The Mystery of the Resurrection A Gnostic Reading of 1 Corinthians 15.pdf

"THE MYSTERY OF THE RESURRECTION": A GNOSTIC READING OF 1 CORINTHIANS 15

ELAINE H. PAGELS

BARNARD COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10027

AUL proclaims the "resurrection of the dead" in 1 Corinthians 15 as the climax of the anti-gnostic polemic he sustains throughout the Corinthian

letters-so W. Schmithals claims in his recent study, Gnosticism in Corinth.l In the same letter Paul warns of the coming judgment; he takes his stand on the

kerygma of "Christ crucified" (1 Cor 2:2); he insists on the practical priority of love over wisdom and gnosis -in all these ways he demonstrates his "gen- uinely Christian attitude"2 over against his gnostic opponents. But since "the denial of the resurrection is for gnosticism a fundamental dogma,"3 Paul

epitomizes his anti-gnostic polemic in his teaching on resurrection in the final

chapter. Such an evaluation of Paul's resurrection-theology follows R. Bultmann's

exegetical analysis of the Pauline letters and his interpretation of Paul's theological intention.4 Bultmann, in turn, can claim the support of Christian writers since the second century, when Irenaeus and Tertullian regarded Paul's resurrection-

theology as a basic source for their own anti-gnostic (and especially anti-Valen- tinian) polemics.5

If this view of Paul-and this reading of 1 Corinthians 156-is accurate, the Pauline exegesis of second-century gnostics is nothing less than astonishing. Not only do gnostic exegetes fail to grasp the whole point of Paul's writings, but they even claim his letters as a primary source of their own gnostic theology. Instead of repudiating Paul as their most obstinate opponent, the Naassenes and

1 Gnosticism in Corinth (Nashville: Abingdon, 1971) 156-285. 2 Ibid., 301. 9 Ibid., 157-58. 'Theology of the New Testament (London: SCM, 1965) 169-306. 'Irenaeus, Adversus haereses (ed. W. W. Harvey; Cambridge: Cambridge University,

1857 [hereafter cited as AH]) 3.13, 1-3; 3.15, 9; Tertullian, De carne Christi (ed. E. Evans; London: SPCK 1956 [hereafter cited as DC]) 4.35-36; 5.13-18; 6.8-12; 16.1-33.

'Indeed, any reading of 1 Corinthians 15 as Paul's proclamation of actual bodily resurrection would prove antithetical to the gnostic position. See H. von Soden, "Sakra- ment und Ethik bei Paulus," Urchristentum und Geschichte (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1951-56) 1.259, n.28: J. Hering, The First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians (London: Epworth, 1967) 173; J. C. Hurd, The Origin of 1 Corinthians (New York: Seabury, 1965) 199-200.

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PAGELS: "THE MYSTERY OF THE RESURRECTION"

Valentinians revere him as the one of the apostles who, above all others, was himself a gnostic initiate.7 Far from remaining silent or expressing embarrass- ment over 1 Corinthians 15, Naassene and Valentinian exegetes cite this passage frequently; Irenaeus says it is the Valentinians who insist on introducing texts from 1 Corinthians 15 to support their own position against the "orthodox;" the Gospel of Philip demonstrates such an exegesis.8

On what basis do Valentinian exegetes and theologians make such astonishing claims? To answer this question, one must investigate and compare the extant fragments of Valentinian exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15. Such fragments are available in Origen's anti-Valentinian commentary on 1 Corinthians, in the works of Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement, and Hippolytus, and in numerous gnostic documents; many more are becoming available from the Nag Hammadi texts (as, e.g., in the treatise De resurrectione).9

Preliminary investigation into such sources demonstrates the untenability of Schmithals' claim that the gnostics "deny the resurrection." Schmithals, following Bultmann, alleges that "what is expressed in (their) spiritualized terminology is nothing other than the general philosophic doctrine of the immortality of the soul."10 Yet each of these points is contradicted in second-century sources. The Valentinian theologian Heracleon, for example, specifically rejects this common

philosophic doctrine on the basis of Matt 10:28. He goes on to cite 1 Cor 15:53-54 to show that "the soul is not immortal, but has the potentiality for salvation. It is the 'corruptible that must put on incorruption,' and the 'mortal that must put on immortality' when 'death is swallowed up in victory.'l" Heracleon himself affirms a theology of "resurrection on the third day;"12 many other references in the sources indicate that here he is speaking for Valen- tinian tradition as a whole. Origen himself says that on the question of whether Christ was raised from the dead "every heresy agrees!"l3 Far from denying the resurrection, the Valentinians consider it to be one of their fundamental doc- trines.

