The Nag Hammadi Story

Nag Hammadi andManichaean Studies

Editors

Johannes van Oort& Einar Thomassen

Editorial Board

j.d. beduhn a.d. deconick w.-p. funk

i. gardner s.n.c. lieu a. marjanen

p. nagel l. painchaud b.a. pearson

n.a. pedersen s.g. richter j.m. robinson

m. scopello j.d. turner g. wurst

VOLUME 86

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/nhms

The Nag Hammadi Story

Volume 1

The Discovery and Monopoly

By

James M. Robinson

LEIDEN BOSTON2014

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Robinson, James M. (James McConkey), 1924- author.The Nag Hammadi story from the discovery to the publication / by James M. Robinson.

pages cm (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean studies ; volume 86)Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-90-04-26251-5 (hardback : alk. paper) ISBN 978-90-04-26423-6 (e-book) ISBN

978-90-04-27842-4 (v.1) ISBN 978-90-04-27843-1 (v.2) ISBN 978-90-04-26251-5 (set)1. Nag Hammadi codicesHistory. 2. Coptic manuscriptsHistory. I. Title. II. Series: Nag

Hammadi and Manichaean studies ; v. 86.

BT1391.R63 2014299'.932dc23

2013039015

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CONTENTS

VOLUME 1

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiiiAcknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxix

I. The Discovery and Trafficking of the Nag Hammadi Codices . . . . . 11. The Investigations of Jean Doresse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

The Date of the Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3The Location of the Burial Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7The Nature of the Burial Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12The Dramatis Personae of the Discovery and Trafficking . . . . . . . 16

2. The Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203. The Trafficking of the Nag Hammadi Codices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

The Earliest Trafficking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Codices II and VII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44The Eid Codex = the Jung Codex = Codex I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Codices II, IVIX, XI, and Part of Codices I, X, XII, XIII . . . . . . . . . 64Codex III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

4. Previously Unknown Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Mansour, Inspector of Monuments of Aswan and of Qna,

Letter to the Inspector in Chief of the Monuments ofUpper Egypt, 2 October 1946 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Jean Doresse, Report of the Visit to Nag Hammadi on 2627January 1950, Written 1950, Revised April 1957 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Ludwig Keimer, Report Dated 5 August 1950, Copied for GillesQuispel 13 April 1955 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

P.E. Kahle, The Date of Codex Jung, 14 August 1954 . . . . . . . . . . . . 94Jean Doresse, Project of Archaeological Research, November

1972 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 985. Criticisms of My Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Rodolphe Kasser and Martin Krause, Criticism of My Reports,1984 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Jean Doresse, Criticism of My Reports, 1988 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108Rodolphe Kasser, Criticisms of My Report on the Bodmer

Papyri, 1988 and 1991 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

vi contents

The Methodological Problem: Obtaining VerifiableInformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

II. The French Leadership in Early Nag Hammadi Studies19461953 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1211. The French Leadership in Egypt since Napoleon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1212. Summary Records by Jean and Marianne Doresse . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Jean Doresse: Summary Presentation of the Titles andActivities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Jean Doresse: Summary of the Work of 19471951 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130Marianne Doresse: The First Mission of Jean Doresse 1947 . . . . . 135Marianne Doresse: The Second Mission of Jean Doresse

19481949 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143Marianne Doresse: The Third Mission of Jean Doresse

19491950 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154Jean Doresse: The Gnostic Papyri Coming from Hamra-Doum 160Jean Doresse: Note on the Editing of the Gnostic Papyri of

Cairo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168Marianne Doresse: The Fourth Mission of Jean Doresse

19501951 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170Marianne Doresse: The Fifth Mission of Doresse to Egypt

19511952 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172Marianne Doresse: The Sixth Mission of Doresse to Egypt

1953 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174Marianne Doresse: 1954 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

3. Codex III: Jean Doresse and Togo Mina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177Franois Daumas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177Jean and Marianne Doresse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182Doresse Replaces Daumas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183Doresse and Puech Exchange Enthusiastic Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185The Sethians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196The Conservation Massacre of Codex III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201The Codicology of Codex III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202The Return of Doresse from Upper Egypt to Cairo for

December 1947 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204Publicizing the Success of the First Mission. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207The Scholarly Announcements in Paris and Cairo . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209The Trip of Togo Mina to Paris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

4. P.Berol. 8502: Jean Doresse andWalter Till . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216The Missing P.Berol. 8502 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

contents vii

Difficulties in Exchanging Copies of P.Berol. 8502 andCodex III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Possibilities for Collating Difficult Passages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221The Benelux Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225A Joint Edition in Louvain or Berlin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226The Problem of the Long Version of The Apocryphon of John . . . 232The Cairo Agreement of May 1950 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235The Reversal of the Balance of Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238Doresses Publications from Codex III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

5. Codices II, IVXIII: Jean Doresse and Maria Dattari and/orPhokion J. Tano(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244The Tano-Dattari Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244The Second Mission of Jean Doresse 19481949 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249Doresses Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252Gilles Quispels Excerpt from Doresse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268The Inadequacies of Doresses Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269Public Announcements of the Tano-Dattari Collection . . . . . . . . 276Purchase Negotiations with Maria Dattari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

6. Codices IXIII: Jean Doresse and Pahor Labib 19511952 . . . . . . . 289The New Director Dr. Pahor Labib . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289The Fourth Mission of Doresse in Egypt 19501951 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291The Imprimerie Nationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293The Fifth Mission of Doresse in Egypt 19511952 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302The General Catalogue of the Coptic Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308The Confrontation between Pahor Labib and Puech . . . . . . . . . . . 310The Status of the Eid Codex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314The Status of the Tano-Dattari Codices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315The Status of The Apocryphon of John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317The Status of Proofs of Codex III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320The Sequestration of the Tano-Dattari Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322The Gospel of Thomas and P.Oxy. 654 and P.Oxy. 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330The Photographs of Doresse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

7. The Consequences of the Egyptian Revolution of 23 July 1952 . 334The Dismissal of Drioton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334The Last Trips of Doresse to Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338The Beginning of the Conservation of the Tano-Dattari

Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3418. The Ongoing French-Canadian Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

viii contents

III. The Eid Codex = the Jung Codex = Codex I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3511. Gilles Quispel, History of the Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3512. Albert Eids Attempts to Sell the Eid Codex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

Father Bernhard Couroyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354Correspondence with America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356The Bibliothque Nationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358Jean Doresses Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360Canon L.Th. Lefort of Louvain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367The Exportation of the Eid Codex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374The University of Michigan Again. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377The Leather Cover of the Eid Codex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

3. The Acquisition of the Eid Codex by the Jung Institute . . . . . . . . 391The Bollingen Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391Finding the Eid Codex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398The Ascona Agreement, 24 August 1951 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403Meiers Frantic Search for the Eid Codex in Brussels . . . . . . . . . . . 404Negotiations between Meier and Puech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409Negotiations between Quispel and Loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414The Actual Acquisition of the Eid Codex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421Jean Doresse and Simone Eid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430Doresses Exclusion from the Editorial Board of the Jung

Codex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4374. First Translation Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

Where to Publish All the Nag Hammadi Codices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441Plans to Publish the Whole Jung Codex for Jungs Birthday, 26

July 1953 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445Seeking Access to the Missing 40 Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454

5. The Baptism of the Eid Codex as the Jung Codex . . . . . . . . . . . . 464Preparing Translations from the Jung Codex for the

Ceremony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464Hesitations about the Ceremony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467The Ceremony Itself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

6. The Jung Codex after Its Baptism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474Where to Keep the Jung Codex. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475The Very Slow Publication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478Meiers Addition of Till to the Editorial Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481The Jung Codex: The Rise and Fall of a Monopoly . . . . . . . . . . . . 483

IV. The Swiss Leadership in Nag Hammadi Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4871. Von Fischers Final Diplomatic Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

contents ix

Proposing Committees, Memberships, and Chairpersons . . . . . 488Von Fischer and Aly Ayoub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499A Possible Trip to Cairo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507The Missing 40 Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521Meiers Letter to Mustafa Amr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527Almost Returning the Jung Codex to Egypt, April 1954 . . . . . . . . . 533Just Photographs of the Missing 40 Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540

2. Tensions That Surfaced after Von Fischers Departure fromCairo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546Puechs Need for the Missing 40 Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547Puechs Need to Control Doresse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550The Stalemate Prior to Meiers Departure for America on

16 September 1954 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556Disintegrating Relations on Meiers Return from America . . . . . 560

3. The Celebration of Jungs 80th Birthday on 25 July 1955 . . . . . . . . 5674. The Confrontation between Meier and the Curatorium . . . . . . . 573

The Gentlemans Agreement to Return the Jung Codex toCairo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573

