Big Words: Why?

ou-  and  eu-

"LIGATURED

ORTHOGRAPHICALLY"

"Bound Together in Spelling"

The other day, I mentioned that Coptic prepositions are proclitic to the word they govern, but they will be spelled separate in Lambdin's book.

An exception is the preposition epsilon (e (to, for)), which will be "ligatured orthographically" to the following omicron (o) of omicron upsilon (ou), such that ou- becomes epsilon upsilon eu-.

I think.

And "ligatured orthographically." Big words. Really fascinating, eh?

Coptic Stuff

COPTIC

PREPOSITIONS!

Lambdin tells us that Coptic prepositions are proclitic, namely, unstressed and bound to the word that they govern. But how does he know this? In the ancient Coptic writings, words are not separated by spaces. How, then, does he know that Coptic prepositions are bound to the word that they govern?

Really how does he know this? Every Coptic word is bound to every other Coptic word sometime or other. How does anyone know when a word has a special bond?

And unstressed? Ha! Just look at the stress we're under right now . . .

I'm No Linguist, But . . .

Coptic Again!

. . . I've decided to refresh my Coptic, after having been away from it for about ten years, maybe even fifteen?

I used to know Coptic pretty well, well enough, anyway, to correct Alexander Boehlig.

More Vanity Googling . . .

Volume 5 Shown

Brill

I did some vanity Googling again and discovered my name . . . or sort of my name . . . acknowledged in Volume 2 in the series of which Volume 5 is depicted above: "Jeffrey H. Hodges":

Thanks also to Jeffrey H. Hodges at the University of Tübingen, for providing an additional collation of the text of the synopsis against the facsimile edition and the photographs of BG 8502, and for his many suggestions for improvements in the translation.

This was written by Michael Waldstein, with whom I worked for several months on the Gnostic text The Apocryphon of John, deciphering facsimiles of the Coptic original, a task exceedingly obscure! Michael had asked my assistance because I had not only mastered Coptic, I had constructed my own synopsis of the four copies of The Apocryphon of John, employing a scissors-and-paste method, the "collation" that he refers to, if I recall.

Despite getting my name wrong -- an error shared with so many other illustrious individuals -- Michael was quite helpful and supportive in our time at Tübingen, once leaning over in a seminar to whisper, "It's an interesting point," when I drew a link between a Gnostic text and a New Testament passage that our German colleagues tended to dismiss. Michael was Austrian. I don't know that his nationality made a difference, but I appreciated his support . . . though I no longer recall the point that I was making.

Maybe that poor recall accounts for the radically different direction that my career has taken . . . not quite good enough for religious studies.

The Arab Spring Springs into Action -- Against Christians?

Rached Ghannouchi

AFP Photo

Now Lebanon

On Friday, a friend of mine sent me a link to Hussein Ibish's article "Leave room for the unbelievers" (Now Lebanon, April 11, 2012), in which Ibish laments the turn toward Islamism in the lands of the Arab Spring, especially for the security of unbelievers:

What is most disturbing is that it is almost impossible to imagine an Islamist-influenced system protecting the religious rights of skeptics, agnostics and atheists. Blasphemy, satire, independent scholarly investigation of early Islamic history, or merely a profession of fundamental skepticism about faith in general (and not simply Islam) are all likely to remain criminal offenses. Protection for apostasy and conversion are another key test of real religious freedom.

He's right about the extreme danger for such individuals, but he's perhaps too easy on the Islamists' treatment of the Dhimmis:

[S]ince Islam traditionally regards Judaism and Christianity as legitimate, though imprecise, monotheistic faiths, it is not hard to imagine an Islamist-influenced Arab political order protecting the religious and civic rights of these relatively small minorities, even if the most extreme Islamists won't want to do this.

Some weeks ago, I blogged on Ayaan Hirsi Ali's warning about Islamism's worldwide war on Christians, and just today, I received a new article on this very topic from the Spectator, a piece written by Douglas Davis and titled "Out of the east" (The Spectator, April 7, 2012), an ironic line with a double-entendre signifying both that Christianity came to the West from "out of the east" and that it is now being forced "out of the east"!

