The Secret Books of The Egyptian Gnostics An Introduction To TH

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LIBRARY
OF RELIGION
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THE SECRET BOOKS
OF THE
EGYPTIAN GNOSTICS
Photo: Jean Doresse n
THE SITE OF THE DISCOVERY

The south-east flank of the Gebel et-Tarif, near the hamlet of Hamra-Doum:
at the foot of this wall of rock, on the right, are the entrances to the tombs of the
princes of the sixth dynasty. The overturned earth in front of the cliff marks the
site of the ancient cemetery where the jar containing the manuscripts was buried.
Jean Doresse
THE SECRET BOOKS

OF THE
EGYPTIAN GNOSTICS
An Introduction to the Gnostic Coptic
manuscripts discovered at Chenoboskion
With an English Translation and critical evaluation of
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS
NEW YORK
THE VIKING PRESS

This translation of Les livres secrets des Gnostiqucs d’£gypte (Lihrairie Plon,
Paris, 195s), fully revised and augmented by the author for the English
edition, was made by
PHILIP MAIRET
Les Livres secrets des gnostiques d’Egypte

© 1958, 1959 by Librairie Plon, Paris
The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics

© i960 by Hollis & Carter, Ltd., London
Published in i960 by The Viking Press, Inc.

625 Madison Avenue, New York 22, N. Y.
Library of Congress catalog card number: 60-6161

Printed in the U.S.A. by The Murray Printing Company
bT \l)30.'D^\3
CONTENTS
Introduction
xi
I. The Problem of Gnosticism : Its Earliest Known

Elements * • • . . . I
The Discovery and the Critical Study of Gnosticism i
Its ancient adversaries. ... 4
The Sects as their enemies depict them . . i0
The great Gnostic doctors (Nicolas, Simon and
Helen, Menander, Satornil, Basilides, Carpocra-
tes, Valentinus, Marcus, Justin) ... 13
The great sects: St Irenaeus on the Cainites,
Barbelo-Gnostics; Ophites . . . .35
St Epiphamus on the Great Gnostics; Ophites;
Cainites; Archontici, Audians and Mel-
chizedekians 40
The Philosophumena on the Naassenes, Peratae
and Sethians ••.... 47
Plotinus on Gnosticism.53
Theodore Bar-Kona'i, in the Book of Scholia, on
the Audians, John of Apamea, the Kukeans,
Kanteans and Battai . . . . .55
Some outstanding questions .... 61
II. Original Texts and Monuments ... 64

The Books of Pistis-Sophia ..... 64
The Books of the Saviour ..... 72
The Books of Jeou ...... 73
The untitled and anonymous treatise of the Bruce
Codex ........ 76
The Gnostic Manuscript of Berlin ... 86
Various fragments . . . . . .88
Gnostic monuments and paintings ... 89
V
29354
vi Contents
Remains of Gnosticism in the related literature of its

times ........ 94
The Main Features of Gnostic Doctrine . .no
III. The Story of a Discovery . . . .116

How the manuscripts came to light . . .116
In the Egyptian Countryside . . . .127
IV. Thirteen Codices of Papyrus . . . . 137

Paleographic aspects . . . . . .141
List of Texts contained in the Codices . . .142
V. Forty-Four Secret (and Hitherto Unknown)

Books.146
The Revelations of the great prophets of Gnosticism,
from Seth to Zoroaster . . . . .146
The Paraphrase of Seth and its Iranian models . 147
The Apocalypses of Zoroaster, Zostrian, Messos
and Allogenes . . . . . .156
The Hypostasis of the Archons or Book of Norea . 159
Writing No. 40: Eros in Gnostic mythology . 165
The Sacred Book of the invisible Great Spirit . 177
The Treatise on the Triple Protennoia . . .181
The Revelations of Adam to Seth, and writing
No. 24 ...... 182
The Apocalypse of Dositheus . . . .188
The Exegesis upon the Soul . . . .190
The Epistle of Eugnostos the Blessed . . . 192
Gnostics disguised as Christians . . . .197
The Sophia of Jesus ...... 198
The Secret Book of John ..... 201
The Gospels of Christianized Gnosticism . . 218
The anonymous writing No. 19 219
The Gospels of Philip and of Matthias . . 221
The Gospel of Thomas and the Logia Iesou . . 227
The Acts and Revelations of Peter and of James . 235
The Apocalypse of Paul ..... 237
The Gospel of Truth ..... 239
Hermes Trismegistus as an ally of Gnosticism . 241
Contents vii
VI. The Sethians According to their Writings . 249

Literary Problems and Problems of Mythology . 250
Origins and near Relations of Gnosticism . . 263
Hellenic Thought and Gnosticism . . . 263
The contribution from Astrology . . 266
What did Egypt contribute? .... 272
Hermetic elements in Gnosticism . . . 275
The Influence of the Iranian dualism . . 279
India and Gnosticism ..... 284
Jewish Gnosticism and the Kabbala . . .285
Gnosticism and the sectaries of Qumran . . 295
Gnosticism and Christianity . . . .300
VII. The Survival of Gnosticism: From Manichaeism
to the Islamic Sects . . . . . .310
Epilogue 324
Notes on Plates 5 and ii . . . . 327
Appendix I
The Teaching of Simon Magus in the Chenoboskion
Manuscripts.329
Appendix II
The Gospel According to Thomas
Introduction. -333
Preliminary Note.353
Translation.355
Notes .. 370
Index of References to the Canonical Gospels . -378
General Index 387

ILLUSTRATIONS
1. The site of the discovery . . . .Frontispiece

facing page
2. Toga Mina and the author deciphering the first manu¬

script. . . . . . . . .no
3. Cast of a carved gem representing the demiurge Iao. hi
4. Medal in lead representing on one side the demiurge
Iao and on the other the spheres of the seven heavens in
5. The Coptic manuscript of the Pistis-Sophia, page 143 126
6. The magic papyrus of Oslo No. 1, Column 1 *127
7. The Deir Anba-Palamun...... 222
8. The site of St Pachomius’s principal monastery . . 222
9. The Coptic priest David ...... 223
10. The manuscripts of Chenoboskion . . . .238
n. Codex X, pages 32 and 33, showing the beginning of
the Gospel according to Thomas .... 239
Ialdabaoth—also called Ariael: an engraved gnostic
gem ........ page 166
viii
“See, Father,” saidJesus, “how,
pursued by evil, (the soul) is
wandering far from thy spirit over
the earth. She tries to flee from hate¬
ful chaos; she knows not how to
emerge from it. To that end,
Father, send me! I will descend,
bearing the seals. I will pass
through all the aeons; I will unveil
every mystery; I will denounce the
appearances of the gods and, under
the name of Gnosis, I will transmit
the secrets of the holy way.”
(Hymn of the Soul, attributed to the

Naassene Gnostics in the Philosophu-
mena, V, io, 2).
INTRODUCTION
Am I perhaps a little inclined to underrate the interest of those

much-admired manuscripts discovered near the Dead Sea? By
this I do not mean that I grudge them any of the importance that
all the most competent specialists agree in ascribing to them. But
neither do I go so far as to think that that discovery was the most
extraordinary that could possibly have been made of the vanished
world in which the Christian religion was bom and bred. For
this I have a personal but sufficient reason—I know of some
other writings, a little less ancient (by some centuries) than the
texts of Qumran, but richer; and they illuminate with the greatest
abundance of detail one of the most obscure movements in the
earliest centuries of our era. It is of these Coptic manuscripts
found in Upper Egypt, and of the circumstances in which they
were brought to light, that I propose to give a general account
in this first book. Let it not be thought, however, that I am con¬
cerned to extol this discovery above anything that has been found
elsewhere. I do think it important, because the texts recovered
are indeed more numerous, far more revealing and perhaps also
of greater historic consequence than those from the Judaean
desert. But I do not at all want to defend this judgement in the
spirit of a sports competition, which is out of place in scientific
enquiries. I am well aware that, if I am wrong, other 'specialists
will be only too pleased to put me right. Moreover, as soon as it
becomes possible to make an exhaustive study of the fifty or so
Gnostic documents lately recovered from the sands of Egypt
and when the Qumran scrolls have yielded their last secret, we,
may even discover some more or less tenuous relation between
the histories of the two religious movements to which these two
finds of manuscripts belonged; and the existence of such a link
may enhance the interest of both.
As in the case of the manuscripts from the Judaean desert, the
discovery of these in Upper Egypt was not in the least like one
xii The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
of those dramatic exhumations to which officials, journalists

and sight-seers flock like crowds drawn to the scene of some
notorious crime. Nearly everything took place behind curtains
of discretion. It is owing to this circumstance that almost all
the details of the story, as well as the actual nature of the manu¬
scripts in question, are still practically unknown to the general
public.
It was about 1945 or 1946 that a few peasants from a hamlet
in Upper Egypt, who had at the time no particularly elevated
aims, happened to unearth a jar filled with the finest batch of
writings on religious subjects that even the soil of Egypt, rich as
it is in relics, has yet restored to us. In 1946 the lamented Togo
Mina, then Director of the Coptic Museum at Cairo, had the
good luck to spot one of these manuscripts in the hands of a
dealer, and bought it. Two years elapsed before Togo Mina and
I, by our united efforts and powerfully assisted by the Canon
£tienne Drioton—then Director-General of the Service of
Antiquities—managed to get on the track of the rest of the
contents of the jar, brought the manuscripts to light, and had
them retained for purchase by the Council of the Cairo Coptic
Museum. The Egyptian press, inured as it is to the most fantastic
archaeological finds, then published, very simply, the brief
communications that we put in its way.
A summary' account of the first stage of this discovery which
was given at Paris to the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-
Lettres, and to which Professor H. C. Puech willingly lent his
authority, aroused a moderate degree of interest. This can be
pretty well measured by the few lines allotted to our com¬
munication in the ever-accurate Le Monde on 23 February 1948—
“Discovery of a papyrus of the fourth century. The Academy
has been informed of the discovery, recently made in Egypt, of a
collection on papyrus, of 152 pages, dating from the sixth century
of our era. It contains in Coptic translation five unpublished
Gnostic books. They furnish interesting information about the
beliefs of that time.” The report made to the Academie des
Inscriptions was, at least, a good deal more accurate than this
notice would lead one to suppose.
Introduction Xlll
It is true that a year later, the far richer information I was able
to give, this time about the manuscripts as a whole, not only one
of them, aroused a legitimate interest in the press which extended,
for example, from the Nouvelles Litteraires to the American
reviews Archeology and Newsweek, besides appearing across the
Channel in the Manchester Guardian. But there was no wave of
excitement, either among specialists or the public.
Meanwhile, at Cairo, the formalities that had to be gone
through before the valuable documents could become the un¬
doubted property of the Egyptian government and be made
available for systematic study, dragged on and on for years.
Why such interminable delays? Well do I remember Togo
Mina’s anguish on the day when he realized that the competent
authorities, whose decision had become essential to conclude a
matter of such importance, were doing nothing about it. Togo
Mina, who took the fate of the discovery all too much to heart,
was to die long before any solution was in sight. And even after
his decease an obstinate ill-luck beset every effort connected with
the acquisition and projected publication of these documents.
Was this due to the maledictions that the Egyptian Gnostics had
written out in full upon their works, against anyone gaining
unlawful knowledge of them ? Or was it rather a consequence of
all the covetousness, commercial and scientific, converging upon
such a promising affair ? If it were all to be gone through again,
I confess that—although for my own part I received every
possible assistance from the able scientific persons concerned, to
whom I am profoundly grateful—I would probably think twice
before I would again embroil myself for the sake of a discovery
liable to arouse so many envies and jealousies.
Today the public is awakening to the interest offered by these
newly-found writings. Primarily this is because the manuscripts
have at last become the property of the Egyptian government,
and are to be published under an international committee. At
the same time, unofficial disclosures from one source and another
have given some glimpses of the importance of their contents.
One of the manuscripts was taken out of Egypt, and reached
Europe where it was acquired by the Jung Foundation: various
XIV The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
articles have already been published about this, and one of the
writings it contains has just been carefully edited. On the other
hand, some Gnostic treatises in Coptic, contained in a papyrus
in the Berlin Museum where they had been awaiting publication
for more than fifty years, have now at last been published: it
has been possible to complete them from the variant readings of
parallel texts among those now recovered in Egypt, which the
authorities of the Coptic Museum have been willing to release
for publication in this indirect manner. Finally, the Coptic Mus¬
eum has begun to publish a photographic edition of the finest
codices, and of this the first volume has appeared. It is therefore
becoming possible for specialists to break the silence. Professor
H. C. Puech, for instance, has been able to put forward the
remarkable solution to the problem of the Sayings of Jesus—the
Logia—at which he arrived thanks to one of the new-found
documents. And for the same reasons it is now possible for me,
at last, to say what this prodigious collection of sacred books
really is, and how it was found. It is all the more desirable to
make this known now, for since the death of Togo Mina I am
the only first-hand witness of all the events that led up to the
discovery and all the difficult transactions by which the treasure
was secured. It is surely best, from now onward, to put a stop to
such a cluster of fables as has been too often allowed to grow
around other discoveries, merely to give them a fantastic garb
and draw attention to them.
Admittedly, the introduction I offer in this volume cannot—
except for the few texts to which I have been able to give thorough
study—amount to more than a rapid outline. It is not based upon
a complete reading of all the texts: for many of them, its essential
foundation consists of the incomplete decipherments that I made
in 1948, when my task was to find out the number, the nature
and the importance of all that was comprised in the collection—
taking the utmost care of the fragile pages of papyrus, many of
which were broken and had yet to be put into a condition that
would make them legible. I may even, faced with some of the
imprecisions in my analyses, feel somewhat ashamed. But I am
encouraged by the knowledge that some others, who were never
Introduction XV
in a position to read a single line of these writings, and whose

information was limited precisely to the details disclosed in the
first articles published by Togo Mina, H. C. Puech or myself,
have not hesitated to produce pretentious summaries of the dis¬
covery which, although readers who are ill-informed may take
them to have some weight, are in fact mere works of imagina¬
tion! What value can one place upon “conclusions” which are
no more than hazardous guesses at what these documents may
eventually prove to contain ? Such manoeuvres were in one respect
clever enough, since the few persons who were reasonably well
informed about the discovery were obliged, for reasons of
administrative discretion, to keep silent about the exact nature of
its content.
One would much hke to know what precise status will be
attributed to a discovery hke this of Chenoboskion after another
fifty years. The interest attached to any archaeological find—
except in the case of objects of such undoubted and immediately
sensible beauty that they lose nothing with the passage of time—is
subject to great vicissitudes, especially when the interest is histor¬
ical or religious. When first made known, such a find is greeted
with an enthusiasm which even the most weighty criticism is for
a time unable to moderate. Its importance is thus magnified; and
the climate is favourable for false and exaggerated estimates. Then,
the interest subsides more or less rapidly; and a day comes when
nobody except the specialists remembers the existence of the
documents which made such a stir when they were first dis¬
covered. And at last they sink into an oblivion almost as absolute
as that which, at the same time, descends upon the names of the
men who found them. This sequence of events is sometimes due
to the fact that a discovery, however real its importance, may fade
in the light of further scientific advances made because of it.
But this can also happen because, when the excitement is over, we
find that the great discovery had nothing hke the importance at
first attached to it.
I do not believe that the interest of such a discovery as this of
Chenoboskion, rich as it is in texts which until then had been
completely lost (there have indeed been very few finds even
XVI The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
distantly comparable in this respect), will ever be forgotten, or

even much diminished in comparison with present estimates of
its value. I am even persuaded that when the texts are made com¬
pletely and directly available, their literary, historical and reli¬
gious interest will steadily increase—that again and again it will
become necessary to refer to them, and to search them for further
revelations.
Like the manuscripts of Qumran, they give us information
about an age which, for the development of the human conscience,
remains of paramount importance. This was the period in which
the individual found himself most critically confronted by the
problems of his personal destiny, and of the destiny of the empires
and civilizations he had hoped to establish in perpetuity. The
central moment of these ages is that of the Cross. But ages of
darkness stretch before and after this; and long before our era,
spiritual men were repudiating the optimism of antiquity as vain
and irreconcilable with the moral problems of an unstable uni¬
verse: they were torn by profound anxiety. For more than a
thousand years after the coming of Christianity this anxiety still
presents itself in almost the same terms. But what the Gnostic
documents reveal to us is the spiritual attitude of those who were
the most tragically sensitive to the problems of human destiny—
“Whence do I come?” “Who am I?” “What is this material
world?” “Where shall I go after the end of this life?” However
dark is the imagery in which these speculations are enveloped,
they help us to understand the depths at which Christianity had
to deal, gradually but comprehensively, with the most poignant
problems vexing the souls of the antique world in those centuries
of crisis. Their anguish—which touched not only the elite but
the masses too—is not without its grandeur: those centuries were
doubtless infinitely more wretched, but also far more conscious
than our own. Of the solutions that men tried to find for their
disquietude two are still present among us; for one was Christian¬
ity, and the other, arriving later and from other races, was Islam.
A third response, related to Christianity more in appearance than
reality, was a dualist mysticism—that of the Gnostics and the
Manichaeans, nourished by myths and conceptions which seem
Introduction xvi 1
ineradicable and sometimes invade even the modern mind. That

religious ferment of the Gnoses and the various forms of Mani-
chaeism lingered on for nearly fifteen centuries, certain ramifica¬
tions extending even into Asia and our Western world.
From the earliest, which were also the most decisive periods
of this great movement there remained but a few vestiges and a
dim memory of trouble and disquiet. It is only today that the
origins of the Gnosis and its first religious fervour are suddenly
disclosed to us by the library of Chenoboskion, with a wealth of
detail far beyond the ordinary hopes and expectations of his¬
torians.
27 June, 1957.
THE SECRET BOOKS
OF THE
EGYPTIAN GNOSTICS
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM OF GNOSTICISM:

ITS EARLIEST KNOWN ELEMENTS
The words Gnosis (yvu>ois = Knowledge) and Gnosticism relate

to certain sects which, during the first centuries in which Christi¬
anity was developing, competed with it upon its own grounds.1
The most famous episode of this rivalry is the one about Simon
Magus recorded in Acts VIII—not, in itself, a very informative
event, although its place in apostolic history has assured it of
greater fame than many others of later date that are better known.2
This is because, in reality, the memory of the Gnostic sects,
after the days when they had been eliminated by orthodox
Christianity, did not attract much attention. Thenceforth these
heresies were dismissed by historians of the Church as fantastic
dreams which a little light had been enough to dispel. It was not
until the eighteenth century, that epoch of universal curiosity—an
epoch in which, moreover, there were mystics, occultists and
hermetists searching for spiritual food in all the most ancient and
peculiar places—that the Gnosticism of antiquity began to be
thought less unworthy of interest.3 Mosheim was the first to open
up the subject with his Institutiones historiae Christianae majores
(1739). The doctrine previously known by the name of Gnosis
1 The name of Gnosis has been quite legitimately attached to the religion of
these sects. But other mystical movements and philosophies, unrelated to these
which competed with Christianity at its beginning, also laid claim to a doctrine
of salvation—to a gnosis based upon very different myths. It is therefore to the
distinctive myths which constituted the “knowledge” of our Gnostics, and not to
the general concept of “gnosis”, that we shall have to refer for their more exact
definition.
2 For legends and iconography (mediaeval) relating to Simon Magus, see
E. Male, L’Art religieux en France au XIII1 Siecle, pp. 298-9, and L. Thorndike,
A History of Magic and Experimental Science, vol. 1, New York 1947, chap, xvii,
especially p. 427.
3 See L. Cerfaux, “Gnose prechretienne et biblique”, in the Dictionnaire de la
Bible, Supplement t. Ill, 1938, pp. 659-702.
2 The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
had been, in his opinion, an “oriental philosophy” which had

spread fairly widely from Persia and Chaldea to Egypt, which the
Jews also had accepted, and which invaded our Mediterranean
world in opposition to Greek philosophy. Although this idea of
an oriental philosophy did not then convince all of the learned,
after 1805 Horn,4 and after 1818 Lewald5 looked for the source of
this “philosophy” in Zoroastrian dualism. A work which, after
theirs, was much appreciated was Matter’s Histoire critique du
Gnosticisme (1828). Matter defined Gnosticism as “the introduc¬
tion into the bosom of Christianity of all the cosmological and
theosophical speculations which had formed the most consider¬
able part of the ancient religions of the Orient and had also been
adopted by the Neo-platonists of the West”. In this teaching,
therefore, were combined the philosophies of Plato and Philo,
the Avesta and the Kabbala, the mysteries of Samothrace, Eleusis
and of Orphism. This treatise of Matter’s was addressed to a
generation which was as attracted to mystical marvels as those
of the previous centuries had been allergic to them: it went far to
make Gnosticism fashionable. For a proof of this one need only
look again at the Tentation de saint Antoine where Flaubert so
vividly depicts all the strangely-attired sects in procession before
the hermit. A little later Barres, in his “Turquoises gravees”,6
drew with consummate art upon the same source of curious
inspiration, over which he had brooded during his travels in the
East.7 Unfortunately, the popularity of Gnosticism tended to
influence the researches of certain archaeologists, too susceptible
to the taste of the public: for instance, a number of monuments
and relics dug up from the soil of Roman and Byzantine Egypt
were labelled “Gnostic” by the archaeologist Gayet when they
were lacking in any distinct character.
We need not here enumerate all the many works which, from
the time of Matter until recent years, have dealt with the subject
of Gnosticism. In 1851, such speculations were stimulated by the
4 J. Horn, Ueber die biblische Gnosis, Hanover, 1805.

* Lewald, Cominentatio ad historiam religionum veicrum illustrandum pertinens de
doctrina gnostica, Heidelberg, 1818. 8 In Le Mystere en pleine Lumiere.
7 See Barres, Cahiers, XIV, p. no andj. Doresse, “ Barr&s et l’Orient” in La
Table Ronde, No. in, March 1957.
The Problem of Gnosticism 3
discovery of a precious document—the Philosophumena, which is

a refutation of heresies, inaccurately attributed to Hippolytus of
Rome. The scope for learned controversy was also enlarged by
the publication of rare original Gnostic documents. Hamack and
de Faye put forward theories about the exact nature of these
strange currents of religious thought, particularly in relation to
ecclesiastical history. To these hypotheses was added another
interpretation of Gnosticism conceived, this time, as a product of
the main religious movements of the Orient. By 1897 Anz had
already published the first hypothesis of this kind.8 And in 1904
Reitzenstein in his Poimandres suggested Egyptian origins for
certain themes of Gnosticism and of Hermeticism. Bousset, in
The Principal Problems o f Gnosticism,9 pointed to other origins that
the Gnostic sects might have had, and with greater likelihood,
in the realm of Iranian and Babylonian doctrine, traces of which
are apparent in Mandaeanism and Manichaeism. R. Reitzenstein,
rallying to this idea, developed the principal implications of it with
a sometimes exaggerated enthusiasm. For a summary account of the
state at which these researches had lately attained one may turn,
on the one hand, to the article by L. Cerfaux on “Pre-Christian
and Biblical Gnosis”,10 and on the other to the very careful ex¬
position “Where are we now with the Problem of Gnosticism?”
by Prof. H. C. Puech11—an account which, though it is already
twenty years old, has lost nothing of its reliability. One may
also consult the two volumes by Jonas on “Gnosis and the Spirit
of Late Antiquity”.12
During the progress of researches bearing directly upon the
history of Gnosticism, other related problems were becoming
more clearly defined, thanks to certain discoveries of great im¬
portance about other religious movements closely connected
8 W. Anz, “Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnostizismus ” in Texte und
Untersuchungen, vol. XV, fasc. 4, Leipzig, 1897.
9 W. Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, Gottingen, 1907.
10 In the Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplement, t. III.
11 H. C. Puech, “Oil en est le probleme du Gnosticisme” in the Revue de
VUniversite de Bruxelles, 1934-5, PP- 07-158 and 295-314: to this one should add
the explanations given in a study by the same author—“La Gnose et le temps”
in the Eranos Jahrbuch, vol. XX, 1952, pp. 57fF.
19 Hans Jonas, Gnosis und spdtantiker Geist: 1. Die mythologische Gnosis; 2. Von
der Mythologie zur mystischen Philosophie, Gottingen, 1934 and 1955.
with Gnosticism—firstly about Hermeticism and the vast output

of astrological and magical literature. Light was shed, at the same
time, upon the many separate fragments preserved in Greek, and
also in several Oriental languages, attributed to the magi Zoro¬
aster, Ostanes and Hystaspes.13 The importance of the Chaldaean
Oracles whose philosophy had strongly influenced Neo-Plato-
nists from the time of Iamblichus, was also recognized.14 Above
all, an enormous—and particularly informative—access of new
material was that of the Manichaean writings that were coming
to light everywhere from Africa to Central Asia—writings which
already enabled us to guess how much of the religion of Manes
had been a systematized form of the most typical Gnostic myths.15
Finally the sacred books of the Mandaeans, though they
did not yet divulge the secret history of this baptist sect—which
still survives in Mesopotamia—presented the clear picture of a
religion that was largely Gnostic.16
Yet in spite of all this new knowledge, Gnosticism itself con¬
tinued to present the religious historian with an appalling number
of problems to which it was all the harder to find answers because
the documentation for the authentically Gnostic sects consisted
hardly at all of original texts (only the smallest fragments of
which survived) but almost entirely of works written against
these sects by their contemporary opponents. How unsatisfactory
such documentation can be for the historian will be seen from
the following summary of what was known about Gnosticism
before the Chenoboskion manuscripts were found.
★ ★ ★
Essentially, all that we knew about Gnosticism was what we

had learned from texts—most of them Christian—denouncing
these sects as heretical.17 These refutations do, indeed, tell us
18 See below, chap, n, p. 102, and chap, vi, pp. 280-1.
14 Cf. J. Bidez, La vie de Vempereur Julien, Paris, 1930, part I, chap. xn. Cf. also
below, pp. 85, 102.
15 See below, p. 98 and chap. vn. 16 See below, p. 98 and chap. vii.
17 H. C. Puech, “Ou en est le probleme du Gnosticisme?” and, more especially,
M. Friedlander, Der vorchristliche Gnosis, Gottingen, 1898, pp. i4ff, andj. Lebreton'
Histoire du dogme de la Trinite, 1927, II, pp. 81-2. Collections of the essential texts
in W. Volker, Quellen zur Geschichte der christlichen Gnosis, 1932; also E. de Faye,
Gnostiques et Gnosticisme, 2nd edn. 1925 (out-of-date).
something about the Gnostic teachers, books, systems and pro¬

cedures, but only from a very limited point of view, since they
are concerned only with portions of the teachings of the Gnostics,
which, moreover, they take every opportunity to subject to
sarcastic indictments and brutal mockery. “When you have
learnt by heart all your books by Basilides, Manes, Barbelos and
Leusiboras”, writes St Jerome, apostrophizing his adversary
Vigilantius, “go sing them in the weaving-women’s workshops,
or offer to read them to the unlearned in the taverns that you
frequent; such twaddle will make them drink more deeply!”18
What kind of impartiality can we expect from such impassioned
polemics ?
The earliest of these refutations known to us—the Syntagma of
Justin,19 written about a.d. 140—is lost, with the exception of a
few passages quoted by his successors. Between a.d. 180 and 185
Irenaeus of Lyons composed a huge work entitled The so-called
Gnosis unmasked and overthrown, in which he bore witness against a
number of teachers of Gnostic sects, of whose sacred books this
author had some knowledge.20 Hegesippus, after travels which
made him remarkably well informed (he went far into the
Orient), produced five books of memoirs dealing with the
history of the Church, arguing fervidly against the Gnostics: he
presents them as the inheritors of various Jewish sects, Baptist and
Judeo-Christian, which had grown up in Trans-Jordan or
Lower Babylonia. The original of this work is lost, but we have
fragments of it quoted, a little later, by the historian Eusebius.21
Tertullian, too, attacked heretics.22 And to Clement of Alexandria
—who died before a.d. 215—we owe the preservation of quota¬
tions from several of them; Valentinus, Theodotus23 and even
Basilides.
18 Jerome, Liber contra Vigilantium, § 6.

19 Justin was a Samaritan, as were the earliest masters of Gnosis, and may have
had particularly reliable information.
20 See, e.g., his chapter xxix.
21 In Eusebius, Kirchengeschichte, herausg. von Ed. Schwartz (Gk. text),
Leipzig, 1952.
22 In the De praesciptione haereticorum, the Adversus Valentinianos and the Scor-
piace (remedy against the scorpion’s sting!).
23 Clement of Alexandria, Extraits de Theodote, edn. F. Sagnard, 1948.
A particularly instructive work rediscovered about a century

ago is the Elenchos, usually but incorrectly known as the Philo-
sophumena,24 and attributed to Hippolytus, though it was in fact
composed about a.d. 230 by quite another author. This is a
veritable encyclopaedia of religious history, which starts from the
classical philosophies, gives expositions of the beliefs of the
Brahmans and the Druids, of the astrologers and magicians, and
then devotes all the remaining half of the work to an analysis of
Gnostic doctrines which purports to be based upon fundamental
works of the various sects. The value of this book, which is
indeed a picturesque and engaging one, has sometimes been
disputed. The Rev. Fr Festugiere25 thought it prudent to relegate
the chapters dealing with the Brahmans to that class of roman¬
ticized reporting of exotic cults which was in vogue during the
first centuries of our era; but twelve years ago Prof. J. Filiozat
was able to show that many of the details about the Brahmans
furnished by the pseudo-Hippolytus were correct.26 If, then, the
author of the Elenchos wished, and was able, to be so well in¬
formed upon so recondite a subject as the doctrines of India, one
may reasonably suppose he could much more easily satisfy his
curiosity about the beliefs of the Gnostics living all around him,
and that he would be no less scrupulous in describing them to us.
It is to Origen, who died about a.d. 253 or 254, that we owe
our knowledge of fragments of the writings of the Gnostic Hera-
cleon, preserved in the former’s Commentary upon the gospel of St
John™ In another of his works Origen replied to the pagan Ceisus,
an opponent of Christianity.28 This Ceisus is perhaps the man to
whom the philosopher Lucian dedicated the satire he wrote under
the tide of Alexander, or the false Prophet. Lucian’s shafts were
aimed at the pagan magi. Ceisus had been attacking both the
24 Hippolytus, Werke, Band III, Refutatio omnium haeresium (edition P. Wend-
land), 1916; translations of the essential chaps, and Hippolyte de Rome, Philo-
sophumena, French trans. annotated by A. Siouville, 2 vols., Paris, 1928.
25 Festugiere, O. P., La Revelation d'Hermes Trismegiste, t. I, L’Astrologie et les
sciences occultes, Paris, 1944, p. 35.
28 J. Filliozat, “Les Doctrines des Brahmanes d’apr£s saint Hippolyte” in the
Revue de VHistoire des Religions, t. CXXX, pp. 59ff
27 See Fr Sagnard, La Gnose valentinienne et le temoignage de St Irinee, 1947,
pp. 48off. Texts quoted in Volker, Quellen, pp. 63ff.
28 The work of Ceisus dates from about a.d. 180.
Christians and the Gnostics, about whom he was pretty well

informed. In reply to him, Origen pillories numerous details of
this work of Celsus, the original of which is lost to us. It is here,
in the Contra Celse, that we find the transcription of that very
peculiar Ophite document, the Diagram.
The historian Eusebius, who died in a.d. 339, has left us some
brief but particularly informative passages about what he knew of
the most ancient sects, in his Ecclesiastical History. Some of these
passages, as we have already said, are extracts from the lost work
of Hegesippus, according to whom the principal sects—he
enumerates those of Simon, Dositheus, Cleobios, Gothaios,
Menander, Carpocrates, Valentinus, Basilides and Sato mil—are
descended from various Jewish or Baptist sects, such as the
Essenes, Galileans, Ebionites, Samaritans, Nazarenes, Osseans,
Sampseans, Elkesaites, Hemerobaptists and Masbutheans. Euse¬
bius also mentions a certain number of works, now lost, which
had been written in order to refute the Gnostics and other heretics
of the same kidney. Such, for instance, were the books of Agrippa
Castor against Basilides; those of Philip of Gortyna and of
Modestus against Marcion; of Musanus against the Encratites;
of Rhodon against Apelles, Tatian and Marcion.29
From the first quarter of the fourth century dates one of the
principal polemics launched by the Christians against Mani-
chaeism—The Acts of Archelaus, which describes a controversy
that had taken place between Manes himself and the Bishop of
Kashqar in Mesopotamia. At the end of these discussions the
Bishop relates the life of Manes and gives an account of his
writings: in this part of the book there is a very precise statement
about the Persian doctrines which, as well as those of Manes, had
influenced the Gnostic Basilides, one of whose works is here
quoted.30
We must also mention the anti-heretical writings of Serapion
of Thmuis, of Didymus the Blind, of Philaster and others. They
are all eclipsed by a voluminous treatise called the Panarion—
meaning literally, the medicine-chest against heresies—which was
28 Eusebius, History, IV, 7, 25, and V, 23.

80 For text quoted, see Volker, Quellen, pp. 38-40.
compiled by St Epiphanius, chiefly by drawing upon previous

works (those of Irenaeus especially) but also making use of a fine
documentation of his own, hardly to be accounted for unless he
had had direct experience in the Gnostic sects. Epiphanius’ work
is highly detailed, abounding in vivid—even journahstic—state¬
ments, and enhanced by the polemical aim which animates the
whole.81
To what extent was Epiphanius really able to know and judge
his adversaries ? He himself tells us in his Chapter XXVI—which
for good reason is one of the longest, devoted to the great
“Gnostics”—that he frequented, in Egypt, a sect which was of a
peculiar perversity.32 Had he made contact with these heretics on
purpose to learn about their teaching and be able to combat it?
Or was there something in it which, for a time, allured him ? He
admits that he was almost involved more deeply than he had in¬
tended. And thus, as he assures us, it was out of the very mouths of
its own practitioners that he learned the details of the heresy he
describes in this chapter. It was indeed women, themselves misled
into these errors, who tried to draw him into them also, by dis¬
closing to him the myths in which they beheved. Epiphanius was
then quite young; and, like Potiphar’s wife trying to seduce
Joseph, they sought to inveigle him into the practices of the sect.
“If I escaped from their claws”, declares Epiphanius, “it was not
by my personal virtue, but by the divine help vouchsafed in
answer to my prayers.” For these perverse ladies shrank from no
guile. “The poor boy!” they would say one to another, “we have
been unable to save him. But how can we leave him to perdition
in the power of the Archon?”—meaning by this that if Epi¬
phanius did not undergo their initiation he would be unable to
escape from the evil Power who governs this base world. In
accordance with the tactics of this group, the most seductive of
the Gnostic women offered themselves to him as enticements,-
giving him to understand that whoever yielded to their charms
would by no means be lost, but saved indeed. This practice was
31 Epiphanius, Panarion, in the Holl. edn. Cf. R. A. Lipsius, Die Quellenkritik
des Epiphanius, Vienna, 1865.
33 For Epiphanius’s sojourn in Egypt, see O. Bardenhewer, Patrologie, III,
1912, p. 293.
so customary among members of the sect that the prettiest of the
initiated women used to snub those less favoured by nature, by
saying I am a vessel of election, and I can save those who are in
error, which thou hast not the means to do.”
Epiphanius makes no secret of it, that those who made him the
most alluring offers were very well formed in face and figure, in
spite of the demonic deformity of their adulterous souls. As soon
as he had gained sufficient knowledge of their secret books
Epiphanius escaped, made haste to the Church and the bishop of
the city in which these adventures had taken place, and denounced
eighty sectaries, men and women, who were forthwith ex¬
communicated and banished.
Epiphanius catalogues the sects with the meticulousness of a
naturalist. But after his time, first-hand information about these
heretics becomes more scarce—perhaps because the rise of Mani-
chaeism confronted the Church with more urgent problems.
Those writers who deal with the Gnostics do little more than
repeat what has been said by the heresiologists of the preceding
centuries. We know, however, of the continued existence of the
sects from such testimonies as those of John of Parallos in the
sixth century and the Syrian Theodore Bar-Konai at the end of
the eighth.33
These sects, under such violent attack from the Christians,
were at the same time in conflict with the pagan defenders of the
Hellenic philosophy: that fact alone shows how far the teaching
of these Gnostics was removed—and that in the eyes of con¬
temporaries better placed than we are to judge it—from the
Hellenic doctrines to which some have supposed they were
related. We have already mentioned that Origen has preserved
for us some portions of a work by the pagan Celsus, written
against both the Christians and the Gnostic Ophites. A still livelier
struggle must have been carried on by the great Plotinus and his
disciples. Plotinus himself wrote against the Gnostics between the
years 263 and 267, in the ninth chapter of his second Ennead.34
33 A. Van Lantschoot, “Fragments coptes d’une homelie de Jean de Parallos,
in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, vol. I, Studi e Testi 121, Citta del Vaticano, 1946.
34 Plotinus, Enneades, text revised in French translation by E. Brehier, Paris,
1924, seq.
He gives no name or place to the adversaries he is seeking to £

refute, but a hint as to who they were can be gleaned from a
passage in the Life of Plotinus, written afterwards by his disciple
Porphyry.36 They were “Christians” such as the Adelphius and
Aquilinus who are named here as having departed from the
ancient philosophy”, and having supplemented the authentically
philosophic writings of Alexander of Libya, of Philocomus and
Demostratus of Libya, by adding some Apocalypses attributed to
Zoroaster, Zostrian, Nicotheus, Allogenes, Mesos and other magi.
We shall learn from what follows that the works in question were
specifically Gnostic, in spite of the names under which they took
cover. Moreover, Porphyry himself seconded Plotinus’ efforts to
refute these people by producing a very severe criticism of the
Book put out under the name of Zoroaster, which he had shown—
he tells us—to be a recent apocryphon. At the same time his co¬
disciple Amelius seems to have refuted the Book of Zostrian.
Unluckily, these refutations written by Porphyry and Amehus
have not been handed down to us.
★ ★ ★
If only we were not so uncertain of the accuracy of the testi¬

mony borne by these enemies, the history of the Gnostic sects that
emerges from it would be, for the variety of its personalities, the
colour of the doctrines, the strangeness of passions and customs,
as animated and fantastic a scene as one could imagine. The broad
outlines of that history, unfortunately more or less fictitious, have
been well summarized in various works ;36 I need not, therefore,
give more than a brief impression of it here.
First of all it is necessary to say something of the kind of uni¬
verse in which the Gnostic doctrines were bom and developed—
presumably but a very little after the advent of Christianity. How
mystical forces abounded during those centuries! All the pagan
religions of the Near East and the Mediterranean had adapted
their creeds to the great myths of astrology, which was accorded
3,6 ' Life of Plotinus”, in Plotin, EnnSades, vol. I, p. 17. Quoted also in J. Bides
9 umont» Les Mages Hellenists, Paris, 1938, vol. II, p. 249.
H. Lf/segang, La Gnose (trans. J. Gouillard), Paris, 1951 ;’w. Bousset,
article on Gnosticism in the Enc. Britt., 14th edn
The Problem of Gnosticism II
the status of a science, and according to which man was subject to

the planets and constellations from before birth until death,
shackled to the wheel of Fate. Philosophy too was changing; like
the religions, it was yielding more or less, in its conceptions, to the
influence of the celestial powers. Meanwhile its thinking, moulded
by the Greek thinkers, was sustaining also the irresistible impact
of Oriental mysticisms. We need mention only Philo (20 b.c.-
a.d. 40), who so remarkably exemplifies this evolution, since he
assimilates to Judaism the allegorical interpretations of the
Homeric poems which the Greeks had been elaborating; and
because one can see, from various aspects of his thought, that
though the ideas which were about to engender Gnosticism had
not yet ripened, they were at least beginning to germinate. Philo
does not yet know the anxiety which will underlie the specula¬
tions of the Gnostics. But several of the themes they were to
develop are already virtually represented by him; the notion of a
transcendent deity; and above all the idea that not only the earth
but the heavens above it are in darkness.
It is in the second and third centuries that Gnosticism itself is
to be found in full flower—centuries in which men’s minds were
specially prepared to welcome such beliefs. The great Gnostic
myths harmonize well with the mystical propensities of this time
when a crowd of other Oriental cults were invading the Latin
world. This is the epoch in which exotic sanctuaries multiplied
upon the Aventine hill; when the altars of Mithraism were
spreading not only in the quarters of Rome but throughout the
Romanized world. The case of Alexander Severus, who set up an
effigy of Jesus in his domestic sanctuary side by side with those of
the other spiritual masters he venerated—Alexander, Abraham,
Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana—is eminently symbolic. Even
the art of Rome takes on a mystic manner unknown before;
and with this spiritual urge is combined a taste for the colossal,
in, for example, the gigantic basilica of Septimus Severus at
Leptis Magna. The religious energy of the age was so powerful
that, by the fourth century, epicureanism and atheism, formerly
served by numerous “devotees”, had been swept away and
vanished.
The few facts that we can glean about the birth and the early
expansion of the Gnostic sects have been summarized by H. C.
Puech with great clarity in his study, “Where are we now with
the Problem of Gnosticism?” Let us review, then, the main outlines
of his exposition. Gnosticism appeared originally in Syria. It is in
Samaria and the valley of the Lycos that we trace it for the first
time.37 Simon is a man of Gitta in Samaria; Menander is origin¬
ally of Capparetia—again in Samaria; Satornil is of Antioch;
Cerdon is a Syrian; Cerinthus comes from Asia Minor. “To this
Syrian Gnosis”, writes Prof. Puech, “a multitude of systems,
anonymous and of a primitive tendency, are probably related,
notably the Ophites’ and all those grouped under the name of
‘Adepts of the Mother’ on account of the part played in their
theories by this feminine entity. ...”
In the time of Hadrian (a.d. 110-38), Gnosticism passes over
from Syria into Egypt: it is in Alexandria that the greatest doctors
of the heresy are flourishing—Basilides, Carpocrates, Valentinus.
Then it reaches Rome; and this is the moment when the Christian
doctors suddenly realize the importance of heresies which, in the
East, had been incubating for a considerable time. How were the
Gnostics able to estabhsh themselves in Rome at the very
moment when the authorities were banishing from that city the
“Chaldean” astrologers and the devotees of Sabazios—a god who,
they claimed, was identical with Iahweh Sabaoth?38 That is a
problem. For this was just the moment when Valentinus estab¬
lished himself in the city where, at first, he distinguished himself;
but after being defeated in his candidature for the bishopric he
broke with the Church and withdrew to Cyprus, so that the
school which he founded was split into two branches, Italian and
Oriental. About the same time a woman, Marcellina, brought to
Rome, together with the icons of the Christ, of Paul, of Homer
and of Pythagoras (to which she burnt incense), the impure teach¬
ings of Carpocrates. And before her had come Cerdon, of whom
37 H. C. Puech, “Ou en est le probleme . . .”, pp. 143 ff. For the Palestinian
origins of Gnosticism, see O. Cullman, Le Probleme litteraire des ecrits pseudocli-
mentins.
38 Fr. Cumont, Lux Perpetua, p. 253; Religions orientates dans le paganisme
romain, 4th edn., pp. 152 and 285, Note 8.
Marcion was perhaps a disciple, for Marcion was in Rome from

140, and thence expelled by the Church in 144, being excom¬
municated by his own father, the Bishop of Sinope. A little later
Marcus and his adepts were preaching not only in Asia Minor,
but well into Gaul, as far as Lyons, a Valentinianism replete with
magic. The Gnostics even found themselves reinforced by other
sects such as the Nazarenes and the Elkesaltes, also by that of
Alcibiades, who came from Apamea at the end of the second
century.39
Thenceforth Gnosticism, with its multiform and more or less
secret sects, infested the whole of the Mediterranean world. It is
unfortunate for the modem historian that it is just from this time
onward that its traces become most obscured. The only sect to
show itself in public is the Manichaean, which the authorities are
beginning to proceed against. But these persecutions seem never
to have been aimed directly at Gnosticism. One loses track of it,
and, though it continues actively to spread from the West into
Mesopotamia, Armenia and Egypt, one finds hardly any evi¬
dences of it that are of any historical or geographical precision.
★ ★ *
To this historical outline, let us fill in some details. Surviving

traditions about the origins of Gnosticism give prominence to
two personalities who doubtless really lived, but who, owing to
their prestige as founders, have been adorned with legendary
characteristics until their historical physiognomy is effaced. These
are Nicolas and Simon.
Nicolas had been one of the first deacons ordained by the
Apostles. He came originally from Antioch.40 It is against his
doctrine that thejohannine Apocalypse (II, 6 and 15-16) warns the
churches of Ephesus and Pergamos. But what this teaching was
has only come down to us, unfortunately, from later sources and
must be accepted with reserve. Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical
History (III, 29), tells us that Nicolas had a very beautiful wife, and
that he gave a highly licentious interpretation to certain precepts
about holding the flesh in contempt. Epiphanius adds that it was
89 Philosophumena, IX, 13-17.
40 See W. Bousset, Hauptprobleme . . . , chap. vn.
from the sectaries of Nicolas that the groups of the great “Gnos¬
tics” were derived, the Phibionite, the Stratiotic, the Levitical and
others—that is, the principal Oriental sects. The Nicolai’tans, it
seems, taught that in the beginning, before the face of the un¬
begotten, primordial Spirit, there were the Darkness, an abyss and
the waters, which the Spirit had cast out, far from itself. There¬
fore the Darkness, in anger against the Spirit, surged up to attack
it. It was then that a sort of womb was produced, which, from the
Spirit, gave birth to four aeons,41 which in turn engendered
fourteen others; and this was followed by the formation of “the
right” and “the left”, the light and the darkness. . . .42 One of
the higher powers emanated from the supreme Spirit was,
according to the Gnostics, Barbelo43 the celestial Mother. She
unfortunately gave birth to the entity who was to become the
creator of this lower world—Ialdabaoth or Sabaoth. Barbelo had
then, by her repentance, brought about the first stage of the sal¬
vation of the lower world. Taking advantage of her beauty, she
showed herself to the Archons—the powers of the lower heavens
—thus seducing them and depriving them, through voluptuousness,
41 The term “aeon” or “age” was used by the Gnostics to signify the hier¬
archies of being in the universe. One cannot explain this nebulous term better
than by quoting these lines from H. C. Puech; Gnosticism “is incapable of
rational thinking by concepts or of concretely apprehending the persons or the
events of history in their singularity. Concepts, for the Gnostic, become schemata,
ill-defined in form—entities which are half-abstract, half-concrete, semi-personal,
semi-impersonal—that is, ‘aeons’ . . . fragments of duration or periods of
time spatialized and hypostatized, the elements or personages of a mythological
drama; and, beside these, historic persons and facts are sublimated half-way
between the real and the symbolic” (from “La Gnose et le Temps”, Eranos
Jahrbuch, vol. XX, 1952, pp. 110-11).
42 The Gnostic systems assign the higher and lower elements, the psychic and
the material, to the “right” and the “left” respectively. See Sagnard, Gnose
valentinienne, pp. 544-5. See also p. 270 below.
43 This mysterious name is found again not only among the “ Barbelognostics ”,
who constituted a distinct sect, but in most of the major myths of those whom
historians regard as “the adepts of the Mother”. It occurs also in the form of
Berbali in a text of ordinary Hermeticism—the Kosmopoiia quoted in Festugiere,
RMlation, pp. 302-3. This is the entity, without doubt, which St Jerome calls
the Gnostic “Barbelus” (Cf. Note 18 ante and the text cited). Attempts have
been made to equate this name with the Egyptian for “seed”—in Coptic,
BLBILE. It is more logical to connect it with a Semitic expression—B’arb’e
Eloha—meaning approximately “God in four (powers)” and designating the
four supreme entities, the Tetrad. Cf. Leisegang, loc. cit., p. 129. Cf. also Bousset,
Hauptprobleme . . . , p. 14.
of those portions of the light (that is, of the spiritual seed) which had
descended into them.44 Others among these Gnostics gave this seduc¬
tive being the cruder Greek name of Prounikos—the “lascivious”.
Even more than Nicolas the deacon, Simon the Samaritan was
held to have founded Gnosticism. This myth was especially
developed in the third century, in the long romantic and apo¬
cryphal writings known by the names of the Recognitions and the
Clementine Homilies. The master—or the rival?—of Simon
Magus had been a certain Dositheus,45 who is sometimes presented
as the founder of the Jewish sect of the Sadducees.46 The groups
under Dositheus and Simon would have been founded in Samaria
after John the Baptist had been put to death. It is noteworthy that
the traditions collected by Hegesippus, and transmitted also by
Epiphanius, suggest that in a more general sense the Gnostic
schools were related to that spiritual ferment in which the
Essenian, Samaritan, Gorthynian and other sects arose. ... If
one is to believe the Clementine Recognitions, the sect of Dositheus
consisted of thirty disciples—a number equal to that of the days
in the month—and one woman, Helene, identified however
with Selene—that is, with the Moon. Dositheus was designated
“He who is upright”—an epithet we shall find again in the
myths of Simon, which is meant to signify the supreme divinity.
Simon himself was a native of Gitta in Samaria: his existence is,
as everyone knows, confirmed by the Acts of the Apostles (VIII,
9-13), which mentions his meeting with the Apostle Philip:
“There was a man named Simon who had previously practised
magic in the city and amazed the nation of Samaria, saying that he
himself was somebody great. They all gave heed to him from the
smallest to the greatest, saying ‘This man is that power of God
44 Cf. of the same myth of the “seduction of the Archons” in Manichaeism:
Franz Cumont, Recherches sur le Manicheisme, fasc. I, Brussels, 1908, pp. 54ff.;
see also below, chap, n, note 15.
46 Eusebius, History, TV, 22, 5, mentions him among the heretics who had
seceded from the first Christian community after the death of James. Concerning
this hypothetical personality, cf. R. McL. Wilson, “Simon, Dositheus and the
Dead Sea Scrolls” in Zeitschr. fur Religions u. Geistesgeschichte, vol. IX, 1957,
pp. 2iff. The Samaritans also number among their legendary doctors a Dunstan,
assigned by them to a very ancient epoch.
46 According to the Clementine Recognitions, I, 54: cf. R. McL. Wilson, loc. cit.,
note 27.
i6 The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
which is called Great.’” Simon had wished also to become a

Christian, according to the Acts: ‘‘Even Simon himself believed,
and after being baptized he continued with Philip. And seeing
signs and great miracles performed he was amazed. . . .
To find out what the personal teaching of the Magus can have
been, one is obliged to turn to much less rehable sources.47 Like
Dositheus, Simon too had his Helen; who, according to both
Irenaeus and the Philosophumena,iS was a prostitute girl, a slave
he had taken out of a brothel in Tyre. He had ransomed her for a
sum of money, declaring that the primary purpose of his coming
into the world (for he announced himself as the Great Power
come down from the heavens, as “he who is upright”) was to
seek “the lost sheep” and to save it. He introduced Helen as the
“First Thought” of his Spirit, the Mother of all things by whom,
in the beginning, the angels and archangels had been created.
This was, moreover, the same Helen for whose sake the war of
Troy had been fought; for she had passed from one body to
another by metempsychoses, seducing men at each new in¬
carnation, up to this moment when she had taken on the form of
the courtesan of Tyre.
In imitation of their master, Simon's disciples seem to have
repeated, in their wilder moments, that one ought to give oneself
up to carnal intercourse without limit: “All earth is earth, it
matters little where one sows provided that one does sow.” It
was in this, they proclaimed, that “perfect love” consisted. The
same adepts practised magic; they used incantations, concocted
love-potions, made use of dreams and pretended to refer to
familiar spirits. They installed, in their dwelling-places, images
representing Simon with the features of Zeus, and Helen im¬
personating Athena.
Different legends are known to have been current about
Simon’s end. According to the apocryphal Acts of Peter49 Simon
47 For Simon, see Jonas, Gnosis, vol. I, pp. 353-8; L. Cerfaux, “La Gnose
Simonienne” in Recherches des Sciences religieuses, 1926, pp. 279-85. H. J. Schoeps,
“Simon Magus in der Haggada” in Aus Fruhchristliche Zeit, pp. 239-54.
48 L. Vincent, “Le Culte d’Helene a Samaria”, in Revue biblique, vol. XLV,
pp. 221-34.
49 M. R. James, Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 331-2.
The Problem- of Gnosticism 17
offered, at Rome, to give proof of his divine power and was lifted
up into the sky in view of all the people, but was then cast down
from on high by the winds. Another tradition has it that, when
he was on the point of being caught out as an impostor, and could
not face the disgrace of exposure, he extricated himself by
declaring that if he were buried ahve he would revive on the
third day after: upon which he submitted himself to this ordeal,
and hid from his defeat in the tomb in which his life terminated.
Of his doctrine, even if we keep within the accounts of Irenaeus
and the Philosophumena, there is a good deal to be said, although
we do not know how much of their information was correct. The
Philosophumena attributes to Simon a work entitled the Great
Revelation,60 which proclaimed itself in the following terms:
“This is the writing of the Revelation of the Voice and of the Name,
proceeding from the Thought and from the infinitely Great
Power; therefore it shall be sealed, hidden, shut up in the abode
wherein the root of the All has its foundations.” The myth ex¬
pounded in this work—authentic or apocryphal ?—postulated the
existence of one supreme god, alien and superior to the wicked
universe. The Wisdom, the Mother of All, had come down
through the heavens from the higher universe into this base world
created by the god of Genesis, the wicked god. What is clear is
that Simon, by his deeds quite as much as Inis writings, may well
have been pretending to fulfil this myth in proclaiming himself as
the Power of God, and his Helen as the Wisdom from on high.
Among the lengthy passages from the Revelation quoted or
analysed in the Philosophumena, let us note the following, which is
concerned with the very roots of the cosmic creation: judged by
its style, it may perhaps have been the preamble to the work. . . .
“To you then, I say what I say and write what I write! And what
I write is this. Among the totality of the Aeons, two emanations
there are that have neither beginning nor end. They spring from
the one and only root which is a power: the Silence invisible and
incomprehensible. One of these is manifested on high, the Spirit
of the All which governs everything; it is masculine. The other is
50 Philosophumena, VI, 7-20. Text quoted from the Great Revelation in Volker,
Quellen, pp. 3—11.
from below; it is a great thought, feminine, which gives birth to

all things. Thenceforth these two contrary emanations copulate,
and bring about the principle which is their intermediator, the
intangible space which has no origin and no end. In this resides the
Father who sustains and nourishes everything that has a beginning
and an end. This is ‘ He that is upright, he who has stood and who
shall stand upright’. He is a power who is both male and female,
as is the infinite pre-existent power which has neither beginning
nor end, and exists in isolation. And it is from this that has come
forth the one Thought which has turned into two. . .
In Simon much more than in Nicolas, we see the emergence of
one of the pseudo-prophets of Gnosticism, analogous to those
who had already been known in paganism and Judaism; per¬
sonalities of a kind against which the Gospels and the Epistles
were already warning the faithful to be on guard.51 The pagan
Celsus has sketched us portraits of such personalities, and into
their mouths he puts these words: “I am God, or the Son of
God, or the divine Spirit. I have come because the end of the
world is at hand, and, because of your own faults, your end has
come. But my will is to save you; you shall see me rise again
with the Power of heaven. Happy then will be he who has
adored me! Over all the others I shall hurl the everlasting fire,
over their towns and their countries. In vain will the men who
did not know to what chastisement they were destined [then]
change their opinions and complain; only those who will follow
me shall I preserve for ever.”52
As for the indirect methods by which adepts of these doctrines
used to beguile the minds of orthodox Christians, other con¬
temporaries were sufficiently impressed to have recorded them.
Tertullian tells us that, in the presence of the faithful, they would
begin by “expounding the regular doctrine in equivocal terms”,53
to induce them into error. “When the Valentinians meet people
of the great Church [as Irenaeus himself records] they attract
them by speaking as we speak to one another. They complain to
51 See below, pp. 302-3.
62 Quoted by Origen, Contra Celsum. VII, 8; cf. Reitzenstein, Poimandres
pp. 222-3.
53 Adversus Valcntinianos, 1.
us that we are treating them as excommunicated when, in this or
that respect, the doctrines are the same, and thus, they unsettle our
faith little by little by their questions. Those who do not resist
they make into their disciples: they take them aside to unveil
before them the unspeakable mystery of their Pleroma.” Thus
tempted, many Christians must have resisted the seduction of
ambiguous teachings less ardently than did Epiphanius.64
The theories of Simon seem also to have been preached by one
of his disciples, Menander. He too was a Samaritan, from the
town of Capparetia; but the chief centre of his activity was
Antioch. He also claimed to be the Saviour sent by the invisible
powers.65
It was in the same town of Antioch that Satornil must have
preached. He claimed—if one is to believe the Philosophumena66—
that a supreme, unbegotten, unknown Father had created the
angels, the powers and aeons of the higher world, but that the
lower world had been made by seven inferior angels (the planets),
the greatest of whom was identical with the God of the Jews, the
creator in Genesis. These seven Archons had undertaken to fashion
man, in consequence of their having had a sudden revelation—
that of a dazzling image which came from the supreme Power,
and which the angels alone perceived, but could not recollect.
It was then that they exhorted one another, saying, “Let us make
man according to the image and likeness”—words which
Genesis I, 26 had preserved only in an inaccurate form. But,
because of the incompetence of the seven who made him, the
terrestrial Adam at first crawled like a worm and could not stand
upright. Then Virtue from on high took pity on him, because
he had been made in her likeness; she sent him a spark of Life,
which raised him up and enabled him to live. It is that spark of
Life—so Satornil taught—which, after death, reascends from
terrestrial man towards the higher beings to whom it is related.
M Irenaeus, Contra Haereses, III, xv, 2, in the translation of Lebreton, Histoire

de 1’Pglise, vol. II, p. 15*
65 Irenaeus, I, xxm, 5; Philosophumena, VII, 4; Tertullian, De Anima, 50.
69 H. C. Puech emphasizes in his study “Oil en est le Probteme . . . p. 142,
that Satornil, in the time of Trajan, was apparently the first Gnostic to have
mentioned Christ. For Satornil, see also Philosophumena, VIII, 28.
Satorml also taught that marriage and generation were of the

devil—which does not mean that he preached continence. It must
be noted, however, that his disciples abstained scrupulously from
any nutriment that had had life.
Like Satomil, Basilides had been a disciple of Menander, and
would in that way have inherited some of Simon’s theories. So
much is recorded by, for instance, the historian Eusebius. Basilides
set up his school in Egypt, in Alexandria, in the days of the
Emperors Hadrian and Antonine the Pious. The numerous
writings that he composed are now lost; but he seems to have
based his doctrine upon the pseudo-prophecies (written by him¬
self) known under the names of Cham,57 of Barcabbas and of
Barcoph (or Parchor ?). Not only did he write twenty-four books
of Commentaries on the Gospels, but he also compiled an addi¬
tional gospel, a sort of collection of the sayings of Christ, the style
of which recalls those that are found in St Luke. He claimed (per¬
haps upon this subject) to have received by way of Matthias some
secret doctrines which the Saviour had made known to that
Apostle in private conversations. Basilides also bequeathed to his
disciples some Odes, and some Prayers and Incantations58 His son
Isidore completed this literature by compiling a collection of
moral treatises, a work On the Additional Soul and the Com¬
mentaries on the Prophet Parchor59 The principal writings of
Basilides were refuted by a Christian, Agrippa Castor, in an
Elenchos which has also unfortunately disappeared.60
A passage in the anti-Manichaean work known as The Acts of
Archelaus61 makes reference to the 13th book of Basilides’s
Commentary on the Gospels. This text seems to have dealt with the
problem of the origin of evil, which the Gnostic doctor treated in
connection with the parable of Lazarus and the rich man in hell
{Luke XVI, 19-31). This same chapter was entitled, “How
07 A passage in the Commentary on the Prophet Parchor preserved by Clement of
Alexandria (Stromates, VI, 6, 53-4) shows that Basilides’ son Isidore combined,
in his teaching, the prophecies of Cham and the classical mythology of Phere-
cydes. This Cham has been more or less confused with Zoroaster (see Bidez-
Cumont, Les Mages helUnisis, vol. I, p. 43 and vol. II, p. 64, fragment B.54).
68 Referred to in P. Alfaric, Les Ecritures manichlennes, vol. I, 1918, pp. 11-12.
59 Alfaric, loc. cit., p. 12. 60 Cf. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, IV, 7.
61 Quoted in Volker, Quellen, p. 38.
nature, without root and without reason, has developed into

things”. We must quote from this work the passage preserved in
The Acts of Archelaus. Basilides is contrasting Greek philosophy
with the theories of the Persians about good and evil: which
proves that, if he did not altogether accept them, he at least knew
them well and attached great importance to them: ‘‘Some
among them have said that the principles of all things are two in
number; and it is to these that they ascribe good and evil, saying
that these principles are without beginning and unbegotten.
More precisely, in the beginning there were the light and the
darkness which had arisen out of themselves. . . . While each
(of these principles) was (shut up) in itself, each of them led the
life that was proper and suitable to it. . . . But after each
principle had arrived at the knowledge of the other, the darkness,
having beheld the light, was seized with desire for it as for some¬
thing better, pursued it and wanted to mingle with, and to take
part in it. Such was the behaviour of the darkness, whilst the
light would not admit into itself anything of the darkness what¬
soever, or even of desire for it. For all that, the light was seized
with a desire to look at the darkness and, as it were in a mirror,
did look at it: and thus, upon the darkness was projected only a
reflection—something like a single colour of the light—although
the light had done no more than to look and then withdraw,
without having taken up the smallest portion of the darkness.
But the darkness, itself, seized upon this look from the light. . . .62
As for the main body of the doctrines of Basilides, it is just as
well analysed by Irenaeus as by the Philosophumena,63 Irenaeus
reproaches Basilides with having developed and elaborated his
theory to infinity, in order to give it an appearance of profundity.
From the unbegotten Father—according to this Gnostic—were
engendered five aeons, of those hypostases which may be con¬
ceived as either spatial or temporal, as either the divine ‘‘abodes”
or as “ages”. The first of these was the Nous—Mind; from
42 See p. 14 ante, on the dualism of the Nicolaltans, which, it seems, knows no

intermediate principle, whilst the two opposite principles of the Simonian Gnosis
copulate to produce the intangible space which is intermediary to them, p. 17.
63 Philosophumena, VII, 13-27. This account, and the information given by
Irenaeus about Basilides, seem difficult to reconcile upon a number of points.
which proceeded the Word; from the Word, Reflection; from

Reflection, Wisdom and Force; from Wisdom and Force, the
Virtues, powers and angels by which, from emanation to emana¬
tion, the heavens above were created; and so on, even to the fourth
of these heavens, which has its principalities, its angels . . . and
three hundred and sixty-five firmaments, the number according
to which the year was made.
This last heaven—the one we see—is filled with the angels who
have themselves created all that is in the world here below. For
their lord, they have the god whom the Jews recognize as the
Creator of the universe and of the Law. But the inferior powers
have become so corrupt that the unbegotten Father has sent his
only Son—the Nous, also called the Christ—to liberate, from the
domination of those powers, all who believe in him. It is by means
of secret names, passwords, etc., that the elect will be able to
re-ascend through the lower heavens, eluding their archons.
Upon earth, the Christ who was manifested had nothing of man
except the appearance: indeed, it was not he who suffered in the
Passion: Simon of Cyrene, after having been made to bear the
Cross, was metamorphized by the Saviour, so that the Jews took
him for Jesus and nailed him to the wood instead; whilst Jesus,
who meanwhile had taken on the appearance of Simon, remained
close to Calvary and, before reascending to heaven, derided his
enemies for their vain mistake!
This same notion of a crucifixion that was Active and a mis¬
carriage appears again in Manichaeism, where, according to the
testimony of Evodius (De Fide 28), an Epistle of the Foundation
taught that the Enemy, who was hoping to have the Saviour
crucified, himself fell victim to that crucifixion! The Prince of
Darkness was nailed to the Cross: it was even he who, before that,
was tortured by the crown of thorns and arrayed for derision in
the purple robe.64
64 Cf. my article, “Le refus de la Croix . . . ” in La Table Ronde, no. 120,
Dec., 1957, pp. 89-97also Antonio Orbe, Los primeros herejes ante la persecucion
(quoted below in note 72), pp. 160 ff. This theme of a crucifixion that failed
occurs again in the apocryphal Acts of John, § 98 (vision of the cross of light).
Finally, it is strikingly illustrated, in the Middle Ages, by the illuminated designs
in certain Ethiopian evangelistaries. See J. Doresse, L’Empire du Pr for e-Jean, II:
L'Ethiopie mldUvale, Paris, 1957, pp. 154-60.
More precise than that of Irenaeus, the text of the Philosophu-

mena explains in particular how, according to Basilides, the god
of this lower world was created. Once engendered, he lifted
himself up into the firmament which, in his ignorance, he took
to be the upper limit of everything in existence. Persuaded that
there was nothing above this, he behaved without perversity, but
even with goodness. Element by element he built up and or¬
ganized this lower world, and he began by begetting a Son still
better and wiser than himself. This Son he seated beside him in
the Ogdoad, that is, in the eighth heaven, which is that of the
fixed stars above all the seven heavens of the planets, but is
nevertheless lower than the highest world, from which it is
separated. One detail, which is confirmed by a passage in St
Jerome, is that the great creator-archon had been given, by
Basilides, the name of Abraxas, a word which, if one adds up the
numerical values of all the letters it is composed of, has the
peculiarity of giving the total of 365, equal to the number of the
heavens over which Abraxas reigned.65
One of the most original portions, it seems, of the teaching of
Basilides dealt with the causes of the passions and the conditions
for the salvation of the soul. His doctrine upon this point was
further elucidated by his son Isidore in his treatise On the Addi¬
tional Soul. The passions, being lower, constituted as it were a
second soul, which was added by the lower powers to that which
man received from on high. This second soul was made up of
spirits external to the former—of bestial or ferocious instincts
which, producing desires in their own image, weigh man down
and drag him into sin.66
A contemporary of Basilides, Carpocrates, gave rise to a sect
explicidy called by the name “Gnostic”—if we are to believe
Irenaeus.67 His disciples, reports Epiphanius, had icons painted in
colours and embellished with gold and silver, which represented
Jesus, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle. . . . This Carpocrates had
a son, another Epiphanius, who added to the teaching he held
65 Cf. Leisegang, loc. cit., pp. 107-71, and Campbell Bonner, Studies in magical
amulets, Ann Arbor, 1950, pp. 133-5 and p. 192.
44 Cf. below, pp. 72, 215 and chap, v, note 109.
47 Irenaeus, I, xxv.
from his father some other doctrines he had taken from Secundus,
himself a disciple of the great Valentinus whom we shall mention
later. This Epiphanius died at the age of seventeen. In the isle of
Samos Inis disciples established divine honours in his memory,
and it is even said that the inhabitants built a temple to him.
Doubts have been cast upon the Gnostic character of the doc¬
trines of Marcion.68 One can certainly recognize in that teaching
an interpretation of the Pauline doctrines carried to extremes.
(Marcion availed himself of, above all, the Epistle to the Galatians.)
It is equally certain that the best account of Marcion’s teaching
that we have—the refutation by Tertulhan, who had that heretic’s
Antitheses and New Testament in his hands—-justifies us in treating
the more or less Gnostic character of that theology with some
reserve.
History tells us that Marcion, who arrived in Rome about
a.d. 140, first entered into controversy with- the elders of the
Church upon Luke V, 36: “No man putteth a piece of a new
garment upon an old . . . and no man putteth new wine into
old bottles”, and upon Luke VI, 43 : “For a good tree bringeth
not forth corrupt fruit, neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth
good fruit.” These discussions could not shake his conviction
that the Gospel came forth, in Jesus, from a new God superior
to that of the Old Testament. Tradition adds that it was then that
Marcion broke with the Church and followed the Gnostic teach¬
ing of an otherwise little-known doctor named Cerdon. Thence
Marcion came to elaborate his dualistic doctrine, tending at the
same time to a rigorous asceticism.
More important for our subject than the personal teaching of
Marcion is, in any case, Marcionism as succeeding generations
developed and vulgarized it—thanks especially to some heretics
68 For Marcion, see—Ad. Von Harnack, Marcion, Leipzig, 1921; and Neue
Studien zu Marcion, Leipzig, 1923; W. Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, pp.
109-13 ; Eug. de Faye, Gnostiques et Gnosticisme, pp. 142-88. On the refutation of
Marcionism by Eznik of Kolb: J. M. Schmid, Des Wardapet Eznik von Kolb
“Wider die Sekten”, Vienna, 1900 (translation), and—for the history of that
work—L. Marias, Le De Deo D’Eznik de Kolb connu sous le nom de “ Contre les
Sectes”, Paris, 1925, taken from the Revue des Etudes armeniennes). See also
S. Ephraim’s prose refutations of Mani, Marcion and Bardaisan, vol. I, 1912 (published
by C. W. Mitchell); vol. II, 1921 (published by C. W. Mitchell, completed by
A. A. Bevan and F. C. Burkitt).
7/je Problem of Gnosticism 25
like Apelles. These secondary forms of the Marcionite teaching,

which are undeniably Gnostic, were to attain such success that by the
end of the fourth century there were Marcionites not only in Rome
and in Italy, but as far afield as the Thebald, Palestine, Syria and
even Persia. It was in that epoch that the doctrine was refuted,
first by St Epiphanius and then, later, by the Armenian theologian
Eznik of Kolb, who had the advantage of access to earlier docu¬
ments no longer extant. From the treatise Against the Sects
composed by this last-named author between 441 and 448, let us
borrow a few details.
This later Marcionism did not confine itself to contrast¬
ing the supreme God (till then unknowable but whom the
Christ had just revealed) with God the Creator of the physical
universe and of the Mosaic Law. It fitted both the Old and
the New Testaments into the framework of a mythology,
the basis of which was the notion of three principles or three
heavens .
The first heaven, highest and inaccessible, was the habitation
of the unknown God from whom salvation was to come, but
whom humanity could not know until after the revelation of the
New Testament. In the second heaven was the God of Genesis
and of the Law, whose visage was more like a devil’s. The third
world was that of Matter, of the Earth and their powers. It is
by associating himself with Matter that the God of the Law
accomplishes the Creation described in Genesis; he fashions the
universe and then, out of the Earth which Matter allows him, he
fabricates Adam, into whom he breathes a living spirit. He
places Adam in Paradise and then, seeing that he is noble and
capable of serving him, wishes to steal him wholly away from
Matter. To this end he admonishes man: “Adam, I am God
and there is none beside me. If you serve any other God but
me, know that you will die the death!” Adam keeps himself,
thenceforth, away from Matter. But Matter, perceiving this,
and in order to prevent his giving himself up to the service
of the one Creator, distracts man by multiplying gods in¬
numerable around him: and these he adores because he is unable
to recognize which of them is his master. Incensed at this, the
Lord of the Creation then thrusts primitive mankind down into

hell.
The good God, the Unknown, is troubled: he sends his Son
who, by means of the Cross, takes on the likeness of death and
goes down into hell, to deliver the captives and raise up into the
third heaven—that of his Father—the souls who are imprisoned
there. In his anger, the Lord of the Law tears his garments, rends
in twain the veil of the Temple and covers the sun with darkness.
But Jesus descends a second time—now in divine form—towards
the Lord of the Law, and demands from him justice for the death
that he has suffered. It is only then that the Creator, realizing at
last the divinity of Jesus, learns that there is another God above
himself. Jesus decrees that henceforth whoever will believe
in him shall belong to him and be saved. Eznik adds to this,
that Jesus then takes St Paul, reveals to him the conditions
and the price of salvation, and sends him forth to preach the
redemption.
After Simon and Basilides, and after Marcion, the most famous
of the great heresiarchs is Valentinus. His career had begun at
Alexandria in the time of Hadrian. He taught at Rome from a.d.
136 to 165, after which he removed his school into the isle of
Cyprus. The adversaries of the Gnostics accuse him above all of
having stolen doctrines from Pythagoras and still more from
Plato. Beyond all doubt Valentinus is the most philosophic of the
Gnostics and perhaps, for that reason, his over-scholastic specu¬
lations contain dilutions of the essential myths of these fluid
religions.69 He seems to have composed for himself a special
gospel called the Gospel of Truth, and to have written homilies,
episdes, hymns, a Treatise of the Three Natures and perhaps also
some Revelations or Visions.70 His doctrine is known to us mainly
by the analyses of some of his writings by the heresiologists, who
do not disclose their titles—and by some fragments of works
by his disciples Ptolemy, Theodotus, Heracleon . . . e.g.,
the Epistle of Ptolemy to Flora, of which Epiphanius has even
68 The Valentinian school was an offshoot of the sect of the Ophites, according
to Irenaeus, I, xxx, 14; concerning the latter, see pp. 44, 47f.
70 Cf. P. Alfaric, loc. cit., pp. 12-13.
The Problem oj Gnosticism 27
preserved the text. It retraces some essential lines of Valentinus’s

doctrine, but in very moderate fashion, so as not to shock those
who are not yet attracted to Gnosticism.71
The system of Valentinus was characterized—if we are to
believe its enemies—by its description, in the explanation it gives
of the higher, primordial world, of a multiple series of emanations
issuing from the supreme and invisible Father in successive couples.
The summaries of this myth given by Irenaeus and in the Philo-
sophumena agree pretty closely in all their details.72
The origin of all things, according to Valentinus, is a perfect
aeon bearing the name of pro-Father, described also as the abyss.
It is incomprehensible, intangible, invisible, eternal, unbegotten,
and it dwells in profound repose. Here one can recognize a
doctrine of the divine transcendence which was no invention of
the Gnostics but had already been an object of Greek philosophic
contemplation. Co-existent with this pro-Father is a Thought
which is also Silence. From the primordial union of the pro-Father
with his Thought emanate the pairs of aeons to the number of
eight (the ogdoad) as follows: Father and Thought; Intelligence
and Truth (or the only Son); Word and Life; primordial Man
and the Church.
The Word and the Life emanate ten more aeons; primordial
Man and the Church emanate another twelve. Thus is produced,
together with the first eight, a total of thirty aeons—the Pleroma,
or Plenitude.
But a drama is now enacted in this supernal and perfect world.
The thirtieth and last of the aeons—Wisdom, or Sophia—tries to
71 “Epistle of Ptolemy to Flora”, analysed by Sagnard, in Gnose valentin-

ietine, pp. 451-79; G. Quispel, “La lettre de Ptolemee a Flora” in Vigiliae
Christianae, vol. II, pp. 17-56. Fragments of Heracleon, cf. Sagnard, loc. cit., pp.
480-520.
72 For Valentinus, see Sagnard, loc. cit.; Ant. Orbe, En aurora de la exegesis del
IV Evangelio (Ioh. I, 3), (Estudios Valentinianos, II) = Analecta Gregoriana, vol.
LXV, Rome, 1955; and, by the same author, Los Primeros herejes ante la persecucion
(Estudios Valentinianos, V), ibidem, vol. LXXXIII, Rome, 1956; Quispel, The
Original Doctrine of Valentine, in Vigiliae Christianae, vol. I, pp. 43~73 ; W. Foer-
ster, “Von Valentin zu Herakleon” in Beihefte zur Zeitschriftf. die neutestamentl.
Wiss., 7, 1928. This last proves that Valentinus’s Gnosis was more heavily charged
with oriental, mythological elements than was the teaching of his disciples.
Cf. H. C. Puech, “Probteme ... ”, p. 156.
imitate the pro-Father by giving birth from herself, exactly as he

did, that is, without a partner. She does not know, indeed, that
this privilege of bringing forth alone is reserved for the one un¬
begotten being, the root of the All. Sophia therefore produces,
not another perfect being, but a deformed substance, an abortion,
at which she is seized with disgust and remorse. Thereupon the
aeons pray to the pro-Father on behalf of Sophia, and the supreme
Power commands Intelligence and Truth to engender a new pair
or couple—that of the Christ and the Holy Spirit, which Spirit is
feminine. At the same time he himself emanates a new aeon which
is the Cross (Stauros) and the Limit (Horos): by this Cross and
this Limit the Pleroma is strengthened and, by the same means,
separated from the imperfect and inferior Creation of which
Sophia has produced the first element.73 When the Pleroma is
thus consolidated, the aeons join in singing hymns to the pro-
Father; and then, with one accord, the Pleroma emanates the
Perfect Fruit who is Jesus the Saviour.
Being responsible for the imperfect creation that it has evoked,
the Intention (Enthymesis) of the Wisdom has been excluded
from the higher world and its light. This Intention is itself a
wisdom which henceforth is also known by the Hebrew name of
Akhamoth. It is whirling about in dark and empty places. But the
Christ has pity upon it ;74 he gives form to its substance, and then
withdraws toward the higher realms. Sophia, having in this way
become conscious of her suffering, springs up in search of the light
that has departed from her: but Horos—the Limit—prevents
73 The notions of “the limit” and of “intersection” are, among others, ex¬
plained by the passage in the Timaeus (35a-36d), hi which Plato imagines the
creation by the Demiurge of the circles of “the same” and of “the other”—i.e.,
of the celestial equator and of the ecliptic intersecting in the form of a cross.
Taking over this notion, the Gnostics saw this imaginary cross, traced upon the
celestial vault which is the utmost bound of our eyesight, as “the limit” separating
the higher universe from the material world in which we are confined. A Christian
interpretation of this idea, analogous to that which Valentinus develops, is already
to be found in the Apology of St Justin (I. 60) who puts it in this way—“Plato
has said that the power which comes next to the highest God has been marked
with a cross upon the universe”. It is this image, again, which is developed in the
vision of the Cross of Light described in the apocryphal Acts of John, §§ 97-101
(cf. M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 254f.). See also above,
references given in note 64 and, below, hi note 124.
71 Cf. Sagnard, loc. cit., pp. I59ff.
her from reaching the Pleroma. Sophia then falls into fear, sad¬
ness and anxiety; her prayers go up towards him who has
abandoned her; and out of this supplication and these emotions
there comes the substance of the matter of which our world is to
be formed. Akhamoth, this fallen Sophia, is also alluded to, in the
myth, by the names of holy Spirit, of Earth, of heavenly Jerusalem,
and of Mother. . . .
The Christ and the aeons then have pity upon her: they send
her the Saviour in order that he—so says the Philosophumena—
may be her spouse and allay the passions she has suffered. It is by
Gnosis that the Saviour corrects these passions and drives them
out of her. Thus espoused, the lower wisdom gives birth to angels.
And from the main lines of this creation proceed the three prin¬
ciples—material, psychic and spiritual (pneumatic) which will
interweave in the composition of the lower world, and to which
will correspond three races of men with their higher and lower
destinies. To these three principles also correspond three different
planes in the lower world, the highest being the Ogdoad, also
described as the “intermediate” plane (the mesotes, because it lies
immediately below the world of light) which is the dwelling of
the Mother who generates the spiritual substance. Below the
Ogdoad is the Hebdomad—the seventh heaven—inhabited by the
Demiurge, creator of the visible heavens and the earth. Still lower,
in our own base world, is the Cosmocrator, the devil, created by
the Demiurge.
Under an impulse that he receives from the Mother, but of
which he himself has no consciousness, the Demiurge—who is
here called the Metropator (meaning the Mother-father)—forms
the seven heavens and the celestial and terrestrial beings over
whom he reigns. Having produced all these, he thinks, in his
ignorance, that he is the only God, and cries out, through the
mouths of the Biblical prophets,75 “It is I alone who am God.
and there is no other beside me!” Then he creates terrestrial
man, into whom he breathes the psychic element: but besides
this, the Mother has endowed man with a spiritual element,
unknown to the Demiurge; and thus, in spite of himself, he has
75 Cf. Isaiah XLV, 5-6; XLVI, 9.
sown in the soul of the first man on earth the higher spiritual
quality. Thus man, when once he is created, unites in himself all
three elements; the hylic—that of the left—which will perish
inevitably; the psychic—that of the right—which, can either
assimilate itself to higher things and become immortal, or become
like matter and perish in corruption; and, thirdly, the spiritual
element which should be formed and perfected through Gnosis so
that, when the ultimate consummation of the universe is attained,
all the spiritual elements of this order may have been saved.76
This doctrine was translated into ceremonies and formulas by
which the Valentinians believed they could render themselves
invisible, after death, to the powers of heaven that their souls
would have to encounter on their ascent towards the Light. To
the lower powers these souls were supposed to answer, “I am a
son of the Father, of the pre-existent Father. ... I have come
to see all things, those that are mine and those that are foreign to
me, or rather, not totally alien to me but belonging to Akhamoth
. . . who has made them. Thus I have my origin in the pre¬
existent, and am returning to my own essence from which I
came.”
Afterwards, to the powers of the Demiurge, these souls had to
say, “I am a precious vessel, worthier than the feminine creature
who made you. Your Mother knows not her origin, but I know
myself; I know whence I come, and I call upon the incorruptible
Sophia who is in the Father, who is also the Mother of your mother
and who has neither father nor husband. That which has made you,
knowing not who was its mother and believing itself alone to
exist, this is a power both male and female, and it is the Mother of
this that I invoke!” (Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses I, xxi, 5.)
It was to reform this world here below, the world of men,
that Jesus was born “by means of Mary”. The Philosophumena
notes that, upon this point, two schools of thought arose among
the inheritors of the Valentinian Gnosis. “The Italian school, to
which Heracleon and Ptolemy belong, maintain that the body of
76 Concerning the difference between the psychic and the “pneumatic” (spiri¬
tual) cf. Sagnard, La Gtiose valentinienne . . . , pp. 387-415 and H. C. Puech,
Le Manichiisme, son fondateur, sa doctrine, p. 186, note 374.
Jesus is psychic: that is why, at the moment of the Baptism, the

Spirit—that is, the Word of the Mother from on high, of Sophia—
descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove, cried out to the
psychic element and awakened it from among the dead. . . .
The Oriental school, on the contrary, to which Axionicos and
Bardesan belong,77 teach that the body of the Saviour was
spiritual, for (already) the holy Spirit, namely Sophia, had descend¬
ed upon Mary. . . . ” Of the teachings of this Oriental school
we still have the testimony of excerpts from the works of the
Gnostic Theodotus, preserved by Clement of Alexandria.78
It is noteworthy that, according to the expositions of the
Valentinian doctrine that we have summarized, the Demiurge,
despite its fundamental ignorance, is not presented as an entirely
evil god. Irenaeus even writes that, according to Valentinus,
“when the Saviour came, the Demiurge learned everything
from him, hastening joyfully to him with his whole army of
angels”. It is the Demiurge who, pending the final consummation
of this lower world, is directing the “economy” of our universe.
The reference in Irenaeus specifies what this consummation will
be: it will be achieved when all the spiritual seed dispersed among
beings will have attained to perfection. Then the Wisdom will
leave the intermediate plane to enter into the Pleroma, where
she will be espoused to the Saviour and finally united with him—
a union for which the Pleroma will be, as it were, the bridal
chamber. The pneumatic beings, having become pure intelli¬
gences and cleansed of the psychic elements which cannot, in
any case, raise themselves above the Limit, will mount through
the lower heavens without being molested or even seen by their
archons, and will go right up into the Pleroma, where they will be
the “brides” of the angels who surround the Saviour. As for the
Demiurge, he will succeed to the position on the intermediate
77 Axionicos (known to us only through Tertullian’s treatise Adv. Valent.,
IV) must have taught the doctrines of Valentinus at Antioch. Bardesan of Edessa
(154-222) is the famous founder of Syrian poetry. In the second half of his life
he abandoned Gnosticism. Nevertheless, it is believed to be partly in the form he
had imparted to it that the doctrine was adopted by Mani For the differences
between the Italian and Oriental schools, see Sagnard, loc. cit., pp. 524-5 and
547ff.
78 Cf. note 23 ante and Sagnard, Gnose valentinienne, pp. 521-di
plane, previously occupied by Sophia his mother, where the souls—

the psychic elements—will find their rest. This done, the latent
heat hidden in the earth will flame forth, and, destroying matter
altogether, will be consumed with it and pass into nothingness.
The three human races—earthly, psychic and spiritual—are
prefigured by Cain, Abel and Seth (this last endowed with the
spiritual seed) and their respective descendants.
Irenaeus treats the Valentinian teaching with unrestrained
sarcasm. He goes so far as to parody it, in these terms: “There is
nothing to prevent some other inventor (than Valentinus), in the
same sort of exposition, from defining his terms thus: ‘There is
a certain royal pro-principle, pro-intelligible, pro-denuded of
substance, a pro-rotundity. With this principle dwells a Virtue
that I call Cucurbitacy. With this Cucurbitacy is a virtue which,
for its part, I call Absolutely-empty. This Cucurbitacy and this
Absolutely-empty, which make but one, have emanated without
emanating a fruit visible on all sides, edible and savoury, a fruit
which language names Gourd. With this Gourd there is a virtue
of the same power as itself which I also call Melon. These virtues:
Cucurbitacy and Absolutely-empty, Gourd and Melon, have
emanated the whole multitude of the raving melons of Valen¬
tine. . . .”’79
One of the closest personal disciples of Valentinus was without
doubt Marcus, who carried on his apostolate in Asia Minor.
Irenaeus gives him a very bad reputation: he seems to have
seduced many of the faithful—men and women—in every sense
of the word. A deacon in Asia, for instance, who had welcomed
Marcus into his house and who had a very comely wife, had
reason to rue it. The doctor seduced the beauty, body and soul.
For a long time she followed him in his wanderings. Only in the
end, did some true Christians manage to open her eyes and bring
her back to the right path. Then she condemned herself to a
perpetual penance, weeping hot tears over the outrage that the
magian had put upon her.80
78 Quoted by Sagnard, loc. cit., p. 287. Irenaeus also ridiculed the aeons which
engender without having to unite one with another—“like hens without cocks”
(Irenaeus, II, xn, 4).
80 Irenaeus, I, xii, 4.
The Problem 0/ Gnosticism 33
Marcus claimed that the Gnosis he taught was a revelation

that the Silence had deposited in him. According to the Philo-
sophumena this Silence—the primordial and complete Tetrad
(colorbas in Aramaic)—had come to visit him in feminine
guise, had disclosed to him who she was, and had then explained
to him the generation of the All, a matter which the Tetrad had
never until then disclosed to anyone, either of the gods or of
mankind.81
In its general lines the teaching of Marcus looks more like a
mere amplification of the Valentinian Gnosis. It is, however,
distinguished by one original feature: Marcus comments upon
each entity of the supernal universe in function with the numerical
values he derives from the letters composing each of their names—
values of which he analyses the relations and harmonies according
to a method which will be familiar to students of the Kabbala.82
Another originality of Marcus—although other Gnostics may
have instituted similar rites without the heresiologists’ knowledge
—is to have codified a whole liturgy, which included baptisms,
eucharists and an extreme unction. . . . Irenaeus records the
principal formulas of these sacraments.83
To conclude our enumeration of the great Gnostic personalities
mentioned, or rather ridiculed, by the heresiologists, we must not
omit Justin. It is not known where or when he flourished: he is
known to us only from the Philosophumena,84
Very different from all the Gnostic systems we have reviewed
thus far, the myth that he taught had been expounded by him in a
book called Baruch85 which a Greek account by the pseudo-
Hippolytus tries to summarize. According to this revelation, the
universe proceeded from three uncreated principles: a supreme
81 The Tetrad—the first four aeons—reminds one also of Barbclo: cf. note 43 ;
also Sagnard, Gnose valentinienne, chap. rx.
82 Upon this numerology and its Pythagorean origins see Sagnard, loc. cit.,
chap. x.
83 The formulas of these sacraments—certain passages were in Aramaic—are
translated in Leisegang, loc. cit., chap, xi; text; Volker, Quelleti, pp. I36ff.
84 Philosophumena, V, 23-8; cf. Volker, Quellen, 27ft.; cf. upon Justin, Jonas,
loc. cit., vol. I, pp. 335-40.
85 The prophet Baruch had acquired a mysterious prestige, and was sometimes
likened to Zoroaster: see Bidez-Cumont, Mages helUnises, vol. I, p. 49; vol. II,
P- 129.
Father called “the Good”; a second principle, masculine, father

of all bom beings but destitute of any foreknowledge of the
future—Elohim. And thirdly, a feminine principle equally de¬
ficient in prescience—Eden, also called Israel. From the love
between Elohim and Eden, who in the beginning dwelt in the
lower regions, were born the angels of the lower heavens, angels
who together constituted the Paradise in which one of them,
Baruch, was the tree of Life; whilst the tree of knowledge of good
and evil was the angel Naas, the Serpent. The angels of Elohim
took, from the upper half of the body of Eden, the good earth86
of which Adam was made; whilst from the lower half of Eden
they took the matter from which they fashioned the wild beasts
and other animals.
But Elohim, after having constructed and ordered the world
by his amours with Eden, had wanted to ascend into higher
regions to see whether there was any defect in this creation.
Attaining to a great height, he beheld a light more perfect than
that which he had created. Fie invoked it; and then the supreme
God, the Good, whom Elohim had never known till then,
allowed him to attain to his presence where he kept him be¬
side him. But Eden, seeking vengeance for his desertion of her,
began to inflict suffering upon those portions of the spirit of
Elohim which he had imparted to men. She even charged her
angel Naas, the Serpent, to visit mankind with every possible
chastisement. Naas obeyed her behest: he approached Eve
and committed adultery with her; and then he made Adam his
minion.
Thereupon Elohim sent the angel Baruch to give instruction
to men, to the Jews, that they might turn towards the God on
high, towards the Good. To the uncircumcised, the pagans, he
also sent Hercules, to deliver them from the evil angels of Eden’s
86 Cf. this passage with a verse of the Psalms of Solomon (XIV, 2-3, in the
edn. ofj. Viteau, 1911). “The Paradise of the Lord, the trees of Life, these are his
saints. Their plantation is rooted for eternity, for the portion and the heritage
of God, that is Israel.” Concerning Eden, confused with adamcl and thus
becoming a mythic personification of the Earth, cf. K. Rudolph, “Ein Grundtyp
gnostischer Urmensch-Adam Spekulation”, in Zeitschrift f. Relig. u. Geistes-
geschichte, LX, 1957, pp. 16-17 and note 94; also here, pp. 100-1 and chap, n,
note 84.
creation, by slaying one after another the Nemean lion, the boar
of Erymanthus, the Lemean hydra . . . who are those angels.87
At last, in the days of King Herod, Baruch was once more sent
here below by Elohim: he came to Nazareth, where he found
Jesus who was then twelve years old. Baruch revealed to him all
the history, from the beginning, of Eden and Elohim; foretold
him, moreover, the events of the future and encouraged him to
preach the God from on high, the Good. Naas tried to prevent
the fulfilment of this prophecy by having Jesus crucified; but
Jesus abandoned the carnal body that he had from Eden’s creation,
left it on the Cross and ascended up into the highest heavens.
One has a yet more complete idea of the complexity of this
system, if one notes how the supreme god in question is also
identified with Priapus, who had been created "before anything
was and of whom, for that reason, images were set up in all
the temples.88 Similarly, the union of the swan with Leda, and
the story of Danae appear as images of the loves of Elohim and
Eden, whilst Ganymede and the eagle represent Adam at grips
with Naas.
The author of the Philosophumena adds: "I have seen a great
many heresies, my well-beloved; I never met with any, however,
that was worse than this. Truly, we must imitate the Hercules
of Justin in cleaning out these Augean stables—or rather sewers.”
THE MAIN GNOSTIC SECTS
Even more than these leading teachers, adversaries of their

heresies describe and stigmatize the sects which, like poisonous
fungi, had sprung up in direct succession from the earliest, most
mythical founders of Gnosticism—from Simon of Samaria, as
87 Such allegorical interpretations of the myth of Hercules had already, long
before this, been familiar to the Stoics, who regarded the hero as, in the words of
the orator Heraclitus, a spirit “initiated in the heavenly wisdom”. Heraclitus
and Cleanthes have given a symbolic or moral exegesis of the twelve labours of
Hercules. (Cf. Fel. Buffiere, Les Mythes d’Homere et la pensee grecque, 1956, pp.
376-7.) Nicomachus, too, compared Hercules to the Sun passing through the
twelve signs of the Zodiac, each sign symbolizing one of the twelve labours
(Buffiere, loc. cit., pp. 144 and 296; note 84).We read in Eusebius, Eccles. Hist., VI,
19, 8, how Origen, for example, knew and interpreted these allegories.
88 For the phallic element in the Gnostic mysteries (?) cf. Tertullian, Advers,
Valent., I.
some said; from Nicolas, as was claimed by others. Was it from

these sects that such as Basilides or Valentinus or Carpocrates
derived the teachings that they rendered ever more subtle? Or
was it, on the contrary, these groups which were simply popular¬
izing the teachings of the great doctors? The question is most con¬
fusing ! According to Irenaeus (I, xxxv, 6) the largest of the sects—
the one that expressly called itself Gnostic—had not appeared at
Rome until the time of Pope Anicetus (155-166); it had arisen
from the sectaries of Carpocrates. Elsewhere (I, xxx, 14), Irenaeus
suggests that the doctrine of Valentinus had its source in the
myths of a group which seems to be that of the Ophites. What
emerges as noteworthy is that the heretical “churches”, contra¬
dictory though they are in spirit, some ascetic in tendency and
others licentious in practice, appear almost all to be using the
same myths, the same writings, whilst the great masters themselves
disseminate more varied teachings of a relatively philosophic
character.
★ ★ ★
The three sects which St Irenaeus knew best were: the Cainites
(I, xxxi); a group to which he gives no name but which his
successors have identified as Ophite or Sethian; and, thirdly, the
“Gnostics” also described as Barbelognostics (I, xxix).
Irenaeus knew only a little about die Cainites. They included
among their prophets, Cain, Esau, Korah and the Sodo¬
mites. . . . They used a Gospel of Judas.69 Some later authors,
such as Epiphanius, also tell us that these sectaries had a book,
Against the Hystera—that is, against “the womb”, a name which
they gave to the evil creator of the lower universe: they also read
a fantastic Ascension of Paul.90
The passage devoted to the Barbelognostics gives no details
about the sect itself and is limited to an account of its higher
89 Upon this exaltation of the “accurst” by some of the Gnostics, see Puech,
La Gnose et le Temps, note 32. Concerning the title of the Gospel of Judas, there is
room for doubt whether it may not refer to Judas Didymus—i.e. to the Apostle
Thomas. See below, p. 225.
90 Apparently this work cannot be identical with the apocryphal Apocalypse
of St Paul which has been preserved, and which contributed to the inspiration of
the Divio a Conwicdia,
cosmogony and of the generation by Sophia of the evil Demi¬

urge, as these heretics taught those things. They owed their name
to the fact that, in their system, the feminine power which
emanates from the primordial Father, and which plays the part of
the Word, was named Barbelo.91 This text of Irenaeus is especially
valuable to us since the discovery, half a century ago, of one of
the very few original Gnostic scriptures so far available—the
Secret Book of John92—has enabled us to see that Irenaeus, in this
case, has followed sometimes word for word the text of a revela¬
tion undoubtedly in use by the Gnostics.
This passage in Irenaeus (I, xxx) refers apparently to the
Ophites,93 a sect which had been known to the pagan Celsus
before a.d. 180; he had even been able to refer to one of their
writings—the Diagram. Their cosmological and anthropological
myths are fully expounded by Irenaeus; and it is noteworthy
that they appear to have been closely analogous to those of the
Barbelognostics, faithfully summarized by the saintly Bishop of
Lyons in the preceding chapter of his book.
In the beginning, in the infinite abyss, there had been a Light,
blissful, incorruptible and infinite, the Father of all, the First
Man. His thought, proceeding from him, became the Son of
Man. Then, underneath both of these, there arose a feminine
principle, the holy Spirit, the First Woman, Mother of the
Living. In the far depths, confronting these beings, were only the
elements of chaos and the abyss, the waters and the darkness above
which the Feminine Spirit94 was upborne. From the three first
and highest powers was bom the Christ who, together with them,
finally instituted the incorruptible aeon, namely the “Church”.
It was then that, from the Woman, as out of waters in ebulli¬
tion, there arose a dew of light—the androgyne being called
91 Upon the Barbelognostics, see Jonas, Gnosis, vol. I, p. 361; upon the name
Barbelo, cf. our note 43.
92 Cf. C. Schmidt, Irendus und seine Quelle in Adv. Hacres., I, 29, in Philotesia,
Paul Kleinert zum LXX. Geburtstag dargebracht, 1907, pp. 315-36.
93 Upon the Ophites: Jonas, loc. cit., vol. I, p. 360; Amann, article; “Ophites”
in Diet, de Thiiol. Cathol., XI, col. 1063-75; R- Liechtenhan; article “Ophiten”
in Herzog-Haupt, XIV, 404-13. Reitzenstein u. Schaeder: Studien zum antiken
Synkretismus aus Iran u. Griechenland, 1926, 1st part, chap. iv.
94 Genesis I, 2.
Sophia or Prunikos. She falls down as far as the waters beneath,

where Matter clings to her person, weighs it down and prevents
it from rising up towards the light, without, however, being
able to overwhelm it. Thanks to the strength of the light that she
has received, Sophia raises herself and, from her outstretched body,
she forms the visible heaven. Then she separates herself from this
body. She gives birth to a son, from whom six others are born one
after another, constituting the seven planets and their respective
heavens—the Hebdomad, above which Sophia dwells in the
eighth sphere, which is Ogdoad. The names of the seven are, in
ascending order, Ialdabaoth, Iao, Sabaoth the Great, Adonaios,
Eloaios, Horaios, Astaphaios. Ialdabaoth, having completed the
heavens, the archangels, etc., by his desire for Matter produces a
son who is the Serpent. Now he exclaims “I am the Father and
God, and there is no one above me!”95 But the Mother, over¬
hearing him, cries out to him, ‘‘Do not he, Ialdabaoth; over
and above thee there are the Father of all, the First Man, and the
Son of Man!” This voice, the source of which is hidden by
Ialdabaoth, troubles the powers below. It is then that the Demi¬
urge says to them, “Come, and let us make man in our image”.
At the same time the Mother, in order to incite them to this
creation, through which she means to rob them of the power
within them, reveals to them the heavenly image of the First
Man. Together, the six powers of Ialdabaoth—the Archons—
construct a man, who is immense but powerless: they cannot
stand him upright. Then Sophia, in order to deprive the Demi¬
urge of the portion of light that is within him, inspires him to
breathe his own spirit of life into terrestrial man. Man stands up
erect and resplendent. But Ialdabaoth is seized with jealousy and,
in order to take away the luminous power from Adam, he
fabricates woman. The other Archons, beholding her, fall in
love with her beauty and beget sons upon her who are angels.
Then the Mother, by means of the Serpent, or perhaps even by
taking on its appearance herself, induces Eve and Adam to eat of
the fruit which Ialdabaoth has forbidden them. In this way Adam
and Eve begin to acquire knowledge of the Virtue which is above
96 Isaiah XLV, 5-6 and XLVI, 9.
aU diing!,, and turn away from their creator. Meanwhile Ialda-

baoth, because of his ignorance and forgetfulness, knows nothing
of the mystery enacted by our first parents, and he expels them
from Paradise. The myth declares that Ialdabaoth would have
liked, then, himself to beget sons by Eve,96 but he could not,
because his Mother had secretly deprived the human pair of the
light-dew which was their strength, so that it should not be defiled
by the Demiurge. Thus it was that the first man and the first
woman were emptied of divine substance when Ialdabaoth cast
them out of the heavens, which contained Paradise, down into
this base world. Ialdabaoth also cast his son the Serpent down to
earth. the latter took the lower angels into his charge and, in
imitation of his father, gave himself six sons who, together with
himself, make up the seven devils ceaselessly at war with the
human race.
In the world here below Adam and Eve now had their gross
bodies only, without light. Prounikos had pity upon them and
gave them back the resplendent dew. Then were bom to them
Cain and Abel, between whom discord was sown by the Serpent,
which had become the enemy of the human race, on whose
account its father had chastised it. After this were bom Seth97
and Norea, who were of a superior race, and from whom the
multitude of the Perfect were to descend.
Irritated because men no longer worshipped him, Ialdabaoth
unleashed the deluge upon them. But Sophia saved Noah and his
family by means of the Ark. And when the world re-emerged
and was repeopled, Ialdabaoth chose Abraham from among men,
96 Cf. Genesis IV, 1. “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord”, cries
Eve after the birth of Cain; an exclamation which the Gnostic myth misinterprets
by excessive literalism.
97 The Valentinians, too, regarded Seth as the first of the race of the perfect
ones, the spiritual in opposition to the material (Cain) and Abel (the psychic).
Seth was, no doubt, well suited to become the great prophet of the Gnostic race,
various attributes of prestige being ascribed to him in apocryphal traditions about
the Old Testament: image of God, heir of Adam, inventor of astronomy. His
sons were to be the Sons of God ” who, upon Mount Hermon, led a pious and
secluded life cherishing the nostalgia for Paradise. Cf. Gruenbaum, “Beitrage zur
vergleichende Mythologie aus der Haggada” in Zeitschr. d. Deutsche Morgenl.
Gesellsch., 1877, p. 247. H. C. Puech, “Fragments retrouvds de l’Apocalypse
d Allogene”, in Melanges Cumont, p. 949. Cf. also below, pp. 149 and 182-8.
making a covenant with him that, if the patriarch’s descendants

continued to serve him, he would give them the earth for their
heritage. Later, by means of Moses, he led these descendants out
of Egypt and gave them the Law. All the great prophets of the
Old Testament, also, have been his servants. And yet, through the
ingenuity of Sophia, they allowed certain words to shp into their
prophecies which refer to the First Man, to the incorruptible
Aeon and to the Christ. For Sophia was even contriving, without
the knowledge of Ialdabaoth, to bring about the births of John
the Baptist and of Jesus.
Since Sophia Prounikos had no rest either in heaven or earth,
in her affliction she invoked the aid of the supreme Mother, who,
taking pity on her repentance, besought the First Man to send the
Christ to her assistance. Thus the Christ came down towards his
sister the dew of light. Such, in outline, is the myth of salvation;
which rises to its most dramatic climax at the incarnation of the
Christ in the man Jesus. The mission of Christ is attacked by
Ialdabaoth who, together with the Archons, plans the drama of
Calvary. From the Cross, the Christ withdraws, ascending to the
aeon: he sends down to the crucified Jesus a power which re¬
animates within him all that is capable of living again. And Jesus,
after this resurrection, remains among his disciples for eighteen
months, in order to teach the Mysteries to those who are worthy
of knowing them. The Christ himself, having reascended into
heaven, is seated at the right hand of Ialdabaoth, where—un¬
known to the latter, who does not see it—he receives the
souls of the Perfect, enabling them to escape from the Demiurge’s
domain.
The consummation of this world—so the myth concludes—
will be attained when all the dew of light that is scattered here
below will have been brought together again on high, in the
Aeon of incorruptibility.
★ ★ ★
These sects, described by lrenaeus, are those which Epiphanius

came to know, with several others, at a later date. We have
The Problem oj Gnosticism 41
already seen the importance that Epiphanius attached to the

Nicolaitans98 and the system that he attributed to them. Let us
now turn to the picture that he gives us of the sect which is
entitled above all to be called “Gnostic” and to whose perverse
seductions he was exposed, in Egypt, during the years of his
youth"—the ordeal through which he gained his own knowledge
of their secret books.
We cannot be sure whether the school of thought which so
explicitly assumed the name “Gnostic” was continuing the
doctrine of Carpocrates, although the disciples of that teacher
also chose to call themselves by that name. What is certain,
however, is that some very different groups were connected with
the same family of great Gnostics; among them, the Coddians,
the Stratiotici, the Phibionites and the Zacchaeans, even the
Barbeliotes. . . . The names were multiplied as the cults
spread to different countries, or, perhaps, in function with more
or less select initiations, creating a confusion in which the modern
historian can easily lose his way.
But let Epiphanius describe them, and, in particular, their
writings. It is noteworthy that they attributed some of their
myths to the prophet Barcabbas—the name under which Basilides
had composed some alleged revelations. Some of their great
apocalypses were attributed to Adam. They had also various
writings headed by the name of Seth, discussing, among other
subjects, the Demiurge Ialdabaoth. They made use of a book
called The Interrogations of Mary: and another of their books,
entitled On the Generation of Mary contained, Epiphanius tells us,
some horrible stories such as an account of the vision by which
Zacharias was struck dumb in the Temple at Jerusalem ;100 which
is interpreted as follows: Zacharias, as he was about to bum
incense, saw a mysterious being with a human body and the
head of an ass. At first, so that he should not make this apparition
known, his throat was miraculously paralysed; and when his
voice was restored to him, he addressed the congregation and
98 Cf. above, p. 14.
99 Cf. above, pp. 8ff.
100 The episode thus travestied is that of Zacharias’s aphasia after seeing a
vision of angel, in Luke I, n-12.
reproached them for worshipping such a monstrous god: it was

for this that the Jews put him to death.101
These sectaries had also a Gospel of Perfection, and referred to a
Gospel of Philip—works which today are lost. Epiphanius quotes
the preamble to an apocryphon which they called The Gospel of
Eve containing these words—‘ ‘ I was standing upon a high moun¬
tain, when lo! I saw one person of tall stature and another who
was lame.102 Then I heard a voice like thunder. ... I drew
near . . . and the vision addressed me in these words: ‘I am
identical with thee, and thou art identical with me; wherever
thou art, there am I, for I am sown in all things; wherever thou
wilt thou reapest me; but in reaping me it is thyself that thou
reapest.’”
One of their great myths was called by the name of Norea,
that of a supposed sister of Seth and wife of Noah, which name,
they said, was the equivalent in Semitic parlance to what was
101 The god with the head of an ass is the image of the Demiurge Ialdabaoth,
the “god of the Jews”, cf. pp. 43 and 79. It is upon certain monuments of Egypt
that we find the most ancient proofs of the attribution of a donkey’s head to a
god, who was to become progressively identified with the god of the Jews.
This originated from the Asiatic god Sutekh, whom the Egyptians assimilated to
one of their own greatest gods: Seth, the adversary of Osiris. They represented
Seth also, after the period of the Persian invasions, with a human body and an
ass’s head. Afterwards, this god Seth was definitely regarded by the Egyptians—
in accordance with a late myth mentioned by Plutarch in his De hide, § 31—as
the father of the legendary heroes Hierosolymus and Judaeus—that is, as the an¬
cestor of the Jews! (Cf. P. Montet, Le drame d'Avaris, essai sur la penetration des
Semites en Egypte, Paris, 1940, pp. 47-62; Marianne Guentch-Ogloueff, “Noms
propres imprecatoires”, in the Bulletin, de I'Institut franfais d’Archeologie orientale
du Caire, XL, 1941, pp. 117-33.
It was therefore not without precedent that, in the first centuries of our era,
the detractors of the Christians and the Jews, and some of our Gnostics also,
vulgarized, generally in an offensive sense, a tradition that the god of the Jews
had an ass’s head: thence also the carving on the Palatine (of the third cent.)
which represents a worshipper before a crucified figure with a donkey’s head,
with the ironical legend “Alexamenos worships God”. Minucius Felix, at the
same epoch, puts an allusion to this pagan calumny into the mouth of one of the
speakers of his dialogue Octavius—“I have heard that, by I know not what
fanatical aberration, they religiously adore the head of that most ugly animal, the
ass!” Concerning this calumny and its origins, cf. P. de Labriolle, La Reaction
palenne, pp. 193-9.
loa The crippled being would symbolize the supreme power by whose mistake
the material world was engendered. Upon the meaning of the words “I am I
and thou art I , which suggest the recovery of our authentic being and the return
to divinity, cf. Puech, La Gnose et le temps, p. 104 and note 65.
meant by Pyrrha, the wife of Deucalion.103 We have already
mentioned this Norea and the myth according to which she
seduced the Archons, by the lust that she aroused in them, in
order to deprive them of their potency of hght.
Epiphanius, who gives yet further details of the principal
myths of these “Gnostics”, enumerates for examples the names of
the beings who dwell in the heavens of our universe: in the
eighth heaven, Barbelo and the Christ; in the seventh Ialdabaoth,
or, in the opinion of other sectaries of the same group, Sabaoth;
in the sixth Ehlaios, Daden, Setheus, Sacla (who is addicted to
impure delights) and finally Iao. Amongst these, Sabaoth is
distinguished by having a pig’s or an ass’s head ;104 it is he who is
supposed to have created heaven and the earth.
The sexual practices of these heretics—if Epiphanius, who had
pretty intimate knowledge of them, is not systematically trying to
vilify them—were of the most frightful. What are we to think,
for instance, of the Phibionites who dedicated their carnal unions
in succession to the names of three hundred and sixty-five
different powers? “Unite thyself to me”, they said to their
partners, invoking the name of one of these numerous powers, “so
that I may lead thee towards the Prince!” And whilst using this
singular method of spiritual aspiration, they refused to procreate,
or, if their efforts to remain sterile were unsuccessful, they practised
abortion. Even this operation was accompanied by abominable
rites and practices.105
As for the salvation of the “race of the Perfect” to which they
thought they belonged, they taught that the wicked Prince of
this lower world prevented souls who were without Gnosis from
reascending into the higher regions. This demon had the form
of a serpent, or dragon. He swallowed up the imperfect souls
which, passing through his body, were sent through his tail into
103 Norea means “fiery”, like the Greek name Pyrrha: the Gnostics found in
this yet another reason for connecting Noah with Deucalion, already comparable
because of the parts they played at the Deluge.
104 Cf. note ioi above.
105 Translated in Leisegang, he. cit., pp. 132-3. The “licentious” practices
appeared less shocking to the ancients than to the Christians. Cf. the case of the
mystics of Sabazios (identified with Jahweh) in Franz Cumont, Lux Perpetua,
p. 257.
the terrestrial universe, where they were transferred into the souls
of various animals. But the souls protected from him by Gnosis
attained, first, to Sabaoth and then, higher still, to Barbelo, the
Mother of the living.
Epiphanius also describes the sect of the Ophites.106 These were
successors to the great Gnostics and to several analogous groups;
and their doctrines as a whole, which Epiphanius summarizes in
somewhat the same terms as Irenaeus, fairly closely resemble those
we have noted in the other sects. But to these they added a cult of
the serpent (whence their name) which they explained thus:
“We venerate the Serpent”, they said, “because God has made it
the cause of Gnosis for mankind. Ialdabaoth did not wish men to
have any recollection of the Mother or of the Father on high. It
was the Serpent, who by tempting them, brought them Gnosis;
who taught the man and the woman the complete knowledge
of the mysteries from on high. That is why [its] father Ialdabaoth,
mad with fury, cast it down from the heavens.” This image of
the Serpent was ever afterwards to be found in the nature of
man. “Our bowels, thanks to which we nourish ourselves and
live, do they not reproduce the form of the serpent?” These
Gnostics, moreover, made a very practical cult of these reptiles:
they kept and fed them in baskets; they held their meetings close
to the holes in which they lived. They arranged loaves of bread
upon a table, and then, by means of incantations, they allured the
snake until it came coiling its way among these offerings; and
only then did they partake of the bread, each one kissing the
muzzle of the reptile they had charmed. This, they claimed, was
the perfect sacrifice, the true Eucharist.
Where is it—in the Dionysiac orgies, in the cult of Asclepios,
or in the mysteries of Sabazios which, according to Amobius
(Adversus nationes, V, 21), also made use of the image of the
serpent—that one must look for the origins of such practices? Or
do they not remind one even more of the cults of certain pagan
sects which made a special cult of the serpent of the constellation
Ophiuchus (if we are to believe the Astronomica of Manilius, 5 ;
389-93)? Like our Ophites, these adepts held the reptiles to their
106 Cf. references in note 93, above.
breasts and caressed them, as living symbols of the celestial image

that they worshipped.
Epiphanius knew of the Canutes, also;107 but what he tells us
about them adds hardly anything to what Irenaeus had already
said On the other hand he is very well informed concerning the
beliefs of the Sethians. The part played by Seth, prophet of
Gnosticism and first of the race of the Perfect,108 was already
known, no doubt, to most of the sects. The Valentinians were not
unaware of it; and if we are to credit, for instance, Tertullian
(Adversus Valentimanos, XXIX), the spiritual essence was repre¬
sented, for them too, by the great Seth. Epiphanius believes he
remembers having come across some heretics in Egypt who
presented their teaching under the special invocation of this son
of Adam, whom they also called by the name of Christ.
The writings that they used included, above all, seven revela¬
tions attributed to Seth himself; then certain books called
allogeneous, that is, from a foreign origin above this base world.
They also had an alleged Apocalypse of Abraham; another at¬
tributed to^Moses;109 and lastly, some books written under the
name o£ Horea, the wife of Seth—in whom we plainly recognize
Norea. In his time, says Epiphanius, this heresy had become rare.
In the same stream of thought to which the leading Gnostics, the
Ophites, the Sethians and even the Cainites belonged, we find also
the Archontici and the Audians.
The Archontici110 may have taken their name from the particu¬
lar knowledge they claimed to have about the Archons— that is,
the seven planets and about methods of invoking their powers.
Among the first propagandists of this doctrine was a man named
Peter, a priest in Palestine who was expelled from the Church by
107 Epiphanius, Heresy, XXXVIII. i«8 cf. note 97.
The Apocalypse of Abraham may have been the source of some of the
Gnostic features which appear in a work of the same title which is now extant
only in Slavonic: cf. Frey, article on “Abraham (Apocalypse of,) ”, in Diet, de la
Bible, Supplement, vol. I, col. 28-33. Under the title of Apocalypse of Moses, there
is known to be a version of the apocryphal work commonly called The Life of
Adam and Eve. Preuschen, who wanted this recognized as a Sethian writing, has
not managed to get his opinion accepted: cf. Frey, in Diet, de la Bible, ibid
col. 102-6.
Cf. FI. C. Puech s article Archontiker” in Reallexikon fur Antike utid
Christentum, vol. I, 634-43.
the Bishop Aetius about the year 347. Peter at first took refuge in
Kaukaban in Arabia, but returned, in his old age, to live as a
hermit three miles from Hebron, in a cave near the village of
Caphar-Barusha. Epiphanius, who at that time was the head of a
monastery near the town of Eleutheropolis, had a bone to pick
with him. In 361, this Peter had an opportunity to indoctrinate
with his myths a person of the name of Eutactes, who propagated
them in Greater Armenia.
As for the actual content of these doctrines, it seems clear that
the Archontici can hardly have been more than a ramification of
the Setliians.111 Epiphanius connects them also with a secondary
group of the Severians (XLV, 2, 1). Among their sacred books
they had some Symphonia, treatises which dealt, perhaps, with
such subjects as the harmony of the celestial spheres.112 They also
read the Allogeneous books which, as we saw, were used by the
Sethians; an Ascension of Isaiah; and, finally, the revelations of the
prophets Martiades and Marsanes who, caught up into heaven,
had explored its secrets for three days. Who were these visionaries ?
Some have tried to connect the name of Marsanes with that of a
certain Marcianus mentioned by Serapion of Antioch, and of
whom we know only that he was a heretic.113 But would it not be
better to recall the two prophetesses Martos and Martana who,
of the same family as Elkesai', had been adored as goddesses by
the baptist sect of the Sampseans?114
Epiphanius also mentions, among other minor sects, that of the
Melchizedekians.115 Melchizedek, invested with an immense
sacerdotal prestige, and born, according to Genesis, without
father or mother, already held a very special position in the
Jewish traditions of the first centuries of our era and also among
the Samaritans. The latter went so far as to identify him with
Shem, to whom they ascribed somewhat the same prophetic
111 Puech, loc. cit., col. 635. 112 Puech, loc. cit., col. 636-7.
113 In Eusebius, Eccles. Hist., VI, 12.
114 According to Theodore Bar-Konai, translated in Pognon’s Inscriptions
Mandaites des coupes de Khouabir, p. 176. But the names of Martianes and Martiades
recall, no less, Mashya and MashyanS (martya and martyani), names given in the
Iranian language to the first man and the fust woman. Cf. Reitzenstein-Schaeder,
Studien zum Antiken Synkretismus, p. 226, note 1.
115 Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses, LV.
reputation as to the great Seth.116 We know, too, the mystical
part that he plays ha the Epistle to the Hebrews. The sect mentioned
by Epiphanius made Melchizedek into a Virtue of the higher
world, by transferring to him the functions which the other sects
ascribed to Seth. This doctrine was adopted and propagated by
the Egyptian Hierakas (Epiphanius, LXVII), a brilliant author of
writings and hymns—which he composed equally well in Coptic
as in Greek—whose theories seduced a number of monks in the
Christian community of the Nile Valley.
★ ★ ★
To avoid separating Epiphanius’ information about the sects

from that of Irenaeus—and we were entitled to keep them to¬
gether, since these two critics write from analogous points of
view—we have left over until now the very precious, but highly
personal accounts given in the Philosophumena. In this we find,
above all, three exceptionally long and valuable chapters dealing
with the Naassenes, the Peratae and the Sethians. One’s first im¬
pression—purely affective and literary—of these chapters is that
they analyse the Gnostic doctrines more profoundly, and with
more sympathy and less hostility than Epiphanius and Irenaeus
in their studies of Gnostic writings.
The account of the Naassenes117 begins with these words: “The
priests and leaders of this doctrine were those who were first
called Naassenes, from the Hebrew word naas, which means
116 According to Jerome, ad Evagrium, epist. 26; Epiphanius, Adv. Hacreses,
Haer. LV, 6. These speculations take their point of departure from Psalm CX., 4,
and the Epistle to the Hebrews, VII, 3. Concerning the controversies over Mel¬
chizedek which arose in the second and third centuries, cf. Tertullian, De Prae-
script., LIII (Patrologia Latina, vol. II, cols. 72-4); Philastrius, de Haer, LII and
CVIII (P. L., vol. XII, cols. 1168 and 1282-5); St Jerome, Epistul, LXXIII, ad
Ev. Presb. (P. L., vol. XXIII, col. 678-81) which seems to refute the opuscule
preserved in St Augustine’s Quaest. ex utroque Test, mixtim, CIX (P. L., vol.
XXXV, cols. 2324-30); Praedestinatus, XXXIV (P. L., vol. LIII, col. 598).
One finds them again in the apocryphal literature about Adam: the Cave of
Treasures (cf. Bezold, Die Schatzhdle, p. 36); the Book of the Bee by Solomon of
Basra, and the Ethiopian pseudo-Clementine literature (cf. S. Grebaut in the
Revue de VOrient chretien, 1912, p. 136. Cf. also Eutychius in Patrologia Graeca,
vol. CXI, col. 923); Cedrenus (in P. G., vol. CXXI, col. 77); Glykas (in P. G.,
vol. CLVIII, col. 265). See also D. Calmet, Dissertation sur Melchisedech; Com-
mentaire littiral aux Epitres de S. Paul, vol. II, Paris, 1730, pp. 575-91.
117 Philosophumena, V, 6-11; Reitzenstein, Poimandres, pp. 83ff.; Reitzenstein-
Schaeder, loc. cit., part I, chap, rv; Jonas, vol. I, pp. 343 and 348.
‘Serpent’. Later on, they themselves assumed the name of

‘Gnostics’, claiming to be unique in their knowledge of the
deepest things.” They divided themselves into a number of sects
which, fundamentally, amounted to only one heresy, for, under
various formulations, it was the same doctrine that they pro¬
fessed. Their teachings had been, first of all, passed on by James,
brother of the Lord, to Mariamne. They recognized a Gospel
according to the Egyptians, and they also made use of a Gospel
according to Thomas which contained, among others, this saying at¬
tributed to the Christ: ‘ ‘ He who seeks me will fmd me among the
children of seven years of age, for it is there, in the fourteenth
aeon, after having remained hidden, that I reveal myself.”118
Nevertheless, in spite of their recourse to these Christian texts—
apocryphal, it is true—they borrowed chiefly, according to this
account, from the myths of Hellenic and Oriental paganism. In
their teaching, the Hermes of Cyllene, thanks to a mystical
interpretation of the Odyssey, is enabled to play the part of the
Word. The Naassenes also availed themselves of the Mysteries—
those of the Great Mother, of Eleusis and also of the Phrygians
(from which they borrowed the comparison of the Father of the
Universe to an almond kernel, existing before all things and
containing within itself the perfect fruit from which was to come
forth an invisible child, nameless and ineffable). They believed it
was necessary to become initiated, first into the ‘‘lesser Mysteries”
—those of “carnal generation”—and then into the “greater
Mysteries”, the heavenly mysteries through which the gates of
heaven were opened to the Perfect—gates at which the Spiritual,
when they enter, must put on the apparel prepared for them, and
straightway become “husbands rendered more masculine by the
virginal Spirit”. Among the Gnostics, the myth of the Leucadian
rock, itself derived from speculations about the Odyssey,119
was jumbled up with images of the heavenly Jerusalem who is
the Mother of the Living, and with the symbol of the Jordan
which, flowing down to the deep, prevented the children of
118 The Gospel of the Egyptians and the Gospel of Thomas; cf. M. R. James,
The Apocryphal New Testament, pp. io and 14; Amann, in the Diet, de la Bible,
vol. I, cols. 476 and 478.
119 Cf. chap, v, p. 191.
Israel from going out of Egypt—that is, extricating themselves

from involvement in matter—whereas Jesus (Joshua in the Bible,
Joshua III, 14-17) made the river flow back towards its source and
thus delivered the chosen people.120
At the beginning of the universe, as the Naassenes imagined,
there had been a Man and a Son of Man, both androgynous. To
the honour of that primordial Adam they composed numerous
hymns. Among the great powers of the higher world, they took
particular account of Kaulakau, Saulasau and Zeasar: “Kaulakau
is related to the Man on high, Adamas; Saulasau, to the mortal
man here below, Zeasar, to the Jordan flowing up-stream.” In
their anthropological speculations, the brain corresponds to Eden;
the membranes enveloping the brain, to the heavens; the head of
man, to Paradise, etc. Epiphanius notes some similar speculations
among the Ophites, and we find them among the Sethians.121
The Philosophumena recounts these beliefs to us from documents
said to be original: ‘‘This river, flowing out of Eden [i.e., out of
the brain], divides into four branches. The first river is called
Phison; it is this which flows around the whole land of Evilat,
where gold is found . . .122 it is there also that one finds the
carbuncle and the emerald; this refers to the eye, as the value and
the colours of these precious stones suggest. The second river is
called the Geon, it is this which surrounds the whole land of
Ethiopia; that river is the ear, for it resembles a labyrinth.
The third river is called the Tigris; it is that which flows near
Syria; a river of the most impetuous current, which is the nostrils.
It flows over against Syria because, in our respiration, the air
breathed in from without rushes in with violent impetuosity to
replace that which has just been breathed out . . . ” and so forth.
120 Egypt, the ideal image of the “land of bondage” in the Biblical Genesis,
was thus changed into the symbol of the evil of matter: one finds it used again
in this sense in Hymn of the Pearl in the Acts of Thomas (see below, pp. 95 and
191). Cf. also Andreas-Henning, Mitteliranische Manichaica, III, p. 18: at his
death, Mani is said to “leave Egypt”, i.e., matter. The Jordan which flows from
noith to south becomes, in similar fashion, the mystic symbol of every stream of
purifying waters: cf. E. S. Drawer, The Mandaeans, 1937. p- xxiv; L. Tondelli,
“II Mandeismo e le origini cristiane” Orientalia, no. 33, 1928, p. 60. To flow to
the right or to reascend towards the source are symbolically equivalent. Cf.
here, p. 66 and p. 270.
121 Cf. p. 44 and p. 52. 122 Cf. Genesis II, 10-14.
These sectaries were against carnal intercourse, which they

looked upon as a defilement for the race of the elect—the race
without a king”, also called “the mysterious race of the perfect
men”. They knew of a baptism, the aim of which, they said, was
to “bring into imperishable pleasure the man who has been washed
in living water and anointed with an ineffable ointment”.
Did the sect of the Peratae really differ from that of the Naas-
senes? It had been founded by Euphrates the Peratic and by
Celbes of Carystia,123 personalities otherwise unknown, unless by
an allusion of Origen’s to that Euphrates whom he took to be
the founder of the Ophite sect. The Peratae were very specially
addicted to astrology—that of the Chaldaeans, chiefly—and they
had taken over from this a good deal of their system ‘ ‘ by changing
only the words”.
One of their books was most oddly entitled The Heads of the
town up to the aether. It seems to have been, essentially, a descrip¬
tion and enumeration of the powers of the lower heavens, which
makes us think also of the Archontici. It may be to this same work
that we owe the content of the account in the Philosophumena,
which purports to quote it upon several points. According to the
Peratae, “the universe is composed of the Father, the Son and of
Matter. Each of these three principles possesses within itself an
infinity of powers. Between Matter and the Father resides the
Son—Word and Spirit—a median principle always in movement,
either towards the immobile Father or towards Matter, which is
moved.124 Sometimes it turns towards the Father and, in its own
person, takes on his powers; sometimes, having taken these
123 Cf. Jonas, vol. I, p. 341. Carystia, the homeland of Celbes, was in the isle
of Euboea, which is also called Peran—the country “beyond” the sea—perhaps
it was from this name that the sect acquired its name of Peratae ? But the sectaries
themselves pretended that they owed it to their being the only people whose
knowledge enabled them to “pass beyond” (in Greek nepa) corruption: cf.
Bunsen, Hippolyt and his Age, 2nd edn., vol. I, p. 347.
124 Cf. the other forms of this intermediate element in the cosmogonies of
Simon, of Marcion and of the Sethians . . . where it appears as antecedent to
all creation, pp. 18, 25, 33, 52. Upon this curious celestial function attributed to
the Christ, see my article, “Le refus de la Croix; Gnostiques et Manicheens”
in La Table Ronde, no. 120, Dec. 1957, pp. 89-97: also Antonio Orbe, Los Primeros
Herejes ante la persecucion, pp. i6off.; finally, we may recall the passage of the
Philosophumena, IV, 48, 7 (edn. Wendland, p. 71, 23-6) which compares the
Logos—the Christ—to the celestial image of Ophiuchus mastering the serpent!
powers, it returns towards Matter: and Matter, being without
form or quality, receives from the Son the imprint of the forms
of which the Son himself has received the imprints from the
Father.” If we are to believe the summary given in the Philo-
sophumena, these sectaries had built up a whole pattern of cor¬
respondences between the different powers of the lower heavens,
such as those known to the other Gnostic systems and, at the same
time, between those of the classic mythology and the celestial
powers whose names the Ptolemaic astrology had multiplied.
Thus the work of the Peratae quoted in this account enumerates:
“Ariel, ruler of the winds, in whose image were made Aeolus and
Briareus. The ruler of the twelve hours of the night is Soclan
(or Sacla) whom the ignorant call Osiris;125 in his image
were Admetus, Medea, Hellen. . . . The ruler of the twelve
hours of the day is Euno; it is he who is in charge of the ascen¬
dant of the first vault of heaven; the ignorant have called him
Isis; his sign is the constellation of the Dog,126 and he was
the model for Ptolemy son of Arsinoe, Didymus, Cleopatra,
Olympias. ...”
It appears still more likely that the Peratae were no more than
a branch of the Ophites, when we read such passages as this which
follows: “Anyone”, say the Peratae, “whose eyes are so favoured,
will see, on looking up into the sky, the beautiful form of the
Serpent coiled up at the grand beginning of the heavens and
becoming, for all born beings, the principle of all movement. ”12 7
Then he will understand that no being, either in heaven or on
earth, was formed without the Serpent. . .
125 The name of Sacla represents, perhaps, a deformation of that of Sokar, also
called Sokaris, god of the necropolis of Memphis, who in Egyptian belief was
assimilated sometimes to Ptah, and sometimes, in effect, to Osiris: the sounds
l and r are confused together in Egyptian. Osiris, for his part, was identified
with the constellation of Orion. Concerning the diverse names of Sacla, who
becomes one of the forms of the evil Demiurge Ialdabaoth, see below, chap, v,
note 30.
126 The Egyptian religion related Venus, by the name of Sothis, to Isis.
127 The constellation of the Dragon, next to the Great Bear, was in antiquity
more or less identified with the axis of the world, from the fact that, four thousand
years ago, its star alpha represented the North Pole. The effect of the combination
of the movements of precession and nutation upon the axis of the earth have,
since that epoch, shifted the celestial pole towards the star alpha of the Little
Bear—our present Pole Star. Cf. here, chap. 11, note 12.
Of a still more important interest is the Philosophumena’s account

of the Sethians.128 Their essential doctrine, we are told, was con¬
tained in a book entitled the Paraphrase of Seth. According to this
sect—which, like the one last mentioned, mixed some Hellenic
myths with its doctrines—the universe had been made by the
action of three distinct principles, each of which possessed, from
the beginning, an infinite potency. These were the Light, the
Darkness, and the pure Breath (the Spirit) dwelling between these
two. But the Light and the Spirit have been attracted by the
formidable waters of the Darkness, whence they have taken on
the nature of that element. The consequence of this first encounter
between the three principles was the formation of the heaven and
the earth.
The Sethians imagined that the entire heaven and earth was like
a pregnant woman’s belly, with the navel in the middle. “Let
anyone”, they said, “examine the belly of any being soever when
it is pregnant, and there they will discover the imprint of heaven,
of the earth, and of all that is situated immovably in the midst.”129
They also said that the first principle to be engendered was a
strong and impetuous wind, bom from water, and in itself the
cause of all vegetation. Agitating the waters, this wind stirred up
waves; and the movement of waves—so they argued—is com¬
parable to the efforts of the full womb to bring forth. The wind
which blew so impetuously also resembled, as they thought, the
Serpent by its hissing. It was, then, from the Serpent that genera¬
tion first began. And when the Light and the Spirit from above
entered into contact with the dark and disorderly Matter, then the
Serpent (the wind issuing from the waters of the abyss) penetrated
it and begot man. The Serpent, they said, is indeed the only form
that is known and loved by this impure Womb. For that reason,
the perfect Word of the Light from on high, when he wished to
come down into the material world, took on the frightful form
128 Philosophumena, V, 19-22; Jonas, vol. I, p. 342.

