mountainman

I agree with your assessment. It also applies to the 50 odd texts from the Nag Hammadi codices manufactured in the mid 4th century. How many of these are considered to have been copies of texts authored in the 2nd and 3rd centuries (aside from Plato's Republic)? Quite a lot.

Constantine and Eusebius wanted to burn these books.

They were a real problem and threat for the status quo in the 4th century.

How to deal with them, how to control them?

The option of imperial memoriae damnatio had its limits.


It seems like there was a war of (popular) books.

Yes most of non canonical texts were "pulp fiction", but it was a war nevertheless.




Eusebius wanted to play down the controversy. The source we know as "Eusebius" was preserved by the continuators of Eusebius and may have been altered to serve a political agenda of these continuators. This needs to be borne in mind.

Eusebius emphasised and went out of his way to document the LATE appearance of the non canonical books compared to the EARLY canon. But it may well be that he took the liberty of retrojecting the politics of Nicaea into the centuries leading up to it, by having his Church History via Ireneus et al attest to various heretical books - the Gospel of Judas being one.

Orthodoxy NEEDED to explain the existence of these books because they could not hope to destroy all the books.

What better explanation would there be than to claim these books had appeared hundreds of years ago, and the issues were long dead and buried.


Below I have complied a list of the non canonical books showing - according to the mainstream chronology - the conjectured century of authorship. I used "ECW" for much of this and added the outriders from other sources. Some of the Nag Hammadi texts may now be associated with an earlier date than the 4th century. I may have made some errors but the situation according to mainstream is something like this:

Non Canonical Text with mainstream chronology

The Vision of Isaiah 1st
The Gospel of Thomas 1st [099]
The Didache [Teaching/Doctrine of the Apostles] 1st?
The Teaching of the Apostles 1st?
The Gospel of the Egyptians 1st-2nd
The Gospel of the Hebrews 1st-2nd
The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles 2nd
The Apocalypse of Peter 2nd
The Epistle of the Apostles 2nd
The Gospel of Mary [Magdalene] 2nd
The Gospel of the Ebionites 2nd
The Gospel of the Lord [by Marcion] 2nd
The Gospel of the Nazoreans 2nd
The Apocalypse of James (Second) 2nd [130]
The Gospel of James (Infancy) 2nd [150]
The Teachings of Silvanus 2nd [150]
A Valentinian Exposition 2nd [160]
The Acts of Paul (*R) 2nd [160]
The Gospel of Truth 2nd [160]
The Gospel of Peter 2nd [170]
The Apocalypse of James (First) 2nd [180]
The Apocryphon of James 2nd [180]
The Apocryphon of John 2nd [180]
The Apocryphon of John 2nd [180]
The Gospel of Judas 2nd [180]
The Gospel of the Egyptians 2nd [180]
The Letter of Peter to Philip 2nd [190]
The Letter of Peter to Philip 2nd [190]
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas [Greek Text A] 2nd/3rd
The Thunder, Perfect Mind 2nd/3rd
The Acts of Andrew and John (*H) 2nd-3rd
The Acts of Andrew and Matthew (*H) 2nd-3rd
The Acts of Andrew (*H) 2nd-3rd
The Acts of John (*H) 2nd-3rd
The Acts of Peter 2nd-3rd
The Acts of Peter and Andrew 2nd-3rd
The Revelation of the Magi 2nd-3rd
A Portion of the Books of the Saviour (aka Pistis 3rd
The Gospel of Philip 3rd
The Hypostasis of the Archons 3rd
The Sophia of Jesus Christ 3rd
The Three Steles of Seth 3rd
Zostrianos 3rd
The Acts of Thomas 3rd [220]
The Tripartite Tractate 3rd/4th
The Prayer of the Apostle Paul 3rd[280]
The Prayer of the Apostle Paul 3rd[280]
The Apocalypse of James - First 3rd-4th

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~ The Nicaean Boundary Event - 324/325 CE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Allogenes 4th
Asclepius 21-29 4th
Authoritative Teaching 4th
Eugnostos the Blessed 4th
Eugnostos the Blessed 4th
Hypsiphrone 4th
Marsanes 4th
Melchizedek 4th
On the Origin of the World 4th
On the Origin of the World 4th
Plato, Republic 588A-589B 4th
The Acts of John the Theologian 4th
The Acts of Pilate 4th
The Acts of Polyeuctes 4th
The Apocalypse of Adam 4th
The Apocalypse of Paul 4th
The Book of Thomas the Contender 4th
The Concept of Our Great Power 4th
The Correspondence of Jesus and Abgar 4th
The Correspondence of Paul and Seneca 4th
The Death of Pilate 4th
The Dialogue of the Savior 4th
The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth 4th
The Exegesis on the Soul 4th
The Gospel of Gamaliel 4th
The Gospel of Nicodemus 4th
The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew 4th
The Gospel of the Egyptians 4th
The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary 4th
The Gospel of the Twelve Apostles 4th
The History of Joseph the Carpenter 4th
The Interpretation of Knowledge 4th
The Paraphrase of Shem 4th
The Prayer of Thanksgiving 4th
The Second Treatise of the Great Seth 4th
The Sentences of Sextus 4th
The Testimony of Truth 4th
The Thought of Norea 4th
Trimorphic Protennoia 4th
Unknown 4th
The Act of Peter 4th-5th
The Acts of Luke 4th-5th
The Acts of Mark 4th-5th
The Acts of Peter and Paul 4th-5th
The Acts of Philip 4th-5th
The Acts of Simon and Jude 4th-5th
The Acts of Thaddaeus 4th-5th
The Gospel of Bartholomew 4th-5th
The History of John 4th-5th
An Arabic Infancy Gospel 5th
The Acts and Martyrdom of Andrew 5th
The Acts and Martyrdom of Matthew 5th
The Acts of Barnabas 5th
The Acts of Bartholomew 5th
The Acts of Timothy 5th
The Acts of Titus 5th
The Acts of Matthew 6th

