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The Thunder, Perfect Mind
"The Thunder, Perfect Mind" is a text originally discovered among the Gnostic manuscripts in the Nag Hammadi library in 1945. It follows a poetic structure, and has received scholarly attention for its gnomic style and unclear subject. Form The content of "The Thunder, Perfect Mind" (the title may alternately be translated "The Thunder, Perfect Intellect") takes the form of an extended, riddling monologue, in which an immanent divine saviour speaks a series of paradoxical statements alternating between first-person assertions of identity and direct address to the audience. These paradoxical utterances echo Greek identity riddles, a common early poetic form in the Mediterranean. Moreover, it is a non-epistolic, non-narrative unmediated divine speech. It has been theorized that the text was originally composed in Greek due to its meter and phrasing, and it has been dated to a vaguely estimated period of time before 350 C.E., the date of the Coptic manuscript from which the text o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ... and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (''gnosis'') above the orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions. Gnostic cosmogony generally presents a distinction between a supreme, hidden God and a malevolent demiurge, lesser divinity (sometimes associated with the Yahweh of the Old Testament) who is responsible for creating the nature, material universe. Consequently, Gnostics considered material existence flawed or evil, and held the principal element of salvation to be direct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Proverbs
The Book of Proverbs ( he, מִשְלֵי, , "Proverbs (of Solomon)") is a book in the third section (called Ketuvim) of the Hebrew Bible and a book of the Christian Old Testament. When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different forms: in the Greek Septuagint (LXX) it became (, "Proverbs"); in the Latin Vulgate the title was , from which the English name is derived. Proverbs is not merely an anthology but a "collection of collections" relating to a pattern of life which lasted for more than a millennium. It is an example of the biblical wisdom literature, and raises questions of values, moral behaviour, the meaning of human life, and right conduct, and its theological foundation is that "the fear of God (meaning submission to the will of God) is the beginning of wisdom". Wisdom is praised for her role in creation; God acquired her before all else, and through her he gave order to chaos; and since humans have life and prosperity by conforming to the order of cre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
3rd-century Texts
The 3rd century was the period from 201 ( CCI) to 300 (CCC) Anno Domini (AD) or Common Era (CE) in the Julian calendar.. In this century, the Roman Empire saw a crisis, starting with the assassination of the Roman Emperor Severus Alexander in 235, plunging the empire into a period of economic troubles, barbarian incursions, political upheavals, civil wars, and the split of the Roman Empire through the Gallic Empire in the west and the Palmyrene Empire in the east, which all together threatened to destroy the Roman Empire in its entirety, but the reconquests of the seceded territories by Emperor Aurelian and the stabilization period under Emperor Diocletian due to the administrative strengthening of the empire caused an end to the crisis by 284. This crisis would also mark the beginning of Late Antiquity. In Persia, the Parthian Empire was succeeded by the Sassanid Empire in 224 after Ardashir I defeated and killed Artabanus V during the Battle of Hormozdgan. The Sassanids the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dinanukht
Dinanukht (also spelled Dinanukt or Dananukt; myz, ࡃࡉࡍࡀࡍࡅࡊࡕ or ; from Persian 'the one who speaks in accordance with the religion') is a mythological character in the ''Ginza Rabba'', one of the main religious scriptures of Mandaeism, who is portrayed as an anthropomorphic book. Book 6 of the ''Right Ginza'' describes his ascension to the World of Light.Häberl, Charles G. (2007). Introduction to the New Edition, in The Great Treasure of the Mandaeans, a new edition of J. Heinrich Petermann's Thesaurus s. Liber Magni, with a new introduction and a translation of the original preface by Charles G. Häberl'. Gorgias Press, LLC. Buckley (2010) suggests a connection with Nbu (Mercury), who is associated with scribes and books. For instance, in the ''Zrazta ḏ-Hibil Ziwa'' (Drower Collection Ms. 44), Nbu is the Lord of Book and ink and wisdom. Similarly, Dinanukht is called the "ink-book of the gods" in ''Right Ginza'' 6. Spellings Petermann spells the name as ''Din ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruha
In Mandaeism, Rūha ( myz, ࡓࡅࡄࡀ, lit=spirit/breath; also known as Namrūs or Hiwat (Ewath; myz, ࡏࡅࡀࡕ)) is the queen of the World of Darkness (''alma ḏ-hšuka'') or underworld. She rules the underworld together with her son Ur, the king of the World of Darkness, and her entourage of the seven planets and twelve constellations, who are also her offspring with Ur. Ruha is the daughter of Qin, the Mistress of Darkness in the first underworld. She is the ruler of the third ''maṭarta'' (watch-house or purgatory). She is associated with lust, uncleanness (i.e., menstrual impurity), and other negative feminine qualities. Names and epithets The ''Ginza Rabba'' refers to Ruha using various epithets, such as: *''Rūha Masṭanita'' "Ruha the Seductress" *''Rūha ḏ-Qudša'' "Holy Spirit" *''ḏlibat ʿstra amamit'' "Libat-Ishtar- Amamit" (i.e., Venus) Use of the term "Holy Spirit" for Ruha is primarily confined to polemical texts, and not found in esoteric or ritua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Right Ginza
