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An Exploration of Valentinian Paraenesis: Rethinking Gnostic Ethics in the Interpretation of Knowledge (NHC XI,1)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2004
Extract
Over the past twenty-five years, the social and ethical aspects of Gnosticism have won increased attention. Scholars have tended to shift away from phenomenological approaches to Gnosticism, which maintained a strict demarcation between ethics and cosmological speculation. Rather, scholars have increasingly recognized and explored social ethics within the various “Gnosticisms” that flourished in the second to fourth centuries, focusing on particular topics such as sexual ethics, gender roles, and the soteriological implications of sinful or virtuous behavior. Little attention, however, has been devoted to the question of how ancient rhetorical conventions shaped Gnostic ethical and moral discourse, especially as it is evidenced in the Nag Hammadi sources. The application of rhetorical criticism to other early Christian literature has demonstrated that the proper identification of the genre of a text is a crucial step toward determining how that text was designed to rhetorically influence its audience. Thus, an appreciation of the generic conventions that dictate certain features of a text can improve our understanding of the social context in which that text was produced. In this essay, I examine one text from Nag Hammadi, the Interpretation of Knowledge (NHC XI,1; henceforth Interp. Know.), whose genre has not, in my opinion, been satisfactorily established. I will argue that the text should be read as a sustained work of paraenesis—that is, as a moral exhortation with a persuasive intent. On the basis of that identification, I will attempt to reconstruct some features of the social context in which it was produced.
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Introduction
Over the past twenty-five years, the social and ethical aspects of Gnosticism have won increased attention. Scholars have tended to shift away from phenomenological approaches to Gnosticism,1
The very designation “Gnosticism” continues to be problematic for scholars. Early Christian historiography is troubled by the construction of separate trajectories for “Gnosticism” and “Christianity”; such binary opposites usually signal evaluative rather than descriptive or explanatory connotations. A recent, and arguably the most provocative, challenge to the classification “Gnosticism” is that of Michael Williams, Rethinking “Gnosticism”: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). Williams correctly notes that “Gnosticism” is a prejudicial term that has led to various misunderstandings of “Gnostic” texts and social bodies. Although I generally agree with Williams's criticism (see my “Categorical Designations and Methodological Reductionism: Gnosticism as Case Study,” MTSR 13 [2001] 269–92; and “Gnosticism, Taxonomies and the Sui Generis Debate: A Response to the Rennie-McCutcheon Exchange,” Religion 30 [2000] 65–67), I still find that the category is useful if employed as a second-order analytical device that classifies according to relative relations. For a similar position, placing “Gnosticism” in juxtaposition to “syncretism,” see the excellent discussion in Karen L. King, “The Politics of Syncretism and the Problem of Defining Gnosticism,” Historical Reflections/Reflexions historiques 27.3 [2001] 461–79; and see also her What is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).
For a discussion of this shift in the field, see my “Categorical Designations,” 269–92; as well as Williams, Rethinking “Gnosticism,” 29–31; compare Kurt Rudolph, Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1984) 30–34.
Interp. Know. has received scant scholarly attention, and this may be due to its relatively poor state of preservation.3
In an unpublished paper, Michel Desjardins comments on the fragmentary nature of the tractate, observing that a reader of the translation published in The Nag Hammadi Library in English may easily overlook the distinctions between preserved text, lost text, and reconstructed text: “the eye soon learns to ignore those square brackets and tiny line numbers,” and “the gaps disappear and the reconstructions blend into the text” (“Interpreting ‘The Interpretation of Knowledge’ (XI,1),” paper presented at the Canadian Society of Patristic Studies, June 1993). For similar observations see Michel Desjardins, Sin in Valentinianism (SBLDS 108; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1990) 100; Klaus Koschorke, “Gnostic Instructions on the Organization of the Congregation. The Tractate Interpretation of Knowledge from CG XI,” in The Rediscovery of Gnosticism, Volume 2: Sethian Gnosticism (ed. Bentley Layton; SHR 41; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981) 757–69, at 759 n. 4; and Louis Painchaud, “L'utilisation des paraboles dans l'Interprétation de la Gnose (NH XI,1)” VC 57 (2003) 411–36, at 412. Thus, I recognize the tentative nature of my own work, given the fragmentary condition of the tractate. In this study, I follow John D. Turner's critical edition of Interp. Know. (in Nag Hammadi Codices XI, XII and XIII [ed. C. W. Hedrick; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988]). For the sake of readability, I do not always reproduce the editorial brackets indicating Turner's reconstructions.
Klaus Koschorke, “Eine neugefundene gnostische Gemeindeordnung. Zum Thema Geist und Amtim frühen Christentum,” ZTK 76 (1979) 30–60; and idem, “Gnostic Instructions.” These essays build on his larger work, Die Polemik der Gnostiker gegen das kirchliche Christentum. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Nag-Hammadi-Traktate “Apokalypse des Petrus” (NHC VII,3) und “Testimonium Veritatis” (NHC IX,3) (NHS 12; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978).
See, e.g., Roger Bullard's rearticulation of Koschorke's thesis in the Mercer Dictionary of the Bible (ed. W. E. Mills; Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1990) 407; and Ingvild Saelid Gilhus, “Gnosticism—A Study of Liminal Symbolism,” Numen 31 (1984) 120, who places this reading within a discussion of the metaphorical presentation of communitas in Gnosticism.
The most recent work on Interp. Know. is the critical edition of Uwe-Karsten Plisch, Auslegung der Erkenntnis (NHC XI,1) herausgegeben, übersetzt und erklärt (TU 142; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1996). See also Plisch's “Die Rezeption bekannter und unbekannter Herrenworte in NHC XI,” in Der Gottesspruch in der Kopt. Literatur: Hans Martin Schenke zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. W. Beltz; Hallesche Beiträge zur Orientwissenschaft 17 [sic; correction reads “15”], n.d. [1994]) 84–91. A French critical edition in the BCNH series is being prepared by Louis Painchaud, Einar Thomassen, and Wolf-Peter Funk. Preliminary work derived from that edition has already begun to appear: see Louis Painchaud, “L'utilisation des paraboles dans l'Interprétation de la Gnose (NH XI,1),” VC 57 (2003) 411–36; and Einar Thomassen, “An Unknown Sayings Gospel,” paper presented at the SBL annual meeting, Atlanta, Ga., 2003.
Michel Desjardins, Sin in Valentinianism (SBLDS 108; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990) 72, 100–5.
Similarly, I have recently argued for a close connection between Origen's Trinitarian system and the theologies present in Valentinian works, contending that Christian theology emerged within a dynamic social engagement of various Christianities. See my “The Holy Spirit's Role in Origen's Trinitarian System: A Comparison with Valentinian Pneumatology,” Theoforum 32.2 (2001) 131–64.
While Desjardins sets Gnostic ethics within a larger Christian context, he is not primarily concerned with the rhetorical form and function of Gnostic ethical discourse, nor with the question of Interp. Know.'s genre. Elaine Pagels suggested that the text is “a homily intended for delivery in a service of worship,”9
Elaine Pagels, “The Interpretation of Knowledge (XI,1) Introduction,” in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (ed. James M. Robinson; rev. ed.; San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1988) 472; and eadem, “The Interpretation of Knowledge (NHC XI, 1, 1, 1–21,35): Introduction,” in Nag Hammadi Codices XI, XII, and XIII (ed. C. W. Hedrick; NHS 28; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988) 22. Kurt Rudolph (Gnosis, 48), however, merely refers to Interp. Know. as “a didactic writing concerned with basic questions of gnostic understanding of the church (a kind of church order).”
John Turner, “Interpretation of Knowledge,” ABD 4:93–95; see also his “The Interpretation of Knowledge (NHC XI, 1, 1, 1–21,35) Coptic Text, English Translation and Critical Notes,” in Nag Hammadi Codices XI, XII, and XIII (ed. C. W. Hedrick; NHS 28; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988). Madeleine Scopello, “Interpretation of Knowledge,” in The Coptic Encyclopedia (ed. Aziz S. Atiya; New York: Macmillan, 1991) 4:1301. In an unpublished introduction to Interp. Know., Desjardins repeated Pagel's suggestion, although with some apparent reservations: “[It] may reflect the liturgical practices of most early Christian communities and provide the specific setting for this work: an extended homily in a church setting.” I thank Prof. Desjardins for allowing me to cite his study.