A few weeks ago, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Amdullah, Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, responded to a question posed by a visiting Kuwaiti delegation. Would sharia permit churches to exist in their emirate? The sheikh's response was categorical. Kuwait is part of the Arabian Peninsula, he said, and 'therefore it is necessary to destroy all the churches of the region'.

The Sheikh based his ruling on a Hadith which recorded the Prophet's deathbed declaration that, 'There are not to be two religions in the Peninsula', a command that has been interpreted to mean that only Islam may be practised in the region.

Now, the Grand Mufti is not just another swivel-eyed fanatic. He is the most senior Islamic authority in Saudi Arabia, president of the Supreme Council of Ulema [Islamic scholars] and chairman of the Standing Committee for Scientific Research and Issuing of Fatwas. His views do not make him an isolated extremist.

Of course, this is Saudi Arabia, so what does one expect of the region's religious authorities? But the 'Arab Spring' lands offer little better:

Last year, some 200,000 Coptic Christians -- such Christians once made up about 10 per cent of Egypt's 80 million population -- fled their homes after being subjected to killing, beatings and church-burnings in Alexandria, Luxor and Cairo. On New Year's Day last year, 21 Copts were slaughtered in their church in Alexandria; a further 27 died in clashes with police in Cairo.

This week, the Coptic Orthodox Church announced that it was withdrawing from talks on a new Egyptian constitution because Islamist domination of the process has made its participation 'pointless'.

Not a good omen, for Egypt is home to the largest Christian community in Arab lands. Scholars and bloggers may debate whether Islam was traditionally tolerant -- and I have come to have my doubts -- but current-day Islam looks to be so permeated by Islamism that the question is less one of relative tolerance that of relative intolerance, namely, which strain of Islam is the least intolerant?

Yes, things have come to that, and people may find that even the least intolerant versions of sharia are more than many expected, as Joel Brinkley implies . . .

Speaking of the Copts . . .

Egypt

(Image from Wikipedia)

In their recent article for the New York Times, "Promise of Arab Uprisings Is Threatened by Divisions" (May 21, 2011), Anthony Shadid and David D. Kirkpatrick have reported on Egypt's religious tensions in a somewhat oblique manner:

In Cairo, the sense of national identity that surged at the moment of revolution -- when hundreds of thousands of people of all faiths celebrated in Tahrir Square with chants of "Hold your head high, you are an Egyptian" -- has given way to a week of religious violence pitting the Coptic Christian minority against their Muslim neighbors, reflecting long-smoldering tensions that an authoritarian state may have muted, or let fester.

One has to read rather carefully to recognize the unlikelihood that a Christian minority of merely 10 percent -- unlike those peaceful "people of all [other] faiths" -- could accurately be described as adopting violence that's "pitting the Coptic Christian minority against their Muslim neighbors." Let's rewrite the passage to reflect reality:

In Cairo, the sense of national identity that surged at the moment of revolution -- when hundreds of thousands of people of all faiths celebrated in Tahrir Square with chants of "Hold your head high, you are an Egyptian" -- has given way to a week of religious violence pitting the Muslim majority against the Coptic Christian minority, reflecting long-smoldering tensions that an authoritarian state may have muted, or let fester.

That would more accurately portray what is really happening in Egypt between the Copts and their Islamist opponents. But denial is a river in Egypt, and here is what instead gets reported:

At a rally this month in Tahrir Square to call for unity, Coptic Christians were conspicuously absent, thousands of them gathering nearby for a rally of their own. And even among some Muslims at the unity rally, suspicions were pronounced.

"As Muslims, our sheiks are always telling us to be good to Christians, but we don't think that is happening on the other side," said Ibrahim Sakr, 56, a chemistry professor, who asserted that Copts, who make up about 10 percent of the population, still consider themselves "the original" Egyptians because their presence predates Islam.

