R. MCL Wilson (1957). The New Testament in the Gnostic Gospel of Mary.pdf

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The New Testament in the Gnostic Gospel of Mary

R. MCL Wilson

New Testament Studies / Volume 3 / Issue 03 / May 1957, pp 236 - 243DOI: 10.1017/S0028688500002393, Published online: 05 February 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0028688500002393

How to cite this article:R. MCL Wilson (1957). The New Testament in the Gnostic Gospel of Mary. NewTestament Studies, 3, pp 236-243 doi:10.1017/S0028688500002393

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236 SHORT STUDIES

have suggested to the translator *plN, the word translated by mr/pi1! in LXXExod. xxi. 18; Isa. lviii. 4. But why, on the other hand, should the originalwriter have chosen from the many types of possible vessels *pl?

The simple explanation seems to be that the original Aramaic read N1? ]NrJDtn |irrT ybVi. The meaning of the noun nets is 'handbreadth'. The usualGreek translation of not: is TrocAaicnT| but sometimes ypovQos1 which is butanother word for Truyur|.2 Thus, it is by no means unnatural that the translatorrendered the word riBB3 by Truynfj. What, however, the original writer meantby PIBtsa was the special vessel used for the ritual of hand-washing. A Tannaitictext in b. Toma 30 a which is also otherwise of interest for the Marcan accountreads: ' The custom at meals.. . if a person had left the table.. . when he re-enters he must wash both hands. And when he does wash the hands, he shouldnot wash them outside and then enter because he may be suspected (of heresy),but he should first enter and sit in his place and then wash his two hands andhand round the rPDO3 to the other guests (to draw their attention to the factthat he has washed his hands).' The original Aramaic thus meant 'unlessthey wash their hands with the (special) pitcher for the purpose called rPDtj'.

p. R. WEIS

THE NEW TESTAMENT IN THEGNOSTIC GOSPEL OF MARY

The publication by Dr W. C. Till of the Berlin Coptic Codex 85024 has madeavailable at last, after the lapse of some sixty years, the full text of threeGnostic documents otherwise as yet inaccessible. Copies of two of these areincluded in the Nag Hammadi library,5 and a final conclusion regarding thesedocuments and their place in the development of Gnosticism will not be pos-sible until the contents of that library have been published, but even so thereare certain preliminary investigations which may now be undertaken. Inparticular, it is now possible to examine in detail the quotations from and

1 Cp. Exod. xxxv. 23 (25) where Greek has iroAocio-n'i and Fb corrects OTTIOCCHTIS TI ypovS; cp. also Jud.iii. 16 Theod. o-m$aiir)s, Aq. Sym. ypovOou iraXaiOTaiou. On the Greek evidence for yp6v8os = ircAaioT^cp. F. Hultsch, Metrol. Script, Rel. II , Indices, s.v. yp6v6os. On the association of rpas 'fist' with nBD'handbreadth' cp. Tos. Kel. Bab. Mez. vii. 2: 'Fist ' when referred to (in Talmudic literature);R. Tarfon used to stretch out his fingers and show (explaining thus to the college that 'fist' is thesame measure as 'handbreadth'). R. Akiba used to close his hand and show.

2 Cp. Liddell-Scott, s.v. yp6v6os. s Also spelt TOO, cp. JV1BB in Jastrow, s.v. n'DB.* Die Gnostischen Schriften des Koplischen Papyrus Berolinensis 8$02 (TU60, Berlin 1955). An explana-

tion of the delay in publication is given in the Introduction.5 Cf. Puech in Coptic Studies in Honor of W. E. Crum (Boston, 1950), pp. 91 ff. Further references in

Till, op. cit. p . 8 n. 1. See also The Jung Codex, ed. F. L. Cross (London, 1955).
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SHORT STUDIES 237

allusions to the New Testament in the three new documents. In the presentstudy, attention has been concentrated upon the Gospel according to Mary,partly because it is the shortest of the three and therefore lends itself the mostreadily to treatment in a brief communication, and partly because it is thedocument which is not represented among the discoveries of Nag Hammadi.