Puech and Quispel, recognizing this in their analysis of De resurrectione, have pointed out an important aspect of Valentinian resurrection-theology: that the "resurrection" is realized in the present experience of the elect.14 Their analysis is convincing and textually sound: Valentinus himself addresses the

7Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium (eds. L. Dunker et al.; Gottingen: Dieterich, 1859 [hereafter cited as Ref]) 5.7,14-15; AH 3.2,1-3.3,1.

'AH 5.9,1; Gos Phil 104:26-105:3. 'De resurrectione (eds. M. Malinine et al.; Zurich: Rascher, 1956 [hereafter cited as

DR]); Engl. tr. The Epistle to Reginos (ed. M. Peel; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969). 10W. Schmithals, Gnosticism, 157-58. " Origen, Commentarium in Johannem (GCS 4; ed. E. Preuschen; Leipzig: Hinrichs,

1903 [hereafter cited as CJ]) 13.60. 12CJ 10.37. 13C. Jenkins, "The Origen-Citations in Cramer's Catena on I Corinthians," JTS 10

(1909) 45. "DR 10-11. So also H. von Soden, "Sakrament und Ethik," 259, n. 28.

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elect as those who are "from the beginning immortal, children of eternal life, in whom and through whom death may die,"15 as the author of De resurrectione instructs the elect that he "already has" the resurrection.l6 Yet their analysis omits consideration of evidence that the Valentinians also anticipate a future resurrection.17 M. Peel, noting evidence of "unrealized eschatology" in De resurrectione, concludes that in such passages the author attempts to come to terms with the "biological inevitability of death."18 He infers this from the author's account of the "law of nature" which accounts for the "death" of the "body" and its "members." Comparison with other passages (e.g., that cited above from Heracleon) suggests an alternative that proves more consistent with Valentinian exegetical theory and practice. These terms are to be interpreted not literally (as of biological death) but symbolically,l9 in reference to the "dead members" of the "body of Christ"- i.e., the psychics (see below, p. 283). To discover more fully the implications of their resurrection-theology, let us turn to analyze extant passages of Valentinian exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15.

The Valentinians, like other Christians, recognize that Paul reveals in 1 Corinthians 15 the climax of his teaching throughout the epistle -the "mystery" of "the resurrection of the dead." Yet these exegetes claim that most Christians make the mistake of reading this passage- and, in fact, all of "the scriptures" - only literally. The Valentinians emphatically deny what they call the "literal"

interpretation of this passage, above all the claim of ecclesiastical Christians like Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Origen that according to 1 Corinthians 15 we shall be raised "in this flesh" (in hac carne).20 As Origen says, "the heretics deny the resurrection as the church believes it;" they consider belief in actual bodily

"Clement of Alexandria, Stromata (GCS 2; ed. O. Stahlin; Berlin: Akademie, 1906 [hereafter cited as Strom]) 4.89, 1-3.

"DR 49.15-16, 22-23, 25-26; see Introduction, 10-11; M. Peel, Epistle, 139-43. 7Cf. DR 44.17-21; 48.21-22; 47.17-19; 47.33-48.3; 49.16-21, 26-30.

"M. Peel, Epistle, 143; cf. 143-55. 19DR 44.17-21 describes the topos where the "law of nature" prevails as "death."

Comparison with such passages as Excerpta ex Theodoto (ed. R. P. Casey; London: Chris- tophers, 1934 [hereafter cited as Exc]) 22.2; 58.1; Gos Phil 114.63,15; and CJ 13.60 demonstrates how the Valentinians understand this term. Exc 58.1 describes the demiurge's reign over the cosmos as "death"; those generated into it are led "into death and into the cosmos" (Exc 80.1). "The dead," consequently, are those "deadened in this existence" (Exc 22.2). Gos Phil 114.63,15-16 describes the "median place" (the cosmic topos) as "death." In such passages then the term "death" is used metaphorically (as Puech and Quispel note, citing the Pauline use of the term; DR xiii-xiv). Heracleon as- sumes such a metaphorical interpretation when he explains that the psychic is "dead in sins" until he obtains the "lifegiving forgiveness of sins" through which he can be "raised from the dead" (CJ 13.60). Origen complains that "the heretics want to allegorize" Paul's teaching on the resurrection and "apply it to human beings." Both he and Irenaeus argue against a metaphorical interpretation of these terms in the context of resurrection theology: see AH 5.13,3-5. For a fuller discussion of Valentinian exegesis of Pauline literature, see my forthcoming book, The Gnostic Paul (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975).

20Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis (London: SPCK, 1960 [hereafter cited as DRC]) 19.2-7; cf. AH 5.2-11.

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resurrection to be the "faith of fools."21 Instead they insist that this passage must be interpreted - as they interpret all "scripture" - symbolically.

According to Valentinian exegesis, in the first section of 1 Corinthians 15 (vss. 1-11), Paul intends to distinguish the psychic preaching which he shares with the other apostles from his own pneumatic teaching.22 In the second section (15:11-57) he discloses the pneumatic, i.e., "spiritual" or symbolic, interpretation of the "mystery of the resurrection."23 Paul first reminds his audience in 15:1 of "the gospel which I preached, which you received, in which you stand, through which you are saved." He tells them that "at first" he transmitted what he too had "received" from the tradition of the apostles, i.e., the kerygma, viz., that "Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day," and then appeared to Peter, to the twelve, and to "many others," including James and "all the apostles" (15:5-7).

The Valentinians point out that throughout his epistle Paul consistently has

proclaimed this kerygma that he has preached in common with the other apostles. They go on to point out, however, that he describes this message as part of the tradition that he has received "from the Lord" (11:23), i.e., they explain, from the demiurge, as being essentially "foolishness" (1:21). He has shown in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 that this kerygma represents an accommodation of the mes-

sage of Christ to "the foolishness of the cosmos" - i.e., in Valentinian terms, to

psychics.24 For Paul has explained in 1:18 that to the psychics, to "those who are perishing," the logos of the cross - the symbolic interpretation of the cross as signifying stauros and horos in the pleroma26--"is foolishness." For these

psychics remain under the power of "the Lord," the demiurge, who has sworn to

"destroy the wisdom of the wise, and set aside the understanding of those who understand" (1:19).26 The psychics are those whom Paul calls in 1:22 "the

Jews" who "seek signs;" for, as the Valentinian theologian Heracleon explains, psychics cannot comprehend the message of Christ, on a rational or symbolic level, as logos or wisdom. He explains from John 4:48 that unless they "see

signs and wonders, (they) do not believe."27 It is only the pneumatics, described in 1:22 as "the Greeks," who seek wisdom."28 Therefore Paul explains in 1:21 that "since the (psychic) cosmos . .. did not know God through the wisdom (sophia) of God, God was pleased through the foolishness of the kerygma to

1 JTS 10 (1909) 46-47. Tertullian, DRC 19.2-7; cf. AH 5.9,1-5.13,5; CJ 13.19.

' Cf. Exc 23.2-4. 24C. Jenkins, "The Origen Citations," JTS 9 (1908) 236-37; Ref 6.35,1-2. Irenaeus

contests the Valentinian claim that Paul taught an esoteric "gnosis"; see AH 3.13-14. 26 Cf. AH 1.3,5. 28Origen objects to the Valentinian practice of referring this term (ho kyrios) to the

demiurge; see JTS 9 (1908) 236-37. CJ 13.60.

8 Cf. J. Scherer, Le commentaire d'Origene sur Rom. 3.5-5.7 (Cairo: Institut francais d'archeologie orientale, 1957), 168-69. For a discussion, see E. Pagels, The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis (SBLMS 17; Nashville: Abingdon, 1973) 68, 86-95.

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save those who believe." Yet Paul has acknowledged in Rom 1:14 his responsibility to preach to both "Jews" and "Greeks," to the "foolish," as well as to "the wise." Therefore Paul says in 1:23 that he has preached Christ in the form accessible to the mass of psychics, through the kerygma of "Christ crucified." He adds that although the psychics ("the Jews") consider it "foolish," those psychics who believe experience through it the power (dynamis) of God, and the pneumatics who understand it symbolically perceive in it the wisdom (sophia) of God (1:24).

For the sake of the psychics, then, who otherwise would remain incapable of knowing God, Paul says in 2:1 that he preached on the level of their under-

standing: "when I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you in a sublime logos or wisdom the mystery of God." On the contrary, he says that he deliberately suppressed what he knew of divine wisdom: "I decided not to know anything among you but Jesus Christ crucified" (2:2). Besides preaching this psychic kerygma, Paul expressed the correspondingly psychic emotional at- titudes: "I came to be with you in weakness, and in fear and trembling." Origen's Valentinian opponents point out that although Paul discriminates in 2:4 between his "logos" and his "kerygma," he says that he has refrained from speaking "in persuasive words (logois) of wisdom (sophias)," but confined his expres- sion instead to "demonstrations of the spirit and of power (dynameos)," so that the psychics' faith might "not be in wisdom (en sophia) but in the power of God" (2:5).29

It is this kerygma, then, that Paul describes in 1 Cor 15:1-6 as that which he himself received from apostolic tradition, and as that which he preached to them "first of all:" it is this which he says they "received," by which they "are saved."

