The Berlin Codex (also known as the Akhmim Codex and the Berlin Gnostic Codex, BG), given the accession numberPapyrus Berolinensis 8502, is a Coptic manuscript from the 5th century CE, unearthed in Akhmim, Egypt. In Cairo, in January 1896, Carl Reinhardt bought the codex, which had been recently discovered, wrapped in feathers, in a niche in a wall at a Christian burial site. It was a papyrus bound book (a codex), dating to early 5th century (or possibly late 4th century) that was written in Sahidic dialect of Coptic, which was in common use in Egypt during that time.
It was taken to Berlin for the Berliner Museen, where it was brought to the notice of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences by Carl Schmidt, July 16, 1896.[1] Schmidt edited the Act of Peter in 1903,[2] but the gnostic contents of the Berlin Codex were not finally completely translated until 1955.[3] Few people paid attention to it until the 1970s, when a new generation of scholars of early Christianity took an increased interest in the wake of the discovery of the more famous group of early Gnostic Christian documents found at Nag Hammadi in 1945.
The "Berlin Codex" is a single-quire[4] Coptic codex bound with wooden boards covered with a leather that neither resembles tanned leather, nor does it resemble parchment or alum-tawed skin (i.e. skin that has been dressed with alum to soften and bleach it).[5]
Four texts are bound together in the Berlin Codex. All are Greek works in Coptic translations. The first, in two sections, is a fragmentary Gospel of Mary, for which this is the primary source manuscript. The manuscript is a Coptic translation of an earlier Greek original. Though the surviving pages are well-preserved, the text is not complete and it is clear from what was found that the Gospel of Mary contained nineteen pages, assuming that the codex begins with it;[6] pages 1–6 and11-14 are missing entirely.
Die alten Petrusakten. im Zusammenhang der apokryphen Apostellitteratur nebst einem neuentdeckten Fragment, untersucht von Carl Schmidt, Hinrichs, Leipzig 1903. In: Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur. herausgegeben von Oskar von Gebhardt und Adolf Harnack, Neue Folge Neunter Band, der ganzen Reihe XXIV Band. This German translation refers to the papyrus manuscript P 8502 in the Berliner Papyrussammlung.
↑ Schmidt, Carl: Ein vorirenäisches gnostisches Originalwerk in koptischer Sprache, in: Sitzungsberichte der königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1896 2. Halbband Juni bis Dezember, p. 839. Scan in the Internet Archive
↑ C. Schmidt, Die alten Petrusakten im Zusammenhang der apokryphen Apostelliteratur nebst einem neuntdekten Fragment untersucht Leipzig, 1903.
↑ W. Till, Die gnostischen Schriften des Koptischen Papyrus Berolinensis8502, (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag) 1955.
↑ A quire is a set of leaves which are stitched together: for more information see bookbinding.
↑ The binding is discussed in detail by Myriam Krutzsch and Günter Poethke, "Der Einband des koptisch-gnostischen Kodex Papyrus Berolinensis 8502" Forschungen und Berichte24, Archäologische Beiträge (1984:37-40 and tables T5-T6).
↑ “The above figures do assume that the Gospel of Mary was the first work in the codex and that nothing preceded it. This is probably the case (if there were another text preceding the gospel in the codex, it must have been very short), but given the state of existing evidence, one cannot be certain.”, Christopher Tuckett, The Gospel of Mary, p.6, n.8.
The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945.
Pistis Sophia is a Gnostic text discovered in 1773, possibly written between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The existing manuscript, which some scholars place in the late 4th century, relates one Gnostic group's teachings of the transfigured Jesus to the assembled disciples, including his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Martha. In this text, the risen Jesus had spent eleven years speaking with his disciples, teaching them only the lower mysteries. After eleven years, he receives his true garment and is able to reveal the higher mysteries revered by this group. The prized mysteries relate to complex cosmologies and knowledge necessary for the soul to reach the highest divine realms.
The Gospel of Mary is an early Christian text discovered in 1896 in a fifth-century papyrus codex written in Sahidic Coptic. This Berlin Codex was purchased in Cairo by German diplomat Carl Reinhardt.
The Apocryphon of John, also called the Secret Book of John or the Secret Revelation of John, is a 2nd-century Sethian Gnostic Christian pseudepigraphical text attributed to John the Apostle. It is one of the texts addressed by Irenaeus in his Against Heresies, placing its composition before 180 AD. It is presented as describing Jesus appearing and giving secret knowledge (gnosis) to his disciple John. The author describes it as having occurred after Jesus had "gone back to the place from which he came".
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The Bruce Codex is a codex that contains Coptic, Arabic, and Ethiopic manuscripts. It contains rare Gnostic works; the Bruce Codex is the only known surviving copy of the Books of Jeu and another work simply called Untitled Text or the Untitled Apocalypse. In 1769, James Bruce purchased the codex in Upper Egypt. It currently resides in the Bodleian Library, where it has been since 1848.
Codex Tchacos is an ancient Egyptian Coptic papyrus, which contains early Christian gnostic texts from approximately 300 AD: the Letter of Peter to Philip, the First Apocalypse of James, the Gospel of Judas, and a fragment of the Book of Allogenes.
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Stephen Emmel is a Coptologist and musician.
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1 is a papyrus fragment of the logia of Jesus written in Greek. It was among the first of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri discovered by Grenfell and Hunt. It was discovered on the second day of excavation, 12 January 1897, in the garbage mounds in the Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus. The fragment is dated to the early half of the 3rd century. Grenfell and Hunt originally dated the fragment between 150 and 300, but "probably not written much later than the year 200." It was later discovered to be the oldest manuscript of the Gospel of Thomas.
Nag Hammadi Codex II is a papyrus codex with a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts in Coptic. The manuscript has survived in nearly perfect condition. The codex is dated to the 4th century. It is the only complete manuscript from antiquity with the text of the Gospel of Thomas.
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Carl Schmidt was a German Coptologist. He made editions of various Coptic texts, and was active in Egypt in purchasing papyri for German universities. He also assisted Sir Chester Beatty in his papyri purchases.
The Untitled Text in the Bruce Codex—also called the Untitled Treatise, the Untitled Apocalypse, and The Gnosis of the Light—is a Gnostic text. When James Bruce acquired the codex in Egypt in 1769, "very little knowledge" was available about this period of Gnostic Christianity. It was one of the few known surviving Gnostic works until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in 1945. Carl Schmidt described the text's author as having "full knowledge of Greek philosophy" and being "full of the doctrine of the Platonic ideas."
The Medinet Madi library is a collection of Manichaean texts discovered at Medinet Madi in the Faiyum region of Egypt in 1929. There is a total of seven codices, some of which have been split up and held in different collections across Europe. The texts, many of which remain unpublished and untranslated today, were composed in the Lycopolis dialect of Coptic during the 5th century A.D.
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