Sometime in the late 130s, Valentinus came to Rome. From information given by Irenaeus, it can be calculated that the founder of “Valentinianism” stayed in the imperial capital for more than fifteen years, maybe for as long as twenty-five or thirty years. At that time Justin Martyr also lived in Rome, and indeed Justin mentions “the Valentinians” once, in his Dialogue with Trypho (35.6), composed around 155–160. Justin's testimony suggests that during his years in Rome, Valentinus was active as a Christian leader.

Many controversial issues surround the life and work of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, but the question of his dual relationship to the Jewish community and the Roman imperial establishment has been especially contentious. Should Josephus be considered a loyal Jew, or was he a turncoat and a coward who abandoned his people for the sake of a luxurious life in the Flavian imperial court? Josephus's early and late works alike reveal that he had to answer this question himself. The numerous and celebrated apologetic elements of his writings testify to Josephus's need to defend his actions during the war. In J.W. 3.354, for example, he defends his decision to surrender at Jotapata in a prayer that alludes to his prophetic destiny: “I willingly surrender to the Romans and consent to live; but I take you to witness that I go, not as a traitor, but as your minister.” Josephus, then, uses his narratives to address criticisms of his actions. In addition, he explicitly describes his hostile reception by all parties after his surrender at Jotapata. In Life 416, he writes, “my life was frequently in danger, both from the Jews, who were eager to get me into their hands, to gratify their revenge, and from the Romans, who attributed every reverse to some treachery on my part, and were constantly and clamorously demanding of the emperor that he should punish me as their betrayer.” In other words, both the events in the narrative and the apologetic tone in which Josephus narrates such events indicate that Josephus was considered a traitor by both Jews and Romans in his own lifetime.

Over the past twenty-five years, the social and ethical aspects of Gnosticism have won increased attention. Scholars have tended to shift away from phenomenological approaches to Gnosticism, which maintained a strict demarcation between ethics and cosmological speculation. Rather, scholars have increasingly recognized and explored social ethics within the various “Gnosticisms” that flourished in the second to fourth centuries, focusing on particular topics such as sexual ethics, gender roles, and the soteriological implications of sinful or virtuous behavior. Little attention, however, has been devoted to the question of how ancient rhetorical conventions shaped Gnostic ethical and moral discourse, especially as it is evidenced in the Nag Hammadi sources. The application of rhetorical criticism to other early Christian literature has demonstrated that the proper identification of the genre of a text is a crucial step toward determining how that text was designed to rhetorically influence its audience. Thus, an appreciation of the generic conventions that dictate certain features of a text can improve our understanding of the social context in which that text was produced. In this essay, I examine one text from Nag Hammadi, the Interpretation of Knowledge (NHC XI,1; henceforth Interp. Know.), whose genre has not, in my opinion, been satisfactorily established. I will argue that the text should be read as a sustained work of paraenesis—that is, as a moral exhortation with a persuasive intent. On the basis of that identification, I will attempt to reconstruct some features of the social context in which it was produced.

Philo of Alexandria's De vita contemplativa (henceforth VC) is one of the philosopher's most debated treatises. Indeed, it raises difficult questions of authorship and interpretation. Much scholarly attention has been devoted to the subject, investigating the authenticity of the attribution to Philo, the identity of the socalled “Therapeutae,” the plausibility of their actual existence, and their possible relation to Christian monasticism and Essenism. In particular, as Jean Riaud has pointed out, in modern times, theological and apologetic agendas motivated the identification of the Therapeutae as either Jews or Christians.

Three years ago, Patrick Andrist published a study listing an impressive register of manuscripts containing Christian literature against the Jews. One item in particular caught my eye, because it targets a wider range of opponents: it is an anonymous sermon against the Hagarenes, the Bogomils, and the Jews, and, more specifically, their hatred of the cross. This work, meant to be read on the third Sunday of Lent, has been preserved in one manuscript only: Athos, 388 (16th c.; 8°; 994 folios), a voluminous paper codex with various contents. The text, which runs from fol. 426r (431r), line 19, to 427v (432v), line 40, was written by a quick but rather inaccurate hand, as is shown by the numerous abbreviations, the presence of two lacunae, and the lack of quite a few initial capitals, which should have been added by the rubricator. The sermon is of unknown date, but the In exaltationem uenerandae crucis et contra Bogomilos of Germanos II, patriarch of Constantinople-Nicaea from 1223–1240, gives us a clue, as a major portion of lines 9–83 of our sermon can be found in this work (PG 140.621–44). In this article I present the editio princeps of the Greek text, accompanied by both an apparatus fontium and an apparatus criticus.