Quotes About Nag Hammadi

Gnosticism, as we refer to it here, is not primarily a system of beliefs based on the set of writings found at Nag Hammadi or on the teachings of various groups during the early centuries of Christianity. They are the secret teachings of wisdom passed down through the ages.

In a sense, the rediscovery of the Nag Hammadi Library marks the resurrection of a more historical Jesus, an ecstatic rebel sage who preached enlightenment through rituals involving magical plants, and who is more analogous to the archetypal magician, than the pious ascetic and crucified savior that has come down to us through the Bible's New Testament.

In December 1945 an Egyptian peasant, digging for soft and fertile soil near the village of Nag Hammadi in upper Egypt, exhumed a red earthenware jar. It proved to contain thirteen codices— papyrus books or scrolls—bound in leather.

The Nag Hammadi scrolls are a collection of biblical texts, essentially Gnostic in character, which date, it would appear, from the late fourth or early fifth century—from about A.D. 400.