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Gnostic sects and founders
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TheNag Hammadi library (also known as theChenoboskion Manuscripts and theGnostic Gospels[a]) is a collection of early Christian andGnostic texts discovered near theUpper Egyptian town ofNag Hammadi in 1945.
Thirteen leather-boundpapyruscodices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local farmer named Muhammed al-Samman.[1] The writings in these codices comprise 52 mostly Gnostictreatises, but they also include three works belonging to theCorpus Hermeticum and a partial translation/alteration ofPlato'sRepublic. In his introduction toThe Nag Hammadi Library in English, James Robinson suggests that these codices may have belonged to a nearbyPachomian monastery and were buried afterSaint Athanasius condemned the use ofnon-canonical books in hisFestal Letter of 367 A.D. The Pachomian hypothesis has been further expanded by Lundhaug & Jenott (2015, 2018)[2][3] and further strengthened by Linjamaa (2024). In his 2024 book, Linjamaa argues that the Nag Hammadi library was used by a small intellectual monastic elite at a Pachomian monastery, and that they were used as a smaller part of a much wider Christian library.[4]
The contents of the codices were written in theCoptic language. The best-known of these works is probably theGospel of Thomas, of which the Nag Hammadi codices contain the only complete text. After the discovery, scholars recognized that fragments of these sayings attributed to Jesus appeared in manuscripts discovered atOxyrhynchus in 1898 (P. Oxy. 1), and matching quotations were recognized in other early Christian sources. Most interpreters date the writing of the Gospel of Thomas to the second century, but based on much earlier sources.[5] The buried manuscripts date from the 3rd and 4th centuries.
The Nag Hammadi codices are now housed in theCoptic Museum inCairo,Egypt.
Scholars first became aware of the Nag Hammadi library in 1946. Making careful inquiries from 1947–1950, Jean Doresse discovered that a local farmer, who was a teenager at the time, dug up the texts from a graveyard in the desert, located near tombs from theSixth Dynasty of Egypt. In the 1970s,James Robinson sought out the local farmer in question, identifying him as Muhammad ‘Ali al-Samman. Al-Samman told Robinson a complex story involving a mission occasioned by ablood feud, digging to obtain fresh soil for agricultural use and thus finding the manuscripts in a buried jar, hesitating to break the jar due to superstitions about ajinn, and—at the mission's culmination—engaging incannibalism with the target's heart. His mother claimed that she burned some of the manuscripts as tinder for the family oven; Robinson identified these with Codex XII. Robinson gave multiple accounts of this interview, with the number of people present at the discovery ranging from two to eight.[6] Jean Doresse's account contains none of these elements.
Later scholarship has drawn attention to al-Samman's mention of a corpse and a "bed of charcoal" at the site of the putative "fresh soil" excavation—aspects of the story that were vehemently denied by al-Samman's brother. It has been suggested that the library was initially a simple grave robbing, and the more fanciful aspects of the story were concocted as a cover story. Burials of books were common in Egypt, in the early centuries AD; but if the library was a funerary deposit, it conflicts with Robinson's belief that the manuscripts were purposely hidden out of fear of persecution. Instead, Lewis & Blount (2014) have proposed that the Nag Hammadi codices had been privately commissioned by a wealthy non-monastic individual, and that the books had been buried with him as funerary prestige items.[7] The "blood feud" story, however, has been generally accepted.[8]
Slowly, most of the tracts came into the hands ofPhokion J. Tanos,[9] a Cypriot antiques dealer in Cairo, and they were thereafter being retained by the Department of Antiquities, for fear that they would be sold out of the country. After therevolution in 1952, the texts were handed to the Coptic Museum in Cairo, and declared national property.[10]Pahor Labib, the director of the Coptic Museum at that time, was keen to keep the manuscripts in their country of origin.
