Eugnostos the Blessed
Home > Gnostics > Eugnostos the Blessed Eugnostos the Blessed At a Glance Treatise Genre: (5/5) ***** Reliability of Dating: (5/5) ***** Length of Text: Greek Original Language: Ancient Translations: Modern Translations: Estimated Range of Dating: 50-150 A.D. Chronological List of Early Christian Writings Discuss this text on the Early Writings forum. Text Eugnostos the Blessed Offsite Links French Translation Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia: Eugnostos the Blessed and the Sophia of Jesus Christ Introduction to the New Testament: History and Literature of Early Christianity The facsimile edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices The Nag Hammadi Library in English A Dictionary of Gnosticism Rethinking "Gnosticism": An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt The Sophia of Jesus Christ and Eugnostos Typologies of the Sethian Gnostic Treatises Books Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation With Annotations and Introductions (Doubleday 1987) Marvin Meyer, ed., The Nag Hammadi Scriptures (HarperOne 2009) Birger A.
Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions And Literature (Fortress Press 2007) Demetrios Trakatellis, The Transcendent God of Eugnostos (Holy Cross Orthodox Press 1991) Recommended Books for the Study of Early Christian Writings Information on Eugnostos the Blessed Madeleine Scopello writes, "The tractate Eugnostos the Blessed is preserved in two codices in the Nag Hammadi library, Codex III and Codex V, and the two versions show some differences. As the third treatise of Codex III, Eugnostos occupies pages 70,1-90,11. The first two lines of the text read, 'Eugnostos the blessed, to those who are his,' and the title at the end of the tractate is given as 'Eugnostos the Blessed.' For that reason the tractate is generally referred to as Eugnostos the Blessed.
Still, the opening of the version of the text in Codex V (1,1-17,17), even if it is largely in lacuna, cannot be reconstructed in the same way, and the title at the conclusion of the document is merely 'Eugnostos.'" (The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, p. 273) On this name, Scopello observes, "But who is Eugnostos, and what is the meaning of this name? In Greek, eugnostos is an adjective composed of eu, 'good' or 'well,' and gnostos, 'known,' and so Eugnostos means 'well known,' 'familiar' (cf. Plato Lysias, frag. 17.3) or even 'easy to understand' (cf. Plato Sophist 218e). The opposite of this term is agnostos, 'unknown,' a term commonly used in philosophy to indicate the supreme God (cf.
Epicurus On the Nature of Things 28.5). This adjective also has an active meaning, 'the one who can know,' 'the one capable of knowing' (cf. Philo of Alexandria On the Creation of the World 154), so that it may be a synonym of the term gnostes ('the one who knows,' Acts 26:3). The link between gnostos and gnostes makes the name Eugnostos highly symbolic. Here in the title of our text, this adjective is treated as a proper name, indicating the name of the author of the tractate. The name Eugnostos also appears in another Nag Hammadi document, the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (NHC III,2; IV,2). In the final portion of this text (the colophon or copyist's note), the author introduces himself with his two names: Eugnostos, his spiritual name, and Gongessos, his ordinary, everyday name." (The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, p.
272) Birger A. Person writes, "Two versions of the tractate Eugnostos the Blessed exist, the third tractate of Nag Hammadi Codex III and the first tractate of Codex V. The two versions are quite different from one another, and probably represent independent Coptic translations of a Greek original. The version in Codex III is usually taken to be an earlier version than the one in Codex V. In The Nag Hammadi Library in English the version in Codex III is the one chosen for translation, with mising or damaged portions supplemented by the version in Codex V." (Ancient Gnosticism, pp. 211-213) On the genre of the text and the perspective of the author, Scopello writes (The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, pp.