Pamela Reaves: Gnosis in Alexandria: A Study in Ancient Christian Social Settings and Intra-Group Dynamics

In his recent study, The Gnostics, David Brakke encourages greater attention to "real social and religious distinctions among ancient Christians" (15). What can we discern about social arrangements and interactions among Christians beyond the level of discourse? Focusing on second- and early third-century Alexandria, this paper extends the efforts of Brakke and others by reconstructing likely facets of the social contexts in which ancient Christians developed and debated their diverse perspectives and practices. In this paper, I am especially interested in closely connected texts and traditions, emerging in or near Alexandria, that both highlight gnosis as a key aspect of Christian social identity and offer glimpses of intra-Christian interactions, including disputes; these sources of evidence include the writings of Clement of Alexandria and Testimony of Truth (NHC IX,3). My attention to social setting is further informed by the interests and practices of ancient philosophical schools as well as by the Alexandrian intellectual milieu. I also examine evidence of ancient Christian rituals as significant for social identity. To conclude, I consider how firmer boundaries among Christian groups evolved over time, with attention to divergent perspectives on martyrdom as one likely factor. My paper thus illuminates certain complex social dynamics behind the differences that are more simply cast as "orthodoxy" and "heresy" in ancient Christian discourse.

Sara Parvis - Irenaeus, women and tradition

Irenaeus has been invoked from a feminist perspective both as a villain and as a hero in his views on women. On the one hand, he rejects and even laughs at a number of female-centred and female-friendly myths and practices among different Gnostic sects; on the other, women are at the centre of his concerns- he sees Mary as recapitulating Eve and reversing her disobedience, just as Christ recapitulates and reverses Adam’s.

In this paper, I will look at another aspect of Irenaeus’ treatment of women- his tacit but sympathetic addressing of their criticisms of mainstream Christianity within Against the Heresies. I will look at the ways he defends an active role for women within the Christian tradition, above all by his argument that right reading of Scripture demands a space in the church for women prophets. 

Andreas Merkt - Before the Birth of Purgatory

Thirty years after Jacques LeGoff published his famous “La Naissance du Purgatoire” it is time to tackle anew the questions when, how and why the idea of a temporary and purifying suffering in the afterlife came into being. Since 1981 a series of important studies have been published suggesting a birth of this notion long before the high middle ages (Brown 1997, Bremmer 2002, Merkt 2005, Moreira 2010). At least its “prenatal” development seems to start as early as the second century. 

This lecture tries to tie up lose ends of this research. Special emphasis will be laid on the theological premises and historical conditions which helped to shape the idea. The paper will examine how, positively or negatively, purgatory correlates with Gnosticism, apocalypticism, and popular religion. It will also be compared with other postmortal destinations such as Abraham’s bosom, paradise, and Hades.

Adam Ployd - Tres Unum Sunt: The Johannine Comma in Cyprian of Carthage

This study examines the way in which Cyprian deploys the Johannine comma in his ecclesiological disputes. Avoiding questions of the authenticity or origin of the comma, this study looks at the rhetorical function of the comma as part of a larger effort to shape and enforce the boundaries of communal church identity. Two texts are of particular interest: unit. eccl. 6 and ep. 73. Both of these texts promote the unity of the one true church in the face of laxist and rigorist opposition, respectively. Both texts also deploy the Johannine comma within the context of anti-heretical polemics that rhetorically align the opposing parties with the most “other” groups of Gnostics, Marcionites, et alia. Thus, I argue, the Johannine comma functions to link doctrinal orthodoxy with disciplinary adherence, demonstrating that any notion of a distinction between the realms of proper belief and proper practice are alien from the thought of Cyprian. Moreover, the way in which Cyprian incorporates the comma into his struggle for community cohesion suggests that, in the mid-third century, the church had so defined itself over and against “heresies” of one kind or another, that such doctrinal language represented the most obvious and natural mode for defending the boundaries of church unity and identity, even in more internecine conflict. Thus, Cyprian appeals to the comma not so much as a reflection on the Trinitarian nature of the church but simply as a rhetorical strategy to define those who would break the unity of the church as necessarily heretical and aligned not with the true faith of the church but with the church’s predefined doctrinal enemies. 

