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Gnostic Texts
Gnosticism used a number of religious texts that are preserved, in part or whole, in ancient manuscripts, or lost but mentioned critically in Patristic writings. There is significant scholarly debate around what Gnosticism is, and therefore what qualifies as a "Gnostic text." Gnostic texts Gnostic texts preserved before 1945 Prior to the discovery at Nag Hammadi, only the following texts were available to students of Gnosticism. Reconstructions were attempted from the records of the heresiologists, but these were necessarily coloured by the motivation behind the source accounts. * Works preserved by the Church: ** '' Acts of Thomas'' (Especially '' Hymn of the Pearl'' or ''The Hymn of the Robe of Glory'') ** ''The Acts of John'' (Especially '' The Hymn of Jesus'') * The Bruce Codex (purchased in 1769 by James Bruce): ** '' Books of Jeu'', also known as ''The Gnosis of the Invisible God'' ** The '' Untitled Text'' * The Askew Codex (British Museum, bought in 1784): ** '' Pis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek: , Romanization of Ancient Greek, romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: Help:IPA/Greek, [ɣnostiˈkos], 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Early Christianity, early Christian sects. These diverse groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (''gnosis'') above the Proto-orthodox Christianity, proto-orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions. Generally, in Gnosticism, the Monad (Gnosticism), Monad is the supreme God who emanates divine beings; one, Sophia (Gnosticism), Sophia, creates the flawed demiurge who makes the material world, trapping souls until they regain divine knowledge. Consequently, Gnostics considered material existence flawed or evil, and held the principal element of salvation to be direct knowledge of the hidden divinity, attained via mystical or esoteric insight. Many Gnostic texts deal not in co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berlin Codex
The Berlin Codex (also known as the Akhmim Codex and the Berlin Gnostic Codex, BG), given the accession number ''Papyrus Berolinensis'' 8502, is a Coptic manuscript from the 5th century CE, unearthed in Akhmim, Egypt. In Cairo, in January 1896, Carl Reinhardt bought the codex, which had been recently discovered, wrapped in feathers, in a niche in a wall at a Christian burial site. It was a papyrus bound book (a codex), dating to early 5th century (or possibly late 4th century) that was written in Sahidic dialect of Coptic, which was in common use in Egypt during that time. It was taken to Berlin for the Berliner Museen, where it was brought to the notice of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences by Carl Schmidt, July 16, 1896. Schmidt edited the Act of Peter in 1903, but the gnostic contents of the Berlin Codex were not finally completely translated until 1955. Few people paid attention to it until the 1970s, when a new generation of scholars of early Christianity took an i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apocryphon Of James
The Apocryphon of James, also called the Secret Book of James or the Apocryphal Epistle of James, is a Gnostic epistle. It is the second tractate in Codex I of the Nag Hammadi library. The tractate is a Coptic translation of a Greek original, probably written in Egypt, with estimates of the date ranging from c. 100 AD to c. 200 AD. The content of the text mainly consists of James the Just's recollection of a special revelation that Jesus gave to James and Peter. The topics discussed include being filled, believing in the cross, being eager for the Word, and the importance of knowing the self. Analysis of Consonance between the Apocryphon of James and Jewish Tradition The ''Apocryphon of James'' presents itself as a secret transmission from the Master (identified as Mashiach) to specific disciples, which finds a direct parallel in the tradition of the Torah and Kabbalah. The very notion of "reserved revelation" is firmly established in ''Mishlei'' (Proverbs 25:2), which st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Prayer Of The Apostle Paul
The Prayer of the Apostle Paul is a New Testament apocryphal work, the first manuscript from the Jung Codex (Codex I) of the Nag Hammadi Library. Written on the inner flyleaf of the codex, the prayer seems to have been added after the longer tractates had been copied. Although the text, like the rest of the codices, is written in Coptic, the title is written in Greek, which was the original language of the text. The manuscript is missing approximately two lines at the beginning. Authorship and Composition Like other early Christian writings, the author of this prayer identifies themself with the historic Apostle Paul to give authority to the text. Consequently, the prayer is widely understood to be a pseudepigraphical A pseudepigraph (also anglicized as "pseudepigraphon") is a falsely attributed work, a text whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past. The name of the author to whom the wor ... work. Bec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jung Codex
The Nag Hammadi library (also known as the Chenoboskion Manuscripts and the Gnostic Gospels) is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. Thirteen leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local farmer named Muhammed al-Samman. The writings in these codices comprise 52 mostly Gnostic treatises, but they also include three works belonging to the ''Corpus Hermeticum'' and a partial translation/alteration of Plato's ''Republic''. In his introduction to ''The Nag Hammadi Library in English'', James Robinson suggests that these codices may have belonged to a nearby Pachomian monastery and were buried after Saint Athanasius condemned the use of non-canonical books in his Festal Letter of 367 A.D. The Pachomian hypothesis has been further expanded by Lundhaug & Jenott (2015, 2018) and further strengthened by Linjamaa (2024). In his 2024 book, Linjamaa argues that the Nag Hammadi librar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nag Hammadi Codex Vii 70 Top
Nag or NAG may refer to: Computers * Nag, a multi user tasklist manager included in Horde (software) * Numerical Algorithms Group, a software company ** NAG Numerical Library, numerical analysis software * Numeric Annotation Glyphs, in computerized chess Music * "Nag", a song on Joan Jett's album ''I Love Rock 'n' Roll'' * Stage name of Jan-Erik Romøren of Norwegian band Tsjuder Organizations * National Academy of Governance, the civil servant academy operated by the Chinese central government * Neighbourhood action group, community volunteer groups in the United Kingdom * Neue Automobil Gesellschaft, a defunct German automobile manufacturer * Nordic Aviation Group, an Estonian airline company People * Martin Nag, Norwegian writer Places * Nag, Iran, a village in Kerman Province * Nag Hammadi, in Upper Egypt * Nag River, in India * Nag Tibba, a mountain in Uttarakhand, India Religion * Nag Dhunga, a sacred stone worshiped by the people of Nepal * Nag Hammadi library, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermetica
The ''Hermetica'' are texts attributed to the legendary Hellenistic figure Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. These texts may vary widely in content and purpose, but by modern convention are usually subdivided into two main categories, the "technical" and "religio-philosophical" ''Hermetica''. The category of "technical" ''Hermetica'' encompasses a broad variety of treatises dealing with astrology, medicine and pharmacology, alchemy, and magic, the oldest of which were written in Greek and may go back as far as the second or third century BCE. Many of the texts belonging in this category were later translated into Arabic and Latin, often being extensively revised and expanded throughout the centuries. Some of them were also originally written in Arabic, though in many cases their status as an original work or translation remains unclear. These Arabic and Latin Hermetic texts were widely copied throughout the Mid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secret Gospel Of Mark
The Secret Gospel of Mark or the Mystic Gospel of Mark (), also the Longer Gospel of Mark, is a wikt:putative, putative longer and secret or mystic version of the Gospel of Mark. The gospel is mentioned exclusively in the Mar Saba letter, a document of disputed authenticity, which is said to have been written by Clement of Alexandria (). This letter, in turn, is preserved only in photographs of a Greek handwritten copy seemingly transcribed in the 18th century into the endpapers of a 17th-century printed edition of the works of Ignatius of Antioch. Some scholars suggest that the letter implies that Jesus was involved in homosexual activity, although this interpretation is contested. In 1958, Morton Smith, a professor of ancient history at Columbia University, found a previously unknown letter of Clement of Alexandria in the monastery of Mar Saba situated south-east of Jerusalem. He made a formal announcement of the discovery in 1960 and published his study of the text in 1973. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sophia Of Jesus Christ
The ''Sophia The Christ'', also known as the ''Wisdom of Jesus Christ'', is a Gnostic text that was first discovered in the Berlin Codex (a Codex purchased in Cairo in 1896 and given to the Berlin Museum which also contains the ''Gospel of Mary'', the ''Apocryphon of John'', and a summary of the ''Act of Peter''). More famously, the ''Sophia of Jesus Christ'' is also among the many Gnostic tractates in the Nag Hammadi codices, discovered in Egypt in 1945. The Berlin-Codex manuscript (as opposed to its contents) probably dates to c. AD 400, and the Nag-Hammadi manuscript has been dated to the 300s. However, these are complemented by a few fragments in Greek dating from the 200s, indicating an earlier date for the contents. While the title may refer to Sophia, Roel van den Broek argues that ''Sophia'' should be understood in its ordinary meaning as "wisdom", analogous to the titles Wisdom of Solomon and Wisdom of Sirach. The text incorporates almost the entirety of the '' Epist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acts Of Peter
The Acts of Peter is one of the earliest of the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (genre), Acts of the Apostles in Christianity, dating to the late 2nd century AD. The majority of the text has survived only in the Vetus Latina, Latin translation of the Codex Vercellensis, under the title ("Act of Peter with Simon"). It is notable for a description of a miracle contest between Saint Peter and Simon Magus, the first record of the tradition that Saint Peter was Cross of Saint Peter, crucified head-down, and as the origin of the saying ''Quo vadis?'' Dating and history The Acts of Peter were originally composed in Koine Greek during the second half of the 2nd century, probably in Asia Minor. The style of the Acts' writing is quite similar to that of four other apocryphal Acts – Acts of Andrew, Acts of John, Acts of Paul, and Acts of Thomas. For this reason, all five of these works were traditionally attributed to a single author; Photios I of Constantinople, Photios I () identified t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epitome
An epitome (; , from ἐπιτέμνειν ''epitemnein'' meaning "to cut short") is a summary or miniature form, or an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment. Epitomacy represents "to the degree of." An abridgment differs from an epitome in that an abridgment is made of selected quotations of a larger work; no new writing is composed, as opposed to the epitome, which is an original summation of a work, at least in part. Many documents from the Ancient Greek and Roman worlds survive now only "in epitome," referring to the practice of some later authors (epitomators) who wrote distilled versions of larger works now lost. Some writers attempted to convey the stance and spirit of the original, while others added further details or anecdotes regarding the general subject. As with all secondary historical sources, a different bias not present in the original may creep in. Documents surviving in epitome differ from those surviving only as f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apocryphon Of John
The ''Apocryphon of John'', also called the ''Secret Book of John'' or the ''Secret Revelation of John'', is a 2nd-century Sethianism, Sethian gnosticism, Gnostic Christian pseudepigrapha, pseudepigraphical text attributed to John the Apostle. It is one of the texts addressed by Irenaeus in his Christian polemic ''Against Heresies (Irenaeus), Against Heresies,'' placing its composition before 180 AD. It tells of the appearance of Jesus and the imparting of secret knowledge (gnosis) to his disciple John. The author describes it as having occurred after Jesus had "gone back to the place from which he came". Overview Many second-century Christians, both Gnostic and orthodox, hoped to receive a transcendent personal revelation such as Paul the Apostle reported to the church at Corinth () or that John the Revelator experienced on the isle of Patmos, which inspired the ''Book of Revelation''. As ''Acts'' narrates what happened after the time Jesus ascended to heaven, so the ''Apoc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
