(CG II,5): a GNOSTIC PHYSICS by PHEME PERKINS The

ON THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD (CG II,5): A GNOSTIC PHYSICS

PHEME PERKINS

The preface to the fifth tractate in codex II from Nag Hammadi, On the Origin of the World, claims to engage the reader in a cosmological discussion about the arrangement of chaos. Interpretations of this work usually assume that once the author has shown chaos to be "shadow" and not a primal reality, his cosmological interests end and gnostic mytholo- gizing takes over. Alexander B6hlig, for example, treats the philosophical language as part of a mythological syncretism designed to present the plan of salvation that will destroy the world.' While some attempts have been made to incorporate Gnostic materials into the study of middle Platon- ism,2 Heinrich D6rrie's judgment that Gnostic cosmologies represent "the facile musings of mediocre minds," para-philosophical ramblings of the semi-erudite, reflects the usual view. Such judgments seem unsound, in part because they discount the intellectual interests of Gnostic speculation - thus manifesting the same distaste for their negative cosmology as in the rhetoric of Plotinus' refutatio, where the genre dictates such com- ments, - and because the Nag Hammadi texts are showing an increasing variety of philosophical allusions; and finally because myth played a larger role in hellenistic cosmological speculation than it is usually given credit for. For example, the Hesiod passage on chaos usually cited as the source for the opening reference to chaos in this treatise3 was allegorized by Zeno.4 Linking 'chaos' to the verb cheesthai, Zeno associates it with the element water; earth appears as itself; Tartarus is air; and eros, fire.5 Such identifications are presupposed in Orig. World. B6hlig, himself, observes that this text is more optimistic than cosmologies which hold strict domination of fate.6 Therefore, I suggest a commentary on these passages from the perspective of 2nd. AD physics. In this article I would like to take a brief look at four pieces of such a commentary on Orig. World: biological metaphor; the eros myth; providence, and the end of the cosmos. I am not concerned with tracing the mythological background 37 to these various concepts - a task already well advanced by Tardieu' - but rather with those unique features of the presentation in Orig. World which would strike a 2nd. cent. reader as indebted to cosmological speculation.

BIOLOGICAL METAPHOR

Biological metaphors play a striking role in many Gnostic cosmologies. Where we have other versions of the myth to compare with Orig. World, the latter has expanded the biological aspect. For example, the description of the origin of the arche of jealousy - itself an old cosmogonic Motif8 - has expanded the abortion metaphor derived from its Gnostic source: Hypostasis of the Archons (CG II 94,13-15) : ...and that shadow was cast aside to a place (meros) and its form became a work (ergon) in matter (hyle) like an abortion. Origin of the World (CG II 99,8-20): ...that jealousy was like an abortion which had no spirit (pneuma) in it; it was like the shadows in a great watery substance (ousia). Then (tote) Wrath (chole) which came into being from the shadow, was cast to a part (meros) of chaos (chaos). Since that day, a watery substance (ousia) appeared and what was enclosed in it flowed out, appearing in chaos (chaos) as one who bears a child is delivered of all her afterbirth (lit. excess, perisson). This is how matter (hyle), when it came from the shadow, was cast aside. The watery substance is a standard feature of Stoic cosmogonies.9 The primal fire changes into such a substance before the separation into elements. Here it is equated with the afterbirth following an abortion, the cosmogonic principle, jealousy. Within that metaphorical context one is reminded that in medical writers ekballein (noudje ebol) is a term used for abortion This biological analogy serves to refute a Stoic cosmogonic view by insisting that there is no spirit in the watery substance. Such a metaphor would not be extraneous to a debate with Stoicism. Stoic cosmogonies frequently used generative metaphors - though certainly not abortion ! - to describe the birth of the cosmos." For example, Zeno is reported to have said: God, nous, fate and Zeus are one ... being by himself in the beginning, he trans- formed all substance through air into water and, just as the sperm is embraced in the