Yet Paul goes on to explain in 15:8-10 that besides this apostolic tradition of the psychic kerygma, he also received a revelation: "Last of all he was revealed to me, as a kind of abortion" (hosperei to ektrbmati). The Valentinians in-

terpret this passage as a symbolic description of the pneumatic revelation. They say that in 15:8 Paul reveals how the savior appeared to Sophia, "when she was outside the pleroma [i.e., to the pneumatic who is still in an "unformed" state] as 'a kind of abortion.' "30 Everyone who is of the pneumatic elect undergoes the same experience. Basilides says that the entire elect remained for a time in "formlessness, like an abortion;"31 Theodotus explains that "as long as we were children only of the female, as of a shameful syzygy, we were incomplete, infants, mindless, weak, unformed, brought forth like abortions."32

From this situation the elect are redeemed through grace (charis), that aion of the pleroma who is acknowledged in the Valentinian liturgy of "redemption"

29JTS 9 (1908) 238-39. Irenaeus argues against the Valentinian view in AH 3.13, 1-3; 14.1.

8o AH 1.8,2. 3 Ref 7.4. 9 Exc 68.1-3.

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as one who is "before all things, and transcends all gnosis and logos."33 Paul himself acknowledges this when he calls himself "the least of the apostles," even "unworthy to be called an apostle," yet adds in 15:10, "through the charis of God I am what I am, and his charis in me was not empty" (since charis is an aion of the pleroma, that is, the "fullness"34). The Valentinians consider that as this formless "abortion" is spiritually "born" through grace, Paul continues to use the metaphor of birth. He describes in 15:10 how he was "delivered," as one "born" through the "labor" of "the charis of God that was with me" (an exegesis Origen rejects).35 The Valentinians infer from this passage that Paul has received "the mystery of God" by revelation from the divine pleroma, while the other apostles received only what was transmitted through the demiurge.36

The Valentinian theologian Theodotus explains, therefore, that Paul, having received both the psychic kerygma and the pneumatic revelation, now preaches "in each of two ways:" first he preaches the kerygma to those capable of receiving only the "foolishness of the kerygma" (2:1-5); secondly, as he explains in 1 Cor 2:6, he speaks the "wisdom of God in a mystery -the hidden wisdom of God" among the "initiates," the "perfect," the teleioi.37

How does he discriminate between the "foolish," to whom he preaches the psychic kerygma, and those he calls "the wise?" Paul has explained in 1 Cor 2:14 that it is the psychic (psychikos) who "cannot receive the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he understand them, for they are pneumatically discerned." On the other hand, the Valentinians also cite that he says in 2:15, "the pneumatic (ho pneumatikos) discerns all things."38 The psychics are those he calls "weak, powerless, ungenerated" by contrast with the pneumatic elect, who are "wise, powerful, well born" (1:26-28).39

In spite of this, Paul never dismisses psychic Christians with contempt. On the contrary, he expends all his energy for their salvation and urges other pneumatics to do the same. Throughout the whole epistle, in fact, while Paul, himself pneumatic,40 praises the pneumatics' authority in matters of judgment (6:1-6), their freedom in ethical matters (6:12-8:3) and their gnosis in spiritual matters (1 Cor 8:1-6), he simultaneously urges them to give up their rightful claims to spiritual superiority for the sake of the whole community -of which the majority is psychic. He urges them in chs. 4-9 to follow his own example, for although he himself claims authority, freedom (9:1-2), and gnosis (8:1-6), he has refrained from asserting any of these, in order to avoid offending the

3AH 1.13,2. Heracleon also attributes pneumatic election to charis; see CJ 10.33. 34 AH 1.13,2-3. 35AH 1.8,2; 5.12,4-5; Exc 67-68; JTS 10 (1909) 44. 3AH 3.13,1. 37 AH 3.2,1; Exc 23.2-4. 8 AH 1.8,3.