The Return of the Jung Codex to Jungs Possession. . . . . . . . . . . . . 5845. The Final Return of the Jung Codex to Cairo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 610

VOLUME 2

V. The Dutch Leadership in Nag Hammadi Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6151. The Leading Dutch Nag Hammadi Scholars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615

Gilles Quispel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615Willem Cornelis van Unnik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627Jan Zandee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630

2. Queen Juliana and the Dutch Embassy in Cairo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6343. Quispels Cairo Trip, 30 March17 April 1955 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6574. Dutch-Swiss Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6705. The Nag Hammadi Publisher E.J. Brill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686

VI. The International Committee of Gnosticism 1956 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6931. To Attend or Not to Attend the International Committee

Meeting in Cairo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6932. The International Committee Meeting 29 September to 27

October 1956 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7113. Pahor Labibs Facsimile Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7254. The Photography of Jean Doresse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 740

x contents

5. The Microfilming of Sren Giversen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7446. Proposals for a Second Meeting of the International

Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7677. Walter Tills Proposals for a Functional International

Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7768. The Disintegration of the International Committee . . . . . . . . . . . 780

The Disintegration in Zrich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 780The Disintegration in Cairo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 794

VII. The Gospel of Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7991. The Identification of The Gospel of Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7992. Adding Guillaumont and Till as Coptologists and Translators . 8083. Editing Brills Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839

The Meeting at Utrecht, 48 July 1957 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839Tills Major Contributions and Quispels Questionable

Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8424. Planning the Editio Minor and the Editio Maior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8565. Publications of The Gospel of Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 869

Competing Editiones Principes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871The Success of the Brill Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 875

6. The Doresse-Puech Confrontation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8787. Quispels Retrospect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 898

VIII.The German Leadership in Nag Hammadi Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9011. The Germans WhoWere Involved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 902

Johannes Leipoldt and Hans-Martin Schenke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 902Alexander Bhlig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 907Rolf Ibscher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 909Martin Krause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 914Johannes Irmscher and Peter Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 925

2. Non-Germans WhoWere Supposedly Involved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 927Kendrick Grobel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 927J. Martin Plumley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930

3. The UNESCO Report of 1961 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9314. A Complete German Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 944

IX. UNESCO under French Leadership 19601970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9471. The Involvement of UNESCO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9472. The Preliminary Committee of UNESCO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 952

The Purpose of the Preliminary Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 952

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The Report of the Preliminary Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9593. UNESCOs Limitation to a Facsimile Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9614. The Messina Colloquium on the Origins of Gnosticism,

1318 April 1966 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9855. Guillaumonts Aide-Memoire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 988

X. The Coptic Gnostic Library Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9951. The Jerusalem and Cairo Sabbatic, 19651966 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9952. The UNESCO Photographs, 19661968 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10083. The Grants from the National Endowment for the

Humanities, 19671970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1012The First Application to NEH, 10 September 1966 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1012Project Activities in 1967 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1014The Second Application to NEH, 89 February 1968 . . . . . . . . . . . 1018The Statement of Mutually Agreed upon Principles, 24 June

1968 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1022The Final Report to NEH on Year One, January 1969 . . . . . . . . . . . 1024The Third Application to NEH, 14 July 1969 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1031The Final Report to NEH on Year Two, 28 May 1970 . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035The Final Report to NEH on Year Three, 15 November 1971 . . . . . 1037

XI. The International Committee for the Nag Hammadi Codices . . . . 10391. The Beginning of the UNESCO Sabbatic, AugustOctober

1970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10392. Planning the Cairo Meeting, 13 November to 8 December 1970 10453. The First Meeting of the UNESCO Committee,

1518 December 1970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10484. Obtaining Doresses Photographs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10605. The Technical Sub-Committee, 19701973. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10686. The Sabbatic in Egypt, July 1974January 1975 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10717. The First International Congress of Coptology, 818

December 1976 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1081The Second Meeting of the International Committee for the

Nag Hammadi Codices, 910 December 1976 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1081The Colloquium on the Future of Coptic Studies,

1118 December 1976 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1086The Founding of the International Association for Coptic

Studies, 18 December 1976 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10898. The Publication of The Nag Hammadi Library in English,

29 December 1977 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1095

xii contents

XII. The Nag Hammadi Excavations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11011. Preliminary Visits to the Site of the Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1101

My First Visit to the Site of the Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1101My Second Visit to the Site of the Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1110

2. The First Season of the Nag Hammadi Excavations,17 November19 December 1975 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1113

3. The Sixth Dynasty Burial Caves at the Jabal al-rif . . . . . . . . . . . . 11224. The Second Season of the Nag Hammadi Excavations,

22 November29 December 1976 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11255. The Basilica of St. Pachomius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1137

The Stratigraphy of the Basilica of St. Pachomius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1137Grossmanns Final Reports on the Basilica of St. Pachomius . . . 1140

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1149

PREFACE

The International Committee for the Nag Hammadi Codices, nominated byUNESCOand appointed by theArab Republic of Egypt, held its firstmeetingin Cairo on 1518December 1970 (see Chapter 11, Part 3 below). Item 13 in theMinutes called for a recording of the history of the discovery and subsequentresearch:

It was agreed that a history of the Nag Hammadi discovery and of subsequentresearch should be written in the future.

TheNagHammadi Story: From theDiscovery to the Publication thus becomesthe last implementation onmy part of the agreementsmade by the Interna-tional Committee for the Nag Hammadi Codices, of which I was PermanentSecretary.

The Nag Hammadi Story is not a history of research in the usual senseof a Forschungsbericht, which would report on the massive amount ofscholarship that has been devoted to the content of the Nag HammadiCodices formore than a half-century. Rather it is a socio-historical narrationof just what went on during the thirty-two years from their discovery late in1945, via their initial trafficking, and then the attempts tomonopolize them,until finally, through the intervention of UNESCO, the whole collection ofthirteenCodiceswaspublished in facsimiles and inEnglish translation, bothcompleted late in 1977.

The sequence of the thirteen chapters that follow is in general chrono-logical, but does focus topically on themain issue involved at each juncture,and on the rle of the nation whose scholars were at that time most active.Obviously the camel-drivers who made the discovery, the village traffick-ers, and the Cairo antiquities dealers of 19451946 were all located in Egypt(Chapter 1). The French have long dominated the international culture ofCairo, aswell as it archaeological activities, so that the first scholarly involve-ment in 19471953, largely by Jean Doresse and his mentor Henri-CharlesPuech, was French (Chapter 2). The acquisition by the Jung Institute ofthe bulk of the Eid Codex (Codex I) on 10 May 1952 brought the center ofactivity to Zrich for the celebration of its baptism as the Jung Codex on15 November 1953 (Chapter 3). From then on, until the Swiss Ambassadorto Egypt, Beat von Fischer-Reichenbach, was transferred to Portugal on 14June 1954, efforts to gain access and publication rights to the small part of

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Codex I remaining in Egypt, and even to gain publication rights for all theNag Hammadi Codices, had their focus in Zrich and the Swiss Embassyin Cairo (Chapter 4). This undertaking was then continued by Dutch diplo-macy,withGillesQuispel going toCairo for this purpose inApril 1955 (Chap-ter 5). Finally an International Committee of Gnosticism met in Cairo inSeptemberOctober 1956, though this International Committee achievedlittle, and nevermet again (Chapter 6). Hence themost significant outcomeof the 1956 meeting, though without official approval, was the publicationof The Gospel of Thomas, which however took place only toward the endof 1959 (Chapter 7). Meanwhile the Suez War, which exploded just as themeeting of the International Committee ofGnosticismwas reaching its con-clusion, suspended all French influence, with the result that leadership wastaken over by scholars from the German Democratic Republic from 1957through 1963 (Chapter 8). The French regained indirect leadership by involv-ing UNESCO, based in Paris and quite naturally turning to local scholars foradvice, through the 1960s (Chapter 9). The American involvement began,after the Messina Congress on the Origins of Gnosticism in 1966, with theCoptic Gnostic Library Project of Californias Institute for Antiquity andChristianity late in the 1960s (Chapter 10). Then UNESCOs InternationalCommittee for the Nag Hammadi Codices met in Cairo in 1970, and againin 1976, leading to the final publication in San Francisco of all the Nag Ham-madi codices by the endof 1977 (Chapter 11). Beginning in 1975, the site of thediscovery was excavated by a Swedish-American team led by Torgny Sve-Sderbergh,while the excavationof thenearbyBasilica of St. Pachomiuswasled by Peter Grossmann (Chapter 12). The NagHammadi Storywould not becomplete without Acknowledgements of the many who were constructivein quite varied ways through all of this 32-year period (Chapter 13).

