The Thunder, Perfect Mind
Home > Gnostics > The Thunder, Perfect Mind The Thunder, Perfect Mind 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: 100-230 A.D. Chronological List of Early Christian Writings Discuss this text on the Early Writings forum. Text Thunder, Perfect Mind Offsite Links French Translation Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia: Thunder, Perfect Mind Thunder, Perfect Mind: Or, How Nonsense Makes Sense An Introduction to The Thunder, Perfect Mind Commentary on Thunder, Perfect Mind The Pagan Library: Thunder, Perfect Mind Books Hal Taussig and Jared Calaway, et al., The Thunder: Perfect Mind: A New Translation and Introduction (Palgrave Macmillan 2010) 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) Recommended Books for the Study of Early Christian Writings Information on Thunder, Perfect Mind Paul-Hubert Poirier comments, "Thunder takes the form of a discourse, composed for the most part of self-predications in the first-person singular (Coptic anok pe/te, Greek ego eimi) interspersed with exhortations and reproaches addressed to an unidentified audience. The speaker remains unnamed, but many features in the text show that the person or entity speaking is a feminine being. This characteristic explains why the tractate was at first compared with the Isis aretalogies - the self-proclamations in which the goddess Isis presents herself and lists her feats - or with the public addresses of female Wisdom in the Jewish scriptures (Proverbs 8:4-36; Sirach 24:3-22), but these parallels remain only partial." (The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, p.
367) Bentley Layton writes, "The Thunder - Perfect Intellect ('Thunder, Perfect Mind') is a riddlesome monologue spoken by the immanent savior, here represented as a female character and identifiable as 'afterthought,' a manifestation of wisdom and Barbelo in gnostic myth. In gnostic myth the role of afterthought - also known as 'life' (Zoe), the female instructing principle, and the holy spirit - is to assist both Adam and all humankind, in order to recollect the power stolen by Ialdabaoth (BJn 20:14f) and now dispersed in the gnostic race. She is immanent in all gnostics who have the holy spirit (BJn 25:20f). Although the monologue consists almost entirely of self-descriptions and exhortations directed to the reader, three short passages refer to the mythic setting of the savior's words: (1) she has been sent from 'the power' or Barbelo (cf.
BJn 4:26f) and is immanent within humankind (13:2f); (2) she continues in her mission to 'cry out' and summon members of the gnostic race (19:28f); (3) souls that respond will gain liberation from the material world and ascend to a place in the metaphysical universe where the speaker herself resides, and will not suffer reincarnation (21:27f). These allusions to the gnostic myth (however ambiguous), the identification of the speaker as 'afterthought' (14:10F), and the resemblance of the work to The Gospel of Eve read by the gnostic sect ([Epiphanius, Panarion] 26.3.1) all suggest that [The Thunder, Perfect Intellect] should be considered a part of gnostic scripture and understood in the context of such works.
Further support for this reading comes from [The Hypostasis of the Archons] 89:14f, where Adam uses similar words to address the female spiritual principle, i.e. afterthought, who is resident in Eve: the passage may be an allusion to [The Thunder, Perfect Intellect]. Nevertheless, some scholars have doubted that [The Thunder, Perfect Intellect] bears any relation to gnostic myth." (The Gnostic Scriptures, p. 77) Birger A. Pearson writes, "Two of her pronouncements in this section provide clues as to the speaker's identity. The first one, 'It is my husband who begot me' (13,29-30), fits the figure of Eve in the Bible, born from her husband's rib (Genesis 2:21-23). The second one suggests a heavenly projection of Eve: 'I am the silence that is incomprehensible and the reflection (epinoia) whose remembrance is frequent' (14,9-11).