Genesis traditions in conflict?: The use of some exegetical traditions in the Trimorphic Protennoia and the Johannine Prologue

Vigiliae Christianae

Volumn 55, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 20-44

  Denzey, Nicola Frances ^a  

^a SKIDMORE COLLEGE   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 79953442113     PISSN: 00426032     EISSN: 15700720     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157007201X00368     Document Type: Article

References (95)

1. The Trimorphic Protennoia is the sole extant treatise from the highly damaged NHC Codex XIII, only eight leaves of which survive. For critical editions, see Gesine Schenke, Die dreigestaltige Protennoia (Mag Hammadi Codex XIII) (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1984);
2. Yvonne Jansscns, La Prôtennoia Trimorphe (NHC XIII, I) (Laval: Les presses de L'université Laval, 1978)
3. and John Turner, "The Trimorphic Protcnnoia," Nag Hammadi Codices XI, XII, XIII, ed. Charles Hedrick. The Coptic Gnostic Library, NHMS XXVIII (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990). I have used Turner's edition throughout; on occasion, my translation of the Coptic text differs slighdy.
4. For some summaries and observations on the difficulties of restoring this fragmented text, see the comments of Robert McL. Wilson, "The Trimorphic Protcnnoia," Gnosis and Gnosticism. Papers read at the Seventh Annual International Conference of Patristic Studies, September 8th-13th, 1975, NHMS VIII (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977), 50-54.
5. Another significant text which shares the same set of traditions and patterns as the Trimorphic Protennoia and the Johannine Prologue is the so-called "Pronoia Hymn" from the long recension of the Apocryphon of John. The precise relationship between all three texts remains unclear. The two scholars who have done considerable work on the problem, Roelof van den Broek and Michael Waldstein, concur that the Hymn presents an earlier re-formulation of Wisdom traditions which were then adapted and "masculini 7ed" to fit the motif of a male Redeemer as the Logos. See R. van den Broek, "Von der jüdischcn Weisheit zum gnostischen Erlöser: Zum Schlußhymnus dcs Apokryphons des Johannes," in idem., Studies in Gnosticism and Alexandrian Christianity, NHMS XXXIX (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 86-116;
6. Michael Waldstein, "The Providence Monologue in the Apocryphon of John and the Johannine Prologue," JECS 3:4(1995):369-402. I have largely neglected discussion of the Pronoia Hymn here not because it is not worthy of further discussion, but because it is beyond the scope of the present study.
7. See Rudolf Bultmann, Tie Gospel of John: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971)
8. and his Theology of the New Testament (2 vols.; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951 and 1955), esp. 2.3-14;
9. Hans-Martin Schenke, "Die neutestamentliche Christologic und der gnostische Erlöser," in Gnosis und Neues Testament: Studien aus Religionswissenschaft und Theologie, ed. Karl-Wolfgang Tröger (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1973), 205-29, esp. 226-7.
10. George MacRae, "Gnosticism and the Church of John's Gospel," in Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, and Early Christianity, eds. Charles Hedrick and Robert Hodgson, Jr. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1986), 91.
11. R. McL. Wilson, "Slippery Words: II. Gnosis, Gnostic, Gnosticism," Expository Times 89(1977-78):296-301.
12. See also Wilfrid Cantwell Smith, "Terminological Boobytraps," in Traditions in Contact and Ghange: Selected Proceedings of the XIVth Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions, eds. Peter Slater et at. (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1983), 306, on the "verbal inanities" of discussing as "gnosticism" a movement composed of people who never called themselves "gnostics."
13. Michael Williams, Rethinking Gnosticism: Arguments for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
14. For a review of the issue, see G. Schenke, "Der dreigestaltige Protennoia: Eine gnostische Offenbarungsrede in koptischer Sprache aus dem Fund von Nag Hammadi eingeleitet und übersetzt vom Berliner Arbeitskreis für koptisch-gnostischen Schriften," ThLZ 99(1974):733.
15. Robinson reiterates her point in "The Trimorphic Protennoia," 45: "For even if Trimorphic Protennoia, in the form in which we have it, is no doubt younger than the Fourth Gospel, it nonetheless provides the natural context for the Fourth Gospel's Prologue."
16. G. Schenke, "Die dreigestaltige Protennoia," 731-46.
