How the Nag Hammadi texts discovered in Egypt reintroduced the world to Gnostic Christianity
Biblical Archaeology Society Staff • 07/01/2014
This Bible History Daily feature was originally published in March 2011. It has been updated.—Ed.

The Nag Hammadi texts were contained in 13 leather-bound volumes discovered by Egyptian farmers in 1945. Dated papyrus scraps used to strengthen the bindings of the books helped date the volumes to the mid-fourth century A.D. Photo: Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont, CA.
Until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices in 1945, the Gnostic view of early Christianity had largely been forgotten. The teachings of Gnostic Christianity—vilified especially since they were declared heretic by orthodox Christianity in the fourth century—had been virtually erased from history by the early church fathers, their gospels banned and even burned to make room for the view of Christian theology outlined in the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
But when two peasants discovered the Nag Hammadi texts, a 13-volume library of Coptic texts hidden beneath a large boulder near the town of Nag Hammadi in upper Egypt, the world was reintroduced to this long-forgotten and much-maligned branch of early Christian thought, Gnostic Christianity, from the Greek word gnosis, “knowledge.” The Nag Hammadi codices are 13 leather-bound volumes dated to the mid-fourth century that contain an unprecedented collection of more than 50 texts, including some that had been composed as early as the second century.

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The Nag Hammadi codices, detail Photo: Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont, CA.
Once the Nag Hammadi codices had been translated and published by a team of scholars led by Claremont Graduate University’s James M. Robinson, the documents showed that Gnostic Christianity was not the depraved cult described by orthodox Christian writers but rather a legitimate religious movement that offered an alternate testament to Jesus’ life and teachings.
The Nag Hammadi texts, which represent a range of attitudes and beliefs in Gnostic Christianity and include everything from competing gospels to apocalyptic revelations, all assert the primacy of spiritual and intellectual knowledge over physical action and material well-being. The Apocryphon of John, for example, is the most important tractate of classic Sethian Gnosticism. In it the risen Jesus reveals to John, son of Zebedee, the truth of creation.

The Nag Hammadi codices contain more than 50 early Christian texts, including the Gospel of Thomas. The forgotten gospel preserves sayings of Jesus that were not included in the canonical Gospels. Photo: Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont, CA.
According to this Gnostic myth, the God of the Hebrew Bible is actually a corrupted lower deity. Only through the intervention of Sophia (Wisdom) can gnosis be revealed and salvation attained. Thus, while adherents of Gnostic Christianity certainly acknowledged the role of Jesus in their faith, their theology placed greater significance on the intellectual revelation of his message than on his crucifixion and resurrection.
Also among the Nag Hammadi texts was the fully preserved Gospel of Thomas, which does not follow the canonical Gospels in telling the story of Jesus’ birth, life, crucifixion and resurrection, but rather presents the reader with an early collection of Jesus’ sayings. Although this mystical text was originally believed to one of the early texts of Gnosticism, it now seems to reveal yet another strand of early Christianity.
From a historical perspective, the Nag Hammadi codices provide a clearer picture of the diverse theological and philosophical currents that found expression through early Christianity. Indeed, Gnosticism and its classically inspired philosophical ideals permeated not just early Christian thought but also the Jewish and pagan traditions from which Christianity arose. The Nag Hammadi codices, widely regarded as one of the most significant finds of the 20th century, revealed this complex religious milieu and offered an unparalleled glimpse into alternative visions of early Christianity.

Jesus as Lord of the Dance
The Scoop (Celebritychef)
From early Christianity to medieval Nubia
Paul Dilley • 08/08/2014
Early Christian worship was diverse and frequently intense. Some aspects, such as the charisms (“spiritual gifts”) described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, might take on very different forms from meeting to meeting; others, such as baptism and the Eucharist, developed more standardized forms even as the movement spread. Yet even these core rituals encompassed radically different practices and meanings. Some groups, for example, used water rather than wine in the Eucharist, in keeping with a broader emphasis on moderation in food and abstention from sex.

