The Gnôsis of the Light   By: F. Lamplugh

[Frontispiece: THE GNÔSTIC CROSS (Codex Brucianus)]

THE GNÔSIS OF THE LIGHT

A Translation of the Untitled Apocalypse contained in the Codex Brucianus with Introduction and Notes

BY

Rev. F. LAMPLUGH, B.A. (Cantab.)

London

John M. Watkins

21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, W.C.2

1918

I have loved you, and have longed to give you Life.

Blessed is he who crucifieth the World and hath not suffered the World to crucify him.

Blessed is the man who knoweth these things, who hath brought Heaven down upon Earth and hath taken Earth and hath lifted it up unto Heaven, and hath so wrought that the Midst is a Nothing.

The Book of the Gnoses of the Invisible God.

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Gnôsis of the Light

Notes

INTRODUCTION

This translation of the ancient Gnôstic work, called by Schmidt, the Untitled Apocalypse , is based chiefly on Amélineau's French version of the superior MS. of the Codex Brucianus, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. In making the rendering I have studied the context carefully, and have not neglected the Greek words interspersed with the Coptic; also I have availed myself of Mr Mead's translation of certain important passages from Schmidt's edition, for purposes of comparison. Anything that I have added to bring out the meaning of the Gnôstic author now and again, I have enclosed in brackets. Such suggestions have always arisen from the text. I fancy my English version will be found to give a reasonably accurate idea of the contents of one of the most abstruse symbolical works in the world. The notes that I have added are not intended to be final or exhaustive, but to give the general reader some guidance towards understanding the intensely interesting topics with which the powerful mind of the ancient mystical writer was preoccupied. I have endeavoured to show myself a sympathetic "Hierophant" or expounder of some of the mysteries, not without study of the Gnôsis, both of the Christianised and purely Hellenistic type, for the key to the understanding of symbolism is only given into the hands of sympathy.

The Codex Brucianus was brought to England from Upper Egypt, by the famous traveller Bruce, in 1769, and bequeathed by him to the care of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It contains several Gnôstic works translated into the Upper Egyptian dialect from the Greek, and probably is as old as the sixth century A.D. The Greek originals were of course much older, that is to say, the MSS. to which the codex ultimately goes back were much older. We are only concerned with one of them here, the so called Untitled Apocalypse , which is markedly distinct from the others in character and style. Schmidt dates it well in the second century A.D., and with this estimate I am inclined to agree. It shows, as I have endeavoured to make clear in the notes, marked affinities in some respects to the Gospel of Mary (Codex Akhmim), which we know to have been in existence before 180 A.D., and its philosophical basis is the Platonism of Alexandria. If it is by one writer, I think it may be dated from 160 or 170 A.D. 200 A.D., and belongs to the period of Basilides and Valentinus.