.

^{page 41 note 5} Søren Giversen: ‘Johannes’ Apokryfon og Genesis', Dansk Teol. Tidskrift, XX (1957), 65ff. My thanks are due to Dr Till for the loan of an off-print, and to the Rev. G. W. Anderson for its interpretation.

^{page 41 note 6} N.T.S. (1957), 236 ff. Quispel subsequently drew attention to an oversight: an allusion to the ‘Gospel according to the Hebrews’ in Ev. Mariae, 10. 15f. (Till, op. cit. pp. 68f.). See Vig. Chr. XI (1957), 139 ff. Quispel's suggestion of an influence from the Gospel of the Hebrews on the early textual tradition of the Gospels, while in some ways attractive, must be treated with reserve. The Neutestamentler will recall Von Soden's theory of the ‘widespread and deleterious’ influence of the Diatessaron. For one thing, our knowledge of the Gospel of the Hebrews would appear as yet too slight to justify any far-reaching conclusions. In Vig. Chr. XI, 189ff. Quispel has attempted to link the Gospel of Thomas found at Nag Hammadi with the Hebräerevangelium, but here again the same holds good. Moreover, the Gospel of the Hebrews, from what we know of it, would appear to have been a more or less complete Gospel. The Gospel of Thomas is a collection of sayings, and might be more naturally linked with the hypothetical Q.

^{page 42 note 1} ‘Die Gnosis in Ägyptenrsquo;, La Parola del Passato, IV (1949), 230ff.

^{page 42 note 2} The writer has begun to collect material in preparation for a study to remedy this deficiency. The use of the N.T. by the Gnostics is another question altogether (see C. Barth, T.U. 37. 3, Van Unnik in The Jung Codex, pp. 81ff., and the study of the Gospel of Mary referred to above).

^{page 42 note 3} Bultmann, , Theol. N.T. (Tübingen, 1948–1953); (E.T. London), vol. I (1952), vol. II (1955). Das Urchristentum im Rahmen der antiken Religionen (Zürich, 1949); E.T. Primitive Christianity in its Contemporary Setting (London, 1956).Google Scholar

^{page 42 note 4} Bultmann, , Johannesevangelium (13th ed, Göttingen, 1953); Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, 1953); Barrett, The Gospel According to St John (London, 1955). Cf. also Bultmann in N.T.S. I (1954), 77 ff.; Grossouw in Novum Testamentum, I (1956), 35 ff., and in Vig. Chr. X (1956), 236ff.; and Quispel in Ned. Theol. Tijdschrift, 173 ff. Reference should also be made to studies on the relation between the Fourth Gospel and the Dead Sea Scrolls, such as those of Braun, Rev. Biblique, LXII (1955), 5ff., and Albright, in The Background of the N.T. and its Eschatology, pp. 153ff. On Becker's study Die Reden des Johannesevangeliums und der Stil der gnostischen Offenbarungsrede (Göttingen, 1956), see Barrett's review in T.L.Z. LXXXII (1957), 911f. Barrett considers it ‘more probable that the gospel represents the expansion of the primitive Christian message into a (partially) gnostic environment, than the Christianizing of originally gnostic material’. Similarly Quispel argues (loc. cit.) that the Fourth Gospel is not Gnostic, and that the Valentinian use of it represents a transposition of Johannine ideas into a Gnostic key. In a recent study (Jesus and His Coming (London, 1957)), J. A. T. Robinson has argued for the view that the Fourth Gospel in fact represents a tradition independent of, and in some respects more original than, that of the Synoptics.Google Scholar

