CHAPTER FOUR

THE MYTH OF A DESCENDING-ASCENDING REDEEMER IN MEDITERRANEAN ANTIQUITY (1976)

In spite of its popularity, the contention that the Christian concep- tion of Jesus as a descending-ascending savior figure was derived from the gnostic redeemer myth faces serious problems.1 Three are widely noted; another needs attention. (1) The sources from which our knowledge of the gnostic myth comes are late:2 e.g., the Naassene hymn, the Hymn of the Pearl, the Mandean materials, the Manichean evidence, the accounts in the church fathers, and the Nag Hammadi documents. Sources from Chenoboskion like the Paraphrase of Shem,3 the Apocalypse of Adam,4 and the Second Treatise of the Great Seth5 do contain a myth of a redeemer that is only superficially christianized. Hence the gnostics may not have derived their myth from Christians. It does not follow, however, either that Christians got it from gnostics or that it is pre-Christian.6 (2) A redeemer myth is not essential to Gnosticism.7 Though Gnosticism may contain a redeemer myth (e.g. the Naassene hymn), it may exist without one. In Carpocrates’ system,

1 The view is closely connected with the name of Rudolf Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes (16th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959), 8–9, also n. 9; RGG (3rd ed.), 3:847; Theology of the New Testament (New York: Scribner’s, 1955), 2:6, 12–13, 66. 2 Attempts to find a Gnostic ἄνθρωπος figure in Philo have failed. Cf. A. J. M. Wedderburn, “Philo’s ‘heavenly man,’ ” NovT 15 (1973): 301–326. 3 Frederik Wisse, “The Redeemer Figure in the Paraphrase of Shem,”NovT 12 (1970): 130–40. 4 George W. MacRae, “The Coptic Gnostic Apocalypse of Adam,” HeyJ 6 (1965): 27–35; James M. Robinson, “The Coptic Gnostic Library Today,” NTS 14 (1968): 377. 5 Joseph A. Gibbons, “A Commentary on the Second Logos of the Great Seth,” (Ph.D. diss., Yale, 1962). 6 One can agree with James M. Robinson, “World in Modern Theology and in New Testament Theology,” in Soli Deo Gloria (ed. J. McDowell Richards; Richmond: John Knox, 1968), 104, that the gnostic redeemer myth is not in origin a perversion of Christology. It does not follow, however, that Christology is thereby an appropriation of the gnostic myth. 7 Walter Schmithals, The Office of Apostle in the Early Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 1969), 116; Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition (London: Mowbray, 1965), 98. 84 chapter four for example, Jesus’ soul remembered what it had seen in its circuit with the unbegotten God.8 The Ophites in Origen’s Against Celsus know of no descending-ascending redeemer. They look to an earthly being who fetches gnosis from heaven.9 In Poimandres, the writer is the recipient of a vision in rapture. He then teaches the way of salvation. Indeed, the proto-Gnosticism of Paul’s opponents in 1 Corinthians appar- ently did not contain a redeemer myth.10 Such evidence demands that a distinction be drawn between two issues: (a) whether or not there was a pre-Christian Gnosticism, and (b) whether or not there was a pre-Christian gnostic redeemer myth. Since a redeemer myth is not constitutive for Gnosticism, the existence of a pre-Christian gnosis is no guarantee for the presence of a gnostic redeemer myth.11 (3) In the Christian sources where the gnostic myth has been assumed to be influential (e.g. the Fourth Gospel), there is no ontological identity between Christ and the believers as in Gnosticism. There is, in the Christian writings, no pre existence of the soul or redeemed redeemer.12 Given these difficulties, why the attractiveness of the gnostic hypothesis? The pattern of descent-ascent in the gnostic redeemer myth “has been and remains the strongest support for the hypothesis” that

In addition to the groups mentioned in the text, Grillmeier refers to the Nicolaitans, the Archontics, and the Antitactae. 8 Irenaeus, Haer. 1.25.1–6. 9 Cels. 7.8–9. 10 Walter Schmithals, Gnosticism in Corinth (Nashville: Abingdon, 1971), 138–41, seems to have the better of the argument against Ulrich Wilckens, Weisheit und Torheit (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1959). 11 Carsten Colpe, Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule. Darstellung und Kritik ihres bildes vom gnostischen Erlösermythus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961); “New Testament and Gnostic Christology,” in Religions in Antiquity (ed. Jacob Neusner; Leiden: Brill, 1968), 227–42; H. M. Schenke, Der Gott “Mensch” in der Gnosis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962). Since James M. Robinson’s negative review of Colpe’s book ( JBL 81 [1961], 287–9), scholarly opinion has seemed to con- firm Colpe’s and Schenke’s conclusions. Ernst Käsemann’s shift is indicative (“The Problem of a New Testament Theology,” NTS 19 [1973]: 238). Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), 151, sums up the situation: “After Carsten Colpe’s book . . . it must be considered very questionable whether in the pre-Christian period there had been a complete redeemer myth that was then merely transferred to Jesus.” 12 Wayne Meeks, “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism,” JBL 91 (1972): 44, 68; Schuyler Brown, review of Der Vater, der mich gesandt hat by Juan Peter Miranda, CBQ 36 (1974): 421–2. This objection has usually been answered by saying that John was demythologizing the gnostic myth.