I am skeptical that many sheiks are "always" pressing the Muslim faithful "to be good to Christians," but be that as it may, the Copts are the original Egyptians, and their liturgical language derives from the ancient Egyptian language.

As for the unidentified "rally of their own," I suspect that the Copts were rallying to protest the recent attacks upon several of their churches, one of which was set ablaze. Little wonder that the "Coptic Christians were conspicuously absent" from the "rally this month in Tahrir Square."

And what of those "hundreds of thousands of people of all faiths" who had previously "celebrated"? Did they all show up for the unity rally? Of course not. There is no "all faiths" in Egypt. Aside from infinitesimally tiny slivers of other religions like the Bahá'í, who are scarcely worth counting, there are only the 90 percent Muslim majority and the 10 percent Christian minority -- and Egypt's Islamists would like to see that 10 percent whittled down to a mere sliver, too.

Will Copts go the way of Iraq's Christians and flee their native country in reaction to Islamist violence? I suppose that we'll find out.

Cleave upward and downward . . .

Ankh

Codex Glazier

(Image from Wikipedia)

Being somewhat of a wordsmith myself, I enjoy an oddity or two in language, especially cases where what looks, ostensibly, to be one word, e.g., "cleave," can have two opposed meanings, namely, "to cling together" and "to cut apart." I believe that Paul Auster makes much of this point about "cleave" in his novella City of Glass.

At the time that I was reading -- and teaching -- Paul Auster's short novel at UC Berkeley back in the latter 1980s, I was also working on Sahidic Coptic for my anticipated, but ultimately unsuccessful career in religious studies, and I came across a common noun that could take either of two diametrically opposite meanings:

Ϩραι (pronounced "hrai") - "upper part" or "lower part"

By addition of a prefixed "ε," it became an adverb:

εϨραι (pronounced "ehrai") - "upward" or "downward"

I ought to have taken this as a sign that I had no idea which direction my career would go, upward or downward! As a former historian of science, I should have realized that the second law of thermodynamics favors "downward," of course, and that thermodynamics always wins.

At least I learned Coptic, though. I haven't had the opportunity to teach it, other than privately to the Manichaean expert Samuel Lieu while we were both at Eberhard Karls University, Tuebingen, as well as to a few other individuals there in the early 1990s.

But I at least learned the language and thus have more than a passing interest in the condition of the longsuffering Copts, now fearful of impending Islamist oppression in their own native land of Egypt.

Coptic Again . . .

Introduction to Sahidic Coptic

Thomas O. Lambdin

(Image from Amazon)

After a break of nearly five years, I've recently started reviewing Coptic grammar again, using Lambdin's Introduction to Sahidic Coptic.

At one time, I was quite good in Coptic and even corrected Alexander Böhlig, but when I failed to obtain a position in religious studies after a postdoctoral year in Jerusalem, I had less time to work on it. I tried for a few years. I recall using flash cards to learn new vocabulary as I trudged along dark paths among rice paddies at five in the morning on my way to teach English to Korean students during winter months, using a small flashlight to illuminate the cards and guide my steps. I wore gloves with the thumb and forefinger cut off to leave me freer use of my hands for the flash cards, but the winter chill froze my fingers, and I had to alternate between one hand with the cards and the other in my coat pocket, not a simple procedure while while holding a even a tiny flashlight. But by around 2005 or 2006, I could see the handwriting on the wall and realized that I was never going to teach religious studies, so in my discouragement, I set my Coptic aside.

But as I said, I've recently begun reviewing it. I don't have a practical reason for this, for I expect no job opportunities in which I could put it to use. Rather, I felt sad to lose my facility in a language that I had worked so hard to learn. Moreover, I had begun to outgrow my discouragement over the career path that I failed to follow despite my efforts.

I therefore briefly review a bit of Coptic grammar and vocabulary every day, and I try to keep my ears open to reports about the Coptic Church in Egypt since it's in the news these days.

Not that I know much about that, for their liturgy is in Bohairic Coptic, and I study the Sahidic dialect.

Life Can Be a Dream . . .

