1. # Richard Reitzenstein scholar · 1861-1931

   in review

   A pagan document, Christianised later.

   The underlying Naassene document is not Christian. It is a pre-Christian pagan exposition of the Primal Man myth onto which Christian references were later grafted, and the original can be recovered by removing them. The resulting three-layer model -- pagan core, Jewish-gnostic redaction, Christian gloss -- follows from that operation.

   lens Reitzenstein's larger project in Poimandres was to demonstrate the pre-Christian origin of gnostic myth, and the Naassene sermon was his strongest evidence for it. The reconstruction is therefore inseparable from a thesis it was built to support, which is one of the standing objections to it.

   modern-academic gnostic tradition Dating / redactionDoctrine / meaning contested
   Rests on 1 source

   • Reitzenstein, Richard (1904), Poimandres: Studien zur griechisch-aegyptischen und fruehchristlichen Literatur. public domain
2. # Josef Frickel scholar

   in review

   Refine the layers, do not abandon them.

   The layer boundaries Reitzenstein drew require refinement rather than abandonment: the report can be segmented into sources, and doing so carefully yields a different and more defensible division than the one Poimandres proposed.

   lens Frickel produced the first monograph devoted to the Naassenes and worked inside the source-critical tradition. His specific segmentation is characterised here at second hand and MUST be verified against the monograph before any published page attributes a particular layer boundary to him. Recorded at this standing deliberately, as a marker that the position belongs on the map and that Hekhal has not yet read it directly.

   modern-academic gnostic tradition Dating / redactionText / manuscript contested
   Rests on 1 source

   • Reitzenstein, Richard (1904), Poimandres: Studien zur griechisch-aegyptischen und fruehchristlichen Literatur. public domain
3. # Maria Grazia Lancellotti scholar

   in review

   Christian throughout; the layers are an artefact.

   There is no Christianised pagan document here. The report preserves a genuinely Christian attempt to interpret Greco-Roman myth from a consistent ideological standpoint, and the Christian layer Reitzenstein removed was never a layer: the pagan material is being used by a Christian author, and the appearance of two strata is an artefact of assuming a Christian could not have written this.

   lens Lancellotti's study treats the Naassenes across their whole reported doctrine, not the Thomas passage in particular. It is mapped to this text because the Refutatio is effectively the only evidence there is.

   modern-academic gnostic tradition Doctrine / meaningHistorical context contested
   Rests on 1 source

   • Lancellotti, Maria Grazia (2000), The Naassenes: A Gnostic Identity Among Judaism, Christianity, Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Traditions. copyright characterize only
4. # M. David Litwa scholar · 1982-

   in review

   Deification, and inside the Christian range.

   The Naassene writer's organising concern is deification, and it runs parallel to currents in Clement of Alexandria. That places the material inside the range of second-century Christian thought rather than outside it, and makes the question of a pagan substratum less decisive than the source critics assumed.

   lens Litwa is simultaneously the translator of the standard modern English of the Refutatio and the author of the current monograph on this group, which makes him the closest thing the field has to a present authority on the text Hekhal is editing.

   modern-academic gnostic tradition Doctrine / meaningCross-tradition contested
   Rests on 3 sources

   • Litwa, M. David, You Are Gods: Deification in the Naassene Writer and Clement of Alexandria, Harvard Theological Review. copyright characterize only
   • Litwa, M. David, The Naassenes: Exploring an Early Christian Identity. copyright characterize only
   • Litwa, M. David (trans.) (2016), Refutation of All Heresies (Writings from the Greco-Roman World 40). copyright characterize only

Provenance · 4 in review. Every source is verified once and reused across the graph; each engine-verified node carries its audit basis above.

@book{reitzenstein-1904-poimandres,
  author = {Reitzenstein, Richard},
  title = {Poimandres: Studien zur griechisch-aegyptischen und fruehchristlichen Literatur},
  year = {1904},
  note = {public-domain; via Hekhal Sugya}
}

@book{lancellotti-2000-naassenes,
  author = {Lancellotti, Maria Grazia},
  title = {The Naassenes: A Gnostic Identity Among Judaism, Christianity, Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Traditions},
  year = {2000},
  note = {copyright-characterize-only; via Hekhal Sugya}
}

@article{litwa-you-are-gods-htr,
  author = {Litwa, M. David},
  title = {You Are Gods: Deification in the Naassene Writer and Clement of Alexandria},
  note = {copyright-characterize-only; via Hekhal Sugya}
}

@book{litwa-naassenes-monograph,
  author = {Litwa, M. David},
  title = {The Naassenes: Exploring an Early Christian Identity},
  note = {copyright-characterize-only; via Hekhal Sugya}
}

@book{litwa-2016-refutation,
  author = {Litwa, M. David (trans.)},
  title = {Refutation of All Heresies (Writings from the Greco-Roman World 40)},
  year = {2016},
  note = {copyright-characterize-only; via Hekhal Sugya}
}

Four positions and three contentions, all at editor-review. Two positions (Frickel, and the bibliographic detail of Litwa's monograph and article) are explicitly marked as characterised at second hand and pending direct verification; they are on the map because the dispute is incomplete without them, not because Hekhal has read them. Correction of any characterisation is welcome and will be published with attribution.