is not static or mechanical: all men were a-Gnostic until the Son came opening the book of life. Some received it and, with it, a new nature: origin ("birth") from the Father. But some remain obdurately a-Gnostic "to the end"; they will their destiny upon themselves.

¹⁴⁶

Slasma— probably the original Greek phrase was plasma thV lhqhV. (Cf. Hippolytus, Philosophoumena, V.7, Migne Gr., Vol.16, pt.3, col.3138.) From 17:18 one would expect here "figure (molded by) Planē," but forgetting is derived from Planē (17:33, 36) and parallel statements can be made about both. A "figure molded by Forgetting" is of course a phantasm whose existence always has been illusory; but even the illusion will evaporate when forgetting 17:7-11 (or the lack, 24:28-32) perishes.

¹⁴⁷

Evidently there can effectively be a name (true existence) for one only if it has been "spoken" 21:30 or "pronounced" 21:29 by the Father.

¹⁴⁸

Above this word the facsimile shows two or three uncertain letters, of which one appears to be n, but the connection between 21:38 and 22:1 is so good that a whole line does not seem to be lost.

¹⁴⁹

Simply parallel to name, whose origin must be in a voice which names it— the voice of the Father.

¹⁵⁰

To be "from above" (where the Father is) is to be from the Father. To "have a name" spoken by the "voice" of the Father is to exist from him. The two terms are synonymous. But to have either, one must know, be a Gnostic.

¹⁵¹

The Gnostic satisfies the "necessity" of 21:10, 19.

¹⁵²

Probably not "what his name is" (cf. EvVer E, "what he is called," translating an ambiguity of French idiom) but literally, "in what manner." Viz., through the Son, his Book, and its good news.

¹⁵³

Actually this is the verb "know" without an object,

but possibly here the object of the succeeding verb ("the will") is to be understood as the implied object of the earlier verb.

¹⁵⁴

Cf. John 7:17.

¹⁵⁵

Cf. Rom. 8:8, I Thess. 2:15, 4: 1.

¹⁵⁶

Probably for anapausiV, refrigerium, but whether abstract or concrete (resting place) cannot here be determined. Cf. Matt. 11:29. The word is frequent in the last pages of the meditation, 40:33; 41:13, 29; 43:1.

¹⁵⁷

If "name" means his true (i.e., God-willed) being, then this is equivalent to 21:6 and the parallels cited there: he receives his self, he becomes himself.

¹⁵⁸

Whence did he come? Whither does he go? The answer to both is God. Here again, genuine self-knowledge is actually knowledge of God, and vice versa. Not that the self and God are identical, as in mysticism, but that knowledge of neither is possible except as knowledge of both. Cf. Iren., I.21.6 and the famous formulation of Theodotus, Excerpta 78, 2.

¹⁵⁹

Drunkenness as a metaphor for man's condition without Gnosis is a favorite Gnostic theme. See Jonas, I, pp. 115-18.

¹⁶⁰

The drunken man is not himself, he has lost the qualities that make him himself— "the things that are his own." But when he sobers up he becomes himself by reacquiring "the things that are his own" (cf. 21:12ff., 22). Just so the a-Gnostic, having been drunk without knowing it, becomes himself when he comes to know, becomes Gnostic.

¹⁶¹

Who? The context offers only the sobered drunken man or the Gnostic whom he symbolizes. But neither fits; 22:21-22 demands a soteriological figure, probably Jesus (though possibly the personified gospel or Gnosis; both are masculine in Coptic).

¹⁶²

maeit, which I usually do not translate, but here it apparently means places.

¹⁶³

This does not look mythological but probably means simply "took error," "erred," or "went astray."

¹⁶⁴

Text: baqoV, which like Latin altum means either height or depth depending upon the direction of measurement (high water and deep water can be the same thing). Bythos (rarely Bathos) is the highest Eon in the Ptolemaic Pleroma (Iren. I.1.1, I.11.1 et passim). Here it is an attribute of God with no suggestion of independence. Cf. also 37:7 and 40:27.

¹⁶⁵

See note on 20:21. Here one is tempted to think that it means only "thing." Then Valentinus would agree with Iren., II.1.2, 3.1, 30.9 against his own pupils or pupils' pupils. (While "encompass" or "contain" is undoubtedly spatial imagery, the conjectured meaning "space" in EvVer seems to make the thought too spatial. Not a spatial infinity is being claimed for God, but his insuperability as Origin.)

¹⁶⁶

Who? Perhaps all the maiet, if we knew what that meant. Perhaps impersonal "they"— people (who may well be included in "all" maiet).

¹⁶⁷

When were "they" able to get out of the Father? Presumably at that mythical time when forgetting overcame them. Are they equivalent symbols— is "not knowing that one is in the Father" equivalent to "being without him, outside of him?"

¹⁶⁸

Though they knew it not (cf. 17:5-13).

¹⁶⁹

It came forth in the person of the Son, with whom the will is here identified. Cf. 24:2.

¹⁷⁰

There is no feminine noun in the context. The Coptic translator must have carelessly retained the gender of two Greek pronouns referring to Gnosis (Gk. fem.) instead of converting them to masculines to agree with Coptic saune (masc.) (EvVer, p. 54).

¹⁷¹

Here and four (five?) other times (26:25, 29; 41:14, 16, and possibly 27:11) a word is used that is thus far known only

from this meditation. The editors of EvVer (p.54) conjectured that it meant emanation and render it so at every occurrence (also 27:11), though always with a well-justified question mark. I offer the conjecture that it is a new form of an old word: what Steindorff (Lehrbuch der koptischen Grammatik, p.70.4) calls a "feminine collective in -h. Using his clearest example I get this parallel diagram:

If this is valid, then it is used (like 6imh in Sah.) as a plur. of taeie and means parts, shares, portions. Nevertheless I leave it without translation. (It may be worth noting that in all five occurrences it has the definite plural article [or pronominal article] followed by thr.ou "all"; 27:11 alone has indefinite pl. article and no added "all"— but it probably is a different noun: "gifts.")

¹⁷²

On the hypothesis that "parts" is meant, this would seem to raise the claim that the Gnosis intended is self-consistent in all its parts.

¹⁷³

Perhaps not to the mythological Eons, but simply "to the world"— pl. as in Heb. 1:2, 11:3 (where S retains the Greek word).

¹⁷⁴

A marveling meditation more specifically on the Book and including a veritable hymn. The Book is no ordinary book.

¹⁷⁵

Is it indeed a literal book at all? (He is thinking of the transcendent Book, 19:36-20:3, not of any embodiment

of it in a particular Gospel or in the whole NT.) No. Unlike any book on earth, it consists not of actual vowels and consonants, not of literal characters at all. (For "letters" the text reads topoV; read with EvVer: tupoV.)

¹⁷⁶

Or emptiness. Every earthly book permits a light, frivolous, empty reading of its earthly vowels and consonants.

¹⁷⁷

This Book's "characters" are not vowels and consonants, but truth's own kind of "character."

¹⁷⁸

That is, read aloud. This seems to imply what we learn from other ancient texts— that all (or normal?) reading was vocal.

¹⁷⁹

Unlike ordinary books, which can be vocalized without understanding, this "Book" can be read at all only by understanding. Without literal characters it addresses the understanding directly.

