No, to correct, the OP said:Just to clarify. We are talking specifically about the Platonizing Sethian texts like Zostrianos or Allogenes, not the version found in the Apocryphon of John which is earlier, maybe much earlier. The date of Zostrianos is controversial but is unlikely to be earlier than the pseudo-Chaldean oracles one of which is referenced in the Anonymous Commentary on the Parmenides which has similar philosophic ideas to the Platonizing Sethian texts. Now the pseudo-Chaldean oracles date from the reign of Marcus Aurelius so Zostrianos is later than that i.e around 200 CE at the earliest. Allogenes is probably later than Zostrianos .
Andrew Criddle
The clear implication in the OP is that older, smaller sects have been synthesized into one later larger category. On origins, locating and dating Sethites, Ophites, or Barbeloites would answer the question most precisely. Because the extant literature is the 'ending' rather than the 'beginning.'... popular gnostic texts, such as the Secret Book of John, were actually amalgamations by three different gnostic groups (ophite, sethite, and barbeloite) that eventually syncretized into what we call the 'sethian gnostics.'
My Timeframe is also correct, because it's chrono-logical and Occam's Razor. In Antiquity, books circulated very slowly, over decades and even generations, influence was a slow-burn and not a 'radical revision, lately'. So the fundamental assumption any 3rd C. librarian could be the influence (ergo predecessor) of a mythos hundreds of years older is ... ahem ... utter bollocks.
Migrants into the Sethrum for +500 years had a cultural impact on the OT, Josephus c.90 AD wrote paragraphs on Sethians, the Early Church Fathers (c.140 AD) likewise knew them as largely defunct (has-beens, disappeared), and confirming archaeological evidence -- the NHL itself -- intuitively supports an even greater antiquity for folkloric Sethianism. Basically, we are referring to a poorly-recorded (and much despised) culture of Judeo-Egyptians originally resident on the Eastern Delta. Later, because of an existential crisis -- at time when (Judaean) Judaism in Egypt was repressed in 38 AD, 70 AD, 115 AD -- there was a renaissance of sorts, and a regional, indigenous, Semitic folk-mythos was repackaged, Platonized, dressed up and made-fancy, cosmopolitanized: on purpose. Obviously, the intellectual, philosophical literature which has come down to us is the last, late stage: analogous to standardized Greek myth.
Late Sethian Gnosticism (1st -2nd C. AD) is as much a reaction as proof to what happened. I certainly don't believe First C. Jews were entirely innocent of ethno-religious extremism themselves. In 38 AD, there was one inter-ethnic explosion and anti-Jewish pogrom, but longstanding, seething social ferment also led to a larger catastrophe 115 AD: boasted Biblical genocides of Others, revisited upon the Jews themselves?
No need to wonder how 'Sethian Gnosticism' became much more popular and darker in the mid-late 1st C. When you witnessed your parents get murdered by mobs in 38 AD, you joined a protected synagogue to save your own life: the Converso phenomenon is not unique, nor the first. Whereas ('Jewish') Gnosticsm was not originally morbid, it definitely became diabolical for some reason(s), not so difficult to surmise in light of the tragic history then unfolding. We are likewise reminded of another, more recent example.
Meanwhile, in Philo's day as throughout Antiquity, 'Therapeutae' (called whatever: 'Sethians'/'Chaldaeans'/'Samaritans', etc.), could enter Temples/shrines of Osiris, Serapis, Asklepios-Imouthes/Imhotep, Zeus Ammon, etc. to conduct their famed dream interpretations and psycho-spiritual healings. They must have been part of a larger heterodox Semitic sub-culture. In a time of persecutions, this 'Outsider status' naturally became a saving grace. Yet Philo (c.25 AD) informs us that "radical allegorizers" were already popular, so their syncretistic theosophical movement was not new, and this alternative must have worried Temple Judeans in his day too. Ergo: Jewish Gnosticism must originate in competing sects of the 1st BC or earlier (Josephus reminds us that Sethians were "ancient")... this has all been covered before. Locating and dating Sethites, Ophites, Barbeloites etc. will answer the question most precisely, YES.
The much re-copied, typically evolving literature (of an exploited bowdlerized Judeo-Egyptian mythos) dates to the Late 1st and Early 2nd C. Priority should be obvious; no, there was no 'Conspiracy' to create 'Sethianism' for scandal in the 4th C. Christian Church, either. Please.
Now the pseudo-Chaldean oracles date from the reign of Marcus Aurelius so Zostrianos is later than that i.e around 200 CE at the earliest. Allogenes is probably later than Zostrianos.
Forget "pseudo-", that's deliberately misleading. Chaldaean magic was definitely a thing, and more ancient than that (viz., 175 AD), the nominative 'Chaldaean' refers especially to Proto-Jewish Semites in Egypt c.500-150 BC, before they were properly called "Jews." Banish the word 'Sethian' from your lips? The Bible of Moses gets at least this much right: carefully (un)name your enemies, to strip them of power.
Statistics: Posted by billd89 — Sat May 25, 2024 9:38 am