129 The symbol of the womb commonly occurs on the engraved gems which
are of a more or less Gnostic character. Cf. Campbell Bonner, Studies in Magical
Amulets, 1950, chap, ru and Plates VI-VII—which, however, too systematically
ascribes a medical signification to these figures. C. G. Jung has commented upon
this symbol in his Psychological Types, London, 1924, p. 289.
of the Serpent in order to enter into this impure Womb under

that deceptive appearance. Such was the necessity that obliged the
Word of God to come down into the body of a virgin. But, they
added, it was not enough that the Perfect Man, the Word, should
thus have penetrated the body of a virgin, and relieved the
anguish that prevails in the Darkness: after having entered into
the shameful mysteries of the womb, he cleansed himself, and
drank of the cup of living water that must imperatively be drunk
by whosoever wills to divest himself of the servile form and put
on a heavenly garment.
The Philosophutnena explains, in its own way, the doctrine of
the Sethians: they had borrowed it from the ancient “theo¬
logians”, Musaeus, Linus, Orpheus ... for they speak of the
womb as Orpheus did, and moreover, what they say about
the phallus, symbol of virility, could have been read before in
the Bacchics attributed to Orpheus.130
★ ★ ★
If we take account of what Porphyry says of them, the Gnostics

whom Plotinus refuted made use, together with the revelations of
Zoroaster, Zostrian, Mesos and Nicotheus, of an Apocalypse of
Allogenes: they were therefore more or less related to the sects
which, as we have seen, venerated the books written under the
name of the great Seth and of his “sons”, who are called Allo¬
genes, though we have no means of identifying them more exactly.
However, Plotinus’ criticisms of them in the ninth chapter of his
second Ennead call for consideration here; they give us glimpses
of a system similar to those we have already reviewed. True, it is
evident that the great doctor has paid attention only to certain
points in the teaching of his adversaries: he may even have
purposely disregarded one or another of the fundamental prin¬
ciples of their dualist myths which would have tended to make the
doctrine he was refuting look less absurd.
According to these Gnostics, both the soul itself and a certain
wisdom had a downward tendency—either the soul from the first
130 Cf. note 88.
was so inclined, or the wisdom caused that inclination of the

soul; or else the soul was identical with the wisdom. The other
souls who were partakers in wisdom went down together and
clothed themselves with bodies—human bodies, for instance—
whilst she, who was the cause of the descent of souls, did not
herself go down but only shed light in the darkness. From this
illumination an image came to birth in matter. That is how these
Gnostics conceived the generation of the lower being whom they
called the Demiurge; they said that, once created, he was removed
far from his Mother. Then, “in order to heap abuse upon the
demiurge who made them” they pictured the world as pro¬
ceeding from this demiurge, from reflection of reflection to the
ultimate degree. Plotinus has no patience with people who can
thus picture the celestial regions as soulless whilst they themselves,
whose hearts are filled with vice, desire and anger, pretend to be
capable of contact with an intelligibility higher than the heavens!
He also condemns, as strange, their doctrine that the soul is
composed of diverse elements,131 and their belief in a “new
Earth” higher than this world, where these mediocre elect are to
go after their deaths. He reproves, finally, their use of incantations
addressed to the heavenly powers in order to bewitch or charm
them. “Do they think, then, that these beings obey their voice or
are carried away by it, if one only has a good enough knowledge
of the art of singing according to rules, or of prayer or of breath¬
ing or sibilant cries ? After all, they have no teaching about virtue,
and profess an absurd hatred of our physical nature.”
Plotinus also ridicules the artificial and pretentious vocabulary
of these sectaries . . . their “exiles”, “imprints” and “re¬
pentances”. . . . All that, he concludes, is from first to last
“an invention of people who are not true to the ancient Hellenic
culture, though they may have taken certain details from
Plato”.132
★ ★ ★
131 Cf. the theory of Basilides and his son Isidore, p. 23.
132 H. C. Puech (“Les nouveaux ecrits gnostiques . . . ” in Coptic Studies in
Honour of W. E. Crum, 1950, p. 131) has summed up the data of the problem
posed by this passage and the conclusions of the authors who have tried to resolve
it: the content of Plotinus’ criticism makes one think, at first sight, of the Valenti-
We cannot complete this picture of the sects without quoting

one very late testimony—that of the Book of Scholia which Theo¬
dore Bar-Konai wrote in Syriac at the end of the eighth century.
The heresies he describes must have been, by that time, almost
extinct or very degenerate. Nevertheless this work is distinguished
by its vivid and precise accounts of several Gnostics, and of the
curious character of certain heresies which it has helped to save
from oblivion.
We can reassure ourselves as to the value of Theodore Bar-
Konai’s information by comparing the testimony he offers about
the sect of the Audians with the much poorer information upon
the same subject collected by Epiphanius himself. Epiphanius
did not show us these Audians as virulent heretics, but only as
a schismatic church whose founder Audius was a Syrian of
Mesopotamia.133 He separated from the Church after the Council
of Nicaea, rejecting its decrees about the celebration of Easter—
and this, when he had already gained a great reputation by his
asceticism. Some anchorites rallied round him: he founded
monasteries and fought against the loose conduct of the clergy
... his propagation of a schismatic belief cost him an exile
among the Scythians; but there he made converts enough to set
up a new Church with an episcopate and monasteries of its own.
Of his disciples, the best known were the Mesopotamian Uranius
and the Goth Silvanus. Persecuted by a pagan king, the Audians
soon had to return to the Levant, where their monasteries re¬
appeared in the Taurus, in Palestine and in Arabia. Many of the
members of this movement then came back into the orthodox
Church, so that when Epiphanius wrote (376-7), there were only
nians; but what Porphyry writes in his biography of the philosopher suggests
the Archontici or the Sethians. To this last hypothesis one may relate that of some
critics who have supposed that the Gnostics in question may have been con¬
nected with both the Naassenes and the Hermetists. The contents of the newly-
discovered writings will show to what extent these suppositions approach the
truth. Cf. C. Schmidt, “Plotinus Stellung zum Gnostizismus” in Texte und Unter-
suchungen II, 4a, 1901; R. Reitzenstein, Poimandres, pp. 102-16 and 306-8; W.
Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, pp. 186-94.
133 The sect of the Audians has attracted attention ever since the beginning of
the eighteenth century: see J. G. Krafft, De Haeresi Audianorum, Dissert. Marburg,
1716. For the state of the question, see H. C. Puech’s article “Audianer” in
Re allexikon fur Antike und Christentum, vol. I, pp. 910-15.
little groups of the schismatics in the region of Damascus, around

Antioch and in Mesopotamia.
But this, which Epiphanius took to be a merely schismatic
Church, was, to the eyes of other critics, an undeniably Gnostic
sect. Since before the year 373, St Ephraim had pointed to it as
such; and it was clearly under this heretical aspect that the teaching
of the Audians was gaining ground in the region-of Edessa
during the fifth century and still later. . . .The principal
witness for the beliefs that they professed is precisely that of
Theodore Bar-Konai. He tells us that Audius admitted, in
addition to the books of the Old and New Testaments, some
apocryphal works: that he pretended that the light and the dark¬
ness were not created by God; and taught that God was composed
of members and had, in all, the appearance of a man. This he
deduced from the text, “Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness”. To expose a few of the impious opinions of Audius:
“He writes, in his Apocalypse which bears the name of Abraham,
ascribing the words to one of the creators: ‘ The world and the
creation were made, by the darkness, from six other powers’.
He also says: ‘They saw by how many gods the soul is purified,
and by how many gods the body is created’. He says, again,
‘They asked, who compelled the angels and the powers to create
the body?’ In the Apocalypse which bears the name of John, it is
said that ‘These Powers134 that I have seen, it is from them that
my body has come’. He recounts the names of these five creators
in the following sentence: ‘My Wisdom has made the hair; the
Intelligence has made the skin; Elohim has made the bones;
my Royalty has made the blood; Adonai has made the nerves;
Zeal has made the flesh, and Thought has made the marrow.’
He borrowed all that from the Chaldaeans. In the Book of
Strangers he makes God speak as follows: ‘ God said to Eve,
Conceive by me, so that the creators of Adam come not nigh
thee’. He makes the aeons speak thus, in the Book of Requests:
‘Come, let us cover Eve, so that what is born (ofher) may belong
to us’. And again—‘The aeons took care of Eve, and covered her
134 More exactly, “These aeons” ... the term being used to denote the
inferior powers; cf. above, note 41.
so that she should not come near Adam’. In the Apocalypse of the
Strangers he makes the aeons say: ‘Come, let us cast our seed into
her and look after her (?) in the first place, so that what is bom
of her may be in our power’. He says, again, ‘They led Eve away
from the face of Adam and knew her’. Such were the impurities
and the impieties that the perverse Audius imagined against
God, against the angels and against the world.”
We recognize here the myths of the creation of Adam by the
Archons, and then of the defilement of Eve by the creator and
his powers; these were not invented by Audius, but taken over
by him from the principal Gnostic sects; among whom these
doctrines were already known from the Apocalypse of Abraham,
and from the Books of the Strangers, or Allogeneous books,135
mentioned above. The Book of Requests alone may perhaps have
been invented by Audius. . . .136
Theodore Bar-Kona'i writes against some other more or less
fantastic sects such as, for example, the Lampetians.137 Also
against John of Apamea,138 a sectary who is named again by
Bar-Hebraeus (1226-86), who states that he lived in the sixth
century. According to Bar-Konal this personage had been to
Alexandria to get instruction from the magicians there, in some
of the more or less occult sciences. On returning home to the
monastery of St Simon he divulged, discreetly, the Gnostic
teachings he had received. He believed in an unbegotten father
who had produced seven sons, from whom many more were
bom. These seven primordial powers had composed, all together,
the “Glorification of Melchizedek, the Chief of Priests”. Abra¬
ham was to have been one of these seven powers but, having
neglected to offer praises to the Father—the appropriate “glori¬
fications”—he had fallen into improper “suspicions”, from
which arose all the hostile powers called devils and demons.
Melchizedek had then prayed to the Father of Greatness to send
138 Cf. H. C. Puech, “Fragments retrouves de I’apocalypse d’ALlogine” in
Melanges Franz Cumont, 1936, pp. 935flf.
136 Unless it be identical with the Interrogations of Mary, in use, according to
Epiphanius (Panarion, XXXIX, v, 1), among the leading Gnostics: cf. H. C.
Puech, “ Les Nouveaux ecrits,” p. 130, note 1.
137 Translated in Pognon, loc. cit., p. 206.
138 Translated in Pognon, loc. cit., p. 207.
his grace to Abraham, and to lead his thoughts back towards the
good. Abraham, having then repented, reascended into the
heavenly place whence he had come down.
John of Apamea also composed a book called The Foundations,
and he had several disciples, named John, Zachaeus, Zura and
Habib. The Gnosticism of John of Apamea diverged from the
main lines of the most classic systems, in assigning to Melchizedek
and to Abraham the parts usually played by the Mother and
Sophia.
Stranger still was the sect of the Kukeans ;139 St Ephraim had
heard of them; so they were already in existence in the middle of
the fourth century. Bar-Konai sums up their teaching as follows:
“They say that God was bom from the sea situated in the World
of Light, which they call the Awakened Sea; and this Sea of
Light and the world are more ancient than God. [They also say]
that when God was born of the awakened Sea, he seated himself
above the waters, looked into them, and saw his own image.
He held out his hand, took [this image] to be his companion,
had relations with it and thus engendered a multitude of gods and
goddesses. They called this the Mother of Life, and said that she
had made seventy worlds and twelve aeons. They added that, at a
certain distance from the god who was born of the Awakened
Sea, there was a sort of dead image like a statue without move¬
ment, without hfe, without thought or intelligence. The god,
who found this hateful, evil and ugly . . ., thought to take it
up and cast it far from his presence. But then he said, ‘since it has
neither the Hfe, the intelligence nor the thought to make war
against me, and seeing that I have no fault to find with it, it
would be unjust of me to cast it out: I will therefore give it some
of my own strength, of my own mobility and intelligence, and
then it will declare war upon me’. They pretend that God issued
an order to his worlds, which boiled over with heat, made a portion
of their hfe overflow, and poured it into this ugly statue; and
that the latter applied all its soul and all its intelligence to making
war upon the beings on the side of the good, who withstood it in
forty-two battles, and the oftener they fought the more the
139 Translated in Pognon, loc. cit., pp. 29off.
carnal forces—that is, the animals, beasts and reptiles of the

earth—multiplied. ”
“One day”, they said, “the Mother of Life came down to it,
accompanied by seven virgins. When she came near [this statue],
the latter stood up and breathed upon the Mother of Life; its
breath penetrated even to the sexual organs of the Mother and
defiled her; she could not go into the dwelling of the gods her
companions, and remained for seven days in a state of impurity.
She then threw the seven virgins who were with her into the
mouth of this great ‘Gurha’, which sucked them in during the
seven days of the defilement of the Mother of Life, for she threw
him one each day; so that the gods were obliged to come to the
rescue of the seven virgins whom the Mother of Life had thrown
into the mouth of this great ‘Gurha’.
“They say that the beings on the side of evil join, from time
to time, in a festivity; they bring forth these virgins, give them
to their sons, and adorn themselves with the light proceeding
from these [virgins]; while the beings on the side of the good—
the betrothed of these [virgins]—come down on the festive day
and each of them takes away his own betrothed. They affirm also
that the coming of our Saviour into this world had no other
motive but the rescue of his affianced lover here below: he took
her up; he ascended from the Jordan, and he made the daughter
of the Mother of Life. ...[?]... of Egypt. They assert
that the other virgins are, the one at Hetra, another at Mabbog,
another at Harra; that their betrothed look on, and, when the
moment comes, take them away.”
Bar-Konai mentions yet other and more astonishing sects—
for instance that of the Kantaeans who claim that their doctrine is
derived from Abel.140 In the Sassanid Empire, this sect had per¬
sisted up to the time of the king Yezdegerd II (442-57). An old
slave named Battai introduced additional abominations into it
during the reign of Peroz (459-84). This Battai, who had formerly
lived among certain Manichaeans, had pretended to submit to a
140 Trans, in Pognon, loc. cit., pp. 22off.; a sect half-way between the Man-
daeans and the Manichaeans. Cf. Reitzenstein, Das mandaische Buck des Herrn der
Grosse . . . , Heidelberg, 1919, pp. 28fF.
6o The Secret Books oj the Egyptian Gnostics
decree of king Peroz proscribing all religions other than that of the
Magi. But he then propagated a somewhat composite doctrine,
of which here are some extracts from Bar-Konai: “Before the
beginning of all tilings, there had been a divinity who divided
himself into two, and from whom the Good and the Evil came
to be. The Good gathered-together the lights, and the Evil the
darkness. Then, the Evil gained understanding, and arose to make
war upon the Father of Greatness. The Father of Greatness
pronounced a word, from which the Lord God was created. The
Lord God in his turn uttered seven words from which were born
seven powers. But seven demons set themselves up against the
Lord God and against the Powers he had engendered: after
having shackled these adversaries, they stole from the Father of
Greatness the principle of the soul. The demons then began to
cleanse and scour Adam, the first man. But the Lord God came,
and destroyed Adam and remade him.
The cosmogony of Battai assigns the role of Saviour to the
Son of the Light, to whom are attributed, for instance, the
following words: “I advanced, and made my way towards the
souls. When they saw me, they joined together . . . and
greeted me with a thousand greetings. They sighed and said to
me, ‘ Son of the Light, go and say to our Father, When will the
captives be freed, and when will rest be granted to tortured and
suffering beings? When will rest be granted to the souls who
suffer the persecution of the world?’ I rephed to them, ‘When
the Euphrates will be dried up from its estuary, and when the
Tigris will flow outside its bed; when all the rivers will be dry and
the torrents will overflow, then will rest be granted to souls.’”
Another feature of their teaching reflects one of the most
classic Gnostic doctrines; they believed that “the Cross is the
secret of the Limit, between the Father of Greatness and the
lower Earth”.141
This glimpse of the history of the Kantaeans and of the prophet
Battai is confirmed by some details reported during the twelfth
century in the Chronicle of Michael the Syrian. There it is said
that this Battai, after his conversion to Manichaeism, took the
141 Cf. Horos-Stauros of the Valentinians, above p. 28.
name of Yazdani or Yazwani; and the sacred writings of the

Mandaeans (for instance, the Ginza of the first or “right” part,
Book IX, i) make some definite allusions to the sect of the
Yazuqeans, derived from both Judaism and Christianity, a sect
which worshipped fire, whose members used the name of Jesus,
and who carried their barsum—the Persians’ sacramental bundle
of branches—on the left shoulder, “in the maimer of a cross”.
★ ★ ★
From all the texts written about Gnosticism by its enemies

I have made no more than a selection, moreover a rather cursory
one. A more thorough exploration of the references would, no
doubt, show that in touching upon some of the sects named, I had
already, without being aware of it, overstepped the boundaries
of authentic Gnosticism and strayed into the obscure regions of
Manichaeism and, still more, of that Mandaeanism whose earliest
adepts (if we can trust, for example, Theodore Bar-Kona'i) gave
themselves the name of Dosthaeans—that is, of Dositheans.142
From the historical point of view, the details we have gleaned
about the first founders, the great doctors, and about the sects
appear, for the most part, uncertain if not mythical. The sects
knew how to hide from their enemies a great deal of their
mysteries. We have glimpses, here and there, of ideas and myths,
we have the titles, and even summaries, of “secret” writings of
which one longs to know whether they really existed, were
imagined, or misreported by certain enemies of the Gnostics.
We wish we had proofs as convincing as many of the accounts
seem to be contradictory; for the same sects, the same teachers
may appear in a considerably different light according to whether
we see them through the eyes of Irenaeus, of Epiphanius, of the
anonymous author of the Philosophumena or of Theodore Bar-
Konai. True, the principal myths have a number of well-marked
features in common; outstanding among these are the primordial
figure of the invisible Father, of his Thought which becomes the
142 These “Dositheans” do not, upon present information, appear to have been
related to the Gnostic Dositheus; cf. R. McL. Wilson, “ Simon, Dositheus . . . ,”
p. 27, note 39.
Mother and, in various guises, falls into the Matter from which
she has afterwards to be rescued. We also find the creation of this
base world described as the sensual, sinister work of the lower,
wicked powers, to whose activity is ascribed the whole Creation
recorded in Genesis, systematically twisted to the opposite of its
customary meaning. But how are we to explain the extreme
licentiousness of certain sects and the no less strict asceticism of
other groups, who nevertheless make as much use as do the others
—so we are told—of the same myths, contained in the same secret
books? Are we to suspect that the worst abominations laid to the
charge of certain heretics were merely imagined by malevolent
critics? And how are we to defme the position of our sectaries in
relation to Christianity, from which they borrow much of their
figure of the Saviour and several other features? And further—
was Gnosticism really such a shapeless conglomeration of different
religions, disparate philosophies, of astrology and magic as is
here been painted for us, perhaps in forced colours? We may
quite possibly be dealing with hasty interpretations built up by
commentators who knew all too little about this religion; so that
what they took to be its foundational tenets were really but the
glosses or commentaries of over-literary members of the sects.
To show how far the learned writers of those days might go, in
ascribing just such a comp heated physiognomy to mystics whom
they set out to criticize, we can point to an example which has
nothing to do with the Gnostics; namely, the indictment that
Celsus drew up against Christianity itself. In this he asserts that
the teaching of the Gospel derives, in part, from Plato, from
Heraclitus, from the Stoics, the Jews, from the Egyptians and
Persian myths and the Cabiri! The tone of such an attack recalls,
as does even its style, the closely analogous criticisms directed
against the Gnostics by the Christian heresiologists.143 And what
historian of today would entertain, in respect of Christianity,
any hypotheses so excessive as those of Celsus? Must we not
therefore suspect that the author of the Philosophumena, and the
other adversaries of Gnosticism, who accused it of mixing its
myths with Greek philosophy and the Mysteries, may often
143 Cf. P. de Labriolle, La Reaction paienne . . . , 1934, pp. 118 and passim.
have done so by mere rhetorical artifice and with hardly any real
justification?
However abundant, therefore, might be the information about
Gnosticism that its enemies had collected, it could only be taken
into consideration—this must be admitted—in so far as we could
compare it with original, indubitable documents from which it
could be verified. And it is just this which, until the last few
years, has presented the most insoluble problem to the historian of
Gnosticism. For of documents handed down directly and authen¬
tically from the Gnostics, we possessed almost none; and such
fragments as there were had to be treated with so much reserve
that they could hardly answer the great questions we wanted to
put to them.
CHAPTER II
ORIGINAL TEXTS AND MONUMENTS
With regard to original documents, it is as though Fate had been

trying to poke fun at the learned, for had she not bequeathed
them, of all possible texts, the most complicated and surely the
most incoherent that Gnosticism ever produced? Placed side by
side with such documentation as the heresiologists have made
known to us, the latter is made to look almost . . . eulogistic,
almost benevolent towards the sects which the Fathers took so
kindly and seriously as to do them the honour of refutation.
These relics of Gnostic literature consist, essentially, of three
manuscripts obtained from Egypt, all three written in the Coptic
language.1 But it must not be inferred from this that Egypt played
a greater part in the history of Gnosticism than other countries.
These are writings very probably translated from the Greek;
and if only these translations escaped destruction it is because the
sands and ruins of the Nile valley offer conditions more favour¬
able to the preservation of ancient manuscripts, as of all other
remains, than those enjoyed by any other country.
The most widely known of these manuscripts is generally
called by the name of Pistis-Sophia, though the title is appropri¬
ate to only a part of the contents. It is a book written on parch¬
ment, dating apparently from the fourth century, which was pre¬
sumably brought to Europe in the second half of the eighteenth
century. It first belonged to the hbrary of a Dr Askew—whence
1 Coptic is a vernacular form of the Egyptian language, no longer written in

hieroglyphs but by means of the Greek alphabet, supplemented by certain signs
meant to represent certain special sounds. After a few preliminary gropings, the
most ancient Coptic texts appeared in the first centuries of our era. Making use
of this writing, to which various Egyptian dialects were being adapted, the
Christians of the Nile Valley produced an abundant literature. It was not until
the tenth century that the Coptic language began to disappear, giving way to
Arabic in common usage. It is still in use, however, in the liturgy of the Egyptian
Church.
64
Original Texts and Monuments 65
it is catalogued as the Codex Askewianus—and then was acquired

by the British Museum in 1785. Tins parchment manuscript
originally consisted, according to the pagination, of 356 pages
of two columns each, of which only a few leaves have been
lost. Of the five texts it contains, written in a Theban dialect
of Coptic—in Sahidic—a first translation was published in
1851.2
One would hardly be able to understand anything at all in a
summary account of these documents, unless we began by re¬
tracing, in broad outline, the fantastic universe which served as a
setting for their speculations.
At the summit of this universe is an ineffable and infinite god,
who is at once a light enclosed within himself and a power
from which all things have emanated. This god develops thus into
innumerable entities, until the whole is something hke a gigantic
primordial man of whom the powers of the higher world are the
members. Was it hke this, perhaps (as H. Leisegang suggests),
that the Ophites imagined the Anthropos they placed at the head
of their system?3 Out of this ineffable god came forth the First
Mystery, an entity which plays somewhat the same part as the
• Word does in other Gnostic mythologies. This First Mystery is
surrounded by a crowd of beings—Apatores or “fatherless”;
super-triple-spirits; pro-triple-spirits, etc. . . . and beneath it
are established twenty-four other mysteries. Further below is the
Treasury of Light, with twelve saviours and nine guardians at its
three portals. . . . It is this Treasury of Light which is finally
attained by those human souls who have received the mysteries of
Gnosticism. The higher world is separated from the lower heavens
2 M. G. Schwartze, Pistis Sophis: Opus gnosticum Valentino adiudicatum . . .

latine vertit M. G. Schwartze. Edidit J. H. Petermann, Berlin 1851-3. The edition
of the Coptic text now in use is C. Schmidt, Pistis-Sophia, Hauniae, 1925. Eng.
translation: G. Homer, Pistis-Sophia, 1924; German: C. Schmidt, Pistis-Sophia,
1925, this last has been revised and published by W. Till, Koptische-Gnostische
Schriften, 1st Volume: Die Pistis-Sophia, Die Beiden Bucher des Jeu, Unbekanntes
Altgnostisches Werk, herausg. von C. Schmidt, 2nd edn., 1954. Concerning the
name Pistis-Sophia, which for long remained a mystery (in 1847 Dulaurier
translated it Fidele Sagesse= Faithful Wisdom), we know from certain passages
in more recently-discovered texts (see the Sophia of Jesus, in the Gnostic Codex
of Berlin) that it refers to a Sophia “whom some also called Pistis”.
3 Leisegang, loc. cit., pp. 243ff.
by veils; and in some of these veils there is a “left-hand door”

which will open when the Three Times4 have been completed,
and when Sophia and the lower beings will have been hberated
from Matter. The Place of the Just is appointed at a certain dis¬
tance from theTreasury; it is the residence ofjeou; of the Guard¬
ian of the Great Light; the two Great Governors; Melchizedek
and the Sabaoth called the Good. The function of these powers
is to collect together all the portions of Light that have been lost
throughout the aeons and in the cosmos and to bring them up
again into the Treasury. More specifically, Sabaoth guards the
“Portal of Life” which opens upon a lower zone—the inter¬
mediate region. Over this intermediate place reigns Iao the great,
who is good, assisted by Little Iao the good and the Little Sabaoth
the Good with his angels. There, also, is the great Virgin of Light
who judges the souls, decides whether they shall go up to the
Light or to damnation, and distributes the seals, the mysteries
and the baptisms that are indispensable for a journey into the
higher realms.
Beneath this Intermediary is the Place of the Left; where one
fmds, first, the Thirteenth Aeon, ruled over by the Great In¬
visible or Propator, with Barbelo and the Triple-Powers.
With his wings, the Propator covers the kerasmos beneath—
the world which is a mixture of light and of matter. The
highest degree of this mixed world is constituted by the
Twelve Aeons. The sphere of the Heimarmene (of Fatality)
separates the Twelve aeons from the visible heavens and the
terrestrial world.
Leisegang, who has catalogued very exactly the different parts
of this universe,5 6 points out that a distinction is introduced here,
between the Right and the Left, the heavenly spheres being con¬
strained, in certain cases, to turn in the one direction or the other.
He recalls that, according to the Ophites—as described in the
Philosophumena—“when the Ocean goes down [i.e., flows to¬
wards the Left], that is the birth of men; when it rises [flows to
4 H. C. Puech, Le ManicMisme, son fondateur, sa doctrine, 1949, note 284;

cf. pp. 113-14.
6 Leisegang, loc. cit., p. 245.
the right], towards the rampart and fortress of the Leucadian

rock, then is the birth of the gods”. Analogously, in the Pistis-
Sophia, the soul that is making its way towards the right is mount¬
ing upward and escaping the destiny prefigured for it in the
celestial sphere of Fatality. . . .
The Codex Askewianus consists, first, of the two Books of Pistis-
Sophia. The somewhat theatrical preamble to the former of these
writings leads us straight into the realm of pure fiction with an
account of how Jesus, returning to earth during the first eleven
years after his Resurrection (!) had as yet taught his disciples
only a portion of the mysteries. It remains for him to instruct
them in the highest of all: the Treasury of the Light. The scene is
enacted on the Mount of Olives, the disciples seated in a group,
Jesus keeping himself a little apart from them. Suddenly a light
descends from above, envelops him and carries him away to a
fantastic heaven.6 Later on, Jesus comes down again, enrobed
now in three different lights. Of these luminous vestments that he
has received in the higher heavens, one is shining with the glory
of all the higher mysteries—those of the First Commandment, of
the Five Seals . . . , and those of the Treasury of the Light,
with all its Saviours, the Seven Amens, the Seven Voices, the Five
Trees, the Three Amens, the Twin Saviour also called the Child
of the Child, the mystery of the Nine Guardians of the Three
gates of the Treasury, etc. . . .
Jesus then tells his disciples how, reapparelled in this resplendent
vesture, he has just overthrown the evil powers of the celestial
spheres—more especially those of the Sphere of Fatality—thus
preluding the salvation of the Perfect and consummation of the
lower universe. Up to this time, indeed, the powers of the twelve
aeons, the powers of Adamas the Tyrant, the planets and the
zodiacal signs, had dominated the created world! And Adamas
and his followers have done their best, even since this visitation
by the Light, to wage disorderly war against it. But Jesus then
stripped them of a third part of their power; he abolished the
6 See the accounts of the Transfiguration in Math. XVII, 2; Mark IX, 2; Luke
IX, 29; “And his face shone like the sun and his garments became white as
light . . . .”
course of Fate ;7 he changed the regular movement of the spheres

into an alternating movement, so that the planets could no longer
exert their malign influence upon men, and that even the con¬
jurations of the astrologers—hitherto regarded as all-powerful—
became meaningless.8 Upon these points, Mary and Philip ques¬
tion the Saviour; and Jesus explains to them the effects of the
changes thus brought about. Then Mary gives praise for this
defeat of astrology, which, until then, had left mankind exposed
to malign Fatality. Recalling an oracle of the prophet Isaiah
(Isaiah XIX, 3-12) she cries, “Egypt, where are now thy inter¬
preters and thy casters of horoscopes, and those who are diviners
by the earth and by the entrails? Let them tell thee, henceforth,
the works that the Lord Sabaoth will accomplish! So prophesied,
even before thou earnest, the power that was in Isaiah the prophet!
It prophesied of thee, that thou wouldst take away their power
7 Cf. Puech, La Gnose et le Temps, pp. 84-5 and note 28; Jonas, loc. cit., vol. I,
pp. 193-4. Cf. also Tertullian, De idol., 9.
8 What is the phenomenon alluded to in this episode of the upsetting of the
rotation of the spheres? To understand it, one must look back to, for instance, the
seventh letter of the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, speculating upon Joshua
X, 12 and 13, “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed”, upon II Kings
XX, 9-11; and Isaiah XXXVIII, 8; “So the sun turned back on the dial the ten
steps by which it had declined”; and upon the echpse which occurred at the time
of the Crucifixion, recorded in Matt. XXVII, 45 ; Mark XV, 33 and Luke XXIII,
44. Here is* what the pseudo-Dionysius writes about each of these episodes re¬
spectively:—“Is it not thanks to (the Divine Power) that the sun and the
moon . . . stood quite still, as did the entire heavens, and that all the heavenly
bodies stood motionless a whole day in the same signs of the zodiac, unless—a
still more marvellous prodigy—the higher spheres which surround the others
continued to complete their entire revolution, although the lower spheres did
not follow them in their circular motion?” “Another miracle: this day, which
was prolonged to almost three times its normal length, so that, for twenty hours,
either the whole heaven was stopped in its course by an impulse in the opposite
direction, and reversed its motion by the most prodigious of retrogressions; or
else it is the sun which, in its own path, reduced its time of revolution to ten
hours by five stages, and then, reversing its motion for another space of ten hours,
went over the whole path again backwards”. “We saw this strange phenomenon;
the moon occulting the sun when the time had not arrived for their conjunction;
then, from the ninth hour until the evening, this same moon keeping itself
miraculously in opposition with the sun. Remind him again of this other cir¬
cumstance ; we also saw the moon beginning its occultation of the sun, and then
going back in its path, so that the occultation and the return of the light did not
occur on the same side, but on the two opposite margins of the solar disc. Such
were the wonders that took place at that juncture, and that the Christ alone
could have produced.” (Migne, Patrologia Graeca, vol. Ill, 1080-1; Maurice de
Gandillac, Oeuvres completes du pseudo-Denys VAreopagite, 1943, pp. 333-4.
from the Archons of the aeons, that thou wouldst overturn their
sphere and their fatality; that they should no longer know any¬
thing. It is also concerning this, that (that power) has said, ‘You
shall no longer know that which the Lord Sabaoth will do’—
that is to say, that no one among the Archons shall any more
know what thou art about to do—which Archons here are
Egypt, for it is they who are matter. . . . ”9
The salvaging of the portions of light dispersed throughout the
cosmos is then discussed. It is Jeou, the “receivers” of the Moon
and of the Sun, and Melchizedek . . . , who have to gather
up the strength of the celestial powers—that is, the breath of their
mouths, their tears and sweat. Out of the light that they extract
from these they will either make souls of men and of animals or,
on the other hand, will place it finally in the Treasury of the
Light after having completely purified it.10
But Jesus, in his journey through the regions on high, came to
the Thirteenth aeon (which corresponds to the Ogdoad in most
of the Gnostic systems). Here he found Pistis-Sophia, sorrowing
because she had not been reinstated in the Pleroma from which
she had fallen, and grieving over the attacks to which she was
still subjected by her greatest enemy, the Authades—the “self-
willed” or the “ambitious”. To a question that Mary now puts
to him, Jesus answers by relating what happened at the fall of
Sophia. Formerly this “Wisdom” had been numbered among the
emanations of the Invisible in the higher regions. She had had a
glimpse, above her, of the Veil of the Treasury of the Light, and
was filled with longing to attain to it. But the Twelve aeons
below were seized with hatred of her, and one of these wicked
ones—the Authades—now produced a power with the face of a
Hon, Ialdabaoth, and peopled Chaos with a number of other
emanations of matter. Then he made to glow, in the abyss, on
purpose to allure Sophia, an apparition of light towards which
she let herself be attracted. Immediately her own light-power was
* Cf. chap. 1, note 120 and chap, vi, note 35.

10 This same myth survived in Manichaeism: cf. Cumont, Recherches sur le
Manicheisme, I, p. 55, Puech, Manicheisme, p. 80; the theme of the ascent of souls
by way of the moon and the sun is of common occurrence: cf. Plutarch, De
facie in orbe lunae, 28-30 (edn. Raingeard, 1935, pp. 43-8). Cf. below, note 24.
taken from her by Ialdabaoth, whilst the other powers of matter

took possession of her.
Jesus then recites to the disciples the twelve prayers in which
Sophia, from the depths of the abyss, offered up her repentance
towards the Light on high. One after another, each of these
prayers is commented upon by one of his listeners, who reply
to Jesus, “Thou hast already announced these things by the
mouth of the Prophet David”, and quote to him, each in turn,
one or another of the Psalms of the Old Testament appropriate
to the sentiments expressed in each prayer of Sophia. But Jesus
tells them, at the same time, how the repentance of Pistis-Sophia
had been received on high; how he himself came down to take
away from the lion-faced power that light which it had stolen,
and to bring Sophia out of Chaos. Then he recites some more of
the hymns of Sophia, which are again explained by the disciples,
this time by comparing them with five of the apocryphal Odes of
Solomon.11
It is at the end of this book that we find the insertion of a
curious apocryphal episode in the life of Jesus, narrated by Mary,
of which this is the translation:
“When thou wert quite little, before the spirit had come upon
thee, whilst thou wert in the vineyard with Joseph, the Spirit
came out of the height and came to me in my house, like unto
thee; so that I did not know him, but I thought at first it was
thou. And the Spirit said unto me: ‘Where is Jesus, my brother,
that I may go and meet him ? ’ And when he had said this unto me,
I was at a loss, and thought it was a phantom come to try me. So
I seized him and bound him to the foot of the bed in my house,
whilst I went forth to you, to thee and Joseph in the field; and I
found you in the vineyard, to which Joseph was making a fence.
It came to pass therefore when thou didst hear me speak unto
Joseph, that thou didst understand what I said; thou wert joyful,
and saidst: ‘ Where is he? I will go to see him rather than wait for
11 The Odes of Solomon were known also to Lactantius, who quotes them in
his Inst. 4, 12, 3; forty-one others, making a total of forty-two, have been re¬
covered in Syriac and published by J. R. Harris in 1909. They date from the
second century. There is still some dispute about the more or less Gnostic character
of these hymns, which are inspired partly by the teaching of St John.
him here.’ And when Joseph had heard thee say this he was
startled. We went down together, we entered the house and
found the Spirit bound to the bed. And we saw, looking on thee
and on him, that he was hke unto thee. But then he who was bound
to the bed was unloosed; he took thee in his arms and kissed thee,
and thou also didst kiss him; and ye became as one.”
The Second Book of Pistis-Sophia (it is expressly so entitled, and
begins at page 114 of the manuscript) recounts the rest of the
struggle between the Authades and the powers (Michael and
Gabriel above all) who bring Sophia out of Chaos, to reinstate
her at the lower limit of the Thirteenth aeon. However, the story
of Pistis-Sophia is completed—at page 169—and the Saviour then
passes on to discuss such different subjects that we wonder whether
we are not now in another text, distinct from the preceding one.
Replying to a question from Mary Magdalene, Jesus describes
the celestial world, explaining how the light that has been dis¬
persed among the things of the lower world is collected again and
purified. Then he reveals, to his own, the Mystery of the In¬
effable—the mystery whose words are of an extraordinary power,
and thanks to which each of the Perfect ones will be absorbed,
in the end, into the person of Jesus himself; “He is I, and I am
he.” Jesus also mentions some less exalted mysteries which are
set forth, he says, in the two great Books of Jeou.
It is, perhaps, in this exposition that we are enabled to grasp,
most completely, the mythical structure that our Gnostics ascribe
to the higher world. Above our terrestrial world are ranged
the heavenly spheres, one enveloping another, higher and higher
and of vaster extent. Here, in succession, are: the Place of the
Rulers of Destiny (the planets); then the twelve aeons (the
Zodiac?); then the Place of the Midst—in which are the holy
baptisms and the seals; then the Places of the Right; then the
World of Light or the Treasury of the Light with its twelve
Saviours, with the emanations of the seven Voices and of the
five Trees and the Amens. Still higher, there is the Place of those
who have received the inheritance and the mysteries. ... A
fantastic cosmology, upon which a whole apocalyptic teaching is
developed, on the supposition that the return of the universe to
its perfection will be signalized by the reascent of the Perfect ones

throughout these stages, up to the highest degrees of all!
This treatise also outlines, in the form of questions left un¬
answered, the scheme of an extraordinary encyclopaedia, as much
scientific and metaphysical as it is theological—Why do animals
exist, or birds, or mountains, or precious stones, gold or silver ? How
were the seas created? Why should there be times of famine and
of abundance ? To what end were hatred and love created, etc. . . .
At the end of this exposition (on page 23 3 of the manuscript)
we find that the title is no longer the Book of Pistis-Sophia nor
the Second Book of Pistis-Sophia, but is given as: A part of the Books
of the Saviour. This confirms our impression that, on page 169
of the manuscript where the story of Pistis-Sophia ended, we
had come to the commencement of a different work.
What follows, moreover, carries on a treatise which is mani¬
festly a continuation of the one just concluded, before the
appearance of the formula, A part of the Books of the Saviour. In
this text, the disciples question the Saviour about various problems
touching the salvation of those souls which, whether they have
or have not received the Mysteries—namely, the several baptisms
and sacraments instituted by the sect—commit more or less
serious sins. One great interest of this text, is that it shows us the
human soul as made up of three parts—of spirit, of matter and,
also, of a “counterfeiting spirit”, which reminds one of the
doctrines attributed to Basilides and his son Isidore. The counter¬
feiting spirit is that which the Archons of Fatality put into man,
at his creation, to make him sin. Once it is established in the
child, it nourishes itself and grows in strength by the carnal
nourishment that it absorbs. It contradicts the motions of the
spirit derived from on high, which lives in the same body. A
passage in the Coptic text even compares its presence in the soul
to that of the copper which, mixed with silver, was present as an
alloy in the piece of money that served to illustrate the saying:
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God
the things that are God’s.” (Matthew XXII, 15-22). After death,
this counterfeiting spirit bears witness against the soul of all the
sins which he has made it commit.
The same treatise shows how the souls are then tried, by order
of Jeou, before the Virgin of Light who is their judge. This
Virgin of Light seals the perfect souls, and sends them to receive
the anointings and baptisms without which none can ascend
towards the powers of the Treasury. She sends the others back
into the rotations of the celestial sphere, and even down into the
infernal abodes peopled with fantastic demons, the long pro¬
cession of which forms the body of the dragon of the outer
“Darkness”.12 “In order to escape these punishments,” says Jesus,
it is necessary for men to gain knowledge of the mysteries
which are in the Books of Jeou, those that I caused to be written by
Enoch in Paradise, when I spoke to him from the Tree of Know¬
ledge and the Tree of Life. And I caused him to place them
upon the rock of Ararat; and I set Kalapatauroth—the archon
who is above Gemmut, him who is under the feet of Jeou and
who makes all aeons and all destinies to revolve—that same
archon I set to watch over the Books of Jeou, to [protect them]
from the flood and [also] that no archon, seized with jealousy
about them, might destroy them.”
It should be noted, with regard to the two Books of Pistis-
Sophia which constitute the first part of this compilation, that
Hamack wanted, without very strong proofs but because of its
dialogue form, to have it recognized as the lost book of the
Little Interrogations of Mary which (according to Epiphanius,
XXVI) was in use among the great Gnostics.
After these various texts comes an untitled portion (pp. 318
12 Cf. the myth of the great Gnostics, described by Epiphanius (see above,
chap. 1, p. 43); the Leviathan of the Diagram of the Ophites: Leisegang, loc. cit.,
Plate VII; Boll, article “ Finsternisse ” in Realenzyklopadie of Pauly-Wissowa;
Catal. Codic. Astrol. Graec., vol. VIII, I, p. 194. We read in the Acts of Thomas,
§ 31, a few lines which indicate pretty clearly the mythical parentage and meaning
of the fantastic dragons met with in these beliefs: the serpent which the Apostle
is in the act of punishing describes himself thus: “ I am the son of him who reigns
over all the earth. I am the son of him who encircles the globe. I am related to
him who is beyond the Ocean and whose tail is in his own mouth. It is I who
stole into Paradise to speak to Eve and tell her that which my father had bidden
me let her know. ...” Cf., again, G. Furlani, “Tre trattati astrologici siriaci
sulle eclisse solare e lunare” in Atti dell’ Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1947,
Classe di Scienze morali . . ., vol. 2, fasc. 11/12, Nov.-Dee., 1948, Rome, pp.
569-606. Cf. also here below, pp. 225-6. This figure also appears later, as the
serpent ouroboros in the alchemists’ writings.
to 336 of the manuscript) beginning with a most extraordinary-

scene. It is soon after the Resurrection. Jesus—“who is Abera-
mentho”13—is standing near the shore of the Ocean, upright upon
an altar around which are ranged his disciples. He pronounces a
mysterious prayer, in which there are some of the Kabbahstic
names that we find also on those curious engraved gems which
are commonly—though arbitrarily—described as “Gnostic”,
as well as in the formulas written on magic papyri, Greek and
Coptic. Under the impact of these words the heavens are suddenly
opened: Jesus and his followers are transported into intermediate
space and in front of them, steering amid the winds, they behold
the ships of the sun and the moon, manned by fantastic beings.14
In one of these ships they can even distinguish the dragons whose
function it is to wrest from the Archons the light that they have
stolen.15 Jesus then tells how the powers of Sabaoth the Adamas,16
13 Cf. C. Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets, p. 203, which suggests that this
name, commonly found on the engraved gems, was borrowed by the Gnostics
from the repertory of magic (?). It does occur in the magical texts: cf. S. Eitrem,
Papyri Osloenses, fasc. I, Plate III, which shows a personage with the head of a
cock, and with this name attached.
14 The ritual of the opening of the heavens, by which Jesus transports his
disciples into the upper spaces and makes the heavenly ships appear, may well
derive from Pharaonic Egypt; the gods, in their celestial barks, are thus repre¬
sented in their sanctuaries; cf. J. Doresse, “ Un rituel magique des Gnostiques
d’Egypte” in La Tour Saint-Jacques, Nos. n-12, July-December, 1957, pp.
65-75. We find other magical formulas for opening the heavens in a demotic
ritual; see The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden, edited by F. LI.
Griffith and Herbert Thompson, London, 1904, cols. X, 11. 23-35, and col.
XXVII, 11. 1-12. Such ships occur again in the myths of the Mandaeans: cf.
G. Furlani, “I pianeti e lo zodiaco nella religione dei Mandei” in Atti Accad.
Naz. dei Lincei, Series 8, vol. II, fasc. 3, 1948, pp. 128-31, where it appears, among
other details, that the moon has a black face like that of a cat. Mandaean pictures
showing such ships are reproduced in Drower, The Mandaeans, pp. 77 and 79.
16 Cumont, Recherches . . ., pp. 54ff.; Puech Manicheisme . . . , pp.
79-80 and notes 321-24. According to the Manichaean myth recorded by St
Augustine, De Nat. Boni, 44 and Contra Faustum, XX, 6, and by Evodius, De
Fide, these powers came out of the ships of the sun and moon to go and seduce
the Archons by taking the forms of young men and women stripped of all
raiment. . . . Since this conception would have put the sun and moon among
the benefic powers, they were replaced, in the list of the seven perverse “planets”,
by the Head and Tail of the Dragon—that is, by the two nodes of the lunar orbit
—invisible points, made manifest only by the eclipses they were supposed to
cause, and between which the body of the fabulous monster itself could be traced,
in that constellation of the Dragon whose star alpha corresponded, in antiquity,
to the Pole.
16 Adamas the “indomitable”: cf. the term Authades in the Pistis-Sophia.
who had at first persisted in procreating angels, decans and other
powers, had been bound by Jeou, “Father of my Father”, to the
celestial sphere of Fatality—that is, to the wheel of time. One of
these powers, Iabraoth, became converted and was instated
higher up, whilst Sabaoth the Adamas remained obstinately
attached to his lower works and was bound to the sphere. To the
five planets—already entrusted with three hundred and sixty-five
powers—certain forces drawn from the Triple-powers were
subjected; for instance, the little Sabaoth, the Good, was linked
in this way with Zeus, for the government of the sphere. Then
Jeou regulated the movements of the heavens.
Underneath the sphere, in the Ways of the Midst, Jeou estab¬
lished three hundred and sixty-five of the powers of the Adamas,
ruled by five great demons, those who torment mankind. Here,
in a novel manner, is described the fate of the souls that are thrown
into the continual circling of the heavens. At certain particular
conjunctions of the zodiacal signs and of the planets—aspects
which belong to an old, rather fantastic astrology17—the various
sectors of the heavens, each under the rule of its demoniac power,
are periodically annulled, and the souls they contain are set free
by Sabaoth the Good.
After this exposition Jesus conjured up, before the eyes of his
disciples, apparitions of fire and water, of wine and of blood,
derived from the Treasury of the Light and from Barbelo
respectively, to show what the elements of the Gnostic “bap¬
tisms” will be. Then, at a word from the Saviour, the heavens
are closed, and they find themselves again upon the Mountain in
Galilee.
The Christ now begins to celebrate, upon an altar, a mysterious
sacrifice: he recites a magical prayer; and then conies a sign from
heaven. Thus is accomplished the Baptism of the First Oblation,
to which the faithful have yet to add the baptism of Fire, and then
the baptism of the Spirit, which is a spiritual anointing.
The conclusion of this book is missing: it consisted of eight
pages of manuscript which have been lost; and when the text
continues after this lacuna we are manifestly in the beginning of
17 Cf. chap, vi, note 33.
another work (pp. 345 to 354 of the codex), for the dialogue is
framed in formulas that are quite different in style. This last
treatise, of which the commencement is lacking, is a conversation
between Jesus and his disciples about the different categories of
sinners and the torments in store for them. According to a com¬
plicated classification, the guilty souls will be put through a series
of degrees of infernal purification, at the end of which some will
be irrevocably abandoned to the demons, who will torture and
destroy them, whilst others will be returned to the torments of
tills base world, after having been made to drink the draught of
oblivion. It is noteworthy that, among the greatest sinners to be
punished, mention is made of the Gnostics who call themselves
the heirs of Esau and of Jacob, sectaries addicted to such licentious
practices as those which the heresiologists ascribe to the great
Gnostics.18
The whole collection of texts contained in this codex is evi¬
dently somewhat muddled. We first remarked upon this at the
abrupt change of subject on page 169 of the manuscript, most
probably because this belongs to another work which the compiler
had tacked on to the former without any transitional passage.
Another example of this disorder occurs on pages 233-4 (between
the end of the first Book of the Saviour and the beginning of the
second treatise of the same title), where two pages are inserted,
the contents of which do not belong to the second of these books,
but should undoubtedly be placed earlier, among the last pages of
the previous treatise. Finally, the last page of the manuscript,
numbered 355, is written by another hand than the rest of the
book, and gives the last lines of some apocryphal gospel of which
nothing else has survived.
★ ★ ★
Another Gnostic manuscript is the Bruce Codex. This was

bought at Thebes in 1769 by the famous Scottish traveller when
he was on his way to the Sudan and Ethiopia. No doubt this
book had been discovered in some hiding-place in the vast
necropolis of the Thebaid which, after the decay of the old
18 Cf. chap. 1, pp. 36 and 43.
paganism, was a refuge for all sorts of magicians. It is a question—
the two manuscripts having come to light about the same time—
whether the Codex Askewianus may not have come from the same
Theban source: by their contents alone the two collections present
a family hkeness that suggests this hypothesis. The Bruce Codex is
now in the Bodleian Library; its contents were not rightly esti¬
mated until 1872, by Eugene Revillout; and Amelineau published
it prematurely about 1891.19
The manuscript, which is of papyrus, comprises seventy-eight
pages written by several different hands, and consists essentially
of two parts. The first of these contains the two books of a Great
Treatise according to the Mystery, and may date from the fifth
century. The second contains a work whose title is missing and
its writing may go back to the end of the fourth century.
The two parts of the Book of the great treatise according to the
Mystery seem, by their contents, to be identifiable with the
two Books ofJeou mentioned in the Pistis-Sophia. The preamble
presents a conversation between Jesus and his disciples; but a
lacuna soon interrupts this part of the work. When the manu¬
script resumes this conversation, it is beginning the description of
sixty powers or emanations which surround Jeou in the Treasury
of Light. Of each of these the book gives an account complete
with the name, the sign, the seals, the veils and the mystic number
of the power in question. But after the description of the twenty-
eighth of these entities, a second lacuna interrupts the codex.
Upon the leaves that follow, we find ourselves travelling with
Jesus and his followers among the sixty “Treasures”. Then the
Christ intones a hymn to the glory of the Father, the disciples
making responses to him after each verse.
After the preamble to the second Book of the Treatise according
to the Mystery, Jesus continues his revelations about the Treasury
19 Amelineau, Notice sur le papyrus gnostique Bruce, texte et traduction, 1891
(out-of-date). For the text, one prefers C. Schmidt, “Gnostische Schriften in
koptischer Sprache aus dem Codex Brucianus” in Texte und Untersuchungen,
8, 1892; for the translation, C. Schmidt, Koptisch-gnostische Schriften, vol. I;
Die Pistis Sophia, Die Beiden Bucher von Jehu, Unhekanntes alt-gnostischer Werk
.... berarbeitet von W. Till, 1954. Cf. especially the edition with full com¬
mentary and translation by Charlotte Baynes, A Coptic Gnostic Treatise contained
in the Codex Brucianus, 1933.
of the Light. He describes how the “receivers” of the Treasury,

at the death of a man, pilot the soul out of the body, through all
the aeons of the invisible regions, and lead it as far as the Treasury;
how they release it from sins and turn the soul into a pure light;
how they bring it into the Three Amens, the Triple-Powers, the
Five Trees and the Seven Voices . . . ; how, finally, they
entrust it with their seals and their mysteries. “These mysteries
I am reveahng to you”, Jesus now adds; “take care not to tell
them to any man unworthy of them. Do not give them away to
father or mother, nor to brother or sister nor to any relatives;
disclose them not for food or drink nor for [the gift of] a woman;
neither for gold nor silver. . . . Transmit them to no woman,
to no man who is found acting upon any belief in the seventy-
two Archons, or who is serving them; never reveal them [either]
to those who worship the eight powers of the great Archons”—
which refers, as the text makes clear, to certain sectaries who
practised, upon such pretexts, veritable orgies and impure rituals
while pretending to possess the true Gnosis and to adore the true
God. For, Jesus continues, “their god is evil; he is the Triple-
Power of the Great Archon, and his name is Taricheas, the son of
Sabaoth the Adamas. He is the enemy of the Heavenly kingdom;
he has the face of a wild-boar, his tusks project from his mouth;
and from behind he has another face which is that of a lion. ”
After these exhortations to keep the secret, more especially
from other Gnostics, Jesus announces to his disciples that he is
about to administer three baptisms to them, those of water, fire
and of the spirit; after which he will disclose to them the mystery
of the spiritual anointing and the secrets of the Treasury of the
Light. He has sent some of the disciples for cruets of wine and
some vine-branches; the altar is made ready with the vessels of
wine, the branches, with plants and aromatics, all precisely indi¬
cated. The disciples are clothed in hnen, and in their hands, which
are marked with the mystic number of the Seven Voices, they
hold certain appropriate plants. The magical prayer which is then
offered up by the Saviour ends with these words: “May these
powers come, and may they baptize my disciples with the water
of the Life of the Seven Virgins of Light; and may their sins be
forgiven, and may they be cleansed from their iniquities, that

they may be numbered among the inheritors of the Kingdom of
the Light . . . then let a sign be given,20 and let Zorokothora
[Melchizedek] come and bring the water of the baptism of
Life in one of these vessels.” The sign prayed for is vouchsafed:
the wine in the cruet on the right changes into water, and the
disciples approach Jesus, who baptizes them. Then, by means of
analogous rites, Jesus administers, one after another, the baptisms
of Fire and of the Holy Spirit. Finally, he teaches them the
“apologies”—that is, the pass-words and the signs by which
they will have to make themselves known to each of the powers,
when they are ascending through the heavens: this is a lengthy
ritual which cannot well be summarized.
To this treatise are adjoined the fragments of two prayers, and
then one leaf of a test describing the ascension of souls through the
Ways of the Midst which are ruled by the perverse Archons.
Amongst these mention is made of Typhon, “the great and
powerful archon with the face of an ass”.21 The astrological ideas
disclosed in this fragment are evidently of the same origin as those
in the last treatise but one in the Codex Askewianus.
From the point of view of the doctrine they expound, these
two writings are very close to the Pistis-Sophia, in which, more¬
over, they are twice quoted. One cannot decide to what Gnostic
group they belong. They diverge upon too many points of detail
from all those which the heresiologists have described to us. This
sect professed a rigorous asceticism, and abominated, as we have
seen, those Gnostics who worshipped either the seventy-two aeons
or the eight archons22 and meanwhile gave themselves up to
unspeakable practices supposedly permitted by authority of
Esau and Jacob. What most clearly distinguishes the authors of
these writings is their description of the Treasury of the Light,
peopled by such entities as the Three Amens, the Seven Amens,
20 Cf. in the Avesta, Yagna, Gatha Ahunavaiti, XXXIV, 6, an analogous formula
for the offering to Ahura-Mazda: “If you really exist . . . , give me a sign of
it!”
21 Cf. chap. 1, note 101, and p. 104.
22 We do not know whether to lay this charge to the account of the Gnostic
Archontici, whom we have already mentioned on pp. 45-6 when citing St
Epiphanius.
8o The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
the Five Trees,23 the Seven. Voices . . . ; also the celestial

status they assign to Melchizedek; the very special character of
the Virgin of Light; the “receivers” of the moon and the sun,
by whom the hght of the archons gathered up i2* it is also that
migration of souls through the circling spheres, a migration by
which at last they are either completely purified or else returned
to the cosmos, or even destroyed; it is, lastly, their precise al¬
lusion to the Three Moments.26 All this shows that we are here
upon the very verge of Manichaeism.
The second part of the Bruce Codex—said to be, from its
writing, distinct from the rest of the manuscript—contains a text
without a title (the beginning and the end of it are missing) which
is of a different character. Unfortunately its leaves are consider¬
ably out of order, and the recent efforts of Charlotte Baynes
to find out the correct order have not met with complete success.26
From what we have left of this work, the beginning seems to be
23 The symbolic meaning of the “Trees” in these myths is pretty variable.
We saw the trees of Paradise likened by Justin to angels. The Psalms of Solomon
treat them as saints (cf. above, note 86, p. 34); the Manichaean Kephalaion VI
gives us five “trees”, but these belong to the world of darkness (cf. H. C. Puech,
“Le Prince des Ten^bres” . . . , in the volume of ftudes carmelitaines devoted
to Satan, 1948, p. 151). Just as, in Manichaeism, the five trees of Darkness represent
emanations of the Tree of Death, the five trees of hght in our Gnostic treatise
may stand for abstract emanations of the Tree of Life. For example—as is doubt¬
less the case with the “Voices” the “Amens” and other entities of that kind—
the sources of the seals, the sacraments by which the Perfect attain to the Treasury
of the Light.
These metaphorical trees were originally borrowed from the Gospel Matt.
VII, 17-19 and XII, 33 ; Luke VI, 43-4), and they make use also of the fact that
the Greek hyle (matter) has also the primary meaning of “ wood ”. Cf. in Puech,
Le Manicheisme, note 285 on pp. 159-61. For the survival of the symbolism of
the Trees of Life and of Death, see e.g., a double page in a manuscript of the
Liber Floridus of Lambert de Saint Omer dating from before a.d. 1x20, which
displays, face to face, pictures of the Tree of Good and the Tree of Evil—reduced,
it is true, to the simply moral signification (cf. the reproduction given on p. 159
of A. Grabar and Carl Nordenfalk, La peinture romane, Skira, Geneva, 1958).
24 The figure of the Virgin of Light presented in Manichaean texts is analysed
by Cumont, Recherches, pp. 64-5, as “a very high Virtue dwelling in the Moon”;
she recalls the Iranian divinity Anahita, mistress “of the waters that flow from a
heavenly source in the region of the stars” to whom the seed of Zoroaster is
entrusted. Cf. the references given by Cumont with the Vendidad, with the
Boundahishn and with the other Iranian treatises. Cf. also G. Widengren, The
Great Vohu Manah . . . , 1945, pp. 24 and 28. Upon the ships of the sun and
moon, see above notes 14 and 15.
23 Cf. p. 1x4.
28 Charlotte Baynes, A Coptic Gnostic Treatise, p. xviii.
a description of the supreme God, Father of the Universe, in¬

effable and invisible. His first Thought causes a Son to issue from
him, a fantastic Anthropos in whom, it is said, he has depicted all
the universes. This primordial man is described, detail by detail,
and each part of his body reproduces, on a different scale, the
entities that compose the higher universe. He is perfect and
complete, and therefore androgyne. One advantage of our being
given this long description of him is that we can deduce from this
the mythical pattern of the higher world that it reflects. At the
summit of this universe was the Setheus27 who is again the pri¬
mordial god, but this time in his aspect as Creator: and in the
Setheus were contained the Monad and the Monogene.28
Some hymns of benediction are inserted here, and a eulogy of
the Father of the Universe, which calls him the “first source,
whose voice reaches into every place, the first sound”.
Then, from the creation of the primordial Son, we pass on to
the formation of the Second Place, called the second Creator,
reason, source, etc. . . . The epithets apphed to him, although
obscure and contused, are not without beauty: he is called the
support, the guardian, the father of the universe; “the light of his
eyes pierces the spaces outside the Pleroma, the Word that goes
out of his mouth reaches into the infinite heights and the abysses,
the hairs of his head are of the number of the hidden worlds, the
circumference of his countenance is the pattern of the aeons . . .,
the extending of his hands is the manifestation of the Stauros;29
he is the brimming source of the Silence.” By his edict all things
have received Gnosis, Life, Hope and Rest. In him are twelve
27 Cf. Charlotte Baynes, op. cit., pp. 19-21. Setheus, the Earth-Shaker, can
probably be regarded as a form of the great Seth, the son of Adam, who is his
earthly reflection.
28 The Monad is perhaps assimilable to Barbelo, both of these, in the myths
in which they appear, being the first image of the Father and the seed of the
Cosmos—which would support the doubtful derivation of the name Barbelo
from the Egyptian BLBILE, “seed” (see Baynes, op. cit., pp. 49-50). As for the
Monogene, it is identified with the Word. Its function may be better understood
if one refers back to Irenaeus’s Adversus haereses, I, xxix, and to its Coptic parallel
explained by C. Schmidt in his Philotesia; cf. above chap. 1, note 92 on p. 37.
Barbelo’s gazing profoundly into the pure light causes her production of the
Monogene, the first and only begotten. Whereas the Father is unbegotten: cf.
Baynes, pp. 66-8, 78-80, 87-8.
29 Cf. Horos-Stauros of the Valentinians, p. 28, above.
abysses; by him the Pleroma has been made, with its portals,
its monads, its guardians and its powers; and there dwells Aph-
redon with the twelve Just ones, there is the Adam-Light with
three hundred and sixty-five aeons; there is an abyss in which the
Only-begotten is hidden. In another of these abysses there are
three Paternities: one is that of the hidden God; the second
contains the Five Trees; the third encloses a Silence and a Source
in which the twelve Just ones behold themselves ... in this
are the Five Seals.
After this we are given a description of the universal Mother
from whom the Ennead proceeds: its nine powers are enumerated
by names, the last of which is Iouel. In another region there is an
abyss in which there is a table, around which there are three great
powers called Peaceful, Inconceivable and Infinite, and in the
midst of them is a sonhood called Christ the assayer, for it is he
who, with the seal of the Father, seals all those whom he sends on
to that primordial Parent.
Yet further on we come to the abyss of Setheus himself,
surrounded by twelve powers, each of whom has three aspects.
And above these again are twelve more Paternities surrounding
the mouth of the abyss; their diadems radiate light as far as to the
universe of light which emanates from the Monogene hidden in
the depth of this abyss. The author of the treatise now allows
himself a digression, in order to tell us how this supreme entity
who is the Monogene (the Only-begotten) is ineffable, and how
few teachers have any knowledge of it. This is a very precious
passage, for it makes definite allusions to the great Gnostic
prophets and their lost revelations: “To speak of him [i.e., the
Monogene] as he is, with the tongue of flesh is impossible.”
However, the text goes on, there have been some specially
favoured men who have been able to know this mystery. “That
is why the powers of the great aeons paid homage to the power
that was in Marsanes, saying ‘Who is this man, who has seen
such things face to face? . . .’ And Nicotheus (he too) spoke
about this, for he saw who this being was, and he said, ‘The
Father exists, superior to every perfect thing’. He has revealed
the Triple-Power, perfect and invisible. Every one of the perfect
men saw him, they spoke of him and glorified him. . . . He is

the Monogene who is hidden in the Setheus, and it is he whom
they called ‘obscurity of light’ because in his excess of light they
themselves appeared dim. . . . ” It was through this Monogene
that the Setheus gave himself the powers over which he reigns.
The entities that surround him form, as it were, a crown from
which his light radiates over the aeons and everything external
to him finds itself under his feet. Incidentally, this ghttering and
complex vision is also hkened to that of the divine chariot
which, as we have seen elsewhere, was the favourite image in
Jewish mysticism.30 The Coptic treatise gives another quotation
from another Gnostic teacher of whom even the name had been
lost: “It is of him [the Monogene] that Phosilampes spoke,
saying ‘He exists “before the universe’’ . . .’ and when
Phosilampes understood this, he expressed himself in these terms,
‘By him those things are that really and verily exist, and those
things that verily do not exist. It is by him that exist even the
hidden things—which verily are, and the tilings manifest which
verily are not at all.’”
After a hymn of the powers to the Monogene, the myth is
resumed. The Setheus projects into the Indivisible that lies
beneath him a spark of light, which the powers welcome with
thanksgiving, and out of which they form a man of light and
truth. This man is then sent down below. Before him, the veils
which separate the lower regions from the worlds on high open
of themselves. Thus the Light descends even into matter, and, of
the creatures who dwell there, some take on the form of the
Light and rejoice, whilst others rebel and are mortified. At the
same time, in order to help those who have had faith in the spark
of hght, guardians are despatched towards the aeons; their names
are Gamaliel, Strempsuchos31 and Agramas.
At this point the codex—but is not this because the leaves
are again in disorder?—resumes its description of the various
Places; it is now describing the Indivisible into which the spark
of hght has just been thrown. This region shows itself no less
richly furnished with abysses, powers, sources and paternities
30 Cf. chap, vi, p. 290-1. 31 Cf. chap, vi, note 73.
than were the higher aeons. Aphredon and Musanios rule it,
with twelve Just ones. And hither the Setheus, from on high,
sends a creative Word escorted by a multitude of crowned powers.
This Word becomes a potent god, lord and saviour, father of
those who have believed. At the same time the Virgin (is she
the same as Sophia in the other systems?) receives the spark of
light and establishes, upon the lower world, three powers—
Propator, Autopator and Protogenitor. Out of matter the
Protogenitor makes a world, and a city which is called Incor¬
ruptible, Jerusalem, the New Earth. . . . And then perversity
is separated from matter; veils are set up in order to effect this.
The Propator, placed in the aeon of the Mother, is endowed with
multiple powers, angels and servitors. He even creates his own
aeon, with a great Pleroma and a great sanctuary; he also lends
himself obligingly to the designs of the higher world and con¬
ceives the will to change and convert the lower universe to the
service of the hidden Father in the highest. At this the Mother
expresses her gratification by some strange exclamations: “Three
times born”, she says, meaning that he has been brought to birth
three times, for she repeats, “Thrice-engendered”, adding
“Hermes!” Must we not take this to be an allusion to the
“Thrice-great” Hermes—to the Trismegistus?32 The Philoso-
phumena has already told us that, among the Naassenes, “Hermes
is the Word who has expressed and fashioned the things that have
been, that are and that will be.”33
The Autopator is endowed in his turn: he is entrusted with the
hidden things that are reserved for the race of the Perfect. And,
lastly, the Mother establishes the Progenitor: he it was who
extended himself over matter as a bird spreads its wings, to hatch
out of it powers of every kind, to whom he will now give the
law that they love one another and worship the most high God.
The Mother and her three sons then send up a hymn towards the
Light. The supreme Power answers this by sending them a
wonderful flash of light; and, finally, in a sort of Last Judgment,
the Lord of Glory comes to divide up matter, assigning some to
life and the Light, and the rest to death and the Darkness. There
32 Cf. Baynes, p. 156. 33 Cf. Philosophumena, V, 7.
follows an outburst of joy from those who, bom of matter, have

caught a gleam of the hidden mystery, and now offer to the in¬
corruptible Father a prayer which is full of grandeur. Perhaps in
their own devotions the sectaries repeated this prayer, of which
we will quote the final lines: “Hear our prayer and send to us
incorporeal spirits to dwell with us. Let them teach us the things
that thou hast promised us, and let them dwell in us that we may
embody them. Since it is thy will that this be so, it will be done.
And thou wilt give precepts for our work, and thou wilt establish
it according to thy will, and according to the precept of the
hidden aeons. And thou wilt guide us, for we are thine.”
After this, the Father sends to the Perfect certain powers
whose function it will be to guide them. In a sort of spiritual
hierarchy, of grades rising from below to above—from those who
have “progressed” to those who are still in penitence—are
enumerated the powers put in charge of the spring of the Waters
of Life—the source for the baptisms ?—and their names are as
follows: Mikhar and Mikheus; Barpharanges ;34 the aeons of the
Sophia; Jesus as before the Resurrection; the celestial beings and
the twelve aeons. In this region were placed also Seldao35 and
Eleinos, Zogenethles, Selmelkhe, and the aeons that were self-
engendered. And here there were four luminaries: Heleleth,
Daueithe, Oroiael and Harmozel.36 It is during this evocation of
the powers in charge of the salvation of the Perfect that our
manuscript abruptly ends.
With its astonishing assemblage of Silences and Abysses, of
sources and generative Wombs this treatise recalls, to a mis¬
leading degree, the obscure phraseology of the Chaldean Oracles
34 The power here called Barpharanges is also named in Coptic magical texts
and on the engraved gems, as Sesenges-Barpharanges: see C. Bonner, op. cit.,
p. 201 and A. M. Kropp, Ausgewahlte Koptische Zaubertexte, vol. Ill, 1930, p. 126.
35 Baynes read this as Sellao, which should be corrected to Seldao; cf. J. Doresse,
“Hermes et la Gnose” in Novum Testamentum, I, 1956, pp. 66-7. The Philo-
sophumena, VII, 30, quotes (in reference to a Gnostic Gospel of the Egyptians)
Esaldaio, which would be a name of the Demiurge. However, one of the newly-
found texts mentions this entity, not as the demiurge, but rather as a power in
charge of the heavenly baptisms: cf. below, p. 254. We may guess that the author
of the Philosophumena, embarrassed by the multiplicity of names in the text he
was summarizing, wrote Esaldaio here in mistake for Sacla!
36 Cf. A. M. Kropp, op. cit., vol. Ill, §§ 36, 43-6, 51, 133, 137.
(which date from the second half of the second century) where
one finds the same abundance of Wombs containing all things
and of Sources of the blessed spirits conceiving in ineffable Silences.
One can also compare it with a Greek hymn of the same nature
which Porphyry translates in his Philosophy of the Oracles. In
terms which, it is true, are devoid of any dualism, this poem
invokes the beneficent Lord enthroned upon the ethereal zenith,
the pole around which the celestial spheres revolve.37
In what it says about Marsianes and Nicotheus, the anonymous
treatise of the Bruce Codex compares much more closely than
do the Coptic texts previously mentioned, with what the heresio-
logists told us of the Gnostics. The Apocalypse of Nicotheus is one
of those which the disciples of Porphyry refuted; it is also named
in certain alchemical writings, and even by the Manichaeans.38
Marsanes and Martiades have already been mentioned, as prophets
who were caught up into heaven for three days, and who wrote
Revelations in use among the Archontici.39
★ ★ ★
A third manuscript of Gnostic content is the Codex Berolensis

8502. No one knows what has now become of it: at the end of
the last war it disappeared, taken to an unknown destination after
the fall of Berlin. This again is a Coptic collection, written on
papyrus and dating, doubtless, from the fifth century. It had been
acquired in Cairo by Dr Rheinhardt, in 1896. The learned Carl
Schmidt, to whom Coptic studies are indebted for many other
discoveries,40 at once drew attention to this find,41 underlining
37 Cf. Hans Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy . . . , Cairo, 1956, chap,
n and—for the hymn preserved by Porphyry (which the lamented H. Lewy
has the merit of having added to the collection of the Oracles already made by
Kroll)—pp. 9-10. This last text appears also in the Anthologia Palatina, ed. Didot,
vol. Ill, pp. 519, no. 261.
38 Cf. below, p. 159; Nicotheus was counted among the number of the
prophets by the Manichaeans: see H. C. Puech, Manicheisme, pp. 145 and 151.
39 Cf. here, chap. 1, note 114.
40 More particularly by the identification and salvage of Coptic Manichaean
texts unearthed in the Fayum about 1930; see C. Schmidt and J. Polotsky, Ein
Mani-Fund in Aegypten, 1932.
41 C. Schmidt, “Ein vorirenaisches gnostisches Originalwerk . . . in
Sitzungsber. d. kgl. preussischen Akademie d. IViss., 1896, pp. 839-47; and, by the
same author, Irenaus u. seine Quelle in Adv. Haereses, I, 29, quoted above chap. 1,
note 92; cf. Sagnard, Gnose valentinienne, pp. 439ff.
the special interest attaching to one of the works it included, the

Secret Book of John. Indeed, a part of this work corresponded
exactly—in some sentences word for word—with the text of
the passage in Irenaeus dealing with the Barbelo-gnostics (I,
xxix)—a proof of the reliability of the information Irenaeus had
at his disposal when he wrote that chapter. It was also, conversely,
a proof that the part of this Gnostic work which lent itself to his
purpose existed before a.d. 180, the date when Irenaeus composed
his treatise. The learned world had hopes of learning the details
of this important text without further delay; but its pubhcation
was attended with incredible ill-luck, and was twice held up by
chance. The second time, the type had already been set up when
it was accidentally destroyed. It was only after the death of Carl
Schmidt that the work undertaken was brought to completion
by Professor Walter Till, who had it published in 195542—that
is, at a time when the rich find of texts from Chenoboskion had
already provided us with other versions, and so deprived Carl
Schmidt’s manuscript of its uniqueness.
This manuscript contained a Gospel of Mary, a Secret Book of
John, a Sophia ofJesus Christ and, lastly, some Acts of Peter which,
however, are not Gnostic at all. We are deahng here with
writings translated from the Greek; a fact of which we have
formal proof, for a short passage in the Gospel of Mary exactly
repeats part of a Greek papyrus attributed to the third century ;43
moreover, quite recently, in the course of a preliminary study of the
Chenoboskion manuscripts, which also include a text of the Sophia
of Jesus, Professor H. C. Puech was able to recognize a Greek
fragment of the same work in the papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1081.44
42 The beginning of the Sophia of Jesus has been translated by R. Liechtenhan

in Zeitschrift fur die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, III, 1902, p. 229; articles on
the Secret Book of John and on the Sophia ofJesus in E. Hennecke, Neutestament¬
liche Apokryphen, 2nd edn., 1924, pp. 70-1; cf. also W. Till, “The Gnostic
Apocryphon of John” in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol. Ill, No. 1, 1952,
pp. 14-22; edition of the text with German translation: Die gnostischen Schriften
des koptischen Papyrus Berolinensis 8502, Berlin, 1955. Some passages of the
Gospel of Mary had already been quoted in translation by C. Schmidt in the
preface to his version of the Pistis-Sophia published in 1925.
43 Cf. Till, Die gnostischen Schriften des Papyrus Berolinensis 8502, pp. 24-5.
44 H. C. Puech, Communication to the Vlth International congress of Papyro-
logy, Paris, 1949.
I shall not attempt to summarize the Secret Book of fohn or the

Sophia of Jesus in this chapter, for I shall have a better opportunity
to describe them later, with the whole of the library from
Chenoboskion—where other copies of the same text were found
before the previously-found versions were even published!45
The first pages of the Gospel of Mary are missing. This work is
a conversation between the disciples and Mary (Magdalene?)
revealing to them certain sayings which she alone had heard from
the Saviour. The questions raised—“What is the sin of the
world?” “How are we to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of
the Son of Man?”—are rather ordinary ones. Mary replies to the
disciples with a good will. She describes, among other things,
how the soul, during its ascension from heaven to heaven, is
questioned by such powers as Darkness, Concupiscence, Ig¬
norance . . . which try to detain her. But Peter loses his
temper: he suggests that Mary has herself imagined what she is
relating; at which she bursts into tears. Levi interposes to defend
her. Then the disciples separate, in order to go and preach the
Gospel to all peoples; and the text ends with their departure.
To complete this inventory of the Gnostic remains previously
in our possession, we must mention a few more Coptic fragments,
although they are not very informative. First, there are a few
remnants of a manuscript on papyrus dating from the fourth
century, which had been used in the binding of a more recent
book.46 They are written in Theban Coptic with some ad¬
mixture of the dialect of Middle Egypt. We can see that they
come from a work in which the names of Ialdabaoth and Sophia
occur, and where the Seven powers and the lower heavens are
mentioned.
We have also, of a book written on parchment, one complete
page and some fragments of two others.47 These are from a
codex of rather small format, and came from Deir-Bala’izah,
anciently the site of a particularly important monastery, some
46 Cf. chap, v, below, pp. I97flf.

48 British Museum Or. 4920 (1), edited in W. E. Crum, Catalogue of the Coptic
Manuscripts in the British Mus., 1905, p. 251, No. 522.
47 First published by Crum in the J.T.S., XLIV, 1943, pp. 176-9; cf. the new
edition by P. Kahle, Bala'izah, vol. I, 1954, No. 52, pp. 473ff
Original Texts and Monuments 8p
twelve miles south of Assiut.48 These leaflets are usually assigned

to the fourth century; but they seem to us later. The text is in
Sahidic Coptic; and we give here a translation of the little that
remains legible: “(. . .) the spiritual force, before it had been
manifested, its name was not this at all, but it was: Silence. For
everything that was in the heavenly Paradise was sealed in silence.
Those who participate in this will become spiritual and will
know the Whole. Thus, then, I have explained (everything ?) to
thee, John, of that which concerns Adam, Paradise and the Five
Trees,49 by an intelligible allegory. When I, John, heard that, I
said, ‘I have begun with a good beginning; encouraged by thy
love, I have attained to a secret knowledge and a mystery, and
some symbols of truth. Now I would again ask thee to explain
to me, if it please thee, about Cain and Abel; in what way Cain
killed Abel; and then also how he [Cain] was questioned in these
words, by Him who asked him “Where is Abel thy brother?”
whilst Cain denied, saying “Ami the guardian of [my brother]
• . . After this, the text is in tatters: from what remains on
the following page one can only say that the explanations of the
Saviour (?) that follow are about Noah and the Ark, and that
John is now questioning him about Melchizedek, “without
father or mother, of no known generation . . . without end
of life . . . priest for eternity. ...”
Finally, and this time far from Egypt, we possess one very
intimate text—the funerary epitaph of an initiate, Flavia Sophe,
who died in Rome about the year 300. She received the Gnostic
sacraments, in order to escape from the planets, to return to her
heavenly origin and, in becoming perfect, to assume masculinity.60
GNOSTIC MONUMENTS AND PAINTINGS
Is this really all? It would be less than just to forget to make

mention here of a few relics which, though less eloquent than
48 Concerning the monasteries of this region, see J. Doresse, “Recherches

d’archeologie copte: les monasteres de Moyenne-Egypte ” in Comptes rendus de
VAcademie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, July, 1952.
48 Cf. above, note 23.
50 G. Quispel, “L’Inscription funeraire de Flava Sophe” in Melanges de
Ghellinck, Louvain, 1951.
the texts, are evocative in other ways—that is, certain monuments

and other objects.
The most curious is an alabaster bowl covered with figures
sculptured in relief. Did this big cup, some eight inches in
diameter, come from Syria or Anatolia? We do not know; it is
usually supposed to be Orphic. Inside it, at the centre, is a serpent
with its coils ranged one above another, and around this are nude
figures lying on their backs with their feet towards the centre of
the bowl and their heads towards the rim. Their hands are up¬
raised in vague gestures or else concealing, but only casually,
this or that part of the body. The outside of the cup is decorated
with arcading in front of which, at the four diametrically opposite
points, stand four personages symbolizing the four winds or the
four cardinal points; and at their feet four Greek inscriptions are
engraved around the base of the cup. Three of these are quotations
from Orphic hymns to the Sun; the last is a passage from Euri¬
pides’ Melanippus which dealt with the creation of the world
from the cosmic egg. If one took these quotations alone into
consideration, one would certainly class this vessel as Orphic. But it
evokes, in highly realistic fashion, a ritual that one can hardly think
any but Gnostics would celebrate. Certain sects did make such
free use of themes from the Greek mysteries—as the Philosophumena
tells us—that we may well suppose, with H. Leisegang, that this
singular vase had some connection with the sect of the Ophites.51
Some more important monuments exist which in different
degrees evoke the history of Gnosticism. Subterranean Rome, in
its innumerable tombs, preserves the traces of many strange cults
that history has forgotten. Do we not fmd there, even in the
Vatican necropohs, the sepulchres of initiates who were wor¬
shippers of Isis and Bacchus at the same time?52 Have they not
found also, in the catacombs of Pretextat, the tomb of Vibia,
an adept of that Phrygian Dionysos, Sabazios—who was identi¬
fied with the Lord Sabaoth?53 The Gnostic sects were well enough
81 Cf. Leisegang, in Eranos Jahrbuch, 1939 (published 1940), pp. 151-251.
For some curious mediaeval representations of an analogous cult, see Jos. de
Hammer, Memoire sur deux coffrets gnostiques du moyen age, Paris, 1832.
82 J. Carcopino, Etudes d’histoire Chretienne . . . , pp. 164-5.
83 Cumont, Les Religions orientates dans le paganisme romain, 4th edn., 1929,
p. 61 and p. 228, note 62.
Original Texts and Monuments pi
represented in the Eternal City to encourage the hope of finding

therein the tomb of some Naassene or Valentinian!
In old Rome, the purlieus of the church of St Sebastian were
the first to be known by the name of catacombs (catacumbas), and
here the name denoted simply a depression of the ground.64 This
served as a cemetery, and thence the name of “catacomb” came
mt° general use for other burial-places. To return to the original
Catacumbas—at first it was the Jewish, or near-Jewish graves that
were dug in this place. Later on, the bodies of the Apostles Peter
and Paul were preserved there for some time; and there, too,
the holy martyr Sebastian was interred. A basilica of the Apostles
was erected on the site and, while building it, the Christians
condemned some of the funerary chapels of the earliest occupants.
But recent excavations have brought some of these ancient
sepulchres to light. One of these belonged to some people
who particularly liked to call themselves the Innocentii, or
Innocents. This tomb was adorned with paintings of a somewhat
unusual character—with scenes of initiation and of funerals, which
attracted the attention of archaeologists.55 One symbol in parti¬
cular, the ascia, or masons trowel, which was an emblem much
used by the Essenians and Pythagoreans,56 was represented there.
From his personal studies on the site, of these decoration and some
inscriptions that were readable, Jerome Carcopino concluded
that the owners of this tomb must have been Nazarenes or
Ebionites. If we are to believe Epiphanius, these sects, originally
Jewish, professed a special reverence for the Apostle James, who
was regarded with the same favour in Gnostic traditions.67
Moreover, among the names of the deceased incised upon this
tomb under the church of St Sebastian, we find that of Hermes
several times—Titus Flavius Hermes, Marcus Ulpius Hermes,
Hermesianus . . . ; was it indeed some conception of the
Word, the Logos, adopted by these semi-Gnostics, which gave
them such a preference for the name of Hermes of Cyllene, to
54 Carcopino, De Pythagore aux Apotres, pp. 227 and 339ff.
65 Carcopino, loc. cit., pp. 36ifF. A would-be archaeologist lately tried to
explain some analogous scenes as representations of the dissection of a corpse
(news in Le Figaro, 12 April, 1955).
66 Carcopino, Le Mysore d’un symbole chretien.
67 Cf. chap, v, pp. 236-7.
whom the Naassenes also gave a special place in their specula¬

tions ?68
Another Roman tomb has sometimes been thought to be
Gnostic—that of Trebius Iustus, which bore the mystic name—
the signum—of Asellus. I will do no more than refer the reader to
what Ceccheli has published about this.59
Finally, there is a tomb which belonged to some authentic
Gnostics, although to which of their sects cannot be determined
with certainty. This is the sepulchre of the Aurelii in the Viale
Manzoni, which was discovered some thirty years ago.60 Of the
part of this edifice which in ancient days was at the ground level,
no more than the funerary chamber remains; but of what was
underground two rooms have been preserved. According to
Jerome Carcopino, the earliest date for this monument would
fall in the reign of Caracalla (211-17), the latest in that of Alex¬
ander Severus61 (122-35). The rich decoration of the sepulchre
has unhappily been much damaged since its discovery: but the
interpretation of the paintings, about which various experts had
formed provisional hypotheses, has been the subject of a sub¬
stantial recent study by Jerome Carcopino.62 Among the figures
that adorn these vaults we seem to recognize the triad of the
Pleroma, and the Good Shepherd in a frame decorated with
almonds—almonds, which for the Naassenes, inheriting that idea
from the Phrygians, symbolized the Father of the Universe.
There is also a scene which may represent the creation of man,
watched over by someone with a rueful countenance (is this
Ialdabaoth?), and elsewhere, Adam and Eve are receiving the
revelation of Gnosis from the Serpent. Here, too, we find the
Stauros—the Cross—which is also Horos, the limit of the
Pleroma; and there stand the figures of Mariamne, of Sophia, of
68 Philosophtmena, V, 7.
89 Ceccheli, Monumenti cristiano-eretici di Roma, 1944, pp. 135-46.
60 G. Bendinelli, “II monumento sepolcrale degli Aureli” in Monumenti
Antichi published by the Academia dei Lincei XXVIII, 1922, pp. 290-514 and
Mgr Wilpert, “Le pitture dell’ipogeo . . . presso il viale Manzoni . . . ” in
the Memorie of the Pontifical Academy of Archeology, I, part 2, pp. 1-42.
91 Date established by J. Carcopino, De Pythagore . . . , p. 88.
82 Ch. Picard, “La Grande peinture de l’hypogee funeraire du Viale Manzoni”
in Comptes rendus de VAcademie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1945, pp. 26-51.
the Apostles John and James and of Matthew (unless, as I think

more likely, this last is Matthias, better known to the Gnostic
sects). Here, again, is the Last Supper, and there the heavenly
Jerusalem within its walls; and lastly-showing to what an extent
this iconography corresponds with what the Philosophumena tells
us of Gnosticism and utilization of the Odyssey—here are Ulysses,
Penelope and^ the Suitors; or (if you prefer the explanation
offered by Jerome Carcopino) Ulysses and Circe the Enchantress.63
Some students may still question some of these identifications;
but even allowing in advance for the possibility of somewhat
different hypotheses, it is certain that they will not change the
main lines of this interpretation, which has already caused the
tomb of the Aurelii to be recognized as one of the most remark¬
able monuments of its kind.
One would like to find some more concrete relics of the
beliefs of these sects: some there are, no doubt, among the curious
figures and Kabbalistic signs of those engraved gems which were
all, until lately, much too uncritically supposed to be Gnostic.64
These display demoniac figures, with the head of a cock, with
serpents in the place of legs, etc., accompanied by the inscribed
names of Iao, or of Abraxas. Another figure bears the name of
Chnubis, inherited from an Egyptian divinity—the god Khnum
of Elephantine or, rather, the Theban Kem-atef.65 He is given the
appearance of a serpent whose head—which is that of a lion—
is surrounded by rays; reminding us, surely, of the god who,
according to the astrological treatises, was also a celestial sign—
namely, Ialdabaoth the evil power with the face of a lion ?
It is true that one could find, in the iconography of Oriental
cults known to the Roman world, images analogous to this
monstrous Gnostic entity, and of still more impressive aspect.
There is, above all, the fantastic relic which was found at the
Janiculum in Rome, in the ruins of a temple dedicated to some
63 Under the titles “ Le Pythagorisme des Gnostiques” and “Le Tombeau du
Viale Manzoni” in his De Pythagore aux Apotres, pp. 85ff.
64 C. Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets, chiefly Greco-Egyptian, Ann Arbor,
1950 ; an excellent inventory of the engraved figures, but the interpretation needs
revision in the light of the Gnostic mythology.
66 According to my Communication (unpublished) to the Institute of Egypt,
Chnoubis, figure d’un dieu gnostique, Dec. 1951.
Syrian gods.66 This figurine represents a masculine personage with

the arms held straight down its stiffened body, enveloped in a
shroud leaving the face alone visible: a serpent is coiled seven
times around the legs and torso of this pseudo-mummy, its head
rising just above the figure’s cranium. Seven eggs were found,
in position, just where they had been deposited upon this statuette,
precisely between each of the reptile’s coils. As Franz Cumont
has observed, the seven coils of this serpent suggest the seven
barriers of the planetary spheres which the soul must successfully
pass through to attain to immortality. Another, much more
widely current religious image evokes the fantastic characteristics
that the Gnostics ascribed to Ialdabaoth, the serpent with a lion’s
face—namely, that of Chronos, the master of infinite time,
statues of whom have been found in the remains of various
Mithraic sanctuaries.67 The most impressive of these comes from
Ostia and is now in the Vatican Library. I know of one of them in
France, in the lapidary museum at Arles. This master of the
heavens of the Mithraic religion, this Aion, presents the terri¬
fying aspect of a being with a human body and a lion’s head,
standing in the grip of six or seven coils of a serpent whose head
has just come into view above the monster’s mane. If the Gnostics
ever had a less edulcorate iconography than we see in the vault of
the Aurelii, it doubtless included figures comparable to these
monstrosities of the talismanic stones, the statuette of the Jani-
culum and the Mithraic Aion. In any case—if we are to go by their
texts—it was just such images of divinities that haunted their
imaginations.
REMAINS OF GNOSTICISM IN THE

RELATED LITERATURE OF ITS TIMES
To what we learn about Gnosticism from the literature of its

adversaries, fragments of its own books and relics of its monu¬
ments, must be added the witness of various religious literatures
more or less contiguous in time and place.
66 Cumont, Religions orientates . . . , plate XI, fig. 3.
87 R. Pettazzoni, “La figura monstruosa del Tempo nella Religione mitriaca”
in Accademia Naz. dei Lincei, Anno CCCXLVI, Quaderno no. 15, 1950.
We cannot here enumerate the numerous apocrypha of the

Old Testament, some of which contributed to the formation of
Gnosticism, whilst others were perhaps authentically Gnostic or
Manichaean. Of the latter, there are some that survived in versions
that were toned down or mutilated, of which it is not very easy to
make use. Among such writings, the most interesting is the Acts
oj Thomas, Manichaean in tendency, in which there are three
very beautiful hymns: one of the nuptial banquet, glorifying the
union of the soul with the Wisdom, “The Virgin is the Daughter
of the Light . . . then, the invocation supposedly pro¬
nounced by the Aposde Thomas at the baptism of the Persian
king Gundaphor: “Come, holy name of Christ . . . Come,
Mother of the seven dwellings . . . !” and above all, the
admirable Hymn of the Soul, “When I was a little child in the
palace of my Father, . . . ” where the quest of the wonderful
Pearl, guarded by a dragon in the land of Egypt, is taken as a
symbol of the descent of the Saviour into Matter in search of the
soul.68 Similarly, one finds in the apocryphal Acts of John a strange
hymn, to the words of which the Saviour and his disciples dance a
roundelay.69 Later on in this apocryphon, the Christ reveals to
the same Apostle that it was only in appearance that he had
undergone the Crucifixion; and directs his gaze to the true Cross,
shining in the heavens, which is not the wooden one of Golgotha
but the wonderful “cross of light”.70
Other mythical elements can be gleaned from the narratives of
the descent of the Christ into hell—for example, from that of the
Gospel of Nicodemus, also called the Acts of Pilate, which recount
great revelations which Seth the son of Adam is supposed to have
received at the gates of Paradise in the earhest age of mankind:71
and, still more, from that of the Book of the Resurrection of Christ,
fallaciously attributed to the Apostle Bartholomew.72 One should
88 Cf. G. Bomkamm, Mythosund legende in den apokryphen Thomasakten, 1933 ;
G. Widengren, “Der iranische Hintergrund der Gnosis” in Zeitschrifte f Relig,
und Geistesgeschichte, 1952, pp. 97ff.; Jonas, loc. cit., pp. 320-8.
Quoted in M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament, p. 253.
70 See above, chap. 1, note 73. 71 See M. R. James, loc. cit., pp. 94ff.
72 ‘‘The Book of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ by the Apostle Bartholo¬
mew , Coptic text and English translation by W. Budge, in Coptic Apocrypha
in the Dialect of Upper Egypt, 1913 ; cf. also M. R. James, loc. cit., pp. i8iff.
also re-read the celestial visions in an Apocalypse of St Paul73

Other survivals of Gnostic themes can be gleaned from the
episodes of the fall of Satan, shorn of his angelic power, such as
were included in certain Coptic homilies Upon the investiture of
Saint Michael. Some of these even put an account of the creation
of man into the mouth of Adam.74 With no less profit one may
look through the many writings directly inspired by the legendary
history of Adam, of which the most famous is the Cave of
Treasures, a compilation of some of the earliest apocrypha; some
details have also been preserved from a Scriptura nomine Seth, a
73 Cf. M. R. James, he. cit., pp. 525ff.

71 The Book of the Investiture of the Archangel Michael, fictively attributed to
St John, figures among the Pierpont Morgan Coptic MSS.. (Manuscripts of
Hamouli, XVIII and XIX); they are unpublished. An Eulogium of St Michael
Archangel attributed to Theodosus of Alexandria is given, in text and translation,
by W. Budge, Miscellaneous Coptic Texts in the Dialect of Upper Egypt, 1915.
These writings are well analysed in Caspar Detlef G. Muller, Die alte koptische
Predigt, 1954, pp. io6ff. To these must be added an unpublished text contained in
the Brit. Museum Oriental MSS. no. 6782: it is an alleged discourse of Gregory
of Nazianzus replying to Eusebius, a monk of Mount Ararat, who had questioned
him about a Manichaean teaching to the effect that St Michael had been sub¬
stituted for Satan. Cf. Budge, Coptic Apocrypha in the Dialect of Upper Egypt,
1913, pp. xxix-xxx. Upon the survival of these themes among the Bogomils and
the Cathars, see H. C. Puech and A. Vaillant, Le traite contre les Bogomiles de Cosmos
le pretre, Paris, 1945, p. 96, note 1. These books were known to be sufficiently
heretical for John de Parallos, in the sixth century, to have thought fit to put
them on the Index, together with a number of other, definitely Gnostic works:
cf. A. Van Lantschoot, article mentioned above in chap. 1, note 33.
To these fragments of Gnostic myths preserved in various Coptic MSS, we
have reason to add here the contents of a parchment leaflet (ninth or tenth
century) kept at Naples in the Borgia Collection. It is fisted no. CCLXXVII,
by Zoega, Catalogus Codicum copticorum . . . , Romae, 1810, p. 625; but this
author translated only a few fines of it. I owe to the courtesy of the Rev. Canon
Am. van Lantschoot the communication of the whole text of this unpublished
fragment. We do not know the author nor the age of the treatise it comes from:
we can only be sure that it belongs to a discourse against the reading of certain
apocrypha which are abundantly quoted in it—perhaps this was a homily con¬
demning Gnostic books which was pronounced at the end of the fourth century
by Theodore of Tabennisi (which we refer to later, on p. 135).
Here is a translation of some passages from the Borgia leaflet, in which the
orator quotes several passages of a heretical writing: “ . . . that I have created
at the command of the Father” . . . “All things that are seen in heaven and
on the earth, it is I who created them all at the command of the Father.” And
again, “It is to me that belong the body and the soul; to my Father belong the
breath and the spirit” . . . “We have taken from Heaven, a portion, we have
mixed and melted it with a portion of the Earth, and we have made Man”
. . . “ Listen and learn how blind are they who write apocrypha, and how blind
are they who accept the same, who believe in them and thereby fall into great
book which had a special prestige because of its supposed author¬

ization by Seth.75
One needs also to look through a Coptic homily, the Discourse
upon Abbaton attributed to the Patriarch Timotheus of Alexan¬
dria, and to compare it with a mediaeval Ethiopian writing the
Commandments of the Sabbath (the Teezaza Sanbdt) still in use
today among the autochthonous Jews of that country, the Falashas.
There one finds the exposition of a myth according to which the
Creator sent his angels to rob the Earth of the pure dust of Eden,
°r Dudalem,76 from which he wants to fashion Adam—matter
which the Earth refuses him with loud cries, until one angel,
bolder than the rest, makes away with it. Is this not clearly
derived—though it leaves out the supreme figure of the alien
God—from one of those speculations we have seen among the
Marcionites, in which the Creator of this lower world, and
Matter, were two rival principles? Ethiopia would also furnish
us with some more, though mutilated, survivals of Gnostic
mythology: have not these same Falashas another curious
apocalypse, preserved under the name of a mysterious Gorgorios
depths . . . The same text goes on, “The Son said, ‘When the Father had
finished creating the twelve universes that none of the angels knew, then he
created seven other universes”’. And, “In the midst of the twelve universes are
the ineffable good things”, and “Outside these seven [universes] he created five
universes more; the Spirits of the Power are in them. Then, exterior to the
five, he created three more universes, which are those called the Dwellings of
the Angels. These twenty-seven universes are all outside this heaven and this
earth.
75t Upon the apocryphal books written in the name of Adam, cf. the notice
byj. 13 Frey in Dictionnaire de la Bible: Supplement, vol. I, cols. 101-34- for the
Cave of Treasures, see the Bezold edn. Die Schatzhole .... 1883;’see also
Bidez-Cumont, op. cit., vol. I, p. 46 and vol. II, p. 119; also Monneret deVillard
op. at., pp. 2off.
*Pn Dudalem, cf. Enoch X, 4, where the Lord commands Raphael to put the
rebellious angel Azazel in chains and cast him into the darkness of “the desert
that is m Dudael”, a place which (according to Geiger, in the Judische Zeitschrift,
u- uV1864-51 P- 200)> would be identical with that Bethkhaduda into
winch the scape-goat was driven according to the Targum Ierushalemi.
CL, yet agam, fragments of the Book of Noah included in the Book of Enoch
(chap, lx, 7-9), where mention is made of the desert called Duidai'n occupied by
Behemoth “to the east of the garden wherein dwell the elect and the just, and
from which God took away my grandfather [Noah] ”. Kohut and Charles tried
(but upon insufficient grounds) to identify Duidain with the Land of Nod which
Genesis situates to the east of Eden. See P. Grelot, “La geographic mythique
d Henoch” in Revue biblique, LXV, 1958, p. 44.
“who saw the hidden things”?—an attribute hardly to be under¬

stood unless it applied to some Gnostic prophet.77
However, these numerous texts can as yet teach us little about
the Gnosticism of which they preserve such traces; we shall need
to know rather more than we do about Gnosticism and its
literature before we can exactly estimate the nature and the
interest of the various vestiges they contain.
Meanwhile, we have at our disposal two rich literatures pro¬
duced by two religions of certainly Gnostic derivation—Mani-
chaeism78 and Mandaeanism, about which modem erudition has
been able to enlighten us to a fairly satisfactory extent. Mani
(215-76) first acquired his doctrine from some of the teachings of
baptist sects which were then active in Mesopotamia; from
mythical elements that were originally Iranian and also, for the
greatest and most important part, from direct acquaintance with
Gnostic thought. Hence there are many family hkenesses between
the scriptures of the Manichaean Church which have been re¬
discovered, and what we know, directly or indirectly, of Gnostic
doctrines. This makes us better able to reconstruct the leading
myths of the latter.
Mandaeanism—a baptist religion which is followed to this day
in Mesopotamia by some who call themselves “Christians of St
John” (an unmerited title, for they shame the very face of
Christ)79—also has an abundant literature in the Syriac language;
of which many texts have been edited by the learned. Here we
mention only: the Ginza (or “Treasure”), also called the Great
Book; the Book ofJohn; the liturgical chants of the Book of Souls
(or Qolasta); the Diwan Abatur, dealing with the journey through
the Purgatories; the Haran Gawaita, precious for its traces of the
highly mythical history of the sect’s origins; the Book of the Signs
of the Zodiac, and, lastly, the Book of the Baptism of Hibil-Ziwa.
77 Cf. the “Discourse on Abbaton by Timothy, Archbp. of Alexandria”,
published by A. E. W. Budge, Coptic Martyrdoms in the dialect of Upper Egypt,
London, 1914, pp. 225-49 and 474-96. Translations of the Te’ezdza Sanbat and
of the Apocalypse of Gorgorios are given by W. Leslau in his Falasha Anthology,
Yale U.P., 1951. Upon these texts see J. Doresse, L’Empire du Pretre Jean, vol. II
(E’Ethiopie midiivale), 1957, pp. i8yff.
78 On Manichaeism, cf. below, chap, vn, note 7.
79 On Mandaeanism, cf. below, chap, vn, note 15.
The teaching of the Mandaeans seems to be a late Gnosticism,
doubtless systematized after the rise of Manichaeism, for it shows
that influence. But the history of Mandaeanism is almost wholly
unknown, and from comparisons between this cult and our
obscure knowledge of Gnosticism it is difficult to draw reliable
conclusions—at least for the present.
With the great mystical teaching—as much a philosophy as
a religion—of the Hermetic books, Gnosticism, as we know it
from the heresiologists and from direct remains of the sects, is
thought to have had little relation. The corpus of Greek writings
assembled under the name of Hermes Trismegistus is, on the
whole (for one finds two divergent doctrines in it), illuminated
by a clear and tranquil Hellenic philosophy quite unlike the
doctrines of our heretics. The one feature in common with
Gnosticism to be found in these books—written in the first
centuries of our era, and therefore about the same period as the
Gnostic literature—is that the supreme knowledge is defined,
here also, as a means of spiritual elevation, as a “gnosis”.80
On the other hand. Gnosticism seems to have been on very
good terms with the rather different, popular Hermetism which
inspired the works of alchemy, magic and astrology.81 It is note¬
worthy that one Greek alchemical text which may date from the
end of the third century or the beginning of the fourth, is in¬
debted, by precise references, to the heretical literature and
mythology: this is the opusculum of the pseudo-Zosimos Upon the
letter Omega. It refers to the Revelations of Nicotheus, the prophet
who is mentioned in one of the Coptic treatises in the Bruce
Codex, and whose apocalypse figures among the writings
combated by Plotinus and his disciples. It quotes, moreover,
from the writings of Hesiod and Homer, and some Hebrew
myths about Adam—a list which reminds us of the eclecticism
ascribed to the Gnostics by the Philosophumena. The value of
this little treatise may be better appreciated if we give a few
quotations:
80 Hermetism indeed defmed itself as a “gnosis”; cf. Cerfaux, in Dictionnaire
de la Bible, Supplement, vol. Ill, cols. 676-9.
81 See, for the essentials, Reitzenstein, Poimandres; and Festugiere, Revelation
d’Hermes Trismegiste, vol. I, “ L’Astrologie et les sciences occultes”.
“The letter Omega . . . formed of two parts belonging to

the seventh zone—that of Chronos according to the corporeal
sense—is, according to the incorporeal sense something other,
inexplicable, which only Nicotheus the Hidden has known.
. . . Zoroaster asserts too boldly that, by the knowledge of all
the higher things, and by the magical virtue of the corporeal
sense, one averts from oneself all the evils of Fate, particular or
universal. Hermes, on the contrary, in his treatise On the Im¬
material attacks magic, for he says that the spiritual man ought not
to seek redress for anything whatever by magic . . . nor do
any violence against Fate; [he must] progress solely by striving
to know himself, remaining firm in the knowledge of God, the
Triad ineffable, and let Fatality do what it will to the mud that
is attached to him—that is, to his body.82 Thus, he says, by this
manner of thinking and of living, thou shalt see the Son of God
becoming all things, for the good of pious souls, to draw the
soul out of the realm of Fatality and raise it up to the incorporeal.
. . . Penetrating through all bodies, illuminating the intellect
of everyone, he gives them the urge to ascend towards the blessed
region in which the intellect dwelt before becoming corporeal.
. . . ” Upon the subject of the First Man, this Zosimos writes:
“The Chaldeans, the Parthians, the Medes and the Hebrews
named him Adam, which, being interpreted, is virgin soil, earth
red like blood, earth of flesh; one finds all that in the libraries of
the Ptolemies, and they have made collections of these books in
every temple, particularly in the Serapeum when they asked the
high priest of Jerusalem to send them an interpreter,83 who
translated all the Hebrew texts into Greek and Egyptian. . . .
Thus it is that the first man, who amongst us is called Thoth,
has been called Adam by those people, a name taken from the
language of angels. Moreover, those people named him thus for
82 Festugi^re points out that this passage in the text of Zosimos (of which he
gives a translation and analysis) gives forth a Christian sound; see his Reve¬
lation, p. 266, note 6; the text of Zosimos is also commented upon in Reitzenstein,
Poimandres, pp. I92ff.
83 This legend contradicts the well-known tradition that the High Priest
Eleazar (and not Anesas) sent seventy interpreters to translate the Old Testament
into Greek. It is in any case certain that the O.T. was well known in Egypt as
early as the age of the Ptolemies.
Original Texts and Monuments ioi
the symbolic value of the four letters, that is, elements, drawn
from the totality of the sphere.” Zosimos then explains that the
letters A-D-A-M correspond to the four cardinal points and the
four elements.84 ‘‘Therefore the carnal Adam is named Thoth as
regards his external shape; as for the man who dwells within
Adam—the spiritual man—he has both a proper name and a
common name. His proper name is still unknown to me today;
indeed, only Nicotheus the Undiscoverable has known it. His
common name is Phos.”85 Zosimos then quotes a myth which
may well have been taken from a Gnostic treatise: “When Phos
[that is, Light] was taking a walk in Paradise, the Archons per¬
suaded him, at the instigation of Fate—by pretending it was all
without mahce or much importance—to put on the body of
Adam which they had just completed, a body born of Fatality
and formed of the four elements. Phos, being himself without
mahce, did not refuse, and they preened themselves upon the
thought that they would henceforth hold him in bondage.” But
after thus enslaving the Light-man, continues Zosimos, Zeus
sent to the Light another bond—Pandora, “she whom the
Hebrews call Eve”.
We must not underestimate the significance of the references
to writings of Zoroaster so frankly included in this little work,
which in itself constitutes an admirable little anthology of a
Gnostic literature that we have lost, but that was doubtless the
most important. Plotinus and his disciples—to cite them yet
again—also discovered, together with the Allogeneous writings
used by the Gnostics whom they combated, certain Revelations,
one under the name of Zoroaster, and the other under that of
Zostrian, another Persian magus from whom, according to some
84 Cf. the paraphrase of the same myth, as it appears in the commentary on
Zosimos’ treatise Upon Action by Olympiodorus of Alexandria, in Berthelot and
Ruelle, Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs, Textes, p. 89, and Traductions, p. 95.
In Olympiodorus already appears the alchemical interpretation of this theme,
which was destined, through him, to be propagated in mediaeval Latin. Cf. such
indications as “Adam, red earth, mercury of the wise, sulphur, soul, natural
fire; Eve, white earth, living earth, philosopher’s mercury, root of moisture,
spirit’’, pointed out in the Bibliotheque des Philosophes chimistes, vol. IV, 1754,
pp. 570-8.
85 The Greek word phSs signifies, according to its accentuation, either “light”
or man .
traditions, Zoroaster was descended.86 Porphyry and Amelius

even showed proofs that their adversaries had either composed or,
more probably, compiled these alleged revelations at an epoch
which might have been quite recent. Manichaean literature, too,
numbers Zoroaster among its prophets, on the same level with
Jesus.
These allusions to Zoroaster, for us evocative of the lost
Gnostic writings, moreover tempt us to suppose that Gnosticism
borrowed something from another very singular literature of
which, unfortunately, only some fragments remain: these are
writings composed in Greek and headed with the names of the
Magi Zoroaster, Ostanes, Hystaspes. J. Bidez and Franz Cumont
have systematically reassembled the scattered fragments of this
which survive,87 and often, in the myths that they retell, we can
see that the beliefs inspiring them were authentically Iranian.
Some of the myths are about the formation of the universe by
two opposite principles, Light and Darkness: others recall the
sending-down into this lower world of a Saviour bom of the
seed of Zoroaster. Furthermore, from this hterature there pro¬
ceeded a number of more and more confused traditions to the
effect that Zoroaster, when necessary, changed his appearance in
order to identify himself with the prophet Seth, the son of
Adam, and that his descendant Saoshyant became a repre¬
sentation of Jesus.88 This was found to justify—rather need¬
lessly—the journey made by the Magi whom the star guided
to the stable at Bethlehem. It also helps to explain why the
Gnostics labelled some of their writings, that are now lost,
with the names of Zoroaster and Zostrian, as well as of Seth
and Adam.
Let us not forget that the Chaldaean Oracles, from some of the
ways in which they speak of the supreme God, of the sources and
of the abysses of the world of light, seem to be inspired by the
same ideas as those developed in the last part of the Bruce Codex.
86 Cf. Arnobius, Adversus nationes, I, 52: Armenius Zostriani nepos. . . .

87 J. Bidez and Franz Cumont, Les Mages Hellenish; Zoroastre, Ostanes et
Hystaspe d’apris la tradition grecque, vols. I and II, 1938.
88 Bidez-Cumont, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 128 and 130; U. Monneret de Villard,
op. cit., chaps. I and n.
Perhaps the Oracles were influenced by Gnostic literature; they

date from a period when the latter was in full bloom . . . but
one would have to know more about the conditions in which
they were composed.89
From these same centuries have come down to us a quantity of
magical, alchemical and astrological texts whose origin and
history elude us almost completely. They survive in Greek, in
Coptic, in Arabic and even in Latin translations. The majority
of these writings borrow myths, divine personages and rituals
from one another quite regardless of religious frontiers: it follows
that they are considerably entangled. The interest attaching to
some of these manuscripts has not escaped the historians of
Gnosticism, for the entities mentioned in them are often, indeed,
those of the great Gnostic speculations (and did not Gnosticism,
in return, include a great many of the practices and prayers of the
magicians and astrologers?). For instance, one long formulary90
elaborates a vision of fourteen heavens, the lowest of which is
borne up by four angels. The Father is enthroned on high, robed
in white, a crown of pearls upon his venerable head. Before him
is a cloud of light, in which he dwelt before undertaking the
Creation, a cloud that is called Marmaro and Marmaroth; it is
the abode of the Spirits of the All-Powerful; it is also the
worshipped Virgin in whom, at the beginning, the Father
hid himself. . . . Reitzenstein has justly pointed out the con¬
tributions from Gnosticism, and also from Judaism, in this
composition.
Often, too, in these rituals, great entities intervene who derive
still more directly from Gnostic myths—Harmozel, Oroiael,
Daueithe, Heleleth; and also the seven powers of the planets.
Like the Gnostic speculations, these rituals incorporate innumer¬
able hierarchies of angels, archangels and dominations who,
with their rustling wings and their chanting, surround the
Lord Iao-Sabaoth on his heavenly throne. At the same time
89 Hans Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy, Cairo, 1956; W. Kroll, De

oraculis Chaldaicis, Breslau, 1894; Franz Cumont, in Lux Perpetua, pp. 273-4.
90 The allegedly Gnostic treatise “Rossi” (so called from the name of its first
editor). Translation in M. Kropp, Ausgewahlte koptische Zaubertexte, vol. II, pp.
I75ff; for its Gnostic elements see Reitzenstein-Schaeder, Studien . . . , p. 109.
there is an admixture of gods and demons from other origins,

of whom the most characteristic is Seth, originally an Egyptian
god.
In the Pharaonic religion Seth was the great enemy of the
other principal gods; of Osiris, of Isis and of Horus. In this
character he was ritually cursed in the great myths and in cere¬
monies held in the great temples.91 However, he also had his own
cult, in some places officially: some of the Pharaohs—the Sethi—
even claimed him as the patron god of their dynasty. We can
read, in Plutarch’s treatise on Isis and Osiris (§§ 30-33 and 49-50),
an exegesis of the mythical relations between Seth and Osiris,
derived from sources which seem to have been quite authentically
Egyptian, in which we find what is almost a Gnostic dualism.
In the magic of the later period Seth is identified with the mon¬
strous Greek genie Typhon, son of Tartarus, who has a serpent’s
body. He is supposed to have an ass’s head, a feature which
recalls the elongated snout and long ears of some African
animal, with which Seth is sometimes represented in Pharaonic
iconography. More often he seems to be identified with a sort
of headless demon whose eyes are placed in his shoulders, the
Akephalos.92
In the Gnostic myths which transform the God of Genesis into
an evil god, and similarly turn various other values of Biblical
doctrine upside down, this Seth—the enemy of the chief Egyptian
gods—acquires a definite position.93 One may even wonder
whether, perchance, some of these myths did not bring him into
such contact with his homonym, Seth the son of Adam, as to
91 Cf. the article “Seth” in Bonnet, Reallexikon der agyptischen Religions-

geschichte, 1952; P. Montet, Le Drame d’Avaris, Essai sur la penetration des Semites
en £gypte, 1940; S. Schott, Bucher und Spriiche gegen den Gott Seth, fasc. 1 and 2,
1929 and 1939 (in Urkunden des Aegypt. Altertums, Sechste Abteilung); figures of
Seth with an ass’s head: Marianne Guentch-Oglouelf, “Nonas propres impre-
catoires” in Bulletin de Vlnstitut franfais d’Archeologie, Cairo, vol. XL, 1941, pp.
I27ff.
93 K. Preisendanz, Akephalos, der kopflose Gott, Leipzig, 1926.
93 Thus, in these syncretic conceptions, the Egyptian myths had undergone
the same inversion as had the traditional values of Genesis', the originally “good”
god Osiris, of whom Seth was the enemy, became identified with Sacla-Ialda-
baoth the wicked demiurge. Cf. above p. 51, citing the Philosophumena’s
account of the Peratae.
create some confusion between them. That is not impossible; we

shall fmd later some curious traces of a cult of this Seth-Typhon
presiding over Judeo-Gnostic rituals in which Adam plays the
leading part. That this cult came to be actually codified is attested
by the existence of Egyptian figurines of the god Seth, cast in
bronze, which are perfectly appropriate to it. The most significant
represent the god walking with the hieratic gait, his body girt
with a loin-cloth and surmounted by a head which has not, now,
the muzzle of the mythic “Sethian” animal commonly assigned
to Seth in the Pharaonic tradition, but the ass’s head much more
rarely met with. There is no doubt about the identification of the
god worshipped in this guise, as one of the great figures of
Gnosticism: the pedestal is engraved with the name Aberamentho,
which denoted Jesus.94
To show what relations already existed between Gnosticism
and the more confused magical literature in which this fantastic
demon appears, let us read, for instance, an incantation entitled
“The stele of Jeou the Painter’’,95 the text of which is preserved
in a Greek papyrus. The “headless” god is there referred to as
creator of earth and heaven, of the night and the day . . . , he
is identified with Osiris-Onnophris, the Egyptian god of the
other world. It is said that he judges the just and the unjust;
that he created all that is masculine and all that is feminine. And
then the magician, identifying himself with Moses, invokes the
god Osoronnophris, saying to him, ‘ ‘ This is thy true name, which
thou hast bequeathed to the prophets of Israel”; afterwards
calling upon him by the names of Arbathiao, Seth, Iao, Sabaoth
and Abrasax. . . .
Are we amazed at this mixture of Jewish and Egyptian ele¬
ments ? But did not the Greek historian Manetho say that Moses
had been a priest of Osiris in Egypt?—which shows that such a
belief was current in fairly early times.96 And does not the Talmud
also suggest that in the second century of our era there were
Bibhcal manuscripts in “demotic” writing—that is, in the latest,
94 G. Roeder, Bronzefiguren, 1957; § 99c and PI. 72g.
95 Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 184. For another example of these Sethian
rituals, see S. Eitrem, Papyri Osloertses, fasc. I, Oslo, 1925.
98 Quoted by Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 185.
most popular form of the old hieroglyphic script?97 Moreover,

one can point to some Ptolemaic Books in Greek, which combined
the Egyptian theology with the Jewish.98
With this, let us take our leave of the Seth of the magic
formulas—the Seth of those handbooks of incantation which
carried his name and his cult throughout the Roman world99—
and, rising above this category of somewhat barbarous writings,
let us turn our attention to some texts of a higher kind of magic
which disclose facts of more importance for the history of
Gnosticism.
We were able to note, in our survey of the authentic Gnostic
writings (particularly in the case of the Pistis-Sophia), that Biblical
elements were associated with several Egyptian figures, some of
infernal beings; but there was also, for instance, that fantastic
opening of the heavens through which the Saviour and his
disciples behold the ships of the sun and the moon, which belongs
to a mystic conception inherited from the most ancient Pharaonic
beliefs.100 In the world to which these writings transport us there
were two impressive Wisdoms which claimed to eclipse all the
others: one had to endeavour systematically to connect, with one
or the other of these, any myth whatever upon which one wanted
to confer prestige. Thus, we fmd an alchemical manuscript en¬
titled A genuine Discourse hy Sophe [that is, Cheops] the Egyptian,
and hy the god of the Hebrews, The Lord of Powers Sabaoth; “for
there are two sciences and two wisdoms: that of the Egyptians
and that of the Hebrews”.101 One can clearly discern, in all this
97 Reitzenstein, Poimandres, pp. 185-6; since this book was written, an Aram¬
aic text transcribed into Egyptian script (demotic) has been discovered; and some
quotations from the Psalms appear in the hieroglyphic texts on the Temple of
Petosiris at Hermopolis (G. Lefebvre, Le Tombeau de Petosiris, Part I, Cairo,
I934. PP- 37ff An influence from the Biblical Genesis is discernible in the cos¬
mogonic texts incised on the portal of the sanctuary of the primordial gods
(the little Temple of Medinet Habu) in the Theban necropolis; see below, chap,
vi, note 38. Lastly there are more and more numerous evidences that the Coptic
language served in the first place for Egyptian translations of the Old and not the
New Testament.
98 Reitzenstein, op. cit., p. 186.
99 R. Wunsch, Sethianische Verfidchungstafeln aus Rom, 1898; A. Audollent,
Defixionum Tabellae, 1904.
100 Cf. above, notes 14 and 15.
101 Reitzenstein, op. cit., p. 187.
magical, alchemical and astrological literature, a competition

between two rival currents of thought, one Judaizing and the
other Egyptianizing. Fr Festugiere, in his Revelation of Hermes
Trismegistus,102 quotes the following sentence from a magical
text full of salty sayings: “It is this very book which Hermes
plagiarized when he named the seven perfumes of sacrifice in his
sacred book entitled The Wing.” But the book which Hermes—
herald of the doctrines attributed to the Egyptian Thoth—is
accused of having stolen, is a magical writing entitled the Book of
Moses. Here we are observers of the active competition between
two rival schools, one of them authentically Jewish, whilst the
other persistently steals the myths propagated by the former
group and stamps them with the name of Hermes Trismegistus,
thereby claiming them as Egyptian. One could fmd many other
proofs of such plagiarism in the sometimes closely parallel
traditions handed down under the names of Enoch, of Seth,
sometimes of Hermes.
One good example is furnished by two parallel versions, only
shghtly different, of a mystical prayer preserved on some Greek
magical papyri. E. Peterson was able to compare and analyse
these texts with excellent insight: in the Judaizing version (the
older of the two) he discovered the outlines of an archaic Gnosti¬
cism which calls for a few words of description.
This is a prayer for salvation—of the kind called a “stele” in
one of the most widely-used terminologies—and seems to be
taken from a more important, secret work of which we have no
knowledge.103 From its liturgical form it should belong to a rather
curious cult of Seth-Typhon in which, it appears, all kinds of
mysteries were celebrated104. The celebrant who recites this
particular incantation identifies himself, mythically, by the words
that he pronounces, with Man, “the most beautiful creation of
the god who is in heaven”, who is said to be “made of spirit, of
dew and of earth”; and who must therefore be Adam. From the
terms of this prayer, man is longing to escape from Fate and
102 Festugiere, op. cit., p. 288.
103 E. Peterson, “La liberation d’Adam de l’Avayxr) ” in Revue biblique, 1948,
pp. I99ff.
104 Peterson, loc. cit., p. 200 and note 3.
io8 The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
return to his original form and to the spiritual state from which
he has fallen. The Gnostic character of the text is still more evident
when we find that the god who is invoked is named the Propator,
the Pro-Father, the Aion who dwells in the zenith of heaven;
he is described as the master of the Pole enthroned upon the
constellation of the Chariot—points that identify him with the
Biblical Sabaoth upon his throne and in his chariot. He is served
by myriads of angels, and near beside him is the aeon Sophia.
Adam is proclaiming, in this invocation, that he knows the divine
name of salvation from the Demon of the air, and from Fate.
The interpretation of this prayer that Peterson was able to
arrive at helps us to understand two other and more obscure texts.
It explains why, in the Greek magical papyrus Mimaut (III, 145,
147), a prayer addressed to Helios is also phrased as though it
were spoken by Adam. Similarly, in the famous Greek formulary
commonly referred to as the Mithraic Liturgy,105 it enables us to
identify the mythical being from whose mouth its incantations
are supposed to proceed; we can recognize him from certain
details—he is “a perfect body”, he has been made by the right hand
of the divinity, in short, he is Adam. Bom of the impure Womb,
he is lamenting over his misfortune, and still expressing the hope
that psychic power will be restored to him when the Fatality
dispensed by the spheres will have been abolished. Then he will
recover his immortal nature!
E. Peterson has, moreover, the great merit of having replaced
these beliefs in the specific mystical system from which they
come. Its constantly recurring theme is that of the ascent of Man
towards heaven,106 and is analogous to that of the ascension into
Paradise which is one of the essential features of a mystical con¬
ception of Adam well known in the ancient Rabbinical literature.
It was so widely believed in Judaism that some perfect teachers,
105 The text speculatively described as a Mithraic liturgy or ritual has nothing
to do with the Mithraic mysteries, according to Franz Cumont. Fr Festugi£re,
who has more happily called it Recede d’lmmortalite (Prescription for Immortality),
translates it in his Revelation . . . , vol. I, pp. 303ff. This “liturgy” has some
family resemblances to the Jewish mysticism of the great Hekhaloth (see our
chap, vn, p. 290).
108 Concerning these visions, see Festugiere, La Revelation d'Hermes Tris-
migiste, vol. II, Le dieu cosmique, Paris, 1949, pp. 442ff.
identifying themselves with Adam, had been caught up into

heaven, that an echo of this doctrine can even be found in the
second Epistle to the Corinthians (XII, 2-4): “I know a man in
Christ who, fourteen years ago, was caught up to the third
heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know,
God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into Para¬
dise . . . and he knew things that cannot be told, which man
may not utter.” This mysticism is still more in evidence in the
Book of Enoch. At the same time, it is specially well represented
among our Gnostics: Seth, Marsanes and Martiades, Nicotheus
and other prophets were said to have been similarly caught up
into heaven. Mere coincidence? It cannot be: we have proof that
the Coptic Gnostics had a precise knowledge of these theories.
As Peterson reminds us, the Rabbinical literature teaches that the
Perfect one at the completion of his ascension becomes a little Iao;
and this teaching about the little Iao, which appears in the Hebrew
Enoch,107 is found also in the first book of the Pistis-Sophia,108
According to Peterson, the earliest traces of this mysticism
date back to the beginning of the Hellenistic age; they already
appear109 in the Biblical Book of Wisdom dating from about a
century before our era. It is, moreover, noteworthy that in the
prayers analysed by Peterson, certain Iranian elements are
discernible, one of which is of a cosmological order—namely,
the notion of an intermediary principle separating the Light from
the Darkness; this is Air—Vayu—which is here assimilated to
Fatality.
The presence of this mysticism about Adam in a text, certain
details of which evoke the Gnostic myths, is of the highest
interest. Something of the real nature and origins of Gnosticism
is at last looming through the mists of the past, thanks to the
searching exegesis we have just summarized.
107 Cf. Scholem, Les Grands courants de mystique juive, pp. 82-3 and p. 379,
note 105: and Odeberg, Introduction to 3. Enoch, p. 189.
108 In the translation by W. Till, p. 7, 1, 35, and p. 8, 1, 11.
109 Cf. Dupont-Sommer, “Adam, pere du monde ...” in Revue de
VHistoire des Religions, 1939, pp. i8ff.; and Peterson, loc. cit., p. 211; the passage
in question from the Wisdom of Solomon is as follows: “ She preserved the first
formed father of the world, that was created alone, and brought him out of his
fall, and gave him the power to rule all things” (X, 1-2).
no The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
THE MAIN FEATURES OF GNOSTIC DOCTRINE
I would like to complete this picture of what was known about

Gnosticism before the discovery of the manuscripts at Cheno-
boskion by outlining, in a few words, the main features of the
Gnostic rehgion so far as one can define them from study of the
previously known documents and of the heresiologists. For this
we must take account of a study by Professor Puech, which sums
up the most positive conclusions that a historian of the Gnostic
problem could then arrive at. I refer to the article on “Gnosticism
and Time” which appeared in 1952.110
There have been broadly two hypotheses about the origin of
Gnosticism. Many historians have thought that this rehgion was
merely a heresy that arose and developed within Christianity;
but this theory has the defect of being hardly compatible with the
facts—such as, for example, the existence of a Gnostic sect hke
that of the Mandaeans with their essentially anti-Christian
attitude.111 That is why other historians, seeing that there are
some myths of characteristically Gnostic content which were
equally well developed in both Judaism and Islam, have supposed
that these various doctrines were all derived from the same stock
of myth and imagery inherited from some identical source before
the beginning of our era. To find this source they have looked to
Egypt, to Babylonia and Persia, sometimes even to India. To
admit this second hypothesis would amount to believing that
the Gnosticisms which claimed to be Christian, far from being
heresies generated within the rehgion of the New Testament,
were in fact ahen cults that crept into it as a result of more or less
fortuitous contacts.
Now, if we find that the notion of Time is used as the basis
of Professor Puech’s analysis, this is because it enables him to
identify, better than could the historians who first sought to
ascribe independence and originality to Gnosticism, the basic
elements that distinguish it from the chief surrounding currents
of thought—with which others, again, had confused it. The
110 H. C. Puech, “La Gnose et le Temps” in Eranos-Jahrbuch, XX, 1952,
PP- 57ff.
111 According to the Mandaeans, Jesus was a prophet of falsehood, whose
imposture had been exposed by Anosh-Uthra.
Photo: Jean Doresse
TOGO MINA AND THE AUTHOR DECIPHERING THE FIRST

MANUSCRIPT, OCTOBER 1947
CAST OF A CARVED GEM REPRESENTING THE DEMIURGE IAO,
MASTER OF THE SEVEN HEAVENS
( Twice actual size.)
The Demiurge is shown as a monstrous being with the head of a cock and limbs
in the form of serpents. The inscription is the formula ABRASAX. In the circle
of the shield held by the Demiurge is engraved a magic sequence of vowels.
MEDAL IN LEAD REPRESENTING ON ONE SIDE THE DEMIURGE

IAO, AND ON THE OTHER THE SPHERES OF THE SEVEN HEAVENS
(Actual size.)
The Demiurge is shown under the same aspect as in the gem above.
Collection du Musee Guitnet, Paris.

