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Matter and Evil in Sethian Gnosticism

It has become increasingly apparent in recent scholarship that what is designated by the term

gnosticism1 is not at all clear or concise. This is because it has become a blanket term for a

wide range of religious, philosophical and psychological ideas and writings developed by an

equally wide range of ancient writers. Gershom Scholem has remarked that research into the

problems of gnosticism...is still far removed from a state where valid generalizations can be

established with any amount of confidence.2 Karen King has gone so far as to suggest that

there is no such thing as Gnosticism, if we mean by that some kind of ancient religious entity

with a single origin and a distinct set of characteristics.3 Nevertheless, this acknowledgement

has not prevented modern scholarship from propagating such broad generalizations uncritically.

In this essay we will look at one such instance, namely the representation of gnosticism as being

distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil.4 Although this view has been generally

accepted as a fundamental tenet of gnostic belief, we must question whether it is too simplistic a

statement to accurately represent the complex and diversified range of thought that falls under

the designation gnosticism. This paper will attempt to make the inadequacy of this sweeping

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generalization apparent by demonstrating that the early Sethian gnostics did not consider evil to

be an inherent property of matter. Discussion will be limited to two Sethian treatises, the

Apocryphon of John and the Hypostasis of the Archons. In addition, the analysis will be

supplemented with a comparison to Platos Timaeus, which is a widely acknowledged source of

Gnostic thought in general and Sethian thought in particular.

The paradigmatic influence of Platos Timaeus on gnostic thought is widely

acknowledged academically,5 and it is readily apparent that much of the core vocabulary of

gnosticism derives its contextual origins from Platos usages. Thus, an understanding of the

gnostic conception of matter requires an interpretation of matter in the Timaeus.

In his exposition of the creation of the cosmos, Plato posits an active, intelligent agent

over against what he refers to as the receptacle (!"#$#%&). This difficult and vague (49a)

conception is also referred to as a space (%'()) in which [physical entities]...[come] into being

and from which they subsequently pass out of being (49e).6 In itself, it is absolutely featureless

and passive a chaotic and disorganized flux of matter that is primordial to even the four

elements (49c-e). It is out of this pre-existing, featureless material that Platos active agent, the

demiurge ($*+,#-(./0),7 creates the cosmos. Thus Plato employs the metaphor of matter as

mother and the creator as father. The demiurge moulds from the receptacle a moving image

of eternity, which is time (37d), in which the cosmos imitates a complete and intelligible living

being (39e), perhaps referring to the eternal realm of forms (12$#0). What is produced is an

imitation of the divine. The most important point for our present discussion is summed up at 50c:

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[the receptacle] has never taken on any characteristic similar to any of the things that enter it.

This necessarily entails its amorality. For Plato, matter can be neither intrinsically evil nor

intrinsically good.

Aristotle associated Platos receptacle with hul!, the Greek word which has come down

to us through Latin as matter (Aristotle, Physics 8, 209b1).8 Aristotles conception of hul! was

in turn transmitted down to the Middle Platonists (first century BCE to third century CE), such as

Eudorus and Moderatus.9 The Middle Platonists inherited not only Platos receptacle qua

Aristotles hul!, or pre-existent matter, from which the cosmos was shaped, but also the

characterization of Platos demiurge as a creator god who is subordinate to the One of Platos

Parmenides. The Sethian gnostics, for whom the Apocryphon of John and the Hypostasis of the

Archons are paradigmatic texts, become the receivers of this intellectual tradition.10

We shall now turn our attention to the Apocryphon of John, whose cosmological account

was of particular influence in antiquity.11 The widespread circulation of this treatise is attested by

the fact that four preserved Coptic translations of the lost Greek original have been discovered.

Two of these are earlier, shorter versions (from the Nag Hammadi Codex III and the Codex

Papyrus Berolinensis 8502 (BG)), and are held to be independent translations of the same Greek

original.12 The other two are later, redacted and extended versions (from the Nag Hammadi

Codex IV and II) of these shorter Coptic translations. Most English translations seem to favour

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Codex II & IV.13 In the current discussion, however, we will analyse Codex BG & III,14 since

they are closer in time to the original authors and are therefore likely to more closely resemble

their perspective.

The most relevant lines for our present discussion can be found at BG 55,2-55,9:15

They brought him (Adam) into the shadow of death. They made a figure16 once
more17 but from earth and water and fire and spirit18, that is, from matter, and
darkness19 and desire and the contrary spirit.

The language of this passage is clearly darker than the accounts of creation given in the Timaeus.