It is hardly to be expected that any startling results will be obtained fromthe study of a handful of quotations in a document of which only eight pagesare extant, but it may perhaps be suggested that in the present state of ourknowledge of the Coptic versions any material which may in any way shedlight on the early history of these versions is deserving of attention. The BerlinCodex is dated by Stegemann in the early fifth century, and by Schmidt atfirst in the fifth century, although he subsequently put it earlier.1 The manu-script is therefore as old as, if not older than, the earliest of the fragments usedby Horner in the preparation of his edition. Moreover, part of the Gospelaccording to Mary is contained in fragments of a Greek papyrus codex fromOxyrhynchus,2 which Roberts thinks can hardly be later than the middle ofthe third century and probably is considerably earlier.3 Two things are there-fore clear at the outset: first, that the Coptic is a translation from a Greekoriginal, and second, that the treatise itself is comparatively early. Accordingto Roberts, ' there would seem to be little doubt that the Gospel of Mary wasone of the oldest Gnostic documents and probably was already in existencewhen Irenaeus was writing'.4

The document falls clearly into two distinct parts, in the first of whichMary appears only at the end, whereas in the second she is the dominantfigure. As Till puts it, the impression is conveyed that two originally indepen-dent writings have, because of their brevity, been artificially combined,although properly they had nothing in common.5 This conclusion is confirmedby an examination of the New Testament quotations. The Christian elementsin this document are spread over the whole, none of the eight extant pagesbeing entirely free, but the significance to be attached to some of the fainterechoes of New Testament passages is difficult to estimate. On 16. 10 Tjun-rcaiiHncecs'H nc&pg,, for example, Dr Till compares aoq>ioc crocpKiKri in II Cor. i. 12,while on 1. 15 of the same page he cites John viii. 44; I John iii. 15 (dvQpcoiro-KTOVOS, here misprinted), and I Tim. i. 9 (ccvSpocpovos) for Tj.TfepwMe.6 Ifthese could be dismissed, as probably they should be, as being too slight tocarry any weight, it might be possible to regard the whole section from p. 15to p. 17. 7 as derived from a non-Christian 'ascent of the soul'. There seem tobe New Testament echoes on p. 15, but it is doubtful if these are of any greater

1 Till, op. cit. p. 7: 'Die Schrift.. .datierte Schmidt zuerst ins 5. Jahrhundert, spater ging er hoherhinauf.'

Published by C. H. Roberts in Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library, in(London, 1938), pp. 18 ff. 3 Op. cit. p. 20.

4 Ibid. p. 19. See also Till in La Parola del Passato, iv (1949), pp. 230 ff. 6 Op. cit. p. 26.6 Op. cit. pp. 73, 72. The numbers in the text refer to the pagination of the Coptic manuscript.


238 SHORT STUDIES

moment.1 The one real question concerns 15. 16 ff.,2 which seems to showknowledge of Matt. vii. 1-2. Similarly, 17. 4 f.3 seems to recall Matt. xi. 29.The question is complicated by the fact that we have to deal with a Coptictranslation of a Greek original, in which the translation appears to have beenmade directly from the Greek, without any effort to harmonize quotationswith the text of the Coptic Bible. One possible exception is the saying in7. 8-9 and 8. 10-u. Since we have to deal in most cases with echoes ratherthan with full quotations, it is extremely difficult to determine whether atsome points the Greek original contained a quotation at all. Finally, if thebasis of this section were indeed a purely pagan document, allowance wouldhave to be made for redaction by the compiler of the composite text.4

Pp. 11 to 14 are missing, but it appears from 17. 7 that the whole sectionfrom 10. 9 consisted of a speech by Mary, which may mean that fifteen lineson p. 10 should be added to those already isolated. The only reason for doubtwould seem to be the occurrence of iwsic (thrice) and ncwp (once),5 but theformer is no more necessarily Christian than is KOpios in Greek, while both ifChristian might be due to redaction. Even if these pages do represent a Chris-tian redaction, however, it is still open to question whether or not the originalwas a document of a definitely Gnostic character.

