History
The main surviving copies come from the Nag Hammadi library, and were translated and explained by professor Paul-Jean Claude (retired), member of the Nag Hammadi Research Group of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Université Laval (Quebec).
The text concerns a revelation to Dositheos about three steles (text written into specially created stones). Many scholars think they are designed as liturgy.
The text is thought to be from the Sethian sect of Gnostics (the sect that viewed the biblical Seth as their hero, who was reincarnated as Jesus). Their other texts include the Apocalypse of Adam, Apocryphon of John, the Trimorphic Protennoia, and the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians.
The text is thought to be a 3rd century development of the Sethian Gnostics, as they became more separated from Christianity, and closer to Platonism.
The Three Steles (or Tablets) of Seth are in essence, three hymns written in adoration for the more abstract being, Barbelo, from the perspective of the archetype of Seth (“Emmakha Seth”) and his father Adam (or “Geradamas”)1. The Steles themselves were allegedly written by Emmakha Seth, a spiritual archetype of Seth, the son of Adam and Eve and founder of the gnostic race (Immovable race, Seed of Seth), and thus are considered pseudepigraphic. The famous historian of first century, Josephus mentions in his Antiquities 1, a story where Seth, Son of Adam, leaves some stone tablets inscribed with esoteric information for his future offspring high in the mountains. A very similar story is repeated in The Egyptian Gospel, and again in The Revelation of Adam. The Three Steles of Seth then, may possibly be an attempt of some unknown author to honor or verify this tradition. Whatever their author and origin might be, the originals no longer exist. The existing copy in the Cairo Coptic Museum was translated from Greek to Coptic sometimes before A.D. 352.
The hymns themselves presuppose familiarity with the generally accepted Sethian Gnostic mythical structure as presented in Zostrianos and The Apocyphon of John. The Steles contain a total of seven hymns followed by directions for use of the hymns. The first Stele begins with a report of Dositheus explaining how he saw the tablets in a vision he had. It continues on to introduce the first hymn.
Read more about this topic: Three Steles Of Seth
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