Meanwhile, a single codex had been sold in Cairo to a Belgianantiques dealer. After an attempt was made to sell the codex in both New York City and Paris, it was acquired by theCarl Gustav Jung Institute in Zurich in 1951, through the mediation ofGilles Quispel. It was intended as a birthday present for Jung; for this reason, this codex is typically known as the Jung Codex, being Codex I in the collection.[10] Jung's death in 1961 resulted in a quarrel over the ownership of the Jung Codex; the pages were not given to theCoptic Museum in Cairo until 1975, after a first edition of the text had been published. The papyri were finally brought together in Cairo: of the 1945 find, eleven complete books and fragments of two others, 'amounting to well over 1000 written pages', are preserved there.[11]
The first edition of a text found at Nag Hammadi was from the Jung Codex, a partial translation of which appeared in Cairo in 1956, and a single extensive facsimile edition was planned. Due to thedifficult political circumstances in Egypt, individual tracts followed from the Cairo and Zurich collections only slowly.
This state of affairs did not change until 1966, with the holding of the Messina Congress inItaly. At this conference, intended to allow scholars to arrive at a group consensus concerning the definition of Gnosticism,James M. Robinson assembled a group of editors and translators whose express task was to publish abilingual edition of the Nag Hammadi codices in English, in collaboration with the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at theClaremont Graduate University inClaremont, California, where Robinson was a faculty member.
Robinson was elected secretary of the International Committee for the Nag Hammadi Codices, which had been formed in 1970 byUNESCO and the Egyptian Ministry of Culture; it was in this capacity that he oversaw the project. A facsimile edition in twelve volumes was published between 1972 and 1977, with subsequent additions in 1979 and 1984 from the publisherBrill Publishers inLeiden, entitled,The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices. This made all the texts available for all interested parties to study in some form.
At the same time, in theGerman Democratic Republic, a group of scholars—including Alexander Böhlig,Martin Krause andNew Testament scholars Gesine Schenke,Hans-Martin Schenke and Hans-Gebhard Bethge—were preparing the first German language translation of the find. The last three scholars prepared a complete scholarly translation under the auspices of theBerlinHumboldt University, which was published in 2001.
TheJames M. Robinson translation was first published in 1977, with the nameThe Nag Hammadi Library in English, in collaboration betweenE.J. Brill andHarper & Row. The single-volume publication, according to Robinson, 'marked the end of one stage of Nag Hammadi scholarship and the beginning of another' (from the Preface to the third revised edition). Paperback editions followed in 1981 and 1984, from E.J. Brill and Harper, respectively. A third, completely revised edition was published in 1988. This marks the final stage in the gradual dispersal of gnostic texts into the wider public arena—the full complement of codices was finally available in unadulterated form to people around the world, in a variety of languages. Across-reference apparatus for Robinson's translation and the Biblical canon also exists.[12]
Another English edition was published in 1987, byYale scholarBentley Layton, calledThe Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1987). The volume included new translations from the Nag Hammadi Library, together with extracts from theheresiological writers, and other gnostic material. It remains, along withThe Nag Hammadi Library in English, one of the more accessible volumes of translations of the Nag Hammadi find. It includes extensive historical introductions to individual gnostic groups, notes on translation, annotations to the text, and the organization of tracts into clearly defined movements.
Not all scholars agree that the entire library should be considered Gnostic. Paterson Brown has argued that the three Nag Hammadi Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Truth cannot be so labeled, since each, in his opinion, may explicitly affirm the basic reality and sanctity of incarnate life, which Gnosticism by definition considers illusory.[13]
The following table contains a list of codices and tractates in the Nag Hammadi library as given byAleksandr Leonovich Khosroev [ru].[14][15] Abbreviations are fromThe Coptic Gnostic Library.
