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How Gnostic Were the Corinthians?

R. Mcl. Wilson

New Testament Studies / Volume 19 / Issue 01 / October 1972, pp 65 - 74DOI: 10.1017/S0028688500003362, Published online: 05 February 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0028688500003362

How to cite this article:R. Mcl. Wilson (1972). How Gnostic Were the Corinthians?. New Testament Studies, 19,pp 65-74 doi:10.1017/S0028688500003362

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New. Test. Stud. 19, pp. 65-74

SHORT STUDIES

HOW GNOSTIC WERE THECORINTHIANS?

The first task of this paper must be one of definition, since both the majorterms in the title are capable of more than one interpretation. To take theostensibly simpler first: who were the Corinthians ? The obvious and simpleanswer is of course 'the Christian community in Corinth', the congregationthere, Paul's converts. But this is one of those simple and superficial answerswhich miss the essential point of the question - was the whole congregationtarred with the same brush of condemnation ? Or were there some - thehousehold of Stephanas, for example, or Chloe's people - who remainedloyal to Paul throughout ? Again, what was the ethnic composition of thiscongregation ? Was it, as one might expect in a centre of the Gentile mission,largely Gentile and non-Jewish, or may we enlist the evidence of Acts tosupport the assumption of a fairly considerable Jewish-Christian element?

This latter point obviously has a bearing on the debated question of theorigins of Gnosticism: if the Corinthian correspondence is the earliestdocumentary evidence,1 and the community in Corinth was largely, if notwholly, Gentile, this would support the traditional view of Gnosticism as theresult of a fusion of Christianity with Greek philosophy,2 over against recenttendencies to emphasize the Jewish contribution to the development of theGnostic systems. On the other hand, the presence of Jews in Corinth isattested by an inscription,3 the synagogue was the obvious starting-pointfor any Christian mission so long as it remained open to the missionaries, andit is probable that some Jews at least became Christians. The presence of aJewish-Christian element in the Corinthian community therefore does notwholly depend on the evidence of Acts, and the possibility of Jewish influenceon the origins of Gnosticism, quite apart from Christianity, must still remainopen. And there are other possible influences to be allowed for.

A related question concerns the divisions within the community: one says' I belong to Paul', another ' I to Apollos', a third ' I to Cephas' (I Cor. i. 12).It is of course tempting to see in two of these an 'orthodox' Pauline groupand a Jewish-Christian group, possibly with Judaizing tendencies, appealing

1 I do not consider the Thessalonian letters to show any relation to Gnosticism; for Galatians, seeStudia Evangelica, iv (Berlin, 1968), 358-67.

2 Recently revived in the posthumous work of Hermann Langerbeck, Aufsatze zur Gnosis(Gottingen, 1967); cf. S. P^trement, Rev. de Mitaphysique et de Morale, LXXIV (1969), 438 ff. MileP6trement herself upholds the traditional view in several publications, e.g. in Le Origini delloGnosticism) (ed. Bianchi, Leiden, 1967), pp. 460 ff.

3 C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (London, 1968), p . 2; Hans Conzelmann, Dererste Brief an die Korinther (Gottingen, 1969), p. 26.

5 NTS x i x
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66 R. MCL. WILSON

to the authority of Peter. Apollos, the leader appealed to by the third group,came according to Acts from Alexandria, and Alexandria was not only thehome of Philo, who has certain affinities with Gnosticism, but later was itselfto have fairly strong associations with certain gnostic schools. So here weshould have the three groups, Pauline, Jewish-Christian and Gnostic, alreadyclearly denned in the early stages of the Gentile mission.

Against this it must be said, first, that so far as Apollos is concerned thewhole theory rests largely on assumption; we have no direct evidence forthe ideas and opinions which he proclaimed.1 And secondly, the text of theverse in question mentions not three groups but four: the watchword of thefourth is ' I belong to Christ'. Whatever the interpretation we give to thisverse, it does not afford conclusive and unassailable proof of the existenceof a gnostic group in Corinth. If it was the Christ party which was the gnosticone,2 what are we to do with Apollos ?