Extensive quotations from French, Dutch, and German correspondenceare included in footnotes, with only minimal standardizing of style and cor-rection of typographical errors (letters are not as carefully proof-read bytheir authors as are published texts!). Then, in the body of the text, theseextensive footnotes are translated into English. In the translations, squarebrackets [ ] are occasionally used to insert something needed to clarify agiven point in a letter. The translations are not pedantically verbatim, sincethey should be readable as good English, not just as wooden translation-English. But theydo seek to translate accurately and fully both the statementbeing made and the subtle overtones involved.

Yet translation cannot convey everything, and hence the attention ofreaders should be drawn to the original language in the footnotes, to senseJean Doresses every-day street French and his occasional attempts at En-

preface xv

glish, in contrast to Henri-Charles Puechs convoluted and elegant, thoughoften verbose and blunt, French-only prose, based on his higher educationat the cole normale suprieure; Beat von Fischer-Reichenbachs sophisti-cated and diplomatically nuancedmulti-lingualism as an aristocrat (Baron)from an elegant estate I visited in Bern; andGilles Quispels journalistic abil-ity to function effectively, if not always grammatically exact, in German,French, and English, well beyond his native Dutch, and thus to becomeDoresses successor, and my predecessor, both in mediating among the aca-demic communities and in facilitating the involvement of the wider public.

In order to avoid having to repeat the same details in more than onechapter, cross-references to themaindiscussionof a topic are given inparen-theses, where lengthy French quotations that are not subsequently repeatedin the original languagemay be found, or amore extensive discussion be fol-lowed.

As a result of the vast amount of correspondence involved, the profilesof the main participants become unmistakable. Particularly impressive fortheir integrity, fairness, generosity, and helpfulness were Walter Till andAntoine Guillaumont. But the presentation itself is not intended to evaluatethe persons involved; it only reports criticisms of persons, which often occurin the correspondence, when they have to do with what was actually takingplace. This does not necessarily mean that the criticisms themselves arevalid, but only that the making of such criticisms played a relevant rle inwhat was going on. In some quotations there are condescending referencesto Egyptians; when they are explicit or implicit in letters quoted for otherreasons, they are retained, since that prejudice played a rle in what wastaking place. But one should also acknowledge the corrective launched byEdwardW. Said, University Professor at ColumbiaUniversity, to expose suchorientalism as superimposed on the reality of the Near East by preciselysuch condescending scholars.1

Most of the personages in TheNagHammadi Story aremen. But there aresignificant womenwhose rle should not be overlooked.MarianneDoresse,ne Guentch-Ogloueff of Russian emigr background, studied in Paris as aclassmate of the future Director of the Coptic Museum, Togo Mina, underAbb tienne Drioton, the head of the Egyptian Department of Antiqui-ties. Then, prior to her marriage to Jean Doresse, she became a Curatorat the Muse Guimet in Paris. She not only wrote reports of their annual

1 EdwardW. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, a division of RandomHouse,1978; Vintage Books edition, 1979; Afterword 1994).

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missions in Egypt for my information, as well as a curriculum vitae of JeanDoresse, but she typed, and no doubt in part helped compose, his texts forpublication. Dr. Gertrud Bhlig, a scholar of early Christianity in her ownright, shared in the research of her husband Prof. Alexander Bhlig, as wellas caring for his epileptic needs. During our work in the Coptic MuseumPeggy Hedrick, wife of my Research Assistant Charles Hedrick, joined theconjugate leaves of the Nag Hammadi Codices in new double-sized plexi-glass containers, as the placement of fragments moved toward completion.This made it possible, when these containers were stacked one on top ofthe other, to see the whole codex in place, as if opened at the center of thequire, so that pervasive traits, such as holes in the papyrus and the irregu-lar edges of the leaves, could be traced down from leaf to leaf through thewhole codex. Samiha Abd el-Shaheed was Curator at the Coptic Museumbeginning in December 1963, Chief Curator responsible for the manuscriptsection from December 1966 on, Vice-Director of the Coptic Museum from19931997, General Director of the Coptic Museum from March to October1997, and again Vice-Director from October 1997 to her retirement in Octo-ber 2001. She was hence our Supervisor: She had to authorize the openingof each plexiglass container when a fragment was identified, then to recordit being moved from that container onto the leaf to which it belonged inanother container. Indeed, she shared with us the work of attaching suchplaced fragments to the lower plexiglass pane before closing and sealing thetwo panes, and thus became the primary Copt actually involved in the finalconservation of the Nag Hammadi Codices.

The present volume could not have been produced without the exactingand complete bibliographical coverage provided by DavidM. Scholer, in histhree volumes devoted to theNagHammadi bibliography.2They provide fullbibliographical information for most items in the footnotes, which, in thecase of monographs, does not have to be repeated, after an initial footnote,in each subsequent reference. Furthermore, a complete bibliography at theconclusion of the present work is also not necessary.

2 DavidM. Scholer,NagHammadi Bibliography 19481969 (ed. GeorgeW.MacRae; NHS 1;Leiden: Brill, 1971), items 12425; Nag Hammadi Bibliography 19701994 (NHMS 32; Leiden:Brill, 1997), items 24268517, containing Bibliographia Gnostica: Supplementum I, NovT13 (1971): 322336, through Supplementum XXIV, NovT 38 (1996): 248285; Nag HammadiBibliography 19952006 (NHMS 65; Leiden: Brill, 2009), items 851811580, containing Bib-liographia Gnostica: Supplementum II/1, NovT 40.1 (1998): 73100, through Supplemen-tum II/8,NovT 50.2 (2008): 159202, 50.3 (2008): 209261. It is to be hoped that this invaluablebibliography can be continued.

preface xvii

Just as the present work does not need to seek bibliographical exhaus-tiveness, given the accessibility of Scholers Nag Hammadi Bibliography, soalso it does not need to include other scholarly material that is alreadyavailable elsewhere. Hence it does not reproduce photographs of individ-ual pages, in view of The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices,3 orpresent a critical edition of the Coptic texts, in view of the critical editionsthat have been published in German,4 French,5 and English,6 or present theresultant insights into Coptic grammar, in view of Bentley Laytons Sahidicgrammar,7 or present the codicology of theNagHammadi codices, in view ofthe analyses of the quires, rolls, kollemata, and covers in the Introduction toThe Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices,8 or present translations,

3 The Facsimile Edition of the NagHammadi Codices, published under the auspices of theDepartment of Antiquities of the Arab Republic of Egypt in conjunction with the UnitedNations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, James M. Robinson, PermanentSecretary (Leiden: Brill), in twelve volumes: Introduction (paperback brochure, 1972; greatlyenlarged hardback edition, 1984); Codex I (1977); Codex II (1974); Codex III (1976); Codex IV(1975); CodexV (1975); Codex VI (1972); Codex VII (1972); Codex VIII (1976); Codices IXX (1977);Codices XIXIII (1973); Cartonnage (1979).

4 They are listed in the introductions to each tractate in Nag Hammadi Deutsch and NagHammadi Deutsch: Studienausgabe (see below).

5 La Bibliothque Copte de Nag Hammadi, originally edited by Jacques-. Mnard, Paul-Hubert Poirier, and Michel Roberge, by Louis Painchaud, Wolf-Peter Funk, and Paul-HubertPoirier (Qubec: Les Presses de lUniversit Laval, and Leuven: Peeters). The critical textshave been published in the sub-series Textes, 33 volumes through 2008 (19772009), and aresupplemented by 8 volumes in another sub-series of tudes (19862008), and 7 volumes ina still-further sub-series of Concordances (19922002).

6 The Coptic Gnostic Library edition, published under the auspices of The Institute forAntiquity andChristianity, general editor JamesM.Robinson (Leiden: Brill, 19751996), a sub-series within the ongoing series Nag Hammadi (and Manichaean) Studies, then reprinted infive paperback volumes, The Coptic Gnostic Library: A Complete Edition of the Nag HammadiCodices (Leiden: Brill, 2000).

7 Bentley Layton, A Coptic Grammar With Chrestomathy and Glossary: Sahidic Dialect(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2000, second edition, revised and expanded with an Index ofCitations, 2004).