On the problems of “homily” as a genre, see Karl Paul Donfried, The Setting of Second Clement in Early Christianity (Suppl. NT 38; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974) 25–34, esp. 26.
The category “homily” may, however, still be useful if it is identified less as a literary category and more as a performative context of delivery: letters, speeches, and philosophical discourses may have been “delivered” within a community of worship and therefore functioned as “homiletical” performances. Recently, Stephen Emmel has challenged Pagels's identification of the text as a homily, claiming that the usage of second-person plural pronouns are limited only to quotations and, therefore, the text was most likely written for a single person within a community (“Exploring the Pathway That Leads from Paul to Gnosticism: What Is the Genre of The Interpretation of Knowledge (NHC XI,1)?” in Die Weisheit-Ursprünge und Rezeption: Festschrift für Karl Löning zum 65. Geburtstag [ed. Martin Fassnacht, Andreas Leinhäupl-Wilke, and Stefan Lücking; Münster: Aschedorff, 2003] 257–76). Instead of a homily, Emmel suggests that the text is a type of philosophical epistle similar to Treat. Res. and Ptolemy's Letter to Flora. Although a philosophical epistle is not an uncommon venue for a paraenetic discourse (e.g., Isocrates, To Demonicus), I find Emmel's identification implausible, as Interp. Know. contains no specifically epistolary markers.
Paraenesis, by contrast, is a genre whose literary features and social setting and function in early Christianity are well understood. As prescriptive moral discourse, paraenesis is the type of moral speech that either persuades or dissuades by calling to remembrance those precepts with which the recipients should already be familiar (Ps.-Libanius, Epistolary Styles; Ps.-Demetrius, Epistolary Types). And indeed, scholars have recognized that the second half of Interp. Know. bears several hallmarks of paraenetic discourse.13
E.g., Turner, “Interpretation of Knowledge,” 94; and Desjardins, in his unpublished introduction to the tractate.
This proposed arrangement differs slightly from that of Koschorke (“Eine neugefundene gnostische Gemeindeordnung,” 33), who posits three basic sections: 1–8; 9–15,15; and 15,16–21,34. My proposal also differs from the twofold division put forth by Gerd Lüdemann and Martina Janssen (Suppressed Prayers: Gnostic Spirituality in Early Christianity [Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1998] 77): in 1–15, “Christ as head saves his body, the church,” while 15–21 concerns the behavior of members towards one another.
Working within a teacher-student framework, a framework not unusual for the social setting of a paraenesis, the author invokes the authority of the Savior in order to admonish and encourage the recipients to move toward reconciliation with the opposing (ecclesiastical) faction, yet without sacrificing his or her own social idealization of what the community should be like. The author seems to be concerned about potential apostasy from his or her own position to that of the opposing faction. Interp. Know. evidently addresses a Christian community that has divided over theological issues, scriptural interpretations, and, most importantly, perceptions of the ideal social formation of a Christian community. The author's audience, composed of Valentinian Christians,15
Interp. Know. incorporates several familiar Valentinian motifs. For example, the presence of the Virgin or Mother as soteriological figure likely reflects the Sophia myth. The unifying aspect of this figure, especially with the male counterpart of the Savior with reference to the Cross, is especially Valentinian rather than Sethian (see Elaine Pagels, “Pursuing the Spiritual Eve: Imagery and Hermeneutics in the Hypostasis of the Archons and the Gospel of Philip,” in Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism (ed. Karen L. King; Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2000 [1988]) 187–206). The inclusive attitude toward other Christians (non-insiders) is typical of Valentinianism, and is clearly present in this tractate (especially 21,21–35). The strong Christian elements in this tractate further point to a Christian milieu for the text; unlike what we find in the Sethian sources, there is no indication that the Christian elements stem from a later Christianization of the tractate. Although mention of the classic Valentinian cosmological hierarchy is lacking, a possible reference to an ignorant, rather than malicious, demiurgical figure might occur at 10,13–21. On the other hand, the passage might also refer to the audience's previous state of ignorance, especially given the following comments on being “led astray while in the flesh of condemnation” (10,26–27), “taken to this pit” (10,30–31; cf. 13,25–29), and “the rib whence you came” (10, 35); all of these remarks could reflect the previous life of the insiders, calling them to remembrance (as would be typical for a paraenesis) and evoking the theme of the ascent of the soul out of the pit of ignorance and flesh. But the reference to “the great ignorance and the darkness of the ignorant eye” (10,15), from which the recipients are “released” by “the faith laid down by the master” (10,13–14), more likely reflects an archon figure, such as the Valentinian ignorant demiurge.
In the following pages, I will first argue for a paraenetic reading of Interp. Know., explicating both the literary dimensions and social situation of the text. I hope to show that reading Interp. Know. as a paraenesis, instead of as a homily, affords a less ambiguous and more analytically functional identification of its genre; indeed, the genre of a text should tell us less what the text is and rather how the text was designed to rhetorically influence the recipients.16
Paraenesis and homily need not be seen as exclusive categories, as Harold W. Attridge has shown (“Paraenesis in a Homily (
): The Possible Location of, and Socialization in, the ‘Epistle to the Hebrews,’” Semeia 50 [1990] 211–26). Until a more precise definition of the category homily emerges, however, it will fail to be an analytically useful genre.
A final caution: not only the fragmentary condition of this tractate, which renders all interpretations tentative at best, but also the dangers of using “Gnosticism” as a category, pose methodological problems for the interpreter. I will specify, therefore, that I am focusing not only on one form of Christian Gnosticism— Valentinianism—but on just one example or expression of Valentinian Christianity (or, even more cautiously, on only one perspective within one community that included Valentinian Christians!). I do not explore social ethics in Interp. Know. as a venue for constructing a broader ethics of Gnosticism. Indeed, this tractate's ethical dimensions are not representative of a broader Valentinian ethics. Valentinianism was diverse in nature, even beyond the so-called Western and Eastern branches, and each community or document must be studied with a clear sensitivity to the distinctive traits and social dynamics in each expression of Valentinian thought. Indeed, we are dealing less with Valentinianism than with Valentinianisms. As a single representative of one stream of Christian thought, this tractate preserves one instance of ethical discourse within a particular historical tradition.17
Note the distinction between the categories “Gnosticism” and “Valentinianism” made by Williams (Rethinking “Gnosticism,” 51): “There is nothing wrong in principle with efforts to sort out tradio- or sociohistorical relationships. It still makes sense, for example, to speak of something called ‘Valentinianism,’ as a subtradition within the broader early Christian tradition…. The decision to abandon an overarching construct called ‘gnosticism’ would not require abandoning research on specific categories of texts that manifest some relationship by tradition.” Williams's comments are an appropriate caution for those who have used his work to deconstruct all such categories (or to simply replace one with another). Even with a tradio- or sociohistorical category such as Valentinianism, however, it is necessary not to impose general assumptions about the movement onto a specific text or historical occasion, even though the broader category may still illuminate the specific text under analysis.
The Paraenetic Genre of the Interpretation of Knowledge
Paraenesis is moral exhortation intended to persuade an audience to either accept or reject a course of action; thus, it is a form of deliberative rhetorical discourse, addressing matters of future activity (Rhetorica ad Herennium 3.2.2; Quintilian, Inst. 3.6.4).18
References to Rhetorica ad Herennium, Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, and Aristotle's Rhetoric are taken from the LCL editions. Quintilian, while listing Athenaeus's four bases, explicitly states that “the hortative … is peculiar to deliberative themes” (3.6.47; cf. 9.2.103). Although he specifically refers to
(which, for him, is synonymous with
) Quintilian does not distinguish between protrepsis and paraenesis.