A page from the Qasr el-Wizz Codex. Credit: Péter Hubai, A Megváltó a keresztről: Kopt apokrifek Núbiából (A Kasr El-Wizz kódex) (Cahiers Patristiques, Textes Coptes; Budapest: Szent István Társulat, 2006); from http://alinsuciu.com/2012/10/04/george-hughes-translation-of-a-coptic-apocryphal-manuscript-the-qasr-el-wizz-codex/ (accessed 8/7/2014).
Other ancient Christian rituals are less familiar, sometimes because they were associated with groups eventually labeled as heretical and persecuted. Thus, the ritual of the Bridal Chamber, as practiced by Valentinians, can only be reconstructed through brief and uncertain references in texts such as the Gospel of Philip.
Perhaps the most famous of these “alternative” rituals is the dance of Jesus and the apostles as portrayed in the Acts of John, a vivid and imaginative second-century description of the apostle’s missionary journey. In one section, the apostle John recalls how, on the night before his arrest and crucifixion, Jesus commanded the apostles to form a circle around him, and to dance as he sang a hymn to which they responded in a series of “Amens.”
Most scholars agree that this fascinating text functioned as an etiology (a foundational narrative) for a ritual of dance. Like the Eucharist, it is instituted on Jesus’ last night with the apostles, and the event is described as a “mystery.” Because the apostles are enjoined to keep silent about their dance, and terms such as “Ogdoad” (the eighth heaven) are used in the corresponding hymn, some have argued that the ritual was “gnostic,” and that its disappearance was linked to the persecution and eventual disappearance of such groups under the Christian Roman Empire. Indeed, a clear allusion to the dance scene from the Acts of John is found in the psalms of the Manichaeans, archetypical heretics who were liable to capital punishment and the burning of their books.
“New” evidence has complicated this picture, namely the recent publication of a Coptic manuscript (see image above), dated to approximately the ninth century, containing a very similar dance scene. The manuscript was discovered in an abandoned monastery at Qasr el-Wizz—a settlement in Nobadia, the northernmost of the three medieval Christian kingdoms of Nubia—during rescue excavations in the 1960s (the site is now under Lake Nasser near the southern borders of Egypt). One of the texts, which scholars call the Dance of the Savior, features a dance similar to the one in the Acts of John. As the apostles circle around, Jesus addresses the cross in a series of short hymns, proclaiming the glory and triumph of the crucifixion.

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Dance scene from the Monastery of Antony the Great at Old Dongola. Click for a larger view. Credit: D. Zielińska, courtesy Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology Archive.
The presence of the dance scene in a Coptic text from the Qasr el-Wizz monastery suggests that ritual dance enjoyed a place in established, orthodox Christianity, not only in medieval Nubia, where the manuscript was found, but also in late Roman Egypt, where it was originally composed. Indeed, while apocryphal texts are themselves generally associated with heresy, I have argued that many non-canonical texts such as the Dance of the Savior were produced and promoted by bishops, and employed liturgically in places like churches and martyr shrines. In the Christian Roman Empire, liturgical dancing was a part of common events such as saints’ festivals. Some polemicists saw this as an inappropriate expression of piety, uncomfortably close to pagan traditions like pantomime or Dionysian revelries. But it was also related to imperial celebrations: In 630 C.E. the emperor Heraclius is said to have danced in front of the Cross when it was returned to Jerusalem from Persian captivity, presumably in imitation of King David’s dance before the Ark of the Covenant.
The role of dance in the medieval Nubian liturgy is uncertain. The victorious cross, which is celebrated in the Dance of the Savior, was a central theme in Old Nubian literature and art; as in Roman Egypt, it was probably associated with royal authority. A painting recently discovered by a team from the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology during their excavations of the Monastery of Anthony the Great at Old Dongola, capital of the central Nubian kingdom Makuria, suggests that dance played an important role there as well (see second image). Some of the dancing figures are masked, and others play musical instruments. The accompanying Old Nubian inscriptions are still being deciphered. While it is unlikely that this practice was directly related to the ancient traditions of Jesus’s dance with the apostles, apocryphal texts such as the Dance of the Savior offers legitimation for similar rituals in diverse pre-modern cultural contexts.