Marek Starowieyski - La figure de St. Paul dans la litterature es aprpcryphe

     Les apocryphes qui parlent de St.Paul constituent un’ensemble assez hétérogène de point de vue littéraire et doctrinaire. Il existent trois groupes d’apocryphes liés avec l’Apôtre: les actes (de St.Paul et de ses compagnons – la groupe la plus riche), les lettres et les apocalypses (orthodoxes et gnostiques). Tous ces ouvrages présentent la figure de l’Apôtre d’une manière positive,même elogieuse. A côté de ces ouvrages nous trouvons aussi des apocryphes qui le présentent d’une manière négative, commençant par les Pseudoclémentines et ensuite Ps.Abdias, le Livre du cocq et d’autres.

     La présentation de ces différents opinions sur St.Paul dans les apocryphes constitue le sujet de cette communication.  

Thomas O'Loughlin: The Proto-evangelium of James: A case of gospel harmonisation in the second century

The Proto-evangelium of James [PEJ] is usually only considered in relation to its marian themes. However, over the past 20 years there had been a growing tendency among scholars (e.g. W.L. Petersen in New Testament Studies 36(1990)512-34, the late G. Stanton in many places after that, J.H. Wood in NTS 51(2005)579-95, and S. Gathercole in NTS 57(2010)114-44) to speculate on the existence of gospel harmony – or some text effecting a harmony – that was in use before Justin, or even before the Gospel of Thomas, that would explain some of the vagaries of gospel transmission / reception in the second century This paper will argue that in the PEJ we have a text that is far more clearly a harmony, for the infancy narratives, than any other text from the period. If this is accepted, it has several implications for how we view the reception and use of the four gospels in the second century:

1. We can see the issues that were seen as in need of exegesis/explanation in the early to mid-second century from the way that the harmonisation in PEJ is carried out (this is important even if one does not accept that a harmony qua tale existed).
2. We can see the forms an actual act of harmonisation in the second century took, which can help clarify the notion of harmony used for studies of texts such as the Gospel of Thomas, and as a background to Justin and Tatian.
3. We have in the act of harmonisation a test case for the notion of ‘secondary orality’ which can clarify the value of that notion in studying the reception of the gospels in the second century.

We see some of the problems that ‘the one gospel in four gospels’ caused decades before that became an explicit issue in Irenaeus.

Erin Evans: From Saving Grace to Chains of Bondage: Astrology in the Pistis Sophia

The modern concepts of astronomy and astrology went hand in hand in the ancient world, with the efficacy of the latter aspect unquestioned in view of what appeared to be incontrovertible, scientific evidence of its effects.  Although accepted as a natural force with the potential for positive or negative consequences in much of Greco-Roman society, certain groups of early Christian Gnostics with a less positive view of the world and its creator began to view the powers of fate as chains forged by evil which must be broken to achieve salvation. 

The Pistis Sophia, one of the longest and most complex Coptic Gnostic documents, presents a unique look at the synthesis of technical Greek concepts of astrology, the planets, and Gnostic mythology.  The several documents which the manuscript contains portray the development of the group’s views of astrology—the oldest texts presenting fate with the potential for good and holding more traditional Greek views of the planetary natures, with the latest texts coming more into line with the wholly negative view of the Gnostics and the need to break free of its hold on the human soul.

This paper will follow these developments, both examining the differing technical theories propounded in the early and late stages, and analysing the doctrinal elements that led to this dramatic turnaround.  This gradual antagonizing of the forces of fate—powers whose existence was never questioned, only demonised—was part of the wider programme of the texts’ users that increasingly required a separation from the norms of the society in which they arose.

Jonathan Cahana: Androgyne or Undrogyne? Queering the Gnostic Myth

The androgyne, whether as a symbol, as a concept, or as a bodily reality, appears to be employed in different and sometimes apparently contradicting ways within gnostic discourse. On the one hand, it is repeatedly stressed that the divine Barbelo herself, the most high active deity, is a "mother-father" and a "thrice named androgyne," (Apocryphon of John 4.29-5.20) but on the other, we learn that Ialdabaoth, the evil material creator himself, is an "androgyne" as well (Hypostasis of the Archons 94.8-19). On the one hand, the heavenly father is an androgyne (Gospel of the Egyptians 51-52) and Adam longs for   his ungendered days, when s/he was higher than the creator god (Apocalypse of Adam 64.5-65.25), and on the other, Mary Magdalene is encouraged to become male (Gospel of Thomas 114) while the Foreigner finds the "masculine female virgin" within him(?)self (Allogenes 59.1-4). This apparent discrepancy would serve as the focus of this paper, which aims at explaining the complex use of the concept of the queered gender in Gnostic myth. I will attempt to show that gnostic "androgyny,"  far from being a ratification of Greco-Roman discourse (as has been sometimes suggested), is actually a subversion of this very discourse, constructed so as to reify the Gnostic disapproval of an important Greco-Roman cultural premise – that one which has been aptly defined by David Halperin as "the ancients' deeply felt and somewhat anxiously defended sense of congruence between a person's gender, sexual practices, and social identity."

