List of Gnostic texts explained
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.
Complete list of codices found in Nag Hammadi
- Codex I (also known as The Jung Codex):
- Codex II:
- Codex III:
- Codex IV:
- Codex V:
- Codex VI:
- Codex VII:
- Codex VIII:
- Codex IX:
- Codex X:
- Codex XI:
- Codex XII
- Codex XIII:
The so-called "Codex XIII" is not a codex, but rather the text of Trimorphic 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 of Origin of the World are discernible on the bottom of the eighth leaf.
Mandaean texts
See main article: List of Mandaic manuscripts.
Other
Quoted or alluded
These texts are mentioned or partially quoted in the writings of the Church Fathers.
- Gospel of Basilides mentioned by Origen, Jerome, Ambrose, Philip of Side, and Bede.
- Basilides' Exegetica mentioned in Hippolytus of Rome (Refutatio Omnium Haeresium VII, ixv and X, x) and Clement of Alexandria (Stromata IV, xii and IV, xxiv–xxvi)
- Epiphanes' On Righteousness, mentioned in Clement of Alexandria (Str. III, ii).
- Heracleon, Fragments from his Commentary on the Gospel of John, mentioned in Origen (Commentary on the Gospel of John)
- Naassene Fragment mentioned in Hippolytus (Ref. 5.7.2–9).
- Ophite Diagrams mentioned in Celsus and Origen
- Ptolemy's Commentary on the Gospel of John Prologue, mentioned in Irenaeus.[1]
- Ptolemy's Letter to Flora, mentioned in Epiphanius.[2]
- Theodotus: Excerpta Ex Theodoto mentioned in Clement of Alexandria.
Manuscripts
- Askew Codex contains Pistis Sophia and some other unknown texts.
- Berlin Codex, 5th century, contains a fragmentary Gospel of Mary, out of nineteen pages, pages 1–6 and 11–14 are missing entirely, the Apocryphon of John, The Sophia of Jesus Christ, and an epitome of the Act of Peter.
- Bruce Codex contains the first and second Books of Jeu and three fragments – an untitled text, an untitled hymn, and the text "On the Passage of the Soul Through the Archons of the Midst".
- Codex Tchacos, 4th century, contains the Gospel of Judas, the First Apocalypse of James, the Letter of Peter to Philip, and a fragment of Allogenes.
- Nag Hammadi library contains a large number of texts (for a complete list see the listing)
- Three Oxyrhynchus papyri contain portions of the Gospel of Thomas:
- Oxyrhyncus 1: this is half a leaf of papyrus which contains fragments of logion 26 through 33.
- Oxyrhyncus 654: this contains fragments of the beginning through logion 7, logion 24 and logion 36 on the flip side of a papyrus containing surveying data.
- Oxyrhyncus 655: this contains fragments of logion 36 through logion 39 and is actually 8 fragments named a through h, whereof f and h have since been lost.
See also
Notes
- Adversus haereses, I, viii, 5.
- Hær. XXXIII, 3–7.
External links
