AND PARMENIDES IN NAG HAMMADI

BY

J. MANSFELD

J. Doressel and after him A. Bohlig2 have suggested that the author of NHC II, 5 knew Hesiod's , was influenced by it, and argued against it. At the beginning of the treatise (II, 5, 97, 24f.) we are promised a demonstration that the common view according to which "nothing has existed prior to " [cf. Th. 116] is mistaken. Ib., 102, 27 ff. we are told of an attack upon heaven and of the casting down of the "troubler" [no further identification] "to " [cf. Th. 617-733]. The most interesting section, perhaps, is that on , II, 5, 109, 1-26 [cf. Th. 120-2]. Bohlig argues that this section is an 3 interpolation in the original "Szene von der Seduction des Archontes".3 "His [sc. Eros'] masculine nature is Himeros" (109, 3); Bohlig com- pares Th. 201, where both Eros and Himeros accompany .' That what we have here reminds one of Hesiod cannot, of course, be denied. Are we, however, to believe that the author of NHC II, 5 had read the whole Theogony,5 and that Hesiod constitutes his main source? The cosmological section of the poem (from Th. 104 onwards) was widely quoted in antiquity by a variety of authors, beginning, for us, with Plato (Symp. 178b; Th. l l6-7 + 120).6 In Christian authors such as Theophilus and Hippolytus substantial chunks of poetry are quoted (Theoph., Ad Aut. III 5-6, Hipp., Ref. I 26).' Quotations of this size from Th. 617-733, however, are lacking, and even individual lines are only sparsely quoted. Th. 201, which has no organic connection either with the cosmogony or with the in the Th. - and which, moreover, is only a partial parallel to the relevant lines in NHC II, 5$ - is only quoted in the Et. Gen. Consequently, such knowledge of Hesiodic.items as the author of the present version may have possessed is likely to be not direct, but tralaticious, although he may have read the cosmogonical section in authors such as Theophilus and Hippolytus (or in the sort of sources or anthologies from which these had derived their quotations). 175

The best approach to this problem is by way of two passages in Plutarch, who provides us with much more pertinent parallels than the original text of Hesiod. At II, 5, 109, 3ff., Eros is androgynous: "his masculine nature is Himeros", "his feminine nature which is with him is a blood-soul, (and) is derived from the substance of Pronoia". Plut., Fac. 926 E - 927 A, says that originally the elements were in a chaotic condition, "until desire came over nature from Providence [axpi ou 16 {?E P 't 0 V HKEV ¿1ti 't1lv (pucnv 1tpovoíaç], for Love and Aphrodite and Eros are among them as says and Parmenides and Hesiod". The androgynous nature of Eros cannot be paralleled from Plutarch (al- though he mentions two female forces besides male Eros), but the conjoining of 16 ipFpiov and 1tpÓVOla as brought about by Eros etc. strikingly parallels Himeros-Pronoia as the constituent parts of Eros in NHC II, 5. In the related passage Amat. 756 D-F, Plutarch mentions in succession Empedocles' Love (quoting Vor.sokr. Fr. 3 1 B 1 7, 20-21 and B151) and Parmenides' Eros (quoting Vorsokr. Fr. 28B 13), and he refers to Hesiod as well. Significantly, he presents Emp. B17, 20-1, Kai