The Theology of the Teachings of Silvanus

Abstract

The Nag Hammadi Library has surprised the scholarly world with a great number of previously unknown writings. One of them is the fourth treatise of Codex VII, entitled The Teachings of Silvanus, which was recently published with a French translation and a commentary.' The research into this text has already led to some conclusions which seem to be generally accepted: a) despite some gnosticizing elements, the work as a whole is not gnostic; there are even some anti-gnostic polemics;2 b) it is a specimen of Christian Wisdom literature;3 c) it is a document of Christian Alexandrian theology;4 d) it is to be dated about A.D. 200, in the last decades of the second or the first of the third century.5 Though the work is extant in a Coptic translation only, it was originally written in Greek. Its terminus ante quem is about A.D. 350, for the cover of the codex contained a dated papyrus of the year 348.6 The question of the date of composition of the original Greek text can only be answered on the basis of internal evidence, since Silvanus is neither mentioned himself nor his work referred to by any ancient author. His work consists for the greater part of ethical admonitions of a teacher to his pupil, who is mostly addressed as my son. But these exhortations to moral virtue are interrupted, often very abruptly, by theological expositions on the relationship between the Father and the Son, on God and Man in Christ, the Incarnation, and the salvation of man. Until now, this theological material has received only little attention.7 The ethical portions of the work contain much which is not typically Christian: there are strong influences of Jewish sapiential and Greek philosophical (Stoic and Platonic) traditions. In these parts there are striking parallels with Clement of Alexandria, and there is, indeed, little which does not fit the proposed date of A.D. 200. However, the situation becomes quite different if we look more closely at Silvanus' theological ideas, especially those concerning the relationship between