The first part of this treatise, as we now have it, begins in the middle of adialogue reminiscent of the Hermetic Poimandres, in which Peter receivesinstruction from the Saviour in response to his questions. Professor Quispelhas argued conclusively that the Gnostic Redeemer was taken over fromChristianity,6 but even so the appearance of the title here is not decisiveagainst a non-Christian origin for this section. As in 10. 19 it may be due toredaction, and the speaker in the original might have been Hermes or someother deity, just as the questioner (here Peter) might in a Hermetic tractatehave been Tat. The quotation 7. 8-9 (repeated 8. 10-11, ? cf. 8. 1-2)7 mayalso be part of the redaction, or it may be that the saying had become pro-verbial. P. 7 accordingly, and perhaps the first eleven lines of p. 8, may well

1 15. 6 f. 'Thou hast not seen me or known me' (? cf. Fourth Gospel; but here in a reply of thesoul to one of the cosmic powers). 15. I4f. 'In wickedness (iTovt)p(a) wast thou begotten' recallsPs. li. 5. If the document is a redaction, this may point to Jewish influence on the original source.

2 'Whyjudgest thou me, although I have not judged?' Dr C. K. Barrett has drawn my attentionto / Clem. xiii. 2 and Ep. Polycarpi 2. 3.

3 'From this time on shall I attain rest.' Cf. Roberts, op. cit. p. 22. The Coptic shows no relationto Horner's edition of the Sahidic version.

' It may be recalled that Reitzenstein {Poimandres, pp. 81 ff.) claimed to have found a purelypagan document underlying the 'Naassene Preaching' preserved in Hippolytus. Burkitt however ina review pointed out that this 'purely pagan document' contained a quotation from the O.T. firmlyembedded in the text (J.T.S. xxvi, 117 ff.).

6 'The use of aco-rt'ip to the exclusion of all other names for our Lord suggested a Gnostic origin forthe work' (Roberts, op. cit. p. 18, on the Greek fragment). Of the three occurrences of tvjic twoare in forms of address, the third in a statement ' I saw the Lord in a vision...."

6 Cf. The Jung Codex, pp. 76 ff.7 'He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.' Till, op. cit. p. 63 refers to Matt. xi. 15; xiii. 9, 43;

Mark iv. 9; Luke viii. 8; xiv. 35.


SHORT STUDIES 239

have come from an earlier non-Christian source, perhaps of a Hermeticcharacter; but 7. 13 ff. have a Jewish ring.1 8. 7 in translation recalls severalNew Testament passages,2 but the Coptic text does not correspond with anyof them in Horner's edition.

The situation is however different from 8. 14 on. The use of the title 'theblessed one' may go back to Judaism rather than to Christianity, althoughthe word employed is ucn


24O SHORT STUDIES

part forms such a coherent whole. It is difficult to believe that it is the resultof a redaction which consisted only in the substitution of New Testamentnames. If this section was originally a non-Christian document, the redactionhas been fairly extensive, but it may perhaps be suggested as a better alterna-tive that the treatise as a whole is a Christian Gnostic composition into whichearlier material has been incorporated. Source-criticism of this kind must betentative, and is apt to be subjective, unless the alleged source is available forcomparison, but it does seem possible to isolate two sections (7-8. 11 and15-17. 7) in which the Christian element is very slight. The remainder of thedocument would then be the work of the Christian Gnostic editor, who hasincorporated a dialogue of a ' Hermetic' type and an account of the ascent ofthe soul into a framework consisting partly of New Testament citation andpartly of his own free composition. The distribution of the New Testamentallusions, and particularly the clustering of clear echoes precisely at thepoint of transition, affords confirmation for the view that the two sections ofthe treatise were originally independent.

