Go to Related Reading
About this book

LXX Psalms

Septuagint

About this book
Psalm 91

1 A Psalm of a Song for the Sabbath-day. 2 It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to your name, Most High; 3 to proclaim your mercy in the morning, and your truth by night, 4 on a lute of ten strings, with a song on the harp. 5 For you, Lord, have made me glad with your work: and in the operations of your hands I will exult. 6 How have your works been magnified, Lord! your thoughts are very deep. 7 A foolish man will not know, and a senseless man will not understand this. 8 When the sinners spring up as the grass, and all the workers of iniquity have watched; it is that they may be utterly destroyed for ever. 9 But you, Lord, are most high for ever. 10 For, look, your enemies shall perish; and all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. 11 But my horn shall be exalted as the horn of a unicorn; and my old age with rich oil. 12 And my eye has seen my enemies, and my ear shall hear the wicked that rise up against me. 13 The righteous shall flourish as a palm tree:⁠ he shall be increased as the cedar in Lebanon. 14 They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. 15 Then they will be increased in a fine old age; and they shall be prosperous; 16 to declare that the Lord my God is righteous, and there is no iniquity in him.

Texts in conversation

Compare LXX Psalms 91:13 and On the Origin of the World 24:10

Septuagint · Nag Hammadi

Share:

Summary

On the Origin of the World quotes Psalm 92 from the Greek Septuagint translation, where the word for palm also means phoenix, and interprets it as the mythical bird in Greek and Roman tradition that dies and rises again, a symbol of the end of the age.

Passages

LXX Psalms 91:13

Septuagint
10 For, look, your enemies shall perish; and all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. 11 But my horn shall be exalted as the horn of a unicorn; and my old age with rich oil. 12 And my eye has seen my enemies, and my ear shall hear the wicked that rise up against me. 13 The righteous shall flourish as a palm tree: he shall be increased as the cedar in Lebanon. 14 They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. 15 Then they will be increased in a fine old age; and they shall be prosperous; 16 to declare that the Lord my God is righteous, and there is no iniquity in him.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Psalms

On the Origin of the World 24:10

Nag Hammadi
Similarly, the three phoenixes ‹inside› Paradise: the first is deathless, the second lives for 1,000 years. Of the third it is written in the sacred Scripture that it is consumed. Similarly, as well, there are three baptisms: the first is spiritual, the second is with fire, the third is with water. Precisely as the phoenix symbolizes the angels, so is the case of the water hydri in Egypt, which symbolizes those who descend into the baptism of a true man. The two bulls in Egypt possess a symbolic meaning, namely, the sun and moon, which is a symbol of Sabaoth, on account of Sophia obtaining the universe from the day that she fashioned the sun and the moon, placing a seal on her heaven, until the age ends. And the worm born out of the phoenix is also symbolic of a human being, of which it is written, “the just man will blossom like a phoenix,” and the phoenix appears first alive, and dies, and rises again, functioning as a symbol of what will happen at the consummation of the age.
270–330 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in On the Origin of the World

References

“... The homonymy of the phoenix’ name and the word for palm (Gk phoinix, Lat phoenix), led several Latin authors to assume a relationship between bird and tree (Lactantius, De ave phoen., 69-70; Isidore of Sevilla, Etymol., XVII.7:1). Tertullian, De resurr. mort., XIII:3, read in Ps 91:13 [LXX]: “The righteous shall flourish like the phoenix” (also in Pseudo-Ambrose, De trin., 34 [PL 17, 545A]; On the Origin of the World, NHC II 122:28-29; Byzantine Physiologus, 10). ...”
R. van den Broek, “Phoenix,” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, 2nd extensively rev. ed. (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers; Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1999), 655.
“... The phoenix became an emblematic image for some Gnostic groups, and was closely connected to Gnostic baptismal concepts. [...] However, other ways to generate worms are attested for the phoenix: a worm is generated from the dead phoenix as a larva for a new one (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 10.2); in the Nag Hammadi On the Origin of the World the “worm that has been born out of the phoenix is a human being.” ...”
Alexander Kulik, Baruch: Greek-Slavonic Apocalypse of Baruch (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), 236–237.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Tags

Your feedback

LXX Psalms 91:13 and On the Origin of the World 24:10

Leave a comment

Your questions and comments are welcome!

Comments

Glossary

Search the Library