8 James M. Robinson, The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices: Introduction(Leiden: Brill, 1984): Chapter 3, The Quires (3244); Chapter 4, The Rolls (4560); Chap-ter 5, The Kollemata (6170); Chapter 6: The Covers (7186). See also my codicologicalessays elsewhere: On the Codicology of the Nag Hammadi Codices, in Les textes de NagHammadi: Colloque du Centre dHistoire des Religions (Strasbourg, 2325 octobre 1974) (ed.Jacques-. Mnard; NHS 7; Leiden: Brill, 1975), 1531; The Future of Papyrus Codicology, inThe Future of Coptic Studies (ed. R. McL. Wilson; Coptic Studies 1; Leiden: Brill, 1978), 2370;Codicological Analysis of NagHammadi Codices V andVI and Papyrus Berolinensis 8502, inNagHammadiCodicesV,25andVIwith PapyrusBerolinensis 8502, 1 and 4 (ed. DouglasM. Par-rott; The Coptic Gnostic Library; NHS 11; Leiden: Brill, 1979), 945.

xviii preface

in view of complete translations now available in English,9 German,10 andFrench,11 or present detailed studies of texts, in view of Nag HammadiStudies,12 the sub-series tudes in the BibliothqueCopte deNagHammadi(see above), andmany individual contributions. Instead, TheNagHammadiStory presents the socio-historical context behind these basic scholarlytools, with a narration of the discovery, trafficking, monopolizing, and finalpublication of the Nag Hammadi Codices.

The Nag Hammadi Story is based on very extensive Nag HammadiArchives, donated tome inmy capacity as Permanent Secretary of the Inter-national Committee for the Nag Hammadi Codices. These archives revealwhat was really going on, usually behind the scenes, in the otherwise hardlyintelligible series of events between their discovery and the completionof their publication. These letters are identified in the footnotes by date,sender, and recipient, e. g.: 4 i 55: Letter fromMeier to Quispel. This alertsthe reader to the fact that the letter in question is available to the publicin the Nag Hammadi Archives housed in the Honnold Library of the Clare-mont Colleges. French, Dutch, and German letters are quoted extensively inthe footnotes, with an English translation in the body of the text. There are

9 The Nag Hammadi Library in English, translated by members of the Coptic GnosticLibrary Project of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, James M. Robinson, Director,and Marvin W. Meyer, Managing Editor (Leiden: Brill, 1977, paperback edition 1984, and SanFrancisco: Harper & Row, 1977, paperback edition 1981); third, completely revised edition,James M. Robinson, General Editor, with an Afterword by Richard Smith, Managing Editor(Leiden: Brill, 1988, reprinted in fourth revised edition 1996, and SanFrancisco:Harper&Row,1988; first HarperCollins Paperback Edition 1990, reprint 2004). There is now a completelynew English translation, with an Advisory Board of Wolf-Peter Funk, Paul-Hubert Poirier,and James M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Scriptures (ed. Marvin Meyer; San Francisco:HarperOne, 2007).

10 Nag Hammadi Deutsch, 1. Band: NHC I,1V,1; 2. Band: NHC V,2-XIII,1, BG 1 und 4, ein-geleitet und bersetzt von Mitgliedern des Berliner Arbeitskreises fr Koptisch-GnostischeSchriften; Berlin-BrandenburgischeAkademie derWissenschaften (DieGriechischenChrist-lichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte, neue Folge Band 8 and Band 12: Volumes 23of Koptisch-Gnostische Schriften; eds. Hans-Martin Schenke, Hans-Gebhard Bethge, andUrsula Ulrike Kaiser; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2001, 2003). The slightlyabridged paperback one-volume Nag Hammadi Deutsch: Studienausgabe was published in2007.

11 Jean-Paul Mah and Paul-Hubert Poirier, eds., crits gnostiques: La bibliothque de NagHammadi (Bibliothque de la Pliade; Paris: Gallimard, 2007).

12 Nag Hammadi Studies (eds. Martin Krause, James M. Robinson, and Frederik Wisse;Leiden: Brill, 1971); then, since 1994, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies (eds. JamesM. Robinson and Hans Joachim Klimkeit; then, since 1998, edited by Stephen Emmel andHans Joachim Klimkeit; then, since 1999, by Stephen Emmel and Johannes van Oort; then,since 2008, by Einar Thomasson and Johannes van Oort).

preface xix

also previously unknown early reports that are heremade public (see below,Chapter 1, Part 4).

Appreciation needs to be expressed to those who have provided theircorrespondence to the Archives, in hopes that they would serve to set therecord straight, a trust the present work seeks to honor. The largest con-tributions came from C.A. Meier, Director Emeritus of the Jung Institute;Gilles Quispel; Pahor Labib; Alexander Bhlig; UNESCO; Antoine Guillau-mont; the Bollingen Foundation; the Library of the University of Michigan;and Jean Doresse, who in retrospect published the fact of his donation:13

So I did not know until much latertoo latethat J.M. Robinson, havingdecided to savewhich he didthis extraordinary library, was trying toenter into contact with me; these attempts were embroiled, disfiguredby strange gossip, until the day in 1972 when I accepted, reluctantly (burntfingers, as the proverb puts it) to take myself to this Institute of Claremontto which I transmitted, once I had determined its efficiency, what I hadaccumulated on a discovery that had become theworstmemory ofmy career.

And that is why J.M. Robinson andmyself, after having pulled this affair fromthe mire, me with gee, to save the manuscripts, he with haw, to publish theedition, cannot look at each other without a smile.

There have also been criticisms of my early published reports on the discov-ery and the trafficking in the codices. I have quoted them extensively, andprovided my response (see Chapter 1, Part 5 below).

In theArabworld aperson is normally givenonly onename, but, to distin-guish that person from others with the same name, the name of the father isusually added, and even that of the grandfather (or clan). Thus the use of thefirst name is not a sign of familiarity, but rather the normal and even formalform of address; only in international society does the name of the father

13 Jean Doresse, Lvangile selon Thomas: Les Paroles Secrtes de Jsus, Seconde ditionrevue et augmente (Monaco: ditions du Rocher, 1988), viii:

Je ne sus donc que bien plus tardtrop tardque J.M. Robinson, dcid sauvercequ il a faitcette extraordinaire bibliothque cherchait entrer en contact avecmoi; ces tentatives furent brouilles, dfigures par dtranges racontars, jusquau jourde 1972 o jacceptai, contrecoeur (chat chaude dit le proverbe), deme render cet Institut de Claremont auquel, depuis que jen ai constat lefficience, j ai transmisce que javait accumul sur une dcouverte devenue le pire souvenir de ma carrire.

Et cest pour cela que J.M. Robinson et moi, aprs avoir tir cette affaire du bourbier,moi hue, pour sauver les manuscrits, lui dia pour aboutir ldition, ne pouvonsnous regarder sans sourire.

xx preface

or grandfather come to function as a family (last) name at the expense ofones own (first) name. The most familiar instance is Pahor Labib, who isnot usually referred to simply as Pahor, or Labib, but rather as Pahor Labib.When a person with such a name makes use of a spelling in our script, thisstandardized western spelling is retained, even though it often presupposesnot the English, but the French transliteration systemdominant in the inter-national society of Egypt (e.g. the French for the definite article, el-, ratherthan al-). In the French, Dutch, andGerman correspondence quoted in foot-notes, various transliterations of the sameArabic name occur, in which casethey are retained with these minor divergences, also in the translation, andindeed in the discussion of such quotations in the surrounding body of thetext. But elsewhere the transliteration system has been followed that wasprepared for the Library of Congress by Dr. Lola Atiya.14 Her husband, AzizS. Atiya,15 Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Utah, wasthe Editor of The Coptic Encyclopedia, but only with her major assistanceas copy editor, for which the University of Utah, at my suggestion, awardedher an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. Her transliteration system hassubsequently been expanded for the present work by S. Michael Saad andRamses Wassif. I am also indebted to Joseph Sanzo, at the time a graduatestudent at U.C.L.A., for assisting in entering these transliterations of Arabicscript into the text, as well as for providing the fonts of Coptic (New AthenaUnicode) and Greek (Lucida Grande) used when these languages occur.

Persons with Arab names who use a westernized spelling that is followedhere are the following: Georgy Sobhy, TogoMina, Pahor Labib, Raouf Habib,VictorGirgis, Samiha Abdel-Shaheed, Boulos, LabibHabachi,MuradKamil,HishmetMessiah, Gamal El DinMokhtar, Aly Ayoub, TahaHussein, Alexan-dre Badawy, S. Michael Saad, Hany N. Takla, Edward W. Saad, Hanny M.el-Zeiny.

In some cases I have enlisted the support of those more familiar withmaterial in a given chapter than am I. Franois Bovon resolved problems inthe French of Doresse and Puech; Gerrit K. Bos, Kristin de Troyer, and LoesSchouten helped produce publishable translations of Dutch quotations. Forall such assistance both the author and the readers are indebted.

14 The Arabic alphabet, in its traditional order (but beginning with hamzat-alqat, ratherthan alif, which is omitted) is transliterated as follows: , b, t, th, j, , kh, d, dh, r, z, s, sh, , , ,,, gh, f, q, k, l, m, n, h, w, y. The vowels are transliterated as short and long a , i and u . isomitted before a and u at the beginning of a word.

