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GNOME, AND GNOMIC POETRY

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 152 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GNOME, AND GNOMIC See also:POETRY . Sententious See also:maxims, put into See also:verse for the better aid of the memory, were known by the Greeks as See also:gnomes, 'yvWµat, from yvW n , an See also:opinion. A gnome is defined by the Elizabethan critic See also:Henry See also:Peacham (5576?–1643 ?) as " a saying pertaining to the See also:manners and See also:common practices of men, which declareth, with an See also:apt brevity, what in this our See also:life ought to be done, or not done." The Gnomic Poets of See also:Greece, who flourished in the 6th See also:century B.C., were those who arranged See also:series of sententious maxims in verse. These were collected in the 4th century, by Lobon of See also:Argos, an orator, but his collection has disappeared. The See also:chief gnomic poets were Theognis, See also:Solon, See also:Phocylides, See also:Simonides of Amorgos, Demodocus, See also:Xenophanes and Euenus. With the exception of Theognis, whose gnomes were fortunately preserved by some schoolmaster about 300 B.c., only fragments of the Gnomic Poets have come down to us. The moral poem attributed to Phocylides, See also:long supposed to be a masterpiece of the school, is now known to have been written by a See also:Jew in See also:Alexandria. Of the gnomic See also:movement typified by the moral See also:works of the poets named above, Prof. See also:Gilbert See also:Murray has remarked that it receives its See also:special expression in the conception of the Seven See also:Wise Men, to whom such See also:proverbs as " Know thyself " and " Nothing too much " were popularly attributed, and whose names differed in different lists. These gnomes or maxims were extended and put into See also:literary shape by the poets. Fragments of Solon, Euenus and See also:Mimnermus have been pre-served, in a very confused See also:state, from having been written, for purposes of comparison, on the margins of the See also:MSS. of Theognis, whence they have often slipped into the See also:text of that poet. Theognis enshrines his moral precepts in his elegies, and this was probably the See also:custom of the See also:rest; it is improbable that there ever existed a See also:species of poetry made up entirely of successive gnomes.

But the See also:

title " gnomic " came to be given to all poetry which dealt in a sententious way with questions GNOMES-See also:GNOSTICISM into prominence in the opening decades of the 2nd century A.D., but is certainly older; it reached its height in the second third of the same century, and began to wane about the 3rd century, and from the second See also:half of the 3rd century onwards was replaced by the closely-related and more powerful Manichaean movement. Offshoots of it, however, continued on into the 4th and 5th centuries. See also:Epiphanius still had the opportunity of making See also:personal acquaintance with Gnostic sects. II. Of the actual writings of the Gnostics, which were extra-ordinarily numerous,' very little has survived; they were sacrificed to the destructive zeal of their ecclesiastical opponents. Numerous fragments and extracts from Gnostic writings are to be found in the works of the Fathers who attacked Gnosticism. Most valuable of all are the long extracts in the 5th and 6th books of the Philosophumena of See also:Hippolytus. The most accessible and best See also:critical edition of the fragments which have been preserved word for word is to be found in See also:Hilgenfeld's Ketzergeschichte See also:des Urchristentums. One of the most important of these fragments is the See also:letter of See also:Ptolemaeus to See also:Flora, preserved in Epiphanius, Haeres. xxxiii. 3-7 (see on this point See also:Harnack in the Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie, 1902, pp. 507–545). Gnostic fragments are certainly also preserved for us in the Acts of See also:Thomas.

Here we should especially mention the beautiful and much-discussed See also:

Song of the See also:Pearl, or Song of the Soul, which is generally, though without See also:absolute clear See also:proof, attributed to the Gnostic Bardesanes (till lately it was known only in the Syrian text; edited and translated by Bevan, Texts and Studies,' v. 3, 1897; See also:Hofmann, Zeitschrift See also:fir neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, iv.; for the newly-found See also:Greek text see Acta apostolorum, ed. See also:Bonnet, ii. 2, c. 1o8, p. 219). Generally also much Gnostic See also:matter is contained in the apocryphal histories of the Apostles. To the school of Bardesanes belongs the " See also:Book of the See also:Laws of the Lands," which does not, however, contribute much to our knowledge of Gnosticism. Finally, we should mention in this connexion the text on which are based the pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitiones (beginning of the 3rd century). It is, of course, already permeated with the See also:Catholic spirit, but has See also:drawn so largely upon See also:sources of a Judaeo-See also:Christian Gnostic See also:character that it comes to a See also:great extent within the See also:category of sources for Gnosticism. See also:Complete See also:original Gnostic works have unfortunately survived to us only from the See also:period of the decadence of Gnosticism. Of these we should mention the comprehensive See also:work called the Pistis-See also:Sophia, probably belonging to the second half of the 3rd century .3 Further, the Coptic-Gnostic texts of the Codex Brucianus; both the books of Ieu, and an See also:anonymous third work (edited and translated by C.