¹⁸⁰

The single letters of an ordinary, imperfect book are not in themselves true. But all the elements ("characters") of this Book are true because they are portions of the truth, which the perfect Book is (cf. 16:31).

¹⁸¹

Probably the Father himself (related to the statement at 20:20?) because of the following statement ("the Father having written them for the Eons"). Very likely the Greek word behind it was henotes, but scarcely in the sense of the Eon Henotes in Iren. I.11.3, and the letter quoted in Epiph. XXXI.6.5, for then we should expect, "Henotes wrote it for the other Eons."

¹⁸²

The mythical inhabitants of the Pleroma? If this were from a later stage of the Valentinian school, one would unhesitatingly assume so. But the meditation has hitherto implied that the Book was for the benefit of human beings, not heavenly ones. So "Eons" here may mean "ages" as at Col. 1:26 or it may be simply a synonym for "world" as at Heb.

1:2, but "world" with the usual Johannine implication— the world is the men who constitute it.

¹⁸³

Or of him. But since the theme under discussion is the Book, I translate "it."

¹⁸⁴

May be impersonal "they" for the passive: the Father might be known.

¹⁸⁵

This clause sets the exact pattern for the ten clauses that follow, each of four words: Noun + n-.toot.3- + verb + a single word. The single departure is in 23:23-24 where the verb is periphrastic and requires two words; in the Greek probably simply a form of stefanoun. By its insistent reiteration n-.toot.3- is the emphatic word, almost certainly having always the same antecedent— either the Father or the Book. I take it to be a "hymn" on the latter. For the sake of the form, the Coptic text follows here:

Coptic text of 23:17-33 divided into sense lines to display the underlying form (the order of the text has not been disturbed in any way, but the syllable dividers of n-.toot.3- have been regularized).

¹⁸⁶

That is, gained from it by (Gnostic) men.

¹⁸⁷

As the author of the meditation is doing.

¹⁸⁸

That is, proceeding from it.

¹⁸⁹

Through the mouth of the (Gnostic) preacher.

¹⁹⁰

That is, flowing from it; the Gnosis which the Book brings and is.

¹⁹¹

These lines seem to be the transition from thinking of the pre-existent, unearthly Book, to thinking (also) of an earthly embodiment of it: one of the Gospels, all the Gospels, or the NT as a whole.

¹⁹²

EvVer left aso untranslated, suggesting in a note (p. 55) that it may be for asou "price, value, honor." I suggest that it is identical with Boh. aso (Sah. so), "forbearance, restraint," observing that in a similar case involving inclusion or omission of an a-presyllable A² sides with Boh. against Sah.: Sah. lto "multitude", Boh. qo, A² to (25:14). This looks like a literary judgment upon the empirical gospels, perhaps Mark or John, such as Valentinus had the literary culture to make. Against the turgid, flowery style of Hellenistic literati the simplicity of the gospels was startling, even offensive to the educated, as Augustine later eloquently testified (Confessions, III.9).

¹⁹³

But this very parsimony, poverty in style, became the crown and joy of the gospel both to Augustine and many another (cf. 16:31).

¹⁹⁴

The Father. It was he who raised its simplicity to a crown of joy and honor (glory) in those who "accepted its instruction" (21:3).

¹⁹⁵

The pre-existent Book took empirical form as the gospels and epistles of the NT, the form in which the Father chose to reveal it.

¹⁹⁶

Some kind of incarnation is involved, but is it the

Incarnation? Since there is no mention of the Son, I take it in a Pauline sense: The love (of the Father which flowed) from it became a body for it, the body of Christ, the Church.

¹⁹⁷

That is, arising from.

¹⁹⁸

The Father. Or it, the gospel.

¹⁹⁹

The Book, the good news, is both the spoken word of the Father and the personal Logos who brings it.

²⁰⁰

As both the communicating Word and the Logos Revealer it "walks among" the totality.

²⁰¹

The product of His mind. It sounds like a Hebraism, but Isa. 10:12 (Heb.) is the nearest biblical approach to it.

²⁰²

See on 19:31. Here perhaps "facial impression" (numismatic) and hence: delineation, depiction. The indefinite article is unexpected.

²⁰³

In Manichaean Psalm-Book 116:5 Allberry translates exactly these words: bi (= 3i) 6a p.thr.3-, "supports the Universe." Both S. and B. at Heb. 1:3 use the same expression (neither does at Col. 1:17). But "them" in 24:4 and 6 indicates that "all" here is again a collective regarded as plural.

²⁰⁴

So literally, unless mmau is written for mmeu "there" (as at 29:19). Then we would read, "He makes a choice there." One expects: "He chooses among them."

²⁰⁵

Here, perhaps, the stamp, the character. Is this a distant allusion to the thought, not the expression of Rom. 8:3, II Cor. 5:21?

²⁰⁶

Cf. Iren. V.31.1 and the conception of masculofeminine Eons (Iren. I, 18, 2). But since there is no further mention of "the Mother" in the meditation (nor other use of the word "mother"), perhaps she is not mentioned here, either. This meeu could be the alternative A² spelling (see 17:9) of meeue "thought." TheManichaean Psalm-Book six times spells "mother" meeu (though oftener meu ; cf. EvVer 17:9 meu, but for "thought," not "mother"), exactly as it fre-

quently spells "think" and "thought": meeu (but also meue n. and vb.). However, "thought" is masculine, while here we have the prefix 5, apparently the feminine def. article. It could be infinitive 5, "give"— a verb 5.meeu is known, meaning "remind" (Crum, 200b). Then we would have: return to the Father (and) to recollection, a hendiadys because recollection, antithesis to forgetting, is recollection of the Father. Against all this stands the perfect verbal parallelism and the natural association of Mother with Father. So I retain "Mother" with a mark of query.

²⁰⁷

The syntax of this word is a puzzle. It cannot very well be in apposition to "Father" and "Mother," for that would require (?) a repetition of the preposition. If it were the delayed subject of the sentence it ought to have the prefix n-2i. (though there are other cases where this expected particle is missing: see notes 57, 81 558, 595); besides, the subject "he" (24:3) seems clearly to look back to Word, Logos (23:33). Probably "Jesus" is in remote apposition to the subject.

²⁰⁸

See note 462.

²⁰⁹

Do I only imagine it, or was there once a painting of a human figure in the inner margin from line 9 to about line 16? (And another figure below that?) The figure seems to be seated, back to the reader, bent somewhat to the left, face looking left in profile.

²¹⁰

Literally uncovers His bosom— reveals what He has in petto, discloses what is on His heart.

²¹¹

This pedantic definition sentence I take to be the work of an interpolating commentator who at least from this point on attempted to assist the reader. Whether he operated on the Greek text in Greek or on the translated Coptic text in Coptic, I see no way of deciding. (See also 24:13, 22, 23; 26:34-27:1; 32:10-12, 17; 32:38-39 [?]; 38:1.)

²¹²

Between 24:9 and 24:13 the interpolator with the

assistance of the original text has managed to bring the Trinity as explicitly together as in Matt. 28:19 (and in more correct terminology than in the spurious part of I John 5:7 ff.). Does this place the interpolator far down in or after the time of Nicea? Let the historians of dogma answer. One can even see where he would have stood on the filioque issue: the Spirit proceeds from the Father! The interpolator is not necessarily right about what the author meant by "bosom." I think he is not. "Bosom" appears to mean heart— mind. To the extent that Holy Spirit means "mind of God" (as, clearly, in I Cor. 2: 11) the interpolator is right, but not if he implies separate existence for the Spirit.

