There are at present only four published sources for Melchizedek within Gnostic thought. It is my understanding that more material will be forthcoming from the Chenoboskion documents, but within the documents already published from that find there is no mention at all of Melchizedek. The four sources which are available to us at present are (a) Kahle's Fragment 52, (b) the Pistis Sophia, Books i–iii, (c) the Pistis Sophia, Book iv, and (d) the Second Book of leû. I shall discuss each of these in turn and present a short summary at the end of this chapter.

FRAGMENT 52

This fragment was among those discovered by Sir Flinders Petrie in 1907 at Deir El-Bala'izah and which became the property of the Bodleian Library shortly thereafter. It has been published twice, once by W. E. Crum and once by Paul Kahle who edited and published the entire collection of texts made by Sir Flinders Petrie. Kahle informs us that this text is written in uncials of the fourth century A.D. but that it shows some archaisms in grammar. The text translated below is taken from a text essentially like that presented by Kahle with one or two minor changes and some conjectures as to the proper way of filling some of the lacunae.

Text 52 is a translation of an originally Greek work. For many of the Greek words used there are perfectly adequate Coptic words.