131 - The Jung Codex, A Newly Recovered Gnostic Papyrus; Three Studies & Evangelium Veritatis; Codex Jung

The Jung Codex, A Newly Recovered Gnostic Papyrus; Three Studies
By H. C. Puech, G. Quispel, and W. C. van Unnik
Translated and Edited by F. L. Cross
136pp. New York, Morehouse-Gorham Co.,1955. $3.75;

Evangelium Veritatis; Codex Jung
Edidit Michel Malinine, H. C. Puech, et G. Quispel
127pp. Zurich, Rascher Verlag,1956.

While all the world talks about the Dead Sea Scrolls, relatively little publicity has been given to another find of ancient manuscripts, which may prove to be of greater importance for the study of early Christianity than the former one. I am referring to the Coptic-Gnostic "Library of Chenoboskion" unearthed near the present hamlet of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt in1945. Hidden in an earthen jar, probably in a tomb, eleven codices in excellent condition were discovered. One of them left Egypt and was finally bought for the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, whereas the rest is kept inaccessible in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, until the complicated legal problems of ownership have been settled. Experts who examined the manuscripts identified forty-eight different works in these volumes, most of them hitherto unknown even by name. They seem to have been written late in the third and during the fourth century and represent a late development of the Barbelo Gnostics or Sethians.

For the knowledge of Gnosticism scholars had hitherto been almost exclusively dependent upon its opponents, especially Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius, whereas from now on they will be able to draw directly on the original sources. The one codex of the Nag Hammadi discovery that has managed to escape to Europe has been described and evaluated by three experts, and one of the works contained therein has recently been published by the Jung Institute. The text is reproduced in excellent photoprints, followed by a transcription, translations in French, German, and English and by a critical apparatus. Indices of the Greek and Coptic words of the text supplement the edition. Though the editors were reluctant to publish the text and the translations at the present Stage of investigation (for the meaning of a number of Coptic terms is still uncertain), scholars all over the world will be more than happy finally to avail themselves of this excellent and extremely carefully done piece of scholarship.

The significance of the Codex Jung lies in the fact that it provides one of the earliest documents of Gnosticism. The "Gospel of Truth" is con-

132 - The Jung Codex, A Newly Recovered Gnostic Papyrus; Three Studies & Evangelium Veritatis; Codex Jung

sidered by the editors as being either the original work of Valentinus, or its revision by one of his earliest disciples. This would date it at about A.D.150. Most scholars will probably agree with this dating. The document points to a relatively early time in the history of the ancient Church. On the one hand, practically all the books of our present New Testament canon are more or less directly referred to; Paul, the Gospel of John, and Hebrews in particular seem to be favorites of the author. Quotations from, or allusion to, the Old Testament, however, are completely lacking. On the other hand, one is amazed about the freshness of the author's approach. There is no trace of polemics against certain types of established doctrine, and the exegesis, for example, of the Prologue of John at the beginning of the work, is of surprising originality. The frequent references to New Testament passages and to "Jesus the Christ" indicate the author's conviction and determination to be a real Christian. In a number of instances, for example, in his view of man, the author is obviously indebted to Hebraic realism in a way similar to Hippolytus and the Didache. This would indicate that in his mind the Hellenization of Christian thinking had not yet completely supplanted the Biblical mentality. All these facts would point to a period in the history of the Church where the notion of orthodoxy had not yet evolved; in other words, to a time prior to Irenaeus. Notwithstanding this fact, however, the Gospel of Truth shows a number of features in which the author disagrees with all the Apostolic Fathers and the Apologists, for example, in the centrality assigned to the concept of "knowledge," and in the specific way in which the latter is understood and evaluated. But far from being a philosophical treatise, the Gospel of Truth is a poem. The elegance of its style, the loftiness of its outlook, the tenderness with which the "secret" is described, the unfailing dexterity with which the right term is chosen in each instance are still present in the threefold translation, though unfortunately least in the English one. All these features point to an author of uncommon talent and profound spirituality and in every respect superior to the Fathers of the second century.

Formally, this poem shows a predilection for parallel statements, but it is not the parallelism of members of Hebrew poetry. Rather this poetic form is used by the author to bring out a gradation, for example, page 24, line 32 ff.:

"As a person's ignorance, when he comes to know, disappears of
its own accord;
as darkness dissolves at the appearance of light;
so also Deficiency vanishes in the presence of Plenitude."

This kind of arrangement is an indication of Hellenic education. Also Hellenic is the author's pride to have found himself and thus to exist, or

133 - The Jung Codex, A Newly Recovered Gnostic Papyrus; Three Studies & Evangelium Veritatis; Codex Jung

"to be," as a result of knowledge. But with the Biblical writers he shares the Hebraic view of the Ego as the totality of body and mind. His goal is not therefore to strive for a disembodied existence, but rather with his whole earthly existence to enter into the "Rest."

One obvious difference between this work and the New Testament books lies in the complete absence of the notion of faith. Paul and John, too, have a lot to say about the knowledge brought by the Gospel. But in the New Testament, and so still in Origen, faith is the prerequisite of knowledge, and thus the unity of psychikoi and pneumatikoi in the Church is preserved, whereas the Gnostic has little regard for the "rest," which is unable to understand the lofty flight of his mind. Similarly, the subject matter of revelation is not, as in the Bible, the saving work of God, but rather the secret of the Sonship of Christ, and accordingly the salvation brought by Jesus is not the remission of sins but rather revelation and knowledge which takes the place of man's oblivion and ignorance.

