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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2011
It has often been suggested that the principal gnostic myths had their origin in genuine folklore, and the difficulty of discovering traces of this lore outside of gnostic sources has been explained by supposing that the myths were Oriental and were derived either from the oral traditions of localities in which no literature was produced or from literature which is no longer extant. Nothing favorable, however, to this view can be found from a comparison of gnostic myths with the native myths of Greece or with such Oriental mythology as is preserved unmixed with philosophic exegesis. In cases where known Greek, Jewish, or Christian sources are borrowed for the myths, the effort to extract gnostic theology is as painful as in the worst attempts of the Stoic exegetes, but where the myth is distinctively gnostic the philosophic meaning is easily traced in the story's plot. The reason for this is evidently not that Oriental myths are more philosophic than Greek but that gnostic myths are in their origin artificial and symbolic. Reminiscences of Oriental fancy may occasionally appear, but they do not control the main structure of the plots and can usually be detected by the difficulty with which a philosophic meaning is attached to them. An underlying structure of thought invariably conditions the imaginative forms of gnostic myths, so that theological differences between related sects are often apparent only in minor variations in the development of the story. These variations are difficult to interpret in systems of which we have only a fragmentary knowledge, and it is dangerous to patch up one system with pieces derived from another, however admirably they may seem to fit. Unlike the Stoics, who started from popular myths, the natural products of unsophisticated imagination, and explained these as symbols of philosophic truth, the gnostics invented their own myths to suit their philosophy. In course of time the best of these inventions served as the basis for further allegorizing, and some of the later gnostics, like the authors of Pistis Sophia, forgot, or neglected, the philosophy of their masters and elaborated only the mythological elements in their theology. Since they were men of feeble abilities, they only made bad myths into worse ones, and obscured the philosophic meaning which was really symbolized in the earlier forms of the stories, stiff and artificial though they were.
page 275 note 1 Cf. Bousset, W., Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, Göttingen, 1907, pp. 1–9Google Scholar; and numerous studies of R. Reitzenstein.
page 275 note 2 A conspicuous example of this is the Naassene document, Hippolytus Ref. v. 6 ff. Reitzenstein wishes to eliminate the Christian elements from this work as interpolations, and has reconstructed an imaginary original of which he assumes the present, text to be a christianized revision. Poimandres, pp. 82 ff., Studien zum antiken Synkretismus, Warberg Studien VII, pp. 101 ff., 161 ff.; cf. my note ‘Naassenes and Ophites’, Journal of Theological Studies, 27, p. 374.
page 275 note 3 This has been pointed out with admirable clearness by H. H. Schaeder in the case of Manichaeism, Urform and Fortbildung des manichäischen Systems, Warberg Vorträge.
page 277 note 4 References are to Harvey's edition.
page 277 note 5 Iren. i. 7 f.
page 280 note 6 Cf. my note on Epiphanius, Panarion xxxi. 5–6, Journal of Theological Studies, 29, p. 34.
page 282 note 7 According to Irenaeus i. 1, 17 his name was derived from Scripture, καὶ τὸ δνομα δὲ αὐτῆς μεμηνύσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἐν τῷ εἰρηκέναι, “καὶ ἐδικαιώθη ἡ σοϕία άπὸ τῶν τέκνων αὐτῆς” (Lk. 7, 35). καὶ ὑπὸ Παύλου δὲ οὔτως, “σοϕίαν δὲ λαλοῦμεν ἐν τοῖς τελείοις” (1 Cor. 2, 6).
page 283 note 8 Ref. vi. 30, 6.
page 283 note 9 Ref. vi. 30, 8.
page 287 note 10 F. C. Burkitt, Note on Valentinian Terms in Irenaeus and Tertullian, Journal of Theological Studies, 25, p. 64, to which this paper is much indebted.
page 289 note 11 Cf. Burkitt, pp. 65 f.
page 289 note 12 Cf. W. Anz, Ursprung des Gnostizismus, Texte und Untersuchungen, XV, 1, pp. 7–8.
page 291 note 1 Ref. vi. 29, 1 (Wendland, p. 155.15) τοιαὐτη τις, ὡς ἐν κεϕαλαίοις είπεῖν ἐπελθόντα, ἡ ІІυθαγόρου καὶ ІІλάτωνος συνέστηκε δόξα, ἀϕ' ῆς Оὐαλεντῖνος, οὐκ ἀπὸ τῶν εὐαγγελίων, τἠν αἴρεσιν τὴν ἑαυτοῦ συναγαγών, ώς ἐπιδείξομεν, δικαίως ІІυθαγορικὸς καὶ ІІλατωνικός, οὐ Xριστιανὸς λογισθείη.
page 291 note 2 Ref. vi. 29, 3 (W. 155.25–156.6).
page 291 note 3 Ref. vi. 29, 4 (W. 156.4) τὰ δὲ νῦν αὐτοὶ ἡμεῖς ϕυλάττοντες τὴν ІІνθαγόρειον ἀρχήν, μίαν οὐσαν καὶ ἃζυγον, ἃθηλυν, ἀπροσδεῆ, μνημονεὐσαντες δσ' ἐκεῖνοι διδάσκουσι ἐροῦμεν.
