Search

The Testimony of Truth is an early gnostic Christian text that has been preserved in one exemplar as the third tractate of the ninth of the Nag Hammadi Codices (IX, 3; Nag Hammadi Writings). The manuscript contained no less than 47 pages (29‒75), 10 of which are almost entirely intact or otherwise easy to reconstruct (29‒32, 43‒48), 16 of which are only partially legible (33‒42, 67‒70, 73‒74), 14 of which are so fragmentary that very little can be uncovered of their content (49‒50, 55‒62, 65‒66, 71‒72), and at least 7…

Cerdo was a Christian teacher, generally held to be a gnostic (Gnosis/Gnosticism), who flourished at Rome in the time of Hyginus (136–140 CE), simultaneously with Valentinus the Gnostic and Marcion and somewhat earlier than Justin Martyr. If Cerdo committed anything in writing, nothing has been preserved of his texts. According to Epiphanius of Salamis ( Haer. 41.1.1) and Filastrius of Brescia ( Haer. 44), he was an immigrant from Syria. This information is uncertain, however, and may simply have its origin in Irenaeus of Lyon’s report according to whi…

Candidus was a Christian teacher, active at the beginning of the 3rd century CE. Very little is known about him. The first explicit reference to Candidus is made by Jerome, who in his critique of Rufinus of Aquileia’s apology for Origen (Jer. Ruf. 2.18–19) indicates that there was a theological dispute, evidently at Athens, between Origen and Candidus, whom Jerome regarded as Valentinian. The written dialogue of the dispute, to which Jerome referred in his text, is no longer extant. Rufinus is also aware of the dispute, although he does not mention Candidus by name (Ruf. Adul. Orig. 7). Bo…