Notice on the Bruce Gnostic Papyrus

THE

GNOSTIC
BRUCE
PAPYRUS.

the act reference to a prior discussion on Gnostic terminology. There is nothing surprising in the fact that a disciple of Valentinus, who was himself a disciple of Basilides reference to the Greek philosopher and Gnostic teacher, made use of a word employed in the earliest of the great Gnostic systems of Egypt. Moreover, the word THESAUROS treasury is often found with its complete spelling or the easily recognizable abbreviation THESR. One could object, with more reason than in the cited passage, that Woide's copy carries METH MTH twice rather than METH MPTH; but this is certainly a copying error committed by that scholar (he committed a very large number of them, moreover, due to the state of the manuscript), and he himself, on the same page, provides the means to correct it, which is not always easy, by writing MPTH correctly. Moreover, the presence of the letter M indicates a word that must begin with a B or a P, which requires the insertion of the article between the preposition and the noun. The reading and translation of the siglum therefore seem certain to me.

In addition to these word abbreviations, I could cite a very large number of words that are written more than summarily, such as PX for PCHRISTOS Christ, GAR for GAROOU for, SPHR for SPHRAGIS seal or the verb SPHRAZESDAI to seal, E2 for E2OUN in/into, TER for TEROO all/entire, ACHOR for ACHORETOS incomprehensible/boundless, etc. These abbreviations offer no difficulty, for most often the entire word is written not far from the abbreviated form, and this is undoubtedly the reason that led the scribe to use the latter, principally at the ends of lines.

I now come to the last two sigla f and Γ°, to which one can add the following two which are only found

See E. Amélineau, "Essay on Gnosticism," book III, ch. 1, p. 176. One only needs to compare the two systems to be convinced.

See "Philosophumena," book VII, p. 352.

E. Amélineau, "Essay on Egyptian Gnosticism," p. 124 and following. The word used is the word "soros" heap/urn. The idea is indeed the same, even if the term is new.

This is page 42 of Woide's copy.