Photos: Jean Doresse.
Original Texts and Monuments Ill
attitude of the Gnostic towards Time was in function with his

beliefs; it reflected his conception of the world and all the
myths unfolding within it. By analysing his notion of Time,
therefore, it was possible to go farther than we had yet managed
to do in the understanding of this doctrine for which the docu¬
ments were so few and contradictory. In fact, Professor Puech
showed that by its notion of Time, Gnosticism is absolutely
distinct from both Hellenism and Christianity. Hellenism was
characterized by a notion of Time that was cyclic, circular,
“perpetually repeating itself. . . under the influence of the astro¬
nomical movements which decide and regulate ... its course”.112
But in Christian thought, Time is rectilinear, it is a scroll unrolling
itself irreversibly from the Creation straight on to the end of
the universe. Whereas Gnosticism, taking its conceptions as a
whole, never adapted its outlook to either of these two notions
of Time.
Among the essential features of Gnostic doctrine, one of the
most important is the opposition that it affirms between the
created world and the supreme God. The entire universe of sen¬
sory experience is condemned as evil; the good, the perfect
divinity is foreign to it. The power which rules over the cosmos
is a god who is weak, ignorant, even perverse—a monstrous
Prince of Darkness. What a gulf lies between this misshapen
world and the Greek conception of a beautiful, good and ordered
universe to which a Plotinus, for example, was devoted! In this
base world, dominated by Fatality, where Fate is determined by
great celestial figures and above all by the planets (the Archons),
man is a slave, imprisoned and in chains. He is suffering, shut up
in the flesh. That is why one of the stages of salvation is to be the
deed by which Jesus—as we read in the Pistis-Sophia—will one
day abolish Fatality by reversing the rotation of the spheres, thus
counteracting their effects. For Fatality is inherent in cyclic
Time—the time belonging to this base world, to what is created;
whereas the higher world is timeless. Between the one and the
other there is a limit, a frontier, which is in principle absolute and
unpassable. Hence the anxious fear of the Gnostic, Mandaean or
112 pUech, “La Gnose et le Temps” (loc. cit.), p. 59.
Manichaean, confronted with duration: this finds unusually

powerful expression in a text quoted by Hans Jonas, which we
mention here although it belongs to one of the great Mandaean
books: “In this world (of Darkness) I was living for a thousand
myriads of years, no one knowing that I was there . . . the
years followed the years, the generations the generations: there
was I, and they knew not that I was dwelling here in their
world!”113
When the Saviour, under whatever name he presents himself,
brings the revelation of the higher world to his elect, he first
discloses to them the utter depravity of their bodies and of the
creation in which they are prisoners: by the same token he reveals
to them the falsity of the god of the Old Testament and of the
Law to which the latter has subjected them. This complete over¬
turning of the values proclaimed by tradition even led certain
sectaries to venerate those who in the Old Testament were
accursed—the Serpent, Cain, the Sodomites. . . . Another
moral consequence was that actions forbidden by the wicked
demiurge became either indifferent or even means to salvation.
Quoting some terms he found in St Irenaeus, Professor Puech
writes, upon this point, “the Gnostic attitude led to a contrarietas
etdissolutiopraeteritorum”.114 The Gnostic myths led, indeed, to the
conception of a man serving two gods—one good and one evil—
and having two souls; one heavenly, the other a material soul put
into him by the demons to make him sin. It follows, similarly,
that the purpose of Gnosticism is the uplifting of a being who is
good, but fallen—i.e., salvation.
The point of departure for mystical thinking is, to a Gnostic
adept, the sense of Evil that is persecuting him: “Whence comes
evil?” “Why does it exist?” Hence the Gnostic wishes to escape
from Time which is also, to him, a defilement. He longs to free
the spirit and the light within him from this “mixture”. But the
eschatology contained in the texts we have read is rather pessi¬
mistic: man has to pass through successive births, to undergo
113 Puech, loc. cit., pp. 92-3; also his Manichiismc . . . , p. 152, note 272;
Jonas, loc. cit., pp. 109-13.
114 Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, IV, xni, 1.
reincarnation—which, in some of the Manichaean texts, becomes

a sort of “decanting” process reminiscent of the Buddhists’
samsara.115 This eternal, or almost eternal, recurrence becomes
indeed a “dance of death”.
However, this universe, though its existence is the product of a
degradation, is nevertheless destined to a still more supernatural
salvation. By her own fault Sophia has made herself responsible
for the creation of the lower world; she herself had felt attracted
towards Matter and the depths. The salvation corresponding to
her fall will be an intervention of the Timeless into the temporal.
The Gnostics, in their exile here below, ask themselves: “Who
am I, and where am I? Whence have I come, and why did I
come hither?” In response to their anxiety, they are vouchsafed,
in secret, a revelation of the higher world—the “gnosis”. This
“gnosis”, moreover, is to be not so much a “knowing” as a
remembering; it is to awaken the neophyte, to recall him to what
was his original nature, superior to matter: finally, it is to restore
to him the everlasting part of his being and put him beyond all
danger from the spheres and from their powers. The Saviours
themselves who bring this revelation remain strangers in the
world of Time: when the Gnostics assign this character to Jesus
they make him into a kind of phantom who never puts on real
flesh and blood; who escapes from the Passion.116
Some scholars, such as W. Bousset and R. Reitzenstein, had
already emphasized (somewhat hastily) what the Gnostic doc-
115 Puech, “La Gnose et le Temps”, p. 90 and note 39; Le Manicheisme . . . ,

p. 179, note 360. The theme of reincarnation appears also among the disciples of
Simon, of Basilides, and of Carpocrates.
116 The Christ of the Gnostics is distinguished primarily by the part he plays
in the higher universe as an aeon. His incarnation is expounded in, for instance,
the Pistis-Sophia, where Jesus explains that it was he who visited the Virgin under
the guise of the angel Gabriel, and how he implanted in her, to be made into a
body for him, a power he had received from Barbelo; and, for the formation
of his soul, another power he had derived from Sabaoth the Good. After the birth
of Jesus on earth, whilst he was still a child, the Holy Spirit came to visit him in
Mary’s house and mysteriously merged with him. At the baptism—according to
Basilides and the Manichaeans also—the Christ was substituted for Jesus. The
Saviour escaped the Cross, upon which Simon of Cyrene was crucified instead
of him (q.v. Basilides). Lastly it is from the resurrected Christ that the Gnostics
claim to have received their teachings; and to him they ascribe a sojourn upon
earth lasting from eighteen months to twelve years.
trines might owe to Iran. In view of the notion of Time within

which these myths have developed, we are enabled to say some¬
thing more about this. We know that the Manichaeans had a theory
of Three Phases in the history of the universe: firstly, the anterior
phase when the two opposing principles—the light filled with
wisdom and the darkness of stupidity—exist separately; then a
middle phase in which the light is attacked by the darkness and the
“muddle” is produced; and, thirdly, the conclusive phase, which
is that of a definitive restoration of the primordial separation.117
This notion of Three Phases, derived from Iranian myths, under¬
lies all the Gnostic systems we have been surveying, and this,
even more than the idea of a yvwcns (of a supersensible and secret
knowledge) is an element of originality in them.
It is indeed remarkable how Professor Puech, with a docu¬
mentation so contradictory and so poor in authentic elements,
has been able to make such clever use of the Gnostics’ doctrine of
Time, applying it as a criterion and thereby bringing to light the
leading characteristics of their thought and beliefs so much more
successfully than those who had previously attacked the problem
by different methods. The notion of Time upon which a religion
is built up is, indeed, one of those which its original texts disclose
unknowingly, and which adverse critics never attempt to distort
to their purposes.
There remain, however, many essential problems to which the
historian sees no solution. To describe Gnosticism by outlining
its general tenets is one thing: to estimate its impact and evolu¬
tion is another, and more important. Even of the precise content
of the Gnostic myths we are still in some doubt; none of the texts
that Gnosticism has directly bequeathed to us deal with its funda¬
mental subjects. Concerning the sects, their prophets, the authors
of their sacred books and their daily religious life, we know next
to nothing. The allusions to Nicotheus, Marsanes, Phosilampes,
Strempsuchos, only reveal to us . . . our ignorance of the real
persons hidden behind those great names. The adversaries of the
117 The Three Phases which provide the framework of the Manichaean
cosmology are clearly implicit in Gnosticism, and are indeed explicitly referred to
in, for example, the Pistis-Sophia (see above, pp. 65-6). Cf. Puech, Le Manicheisme
.... pp. 157-9, note 284.
Gnostics describe abominable practices, to which the sectaries

themselves indeed refer—but only to denounce rival groups,
whom they despised for being addicted to them.118 What was the
reality behind this? Were there indeed some sordid rituals which,
however, were expressive of the myths about the “gathering-in”
of the seed of light scattered among all beings ? Or were these
merely orgies signifying an utter contempt for the physical
nature created by an “evil” god?—or more simply still, were the
accusations vulgar calumnies? Of this we are still just as ignorant
as we are about the possible origins of this religious movement—
whether they were in Jewry, Egypt, Babylonia, Iran, the Hellenic
mysteries or elsewhere. . . . And what were the actual contacts
between our Gnostics and, for instance, the baptist or Judeo-
Christian groups which preceded them, with Christianity and—
which is also important—with Hermetism? In short, we still
lack the data for a direct presentation of Gnosticism, its authentic
founders and its great Revelations—which were, no doubt,
those given out under the names of Nicotheus, of Zoroaster
and Zostrian, of Seth and Adam, much more probably than those
of Valentinus and Basilides.
118 Cf. Fendt, Gnostische Mysterien, 1922, pp. 3-29.
CHAPTER III
THE STORY OF A DISCOVERY
In September 1947 I arrived in Egypt for the first time, upon a

brief mission undertaken at the behest of the French Institute of
Archaeology at Cairo. My researches were aimed at elucidating
the history of the ancient Coptic monasteries whose ruins are
scattered over the Theban countryside; and I was filled with
eager desire to steep myself in the hfe of this country towards
which my vocation had been drawing me for many years past.
Unhappily, this was the moment at which an epidemic of cholera
had just begun: the administrative measures immediately taken
in order to check the progress of this scourge comphcated our
plans and postponed my departure for Upper Egypt, with which
all communications were severed. During the consequent delay,
I was able to make leisurely acquaintance with the collections of
the Coptic Museum, whose quite modem buildings are established
in Old Cairo; that is, in the setting that is the most evocative of
the ancient days from which their contents come. The Old City
extends beyond the crumbhng vestiges of Fustat, right to the
south of the present capital: with its many ancient churches and a
no less archaic synagogue, this suburb fills up what remains of a
fortified enclosure which was constructed on the strand of the
Nile by the Romans.
In this autumn of 1947, the Director of the Coptic Museum
was Togo Mina, whose most dependable knowledge and judg¬
ment were evident in the arrangement of the textiles, sculptures,
paintings and manuscripts entrusted to him.1 Togo Mina knew his
Christian Egypt well, and how to make it hve again in memory.
One morning, he opened a drawer of his desk, took out of it a
voluminous packet, opened it, and showed me, in a book-cover
1 J. Doresse, “Togo Mina, 1906-1949” in Chronique d’£gypte, XXV, 1950,
P- 389-
116
The Story oj a Discovery 117
of soft leather, some pages of papyrus filled with large, fine

Coptic writing which might date from the third or fourth century
of our era. He asked me if I could identify the contents of these
pages. From the first few words I could see that these were
Gnostic texts, one of which bore the title of The Sacred Book of the
invisible Great Spirit, whilst further on was the title of a Secret
Book of John. I warmly congratulated Togo Mina upon his extra¬
ordinary discovery, and immediately undertook, with his help,
the task of putting these leaves in order, for they had become
considerably muddled. In the end, I was able to recognize five
distinct writings, of which—strange to say—two were of sub¬
stantially the same treatise, written in the one case in the form of
an epistle under the name of Eugnostos, and in the other trans¬
formed into a sort of gospel—an imaginary dialogue between
Jesus and his disciples. The contents of such documents appeared at
the first glance to be of even greater interest than the treatises in the
Bruce Codex and the Pistis-Sophia of the Codex Askewianus. At
the same time, two of the books thus coming to light were new
versions of texts in the Gnostic codex in Berlin, for the publi¬
cation of which we had been waiting in vain for the last fifty years.2
How had this strange document come into the hands of Togo
Mina ? It had been previously offered, by a dealer, to an eminent
Coptic scholar in Cairo, a Dr G. Sobhy. He had the happy thought
of sending the seller to the Coptic Museum, where Togo Mina,
seeing that these pages were something out of the ordinary, took
care not to let them go anywhere else.
With Togo Mina’s permission, I at once made these interesting
texts known to Canon Etienne Drioton on the one hand, and on
the other to Professor Puech, whom Togo agreed to invite to
join with us in a committee for their publication. Because of the
fact that the new manuscript contained two texts of which parallel
versions existed in the unpublished Berlin codex, we also thought
it fitting to co-opt, for the production of an edition as definitive
as possible, the competent aid of Professor W. Till, whom the
German Academy had just commissioned to publish the Gnostic
Manuscripts at Berlin.
2 Cf. chap. 11, pp. 86ff.
But it was essentia] to know where the new papyri came from.
The site where it had been disinterred might of itself reveal
particularly interesting information about the sects which had
used these scriptures. One might also, perhaps, find some other
and similar writings there. The most we could learn, from various
persons who were well informed about everything to do with
the trade in antiquities, was less than satisfying. They spoke
mysteriously of a large find of manuscripts having been made
near a hamlet called Hamra-Dum, well to the north of Luxor:
unfortunately, they said, the peasants had burnt some of them
to brew their tea. Of the alleged existence of these other docu¬
ments, one tangible proof did emerge: an antiquary, Albert Eid,
had acquired a number of pages rather similar to those in Togo
Mina’s keeping at the Coptic Museum. Apparently of later date,
and more badly defaced, these pages contained undoubtedly
Gnostic writings—a Gospel of Truth, an Address to Reginos upon
the Resurrection and some other treatises new to us—less attractive,
however, than the manuscript we had.3 This second discovery
had nevertheless its value. Togo Mina decided to advise the
Council of the Coptic Museum to acquire this codex, and in¬
formed the holders of it that he would in no case be authorized
to send a document of such interest out of Egypt.
But for this happy surprise, our enquiries led to no discovery
of further information.4 I went away to Upper Egypt; and had
first to travel to Assiut by plane, the railway service from Cairo
being still suspended. At Luxor I spent long weeks rambling over
the ruins of Coptic monasteries, meanwhile making acquaintance
3 Togo Mina, H. C. Puech and I have, since 1948, made known the contents
of this manuscript: cf. Togo Mina, “Le Papyrus gnostique due Musee
copte” in Vigiliae Christianae, II, 1948, p. 130; H. C. Puech and J. Doresse,
“Nouveaux ecrits gnostiques . . .’’in Comptes rendus de VAcadimie des In¬
scriptions ct Belles-Lettres, 1948, p. 89; completed by J. Doresse and Togo Mina,
“Nouveaux textes gnostiques coptes decouverts en Haute-Egypte . . .’’in
Vigiliae Christianae, III, 1949, pp. 132-3 and 137, etc.
4 With the exception of some fragments of pages written in the akhmimic
dialect, possibly derived from the same find. Only by infinite patience has
Mgr Lefort been able to restore some form to these vestiges, and thereby
to reveal a few pages of the Shepherd of Hennas: cf. L. Th. Lefort, Les Peres
apostoliques en copte, text and translation in the C.S.C.O., vols. 135 and 136,
Louvain, 1952.
The Story of a Discovery 119
with their neighbours, the great pharaonic monuments. In this

region I ought to have been well placed to overhear any rumours
about the circumstances in which our Gnostic manuscripts had
been found, but no more precise information came my way.
The silence that invariably hides the real circumstances surround¬
ing great finds—and which we had thought we might break—
was again impenetrable.
I did not get back to Cairo until shortly before the date of our
return to Europe. Togo Mina was now definitely persuaded that
there was nothing more to be discovered. The veil was therefore
lifted, to disclose to public interest the manuscript acquired by the
Coptic Museum; and on 11 and 12 January 1948 the Egyptian
press briefly announced this new discovery, which made no great
stir in a country so inured to archaeological marvels. When I
had come back to Paris, Professor Puech and I made a report to
the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, both upon the
codex at the Coptic Museum and upon that of the antiquary
Albert Eid. At the same time, Togo Mina published the same
information at the Institute of Egypt.5
What we did not know was that other manuscripts had been
discovered at the same time as those we had already secured. But
they had remained hidden—why? Chiefly because of the inter¬
vention of a learned person, to whom three of these other manu¬
scripts had been offered at a ridiculously low price—one hundred
and ten pounds (Egyptian). On that occasion one of our colleagues
had also had an opportunity of seeing them, and he was after¬
wards able to testify that these were indeed the documents that
we should have been so delighted to discover. But this expert to
whom they were offered refused them as of no interest, and men¬
tioned them to no one else. It was a misjudgment like that which
occurred in the case of the famous Manichaean manuscripts of
Fayum twenty years earlier: these too, were carelessly rejected by
another expert, who took them for Biblical texts of no interest,
8 H. C. Puech and J. Doresse, “Nouveaux Merits gnostiques decouverts en
Egypte” in the Comptes rendus de VAcademie des Inscriptions, Seance du 20 Fevr.
1948, pp. 87-95. Togo Mina, “Le Papyrus gnostique du Musee Copte” in
Vigiliae Christianae, II, 1948, pp. 129-36;}. Doresse, “Trois livres gnostiques
inedits”, ibid., pp. 137-60.
and were only recovered in extremis by the late Carl Schmidt,

who was more intuitive—or less miserly.
As it happened, the Gnostic manuscripts which had been thus
refused had not left Cairo. Perhaps because of what we had at last
revealed about the value of the codex at the Coptic Museum, a
highly cultured personage guessed what these writings were, and
bought up all that she could lay hands upon. Less than a year after
returning from my first journey to Egypt, I received from this
person, in confidence, some photographs of manuscripts upon
which my advice was solicited. The texts of which some passages
were legible were such that my departure for Egypt was im¬
mediately arranged and organized by the competent authorities
to whom I explained the situation. R. Dussaud and C. F. A.
Schaeffer united in the effort to get me to Cairo without delay;
and what I found there confirmed the hopes that these photo¬
graphs had reawakened. It was not now a few isolated manuscripts
that were shown to me, but half a score, almost all complete in
their bindings of pliable leather. I was allowed to make no more
than a rapid inspection of them—given just time enough to
identify, to my personal satisfaction, the principal works they
contained and to take notes of a few characteristic passages.
Egypt was then at war with Israel, and on several occasions air¬
raid warnings (sounded on the slightest justification) cut short the
few evenings upon which I was allowed access to the documents.
However, I went on, from surprise to astonishment, until I had
soon enumerated some forty new writings, some of them
announced under sensationally attractive titles such as: the
Revelation of Adam to his son Seth; a Gospel of Thomas; a Paraphrase
of Shem; the Interpretation of the Gnosis . . . and the contents of
some other treatises, of which the titles were lacking, afforded
glimpses of still more impressive works. What was now reappear¬
ing, for the first time, was nothing less than the sacred library of
an ancient sect, to all appearances complete. Pharaonic literature
had never bequeathed to us a whole set of books so rich and homo¬
geneous. The Manichaeans of the Fayum had transmitted to us
only a few of their writings.6 It is only the rich mediaeval libraries
6 Cf. chap, u, note 40.
of Tuen Huang in Central Asia that have left us longer “runs”

of their literature—and these treat of less forgotten subjects.7
It was becoming important to steer this treasure-trove, not
towards some foreign library, but into some purely Egyptian
scientific institution, which, however, had to be one capable of
putting the manuscripts into condition, of looking after them and
arranging for their scrupulous publication. Consulted confidential¬
ly about this, Canon Drioton, Director-General of the Service
of Antiquities, declared that such a treasure could not, in principle,
go anywhere but to the Coptic Museum—unless, indeed, the
authorities committed the unpardonable blunder of withholding
the necessary funds, in which case it would be legitimate to
authorize the export of the documents from Egypt, if the owner
so desired. This business was all the more difficult to transact
because, in the matter of antiquities, the Egyptian government
has sometimes a tendency to exercise its right of confiscation, to
avoid paying a fair price for certain treasures. However, this is an
inconvenience that is so well known that no one in possession,
however legitimately, of a valuable antiquity in that country
dares to offer it to the authorities, but prefers to dispose of it
in the clandestine market, whence it is exported.
Canon Drioton was very willing to take charge of the negotia¬
tions, in which I could play only a strictly scientific part, con¬
forming strictly to his wishes in every other respect. It was not
difficult to convince the owner that she ought not to keep the
precious manuscripts to herself, nor offer them to foreign collec¬
tions, but submit them to the competent authorities. This Miss
Dattari—whose father had been a well-known numismatist—thus
became willing to release the treasure she had withheld, and in
the spring of 1949 she submitted the whole collection of docu¬
ments to Togo Mina, who advised the Council of the Coptic
Museum to acquire it. The Council then willingly commissioned
7 The sands of Chinese Turkestan alone have preserved, as perfectly as those of
Egypt, the written remains of ancient civilizations. At Tuen Huang, from caves
that were walled up about a.d. 1035, P. Pelliot and Aurel Stein, separately,
obtained more than 15,000 manuscripts dating between the sixth and seventh
centuries. At Gilgit, a ruined Buddhist tower also contained a great number of
manuscripts, some dating perhaps from the fourth century (seen by Jos. Hackin,
then of the Citroen Mission).
me forthwith to draw up an expert description, more detailed

than the first notes I had been able to make, and this second
description remains, up to the present, the only complete and direct
inventory of the documents that has been made: no other title of any
work has yet been added to the list that I then prepared. Basing
its case upon this report, which Canon Drioton and Togo Mina
countersigned, the Council decided to acquire the manuscripts,
and took the necessary steps to obtain from the Egyptian govern¬
ment a sum of money sufficient to disinterest Miss Dattari. I
ought to add that this lady gave proof of the utmost goodwill,
for, from the very day on which the Council decided in principle
to buy the manuscripts, she kindly authorized me, with the ap¬
proval of the Egyptian authorities, to make the discovery
known to the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and to
other important learned societies, in the form of a summary of
the report I had drawn up.8
Once they had been inventoried, the manuscripts themselves
were provisionally put in order by me, and then placed, under
seal, in a travelling-bag which their owner and Togo Mina agreed
to entrust to the care of Canon Drioton. Already the specialists,
lured by the first news we had allowed to be published, were
waiting impatiently for further information. Already, indeed,
thanks to the permission of the Egyptian authorities and also to
the support given me on the French side by the Commission des
Fouilles Archeologiques, the first pages of a critical edition of the
8 J. Doresse, “Nouveaux documents gnostiques coptes decouverts en Haute-
Egypte” in Comptes rendus de VAcademie des Inscriptions . . . Paris, 1949,
pp. 176-80; J. Doresse, “Une bibliotheque gnostique copte . . .’’in Bulletin
de la Cl. des Lettres et des Sciences morales of the Academie royale de Belgique,
5th series, 35, 1949, pp. 435-49 J J- Doresse and Togo Mina, “Nouveaux textes
gnostiques . . . “La Bibliotheque de Chenoboskion” in Vigiliae Christianae,
III, 1949, pp. 129-41; J. Doresse, “Une bibliotheque gnostique copte” in La
Nouvelle Clio, I, 1949, pp. 59-70; J. Doresse, “A Gnostic Library from Upper
Egypt” in Archaeology, III, New York, 1950, pp. 69-73; J- Doresse, “Douze
volumes dans une jarre” in Les Nouvelles Litteraires, No. 1139, Paris, 30 June,
1949; J- Doresse, “Nouveaux aperûs historiques sur les gnostiques coptes:
Ophites et Sethiens” in Bulletin de VInstiiut d’Egypte, XXXI, 1948-9, pp. 409-19;
J. Doresse, “Les Gnostiques d’Egypte” in La Table Ronde, No. 107, November!
i95<5, pp. 85-96; J. Doresse, “Le Roman d’une grande decouverte” in Les
Nouvelles litteraires, No. 1560, 25 July 1957. The first volume of a photographic
edition of the original manuscripts has just been published by Dr Pahor Labib,
Coptic Gnostic Papyri in the Coptic Museum . . . , vol. I, Cairo.
first codex, acquired in 1947 by the Coptic Museum, were being

set up—a masterpiece of typography—in the press of the Im-
primerie Nationale in Paris. That the study of the texts was,
after this, delayed and postponed to the Greek calends was due to
a series of calamities which had nothing to do with science, but
which for seven whole years prevented the definite acquisition of
the essential documents, and held up the publication of the
codex that was already in the press. First, there was the assassina¬
tion of Nokrashi Pasha the Prime Minister, which for long
months kept all important business suspended. A new govern¬
ment having been constituted, it took the matter in hand, but
unfortunately it then fell, at the critical moment when the
excellent Ah Ayyub, minister of public instruction, was at last
about to put at the disposal of the Coptic Museum a sum of fifty
thousand Egyptian pounds, which would doubtless have sufficed
to purchase the codices. Then, in October 1949, Togo Mina—
who had taken all these delays too much to heart—died, after
many months of illness: for a long while it was difficult to find a
successor who would be competent to direct the Museum he had
so much loved. Meanwhile, the incomplete but very precious
manuscript in the possession of Albert Eid, which, through
neglect, had not been sequestrated so rigorously as Miss Dattari’s
treasure, yielded to appeals emanating from abroad and escaped
to Europe, where it was acquired by the Jung Institute at Zurich.9
The energetic and learned Taha Hussein, who in turn now
became minister of public instruction, tried to hasten matters.
He took the liveliest interest in the contents of these manuscripts,
which I often had the pleasure of discussing with him; and he was
hoping to put them at the disposal of the learned world as soon as
possible. He decided to obtain a requisition for the documents,
which would permit the study of them to be undertaken with¬
out waiting for the settlement of the financial question. But, like
his predecessors, Taha Hussein had a run of ill-luck. In order to
seize the manuscripts he had to have a new law controlling
antiquities, which he accordingly drafted; but this was deferred
9 Its “discovery” was then spoken of inaccurately, for we had called attention
to this codex long before; cf. above, note 3.
124 77/e Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
again and again, and was promulgated only in the early summer of
1952. Only then did the handbag which had imprisoned the
precious manuscripts since 1949, at last leave the Service of An¬
tiquities for the Coptic Museum, to which a director had at last
been nominated—Dr Pahor Labib. Did they now mean to open
the priceless package, study its contents in detail, and all this
regardless of the lawsuit which Miss Dattari, despoiled and indeed
doubtless regarding herself as swindled, was bringing against the
government? Yes, but this solution was so sudden and unex¬
pected, that it came just as I had given up hope and was
returning to France for the summer. Nor could I get back to
Egypt before autumn.
The ensuing weeks were unexpectedly filled by the fateful
events of the Egyptian revolution. Perhaps that occurrence can be
justified from many points of view of more importance than
that of the archaeologists. But in this matter of the Gnostic
papyri it had the most tiresome consequences. The great ad¬
ministration of pharaonic antiquities, which had been under the
direction of French savants from the days of Mariette until those
of Canon Drioton, was now entrusted to an Egyptian director—
incidentally a remarkable man—Dr Mustapha Amer. Advantage
was taken of the circumstances entirely to reorganize the Service,
and to combine, under that one central authority, the hitherto
independent administrations of the Coptic Museum, the Arabic
Museum and the Arab Antiquities. In consequence, it was not
until 1956, in spite of all the goodwill shown on one side and the
other, that Dr Pahor Labib could see his way to deal with the
problems of the Coptic Museum, which he now directed, or
attend to the precious manuscripts entrusted to his care. At last,
he was able to set up a new committee for their publication—
different from the one previously mooted—which was to meet
at Cairo in October 1956; but only two of the five European
specialists invited by the Egyptian authorities could reply to this
invitation in time; I myself received it too late to make the
journey. The Committee met just before the outbreak of
hostilities over the Suez Canal at the end of October; since which
time it has not been possible to put the work of publication upon
a sound footing. Must the scientific examination of the manu¬

scripts once again be exposed to the storms and disorders of an un¬
certain future—a prospect all the more disquieting since the fragile
leaves of papyrus are in great danger of deteriorating with time?
In the above account I have passed in silence over a number
of other annoyances which had to be endured. To make ac¬
quaintance with the rapacities and jealousies of the learned, which
come growling obscurely around a discovery of this kind is
anything but a soothing experience.
Does all this mean, then, that from 1947 until today the dis¬
covery of these invaluable writings has remained sterile? Far
from it: we shall see, in this book, how much has already been
done. Knowledge of some parallel texts from Chenoboskion,
details of which I was able to give to Professor W. Till by agree¬
ment with the Egyptian authorities, helped him to complete the
critical edition of the Gnostic manuscripts in Berlin, a publication
for which the world had been waiting sixty years.10 I have myself
amplified, in various preliminary studies, the notes furnished by
my initial inventory; I have drawn attention to the identity of an
Apocalypse of Zoroaster and Zostrian, whose imposing title raises
some significant problems;11 and given some first glimpses of
the contents of the Gospel of the Egyptians, of those of the Epistle
of Eugnostos, and of the relation between this last text and the
Sophia of Jesus where we find it in another form.12 I have tried
to give a better account of the exact nature of some Hermetic
writings included in this vast collection of manuscripts;13 and,
lastly, my critical edition of the first codex—that which Togo
Mina so happily acquired—has been ready for several years, and
is only awaiting the good pleasure of the Egyptian authorities to
be sent to the press.
10 C. Schmidt and W. Till, Die gnostischen SchriJ'teii des koptischen Papyru

Berolinensis 8502, Berlin, 1955.
11 “Les Apocalypses de Zoroastre, de Zostrien, de Nicothee ...” (Por-
phyre, Vie de Plotin, § 16), in “Coptic Studies in honor of W. E. Crum”,
Bulletin of the Byzantine Institute, II, 1950, pp..255-63.
12 “Trois livres gnostiques in6dits . . . Vigiliae Christianae, 1948, pp.
137-60.
13 “Hermes et la Gnose: A propos de l’Asclepius copte” in Novum Testa-
mentum, I, 1956, pp. 54-69.
Professor H. C. Puech also, from what I was able to impart to

him of the original texts, has been able to make some discoveries
of the greatest interest, particularly in respect of the Gospel of
Thomas, which, by completing the impressive collection of them,
has at last resolved the chief mystery of those “Sayings of Jesus”
(Logia Iesou) which are not included in the canonical Gospels,
but of which stray examples are to be found in all primitive
Christian literature.14 Professor Puech’s recent report upon this
subject to the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres on 24
May 1957 has made that date lastingly memorable in the history
of patristic studies.
Finally, from the Eid Codex, since known as the “Jung
Codex”, one of the contents has been published—the Gospel of
Truth, which dates back, perhaps, (?) to the Gnostic Valentinus.16
Having listed these various writings, we prefer to be silent
about a number of those published by various authors who—
except in the case of the Jung Codex, to which several experts
have given direct and enlightened attention—have been wholly
dependent upon the studies that I pubhshed myself (though in
many cases this was not acknowledged). The fact that it was
impossible for me, so long as the documents had not been
definitely “acquired” by the Egyptian authorities, to make
known more than a small part of the discovery, certainly favoured
the appearance, in certain quarters, of rash hypotheses about the
new manuscripts and their bearing upon the history of Gnosti¬
cism. One fact in particular may well have misled interpreters in
too much of a hurry—that is, the special attention given to one of
the writings, the Secret Book of John; which we were more free to
publicize, simply because another version of the same text, which
happened to be in the Berlin Codex, had already been partly
analysed in several articles by C. Schmidt and, as he had shown,
it describes a cosmogony in close accord with a well-known
14 H. C. Puech, “Un logion de Jesus sur bandelette fun6raire” in Bulletin de

la Societe Ernest Renan, No. 3, 1954, pp. 126-9; and above all the report upon the
Gospel according to Thomas, read to the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-
Lettres, 24 May 1957.
16 Evangelium Veritatis, from the Jung Codex, edited by M. Malinine, H. C.
Puech and G. Quispel.
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Reproduced from Papyri Osloenses, fasc. i, S. Eitrem: Magical papyri, Oslo, 1925
THE MAGIC PAPYRUS OF OSLO No. I, Column I

This shows the figure of Seth-Typhon-Aberamentho, to be engraved on lead
with a bronze stylus (as indicated by the Greek instruction above it) to accompany
certain magic formulae. Fourth century, a.d.
description in St Irenaeus’s treatise Against Heretics. The myths in

question were also similar to those in the Sacred Book of the invisible
Great Spirit or Gospel of the Egyptians, and with those set forth
m the Sophia of Jesus—writings which are also included in the
first manuscript obtained by the Coptic Museum in 1946, and of
which, therefore, we had been able since 1948 to furnish exact
summaries. But all this amounted to no more than a few writings
selected from a collection containing many others of which we
were not authorized to pubhsh anything except the titles. Certain
authors, eager to have the glory of reporting what the Cheno-
boskion find might reveal, did not wait to learn more about it,
but rushed into print with nothing to go upon beyond what had
been published of the Secret Book of John and the other treatises in
the first codex.16 Omitting to emphasize the fact that as yet they
knew nothing about some forty other texts beyond the titles, they
built up theories that will not always survive the complete and
integral disclosure of the documents as a whole.17
IN THE EGYPTIAN COUNTRYSIDE
One question with which we were concerned when dealing with

that first manuscript at the Coptic Museum became still more
important when we confronted the impressive mass of docu¬
ments discovered soon afterwards. Did there exist, unknown to
us, still more codices, or at least any stray leaves (two of our
bundles were unbound and very incomplete), belonging to the
same find? On this point, even today, one had better reserve
judgment. Prudent collectors may well have been able to acquire
portions of volumes and keep quiet about them. Above all,
caution is necessary: some clever dealers may well take advantage
of the prestige of the Chenoboskion discovery to obtain high
prices for manuscripts supposedly derived therefrom, which are
16 C*; chaP- 11 above> notes 43 and 44. I repeat that the Berlin Codex was
accessible only after 1955.
17 Quispel, to whom I had privately reported some details of the con-
tents of the new texts, has since written, in his note “Die Reue des Schopfers”
(Theologtsche Zeitschr., 5, 1949, p. 157), “Ich habe den koptischen Text unter
Augen gehabt, kann ich aber natiirlich vor der endgiiltigen Ausgabe nicht
pubkzieren ” (“I have had sight of the Coptic text, but naturally cannot publish
it in advance of the authoritative edition”). This assertion is quite inaccurate.
really of different origin and of much less interest. Actually,

although there have been a few more recent Egyptian discoveries
of fairly valuable Coptic manuscripts, the supply from our
strange library of Gnostic papyri seems, for the moment, to have
dried up.18
Whence, precisely, did these documents come, and in what
circumstances were they found? As we have mentioned, the
information we collected in one way and another led us to believe
that they were dug up near Hamra-Dum, in the vicinity of Naga
Hamadi, some sixty-odd miles from Luxor. They had been found
buried in an earthenware pot near the site of the ancient townlet
of Chenoboskion, at the foot of the mountain called Gebel et-
Tarif. The discovery had taken place about 1945. Rumour
added—as we have said—that two of these volumes had been
used by the fellahs as fuel for making their tea, and that the rest
had been sold for a trifling sum to the dealers who had taken
them to Cairo. All this was mere indirect information, lacking
precision or proof. Two main questions were worrying us: what
was the exact nature of the place of discovery—was it a tomb,
pagan or Christian, the ruins of a house or monastic building—
and of what age? And then, under what circumstances could
these documents have been buried?
The information I had obtained, during my journeys about
Upper Egypt in 1947 and in the two following years, was rather
vague. So at the end of January 1950 I visited the locality in
question, to find out all that could be known about the conditions
under which the find was made.19 I was rewarded by the close
acquaintance I made with one of the least known but most
gorgeous of Egyptian landscapes; and also, when returning from
Naga Hamadi to the Theban necropolis through the desert of
18 Worthy of note, however, is the recent find of a codex of the fourth or

fifth century, which contains, in archaic bohairic dialect, the Gospel of John and
Genesis I-IV, 2, presenting some features which may be Gnostic . . . unless
these peculiarities be due simply to the excessive literalism of a Coptic trans¬
lator! (Papyrus Bodmer III, edited by R. Kasser in the C.S.C.O., vol. 177,
Louvain, 1958, cf. the Introduction, pp. xii-xiii.)
19 J. Doresse, “Sur les traces des papyrus gnostiques”: Recherches i Cheno¬
boskion” in Bulletin <1e !’Academic royale de Belgique, Classe dcs Lettres ....
5th series, 36, 1950, pp. 432ft'.
Denderah, by a bite from a dog which, though it proved non-

malignant, made me spend four weeks, as a docile patient, in the
Anti-Rabies Institute of Cairo.
Too little known to archaeologists, the region of the present
Naga Hamadi is by no means without interest. Its capital Hu—
the Diospohs Parva of the Greeks—was for a few brief periods
in antiquity, as also in the Middle Ages, a capital of Upper
Egypt—of the Sa‘id. It lost all its greatness after a plague, in the
year 806 of the Hejira, had robbed it of more than fifteen thousand
of its inhabitants. Hu is situated on the western bank of the river;
but it was the neighbourhood around Chenoboskion on the
eastern bank which became more particularly famous at about the
epoch to which our papyri belong. Its celebrity is linked with the
most ancient traditions of Christian monasticism. The Coptic
name for the little town was Shenesit—the latest form of an
Egyptian name which would signify “the acacias of (the god)
Seth”. The country would seem, therefore, to have been sacred
to the divinity who, in pharaonic mythology, was opposed to
Osiris, Horus and the other great gods. As for the Greek name of
Chenoboskion, also borne by this locality about the beginning of
our era, in translation this would refer to the “breeding of
geese” ; but it suggests some confusion; for an author of the first
century—Alexander Polyhistor—tells us that there was no grass¬
land there for geese; and the inhabitants were said to have a great
veneration for crocodiles, which were abundant.20
In the Roman period this town had been occupied by a mihtary
guard. Nevertheless, it became a wilderness, which was the fate
of the neighbouring villages also, of Phbou and Tabennisi.
“ Shenesit-Chenoboskion was then a desert village, grilling in the
intense heat. There were not many inhabitants; only a few”—
thus wrote a Coptic chronicler of the fourth century.21 It was here,
about the year 320, that the young Pachomius, liberated from a
20 Fragment of the Aigyptiaka of Alexander Polyhistor, preserved by Stephen

of Byzantium; published in the Fragmenta Histor. Graec., Ill, fgt. 108.
21 Les Vies coptes de saint Pachome et de ses premiers successeurs; French trans¬
lation by L. T. Lefort, Louvain, 1943, p. 83. The leading events in these bio¬
graphies of Pachomius also appear in Les Pfoes du desert', texts selected and edited
by R. Draguet, Paris (Plon), 1942.
Roman prison in the town of Antinopolis, became a professing

Christian. He lived in a derelict brick-kiln a little way from the
Nile; and they baptized him in a church near by. The earlier
anchorites were there already—such as the aged Palamun, of
whom Pachomius soon became a disciple, and the apa Ebonkh,
who seems already to have been the director of some kind of
community. Pachomius first received the tough instruction of
Palamun, and then, instead of continuing to live as a hermit
like his predecessors, he gathered other ascetics around him, for
whom he drew up the first monastic rule. It was from this point
that monasteries were soon to swarm far into the north—right
to Alexandria—and far to the south, from communities created
by Pachomius and his disciples.
The surroundings of Chenoboskion have been accurately
described not very long ago by Mgr Lefort, who went there in
search of traces of Palamun and Pachomius.22 I may be excused,
therefore, from describing them over again after my own search
for mementoes of heretics and the hiding-place of their sacred
books.
Below Luxor the Nile describes a wide curve westwards, in the
neighbourhood of the town of Qenah and of the Temple of
Dendera, for here it has to flow round the southern extremity of a
lofty desert cliff known, at this point, as the Gebel et-Tarif. From
thence it approaches the vicinity of Naga Hamadi by describing
a complete semi-circle towards the south, before it resumes its
course to the north-east. This second loop, nearly five miles in
diameter, now encloses, between the river and the white cliff
of the eastern desert, the dense, tall plantations of sugar-cane
which have replaced the acacia plantations of former days. In
this greenery are hidden the villages of el-Qasr, es-Sayyad and
ed-Dabba. Christians are very numerous here to this day.
Es-Sayyad is almost on the site of the ancient Chenoboskion.
Near to it, and not far from the Nile, a high, blank, massive wall
surrounds a few churches and chapels clustered close together
and surmounted by an enormous, fantastic bell-tower with
22 L. T. Lefort, “Les premiers monast£res pachomiens” in Le MusSon, 52,

1939, PP- 379-407-
The Story of a Discovery
Wed walls: this is the Deir anba-Palamun—the “monastery of

the abbot Palamun . Further inland near Dabba rises a somewhat
similar building, the Deir el-Malak, or “monastery of the
Angel . Between these two “monasteries”, now without any
monks, stretches a little isolated desert which, according to the
optic texts, was the site of the first monastic labours of Palamun
and his disciples A cave is still shown here, which is supposed by
legend to have been a hermitage. To the north, far beyond the
verdure of the tilled lands and past bushy orchards, which are
enclosed by high walls still dominated by the square towers of
great columbanes, there rises the enormous, abrupt cliff of Gebel
et-Tarif, shutting oft the whole horizon from west to east. On
the railway that traverses this landscape, one passes for a few
moments close to this rampart, formidable enough for Andre
Gide to have recorded its mysterious aspect in his Carnets
dbgypte: . . . walls cf burning rock fissured with gorges
into which Smbad would have liked to adventure, and so would
But eastward the cliff suddenly curves back towards the north,
and diminishes into the depths of the desert, farther and farther
away from the Nile and its fertile plains. Upon that eastern slope
of the mountain, near the ill-famed hamlet of Hamra-Dum, are
to be found the most ancient remains of the whole region.
Half-way up the white cliffs are the openings to several galleries_
pharaonic tombs of the princes who governed this district under
the Sixth Dynasty. Two of these, at least, have rewarded the
attentions of archaeologists: and even among seekers after the
treasures of Coptic and Arab Egypt the place was once legendary.
Here was Ladames the Great”, wrote the mediaeval guides,
doubtless distorting and magnifying an appellation which meant
t e great grotto . You will see, to the north-west, seven
tombs set up on the side of the valley—four together, then two
together, and the last by itself. Dig into this last, to the depth of
one qamah: you will find the dead body, and beside it all its
possessions. You will see also some high watch-towers around
this same cemetery on the eastern side. Among these watch-
towers there are five great tombs, each with a stone at the head
and another stone at the feet, both implanted in the sand. Lift up
the headstone and dig. . . . ” In such terms as these did the
Book of buried Pearls and of the precious Mystery, an Arab writing
addressed to seekers after marvels, embellish this locality with
remains which, perhaps, were never to be seen there.23
However, this was the place where, according to all we had
gathered from our preliminary enquiries, one undeniable treasure
had been found—that of our Gnostic library. Let us give a rather
fuller description of the site. Midway up the flank of the cliff
are the openings to the pharaonic tombs—seven, according to
Arab tradition—that we have just mentioned. The first, ap¬
proaching from the south, has no sculptures or hieroglyphic
inscriptions; but on the wall some Coptic monk has painted in
red, in his own language, the first words of Psalms LI to XCIII.24
We shall fmd no other trace of Christianity anywhere in the
neighbourhood: was it, then, to this place that St Pachomius
sometimes withdrew, and here that he endured the temptation of
which his biography tells us? “There were tombs in the vicinity
of the place where the aged apa Palamun lived. Pachomius went
away into one of these tombs and prayed. . . . ” Actually,
apart from these beginnings of Psalms, there is not a single graffito,
none of those invocations that usually mark the places in which
anchorites once lived. These Coptic graffiti, therefore, can hardly
indicate more than the very temporary sojourn of some solitary
ascetic.
More to the north, in the finest of the pharaonic tombs, a pagan
pilgrim, at some date hardly more ancient than the period of the
first Coptic monks, has inscribed a series of Greek invocations
to Serapis. They show that this is a spot which, for reasons we
cannot trace, was specially venerated in the Greek or Roman
epoch. Even today, moreover, a small “sheikh”—a rustic holy
place, indicated by some little votive cakes and a few big stones—
23 Livre des Perlcs enfouies ct du Mystere precieux . . . , translated and published

by Ahmed Bey Kamal, vol. II, Cairo, 1907; translation p. 204; G. Daressy,
“Indicateur topographique du Livre des Perle senfouies’”, excerpt from the
Bulletin de I’Institut franfais d'Archeologie orientale, Cairo, 1917, p. 48.
24 P. Bucher, “Les commencements des Psaumes LI a XCIII, Inscription
d’unc tombe de Kasr es Saijad” in Kerni, 4, 1931, pp. 157-60.
is to be seen at the bottom of the slope, showing that the place is

still held in veneration.
Underneath the yawning entrances to the great tombs, the face
of the cliff is pierced by many narrow, deep cavities in which
bodies had been summarily interred. Sepulchres are scattered
about to as far as a hundred yards from the base of the cliff, even
into the sands of the desert, where a great number of excavations
show how much they have been pillaged by the peasants, greedy
for the natural manure which they call sehakh. Here, then, was
the ancient cemetery, which served as such for the city of Dios-
polis Parva, and then for the little town of Chenoboskion; a vast
but poor necropolis where bodies were deposited, each in its
shroud, at the bottom of a hole. When was this cemetery aban¬
doned? The numerous scraps of cloth one can obtain from the
graves seem to be of the Greek or Roman epoch: it is to be noted
too, that with the spread of Christianity the cemeteries of this
region were removed to where the Copts are still buried today,
in proximity to the churches; that is, to the Deir amba Palamun
and the Deir el-Malak.
Was it in one of these tombs that the papyri were found?
Certainly, one cannot, even if one searches very far around, see
any other place—any ruin or sepulchre—from which they could
have come. The peasants who accompanied us and who did not
know the real object of our search (we had come here on the
pretext of visiting the pharaonic tombs) guided us, of their own
initiative, to the southern part of the cemetery and showed us a
row of shapeless cavities. Not long since, they said, some peasants
of Hamra-Dum and of Dabba, in search of manure, found here a
great zir—which means ajar—filled with leaves of papyrus; and
these were bound like books. The vase was broken and nothing
remains of it; the manuscripts were taken to Cairo and no one
knows what then became of them. As to the exact location of the
fmd, opinion differed by some few dozen yards; but everyone
was sure that it was just about here. And from the ground itself
we shall learn nothing more; it yields nothing but broken bones,
fragments of cloth without interest and some potsherds.
Given as they were, quite spontaneously, I am sure that these
testimonies related to our library: they agreed perfectly with the

details we had been able to collect through different channels.
Can one, however, control and clarify them further ? After having
thoroughly examined the site, we go back to the villages and their
churches to gossip with sundry individuals who were concerned
in the discovery. They all talk willingly about the find that was
made four years ago and was no great matter of mystery here:
the material profit was not for these peasants, whose total gain
from it was doubtless no more than a few dozen piastres. Several
remember having seen and handled the manuscripts. The Coptic
ahuna of the Deir al-Malak—a young priest named David—had
even tried to read them, but in vain, since they were written in
dialects other than the Bohairic still used today in his liturgy.
Was it he, then, who scribbled with his stylo those notes, in an
obviously modern ink, which had so intrigued us on the margin of
one of the pages ? He mentions it himself, which shows us that
he is not lying—or not much. True, one may have spoilt a few
already damaged leaves; but one attached so httle value to them!
But all that remained intact was sold, for three Egyptian pounds,
and no one has since thought any more about it. And there, in
short, are all the particulars that one could collect on one side and an¬
other in Dabba, in es-Sayyad, at Hamra-Dum and even among the
Bedouins who have settled as squatters right at the foot of Gebel.
However, we are now assured that it was not in the ruins of a
building, either monastic or other, that the famous hbrary was
found, but that it was well buried in a tomb very far away from
all the monasteries of the locality, in a cemetery which seems to
have been no longer in use by the Christians. There is nothing
surprising about these writings having been enclosed in a jar.
It was in such receptacles, less costly than cupboards and coffers
in this country with so httle wood, that people usually stored
their books and many other things.25
25 Manuscripts of the pharaonic age as well as of the Roman epoch in Egypt,

have fairly often been found in jars: cf. K. Preisendanz, Papyrusfunde und Papyrus-
forschung, 1934, p. 113; the jars in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found are
now famous enough; the custom is also alluded to in Jeremiah XXXII, 14,
“Take these deeds . . . and put them in an earthenware vessel, that they may
last for a long time”.
Later on, we will show how we were able to date the manu¬
scripts, from their calligraphy, and ascribe them to the third and
fourth centuries. Already the contents of these Gnostic collections
had led us to suppose that, whoever may have possessed them, they
cannot have been monks. The spot where they were disinterred,
moreover, would seem to prove that they were buried in pagan
ground. But at what epoch? The place of discovery and the age
of the manuscripts both lead us to believe that this library was
hidden, at the latest, about the beginning of the fifth century, at
the time when the Pachomian monasteries, which were dis¬
tinguished throughout Egyptian monasticism by their strict
orthodoxy of doctrine, finally extended their influence over the
region. That they had to struggle against the Gnostics in these
parts is shown by their writings. In 367 Theodore, who had just
succeeded Pachomius as head of the monastery of Tabennisi,
ordained that the thirty-ninth festal letter of St Athanasius should
be translated into Coptic and read throughout the monasteries of
the country: that letter was justly aimed against the books which
were spuriously concocted by the heretics, and “to which they
attribute antiquity and give the names of saints”.26 No doubt this
is the same Theodore who, in a fragment of the most ancient
Pachomian writing, denounces “one of those books that the
heretics write; they have set it out under the names of the saints”
—that is, of the Apostles—and it was written there that “after
Eve was deceived and had eaten the fruit of the tree, it was of the
devil that she gave birth to Cain”.27 This detail, as we shall see,
agrees very closely with a myth that we read in some of the
treatises of our new Gnostic library. Were such books indeed
multiplying all around at this time, since they had to be so ener¬
getically combated? We know that, a few years earlier, some
“philosophers” who may have been more or less Gnostic,
came from the town of Akhmim to bait Pachomius about the
interpretation of the Scriptures (so they cannot have been al¬
together pagan, but more probably heretics). Theodore gave
20 Les Vies coptes de saint PachStne . . . , p. 206, 1, 17.

27 Ibid., pp. 370-1; cf. also the anonymous text that we mention in note 74
of chap. 11 above.
them a piece of his mind, and cleverly turned the tables on them
in the course of a dialogue which his Coptic biographies have
preserved in all the freshness of its savour, “ . . . the philosopher
said to him, ‘You boast that you have knowledge of the Scrip¬
tures, as well as of their interpretation; well, then, teach me who
was never born but is dead; who was born and did not die; and
who died but never putrefied. ’ Theodore replied, ‘ O you, whose
mind is like a leaky cask! . . . He who was never begotten and
who is dead, that is Adam; he who was begotten and did not die,
is Enoch; whilst he who was dead and did not putrefy, that is the
wife of Lot, who became a statue of salt, wherewith to season
anyone as foohsh as you who so foolishly glorify yourselves.’”28
We are still discussing the provenance of many ancient manu¬
scripts of which, for their better interpretation, it would be of
the greatest value to know the origins. We have never been able to
discover exactly where the Coptic Manichaean manuscripts came
from, nor the Pistis-Sophia, nor the Bruce Codex. So it was well
worth the trouble to fmd out, in a pagan cemetery a few miles
from Chenoboskion, the exact site of one of the most voluminous
finds of ancient literature; thus to be a little better able to place
this library in the frame of history to which it belongs; and to
support, with concordant details, the hypotheses that have been
made about its antiquity.
28 Les Vies coptes . . . , pp. 117-18.
CHAPTER IV
THIRTEEN CODICES OF PAPYRUS
The manuscripts obtained from Chenoboskion are to be regarded

as a whole, whether we are thinking of those held by the Coptic
Museum, or of the Jung Codex—which, incidentally, had lost a
certain number of pages that have been found among the mass of
papyri conceded to the Museum by Miss Dattari. They amount,
altogether, to thirteen manuscripts, eleven of which are complete
with their bindings, while two are represented only by a few
scattered leaves from each. In almost every case in which their
arrangement could be verified, each codex constitutes a single
big book of papyrus, bound to a leathern cover by a seam down
the middle of the latter. One alone, No. i in the inventory, is
indubitably an assemblage of booklets of eight pages each
(quaternions) sewn in the same way as modern bindings.
Almost everything is written in the Coptic dialect of Upper
Egypt—sahidic—which was the most important in the literary
history of the Copts, and in which the other, previously-known
Gnostic manuscripts are also written. In the Chenoboskion
manuscripts this dialect is, however, sprinkled with archaisms
which show it in an early stage of its development: one can also
discern a strong influence from the dialects of Middle Egypt—
akhmimic and subakhmimic. The vocabulary will supply a good
many new words of the Coptic language, of which we have
hitherto known little except in its latest forms. Only two writings,
of the whole collection—the Jung Codex (No. XIII in the in¬
ventory) and the first text of Codex VIII—are written in the
subakhmimic dialect.1
That these thirteen books, although written in different dialects
and with some diversity of calligraphy, constituted a coherent
1 The Coptic dialects (see chap, n, note i) in which the new codices are
written are: the sahidic, a dialect of Upper Egypt which some modem philologists
also call Theban; the akhmimic and the subakhmimic (dialects closely related)
of Middle Egypt.
137
whole, and were not a mere assemblage from unrelated origins,

is confirmed by several facts. For example, the first treatise in the
Codex VIII (which is a very thick volume of leaves of papyrus) is
the Interpretation of the Gnosis, in the subakhmimic dialect and
in a writing of the end of the third century. But the works which
have been transcribed after it in the same big book are written in the
dialect of Upper Egypt, which is that of the majority of all the
manuscripts: they are transcribed, moreover, by a different hand,
in writing of a rather later type. Do we want further evidence
that this library shows us the work of copyists working in
co-operation, even though their dialects differ? Here, in Codex
VI, are some writings of a Hermetic nature, written in a fairly
pure sahidic, no doubt after a Theban manuscript which was
taken as a model: and between two of these treatises is inserted
a long annotation by the copyist, excusing himself for not having
transcribed, for those of his brethren who were collecting the
Chenoboskion library, all of the writings he had in hand. But this
copyist, when thus expressing himself personally, is not using
altogether the same pure sahidic as in the treatises he has just
been translating: he is now writing a sahidic mingled with
akhmimic, similar in general to what we find in most of the other
writings in our collection.
As for the precise period in which these manuscripts were
recopied, we shall show that palaeography suggests some fairly
exact dates. One peculiarity, apparently trivial, incidentally
confirms the chronology that we shall put forward. In a page or
two of Codex XIII, written in one of the latest styles of calli¬
graphy that our collection exhibits, the ends of texts are decorated
with small looped crosses—the hieroglyph t, a symbol of hfe,
which the Copts inherited from their ancestors and use to this
day as an equivalent of the Christian cross. But this sign does not
appear to have been taken over from Egyptian paganism until the
year 391. That, indeed, was the date when the Serapeum of
Alexandria was destroyed by the mobs that the patriarch Theo-
philus had stirred up; when the famous statue of the god, sculp¬
tured by Bryaxis, was broken to pieces. Ecclesiastical tradition
complaisantly records that, during these troubles, the Christians
Thirteen Codices of Papyrus 139
were astonished to discover, on the interior walls of the temple,

this ancient sign so similar to the Cross, and were told that it was
the symbol of “the life to come”; whilst the pagans, on their
side, were stupefied when they saw the triumphant Cross painted
upon the houses by their adversaries, so similar (for it was the
Cross surmounted by a crown) to their hieroglyph of the
“future life”.2 Certain ancient prophecies preserved by the re¬
maining devotees of the Egyptian cults had foretold, it seems,
that the manifestation of this sign would mark the advent of a
new religion: thus many of the Alexandrian worshippers of
Serapis became converts to the new faith, whilst the Christians,
for their part, adopted this new form of the Cross, which had the
advantage of having already signified, hi their ancestral writing,
the “life to come”.
If we take account of this episode, it seems certain that Codex
XIII, whose pages are adorned with the symbol in question, is
later than the year 391, which is in accord with the presumable
date of the writing represented in it.
The criteria of palaeography are, as we have said, the most
reliable for the dating of manuscripts. They are all the more
dependable here, where we can distinguish about nine styles of
writing which represent, in continuous succession, clearly pro¬
gressive degrees in the evolution of Coptic calligraphy—a
sequence of stages that were already known.
We can group the successive varieties of writing into four
principal types, according to which they are tabulated here on
page 141.
In accordance with this evolution in the calligraphy, we have
established a new classification of the manuscripts, different from
the two which had been previously proposed—one by me, and
the other, based upon my inventories, by Professor Puech.3
2 Cf. the rather different accounts of this episode given, in their respective
Histories, by Rufin (XI, 29); Sozomen (VII, 15); and Socrates. Cf. alsoj. Maspero,
Histoire des Patriarches d’Alexandrie, 1923, p. 114.
3 Cf. H. C. Puech, “Les nouveaux ecrits gnostiques decouverts en Haute-
fgypte” in Coptic Studies in honor of W. E. Crum (The Byzantine Institute,
Boston and Paris, 1950, pp. 91-154). An analysis of some of the Chenoboskion
writings, also by Prof. Puech, has just appeared in the 3rd edn. of Edg. Hennecke
. . ., Neutestamentliche Apokryphen.
This new classification of the various texts, the number of which

has been re-verified,4 has the advantage of presenting the manu¬
scripts in nearly the same order as they were brought together,
over about two centuries, to constitute the library of Cheno-
boskion.
In Codex I, we have the manuscript first acquired by Togo
Mina for the Coptic Museum in 1946. Codex XIII is that of which
by far the greater part was purchased for the Jung Foundation.
We have not in all cases been able to indicate the exact number
of pages contained in each book. Most of the codices are still
waiting to be completely reconditioned. Whilst I was making
inventories, in 1948-9, of the major part of the whole collection,
their fragile state made it impossible for me to turn over all the
leaves of some of them. A word about their dimensions: The
largest—which is also the finest—is No. X, which measures
iof by nearly 6 inches, with an average of 35 lines to a page.
But most of the collection follow, with httle variation, the format
of Codex I, which measures 9f by 5^ inches, and has an average
of 26 lines per page. Codex XIII is distinguished by the height
of its pages—nearly n| by with up to 37 lines per page.
1 I had at first estimated that the total number of works would amount to 48
(cf. especially my article “Une bibliotheque gnostique copte” in La Nouvelle
Clio, I, 1949, pp. 60-70; note, however, a misprint that has crept into p. 62,
last line of text, which should read VI, 2, not IV, 2). A more thorough examina¬
tion of the group of Hermetic writings included in Codex VI has led me to
think that this set of homogeneous texts was divided not into four, but five sections.
Cf. J. Doresse, “Hermes et la Gnose” in Novum Testamentum, I, 1956, p. 57 and
also, here below, pp. 24iff.
Note to opposite page.

* In fact, it seems to me certain that this writing, which is used in Codex XIII,
is by the same hand as the writing in Codex X, and that its accidental clumsiness
is due to some physiological cause—failing sight, senility—by which the copyist
was suddenly afflicted. One finds proof of this on p. 47 of Codex X, which begins
making exactly the same blunders as occur in writing No. 8; but then it improves,
is regularized and again becomes writing 6, in which all of Codex X is written,
barring this single intermission.
PALAEOGRAPHY
CALLIGRAPHY OF THE
TERMS OF COMPARISON
CHENOBOSKION MSS.
A.—Cursive writing, supple, unpretentious:

I. See, as a model for comparison,
the manuscript of Ezechiel in the
2. This same hand is represented Chester-Beatty collection (earlv
in five MSS. of our collection. third century); the papyrus Bod¬
mer II—a Gospel of John in Greek;
3. A little stiffer than the two pre¬ the Coptic fragment of Ec-
vious writings, marked difference clesiasticus, Louvain, No. 9—
between thick and thin strokes. rather more rigid and dating
without doubt from the end of
the third century.
B.—Stiffly calligraphic, down-strokes emphasized:

4. The transition from the cursive
5. style A to the book-writing style
6. Flexible, without heaviness, this of class B is said by palaeographic
is the most beautiful hand that experts to have taken place during
appears in our manuscripts. the fourth century.
7. Spare, stiff writing; down-
strokes excessively thickened.
C.—Written in stiff letters, thick, even impasted:

8. This hand is distinguished by its Cf. the Coptic MS. of the As¬
heaviness from the writing of No. cension of Isaiah, Louvain, No. 12;
6. It is also marked, in certain and the private letter in the John
pages, by irregularity in the lines Rylands collection, which date
and the dimensions of letters.* from the late fourth century. The
Gospel of John in sub-akhmimic
dialect would be, more surely,
from the second half of the fourth
century. The Gnostic Berlin Co¬
dex, in still heavier writing than
our No. 8, dates from the fifth
century.
D.—Sloping writing, artificial, fulfilling in some sort the function
of italic, for we find it in use concurrently with writing No. 4
9. (in Codex VIII) and with writing No. 8 (in Codex XIII).
(N.2L—the numbers 1 to 9 enumerate the different “hands” we
distinguish in our manuscripts).
TEXTS CONTAINED IN THE CODICES
A. Manuscripts written in the Sahidic Dialect

I. (MS. entered at the Coptic Museum in 1948.
This originally comprised 152 pp., of which only
134 and some fragments remain).
Writing (1) Secret Book of John.
i (2) Sacred Book of the invisible Great Spirit, or
Gospel of the Egyptians.
(3) Epistle of Eugnostos the Blessed.
(4) The Sophia of Jesus.
(5) The Dialogue of the Saviour.
II. (Originally of more than 70 pages, but much

mutilated).
Writing (6) Secret Book of John (the same work as
2 No. 1).
(7) Sacred Book of the invisible Great Spirit (the
same work as No. 2).
III. (88 pages).

Writing (8) Epistle of Eugnostos the Blessed (the same
2 work as No. 3).
(9) Apocalypse of Paul.
(10) Apocalypse of James.
(11) Another Apocalypse of James.
(12) Apocalypse of Adam to his son Seth.
IV. (140 pages).

Writing (13) A Revelation, of which the title is lost.
2 (14) “Discourse of Truth by Zostrian. God of
Truth. Discourse of Zoroaster”. (Title
given in cryptogram).
(15) Epistle of Peter to Philip.
V. (About 40 pages).
Writing (16) A Revelation attributed to the Great
2 Seth; title lost.
(17) An Epistle, chiefly concerned with the
Father of the Universe and the primordial
man Adamas.
(18) Treatise, in form of an epistle.
(19) Treatise, without title, against the Scribes
and Pharisees, upon the baptism of John
the Baptist, the water of Jordan, and
Jesus.
VI. (About 80 pages. This manuscript was evidently

very much in use. Some feathers served as book¬
marks between certain pages).
Writing (20) Acts of Peter.
2 (21) “ Authentic ” discourse of Hermes to Tat.
(22) The Thought of the Great Power.
(23) Hermetic treatise, without title.
(24) Sethian Revelation, title missing.
(25) Hermetic treatise, without title, ending
with a prayer that we already know from
the Greek papyrus Mimaut, and from the
end of the Asclepius. The following note is
added by the copyist:
This is the first discourse that I have copied
for you. But there are many others that have
come into my hands: I have not transcribed
them, thinking that they have already reached
you. For I hesitate to copy them for you,
thinking that ij they had already reached you,
they would weary you. Indeed the discourses of
Hermes that have come into my hands are very
numerous.
(26) Hermetic treatise, the essence of which is
to be found in paragraphs 21-29 of the
Latin Asclepius.
VII. (126 pages).

Writing (27) Paraphrase of Shem, described at the end as
3 the Second Treatise of the Great Seth.
6
(28) Apocalypse of Peter.

(29) The Teachings of Silvanus.
(30) Revelation of Dositheus, or The Three
Stelae of Seth.
VIII.
Writings (31) The Interpretation of the Gnosis (writing
9 No. 9, and in the subakhmimic dialect).
and (32) The Supreme Allogenes (writing No. 4).
4 (33) Revelation of Messos (judging by its con¬
tent, the title being lost).
IX. (8 separate leaves, without binding).

Writing (34) The Triple discourse of the triple protenno'ia,
5 a Sacred Book written by the Father (that is,
by Seth).
(35) Sethian Revelation in form of an epistle.
(Cf. No. 40.)
X. (The most beautiful as well as most voluminous

of the manuscripts. Decorated binding—with
Egyptian cross?—bands at top and at extremities.
Format iof by 8f ins., 175 pages of about 37 hnes
each.)
Writing (36) Secret Book of John (a somewhat amplified
6 version of this work, a simpler edition of
winch is given in Nos. 1 and 6).
(37) Gospel of Thomas (this contains the Logia
Iesou).
(38) Gospel of Philip.
(39) Hypostasis of the Archons (this is the Book
of Norea).
(40) Revelation without title, devoted es¬
pecially to the Pistis-Sophia. (Same work
as No. 35.)
(41) The Exegesis upon the Soul.
(42) The Book of Thomas: secret sayings told by

the Saviour to fude Thomas and recorded by
Matthew (i.e. Matthias, see pp. 221 ff.).
At the end of this volume the copyist
has added the words: O my brethren,
remember me and (offer up) the prayer,
‘Peace to the saints and to the Spiritual\
XI. (A few large pages of a lost volume).

Writing (43) Fragments of works, dealing with, among
7 other subjects, the influence of demons
upon the soul.
XII (20 pages, with their binding, in sahidic dialect,

marked by akhmimic influence).
Writing (44) Fragments of a mystic treatise on the
cosmos.
B. Manuscripts written in Subakhmimic Dialect (as is also text

No. 31)
XIII. (Should contain 168 (?) pages. Most of its pages,
formerly held by the antiquary Albert Eid, have
been ceded to the Jung Foundation at Zurich:
23 pages are included in the lot acquired by the
Coptic Museum).
Writings (45) Apocalypse of fames (different from Nos.
8 10 and 11).
and (46) Gospel of Truth.
9 (47) Discourse to Reginos upon the Resurrection.
(48) Treatise without a title.
(49) Prayer of the Apostle Peter.
CHAPTER V
FORTY-FOUR SECRET (AND HITHERTO

UNKNOWN) BOOKS
The total number of works in this library is forty-nine. If we do

not count those which are repetitions of the same work—but
valuable nevertheless for the variant readings which they supply
to one another—the number is reduced to forty-four. In esti¬
mating the novelty of the find, one may also subtract the two
treatises that were already known in the Gnostic Codex of
Berlin, and which since 1956 are no longer unpublished.
It is not yet possible to give equally complete or equally precise
analyses of all the codices. Shall we perhaps find, one day, in this
mass of writings still so difficult to inspect thoroughly, some work
which has escaped our scrutiny? But the texts that have been
identified show (in spite of the presence of a few deceptive titles
which might falsely suggest writings we already knew, such
as the Apocalypse of Paul, the Acts of Peter, etc.) that here we are
dealing with books all previously unknown and new in content.
We will divide them into four classes: first, that of the greatest,
purely Gnostic revelations, with some commentaries expounding
the myths that they contain; next, some revelations that are no
less important but rather artificially veiled under Christian
allusions; then, the authentically Christian apocrypha infiltrated
by Gnostic speculations; and, lastly, some half-dozen treatises of
which some belong properly to Hermetic literature while others
exhibit a curious transition between Hermetism and Gnosticism.
REVELATIONS OF THE PROPHETS OF GNOSTICISM

FROM SETH TO ZOROASTER
In the forefront of the greatest “revelations” we will place the

Paraphrase of Shem (No. 27). This is the longest and the most
extraordinary of the apocalypses in our whole library. It is also,
146
Forty-Four Secret Books 147
perhaps, one of the most important of all the writings that were
in use among the Gnostics: we can see this from several character¬
istics of its contents.
The Coptic treatise begins with these words: “A paraphrase
which was been made by the unbegotten spirit. I am Shem.
These things have been revealed to me by Derdekea,1 in con¬
formity with the will of the Greatness. My intellect which is in
my body has raised me above my generation; it has borne me
away into the heights of the Creation, penetrating the light which
radiates over all the universe, hi that place I beheld no earthly
appearances; yet it is light. Then my soul separated from my
body of darkness: as though it had been in a dream, I heard a
voice which said to me: Shem, since thou wast bom from a pure
power and art the first who has existed upon earth, hear and
understand the things that I am about to tell thee, for the first
time, about the great Powers. They existed in the beginning,
before I had appeared. There was a Light and a Darkness, and
between these there was a Spirit. ... I will unveil to thee the
truth about these Powers. The Light was a Thought filled with
understanding and with logos, which were joined there into a
single instrument. The Darkness was that of winds in water;
it had a thought which was dwelling in a tumultuous fire. Lastly,
the Spirit, which was between the one and the other, was pleasant
and humble light. Such were the three roots.2 They were reigning
alone within themselves, yet enveloping one another mutually,
each in its strength. The Light, since it possessed a great power,
1 Perhaps one may connect this name with the Aramaic root DRDG, “to fall
in droplets”. The Sophia of Jesus (No. 4 of our collection which, at this point,
needs completing by the parallel version contained in the Berlin Codex) alludes
to the Drop as to a heavenly power descending from the Light and from the
Spirit into the lower regions, for the salvation of created mankind (cf. C. Schmidt
-W. Till, Die gnostische Schriften des kopt. Papyr. Berolinensis . . . , p. 103, 1.13 ;
p. 104, 1. 15; p. 119, 11. 6-17). In its soteriological aspect, this “drop” may be
compared with Barbelo, or the Tetrad—who, by the way, are supposed to have
dictated other revelations, e.g., those transcribed by Marcus (see above, p. 33).
2 The use of the term “root” to denote the primordial principles is common in
the Manichaean writings: cf. the references collected by H. C. Puech in Le
Manicheisme . . . , p. 160. This symbolic term cannot be dissociated from the
symbolism of trees used by both Gnostics and Manichaeans to express the forces
of life and of death: cf. above, chap. 1, note 86; chap, n, note 23, and in chap, v,
p. 217 and note 111.
knew of the humility and the disorder of the Darkness, because

its root was vile. ...” But now, behold! the Darkness wills
to raise itself up to the Light. Enveloped in its waters, it grows
agitated. By this tumult the Spirit is affrighted; it hfts itself up to
the height of the realms belonging to it, and from thence it sees,
on the one hand, a great dark water that fills it with loathing,
and on the other hand, the infinite Light. The Darkness mounts
up, “so that the Thought may spread throughout it”, when the
Light suddenly appears to it. It is astounded, for it did not know
that any power existed higher than itself. And the Darkness,
seeing that its own appearance was so dim beside that of the
radiant Spirit, was distressed: by this distress, it lifted its thought
above the realms of darkness . . . and thus began the mingling
or mixture, which was the precondition for the Creation. The
Darkness, stupidly, wants to be equal to the unbegotten Spirit.
Its thought rears up and shines all over “hell” in a flash of fire,
but without being able to equal the Light from on high. And
this higher Light, for its part, now manifests itself from an in¬
finite elevation, and shows its image to the unbegotten Spirit
(the intermediate principle?). The disclosure of these secrets
(so the treatise claims) had never before that time been granted,
except to some mysterious entities, to some prophets named
Elorkhai'os, Amoias, Strophaeos, Kelkheak, Kelkhea, A'ileu. . . .
At the end of this long cosmogony, of which we have quoted
only the commencement, Shem recalls the splendours of the
heavenly regions as he had passed through them in his vision.
“I, Shem, on the day that I went out of my body [in ecstasy]
whilst my intellect remained in the body, I awoke as if after deep
sleep; and when I was awakened, as if from the heaviness of my
body, I said: Blessed are they who know, when they are asleep,
into what power their spirit will go to rest! And when the
Pleiades rose, I saw clouds that I had to pass through. Thus, the
cloud of the Pneuma is hke a sacred beryl; the cloud of Hymen
is like a resplendent emerald; the cloud of Silence is like a delight¬
ful amaranth; and the cloud of Mesotes is like a pure hyacinth.”3
3 The allusion to the Pleiades in this vision is perhaps to be explained by what

one reads in Book XII of the Syriac version of the treatises of Zosimos: this alludes
After this description of the ascent through the clouds of
heaven, the Power who is communicating this vision to Shem
speaks again to complete his instruction. He shows Shem the
way through the lower heavens guarded by the Archons. From
this point onward, the rest of the Gnostic cosmogony, just as one
finds it almost uniformly in the other great revelations used by
the sectaries of Chenoboskion, is developed at length. We are told
about the creation of the cosmos by the evil god of the lower
world who thinks that he alone exists and who cries out, swelling
with pride: “I am God and there is no other God but I . .
(cf. Isaiah XLV, 5-6, and XLVI, 9).
Finally, the treatise exphcitly makes Shem into an appearance
of Jesus Christ. “These things, it is I who have told them to you,
I, Jesus Christ, son of the Man who is higher than the heavens,
O ye Perfect and stainless ... so that when we go out from
the regions of this universe, we may receive there the symbols of
incorruptibility, in spiritual Repose according to a Gnosis. For
you know not that the cloud of the flesh is over you; whereas
I am myself the companion of the unique Sophia. As for me,
I am in the bosom of the Father from the beginning, in the Place
of the Sons of the love of the truth and of the greatness. Take
your rest with me, my spiritual friends and brethren, for ever.”
This explanation ends upon this concluding title: The Second
Treatise of the Great Seth. But I cannot be sure whether this
apphes to all of the long work that I have just described, or
whether the treatise as a whole is divided into two sections, so
that the whole represents both a First and a Second Treatise of the
Great Seth.
This revelation, in which the prophet, upon his ascension into
to the seven heavens, the twelve dwelhngs (the Zodiac) and to “the Pleiades
which are the world of the Thirteen” presumably meaning the Thirteenth aeon
of the Pistis-Sophia (cf above, pp. 66-67). This text of Zosimos is quoted in W.
Scott, Hermetica vol. IV, 193d, p. 143-
As for the hymen, this allusion must be related to the teaching in the Chaldaean
Oracles according to which a membrane (i.e., a hymen) separates the supernal,
intellectual fire from the cosmic fire here below: cf. upon this “coverlet of
Heaven”, Bidez, in the Revue de Philologie, 1903, p. 80; Franz Cumont, in
Recherches . . . , pp. 26-7, relates this myth to that of the flaying of the Archons,
whose stretched-out skins, according to the Manichaeans, were used to form the
sky.
heaven,4 is welcomed by a “supreme Mother” called Derdekea,

confirms the information given by Epiphanius (XL, 7), where he
says that the Gnostic Archontici taught that Seth had been caught
up into heaven for forty days by the supreme Power—the
Mother—and by the angels of the good god, there to be instructed
in the mysteries of the Pleroma and of the inferiority of the
created world.5 6 But we find a more exact echo of this treatise in
the Philosophutiiena (V, 19-22). Our book is mentioned there
under the title of The Paraphrase of Seth, and the critic writes that
those who wish to make a complete study of the ideas of the
Scthian Gnostics have only to read that work, in which all the
ideas of those heretics are contained. It is certain that the treatise
to which the author of the Philosophumena is alluding was identi¬
cal, or nearly so, with the text of which we now have the Coptic
version in our hands—only read the commentary he makes
upon its preamble:
“The principles, according to the Sethians, are in essence the
Light and the Darkness: in between is a pure Breath. This breath,
which is between the Darkness which is below and the Light
which is on high, is not a Breath like a gust of wind nor a gentle
breeze . . . but it is like a perfume exhaled from an ointment,
or a wisely-compounded incense. . . . The Light, as I said,
is on high, the Darkness below, and the Breath between the two.
The Light, like the rays of the sun, naturally sheds its qualities
on the Darkness beneath it, and the Spirit which dwells in the
midst sends out a good odour in every direction, as we see in¬
cense, thrown into the fire, exhale its perfumes. . . . Then,
such is the power of the three Principles, that the power of the
Light and that of the Breath find themselves, at the same time,
in the Darkness situated underneath.”
“The Darkness is a dreadful water; the Light and the Breath
were attracted to it, and took on the nature of that element. The
4 The Iranian literature describes analogous ascensions through the spheres:

cf. Reitzenstein-Schaeder, Studien . . . , p. 13 ; cf. also Festugiere, La Reflation
d’Hermes Trismegiste, vol. II, Le Dieu Cosmique, pp. 441-59, which enables us to
see just how far some classic visions such as The Dream of Scipio differ from these
celestial ascensions of our Gnostics.
6 Cf. Puech, Fragments . . . de VApocalypse d’Allogtne, p. 950.
Darkness is not without intelligence; on the contrary, it is

endowed with a consummate discretion, and it knows that if the
Light were taken away from it, it would be left solitary, obscure,
lustreless and weak. So it draws upon all the resources of
its prudence and intelligence, forcibly to retain within itself
the lustre and sparkle of the Light, with the good odour of the
Pneuma. ... As the Darkness aspires to clearness, to have the
brilliance at its service and to see, so do the Light and the Breath
desire to recover the forces that are their own. They are eager to
withdraw these from the nether waters, dark and dreadful, with
which they have become mingled, and to resume possession of
them.”
“The powers of the three Principles are infinite in number.
They are reasonable and intelligent. So long as each remains
isolated, they all remain quite tranquil; but if one power comes
near to another, the dissimilarity of the Powers thus brought to¬
gether sets up motion, and that motion produces an action, the
form of which depends upon the concourse of the Powers thus
met together. . .
This description of three primordial Principles—Light, Dark¬
ness and intermediate Spirit—and of their first movements fully
confirms the Gnostic authenticity of one fundamental notion
which the heresiologists all ascribe, more or less clearly, not only
to the Sethian Paraphrase of which we have just found the original
text, but also to Simon, to the Nicolaitans, to Basilides and to the
Peratae. It is disclosed also in the teachings of Marcion and Bar-
desanes, then in the later Gnostic speculations of the Euchites,
and finally in those of the Bogomils.6
No other text in the Chenoboskion library, it seems, describes
this myth with as much detail as the Paraphrase of Shem. I have,
however, found some other traces of it: for example, in the long
version of the Secret Book of John (No. 36), there is an interpola¬
tion by a later scribe about the lower god—the demiurge
6 Cf. above, pp. 17-18, 25, 33, 50; cf. Jonas, loc. cit., vol. I, pp. 335-44- For the
notion of “space” in Bardesanes, see Bidez-Cumont, vol. I, p. 62, note 4, and
R. C. Zaehner, Zurvan, p. 202. For the Third Principle according to the Euchites
and then the Bogomils, Puech and Vaillant, Le Traite contre les Bogomiles . . . ,
p. 186 and p. 314, note 2.
Ialdabaoth—which adds this concise description: ‘ ‘ The Light, when

it reached the Darkness, made the Darkness to shine; whereas the
Darkness, when it pursued the Light, darkened the Light and
became neither Light nor Darkness, but found itself destitute.
...” Still, this lacks any allusion to the intermediate principle.
At first sight, this exposition of the primordial war between
Light and Darkness and of their intermingling recalls the Mani-
chaean conceptions, according to which there was originally a
Father of Greatness dwelling in the Light; over against him the
evil empire of a king of Darkness; and then an attempt by the
king of Darkness to mount up to the realm of Light whose
splendours had excited his ambition, with the terrifying con¬
sequences of this devastating incursion.7 But, here again, no
more than two principles appear.8
To find the model or pattern for the system of our Gnostics,
we have to go back to certain Iranian myths. Read, for instance,
the opening paragraphs of one of their most important religious
treatises, the Bundahishn:9 “Thus is it revealed in the Good
Religion. Ohrmazd was on high in omniscience and goodness:
for infinite time he was ever in the Light. That Light is the Space
7 Cumont, Recherches sur le Manicheisme, I, p. 13, II, pp. i2off.; H. C. Puech,
Le Manicheisme, son fondateur, sa doctrine, p. 76 and note 302; Flugel, Mani, p. 87.
8 Concerning the disposition of these two principles, whether or not separated
by a frontier or partition, in Manichaeism, cf. H. C. Puech, Le Manicheisme ....
notes 293 and 299. A more specific notion is that the shadow penetrates into the
domain of light like a wedge (St Augustine, C. Faustum, IV, 2, pp. 271, 2-3).
May not this image be inspired by the simple fact that, in an area of illumination
spreading all around a source of light, the zones of shadow projected outwards
by objects enlarge into the distance, and thus resemble wedges driven into the
area of light? (Cf. Bidez and Cumont, Mages hellenises, vol. II, p. 78, note 25).
9 Quoted from the translation by R. C. Zaehner, Zurvan, a Zoroastrian Dilemma,
Oxford, 1955, pp. 3i2ff. Previously W. Bousset, in his Hauptprobleme . . . had
drawn attention to the relationship between this myth of the Bundahishn and the
Philosophutnena’s account of the Paraphrase of Seth (the value of which account
was not yet confirmed by our discovery of the original text); Bousset also
compared the text of the Bundahishn with the passage in Plutarch’s De Iside
46 that describes the Persian belief in the two opposite principles Ohrmazd and
Ahriman, and, as the third element between them, Mithra, also called Mesites—
the “median”. Upon this text—one of the most important that we have about
the doctrine of the Magi—see Bidez and Cumont, vol. II, pp. 7off.
Bousset had already been able to show relations between the doctrine in the
Pistis-Sophia and the Bundahish, in his Hauptprobleme . . . , chap. v. For the
discussions which this notion of the “void” was able to arouse, see, e.g., the
treatise II B of the Hermetic writings, and §§ 33-4 of the Asclepius.
and place of Ohrmazd: some call it the Endless Light. Om¬

niscience and goodness are the totality of Ohrmazd. . . .
Ahriman, slow in knowledge, whose will is to smite, was deep
down in the darkness: [he was] and is, yet will not be. The will
to smite is his all, and darkness is Inis place: some call it the
Endless Darkness. . . . Between them was the Void: some call
it Vay in which the two Spirits mingle. Concerning the finite and
the infinite: the heights which are called the Endless Light (since
they have no end) and the depths which are the Endless Darkness,
these are infinite. On the border, both are finite since between
them is the Void and there is no contact between the two. Again,
both spirits in themselves are finite. . . . Ohrmazd in his
omniscience knew that the Destructive Spirit existed, that he
would attack and, since his will is envy, would mingle with
him. . . . The Destructive Spirit, ever slow to know, was
unaware of the existence of Ohrmazd. Then he rose up from the
depths and went to the border from whence the lights are seen.
When he saw the Light of Ohrmazd intangible, he rushed for¬
ward. Because his will is to smite and Inis substance is envy, he
made haste to destroy it. But seeing valour and supremacy
superior to his own, he fled back to the darkness and fashioned
many demons, a creation destructive and meet for battle. When
Ohrmazd beheld the creation of the Destructive Spirit, it seemed
not good to him—a frightful, putrid, bad and evil creation: and
he revered it not. Then the Destructive Spirit beheld the creation
of Ohrmazd and it seemed good to him—a creation most pro¬
found, victorious, informed of all; and he revered the creation of
Ohrmazd.”
Thus it is in the ancient myths, of which this version is given
in the Bundahishn, that one must look for what served as a model
for the system of our Gnostics.
The conception which is original in it—the existence of a
third principle established between the Light and the Darkness—
had already been known, before the development of Gnosticism,
in some Greek writings of the Hellenistic age in which, pursuant
to this idea, the Void is identified with Air and with Fate. Such is
the case with several texts alleged to have been authorized by
Zoroaster.10 J. Bidcz and Franz Cumont had already pointed

out that this peculiar principle11—which presents also some at¬
tributes of Mithra—was derived from an Iranian conception;
indeed, from the one connected with Vay; namely, with the
Spirit established between the Light of Ohrmuzd and the Dark¬
ness of Ahriman. Darmesteter12 had already noted what this
intermediate principle was: “All the cosmic motions take place
in this Void; and thence the identity, or at least very close re¬
lation, of Vay with Time and with Destiny”. E. Peterson, for his
part, has recognized the existence of this same intermediary
principle, identified with Fatality, in the two magical prayers in
which he discovered a Gnostic substratum.13 Fie has also shown
it to be present in the mythology of the famous Mithraic Liturgy,
where this principle is identified with Helios, with the god Mithra.
Another problem is presented by our manuscript: the prophet
to whom this revelation is attributed is named indifferently
Seem (Shem), or Seth. The facts that the Philosophumena names
this writing as the Paraphrase of Seth, and that in our text, too, the
prophet is described as “the first who existed upon earth”,
would suggest that the name of Shem or Seem might be due
merely to the mistake of some copyist. Nevertheless, it may be
that this writing was actually, in the first place, ascribed to Shem.
Earlier, the Biblical apocryphon called the Book of Jubilees (X, io,
15) said that Noah had received, from the angels, secrets which he
transmitted to Shem. Certain Samaritans and—since the begin¬
ning of our era—the Jewish haggada, in their speculations,
ascribed a position of importance to Shem, even making him into
a figure of Melchizedek.14 Some Gnostics—the Melchizedekians
described in section LV of Epiphanius’ treatise against heresies—
preserved this identification. The Manichaeans counted Shem
10 For example, in the treatise Upon Nature attributed to a Zoroaster who has
been identified with the Er, son of Armenius, made famous by Plato. This text
is cited by Proclus, In Retitp. II: cf. Bidez-Cumont, loc. cit., vol. II, p. 159.
11 Bidez-Cumont, op. cit., vol. II, p. 73, note 6; p. 159, note 14 and, above all,
p. 160, note 3.
12 Zend Avesta, II, p. 579.
13 E. Peterson, “La Liberation d’Adam . . . pp. 2iiff.
14 M. Simon, “Melchisedech dans la polemique entre Juifs et Chretiens et
dans la legende” in Revue d'Histoire et de Philos, relig. 1937, pp. 59-93 ; cf. also
Pirqe Rabbi Eli’ezer, XXI, 18 ; XXII, 19; Stein, Philo und der Midrash, p. 15.
among the just” ones of old, to whom angels revealed the

divine wisdom15—that is, among the great envoys of heaven who
succeeded one another in the course of history, from 'Adam to
Mani. The Mandaeans, also, attached the name of Shum-Kushta—
i.e., Shem—to a part of one of their great sacred writings, the
Book of John. Moreover, they attributed certain revelations in
their books—one of them a heavenly vision which, like our Shem,
he had had in a dream—to the mysterious scribe Dinanukht
whose name, of Iranian origin, means simply ‘‘he who speaks
according to religion”. This personage had for wife Nuraitha,
sometimes presented as the wife of Noah, or else as the wife of
Shem. Indeed, this Nuraitha is assimilable to the figure of Norea,
whom the Gnostics regarded as the wife of Seth and whose
name they gave to a revelation mentioned by the heresiologists,
the text of which—we shall be summarizing it later—turns up in
the Chenoboskion library.16 It is, finally, a remarkable fact that
the wilful confusion between Seth, Melchizedek and Shem, thus
attested in varying degrees, is found once more, right in the
Mohammedan Middle Ages, among the sect of Ishmaelites which
professes a Gnostic doctrine.17
After the Paraphrase of Seth—or rather of Shem—let us turn to
some other writings giving rather different, or less complete, but
still extremely important expositions of the Gnostic myths.
How can one resist the temptation to name here, in the first
place, certain writings in the Chenoboskion library whose names
16 Alfaric, Les Ecritures manicheennes, II, pp. 155-6.
18 Lidzbarski, Dasjohannesbuch der Mandaer, 1915, pp. 58 and 64; Ginzd . . . ,
edn. Lidzbarski, 1925, p. 205; G. Furlani, “I pianeti e lo zodiaco nella religione
dei Mandei” in Atti acc. Naz. dei Lincei, 1948, Memorie, Cl. di Sc. morali . . . ,
ser. VIII, vol. II, fasc. 3, pp. 175 and 185. Finally, let us recall the curious traditions
about Shem preserved in the Armenian writings of Moses of Khorene and of
Thomas Ardzruni: Zervan is not a god but a divinized man; he is identical with
Shem. Moses of Khorene claims to have got this myth from the Sibylline Oracles,
III, no; cf. Pr. Alfaric, Zoroastre avant L’Avesta, 1921, pp. 41-2.
17 G. Vajda, “Melchisedech dans la mythologie ismaelienne” in Journal
Asiatique, CCXXXIV, 1943-5, PP- I73ff. On the other hand, one reads in
Tabari that the Israelites once had a prophet of the name of Simi (Shem) who was
sent for by the Iranian Bishtasp (Hystaspe) with whom he entered into the capital
of Balkh. Then he was joined by Zaradusht (Zoroaster) and the wise man
Jamasp, son of Fashd. Simi spoke in Hebrew; Zoroaster understood this language,
and wrote in Persian under his dictation. . . . (Tabari, I, 681, 1-12; quoted by
G. Messina, I Magi a Betlemme E Una predizione di Zoroastro, 1933, p. 57).
were known already by their being mentioned, among others,

in Porphyry’s life of his master Plotinus, who had personally
combated (in his Ennead, II, 9), some sectaries using these apocry¬
pha? To these visionaries Porphyry refers as Christians, among
whom he denounces more particularly an Adelphius and an
Aquilinus, who, he says, “had departed from the ancient philo¬
sophy and possessed a great number of works of Alexander of
Libya, of Philocome, of Demostratus of Lydia. . . . They also
made display of the Revelations of Zoroaster, of Zostrian, of
Nicotheus, Allogenes, Mesos and others like them. They deceived
many people . . . Plotinus often refuted them . . . but he
left us more than enough to deal with. Amelius [a companion of
Porphyry] wrote as many as forty chapters against the Book of
Zostrian. For my part I have indited some searching criticisms of
the Book of Zoroaster: I have proved it to be a recent apocryphon,
made up by the founders of the sect to make people think that
the dogmas they want to uphold are those of the ancient
Zoroaster.”
Of these writings, our collection restores to us the Revelations
of Zostrian and of Zoroaster (No. 14), of the Supreme Allogenes
(No. 32) and of Messos (No. 33).
Otherwise unknown, Zostrian is mentioned by the con¬
troversialist Arnobius (Adversus Gentes, I, 52) as having been the
grandfather of “Zoroaster the Armenian”—that is, of the
Zoroaster to whom has been attributed the apocalyptic narration
of Er, reported by Plato in his Republic. He seems also to have
been the author of a treatise in four books Upon Nature.18 We
note, however, that the colophon of our Coptic manuscript
assimilates this discourse attributed to Zostrian to a Discourse of
Zoroaster. That the lines which give this indication are written in a
cryptogram (which is unique in our whole Gnostic library)
18 Cf. above, note 10. Upon the Gnostic prophecies which may have been set
forth under the name of Zoroaster, cf. Bidez-Cumont, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 153-7,
and vol. II, fragments B.45 and Ost.9; see also G. Messina, I Magi a Betlemme\
and U. Monneret de Villard, Le leggende orientali sui Magi evangelici. . . .
According to Clement of Alexandria, the disciples of the Gnostic (?) Prodicos
had used some books given under the name of Zoroaster (Stromates, 15, 69). As
for the prophecies ascribed to Zoroaster, grandson of Zostrian, one would think,
from the testimony of Arnobius, they were of a more or less Christian tendency.
shows what importance our sectaries attached to keeping this

identification secret.19
The work in question is a revelation of the higher world in
which are enumerated, for instance, the great aeons, Barbelo,
the great luminaries Solmis, Doxomedon, Setheus. . . . Let us
quote these words from it: “And I wrote three tablets: I left
them for the information of those who will come after me, of
the living elect. Then I ascended to the perceptible world”. And
do we not find another of our writings—the Revelation of Dosi-
theus, apparently giving the text of three steles composed in this
way by the great Seth!
As for Messos,20 to judge by the beginning and by what is
explicit in his revelation, he is reporting to his brethren, to be
used by them in strict secrecy, a teaching which was revealed to
him when he was caught up into the higher realms. More exactly,
a celestial personage, or a prophet whose identity is obscure,
reports to Messos in this vision what he himself had heard from
some still higher entity, who had instructed him to hide these
revelations upon a mountain: “And I”, says this mysterious
messenger, “was filled with joy; and I wrote this book which had
been expounded to me, O my son Messos; and this, in order that
I might reveal it to you.”
In the Supreme Allogenes (No. 32) we again find a great vision
of the creation of the higher world exalting, among others,
Barbelo. What does this figure of Allogenes represent? The
heresiologists who combated the Gnostics sometimes mention, in¬
deed, as much in reference to the great Gnostics as to the Sethians,
19 J. Doresse, “Les Apocalypse de Zoroastre, de Zostrien, de Nicothee ...”
in Coptic Studies in honor of IV. E. Crum, 1950, pp. 256-63. Monneret de Villard,
op. cit., p. 138, note 6, has expressed his astonishment at the few lines in Coptic
which have led us to propose, for Porphyry’s text, the following translation:
“The Apocalypses of Zoroaster and Zostrian, of Nicotheus, of Allogenes
. . .” instead of the one currently accepted—“The Apocalypses of Zoro¬
aster, of Zostrian, of Nicotheus, of Allogenes. . . . ” I was the first to think
the latter agreed ill with the fact that Porphyry and Amelius were able to share
the task of refutation, one dealing with the book of Zoroaster and the other
with the book of Zostrian. But the Coptic colophon in cryptography—showing
the importance that the sectaries attached to keeping secrecy about the fictive
origin of these contents—cannot be transcribed in any other way whatever.
20 Concerning this name, see H. C. Puech, Les Nouveaux ecrits . . . , p.
132.
the Archontici or the Audians,21 an Apocalypse of Allogenes—

which is also cited by Porphyry—and sometimes seven Allo-
geneous hooks (while some Syriac writings name a Book of
Foreigners, thus literally translating the Greek aXXoyeviQ<;). What
we are actually dealing with are revelations attributed to the great
Seth and his successors, and this title of “foreigner” or “alien”
given to the prophet and saviour of the Gnostic generation and
their descendants, means that Seth and Inis disciples are of a
particular race, separate from the rest of humanity and partici¬
pating in the world of supreme powers—we must remember
here, the “Foreign God” of Marcion! Later on, this appellation of
“foreign” or “alien” is extended to include, for instance, the
Apostle Thomas preaching the new God.22 As for Seth, the
description apphes all the better to him, whom our cosmogonies
present as born of Eve and Adam but not of the same carnal and
inferior birth as Cain and Abel. Furthermore, certain traditions
well attested by St Epiphanius or collected later by George the
Syncellus23 inform us, in effect, that Seth was taken up into heaven
by the Supreme Mother, who imparted the supreme secrets to
him. Finally he was identified with the Christ—a fact that we
shall find confirmed by several passages in our writings.
From certain allusions by the heresiologists of the early Middle
Ages—Theodore Bar-Konai, Agapios of Membidj, and Gregory
bar-Hebraeus called Abu’l Faraj—Professor Puech saw how to
deduce the nature, if not the precise subjects, of the Allogeneous
Books a good while before the discovery at Chenoboskion
enabled us to verify the justice of his conclusions.24 The title,
Apocalypse of Allogenes may correspond to that of the Supreme
Allogenes that we have now recovered. The description of Allo¬
geneous Books, or Books of Strangers may itself apply, as will be
21 H. C. Puech, Fragments retrouves de VApocalypse d’Allogtne, and articles

“ Archontiker ” and “Audianer”.
22 Cf. G. Widengren, Muhammad, the Apostle of God, and his Ascension, 1935,
p. 67; Jonas, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 122-6. In a similar way, the appellation “alien”
is applied by Manichaeism to the luminous nature indwelling in man: cf. Ed.
Chavannes and P. Pelliot, “Un Traite manicheen retrouve en Chine”, reprint
from the Journal Asiatique, p. 50 (=546).
23 Georges the Syncellus, Chronographia, pp. 16-17.
24 Puech, Fragments retrouves de VApocalypse d’Allogtne.
seen, to various treatises put out under the name of Seth and of
his followers which have turned up in the library of Cheno-
boskion.
One feels a lively hope, after rediscovering such writings in our
collection, that we may yet find one of those texts which the
school of Plotinus undertook to refute—that writing of Nicotheus
“the hidden” which is mentioned not only by Porphyry but by
Zosimos the alchemist in his treatise On the Letter Omega, and also
(which proves its real importance) in a page of the treatise with¬
out a title in the Bruce Codex, and even in the Manichaean
writings.25 One would also like to recover the Revelations of
Marsianes and Martiades—whose names are mentioned as those of
two of the greatest teachers in the same treatise of the Bruce
Codex, and by Epiphanius.26 And the writings of Phosilampes,
also named in the Bruce Codex—ought not these to have been
in our library? Certainly one or more of these precious treatises
may yet be hidden among our Coptic books, perhaps under
another title or, more simply, in one of those texts whose titles
are missing, which we still need opportunity to examine.
In fact, like the impressive works that we have just catalogued,
several other great revelations that we have still to enumerate
represent—if we judge them by their contents—apocalypses
supposedly inspired or written by Seth, by the Father of the
incorruptible generation of the Perfect.
A system analogous to that of which we have already seen
something in the Pistis-Sophia, is represented in our collection
by two characteristic writings: on the one hand by the Hypostasis
of the Archons (No. 39), and on the other by an untitled text
(No. 40) of which some fragments are found a second time among
the odd pages catalogued under No. 35.
The Hypostasis of the Archons begins in these terms: “Upon the
subject of the hypostasis of the powers in the Spirit of the Father
of the Truth. The great apostle has told us, concerning the powers
of darkness: Tt is not against flesh and blood that you have to
wrestle, but against the powers of the cosmos. . . . Starting
from this quotation from St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians (VI, 12),
26 Cf. chap. H, p. 82. 26 Cf., above, p. 46; chap. 1, notes 113 and 114.
the narrator tells us how the demiurge of this lower world,

believing himself to be its sole god, became so swollen with pride
as to exclaim: “There is no other god but I”; whereupon a voice
from on high answered and said: “Thou art mistaken, Sam-
ael . . . !” From this point, the narrative goes on to tell us
about the fabrication, by this arrogant god, of the material world.
The powers of the lower universe decide to create man: “ Come,”
they say, “let us make a man. . . . ” The body of this man is
fashioned from earth, in the image of the high God, a reflection
of whom has just been seen by the Archons, in the waters below.
This done, the demiurge breathes his strength into the mouth of
this new creature, who immediately comes to life, but at first
cannot stand upright on his feet. Afterwards, when Adam has
been animated, the powers—the Archons—bring together the
beasts and birds, for Adam to give them their names (cf. Genesis
II, 19). They then place him in Paradise, while warning him never
to eat of the tree of life. Out of his side they create Eve, his
companion. Then the first man, from having been only material
(hylic) becomes ensouled (psychic); Eve herself is spiritual
(pneumic) and consequently it is she who gives hfe to him:
that is why, when he sees Eve beside him, Adam names her
“Mother of the Living”. But the Archons themselves are dazzled
at the sight of Eve; they fall in love with her: “Come, and let us
send our seed into her.” They pursue her, but she makes fun of
their stupidity. But then comes the son of the demiurge, the
Serpent, who suggests to the woman that she should taste of the
Tree of life. Thereafter, this apocryphon follows fairly closely
the outline of the Biblical Genesis. The Proto-archon, the Creator,
calls Adam who, having sinned, knows that he is naked and
hides himself; upon which the first couple are expelled from
Paradise.
After the birth of Cain and Abel, engendered normally by
Adam and Eve, and after the murder of Abel by his brother, the
birth of Seth is, in this case, passed over in silence; nor does Seth
play any notable part in the rest of the treatise.
But then our apocryphon diverges again from Genesis. The
Creator of this base world, displeased with men who have greatly
Forty-Four Secret Books i6i
multiplied, orders Noah to build the Ark and prepares to unloose

the Deluge. This episode takes place upon the mythic mountain
of Seir.27 Horea, daughter of Eve and of superior birth, wishes
to go into the Ark, but Noah, inspired by the perverse creator,
forbids her. She blows upon the hull in construction, at which it
catches fire and is burnt up. Noah rebuilds the Ark. Meanwhile a
violent quarrel breaks out between Horea—whose name is given
also in the form of Norea28—and the lower archons. In response
to the cries of Norea, the great angel Heleleth descends from be¬
fore the holy Spirit; his aspect is hke gold, his vesture like snow.
To overcome and subdue the lower powers, Time is created, to
which they are subjected, so that they may not again defile the
incorruptible Generation.29
After this exposition of the earthly Genesis, the book recounts
the history of Sophia, also called Pistis. Logically this second part
of the treatise should have been placed at the beginning of the
work, before what we have just summarized; for it describes the
creation of the lower heavens.
Sophia—it tells us—desired to produce, without a partner, a
creation modelled upon the heavenly pattern. She failed. There
is a veil between the higher realms of light and the inferior aeons,
27 Numerous traditions, relating as much to the Cave of Adam as to the

Magi, locate the land of Shyr, or of Seir, beyond the inhabited world to the east,
near the great Ocean. There rises the Mountain of Victories, or Mount of the
Lord (a tradition already to be found in the Avesta). It is this, then, and not the
Seir in the land of Edom (Genesis XXXVI) that is meant here by the term
“Mountain of Seir”. Here, it seems, was the Cave in which Adam deposited the
treasures which the Magi were one day to carry to Bethlehem. He and his suc¬
cessors were buried there. Various identifications of this holy place have been
proposed: perhaps it was at the Kuh-i-Khwaga which rises over the shores of
Lake Hamun in the far east of Iran. Still to be seen there today are the ruins of a
palace dating from the epoch of that king Gundophar whom tradition has made
into the Magus Gaspar: an annual pilgrimage still marks the sacred character of
the place. This identification is proposed by Herzfeld, Archeological History of
Iran, 1935, pp. 58ff. and photograph, PI. vii. It is also defended by Messina, op.
cit., pp. 82-83. U. Monneret de Villard criticizes it, apparently with reason, in his
Leggendi orientali sui Magi evangelici, chaps. 1 and in; he suggests instead the
mountain Sabalan, the highest peak in Azerbaijan (which would mean that the
“eastern” Ocean was the Caspian Sea).
28 Cf. above, chap. 1, pp. 39 and 42-43, and note 103. Concerning the seduc¬
tion of the Archons by Norea, and later development of that episode; cf. pp. 14-15.
29 The “incorruptible Generation” means the race of the Perfect—of the
Gnostics.
and darkness extends everywhere below that veil: the darkness

becomes matter, and it is within matter that Sophia carries on her
creative work—which is that of a monstrous being, shaped like a
lion, male and female at the same time.30 Opening its eyes, and
seeing nothing around it but dark matter, this being, in its ig¬
norance of the higher world, grows proud of its solitude and
exclaims—in the words we have already found in the preamble
of this writing—“ I am God, and there is no other God but
I”; thereby committing a grave sin. It is then that a voice
from the higher worlds answers him: “Thou art mistaken
Samael.” “If anyone else has existed before me, let him show
himself to me!” replies Samael. Sophia then comes down
from the worlds above; she introduces light into matter,
and then withdraws herself into the realms of Chaos. Then
the evil Archon Samael (this is another name for Ialdabaoth)
creates for himself seven sons, each both male and female,
who are to preside over the seven planets; and he says
30 This being is Ialdabaoth, whom the Gnostic myths identify with the God of
Genesis and with the evil creator. Upon this same notion of the inferior god, cf.
H. C. Puech, La Gnose et le Temps, note 26. Concerning his monstrous figure of a
serpent with a lion’s head, cf. Puech, “Le Prince des Tenebres en son royaume”
in Satan: Etudes carmelitaines, 1948, pp. 138-74. Ialdabaoth is sometimes also
presented with the face of an ass or a pig. He is, moreover, known by several
other names; sometimes he is called Samael, which assimilates him to the fallen
angel, Satan, shown to us in, for example, the Ascension of Isaiah, warring against
the armies of the higher heavens. He is also Ariael, the “lion of God” (cf. the
engraved gem depicting Ialdabaoth-Ariael, C. Bonner, op. cit., pp. 135-7, and
pi. ix, no. 188). Above all, he is Sacla, whom one finds (albeit very rarely)
identified with Osiris, for reasons which remain obscure; cf. above, chap. 1,
note 125). The Manichaeans knew him by this name: one of the Kephalaia found
again in Coptic—the Chapter LVI—is even devoted to him. Sacla is also met with
under the form of Eschakleo, in the myths of popular Hermetism: his birth is
described (very differently from Gnostic descriptions of it) in the Kosmopoiia, a
strange cosmogony preserved in a Greek papyrus at Leyden, in which some
Jewish and Egyptian elements are intermingled: after the appearance of angels,
of gods and of the light, the earth rises up in a round mass, the waters divide into
three parts; and then it is that Eschakleo appears, and is given commandment
over the abyss. (Festugiere, Revelation .... vol. I, p. 301). F. Cumont, in his
Recherches . . . , pp. 69ff., suggests an identity between the Omophore, the
titanic entity who, according to the Manichaeans, holds up the earth, and Sacla.
Perhaps this identification is too little in agreement with the part that is otherwise
played by Sacla (also named Ashaqlun) in the Manichaean myths: on this point
the study by Cumont brings together references that are equally valuable for the
light they shed on the Sacla of the Gnostics.
to them, “I am the god of the Universe”. But Zoe, the

daughter of Sophia, reprimands him in her turn: “Thou art
mistaken, Sacla!”—which name, adds the text, is translated
Ialdabaoth.31 Zoe breathes upon the creator, and her breath
turns into an angel of fire who casts Ialdabaoth into the depths
of Tartarus at the bottom of the abyss. Now Sabaoth, son of
Ialdabaoth, seeing the power of the great angel engendered
by the breath of Zoe, repents, realizes that his father and
mother were matter, and offers up to Zoe the hymn of his
repentance. Sophia and Zoe then install him in the seventh
heaven, just below the veil which separates the lower world
from the light. Sabaoth fashions for himself a great chariot,
with four-faced cherubim and a multitude of angels, who sing
psalms to the sound of harps.
The narrative closes upon the affliction of Ialdabaoth when he
sees, from below, the glory of his repentant son.
Much of this treatise is manifestly an abridgement of a
certain Book of Norea,32 which Irenaeus tells us (in his Adversus
Haereses, I, xxx), was in use among heretics whom we can
identify surely enough with the Sethians and the Ophites.
Epiphanius, when dealing with the great Gnostics in Chapter
XXVI of his refutation, also cites this work as one of the most
important. If we combine the information furnished by these
two critics, we learn that Norea, or Horea, was born to Adam
soon after Seth, and that the race of the Perfect is descended
from both of them. After becoming Noah’s wife, Norea set fire
to the Ark as many as three times, because the demiurge, willing
that she should perish with the rest of mankind, prevented her
embarking in it. Her revolt against the Archons is also
described.
In Chapter XXVI of Epiphanius, as also in Chapter XXV
31 To this “translation” another is added by another of our Coptic texts

(p. 174), which interprets the name Ialdabaoth as “ the child who traverses places ”.
Although somewhat obscure, this translation closely follows the Hebrew words
that constitute the name of the evil god. Doubtless the passage in the Hypostasis
o f the Archons is intended only to mean that Sacla is identical with Ialdabaoth.
32 Moreover, the Coptic writing which comes next after this one in our
Codex No. xo, alludes, in two places, to the “preceding Book of Norea”.
devoted to the Nicolai tans and XXI about the Simonians, an

entity who is Norea in the first case, and who, in the other two
cases, is identifiable either with Barbelo or else with Helen the
companion of Simon Magus—is the heroine of a very peculiar
myth: that of the “seduction of the Archons”, whose impure
passions are exploited by this feminine power in order to rob them
of their seed. This myth is found again in Manichaeism.33
Under other names, Norea was equally well known to the
Mandaeans, who called her Nuraitha or Nhuraita. Here she is
usually, as among the Gnostics, wife of Noah and mother of
Shem; sometimes, too, she is presented as the wife of the divine
scribe Dinanukht34
By its title, the Coptic treatise surely recalls, in the first place,
the sect of the Archontici. It is the easier to regard it as one of the
great books of that group because its contents as a whole cor¬
respond pretty closely with the myths generally attributed to
them. Re-read, for example, the article devoted to them by
Epiphanius in his Chapter xl against heresies: there we fmd one
of the most original features of our Coptic writing very exactly
reproduced—namely, the ambiguous part played by Sabaoth
who, though he belongs to the lower heavens and is the father of
the Serpent (that is, of “the devil”), is not here regarded as
systematically evil. After his repentance, Sabaoth becomes lord
of the seventh heaven, apparelled in the glory of the God of the
Bible, Creator of this universe and of the Mosaic Law. The
conception we knew before, from the Judeo-Gnostic invocations
that have been analysed by Peterson.35 These have shown us the
33 Cf. Cumont, Recherches . . . , pp. 54fF. This myth has been as often
told of Helen, Barbelo, Prunikos or Norea, as of the Virgin of Light who
figures in the Pistis-Sophia, but above all in Manichaeism.
34 Cf. Lidzbarski, Das Johanticsbuch der Mdndaer, p. 58; and the same author’s
Ginzd, p. 205.
36 Cf. above, chap, n, pp. ioyff. Here we must add that our Gnostics had a
system of astrology, purely mythical, according to which each planet in turn
ruled over the six others for a thousand years. Thus Kronos/Saturn (Ialdabaoth)
was succeeded by Zeus/Jupiter (Sabaoth): this is in agreement with the myth
that we have here (cf. pp. 75, 244-5 and 271). For their opposite characteristics—
malefic for Saturn, benefic for Jupiter—which astrology ascribed to these planets
and to which our myth conforms, see the references given by Nock and Festu-
giere in vol. Ill of their edition of Hermes Trismegiste, p. cxcvi.
Propator, primordial Father, representing him as the aeon which

stands motionless, the master of the Pole, upon the constellation
of the Chariot—the constellation which, among our Gnostics,
becomes like the divine Chariot in the vision of Ezechiel. The
same prayers further prepare us for this identification, when they
surround the god of the seventh heaven with archangels, decans
and myriads of angels fashioned by him, and when they show just
how this lord bears witness for Sophia, recalling the part played
by her. In all this we find, in a more ancient guise, one of the
essential myths of our Gnostic treatise.
The writing without a title which is No. 40 of our inventory,
and of which our hbrary contained another copy (the beginning
of it is found on an odd leaf inventoried under No. 35), ought, by
its contents, to be compared with the Hypostasis of the Archons.
It is a treatise which is a didactic epistle, to which no name of a
prophet, or author, or addressee is attached to define its nature.36
It commences as follows:
“Though all the gods and men in the universe say, ‘Nothing
existed before the Chaos’, I, for my part, will prove to you that
they are all mistaken, for they never knew the nature of Chaos,
nor its root. . . . ” In terms not at all clear, and all too brief,
the treatise goes on to say that even the darkness that existed
before Chaos was the consequence of a primordial work (of the
higher world?). In effect, at the beginning the Immortals alone
existed, in a higher world the structure of wliich is not explained
to us. And the treatise proceeds to describe—presumably in
reference to this “primordial work’’—the creation produced by
“Pistis who is called Sophia”. By her own initiative, her work
develops between the Immortals and things here below; out of
Darkness and Obscurity emerges the Chaos. This darkness feels
that something exists stronger than itself; this feeling engenders
Jealousy, and, from that moment, the abyss below is filled with a
great mass of waters. Pistis beholds this darkness and these waters
devoid of Spirit; she is dismayed that all this has been produced
by her fault: the effect of her terror is to evoke the apparition,
36 Cf. below, p. 195, our suggestion about possible relations between this
writing No. 40 and the Epistle of Eugnostos (No. 3).
upon the waters, of a male-and-female archon with the face of a

lion. Sophia speaks to it, calling it Ialdabaoth, the name that our
author presumes to translate as the child who is traversing
places”; and a few lines further on our
author adds: ‘‘The perfect call him Ariael,
because he looks like a lion. Ialdabaoth,
who as yet has seen only the reflection of
Sophia in the waters, does not know of her
power nor of the virtues which are above
her. He therefore thinks that he alone
exists. He creates for himself seven sons,
one of whom is Sabaoth; and to these he
adds yet other powers; the names and the
Ariaeblf* mga,avedCg“ length of the male powers thus engen-
stic gem. dered are to be found—writes our compiler
—in the Arkhangelike of Moses the Prophet', the names of the
female in ‘‘the foregoing Book of Norea". After this Ialdabaoth
builds heavens for each of his sons, habitations, great glories,
thrones and temples; chariots and spirits escorted by innumerable
armies of angels and archangels. The history of all these, adds our
author, ‘‘thou wilt fmd it exactly stated in the preceding treatise
of Norea”. Ialdabaoth boasts about what he has just created:
he exclaims, “I have no need of anyone! I am God and there is
no other than I.” Pistis hears the impious words of the great
archon and cries: ‘‘Thou art mistaken, Samael” (meaning, our
text says, ‘‘the blind god”). ‘‘An immortal man, a man of light
existed before thee, who will be manifested in thy creation; he
will trample thee underfoot as potters tread the clay, and thou
wilt depart, thou and thine, down towards thy mother, the abyss
of waters. . . . ” Upon this, Pistis shows the reflection of her
greatness on the water while she herself withdraws up into the
%ht.
Hearing the voice of Pistis, Sabaoth sends up a hymn towards
her: his invocation is accepted; Sabaoth receives honours and
powers. He is called ‘‘the Lord of Armies”. He begins to detest
his Father the Darkness, and his Mother the abyss of waters; he is
seized with loathing for his sister the Thought of Ialdabaoth.
But the powers of Chaos envy the glory which has now been
given him; in the seventh heaven they prepare to wage a great
war against him (cf. the Biblical Revelation XIII, 7). To the aid of
Sabaoth Pistis-Sophia sends forth from her light, at first seven
archangels, then three more, and then at last her daughter Zoe,
who will help this god to create everything that is in the Ogdoad.
Our author expands at pleasure upon this creation. It comprises
a glorious palace, a throne erected upon a chariot surrounded by
cherubim with faces like those of a lion, a bull, a man and an
eagle. The chariot, we are told, has been taken for a model by the
seventy-two gods who govern the seventy-two languages of the
peoples. There are also seraphim in the forms of dragons, who
perpetually glorify their lord. Near to Sabaoth stands a first-born
who is named Israel, “the man who sees God”. Another is named
Jesus the Christ, like to the Saviour who is in the highest heavens;
he is seated at the right hand of Sabaoth. At the left of this Lord
are enthroned the Virgin and the Holy Spirit. Before the throne a
choir of virgins sing to the sound of the Psaltery and the trumpet.
Then Pistis separates the Darkness into two halves: the right,
which is just, and the left, which is unjust.
Ialdabaoth, in the depths of the abyss, is tortured by jealousy.
He creates death, which he establishes in the sixth heaven; this
death is both male and female; it has seven sons and seven
daughters whose names evoke evil passions and afflictions. The
names and powers of the forty-nine demons who are subject to
him are to be found, says our text, in the Book of Solomon. In
response to this perverse creation of Ialdabaoth, Zoe provides
Sabaoth with other powers which are good; powers which are
enumerated, adds our author, in the Schema of the Celestial
Heimarmene,37
It is not until this moment that Ialdabaoth recognizes, upon
hearing her voice, that Sophia is the power who, in the beginning,
cried out to him by name. Since he had then exclaimed, “There is
no other God but I”, he is afraid that at the advent of the Celestial
Man, his own imposture will be exposed before the powers he
governs. Hence his proclamation: “If anyone exists before me,
37 Heimarmene means Fate.
i68 The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
let him show himself and let his light be seen!” From the height
of the Ogdoad there now descends through the heavens a shining
light in which is revealed a vision of Man. Seeing this, a Pronoia
(i.e., a Prescience) who is associated with Ialdabaoth, falls in love
with the Man; but he hates her because she appears in the Dark¬
ness. She wishes to join with him, but in vain. Unable to appease
her amorous passion, she sheds her light (which is her blood?)
upon the earth. Ever since that day this angel has been called
Adam-Light, which means “the Man whose blood is light”,
whilst the earth on which this was shed became the “holy,
Adamantine earth”. Since that day, again, the Powers have
revered the blood of the Virgin. The earth has been purified by it
whilst the waters also were purified by the vision of Pistis-Sophia
which had been revealed in them.
Then suddenly Eros appears: he too is male and female; his
masculinity is made of the fire of the light, his femininity is a spirit
distilled from the blood of the Pronoia. By his extreme beauty
Eros makes the gods and the angels fall in love with him and
becomes powerful over all the creatures of Chaos. He brings with
him the first-fruits of sensual pleasure and of carnal union. At the
same time, from the blood shed upon the earth, the vine is bom
and some other trees grow up. It is then that Justice—one of the
powers of Sabaoth—creates a Paradise, remote from the cycles of
the Moon and the Sun, in a land of delights. There is found the
Tree of Life, which is to render immortal the souls of the Just who
are rising above matter. It grows up even to the sky; its beautiful
branches are like those of the cypress and its fruits are like bunches
of white grapes. The Tree of Knowledge grows here too: its
branches are like those of the fig tree, and its fruit similar to the
date.
Whilst the influence of Eros over the “daughters of the
Pronoia” is developing, the plants, animals and birds make their
first appearance. A man is fashioned who is both male and female:
“This man”, says our text, “the Greeks call Hermaphrodite; the
Hebrews call his mother, Eve from Zoe.” Now also is created
the beast —that is, the Serpent destined to mislead the creatures.
The meaning of the beast is, the Instructor ”; he is wiser than all
other creatures. Lastly, the creation of Adam is described, in

terms which recall those that we have already quoted and that we
shall find again several times in our Coptic treatises. We will pass
over the formation of Eve: once she has been created and is
associated with Adam, she approaches “the tree”, and the
Dominations seize and defile her.
But the Archons, who have brought the various animals before
Adam so that he might give them names, become troubled.
“Look, here is Adam who has become like one of us, and knows
the difference between the Light and the Darkness. Should he
now approach the Tree of Life, and eat of it, he will also be
immortal. Let us then throw him out of Paradise down to
earth. . . . ” They are afraid directly to attack the First Man on
earth; so they surround the Tree of Life with animals of fire, to
defend it from him: but their efforts are in vain. They then expel
the first couple from Paradise: but Sophia and Zoe in their turn
drive the Archons from the heavens. At this point our compiler
has inserted a curious detail—the Phoenix, which periodically
puts itself to death and resurrects, is said to have been created as a
witness for the iniquitous judgment passed upon Adam by the
Archons. On this subject allusion is made to a myth of “the three
Phoenixes”, then to “three water-hydria which are in Egypt”,
and the author even states there is something about the “third
Phoenix” in the Hierabiblos—the Sacred Book. He then asks pardon
for his digression and goes on; telling us how angels were created
for the fallen archons, angels who proceeded to teach men various
errors, drugs, magical practices, etc. . . . These are themes we
shall find again in other treatises, and which need not detain us
here.
The continuation of the narrative opens up an eschatological
perspective. The salvation of the different categories of mankind
is reviewed, and of the four classes enumerated one only, the
Generation without a King—which means the Generation of the
Perfect—will attain to the supreme Ogdoad, to the holy place of
the Father in which these elect souls will come to rest in a glory
and peace ineffable and everlasting. It is they, according to our
writing, who are kings among the mortal, being themselves
immortal. It is they who will judge and condemn the gods of

Chaos and their powers.
The work we have just summarized is without any doubt a
treatise of the highest importance, but one to which later com¬
mentaries and glosses have been added. Some of these annotations
seem likely to be those of the compiler who put Codex X
together: he has made similar additions both in the much ampli¬
fied version that he gives of the Secret Book of John (No. 36, which
we can compare with the shorter versions in two others of our
manuscripts) and in the Exegesis upon the Soul (No. 41). For
another proof that these annotations are the work of the compiler
of the manuscript we have in our hands—two of them refer back
to the “preceding” Book of Nore a; that is, precisely to the work
which, in Codex X, does come before the treatise in which these
references occur. This Codex from the end of the fourth century
thus provides a wonderfully living witness to the literary activity
of the Gnostics.
Most of these interpolations are such as we can legitimately
call “bibliographical references”—doubtless the most ancient in
all literary history. One could find such references, though more
imbedded in the text, in the little Greek treatise of the alchemist
Zosimos which dates from about the same time and is partly in¬
spired by the same mystical speculations.38
Can we identify the works named by our learned doctor?
Which of the various works fictively attributed to Solomon in
the literature of astrology and magic could we recognize as this
Book of Solomon which, he says, enumerated the forty-nine
demons here below? One that comes to mind is the Epistle of
Rehoboam which was first noticed by Reitzenstein in Inis Poi-
mandres and has been edited by Heeg in the Catalogue of Greek
Astrological Manuscripts.39 This text, which claims to be The Key to
Hydromancy, describes the influences of the planets, of the angels
and of the demons at each hour of each day of the week. It adds
to this list some prayers to the planets and to die angels and,
38 Cf. above, pp. 99ff, the analysis of this text.
39 Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum, VIII, fasc. 2, pp. I43ff; cf.
Reitzenstein, Poimandres, pp. 186-7, and Festugiere, Revelation, vol. I, pp. 399ff.
Heeg says this text was composed in Egypt about the first century B.c.
finally, gives indications for the “characters” to be inscribed

upon stone amulets and for the plants it is appropriate to associate
with them. But may not the reference be—as seems more likely—
to something in that vast collection entitled the Testament of
Solomon, which enumerates a crowd of genies and mentions, for
example, as rulers of this terrestrial world, Deception, Discord,
Quarrelsomeness, violent Agitation, Error, Violence and Per¬
versity.40
The Arkhangelike, or Book of the Archangels by Moses the Prophet,
is still more celebrated in astrological literature. We have it, well
edited, in the Poimandres of Reitzenstein.41 This brief treatise
calls itself “a hymn of the archangels which the Lord gave to
Moses upon Mount Sinai”. In effect, the book is an enumeration
of a multitude of powers, in order that he who is informed about
them may protect himself against all demonic manifestations.
As for the title of Sacred Book, denoting a work in which there
is some account of “three Phoenixes”, it does not suggest any
book that is known today. It surely camiot be the Sacred Book of
Hermes to Asclepius pubhshed by Ruelle, which is concerned
essentially with the thirty-six decans and the parts of the body
governed by them.42 Still less can we think it is the magical
treatise entitled Monad, or Eighth Book of Moses, a work which
gives itself this second title of Sacred Book. This formulary pre¬
tends—by a shocking anachronism!—that Moses revealed its
contents “in the Temple of Jerusalem” to a disciple, making him
swear to keep it carefully hidden. But it contains nothing of the
tradition about the Phoenix to which our Coptic text alludes.
What, then, are the myths referred to in these remarks about
“three Phoenixes” and the “hydria that are in Egypt”? As for
the Phoenix, any allusion to three of those fabulous birds is, in
itself, of a certain originality. Indubitably all known traditions
40 Cf. McCown, The Testament of Solomon, Chicado, 1922. Another edn. is
published in A. Delatte, Anecdota Graeca, Brussels, 1927, pp. 212-27. Cf. also
Fabricius, Codex Pseudepigraphus, I, 1047. Upon the apocryphal literature at¬
tributed to Solomon, see Wellman, Dcr Physiologus, p. 58, note 164; and Berthelot,
La Chimie au Moyen-age, vol. II, pp. 264-6.
41 Reitzenstein, Poimandres, pp. 292ff
42 Cf. W. Gundel, Dekane und Dekansternbilder, 1936, pp. 374-9'. and Festu-
giere. La Revelation d’Hermes Trismegiste, vol. I, pp. 139-43-
about the Phoenix affirm that there was never more than the one
which, periodically, died and was reborn. For that reason, indeed,
its appearance in our texts is not surprising; for Christianity has
willingly availed itself of this beautiful symbol of resurrections
recurring at fixed periods.43
As for the myth of the “hydria that are in Egypt”, this can
refer only to the story of the demons which were banished by
Solomon and imprisoned in seven bronze vases. Our commenta¬
tor may have taken this, too, from the Arkhatigelike, which men¬
tions it—unless he meant to allude to one of the writings put out
under the name of Solomon which were known to Zosimos the
alchemist and preserved in some later books. This work, now
extant only in a Syriac version, says that the Egyptians used a
book against the demons called The Seven Heavens, fictitiously
ascribed to Solomon. It was concerned with the manner in which
Solomon had made seven bottles of electrum (an alloy of silver
and gold) in accordance with the number of the planets, and had
engraved magical formulas upon them before imprisoning the
genies in them. From Jerusalem, these vases had been taken to the
priests of Egypt, in whose keeping they had remained.44
But we must compare these conjoined allusions to a plurality
of Phoenixes and to the “hydria” in Egypt, with some curious
passages in the Book of the Secrets of Enoch. This apocryphon dates
from the first century of our era. Here we find, associated with
the celestial powers, Phoenixes and “ Khalkhydras ” who accom¬
pany the chariot of the sun. Thus we read, in Chapter xn, that
the chariot of the sun is escorted by a flight of Phoenixes and
43 The myth of the Phoenix appears in Christian literature in the First Epistle of
Clement-, in the poem of Lactantius, De Ave phoenice\ in the Physiologus, etc. A
passage in the Coptic Physiologus mentions regular appearances of the phoenix,
which sacrifices itself and is reborn upon every great event in Biblical history.
(Cf. A. Van Lantschoot, “A propos du Physiologus” in Coptic Studies in honor of
W. E. Crum, p. 357.) This is simply an adaptation of an ancient Egyptian tradi¬
tion, that each new era was marked by a reappearance of the marvellous bird.
44 Hydrion (u§plov) was a word used by the Greeks in Egypt to denote a
vessel to hold lustral water. Upon the text of Zosimos referring to Solomon and
the “hydria” sent into Egypt, cf. Scott, Hermetica, vol. IV, pp. 140-1. In one line
of the Arkhatigelike of Moses, the magician threatens the demons by reminding
them how Solomon had once shut them up in hydria of bronze (cf. Reitzenstein,
Poimandres, p. 295, text and note 2).
Khalkhydras; the latter being marvellous beings with the paws

and tail of a lion and the head of a crocodile; their twelve wings
are of all the colours of the rainbow. They accompany the sun
as the bearers of its warmth and its dew. In Chapter xv we read
that at the rising of the sinning disc, the Phoenixes and Khalk¬
hydras burst into song; and Chapter xix mentions six Phoenixes
and six Khalkhydras in the midst of the angels of the sixth heaven,
with six six-winged beasts, chanting unceasingly. Another and
rather later apocryphon—the third Book of Baruch—gives us in
its Chapters vi and vn some allusions to the unique Phoenix to
add to this picture. This Phoenix flies round in circles in front of
the chariot of the sun, with outspread wings shielding the human
race from its too ardent rays. The bird feeds upon dew and
manna; and an inscription in letters of gold adorns its wings.46
The myth of one Phoenix, or several, which appears in these two
writings must have been fairly widely known, for it occurs again
in Lactantius’s poem De Phoenice at the end of the third century,
which makes the Phoenix a companion of the sun (1. 33) and
depicts the bird saluting the day-star at its rising by the beating of
its wings (11. 43-54).
But what are these strange Khalkhydras who, by their close
association with the Phoenixes, remind us of the allusion of our
Coptic text to “the water-hydria that are in Egypt”? Certainly
the modern commentators on the Book of the Secrets of Enoch—
the only text in which this curious term Khalkhydra had ever been
found until now—have tried to explain it by supposing that
“bronze hydria” were mythological animals who, they con¬
jecture, may be equated with the serpents we find associated with
the choir of Cherubim in a (no less highly exceptional) passage
of the first Enoch (XX, 7).46 But these “ Khalkhydras ”—-our Coptic
text allows no possible doubt—are indeed the bronze hydria in
which Solomon shut up the demons, and which he afterwards
entrusted to the care of the Egyptian priests.
How—we shall be asked—could these vessels possibly turn
45 The passages quoted form the Book of the Secrets of Enoch and from the
third Book of Baruch, are in R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the
Old Testament, vol. II, pp. 436-8, 441 and 536-7.
46 Cf. R. H. Charles, op. cit., p. 436, notes.
into celestial beings with crocodiles’ heads, accompanying the

star of day with singing and the beating of wings ? One can easily
clear up this incredible muddle by turning back to the Arkhange-
like of Moses.47 A passage in that ritual, after invoking the Cheru¬
bim, the Powers, the Dominations, Thrones, Lordships, and the
“creatures with six wings” . . . proceeds to conjure up in similar
fashion the evil spirits who, in the lower heavens, are correspond¬
ingly arrayed in hierarchies: these are the nine hundred and sixty
spirits of the “church of perversity”, who exercise their in¬
numerable and malefic powers over the universe, and whom
Solomon “when he had shut them up in the bronze hydria”
compelled to swear fealty to him.
The close connection between Phoenixes and “ Khalkhydras ”
in the Book of the Secrets of Enoch is, therefore, merely an allusion,
deformed to the point of absurdity, to those inferior spirits,
those fantastic and accursed creatures that Solomon had im¬
prisoned for a time, according to the peculiar myth reported
in the Arkhangelike—a myth which our Coptic writer knew and
referred to by his remarks about “three Phoenixes” and “bronze
hydria in Egypt”.
Finally, of the rare writings mentioned by our compiler, The
Schema of the heavenly Heimarmene is completely unknown. It
may well have been something like the Book of the Seven Heavens
which we have just cited or like the Diagram used by the Ophites
and mentioned by Celsus,48 or, yet again, like the Book of the
Chiefs of the Towns up to the Aether in use among the Peratae,
which is summed up in Book V, § 14, of the Philosophumena.
The aim of the compiler, in enumerating all these writings, was
to enlarge, even more than was directly possible in the pages at
his disposal, the lists of celestial powers to which, for reasons of
astrology or magic, such great importance was attributed. He had
such a peculiar partiality for lists of this kind that he interpolated
some of them even into his transcription of the Secret Book of John.
Another feature of our writing is that it tries to give explana¬
tions of the Semitic names of several of the powers—as, for
instance, its translation of the name Ialdabaoth as “the child
47 Quoted in Reitzenstein, Poimandres, pp. 294-5. 48 See above, p. 7.
who traverses places” (?). Its gloss upon the name of Samael is
‘‘the blind god”—perhaps an allusion to the Jewish tradition that
Moses made Samael bhnd when the latter, in discharge of his
function as the angel of Death, came to fetch him away from this
world.49 Ariael, we are told, bears that name because he has the
face of a lion; and, in fact, Ariael does mean in Hebrew “the lion
of God”. Noteworthy also is the speculation, based on the Semitic
vocabulary, that the name of Adam signifies “blood” and
“earth”.50 Such speculations about the name of Adam were
common in Jewish mysticism. They were indeed so well known
that a distinct echo of them still sounds in the treatise On the
Letter Omega : “The Chaldaeans, the Parthians, the Medes and the
Hebrews name him [i.e. the primordial man] Adam, which
being interpreted is: virgin earth, earth the colour of blood, earth
red as fire, earth of flesh”.
As for the substance of the treatise itself, one would much like
to know who exactly were the adversaries whom the author
wanted to refute, and who said that the universe began with
Chaos: were these, then, defenders of the Hellenic mythology ?
“Before anything was there was Chaos . . . ” as Hesiod had
written in his Theogony (line 116). We also wish we could better
understand how the Gnostic doctor conceives the primordial
principles of the universe, for he does not seem to have at all a
good knowledge of the “three roots” so clearly set forth in the
Paraphrase of Shem. Upon all the other subjects he expounds, this
Coptic writing is particularly rich and clear. In the first place it
develops the parts played by Sophia and by the Saviour—the
primordial Adam; and into this great myth it introduces other
49 Cf. Debarim Rabbah, XI; Acts of Andrew and Matthias, § 24 (in M. R. James,
Apocryphal New Testament, p. 456); “Art thou not called Samael because thou art
bhnd?” Theo. Bar-Konai, Book of Scholia in the edn. Pognon, p. 213; passage
upon the Ophites, where Samael is again referred to as blind.
60 We have already seen, in discussing Justin’s Gnosticism, some speculations
upon the supposed relations between the names of Eden (Edom in the Septua-
gint) and Adam: cf. above chap. 1, note 87. Here, we have some further play
upon words, starting from dam “blood” and edoin “red”. See also Josephus,
Jewish Antiquities, I, X, 2; and also the passage of Olympiodorus we have men¬
tioned, p. 101 and note 84. As for the fictive relationship between each of the
four letters of Adam’s name and the Greek names for each of the cardinal points,
cf. the Sybilline Oracles III, 24; and the Slavonic Enoch, chap. xxx.
speculations, the strangest being that intervention of Eros, the

details of which are borrowed from Hellenic mythology. Let us
reopen Hesiod at the passage we have just mentioned: “Before all
things there was Chaos, then the broad-bosomed earth . . . and
then Eros, the most beautiful among the immortal gods . .
(Theogony, 116-20). It is to the advent of Eros that our Gnostic
relates the birth of the trees, the plants and the animals: and in a
passage of the Danaids of Aeschylus, Eros impels the sky to unite
itself with the earth which, thus fecundated, brings forth for
mortal beings “the grass, food for cattle and com the nourish¬
ment of life. . . . ”51
Thus our author’s mind is still full of the classic myths even
while he is refuting them in principle. This Coptic treatise is an
authentic and admirable example of this particular syncretism to
which certain sects were addicted, and of which we knew hardly
anything until now, beyond what we could gather from portions
of the Philosophumena devoted to heretics such as the Naassenes.52
The Jewish elements in our treatise are of the highest import¬
ance. Of these, certain features are already to be found in the
best known of the Old Testament apocrypha, the Book of Enoch
and the Ascension of Isaiah: such for example is the part played by
Samael-Ialdabaoth, who, having at first been the highest of the
“thrones”, afterwards falls from his dignity and is cast into
the abyss. Thus he becomes the “prince of this world”—of the
world here below;53 thus, also, he engages in battle against the
51 Aeschylus, fragment 44 (Nauck). Cf. also the Orphic cosmogony expounded

by Aristophanes in The Birds, 693-700.
62 According to the Philosophumena, the Peratae in their book, The Chiefs of
the Towns up to the Aether (more or less similar to the Book of the Heavenly Heimar-
mene mentioned in our Coptic text ?) knew the figure of Eros, whom they made
into a celestial power. “There is an androgyne power, a child forever . .
cause of beauty, of pleasure . . . , of concupiscence: the ignorant called him
Eros” (V, 14). Upon this syncretism see below pp. 263ff. Upon the cosmic
Eros, creator of the world, see P. M. Schuhl, Essai sur la formation de la pensee
grecque, 1934, p. 235.
53 This episode of the deprivation of Ialdabaoth and his being supplanted in the
seventh heaven by his son Sabaoth is also known—in another form—from the
First Book of Pistis-Sophia, and from some fragments which are related to that
text. Here we are told how Sabaoth the Adamas (now playing the same part as
Ialdabaoth in our writing No. 40), having plunged into the disorders of pro¬
creation—himself and his archons—was deprived of his rank and shackled to a
Lord (who is now Sabaoth) in the firmament.54 But we must
note above all, how the Gnostic account elaborates the description
of the divine throne, outlined before in the Hypostasis of the
Archons or Book of Norea. This vision originates in the originally
Jewish mysticism of the Merkaba—of the divine Chariot—
developed from the vision of Ezechiel and much amplified in a
whole Rabbinical literature describing the hidden glories of the
heavenly Majesty, the palaces (or Hekhaloth) where he resides,
and the Throne. “This throne”, writes G. Scholem,55 “is to the
Jewish mystic what the Pleroma, the plenitude, the shining
sphere of the divinity with all its powers, its aeons, archons and
dominations is to the Greek mystics and to the first Christian
mystics who appear in the history of religions under the names of
Gnostics and Hermetists.” And it is in its Jewish form that this
mysticism reappears in Gnostic texts. But can it be introduced
here without contradictions? How is it compatible with the
intermediate position between the darkness and the abyss, in the
“middle ways” here occupied by Sabaoth?56 Had Jewish mysti¬
cism ever known such a mixture of ideas ? All these are problems
which it may take a long while yet to resolve.
A rather different account of the history of the higher world,
ending with an invocation taken from some ritual of spiritual
baptism, is given in the Sacred Book of the invisible Great Spirit,
or Gospel of the Egyptians,57 of which there are two copies (No. 2
sphere of fate by the great power named JSou, whilst his son Ibraoth (Sabaoth)
believed in the mysteries of the light and was elevated to heaven whence his
father had fallen.
51 Cf. the battles fought in the heavens by the angels of Samael, mentioned in
the Ascension of Isaiah VII, 9 and X, 29, and in the Biblical Revelation XII, 7 et seq.
These combats between celestial spirits were known before in Mazdaism, and
then in classic astrology: cf. Cumont, Lux Perpetua, p. 299. We find them again
in the Muhammadan Gnosticisms: cf. H. Corbin, “De la Gnose antique a la
Gnose ismaelienne”, p. 123, in Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Fondazione Al.
Volta, Atti de Convegni, i2=Convegno di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, 1956,
Rome, 1957.
65 G. G. Scholem, Les Grands courants de la mystique juive, p. 57; cf. ibid., p. 372,
note 9 and p. 374, note 24.
66 Sabaoth here is perfectly assimilable to the Propator of the mystical text
analysed by Peterson (cf. here, p. 108). There the Propator is, indeed, represented
as the aeon which remains motionless on the constellation of the Chariot, master
of the Pole, surrounded by his decans and myriads of angels.
67 J. Doresse, “Trois livres gnostiques inedits ...”
and No. 7). This sacred book tells us how three great powers
emerged from the invisible Great Spirit: the Father, the Mother
and the Son, all “issuing from the living Silence, emanation of the
everlasting Father”. Then three Ogdoads formed themselves,
among which one finds such names as Domedon-Doxomedon,
the “aeon of aeons”; the Three male Children; Barbelon the
Mother; the virgin Epititiokh. . . . Emanation after emana¬
tion, we are shown, first how Mirothea, mother of the incorrup¬
tible saints, engenders Adamas-light, bom of the primordial
Man; then how the great luminaries appears—Harmozel, Oroiael,
Daueithe, Heleleth. With these are conjoined Grace, Sensibility,
Comprehension and Reflection; then the great Gamaliel, Gabriel,
Samlo and Abrasax; and then Memory, Charity, Peace and the
Life everlasting. Here the incorruptible generation, seed of the
Father on high, is called the “seed of the great Seth”, from the
name of the son of Adamas. At this moment, the great Christ,
whose generation was expounded at the beginning of this
catalogue of entities, but in a part of the manuscript which has
been lost, establishes in the aeons the thrones, powers and glories
which are to constitute the imperishable Church. This completes
the first part of the book.
A following section then recounts how the great Seth returns
thanks to the Invisible Spirit and to its surrounding entities—the
male virgin Iouel, Hesephekh, Doxomedon—beseeching them to
grant him their seed. Thereupon they produce Plesithea, Mother
of angels, a virgin “with four breasts, who brings forth the fruit
from the source of Gomorrha and of Sodom”, and this seed is
established by the great Seth in the third of the luminaries,
Daueithe. Five hundred years after this, Heleleth proclaims,
“Let a king be [set up] over Chaos and over Hell!” Here, a
mutilated page described the appearing of the demiurge Sacla,
who creates for himself the heavens and twelve great angels
charged with the rulership of the seven heavens and of the Amente
(hell). As soon as this hebdomad is achieved, Sacla cries out, “I
am a jealous god and there is no other beside me!” But a voice
from on high answers him, “Man exists, and so does the Son of
Man!” The image of the celestial Man is at once reflected in the
waters. Sacla and his colleagues, in imitation of this, fashion the
first human creature. The formation of this terrestrial Adam is
only briefly indicated; the writer passes on quickly to the subject
of the salvation of the human race of the Perfect, of the seed of
Seth. He says that this seed is “planted in the aeons that have been
engendered’’—aeons of which “the number is the figure of
Sodom’’, and about which this word has been uttered: “The
great Seth has taken his seed from Gomorrha and has transplanted
it into the second place which was called Sodom.” Three divine
visitations, including flood and fire, will come to persecute the
great, incorruptible generation. But we are also told that the
great Seth appealed to the great Invisible Spirit and to the other
powers on high to obtain guardians for them—entities, no doubt
supernatural, who are to protect his seed even to the end of this
lower world. Moreover, the great Seth has had a holy baptism
prepared, the five seals of which will enable his race to escape
from the evil god—the god “of the thirteen aeons”. Then are
enumerated the mysterious entities put in charge of these sacra¬
ments, a few of whose names are already known to us from the
anonymous treatise of the Bruce Codex: these are, besides Iessea
Mazarea Iessedekea, the “great strategi” James the Great, Theo-
pemptos, Isoauel, Mikhea, Mikhar, Mnesinous, Sessenggenpharag-
gen—a name often found also upon the magical gems!—Mikheus
and others. These creatures preside over the “living water” at
“the source of truth”, at the “portals of the waters”, on the
“mountain of Seldao” and on the Mount of Olives, upon the
“way which leads to rest ha the life everlasting”. For the present,
we are told, it will be given to the Perfect only to know these
powers who are authorized to watch over them, and that, thanks
to these beings, they will never taste of death. Later, for them, will
come “the election of the five seals in the Baptism from the
Source”.
The third part of dais mysterious text—though it is mixed
with magical formulas made up of sequences of vowels devoid of
meaning—recalls undoubtedly a baptismal liturgy, which makes
it especially valuable. “I have known thee; I mingled myself with
him who changes not; I armed myself in an armour of light.
... I took shape in the cycle of the riches of the light that is in
my breast, giving form to that which is never begotten. . . .
God of the Silence! thee I invoke, Thee altogether!”
This mystical text comes to its climax with the following
declaration: ‘‘Here it is, the book written by the Great Seth. He
left it in high mountains upon which the sun never rises, nor can
it do so.58 Since the days of the prophets, the apostles and the
preachers, not even [its] name has ever appeared in men’s hearts,
nor could it do so. Their ears have never heard it. This book, the
Great Seth wrote it in the writings of a hundred and thirty years:
he left it in the mountain called Charax so that, in the last time
and in the last instants, it might become manifest.” And here is
the title of this work, still better defined right at the end of it:
“ The Gospel of the Egyptians, a book written from God, sacred
and hidden. ... He who transcribed it is [I] Eugnostos the
agapite, according to the spirit [i.e. his spiritual name]; in the
flesh, my name is Goggessos. ...”
Not only by its impressive attribution to Seth—which enables
us to recognize it as one of the Allogeneous Books referred to by
the heresiologists—but also by the very singular entities that it
mentions, this apocryphon reflects the same doctrines as are
expounded in the anonymous treatise of the Bruce Codex which
was already known. The system in question will be further defined
in several more of the great ‘‘Sethian” writings in our collection.
But the Book of the invisible Great Spirit may well prove to be—
taking into account the sobriety which is peculiar to it—one of
the most ancient revelations of this class.
A Gospel of the Egyptians is mentioned in the Philosophumenas
notice of the Naassenes; and what is there said about it, although
58 Cf. above, note 27, concerning the country of Seir: we are again on the
same inaccessible shores of the mythical Oriental Ocean. An alleged Lapidary of
Aristotle has been preserved in Greek and Hebrew, and in the latter version it is
stated explicitly that the stone Bahit stands “on the coasts of the Ocean [speaking
of the ‘ oriental’ Ocean whither Alexander’s expedition was marching to disaster],
in a place where no light appears and where the sun does not rise”. See J. Ruska,
Das Steinbuch des Aristoteles, 1912, p. 12. It is hard to say, however, where to look
for the Mountain of Charax named here. The only Charax we know of in that
part of Asia was the town built on the Tigris in immediate proximity to the
Persian Gulf (cf. below p. 256) and not in the mysterious regions near the
oriental Ocean.
indefinite, suggests that it was a writing analogous to ours. . . .