The tone is immediately apparent in the description of the mortal world as the shadow of

death, which highlights the negative consequence of creation. Comparatively, while the

Timaeus does discuss passing out of being, or perishing,20 it tends towards the more positive

vocabulary of becoming (28a). It is not difficult in the passage above to construe the

possibility of malignant forces at work. Our task will be to determine whether matter is being

represented as the source of this evil, and if not, whether there are any other apparent sources for

it in the text.

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Is hul!, in the above statement being characterized as evil? Let us begin by considering

its position in the sentence. Hul! here is referring back to the figure which the gnostic demiurge

and his authorities are creating. The skeleton of this sentence reads: They made a figure...from

matter and darkness and desire and the contrary spirit. Thus, we can see that the figure is an

amalgamation of these four components, the elements being a further breakdown of the

constitution of matter; however, the list of the four elements in between is significant. These are

described as being from matter. The Coptic word !"#$ can also mean out of, and denotes

the source out of which something arises.21 This description of the primordiality of hul! relative

to the four elements is also stated of Platos receptacle (hupodokh!) in the Timaeus.22 This

inclusion makes the connection between the two conceptions of matter all the more explicit, and

the likelihood that we are dealing with an amoral depiction of matter all the more probable.

Further, these four elements are the only words in the grammar of the sentence that can claim

such an out-of-which relationship to hul! exclusively.23 Darkness, desire and the contrary

spirit,24 conversely, all stand in apposition to hul! as a combined set they are collectively used

to fashion the figure of Adam. Thus, while Adam (i.e. humanity) does inherently contain

darkness, desire, and contrary spirit, matter itself does not. We shall leave aside, for the

moment,25 the question of whether or not darkness, desire, or the contrary spirit can be said to be

evil, being satisfied for now that we have found nothing in this text to link evil inherently to

matter.
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The Hypostasis of the Archons, though independent from the Apocryphon of John, is a

text relatively coeval with it and the two share many narrative and thematic similarities.26 In

viewing the presentation of matter put forward by the author(s) of this additional text we are

provided with a second voice which may verify or contradict our analysis. If the content can be

shown to be similar, then we can establish the likelihood of the existence of a broader range of

gnostic thinkers who did not hold any belief in the intrinsic evil of matter.

The key passage in the Hypostasis of the Archons regarding matter describes not the

creation of humanity, but rather of the demiurge himself. He is produced through the attempt of

the heavenly aeon, Sophia, to create something of herself without participation in the godhead;

her product is first described as a celestial thing (Hyp. Arch. 94,6-9).27 Our passage of

interest directly follows this description:

A veil exists between the world above and the realms that are below; and a shadow
came into being beneath the veil; and that shadow became matter; and that shadow
was projected apart. And what she (Sophia) had created became a product in the
matter, like an aborted fetus. And it assumed a figure28 moulded out of shadow, and
it became an arrogant beast resembling a lion. It was androgynous, as I have already
said, because it was from matter that it derived.

The consecutive phrases, a shadow came into being, and, that shadow became matter,

may initially seem to suggest that the shadow is the origin of matter, and so identifies matter with

the shadow. We will begin by demonstrating that no identity statement is being made here. In

this way, even if we allow for the possibility of interpreting the shadow as evil,29 we will still

have shown the identification of evil with matter to be groundless.

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That the author of this treatise would intend us to take the second of these statements as

establishing matter as a product of the shadow only seems apparent due to ambiguity in the

English translation. The words for came into being in the first phrase, and became in the

second are actually the same verb in Coptic: !%&! (cognate with Middle Egyptian kheper,30 to

develop). In both instances the shadow is coming into being. This parallel is obscured in

translation above. In addition, hul! follows the ' of predication one of the uses of which is to

describe the material out of which something is constituted.31 Thus, taking these two facts into

account, one could also translate these phrases as: a shadow came into being beneath the

veil...that shadow came into being out of matter (where out of signifies constitution, not

source or origin), with the second phrase both paralleling and furthering the description of the

first. The ambiguity in the translation above, which could lead to either interpretation, is not

present in the Coptic. Indeed, the identity interpretation is ruled out by it. The non-specialist

reader of such a translation is not likely to pick up on such a distinction, particularly if they are

coming into the reading with a foreknowledge of the gnostic notion that matter is evil. A closer

reading of the text makes it clear that the author of this treatise did not intend for this second

phrase to claim hul! as originating out of shadow. Rather, it attests to the primordiality of matter.

