This thesis is a literary-critical and theological analysis of the Apocryphon of John and the closely related material found in Irenaeus adversus haereses I 29 and 30. It attempts to determine (1) which of the four Coptic versions in two recensions is nearest to the original, and what the precise relationship of the Apocryphon is to Irenaeus' two chapters; (2) whether the Apocryphon represents a process of Christianization or de-Christianization, and (3) what the precise relationship of the Apocryphon is to Valentinianism. The first two chapters, on Gnostic theogony and cosmogony, argue that one can best explain the relation between the Apocryphon and Irenaeus I 29 by assuming that Irenaeus' account represents an earlier, less-developed form of the main traditions found in the Apocryphon which the latter modified to suit its own different theological tendency. The short recension, and particularly the version in Nag Hammadi Codex III, is closest to the original and to Irenaeus' account, the long representing a harmonising and spiritualising interpretation, but also containing more original traditions omitted by the short. Chapters three, four and five deal in more general terms with the relationship between the Apocryphon and Irenaeus I 30 and cover Gnostic anthropology, soteriology and eschatology. They attempt to show how the Apocryphon' understanding of the central paradox of Gnostic experience of being elect yet trapped in matter and governed by fate, has determined its selection and interpretation of anthropological, soteriological and eschatological motifs. Its reinterpretation of Genesis 1-7 forms the core of its anthropology and soteriology which agree that, although man possesses a divine spark, he requires redemption and a Revealer/Redeemer. This paradox is expressed in terms of primal, continuous and decisive revelation, represented by various divine figures. The varieties of eschatology in the Apocryphon, too, reflect not only varied traditions but also the paradox of Gnostic salvation, the "Now" and the "Not Yet". On the question of Christianization, the thesis argues that although the central exposition (unlike the frame story) is apparently uninfluenced by Christianity, much of its material is best understood in the context of early Christian speculation about Christ based on the Old Testament and contemporary Hellenistic Judaism. While evidence of progressive Christianization or de-Christianization is scanty and mixed, there is, thirdly, some indication, not only that the Apocryphon influenced Valentinianism, but that, in its present form, it shows signs of acquaintance with Valentinianism.

Thesis advisor: Pheme Perkins / Scholarship concerning the sayings attributed to Jesus has often been driven by the goals of historical Jesus studies, so that approaches to the sayings tradition have largely focused on determining the probaility of those sayings’ having originated with Jesus himself, and sorting the tradition into its presumed more and less genuine parts. This focus has been based in part on an understanding of human memory as capable of conveying accurate kernels of the actual past—here, genuine sayings of Jesus—alongside and within accreted tradition. Social memory theory, which originated in the social sciences but has been applied to Jesus scholarship over the last several decades, controverts this understanding of memory, arguing rather that memory is a dynamic social process, which continually interprets the perceived past through the socially-engaged frameworks of the present, and therefore cannot be separated into accurate and inaccurate parts. This correction to previous thinking about memory demands a corresponding correction to previous approaches to the Jesus and sayings tradition. The present dissertation proposes a variant-conscious approach—a label adopted and adapted from a parallel approach developed within New Testament text criticism—to the sayings tradition as a means of answering this demand and taking into account social memory theory’s claims concerning the entanglement of the past and present in the social construction of the tradition. Its aim is to attend to the sayings tradition and the variants within it each as distinct pieces of evidence for the diverse ways in which Jesus and his sayings were being remembered across Christian communities of the first three centuries CE. Two case studies (Chapters 2 and 3) apply this approach to two clusters of variants of sayings attributed to Jesus, an “Explaining the Parable(s)” cluster and an “Ask, Seek, and/or Knock” cluster. These studies find that the variations between the variants reflect each one’s origins as a product of social memory, connected at once to its past received tradition and to its own author’s present and socially-informed thinking about, for example, esoteric and exoteric knowledge, community identity, or the ongoing means of authority and revelation. A third case study (Chapter 4) turns its attention onto one sayings tradition text, the Apocryphon of James, in order to observe how its author, who could now be described as participating in the process of social memory, understood and described his own engagement with the processes of memory as a means of authorizing his contribution to the sayings tradition. Together these case studies demonstrate how a variant-conscious approach brings the insights of social memory theory to bear on the sayings tradition in a way that highlights the diversity and even competition within Christianity, as that diversity is given voice through the various memories of the voice of Jesus, which cannot be reduced to a singular vox Jesu. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.