It should be noted that this does not resolve the vexed question of a possiblepre-Christian Gnosticism. Even if we have evidence of the Christian redac-tion of older material, the age and character of this material would stillrequire to be examined. What does appear to be clear, however, is that theredactor was a Christian, or at any rate considered himself, and desired to beconsidered, as a Christian. Otherwise it is difficult to see why he should havetaken the trouble to adapt the earlier material. His evident familiarity withthe New Testament is also worthy of notice.

Professor van Unnik has noted in his study of the New Testament in theGospel of Truth1 that the writer's practice is to make use of echoes rather thanquotations, and the same may be said of the present work. There are few fullcitations, and no real attempt at exegesis; rather are the allusions worked intothe text, and it is sometimes difficult to identify the source. This again, com-bined with the fact that the translation appears to have been made directlyfrom the Greek, without reference to the Coptic version of the New Testament,makes the drawing of conclusions regarding the text of the New Testamentextremely precarious. For example, the aphorism ' He that hath ears to hear,let him hear' is twice quoted in exactly the same form. In the three passagesin Matthew2 in which this saying occurs, the Coptic versions agree against theCodex Vaticanus in reading the infinitive in the first clause, where B hassimply 'he that hath ears'. The saying also appears, however, once in Markand twice in Luke,3 and the reference may be to one of these rather than toMatthew. Again, the echoes in Revelation seem to show that the words hadalready become proverbial.

1 The Jung Codex, pp. 81 ff., esp. pp. 107 ff." Matt. xi. 15; xiii. 9; xiii. 43.3 Mark iv. 9; Luke viii. 8; xiv. 35. Cf. also Rev. ii. 7, 11, 17, 29; iii. 6, 13, 22.


SHORT STUDIES 24I

In this connexion it is interesting to note that a variant of this aphorism atanother point in the treatise1 seems to recall the addition in some Westernauthorities at Mark iv. 9: KOCI 6 ouvicov CTVVITCO.2 Since this addition seems tooccur only in Mark, the allusion may indicate the writer's use of that Gospel.Admittedly the word in the Coptic text is vosiv, but Roberts has noted thateven when the Coptic employs Greek words these are by no means alwaysrepresented in the Greek original.3 Thus at 18. 9 the Coptic has yunvdjEiv,whereas the Rylands papyrus has ouvjnTeTv. This being so, it is perhaps per-missible to see in the words ' I have imposed no commandment except thatwhich I have already appointed' (8. 22 ff.) an echo of I John ii. 7, althoughthe word in the Gospel of Mary is opos, against EVT6AT| both in the Greek and inHorner's edition of the Coptic.

At 8. 17 there appears to be an echo of Luke xvii. 23 'and they will say toyou "Lo, there!" or "Lo, here!'" At this point B reads &8E both times, ADand the Old Latin 3>8E and EKE!, and others (including a corrector of B) KETand 5E. Dr Till here translates the Coptic text of the Gospel of Mary'"seht hier!" oder "seht da! ' "

It must be remembered that we are dealing with a translation, and havetherefore to make allowance for the practice of the translator. Moreover wehave also to take into account the practice of the writer of the Greek original,who may have quoted from memory. The way in which the allusions areintroduced, however, argues a close familiarity with several books of the NewTestament, which the writer evidently held in high esteem. As already noted,there is no real attempt at exegesis, but two curious points may be noted: at

1 8. 1-2 neTpttoi jwa.peqpnoei.2 D, OL (a, b, ff, g), Syr. (H-w).3 Op. cit. p. 19. See also Till's discussion of the language, op. cit. pp. 11 ff.As Professor Jeremias was quick to observe after the reading of the paper, this point might be of

importance as evidence for knowledge of the Western text in Egypt at a fairly early date, if thepassage is a genuine quotation of the Western addition to Mark iv. o. It is, however, doubtful how muchstress can be laid upon the point, since the words might be only a literary variation of the earlierpart of the verse. Nor do we know whether these words stood in the Greek original or are due toexpansion by the Coptic translator. The coincidence, if such it is, is at any rate striking.

