Last updated 10th July 2024: Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Up till now the Egyptian government has not succeeded in arranging the purchase of the manuscripts forming the library of a Gnostic community living in the fourth century a.d. near the old site of Khenoboskion in Upper Egypt. But thanks to some preliminary studies we know the titles of the works copied in those manuscripts. When once these most important texts have been published we shall know much more about what the Egyptian Gnostics thought and taught in the fourth century in Upper Egypt.
page 14 note 1 To-day el-Qaṣr weṣ-Ṣayyâd at the foot of the Gebel eṭ-Ṭârif on the East bank of the Nile opposite Nagʻ Hammâdi.
page 14 note 2 Puech, H.-Ch. et Doresse, J., ‘Nouveaux écrits gnostiques découverts en Egypte’ Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1948, 87–95Google Scholar. Lefort, L. Th., ‘Note’ Académie Royale de Belgique, Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres et des Sciences morales et politiques, 56 série, t. xxxrv (1948) 100–102Google Scholar. Mina, Togo, ‘Le papyrus gnostique du Musée Copte’ Vigiliae Christianae ii, (1948) 129–136Google Scholar. Doresse, J., ‘Trois livres gnostiques inédits’ Vigiliae Christianae ii (1948) 137–60Google Scholar. Puech, H.-Ch., ‘Nouveaux écrits gnostiques découverts à Nag-Hammadi’ Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, cxxxiv (1947–1948) 244–8Google Scholar. Doresse, J. et Mina, Togo, ‘Nouveaux textes gnostiques coptes découverts en Haute Egypte. La bibliothàque de Chénoboskion’ Vigiliae Christianae iii. (1949) 129–41Google Scholar. Doresse, J., ‘Une bibliothèque gnostique copte découverte en Haute-Egypte’ Académie Royale de Belgique, Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres et des Sciences morales et politiques, 5e série, t. xxxv. (1949) 435–449Google Scholar. Doresse, J., ‘Une bibliothèque gnostique copte’ La nouvelle Clio i. (1949) 59–70Google Scholar. Puech, H.-Ch., ‘Les nouveaux écrits gnostiques découverts en Haute-Egypte’ Coptic studies in honor of Walter Ewing Crum, Boston 1950, 91–154Google Scholar. J. Doresse, ‘Les apocalypses de Zoroastre, de Zostien, de Nicothée, …’, ibid., 255–63.
page 14 note 3 Schmidt, C., ‘Ein vorirenäisches gnostisches Originalwerk in koptischer Sprache’ Sitzungsberichte der kgl. Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1896), 839–47Google Scholar. Schmidt, C., ‘Irenaeus und seine Quelle in Adv. Haer. i, 29’, Philotesia: Paul Kleinert zum 70. Geburtstag dargebracht, Berlin 1907, 317–36Google Scholar. Till, W., ‘Die Berliner gnostische Handschrift’, Europäischer Wissenschaftsdienst iv, Nr. 5 (Stuttgart 1941) 19–21Google Scholar. Till, W. and Carratelli, G. Pugliese, ‘Εὐαγγ⋯λιον κατ⋯ Μαρι⋯μ’ La parola del passato i. (Naples 1946) 260–7Google Scholar. W. Till, ‘Die Gnosis in Ägypten’, ibid. xii. (1949) 232–50.
page 15 note 1 A few centuries later it seems to have been still known among the Audians. Cf. H.-Ch. Puech, ‘Les nouveaux écrits gnostiques’ Coptic studies in honor of Walter Ewing Crum 113: ‘Il est à peu près sur que, sous le nom de Révélation de Jean (gelyūnā dabešem Jōhannān), on le (= the Apocryphon of John) retrouve en Babylonie, au début du VIIe siècle ou vers la fin du siècle suivant, entre les mains des ‘Oḏāyē ou Audiens combattus par Théodore bar Kōnaï au XIe livre de ses Scolies. Cf. mon article ‘Fragments retrouvés de l'Apocalypse d'Allogène’ dans Annuaire de l'Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves de l'Université de Bruxelles, t. iv = Mélanges Franz Cumont, Bruxelles 1936, pp. 935–62. La citation de l'Apocalypse de Jean est traduite pp. 938–9.’
page 15 note 2 They are written in the Coptic language as well as those of Khenoboskion.
page 15 note 3 C. Schmidt, ‘Irenaeus und seine Quelle in Adv. Haer. i, 29.’ Cf. p. 14, note 3.
page 16 note 1 That no non-Gnostic may have access to it.
page 16 note 2 Here and in what follows I give the references to the pages of the Berlin Gnostic papyrus MS. 8502.
page 16 note 3 I.e. not material, earthly water but water belonging to the spiritual world of light.
page 17 note 1 The expression ‘the first son’ clearly proves that the original text was written in Greek. The names of all the divine beings which were created before are of feminine gender in Greek (Βαρβηλ⋯, Ἔννοια, Πρ⋯γνωσις, Αἰων⋯α ζω⋯) but not in Coptic, where ‘The First Knowledge’ and ‘The Eternal Life’ are masculine.
page 17 note 2 This seems to show that the Gnostics to which the Apocryphon of John belonged were Sethians.
page 18 note 1 Meaning unknown; perhaps ape?
page 21 note 1 Schmidt, C., Gnostische Schriften in koptischer Sprache: Texte und Untersuchungen 8, Leipzig 1892Google Scholar (text and German translation). Schmidt, C., Pistis Sophia: Coptica i, Copenhagen 1925 (text only)Google Scholar. Amélineau, E., Pistis Sophia, Paris 1895 (French translation)Google Scholar. Mead, G. R. S., Pistis Sophia: a gnostic gospel, London 1896 (English translation)Google Scholar. Schmidt, C., Koptisch-gnostische Schriften i. Leipzig 1905 (German translation)Google Scholar. Horner, G., Pistis Sophia, literally translated from the Coptic, London 1924Google Scholar. Schmidt, C., Pistis Sophia, Leipzig 1925 (German translation)Google Scholar.
page 21 note 2 Schmidt, G., Gnostische Schriften in koptischer Sprache: Texte und Untersuchungen 8, Leipzig 1892 (text and translation)Google Scholar. Schmidt, C., Koptisch-gnostische Schriften i. Leipzig 1905 (German translation)Google Scholar. Baynes, C., A Coptic Gnostic Treatise, Oxford 1933Google Scholar (text and English translation with commentary on the ‘titleless work’ only).