15 Aziz S. Atiya, The History of Eastern Christianity (London: Methuen, 1968).

preface xxi

The sheer amount of material that is available in the Archives makes anarration possible that is not only much more complete, but also muchmore accurate and objective, than what is usually the case in recordingrecent history. Of course, even the very extensive Archives do not containall the correspondence and documentation regarding what took place inconnection with the Nag Hammadi codices. Yet much that is absent can bedetermined from letters that refer to missing items and at times even quotethem.

Most of what happens in history is not in written form, but oral. I alsocarried on rather endless interviews, especially in Egypt, both in the villagesof the Nag Hammadi region, and in Dishna, Cairo, and Alexandria. Whena character in the narrative is first mentioned in The Nag Hammadi Story, afootnote lists all the dates onwhich hewas interviewed. This avoids the easyassumption that they were only passing comments of little value; rather,an ongoing process of repeated cross-examination, and of interviewingparticipants about the involvement of other participants, tended to lay barethe factual dimensions of what went on. Jotted notes of these interviewswere preserved in black notebooks where I recorded day by day what wenton while in Egypt. A tape recorder was used to a limited extent, so as to beable to have Copts involved in the story tell their memories without beingconstantly interrupted by a translator. A student at Pomona College whosenative tongue was Arabic transcribed for me her English translation of suchArabic reports.

In following up leads, interviews were conducted outside of Egypt, inCyprus, Israel, France, Switzerland, The Netherlands, East and West Ger-many, Italy, England, the United States, Denmark, and Sweden. Some chap-ters were circulated in early drafts not only to the members of the Interna-tional Committee for the Nag Hammadi Codices, but also to participantswhose activity was also primarily involved, such as Hans-Martin Schenkeand Alexander Bhlig in Germany, and Simone Eid in Belgium.

A number of persons involved in The Nag Hammadi Story have subse-quently passed away. The dates of those of whom I have such informationare as follows: Masd Iskrs (18871947), Togo Mina (19061949), Yas-sah Abd al-Mas (18981959), tienne Drioton (18891960), Nshid Bis-dah (19021963), Georgy Sobhy (18841964), Johannes Leipoldt (18801965),Kendrick Grobel (19081965), Hans Stock (19081966), Hermann Grapow(18851967), Rolf Ibscher (19061967), SiegfriedMorenz (19141970), AhmedFakhry (19051973), Murad Kamil (19071975), Gamal Mokhtar (19181977),Willem Cornelis van Unnik (19101978), Charles Kuentz (18901978), LabibHabachi (19041984), George MacRae (19281985), Henri-Charles Puech

xxii preface

(19021986),Aziz SuryalAtiya (18981988), PahorLabib (19051994),Alexan-der Bhlig (19121996), Jacques-. Mnard (19231997), Hans Quecke (19281998), Torgny Sve-Sderbergh (19141998), Antoine Guillaumont (19152000), Johannes Irmscher (19202000), Lola Atiya (19172002), Hans-MartinSchenke (19292002), Gilles Quispel (19162006), Jean Doresse (19172007),VictorGirgis (19192007), PhilipC.Hammond (19242008),DavidM. Scholer(19382008), Sren Giversen (2009), and Samiha Abd el-Shaheed (2012).I interviewed almost all of those who were still alive in 1970, which is whenI began the investigations that led to the present work.

The Claremont Colleges Digital Library (CCDL) is home to the pho-tographic Nag Hammadi Archive (http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/nha). It is an open access, online, digital collectionof more than a thousand photographs of the persons and places that occurin TheNagHammadi Story: selected photographs of the codices themselves,the discoverers and traffickers, those who worked on the papyri at the Cop-tic Museum, scholarly meetings devoted to the Nag Hammadi Codices, andthe archaeological excavations near the site of the discovery. In footnotesthroughout the present work, one will find URL (Universal Resource Loca-tor) references to photographs. By entering such a URL in ones computerbrowser program, onewill immediately see the referenced photograph fromthe digital collection along with additional (at times still imprecise) infor-mation about the photograph. For example, the following footnote providesthe URL for the photograph of most of the Nag Hammadi Codices stackedtogether in the Cairo home of Maria Dattari before they were disassembledat the Coptic Museum.16

If on the other handonewould simply like to browse thedigitalNagHammadiphotographic collection, one may access the collection using the URL of thecollection as a whole listed above, then click on Browse items in this collectionlocated in a box on the right side of the collection home page. Miniatures ofall the photographs that are in the Nag Hammadi Archive, in the alphabeticalorder of their titles, will appear seriatim on the screen. One can scroll throughthem in search of a desired photograph. If one then clicks on the miniatureitself, it is enlarged, and information about the photograph becomes visible.The last item listed beneath this enlarged photograph is a field called ObjectFile Name, beginning nha and continuing with 5 digits, followed by .tif.This is the permanent number of this photograph that should be used inrequesting a copy of a given photograph (see below).

Or, one can shorten this time-consuming procedure if one enters the name ofa person or place in the Search this collectionbox on the collection homepage,

16 http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/ref/collection/nha/id/1350.

preface xxiii

and then clicks search, which gives an alphabetized list only of photographsusing that name. In order to obtain for use in this procedure the translitera-tion of an Arabic name that involves lines above and dots below letters, evenhooks on the line, one may browse through the photographs seriatim untilthat name appears, and then copy it into the Search this collection box.

Or, if one already knows the Object File Name of a photograph, one can enter,in the Search this collection box on the collection home page, just nha and thefive-digit number followed by an asterisk (*), e.g. nha00001* in the case of thephotograph of the codices stacked together, and click on search, whereuponthe desired miniature photograph will appear on the screen.

Or, beneath the Search this collection box there is a yellow bar with an optionreading Across All Fields. It contains, when activated on its right, a seriesof options narrowing ones search. If one chooses among the options eitherTitle or Description, and enters in the Search this collection box the name ofthe person or place, and then clicks search, the list of miniature photographswith that name in the title or description comes on the screen.

Or, below Across All Fields there is the further indication: Index by: Subject.When this is clicked, one is given an alphabetical listing of names, places, andother key words to help locate particular items. If one clicks on a term fromthis list, a list of miniature photographs with that term in the subject fieldcomes on the screen.

Since the Object File Name is always the official identification of a givenphotograph, it should be used to request a copy of that photograph from theClaremont Colleges Digital Library. Anyone interested in obtaining a copyof a particular photograph for research and/or publication purposes shouldforward their request to the Claremont Colleges Digital Librarya contactus link can be found at the top of every page within the CCDL. CCDL staffmembers will forward the request to the appropriate organization for theirreview and approval. Because of its open access status, all collections withinthe Claremont Colleges Digital Library are accessible to researchers aroundthe world free of charge.

In the footnotes, the first time amonograph is cited, the full bibliographicalinformation is provided, but in subsequent references only the author, title,and relevant pagination is given, unless the fuller entry is useful at a givenlocation. In the early period the source of most information about the NagHammadi Codices came from two books that are hence so basic that thefull bibliographical information is provided here, especially since their pub-lication was in both cases complex: Jean Doresse, Les livres secrets des gnos-tiques dgypte,17 translated into English, The Secret Books of the Egyptian

17 Jean Doresse, Les livres secrets des gnostiques dgypte: I. Introduction aux crits gnos-

xxiv preface

Gnostics, then with a changed title, The Discovery of the Nag HammadiTexts;18 and Martin Krause and Pahor Labib, Die drei Versionen des Apokry-phon des Johannes im KoptischenMuseum zu Alt-Kairo.19 The printing of thelatter book, by the Imprimerie of the Institut franais darchologie orientaledu Caire, was begun in 1960, with parts actually printed for private distribu-tion as early as 1961. Hence Nachtrge und Verbesserungen are appended(pp. 295307), reflecting work through 1962. Hans-Martin Schenke was ableto report:20

tiques coptes dcouverts Khnoboskion (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1958). Here it is evident thatLes livres secrets des gnostiques dgypte was intended as a series title, since, on the pagefacing the title page, three further volumes are listed as to appear ( paratre) under thesame series title, which however never appeared: II: Le Livre sacr du grand Esprit invis-ible, ou vangile des gyptiens; Lptre dEugnoste le Bienheureux aux siens; La Sophia deJsus; III: LHypostase des Archontes, ou Livre de Nora; Le Livre secret de Jean; IV: Lvangilede Philippe; Lvangile de Thomas. A reprint, entitled only Les livres secrets des gnostiquesdgypte (Monaco: dition du Rocher, 1984) adds an Avertissement au Lecteur dated iv1984, without pagination, just prior to the Introduction. The text of the reprint is unaltered(though printed in violet: Le violet favorise la mditation et la concentration, according toa note on the page facing the title page), with seven pages of unpaginated Additions et cor-rections at the back of the book, followed by one page, Erratum, with corrections to thereprint. The photographic illustrations, and hence the Table des illustrations on p. 372 ofthe original edition, are omitted.

