Is There an “Apocalyptic Worldview” in the Apocalypse of Adam (NHC V, 5)?

Paul-Hubert Poirier Laval University, Québec

The Apocalypse of Adam (hereafter Apoc. Adam) is the fifth and final tractate of the Nag Hammadi Codex V, which, after a version of Eugnos- tos, contains also an Apocalypse of Paul and two Apocalypses of James1. The title Apocalypse of Adam is given both at the beginning and at the end of the text (ⲡⲁⲡⲟⲕⲁⲗⲩⲯⲓⲥ Ⲛⲁⲇⲁⲙ), but the incipit specifies that it is “the revelation (ἀποκάλυψις) which Adam taught his son, Seth, in the seven hundredth year, saying …” (64, 1-4), a formulation which recalls the beginning of the Johannine revelation (“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him …”). Apoc. Adam is only one of the numerous writings attributed to Adam or concerning Adam and/or Eve, and their fate2. A History and Life of Adam and Eve (διήγησις καὶ πολιτεία Ἀδάμ καὶ Εὔας), also known under the false title Apocalypse of Moses, exists in Greek, Latin, Armenian, Georgian and Slavonic, and in a fragmentary Coptic version3. Other Adam

1. Editions of the Coptic text of Apoc. Adam: G.W. MacRae, The Apocalypse of Adam. V, 5: 64, 1‒85, 32, in D.M. Parrott (ed.), Nag Hammadi Codices V, 2-5 and VI with Papyrus Berolinensis 8502, 1 and 4 (Nag Hammadi Studies, 11), Leiden, Brill, 1979, 151-195 (with an English translation); F. Morard, L’Apocalypse d’Adam (NH V, 5) (Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi. Section “Textes”, 15), Québec, Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1985 (with a French translation); German translations: W. Beltz, Die Apokalypse des Adam (NHC V,5), in H.-M. Schenke – H.-G. Bethge – U.U. Kaiser (eds.), Nag Hammadi Deutsch, 2. Band: NHC V,2‒XIII,1, BG 1 und 4 (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte. NF, 12; Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften, 3), Berlin – New York, De Gruyter, 2003, 433-441 and W. Beltz, Die Apokalypse des Adam (NHC V,5), in H.-M. Schenke – H.-G. Bethge – U.U. Kaiser (ed.), Nag Hammadi Deutsch. NHC I–XIII, Codex Berolinensis 1 und 4, Codex Tchacos 3 und 4, Studienausgabe, 3., überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage (De Gruyter Texte), Berlin – Boston, MA, De Gruyter, 2013, 318-324; E. Grypeou, Apokalypse Adams (Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit, NF, 1/2), Gütersloh, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2015. I quote with minor modifications the translation of MacRae, The Apocalypse of Adam. 2. On this literature, see J.-C. Haelewyck, Clavis Apocryphorum Veteris Testamenti (Corpus Christianorum), Turnhout, Brepols, 1998, nos. 1-45; A.-M. Denis – J.-C. Haelewyck, Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénistique, Turnhout, Brepols, 2000, pp. 3-58; M.E. Stone, A History of the Literature of Adam and Eve (Early Judaism and Its Literature, 3), Atlanta, GA, Scholars Press, 1992. 3. Ed. J. Tromp, The Life of Adam and Eve in Greek: A Critical Edition (Pseudepigrapha Veteris Testamenti Graece, 6), Leiden – Boston, MA, Brill, 2005; D.A. Bertrand, La Vie 224 P.-H. POIRIER writings are known, such as the Testament of Adam, the Penitence of Adam, the Ethiopic Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, or the Syriac Cave of Treasures, which is “one of the most significant of the secondary Adam Books”4. According to George W.E. Nickelsburg, “both Adam and Eve 29.2-10, 49-50 and the apocalypse in ApocAd stem from a common tradition, an apocalyptic testament of Adam which was influenced by the Apocalypse of Weeks and perhaps other Enochic traditions”5. But Marinus de Jonge and Johannes Tromp esteem “that, given the nature of the evi- dence, this has to remain hypothetical”6. No Apocalypse of Adam has been preserved outside the one discovered at Nag Hammadi. However, an Apocalypse of Adam is mentioned by Mon- tague Rhodes James in his Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament7. It appears in the manuscript Hierosolymitanus Gr. 49, as a marginal gloss to the Epistle of Barnabas 2,10a, alongside an amplified citation of Ps 50,19 lxx, according to which the citation comes from ψάλμ. Ν´ καὶ ἐν ἀποκαλύψει Ἀδάμ, “the Psalm 50 and in the Apocalypse of Adam”8: “A sacrifice to the Lord is a crushed heart; a sweet fragrance to the Lord is a heart that glorifies the one who made it”9. Such a citation does not occur in our Apoc. Adam. Epiphanius of Salamis, in his Panarion, affirms that, among the numerous books (τὰ μὲν βιβλία αὐτῶν πολλά) they use, the Gnostics “publish certain ‘Questions of Mary’; but others offer many books about Ialdabaoth we spoke of, and in the name of Seth. They call others ‘Apoca- lypses of Adam’”10, in the plural (ἀποκαλύψεις δὲ τοῦ Ἀδάμ). A third grecque d’Adam et Ève: Introduction, texte, traduction et commentaire (Recherches inter- testamentaires, 1), Paris, Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient Adrien Maisonneuve, 1987. See also J.