Scott Moringiello: “The Pneumatikos as Scriptural Authority: Irenaeus’s reading of 1 Cor. 2:15”

Toward the end of book four of the Adversus Haereses, Irenaeus offers a sustained exegesis of 1 Cor. 2:15 where Paul says that the spiritual man – the pneumatikos – judges all and is himself judged by no one. In AH IV.33 we find, I shall argue, two things. First the chapter is a précis of Ireaneus’s argument of the AH as a whole. Second, Irenaeus’s exegesis of 1 Cor. 2:15 points to a central argument of the AH, namely that the true disciple of Christ is the one who interprets scripture correctly. In fact, we could go so far as to say that the true disciple becomes an alter Christus who is like Christ because he can judge. My argument will proceed in three stages. First, I will flag those parts of 1 Cor. 2 particularly important to Irenaeus’s argument. Second, I will point to the Tripartite Tractate, a Valentinian text that represents the kind of exegesis of f 1 Cor. 2:15 that Irenaeus finds objectionable. After these two discussions, I will turn to the AH IV.33, where Irenaeus offers his own exegesis of 1 Cor. 2:15.

Eleni Pachoumi: "Chrestos in times of violence". An invocation of Christos in Magic

This paper examines the spell “releasing from bonds” (XIII.288-95), in which Chrestos is invoked “in times of violence”. It is a short spell contained within the thirteenth magical handbook of the Papyri Graecae Magicae corpus originated to Greco-Roman Egypt and dated from the third to the fourth century. Questions to be addressed are: How is Chrestos described and what kind of influences does this depiction imply? Does the orthographical spelling of Chrestos with “ι”, or “η” have a particular significance, or it is a matter of indifference? How is the invocation to Chrestos appropriated to magic? Is it related to the invocations of “biaiothanatoi” in magic? Finally, can we draw any general conclusions about the composer, or compiler of the spell and the possible users? I shall also pay special attention to issues of religious syncretism from Judaism, Christianity, Greek and Egyptian religion, and Gnostisism. 

Benjamin Dunning: Tripartite Anthropologies and the Limits of the Human in Valentinian Christian Creation Myths

The idea of some sort of tripartite division to the human subject is at least as old as Plato, and similar divisions can be seen in the writings of later Platonists such as Plutarch and Philo.  Building on this philosophical tradition as well as the anthropological speculations of Paul in 1 Corinthians, certain so-called “Valentinian” Christians in the second and third centuries posited three specific kinds of human beings: material/choic, psychic, and pneumatic.  Scholarly conversation around this topic has focused primarily on the degree of eschatological determinism that the division entails—with recent scholarship making a convincing set of arguments for a more fluid or dynamic understanding of the three classes of human beings in question (Buell 2005, Dunderberg 2008).  While agreeing with the ways in which this work has complicated the notion of a “saved by nature” theology in Valentinian texts, this paper takes up a different set of questions, beginning not with eschaton/salvation, but rather with creation—and the implications of various creation stories for the constitution of the human subject.  Here I explore the ways in which different deployments of tripartite categories in early Christian creation myths function to demarcate and delimit the contours of “the human” in specific and theologically significant ways.  That is to say, Valentinian texts mobilize the distinction between material, psychic, and pneumatic bodies variably in order to articulate where the human starts, where it stops, and where its limits interact—both licitly and illicitly—with the registers of the non-human (divine, archonic, bestial).  To make this case, the analysis offers brief examples from three representative texts: the Tripartite Tractate, the Excerpts from Theodotus (as preserved in Clement of Alexandria), and On the Origin of the World (the last text not being strictly Valentinian but containing a tripartite anthropological scheme commonly identified with a Valentinian redactor).