340 michael kaler
challenge to the protagonist in the penultimate heaven, the reception of
a commissioning by the visionary, and so on.8 however, equally unmistak-
able is the fact that these motifs have been modified so as to create a typ-
ically gnostic context in which the creator god (the old man in the seventh
heaven) and his “principalities and authorities” (23.21–22) are presented as
being obtrusive, oppressive forces, and hardly worthy of reverence—thus
inverting the standard apocalyptic evaluation of heavenly authorities.
paul himself referred to his apocalyptic experiences in 2 corinthians 12,
but was reluctant to describe them: the Apoc. Paul fills in this gap, includ-
ing the expected motifs of the genre but giving them a new, “gnostic”
meaning and presenting paul’s revelation and subsequent career as a
quest to save entrapped spirits from the archontic powers that rule the
world up to the seventh heaven—a presentation that fits coherently with
the rest of the material in the nag hammadi codices.
The Prayer of the Apostle Paul
This work, written on the front flyleaf of codex i, is even shorter than
the Apoc. Paul, comprising less than fifty lines. it has no narrative frame.
rather, it is a prayer for wisdom and redemption, delivered to “the one
who is and who pre-existed” in the hopes that great gifts of knowledge,
repose, and healing power will be granted through the son of man
(A 11–18). it does contain pauline references, most prominently its allusion
to 1 cor 2:9 (paul seeks to receive “what no angel eye has seen and what no
archon ear has heard and what has not entered into the human heart”).
in form and content, the Prayer also resembles other extant prayers and
invocations such as might be found among the hermetic texts or in the
corpus of magical writings, thus bringing paul’s quest for knowledge into
a broad philosophical/magical/religious context9—and it is significant
8 see mary dean-otting, Heavenly Journeys: A Study of the Motif in Hellenistic Jewish
Literature (Judentum und umwelt 8; frankfurt: peter lang, 1984); and Kaler, Flora Tells a
Story, 98–103.
9 for discussion, see Kasser, “oratio pauli Apostoli”; george macrae, “prayer and the
Knowledge of self in gnosticism,” in daniel harrington and stanley marrow (eds.), Stud-
ies in the New Testament and Gnosticism (wilmington, de: glazier, 1987), 218–36; dietrich
mueller, “The prayer of paul,” in harold Attridge (ed.), Nag Hammadi Codex I (The Jung
Codex): Introductions, Texts, Translations, Indices (nag hammadi studies XXii; leiden: Brill,
1985), 8–11; deirdre good, “prayer of the Apostle paul from the nag hammadi library,” in
mark Kiley et al. (eds.), Prayer from Alexander to Constantine (london: routledge, 1997),
291–95.