To continue, there are in the New Testament two letters to the Corinthians,and many scholars have argued that the second at least contains the frag-ments of three or four letters. Are we to assume that the situation addressedwas the same in both, or in all of them ? In a recent paper Dr Barrett3 writesof a 'fairly wide agreement' that the second epistle must not be interpretedin terms of the situation presupposed by the first. ' The situation Paul dealswith in II Corinthians is no longer the tendency to division, the free use ofthe terms wisdom and gnosis, the libertinism and the misunderstanding of theresurrection that mark I Corinthians.' The problem is then to determinewhether we are to think of the opponents in II Corinthians as Judaizers withDr Barrett, as hellenistic-Jewish OETOI avSpes with Dr Georgi,4 or as some-thing else. And this problem is complicated by the fact that, if Dr Moule iscorrect,5 Paul himself was in the interval moving in a gnostic direction inhis view of the resurrection body: in I Corinthians he thinks in terms of anovercoat to be put on in addition to the present body of flesh; in II Corin-thians on the other hand he is 'more realistically reckoning with exchange',6

with the idea, that is, that we must first strip off the earthly body before wecan put on the heavenly. This, as Dr Moule shows, is a view which can bedocumented from the gnostic texts from Nag Hammadi, but (i) the factthat it is gnostic later does not necessarily mean that it was gnostic beforePaul thought of it, (ii) the fact that Paul here appears to be moving in a

1 For example, H. W. Montefiore suggests (The Epistle to the Hebrews, London, 1964, pp. 11 ff.)that Hebrews was written by Apollos to Corinth, and thus was a factor in the situation with which Paulhad to deal; for criticism, cf. Barrett, pp. 8 ff.

2 Barrett (p. 148) refers to 'the libertine claims of the Christ-group'; cf. also his quotation fromT. W. Manson on p. 45.

3 N.T.S. XVII (1971), 236.4 Die Gegner des Paulus im 2. Korintherbrief(Neukirchen, 1964). On the 'divine men' generally (but

with particular reference to the Gospel tradition) see now Morton Smith, J.B.L. xc (1971), 174 fF.5 N.T.S. XII (1966), 105 ff. Op. cit. p. 123.


HOW GNOSTIC WERE THE CORINTHIANS? 67

gnostic direction does not mean that his readers were, or had already moved,and (iii) the fact that Paul on this point is apparently moving in a gnosticdirection does not mean that he has surrendered completely to gnosticinfluences.

It is not my purpose here to attempt an answer to the numerous questionsraised above. They are mentioned simply to illustrate the complexity of theproblem, and to suggest that decisions taken at one point may materiallycolour our interpretation of some completely different passage. Since thereis 'fairly wide agreement' that the second epistle is directed to a differentsituation from the first, and since it is in the first epistle that the gnosticinfluences are commonly detected, attention will now be concentrated onthe latter. But first there is the small matter of defining our other major term.

At last year's meeting l'Abbe Carmignac1 invited us to contemplate thepossibility of burying, once and for all, that much ill-used term eschatology.(The suggestion was then made in conversation that the editors should drawup a standard dictionary of technical terms, and insist that contributorsadhere to its definitions - which would considerably complicate the editorialresponsibilities!) If an Index expurgatorius of forbidden terms were to bedrawn up, the word gnostic would be a strong candidate for inclusion. Ihave already used it several times in this paper and, as Papias said of theMatthaean logia, every man has interpreted it as he was able.

Some fifteen years ago Dr H.J . Schoeps2 wrote 'Die meisten Autorenoperieren namlich mit so ungeklarten Begriffen, daB die Polemiken, die siefiihren, zu Scheingefechten werden, da jeder unter Gnosis offenbar etwasanderes versteht.' More recently Hans Jonas3 has spoken trenchantly of'the semantic disservice which Scholem did to clarity when he called hisPalestinian Hekhaloth mysticism a "Gnosis"'. As Dr Harald Hegermannputs it,4 the danger today is that ' Die Gnosis wird immer mehr auf ihreVorstufen ausgedehnt, bis schlieBlich schon Posidonius und die Orphiker,ja die alten Sumerer und Brahmanen Gnostiker waren, und horizontalfallt allmahlich der Begriff "Gnosis" mit dem Begriff "Synkretismus"zusammen'. Dr Munck5 several years ago suggested the substitution of theterm 'syncretism' for 'Gnosis' in this connection. But this is not the wholestory.

