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  • From: "" <khs AT picknowl.com.au>
  • To: corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] Hebrews
  • Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 01:57:47 +0930

Dear Dave (Hindley),

You addressed your message to Bob but you were responding to my e-mail.
Sorry to have dropped a bomb and then not respond. My access and time to
write are limited but I’ll do the best I can.

You say:
<<<...there is little evidence for organized Gnostic movements before the
2nd century CE.>>>
<<<). The developed gnostic texts, such as those in the Nag Hammadi library,
were copied around the 3rd or 4th century and thus probably took their
literary form shortly before then, so it is hard to judge exactly when they
or their prototypes were first authored.>>>
<<< but I am not aware of much evidence for Gnostic movements in Asia
Minor>>>

I do not have my resources with me at the moment but I did give the Irenaeus
reference (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III.11.1). If my memory serves me
rightly then it is in a section where Irenaeus is dealing with the Gnostic
problem. Whether yes or no, The Apostle John’s contemporary, Cerinthus,
was a known Gnostic whose ideas, Irenaeus tells us, were disseminated a
long time previously by the Nicolaitans. That is substantial evidence of an
early Gnostic influence in Asia Minor, even if it was only a rudimentary
form of Gnosticism or one which had not yet developed texts as those did who
came later.

My point is not necessarily that Hebrews is addressing Gnostic ideas –
though I would not be the first to suggest it if I did – but (regardless
of who its author is) it is addressing false teaching about the Old
Testament shadows/types/etc which the Nicolaitans were spreading. The
Nicolaitans being, I suspect, a predominantly Jewish group in Asia who had
converted to Christianity – perhaps quite early – but who had
synchretized their Christian beliefs with speculative and fanciful
interpretations of the OT and Hellenistic/Gnostic ideas (Heb 6:4-8; Acts
20:29-30). Hebrews was not addressed to the Nicolaitans, as such, but to the
Church (Heb 6:9-12) which needed to have corrected what the Nicolaitans were
distorting.

Best wishes,

Kym Smith
Anglican Parish of the Barossa
South Australia






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