The Shadow of God - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

Nag Hammadi tractate On the Origin of the World 117:29-33, “the first Adam is spirit-endowed
(pneumatikos), and appeared on the first day. The second Adam is soul-endowed (psychikos), and appeared
on the sixth day...The third Adam is a creature of the earth (choikos), that is, the man of law, and he
appeared on the eighth day”. 191 These three Adam‟s are not individual men; they are stages in the somatic
(d)evolution of Man. 192 This somatic tripartition, common in Gnostic texts, is based on a popular reading of
Genesis 1-2. The pneumatikos or spiritual first Adam, born on the first day, is associated with the light of
Gen. 1:3. The latter reading is based on a pun on the Greek word phōs, used in the LXX translation of Gen.
1:3. The word could mean both “light” and “man.” Thus, the product of God‟s command, “Let there be
light (phōs),” was a divine Light-Man, an anthropos enveloped within and consisting of light. This
interpretation is Jewish and can be found as early as the second century B.C.E. in the drama Exagoge of the
Alexandrian playwright Ezekiel 193 ; it may even go back to the prophet Ezekiel himself. 194 The second, soulendowed
(psychikos), or rather “soul-composed” Adam of the Sixth Day is the man made according to the
Image of God (Gen. 1:26f). His body, anatomically identical to a material body, is yet made of a psychic
substance. 195 The third Adam is the man molded from the earth (Gen 2:7), possessing now, along with the
above two bodies, a material body. This trisomatism in man reflects the same trichotomy in the celestial
sphere, for anthropogony mirrors and recapitulates theogony. 196 According to Tripartite Tractate (NHC I,
5: 118: 14-119:15), three races originate from this trichotomy in the demiurgic logos:
Mankind came to be in three essential types, the spiritual, the psychic and the material, conforming to the triple
disposition of the Logos, from which were brought forth the material ones and the psychic ones and the spiritual
ones…The spiritual race…(is)…like light from light…The psychic race is like light from a fire…The material race,
however…is dark, it shuns the shining of light. 197
This trichotomous anthropology may very well have been a popular Alexandrian tradition. 198 It was
known to Philo who elsewhere shows a number of points of contact with Gnosticism. 199 That Philo‟s Logos
1996). See also Karen L. King, What is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, Mass. And London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2003).
191 Translation of Hans-Gebhard Bethge and Bently Layton in James M. Robibson (ed.), The Nag Hammadi Library (New York:
HaperCollins, 1988) 183. On this passage and Gnostic exegesis of the Hebrew Bible v. Orval Wintermute, “A Study of Gnostic
Exegesis of the Old Testament,” in James M. Efird (ed.), The Use of the Old Testament in the New and Other Essays. Studies in the
Honor of William Franklin Stinespring (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1972) 241-270.
192 See discussion in Maria Grazia Lancellotti, The Naassenes: A Gnostic Identity Among Judaism, Christianity, Classical and
Ancient Near Eastern Traditions (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2000) 75-86, 100-1. On the triple creation of man in Gnostic sources v.
Michel Tardieu, Trois Mythes Gnostiques (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1974) 85-139; Pheme Perkins, “Creation of the Body in
Gnosticism,” Religious Reflections on the Human Body, ed. Jane Marie Law (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University
Press, 1995) 21-35; Birger Pearson, Pneumatikos-Psychikos Terminology in I Corinthians. A Study in the Theology of the
Corinthian Opponents of Paul and its Relation to Gnosticism (SBL Dissertation Series, No. 12; Missoula, Mont., 1973) 65-80.
193 On traditions of Adam as the Phōs of Gen. 1:3 v. Elaine H. Pagels, “Exegesis of Genesis 1 in the Gospels of Thomas and John,”
JBL 118 (1999): 477-496; April D. de Conick, Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1996) 65-79; Jarl Fossum, “The Image of the Invisible God: Colossians 1.15-18a in the Light of Jewish Mysticism and
Gnosticism,” in idem, The Image of the Invisible God. Essays on the Influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology
(GöttingenVandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995) 13-39; idem, Name of God, 280; Gilles Quispel, “Ezekiel 1:26 in Jewish Mysticism and
Gnosis,” VC 34 (1980): 1-13.
194 On the possibility that Ezekiel‟s description of the anthropomorphic kābôd YHWH in Chapter 1 is the prophet‟s own interpretation
of Gen. 1:3 see Ben Zion Wacholder, “Creation in Ezekiel‟s Merkabah: Ezekiel 1 and Genesis 1,” in Evans, Of Scribes and Sages,
15-32.
195 E.g. in the Ap. John NHC II 15, 13-19, 10. On the creation of the psychic body in Gnosticism v. R. van den Broek, “The Creation
of Adam‟s Psychic Body in the Apocryphon of John,” in R. van den Broek and M.J. Vermaseren (edd.), Studies in Gnosticism and
Hellenistic Religions, presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of his 65 th Birthday. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981) 38-57; Gerard P.
Luttikhuizen, “The Creation of Man and Woman in The Secret Book of John,” in Gerard P. Luttikhuizen (ed.) The Creation of Man
and Woman: Interpretations of the Biblical Narratives in Jewish and Christian traditions, (Leiden: Brill, 2000) 140-155; Richard
Valantasis, “Adam‟s Body: Uncovering Esoteric Traditions in the Apocraphon of John and Origen‟s Dialogue with Heraclides,”
SecCent 7 (1990): 150-162.
196 Lancellotti, Naassenes, 103; Ragnhild Bjerre Finnestad, “The Cosmogonic Fall in Evangelium Veritatis,” Temenos 7 (1971): 39-
49; Ingvild Saelid Gilhus, “The Gnostic Demiurge-An Agnostic Trickster,” Religion 14 (1984): 307 who described the “demiurge as
model of biological man”.
197 See also the Naassen divine anthropos of Hippolytus Ref. V. 1; Lancellotti, Naassenes, 75-86. On the three bodies/three races
association v. Pearson, Pneumatikos-Psychikos, 76-81; Francis T. Fallon, The Enthronement of Sabaoth: Jewish Elements in
Gnostic Creation Myth (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978) 120-21.
198 Gilles Quispel ( “Hermes Trismegistus and the Origins of Gnosticism,” in Roelof van den Broek and Cis van Heertum [edd.], From
Poimandres to Jacob Böhme: Gnosis, Hermetism and the Christian Tradition [Amsterdam: Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica,
2000] 148) suggested that this trichotomy “can be traced back to and localized in a Hermetic lodge of Alexandria,” but one “clearly of