A recent, and thorough, presentation of paraenesis can be found in Troy W. Martin, Metaphor and Composition in 1 Peter (SBLDS 131; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1992). On paraenesis see also Neider Lorenz, Die Motive der religiös-sittlichen Paränese in den paulinischen Gemeindebriefen (München: Karl Zink, 1956); Abraham J. Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, a Greco-Roman Sourcebook (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986); “Hellenistic Moralists and the New Testament,” ANRW 2.26.1 (1992) 267–333; Eduard Lohse, “Paränese und Kerygma im 1. Petrusbrief,” ZNW 45 (1954) 68–89; Ferdinand Hahn, “Die christologische Begründung urchristlicher Paränese,” ZNW 72 (1981) 88–99; John J. Gammie, “Paraenetic Literature: Towards a Morphology of a Secondary Genre,” Semeia 50 (1990) 41–77; Anton Grabner-Halder, Paraklese und Eschatologie bei Paulus (Münster: Verlag Aschendorff, 1968); and Tim Sensing, “Towards a Definition of Paraenesis,” Restoration Quarterly 38 (1996) 145–58. Also of interest is David G. Bradley, The Origin of the Hortatory Material in the Letters of Paul (Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1947). On the problem of distinguishing paraenesis from paraclesis, see the insightful study by Jan Botha and Fika J. van Rensburg, “Paraenese of paraklese as generiese terme vir Nuwe-Testamentiese moral exhortation?,” In die Skriflig 27 (1993) 29–51; as well as Walter Übelacker, “Paraenesis or Paraclesis—Hebrews as Test Case,” in Early Christian Paraenesis in Context (ed. Troels Engberg Pedersen and James Starr; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2004).
Klaus Berger has argued that the identification of genre must reflect both literary features as well as social situation. Leo Perdue, in applying these two-fold criteria to early Christian paraenesis, has further divided the social situation into social setting and social function.20
Klaus Berger, “Hellenistiche Gattungen im Neuen Testament,” ANRW 2.25.2 (1981) 1033–1431; Leo Perdue, “The Social Character of Paraenesis and Paraenetic Literature,” Semeia 50 (1990) 5–39; and idem, “Paraenesis and the Epistle of James,” ZNW 72 (1981) 241–56.
One literary aspect typical of paraenetic texts is the prominent role of imperatives or imperatival surrogates, including supporting participles and rhetorical questions. Indeed, Hildegard Cancik has effectively argued that the imperative is the defining element in paraenesis (in contrast to the theoretical-doxographical argumentative form, for which the indicative is central).
21Hildegard Cancik, Untersuchungen zu Senecas Epistulae Morales (Spudasmata 18; Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967) 16–23. Martin (Metaphor, 85–94) has agreed with Cancik about the central role of the imperative in defining paraenesis. The indicative, according to Cancik, can carry a paraenetic function when presenting a moral example (see also Malherbe, “Exhortation,” 246–47).
] …” (18,29); “do not be jealous” (18,30–31); “but be thankful” (18,33), followed by a motivational clause: “on the contrary
, you …” (18,34–38); and “so let us become” (19,36). The opening of 9,27–38, which is the ethical crux of the tractate, begins with the negative imperative “do not call” (
). This prohibition establishes the strong hortatory tone of the entire passage, especially as it follows upon the moral exempla that set the stage for the hortatory sections and precedes the series of imperatives following page 14. The placement of the imperatives indicates the paraenetic function of the early parts of the tractate. Motivational clauses (e.g., 18,29 and 18,34–38) are important rhetorical devices in paraenesis, functioning to substantiate ethical propositions. As part of deliberative discourse, motivational clauses stress advantages for the sake of either persuasion or dissuasion (Seneca, Epistle 94). Authoritative quotations are one form of motivational clause, though in Christian paraenesis Christology also plays a prominent, if not an essential, role.
22See Martin (Metaphor, 93–98), who cites Seneca, Epistle 94. See also Nieder, Die Motive; Malherbe, Moral Exhortation; Gammie, “Paraenetic Literature,” 59, 60–61; and John G. Cook, “The Proleptic Power of Early Christian Language: From John to Augustine,” VC 48 (1994) 105–34. According to Hahn (“Die christologische,” 99), a distinctive aspect of Christian paraenesis is Christology: “Eine Paränese hat es im Urchristentum ohne Zusammenhang mit der Botschaft des Evangeliums und somit ohne eine christologische Begründung nie gegeben.”
] they are fit … how much more [
] … ?” (18,24–25); “why do you despise … ?” (18,38–19,1); “what, now, do you think of as spirit?” (20,23–24); “or why do they … ?” (20,25–26); “are they not satisfied … ?” (20,26–28); and “but what is the profit for them?” (20,36). These questions, like the imperatives, become more pronounced towards the close of the tractate, especially on page 20, as the tractate nears its rhetorical climax. This rhetorical climax may be the importance of sin for the community (21,21–34), although manuscript damage (21,1–20) renders such an interpretation tentative at best. The imperatives and rhetorical questions indicate that the author's literary style fits the conventions of paraenetic literature.
Another indicator of paraenetic discourse is the juxtaposition of opposing concepts, ways of life, or lifestyles. Antithetical constructions, usually of binary opposites, may follow the so-called two-way schema —that is, the contrast between the “way of life” and the “way of death” set forth in the opening part of Didache.
23Didache's two-way schema is explicitly stated in its opening section, whereas Interp. Know. lacks such an explicit statement. Such a statement might have been located on the missing part of page 1. The surviving text, nevertheless, provides ample evidence for a two-way schema in Interp. Know.
at 1,31b denotes the contrast between the two ways).
24Note that one of the key terms is “persuasion” (
), which may indicate that the text is paraenetic. Compare the presence of this term in the opening of Interp. Know. with Treat. Res. 46,2–10. In the latter Valentinian text, the idea of persuasion is placed in contrast to faith, and may reflect ancient debates over the moral value of rhetorical practices (i.e., that rhetoric aims to persuade and not to ascertain the truth or inculcate virtue). Note Bentley Layton's comment (The Gnostic Treatise on Resurrection from Nag Hammadi [HDR 12; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1979] 67): “By ‘argument’ (
) is meant rigorous demonstration and propositional knowledge.” Note also Malcolm L. Peel's remark (The Epistle of Rheginos: A Valentinian Letter on the Resurrection (The New Testament Library; London: SCM Press, 1969] 76): “‘Persuasion’ here … refers to some form of logical demonstration, and ‘faith’ is contrasted with it as trust and belief in the reality of something incapable of such demonstration.” The negative view of persuasion in Treat. Res. differs from the positive view in Interp. Know., even though both texts emphasize the importance of faith for attaining life over against death.
, 11,32–33; emphasis mine); “garments of condemnation” are opposed to “living rational elements … as garments” (11,25–39); those who thought they were saved from death but were not (14,34–38) are contrasted to those who are saved (“the small brothers”), even though they currently suffer humiliation (14,28–33, and the preceding soteriological discussion of the descent and ascent of the Son at 12,15–14,27); fellowship with Christ is opposed to Christ removing himself from outsiders (15,17–18); and being jealous is contrasted to not being jealous (15,19–20, as well as the following discussion throughout page 15). The author exhorts, “do not belittle yourself but rejoice and give thanks spiritually” (
, 16,20–21; emphasis mine; a negative imperative
and the contrastive transitional marker
appear also at 16,24–25 and, in reverse order, at 16,31–33). Finally, “earthly harmony” is opposed to “true harmony” (18,23–25); those who are for “death” are opposed to those who “are for life” (19,25–26); and the sin of the adept is opposed to that of the ordinary person (21,25–30). Thus, antithesis is woven throughout the tractate's paraenetic fabric.
In 9,27–38, a self-contained rhetorical unit incorporates several literary aspects of paraenesis by framing an ethical admonition to “do the will of the Father” with allusions to the cosmological dualism represented by the ways endorsed by the two teachers. This unit is the crux of the ethical admonition expressed in Interp. Know. Following upon the dichotomy of two teachers and schools (9,9–25), the author presents a summation of the true teacher's teaching within an antithetical reworking of Matthean material.25
The recent suggestion by Thomassen (“Unknown Sayings Gospel”) that Interp. Know may reflect a lost sayings gospel is intriguing but in need of more persuasive demonstration. More likely is the dependence of Interp. Know. on New Testament materials; on this point see Louis Painchaud, “The Use of Scripture in Gnostic Literature,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 4 [1996] 129–47.
