112 Irenaeus: Life, Scripture, LegacyEphesian has interpreted, and Aquila of Pontus, both Jewish proselytes. The Ebionites,
following these, assert that He was begotten by Joseph” (Hae r. III.21.1). Similarly, the
final reference claims that the Ebionites did not hold the same interpretation as Ire-
naeus, concerning elements of the birth story attested by both Luke and Matthew. The
implication that the Ebionites had eliminated the virgin birth and consequently were
not using canonical Matthew does not necessarily follow from Irenaeus’s statements.
Moreover, despite claims made in some quarters that see Irenaeus as the earliest witness
to the Gospel of the Ebionites, it must be stated that he never uses that or any other title
in connection with a gospel text used by this group apart from the Gospel of Matthew.
Their interpretation of the birth of Jesus as not being by a virgin is attributed to an inter-
pretation based on recent recensions of the LXX, not on a claim of rejection of Matthew.
Thus, contrary to some expressed scholarly opinions, Irenaeus does not cast any light
on the text that has become known as the Gospel of the Ebionites.
Irenaeus and the nag hammadi writings
In many ways, the title to this section is anachronistic since many of the texts from
Nag Hammadi had not been composed at the time when Irenaeus wrote. However, a
number of them contain earlier traditions that may pre-date Irenaeus’s composition of
the Adversus haereses, and a few of the texts (perhaps in earlier recensions) might be
sources for his knowledge of “gnostic” thought systems. The Apocryphon of John is cor-
rectly identified as a work of fundamental importance among the Nag Hammadi writ-
ings and more widely as a key text representing the fundamental ideas of Sethianism.
As is well known, the text survives in four copies, three in the Nag Hammadi corpus
and one in the Berlin Codex. Pearson summarizes the nature of the textual evidence in
the following way. “Two different recensions are reflected in these copies, a longer one
(NHC II, 1 ; IV, 1 ) and a shorter one (NHC III, 1 ; BG 2 ). The versions in Codices III and
IV are very fragmentary.”^23
Book I of Adversus haereses contains a detailed refutation of various forms of Valen-
tinianism. This variety, or “inconsistency,” as Irenaeus styles it, is seen as representative
of the falseness of a self-contradictory system. In chapters 23–28 of book I, Irenaeus
moves away from the topic of “Gnosticism” and tackles a range of other belief systems
that he deems to be deviant. Then in chapter 29, he returns to a discussion of “Gnos-
ticism,” not of the Valentinian variety but of a type illustrative of the “multitude of
Gnostics [who] have sprung up.” The similarity between the mythical system described
in this chapter and the one more fully outlined in the Apocryphon of John has long
been noted. Based on the form of the text in the Berlin Codex, in 1907 Carl Schmidt
published a comparison between the contents of the Apocryphon of John and Irenaeus’s
exposition of the cosmological system discussed in Adversus haereses I.29. Schmidt
advanced the convincing suggestion that the former was the source for the latter.^24
It is helpful to set out the main elements in Irenaeus’s shorter description and to
compare features in the Apocryphon of John that parallel those elements. At this stage,
no pre-judgments will be made concerning which recension of the Apocryphon of John
is most likely to have been known to Irenaeus. The parallels will simply be documented
and then it will be considered whether the evidence is sufficient to allow any further