IN DECEMBER 1945, Muhammad
Ali and his brothers of the al-Samman clan accidentally discovered
a collection of ancient documents at Jabal al-Tarif, a spot near
Nag Hammadi, a village in northern Egypt. They found a storage
jar containing 12 leather-bound books (codices) and eight leaves
removed from the thirteenth book.
With the family of Muhammad Ali involved in an amazing series
of events associated with clan murder and blood revenge, the collection
also, as a result, embarked on an intricate journey of acquisitions
that eventually led to its deposit at the Coptic Museum in Old
Cairo.
Another term, "The Coptic Gnostic Library", is used
to describe the entire collection, and that phrase takes into
account the research projects in the United States and Germany
that aim to translate the texts and the prestigious series of
scholarly works published by E. J. Brill in the Netherlands. In
fact, scholars have produced an English facsimile edition of the
codices that was completed in 1984. There are ongoing translation
works in different languages as well as publications based on
individual documents or the collection as a whole.
Besides the texts in the Nag Hammadi collection, the Coptic Gnostic
Library has included other texts from the Berlin Gnostic Codex
(Papyrus Berolinensis 8502). This manuscript was purchased near
the city of Achmim, Egypt and later acquired for the Berlin Museum
in 1896. The Gospel of Mary is one of the texts in the Berlin
Gnostic Codex and has attracted unprecedented attention due to
its association with the published The Da Vinci Code, a work of
the novelist Dan Brown. The novel has not only developed its story
using The Gospel of Mary, but also included The Gospel of Philip,
a text found in the Nag Hammadi Library.
The texts in the Nag Hammadi Library are written in Coptic, an
Egyptian language written with the Greek alphabet plus letters
that are unknown to the Greeks in terms of sound. However, these
Coptic documents are translated works that might have been composed
originally in Greek in the second century C.E. The monks from
the nearby Pachomian monasteries probably used these codices and
later buried them in the sands of Egypt in the last half of the
4th century C.E.
Each codex of this library consists of a collection of texts and
in total the library has 52 tractates. However, the viewpoint
of the library does not represent that of the Coptic Orthodox
Church. Instead, the collection has a rich variety of literary
genres, which include apocalypses, revelation dialogues and discourses,
gospels, epistles, doctrinal treatises, wisdom books, homilies,
hymns, prayers, and others belonging to specific traditions.
What are the contributions of the Nag Hammadi Library? Some documents
are valuable for the analysis of the relationship between orthodoxy
and heresy in the early church. For example, the Valentinian Exposition
in Codex 11 and The Gospel of Philip in Codex 2 are identified
as documents associated with Gnostic teacher Valentinus in the
2nd century C.E.
Gnosticism is a 2nd century phenomenon that deals with a series
of widespread and diverse groups with religious and philosophical
backgrounds. Those groups were upholding the belief that the divine
spirit is trapped in the human body. It would only be released
from the prison if the individual received special knowledge from
an agent sent by God.
The Nag Hammadi documents act as important sources and clarify
the origins of heresy in terms of the mutual influence of Gnosticism
and Christianity upon one another. The valuable information sheds
light on the character and beliefs of religious sects and movements
in Palestine, Syria and Egypt.
In addition, The Gospel of Thomas from this
ancient library is an important witness to how the public and
early churches had understood Jesus and the Gospels. The conclusion
of this Gospel presented a Peter that viewed women as unworthy
of life. He requested Mary to leave the group to which Jesus responded
by claiming that he would turn Mary into male, a condition that
was necessary for Mary to secure her salvation. That picture of
Jesus and the relationship between His disciples was contrary
to what the early churches learnt from the four Gospels of the
New Testament.
As the early churches developed doctrines to maintain their identity
and affirm their faith, they would reject documents that either
presented an unacceptable picture of Jesus or promoted other false
teachings. They treated the final collection of acceptable documents
as sacred scriptures that acted as a rule for the believers. The
Christian faith becomes an informed one that demonstrated centuries
of Christians wrestling with their history and literary documents
that guide their behaviour.
While ancient documents fill the gap of our knowledge of early
Christianity and its environment, the danger associated with the
use of ancient stories or legends in the production of novels,
movies and fictionalised history is a timely reminder that we
should not dismiss our Christian history.
We must maintain or reclaim a historical consciousness that meets
the challenges posed by important discoveries of the Nag Hammadi
Library and more recently, The Gospel of Judas. Our knowledge
of these documents and their challenges to the Christian faith
reminds us to remain on guard and be effective in the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:8).
An informed faith is based on a solid foundation of the Bible.
The additional knowledge of ancient documents together with this
foundation would inform our soul the rich heritage of our past,
the sense of responsibility for the present, and an anticipation
of the glorious future.
Chan Yew Ming, a lecturer at Trinity Theological College, worships
at the Fairfield Preaching Point in Woodlands.
QUOTE:
SACRED SCRIPTURES
'The early churches treated the final collection of acceptable documents as sacred scriptures that acted as a rule for the believers.'