However, after gleaning from the other heresiologists all the few
allusions they make to a Gospel of the Egyptians, we find that none
of them coincide with any passage whatever in our Coptic
text—which, moreover, is a treatise, whereas the work referred
to in these refutations seems to have been in the form of a gospel.
A no less peculiar phenomenon, showing how cautious one has
to be, in identifying such and such a manuscript solely from
indications furnished by the Gnostics’ enemies, is that while our
Coptic text contains nothing of what these critics say was in the
Gospel of the Egyptians, it does, on the other hand, have a passage
which Epiphanius (in his section XXVI), quotes as coming from
. . . The Gospel of Philip Z59
We will no more than mention No. 34, a Treatise on the
Triple Epiphany, on the Protenno'ia in Threefold Form; a Sacred
Writing from the Father in a perfect Gnosis ,59a In what poor pages
remain of this manuscript, we have only some fragments of the
end of the work thus entitled. This, again, is a cosmogony, where
much is said of the Great Luminaries and of the celestial Virgin
called Mirothea. We find here the multiple figure of the evil
demiurge, “the great demon who reigns over the abysses of
Amente [of Hell] and Chaos, and who has no form at all and is in
no way perfect, but has only the form of those who are engen¬
dered in the Darkness. They call him Sacla, which is to say
Samael, Ialdabaoth, who has a power which is the Epinoi'a of the
light. ” The prophet into whose mouth this revelation is put lets
us gather, from the last page, that he is identical with the Great
Seth. In ending his prophecy, he recalls his reascent up from the
lower heavens to the celestial world into which, later, he is to
conduct the Perfect: “For myself, I have put on Jesus. I have led
him out of the bitter tree [i.e., out of matter] and I have estab¬
lished him in the abode of the Father. And those who watch over
their abode [that is, the lower angels described as “watchers”]
did not recognize me, for I am an imperceptible, I and my seed
that belong to me: I shall establish him in his holy light on high,
in the Silence unattainable. Amen.”
59 Cf. p. 225. 593 On this work, cf. Appendix I.
Here, once more, is a great apocalypse; the Revelation of Adam

to his son Seth (No. 12). “An apocalypse that Adam revealed to
his son Seth in the seven hundreth year, saying this to him: Hear
my words, my son Seth. When god [i.e. the Archon] created me
from earth with Eve thy mother, I went with her into a glory.
. . . She taught me one thing from the knowledge of the
everlasting God: and that—it was the appearances of the eternal
angels. For these were higher than the god who had created us,
me and the powers who were with me. . . . Then the Archon,
in anger, cut us off from the aeons of the powers. We then be¬
came two aeons, and the glory that was in us deserted us, me and
thy mother Eve; and the primordial knowledge that had breathed
in us also abandoned us. Because of that, I named thee with the
name of the Man [i.e. Seth], who is the seed of the Great Genera¬
tion proceeding from him. . . . After those same days, the
eternal Gnosis of the God of Truth fled far from me and from thy
mother Eve and, after that day, we learned mortal things like
Men. It was then that we knew the gods who had created us, for
we were not at all strangers to his power and we were serving him
in fear and humility. . . .” Here Adam narrates, in a part of the
manuscripts which unfortunately is damaged, how, while asleep,
he dreamt that he saw “three men before me, of whom I could
not bear the sight, because they were not of the powers of this
[world]”. And further on he tells us: “Because of that, the days
of our life became few and I knew that I had passed into the power
of Death. But now, Seth, I will reveal to you the things that have
been unveiled to me. . .
Adam recalls the first proliferation of mankind over the earth,
then the Flood, and the story of the Ark built by Noah, of which
he says that it was also called Deucalion. Shem and Japhet are
mentioned. Soon the exposition passes on to the promises that
were made to the imperishable Generation, and for the future
salvation of humanity. The great celestial powers Mikheus,
Mikhar, Mnesinous, with Abraxas, Samlo and Gamaliel, are to
draw the elect out of the fire up to heaven. And all the stages of a
future devoted to the redemption of the Perfect are here in out¬
line. The Enlighteners of Gnosticism will come down into this
world. At the same epochs as various kingdoms, there is to be a

succession of Saviours, whose births are predicted. Let us quote a
few words from these prophecies: “The second royalty said to his
subject: A great prophet has appeard. ... A bird came; it
took up the little child that had been born and carried him up to a
high mountain where the birds of heaven fed him. An angel came
and said to him, ‘Rise up, God has glorified thee!’ . . . The
third royalty said to him, There has been a virgin mother; they
banished him from his town, him and his mother; they took
him out into a desert place. . . . ” Then there is something
about a Virgin bringing a child into the world and rearing it
somewhere far away in the desert (cf. the Revelation of St John
XII, 6). These revelations are continued as far as to a thirteenth
royalty and perhaps still farther. The final words are: “These are
the revelations that Adam disclosed to his son Seth, and this son
has taught his descendants about them. Here it is, the Gnosis of
the secrets of Adam which Seth has transmitted; it is the holy
Perfection for those who know the Gnosis, eternally, by the
[a number now illegible] incorruptible Enlighteners, begetters of
the Word, who are born of the seed of [ ] Iesseus [
Mazareus [ ] Iessedekeus [ ] the Revelation of Adam.”
Epiphanius (XXVI) said that the great Gnostics made use of a
Revelation of Adam, with which, no doubt, our Coptic book may
be identical, hi the sixth century Bishop John of Parallos in
Lower Egypt was still publicly denouncing these Teachings of
Adam in the course of a homily against the reading of heresies.60
Among the Manichaeans, the tenth chapter of their Book of
Mysteries was devoted to the witness borne by Adam to the
future advent of the Christ.61 The Mandaeans, too, believed it
was Adam to whom the first of the secret books were revealed,
and named their great sacred book of the Treasure—the Ginza
Rba—among these Books of Adam.
Our Coptic book is primarily distinguished by the fact that the
powers which are named in it, Mikheus, Mikhar, Mnesinous, and
60 Cf. Arn. Van Lantschoot, “Fragments coptes d’une homelie de Jean de
Parallos . . . ” in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, vol. I. Citta del Vaticano. 1946
(=Studi e Testi, 121).
61 Ibn An-Nadim, Fihrist, translation of Fliigel, p. 102.
the salvational names of Iesseus Mazareus Iessedekeus are charac¬

teristic of a good many of the Sethian revelations—whether we are
thinking of the Gospel of the Egyptians or of the anonymous
treatise in the Bruce Codex. But the great prophecies which our
work puts into the mouth of Adam the father of Seth were in
themselves known before Gnosticism. Their original substance
appears in writings attributed to Zoroaster, and certainly goes
back to the Avesta,62 Both Gnostics and Manichaeans—as we have
seen—liked to count Zoroaster in the number of their prophets.
In any case these revelations, in their earliest forms, recalled the
coming of saviours of whom the greatest must have been Sao-
shyant, of the line of this same Zoroaster. His myth was
popularized by a number of apocrypha, in which the great
saviour took on characteristics of the Christ, whilst Shem,
Melchizedek and Nimrod came into the story, and Zoroaster
was taken to be identical with the prophets Baruch and Balaam.63
At the same time, now mingling nascent Christianity with these
Iranian and Jewish myths, there were amplifications of the major
episode of the Magi keeping watch for the rising of the star that
was to guide them to Bethlehem for the adoration of the Messiah!
The principal work in which, after a long and obscure evolu¬
tion, all these traditions became syncretized was the Book of the
Cave of Treasures, which enjoyed a prodigious diffusion. It puts
all these revelations into the mouth of Adam as the first of a long
series of prophets, who predicts how the Magi will await the
announcement of the Saviour, near this cave in which Adam
himself will have been interred by Seth, and where the Treasures
are concealed which the Magi will carry to Bethlehem.64 With
63 Cf. Bidez-Cumont, vol. I, part I; upon the successive royalties and the
advent of the saviour, cf also what is said in the same work about the Apocalypse
of Hystaspes, vol. I, pp. 217-22 and vol. II, pp. 364-76: see also Messina, I Magi a
Betlemme, pp. 74-82; cf also above chap. 11, note 72.
64 Cf Bezold, Die Schatrhohle . . . , 1883; Frey, in the Dictionnaire de la
Bible, Supplement, vol. I, cols 134th Monneret de Viilard, loc. cit.; Preuschen,
Die Apokryphen gnostischen Adamschriften aus dem Armenischen ubersetzt . . . ,
Giessen, 1900; A. Gotze, “Die Schatzhohle (Ueberlieferung und Quelle)” in
Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akad. Philos.-Histor. Kl., 1922, No. 4. Preuschen
is perhaps mistaken in trying to assign a Gnostic origin to the writings on Adam
he has translated; more probable is Gotze’s suggestion that the first part of the
Book of the Cave may be founded on a Sethian book.
this book of the Cave we must class a great many other Testaments
or Books of Adam preserved in Syriac, in Ethiopian, in Armenian
or in Arabic.65 ... In the titles of these writings the name of
Seth, as that of the supposed depositary of the loftiest secrets, soon
tended, moreover, to eclipse that of his earthly father in prestige.
Thus the pseudo-Chrysostom, in the Unfinished Commentary on
St Matthew, refers expressly to a Writing put under the name of
Seth.66 In the Syriac Chronicle from the Zuqnin monastery near
Amida (finished about the year 774), the traditions about the
Magi and the advent of the Saviour are summed up in terms
that remind one chiefly of the narrative in the Book of the Cave of
Treasures. However, let us quote from it these lines, supposedly
spoken by the Magi, for they reflect the very general prestige
that was attached to writings entitled, like our Revelation of Adam,
with the name of Seth:
“Adam imparted revelations to his son Seth, and showed him
his original greatness before the Transgression and his going out
of Paradise. He recommended his son Seth never to fail injustice
as he, Adam, had done. Seth welcomed the teaching of his father
with a pure heart ... it was given to him to inscribe this
wisdom in a book and to teach it . . . and thanks to him, for the
first time in this world, there was seen a book written in the name
of the Most High. Seth bequeathed to his descendants the book
thus written, and that book was handed down even to Noah.
... In the time of the Flood, Noah took with him into the
ark the books of these teachings, and when he came out of the
ark, he ordained in his turn that the generations that came after
him were to repeat the many things and the holy mysteries
written in the books of Seth upon the Majesty of the Father and
upon all the mysteries. Hence these books, these mysteries and
this narrative were handed down even to our fathers, who
welcomed them with joy and who passed them on to us . . .
65 Upon the Books of Adam, cf. Frey, “Adam (apocrypha)” in the Dictionnaire
de la Bible, Supplement, vol. I, cols. 101-34—particularly 119, 120 and 122. Cf.
below, our chap, vm, pp. 3 i8ff. on the survival of one of these legends in an Arab
MS. ascribed to Balinus (Apollonius of Tyana).
66 Bidez-Cumont, loc. cit., vol. I, p. 46; vol. II, pp. n8ff.; Monneret de Villard,
loc. cit., pp. 20ff.
and these books of the hidden mysteries were placed in the

Mountain of Victories to the east of our country of Shyr, in a
grotto: the Cave of Treasures of the Life of the Silence.”67
Theodore Bar Konai in the eighth century, and Solomon of
Basra at the beginning of the thirteenth, still knew of such
prophecies, not put into the mouth of Adam, but of Zoroaster—
although the Saviour foretold in them was endowed with
attributes of the Christ. Let us see how the one and the other of
these compilers summarize a passage in these revelations :68
‘‘Zaradusht, seated near the source of [living] water of Glosha
of Hurin [?] . . . , spoke thus to his disciples Sushtap, Sasan
and Mahman [names which, though distorted, are of Iranian
origin]. Listen, that I may reveal to you the prodigious mystery
concerning the great king who must come into the world. At
the end of times, at the moment of dissolution which will put an
end to them, a child will be conceived and formed with its
members in the womb of a virgin, without any man having
approached her. He will be like a tree of lovely fohage and loaded
with fruit, standing upon a parched soil. The inhabitants of that
land will oppose his growing up and will strive to uproot him
from the soil, but will not be able to do so. Then they will lay
hands on him and will kill him on the gibbet; the earth and the
heavens will wear mourning for his violent death and all the
families of peoples will weep for him. He will open the descent
into the depths of the earth and, from the depth, he will mount
up on High. Then he will be seen coming with the army of the
Light, for he is the Child of the Word that engenders all things.
... He will arise from my family and from my line. I am
He, and He is I. I am in Him and He is in Me. At the manifest
commencement of this coming great prodigies will appear in the
sky. A star will be seen shining in the midst of the sky: its light
will outshine that of the sun. So then, my sons, you who are the
Seed of Life issuing from the Treasury of the Light and of the
Spirit, who have been sown in the soil of fire and of water, you
67 Monneret de Villard, loc. cit., pp. 27-8.

68 Bidez-Cumont loc. cit., vol. II, pp. i26ff.; Monneret de Villard, loc. cit.,
pp. I29ff.; and more especially pp. 136-7.
must be on your guard and watch . . . for you will know

beforehand of the coming of the great king for whom the captives
are waiting to be freed. ...”
In this passage the words of Zoroaster “I am He and He is I”69
recall a passage in the notice that Epiphanius devotes to the
Sethians (XXXIX, 3), in which it is said that Christ Jesus is of the
line of Seth according to the seed and succession of the genera¬
tions, but tliis in a miraculous fashion and without having been
begotten. Identical with Seth even when he had become the
Christ, he was sent by the Mother of heaven to dwell among
mankind. This again confirms the identity of some of our myths
given under the name of Seth with some of those ascribed to
Zoroaster—an identity upon which the ancient writings were
sometimes pleased to enlarge.70
Text No. 24 is another apocalypse, with no explicit title, but
it is closely analogous to the Revelation of Adam to Seth. At the
beginning it deals with the Creation, the Flood and the ark of
Noah, as some others of our texts do more concisely. Later on,
it presents some apocalyptic perspectives. We will cite a few
passages from it:
“ . . . it is in that place that the word was made manifest
at the beginning. Then the earth trembled and the towns were
shaken; the birds fed to satiety upon their dead. The earth
[became . . . ] and the universe became a desert. Then, when
the times were accomplished, perversity arose to extremity.
... It was then that the Archon of the Occident and the Orient
set to work to educate mankind in his malignity and to undo all
the teachings and counsels of the Wisdom of truth. . . . ” But
this Archon fails.
“Then opened a new period, which altered the circumstances.
For now came the time when the little child had grown up in its
innocence. Then, the Archons sent to this man their Counter¬
feiter. . . . They were all looking to him [the perverse one]
69 “I am identical with thee, and thou art identical with me: wherever thou
art, I am, and I am sown throughout all things ...” says the Gospel of Eve of
the Cainites, quoted by Epiphanius; see our chap. I, p. 42; cf. Puech, La Gnose et
le Temps, p. 104.
70 Cf. Bidez-Cumont, loc. cit., vol. I, pp. 45ff.
to perform a prodigy: and he did bring about great prodigies:

he reigned over the whole earth and over all that is in the sky:
he set up his throne at the end of the earth, even as it has been
said, ‘ I will deliver unto thee the kings of the Universe! . . . ’
He will work wonders and miracles, and thenceforth hearts will
be hardened and those who follow him will be led into circum¬
cision; he will judge those who remain in uncircumcision, that is,
the Gentiles. For he sent them a number of prophets to instruct
them upon this subject. And when the time that has been assigned
to the earthly kingdom has been accomplished, then will come the
purification of souls, because perversity will have ruled over all
things. All the powers of the sea will be agitated and will dry up.
The firmament will pour out no more rain; the springs will
disappear; the rivers will flow no more. ...”
Similarly apocalyptic perspectives can also be found in the
visions of the end of times which occur in the Manichaean
writings.71
Still another kind of writing is presented to us by No. 30,
A Revelation by Dositheus, or the three Stelae of Seth. This little work,
not more than ten pages long, and without any preamble to
indicate its origin whether real or fictitious, is devoted to the
transcription of these three “stelae”: they are, in fact, three
hymns, of which here is a sample: “Let us rejoice, let us rejoice,
let us rejoice! We have seen, we have seen, we have seen
what truly was in the beginning, what truly was, what was
the first eternal, the unbegotten. From thee came forth the
eternals and the perfect aeons.” The last words are: “This
book is that of the Fatherhood [this Father is the Great Seth].
It is the Son who has written it. Father, bless me. I bless thee,
Father!”
Is this a purely Sethian treatise? Certainly we have found
already, in the Apocalypse of Zostrian, an allusion to three stelae
left by Seth, which are perhaps the same as those here tran¬
scribed.72 The Manichaean literature supplies us with a no less
71 Cf. J. Doresse, “L’Apocalypse Manicheenne” in La Table Ronde, No. no,
Feb. 1957, pp. 40-47-
72 Cf. Manichdische Handschriften der staatlichen Museen Berlin, Vol. I, Kephalaia,
PP- 42-3-
suggestive reference, to a writing which may have been similar

to our Revelation by Dositheus; and which, according to the
words of the Kephalaion X, dealt with “the explanation of the
fourteen great aeons that Scthel [i.e. Seth] expounded in his
prayer”, which included the following: “You are glorious, you
the fourteen great aeons of the light. . . .”
At first sight the Revelation of Dositheus recalls, by its style,
the hymns and the dialogues between master and disciple which
occupy a considerable place in the writings of classic Hermetism.73
No doubt, if the title of this apocryphon had disappeared, one
might even have taken it to be an extract from some lost Hermetic
treatise, such as those which we shall find, in several cases, fitted
in to our Gnostic collection. Basing himself solely upon such
details as we had previously made known to him, Professor
H. C. Puech has already raised the problem of the possible origin
of this text, at the same time pointing out that the Dositheus
mentioned by the heresiologists would seem hardly eligible for
the patronage of any Gnostic work, notwithstanding a “wholly
fabricated” filiation which would make Dositheus into the rival
and the master of Simon Magus—the two prophets being,
moreover, presented as the leading disciples and successors of
John the Baptist.74 Let us add here that other persons of the name
of Dositheus, so little known that several of them might be
allowed an equally vague claim upon our text, are so numerous
that one loses all hope of a sure identification: Rabbinical sources
alone supply ten such names, and we need only open the Real-
Enzyklopadie of Pauly-Wissowa to be able to add eleven
more!75 Thus it is impossible to know whether our Gnostics were
73 Upon the Hermetic prayers, cf. A. D. Nock and A. J. Festugiere, Hcrmis

Trismegiste, vol. I, p. 27, note 79; there is an analogous hymn in the Bruce Codex:
see Charlotte Baynes, loc. cit., pp. 26-33 > in the Pistis-Sophia, cf. S. Schmidt and
W. Till, Koptisch-gnostische Schriften . . . , p. 358, line 15 et seq.
74 Cf. H. C. Puech, Les Nouveaux ecrits gnostiques . . . , p. 125 ; Widengren,
The Ascension of the Apostle and the Heavenly Book, 1950, pp. 49-51, entertains the
tradition of a Samaritan Dositheus, founder of a Gnostic sect; p. 48, note 2; he even
refers to certain features, which he finds in Heidenheim, Bibliotheca Samaritana,
vol. II, pp. xxxv-xl, suggesting contact between Gnosticism and certain Samari¬
tan beliefs. One must also refer to the interpretation and the valuable references
given by R. McL. Wilson, “Simon, Dositheus and the Dead Sea Scrolls”.
76 Realenzyklopadie of Pauly-Wissowa, V, 1605-9.
artificially labelling their Sethian opusculum with the name of the

legendary Dositheus, master of Simon Magus, or whether the
attribution is to some sectary who really existed. Did not Philaster
mention a Dositheus in Iris catalogue of heresies, immediately
after the Sethians.76
As for the actual substance of the Coptic booklet attributed
conjointly to Dositheus and Seth, perhaps we should first of all
remember, in this connection, the predilection of the alchemical,
astrological and Hermetic literatures for themes touching on the
miraculous discovery of secret texts inscribed upon stelae. Fr
Festugiere, in his Revelation of Hermes Trismegistus,77 has written
some definitive pages on this subject. As an example of these
romantic myths, let us only mention a late opusculum on the
origins of astrology, which says that Seth, and then Enoch, in¬
scribed their revelations in Hebrew upon tablets of stone78—and
a passage of Josephus which credits the family of Seth with the
erection of stelae of brick and stone, the former to resist fire and
the latter to survive flood. It is noteworthy that the Syncellus
takes up this last tradition, no longer attributing it to Seth but
to Hermes.79
Upon our No. 41, Exegesis upon the Soul—which is not a great
prophetic revelation but a long treatise by some anonymous
doctor—we must not linger too long. One reads in the preamble:
“The Wise have given the soul a feminine name; it is in truth
feminine and virgin [but] it is also male and female.” Are not the
ideas evoked by these first words somewhat analogous to the
speculations touched upon by Zosimos in his book On the letter
Omega? Indeed, one of the most interesting things about our
Exegesis is that (as we find also in the texts numbered 3 5 and 40)
various eclectic glosses and references have been inserted by the
76 Puech, Les Nouveaux ecrits gnostiques . . . , p. 124, note 6, points out the
somewhat artificial character of the classification thus used by Philaster.
77 Festugiere, Revelation . . . , pp. 319-24.
78 Festugiere, loc. cit., p. 334.
79 Upon these rivalries between the disciples of Hermes and of Seth, and how
the titles of writings were changed from the name of the one prophet to that of
the other, cf. chap. 11, p. 107. The passage of the Syncellus is quoted in Scott,
Hermetica, vol. Ill, p. 391. Cf. J. Doresse, “Hermes et la Gnose” in Novum
Testamentum, I. 1956, p. 62.
compiler of the manuscript. Upon occasion he ranges well out¬

side the specifically Gnostic literature to quote either from purely
Biblical works like Hosea or the Psalms, or from the pagan classics.
He also mentions “the Poet”—Homer—of whom he borrows
certain points from the story of Ulysses and Calypso, and then
passes on without the least embarrassment to the sorrows of
Israel during the captivity in Egypt. Nor need we be surprised
at this mixture. We have only to open the Philosophumena at the
passage about the Naassenes to find that they too made use of the
Odyssey, borrowing from it, as a theme for mystical com¬
mentary, the episode of the Hermes of Cyllene recalling the
souls of the Suitors (Odyssey, XXIV, 1-4).80 Or open the com¬
mentary of Eustathius upon this same Odyssey, and there we find
—compiled from classic sources—an exegesis of the episode of
Ulysses and Calypso that shows clearly why this story attracted
the attention of the Gnostics. “The allegory presents, in Calypso,
our body, which conceals and encloses, like a shell, the pearl of
the soul: that nymph, indeed, imprisoned the wise Ulysses, even
as man is a prisoner in the flesh. . . . Thus Ulysses had diffi¬
culty in leaving Calypso, inasmuch as he was naturally attached
to life. But, by the mediation of Hermes . . . that is to say, of
the Reason, Ulysses regained the philosophic homeland he had
so longed for; that is, the intelligible world [true fatherland of the
soul in the eyes of Platonists.] Similarly he regained Penelope—
Philosophy—after being released and disencumbered from that
Calypso”.81
It was principally in the second century of our era that Nume-
nius of Apamea (that strange philosopher who tried to combine
Platonism with Iranian, Jewish and Egyptian theories, and to
whom Plato was an “atticizing Moses”) developed, as did his
80 Philosophumena, V, 7 and 8. Simon Magus had already made use of the myth
of Circe: cf. Philosophumena, VI, 15; cf. J. Carcopino, Le Mystere d’un symbole
chretien, p. 65 ; Valentinus was clever at re-fabricating pieces in verse to illustrate
his doctrines, by putting together selected lines taken from the Homeric poems:
cf. Jer. Carcopino, De Pythagore aux Apolres, pp. 190-192; the same Valentinus,
by establishing the number of the aeons at thirty, thought thus to equal the
number of the gods hi the Theogony of Hesiod.
81 F. Buffiere, Les Mythes d’Homere et la pensee grecque, 1956, pp. 46ofF We are
following, in part, the translation given in the Notes to this work.
disciple Cronius, similar allegories out of the Homeric texts.82 In

this they were continuing an old Pythagorean tradition.83
Porphyry in his turn was to amplify these tendencies in his
Nymphs' Grotto.8i Thus, by giving place in their myths to some
Homeric themes, the Gnostics were simply following the fashion
of their times.85 We now know, from the paintings in the Gnostic
vault of the Viale Manzoni in Rome, so instructively analysed by
M. Jerome Carcopino, to what an extent the myths of the
Odyssey, treated as allegories of the experiences of the soul
wandering through the world here below, had been complaisantly
adopted by Gnosticism.86
Now that we have come to the works that do not claim to be
very great prophetic revelations but are more of the nature of
commentaries upon them, let us turn to the Epistle of Eugnostos
the Blessed, of which we have two copies, numbered 3 and 8.
We have encountered this Eugnostos once before, as the tran¬
scriber of the Sacred Book of the invisible Great Spirit or Gospel of
the Egyptians, attributed as we saw to the authorship of the Great
Seth (Nos. 2 and 7). The text now to be discussed is presented as
Eugnostos’ own work.
The epistle begins in a rather commonplace manner, reminding
one of the beginning of the Letter of the Gnostic Ptolemy to
Flora87 and that of several other treatises we fmd among our new
writings: “Rejoice! All men who have been born since the
82 Cf. Buffiere, loc. cit., pp. 4i3ff. and 464; H. C. Puech, “Numenius d’Apa-
mee et les theologies orientales” in Melanges Bidez . . . ,1934 and Les Nouveaux
Merits gnostiques . . . , pp. 133-4 (Numenius’ doctrine managed to combine
Gnostic elements with Platonic and Pythagorean conceptions. . . .) Cf. also
Cumont, Lux Perpetua, pp. 344-5.
83 Buffiere, loc. cit., part IV; Carcopino, Le Mystere . . . , pp. 57—68.
84 Buffiere, loc. cit., pp. 4i9ff.
86 Which is already evident from vocabulary: e.g., oblivion; the body
likened to the prison of the soul; prison of the flesh; chains, etc. See Buffiere,
loc. cit., pp. 460 and 465.
86 Cf. above, pp. 92-3. M. Ch. Picard, “La Grande peinture de l’hypogee
funeraire du Viale Manzoni” in the Comptes rendus de VAcademie des Inscriptions
et Belles-Lettres, 1945, pp. 26-51, has shown how these allegories lived on through
the works of Philo, Origen and Augustine, who bequeathed them thus to
mediaeval Christianity; and how the episode of Circe thus came into the tym¬
panum of the narthex of the church of Vezelay, which had previously been taken
to represent the evangelization of the Cynocephales by the Apostle Thomas.
87 J. Doresse, “Trois livres gnostiques inedits ... ”, pp. 154-5.
creation of the world until now are dust. Concerning God they have
sought [to know] who and what he is: they have never found out.
The wisest have indeed, from the order of the universe, guessed
at the truth, but without attaining to it. The philosophers, on the
whole, have conceived three hypotheses, according to which the
world either moves of itself, or else is directed by a Providence,
or else again by a Fate. These three conceptions are false; it is
another theory that will reveal the God of truth.”
Eugnostos then begins to describe the universe as unbegotten.
The God of truth is immortal, ineffable, unknowable, without
beginning.88 He is called Father of the universe. He has a likeness
which is proper to him, which cannot be seen but by himself. He
is altogether intelligence, an ennoia, a thinking, a reflecting, a
reasoning and a power, which are, in their turn, the sources of
the universe, all born from the first knowledge—from the
prescience—of the Unbegotten.
Many people have been mistaken because they have not con¬
ceived the distinction made here: that what is born of destruction
is destructible, but what is born of incorruptibility is indestructible.
Let everyone, therefore, consider first the hidden things, and
then all those that are apparent, even unto the end: thus will he
learn how the Faith in that which has never been manifest ap¬
pears in that which has been made manifest. Here is a principle
of knowledge: The Lord of the universe was not called Father,
but Pro-Father, for the Father is the origin of that which is made
manifest, whereas the First father (Pro-Father) has no beginning—
and Eugnostes here enumerates the attributes of the First father
who, devoid of any origin, sees himself as in a mirror. It is this
First father who has manifested himself in the guise of Father of
himself and Generator of himself, appearances which to him are
equal in duration but unequal in power. Thus, he has made
manifest a vast number of men engendering of themselves, and
these constitute the Generation over which there is no monarchy;
the Sons of the unbegotten Father, who trust in him.
88 Upon the Gnostic definition of the unattainable divinity, cf. Puech, La
Gnose et Le Temps, pp. 81-3; Sagnard, Gnose valentinienne . . . , pp. 333
catalogues the multiple qualifications which make up the description of the
“unknowable” god.
Eugnostos now tries to pass from the Infinite to the Unbegotten.

In the Infinite appeared the Father produced by himself: he
produced an androgynous man whose masculine name is lost to
us, but whose feminine name is Sophia-Pansophos. The im¬
mortal man creates a great aeon with gods and archangels; it is
called God of gods and King of kings; it is Faith in the things
which took place thereafter; it possesses an intelligence, an enno'ia,
a thinking . . . like the primordial being. This first celestial
man, uniting himself with his Sophia, produced a hermaphrodite
son, and this son is the first Father who begets, is the Son of Man
who is also called Adam of the Light. He in his turn creates an
aeon peopled by a multitude of angels who are called the Church
of the holy lights. He unites with his Sophia and produces a great
bisexual luminary who, under his masculine name, is the Saviour
creator of all things, and, under his feminine name, Sophia
generator of all, who is also named Pistis. From these two last
entities are engendered six other couples of spiritual herm¬
aphrodites who produce seventy-two, and then three hundred
and sixty other entities: the patterns upon which these series of
beings are modelled being those of eternity, the eras, the years,
months and days, whilst the hours and the instants were the
models for the archangels and the angels.
For the twelve principal entities that he has created, the Saviour
fabricates twelve aeons and twelve angels, six heavens in each
aeon and five firmaments in each heaven. All this “is good and
perfect”. True, the description that Eugnostes gives us of it is
somewhat complicated and obscure.
The author finishes by describing the passage from multi¬
plicity to unity. Here he reminds us that the partner of the
immortal Man was called Silence, because the greatness of his
incorruptibility was achieved in a thought without words.
Lastly, he tells us: All these entities were created by the thrones
and the royalties in the heavens and in the firmaments. In that
place there are neither troubles nor storms. Thus were they
completed, the aeons, the heavens and the firmaments, by the
immortal Man and Sophia his companion. It is from them that
all tilings, even unto the Chaos, have taken their patterns. The
work then closes upon these few hnes: “ Now, all the things that I
have just told thee, I have told them in such manner as thou couldst
bear, before the ignorance in thee is enlightened, and as would im¬
plant all these tilings in thee, with a purified joy and knowledge.”
Who were the adversaries that our Gnostic doctor had in
mind? Who were those who, “wiser” than others, had in his
opinion come a little way towards the truth? Or those, again,
who had gone astray through not knowing how to discern the
fundamental difference between the perishable and the imperish¬
able ? Did he thus mean to reply to criticisms directed against the
Gnostic dualism by some pagan doctors—those, for instance, of
Plotinus or his disciples?89
With a few secondary variants, the description he gives of the
higher world corresponds with such glimpses as we generally
obtain from the heresiologists’ notices of the Valentinians, the
Barbelognostics, the Ophites and the Sethians (as, e.g., in
Irenaeus I, 30), etc. . . . His exposition therefore presents us
with no such striking novelties as do the other treatises dealing
with subjects hitherto little known to us. Nevertheless, Eugnostos’
account has perhaps an advantage in that it specifies to us the
myths of which an exposition is missing, and helps us better to
understand another book, at the beginning of so important a
text as our No. 40. It is even possible, in view of the lack of any
title at the beginning of this text No. 40, and of the way in which
it explains the genesis and arrangement of the lower world—a
topic on the brink of which Eugnostos’ exposition stops short—
that we have here a writing which was, originally, the continua¬
tion of our Epistle of Eugnostos.
One proof of the importance our sectaries attached to the letter
of Eugnostes is that the jar of Chenoboskion has yielded us two
copies of it. Another is that there is also a pirated version in which,
under the title of The Sophia of Jesus (No. 4), exactly the same
material as the Epistle—preamble and all!—has been cut up and
cunningly put together again in the form of an alleged dialogue
between the Christ and his disciples. We will examine this other
version later; it too must have been thought highly important, for,
89 Cf. above chap. I, p. 53.
besides the copy restored to us from Chenoboskion, there is a

second Coptic version of this same Sophia in the Gnostic Codex
at Berlin. Finally, a fragment of the same work in Greek has been
found by Professor Puech in the papyrus of Oxyrhynchus No.
1081. This last proves that the Sophia of Jesus—as, doubtless, the
majority of our writings—was transcribed into Coptic from the
Greek, and that consequently the original Epistle of Eugnostos
from which it was fabricated, was also in Greek.90
One would like a better glimpse of the personality of this
spokesman for the Great Seth, Eugnostes, whose name survives
attached to works of which, all told, no less than five have
reached us! His spiritual name91 is Eugnostos “the well-known”
—why is he not called, more happily, Eugnostes “the good
Gnostic”! In taking the surname of “the Agapite” he is pro¬
fessing his affection for his brethren. And his secular name of
Goggessos would signify “the Murmurer”—a detail less negli¬
gible than it may look at first. The term “murmurers” was in
fact that which neighbouring peoples (Syrians, Arabs . . .)
commonly applied to devotees of the religion of Zoroaster. This
was a reference to one of their distinguishing characteristics: for
not only did Zoroastrians whisper their long prayers (unlike the
other pagan clergy who prayed in a loud voice), but it was also
in an actual “murmuring” that they transmitted to their disciples
the texts of the sacred books themselves, which were not, until a
very late period, committed to writing.92
90 H. C. Puech, Communication to the Vlth International Congress of

Papyrology, Paris, 1949.
91 Upon these mystical names, see Carcopino, Mystere . . . , pp. 45-6 and
61-2; Helene Wuilleumier, “Etudes historique sur l’emploi et la signification des
signa” in the Memoires presentes a VAcademie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, XIII,
2, PP- 599-695- Persistence of this usage even into mediaeval Manichaeism,
H. C. Puech and A. Vaillant, Le Traite contre les Bogomiles de Cosmas le Pretre,
1945, p. 27: Sylvanus who was Constantine, Timotheus who was Gegnesios,
etc. . . .
92 Upon this appellation of “murmurers”, see Bidez-Cumont, loc. cit., vol. I,
p. 90, note 4; vol. II, p. 112, note 1; 119, note 6; 245 (excerpt O.100 from
Prudentius, Apotheosis, 494); 285, note 3. Cf. also O. Braun, Ausgewdhlte Akten
Persischer Martyrer (Bibliothek der Kirchenvdter, XXII, 1915), p. 204, § 20; Fr
Nau in the Revue de L’Histoire des Religions, vol. XCV, 1927, p. 180; West,
Pahlavi Texts, vol. I, p. 278, note 1; Chavannes-Pelliot, “Un Traite mani-
cheen ... ”, pp. 181-2.
Forty-Four Secret Books I97
This unknown personage—this Goggessos—is, up to the

present, the only Gnostic doctor who was certainly a historical
reality and is also directly known to us through his writings.
Am°ng other great apocalypses and Sethian treatises in our
i rary we have still to mention No. 31, The Interpretation of the
Gnosis, and then some other works without their titles, or serious-
y damaged, as is the case with No. 16 which deals with the great
luminaries and other beings of the lngher world. This last con¬
cludes as follows: “These revelations—disclose them not to
anyone who is in the flesh, for [he is] disembodied who reveals
them to thee!—When, therefore, they had heard these things, the
Brethren who belong to the Generation of Life praised them up
to the highest heavens. Amen.”
To this same category also belong the writings Nos. 13, 17, 18
and the isolated pages catalogued under No. 43. These last come
rom a work which, among other subjects of very general moral
tenor, dealt with the influence of demons upon men’s souls.
Finally No. 44, in which invocations consisting solely of sequences
of vowels are mixed up with speculations about the cosmos,
may be^ since it contains the term Symphonia—a work which,
according to Epiphanius (XL, 2), was used by the Archontici:
“They make abundant use of that book called Symphonia, in
which they define the celestial circles to the number of eight or of
seven. . . . Llere one must remember, also, those symphona
which are curious sequences of seven vowel-sounds, each one of
which is mystically consecrated to one of the planets, the com¬
bination of them being supposed to express the harmony of the
celestial spheres.93
GNOSTICS DISGUISED AS CHRISTIANS
Together with these revelations and treatises winch without any

equivocation expound the most original of the Gnostic myths,
we find, in the library of our Egyptian sectaries, some writings
that are Christian in appearance, but which present the same
Gnostic expositions in disguise.
93 Puech, Archontiker ... ”, cols. 636-7; Preisendanz, Akephalos, der
kopfiose Gott, 1926, pp. 34-5.
The most characteristic of these is the Sophia of Jesus (No. 4),

a work of which—as we have already remarked—there is another
version in the Berlin Codex, and of which fragments have been
recognized by Professor Puech in a papyrus of Oxyrhynchus
dating from the third century.94 This Sophia or Wisdom of Jesus
includes the essential contents of the Epistle of Eugnostos cut up in
order to provide, for an imaginary dialogue, the replies of Jesus
to questions put to him by his disciples. Since this adaptation
preserves the text of Eugnostos—most of it word for word—the
Wisdom was most probably composed after Eugnostos’ treatise
and not the other way round. Moreover the result reads rather
oddly, when we fmd Jesus, who has just appeared in the form of a
great angel, speaking the learned and philosophic language of the
preamble to the Epistle of Eugnostos. The intention, no doubt,
was thus to give the Epistle the prestige of a revelation attributed
to Christ himself—hardly realizing that it might have the opposite
effect so to attach the authority of Christ (however fictitiously) to
a writing which many initiates must have known already, and
bring it down to the level of a mere letter by a Gnostic master.
Nevertheless the Sophia of Jesus is, in part, original: a few supple¬
mentary pages at the end extend the discussion over some subjects
Eugnostos did not touch upon.
Let us summarize, not the actual contents of the work, which
we have already analysed in its form as an epistle, but at least the
new frame in which they are set.
The book begins with a prologue recalling those of the books
oiPistis-Sophia. After the Resurrection, the disciples are in Galilee,
on the mountain.95 They question one another in vain about the
substance of the universe, the divine economy and providence.
Then suddenly Jesus appears to them in the guise of a great angel
64 Cf. note 90.
95 Among them appears the mysterious Mariamne to whom James the brother
of Jesus transmitted the doctrine that the Lord had revealed to him, and that the
Naasenes boasted of possessing. (Philosophumena, V, 7). The Manichaean writings
recovered in Coptic also know of her; some Gnostics mentioned by Celsus (see
Origen, Contra Celsum, V, 62) refer to her. The first of the Priscilhanist treatises
mentions her in a context including the names of some Gnostic entities—Arma-
ziel, Ioel, Barbilon (cf. Puech, Les Nouveaux ecrits . . . , p. 114, note 3). We
wonder whether Mariamne identifies with Mary the mother of Jesus or with
Mary Magdalene.
Forty-Four Secret Books I9p
of light, and replies to their questions. Philip questions him first

on the subject of the hypostasis of the universe and its economy;
and the Saviour replies to him: “I wish you to know that all men
bom since the creation of the world until now are dust. . ”
Thence onward, the text of Eugnostos flows from his mouth,
punctuated only by the pseudo-questions of the apostles. Two
pages give us, however, a few variants. The Adam-Light receives
the additional names of Christ and of Son of God. Furthermore,
mstead of giving us the list of the six pairs of spiritual androgynes
whom the Saviour and Pistis-Sophia have engendered, the
Wisdom of Jesus interpolates a different exposition in reply to the
question of a disciple who desires to know how these higher
entities were able to come down into the cosmos. “The Son of
Man , rephes the Christ, joined with Sophia his companion
and produced a great androgyne light: the masculine name of it is
‘Saviour generator of ah things’; its feminine name is ‘Sophia,
universal genetrix’, who by some is called ‘Pistis’. All those who
come into the world are sent by the latter, in the manner of a
drop from the kingdom of the Light of the All-Powerful.
As for me, I have come thus from the heavenly places by the will
of me great Light; I have dehvered this creation, I have undone
the work of the sepulchre of robbers, I have awakened Adam,
to the end that, through me, this drop which has been sent by the
Sophia may bear abundant fruit, that it may become perfect, that
it may no more lack anything . . . that its sons may be
glorified . . . and that they may ascend towards their Father,
that they may know the works of the masculine light. ...”
This brief passage may have been taken from some treatise in
which the descent of the Saviour into the lower regions was
mythically elaborated; an example of which is found in the long
versions of the Secret Book of John (Nos. 6 and 36).
Although the text of the Sophia of Jesus goes on to what was
the end of the writing of Eugnostos, it refrains from copying the
very last lines of the Epistle (which would have exposed the
fraud) and replaces them by simply writing: “All these things I
have been telling you, I have told them to you that you may be
illumined by the Light. The Sophia continues, after this, for a
few more pages of dialogue, in which are debated such subjects

as the descent into the cosmos of the luminous particle which
comes to animate and save the creature. To a question of Mary’s,
“Lord, whence have thy disciples come, whither are they going,
and what will they do down there?” [That is the fundamental
question from which all Gnostic meditations begin!] the Saviour
replies by recalling the error of Sophia who wanted to create by
herself without a male partner, so that the Father of the universe
had afterwards to spread a veil of separation between the Im¬
mortals and this imperfect creation. In the eschatology here
outlined, we learn that certain human beings will attain to the
place of rest, while some others “will become light in the Spirit
of the Silence”; that he who will know the Son of Man in know¬
ledge and in charity will ascend even to the interior of the
Ogdoad, that is, into the higher realms.
Here, the Chenoboskion manuscript presents a lacuna which
the Berlin Codex enables us to fill: the Saviour recalls the descent
into the lower world by which he is coming to deliver the
human creature enslaved to the Archons. “I have struck off the
chains ... I have broken down the doors of the Pitiless and
humiliated them. . . .” Then he concludes: “I have revealed
to you the name of the Perfect and the whole desire of the
Mother of the Angels. I came to reveal to you that which exists
since the beginning. I came because of the pride of the archi-
genitor and his angels, who say, ‘We are the gods!’ to condemn
them by revealing to everyone the God who is above the uni¬
verse. Trample under foot their sepulchres! Let their yoke be
broken, that mine may be exalted?” And here are the last words:
“These are the things that the Perfect Saviour revealed to them.
From that day onward, the disciples set themselves to preach the
gospel of God, incorruptible and eternal. Amen”.
Such is this Sophia of Jesus which C. Schmidt, when he gave
the first account of the contents of the Berlin Codex in which he
had found a version of it, proposed—for insufficient reasons—
to identify with a work ascribed to Valentinus which had also
been entitled Sophia.
To the same category of works which, at first purely Gnostic,
were later disguised as Christian books, belongs one of. the most
important writings of our collection—the Apocryphon (that is,
the secret Book) of John. Of tins the library of Chenoboskion even
offers us two different versions. The more concise of the two is
our No. i, of which there is another recension contained in the
Gnostic codex in Berlin. The edition of our No. 6 is more
elaborated. Moreover, No. 36 (of our Codex X) gives of this
developed version of the treatise a text that is much amplified
and enriched by personal glosses. Here, in brief, is what this
major text contains:
The preamble shows us the apostle John, brother of James,
shortly after the Crucifixion, troubled by the brutal and ironic
question that has just been flung in Inis face by a Pharisee named
Arimanios, in the Temple: “Where has your Master gone
now?” John withdraws to the mountain. His spirit is harassed by
various problems: Why was the Christ sent into the world by his
Father? Who is his Father? What is the aeon like, to which we
are going ? But then the heaven opens; out of it shines a vision;
a transcendent entity appears, seemingly in the form of a young
man, a woman and an old man, and declares to the apostle that
it is at once the Father, the Mother and the Son. (Is this, then,
the Protennoi'a in triple form to which our treatise No. 34 is
devoted?) It reveals to John the secrets of the universe, visible and
invisible, past and future, so that he may transmit them to the
Generation of the Elect.
First of all the primordial being—although invisible and
inconceivable—is described at length. He does not participate in
all the aeons; he has no duration; he exists calmly and at rest in
the Silence. He contemplated his own image in the waves of pure
Light that surround him. By the thought (the enno'ia) of this
invisible Father, a preliminary creation is made manifest; this is
the beginning of the formation of the higher world. This entity
is the perfect power Barbelon (sic), thought and image of the
Father, who makes himself into primordial man and virginal
spirit. Thus is produced the first thought of the universe—the
pronoi'a—which is also an ennoia. Then, at the request of Barbelon,
are successively produced prescience, incorruptibility and life
eternal: these are androgynous aeons which, with Barbelon and

the first ennoia, constitute two series of five. After this Barbelon,
by gazing intently into the Light, conceives a spark which be¬
comes the only Son—the Monogene—or Christ. He is the god
begotten of himself, who is possessed of intelligence, will and
word. Through the Christ, there appear the four luminaries,
Harmozel, Oroi'ael, Daueithe and Heleleth—who, each ac¬
companied by other aeons, constitute twelve in all. After them
appear, the perfect Man Adam, then his son Seth, and finally
the holy Generation of the Spiritual, or Seed of the Great Seth.
They are installed in the Aeons of the three first luminaries, and,
together with the Autogenes, they bless the Father, the Mother
and the Son.
Then is recalled the history of Sophia and of the lower creation
of which she had rendered herself guilty. Sophia, contrary to
the Spirit, wished to create as the primordial Father did; that is,
alone and without the collaboration of a partner. She fails, and
gives birth to a monster like a serpent and a lion in appearance,
Ialdabaoth—to whom the long version in our collection adds the
names of Sacla and of Samael. Ashamed of the abortion she has
engendered, Sophia conceals it in a cloud of light, so that none of
the celestial powers, except the holy Spirit, also called Mother of
the living—Zoe—may see it. Ialdabaoth, who has taken from the
Mother a portion of the celestial power, makes himself the demi¬
urge of the world below—of the visible universe. In the regions
where he establishes himself he creates, in a flame of fire, his own
cosmos. By uniting himself with the ignorance that is in him,
he engenders, first, twelve powers—Athoth, Harmas, Galila,
label, Adonaiu also called Sabaoth, Cain whom the generations
of men call the sun, Abel, Abiressia, Iobel, Harmupiael, Mel-
kharadonin and Belias; the last to reign over the abyss of hell.
Here the long version of the Secret Book (No. 36) inserts a
curious allusion to the myth of the struggle of the Darkness
against the Light, which is not clearly indicated in any other
of our writings except the Paraphrase of Shem. Ialdabaoth—it
says—is an unknowable Darkness. But the Light, when it reached
to the Darkness, made the Darkness shine, whilst the Darkness,
when it pursued the Light, was no longer either Light or Darkness,

but found itself despoiled.
Ialdabaoth—continues our mythographer—set up seven kings
(one for each celestial firmament)—over the hebdomad of the
heavens, and five others over the abyss, in order to govern them.
Filled with generations of archangels and angels, this creation
continues until there are angels to the number of 360 (in text
No. 1 of the Berlin Codex) or 365 (in the longer version). This
creation partly reflects the one we have just recounted above, for
here we find listed, Athoth, Eloaiu, Astaphaios, Iao, Sabaoth,
Adonin, Sabbataios. . . . All these entities have the heads of
fantastic animals. Can we explain this very curious repetition of the
list of powers, sometimes differently named ? bias there been some
confusion of texts? But the treatise itself suggests, incidentally,
an explanation of this peculiarity. It mentions that each of these
powers of the lower heavens is obliged to have two names: to
each of them one name was given by its creator the demiurge,
and the use of this name has a glorifying and fortifying effect
upon it: the other name was assigned by the beings of the higher
world; and the effect of this, when it is used, is to reduce the power
it designates to obedience, and bring it to weakness and de¬
struction.96
Each of these powers finally takes into its service various
abstract entities: perfection, prescience, divinity, domination,
royalty, jealousy, wisdom, etc. . . .
Seeing his creation completed, and contemplating the angels
round about him, Ialdabaoth cries out in his pride: “I am a
96 This allusion to the two names that govern each power went with the
theory that, for example each of the seven planets was associated with both a
benevolent spirit and a spirit of disorder. Cf. Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 52, note
3. This agrees also with what is said in the magical writing called the Testament of
Solomon, of which chapter xviii is well translated by W. Gundel, in Dekane und
Dekansternbilder, Gluckstadt und Hamburg, 1936, pp. 383-5- For each demon that
Solomon calls to appear before him and to be exorcized, there is given, besides
his proper name, that of the appropriate angel whose name alone suffices to
exorcize that demon. Thus, the eighth of the genies invoked by Solomon declares:
“I call myself Belbel; I wring the hearts and diaphragms of people. But if I
hear ‘Kharael, shut up that Belbel’, at once I am enfeebled!” The twenty-fifth
demon says in his turn: “ I call myself Rhyx Anatreth; I send disturbance and
fever into the bowels. But as soon as I hear ‘Arara Arare’, at once I faint
away!I ”
jealous god and there is no other god but me!” But—the writer
of these revelations points out—Ialdabaoth discloses by his
impudent words that there does exist a divinity superior to his
own, for how could he declare himself “jealous” if there were
no other god at all?
Then his mother, Sophia, grieving over her disgrace, begins to
wander hither and thither. To John, who questions him about
this, the Christ—the whole narrative has now been put into his
mouth—likens the coming and going of Sophia above the abyss
to the Spirit of the Creator moving upon the face of the waters in
Genesis. But, he adds, and he repeats this whenever the Gnostic
myth comes near the Biblical account that he is turning upside
down—“Above all, you must never understand that in the sense
that Moses said it.”
The repentance and the tears of Sophia touch the supreme
powers, who answer her prayers. They do not take her back into
her higher aeon; they enable her, however, to dwell in the
Ennead where she is to remain until she recovers from her fall.
The Spirit spreads around her a force taken from its plenitude
(its Pleroma), and the spouse of Sophia comes down, at last, to
help his companion by giving her a pronoia—a prescience. At
the same time, a voice from heaven replies to Ialdabaoth’s blas¬
phemous exclamation and declares that “Man exists, as well as
the Son of Man!”— a reply that is not fully understood until one
refers to the more developed version of it in our writing No. 40.
And thereupon the astonished archontic powers, as they bend
over the waters in the depths of the realm of matter, see them
illuminated by the image of the celestial First Man. The very
foundations of the earth quake at this vision.
Ialdabaoth then says to his powers: “Let us go and create a man
in the image of God and in our image, so that his image may
supply us with light!” Each of the lower powers then takes as a
model one feature of the image that has been revealed from on
high, and creates a substance in imitation of the perfect First Man.
At the same time they all cry: “Let us call him Adam, so that his
name may be a power of light for us!”—and every Archon sets
to work. Perfection creates a soul of bone, the Pronoia makes a
soul of nerve-tissue, etc.97 . . . Thus the innumerable parts

of the body are fabricated, each by an appointed power. Last,
comes the creation of the passions: and here the long version of
the text (No. 36) dwells even longer than do the others on the
catalogue of the creative entities, complacently listing their
fantastic names, and even dren not enough to please the learned
compiler, who lets us know there are still others that he omits:
“If thou wouldst know them they are written in the Book of
Zoroaster”.
Thus was completed the body of the terrestrial Adam. But
neither the seven powers of the lower heavens, nor the 360 or
365 angels could manage to stand it upright. Then was it that, in
answer to the prayer of the Mother, who wanted to take back
from Ialdabaoth the power she had originally yielded to him, the
Father on high sent five of his messengers disguised as angels to
the Demiurge. Their mission was to give the latter such advice
as would make him divest himself of this power and, at the same
time, give life to the as yet inert Adam. “Breathe thy spirit into
his mouth, and his body will stand upright.” But as soon as
Ialdabaoth has acted upon this deceptive advice, the body of
Adam becomes not only strong, but resplendent. Thus animated,
the earthly man has become superior to those who created him.
The powers that fashioned him perceive this; they declare that
he is wiser than themselves, and, seized with jealousy they cast
Adam into the nether regions. This passage should be compared
with a quotation given by Clement of Alexandria in his Stromateis
II, 8; where, following some writing similar to our Secret Book,
he mentions the terror that came over the creator-angels at the
sight of this being they had just formed, when the latter began to
97 This very scholarly list of the seven bodily elements is undoubtedly of
Greek origin. It had been borrowed by Iran: Zaehner, Zurvan, p. 162, points to
it in the Zdtsparam, where each of these parts of the body is fabricated by one of
the seven planets. The Manichaeans also knew it (Kephalaia, p. 107, lines 29-32).
A quotation from the Apocalypse which is in the name of John, included in the
description of the Audians by Theo. Bar-Konai, bears upon this subject; his
details convince us that the work which the Syriac doctor knew under this title
was indeed the same as our Secret Book of John (cf. above, chap. 1, p. 56); one
should refer also to H. C. Puech, “Fragments retrouves de l’Apocalypse
d’Allogene”, pp. 938-9): Bar-Konai affirms that this myth had been borrowed
“from the Chaldaeans”.
20 6 The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
utter words out of all proportion with its first origins—sayings

that “came to him from Him who, without letting himself be
seen, had planted in him a seed of the substance from on high,
and was speaking through him so fearlessly”.
Upon this the Metropator—that is, the merciful and beneficent
Mother—seized with pity for the power which had been thrown
into the psychic and sensitive body of Adam, sent as its saviour a
spark, a Thought of light called Zoe. But the Archons, with the
four elements (fire, earth, water and wind) which they forge
together, build another material body which—says our longer
version—is to be “the cavern of the refashioning of the bodies
with which they, the brigands, have clothed Man! that is, the
bondage of oblivion. Thus did man become mortal; this was the
first fall, the first separation. . .
The Archons take Adam away and place him far below, in
Paradise, the delights of which are bitter and illusory. The Tree
“of life” is, in its every detail, made of perversity; soon to be
associated with it is the “counterfeiting” spirit designed by the
Archons to counteract the spirit descending from on high. But
in the Tree of knowledge of good and evil lies hidden also the
epinoia—the Thought, or spark of light, sent by the Mother.
“Was it the Serpent who taught Adam to eat of that tree?” asks
John. The Saviour answers, with a smile, “The Serpent only
taught him the seed of desire, hoping thereby to enslave Adam;
but he saw that Adam was not obeying him, because of the
thought of light that was in him”.
Then the Demiurge wants to take away from Adam the
strength that is in him. In terms that are still, in part, those of the
Biblical Genesis, he causes a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and
tries to take from the body of the first man, out of his side, this
thought of light, which however escapes him and he catches only
a part of it. But with this he fashions a second creation in the form
of a woman, a creation which is made to shine by the spark of
hght, whilst Adam is recovering from his stupefaction by the
Darkness in which he was temporarily immersed. Regaining
consciousness, he immediately recognizes her as one of his own
kind: “This is bone of my bone. ...” Soon afterwards, Eve
and Adam taste of the Tree and, by its means, of the perfect
Gnosis. According to our long version, the first couple are
incited to transgress the orders of the Creator by the Saviour
himself, who says: “I manifested myself in the form of an eagle,98
upon the Tree of Knowledge (winch tree is the spark sprung
from the foreknowledge of the holy Light) in order to teach them,
and to uplift them from the abyss of destitution.”
Then Ialdabaoth, seeing that they had both become estranged
from him, but not at all understanding what a mystery had been
enacted, cast them out of the garden. And then, filled with desire
at the sight of Eve’s radiant beauty beside her husband, he seduced
her and begot two sons, one with the face of a bear, who is the
just Abel; and the other with the face of a cat, who is the unjust
Cain. Lastly, Ialdabaoth implants in Adam the seed of desire, in
order that the bond of carnal union should be established, and
that, according to the “spirit of counterfeit” created by the
Archons to combat the action of the light in every human being,
Adam and Eve may reproduce their kind. Seth alone will escape
from this curse, and be born from the first couple after the superior
pattern of the perfect Generation.
Thus the text already adumbrates the divine plan by which the
holy Generation that is to be born of Seth will be progressively
awakened from oblivion here below and out of the perversity of
the cavern.
At this point is interpolated a more consequent dialogue
between the Saviour and John, a dialogue which, both in style
98 For Plato, before this, the eagle was a symbol of the soul; it was also the
messenger of the solar god (Cumont, Lux Perpctua, pp. 294-5)! but one never
finds it anywhere in the Gnostic or related literatures, unless among the Man-
daeans—and there in the form of the white eagle captured by Anosh-Uthra
when he descends upon Jerusalem (according to the Ginza, quoted by Tondelli in
“II Mandeismo ... ”, p. 53); Hibil-Ziwa also manifests himself in the form of a
white eagle (Lidzbarski, Johannesbuch . . . , pp. 235 and 131). Perhaps one
could illustrate this passage from the design of an ivory tablet of the fifth century,
preserved in the Bargcllo (see A. Venturi, S tori a dell’Arte Italiana, I, Milan, 1901,
p. 421 and fig. 385 ; Saxl, Mithras, 1931, p. 82 and fig. 182): Adam, according to a
symbology applied earlier to Orpheus, is shown, in paradise, surrounded by
various animals. He is recumbent, right at the top of the panel, under a tree,
in the branches of which is perched an eagle which seems about to speak into the
ear of the first man, while the serpent is crawling some distance away, right at the
bottom of the picture.
and content, recalls some analogous passages in the Pistis-Sophia.

It is manifestly an interpolation. Will all souls be saved? Where
will they go when they leave the body? To which questions the
Saviour answers by describing two opposite influences, that of
the spirit of life coming from on high, and that of the counter¬
feiting spirit fashioned by the Archons; whence it is that there are
two souls dwelling in man, in varying proportions, from the
time of his birth, and they wage war within him with varying
success. Even those souls which, upon leaving the body, do not go
straight into the places of rest, will pass through cycles which
may yet bring them to salvation. Only those who, having had the
Gnosis, have then turned away from it too late, will be thrown into
hell with the angels of destruction—the infernal angels—and will
remain there with them in eternal punishment."
Now the principal text resumes its course. We are told how
the Demiurge bound to the sphere of Destiny (i.e. to Time) the
powers of heaven, the demons, and men;100 then how Noah was
taught by the Light, but could not get a hearing from the rest of
mankind. At the same time the Creator, displeased, decided to
destroy this base world. Then Noah and the men of the perfect
Generation, instead of withdrawing into an ark, as Moses falsely
pretended, were taken into a cloud of light101 which sheltered
them when the waters and the darkness of Ialdabaoth spread over
all the earth.
Finally, enlarging upon an episode which the Biblical Genesis
places before the Flood, the Secret Book explains how, the better
to ruin mankind, the Demiurge decides to send his angels down to
the daughters of men, to beget upon them a perverse posterity.
In this the angels fail until they take on the appearances of husbands
99 This theme of the destiny of souls had been treated in the Phaedo, 8oe-82a;
see also the fragment XXIII of Hermes Trismegistus (=the Kore Kosmou) in the
edn. Festugiere-Nock, vol. IV, p. 12 and vol. Ill, p. cc.
100 Upon the Archons being chained—or flayed, according to Manichaean
teachings—cf. Cumont, Recherches . . . , pp. 25-7; G. Widengren, Mesopo¬
tamian Elements in Manichaeism . . . , 1932, pp. 34ff., A. W. Jackson, Researches
in Manichaeism .... 1932, pp. 31 and 39; the Coptic Kephalaion LXIX,
p. 167. Upon the setting in motion of this heavenly host: Cumont, Recherches,
p. 37; Jackson, loc. cit., p. 39.
101 Cf. I Epistle to Corinthians X, 1; “All our fathers were under the cloud”,
which alludes in reality to Exodus XIII, 21.
of these women and, moreover, seduce them by gifts of gold,

silver, iron and copper and all the techniques relating to them.
This passage is inspired by an apocryphal tradition that is found
also in the book of Enoch. Thus the great angels manage to instil
into the daughters of men their own spirit of darkness, with
which they gorge themselves before coupling with them.
The revelation ends upon an account of salvation which is not
very clearly developed except in the two long editions (Nos. 6
and 36). The text of the short version (No. 1 of the Berlin Codex)
transcribes a recension which had been mutilated and corrupted
by some earlier copyist. Let us summarize what appears in our
texts Nos. 6 and 36—the only intelligible versions. There we have
a great description of the celestial Power (which here is the
Metropator, the Mother) going to awaken Adam from his
immersion in the outer Darkness. The style of this passage gives
it something of the lilt of a hymn, in the course of which the
Metropator repeats: “I am the riches of the Light; I am the
memory of the Pleroma”. “I walked”, it says, “in the depth of
the Darkness, and I persevered until I attained to the middle of
the prison, to the foundations of Chaos.” At the third of these
descents into hell “my countenance shone with the light of the
ending of their aeon. I penetrated to the midst of the prison,
that is, of the prison of the body, and I said: ‘Let him who hears
wake up from heavy slumber!’ Then Adam wept and shed heavy
tears, and then he dried them, saying, ‘Who called my name?
And from whence comes this hope, while I am in the chains of
the prison?’ I replied, ‘I am the pronoia of the pure light; I am
the thought of the virginal Spirit who re-establishes thee in the
realms of glory. Stand up, and remember that it is thyself thou
hast heard, and return to thy root. For I am the Merciful! Take
refuge from the angels of destruction, from the demons of Chaos
and from all who hinder thee, and rouse thyself out of the heavy
sleep of the infernal dwelling.’ Then I stood upright; I sealed
him with the light [and] the water with five seals,102 so that death
102 Cf. the fragment of a Coptic apocryphon of Deir Balaize quoted above,
pp. 88-9. We find the five seals again in the concluding formulas of the Sacred
Book of the invisible Great spirit. Perhaps they have some connection with the
“Five Trees” of the Pistis-Sophia (cf. chap. 11, note 23).
henceforth should have no power over him. ” Then the Saviour—

whether this is now Jesus or is still the Mother is no longer clear—
ends the revelation as follows: “Behold, I am about to go up
again into the perfect aeon. I have told thee, for thine own ears,
all these things. All this, I have told thee so that thou shouldst
write it and pass it on in secret to thy spiritual companions!”
That is, indeed, the mystery of the resolute Generation (adds
John himself) “which the Saviour has disclosed to me so that I
might write it and keep it safely. And then the Saviour said to
me: ‘Accursed be whosoever betrays these secrets for a gift,
whether of food, drink, raiment or any other such thing’.”
Then—concludes the editor—“as soon as he had communicated
this mystery he became invisible, and John went to his fellow
disciples and began to repeat to them the words that the Saviour
had said”.
This writing—the fact is obvious—lacks unity. Of the trans¬
formations that this alleged Secret Book of John has undergone,
we can even see the last adjustments taking place, since our
manuscripts provide two different editions (not successive but
fairly widely separated) of the same work; and in the more com¬
plex of these (in Codex X), we can catch an anonymous com¬
mentator “in the act” of adding glosses and new references!
The most ancient element is the description, by a triple-faced
heavenly being, of the higher world and of the first moments
of the inferior creation. Did this earliest account perhaps stop at
Sacla’s blasphemous exclamation; or at Sophia’s wandering to
and fro in her torments of remorse? The text of this part was
known to St Irenaeus, in an independent form, before the years
180 to 185, for he then gave a faithful summary of it in Chapter
xxix of his treatise against heresies.
A more recent portion, in which the revelation is attributed to
Jesus, has added to the above the continuation of the Gnostic
genesis, with an outline of the first developments of humanity and
the first stages of salvation. Into this second part, moreover, is
inserted, not altogether happily, a dialogue between Jesus and
John upon the destiny of souls; and this in a style quite different
from that of the main body of the work.
Lastly, to the end of the treatise has been tacked on the descrip¬
tion of the descent into hell of the celestial power who comes to
dehver the first man. This part is not found elsewhere in complete
and clear form except in the versions which are the latest—
Nos. 6 and 36. Had this portion been recently added? Certainly,
by its style, it reminds one of various late Christian descriptions of
the descent of Jesus into hell: but, in our writing, the principal
part is not allotted to the Christ, but to the celestial Mother—
which is a sign of archaism. Did this part, then, really exist
before in relatively ancient versions of the Secret Book of John ? It
is difficult to be sure. In fact, neither our text No. 1 nor that of the
manuscript in the Berlin Codex contains this passage, but both
give, in its place, a few very confused lines: possibly, these may
represent the editings of a particular line of manuscripts in which
one copyist had spoiled this essential exposition by omissions and
errors.
But the most important element—that which, for all its
straggling and diverse parts, makes a unity of the Secret Book of
John—is the fictive dialogue in which, from beginning to end,
these fragments have been framed. By fitting them into this form,
the compiler has reduced the diverse entities and prophets to
whom the most ancient portions of this writing were originally
attributed, to the two figures of Christ and the Apostle John.
Preamble, conclusion, and the speeches exchanged between
John and the Saviour—this framework must be as factitious
here as in the Sophia of Jesus. Irenaeus knew, in its primitive form,
the text which afterwards became the first part of the Secret Book.
He would have thundered with indignation, of which there would
certainly have been echoes in his book, if in the copy that he
read, this writing had already been attributed to Jesus in person.
Briefly, then, the Secret Book of John is not only a compilation of
somewhat disparate elements: still more is it a ruin repaired here
and there, of which the parts that are unrecognizable today may
have come from works that were once of capital importance.
That is why this work is still of a quite special value, derived
from the earlier importance of the various primitive writings of
which it assembles the remnants. One proof of this is the number
of references made by heresiologists to the same myths as those it

transcribes. Let us remember above all Chapter xxix of Irenaeus,
the extraordinary interest of which was noted by Carl Schmidt
in 1896: St Irenaeus follows step by step the account of the myth
given in the first part of the Secret Book of John; several phrases
are even textually the same in both cases. And for the second part
of the cosmological exposition, and even of the myth as a whole
in its Coptic presentation, we can find less exact but still fairly
faithful parallels in Irenaeus’ account of the Ophite or Sethian
Gnostics (I, xxx). When Epiphanius (in paragraph 3 of his
Chapter xxxvm) is refuting the Ophites, it is again a system
analogous to that of our Coptic book that he analyses—for which
reason his notice merits a brief summary here:
From the supreme aeon—so these Ophites affirmed—other
aeons emanated, the lowest of which was Ialdabaoth, whose
birth they ascribed to the folly and weakness of his Mother, the
supreme Power called Prunicos by some, and by others Sophia.
Ialdabaoth, created by her ignorance, dwelt in the lower regions.
He engendered seven sons, who established as many heavens.
But Ialdabaoth separated himself from the powers that were
above him, and concealed those powers from the eyes of his
progeny, lest the seven Archons he had produced should know of
anything that was superior to himself. These Ophites affirm that
Ialdabaoth is identical with the God of Genesis. The seven
angels or aeons engendered by him produced man, in the image of
Ialdabaoth, slowly and with difficulty. At first this man, crawling
over the ground like a worm, could not stand upright;103 but
Prunicos the celestial Mother devised a stratagem against Ialda¬
baoth which would enable her to regain the power which had
been taken from her. She meant to make the power of Ialdabaoth
pass into the man, and also to introduce into him the spark which
103 Cf. the same feature of the doctrine of Satornil, p. 19 above. The Philo-
sophumena’s account of the Naassenes also includes this detail, to which it assigns a
Chaldaean origin: “That”, they say, “is the first man that the earth ever pro¬
duced: he lay without breath, inanimate, without movement, like a sculpture”
(V, 7); this image of a carved figure recalls the inert, unintelligent statue in the
myth of the Kukaeans (see chap. 1, p. 58). In Arab Hermetism, the persistence of
this theme is perhaps attested by a writing under the name of Balinus which I
quote later, pp. 318fT.
is the soul. After that, they said, this man stood up on his feet and
knew the Father, superior to Ialdabaoth, and praised him. Then
Ialdabaoth, annoyed that anyone should have known what was
higher than himself, gave birth to a virtue shaped like a serpent,
who is called his son, and by its means, deceived Eve. . . .
At the end of the fifth century the Bishop of Lower Egypt,
John of Parallos, attacking some heretical works, among which
were some Teachings of Adam, also censured a Preaching of John
which may well have been identical with our Secret Book.10* In
the eighth century Theodore Bar-Kona'i (as Professor Puech has
shown us)105 not only knew the title of that Revelation of John but
also some details of myths which may be those of our text. It is
true that these scraps of information, bearing upon the most
widely-known elements of our Gnostics’ cosmogonies, might
also have come from some other of the Books of Allogenes, also
known to the same heresiologist.
Let us, however, recognize that, even if we did not know the
popularity that this writing enjoyed for long centuries, we should
still have reason, from the very complexity of its structure, to
believe in the importance that was attached to it. Only a highly
esteemed writing could have deserved the honour of adaptations
and deformations intended to keep it in use in spite of the con¬
tinual evolution of the Gnostic doctrines and, at the same time,
to enrich and complete it, and make it a summary of all the
essential myths. How one would like to know which of the great
prophets of Gnosticism it was—Nicotheus or Zoroaster or who
else—in whose name the oldest portion of such a venerated book
was first presented!
The contents themselves of this writing would demand a very
long commentary. In the present introduction, we can only
indicate a few individual features.
The most original portion deals with the creation and destiny
of man. Many of the features of this myth, which presents Adam
as an image of the microcosm, are to be found in certain Iranian
101 Cf. A. Van Lantschoot, “Fragments coptes d’une hom^lie de Jean de

Parallos.”
105 H. C. Puech, “Fragments retrouves de l’Apocalypse d’Allogene.”
texts: in the Bundahishn, in the collection of Zatsparam, as well as

in the Manichaean writings.106 Fully to appreciate the strange
pessimism of this account of the inferior creation of man by the
perverse Ialdabaoth, we must refer back to the pages of the
Enneads (II, 9) in which Plotinus, in the name of Hellenic philo¬
sophy, thunders against the “absurdities” that he finds in the
Gnostics. One should, above all, take as the standard of comparison
the very different myth, suffused with a radiant optimism, in
which the same creation is depicted by the most important of the
Greek Hermetic writings—the Poimandres.107
First of all, it is the creation of the heavenly Anthropos that is
described: “The Nous, father of all beings, who is life and light,
made a man hke unto himself, of whom he became as fond as
of his own child; and indeed he was very beautiful; he reproduced
the image of his father, so that in reality it was in his own form
that he so delighted. And God gave to him all that he had
created.” This man, in his turn, wished to create: “He separated
from his father and entered into the demiurgic sphere where he
had to receive all power: he became conscious of the works
created by his brother and his works fell in love with him; each
one of them gave him a share in their own hierarchy. Thus,
having learnt to know their essence and having set himself to
participate in their nature, he wanted to break the periphery of
the circles and to know the power of him who is established over
the fire.” It is then that, from on high, this higher man reveals to
106 An attempt to analyse this myth, from the text of the Secret Book of John
in the Berlin Codex has lately been made by K. Rudolf, “Ein Grundtyp Gnosti-
scher Urmensch-Adam Speculation” in the Zeitschrift f. Religions und Geistes-
geschichte, IX, 1957, pp. 1-20. The misadventures of Eve, pursued by the Creator,
occur again in the Gnosticism of Justin; among the Audians (Puech, Fragments
retrouvts, p. 954 and note 1); among the Manichaeans and as far as to the Bogo¬
miles (Puech and Vaillant, Le Traite contre les Bogomiles . . . , p. 339). H. C.
Puech refers also to the first Priscillianist treatise of Wurtzburg, Schepps edn.,
p. 18,1. 30 to p. 19,1. 4. Cl. also the Adversus omit. haer. of the pseudo-Tertullian,
VIII, p. 275 of the Oehler edn. Upon the correspondence of each of the seven
planets with an element of the human body—marrow, bone, flesh, etc. . . .
see the texts from the Bundahishn and Zatsparam cited by Zaehner, Zurvan . . .
p. 162, and in G. Widengren, The Great Vohu Manah and the Apostle of God, pp.
53-4. As for the passions imprisoned in each bodily element, cf. Chavannes-
Pelliot, loc. cit., p. 41 (537).
107 In Nock-Festugi6re, Corpus Hermeticum, vol. I, pp. 10-11.
the material world that reflection of himself which, according to

our Gnostics, is apparently to serve as the pattern on which the
Archons will fashion Adam. “He leaned over the assembly
[of spheres] of which he had broken the envelope, and exhibited
to the lower nature the beauty of the divine form. And she
[the lower nature] seeing that he had in him inexhaustible
beauty and all the energy of the rulers with the form of God,
smiled lovingly, for she had seen, reflected in the water, the
splendid form of Man, and his shadow extending over the earth.
And he, seeing reflected in the water this form resembling him¬
self, which was appearing in nature, he loved it and desired to
dwell there.” From this union terrestrial man was to be born....
“And thence it is that, unlike all the beings that are on earth, man
is twofold; he is mortal by his body, and he is immortal by the
essential man.
To describe the predicament of man in this world here below,
doomed to suffer at the hands of the evil powers, the Secret Book
ofJohn makes rather complacent use of a certain set of images. The
world is “the cavern”; the body is described as the “prison”,
or the “tomb” of the soul, which is “in chains” here below. The
world is also called the “cave of oblivion”, where Adam and his
posterity are victims of the “brigands”—namely, the inferior
powers of heaven. This Hellenic vocabulary was common form
among the most scholarly: from Plato down to the last of the
exegetists who in their commentaries ascribed mystical meanings
to the Homeric episodes of Ares and Aphrodite, of Circe or the
grotto of Nymphs, imagery of this kind was customary.108
But a much more original theme, and one which has a wealth
of profound meanings, is presented to us in relation to the Tree
of Life and all the imagery surrounding the formation of the
soul of Adam—namely, that of the spirit called a “counter¬
feiter”. This evil spirit, this second soul subject to the influence
of the Archons, of the planets, is put into man by the lower
powers on purpose to fight against the heavenly spark which
is in him, to drag him into sin, to carnal union and to
reproduction. Here we have, indeed, the “adventitious soul”
108 Cf., above, note 85.
to winch the Gnostic Isidorus, son of Basihdes, even devoted a

special book.109
Another originality of our writing is the minuteness with which
it describes the two trees of Paradise, particularly the false “tree
of life” of the Archons. “Its root is bitter, its branches are all
deadly, its shadow is a hatred; falsehood dwells in its leaves, its oil
is an unguent of perversity, its fruit is sin; its seed is desire. It
grows from darkness; those who taste it receive Amente [hell]
for their dwelling, and the darkness is their habitation.”110 The
description thus outlined of the trees of Paradise came to be fur¬
ther elaborated in the Manichaean myths, where the struggle
between the forces of these two antagonistic trees actually
epitomizes—according to some Manichaean writings—the origins
of the world. Let us take, for example, the passages quoted by the
Patriarch Severus of Antioch from a Manichaean book (whose
title he does not mention), in a homily preached against here¬
tics.111
According to the myth carefully summed up in this sermon,
the Good, also surnamed the Light and the Tree of Life, occupies
the regions situated to the East, the West and the North, whilst
the Tree of Death, identified with evil and uncreated matter,
occupies the “meridional and austral” (sic) regions. And, later on,
Severus quotes this actual passage: “The Tree of Death is divided
into a great number of trees. War and cruelty are in them; they
109 Cf., above, p. 23; in the Pistis-Sophia, cf. chap. 11, p. 72. This doctrine
appears in Philo, and among the Essenians; cf. below, p. 297; it also exists in
the Iranian texts, see p. 282. For its survival among the Messalians, see Cumont,
Lux Perpetua, p. 79.
110 Upon the theme of the two trees which, like that of the spirit of life v.
the counterfeiting spirit, gives our mythographer further opportunity to elaborate
the opposition between the two hostile principles, cf. above, chap. 1, note 86 and
chap, n, note 23. Perhaps there was some link between these myths and the legends
about the origins of the wood of the Cross, which became attached to traditions
relating to the Cave of Treasures, and of which the Bogomiles had a special
apocryphon. Cf. S. Runciman, The Medieval Manichee, 1947.
111 Cumont and Kugener, Rechcrches sur le Manicheisme, fasc. II, 1912, pp.
I03ff.; G. Widengren, Mesopotamian Elements in Manichaeism, 1946, chap. ix.
See also the description of the trees of death and of life in the Chinese Manichaean
treatise published and translated by Chavannes-Pelliot, loc. cit., pp. 64-7 (=[560]
-[563]). There it is said of one of the trees of death: “The root of this tree is
hatred; its trunk is violence; its branches are irritation; its leaves are aversion; its
fruits are division; its taste is tastelessness; its colour is denigration”.
are strangers to peace, filled with absolute wickedness, and never

bear good fruit. [The Tree of Death] is divided against its fruits
and the fruits are divided against the Tree; they are not united
with that which has engendered them, but all produce parasites
in order to corrupt their locality. They are not subject to that
which has produced them, but the whole Tree is evil: it never
does any good, but is divided against itself and every one of its
parts corrupts the one next to it.”
What our writing has to say about the descent of the Mother
to the First man imprisoned deep in the place of Darkness, states
a theme which recurs in Manichaeism, where the redeeming
power is definitely represented by Jesus. In his summary of the
Manichaean cosmogony, Theodore Bar-Kona'i tells us how
‘‘Jesus the Luminous came down to the innocent Adam and awoke
him from a sleep of death that he might be saved. . . . Even as
when a just man finds a man possessed of a formidable demon and
pacifies it by his art, so was it with Adam when this friend found
him plunged in a deep sleep, awoke him, set him astir . . .
drove away from him the seductive demons and shackled far
away from him the powerful female archon. Then Adam
examined himself and knew who he was. . . . Jesus showed
Adam the Fathers dwelling in the Ideights, and his own person
exposed to everything, to the teeth of the panther and the tusks
of the elephant, devoured by the voracious, gobbled by the
gluttonous . . . eaten and imprisoned by all that exists, bound
in the stench of the darkness. . . . Jesus made him stand up¬
right and made him taste of the Tree of Life. Then Adam looked
and wept: he lifted up his voice like a lion roaring, tore his hair,
beat his breast and said: ‘Woe, woe to the creator of my body,
to him who has bound my soul to it, and to the rebels who have
enslaved me!’”112
In the Secret Book the power who descends into hell three
times over in order to save Adam, is not Jesus but the heavenly
Mother: undoubtedly this is a sign of archaism, and adds to the
interest of our version. This descent of the Mother, of the Saviour,
112 Cumont, Recherches . . . , pp. 46-9; Widengren, Mesopotamian Ele¬

ments . . . , chap, v and additional note p. 180.
218 The Secret Books oj the Egyptian Gnostics
into the lower world is a Gnostic theme which, in various other

forms, has already attracted a good deal of study.113 W. Bousset,
among others, recognizes in such episodes a reflection of much
more ancient myths: perhaps of the descent of Ishtar into hell,
as it is described in Babylonian texts.
Finally, one detail peculiar to our manuscript No. 36 is its
reference to a Book of Zoroaster which gave a list of the names of
many inferior powers governing the various parts of the human
body. We have been able to identify several other works, of
which the compiler of our Codex X has inserted titles, in the other
treatises he transcribed; but here the task is more difficult. The
special character of the work alluded to prevents our identifying
it with the lost Gnostic apocalypse attributed to Zoroaster and
mentioned by Porphyry.114 We have to search among all the
innumerable titles and fragments of forgotten writings ascribed
to Zoroaster, deahng with magic, astrology and problems of
nature. . . .But even in the meticulous inventory of these
that has been drawn up by J. Bidez and Franz Cumont116 we can
fmd nothing that seems to correspond to the kind of work cited
by the Coptic commentator.
THE GOSPELS OF CHRISTIANIZED GNOSTICISM
Besides those writings we have just discussed, which within a

quite factitiously Christian framework expound strictly Gnostic
revelations, our collection includes several works in which the
113 Widengren, Mesopotamian Elements . . . ; Puech, Le Manicheisme . . . ,
p. 82. It was controversy about such a descent of the Spirit that split the Valen-
tinians into an Italian and an Oriental school, see above, p. 30. According to the
Philosophumena, when the psychic body of Jesus was baptized, said the ‘Italians’,
“the Logos of the Mother from on high”—of Wisdom—descended in the form
of a dove, which called to the psychic element and awakened it from the dead.
That was the meaning, they said, of the text “He that raised up Christ from the
dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies” (Epistle to the Romans VIII, n).
The Oriental school, on the contrary . . . held that the body of the Saviour
was spiritual already. The Holy Spirit, “the power of the most High” mentioned
in Luke I, 35, had shaped it within Mary (cf. Sagnard, Extraits de Theodote, p. 6).
Upon the Manichaean myth of the creation of the first man and the awakening of
Adam, cf. H. C. Puech, “Der Begriff der Erlosung im Manichaismus” in the
EranosJahrbuch, 1936 (Zurich, 1937), pp. 229-35.
114 Cf. p. 156.
115 Bidez-Cumont, Les Mages hellenises . . . , vol. II, part 1.
most authentic Christianity is associated with some Gnostic ideas

which are relegated to a secondary plane.
First of these, let us mention the Teachings of Silvanus (No. 29),
an abstract treatise attributed to a personage whose identity is
not given, though his name recalls that of the companion of
Peter and Paul whose name is frequently mentioned in the Acts
and in the canonical Epistles.116 There can be no question, here,
of the Silvanus who was a disciple of the Gnostic heresiarch
Audius (and, therefore, a member of a sect known to have
used, for centuries, some of the writings also found in our present
collection)117 for that Silvanus dates from the fourth century.
More interesting is the text of No. 19. This is an epistle whose
title is missing. It vigorously attacks the Pharisees and Scribes
of the Law. “To those who can hear, not with the ears of the body
but with those of the heart, I will say: Many have sought the
truth but have not been able to find it.” (We have met with
similar preliminary formulas before at the beginning of the letter
of Eugnostos and of our text No. 40). “Because of that, the old
leaven of the Pharisees and of the Scribes of the Law had power
over them. ” Further on, we are told that the Scribes belong to the
Archon, to the evil Prince of this world, “for no one who finds
himself subject to the Law will be able to raise his eyes toward the
Truth. It is impossible to serve two masters, for the defilement of
the Law is manifest, whilst purity pertains to the light. The Law
indeed commands one to take a spouse, to take a wife, to increase
and multiply like the waves of the sea. But passion, which is
agreeable to souls, binds here below the souls of those who are
begotten. . . . For them it is impossible to pass by the Archon
of Darkness until they have paid back the last farthing.”
Then the Baptism of John is recalled, raising the question of
“the power who came to us upon the river of Jordan—a sign
which showed that the reign of the carnal generation was ended”.
116 Acts XV, 22 and XVIII, 5 (Sylvanus is abbreviated to Silas); II Corinthians 1,
19; I Thessalonians I, 1; II Thessalonians I, 1; I Peter V, 12.
117 Cf. Puech, article “Audianer”. Later, among the Paulicians of the seventh
and eighth centuries, according to Peter of Sicily, the leading doctors took the
names of the disciples of Paul as their surnames: thus Constantine became
Silvanus, Simeon called himself Titus and Gegnesios renamed himself Timothy.
Cf. S. Runciman, The Medieval Manichee. . . . , p. 50.
Was the baptism dispensed by John regarded favourably by our

exegetist? “The river of Jordan, this, to him, is the strength of
the body—that is, the essence of pleasures; and the water of
Jordan is the desire for carnal co-habitation.” As for John, he is
“the archon of the multitude. . . . What is revealed to us by
the Son of Man himself, is that we must receive the Word of
Truth. . . . ” Afterwards the same treatise recalls Paradise and
the Temptation: “The serpent was wiser than all the animals in
Paradise; he convinced Eve by saying to her: 4 The eyes of thy
heart will be open on the day when thou wilt eat of the Tree
which is in the midst of the garden.’” Then the Serpent was
cursed. Later on the author asks himself about the Creator:
“Who is this god? At first he was jealous of Adam. ...” In
this exposition of Genesis we find that the text has liberal recourse
to the myths of the great Gnostic revelations: Doxomedon,
Harmozel, Daueithe, Heleleth and so on, appear again.
After this remarkable treatise, so regrettably deprived of its
title, we turn to the Dialogue of the Saviour (No. 5). The part of
Codex I in which this appears is unfortunately rather damaged,
and the order of the pages of this writing presents some problems.
It begins with these words: “The Saviour said to his disciples,
‘My brothers, the moment has come for us to lay down our
troubles and raise ourselves up into Rest. For he who will rise up
into Rest will rest eternally.” After reminding them that he has
opened the ways, until then impassable, that lead from this world
to the attainment of light and salvation, the Saviour offers up to
the Father an eloquent prayer. Then he expounds to his disciples
the tribulations of darkness to which they will be exposed when
the time of deliverance is at hand. He enlarges at some length
upon the abysses, and upon the flames of the blind Archon—
Samael. He recalls the first genesis of this lower world, in reply
to a question from Thomas: “What was there before heaven and
earth had been produced?” He mentions the Place of Life, in
which there is no darkness at all, but which his disciples will not
be able to see until they have put off the flesh. “What is it that
moves the earth?” asks one of them. “The earth does not move”,
replies the Saviour, “ for if it moved it would fall! ” No doubt this
dialogue, which becomes more and more closely joined between

Jesus and his disciples, is also serving as a pretext for the compiler
of tire work to quote a great many of the sayings attributed to
Jesus—the logia—of which we find more complete collections
in our Gospels of Philip and of Thomas, which we shall be dis¬
cussing later. Here are a few more sentences from the Dialogue:
“Matthew said: ‘In what manner will the Little attach itself to the
Great?’ The Lord replied, ‘When you abandon the things that
cannot follow you, then you will be at rest!’ . . . Judas said:
Why . . . does one hve and die?’ And the Lord said: ‘He
who is born of the Truth does not die; he who is born of Woman
dies.’ . . . ‘Pray in the place where there is no woman. . . .
Destroy the works of femininity!’”—says the Saviour again later
on. Nevertheless, it is from the mouth of Mary Magdalene—who
is supposed to know all things—that we are given the following
words: “Sufficient unto each day are its troubles; and the
labourer is worthy of his maintenance; and the disciple is like
unto his master ! ’ ’
We now turn again to the Gospels of Philip (No. 38) and of
Thomas (No. 37), and to the Secret Sayings told by the Saviour to
Jude-Thomas and recorded by Matthias (No. 42)—this last also
called the Book of Thomas. Their titles alone indicate that these
three writings must have been of capital importance. They also
constitute an actual trilogy; for, if we are to believe a passage in
the Pistis-Sophia, it was to Philip, Thomas and Matthew (or rather
Matthias, as Zahn has justly pointed out)118 that Jesus confided the
task of committing his most precious teachings to writing.
Let us look closer at this tradition, which seems so systematically
to ignore the existence of the four canonical Gospels. “When
Jesus had finished speaking these words, Philip arose quickly,
letting fall to earth the book that he was holding—for it was he
who wrote down all that Jesus said and all that he did. Philip
stepped forward then and said: ‘ My Lord, it is to me alone that
thou hast entrusted the care of this world, in that I am to write
all that we shall say and all that we shall do?’ . . . Having
heard Philip, Jesus answered him: ‘Listen, blessed Philip, that I
118 Zahn, Gcschiclite des neutestamentlichen Kanotis, II, pp. 758-9-
may tell thee. It is to thee, as well as to Thomas and to Matthew

[Matthias] that I have entrusted, by the first Mystery, the writing
of all the things that I shall say and that I shall do, as well as all
that you shall see. . . . ’ Then Mary, going up to Philip, began
to speak in her turn: ‘ Hear now, my Lord, let me speak to thee
about the words that thou has just said to Philip: it is thou,
Thomas and Matthew [Matthias], you three, to whom it has been
given by the First Mystery to write all these sayings about the
Kingdom of the Light and to bear witness to them. Listen, then,
I interpret that saying to thee. It is that which thy light-power
prophesied of old to Moses: ‘At the mouth of two witnesses, or
at the mouth of three witnesses shall the matter be estabhshed.
(Deuteronomy XIX, 15). The three witnesses are Philip, Thomas
and Matthew (Matthias).119 Professor Puech has pointed out,
independently, that in the Sophia of Jesus Philip, Thomas and
Matthew (sic) are, with Bartholomew and Mariamne, the only
interlocutors of the resurrected Saviour.120
The Gospel of Philip (No. 38) is in fact simply an epistle, though
without stated destination, actually a treatise vaguely directed
against some adversaries unnamed. And the author ?—one passage
alone in this writing is in the name of Philip, and it is also pre¬
sented as a quotation from him. For the rest, the work seems to be
written in the name of some “Hebrew Apostles”. It has no
precise plan, although from beginning to end the book consists
of pretty lofty speculations. It begins upon a somewhat vague
theme which reappears later in the work: this is concerned with
the development of the race of the Perfect; and the passing from
the condition of a “Hebrew” to that of a Christian. Here are the
opening lines: “A Hebrew man creates Hebrews, and those who
are created in this manner are called ‘proselytes’; but a proselyte
cannot in his turn make other proselytes. . . . ” Elsewhere, the
same theme is expressed thus: The Father creates the Son, but the
Son cannot, in his turn, engender other Sons. . . .
119 In W. Till, Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften . . . , pp. 44ff.

120 H. C. Puech, Les Nouveaux ecrits . . . , pp. 117-18. We may add that
Philip perhaps acquired this very special prestige from his having “Christianized”
nascent Gnosticism, since it was he (according to Acts VIII) who had conferred
baptism upon Simon the Samaritain.
Photo: Jean Dorrese
THE DEIR ANBA-PALAMOUN NEAR THE VILLAGE OF EL-QASR,

AND THE MODERN CEMETERY ADJOINING IT
Stretching away into the distance is the little inland desert where the ascetic
Palemon, who was to serve as model to Saint Pachome, had hollowed out his
hermitage. The “monastery” which grew up on the spot and to which the name
Palemon remains attached, is today no more than a group of churches, none of
which is ancient, and no monks live there.
THE SITE OF ST PACHOME’S PRINCIPAL MONASTERY
To the south of the great walled city of Faou-Gibli (the Phoou of the ancient
world) lie fallen some of the numerous pillars which still mark the site of the
basilica built by Saint Pachome for his principal monastery. In the background,
about five miles away to the north, rises the high cliff-face of the Gebel et-Tarif.
Photo: Jean Doresse
Photo: Jean Doresse
THE COPTIC PRIEST DAVID, OF THE

VILLAGE OF ES-SAYYAD
This priest had the opportunity of seeing the manuscripts immediately after they
were found, but, knowing only the Coptic language of his liturgy, he could
not make out what they were about.
The principal arguments of the exposition which ensues rely

upon images, are depicted in parables. God is compared, at length,
to a good dyer who blends his colours. The breath of the glass-
blower blowing a vase is a simile for the pneuma. The destiny of
men is discussed in parallel with that of the ass turning a mill,
walking miles and miles but always finding himself, for all his
trouble, miserably in the same place. The soul which is in no way
united to the Spirit is likened to the isolated man or woman,
exposed to the gallant advances of persons destitute of wisdom.
A long dissertation is based upon symbols derived from the
structure of the Temple, of the holy of holies and the veil through
which the high priest alone can pass: this is a simile which had
been employed before; its symbolism had already been used to
support very different arguments in the Gnostic writings of
Theodotus, fragments of which have been preserved for us by
Clement of Alexandria.121
Some apocryphal Christian traditions also are mixed with this
text; for example, that of the tree which Joseph the carpenter
planted to grow timber for his trade, but which was finally used
to make the Cross. A good many of the phrases used are, in style
and spirit, of a marked evangelical character; they are veritably
agrapha. Were these collected for the Gospel of Philip from existing
Christian traditions? Or were they actually invented for it?
These are among the many mysteries which will only be cleared
up slowly, if at all.
The doctrinal content? Let us note in passing a development
concerning Mary, the pure Virgin whom no power ever defiled,
in spite of the denials of certain objectors whom the author of
this treatise attacks. The resurrection of the body is defended at
length. But the theme to which this work constantly returns is
that of the redeeming action of the sacraments. The Eucharist is
thus described: “The cup of prayer; in it there is wine, and in it
there is water which is present as though it were blood, over
which one gives thanks. It is filled with the Holy Spirit; and this
is that of the perfect man. When we drink of it, we receive into
121 Clement of Alexandria, Extraits de Thtodote (edn. Sagnard), Extr. 27,

pp. U2ff. and notes pp. 22off.
ourselves the perfect man, the living water, a body that we have
to put on. . . . ” Above all, the baptisms are discussed, the
means by which a “Hebrew” can become a Christian. These bap¬
tisms are a purification by fire and by water; they constitute an
“anointing with light”. By their means, man is to receive his
heavenly partner, the Spirit; and that mystical union is discussed
at length in close parallel with marriage, the union in holy
matrimony of earthly couples.122 By this bond man will be
delivered from death, and the lower powers will be unable to
capture him. Is this doctrine purely Christian? It reminds one
strongly of the passage in the fourth book of the Pistis-Sophia,
which evokes a vision of a strange eucharistic ritual in which
fire and water, the wine and the blood are brought together in
much the same way as in the sacraments described by this Gospel of
Philip.123 One also thinks of the seals of light and of water, be¬
lieved to effect the redemption of Adam, which are mentioned in
the final pages of the Secret Book of John and, yet again, of the
baptism described in the second part of the Gospel of the Egyptians.
The account of the Naassenes in the Philosophnmena also states
definitely, and in terms analogous to those found in our text, that
the Gnostics had a conception of such rites, by which man is
“washed in a living water and anointed with an ineffable oint¬
ment”.124
Discreetly, at first, the presence of Gnosticism in the Gospel
of Philip progressively reveals itself. The unity of things here
below is made by water, earth, wind and light, whilst the unity on
122 Symbolism of the mystical union among the Pythagoreans: cf. J. Carco-
pino, La Basilique pythagoricienne de la Porte Majeurc, pp. 120-1. Among Gnostics
other than ours; in the teaching of Valentinus, it is the heavenly nuptials of
Sophia and the Saviour—compared with the Husband and the Wife in our
Gospel—and the union of the Perfect with the angels who surround the Saviour,
when once these elect ones, set free from the psychic elements, have entered into
the Pleroma (cf. chap. 1, p. 31, and Sagnard, Gnose valentinienne, p. 193 and pp.
413-15; and Extraits de Theodote 64 and 65). The mystical union also figures
in the Gnosticism of Marcos; Irenaeus, I, xra, 3. Among the Manichaeans and
Mandaeans, Widengren, Mesopotamian Elements . . . , chap. vm. Cf. also
L. Fendt, Gnostische Mysterien, 1922.
123 Cf. above, p. 75; cf. also the pseudo-eucharist of Marcus, in Leisegang,
La Gnose, p. 234.
124 Philosophumena V, 7; fuller detail is given in Irenaeus, I, xm about the
baptisms and eucharists of the Marcosians; Leisegang, loc. cit., pp. 233-4.
1S Lmacie by ll0pe’ charity and gnosis. It is Gnosis

which, by means of the sacraments already mentioned, brings
reedom to man. Here and there the Archons, too, are mentioned,
the brigands”, the middle places where the soul is in danger of
losing its way, and, above all, Ekhamoth (the Great Sophia) and
Ekhmoth (the Lesser Sophia or Sophia of death). Concerning this
last detail, it should be noted that this Gospel of Philip, whose
speculations upon certain words show clearly that it was written
in Greek, also glosses upon several names according to their
meaning in “Syrian”—that is, Aramaic—and still more, Hebrew.
The distinction it establishes between Ekhamoth and Ekhmoth
could not otherwise be understood. Such details confirm what the
contents of the work have already indicated—the authentically
Judeo-Christian origin of these rare mystical speculations.
Epiphamus, in his notice No. 26, states that he knew a Gospel of
Philip, then in use, moreover, among the Egyptian Gnostics. He
quotes a few lines said to be taken from that apocryphon; but
this passage does not occur in the text we have just been analysing.
We find one formulation which is something like it—without
being identical but only in the Book of the invisible Great Spirit or
Gospel of the Egyptians.
The Book of Thomas (No. 42) starts off with these words:
Secret sayings that the Saviour told to Jude-Thomas, and that I
myself have written, I, Matthew (=Matthias), who . . . heard
them while these two were in conversation. The Saviour, brother
of Thomas, said to him . . . Listen; I will tell thee the thought
that is in thy heart, how they say that thou art in truth my twin
brother and my companion, and how thou knowest who thou art
and in what manner thou wast born, and in what manner thou wilt
become, as they call thee, my brother. . . .” Upon this Thomas
prays the Lord to reveal these secrets to him before his Ascension.
At the end of the book Jesus rebukes sinners and praises those
who follow his precepts. To sinners he says: “You have plunged
your souls into the water of Darkness; you have taken refuge in
your own will. Woe to you, who are in error, who are not
upheld by the light of the Sun which beholds and judges the
universe while he circles round all those works that the
Enemies have reduced to slavery. You forget also the manner in

which the moon looks at bodies! . . . Woe to you who love
intimacy with that which is feminine. . . . Woe to you because
of the powers of your body! . . . because of the attempts of the
perverse demons. Who will water you with a refreshing dew to
wipe away from you the multitude of the flames and their burn¬
ing ? Who will make the sun to shine upon you and to dispel the
darkness that is within you? . . . ” To the blessed ones, he
preaches: “Blessed are you, you who are blamed and not at all
esteemed, for the love that your Lord has put into you; Blessed
are you who weep and are sorrowful . . . for you will be
delivered from every bondage, and you will be no more in the
flesh, but you will come out of the fetters of oblivion of [this]
life; you will be the elect, and you will find a repose [an ana-
pausis] leaving trouble and regrets behind you. When you are
freed from the pains and afflictions of the body, you will receive
repose. . . . And you will be kings with the King, united
with him as he will be with you, thenceforward, world without
end, Amen.”
The last words define this work as “ The Book of Thomas the
Athlete, which he wrote for the Perfect ones”.
This treatise may possibly be identical with the Gospel of
Matthias, a heretical work mentioned by Origen and Eusebius,
which again, however, may be a confusion with the Traditions of
Matthias cited by Clement of Alexandria,125 a book used by the
Nicolaitans and Basihdeans.126 The Philosophumena writes that
Basilides and his son Isidore pretended that Matthias had left
them secret discourses which he himself had received from the
Saviour in personal conversations. That agrees perfectly with the
beginning of our Coptic text.
As for the special importance assigned to Thomas as the sup¬
posed twin brother of the Saviour, let us bear in mind the curious
Manichaean tradition that the founder of that church of dualism
had received revelations from an angel named at-Taum in Ara¬
maic—a name which can be pretty exactly translated as “twin”.
128 Puech, Les Nouveaux ecrits . . . , p. 120, note 3.

128 Puech, loc. cit., p. 120, note 4.
The Manichaeans identified this “twin” with the holy Spirit.

They made use, also, of the apocrypha which bore the name of
Thomas. For this reason, M. H. Schaeder has suggested that this
angel at-Taum, the “twin”, may have been a legendary figure
derived from that of the apostle Thomas127—a tempting, but
perhaps rather a rash hypothesis.
But the principal text of these three—which is one of the most
curious that the jar of Chenoboskion has restored to us—is the
Gospel of Thomas (No. 37). It was Professor Puech who, when I
had made the first fragments of it known to him, recognized that
this long Coptic text gives us the exact and integral restoration of
a writing of which we had hitherto possessed some fragments in
Greek, the real nature of which had been wholly misunderstood.
We had here the collection of the “sayings of Jesus”, portions of
which had been discovered in three papyri of Oxyrhynchus—
Nos. 1, 654 and 655. It was owing to some premature rumours
about this identification that the more sensational press recently
announced, very inaccurately, the discovery of a “fifth Gospel”.128
Let us give a better idea of the nature and range of this dis¬
covery. The fragments recovered in Greek from the Oxy¬
rhynchus papyri (found between 1897 and 1903) had led us to
believe in the existence of a venerable collection of the Logia—
or Sayings—of Jesus, collected and preserved outside the canonical
traditions, and of which the authenticity remained, of course,
entirely problematic. Thanks to Professor Puech, we now know
that what we had were simply portions of this highly apocryphal
Gospel of Thomas of which we have now found the complete
text.
This identification led, by the way, to one rather amusing
conclusion. The principal Greek fragments of Oxyrhynchus was
127 Puech, Le Manichcisme, notes 164 and 165. In the apocryphal Acts of Thomas,
an unnamed personage actually praises Thomas as the “Twin of Christ, apostle
of the Most High, initiated into the secret sayings of Christ and receiver of his
secret oracles . . . ” (§ 39). Concerning what was known of a Gospel of Thomas
hitherto, and of its use among the Gnostics and Manichaeans, cf. Alfaric, Les
Ecritures manicheennes, II, pp. 184-6.
128 These rumours were especially rife when the preparations, in Cairo, for an
international committee for publication (Oct. 1956) drew the attention of the
press to the possible contents of the new manuscripts.
tom right down the middle. For half a century the experts had
been trying to supply the words thus missing, and some of their
restorations had come to be considered practically incontestable.
The discovery of the whole text in Coptic showed us two things
at once—that the Oxyrhynchus page No. 654 contained the
actual beginning of the Gospel of Thomas; and that none of the
attempts made to restore its exact meaning had come anywhere
near the truth.129 We will quote the opening lines:
“Here are the secret words which Jesus the Living spoke, and
which Didymus Jude Thomas wrote down.—And he said:
Whoever penetrates the meaning of these words will not taste
death!—Jesus says: Let him who seeks cease not to seek until
he finds: when he fmds he will be astonished; and when he is
astonished he will wonder, and will reign over the universe!—
Jesus says: If those who seek to attract you say to you: ‘See,
the Kingdom is in heaven!’ then the birds of heaven will be
there before you. If they say to you: ‘It is in the sea!’ then
the fish will be there before you. But the Kingdom is within
you and it is outside of you!—When you know yourselves,
then you will be known, and you will know that it is you
who are the sons of the living Father. But if you do not know
yourselves, then you will be in a state of poverty, and it is
you (who will be) the poverty!—Jesus says: Let the old man
heavy with days hesitate not to ask the little child of seven
days about the Place of Life, and he will live! For it will be
seen that many of the first will be last, and they wall become
a (single thing!)—Jesus says: Know what is before thy face, and
what is hidden from you will be revealed to you. For nothing
hidden will fail to be revealed!”—Here the Greek text of the
Oxyrhynchus papyrus adds the following words, omitted from
129 H. C. Pucch, “U11 Logion de Jesus sur bandelette funeraire” in Bulletin de

la Societe Ernest Renan, No. 3, 1 (54, pp. 126-9; also G. Garitte, “Le premier
volume de ledition photographique des manuscrits gnostiques Coptes, et
l’Evangile de Thomas” in Le Musion, 70, 1957, pp. 59-73. It should be noted that
the translation, in the latter article, of the first part of our Gospel of Thomas
(which corresponds with the Oxyrhynchus page No. 654) is not—contrary to
what has been alleged in some quarters—the first revelation of this Coptic text.
In fact, H. C. Pucch had already made the exact nature of it known in his com¬
munication to the Societe Ernest Renan, on 30 January, 1954.
the Coptic version: “ . . . there is nothing buried which shall

not be raised up ”—words to which some special meaning must
have been attached, for Professor Puech has found them written
on the fragment of a shroud unearthed in that same village of
Oxyrhynchus.130
Further on in the Coptic writing we find the login contained in
the two other Greek fragments of Oxyrhynchus—the leaves that
are catalogued under the numbers I and 655. The Coptic version
coincides with the Greek except in one case; that of one of the
finest of the login; here it is, from the Greek: “Jesus said, wherever
there are two they are not without God; and wherever there
is one only, I say it [to you]: I am with him! Lift the stone and
thou wilt find me; cleave the wood; I am there!”
The Coptic gives us the substance of this saying divided into
two entirely distinct formulas, which, moreover, we find widely
separated one from another in the body of the collection. Here is
the one: “Jesus says: There where there are three gods, they arc
gods. Where there are two, or else one, I am with him!” And
here is the other: “Jesus says: I am the light which is on them all.
I am the All, and the All has gone out from me and the All has
come back to me. Cleave the wood: I am there; lift the stone
and thou shalt find me there! ’ ’
Let us take, at random, a few other examples—and, this time,
of login never published before—from those assembled in this vast
collection where, ever and again, it is re-affirmed that he who
knows these sentences “will never taste death”.
“Jesus said: This heaven will pass away, and the heaven which is
above it will pass away; but those who are dead will not live, and
those who live will not die!—Today you eat dead things and make
them into something living: (but) when you will be in Light,
what will you do then ? For then you will become two instead
of one: and when you become two, what will you do then?”
“Jesus says: The Pharisees and the Scribes have taken the keys
of knowledge and hidden them; they have not entered, and
neither have they permitted (entry) to those who wished to
enter. But you be prudent as serpents and simple as doves!”—
530 See the preceding note.
230 The Secret Books oj the Egyptian Gnostics
“Jesus says: A vine shoot was planted outside the Father. It

did not grow strong: it will be plucked up from the root and
it will perish.”—“His disciples said to him: On what day shall
rest come to those who are dead, and on what day shall the new
world come?—He said to them: This (rest) that you wait for
has (already) come, and you have not recognized it!—His
disciples said to him: Twenty-four prophets spoke in Israel, and
they all spoke through you. He said to them: You have passed
over Him who is living in front of your eyes, and have spoken
of the dead!”—“Jesus says: He who is near me is near the fire,
and he who is far from me is far from the Kingdom”.—“Jesus
says: The Kingdom of the Father is like a man who wants to
kill an important person. In his house he unsheathed the sword
and stuck it in the wall to assure himself that his hand would be
firm. Then he killed the person. ”—“Jesus says: When you make
the two one, you will become sons of Man and if you say:
‘Mountain, move!’, it will move.”—“His disciples said to him:
On what day will the Kingdom come ? It will not come when
it is expected. No one will say: ‘See, it is here!’ or: ‘Look, it
is there!’ but the Kingdom of the Father is spread over the earth
and men do not see it. ’ ’
It is to be noted that the sayings, both familiar and strange,
that we find here, seem to have awakened innumerable echoes in
Christian antiquity. Let us quote a few of these:
The saying: “Let him who seeks cease not to seek . . .’’occurs
in the fifth of the Miscellanies (Stromateis) of Clement of Alex¬
andria. Some words from the same passage: “He who is aston¬
ished will reign . . . ” are also quoted in the second Miscellany
as taken from the Gospel of the Hebrews. The saying: “ There
where are three gods, they are gods. Where there are two, or
else one, I am with him!” is developed in the Exposition of the
Concordance of the Gospels by Ephrem the Syrian.131 The formula:
“You eat dead things and you make them into something
living! ” was used, according to the Philosophumena, in the teaching
131 See Stromate V, 14, 97—Resch, Agrapha, Leipzig, 1906, Agraphon no. 54,
and Stromate II, 9, 45. For the reference to Ephrem the Syrian, see the edn.
Mosinger, c. 14, p. 165—Resch, Agraphon no. 175.
of the Naassenes, who said: “You who have eaten dead things and
done living deeds, what will you do if you eat living things?”
The sayings; “The Pharisees and the scribes have taken the keys
of knowledge ...” and “Be prudent as serpents ...” are
found, the former in Luke XI, 52, and the latter in Matthew X, 16.
The expression: “ You have passed over him who is living . . .
and have spoken of the dead!” is repeated by St Augustine in
his Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum (II, 4, 14); and he says
that he took it from apocryphal and even heretical books. The
formula: “He who is near me is near the fire . . . ” is exactly
reproduced by Origen in his Homily upon Jeremiah (XX, 3), and
in Didymus of Alexandria’s On Psalm 88. Finally, what is said
about the coming of the Kingdom unnoticed by all those who are
waiting for it, recalls the analogous terms in Matthew XXIV, 23
and following verses. This search for sentences parallel or identical
with these in our Gospel of Thomas could be fruitfully pursued
much further, even into Manichaean literature.
But what, after all, is it, this Gospel of Thomas in which Thomas
plays no part, which does no more than piece together, end to end
—and without mentioning their origins, or providing any literary
framework—these sayings baldly attributed to the Saviour? A
work also entitled the Gospel of Thomas was used by the Gnostics:
Origen mentions it: the Philosophumena tells us that the Naassenes
used it, too. It may well be that these references are to the text we
have recovered in Coptic, for they cite two very recognizable
passages. These are, in the one case, the saying: “You who,
eating dead things, have done hving things, what would you do if
you ate living things”—and, in the other case, a passage which
approximates to another of the logia we have just translated, the
one about the Kingdom of Heaven being “within man”. It was
of this interior Kingdom that the Naassenes’ Gospel according to
Thomas spoke expressly in these terms: “He who seeks me will
find me among the children over seven years of age, for it is
there, in the fourteenth aeon, that I manifest myself”. The
passage last quoted proved, by the way, a stone of stumbling to
the experts who were trying to make out what this Gospel of
Thomas could have been; it helped to persuade them that what
they were looking for was an apocryphal narrative of the

childhood of Jesus. This mistaken idea was apparently confirmed
by the fact that there does exist, under this same title of the Gospel
of Thomas, a very mediocre apocryphon which is a collection
of rather naive legends about the Saviour’s boyhood. For this
reason, the researches being made for fragments of this Gospel of
Thomas became obstinately misdirected—excepting those of
Grenfell and Hunt, who, to their great credit, guessed the truth
and conclusively reassessed the facts by which it was disguised.132
Hidden in the fragment from Oxyrhynchus No. 654 was the
first page of the writing they were trying to find!
The Manichaeans—who, as we have already noted, ascribed a
high authority to the apostle Thomas133—also made use of this
apocryphon. Cyril of Jerusalem pointed out that it was a work that
ought not to be accepted by Catholics, for “it comes not from one
of the twelve apostles, but from one of the three wicked disciples
of Mani-’. Photius and Peter of Sicily condemned it for similar
reasons. The work was rejected as heretical by the second Council
ofNicaea, by Leontius of Byzantium and by the pseudo-Gelasius in
his list of prohibited works. Alexander of Lycopolis noted that—
according to certain Manichaeans—the Christ had come to earth
at the age of seven, with his senses already organized; a point
which recalls the subject of one of the passages we have just
quoted.134
As Professor Puech, whom we are following almost in the same
words, has shown,135 this collection of logia would seem to be no
more than an anthology made from texts disparate both in age and
in spirit. What is essential in this compilation goes back to the
second half of the second century. Some of the sayings were
132 Grenfell and Hunt, New Sayings of Jesus and Fragments of a Lost Gospel
(Egypt Exploration Fund 1904), p. 23 : these authors were well aware that there
was a connection between the Sayings of Jesus and the sect of the Naassenes, a link
that the Gospel of Thomas was to establish (pp. 25-6). While disputing the value
of the first damaged lines of the Oxyrhynchus papyrus—hues in which the title
of the Gospel oj Thomas was effectually hidden—it was only after hesitation that
they rejected what would have been the correct interpretation.
134 Quoted in Alfaric, Ventures manicMennes II, p. 185.
135 See his communication to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres
24 May 1957.
known to the heresiologists, but it is significant that they quote

them as coming from quite other apocrypha than the Gospel of
Thomas—from the Gospel of the Hebrews, or the Gospel of the
Egyptians (a text different from our Coptic one under the same
name). It may well be, indeed, that all the sayings of which our
text is made up were gleaned right and left from previously-
written apocrypha.
As it has often been observed, some of these sayings echo,
in tone and in spirit, familiar passages in the canonical Gospels:
“Jesus said: He who has [something] in his hand, to him will be
given; but he who has not, what little remains to him will be
taken from him”.136 Reading such texts, which may be regarded
as orthodox, one may even wonder whether the form they
impart to certain sayings of Jesus may not be truer than the form
in which they are preserved in the Gospel tradition. Others, on
the contrary, are of a novel and rather peculiar tendency, of
which here are a few examples:
“Jesus says to his disciples: Compare me, and tell me whom I
am like. Simon Peter says to him: Thou art like a just angel!
Matthew says to him: Thou art like a wise man and a philoso¬
pher! Thomas says to him: Master, my tongue cannot find words
to say whom thou art like. Jesus says: I am no longer thy master;
for thou hast drunk, thou art inebriated from the bubbling
spring which is mine and which I sent forth. Then he took him
aside; he said three words to him. And when Thomas came
back to his companions, they asked him: What did Jesus say to
thee ? and Thomas answered them: If I tell you (a single) one of
the words he said to me, you will take up stones, and throw them
at me, and fire will come out of the stones and consume you!’’
We quote another: “Jesus says: Blessed is the man who existed
before he came into being.—If you become my disciples and
if you hear my words, these stones will serve you.—For you
have here, in Paradise, five trees which change not winter nor sum¬
mer, whose leaves do not fall: whoever knows them will not taste
136 Cf. Luke XIX, 26; also Luke XVIII, 18, and Mark IV, 25, then Matthew
XIII, 12; note the very variable formulation of this saying as it appears in the
different texts.
death.”—“Jesus says: Now, when you see your appearance,

you rejoice. But when you see your images which came into
being before you, which do not die and do not show them¬
selves, how will you be able to bear such greatness?”
Finally, here is the last logion of the collection: “Simon Peter
says to them: Let Mary go out from our midst, for women
are not worthy of Life! Jesus says: See, I will draw her so as
to make her male so that she also may become a living spirit
like you males. For every woman who has become male will
enter the kingdom of heaven.” This doctrine was already attest¬
ed, among others, by a fragment of the writings of the Gnostic
Theodotus, preserved by Clement of Alexandria (fragment XXI,
3)137 which raises the question of the feminine elements which
will become masculine in order to unite themselves with the
angels and enter into the Pleroma.138 Moreover, Professor Puech
has been able to trace echoes of this curious text, even among
the Cathars at the beginning of the fourteenth century.
Certain Gnostic or Manichaean characteristics are clearly
marked in certain parts of the Coptic compilation. It is possible,
of course, that there may have been other versions of this Gospel
of Thomas—the three fragments from Oxyrhynchus are too short
for us to make a reliable comparison—which were less heterodox.
But the censures pronounced upon it by the Church hardly allow
us to suppose so.
Such are the first conclusions we can draw from the three al¬
leged Gospels we have found, under the names of Philip, Thomas
and Matthias. When it becomes possible to analyse them in a more
critical manner, no doubt there will be some fascinating discover¬
ies. In several passages these writings recall more or less clearly
what the heresiologists quote from Gospels entitled of the Hebrews,
137 The fragment LXXIX also explains that the seed, once it is formed, ceases
to be female and becomes male, thus being cured of its weakness and submission
to the cosmic powers (cf. edn. Sagnard, pp. 98-101 and 202-3); see also the
Philosophumena (VI, 30) upon Valentinus and upon the Naassenes, summarized
above on p. 47. Similar beliefs were entertained by the Pythagoreans and the
Hermetists, q.v. J. Carcopino, Aspects mystiques de la Rome patetme (50; Sur les
traces de VHermetisme africain), p. 284, note 2; and Le mystbe d’un symbole chrltien,
pp. 45 and 61-2.
138 Cf. above. Gospel of Philip quoted, p. 224, and note 122.
oj the Ebionites, or of the Nazarenes. Those long-lost books dealt,

apparently, with the same problems as appear in the three great
apocryphal Gospels we have recovered in Coptic. Here let us not
forget that the titles borne by our Gnostic writings must not
be taken as sure indications of their identity. Such appellations
were manifestly changeable; they might even be transferred from
one writing to another. As we shall presently see, the Gospel of the
Egyptians from the Chenoboskion library, in which there are two
recensions of it, has nothing to do with the one that the heresio-
logists had heard of; whilst certain verses quoted by Epiphanius
(XXVI, 13) as taken from the Gospel of Philip, are completely
absent from our Gospel of Philip, although the substance of them
is approximately reproduced in our Gospel of the Egyptians\
A passage of Clement of Alexandria (.Stromateis, I, 9, 45) attri¬
butes the following saying to the Gospel of the Hebrews: “He
who marvels will reign, and he who reigns will have rest”; and,
in Book V (14, 96) of the same Stromateis Clement even repeats
the text in more developed form: “Let him never cease from
seeking until he finds; when he finds he will be amazed; and when
he has been amazed he will reign; and, having reigned, he will be
at rest”. But in our Gospel of Thomas we again find exactly this
passage. In short, it is not so much the titles as the contents of our
writings that must be taken as the basis for sound identifications.
The library of Chenoboskion contains eight more treatises
which also belong to Christian apocryphal literature. Four are
under the name of Peter; three are alleged revelations of James,
and lastly there is an Apocalypse of Paul.
The Acts of Peter (No. 20) that we have here is quite unlike any¬
thing hitherto known under that title. The opening lines of the
writing are damaged; however, we gather that a strange person
has appeared, holding in his left hand “a book cover like unto
[ ?] and, in his right, a branch of the styrax tree. Elis voice booms
heavily as he cries through the streets of the city: Margarites,
Margarites! [Pearl, pearl!]—I thought [says Peter] that it was a
man of that same city. ” Peter afterwards addresses this mysterious
personage, who tells him that he is named Lithargoel. Lithargoel
-—if we refer back to the Coptic book on The Investiture of the
Archangel Gabriel fictively ascribed to St Stephen139— is a great

angel, the tenth of a series which begins with Gabriel, and
includes the four luminaries Heleleth, Harmozel, Uriel, Dauei-
thael; though he holds in his hands not, as he does here, the book
and the branch of sty rax, but the nard which is the “the medicine
of life for souls”. But, in our Acts of Peter, it is the Saviour who
has put on this angelic appearance and who, thus disguised, calls
Peter at once by his name, to the latter’s great astonishment. We
have here, evidently, one of the rather romantic writings of which
so many are known in Christian apocryphal literature.
Let us leave aside the Apocalypse of Peter (No. 28), a work which,
again, is different from that which we possessed before under that
title: weean also pass by the Epistle of Peter to Philip1*0 (No. 15) and
the Prayer of the Apostle Peter (No. 49). The writings numbered
10, 11 and 45 are three Revelations written under the name of
James, all three different. The importance that the Gnostics
assigned to this James is no doubt due to his having been regarded,
like Thomas, as a brother of the Saviour, and to his being the
first bishop of Jerusalem. Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, has
preserved some fragments of the Hypotyposes of Clement (a book
otherwise lost to us), and in these we read that the Christ, after
his resurrection, manifested himself to James “who was one of
those who were regarded as brothers of the Lord”, and that Jesus
had then “passed on the Gnosis to James the Just, to John and to
Peter, who themselves [passed it on] to the other apostles”.
According to St Jerome (in his Commentary on the Prophet Micah,
VII, 7), who upon this point refers to the Gospel of the Hebrews,
James would have been the first to whom Christ appeared after
the Resurrection. Incidentally, the Philosophumena, in what it
says of the Naassenes, summarizes certain teachings which those
sectaries presented as “the principal points of the doctrine that
James the brother of the Lord had passed on to Mariamne”.141
This unpublished text is to be found in the Pierpont Morgan manuscript

593 = Hamouli XVIII, dating from the ninth century; cf. its p. 79.
140 Cf. Puech, Les Nouveaux Merits . . . , p. 116.
141 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, I, 12, 5 and II, 1, 4-5; Philosophumena, V,
7, 1; Epiphanius, Pauarion, LXXVIII, 7; cf. also the status assigned to James in
the Clementines.
The impressive status which the Gnostics attributed to James is

moreover attested in our Chenoboskion writings by a curious
logion in the Gospel of Thomas, where the Saviour replies to the
disciples: “Wherever you go, you will turn to James the Just
for whose sake Heaven as well as earth was produced.” In our
Gospel of the Egyptians, James the Great is placed upon a
level with the supernatural powers put in charge of the great
baptisms.
The Apocalypse of James, catalogued as No. 10, brings Jesus in
person into its preamble: he predicts to James: “Tomorrow they
will arrest me. . . .’’James replies: “Rabbi ...” and the
dialogue ensues. The revelation is Gnostic enough to mention
entities such as Akhamoth, and Sophia. Text No. 11 begins with
these words: “These are the sayings which were said by James
the Just, at Jerusalem. . . . They were written by Mereim, one
of the priests. . .
The Apocalypse oj Paul (No. 9) is different from the Ascensions
of Paul, of which we have, in Greek, a version of the end of the
fourth century, and of which there are numerous adaptations in
Latin, Syrian, Coptic, Armenian and Old Slavonic. . . .142 The
general theme of the work remains, however, on the whole, the
same as in that which was already known. It deals with the ascents
of Paul into the heavens,143 where he is shown the torments of
the inferno and then the radiant dwellings of Paradise—the
theme which was one day to become that of the admirable
Divina Commedia. According to our Coptic work, Paul is caught
up from the mountain of Jericho into the higher realms. In the
first heaven, he witnesses the interrogation of souls. He passes by
angels with frightening faces who, with rods of iron in their
hands are driving the damned to their punishment. Higher and
higher Paul is led, by the angel who acts as his guide, until he has
passed successively through the gates of the seven heavens. In
the sixth, Paul sees his companions the apostles coming to wel¬
come him. In the seventh heaven a being who has the appearance
of an old man accosts him: “Whither goest thou, blessed Paul,
142 Cf. Dictionnaire de la Bible; Supplement, vol. I, cols. 528-9.

