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Material Shared Between Zostrianos (NHCVIII,1) Andthe Untitled Work in the Bruce Codex

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Material Shared Between Zostrianos (NHCVIII,1) Andthe Untitled Work in the Bruce Codex chapter 16 Judges of the Moon and Stars: More Material Shared between Zostrianos (NHC VIII,1) and The Untitled Work in the Bruce Codex Dylan M. Burns 1 Introduction Among the more abstruse of the ancient Gnostic texts is the Untitled work that is preserved in the Bruce Codex, one of the few Coptic Gnostic manuscripts known to scholarship prior to the Nag Hammadi discovery.1 Untitled relates a theogony and cosmogony, before the narrative is cut short by the loss of the rest of the manuscript following its account of the creation of the material world.2 Its lengthy descriptions of a densely-populated celestial realm cascading from the transcendent, divine abyss, eventually producing earth and human beings, appear to draw upon and synthesize a variety of ancient intellectual tradi- tions, such as Numenian Platonism andValentinian Gnosticism.3 Perhaps most 1 The standard edition remains V. MacDermot’s English translation of C. Schmidt’s Coptic text: The Books of Jeu and the Untitled Treatise in the Bruce Codex (NHS 13; Leiden: Brill, 1978). See now, however, E. Crégheur, “Édition critique, traduction et introduction des ‘deux Livres de Iéou (MS Bruce 96)’, avec des notes philogiques et textuelles” (Ph.D. diss.; Université Laval, 2013). Dr. Crégheur is currently preparing a new edition of the Bruce Codex for the series “Bibliothèque Copte de Nag Hammadi.” I thank him for reading a draft of this paper and offering some helpful comments and corrections. All remaining errors are my own. 2 Here I follow Crégheur’s analysis of the direction of the papyrus fibers of the Codex (“Édition critique,” 75–76, 482–483), which validates C. Baynes’s arrangement of its leaves on grounds of content (A Coptic Gnostic Treatise Contained in the Codex Brucianus [Bruce MS. 96. Bod. Lib. Oxford]. A Translation from the Coptic: Transcript and Commentary [London: Cambridge University Press, 1933], xviii). Schmidt’s arrangement had taken the first ten surviving pages of Untitled to follow where the manuscript breaks off, rather than preceding the rest of the text. Baynes’ arrangement was followed by E. Muehlberger, “Preserving the Divine: αὐτο-Prefixed Generative Terms and the Untitled Treatise in the Bruce Codex,” VC 65 (2011): 311–328 at 325. In the present study, the Bruce Codex is cited first by manuscript page number (sensu Baynes and Crégheur—i.e., Schmidt/MacDermot’s number + 10), followed by page and line number in Schmidt/MacDermot, to facilitate reference to the latter edition. 3 On the Numenian character of the two demiurges in Untitled, see Muehlberger, “Preserving © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004357211_018 286 burns well-known, however, is a scene immediately preceding the abrupt end of the manuscript, which describes the creation of an “aerial earth” (ⲕⲁϩ ⲛ̄ⲁⲉⲣ) and aeons called the “Sojourn” (ⲡⲁⲣⲟⲓⲕⲏⲥⲓⲥ), “Repentance” (ⲙⲉⲧⲁⲛⲟⲓⲁ), and the “Self-Begotten Copies” (ⲁⲛⲧⲓⲧⲩⲡⲟⲥ ⲛ̄ⲁⲩⲧⲟⲅⲉⲛⲏⲥ), occupied by celestial baptizers.4 The third-century Platonist philosopher Plotinus was familiar with these terms, excoriating them in his polemic against his Christian Gnostic “friends” (Ennead 2.9 [33], titled by Porphyry Against the Gnostics) as useless intermediaries introduced to the noetic world, having something to do with reincarnation. The Gnostics simply are, in his eyes, plagiarizing Plato, “invent- ing a new jargon to recommend their own school” even though “the judgments too, and the rivers in Hades, and the reincarnations come from Plato.”5 Meanwhile, among the Coptic Gnostic works unearthed in 1945 nearby Nag Hammadi is Zostrianos (NHC VIII,1), a lengthy ascent apocalypse describ- ing the heavenly journey of the eponymous seer, where he receives baptisms, recites doxologies alongside angels, and is party to lengthy discourses on Neo- platonic metaphysics.6 Porphyry wrote in his Vita Plotini that one of the apoc- alypses introduced by the Christian Gnostics to Plotinus’ seminar was titled Zostrianos, and it is safe to say that some version of the Greek Vorlage of the the Divine,” 321–323; on the likely Valentinian background of the language of “right” and “left” used to distinguish between the two earth and two groups of humanity, see D. Brakke, “The Body as/at the Boundary of Gnosis,” JECS 17 (2009): 195–214 at 198 and 209–212. It is worth mentioning that the text preceding Untitled in the Bruce Codex, usually called the Books of Jeu, also shares material with the Pistis Sophia of the Askew Codex; see S. Johnston, “Proximité littéraire entre les Codices Askew et Bruce,” Journal of Coptic Studies 17 (2015): 85–107. 4 Untitled 61, 263.16–264.6. 5 Enn. 2.9 [33] 6.6–7, 13–14, tr. Armstrong in LCL 441:233 (slightly modified). For reviews (from diverse perspectives) of the evidence regarding the presence and significance of the Gnostics and Gnostic literature at Plotinus’ seminar in Rome, see recently Z. Mazur, “The Platoniz- ing Sethian Gnostic Background of Plotinus’ Mysticism” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2010), J.-M. Narbonne, Plotinus in Dialogue with the Gnostics (Studies in Platonism, Neopla- tonism, and the Platonic Tradition 11; Leiden: Brill, 2011), N. Spanu, Plotinus, ‘Ennead’ II 9 [33] ‘Against the Gnostics’: A Commentary (Studia Patristica Supplement 1; Leuven: Peeters, 2012), and D.M. Burns, Apocalypse of the Alien God: Platonism and the Exile of Sethian Gnosticism (Divinations; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014). Regrettably, the new Budé edition of Plotinus’ Großschrift (including Enn. 2.9), which will feature detailed discussion of this evidence, has not appeared at the time of writing. 6 On Zostrianos as an apocalypse, see Burns, Apocalypse, 56–57 and 70–76; cf. J.D.Turner, “Intro- duction: Zostrianos,” in C. Barry et al., Zostrien (BCNH, section “textes” 24; Québec/Leuven: Presses de l’Université Laval/Peeters, 2000), 1–225 at 48–64..
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