89 Cf. Exc 68.1-3; Ev Ver 27.34-35. 40 On Paul as a pneumatic, see CJ 2.20; AH 3.13.1-2.

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psychics. He gives them up voluntarily, out of love, so that the psychics may receive the gospel through his preaching (9:18). Although himself "free," he has "made himself a slave" (9:19). He has become in effect a psychic to the psychics; in the words of his metaphor, "a Jew to the Jews, in order to gain the Jews; to those under law [the demiurge's law] I became as one under law, that I might gain those under law (9:20).... To the weak I became weak, that I

might gain the weak; I have become all things to all, that by all means I might save some" (9:22). He even says in 4:9-13 that he has become "a spectacle to the cosmos and to angels and to men" - i.e., to the whole psychic order. While his fellow-pneumatics are "wise, strong, and glorious" in Christ, Paul and his companions have even become "the refuse of the cosmos, the offscouring of all things (i.e., of the pleroma) even until now."41

Do the Valentinians interpret the pneumatic's responsibility toward the

psychics, then, as the condescending charity of the "rich, strong, and wellborn" toward the "poor and weak" (3:8; 1:26)? In that case, Irenaeus' charge of

arrogance42 would be well founded. On the contrary, the Valentinians point out Paul's own reason for his self-sacrifice: "I do all things for the sake of the

gospel, that I may become a partaker of it" (9:23). What Paul teaches the elect

throughout 1 Corinthians is that their relation to the psychics is essential for their own redemption:43 it is the key to their understanding of what their election means. As Paul has explained in 1:27, God has chosen "the foolish things of the cosmos" to shame the wise: the "weak things of the cosmos"44 to shame the

powerful; and those that "are not" to bring to nothing "those that are." Why has God chosen in this way to humiliate the pneumatic elect? Paul explains in 1:29: so that none of them may "boast" before God. The pneumatics are elected only "from him ... in Christ Jesus, who was generated to us from God as wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." Paul adds with some

irony that "whoever boasts, let him boast in the Lord" (1:31) -i.e., in the

demiurge: for only those who achieve salvation from works through the demi-

urge's law (and not from "grace") may "boast" of their own achievement. The

pneumatic redemption through grace alone excludes any such boasting. Therefore the "calling" of "the many," the psychics, reveals to "the few" who

are "chosen" the meaning of their election. As Valentinian theologians empha- size, the elect receive grace and gnosis not for their own sake, but for the sake of reaching and restoring the psychics to salvation.45 The elect are sent into this

41 For ta panta as a designation of the pleroma, see F. Sagnard, La gnose valentinienne (Paris: Vrin, 1947) 297-98; index, 651.

' AH 1.6,1-4. '3Compare the apolytrosis prayer of AH 1.13,3, where the celebrant addressed the

recipient with the words: pzeraao0val to i OXw r7is e;7/s x apXros . . o6 8e Tr6OS rov

IeLye'Oovs ev lZV ev eofl 5' 9f!Las eyKcLraoar^oaa [&8el I/aS v Karaao-ro-at].

"Exc 67.1-68: "weakness" characterizes the "flesh" that is generated in the cosmos. 4'CJ 10.33; 13.10. Kal rois /feraXaifpavoovras rov &vwoev Tr 0xoprjyovzL.vov IrXovoaws

Kal avrovs EKPXIouai ets r7Tv ETrpwv alwtvcov wOiv rA& IrIKeXoprtyq'7jLva avrols. CJ 13.31: & 'a yap roov rvevflaLos rpoo&,yera cj u /vXf r orwTrpt ...; see also Exc 35.1-2.

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world--together with the savior--to join themselves to the psychics, and thereby to restore both the psychics and themselves to union with the Father.46 This relationship, indeed, is as intimate and as essential for the elect as for the called; apart from their union with the psychics, the elect cannot enter into the presence of God.47 According to the Valentinians, this is what Paul means when he says that he preaches the gospel to psychics so that he, a member of the pneumatic elect, may become a partaker in redemption (9:23).

But while the pneumatics who recognize their election are spiritually "alive," the psychics who remain in ignorance of God are said to be spiritually "dead."48 Therefore, in 1 Cor 15:12-57 Paul initiates his hearers into the pneumatic meaning of Christ's "death" and "resurrection." What does the apostle mean when he speaks of Christ's resurrection? At this point in his exegesis, Origen insists that Paul refers to the "resurrection of the one who became flesh," of "Jesus." He complains that the Valentinians entirely disregard the conception of bodily resurrection: he says that "the heterodox want to allegorize this" and apply it to "the resurrection of human beings!"49 Yet who are "the dead" who are to be "raised"? Valentinian theologians answer that since the elect are already "living," these can only be the psychics, who must be raised from "the deadness" of this "present existence"50 to share in the pneumatic "life" of the elect. In these terms they read 1 Cor 15:12-14:

How can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection, then Christ is not raised; if Christ is not raised, our kerygma is empty, and your faith is empty.

