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The Gnostic Apostle Thomas:"Twin" of Jesus

Two Rivers

The Gnostic Apostle Thomas: Notes, Chapter 8

General Sources

Edessa
Segal, J. B. Edessa ( l970).
Cambridge Ancient History (C.A.H.), vols. xi and xii.

Mandeism
Jonas, Hans. The Gnostic Religion ( l958) 45-99.
Rudolph, Kurt. Gnosis: Nature and History of Gnosticism (Trans. and ed., R. M. Wilson, 1981) 353-66.

_______________

Physical description of Edessa
Segal, 7-8, 24-27,187-188.

Two columns on citadel
Segal, 19, 26-27, 53;
J. R. Harris, "The Cult of the Heavenly Twins at Edessa," Journal of the American Oriental Society , 88 (1968) 342-44 [suggests (apparently with little support from others) that the columns represent the Roman twin deities, the Dioscuri.}

Political history of Edessas and Osrhone in early Christian centuries
C.A.H. vol. xi, 119 ff., 241 ff.;
Edward N. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (1976) 105-16, 151;
Segal 9-15, 110-1;
Percy Sykes, A History of Persia (3rd ed., 1951) vol. 1, 384.

Religions of second-century in and near Edessa
H. J. W. Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa (1980);
Segal, 43-61.

Atagartis
F. Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism (Eng. trans. 1911; Reprint, l956) 105, 117;
Godefroy Goosens, Hirapolis de Syria ( l943);
Lucian of Samosata, De Dea Syria (The Syrian Goddess) ( l976);
Segal, 46-51.

Planetary deities
Segal, 50-60;
H.J. W. Drijvers, Bardaisan of Edessa (l967) 216.

Jewish communities
C.A.H., xii 494;
Segal 41-3, 67-9.

Early Christian communities
Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (Achtemeir trans., 2nd ed.,l971);
Drijvers , East of Antioch (1984);
Robert Murray, "The Characteristics of Earliest Syriac Christianity," East of Byzantium ( l983) [takes view that Nisibis, not Edessa, was the main center of "Christian consolidation."]

Quqites
Drijvers, "Quq and the Quqites," Numen 14 (1967) 100-129, reprinted in Cults and Beliefs at Edessa

Elkasites
Al-Nadim, The Fihrist of , Bayard Dodge trans. and ed. (1970);
Wilhelm Brandt, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 5, 262-9;
Iain Gardner, The Kephalaia of the Teacher (1995);
Segal, 44.

Mandeans
Jonas, 45-99;
Rudolph, 353-66.

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The Gnostic Apostle Thomas (c) 1997 Herbert Christian Merillat.