18 Jean Doresse, The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics: An Introduction to the GnosticCoptic Manuscripts discovered at Chenoboskion. With an English Translation and CriticalEvaluation of The Gospel according to Thomas (New York: The Viking Press, and London:Hollis & Carter, 1960). It is fully revised and augmented by the author, according to the backof the title page. A unrevised reprintwas published byMJFBooks (NewYork: Inner TraditionsInternational, 1986). An unrevised edition but with different pagination was entitled TheDiscovery of the Nag Hammadi Texts: A Firsthand Account of the Expedition That Shook theFoundations of Christianity (Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 2005).

19 Martin Krause and Pahor Labib, Die drei Versionen des Apokryphon des Johannes imKoptischen Museum zu Alt-Kairo (Abhandlungen des Deutschen Archologischen InstitutsKairo, Koptische Reihe, 1; Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1962). The book was written byMartin Krause of the Deutsches Archologisches Institut Abteilung Kairo under the super-vision of Pahor Labib, Director of the Coptic Museum in Cairo. The printing of the book, bythe Imprimerie of the Institut franais darchologie orientale du Caire, was begun in 1960,with parts actually printed for private distribution as early as 1961, even before Krause gainedaccess to the parallel text from Codex IV that was to be included in the volume.

20 Schenke, OLZ 59 (1964): 552553:

brigens mu man, um zur rechten Beurteilung der vorliegenden Ausgabe zu gelan-gen, inRechnung stellen,was ich vonK. erst nachtrglich brieflich erfuhr, da sie unterganz ungewhnlich schwierigen Bedingungen zustande gekommen ist; K. bekam z.B. Codex IV erst zu sehen, als Codex III schon gesetzt war; dann sollte die Edition, aufWunsch vonPahor Labib,mglichst schnell erscheinen, zog sich aber dochunerwartetin die Lnge; das Manuskript ging stckweise in Druck; die Fragmente durften nichtzusammengesetzt werden usw.

preface xxv

Incidentally, in order to reach a true evaluation of this edition, one must takeinto account what I first learned subsequently in a letter from K[rause]: Ittook place under quite unusually difficult conditions. For example, K[rause]was able to see [the parallel text in] Codex IV only after Codex III was alreadyset in type. Then, at the request of Pahor Labib, the edition was supposed toappear as rapidly as possible, and yet unexpectedly dragged on over a longperiod of time. The manuscript went to press bit by bit; the fragments couldnot be joined together, etc.

Though the title page lists 1962 as the date of publication, Rodolphe Kasserreported that it was actually published only in 1963:21

this work did not really leave the press until 1963.

In the case of journals and series, the abbreviations are used that are tobe found in Siegfried M. Schwertner, IATG 2: Internationales Abkrzungsver-zeichnis fr Theologie undGrenzgebiete: Zeitschriften, Series, Lexika, Quellen-werkemit bibliographischenAngaben, 2., berarbeitete und erweiterteAuflage(Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1992).

Two Copts call for special recognition, since they provided me withreliable and intelligent mediation, including translation, as the work wasbeing carried on. Labib Habachi, the outstanding Coptic archaeologist ofhis generation, provided the workers for the excavation and in many otherways facilitated the work both at the site of the discovery and in Cairo.22

Abrm Bibw, Principal of the Nag Hammadi Boys Preparatory School,provided contact with local persons who were involved in the discoveryand trafficking. Indeed, his home in Nag Hammadi above the PharmacieEl-Salam on Station Street operated by his brother became the informalheadquarters of the project.23 Fortunately, they worked well together,24 andwith all involved.

Those involved in Nag Hammadi studies near the beginning weretempted to sensationalize the discovery, as was more recently the case withThe Gospel of Judas,25 apparently so as to heighten their own importance for

21 RodolpheKasser, Le Livre secret de Jean dans ses diffrentes formes textuelles coptes,Muson 77 (1964): 516: 5, n. 2:

cet ouvrage nest rellement sorti de presse quen 1963.

22 Jill Kamil, Labib Habachi: The Life and Legend of an Egyptologist (Cairo and New York:The American University of Cairo Press, 2007).

23 http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/ref/collection/nha/id/972.24 http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/ref/collection/nha/id/1485.25 See my critical expos: The Secrets of Judas: The Story of theMisunderstood Disciple and

His Lost Gospel (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006, second enlarged edition, 2007).

xxvi preface

being involved in such sensational events. The French-language newspaperof Cairo, LaBourse gyptienne, published an article on 10 June 1949 based onan interview with Jean Doresse:26

According to the specialists consulted, it has to do with one of the mostextraordinary discoveries reserved until the present by the soil of Egypt,surpassing in scientific interest such spectacular discoveries as the tombof Tut-Ankh-Amon. It suddenly restores almost the totality of a religiousliterature lost up until now, and whose importance, for the history of the endof oriental paganism and the beginnings of Christianity, is considerable.

Gilles Quispel wrote to the Bollingen Foundation about The Gospel ofThomas as follows:27

I discovered that these sayings are derived from two unknown Gospels, theGospel of the Egyptians (ad 130) and the Gospel of the Hebrews (= theGospel of the primitive Christian community of Jerusalem ad 100). This textwill cause sensation all over the world, because it throws a completely newlight upon our existing gospels.

Such sensationalizing is only detrimental to the serious assessment of theimportance of the Nag Hammadi Codices. The Nag Hammadi Story: Fromthe Discovery to the Publication only seeks to reconstruct what took place, asbest one can, from their discovery in 1945 to their first complete publicationin English translation in 1977, free of such excessive value judgments.

On 15 September 1996 aGerman television programon Sdwestrundfunkedited by Rudij Bergmann with its point of departure in the Nag Hammadidiscovery was shown in two 45-minute segments, entitled Abendteuer Wis-senschaft: Jenseits der Welt des Bsen das Gute suchend (Adventure Science:Beyond the World of Evil seeking the Good). It began with an interview withSamiha Abd El-Shaheed, Curator of Manuscripts at the Coptic Museumin Cairo, who displayed several Nag Hammadi leaves, and moved on toMuammad Al, the discoverer, pointing out the site of the discovery near

26 10 vi 49: La Bourse gyptienne, Les Dcouvertes Archologiques: Le gouvernementgyptien acquiert des papyrus dune importance considrable:

Selon les spcialistes consults, il sagit dune des plus extraordinaires dcouvertesrserves jusqu prsent par le sol dgypte, dpassant en intrt scientifique destrouvailles spectaculaires telles que le tombeau de Tut-Ankh-Amon. Elle restituesubitement la presque totalit dune littrature religieuse jusqu ici perdue, et dontl importance, pour lhistoire de la fin du paganisme oriental et des dbuts du chris-tianisme, est considrable.

27 2 iii 57: Letter from Quispel to Barrett of the Bollingen Foundation.

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NagHammadi. Then it interviewed scholars who had been involved, such asmyself, Kurt Rudolph, Hans-Martin Schenke, and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit,before moving on to the history of Gnosticism and its possible involvementin modern religion and politics. A DVD copy was supplied in 2008 by BerndSeidl of SWR, from their TV documentary archive in Stuttgart.

The Nag Hammadi story has also been told fictionally. At least threebooks of fiction have used the Nag Hammadi discovery as the contextfor their novels: Ursula and Terry Loucks Burning Words (Jacksonville,Fla.: InfoNovels, a division of Integral Publishers, 1998); Tucker MalarkeysResurrection (Riverhead: Janklow & Nesbit, 2006); and Laurence Caruana,TheHidden Passion: A Novel of the Gnostic Christ Based on the NagHammadiTexts (Paris: Recluse Publishing, 2007). Though the present book avoidsfiction, it is at times as fascinating, exotic, incredible, as any fictional storymight be.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The International Association for Coptic Studies held its Third InternationalCongress of Coptology in 1984 in Warsaw. There I reported that the finalvolumeofTheFacsimile Edition of theNagHammadiCodices, entitled simplyIntroduction, had gone to press, and would be published before the endof the year, thus completing the major responsibility of the InternationalCommittee for the Nag Hammadi Codices.