Dr K. H. Kuhn suggested that the case might be stronger if the Coptic translators were in thehabit of using VOETV to render owilvai, but even such evidence would not be decisive. Whateverthe normal practice, this particular translator might have diverged at this point; and even if owitvcnwere commonly rendered by votiv this would only prove not that auvitvm must but that it couldhave stood in the Greek behind the voeiv of the Coptic text.

Examination of the translators' usage does, however, lead to interesting results: of twenty-sixoccurrences of owt&on in some form in the N.T., two (Acts xxviii. 27 and Rom. xv. 21) are notrepresented in Horner's text. In the remaining twenty-four, ouviivai is rendered twelve times byvoctv (Matt. xiii. 13, 14, 15, 19, 23, 51; xv. 10; Mark iv. 12; vii. 14; viii. 21; Acts xxviii. 26;II Cor. x. 12), nine times by the Coptic ei.ue (Matt. xvi. 12; xvii. 13; Lukeii. 50; viii. io;xviii. 34;xxiv. 45; Acts vii. 25 Air; Eph. v. 17), and three times by other forms (Mark vi. 52; viii. 17; Rom.iii. 11). In two cases (Matt. xvi. 12 and Mark viii. 17) VOETV itself occurs in the Greek in the imme-diate context, which is sufficient reason for the use of another word. Four other cases of eiMe occur inLuke alone, where voeTv never appears for ouviivoci. Mark viii. 21 is of particular interest: at viii.17, where both voeiv and owifrcn occur together in the Greek, the latter is rendered by anotherform, but at viii. 21, where owilvai occurs alone, the translator reverts to voeiv. Unfortunatelythere is a variant in the Greek at the crucial point (voerre BDa; ouvts-re XA, etc).


242 SHORT STUDIES

9. 9 f. the disciples speak of preaching the Gospel of the Son of Man, while at8. 18 f. Luke xvii. 21 appears in the form 'the Son of Man is within you'.

In conclusion, the books referred to may be listed. There are clear allusionsto all four Gospels, in addition to some that are more doubtful. There are alsotwo possible references to the First Epistle of John,1 and finally a reference to'putting on the perfect man' seems to recall Ephesians and Colossians.2 Thismay perhaps be held to confirm the early dating of the document, since theGospels appear to enjoy a measure of 'canonicity' which does not yet extendto other books, but the evidence once more is not conclusive.

R. MCL. WILSON

BG 7. 8-9Matt. xi. 15

Matt. xiii. 9Matt. xiii. 43Mark iv. 9Luke viii. 8

BG 8. i-aMark iv. 9BG 8. 7

BG 8. 10-11

BG 8. 14

BG 8. 15

Matt. xxiv. 46

Mark xiii. 5

Matt. xxiv. 23

Mark xiii. 21

Luke xvii. 23

Collation of B.G. with Homer's textneTe otm M^^se JSjuoq CCUJTM At&.peqcu>TM.neTeimTq Ais.Js.'xe HJUJVT CCIUTM M&.peqcwrli.

neTeim] 111 neTeotii 9 etc. MM^V] 9, 52, 71neTevnTq M^vxe MJH.T ecu>TM M^peqcuvrM.

R Jwjwe>ir ecuyrju jw&.peqcwTM.

CCWTM

MAtoq m .

neTeoimTq

neTeoimTq MM>I>' CCWTM MapeqctoTM.Cf. also Rev. ii. 7, 11, 17, 29; iii. 6, 13, 22

netpnoi M*>peqpnoeiKCCI 6 auvlcov auvitrco add. D, OL (a, b, ff, g), Syr. (Hmg); not in Sah.

ujione CTCTHTHT F^HT (be of good courage!).Cf. Acts xxiii. 11; xxvii. 25; John xvi. 33: no agreement with Homer'sSahidic.Identical with 7. 8-9 above.OTFeipmrn HHTH according to Till is 'sprachwidrig', and should be

"JpHUH, as always in N.T. (Luke xxiv. 36; John xx. 19, 21, 26; etc.).But cf. also John xiv. 27: "fKU) nHTn HoveipmiH. Ta>eipHnH. CTCTCOITC. ^ jiijwoc nHTn, which also seems to be echoed here.

peAfc&v p nAi^^^ MMWTS eqxw MJWOC xe eic

H eic gmie juneciM..MHnoTe RTC oif^ nAxna. MMWTH. oirit 2^Z. r 8 lP nHy

cs'-xw MJUOC i.e iwnoK nc n e ^ c , XincpTpe otce. 111, NB, etc.MHIUOC STC OTPA. nA.n. MJUWTS. (Rest as Matthew.) ova.