The Gospel is presented as joyful news because it renders human existence meaningful. Man interprets his existence normally as being part of this world, and thus as being in every respect conditioned by it. But the only true existence is God, who is not coextensive with this world, or a function of it, but rather as the Father is its origin and thus absolutely transcends it. All beings are real only inasmuch as they are consciously rooted in their origin and thus consider this world as irrelevant.

Consequently, prior to illumination brought by the Revelation in Jesus, man does not really live. He is asleep and dreams or is drunken and has hallucinations. Such an interpretation of life precludes the ideas of sin and guilt; we are as little responsible for the deeds of our past as we are for the things we have done in our dreams, and therefore need no redemption from them or pardon for them. Our self is not to be found in what we do or what we think, but rather in the power of our thinking, or, still more accurately, in that which manifests itself in myself as mental energy. In the same way as selfhood is the transcendental origin of all individual life, so the Father is the origin of all selfhood. The reality of this world is not denied, but as originated reality it has no ontic dignity. In himself alone is the individual capable of discovering an originating reality. When he has learned to see himself in his capacity as son only, no longer in his relation to the world, the individual has become perfect and is at rest. Thus it is gnosis as act rather than the ideas of our mind that constitutes Truth, and true existence is found only in the awareness of sonship.

Gnosis can be considered as a redemptive act, because it combines noetic and ontic elements. By way of introspection, which is facilitated

134 - The Jung Codex, A Newly Recovered Gnostic Papyrus; Three Studies & Evangelium Veritatis; Codex Jung

by the revelation of Jesus as the Son, the individual is enabled to differentiate within himself layers of existence. Thus every new step of self-analysis leads the individual to a higher level of existence, until finally he discovers that the spontaneity of the self is due to his being rooted in the Origin or Source of all being. Thus gnosis is not a philosophy or theology but rather a way of salvation by means of right thinking. The closeness in which this view stands to modern trends, for example, to the Unity Movement, existentialism, or the "religious" views of C. G. Jung, is overwhelming and makes the study of Gnosticism a very timely endeavor.

The existential character of gnosis explains the almost complete absence of mythological elements in the Gospel of Truth. In its beginning, Gnosticism was not a syncretistic system of pagan myths, as Ariz, Bousset, and Reitzenstein had interpreted it. If anything, the Evangelium Veritatis makes evident that after the collapse of the great empires of the Near East their myths became the common property of all the nations of that area. However, being no longer connected with any specific cultus these materials could be used by everybody as he pleased, for philosophical no less than for religious thinking, and in sacramental and apocalyptic religions no less than in mystery religions and in Gnosticism. In Gnosticism, the mythical material is interpreted as describing psychological and noetic facts. It is to be hoped that with the publication of this Gnostic document scholars will refrain from talking of Gnosticism every time they encounter a mythical image in an ancient document. It is true that the erroneous classification goes in part back to some of the anti-Gnostic fathers, who had no clear idea of Gnosticism themselves. Only with reference to literature, in which the above view of knowledge is held, does the historian have a Tight to speak of Gnosticism.

A further result of the knowledge of original documents of Gnosticism is the delineation of its relation to Christianity. Gnosticism is a movement which owes its origin to Christianity, but while it may pretend to have the genuine understanding it misses the center and is its perversion.

Hans Jonas, in Gnosis und spatantiker Geist,1934 and 1954, arrived at a relatively correct interpretation of Gnosticism by seeing in it a tendency of the individual to become himself through introspection. Unfortunately, however, Jonas went far beyond all of his predecessors by generalizing his historical analysis. Though he denied the primary significance of the "mythological objectivations," he believed that Gnosticism. was present wherever certain mythical images were used. Thus he reached the fantastic conclusion that Gnosticism was the common

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religion of the Hellenistic world and its Eastern neighbors. He further contended that Gnosticism rather than Christianity had been the religion which renewed the ancient world, and, like Bultmann, he therefore considered early Christianity as a mere manifestation of Gnosticism. The Gospel of Truth makes plain, however, that Gnosticism is a new interpretation of the Christian religion, as Hilgenfeld had already seen. Furthermore, Harnack had rightly pointed out that the driving force in Gnosticism was Hellenic, namely, the individual's belief in himself and his noetic power. But Harnack misunderstood the conceptual element in Gnosticism and thus held that it was the inception of a Christian philosophy of religion and the forerunner of the theology of the Fathers. But though of Hellenic inspiration, the program of Gnosticism is the very opposite of the great rational theologies of the ancient Church. The Greek Fathers were men who were assured of their salvation because their faith was rooted in the life of the Church. Trusting in that firm position, they were anxious to express the faith in a non-contradictory and unambiguous way by means of a dialectical philosophy. Quite differently, the Gnostic is worried about the fact that the universe in which he lives shows absolutely no interest in him. Thus he seeks for a "rest," that is, an ultimate reality, outside of the universe. But unlike the mystery religions and the apocalypticism of that age, Gnosticism trusts in the power of human thinking. Only it is not the conceptual and dialectical thinking of the schools that is employed here, but rather the anagogic and intuitive thinking of Plato.

Jonas compared and practically identified this anagogic thinking with modern existentialism, especially that of Heidegger. However, he overlooked the fact that for Gnosticism existence is rooted in God whereas in existentialism it is rooted in the self. While in Gnosticism God is not "given"- as in the theology of the Fathers, but rather the object of the individual's seeking, he is nevertheless from the very outset considered the only thing that counts. Heidegger, on the other hand, finds ultimately satisfaction in the completed analysis of world and personal existence, and denies God entrance into his thinking. If Gnosticism had not been grafted upon the Christian faith, it would have developed in the same direction. In turn, every attempt to combine modern existentialism with the Christian faith, will lead inevitably to the formation of new types of Gnosticism.

Otto A. Piper
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey