Discovered in 1945 near the town of Nag Hammadi in Egypt, the Nag Hammadi Library is a collection of ancient texts that has profoundly influenced our understanding of early Christianity and Gnostic beliefs. This remarkable find, consisting of 13 codices and over 50 texts, sheds light on the diversity of early Christian thought and provides invaluable insights into Gnostic traditions. This article will focus on the history and discovery of the library, its composition, the translation process, and its impact on modern understandings of early Christianity and Gnosticism.
The History and Discovery of the Library
In 1945 a man named Muhammad al-Samman came across a sealed jar that contained 13 leather-bound papyrus codices near the upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi. He found them at the base of Jabal al-Ṭārif Cliff with his brothers while they were in search of sabakh, a soil used as fertilizer.
While digging for the soil, they struck a clay jar. After digging it up, al-Samman hesitated to break it, as a jinn might be trapped inside, but the possibility that it might contain treasure was enticing. Al-Samman broke the jar, and the 13 leather-bound books were found inside. His mother ended up burning a few of the manuscripts as kindling, while others were sold on the black market until the Egyptian government caught wind and seized them.
The details of this story are questionable, however, as the number of people present at the discovery was changed a few times by al-Samman, he claimed there was a skeleton next to the jar, and his brother might have made the discovery instead without him. This led some scholars to speculate that he was just a simple grave robber. He knew that the texts were valuable and hid them with different people with the hope of selling them soon. Hiding the codices also hinged on the fact that police were investigating a murder that al-Samman and his brothers committed as revenge for their father’s death.
Although incongruent with our modern idea of a library consisting of rows of shelves and books, the 13 codices contained a wealth of knowledge that would influence scholars of Gnosticism for decades to come. After the discovery, the codices eventually landed in the Department of Antiquities and thereafter were handed over to the Coptic Museum. The texts were declared the national property of Egypt, as there were fears that attempts would be made to sell them, and it was agreed that they would stay in their country of origin.
A single codex was sold, however, and made its way into the hands of the Carl Gustav Jung Institute in 1951. Interestingly, Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, had a keen interest in Gnosticism and Gnostic texts, and this codex was intended as a birthday present. After his death in 1961, there was a disagreement over the ownership of the codex, and it was only returned to Cairo in 1975, where it (along with the other surviving codices) is preserved to this day.
There are many theories as to who the texts originally belonged to. Some scholars believe that the codices belonged to a monk of the nearby Pachomian monastery who buried them when non-canonical texts were banned. Other scholars posit that it was the collection of a private individual and was buried along with them as funerary items. A more radical theory states that perhaps the codices weren’t buried together in a jar, but instead were buried and found in different places. After all, a story becomes more captivating when it involves a mysterious sealed jar found next to a skeleton.
Composition of the Library
The library consists of 13 leatherbound codices, which contain around 52 individual gospels, apocalyptic texts, and treatises. These are works that were translated into Coptic, the original texts were in Greek and much older than the codices. The papyrus was dated to around 350-400 CE, while the original Greek texts are dated to around 120-150 CE, although scholars generally disagree on the exact dates.
These works are generally Gnostic in nature, however, three of the texts belong to the Corpus Hermeticum and one is a partial translation of Plato’s Republic. Even though most of the texts are Gnostic in nature, scholars agree that the differences between them are big enough to assume that they come from different places and were collected to form the library. They were either collected in antiquity and buried together, or they were collected in the modern era and the story of the jar was fabricated.
Impact on the Understanding of Gnosticism and Early Christianity
The discovery and subsequent translation and interpretations prompted scholars to reconsider their modern understanding of Gnosticism. Along with the discovery of Manichaean texts, scholars had to recontextualize everything that was known. For the first time, these Gnostic texts revealed the ideas that orthodox Christians of the early centuries despised.
Not only is God the Father mentioned, but so is God the Mother. These texts reveal opposing thoughts about the nature of God, salvation, and sin. It focuses on self-knowledge as salvation, and instead of sin, disillusionment and ignorance lead to damnation. Self-knowledge is knowledge of the divine, and the divine and the self are identical. Another text found at Nag Hammadi titled Thunder, the Perfect Mind speaks in the strong voice of the divine feminine about the paradoxical nature of life and faith:
“Why, you who hate me, do you love me,
and hate those who love me?
You who deny me, confess me,
and you who confess me, deny me.
You who tell the truth about me, lie about me,
and you who have lied about me, tell the truth about me.
You who know me, be ignorant of me,
and those who have not known me, let them know me.”
The codices also reveal more about the role of women in Gnosticism. The Nag Hammadi texts depict women as leaders and heroines, challenging the prevailing notion that Gnostic women were simply victims of circumstance.
Not only did the Nag Hammadi Library provide invaluable knowledge on early Gnosticism, but it also provided context and an understanding of how early Christianity developed until it was mostly solidified as an institution by 200 CE.
It is well known that the early fathers of the church denounced any heretical texts, which included Gnostic texts like those found at Nag Hammadi. For example, Irenaeus of Lyons, an early orthodox bishop, denounced a particular text called the Gospel of Truth, which is the title of one of the Nag Hammadi writings. Being caught with any heretical writings was deemed a crime and many texts were subsequently destroyed or lost.
This left a gaping hole in what we know about early heretical religions, and Gnosticism in particular. What scholars knew about alternative forms of Christianity mostly came from the documented attacks on what were deemed heretical religions. However, the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library managed to fill in some of the gaps, and even change what we know altogether.
It was once thought that early Christianity was more uniform, it was faith in its purest form, and that diversity in the church is a modern phenomenon. The Nag Hammadi Library forced scholars to reconsider this completely and to concede that early Christianity was way more diverse than previously thought. Early Gnostics did not consider themselves heretics, they considered themselves Christian, but held beliefs that were radically different from the norm at the time. In many ways, early Christianity was more diverse than the contemporary Christianity that we know.
Preservation and Translation
The discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library generated international scholarly interest. The translation and interpretation of the texts was an international effort but also evoked a bit of competition between institutions and universities across the globe. Although it was discovered in 1945, translations happened slowly over the decades, owing to the unstable political landscape of Egypt. The director of the Coptic Museum, Dr Pahor Labib, initially kept strict control of the publishing rights, as the scholars who first published it would cement international publication. This meant that very few people had seen the manuscripts until French scholars alerted UNESCO to their existence in 1961.
Subsequently, UNESCO established an international committee to oversee translation, which initially only had European members (and one American). Later funding from the US meant that US scholarly input increased as well. A translation consisting of twelve volumes was published in the 1970s, which made it available to the wider academic community and the public.
Modern Relevance and Influence
Today, studies of the Nag Hammadi Library are multi-faceted. Some scholars analyze the texts from a literary point of view, while others focus on what the codices can tell us about early Christianity. Not only has scholarly intrigue increased, but so has interest from the public, which coincided with the development of modern Gnostic churches.
The idea that hidden knowledge was found after centuries in a jar in Egypt was enough to entice any curious person in search of alternative religions. Thousands of websites focused on Gnostic teachings and philosophy have subsequently sprung up, and it remains a popular topic for internet users to research. The Nag Hammadi Library has truly become an invaluable source of information on early alternative Christian beliefs and philosophy.