At the conclusion of my report on The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Ham-madi Codices, I read the Foreword to the volume Introduction, which wassigned by the Chair of the International Committee for the Nag HammadiCodices, Gamal Mokhtar, as President Emeritus of the Egyptian AntiquitiesOrganization, Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Culture, Arab Republicof Egypt (written with the help of Labib Habachi):1

One of the big events in the history of coptology was the appointmentof the International Committee for the Nag Hammadi Codices in 1970 bythe Egyptian Ministry of Culture in conjunction with UNESCO (a projectenvisaged as early as 1961, when a Preliminary Committee had prepared aninventory and presented recommendations). The task of that Committee wasto prepare for publication a facsimile edition of thesemanuscripts, consistingof a library of fifty-two texts, most of them Gnostic in character.

The International Committee was composed of scholars from eleven coun-tries: the U.S.A., Germany, both East andWest, France, Sweden, Great Britain,Denmark, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Egypt. Its job wasprimarily to identify and reassemble the fragments scattered in the severalcodices, and to organize the codices for scientific publication, thus givingscholars throughout the world access to them by putting the texts into thepublic domain. The work, over which I had the honor to preside, has beendone so verywellthe results, visible in the volumes printed by E.J. Brill, havebeen marvelous and completely successful! [xi]

I would like to thank the International Committee and its Technical Sub-Committee, which performed their job, for concerning themselves with thepublication of the Nag Hammadi Codices within the wider scope of fostering

1 The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices published under the auspices of theDepartment of Antiquities of the Arab Republic of Egypt in conjunction with the United NationsEducational, Scientific and Cultural Organization: Introduction (Leiden: Brill, 1984), ix, xi.

xxx acknowledgements

Coptic studies in general and at the same time attaining international coop-eration in the field of coptology.

I must also express here my profound gratitude to Professor James M. Robin-son, the Permanent Secretary of the Committee, whose enthusiasm andenergy was reflected in the work of the International Committee. In additionto his great task regarding the facsimile edition, he has worked hard to editthe English language edition of the Nag Hammadi codices, has directedwith the help of Dr. Labib Habachi and other eminent scholarssubsequentarchaeological research in theNagHammadi area, andhas succeeded inhold-ing the First International Congress of Coptology at Cairo in December 1976and in establishing an International Association for Coptic Studies.

I deeply thank Dr. Baumann-Jung and the other heirs of C.G. Jung for return-ing to Cairo as a gift to the Coptic Museum the material from the Nag Ham-madi Codices that was in their possession.

Finally I must express our gratitude to the UNESCO organization, especiallyto Mr. N. Bammate, the long-time Director of the Department of Culture, andto Mlle Dina Zeidan,2 the specialist in the Arab Program of the Division ofCultural Studies.

I hope that the International Committee shall continue to function, evenafter the completion of the publication of The Facsimile Edition of the NagHammadi Codices, as an active force in the development of Coptic studies.

It had been noted at the First Meeting of the International Committee forthe Nag Hammadi Codices of 1518 December 1970 that Coptic study wasexpanding so rapidly that a learned society in the field should be created(see Chapter 11, Part 3):

In view of the large increase in the number of students of the Coptic languageduring the last decade, as a result of the Nag Hammadi materials availablethus far, a still greater activity in Coptic studies in general can be expected asa result of the facsimile edition. We wish to express ourselves as favoring ini-tiatives and projects, many of themmentioned during our discussions, whichshare in this widening activity. The founding of an international coptologicallearned society would be desirable.

Yet it was also recommended that the Committee continue after the publi-cation of The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices:

The International Committee should continue to function even after thecompletion of the publication of the facsimile edition, as an active force inthe encouragement of Coptic studies.

2 http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/ref/collection/nha/id/822.

acknowledgements xxxi

I realized that this would occupy me for the remainder of my academiccareer, as it had for the preceding decade, and so I developed a betteralternative: At the Second Meeting of the International Committee for theNag Hammadi Codices of 910 December 1976 I saw to it that we stipulated(see Chapter 11, Part 7):

The plan to found, during the Colloquium on the Future of Coptic Studies,an International Association for Coptic Studies was endorsed. It was agreedthat if this plan materialized these proposals would be turned over to thatlearned society with the Committees endorsement, and that the Committeeitself would cease to exist with the completing of the Facsimile Edition.

By the time of the thirdmeeting of that International Association for CopticStudies in Warsaw in 1984, I had already entered in upon another equallymassive project, which I had launched in 1983,3 by picking up an interestthat I had begun as early as 1964, but then had suspended in favor of the NagHammadi cause.4Hence I pointed out that the founding of the InternationalAssociation for Coptic Studies, open to more than one scholar per nation(as the UNESCO committee was not), and to coptologists in other areas ofresearch than the NagHammadi Codices, was intended to take up into itselfand supercede the International Committee for the Nag Hammadi Codices.Hence I declared it officially disbanded, having completed its primary taskof publishing The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices.

The Introduction, the last volume of The Facsimile Edition of theNagHam-madi Codices, included my Acknowledgements, which should be repeatedhere as a final expression of gratitude to all who shared in this large under-taking:5

3 New Project Launched, Bulletin of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity 10/4(1983): 6; James M. Robinson, The Sermon on the Mount/Plain: Work Sheets for the Recon-struction of Q, SBL.SP 22 (1983), 451454: 451452. For further details on the launching of theproject see JamesM. Robinson, A Critical Text of the Sayings Gospel Q, RHPhR 72 (1992): 1522 (a paper presented at the SNTSmeeting of 1991), and Frans Neirynck, The International QProject, EThL 69 (1993): 221225, reprinted in his Q-Synopsis: The Double Tradition Passagesin Greek, Revised Edition with Appendix (Leuven: University Press and Peeters, 1995), 7579.

4 This renewed Q project came to fruition in The Critical Edition of Q: Synopsis includingthe Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Mark and Thomas with English, German, and French Trans-lations of Q and Thomas, edited by James M. Robinson, Paul Hoffmann, and John S. Klop-penborg, Managing Editor Milton C. Moreland (Minneapolis: Fortress, and Leuven: Peeters,2000), see especially The Critical Edition of Q: The International Q Project, lxvilxxi. Myintervening essays involved in that projectwere published in a volumeofmy collected essays,The Sayings Gospel Q: Collected Essays, volume editors ChristophHeil and Joseph Verheyden,BETL 189 (Leuven: University Press and Uitgeverij Peeters, 2005).

5 The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices: Introduction, xv, xvii, xix.

xxxii acknowledgements

An expression of appreciation is due to many who have contributed to theFacsimile Edition. In first place should be mentioned the indispensable coop-eration of the Egyptian authorities: the Chair of the International Committeefor theNagHammadiCodicesGamalMokhtar,Under-Secretary of State in theMinistry of Culture of the Arab Republic of Egypt and President of the Egyp-tianAntiquitiesOrganizationuntil 1977, andhis successors as President, espe-cially the current PresidentAhmadKadry; and the staff of theCopticMuseumthat made our work on the Codices such an enjoyable and fruitful experi-ence, especially Pahor Labib, Shafik Farid and Victor Girgis, Directors emeriti,and Munir Basta, Director; Girgis Daoud, Chief Curator; Boulos Farag, Pho-tographer during most of the period of our work, and Makram Girgis Gatas,Photographer; and Samiha Abd el-Shaheed , First Curator of Manuscripts,directly responsible for the Nag Hammadi codices and for us when we werethere working on them. Victor Girgis together with Pahor Labib efficientlyprepared the Arabic translations of the Prefaces to the individual volumes ofthe Facsimile Edition.

The participation of UNESCO has been administered within its Divisionof Cultural Studies by N. Bammate from its inception to his retirement in1978,with the scientific assistanceofHenri-Charles Puech andAntoineGuil-laumont as advisors in initiating the Facsimile Edition. Louis Christopherepresented UNESCO in Cairo when the Nag Hammadi Codices were pho-tographed 19621966 and at the first meeting of the International Commit-tee for the Nag Hammadi Codices on 15 xii 70. John E. Fobes, then DeputyDirector-General of UNESCO, attended the ceremony marking the publica-tion of the first volume of the Facsimile Edition at the Institute for Antiquityand Christianity in Claremont, California on 17 iii 72 and, by means of tele-graphed felicitations, participated in the reception marking the successfulcompletion of the publication of all thirteen Nag Hammadi Codices spon-sored by E.J. Brill at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literaturein the San Francisco Hilton Hotel on 29 xii 77.