See also:

Schmidt, Texte and Untersuchungen, vol. viii., 1892; and a new See also:translation by the same in Koptische-gnostische Schriften, i.) which, contrary to the opinion of their editor and translator, the See also:present writer believes to represent, in their existing See also:form, a still later period and a still more advanced See also:stage in the decadence of Gnosticism. For other and older Coptic-Gnostic texts, in one of which is contained the source of See also:Irenaeus's See also:treatises on the Barbelognostics, but which have unfortunately not yet been made completely accessible, see C. Schmidt in Sitzungsberichte der Berl. Akad. (1896), p. 839 seq., and " Philotesia," dedicated to See also:Paul Kleinert (1907), p. 315 seq. On the whole, then, for an exposition of Gnosticism we are thrown back upon the polemical writings of the Fathers in their controversy with See also:heresy. The most See also:ancient of these is See also:Justin, who according to his Apol. i. 26 wrote a Syntagma against all heresies (c. A.U. 150), and also, probably, a special polemic against 1 See the See also:list of their titles in A.

Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, Teil I. v. 171; ib. Teil I I. Chronologie der altchristl. Literatur, i. 533 seq.; also Liechtenhahn, See also:

Die Offenbarung See also:im Gnosticismus (1901). 2 For the text see A. Merx, Bardesanes von See also:Edessa (1863), and A. Hilgenfeld, Bardesanes der letzte Gnostiker (1864). ' Ed. See also:Petermann-See also:Schwartze; newly translated by C. Schmidt, Koptisch-gnostische Schriften, i.

(1905), in the series Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte; see also A. Harnack, Texte and Untersuchungen, Bd. vii. Heft 2 (1891), and Chronologie der altchristlichen Literatur, ii. 193-195. of See also:

ethics. It was, unquestionably, the source from which moral See also:philosophy was directly See also:developed, and theorists upon life and infinity, such as See also:Pythagoras and Xenophanes, seem to have begun their career as gnomic poets. By the very nature of things, gnomes, in their literary sense, belong exclusively to the See also:dawn of literature; their naivete and their simplicity in moralizing betray it. But it has been observed that many of the ethical reflections of the great dramatists, and in particular of See also:Sophocles and See also:Euripides, are gnomic distiches See also:expanded. It would be an See also:error to suppose that the ancient Greek gnomes are all of a See also:solemn character; some are voluptuous and some chivalrous; those of Demodocus of Leros had the reputation of being droll. In See also:modern times, the gnomic spirit has occasionally been displayed by poets of a homely philosophy, such as See also:Francis See also:Quarles (1592–1644) in See also:England and Gui de See also:Pibrac (x529–1584) in See also:France. The once-celebrated Quatrains of the latter, published in 1574, enjoyed an immense success throughout See also:Europe; they were composed in deliberate See also:imitation of the Greek gnomic writers of the 6th century B.C. These modern effusionsiare rarely literature and perhaps never poetry.

With the gnomic writings of Pibrac it was long customary to bind up those of See also:

Antoine See also:Favre (or See also:Faber) (1557–1624) and of See also:Pierre Mathieu (1563–1621). Gnomes are frequently to be found in the ancient literatures of See also:Arabia, See also:Persia and See also:India, and in the Icelandic staves. The priamel, a brief, sententious See also:kind of poem, which was in favour in See also:Germany from the 12th to the 16th century, belonged to the true gnomic class, and was cultivated with particular success by Hans Rosenblut, the lyrical See also:goldsmith of See also:Nuremberg, in the 15th century. (E.

End of Article: GNOME, AND GNOMIC POETRY

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