Nag Hammadi Library

(Revision as of 08:20, 23 Oct 2004)

The Nag Hammadi Library is a collection of sacred texts that were discovered by Mohammed Ali Samman in 1945 in the small village of Nag Hammâdi (Chenoboskion in classical antiquity) in central Egypt. The thirteen codices, with fifty-two texts, were found buried in a sealed jar. The writings in these codices are mostly Gnostic treatises, but they also include three works belonging to the Corpus Hermeticum and a partial translation of Plato's Republic. The codices are believed to be a library, hidden by monks from the nearby St. Pachomius monastery when these writings were banned by the Orthodox Church in an effort to ban all heterodoxy and heresy.

The contents of the codices were written in Coptic, though the works were mostly (all?) translations from Greek. Most famous of these works must be the Gospel of Thomas, of which the Nag Hammadi codices contain the only complete copy. After the discovery it was recognized that fragments of these sayings of Jesus appeared in manuscripts that had been discovered at Oxyrhynchus in 1898, and quotations were recognized in other early Christian sources. The 1st or 2nd century date of the lost Greek originals behind the Coptic translations is controverted, but the manuscripts themselves are from the 3rd and 4th centuries.

List of Codices Found in Nag Hammadi

The Gospel of Thomas from the Nag Hammadi Library

Codex I (also known as The Jung Codex):
- The Prayer of the Apostle Paul
- The Apocryphon of James
- The Gospel of Truth
- The Treatise on the Resurrection
- The Tripartite Tractate
Codex II:
- The Apocryphon of John
- The Gospel of Thomas -- not regarded as Gnostic by all scholars, some believe this is actually as reliable as the other Gospels
- The Gospel of Philip
- The Hypostasis of the Archons
- On the Origin of the World
- The Exegesis on the Soul
- The Book of Thomas the Contender
Codex III:
- The Apocryphon of John
- The Gospel of the Egyptians
- Eugnostos the Blessed
- The Sophia of Jesus Christ
- The Dialogue of the Savior
Codex IV:
- The Apocryphon of John
- The Gospel of the Egyptians
Codex V:
- Eugnostos the Blessed
- The Apocalypse of Paul
- The (first) Apocalypse of James
- The (second) Apocalypse of James
- The Apocalypse of Adam
Codex VI:
- The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles
- The Thunder, Perfect Mind
- Authorative Teaching
- The Concept of Our Great Power
- Republic by Plato - The original is not gnostic, but the Nag Hammadi library version is heavily modified and therefore gnostic.
- The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth - a Hermetic treatise
- The Prayer of Thanksgiving (with a hand-written note) - a Hermetic prayer
- Asclepius 21-29 - another Hermetic treatise
Codex VII:
- The Paraphrase of Shem
- The Second Treatise of the Great Seth
- Apocalypse of Peter
- The Teachings of Silvanus
- The Three Steles of Seth
Codex VIII:
- Zostrianos
- The Letter of Peter to Philip
Codex IX:
- Melchizedek
- The Thought of Norea
- The Testimony of Truth
Codex X:
- Marsanes
Codex XI:
- The Interpretation of Knowledge
- A Valentinian Exposition, On the Anointing, On Baptism (A and B) and On the Eucharist (A and B)
- Allogenes
- Hypsiphrone
Codex XII
- The Sentences of Sextus
- The Gospel of Truth
- Fragments
Codex XIII:
- Trimorphic Protennoia
- On the Origin of the World

External links

Introduction and some text of the Nag Hammadi scriptures (http://www.gnosis.org)
The Nag Hammadi library (http://www.nag-hammadi.com/)

References

Layton, Bentley, ed. The Gnostic Scriptures ISBN 0385478437.
Robinson, James M., ed. The Nag Hammadi Library in English ISBN 0060669357.
Wikipedia (2004). Nag Hammadi (http://www.wikipedia.org/Nag_Hammadi). Retrieved Oct. 22, 2004.

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