There has long been a difference of approach between English-speakingscholars, particularly British, who think in terms of Gnosticism - the second-century Christian heresy - and German scholars, who think in terms ofGnosis - a rather wider and often vaguer term; and the same adjectivegnostic has to serve for both. The situation is complicated by the fact that

Cf. X.T.S. xvii (1970,365 ff.Urgemeinde, Judenchristentum, Gnosis (Tubingen, 1956), p. 30.The Bible in Modem Scholarship (ed. J . P. Hyatt, Nashville, 1965), p. 291.Die Vorstellung vom Schb'pfungsmittler (TU82, Berlin, 1961), p. 3.Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation (ed. Klassen and Snyder, London, 1962), p. 236.

5-2


68 R. MCL. WILSON

English translations of German books commonly render Gnosis by Gnosticism,which may convey a thoroughly misleading impression to the unwary reader.As it happens, our French-speaking colleagues have long made a usefuldistinction between 'la gnose' and 'le gnosticisme', and there is a growingtendency among British scholars to adopt the same practice, or at any rateto recognize the validity of the German use of Gnosis as a comprehensiveterm for the whole phenomenon. The traditional definition is too narrow,because there are at least affinities with gnostic thought even earlier - in thewritings of Philo of Alexandria, for example, or in the New Testament itself.The wider definition on the other hand is sometimes too wide, so much soindeed as to merit the reproach of Pangnostizismus. The distinction of Gnosisand Gnosticism has the very real advantage of affording a clearly definedterm for the strictly delimited Christian heresy, and a wider and more elasticterm to cover in addition similar phenomena outside these limits.1 Theproblem then lies with the adjective 'gnostic', which has to serve for both.

The danger which must be avoided is that of reading back, of interpretingfirst-century documents in the light of second-century texts - which maythemselves be actually reinterpretations of the first-century material. Weneed to pay attention to the later texts, in order to see the development, tounderstand the direction in which things were moving, the trends andtendencies; but a term that is technical in one context is not necessarilytechnical in another. To take but one example, the word TrAripcoua is un-questionably a technical term in Valentinian Gnosticism, for the totality ofthe emanations which proceed from the primal ground of being. It is also usedby modern scholars, and quite legitimately, as a convenient label for thesame kind of thing in systems which do not actually appear to have used theword themselves. Now this gnostic term occurs seventeen times in the NewTestament - statistically a strong pointer to gnostic influence! But statisticscan be misleading. It is not impossible to imagine the kind of interpretationa Gnostic might have thought up for the twelve baskets of fragments leftover after the feeding of the multitude - but was that what Mark intended ?And what of the patch sewn on the old garment? We have to consider notonly the terms and concepts, but the use that is made of them, and the con-text in which they appear.

This raises all kinds of questions of method and procedure. If a passagecan be understood without recourse to Gnosticism - or Gnosis - but takeson a new meaning in the light of later gnostic thought, which interpretationis to be preferred ? Where does the burden of proof lie, with those who asserta gnostic influence or with those who deny it ? If some concept occurs in

1 On the question of definition cf. the Forschungsbericht by Kurt Rudolph, Th.R. xxxvi (1971), 6 ff.,who expresses doubts about the Auseinanderreissen of Gnosis and Gnosticism (pp. 18 ff.). What isenvisaged above, however, is not an absolute separation, but a distinction between what is clearly andunambiguously gnostic in the strict sense, and trends and tendencies which are akin to it but po notnecessarily imply the existence of a fully developed Gnosticism.



second-century Gnosticism, and in the New Testament, and also in Jewishapocalyptic, Platonism1 or elsewhere, is it to be described as gnostic withoutmore ado, and added to the list of gnostic motifs in the New Testament ?Or should we identify it precisely as apocalyptic, Platonic or Stoic, recognizethat it does become gnostic later, but suspend judgement as to its gnosticcharacter at the New Testament stage ? Professor Dodd2 pointed out severalyears ago that 'there is no Gnostic document known to us which can withany show of probability be dated - at any rate in the form in which alone wehave access to it-before the period of the New Testament'. Nor has thesituation changed in the interval. We may suspect the existence of non-Christian documents behind some gnostic texts,3 but suspicion is not proof.Particular ideas may go back a long way before the New Testament period -but were they then already gnostic ?