-P. Pettorelli – J.-D. Kaestli – A. Frey – B. Outtier, Vita latina Adae et Evae: Synopsis vitae Adae et Evae latine, graece, armeniace et iberice (Corpus Christianorum. Series Apocryphorum, 18-19), Turnhout, Brepols, 2012. 4. Stone, A History of the Literature of Adam and Eve (n. 2), p. 91. 5. G.W.E. Nickelsburg, Some Related Traditions in the Apocalypse of Adam, The Books of Adam and Eve, and 1 Enoch, in B. Layton (ed.), The Rediscovery of Gnosticism. Proceedings of the International Conference on Gnosticism at Yale, New Haven, Connecticut, March 28-31, 1978. Volume Two: Sethian Gnosticism (Supplements to Numen, 41), Leiden, Brill, 1981, 515-539, here p. 537. 6. M. de Jonge – J. Tromp, The Life of Adam and Eve and Related Literature (Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha), Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, 1997, p. 93. 7. M.R. James, The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament, Their Titles and Fragments (Translations of Early Documents, Series I, Palestinian Jewish Texts [Pre-Rabbinic]), London, SPCK; New York, Macmillan, 1920, pp. 1-2. 8. Text in M.E. Stone, Armenian Apocrypha Relating to the Patriarchs and Prophets (Publications of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Section of Humanities), Jerusalem, The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1982, p. 45, n. 27. 9. B.D. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers: Epistle of Barnabas, Papias and Quadratus, Epistle to Diognetus, The Shepherp of Hermas (Loeb Classical Library, 25), Cambridge, MA – London, Harvard University Press, 2003, pp. 16-17. 10. 26, 8, 1; ed. K. Holl – M. Bergermann – C.-F. Collatz, Epiphanius I. Ancoratus und Panarion haer. 1‒33. Teilband I/1: Text (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte. NF, 10/1), Berlin – Boston, MA, De Gruyter, 2014, p. 284, 11-13; “APOCALYPTIC WORLDVIEW” IN THE APOCALYPSE OF ADAM? 225 mention of an Apocalypse of Adam appears in the Cologne Mani Codex, where it is said that “Adam was the first to say clearly in his apocalypse (ἐν τῆι ἀποκαλύψει αὐτοῦ): ‘I saw an angel […]’”11. This angel, previously unknown to Adam, introduces himself as Balsamos and he has a radiant face (λαμπροῦ προσώπου), which reminds of the “great angels” of Apoc. Adam, who come on high clouds (69, 19-21). Nag Hammadi Codex V, which has preserved the only textual witness to Apoc. Adam, can be dated approximately from the first half of the fourth century. Several indications, mainly of syntactical nature, suggest that the Coptic text is a translation of a Greek original of earlier provenance12. The author of Apoc. Adam seems to be familiar with Greek literature and mythology. When he quotes from the Jewish scriptures, he uses the Sep- tuagint, as in 64, 3: the mention of the seven hundredth year refers to the seven hundred years which Adam lived after the birth of Seth (Gen 5,4)13, or in 73, 26: according to the Septuagint (Gen 10,2.6), the sons (in Apoc. Adam, the kingdoms) of Japheth and Ham are twelve in number (eight for the former, four for the latter), instead of seven only for the sole Japheth in the Hebrew Bible. The manuscript itself is preserved in a relatively good condition except for lacunas affecting the top and bottom of some of the conjugate leaves. From a linguistic point of view, NHC V belongs to what Wolf-Peter Funk terms the “fairly homogeneous codices” of which it is “probably the clear- est example”14. The Codex shows in the syntax and lexicon of all its fives tractates “a strong northern, Bohairic-type substratum”, which has “under- gone a process of superficial Sahidicisation” with the presence “through- out the Codex of superficial Fayyumicisms”15. This situation explains a peculiarity of the Coptic version of Apoc. Adam, that is, the occurrence of interlinear glosses which indicate “a more southern form or spelling besides or above a more northern one, and vice versa”. The procedure “involves both regular lexical isoglosses and the notation of numerals

transl. F. Williams, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis. Book I (Sects 1-46) (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 63), Leiden – Boston, MA, Brill, 2009, p. 96. 11. P. 48, 16‒49, 2; ed. L. Koenen – C. Römer, Der Kölner Mani-Kodex: Über das Werden seines Leibes. Kritische Edition aufgrund der von A. Henrichs – L. Koenen besorgten Erstedition (Abhandlungen der Rheinisch-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissen- schaften, Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia, 14), Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1988, p. 30. 12. See Morard, L’Apocalypse d’Adam (NH V, 5) (n. 1), pp. 5-6. 13. Cf. MacRae, The Apocalypse of Adam (n. 1), pp. 155 and 170; Morard, L’Apocalypse d’Adam (NH V, 5) (n. 1), pp. 63-64 and 90-91. 14. W.-P. Funk, The Linguistic Aspect of Classifying the Nag Hammadi Codices, in L. Painchaud – A. Pasquier (eds.), Les textes de Nag Hammadi et le problème de leur classification. Actes du colloque tenu à Québec du 15 au 19 septembre 1993 (Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi. Section “Études”, 3), Québec, Les Presses de l’Université Laval; Leuven – Paris, Peeters, 1995, 107-147, here p. 139. 15. Ibid., p. 140. 226 P.-H. POIRIER

(spelled out and in cipher)”16. This situation is perhaps an indication that the Coptic version we have was not the very first translation of the text or that the scribe wished to clarify for himself or the readers the meaning of some words and expressions. Apoc. Adam was published for the first time in 1963 by Alexander Böhlig and Pahor Labib, along with the other “Coptic Gnostic apocalypses” of Codex V17. The tractate elicited very early an abundant schol- arly production of which the most recent overview has been provided by Emmanouela Grypeou in the introduction to her German translation of Apoc. Adam18. Worth mentioning are the critical editions of George W. MacRae and Françoise Morard, the thesis of Charles W. Hedrick and the German translation of Walter Beltz19. As Françoise Morard has shown, the revelation that Adam promises to Seth in the first lines of the tractate is structured in two parts, the first one referring to the past (64, 1‒67, 14), the second one to the future (67, 15‒84, 4; 85, 1-18), the narration in the future being interrupted towards the end, in 84, 5-28, by an apostrophe to those who defile the Water of Life20. The revelation to Seth begins with Adam informing Seth about his own and Eve’s creation:

When god had created me out of the earth along with Eve, your mother, I went about with her in a glory that she had seen in the aeon from which we had come forth. She taught me a word of knowledge (γνῶσις) of the eternal God. And we resembled the great eternal angels, for we were higher than the god who had created us and the powers with him, whom we did not know (64, 6-19).

The text goes on with the device imagined by the creator god to keep Adam and Eve under his heel, while the initial knowledge they had had took refuge “into the seed (σπορά) of the great aeons”:

Then god, the ruler of the aeons and the powers, divided us in wrath. Then we became two aeons. And the glory in our heart(s) left us, me and your

16. Ibid., p. 142. 17. A. Böhlig – P. Labib, Koptisch-gnostische Apokalypsen aus Codex V von Nag Ham- madi im Koptischen Museum zu Alt-Kairo, Halle-Wittenberg, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Martin-Luther-Universität, 1963. 18. Grypeou, Apokalypse Adams (n. 1). 19. MacRae, The Apocalypse of Adam (n. 1), pp. 707-719; Morard, L’Apocalypse d’Adam (NH V, 5) (n. 1) and Ead., Apocalypse d’Adam (NH V, 5), in J.-P. Mahé – P.-H. Poirier (eds.), Écrits gnostiques: La bibliothèque de Nag Hammadi (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 538), Paris, Gallimard, 2007, 777-805; C.W. Hedrick, The Apocalypse of Adam: A Literary and Source Analysis (Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series, 46), Chico, CA, Scholars, 1980; Beltz, Die Apokalypse des Adam (NHC V, 5) [2003] (n. 1), pp. 433-441 and Id., Die Apoka- lypse des Adam (NHC V, 5) [2013] (n. 1), pp. 318-324. 20. Morard, L’Apocalypse d’Adam (NH V, 5) (n. 1), p. 12; Ead., Apocalypse d’Adam (NH V, 5) (n. 19), p. 782. “APOCALYPTIC WORLDVIEW” IN THE APOCALYPSE OF ADAM? 227

mother Eve, along with the first knowledge that breathed within us. And (the glory) fled from us (64, 20-28).

The resulting situation is the decline of the protoplasts:

After those days the eternal knowledge of the God of truth withdrew from me and your mother Eve. Since that time we learned about dead things, like men. Then we recognized the god who had created us. For we were not strangers to his powers. And we served him in fear and slavery. After these (events) we became darkened in our heart(s) (65, 9-23).

Salvation is nevertheless announced to Adam by three men he saw in his sleep, “whose likeness (he) was unable to recognize, since they were not from the powers of the god who had [created] (him)” (65, 28-32). The three men reveal to Adam, and Adam to Seth, the salvation to come which will unfold in three phases, each of them accompanied by an angry reaction of the Demiurge, in the form of a flood, a conflagration and per- secution. But these catastrophes will not succeed in annihilating the rebel- lious Sethians, on the contrary it will provoke in the first two periods the salvific intervention of celestial angels or aeons and of the Illuminator of knowledge in the third one. As in most apocalypses, an eschatological judgement takes place in this ultimate phase and results in the final victory of the eternal God. The (second) conclusion of the tractate presents the revelation as “the hidden (ἀπόκρυφον) knowledge (γνῶσις) of Adam, which he gave to Seth, which is the holy baptism of those who know the eternal knowledge (γνῶσις) through those born of the word (λογογενής) and the imperishable illuminators (φωστήρ), who came from the holy seed (σπορά): Yesseus, Mazareus, [Yesse]dekeus, [the Living] Water” (85, 22-31). The triad formed by these figures is mentioned in the Holy Book of the Great Invis- ible Spirit (NHC III, 2 and IV, 2; also known under the faulty title The Gospel of the Egyptians), which calls them “Living Water” and “Great attendants (παραστάτης)”, and also in Zostrianos (NHC VIII, 1)21. The mention of these entities in Apoc. Adam, as well as the predominant role attributed to Seth, son of Adam, suffice to classify the tractate as Sethian. The partition of the salvific history in three periods delimitated by three assaults of the creator god and three manifestations of the Savior is an essential characteristic of the Sethian system, as it has been clearly established by Hans-Martin Schenke in his seminal work22. If it is an undisputed

21. Morard, Apocalypse d’Adam (NH V, 5) (n. 19), p. 805, note ad 85, 30-31. 22. H.-M. Schenke, Das sethianische System nach Nag-Hammadi-Handschriften, in P. Nagel (ed.), Studia Coptica (Berliner Byzantinistische Arbeiten, 45), Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 1974, 163-175 and Id., The Phenomenon and Significance of Gnostic Sethianism, in Layton (ed.), The Rediscovery of Gnosticism (n. 5), 588-616; see also J.D. Turner, Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition (Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi. Section 228 P.-H. POIRIER result of the research that Apoc. Adam is a Sethian production, the non- Christian, pre-Christian or Christian nature of the tractate has been and still is hotly debated. For A. Böhlig, Apoc. Adam comes from a pre-Christian gnosis, enriched with Jewish traditions23. But there were early enough dis- sident voices which affirmed the Christian identity of Apoc. Adam. Among them, H.-M. Schenke, who considered Böhlig’s thesis as “durch und durch verfehlt”24. According to him, non-Christian does not mean necessarily pre-Christian and, if there are no explicit Christian references in the tractate, it exhibits motives that are conceivable only in a Christian envi- ronment, as the Holy Spirit, the flesh of the Savior, the Holy Baptism, and the Name. Robert McL. Wilson concurred with Schenke and considered that “this document represents not a pre-Christian gnosis but a later stage”25. It is nevertheless Jean-Marie Sevrin who presented the most effective argu- ment in favor of Apoc. Adam being not only a “post-Christian” but also a typical “Christian gnostic” production26, a work which integrates Christian elements in a crucial aspect of its system, that is, the figure of the Savior, which, despite his anonymity, shows features characteristic of the Savior in Christian Gnostic writings27. In other words, the Savior of Apoc. Adam “is described covertly under the guise of Christ”28. From a compositional point of view, Apoc. Adam is a narration in prose interrupted by an hymnic section about thirteen “kingdoms” erro- neously expressing themselves about the origin of the Illuminator. This very fact raised the question of the literary unity of the writing. If I am not mistaken, H.-M. Schenke was the first to doubt the homogeneity of Apoc. Adam and to affirm that the hymnic section had been interpolated and artificially linked to the narrative frame as a “quasi-systematischer Exkurs”29. Similarly, Rodolphe Kasser supposed that the hymn, “apparently a very archaic piece”, was inserted in the “authentic ‘Revelation of Adam