To return to the OP, the gnostics are not associated with all of the above books but with a good proportion of them. As such the gnostic authors must have had an historical existence. The question is when.

Apart from Lucius Charinus, none are explicitly named as authors of specific texts.

wordy

Thanks interesting to follow you guys.
Seems we can only guess what was going on?

One Pastor told me that some theologians
see Gospel of John as a kind of "address to the gnostics"?

As if it was written for to compete with the gnostics
and to beat them on their own game? If that is true
then gnostics existed very early? or as early as that gospel.

And when one read Paul does he not warn about
believers that had a different take on Christ and
could that maybe have been gnostics living when he did?

I only wild guess. Paul could have been on variant of
a tendency to find a personal niche for how to talk about Christ.

suppose all of them competing with each other a bit like
public figures do now. Atheism Plus would be a very good example.

Each individual try to carve out a niche and to depend that view?

Grog

It depends on what you mean by "late" or how early "early" is. My opinion on Paul is open, so leave that aside from now. I believe the earliest Gospel contains clear evidence that the author had access to the works of Josephus which, in my mind, dates the earliest Gospel to the turn of the century. Mid-second century, then, is relatively early in my mind, during a time when the Jesus Myth was still in formative stages.

andrewcriddle

The date of the origin of Gnosticism depends partly on how you define Gnosticism.

Full blown Gnosticism as usually understood makes a radical distinction between the world-creator (the God of the OT) and the God who was the Father of Christ. These ideas are probably later than (almost all) the NT.

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

Why are you claiming that your opinion on Paul is open but still do Not want to engage any discussion right now??

If you can deduce and vigorously discuss that the Gospels were composed after the writings of Josephus then what actual evidence prevents you from also admitting or at least even discussing that the Pauline writings were late??

It would appear to me that people, even Scholars, are terrified to admit that there is no corroborative evidence in the Canon and even apologetic writers that there were Pauline letters to the Churches before c 70 CE.

mountainman is being ridiculed by the very persons who promote the propaganda of the Church without a shred of corroborative evidence in the Canon.

Paleographers have dated stories about Jesus and the Pauline writings NO earlier the 2nd century yet people here still continue to argue that the Pauline writings were composed in the 1st century and that the Jesus cult originated in the 4th century.

We have the existing evidence and it does NOT support early PAULINE writings and that the Jesus cult originated in the 4th century.

mountainman

The Christian heresiologists would have us believe that the gnostics were Christian heretics, along with the Hellenes, the Stoics, the Platonists, the Pythagoreans. The Nag Hammadi Codices (NHC) establish that however you may define Gnosticism, it does not appear to be an exclusively "Christian" phenomenom.

It is connected just as securely to non Christian theologies, such as that of Plato. The God of Plato was to be found in the canonical books of Plato which were preserved by the apostolic lineage of the followers of Plato for example, and has nothing to do with the god of the books of the OT or the NT.

Duvduv

Toto, your defense of the conventional wisdom has all the festures of a true religious conviction.
"The pre-Nicaean existence of Christianity is true because it is. And because the academic world says so. Period. End of story. Any dissenters from this view are subject to the Inquisition of ridicule and ostracism."

Despite the fact that reliance must be based on the church's own monopoly of "evidence" and its apologetics and even possession of manuscripts.
While the Empire had the Means, Motive and Opportunity to establish the religion.

Toto

You seem to like to play the victim.

I would be willing to credit any evidence that you have, or decent arguments, but I haven't seen any. All this talk of the Inquisition is just a smoke screen for the lack of any such evidence on your part.

James The Least

Some people, with a Greek background and education, began using the Septuagint as a historio-religious book. Catholicism and Gnosticism grew out of this branch. Contra Scholem or Pearson, these people were not Jews. The real question is, when and why did this adaptation of the Septuagint take place? It had nothing to do with a Galilean fisherman.

Clivedurdle

Is this not a description of Zarathusta seen through xian spectacles? So full blown gnosticism goes back at least to Cyrus and Darius - the Most High and the Christ are Zarathustran ideas, and Persia was conquered by Alexander...