The collection of books contains religious and hermetic texts, works of moral maxims, Apocryphal texts, and more curiously, a rewriting of Plato's Republic.  
     
  In addition to the importance of the manuscripts for the history of books (they are the oldest known books to date) and Coptic palaeography, they represent a key source of evidence for the history of philosophy and primitive Christianity.  
     
  Nevertheless, it is extremely difficult to analyse them, because we know nothing of their authors, circumstances or place where they were written.  
     
  On the other hand, they can currently be considered as a decisive element in the research of the beginnings of gnosticism.  
     
   
     
  These religious (or Gnostic) texts propose interpretations and Christian rituals that are different from those officialised in 325 AC and which were immediately rejected as heretical at the time. That is why they were gathered together, protected and hidden by the so-called deviant communities.  
     
  Gnosis means knowledge. In this respect, Gnostics differed from Christians in their relation to the sacred texts, given that they attached importance to the esoteric, and not the historical sense. Gnostics consequently considered the divine to include aspects like interior and secret knowledge, which is passed on by tradition and initiation.  
     
  The Nag Hammadi library offers a wealth of evidence of such trends in Gnosticism that claim to contain a secret teaching whilst sometimes drawing inspiration from the Old Testament.  
 
Apocryphal: refers to texts that bear a resemblance to canonical books and present figures from Christianity, but do not belong to the New Testament.
Coptic: refers to the Christians originating from Egypt.
Esotericism: a doctrine according to which some types of knowledge must not be disclosed to the general public, but reserved for a closed group of disciples.
Gnosticism: Gnosticism encompasses the various forms of religious thought in the Roman empire between the 1st century BC and the 4th century AC, and was mainly based in Alexandria. All these forms are strongly characterised by the duality between the material, which was rejected, and the spiritual. Gnostic thought was declared heretical by the Church.
Heresy: all the religious trends running parallel to Catholicism, but condemned by the Church as corrupting the dogma.
Hermetism: an obscure doctrine resulting from a series of texts traditionally attributed to Hermes.
Source Q: this term comes from the German Quelle, meaning source, and refers to the passages common to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, also known as the double tradition.
 
 
The corpus of the collection contains so-called hermetic books in line with the tradition of the Corpus Hermeticum.
 
Codex VI actually comprises an untitled treatise, known as The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth, a prayer of thanksgiving and a long fragment of the Perfect Discourse. These last two texts are partly included in the Asclepius, whereas the first one is a completely original work.
 
These texts can be sidelined, as they digress from the Gnostic theories widely spread in the rest of the collection. Their main interest, however, lies in their highly pronounced Egyptian inspiration, compared to the Greek and Latin texts currently known. Furthermore, they do not reject the Egyptian religion, but offer to spiritualise it. Hermetism is more than a Christian-like religious system, is it a way.
 
These three texts provide a complementary and sufficient overview of the entire hermetic doctrine, the initiatory path supposed to lead to divine enlightenment. It represents one of the fundamental differences between Christians and Gnostics (or Hermetics). Whereas Christianity is based on the historical truth, the Gnostic and hermetic trends attach great importance to symbolism and even the allegorical.
 
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The library comprises 13 books, known as codices according to the scientific name given to any collection of sheets folded in two and sown together. These books represent the oldest known specimens to date.

 
 
 
Codex I  
(Jung Codex) 1. The Prayer of the Apostle Paul
  2. The Apocryphon of James
  3. The Gospel of Truth
  4. The Treatise on the Resurrection
  5. The Tripartite Tractate
Codex II 6. The Apocryphon of John
  7. The Gospel According to Thomas
  8. The Gospel According to Philip
  9. The Hypostasis of the Archons
  10. On the Origin of the World
  11. The Exegesis on the Soul
  12. The Book of Thomas the Contender
Codex III 13. The Apocryphon of John
  14. The Gospel of the Egyptians
  15. Eugnostos the Blessed
  16. The Sophia of Jesus Christ
  17. The Dialogue of the Saviour
Codex IV 18. The Apocryphon of John
  19. The Gospel of the Egyptians
Codex V 20. Eugnostos the Blessed
  21. The Apocalypse of Paul
  22. The Apocalypse of James
  23. The Apocalypse of James
  24. The Apocalypse of Adam
  32. Fragment of the Perfect Discourse
 
Codex VII 33. The Paraphrase of Shem
  34. The Second Treatise of the Great Seth
Codex VI 25. The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles
  26. The Thunder, Perfect Mind
  27. Authoritative Teaching
  28. The Concept of Our Great Power
  29. Plato's Republic 588A-589B
  30. The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth
  31. The Prayer of Thanksgiving
  35. The Apocalypse of Peter
  36. The Teachings of Silvanus
  37. The Three Steles of Seth
Codex VIII 38. Zostrianos
  39. The Letter of Peter to Philip
Codex IX 40. Melchizedek
  41. The Thought of Norea
  42. The Testimony of Truth
Codex X 43. Marsanes
Codex XI 44. The Interpretation of Knowledge
  45. A Valentinian Exposition
  46. Allogenes
  47. Hypsiphrone
Codex XII 48. The Sentences of Sextus
  49. The Gospel of Truth
  50. Unidentified fragments
Codex XIII 51. Trimorphic Protennoia
  52. On the Origin of the World