²¹³

Another interpolation— and likewise questionable as to whether it catches the author's intent. The context suggests that the "secret" is the gospel, as prob. at 40:28 and 27:8 (cf. the "gnosticizing" benediction, Rom. 16:25-27). The interpolator could appeal however to 18:15 for his interpretation.

²¹⁴

Conceived as personal here— see the predicates— and probably superhuman. Evidently none of the Eons knows the Father. This is far from the Ptolemaic doctrine, in which at least Nous-Monogenes (Iren. I.2.1) knows him and it is primarily Sophia who is in ignorance, toiling and searching (Iren. I.2.2). Can Eons mean the personified universe?

²¹⁵

EvVer, p. 55 assumes dittography of the reflexive pronoun. But the second m-mau may be the Sahidic form of "there" (A²: mmeu) which is used at 29:19 and perhaps at 24:4.

²¹⁶

Rest and resting place are symbols of human redemption 41:29; 43:1. So are knowledge of the Father and the cessation of searching. If the Eons here are not human, then this must be a heavenly counterpart and parallel to human redemption.

²¹⁷

The Lack was a-Gnosis of the Father, a lack which the Father filled up by the revelation of the gospel.

²¹⁸

Scheme, form, shape, fashion, dress. I know no parallel to this absolute and perhaps technical use of the word. No wonder the interpolator felt an explanation necessary!

²¹⁹

The interpolator, probably rightly, associates schema with I Cor. 7:31 "the form of this world." The pronouns are troublesome. Perhaps: "The schema of it (the Lack) is the world in which it (the Lack?) or he (Jesus?) was a slave (or servant)." If the subject of the relative clause is "it," there may be a connection with the puzzling sentence Rom. 8:20 ff., which speaks of the enslavement of the whole creation. Van Unnik understands the relative clause to refer to Jesus (Jung Codex, p. 119). But Jesus was last mentioned fifteen lines back (24:8), and the Son (by the interpolator as I think) eight lines back. Rather remote, but such a passage as 19:17 cautions against regarding it as impossible. Cf. Note 97.

²²⁰

If this alludes to the human world, as it seems to do, it is one of the few ethical judgments in the meditation ( van Unnik is too sweeping in Jung Codex, p. 128).

²²¹

This corroborates the interpolator's understanding that 24:22 meant "schema of the world" (with the genitive understood as genitive of equivalence— epexegeticus). The "place where there is envy and quarreling" is the untransformed world (surely not the heavenly world of the Eons).

²²²

Supply from the parallel clause: oun ... m-meu, "is ... there."

²²³

The definite article (scarcely generic, though it could have been mechanically carried over from Greek; cf. Matt. 15:11 both S and B) is unexpected after the nouns without article "envy" and "quarreling," to which the natural antithesis would be "unity, harmony." "The Reunion" is perhaps a name for God; cf. 23:15 and 25, passim.

²²⁴

Cf. 18:7-11, which says almost letter for letter the same thing with "forgetting" twice substituted for "the lack." "Forgetting," of course, is a variety of "lacking."

²²⁵

Perhaps also "this lack," viz., that of 24:26. The "lack," "forgetting" (18:7), the "place" (24:25), the schema (24:22), and the "world" (24:23) all seem to be synonymous. If the world is the "form" or "dress" of forgetting (lack of Gnosis of the Father), some kind of cosmogony is implied; the interesting thing is that no mythical development of this idea is presented in the meditation.

²²⁶

Another standard symbol of all brands of Gnosticism. See Jonas I, p. 103. This is a double simile. Just as neither ignorance and knowledge, nor darkness and light can coexist, neither can lack and completion coexist. At the right corner of the extreme lower edge of the page there are remnants of a word or two, now illegible.

²²⁷

This is Gnostic eschatology, but that of the NT shares some of its terminology. E.g. for "that which is perfect" (the eschatological consummation, I Cor. 13:10) the S version uses p.`wk, the same word as here.

²²⁸

EvVer, p. 55 interprets this to mean of the unity and the schema, or, amounting to the same thing, of the completion and the lack. This is probably right.

²²⁹

Complete the maeit. EvVer F, parfera les espaces ("will complete the spaces"); EvVer G die Räume erfüllen wird ("will fill, or fulfill, the spaces"); EvVer E "perfected [!] the spaces." This variation well illustrates the difficulty. If we knew the meaning of the noun, we might be able to decide which of several meanings the verb may have. See on 22:26.

²³⁰

Cf. 21:6. EvVer F and G add "again." Perhaps implied, but not really necessary. In the completion which Gnosis brings one also receives his true self (his "Name")

whether or not the thought is that he had ever had it before. The "Reunion" here and in 24:27; 25:6, 9, 24; and 34:33: seems to be another term for the completion.

²³¹

Probably only represents Gnosis without article in the Greek.

²³²

Or "of."

²³³

For EvVer's "diversity" one might cite the Boh. equivalent used for "manifold" in Eph. 3:10 B.

²³⁴

I.e. Gnosis (25:13). EvVer understands "he" (the "one" of 25:11). But observe the following pairs:

As light swallows darkness
And life swallows death
So . . . swallows Matter.

Surely "Gnosis" fills the gap better than "he."

²³⁵

Cf. I Cor. 15:54, II Cor. 5:4b.

²³⁶

The tense (perf. I) is unexpected after the futures of 25:10-18. This perfect may indicate that the preceding futures were meant more logically than temporally— and that the eschatology here is not really futuristic but conditionally present. Cf. the Fourth Gospel's hour that is coming and now is (4:23, 5:25), in which the first part of the relative clause only qualifies the present hour as the eschatological hour.

²³⁷

The meditation rarely uses first person plural. This is an indirect exhortation, which indicates that an audience is at least vaguely in mind, an audience not of "outsiders" but of "insiders," presumably Christians of a gnosticizing format.

²³⁸

Ambiguous: a.p.thr.3- may indeed be adverbial ("above all," EvVer); it may also substitute for a direct object of the verb. (meeue e. is frequent.)

²³⁹

Cf. EvVer, p. 55: either the world, or ourselves as in Heb. 3:6. ("House" is almost the standard term for "world" in Mandean; see the index to Lidzbarski Ginza.)

²⁴⁰

The division into sentences here is almost impossible. It seems to be one long sentence with several parentheses (25:31-35; 25:35-26:4; 26:7-8). 25:25 clearly begins a comparison, but it is not formally carried through unless the text at 25:35 is corrupt.

²⁴¹

Either intransitive or transitive. I take it to be the latter.

²⁴²

The word is twice modified by parallel relative clauses; evidently two kinds of places (and their consequences for the jars) are being contrasted. The second modifier is clear: they are "not good" for the jars— not fit; the contents will spoil there. The first modifier ought to mean appropriate places, which I take "places that were theirs" to mean theirs, the jars'— not the people's.