“Études”, 6), Québec, Les Presses de l’Université Laval; Leuven – Paris, Peeters, 2001 and Grypeou, Apokalypse Adams (n. 1), p. 10. 23. In Böhlig – Labib, Koptisch-gnostische Apokalypsen aus Codex V von Nag Ham- madi (n. 17), p. 95; see K. Rudolph, Review of A. Böhlig – P. Labib, Koptisch-gnostische Apokalypsen aus Codex V von Nag Hammadi, in Theologische Literaturzeitung 90 (1965) 359-362, here c. 361. 24. H.-M. Schenke, Review of A. Böhlig – P. Labib, Koptisch-gnostische Apokalypsen aus Codex V von Nag Hammadi, in Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 61 (1966) 23-34, here c. 32. 25. R.M. Wilson, Gnosis and the New Testament, Oxford, Blackwell, 1968, p. 138. 26. J.-M. Sevrin, Le dossier baptismal séthien: Études sur la sacramentaire gnostique (Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi. Section “Études”, 2), Québec, Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1986, pp. 157-158. 27. Ibid., p. 175. 28. Ibid., p. 180. 29. Schenke, Review of A. Böhlig – P. Labib, Koptisch-gnostische Apokalypsen aus Codex V von Nag Hammadi (n. 24), c. 31. “APOCALYPTIC WORLDVIEW” IN THE APOCALYPSE OF ADAM? 229 to Seth’”30. But it is Charles Hedrick, in his 1977 Ph. D. dissertation, published in 1980, who was the first to apply to Apoc. Adam the method of the Redaktionsgeschichte. Hedrick distinguishes two sources combined by a final redactor. The first source (A) is a judaeo-gnostic apocalypse, a kind of midrashic commentary on Genesis, which includes the major part of the introduction (64, 6‒65, 23; 66, 12‒67, 12), the first part of the main body of the tractate (67, 22‒76, 7), the confession of the peoples (83, 8‒84, 3), and the first of the two conclusions (85, 19-22). The second source (B) consists of the vision by Adam of the three great men (65, 24‒66, 10; 67, 12-22) and the hymnic section on the thirteen kingdoms. A final redactor, who is to be considered as the author of the tractate, is responsible for the last section (the “voice” addressed to Micheu, Michar and Mnesinous in 84, 4‒85, 17) and the second conclusion31. Hedrick’s thesis was firmly endorsed by John Turner32. J.-M. Sevrin has submitted Hedrick’s reconstruction to a meticulous examination and he concludes that Apoc. Adam is rather a literary piece carefully composed which is the result of a homogenous redaction and that the strophic hymn of the thirteen kingdoms alone could be seen as a preexistent unit33. Françoise Morard has reached independently the same conclusion and she considers Apoc. Adam as a coherent writing, at least in its final form34. As George MacRae summarizes it, Apoc. Adam “explains the loss of saving knowledge by [Adam] and Eve (the fall), its transmission to Seth and his descendants, and its preservation, despite the attempts of the creator-god to destroy mankind by flood and fire, until the third coming of a savior figure, the ‘Illuminator’”35. In order to resist the manifestation of the Illuminator and the knowledge of salvation, the descendants of Ham and Japheth form “twelve kingdoms” (ⲙ⳰Ⲛ⳰ⲧ⳿ⲥⲛⲟⲟⲩ[ⲥ] Ⲙⲙ⳰Ⲛ⳰ⲧⲣⲣⲟ [73, 26-27]). The idea of twelve kingdoms comes probably from the Greek Genesis (10,2.6), where the sons of Japheth and Ham are twelve in number. In the badly preserved lines that follow the mention of the twelve kingdoms (73, 27-29), it is said that “another seed (or: ‘their seed’) will enter into the kingdom of another people (λαός)”. These kingdoms – twelve or thirteen – “will go in to the powers, accusing the great men who are in their glory” (74, 3-7), which means that they will remain impervious