The International Committee for the Nag Hammadi Codices, nominatedby UNESCO and appointed by the Arab Republic of Egypt, consisted ofShafik Farid (Arab Republic of Egypt), Grard Garitte (Belgium), VictorGirgis (Arab Republic of Egypt), Sren Giversen (Denmark), Antoine Guil-laumont (France), Rodolphe Kasser (Switzerland), Martin Krause (FederalRepublic ofGermany), Pahor Labib (ArabRepublic of Egypt), GamalMehrez(Arab Republic of Egypt; deceased), Gamal Mokhtar (Arab Republic ofEgypt), Henri-Charles Puech (France), Gilles Quispel (The Netherlands),James M. Robinson (United States of America), Hans-Martin Schenke (Ger-man Democratic Republic), Torgny Sve-Sderbergh (Sweden) and R.McL.Wilson (Great Britain). The committee has planned the Facsimile Edition

acknowledgements xxxiii

and functioned in an advisory capacity as its Editorial Board. The actualwork of preparing the leaves for photography and publication has beencarried out by the Technical Sub-Committee of the International Commit-tee for the Nag Hammadi Codices, consisting of Sren Giversen, RodolpheKasser, Martin Krause and James M. Robinson, at five work sessions aver-aging about a fortnight each in xii 70, i 71, xii 71, xii 72 and ix 74, with thehelp of members of the Coptic Gnostic Library Project of the Institute forAntiquity and Christianity at all but the first session, who then reconvenedas the Nag Hammadi Codices Editing Project of the American ResearchCenter in Egypt in July 1974January 1975 and AugustSeptember 1975, withone Project member, Stephen Emmel, staying through 1977 to complete thework.

Most of the fragments still in the lining of the covers of Codices IV, V, VIIandVIIIwere separated in 1971 at the laboratory of theDepartment of Antiq-uities in Cairo by the chemist Abd el-Moeiz Shaheen, Sub-Director of theCenter for the Study and Conservation of Antiquities. Anton Fackelmanncompleted the separation of the cartonnage in 1974.

The photography for the first two sessions of the Technical Sub-Com-mittee was done by Peter Herman van der Velde of the Amsterdam firm ofKees Scherer. The subsequent photography was done by Basile Psiroukis, atthe time Director of the Imprimerie of the Institut franais darchologie ori-entale du Caire. Photographsmade in 1947 by the son of Albert Eid, Georges,in 19481949 by Jean Doresse, in 1952 by Sren Giversen of the Institute ofEgyptology of the University of Copenhagen, and in 19591961 by Rolf Her-zog for the Deutsches Archologisches Institut Abteilung Kairo, were put atthe disposal of the Technical Sub-Committee for use in assembling frag-ments and, to the extent relevant, for publication in the Facsimile Edition.Two photographs made in 1984 were prepared by Makram Girgis Gatas.

Arabic names, except for those with a well-established French or Englishspelling, have been transliterated according to the system employed by theLibrary of Congress, a procedure greatly facilitated by the help of Lola (Mrs.Aziz Suryal) Atiya.

David M. Scholer has provided bibliographical control of Nag Hammadiliterature, greatly facilitating the work of us all, and has agreed to includein his annual supplement, published in the October issue of Novum Testa-mentum, addenda et corrigenda that may occur after the publication of thepresent volume.

UNESCO funded the photography of 19621966 and participants ex-penses at both meetings of the International Committee as well as at thefive sessions of its Technical Sub-Committee. The photographic costs of

xxxiv acknowledgements

the first and second sessions were carried by the publisher E.J. Brill. Thebulk of the funding was provided through the Institute for Antiquity andChristianity by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the AmericanPhilosophical Society, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation,and Claremont Graduate School; and through the American Research Cen-ter in Egypt by the Smithsonian Institution. The Cairo staff of the AmericanResearch Center in Egypt, especially John Dorman, Director Emeritus, andhis successors Paul Walker and James P. Allen, have provided logistical sup-port especially to the Nag Hammadi Codices Editing Project, as have theDeutsches Archologisches Institut Abteilung Kairo and the Institut Suisse derecherchearchitectural et archologiquede lgypte ancienne of Cairo to theirnationals on the Technical Sub-Committee.

F.C. Wieder, Jr., Director Emeritus of the firm E.J. Brill, has exemplified adeep commitment to the undertaking; without his willingness to fund thesupplemental photography and to publishwithout subsidy, the undertakingcould hardly have been initiated. His successors T.A. Edridge and W. Back-huys and their staff have continued this fine relationshipon to the successfulcompletion of this major publishing project.

Heinz Hfner of the printing firm of E. Schreiber in Stuttgart has exertedgreat care and skill in the technical preparation of the collotype photo-graphic reproduction. During the years when the collotype prints werebeing prepared Alexander Bhlig, at the time Director of the Tbingenbranch of the Sonderforschungsbereich 13 Orientalistik, placed members ofthe Coptic Gnostic Library Project on his staff, who thus became availableas scholarly consultants to the firm E. Schreiber in Stuttgart, James Brash-ler (19701975: Codices VI; VII; XI, XII and XIII; II; and V) and FrederikWisse(19731977: Codices IV; III; VIII; I; IX andX; Cartonnage; andAddenda et Cor-rigenda). This made it possible to alleviate the logistical problem of prepar-ing in America facsimiles of manuscripts in Egypt to be printed in Germanyand published in The Netherlands.

To these expressions of gratitude should be added, for the present work, myindebtedness especially to Louise Schouten, Senior Acquisitions Editor ofBrill, for her constant encouragement and assistance in thismassive project,and to my wife Anne Moore, who has kindly functioned as Volume Editor.

It is with this expression of gratitude to all those involved in editing theNag Hammadi Codices that the present publication of The Nag HammadiStory: From the Discovery to the Publication comes to its completion.

chapter one

THE DISCOVERY AND TRAFFICKINGOF THE NAG HAMMADI CODICES

Our information concerning the discovery and trafficking of the Nag Ham-madi codices was originally derived almost exclusively from reports by JeanDoresse, who was in Egypt for much of the winter season each year fromSeptember 1947 through February 1953. They are analyzed in Part 1 of thepresent chapter.My own repeated investigations thereafter in theNagHam-madi region have provided the bulk of the information about the actualdiscovery and trafficking summarized in Parts 2 and 3. This is followed bya presentation of previously unavailable early reports in Part 4: A letter ofthe Department of Antiquities from 1946 locating the site of the discovery;Doresses report of his and his wifes visit to Nag Hammadi on 2627 Jan-uary 1950; the report later in 1950 by Ludwig Keimer, a European scholarresiding of Cairo, summarizing what was known at that time; thenDoressesrecommendations to me in 1972 for undertaking archaeology in the region.Finally, Part 5 presents and discusses the scholarly debates about my ownearly reports.

A visit to the site of the discovery was first made by the antiquities dealerPhokion J. Tano(s)1 in the spring of 1946 (see Part 3 below). After visitingin Tanos shop, Doresse wrote to Puech the oldest record of the discoveryavailable to us for years:2

1 http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/ref/collection/nha/id/336. Phokion J. Tano(s)was interviewed at his shop in Cairo on 20 xii 71. His daughter Cybele Hadjioannou wasinterviewed at her home near Nicosia on 28 ix 73, and provided his photograph. Tano wasfrom Cyprus, and his mother tongue was Greek. His full name was Phokion J. Tanos, but inCairo he spoke Arabic with the Egyptians, and French with those of the international colony.In French his last name was pronounced without the final s, and so was usually writtenTano. The French pronunciation of his first name was Phoqu, which was the usual way onereferred to him.

2 14 xii 47: Letter from Doresse to Puech:

Jai eu dautres nouvelles de la trouvaille, fait dans une jarre en un lieu dont on nepeut savoir le nom. Il y avait, dit-on, dix manuscrits. Deux ont t brls et les autresvendus en bloc par les paysans pour une ou deux livres. Des huit restant nous en avonsdeux: celui du Muse et celui de lantiquaire. Deux autres ont t proposs Kuentz

2 chapter one

I have obtained other news of the discovery, made in a jar in a place whosename one cannot know. There had been, one says, tenmanuscripts. Two havebeen burnt, and the others sold all together by the peasants for one or twopounds. Of the eight that remained, we have two: that of the Museum andthat of the antiquities dealer. Two others have been offered to Kuentz, whohas seen them, but messed up the affair, in wanting to pay a ridiculous price.One no longer knows where they are, and about them Kuentz maintains asilence that nothing can break. Schwartz, who had alerted him to themat thattime (a year and a half ago) recalls having seen there the title Apocalypse ofPeter and having recognized in several places the name of Seth. The bindingwas decoratedwith a serpent. Finally, three othermanuscripts are said tohavebeen acquired by Tano (who denies it energetically, but I do not believe him),who can already have granted them to Chester Beatty. The total count makesme think that there had been ninemanuscripts in all, of which perhaps sevenstill exist.

Tanos information was no doubt used by Jean and Marianne Doresse ontheir visit 2627 January 195