Jane Austen

"Jaunty Sihouette"

(Image from Pemberley)

Late in Pride and Prejudice, when the ending has turned happy for the characters with whom we identify, Jane Austen puts into Elizabeth Bennet's mouth the following words, which strike me as true:

"We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing." (Miss Elizabeth Bennet, Chapter 54, Pride and Prejudice)

I am, as you know, an instructor. Sometimes, even, a professor. Consider the difference in those titles, but even as one who sometimes professes, I am -- at the fundament of my existence -- one who instructs. I can therefore teach only what is not worth knowing . . . and thus not worth teaching. What is truly worth knowing, I cannot impart.

But I didn't learn this from Austen or Bennet. I learned it from experience, and so will my students . . . eventually. For instance, my international-relations students asked my advice last week on how to pursue their university studies. They are mere first-year students, and I am old enough to be their father.

"I can tell you what I did wrong. Be sure to make and keep connections. You'll need them someday when you look for a job. Aim to have a career that looks linear on your CV. Otherwise, you'll look like someone who lacks direction. This is especially important after your undergraduate degree. Try to make good grades . . . but don't let grades get in the way of your education. Adopt a personal standard of excellence that goes beyond the next test. Learn as if for eternity."

I think that I said a bit more than that, but I was talking to myself. Not that my students didn't listen. They did. But to understand what I meant? Maybe the practical stuff, but the truly worthwhile? That takes a lifetime, and comes from experience, not instruction. Actually, I did follow some of my own advice in my years pursuing an education -- I always sought excellence beyond the exams . . . well, almost always. But I neglected connections and followed a winding, eccentric path, which isn't necessarily bad if you don't mind going off track.

I spent years in Europe, even a year in Switzerland, working on my Coptic and preparing for a career in Gnostic studies . . . but where did that get me? Several months in Basel chasing a lost girlfriend in the summer of 1988 while living with anarchists and getting tear-gassed by the police. I thought of this yesterday when I stumbled across Steven Erlanger's New York Times article, "For Art Lovers, Basel Doesn't End at the Fair" (June 6-7, 2009). That brought back memories, some good -- like Marc Chagall's 1912 image of The Rabbi enjoying his pinch of snuff, housed in the Basel Kunsthalle . . . the original of a print that I'd kept tacked to the wall of my boarding room while a young student in the late 1970s at Baylor, where I'd pined for passionate love and dreamed of unattainable greatness. But some memories bad -- such as cutting short a friend's defense of my ex-girlfriend with these words describing her behavior that Basel summer of 1988:

"She was selfish. She was cold. She was sometimes brutal. And she was a coward."

I suppose that two of those adjectives could apply to me as well. Take your pick, for it hardly matters anymore, it was so long ago.

After that, my career at least seemed on track, the Fulbright and Naumann doctoral fellowships that I'd won seeming to presage a future so bright that I ought to wear shades. It didn't turn out quite like that. After one postdoc in Australia and another in Jerusalem, I reached a deadend. An Australian friend at the University of New England, Armidale, who had promised support in my job applications, informed me at the critical moment when I needed support and had requested from her a recommendation for a position in religious studies that included courses on women in religion:

"I am on principle opposed to males teaching courses about women in religion."

What could I say to her words concerning this 'principle'? That I'd suddenly discovered the vast difference between the prepositions "on" and "in"? What could I say to myself? That I was lost on an eccentric intellectual path without proper connections in the academic world? That I'd found myself putting trust in the wrong person? That I'd finally learned: It's not your enemies who betray you, but your friends? But all that hardly matters anymore, it now seems so long ago.

Besides, in the course of these detours and deadends, a miracle occurred, and I was granted a future despite all else that didn't go quite as planned.

And life can be a dream . . .