²⁴³

This could be rendered as passive— they (the jars) were apt to get broken. But probably "they" refers to the "people" of 25:26— rather than store jars in unfit places where the contents would spoil, they destroyed them.

²⁴⁴

Literally "she," 4a.s., which EvVer, p. 56 emends to "he," 4a.3.. I take it to be the impersonal feminine; cf. e.s.kh, 20:5.

²⁴⁵

Literally, "perfected." Possibly the interpretation (the jars are people, cf. Rom. 9:20-24) has affected the language of the metaphor. "Kept to the end" was suggested by the use of this verb for perainw and dianuw (Crum, 762b). Without some such liberty, "perfected" would be tautologous with the preceding "full."

²⁴⁶

This is the place where a "so" correlative to the "as" of 25:25 is expected. One is tempted to assume that q.e n. has dropped out of the text after teei te: "thus is the judgment" (cf. 17:29), but this would leave the `e unexplained.

²⁴⁷

This is the only place where Greek krisiV is retained in the meditation. It certainly recalls John 3:19 and seems to retain the Johannine meaning of "sunderance," though the

smashing of jars is out of harmony with the almost automatic sunderance of John. The author's association of this Johannine idea with Heb. 4:12, the sundering by a two-edged sword, is ingenious. He was intimately familiar with the NT.

²⁴⁸

As in John, the judgment (sunderance) is past, at least for some, so here it is past— but for everyone (possibly this only means potentially, awaiting the acceptance or rejection by the individual).

²⁴⁹

As in Heb. 4:12 the sundering was accomplished by the Word of God, for which the comparison with a sword (Hebrews) has here become a keen metaphor: the Word is a sword.

²⁵⁰

The author explicitly plays with the personal (hypostatic) and the everyday meanings of Logos (though he does not use the Greek word): "came," line five, personal; "in the heart," line six, both; "speak it," line six, everyday; "sound," line seven, everyday; "soma," line eight, personal.

²⁵¹

The incarnation of the Word— or rather the ensomatosis. It may be significant that the auhor here avoids John's word sarx ( John 1: 14); it had taken on associations that made it repugnant to all Gnostics. However it does occur once later, 31:5— and in connection with the Son.

²⁵²

Cf. the scisma (split, division) which in the Fourth Gospel often occurs (John 7:43, 9:16, 10:19) as the reflex of the krisis (sunderance) which Jesus' word effects.

²⁵³

Here the literal jars of the simile 25:28-35 are suddenly allegorized. Jars— people (cf. Rom. 9:19-23).

²⁵⁴

Six predicates in three pairs, of which the second pair stands in chiastic order to the other pairs. If Rom. 9 is in the author's mind, then "emptied, overturned, divided" is equivalent to Paul's "vessels of wrath" (9:22) and "filled, supplied, purified" to his "vessels of mercy" (9:23).

²⁵⁵

The progress of thought here is completely enigmatic

because the meaning of maeit is unknown. It ought to allude in some way either to the jars or to the people whom they symbolize. But by what meaning of maeit? The predicate recalls Jer. 4:24, where the subjects are mountains and hills (in synonymous parallelism), hardly appropriate here.

²⁵⁶

She (with highly personal predicates here; cf. 17:15) is concerned because she is the power behind the humiliated "jars" or their personified essence. The sunderance (judgment) which takes place in the presence of the Word is her downfall.

²⁵⁷

EvVer G "tore her hair." The verb usually means "reap, mow," but Shenute once uses it parallel pw6 to tear, for "slash" (garments).

²⁵⁸

The sundering, judging Word is identical with the Gnosis which it brings.

²⁵⁹

Cf. 24:32-25:3. Planē as the antithesis of Gnosis is identical with ignorance, a-Gnosis, and cannot coexist with Gnosis.

²⁶⁰

5h; this word must here refer in some way to the "jars." She is empty because they are empty. Does 5h mean "manifestations"?

²⁶¹

Tautological with "empty."

²⁶²

Here the thought returns to 26:4, 5; that sentence is repeated but with a new subject— "truth" in place of "the Word." But Word, truth, and Gnosis are all equivalent.

²⁶³

Truth's 5h (manifestations?) must refer to the other class of "jars," the vessels of mercy or salvation. (If this is a faint allusion to the figure of the jars, there is no trace of it from this point on.)

²⁶⁴

They who were her own knew, recognized, and acknowledged truth. (Cf. John 8:32: "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" and 14:6 "I am . . . the truth.")

²⁶⁵

In acknowledging the truth they were "greeting" (em-

bracing[?] cf. 41:34) the Father. To know the truth is to know the Father. Cf. John 14:7, 10. Perhaps aopazomai in the sense of "pay homage, do obeisance" (as to a king); (cf. Windisch in TWB, I, 494, 496)— or even "to love" (ibid., p. 495).

²⁶⁶

Acknowledging the truth and "embracing" the Father brings oneness with the Father. Cf. John 17:21 particularly with the reading of א, etc., "that they may be one in us."

²⁶⁷

I take lines 26:34— 27:1 to be two marginal glosses which a later copyist incorporated into the text a few lines too early. Read: For everyone who loves the truth attaches himself to the Father's mouth (gloss: the truth is "the Father's mouth") by means of His tongue (gloss: "his tongue" means the Holy Spirit which attaches him— everyone who loves the truth— to the truth) as he receives the Holy Spirit....

²⁶⁸

The glossator (at 26:34) is not necessarily correct in his explanation. This use of "mouth" strikes me as a Hebraism: the mouth (peh) of Yahweh (also of men [Gen. 45:21] is often used, e.g., Exod. 17:1, Num. 14:41, Deut. 1:26) for an expression of his will, a command. (LXX usually rhma, word.) The Gnostic glossator may understand "truth" widely enough to include this meaning.

²⁶⁹

Probably means the dynamic mediary of the Father's "mouth" (of His will)— and in Christian terminology that is the Holy Spirit.

²⁷⁰

An unexpected turn of the sentence; one expects some term for human beings, not for celestial ones. Perhaps a reflection of the language of Col. 1:26, Eph. 3:9 f.

²⁷¹

EvVer E: "For who is it who exists if it is not the Father alone?" (F and G likewise.) If it means this, a startling ontological statement! But would it not need to be expanded and defended or at least discussed? It is not. Instead, the dependence of other beings (unfortunately introduced by the

enigmatic word maeit) upon the Father is discussed. Hence I raise the question whether the preposition a. (Sah. e.) is here otiose, as is usual after ei mhti, or whether it is be understood as a full preposition "by." (In Matt. 4:4 both S and B express "by bread alone" with nothing but this preposition.) The otiose preposition after ei mhti is not without exceptions (though it is present in the only other occurrence in the meditation, 19:16)— for instance, Acts 27:22 S, where the Beatty Manuscript (Thompson) and the British Museum Manuscript (Horner's a) omit it in "except the ship"; Horner included it, apparently on the sole authority of the Vatican Manuscript (Horner's 17). Pistis Sophia also sometimes omits it, e.g. at 98:25 and 185:1. It would certainly smooth the context to understand: "Who exists except by the Father alone?" Cf. I Cor. 8:6.

²⁷²

maeit as in 26:15 either personal beings or vividly personified; cf. the predicates in 27:12-23. Whatever the specific meaning of the word, it seems to refer to sentient beings, primarily men.

