Editing Gnosticism (section)

===Gnostic texts===
{{See also|Gnostic texts|Nag Hammadi library}}
Prior to the discovery at Nag Hammadi, a limited number of texts were available to students of Gnosticism. Reconstructions were attempted from the records of the heresiologists, but these were necessarily coloured by the motivation behind the source accounts. The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of mostly [[Gnostic texts]] discovered in 1945 near Nag Hammadi, Upper Egypt. Twelve leather-bound [[papyrus]] [[codex|codices]] buried in a sealed jar were found by a local farmer named Muhammed al-Samman.<ref>[[Marvin Meyer]] and [[James M. Robinson]], ''The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The International Edition''. HarperOne, 2007. pp. 2–3. {{ISBN|0-06-052378-6}}</ref> The writings in these codices comprised fifty-two mostly Gnostic [[treatise]]s, but they also include three works belonging to the ''[[Hermetica|Corpus Hermeticum]]'' and a partial translation/alteration of Plato's ''Republic''. These codices may have belonged to a nearby [[Pachomian monastery]], and buried after [[Athanasius|Bishop Athanasius]] condemned the use of [[Biblical canon|non-canonical]] books in his [[Easter letter|Festal Letter of 367]].{{sfn|Robinson|1978|loc=Introduction}} Though the original language of composition was probably [[Greek language|Greek]], the various codices contained in the collection were written in [[Coptic language|Coptic]]. A 1st- or 2nd-century date of composition for the lost Greek originals has been proposed, though this is disputed; the manuscripts themselves date from the 3rd and 4th centuries. The Nag Hammadi texts demonstrated the fluidity of early Christian scripture and early Christianity itself.{{refn|group=note|According to Layton, "the lack of uniformity in ancient Christian scripture in the early period is very striking, and it points to the substantial diversity within the Christian religion."{{sfn|Layton|1987|p=xviii}} }}