The Thunder, Perfect Mind


The Thunder, Perfect Mind is an exhortatory poem discovered among the Gnostic manuscripts in the Nag Hammadi library in 1945.

Form

The Thunder, Perfect Mind takes the form of an extended, riddling monologue, in which an immanent divine speaks a series of paradoxical statements alternating between first-person assertions of identity and direct address to the audience. These paradoxical utterances echo Greek identity riddles, a common poetic form in the Mediterranean. Moreover, it is a non-epistolic, non-narrative unmediated divine speech. There are some translations to the right from the same section of the poem. Line numbering is different in different translations.

Dating

As to dating, Anne McGuire writes: "Thunder, Perfect Mind exists only in the Coptic version found at Nag Hammadi. The author, date, and place of composition are unknown, but a cultural milieu like that of second- or third-century Alexandria is plausible. In any case, it is clear that the text was originally composed in Greek well before 350 C.E., the approximate date of the Coptic manuscript."

Structure and language

The work as a whole takes the form of a poem in parallel strophes, and the author, it may be surmised, has drawn on a tradition of such poems in both Egyptian and Jewish communities, in which a similarly female divinity expounds her virtues unto an attentive audience, and exhorts them to strive to attain her. Patricia Cox Miller suggests that it is the "self-revelation of a powerful goddess".
Some examples of the genre may be found in Old Testament, such as the Book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, or apocryphal literature.
The riddles of the poem may presuppose a classical Gnostic myth, such as the one found in the Reality of the Rulers, or in the Secret Book of John.
The original language of the poem was Greek, though only a Coptic version survives in the Nag Hammadi library; the manuscript resides in the Coptic Museum in Cairo.