of Lyons had recounted how the Gnostics ‘introduce an infinite
multitude of apocryphal and bastard scriptures that they them-
selves have composed to stupefy the simple and those who do
not know the authentic writings’ (Against Heresies1.20.1, trans.
Grant 1997). When he came to defend the status of the canon-
ical gospels, Irenaeus mentioned how the Gnostics used a Gospel
of Truth (Against Heresies 3.11.9). In Codex I from Nag
Hammadi was found a text that began: ‘The gospel of truth is a
joy for those who have received from the Father of truth the gift
of knowing him’ (Nag Hammadi Codex I, 16.31–3, in Robinson
1988: 40). Fragments of a similar work were found in Codex XII.
It is possible that this is the gospel that Irenaeus condemned.
Moreover, since the publication of the Coptic Apocryphon of John
found in the Berlin codex, it was clear that the Greek original of
this text (also found in Coptic translation at Nag Hammadi) must
have been the source of a Gnostic myth described by Irenaeus at
Against Heresies1.29. Irenaeus and the later heresiologists had
described the Gnostic threat as taking many forms. For many
scholars, the texts unearthed at Nag Hammadi seemed to fit neatly
with this polemical characterization. As Kurt Rudolph has put it:
‘The Church Fathers already were conscious of what was for them
the frightening variety of the Gnostic teachings... This picture
is in fact fully and completely confirmed by the Nag Hammadi
texts’ (Rudolph 1983: 53).
That is why the Nag Hammadi discoveries were consid-
ered such a revelation: texts that the heresiologists presented as
objects of scorn could now be read for themselves and the judge-
ments of the self-proclaimed champions of orthodoxy assessed.
For example, Irenaeus began his description of the beliefs of the
Gnostic sect known as the Valentinians as follows:
In the invisible and unnameable heights there was a perfect
Aeon [i.e. a supernatural being], prior to all. This Aeon is
called Pre-beginning and Pre-Father and Abyss. Since he
was incomprehensible and invisible, eternal and unbegotten,
he was in silence and in rest for unlimited ages.
(Against Heresies1.1.1, trans. Grant 1997)ORTHODOXY AND ORGANIZATION IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY1
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