143 II Corinthians XII, 2; cf. Bidez-Cumont, he. cit., vol. I, p. 230, note 6.
who hast been elect from thy mother s breast? Paul consults
his angel guide, who, by a sign, invites him to reply to the aged
man: “I shall return to the place whence I came . . . , towards
the world of mortals, that I may again become a slave in the
servitude of Babylon.—But how wilt thou find the strength to
separate from me? ” asks the old man, who adds: Look, and see
the principalities and the powers!” Then, for Paul, a sign is
given. . . .
Must we identify this book with that lost apocryphon, the
Ascension of Paul, known to Epiphanius as in use among the Cain-
ites and mentioned in his Against the Heresies (XXXVIII, 2) ?
Decidedly not: from what we are told of that writing, it described
the apostle’s ascent into three heavens (showing thereby a legiti¬
mate desire for conformity with the passage of II Corinthians XII,
2, where Paul mentions the vision he had actually had), and not
seven heavens, as in the much more audacious fiction entertained
by our Gnostics.144
★ ★ ★
Lastly, we have to mention some of the treatises contained in

Codex XIII, the greater part of which is now known as the Jung
Codex. This is undoubtedly the latest manuscript in the collection.
Nevertheless, its unequal and irregular writing is apparently from
the same hand as the splendid calligraphy of Codex X. The
change from the one to the other of these writings could be
explained by the ageing, or by some illness, of the copyist; the
second explanation being the more probable. To realize the
possibility of this odd phenomenon, one has only to refer to plate
95 in the volume of photographic reproductions already pub¬
lished by the Coptic Museum: page 47 of Codex X includes
several lines of the deformed writing which is the rule in Codex
XIII, but its deformities, so exceptional in this beautiful manu¬
script, presently fade away, and we have again the regular
calligraphy of our Codex X. In any case, and although Codex
144 The evolution by which the notion of three heavens developed into that
of the seven planetary spheres, enveloped by the sphere of the fixed stars, is
indicated in F. Cumont, Lux Perpetua, pp. 143-4 and 184-6.
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CODEX X, PAGES 32 AND 33
At the top of the left-hand page is the end of the Sacred Book of John, Under
its conclusion, without any indication of title, begins the Gospel according
to Thomas.
(See Note, p. 328)
XIII is shown by the personality of its copyist to be an authentic

member of the Chenoboskion hbrary, we must emphasize the
fact that the subakhmimic dialect in which it is written dis¬
tinguishes it radically from the rest of the collection. And this
separateness is furthermore evident from its contents: these
include a Discourse to Reginos upon the Resurrection (No. 47), an
anonymous treatise which MM. Puech and Quispel think is
attributable to Heracleon (No. 48),145 and a Gospel of Truth (No.
46). Nos. 45 and 49, the Apocalypse of James and the Prayer of the
Apostle Peter, have already been mentioned above.
The Gospel of Truth has lately been published by MM. Puech
and Quispel with an extremely careful translation by M.
Malinine. We must remember that the six pages of manuscript
missing from this publication are in the collection that went to the
Coptic Museum.146 hr spite of its title, the text is simply that of a
treatise: it names no author, no addressee; it invokes no great
prophet, and no saviour other than Jesus is mentioned in it.
Moreover, one finds here none of the multiple names of aeons or
luminaries, or allusions to the myths of Sophia and the evil
demiurge which characterize the principal writings from Cheno¬
boskion. The references upon which this exegetist most clearly
relies are, wisely enough, those of the Holy Scriptures; particu¬
larly the Johannine Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews. The
text is full of bad rhetoric while otherwise particularly empty
—although this Gospel of Truth pretends to be “a good news that
will be a joy to those for whom the Father, through the Word
[that is, the Saviour], has vouchsafed the Gnosis”. Whoever has
this Gnosis, it affirms, takes what is his and restores it to himself.
By Gnosis, a man knows “whence he has come and whither he is
going”. The Christ is presented as the revealer of “the living
Book of the living”; a truth of which one must spell out every
145 Cf. Evatigelium Veritatis: Jung Codex, edited by M. Malinine, H. C. Puech
and G. Quispel, 1956. Introduction.
148 These are reproduced in the photographic edition of Pahor Labib, Coptic
Gnostic Papyri .... vol. I. It must be said that these pages are reproduced in a
disorder which it is hard to justify, seeing that the original pagination is in most
cases clearly shown at the top of each page. Moreover, it looks as though these
leaves have been considerably damaged or even torn since I made the first in¬
ventory.
letter. It was error and ignorance that rebelled against the Saviour
and caused him to be nailed to the Cross. Salvation is represented
here as the response to a Call coming from below, like an awaken¬
ing out of deep sleep. . . . Here and there, hov/ever, are
passages that make one feel that behind the writing there is a
meditation—all too abstract—upon a myth which is never im¬
parted to us in its own terms, but which, judging by certain
details, must have been a cosmogony analogous to those disclosed
ill other Gnostic treatises. Matter, we are told, was set in motion
and shaped by error trying to imitate the truth, and this error
tried to attract to itself the beings of the intermediate world.
The cosmic universe owed its development to the ignorance
of the highest God, to anxiety, terror and forgetfulness; but the
Pleroma went in search of the elect into these abysses, and that by
means of the Gnosis, by the revelation of Jesus and of the Cross.
The presence of such elements explains why the work was in¬
cluded by the sectaries of Chenoboskion in their library.
Its origin—the editors cautiously suggest—may perhaps be
traceable to the Gnostic Valentinus; but if this work was really
representative of him we should have to admit that he was a
pretty poor writer! However, in Irenaeus’ Adversus Haereses (III,
ii, 9) written between the years 180 and 185, we read that,
“As for the disciples of Valentinus, without let or restraint by the
slightest shame, they boast, while showing their writings, of
having in their possession more Gospels than are actually in exist¬
ence. They have even had the impudence to entitle Gospel of
Truth, a work recently made up by themselves; which in no way
agrees with the Gospels of the Apostles. So not even the Gospel
itself escapes the blasphemies of these people. . . . ” With less
precision, the pseudo-Tertullian writes, in Chapter iv of his
treatise Against the Heresies, that Valentinus, “beside our Gospels
possesses another of his own”. But these phrases of Irenaeus and
the pseudo-Tertullian lead us to suppose that this Gospel of
Valentinus pretended, by its form and content, to rivalry with
the Canonical Gospels, which could not be said of the Coptic
writing found under the title of Gospel of Truth. It must be ad¬
mitted, under these conditions, that there is strictly speaking only
one argument that may justify identification of this newly-found

writing with Valentinus’s Gospel of Truth—that is, that the
vocabulary and ideas of the Coptic Gospel of Truth are, as its
present editors have underlined,147 in accord with what we know
of the Valentinian Gnosticism.148
HERMES TRISMEGISTUS AS AN ALLY OF GNOSTICISM
Lastly, we come to a class of writings that one would hardly have

expected to find in a Gnostic library. This consists of the texts
which, in some cases, reveal to us a teaching intermediate between
Gnosticism and Hermetism, whilst others belong properly to
Hermetic literature.149
We have mentioned, earlier in the present book, the curious
character of the most authentic of the links that connect the two
teachings (albeit very superficially)—namely, the Apocalypse of
Dositheus (No. 30). As for the properly Hermetic writings of this
category, they are—significantly—grouped together, five of
them, in Codex VI—which was one of the most in use, as we
can see from the portions of feathers slipped in between the
leaves to mark certain places in the book.
147 Evangelium Veritatis, p. xii.
148 Let us add that, even if the Gospel of Truth in our Coptic collection be
descended from an authentic work under this title assigned to Valentinus, itwould
still be rash to treat it as a true and reliable transcription of that work. Let us not
forget that in every case where it has been possible to compare our Coptic texts
(which are of the fourth and fifth centuries) with information about more ancient
versions of them, it is manifest that each new transcription was taken as an
opportunity for alterations, additions and glosses, even for the joining-together
of different works, which may have profoundly modified the substance in order
to bring it into accord with the beliefs peculiar to our Egyptian sectaries. One
need only take, for examples, the case of the Secret Book of John, with its two
versions different from one another and different also from the most ancient
version analysed by Irenacus (I.xxix); and the manner in which the Sophia of Jesus
and the Hypostasis of the Archons were fabricated, the former from the Epistle of
Eugnostos and the latter from what we have in text No. 40; or, again, count up
the glosses and interpolations with which the compiler of our Codex X has
enriched the texts that he transcribed—to realize the shifting character, changing
from century to century, of Gnostic literature. It is improbable—it would be a
miracle—if this Gospel of Truth, from the latest of all the Chenoboskion manu¬
scripts—even though it were originally modelled on a work of that name ascribed
to Valentinus—should have escaped distortion by these avatars, any more than
the other writings in our collection.
149 J. Doresse, “Hermes et la Gnosc.”
The text of No. 21 is entitled Authentic discourse (meaning,

rather, “authoritative”) of Hermes to Tat, a title which should be
compared with those of works in the corpus of the Greek Her¬
metic writings: Logos Katholikos, Hieros Logos, Logos Apokryphos
—Universal Discourse, Sacred Discourse, Hidden Discourse
(these are the Greek treatises IIa, III, XIII). Typically Hermetic
in its style, the Coptic work does contain, however, allusions of a
Gnostic tendency—for instance, about the creation of the Archons.
The next writing (No. 22) is entitled The Sense of Understand¬
ing, The Thought of the Great Power. This title recalls the first
lines of an extract from a Hermetic book preserved in the
florilegium of Stobaeus (now indicated by the number XVIII),150
where the same words occur together—noema, pronoia, a'isthesis.
Let us also remember the sub-title Upon Thought and Sensation,
borne by the IXth treatise of the Greek corpus.
The Coptic text begins thus: ‘ ‘ Since we have received a teach¬
ing in this place, let us uplift ourselves first to the things that have
been said to us, and we shall find this—that he said that he who
was treated [?] with violence absolutely, the same is glorified
justly. Was it not even so that they outraged him? ...” The
theme is then specified in these words: “We say then, now, since
he said that the one who does violence and the one who does
justice, both of them possess one force, how can he have said that
the Word of the soul is an image without a model?” This rather
mysterious preamble is indeed in a style modelled upon that of
the Greek Hermetic treatises, were it only for the way in which it
refers in a few words to some previous discussions, upon the
theme of which the dialogue then starts off in a new direction.
In this case the Coptic exposition alludes to a theme discussed
before in some discourse which the Chenoboskion library has
not preserved for us. (Nor does the formula “an image without a
model, the Word of the soul” occur again in any of the Hermetic
treatises or fragments of them preserved in Greek.) From this
point of departure the discussion goes on to a new subject—the
primitive creation of forms, models and natures. The last words
150 Hermes Trismegiste, vol. Ill, cd. Nock and Festugi£re, 1954, pp. ciii-cvi and
80-81.
are about the god who takes care of his creatures “in the manner
of the cultivator who gives nourishment every day to his pro¬
duce . This recalls other allusions to the labourer, the “good
sower of life”, a favourite personage in the Hermetic parables.151
Treatise No. 23 has no title. This in its turn appears to be the
continuation of a previous instruction. Hermes Trismegistus—
the Nous—here explains to his “son” the mysteries of the Heb¬
domad, of the Ogdoad and of the Ennead152—subjects rarely
touched upon in the Greek Hermetic writings. Finally, this
revelation is saluted with a hymn (ending in a sequence ofvowels):
Lord give to us a wisdom drawn from thy power which reaches
even unto us, that we may show forth the teaching of the Ogdoad
and the Ennead”. The substance of the treatise recalls certain
passages of the Poimatidres and of the Greek Hermetic treatise
No. XIII.
Writing No. 25 also has no definite title. It very evidently
provides a sequel to text No. 23 just mentioned, from which it is
separated, in the Coptic manuscript, by the transcription of a
purely Gnostic revelation. It concludes with a passage which was
already known long before the discovery of our Coptic writings
—the prayer which comes at the end of the Latin Asclepius, and
is to be found also in a Greek magical document—the Mimaut
papyrus.153
But the content itself of our treatise No. 25 has nothing in
common with the Asclepius. As we have indicated, it takes up the
theme of the Hermetic text that precedes it: “I have told thee, my
son, that I am the Nous. I have seen that speech is impotent to
151 J. Doresse, “Hermes et la Gnose,” pp. 59-60.

152 The Hebdomad corresponds to the lower heavens of the material world:
the Ogdoad is the higher world: cf. Corpus Henneticum, ed. Nock and Festugiere,
vol. I, p. 25, note 64; vol. II, p. 216, note 66: it is the divinity, the celestial king¬
dom, also called by the Gnostics the heavenly Jerusalem (cf. for example, Sagnard,
Gnose valentinienne, p. 509). As for the word “Ennead”, we do not find this in
any Hermetic treatises we have up to the present: it must refer to the Kingdom
of the highest entities established above the Ogdoad which itself surrounds and
dominates the seven material heavens; Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 54, compares
this notion with certain of the Egyptian cosmogonies which describe nine primi¬
tive divinities, one being that of the original creator who engendered the eight others.
163 Festugiere and Nock give this, in a note, in Corpus Hermeticum, vol. II,
p. 216. Upon the prayer, cf. J. Carcopino, L’Hermetisme africain . . . , p. 289.
reveal these things, for the entire Ogdoad, my son, and the soul
that is in it, and the angels, sing the hymn in silence. ’ ’ This exposition
is intermingled with prayers: “Thee I invoke, thou who dost
govern the sovereign power, thou whose word is creative of
light and whose sayings are immortal, eternal and immutable.’’
This treatise—the fourth of the evidently coherent series
which we have now under consideration154—would seem, at
the same time, to bring us to the peroration that concludes them
as a whole. It ends, in fact, not only with the prayer we have
mentioned but also, just before that, with last exhortations from
Hermes to his disciple. The text of what he has just revealed is to
be written upon tablets of jasper, defended by eight guardians
(four with heads of frogs and four with heads of cats), and
protected by a stone. The operation is to take place under astro¬
nomical conjunctions, which are given in rather over-simplified
form, and—like certain celestial positions mentioned in the
Pistis-Sophia155—derive from an old Chaldaean astrological
system.156 The Trismegistus concludes by dictating a solemn
warning, to be written into the text, lest any impious readers
should divulge this revelation, use it for maleficent purposes, or
try to use it in opposition to the course of Fate. Those who make
use of it—says the text—ought to walk according to the law of
God, never transgressing it, but piously asking God for wisdom
and Gnosis. It is thus, by degrees, that the adepts will enter into the
way of immortality, and will attain to a conception of the Og¬
doad, which in its turn, reveals the Ennead. The disciples repeat
the oath “by the heaven and the earth, fire and water, the seven
ousiarchs,157 the creator spirit, the god who engenders and he
who is born of himself and those who have begotten him, that
they may guard the things that Hermes has told”. Those who
154 The texts Nos. 21, 22, 23 and 25.

165 C. Schmidt and W. Till, Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften, pp. 238-41.
166 Cf. above, p. 75 and note 35 of this chapter; and, below, p. 271.
167 The ousiarchs, who head this list of all the powers up to the highest, are
the rulers of the “essence” or of matter—the rulers of the planets. The term
was never encountered till now except in the Asclepius, § 19 (cf. Corpus Hermeti-
cutn, vol. II, p. 375, note 157): this detail is a sign of Iranian influence. The As¬
clepius states that the seven spheres have, as ousiarchs, “that which is named
fortune and Heimermene”.
broke this oath would be exposed to the wrath of all the powers
enumerated—powers which, be it observed, seem to belong
more to Gnostic mythology than to Hermetic doctrine. These
solemn promises are sealed, as we have seen, by the prayer already
known to us in Latin at the end of the Asclepius and, in Greek,
in the magico-Gnostic papyrus Mimaut. After this orison, to
which no doubt a special efficacy was attributed, the treatise
terminates with the same concluding formula which serves also
to close the Asclepius: “When they had pronounced this prayer,
they embraced one another and went to take pure nourishment in
which there had never been blood.”
As for text No. 26, it alone—or almost alone—of those in the
Chenoboskion library, gives us a writing which we knew before
in a less archaic form: but let us first give an analysis of it.
It begins with these sentences: “If thou wouldst see, indeed,
the accomplishment of this mystery and the image of this miracle,
consider the manner in which carnal union is effected by the male
and by the woman. When the former attains to the supreme
moment, and when the seed springs forth, at that moment the
woman receives the strength of the male, while the male receives
the strength of the woman. . . . It is because of this that the
mystery of carnal union is practised in secret, so that the con¬
junction of natures should not be degraded through being seen of
the multitude who would despise that work. . .
Pious men are few in number, continues our book. Created
after the gods, composed of (both) divine and mortal nature,
man tends towards the supreme powers. Like them, he too has
created in his own image, by fashioning the statues that he
worships.
But now, from the mouth of the Trismegistus, we are given a
description of the future of the world: “Knowest thou not,
Asclepius, that Egypt is the image of heaven, or better still, the
dwelling of heaven and of all the powers that are in heaven?
. . . Our earth is the temple of the world ” Nevertheless “a
day is coming when it will appear that the Egyptians have served
the divinity in vain, and all their pious worship will become
sterile. Indeed all divinity will leave Egypt and take refuge in
heaven . . . for the foreigners will invade Egypt and will

dominate her.” Then the Egyptians will be prevented from
worshipping the divinity, and even subjected to torture. The
country will no longer be filled with temples but with tombs.
“And thou, O river, a day will come when thou wilt overflow
with blood instead of water, and when the bodies of the dead
will be piled higher than thy banks.” And yet, when that day
comes, they will weep less for one who dies than for anyone who
is still living, having no longer anything of Egypt except the
language. On that day “all that I have taught to you—to you, Tat,
Asclepios and Ammon—all will be accounted as vanity”. Even
the physical universe will subside in disorder: this will be the old
age of the world, marked with these three seals—‘ ‘ Atheism, dis¬
honour and unreason”. Then the divinity will complete the ruin
of tins universe by some calamity, before giving it back its first
beauty and restoring all things for a new cycle, so that, in the end,
the gods “will be re-established in a town that will be upon the
borders of Egypt”.
After having developed this apocalypse, the treatise enlarges
upon the immortal and the mortal: what is death and, above all,
what is the heavenly judgment of souls? “Listen, O Asclepios,
there is a great demon whom the supreme God has assigned to be
the guardian, and to judge the souls, of men. God established him
in the midst of the air, between earth and heaven: when the soul
goes forth from the body, Fate obliges her to meet this demon:
he then turns her round and examines the manner in which she
has behaved in her life.”158 These eschatological perspectives are
developed at length; and then the text ends.
What we have in this Coptic writing corresponds to a lengthy
portion (from the middle of § 21 to the end of § 29) of an authen¬
tic Hermetic writing which, up to the present, had reached us
only in the form of a Latin adaptation—the Asclepius, wrongly
attributed to Apuleius.159 Our Coptic text is more restrained than
the Latin version. If we compare them, it seems that most of the
168 Cf. above, chap, ii, pp. 72-73 upon the judgment of the soul as described
in the Pistis-Sophia.
169 Cf. Corpus Hermeticwu, vol. II, pp. jpff. Its existence is attested at the be¬
ginning of the fourth century by quotations from it in Lactantius. The Latin
additions that enrich the version of the pseudo-Apuleius are

artificial embellishments, or rhetorical elaborations.160 Moreover,
such passages as that upon carnal union with which our Coptic
version begins, have been considerably edulcorated in the Latin.
Let us remark, by the way, that the famous “revelation”—
“Knowest thou not, Asclepios, that Egypt is the image of
heaven . . . ?” with its fictive prophecy of the barbarization
of the country by foreigners billeting themselves upon it, and
then of the ultimate re-establishment of the order of the gods—
offers us the last example of a kind of writing which had been
recurrently practised in pharaonic literature from the earliest
ages. It had quite a weakness for the elaboration of such pseudo¬
prophecies retracing, after each period of national misfortune,
the conventional picture of a universal disorder, and of the
abandonment of Egypt by the gods, and ending with this
announcement that, eventually, some sovereign would come,
bringing salvation.161 Naturally, writings of this kind were
composed after the enthronement of the fictitiously predicted
<< • >>
saviour .
Let us pass over the various literary problems raised by a
comparison between our texts and those of the Greek Hermetic
corpus and the Latin Asclepius. As our Coptic compiler has no
wish to hide from us, in the note he has inserted between texts 25
and 26, we are only dealing with extracts. The Nos. 21, 22, 23 and
25, which constitute a sequence, must have been the principal
parts of that “first treatise” that he says he has copied into this
Codex.
When these texts can be analysed more thoroughly, the ques¬
tion will be, above all, whether the Gnostic entities mentioned
version which has come down to us existed in St Augustine’s day; he made use
of it in the City of God. The erroneous attribution of this work to Apuleius began
in the ninth century. Fragments of the Greek original have also been preserved
by, among others, Johannes Lydus (sixth century).
160 Our Coptic text comes nearer to some fragments preserved by Johannes
Lydus, for example, that of § 28 of the Asclepius, (quoted in the Corpus Hermeti-
cutn, vol. II, p. 334), than to the Latin version.
161 J. Doresse, “Apocalypses egyptiennes” in La Table Ronde, No. no, Feb.
1957, more particularly pp. 29-35. Cf. the translations of hieroglyphic texts
given in Erman, Die Literatur der Aegypter, 1923, pp. I22ff.; see also G. Posener,
Litterature et politique dans VEgypte de la Xlleme dynastie, 1956.
here, in writings which would otherwise seem to conform well

enough to the regular teaching of Hermetism, really belonged to
the first versions of these works; or whether, on the other hand,
they were imported into them by one of our sectaries, who
modified the texts in accordance with his own beliefs.
What remains so remarkable is the presence of these Hermetic
writings in a library of which all the rest is essentially Gnostic.162
Moreover, the gloss of the Gnostic compiler—“This is the first
discourse that I have copied for you. But there are many others
that have come into my hands: I have not transcribed them,
dunking that they have already reached you. . . . ”—greatly
heightens the interest of its presence in this collection. What it
shows is that there was in circulation in Upper Egypt, in the
second half of the fourth century (the period of our Codex X), a
far more important collection of Hermetic treatises, already trans¬
lated from Greek into Sahidic Coptic,163 and destined, no doubt,
for use by sectaries more or less related to those of Chenoboskion.
The intentional juxtaposition of Hermetic writings and Gnostic
treatises shows that some interchange was then going on between
the two schools of doctrine. Here, living once again before our
eyes, is that syncretic movement which associated the Gnostic
prophets not only to the Hermes of Cyllene, but also to the more
learned Hermes of the Greek mystical treatises. This is precisely
the blend of ideas whose occurrence at that epoch had been
suggested, but not satisfactorily proved, by the little treatise of
Zosimos the alchemist Upon the Letter Omega; in which myths
derived from the writings of Zoroaster, some of those of Nico-
theus “the hidden” and of the Jewish Gnosis, are treated upon the
same footing as writings On the Natures and On Immateriality,
which are imputed to the authority of the Trismegistus.
162 From the point of view of Hermetic literature itself, it should be em¬
phasized that these writings bring us texts not only unpublished, but also attested
by manuscripts going back nearly as far as to the epoch in which the treatises of
learned Hermetism were composed (cf. J. Carcopino, L'Hermetisme africain,
pp. 290-1), from which epoch dates also that magical papyrus Mimaut which
preserves a Greek text of the prayer that concludes our text No. 25, and which
appears again at the end of the Latin version of the Asclepius (cf. Carcopino,
toe. cit., p. 289, note 3).
163 Cf. J. Doresse, “Hermes et la Gnose,” pp. 58-9.
CHAPTER VI
THE SETHI AN S ACCORDING TO THEIR

WRITINGS
My examination of these Coptic writings was—I must repeat—

unequal and incomplete. It is certain that when once they be¬
come completely accessible, they will be found to be much more
eloquent and infinitely richer than can be gathered from my
rather hurried notes.
Already, however, the yield from them is considerable; firstly
because of their number. No ancient library as rich as this had
been found before. The interest of the new manuscripts is en¬
hanced by the homogeneity of the writings they contain, their
undoubted unity: most of them belong to the same rehgious body;
they complement one another. Some of them refer to this or that
other work included in the same collection. Here, then, it is
practically certain that we possess an authentic sacred library. .The
interest of the new texts is further heightened by their diversity:
they depict the same Gnostic myths under the most varied forms:
moreover, the great sacred revelations are intermingled with
commentaries, sacramental rubrics, prayers, and polemical
epistles against adversaries. They are even accompanied by some
works from alien groups—Valentinian or Hermetist, in whom
our sectaries were interested. Such an assemblage is full of life.
With this library at hand, it at last becomes possible to judge the
relative values of the abundant reports upon the Gnostics which
the heresiologists have left us and to make fuller use of the best of
them. One has only to glance through the new writings to re¬
cognize, for instance, the reliability of such an account as that
given in the Philosophumena—a value already presumed by M.
Filliozat—for it is now clear that the texts it summarizes are
authentically Gnostic.1 We can also confirm the accuracy oi some
1
Cf. chap. I, note 26.
249
of the accounts of Epiphanius and the slapdash but pretty realistic

character of the information we have from Theodore Bar-
Konai. On the other hand, we are put somewhat upon our guard
about what we were told of the great heretical teachers, not one
of whom makes any explicit appearance in the writings from
Chenoboskion.
In return for reassuring us about the dependability of the
heresiologists, the new Coptic books themselves gain in prestige
by confrontation with the literature of their adversaries: it is
noteworthy, for example, that the principal myths restored to us
by the new Gnostic texts are in conformity with what their
hostile critics said of the earliest Gnosticism. Thus Irenaeus bears
witness to the existence, before the year 180, of a writing which
constitutes the first part of the Secret Book of John; the pseudo-
Hippolytus, too, provides us with a guarantee of the early existence
of our Paraphrase of Seth and of several other apocrypha; Por¬
phyry knew very well the books that we have under the names of
Zoroaster, Zostrian, Messos and “ Allogenes”. Finally, all this con¬
firms our belief that the majority of our Coptic books were
translations from the Greek—even though some of them com¬
placently refer to Hebrew to tell us that Ariael signifies “the
Lion of God” or to speculate upon Arbathiao, Ekhmoth and
Ekhamoth. At the same time, we recognize that the texts of
Codex X have been enriched with glosses and commentaries
which, for their part, are very unlikely to be of earlier date than
that of the Coptic scribe of this actual manuscript.
What was the sect that owned these manuscripts? Firstly, are
we dealing with a group of importance? For it is of course pos¬
sible that a little group of well-to-do initiates provided themselves
with this fme collection of manuscripts. It is manifest, however,
that such a fme library could only have been amassed thanks to
the activities of many copyists, who were working not only in
the place where the library was constituted: we have proof of
this, in the personal annotation of the scribe who contributes the
Hermetic anthology in our manuscript No. VI2: and the whole
collection of considerably varied works were written at dates
2 Cf. here, pp. 143 and 248, and J. Doresse, “Hermes et la Gnose,” pp. 58-9.
The Sethians According to Their Writings 251
ranging over more than a century. This suggests that there was
indeed an actual Gnostic church, maintaining relations with
groups situated in other regions.
Nothing in these documents leads us to suppose that the Gno¬
stics in question were addicted to licentious rites: one finds oneself
almost disappointed at this, so freely had the hercsiologists given
us to understand that mysteries of that description were common
practice in the principal sects! From the contents of the writings
we can pretty well catalogue their owners. The presence of
Barbelo among the higher powers; the fact that so many of the
books are labelled with the name of Seth; that we find among
them a Supreme Allogenes, and that they include a Paraphrase of
Shetn (also called of Seth)—show that the sect was Sethian.3
Epiphanius, moreover, tells us that this sect still existed in Egypt
at that epoch; he remembers having met some of its adepts there
himself. He also tells us that it was well on the way to extinction,
which would agree well enough with the fact that our library
(whose latest manuscripts date from the end of the fourth
century) was buried when some of the books were still practically
new. One might, no doubt, think also of the Ophites or of the
Naassenes; our Coptic writings do indeed include the Gospel oj
the Egyptians and the Gospel of Thomas to which those sects had
recourse. One might also wonder whether one had to do with
Archontici or Barbelognostics. . . . But it would be useless to
try to be more precise; we know from the heresiologists that the
sects borrowed from one another without the slightest com¬
punction—and here we have tangible proof of it. Besides, the
enemies of Gnosticisim no doubt tended to multiply to excess, in
their collections, the various appellations which in different
countries were applied to sects in reality very similar to one
another.
It is a striking fact that this collection of Coptic books would
fairly exactly represent, on the one hand, the anonymous Gnostics
mentioned by Porphyry, and, on the other, the repertory of
apocrypha utilized by the pseudo-Zosimos in his treatise On the
3 It was by chance alone, however, that our Sethian Gnostics happened to live
near the town of Shenesit—“the acacias of Seth”: see chap, ill, p. 129.
Letter Omega. This guarantees that the collection we have com¬

prises the texts that were most universally current among the
sects. We may even consider, if we compare the titles of the re¬
discovered works with those listed by the heresiologists, that we
have nearly all the literature that the ancient enemies of the
Gnostics had heard of. What titles are still lacking? Doubtless the
Great Revelation of Simon Magus; the Apocalypse of Nicotheus, the
celestial visions of Marsanes and Martiades; those of Phosilampes;
the Gospel of Eve, the Apocalypse of Abraham; the prophecies that
Basilides attributed to Barcabbas and to Barcoph; the Baruch of
Justin. . . . But let us not be insatiable! Neither should we
forget that our mass of manuscripts still holds a number of
writings of manifestly important content upon which it has not
yet been possible to replace the right titles. Probably we may yet
come to recognize, little by little, some of the famous texts that
are still missing. It may be, too, that some of these long-sought
writings are disguised under titles different from those we knew
them by: have we not already recognized the Book of Norea under
the title of the Hypostasis of the Archons? The Revelation of Nico¬
theus is perhaps—who knows?—the very book which has been
adapted and disfigured to make the essential part of The Secret
Book of John. It has, in any case, now become certain that only a
minute examination of the Gospels of Philip, Thomas and Matthias,
and of the Gospel of the Egyptians, which we have hi Coptic, will
enable us to decide their nature with certainty, because the
references to these texts by the heresiologists are confused, or
even erroneous. Let us therefore take confidence in our Gnostics,
who, better placed than we are now to select these writings in
which they took even keener interest than we do, chose the fifty-
odd books that we have before us: and let us also take into account,
in compensation for any works we still lack, the fact that we are
discovering other works whose existence had long been totally
unknown, so that we had never expected to find them.
The leading characteristics of this literature? An outstanding
one is the bewildering variety of the ideas and systems it expounds.
This want of coherence in its mythology was one of the greatest
weaknesses of Gnosticism. Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History
(IV, 7), makes much of this; Irenaeus, in his treatise against
heresies (I, xi, 1) goes so far as to say that when two or three
sectaries are together, none of them can express himself in the
same way as the others, but each one explains different things,
using a different terminology. V/e have seen plenty of this in¬
consistency, not only in the discrepancies between their numerous
revelations, but in the fact that they borrow from one another, in
defiance of all logic, mythical elements that are contradictory or
incompatible; and that these writings are presented without
scruple under a multiplicity of titles; and that they even go so far
as to modify the morals they draw to suit the taste of this or that
sect. Hence the Epistle of Eugnostos turns into the Sophia of Jesus,
and a number of bits and pieces are built up into a complete work
like the Secret Book of John. Not one of our texts can even begin
to be the subject of a definite interpretation until we are either
assured of its unity or can estimate how many pieces of different
origins were strung together to compose it. And then how are
we to account for such fantasies? Perhaps by assuming that they
were not always transmitted by writing, but were communi¬
cated—as was the Zoroastrian literature for a long while during
the same centuries—by an oral tradition which rendered them
indefinitely and excessively pliable.
The authors of these works—many of which were built up by
progressive stages—remain practically unknown to us. In this
respect we must note that Gnosticism is in contrast with Mani-
chaeism which presented its writings openly under the names of
Mani and his authentic disciples. Gnostic literature systematically
disguised its origins under impressive fictitious names, which is
equivalent to anonymity—a weakness it shared, alas! with
Hermetic literature. Apart from the names of Dositheus and
Silvanus, which perhaps correspond to real individuals, our
sectaries introduce us to no personality at all except Eugnostos-
Goggessos, the author and compiler of sacred writings which he,
too, composes, sometimes, in the name of the Great Seth! As a
general rule, the Gnostic treatises are attributed to Zostrian,
Zoroaster, Messos, Adam, Eve, Seth, Shem and other “Allo-
genes”. Some of the writings entitled with such great names
254 The Sectet Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
may, perhaps, have been Gnostic adaptations from earlier apo¬

cryphal literature: others, particularly those headed with the
names of Seth and other “Allogenes”, must have been products
of Gnosticism itself. By its use of such names, this religion meant
to assign a higher origin to the books that it used. Moreover, the
Gnostics must have been sincerely convinced of the celestial
origin of the revelations written by their own prophets: we have
read that their greatest masters—Simon, Menander—regarded
themselves as authentic incarnations of the supreme powers, so
that they could not express themselves otherwise than in the names
of the Enlighteners who spoke through their mouths. This
procedure, however, takes on an uglier aspect when our heretics
try to introduce a factitious Christianity into their doctrines by
forging, for this purpose, spurious Gospels dubbed with the names
of James, John, Thomas, Philip and Matthias, and even by
putting some of their revelations into the mouth of the Saviour.
Such a teacher as Basilides was not above making up a compila¬
tion of this kind.
The setting in which these myths are fictitiously revealed is of a
no less fantastic character. We are told that the composition of the
great apocalypses dates from the earhest times, and that they were
preserved under the guardianship of fantastic powers in inacces¬
sible, particularly holy and mysterious places. Of such is the
mountain of Charax upon which the sun never rises, the hiding-
place of the Book of the invisible Great Spirit,4 As we had read
before in the Pistis-Sophia, the Books of Jeou were dictated to
Enoch in Paradise and hidden upon Mount Ararat. The revelations
which are decked out with Christian allusions are, for their part,
localized around the Temple of Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives,
the Mount of Gahlee, the Mountain of Jericho and the Jordan.
And in the course of these diverse revelations other, not less
significant places are mentioned—the mountain from which the
power (?) named Saldao reigns5; the mountain of Seir where
Noah built the Ark6; and, finally, Sodom and Gomorrha whose
4 Cf. chap, v, notes 27 and 58 and, below, note 9.
5 Or rather, the mountain of Seldao (?); cf. chap, n, note 35.
8 According to the Hypostasis of the Archotis or Book of Norea. Concerning this
mountain of Seir (or Shyr), see chap, v, notes 27 and 58.
names, far from being associated with the maledictions of the
Old Testament, here denote the earthly dwelling-places of the
perfect seed of the Great Seth.7 As for the name of Egypt, this
also comes into our texts, where it takes on a particular symbolic
meaning; it denotes the base matter in which the soul is im¬
prisoned (reminding us that, for the Jewish soul, Egypt represents
“the house of bondage”), as it does in the Hymn of the Pearl in
the Acts of Thomas; and also in the teaching of the Naassenes as it
is summarized in the Philosophumena.6
These details of a mythical geography may seem of only
secondary importance: nevertheless, we must try to trace their
origins in tradition and history.
One has to reckon, first of all, with a real geographical setting;
to recover the elements of which one has to collect all that can be
known of the distribution of the Baptist sects—such, for instance,
as the Sampseans and the Osseans—who were established in the
Nabatene, and Ituraea, in the land of Moab—especially on the
banks of the Arnon. One must take account of the area in which
Mandaeanism developed.9 Nor can one neglect the fact that
Mani was originally of Babylon, and that a Kantaean such as
Papa the master of Battai came from the same districts of Gaukai to
the east of Ctesiphon. One has then to reassemble all the elements
of the mythical geography continually implied in our texts.
There we fmd legends anterior to Gnosticism—those, for in¬
stance, which attributed a sacred character to Mount Hermon, the
supposed residence of the children of Seth at the beginning of
human existence.10 We must not fail to reckon with some in¬
valuable traditions preserved by the Mandaeans alone. One of
their writings, recently published, is the Haran Gawaita, in which
we find that Mandaeism knew essentially the same mythical
geography as that of the Gnostics and of the traditions relating
to the Magi, except that the Mandaeans’ version omitted the figure
of Zoroaster, replacing it by those of their legendary prophets
Anosh-Uthra and Yohanna. When their nation began—says the
7 Cf. below, pp. 298—9. 8 Cf. chap. 1, note 120.
9 Upon Gaukai, place of origin of Papa the Kantaean and of Mani, cf. H. C.
Puech, Le ManicMisme . . . , note 144.
10 Cf. chap. 1, note 97.
Harati Gawa'ita—60,000 Mandaeans were established by a king

named Ardavan in the land of the Medes, in which is the White
Mountain (that is, the Mountain of Lights so widely renowned
that it figures even in Indian mythology!). Upon this mountain
Anosh-Uthra carried on the mysterious guidance and instruction
of the child Yohanna—of John the Baptist. There, also, Ancsh-
Uthra instituted seven Guardians, whom he afterwards established
at seven places in Mesopotamia. Then Anosh caused Babylon to
be ruled by the line of Ardavan, who developed Mandaeanism in
that country, but was at last overthrown by another dynasty—
that of the Sassanids.
Even to this day the Mandaeans regard the great White Moun¬
tain of Syr as the most sacred spot in the world. They situate
it at the northern extremity of the inhabited world: just behind it
are the Mataraha—that is, the gates of the Light watched over by
the celestial powers whose function it is to welcome there the
souls of the dead. The only waters that are white—which means,
purifying—are those of rivers which, like the Jordan—the name
of which means “descent”—also How in that direction, down
from the Septentrion towards the south.11 All these strange myths,
we shall find, shed some light upon the obscure allusions preserved
in original Gnostic writings—for example, those at the end of the
anonymous treatise in the Bruce Codex, or in the second part of
the Gospel of the Egyptians, where again we are told about
mysterious places held by certain Guardians.
As well as the names of the great prophets to whom the
Gnostics chose to ascribe their revelations, these places, then, have
their meanings. They show the mythical settings, some of them
already hallowed by traditions earher than the Gnostic, with which
our sectaries meant, very consciously, to surround their beliefs.
11 Cf. Drower, The Mandaeans, pp. 5-6 and 261-3 ; cf. also on p. 419 of the
same work, its index s.v. Tura d Maddai\ Drower, The Haran Gawa'ita and the
Baptism of Hibil-Ziwa, Citta del Vaticano, 1953 ; Widengren, Stand und Aufgaben
der Iranischcn Religionsgeschichte (Extract from Numeti, vols. I and II, Leiden 1955,
pp. [121]—[122] and [130]—[131]; Tondelli, “ 11 Mandeismo e le origini cristiane,”
p. 65 ; Furlani, Peccati e peccatori presso i Mandei, 1950, p. 315; Lars-Ivar Ringbom,
Gralternpel und Parodies, Stockholm, 1951. Cf. finally the Book of John (edn.
Lidzbarski), p. 116, and the Ginzd (edn. Lidzbarski), pp. 302, 362 and 380 (where
the mountain is called Tarwan).
Meanwhile, we may well wonder for what precise reason all
these various writings claimed the protection of secrecy, abso¬
lutely and in principle. Why all those concluding maledictions,
menacing anyone who might unduly disclose them ? One answer
is that mystical literatures have generally made spectacular pro¬
fessions of being hidden. In a good many cases the secrecy has been
bogus. Take, for instance, in Treatise XVI, 2, of the Hermetic
Corpus, this sentence: “O king . . . guard this discourse safely
against all translation, lest such great mysteries should ever come
to be known by the Greeks!”—a quite ludicrous recommenda¬
tion, considering that the treatise in question had never been
written in any other language than Greek! No doubt these
“revelations” gained, from their supposed secrecy, a hold over
the initiates which the open communication of the same writings
would not have secured. In a similar fashion, the monstrous
lion-headed statue of the Mithraic A'ion, which might have looked
merely comical in the light of day, was revealed only in the gloom
of a cell, where the worshipper had but a glimpse of it—in the
lurid glimmer of flames made to issue from its jaws of stone—
through a crack in the wall.12 And one must admit that these
writings we have discovered, if their contemporaries could have
discussed them quite openly, might well have betrayed a medioc¬
rity that would have robbed them of all prestige.
Nevertheless, it is certain that, among the Gnostics, determina¬
tion to keep their writings secret went far beyond being a mere
fiction: their enemies evidently took great pains to obtain know¬
ledge of some of their writings, and, very often, could do so
only from imperfect and indirect information. Moreover, in our
texts, we can see that the definitive title of the Apocalypse of
Zostrian, which would identify it as a revelation of Zoroaster, has
been written in a cryptogram, for the further concealment, from
anyone who might chance to have sight of the manuscript, of
the authority to which it is ascribed. We may compare this fact
with the case of a Hebrew text dealing with certain astrological
subjects, which was found in Cave No. 4 of Qumran: that
treatise is, in part, written from left to right—the opposite
12 Franz Cumont, Monuments des Mysteres de Mithra, vol. I, 1899, p. 81.
direction to that of normal Hebrew script—on purpose to make

it very difficult reading for anyone not practised in that sort of
mental acrobatics!13
We have still to discover what it was, of all the complex ele¬
ments brought together in Gnostic writings, that constituted, in
Gnostic eyes, the authentic and paramount mystery. There were,
first—as we have seen—the names of some of the Enlighteners to
whom they owed such great revelations. In the myths them¬
selves, it was evidently not the astrological conceptions that they
wanted to guard from indiscreet disclosures, for these were known
to everybody: nor was it the sacramental formulas, precious
though they might be; for in this secret literature they only
appear in a very limited number of texts. We must therefore
suppose that what the faithful were guarding so jealously were the
descriptions of the higher world; the names of the entities to be
found there; the image, and the mission, of the Saviour; the
anti-Biblical interpretation of Genesis and of the Mosaic Law;
the revelation of what they held to be the esoteric meaning of
Christianity; and, finally, their announcement to the faithful fol¬
lower of the higher nature within himself, and of the means by
which he could attain salvation.
All the quahties we have thus far verified in Gnostic writings
invest them with a certain ambiguity of character—and this
shows itself as much on the plane of hterary art as of doctrinal
exposition. It is indeed astonishing that texts such as these, which
at times are animated—as 111 certain hymns—by a fine afflatus,
winged with startling images; and whose mystical value remains
undeniable, could have encaged their splendours in such a mass
of particularly clumsy apocryphal fables, and enumerations of
countless entities, each more incredible than the last.
Having now summarized some of the new texts in sufficient
detail, it would be rather needless to enter here upon another
systematic examination of the finer shades of distinction that they
develop between the great Gnostic mythologies. Let us, however,
emphasize a few general features.
The contents of the Chenoboskion writings differ notably from
13 J. T. Milik, Dix arts de dhouvertes dans le desert de Juda, 1957, pp. 78-9.
those of the Books of Pistis-Sophia and the two Books ofjeou which
we possessed before, and which are marked by characteristics
very near to Manichaeism.14
Now, for the points upon which the Coptic apocrypha from
Chenoboskion have done most to open our eyes, the first is con¬
cerned with what one may call—to use the Manichaean termino¬
logy which is not at all out of place in this connection—the Primal
Moment in the history of the universe; that in which the primitive
Principles come face to face before the beginning of the Creation.
Texts of which, until now, we had only had glimpses, had led
us to wonder whether Gnosticism did not regard the formation
of the lower world as simply the result of the fall of a being of
Light, whose passion had provoked the insurgence of matter (as,
indeed, appears to be the case in some of our new writings)_or
whether there really was, in this doctrine, a dualism analogous to
t at of the Manichaeans, as was suggested by such indirect know¬
ledge as we had about the teaching Actively ascribed to Simon of
Samaria, and, still more, about that of Basilides.
This question is answered to admiration by the Paraphrase of
Shem, for—confirming the same explanation that the Philo-
sophumena attributed to the Sethians—it describes the primordial
powers as two opposing elements: Light and Darkness, between
which, moreover, there is a third root: Wind, or Spirit. Remark¬
ably enough, this myth is in full agreement with the doctrine that
Basilides had mentioned, according to the Acts of Archelaiis, and
that the Great Revelation of Simon had developed (according to
the Philosophumena) by specifying that the intermediary principle
had issued from the two others. All this proves that such a belief
was fairly early established in Gnosticism, if not from its begin-
ning. At the same time it fits in closely with the explanation we
have in, for instance, the beginning of the Bundahishn. These
correspondences bring out all the meaning of the fact that Gnostic
apocrypha such as were known to Plotinus and his disciples, and
used by the pseudo-Zosimos, and of which our collection, too,
preserves good examples—were attributed to Zoroaster and other
Magi with whom Seth and his own were afterwards, in great
14 Cf. chap. 11 above, pp. 79-80.
measure, identified. But how this doctrine of the three primordial

roots could have been harmonized with the exposition of the
formation of the higher world by successive pairs of emanations—
such as we find in the Book of the invisible Great Spirit, in the
Epistle of Eugnostos and in the first part of the Secret Book of fohti,
which all abstain from any mention of these primordial principles
—that is still not clearly apparent.
Another notable feature is that the figure of the god who
creates the lower world is the subject, in our texts, of two different
doctrines. Here we encounter, sometimes, the monstrous figure
of Ialdabaoth alone, and sometimes, competing with him, the
figure of his son Sabaoth. Ialdabaoth, ignorant and perverse,
identified with Sacla, Samael, Ariael, with the devil . . . ,
manifests himself in every way as the enemy of the designs of the
world of light. He is a lion-faced and serpent-bodied being; which
approximates him to the “ Chnubis ” on the supposedly “Gnostic”
engraved gems,15 and, still more, to the composite figure of the
Mithraic Aion. In fact, like the latter leontocephalic personage, he
too is master of the seven heavens, and can therefore be similarly
identified with Kronos-Saturn—who is already assimilated in Hel¬
lenic thought to Chronos—that is, to Time, the master of fatality.
Yet, in expositions such as those in the Hypostasis of the Archons
and our text No. 40 we find, coupled with him, the figure of
Sabaoth his son, “better and wiser than he”, who is converted to
the divine plans of the Light and who, for that reason, is installed
by Sophia in charge of the seven heavens, in place of Ialdabaoth
who is cast down into Chaos. God of the created world, deprived
of foreknowledge, but a good god all the same, Sabaoth now
receives the throne and the chariot, surrounded by armies of
angels, which Jewish mysticism assigned to the Lord. This ascent
of Sabaoth to the summit of the heavens, whence Ialdabaoth
has fallen, is rather like the accession of Zeus to the supreme
divinity in place of Kronos. And it even corresponds, more
exactly, to a certain Chaldaean astrological teaching according
16 C. Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets, pp. 541?". and Plates IV-V. This figure
was supposed to be a protection against stomach troubles; and C. Bonner would
reduce it to its medical significance alone. I have developed its mythological
meaning in an unpublished paper read at the Institute of Egypt in December 1951.
The Sethians According to Their Writings 26i
to which each of the planets reigned for the space of a thousand

years, so that the antique world found itself under the domina¬
tion of Zeus, who had just supplanted the first of the planets,
Kronos.
Wherever our writings comment upon Genesis, in order to give
it an interpretation that is the reverse of the accepted meaning—
to the point of directly accusing Moses of error16—one detail
remains obscure: the part played by the serpent. For their anti-
Biblicism, consistently apphed, should surely exalt the Serpent,
who is the revealer of Gnosis to Adam, into a figure of the Saviour.
We remember being told that the Books of Jeou were revealed to
Enoch by the Christ, speaking from “the tree of knowledge and
the tree of life in the Paradise of Adam”.17 Yet if we compare,
for example, the parallel versions of the Secret Book of John one
with the other, they are far from being clear upon this point. Our
Gnostics did not dare entirely to divest the reptile of his perversity
of character. And there is nothing here to help explain what the
cult of the serpent could have meant to the sect of the Naassenes,
or Ophites—a group related to the sect from which our writings
come.
Upon the creation of the first man and of his consort; upon
their expulsion from Paradise; and then upon the destinies of the
different classes of human beings up to the Deluge, our Coptic
writings furnish remarkably rich and precise information. They
show few divergences in this part of their mythology. One notes,
however, that text No. 40—in which we have also the un¬
expected intervention of Eros—is infinitely more instructive than
the others about the topography of Paradise, the nature of its
trees and their meanings. We notice, again, that our texts are not
absolutely in accord about the number and the variety of the
defdements to which Eve is subjected by the Archons. They are
more in agreement in the particulars they furnish about the nature
of the counterfeiting Spirit fabricated by the powers from below
in order to make man stumble, and about the different ways in
which this parasitic soul is connected with Spirit of a higher
16 In the Secret Book of John; cf. above, pp. 204 and 208.
17 Cf. p. 73-
origin. At the end of this account of the earliest Biblical ages we

meet—in two of the writings—with the important myth of
Norea, which hitherto had been mentioned only—and too
briefly—by Epiphanius.
The account of the salvation brought to mankind is subjected to
different interpretations: in some cases the leading part is assigned
to the Mother; in others to the Saviour. We even find, in a
composite text such as the Secret Book of John, that the saving
action seems to be performed sometimes by the one and some¬
times by the other, quite inconsistently.
As for the writings that claim to be authorized by the Christ
and his disciples (excluding from the second of these two classes
of apocrypha those in which the figure of Christ has merely been
painted over the mythic personage of the Great Seth), they
conform with the rest, in that their doctrines do not contradict
the Revelations ascribed to Zoroaster, Zostrian, Seth and the other
Enlighteners. But they do not go so far as to mix their teaching
with that of other writings in the collection from which Christian¬
ity is practically absent; and these apocrypha dealing with
Christian themes appear to be of later date.
Can one feel, in the multiple system thus expounded to us, the
influence of one or another of the great Gnostic teachers? Taking
as our standard of reference the reports of the heresiologists upon
the leaders of the various schools, the teaching of this particular
sect would seem to resemble, above all, that of Basilides. That
heresiarch would certainly not have scorned to make use of
apocryphal literature of the kind found in our Egyptian jar,
since he himself composed (or arranged?) prophecies under the
names of Barcabbas and Barcoph which had a certain success
among some of the sects—e.g., the Nicolaitans and the great
Gnostics. Like our initiates of Chenoboskion, he had recourse to
the Gospel of Matthias; he is said also to have personally composed
a pseudo-Gospel made up of Sayings of Jesus18—which makes one
think, by the way, of our Coptic Gospel of Thomas. But above
all, it was Basilides who was credited with the most accurate
18 Cf. Origen, Homily on Luke, I, a; Ambrose, Comment, in Luc. Prooem., cf.

also Leisegang, loc. cit., p. 140.
knowledge of the Persian doctrine of the primordial principles.19

At the head of the created world, he placed both Ialdabaoth and his
son Sabaoth, expressly said to be “much wiser than his father”.
And lastly, it is to Basilides and his son Isidore that the speculations
On the Additional Soul—namely, the spirit of counterfeit—are
attributed.
However, the fact that our Coptic writings enlarge upon so
many of the subjects that were known to have been treated by
Basilides does not prove that they borrowed these from him:
we must rather suppose that Basilides himself had known, and
found already very much ahve, the same body of myths and
beliefs with which our Coptic sectaries were enlightening less
ancient days.
★ ★ ★
Can we venture to say whence it was that Gnosticism, such as it

appears in our writings, derived the most original and most
constant of its doctrines ?
Our Coptic texts never make the slightest direct allusion to the
Greek philosophers or to their doctrines. Nor is there the least
suggestion of that veneration of images of Plato, Pythagoras or
Orpheus, which the heresiologists ascribed to some sectaries.20
19 Cf. the passage in the Acta Archelai quoted above on pp. 20-1 and our
Paraphrase of Shem, confirmed by the summary of it in the Philosophumena.
Comparison of these elements with the text of the Bundahishn seems conclusive
enough. Bousset had previously pointed out the Iranian character of the passage
about the three principles contained in the Acts of Archelaus; G. Quispel, in his
“L’Homme gnostique; la doctrine de Basilide” in the Eranos Jahrbuch, 1948,
pp. 92-4, took him rather harshly to task by saying: “M. Bousset tries quite
recklessly to find the Iranian dualism in Gnostic texts . . . needless to say,
these fantasies have no historical value.” Today, it is to the venturesome hypo¬
theses of M. Quispel that these compliments could be more fittingly returned.
And one can but admire the insight—sometimes admittedly a little audacious—
of M. Bousset who, going beyond the actual terms of the still scanty docu¬
mentation at his disposal, seized so correctly upon the origins of certain myths.
We have remarked before upon the number of Gnostic treatises in which this
theme appears—that of the two principles, separated by the “void”, the “spirit”
—and we have also pointed out that the same doctrine underlies §§ 2 and 14 of the
Latin Asclepius, where no one seemed yet to have noticed it. Cf. above chap, v,
pp. isoff. and note 9, and also chap. 1, note 124.
20 Thus Marcellinus and the Carpocratians had painted icons, sometimes
enriched with gold or silver, of the Christ (the features having been drawn by
Pontius Pilate!), of Pythagoras, of Plato and yet others: see Epiphanius, Heresy
XXVII, 6.
However, the Hellenic origin of various conceptions is undeni¬

able. Platonism had certainly produced, as it were in outline,
some of the themes we find in Gnostic mythology. If we open the
Phaedrus, the Timaeus or the Phaedo . . . we are already reading
how the accidental fall of the soul cast it out of the supra-sensible
world into the materiality of the body, and how the fallen soul
still retained, here below, like a secret treasure, memories of the
absolute realities it had contemplated at its beginning. The
Republic, in the episode of Er the Armenian, which amounts to a
veritable apocalypse, elaborates the myth of the reincarnation of
souls in the bodies of men or of animals: this takes place in a
heaven where there are the “ways of the right” which lead
upward, and the “ways of the left” leading downward; and
where the spirits, before returning to our world, go to drink the
waters of Lethe.
Stoicism, also, brought with it a whole philosophical and
mystical baggage which did much to inspire our Gnostics. But
more striking still is the use made by some of our writings (the
latest of the collection, it is true) to the many allegorical com¬
mentaries upon the poems of Homer and the Theogony of Hesiod
—Gnostic recourse to which, at a still earlier date, is attested by
notices in the Philosophumena and now so happily confirmed by
the funerary paintings of the Viale Manzoni; but of which direct
literary proofs were lacking until now.
Other relations with classical mythology are less clearly in¬
dicated. The Philosophumena ascribes to the Naassenes, Peratae,
Sethians and others a number of references to the Greek Mysteries,
by means of which these Gnostics tried to commentate a teaching
which was itself derived from Christianity, hi the new writings
there are few features—though admittedly some—that might
suggest recourse to the Mysteries. But right at the beginning
there may have been links with classical mythology. Sophia’s
struggle against the Archons does evoke the idea of Athena at war
with the Titans: Ialdabaoth, dethroned and replaced by Sabaoth,
makes us think of Kronos, who prevented his children from
ascending towards the light but was at last supplanted by Zeus.
And Ialdabaoth again reminds us of the Jupiter against whom
Prometheus rebels. But it is of Prometheus himself that we are

reminded by Ialdabaoth’s creation of man—of that Prometheus
who fashions the first human beings and gives them the gift of
fire which he has stolen from the divine powers! True, these
parallels, which the modern reader can discover for himself, would
hardly seem to have appealed to the authors of our texts; for the
learned commentator of Codex X is the only one who has drawn
attention to such things—in his remarks on the possible relations
between Noah and Deucalion and between Norea and Pyrrha.
The only other points significant in this connection are a few
incidental details obscurely suggestive of Orphic and Pythagorean
influences. First, there is the meaning consistently attached to
“the ways of the Right” which we know earlier upon the golden
lamellae of the Greek initiates; there is also the part assigned to
the Serpent as the most spiritual of animals; and then again—in
our writing No. 40—the description of the Tree of Life as a white
cypress gro wing near to a source of Life, surely a reflection of the
perpetual fountain near to which stands that other white cypress
at the entrance to Hades, according to the Orphic lamellae.
Finally, there is the extraordinary part that this same writing
No. 40 assigns to Eros!21 Yet no comparisons of this kind are
attempted, with the sole exception of the erudite gloss of Codex
X, pointing out the possible connection between Noah and
Deucalion, Norea and Pyrrha. Perhaps, all tilings considered, we
must take care not to over-estimate the importance of the Hellenic
elements in Gnostic mythology.
The skeletal structure of this mythology is of quite another
origin. The belief in two opposite principles separated by a third
element; the mystical vision of the throne and heavenly chariot of
the Creator; the persistent references to Genesis, the meaning of
which is tortured to yield a novel conception of the inferior world
as sometliing evil, and the appeal to envoys or saviours coming
down from heaven to awaken Adam—these are the essential
fundamentals without which the Gnostic doctrine could not have
existed. The original conception of Time within which these
21 Cf. J. Carcopino, La basilique pythagoricienne de la Porte Majeure, Paris, 1927,

pp. 155, 309-10, 314; and M. J. Lagrange, L’Orphisme, Paris, 1937, p. 138.
myths are unfolded is—as Professor Puech has shown—intimately

involved with their deeper meaning, but there is nothing Hellenic
about it. In short, this is all foreign to Hellenism.22 It was after¬
wards that Greek logic came in to give body to these themes,
and educe a more comprehensive meaning from them. Greek
thought did this the more easily, perhaps, because it found here
some of the oriental imagery upon which it had been nourished
in its own infancy. But the recourse of Gnosticism to classical
thought only modified, in secondary ways, the primitive mythi¬
cal structure that the new religion had built up. And as for the
effects of the Homeric allegorical exegeses, one can only say
that these are features which strike one rather as academic ac¬
cretions. The great visionaries of the early days of the Gnostic
movement, even when their mother tongue was Aramaic,
generally wrote in Greek: they accordingly decked out their
expositions with rhetoric, philosophy or with classical allegories,
hardly noticing whether this might modify what was more
fundamental. They were only concerned to get a better hearing
from the people of their time, who, without exception, had learnt
to speak and understand this language when studying the Greek
authors in their school-days.
From astrology, Gnosticism derived something much more
concrete. Arising in the centuries before our era, from sources as
much Chaldaean as Egyptian,23 astrology had attained a very
considerable importance. Infiltrating the different religions one
after another, accommodating their myths to its own teachings,
it established, by a process of superficial assimilations, a fictive
unity between them. Just as we now accept the general laws of
modern physics, people then agreed that the course of the world
and the lives of beings were under the influences of the heavenly
bodies, from which they had no escape. They also assumed, in
accord with a connection which, in this case, derived especially
22 We may here refer to the protests of Plotinus against their notion that the
world, both terrestrial and celestial, was evil; cf. also W. Bousset, Kyrios Christos,
1926, chap. vi.
23 Cf. Cumont, Religions orientates, 4th edn., pp. Ii7ff.; Boll-Bezold, Stern-
glaube und Sterndeutung, IVte Auflage, 1931, chap, vi; Cumont L’Tgypte des
astrologues, 1937.
from Chaldaean. astrology, that after death the soul reascended

into heaven to live there among the divine stars, escaping at last
from Fate and Time. Some believed that at this consummation
the soul was drawn up by the rays of the sun and, after passing
by the moon, where she was purified, went on to lose herself in
the shining star of day”.2* Another theory made the planets
exercise their influence upon human beings even before birth;
in this view, the souls came down from the heights of heaven
towards the earth, passing through all the planetary spheres in
succession and receiving, in each one, the dispositions and virtues
appropriate to that heavenly body. After death, the souls went
back by the same path to their original home, abandoning at each
stage of their ascent what they had taken while coming, and
only after this purification did they attain to the highest he’aven.
To pass out of the sphere of one planet into that of the next above
it they had to go through gateways guarded by the Archons who,
like sentinels, would give way only to those who had the pass¬
words of which the Gnostics, among others, drew up meticulous
lists.25 The doctrine itself was of Babylonian origin. These astro¬
logical beliefs were vouched for by the Stoics and, better still, by
neo-Pythagoreans such as Numenius of Apamea.
How we should like to have more knowledge of the intense
doctrinal and mystical ferments which, after the age of Alexander
the Great, animated the “Chaldaean schools” of Borsippa, of
Sippara of Uruk!26 Under the vivifying influence of Hellenism,
new ideas emerged from the antique mythology of Babylonia
where, for ages past, the Baals had “led the chorus of the stars,
the Zodiacal signs and the planets”. In a study that is of capital
importance, J. Bidez has retraced all this proliferation of mystical
themes which invaded the Greek world as well as the Judaic, Iran
and even India.27
24 Cf. Cumont, Lux Perpetua, pp. 180-2.

25 Cumont, Lux Perpetua, chaps, vi and vii.
c 26 ?MêZ’ j;es -Ecoês chaldeennes sous Alexandre et les Seleucides”, extract
trom Melanges Capart, Brussels, 1935.
27 Cf. Bides:, Ecoles chaldeennes - . . , p. 46. For the relations with India,
see Gundel, in Bursian s Jahresbericht, vol. CCXLIII, 1934, pp. n5ff; Gundel,
Dekane und Dekansternhilder describes carefully the diffusion in all directions
well into the Middle Ages, of some of these astrological doctrines.
The Babylonian religion had previously taught, in its myths,

that there was an opposition between the dark lower waters and
the divine fire. Some of the Sumerian cosmological ideas made
known to us by S. N. Kramer presupposed the existence, between
the heavens and the earth, “of a third element they called lil—a
word of which the nearest meaning would be ‘wind’, ‘air’,
‘breath’, or ‘spirit’; its essential characteristics seem to have
been . . . movement and expansion”.28 The god Enki, the
ruler of Wisdom, reigned over certain vivifying sources, and
near by them grew the Tree of Life: the light came from the
North towards our terrestrial world: the sun and the moon
were ships sailing through the sky. The great myths depicted
the divinity—the Mother—descending into hell to Tammuz29:
there was also an account of the Deluge. A likehhood that these
myths may, by their images, have prepared the way for some
of the Gnostic myths is suggested by, for example, a famous
medallion of bronze in the De Clercq collection.30 On the ob¬
verse of this talisman there are three rows of the most fantastic
creatures. Right at the bottom, a creature with a human body and
a monstrous head, holding serpents in his hands, is kneeling upon
a boat, which is sailing over the waters of an abyss. Right at the
top are aligned seven Archons, with human bodies and animal
heads, and over each of these is an astral or stellar symbol. At the
top of the disc, standing out in relief, appears a leonine head—
that of Nergal, god of the inferno: and, on turning the talisman
over, one finds his whole body on the reverse side, with its
monstrous wings and clawed feet—an image worthy to be the
demiurge of any of our Coptic cosmogonies!
Earlier, perhaps, than the days of the Magi, these beliefs gave
rise to a cult of Time, the generator of all things; master of the
celestial revolutions with all their subdivisions into centuries,
years, months, days, etc. ... A kind of anthropomorphism
28 S. N. Kramer, L’histoirc commence d Sumer, Paris, 1957, chap, xn, p. 119.

29 Cf. Widengren, The great Vohu Manah and the Apostle of God, 1945; Meso¬
potamian Elements in Manichaeism, 1946; The King and the Tree of Life in Near
Eastern Religion, 1951.
30 Reproduced, for example, in Contenau, Manuel d'archhlogie orientate, I,
1927, p. 251.
arose, drawing parallels between the structure of the universe and

that of man, conceiving the one as the magnified image of the
other—macrocosm and microcosm. It was probably from this
same source that a strange conception was entertained by the
Manichaeans, and probably by Gnostics also, which the traveller
Cosmas, in the sixth century of our era, described as follows: the
earth was conceived as a rectangular parallelepiped enclosed by
walls of crystal, above which three domes rose one above another,
representing the three heavens of ancient Chaldaea.
After the time of Alexander, Berossos, a priest of Bel-Marduk,
left his country, established himself at Cos and made the Baby¬
lonian mythology known to the Greeks.31 Others of his com¬
patriots followed his example and a century later one of these,
Critodemus, wrote that, having long wandered over seas and over
deserts, he had at last, thanks to the gods, attained to a haven of
refuge where he had found rest; by which romantic fiction he was
announcing, at the same time, higher truths and a way of im¬
mortality, in which Bidez has recognized the expression of a
Gnosis of liberation.32
It was to the mystical glory of that country’s name that Julian
the Theurgist entitled his famous Chaldaean Oracles—the sacred
book of a sect which, in its fire-worship, came near to that of the
Persian Magi, but whose other imaginations about the divine
realms make up a phantasmagoria closely related to Gnosticism.33
How could Gnosticism not have taken much and received
much from these myths; and from this country, which was soon
to export the most powerful and comprehensive of all its ex¬
pressions—Manichaeism ?
It is true that the astrological doctrines imbedded in Gnostic
mythology and anthropology are, in great part, theories that were
commonly accepted throughout the Greco-Roman world. But
here they take on a special emphasis, and acquire some features
which relate them very definitely to oriental origins.
One tiling we have found, in all that we have seen of Gnosti-
31 Bidez, £coles chaldeennes, pp. 4.8ff.

32 Ibid., pp. 83-5.
33 Cf. chap. 11 above, note 89; and Cumont, Lux Perpctua, pp. 361—5.
270 The Secret Boohs of the Egyptian Gnostics
cism, is that the mythical powers which do not belong to the

heavens of the higher universe become identified with this or that
constellation of the visible heavens. Sabaoth reigns over the Pole;
his throne is situated in the constellation of the Chariot; close to
him is the Serpent; the Dragon is neighbour to the Great Bear
“at the great commencement of the heavens”; Ialdabaoth is
identified with Saturn, and his Archons are the other planets.
The writings of certain sects—the Naassenes and Peratae—must
have been full of details, even more so than the texts we now
possess, which would enable a Gnostic, simply by looking up into
the dome of night, to recognize in movement above him many
of the powers that are mentioned in this mythology, but to which
we can no longer assign an exact astronomical identity.
What a number of symbols, indeed, were revealed to the
initiate simply by contemplation of the heavens, whose in¬
habitants and whose very movements were reduplicated in the
physical and spiritual nature of man! The point which was
nearest to the world of Light, hidden from all eyes, could be no
other than the Pole, around which the obedient spheres were
revolving; standing relatively low towards the horizon, it pointed
to the North. It was in that direction, at the confines of the
terrestrial world, that there was a holy mountain from whence
the great revelations came; and from thence alone came the bene-
fic waters. Far to the South, on the other hand, lay the kingdom
out of which the Darkness was propagated. Eastward, on the
right hand, the stars dawned and went upward; westward they
descended and set below the horizon. Below the sphere of the
stars moved the seven Archons, the perverse planets, although
some Gnostics, and the Manichaeans, excepted from these the
ships of the Sun and of the Moon (which the Pythagoreans,
earlier still, regarded as the Isles of the Blest). They believed that
these two benefic powers were in charge of the reascent of the
light scattered throughout the material heavens and here below;
so these luminaries were replaced, in order to keep the number of
malefic planets up to seven, by the head and tail of the Dragon—
that fictive monster to whom they attributed the disappearances
of the sun and moon during eclipses. Among the stars the
Gnostics still believed they could see in profile that Virgin of

Light who is described in the Book of Revelation (XII), crowned
with the constellations and with the moon under her feet, and
threatened by the dragon with seven heads. Flashes of lightning
represented the light of which the Archons, after being seduced,
were being violently dispossessed. And the phases of the Moon
showed, at its waxing, that it was being filled with the light it
had collected; while at its waning, it was sending that light back
towards the higher world.34
And yet, in the last of the Books of Pistis-Sophia, and also in one
of our Coptic Hermetic writings—No. 25—we find some
references to celestial conjunctions which raise doubts about the
astronomical knowledge of the Gnostics; they are so peculiarly
fantastic. But in reality, these few fictitious celestial positions
derive from an old Chaldaean astrological system, purely mythi¬
cal, and were already contradicted by the more scientific theories
of the Hellenic world; they were retained doubtless for religious
reasons. According to that system, the heavenly bodies were
distributed among seven atones—one may say, seven cycles—in
such a way that each of these had to reign, in its turn, for one
millennium.35 This theory was sufficiently widely diffused to
appear in a certain number of Greek and Latin authors; to be
found also in Bardesanes, and, still more, among the Man-
daeans. And it is this system which explains equally well for two
of our writings—the Hypostasis of the Archons and the treatise
34 Upon the supreme status of Sabaoth, comparable to that of Zeus, cf. Cumont,
Lux Perpetua, p. 87. Upon his Throne (i.e. space) cf. Zaehner, Zurvan, p. 202.
Upon the four cardinal points, cf. above, chap, v, note 50; see also H. C. Puech,
Le Manicheisme, note 294; Festugiere, La Reuelation d’Hermes Trismegiste, vol. I,
p. 269; Zaehner, loc. cit., pp. I47ff.; Widengren, Mesopotamian elements . . . ,
p. 39; and, finally, the following texts: Ginzd (edn. Lidsbarski), pp. 280-2
(=Ginzd of the Right VII); Preface (arabic) to the Council of Nicaea, in Mansi,
Coll. Concil., II, 1057-8. Upon light and water coming from the North: Cumont,
Recherches . . . , p. 164; Tondelli, loc. cit., p. 60. For replacement of the Sun
and Moon in the number of the seven planets by the Dragon’s head and tail,
supposed to produce eclipses; Puech, Manicheisme, note 321; De Menasce,
Shkandgumdnik Vichar, Fribourg, 1945, p. 47; and the Coptic Kephalaton LXIX,
pp. 168-9. Cf., again, upon these notions as a whole, Pr. Alfaric, Les fcritures
manicheennes, vol. I, 1918, pp. 35-41.
38 Cf. Catalogus Codic. Astrolog. Graecorum, vol. IV, pp. 113-14. and 183-4;
vol. V, fasc. 2, pp. 130-6; cf. also Cumont, Monuments des My stores de Mithra,
vol. I, p. 35 and p. 157, note I.
No. 40—the theme of the replacement of Ialdabaoth-Kronos by

Sabaoth-Zeus.
Did our Gnosticism derive any ideas from Egypt itself? Here
we touch upon one of the most mysterious of problems. Our
writings do not explicitly acknowledge any Egyptian element,
nor even mention the name of Egypt except as the symbol of
accursed matter.36 Of the innumerable prophets upon whose
revelations Greco-Roman Egypt plumed itself, none are men¬
tioned in our writings—with the exception of Hermes.
Nevertheless, when the new Gnostic texts as a whole become
available, we shall have to go more thoroughly into this question
of some residual borrowings from Egypt. The cosmogonies
known to the pharaonic religion were in fact very various. Some
of them described the formation of divine Ogdoads—of Enneads,
by including the primordial god.37 In other cases, the creation is
ascribed to the heart and to the tongue, which in this context very
exactly represent the thought and the word.38 The arched body of
the goddess Nut, representing the sky, prefigures that episode in
the Gnostic cosmologies where Sophia, striving to extricate her¬
self from the abyss of matter into which she has fallen, creates the
firmament in a similar manner. Some of the “Geneses” briefly
36 See above, chap. I, note 120.

37 Cf. K. Sethe, “Ainun und die acht Urgotter von Hermopolis” in the
Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akad. der Wissenschaften, 1929, No. 4; J. Vandier,
La Religion igyptienne, 1944, pp. 61-2.
38 Cf. H. Junker, “Die Gotterlehre von Memphis (Schabaka inschrift)", Abhand¬
lungen der Preussischen Akad. der Wissenschaften, 1939, No. 23, 1940; J. Vandier,
op. cit., pp. 62-3 ; Brugsch, Die Aegyptologie, 1891, p. 166. The cosmogonic texts
of the Ptolemaic epoch which are carved on the little temple of Medinet Habu
(consecrated to the primordial gods of Thebes) have not yet been the subject of a
methodical publication: one has to depend on the summary analysis made by
G. Daressy, Notice explicative des mines de Medinet-Habou, Cairo, 1897, PP- 13-18.
Amon-Re, who created himself, is the father of the procreators, who are gods and
goddesses. No divinity exists but of his formation, whilst he exists of himself:
his aspects are innumerable; he arranged the heavenly bodies. In the beginning
he fashioned the universe; he made the light to shine in the darkness, and [he
made?] every day and every night. He shone upon the waters, and the earth was
in darkness; all the universe was in the liquid abyss: by the light, he produced
dryness, and organized everything. At once the father and the mother of the
gods, he ordered the return of the sun after each setting [of it]. . . .He made
the sky for the cradle of his soul, and the akhet [horizon] hides his person. He is the
elder eternal . . . preserving his youth throughout the eternity of time,
uncreated creator, father of fathers, mother of mothers.
inscribed on the walls of Theban temples resemble fairly closely,
in their general outlines, that of the Bible. The creator of the
material universe is often described in terms that are equally
suggestive of the God of the Old Testament as of the Gnostic
Ialdabaoth; and in one papyrus, we read this sentence: “No other
god existed before him nor any other god with him when he
enunciated his forms . . . nor ever a Father for him who
emitted him by saying: It is I who created him.” The exclama¬
tion : “There is no god but I! ” is again repeated in the cosmogony
of Hermopolis, passages of which are inscribed on the temple of
Petosiris.39 The story of the Friends of the god Re—of the Merets
—a pair of feminine figures who, as early as in the texts of the
Pyramids, try to seduce and so ravish away the seed of the gods
and of the deceased during their ascension towards the Orient
heaven, and with it to enrich their lord and master the sun—this
does seem to prefigure the theme of the “seduction of the
Archons” by Prunikos, Barbelo, Norea, the Virgin of the Light
and, again, the third Messenger of Manichaeism.40 No doubt one
could find further parallels between the complex enumeration of
souls and spirits which was the Egyptian description of man, and
the association of soul, spirit, force and counterfeiting spirit, which
was the Gnostic conception of the human being.
After all, the Egyptian religion, too, had been feeling the
contemporary influence of the starry beliefs; it was distributing
some of its divinities among the stars and heavenly bodies—an
operation that came the more easily to it because, since the earliest
of pharaonic ages, it had possessed a mystical astrology which—
among other things—was enriched by those fantastic figures of
decans which not only Hellenistic astrology, but all the Middle
Ages of the East and the West were to borrow from it.
What was Gnosticism able to derive from this? Such notions,
surely, as those of the Peratae, who acknowledged Isis and Osiris
as rulers of the hours of the day and of the night, represented
39 Cf. Al. Moret, Mystires egypticnnes, 1927, pp. i2off., text of the papyrus of
Leyden, published by Sir Alan Gardiner in the Zeitschrift fur Aegyptische Sprache,
XLII; G. Lefebvre, Le Tombeau de Petosiris, Part I, Cairo, 1924, p. 99.
40 Cf. Et. Drioton (giving an account of A. De Buck, The Egyptian coffin
texts,V) in the Bibliotheca Orientals XII, No. 2, March 1955, pp. 61-6.
respectively by the Day Star (Sothis, i.e. Sirius) and by the

constellation of Orion. According to the Philosophumena, the
Peratae also assimilated Osiris to Sacla—which means to Ialda-
baoth.41 We have already seen how, in consequence of such
identification, Gnostics sometimes brought about a highly
ambiguous connection between the Egyptian god Seth (Typhon)
and the Biblical Seth. Far from being entirely superficial, this
connection may well have been facilitated by the fact that certain
Egyptian theologies reported by Plutarch (essentially in the
De Iside, §§41 and 49), set up an antithesis between Seth and
Osiris, closely analogous to that which the Gnostics developed
between Ialdabaoth-Sacla and the divinity of the light. A Greek
Hermetic text (the fragment XXV, 8), even suggests that in the
Roman epoch, the Egyptian religion arraigned its Gnostics as
“sons of Typhon”. And, if we pass from the doctrines to the
iconography and the rituals, we note a multiplicity of Archons
and powers in the original writings of the Coptic Gnostics whose
monstrous visages recall the features lent to the constellations and
the decans by pharaonic astrology. Moreover, the hell of our
Coptic writings retains not only the Egyptian name of Amente
(that is, the Occident), but also its population of fantastic
demons.42 Finally, the passwords and the seals that our sectaries
thought would give their souls safe conduct through the planetary
spaces are much the same in spirit as the formulas by which the
deceased Egyptian had always had to protect himself, since the
days of the Pyramid texts until the latest of the Books of the Dead.
41 Cf. above, chap, v, note 30. Another god besides Osiris has been compared
to Ialdabaoth: a red agate of the Roman period found at Memphis invokes, in
Greek, the Egyptian god of Leontopolis—Mahes the lion-faced—in terms
reminiscent enough of our monstrous demiurge: “Hear my prayer, thou who
dwellest in Leontopolis, installed in the holy sanctuary, darting the lightnings and
thundering, lord of the Darkness and the winds, in whose hand lies the celestial
fate of eternal nature . . . thou, god most glorious of leonine form! . . . ”
Cf. Preisigke, Sammelbuch griech. Urkunden aus Aegypten, No. 5620, with remarks
by Spiegelberg.
42 Cf. above, chap. 1, note 11. In the eschatology of the Pistis-Sophia there also
appears Ba'inkhookh, that is, Ba-en-Kekou, the “soul of the Darkness”, who
comes out of the Egyptian Book of the Dead to take his place among the angels
and aeons of this inferno, which keeps its Egyptian name Amente; cf. Th.
Hopfner, “Der Religiongeschichtliche Gehalt des grossen demotischen Zauber-
papyrus” in Archiv Orientalni, VII, 1935, pp. 114-15.
However, in all this there is no proof of Egyptian influence upon

the basic conceptions of Gnostic mythology.
And what of the relations of Gnosticism with Hermetism? The
mystical treatises of Hermetism which are known as “learned”
(in distinction from the many minor works on astrology, magic,
alchemy etc., similarly given under the name of Hermes Tris-
megistus) possibly date back to the second century of our era,
for in the third they were widely influential.43 What they consist
of is, in effect, a kind of Gnosticism, but pagan, and essentially
philosophic in its inspiration although it chooses to give itself an
Egyptian appearance; and one feels that it owes much to certain
oriental myths. A good many of these treatises have never come
down to us, or remain only in fragments. Eighteen of them
remain complete, almost in their original Greek form, and con¬
stitute the Corpus Hermeticum, at the end of which is added a
Latin adaptation of another treatise of the same nature—the
Asclepius, the very same treatise of which a partial version in
Coptic has turned up in the Chenoboskion library.44 The dogmas
attested by these nineteen writings and by the various fragments,
although still fluid, are more stable than those of our Gnostics.
They are expounded much more by abstract reasoning than in
the form of cosmogonies, geneses or evocations of prophets
living at the dawn of human history. Above all, they know
nothing of the demoniac figures or the perverse demiurge depicted
by Biblical Gnosticism.
The Hermetic treatises—whether epistles or apocalyptic
revelations—present themselves essentially in the form of
dialogues: although more perfect from the points of view of style
and of thought they show, in this and other ways, features in
common with our Gnostic literature. The treatise No. XIII—
On regeneration and the rule of silence—recounts the teaching re¬
ceived by Tat from Hermes “upon the Mountain”, a detail which
suggests Sinai and the Tables of the Law, but still more the mystic
mountain of the Zoroastrian revelations. At the beginning of the
43 Upon the date of the Hermetic treatises, see J. Carcopino, “ L’Hermetisme

africain” in Aspects mystiques de la Rome paienne, pp. 286-7 and 291.
44 Cf. above, pp. 245ff.
Poimandres the narrator describes how the Nous appeared to him

as a being of immense stature, from whom he received visions and
revelations.
One cannot, from only one of the treatises of this Corpus,
gain an accurate notion of the features which approximate
Hermetistn to Gnosticism. But let us take the Poimandres, of which
I have just summarized a passage to compare it with the creation
of Adam as described in the Secret Book of John; for the former is
the .text which, on the whole as in its details, comes nearest to the
teachings of our Gnostics.
The Poimandres begins, then, with this fantastic apparition of
the Intellect—the Nous—revealing to the anonymous narrator
(the names of Hermes and his disciples appear nowhere in the
text) a vision of the Light on high and the Darkness below, the
latter being coiled into spirals like a serpent. From this frightful
darkness, which is in transformation, is created the moist abyss
out of which Fire arises. A holy Word then descends from the
Light and covers up the lower, inferior nature, whilst from below
the fire flames up over the waters.45
Then the Nous, whose name is Poimandres, explains to the
narrator the meaning of this vision of the two primordial prin¬
ciples and of the conflict, or rather the confusion, taking place
between them. Thus it is explained to us how, out of the Light,
out of the supreme Nous, there came forth the Word his Son;
and how Nous the Father, who is androgyne, and hfe and light,
then created a second Nous who is the Demiurge, god of fire and
of wind; and how this Demiurge formed the seven rulers of the
planetary circles, the masters of Fate. Through the association of
the Word with the Demiurge, the seven circles were made to
revolve, and their rotation, producing the lower elements, caused
the birth of the various animals. It was then—according to the
45 Thus the Poimandres manifests that same dualism which we find in most of
the Gnostic myths, more particularly in Basilides and among the Sethians, and
which is also connected, through the Bundahishn, with Iran. We have also pointed
out its discreet appearance in the Asclepius, §§ 2 and 14-15. The latter text adds
to this a sketch of a very peculiar theme, the essentials of which are to be found in
Jewish Gnosticism, among the doctrines of Basilides and the Books of Jeou—that
of the “retreat” of God from his own omnipresence in the universe, thus leaving
a portion of it free for the process of creation.
passage just quoted in reference to the Secret Book of John—that

the first Nous created a primordial man in his own image. His
own reflection seen in the water and on earth fills this Anthropos
with admiration, and this—in a way that recalls the fall of Sophia
lured into the abyss by an illusion—decides him to go down into
matter, which ensnares him. Thenceforth man is a duality:
mortal in his body, immortal in his soul. Nature then gives birth
to seven terrestrial men, who are hermaphrodite. The divinity
proceeds to separate all the creatures, until then bisexual (animals
as well as men), into males and females. That was the beginning
of the actual humanity to which we belong.
At death, the material body is abandoned by man. The soul
reascends through the planetary circles, restoring at each of the
seven zones, like the taking-off of garments, the accidents and
passions it had taken on during its descent to the body it was to
animate at birth. At the end of this ascension it attains to the
Ogdoad and becomes itself one of the powers: it enters into God,
and—this is the goal to which Hermetic Gnosis aspires—becomes
merged with God.
Description of the first separation between the Light and the
Darkness; of the struggle that ensues between the two principles;
of the formation of the Word and of the Anthropos by the
androgyne Father; of the seduction of a higher being by its
image from below which that being wants to rejoin; of its union
with nature—with matter46; of the generation of a humanity of
which the mortal body is associated with the immortal soul . . .
—how much the details of this apocalypse remind us, most of
them, of those that our Coptic writings describe! Presented in this
way, does not Hermetism look very much like a philosophic
version of Gnosis, stripped only of its rich and original web of
Biblical myths ? Does not this give added significance to the fact
that our sectaries of Chenoboskion possessed a writing which,
entitled with the name of Seth, also resembles in its phraseology
and its style some of the Hermetic treatises—a slender link
4B This union of the first man with nature may recall the union between
Gayomart and the earth in the Iranian myth of the Bundahishn, XV, 22—see
West, Pahlavi Texts, vol. I.
between two rival literatures? It was by no means from mere

curiosity that our Coptic mystics chose to add to their collection
of sacred writings certain books in which doctrines analogous to
their own were attributed to Hermes, and which they even put
into the same codex with Sethian revelations.
Might this conjunction between Hermetic and Gnostic writings
perhaps appear—from the example of it that our sectaries furnish
—to be merely an isolated initiative peculiar to the Sethians of
Chenoboskion? More probably, it represents what may well have
been a pretty general practice in and after the fourth century or
even a little earlier. This meeting of Hermes with Seth, Zoroaster
and Jesus—an encounter between rival literatures, the one
“judaizing” and the other “Egyptianizing”—corresponds, in¬
deed, to the mixture of writings used by the pseudo-Zosimos in
his treatise On the letter Omega. In his Book of the Imuth, which
deals with the letter I (he devoted a treatise to every letter of the
Greek alphabet!), Zosimos compares some traditions taken from
the Physika of Hermes with other myths, such as that of the union
of the angels with the daughters of men. Perhaps he took these
last features from the Book of Enoch; but no less possibly from some
Gnostic Genesis, for—more fortunate than we—he seems to have
been well versed in that particular literature.47
★ ★ ★
47 The Greek writings attributed to Zosimos are transcribed and translated

in: Berthelot and Ruelle, Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs, three vols. 1888;
others (including the Book of Imuth) which have survived only in the form of
Syriac versions or adaptations, are translated in Berthelot, La chimie au moyen
dge, 1893. We have already mentioned, pp. 8iff., 175, 190, 248, details of the
treatise On the letter Omega which are typical borrowings from Gnosticism.
From the book On the letter Kappa, ascribed to this same Zosimos “the Theban”,
we have gleaned allusions to, among others, the Book of the Seven Heavens
attributed to Solomon—which describes the water-pots in which the wise king
imprisoned the demons. These vessels—seven, in accord with the number of the
planets—were carried from Jerusalem to the priests of Egypt. This explains the
mysterious hydria that are in Egypt” mentioned by the Coptic commentator
upon our text No. 40 (cf. above, p. 174). In the same treatise Zosimos tells us
about the twelve dwellings and of the constellation of the Pleiades which are
called “ the world of the Thirteen ” : this feature sheds light on the mention of the
Pleiades in the heavenly vision of our Paraphrase of Shem (see above, p. 148); it
refers to the Thirteenth aeon, higher than the Zodiac, which the soul of the
prophet has to traverse, it appears, in its redescent into his sleeping body on earth.
(These passages are quoted and commentated, in reference to Berthelot, Chimie
au moyen dge, by Scott, in vol. IV of his Hermetica, 1936, pp. 140-1 and 143.)
One of the profoundest contributions made by our Gnostic

myths is to our knowledge of Iranian beliefs.48
In the Hellenistic age, the rehgions of Iran were diffused, under
different forms, almost all over the Orient: they had established
ramifications especially in Asia Minor, through the Magusaeans.49
Soon, their influence was also to be manifested in the advent of
the Magi to the crib at Bethlehem,50 as well as in the birth of a
new rehgion, artificially based upon the myth of the Persian god
Mithra, whose mysterious sanctuaries appeared all over the
Mediterranean world.
Yet Iran, from whence such forces were radiating, was at the
same time opening itself to foreign influences. Even earlier, when
Babylon had been conquered by Cyrus, the Magi were established
all over Mesopotamia; and since then there had been some ex¬
change of their doctrines with the Chaldaeans; they had thus
contributed to the making, in this country, of the most brilliant
world centre of scientific studies.51 First Babylonian, then Hellenic
and then Judaic conceptions superimposed themselves upon
Iranian beliefs, as one can see from the Pahlavi sacred books. The
Parsees acknowledge that Shapur I (241-72) had extracts from
Greek and Hindu works52 inserted in their canonical treatises,
which were not committed to writing until much later.
When we are comparing these Gnostic texts, handed down
from so very eclectic a tradition (not to mention that certain
authors distinguish among the Persians as many as three different
sects!)53—how can we hope to interpret all the parallelisms that
48 Upon the religious literature of Iran, cf. the indications and references in
Widengren, Stand und Aufgaben der Iranischen Relionsgeschichte (extract from
Numen) 1955, pp. [58] and [63]. One needs also to refer to the forthcoming
studies by J. Duchesne-Guillemin, Western Response to Zoroaster (lectures given at
Oxford in 1956) and Dualismus in the Reallexikonftir Antike und Christentum.
49 Cf. Cumont, Les religions orientates dans le paganisme romain, chap, v; G.
Widengren, Stand und Aufgaben . . . , pp. 78-91; Reitzenstein and Schaeder,
Studien zunt antiken Syncretismus.
50 Cf. Monneret de Villard, op. cit., and Messina, op. cit.
61 Cf. Bidez-Cumont, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 34-8; Cumont, Textes et Monuments
relatifs aux Mysteres de Mithra, vol. I, pp. 8ff. and 14, note 5; G. Messina, Der
Ursprung der Magier . . . , 1930, pp. I9ff.
62 Zaehner, Zurvan, pp. 10, 139 and 143. Reciprocal influences berween Stoics
and Magusaeans; cf. Bidez-Cumont, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 32ff. and 92ff.
63 Cf. Zaehner, Zurvan, p. 58, which refers to Eznik, according to whom some
appear, or decide, in certain cases, whether we are dealing with

authentic Iranian traditions which contributed to the formation
of Gnosticism or, on the other hand, with late interpolations which
in fact were borrowed from the Gnostic teachings by Iran ?54
It is true that we possess—besides the Iranian literature in the
national language to which these reservations apply—one class of
writings whose ancient date is perhaps better established. This
consists of remnants of mystical or sacred writings that the Magi
of Asia Minor—the Magusaeans—composed in Greek. The
principal book of this kind, given under the names of Zoroaster,
Ostanes and Hystaspes, dates back to the second century of our
era.55 It was these books, perhaps, which did most to prepare the
mythical framework in which our Gnosis was coming to birth.
How otherwise are we to understand the facts that the Gnostics
put the names of Zoroaster, Zostrian and Messos over the
revelations that they wanted to invest with the greatest authority
—and then that, building a still wider bridge between Iran and
their own doctrines, they took the most Iranian of the apocalypses
ascribed by the Magusaeans to Zoroaster, and reshaped it to their
own liking by putting it under the names of Adam and Seth?
We cannot tell, however, whether the Gnostics wished to
regard themselves, more or less fictively, as continuators of the
Magusaeans. Perhaps the appellation Magus, which tradition
attaches to the name of the Gnostic Simon, was not originally
meant to indicate the magical practices of which romantic tradi¬
tion has added so many to that personage’s account; but to some
openly acknowledged relationship between his doctrine and the
Zoroastrian heritage? We lack light on this point. What seems
certain is that the traditions which the Gnostics chose to follow
came less from authentic Iranians than from that Iranianized
Judaism in which Zoroaster was already identified either with
Seth, or with Ezechiel, or again with Balaam,56 or which pre¬
tended that Zoroaster had been Abraham’s pupil in the art of
among the Persians believed in three principles: the Good, the Just and the
Evil; others in two principles, but yet others in seven! The first two of these
sects would correspond, respectively, to Zervanism and Mazdaism.
61 Zaehner, op. cit., chaps, i and u and (on the three “sects”), p. 58.
55 Bidez-Cumont, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 153-7.
56 Because of the prophecy that the Book of Numbers (XXIV, 17) puts into the
mouth of Balaam, “ . . . there shall come a star out of Jacob. ...”
The Sethians According to Their Writings 28i
astrology.67 This Judeo-Iranian tradition is well known: it pro¬

duced in writing, under the name of Hystaspes, Oracles predicting
the end of the world, preceded—and this brought them under the
ban of the Imperial authorities—by the fall of the Roman
power!58 We note, by the way, that our Gnostics seem not to
have known these last predictions: since the time of Augustus it
had been forbidden to possess or to read them under pain of
death; and this would hardly have encouraged the sects to keep
them in their libraries, whose secrecy, despite all precautions, was
liable some day to be violated.
Let us recall—without enquiring too curiously how this
Gnosis came by them—the most indubitably Iranian elements
that appear in our Sethian books. First, there is the theme of the
three primordial “roots”—as Iran conceived it and in such terms
as we find it in the Bundahishn.59 This is the notion of the highest
god, without beginning or end; and that of the supreme Tetrad;
that of the all-powerful Wisdom.60 There is the horrific silhouette
of Ialdabaoth, lion-headed and serpent-bodied—so near to the
Mithraic statues of the Aion,61 and also to Ahriman and the spirits
57 Cf. Bidez-Cumont, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 41 fF.
68 Cf. Bidez-Cumont, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 217-18 and vol. II, p. 362, note 3 ;
Messina, op. cit., p. 75.
69 Cf. above, chap. 1, note 124 and pp. isoff. To the expressions of this dualism
enriched with the intermediary principle found in our texts, let us add, besides
the references to the Poimandres and the Asclepius, the verses of the Thebaid of
Statius (IV, 515) which allude to a “triple universe” and perhaps express the same
notion. Bidez and Cumont comment upon these in Les Mages hellenises, vol. I,
pp. 225ff. Note also that the idea of the higher god, distinct from the Demiurge
and unknowable, is mentioned in the Clementine Recognitions (cf. Bidez-Cumont,
op. cit., vol. I, pp. 228-9).
80 The supreme god: cf. Widengren, Stand und Aufgaben . . . , p. (115);
the Wisdom: Widengren, The Great Vohu Manah . . . , p. 57; Zaehner,
The Teachings of the Magi, 1956, chap, vi, and, in the same author’s Zurvan,
pp. 132, 199, 208 Mid passim on the Tetrad. In the same book, chap, ix, particu¬
larly pp. 224 and 228-9; the two principles and the three times, in Mazdaism;
H. S. Nyberg, “Questions de cosmogonie et de cosmologie mazdeennes, II”
in Journal Asiatique, CCXIX, 1931, pp. 29-31 (cf. H. C. Puech, Le Manicheisme
. . . , p. 159).
61 Upon Ialdabaoth and the Archons, cf. Bidez-Cumont, op. cit., vol. II, p. 281
and note x : comparison with Ahriman and his evil spirits, rivals of the good god.
Cf. also J. Duchesnc-Guillemin, “Ahriman et le Dieu supreme dans les mysteres
de Mithra” in Nutnen, 1955 ; Widengren, Mesopotamian Elements in Manichaeism,
chap. 11; Junker, “Die Iranischen Quellen der Hcllenistischen Aionvorstellung”
in Vortrdge d.Bibliothek Warburg, I.S., i65ff. The reservations expressed by
Wikander about the Iranian origin of the monstrous figure of Kronos (in his
Etudes sur les mysteres de Mithra I, 1950, p. 35) arc not wholly convincing.
of evil, these too being rivals of the highest God. There is the
Zurvanist theory of the “two souls”, very like a preliminary
sketch for the Gnostic notion of the “counterfeiting spirit”,
which we shall find again in the teaching of the sectaries of the
Dead Sea.62 There is even a notion of Gnosis, attested in Iranian
texts by the explicit recurrence of the questions: Who am I? To
whom do I belong? Whence did I come, and where am I coming
to?63 There are not only the figures of saviours bom of the seed of
Zoroaster (as, among Gnostics, of “the seed of the great Seth”)
but also, and very clearly, that theme which has been known,
since Reitzenstein discerned its main outlines, as the myth of
“the Saviour saved”—which is that of a higher light-power who
is at work freeing the sparks of his own light, which are dispersed
throughout the lower creation.64 There are, again, many of the
facts and many of the images of this salvation; the glorious
vesture put on by the Enlighteners at their passage through the
heavens, and the description of the celestial goal as a Treasury.65
Finally—and even more characteristically, there is the geo¬
graphical setting itself in which these revelations occur; for our
apocrypha situate the most mystic and secret spot in the universe
on the dark shores of the eastern ocean, on that Mountain of
Lights in which is the Cave of the Magi.66
62 Cf. above, pp. 23, 72, 215 and, further on, p. 297.
63 Cf. Widengren, “Der Iranische Hintergrund der Gnosis” in Zeitschrift
fur Religions- utid Geistesgeschichte, IV, 1952, pp. 103-4 '> and H. C. Puech, La
Gnose et le Temps, p. 100 and note 59; Schkand-Gumdnik Vichar, X, 2-11, p. 114
in the edn. of J. de Menasce, Fribourg, 1945—and the reference to the Pand-
Namdk i Zartusht quoted by de Menasce in his foregoing publication, p. 120.
64 This myth arises from the belief in a parallelism between the macrocosm
and the microcosm; the divine Spirit on high rediscovers itself scattered among
men and throughout the cosmos: at the same time an analogous relationship
emerges between the heavenly primordial Man and the Messenger who, assuming
the function of Saviour, is a being in whom divine and human qualities are
combined. Cf. Widengren, The Great Vohu Manah and the Apostle of God, p. 7.
Upon the successions of royalties and of celestial envoys, cf. Bidez-Cumont, op.
cit., vol. I, pp. 217-22 and vol. II, pp. 364-76; Messina, I Magi . . . , pp. 74-82.
65 Cf. Widengren, The Great Vohu Manah . . . , pp. 54-5, 60, 71-2, 76ff.,
84ff.; p. 89. Widengren quotes the following from the Zdtsparam XXI, 8 : ‘‘Then
I saw Vohu Manah . . . under the aspect of a man ... he had put on, and
was wearing, a garment that was like silk, which was not made in pieces and had
no seams at all; for its substance was the light, and his stature was nine times
that of Zarathustra. ”
66 Cf. chap, v, note 27.
To show how naturally mythical notions, practically the same

in essentials as those of our Gnostics, could arise in the Iranian
mind, I would like to offer a rather amusing piece of evidence.
There is a Pahlavi writing of the second half of the ninth century
—the Shkand Gumdnik Vichdr, or “Explanation which destroys
all doubt”—which is an excellent example of the controversies
with Judaism familiarly carried on for more than a thousand years.
Its author sets out to refute the myth expounded at the beginning
of Genesis—that key-text for all Gnostic exegetists. In doing so,
he shows in the most spontaneous manner how an Iranian would
interpret the Biblical myth. Exactly like our sectaries—-just like
the Secret Book of John which takes even Moses to task on a charge
of falsehood—our Parsee is horrified at the description of the
primordial dark waters, with the Spirit of God moving over them.
This picture of the Creator, far from seeming divine to him,
strikes him as monstrous, and the arguments he brings against it
are almost the same as those of the Coptic books against Ialda-
baoth: “It is evident that he [i.e., God] was not luminous,
because when he saw the light he admired it, for he had never
seen it before” (Genesis I, 4; “And God saw that the light was
good”). Besides, the author insists, this Creator “having his place
and his dwelling in the darkness and in the black waters and never
having seen light before—how could he see that light, and whence
came his divinity? . . . And if his root and his dwelling were
in the darkness, how could he look light in the face?” This is
precisely the accusation—of ignorance of the true light-radiant
divinity who was superior to himself—that Gnosticism brought
against the Creator of this base world. Why—the Parsee goes on—
did this god create Adam and Eve; and why did he then want to
keep them in ignorance? Certainly, he adds, “the origin of the
science of man upon earth is in the serpent”. And then, after
having quoted the Biblical sayings which describe the Creator as a
“jealous God”, the Iranian critic ends by asking “Is this a god—a
being who has all these marks and characteristics, to whom the
truth is alien and who will not share out his knowledge? . . .
But no, this is the devil himself, he who takes his origin from the
darkness!” Here, then, is good evidence that the anti-Biblical
interpretation of the Old Testament from which Gnosticsm

derived one of its essential myths, was that which would quite
naturally present itself to an Iranian mind.67
Here let us add a few words about the relations which may
have existed between Gnosticism and certain Indian doctrines.
Since long before the discovery of the Chenoboskion writings
this has been a major problem, as much for specialists in Gnosti¬
cism as for historians of Indian literature; but no reliable solution
has come in sight; and if the one group of doctrines did have some
influence upon the other, there has been nothing to show in
which direction this took place.
We know that the conquest of Asia by Alexander had opened
up the road to India for the Hellenistic world. The Seleucids,
from 320 B.c. and as long as Babylon remained their capital city,
were on good terms with the Indian princes—Sandracotta, for
instance. The Kushana money consisted of coins struck with the
images of Herakles, Mithra, Shiva or Buddha, indifferently. But
no precise details about the religious and philosophical exchanges
of the period between the Orient and the Occident remain dis¬
cernible for historians. We should need more information about
the dominant part played by Iran, whose religious history in these
ages remains very little known.
However, it already appears that a comparative study of the
doctrines of our Gnostics, and of certain texts of Indian literature
also composed about the commencement of our era, promises
some discoveries that one could not have hoped for before. Here
we can but suggest their possible range. For instance, how could
anyone miss the resemblance between the theme of the seduction
of the celestial Archons by the Virgin of the Light—a favourite
theme with both Gnostics and Manichaeans—and the episode of
Vishnu changing himself into a dazzling courtesan, in order to
get back from the asuras (Titans) the ambrosia they had stolen
after the churning of the Sea of Milk ? How, above all, could one
neglect another extraordinary feature—that, in the mythology of
the Mahabharata, there is a White Mountain, Svetaparvata,
67 In the edition of the Shkand Gutnanlk Vichar by P. J. de Menasce, Fribourg,

1945, see chaps, xni and xiv of the text, §§ 78ff. and 352ft'.
situated in regions beyond the darkness of tliis world ? For here,

again, is the Mountain of the Lights, dear to Zoroastrian, Gnostic
and Mandaean traditions. And the seven Guardians whom the
Mandaeans located precisely there, where the Gnostics also knew
them to be, now appear to us—though doubtless the same—in the
form of serpents with seven heads!68
JEWISH AND KABBALI STIC GNOSTICISM
The problem of the relations that there may have been between
the Gnostic teachings and Judaism is of no less capital im¬
portance.69 Certain ramifications of the great Gnostic movement
were even explicitly believed to have had remote Jewish origins.
That is what Hegesippus claimed for them. But the most
picturesque tradition of this kind is that which Al Biruni recorded
in the eleventh century about some Mandaeans who were
descended “from the remaining Jewish tribes who dwelt in
Babylonia after the other tribes had left for Jerusalem in the time
of Cyrus and Artaxerxes. These tribes, remaining there, adopted a
mixture of Magian and Jewish doctrines, like that of the Samari¬
tans in Syria”.70
For our sects—as we must not forget—the interpretation of the
text of the Bible is the real point of departure for their doctrines;
indeed their writings sometimes refer to interpretations of words
which could have no meaning except in Hebrew or, more often,
in Aramaic. Their apocrypha are nourished by images from the
68 Cf. Senart, Essai sur la Ugende de Bouddha, 2nd edn., 1882, pp. 106-7;
Hopkins, “Mythological Aspects of Trees and Mountains in the great Epic” in
Journal of the American Oriental Society, XXX, 1910, p. 359; and, by the same
author, Epic Mythology . . . , Strasbourg, 1915, pp. 26, 45 and 105. On the
plane of historical records, cf., above, note 27.
69 The indispensable study is that of G. G. Scholem, Les grands courants de la
mystique juive (trans. by M. M. Davy), 1950. Among studies of detail, we may
cite Graetz, Gnostizismus und Judenthum, 1846; A. Buchler, in Judaica, Festschrift
fiir Hermann Cohen, 1912; and the article of the same author in Monatschrift fur
Geschichte und Wisscnschaft des Judentums, vol. LXXVI, 1932, pp. 412-56. To the
articles enumerated in the Notes that follow let us add: H. J. Schoeps, “ Simon
Magus in der Haggada” in Aus fruhchristliche Zeit, pp. 239-54; A. Procope-
Walter, “Jao und Seth” in Archiv. fur Religionswissenschaft, XXX, pp. 34-69;
M. Simon, “Sur deux Heresies juives mentionnees par Justin martyr” in Revue
d’Histoire et de Philosophic religieuses, XVIII, pp. 54-8.
70 Cf. E. S. Drower, The Haran Gawaita . . . (= Studi e Testi, 176), Citta
del Vaticano, 1953, p. viii.
Books of Daniel, of Enoch, of the Ascension of Isaiah and of the

Jubilees. Some teachings, hke that of Justin in his book of Baruch,
seem to be founded upon rabbinical speculations. Certain features,
with which our apocrypha enrich the story of the creation of
Adam and Eve, are to be found in the Pirqe Rabbi Eli'ezer and
many other treatises. The primordial Adam—the Adam Qadmon
—is one of their favourite subjects.71 The Haggada identifies Shem
with Melchizedek and accords him a prestige equivalent to that
which he has in Gnosticism.72 A certain Gamahel (who was
perhaps modelled upon a historical personage) is elevated by our
Sethians to the rank of a celestial power, watching over the great
baptisms and the seals.73
Concerning this Hellenistic Judaism one has also to take into
account the number of foreign influences that entered into it.74
71 A. Altmann, “The Gnostic Background of the Rabbinic Adam Legend”

in Jewish Quarterly Review, XXXV, pp. 371-91; Aptowitzer, Cain und Abel in
d.Haggada, 1922; Israel Levi, “Le Peche originel dans les anciennes sources
juives” in Annuaire de iTcole pratique des Hautes dztudes; Section des Sciences
religieuses, 1907; A. Dupont-Sommer, “Adam ‘Pere du Monde’ dans la Sagesse
de Salomon”, 10, 1-2, in the Revue de VHistoire des Religions, vol. CXIX, 1939.
pp. 182-203; Kraeling, Anthropos and Son of Man, 1927; Kurt Rudolph, “Ein
grundtyp gnostischer Urmensch-Adam speculation” in Zeitschrift fur Religions
und Geistesgeschichte, IX, 1957, pp. iff.; Scholem, “Die Vorstellung vom Golem”
in Eranos Jahrbuch XXII, 1953, pp. 235ff.
72 M. Simon, “ Melchisedech dans les polemiques entre Juifs et Chretiens et
dans la legende” in Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophic religieuses, 1937, pp. 58-93.
The equivalence mentioned here appears in the second century, with Rabbi
Ismael.
73 In the Secret Book of the invisible Great Spirit, Gamahel is associated with
Gabriel, Samlo and Abraxas; the untitled treatise in the Bruce Codex (ed. Baynes,
p. 97) names him among the guardians of the aeons with Strempsuchos and
Agramas. That Gamahel may have been a divinized teacher is suggested by his
being mentioned together with a Strempsuchos probably identical with the
Astrampsychos who comes into the Philosophumena's account of the Perates
(V, 13, 8), associated with other celebrated sages—Bumegas, Ostanes, Kurites,
Petosiris, Zodarion, Berossos, Zoroaster. Astrampsychos is known elsewhere as
an astrologer, originally from Persia or Egypt—more probably Egypt, seeing
that the second half of his name includes the name of the crocodile god Suchos. A
striking fact is that Diogenes Laertius and Suidas put him among the Magi
between Ostanes and Gobryas and make him, with Ostanes, the principal suc¬
cessor to Zoroaster. The Philosophumena mentions him, somewhat similarly,
between B£rossos and Zoroaster (cf. Bidez-Cumont, op. cit., vol. II, p. 7; and the
article “Astrampsychos” in the Realenzyklopadie of Pauly-Wissowa, vol. II,
col. 1796).
74 Cf. the first chaps, of vol. II of S. W. Baron, Social and Religious History
of the Jews, 1952, and its abundance of notes and summaries.
Of these, must we not give first place to its contacts with Iran?76
For even after the end of the Exile, many Israelites remained in
Media (for example at Ragay and Ecbatana) and in Babylonia
(at Nehardea). The Aramaic language was understood as far as
the Iranian plateau. The diffusion of the Jewish religion included
conversions such as those of Helen of Adiabene and her son
Izates in a.d. 44, who were buried later in Jerusalem in the
Sepulchres still to be seen there, called the “Tomb of the Kings”.
At the same time Judaism was receiving from Iran its myths of
salvation and of apocalypse, its eschatology full of archangels,
angels and demons, and something of its belief in the enmity
between the hght and the darkness.76 For a long time the Hebrew
and Pahlavi hteratures went on exchanging literary material
such as the visions ascribed to certain holy men who had been
caught up into heaven.77 We have already noted how Zoroaster
thus became identified with Seth, in a tradition cherished by our
Gnostics. They also liked to assimilate him to Balaam, who had
foretold the Star ofjacob (Numbers XXIV, 15-17). They identified
him, again, with Ezechiel, and made him a disciple of Abraham.
They even tried to identify him with Nimrod, proud of his
renown as an ancient Chaldaean king.78 It was from all this, and
thanks to borrowings from Iranian sources, that there emerged
the Apocalypses of Adam (one of the principal resources upon
which our Gnostics drew) and the abundant, but more orthodox
cycle of legends surrounding the multiple variations of the
Cave of Treasures.
As for Hellenism, its influence is less recognizable, although,
against a good deal of reprobation, it was flooding into Jewish
culture.79 The latter responded to this influx by claiming that
Moses had been the same person as Musaeus (which would mean
75 Cf. Messina, I Magi e Betlemme, chap. V.
76 Widengren, Stand und Aufgaben der Iranische Religionsgeschichte, 1955,
pp. (131), (134)-
77 Cf., for instance, M. Haug, Ueber das Atdai Virdj nameh, Munich, 1870; it
gives the story of a vision of heaven and hell in which there are borrowings from
the Ascension of Isaiah.
78 Bidez-Cumont, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 41-9.
79 Cf. Baron, Social and Religious History of the fews, vol. II, chaps, ix, xn and
xm; Schtirer, Geschichte der Judischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Chnsti, 3rd edn.;
R. Meyer, Hellenistisches in der rabbinischen Anthropologie, Stuttgart, 1937-
that Orpheus was but a disciple of that great prophet) and that it
was from him that Pythagoras and Plato had derived their
doctrines.80 Do we want proofs of the mixture that this brought
about ? For one—it looks as though the theme of the casket of the
Danaidcs became involved with the visions in a Hebrew Apoca¬
lypse of Isaiah, one fragment of which has survived.81 Some
images of Hades—for instance the allusion to sinners being
hanged, as Homer is, according to the Catahasis of Pythagoras,
and of analogous torments—passed into the Hebrews' eschato¬
logy82 ; and Greek conceptions, although extremely deformed,
have insinuated themselves even into one of the greatest of their
mystical texts: the Great Hekhaloth.83
Even the astrological beliefs invaded this branch of Judaism;
so much so that it claimed to trace the origins of that star-lore to
traditions founded by Enoch, Abraham and others.84 . . . Thus
it was that the Throne and the Chariot of the Lord Sabaoth came
to be assigned a place that anyone could see by looking up into
the sky: the supreme point of the seven heavens; the Pole
around which the hosts of angels and powers—twinkling stars
and steady planets—revolved in an obedient and continuous
rhythm.85
From the assimilation of Zoroaster to Seth, which served as a
basis for the beliefs of the sectaries whose writings we have now
80 Schiirer, op. cit., pp. 354fF. and 386ff.; Bidez-Cumont, op. cit., vol. I,
p. 41.
81 Ct. Gaster, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1893, p. 601.
82 Cf. Dictionnaire de la Bible; Supplement, vol. II, col. 409.
83 Scholem, Les Grands courants . . . , p. 376, note 50. We may add, as
further borrowings from Hellenism, a physiognomies to which mystical meanings
were attached, both among the Essenians (see later, on p. 297) and in orthodox
Judaism (Scholem, pp. 61-2 and relevant notes); and we should also mention the
speculations on the hidden meanings of numbers. The influence of Pythagorean-
ism on the Essenians, already known, has been illuminated by, for instance,
J. Carcopino, Le Mysterc d’un symbole chretien, pp. 53-4.
84 Upon the influence of Hellenistic astrology on Judaism, see Baron, op. cit.,
vol. II; and Reitzenstein, Pounandres, pp. 74 and passim.
85 By playing on the initial letter of the name of Sabaoth, the Hebrew could
turn the Lord “of Hosts” into Lord “of the Seven” (planets). Cf. Puech’s
article ‘ Archontiker”, col. 642. I11 Hellenistic astrology we find the planets
furnishing themselves with chariots and thrones (cf. Ptolomeus, Tetrabiblos, I,
23. Was it these that inspired the images of the throne and chariot of Sabaoth,
or were they imitations of the latter?
discovered, must we conclude that our Gnostics, too, derived

their traditions from some group that was particularly syncretistic
and especially open to Iranian influences, in this very accom¬
modating Judaism? But of this again proof is lacking, though the
hypothesis is a very attractive one. Here we must limit ourselves
to listing the principal features that connect our Gnostic myths
with Judaism. We must note, here, that Jewish mysticism itself
had its unmistakable Gnostics—that is, openly heretical believers
in dualism; G. Scholem has clearly demonstrated their existence86;
but this is a subject upon which such an immense literature still
remains to be sifted that, without lingering upon the point, we
had better look for our connections in Jewish mysticism as a
whole, whether it had or had not come directly under Gnostic
influences. And to give a more general idea of the relations be¬
tween the behefs of our Gnostics and certain themes familiar to
Jewish thought, we will refer to the mediaeval evidence: this we
have no right to exclude because of its later date; for, after all,
even the most ancient writings do not enable us to affirm, in the
present state of research, that this or that parallel demonstrates
with certainty the existence of a pattern that the Gnostics copied
nor, on the contrary, of one that was an import due to Gnostic
influence.
An initial phenomenon relating the two literatures is that,
just as Gnosticism entitled its apocalypses with the names of
Marsanes, Nicotheus “the hidden”, Phosilampes, of Seth and
various other “ Allogenes”87, so did Judaism place certain revela¬
tions to the account of privileged sages who, following the
examples of Enoch and Melchizedek, had gained admission to
Paradise—these included Ben Azai, Ben Zoma, Aher and Rabbi
Aqiba.88 Other Jewish doctors, such as Onias the Just, Hanan and,
later, Simeon ben Yoha'i, were themselves described as “hidden”
86 Cf. Scholem, op. cit., p. 374, note 24; L. Wallach, “A Jewish Polemic
against Gnosticism” in Journal of Biblical Literature, LXV, pp. 393-6; Baron,
op. cit., vol. II, note 16, pp. 1043-4.
87 Cf. above (on the untitled treatise in the Bruce Codex), pp. 82-3; the
Paraphrase of Shem, pp. 147 and 148; the Treatise on the Triple Epiphany, p. 181.
88 According to the treatise Hagiga, Scholem, op. cit., p. 65; cf. Peterson,
“ La liberation d’Adam de VAvayK-q,” not forgetting the case of St Paul
(II Corinthians XII, 2).
before there were any Gnostics.89 At the same time, one notices
that many of the visions recorded by Judaism suffer from the
same major defect as the Gnostic apocrypha, in that their authors
have chosen to hide their identity behind the names of famous
personages of the past. However, we do know something about
these revelations which, in the case of the Gnostics, eludes us—
that, in many cases—as we are told by, for instance, the Great
Hekhaloth—these are visions which the doctor to whom they are
attributed really believed he had had; for which he had prepared
himself by fasting, which he induced at the desired moment by
assuming a certain attitude; and which were recorded just as they
came to him, for he dictated them to scribes installed beside
him.90
The most ancient form of the Jewish mysticism was nourished
upon the vision of the divine Throne: towards this the soul of the
seer was uplifted through the celestial spheres, which were
guarded—in accordance with the universal astrology of the
times—by the Archons, who had to be answered with the secret
words, and shown the seals. But here, the revolving spheres are
palaces; they are the Hekhaloth, and in the seventh of them
(the highest) is the chariot celebrated in the visions of Ezechiel
and Daniel, that is, the Throne—Merkaba, the primal image of
the Pleroma which contains all the forms of the creation. Among
89 Onias the Just was (see Josephus, Ant.Jud., XIV, n, i and 2) a person beloved
of God who had even had the privilege of obtaining a rainfall which put an end
to a period of drought. During the seditions of the year 65 B.C. he was “hidden”.
But the mob found and stoned him. According to R. Goossens, “Onias le Juste,
Messie de la Nouvelle Alliance” (in La Nouvelle Clio, No. 7, 1950), this personage
may have been the Teacher of Righteousness of the sect of Qumran. He is, in any
case, an example of those “just” or “righteous” men who were also described
as “hidden” (Goossens, op. cit., p. 345). In the tradition of the Talmud the title of
“hidden” was similarly given to a later thaumaturgist—Hanan; cf. the treatise
Ta’anith, quoted by Goossens, loc. cit. Here we must remember Enoch XII, 1:
“And before these things, Enoch was hidden and none of the children of men
knew where he was hidden. ...” Upon Simeon ben Yohai, see H. Serouya,
La Kabbale 2nd edn., 1957, p. 44 and S. W. Baron, op. cit., vol. II.
80 Scholem, op. cit., pp. 62-3 and p. 76. The mystic “has to fast a certain num¬
ber of days, place his head between his knees, and very softly repeat hymns and
canticles, the text of which we know were traditional. Then, he is drawn into the
inner world and perceives the dwellings, as though he were seeing the seven
palaces with his own eyes. ...” Scholem compares this posture with that
assumed by Elijah on Mount Carmel.
the most characteristic elements around this Throne is the curtain,

the cosmic veil which screens the glory of their Lord from the
hosts of angels, as we find it does in the Book of Enoch,91 where it
is defined as containing the images of all pre-existing things. This
veil—although with another meaning, that of separating the world
of light from what is beneath it—appears again among the
Coptic Gnostics; and it may be that this was the inspiration of
the luminous clouds, in some of their myths, behind which
Ialdabaoth hid himself or, indeed, before the Deluge, Noah and
his family.92 As for the divine chariot mentioned before in a line of
the anonymous treatise in the Bruce Codex, it is pretty fully
described in that glorification of Sabaoth which is one of the
essential themes of the Hypostasis of the Archons, and of the ana¬
logous text to which I have attached the No. 40.93 As we have
seen elsewhere, certain features of this same mysticism appear also
in those semi-magical and half-Gnostic texts of prayers put into
the mouth of Adam, of which E. Peterson has given us a pene¬
trating analysis.94 The same ascent into heaven is also implied in
the myth of the pseudo-Mithraic Liturgy, and this, too, is offered
to the glory of the First man.95 And even the Coptic magical
writings usually invoke the powers who, in this same mystical
vision, surround the divine Throne.
Some other features of this Judaic Gnosis appear in a writing
of almost paradoxical content—the treatise Shiur Koma (or
“Measure of the Body”) which describes the Creator as a fan¬
tastic Anthropos. One could compare this with the figure of the
supreme Anthropos which is expounded at length in the last
writing in the Bruce Codex. Reflections of the same visions have
been found in the speculations of Mark the Gnostic.96
91 Scholem, op. cit., p. 85, upon the various entities; among them the seven
middoth (wisdom, righteousness, justice . . .) who serve before the divine
Throne; cf., also loc. cit., p. 87.
92 Cf. above, chap, v, p. 202 and p. 208. Upon this cloud in the magical writings:
cf. the Gnostic magical texts quoted on p. 103 and Kropp, Ausgewahlte koptische
Zaubertexte, vol. Ill, pp. 28-9.
93 Chap. V above, pp. 163, 167 and 177.
94 Chap. 11 above, pp. I07ff
95 Cf. above, p. 108 and Scholem, loc. cit., p. 66.
96 Scholem, op. cit., pp. 76-8 and p. 378, notes 89 and 91; Kropp, Ausgewahlte
koptische Zaubertexte, vol. Ill, p. 41.
The Jewish mediaeval literature lends itself to more numerous

comparisons than do these archaic writings. This is largely because
it is derived from ancient traditions, the original form of which is
lost. Thus, one oriental source of the theology of the Kabbalists
was the Raza Rabba or “Great Mystery”, a work which has now
disappeared, but which had been nourished with Gnostic specula¬
tions about the aeons: G. Scholem discovers elements of this in
the book Bahir which appeared in Provence in the twelfth
century.97
The thirteenth century saw the composition of the book of
the Zohar. Scholem has satisfactorily proved that this was derived
from the master Moses of Leon. Its doctrine of ten emanations, or
Sephiroth, proceeding from the hidden and infinite God,98 is
highly reminiscent of the series of abstract powers which are
added to the supreme divinity in the mythology of our ancient
Gnostics: they are the supreme Crown of God, his Wisdom or
his primordial Idea, his Intelligence, his Mercy. . . .With the
figure of Moses of Leon is intimately associated that of Joseph
Gikatila; so much so that one hesitates to say which of these two
Kabbalists was the author of certain texts. Gikatila wrote an
opusculum on the Mystery of the Serpent, which merits quotation
here, so much does it remind us, in some of its features, of the
teachings of the Ophites or Naassenes which, however, this doctor
cannot have known. Let us borrow G. Scholem’s translation99
of the following passage: “Know that from Isaac have issued
thirty-five princes on the left by Edom and by Amalek. Amalek
is the head of the primal Serpent; he issued from the Serpent and
the Serpent is his chariot. ... In that place [Rephidim; see
Exodus XVII] the Serpent and Amalek are found united. . .
Know and believe that the Serpent, at the beginning of creation,
was indispensable to the order of the world, so long as he kept
his place; and he was a great servant, created to bear the yoke and
97 Scholem, op. cit., p. 88, and the article of the same author “Buch Bahir”
in Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. Ill, cols. 969-79.
98 The Sephiroth, or Sepher Yetsira, were the ten primary numbers, in which
were comprised all the elements of the world (Scholem, op. cit., pp. 89-90). In
the Zohar, the Sephiroth represent something rather different; the world of
spheres (Scholem, op. cit., p. 222).
99 Scholem, op. cit., p. 409, note 113.
servitude ot kingdoms. His head reached high above the earth and
his tail reached down even into Sheol and Abadon,100 for in all
worlds there was a place for him; and he was needed for the
ordering of all the chariots, each in its place. And that is the
mystery of the Dragon [‘Teli’] known to the Sepher Yetsira
[i.e., the ‘Book of the Creation’].101 It is he who moves the
spheres and turns them from the East to the West and from the
North to the South. Without him there would have been neither
seed nor germination, nor will to produce any created thing.
. . . That is the mystery of the tree of knowledge of good and
evil. That is why God forbade Adam to touch the tree of know¬
ledge, so long as the good and the evil are linked together. . .
Let us remember the Philosophutnena’s account of the Peratae—
who were, in fact, a sect of Ophites—and some remarks it lets
fall about the great business of the Serpent: “If anyone has
favoured sight ... he will see . . . the beautiful image of
the Serpent coiled up at the great commencement of the heavens,
and becoming, for all born beings, the principle of all movement;
then he will understand that no being ... is formed without
the Serpent.”102
Some further parallels with the Gnostic myths will be found
in the doctrines of the school of Isaac Luria, who lived in the
middle of the sixteenth century, and who learned the principles
100 Cf., among the great Gnostics, the serpent of Darkness, by whom the souls
who could not ascend to the Light were swallowed, passed through his body and
were cast down into the depths of matter. Abadon is the angel of the abyss; cf.
the Book of Revelation IX, n.
101 The Dragon (Teh) has an important place in the myths of the Sepher
Yetsira (composed between the third and fourth centuries); cf. A. Epstein,
“Recherches sur le Sefer Yetsira” in Revue des Etudes juives, XXVIII, 1894,
pp. 63-4. Upon the Gnostic elements contained in the S.Y., cf. Graetz,
op. cit. The dragon (already alluded to in Job XXVI, 13) governs the world and
personifies its axis: thus we are dealing with an image of maximum amplitude,
of the constellation of the Dragon, neighbour to the Great Bear, and whose
star alpha marked the Pole until the decline of the antique world. Under the name
of’AdaAia the dragon Teli passed into Greek astrology: cf. the Catalogus Codicum
Astrologorum Graecorum, V, fasc. 2, pp. 13iff.; VII, pp. I23ff, p. 245, Note 5,
p. 246; VIII, fasc. I, pp. 194-6; cf. also G. Furlani, “Tre trattati astrologici
siriaci sulle eclissi solare e lunare” in Atti d.Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Anno
CCCXLIV, 1947, ser. ottava: Rendiconti Classe di Sc. morali . . . , vol. II,
fascicolo 11-12 (Rome 1948), pp. 569-606; cf. also above, chap. 11, our notes 12
and 15.
i°2 Philosophuinena, V, 16.
of the Kabbala in Egypt. Without, perhaps, going so far as to an

absolute dualism, his cosmology does assume the real existence of
evil in a kingdom of its own: it admits the fall of the portions of
the light of the Pleroma down into the lowest depths. One very
curious feature of his doctrine is what he calls tsimtsum, by which
word he means a “withdrawal”: this is the notion that the
created universe could not have existed, had not God, infinite
and therefore everywhere present, withdrawn himself—vacating
a portion of himself, in which creation could then take place. In
this space—since a creation could not be made out of nothing—
he had, however, left a residue of his divine light; the reshimu
from which the creation was to emerge. Isaac Luria compares this
reshimu to the oil or wine that still clings to a vessel from which
one has poured out the contents. Now, Scholem has been able to
show that this doctrine has a quite exact parallel in what the
Philosophumena writes about the teaching of Basilides103 ; there it
is said, of this residue of the Spirit: “When one has put a delicate
perfume into a vase, one may empty that vase with the greatest
care, but the odour still remains after the perfume has been
decanted . . . and the vase retains the odour even though it
contains no more of the perfume. Thus it is with the Holy Spirit,
separated from and deprived of the Sonhood (from which it
came forth): it keeps within itself, so to speak, the virtue of the
perfume. . . . ” Better still, an allusion to this same notion of
withdrawal—of the tsimtsum—occurs in the Books of Jeou, where it
is said that all the primordial spaces with their Paternities came
into existence because of this little idea that God had left behind
him in space . . . when he had withdrawn into himself.104
Of course it is possible that themes of this order (and we have
mentioned but a few), which are found in the mediaeval writings
of Jewish mysticism and even in the more ancient texts, were
inspired by the teachings of the same Gnostics who were com¬
bated by the Christian heresiologists. Yet these motives seem so
103 Philosophumena, VII, 22; cf. Scholem, loc. cit., pp. 278-72.
104 Books oj Jeou, translation by C. Schmidt-W. Till. Cf. Scholem, op. cit.,
pp. 387-82. The same notion recurs in § 15 of the Asclepius: “Locum autem dico
in quo sint omnia: neque enim haec omnia esse potuisse (omnibus enim rebus,
quae fuerint, praecavendum est loco).”
much in accord with other features of authentically Jewish thought

which the Gnostics did not know—thought which, for its own
own part, is almost totally ignorant of any duahstic conception
of the universe—that one is tempted to believe that it was the
Gnostic sects who received a great part of their theories from
Judaism. Moreover, we have found, thanks to the very exact
analyses of Peterson,105 that certain mystical themes, connected
with the freeing of Adam from Fate, were developed quite apart
from Gnosticism, and may go back to more ancient origins.
Undoubtedly, the doctrines inherited by our sectaries are anti-
biblical : but those who elaborated them could have done so only
after long mystical speculation upon the Old Testament—the
Torah and the Psalms in particular—and that probably in Hebrew.
The special case of the Sethians is still clearer in this respect:
Judaism was not without certain traditions about the Sons of
God (Genesis VI, 2 and 4) who were thought to be the children
of Seth and to have lived, at first, upon Mount Hermon.106
THE GNOSTICS AND THE SECTARIES OF QUMRAN
The problem of the relations of our Gnostics, first with Judaism,

and then with Christianity, is resolvable into this more particular
question—what relations could there have been between the
sects among whom our writings were originally conceived, and
the Jewish pre-Christian sects—or the Judeo-Christian ones?
The heresiologists insist upon placing the diverse groups of our
Gnostics at the top of a genealogical tree, the trunk of which is
formed by a number of Jewish groups—Baptist, Samaritan and
Judeo-Christian. . . . But on this subject our new writings
remain dumb. A Dositheus declares himself, but only as the
transcriber of prayers revealed to him by the Great Seth under
conditions that throw no light upon his identity. We also fmd
texts headed with the name of the Apostle James to whom,
according to Hegesippus, the Saviour had imparted the secrets
of Gnosis; and other revelations elaborate reflections upon the
105 Cf. above, p. 109.
106 Cf. Griinbaum, “Beitrage zur vergleichende Mythologie aus der Hag-
gada” in Zeitschrift d.Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellsch., 1877, p. 247.
Jordan, and on baptisms; but these constitute a class of writings

manifestly distinct from those that most explicitly describe what
one would call Gnostic mythology.
By absolutely direct evidence, there is only one pre-Christian
sect that we know much about—the sect whose manuscripts have
been found near the Dead Sea. But this—as it happens—was a
specially representative group, and it played a highly important
part in history. Several authors have already raised the question of
what relations may have existed between these “Essenians” and
the Gnostics: but they were poorly equipped to answer it while
they had only such inadequate documentation as was available
before our discovery. That is why the definitions of Gnosticism
which they used as criteria were not always correct enough; and
their conclusions have been mostly negative.107 However, some
interesting facts have emerged: and we are now able to affirm
a vague parallel between our Gnostics and the people of Qumran,
not because of the fact that these Essenians associated their Judaic
beliefs with Hellenic-Pythagorean inspirations, as we know they
did, or from their faith, their discipline of life and their dress.108
Nor is it because the sectaries of Qumran made use of the Books
of Enoch and of the Jubilees, nor that they possessed a commentary
on Genesis—incidentally, this was taken to be a Book of
Lamech!109—which proves to be of little note from a doctrinal
point of view. Rather, it is because they regarded a part of the
teaching that they passed on as strictly secret. Was it, then, a kind
of Gnosis? “Thou hast made me the authorized interpreter of
profound mysteries’’, proclaims their teacher, “Thou hast given
me the understanding of thy faith and the knowledge of thy
wonderful secrets!” (Hymns, n, 13 and VII, 26). And then, two
107 Cf. R. McL. Wilson, “Simon, Dositheus and the Dead Sea Scrolls” in
Zeitschriftfur Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, IX, 1957, pp. 21-30; for a “negative”
opinion, see H. J. Schoeps, “Das gnostische Judentum in den Dead Sea Scrolls”
in the same Zeitschrift . . . , VI, 1954, pp. 276-9.
109 N. Avigad and Y. Yadin, A Genesis apocryphon . . . , 1956. We notice,
among the texts (often very fragmentary) still in course of publication, some
apocalyptic or messianic writings; a description of the New Jerusalem, a Book of
Mysteries; they seem to contain nothing of a Gnostic tendency: see “Le travail
dYdition des fragments manuscrits de Qumran” in Revue Biblique, 1956, pp.
49ff-
The Sethians According to Their Writings
297
cryptographic alphabets have been identified in the manuscripts

from Cave 4. One book, which was meant to remain secret,
develops some astrological conceptions, more original than those
usually found in this kind of literature that knew no frontiers.110
In accordance with the morphology of individuals111 born under
t s or t lat sign of the Zodiac, this treatise claims to compute
how many men can belong to the world of the Spirits of Light
and how many belong to the spirits of the Darkness. Such theories
were by no means unknown among our Coptic Gnostics: the
Pistis-Sophia describes at some length the mysterious seals
imprinted by decans upon the hands, the skull, and the rest of the
human body during its formation.
4< 111 Edition, the Qumran people knew the doctrine of the
two spirits”.112 In their Manual of Discipline these “children of
light —as they called themselves—were told that when God
created man to rule over the world, he gave him two spirits; one,
the spirit of truth, and the other the spirit of perversity. “The
origin of the Truth is in the Source of Light, and that of Per¬
versity is in the Abyss of Darkness. All those who practise
righteousness are under the domination of the Prince of Light
and walk in the ways of the Light, while those who practise
perversity are under the domination of the Angel of Darkness
and walk in the way of Darkness.,,:113
But could there have been any historical relations between
the sect that lived on the shores of the Dead Sea and the
mysterious founders of our Gnosticism ?
111 7
l' ' ,Millk> Dix ans de decouvertes dans le desert de Juda, pp. 78-9.
112 ti ^cholem, l°c- Clt-’ PP- 61 and 62 and the relevant notes.
r ... UPon lhe theory of the two spirits, and its Iranian origin: see J. Duchcsne-
Guillemm, Le Zervamsme et les manuscrits de la mer Morte” in Indo-Iranian
Journal, I, 1957, pp. 96-9—an article which has the interest of attesting, in the
hrst place, the Zurvamst origin of this doctrine. On the same subject: H. Michaud
Un mythe zervamste dans un des manuscrits de Qumran” in Vetus Testamentum,
\955 ' jdupont-Sommer, “L’Instruction sur les deux Esprits ” in Revue de I’Histoirc
des Religions,1952; K. G. Kuhn, “Die Sektenschnft und die Iranische Religion”
m Zeitschr.J. Theol und Kirche, 1952. For recent bibliography on this subject:
j. Van Uer Ploeg, Les manuscrits trouves depuis 1947 dans le desert de Tuda” in
Jaarbericht No 14, Ex OrienteLux, 1955-6, pp. 101-2. We have pointed out, above,
this theory of the two souls in Basilides and other Gnostics—pp. 23, 72, 215, 282.
It is also to be found in Philo, Questiones in Exodutn, I, 23.
113 Manual of Discipline, III, 13 ; IV, 26.
The extinction of the group at Qumran after a.d. 70 is an

acknowledged fact. We have been wondering what became of
the sectaries afterwards; and competent authors have suggested
that those who did not return to orthodox Judaism may have
swelled the ranks of the first Christians or of the Gnostics.114 Can
we find, in the writings we are now reading in Coptic versions,
any indication that the initiates who wrote the originals may have
had some links with the Qumran group? One text—and only
one—does appear, in this connection, to be susceptible of an
interesting interpretation. This is the Sacred Book of the invisible
Great Spirit, or Gospel of the Egyptians, which alludes to the powers
sent from on high to this earth for the dispensation, to the Perfect,
of the great baptisms that will assure their salvation: these are,
the incorruptible Logogene; Jesus the Living, and, thirdly, a
prophet named as “he in whom the Great Seth has clothed
himself”. With these revealers of the Gnosis are associated,
moreover, the “Great Leaders”, who are the Apostle James the
Great and another named Theopemptos. The passage that must
be quoted here is about the great Seth, or rather—as we shall
recognize—the anonymous prophet indicated as his incarnation.
The text tells us that: “The great Seth came and brought his
seed, and sowed it in the aeons that have been engendered and of
which the number is the number of Sodom. Some say: ‘ Sodom is
the dwelling place of the great Seth, which [or: who?] is
Gomorrha.’115 And others say: ‘The great Seth took the seed of
Gomorrha, and he has transplanted it to the second place which
has been called Sodom!’”
114 The influence of the Essenians upon the Sampsaeans is attested by Epi-
phanius, Panarion, XIX, 2. Elkesai also had inherited their teachings; Essenian
elements appear in his works. For possible relations between the Essenians and
other sects, see J. Thomas, Le mouvement baptiste en Palestine et en Syrie; H.
Gregoire, “Note sur les survivances chretiennes des Esseniens et des sectes
apparentees” in La Nouvelle Clio, I—II, pp. 354-9.
116 This expression “the number of Sodom” suggests that the first lines of this
passage refer to some speculation about the numerical values of the letters forming
the word “Sodom”—values which, added up, would correspond to the number
of the aeons that have been engendered”; doubtless it is in the same way that
we must explain the allusion to Gomorrha in the sentence “ Sodom is the dwelling
place of the great Seth, which [or: who?] is Gomorrha”. But should we look for
the solution of this in the Greek forms of the names, or in the Aramaic?
At first sight, seeing the rather mysterious context in which

these sentences occur, one might think they were concerned—
as are the preceding pages of the same writing—with the con¬
tinuation of a cosmogony of the higher worlds, where there can
be no question of anything but spiritual, immaterial entities
outside our mundane history. But here two facts are to be
reckoned with: first, that “the seed of Seth” is an expression
which denotes precisely the race of the elect—that is, the sectaries
themselves. Secondly, the mention of Sodom and Gomorrha
—which cannot be regarded as simply mythical, unless we take
it to be an antibiblical gesture hke the glorification of Cain, Esau
etc., by some of the extremer sects mentioned by the heresio-
logists116—seems, here, to be of quite a different nature.
For it is notable that the Sethians whose writings we have here
were not Gnostics of the kind most violently opposed to the
Old Testament, and—even though, on occasion, they reprove
the Creator and criticize Moses—they do not revere persons who
in the Bible are accursed. It is not, therefore, the episodes which
disgraced Sodom and Gomorrha in antiquity (Genesis XXVII-
XXVIII) that we have to think of here.
One noteworthy fact that is known about the Essenians is that
Gomorrha and Sodom were among the places where they had
established colonies. All the evidence it has been possible to
collect from ancient literature concerning the localities inhabited
by the Essenians has by now been fully analysed and evaluated:
yet too little attention has been paid to the fact that Qumran,
according to an identification formerly suggested by F. de Saulcy,
was Gomorrha. Moreover, according to the evidence of Synesius
of Cyrene,117 Dion Chrysostome (who lived between a.d. 42
and 125) “has also, somewhere, praised the Essenians, who
constitute quite a blessed city established near the Dead Sea in the
middle region of Palestine, close to Sodom”.
These details show us, not only that, at the commencement of
our era, Sodom and Gomorrha had acquired a reputation for
sanctity owing to the presence of these colonies of ascetics; they
116 Cf., above, chap. 1, note 89; chap, n, p. 76 and p. 78.