For example, Dr Lohse4 writes of ' gnostic motifs' being taken over foruse in Christian preaching, and goes on: 'so wird wiederholt der Gedankeausgesprochen, daB diese Welt von damonischen Machten beherrscht wird,daB in ihr finstere Gewalten ihr Wesen treiben, die eine uniiberbruckbareTrennung zwischen Gott und den Menschen aufrichten wollen.' At anearlier point5 he had written of Satan and his powers gaining control overthis world:' Um diesen Aon ist es daher so schlecht bestellt, weil die Gewaltender Finsternis in ihm ihr Regiment fiihren. Die bosen Engel, die Nachfahrender gefallenen himmlischen Wesen (1. Mose 6, 1-4), verfuhren als Damonendie Menschen zum Gotzendienst und zu schlimmen Taten . . . ' That was inthe section dealing with Jewish apocalyptic. The motif is admittedly gnosticlater, but was it already gnostic in the New Testament period - or is it amotif from apocalyptic subsequently taken over and adapted by theGnostics ? As Dr Berger6 has recently put it, isolated passages simply get usnowhere unless we can show 'daB und in welchem Sinne im Umkreis desPis derartige Formulierungen verwendet waren'.

In a later paragraph7 Dr Lohse deals more directly with the situation ofI Corinthians:

Ein derartiger Enthusiasmus begegnet zuerst in der von Paulus gegriindetenGemeinde von Korinth, in der die Pneumatiker der Ansicht waren, die Vollendung

1 Cf. E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (Cambridge, 1965), p. 13: 'no Stoic orAristotelian, and no orthodox Platonist, could condemn the cosmos as a whole. When we meet suchcondemnation we must suspect that it derives ultimately from a source further east, a dualism moreradical than Plato's.' Ursula Friichtel {Die kosmologischen Vorstellungen bei Philo von Alexandrien,Leiden, 1968) observes at several points that both Philo and the gnostics were drawing on thephilosophy of their time.

2 The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, 1953), p. 98.3 E.g. the Apocryphon of John, the Gospel of Mary, the Apocalypse of Adam, the Epistle of

Eugnostus. A classic example is of course Reitzenstein's analysis of the Naassenerpredigt in hisPoimandres (Leipzig, 1904), pp. 81 ff.

4 Utnwelt des Neuen Testaments (Gottingen, 1971), p. 201; cf. alsoi5ofBultmann's Theology of theNew Testament. h Op. cit. 38. 6 N.T.S. xvn (1971), 405 n. 1.

7 Op. cit. p. 202.


70 R. MCL. WILSON

durch den Geist bereits erfahren zu haben, so das die Heilszeit schon gegenwartigsei (i Kor. iv. 8), aus den Sakramenten von Taufe und Abendmahl unverlierbareKraft strome (i Kor. x. i13) und daher eine kiinftige Vollendung, die mit derAuferstehung der Toten kommen sollte, nicht mehr zu erwarten sei (1. Kor. xv. 12).In ihrem Uberschwang vertraten sie die Meinung, die christliche Freiheit kennekeine Grenzen, und es sei schlechthin alles erlaubt (1. Kor. vi. 12; x. 23). Was manmit der Leib tue und erfahre, sei gleichgiiltig, weil es allein auf den Geist ankomme(1. Kor. vi. 12-20 u. 6.).

In support of Dr Lohse's position a few sentences may be quoted fromDr Barrett's commentary: on iv. 8 'The Corinthians are behaving as if theage to come were already consummated, as if the saints had already takenover the kingdom (Dan. vii. 18); for them there is no "not yet" to qualifythe "already" of realized eschatology.'1 On vi. 12: 'There is fairly generalagreement that these words are quoted by Paul, and that they were in useat Corinth . . . The most probable view . . . is that they were the watchwordof a gnostic party.'2 On x. 113: The Corinthians 'did not take idolatryseriously . . . because they believed that the Christian rites of Baptism andthe Supper secured them from any possible harm'.3

On the other hand Dr Robert Haardt4 writes:

It seems hazardous to accept the existence of a (pre-) Gnosis among Paul's opponentsat Corinth. The discussion of Wisdom in I Cor. i and ii hardly suggests a Gnosticmyth of 'Sophia' as redeemer. Other themes, such as the verdict passed onsexuality, vi. 12-20; vi. 32-4, 38, the contrast between vyuxiKoi and TrveupomKoi,ii. 14 f.; xv. 21, 44-9, the 'pneumatic' sense of perfection, iv. 8, and the denial ofthe resurrection, xv. 29-32, II Cor. v. 1-5, may seem to present apparent analogieswith Gnosis. But in spite of ingenious reconstructions, the general frame of thoughtin which these themes are supposed to be connected remains obscure, and theheretics in question (cf. II Cor. x-xiii) cannot be identified with certainty. Theymay well fit into the general but rather vague framework of a ' pneumatic enthus-iasm'.