17. Garsten Colpe, "Heidnische, jüdische und christliche Überlieferung in den Schriften aus Nag Hammadi III, JAC 17(1974):107-25.
18. Craig A. Evans, "On the Prologue of John and the Trimorphic Protennoia, ", NTS 27(1981):395-401.
19. James M. Robinson, "Sethians and Johannine Thought: The Trimorphic Protennoia and the Prologue of the Gospel of John," in The Rediscovery of Gnosticism: Proceedings of the Conference at Tale, March 1978, Volume II, Sethian Gnosticism, ed. Bentley Layton (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), 643-61.
20. John Turner, "The Trimorphic Protennoia: Introduction," 385-6.
21. Yvonne Janssens, "Une source gnostique du prologue?" in L'Évangile de Jean: Sources, Rédaction, Theologie, ed. Marinus du Jonge (Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1977), 355-8.
22. Yvonne Janssens, "The Trimorphic Protennoia and the Fourth Gospel," in The New Testament and Gnosisi Essays in Honor of Robert McL Wilson, eds. Alastair Logan and Alexander J. Wedderburn (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1983), 229-245, esp. 235.
23. Robert McL. Wilson, "The Trimorphic Protennoia," in Gnosis and Gnosticism. NHMS VIII (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977), 50-54.
24. George MacRae, "Gnosticism and the Church of St. John's Gospel," 89-96.
25. Edwin Yamauchi, "Jewish Gnosticism? The Prologue of John, Mandean Parallels, and the Trimorphic Protennoia," in Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, eds. Roelof van den Broek and Maarten J. Vcrmascrcn. EPRO 91 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), 467-97.
26. Michel Tardieu, Écrits Gnostiques: Codex de Berlin (Sources Gnostiques et Manicheeans 1) (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1984).
27. Alastair Logan, "John and the Gnostics: The Significance of the Apocryphon of John for the Debate about the Origins of the Johannine Literature," JSNT 43(1991):41-69, esp. 58-59.
28. G. Robinson, "The Trimorphic Protennoia and the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel," in Gnosticism and the Early Christian World: In Honor of James Robinson, eds. James E. Goehring, Charles W. Hedrick, Jack T. Sanders, and Hans Dieter Betz (Sonoma: Polebridge, 1990), 38.
29. Carsten Colpe, "Heidnischc Übcrlieferung," 122.
30. Yvonne Janssens, "Une source gnostique du prologue?" 355-8.
31. Craig A. Evans, "Prologue of John," 397. Evans culls his parallels to the Prologue from just over two pages of text in the Trimorphic Protennoia-passages all taken from Protennoia's summary of her descents toward the end of the tractate.
32. Evans, "Prologue of John," 398.
33. Janssens, "The Trimorphic Protennoia," 242.
34. Janssens, "The Trimorphic Protennoia," 243.
35. See, for instance, G. Schenke, Dreigestaltige Protennoia, 89 who defines Protennoia as "a modified form of the Jewish Sophia."
36. See also Turner, "Trimorphic Protennoia: Introduction," 375. For the Wisdom passages, see Proverbs 8; Sirach 23;
37. Wisdom of Solomon 6-10;
38. The groundbreaking work of Rudolf Bultmann first alerted the academic community to the Prologue's dependence on Wisdom imagery. See R. Bultmann, "Der religionsgeschichtliche Hintergrund des Prologs zum Johannes-Evangelium," in Eucharisterioni Festschrift für Hermann Gunkel, ed. H. Schmidt. FRIANF 37; (2 vols.. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1923).
39. Bultmann followed a hypothesis already proposed by J. Rendel Harris, The Origin of the Prologue to St. John's Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1917);
40. C. H. Dodd further bolstered Bultmann's ideas, detecting numerous parallels between sapiential literature and the Prologue, in his Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953).
41. See also Wis 6:23;
42. TriPro 35:4-6, 30, 34; 46:10;
43. Jn 1:1-3.
44. Jack T. Sanders, "Nag Hammadi, Odes of Solomon, and New Testament Christological Hymns," in Gnosticism and the Early Christian World: In Honor of James Robinson, eds. James E. Goehring et al., 51-66.
45. In Philo's writing, Sharon Lea Mattila notes, "Wisdom enjoys a supracosmological status, affirmed above all by her close affiliation and frequcnt identity with the figure of the logos," in her article "Wisdom, Sense Perception, Nature, and Philo's Gender Gradient," HTR 89:2(1996):109.
46. See also E. R. Goodenough, "Philo flatly identifies the Logos with Sophia," in By Light, Light (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1935), 23.
47. Harry A. Wolfson concurs in his Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. 2 vols; (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1947), I. 258