The Right Ginza is one of the two parts of the Ginza Rabba, the longest and the most important holy scripture of Mandaeism. The other part of the Ginza Rabba is the Left Ginza. Summaries of each book (or tractate), based mostly on Häberl (2007), are provided below.Häberl, Charles G. (2007). Introduction to the New Edition, in The Great Treasure of the Mandaeans, a new edition of J. Heinrich Petermann's Thesaurus s. Liber Magni, with a new introduction and a translation of the original preface by Charles G. Häberl'. Gorgias Press, LLC. Translated excerpts are from Gelbert (2011), while Mandaic transliterations are derived from Gelbert (2011, 2021). Book 1 Book 1 contains a history of creation and of Mandaeism. The book begins with the opening line (also in Chapter 2 of Book 1): :Praised be Thou, my Lord, with a pure heart (), :thou Lord of all worlds (). Book 2 Book 2 also contains a history of creation and of Mandaeism. It has a total of four sections, since it also contai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metropolitan area, with a population of 21.9 million, is the 12th-largest in the world by population. Cairo is associated with ancient Egypt, as the Giza pyramid complex and the ancient cities of Memphis and Heliopolis are located in its geographical area. Located near the Nile Delta, the city first developed as Fustat, a settlement founded after the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 640 next to an existing ancient Roman fortress, Babylon. Under the Fatimid dynasty a new city, ''al-Qāhirah'', was founded nearby in 969. It later superseded Fustat as the main urban centre during the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods (12th–16th centuries). Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life, and is titled "the city of a thousand m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coptic Museum
The Coptic Museum is a museum in Coptic Cairo, Egypt with the largest collection of Coptic Christian artifacts in the world. It was founded by Marcus Simaika in 1908 to house Coptic antiquities. The museum traces the history of Egypt from its beginnings to the present day. It was erected on 8,000 square meter land offered by the Coptic Orthodox Church, under the guardianship of Pope Cyril V. The Coptic museum houses the world's most important examples of Coptic art. History In 1908, after receiving approval and a number of silver antiquities from Patriarch Cyril V and raising funds by public subscription, Marcus Simaika Pasha built the Coptic Museum and inaugurated it on 14 March 1910. The Coptic community was generous in their support of the museum, donating many vestments, frescoes, and icons. In 1931 the Coptic Museum became a state museum, under the jurisdiction of the Department of Antiquities, and in 1939 the collection of Christian antiquities in the Egyptian Museum was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coptic Language
Coptic (Bohairic Coptic: , ) is a language family of closely related dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Egyptian language, and historically spoken by the Copts, starting from the third-century AD in Roman Egypt. Coptic was supplanted by Arabic as the primary spoken language of Egypt following the Muslim conquest of Egypt and was slowly replaced over the centuries. Coptic has no native speakers today, although it remains in daily use as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church and of the Coptic Catholic Church. Innovations in grammar, phonology, and the influx of Greek loanwords distinguish Coptic from earlier periods of the Egyptian language. It is written with the Coptic alphabet, a modified form of the Greek alphabet with several additional letters borrowed from the Demotic Egyptian script. The major Coptic dialects are Sahidic, Bohairic, Akhmimic, Fayyumic, Lycopolitan, and Oxyrhynchite. Sahidic Coptic was spoken between the cities ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secret Book Of John
The ''Apocryphon of John'', also called the ''Secret Book of John'' or the ''Secret Revelation of John'', is a 2nd-century Sethian Gnostic Christian pseudographical text attributed to John the Apostle. It is one of the texts addressed by Irenaeus in his '' Against Heresies,'' placing its composition before 180 CE. It is presented as describing Jesus appearing and giving secret knowledge (gnosis) to his disciple John. The author describes it as having occurred after Jesus had "gone back to the place from which he came". Overview Many second-century Christians, both Gnostic and orthodox, hoped to receive a transcendent personal revelation such as Paul the Apostle reported to the church at Corinth () or that John experienced on the isle of Patmos, which inspired the ''Book of Revelation''. As ''Acts'' narrates what happened after the time Jesus ascended to heaven, so the ''Apocryphon of John'' begins at the same point but relates how Christ reappeared to John. The opening w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