Dr Lohse himself writes:

Zwar wird in den Auseinandersetzungen, die Paulus mit solcher Meinungenvollziehen muS, nirgendwo ein ausgebildeter gnostischer Mythus erkennbar; aberdas stolze Selbstverstandnis, mit dem man sich von der Welt abkehrt, sie furgleichgiiltig halt und allein die Wirkungen des Geistes hoch bewertet, weist dochZiige auf, wie sie wenig spater auch in literarischen Zeugnissen gnostischerGruppen ausgepragt sind.6

This is enough to present the whole problem in a nutshell. On the onehand we have indications of an attitude, an outlook, what A. D. Nock called'a gnostic way of thinking',6 such as we find later in the developed gnostic

1 I Corinthians, p. 109; cf. also L. Schottroff, Nov. Test, xi (1969), 302.2 Op. cit. p . 144. s Op. cit. p. 220.* In Sacramentum Mundi (London, 1968), 11, 378. 6 Op. cit. p. 202.6 H. T. R. LVII (1964), 2 78. As Nock aptly puts i t , ' the emergence of Jesus. . . precipitated elements

previously suspended in solution'.



schools of thought. In that respect the use of the term Gnosis in a broad andcomprehensive sense is legitimate and justified. On the other hand there isno gnostic myth, no gnostic system, no gnostic document which can bedated so early as to suggest influence from anything like a developed gnosticmovement, like the Gnosticism of the second century. It is important torecognize the similarities, to trace the continuity of development from thevaguer Gnosis to the fully elaborated Gnosticism, to recognize how ideasfrom many different sources are welded together into new syntheses indeveloped Gnosticism on the one hand, in 'orthodox' Christianity on theother. But we may not assume that the significance attached to particularideas in the context of developed Gnosticism was already attached to themat an earlier period and in a different context. One particular error againstwhich we must be on our guard is that of assuming, when we do not find inPaul what we are looking for, that he has simply misunderstood his oppo-nents - and then reading in the views we want to find.

The least that can be said is probably the remark made by Robert Lawmore than sixty years ago,1 that I Corinthians shows ' into how congenial asoil the seeds of Gnosticism were about to fall'. We may suspect today thatsome of the seeds had already been sown, that some of them indeed had evenbegun to germinate. What is certain is that in the New Testament periodthe field is still far from being ripe for the harvest. Gnosis in the broadersense is not yet Gnosticism, and to interpret New Testament texts which mayreflect Gnosis in terms of the later Gnosticism is to run the risk of distortingthe whole picture.

Here, of course, the adjective gnostic gives rise to certain problems.When we use it, are we referring to the wider Gnosis, or to Gnosticism? It ispossible in English to make a distinction by printing an initial capital forthe narrower sense, and a small letter for the wider; but sometimes it isdifficult to decide - and in any case such a convention would pose problemsfor the translator, who would have to decide in every case whether hisFrench or German author intended the word in the narrower or the widersense. The only solution here is to treat the word as a danger signal, avoidit if possible, and if it must be used define it more precisely.

Among the factors distinguishing the situation of I Corinthians from thatof the second Epistle Dr Barrett, in a passage already quoted,2 lists ' the freeuse of the terms wisdom and gnosis, the libertinism and the misunderstandingof the resurrection that mark I Corinthians'. In regard to libertinism, DrConzelmann writes :3 'Da6 der korinthische Libertinismus seinen bestimmtenInhalt hat, ist richtig. Das ergibt sich aus seiner weltanschaulichen Begriin-

1 The Tests of Life (Edinburgh, 1909), p. 25. Barrett in his commentary (p. 55) goes ratherfurther and affirms ' There was for example Jewish gnosticism in Corinth' - but at what stage ofdevelopment ?