30. R. Kasser, Textes gnostiques: Remarques à propos des éditions récentes du Livre secret de Jean et des Apocalypses de Paul, Jacques et Adam, in Le Muséon 78 (1965) 71-98, here p. 91, and R. Kasser, Bibliothèque gnostique V: Apocalypse d’Adam, in Revue de théologie et de philosophie 17 (1967) 316-333, here p. 317. 31. Hedrick, The Apocalypse of Adam (n. 19), pp. 34-42. 32. Turner, Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition (n. 22), pp. 155-156. 33. Sevrin, Le dossier baptismal séthien (n. 26), pp. 148-151. 34. Morard, L’Apocalypse d’Adam (NH V, 5) (n. 1), pp. 12-13, and Ead., Apocalypse d’Adam (NH V, 5) (n. 19), pp. 782-783. 35. MacRae, The Apocalypse of Adam (n. 1), pp. 151-152. 230 P.-H. POIRIER to the Gnostic message36. The twelve plus one kingdoms may be connected with the thirteen kingdoms of the hymn of 77, 27‒82, 1937. These thirteen kingdoms are as much statements, actually false statements, about the origin of the Illuminator: “Where did the words of deception, which all the powers have failed to discover, come from?” (77, 24-27). The thirteen statements which attempt to answer this question are those of “the angels and all the generations of the powers (ⲛⲓⲅⲉⲛⲉⲁ ⲧⲏⲣⲟⲩ Ⲛⲧⲉⲛⲓϭⲟⲙ)” who “will use the name in error (ϩⲚⲟⲩⲡⲗⲁⲛⲏ)” (77, 19-22). The statements of the kingdoms obey all to the same pattern: a. an introduction: the kingdom x says about him (viz. the Illuminator), b. the enunciation of a hypothesis about his origin, c. a conclusion: he received glory and strength, and thus he came to the water. Each of the so-called kingdoms proposes its view of the origin of the Illuminator or the Savior. These explanations are quite precise: a great prophet (2nd statement; the manuscript is defective for the 1st kingdom), a virgin womb (3rd), a virgin engrossed by Solomon (4th), a drop from heaven (5th), the desire of the flowers (6th), again a drop from heaven to earth (7th), a cloud that came upon the earth and enveloped a rock (8th), one of the nine Muses who desired herself alone in order to become androgynous (9th), a god mastur- bating (10th), a father desiring his own daughter (11th), two illuminators (φωστήρ) or stars (12th), a λόγος (13th). These thirteen kingdoms are followed by a fourteenth entity of a completely different nature (on which I will come back). The variety of scenarios that are envisaged to explain the origin of the Savior have naturally stirred up the curiosity of the commentators. Some of them did their best to discover a logic or find a coherent background for the heteroclite accumulation of images used here by the author of the Apoc. Adam. Andrew Welburn explains most of the “kingdoms” (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 11) by associating them with the Iranian lore and prophetology38. Douglas Parrott ascribes to the thirteen kingdoms as a whole an Egyptian origin: “13 Kingdoms would have been a way of dealing in Egypt with the multitude of claims and counter claims about foreign revealer figures. Since the totality of Egyptian kings is the divine Word, there is no differ- ence between these kings and the traditions established by them, and those foreign figures who have been affirmed as revealers. Indeed, they are, in some sense, one and the same. The basic message would have been that Egyptians do not need to look beyond their kings and their ways for a revelation of the true way of life”39. The most sophisticated interpretation

