From: KOPECEKT@central.edu
Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 17:10:38 -0500 (CDT)
To: miser17@epix.net
CC: crosstalk@info.harpercollins.com
Message-Id: <970516171038.2041e71a@central.edu>
Subject: Re: More on GosThom apud Hippolytus

In-Reply-To: Your message of          Fri, 16 May 1997 16:30:35 +0000
In article <199705162036.QAA04895@pear.epix.net>

> 
>> So, Steve, would you agree with Puech that the Naassenes 
>seem to have altered
>> GosThom #4-5 in a Gnostic direction, just as they seemed 
>to have altered
>> #3 to focus on a "blessed nature, at once hidden and 
>revealed, of things
>> past, present, and to come, WHICH IS the kingdom of the 
>heavens sought
>> within man"? And thus in the case of CopThom #3-5 
>vs Ref, unlike the case
>> of CopThom #11 vs Ref, CopThom is less altered and, 
>indeed, without the
>> overt Gnostic touch of the Ref version?
>
>Umm, ahh, yes. That's right.
>
>If Thomas is riddles to be answered by a novice in the presence of an 
>authority, and we do not know what the hemeneutic principles are that
>were supposed to be used, then we seem to be stuck. If you ask what 
>Thomas' redactional authorial technique was, it seems to be that he
>took enigmas (Jesus' sayings) and added riddles (Arnal stuff) to 
>them. Then folks (gnostics then, scholars now) try to answer the 
>riddles.
>
>Tom wrote:
>"For those not initiated into the mysteries of these technicalities, a
>number of people have tried to explain "the fourteenth aeon" in the
>Naassene version of #4 ("He who seeks me will find me in children of 
>seven years upward, for there hidden in the fourteenth aeon am I 
>revealed")  using such things as the Gnostic second Book of
>Jeu, which speaks of "the great God, who  . . . is called the great and
>righteous" to be sought "in the fourteenth aeon" or "the fourteen
>great aeons of light" in a Manichaean document called the Kephalaia
>(Hennecke/Schneemelcher 1963:280). Puech follows Hippolytus' use of
>Hippocrates, arguing that the explanation in Hippolytus fits hand in 
>glove into the Naassene Gnostic myth of Christ, the perfect Man, pre-
>sented in Ref 5."
>
>Can we, do you think, legimately bounce back and forth between
>The Naasseene Gnostic myth of Christ from Ref. 5
>The Manichean Kephalaia
>The Second Book of Jeu
>with quite as much happy abandon as does Puech? 

Nope. And Puech doesn't. His interpretation of the "fourteenth age" is based
on a quotation in Hippolytus, Ref 5, from Hippocrates ("A child of seven 
years is half a father") which H appears to claim was used by the Naassenes
themselves to interpret the Thomas quotation within the framework of their
myth. In fact, Puech's view of the Gospel of Thomas anticipated yours in
claiming that it is not particularly a Gnostic work, which is why I thought 
of him in the first place when I read Antonio's assessment of the evidence 
re: the Gospel of Thomas in Hippolytus. That is:

Puech in Hennecke-Schneemelmer, 1963, pp. 305-306: "...I should say that the
Gospel of Thomas does not seem to me to be either exclusively or originally
the work of a Gnostic. Undoubtedly some passages have a Gnostic ring, and 
there is scarcely anything which could not be adapted, or has not been adapt-
ed, to Gnostic doctrine. Nevertheless we must take account of a fact which
I have been able to establish on the basis of certain indications . . .: there
existed at least two recensions, two versions, of this work, one of which
was read by orthodox Christians--as late as the 5th or 6th century, as the
inscription on the shroud from Oxyrhynchus mentioned above suggests [it has
on it the words from the Pap. Ox. 654 version of Thomas 5:3 in the following
form: "Jesus said, 'There is not a thing which is buried which will not be 
raised.' "]--while the other circulated in Gnostic and Manichaean circles."

But this trek into Gospel of Thomas textual history is undoubtedly of little
interest to Crosstalk.

>
>Greek Thomas has 
>"Let the old man who is full of days not
>hesitate to ask the child of seven days about the place of life;
>then he will live." 
>
>Luke 10:21 has
>"I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you
>have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed 
>them to little children."
>
>I don't know what to make of all this. 
>
>> Hoping for another quotation from GTCW, Tom
>
>No no. Too much of a good thing will spoil you.
>

Well, in fact I dragged our library's copy of GTCW out today and couldn't
find anything relevant anyhow :-).
>Steve

Tom

-
Thomas A. Kopecek, Religion & History, Central College, Pella, IA 50219
Email: kopecekt@CENTRAL.EDU