Notes to Chapter 9 235
together with the Letter of Peter to Philip, James, and a Book of Allogenes from Codex Tchacos: Critical Edition
(Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2007).
- A. D. DeConick, The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says (London: T&T Clark, 2007).
- R. Kasser, M. Meyer, and G. Wurst, eds., The Gospel of Judas, 130–31.
- DeConick, The Thirteenth Apostle, 125.
- For an assessment of these options see the brief comments in P. Foster, The Apocryphal Gospels—A Very
Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 122–23. - DeConick, The Thirteenth Apostle, 174.
- This formulation is chosen not simply to reflect the fact that in antiquity no two manuscripts of the
same text were identical; that is self-evident. The word “version” is more deliberately chosen and used in line
with New Testament textual criticism to denote the fact that whereas the version of the text found in Codex
Tchacos was written in Coptic, the version known to Irenaeus may have been written in a different language,
most plausibly Greek. - If this document is identical with the text that is given this name in the Nag Hammadi corpus, it is
interesting to note a debate in the secondary literature concerning the authorship of this text as either being
due to a disciple or a group of followers as Irenaeus suggests, or whether it was largely composed by Valentinus
himself—which would then mean that Irenaeus may have been incorrect, or even that the two texts are not
identical. Attridge and MacRae note that “On the basis of literary and conceptual affinities between this text
and the exiguous fragments of Valentinus, some scholars have suggested that the Gnostic teacher was himself
the author. That remains a distinct possibility, although it cannot be definitely established.” H.W. Attridge
and George W. MacRae, “The Gospel of Truth (I,3 and XII,2),” in James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Ham-
madi Library in English, rev. ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 38. Among those who have identified Valentinus as the
author, see H. C. Puech and G. Quispel, “Les écrits gnostiques du Codex Jung,” VC 8 (1954): 22–38. However,
many subsequent commentators have challenged this identification. See C. Markschies, Valentinus Gnosticus?
Untersuchungen zur valentinianischen Gnosis mit einem Kommentar zu den Fragmenten Valentins, WUNT 65
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 339–65. - E. Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the “Valentinians,” NHMS 60 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 147.
- Attridge and MacRae, “The Gospel of Truth (I,3 and XII,2),” 38.
- Ibid.
- Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed, 147.
- Pearson notes that in this text the “Decad (ten aeons) is projected from Word and Life, the Duodecad
(twelve aeons) from Man and Church.” Birger A. Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism: Tradition and Literature (Min-
neapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 183. - C. Schmidt, ed., The Books of Jeu and the Untitled Text in the Bruce Codex, trans. V. MacDermot
(Leiden: Brill, 1978). - On the use of number symbolism in Jewish and early Christian texts, see Reinharts Staats, “Ogdoas
als ein Symbol für die Auferstehung,” VC 26 (1972): 29–52; Francois Bovon, “Names and Numbers in Early
Christianity,” NTS 47 (2001): 267–88. - The Infancy Gospel of Thomas occurs in at least four major different recensions. This problematizes
making unqualified statements about “the text” of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. For a recent overview of the
issues surrounding these recensions, see T. Chartrand-Burke, “The Greek Manuscript Tradition of the Infancy
Gospel of Thomas,” Apocrypha 14 (2004): 129–51; and T. Chartrand-Burke, “The Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” in
Paul Foster, ed., The Non-Canonical Gospels (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 126–38. - For a full discussion of these four recensions, see T. Chartrand-Burke, “The Infancy Gospel of Thomas:
The Text, Its Origins, and Its Transmission,” unpublished PhD dissertation (Graduate Department of Religion,
University of Toronto, 2001). Although the dissertation has not been published, it is available at: http://www.collec-
tionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp05/NQ63782.pdf. - For an extended discussion of these issues, see Andrew Gregory, “Hindrance or Help: Does the Mod-
ern Category of ‘Jewish-Christian Gospel’ Distort Our Understanding of the Texts to Which It Refers?” JSNT
28 (2006): 387–413; and Andrew Gregory, “Jewish-Christian Gospels,” in Paul Foster, ed., The Non-Canonical
Gospels (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 54–67. - P. Vielhauer and G. Strecker, “Jewish-Christian Gospels,” in W. Schneemelcher, ed., New Testament
Apocrypha, vol. 1, Gospels and Related Writings, rev. ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 136. - Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism, 61.