A Now this is the teaching:
Bα Do not call to a father upon the earth.
Bβ Your Father, who is in heaven, is one.
CYou are the light of the world.
Dα They are my brothers and my fellow companions who do the will of [the] Father.
Dβ For what use is it if you gain the world and you forfeit your soul?
C′ For when we were in the dark
Bα′ we used to call many “father,” since we were ignorant
Bβ′ of the true Father.
A′ And this is the great conception of [all] the sins.
The first half of the unit stresses the positive connotations of the two teachings, while the second half stresses the negative connotations. The shift from second-person to first-person plural address adds a pathetic aspect to the author's identification with the audience. In A/A′, teaching is contrasted with sin, evoking both the paraenetic nature of the discourse (teaching) as well as its ethical dimension (sin). Matt 23:9a and 23:9b are quoted in B, and the Matthean antithesis paralleled in B′: “Father, who is in heaven” (Bβ)// “true Father” (Bβ′); “a father upon the earth” (Bα) // “many [called] ‘father’” (Bα′). This dualism of heavenly and earthly fathers places the ethical discussion in the context of cosmology or metaphysics and forces the audience to reflect on the locus of its allegiance. A Platonic cosmological ascent from multiplicity towards the solitary unity of the supreme divinity may also be implied by the contrast between the singular “father” and the plural “many called ‘father.’”26
For an outstanding explication of the Platonic system, specifically in comparison with Sethianism, see John D. Turner, Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition (BCNH, études 6; Québec/Louvain: Les presses de l'Université Laval/Peeters,2001).
The importance of familial imagery within moral discourse has been widely noted; see especially Hans Dieter Betz, “De Fraterno Amore (Moralia 478A–492D),” in Plutarch's Ethical Writings and Early Christian Literature (ed. H. D. Betz; Studia ad Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti 4; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978) 232–33. As Martin (Metaphor, 104) has observed in relation to 1 Peter: “This friendly setting is intensified in Christian paraenesis by the adoption of family ethics.” This observation applies also to other early Christian texts, including the Pauline tradition (Paul, Luke-Acts, and the Deutro-Pauline letters, as well as the Acts of Paul and Thecla). Albert Wifstrand recognized that Christian paraenesis is primarily a form of paternal exhortation; see his “Stylistic Problems in the Epistles of James and Peter,” Studia Theologica 1 (1948) 172.
The
at 9,33, especially with the conditional
, clearly links the outsider emphasis in Dβ to the conditional statement of Dα. Therefore, the juxtaposition of these quotations in D indicates that the status of neither insider nor outsider is static or immutable.
Wayne A. Meeks, The Origins of Christian Morality: The First Two Centuries (New York: Yale University Press, 1993) 152–53. The divine will is discussed in other Valentinian paraenetic material, such as Gos. Truth 33,30–34; 36,39b–38,6.
Contra Pheme Perkins (“Pauline Anthropology in Light of Nag Hammadi,” CBQ 48 [1986] 514–15), who draws upon Albrecht Dihle, The Theory of the Will in Classical Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California, 1982). Williams (Rethinking “Gnosticism,” 190–93) has effectively argued against any such deterministic anthropology, especially when such a caricature implies the rejection of ethics in, e.g., Valentinianism.
This seems to be the point of the allusion in 14,28–38 to the “old bond of debt,” which likely refers back to the “garments of condemnation” mentioned in 11,25–30, and thus highlights the previous outsider status of the audience.
The second criterion for determining genre is social situation. Perdue divided the social situation into social setting and social function. The social setting of a paraenesis—i.e., the rhetorical situation of the text—may include any of the following: 1) the final instruction by an aged teacher of his or her student(s) prior to the teacher's death; 2) a separation of the teacher from the student while the student faces a potentially threatening situation; 3) a rite of passage for a novice, specifically during the liminal period of transition either from one social group to another or from one level to another within the same group; or 4) a call for an individual audience to seriously reflect prior to his or her “initial entrance into his [or her] present group or position.”32
Perdue, “Paraenesis and the Epistle of James,” 249.
Ibid., 250.
The social function of a paraenesis is, in a word, socialization. Socialization is defined as “the comprehensive and consistent induction of an individual into the objective world of a society or sector of it.”34
Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1967) 130. This definition is cited by Perdue (“Paraenesis and the Epistle of James,” 251), who goes on to say that “paraenesis, then, is a means by which an individual is introduced to the group's or role's social knowledge, including especially norms and values pertaining to group or role behavior, internalizes knowledge, and makes it the basis for both behavior and the meaning system by which he interprets and orders his world.” See also the classic treatment of normative social structures in Berger's The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967).
Perdue, “Paraenesis and the Epistle of James,” 253.
Ibid., 254.
Gammie, “Paraenetic Literature,” 56–57.
Such processes are illustrated in 1 Cor 1:10–17; Phil 2:13–16; John 8:31–47; 1 Pet 2:10–11; Acts 4:32–5:11; 2 Tim 3:1–9; Jude; and 2 Pet 2; also, in noncanonical literature, note the letters of Ignatius, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the writings of apologists such as Justin and heresiologists such as Irenaeus and Tertullian. The insider-outsider motif has been addressed in Michel Desjardins, Peace, Violence and the New Testament (Sheffield: Sheffi eld Academic Press, 1997), as well as in my Conceiving Peace and Violence: A New Testament Legacy (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, forthcoming).
Interp. Know. uses paraenetic devices to accomplish such socialization, thereby indicating the paraenetic genre of the tractate. The rhetorical situation addressed by the text is one of division within a Christian community. This rhetorical situation recalls Perdue's second type of social setting: the audience faces a potentially threatening situation. By addressing this situation within an instructional context, the author offers a confirmation of belief intended to affirm the recipients in their faith during such a divisive conflict.39
Unlike protrepsis, which may exhort for conversion, paraenesis has more of a confirmative function. Despite the tendency among both ancients and moderns to conflate protrepsis and paraenesis, such a distinction is explicitly noted by Perdue (“Social Character of Paraenesis,” 23) who claims that paraenesis confirms “the validity of the moral life undertaken and exhorting the audience to continue in this path.” See also Stanely K. Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Library of Early Christianity; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986) 92–99; Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 121–24; Sophia van der Meeren, “Le protreptique en philosophie: Essai de définition d'un genre,” Revue des Études Grecques 115 (2002) 591–621; and with a focus on protrepsis as identity formation see Diana Marie Swancutt, Pax Christi: Romans as Protrepsis to Live as Kings (Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 2001). Given the instructional motifs in Interp. Know. (two schools, two teachers) the confirmative function of paraenesis is best identified with the rhetorical strategy adopted by the author.
In the fragmentary section that follows, a parable illustrates this negative exemplar of the opposing faction. The parabolic exemplar is contrasted with the preceding exemplar of the Savior (3,26–4,39), which is also followed by a parable at 5,14–27.40
The role of exempla is also a significant device of paraenesis. Both positive and negative exempla were utilized to either commend or condemn certain patterns of behavior (see Benjamin Fiore, The Function of Personal Example in the Socratic and Pauline Epistles [Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1986]). In early Christian writings, the Christ figure was a common positive exemplar. Among Valentinian forms of Christianity, the Sophia figure also played an important role model for the audience to see both a negative exemplar (i.e., her fall and the subsequent creation of the material realm) and a positive exemplar (i.e., her redemption back into the Pleroma served to encourage the audience that they also can be redeemed from this earthly realm back into the Pleroma).
We are later informed that the opposing faction “teaches us about dead writings” (9,23–24). Here the opposing faction is referred to as “another school” (9,22) in contrast to the author's faction, described as “a living school” (9,22).41
“Life” is again used to ethically demarcate the social conflict by directing the audience to recognize the advantages of the promoted way of virtue. The link between life/death and “dead writings” emerges even more forcefully if we see a parallel with the “dead things” and the “darkening of the heart” in the Apoc. Adam 65,14–25. Although there is no indication of direct literary dependence between them, these two texts, one Sethian and the other Valentinian, both illustrate a similar view of life/death with death images or teachings.
