The secret books of the Egyptian Gnostics by Jean Doresse

The secret books of the Egyptian Gnostics by Jean Doresse, 1st English Edition 1960

The international publicity given to The Gospel according to Thomas has startled the world into awareness of the major importance of the find made in a remote hamlet in Upper Egypt over a decade ago of a library of hitherto unknown treatises of the mysterious Gnostics that had been concealed for sixteen centuries.

This book, revised and augmented by the author for the English edition, tells for the first time the full story of that discovery. Written by the only surviving witness of the events that led to the find and the tortuous transactions— hindered by war, assassination and a revolution— that finally secured the treasure intact, it is also the first complete survey of the documents and their contents and the first full-scale appraisal of their significance to scholars and to the world at large.

Jean Doresse tells how, after being shown the manuscripts the papyri and their soft leather cases miraculously preserved in the dry desert soil he finally traced them to a long-abandoned pagan cemetery. With the help of the local Coptic priest and the peasants who had uncovered the jar containing the books while digging for natural manure, M. Doresse was able to establish their provenance once and for all, to compile a complete inventory of the finds and to make the first detailed announcements of their importance.

Believed by many scholars to surpass the Dead Sea Scrolls in importance, these secret books throw new and startling light on the vanished world in which Christianity was born and bred.

Jean Doresse is a lucid and scholarly guide through the intricacies of the myriad Gnostic sects and the complex mythology with which they sought, in an uncertain age, to answer the perennial questions.

A special feature of this book is The Gospel according to Thomas, with a full commentary that enables the general reader to decide what truth there is in the claim that it is a 'fifth gospel'.

Details

• Hardcover with dust-jacket (Dust-jacket is protected with plastic, has wear and tear on the top and bottom of the spine)
• Condition: Good, has a bookshop sticker on the inside of the front cover, no notes/stamps.
• 1st English Edition, 1960 
• Publishing House: Hollis & Carter London