²⁷³

EvVer renders "emanations (?)" as if 5h, but here it is 5 only, as EvVer index notes. I prefer to consider it the known noun "gift" with pl. indef. Article.

²⁷⁴

Probably for teleioV in the sense of adult (cf. Eph. 4:13 S, Heb. 5:14 S).

²⁷⁵

When? Either (a) before they existed or (b) before they received definitive being by Gnosis (revelation of the Father). But (a) is all too tautological, hence probably (b).

²⁷⁶

Either "form" and "name" are both necessary to existence— or they are identical with each other and then are terms for true existence itself.

²⁷⁷

Not in the text but supplied to indicate the probability that the antecedent to the relative pronoun is not just "name,"

but both "form" and "name." Note how both are again used together in 27:28-29.

²⁷⁸

formh for morfh seems to betray knowledge of Latin (forma). See Introduction. "Form" occurs only on this one page, twice spelled correctly in Greek (27:17, 28).* Perhaps, after all, "form" and "name" are two different stages of being. Mere existence without the light would seem to be an existence in form only; while to exist with a God-given "name" in addition to one's "form" may be the author's formula for true existence. (*The same curious form formh occurs in another writing of the Codex Jung (Treatise on the Three Natures); see Labib, Plate 26, line 12.) After 27:15-19 one expects past tense here, but the verbs are conditionalis and I present. (Are the "they"' of 27:20-23 not the same as the subject of 27:15-19? If not, who?)

²⁷⁹

n. probably preposition of instrument (better: 6n) not the sign of the genitive (against EvVer G), because the preceding noun, without any article, is really part of a compound verb which means "were formed by. . . ." (Cf. the role of Sophia at creation in the OT wisdom-speculation, Prov. 8:22-30; Ecclus. 1:1-9; 24:3 f., 9; Sap. 8:3; 9:4, 9.)

²⁸⁰

Or him; but could this be said of those who are described in 27:11-19?

²⁸¹

maeit Apparently referring back to the beings who have "form" (but not "name"?).

²⁸²

Evidently "causes to appear" (creates?).

²⁸³

Giving both provisional and definitive existence.

²⁸⁴

The causative sense is doubly expressed in the Coptic.

²⁸⁵

After 27:29-30 the plural is unexpected, though possibly implied in "whomsoever" of 27:27.

²⁸⁶

Logically, it would seem that the Coptic translator has reversed the subject and the predicate nominative of the Greek.

"Become" must here mean "come to full being" which occurs only with the advent of Gnosis.

²⁸⁷

Exactly repeats the phrase of 27:32 and must have the same meaning.

²⁸⁸

The Father; cf. 27:26.

²⁸⁹

More freely: before any things are revealed.

²⁹⁰

Potential product of creation.

²⁹¹

The ambiguous verb r-; might also mean "is," but this would contradict 27:35.

²⁹²

Probably the Greek philosophical name for God, which also occurs in LXX Exod. 3:14.

²⁹³

Confusion of numbers; the sentence began in the plural (see 6n- abal in Ne [?] 28:12, 13).

²⁹⁴

Creatio ex nihilo in a Gnostic writing!

²⁹⁵

Does this correspond to Bultmann's formulation of a basic assumption of John: "Das Woher entspricht dem Wohin" (a man's whence corresponds to his whither)?

²⁹⁶

An illegible verb, apparently first person sing. of II present. It seems to read: n.n.ei6teah corrected to einteah (?). Presumably the verb contained another boast of (illusory) existence.

²⁹⁷

John 5:24 likewise implies that he who merely vegetated without "the word" (and consequently without him who sent the bearer of the word) was "in death" (cf. I John 3:14 "remains in death" meaning "was not at all") and does not "go over into life" ("also will not be") except by hearing and accepting the word of revelation. The present passage is a more abstract statement of the same idea— and more paradoxical because it only tacitly implies the indispensable condition for acquiring life.

²⁹⁸

Evidendy the Father, though last mentioned in 28:12.

-117-

were killing their neighbors, for they were soiled with 29:25 their blood—until the time when are wont to wake up they who are wont to go through all these things. They are not wont to see³⁰⁸ anything, these who were in the midst 29:30 of all these troubles, for they were nothings. Like this³⁰⁹ (way) is the way of those who have cast a-Gnosis forth from 29:35 themselves(?): like the sleep³¹⁰ which they are not wont to consider anything, neither are they wont to consider its³¹¹ 30:1 matters³¹² (works? events?) as real things, but are wont to leave them behind like a dream in the night, 30:5 and to esteem the Gnosis of the Father more than the light.³¹³ Thus has everyone done, sleeping, in the time when he was a-Gnostic; 30:10 and this is the manner of his straightening up as (if) he awakened.

A Beatitude

Congratulations³¹⁴ to the man who has returned³¹⁵ to himself and awakened, and blessed 30:15 is He³¹⁶ who has opened³¹⁷

-118-

speech for inauthentic existence, and probably inclusive of "dreams."

³¹¹

The suffix is masculine; grammatically it ought to refer to "sleep" (29:35, masc.), but logically (since this is in the application of the parable) it ought to refer to a-Gnosis (29:34, fem.). There is here either a confusion of genders (as at 22:37 with Gnosis) or another of the frequent confusions of number. That is, it might mean "his" and refer to any individual among the "those" of 29:33. I prefer the former because of the next word.

³¹²

Or "works" or "events." 6wb is a chameleon word like Latin res or Greek skeuoV.

³¹³

EvVer F and E "in proportion to" (as they do the light?). G. "für das Licht . . . erachten" (consider . . . to be the light). Perhaps it is simply the ε of comparison: "more than the light"— i.e. as the awakened dreamer does the light of day, only more so (because the awakened Gnostic has the greater light of Gnosis).

³¹⁴

Preceded by the conjunction "and," indicating that this is connected with the foregoing, but in English idiom it would be clumsy to retain it. Perhaps the Greek original both here and in 30:14 had makarios, which the Coptic translator retained only the second time.

³¹⁵

Cf. 22:18, 21:5. The Coptic suffix is somewhat ambiguous and could be otiose (as in a Greek deponent) meaning merely "turn." I take it to be an interpretative nonfigurative equivalent of the figurative "awakened."

³¹⁶

The Father, or Jesus.

³¹⁷

e., since used with Perf. I (relative form) here (and with object at 20:16) cannot be the qualitative. EvVer p. 122 is in error in equating this form with the Sah. qualitative form and in contradiction with its own renderings. In the dialect of the meditation the infinitive is ouhn (as in Acts of

Paul); the unused qualitative may have been ouen, the reverse of Manichaean Psalm-Book.

³¹⁸

Probably in the figurative sense of John 9:39-41.

³¹⁹

A figure for the man not yet waked from illusory existence.

³²⁰

The Spirit.

³²¹

Another sudden shift of number— the many of whom the one of the preceding description is representative.

³²²

Probably hendiadys with Gnosis: the Father is known only through the revealing of the Son.

³²³

Whom? One might think the Spirit— then one would understand "him" in 29 and 30 to mean "himself"— but a Spirit that could be seen, heard, tasted, and smelled is impossible both to the Gnostic view and to the orthodox. "Him" must be "the Son" of 30:26; then the "he" of 30:28 must be the Spirit.