The debate does not seem to be over the acceptance of sacred writings, as the author draws heavily upon Matthew in 9,27–38. It would seem, therefore, that the debate centered not on whether sacred texts were mutually used by both factions, but rather on either the acceptance of Jewish scriptures as authoritative or the issue of the interpretation, or mode of interpretation, of the community's sacred texts. It is difficult for the modern reader to determine what “dead writings” refers to: specific texts or specific understandings of accepted texts; the tractate, unfortunately, is too vague to permit certainty on this question.
A Valentinian tripartite (or bipartite) anthropology is not explicit in the tractate and, therefore, can only be reconstructed from clues in the text. 21,21–35, for example, speaks of two types of sin, one for “adepts” (the pneumatics) and one for the “ordinary person” (the psychics), while the statement “we sin more than the Gentiles” (21,30) may allude to the “hylic” type of human; alternatively, “Gentiles” may be another term for “ordinary person,” thereby rendering the tractate's anthropology bipartite rather than tripartite.
Note the comment by C. M. Tuckett, Nag Hammadi and Gospel Traditions: Synoptic Traditions in the Nag Hammadi Library (ed. John Riches; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986) 145: Interp. Know. “is an important text in that it enables us to see something of a Gnostic's ideas about the church. It is clearly written for a situation not dissimilar to that at Corinth when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, i.e., a situation in which the variety of different spiritual gifts have become a source of contention.”
Interp. Know. can thus be described as an example of second- or third-century Christian paraenetic literature on the basis of both its literary features and its social function. The author utilizes various literary techniques associated with the paraenetic genre—antithesis, motivational clauses, the two-way schema, and moral exempla—to exhort the audience. That audience is one faction within the author's Christian community, evidently the faction the author identifies with. The author speaks on behalf of the true teacher—evidently Jesus—and thus is most likely a leader or teacher of the Valentinians addressed. The admonition attempts to encourage the recipients to remain within their current system of belief, and not to (re)turn to the psychic Christianity maintained by the opposing faction. The tractate's social function is to ensure that the audience continues within the broader Christian community, but only within the social-ideological boundaries of the insiders' faction: they are to maintain their present worldview even while existing within a broader social body. Coupled with this social function is the author's desire for reconciliation both between the two factions and among the tractate's audience. In the following section, I address the social context of Interp. Know. in more detail, concentrating on the problem of moving from the literary dimensions of this text toward a reconstruction of its social setting.
Teasing Out Social Context with Positioning Theory
The rhetorical situation of a text is intimately tied to its social situation. Implied, however, in any discussion of rhetorical situation is the historical situation, or occasion, for the construction of a rhetorical strategy of socialization. For the sake of clarity, we could define “social context” in reference to the historical location within which a text plays a role, while using “social situation” to refer specifically to the rhetorical situation in which the author frames the social context. It is in the movement from social situation to social context that rhetorical criticism and historical criticism converge. Although with some early Christian texts such a move is not necessarily difficult, even if the results are contestable, many Valentinian works are beset with difficulties that render such a move problematic at best. Interp. Know., for example, is only incompletely preserved in a Coptic translation, and the text was unknown prior to its discovery in 1945. Compounding the absence of any external evidence that might help situate the text, Interp. Know. lacks any clear internal evidence of date, authorship or location. Indeed, the text could be dated to anytime between ca. 160 and 340 C.E., and it could have been composed almost anywhere in the Roman world.45
The author's inclusive attitude toward non-Gnostic Christians has led Elaine Pagels to locate this community within Western Valentinianism; see her The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1979) 116–17. In his unpublished introduction to Interp. Know., Desjardins suggested that the tractate was composed ca. 175.
Recent social-scientific theories have proposed alternatives to static role theory. One such alternative, positioning theory, as described by Luk van Langenhove and Rom Harré, approaches social interaction from a discursive perspective.46
Luk van Langenhove and Ron Harré, “Introducing Positioning Theory,” in Positioning Theory: Moral Contexts of Intentional Action (ed. Rom Harré and Luk van Langenhove; Oxford: Blackwell, 1999) 14–31; and, in the same volume, Sui-Lan Tan and F. M. Moghaddam, “Positioning in Intergroup Relations,” 178–94; and Rom Harré and Luk van Langenhove, “Varieties of Positioning,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 21 (1991) 393–407.
Langenhove and Harré, “Positioning Theory,” 20–21. This third-order act implicitly generates a new fi rst-order discursive act.
In addressing the social-historical aspects of a text like Interp. Know., we may ask: What type of positioning does the author generate for his or her rhetorical play? In other words, we recognize that our text is a discursive speech act, one that portrays the various members of the community by positioning them within socially interactive relations. Such positioning attempts to generate a broader world construct, in light of which the members of the community are intended to re-assess the situation being addressed.48
The dynamic of positioning in discursive storytelling also is true at the meta-level of academic research. This point is emphasized by Langenhove and Harré, “Positioning,” 28–31; see also Langenhove and Harré, “Positioning and the Writing of Science,” in Positioning Theory, 102–15; and idem, “Positioning in Scientifi c Discourse,” in Anglo-Ukranian Studies in the Analysis of Scientific Discourse: Reason and Rhetoric (ed. Ron Harré; Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1993) 1–20.
Jean-Pierre Vernant, Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs. Études de psychologie historique (1972; rev. ed.; Paris: La Découverte, 1985), 51; cited in Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory (trans. Steven Rendall and Elizabeth Claman; New York: Columbia University Press, 1992) 63. (Vernant is drawing on Ignace Meyerson, “Le temps, la mémoire, l'histoire,” Journal de Psychologie 53 [1956] 51.) Le Goff illustrates the political value of memory/history for affecting national conscience within the Roman period: “The weapon was the damnatio memoriae, which removes the name of a deviant emperor from archival documents and from monumental inscriptions. The power to destroy memory is a counterweight to power achieved through the production of memory” (p. 68). In order to understand Interp. Know., therefore, it may be instructive to look at how our author wishes to construct or deconstruct his or her own community's “memory” or perception of their specific social conflict.
In light of positioning theory, then, my goal is to seek out clues to the social processes that seem present within our text. As Wayne Meeks has done, I propose to focus on the moral contours or intuitions of a specific text and its specific function.50
Meeks, The Origins of Christian Morality.
Moral Relations within the Interpretation of Knowledge
In The Birth of the Gods, Swanson attempts to determine those social structures that enable certain “primitive” beliefs to emerge, or the ways in which those beliefs develop.51
Guy E. Swanson, The Birth of the Gods: The Origins of Primitive Beliefs (1960; repr., Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968).
Ibid., 153–74 (“The Supernatural and Morality”).
Supernatural sanctions, or mythical grounds, for morality require the presence of a moral relation between those involved in the society. Specifically, the moral agents are faced with some sort of “unstable moral relationship.” Therefore, a link between morality and supernatural sanctions emerges when there is a perceived crisis to social cohesion that could threaten the group's existence. The need for moral relations to exist within these communities renders the moral sanctions a discourse of “insiders.” Indeed, Swanson claims that the first step in exploring such moral sanctions is to “first establish that a moral relation exists in the population being studied.”53
Ibid., Birth of the Gods, 160.
Gerd Theissen, A Theory of Primitive Christian Religion (London: SCM Press, 1999) 11. In social learning theory, the importance of such reciprocity is noted by A. Brandura (Social Learning Theory [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1977] vii).
G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (1903; repr., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959) 128.
For a helpful overview of the three major streams of role theory (the structural-analytical model the interactionist model, and the perceptual model), see Nils G. Holm, “Role Theory and Religious Experience,” in Handbook of Religious Experience (ed. Ralph W. Wood, Jr.; Birmingham: Religious Education Press, 1995) 397–420. Although Holm prefers the perceptual model, notably in the work of Hjalmar Sundén, my approach is most similar to the symbolic interactionism model, which places stress on the relational and social constructionist dynamic of social ethics as dialogue.
