ABSTRACT
Until the early 1950s, Sethian Gnosticism was known mainly through descriptions and refutations of it produced by various of the ante-Nicene Church Fathers, supplemented by a few original Gnostic writings. The earliest such description we possess is that of Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in chapters 29–31 of his Adversus haereses, written around 180 ce. Chapter 29 describes the teaching of certain “gnostics” (gnostici), later (ca. 225–250 ce) identified as “Sethoites” by pseudo-Tertullian in his Adversus omnes haereses 2, which in turn was probably based on Hippolytus’s lost Syntagma composed around 210 ce (cf. Photius, Bibliotheca cod. 121 Bekker 94a); still later (ca. 450 ce), these same gnostics were named “Barbeloites” by Theodoret of Cyrrhus, in his Haereticarum fabularum compendium 1.13. In chapter 30 of his Adversus haereses, Irenaeus presents the teaching of certain “other” (alii) gnostics, whom Theodoret in turn identified as “Sethians” or “Ophites,” that is, devotees of the paradisiacal serpent (Greek ophis) as a divine revealer. In chapter 21, Irenaeus went on to describe “yet other” (allii autem rursus) gnostics, whom pseudo-Tertullian later identified as certain “Cainites” who revered the biblical Cain and proffered a “Gospel of Judas.” These reports on these three groups were again summarized around 383 ce by Filastrius, Bishop of Brescia, in his Diuersarum haereseon liber 3, and all these accounts were greatly enlarged around 375 ce by Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in his lengthy descriptions of “Gnosticism” “Sethians,” and “Archontics” in chapters 26, 39, and 40 of the first book of his Panarion. To these secondary accounts, we may also add original primary sources of similar teaching that were known prior to the 1950s, such as the “Untitled Text” from the Bruce Codex published by Carl Schmidt in 1905.
