DeConick A.D

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GNOSTICISM OUT ON A LIMB
als of Gnostic spirituality within numerous local environments, from the
Renaissance to modern America.
The third Gnostic awakening occurred during the nineteenth century,
a result of the recovery in 1769 and 1772 of two old Coptic Gnostic books
known as the Bruce and Askew codices. The Bruce Codex contains the
books of Jeu and an untitled Gnostic book. The Askew Codex contains
Pistis Sophia. The initial modern-language translations of this material
took place during the nineteenth century, including the influential English
translation of Pistis Sophia by G. R. S. Mead. These materials became
a revitalized reservoir of Gnostic spirituality for instrumental figures
such as H. P. Blavatsky and Carl Gustav Jung, who are arguably the grandmother
and grandfather of New Age religion.
The fourth Gnostic awakening began in the mid-twentieth century. It
was the result of the remarkable accidental finds of several hoards of Gnostic
texts, the Nag Hammadi collection being the most prominent. Twelve
Nag Hammadi codices, and part of a thirteenth, were recovered in 1945,
and translation work began in the late 1950s. A complete English translation
of the collection was available to the general public by 1977, although
scholars had been publishing translations of single texts since the 1960s.
The other Gnostic book translated and published in this period is
known as the Akhmim or Berlin codex. It was acquired by the Berlin
Museum in 1896, but the two world wars held up its translation until 1955.
It contains the now famous Gospel of Mary, a fourth copy of the Sethian
book called the Apocryphon of John, a second copy of the Sophia of Jesus
Christ, and the Acts of Peter.
If this weren’t enough, seven Manichaean books were recovered in
1929 near Medinet Madi, Egypt. Publication of these texts began in 1938
and was completed in 1989. From 1975 to 1982, the autobiography of
Mani, known to us as the Cologne Mani Codex, was also published. In
the late twentieth century, other Manichaean materials surfaced, in the
Egyptian village of Kellis, and work on publishing these is ongoing.
The final Gnostic book to mention was recovered in the 1970s from
the sands of Egypt, but it was not until 2006 that an English translation
was made available. This is the Tchacos Codex and it contains the Gospel
of Judas, second versions of the Apocalypse of James and the Letter
of Peter to Philip, and a fragment from a book featuring a figure called