Gnostic texts

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Gnosticism used a number of religious texts that are preserved, in part or whole, in ancient manuscripts or are lost but mentioned critically in Patristic writings.

Gnostic texts

Full or fragmentary

These texts exist in surviving manuscripts.

• Acts of John
  • The Hymn of Jesus
• Acts of Peter
• Acts of Peter and the Twelve
• Acts of Thomas
  • The Hymn of the Pearl
• Allogenes

• Apocalypse of Adam
• First Apocalypse of James
• Second Apocalypse of James
• Apocryphon of James
• Apocryphon of John
• Coptic Apocalypse of Paul
• Coptic Apocalypse of Peter

• Books of Jeu
• Book of Thomas the Contender
• Dialogue of the Saviour
• Letter of Peter to Philip
• Odes of Solomon
• Pistis Sophia
• Secret Gospel of Mark
• The Sophia of Jesus Christ

• Gospel of the Egyptians
• Gospel of Judas
• Gospel of Mary
• Gospel of Philip
• Gospel of Thomas
• Gospel of Truth
• Unknown Berlin Gospel or Gospel of the Savior

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, i-xv 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

The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts discovered near the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945.

• 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.

Notes

1. ^ Adversus haereses, I, viii, 5.
2. ^ Hær. XXXIII, 3-7.

See also

External links

• The Gnostic Society Library
• Gnostics, Gnostic Gospels, & Gnosticism - from earlychristianwritings.com