Coptic Gnostic Seminar: Anecdote of a Jarring Event

Not Classically Antique Mason Jars
"Anecdote of the Jar" . . . or two
(Image from Wikipedia)

In the late autumn of 1993, I was living and studying in Tübingen, Germany, and as part of that study, I attended -- along with Christoph Markschies, Michael Waldstein, Michael Theobald, Jim Kautt, Mr. Quack (unsure about that spelling), and one or two others -- a seminar conducted by Alexander Böhlig on Coptic Gnostic texts. One of these texts was The Apocryphon of John, from the Nag Hammadi Library.

Böhlig had asked me to prepare a long passage from the Apocryphon, so I read through it carefully in Coptic but only roughly sketching out in my mind German and English renderings. I figured that I could translate it readily enough into understandable German even if I were to make errors in doing so.

That didn't work out so well, as I recorded in my journal on November 12, 1993. Some of what I wrote in that entry was an attempt to reproduce the dialogue that took place in German, which I wasn't very good at, I confess. I'll post my entry in all its errors but also translate the German parts parenthetically into English:

My attempt at translating the Coptic of The Apocryphon of John directly into German failed miserably. I tried, but Professor Böhlig could not understand my German -- primarily, I think, for acoustic reasons . . . at least, now, I think so. At the time, I assumed the fault lay [entirely] in my faulty German.

I had just finished translating a clause about the entire creation lighting up -- I had used the term "ausstrahlen" (to shine) -- when Böhlig interrupted to ask me what I had done with [the Coptic expression] "o enouoeine" (as I recall). I answered that I was uncertain how one translated the qualitative here, but that the qualitative -- he interrupted again, telling me, rather brusquely, to translate it. So I repeated "Die ganze Schöpfung strahltete aus." ("The entire creation shone.")

"Strahlte" ("Shone"), he said.

I looked about the room, puzzled. "Vielleicht ist mein Deutsch falsch" ("Perhaps my German is incorrect"), I volunteered.

So Markschies inquired what I would say in English.

"The entire creation shone," I told him.

"Richtig" ("Right"), they agreed, and Waldstein suggested I continue in English.

But just to make sure, I said, "Ja, wenn niemand etwas dagegen hat." ("Yes, if no one has anything against that.")

No one objected, and so I began again, in English this time, though I had earlier prepared [if merely roughly] the whole exercise in my head in German as well as in English. I finished three lines, following each of which Böhlig impatiently translated into German. Then, after the third line, he stopped me with these words, "So, Sie haben es alles auf Englisch vorbereitet. Das geht nicht. Hier haben wir ein Seminar auf Deutsch -- Sie haben es night rightig getan. Herr Waldstein, könnten Sie übersetzen?" ("So, you have prepared it all in English. That won't do. Here, we have a seminar in German -- you have not done this correctly. Mr. Waldstein, could you translate?")

After a moment's stunned silence, he began [translating]. For a brief moment, I grew intensely angry, clenched my teeth, and fought back my urge to launch a verbal attack. But I remained angry for another five minutes -- plus I felt disappointed that no one had risen to my defense.

Later, however, I got my "revenge" -- though I remained polite (something I hope that I can always do in the face of rudeness). The end of the second hour had arrived, and we had just come across the form "ker-hote" in the BG text; Codices II and III (as I recall) had the qualitative "ko enhote," and Böhlig suggested that "ker-hote" showed an error somewhere, perhaps in the transcription from the original Coptic, explaining that the form "er," a Construct state, does not occur in the bipartite system. But, of course, he spoke German, using terms I didn't know, and it took me a few minutes to figure out his meaning. When I had it, he was already asking Herr Quack (my transliteration of his name, for which I apologize) -- an expert, one who comes to us from Egyptology -- his opinion on this odd form.

Quack said he could not say, speaking from an etymological perspective, where this came from, even assuming its validity as a form.

I had just opened my mouth to speak when Böhlig switched the focus to the next line of Coptic. I let it pass until that had been finished, then I began to speak, saying, "Wenn wir --" ("If we --")

"Wir haben keine Zeit mehr" ("We have no more time"), he announced.

