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The Gospel of Philip expands 1 Corinthians' faith, hope, and love into four qualities by adding knowledge. Each has a part in a farming image, connecting Paul's account of maturity with a process that ends in knowledge bringing the crop to ripeness.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE

1 Corinthians 13:13

New Testament
8 Love never ends. But if there are prophecies, they will be set aside; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be set aside. 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, 10 but when what is perfect comes, the partial will be set aside. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Date: 55-57 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)

Gospel of Philip 11:33

Nag Hammadi
He who is a slave unwillingly, he will be able to be free. He who has been freed as the gift of his master, and has then sold himself into slavery, he will no longer be able to be free again. Agriculture in the world is carried out by four elements, gathering into the storehouse because of water, and earth, and wind, and light, and even the agriculture of God resembles this, because of four: because of faith, and hope, and love, and knowledge. Our earth is faith, in which we put down roots, [and] the [water] is hope, through [which we] feed. The wind is love, through which we grow, and the light [is] knowledge, through which we [ripen].
Date: 180-250 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References

#7160
“... Is the pneumatics’ gnosis also limited? Paul reveals here that the pneumatic’s gnosis may be limited temporarily by his own immaturity. The pneumatic seed, sown “‘in a state of infancy” (cf. 13:11a), must grow into the mature, rational understanding of ‘‘a man” (13:11b).'%? At first the Pneumatic sees only ‘‘in a mirror, in an enigma’’; but gradually he grows into insight (gnosis) and maturity (tedeiosis). Finally, Paul mentions faith and hope—qualities that psychics may share with the elect—but praises love as the ‘‘greatest of these,’’ the pneumatic ‘‘superior way” known to the elect alone.'** The writer of the Gospel of Philip contrasts faith, through which one receives divine gifts, with dove, through which one also gives them.'** Apparently commenting on the three qualities Paul mentions (13:13), he says, “the husbandry of God is . . . through four: faith, hope, love, and gnosis, Our earth is faith, in which we take root. The water is hope, through which we are nourished. The wind is love, through which we grow. But the light is gnosts. through which we ripen to maturity.’’'** ...”
Pagels, Elaine Hiesey The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters (p. 80) Fortress Press, 1975

* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.

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