Part IV of XIV
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Part IV: The Timeline of the Takeover
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| PART IV |
| THE TIMELINE OF THE TAKEOVER |
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From open teaching in Rome to a jar in the Egyptian desert, in under 250 years. Here is how it happened, date by date.
YEAR (CE) EVENT
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c. 30 Jesus crucified under Pontius Pilate
c. 50-60 Paul's letters: "hidden wisdom" for "the perfect"
(1 Cor 2:6-7); psychikos vs pneumatikos (1 Cor 2:14-15)
c. 70-100 Four canonical Gospels written
c. 96 1 Clement written from Rome to Corinth
c. 110 Ignatius of Antioch writes his letters en route to death
c. 136 Valentinus arrives in Rome under bishop Hyginus
c. 140-160 Valentinus teaches in Rome; candidate for bishop
(Tertullian, Against the Valentinians 4)
c. 144 Marcion expelled from the Roman church
c. 150-180 Ptolemy's Letter to Flora; Heracleon on John
c. 180 Irenaeus, "Against Heresies" -- five books aimed above
all at the Valentinians; demands exactly four Gospels
(AH 3.11.8)
c. 200-210 Tertullian, "Against the Valentinians"
c. 222-235 Hippolytus, "Refutation of All Heresies"
303-311 Great Persecution under Diocletian -- Christians of all
kinds suffer together
312 Constantine wins at the Milvian Bridge
313 Edict of Milan: toleration for Christians
321 Constantine's Sunday law (Codex Justinianus 3.12.2)
325 COUNCIL OF NICAEA, called and presided over by the
emperor: Nicene Creed; Arius exiled
c. 330s-40s Papers later used to stiffen the Nag Hammadi bindings
include dated documents from the 340s
c. 363-364 Council of Laodicea: canon 29 against Sabbath-keeping
367 ATHANASIUS, FESTAL LETTER 39: the first list of exactly
our 27 NT books -- and an attack on "apocryphal" books
as "an invention of heretics"
380 EDICT OF THESSALONICA (Theodosius I): Nicene faith made
the religion of the Empire; dissenters "demented and
insane" (Codex Theodosianus 16.1.2)
381 Council of Constantinople expands the Nicene Creed
385 Priscillian executed at Trier -- the first Christian put
to death by Christians for heresy
393 Council of Hippo: canon list issued
397 Council of Carthage: canon list confirmed
late 300s THE NAG HAMMADI CODICES SEALED IN A JAR AND BURIED near
-c. 400 Jabal al-Tarif, Upper Egypt
...
1945 DECEMBER: Muhammad Ali al-Samman digs up the jar
1977 "The Nag Hammadi Library in English" (Robinson, ed.)
WHAT THE TIMELINE PROVES #
Look at the gap. Valentinus taught in Rome for two decades and was nearly made its bishop. Two hundred years later, the faith he taught was illegal.
What changed in between was not the Gospel. What changed was the Empire. In 312, Christianity was a persecuted minority. By 380, it was the state religion, and the state had a sword.
The canon lists of 367, 393 and 397 were not drawn up by a neutral committee weighing evidence. They were drawn up by the winners, inside an Empire that was beginning to punish the losers. Athanasius wrote his list as a bishop who had himself been exiled five times in the imperial politics of the creed. He knew exactly what was at stake.
And somewhere in Upper Egypt, in that same generation, someone took thirteen books, sealed them in a jar, and buried them in the sand.
LEGEND vs RECORD: It is often said the codices were hidden by monks of the nearby Pachomian monastery in direct response to Festal Letter 39. That is a strong and popular theory, not a proven fact. What the record shows is that the bindings contain papers from the mid-fourth century and that the burial happened in roughly the same period as Athanasius' letter. The connection is plausible. The motive is inferred. We say so, because we do not need to invent anything.