Preliminary Material /R. McL. Wilson --The Demiurge in the Apocryphon of John /Gilles Quispel --Anapausis in the Epistula Jacobi Apocrypha /Jan Helderman --The Colophon of the Gospel of the Egyptians: Concessus and Macarius of Nag Hammadi /P. Bellet. O.S.B. --Report on the Dialogue of the Savior (CG III, 5) /Elaine Pagels and Helmut Koester --Die Paraphrase als Form gnostischer Verkündigung /Barbara Aland --Un rituel idéal d'intronisation dans trois textes gnostiques de Nag Hammadi /Maddalena Scopello --The Letter of Peter to Philip and the New Testament /G. P. Lutiikhuizen --La Lettre de Pierre à Philippe: sa structure /Jacques É. Ménard --La bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi /Jacques-É. Ménard --Koptisch-gnostische Schriften Volumes 2 and 3 /Hans-Martin Schenke --On Investigating the Hermetic Documents contained in Nag Hammadi Codex VI. /Karl-Wolfgang Tröger --Jacob as an Angel in Gnosticism and Manicheism /Alexander Böhlig --Report on the Coptological Work /Alexander Böhlig --Un double symbole de foi gnostique dans le Kephalaion un de Médînet Mâdi /J. Ries --Egyptian Survivals in the Nag Hammadi Library /Pahor Labib --Literarkritische Probleme der Zephanja-Apokalypse /Bernd Jörg Diebner --Index /R. McL. Wilson.

This work tells the story of a community of fourth-century monks living in Egypt. The letters they wrote and received were found within the covers of works that changed our understanding of early religious thought - the Nag Hammadi Codices. This book seeks to contextualise the letters and answer questions about monastic life. Significantly, new evidence is presented that links the letters directly to the authors and creators of the codices in which they were discovered.

Eugnostos and The Sophia of Jesus Christ (SJC) are two closely related tractates from the Nag Hammadi Coptic Gnostic Library and Papyrus Berolinensis 8502 (only SJC). Here they are presented parallel with each other because they are literarily related, i.e. most of Eugnostos is also found in SJC. Eugnostos is printed in its two Coptic copies (too close to be versions), plus the fragmentary remains of a Greek copy (all with translations). This the first publication of the edited text of Eugnostos from Nag Hammadi Codex V and the first time that all these texts have been presented in one volume. Eugnostos is a non-Christian speculative cosmogony that begins with the primal invisible One, moves on to the structuring of the invisible and visible aeons and concludes at the point where the creation of this world would occur. SJC is a revelation discourse of Christ with his disciples which makes use of the bulk of Eugnostos, and adds new emphases: e.g. the special role of Christ as revealer and savior, the imprisonment of the divine element in flesh, opposition in sexual intercourse, and the commissioning of the disciples. While Eugnostos lacks essential elements of the gnostic world-view, SJC is unquestionably gnostic. If one assumes the priority of Eugnostos, these tractates provide the clearest textual evidence available of a non-gnostic and non-Christian speculative system being transformed into a system that is both gnostic and Christian. An introduction, textual notes and indices are included.

Preliminary Material /R. McL. Wilson --The Demiurge in the Apocryphon of John /Gilles Quispel --Anapausis in the Epistula Jacobi Apocrypha /Jan Helderman --The Colophon of the Gospel of the Egyptians: Concessus and Macarius of Nag Hammadi /P. Bellet. O.S.B. --Report on the Dialogue of the Savior (CG III, 5) /Elaine Pagels and Helmut Koester --Die Paraphrase als Form gnostischer Verkündigung /Barbara Aland --Un rituel idéal d'intronisation dans trois textes gnostiques de Nag Hammadi /Maddalena Scopello --The Letter of Peter to Philip and the New Testament /G. P. Lutiikhuizen --La Lettre de Pierre à Philippe: sa structure /Jacques É. Ménard --La bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi /Jacques-É. Ménard --Koptisch-gnostische Schriften Volumes 2 and 3 /Hans-Martin Schenke --On Investigating the Hermetic Documents contained in Nag Hammadi Codex VI. /Karl-Wolfgang Tröger --Jacob as an Angel in Gnosticism and Manicheism /Alexander Böhlig --Report on the Coptological Work /Alexander Böhlig --Un double symbole de foi gnostique dans le Kephalaion un de Médînet Mâdi /J. Ries --Egyptian Survivals in the Nag Hammadi Library /Pahor Labib --Literarkritische Probleme der Zephanja-Apokalypse /Bernd Jörg Diebner --Index /R. McL. Wilson.

This volume presents critical editions of three of the most fragmentary codices in the Nag Hammadi Library. Their nine tractates are presented in an English translation with critically edited transcriptions of Coptic texts, including introductions and notes. A complete set of indices is provided for Coptic and Greek words, proper names, ancient texts and authors, and modern authors. The contents of these three ancient books reflect the rich diversity of the Library as a whole. They include a fragmentary (and apparently non-Christian) revelation descent narrative (Hypsiphrone); a non-Christian Sethian text reflecting heavy platonizing influence (Allogenes); Hellenistic Greek wisdom literature (Sentence of Sextus); a non-christian Sethian text, secondarily Christianized (Trimorphic Protennoia); Valentinian Gnosticism (A Valentinian Exposition); a Christian-Gnostic tractate with Valentinian affinities (The Interpretation of Knowledge). A Christian-Gnostic (perhaps Valentinian) homily on the gospel (the Gospel of Truth); the first page of On the Origin of the World (completely preserved in NHC II) and an identified fragmentary tractate with ethical content. There are also five Valentinian liturgical supplements appended to Allogenes. The publication of these religio-philosophical materials from Nag Hammadi provides the scholar and interested reader with critical editions of texts that help to fill in background and context of gnostic origins, and that shed light on the interaction among early Christianity and gnostic movements in antiquity.