According to Valentinian exegesis, those who deny the resurrection of "the dead" are denying that the psychics can be raised to pneumatic life. Thereby they deny the whole meaning of the savior's descent into the somatic form of Jesus, and into the psychic form of Christ, from which he was "raised" to pre- figure the resurrection of "the soul" - i.e., of the psychic- to pneumatic "life."51 Paul argues that unless the "dead," the psychics, can be "raised," his whole activity in preaching the kerygma to them is useless, and the faith his

' Cf. AH 1.6,1: 76 8 r 7rev,aLarKbv K &re7re,0Oal, 0Srws evOade rc &vxtK' avrvyevY 0opzowOi , avu7rat8eOeev abrv ev r' dvaarpoqp.

47Exc 35.4; for a discussion, see E. Pagels, "Conflicting Views of Valentinian Escha- tology," HTR (forthcoming).

'* Exc 22.1-4: veipol 8& iAuegs cKal veKpwo^Tvres TJ ovaTa6eL ' ravrT, P7vTres 81 olt ppeves ol jLT fjerTa/jca6v'res r'Ts ov Tcra'ews ra6Trfs.

,9JTS 10 (1909) 44-45; AH 2.31,2. 60Exc 22.1; cf. also Exc 58.1: the reign of the demiurge has become the reign of

"death"; Exc 80.1-2: those generated into the cosmos are "generated into death"; DR 44.17-21, the "place" where the savior manifests himself is dominated by the "law of nature" and is called "death." Compare CJ 13.60, where Heracleon explains that the "law of sin and death" (cf. Rom 8:2) prevails in the cosmos.

61Exc 61.1-6; CJ 13.60. Heracleon, like Theodotus, introduces the doctrine of resurrection into the account of the psychic's deliverance from "death."

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preaching has aroused in them is futile. In that case the psychics who received the message are still "dead" in their sins (15:17), as Heracleon explains that sin is the sickness that kills "the soul."52 Then the psychics who are "asleep," held under the power of the "spirit of sleep" (the demiurge), virtually "have perished" (15:18).

Paul goes on to say that "if we" - i.e., we pneumatics - alone have hope in Christ, then "we are the most miserable of mankind" (15:19), for the elect alone could recognize the hopelessness of the psychics' condition, as those who are "by nature" mortal both in body and in soul. Yet the apostle proclaims in 15:20 that "now Christ is raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who

sleep." The Valentinians identify the elect together with the savior, as the "firstfruits" through whom later the psychics are to be "raised and saved."53 As the savior himself has descended into the hylic and the psychic topos (these represented respectively as the "first" and the "second" days of the soteriological process), he, as the psychic Christ, was "raised on the third day" (15:4), which is the pneumatic day, by the Father of truth. His resurrection prefigures that of the psychics. They have already been "raised" from the hylic to the psychic level, through the preaching of the kerygma. Now they anticipate that at the end of the present age (the end of the cosmos) they too are to be "raised" on the "third day," which for them is the eschatological day of "the resurrection of the ecclesia."54 For according to 15:22, those generated in "Adam"-into psychic creation through the demiurge-"all die," being generated "into the cosmos and to death," as Theodotus says; but "those whom Christ regenerates" are made "alive to God."55 The pneumatic life is given "to each one in his own order" (taxis), first to "Christ, the firstfruits," i.e., to the savior, and the elect; and

secondly "to those who are of Christ in his presence" (15:23), i.e., to the

psychics who receive his presence in the cosmos. For as Paul says, "then comes the end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God and have put down every rule and authority and power; for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet; and the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (15:24-26). Theodotus explains from this passage that for the duration of the cosmos, the

psychic Christ rules at the right hand of the demiurge.56 But when "the end comes," Christ shall be raised beyond the cosmos and shall destroy the entire cosmic system, the "rule and authority and power" previously entrusted to the

demiurge, and deliver the whole "kingdom" to "the Father." For, Theodotus continues, the rule of the demiurge has become a "kingdom of death."57 When the demiurge's reign is destroyed and ended, then the psychic Christ will be

2 CJ 13.60. "3 Exc 58.1-4; AH 1.8,3. "4 CJ 10.37.

Exc 80.1-2. 6M Exc 62.1. 67 Exc 58.1.

