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Norea is a figure in Gnostic cosmology. She plays a prominent role in two surviving texts from the Nag Hammadi library. In Hypostasis of the Archons, she is the daughter of Adam and Eve and sister of Seth. She sets fire to Noah's Ark and receives a divine revelation from the Luminary Eleleth. In Thought of Norea, she "extends into prehistory"[1] as "she assumes the features here of the fallen Sophia."[2] In Mandean literature, she is instead identified as the wife of either Noah or Shem.[3]
Birger A. Pearson identifies her as "a feminine counterpart to Seth, just as Eve is the 'female counterpart' to Adam,"[4] and Roel van den Broek refers to her as "on the one hand [...] a saviour figure and on the other the prototype of the saved gnostic."[5]
- ^ Pearson 1988, p. 271.
- ^ van den Broek 2013, p. 68.
- ^ Bullard 1970, p. 98.
- ^ Pearson 1988, p. 267.
- ^ van den Broek 2013, p. 55.