117 In Synesius of Cyrene, Dion, § 3 (ed. Terzaghi, p. 240).
also indicate that these people were Essenians. Was it this group,
or perhaps some other in their neighbourhood, to which the
Sethians wished to connect themselves, through the tradition of
which our apocryphon takes care to mention two different ver¬
sions one after another?—a point which suggests that even then,
when the Gospel of the Egyptians was composed, this tradition was
evaporating into legends. The transfer of the seed of the great
Seth from Gomorrha, whence he removes and transplants it to
Sodom—may not this also signify some resurrection of a group
which, after extinction at Qumran, was then reconstituted further
south? To admit such an interpretation—which I suggest only as
a hypothesis—would confirm one in the idea that the great Seth
mentioned here was, in fact, not the mythical Seth or the son of
Adam, but a real prophet to whom our group of Gnostics owed
its origin and who, following a tradition almost always respected
among our initiates as it was by the Jewish mystics, hid his real
identity under a greatly celebrated name. Perhaps, when our
writings have been fully deciphered, the details they will disclose
may permit us more nearly to identify this mysterious personage,
and also to find out who were the other great masters of Gnosti¬
cism—Theopemptos, Eugnostos—whose figures are still so
obscure. It is, in any case, noteworthy that none of the Gnostic
doctors whom the heresiologists knew by name makes any
appearance in our original writings.
GNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY
One question in particular arises, which is of the highest interest.

To what extent can we discover, in our Coptic writings as a
whole, some legacy—or at least some echo—from the movements
which were competing with Christianity at its beginning ? This is
a point upon which any assessment of what the new writings will
reveal calls for the most delicate judgment: their variety, and the
very nature of the subject, demand a minuteness of examination
which can hardly be attempted before the texts are fully pub¬
lished.
We know the story of the false messiah, “the Egyptian” who,
about a.d. 52-4, assembled four thousand Jews on the Mount of
Olives by pretending that he would cause the walls of the Holy

City to crumble down before their eyes; even the Acts of the
Apostles (XXI, 38) has put this on record. The Jewish historian
Josephus himself stigmatized similar impostors who, despite
sanguinary reprisals from the Romans, never ceased from
stirring up the masses upon pretexts of revolution or of prophetic
visions. It is not impossible that the names of “false prophet”
and “antichrist”, which orthodox Christianity applied to various
anonymous adversaries, may in some cases have been directed
against such people as those who claimed to be incarnations of the
great Seth. The Nicolaitans mentioned in the Book of Revelation
(II, 6 and 15) may, indeed, have been devotees of the Gnosticism—
so similar to what we find in our Coptic writings—which the
heresiologists agree in attributing to them.118 But what are
we to make of the various dissidents “given to strange doctrines”,
to “fables and interminable genealogies”, hypocrites objecting to
marriage and forbidding the normal uses of food (/ Timothy IV,
2-3), presumptuous people who were not afraid to “insult the
heavenly Glory” and delighted to “riot in the day-time”, whom
the Second Epistle of Peter (II, 17) compares to wells without
water, or clouds blown along by a tempest; who promise liberty,
adds the Apostle, but are themselves slaves of corruption? The
First Epistle of John (n, 19) also rebukes these “many anti¬
christs . . .” who “went out from us but they were not of
us”; and the Epistle of Jude, directed against Christians who were
118 Upon this question, see the observations of H. C. Puech in La Gnose et le

Temps, p. 109 and note 77, on the Gnostic idea that we do not have to await the
resurrection—the theory that the Second Epistle to Timothy denounces, saying that
“Hymenaeus and Philetus . . . concerning the truth have erred, saying that
the resurrection is past already”. H. C. Puech calls attention to this same doctrine
in those ancestors of the Gnostic sects Nicolas and Menander. “This Nicolas . . .
driven by an alien [diabolical] spirit, was the first to affirm that the resurrection
had already come; meaning by ‘ resurrection ’ the fact that we believe in Christ
and have received baptism; but he denied the resurrection of the body. And
several, at his instigation, have founded sects. Among these were all the self-
styled Gnostics to whom Hymenaeus and Philetus belonged. ...” (Hippolytus,
Fragment I of the De Resurrectione, preserved in Syriac, ed. Achelis, p. 251).
Upon the similar opinion maintained by Menander, cf. the other references
given by H. C. Puech, loc. cit. Ignatius of Antioch, the Shepherd of Hennas would
furnish still further allusions to what were the first forms assumed by Gnosticism
at the beginnings of Christianity.
inclined towards licentious practices, denounces those who

“have gone in the way of Cain and run greedily after the error of
Balaam for reward” (verse n).
Certainly the Gnostics whose writings we now possess wanted
to make Jesus one of their prophets—even the greatest of them.
We m ust not forget that the Saviour preached in person, and made
numerous converts, in that mysterious country of Samaria in
which Dositheus, Simon and Menander were to arise soon
afterwards. The notion of the Christ that our Gnostics produced
for themselves enters deeply into the visions that they entertained
of a world of Light existing before the Creation. Yet it is clear
that although—unlike some of the sects we have heard of—they
do not exalt Cain, Esau and the other accursed individuals (which
would have been openly to contradict the teaching of the
Apostles) they were in fact opposing Christianity by proposing a
secret interpretation of it which claimed to be esoteric but was in
reality distorted and factitious. How could it have been other
than false, this exegesis by visionaries who, far from being wholly
converted to Christianity, were still trying to force it into the
framework of a mythology irreconcilable with it ?
There can be no question here of reverting to the hypothesis
formerly advanced by certain writers upon the relationship
between Christianity and Gnosticism in general. We know the
formula by which Harnack described Gnosis—“a radical and
premature Hellenization of Christianity, which rejected the Old
Testament”. In the hght of the new manuscripts, this seems to
have little foundation. Lietzmann has had rather better luck, in
describing it—though this again seems incorrect—as a regression
of Christianity towards its origins, an extreme re-orientalization
of Christianity.119 But both these judgments would give first
place to the Christian element in the formation of Gnosticism;
and the relations of our sectaries with Christian doctrine look
rather different. Moreover, what makes them more difficult to
estimate is that they present two different aspects. Sometimes their
revelations are put into the mouths of Zoroaster, Adam and Seth
118 H. C. Puech, “Ou en est le probteme du Gnosticisme? ” pp. 137-9,

recapitulates these definitions.
and take no account whatever of the Gospels; at other times they

are explicitly claiming to speak in the name of Jesus. But the
writings of these two categories, although they refer to one
another and endeavour to answer and to supplement each other,
do not always seem able to unify their teachings into a homo¬
geneous whole; contradictions remain. One has only to look at
certain obvious seams in such composite works, to see the
disparity and opposition between these two halves of their
doctrine: in. the Secret Book of John, for instance, the replacement
of the Mother (as the bringer of salvation) by the Christ leads
certain passages into inextricable confusion.
It cannot be denied that what constituted the primitive basis
of our Gnostics’ teaching is most likely to have been their col¬
lection of revelations of Zoroaster and of Seth, which, originally
quite independent of Christianity, enabled them to produce
their audacious speculations upon the Old Testament. But the
Christian elements, some authentic, the others factitiously con¬
trived in order to join one doctrine to another—when and how
were these added to the more ancient writings? For it was from
such an admixture, without the least doubt, that Gnosticism
truly and definitively arose.
To bring this question to a clear conclusion, and at the same
time to obtain from the Chenoboskion manuscripts the many
discoveries that they promise, it will be necessary, then, to con¬
front the new Gnostic texts with authentic Christianity from two
different points of view.
The content of some of these Coptic writings is of professedly
Christian inspiration; some are made up of sayings attributed to
Jesus and are more or less in accord with what is reported in the
canonical Gospels: but others contain a sacramental doctrine (of
baptisms and eucharists), a moral teaching and an eschatology,
which are all more or less strange. Some of these books could not
have been fabricated by our sectaries, who did no more, at most,
than adapt them. From what current of primitive Christianity
were those of the former class derived, and how far are their
contents legitimate? That is the first problem that must be
tackled.
Wc have then to take into consideration—while allowing for

all the incidental misinterpretations, variant readings and contra¬
dictions—the whole complex of ideas represented by this col¬
lection of writings, some under the names of ancient prophets,
the rest under that of Jesus. For it was, in fact, in simultaneous
reference to the whole content of this corpus that our sectaries
believed they had arrived at a fuller and truer Christianity.
We cannot yet, of course, guess what such a study will reveal,
nor can it be undertaken until after the detailed publication of the
Coptic texts. But one can already point to a few fairly general
and characteristic facts.
Considering the various more or less Christian apocrypha that
the Chenoboskion sectaries had in use, it is a striking fact
that these lay claim to the authority of certain Apostles but not
of others. Nothing is assigned to the three authors of the synoptic
Gospels, nor to Paul. These apocrypha are attributed to James
(that “brother of the Lord” who had received secret teachings
from him, and to whom our writings accord an almost super¬
natural status), to Thomas, to Philip, to Matthias and to John and
Peter. The more original of these writings claim to impart
revelations of a higher order, and are properly Gnostic. But the
contents of the more ordinary ones scarcely attempt to disown
the teachings of the canonical Gospels, and certain elements in
them may have come from a fund of traditions that were current
before the compilation of the Synoptics, all the more probably
because of the fact that our Gnosticism came into being in a
period when the canonical Gospels were not yet in general
circulation. It now appears, then, that the problems raised by the
most important of our apocrypha that are authentically Christian
in doctrine will be difficult to resolve. Indeed, comparison of
their contents with what are given in patristic literature as
quotations from these same Gospels of Thomas, Philip, Matthias
. . . seems to show that the information available to the heresio-
logists was liable to a good deal of confusion. It will be easier to
determine how far the content of our apocrypha reproduces or
carries on orthodox doctrines or, on the contrary, is composed of
gross falsehoods made up by the heretics in order to propagate
speculations of their own. A great deal of light has been shed

upon the complexity of this mixture by Professor H. C. Puech
in his preliminary study of the Gospel of Thomas—that collec¬
tion of the “sayings of Jesus” which, more than any other of
the Chenoboskion writings, may be reasonably supposed to
have imbedded in it some vestiges of non-heretical Christian
traditions.
From a more general point of view one could already discern,
in our new writings, the chief points upon which they will
provide opportunity for comparison of Gnosticism with orthodox
Christianity. Firstly, a flood of light is thrown upon the strange
figure that the Gnostics made of Jesus. By glossing upon the
phrase “the Son of Man”, our sectaries placed him in the higher
world and made him the Son of the primordial Anthropos. For
them, his incarnation was fictitious, and so was his crucifixion.
Their teaching about the baptisms and the anointings which
prepared them for the ascent towards the Light and for mystical
union with the higher entities went far beyond any Christian
conception and rejoined, perhaps, those of the pagan mysteries.
. . . Should we look to the New Testament for points upon
which to make these comparisons and connections more precise ?
We have already noticed the extremity to which simple allusions
to the good and the bad trees (Luke VI, 43 etc.) were elaborated
in the myths of our sectaries.120 The Epistle to the Hebrews develops
a symbolic interpretation of the person of Melchizedek, which
prefigures the supernatural part that, according to Gnosticism,
is to be played by that mysterious king of Salem. In St John, as in
Gnosticism, God is Light (John I, 1 and I Epistle of John I, 5), and
the Light shines in Darkness which comprehends it not. St
John writes of the thirst for a living water, of a well of water
springing up into everlasting hfe (John IV, 13-14 and VII, 37-8);
and our heretics, similarly inspired by the sources of life, justice
and wisdom in the Book of Enoch,121 imagine a mystic fountain
flowing in the celestial realms under the guard of great powers.
When he is reporting the words of Jesus to the woman of Samaria:
120 Cf. above, chap, n, note 23 and chap, v, p. 216 and note in.
™ Enoch XXII, 9; XLVIII, 1; XCVI, 6.
“Ye worship ye know not what; we know what we worship”,

St John (IV, 22) is expressing the very notion of Gnosis.
A rapid comparison of the new Coptic texts with the teaching
of St Paul is even more eloquent. Apart from the Apocalypse of
Paul which, from the title itself, evidently means to speak in his
name, Paul is never openly named in the other treatises or reve¬
lations where, nevertheless, the influence of his teaching is shown
by a number of implicit quotations! It is curious, too, to find the
Hypostasis of the Archons, in its preamble, inserting a verse from
the Epistle to the Ephesians (VI, 12) before beginning the exposition
of a mythology which has obviously nothing more to do with
Christianity. And this verse is preceded, in the Gnostic text, by
these words only: “The Apostle says . . . ” Why is not the
name of Paul mentioned here? It is not at all from mistrust of the
Apostle: if he were mistrusted his exact words would not have
been thus borrowed, nor would their origin have been thus
mentioned as authoritative. Is it, then, because of special respect
for a master whose name it was forbidden to mention although
his teaching was particularly revered.122 One may well think so,
for our sectaries kept in their collection a treatise, under the title
of the Teachings of Silvanus (No. 29), which they meant, no
doubt, to attribute to one of the principal colleagues of the
Apostle.
One is immediately struck by the fact that the Christianity
taught by St Paul—who himself claimed to have had the benefit
of heavenly revelations—is yet nearer than that of John, to the
speculations of our Gnostics. One could almost believe one had
detected Gnosticism in Paul, when he appeals to “the Wisdom of
God in a mystery, even the hidden Wisdom which God ordained
before the world unto our glory; and which none of the princes
[word for word ‘of the archons’] of this world [word for word ‘of
this aeon’] have known” (I Corinthians II, 7-8). One also feels in him
122 Cf. the importance assigned to St Paul by the Manichaeans: Kephalaion I,

p. 13, line 19 and onwards (in the Manichaische Handschriften der staatlichen
Museen, Berlin, 1940). We must also remember the prestige of Paul among the
Paulicians, who christened their churches with the names of the Churches form¬
erly founded by the Apostle; and assumed, as their own surnames, the names of
Paul’s companions; cf. S. Runciman, The Medieval Manichee.
the accents of an opposition to the Law no less decided than the
anti-bibhcism that animates our sectaries: it is through the Law
that we come by the knowledge of sin (Romans III, 20); it is the
Law that produces wrath; where there is no Law there is no
transgression (Romans IV, 15; Colossians II, 22); it is from the
curse of the Law that Christ has redeemed us (Galatians III, 13);
the commandments of the Law are even described as “ a ministra¬
tion of death written and engraven in stones” in opposition to the
New Law, ‘‘a ministration of the Spirit” (II Corinthians III, 7).
The Gnostics classify men into three categories: the hylic, the
psychic and the spiritual; and Paul admits the two more im¬
portant of these; he opposes the spiritual to the psychic: “It is
sown a psychic body; it is raised up a spiritual body. There is a
psychic body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written:
the first man, Adam, was made a living soul; the last man was
made a vivifying spirit. Howbeit, that was not first which was
spiritual, but that which is psychic; and afterwards that which is
spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second anthro-
pos comes from heaven” (I Corinthians XV, 44-7). And that
distinction is applicable to the whole of this humanity of which
we are members. God ‘‘hath chosen us in him before the founda¬
tion of the world, that we should be holy and without blame
before him in love; having predestinated us unto the adoption of
children by Jesus Christ, to himself, according to the good
pleasure of his will” (Ephesians I, 4-5). And Paul not only speaks
of the Prince of this world—the Prince of Darkness—and his
powers; he also uses the opposition between the Darkness and the
Light: ‘‘For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light
in the Lord: walk as children of the light ...” (Ephesians V,
8). Indeed, for the understanding of our Gnostics’ teachings,
Paul’s definition of the Saviour in Colossians (I, 15-20) should be
cited in full: ‘‘Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
of every creature: for by him were all things created, that are in
heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they
be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things
were created by him, and for him: and he is the head of the body,
the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead;
that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased

the Father that in him should all fulness [word for word ‘the
Pleroma’] dwell. And, having made peace through the blood of
his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself: by him,
I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.” Is
it a piece of Gnostic mythology that Paul is expounding here?
One could almost believe it, when one reads moreover, elsewhere,
that he is professing to reveal the “mystery which hath been hid
from ages and from generations, [ivordfor word ‘from the aeons’]
but now is made manifest to his saints, to whom God would
make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery . . .”
('Colossians I, 26-7).
But we must take care to note that, with Paul, all this leads to
conclusions absolutely opposite to those of the Gnostics. This is
no Gnosis that he is preaching; what he is exalting is a wisdom
and a grace accessible to all, Jews or pagans. The election of the
sons of light is explained by him as predestination. The Law of
Moses is an evil—yes; but for man, and because man has fallen.
Paul denies absolutely that the Creator bears the responsibility for
the original sin committed by Eve and Adam. There is no trace of
Docetism in his conception of the Christ, whose blood was, in
reality, shed upon the Cross. Lastly, as a moralist Paul em¬
phatically upholds the human duty of respect for the body, which
the Gnostics so often despise and defile. The speculations of Paul
take their departure from the same mystical themes as those of our
sectaries; but these are interpreted by him in the opposite sense.
What, then, is the meaning of these undeniable parallelisms
that we have found between the subjects discussed by Paul and
those developed by our sectaries ? Firstly, that in fact the Gnostics
we have brought to light evolved their Christianity largely from
an interpretation of the New Testament which was their own.
And their interpretation, far from being the product of wild
imagination, as at first sight one might suppose, must have been
the result of exegesis, literal to the point of falsification, applied
to the smallest details and biased by Kabbahstic speculations. In
that way they had formerly interpreted the Old Testament,
meticulously extracting from it scriptural evidences for their
The Sethians According to Their Writings 3©9
opposition to the God of Genesis. Thus, from the pronouncement
of the Lord of the Law: “I am a jealous God”,123 they drew the
conclusion that he was a second-class god; for, otherwise, of
whom could he be jealous? ‘‘I have gotten a man from [with the
help of] the Lord”, says Eve after the birth of Cain,124 from which
our Gnostics found reason to believe that the Creator himself had
seduced Eve and directly begotten from her the first posterity of
mankind. And, in reading “For God hath appointed me another
seed instead of Abel”,125 a saying of Eve about the birth of Seth,
they took it to mean that he was of a different generation, superior
to Cain and Abel. The extent to which such exegesis was resorted
to, even by authentic Christians, can be exemplified from Paul
himself, though he uses the method, indeed, with a very different
discernment. But here is his comment upon the 18th verse of
Psalm LXVIII: “ When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive
and he gave gifts to men. Now that he ascended, what is it but that
he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that
descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens,
that he might fill all things.” (Ephesians IV, 8-9).
Similar methods of interpretation were familiar to Judaism,
even before the allegorical method of the Greek commentators
on the Odyssey, adapted to Biblical studies by a Philo, had come
to equip the practitioners of this artifice with inexhaustible
resources of symbology, together with a suppleness of dialectic
akin to acrobatics.
Only when we have made allowance for their resort to these
procedures do we realize that there is much less disagreement
than one had thought at first, between the conceptions that
our Gnostics deduced from the Old Testament and those they
extracted from the New. One can even, in the end, understand
how this literalism enabled them to build up a curious Christianity
which was, after all, in harmony the main body of Gnostic
conceptions, even with those whose presence is not apparent at
first sight.
123 Isaiah XLV, 5-6; and XLVI, 9. 124 Genesis IV, 1.
125 Genesis IV, 25.
CHAPTER VII
THE SURVIVAL OF GNOSTICISM:

FROM MANICHAEISM TO THE ISLAMIC
SECTS
To give, an adequate idea of the extent of the Gnostic movement,

of the impulses that swept from one end of the Mediterranean to
the other, disseminating scriptures and mythologies more or less
similar to those of our Upper Egyptian initiates, one would
have to recall the human and historical circumstances in which all
this came to pass—in Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Seleucia-
Ctesiphon, Edessa. ... We should have to evoke the life of,
for example, that city of Dura-Europos where archaeology has
now had the good fortune to discover, side by side, sanctuaries of
all the different kinds of pubhc worship of which the Gnostic
cults were, in part, an esoteric and syncretic interpretation. There,
were found the Mithraeum, the temples of Adonis, of Zeus-
Theos, of Gaddae, of Artemis-Nanna'ia; a Jewish synagogue with
its paintings still well preserved; a Christian chapel. At the other
end of the Mediterranean world we should have to extend our
pilgrimage into Rome—Rome, where the subsoil conceals
sanctuaries no less various and curious in juxtaposition. Above
ah, our survey would have to include still other groups and sects
that I have passed over in silence. It would have to summarize
the Gnosis of Bardesanes ;x to include the Priscillans who spread
from Spain to the south of Gaul in the second half of the fourth
century;2 to mention the Messalians (less Gnostic and more
Christian, whose behef that a demon dwells in every man
continued the Basilidean doctrine of the two souls which they
afterwards bequeathed to the Bogomils) ;3 and also to recall the
1 Cf. Nau, Bardesane V astrologue; Burkitt, Religion of the Manichees, pp. 75-9.
2 The Priscillianist treatises of Wurtzburg, edited’by Schepps, in the Corpus
scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum 18, in 1899 contain allusions to the myths of
our Gnostics.
3 The ancient texts relating to the Messalians are collected and translated in
the preamble to the Liber Graduum, edited by M. Kmosko in the Patrologia
310
The Survival of Gnosticism 311
epic of the Paulician sect of Armenia and Asia Minor, which

lasted from the eighth to the twelfth century.4
Despite its wide diffusion, Gnosticism was bound to suffer the
consequences of the triumph of the Church, and gradually to
efface itself. We have seen what pains the Christian doctors took
t°i,rei,Utie 1 Ci SCCtS anC*’ ak°ve a^> to suppress the writings by

which their doctrines were propagated. Whether to make them¬
selves more persuasive, or the better to escape persecution, the
most important of our great apocalypses arrayed themselves in
Christian guise: in the Sophia of Jesus and the Secret Book of John
we have admired striking examples of such camouflage. Thus it
was that some portions of Gnostic myths-chiefly of celestial and
infernal visions and some legends about Adam and his descendants
—were able to survive in several languages, in spite of the many
prohibitions that the Church pronounced against them. The
sects had a hard life of it. The Borborites—whom Epiphanius
and Theodoret knew and catalogued as one of the sects related to
t ose very Gnostics whose writings we have now recovered_
were established as far away as Persia: under Justinian II (685-95)
they returned from thence into Syria and Armenia.6 The pictur¬
esque accounts of Theodore Bar-Konai give us glimpses of
Gnostics who would seem to have been much like those of
Chenoboskion, persisting obstinately into the eighth century, the
period m which the Audians re-established themselves and were
using the same sacred books. And indeed, under other forms—
those of sects whose remote situation or sturdy organization
separated or shielded them from the Christian Church—Gnosti¬
cism was to survive much longer; though its history remains very
obscure. It is chiefly visible in the great movements of the
Paulicians, the Bogomils and the Cathars, though it appears in
groups of lesser importance: we may mention one that arose near
Soissons about 1125 around Clement de Bucy (and which, like
SynJCa,:faf Prifa> vo1- ni> !926. An aberrant sect, that of the Satanians is de¬
scribed by Epiphanius, Panarion, heresy LXXX. Upon the demonic soul in every
man: Runciman, Medieval Manichee; among the Bogomils, Puech and Vaillant,
L.6 1 raite contre les Bogomiles . . . , p. 200, note 4.
4 Cf. S. Runciman, Medieval Manichee, chap. m.
* CJ. Bareille, article “Borboriens” in the Dictionnaire de Theologie catholique
vol. II; Runciman, loc. cit., p. 32; Puech and Vaillant, loc. cit., pp. 306-7.
our Gnostics, held procreation to be a disgrace). Another was

formed in the vicinity of St Malo about 1140, by Eudes de
l’Etoile, who presented himself as an aeon sent down from on
high. All these heretics were summarily classed by their con¬
temporaries as Manichaeans, and history has, in part, endorsed
these opinions. In many cases, however, a comparison of their
doctrines with the newly-found Coptic texts shows that they
were authentic inheritors of our ancient Gnostics.6
Organized as a church, on strictly hierarchic lines, the Mani¬
chaeans7 were able to spread their very similar beliefs to the
eastern limits of Asia as well as to western Europe, where the
Albigenses were their last successors. The Manichaeans, a great
many of whose writings have been recovered, followed Gnostic
practice in attributing their revelations to Zoroaster, to Seth and
to Jesus; to whom they added, as prophets, the Buddha and above
all, of course, Manes their founder. They intensified the Iranian
dualism of which the Gnostics had made use before them; and by
re-thinking it in the countries of its origin, revitalized it.
What did this owe to Gnosticism? Surely we cannot take at
their face value the observations of Augustine and Cyril of
Jerusalem, to the effect that the doctrine of Manes was connected
with that of the Ophites. But Franz Cumont has already pointed
out all those features by which Manichaeism resembles the
doctrines of, for example, Basilides—which, as we have seen, are
so near to those of our Gnostics. Basihdes had composed a com¬
mentary on the canonical Gospels in twenty-four books; and
Manes wrote another—the Living Gospel—in twenty-two books.
The Docetism of the two systems was similar: Basilides taught
that the Christ, far from dying upon the Cross, had caused Simon
of Cyrene to perish there in his stead: and in Manichaeism, it was
8 Cf. Runciman, loc. cit., pp. 109-10.

7 Upon Manichaeism, cf. H. C. Puech, “ Le Manicheisme” in the Histoire
GMrale des Religions, ed. M. Gorce and R. Mortier (volume devoted to Indo-
Iranians . . . Judaism . . .), 1945. PP- 85-116 and 446-9; by the same author,
Le Manicheisme, son fondateur, sa doctrine, 1949; Burkitt, Religion of the Manichees,
1925; Jonas, loc. cit., vol. I, pp. 284-320; Puech and Vaillant, Le traite contre les
Bogomiles .... 1925 includes a fully-developed exposition of the Bogomil
doctrines compared with those of other neo-Manichaean movements; cf
Runciman, Medieval Manichee, 1949.
the Prince of Darkness himself whom Jesus caused to be nailed

writhing upon the gibbet. In regard to the Baptism, at which
they thought the Christ had been substituted for the human
person of Jesus, Manes and Basilides were in agreement.8
Today the new Coptic writings illustrate both the authentically
Gnostic character of the Basilidean doctrine and, in more detail,
the close dependence of Manichaeism upon that same form of
Gnosticism. The myths that Manichaeism transcribed are to be
found in many of the revelations in use among our Coptic
sectaries. To quote at random—here is the monstrous figure of
Ialdabaoth-Sacla ;9 here is the description of the trees of Paradise,
one of which becomes the tree of death;10 of the creation of
Adam, member by member, by the Archons, and their vain
efforts to vitahze him; here are the successions of enlighteners
and saviours including Shem, Seth and Nicotheus; the salvation
of souls, effected by a transmigration through the world of the
spheres, by the Sun and the Moon and the Virgin of Light, who
purify the hghts scattered here below and raise them up again
into the heavenly Treasury;11 and, lastly, the account of the
final consummation of the universe.12
Manichaeism not only drew upon Gnosticism but also upon
Christianity: its texts give us the names of the books on which it
relied, and to our surprise!—here are the same writings, given
under the names of Thomas, of Philip and Matthias—-just those
that our sectaries also used. The discovery, in Coptic, of the
originals of these hitherto lost writings, enables us to see just how
far our Gnostics’ literature is representative of the repertory of
writings upon which the Manichaeans relied as models. So it was,
indeed, from sects analogous to the one whose library was buried
r.FranZ, Cum°nt, “A propos des ecritures manicheennes ” in the Revue de
l Histone des Religions, LXXXI, 1920, pp. 40-1. Cf. also Cumont, Recherches . . .
p. 10, note 3 ; cf., lastly, our own article “Le Refus de la Croix” in La Table
Rotide, Dec. 1957.
8 Cf. above chap, v, note 30 and H. C. Puech, “ Le Prince des Tenebres et
son royaume.
10 Cf. above, chap, v, pp. 216-17.
11 Cf. above, chap, n, note 24.
12 See H. C. Puech, Le Manicheisme, son fondateur sa doctrine, pp. 84-5 • T
Doresse, “L’Apocalypse manicheenne” in La Table Ronde, No. no Feb i<h7'
pp. 40-7. ’
at the foot of the Gebel et-Tarif that the religion of Manes derived
its primary elements.
Undoubtedly! See, moreover, how the most legendary of all
the traditional origins ascribed to Manichaeism henceforth takes
on a precise historical—or at least symbolical—meaning!13 We
find it—this malevolent little story—in the Acts of Archelaiis, in
which Basilides is quoted at such length. Here it is:
A personage named Scythianus—a “Saracen”—whom we may
place somewhere in the second century, believed in a kind of
Christianity with which he associated the myth of the two op¬
posite principles. He married a slave whom he had redeemed
from one of the places of ill-fame that were swarming in Upper
Egypt,14 and she persuaded him to come to live in her native
country, the Thebais. There he learned the “wisdom of the
Egyptians” (?) and made a disciple named Terebinth to whom he
dictated four books—the Mysteries, the Principles, the Treasure and
the Gospel (titles of known works, attributed to Manes). He then
went to Judaea, but died after arriving there. Terebinth then took
refuge in Babylonia: he pretended to have been bom of a virgin,
to have been fed by angels upon the mountains, and that his
name was Buddha. His prestige as a prophet earned him the
hospitality of a rich widow, at whose house he died, by falling
off a roof. The old woman afterwards purchased a child named
Corbicius and had him educated: he presumably received from
her the four books that Terebinth had had from Scythianus; and,
made rich by these revelations, he changed his name, and became
known as Manes. . . .
Such is the story in the Acts of Archelaiis. It affirms a mythical
13 According to Manes’ own account, this is how the doctrine he taught was
revealed to him: “Wisdom and good works have always been revealed to the
world by the messengers of God. Thus, at one time, they were brought to India
by the emissary named Buddha; at another by Zoroaster to Persia, at yet another
by Jesus to the West. Lastly this present revelation has come down, this prophecy
has been manifested in this greatest age, by me, Manes, messenger from the God
of truth in the land of Babylon” (beginning of the Shdpurakdn, translated by
Cumont in Recherches . . . , p. 52). Upon the Gnostic and baptist movements
with which Manes seems to have been in contact; Puech, Le Manicheisme, son
fondateur, sa doctrine . . . , p. 70, notes 145-56 and 268-70.
14 In the town of Hypsele, immediately to the south of Assiut, according to
Epiphanius, Panarion, LXVI, 2.
relation between Manichaeism and an authentic Gnosticism—a

mixture of dualism and Christianity—which an adept had
followed in the Thebais; and that is not too much out of line
with what we learn from comparison of the Coptic writings of
our Sethians with those of the Manichaeans. This novelette would
be still more edifying if our Scythianus had been called Sethianus—
the Sethian. But let us be content with what we are explicitly
given!
The baptist sect of the Mandaeans—the so-called Christians of St
John—still exists today, though its adherents are few, in Lower
Mesopotamia.16 The formation of the books it has now in use
seems to date from a late epoch; and in these numerous writings
Gnostic doctrines are mixed with almost pagan myths. This sect
does not scruple to set the revealers and prophets of its doctrines
—Hibil (Abel), Shi til (Seth), Anosh (Enoch?)—these are the
three “Uthra”—and John the Baptist, in opposition to the Old
Testament prophets and also to Jesus, whom they represent as a
teacher of falsehoods whom Anosh-Uthra denounced to the
Jews. Thanks to the new Coptic texts, we shall now be better
able to judge how far these Mandaean writings were derived from
genuinely Gnostic literature—or whether both currents flowed
from a common source.
These Mandaeans of Lower Mesopotamia are also, sometimes,
called Sahians. The serious inconvenience of applying this name to
them is that it may confuse them with a homonymous but quite
different sect, devoted to the worship of the planets, which
flourished at the height of the Middle Ages, particularly around
the city of Harran, a little to the south of Edessa. The Sabians of
Upper Mesopotamia spoke the Syriac language. They attracted
the special notice of Islamic authors. They recognize as prophets
Enoch, assimilated to Idris; Hermes; Seth the son of Adam,
whom they identified with the Agathodaimon of Greek Hermetic
15 Cf. H. C. Puech, “Le Mandeisme” in Histoire Generate des Religions, ed.
Gorce and Mortier, pp. 67-83 and 444-6; J. Schmitt, article “Mandeisme” in
Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplement IV, cols. 758-88 ; E. S. Drower, The Mandaeans
of Iraq and Iran, 1937; E. Peterson, “ Urchristentum und Mandaismus ” in Zeitschr.
f.d. Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft XXVII, pp. 55-98. Cf. also Widengren, Stand
und Aufgaben . . . , pp. i2off ; T. Save-Soderberg, Studies in the Coptic Mani-
chaean Psalm-book, Prosody, and Mandaean Parallels, Uppsala, 1949, chap. VI.
3 t6 The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
literature; and also Asclepius. These are names that remind one
well enough of the mixture of mystical hteratures that we have
found among our ancient Gnostics.
An exposition of the doctrines of these Sabians by El-Khatibi
describes, in the following terms, the descent of the soul and then
its return to the spiritual world (we make use of Chwolsohn’s
translation of this):
“The soul turned, at one time, towards Matter: she fell in love
with it, and, burning with desire to experience bodily pleasures,
wished no more to be separated from it. Thus the world was born.
From that moment the soul forgot herself; she forgot her original
dwelling, her true centre, her everlasting life. . . .But God,
unwilling to abandon the soul to its degradation with Matter, en¬
dowed her with understanding and the faculty of perception—
precious gifts which would remind her of her high origin, the
spiritual world . . . , which would restore her consciousness of
herself, teach her that she was a stranger here below. ... As
soon as the soul has thus been taught by perception and under¬
standing, as soon as she has regained self-consciousness, she longs
for the spiritual world as a man exiled in a strange land sighs for his
distant homestead. She is convinced that, to regain her original
state, she must loose herself from the ties of this world, from
carnal concupiscences, from all material things.”16
We ought also, perhaps, to mention the Yezidis—the Druses—
so-called worshippers of the devil, established in the mountains
where numbers of Judeo-Christians took refuge in the first
centuries of our era. The image of a serpent appears, sculptured
upon the portals of their sanctuaries; and their doctrine contains a
good deal of Gnosticism.17 We must at least name the Ahl-i-
Haqq, or “men of God” in Western Persia.18 There are also the
16 Besides the work of D. Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier and der Ssabismus, St Peters¬
burg, 1856, cf. the bibliography to the art. on “al-Sabi’a” in the Encyclopedic de
Vlslam. The text we quote from Chwolsohn’s translation has been commented
upon by Jonas, Gnosis .... vol. I, pp. 334-5 and by H. C. Puech in Le
ManichEsme . . . , note 278.
17 Cf. in the Encyclopedic de VIslam, the article “Yazidi” and its bibliography.
See also the articles by G. Furlani, “L’Antidualismo dei Yezidi” in Orientalia
XIII, 1944, pp. 266-7, and “II Pavone e gli ’Utre ribelli presso i Mandei e il
Pavone dei Yezidi’’, S.M.S.R. XXI, 1947-8.
18 Cf. in the Encyclopedic de l’Islam, the article “ Ahl-I Hakk”.
Bekhtashis, whose founder came from Khorassan in the thirteenth

century: the last monastery in the possession of these mystics is
at Cairo, where it stands, half-asleep amid gardens on the flank
of the white cliffs of Moqattam, at the entrance to an immense
cave extending into the mountain, in whose shadows are ranged
the sepulchres of saints.19
Within Islam itself some of the most important of the Gnostic
traditions spread, and have been perpetuated until this day, more
especially in the same regions where Gnosticism had originally
been able to germinate. Here, it is true, one must make one
reservation: a good deal of the mythology about Adam, Seth and
Zoroaster . . . which has survived in Islam as well as in a
number of oriental Christian legends, is simply taken from
apocrypha which have no marked religious tendency and which,
if they ever came from Gnosticism, have lost all religious
character.
These are stories from, for instance, the cycle of narratives
concerned with the Cave of Treasures, from certain Talmudic
treatises, from the Pirqe Rabhi Eli’ezer, etc. . . .20 But Islam
also retains some remnants of myths which are authenti¬
cally traceable to Gnostic origins. There are the fantastic places,
such as the Mountain of Qaf—the cosmic mountain that the
soul must pass over to attain to the Source of Life, near to
which Elijah and the mysterious Kliezr keep watch.21 There is
also a tradition that Seth was the first man who could be des¬
cribed, in the Syriac language, by the term uriya, “master”, a
word that recalls the Hebrew ’or, “light”,22 and also evokes for us
that name Horea which is sometimes applied to Norea, the mysti¬
cal sister of Seth in our Coptic writings. Lastly, the myth of the
Ascension of Mahomet through the heavens very exactly perpetuates
one of the favourite themes of our Gnostics. One feels this still
more when, in the miniatures with which this work is sometimes
illustrated, one sees the prophet passing through the circles of the
19 See, in the Encyclopedic de VIslam, the article “Bdktashiya”.
20 References in the Encyclopedic de l’Islam, article “Adam”.
21 Cf. Henry Corbin, L’Imagination creatrice dans le soufisme d’lbn Arabi, Paris,
1958; p. 48 and plate facing p. 94.
22 References in the Encyclopedic de VIslam, article “Shith”.
celestial spheres, like our prophet Shem in the Paraphrase at¬

tributed to him.23
In the Islamic world the preservation of such features, and
even of more important myths, was notably favoured by the
creation of a vast Arab literature of Hermetic inspiration mingled
with alchemical, astrological and cosmological myths derived
from very various sources.24 We cannot even outline the history
of this Islamized Hermeticism and of its copious hterature. The
mystical currents that inspired it were joined, for example, by
that of Sufism, thanks to the person of Suhrawardi of Aleppo
(after 1191) who drew as much from Platonism as from traditions
transmitted in the name of Hermes, and of that Agathoda'fmon
who was identified with Seth. But it is not to any personality
nor to any celebrated work that we will now allude; the text I
wish to quote belongs to the most anonymous and the most
unblushingly apocryphal kind of Arab Hermetic hterature. It is
a treatise fictively ascribed to Balinus—a name which disguised
that of Apollonius of Tyana. This work, which seems to have
been composed in Syria in the eleventh century, pretends to
record the discovery of a hidden book entitled The Secret of the
Creation and the Knowledge of the principles of things. On reading it,
one perceives that its content is, in reality, attributed to Hermes:
right at the end of this writing we find a chapter, of only a few
pages “Upon the Creation of Man”.25 Not very long ago
Reitzenstein had already divined the special interest of this text,
though he had not then at his disposal any terms of comparison
so instructive as our writings from Chenoboskion.26
It is Hermes, then, who is supposed to sum up this chapter “ Upon
the Creation of Man”. And this is how he reports the genesis
of that being, whom he calls Adamanous, the Form of Forms:
23 Cf. Widengren, Muhammad the Apostle of God and his Ascension, 1955.
24 Cf. L. Massignon, Inventaire de la litterature hermltique arahe, published as an
appendix to Festugiere, La Revelation d'Hermes Trismegiste, vol. I, 1. Cf. also
H. Ritter, “Picatrix, ein Handbuch Hellenistischer Magie” in Vortrage der Biblio-
thek Warburg, 1921; and J. Ruska, Tabula Smaragdina . . . , 1926.
26 Cf Ruska, “Kazwini Studien” in Der Islam, vol. IV, 1913, pp. jiff.; the
same author’s Tabula Smaragdina, p. 147; Kraus, Jabir ibn Hayyan, II, pp. 27off
26 Reitzenstein related this with the Naassene doctrine, in Reitzenstein-
Schaeder, Studien . . . , pp. 112-16,
When the heavenly Virgin had come to power, and when the
planets, having been set in motion, were all in exaltation with the
exception of Saturn; they conceived the idea of a bodily creation
in which their spiritual nature could find expression. By this act
of will, a powerful spirit was produced, a pure angel named
Harous (?) whom die Virgin clothed with power. He descended
to earth; he took three hundred and sixty spirits from the forces
and from the spiritual essence of the higher heaven, from the
seven planets, from the zodiac and from the earth. He assembled
and mingled these spirits, to make them into the first man, after a
pattern from the highest heaven. This was Adamanous, and
Harous let the forces of the Archons flow into him. Thus formed,
Adamanous was without blemish, but he was still like an animal:
he understood nothing, knew nothing; and could not speak.
Then Harous heightened his efforts right up to the stars that were
withholding understanding, thought and speech, until they
allowed these emanations to flow into him.
When this first terrestrial man had been completely created,
he raised his eyes towards Harous: that angel was an immense
creature who could reach with his hands to each of the planets or
to any sign of the zodiac. Adamanous, upon seeing him, was filled
with admiration—although the first man himself was colossal
enough, since he could take hold of the clouds and could hear the
sound made by the rotation of the spheres and the motions of
the stars. But while the man was thus rapt in contemplation, the
angelic creator touched him on the side and, by that gesture,
created Haivanous, a feminine form that he placed beside Ada¬
manous. The sight of his companion filled man with pleasure: he
turned away from the contemplation of Harous, and he and
Haivanous procreated many men. Then Harous taught him a
language—does this mean Syriac?
Saturn had seen this creation taking place under the authoriza¬
tion of the heavenly Virgin; and his desire was to destroy both
macrocosm and microcosm. But Harous, out of the highest
heaven, brought down three powers who chained up the power
of the perverse planet. At the same time the evil spirits were
bound to the four corners of the macrocosm: it is when they are
writhing in their bonds that the earth quakes. Harous afterwards

took three hundred and sixty spiritual natures from the planets
and from the zodiac to make them into all the kinds of animals
and insects: in the first place, he made the useful creatures and
then, from the scraps left over, he made the harmful ones; after
which he led them all before the first man and gave him in¬
structions about them. . . . Each animal was intimately related
with one of the stars. At last Harous announced to Adamanous
that he was about to return to the highest heaven. “People the
earth with thy descendants”, he said, “and hand down to them
the arts that I have taught thee.” Then the first man and the
first woman united to procreate fourteen children—seven sets
of twins, each pair consisting of a boy and a girl. The planets
shared in endowing these children with their respective natures
and colours, whilst Harous divided the seven regions of the globe
between them—the seven climates.
The writing thus disguised under the name of Hermes and
then dressed up again in the authority of “Balinus” is the mis¬
representation of a mixture of cosmogonic elements, Hermetic,
Iranian and Judaizing—or, more likely, Gnostic, although
different from what our Coptic writings disclose. Here we do
recognize, however, certain features such as the weakness of
Adam immediately after his creation; according to the Sethians
he was unable to stand upright when the Archons had moulded
him to shape; here he is unable to think or to speak when Harous
has perfected his body. We recognize also the evil, destructive
part assigned to Saturn—that is, to Ialdabaoth. But who, exactly,
is the Virgin at the beginning of this creation and who is this
Harous who plays the part of the demiurge ? These are questions
that only the eventual discovery of a new cosmology inspired by
Gnosticism is hkely to elucidate.
Seth—as we have seen—is known in Islam, and usually as¬
similated to Agathodai'mon, who is one of the great figures of
Hermetic hterature. The prophetic prestige with which the
Gnostics endowed him, he still possesses, especially in the
traditions of various Shi’ite groups, therefore chiefly in Meso¬
potamia or in Iran. In these particular doctrines the survival of
Gnostic themes is ubiquitous and seems immense; but it is a

subject that would demand reference to a mass of mystical texts
to which, as yet, only specialists have access. How can one indicate
the outstanding sects and names? I am able to deal with this
literature only in a very incompetent and summary fashion; and
will do no more than cite, by way of example, a few points in
t e beliefs of one of the most important movements—the
well-known sect of the Isma’ilites. Their doctrine is genuinely
Gnostic.27 But does it go back to our Gnostics of antiquity? Not
only do these sectaries regard Adam as the first of the prophets;
they also make Abraham the head of the generation of the
Perfect, to which Zoroaster belonged. One of their writings,
which dates from about the year 1300, announces that at the
resurrection Melchizedek will come as a judge, and that he
will then reveal the divine mysteries which the prophets
have kept secret during the entire period in which humanity
was subject to the religious law. The author of another treatise,
of the fifteenth century, adds that Melchizedek is identical with
Seth.28
Thus the fact is established that Manichaeism, the doctrine
which lived on well into the Middle Ages and spread from the
extremities of Asia to those of Europe, whose indirect influences
still made themselves felt in the Ethiopian Christianity of the
fifteenth century, has not been the only survival from Gnosticism
nor even the most enduring. For Gnosis has perpetuated itself
in forms that are more subtle, but present throughout the
Mohammedan East—that is, in the very world where Gnosticism
was bom. One need hardly be surprised at this. We may add that
a historian of the religion and letters of the Mohammedan
Middle East would undoubtedly find there, in many centuries,
the same complex spiritual currents which, flowing from the
Iranian regions, from Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine carried
Cf. this article Ismailiya” in the Encyclopedic de l’Islam; and, above all, as
introduction to the numerous texts edited and prefaced by Henry Corbin, his
study, De la Gnose antique a la Gnose ismaelienne” in Convegno di Scienze
morali, storiche e filologiche, May-June 1956; Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei,
rondazione Al. Volta, Rome, 1957, pp. io^ff.
. p- Vajda, Melchisedech dans la mythologie ismaelienne” in the Journal
Asiatique CCXXXIV, 1943—5, PP- 173ff~.
towards the Mediterranean all the diverse elements which united

to become Gnosticism.
Is this to say that Gnosticism has survived in the Orient until
this day, but has had no revivals in the Occident since the time
when the Albigensian movement was extirpated? That would be
an exaggeration. For certainly some speculations about Adam and
his descendants have hngered on here and there. One can indeed
see their reappearance in the preoccupations of the eighteenth
century when, after the outbreak of controversies over the
reliability of the Bible as history,29 some people were worried
about the disagreements between parts of the Old Testament
and, in that connection, about the moral meaning of original
sin and the legitimacy of the curse pronounced upon Adam
and his posterity, after the first man had been expelled from
Eden.
Among the Hermetists fairly precise traditions remained well
enough known. At first sight one might think some of these were
traceable to the ancient Gnostics; but they came more simply by
way of the alchemical literature—Byzantine or Arab—or, thanks
to the exegeses of Zosimos, of Olympiodorus and other mystics,
from the echoes of certain apocryphal traditions. Some, too, were
conserved in Jewish Kabbalistic sources of relatively easy access.
In these ways there developed, in our Western world, from the
fourteenth to the eighteenth century essentially, an extensive
alchemical iconography which illustrates some definitely Gnostic
and Hermetic themes.30 And thus, undoubtedly, were handed
down the semi-Gnostic themes that were used by a Martinez de
Pasqually in his theurgy.31 The same is true, also, of the fantasies
of a Vintras. Moreover, the dualism that lies at the root of
Gnosticism, of its symbols and images, is a sentiment that can
awaken in certain souls without their having necessarily received
29 Cf. Paul Hazard, La Pcusee europienne an XVIIIeme siecle, vol. I, p. 105;

vol. II, pp. 49 and 133fF. (English trans., European Thought in the Eighteenth Cen¬
tury, London, 1954).
30 Cf. C. G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, vol. XII of that author’s Collected
Works, London 1953 ; especially valuable for its rich array of illustrations.
31 R. Le Forestier, La Franc-Magonnerie occultiste au XVIIIeme siecle et Vordre des
Elus Coens, 1928.
The Survival of Gnosticism
323
any such tradition whatever. The German romantics—Novahs
especially32—and the French romantics to a lesser degree (with
the exception of Gerard de Nerval), furnish ample proof of
tins; and one cannot pretend that they were really reviving a
Gnosticism that they had never known. The most authentic
Gnosticism is, in fact—and today we have access to it—that
which is to be found in the long-lost writings that the sands
ot Egypt have at last happily restored to us.
Cf. Maryla Falk, I “Mistcri” di Novalis, Naples, 1938.

EPILOGUE
Thus it was that I was able to gain the knowledge of a number of

extraordinary Gnostic writings; and, more fortunate (or was it
less so?) than Epiphanius, I did not even have to withstand the
charms of the beautiful heretics of Upper Egypt. One earthen pot
suddenly enriched us with more than forty writings we can
decipher, and that we shall be able, when they are published, to
study at leisure.
Of all that I have read of these texts—inspired by the ardour of
the Orient, its afflictions and its droughts, by the very sight of its
nocturnal skies so much more eloquent than ours—I have given
a description that is hurried, yet accurate in so far as was possible
for me to examine them. I have preferred to give, before my
description of what the new discovery contains, a survey
of our previous knowledge of this subject of Gnosticism. In
that first part of the book I have tried to give due promi¬
nence to the remarkable results which our eminent scholars,
before these Chenoboskion writings were available, were able
to obtain from a documentation still so poor in reliable elements
and so rich in misleading and disappointing information. From
the new documents we shall obtain not only verification of
things which, by those means, we already had glimpses of: a
whole rehgious universe, hitherto only suspected, is beginning
to swim into our ken.
From the new texts, Gnosticism becomes a good deal better
definable, as the product of a powerful incursion of the great
Iranian myths into Jewish mysticism, which was itself nourished
by both Greek and Chaldaean philosophical and mystical in¬
fluences. Thus it was that, from prophets whose identity was
carefully concealed, a body of sacred hterature grew up under the
two imputed authorities of Zoroaster and Seth. Was Christianity
only coming to birth, or was it already bom, when the first
stages of this synthesis took place? Perhaps the sects through
324
Epilogue 325
whom this genesis was effected assumed attitudes of rivalry

towards it? But it was Christianity which acted upon them: it
invaded Gnosticism and, very soon, found itself there incor¬
porated, but also deformed and, as it were, astray in a land of
strange gods. Did this seething mixture (of which a Valentinus
and a Basihdes were, when all is said, the most moderate of
interpreters) tend to the weakening of Gnosticism? Or did it, on
the other hand, provide Gnosticism with reasons for leading a
parasitic hfe wherever the rehgion of Christ was progressing, and
thereby enable it to outgrow its Oriental limitations and spread
to the ends of the Mediterranean world ? The case of Manichaeism,
which pushed to the most radical conclusions a mixture of several
official rehgions and of Christianity, with its own Gnostic
dogmas, has shown what strength may come from such an
alliance. Nevertheless, it is probably that what is most authentic
in the Sethian rehgion, in thejudaized duahsm which is the essence
of it, is also what survives most obstinately in the lands where it
was born—those lands where Islam also came into existence. And
it is in highly heterodox Islamic quarters that Gnostic themes have
managed to survive until today; perhaps reverting there to their
original structure.
Thus considered, Gnosticism reveals itself less as a cloudy
doctrine, whose hterature is a veritable museum of errors, and
more as the creation of anonymous seers, visionaries ardently
meditating upon a specific mythology, endlessly educing from it
images of hell and heaven which attain to the grandiose; and also
lamenting over their exile in the depths of matter, in hymns
of a sincerity and beauty—and here I am thinking, equally, of
those of the Manichaeans—which are profoundly moving.
Lastly—since the new texts, by a happy chance, arrive together
with those from the Dead Sea to give a httle more hfe to our
mental picture of some of those centuries which saw the birth
and development of Christianity—will they modify, in any way,
what we think of the rehgion taught in the New Testament?
Certainly, when we turn back to the Gospels and the Epistles
after a thorough reading of the Gnostic writings, we might feel
some momentary qualms at the remembrance of certain rather
strange interpretations that our sectaries put upon the same texts,
the same sayings. They are, in some cases, not without seductive
power. Which is the truth? Was not Christianity itself, at the
first, more like Gnosticism? Yet, very soon, before the luminous
simplicity of the great Gospels, before the clear and profound
thought of Paul, and even before the visions of the Johannine
Apocalypse, one is struck by the difference between the two
teachings. To read, first, the Gnostic writings, and then to take up
the New Testament again is an experience that is well worth
while. One soon feels, after reopening the greatest books of
authentic Christianity, that here are to be found treasures of life
yet more abundant than we had formerly realized. We feel again
the incomparable superiority of these texts, with their images and
their meanings accessible to all. We marvel that the Gnostic
schools were able so long to compete with them, and we can
understand why the sectaries preferred, face to face with this
religion, to keep their own dogmas secret and hide themselves in
the dark.
NOTE'S ON PLATES 5 AND 11
Plate 5: The CoPtic manuscript of the Pistis-Sophia (Codex

Askewianus) open at page 143 (facing p. 126)
The text shown is that of a passage in the second part of the

Books. °f the Saviour (see P- 72 of the present book). Jesus is
replying to questions from his disciples concerning the con¬
stitution of the human soul, and the judgments and transmigra¬
tions to which souls will be subjected after death. Jesus is answering
a question raised by Mary, about the treatment of any believer
who, having previously “received the mysteries”, has forgotten
and transgressed them and is now penitent. She has asked whether
the brethren ought again to communicate to him the “mysteries”
he had received before, or simply to give him the sacraments of
a degree higher than that to which he had attained.
. . - Let thy brethren communicate to him the Mystery

which is higher than that which he has already received!
They are to accept his repentance and to forgive his sins: the
latter, indeed, because he has received [mysteries] a second
time, ana those others [?] because he has surpassed them.
Indeed, it is not this [the highest mystery he had received be¬
fore sinning] that will hearken and will pardon his sins; but it
is the Mystery liigher than that which he had yet received
which will forgive his sins. Nevertheless, in a case where this
brother had received three mysteries in the two Regions, or in
the third Region from within, before he turned away and
transgressed, in that case no Mystery of those from up on high,
any more than those that are below them, will be able to
hearken and help in liis repentance, except the Mystery of the
First Mystery and the Mysteries of the Ineffable: it is these last
[alone] that will hearken and will accept his repentance. ”
Mary again asked: My Lord, if a man has received up to
two or even three Mysteries in the two Regions or even in the
327
328 Notes on Plates 5 and 11
third [Region], and if this man has not transgressed but dwells
uprightly and without hypocrisy in the faith . . . ? The
Saviour answered and said: All the men who have received the
mysteries in the second and in the third Region and who have
nowise transgressed, but are dwelling still, without hypocrisy,
in the faith, to such as these it is lawful to take part in the
mysteries in what Region they will, from the very first to the
last, because they have not transgressed.’ Mary went on:
‘ My Lord, if a man who had known the divinity and who had
taken part in the Mysteries of the Light, has turned aside to
transgression, has committed iniquity and has not come at all
to repentance; if, on the other hand, a man has never found the
divinity and has not known it, and is therefore a sinner and also
impious—then, when both of these men die, which of the two
will receive the greater punishment?’”
Plate 11: Codex X, pages 32 and 33 (facing p. 239)

At the top of the left-hand page is the end of the text of the longer
version of the Secret Book of John (cf. here, pp. 20iff.)
(The Saviour has just told John that those who divulge the
contents of this sacred book in return for some gift or reward
will be cursed.)
“He [Jesus] communicated these things to him in a mystery,
then immediately He disappeared from before him. Then
[John] went to his companions and recited to them what the
Saviour had said to him. Jesus Christ! Amen!”
THE SECRET BOOK ACCORDING TO JOHN

Under this conclusion, without any indication of title, begins the
Gospel according to Thomas (cf. here, pp. 227ff. and Appendix II).
For the translation of these pages, see w. 1-8, pp. 355-7.
Appendix I
THE TEACHING
OF SIMON MAGUS IN THE
CHENOBOSKION
MANUSCRIPTS
After further examination of some pages which I had previously

been able to transcribe from the Treatise on the Triple Epiphany
(No. 34) and the work entitled The Sense of Understanding . . .
(No. 22), I am better able to recognize the interest and importance
—surely of the highest order—of these two writings.
I have briefly described (in pp. 181-2) what is now restored to
us by a few remaining leaves (vestiges of Codex IX) of this
Treatise on the Triple Epiphany, on the Protenno'ia of Threefold Form,
which is also called a Sacred Scripture composed by the Father in a
perfect Gnosis. Allow me now to give a more detailed analysis of
these fragments. What we have here is a cosmogenic exposition,
in which the Great Luminaries appear. Here, too, we encounter
the mysterious heavenly Virgin called Mirothea, whom we
met before in our Book of the invisible Great Spirit or Gospel of the
Egyptians. We also find again the ever-changing face of the evil
demiurge, master of hell and of Chaos, named Sacla, Samael,
Ialdabaoth. All this, it is true, differs hardly at all from what we
are told by most of the Sethian revelations restored to us by the
Chenoboskion library. But as we continue our reading of this
work, we are soon struck by certain exhortations by the mys¬
terious figure, prophetic or divine, to whom these various
revelations are now being attributed. Only listen to it!—this
entity describing itself in terms which are generally so vague:
“I am the Voice that manifests itself beyond my thinking. . . .
329
330 Appendix I
It is I whom they call the Thought of the Invisible. . .! I am the

Word, unique, ineffable, immaculate, immense, inconceivable;
this is a hidden light, which yields a fruit of hfe, springing from
a living water beyond the invisible source. ... I have sent forth
an appeal, to the ears of those who know me. I have called you
to enter again into the supreme and perfect Light. You shall enter
into this [Light], and there you shall receive Glory from the
hands of those who glorify; those who are appointed to give
thrones shall give you thrones; you shall receive robes from those
who give robes and, by those who baptize, you shall be bap¬
tized. ... I hide myself in each individual: within them I mani¬
fest myself; and every thought has desired me while seeking for
me because it is I who have given to the universe its image. ...”
Then another voice evokes the revelations which, from this higher
being, have gone throughout the universe: ‘‘He has manifested
the Infinites . . .; he has revealed those that it is difficult to inter¬
pret and that are hidden; he has preached concerning those who
dwell in the Silence with the First Thought; he has manifested
himself to those who are in the Darkness; he has given instruction
concerning himself to those who are in the depths; to those who
dwell in the secret Treasuries he has spoken of the ineffable
mysteries, and all of them have become Sons of the Light!”
Without doubt, the divine apocalyptist whom this writing puts
up to speak first and foremost, and who is echoed by the voice of
a prophet—this must be the supreme Power himself, if we are to
judge of it by the following words: ‘‘And the Word which was
produced from my Thought became three monads; the Father,
the Mother and the Son, voices that dwell in a sensibility having
within it a word, possessing all glory and having three masculini¬
ties, three femininities, three powers and three names which are
in this wise: three Q Q Q, which are quadrangles in the secrecy
and the silence. ...”
As for the prophet who, in his turn, repeats these teachings just
as he has received them from the supreme Power and then com¬
ments upon them at length, it appears that this is the great Seth
himself. Here he comes, very soon, to finish this revelation; he
is about to give up being the visionary who is transcribing this
The Teaching of Simon Magus 331
apocryphon for the elect! Already he is alluding to his prospective

ascension to the zenith of the heavens and higher yet—towards
the world into which, later on, he will draw the elect. “As for me,
I have put on [the person ] of Jesus. I have brought him out of the
bitter tree [i.e., matter] and have established him in the dwelling
of his Father. And the watchers did not recognize me, for I am an
imperceptible, I and my Seed which belongs to me: this same
I shall establish in its holy Light on high, in the Silence un¬
attainable! Amen.”
As for the writing entitled The Sense of Understanding, the
Thought of the Great Power, we have already noted, in a few words
(p. 242), its essential characteristics. This work belongs to the
series of “Hermetic treatises”, transcribed in Theban Coptic, of
which a scribe made a concise anthology for the library of our
sectaries. His own vocabulary suggests an authentic relationship
with some portions of the Greek Hermetic corpus, such as the
IXth treatise, or the fragment XVIII of the florilegium of
Stobaeus.
But this text, by its title, its philosophical vocabulary and its
abstract content, connects itself closely with certain pages of the
Treatise on the Triple Epiphany. Must we then suppose that The
Sense of Understanding ... an alleged treatise of Hermes, may
really be the work of Gnostics such as the Sethians?—or, on the
contrary, that the Treatise on the Triple Epiphany drew freely
from the source of standard Hermetism? The same problem
presented itself to us before in the Apocalypse ofDositheus (No. 30;
see p. 188), ostensibly taken from the “three stelae of the great
Seth”, but whose style and content may well pass for Hermetic!
A third solution, however, ought to be considered. Let us refer
back to the expositions of the teaching of Simon Magus, such as
that presented in the Philosophumena (see pp. 15-19 above) and
in particular to the summary of the Great Revelation or Revelation
of the Voice and of the Name proceeding from the Great Power, which
is attributed to Simon. We shall be struck by the strange likeness
that is apparent between the ideas that are developed in the
Simonian doctrine on the one hand, and, on the other, in our
treatises On the Triple Epiphany and on the Thought of the Great
332 Appendix I
Power. We even find—and this especially in the case of The Triple

Epiphany—a good many expressions that are identical.
Let us go no further for the moment! A more thorough
examination of our Coptic fragments will enable us to judge
whether the Treatise on the Triple Epiphany can really be identified
with the Great Revelation which the Philosophumena summarizes
and attributes to Simon. (If so, it would prove anew how fully
and directly the Philosophumena drew upon the most authentic
and important Gnostic scriptures.) In any case, it is established
henceforward that, in its treatises 34 and 22, the Chenoboskion
library has restored to us texts of a very notable value: two
writings that refer back to the “Simonian” Gnosticism derived,
either authentically or apocryphally, from the teachings of Simon
Magus! And with these two writings we must doubtless connect
that Apocalypse of Dositheus, of equally unsettling content, which,
by taking on this name of Dositheus, no doubt laid claim to the
authorship of Simon Magus’ master and rival (see p. 15). Finally,
we must not forget that analogies with the doctrines traditionally
ascribed to Simon appear again in the great cosmogony of the
Paraphrase of Shem (see pp. I49ff.) and even in our Book of the
invisible Great Spirit or Gospel of the Egyptians.
Our possession of these writings, and the possibility of analysing
the relations between their doctrines and those expounded, on the
one hand, in other Gnostic works, and on the other, in various
treatises claiming the authority of Hermes—this will enable us
to tackle big problems: very difficult ones, certainly, but until
now they could not even have been stated! To what degree of
authenticity could they pretend, these Simonian teachings de¬
scribed in the Philosophumena and, apparently, developed in our
Coptic writings? To what extent can the particular kind of
Gnosticism that was thus named after Dositheus and Simon have
been one of the models, or even one of the origins, of the Sethian
Gnosticism? How, and at what stage of its development, and by
exchanges tending in which direction, did the latter establish those
curious relations with Hermetism which these newly-found
writings disclose? These are questions with far-reaching conse¬
quences : one feels eager to become better able to deal with them.
Appendix II
THE GOSPEL
ACCORDING TO THOMAS
OR
THE SECRET WORDS OF JESUS

From the Coptic
Originally translated into French, with Introduction and Notes,

by Jean Doresse,
and now rendered into English from the French
by the Rev. Leonard Johnston, L.S.S.,
in collaboration with Jean Doresse
INTRODUCTION1
The Coptic text of the Gospel according to Thomas is contained in
the longest and most beautiful of all the manuscripts emanating
from Chenoboskion, Codex X, in which this text occupies pages
32 to 51. The writing of this codex seems to date from the second
half of the fourth century. In addition to the Gospel, it contains
various important Gnostic treatises—such as the Secret Book of
John, the Hypostasis of the Archons, and a similar work which
bears no title; and finally, an Exegesis on the Soul. On the other
1 In view of its extraordinary importance, the publishers have decided to give

the translation of the. Gospel according to Thomas as an appendix to the present
volume, although it is in fact less markedly Gnostic than the other documents
from Chenoboskion. This short introduction was specially written by the author
for this purpose; on certain points, it repeats or even corrects what has been said
briefly m the body of the book, pp. 227-35. It may be mentioned that the author
has already published in French an edition of the Gospel according to Thomas with
a more detailed introduction and commentary.
333
334 Appendix II
hand, it also contains other apocrypha such as the Gospel of Philip

and the Book of Thomas.
Our work begins with these words: “Here are the secret words
which Jesus the Living spoke and which were written down by
Didymus Jude Thomas”. The title, in accordance with a fairly
common practice, is given at the end of the work, on the last
line: The Gospel according to Thomas.
The work is made up of about a hundred and twenty sayings
and incidents attributed to the Saviour: “Jesus says... These are
given one after the other with no attempt to link them together by
means of a narrative. How then can the term ‘ ‘ gospel ’ ’ be used to
describe such a collection ?
We must remember that today we take our idea of what a
gospel is from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and apocryphal works
which resemble these; and therefore use the word to indicate some
form of biography ofjesus. But this is an unjustified restriction of
the meaning of the term. It means “the good news”, and there¬
fore does not indicate a narrative but the spiritual substance of the
preaching ofjesus. And in that sense, it fits perfectly didactic works
or collections like the Gospel according to Thomas.
“the gospel according to thomas” in tradition
Is there any trace of this Gospel in ancient Christian literature ? Can

it be more closely identified? In other words, what would the
simple title Gospel according to Thomas mean to a historian before
the discovery of this Coptic work?
First of all, there was the Greek apocryphal work whose more
exact title was The Gospel of Thomas the Israelite Philosopher. Many
copies of this existed; but it was quite different from our present
work. It narrated fictitious mcidents from our Lord’s childhood,
naive little stories which later on became scattered among other
“Infancy Gospels”, and won great popularity in the West even up
to the Middle Ages. It is here that we find the anecdote of the birds
modelled by Jesus on the Sabbath and brought to life by him; or
the story of the schoolmaster who tried to teach Jesus the letters of
the alphabet and was most humiliatingly put in his place by his
pupil. This Gospel of Thomas the Israelite may be fairly early in
The Gospel according to Thomas 335
origin; certain elements in it seem to be mentioned by St
Irenaeus about the year 180, and even by the Epistle of the
Apostles, an apocryphal work which dates from between 140
and 170.
But from the middle of the seventeenth century historians were
led to believe that besides this work there existed another which
bore a similar title—simply Gospel according to Thomas—but which,
they thought, was completely heretical. They were led to this be¬
lief by certain references in patristic literature. Origen, a httle after
the year 233; Eusebius of Caesarea in 326; Philip Sidetes about
430; all mention the name of this apocryphal work. Some of them,
such as Cyril of Jerusalem about 348, speak of it as being used by
the Manichaeans; they even accuse the latter of having created it
in its entirety—but this is a fable, since the work must have existed
long before the origin of Manichaeism.
Unfortunately, there was only one quotation to give any clue
about the nature of this lost work. It was contained in the Philo-
sophumena, a treatise against heresies attributed to Hippolytus of
Rome, dating from the beginning of the third century. According
to this work, the Naassenes (the same as the celebrated Ophites
who were supposed to venerate the “serpent”) spoke about a
man’s nature which was “at once hidden and revealed’’, which
was “the Kingdom of heaven which we seek and which is inside
man”, hi the gospel entitled according to Thomas, the Naassenes
spoke explicitly of the Kingdom in these words: “He who seeks
me will find me among children aged seven years and over; for
after being hidden, in the fourteenth eon I manifested myself in
them!” This quotation, with its reference to “children of seven
years”, made some modem critics think that this lost work must
have been a fanciful account of the Infancy of the Saviour, like
the gospel of Thomas the Israelite already known.
Besides this single direct quotation, there was certain indirect
evidence about the nature of the book. Both Christian and Gnostic
authors agree in bnking it with two other lost “gospels”, that
of Matthias and that of Philip. According to certain Gnostics,
Thomas, Philip and Matthias were the “three witnesses” to whom
Jesus after his resurrection entrusted the care of collecting and
336 Appendix II
transcribing his authentic teachings. The Church used Matthew,

Mark and Luke; the heretics carefully refrained from using these
Synoptics, and the apocryphal gospels of Thomas, Philip and
Matthias took their place.
Let us now compare this data with the Gospel according to Thomas
as it is found at Chenoboskion.
Before we even open the text, we notice that its position in the
collection associates it with Philip and Matthias. For the same
Codex X contains a Gospel of Philip, and* a Book of Thomas which
is explicitly attributed to Matthias. It is hard to believe that this is
a mere coincidence; especially since the contents of this Book of
Thomas fit the description of the lost Gospel of Matthias—according
to Codex X, the former is a collection of sacred words revealed to
Thomas and written by Matthias; whereas, according to the Philo-
sophumena (VII, 20), the Gospel of Matthias used by the heretics
Basilides and his son Isidore contained “the secret doctrines which
the Saviour revealed to this Apostle [Matthias] in private dis¬
course”.
If now we turn to the text of this newly found Coptic work, we
read in § 4: “Let the old man heavy with days hasten to ask the
little child of seven days about the place of Life, and he will
live....” This recalls fairly closely the text of the Gospel according
to Thomas commented on by the Naassenes (according to the
Philosophumena quoted above). The quotation is only approxi¬
mate ; but it carries more weight when we examine more carefully
the other Naassene texts given in the Philosophumena; for com¬
paring these now with our Gospel according to Thomas, we can
recognize many other quotations from it, although without any
reference to their source.
We may turn next to the abundant Manichaean literature, the
“Kephalaia” or “chapters” ofMani, their psalms, etc. Scattered
up and down these writings we find, with pleasure and surprise, a
fair number of quotations which clearly come from our present
work. This means that the work we have in our hands is in all
probability that which Cyril of Jerusalem and others condemned
because of the use made of it by such heretics.
THE GREEK WORDS OF JESUS
The Gospel according to Thomas from Codex X of Chenoboskion

is not, however, the first sign of this lost work that the modem
world has had. Without knowing it, we had much more extensive
fragments of it than the single quotation given by the Philo-
sophumena. These were to be found in three strips of Greek manu¬
scripts dating from the third or fourth century, which came from
Upper Egypt, from the site on which once stood the large and pros¬
perous city of Oxyrhynchus. Searchers have methodically gone
over the soil of this site and have brought to light by the thousand
remnants of all sorts of texts, private writings or literary works.
The three Greek fragments we referred to are Oxyrhynchus papy¬
rus I, i (discovered in 1897), and papyri IV, 654 and IV, 655 (dis¬
covered in 1903). These fragments are in fact no more than strips
of three different manuscripts. The most important of them, num¬
ber 655, is no more than the vertical half of a column of text, of
which the other half had unfortunately disappeared. Nevertheless,
from the moment of their discovery diese scraps attracted the
greatest interest; for they appeared to present us with a number of
sentences or parables spoken.by Jesus, though in such a mutilated
form as to be almost incomprehensible. The list of studies which
these logia gave rise to, from the time of their discovery to the
present day, is considerable. New Testament scholars conjectured
that these three fragments formed part of a single collection of
words of Jesus which had been handed down by tradition inde¬
pendently of the canonical gospels, and which had been lost for
centuries. Today we are in a position to say that they were right
in thinking that they formed part of a single collection, but wide
of the mark in their identification of the character of this collection.
The discovery of the complete text of the Gospel according to
Thomas now enables us to identify the Greek collection of logia.
The discovery is due to M. H. C. Puech. In July, 1952 ,1 sent him
a copy of part of the Gospel, including the beginning; he recog¬
nized that it was exactly the text which the Greek Oxyrhynchus
papyrus 654 presented in a mutilated form. It was in 1954 that he
pointed this out. In 1956, when the entire text of the Coptic work
338 Appendix II
was divulged, he was able without further difficulty to verify the

complete parallels to the Greek fragments of Oxyrhynchus I and
655. At the same time he was able to restore the exact sense of the
Greek fragments by comparison with the unbroken Coptic text,
filling in the gaps which philologists (including some eminent
names) had previously filled in wrongly by the use of their imagin¬
ations. The restored Greek text is given as a footnote to our
translation of the Coptic text.
Finally, M. FI. C. Puech had the further good fortune to recog¬
nize another quotation, a single sentence of the Greek version of
our Gospel according to Thomas. This was found on a strip of linen,
part of a shroud, also from Oxyrhynchus.
Thus, thanks to the text which I myself found and identified in
1948, and thanks to M. Puech’s remarks on that text, almost com¬
plete darkness gave way to total clarity concerning these most
important problems. For indeed, the consequences of this discovery
are remarkable. For the past fifty years, the Greek fragments from
Oxyrhynchus had led scholars to suppose that a collection of
“words” of Jesus, logia, existed, which was extrinsic to the tra¬
dition of the canonical gospels, but which may well belong to a
primitive source. Now we are in possession of the Coptic edition
of the complete work, in which these words are to be found. Now,
this work—going under the name of Thomas—is one of the most
ancient and precious apocrypha known. The three Greek frag¬
ments and the brief quotation on the shroud bear eloquent witness
to the popularity and authority which it enjoyed in antiquity—and
give us a further guarantee of its interest to us.
THOMAS
This collection of words of Jesus is put under the authority of St

Thomas. How far do the contents support this claim?
The incipit of the collection credits Thomas (designated by the
triple name of “Didymus Jude Thomas”) with the composition
of the work. But on the other hand, Thomas is mentioned in the
work only once, in § 14. It is true that the part there attributed to
him is quite important—the equivalent of that played by St Peter
in the canonical gospels’ account of the “confession” at Caesarea
Philippi (Matt. XVI, 13-20, Mark VIII, 27-30). But nothing else
in the body of the Gospel bears the slightest reference to him. How
then are we to explain the fact that it was attributed to him? Is it a
simple fiction?
The origin of this fact is to be sought in the strong tradition
which attributes to Thomas the role of special confidant of the
Saviour and heir to his most secret teachings. This tradition is
expressed even more clearly in the Book of Thomas supposedly
written by Matthias, which figures in the same Coptic manuscript.
This apocryphon makes Thomas the original source of its teach¬
ing; the Apostle (there called “Jude Thomas”) is presented as the
“twin brother” of the Saviour, and recipient of his hidden doc¬
trines: “The Saviour, brother of Thomas, said to him: Hear! I
will reveal to thee what thou thinkest in thy heart: how they say
that thou art truly my twin and my companion, how they call
thee my brother. ...”
Traces of the same tradition are found also outside the newly
found documents. In the canonical gospels, Thomas hardly appears
except in St John (and it may be noted that several passages of the
Gospel according to Thomas are reminiscent of John’s doctrine).
Even in the fourth gospel, he appears only in a few incidents, of
which the best known is that concerning his lack of faith, when he
wishes to touch the body of the Risen Saviour (XX, 24-9). In that
text, he is also sumamed “DidymUs”; and Didymus in Greek has
the same literal sense of “twin” as the name Thomas has in Ara¬
maic: “Thomas who is called Didymus ...” (John XI, 16; XX,
24; XXI, 2). And it is from this repeated use of the name “twin”
that the apocryphal tradition was bom which made Thomas the
brother and confidant of Jesus! The development of these legends
can be traced in a few words.
As we know, the ancient church historians mentioned Thomas
as having preached the gospel to the Parthians and in Persia. It was
said that he was buried at Edessa. From the fourth century, the
chronicle credits him in more legendary fashion with the evangel¬
ization of “India”—although this term may denote more simply
just Central Asia. Crowds of pilgrims then come to venerate his
supposed tomb at Edessa—almost as many as for Jerusalem; and
340 Appendix II
from there, the historical figure of Thomas disappears more and

more into a cloud of extravagant fables.
Now, this precise district (round Edessa) seems to have given
rise to swarms of various kinds of apocryphal works; and on the
subject of Thomas, it is remarkable that they seem to spring from
the same tradition as that found in the incipit of our Coptic gospel
and more clearly still in our Book of Thomas. For example, they
call him by the same peculiar and repetitive name, “Didymusjude
Thomas”. He is already given the double name of “Jude Thomas”
by authors as closely linked to Edessa as Tatian, Ephraem, the fic¬
titious correspondence of Abgar king of Edessa with Jesus, or the
Doctrine of the Apostles. In the apocryphal Acta devoted to him (and
which were written at Edessa, in Syriac, in the third century), he is
also currently called “Jude Thomas”, and, in the first chapter, also
“Jude Thomas Didymus”. Further, in Chapter 39 of these apo¬
cryphal Acts of Thomas, we find the phrase: “Twin of Christ,
apostle of the Most-High, thou who art also initiated into the hid¬
den teaching of Christ and hast received his secret words! ” : which
corresponds exactly to the claims made by our Gospel according to
Thomas and by our Book of Thomas written hy Matthias. Moreover,
these same Acta contain a precise reference to a characteristic pas¬
sage of the new Gospel—the three words which the Saviour said
to the Apostle and which he could not reveal (cf. § 14 of the
translation).
There was, then, a special tradition that Thomas, the twin of
Christ, privileged to touch the divine body of the Risen Lord with
his hand (so that right up to the Middle Ages his tomb was that of
“Thomas of the ever-living hand”!), was privileged also to re¬
ceive the secret revelations of the Saviour. And it would appear
that our gospel, by claiming Thomas as its author and by quoting
in § 14 the special role he plays, has tried to take advantage of this
tradition. And, equally clearly, it appears that the centre of this
tradition was the city of Edessa—mysterious and powerful city,
which for long claimed to guard the body of the Apostle in the
splendid sepulchre it had raised for him. There, all these legends
reached full development, and from there they spread to the rest
of the Christian world.
CONTENTS OF THE GOSPEL
Each of the hundred and eighteen (or hundred and nineteen if we

include the incipii) words of Jesus found in the Gospel forms an
independent saying, and there seems to have been no attempt at
methodical grouping. Most of them begin with the formula:
“Jesus says”, or “Jesus said”. Also, certain phrases recur like a
refrain: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”; “He who will
hear these words (or: who knows these things) will not taste
death!” But that is the only unifying factor, the only suggestion
of literary structure in the book.
The same lack of cohesion characterizes the contents. Some of
the sayings are situated during our Lord’s earthly life, others can
only be attributed to the Risen Lord. Again, some of the sayings
can be understood as they stand, but there are many which could
only be understood in the light of some context which is not given.
Some sentences are simply allusions to incidents which are briefly
suggested; others seem to be the continuation of a previous teach¬
ing which is not given here. Such sayings cannot easily be under¬
stood by a reader who is not familiar with the life of our Lord as it
is given in the canonical gospels, or even as it might have been read
in some ancient apocrypha which are now lost. But side by side
with such omissions, we find repetition of the same teaching, or
even of the same saying, accompanied by a different interpretation.
Occasionally, also, some sayings seem to deal with the same sub¬
ject, or develop progressively a definite theme; but that is not a
general rule, for one could also point to a disconcerting lack of
continuity; certain elements found together in the canonical gos¬
pels are here found in widely separate contexts.
However, once we have noted this lack of unity in the Gospel,
one may then recognize the fact that the contents can be grouped
in the following categories.
First there are the sayings, parables and incidents which were
already known to us from the canonical gospels. For details, see
the Index at the end of this volume, which gives the parallels in
the form of tables. It will be seen that most of the parallels in this
category are with Matthew and Luke; there are almost no parallels
342 Appendix II
with Mark, and the parallels with John, though fairly numerous,
are found only in short formulas. Some of these passages are given
in almost the same form that they have in the New Testament
(§§ 9, 23, 25, 39, 40, 46, 67, 69, 77, 90, hi . . .). Others are more
concise (31, 41, 62, 93, 94, 103 . . .). Others are longer and more
diffuse, sometimes linking together sentences which are found
separately in the New Testament (18, 37, 38, 44, 51, 52, 68, 80,
100 . . .). In other cases again, homogeneous matter of the cano¬
nical gospels is here split into different verses (10 and 17; 69 and
70 . . .).
Sometimes the Gospel according to Thomas uses the words of the
New Testament, but attaches a different teaching to it (1, 11, and
115, 13, 35. 66, 72, 82, 96, no). Sometimes it gives the same sort
of teaching, and attaches it to sentences, parables or dialogues which
are similar in style to those found in the New Testament but not
actually found there (8, 14, 15, 24, 29, 78, 101, 102, 106, 113). And
finally there are passages which both in style and doctrine are
radically different from the orthodox teaching (7, 12, 19, 22, 27,
33, 55, 64, 65, 79, 88, 89, 112, 118).
So much for the relationship between the Gospel according to
Thomas and the canonical gospels. Let us turn now to its relation¬
ship to other early Christian literature. For some of the passages
which differ from the New Testament were already known to us,
being recognizable in occasional quotations or references in
Christian works or heretical writings.
Some of the writings in which these parallels are found give a
precise reference to their source. It is remarkable that only in one
case (cf. § 4) is this source the Gospel according to Thomas. In other
cases the source is given as the Gospel of the Hebrews, or the
Traditions of Matthias (cf. 1 and 108), or the Gospel of the Egyptians
(cf. 27, 42 and 65).
But for the most part these works carry no reference and give
no other hint which could have allowed us to guess their con¬
nection with our Gospel according to Thomas before its recent dis¬
covery. This is particularly true of certain apocrypha and Gnostic
and Manichaean literature. It is only now that we have the com¬
plete text in our hands that we can see the relationship with the
various so-called Acta of Thomas, Peter, Philip, John or Andrew;
the Naassene writings summarized by the Philosophumena (cf. our
§§ 2, 3, 4, 12, 14, 20, 27); authentic Gnostic works such as the
Gospel of Truth (c£ our 81) or the Gospel of Philip also found at
Chenoboskion (cf. our 20) or the Pistis Sophia (here, 1, 28, 95);
and finally the Manichaean books such as the Kephalaia or the
Psalter which are also found in Coptic (cf. our 4, 5, 43, 60, 88).
These copious references attest the connection between our
Gospel and other orthodox or heretical literature of the first
Christian centuries. The connection will be of two kinds, though
it is not as yet always possible to distinguish the two in practice:
in some cases our Gospel has borrowed from earlier texts; or, more
frequently, it was itself abundantly quoted and used by ecclesi¬
astical writers.
The material contained in the Gospel, then, varies considerably:
some of it is identical with the canonical gospels, some entirely
different both in form and in spirit. The relationship between the
different categories is a problem of some complexity; but it seems
probable that they correspond to different layers of material
which were successively juxtaposed in the composition of the
present work. This is suggested, for example, by the fact that it
sometimes gives not one single form of certain sayings, but two or
sometimes even three variations of them, different in form, mean¬
ing and even in doctrine. Usually these repetitions are quite inde¬
pendent ; no effort has been made to correlate them (cf. §§ 61 and
84: 44 and 106: etc.). But in §§ 77, 78 and 79 we have a triplet
which is particularly significant, not only because of the close
juxtaposition of variants but also because they display a clear pro¬
gression in meaning. Number 77 corresponds simply to the text
of Matt. IX, 37-8 and Luke X, 2 (the harvest is great and the
labourers few). Number 78 is not found in the canonical gospels
but is quoted by Origen in his Contra Celsum as having been used
by the Naassene Gnostics. Number 79, then, has a certain simi¬
larity in structure to the others, and is similar in meaning to the im¬
mediately preceding 78; but the metaphor it uses and the teaching
it contains make it quite different from the gospel text used by 77.
In these three verses we undoubtedly have a characteristic example
344 Appendix II
of the way in which our Gospel according to Thomas was composed.

The author, or rather the successive authors, gleaned from the
canonical gospels certain texts which met with their approval; to
these they added other sentences which the New Testament had
not conserved but which tradition still attributed to Jesus; and
finally they presumed to add certain formulas invented on the
model of the previous sayings but which were designed to
popularize the doctrines of the compilers.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE GOSPEL
Let us now try to draw up a brief catalogue of the main ideas in

the Gospel.
The opening words of the book define its doctrine as the secret
revelation given by the Saviour to his disciples (§§ 43 and 48), or
even divulged by him in virtue of a higher necessity (§§ 14 and
96). This definition may seem to be contradicted by the fact that
much of the material was already well known through the cano¬
nical gospels1: but it must be taken into account that these quo¬
tations are here found in a new context which gives them a new
sense—a “hidden” sense.
As far as the divine nature is concerned, it is to be noted that the
figures of the Father and the Son are almost identified (§§ 16 and
55): while the Holy Spirit is mentioned only once (49). Jesus, “he
who was not bom of woman” (16), is also frequently called
“Jesus the Living”. Could it also perhaps be Jesus who is referred
to under the appearance of “the child of seven days” (4)? He is
also the historical Jesus who appears in several incidents taken from
the gospels (36, 44, 65, 76, 82, 83, 90, 103, 104, 105, 108); he is
the ‘lamb ’ (64); but above all he is the Risen Lord, omniscient,
invisible (42), who is outside this world (29), but is also in any
place where there are two or even one of his followers. He is in
fact everywhere: in the wood, in the stone (81, cf. 35 in the
Greek); though these may also allegorically represent the Cross
and the Tomb. If his passion and death are referred to, it is only
1 Unless of course our collection of “ Secret Words of Jesus” goes back to
a period when the synoptic gospels themselves were not as yet widely circulated.
But when we come to date these writings it will be seen that such a hypothesis
is hardly worth serious consideration.
through symbols (69, 70) which conceal their crudely physical

character; his Incarnation, and his descent into the body (the
“corpse”) are mentioned, but only as incidents out of the past.
The world above—the world of Light—is referred to frequently
by allusions to the primordial forms and images which are hidden
there (87, 88). The presence of certain beings belonging to the
world on high is quite characteristic: these are referred to as “the
five trees of Paradise”—trees of the Garden of Eden first, but also
abstract entities, the first emanations from the world on high
which are reproduced in the saints and the elect (22). This detail
of the Gospel according to Thomas is the first example known of a
theory which later becomes extremely important in certain Gnostic
systems and especially in Manichaeism. Another reference to the
world above is found in certain “places” where Jesus is found (29
and 71); or “the Place of Life” (4, 63); or in the role attributed to
James “the Just” and the church, “for whose sake heaven as well
as earth was produced” (13).
How are the disciples connected with this world on high ? The
disciples, the elect, or rather (to use a term well-attested in our
work) the “monakhoi” or “solitaries” (17, 54, 65, 79) have
attained “unity” or “solitude” by surmounting divisions and
opposing contraries, and, like the Saviour himself, belong to the
flesh and this world below only on a transitory basis. They come
from the Father, whose “sons” they are (55); they belong to the
world of Light. They carry within them the sign which is “a
movement and a rest” (54 and 55). They will return to this world;
according to ideas inherited from Plato, they will pass from the
vision of images here below to the contemplation of the models,
the breathtaking “images” which exist on high with the Father
(87 and 88).
The majority of the teachings which the Gospel addresses to
these Perfect ones are at the same time those which are most closely
akin to the teaching of the canonical gospels; they deal with the
Kingdom and its “riches”, compared with which the flesh and
this world below are only “poverty” and “deprivation”. That is
the subject of those sayings which usually take the form of parables
mysteriously defining the Kingdom (1, 3, 9, n, 23, 25, 38, 40, 62,
346 Appendix II
77, 86, ioo, ioi, 107, H3, 115). Jesus himself said of this Kingdom
that it was really present though invisible, and that it was “outside
you” and especially “inside you” (a phrase from which the
Naassene Gnostics took their inspiration).
But how does one reach the Treasure, that is to say the “riches”,
Life, the Kingdom? The moral, ascetic or mystical sayings are
directed to this end. There are first of all certain principles of
knowledge: “Know what is before you. . . . Know Him who is
before you.. . . Know yourselves, and what is hidden will be re¬
vealed to you.... Cease not to seek and you will find! ” (3,5, 96,
112). This discovery will bring admiration; and admiration (a
Platonic notion from the Theaetetus) will lead to complete know¬
ledge and by it, to the royalty promised to the elect (1). Thus you
will attain contemplation and the possession of what “eye has
never seen and what ear has never heard. . . .” (18): that is,
the Kingdom and its “riches” which will deliver you from
“poverty” and the “corpse”.
With that are associated moral precepts: reject material goods
(41, 67, 73 ...) and the flesh (a garment to be “trampled on”, 24,
42); strip yourselves bare; reject father and mother and every
bond of this world (60, 105); neglect even circumcision, which is
useless (58). Finally, detach yourself from everything feminine
(83); for even feminine beings must become male if they are to
enter the Kingdom (118). In this way you will reach the fullness,
the unity of the elect. How is that done? By union with each other
and union within oneself: where there are three of you, there let
the perfect Church spring up; where there are two of you, be in
mutual peace; and finally, within yourselves, let perfect unity
take the place of primitive dissociation and “division” (3 5, 53, 65,
no, 118): in other words, let the “outside” become as the “in¬
side”, the “upper” like the “lower”, the male hke the female;
let the first become last and the last first: in short, let there be re-
muon of opposites and complete reversal of everything, of all
values cosmic and human. This great theme is repeated tenaciously
and often in almost identical terms by some later apocrypha such
as the so-called Acts of Peter (cf. Chapter 38) and Acts of Philip
(Chapter 139).
THE DATE OF THE GOSPEL
It is not impossible to date the Gospel widi relative accuracy. We

have seen that it is prior to the Acts of Thomas (beginning or middle
of the third century ?) and various other Acts equally ancient. It is
likewise prior to the Philosophutnena ofpseudo-Hippolytus (begin¬
ning of the third century), which quotes it explicitly once and
refers to it without naming it in several other places. But earlier
than that no trace of it can be found.
Nevertheless, it is striking that some of the formulas collected
in the Gospel were known to ecclesiastical literature from the
second half of the second century, and even, in one case, from the
middle of the century; though it is not known if these sayings
were at that time collected together under the title of the Gospel
according to Thomas.
To go back any further, we would have to be content with
calculating the age, not of the work as a whole, but of certain of
its more important elements. And to do so would mean dealing
with the very difficult problem of the relationship between the
para-evangelical texts of this Gospel and those of the synoptic
gospels. Until this detailed comparison has been made, any con¬
clusion would certainly be premature. But a certain number of
facts can be noted. In the first place, it is possible that certain texts
may have been simply repeated from the synoptic gospels, at least
as regards their substance if not in literal form. But texts which are
not found in the New Testament or which are variations of
synoptic texts may be authentic remains of an independent
tradition which the canonical gospels discarded. We are already
approaching hazardous hypotheses, but it may be possible to sup¬
pose that certain parts of our Gospel were genuinely made up of
remnants of a lost collection of words of Jesus; and that these were
remoulded and enriched with radically apocryphal elements, and
finally presented under the name of the apostle Thomas! But it is
better not to be led too far into such speculations. We may limit
ourselves to the prudent conclusion that the Gospel according to
Thomas may well contain elements which are prior to the compo¬
sition of the synoptic gospels and independent of them; but that
the verbal identity with some of the canonical parables makes it
348 Appendix II
probable that it is later than the synoptic gospels, at least in its

present form.
Moreover, as we have seen, some passages of the Gospel were
known and quoted by early Christian writers, as belonging to the
gospels of the Egyptians or of the Hebrews or of Matthias. It is difficult
to imagine that these writers were guilty of error in these precise
cases. In that case we must admit that the Gospel according to
Thomas borrowed these phrases from other apocryphal works
which are now unfortunately lost. This does not mean that it is
in the same category as them; it will be later than they are, but in
immediate contact with them. It will therefore be a sort of “inter¬
mediary” work, through which a more or less substantial part of
their teaching was more actively disseminated and transmitted to
later times. As we have seen, certain apocryphal Acts and heretical
works in particular owe their inspiration to it.
It is less easy to form a hypothesis concerning the possible
geographical origin of the work, especially as it is a complex of
material from so many different sources. However, the quite
characteristic mystical ideas it expounds would certainly connect
it with Syrian Christianity, the main centre of which was Edessa;
it was here also that Thomas, whose name is placed at the head of
this collection of “words ofjesus”, was most zealously venerated.
THE ORTHODOXY OF THE GOSPEL
Cyril of Jerusalem asserted that the Gospel of Thomas was a

Manichaean writing; this is out of the question, since the work is
well attested before the rise of Manichaeism. Nor can one accept
the statement of the Philosophnmetia that it is a Naassene compo¬
sition. In its Coptic edition, the work does contain certain Gnostic
additions or corrections; but the work as a whole contains elements
which are scarcely consonant with Gnosticism. There is, for
example, the allusion to the resurrection of the body, in §5 of the
Greek edition—no doubt this is suppressed in the Coptic edition
because it so blatantly scandalized the Gnostics who used the work.
Nevertheless, it would be an exaggeration to say that the ortho¬
doxy of the work is beyond doubt. There are a certain number of
original doctrines. Some of these are simply the result of too literal
interpretation of certain ideas already present in the synoptic gos¬

pels or in St John or St Paul. But others cannot be so explained,
and it is precisely these which give the collection its peculiar
individuality—though even here it may be true that these are the
result of later additions or correction of a more moderate original.
These ideas are subtle and striking, skilfully inserted into this
mosaic of texts in such a way as to influence the meaning of the
context and thus of the work as a whole. The ideas in question are
philosophical and mystical notions inherited from hellenic philo¬
sophy and particularly from Platonism. Examples are numerous:
the theory of pre-existing images or ideas which existed before
men or other creatures came into being (87, 88); the role attributed
to admiration as a step towards knowledge (1); the contempt for
the body looked on as a “corpse”, just as it is a “prison” or
“tomb” in Plato (61, 84); and in the same order of ideas, the
exhortation to strip oneself of one’s “garments” (42); the notion
of androgyny associated with perfection (27, 118); and—no
doubt as a consequence of the last—the belief that perfection de¬
mands the separation and reunion of contraries (that the male and
female should become one, the first last, that the elect should attain
“solitude” or “unity”).
No doubt the Gospel according to Thomas is not the only work in
early Christian literature to profess such doctrines in the name of
Jesus; it reminds us of the very close relationship there was be¬
tween Christianity and the best in Greek philosophy. From the
little we know of it, the Traditions of Matthias seem to have been
inspired by the same Platonic spirit; and the Acts of Peter and Acts
of Philip contain echoes of the same teaching. This explains why
our Gospel was so favoured by certain heretics and especially
certain Gnostics. It gave them scope for a certain type of exegesis
which would enable them to mix Christian theology with the
teachings of Greek philosophy and with certain mystical com¬
mentaries which works like Homer and Hesiod had already been
subjected to. And it was through these heretics that certain teach¬
ings of the Gospel according to Thomas were perpetuated late into
the Middle Ages; we find echoes of one such curious doctrine,
that of § 118, even in the medieval Catharists.
350 Appendix II
It is indeed remarkable to find philosophical ideas of this nature

expressed in such an early Christian writing (for it is beyond
doubt that it is early). But these ideas cannot be called ‘heretical’.
Traces of them are found in St John, St Paul, and above all in the
Epistle to the Hebrews. They are expressed even more clearly in
other ancient Christian hterature—for example in the so-called
Second Epistle of Clement, the earliest known homily. It was
natural enough that Greek thought should be used in this way
(or to put it more precisely, that the growing Christian Church
and Hellenism should meet in this fashion). True, from the fourth
century onwards it might be condemned by one or other of the
oriental bishops (even though these same bishops may at the same
time be engaged in eagerly tracking down the mystical teachings
of Iamblichus or Porphyry). But that did not hinder the Latin
Church of the Middle Ages from collecting these valuable
traditions, and according Platonism a favoured place in its philo¬
sophical and mystical systems: a place which it retained till
the end of the twelfth century, when it began to give way to
Aristotelianism. And even after that time, the Byzantine Church
gave the Greek sages a place side by side with the Biblical prophets.
Plato was even to be represented (if we are to believe the
instructions given to the painters of the school of Athos) with
a scroll in his hand inscribed with the words—very similar to
those found in the Gospel according to Thomas—“The old is new
and the new is old: the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the
Father: unity is divided into three, and the Trinity remakes
Unity!”
THE VALUE OF THE GOSPEL
For the historian, the discovery of this work represents an immense

step forward in our knowledge of primitive Christian Hterature
hitherto known only in scattered remnants. Certainly, it would
have been an even greater advantage to have found the Gospel of
the Hebrews or the Gospel according to the Egyptians quoted briefly
by so many Christian writers. Nevertheless, we are even a step
closer to them, given the fact that the Gospel according to Thomas is
connected with them. Moreover, we have seen that this Gospel is
attested at the beginning of the third century; this means that it

belongs to at least the end of the second century; and even if in its
present form it goes back no earlier, at least a great part of its con¬
tents must come directly from the middle of the second century
and probably even earlier. But this takes us back to a time when
the New Testament writings had not yet completely replaced the
living tradition; and this collection will contain much information
about the literary form in which the teaching of Jesus circulated
and the interpretation given to it in authentic Christian circles at
that time. It will certainly be indispensable to turn to the parallel
witness of the Gospel according to Thomas—however ambiguous it
may be—for any critical work on many passages of the canonical
gospels. Eminent scholars have already begun the work of trying
to discern how much of these sayings really goes back to a
tradition which the canonical gospels ignored, and which may
therefore correspond more or less exactly to teachings of Christ
which would otherwise have been forgotten. This is not a rash
or foolhardy suggestion. Modem scholars will have to raise certain
important questions (though they may not be able to find the
answers): but in doing so they are doing no more than Origen,
so many centuries before; he also wondered—and that precisely
because of a sentence which figures in our Gospel, § 86—whether
a saying of this kind might not possibly go back to Jesus himself:
“Has that been attributed to the Saviour fictitiously; is it a quo¬
tation from memory inaccurately recalled; or was it indeed
spoken by Jesus?’’Jerome also considered that there may be some
genuine gold in this “mud” of apocrypha; and St Augustine was
prepared to admit that such forgeries could contain some truth.
This is an important suggestion, then; and it is a perfectly
legitimate one. We know that the canonical gospels themselves
were composed from words of Jesus which had not previously
been set in order, and which had been handed down by some
tradition which is now lost sight of. We know that there did
exist at least one collection of words of our Lord collected from
various sources. We know that Papias, about 140, composed five
books (now lost) On the Interpretation of the Logia of the Lord, and
made a collection of these logia as part of the preparation for his
352 Appendix II
great work. It is said, further, that the Gnostics Basihdes and

Isidore claimed to have used a collection which went back to the
apostle Matthias, and which is supposed to have been particularly
close to certain passages of Luke (as indeed is our gospel attributed
to Thomas). It would indeed be interesting to know how closely
our Gospel according to Thomas may be related to one or other of
these collections; whether the relationship is direct or indirect;
and what traces of authentic tradition each of them contains.
Finally, as concerns the actual substance of the teaching given
here, the reader must of course remember that it is not a “fifth”
gospel (we have already pointed out the absurdity of this descrip¬
tion) : it is, as it stands, only an apocryphal work to which no real
authority can be attributed, and even its very composition is arti¬
ficial. But bearing this in mind, it is still possible to read this
collection and in doing so to be brought into direct and moving
contact with a very ancient form of Christianity. It was a form of
Christianity which was profoundly influenced by Hellenic philo¬
sophy and excessively subtle in its conceptions; but at the same
time it was extremely demanding in its ideals and in some ways
strangely anticipated the finest flights of mysticism of the Latin
Middle Ages. Sometimes also we will find in it, veiled in the
mysterious language of parables, an original and precise interpre¬
tation of passages of the canonical gospels which has appeared
obscure to us.
It is a complex, attractive and in some ways really splendid
work. What manner of men brought it into being? They must
have been men of burning faith; their behefs had been syste¬
matically worked out; they were deeply stirred and illuminated
by the new faith. There is no denying the wealth of philosophy
contained in their work; the thought is not a naive repetition, it is
subtle and ambitious speculation; and not the least astonishing
aspect of it is that it should have been able to find expression, as
it does here, with so much art by means of such simple and concise
imagery.
PRELIMINARY NOTE
The translation given here is as literal as possible. This means that

in certain places, where the sense is obscure or ambiguous, a word-
for-word rendering has been given. For a more precise interpreta¬
tion, the reader may refer to the notes.
The division into paragraphs has been adopted simply for
reasons of convenience, and is not found in the Coptic manuscript.
A suggestion of such a division, however, is found in the Greek
papyrus Oxyrhynchus 654, which contains the beginning of this
work. Here, dashes between the lines, or coronis (>>) at the end
of certain phrases mark the transition from one “word” to the
next, hi general, I have taken the formula “Jesus says”, or “Jesus
said”, to mark the beginning of an independent paragraph. This
formula is sometimes omitted at the beginning of sentences which
are clearly distinct (cf. for example § 32, where the Coptic omits
the formula “Jesus says”, which is however present in the Greek
version); in these cases I have followed the subdivision which the
sense of the text seems to require. But in some passages where
several sentences in succession seem to be connected together, I
have not marked any division so as not to risk breaking up a
coherent whole. In any case, our numbering makes no claim to be
definitive.
At the bottom of the page, underneath the translation of the
Coptic version, I have given a translation of the three sections
found in the Greek version of the Oxyrhynchus papyrus (cf. the
description of these given above, Introduction, pp. 3 3 7-8). The gaps
in these fragments have been filled in only where the parallel
Coptic text enabled this to be done with certainty. In addition to
these parallels, for § 5 I have added the sentence written in Greek
on the shroud from Oxyrhnychus mentioned above (Introduction,
P- 338).
The signs used in this translation have been reduced to the
minimum:
... : meaning completely obscure;

...? or (?): meaning uncertain;
354 Appendix II
[...] : gap in the text;

< ) : words added by the translator which are not in the
text; also, translator’s remarks;
(p. 32) etc.: pages of the manuscript.
TRANSLATION
(p. 32, 1. 10) Here are the secret words which Jesus the Living
spoke, and which Didymus Jude Thomas wrote down.
And he said: “Whoever penetrates the meaning of these
words will not taste death!”
1. Jesus says: “Let him who seeks cease not to seek until he
finds: when he fmds he will be astonished; and when he is
astonished he will wonder, and will reign over the universe!”
2. Jesus says: “If those who seek to attract you say to you:
‘ See, the Kingdom is in heaven! ’ then the birds of heaven will be
there before you. If they say to you: ‘It is in the sea! ’ then the fish
will be there before you. But the kingdom is within you and it is
outside of you!”
3. “When you know yourselves, then you will be (p. 33)
known, and you will know that it is you who are the sons of the
living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you will
be in a state of poverty, and it is y ou < who will be ) the poverty! ’ ’
Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 654:

Here are the [secret] words which Jesus the Living spoke an[d
which were transcribed by Didymus Jude] Thomas. And he
said: [“Whoever penetrates the mea]ning of these words will not
taste [death!”]
1. [Jesus says:] “Let him who see[ks] cease not [to seek until
he] finds: when he finds, [he will wonder; and when he wond]ers,
he will reign, and [reigning, he will have r]est!”
2. Je[sus] says: [“If those] who seek to attract you [say to you:
‘See,] the Kingdom [is] in hea[ven, then] the birds of heafven
will be there before you. If they say: ‘ It] is under the earth! ’ [then]
the fishes of the sea [will be there be] fore you. And the Kingd[om
of heaven] is within you! [He who? ...] knows this will find
[...”]
3. [“When] you know yourselves, [then you will know that]
it is you who are [the sons] of the [living] Father. [But if you do
not] know yourselves, then [...] and it is you <who will be) the
poverty!”
356 Appendix II
4. Jesus says: “Let the old man heavy with days hesitate not to
ask the little child of seven days about the Place of Life, and he will
live! For it will be seen that many of the first will be last, and they
will become a (single thing!”)
5. Jesus says: “Know what is before your face, and what is
hidden from you will be revealed to you. For nothing hidden will
fail to be revealed! ’ ’
6. His disciples asked and said to him: “Do you want us to
fast? How shall we pray, how shall we give alms, what rules
concerning eating shall we follow?” Jesus says: “Tell no he, and
whatever you hate, do not do: for all these things are manifest
to the face of heaven; nothing hidden will fail to be revealed,
and nothing disguised will fail before long to be made public!”
7. Jesus says: “Blessed is the hon which a man eats so that the
lion becomes a man. But cursed is the man whom a hon eats so
that the man becomes a hon! ’ ’
Oxyr. Papyrus 654 (cont.):
4. [Jesus says:] “The ma[n heavy with dajys will not hesitate
to ask the little [child of seven dajys about the Place of [Life! For
you will] see that many of the fi[rst] will be [last, and] the last
first, and [that they will] be [a (single thing!”)]
5. Jesus says: [“Know what is bejfore your face, and [what is
hidden] from you will be revealed [to you. For there] is [nothing]
hidden which [will] not be revealed, nor (anything) buried which
[will not be raised up!”]
6. [His disciples] asked [and] say to him: “How shall we fa[st
and how shall we pr]ay, and how [...], and what rules shall [we]
follow [concerning eating?”] Jesus says: [“.. .] do not [...] of
truth [. . .] hidden [. . .”]
7. [... Blejssed is [...]
End of the Fragment
Fragment from a shroud from Oxyrhynchus: Greek inscription:

5. Jesus says: “There is nothing buried which shall not be
raised up
8. Then he says: “A man is like a skilled fisherman who cast

his net into the sea. He brought it up out of the sea full of little
fishes, and among them the skilled fisherman found one that was
big and excellent. He threw all the little fishes back (p. 34) into
the sea; without hesitating he chose the big fish. He who has ears
to hear, let him hear! ’ ’
9. Jesus says: “See, the sower went out. He filled his hand and
scattered <the seed.) Some fell on the path: birds came and
gathered them. Others fell on rocky ground: they found no
means of taking root in the soil and did not send up ears of com.
Others fell among thorns; <these> stifled the grain, and the worm
ate the <seed.) Others fell on good soil, and this (portion) pro¬
duced an excellent crop: it gave as much as sixty-fold, and (even)
a hundred and twenty-fold! ”
10. Jesus says: “I have cast a fire onto the world, and see, I
watch over it until it blazes up!”
11. Jesus says: ‘‘This heaven will pass away, and the heaven
which is above it will pass: but those who are dead will not live,
and those who hve will not die!”
12. ‘‘Today you eat dead things and make them into something
hving: (but) when you will be in Light, what will you do then?
For then you will become two instead of one; and when you
become two, what will you do then?
13. The disciples say to Jesus: “We know that Thou wilt leave
us: who will (then) be the great(est) over us?” Jesus says to
them: “Wherever you go, you will turn to James the Just, for
whose sake heaven as well as earth was produced.”
14. Jesus says to his disciples: “Compare me, and tell me whom
I am like.” Simon Peter says to him: “Thou art hke ajust angel!”
Matthew says to him: (p. 35) “Thou art hke a wise man and a
philosopher!” Thomas says to him: “Master, my tongue camiot
find words to say whom thou art hke.” Jesus says: “I am no
longer thy master; for thou hast drunk, thou art inebriated from
the bubbling spring which is mine and which I sent forth.” Then
he took him aside; he said three words to him. And when Thomas
came back to his companions, they asked him: “What did Jesus
say to thee?” And Thomas answered them: “Ifl tellyou(a single)
358 Appendix II
one of the words he said to me, you will take up stones and throw
them at me, and fire will come out of the stones and consume
I ”
you!
15. Jesus says to them: “When you fast, you will beget sin for
yourselves; when you pray, you will be condemned; when you
give alms, you will do evil to your souls! <(But) when you enter
any land and travel over the country, when you are welcomed eat
what is put before you; those who are ill in those places, heal
them. For what enters into your mouth will not defile you, but
what comes out of your mouth, it is that which will defile you! ”
16. Jesus says: “When you see Him who has not been born of
woman, bow down face to the earth and adore Him: He is your
father!”
17. Jesus says: “Men indeed think I have come to bring peace
to the world. But they do not know that I have come to bring to
the world discord, fire, sword, war. Indeed, if there are five
<people>in (p. 36) a house, they will become three against two
and two against three—father against son and son against father—
and they will be lifted up, being solitaries.”
18. Jesus says: “I will give you what eye has never seen, and
what ear has never heard, and what hand has never touched, and
what has never entered into the heart of man.”
19. The disciples say to Jesus: “Tell us what our end will
be.” Jesus says: “Have you then deciphered the beginning,
that you ask about the end ? For where the beginning is, there shall
be the end. Blessed is the man who reaches the beginning; he will
know the end, and will not taste death!”
20. Jesus says: “Blessed is the man who existed before he came
into being!”
21. “If you become my disciples and if you hear my words,
these stones will serve you.”
22. “For you have there, in Paradise, five trees which change
not winter nor summer, whose leaves do not fall: whoever knows
them will not taste death!”
23. The disciples say to Jesus: “Tell us what the Kingdom of
heaven is hke! He says to them: It is like a grain of mustard:
it is smaller than all the <other) seeds, but when it falls on ploughed
land it produces a big stalk and becomes a shelter for the birds
of heaven.”
24. Mary says to Jesus: “Who are your disciples like?” He
says to her: “They are like (p. 37) little children who have made
their way into a field that does not belong to them. When the
owners of the field come, they will say: ‘ Get out of our field! ’
They <(then) will give up the field to these <people) and let them
have their field back again.”
25. “That is why I tell you this: If the master of the house
knows that the thief is coming, he will watch before he comes
and will not allow him to force an entry into his royal house to
carry oft its furniture. You, then, be on the watch against the
world. Gird your loins with great energy, so that the brigands do
not find any way of reaching you; for they will find any place
you fail to watch.”
26. “Let there be among you <such) a prudent man: when the
fruit arrived, quickly, sickle in hand, he went and harvested it.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
27. Jesus saw some children who were taking the breast: he
said to his disciples: “These little ones who suck are like those
who enter the Kingdom.” They said to him: “If we are little,
shall we enter the Kingdom?” Jesus says to them: “When you
make the two <become) one, and when you make the inside like
the outside and the outside like the inside, and the upper like the
lower! And if you make the male and the female one, so that the
male is no longer male and the female no longer female, and when
you put eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in the place of a
hand, and a foot in the place of a foot, and an image in the place
of an image, then you will enter [the Kingdom!”]
28. (p. 3 8) Jesus says: “I will choose you, one from a thousand
and two from ten thousand, and those <whom I have chosen)
will be lifted up, being one!”
29. His disciples say to him: “Instruct us about the place where
thou art, for we must know about it!” He says to them: “He
who has ears, let him hear! If a light exists inside a luminous one,
then it gives light to the whole world; but if it does not give
light, <it means that it is) a darkness.”
360 Appendix II
30. Jesus says: “Love thy brother hke thy soul; watch over
him hke the apple of thine eye.”
31. Jesus says: “The straw that is in thy brother’s eye, thou
seest; but the beam that is in thine own eye, thou seest not! When
thou hast cast out the beam that is in thine own eye, then thou
wilt see to cast out the straw from thy brother’s eye.”
32. “ If you do not fast from the world, you will not find the
Kingdom. If you do not make the Sabbath the <true) Sabbath,
you will not see the Father.”
33. Jesus says: “I stood in the midst of the world, and in the
flesh I manifested myself to them. I found them all drunk; I found
none athirst among them. And my soul was afflicted for the
children of men. Because they are blind in their heart and do not
see, because they have come into the world empty, <that is why)
they seek still to go out from the world empty. But let someone
come who will correct them! Then, when they have slept off
their wine, they will repent.”
34. Jesus says: “If the flesh was produced for the sake of the
spirit, it is a miracle. But if the spirit ^was produced) for the
sake of the body, it is a miracle of a miracle.” But for myself (?),
I marvel (p. 39) at that because the [. .. of] this (?) great wealth
has dwelt in this poverty.
35. Jesus says: “There where there are three gods, they are
gods. Where there are two, or <else> one, I am with him!”
36. Jesus says: “A prophet is not accepted in his (own) city,
and a doctor does not heal those who know him.”
Oxyr. Papyrus 1:
31. . . .] then thou wilt see to cast out the straw that is thy
brother’s eye.”
32. Jesus says: If you do not fast from the world, you will not
find the Kingdom of God. And if you do not make the Sabbath
the <true> Sabbath, you will not see the Father.”
34. . . .] the poverty.”
35. Jesus says: “Where there are [two (?) they are] not without
God, and where there is one, I say <to you), I am with him.
Raise the stone, and there thou wilt find me; split the wood: I
am even there!” (cf. § 81 of the Coptic version).
37. Jesus says: “A city built on a high mountain, and which is

strong, it is not possible that it should fall, and it cannot be
hidden!”
38. Jesus says: “What thou hearest with thine ear, and the
other ear, proclaim from the roof-tops! For no-one lights a lamp
and puts it under a bushel or in a hidden place: but he puts it on the
lamp-stand so that all who come in or go out should see the light.”
39. Jesus says: “If a blind man leads another blind man, both
of them fall into a ditch.”
40. Jesus says: “It is not possible for someone to enter the
house of a strong man and do him violence if he has not tied his
hands: <only> then will he plunder his house.”
41. Jesus says: “Have no care, from morning to evening and
from evening to morning, about what you shall put on.”
42. His disciples say to him: “On what day wilt thou appear to
us, and what day shall we see thee?” Jesus says: “When you strip
yourselves without being ashamed, when you take off your clothes
and lay them at your feet like little children and trample on them!
Then [you will become] (p. 40) children of film who is living,
and you will have no more fear.”
Oxyr. Papyrus 1 (conclusion):

36. Jesus says: “A prophet is not acceptable in his own country,
and a doctor does not heal those who know him!”
37. Jesus says: “A city built on the summit of a high mountain,
and fortified, can neither fall nor be hidden.”
38. Jesus says: “You hear with one of your ears [. . .
Oxyr. Papyrus 655:

41. . . .] from morning to [evening and] from evening [to
mor]ning, nor for [yo]ur [food] that you shall ea[t, nor for your]
cloth [ing] that you shall put on. [You are mu]ch super [ior] to
the lilies which grow and do [not sp]in. If you have a garment,
what do you la[ck?] Who can add to your height? He himself
will give you your clothing!”
42. His disciples say to him: “When wilt thou appear to us,
and when shall we see thee?” He says <(to them:) “When you
strip yourselves and are not ashamed [. . .
362 Appendix II
43. Jesus says: “You have desired many times to hear these
words which I say to you, but you could not find anyone else
from whom to hear them. The days will come when you will
seek me, and when you will not find me.”
44. Jesus says: “The Pharisees and the scribes have taken the
keys of knowledge and hidden them: they have not entered, and
neither have they permitted gentry ) to those who wished to enter.
But you, be prudent as serpents and simple as doves!”
45. Jesus says: “A vine shoot was planted outside the Father.
It did not grow strong: it will be plucked up from the root and
it will perish.”
46. Jesus says: “To him who has in his hand, (more) will be
given. But from him who has not, (even) the little he has will be
taken away!”
47. Jesus says: “You must be (as) passers-by!”
48. His disciples said to him: “Who art thou, who tellest us
these things?” “By the things that I tell you, do you not recognise
who I am? But you yourselves have become like the Jews: they
like the tree and detest the fruit, they like the fruit and detest the
tree!”
49. Jesus says: “He who has blasphemed the Father will be
forgiven, and he who has blasphemed the Son will be forgiven:
but he who has blasphemed the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven
either on earth or in heaven.”
50. Jesus says: “Grapes are not gathered from thistles, and figs
are not gathered from thorns: they do not give fruit! [... a] good
man brings out of his bam (p. 41) what is good, but a wicked man
brings out of his wicked bam—which is in his heart—evil (things),
and from them he sows evil, because (they are) evil (things that)
he brings out of the abundance of his heart.”
Oxyr. Papyrus 655:

43. (only a few letters of this passage remain).
44. [. . . have] taken [the key] of [knowledge (gnosis) and
have] hidden [it:] they [have not] entered; [and those who
wished] to enter, [they] have not [. . .
51. Jesus says: “From Adam to John the Baptist, among those
who have been bom of women, there is none greater than John
the Baptist! But for fear that the eyes (of such a one) should be
lost I have said: He who among you shall be the smallest) shall
know the Kingdom and be higher than John!”
52. Jesus says: “It is not possible for a man to ride two horses,
nor to draw two bows. And it is not possible for a servant to
serve two masters: otherwise he will honour the one and the
other will treat him harshly! Never does a man drink old wine
and desire at the same instant to drink new wine; new wine is
not poured into old wine-skins, in case they should burst, and
old wine is not poured into new wine-skins, in case it should be
spoiled. An old piece of cloth is not sown onto a new garment,
for a tear would result.”
53. Jesus says: “If two people are with each other in peace in
the same house, they will say to the mountain: ‘ Move! ’ and it
will move.”
54. Jesus says: “Blessed are the solitary and the elect, for you
will fmd the Kingdom! Because you have issued from it, you
will return to it again.”
55. Jesus says: “If people ask you: ‘Where have you come
from?’ tell them: ‘We have come from the Light, from the
place where the Light is produced [. . .] outside itself (or: of it¬
self?). It [. . . (p. 42) . . .] until they show (?) [. . .] their image.’
If someone says to you: ‘What are you?’ say: ‘We are the sons
and we are the elect of the living Father.’ If (people) ask you:
‘What sign of your Father is in you?’ tell them: ‘It is a move¬
ment and a rest.’ ”
56. His disciples said to him: “On what day shall rest come to
those who are dead, and on what day shall the new world come?”
He said to them: “This <rest> that you wait for has (already)
come, and you have not recognised it.”
57. His disciples said to him: “Twenty-four prophets spoke in
Israel, and they all spoke through you!” He said to them: “You
have passed over Him who is living in front of your eyes, and
have spoken of the dead!”
58. His disciples said to him: “Is circumcision useful or not?”
364 Appendix II
He said to them: “If it was useful, their father would beget them
from their mother (already) circumcised. But (only) the true
circumcision in the spirit gives all profit!”
59. Jesus says: “Blessed are the poor, for the Kingdom of
heaven is yours!”
60. Jesus says: “He who does not hate his father and mother
cannot be my disciple; and if he does not hate his brother and
sister and does not take up his cross like me, he will not become
worthy of me!”
61. Jesus says: “He who has known the world has fallen into
a corpse; and he who has fallen into a corpse, the world is not
worthy of him!”
62. Jesus says: “The Kingdom of the Father is like a man who
has [good] seed (in his field.) By night his enemy came (p. 43)
and sowed tares over the seed which is good. (But) this man did
not allow them (his servants) to pluck up the tares, ‘for fear’, he
told them, * that in going to take away the tares, you carry off the
wheat with it. But on the harvest day the tares will be recognis¬
able; they will be taken away and burnt.’ ”
63. Jesus says: “Blessed is the man who has laboured; he has
found Life!”
64. Jesus says: “Seek to see Him who is living, while you are
living; rather than to die and to seek to see Him (only) when
you can no longer see Him!”
Just then a Samaritan was going into Judea carrying a lamb.
He(=Jesus> said to His disciples: “What (will) this man (do)
with the lamb?” They answered: “He will kill it and eat it!”
But he said to them: “He will not eat it as long as it is still ahve,
but only if he kills it and it becomes a corpse” They said to him:
“In no other way will he hurt it! ” (Then) he said to them: “You
yourselves, then, seek a place of rest so that you do not become
corpses and are eaten!”
65. Jesus says: “Two will He down there on one bed: one will
die, the other will live.”
Salome says: “Who art thou, man; from whom hast thou
(come forth,) that thou shouldst he on my couch and eat at my
table?” Jesus says to her: “I am he who has been brought into
being by Him who is equal (to me:) I have been given what
belongs to my Father!”—“I am thy disciple!”
Because of that, I say this: When <(a person) finds himself
solitary, he will be full of light; but when he fmds himself
divided, he will be full of darkness.
66. Jesus says: “When I tell my mysteries to [. . . (p. 44) . . .]
mystery: [what] your right hand does, let your left hand not
know (that) it does it.”
67. Jesus says: “There was a rich man who had many posses¬
sions. He said(to himself:) ‘I will use my wealth to sow my field,
to plant, to fill my barn with harvest, so that need will not
touch me.’ Such were the things that he thought in his heart.
But during that night, he died. He who has ears to hear, let him
hear!”
68. Jesus says: “A man had guests. When he had prepared the
feast, he sent his servant to call these guests. He went to the first
and said to him: ‘My master invites thee!’ (The other) replied:
‘ I am due to receive some money from some merchants; they are
coming to see me this evening and I am going to give them
orders. I ask to be excused from the feast.’ (The servant) went to
another and said to him: ‘My master has invited thee.’ (He) said
to him: ‘ I have bought a house and I am needed for the day: I
am not free.’ He went to another and said to him: ‘My master
invites thee!’ (He)replied: ‘My friend is being married and I am
giving a feast (for him). I will not come; I ask to be excused from
the feast!’ He went to another and said to him: ‘My master
invites thee!’ (He) said to him: ‘I have bought a field (?) and I
have not yet been to receive the revenue (from it). I will not be
coming; I ask to be excused from the feast! ’ The servant returned
and said to his master: ‘Those whom you invited to the feast have
excused themselves.’ The master said to his servant: ‘Go out into
the streets and those whom you find, bring in to dine.’ The buyers
and merchants will not enter] into the places of my Father.”
69. (p. 45) He said: “An [important] man had a vineyard
which he gave to cultivators so that they should work it and he
should receive the fruit from them. He sent his servant so that the
cultivators should give him the fruit of the vineyard: (but) they
3 66 Appendix II
seized his servant, beat him and almost killed him. The servant
came back and told this to his master. His master said < to himself)
‘Perhaps he did not recognize them?’ He sent another servant:
the cultivators beat this one also. Then the master sent his son: he
said to himself: ‘No doubt they will respect my child?’ But when
they realized that this was the heir to the vineyard, these culti¬
vators seized him and killed him. He who has ears let him hear! ”
70. Jesus says: “Would that thou couldst tell me about the
stone which the builders have rejected! It is that one, the corner¬
stone.”
71. Jesus says: “He who knows the All, but has failed to know
himself, has failed completely to know, <or: to find) the Place!”
72. Jesus says: “Blessed are you when you are hated and
persecuted; but they will not find a position in that place to which
they shall pursue you!”
73. Jesus says: “Blessed are those who are persecuted in their
hearts. They are those who have known (?) the Father in truth!
Blessed are those who are hungry, because they will satisfy their
bellies to <their) content!”
74. Jesus says: “When you have something left to share among
you, what you possess will save you. But if you cannot share
[among you], that which you have not among you, that[. ..?...
will. . .] you.
75. Jesus says: “I will [. . .] and no one will be able [. . .
(p. 46) . . .)
76. [Someone (?) said] to him: “Speak to my brothers, that
they may share with me my father’s possessions!” He answered
him: Man, who made me a sharer?” He turned to his disciples
and said to them: “Let me not be a sharer!”
77. Jesus says: “The harvest is great but the labourers are few.
Pray the Lord to send labourers for the harvest.”
78. He said: “Lord, many are round the opening but nobody
in the well!”
79* Jesus says: Many stand outside at the door, but it is only
the solitaries who will enter into the bridal chamber.”
80. Jesus says: The Kingdom of the Father is hke a man, a
merchant, who has a burden and found a pearl. This merchant
is a wise man: he sold the bundle and bought the pearl alone.
You also seek his treasure which does not perish, which lasts,
into which the moth does not enter to consume and {where) the
worm does not destroy.”
81. Jesus says: “I am the light which is on them all. I am the
All, and the All has gone out from me and the All has come back
to me. Cleave the wood: I am there; lift the stone and thou shalt
find me there!”1
82. Jesus says: “Why did you go out into the country-side?
{Was it) to see a reed shaken [by] the wind, and to see a m[an
with soft] garments clothing him? [But they are in the dwelling-
places of] kings and your great ones, (p. 47) those whom [soft
garments] clothe, and they do not know the truth!”
83. In the crowd a woman says to him: “Blessed is the womb
which bore thee and the breast which fed thee!” He said to her:
Blessed are diose who have heard the word of the Father and
keep it! In truth, days are coming when you will say: Happy is
the womb that has not brought forth and those breasts which
have not given suck! ’ ’
84. Jesus says: “He who has known the world has fallen into
the body, and he who has fallen into the body, the world is not
worthy of him.”
85. Jesus says: “Let him who has become rich reign, and let
him who has strength refrain {from using it)!”
86. Jesus says: “He who is near me is near the fire, and he who
is far from me is far from the Kingdom.”
87. Jesus says: “Images are visible to man, but the light which
is in them is hidden. In the image of the light of the Father, it
{this light) will be revealed, and his image will be veiled by his
light.”
88. Jesus says: “Now, when you see your appearance, you
rejoice. But when you see your images which came into being
before you, which do not die and do not show themselves, how
will you be able to bear such greatness?”
89. Adam was produced by a great power and a great wealth;
but he did not receive (?) [. . .] worthy (?) of you, for he was
1 Cf. above, § 35, in the Greek version of Oxyr. Papyrus 1.
368 Appendix II
not worthy [to (?)] be preserved from [being subject (?)] to

death.”
90. Jesus says: “ [The foxes] (p. 48) [have holes] and the birds
have [their] nests but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head
and rest.”
91. He said, he, Jesus: “The body which depends on a body is
unfortunate, and the soul which depends on these two is
unfortunate! ’ ’
92. Jesus says: “The angels and prophets are coming to you;
they will give you the things that belong to you. You, give them
what you possess, and say: ‘When will they come and take what
is theirs?’ ”
93. Jesus says: “Why do you wash the outside of the cup, and
do not think that he who made the inside made the outside also ?”
94. Jesus says: “Come to me, for my yoke is excellent and my
authority is sweet, and you will fmd rest for yourselves!”
95. They said to him: “Tell us who thou art that we may
believe in thee.” He said to them: “You examine the appearance
of heaven and earth, but He who is in front of you you do not
recognise, and this moment you know not how to examine!”
96. Jesus says: “Seek and you will find! But the things you
have asked me about during these days and which I have not told
you up till now, I now want to tell you, so that you will not have
to seek them any longer.”
97. “Give not that which is holy to dogs, in case they throw it
onto the dunghill; and cast not pearls to swine, for fear that they
should make it [. . .]
98. Jesus [says:] “He who seeks will fmd, [and to whomever
wishes to enter (?)] it will be opened.”
99. [Jesus says: “If (?)] you have money (p. 49), do not lend
it at interest, but [. . .] who (?) will not take them from him.”
N-Joo. Jesus says: ‘The Kingdom of the Father is like a woman
' whtrput a little yeast [into three] measures of flour and made
---seme big loaves with it. He who has ears let him hear!”
101. Jesus says: “The Kingdom of the Father is like a woman
who takes a vessel of flour and sets out on a long road. The handle
of the vessel broke: the flour spilled out on the road behind her
without her knowing it and stopping it. When she arrived at the
house she put the vessel down and found it was empty.”
102. The Kingdom of the Father is like a man who wants to
kill an important person. In his house he unsheathed the sword
and stuck it in the wall to assure himself that his hand would be
firm. Then he killed the person.”
103. The disciples said to him: ‘‘Thy brethren and thy mother
are there outside.” Ide said to them: ‘‘You and (?) those (?) who
do the will of my Fadier, they are my brethren and my mother;
it is they who will enter the Kingdom of my Father.”
104. They showed Jesus a piece of money and said to him:
‘‘The people who belong to Caesar ask us for taxes.” Fie said to
them: ‘‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, give to God what is
God’s, and what is mine give me!”
105. ‘‘He who has not, hke me, detested his father and his
mother cannot be my disciple; and he who has loved h[is father
ajnd his mother as much as he loves me cannot be my disciple.
My mother, indeed, has [. . . (p. 50) . . .] because in truth she
gave me life.”
106. Jesus says: “Cursed are they, the Pharisees, because they
are hke a dog which has lain in the cattle manger, but will neither
eat (the food there) nor allow the oxen to eat it.”
107. Jesus says: “Blessed is the man who knows [where] the
robbers are going to enter, so that he watches, he gathers his
[. . .] and girds his loins before they enter.”
108. They said [to him:] “Come, let us pray and fast today!”
Jesus says: “What then is the sin that I have committed, or in
what have I been at fault? But when the bridegroom comes out
of the bridal chamber, then they must fast and pray!”
109. Jesus says: “He who knows father and mother shall he be
called: ‘Son of a harlot! ’ ” ?
no. Jesus says: “When you make the two one, you will
become sons of Man and if you say: ‘Mountain, move!’, it will
move.”
in. Jesus says: “The Kingdom is hke a shepherd who has a
hundred sheep. One of them, the biggest, went astray. He left
the ninety-nine others and looked for this single (sheep) until he
370 Appendix II
found it. After taking this trouble, he said to the sheep: * I love
you more than the ninety-nine (others)!’ ”
112. Jesus says: “He who drinks from my mouth will become
hke me. As for me, I will become what he is, and what is hidden
will be revealed to him.”
113. Jesus says: “The Kingdom is hke a man who [has] a
[hidden] treasure in his field and does not know it. He did not
[find it before] he died, and he left his [property to his] son who
did not know it (either). He took (p. 51) the field, sold it, and the
man who bought it went to till it: [he found] the treasure, and he
began to lend at interest to those [whom he] wanted (?).
114. Jesus says: “He who has found the world and become
rich, let him renounce the world!”
115. Jesus says: “The heavens and the earth will open (?) before
you, and he who lives by Him who is living will not see death”,
because (?) Jesus says this: “He who keeps to himself alone, the
world is not worthy of him.”
116. Jesus says: “Cursed is the flesh that depends on the soul,
and cursed is the soul that depends on the flesh!”
117. His disciples said to him: “On what day will the Kingdom
come?” “It will not come when it is expected. No one will say:
‘See, it is here!’ or: ‘Look, it is there!’ but the Kingdom of the
Fathenis spread over the earth and men do not see it.”
I i 18. Simon Peter says to them: “Let Mary go out from our
nfrdst, for women are not worthy of life!” Jesus says: “See, I will
draw her so as to make her male so that she also may become a
living spirit hke you males. For every woman who has become
male will enter the Kingdom of heaven.”
NOTES
The numbers refer to the paragraphs of the translation.
6. nothing hidden will fail to be revealed” no doubt refers to

hidden virtues such as those mentioned by Jesus: they are
preferable to ostentatious practices of piety, and will one day
be made public.
The Gospel according to Thomas: Notes 371
7. For the end of this sentence, the Coptic reads literaUy:

... so that the lion becomes a man”; but it seems most
probable that the correct meaning is as given in the trans¬
lation.
No doubt the lion here represents human passions, or
more precisely, the lying spirit of evil. This is suggested by
a passage from a Coptic Manichaean Psalm (CCLVII):
“This lion which is within me, which defiles me at every
moment, I have strangled it and cast it out of my soul.
12. The first part of this paragraph is quoted and commented
on by the Philosophumena (V, 8, 31). According to this work,
the Naassenes explained it as follows: “If you have eaten
dead things and made them living things, what then will
you do when you eat living things? These living things are
rational beings, intelligences, men—pearls which the great
Being without form has cast into the work of here below!”
The second part seems to contradict the stress on unity
found elsewhere in this work (cf. 27, 28, no). The solution
would appear to he in the fact that the duality is in fact an
aspect of the unity; for the state of‘‘being two” is a syn¬
thesis of opposites—male and female, upper and lower, etc.
(cf. 27). The sense therefore would appear to be as follows:
‘‘In that state where every pair of opposites is united in
perfect unity, any increase (‘eating’) will be assimilated to
that unity—even more perfectly than physical eating trans¬
forms dead matter into the living substance of the eater.”
14. The reply of Thomas to Jesus is in Coptic literally: ‘‘Master,
to whom thou art like, my face fails utterly to grasp!”—
Because Thomas realizes already that Jesus is beyond com¬
pare, Jesus tells him that he has already drunk of the fount
of divine wisdom and does not need to be taught by him.
15. According to a concept already referred to in 6, fasting,
prayer and almsdeeds were the three degrees of active faith,
almsdeeds being the highest. Nevertheless, here as in 6, these
pious practices seem to be rejected as almost useless and as
inferior to the internal dispositions of the soul. In a formula
which is so abrupt as to appear rather harsh, this paragraph
372 Appendix II
underlines the opposition between the regard for these

traditional practices and the gospel precept: “Eat what is
put before you. . .. That which enters your mouth does not
defile you. ...”
17. “.. . lifted up, being solitaries”: that is, elevated to the state
of being solitaries.
The teaching: “I have not come to bring peace . . . but
die sword” was explained in a similar way by the Sethian
Gnostics (according to the Philosophumena V, 21); they
taught that all bodies, inert or living, of this lower world had
to have their basic elements separated from each other if they
were to rise to the higher world. Elsewhere in the Gospel
according to Thomas we find other developments of this
doctrine according to which the way of perfection demands
solitude, separation, the breaking of the bonds of this lower
world: “He who does not hate father and mother cannot
be my disciple; and if he does not leave brother and sister
he will not become worthy of me. ...” (cf. §§ 60 and 105 ;
also, 28, 65 and Introduction, p. 346).
19. Cf. the Gospel of Truth (Codex XIII, pp. 37-8): “Indeed the
Father knows the beginning of all as well as their end. . . .
Now the end consists in contemplating that which is hidden.
And that which is hidden is the Father, from whom came the
Beginning....” Cf. also, in the New Testament, Apoc. I, 8,
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the
end...”
20. Cf. the Gospel of Philip (Coptic text of Codex X of Cheno-
boskion) where this formula also appears; and St Irenaeus,
who quotes it under the form: “Happy is He who was
before becoming man.” And in the New Testament, John
VIII, 58: “Before Abraham was, I am.”
22. The five trees, according to the doctrine of oriental Gnostic¬
ism and especially Manichaeism, are primordial superior
entities; they are usually enumerated as follows: Spirit,
Thought, Reflection, Intellect and Reason.
24. ... give up the field to these”; literally, “strip themselves
before them”. For the comparison with “little children”,
cf. below, 27, and Matt. XVIII, 3 : “ Unless you be converted

and become as little children ...” But our text takes this
as an exhortation not only to return to the innocence of
children, but also to invert all those values—cosmic, human
and moral—which have been established since the fall of the
first man.
25. ‘‘be on the watch against the world”: literally, ‘‘Be vigilant
face to the world.” ‘‘for they will find any place...”:
literally, ‘‘for the defect that you would have wished to
guard against, they will find it in spite of that!”
27. “. . . eyes in the place of an eye, etc.”: It is possible that
the last words of this paragraph contain a rather vague
reference to an idea that Plotinus develops in his Enneads III,
2, 3. They should then be understood: ‘‘When you make
eyes become strictly eyes; the hand play the part of a hand;
the foot confine itself to the function of a foot; and images
(that is to say the divine models of the things and beings of
this world) have their true value as images—then you will
enter the Kingdom.”
29. ‘‘for we must know about it”: literally, ‘‘for necessity
obliges us to question thee on its subject”.
The connection between the question and Jesus’ answer
is not certain. Probably it should be understood: ‘‘This is a
subject which you could not fail to know, if you really have
the Light within you!”
Or better, “the place where thou art” may be intended to
refer to God Himself; in Hebrew God is often referred to
by the paraphrase Maqom, which means “the Place”. In this
case, the disciples will be asking him how close he is to
the Godhead, and Jesus replies, alluding to himself, that the
light which he sends into the world is the proof that the
divine Light is present in him.
Part of the ambiguity of the latter half of the paragraph
arises from the fact that in Coptic the words “light” and
“luminous one” are of the same gender, so that the following
pronoun could be either it (the light), or he (the luminous
one).
374 Appendix II
34. The words: “But for myself. . .” seem to be an observation

of the compiler, following on Jesus’ words. The meaning is:
“I am amazed that this great wealth which is the Spirit has
come down to dwell in this poverty which is the body! ”
35. For the sense of the formula: “Where there are three
gods ...” (proper to the Coptic version), cf. perhaps John
X, 34: “Is it not written that, ‘I have said, You are gods?’
If he calls those gods to whom the word of God came
Or perhaps cf. 1 John V, 7-8.
The sentence as a whole seems to take as its starting point
the same idea as Matt. XVIII, 20: “Where there are two or
three gathered together, there am I in their midst.” But the
development is rather different: “Where there is one alone,
Jesus is with him. If two who are together become one, then
Jesus is with them, and it is an even greater marvel. But if
three are gathered together in like manner, then they are the
perfect Church, and they attain divinity!”
38. “What you hear with the ear and with the other ear” is
equivalent to: “What you hear with both ears.”
45. “outside the Father”: the elect are in the Kingdom and
live “in the Father”; while the wicked are “outside the
Father”.
51. “for fear that the eyes...”: the Coptic is very obscure, thus
making it prudent to leave this word-for-word translation.
One may conjecture the following sense: “It is only to
avoid scandalizing and hurting some humble soul that I
said: He who is smallest among you shall be higher than
John!”
55. On the light from above, that is to say, the supreme divinity,
see 81,87,88 and Introduction, p.345. “Movement and rest”
is an allusion to notions which classical Greek philosophy
discussed frequently, interpreting them in various ways.
Cf., for example, Plato’s Parmenides, I38b-i39b.
61. Cf. 84. A being which comes from on high, from the world
of images, and experiences the world, has by this very fact
undergone a fall; it has entered a material body which is at
once its prison, its corpse, its tomb (ideas familiar to Platonic
philosophy): it has “fallen into a corpse”. But he who did

not refuse this fall, but accepted it and accepted submission
to death (that is to say, Jesus), will escape from the corpse!
64. This is one of those passages which seem to represent extracts
from works which are no longer known to us, conserved in
a form too concise to be directly intelligible. Doubtless it
must be understood: “He will not eat the living lamb—he
must kill it first and make it a corpse.” The disciples reply:
But if he kills it, the man cannot do the lamb any other
harm!”
This dialogue recalls a notion found in the apocryphal
II Epistle of Clement: “The Lord said indeed: You shall be
as lambs in the midst of wolves! Peter replied: And if the
wolves rend the lambs ? And Jesus said to Peter: After their
death, the lambs have nothing further to fear from the
wolves. You also, fear not those who kill you and cannot
then make you suffer anything further. But fear him who
after your death has power to cast your soul and your body
into the gehenna of fire! Know then ... that the promise of
Christ is great... as also the Repose of the Kingdom . . .!”
65. The main part of this paragraph is taken from some apocry¬
phal gospel (perhaps the Gospel of the Egyptians?). It centres
on Salome’s question to Jesus: “Who art thou? Where have
you come from, to sit on my couch and eat at my table?”
(the couch of course being the place where they reclined at
table). Then, this reference to the couch probably led to the
artificial addition at the beginning of the sentence, of the
passage: “Two will he down on one bed ...” The next
step was an addition by the editor (another example of such
a commentary introduced by the editor is found in 115):
from the association of these two texts, he tried to bring out
the idea that duality is the source of death and darkness,
while unity—isolation, sohtariness—leads to light and hfe.
Thus the phrase: “Because of that...” no doubt introduces
the editor’s comment: “Because of those two sayings
(‘Two will he down . . .’ and ‘Salome says...’), I give
you the following teaching. ...”
376 Appendix II
66. The missing portion cannot be restored; but judging from

the remaining parallel, one might judge the sense to have
been: “When I tell my mysteries to one person, I do not
tell these same mysteries to another.”
69. “Perhaps he did not recognize them ? ” is the word-for-word
rendering of the Coptic; but the sense is clearly: “Perhaps
they did not recognize him.”
70. “... tell me about the stone .. . ”: could also be understood:
“which is the stone ...”
71. “.. . but has failed to know himself, etc.”: literally: “. . .
who has need only of himself, has need of all the Place!”
For “the Place”, see note on § 29: here again, and perhaps
also in the following, the Place is a paraphrase for God,
like the Hebrew Maqom.
72. The Place to which you are pursued is no doubt the same
place as that mentioned in the preceding paragraph, that is
to say, the Kingdom (the presence of God), which the
wicked will not enter.
78. That is, many people stand round the mouth of the well,
but no one draws water from it.
80. “has a burden”: this seems to mean “his luggage”—i.e., he
is on a journey, when he finds a pearl of great price.
“his treasure”: either the Father’s, or a treasure like that of
the merchant.
81. Cf. the Gnostic Gospel of Truth (Codex XIII of Cheno-
boskion, p. 17): “The All has been in search of Him from
whom he came forth; and the All was within him, unseiz-
able, unthinkable!” One might also mention the Acts of
Peter, Chapter XXXIX: “Thou art the All, and the All is
in thee, and thou art! And there is nothing else that exists,
except thou alone!” The same allusion is found in Col. Ill,
11: “Christ is all and in all.”
84. Cf. 61 above.
85. This saying can be elucidated by §114. It will mean: “He
who has acquired the interior riches of the Kingdom, let
him comport himself royally (i.e. generously); and he who
has a power, let him renounce the use of it!”
86. The Kingdom is the divine presence, which is often com¬
pared with fire in the Bible (cf. Ezech. I, 27-8, etc.).
87. The doctrine of images is of Platonic origin; they are the
models or primordial unattainable ideas, which exist in the
mind of God. Here, however, it is the images which are
visible, while the hght which is within them is invisible. It
becomes visible, however, through the Father’s hght, while
his image remains veiled by his light.—This paragraph seems
to be connected with the following.
88. “how will you be able to bear such greatness?”: literally,
“what greatness will you support?”
89. The sense of the missing passage seems to be: “Great as
Adam was, he was not as great as you, for ...”
91. No doubt this is to be explained by Luke IX, 57-60 and
Matt. VIII, 21-2: “Let the dead bury their dead.” In this
case, “the body which depends on a body” is a hving person
who, through care for earthly obligations, wishes to bury his
dead person. “The soul which depends on these two” is the
soul of such a person, a hving body depending on a dead body.
92. Perhaps this means: “Have more care to give to heaven than
to receive from it, for you receive from the angels and pro¬
phets the spiritual food you need.” Cf. Matt. X, 8: “Freely
have you received—freely give.”
101. The Kingdom arrives—or is lost—without being noticed;
hke a woman who loses her flour without realizing it.
102. Cf. Luke XIV, 31: the parable of the king who takes into
account the strength of his troops before making war.
115. “because . . .”: introduces an explanation or conclusion of
one of the editors of the Gospel of Thomas; cf. 65. He draws
a comparison between the person who hves by “Him who is
hving” (the Risen Jesus) and the person who has achieved
solitude and unity.
378 Appendix II
INDEX OF REFERENCES TO THE

CANONICAL GOSPELS
An index of references to the canonical Gospels is obviously a

necessity in a work like the present. But further, although it does
not claim to be absolutely precise, it will cast some light on the
structure of these “Words of Jesus”. Some parts of the collection
will be seen to be almost completely original, others to be more or
less homogeneous groups of matter allied to that which is found
also in the canonical Gospels.
It will be seen at a glance that the main parallels are with
Matthew and Luke. Even more specifically, most of the references
we have picked out concern Matthew, Chapters V-VII (the
Sermon on the Mount): Ch. XIII (the Parables of the Kingdom);
Chs. XVIII-XIX (teachings concerning the hfe of the commun¬
ity) ; Ch. XXIV (eschatalogical discourse); Luke, Chs. VIII-XIII
(Parables and missionary discourse to the disciples); and finally
Mark IV (Parables) and IX (community hfe).
Different type distinguishes the different kinds of parallel or
analogy:
XXIV, 43-44 : where there is almost perfect identity between

our text and that of the Gospel;
V, 10-11: where there is certainly a parallel but not com¬
plete identity;
VII, 7-8: where there is only a certain analogy;
[XI, 9-10] the same kinds of type enclosed in square brackets
[IX, 27] indicates that the above relationship—complete
[VII, 7-8] parallel, partial parallel, analogy—is found but
only in part of the paragraph of our text;
* an asterisk indicates purely oratorical formulas
(such as: “He who hears these words will not
taste death!” or: “He who has ears to hear let
him hear!”) which recur throughout the text
like a refrain.
The Gospel according to Thomas: Index 379
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383
INDEX
INDEX
A complete list of the Chenoboskion MSS. is given on pp. 142-5. In the index each work
will be found under its own title, which is printed in italic capitals.
N.B. Some works from Chenoboskion, e.g. ACTS OF PETER, have a title identical
with that of a quite different work, known to us previously, e.g. Acts of Peter.
Abadon, 293m Accademia Nazionale die Lincei (cont.):

in Gikatila, 293 Fondazione Al. Volta, Atti dei Convegni,
Abel: 177x1., 32m.
in a Gnostic fragment, 89 Quaderno, 94m
inferior brother of Seth, in Gnostic Achelis, ed., Hippolytus, De resurrectione,
belief, 158 30m.
in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 160 Acts of Andrew, 343
in Kantaean teaching, 59 Acts of Andrew and Matthias, 175x1.
in Ophite teaching, 39, 39m Acts of Archelaus, an anti-Manichaean
in SECRET BOOK, etc. (Cod. X), the treatise, 7
man, 207 on Basilides’ Commentary, 20, 2on., 21
a power, 202 on Basilides’ Three Principles, 21, 259,
in Valendnianism, 32 263m
Aberamentho,= Jesus, 74 on origin of Manichaeism, 7, 314
a statue of, 105 Acts offohn, 22x1., 28m, 95, 95m, 343
Abgar, fictitious correspondence of, with ACTS OF PETER:
Jesus, 340 a new work, 146
Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der described, 235
Wissenschaften, 272x1. discussed, 235-6
Abraham: in author’s classification, 143
a teacher of Zoroaster in Jewish belief, Acts of Peter, not Gnostic, 87
280-1, 28m. on Simon’s death, 16-17
and in Chenoboskion MSS., 287 relationship of, to GOSPEL OF
effigy of reverenced by Alexander THOMAS, 343. 34<5, 349. 376
Severus, 11 Acts of Philip, 343, 346, 349
in Isma’ilite belief, 321 Acts of Pilate (Gospel ofNicodemus), 95, 95m
in Jewish belief, an astrologer, 288 Acts of the Apostles:
in Ophite teaching, 39-40 on Simon Magus, 1, 15-16, 222m
in teaching of John of Apamea, 57-8 on the Egyptian false messiah, 301
Abrasax in Jeou the painter, 105 Silas in, = Sylvanus (?), 219, 219m
in SACRED BOOK OF THE IN¬ Acts of Thomas, 95, 95m
VISIBLE SPIRIT, 178 “Hymn of the Pearl”, 49m, 95, 255
Abraxas, creator-archon in Basilides’ Acts (Acta) of Thomas, 7311., 95, 227x1., 340,
teaching, 23 343. 347
depicted on gems, 93 Adam:
in APOCALYPSE OF ADAM, etc., 182 alchemical interpretation of, ioin.
in SACRED BOOK OF INVISIBLE and Eve, in Chenoboskion MSS. and
SPIRIT, 286n. Pirqj Rabbi Eli'ezer, 286
Abu’l Faraj, see Gregory bar-Hebraeus depicted in tomb of the Aurelii, 92
Academie des Inscriptions et Beaux Arts: apocryphal books attributed to, 41, 97m,
first Chenoboskion find reported to, xii
115
first two finds reported to, 119 apocryphal literature about, 47m
Miss Dattari’s MSS. reported to, 122 article in Encyclopddie de Vlslam, 317m
report on the GOSPEL OF THOMAS as depicted on an ivory, 207m
to, 126, I26n. as father of Norea, 163
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei: Cave of, i6in.
Atti. Memorie della Classe di Scienze father of Seth, revelations of are pre-
morali, 73x1., 74x1., 155m, 293m Gnostic, 184, 18411.
388 Index
Adam (cont.): AdamanoGs, in Balinus, 318, 319, 320
father of Seth, replaced by Seth in Books Adamas, see Sabaoth the Adamas
of Adam, 185 the Tyrant, in Pistis-Sophia, 67
freed from Fate, a more ancient concept Adamas-light, in SACRED BOOK OF
than Gnosticism (?), 295 THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT, 178
his fatherhood of Seth superior to that of Adelphius, a sectary in Porphyry, 10,
Cain, etc., 158 156
prayers attributed to, 107, 291 “Adepts of the Mother”, 12, 14m
in apocryphal books, gives account of Admetus in Perataean teaching, 51
creation of man, 96 Admiration, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS,
in Audios’ teaching, 56, 57 346, 349. 355
in Battai’s teaching, 60 Adonai in Audius’ teaching, 56
in Book of Mysteries, prophesied advent Adonaios in Ophite teaching, 38
of Christ, 183 Adonalu (Sabaoth) in SECRET BOOK,
in Book of the Cave, etc., 184 etc.. Cod. X, 202
in Chenoboskion MSS., as the first man, in Cod. Berol., 203
261 Aeolus in Peratic teaching, 51
in Clement, Stromateis, 205-6 Aeon:
in a Falasha book, creation of, 97 in Gnosticism, meaning of, 14m
in a Gnostic fragment, 89 in a Gnostic prayer, 108
inGOSPELOF THOMAS, 363,367,377 in Ophite teaching, 40
in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 160 in St Paul, 306
in Isma’ilite belief, 321 Mithraic, 260
in Judaism, in Rabbinical literature, 109 statues of, 257, 281
in Judaeo-Gnostic rituals, 105 Thirteenth in Pistis-Sophia, 66, 69, 71
in Justin’s teaching, 34, 34m, 35 Aeons:
in Manichaeism, 217, 2l8n. in Audius’ teaching, 56, 56m
myth of creation of, derived by in Basilides’ teaching, 21
Manichaeans from Gnostics, 313 in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 82, 83, 84, 85
in Marcionism, 25 in Kukean teaching, 58
in Mimaut papyrus, 108 in Pistis-Sophia, the Twelve, 66, 67, 69,
in Naassene teaching, 49
71
in Ophite teaching, 38-9 in St Paul, 308
in REVELATION OF ADAM, etc., in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 202
182, 183 in Simon’s teaching, 17
in REVELATION ON PISTIS in Valentinianism, 27, 29, 32m
SOPHIA, 169, 175 seven, 271
in St Paul, 307 Aeschylus, Danaids, on Eros, 176, 176m
in Satornil’s teaching, 19 Aetius, Bishop, 46
in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 202, Against the Hystera, a Cainite book, 36
204, 205,206, 207, 209, 215, 217,224 A genuine discourse by Sophe, etc., an
Iranian parallels for, 213-14 alchemical work, 106
Hellenic vocabulary to describe pre¬ Agapios of Membidj, his evidence for
dicament of, 215 Allogeneous books, 158
compared with Poimattdres, 276 Agathodaimon, = Seth in Sabianism, 315
in SOPHIA, etc., 199 in Islam in general, 320
in Syriac Chronicle, 185 Agramas, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 83, 286n.
in the Mithraic Liturgy, 108 Agrippa Castor, Elenchos, against Basilides,
in Theodore’s answer, 136 7, 20, 2on.
in the pseudo-Zosimos, 100-1, 175 Aher, had been to Paradise, 289
Hebrew myths of, in, 99 Ahl-i-Hagg and Gnosticism, 316, 3i6n.
in TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF “Ahl-I Hakk”, article in encyclopaedia,
fOHN, 220 3i6n.
Adam of the Light in Eugnostos, 194 Ahmad Bey Kamal, transl., Livre des perles
Adam Qadmon, 286, 286n. enfouies . . ., 132m
Adam-Light in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 82 Ahriman, 154
in REVELATION ON PISTIS in Bundahishn, I52n, 153
SOPHIA, 168 influence of on IaldabaGth, 281, 28m.
in SOPHIA, etc., 199 Ahura-Mazda, 79m
Index
389
Aileu, in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, 148
Altmann, A., “The Gnostic background
Aion(es), see Aeon(s)
of the Rabbinic Adam legend”, 28611.
Air, intermediate principle in Sumerian
Amann, article on Naassenes, 48m
belief, 268
“Ophites”, 37n.
= Fatality, in certain prayers, 109
Ambrose, Comment, in Luc. Prooem., 262m
Void= , in Hellenistic writings, 153-4
Amehneau, Notice sur le papyrus gnostique
Akephalos, = Osiris-Onnophris in Jeou Bruce, Texte et traduction, 77, 77m
the painter, 105
Amelius wrote against Zostrian, in
= Seth, in magic, 104, 104m
Porphyry, 10, 102, 156
Akhamoth, see Intention
against Zostrian and Zoroaster (?) in
Akhmim, philosophers from, 135-6 Porphyry, 157m
Alchemy:
Amente:
Alchemical literature,
an Egyptian word, 274, 274m
and Gnosticism, 103
in SACRED BOOK OF THE
and Hermetism, 99, 99m
GREAT SPIRIT, 178
influence of Judaism and of Egyptian in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X,
beliefs on, 107 216
Olympiodorus’ influence in mediaeval, in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, etc., 181
loin.
Ammon in HERMETIC TREATISE
Alcibiades of Apamea, sect of, 13 (26), 246
Alexander, effigy of, 11
Amoias, in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM,
of Libya, in Porphyry, 10, 156 148
of Lycopolis, referred to GOSPEL OF
Amon-Re, in Medinet Habu inscription,
THOMAS (?), 232 272m
Polyhistor, Aigyptiaka, 129, 129m Anahita, goddess, 8on.
Severus, 11
Analecta Gregoriana, 27m
Alexandria, a Gnostic centre, 12 Anatoha, Orphic bowl from (?), 90
Basilides at, 20
Andreas-Henning, Mitteliranische Mani-
destruction of Serapeum, 138 chaica, 49m
John of Apamea at, 57
Androgyny associated with perfection, in
Valentinus at, 26
GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 349
Alfaric, P., Les futures manichdennes, Anesas, High Priest, 100
2on., 26n., 155m, 227m, 232m, 27m. Angels, creation of, in REVELATION
Zoroastre avant VAvesta, 155m ON PISTIS SOPHIA, 169
Ah Ayub, Minister of Public Instruction, Anicetus, Pope, 36
123
Annuaire de I’Ecole pratique des Hautes
All, The, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 229, Etudes. Section des sciences religieuses,
366, 367, 376 286n.
in Marcus’ teaching, 33 Anosh-Uthra, Mandaean prophet, non.,
in St Paul and elsewhere, 376 255. 256, 315
Allogene, in Porphyry, 10, 156 in Ginza, 20711.
= Seth, 157-8 Anthropos, an, as Creator in Shiur Koma,
Allogeneous books (Books of the Strangers): 291
cited by heresiologists, 158 in Bruce Codex, 81
identifiable with some Chenoboskion shows Jewish influence (?), 291
MSS., 158-9 in Poimandres, 214, 277
SACRED BOOK OF THE... GREAT Ophite, 65
SPIRIT is one of the, 180 Antioch, Audians around, 56
Allogenes: Axionicus at, 3 in.
apocalypse of, mentioned in Porphyry, Gnosticism in, 12, 13
10 Menander at, 19
in Plotinus, 101 Satornil at, 19
in Theodore Bar-Konai, 56, 57 Antinopolis, St Pachomius imprisoned in,
source of his knowledge, 213
used by Archontici, 46 I3°„
Anz, “Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung des
by Sethians, 45, 46 Gnostizismus”, 3, 3m
Almond, as symbol, 92 Apatores in Pistis-Sophia, 6s
Almsdeeds in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, Apelles, 25
37i attacked by Rhodon, 7
390 Index
Aphredon in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 82, 84 APOCALYPSE OF ZOSTRIAN, see
Apocalypse . . ., see also Revelation . . . DISCOURSE, etc.
Apocalypse of Abraham, 45, 45n., 56 Apocalypse of Zostrian, in Plotinus, 101
still undiscovered, 252 mentioned in Porphyry, 157m
APOCALYPSE (REVELATION) OF mentions stelae of Seth, 187
ADAM TO HIS SON SETH: Apocalypse which is in the name of John,
described, 182-3 = SECRET BOOK, etc., 205m
discussed, 183-7 Apocalypses, usually pseudonymous, 289,
in author’s classification, 142 290
Sethian REVELATION, Cod. VI, APOCR YPHONOFJOHN, see SECRET
similar to, 187 BOOK OF JOHN
Apocalypse of Adam: Apollonius of Tyana, = Balinus (?), 318
mentioned by Epiphanius, = APOCA¬ effigy of, 11
LYPSE OF ADAM TO SETH (?), survival of Adam legend in Balinus MS.,
183 185m
works of this name are of Judaeo- Aptowitzer, Cain and Abel in d. Haggada,
Iranian origin, 287 286n.
Apocalypse of Allogene: Apuleius, not author of Asclepius, 246,
cited by heresiologists, 158 247n.
mentioned in Porphyry, 53, 157, 158 Aqiba, Rabbi, had been to Paradise, 289
= SUPREME ALLOGENE (?), 158 Aquilinus, a sectary in Porphyry, 10,
APOCALYPSE OF DOSITHEUS, see 156
REVELATION, etc., Arab Antiquities, Department of, 124
Apocalypse of Gorgorios, 98m Arabia, Audians in, 55
Apocalypse of Hystaspes, 184m Arabic Museum, 124
Apocalypse of Isaiah, contains Danaides Arara Arare, in Testament of Solomon,
myth, 288, 288n. 203m
APOCALYPSE OFfAMES: Arbathiao, in Jeou the painter, 105
in Cod. Ill, (10): Archaeology, I22n.
described, 237 Archangelike, = Book of Archangels, etc., 171,
discussed, 236-7 172, 172m, 174
in author’s classification, 142 cited in REVELATION ON PISTIS
in Cod. Ill, (n): SOPHIA, 166
described, 237 Archigenitor, in Sophia, etc., 200
discussed, 236-7 Archiv fiir Religionswissenschaj't, 285m
in author’s classification, 142 Archiv orientalni, 274m
in Cod. XIII, 239 Archon, the, among Epiphanius’ Gnostics,
discussed, 236-7 8
in author’s classification, 145 in Audius’ teaching, 57
Apocalypse of Nicotheus: in REVELATION OF ADAM, etc., 182
mentioned in Porphyry, 157m (of Darkness), in TREATISE ON
perhaps = SECRET BOOK OF JOHN, BAPTISM OF JOHN, 219
252 of the Occident and Orient, in
refuted by Porphyry’s followers, 86 SETHITE REVELATION, Cod.
still undiscovered, 252 VI, 187
APOCALYPSE OF PAUL: Samael, in DIALOGUE OF THE
described, 237-8 SAVIOUR, 220
discussed, 238 Archons:
in author’s classification, 142 and Adam, myth of, derived by
a new work, 146 Manichaeans from Gnostics, 313
Apocalypse of St Paul, 36n, 96, 96m flayed, in Manichaeism, 149m, 2o8n.
APOCALYPSE OF PETER, a new work, Norea’s revolt against, in Epiphanius,
236 163
in author’s classification, 144 her seduction of, in Epiphanius, 43,
Apocalypse of Zoroaster, in Plotinus and his
163-4
followers, 101 similar to Egyptian decans, 274
mentioned in Porphyry, 157m on Sumerian medallion, 268
Apocalypse of Zoroaster and Zostrian, in seduction of, in Manichaeism, 15m, 74m
Porphyry, 125, 157m and Gnosticism, i6in.
Index 39i
Archons (cont.): Amobius:
in AUTHENTIC DISCOURSE, etc., Adversus gentes, loan.
242 on mysteries of Sabazius, 44
in Babylonian astrology, 267 on Zoroaster grandson of Zostrian,
in Balinus, 319 156m
in Basilides’ teaching, 22 on Zostrian, 156
of Fatality, in Books of the Saviour, 72 Arzdruni, Thomas, on Shem, 155m
in Codex Askewianus, pt.2, 74 Ascension of Isaiah:
in Gnostic belief, 111 a book of the Archontici, 46
= planets in Gnosticism, 270 contains similarities to REVELATION
in GOSPEL OF PHILIP, 225 ON PISTIS SOPHIA, 176, 17711.
in the Great Treatise, 78, 80 influential in Gnosticism, 286
in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 160 MS. at Louvain, 141
in Nicolaitan teaching, 14-15 Satan in, 162m
in Ophite belief (Epiphanius), 212 source of a vision in Ardai Virdf nameh,
(Irenaeus), 38, 40 287m
in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, 149 Ascension of Paul, is different from the
in Pistis-Sophia, 69 APOCALYPSE, etc., 237, 238
in pseudo-Zosimos, loin, used by Cainites (Epiphanius), 36, 238
in REVELATION ON PISTIS Asceticism, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS,
SOPHIA, 169 34<5
in St Paul, 306 Asclepios, cult of, as source of Ophite
in Satornil’s teachings, 19 reverence for serpent (?), 44
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 206, Asclepius, a prophet, in Sabianism, 316
207, 208, 215, 216 Asclepius:
in SOPHIA, etc., 200 contains material similar to Cheno¬
in Valentinus’ teaching, 31 boskion MSS., 143, 275
Archontici, 45-6, 45m discussed, 246-7, 246n.-247n.
connected with Chenoboskion MSS. (?), dualism in, 276m
251 in HERMETIC TREATISE (26), 245,
HYPOSTASIS, etc., one of their books, 246, 247
164 ousiarchs in, 244m
in Porphyry, 55m prayer from, in HERMETIC TREAT¬
of unspeakable practices (?), 79 n. ISE (25), 243, 245, 248m
teaching of, on Seth (Epiphanius), 150 Three Principles in, 263, 28m.
close to Peratae, 50 Void in, I52n.
their literature alluded to by heresiolo- withdrawal of God in, 294m
gists, 158 Asellus, mystic name, 92
used Marsianes’, etc., Revelation, 86 Asia Minor, Marcus’ Valentinianism in, 13
use term “Symphonia” (Epiphanius), Askew, Dr, 64
197 Ass-headed Seth, 105
Ardavan King, in Mandaean myth, 256 Typhon, 104
Ariael, = Ialdabaoth, i62n., ill. 162 Assiut, 89
in Chenoboskion MSS., 260 Astaphai'os, in SECRET BOOK, etc., as
in REVELATION ON PISTIS supplemented by Cod. Berol., 203
SOPHIA, 166, 175 in Ophite teaching, 38
Ariel, ruler of the winds, in Perataean Astrampsychos, article in Realenzyklo-
teaching, 51 padie, 286n.
Arimanios, in SECRET BOOK OF in Peratean belief (Philosophoumena) and
JOHN, 201 elsewhere, 286n.
Aristophanes, Birds, 17611. Astrology, 4
Aristotle, icon of, 23 and Hermetism, 99, 99m
influence of, on Christianity, 350 Chaldaean, 12, 50
pseudo-Lapidary, i8on. on reign of planets, 260-1
Arles, statue of Chronos at, 94 old system of, influenced Gnosticism,
Armaziel, in Priscillianist treatise, 198m 271-2
Armenia, Borborites in, 311 Chaldaean system of, in HERMETIC
spread of Gnosticism into, 13 TREATISE (25), 244
Armenius, I02n. a treatise on, in Dead Sea Scrolls, 297
392 Index
Astrology (cont.): Avesta, influenced Gnosticism, 2
Egyptian and in Egypt, 107, 273 on Mount of the Lord, i6in.
Gnostic, on rule of successive planets, source of the Gnostic revelations of
l64n. Adam, 184
influence on Gnosticism, 266-7, 271-2 verbal similarity of Gnostic book to, 79m
in Codex Askewianus, 75 void as Third Principle in, 154, 154m
in Great Treatise related to system in Avigad, N., and Yadin, Y., A Genesis
Codex Askewianus, 79 apocryhpon, 296m
in Judaism, 288, 288m Awakened Sea in Kukean teaching, <8
influence of Judaism and of Egyptian Awakening, in GOSPEL OF TRUTH,
beliefs on, 107 240
in Peratean teaching, 50 Axionicos, 31, 31a.
in Pistis-Sophia, 68
status of in ancient world, 10-11
Ialdabaoth in, 93 Babylon, and Mani, 255
Athalia, = Teli, 293m Babylonia, Israelites in after the Exile, 287
Athanasius, St, Festal letter XXXIX, 135 origin of Gnosticism, Islam, etc., in, no
Athena identified with Simon’s Helen, 16 Babylonian influence on Iranian beliefs,
Athoth, in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 279
202 origin of a theory of planetary influence,
in Cod. Berol., 203 267
Audians, 45, 55-7, 55m Bacchus, worshipped at Rome, 90
belief about Eve, 214m Ba-en-Kekou, in Book of the Dead, 27421.
literature alluded to by heresiologists, Bahir, Gnostic influence in, 292, 292m
158 Bahit, stone, i8on.
re-established in eighth century, 311 Bainkhookh, in Pistis-Sophia, lyi,
Theodore Bar-Konal’s description of, “Baktashiya”, encyclopaedia article, 317m
205m Balaam, 28on.
Audius, 55, 56-7 = Zoroaster, in Gnosticism, 280
Apocalypse of Abraham, 56 in Chenoboskion MSS., 287
Apocalypse of John, 56 Zoroaster = , in myth of Saoshyant, 184
Apocalypse of the Strangers, 57 Bah'nus. Secret of Creation, etc., 318-20
Book of Strangers, 56 on Adam’s prophecies, 185m
Book of Requests, 56-7 on creation of man, 2i2n.
only book in fact by, 57 Baptism:
taught Silvanus, 219 from the Source, in SACRED BOOK
Audollent, A., Defixionum tabellae, io6n. OF THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT, 179
Augustine, St, City of God, quotes Ascle- in Gnosticism, 224, 224m
pius, 246m, 247n. in GOSPEL OF PHILIP, 224
Contra adversarium legis, ek., contains a of the First Oblation, in titleless portion
logion, 231 of Codex Askewianus, 75
Contra Faustum, 74m, 152m Barbeliotes, 41
De natura boni, 74m Barbelo:
Quaest. ex utroque test, mixtim, 4711. compared with the Drop, 147m
Homeric allegory in, 192m with the Tetrad, 33m
on apocrypha, 351 derivation of name, 8 in.
said Manes was influenced by Ophites, Egyptian parallel to, 273
312 in Barbelognostic belief, 37
Aurelii, tomb of, in Rome, 92-3, 92m, in Pistis-Sophia, 66, 113
93n.. 94 in SUPREME ALLOGENE, 157
Aus friihchristliche Zeit, i6n., 285m in the Revelations of Zostrian and
Authades in Pistis-Sophia, 69, 71, 74m Zoroaster, 157
“AUTHENTIC” DISCOURSE OF in the teachings of the Gnostic Sect
HERMES TO TAT, in author’s (Epiphanius), 43, 44
classification, 143 in titleless portion of Codex Askewianus,
discussed, 242, 247 75
Autogenes, in SECRET BOOK, etc.. = Monad in Bruce Codex, 8in.
Cod. X, 202 seduced Archons (Epiphanius), 164,
Autopat6r in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 84 164m
Index 393
Barbelo (cont.): Basilides (cont):
the celestial mother in Nicolaitan in Acts of Archelaus, 314
teaching, 14-15, 14m in the history of Gnosticism, 12, 26
Barbelognostics, I4n. facts known about, 262-3
connected with ChenoboskionMSS (?), influenced by Persian doctrines and
251 Manichaeism, 7
some beliefs similar to EUGNOSTOS, listed in Hegesippus (Eusebius), 7
195 mentioned by St Jerome, 5
(= The Gnostic Sect), in Irenaeus, 36-7, mentions prophecies of Barcabbas, etc.,
37n., 86 252
in Secret Book of John, 86 Barcabbas, 41
Barbelon, in SECRET BOOK, etc.. on the baptism and crucifixion of Jesus,
Cod. X, 201-2 ii3n.
the Mother, in SACRED BOOK OF on the soul, 72
THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT, 178 quoted by Clement, 5
Barbelos mentioned by St Jerome, 5 Three Principles, 151, 259
Barbilon, in Priscillianist treatise, 198m teachings of, 20-3
Barcabbas, 20, 41 origin of (?), 36
Barcabbas and Barcoph, prophecies of, close to Manichaeism, 312-13
still undiscovered, 252 withdrawal of God from omnipresence
Barcoph, 20 (Philosophumena), 276m,
Bardenhewer, O., Patrologie, III, 8n. compared with Luria’s teaching, 294,
Bardesanes (Bardaisan) of Edessa, 31, 3 m. 294m
Gnosis of, part of the background of writings of, 20, 22, 115
Gnosticism, 310, 3 ion. put a Christian disguise on, 254
St Ephraim’s refutation of, 24n. Battai, 59-61
taught Seven Aeons, 271 Baynes, C., A Coptic Gnostic treatise
Three Principles, 151, 15 m. contained in the Codex Brucianus, 7711.,
Bareille, “ Borboriens ”, 31m. 80, 8on., 8in., 84m, 85m, 189m,
Bargello, an ivory in, 207n. 286n.
Bar-Hebraeus on John of Apamea, 57 Behemoth, in Book of Noah, 97m
Baron, S. W., Social and religious history of Beihefte zur Zeitschrifte fur die neutestamentl.
the Jews, 286m, 287m, 288n., 289m, 290m Wissenschaft, 27a.
Barpharanges, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 85, Bektashis, 317, 317m
85m Belbel, in Testament of Solomon, 203m
Barres, Le Mystkre en pleine lumiere, 2, 2n. Belias, in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X,
Cahiers, XIV, 211. 202
Bartholomew, Apostle, not author of the Ben Azai and Ben Zoma, had been to
Book of the Resurrection of Christ, 95 Paradise, 289
importance of, in SOPHIA OF JESUS, Bendinelli, G., “II monumento sepolcrale
222 degli Aureli”, 92m
Baruch, angel and tree of Life, in Justin’s Berbali, a form of Barbelo, 1411.
teaching (Philosophumena), 34-5 Berlin Museum, publication of Gnostic
the prophet, 33m MS. by, xiv.
Zoroaster = , in myth of Saoshyant, 184 Berossus (Berose) spread Babylonian
Basilides: mythology among Greeks, 269
Agrippa Castor’s book against, 7 in Peratean belief (Philosophumena),
claimed Matthias had left him secret 286n.
discourses (Philosphumena), 226, 336, Berthelot, La Chimie au Moyen-dge, 17m.,
352 278m
disciples of believed in reincarnation, Berthelot and Ruelle, Collection des
inn- alchemistes grec, loin., 278m
dualism in, 276m Bethkhaduda, 97m
Gnostic character of shown by Cheno- Bezold, Die Schatzhole, 47m, 97m, 184m
boskion MSS., 313 Bible in demotic (?), 105-6
his disciples used Traditions of Matthias, Biblical texts basis of Gnosticism, 285-6
226 Bibliotheca Orientalis, 27311.
his sect assembled Chenoboskion Bibliothek der Kirchenvater, 196m
MSS. (?), 262 Bibliothkque des philosophes chimistes, loin.
394 Index
Bidez, J., "Les ficoles chalddennes sous Book of Pistis-Sophia:
Alexandre et les Seleucides”, 267, see also Books of the Saviour: Pistis-
267n., 26911. Sophia MS.
article on coverlet of Heaven, I49n. bibliography, 65m
La Vie de Vempireur Julien, 411. general description of, 67-71
on Critodemus, 269, 269n. Second book, general description of, 71
Bidez, J. and Cumont, F., Les Mages abolition of fatality in, in
hellenisds, ion., 20n., 33n., 97n., 102, astrological system in, 244
I02n., 15m., I52n., 153, I53n., I56n., close to Bruce Codex, 79-80
184x1., l85n., i86n., i87n., I96n., 218, comparison of, with HERMETIC
2i8n., 237n., 279n., 28on., 28m., 282n., TREATISE (26), 246m
286n., 287n., 288n. contains a similar hymn to that in
Biruni, Al, on Jewish origin of certain REVELATION OF DOSITHEUS,
Mandaeans, 285 189
Bodies, in St Paul, 307 cosmology of, 71-2
Bodleian Library, Bruce Codex in, 77 eschatology of, 274m
Bodmer papyrus, II, 141 eucharistic ritual in, 224
III, I28n. fantastic astronomy in second book of,
Body: 271
contempt for, in GOSPEL OF Harnack believed to be Little Interroga¬
THOMAS, 349 tions of Mary, 73
respect for in St Paul, 308 Jewish (Biblical) and Egyptian elements
the parts of the, creation of, 204-5, 205m in, 106
correspondence of planets to, 214x1. less valuable than Chenoboskion MSS.,
in SECRET BOOK, etc., 218
117
Bogomils: mentions Books of Jeou, 77
and wood of the Cross, 2i6n. more Manichaean than Chenoboskion
belief about Eve, 214m MSS., 258-9
belief in Three Principles, 151, 15m. on Ialdabaoth, I76n.-I77n.
inheritors of Gnosticism, 311 on importance of Philip, Thomas and
on St Michael and Satan, 96m Matthew, 221-2
Boll, F. J., “Finstemisse”, 73m on Jesus, 113m
and Bezold, C., Sternglaube und Stern- on the adventitious soul, 2i6n.
deutung, 266n. on the Perfect one, 109
Bonner, C., Studies in magical amulets, 23m, on the seals on the parts of the body
52m, 74m, 85m, 93n., i62n., 260m compared with a Dead Sea work, 297
Bonnet, Reallexikon der dgyptischen Reli- on Three Phases, 113m
gionsgeschichte, 104x1. parallels with GOSPEL OF THOMAS,
Book of Archangels by Moses the Prophet,171, 343
172, 172m, 174m parts of, resemble SECRET BOOK,
Book of Baruch, on phoenixes, 173, 173 m etc., 208
Book of buried Pearls . . ., 132 prologue of SOPHIA, etc., resembles,
Book of Foreigners (=Apocalypse of Allo- 198
gene) in Syriac, 158 quotation from, 327-8
Book of John, Mandaean, 98 related to Bundahishn, 152m
attributed to Shem, 155 similar to HYPOSTASIS, etc., 159
for Lidsbarski’s edition, see Lidsbarski the Five Trees in, 209m
Book of Moses, 107 Virgin of Light in, seduces Archons,
Book of Mysteries, on Adam and Christ, 183 164m
Book of Noah, on the desert Duidain, 97m Book of Requests, 57
BOOK OF NOREA, see HYPOSTASIS Book of Solomon in REVELATION ON
OF THE ARCHONS PISTIS SOPHIA, 167
Book of Norea, divine throne in, and REV¬ identity (?), 170-1
ELA TION OF PIS TIS SOPHIA, 177 Book of Souls, Mandaean, 98
mentioned in REVELATION ON Book of the baptism of Hibil-Ziwa, Man¬
PIS TIS SOPHIA, 166 daean, 98
references to in later works in Cod. X, 170 Book of the Cave, partly Sethian (?), 184m
evidence for identification of with revealed by Adam, 184
HYPOSTASIS, etc., 163-4 similarities to, in Syriac Chronicle, 185
Index 395
Book of the Chiefs of the Town . . . related Bousset, W., on Babylonian (?) influence
to Schema of. . . Heimarmene (?), 174, in a Gnostic theme, 218
17611. on Iranian influence in Gnosticism, 114
on Eros (Philosophumena), i76n. in Acta Archelai, 263 n.
Book of the Dead, passwords in, 274 Brahmans, in Philosophumena, 6
Ba-en-Kekou reappears in Pistis-Sophia, Braun, O., Ausgewahlte Akten persischer
27411. Martyrer, 196m
Book of the Great Treatise, etc., see Bruce Breath, the Sethian third principle
Codex (Philosophumena), 150-1
Book of the Investiture of the Archangel Briareus, in Peratean teaching, 51
Michael, 96n. British Museum, Codex Askewianus in, 65
Book of the fubilees, influential in Gnostic¬ various other Coptic MSS. in, 88n.,
ism, 286 96m
on Shem, 154 Bruce, James, explorer, 76
used by Dead Sea sect, 296 Bruce Codex, 76-7
Book of the living, in GOSPEL OF bibliography of, 77m
TRUTH, 239 compared with Mandaean myth, 256
Book of the Resurrection of Christ, 95, 95m contains hymn analogous to REVELA¬
Book of the Secrets of Enoch, on phoenixes, TION OF DOSITHEUS, i89n.
etc., 172-3, I73n. contains names found in SACRED
on Khalkhydras, 173-4, I73n- BOOK OF THE . . . GREAT
Book of the Seven Heavens (Seven Heavens), SPIRIT, 179
172, 174 and similar doctrines, 180
in pseudo-Zozimos, 278m Gamaliel, etc., in, 286n.
Book of the Signs of the Zodiac, Mandaean, Great Treatise, etc., = Books of Jeou, 77-9,
98 289m
BOOK OF THOMAS, etc., in author’s close to Pistis-Sophia, unlike other
classification, 145 Gnostic works, 79-80
described, 225-6 has Sethian characteristics, 184
discussed, 221-2, 234-5, 252> 336, 340 Nicotheus in, 86, 99, 159
Book of Wisdom, ascent of man in, 109, Pt. 2 without a title, 80-6
109m Anthropos in, 291
Book of Zoroaster, in Porphyry, 156 related to Chaldaean oracles, 102
referred to in SECRET BOOK, etc., Chariot in, 291
Cod. X, 205, 218 provenance unknown, 136
Book of Zostrian, in Porphyry, 156 value of relative to Chenoboskion MSS.,
Books of Adam, Mandaean, 183 117
Books of the Great Treatise = Books of JSou, Brugsch, Die Aegyptologie, 272m
77 Bryaxis, statue of Serapis by, 138
hidden on Ararat, 254 Bucher, P., “Les commencements des
in Books of the Saviour, 73, 77 Psaumes LI a XCIII. Inscription d’une
more Manichaean than Chenoboskion tombe . . .”, 132m
MSS., 259 Buchler, A., article in Judaica, 285m
revealed by Christ (= Serpent), 261 article in Monatschrift fur Geschichte . . .
withdrawal of God from omnipresence des Judentums, 285m
in, 276n., 294, 29411. Buddha in Manes, Shdpurakan, 314m
Books of the Saviour, A part of, 72-3 Buddhism, a similarity of, to Gnosticism,
Books of Jeou mentioned in, 77 113
quotation from, 327-8 Budge, A. E. W., Coptic Apocrypha in the
Books of the Strangers, see Allogeneous books dialect of Upper Egypt, 95m, 96m
Borborites, 311, 31m. Coptic martyrdoms in the dialect of Upper
Borgia leaflet, 96n.-97n. Egypt, 98n.
Bornkamm, Mythos und Legende in den Miscellaneous Coptic texts in the dialect of
apokryphen Thomasakten, 95m Upper Egypt, 96m
Borsippa, Chaldaean teacher, 267 Buffiere, F., Les Mythes d’Homhe et la
Bousset, W., “Gnosticism”, ion. pensde grecque, 35m, 19m., 192m
Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, 3, 3n., 13m, Bulletin de la Cl. des Lettres . . . Acaddmie
14m, 24m, 55n., 152m royale de Belgique, 122m, 128m
Kyrios Christos, 266n. Bulletin de ITnstitut d'fgypte, I22n.
39 6 Index
Bulletin de I’Institut franfais d’Archdologie Carcopino, J., Aspects mystiques de la Rome
orientate du Caire, 42m, 10411., 13211. paienne (Sur les traces de l’hermdtisme
Bulletin de la SociM E. Renan, 12611., 22811. africain), 234m, 243m, 248n., 275m
Bulletin of the Byzantine Institute, 12511. La Basilique pythagoricienne de la Porte
Bumegas in Peratean belief (Philosoph- Majeure, 224m, 265m
umena), 286n. De Pythagore aux Ap&tres, 9m., 92m,
Bundahishn: 93m, 19m.
correspondence of planets with parts of on the tombofthe Aurelii, 92,930., 192
the body, in, 2i4n. Etudes d’histoire chMenne, 90m
doctrine of Three Principles in, 259, Le Myst'ere d’un symbole chretien, 9m.,
263m, 281 19m., 192m, 196m, 234m, 28Sn.
dualism in, 276m Carpocrates:
Gayomart in, 277m origin of teaching of (?), 36
myth in, compared with Gnostic belief, teachings of reached Rome, 12
152-3, 152m his sect, 23, 41
on Adam, 214 believed in reincarnation, 113m
on the Virgin of Light, 8on. listed in Hegesippus, 7
Bunsen, Hippolyt and his Age, 50m lived in Alexandria, 12
Burkitt, Religion of the Manichees, 3ion., Carpocratians, reverenced icons of Py¬
312m thagoras, etc. (Epiphanius), 263m
Bursians Jahresbericht, 26711. Carystia, home of Celbes, 50, 50m
Catabasis of Pythagoras, eschatology of, 288
Catacombs, in Rome, 91
C.S.C.O., n8n., 12811. CatalogusCodicumAstrolog. Graecorum, 73m,
Cahiers, 2n. 27m., 293m
Cain: Cathars:
a Gnostic belief about in Theodore of inheritors of Gnosticism, 311
Tabennisi, 135 on female becoming male, 234
a prophet of the Cainites (Irenaeus), 36 a parallel of, in GOSPEL OF
in a Gnostic fragment, 89 THOMAS, 349
in Gnostic belief, 112 on St Michael and Satan, 96m
in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 160 Cave of the Magi in Iranian myth, 282
in Ophite teaching, 39, 39m Cave of Treasures, 47m, 96
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 207 of mixed Jewish and Iranian origin, 287
in Valentinianism, 32 Cave of Treasures and Wood of the Cross,
inferior brother of Seth, in Chenobos- 2l6n.
kion MSS., 158 Cave of Treasures of the Life of the Silence
Cain, the sun, in SECRET BOOK, etc., in Syriac Chronicle, 186
Cod. X, 202 Ceccheli, Monumenti Cristiano-eretici di
Cainites: Roma, 92, 92m
Epiphanius on, 45 Cedrenus, 47m
use Ascension of Paul, 238 Celbes of Carystia, 50, 50m
and Gospel of Eve, 187m Celestial Man, in REVELATION ON
Irenaeus on, 36 PISTIS SOPHIA, 167
Cairo, Anti-Rabies Institute, 129 Celsus, 6-7, 9
Bektashi monastery at, 317 his attack on Christianity far-fetched,
Codex Berolensis bought in, 86 62-3
Coptic Museum, see Coptic Museum on false prophets, 18, i8n.
French Institute of Archaeology, 116 on Ophite Diagram, 37, 174
peasants knew MSS. taken to, 133 refers to Mariamne, 198m
Call, to salvation in GOSPEL OF Cerdon, teacher of Marcion, 12, 24
TRUTH, 240 Cerfaux, L., article on Hermetism, 99m
Calmet, D., Dissertation sur MelchisMdch; “Gnose prechreticnne, etc.”, in., 3
Commentaire littoral aux Epitres de S. Paul, “La Gnose simonienne”, i6n.
47n. Cerinthus, 12
Caphar-Barusha, Peter the Archontic at, Chaldaean element in Naassene belief
46 about creation of man, 212
Capparetia, birthplace of Menander, the elements in Audius’ teaching, 56
Gnostic, 12, 19 influence on Iran, 279
Index 397
Chaldaean Oracles, see Julian the Theurgist Chenoboskion MSS. (cont.):
Cham, 20, 20n. (c) Internal characteristics, etc. (cont.):
Chaos, in EUGNOSTOS, 194 differ from Pistis-Sophia and Books of
in Hesiod, 175 Jeou, 258-9
in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 162 how first assembled (?), 250-1
in Pistis-Sophia, 69, 70, 71 include versions of items also found in
in REVELATION ON PISTIS Cod. Berol., 87, 88
SOPHIA, 165, 167, 168, 170, 175 language of, 137, 137m, 138
in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . . probable sect of the collectors, 151
GREAT SPIRIT, 178 show belief in constellations, etc., as
in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 209 mythical powers, 270-1
in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, etc., 181 influence of doctrine of seven
Charax, Mountain of, 180, i8on., 254 aiones, 271-2
Chariot: shown to be a representative collec¬
= Chariot of the Lord Sabaoth in tion, 251-2
Judaism, 288 source of doctrines in, 263
origin, 288m Hellenic, 264-5
constellation of, 165 fundamentals are oriental, 265-6
= Propator, in magical prayer, 108, astrological, 266-7
1770- Sumerian, 268
in Ezechiel, 177 and later Babylonian, 268-9
in Gnosticism, 291 influence of Christianity, 300 et seq.
Charles, R. H., on Duidain, 97m peculiarity of the Christian charac¬
The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the teristics shown in, 304-8
Old Testament, 173m Dead Sea sect, 296-300
Chavannes, E. and Pelliot, P., “Un Traite Egyptian beliefs, 272-5
manicheen retrouve en Chine”, 158m, Hermetic beliefs, 277-8
196m, 214m, 2i6n. Indian beliefs, 284-5
Chenoboskion, description of site, 130-3 Iranian beliefs, 279, 281-4
history of the town, 129-30 Judaism, 285-95
Chenoboskion MSS.: Simonianism, 331, 332
texts in, listed, 142-5 texts classified by sects, 146
(a) Discovery and acquisition: (d) The individual Codices:
discovery of, rumours of manner of, Codex I-XIII, inventoried, 142-5
128 Codex I, size of, 140
result of author’s investigations into, Codex VI, dialect of, 138
xi-xii, 133-5 Hermetic works in, 241
most MSS. acquired by Egyptian scribe of, 250
government, xiii Codex VIII, dialect of, 137, 138
one MS. acquired by Coptic Museum, palaeography of, 141
xii Codex X, palaeography of, 14m,
one MS. acquired by Jung foundation, 238
xiii beauty of, 333
more items to be discovered at compilation of, 170
Chenoboskion (?), 127-8 date of, 248
[For further details of the acquisition, glosses, etc., in, 24m., 250, 265
see Coptic Museum] Codex XIII, palaeography of, 138,
(b) External characteristics: 139. Hi. 14m., 238, 239
description of handwriting of, 141 a part of the Jung Codex, 145, 238
description of the MSS., 137 dialect of, 239
palaeographic dating of, 138-9, 141 size of, 140
state and dimensions of, 140 (e) Evaluation and study:
(c) Internal characteristics, etc.: committee for publication of, 227m
and their origin, 308-9 extent to which studied by author,
assembled by followers ofBasilides (?), xiv
262 and by others, xv
attitude to Christianity varies, 302-3 extent to which used so far, 125-7
coherence of the collection, 137-8 importance for Hermetic literature,
copyist’s words quoted, 143, 145 248m
398 Index
Chenoboskion MSS. (cont.): Citroen Mission, 12m.
(e) Evaluation and study (cont.): Cleanthes on Hercules, 35m
importance of certainty about proven¬ Clement of Alexandria:
ance of, 136 cites Traditions of Matthias, 226
importance of the find, 249 First Epistle, on the Phoenix, 172m
in judging heresiologists, 249-50 Hypotyposes on importance of James
and vice versa, 250 (Eusebius), 236
new knowledge from, 259 et seq. quotes Basilides, Valentinus, 5
show Basilides was a true Gnostic, quotes Eastern Valentinians, 31
3i3 quotes Theodotus, 5, 5n.
the Gnostic character of Manichae- on male and female, 234, 23 4m
ism, 313, 315 simile of the ass turning a mill, 223,
and of Mandaeanism, 315 223m
significance of, xv-xvii, 324-6 Second Epistle, parallels in, with
Cheops = Sophe, Discourse, 106 GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 350, 375
Cherubim, in Arkhangelike, 174 Stromateis quotes Gnostic myth of
Chester-Beatty collection, 141 creation of Adam, 205-6
Child of the Word, in Zoroastrian quotes a logion from Gospel of
prophecy, 186 Hebrews, known to us from
Chnubis, on gems, 93, 260 GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 230,
Christ, see Jesus Christ 230m, 235
Christianity, xvi, in. on Zoroastrian books, 156m
and Gnosticism, 300-9 preserves Comm, on Parchor on Isidore,
source of Gnosticism in (?), no 2on.
a pre-Synoptic, source of Gnosticism, Clement de Bucy, a neo-Gnostic, 311-12
304-5 Clementine, pseudo-, literature, 47m
distinguished from Gnosticism, 325-6 Recognitions on God and Demiurge,
danger of Gnosticism to, realized, 12 28m.
Gnosticism attacked by, 9 and Homilies, on Simon and Dositheus,
and suppressed, 1 15, I5n.
and Gnosticism, attacked by Celsus, 7 Clementines, on James, 236m
and Gnosticism in Matter’s view, 2 Cleobius, in Hegesippus’ list, 7
and Manichaeism, 313 Cleopatra, in Perataean teaching, 51
concept of time in, 111 Cloud, symbolism of, 291, 29m.
in some Chenoboskion MSS., 218 et Coddians, 41
seq. Codex Askewianus, 65
pseudo-Zosimos influenced by, ioon. See also Pistis-Sophia MS.; Books of
Yazuqeans influenced by, 61 Pistis-Sophia; Books of The Saviour
Chronicle, Syriac in Zuqnin monastery, on Codex Berolensis, 86-8, 86n., 87m
the Magi, 185 a variant from Chenoboskion version,
Chronique d’fgypte, n6n. 203, 209, 211
Chronos, = Ialdabaoth, 94 contains material found also in Cheno¬
in pseudo-Zosimos, 100 boskion MSS., 126, 146, 177
Chrysostom, pseudo-, Unfinished com¬ contains SECRET BOOK OF JOHN,
mentary on St Matthew, refers to Writing Cod. I, 201
by Seth, 185 contains SOPHIA OF JESUS, 196, 198,
Church, The, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 200, 214m
345 fills lacuna in Chenoboskion version,
in Ophite teaching, 37 147m, 200
in Valentinianism, 27 palaeography and dating of, 141
Church, the imperishable, in SACRED published in 1955, 127m
BOOK OF THE . . . GREAT Commandments of the Sabbath, 97
SPIRIT, 178 Commission des Fouilles Archeologiques,
the perfect, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 122
346, 374 Comptes rendus de VAcadfmie des Inscriptions
Church of the holy lights in EUGNOS- et Belles-Lettres, 89n., 92m, n8n., 119m,
TOS, 194 I22n., 192m
Chwolsohn, D., Die Ssabier und der Constellations, etc., in Egyptian belief,
Ssabismus, 316, 316m 273-4
Index 399
Contenau, Manuel d’archtologie orientale, Cosmogony (cont.):
268a. Marcionism, of, 25-6, 50m
Coptic language, 64n. Nicolaitan, 14-15, 2in.
dialects, I37n. Ophite, 37-40
Coptic Museum, Cairo: Orphic, in Aristophanes, 176m
description of, 116 PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, in, 148,
allowed first acquisition to be used by 149
Berlin Museum, xiv Perataean, 50-1
began publication of first acquisition, Pistis-Sophia, in, 71
xiv, 123 SACRED BOOK OF THE INVISI¬
importance of acquiring Miss Dattari’s BLE SPIRIT, in, 177-8
MSS. for, 121 SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, in,
these MSS. sent to, in 1952, 124 201-2
these MSS. include pages from Jung Sethian, 50m, 52-3
Codex, 137, 145, 239 Simon’s, 17-18, 2in., 50m
publication committee set up by, in Cosmology:
1956, 124 Sumerian, 268
retained some (Chenoboskion) MSS. TRIPLE DISCOURSE, in, 181
for purchase, xii, 117 Valentinus’, 27-30
acquisition reported to press in 1948, Counterfeiter in Basilides’ teaching, 263
119 in Chenoboskion MSS., 261
so prices of other parts rose, 120 in Gnosticism and elsewhere, 282,
these MSS. similar to Eid’s MS., 118 282m
these MSS. of, have been exactly in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 206,
summarized, 127 207, 208, 215
state and contents of, 142-5 in SETHIAN REVELATION, Cod.
Coptic Studies in honour of IV. E. Crum, VI, 187
54n., 125m, 139m, 157m, 172m see also Souls, two, theory of
Corbicius, Manes’ previous name (Acts of Creator:
Archelaus), 314 an Anthropos in Shiur Koma, 291
Corbin, H., “De la Gnose antique a la in a Falasha book, 97
Gnose ismaelienne”, 177m, 32m. in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 207,
L’Imagination crlatrice dans le soufsme 208
d'Ibn Arabi, 317m in TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF
Corpus Hermeticum, see Nock, etc. JOHN, 220
Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, not responsible for original sin, in
3 ion. St Paul, 308
Cos, Berossus at, 269 Critodemus the Babylonian, 269
Cosmas the Traveller, on Manichaean Cronius, disciple of Numenius, 192
belief about shape of the earth, 269 Cross, Coptic, 138, 139, 139m
Cosmocrator in Valentinianism, 29 in Acts of John, 95
Cosmogony: in Battai’s teaching, 60
Audian, 56-7 in GOSPEL OF THOMAS (?), 344
Balinus, of, 319-20 in GOSPEL OF TRUTH, 240
Barbelognostic, 36-7 (Limit) in Aurelii tomb, 92
Basilides, of, 21-2, 23 (Limit) in Valentinianism, 28, 8in.
Battai, of, 60 (Stauros) in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 81
Borgia'leaflet, of, 97m wood for the, in GOSPEL OF PHILIP,
Bruce Codex, pt. 2, of, 81, 82 223
Egyptian, 272-3, 272m wood of, in Bogomile belief, 2i6n.
Genesis, of, attacked in Shkand Gumdnik Crown of God in Zohar, 292
Vichar, 283 Crum, W. E., Catalogue of the Coptic
Gnostic, general, 61-2, 65 Manuscripts in the British Museum, 88n.
clarified by Chenoboskion MSS., Cryptogram of tide of REVELATIONS
259-60 OF ZOSTRIAN, 156-7, 157m, 257
GOSPEL OF TRUTH, of, 240 Cryptographic alphabets in Dead Sea
John of Apamea, of, 57 Scrolls, 297
Justin’s, 34 Cullman, O., Le Probleme litttraire des Merits
Kukean, 58-9 pseudo-cUmentins, I2n.
400 Index
Cumont, F., “A propos des ecritures Darkness (cont.):
manich6ennes”, 3i3n. in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 152,
L'Eyypte des astrologues, 26611. 202-3, 206, 209, 217
Lux Perpetua, i2n., 4311., 10311., 17711., in Sethian teaching (Philosophumena), 53
i92n., 20711., 2i6n., 23811., 26711., one of the Three Principles, 52, 150-1,
26911., 27 m. 259
Monuments des mystbes de Mithra, 25711., in the PARAPHRASE OF SHEM,
27m. 147-8
on Mithraic Liturgy, io8n. in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, etc., 181, 330
Recherches sur le Manichtisme, I, I5n., Spirits of, in Dead Sea Scrolls, 297
69n., 74n., 8on., I49n., I52n., Darmesteter, Zend Avesta, 154, 15411.
i62n.-3n., l64n., 2o8n., 27m., 3I3n., Dattari, Miss (a cultured personage), 120,
314n. 121, 122, 123, 124, 137
Les Religions orientates dans le paganisme Daueithael in Investiture of the Archangel
romain, 4th ed., I2n., 90n., 94, 94n., Gabriel, 236
266n., 279n. Daueithe in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 85
Textes et monuments rbatifs aux mystbes in magical, etc., texts, 103
de Mithra, 27911. Daughter of Light, in Acts of Thomas, 95
on resemblance of Manichaeism to Daveithe, in SACRED BOOK OF THE
Basilides’ teaching, 312 INVISIBLE GREAT SPIRIT, 178
Cumont and Kugener, Recherches sur le in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 202
Manichbsme, II, 152m, 2i6n. in TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF
Cyclic view of creation, in HERMETIC JOHN, 220
TREATISE (26). 246 David, the Prophet, in Pistis-Sophia, 20
Cyprus, Valentinus in, 12, 26 Dead Sea Scrolls, xi
Cyril of Jerusalem, on GOSPEL OF and Gnosticism, i5n.
THOMAS, 232, 335, 348 astrological text from, written back¬
said Manes was influenced by Ophites, wards, 257-8
312 counterfeiter in, 282, 282n.
preserved in jars, I34n.
Teacher of Righteousness = Onias the
Daden in the teachings of the Gnostic sect, Just (?), 29on.
43 Dead Sea Sect, originated Gnosticism (?),
Damascus, Audians around, 56 298-300
Danaides myth in Apocalypse of Isaiah, 288, parallels with Gnostics, 296-7
288n. Death, power of, in REVELATION OF
Daniel, influential in Gnosticism, 286 ADAM, etc., 182
chariot in, 290 Debarim Rabbah, 175m
Dante: De Buck, A., The Egyptian coffin texts,
Divina Commedia, 36m 273n.
and Apocalypse of Paul, 237 De Clercq collection, medallion in, 268,
Daressy, G., “Indicateur topographique 268n.
du Li ore des perles enfouies”, 132m Deir anba-Palamun, 131, 133
Notice explicative des mines de Medinet Deir Bala’izah, Coptic fragments from,
Habu, 272x1. 88-9, 209m
Darkness: Deir el-Malak, 131, 133, 134
Abyss of and Angel of, in Dead Sea Delatte, A., Anecdota Graeca, 17m.
Scrolls, 297 Demiurge, jin.
in BOOK OF THOMAS, -225 Barbelognostic, 37
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 84 in Clementine Recognitions, 28m.
in Bundahishn, 153 in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 160
in certain magical prayers, 109 in Plotinus’ attack on Gnosticism, 54
in Iranian myth, 154 in Poimandres, 276
in Manichaeism, 152 in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 205,
in Nicolaitan teaching, 14 206, 208
in Poimandres, 276, 277 in the Gnostic sect, 41, 42m
in REVELATION ON PISTIS Ophite, 38, 39, 40
SOPHIA, 165, 166, 167, 169 Valentinian, 29, 30, 31
in St Paul, 307 Demon of the air, in a Gnostic prayer, 108
Index 401
Demostratus of Lydia, in Porphyry, 10, Doresse, J.:
156 “A Gnostic Library from Upper
Dendera, temple, 130 Egypt”, I22n.
Derdekea in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, and first discovery, 116-17
147, 150 and further MSS., 120, 122, 123, 124
derivation of name, 147m and second discovery, 118-19, n8n.
Destiny in Avesta, 154 “Apocalypses egyptiennes”, 247m
Destructive Spirit, in Bundahishn, 153 at Chenoboskion, 128, 133—4
Deuteronomy, quoted in Pistis-Sophia, 222 “Barfes et l’Orient”, 2n.
Diagram, an Ophite book, 37, 73 n. Chnoubis, figure d’un dieu gnostique, 9311.,
preserved in Origen, Contra Celso, 7 26on.
related to Schema of. . . Heimarmene (?), “Douze volumes dans une jarre”, I22n.
174 first mission in Egypt, 116
DIALOGUE OF THE SAVIOUR, in helped Prof. Puech, 126
author’s classification, 142 helped Prof. Till, 125
description, 220-1 “Hernfes et la Gnose: A propos de
Dictionnaire de la Bible, in., 45m, 48m, 97m, l’Asclepius copte”, 85n., i25n., i4on.,
99n., 184m, 185m, 237m, 288n., 315m i9on., 24m., 243n., 248n., 2jon.
Dictionnaire de Theologie cathclique, 3711., his own use of the discovery, 125
31 in. his work plagiarized by some, 126-7
Didymus in Perataean teaching, 51 inventory by, 139, 140
of Alexandria, On psalm 88, contains a unique, 122
Logion, 231 “L’Apocalypse manichcenne ”, i88n.,
the Blind wrote against heretics, 7 3I3n-
Didymus Jude Thomas, see Thomas, St L'Empire du Pretre-Jean, II: L'flthiopie
Dinanukht, husband of Nuraita, in mfdiivale, 22ti., 98m
Mandaean belief, 155, 164 “Le Refus de la Croix; Gnostiques et
Diogenes Laertius on Astram psychos, Manicheens”. 22n., 50n., 313m
286n. “Le Roman d’une grande decouverte”,
Dion Chrysostom, on location of Essenes I22n.
(Synesius), 299, 299m “Les Apocalypses de Zoroastre, de
Dionysic orgies, 44 Zostrien, de Nicothee . . I25n.,
Dionysos, pseudo-, the Areopagite, 68n. I57n.
Diospolis Parva, 129, 133 “Les Gnostiques d’Egypte”, I22n.
DISCOURSE OF TRUTH BY ZOS- “Nouveaux aperûs historiques sur les
TRIAN, etc.: gnostiques coptes: Ophites et Sdth-
briefly described, 157 iens”, I22n.
dated by reference in Porphyry, 250 “Nouveaux documents gnostiques
Porphyry’s reference discussed, 156m, coptes decouverts en Haute-Egypte”,
I57n. I22n.
identified with Zostrian, Upon Nature, “Recherches d’archeologie copte: les
156-7 monasteres de Moyenne-figypte”,
in author’s classification, 142 89n.
DISCOURSE OF ZOROASTER, see “Sur les traces des papyrus gnostiques”,
DISCOURSE OF TRUTH BY I28n.
ZOSTRIAN, etc. “Togo Mina”, n6n.
DISCOURSE TO REGINOS, etc., 239 “Trois livres gnostiques inedits”, H9n.,
in author’s classification, 145 I25n., I77n., I92n.
in the second discovery, 118 “Une bibliotlfeque gnostique copte
Diwan Abatur, a Mandaean book, 98 ...” (Brussels), I22n.
Doctrine o f the Apostles, 340 “Une bibliotheque gnostique copte”
Domedon-Doxomedon, in SACRED (Paris), I22n., 14OU
BOOK OF THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT, “Un Rituel magique des Gnostiques
d’Egypte”. 74m
178
Dominations, in Arkhangelike, 174 and Togo Mina, “La Bibliothfeque de
in REVELATION ON PISTIS Chenoboskion”, I22n.
SOPHIA, 169 and Togo Mina, “Nouveaux textes
Donkey-headed archon, 79 gnostiques coptes . . .”, Il8n.,
god, 42n. I22n.
402 Index
Dositheans, 61, 6in. Eagle:
Dositheus: symbolism of, 207, 207m
a real person (?), i5n., 190, 253 not Gnostic, 207m
identity of author of Revelation by Earth, in a Falasha book, 97
Dositheus, 189-90, 332 Easter, heretical views of Audius on, 55
master of Simon (?), 15, 189, 189m, Ebionite (?) tomb in Rome, 91
190 Ebionites as ancestors of a Gnostic sect, 7
not connected with Dositheans, 6in. Ebonkh, apa, 130
sect of, in Hegesippus’ list, 7 Ecclesiasticus, MS. of, at Louvain, 141
Dosthaeans, 61 Eclecticism, fourth century, 278
Doxomedon in DISCOURSE OF Eden, in a Falasha book, 97
TRUTH, etc., 157 (Israel) in Justin’s teaching, 34, 35
in TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF Edessa:
JOHN, 220 Audians around, 56
Dragon: burial place of and centre of cult of
Constellation of, 5m. St Thomas, 339-40
(Teli) in Jewish belief, 293, 293m GOSPEL OF THOMAS written in (?),
Head and Tail of, in Manichaean 348
belief, 7411. Egypt:
Draguet, R., Les Phes du desert, 129m as symbol of matter, 49, 49m, 255
Dream of Scipio, different from Gnostic development of Gnosticism in, 12, 13
visions, I jon. Sethians in, 45
Drioton, E., Director-General of Service Luria studied in, 294
of Antiquities, xii, 117, 121, 122 origin of Gnosticism, Islam, etc., in (?),
account of De Buck’s book, 273m no
Drop, The, in SOPHIA OF JESUS, reason for amount of Gnostic material
I47n. discovered in, 64
Drower, E. S., The Haran Gawaita and the the image of heaven, in HERMETIC
baptism of Hibil-Ziwa, 256, 285m TREATISE (26), 245, 247
The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, 49m, woe prophesied to, 245-6, 247
74n., 256m, 315m modern, government attitude towards
Druses and Gnosticism, 316 owners of antiquities, 121
Dualism: Egypt Exploration fund, 232m
in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 371, 375 Egyptian and Judaean elements, mixture
in names, 203, 203m of, in Gnosticism, 105-6, lo6n.
in Poimandres, Gnosticism, etc., 276m influence on Chenoboskion MSS., 272-5
not exclusively Gnostic, 322-3 on Gnosticism, 104
Duchesne-Guillemin, J., “Ahriman et le the, a false messiah, 300-1
Dieu supreme dans les mysteres de Eid, Albert, former holder of Jung Codex,
Mithra”, 28m. 118, 119, 123, 126, 145
“Dualismus”, 279m Eighth Book of Moses, 171
“Le Zervanisme et les manuscrits de la Eitrem, S., Papyri Osloenses, 7411., 105m
mer Morte”, 297m Ekhamoth and Ekhmoth in GOSPEL OF
Western response to Zoroaster, 279m PHILIP, 225
Dudael, 97m Eleazar, High Priest, 100
Dudalem, 97, 97m Elelnos, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 85
Duidain, desert, 97m Elenchos, see PhUosophumena
Dulaurier, 65n. Eleusis, mysteries of, 2, 48
Dunstan of Samaria, I5n. Eleutheropolis, 46
Dupont-Sommer, A., “Adam Pere du Elijah, in Islamic belief, 317
Monde dans la Sagesse de Salomon”, posture of, on Carmel, 290n.
109m, 286n. Elilaios, in the teachings of the Gnostic
“ L’Instruction sur les deux Esprits”, sect, 43
297n. Elkesai, influenced by Essenes, 298m
Dura-Europos, evidence of syncretism in, of same family as Martos, 46
3io Elkesaites, as ancestors of a Gnostic sect,
Dussaud, R., 120 7
Dwellings of Angels, in the Borgia leaflet, reinforced Gnostics, 13
97n. Eloaios in Ophite teaching, 38
Index 403
Eloaiu, in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. Epicureanism, 11
Berol., 203 Epinola of the light, in TRIPLE DIS¬
Elohim, in Audius’ teaching, 56 COURSE, etc., 181
in Justin’s teaching, 34, 35 Epiphanius, St:
Elorkaios, in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, (Adversus Haereses) on Melchizedekians,
148 46-7, 46m, 47m, 154
Encratites, heretics, 7 on Sabaoth, 164
Encyclopaedia Britannica, ion. and Irenaeus, attitude of compared with
Encyclopaedia Judaica, 29211. that of Philosophumena, 47
Encyclopddie de VIslam, 3l6n., 3l7n., 32m. and Peter the Archontic, 46
End of the world, in SETHIAN REVEL¬ mentions myth of Norea, 262
ATION, Cod. VI, 188 mentions Revelations of Marsianes, etc.,
Enemy, The, crucified, 22 159
Enki, in Sumerian belief, 268 on Archontici, unspeakable, 79m
Enlightners, Iranian, 282 and Severians, 46
of Gnosticism, in APOCALYPSE OF and Seth, 150
ADAM, etc., 182, 183 “symphonia” as used by, 197
Ennead, 243m on Audians, 55-6
Egyptian, 272 on Borborites, 311
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 82 on Cainites, 36, 45, 45m
in HERMETIC TREATISE (23), 243; (Contra Haereses) Cainite use of
and (23), 244 Ascension of Paul, 238
in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 204 on Carpocrates, 23
Enoch: on Ebionites, 91
an astrologer, in Jewish belief, 288 on Gnostics, 15
and stelae, in myth, 190 on Gnostic sects, 40
hidden, in Enoch, 290m on Little Interrogations of Mary, 73
in Sabianism, 315 on Nazarenes, 91
in Theodore’s answer, 136 on Nicolas, 13-14
literature attributed to, plagiarized, 107 and Nicolaitans, 41
wrote Books of Jeou according to Books on Ophites, 44, 49
of the Saviour, 73, 254 on Seth’s ascension, 158
Enoch, Book of: on Sethian identification of Christ and
Angels before the Throne in, 291, 29m. Seth, 187
ascent to Paradise in, 109 on the Gnostic Sect, 41, 42, 43, 73m
contains similarities to REVELATION on Sethians, 45, 251
ON PISTIS SOPHIA, 176 on the seduction of the Archons, 163-4
Dudael in, 97m Panarion, 7-9, 8n., 57m, 236m
Enoch in, hidden, 290m influence of Essenes on Sampsaeans,
fragments of Book of Noah in, 97m 298m
influential in Gnosticism, 286 on Satanians, 31m.
on origin of metal-work, 209 on Scythianus’ slave, 314m
on the Perfect, 109 quoted Ptolemeus, 26-7
serpents in, and Khalkhydras in Book of quotes Cainite Gospel of Eve, 18711.
Secrets of Enoch, 173 quotes a Gospel of Philip, 181, 225
source of Gnostic concept of a fountain, which is like SACRED BOOK OF
305, 305m THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT, 235
used by Dead Sea sect, 296 refuted Marcionism, 25
used by pseudo-Zosimos (?), 278 refuted Ophite doctrines similar to
Ephesus, church of, 13 those in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod.
Ephraem, uses form “Jude Thomas”, X, 212
340 reliability of shown by Chenoboskion
Ephraim, St, on Audians, 56 MSS., 250
on the Kukeans, 58 Epiphanius, son of Carpocrates, 23-4
St Ephraim’s prose refutations of Mani, EPISTLE, in Codex V:
Marcion and Bardaisan, 24m in author’s classification, 143
Ephrem the Syrian, Exposition of the mentioned, 197
Concordance of the Gospels, contains a Epistle of the Apostles refers to Gospel of
Logion, 230, 230m Thomas (?), 335
404 Index
EPISTLE OF EUGNOSTOS: Essenes (cont.):
described, 192-5 originated Gnosticism (?), 7, 298-300
discussed, 195-7, 260 or grew up under similar circum¬
in author’s classification, 142 stances (?), 15
parallels with TREATISE ON BAP¬ parallels with Gnostics, 296-7
TISM OF JOHN, 219 physiognomies influenced by Greek
source of SOPHIA OF JESUS, 125, thought, 288n.
195, 198, 199, 24m. Pythagorean influence on, 288n.
Epistle of the Foundation, 22 use of trowel symbol, 91, 9m.
EPISTLE OF PETER TO PHILIP, 236 Ethiopia, in Naassene symbolism, 49
in author’s classification, 142 Ethiopian evangelistaries, 22n.
Epistle of Rehoboam (Key to Hydromancy), = Etudes carmilitaines, 8on., i62n.
Book of Solomon (?), 170-1 Eucharist, in GOSPEL OF PHILIP,
Epititiokh, the Virgin, in SACRED 223-4
BOOK OF THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT, Euchites, three primordial Principles in
178 teaching of, 151, 15 m.
Epstein, A., “Recherches sur le Sefer Eudes de l’fitoile, a neo-Gnostic, 312
Yetsira”, 293n. Eugnostos, transcriber of SACRED
Er the Armenian, in the Republic, 156, BOOK OF THE . . . GREAT
264 SPIRIT, 180, 192
Zoroaster=, (Amobius), 154m, 156 author of the EPISTLE, etc., 192, 196
Eranos Jahrbuch, 3m, 14m, 90m, non., a real person, 253
2i8n., 263m, 286n. but identity unknown, 300
Erman, Die Literatur der Aegypter, 247m EUGNOSTOS, see EPISTLE OF
Eros, Creator of the world, 76m EUGNOSTOS
in Book of the Chiefs, etc. (Philosophu- Euno, in Perataean teaching, 51
mena), 176m Euphrates the Perataean, 50, 50m
in Hesiod, 176 mentioned by Battai, 60
in REVELATION ON PISTIS Euripides, Melanippus, 90
SOPHIA, 168, 175-6 Eusebius:
Esaldaio, 8511. Ecclesiastical History, 5, 5m, 7, 7m, 46m
Esau, a prophet of the Cainites, 36 on Agrippa Castor, 2on.
Eschakleo (= Ialdabaoth), in popular on Basilides, 20
Hermetism, 162m on Dositheus, 15m
Eschatology: on the variety of Gnostic systems,
of Books of the Saviour, 72, 176 252-3
of Chaldaean astrology, 267 quotes Clement Hypotyposes, 236,
of Flavia Sophe’s epitaph, 89 236m
Gnostic, 293m mentions GOSPEL OF MATTHIAS,
of the Gnostic Sect, 43-4 22 6
of the Gospel of Mary, 88 on Nicolas, 13
of the Great Treatise, 78, 79 on Origen, 35m
Hellenistic influence on Jewish, 288, refers to GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 335
288n. Eusebius of Mt Ararat, 96m
of HERMETIC TREATISE (26), 246 Eustathius, on Odyssey, 191
compared with Pistis-Sophia, 246m Eutactes, one of the Archontici, 46
Manichaean derived from Gnostic, 313 Eutychius, 47m
of Pistis-Sophia, 274x1., 327 Evangelium veritatis: Jung Codex, I26n.,
of Poimandres, 277 239m, 24m.
of REVELATION ON PISTIS Eve:
SOPHIA, 169-70 alchemical interpretation of, ioin.
of SECRET BOOK, etc., 208, 210 Gnostic belief about in Theodore of
of SOPHIA, etc., 200 Tabennisi, 135
Valentinian, 30, 31 in Acts of Thomas, 73m
Es-Sayyad, 130, 131, 134 in APOCALYPSE OF ADAM, etc., 182
Essenes: in Audius’ teaching, 56-7
influenced Sampsaeans (Epiphanius), in Chenoboskion MSS., 261
298m in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 160, 161
on adventitious soul, 2i6n. in Justin’s teaching, 34
Index 405
Eve (cont.): Fate (cont.):
in Ophite belief, 38-9 in Chaldaean astrology, 267
(Epiphanius), 213 in Gnostic belief, hi
in REVELATION ON PISTIS in HERMETIC TREATISE (25), 244
SOPHIA, 168, 169 in HERMETIC TREATISE (26), 246
in SECRET BOOK, etc., 206-7 in Pistis-Sophia, 68
in TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF masters of, in Poimandres, 276
JOHN, 220 (=Time) in SECRET BOOK, etc.,
in various beliefs, 2i4n. 208
origin of Gnostic myth of seduction, Void = , in Hellenistic writings, 153-4
309 Father, in Barbelognostic belief, 37
= Pandora, in pseudo-Zosimos, 101 in Borgia leaflet, 96m, 97m
Seth her son by a superior birth to that in DIALOGUE OF THE SAVIOUR,
of Cain, etc., 158 220
Evil in Battai’s teaching, 60 in EUGNOSTOS, 193, 194
in Gnosticism, 112 in Gnosticism, 61
Evilat, in Naassene symbolism, 49 in COSPEL OF PHILIP, 222
Evodius, De fide, 22, 74x1. in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 228, 230,
Ex Oriente Lux, 29711. 344. 345. 355. 360, 362, 363, 365, 366,
Exclusiveness, lack of in St Paul, 308 369. 374
EXEGESIS UPON THE SOUL: in GOSPEL OF TRUTH, 239, 372
discussed, 190-2 in Ophite belief (Epiphanius), 44, 213
in author’s classification, 144 (Irenaeus), 38
notes in, similar to those in REVELA¬ in PARAPHRASE OF SFIEM, 149
TION ON PISTIS SOPHIA, 170 in Perataean teaching, 50, 51
Exodus, referred to in Gikatila, 292 in Poimandres, 276, 277
Ezechiel: in REVELATION OF DOSITHEUS,
Zoroaster =, 280 l88
in Chenoboskion MSS., 287 in REVELATION ON PISTIS
Ezechiel, Chester-Beatty MS., 141 SOPHIA, 169
divine presence as fire, 377 in “Rossi”, 103
vision of Chariot, 165, 177, 290 in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . .
Eznik ot Kolb, and his De deo (Against the GREAT SPIRIT, 178
sects), 2411., 25-6, 279m in St Paul, 308
refuted Marcionism, 25 in SECRET BOOK, etc., 201, 202, 205
in SOPHIA, etc., 199, 200
in Theban inscriptions, 273
Fabricius, Codex pseudepigraphus, 17m. in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, etc., 181,
Falashas, sacred books of, 97-8 330, 331
Falk, M., I “Misteri” di Novalis, 323m Majesty of the, in Syriac Chronicle, 185
Fasting, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 371 of the Universe, in Bruce Codex, 81,
Fatality: 8ln., 82, 84, 85
= Air, in two magical prayers, 109, in Naassene symbolism, 92
J54 Plato’s view of, according to Christian
Gnostic (?), in pseudo-Zosimos, 101 iconographers, 350
(Heimarmene), in Asdepius, 24411. the everlasting, in SACRED BOOK OF
Hermetic in pseudo-Zosimos, 100 THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT, 178
in Gnostic belief, 111 (The Good), in Justin’s teaching, 34, 35
in Mithraism, 154 Father of Fathers, Amon-Re was, 272m
in the Mithraic Liturgy, 108 Father of Greatness, in Battai’s teaching, 60
sphere of, in Pistis-Sophia, 66, 67, 68 in Manicheism, 152
in titleless portion of Codex Askew- in teaching of John of Apamea, 57
ianus, 75 Fathers in the Heights, Manichaean, 217
Fate: Faye, E. de, 3
Adam freed from, a pre-Gnostic Gnostiques et Gnosticisme, 4m, 24m
concept, 295 Fayum, Coptic Manichaean MSS. of, 86n.,
Gnostic (?) in pseudo-Zosimos, 101 119-20
Hermetic in pseudo-Zosimos, 100 Fendt, Gnostische Mysterien, 114m, 115m,
in certain Gnostic prayers, 107, 108 224m
406 Index
Festugi^re, O. P., Rivtlation d'Hermh Gardiner, Sir A., published Leyden
Trismtgiste, 6, 6n., 1411., 9911., ioon., papyrus, 273m
107, I07n., io8n., 15011., 16m., 16411., Garitte, G., “Le premier volume de
17011., 17m., 190, i90n., 24211., 27m., l’edition photographique des manuscrits
31811. gnostiques coptes ct de l’£vangile de
and Nock, Corpus hermeticum, see Nock, Thomas”, 228m
etc. Gaspar the Mage, i6in.
Figaro, Le, 9m. Gaster, article in Journal of R. Asiatic
Filliozat, J., “Les Doctrines des Brahmanes Society, 28 8n.
d’apr^s saint Hippolyte”, 6, 6n., 249 Gaukal, and Mani, etc., 255, 255m
Fire, in Poimandres, 276 Gaul, Valentinianism in, 13
Flaubert, Tentation de saint Antoine, 2 Gayet, 2
Flavia Sophe, epitaph of, 89, 89n. Gayomart, in Bundahishn, 27711.
Flugel, Mani, I52n. Gebel et-Tarif, 128, 130, 131, 134
Foerster, W., “Von Valentin zu Herak- Geiger, on Dudael, 97m
leon”, 27n. Gelasius, pseudo-, on GOSPEL OF
Force, The, in Basilide’s teaching, 22 THOMAS, 232
Fragmenta histor. Graec., 12911. Gemmut, in Books of the Saviour, 73
FRAGMENTS ON COSMOS, Cod. XII, Gems, Gnostic, 52m, 74, 74m, 85m, 93
briefly described, 197 Generation:
in author’s classification, 145 of Life, in REVELATION, Cod. V, 197
FRAGMENTS ON DEMONS, etc., of the Elect, in SECRET BOOK, etc.,
Cod. XI, in author’s classification, 145 Cod. X, 201
mentioned, 197 of the Spiritual, in SECRET BOOK,
French Institute of Archaeology, Cairo, etc., Cod. X, 202
116 the Great, in APOCALYPSE OF
Frey, J. B., “Abraham, Apocalypse of”, ADAM, etc., 182
45n. the perfect, in SECRET BOOK, etc.,
“Adam (apocrypha)”, 97m, 185m Cod. X, 207, 208, 210
article in Dictionnaire de la Bible, 184m without a King, in EUGNOSTOS, 193
Friedlander, M., Der vorchristliche Gnosis, in REVELATION ON PISTIS
4n. SOPHIA, 169
Furlani, G., “II Pavone e gli altri ribelli Genesis, 3711., 49m, 104, 104m, 299
presso i Mandei e il Pavone dei account of Creation reflected in
Yezedi”, 31611. HYPOSTASIS, etc., 160
“I pianeti e lo zodiaco nella religione dei but Flood story different, 160-1
Mandei”, 74m, I55n. cosmogony of attacked by Shkand
“L’Antidualismo dei Yezedi”, 316m Gumanik Vichar, 283-4
Peccati i peccatori presso i Mandei, 25611. Gnostic view of, 62
“Tre trattati astrologici siriaci sugli discovery of a codex containing part of,
eclissi solari e lunari”, 73n., 293n. I28n.
in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 204,
206
Gabriel, in Investiture, etc., 236 influence of on Medinet Habu cos¬
in Pistis-Sophia, 71, 113m mogony, io6n.
in SACRED BOOK OF INVISIBLE Land of Nod in, not Duidain, 97m
SPIRIT, 178, 286m mention of Seir in, i6in.
Galila, in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, on birth of Melchizedek, 46
202 on the Sons of God, 295
Galileans as ancestors of a Gnostic sect, 7 Satomil claimed to correct, 19
Gamaliel in APOCALYPSE OF ADAM, source of Gnostic belief about Cain’s
etc., 182 father, 39m
in Bruce Codex, pt. 2, 83 texts from, as starting point for Gnostic¬
in Chenoboskion MSS. and elsewhere, ism, 309, 309m
286, 286m view of, in Chenoboskion MSS., 261
in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . . Gentiles, in SETHIAN REVELATION,
GREAT SPIRIT, 178 Cod. VI, 188
Gandillac, M. de, CEuvres completes du Geography of myth, based on reality, 255
pseudo-Denys I’Ariopagite, 68n. Iranian and Gnostic parallels in, 282
Index 407
Geon, in Naassene symbolism, 49 Gnosticism: Gnosis, as a system (cont.):