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raised, will raise with him all the psychics who are saved, and will lead them into reunion with the pneumatic elect and with the Father.58

Paul next argues his case for the resurrection from the practice of baptism for the dead: "if the dead are not raised, why are some baptized for their sake?" (15:29). The meaning of this passage -which has puzzled so many exegetes - would seem obvious to the Valentinians. According to their own sacramental practice, the pneumatic elect receive baptism for "the dead," i.e., for the psychics. The purpose of this proxy baptism is to ensure that the psychics will receive the power to transcend the region of the demiurge and to enter into the pleroma.59 Since psychics cannot receive this sacrament themselves (as long as they remain "dead" in ignorance of the Father), the elect take on the responsibility of performing this baptism for them. The passage cited above says that the elect receive the "laying on of hands" for the "angelic redemption" in the name of the psychics so that the psychics may receive the redemption effected through the divine name. Paul is asking what purpose there could be in performing such baptism for "the dead," unless the psychics can indeed be "raised from the dead."

He continues in 15:30: if the psychics cannot be raised to pneumatic life, why is he taking risks on himself to evangelize them? Why should he be con- tinually "dying," i.e., participating in psychic existence, for their sake (15:31)? Why should he enter into their conflicts and fight the "wild beasts" of the pas- sions (15:32)?60 Paul warns the psychics to "become sober" and not to sin; he says that those who deny the resurrection only show their "ignorance of God" (15:34). Those who ask how the dead are raised, and "with what body they come" (15:35), show themselves to be "fools" (psychics)61 for asking such literal-minded questions.

The apostle goes on to offer a pneumatic, i.e., symbolic, explanation of the resurrection. "What is sown is not made alive until it dies," since "what is sown differs from what is raised," and "God gives to each of the seeds its own body as he willed" (15:38). What is "sown," and what are the "seeds"? The Valen- tinians explain that these are the two different types of seed produced by Sophia: the pneumatic seed of the elect, and the psychic seed of the called.62 Paul discloses that the psychic seed, sown into the "corruption, dishonor, and

8 Exc 61-64. 59Cf. Exc 22.1-6; AH 1.21,4. This may account for Irenaeus' puzzling reference to

the practice of anointing those "at the point of death" with oil and water so that the "inner man" (interior ipsorum homo) may pass beyond the principalities and powers, leaving the body behind and the soul with the demiurge and being acknowledged as a son of the Father and of Sophia, and being released from "the bond, i.e., the soul." See Epiphanius, Panarion, 34.2, 1-20; 34.12 (ed. K. Holl; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1922); note that the prayer also is cited in I Apoc Jas 32.

6?The consistent Valentinian interpretation of to thOrion; see Strom 2.114, 3-6; CJ 13.16; Exc 85.1.

61Cf. Ref 6.34.1; JTS 10 (1909) 44-45. 6a Exc 39-40; AH 1.4,5.

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weakness" of cosmic creation63 is to be raised in "incorruption, glory, and power" (15:42-43).64 As he says (15:44), "sown a psychic body, it will be raised a

pneumatic body; if it is a psychic body, it is also a pneumatic body."65 The Valentinian explains from 15:45 that the "first Adam," the demiurge's creation, was made a "living soul;" yet this may become, eschatologically, a "lifegiving spirit."66 The "first man" is "choic" (choikos) as "those who are choic" -i.e., a mortal creature, subject to destruction.67 Generated "from dust," they bear an

"earthly image;" but the "second man" is the "Lord from heaven," i.e., the savior, who bears the "heavenly image." Theodotus offers the following exegesis of this passage:

Whomever the Mother generates is led into death and into the cosmos; but whomever Christ regenerates is transferred to life in the ogdoad ... ; they die to the cosmos, but live to God. Death has been released by death, and corruption by resurrection .. .; having borne the "choic image," then they bear the "heavenly image."6

But this means that those "regenerated into life" have "put off" their material

bodies, which bear the "choic image." The Valentinians claim that Paul states this clearly in 15:50, when he declares that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the

kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption." The Valentinians consider this decisive evidence against the church's claim of bodily resurrection -resurrection "in this flesh," as Tertullian claims. Irenaeus says that "all the heretics" always introduce this passage into debates on the issue.69 They insist that the proclamation of Christ's bodily resurrection was preached by the apostles whose understanding was-and remained - merely psychic, i.e., literalistic.70

According to their exegesis, Paul offers the pneumatic doctrine of the resurrection: he realizes that "what is corruptible must put on incorruption" and "what is mortal must put on immortality" when "death is swallowed up in vic-

tory" (15:52-55). Heracleon cites this verse to prove that the psychic, although "mortal" and "corruptible" in both body and soul (according to Matt 10:28) has the capacity for receiving salvation, and thus for being transformed into pneumatic life.71 The author of Gos Phil cites the same verse to refute the error of "those who wish to rise in the flesh."72