20, etc. A.&.T 73.

TOTC epty>n ois . xooc KHTS x e eic nejj^c .iinenw. H Jun&.i junpni-cieve.

9.W TOTC epujjyn OT>'J>. SOOC ntfrn -^e eic nej^c JwneiM^ *.TPIO CIC

g HHTC gM IIH JunpniCTCTC.itcexooc HHTR se eic HHTC qMweiMa. H n.i .

Horner notes variation in the Coptic MSS. corresponding to those between66E and JKEI in Greek MSS.

1 8. 22 f., 18. 20: cf. I John ii. 7?2 18. 16 f. itTtrJ- ^Kouin jwnpwjwe irreAioc: cf. Col. i. 28; Eph. iv. 13 (


BG 8. 18Luke xvii. 21

BG 8. 20Matt. vii. 7

BG. 8. 21Mark xvi. 15

BG 9. 1

BG 10. 2

BG 15. 16Matt. vii. 1

BG 17. 18John iv. 27

BG 18. 15Eph. iv. 24Eph. iv. 13

mgttpecic

SHORT STUDIESjwnpuijue ecjujon MneTng

t".p Mntio-s'Te MncTnce>.

The Son of Man is referred to in the following verse (xvii. 22).

243

neTtyiiie itcojcjneTtgine qns^ge eoifon,

&U)R (S'e RTeTnTs-ujeoeiuj .uneTs.fpeAion nTMHTepo.feum ejpM CIIKOCMOC THpcj RTCTnT^ujeoeiu} Mi\ei*a.rreAioti

MticojnT THpq. Till compares Matt. iv. 23, ix. 35 eqTa.ujeoeiujMneya.ft*eAioit iiTMMTepo, but the command surely echoes Mark.

Cf. I John ii. 7: no significant agreement with Horner's Sahidic.

nepencuJp oir6>uje ngoiro na-pa lmeceene ncg uwe ?Cf. John xi. 5:no significant agreement with Horner's text.

&.po epcKpme MMOI CMniKpJunpRpine XCK&.C nneirKpine

MHTI A.quj^'se MR OTC^IMC ivxiove epon*L"'pujiiHpe - .e nequjs.'xe jwn

- g iwwn p

cfr giiTTHyTn MnpcoMe n&ppe.

e-yptume RTCAIOC.

Remoter parallels in Coptic of Col. i. 28; iii. 10; Rom. xiii. 14; Gal. iii. 27.

THE 'STAGES OF ASCENT' INHEBREWS V. 11VI. 3

Hebrews v. n -v i . 3 is a crucial section in the Epistle's argument. Amidmuch that is obscure one thing is clear. The author here divides the Chris-tian life into successive stages. Paul had already made a similar division inI Cor. ii. i-iii. 3; and the author of Hebrews was doubtless aware of it. Butthere is a difference. For Paul the division was a temporary device necessi-tated by controversy with the Corinthian TrvEuucrriKoi; it does not occurelsewhere in his epistles and was in fact alien to his way of thinking. InHebrews, on the other hand, the division is vital; it determined the author'swhole outlook and approach.

Two questions arise. How many stages does the author envisage andwhat is the character of each stage? The purpose of this study is toanswer these questions by analysing the text and comparing it with similarideas that are discoverable in Philo and the Stoics. It is hoped the resultwill clarify not only this particular section but also the Epistle's general aim.

R. MCL Wilson (1957). The New Testament in the Gnostic Gospel of Mary.pdf

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