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At-Onement — The Nature and Challenge of Gnostic Soteriology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Alastair Logan
Alastair Logan
Affiliation:
Department of Theology, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QH
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Extract

In this paper I wish first to reconsider the nature of Gnostic soteriology in response to classic criticisms, ancient and modern, and then to suggest the perennial challenge that it poses to Christian theories of atonement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , November 1997 , pp. 481 - 498
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1997

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References

1 Gnosis und spätantiker Geist I Die mythobgische Gnosis (FRLANT 33) (Göttingen, 1934, 19884)Google Scholar.

2 ‘New Testament and Mythology’ in Bartsch, H.-W. (ed.), Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate (London, 1972) 1–44Google Scholar.

3 The Gnostic Religion: the message of the alien God and the beginnings of Christianity (Boston, 1958, 2nd revised edition 1963)Google Scholar.

4 Primitive Christianity in its Contemporary Setting (London, 1956)Google Scholar, ET of Das Urchristentum im Rahmen derantiken Religionen (Zurich, 1949)Google Scholar.

5 Primitive 193.

6 Cf. Poimandres (Leipzig, 1904)Google Scholar; Das iranische Erlösungsmysterium (Bonn, 1921) etcGoogle Scholar. See the presentation and critique of the school in Colpe, C., Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule: Darstellung und Kritik ihres Bildes vom gnostischer Erlösermythus (FRLANT n.f. 60) (Göttingen, 1961)Google Scholar.

7 Primitive 200f. The influence of Jonas' presentation is obvious.

8 Primilive 203.

9 ‘Mythology’ 3.

10 Theology 1 (London, 1952) 168, 174, 178, 181–3.

11 Cf. Irenaeus, Adversus haenses 1.6.2f. (physei sozomenos); Clement of Alexandria, Excerpta ex Theodoto 56.3; Stromateis 2.10.2, 115.1; 4.89.4; 5.33.

12 Cf. Tractatus Tripartitus (NHC I 119.16ff. (see Robinson, J. M. (ed.), The Nag Hammadi Library in English (= NHLE) (Leiden, 1977) 89)Google Scholar.

13 ‘Animae naturaliter salvandae: Zum Problem der himmlischen des Gnostikers', Herkunfts in Eltester, W. (ed.), Christentum und Gnosis(BZNW 37) (Berlin, 1969) 65–97Google Scholar.

14 ‘The Valentinian Claim to Esoteric Exegesis of Romans as Basis for Anthropological Theory’, Vigiliae Christianae 26 (1972) 241–258CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Adversus Valentinianos 4.1.

16 In ‘John and the Gnostics: The Significance of the Apocryphon of John for the Debate about the Origins of the Johannine Literature’ Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43 (1991)Google Scholar, and Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy (Edinburgh, 1996) ch. 2Google Scholar.

17 E.g. Schenke, H.-M., ‘das sethianische System nach Nag-Hammadi Schriften’ in Nagel, P. (ed.), Studia Coptica (Berlin, 1974) 165–173Google Scholar; id., ‘The Phenomenon and Significance of Gnostic Sethianism’ in Layton, B. (ed.), The Rediscovery of Gnosticism 2 (Leiden, 1981) 588–616Google Scholar; Turner, J. D., ‘Sethian Gnosticism: A Literary History’ in Hedrick, C. W. & Hodgson, R. Jr (eds), Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism and Early Christianity (Peabody, Mass., 1986) 55–59Google Scholar; Pearson, B. A., Gnosticism, Judaism and Egyptian Christianity (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity 5) (Minneapolis, 1990)Google Scholar; Perkins, P., Gnosticism and the New Testament (Minneapolis, 1993) esp. Part 1Google Scholar.

18 See my ‘The Mystery of the Five Seals: Gnostic Initiation Reconsidered’ in Vigiliae Christianae (in the press).

19 Iren. Adv. haer. 1.24.1–2.

20 Apoc. John NHC II 25.16–27.31 and par (NHLE 112f.).

21 Cf. Iren. Adv. haer. 1.6.2 (= Epiphanius, Panarion 31.20.7); Epiph. Pan. 31.7.8; Clem. Alex.Exc. ex Theod.56.3; Heracleon, frag. 46; Tri. Trac 119.16–18 (NHLE 89).

22 Cf. Valentinus, frag. 2 (Clem. Strom. 2.114.3–6); Gospel of Philip NHC II 65.1–66.4 (NHLE 139), and Hippolytus, Refutatio 6.34.6.

23 Cf. II 27.21–31 and par (NHLE 114).

24 Cf. Iren. Adv. haer. 1.6.2; 6.4; 7.1; 7.5; Clem. Exc ex Theod. 57; 67f.; 79.

25 Exc. ex Theod. 78.1–2.

26 II 26.32–27.11 (NHLE 113).

27 E.g. Giversen, S., Apocryphon Johannis: the Coptic Text of the Apoayphon Johannis in the Nag Hammadi Codex II with Translation, Introduction and Commentary (Acta Theologica Danica 5) (Copenhagen, 1963) 266fGoogle Scholar.; Tardieu, M., Écrits Gnostiques. Codex de Berlin (Sources gnostiques et manichéennes 1) (Paris, 1984) 332fGoogle Scholar.

28 Cf. Comm. in Matt. 13.1.2: Princ. 1.8.4. See on this Trigg, J. W., Origen: the Bible and Philosophy in the Third-Century Church (London, 1985) 107, 209, 213Google Scholar.

29 II 27.21–31 and par (NHLE 114).

30 Iren. Adv. haer. 1.30.12–14.

31 Cf. 1 Cor 2:28.

32 Iren. Adv. haer. 1.2.2; 2.4; 3.1; 3.3; 3.5. Cf. the Valentinian Exposition NHC XI 25.22ff.; 26.30ff.; 27.30–38 (NHLE 436f.) on the two functions. According to Iren. Adv. haer. 1.11.1, Valentinus taught two Limit/Cross figures, one between the Father and the Pleroma, the other between the Pleroma and the world outside. Hippolytus' version (Ref. 6.31.5f.) has Limit/Cross produced later to safeguard the Pleroma.

33 Exc. ex Theod. 42.1–2.

34 Tri. Trac. 76.32–77.1 (NHLE 68).

35 Cf. Gas. Phil. 68.27f. (NHLE 141) on Mark 15:34 and par.

36 73.9–18 (NHLE 144).

37 Gos. Truth NHC I 16.31–17.4 (NHLE 37f.).

38 Religion 2nd ed. 310.

39 Adv. haer. 1.21.4. Cf. Gos. Truth 18.7–11: ‘Since oblivion came into being because the Father was not known, then if the Father comes to be known, oblivion will not exist from that moment on’, and 24.28–32, replacing ‘oblivion’ by ‘deficiency’.

40 Religion 312f.

41 18.24ff. (NHLE 38).

42 20.23–34 (NHLE 39).

43 See his Atonement and Incarnation: An Essay in Universalism and Particularity (Cambridge, 1991) esp. ch. 1Google Scholar.

44 Cf. Treat. Res. NHC I 49.9–36 (NHLE 53); Gos. Phil. 56.26–57.23 (NHLE 134f.); 66.16–20 (NHLE 140).