3 Exc 67.1; cf. note 44. 6CJ 13.60. 65Exc 51.3-4. Theodotus agrees with Heracleon (CJ 13.60) that Matt 10:28 refers

to the soul (tauten ten psychen) and this psychic body (kai touto to soma to psychikon) which are liable to destruction. The psychic body must be "put to death" before the

pneumatic can be manifested. I Exc 50.3; AH 1.5,5. 67 AH 1.8,3. 68 Exc 80.1-3. 69 AH 5.9,1. 70 AH 3.3,1; 5.3,1-5.13,5. n CJ 13.60. 72 Gos Phil 104.26-105.3.

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Finally, in 15:57 Paul praises "God," the Father, who gives the victory over death - the reign of the demiurge and his law- to those who, although "dead" in this age, are to be delivered at its end into "eternal life." By revealing the mystery of the "resurrection of the dead," Paul intends to show the psychics that their "labor is not in vain in the Lord," since they can anticipate the future "resurrection." He also intends to assure the elect that their task of evangelizing the psychics is not "in vain:" the "dead" for whose redemption they now labor are to be resurrected.

This sketch of the Valentinian method of interpreting 1 Corinthians 15 may demonstrate how these gnostic Christians can read Paul as a gnostic and his letters as primary sources of gnostic theology. Valentinian exegetes resolve what we have come to call the "Pauline sense of paradox" rather simply: they insist that Paul's contradictory statements apply to different persons, to psychics and pneumatics respectively. For example, when Paul speaks of the Christian as one already "raised with Christ" in baptism, already "alive in Christ," he is speaking of the pneumatic, whose "resurrection," like Christ's, has already occurred; pneumatics live the "new life" now. On the other hand, when Paul describes the resurrection as a future event, which is to occur at the end of the age, he is speaking of the raising of psychics who await the eschatological transformation as their future hope.

In their view, the apparent contradictions in Paul's writings arise from his awareness of the differences of spiritual insight (gn6sis) among different members of the Christian community. To the psychics who "cannot understand the things of the spirit,"73 Paul preaches the kerygma of Christ crucified, of re- pentance and forgiveness of sins, urging them to persevere in faith and good works. Recognizing that psychics can read his letters only "literally," he offers on the literal level moral counsel that is valid and beneficial for their needs. Yet to the pneumatics, the "wise," he addresses his deeper meaning, a meaning hidden in his writings in allegory, to be discerned only by "the initiated."74 Paul reveals to them in veiled language the "hidden mystery of wisdom," of Sophia, which signifies their own election through grace.75 Yet even while he praises their authority, freedom, and gnosis, Paul simultaneously urges them to forego all of these, as he has, for the sake of bringing salvation to the psychics. The elect and the called are bound together in this age so that the latter too may participate in the resurrection that will restore "all" to the Father.

The Valentinians find in Paul's writings, then, a theological explanation of their own situation in relation to the majority of their Christian contemporaries. They also find spiritual counsel concerning their response to that situation, a counsel which the sources indicate they conscientiously tried to follow. They confess the creed with the psychics, attempting, apparently, to follow Paul's ad- vice to "all say the same thing" (1 Cor 1:10). Again, claiming to emulate Paul,

73 AH 3.3,1. 74 AH 3.2,1. 76 AH 3.4,3; 3.16,6; 3.16,8.

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they offer to teach "secret wisdom" among the "initiates" (teleioi).76 They certainly consider the majority to be psychics,77 if we may judge from their con- cern with the kerygma, which comes to be adopted into the church's creed and from their literalminded reading of "scripture," and especially from their insis- tence on the literal interpretation of Paul's resurrection-theology.

Among these psychic Christians, I believe, the Valentinians would include their opponents, Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Origen. I suggest that the traditional view of Paul as the great anti-gnostic polemicist, and perhaps much Pauline

exegesis, both traditional and contemporary, emerges from the efforts of these eccesiastical writers to repudiate gnostic interpretation of Paul, with its long tradition from Marcion through the Valentinians. In their answering exegesis of Paul, these writers have attempted to restore him to what they considered to be his rightful place in that tradition which came to be called- from the second

century on-the "orthodox, catholic, and apostolic" faith.

76AH 3.3,1; 3.15,2. 77 Cf. AH 1.8,3.

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Documents

The Mystery of the Resurrection A Gnostic Reading of 1 Corinthians 15.pdf