³²⁴

Where four verbs have alluded to four senses one expects the fifth to do the same. (This verb is usually more violent— seize, detain— but the notion of contact is certainly also implied.) Cf. I John 1:1-3, where at least three senses are also mentioned with a soteriological object.

³²⁵

This specific object coming after four repetitions of an enigmatic "him" is confusing. But perhaps in the Greek original there were five verbs with a common object named only the last time. I understand: "When they had seen and heard (the Son), he (the Spirit) permitted them to taste and smell and lay hold of the Beloved Son."

³²⁶

Cf. John 20:22.

³²⁷

Cf. John 6:38-40. In John the will of the Father for Jesus is that he speak the saving word and bring it to fruition; similarly here.

³²⁸

Cf. John 1: 12 in its reference to 1: 5 and 1:9.

-123-

self-contained clause by assuming that the indefinite article ou. has dropped out before the predicate noun "unseizability."

³³⁴

Or "incorruption," or "imperishability." Even if this is a general proposition, it is made apropos of 31:5-7. Paradoxical as "indestructible flesh" is, the idea is possible in either of two ways: (1) divine fiat made an exception in the case of Jesus' flesh (so Acts 2:31— cf. 2:27— in somewhat strained exegesis of Ps. 16: 10) or (2) "flesh" is used in an unreal sense for "substance" (implying that its material was either "spirit" or "soul"). The latter idea (specifically alluding to a flesh considered to be not humana, but spiritalis or animalis or siderea—starry— or imaginaria) is ascribed not to Valentinus himself but to "quendam ex Vatentini factione" by Tertullian in De Carne Christi XV. If our passage is an early form of the latter idea, it is nevertheless so veiled that it can be taken in the sense of (1) — and perhaps was intended to be.

³³⁵

By hand or by mind? Probably intentionally ambiguous— yes, by hand (referring to 31:7) — yes, by mind (explaining "not see" and "not recognize" in 31:2, 3).

³³⁶

Probably in the biblical sense of "eschatological," but pertaining to "realized" present eschatology, not to the futuristic eschatology of apocalypticism.

³³⁷

Here not the personal Logos (the incarnate Word is the subject of the verb) but the communicating, light-and-lifebringing message of the Father as in John 17:14.

³³⁸

Perhaps, rather, recollection (the opposite of forgetting) if one might combine 5.meu (but the other four nouns seem to demand the everyday meaning of 5: gave). Bohairic, however, uses the simple noun to mean "memory, reminder" (Crum, 200a); perhaps it is only accident that the same usage is not yet booked for A².

-127-

LXX-expression for "defeat, bring low." EvVer G, erledigt— "finished them off"— is good, though the two verbs together still seem to be a hysteron-proteron.

³⁴⁶

maeit Here clearly "path, way." Cf. John 14:6.

³⁴⁷

Cf. 17:3.

³⁴⁸

So, if the allusion is to drunkenness. But it may also mean "trembling" or "swaying."

³⁴⁹

A clumsy English word to show that the Coptic word behind it is the abstract negative of the first word in 31:35. Sacrificing the etymology one would choose "purity" here.

³⁵⁰

Emphatic in the Coptic.

³⁵¹

The definite article with both "shepherd" and "ninetynine" indicates that a reference is being made to a context with which the reader is assumed to be familiar, evidently Matt. 18:12-14 (while the identification of the parable's shepherd with Jesus may be due to a mental conflation with John 10, particularly vss. 11 and 14).

³⁵²

Not the ninety-nine sheep (as sheep they are forgotten in the author's zeal for learned interpretation of the number itself).

³⁵³

The queer "exegesis" extending from 31:4-17 rests upon a folk custom, once universal in Latin-speaking lands, of counting on the fingers-not the naïve one-to-ten finger counting of the primitives and of small children, but an ingenious system by which the two hands at rest (i.e. without making any second or third gesture) could indicate to a single glance any number from 1 to 9,999. The units were made by nine positions of the little finger and the two adjacent fingers of the left hand (fingers five, four, three in piano nomenclature), the tens by nine positions of the index finger and thumb of the left hand, the hundreds by thumb and index finger of the right hand and the thousands by the remaining three fingers of the right hand. Hence the greatest shift in the

whole system lay between ninety-nine and one hundred. In no other case could the addition or subtraction of a mere one change the whole digital gesture from one hand to the other. But by a tradition from very ancient superstition the left hand was "sinister," the right hand favorable, not merely in the minds of Gnostics but in those of all Greeks and Romans and of most peoples. Renatus Massuet (d. 1716) gave the correct interpretation to this matter in connection with an allusion in Ireneus ("they avoid the place of ninety-nine, i.e. the lack— a type of the left hand— but endeavor to secure one more, which when added to the ninety and nine, has the effect of changing their reckoning to the right hand." Iren. 1.16.2— see Massuet note 2 in Migne Pat. G. 7, pt. 1, col. 633.) A thousand years earlier Beda had explained the whole system in De loquela per gestum digitorum et temporum ratione libellus and recognized that Jerome in his commentary on Matt. 13 had used this system in just as strange a way to "explain" the numbers one hundred, sixty, and thirty. On the whole subject fascinating details are offered by Karl Menninger, Zahlwort und Ziffer, pp. 140 ff.

³⁵⁴

Quite literally, fingers five, four, three, of the left hand lie folded over the palm, thus holding "nine," while the index finger touches the root of the thumb, thus holding "ninety"— and the whole left hand holding "ninety-nine," the highest number it can.

³⁵⁵

The next higher number is, of course, one hundred. But all the hundreds are gestures of the index and thumb of the right hand. Just as in our system the decimal place of one hundred moves over one place to the left, from ninety-nine, so here, only much more dramatically, for it moves from the unlucky left hand to the lucky right.

³⁵⁶

I take this to be a pedantic interpolation, probably a

marginal note in an ancestor of our papyrus, correct enough but hardly necessary.

³⁵⁷

Before this word I omit an "and." In the Coptic text, I take it to be the otiose auw at the beginning of an apodosis, untranslatable like the kai which it imitates (see Crum, 20a).

³⁵⁸

The gesture (having no odd units or tens) is made by the right hand alone. The end of the index finger touches the first joint of the thumb, making a circle. Either this gesture itself or the meaning behind it signifies God to the author. If the gesture itself is guiding his thought, then perhaps he is thinking of its circular form— the circle is perfection, and God is all perfection. Against this interpretation stands the fact, which must have been more obvious to the author than to us, that the gesture for four hundred would have been more apt (here the tip of the index joins the tip of the thumb). Going back to the one-hundred gesture itself we find that it strongly suggests the letter r, which in Greek— and by loan also in Coptic— is the symbol for one hundred, but how does r signify God or Father? Probably it is the meaning behind the gesture (coupled with the shift of hands) that signifies God. He is the antithesis of all lack, though it be but the lack of the number one; he is the seat of all good, the antithesis of the threatening left hand.

³⁵⁹

The hands', or the fingers'.