In turning to the occasion of Interp. Know. it is necessary to establish whether a “moral relation” exists between the factions reflected in the text. Does the author recognize that his or her faction stands in some moral relation to the opposing faction? Do they, in effect, belong to the same ultimate sovereign group? Two qualifications, however, must be noted. First, we need to clearly differentiate actual social relations and perceived social relations.57
Failing to recognize this distinction between actual and perceived realities, especially when addressing issues of community identity, is one of the shortcomings of Swanson's sociological approach. He does not note that the interrelationship of social units is as much a matter of perceived group identity as it is actual social structures.
Our author hints at a moral relation between his or her faction and that of the broader Christian movement. Such a link to a broader Christian tradition is reflected in the very first possible reference to a social context. The author refers to the faulty faith of earlier Christians, perhaps in an allusion to Luke 24:13–35: “The likeness that came to be through them followed him, but through reproaches and humiliations before they received the apprehension of a vision they fled without having heard that the Christ had been crucified” (1,16–21).
58The preceding lines on page 1 of Interp. Know. may also have been part of this Lukan allusion. The reference to “signs and wonders and fabrications” (albeit largely a textual reconstruction) may designate pre-crucifixion miracles (Jesus as the wonder worker) that failed to inspire the disciples to remain true to Jesus when the test of his death occurred. Post-resurrection visions, however, are by contrast far more valuable for faith.
); thus, the author presents the community as a Christian community, standing a generation or more away from apostolic times, and depicts the present social conflict as analogous to that which faced the earliest Christians: both groups were faced with the danger of apostasy as a result not only of christological debates
59The christological debate in Interp. Know., which would warrant a study of its own, may reflect the debate also found in Treat. Res.
If the author posits a moral relation between the present community and the broader Christian tradition, what relation does he or she establish between the competing factions within the present community? First, the author alludes to a state of suffering similar to that experienced by the early followers of Jesus. For the author's faction, this suffering state is portrayed as a type of persecution (5,25–27) in an interpretative reading of the parable of the sower (Matt 13:1–9//Mark 4: 1–9//Luke 8:4–8) that likens suffering to dispersal in the earthly realm. Other reflections of some form of persecution, or social threat, can be gleaned on page 20: “Or why do they persecute men of this sort to death?” (20,24–26). A split in community reaction to such a threat may also underlie 19,1–21. Most noteworthy is the reference to those who “exist in the visible church” or “church of mortals” (
, 19,19–21). External persecution of some sort is not, however, a significant theme in this text, and indeed runs counter to the internal conflict emphasized. The author may invoke persecution in order to highlight suffering as a honorable example to follow, or as analogous to the suffering caused upon the insiders by the opposing faction.
The cross as an exemplar of suffering is essential for reading 5,25–27. Prior to the parable of the sower is a curious reference to the “virgin who is fixed to the cross” (
, 4,27). The Virgin, also referred to as the Womb and the Mother in the tractate, likely reflects the Valentinian role of Sophia (or Silence, as the Father's consort) in both creation and redemption. In an insightful study of gender imagery in the Gospel of Philip, Elaine Pagels has effectively argued that the separation of pneuma and psyche resulted in suffering and death (also illustrated in Ex. Theod. 56.2).
60Pagels, “Pursuing the Spiritual Eve,” 200 and passim; see also idem, Gnostic Gospels, 50–56; and Turner, Sethian Gnosticism, 589–96.
Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, “‘The Holy Spirit is a Double Name’: Holy Spirit, Mary, and Sophia in the Gospel of Philip,” in Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, 211–27.
Pagels, “Pursuing the Spiritual Eve,” 201–5. Pagels contrasts the reintegrating role of opposites in the Gospel of Philip with the noncomplementary presentation of these images in the Sethian tractate, Hypostasis of the Archons (p. 205). She links the Valentinian attitude, as does Buckley, with a sacramental aspect.
Although fragmentary, pages 6, 7, and 8 testify to the divided condition of the community. The image of being captured in nets of flesh (6,29, “having bound us in nets of flesh”) nicely parallels the dragnet parable in the Authoritative Teaching (29,3–30,25). As in Auth. Teach., this fishing image in Interp. Know. both warns the recipients of opposition and challenges them to overcome those who would capture and destroy them. Both texts construe those who oppose the recipients to be metaphysical or mythical beings (i.e., the archons hindering the ascent of the soul). In Interp. Know., these very powers are the cause for the “split in the church” (6,37–38; compare the author's negative portrait of the world at 1,35–38: “… unbelief which is the world. Now the world is the place of death …”). Here the author uses negative mythical exempla to portray the negative side of the conflict, just has he or she has used positive exempla (e.g., the Virgin and the Savior) to persuade the audience to stay true to the Valentinian faction. This “split in the church” is also followed by a fragmentary reference to “fighting with one another like others …” (
, 7,20). The Virgin, who is also named the Mother at the end of page 7, is again invoked (7,21; 7,31), thereby linking this discussion back to the discussion of suffering on page 5. Given the fragmentary damage to page 8, it is only possible to suggest that the Mother's “enemy” is somehow linked to a particular (divisive) “teaching.” But if this reading is correct, this passage may provide further evidence for viewing the introduction of the two teachers on page 9 as the closing development of this long discussion about division and suffering in the church.
The demarcation of the two teachings and two schools (page 9) is the climax of the discussion up to this point. The author has now portrayed the Christian community as divided into two conflicting groups (“schools”), each with its own leadership or theological leanings. The opposing, and dominant, faction is equated with the “church of mortals” that is linked to death (both historically, to that of the Savior, and cosmologically, to that of the archons). The Valentinians are exhorted to be on their guard while in this earthly realm, to struggle past those who would ensnare them, and to do so by looking to the Savior and the Virgin, who are both linked to the cross, for life. Both the Savior and the Virgin (or Mother) struggle against oppositional forces, and so also should the community (see also 14,28–31). It is noteworthy that the author has not portrayed the opposing faction as absolute outsiders, be those Romans, Jewish authorities, or even heretics. The suggestion of any absolute lines of demarcation is absent, thereby indicating that the relations between the two factions were connected to an inner-Christian conflict. The author does indeed seem to see a moral relation between the Valentinian faction and the opposing faction. As is the case with the moral relationship between the community and the broader Christian tradition, this moral relation is one of belief and unbelief: the opposing faction are those who have fallen away and now threaten to cause others (the audience) to fall away as well.
The moral relation is not an immutable dualism of insiders and outsiders. Already we see implied the dangers of the insiders falling into the clutches of outsiders. Such danger likely reflects the possibility that members of the author's faction might join the opposing faction, or, at the very least, not struggle on behalf of the author's faction. There are also clear indications of the possibility that the opposing faction will be won over by, or at least reconciled with, the Valentinian Christians. The author's concern over reconciliation is indicated within a discussion of harmonious relations and body imagery:
Moreover, if they would wait for the exodus from the earthly harmony, they will come to the Aeon. If they are fit to share in the true harmony, how much the more those who derive from the single unity? They ought to be reconciled with one another. Do not accuse your Head because it has not appointed you as an eye but rather as a finger. And do not be jealous of that which has been put in the class of an eye or a hand or a foot, but be thankful that you do not exist outside the body. (18,22–34)
See also 17,30–35: “… being unwilling to reconcile them to the bounty of the Head. You ought to give thanks for our members and ask that you too might be granted the grace that has been given to them.”
and
; the difference in words may highlight the contrast or indicate that the former is based on decree while the latter is based on actual unity). Harmony in the Greco-Roman world was a key aspect of peace: humans should live in harmonious relations with both the gods and with each other. The exhortation for harmonious relations is also set in a cosmological context in Interp. Know., most notably in a profound either/or statement: “If you purify it, it abides in me. If you enclose it, it belongs to the Devil” (19,19–23). Salvation of the soul is dependent upon purification, and not simply upon the conquest of what are here portrayed as cosmic opponents. Incidentally, the reference to two types of harmony is framed within a lesser-to-greater argument (see Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.23.4; Cicero, Topics 4.23), thereby offering an indirect hortatory support to the imperatival admonition.