8 W.T;S. XVH (1971), 236.8 Op. cit. p. 29.


72 R. MCL. WILSON

dung. Nur ist dafur kein ausgebildeter, gnostischer Mythos notig;1 ein solcherist fur Korinth auch nicht nachzuweisen. Man braucht diese Hypothesenicht, den Text erklaren zu konnen.' He goes on, as has been done above,to distinguish between ideas which are in themselves gnostic and thosewhich could be taken over by Gnosis but had already been thrown up earlierin entirely different contexts. And this is a case in point. Commenting on theTr&VTCt noi I^EOTIV of vi. 122 he says: ' In seiner Formalitat eignet sich derSatz, wie ahnliche, zur Verwendung in verschiedenem weltanschaulichemRahmen, z. B. kynischem, stoischem, gnostischem. Es mu6 also zwischender geschichtlichen Herkunft und dem Verstandnis der Korinther unter-schieden werden.' The material for comparison is Stoic and Cynic, and it istherefore here in the first place that we should look for the operative influences.The idea was indeed taken over by the gnostics,3 but this does not mean thatit was gnostic from the first. Dr Barrett in his commentary4 speaks of' thegnostic or quasi-gnostic context in which freedom is discussed' (italics mine),and the qualification is surely necessary.

The word yvcocns occurs 29 times in the New Testament, 16 of them inthe two Corinthian letters. As Dr Barrett writes,5

In itself, the word does not necessarily point to the religious phenomenon described(with bewildering variety of definition) as gnosticism. In Greek, as in English, itis most often used in a plain, non-technical sense; it seems clear however thatbehind the frequent use of the word (10 times in I Corinthians; 6 times in IICorinthians) there lies a specific set of religious ideas.

One might go even further: there are passages in which it is tempting totransliterate instead of translating the Greek word - ' We know that we allhave gnosis' (viii. 1). But then we are in danger of reading in more than thetext itself affords. What was the nature of this knowledge ? Was it a gnosticgnosis, or was it only the kind of thing out of which Gnosticism was ultimatelyto develop ?

In regard to wisdom, the obvious source to which to refer is the JewishWisdom literature, although it has to be noted that not every occurrence ofthe word necessarily carries a reference to the hypostatized Wisdom. As DrBarrett observes,6 the word is used in I Corinthians in at least four ways.More relevant to our present purpose is the fact that some scholars have triedto demonstrate, in the background to the Corinthian situation, the existenceof a developed gnostic Sophia-myth.7 This raises questions which would

1 Cf. Lohse p. 202, cited above p. 69.2 Op. cit. p. 131.3 Conzelmann (loc. cit. n. 5) refers to the closing words of the Poimandres in the Corpus Hermeti-

cum (CH 1. 32).4 1 Cor. p . 145.5 Op. cit. p. 37.' Op. cit. pp. i-jt.7 Cf. U. Wilckens, Weisheit und Torheit (Tubingen, 1959), with Koster's review in Gnomon, XXXIII

(1961), 590ff. and Prumm in ZKT LXXXVH (1965), 399ff.; LXXXVIII (1966), iff.



require a separate paper for full discussion, but it may be salutary to referto an actual gnostic Sophia-myth, which occurs in one form or another notonly in the patristic sources but in such original Gnostic texts as the Apocry-phon of John.

Here Sophia is an aeon, one of the emanations from the primal ground ofbeing, who for one reason or another is guilty of a lapse and is thereforeexcluded (temporarily) from the Pleroma. The outcome of her fall is ulti-mately the creation of this world. Men in this world, or at least some of them,essentially belong to the higher world, and Sophia constantly exerts herselfto secure their deliverance and return. Interestingly, there is a version ofthis myth in the Fourth Treatise of the Codex Jung, as yet unpublished - andhere the falling aeon is described not as Sophia but as a Logos.1 One recallsat once the developments in the Wisdom-Logos Christology, and the varyingusage of the terms Xoyos and acxpioc in the works of Philo. There is scopehere for further investigation, to trace the numerous ramifications and workout the course of development - and the relative chronology.

For present purposes, the point is that while this gnostic Sophia-mythdoes show links with the older Jewish Wisdom myth, and consequently withthe Wisdom-Logos Christology, there are also quite decisive differences.Something has intervened to break the continuity of development and divertgnostic thinking into a different channel. It is possible to trace a fairly smoothdevelopment from the earliest Jewish Wisdom literature into the inter-testamental period, and from there into the Christian use of this material,but the gnostic myth takes a different direction. It tends for one thing to playdown the identification of Christ with Wisdom, it gives to Sophia a muchmore prominent position in the account of the origin of the cosmos, and itelaborates a whole narrative of a pre-mundane fall to account for theexistence of the world and man. To read all this back into the Wisdomsections of the first two chapters of I Corinthians would be an obviousmistake, but this is the danger to which we expose ourselves if we indulgein unwary and undiscriminating discussion of possible 'gnostic Sophia myths'underlying the Corinthian situation.

