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  • 3 - Gnostic literature

  • from A - LITERARY GUIDE
  • Edited by Frances Young, University of Birmingham, Lewis Ayres, Emory University, Atlanta, Andrew Louth, University of Durham
  • Assisted by Augustine Casiday, University of Durham
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    01 April 2004, pp 20-27

  • Summary

    The term 'Gnosticism' and 'gnostic' were used to describe certain second- and third-century Christian groups or teachers that claimed to possess a special saving knowledge, which had been revealed to their predecessors and passed on to them. In 1785, the British Museum came into possession of a Coptic manuscript of the fourth century that was part of the estate of a London physician and antiquary named Askew. This Askew Codex contains a series of dialogues between the risen Jesus on the one hand, and Mary Magdalene and other disciples on the other. Valentinian practice is reflected in the work titled A Valentinian Exposition, which expounds the story of creation and redemption, the gnosis which believers understand, and provides instruction on the meaning of baptism and what look like elements of a eucharistic prayer. These writings, more than the protreptic works, provide useful hints of the way gnostics, Christian but also non-Christian, talked in their own circles.