^{page 43 note 1} Die Gnosis in Korinth (Göttingen, 1956).Google Scholar

^{page 43 note 2} Op. cit. pp. 82–134. To single out but one point for criticism, Schmithals takes the formula έγω ε│μ χρστυυ to be the watchword of the Corinthian Gnostics, understanding the genitive as partitive and so reaching the conclusion that these Gnostics claimed to be Lichtfunken or Pneumafunken, portions of the divine Christ. The four genitives of I Cor. i. 12, in his view, represent not four parties but two: Apostelleute and Christusleute (=Gnostics). If it be objected that it is difficult to take the genitive in different senses in the same context, thrice as ‘belonging to’ and once as ‘a portion of’, Schmithals has his answer (p. 170): Paul, with the vast majority of his readers ever since, took the fourth genitive wrongly. This is most ingenious, but it would seem that Schmithals is reading back the situation of the second century into the first. There appears to be no real proof of the idea of souls as parts of a cosmic σωμα χρτυυ prior to Paul's development of the doctrine of the Body of Christ, although such an idea could be read into Paul's metaphor later by any who chose to take words out of context. Schmithals notes (p. 161 n. 2) how firmly Paul holds on to his own theology, and ‘wie wenig er sich trotz seiner erstaunlich weitgehenden Übernahme hellenistisch-gnostischer Vorstellungen and Begriffe der eigentlichen Gnosis genahert hat oder sie auch nur versteht. Nur aus diesem Grund kann er auch derartig unbefangen in der Verwendung der gnostischen Terminologie sein, wie das faktisch der Fall ist.’ If Schmithals is correct, Paul was guilty of a highly reprehensible failure to ascertain the facts of the situation, but there is another and a simpler solution: that Paul's words were seized upon later by Gnostic leaders who wrested them from their context, choosing just those elements which suited their own theories and thereby, as Irenaeus complained of the Valentinians, distorting the sense.

For criticism of the Urmensch-Redeemer myth theory, cf. W. Manson, Jesus the Messiah (London, 1943), PP. 174ff., and Quispel in The Jung Codex, pp. 76ff. Cf. also Duchesne-Guillemin in Anthropologie Religieuse (ed C. J. Bleeker, Leiden, 1955), pp. 105f. Schlier's study, ‘Der Mensch im Gnostizismus’, in the latter volume concentrates on the Naassene doctrine (op. cit. pp. 60ff.).

^{page 43 note 3} Cf. most recently Mowinckel, He that Cometh (trans. Anderson, G. W., Oxford, 1956): also Duchesne-Guillemin, loc. cit.Google Scholar

^{page 43 note 4} Op. cit. p. III: ‘So bin ich der Überzeugung, daB als Folge der früh beginnenden Auseinandersetzung zwischen gnostischem und “orthodoxem” Christentum schon vor der Wende zum 2. Jahrhundert der reine Mythos von Christus als erlöstem Erlöser nirgendwo mehr vertreten wurde und die entsprechende Terminologie nur unverstanden oder modifiziert tradiert worden 1st.’

^{page 44 note 1} Gnosis: la connaissance religieuse dans les Épitres de saint Paul (Louvain, 1949). See Bultmann's review in J.T.S. n.s. III (1952), 10ff., also Lyonnet in Biblica, XXXV (1954), 489–502; XXXVII (1956), 1–38.

^{page 44 note 2} Christentum und Judentum im ersten und zweiten Jahrhundert (Gütersloh, 1954).Google Scholar

^{page 44 note 3} ‘Gegenwart des Geistes und eschatologische Hoffnung bei Zarathustra, spätjüdischen Gruppen, Gnostikern und den Zeugen des Neuen Testamentes’, The Backround of the N.T. and its Eschatology, pp. 482 ff.

^{page 44 note 4} See most recently Urgemeinde, Judenchristentum, Gnosis (Tübingen, 1956).Google Scholar

^{page 44 note 5} Paris, 1945, 1954.

^{page 44 note 6} La Révélation d'Hermes Trismégiste (Paris, 1944–54).

^{page 44 note 7} The Mysteries of Hermes Trismegistus (Utrecht, 1955).

^{page 44 note 8} Since this article went to press, M.J. Doresse has published an introductory survey of the new material: Les livres secrets des gnostiques d'Égypte (Paris, Plon, 1958), and a French translation, with commentary, of the Gospel of Thomas (Paris, 1959). Further references on the Gospel of Thomas will be found in N.T.S. v (1959), 273ff., to which should be added Puech's important contribution to Hennecke-Schneemelcher, NT Apokryphen, I (Tübingen, 1959), 199ff. On the Nag Hammadi Library as a whole see the literature cited in Scottish Journal of Theology, XII (1959), 161 ff. Jonas' new work The Gnostic Religion (Beacon Press, Boston, 1959) adheres to the general point of view of his earlier book but avoids its technicalities, and may be commended as a valuable contribution to our understanding of the essence of Gnosticism.