³⁶⁰

The Coptic translator wrote pou.6rau, "their voice" or "their sound"— but he has been speaking of a soundless gesture. Had he written "its sound," one might speculate on some resemblance between the sound of one hundred (ekaton) and some Greek word meaning Father or God. Since he wrote "their," I assume that he read fwno and rendered it mechanically with the commonest Coptic equivalent, not reflecting that fwno also means "language" (as the translator of the variant reading las— "tongue"— to Boh. I Cor. 14:10 clearly

saw) and could mean only that here. It is the number language of the fingers that he means.

³⁶¹

The interpolator (correctly) identifies the somewhat vague "him" of 32:16.

The sheep that strayed, by Ireneus' testimony, fascinated the Gnostics. See Iren. I.8.4, I.16.1, II.24.6, inter alia. They saw that straying sheep as the symbol both of man's erring in ignorance and of Sophia's falling into her precosmic error— for the two are ultimately one. (Planē, planh, is the substantive of plana + sqai which means "stray"— cf. planet— before it means "err" in figurative ways; see notes to 17:15). To a reader of Ireneus, the astonishing thing in our present passage is that it contains no detectable allusion to the Sophia myth. Did Valentinus adopt that myth only at a later date? Cf. Manichaean Psalm-Book 193:26, where Jesus is called: "The shepherd of the sheep that wanders in the desert of this world."

³⁶²

An allusion to one sheep parable draws another after it, and in both cases an identification is made which the Gospels do not make: Jesus is himself the one who acts for the sheep. The biblical source of this second allusion is composite: Matt. 12:11 and John 5:17. (Note here as in 31:35, "the sheep," "the pit"— i.e. the ones known from Matthew.)

³⁶³

Literally "caused to live," which doubtless means, in keeping with its origin in Matthew, "saved the life." But of course it can also mean "restore to life, resurrect" (cf. Manichaean Psalm-Book, 194:24 and 196:30, unmistakably). It has the same ambiguity as zwopoie in John 5:21 and elsewhere. Perhaps the reader was intended to hear both meanings here, one within the parable, one in its application.

³⁶⁴

This unexpected second person pl. testifies that the meditation is no literal soliloquy but is addressed to others. In fact the rest of this page and all of the next sound like a

sermon— full of imperatives and second person pl. pronouns. These pages, may actually be an excerpt from an earlier sermon of the author.

³⁶⁵

Coptic and Hebrew agree in regarding the heart, not the brain, as the organ of thought.

³⁶⁶

Here a whole line plus one word (32:38-39) dropped out of the text by homoioteleuton (n-.6ht to n-.6ht) as the scribe realized before he finished the page. So he drew a sign that looks like a closed pair of shears under line 37, copied the missing words, and placed matching reference and footnote signs in the margin to indicate where they belong. See EvVer, p. 58.

³⁶⁷

Iren. I.13.7 speaks ironically of the "children of Gnosis" tkna thV gnwsewV. His irony often takes the form of using his opponents' terminology sarcastically. See Sagnard, La Gnose Valentinienne et le témoignage de Saint Irénée, pp. 266-91.

³⁶⁸

Here the scribe writes inconsistently p.sabbaton, which he had just written y.abbaton (32:18).

³⁶⁹

In John 5:17 Father and Son are said to be working "until now," i.e. right through the Sabbath. The meditation seems to be saying the same thing by letting "salvation" be that which is common to Father and to Son, and saying that salvation cannot be idle on the Sabbath.

³⁷⁰

A symbol for heavenly bliss which may have an independent Gnostic history but can also be derived from biblical conceptions— Rev. 21:25, which certainly owes something to the metaphors of Isa. 60:19 f.; cf. IV Esdras (V Esra in German terminology) 2:35: "for everlasting light will shine upon you forever. Flee from the shadow of this world. . . ."

³⁷¹

Almost a quotation of Rev. 21:25. EvVer, p. 57 refers to Manichaean Psalm-Book 190:14 (misprinted 190:24): "Amen, perfect day, wherein there is no night."

³⁷²

Cf. Manichaean Psalm-Book 193:19 (but as an epithet of Christ, not of the believer as here): "The perfect day of Light, that [sc. day] of the sun that does not set."

³⁷³

4e`e here and in 32:35 "speak" is certainly imperative in view of the constant imperatives of 33, as Schenke clearly saw. (EvVer before pp. 33-36 were available regarded both words as resumptive infinitives completing the possibly incomplete sentence begun in 31:26.)

³⁷⁴

An unexpected turn of the sentence, for which neither the NT nor the meditation prepares us. (I Thess. 5:5 [5:8] with sons of light," "sons of the day" comes closest.) That this is a figurative overstatement, however, is suggested by the parallel clause "in you dwells the light": "Day" and "light" are surely equivalents, and the second statement is the more sober one for the overenthusiastic first statement.

³⁷⁵

Here again planē is not personal. Cf. 31:25.

³⁷⁶

The lines 32:38-39 are transposed into their proper place within 32:23. The lacuna of four pages in EvVer is now fortunately filled by the publication of Pahor Labib, Coptic Gnostic Papyri in the Coptic Museum at Old Cairo, Vol. I. The missing pages are Plates 9, 10, 6, 5 (in that order) in that volume, as was first recognized by Hans-Martin Schenke who published a first translation of their contents in Theologische Literaturzeitung, 83, no. 7, (July, 1958). Though I frequently differ from his translation, I gratefully acknowledge the aid which his insight has been in understanding these pages not hitherto published in English.

³⁷⁷

This whole page is dominated by the imperative (second person plural), continuing the sermonic tone of the previous page. Moreover on the face of it 33:1-8 is full of ethical imperatives, astonishing in a Gnostic work, for the Gnostics are generally held to have been devoid of ethical

concern. However these imperatives may be partly or wholly metaphorical expressions for rescuing men with the saving knowledge of salvation— exhortations to missionary zeal. Even so, missionary zeal is rooted in ethical concern for others, the ultimate concern which motivates and activates all mediate concerns for others.

³⁷⁸

Cf. Mark 1:41 and parallels, Acts 4:30.

³⁷⁹

Cf. Rom. 12:20, John 21:15, Matt. 25:35, 37.

³⁸⁰

Cf. for the whole clause, Matt. 11:28.

³⁸¹

Cf. John 5:6, 8.

³⁸²

Cf. Rom. 13:11 but also Mark 5:39, 41.

³⁸³

Literally "plucks out" or "draws out" sc. of danger or trouble. Observe that the sheep in the pit, which introduced this whole section, was rescued by being drawn up from the pit, 32:20-22 (two different Coptic verbs, which may represent the same Greek verb, are used; in any case, there seems to be an association of ideas).

³⁸⁴

Cf. II Cor. 12:9 (read without mou "my" as in B, ϐ^*, D^*, F, G, etc.)

³⁸⁵

I read r-.5.6e, literally "does this way."

³⁸⁶

Cf. II John 8. On the syntax see note to 42:2. The last letter, incomplete, looks like n, but it may be ani (followed by a now missing n): mmen or m.mei[n] , in either case an unparalleled spelling of m-.min. The first three letters of the next line make no sense, but they are the last syllable of this word, spelled correctly: min, as if the last syllable on 33:11 had been canceled, but the photograph shows no sign of cancelation.

³⁸⁷

Or: persons, but the context seems to favor "things."

³⁸⁸

Only the first letter of the verb was written, but kw must have been intended. (So also Schenke.)