The discussion on pages 18 and 19 concludes a long section of the tractate, running from pages 15 to 18, that draws upon Paul's discussion of spiritual gifts and the need for community unity in 1 Corinthians 12–14, as well as upon the deutero-Pauline tradition (Col 1:18; 2:19; Eph 4:15–16). In 1 Corinthians, Paul addresses a situation where a factious division of parties has emerged (1 Cor 1: 10–17). Paul admonishes the community to be like Christ, asking, “has Christ been divided?” (1 Cor 1:13). The church in first-century Corinth seems to have been torn by jealous strife between two or three (depending on how pneumatikos, psychikos, and sarkinos are to be understood in 1 Cor 2–3) spiritually elite groups, each of which claimed that its own spiritual gifts were superior to those of others. Indeed, the divisive situation in Corinth was likely far more than a simple twofold division, as multiple factions are identified in the opening of the letter (1:10–17). Paul counters claims of spiritual elitism by appealing to the gifts' mutual source (12:4–6), their function of serving the common good of the community (12:7), and the superiority of a binding and edifying love to all else in the community (1 Cor 13, especially verse 13).
The author of Interp. Know. would apply Paul's arguments to the factious situation facing his or her own community. Unlike Paul, the author of Interp. Know. places stress on a twofold social division, drawing exclusively upon the Pauline discussion of spiritual gifts without any reference to the enumeration of plural contestants in 1 Cor 1:10–17. Like Paul, the author places special emphasis upon jealousy as a primary cause of division. References to those who are “jealous” (
) predominate in this section of the tractate. The author immediately links jealousy to ignorance and destruction (15,29–32; compare 21,21–25). Given this link between jealousy and ignorance, the author claims that those who are “knowing ones” are not jealous (15,29–30). At the bottom of page 15, the author broaches the topic of spiritual gifts. The author argues, as Paul had more than a century earlier, that each “brother” has his (or her) own spiritual gift (15,33–38; 16,19–21), and that each gift is connected to the same Head (16,28–31). Rather than being jealous (18,27) and thus divisive, the audience members are to edify each other (18,17–22) and to recognize that an indivisible body—the church—by necessity must be unified (17,14–25). Death and ignorance are again invoked, linking the two-way rhetoric to the social ethical decisions to be made by the audience. They are admonished not to hate their fellow members (17,25–29). The author summons the audience to abandon the way of death—the way of ignorance, jealousy, and division
64The author contrasts being reconciled and being jealous (18,25–32) with the following claim that the recipients should be thankful that they do not exist outside the body (18,33–35). Both unity and division are linked in this contrast with the Head: those who are united are united within the Head (or, more accurately, recognize that they have the same Head) while those who are divisive are in opposition to the Head (see also 17,30–31).
Our author then briefly places this social-ethical situation within a brief cosmological context (compare Col 1:20) that again defines the two-way schema as one of allegiances: “If you purify it, it abides with me. If you enclose it, it belongs to the Devil. Even if you kill his forces that are active, it will be with you. For if the soul is dead, still it was enacted upon by the rulers and authorities” (20,16–23). This cosmological comment is instructive for two reasons. First, it highlights the importance of allegiances as central to the two-way schema. Second, it argues that the oppressive archons—a reference that likely implies the process of the ascent of the soul—are external dangers that are only powerful when the Christian's inward state of being is not alive. By explicating the admonition for social reconciliation through metaphysical reality, the absolute necessity of addressing moral relations between the factions is stressed. As Peter Berger puts it, “cosmization implies the identification of this humanly meaningful world with the world as such, the former now being grounded in the latter, reflecting it or being derived from it in its fundamental structures.”65
Berger, The Sacred Canopy, 27.
Although the author argues for a clear moral relationship between the two factions, and desires some form of unity or reconciliation to occur, the ethical exhortation does not call on the audience to adopt an alternative worldview. It is possible that Interp. Know. was written to address differences on what type of social structure should prevail within this particular Christian community. Beyond theological, especially christological, points of contention, it is also possible that these issues were only pretexts concealing a more serious difference—namely, whether a true Christian community is an organic, familial community or a broader, more structured social association.
Specific Social Idealization in the Interpretation of Knowledge
Over a century ago, Ferdinand Tönnies proposed a sociological theory that explicated two basic and opposing forms of social organization: Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, representing different forms of social relations underlying social interaction.66
Tönnies's Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft appeared in 1887; ET Community and Civil Society (trans. Jose Harris and Margaret Hollis; Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Tönnies, Community, 24–25.
Ibid., 34.
In contrast to this organic, kin-based type, Gesellschaft types of social units are open rather than closed social systems. They assume individuality and individual benefit as the basis of economic exchange. Tönnies summarizes this social type well when he says, “Gesellschaft may therefore be imagined as consisting of separate individuals who en masse work on behalf of Society in general, while appearing to work for themselves, and who are working for themselves while appearing to work for Society.”69
Ibid., 56–57.
Ibid., 57: “By a constantly repeated process of functional division and rational choice the individual is finally reduced to starkly equal, simple, elementary units of labour, like atoms. The total output of Society is composed of such atoms, to which each individual contributes.”
Tönnies's theory, although primarily an economic theory with clear parallels to Marxist critiques of industrial capitalist societies, may be helpful for explicating the social conflict that prompted the writing of Interp. Know. Such an application, however, must be qualified. I am not arguing for an economic social conflict, nor am I attempting to argue for a clear certainty regarding differing modes of social idealization. I employ Tönnies's theory only as a heuristic, analytical device for exploring possible social relations that may be reflected in Interp. Know. I suggest that the conflict underlying this text may have turned on different social idealizations of what the true community should be. By utilizing the Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft models of social relations as a guide, we can attempt to tease out from our text what those differing idealizations might have been. It would seem that our author may have preferred a form of organic, communal social structure, while the opposing faction may have been stressing the need for a more complex, competitive (i.e., less integrative), and hierarchical social structure. The evidence in the text is hardly conclusive either of the rhetorical portrayal of the community or of actual historical social organization. What follows, therefore, is suggestive and tentative.
Interp. Know. introduces the two factions of the community in its exordium. At 2,25–28a we read: “For he who is distressed will not believe. He is unable to bring a great church since it is gathered out of a small gathering.” The type of person reflected in this passage is one that is in a state of distress and thus unbelief. The idealization of the community is “a small gathering”—i.e., the greatness of a church emerges from a small social body. A clear sense of elitism emerges. Such an elite, as well as intimate, social perspective is reinforced by the discussion that immediately follows (2,28b–38). God's apprehension is through his members, which we can assume refers to members of the community (especially in light of the discussion of spiritual gifts on pages 15–19). This apprehension is contrasted with “the structure,” which apprehends by means of “likeness” (2,30–33). Direct apprehension, in contrast to such indirect apprehension similar to Plato's simile of the cave (Republic 514–21) and the relationship of knowledge and ideal forms, evokes a more intimate relationship between church members and God. God's apprehension is related directly to a form of determinism (2,34) which again may stress an elitist ecclesiology. This passage may present a Gemeinschaft social struc- ture: we find a small, intimate, and elite body. Such a close-knit idealization of what the church should be, if such a reading is plausible, obviously is our author's preferred social perception.
An odd link, however, to “a great church” (2,27–28) needs to be considered. No dualistic demarcation is presented between “great church” and “small gathering.” Rather, the issue is one of belief/distress negatively affecting the emergence of a great church from a small gathering. In closing the exordium of the tractate, the author has maintained the demarcation of faith/unfaith as the two-way schema for the entire paraenesis. The closing, however, moves the discussion towards the social context facing the community. The vague allusion to the context likely indicates that the audience was well aware of the author's reasons for making such a reference. When we recall the rhetorical value of positioning, what we see is a location of those who would move the church forward towards greatness and those who, in their unbelief/distress, hinder the progression of the church. Still, an irony emerges in this passage: the great church is gathered from a small gathering, and out of smallness comes greatness. This position is reminiscent of the gospel statements about the ability of a little faith to accomplish great things (e.g., the parable of the mustard seed, Matt 13:31–32//Mark 4:30–32//Luke 13:18–19; the parable of the yeast, Matt 13:33//Luke 13:20–21; and the remark that a little faith can move mountains, Matt 17:20–21). A possible implication of this passage, however, may be that the opposing faction does not appreciate the value, indeed the necessity, of a small, elite gathering. If this is the case, then it is possible to see our author positioning the opposing faction as those in a state of distress and thus unbelief.