36. Morard, L’Apocalypse d’Adam (NH V, 5) (n. 1), pp. 90-91. 37. MacRae, The Apocalypse of Adam (n. 1), p. 170, note ad loc. 38. A.J. Welburn, Iranian Prophetology and the Birth of the Messiah: The Apocalypse of Adam, in W. Haase – H. Temporini (eds.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Teil II. Principat, Band 25.6, Berlin, De Gruyter, 1988, 4752-4794. 39. D.M. Parrott, The 13 Kingdoms of the Apocalypse of Adam: Origin, Meaning and Significance, in Novum Testamentum 31 (1989) 67-87, p. 83. Per-Arne Linder sees in the “APOCALYPTIC WORLDVIEW” IN THE APOCALYPSE OF ADAM? 231 of the kingdoms has however been offered by Michel Tardieu in his “Nativités païennes”40. According to him, the statements refer to lies or falsehoods about the origins of Jesus and the nature of his flesh. But none of these interpretations, how ingenious they may be, explains satisfactorily each and all of the statements concerning the thirteen kingdoms. It seems rather that what is important for the “author” is not their content or nature but their sheer number, that is, the fact that there are thirteen kingdoms presented in an identical way plus a fourteenth entity, which is said to be “without a king over it” (82, 19-20). As J.-M. Sevrin has remarked, the thirteen kingdoms function more or less – and nothing more – as a “faire- valoir”, they act as a foil for a last one, the kingless race of the Gnostics, opposed to those who are enslaved to the Pantocrator41. It means that the variegated succession of the thirteen kingdoms with their answers as divergent as they can is just a way to indicate the vacuity of the answers of the Jews, the nations and, eventually, the Christians, if the thirteenth kingdom, with his λόγος, is to be understood in this sense42. As I just said, what follows the thirteen kingdoms is named “the generation without a king over it” (82, 19-20). The Coptic phrase ϯⲅⲉⲛⲉⲁ Ⲛⲛⲁⲧ⳰ⲣⲢⲣⲟ ⲉϩⲣⲁⲓ ⲉϫⲱⲥ is the translation of the Greek ἡ ἀβασίλευτος γενεά. The Greek formula is attested in the Elenchos of Pseudo-Hippoly- tus, in his account of the doctrine of the Naassenes: “The blessed nature of the blessed Human above, Adamas, is one, and the mortal nature above is one, and one is the kingless generation born above (μιὰ δὲ ἡ ἀβασίλευ- τος γενεὰ ἡ ἄνω γενομένη)”43. The Greco-Coptic form of the adjective ἀβασίλευτος (ⲁⲃⲁⲥⲓⲗⲉⲩⲧⲟⲥ) occurs only in the untitled Gnostic text of the Bruce Codex, where it qualifies the “New Earth” created by the hymnic section of Apoc. Adam “the utmost link between Coptic and ancient Egyptian poetry” (The Apocalypse of Adam: Nag Hammadi Codex V, 5 Considered from Its Egyptian Background [Lund Studies in African and Asian Religions, 7], Ödeshög, University of Lund, 1991, p. 111). 40. M. Tardieu, Nativités païennes: Une collection gnostique de naissances singulières. Les treize “royaumes” de l’Apocalypse d’Adam, in B. Feichtinger – S. Lake – H. Seng (eds.), Körper und Seele: Aspekte spätantiker Anthropologie (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde, 215), München – Leipzig, K.G. Saur, 2006, 9-65, an expansion of M. Tardieu, Histoire des syncrétismes de la fin de l’antiquité: La désignation de l’hérésie dans l’apocalyptique gnostique, in Annuaire du Collège de France 1994-1995 95 (1995) 527-534. Strangely enough, in his 2006 article, Tardieu cites Apoc. Adam according to the 1963 out-dated Ger- man translation of Alexander Böhlig (in Böhlig – Labib, Koptisch-gnostische Apokalypsen aus Codex V von Nag Hammadi [n. 17]). 41. Sevrin, Le dossier baptismal séthien (n. 26), p. 178. 42. As suggested by Morard, in L’Apocalypse d’Adam (NH V, 5) (n. 1), p. 112. 43. V, 8, 2, ed. P. Wendland, Hippolytus Werke. Dritter Band: Refutatio omnium haere sium (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte, 26), Leipzig, Hinrichs, 1916, p. 89, 12 = M. Marcovich, Hippolytus. Refutatio omnium haeresium (Patristische Texte und Studien, 25), Berlin – New York, De Gruyter, 1986, p. 154, 8 = M.D. Litwa, Refutation of All Heresies (Writings from the Greco-Roman World, 40), Atlanta, GA, SBL Press, 2016, p. 230, 6. 232 P.-H. POIRIER

