Metalogos The Gospels of Thomas & Philip & Truth

(‘Goose-Pasture’), where in 320 AD Saint
Pachomius founded the earliest Christian
monastery. Less than a half-century later in
367 AD, the local monks copied some 45
diverse religious and philosophical writings
— including the Gospels of Thomas, Philip
and Truth, as well as part of Plato’s Republic
(588A-589B)— into a dozen leather-bound
codices. This entire library was carefully
sealed in an urn and hidden nearby among
the rocks, where it remained undetected for
almost 1600 years. These papyri, first seen
by scholars in March of 1946 (Jacques
Schwarz & Charles Kuentz, Codex II, in a
Cairo antiquities shop), have since 1952
been preserved in the Coptic Museum of Old
Cairo. The earliest photographic edition of
the manuscript of the preeminently
important Codex II was edited by Dr Pahor
Labib (Cairo: Government Antiquities Dept,
1956).
The author of the Gospel of Thomas is
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