Valentinus and the 'Gospel of Truth' in their biblical and cultural matrix

The aim of this dissertation is to re-examine the question of the purpose, the sources, and the intended readership of the Valentinian text known as The Gospel of Truth. I question the prominent theory of Harold Attridge that GTr is an exoteric work, written to convert outsiders to gnostic myth. The dissertation argues (a) that the author presents a constructive revision—in effect a demythologization—of the best insights of Christian gnosticism as represented by the Valentinian tradition, (b) that its intended audience is a body of “insiders” who share with the writer a solid grasp of the themes and issues of Valentinian teaching.; In the first section I provide an overview of the scholarship on the Gospel of Truth that is relevant to evaluating the Attridge hypothesis. In particular, Attridge has misconstrued GTr's usage of the terms “psychic” and “Middle”, and he has misread the reference in GTr 42.39–43.2 to “the others,” concerning whom the author wishes to remain silent.; The long central section evaluates the fragments of Valentinus and compares them with Irenaeus's account in AdvHaer I.11.1. The result is that Irenaeus's relatively “Ptolemaean” account of the original teaching of Valentinus should be dismissed.; The final section returns to the Gospel of Truth. Most centrally, I address the extent of GTr's usage of central features of the Ptolemaean myth as well as of the teachings of other prominent Valentinians. The sins of Sophia, Achamoth, and the Demiurge are all conflated into one decisive collective turn of the aeons, who are themselves understood as existing in dependence on their maker.; Ultimately, Attridge has erred in reading the nearly full-blown Ptolemaean myth into the Gospel of Truth because he has misidentified the matrix of traditions out of which GTr was written.