Protogenetor44. The Coptic equivalent of the adjective “kingless” is attested in several Nag Hammadi tractates, namely On the origin of the world, Eugnostos, the Sophia Jesu Christi, the Hypostasis of the Archons, the Tripartite Tractate and our Apoc. Adam45. The meaning of ἀβασίλευ- τος in Greek literature and Gnostic sources has been studied by Francis Fallon and by Louis Painchaud and Timothy Janz46. In their contribution, Painchaud and Janz distinguished two categories of texts which use the term ἀβασίλευτος: the texts “which place the things thus designated within the realm of history and use the motif in a clearly polemical way, and those which place it outside of history”47. In the case of Apoc. Adam, they consider that “the polemical tone surrounding the motif of kinglessness is clear”: “Here, the ‘kingless generation’ (82.19-21) is opposed to thirteen kingdoms to whom the treatise attributes erroneous opinions concerning the nature and the origin of the Savior. However, as F. Morard has shown convincingly, while the text attributes to the twelve first kingdoms descended from Ham and Japheth opinions which combine Jewish and Biblical traditions, as well as pagan, Greek and oriental ones, the thirteenth kingdom distinguishes itself from these in that its opinions seem rather to evoke Christianity. Thus it is in opposition to these thirteen kingdoms, and perhaps particularly to the thirteenth, that the treatise mentions the kingless generation […] which alone possesses true knowledge”48. Painchaud and Janz conclude that, in Apoc. Adam, “the expression ‘kingless generation’ designates neither heavenly entities, nor an eschatological status which is sought after, but a given historical group which claims, like the ‘Naassenes’ of Hippolytus, to be in sole possession of true knowledge and uses this expression to affirm its superiority over a group or groups holding differing opinions”49.

44. Ed. C.A. Baynes, A Coptic Gnostic Treatise Contained in the Codex Brucianus [Bruce MS. 96. Bod. Lib. Oxford]. A Translation from the Coptic: Transcript and Com- mentary, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1933, XLII, 16-17 (transl., p. 136) = C. Schmidt, Gnostische Schriften in koptischer Sprache aus dem Codex Brucianus (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, 8, 1/2), Leipzig, Hinrichs, 1892, p. 249, 22. 45. See F. Siegert, Nag-Hammadi-Register: Wörterbuch zur Erfassung der Begriffe in den koptisch-gnostischen Schriften von Nag-Hammadi (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 26), Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 1982, pp. 77-78, for references. 46. F.T. Fallon, The Gnostics: The Undominated Race, in Novum Testamentum 21 (1979) 271-288; L. Painchaud – T. Janz, The “Kingless Generation” and the Polemical Rewriting of Certain Nag Hammadi Texts, in A. McGuire – J.D. Turner (eds.), The Nag Hammadi Library after 50 Years: Papers from the 1995 Society of Biblical Literature Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, Nov. 17-22, 1995 (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, 44), Leiden, Brill, 1997, 439- 460. 47. Painchaud – Janz, The “Kingless Generation” (n. 46), p. 446. 48. Ibid., pp. 448-449. 49. Ibid., p. 449. “APOCALYPTIC WORLDVIEW” IN THE APOCALYPSE OF ADAM? 233

Far from being an interpolation or a decorative excursus, the hymnic section of Apoc. Adam, with its traditional and archaic overtones50, is more or less a poetic summary of what the whole tractate intends to narrate: the origin, fate and history of the generation of Seth, “those who know the eternal knowledge (γνῶσις) through those born of the word (λογογενής) and the imperishable illuminators (φωστήρ), who came from the holy seed (σπορά)” (85, 25-29). The manifestation and the enduring victory of the kingless generation constitutes the heart of “the hidden (ἀπόκρυφον) knowledge (γνῶσις) of Adam, which he gave to Seth” (85, 22-24). To come back to the theme of this Conference and the title of my paper: “Is there an ‘Apocalyptic Worldview’ in the Apocalypse of Adam?”, I would dare say that Apoc. Adam is probably, in the entire Gnostic corpus, one of the best – if not the best – example of such a worldview. It paints in vivid colors the history of mankind from its origins to the judgment and the final triumph of those whose “fruit does not wither” (85, 1). Such a “worldview” is thoroughly “apocalyptic” in the sense that it is the object of a revelation oriented towards an eschatological future. It is all the more a paradox that those “words of Imperishability (ἀφθαρσία) [and] Truth” (85, 13-14) are not to be “committed to a book nor written” (85, 5-6). They were nevertheless actually written and in a very effective way!

Université Laval Paul-Hubert Poirier 175, 54e rue est Québec G1H 6S2 Canada [email protected]

Abstract. — This paper examines the apocalyptic views of the Apocalypse of Adam, the fifth and final tractate of the Nag Hammadi Codex V, with a special attention given to the hymnic section about the thirteen “kingdoms”. It concludes that this writing proposes a “worldview” which is thoroughly “apocalyptic” in the sense that it is the object of a revelation oriented towards an eschatological future.

50. Sevrin, Le dossier baptismal séthien (n. 26), p. 178.