I glanced at my watch, seeing that the minute hand had already moved a minute or two past 11:00, but I determined to speak anyway: "Ich habe eine Antwort für dieser Problem mit 'ker-hote'" ("I have an answer for this problem with 'ker-hote'"), I announced. "Es ist eine Ausnahme. Wenn es kein 'definite Artikel' gibt, dann kann man dieser Constuctus benutzen, in der erste Präsent." ("It is an exception. When there is no 'definite article,' then one can use this Construct form in the first present.")

For a moment, now, Böhlig grew silent. Then, "Ja . . . ja, das is möglich. Wenn es kein bestimmte Artikel gibt, dann könnte es sein . . ." ("Yes . . . yes, that is possible. When there is no definite article, then that could be . . .")

Nobody else spoke, but everybody knew that I had come out on top.

I wrote more about what then transpired, but I'll spare you and simply summarize. Professor Böhlig was much more polite after that and offered to help me with my German. Also, some of the other participants afterwards informed me that my German, while not perfect, had been passable enough, but that Böhlig simply had not been able to hear well enough to make out what I was saying. I could forgive him that, for he was over 80 years old. He probably had not heard the others give me 'permission' to switch to English.

However, I do still wonder why -- at the moment of that jarring event -- no one spoke up on my behalf. The Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Küng once remarked in his own seminar that Germans lack civic courage. I don't know if that was the reason in this case. Probably not. Most likely, the others simply felt too much respect for Böhlig to explain to him that his hearing was poor.

By the way -- just in case anyone is interested -- the grammatical point at stake in the Coptic discussion was the application of Jernstedt's Rule, which states that in Coptic, an infinitive cannot be used in the Construct form for the first present verbal conjugation. The expression "ker-hote" (from "er-hote," i.e., "to become afraid," with the second person singular pronoun "k" prefixed, thus "you become afraid") uses the infinitive in the Construct form, but this is acceptable because compound verbs are an exception to Jernstedt's Rule (unless the compound verb occurs with the definite article on the noun or if the nominal element is a part of the body, e.g., foot, hand, etc., in which case, it follows Jernstedt's Rule).

'Ethical' Dualism of Food in The Gospel of John

Nag Hammadi Codices

Containing the Apocryphon of John

(Image from Wikipedia)

In yesterday's blog entry, Small World, concerning a query about my SBL paper from 1999, "'Ethical' Dualism of Food in The Gospel of John," I mentioned that I am "presenting an updated version this coming Saturday at a historians' seminar here in Seoul."

After the seminar's organizer had read my paper, he asked if I could provide some background since most of the historians here in Korea are unfamiliar with Gnosticism. I did so in a general introduction, and if anyone's interested in this, it can be read below:

Prefatory Remarks to "Ethical Dualism of Food"

To clarify the argument in my presentation of food in John's Gospel and Gnostic texts, I'd like to offer a few points on Gnosticism, most texts of which occur in Coptic, although we find texts stretching from Spain to China and in all the various languages along the way.

According to tradition, Egyptian Christianity was founded by St. Mark, author of the Gospel of Mark. Egyptian Christianity became a distinct branch of the Christian religion after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, differing from the Catholic and Orthodox churches in Christology. The basic disagreement centered upon the essence of Christ, which the Chalcedonians asserted was one hypostasis of two natures, i.e., full humanity and full divinity. Apparently, the Egyptian church disagreed, arguing that Christ was one nature, the Logos incarnate of full humanity and full divinity. This dispute might be merely a confusion of terms, in which nature (physis) is being used in two different senses, but I am not entirely sure. At any rate, a distinct Coptic Church dates from this period.

But Coptic Christianity had already developed through differentiating itself linguistically. Since the first century, Greek letters had been used for writing Coptic, which was a direct descendent of the language of the Pharoahs -- as my old Berkeley professor, David Larkin, used to phrase it. In its early development, Coptic supplemented its 'Greek' alphabet by borrowing several letters from Demotic but also vied with the Demotic writing system for prominence and won out as Demotic came to be used mainly for pagan religious purposes, whereas Coptic became the liturgical language of Egyptian Christianity.