The above analysis brings to light that in this passage we are witnessing a process of

becoming. What we are seeing is the progression of Sophias failed product32 as it enters the

realm beneath the veil (i.e. the earthly, worldly, lower, material realm). Originally begotten as a

celestial being, the text immediately turns its attention to the shadow which it casts in the world

below. Thus the being that is destined to become the demiurge has a downward orientation right

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at its conception. This is to say that it is inherently turned away from the divine. Once the

shadow has been cast (i.e. has come into being beneath the veil), the next phase is for the shadow

to come to being in matter.33 This could be expressed Platonically by saying that matter (the

receptacle) receives the impression or image of the shadow which is then moulded into a

material form34. Hence, the celestial product became a product of hul!. If it is not clear from

this progression that matter was present before the shadow, we need only to consider the last line

of our passage above, which states that the aborted offspring of Sophia is derived from35

matter. In so far as we have been successful in associating the shadow with the demiurge, we

have also demonstrated the priority of matter. Thus, even if the shadow is associated with evil, it

cannot be shown to be considered intrinsic to matter by the author(s) of the Hypostasis of the

Archons.

We have now thoroughly established that matter is not presented as evil in either of our

gnostic texts, and in this they parallel Platos account of matter. Nevertheless, these texts, unlike

the Timaeus, are heavily coloured by the motif of evil. If this drastic difference in content cannot

be accounted for by attributing evil to matter, from whence does the gnostic notion of evil

come?36 It is readily apparent that the biggest point of contention between the Timaeus and the

gnostic texts lies not in the way they depict matter, but rather in the way they depict their

respective demiurges.

Let us begin by noting the connecting similarity between the gnostic and Platonic

demiurges. Neither is portrayed as the transcendent supreme deity. They are both of a lower
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order who look up and see the eternal realm above and attempt to make the closest possible

imitation of it in the world of impermanence below. However, they stand at the opposite ends of

the moral spectrum. The creator of the Timaeus is the good demiurge who creates the best

possible world and bestows intelligence (nous) and psyche upon humanity since no

unintelligent thing could be better than an intelligent one (30b). In contrast, the Apocryphon of

John describes its demiurge, Yaldabaoth,37 as jealous, ignorant/blind, imperfect, and misshapen

(of inferior form) (for example, the quotation of Yahweh as jealous at BG 44,14-15). The

Hypostasis of the Archons likens the demiurge to an aborted fetus, moulded out of shadow, who

arrogantly sinned against all (86,31-33). J. Turner has aptly described the gnostic demiurge as

a negative parody of Platos Demiurge.38

Both demiurges are depicted as attempting to create an imitation of the eternal realm.

However, Yaldabaoth is driven by the additional motivation of seizing and imprisoning the spirit

(or, alternatively, the light) of the divinity above: hence, humanity. His act is hostile, and once

achieved, oppressive. He binds the divine spirit further by putting humanity under the fetters of

forgetfulness, making them ignorant of their origins.39 Rather than being an inconvenient

though impersonal necessity of human existence, ignorance (which has been bound to the

material body) becomes a wilfully malignant opposing force in the human experience. Here,

however, is where the key distinction must be made. The evil associated with this oppressive

ignorance has its origins in the intentions of the demiurge and the resultant captive/captor

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relationship of humanity to its creator. Hul! is merely the material out of which the prison is built

innocent but by association.40

It must be asked how an interpretation with limited textual support in individual gnostic

texts has come to be so casually propagated as gnostic in the scholarly tradition and from

whence it originated. It should be noted that before the find at Nag Hammadi, scholars relied

heavily on the accounts of early Christian heresiologists such as Iranaeus and Tertullian for

information on gnosticism.41 Statements regarding the gnostic conception of matter as evil often

seem to have been drawn uncritically in subsequent scholarship from the heresiologists

polemical writings. In addition, many of the early scholars in gnosticism were of a decidedly

theological persuasion. Adolf von Harnack is an early example in this tradition. He compiled a

very influential list of key gnostic tenets based on heresiological polemics against gnosticism.

Among these tenets is the assertion that evil was understood as a physical force, inherent in

matter.42 As this supposition has become more widely circulated and repeated,43 it has gained a

certain authority which has made the validity of the assertion seem beyond question. This

discussion will hopefully foster an awareness that this tacitly assumed theological perspective

has informed much of the current scholarship on gnosticism. In having drawn attention to but

one particular instance in which the inadequacy of such uncritical generalizations is apparent, the

need has hopefully been demonstrated for a more critical and nuanced approach to the future

study of gnosticism.

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