mountainman

Since when is the citation of ancient sources,
relevant to gnosticism and "early christianity"
considered digressive?

Certain people may not be aware of the
reliance between Eusebius and all that went
before him in terms of ancient history.

And the Constantine-shot-Christ-from-the-grassy-knoll pot-shot
is far better outlined by Gore Vidal, where explicit references
are made between the Emperor Julian and JFK.

In regard to the mention of "Essenes" and "Gnostics"
and "early christians", noone has yet bothered to
reply to the plain statement in Antiquities, that the
Essenes were essentially "Pythagoreans".

Doesn't this textual evidence bear at all on the
conjecturing about the gnostics and the early
christians? Plotinus always gets a mention, but
we all know Plotinus never once mentions the
new religion of christianity.


And at the end of the list of all citations in all these
books, there will be the name of Eusebius, happily
preserving the ancient authors of antiquity, 312-324 CE.

Here is a serious question. Remove Eusebius from the
picture of the "gnostics" and the "early christians" and,
in each instance, what do you have left over?

1) You have at least Josephus (above).
2) Philo of Alexandria.
3) ...
...


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

DCHindley

Well, Pete, we're not sure where you get the idea that Pythagoreans are synonymous with Gnostics.

The Gnostics who wrote the books in the NHL and were rebutted by the likes of Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria are not just mystics or esoteric folks who find knowledge hidden in other things (like under the surface of texts or in the relationships of numbers or musical notes).

They had developed much more sophisticated ideas, such as that the material world was a corrupted copy of the "real" world of the "fullness", populated by "Aeons" which personified certain concepts identified by Plato, as they were understood by "middle Platonists" in the 1st century CE.

Some of these Gnostics (big "G") had adopted a myth where one of the Aeons (usually Stauros = Cross) projected himself into the material world to effect a rescue of the remnants of the fullness trapped here under the harsh rule of a jealous, ignorant god who was a cheap knock-off of the god-like highest pinciple of the fullness.

In Sethian Gnosticism, as found in certain books of the NHL and related to the kind of Gnostics attacked by Irenaeus etc, this god was none other than the God of the Jews. The Jewish elements which you seem to dispute the existence of, are clearly in these books as deduced from their use of terms that are determined to be based on Jewish scripture, mainly Genesis, and also Aramaic words that are commonly found in Jewish pseudepigraphic literature.

I'd also dispute your assertion that "Essenes were essentially 'Pythagoreans'" on the same basis that we do not take seriously Josephus' assertions that Pharisees were like Stoics and Sadducees were like Epicurians. How exactly does Eusebius equate these two groups? Platonists were not Pythagoreans, and Pythagoreans were not Plationists, although they shared some common presuppositions through Aristotle.

If I remember correctly, E thought that Philo's description of Therapeutae and Essenes resembled the description of early Christians in Acts and concluded that Philo must have been referring to Christians. In fact, he may have got some of these ideas from Epiphanius, who was also making such sweeping generalizations around the same time. Can you demonstrate a coherent relationship between the descriptions of Essenes/Therapeutae, Pythagoreans and early Christians in Eusebius, Epiphanius, Josephus and Philo?

I'd like to see you try. I think you already have resources on Eusebius, Josephus and Philo, and recommend you get decent translations of each and not the old cruddy public domain ones. If you need help finding the citations in Epiphanius, try _The Panarion of St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis: Selected Passages_ tr. & ed. by Philip R Amidon (1990). It is out of print, but you should be able to get a copy via inter-library loan.

mountainman

Hi Dave,

If you had asked this question before the 1970's, unless you
read and translated Coptic, the only ideas that anyone had
about the Gnostics were derived from two separate sources.

The first was Eusebius, who quoted Greek writing Heresiologists
and Gnostic detractors from the Pre-Nicene epoch. Knowing your
Eusebius was valuable for knowledge of "Gnostics" because,
apart from the following other sources, Eusebius was the horses
mouth.

Secondly these texts (from the WIKI Article)
History of Gnosticism


Since 1970, the NHL has thrown a new light on the questions
related to the Gnostics. It was a chance find outside of the
traditional Greek and Latin and Hebrew and Syriac and Arabian
languages.

Robert Lane Fox spends some time painting a graphic
picture of the NHL, and it is far from being reduced to
any form of "mainstream simplicity".


Perhaps the singular most impressive aspect about the
NHL is the C14 citation on the gJudas to 348 CE.
The Gnostics who wrote the books in the NHL wrote
the books in the mid fourth century.

Eusebius' assertion about other "early christian authors"
is no longer the only "evidence" (literary though it is)
with respect to the Gnostics. The bunch from NHL must
be allowed to stand by themselves.

The NHL contains an intriguing mix of genre.
Have you had a good look through it?



Just a minute Dave. These authors simply did not find
things as allegories in texts, these authors certainly
themselves buried the allegories and the parodies in
their texts.

Have you read for example, the "Hymn of the Pearl"
which is buried inside the parody called "The Acts of
Judas Thomas"? (This is not part of the NHL).

Or indeed, unpublished though it may be, my own
explication of the hidden allegory of the Pearl in
the City of the Nine Gates from Lithargoel in the
NHC 6.1 "The Acts of Peter and the (11,12 or 13) Apostles.

Why bury texts?
For their very preservation.
Someone was out to burn them.
Mid fourth century.




So who was Ammonius Saccas?

The domain of the Gnostics is no longer Eusebius alone.
A bunch of physicists have given us a fixed chronological
marker in the mid-fourth century (probably +/- 60 years).


Sethian also implicates Egyptian influence, as does the Thrice-Great
Hermes, and inscriptions from the third century support the general
references to this "Thrice Great Hermes".

Eusebius' contribution has been studied for hundreds of years.
Where has it lead anyone? Now there is the NHL. What does
the evidence tell us at the NHL?

Thanks for the question here.
The key is understanding two things:

1) these "therapeutae".
2) the tradition associated with Asclepius, involving therapeutae.

There is a wealth of archaeological citations to the tradition
of the empire wide God of Healing "Asclepius" during the period
from 500 BCE to 500 CE. Biblical scholarship has to-date, in
general, somehow passed this data by, because they are
looking at the Pre-Nicene Epoch through the eyes of Eusebius.

Who may well have written Lucian's Alexandre and the Snake,
in the fourth century, while preserving Lucian's other works
for posterity. It is a direct polemic against the cult of the
Healing god asclepius. Alexander the Great was recorded to
have left his breastplate at an Asclepia.

In summary, the world of ideas has only been exposed to NHL
for less than 30 years, compared with the 300 or more years
in which Eusebius (and the "early christian Pre-Nicene Epoch)
has been gone through with a fine tooth comb.

Eusebius has competition in the NHL as a source for
being a "potential authority" on Gnostics and the History
of Gnosticism.

Buried knowledge
Hidden knowlege.

The Hymn of the Pearl inside the parody of Apostoloc Acts.
The Path to the City of the Pearl inside another.

It is an intriguing state of affairs.

A certain text at NHL is incorporated twice, the second
time with an additional phase "who was the Saviour".
A snapshot, from the editor, of change-in-progress 348 CE.

Questions arise outside of Eusebius. Those who would
naturally turn to Eusebius need to understand that
there is no evidential bridge between Eusesbius and
the "Christian Heretic Gnostics" other than Eusebius.

Anyone interested even remotely in Gnosticism now
must study the non Eusebian sourcetexts of the NHL.
What do these really tell us?
Do you have an opinion?



Best wishes,


Pete Brown