³⁸⁹

swte (in theological language often "redeem") in its literal sense "buy back." The object is "them," meaning

"things," 33:13, and the "things" evidently are earthly possessions. The author is alluding to Luke 12:33 f. (as the continuing allusions in the next lines demonstrate) and urging that the injunction, once acted upon, be not reversed. The selling or buying need not, of course, be meant literally, but may be meant of inner aloofness, as in Paul's words, I Cor. 7:31 within 7:29-31. ( Schenke takes swte to be used for swt "return, repeat" as at 38:2. Crum's examples speak against this interpretation because they all add a complementary infinitive immediately after e., while here arau "them" or "to them" intervenes.)

³⁹⁰

Literally "to eat them." But Coptic uses "eat" in some strange metaphorical senses (e.g., "eat the heart"— repent). Crum, 478b offers "submit to" as one, citing "eat the pains of martyrdom" and "eat the rod" (submit to being beaten).

³⁹¹

The connection in thought with the preceding would be a complete riddle if there were no key. But there is: the context of Luke 12. Having alluded to Luke 12:33a without quoting, he goes on to allude to the treasures in heaven of Luke 12:33b, still without quoting; but in doing so the more familiar Matthean wording with "moth and rust(?)" comes into his mind. In the Coptic versions of Matt. 6:19, 20 both of the destroyers, "moth and brōsis," have always been understood to be entomological. Bohairic makes the two nouns into a nice play on words t.6oli nem t.`oli: (t-holi nem t-joli). Sahidic uses its forms of the same two words, but in reverse order: t.`ooles mn- q.oole. Both words mean "moth"; no distinction is known. Might one of them mean moth larva? We also do not distinguish closely between them in common speech.

Just what the evangelists meant by brōsis (literally "eating") we can only surmise. Since the Old Latin (all except the African k) through Jerome and King James we have

assumed that it meant "rust." But see Bauer A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and the marginal note of RSV— "or worm."

³⁹²

r-3nt, while a biblical word (Acts 12:23), is used by neither of the major Coptic translations in Matt. 6:19f. "Worm" seems to be a better choice. In popular speech it could perfectly well include larvae and all wormlike creatures. It suggests that there once was a Subakhmimic translation of Matthew and that our translator knew it. (The only book of the Bible published in this dialect is John. I have not heard of others unpublished. The new Coptic Gospel of Thomas quotes Matt. 6:20 using "moth" and "worm," but in Sahidic, not Subakhmimic; see Labib 94:20 ff.)

³⁹³

Presumably: earthly treasure, collectively identical with "them" 33:15 and "things" 33:13. (One could equally well render it "him"— but whom? "The devil" of 33:20? A pronoun before its antecedent noun is ever mentioned is just as unlikely in Coptic as in English.)

³⁹⁴

Now we can paraphrase 33:15-18: Do not buy back your earthly possessions to become victims to them. Do not be eaten by "moth or worm" as (according to the Gospels) you and yours would be if you did buy them back. Do not do it, for you have already rejected earthly treasure.

³⁹⁵

Or against yourselves in being (oei n-) a place.

³⁹⁶

Cf. Eph. 4:27: "Neither give place to the devil." This is the sole occurrence of the devil in the meditation. Perhaps Matt. 12:43-45 (Luke 11:24-26) is also in mind.

³⁹⁷

Probably a pejorative allusion to earthly treasures.

³⁹⁸

The devil.

³⁹⁹

so6e is so used in Deut. 19:16 Sah. This looks very much as if the Greek text contained diabolh (false accusation, slander) in a word play on diaboloV— accuser, slanderer, devil.

⁴⁰⁰

The devil. Or "it" (an accusation). The ultimate

meaning is the same: the devil and an empty accusation have no substance.

⁴⁰¹

A conjectural translation. at.6ep is booked by Crum, 694a only as an adverb in the equivalent of the Greek legal phrase, "without any ambiguity, lawsuit, or judgment." Here it has the article either as a noun (nonsuit?) or as a substantivized adjective describing him who does not go to law. I take it in the latter sense because it occurs again in 33:28, this time as a predicate adjective parallel to the Greek adjective "righteous" in 33:29. (Schenke assumes that it stands for anomoV, lawless or wicked, but so far as I have checked, the biblical versions always transliterate anomoV.) For the thought cf. Luke 12:58— again that twelfth chapter of Luke l (Cf. above, notes on 33:15-18, Matt. 7:1 (?), and I Cor. 6:1 ff.)

⁴⁰²

The devil. Or "it" (the false accusation which is the likeness of the devil).

⁴⁰³

I.e., a judgment by a human court exonerating the intended victim.

⁴⁰⁴

Supplied to indicate that in my judgment "verdict" is the subject of an elliptical sentence, not the alternative object of "hurt." (The Coptic allows either possibility.)

⁴⁰⁵

Literally "one." Conceivably the reference goes clear back to "the devil." I take it to refer to the one "who does not sue" of 33:22.

⁴⁰⁶

Perhaps too fanciful. The sentence reads word for word: "for that one is doing his (own) works."

⁴⁰⁷

In this legal context one is tempted to translate in a Pauline fashion: "a vindicated one is he"— i.e. though he does not sue, he is already vindicated before the divine tribunal. But if 33:30 is intended to support the assertion of 33:29, then it is better to understand it in the sense of the Psalms: righteous.

⁴⁰⁸

6n- stands for a great variety of Greek prepositions,

most common for en "in," but also for eiV "into, in, for." (Cf. the Greek of III John 5 and the Bohairic translation of it.)

⁴⁰⁹

Cf. Matt. 7:21; 12:50; 21:31.

⁴¹⁰

Cf. I John 4:4, John 8:47.

⁴¹¹

Cf. Luke 6:35b.

⁴¹²

Cf. Rom. 12:2.

⁴¹³

The unexpected pluperfect is hard to account for; perhaps it implies the Father's foreknowledge of those who were to be his.

⁴¹⁴

Or "are"; the verb is only implied. I choose "were" because the next statement appears to refer to people beyond the present care of the readers— the deceased.

⁴¹⁵

ou.tww6, a new "inner plural" to ou.ta6.

⁴¹⁶

Not quite a quotation of Matt. 7:16, but certainly an allusion to it, especially in the Bohairic form.

⁴¹⁷

Here begins Plate 10, Coptic Gnostic Papyri, Labib.

⁴¹⁸

This whole passage seems to be a development of II Cor. 2:14-16. The conception occurs later in the Talmud, "balm of life, balm of death" (see Strack-Billerbeck, III.498), is frequent in the Manichaean Psalm-Book, even applied to an individual— "Thomas, the sweet smell that went to India" 194:13 (see the Index, under stai), and very common in Mandean (see Lidzbarski, Ginzā, Index, under "Duft").

⁴¹⁹

Cf. 11 Cor. 2:14b.

⁴²⁰

Literally "if," but just as ei in the NT may be an "if" implying no doubt (see Matt. 6:30, 7:11, Rom. 6:8, etc.; the Sahidic renders all of these by "if") and equivalent to "since," so it seems to be here. Human life in this world is always mingled with matter.

⁴²¹

This is the dissolution of the heavenly gift (the "aroma," the selves of heavenly origin) from matter— evidently death. Cf. 33:35 ff., for the sake of which this discussion was begun.

-151-