page 292 note 4 Ref. vi. 29, 5 (W. 156.8). The text is unfortunately corrupt at the start but should probably read ἠν ποτε ἃτε ἃλως, ϕησί, γεννητὸν οὐδέν κ. τ. λ.
page 292 note 5 Although a largely subjective procedure is involved, it is possible to indicate with tolerable satisfactoriness whether the source is being directly quoted, closely paraphrased, or broadly summarized: Wendland, p. 156.8–12, quotation; 156.12–14, probably a quotation but with something left out between μόνος and ἐπεί; 156.14–15, quotation; 156.15–24, close paraphrase; 156.24–157.2, quotation; 157.2–10 close paraphrase; 157.10–158.6, summary; 158.7–8, quotation; 158.9–10, summary; 158.11–14, quotation; 158.15–21, paraphrase; 158.21–22 ἓκλαιε … ἐκτρώματι, quotation; 158.22–24, paraphrase with probably considerable condensation; 158.24–26, quotation; 158.26–159.2, summary; 159.2–12, paraphrase; 159.12–16, quotation; 159.16–161.2, paraphrase, but I am inclined to think at points very closely following the text, for instance, 160.12–16 (it would be interesting to know whether it was customary in Valentinian dogmatic works to mark the close of the story within the pleroma and the beginning of its continuance outside, as in W. p. 160.7; this occurs also in Irenaeus, who is not Hippolytus' source at this point); 161.2–5, quotation; 161.5–6, quotation to ѱυχικὴ οὐσία 161.6–8, summary to ѱυχικοῦ; 161.8 δν … δημιουργόν, paraphrase; 161.9–20, quotation; 162.1–4, paraphrase; 162.4–9, quotation; 162.10–21, summary; 162.21–163.19, paraphrase; 163.19–164.6, quotation; 164.7–8, summary; 164.8–165.2, quotation; 165.2–5, summary; 162.5–17, quotation; 165.18–19, Hippolytus; 165.19–166.10, quotation; 166.10–14, summary; 167.9–168.3, probably, but not certainly, from the same source.
page 294 note 6 Origen, Comm. in Johannem vi. 39 (28) (Preuschen, p. 148); A. E. Brooke, The Fragments of Heracleon, Texts and Studies, I. 4, Cambridge, 1891, p. 64.
page 294 note 7 F. C. Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity; F. J. A. Hort, article in Dictionary of Christian Biography, I, p. 255; A. Hilgenfeld, Bardesanes der letzte Gnostiker, Leipzig, 1864; A. Merx, Bardesanes von Edessa, Halle, 1863.
page 295 note 8 Eusebius, H. E. iv. 30. For other notices cf. Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur, I, pp. 184 ff.
page 295 note 9 The possibility of this influence should not be understimated, and is suggested by a passage in the treatise Against Bardesanes, 71–74 (C. W. Mitchell, St. Ephraim's Prose Refutations, pp. lxxvii, 164–165): “And [the] word, the argument of which is something else, he makes into stuff for his argument, for he considered about this same death that the souls which are hindered in every place, in all depths and Limbos and that ‘have kept the word of our Lord’ … from within the Body, are exalted to the Bridal Chamber of Light. According to the doctrine of Bardaisan the Death that Adam brought in was a hindrance to Souls in that they were hindered at the Crossing-place because the sin of Adam hindered them, ‘and the Life,’ he [says], ‘that our Lord brought us, is that he taught verity and ascended and [brought] them across into the Kingdom.’ ‘Therefore,’ he says, ‘our Lord taught us that “everyone that keepeth My Word death forever he shall not taste,” that his soul is not hindered when it crosses at the Crossing-place like the hindrance of old wherewith the Souls were hindered before our Saviour had come. He is caught in one of two things: — in that everyone that kept the Word of our Lord — (and) died before our Lord; … — but if he is hindered at the Crossing-place his soul has tasted death, and if he had crossed the Crossing-place what is that which he said about our Lord that he had crossed it first of all?’” The text is occasionally corrupt but the general sense can be made out. It is difficult to tell whether Bardesanes has altered the Valentinian context, where, for example, the sin of Sophia, not of Adam, is responsible for human misery, or whether Ephraim has drawn Bardesanes more closely within the range of his own ideas than the facts justified. The following parallel is, however, suggestive: ‘the Bridal Chamber of Light’; cf. Excerpta ex Theodoto 63–65, 35.1; ‘hindrance,’ cf. use of κατέχειιν, Excerpta 1.2, 22.7, 35, 37, 39; Irenaeus i. 1, 2; Hippolytus, Ref. v. 19, 6; ‘Crossing place,’ cf. Horos-Steuros, Excerpta 22.4, 42.1; Irenaeus i. 1, 2; i. 1,6; i. 1, 7; i.10 (H); Hippolytus, Ref. vi. 30, 5–6; vi. 34, 7.
page 295 note 10 Delarue, IV, 850–851, 855; van de Sande Bakhuyzen, pp. 172, 176, 190.