George, Syncellus, Chronographia, on (i) History (cont.):
Seth’s ascension, 158, 158m its flourishing, 11
on Hermes and stelae, 190, I90n. later legacy of, 321-2
German Academy to publish Cod. Berol., problems of history of, 114-15
117, 125, 125m sects listed, 7
Gide, A., Carnets d'tigypte, 131 survival of in the West, 311-12
Gikatila, Joseph, Mystery of the Serpent, the beginnings, 10
292 [The following refer to sects and
Gilgit, discovery at, 12m. teachers in their historical setting.
Ginza, a Mandaean book, 98, 207m Further references will be found
see also Lidsbarski under their individual names:]
Ginza of the right-hand, 61 Archontici, 45-6
Ginza Rba, a revelation of Adam, 183 Basilides, 20-3
Gitta, 12, 15 Cainites, 45
Glory, in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, 330 Carpocrates, 23-4
Glykas, 47m Justin, 33-5
Gnosis (as illumination), later sects, 35 et seq.
of the God of Truth, in APOCALYPSE lesser sects, 46-7
OF ADAM, etc., 182 Marcionism was Gnostic, 24-6
depicted in tomb of the Aurelii, 92 Nicolaitans, 13-15
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 81 Ophites, 37-40
in Clement’s Hypotyposes, 236 Satomil, 19-20
in the Gnostic Sect, as means of salva¬ Sethians, 45
tion, 43. 44. 113 The Gnostic Sect, 41-4
in GOSPEL OF PHILIP, 225 the later Ophites, 44
in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 229, 231 sects as described in Philosophumena,
in GOSPEL OF TRUTH, 239, 240 47 et seq.
in HERMETIC TREATISE (25), 244 Naassenes, 47-50
Hermetism self-defined as a, 99m Peratae, 50-1
in Iranian belief, 282, 282m Sethians, 52-3
in Ophite teaching, as means of salva¬ sects as described by Plotinus, 53-4
tion, 44 byTheodorBar-Konai and others,
in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, as 55 et seq.
means of salvation, 149 Audians, 55-7
in SECRET BOOK, etc., as damnation John of Apamaea, 57-8
to those who backslide, 208 Kukeans, 58-9
the perfect, 207 Kantaeans and Battai, 59-61
the means of perfection in Valentinian- Simon, 15-18
ism, 29, 30 Valentinianism, 18-19, 27-33
Gnostic gems, 52m, 74, 74m, 85m, 93 (ii) Hostile writings as evidence:
Gnostic Sect, The, 23, 41-4 see also supra (i) History
= Barbelognostics, 36-7, 37m Acts of Archelaus, 7
Gnosticism: Gnosis, as a system: Celsus, 7
definition of, 1, in. Clement, 5
general nature of, ix, xvi-xvii Epiphanius, 7-9
(i) History: Eusebius, 7
background of, 310 Hegesippus, 5
decay of, 311 in general, 4-5
difficulty of study of, 61 Irenaeus, 5
partly caused by unreliability of Jerome, 5
hostile evidence, 62-3 Justin, 5
and lack of authentic texts, 63 Lucian, 6
early history, Puech’s views on, 12-13 Origen, 6
early history, 13 et seq. Philosophumena, 6
Eastern sects, 14 Plotinus, 9-10
its flourishing, 11 Porphyry, 10
“Gnostics”, the term used by Tertullian, 5
Naassenes, 48 unreliability of, 62-3
408 Index
Gnosticism: Gnosis, as a system (cont.): Gnosticism: Gnosis, as a system (cont.):
(iii) Gnostic and related writings, etc., as (vi) Doctrines (cont.):
evidence: gnosis, 113
see also Chenoboskion MSS. and under God and the world, opposed, ill
the titles of the individual works main doctrines, 61-2, no-15
Bruce Codex, 77-86 mythical geography of influenced by
Codex Berolensis, 86-8 Mandaeans, 256
lack of authentic texts until Cheno¬ resurrection, 30m.
boskion, 63 Saviour, 112
monuments and paintings, 89-94 sophia, 113
Pistis-Sophia, 64 Three Phases, ii3n., 114
general doctrine of, 65-7 time, iii, 112, 113
Books of the Saviour, 72-3 (vii) Relations with other religions:
the Books, 67-71 Gnosticism:
and their teaching, 71-2 and Christianity, 300-9
remainder, 73-6 various theories as to relation¬
related literature, 94-109 ship, 302
various fragments, 88-9 Gnostics distorted Christianity, 302
(iv) Modern study: gave their works a Christian
Anz, 3 camouflage, 311
Barres, 2 used a pre-Synoptic Christianity,
became fashionable in nineteenth 304-5
century, 2 and Islam, 317-22
Bousset, 3 and Mandaeanism, 315
Cerfaux, 3 shared a mythical geography,
de Faye, 3 225-6
Flaubert, 2 and Manichaeism, 312-15, 314m
Gayet, 2 and Sabianism, 315-16
growth of knowledge about con¬ and the Yezidis, 316, 316m
nected movements, 3-4 interrelations with Hermetism
Flamack, 3 shown by Chenoboskion MSS.,
Horn, 2 248
Jonas, 3 influence of Hermetism on, 275,
Lewald, 2 277-8
Matter, 2 Indian beliefs, 284-5
Mosheim, 1-2 Iranian beliefs, 279-84
Puech, 3 Jewish, 289
Puech on early history of, 12-13 Jewish influence on, 285-95
Reitzenstein, 3 originated from Dead Sea Sect (?),
(v) Writings, nature of the Gnostic: 298-300
books still undiscovered, 252 parallels with Essenes, 296-7
secrecy concerning, 257 Gobryas in Suidas, etc., 286n.
purpose of, 258 God:
use of a Christian disguise, 254 a Hermetic view of, in pseudo-
use of GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 227a. Zosimos, 100
use of Homeric allegory, 192 above the universe, in SOPHIA, etc., 200
use of pseudonyms, 253-4 and Eve in Audius’ teaching, 56-7
various apocrypha attributed to and the soul, in Sabianism, 316
Zoroaster because of doctrine of in Clementine Recognitions, 28m.
Three Principles, 259-60 in GOSPEL OF PHILIP, 223
(vi) Doctrines: in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 229, 369
astronomy, mistaken, 271-2 in GOSPEL OF TRUTH, 240
constellations identified with myth¬ in HERMETIC TREATISE (25), 244
ical powers, 270 in HERMETIC TREATISE (26), 246
cosmogony from Three Principles, in Kukean teaching, 58
259-60 in Pistis-Sophia, 65
demiurge, 112 in Poimandres, 215, 277
lack of uniformity in, 252-3 in St Paul, 307
evil, 112 in Zohar, 292
Index 409
God (cont.):
Gospel of the Hebrews, 350
is Light, in St John, 305
in Jerome, Micah, 236
of gods, in EUGNOSTOS, 194
quoted as source of Logia known to us
of the lower world, two different
in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 233, 234,
beliefs about, in Chenoboskion MSS.
235. 342
260
quoted in Clement, 230
of the Silence, in SACRED BOOK OF
relationship of, to GOSPEL OF
THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT, 180 THOMAS, 348
of truth, in EUGNOSTOS, 193
Gospel of Judas, used by Cainites, 36
origin of Gnostics’ concept of an
of Judas Didymas (?), 36m
interior, 309
Gospel of Mary, 87, 88
retreat of, from His omnipresence, 276m, publication, 87m
294, 294m
GOSPEL OF MATTHIAS, see BOOK
the everlasting, in APOCALYPSE OF OF THOMAS
ADAM, etc., 182
Gospel of Matthias, = GOSPEL OF
the higher, in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 159 THOMAS (?), 336
the supreme, in Bruce Codex, 81
believed to be connected with GOSPEL
the supreme, in Chenoboskion MSS., OF THOMAS, 335
of Iranian origin, 281
mentioned in Origen, Eusebius, 226
the supreme, in Gnosticism, 111
relationship of, to GOSPEL OF
the supreme, in SUPREME ALLO- THOMAS, 348
GENE, 328-9
Gospel of the Nazarenes, in heresiologists
Goggessos, transcriber of SACRED resembles GOSPEL OF THOMAS,
BOOK OF THE . . . GREAT 235
SPIRIT, 180 Gospel of Nicodemus, 95, 95m
a real person, 197, 253
Gospel of Perfection, of the Gnostic Sect,
significance of the name, 196 42
Gomorrah, home of the perfect, 254—5
GOSPEL OF PHILIP, described, 222—3,
in SACRED BOOK OF THE IN¬ 224-5
VISIBLE . . . SPIRIT, 298, 298m, discussed, 221-2, 223-4, 225, 234-5,
299, 300
234m, 252, 336, 343, 372
Good, in Battai’s teaching, 60
in author’s classification, 144
Goossens, R., “Onias le Juste, Messie de la Gospel of Philip, believed to be connected
Nouvelle Alliance”, 290m with GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 335
Gorce, M. and Mortier, R., eds., Histoire in Epiphanius, partly corresponds with
gMrale des religions, 312m, 315m SACRED BOOK OF THE . . .
Gorgorios, author of Falasha apocalypse, GREAT SPIRIT, 181, 225, 235
97-8 used by the Gnostic Sect, 42
Gorthynian sect, 15
GOSPEL OF THOMAS (with LOGIA
Gospel, characteristics of a, 334 IESU):
Gospel of the Ehionites, as quoted by belongs to a group of writings purport¬
heresiologists resembles GOSPEL OF ing to be written by Philip, Thomas
THOMAS, 235 and Matthew, 221-2
GOSPEL OF THE EGYPTIANS, see COMPLETE TRANSLATION OF,
SACRED BOOK OF THE IN¬ 335-70
VISIBLE GREAT SPIRIT contents described and relationship with
Gospel of the Egyptians, 48m, 350 New Testament, etc., discussed,
described by Epiphanius, 235
341-4, 347-8, 351-2
quoted as source of logia known to us in index of references in, to canonical
GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 233, 342 Gospels, 379-83
mentioned in Philosophumena, etc., 48, dating of, 347-8
85m described and discussed, 231-5, 334 et
is not SACRED BOOK OF THE feq., 352
INVISIBLE . . . SPIRIT, 180-1 discussion of attribution to Thomas,
relationship of, to QOSPEL OF 338-40
THOMAS, 348 historical value of, 350-1
Gospel of Eve, a book of the Gnostic Sect, importance of James in, 237
42, 187m in author’s classification, 144
still undiscovered, 252 notes on the text, 370-7
410 Index
GOSPEL OF THOMAS (with LOGIA Gregoire, H., “Note sur les survivances
IESU) (cont.): chretiennes des Esseniens et des sectes
orthodoxy of, 348-50 apparentees ”, 298m
parallels in other literature to the Logia, Gregory bar-Hebraeus, his evidence for
230-1 Allogeneous books, 158
position in codex associates it with Gregory of Nazianzus, supposititious work
Philip and Matthias, 336 of, 96m
previously known in part from Oxy- Grelot, P., “La Geographic mythique
rhynchus fragments of Logia, 226-9, d’Henoch”, 97m
22711., 22811., 337-8 Grenfell and Hunt, New sayings of Jesus and
unpublished Logia from, 229-30 fragments of a Lost Gospel, on GOSPEL
Puech’s work on the Logia, 126, 126m, OF THOMAS, 232, 232m
305, 337-8 Griffith, F. LI. and Thompson, H.,
provides an authentic tradition, alterna¬ Demotic magical papyrus of London and
tive to the synoptic gospels (?), 351 Leiden, 7411.
quoted, 228, 229, 233-4, 237 Gruenbaum, “Beitrage zur vergleichende
referred to by Origen, etc., 335-6 Mythologie aus der Haggada”, 39m,
resembles St John’s teaching, 339 29511.
study of, will throw light on lost Guardian of the Great Light in Pistis-
writings, 252 Sophia, 66
teachings of, 344-6 Guardians, Mandaean and Gnostic, 256
works of the same title, 231-2, 334 Gundophar, King, = Gaspar, 16in.
written in Edessa (?), 348 in Acts of Thomas, 95
Gospel of Thomas, 48, 48m Guentch-Ogloueff, M., “Noms propres
early references to, 335 imprecatoires”, 42m, 104m
work mentioned by Origen and in Gundel, W., Dekaner und Dekansternbilder,
Philosophutnena is GOSPEL OF 17m., 203m, 267m
THOMAS, 231 article in Bursians Jahresbericht, 26711.
on Jesus’ childhood, 232, 334-5 Gurha (statue) in Kukean teaching, 58-9
GOSPEL OF TRUTH, described, 239-
240
discussed, 126, 126m, 240-1, 24m., 343, Habib, disciple of John of Apamea, 58
372, 376 Hackin, Jos., at Gdgit, 12m.
in author’s classification, 145 Hades, Jewish concept of, influenced by
in second discovery, 118 Greek, 288
Gospels, the canonical: Hadrian, Emperor, 12
Basilides’ commentaries on, 20 Haggada, 39m
index of references to, in GOSPEL OF identifies Shem with Melchizedek, 154,
THOMAS, 379-83 286
relationship of, to GOSPEL OF Hagiga, 289m
THOMAS, 347-8, 349 Haivanous in Balinus, 319
warning in against false prophets, 18 Hammer, J. de., Memoire sur deux coffrets
Gothaios, leader of a Gnostic sect, 7 gnostiques du moyen age, 90m
Gotze, A., “Die Schatzhohle. Ueberlie- HamouU MS., XVIII, 96m, 236m
ferung und Quelle”, i84n. XIX, 96m
Governors, the two Great, in Pistis-Sophia, Hamra-Dum, 118, 128, 131, 133, 134
66 Hanan, 289, 290m
Graber, A. and Nordenfalk, C., La Haran Gawaita, Mandaean, 98, 255-6,256m
Peinture romane, 8on. Harmas, in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X,
Grace, in SACRED BOOK OF THE 202
. . . GREAT SPIRIT, 178 Harmozel, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 85
Graetz, Gnostizismus und Judentum, 285m, in Investiture of the Archangel Gabriel,
293 n. 236
Great Book, Mandaean, 98 in magical, etc., texts, 103
Great Hekhaloth, Greek influence on, 288 in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . .
method of composition, 290, 290m GREAT SPIRIT, 178
Great Treatise according to the Mystery, see in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 202
Bruce Codex in TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF
Grebaut, S., 47m fOHN, 220
Index 411
Harmupiael, in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Heracleon, disciple of Valentinus, 26, 30-1
Cod. X, 202
TREATISE (48) by (?), 239, 239m
Hamack, A. von, his view of Gnosticism,
Hennecke, E., Neutestamentliche Apokry-
3. 302 phen, 2nd ed., 87m
Marriott, 24m 3rd ed., 139m
Neue Studien zu Marriott, 24m Heraclitus, on Hercules, 35m
on Books of Pistis-Sophia, 73
Hercules, in Justin’s teaching, 34-5
Harous, in Balinus, 319-20
in other allegories, 35m
Harran, Sabians lived around, 315
Heresiologists:
Harris, J. R., 70m
accurate on Nicolaitans (?), 301
Haug, M., Ueber das Ardai Viraf ttameh,
description of Valentinians by, resembles
28711.
EUGNOSTOS, 195
Hazard, P., European Thought in the not always accurate, 304
Eighteenth Century, 322m on Gospel of the Egyptians, 181
Heads of the town up to the aether, a refer to Allogeneous Books, 137-8, 180
Perataean book, 30
Hermaphrodite, in REVELATION ON
Heavens, opening of, 74m
PISTIS SOPHIA, 168
in Pistis-Sophia, of Egyptian origin, 106 Hermes:
Hebdomad, 243 m and Seth, 190, 190m
in HERMETIC TREATISE (23), 243 frequent occurrence of name in Roman
in Ophite teaching, 38
catacombs, 91-2
in Valentinianism, 29 in Bruce Codex, pt. 2 (?), 84
not in Pistis-Sophia, 66 in On regeneration, etc., 273
Hebrew proselytes, in GOSPEL OF in Sabianism, 313
PHILIP, 222 in Syncellus, 190
Heeg, Catalogus astrologorum Graecorum, of Cyllene, among Ebionites, etc., 91-2
170, 170m
in Naassene teaching, 48, 91-2
Hegesippus claimed Jewish origin for On the Immaterial, in pseudo-Zosimos,
Gnosticism, 285 100
quoted by Eusebius, 5, 5m, 7 only Egyptian prophet mentioned in
on beginnings of Gnosticism, 15 Chenoboskion MSS., 272
Heidenheim, Bibliotheca Samaritana, 189m Physika in pseudo-Zosimos, 278
Heimarmene, see Fatality
supposititious author of Balinus, Secret,
Hekhaloth, in Jewish mysticism, i8on., 290 etc., 318
in Rabbinical literature, 177 The Wing in a magical text, 107
Heleleth, angel:
THOUGHT OF GREAT POWER
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 85 attributed to, 331
in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 161 Hermes Trismegistus:
in Investiture of the Archangel Gabriel, 236 see also Poimandres
in magical, etc., texts, 103 in HERMETIC TREATISE (23), 243
in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . {25), 244
GREAT SPIRIT, 178 (26), 245
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 202 is plagiarized, 107
in TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF literature attributed to, described, 99
JOHN, 220 HERMETIC TREATISE (23), 243, 247
Helen, companion of Simon: in author’s classification, 143
in Simon’s teaching, 16, 17 HERMETIC TREATISE (25), 243-5,
seduced Archons (Epiphanius), 164, 247, 271
164m in author’s classification, 143
Helen of Adiabene, a Jewish proselyte, HERMETIC TREATISE (26), described,
287m 245-6
Helene, = Selene, in Dositheus’ teaching, 15 discussed, 246-7, 246m
Helios, = Fatality in Mithraism, 154 in author’s classification, 143
prayer to, 108 Hermeticism:
Hellen, in Perataean teaching, 51 and Gnosticism, interrelated, 3, 4, 55n.
Hellenism, concept of time in, in belief in Eschakleo, 162m
Hellenistic influence on Judaism, 287-8 Berbali in, 14m
Hemerobaptists, as ancestors of a Gnostic close interrelations with Gnosticism
sect, 7 shown by Chenoboskion MSS., 248
412 Index
Hermeticism (cont.): Homer:
described, 275-7 Christian allegorization of Odyssey,
in Chenoboskion MSS., 241 et seq. 192m
in Islam, 318-20 Eustathius’ commentary, on Odyssey, 191
in REVELATION OF DOSITHEUS, Gnostic use of Odyssey, 93, 192, 349
189. 331 icon of, 12
in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, 331 in Catabasis of Pythagoras, 288
influence of, on Gnosticism, 275, 277-8 in Numenius, 192
modem not directly Gnostic, 322 Naassene use of Odyssey (Philosophu-
popular, close to Gnosticism but pure mena), 48, 191
unconnected with Gnosticism, 99 note in EXEGESIS, etc., on Odyssey, 191
secrecy in, 257 poems allegorically interpreted, 11, 215
writings of, typical titles of, 242 in Chenoboskion MSS., 264
pseudonymous, 253 not fundamental to the MSS., 266
Hermetists, belief about seed, 23411. quoted by pseudo-Zosimos, 99
Hermon, Mount, and children of Seth, Valentinus’ use of, 19m.
39n., 255 Hopfner, T., “Der religionsgeschichtliche
Hermopolis, temple of Petosiris: Gehalt des grossen demotischen Zauber-
cosmogony of, 273 papyrus”, 274m
Psalms, inscriptions containing, at, lo6n. Hopkins, Epic mythology, 285m
Herzfeld, Archaeological history of Iran, “Mythological aspects of trees and
l6in. mountains in the great Epic”, 285m
Herzog-Haupt, 37m Horaios in Ophite teaching, 38
Hesephekh, in SACRED BOOK OF Horea, = Norea, 45, 163
THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT, 178 meaning of name (?), 317
Hesiod, Theogony: see also Norea
allegorization of, in Chenoboskion Horn, J., Ueber die biblische Gnosis, 2, 2n.
MSS., 264 Homer, G., Pistis-Sophia, English transla¬
and Valentinus, 19m. tion, 65m
mystical commentaries on, 349 Homs and Seth, 104
on Chaos, 175, 176 Hosea, in note in EXEGESIS, etc., 191
on Eros, 176 Hu (Diospolis Parva), 129
quoted by the pseudo-Zosimos, 99 Hydria, 169, 171, 172-4, 172m
Hibil-Ziwa, Mandaean, 207n. Hymen, cloud of, in PARAPHRASE OF
Hierabiblos, in REVELATION ON SHEM, 148
PISTIS SOPHIA, 169 explanation of, 149
identity (?), 171 Hymenaeus, in II Timothy, etc., 30m.
Hierakas on Melchizedek, 47 “Hymn of the Pearl”, Acts of Thomas, 49m,
Hierosolymus, 42m 95, 255
Hippolytus, De resurrectione, 30m. Hymns, from Dead Sea Scrolls, 296
pseudo-, reference in, dates PARA¬ HYPOSTASIS OF THE ARCHONS
PHRASE OF SETH, 250 (BOOK OF NOREA):
on Justin, 33 in author’s classification, 144
Hippolytus of Rome, not author of described, 159-63
Philosopkumena, 3, 6 discussed, 163
Refutatio omnium haeresium, 6n. divine throne in, compared with that in
Holy Spirit, in COSPEL OF PHILIP, in REVELATION ON PISTIS
Eucharist, 223 SOPHIA, 177
in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 344, 362 fabricated from REVELATION ON
in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 161 PISTIS SOPHIA, 24m.
in Luria, 294 Noah built ark on Seir, 254
Manichaean, identified with At-TaCim, quotation from St Paul in, 306
227 importance of Sabaoth in, 291
in Pistis-Sophia, 113m the supplanting of Ialdaoth by Sabafith,
in REVELATION ON PISTIS 260
SOPHIA, 167 explained by doctrine of successive
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, alones, 271-2
202 to be compared with REVELATION
in Valentinianism, 28, 2i8n. ON PISTIS SOPHIA, 165
Index
413
Hypsele, Scythianus’ slave at, 3140. lao (cont.):
Hystaspe, in Tabari, 155m
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. Berol., 203
Hystaspes, books attributed to, 4, 102, 280
in the teachings of the Gnostic Sect, 43
Oracles, Judeo-Iranian, banned by the
Little, the Good, in Pistis-Sophia, 66
Empire, 281
on gems, 93
Iad-Sabaoth, in magical, etc., texts, 103
Ibraoth, in First Book of Pistis-Sophia, i77n.
label, in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X,
Ideas, theory of, in GOSPEL OF
202
THOMAS, 345, 349, 373
Iabraoth, in titleless portion of Codex
Idris, = Enoch in Sabianism, 315
Askewianus, 75
lessea Mazarea . . ., in SACRED BOOK
lahweh Sabaoth, 12
OF THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT, 179
laldabaoth:
Iesseus [ ] Mazareus .... in APOCA¬
derivation of name, 16311.
LYPSE OF ADAM, etc., 183, 184
and Ahriman, 281, 28 m.
Ignatius of Antioch, 30m.
and man paralleled by Zeus and
Immortals, in REVELATION ON
Prometheus, 264-5
PISTIS SOPHIA, 165
and Mithraic Alon, 281
in SOPHIA, etc., 200
and Sabaoth paralleled by Kronos and
Imprimerie Nationale, Paris, 123
Zeus, 264
Incantations, used by Gnostics, 54
= Ariael, 162m, ill. 162
India, beliefs from, in Gnosticism, 284—5
(Ariael and Samael) in REVELATION
origin of Gnosticism, etc., in, no
ON PISTIS SOPHIA, 166, 167-8, relations with the West, 284
174-5. 271-2 Indivisible, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 83
= Chnubis (?), 93
Itido-Iranian Journal, 297m
in a cloud, Jewish origin of (?), 291
Infinite in EUGNOSTOS, 194
in a fragment, 88
Infinites, the, in TRIPLE DISCOURSE,
in Basilides’ teaching, 263
330
in Gnosticism, 162m
Innocentii, sect, in Rome, 91
= planet Saturn, 270
Institute of Egypt, 119
in Nicolaitan teaching, 14
Intelligence, in Audius’ teaching, 56
in Ophite belief (Epiphanius), 44, 212, in Valentinianism, 27, 28
213, 214
of God, in Zohar, 292
(Irenaeus), 38, 39, 40
Intention (Akhamoth), in APOCALYPSE
in Pistis-Sophia, 1, 69, 70, I76n.-I77n. OF JAMES (10), 237
in the Gnostic Sect, 41, 42m, 43
of the Wisdom in Valentinianism, 28,
(?) in tomb of Aurelii, 92
29. 30
Mahes, comparable with, 274m
INTERPRET A TION OF THE GNOSIS,
= Sacla, 5in. dialect of, 138
Sacla comparable with Seth and Osiris in author’s classification, 144
(Plutarch), 274 mentioned, 197
= Sacla, derived by Manichaeans from Interrogations of Mary, a book of the
Gnostics, 313 Gnostic sect, 41, 57m
(= Sacla, etc.) in Chenoboskion MSS., lobel, in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 202
260
loel, in Priscillianist treatise, 198m
(Sacla, Samael) in SECRET BOOK, Iouel in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 82
etc. Cod. X and Cod. Berol., 152, the Virgin, in SACRED BOOK OF
202-4, 205, 207, 208
THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT, 178
(= Samael) in HYPOSTASIS, etc., Investiture of the Archangel Gabriel, 235-6
162-3, 271-2 Invisible, The, see Propator
(Samael) in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, Iranian belief(s):
etc., 181, 329 described, 279-81
= Saturn, 164m
exemplified in Chenoboskion MSS.,
similarity of Egyptian Father to, 273 281-4
statue of (?) in Rome, 94 in adventitious soul (two spirits), 216,
lamblichus, 4 29711.
lao, in Jeou the painter, 105 in celestial ascents, literature of, i5on.
in Ophite teaching, 38 in creation of parts of body by planets,
in Rabbinical literature, 109 205m
4H Index
Iranian belief(s) (cont.): Isidore, son of Basilides (cont.):
influence of, on Basilides, 263-3, 263 n. On the adventitious soul, 23
knowledge of extended by Cheno- by Basilides as well, 263
boskion, 279 teachings of, 2on.
Iranian elements in certain prayers, 109 on the additional soul, 72, 216
Iranian influence, in Chenoboskion MSS., writings of, 20
279, 281-4 Isis, in Egyptian belief, 5m., 104
in HERMETIC TREATISE (25), 24411. = Euno, in Peratean belief, 5 x
on Gnosticism, 102, 114, 152-3 and Osiris, in Peratean belief, 273-4
on Judaism, 287 worshipped at Rome, 90
Irenaeus, St, 61 Islam, and Gnosticism, no, 317-22
attitude of compared with that of and Hermetism, 318-20
Philosophumena, 47m Islam, Der, 318m
on Basilides, 21, 2ln., 23 Ismael, Rabbi, first to identify Shem with
on Barbelognostics (History), 86 Melchizedek, 286m
on Book of Norea (Adversus haereses), 163 Isma’ilites, Gnostic in origin, 321
on Cainites, 36 “Isma'iliya”, 32m.
on Carpocrates, 23 Isoauel, in SACRED BOOK OF THE
on Gnosticism, 18-19, 15®., 8in. ... GREAT SPIRIT, 179
on Gnostic morality (Adversus haereses), Israel, the firstborn, in REVELATION
112, H2n. ON PISTIS SOPHIA, 167
on lack of uniformity in sectaries’ views Ituraea, home of baptist sects, 255
(Adversus haereses), 253 Izates, a Jewish proselyte, 287
on Marcos’ mystical union, 224m
on Marcos’ rites, 33
on Marcosian baptism, 224m J.T.S., 88n.
on Ophites, 26m, 36, 37-40, 44 Jaarbericht. Ex Oriente Lux, 29711.
on Ophites and Sethians, close to Jackson, A. W., Researches in Manichaeism,
SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 212 208n.
on Simon, 16, 17 Jamasp, son of Fashd, 155m
on the Gnostic Sect (Barbelognostics), James, M. R., The Apocryphal New Testa¬
36-7 ment, i6n., 28n., 48m, 95m, 96m, I75n.
on the Valentinians, 18-19, 26n. James, St, the Apostle:
and their Gospel of Truth (Adversus as brother of Jesus in Naassene belief
haereses), 240 (Philosophumena), 198m
on Valentinus (Adversus haereses), 27, believed to be a brother of Jesus, 48, 236
30, 31 in APOCALYPSE OF JAMES (10) and
parody of Valentinus, 32, 32m (JJ). 237
on various Gnostic sects’ beliefs similar in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 237, 345,
to EUGNOSTOS, 195 357
opposes doctrines of SECRET BOOK, in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . .
etc., 127 GREAT SPIRIT, 237
proves earliness of SECRET BOOK OF in tomb of the Aurelii, 93
JOHN (Contra haereses), 250 reverenced by Ebionites, etc., and
summarizes part of SECRET BOOK, Gnostics, 91
etc., 210, 211, 212, 24m. some Chenoboskion MSS. attributed to,
quotation in, similar to GOSPEL OF 304
THOMAS, 372 James the Great, strategus, in SACRED
refers to Gospel of Thomas (?), 335 BOOK OF THE . .. GREAT SPIRIT,
The so-called Gnosis unmasked, etc., 5 179
Isaiah the Prophet in Pistis-Sophia, 68 Jars as MSS. container, 1340.
Isaiah, 29, 29m, 38m, 68, 68n., 149, 309, Jealousy in REVELATION ON PISTIS
309m SOPHIA, 165
Ishmaelites, confuse Seth, Shem, etc., 155 Jeou, in Books of the Saviour, 73
Ishtar, descent of into hell, 2i8n. in Pistis-Sophia, 66, 69, 71, 177m
Isidore, son of Basilides: in the Great Treatise, 77
claimed Matthias had left him secret in titleless portion of Codex Askew-
discourses (Philosophumena), 226, 336, ianus, 75
352 the Painter, stele of, 105
Index
415
Jeremiah, mentions MSS. in ajar, 134 Jesus Christ (cont.):
Jerome, St, Ad Evagrium, 47m
logia of in DIALOG UE OF SA VIO UR,
Commentary on Micah, 236 221
Contra Vigilantius, 5, jn., 1411. logia of, in Origen, 343, 351
on Basilides, 23
Manichaean belief that He came to earth
on apocrypha, 351
at age of seven, 232
Jerusalem :
Manichaean view of His baptism, H3n.
the heavenly, 48
mentioned by Satornil, 19m
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 84
preached in Samaria, later to become
in tomb of the Aurelii, 93
birthplace of Gnostics, 302
= Ogdoad, 243 m
problem of the Logia solved by Cheno¬
town of, Tomb of the Kings at, 287m boskion MSS., xiv
Jesus Christ, ix
(Saviour) discourse of, handed on by
= Aberamenthfi, a statue of, 105
Matthias (Philosophumena), 226, 336
Adam prophesied advent of, in Book of in ACTS OF PETER, 236
Mysteries, 183
in DIALOG UE OF THE SA VIO UR,
and Saoshyant in the Magi writings, 102 220-1
and the Jordan, 49
in Gospel of Matthias (Philosophumena),
as redeemer in Manichaean belief, 217 336
at end of Codex Askewianus, 76
in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 228, 229,
childhood of described in a Gospel of 230, 231, 233, 237, 344-5, 346, 351,
Thomas, 232
355 et seq., 371 et seq.
compared to Ophiouchus, 50m
in GOSPEL OF TRUTH, 239, 240
crucifixion, in Basilides’ teaching, 22, in Kukean teaching, 59
22n.
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 201,
crucifixion in Manichaean belief, 22
202, 204, 206, 207, 208, 210, 211,
early collections of logia of, 351-2 303, 328
entrusted Philip, etc., with teachings sayings of, Basilides’ collection of, 20
(Pistis-Sophia), 221-2 = Seth, 45
icons, etc., of, 11, 12, 23
in Sethian teaching (Epiphanius), 187
(?) hi a fragment, 89
= Serpent in Books of JSou, 261
in Acts of John, 95
Shem =, in PARAPHRASE OF
in Acts of Thomas, 95, 340 SHEM, 149
in APOCALYPSE OF JAMES (10), 237 special relationship of Thomas, etc., to,
m BOOK OF THOMAS, 225, 339 in Gnosticism, 335-6
in Books of the Saviour, 72, 73 the assayer, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 82
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 85
the Christ, in REVELATION ON
in Chenoboskion MSS., 305 PISTIS SOPHIA, 167
in Gnosticism, hi, 113, 113m
the great Christ, in SACRED BOOK OF
in Justin’s teaching, 35
THE INVISIBLE . . . SPIRIT, 178
in Mandaean teaching, non. the Living, in SACRED BOOK OF
in Manes, Shdpurakdn, 314m
THE INVISIBLE . . . SPIRIT, 298
in Manichaeism, 102 Thomas, a brother of, 225, 226, 339-40
in Marcionism, 24, 25, 26 Manichaean parallel, 226-7, 22711.
in Naassene teaching, 48 writings ascribed to, among Cheno¬
in Ophite teaching, 37, 40 boskion MSS., 262
in Pistis-Sophia, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 327, Jewish elements in REVELATION ON
328 PISTIS SOPHIA, 176-7
in St Paul’s works not Docetic, 308 mysticism, chariot image in, 83
in SOPHIA, etc., 198-200 myths in pseudo-Zosimos, 99
(Adam—Light) in SOPHIA, etc., 199 Jewish Quarterly Review, 286m
in the Great Treatise, 77, 78, 79 Jews, believed to have a donkey-headed
in the teachings of the Gnostic Sect, 43 god, 42n.
in titleless portion of Codex Askew¬ Job, 293m
ianus, 74, 75 Johannes Lydus, quotes Greek Asclepius,
in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, etc., 181, 331 247n.
in Valentinianism, 28, 29, 30, 31, 218n. John, disciple of John of Apamea, 58
in Yazuqean teaching, 61 John of Apamea, 57-8
James a brother of, 236-7 77te Foundations, 58
416 Index
John of Parallos, 9 Jordan, as a symbol, 48-9, 49m
denounced a Teachings of Adam, 183, 213 Joseph, in GOSPEL OF PHILIP, 223
and a Preaching of John (= SECRET in Pistis-Sophia, 70-1
BOOK, etc.l), 213 Josephus, Antiqu. Judaeorum, 290m
put St Michael books on Index, 96n. on false messiahs, 301
John Rylands collection, Coptic letter in, on Seth, 190
141 Joshua, 49, 68n.
John, St: Journal Asiatique, 155m, 158m, 28m.
(i) Journal of Biblical Literature, 28911.
Christians of, see Mandaeans Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 87m
depicted in tomb of the Aurelii, 93 Journal of the American Oriental Society,
in a fragment, 89 285m
in Clement, Hypotyposes, 236 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 288m
in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 201, Judaeus, 42m
204, 206, 207, 210, 328 Judaica. Festschrift fur Hermann Cohen, 285m
in TREATISE ON THE BAPTISM, Judaism, a belief of, that teachers were
etc., 212-20 caught up to heaven, 108-9
influence of, on Odes of Solomon, 70m influence of, on Gnosticism and the
not author of St Michael book, 96m Chenoboskion MSS., 285-6, 295
(ii) Hellenistic influences on, 11, 287-8
I Epistle: influence of, on “Rossi”, 103
antichrists =*= Gnostic teachers (?), 301 influence of, on Yazuqeans, 61
Light in, 305 Iranian influences on, 287
(iii) mixed with Egyptian elements, 105-6,
Gospel of: io6n.
Coptic MS. of, 141 parallels of, with early Gnostic literature,
part of, in recently discovered 289-91
Papyrus Bodmer III, 128m mediaeval Jewish literature and Gnos¬
Greek MS. of, Papyrus Bodmer II, 141 ticism, 292-5
Light in, 305 related to Gnosticism (?), no
notion of Gnosis in, 306-7 Judas, in DIALOGUE OF THE
resembles GOSPEL OF THOMAS, SAVIOUR, 221
339. 342. 349. 350, 372. 374 Jude, Epistle of, 301-2
Thomas in, 339 Jude-Thomas, connected with Edessa, 340
(iv) in BOOK OF THOMAS, 225, 339
Revelation of: in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 228
compared with GOSPEL OF see also Thomas, St
THOMAS, 372 Jiidische Zeitschrift, 97x1.
on Virgin of Light, 271 Julian the Theurgist, Chaldaean oracles, 4
refers to Nicolas, 13 bibliography of, 103m
REVELATION OF PISTIS close to Gnosticism, 269
SOPHIA compared with, 167 influenced by Gnosticism (?), 103
Samael in, 177m on the membrane dividing the fires,
source of part of GOSPEL OF 149m
TRUTH, 239 related to Bruce Codex, pt.2, 85-6, 102
Virgin in REVELATION OF Jung, C. G., Psychological types, 52m
ADAM, etc., compared with, 183 Psychology and Alchemy, 32211.
John the Baptist, 15 Jung Codex:
in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 363 a part of Codex XIII, 137, 145
in Ophite teaching, 40 description and contents of, 238-9
teacher of Dositheus, etc., 189 dialect of, 137, 239
Yohanna (Mandaean) = , 256 edition of part of, 126, 239m
Johnson, Rev. L., translator, 333 see also Eid, A.
Jonas, H.: Jung Institute, Zurich, xiii-xiv, 123, 145
Gnosis und Spatantiker Geist, etc., I, 3, 3m, Junker, H., “Die Gotterlehre von Mem¬
i6n., 37m, 47m, 5on., 32m, 68n., phis”, (Schabaka inschrift), 27211.
95m, 112, Il2n., 15m., 157m, “Die Iranischen Quellen der hellenisti-
312m, 316m schen Aionvorstellung ”, 28 m.
II. 3. 3n. Just ones, The, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 82,84
Index
417
Justice, in REVELATION ON PISTIS
Kronos, of Iranian origin (?), 28m.
SOPHIA, 168
Kropp, A. M., Ausgewcihlte Koptische
Justin, St, 8on.
Zaubertexte, 85m, 103m, 29m.
Apology, 28n.
Kuh-i-Khwaga, cave of Adam at (?), 161
Baruch founded on rabbinical specula¬
Kuhn, K. G., “Die Sektenschrift und die
tions, 286
iranische Religion”, 297m
teachings of, in Baruch, 33-5 Kukeans, 58-9
still undiscovered, 252
myth of creation of man, 212m
Syntagma, 5, jn.
Kurites in Peratean belief (Philosophumena),
on Eve, 214m
286n.
Kabbala, 2
Labib, P., Coptic Gnostic Papyri in the
Marcus’ numerology similar to that of, Coptic Museum, 122m, 239m
33 Director of the Coptic Museum, 124
Kahle, P., Bala’izah, 88n.
Labriolle, P. de. La Reaction paienne, 42m,
Kalapatauroth in Books of the Saviour, 73 62m
Kantaeans, 59-61, 59m
Lactantius, De ave phoenice, 172m, 173
Kashqar, Bishop of, 7 Inst., yon.
Kasser, R., ed., Papyrus Bodmer III, 12811. quotes Asclepius, 246m
Kaukaban, 46
Ladames the Great, 131-2
Kaulakau in Naassene teachings, 49 Lagrange, M. J., L'Orphisme, 265m
Kelkheak and Kelkhea, in PARAPHRASE
Lambert of St Omer, Liber Floridus, 8on.
OF SHEM, 148 Lampetians, 57
Kem-atef, 93
Kemi, 132m
Lantschoot, A. van, “A propos du
Physiologus”, 172m
Kephalaia (Kephalaion), 8on., 162m, i88n.,
“Fragments coptes d’une homelie de
189, 205m, 208n., 27m., 306n., 336, 343 Jean de Parallos”, 911., 96m, 183m,
Key to Hydromancy, = Epistle of Rehoboam, 213m
170
Lapidary of Aristotle, i8on.
Khalkhydras, in Book of the Secrets of Last Supper, in tomb of the Aurelii, 93
Enoch, 172-4
Law, in TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF
Kharael, in Testament of Solomon, 203 n. JOHN, 219
Khatibi, el-, on Sabian myth of soul, 316, opposition to, in St Paul compared with
3i6n.
Gnostic anti-biblicism, 306-7, 308
Khesr, in Islamic belief, 317 Lebreton, J., Histoire de I'Eglise, 19m
Khnum of Elephantis, 93 Histoire du dogme de la Trinitd, 4m
Kingdom, in Clement, II Epistle, 375 Lefebvre, G., Le Tombeau de Petosiris,
in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 228, 230, io6n., 273m
231. 345, 346, 355, 358, 359, 360, 363, Le Forestier, R., La Franc-Mafonnerie
364, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 373, 374, occultiste au XVIIRme silcle et I'ordre des
376, 377 £lus Coens, 322m
of Light, in Pistis-Sophia, 222 Lefort, L. Th., Les Plres apostoliques en
in the Great Treatise, 79 copte, n8n.
Kings, II, 68n.
“Les premiers monasteres pachomiens”,
Kmosko, M., ed., Liber Graduum, 3 ion. 130, 13 on.
Knowledge, principles of, in GOSPEL OF transl., Les Vies coptes de Saint Pachome
THOMAS, 346 . . ., 129m, 135, 135m, 136, 136m
Kohut, on Duidaln, 97m Left, Place of the, in Pistis-Sophia, 66
Korah, a prophet of the Cainites, 36 Left and Right, in Ophite belief,
Kore kosmou, 2o8n. in Pistis-Sophia, 66-7
Kosmopoiia, 14m, 162m in Valentinianism, 30
Kraeling, Anthropos and Son of Man, 286m Leisegang, H., La Gnose, ion., 14m, 2311.,
Krafft, J. G., De haeresi Audianorum, 55m 33n., 43m, 65, 65m, 66, 66n., 73m,
Kramer, S. N., L’Histoire commence a 224m, 262m
Sumer, 268, 268m on the Orphic (?) bowl, 90, 90m
Kraus, Jabir ibn Hayyan, 318m Leontius of Byzantium, on Gospel of
Kroll, W., De oracutis Chaldaicis, 103m Thomas, 232
Collection of Chaldaean Oracles, 86n. Leontopolis, Mahes, god of, 274m
418 Index
Leptis Magna, 11 Light (cont.):
Lcslau, W., Falasha anthology, 98n. in SOPHIA, etc., 14711., 199
Leusiboras, mentioned by St Jerome, 5 in the PARAPHRASE OF SHEM,
Levi, in Gospel of Mary, 88 147-8
Levi, I., “Le Pdche originel dans les in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, 330, 331
anciennes sources juives”, 286n. Iranian belief about holiness of shown
Leviathan in the Diagram, 73m from Shkand Gumanik Vichar, 283
Levitical sect, 14 myth of collection of, derived by
Lewald, Commentatio ad historiam religionum Manichaeans from Gnostics, 313
veterum illustrandum pertitiens de doctrina of the All-Powerful, in SOPHIA, etc.,
gnostica, 2, zn. 199
Lewy, H., Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy, one of the Three Principles of the
86n., 103m Sethians (Philosophumena), 52, 150-I,
Leyden, Kosmopoiia in a papyrus at, 162 259
papyrus of, published, 273m Prince of. Source of and Spirits of, in
Liber Graduum, 3 ion. Dead Sea Scrolls, 297
Licentiousness, none in Chenoboskion sons of, elected, in St Paul, 308
MSS., 251 in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, 330
Lidzbarski, ed., Ginzd, 155m, 164m, 256m, The, in Manicheism, 216
27m. world of, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS,
ed., Das Johannesbuch der Mandaer, 155m, 345
164m, 207m, 256m Lights, Mountain of, in mythology, 256
see also Book of John Limit, in Battai’s teaching, 60
Liechtenhan, R., “Ophiten”, 37m in Valentinianism, 28, 31, 8in.
Sophia of Jesus (Cod. Berol.) translated the, in tomb of the Aurelii, 92
by, in part, 87m Linus, 53
Lietzmann, his view of Gnosticism, 302 Lion as a symbol in GOSPEL OF
Life everlasting, in SACRED BOOK OF THOMAS and elsewhere, 371
THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT, 178 Lithargoel, in ACTS OF PETER, etc.,
in Satomil’s teaching, 19 235-6
in Valentinianism, 27 Lipsius, R. A., Die Quellenkritik des
the, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 233,364 Epiphanius, 8n.
Life of Adam and Eve, 45m Little, the, and the Great, in DIALOGUE
Light: OF THE SAVIOUR, 221
and Darkness in the Magi writings, 102 Little Interrogations of Mary, 73
army of the, in Zoroastrian prophecy, Livre des perles enfouies . . ., 132, 132m
186 LOGIA JESOU, see GOSPEL OF
collected by the moon, a Gnostic belief, THOMAS
271 Logia, early collections of, 351-2
freeing of sparks of, in Iranian belief, Grenfell knew were connected with
282, 282m Naassenes, 232
God is, in St John, 305 Naassene explanation of a logion in
in Book of Great Treatise, etc., 79, 80 GOSPEL OF THOMAS (Philosoph¬
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 83, 84 umena), 371
in Bundahishn, 152, 153 new, from GOSPEL OF THOMAS.
in certain Gnostic prayers, 109 237, 229-30
in Codex Askewianus, 80 ancient allusions to, 230-1
in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 357. 359. Oxyrhynchus fragments are from GOS¬
363. 367. 373. 374 PEL OF THOMAS, 227, 228,
in Iranian myth, 154 228m, 229, 232, 232m, 234, 337-8
in Manicheism, 152 emendations to, proved wrong,
in Pistis-Sophia, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71 227-8, 338
in Poimandres, 276, 277 quoted in Origen, 343, 351
in pseudo-Zosimos, 101 Logogene, in SECRET BOOK OF THE
in REVELATION ON PISTIS INVISIBLE .. . SPIRIT, 298
SOPHIA, 169 Logos of the Mother, in Valentinianism,
in St Paul, 307 2i8n.
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 152, Lord, The, in Porphyry, 86
201, 202-3, 207, 208, 209 Lord God in Battai’s teaching, 60
Index 419
Lord of Glory, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, Man:

84 creation of, in Balinus, 319
Lot, wife of, in Theodore’s answer, 136 in Borgia leaflet, 96m
Louvain, MS.9 and MS.12, 141 in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 83
Lucian, Alexander or the false prophet, 6 in EUGNOSTOS, 194
Luke, St: in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 159
disregarded by Gnostics, 336 in Ophite belief (Epiphanius), 212-13
no Chenoboskion MS. attributed to, and elsewhere, 2l2n.
304 in Valentinianism, 29-30
Gospel of, 20, 24, 41, 67n., 68n., 8on., ascent of, in Gnosticism, 108
233n., 305 categorization of, in Gnosticism and in
close to Basilides’ collection of St Paul, 307
Logia, 352 in certain Gnostic prayers, 107
contains a Logion, 231 in Poimandres, 214, 215
parallels with GOSPEL OF in REVELATION OF ADAM, etc.,
THOMAS, 341, 343, 352, 377, 378 182
Luminaries, Great in TRIPLE DIS¬ in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . .
COURSE, etc., 181, 329 GREAT SPIRIT, 178-9
Luria, Isaac, 293-4 in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 202,
Luxor, 128, 130 204, 206, 215, 217
author at, 119 primordial, and the Messenger, in
Lycos valley, original home of Gnosticism, Iranian belief, 282m
12 in Valentinianism, 27
Lyons, Valentinianism in, 13 Son of, in Naassene teachings, 49
the, in REVELATION ON PISTIS
SOPHIA, 168
McCown, The Testament of Solomon, 17m. The First, in Ophite belief (Irenaeus), 37,
Macrocosm and microcosm, origin of 38, 40
belief in, 268-9 The Perfect, in Sethian teaching, 53
Magi, 102 Manchester Guardian, report in, xiii
in Book of the Cave, etc., 184 Mandaeanism, 34
in Christian belief, 184 Adam important in, 183
in Syriac Chronicle, 185 Mandaean (s):
Iranian, 279 and Gnosticism, 315
traditions of, mythical geography of, confusion of, 61
i6in. shared a mythical geography, 255
shared with Gnosticism, etc., 255 of Gnostic derivation, 98, 99
Magical literature, 4 and Kantaeans, 59m
and Gnosticism, 103, 105 anti-Christian, no, non.
and Hermetism, 99, 99m belief about Shem, 155
Hermes, On the immaterial is against, belief in ships of the sun, etc., 7411.
100 sacred books of, 98
influence of Judaism and of Egyptian books of, allude to Yazuqaeans, 61
thought on, 107 certain Mandaeans of Jewish origin (A
Magical prayers: Biruni), 285
Chariot in, 291 doctrine of seven atones, 271
fatality in, 154 eagle in, 207m
Magusaeans, 279, 2790., 280 Mountain of Lights and an Indian
Mahabharata, a White Mountain in, 284-5 parallel, 285
Mahes, similar to Ialdabaoth, 274m mystical union in, 224m
Mahomet, ascension of, a myth of Gnostic myth of Nuraita (Norea), 164
origin, 317-18, 3i7n. Seven Guardians and Indian parallel, 285
Malinine, M., introduction by, to Gospel and time, 111-12
of Truth (Evang. Ver.), 239 Manes, 4
Malinine, M., Puech, H. C., and Quispel, as depicted in Acts of Archelaus, 7
G., eds., Evangelium Veritatis, 126m, death of, 49m
239m, 24m. early history of (Acts of Archelaus), 314
Male, E., L'Art riligieux en France au XIII (Shapurakdn), 314m
sihle, in. Gaukal, place of origin of, 25 5 n.
420 Index
Manes (cont.): Manichaeism (cont.):
influenced by Bardesan’s Gnosticism, Beliefs in Manichaeism (cont.):
3in. creation of parts of body by planets,
influenced by Mesopotamian baptists, 98 205n.
influenced by Ophites (Augustine, etc.), in Sacla, i62n.-3n.
312 in Two Principles, 152
mentioned by St Jerome, 5 in Virgin of Light, 8on.
revelation by at-TaCim to, 226-7 Jesus Christ as redeemer, 217
St Ephraim’s refutation of, 24m Jesus Christ came to the earth at age of
the Mysteries, etc., attributed in Acts of seven, 232
Archelaus to Terebinth, 314 man’s luminous nature alien (=allo-
see also, Kephalaia geneous), I58n.
Manetho, on Moses, 105 mystical union, 224m
Mani, see Manes on Adam, 214, 2i8n.
Manichaean MSS. of Fayum, 86n., 119-20 on baptism of Jesus Christ, ii3n.
exact provenance of unknown, 136 on Eve, 2i4n.
Manichaeism, xvi-xvii, 3 on shape of earth (Cosmas), 269
and Battai, 59,60 planets evil, sun and moon good,
and Christianity, 9, 313 270
and Gnosticism, 312-15, 31411. root, as a symbol, i47n.
confusion of, 61 seduction of the Archons by Norea,
and Kantaeans, 59, 59m i6in., 164, 164m
attacked in Acts of Archelaus, 7 by crew of ships of sun, etc., 74m
beginning of suppression of, 13 sky made of Archons’ skins, 149m
GOSPEL OF THOMAS, in fact, that Adam bore witness to the advent
written before rise of, 348 of Christ, 183
used in, 22711., 232, 335 tree symbolism, 8on., 147m
influence of, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, whispered prayers, 196m
234 Manichaische Handschriften der staatlichen
importance of St Paul in, 306m Museen Berlin, i88n., 306m
influence of, in Acts of Thomas, 95 Manilius, Astronomica, 44
influence of, in Great Treatise, 80 Mansi, Coll. Concil., 27m.
influence of in Pistis-Sophia, etc., 259 Manual of Discipline of Dead Sea Sect, 297,
Mountain of Lights in, and Indian 297m
parallel, 284-5 Marcellina, in Rome, 12
neo-Gnostics classed as followers of, 312 Marcellinus, reverenced icons of Pythag¬
of Gnostic derivation, 98 oras, etc. (Epiphanius), 263m
origin of (Acts of Archelaus), 314 Marcianus, a heretic, 46
(Shapurakan), 314m Marcion, 24
parallels in, to the Christian “Coming his Foreign God compared with
of the Kingdom’’, 213m Allogeneous Seth, 158
Third Messenger in, and Egyptian in Rome, 12-13
belief, 273 sources for, 24m
Three Phases in the cosmology of, three primordial Principles in teaching
found also in Gnosticism, 113m, 114 of, 151
work by Nicotheus mentioned in, 86, various opponents of, 7
86n., 159 Marcionism, 24-6
writings of, 4 Marcionite influence on Commandments of
not pseudonymous, 253 the Sabbath, 97
Beliefs in Manichaeism: Marcus, inspired by Barbelo and the
about end of world, 188 Tetrad, I47n.
about importance of St Thomas, 232 mystical union and baptism in teaching
about Mariamne, I98n. of (Irenaeus), 224m
about St Michael and Satan, 96m pupil of Valentinus, 32
about Seth, 188-9 teaching of, 33
about Shem, 154-5 spread of, 13
about souls, 69m Mariamne, 48
about time, 112 in Naassene belief (Philosophumena), 236
about Trees of Paradise, 216 in tomb of Aurelii, 92
Index 421
Mariamne (cont.): Matter, Histoire critique du Gnosticisme, 2

in SOPHIA, etc., i98n., 222 Matthew, St:
identity (?), 19811. and Basilides, 20
Maries, L., Le “De deo” d'Eznik dc Kolb disregarded by Gnostics, 336
connu sous le nom de “Centre les sectes”, Gospel of, 67m, 68n., 373, 374, 377, 378
24n. a source of the Five Trees, 8on.
Mark, St: cited, 339
Gospel of, 67m, 68n., 23311., 339 contains a logion, 231, 23 3m
disregarded by Gnostics, 336 in Books of the Saviour, 72
no parallels with GOSPEL OF in DIALOGUE OF THE SAVIOUR,
THOMAS, 342 221
except certain parables, etc., 378 importance of in Pistis-Sophia, 221, 222
no Chenoboskion MS. attributed to, 304 in SOPHIA, etc., 222
Mark the Gnostic, Jewish influence in, 291 in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 233, 341,
Marmaro and Marmaroth in “Rossi”, 103 343. 357
Marsanes, caught up to heaven, 109 in tomb of the Aurelii, 93
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 82, 86 Matthew, St (Matthias):
our ignorance of, 114 importance of, in Gnosticism, 335-6
Marsanes and Martiades: in Pistis-Sophia, 221, 222
the celestial visions (revelations) of, 46, in SOPHIA OF JESUS, 222
46n., 86 in BOOK OF THOMAS, 225
still undiscovered, 159, 252 in tomb of the Aurelii, 93
Martana, a prophetess, 46 secret discourses of, left to Basilides,
Martiades, caught up to heaven, 109 etc. (?) (Philosophumena), 226, 336,
see also supra: Marsanes and Martiades 352
Martinez de Pasquales, derived his ideas no Chenoboskion MS. attributed to, 304
from alchemists, 322, 322m Mazdaism, 280m, 28m.
Martos, a prophetess, 46 combats between celestial spirits in,
Mary, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 234, 177m
359, 370 Medea in Peratean teaching, 51
in Pistis-Sophia, 68, 69, 70, 222, 327, 328 Media, Israelites in, after the Exile, 287
in SOPHIA, etc., 198 Medinet Habu, Temple at, io6n.
(Magdalene?), 88 texts from, 272m
Magdalene, in DIALOGUE OF THE Melanges Bidez . . ., 192m
SAVIOUR, 221 Melanges Capart, 267x1.
in Pistis-Sophia, 71 Melanges de Ghellinck, 89m
Mariamne= (?), 198m Melanges Franz Cumont, 39m, 57m
the mother of Jesus, in Valentinianism, Melkharadonin, in SECRET BOOK, etc.,
30-1, 2i8n. Cod. X, 202
Mariamne= (?), I98n. Melchizedek, 46
the Virgin in GOSPEL OF PHILIP, 223 as Seth, 47
Masbutheans as ancestors of a Gnostic sect, 7 in a fragment, 89
Mashya, 46m in Ishmaelite belief, 155
Mashyane, 46m in Isma’ilite belief, 321, 32m.
Maspero, )., Histone des Patriarches in myth of Saoshyant, 184
d'Alexandrie, 139m in Pistis-Sophia, 66, 69
Massignon, L., “Inventaire de la literature in St Paul, 305
hermetique arabe”, 318m in teaching of John of Apamea, 57, 58
Mataraha, in Mandaean myth, 256 Shem=, in Haggada, 154, 154m, 286
Matrimony, as a symbol, in GOSPEL OF similarity of Bruce and Askew Codices
PHILIP, 224 on, 80
elsewhere, 224m (= Zorokothora) in the Great Treatise,
Matter, in Acts of Thomas, 95 79
in Gnosticism, 62, 113 Melchizedekians in Epiphanius, 154
in Marcionism, 25 Mdmoires prdsenth a VAcadimie des Inscrip¬
in Ophite teaching, 38 tions, etc., 196m
in Peratean teaching, 50, 51 Memorie. Pontifical Academy of Archae¬
in Pistis-Sophia, 66 ology, 92n.
in Sabianism, 316 Memphis, agate of Mahes found at, 274n.
4-22 Index
Menander, leader of a Gnostic sect, 7, 19, Mimaut papyrus:
20 Asclepius prayer in, 108, 243, 245, 248m
from Capparetia, 12 also found in Chenoboskion MS.,
on the resurrection of the dead, 30m. 143
regarded himself as a divine incarnation, Mina, Togo, Director of the Coptic
254 Museum:
Menasce, J. de, Schkand-gum'anik Vichdr, and Miss Dattari’s MSS., xiii, 121, 122
27m., 282n., 284m and author alone knew full history,
Mereim, in APOCALYPSE OF JAMES xiv
(it). 237 and the first discovery, xii, 116-17
Merkaba, in Jewish mysticism, 177, 290 and the second discovery, xii, 118, n8n.,
Mesites in Bundahishrt, 152m 119
Mesopotamia Audians in, 56 “Le Papyrus gnostique du Musee
Mandaeans in, 98, 315 copte”, xv, Ii8n., H9n.
Manichaeism in, 98 death, 123
spread of Gnosticism into, 13 obituary, Il6n.
Mesos, revelation of, mentioned by Minucius Felix, Octavius, 4211.
Porphyry, 10, 53, 156 Mirothea, in SACRED BOOK OF THE
Mesotes, cloud of, in PARAPHRASE OF . . . GREAT SPIRIT, 178
SHEM, 148 in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, etc., 181, 329
Messalians, 310, 3lon.-3iin. Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, I (Studi e
believed in adventitious soul, 2i6n., 310 testi, 121), 9n., 183m
Messenger, = Saviour in Iranian belief, Mithra, corresponds to Third Principle in
282m Zoroastrian writings, 154
third, Manichaean, paralleled in Egypt¬ = Fatality, 154
ian belief, 273 in Bundahishn, 152m
Messiah, the false, 300-1 Mithraic Liturgy:
Messina, G., Der Ursprung der Magier, Adam glorified in, 291
279m, 28 m. and supposititious author of, 108
I Magi a Betlemme e una predizione di ascent into heaven in, 291
Zoroastro, 155m, 156m, l6in., 184m, Helios (Mithra) as intermediate prin¬
279m, 282m, 287m ciple in, 134
Messos, Gnostic use of name shows not Mithraic, lo8n., 291
Magusaean influence, 280 Mithraism, of Iranian origin, 279
in REVELA TION OF MESSOS, 157 spread of, in Roman world, 11
Metal-work, myth of origin of, 209 statue of the Ai'&n in, 257
Metempsychosis, in Simon’s teaching, 16 Mnesinous in APOCALYPSE OF ADAM,
Metropator, in SECRET BOOK, etc.. etc., 182
Cod. X, 206, 209 in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . .
in Valentinianism, 29 GREAT SPIRIT, 179
Meyer, R., Hellenistisches in der rabbinischeti Modestus, against Marcion, 7
Anthropologie, 28 7n. Monad (Sacred book), 171
Michael, St, Coptic works on, 96m Monad, in Bruce Codex, 81
in Pistis-Sophia, 71 = Barbelo, 8in.
Michael the Syrian, Chronicle, on Battai, Monasteries of Central Egypt, 89m
60-1 Monatschrift fur Geschichte und Wissenschaft
Michaud, H., “Un mythe zervanist dans des Judentums, 28 5n.
un des manuscrits de Qumran ”, 297m Monde, Le, xii, 232m
Microcosm and macrocosm, parallelism of Monneret de Villard, U.f Le Leggende
and light-collecting myth, 282m orientali sui Magi evangelici, 97n., i02n.,
Migne, Patrologia graeca, 47m, 68n. 156m, 157m, 16m., 184m, 185m, i86n.,
Patrologia latina, 47m 279m
Mikhcus and Mikhar, in APOCALYPSE Monogene (Only-begotten) in Bruce
OF ADAM, etc., 182 Codex, pt.2, 81, 8ln., 82-3
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 85 in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 202
and Mikhea, in SACRED BOOK OF Montet, P., Le Drame d’Avaris. Essai sur la
THE INVISIBLE . . . SPIRIT, 179 pdndtration des Semites en fgypte, 42m,
Milik, J. T., Dix ans de dhouvertes dans le 104m
desert de Juda, 25 8n., 297m Monumenti antichi, 92m
Index 423
Moon, as a collector of light, 271 Muller, C. D. G., Die alte koptische
in Bruce and Askew codices, 80 Predigt, 96m
in Pistis-Sophia, 69 Musaeus, 53
ships of, in Pistis-Sophia and Egyptian = Moses, in Jewish belief, 287-8
belief, 106 Musanios, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 84
Moret, A., Mystbes egyptiennes, 273n. Musanus, wrote against the Encratites, 7
Moses: Musdon, Le, 130m, 228m
blinded Samael, in Jewish tradition, i"5, Mustapha Amer, Dr, Director of Service
I75n. of Antiquities, 124
in Book of Archangels, 171 Mysteries, Greek, 2
in Manetho, 105 influence of, on Gnosticism (Philosoph-
in Monad, 171 umena), 264
in Pistis-Sophia, 222 used by Naassenes, 48
= Musaeus, in Jewish belief, 287-8 Mystery, the, in Pistis-Sophia, 327, 328
Pythagoras, etc., learnt from, in Jewish of the Ineffable, in Pistis-Sophia, 71
belief, 288 the First, in Pistis-Sophia, 65
supposed author of apocalyptic book, 45
was wrong about Noah, according to Naas the serpent, injustin’s teaching, 34, 33
SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 208, Naassenes, ix
261, 26m. general description of, in Philosophumena,
Moses of Khorene, on Shem, I55n. 47-50, 47n.
Moses of Leon, Zohar, 292, 292m and serpent, unexplained by Cheno-
Mosheim, Institutions historiae Christianae boskion MSS., 261
majores, 1-2 and the Kingdom inside, 346
Mosniger, ed. of Ephrem, 230m baptism among (Philosophumena), 224,
Mother: 224m
absence of, in teaching of John of belief of about James (Philosophumena),
Apamea, 58 198m, 236
in Archontici’s teaching, 150 belief of, in creation of man (Philosoph¬
in Gnosticism, 62 umena), 2I2n.
(Plotinus), 54 connected with Chenoboskion MSS. (?),
in Ophite belief (Epiphanius), 44, 212 251
in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, 150 evidence for connecting with GOSPEL
in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . . OF THOMAS (Philosophumena),
GREAT SPIRIT, 178 335, 336, 343
in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 201, (Origen), 343
202, 205, 206, 209, 210, 211 explanation by, of a logion in GOSPEL
as saviour, 303 OF THOMAS (Philosophumena), 371
discussed, 217-18 fond of astronomical identification of
of the Living, 202 mythical powers, 270
in Sumerian belief, 268 Grenfell knew used Logia, 23 2n.
in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, 330 “Hermes is the Word” (Philosoph¬
in Valentinianism, 29 umena), 84
of heaven, Sethian (Epiphanius), 187 influence of, in Balinus (?), 318m
of Life, in Kukean teaching, 58, 59 knew a certain logion (Philosophumena),
of the Angels, in SOPHIA, etc., 200 230-1
of the Living, in Gnosticism, 48 on masculine women (Philosophumena),
in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 160 48, 234
in Ophite belief (Irenaeus), 37, 38, 40 the Gnostics attacked by Plotinus
the Great, mysteries of, 48 were (?), 5 5m
the Supreme, taught Seth, an attested unknown to Gikatila, 292
belief, 158 used a Gospel of Egyptians (Philosoph¬
universal, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 82, 84 umena), 180-1
Mountain, Hermetic and Zoroastrian, 275 used a Gospel of Thomas (Philosoph¬
of Lights, in Iranian myth, 282, 285 umena), 231
Indian parallel, 284 used almond symbol, 92
of Victories (of the Lord), i6in. used Egypt as symbol of matter (Philo¬
Movement and rest, in GOSPEL OF sophumena), 254
THOMAS and elsewhere, 363, 374 used Odyssey (Philosophumena), 191
424 Index
Nabatene, home of baptist sects, 255 Noah (cont.):
Naga Hamadi, 128, 129, 130 in Book of Jubilees, 154
Names, two, for certain entities, 203, 203 n. in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 160-1
Naples, Borgia collection at, 96m in Mandaean belief, 155
Nau, F., Bardesane Vastrologue, 310 in Ophite teaching, 39
article by, 196m in REVELA TION OF ADAM, etc., 182
Nauck, 176m in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 208
Nazarene (?) tomb in Rome, 91 in SETHI AN REVELATION, Cod.
Nazareans, 13 VI, 187
as ancestors of a Gnostic sect, 7 in Syriac Chronicle, 185
Neo-platonists, 2, 4 in the teachings of the Gnostic Sect, 42,
Nergal, on Sumerian medallion, 268 43n.
Nerval, 322 Nock, A. D. and Festugifere, A. J., Corpus
Nhura'ita, see Nuralta hermeticum, 152m, 189m, 2o8n., 214m.,
Niciea, Council of and Audius, 55 242, 243, 243m, 244m, 246m, 247m, 257,
Second Council of, rejected GOSPEL 274. 275. 331
OF THOMAS, 232 Nod, Land of, not Duidaln, 97m
Nicolaitans: Nokrashi Pasha, Prime Minister, assassin¬
believed myth of seductions of the ated, 123
Archons (Epiphanius), 163-4 Norea:
descriptions of in Book of Revelation and and Pyrrha in Cod. X, 265
in heresiologists tally, 301 as Horea, 45
teachings of, 14-15 Egyptian parallel to, 273
Three Primordial Principles in teachings = Horea, in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 161,
of (Philosophumena), 151 i6in.
used Traditions of Matthias (Clement), 226 in Ophite teaching, 39
Nicolas, the deacon, a founder of Gnostic¬ in the teachings of the Gnostic Sect, 42,
ism, 13-14. 15. 18. 35. 36 43. 43n.
in Hippolytus, 30m. myth of, 163
Nicomachus on Hercules, 35m knowledge of, enlarged by Cheno¬
Nicotheus: boskion MSS., 262
as enlightener in Manichaeism, 86n. seduced Archons, 164m
caught up to heaven, 109 in Epiphanius, 164
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 86 wife of Seth, = the Mandaean Nuraitha,
on the Monogene, in Bruce Codex, pt. 2, 155, 164
82 Nous, in Basilides’ teaching, 21, 22
our ignorance of, 114 in HERMETIC TREATISE (23), and
taken over from Gnosticism, 313 (25). 243
Revelation of, is authentically Gnostic, in Poimandres, 214, 276, 277
H5 Nourelle Clio, La, 122m, 140m, 290m, 298m
mentioned by Porphyry as confuted Nouvelles litteraires, Les, I22n.
by Plotinus, 10, 53, 99, 156 Novalis, 323
mentioned in Manichaean books, 86 Novum Testamentum, I, 85m, 125m, 140m,
referred to in pseudo-Zosimos, 99, 190m
100, 101 Numbers, 280m, 287
still undiscovered, 159 Numen, 23611., 28 m.
Nimrod, Zoroaster=, in Chenoboskion Numenius of Apamea, 191-2, 192m
MSS., 287 adopted an astrological eschatology, 267
in myth of Saoshyant, 184 Numerology, in Marcus’ teaching, 33, 33m
Noah: Nuraitha, = Norea in Mandaean myth,
and Deucalion, in Cod. X, 265 155, 164
and Norea and the Ark in Gnosticism, Nut, myth of, similar to that of Sophia, 272
163 Nyberg, N. S., “ Questions de cosmogonie
and Norea in Gnosticism, 164 et de cosmologie mazdeennes”, 28m.
and Norea in Mandaean belief, 164
built Ark on Seir (HYPOSTASIS, etc.),
254 Obscurity, in REVELATION ON PIS-
in a cloud, Jewish origin of (?), 291 TIS SOPHIA, 165
in a Gnostic fragment, 89 Odeberg, Introduction to 3. Enoch, 109m
Index 425
Odes of Solomon, yon. Ophites (cont.):
in Pistis-Sophia, 70 Peratae a sect of, 51, 293
Oehler, ed. of pseudo-TertuIlian, 214x1. physiological allegory of (Epiphanius),
Ogdoad, 243m 49
in Basilides’ teaching, 23 sources, 3711.
in Egyptian belief, 272 unknown to Gikatila, 292
in HERMETIC TREATISE (23), 243 used Book of Norea (= HYPOSTASIS,
(23), 243, 244 etc.), 163
in Ophite belief, 38 used Diagram (Celsus), 174
in Poimandres, 277 Orbe, A., En aurora de la exegesis del IV
in REVELATION ON PISTIS Evangelio, 2711.
SOPHIA, 167, 168, 169 Los Primeros herejes ante la persecucion,
in SOPHIA, etc., 200 22n., 27m, 5on.
in Valentinianism, 27, 29 Oriael, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 85
not in Pistis-Sophia, 69 Orientalia, 49m, 316m
Ogdoads, in SACRED BOOK OF THE Origen, Commentary upon the Gospel of St
. . . GREAT SPIRIT, 178 John, 6
Ohrmazd, 154 Against Celsus (Contra Celsum), 6, 7, 9,
in Bundahishn, 152-3, I52n. i8n., 198m
Old man, in APOCALYPSE OF PAUL, quotes a logion known to us in
237-8 GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 343
Old Testament, in Coptic, io6n. Homily on Luke, 262m
in Gnostic belief, 112 Homily upon Jeremiah, contains a logion,
Iranian and Gnostic hostility to, 283-4 231
translated into Greek, 100, ioon. Homeric allegory in, 192m
Olympias, in Peratean teaching, 51 mentions a Gospel of Matthias, 226
Olympiodorus of Alexandria, commentary mentions a Gospel of Thomas (i.e.
on Zosimos, ioin. GOSPEL OF THOMAS), 231, 335
Omega, the letter, in pseudo-Zosimos, on Hercules, 35m
100 wondered about the authenticity of
Omophore, = Sacla (?), 163m another logion known to us in
On regeneration and the rule of silence, 275 GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 351
On the generation of Mary, a book of the Orion (= Osiris) in Peratean doctrine, 274
Gnostic Sect, 41 Oroiael, in magical, etc., texts, 103
One becomes two; in GOSPEL OF in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . .
THOMAS, 230 GREAT SPIRIT, 178
Onias the Just, 289, 290m in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 202
Ophiouchus, constellation, 44 Orpheus, Bacchics, 53
Christ compared to, 50m effigy of, 11
Ophites, 12, 36, 37-40, 45 symbology of applied to Adam, 207m
a bowl of the (?), 90 Orphic (?) bowl, 90, 90m
and serpent, unexplained by Cheno- Orphism, 2
boskion MSS., 261 in Aristophanes, 176m
and Valentinianism, 26n. in Chenoboskion MSS., 265
as described by Epiphanius, 44 Osiris and Seth, 104, 104m
as described in Philosophumena, 66-7 -Onnophris, in Jeou the painter, 105
attacked by Celsus, 9 = Sacla, 162m
belief that Samael was blind (Theodore (= Sacla) in Peratean doctrine (Philo¬
Bar-konai), 175m sophumena), 51, 274
believed in the Anthropos, 65 Osseans, as ancestors of a Gnostic sect, 7,
connected with Chenoboskion MSS. (?), 255
251 Ostanes, books attributed to, 4, 102, 280
doctrines of, similar to EUGNOSTOS, in Peratean belief (Philosophumena),
05 286n.
doctrines of, similar to those in SECRET in Suidas, etc., 286n.
BOOK, etc.. Cod. X (Irenaeus and Ostia, statue of Chronos from, 94
Epiphanius), 212-13 Ouroboros, 73m
influenced Manes (Augustine, etc.), 312 Ousiarchs, 244m
literature of, 7 in HERMETIC TREATISE (25), 244
426 Index
Oxyrhynchos, papyri from, 87 Paul, St:
fragments of a collection of logia among, Colossians, 307, 308, 376
227-8, 228n., 229, 232, 232m, 234, I Corinthians, 2o8n., 306
337-8 II Corinthians, 109, 219, 219m, 237m,
fragment of SOPHIA, etc., among, 196, 238, 289m, 307
198 Ephesians, 307
papyrus, 1 contains example of literal exegesis,
translated, 360-1 309
papyrus 654 paragraphed (?), 353 quoted in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 159,
translated, 355-6
306 . .
papyrus 655 translated, 362 Epistles, warnings in, against fake
shroud fragment from, 229, 338, 356 prophets, 18
Galatians, 24, 307
great influence of, 306
Pachomius, St, 129-30, I29n., 132, 135 Hebrews, Melchizedek in, 47, 47m, 305
Palamun, teacher of St Pachomius, 130, source of part of GOSPEL OF
131, 132 TRUTH, 239
Palestine, Audians in, 55 source of some ideas in GOSPEL OF
Marcionites in, 25 THOMAS (?), 350
Pand-Ndmdk i Zartusht, 282m icon of, 12
Pandora, = Eve, in pseudo-Zosimos, 101 ideas present in, developed in GOSPEL
Papa the Kantaean, 255, 25 5n. OF THOMAS, 349
Papias, On the interpretation of logia, 351 importance of among Manichaeans,
Paradise, a man caught up to, in 3°6n.
II Corinthians, 109 among Paulicians, 3o6n.
ascension into, in Rabbinical literature, in APOCALYPSE OF PAUL, 237-8
108 in Marcionist teaching, 26
in a Gnostic fragment, 89 names of his disciples taken by Paul¬
Paraphrase of Seth, described in Philosoph- icians, 219m
umena, 52, 154 no Chenoboskion MS. attributed to, 304
= PARAPHRASE OF SHEM (Philo- except APOCALYPSE, etc., 306
sophumena), 150 Romans, 2i8n., 307
PARAPHRASE OF SHEM (SECOND seems near Gnosticism, 306-8
TREATISE OF THE GREAT but is not, 308
SETH): I, II, Thessalonians, 219, 219m
attribution of, 289m Paulicians and Gnosticism, 311, 31m.
compared with Bundahishn, 152-3 importance of St Paul among, 3o6n.
dated by reference in pseudo-Hippoly- took names of St Paul’s disciples, 219m
tus, 250 Pauly-Wissowa, Realenzyklopadie der class-
described in Philosophumena, 150-1 ischen Altertumswissenschaft, 73m, 189,
has Three Principles, a Gnostic belief, 189m, 286n.
151 Pearl, symbolism of, in Acts of Thomas, 95
unlike REVELATION ON PISTIS Pelliot, P., at Ten Huang, 12m.
SOPHIA, 175 Peratae:
in author’s classification, 143 an Ophite sect, 51, 293
Pleiades in, 278m belief in the Serpent (Philosophumena),
SECOND TREATISE, etc., concluding 5i. 293
tide of, 149 identified astronomical objects with
shares with SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. mystical powers, 51, 270, 293
X, myth of Light and Darkness, 202 in Philosophumena, 47, 50-1
Shem or Seth (?), 154-5 origin of name, 5m.
Simonian analogies in, 332 on Eros (Philosophumena), 176m
summarized, 146-50 on Isis and Osiris, 273-4
Zoroastrian elements, in, 153-4 three primordial Principles in teaching
Parchor, 20, 20n. of, 50, 151
Passwords, Gnostic, for ascending souls, use Book of the Chiefs, etc. (Philosoph¬
267 umena), 50, 174
Egyptian and Gnostic, 274 Perfect one in Pistis-Sophia, 109
Patrologia syriaca, 3ion.-3iin. in Rabbinical literature, 109
Index 427
Perfect, The, 8on. Pharisees, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS,
descended from Seth and Norea, 163 229, 231, 362, 369
generation of, in Isma’ilite belief, 321 in TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF
(imperishable generation) in REVELA¬ JOHN, 219
TION OF ADAM, etc., 182-3 Phbou, 129m
in BOOK OF THOMAS, 226 Pherecydes, 20n.
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 84, 85 Phibionites, 14, 41
in GOSPEL OF PHILIP, 222 Philaster, De haer., 47m
in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 345 on a Dositheus, 190, 19011.
in Naassene teaching, 48 writings of, 7
in Ophite teaching, 39, 40 Philetus, in II Timothy, etc., 30m.
in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, 149 Philip ofGortyna, book against Marcion, 7
in Pistis-Sophia, 67, 71 Philip, of the GOSPEL OF PHILIP, 222
in REVELATION ON PISTIS Philip, St, the Apostle, met Simon (Acts),
SOPHIA, 166, 169 IS, 16, 222n.
in SACRED BOOK OF THE IN¬ importance of in Gnosticism, 222n.,
VISIBLE . . . SPIRIT, 298 335-6
in SOPHIA, etc,, 200 in Pistis-Sophia, 68
in the Gnostic sect, 43 importance of, 221-2
in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, etc., 181 in SOPHIA, etc., 199
in Valentinus’ teaching, 224m importance of, 222
(incorruptible generation = Gnostics), Philip Sidetes, refers to GOSPEL OF
161, i6in. THOMAS, 335
(incorruptible generation), in SACRED Philo, 2
BOOK OF THE INVISIBLE . . . Homeric allegory in, n, I92n.
SPIRIT, 178, 179 in Quaestiones in Exodum, 29711.
Seth the first of, in Sethian teaching, on adventitious soul, 2i6n.
45 similarities of, to Gnosticism, 11
Pergamus, church of, 13 Philocomus, writings of, 10
Peroz, King, 59, 60 in Porphyry, 156
Persia, Borborites in, 311 Philosophumena, 13m, 61
Marcionites in, 25 accuracy of shown by Chenoboskion
origin of Gnosticism, Islam, etc., in (?), MSS., 249
no Christ and Ophiouchus compared in,
Persian theories of good and evil, 21 50n.
Peter, of the Archontici, 45-6 compared with Epiphanius and Irenaeus,
Peter, St, II Epistle of, 301 47
in ACTS OF PETER, 235, 236 criticism of, 6
in Clement, Hypotyposes, 236 discovery of, 3
in Gospel of Mary, 88 editions of, 6n.
in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 233, 234, on Basilides, 21, 2in., 336
357 and Isidore and the secret discourses of
Peter of Sicily, on COSPEL OF Matthias, 226
THOMAS, 232 his view of the creation of the demi¬
on Paulicians, 219m urge, 23
Peterson, E., “La Liberation d’Adam on the withdrawal of God, 294, 294n.
d’ ’Avayia)’, 107, 107m, 108, 109, on eclecticism of Gnosticism, 99
I09n., 154, I54n., 164, 164m, 177m, on Esaldaio, 85m
289m, 291, 295 on Gospel of Matthias, 336
“Urchristentum und Mandaismus”, on Homeric, etc., allegorization in
315n- Gnosticism, 264
Petosiris, inscription from temple of, io6n., on influence of the Mysteries on
273, 273m Gnosticism, 90, 264
in Peratean belief (Philosophumena), on Isidore, 336
286n. on Justin, 33, 35
Pettazoni, R., “La figura monstruosa del on later Valentinianism, 30-1
Tempo nella Religione mitriaca”, 94m quotes logia, 230-1, 335, 336
Phallicism, in Gnosticism, 33m on Marcus, 33
in Sethian and Orphic teaching, 53 on Naassenes, 47-50, 335
428 Index
Philosophumena (cont.) : Phosilampes, on the Monogene, in Bruce
gives Naassene explanation of a logion, Codex, pt.2, 83
our ignorance of, 114
371 works by, still undiscovered, 139, 252
Hermes of Cyllene in Naassene belief,
91-2, 92n. Photius, condemned GOSPEL OF
Hermes Trismegistus in Naassene belief, THOMAS, 232
84, 84m Phrygian origin of almond symbol, 92
Naassene belief about creation of man, Physiologus, 172m
2i2n. Physionomics, Judaeo-Hellenistic, 288m
Naassenes used Egypt as a symbol of Picard, C., “La Grande peinture de
matter, 255 l’hypogee funeraire du Viale Manzoni”,
Naassenes used a Gospel of Egyptians, 92m, 192m
180-1 Pierpont Morgan MS.593, 96m, 236m
a Gospel of Thomas, 231 Pirqt Rabbi Eli'ezer, 154m
on Naassene baptism, 224, 224m parallels Gnostic account of Adam and
on Naassene syncretism, 176 Eve, 286
on Naassenes’ use of Odyssey, 191, 19 m. Pistis, in EUGNOSTOS, 194
on Naassenes’ view ofjames, I98n., 236, in SOPHIA, etc., 199
236m = Sophia, in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 161
on Naassenes’ view of masculine Pistis-Sophia in Pistis-Sophia, 69, 70
women, 48, 234 Pistis-Sophia (Book of), see Book of Pistis-
on Odyssey in Gnosticism, 93 Sophia
on Ophites, 66-7 Pistis-Sophia MS. (Codex Askewianus):
on Paraphrase of Seth, 150, 152m, 154 brief bibliography, 6jn.
on Peratae, 47, 50-1, 104m discussion of arrangement of, 76
on Peratean belief in Eros, 176m final part of, 75-6
about Osiris, 274 Gnostic beliefs as background to sum¬
about the Serpent, 293, 293m mary of the MS., 65-7
Peratean sages, 286m Harnack’s view on, 73
on Satornil, 19-20, 19m history of, 64-5
on Sethians, 47, 52-3, 52m provenance unknown, 136
on Sethian belief in the need to separate titleless part of, 73-5, 79
out the base elements, 372 see also Book of Pistis-Sophia; Books of
on Sethian belief in Three Principles, 259 the Saviour
on Simon, 16, 17-18, 17m Place of Life, in DIALOGUE OF THE
Great Revelation, 332 SAVIOUR, 220
Three Principles in, 259 in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 345, 356
on the split in Valentinianism, 2i8n. Place of the Just, in Pistis-Sophia, 66
on Valentinianism, 29 of the Midst, in Pistis-Sophia, 71
on Valentinus, cosmogony of, 27 of the Rulers of Destiny, in Pistis-
on masculine women, 48, 234 Sophia, 71
quoted, ix of the sons of the love of the truth, in
quotes GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 335, PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, 149
336, 347 the, in Hebrew, is God, cf. GOSPEL
statement in, that Naassenes composed OF THOMAS, 373, 376
GOSPEL OF THOMAS cannot be Places of the Right, in Pistis-Sophia, 71
true, 348 Planets, a Babylonian theory of the
summarizes Book of the Chiefs, etc., 174 influence of, 267
summarizes Naassene literature, 343 correspondence of, to parts of body, 214m
Philotesia, Paul Kleinert zum LXX Gebtirt- reign of, in Chaldaean belief, 260-1
stag gebracht, 37m seven powers of, in magical, etc., texts,
Phison, in Naassene symbolism, 49 103
Phoenix, in REVELATION ON PISTIS Plato, 2
SOPHIA, 169 derived his doctrine from Moses,
and elsewhere, 171-4 according to Jewish belief, 288
references to in Christian literature, icon of, 23, 350
172m influence of, on mediaeval Christianity,
Phos, meaning of Grdek word, 10in. 35°
= Adam, in pseudo-Zosimos, 101 • Parmenides, on movement and rest, 374
Index 429
Plato (cotit.): Plutarch, De facie in orbe lunae, 69m

Phtiedo, on the destiny of souls, 208m De hide, 42m, 104, 152m, 274
Republic, Er and his vision, 154m, 156, Pneuma, the cloud of the, in PARA¬
264 PHRASE OF SHEM, 148
some Chenoboskion doctrines derived Pognon, ed., Book of Scholia, by Theodore
from, 264 Bar-Konai, 175m
source of teaching, on ideas in GOSPEL Inscriptions mandaites des coupes de
OF THOMAS, 345, 377 Khouabir, 46m, 57m, 58m, 59m
on soul in GOSPEL OF THOMsiS, Poimandres, = Nous in Poimandres, 276
374-5 Poimandres:
statement about Father and Son attri¬ Creation in, compared with SECRET
buted to, by Christian monographers, BOOK, etc., 276-7, 276m
350 creation of man in, 214-15
Theaetetus, source of theory of Admira¬ similar to HERMETIC TREATISE
tion in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 346 (23), 243
Timaeus, source of Gnostic concept of Three Principles in, 28m.
the Limit, 28n. see also Archangelike, etc.
used eagle as symbol of soul, 207m Pole Star, 51m
Valentinus influenced by, 26 in a Gnostic prayer, 108
wide influence of, on GOSPEL OF Porphyry:
THOMAS, 349 cites APOCALYPSE OF ALLOGENE,
Pleiades: 158
in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, 148, Life of Plotinus, 10
278m excursus on part of, 125m
explanation of, I48n.-I49n. mention of apocalypses in, 156
in pseudo-Zosimos, 278m textual question on title of apoca¬
Pleroma, 234 lypse^), 157m
in Archontici’s teaching, 150 mentions work by Nicotheus, 159
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 81, 82, 84 Nymphs’ Grotto, 192
in GOSPEL OF TRUTH, 240 on Gnostics, 53, 55m
Jewish Throne, compared with, 177 on Zoroaster, etc., 102, 218
in Pistis-Sophia, 69 Philosophy of the Oracles, 86, 86n.
in St Paul, 308 references in, date some Chenoboskion
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 204, MSS., 250
209 the Chenoboskion MSS. correspond
in tomb of the Aurelii, 92 closely to his titles, 251
in Valentinianism, 19, 27, 28, 29, 31 Portal of Life, in Pistis-Sophia, 66
in Valentinus’ teaching, 224m Posener, G., Litterature et politique dans
Plesithea, in SACRED BOOK OF THE I’Egypte de la XHeme dynastie, 247m
. . . GREAT SPIRIT, 178 Posture, as a help to vision, 290, 290m
Ploeg, J. van der, “Les manuscrits trouves Power:
depuis 1947 dans le desert de Juda”, The, in Simon’s teaching, 17
297n. in Satornil’s teaching, 19
Plotinus: The Supreme, in Ophite belief (Epi-
answered in EUGNOSTOS, (?), 195 phanius), 212
believed in a good universe, ill in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, 330
and opposed belief in an evil world, Powers, in Arkhangelike, 174
266n. in REVELATION ON PISTIS
Etitieads, mentions sectaries, 156 SOPHIA, 168
on Gnostics, 9-10, 9m, ion., 53-4, Praedestinatus, 47m
54m, 214 Prayer, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS,
referred to in GOSPEL OF 37i
THOMAS (?), 373 PRAYER OF THE APOSTLE PETER,
Nicotheus attacked by (Porphyry), 10, 236, 239
53. 99 in author’s classification, 145
note on Porphyry’s Life of, 125m Preface to the Council of Nicaea, 27m.
on Zoroaster, etc., 101 Preisendanz, K., Akephalos, der kopflose
works refuted by his school still un¬ Gott, 104m, 197m
discovered, 159 Papyrusfunde und Papyrusforschung, 134m
430 Index
Prcisigke, Sammelbuch griech. Urkunden aus Psalter, the Manichaean, 343, 371
Aegypten, 27411. Ptolemaic Books, in Greek, 106
Pretextat, catacombs of, 90 Ptolemies, libraries of, 100
Preuschen, 45m Ptolemy, disciple of Valentinus, 30-1
Die Apokryphen gnostischen Adamschriften Epistle to Flora, 26-7, 27m
aus dem Armenischen iibersetzt .... resembles EUGNOSTOS, 192
184m son of Arsinoe, in Perataean teaching,
Priapus, in Justin’s teaching, 35 5i
Prince, The, in teachings of the Gnostic T(trabible, 288m
sect, 43 Puech, H. C.:
Prince of Darkness, in St Paul, 307 and report of first discovery, xii
Principles, Three primordial: “Archontiker”, 45m, 46m, 157m, 19711.,
in Gnosticism, 151 288n.
in Hellenistic writings, 153 article in Le Monde on GOSPEL OF
in Iranian belief, 152-3, 152m THOMAS, 232-3, 232m
Principles, two only in Manicheism, 152, attributes TREATISE (48) to Heracleon,
152m 239, 239m
Priscillans, and Gnosticism, 310, 3 ion. “Audianer”, 55m, 157m, 219m
Priscillianist treatise, of Wartzburg, 198m, Communication to the VI International
214m, 3lon. Congress of Papyrology, 87m, 196,
Proclus, In Rempublicam, 154m 196m, 198
Procope-Walter, A., “Jao und Seth”, contribution to Hennecke, Neutest.
285m Apokr., 139m
Prodicos, in Clement of Alexandria, 156m deduced nature of Allogeneous books, 158
Prometheus, similar myth in Gnosticism, “Der Begriff der Erlosung im Mani-
264-5 chaismus”, 218n.
Pronoia, a, in REVELATION ON Der vorchristliche Gnosis, 4m
PISTIS SOPHIA, 168 established that logia were from
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 126, 126m,
204-5 305, 337-8
Propator (Pro-father), in Bruce Codex, “Fragments retrouves de 1’Apocalypse
pt.2, 84 d’Allogene”, 39m, 57m, 150m, 158m,
in EUGNOSTOS, 193 205m, 213, 213m, 214m
in Judaeo-Gnostic invocations, 164-5 helped publish second discovery, 318m
(= Sabaoth) in magical prayer, 108, his classification of Chenoboskion MSS.,
177m
139
the Invisible, in Pistis-Sophia, 66, 69 his use of Chenoboskion MSS. for
in Valentinianism, 27, 28, 30 explanation of the logia, xiv
Protennoia, of TRIPLE DISCOURSE, La Gnose et le temps, 3m, I2n., 36m, 42m,
etc., in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 68n., no, non., in, inn., H2n.,
201 H3n., 114, 162m, 187m, 193m, 266,
Proto-archon, in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 160 282m, 30m.
Protogenitor, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 84 “Le Mandeisme”, 315m
Prounikos, a name of Barbelo, 15 “Le Manicheisme”, 312m
in Ophite belief (Epiphanius), 212 Le Manicheisme, son fondateur, sa doctrine,
myth of, similar to that of Friends of 30n., 66n., 69m, 74m, 8on., 86n.,
Re, 273 Il2n., 113m, 147m, 152m, 2i8n.,
seduced Archons, 164m 227m, 255m, 27m., 28m., 3l2n.,
Prudentius, Apotheosis, 196 313m, 314m, 316m
Psalrhs, in hieroglyphics, io6n. “Le Prince des Tenebres”, 8on., 162m,
in note in EXEGESIS, etc., 191 <t 3i3n.
in Pauline exegesis, 309 “Les nouveaux ecrits gnostiques . .
in Pistis-Sophia, 70 54n-> 57n., I39n-, I57n., 189, 189m,
influence of, on Chenoboskion MSS., I90n., 192m, 198m, 222n., 236m
295 “Numenius d’Apamee et les theologies
origin of belief about Shem, 47m orientales”, 192m
some painted on wall near Hamra Dum, on female becoming male among
132, 132m Cathars, 234
Psalms of Solomon, 34m, 8on, on the SOPHIA OFfESUS, 87, 222
Index 431
Puech, H. C. (cont.): “Race without king”, in Naassene belief,
“Ou en est le probl£me du Gnostic- 5°
isme”, 3, 311., 411., i2n., 1911., 2711., Races of man, in Valentinianism, 29, 31,
30211. 32
summary of, 12-13 Raza Rabba, Gnostic influence in, 292
preliminary study on GOSPEL OF Re, Friends of, myth of, similar to that of
THOMAS, 305 Prounikos, 273
recognized GOSPEL OF THOMAS, Reallexikon fur Antike und Christentum,
126, 227, 228m 45m, 55m, 279m
report by, to the Academie des Inscrip¬ Recherches des sciences r/Iigieuses, i6n.
tions, 119 Recognitions, see Clementine, pseudo-,
told of first discovery by author, 117 Recognitions
“ Un logion de Jesus sur une bandelette Recollection, in Gnosticism, 113
funeraire”, 126m, 228m, 229 Recurrence, in Gnosticism, 113
writings by, plagiarized, xv Reflection, in Basilides’ teaching, 22
and J. Doresse, “Les nouveaux ecrits Regions, in Pistis-Sophia, 327, 328
gnostiques . . n8n., 119m Reincarnation, in Gnosticism, 112-13,
and Quispel, published Gospel of Truth, 113n-
239 in Manichaeism, 113
and Vaillant, A., Le Traitd centre les Reitzenstein, R.:
Bogomiles de Cosmas le pretre, 96m, and Schaeder, Studien zum antiken
15m., 196m, 214m, 31m., 3i2n. Synkretismus aus Iran und Griechenland,
Purgatory, Mandaean, 98 37m, 46m, 47m, 103, 103m, 150m,
Pyrrha, wife of Deucalion, in the teachings 279m, 318, 318m
of the Gnostic sect, 43, 43 n. Das mandaische Buch des Herrn der
Pythagoras, 33m Crosse . . ., 59m
derived doctrine from Moses, according on Iranian influence, 114
to Jewish belief, 288 on myth of Saviour saved, 282
icon of, 12, 23 Poimandres, 3, l8n., 47m, 55m, 99m,
influence of his teaching on Valentinus, ioon., 105m, io6n., 170, 170m, 171,
26 17m., 172m, 174m, 203m, 243m,
Pythagoreanism: 288n.
belief about seed, in, 23 4m Repose of the kingdom, in Clement,
belief that Sun and Moon were Isles of II Epistle, 375
the Blest, 270 Resch, Agrapha, 230m
in Chenoboskion MSS., 265 Rest, in DIALOGUE OF THE
influence of, on Essenes, 28 8n. SAVIOUR, 220
mystical union in, 224x1. Resurrection, Gnostics believed it had to be
use of Homeric allegory in, 192 waited for, 30m.
use of trowel symbol in, 91, 9m. Retreat of God, see Withdrawal, etc.
REVELATION, in Cod. IV:
in author’s classification, 142
Qaf, Mountain of, in Islamic belief, is of mentioned, 197
Gnostic origin, 317 REVELATION OF ADAM TO HIS
Qenah, 130 SON SETH, see APOCALYPSE OF
Qolasta, a Mandaean book, 98 ADAM, etc.
Quispel, G., attributes TREATISE (48) to REVELATION OF ALLOGENE, see
Heracleon, 239, 239m SUPREME ALLOGENE
criticism of his hypotheses, 263 n. REVELATION OF DOSITHEUS
“Die Reue des Schopfers”, 127m (THREE STELAE OF SETH):
“L’Homme gnostique; la doctrine de described, 188
Basilide”, 263 n. discussed, 188-90, 241, 331, 332
“La Lettre de Ptolemee a Flora”, 27m in author’s classification, 144
“L’Inscription funeraire de Flavia part of, compared with REVELA¬
Sophe”, 89m TIONS OF ZOSTRIAN, etc., 157
“The Original doctrine of Valentine”, REVELA TION OF JAMES, see APOCA¬
27m LYPSE, etc.
Qumran, = Gomorrha (?), 298-300 Revelation of John, Audaean book (Theo¬
works from, see Dead Sea Scrolls dore Bar-Konai), 56
432 Index
REVELATION OF MESSOS: Rome (cont.):
described, 157 tomb paintings in Viale Manzoni, 192,
in author’s classification, 144 264
referred to, by Porphyry, 156 Valentinus in, 26
dated by reference in Porphyry, 250 Root, as Manichaean symbol, 147m
REVELATION OF NICOTHEUS, see in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, 147
APOCALYPSE, etc. Rossi, editor and text, 103m
REVELATION OF SETH (Cod. V): Rotation of the spheres, 68, 68n.
briefly described, 197 Royalty in Audius’ teaching, 56
in author’s classification, 142 Rudolph, K., “Ein Grundtyp gnostischer
REVELATION ON PISTIS SOPHIA: Urmensch-Adam Spekulation ”, 34m,
described, 165-70 214m, 286n.
discussed, 170-7 Ruelle, ed.. Sacred book of Hermes, 171
in author’s classification, 144 Rufin, History, 139m
a continuation of EUGNOSTOS (?), Runciman, S., The Mediaeval Manichee,
195 2i6n., 219m, 306m, 31m., 3l2n.
TREATISE ON
a parallel in, with Ruska, J., Das Steinbuch des Aristoteles, i8on.
BAPTISM OF JOHN, 219 “Kaswini Studien”, 318m
importance of Eros in, 265 Tabula smaragdina, 318m
importance of Sabaoth in, 291
informative about Paradise, 261
Orphic influence on view of Paradise in, S.M.S.R., 3i6n.
265 Sabalan, Adam’s cave at (?), i6in.
Sabaoth’s supplanting of Ialdabaoth in, Sabaoth:
260, 271-2 (Adonaiu) in SECRET BOOK, etc.,
source of HYPOSTASIS, etc., 24m. Cod. X, 202
system of HYPOSTASIS, etc., similar, comparable to Zeus, 27m.
159 Discourse by, 106
Revelations of Marsanes, etc., see Marsanes, in Ascension of Isaiah, 176-7, 177m
etc. in Basilides’ teaching, 263
REVELATIONS OF ZOSTRIAN, etc., in Book of Enoch, etc., 176-7
see DISCOURSE OF TRUTH, etc. in Chenoboskion MSS., 260
Revillout, E., on Bruce Codex, 77 in Epiphanius, 164
Revue biblique, l6n., 97m, 107m, 296m in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 163
Revue d'histoire et de philosophic religieuses, and REVELATION ON PISTIS
154m, 285m, 286n. SOPHIA, 271-2
Revue de I'histoire des religions, 6n., 109m, importance of, 291
196m, 286m, 297m, 313m in Jeou, the painter, 105
Revuede I’Orient chrdtien. 47m in Nicolaitan teaching, 14
Revue de I’University de Bruxelles, 3m in Pistis-Sophia, 113m, I76n.-I77n.
Revue de pliilologie, 149m in REVELATION ON PISTIS
Revue des etudes armtniennes, 24m SOPHIA, 166-7, 168
Revue des hudes juives, 293m and HYPOSTASIS, etc., 271-2
Rheinhardt, Dr, 86 in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. Berol.,
Rhodon, book against Apelles, etc., 7 203
Rhyx Anatreth, in Testament of Solomon, in the teachings of the Gnostic sect, 43,
203 m 44
Right, ways of, an Orphic concept, 265 = Jupiter, 164m
Right and left in Gnosticism, 14m Jewish anagram of, 288m
Ringbom, L. I., Graltempel und Parodies, Little, the good, in Pistis-Sophia, 66
256m Lord, Throne, etc., of, in Jewish star
Ritter, H., “Picatrix, ein Handbuch lore, 288
hellenistischer Magie”, 318m on his throne and Propatdr identified,
Roeder, G., Bronzefiguren, 10511. 108
Roman world, mystical religion in, 11 rules the Pole in Gnosticism, 270
Rome, development of Gnosticism in, 12 Sabazius= , worshipped at Rome, 90
Marcionites in, 25 the Adamas, in titleless portion of Codex
near-Gnostic and Gnostic cults in, Askewianus, 74-5
evidence of monuments, 90-4 in the Great Treatise, 78
Index 433
Sabaoth (cont.): SACRED BOOK OF THE INVISIBLE
the Good, in Pistis-Sophia, 66, 68, 69 GREAT SPIRIT (cont.):
in titleless portion of Codex Askew- not the Gospel of the Egyptians known to
ianus, 75 the hercsiologists, 253
the Great, in Ophite teaching, 38 passage in, shows Dead Sea sect is
the little, the Good, in titleless portion of ancestor of Gnosticism (?), 298-300
Codex Askewianus, 75 source of part of GOSPEL OF
Sabazios: THOMAS (?), 375
devotees of, banished from Rome, 12 Sadducees, sect of, founded by Dositheus,
mysteries of, 44 15
mystics of, 43m Sages, names of, in titles of Gnostic and
(= Sabaoth), worshipped at Rome, 90 Hebrew works, 289
Sabbatai'os, in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. Sagnard, Extraits de Thdodote, 218n., 223m,
Berol, 203 224m, 234m
“Sabi’a, al-”, 316m La gnose valentinienne et le tfmoignage de
Sabians of Upper Mesopotamia, influenced St Irenk, 6n., 14m, 27m, 28m, 30m,
by Gnosticism, 315-16 3in., 32n., 33m, 86n., 193m, 224m,
Sacla, 5m., 85m 243m
= laldabaoth, 162m St Malo, neo-Gnostics at, 312
in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 163 Saldao, = Seldao (?), 254
(laldabaoth) in SECRET BOOK, etc., Salome, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 364,
Cod. X, 202, 210 375
laldabaoth = Seth the god, 10411. Salvation, in Chenoboskion MSS., 262
in Chenoboskion MSS., 260 in GOSPEL OF TRUTH, 240
in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . . Samael, = laldabaoth, 162m
GREAT SPIRIT, 178-9 (laldabaoth) in Book of Enoch, etc.,
in the teachings of the Gnostic sect, 43 176-7
in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, etc., 181, 329 (laldabaoth) in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 162
= Omophore, 163m (laldabaoth) in REVELATION ON
= Osiris in Peratean teaching (Philo- PISTIS SOPHIA, 166, 174-5
sophumena), 51, 274 (laldabaoth) in SECRET BOOK, etc.,
Sacred Book, The, see Hierabiblos; see also Cod. X, 202
Monad (laldabaoth) in TRIPLE DISCOURSE,
Sacred Book of Hermes to Asclepius, 171 etc., 181, 329
SACRED BOOK OF THE INVISIBLE in Ascension of Isaiah, 177m
GREAT SPIRIT, or GOSPEL OF in Chenoboskion MSS., 260
THE EGYPTIANS: in DIALOGUE OF THE SAVIOUR,
described, 177-80 220
discussed, 180-1 in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 160
in author’s classification, 142 in Jewish tradition, 175, 175m
author’s work on, 125 in Revelation of St John, 177x1.
baptism in, and GOSPEL OF PHILIP, Samaria, Christ preached in, and it later
224 became the birthplace of Gnostics, 302
contains myths similar to those described early home of Gnosticism, 12, 15
by Irenaeus, 127 Samaritan sect, 15, 15m
creation by pairs of emanations in, 260 ancestors of a Gnostic sect, 7
“Five Seals” of, cf. SECRET BOOK, Samlo, in APOCALYPSE OF ADAM,
etc.. Cod. X, 209m etc., 182
Gamaliel, etc., in, 286m in SACRED BOOK OF THE IN¬
Gospel of Philip (Epiphanius) related to, VISIBLE . . . SPIRIT, 178, 286n.
225, 235 Samos, Epiphanius honoured in, 24
Guardians in, paralleled by Mandaean Samothrace, mysteries of, 2
belief, 256 Sampseans, a baptist sect, as ancestors of a
has Sethian characteristics, 184 Gnostic sect, 7
has Simonian characteristics, 332 adored Martos, etc., 46
hidden in Mt. Charax, 254 influenced by Essenes (Epiphanius), 298m
importance of James in, 237 influenced mythical geography of
in first discovery, 117 Gnostics, 255
needs much further study, 252 Saoshyant, and Jesus, 102, 184
434 Index
Satan, fall of, in Coptic homilies, 96 Schmidt, C. (cont.):
Ialdabaoth=, 162m “Irenaus und seine Quelle in Adv.
substituted by St Michael in Mani- Haeres.”, 37m, 86n.
chaeism, 96m on Codex Berolensis, 86-7, 86n., 87m
Satan (Etudes carmilitaines), 8on., 162m on Irenaeus’ account of Gnostic cos¬
Satanians, in Epiphanius, 31m. mology, 212
Satornil, leader of a Gnostic sect, 7, 12 on SECRET BOOK OF JOHN, 126-7
teachings of, 19-20, 19m, 2i2n. on SOPHIA, etc., 200
Saturn, in Balinus, 319 Philotesia, 8in.
Saulasau, in Naassene teachings, 49 Pistis-Sophia, with a German translation,
Saulcy, F. de, suggested Qumran = 65m, 87m
Gomorrha, 299 “Plotinus stelling zum Gnostizimus”,
Save-Soderberg, T., Studies in the Coptic 55m
Manichaean Psalm-book prosody and and Polotsky, J., Ein Mani-Fund in
Mandaean parallels, 315m Aegypten, 86n.
Saviour: and TUI, W., Die gnostischen Schriften
advent of, in Syriac Chronicle, 185 des koptischen Papyrus Berolinensis 8502,
in ACTS OF PETER, 236 125m, 147m, 189m, 244m, 294m
in BOOK OF THOMAS, 225, 226 Schmitt, J., “Mandeisme”, 31511.
in DIALOGUE, etc., 220-1 Schoeps, H. J., “Das gnostische Judentum
in Gnosticism, 112, 113, 282 in den Dead Sea Scrolls ”, 296m
in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 228, 229, “Simon Magus in der Haggada”, i6n.,
230, 231 285m
in oriental Valentinianism, 2i8n. Scholem, G., “Buch Bahir”, 292m
in St Paul, 307-8 Les Grands courants de la mystique juive,
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 206, I09n., 177, 177m, 285m, 288m, 289,
207, 208, 210, 211, 217 289m, 290m, 29m., 292, 292m, 294,
in SOPHIA, etc., 199, 200 294m, 297m
in Zoroastrian prophecies, 186 “Die Vorstellung vom Golem”, 286n.
(Jesus) in GOSPEL OF TRUTH, 239, Schott, S., Bucher und Spriiche gegen den
240 Gott Seth, 104m
marriage of, in Valentinus’ teaching, Schuerer, Geschichte der Jiidischen Volkes im
224m Zeitalter Jesu Christi, 3rd edn., 287m,
(Messenger) in Iranian belief, 282m 288n.
son of Adam of the Light, in EUG- Schuhl, P. M., Essai sur la formation de la
NOSTOS, 194 penste grecque, 176m
Saviours, Iranian and Gnostic, 282 Schwartze, M. G., Pistis-Sophia-, A Latin
pre-Gnostic belief in a succession of, 184 translation, 65m
successive, in APOCALYPSE OF Scott, W., Hermetica, 149m, 172m, 190m,
ADAM, etc., 183 278m
Saxl, Mithras, 207m Scribes, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 229,
Sayings of Jesus, see Logia 231
Schaeder, M. H., 227 in TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF
Schaeffer, C. F. A., 120 JOHN, 219
Schema of the Celestial Heimarmene, in Scriptura nomine Seth, 96-7
REVELATION ON PISTIS in pseudo-Chrysostom, 185
SOPHIA, 167 Scythianus, in Acts of Archelaus, 314
identity (?), 174 Sea of Light, in Kukean teaching, 58
Schepps, ed., Priscillianist treatises, 214m, Seals, Five, 209, 209m
3 ion. in SECRET BOOK, etc., 224
Schmid, J. M., Des Wardapet Eznik von SECOND TREATISE OF THE GREAT
Kolb “ Wider die Sekten", 2411. SETH, see PARAPHRASE OF SHEM
Schmidt, C.: Secrecy, in Gnosticism, Hermetism, Mith-
and the Manichaean MSS. of Fayum, 120 raism. Dead Sea sect, 257-8
“Ein vorirenaisches gnostisches Origi- in Gnosticism and Dead Sea Sect, 296
nalwerk . . .”, 86n. SECRET BOOK OF JOHN:
“Gnostische Schriften in koptischer a Gnostic book in a Christian disguise,
Sprache aus dem Codex Brucianus”, 3ii
77n. = Apocalypse ofNicotheus (?), 252
Index 435
SECRET BOOK OF JOHN (cont.): SENSE OF UNDERSTANDING, see
creation by pairs of emanations, 260 THOUGHT OF THE GREAT
dated in part by Irenaeus, 250 POWER
in first discovery, 117 Sensibility, in SACRED BOOK OF THE
Light and Darkness in, 151-2 . . . GREAT SPIRIT, 178
myth of Adam compared with Sephir Yetsira, 292m, 293, 293m
Poimandres, 276 Sephiroth, in Jewish belief, 292, 292m
notes in, similar to those in REVELA¬ Septimus Severus, 11
TION ON PISTIS SOPHIA, 170 Serapeum, destruction of, 138
book lists in, also similar, 174 Seraphion of Thmuis, 7
parallel in Shkand Gumanik Vichdr, 283 Serapion, library of the temple of, 100
Saviour (Christ) or Mother, in, 262 Serapion of Antioch, 46
several versions of, 126, 201, 24111. Serapis, inscriptions to, near Cheno-
the Serpent in, 261, 26m. boskion, 132
two parts inconsistent (Mother-Christ), some worshippers of, turned to Christi¬
303 anity, 139
in Cod. Berol., 87, 88, 126, 201, 21 r Serouya, H., La Kabbale, 290m
discovered recently, 37, 37m Serpent:
part of, described, 209 among Yezedis, 316
sources, 87m Demon, in Books of the Saviour, 73
in Codices I and IV, in author’s classifi¬ of the Gnostic sect, 43
cation, 142 = Dragon, 73m
described, 201, 209-10. 211 Constellation of, 51, 5in., 73m
discussed, 210 in Gikatila, 292-3
source of passage in SOPHIA, etc., in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 160
199 in Orphism, 265
in Codex X, in author’s classification, in Peratean belief (Philosophumena), 293,
144 293n.
described, 201-10 in REVELATION ON PISTIS
discussed, 205n., 210, 224, 328 SOPHIA, 168
illustrated, 239 in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 206
translation of passage illustrated, 328 in TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF
unique passage in this version, 218 JOHN, 220
SECRET SAYINGS TOLD BY THE of Darkness in Gnosticism, 293m
SAVIOUR, etc., see BOOK OF role of, among Naassenes and Ophites,
THOMAS not explained by Chenoboskion MSS.,
Secundus, 24 261
Seed, becomes male, in Theodotus, 234 son of Sabaoth (Epiphanius), 164
Seed, of Life, in a Zoroastrian prophecy, The, in Aurelii tomb, 92
186 The, in Ophite teaching, 38, 39
Seed of the Great Seth, in SECRET and elsewhere, 44-5
BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 202 The, in Sethian teaching, 52-3
Seir, in Edom, i6in. The, venerated by some Gnostics, 112
location of, l6in., l8on. view of, in Chenoboskion MSS., 261
Mountain of Victories to E. of, in Sesenges-Barpharanges, 85m
Syriac Chronicle, 186 Sessenggenpharaggen, in SACRED
Mountain, where Noah built the Ark BOOK OF THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT,
(HYPOSTASIS, etc.), 161, 254, 2540. 179
White Mountain of, Mandaean, 256 Seth:
Seldao, Mountain, Saldao a mistake for, and his books, in Syriac Chronicle, 183
254, 254m and stelae, in Josephus, etc., 190
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 85, 85m Apocalypse of, used by the Gnostic sect, 41
in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . . Archontici’s teaching on, 150
GREAT SPIRIT, 179 as a Gnostic prophet, 39m
Selene = Helene, in Dositheus’ teaching, 15 as author of TRIPLE DISCOURSE,
Sellao, wrongly, for Seldao, 85m 181, 330-1
Selmelkhe, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 85 as brother of Norea, 163
Senart, Essai sur la Ugende de Bouddha, 2nd caught up to heaven, 109
ed., 285m evidence for this, 158
436 Index
Seth (cont.): Seth (cont.):
children of, in Judaism, 295, 295m works attributed to, 45, 97, 190
on Mt. Hermon, 255 plagiarized, 107, 190m
his birth, in Gnostic cosmogony, 158 Zoroaster =, 280
in APOCALYPSE OF ADAM TO = Zoroaster in Chenoboskion MSS.,
SETH, 182, 183 287, 288
in Bock of the Cave, etc., 184 Seth, the Egyptian god, 42n., 104
in Gnosticism, 104-5, I04n., 274 bibliography of, 104m
Norea, wife of, in Gnosticism, 155 Sethe, K., “Amun und die acht Urgotter
origin of Gnostics’ respect for, 309 von Hermopolis”, 272m
in Ishmaelite belief, 155 Sethel, = Seth, 189
in Islamic belief, 317, 320 Setheus, the Earth-Shaker, = Seth, 8in.
in Jeou the painter, 105 see also Seth
in Kephalaia, 189 Sethi, an Egyptian dynasty, 104
in magical, etc., texts, 104, 106 SETHIAN REVELA TION:
derived by Manichaeans from Gnostics, in Codex VI, in author’s classification, 143
3i3 described, 187-8
in Ophite teaching, 39 in Codex IX, in author’s classification,
in REVELATION OF DOSITHEUS, 144
157, 188 Sethians:
in Sabianism, 315 Archontici a subdivision of, 46, 46m
in SACRED BOOK OF THE IN¬ assembled Chenoboskion MSS., 251
VISIBLE . . . SPIRIT, 179, 298, 300 attitude, to Old Testament, 299
SACRED BOOK, etc., written by, 180 believed in need of separation of basic
incarnated as a teacher, in SACRED elements, 372
BOOK, etc., 298, 300 believed in Three Principles, 259
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 202, Book of Cave, originated from, l84n.
207 characteristic spiritual entities of, 184
in Sethian belief (Epiphanius), 45 doctrines of, similar to those in SECRET
= Christ, 87 BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 212
in Valentinianism, 32 doctrines similar to EUGNOSTOS1,195
local cult of at Chenoboskion (?), 129 in Philaster, 190
replaced by Melchizedek in some sects, in Philosophumena, 47, 52-3, 150
46-7 in Porphyry, 55m
seed of, 255 influenced by Hermetism, 332
and seed of Zoroaster, 282 influenced by Simonianism, 332
in SACRED BOOK, etc., 178, 179, literature of, alluded to by heresiologists,
298, 299, 300 157-8
in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, 331 nearly extinct in Epiphanius’ time, 251
(Setheus) in Revelations of Zostrian and physiological allegory of, 49
Zoroaster, 157 related to Borborites (Epiphanius, etc.),
in the teachings of the Gnostic sect, 43 3ii
= Shem, in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, sect described by Irenaeus was appar¬
154 ently, 36
some myths ascribed to, identical with sects related to, 53
the Zoroastrian, 187 Seth= Christ among (Epiphanius), 187
sometimes identified with Melchizedek used Book of Norea, 163
in Isma’ilite belief, 321, 32m. Seth-Typhon, text from cult of (?), 107-9
son of Adam, = Allogene, 157-8, 159 in Judaeo-Gnostic rituals, 105
and Zoroaster in the Magi writings, 102 Seven atones, 271
confused with the god in Gnostic¬ Guardians, Indian parallel to the, 285
ism (?), 104-5, 274 Seven Heavens, (Book of the), 172, 174
in Gospel of Nicodemus, 95 Seven middoth before the Throne, 29 m.
= Setheus in Bruce Codex, 81, 8ln., planets, Sabaoth Lord of, in Jewish
82, 83, 84 belief, 288n.
-Osiris, in Plutarch, comparable with powers, in a fragment, 88
Ialdabaoth-Sacla, 274 principles, in Iranian belief, 28on.
the three Stelae of, 188 rulers, in Poimandres, 276
unimportant in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 160 spheres, development of notion, 238m
Index 437
Severians, 46 Silence (cont.):
Severus of Antioch, on Manichaean belief in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, etc., 181,
in Trees of Paradise, 216-17 330, 331
Sex, in Naassene teaching, jo in Valentinianism, 27
in Nicolas’ teaching, 13 The, in Simon’s teaching, 17
in Phibionite teaching, 43 Silences, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, and
in Satornil’s teaching, 20 Chaldaean Oracles, 85-6
in Simon’s teaching, 16 Silvanus the Audian, 55, 219
licentiousness of some sects, 62, 115 a real person (?), 253
Sexual union, as a symbol in HERMETIC Silvanus of TEACHINGS OF SIL¬
TREATISE (26), 245, 247 VANUS, the companion of St Paul,
Shapur I, inserted Greek and Hindu 306
extracts in Iranian books, 279, 279m mentioned in Acts, etc. (?), 219, 219m
Shem: not the Audian, 219
as Melchizedek, 46-7 Simeon ben Yohal, 289, 290m
sources, 47m Simon, M., “ Melchisedech dans la
ascension of, prototype of Mahomet’s, polemique entre Juifs et Chretiens et
318 dans la legende”, 154m, 286m
derived by Manichaeans from Gnostics, “Sur deux heresies juives mentionnees
3i3 par Justin martyr”, 285m
in APOCALYPSE OF ADAM, etc., 182 Simon of Cyrene, crucified in place of
in Armenian tradition, 155m Jesus, 113m
in Book of Jubilees, 154 in Basilides’ teaching, 22
in Ishmaelite belief, 155 Simon Magus, the Samaritan from Gitta,
in Manichaean belief, 154-5 12, 15
in myth of Saoshyant, 184 baptized by Philip, 222n.
in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, 147,148, death of, 16-17
149 disciples of, 19, 20
= Jesus Christ, 149 believed myth of seduction of the
(Seem) = Seth, 154 Archons, 163-4
in Tabari, 155m believed in reincarnation, 113m
149 founder of Gnosticism, 15-16. 35
Mandaean belief on, 515 Great Revelation still undiscovered, 252
= Melchizedek, in Haggada, 154, 286 taught Three Principles (Philosoph-
son of Norea in Gnostic belief, 164 umena), 259
Shenesit (= Chenoboskion), 129, 25m. has acquired legendary characteristics, 13
Shepherd, the Good, in tomb of the in Acts, 1, 15, 222n.
Aurelii, 92 leader of a sect, 7, 26
Shepherd of Hermes, n8n., 30m. meaning of “Magus”, 280
Shi’ites reverence Seth, 320-1 mediaeval legends and iconography, 1
“Shith”, 317m on Circe, 19m.
Shiur Koma, 291 regarded himself as a divine incarnation,
Shkand-Gumdnik Vichar, 27m., 282m, 254
283-4, 284m taught by a Dositheus, 15, 189, 190
Shum-Kushta, Mandaean name for Shem, teachings of, 16
155 in GREAT REVELATION, 17-18
Shyr, see Seir similarity of TRIPLE DISCOURSE
Sibylline Oracles on Shem, 155m and THOUGHT OF GREAT
Silas, in Acts, 219m POIVER to, 331-2
Silence: of other Chenoboskion MSS. to, 332
cloud of, in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, sources for, i6n.
148 three primordial Principles in teaching
in a fragment, 89 of, 151
in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 81 Simon, St, monastery of, 57
in EUCNOSTOS, 194 Sinope, Bishop of, father ofMarcion, 13
in Marcus’ teaching, 33 Sippara of Uruk, a Chaldaean teacher, 267
in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . . Sirius (= Sothis), 274
GREAT SPIRIT, 178 Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie,
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 201 Philos.-Hist. Klas., 184m
438 Index
Sitzungsberichte d. Kgl. preussischen Akad- Sons of the Unbegotten Father, in
emie d. Wissenschaft, 86n. EUGNOSTOS, 193
Sobhy, G., 117 Sophe, = Cheops, Discourse, 106
Socrates, History, 13 911. Sophia, see Wisdom
Sodom, home of the perfect, 254-5 SOPHIA OF JESUS:
in SACRED BOOK OF THE IN¬ described, 198-200
VISIBLE . . . SPIRIT, 298, 298m, discussed, 198, 200
299, 300 in author’s classification, 142
Sodomites, the, 36 a Gnostic work in Christian camouflage,
in Gnostic belief, 112 3ii
Soissons, neo-Gnostics at, 311 a version of EUGNOSTOS, 125, 195,
Solitaries, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 196, 198, 24m.
345. 358, 363, 372 author’s work on, 125
Solmis, in the Revelations of Zostrian and Greek original of part of, from Oxy-
Zoroaster, 157 rhynchos, 87, 196
Solomon, King, as author of magical myths in resemble Irenaeus’ description,
books, 170, 17m., 172 127
Book of the Seven Heavens, in pseudo- Philip, etc., only interlocutors of the
Zosimos, 278m resurrected Saviour, 222
exorciser of demons, in Testament of refers to the Drop, I47n.
Solomon, 203m Sophia of Jesus, another version, in Cod.
imprisoned demons, 172, 172m, 173, Berol., 87, 88, 196, 198
174, 278m sources, 87n.
Testament, see Testament of Solomon Sothis (Sirius), = Isis in Peratean doctrine,
Solomon of Basra, knew Zoroastrian 274
prophecies of a saviour, 186 = Venus, related to Isis, 5m.
The Book of the Bee, 47m Soul:
Son, in Borgia leaflet, 97m adventitious, belief in, in various
in Bruce Codex, 81 religions and sects, 2i6n.
in GOSPEL OF PHILIP, 222 Basilides’ and Isidore’s teaching on,
in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 343, 362 23, 54n„ 72
in Perataean teaching, 50, 51 in SECRET BOOK, etc., 215-16
in REVELATION OF DOSITHEUS, Isidore’s teaching on, 23, 215-16
188 Egyptian teaching on, paralleled
in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . . Gnostic (?), 273
GREAT SPIRIT, 178 in Acts of Thomas, 95
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 201, in Gnostic belief, 112
202 migration of, in Great Treatise, 80
in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, 330 Sabian myth of the fall of, 316
Plato’s view of, according to Christian teaching on, among sects related to
iconographers, 350 Sethians, 53-4, 54n.-55n.
Son of God (Adam-Light), in SOPHIA in Books of the Saviour, 72
etc., 199 in Pistis-Sophia, 69
Hermetic, in pseudo-Zosimos, 100 Souls, two, doctrine of, among Messalians
Son of Man: and Bogomils, 310, 31m.
a, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 230, 368 two, theory of, in Dead Sea sect and
in EUGNOSTOS, 194 elsewhere, 297, 297m
in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . . Source of Life, in Islamic belief, 317
GREAT SPIRIT, 178 Sozomen, History, 139m
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 204 Space, in Bundahishn, 152
in SOPHIA, etc., 199, 200 Spheres, arrangement of, in Pistis-Sophia, 71
in TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF Spiegelberg, on Preisigke, 274m
JOHN, 220 Spirit:
Son of the Light, in Battai’s teaching, 60 (Breath, Wind) the third, intermediate,
Sonhood, in Luria, 294 principle of the Sethians, 52, 150, 259
Sons of God, in Genesis, 295 descent of, in Valentinian schools, 2i8n.
Sons of Man, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, Great, in SACRED BOOK OF THE
369 GREAT SPIRIT, 178, 179
Sons of the Light, see Light Holy, see Holy Spirit
Index 439
Spirit (cont.): Sutekh, 42n.
in GOSPEL OF PHILIP, 223, 224 Svetaparvata, in Mahabharata, 284
in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, 147, 148 Symphonia, of the Archontici, 46, 46m
intermediate principle in Sumerian Symphonia, term used in Cod. XII and by
belief, 268 Archontici, 197
primordial, in Nicolaitan teaching, 14 Syncellus, see George, Syncellus
the, in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 204 Synesius of Cyrene, Dion on location of
the virginal, in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Essenes, 299, 299m
Cod. X, 209 Syr, see Seir
Spirit of the All, in Simon’s teaching, 17 Syria, Borborites in, 311
Spirit of the Father of the Truth, in in Naassene symbolism, 49
HYPOSTASIS, etc., 159 Marcionites in, 25
Spirit of the Silence, in SOPHIA, etc., 200 original home of Gnosticism, 12
Spirits, of Light, in Dead Sea Scrolls, 297 Orphic bowl from (?), 90
of the All-Powerful, in “Rossi”, 103 Syrian gods, in Rome, 94
of the Power, in Borgia leaflet, 97m
two, theory of, in Dead Sea sect and Ta'anith, 290m
elsewhere, 297, 297m Tabari, 155m
Spiritual body, in St Paul, 307 Tabennisi, 129m, 135
Statius, Thebaid, on triple universe, 28m. Table rondc, La, 2n., 22n., 50m, 122m,
Stein, Philo und der Midrash, 154m l88n., 247m, 313m
Stein, Sir A., at Ten Huang, 12m. Taha Hussein, Minister of Public Instruc¬
Stephen of Byzantium, 129m tion, 123
Stephen, St, Investiture of the Archangel Talmud, 290m
Gabriel, 235-6 evidence of, for Bible in demotic, 105
Stobaeus, Florilegium, Hermetic fragment Tammuz, in Sumerian belief, 268
in, 242 Targum Ierushalemi, 97m
THOUGHT OF THE GREAT Taricheas, in the Great Treatise, 78
POWER related to (?), 331 Tartarus, father of Typhon, 104
Stoicism, adopted a Babylonian astro¬ Tarwan, sacred mountain (Ginza), 256m
logical eschatology, 267 Tat, in HERMETIC TREATISE (26), 246
source of some doctrines in Cheno- in On regeneration, etc., 275
boskion MSS., 264 Tatian, attacked by Rhodon, 7
Stoics and Magusaeans, 279m used form “Jude Thomas”, 340
on Hercules, 3jn. Taum, at-, and Manes, 226-7
Stratiotici, 14, 41 Taurus, Audians in, 55
Strempsuchos, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 83, Teacher of Righteousneous, Onias was (?),
286m 290m
our ignorance of, 114 Teachings of Adam denounced by John of
Strophaeos, in PARAPHRASE OF Parallos, 183
SHEM, 148 TEACHINGS OF SYLVANUS, dis¬
Studi e testi, 9m, 183m, 256, 285m cussed, 219, 219m, 306
Suchos, crocodile god, and Astram- in author’s classification, 144
psychos, 286n. Te'ezaza Sanbdt, 97, 98m
Suez Canal, the hostilities over, 124 Teli the Dragon, Jewish, 293, 293m
Sufism, influenced Islamic Hermetism, 318 Temple, symbolism of, in GOSPEL OF
Suhrawardi of Aleppo, 318 PHILIP and in Theodotus, 223
Suidas, on Astrampsychos, 286m Ten Huang, discoveries at, 121, 12m.
Sun, in Bruce and Askew codices, 80 Terebinth, in Acts of Archelaus, 314
in Egyptian belief, 273 Tertullian, 5
ships of, in Egyptian belief, 106 Adversus Valentinianos, 5m, 18, i8n.,
in Pistis-Sophia, 69 3in„ 35m, 45
ships of, in Pistis-Sophia, 106 De anima, 19m
Sun-god and Seth, 104 De idol., 68n.
SUPREME ALLOGENES: De praescriptione haereticorum, 5m, 47m
dated by reference in Porphyry, 250 refutation of Marcion by, 24
discussed, 157-9 pseudo-, Adversus omnes haereses, 21411.
in author’s classification, 144 on Valentinus, 240
mentioned by Porphyry, 156 Scorpiace, 5m
440 Index
Terzaghi, ed., Synesius, Dion, 29911. Thomas, St (cont.):
Testament of Solomon, 171, 17m., 20311. importance of, in Manichaean belief, 232
Tetrad, compared with the Drop, in in Pistis-Sophia, 221, 222
SOPHIA, etc., 147m in SOPHIA OF JESUS, etc., 222
in Chenoboskion MSS., of Iranian in BOOK OF THOMAS, 225, 226,
origin, 281, 28m. 339
in Marcus’ teaching, 33, 33m in DIALOGUE OF THE SAVIOUR,
Texte und Untersuchungen, 3m, 5511, 77m 220
Thebaid, Marcionites in, 25 in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 231, 233,
Theodore Bar-Konai: 338, 355. 357. 371
Book of Scholia, 46m, 175m relative importance of, in Gospel of
wrote at end of eighth century, 9 St John, 339
described later Gnostics, 311 Thomas, J., Le mouvement baptiste en
his description of Apocalypse of. . .John Palestine et en Syrie, 298m
resembles SECRET BOOK, etc., Thorndyke, L., A History of Magic and
205m, 213 Experimental Science, in.
his evidence for Allogeneous books, 158 Thoth, = Adam, in pseudo-Zosimos, 100,
knew of Zoroastrian prophecies of a 101
Saviour, 186 author of Hermes’ doctrine, 107
on Audians, 55, 56-7 Thought:
on John of Apamea, 57-8 First, in Bruce Codex, 81
on Kantaeans and Battai, 59-61 in Audius’ teaching, 56
on Kukeans, 58-9 in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, 147,
on Lampedans, 57 148
on Mandaeans, 61 in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, 330
on Manichaean myth of Jesus re¬ in Valentinianism, 27
deeming Adam, 217 the First, in TRIPLE DISCOURSE,
reliability of, shown by Chenoboskion 33°
MSS., 250 Thought of Ialdabaoth, in REVELATION
Theodore, abbot of Tabennisi: ON PISTIS SOPHIA, 166
author of Borgia leaflet (?), 96m Thought of Light, in SECRET BOOK,
wrote and spoke against heretics, etc.. Cod. X, 206
Gnostics, 135-6 Thought of the Father, in Gnosticism,
Theodoret, on Borborites, 311 61-2
Theodosius of Alexandria, Eulogium of St THOUGHT OF THE GREAT POWER
Michael, 96m (SENSE OF UNDERSTANDING):
Theodotus, disciple of Valentinus, 26 described and discussed, 242-3, 247, 329,
of the oriental branch, 31 331-2
quoted by Clement, 5 in author’s classification, 143
on seed becoming male, 23411. Thought of the Invisible, in TRIPLE
on women becoming male, 234 DISCOURSE, 330
symbolism of Temple in, 223, 2230. Three heavens, notion of, became seven
Theologische Zeitschrift, 127m spheres, 238n.
Theopemptos, identity of unknown, 300 Three male Children, in SACRED BOOK
in SACRED BOOK OF THE . . . OF THE . . . GREAT SPIRIT, 178
GREAT SPIRIT, 179 Three Moments, in Great Treatise, 80
Thirteen, the word of the, = Pleiades, in Three Phases, 113m, 114
pseudo-Zosimos, 278m Three Principles:
Thirteenth Aeon, in Pistis-Sophia, 149m a doctrine of e.g. PARAPHRASE OF
Thomas, St: SHEM, 259-60, 263 n.
as a brother of Jesus, 22s, 226, 340 in Chenoboskion MSS., of Iranian
in Manichaean belief, 226-7, 227m origin, 281
as alien (= Allogeneous), 158 and elsewhere, 28 m.
as evangelist of India, etc., 339 in Iranian belief, 280m
attribution of GOSPEL OF THOMAS in Sumerian belief, 268
to, 338-40, 355 not known in REVELATION ON
cult of, around Edessa, 339-40, 348 PISTIS SOPHIA, 175
importance of, in Gnostic belief, 335-6, THREE STELAE OF SETH, see
339 REVELATION OF DOSITHEUS
Index 441
Three Times, the, in Pistis-Sophia, 66 Treasuries, the secret, in TRIPLE DIS¬
Throne, in Jewish mysticism, 290-1, COURSE, 330
29m. Treasury of Light:
in Rabbinical literature, 177 common to Codex Askewianus and
Throne of the Lord Sabaoth, in Jewish Bruce Codex, 79, 8on.
star lore, 288 concept of, derived by Manichaeans
origin (?), 288m from Gnostics, 313
Tigris, in Naassene symbolism, 49 in Books of the Saviour, 73
mentioned by Battai, 60 in Pistis-Sophia, 65, 66, 67, 69, 71
Till, W., ed., Die gnostischen Schriften des in the Great Treatise, 77, 78
koptischen Papyrus Berolinensis 8502, in titleless portion of Codex Askew¬
87m ianus, 75
helped by author over Codex Berolin¬ in Zoroastrian prophecy, 186
ensis, 125 Treasury, the, in Iranian belief, 282
Koptische-Gnostische Schriften, 65m, 77m, TREATISE, in Codex XIII, (48), by
222n. Heracleon (?), 239
published Codex Berolensis, 87, 8711. in author’s classification, 145
“The Gnostic Apokryphon of John”, TREATISE, EPISTLE, in Codex V, in
87m author’s classification, 143
to help publish Chenoboskion MSS., mentioned, 197
117 TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF JOHN,
translation of Pistis-Sophia by, 10911. etc., in Codex V, described, 219-20
Time: in author’s classification, 143
concept of, as a criterion, 110-11, 114 parallels with EUGNOSTOS and
(Fate = ), in SECRET BOOK, etc.. REVELATION ON PISTIS
Cod. X, 208 SOPHIA, 219
Gnostic concept of, in, 112 TREATISE ON THE TRIPLE EPI¬
unhellenic, 266 PHANY, see TRIPLE DISCOURSE,
(= Ialdabaoth), 260 etc.
in Avesta, 154 Trebius Iustus, tomb of, 92
in Chaldaean astrology, 267 Tree of Knowledge, in Books of the
in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 161 Saviour, 73
Iranian cult of, 268 Trees, in Gnostic, etc., symbolism, 8on.,
Timotheus of Alexandria, Discourse upon I47n., 345
Abbaton, 97, 98m in twelfth-century Christian symbolism,
Timothy, I Epistle to, 301 8on.
II Epistle to, 30m. of Paradise, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS,
Titles of Gnostic and Hebrew revelations, 345. 358
289, 290 in Manichaean belief, 216-17, 2l6n.
Tondelli, L., “II Mandeismo e le origini in SECRET BOOK, etc., 216, 2i6n.
cristiane”, 49m, 207m, 256m, 27m. meaning of, 372
Torah, influence of on Chenoboskion Triad, Hermetic, in pseudo-Zosimos,
MSS., 295 100
Tour, La, de St Jacques, 74m TRIPLE DISCOURSE, etc., 289m
Traditions of Matthias, Gnostic, cited by description, 181, 329-31
Clement, 226 discussed, 331, 332
parallels in, with GOSPEL OF in author’s classification, 144
THOMAS, 349 Triple-Power, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 82
quoted as source of logia known to us of the Great Archon in Great Treatise,
from GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 342 78
“Travail d’edition, Le, des fragments de Triple-Powers, in Pistis-Sophia, 66
Qumran, 296m in titleless portion of Codex Askewianus,
Treasure, see Ginzd 75
Treasure, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, Trowel symbol, 91
346 Truth, in DIALOGUE OF THE
Treasures, the Sixty, in the Great Treatise, SAVIOUR, 221
77 in TREATISE ON BAPTISM OF
Treasures, etc., Cave of, in Syriac Chronicle, JOHN, 219
186 in Valentinianism, 27, 28
442 Index
Tsimtsum, in Luria, 294 Vandier, J., La Religion igyptienne, 272a.

Two in one, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, Vay, 154
in A vesta, 154
230. 359
Two Principles, in Chenoboskion MSS. in Bundahishn, 153
and elsewhere, 28m. Vendidad, 8on.
in Iranian belief, 28on. Venturi, A., Storia dell’arte italiana, 207m
incompatible with Three (?), 260 Venus, Sothis, 51
Typhon, in the Great Treatise, 79 Vetus Testamentum, 29711.
= Seth, in Judaeo-Gnostic rituals, 105 Vezelay, Circe in church of, 192m
in magic, 104 Vibia, tomb of, 90
sons of, = Gnostics (?), 274 Victories, Mountain of, in Syriac Chronicle,
Tyre, 16 186
Vigilantius, a Gnostic, 5
Vigiliae christianae, 27x1., Il8n., 119m,
Ulysses, in Eustathius’ commentary, 191 I22n., 125m
in note in EXEGESIS, etc., 191 Vincent, L., “Le Culte d’Hel^ne a
in tomb of the Aurelii, 93
Samaria”, l6n.
Unbegotten, in EUGNOSTOS, 194
Vintras, 322
Unity, in GOSPEL OF THOMAS, 345.
Virgin:
349. 371, 375 a, bearing a child, in APOCALYPSE
Universe, evil in Gnostic belief, hi
OF ADAM, etc., 183
but destined to salvation, 113 and child, in a Zoroastrian prophecy,
Upon the Investiture of St Michael, 96 186
Uranius, Audian, 55
heavenly, in Balinus, 319
Uriel, in Investiture of the Archangel Gabriel,
in Acts of Thomas, 95
236.
in REVELATION ON PISTIS
Urkunden des Aegypt. Altertums, 104m
SOPHIA, 167, 168
in “Rossi”, 103
Vajda, G., “ Melchis^dech dans la myth- = Sophia (?) in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 84
ologie ismaelienne”, 155m, 32m. Virgin of Light:
Valentinianism, 13, S4n.-55n. —Archons and Vishnu—Asuras, 284
Tertullian on, 18-19, i8n. Egyptian parallel to, 273
Valentinians, belief in the Limit and the in Books of the Saviour, 73
Cross, 6on. in Manichaean belief, 8on.
doctrines similar to those o£ EUGNOS¬ derived from Gnostic, 313
TOS, 195 in Pistis-Sophia, 66
Gospel of Truth (Irenaeus), 240 seduced Archons, 164m
Valentinus, author of GOSPEL OF similarity of Bruce and Askew codices
TRUTH (?), 126, 240, 241, 24m. on, 80
his use of Homer, 19m. visible in the night sky, a Gnostic belief,
leader of a Gnostic sect, 7, 12 271
life of, 26 Virtue, The, in Ophite teaching, 38-9
on masculine women (Philosophumena), in Satornil’s teaching, 19
48. 234 Virtues, the, in Basilides’ teachings, 22
possessed a gospel (pseudo-Tertullian), Vishnu—Asuras and Virgin of the Light—
240 Archons, 284
pupils of, 26, 30 et seq. Vohu Manah, in Zdtsparam, 282m
Secundus was a pupil of, 24 Voice, the, in TRIPLE DISCOURSE,
Sophia by, not SOPHIA OFJESUS, 200 329
split in his sect, 12 Void, = Air and Fate, in Hellenistic
split over descent of Spirit, 218n. writings, 153-4
teachings of, 27-30, 33 in Avesta, 154
origin of (?), 36 in Bundahishn, 152m, 153
quoted by Clement, 5 Voiker, W., Quellen zur geschichte der
sources for, 27m christlichen Gnosis, 4m, 6n., 7m, 17m,
used matrimony as a symbol, 2240. 20m, 33n.
view of Seth in, 39m, 45 Vortrager der Bibliothek Warburg, 28m.,
works by, 26, 115 3i8n.
wrote a Gospel of Truth, 26 Vouaux, L., i6n.
Index 443
Wallach, L., “A Jewish polemic against Wisdom (Sophia) (cont.):
Gnosticism”, 289m in Simon’s teaching, 17
Wartzburg, PriscilHanist treatises of, I98n., in SOPHIA, etc., 199, 200
214m, 3 ion. in tomb of Aurelii, 92
Waters of Life, in Bruce Codex, p.2, 85 in Valentinianism, 27-9, 30, 31, 32
Ways of the Midst, in the Great Treatise, 79 Logos of, in Valentinianism, 2i8n.
in titleless portion of Codex Askewia- marriage of, in Valentinus’ teaching,
nus, 75 224m
Wellman, Der Physiologus, 17m. of God, in St Paul, 306
West, Pahlavi texts, 196m, 277x1. in Zohar, 292
White Mountain, in Mahabharata, 284 parallel of Anthropos in Poitnandres, 277
in Mandaean myth, 256 (Pistis-Sophia), in REVELATION ON
Whole, in a Coptic fragment, 89 PISTIS SOPHIA, 165-8, 169, 175
Widengren, G., The Ascension of the Prounikos, Egyptian parallel of, 273
Apostle and the Heavenly Book, 189m in Ophite belief (Irenaeus), 38, 39,
The Great Vohu Manah and the Apostle of 40
God, 8on., 214m, 268n., 28m., 282m (Sophia), in a Gnostic fragment, 88
“Der iranischeHintergrund der Gnosis ”, in a Gnostic prayer, 108
95m, 282m in Gnostic belief, 113
The King and the Tree of Life in Near struggle against Archons paralleled by
Eastern Religion, 268m Athena and Titans, 264
Mesopotamian Elements in Manichaeism, (Sophia Pansophos) in EUGNOSTOS,
2o8n., 2i6n., 2i8n., 224m, 268m, 194
27m., 28m. (the Great and the Little) in GOSPEL
Muhammad, the Apostle of God and his OF PHILIP, 225
Ascension, 158m, 317m = Virgin in Bruce Codex, pt. 2 (?), 84
Stand und Aufgaben der Iranischen Withdrawal of God, in Luria, Basilides,
Religionsgeschichte, 256m, 279m, 28m., and Books of Jeou, 294
287m, 315m Woman, the First, in Ophite belief, 37
Wikander, Ttudes sur les mysteres de Womb, in Sethian teaching, 52-3
Mithra, 28m. in the Mithraic Liturgy, 108
Wilpert, “ Le pitture dell’ipogeo . . . presso symbolism of, 52, 52m
il viale Manzoni ... ”, 92m Wombs, in Bruce Codex, pt. 2, and
Wilson, R. McL., “Simon, Dositheus and Chaldaean Oracles, 85-6
the Dead Sea Scrolls”, 15m, 6in., 189m, Women, as Gnostic proselytizers (Epi¬
296m phanius), 8-9
Wind (= Spirit), one of the Three rendered male, in GOSPEL OF
Sethian principles, 239 THOMAS and elsewhere, 234
Wisdom (Sophia): Word, the, in Barbelognostic teaching,
absence of, in teaching of John of 37
Apamea, 58 in Basilides’ teaching, 22
aeons of, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 85 in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 81, 84
Egyptian, myth of Nut similar to, 272 equivalent to Monogene, 8111.
in Acts of Thomas, 93 in Naassene belief, 48
in APOCALYPSE OFfAMES (10), 237 in Peratean teaching, 50
in Audius’ teaching, 56 in Poimandres, 276
in Barbelognostic teaching, 37 in Sethian teaching, 52-3
in Chenoboskion MSS., of Iranian in TRIPLE DISCOURSE, 330
origin, 281 in Valentinianism, 27
in EUGNOSTOS, 194 of the soul, in THOUGHT OF THE
in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 161-3 GREAT POWER, 242
in Judaeo-Gnostic invocations, 165 of Truth, in TREATISE ON BAP¬
in Ophite belief (Epiphanius), 212 TISM OF fOHN, 220
in PARAPHRASE OF SHEM, 149 (= Saviour) in GOSPEL OF TRUTH,
in Pistis-Sophia, 66, 69, 70, 71 239
in SECRET BOOK, etc.. Cod. X, 202, World of Light, in Kukean teaching, 58
204, 210 in Pistis-Sophia, see Treasury of Light
in SETHIAN REVELATION, Cod. Writing put under the name of Seth, see
VI, 187 Scriptura, etc.
444 Index
Wuilleumier, H., “£tudes historiques sur Zogenethles, in Bruce Codex, pt.2, 85
l’emploi et la signification des signa”, Zohar, 292, 292m
I96n. Zoroaster:
Wunsch, R., Sethianische Verfiiichungstafeln and Anahita, 8on.
aus Rom, I06n. Apocalypse of, mentioned in Porphyry,
10, 53. 156, 218
author of prophecies of a saviour
Yazdani or Yaswani, = Battai, 61 (Theodore Bar-Konal, etc.), 186-7
“Yazidi”, 316m Baruch compared with, 33m
Yazuqeans, 61 = Baruch in myth of Saoshyant, 184
Yezdegerd II, 59 books attributed to, 4, 115, 154, 280
Yezedis, and Gnosticism, 316, 3i6n. = Cham, 2on.
Yohanna, in Mandaean belief, 255, 256 = Er, in Arnobius, 156
Gnostic use of name shows Magusaean
influence, 280
Zacchaeans, 41 identified with Seth, etc., 280
Zachaeus, disciple of John of Apamea, in Chenoboskion MSS., equals Balaam,
58 Ezechiel and Nimrod, 287
Zacharias, 41-2, 4m. equals Seth, 287, 288
Zaehner, R. C., The Teachings of the Magi, in Manes, Shapurakan, 314x1.
28m. in Manichaeism, 102
Zurvan, a Zoroastrian dilemma, 15m., in Peratean belief (Philosophumena),
I52n., 205n., 2i4n., 27m., 279n., 286n.
28on., 28m. in pseudo-Zosimos, 100, 101
Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen in Suidas, etc., 286n.
Kanons, 221, 22m. in Tabari, 155m
Zaradusht, Zarathustra, see Zoroaster myths about, 102
Zatsparam, on Adam, 214 some identical with those ascribed to
parts of body fabricated by, and Seth, 187
correspond with, planets in, 205n., seed of, and seed of Seth, 282
2l4n. Upon nature, lJ4n.
Vohu Manah in, 282m writings attributed to contain substance
Zeal, in Audius’ teaching, 56 of the revelations of Adam, 184
Zeasar, in Naassene teachings, 49 (Zarathustra) in Zatsparam, 28211.
Zeitschrift d. Deutsche Morgenl. Gesellsch., Zoroaster, grandson of Zostrian, i$6n.
39n., 295m Zoroastrianism, as a source for Gnosticism,
Zeitschriftfiir Aegyptische Sprache, 273m 2
Zeitschrift fur die Neutestamentliche l-Vissen- influenced Basilides, 7
schaft, 87m, 315m Mountain in, and Indian parallel, 285
Zeitschrift fiir Religions- und Geistes- Zoroastrians, whispered their prayers, 196
geschichte, 1511., 34m, 95m, 214m, 282n„ Zorokothora (= Meldizedek), in the
286n., 296n. Great Treatise, 79
Zeitschrift fiir Theologie und Kirche, 297m Zosimos, pseudo-:
Zend Avesta, see Avesta On the letter Imuth, 278m
Zervan, = Shem, 155m mentions Hermes, Physika, 278
Zeus, identified with Simon, 16 On the letter Kappa, 278m
in pseudo-Zosimos, 101 treatises of, I48n.-I49n.
in titleless portion of Codex Askewianus, Upon action, the commentary on, ioin.
•75 Upon the letter Omega, 99, ioon.
Zodarion, in Peratean belief (Philosoph- quotations from, 100-1
umena), 286n. Chenoboskion MSS. fairly repre¬
Zodiac, in Pistis-Sophia, 66, 67, 71 sented in titles mentioned, in, 251-2
in Zosimos, Syriac version, 149m eclecticism of, 278, 278m
Zoe, in HYPOSTASIS, etc., 162-3 on Adam, 175
in REVELATION ON PISTIS references to other works in, 170
SOPHIA, 167, 168, 169 shows syncretism, 248
in SECRET BOOK, etc., Cod. X, 202, similar to EXEGESIS ON THE
206 SOUL, 190
Zoega, Catalogus codicum copticorum, 96m work by Nicothcus mentioned in, 159
Index 445
Zosimos, pseudo- (cont.): Zostrian (cont.):
Upon the letter Omega (cont.): in Arnobius, 156
work by Solomon mentioned in, 172, Upon nature, 156
I72n. identified with DISCOURSE OF
Zostrian, ancestor of Zoroaster, 101-2, ZOROASTER, 156
I02n. Zurich, Jung Institute, see Jung Institute
apocalypse of, mentioned in Porphyry, Zuqnin monastery, Chronicle in the,
10, 53. I5<5 185
books attributed to, 115 Zura, disciple of John of Apamea,
Gnostic use of name shows Magusaean 58
influence, 280 Zurvanism, 280m
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TRENT UNIVERSITY

THE SITE OF THE DISCOVERY

THE SECRET BOOKS

With an English Translation and critical evaluation of

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS

THE VIKING PRESS

Les Livres secrets des gnostiques d’Egypte

The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics

Published in i960 by The Viking Press, Inc.

Library of Congress catalog card number: 60-6161

I. The Problem of Gnosticism : Its Earliest Known

II. Original Texts and Monuments ... 64

Remains of Gnosticism in the related literature of its

III. The Story of a Discovery . . . .116

IV. Thirteen Codices of Papyrus . . . . 137

V. Forty-Four Secret (and Hitherto Unknown)

VI. The Sethians According to their Writings . 249

General Index 387

1. The site of the discovery . . . .Frontispiece

2. Toga Mina and the author deciphering the first manu¬

(Hymn of the Soul, attributed to the

Am I perhaps a little inclined to underrate the interest of those

of those dramatic exhumations to which officials, journalists

in a position to read a single line of these writings, and whose

distantly comparable in this respect), will ever be forgotten, or

ineradicable and sometimes invade even the modern mind. That

THE PROBLEM OF GNOSTICISM:

The words Gnosis (yvu>ois = Knowledge) and Gnosticism relate

had been, in his opinion, an “oriental philosophy” which had

4 J. Horn, Ueber die biblische Gnosis, Hanover, 1805.

discovery of a precious document—the Philosophumena, which is

with Gnosticism—firstly about Hermeticism and the vast output

Essentially, all that we knew about Gnosticism was what we

something about the Gnostic teachers, books, systems and pro¬

18 Jerome, Liber contra Vigilantium, § 6.

A particularly instructive work rediscovered about a century

Christians and the Gnostics, about whom he was pretty well

28 Eusebius, History, IV, 7, 25, and V, 23.

compiled by St Epiphanius, chiefly by drawing upon previous

He gives no name or place to the adversaries he is seeking to £

If only we were not so uncertain of the accuracy of the testi¬

the status of a science, and according to which man was subject to

Marcion was perhaps a disciple, for Marcion was in Rome from

To this historical outline, let us fill in some details. Surviving

which is called Great.’” Simon had wished also to become a

from below; it is a great thought, feminine, which gives birth to

M Irenaeus, Contra Haereses, III, xv, 2, in the translation of Lebreton, Histoire

Satorml also taught that marriage and generation were of the

nature, without root and without reason, has developed into

42 See p. 14 ante, on the dualism of the Nicolaltans, which, it seems, knows no

which proceeded the Word; from the Word, Reflection; from

More precise than that of Irenaeus, the text of the Philosophu-

like Apelles. These secondary forms of the Marcionite teaching,

Lord of the Creation then thrusts primitive mankind down into

preserved the text. It retraces some essential lines of Valentinus’s

71 “Epistle of Ptolemy to Flora”, analysed by Sagnard, in Gnose valentin-

imitate the pro-Father by giving birth from herself, exactly as he

Jesus is psychic: that is why, at the moment of the Baptism, the