Sacred book of the Invisible Great Spirit – Wikipedia

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A parchment of the 9th or 10th century. Photo taken by Einsiedeln Stiftsbibliothek.
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The Sacred Book of the Invisible Great Spirit , also named Egyptian Gospel , is a gnostic text of II It is A century written in Coptic and appearing among the documents found in Nag Hammadi in 1945, in Codex III, 2 and IV, 2.

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Dated from the last quarter of II It is century [ first ] , this text comes from the Gnostic Sethian circles which saw in Jesus de Nazareth the reincarnation of Seth, the third son of Adam. This environment has produced a series of texts whose Sacred book must be compared, among which we count the Apocalypse d’Adam , the Book of secrets of Jean , THE Three Seth steles and the Promennoia Trimorphic (in) , particularly close text.

The title [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Despite its name of “Gospel of the Egyptians” which is only found in the colophon of Codex III (69,3), this text does not come from the evangelical genre. The truly relevant title is found in Codex III, 69,18-20 [ 2 ] . This text should not be confused with the Egyptian Gospel In Greek, a gnostic religious text with a neotestal basis of the first half of II It is century of which we have only very fragmentary indirect knowledge.

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Content [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The text proposes a theogony which seems to cross two traditions: that of the triad presented in the Book of secrets of Jean and the Promennoia Trimorphic And another, that of the Pentade present in the Baptismal Sethian tradition.

This text, marked by esotericism and which thus seems to focus on a baptismal tradition of initiation, is a treaty of revelation which describes, in its first part, the articulation of a celestial pantheon through five doxologies. This is chaired by an autogenic deity called Invisible great spirit – Characterized by light and silence – from which a triad of three ogddoadic powers comes: the father, the mother, the son. The text then mentions the appearance of an eon which envelops the luminous pantheon and whose appearance suggests an influence of Jewish mysticism. The Pantheon then sees a series of transcendental beings appear, the main ones of which are Male virgin Barbélo, l ‘ Three-male child , the Male virgin Youel (a double of Barbelo) and Esephech the child of the child (a double of the child) [ 3 ] .

  1. ↑ Jean-Marie Sevrin, The Baptismal Sethian file: Gnostic sacramentary studies , ed. Presses of the University of Laval, 1986, p. 81-82  ; John D. Turner, «  Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition  », in Coptic library of Nag Hammadi , “Studies” section 6, ed. Laval/ed university presses. Peeters), 2001
  2. ↑ Louis Painchaud and Anne Pasquier, “The texts of Nag Hammadi and the problem of their classification: acts of the conference held in Quebec from September 15 to 19, 1993”, in Coptic library of Nag Hammadi , flight. 3, ed. Laval University Press, 1997, p. 85 , on line
  3. ↑ cf. John D. Turner, « Sethian Gnosticism : A Literary History », in Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism and Early Christianity , éd. C.W. Hedrick and R. Hodgson; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers  (in) , 1986, p. 55-86 ; Madeleine Scopello, Woman, gnosis and manichaeism: from mythical space to the territory of reality , ed. Brill, 1997, p. 53 online extract
  • (in) John D. Turner, « Sethian Gnosticism : A Literary History », in Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism and Early Christianity , éd. C.W. Hedrick and R. Hodgson; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1986, p. 55-86 online article
  • Jean-Marie Sevrin, The Baptismal Sethian file: Gnostic sacramentary studies , ed. Laval University Presses, 1986, Online review
  • Yvonne Janssens, “The Gospel of the Egyptians”, in Le museum , flight. 100, no1-4, ed. Peeters, 1987 p. 181-198 , Online presentation

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