An Exploration of Valentinian Paraenesis: Rethinking Gnostic Ethics in the Interpretation of Knowledge (NHC XI,1)

Abstract

Over the past twenty-five years, the social and ethical aspects of Gnosticism have won increased attention. Scholars have tended to shift away from phenomenological approaches to Gnosticism, which maintained a strict demarcation between ethics and cosmological speculation. Rather, scholars have increasingly recognized and explored social ethics within the various “Gnosticisms” that flourished in the second to fourth centuries, focusing on particular topics such as sexual ethics, gender roles, and the soteriological implications of sinful or virtuous behavior. Little attention, however, has been devoted to the question of how ancient rhetorical conventions shaped Gnostic ethical and moral discourse, especially as it is evidenced in the Nag Hammadi sources. The application of rhetorical criticism to other early Christian literature has demonstrated that the proper identification of the genre of a text is a crucial step toward determining how that text was designed to rhetorically influence its audience. Thus, an appreciation of the generic conventions that dictate certain features of a text can improve our understanding of the social context in which that text was produced. In this essay, I examine one text from Nag Hammadi, the Interpretation of Knowledge (NHC XI,1; henceforth Interp. Know .), whose genre has not, in my opinion, been satisfactorily established. I will argue that the text should be read as a sustained work of paraenesis—that is, as a moral exhortation with a persuasive intent. On the basis of that identification, I will attempt to reconstruct some features of the social context in which it was produced.