| Order of tractate | Codex number | Tractate number in the codex | Tractate title | Pages | Abbreviation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | NHC-I (Jung Codex)[16] | 1 | ThePrayer of the Apostle Paul | (2) | Pr. Paul | Text rewritten onflyleaf, two lines lost, title in Greek. |
| 02 | 2 | TheApocryphon of James (The Secret Book of James) | 1–16 | Ap. Jas. | The title is based on the content of the text, which takes the form of a letter from James to an addressee whose name is not mentioned. Most of the text is a dialogue between Jesus and the unnamed apostles. | |
| 03 | 3 | TheGospel of Truth | 16–43 | Gos. Truth | The title is based on the opening words of the text. | |
| 04 | 4 | TheTreatise on the Resurrection | 43–50 | Treat Res. | A treatise in the form of a letter from a teacher to a disciple, a certain Reginus, in which the addressee discusses theresurrection of Jesus Christ. | |
| 05 | 5 | TheTripartite Tractate | 51–140 | Tri. Trac. | Title given by scholars. The treatise discussesValentinian views on creation and cosmology. | |
| 06 | NHC-II | 1 | TheApocryphon of John | 1–32 | Ap. John | A lengthy version, the first of the three versions in the Nag Hammadi library. The text is a revelation in the form of questions and answers given by Jesus to the apostle John. |
| 07 | 2 | TheGospel of Thomas | 32–51 | Gos. Thom. | A collection of sayings of Jesus given secretly to the apostles. Some of the sayings are known from the canonical Gospels. Greek papyri of similar content known since the beginning of the twentieth century areP.Oxy. 1, P.Oxy. 654, P.Oxy. 655. | |
| 08 | 3 | TheGospel of Philip | 51–86 | Gos. Phil. | A Valentinian text that is a collection of discourses. | |
| 09 | 4 | TheHypostasis of the Archons | 86–97 | Hyp. Arch. | The title is at the end of the text. The text deals with cosmology and the creation of man. | |
| 10 | 5 | On the Origin of the World | 97–127 | Orig. World | Title given by scholars. The treatise discusses the creation of the universe and cosmology. | |
| 11 | 6 | TheExegesis on the Soul | 127–137 | Exeg. Soul | A treatise on the fall and resurrection of the human soul that is an exegesis of Genesis 1–6. The only scriptural commentary in the library. | |
| 12 | 7 | TheBook of Thomas the Contender | 138–145 | Thom. Cont. | The title is given at the end of the text. The dialogue of the risen Jesus with Judas Thomas concerning knowledge and truth, as recorded by the apostle Matthew. | |
| 13 | NHC-III | 1 | TheApocryphon of John | 1–40 | Ap. John | Short version. |
| 14 | 2 | Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (The Gospel of the Egyptians) | 40–69 | Gos. Eg. | One of two editions of the text with the title at the end. The work begins with the phrase, "The Holy Book of the Great, Invisible Spirit." Its authorship is attributed to the biblicalSeth. Contains cosmogonic and soteriological themes. | |
| 15 | 3 | Eugnostos the Blessed | 70–90 | Eugnostos | One of two versions of the text. A treatise on the Gnostic world order in the form of a message from a teacher (Eugnostus) to his disciples. | |
| 16 | 4 | The Sophia of Jesus Christ | 90–119 | Soph. Jes. Chr. | Revelation in the form of questions and answers given by the risen Christ to his apostles. The text is dependent onEugnostos the Blessed. Jesus' speeches in this text are verbatim with Eugnostus' teachings given inEugnostos the Blessed.[17] | |
| 17 | 5 | TheDialogue of the Saviour | 120–149 | Dial. Sav. | The title is given at the beginning and end of the treatise. The content consists of Jesus' conversations with the apostles andMary Magdalene about the way to salvation. | |
| 18 | NHC-IV | 1 | TheApocryphon of John | 1–49 | Ap. John | The second lengthy version. |
| 19 | 2 | Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (The Gospel of the Egyptians) | 50–81 | Gos. Eg. | Second copy of the text. | |