There are other aspects which could be discussed - the questions of theresurrection and the resurrection body, the typology of Christ and Adam,2

and so on - but what has been said may suffice. In the light of the discussion

1 Cf. J. Zandee in Le Origini dello Gnosticismo, pp. 209 ff.2 In this connection reference may be made, among recent literature, to L. Schottroff, Der

Glaubende und die feindliche Welt (Neukirchen, 1970), who writes 'Wie vor allem H. Jonas undC. Colpe nachgewiesen haben, ist es verfehlt, gnostische Texte im Blick auf einen aus ihnen zurekonstruierenden, hinter diesen Texten im Dunkel liegenden Mythos zu betrachten, ist es verfehlt,mythische Motive aus den verschiedensten Texten zu addieren bzw. zurechtzuriicken, bis sich dasbekannte Bild eines gnostischen Mythos bietet, der "alt" ist, jedenfalls alter als die uns bekanntengnostischen Texte, und der dann sienen "EinfluB" z. B. auf neutestamentliche Christologienausgeiibt haben konnte' (1 f.). Dr Schottroff herself however has not altogether avoided this error.Cf. also A. J. M. Wedderburn, Scot. Journ. Theol. xxiv (1971), esp. pp. 90 ff.


74 R- MCL. W I L S O N

we may now re-formulate the question contained in the title: Were Paul'sopponents at Corinth fully gnostic in the second-century sense of the term,or have we here at most only the first tentative beginnings of what was laterto develop into full-scale Gnosticism ? I submit that the latter is the case, andthat consequently careless and indiscriminate use of terms like gnostic andgnosticism in this connection is dangerous and misleading.

R. MCL. WILSON

New Test. Stud. 19, pp. 74-81

THE ORIGINS OF THE ZEALOTS

In New Testament Studies, xvn (October 1970), 68-72,1 asserted, in oppositionto Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake's appendix on 'The Zealots' in TheBeginnings of Christianity, 1, 423 (not 243), that Josephus in fact uses the term' Zealots' of Jewish rebels in Jerusalem before John of Gischala came there,and after that, of the rival party led by priests who seized, not the strategicallysuperior towers later occupied by Simon bar Giora, but the inmost buildingsof the Temple, before it was captured and destroyed by Titus.

Since then I have seen an article by Dr G. Baumbach in the TheologischeLiteraturzeitung for October 1965 (90, 10), pp. 727-39, entitled eloten undSikarier. In this he has forestalled me in noting Jackson and Lake's mistake(perhaps based on a hasty reading of Schurer?) about John of Gischala,which has been echoed in many subsequent books, where the three Eleazarsmentioned in my article are often confused and conflated. Dr Baumbachgoes further. He maintains that Josephus used the term ' Zealots' only of thepriestly faction in the Temple, a section of whom he then assumes metMenahem as he entered the precincts 'in pomp to worship, decked withkingly robes' in A.D. 66 (B.J. ii. 444). But Josephus writes that Menahemwas followed by a train of armed JTIXCOTOCI', not that they met him at theTemple gates; and his phrase 'the /(ealots under him1 (Eleazar ben Simon,leader of the priestly zealots), B.J. ii. 564, suggests that Josephus was aware,even if often anxious to conceal the fact, that there were other Jews boastingthe title 'Zealots' outside the Temple, as there certainly were in OldTestament times. So before considering Josephus' phrases-e.g. the 'fourthsect' of the Jews and the Latin word sicarii-of the anti-Roman resistance,e.g. in A.D. 6, it is vital to assess the use of 3r|A- in the Bible which they read,partly in its Greek translation, and here quoted in the New English Bibleversion.

In Classical Greek as Josephus knew (B.J. iv. 161, Vita, 11), the root jr)A-(derived from jeco = boil, or be red hot) meant keen imitation, recognition,

R. Mcl. Wilson (1972). How Gnostic Were the Corinthians.pdf

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Transcript of R. Mcl. Wilson (1972). How Gnostic Were the Corinthians.pdf