For our purposes in this presentation, Coptic is mainly significant for its 'accidental' preservation of Gnostic texts, such as (but not limited to) the texts uncovered at Nag Hammadi in December 1945, a collection of codices (as opposed to scrolls) that came to be known by the somewhat grandiose title of "The Nag Hammadi Library." Two of the most famous of these codices are the Gospel of Thomas (of which some fragments also survive in Greek) and the Apocryphon of John, the former of which is perhaps more hermetic than Gnostic and the latter of which purports to reveal the Gnostic visions experienced by John the evangelist. Both texts are believed to derive from the early second century, but the codices themselves are later than that. The Apocryphon of John is a classic Gnostic text, for it describes an ontologically dualistic reality of spirit and matter in which the God of salvation rules over the realm of light and spirit and the god of ignorance rules over the realm of darkness and matter. This latter deity is the creator-god responsible for the formation of the cosmos, which he formed to trap the light, or spirit, that had fallen from above down into the material realm.

This radical dualism of substances implies that the material world is a source of impurity for the spiritual substance of light and weighs down the spirit with its material heaviness. Indeed, taking on more material substance tends to trap one ever more profoundly within the material realm, as the passage below will make clear. The quoted passage is taken from section 20 in an online edition (but sections 70-72 of the print edition) of the Apocryphon of John's short version (Berlin Codex BG 8502,2 and Nag Hammadi Codex III,1), but with variants form the long version noted in red font (Nag Hammadi Codex II,1 and Nag Hammadi Codex IV,1):

20 The Chief Ruler took him and placed him in paradise, of which he said, 'It is [a] delight for him' but really so that he might deceive him. For their delight is bitter and their beauty is licentious. Their delight is a deception and their tree is iniquity. Their fruit is an incurable poison and their promise is death to him. {For [their food was bitter and their [beauty] is licentious. Their food was a deception and their trees were [iniquity. Their fruit was an incurable poison] an[d their promise] is [death] to them.} Their tree which they planted is the tree of life.

For my part, I will teach you about the mystery of their life. It is their counterfeit spirit which dwells in them, whose purpose is to make him wander so that he does not know his perfection.

That tree is of this sort: Its root is bitter. Its branches are shadows of death. its leaves are hate and deception. Its fragrance is an ointment of evil. And its fruit is the desire for death. Its seed drinks from darkness {[an]d its seed sprouted [from] darkness.} The dwelling place of those who taste it is Hades. But the tree which they call 'knowledge of good and evil' is the Epinoia of the light. Concerning her they commanded, 'Do not taste (of it),' which means 'do not listen to her.' They issued this commandment against him so that he might not look up to his perfection and realize that he was naked of his perfection.

But as for me, I set them right so that they would eat." (edited and formatted by Lance Owens and based on the translation by Michael Waldstein and Frederik Wisse, The Apocryphon of John: Synopsis of Nag Hammadi Codices II,1;III,1; And IV,1 With BG 8502,2 (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies), Brill Academic Pub, 1995).

The important variant is that between "delight" and "food" and may result from a confusion of the two Greek words truphe and trophe, respectively. I think that originally, a pun between the two words was at work, but wordplay or not, the passage sets up a dualism of food in the distinctly different effects rendered by eating fruit from the tree of their life (i.e., of death) or from the tree of perfect knowledge (i.e., of illuminated life). Eating from the former leads to further entrapment within the material world, but eating from the latter leads to release from the bonds of matter and escape into the realm of light.

With these prefatory remarks, we are now prepared for my paper, which argues for a a difference between the radical, ontological dualism in Gnostic texts and a moderate, ethical dualism in the Gospel of John and which looks at the synecdochal uses of food in both sorts of texts as a means of providing support for this argument.

Well, there it is in all of its flawed 'glory' -- the preface to my paper scheduled for Saturday.

Now, to finish my response to several papers that I have to comment on next week at Sogang University's International Symposium on "Death, Dying, and Spirituality," hosted by the Sogang Institute for Religion during the university's 2007 Humanities Week...