| 20 | NHC-V | 1 | Eugnostos the Blessed | 1–17 | Eugnostos | Second copy of the text. |
| 21 | 2 | TheApocalypse of Paul | 17–24 | Apoc. Paul. | The text is derived from 2 Corinthians 12:2–4 and recounts the apostle Paul's journey and visions from the fourth heaven to the tenth heaven. | |
| 22 | 3 | TheFirst Apocalypse of James | 24–44 | 1 Ap. Jas. | Dialogue about the secret teaching that Jesus taught to James, first before his death, then after his resurrection. | |
| 23 | 4 | TheSecond Apocalypse of James | 44–63 | 2 Ap. Jas. | The original title is the same as the previous text. The composition is complex: it includes James' speeches to the Jews about the greatness of Jesus and concludes with James' martyrdom. | |
| 24 | 5 | TheApocalypse of Adam | 63–85 | Apoc. Adam | The revelation of the Flood and the ultimate fate of the world, whichAdam received from God and passed on to his sonSeth.[18] | |
| 25 | NHC-VI | 1 | TheActs of Peter and the Twelve Apostles | 1–12 | Acts Pet. 12 Apost. | The only "Acts" text in the library. An account (on behalf of theApostle Peter) of the journey of the apostles to a certain city and their encounter with Jesus, who took the form of a jewel merchant named Lithargoel. |
| 26 | 2 | The Thunder, Perfect Mind | 13–21 | Thund. | A poetic treatise. It is a self-proclamation of a female (?) deity on the non-dual, all-encompassing nature of the divine.[19] | |
| 27 | 3 | Authoritative Teaching (Authoritative Discourse) | 23–35 | Auth. Teach. | A philosophical text about the fate of the soul, its origins, fall, and victory over the material world via salvation.[20] | |
| 28 | 4 | TheConcept of Our Great Power | 36–48 | Great Pow. | Title at the end of the treatise. Revelation of the threeaeons: the material aeon, which ended with the Flood; the spiritual aeon, when the Savior appeared; and the future aeon. | |
| 29 | 5 | Fragments: 588a-589b ofPlato'sRepublic. | 48–51 | Plato Rep. | A text about injustice[21] | |
| 30 | 6 | The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth | 52–63 | Dis. 8–9 | Title given by scholars. Hermetic dialogue in which the teacher ("father")Hermes Trismegistus leads his disciple ("son") through the "eight" and "nine" realms of heaven.[17] | |
| 31 | 7 | ThePrayer of Thanksgiving | 63–65 | Pr. Thanks. | A hermetic prayer, previously known from both the Greek and Latin versions. | |
| 32 | 8 | Asclepius | 65–78 | Asklepius | Dialogue ofHermes Trismegistus with his disciple Asclepius. Chapters 21–29 of the lost Greek hermetic treatise known from the full Latin translation. | |
| 33 | NHC-VII | 1 | TheParaphrase of Shem | 1–49 | Paraph. Shem | The title is at the beginning of the treatise. A revelation on cosmological andsoteriological themes received by Shem (possibly not biblical) from Derdekeas, the son of infinite light, during the mystical separation of his mind from his body. |
| 34 | 2 | TheSecond Treatise of the Great Seth | 49–70 | Treat. Seth | The title is at the end of the tractate. The revelation of Jesus Christ (probably identified with Seth), where he narrates his descent to earth, his death on the cross, and his return to thePleroma. | |
| 35 | 3 | Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter | 70–84 | Apoc. Petr. | An account of the visions of theapostle Peter, the meaning of which Jesus revealed to him on condition that it remain secret. | |
| 36 | 4 | TheTeachings of Silvanus | 84–118 | Teach. Silv | The only text in the library of unquestionably Christian origin.[22] An ethical treatise in the form of the teachings of a father to his spiritual son. | |
| 37 | 5 | TheThree Steles of Seth | 118–127 | Steles Seth | The title is at the end of the treatise. A composition in the form of hymns to higher divine entities. It begins with the title "The Revelation ofDositheos", but this name is not mentioned anywhere else in the text. | |
