I want to proceed with some preliminary notes. They are basic, foundational, but lead to a working hypothesis of this fragment that, I hope, will help lead to a particular social context. First, here is a reiteration of my translation from my previous post:
Line 1: ...my mother gave me li[fe]...
Line 2: ...the disciples said to Jesus...
Line 3: ...deny. Mary is worthy of it....
Line 4: ..........Jesus said to them, "My wife....
Line 5: ....... she will be my disciple and....
Line 6: ...Let wicked people....
Line 7: ...I dwell with her because...
Line 8: .....................an image................
The first note is literary genre (or at least micro-genre). This is a dialogue form. In line 2, we have the introductory formula for speech--here, the disciples' speech to Jesus. The fourth line, then, shows Jesus' response. This fragment, therefore, presents us with a glimpse of a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples. With the back-and-forth style, I think we can take an intuitive step and consider that before the disciples' speak in line 2, Jesus would likely be speaking beforehand; therefore, we can attribute line 1 to Jesus' speech. I also think, though on slightly less firm grounds, that lines 5-8 are also all Jesus. Is this a dialogue Gospel? Or is it perhaps a sayings Gospel, like the Gospel of Thomas, with only occasional dialogue? Or is it a narrative Gospel in which we happened to discover a dialogue portion? I don't think we can know for sure.
With Lines 1, 4-8 attributed to Jesus, and lines 2-3 attributed to the disciples, we can begin to unravel a few more things. Firstly, something the disciples say prompt Jesus to affirm that "she" will be his disciple and he will dwell with her. Such an affirmation may suggest a less-than-positive valuation in the disciples' statement. This could, then, confirm the potential reconstruction of the negation at the end of line 3: "Mary is not worthy of it." What is she not worthy of? Something Jesus was talking about beforehand. Interestingly, the disciples' disapproval of Mary (if I am right), "not being worthy" (line 3), "Mary" (line 3), "life" (line 1), and Jesus' defense of her also shows up in Gospel of Thomas 114. I think that having so many key terms and the dialogic structure being so close is not accidental. Indeed, it may be after Jesus is discussing "life" in line 1, that the disciples claim that Mary is not worthy of it (life, or eternal life, or aeonic life, etc.), and Jesus responds to the contrary. On the other hand, "life" is masculine singular in line 1 and "it" in line 3 is feminine singular. It appears to have a different antecedent that has been lost.
This leads to another intuitive step: Mary is to be identified with the "she" in Jesus' speech, and, likely, his "wife." Since Thomas is more geared for celibacy, this appears to be a reuse or a re-channeling of Thomas 114 to non-celibate ends. (I guess the opposite could be true; Thomas took a marriage saying in which Mary achieved life through divine marriage with Jesus and reworked it to fit its celibate perspective).
What about line 6? It seems to interrupt the affirmations of Mary (if Mary is "she") in lines 5 and 7. Let wicked people do what? This is more of an intuitive leap, but I think it might have to do with the disciples' concerns. Perhaps something about outsider perception. What will other, evil, people say, do, or think? Perhaps they are doing some of the "denying" at the beginning of line 3, which, recall, should still be part of the disciples' speech? Jesus' response is an affirmation of Mary's inclusion in the face of outsider pressure, perceptions, etc. Other people may think what he is doing with her is unseemly (more celibate-oriented early Christians), but he has good reasons. (Indeed, typically linguistic signatures and narrative structures are adapted more closely by opponents to be reworked polemically to make the polemic clear: as such, this would support that this writer is contesting the perspective of Thomas.) Indeed, he begins to explain why he is with her, which supposedly would rebut the disciples' concerns and whatever evil people are doing--but it drops off. Nonetheless, being with her is something done in spite of them.
Marriage, life, and image has led April DeConick to the Valentian concept of marriage, where human pneumatic marriage presages one's future marriage with one's angelic counterpart and mirrors the pleromic bridal chamber (about which she has written a few articles). See also her follow-up post here.
Of course, we cannot know how directly it would refer to this. It could be referring directly to an "image" of the bridal chamber, or it could be more proximately back to Genesis 1:26-27, where God made humans in his image and likeness (male and female). Being with her, then, could be recapturing the original human image (male and female), which, then, slightly more indirectly would lead to a Valentinian concept of marriage.
Finally, who is "my mother"? (And how lucky are we that it survives on the verso as well as the recto, though likely in a different part of the writing!) It could be Mary, the mother of Jesus. DeConick points to Gospel of Thomas 101, where his true mother gave him life. If, indeed, the fragment is aware of the saying that appears in 114, perhaps it is aware of this one? She notes that in Thomas the mother is likely a spiritual being. One could also point to "the mother of life": Eve, who receives quite a bit of attention in Gnostic sources, though mostly in Sethian ones. Whoever it is, it is one who gives Jesus life: it is likely the spiritual life that he passes along or awakens in his followers.
My preliminary hypothesis, therefore, partially agrees with DeConick's initial findings that this fragment demonstrates awareness either with Thomas 114 or at least the saying as it existed and got incorporated into Thomas (that is, may or may not know Thomas, but knows the saying). I would push this a bit further, however. I think the correspondences are conspicuous and likely meant to be so. There are too many matching keywords and the literary progression is close. It is a reference to an alternative tradition that the original audience / insiders ("disciples") and opponents ("evil people") would both be aware of, something both would be able to catch--and perhaps the opponents are the holders of the tradition referred to. The fragment, therefore, adopts, adapts, and contests the saying we now find embedded in Thomas 114 to defend a marriage (perhaps envisioned as the Valentinian bridal chamber) against celibate, encratic Christians who would oppose it (such as the Thomas Christians). If so, this should help us begin to locate the fragment not just within its theology and ecclesiology, but a particular social context where early Christian practices were contested and defended, particularly when focusing on issues of sex and marriage--quite hotly debated especially in the second century CE.
Again, this is a preliminary hypothesis. As new information comes to light, as high resolution photos are released, as the debates begin to unfold, arguments will begin to sharpen and clarify, new hypotheses will arise, some will be modified, and others will be discarded.
Of course, this all also depends upon whether or not this fragment is truly ancient and not a modern forgery; see Jim Davila for all the reasons to maintain a skeptical attitude until more testing is complete.
See also Mark Goodacre's discussion; he notes, for example, that it is vaguely reminiscent of the "Three Mary's" logion in the Gospel of Philip 59 (something I had thought of when I saw it but forgot to note in my post).
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