Further indications of a type of Gemeinschaft social structure are found in the use of familial language (“father in heaven” and “many called father”; 9,27–38). Such language suggests an intimate, dependent, and closed society. The reference to Christ as the “Head” evokes not only the Pauline image of the church as a body, but also, as in Paul's writings and the pseudo-Pauline writings, the organic selfenclosed fictive kinship that is reminiscent of Tönnies's community type. Possible instances of positioning the opposing faction must remain even more speculative. The jealousy and disunity of the community might conjure an image of community that is competitive, a community where individual importance is created at the expense of devaluing—or, in Tönnies's language, commodifying—other individuals. The author rejects such a view of community as association, preferring to idealize the Christian community as an organic whole that is typified by mutuality. Such mutuality is seen clearly on page 18: after a fragmentary section that may have addressed divisiveness in the church, the author valorizes a unified and edifying two-fold ministry of proclamation and martyrdom. When these various indications of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft are aligned with the discussion of two schools and two teachers (9,20–26), it is possible to conclude that the author idealizes a Gemeinschaft type of community. The author advocates an organic, closely-knit social structure in opposition to a form of Gesellschaft church ecclesiology.
A full discussion of the type of “school” (
) that the author may have portrayed as ideal for his or her faction, or indeed for the Christian community more generally, is beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, it is clear that Interp. Know. does indeed portray the Valentinian faction of this Christian community as a type of philosophical school; that is the presupposition of the author's antithetical pairing of the two schools and two teachers.
71It is my hope to prepare a more focused study of Interp. Know. on this very question. For the purposes of this article, however, a brief discussion of a Valentinian “school” should suffice for explicating the author's social idealization.
Christoph Markschies, “Valentinian Gnosticism: Toward the Anatomy of a School,” in The Nag Hammadi Library after Fifty Years: Proceedings of the 1995 Society of Biblical Literature Commemoration (ed. John D. Turner and Ann McGuire; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997) 401–38. Analyzing Valentinianism within the context of ancient schools is not new, however: see Gerd Lüdemann, “The History of Earliest Christianity in Rome: I. Valentinus and Marcion; II. Ptolemaeus and Justin,” Journal of Higher Criticism 2 (1995) 112–41 [originally published in German in 1979]. See also the essay by Ismo Dunderberg, “Valentinian Teachers in Rome,” in Christians in Rome as a Multicultural City (ed. Michael Labahn and Jürgen Zangenberg; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, forthcoming).
Markschies argues that Valentinus and Ptolemy may have functioned in the style of professional philosophers, utilizing lectures, commentaries, and discussions such as were used in the philosophical schools, whereas those who emerged from their circles likely moved toward more of a parlor-type philosophical school, developing elaborate systems of mythologoumena in place of the more typical philosophical topics.73
Markschies, “Valentinian Gnosticism,” 436–38.
Ibid., 418: “In the Nag Hammadi writings there is one (and only one) possible attestation for the self-understanding of the Valentinians as a ‘school,' namely the writing commonly entitled Testimony of Truth (NHC IX,3) which is critical of the Valentinians (thus again from an opponent's perspective).”
But the Valentinian author of Interp. Know. clearly aligns him- or herself with a school, and moreover contrasts that school with another type of Christian school (compare Val. Exp. 37,30). Such a self-designation not only offers a corrective to Markschies's general comment regarding Valentinianism; it also provides further substantiation for his claim that Valentinianism did indeed function within the framework of a philosophical school system. It is doubtful, however, whether this self-designation assists in answering Markschies's closing challenge: “And whether the Valentinian writings from Nag Hammadi are a popular philosophical variant of Valentinianism or rather documentation of its development away from its philosophical origins needs to be investigated in its own right.”75
Ibid., 438.
The demarcation between these two types of schools within early Christianity up into the Nicene period has recently been explored by Mary Ann Beavis, “‘Pluck the rose but shun the thorn': The ancient school and Christian origins,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 29 (2000) 411–23.
Having established a moral relation between his audience and both the broader Christian tradition and the opposing faction, the author admonishes his or her audience to seek reconciliation (i.e., to bring about unity within the community), but to do so in such a way as to ensure that the community becomes an intimate, socially integrated type of
. The author may have seen such a model as the only effective solution to the social conflict facing the community—and a solution, furthermore, that would bring the community back to its Christian roots.
Summary
With the rising interest in social scientific concerns within the study of early Christian texts, an appreciation for the presence of ethical and moral discourse has emerged in conjunction with analyses of ritualization, community formation, and social interaction. The Nag Hammadi material has not been excluded from this trend in scholarship, as is evident in Michael Williams's application of religious innovation as an explanatory framework for these tractates, as well as in the comprehensive analysis of ritual within both Sethian and Valentinian movements by John Turner.77
Williams, Rethinking “Gnosticism” (building on the theoretical work of Rodney Stark); John D. Turner, “Ritual in Gnosticism,” SBL Seminar Papers 1994 (ed. Eugene H. Lovering; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1994) 136–81. See also Elaine Pagels, “Ritual in the Gospel of Philip,” in The Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years: Proceedings of the 1995 Society of Biblical Literature Commemoration (ed. J. D. Turner and A. McGuire; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997) 280–91; Henry A. Green, The Economic and Social Origins of Gnosticism (SBLDS 77; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1985); and Michel Desjardins, “Reconstructing Valentinian Families,” in Religionswissenschaft in Konsequenz: Beiträge im Anschluß an Impulse von Kurt Rudolph (ed. Rainer Flasche, Fritz Heinrich, and Carsten Koch; Münster: LIT Verlag, 2000) 115–26.
Hence I chose to examine the paraenetic dimensions of Interp. Know., including both its literary aspects as well as its social situation. Stock paraenetic literary devices run throughout the tractate: imperatival constructions, ethical exempla, motivational clauses, and antithetical constructions. Scriptural texts, primarily drawn from the Pauline and Matthean traditions, also contribute to the ethical discourse of the tractate. All of these literary devices advance the exordium's two-way schema: there is a way of life (faith) and a way of death (unfaith). The social function of the tractate is to redress a social division within a Christian community; positioning theory enables a more articulate description of the conflicting factions.
Rather than focusing on specific ethical issues (e.g., asceticism or libertinism) or merely recognizing the presence of ethics in Valentinianism, I have endeavored to locate Interp. Know. within a Greco-Roman context of moral discourse. My concern has been to analyze ethical discourse with rhetorical strategies, while avoiding anachronistic readings of the ethical and moral dimensions of the Nag Hammadi material. A dynamic relationship between admonition and cosmology also emerged in this study. A moral relation between the author's faction and the opposing faction, as well as the broader Christian tradition, is placed onto the grand canvas of a metaphysical, soteriological process. By establishing such sets of moral relations, Interp. Know. exhorts its audience within what could be called a social model of conflict. As Perdue has insightfully observed, paraenesis can either fit a model of order (reinforcing existing social structures) or conflict (undermining the social order). By presenting the world at large, as well as the community situation, as disharmonious and oppressive, the tractate first subverts the very social order idealized by the opposing faction. Advancing a positive idealization of the broader Christian tradition, and calling for a reintegrated community through reconciliation, the author posits a new, more harmonious alternative social order.78
See Perdue, “Social Character of Paraenesis,” 8–9.
Footnotes
An earlier version of this article was presented in the “Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism” section of the SBL annual meeting in Toronto on 25 November 2002. I wish to express appreciation to Michel Desjardins and Louis Painchaud for their helpful comments on this study, as well as to those in Toronto who gave helpful feedback, especially Elaine Pagels and Ismo Dunderberg.
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