| 38 | NHC-VIII | 1 | Zostrianos | 1–132 | Zost. | The title at the end of the treatise. Revelations received by Zostrianos from the "angel of knowledge" and an account of the hero's subsequent ascent through the heavenly realms. This is the lengthiest text in the library, and is also in very poor condition. |
| 39 | 2 | TheLetter of Peter to Philip | 132–140 | Ep. Pet. Phil. | Title at the beginning of the treatise. Of the nine pages of the treatise, theepistle proper occupies only one page. The rest is part of the apocryphal acts of the apostles speaking to the risen Jesus. | |
| 40 | NHC-IX | 1 | Melchizedek | 1–27 | Melch. | Title at the beginning of the treatise. A series of revelations about Jesus Christ received by the biblicalMelchizedek from an angel. |
| 41 | 2 | TheThought of Norea | 27–29 | Norea | One of the shortest texts in the library, with only 52 lines. The title is based on the phrase at the end of the text. A prayer, probably by a woman.[23] | |
| 42 | 3 | TheTestimony of Truth | 29–74 | Testim. Truth. | Title given by scholars. An address to the chosen (elect) on the essence of truth, along with a polemic against ecclesiastical Christianity.[19] | |
| 43 | NHC-X | 1 | Marsanes | 1–68 | Marsanes | The title is at the end of the text. The vision of the prophet Marsanus during his ecstatic ascent to heaven and of the essence of God. |
| 44 | NHC-XI | 1 | TheInterpretation of Knowledge | 1–21 | Interp. Know. | The title is at the end of the text. An ethical sermon by a Christian Gnostic author. |
| 45 | 2 | AValentinian Exposition | 22–40 | Val. Exp. | Five fragments of aValentinian philosophical treatise on anointing (On Anointing), baptism (On Bap. A & B), and the Eucharist (On Euch. A & B). | |
| 46 | 3 | Allogenes | 40–44 | Allogenes | The title is at the end of the tractate. The account of Allogenes of a revelation received from the angel Jude, and of an ascent to heavenly beings. | |
| 47 | 4 | Hypsiphrone | 45–69 | Hypsiph. | The title is at the beginning of the text, which is very poorly preserved. The book of visions of Hypsiphrone. | |
| 48 | NHC-XII | 1 | TheSentences of Sextus | 15–16, 27–34 | Sext | A collection of wisdom sayings. |
| 49 | 2 | TheGospel of Truth | Gos. Truth | The second copy, of which only a few fragments remain in a different dialect of Coptic. | ||
| 50 | 3 | fragments | Frm. | A total of 10 pages with fragments of 15 texts have survived from the volume, of which only 2 texts have been identified. | ||
| 51 | NHC-XIII | 1 | Trimorphic Protennoia | 35–50 | Trim. Prot. | "Three Forms of First Thought". A treatise similar to theApocryphon of John in many ways. |
| 52 | 2 | On the Origin of the World | Orig. World | Ten opening lines in the text. | ||
| fragments | The volume contains a total of 16 heavily fragmented pages. Two texts are identified. |
The so-called "Codex XIII" is not a codex, but rather the text ofTrimorphic Protennoia, written on "eight leaves removed from a thirteenth book in late antiquity and tucked inside the front cover of the sixth." (Robinson, NHLE, p. 10) Only a few lines from the beginning ofOrigin of the World are discernible on the bottom of the eighth leaf.
Although the manuscripts discovered at Nag Hammadi are generally dated to the 4th century, there is some debate regarding the original composition of the texts.[24]
But the followers of Valentinus, putting away all fear, bring forward their own compositions and boast that they have more Gospels than really exist. Indeed their audacity has gone so far that they entitle their recent composition the Gospel of Truth
Plotinus, a native of Lycopolis in Egypt, who lived from 205 to 270 was the first systematic philosopher of [Neo-Platonism]