48. as does Burton Mack, Logos und Sophia: Unlersuchungen zur Washeilstheologie im hellenulischen Judentum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973), 110, n. 10.
49. Philo, Spec. leg. 1. 81.
50. Philo, Fug. 101;
51. Rer. Div. Her. 205;
52. Virt. 62.
53. Philo, Conf. Ling. 146.
54. Philo, Leg. All. 1. 43.
55. Philo, Som. 1. 75.
56. Philo, Mig. Abr. 40.
57. Philo, Som. 2. 242;
58. Fug. 108-9;
59. Mattila, 110. Compare Trimorphic Protennoia 46:16-20. For Biblical precedents
60. C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks, 295.
61. Jarl Fossum, "In the Beginning was the Name: Onomanology as the Key to Johannine Christology," in The Image of the Invisible Cod: The Influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (Freiburg: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), 117-133.
62. Odes of Solomon, 18:6.
63. See also Ps 33:9; 104:5-7.
64. The Odes of Solomon appear to reflect the same Word tradition over and against a Wisdom tradition; Jack Sanders ("Nag Hammadi, Odes of Solomon," 60) notes that the word "Wisdom" appears only four times throughout the entire collection of the Odes, although references to the Word are extensive.
65. See Trimorphic Protennoia 35:6, in which Protennoia is "called by three names," which arc, apparently, linked to her progressive revelation as Sound, Voice and Word. In 37:7, the Logos has within him the Name which has the power to reveal "the everlasting things." For Protennoia as the divine Breath or Voice, see 35:32 and 45:27-28.
66. Turner, "Trimorphic Protennoia: Introduction," 375.
67. R. van den Broek, "Von der jüdischen Weisheit," 92.
68. G. Schenke, Die Dretgeslaltige Protennoia, 122.
69. Corpus Hermeticum 1 (Poimandres) 1:1-5 (Nock/Festugière 1.6-8).
70. Untitled Bruce 1:6-17 (V. McDermott, 226)
71. Untitled Bruce 1:6-17 (V. McDermott, 226)
72. Thought of Norea, NHC IX 27, 11-20 (Giversen/Pearson, 446).
73. Evans, "Prologue of John," 398.
74. Yvonne Janssens, "Une source gnostique.. " 355.
75. Epiphanius, Panarion 26. 3. 1.
76. Elaine Pagels, "Exegesis of Genesis 1 in the Gospels of Thomas and John," JBL 118/3(1999):489.
77. see also Y. Janssens, "The Trimorphic Protennoia," 232.
78. Hans-Martin Schenke, der Gott "Mensch" in der Gnosisi Ein religionsgeschichtlicher Beitrag zur Diskussion über die paulinische Anschauung von der Kirche als Leib Christi (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962), 420-37.
79. See R. McL. Wilson, "The Early History of the Exegesis of Gen 1:26," in Texte und Untersuchungen LXIII
80. Stadia Patristica I (1957), 420-437
81. for the Patristic evidence; see also Jarl Fossum, "Gen 1, 26 and 2, 7 in Judaism, Samaritanism, and Gnosticism," JSJ 16/2(1989):202-239.
82. Stcvan Davies, "The Chnstology and Protology of the Gospel of Thomas," JBL 3. 4(1992):663-684.
83. April De Conick, Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997).
84. Pagels, "Exegesis of Genesis 1."
85. See J. Helderman, "'In ihren Zelten...', Bemerkungen bei Codex XIII Nag Hammadi 47:14-18 irn Hinblick auf John 1:14," in Miscellanea Neotestamentica, ed. T. Baarda, A. F. J. Klijn, and W. C. van Unnik (Leiden, 1978) 1.189, 195 ff.; cited in Yamauchi, p. 48.
86. Turner, "Trimorphic Protennoia," 437.
87. Waldstein, "The Providence Monologue in the Apocryphon of John and the Johannine Prologue," JECS 3:4(1995):380.
88. See Waldstein's comments on Pronoia's third descent in the monologue, which has numerous points of contact with the Trimorphic Protennoia: "The Monologue itself, apart from its secondary context in the Apocryphon of John, does not suggest incarnation" (p. 381).
89. Stephen J. Patterson, The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1993);
90. H. Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (Trinity Press International, 1991).
91. See also Gregory J. Riley, Resurrection Reconsidered: Thomas and John in Controversy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995).
92. Ismo Dunderberg offers an important caveat, noting the complexity of oral and literary traditions in the text and the paucity of information on ancient communities, in 'John and Thomas in Conflict?" in The Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years: Proceedings of the 1995 Society of Biblical Literature Commemoration, eds. Anne McGuire and John D. Turner, (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997), 1-21.
93. Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 7:1-6.
94. Comm. on Joh. II. 137 (trans. R. E. Heine, 131.)
95. For some Patristic and "Gnostic" exegeses of the Johannine Prologue, see Anne Pasquier, "Interpretation of the Prologue to John's Gospel in Some Gnostic and Patristic Writings: A Common Tradition," in The Nag Hammadi Library After Fifty Years, 484-495.