6 INTRODUCTION
the dawning of awareness, from within and without, of "what is, what was,
and what is to come." It is insight. It is gnosis.
In gnostic literature those who come to knowledge are described in differ-
ent ways. Occasionally they are specifically called gnostics; the Mandaeans
are also called by the word that means "gnostics" in Mandaic. More often they
are named the unshakable race, or the seed or offspring of Seth, or the gener-
ation without a king, or the elect or chosen, or, in the Mother of Books, the
ones who know. With a mystical flourish the Gospel of Philip recommends
that rather than be called a Christian, a person with knowledge might be un-
derstood to be at one with the gnostic revealer and be called Christ. This re-
calls the Gospel of Thomas, saying 108, where Jesus says, "Whoever drinks
from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become that person, and
the hidden things will be revealed to that one." Such people of knowledge
know how to live profoundly and well in the truth and light of god. The
Gospel of Truth concludes, "It is they who manifest themselves truly, since
they are in that true and eternal life and speak of the perfect light filled with
the seed of the father, which is in his heart and in the fullness, while his spirit
rejoices in it and glorifies him in whom it was, because the father is good.
And his children are perfect and worthy of his name, because he is the father.
Children of this kind are those whom he loves."
The sacred texts presented in this volume all help to clarify what gnosticism is
and who the gnostics were. The similarities and differences among these texts
are equally instructive, as are the connections among them, whether historical
or phenomenological. The early "wisdom gospels" of Thomas and John, both
perhaps dating from the first century CE, portray Jesus as a speaker of wise
words or even as the divine word itself, which is itself "wisdom." These early
wisdom gospels represent incipient gnostic perspectives, and they were used
extensively by later gnostics, so that their impact upon the history of gnosti-
cism was huge. The classic literature of gnostic wisdom dates from the second
century CE, and some materials in the literature are probably even older. Justin's
Book of Baruch illustrates a Jewish form of gnosticism with Greco-Roman
allusions. So does Sethian gnostic literature, with its provocative Jewish inter-
pretation of the opening chapters of Genesis and its emphasis on the special
roles of Eve, the mother of the living, and Seth, whom the Sethian gnostics
claimed as ancestor. Valentinian gnostic literature is named after the great second-
century teacher Valentinos, who, along with his students, seems to have made
use of Sethian insights in order to fashion an elegant gnostic system for